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Saturday, August 1, 2009

RULE 5 SATURDAY: INTERNATIONAL RULE 5 BIKINI FEST WEEK! [Updated Below]

This has been a busy week for the TCOTS Rule 5 Compliance Committee, what with Stacy McCain having declared the week of 27 July through 02 August to be International Rule 5 BikiniFest Week. The Committee has been required to choose a daily Rule 5 gal instead of the usual weekly one-off. However, the Committee has admirably risen to the challenge and the TCOTS reader had been able to enjoy Jayne Mansfield, Marilyn Monroe, Shirley Eaton, Linda Harrison, and Natalie Wood, all fine looking in the beachwear named after those atomic islands. However, the Committee has outdone itself for today and is bringing to you the greatest gal ever to wear a bikini. If only one woman could ever have been allowed to wear one, this is the dame. So, without further adieu...

The TCOTS Rule 5 Compliance Committee,
in association with
NAIR and HAI KARATE

present....

The Greatest Lady ever to don a bikini...
RAQUEL WELCH...

Time for a little Elvin Bishop...

I must have been through about a million girls
I'd love 'em then I'd leave 'em alone
I didn't care how much they cried, no sir
Their tears left me cold as a stone

But then I fooled around and fell in love
I fooled around and fell in love, yes I did
I fooled around and fell in love
I fooled around and fell in love

It used to be when I'd see a girl that I liked
I'd get out my book and write down her name
But when the grass got a little greener over on the other side
I'd just tear out that page

I fooled around and fell in love
I fooled around and fell in love, since I met you baby
I fooled around and fell in love
I fooled around and fell in love

Free, on my own is the way I used to be
Ah, but since I met you baby, love's got a hold on me
It's got a hold on me now, I can't let go of you baby

I fooled around and fell in love
I fooled around and fell in love, oh yes I did
I fooled around, fooled around, fooled around, fooled around,
Fooled around, fooled around, fell in love
Fooled around, fooled around, fooled around, fooled around,
Fooled around, fooled around, fell in love
I fooled around, fell in love
I fell in love, I fell in love, yes I did

-Smitty was very good to this old and aging Dispatcher [no more major DIY projects!] this week by linking to each day's Bikini Fest Rule 5 entry. In his Rule 5 Sunday posting over at The Other McCain, he was kind enough to link to the last two:

The Camp of the Saints goes retro, as is his wont, with a Natalie Wood roundup. And then, showing Rightofcourse the proper way to heckle the judge, lays down a Raquel Welch roundup with which one cannot argue. "The Greatest Lady ever to don a bikini..." I could plead brunettes to redheads, pressing my Phoebe Cates claim, but the point here is that there just isn't a need to argue.

Thanks friend Smitty.

-Admiral William Teach posts an entry for the Bikini Fest that is one of the best I've seen.

-The Classic Liberal was kind enough to link to four of the TCOTS's bikini gals. Take a hop over to theCL's pad and check out his other links.

-One of the links theCL provides is to Fisherville Mike's Bikini Fest Ballad.

-And don't forget to check out Paco's entry for this week here.

1 aug 09 @ 7:39 pm edt Comments

Saturday, August 1, 2009

IG-GATE: The Unwelcome Posting Edition

So...there I am on a Friday night. I've been relaxing for the past twenty or so minutes, gathering up the pictures I intend to post in tomorrow's installment of the International BikiniFest [hint: it will feature the greatest of all the bikini babes]. The Nicorette and Coke I'm consuming are tasting mighty sweet right about now and I'm getting ready to take a nice hot shower so I can wash the stink of the world away. Mrs. B. is heading for bed, so I'm planning on putting my feet up down in the living room and catching up on my reading for a few hours. A fine late evening is within my grasp. I decide to check in with Stacy McCain one last time for the evening to see if I might enjoy a ribald laugh before I jet off to Relaxville. As I punch in the url, I can hear the gods laughing--I figure they're laughing at some poor slob in the general vicinity. Little did I know, they were laughing at me. The Other McCain loads and, low and behold, I see an IG-GATEupdate. With my hand causing the mouse to shake, I scroll on and read it. There's good stuff there--per usual from RSM--but I can't enjoy it: my mind is now faced with a dilemma--my nerves, which had been slowly driving away from Tension City, now throw themselves into reverse. Do I do the right thing and post his latest missive over at ig-gate.blogspot.com, which would be the responsible thing to do as the self-anointed aggregator of all things IG, and would prevent my Catholic soul from feeling the pangs of guilt at having failed those mythical beasts out in the ether called 'repeat visitors', or do I pretend to myself that I never saw the McCain missive. I decide the cleansing powers of the shower will aid in my decision. Of course, the answer was clear: I had to re-enter Tension City, full-bore, and do the right thing. I do the posting--all the while cursing Erick Erickson because he didn't invite Stacy to his damn conferenceso the man could hob-nob with Little Miss Attila and perhaps some sodden [or sodomite] RINOS and score free booze of his fellow wingnuts--no, Erickson had to shut him out, and now I'm paying for it and my late evening is ruined. Thanks-a-lot, Pal.

You can find a link to Stacy McCain's latest at:
http://ig-gate.blogspot.com/2009/07/200907312241-dodd-gate-and-ig-gate.html

1 aug 09 @ 12:45 am edt Comments

INTERNATIONAL RULE 5 BIKINI FEST WEEK: 31 JUL 09

The cool and soulful [he is The Conservative Shaft, after all] Robert Stacy McCain has proclaimed and declared the week of 27 July through 02 August to be...

International Rule 5 BikiniFest Week!

Please click here to read the posting wherein he lays out the reasons why he has issued this order and the rules for submission. Herewith a highlight from the proclamation:

The amazing coincidence here is that International Rule 5 BikiniFest Week just happens to occur during the nadir of the mid-summer doldrums, when our blog traffic would otherwise suck worse than Andrew Sul . . . oh, you don't really expect me to finish that sentence, do you? Hit the tip jar, or I just might, and in such a way that you'll never get enough brain-bleach to erase that mental image.

Please hit the man's tip jar so that he can purchase more shoe leather, then enjoy my submission for Friday, 31 July, in the Year of Our Lord 2009:

NATALIE WOOD...

Ah...Natasha...

This one's for ROBERT STACY MCCAIN...

31 jul 09 @ 9:20 pm edt Comments

GUYS NIGHT OUT

Last night was 'The Beer Summit' and I know you're as probably tired of the whole Gates-Gate story as I am [Mrs. B. literally screams when it comes on the TV]. I had no plans to write anymore on the whole thing [except maybe to say that Glenn Beck may be onto something when he says the President is a racist—his reaction and comments on this situation are Strike Two (Strike One being his twenty years with the 'Reverand' Wright)] for me], but Dan Collins has changed all of that. Somehow, someway, this intrepid man has gotten his hands on some of the words spoken at The Summit. Here are a few highlights:

Obama: What's the name of the place where the Sox play?
Crowley: Fenway?
Obama: No, it's like . . . Comersky, or something. Wait.

Gates: Hendrix.
Crowley: Clapton.
Obama: ZZ Top. What? What's so funny?

Michelle: Barack? You get your lazy ass up here!
Obama: Honey! I've got friends over!

Gates: Don't look now, Barack.
Obama: Oh, ferchrissakes.
Crowley: What?
Biden: Hey, guys! What's shakin'?

Gates: I loved her, and she left me!
Crowley: Dude, she wasn't right for you.
Obama: I know it hurts. Have another.
Biden: There was this one time when I was . . .
Obama, Gates, Crowley: Shut up, Joe.

Bravo Dan! Please take the time to click here and read the full transcript.

And also check out Carol's take at No Sheeples Here here.

31 jul 09 @ 5:02 pm edt Comments

MENACE TO SOCIETY

On 30 July, The White House announced that the President will be awarding the Presidential Medal Of Freedom to sixteen people who:

...represent an incredible diversity of backgrounds. Their tremendous accomplishments span fields from science to sports, from fine arts to foreign affairs. Yet they share one overarching trait: Each has been an agent of change. Each saw an imperfect world and set about improving it, often overcoming great obstacles along the way.

Their relentless devotion to breaking down barriers and lifting up their fellow citizens sets a standard to which we all should strive. It is my great honor to award them the Medal of Freedom.

When you read the words 'diversity', 'agent of change', and 'breaking down barriers' in any description of anything being awarded by a Leftist, watch out: it means Leftists are being honored. Sure, they'll throw in a person from the Right or two, but only one's considered safe [this year it's the late Jack Kemp (better a dead man of the Right than a live one)]. And they'll throw in a few neutral ones [Nancy Goodman Brinker, Stephen Hawking, Sidney Poitier, Chita Rivera], a pioneering doctor [Janet Davison Rowley], and an retired member of SCOTUS [Sandra Day O'Connor (helps that its a woman)]. This way you may not notice the radicals being honored.

Well, Carol, over at No Sheeples Here, noticed [way to go]. She takes on the awarding of the medals to Edward Moore Kennedy, the Rev. Joseph Lowry, and Jane Robinson, or, as she calls them: The Coward, The Racist And An Anti-Semite. Please click here to see her posting which lays out the bits of evidence that lay-out the incontrovertible case against these three. This comment from Carol is spot-on:

The Presidential Medal of Freedom is America's highest civilian honor, the equivalent of the military Medal of Honor in times of war. Awarding the medal to these three malcontents diminishes the prestige of the award.

There are several others that raise the blood pressure, but I'll just mention the worst of the rest: the late Harvey Milk. As Daniel Flynn wrote in May of this year over at City Journal:

In his seven years in San Francisco, he made four bids for elective office, only emerging victorious in his last-a 1977 run for city supervisor. For his persistence, Milk jokingly referred to himself as the "gay Harold Stassen." He served for less than a year. In naming the onetime camera-shop proprietor one of the 100 most important people of the twentieth century, Time conceded, "As a supervisor, Milk sponsored only two laws-predictably, one barring anti-gay discrimination, and, less so, a law forcing dog owners to clean pets' messes from sidewalks." Eleven months on the city council hardly seems the stuff of Hollywood legend. So Hollywood invented a legend.

Rather than the gentle, soft-spoken idealist portrayed by Sean Penn, the real Harvey Milk was a short-tempered demagogue who cynically invented stories of victimhood to advance his political career. ...Harvey Milk's homosexuality played about as much of a role in his murder as San Francisco mayor George Moscone's heterosexuality played in his. Before the congregants of the Peoples Temple drank Jim Jones's deadly Kool-Aid, Harvey Milk and much of San Francisco's ruling class had already figuratively imbibed. Milk occasionally spoke at Jones's San Francisco-based headquarters, promoted Jones through his newspaper columns, and defended the Peoples Temple from its growing legion of critics.

Everything Obama touches as President, he taints. The man cannot resist changing the meaning of traditions and institutions—distorting them and, in some cases, destorying them, all in a quest to immanentize the eschaton in His own image. Nothing is scared, nothing held dear, nothing respected, nothing read-only. He is truly a menace to everything American.

[tip of the fedora to Memorandum for The White House link]

31 jul 09 @ 4:11 pm edt Comments

INSPIRED BY DR. HELEN & SMITTY

Related to the previous posting and to something else [the other night Smitty and I were exchanging e-mails and quoting from punk lyrics (specifically the Dead Kennedys) that fit the times and he wrote 'Funny how apropos that punk stuff is for the current administration', and I agreed], while righting said posting, it occurred to me that certain straight-forward rock 'n' roll bands's lyrics also fit the times, especially Rushand their great lyric writer, Neal Peart. Case in point:

What with Tiberius Obamacus and his royal court and minions trying to turn America away from the Founder's intent, this song seems very appropriate:

There are those who think that life has nothing left to chance,
A host of holy horrors to direct our aimless dance.
A planet of playthings,
We dance on the strings
Of powers we cannot perceive
"The stars aren't aligned -
Or the gods are malign"
Blame is better to give than receive.

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill;
I will choose a path that's clear-
I will choose Free Will.

There are those who think that they were dealt a losing hand,
The cards were stacked against them - they weren't born in Lotus-Land.
All preordained-
A prisoner in chains-
A victim of venomous fate.
Kicked in the face,
You can't pray for a place
In Heaven's unearthly estate.

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill;
I will choose a path that's clear-
I will choose Free Will.

Each of us-
A cell of awareness-
Imperfect and incomplete.
Genetic blends
With uncertain ends
On a fortune hunt that's far too fleet.

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill;
I will choose a path that's clear-
I will choose Free Will.

31 jul 09 @ 3:17 pm edt Comments

FIRST ORGANIC IN ROME

While checking out Dr. Helen's site yesterday, I followed a link to this article...

From Reuters, Ben Hirschler reporting:

Organic food has no nutritional or health benefits over ordinary food, according to a major study published Wednesday.

Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said consumers were paying higher prices for organic food because of its perceived health benefits, creating a global organic market worth an estimated $48 billion in 2007.

A systematic review of 162 scientific papers published in the scientific literature over the last 50 years, however, found there was no significant difference.

Dr. Helen commented:
...It doesn't surprise me. It often felt to me like the whole "eating organic" thing is more about feeling in control, or perhaps superior to others than it is about health. What do you think?

I posted the following in her comments section:

I think this whole organic food movement came out of the Baby Boomish desire to 'return to nature' or 'go natural', which was part of their rebellion against the Establishment. This has, of course, evolved over time to where it is now one of the ways certain people can prove that they are 'right-thinking'--it is one of the badges of honor to be earned on the Left. The traditional means of earning honor are not open to them [serving in the military, etc] so they have developed alternatives [as humans always do]. And 'going organic', recycling, not using the AC, etc. have become the way for them to shore up [and one-up their fellow Boomers] their bona fides.

'Keeping up with the Jones' seems to be programmed into our DNA. As with every other human trait, the degree to which it manifests itself depends on the extent to which we are strong enough to exert control over the impulse, proving once again that God gave us Free Will.

31 jul 09 @ 2:54 pm edt Comments

Thursday, July 30, 2009

INTERNATIONAL RULE 5 BIKINI FEST WEEK: 30 JUL 09

The tranquil and peaceful Robert Stacy McCain has proclaimed and declared the week of 27 July through 02 August to be...

International Rule 5 BikiniFest Week!

Please click here to read the posting wherein he lays out the reasons why he has issued this order and the rules for submission. Herewith a highlight from the proclamation:

The amazing coincidence here is that International Rule 5 BikiniFest Weekjust happens to occur during the nadir of the mid-summer doldrums, when our blog traffic would otherwise suck worse than Andrew Sul . . . oh, you don't really expect me to finish that sentence, do you? Hit the tip jar, or I just might, and in such a way that you'll never get enough brain-bleach to erase that mental image.

Please hit the man's tip jar so that he can purchase more shoe leather, then enjoy my submission for Thursday, 30 July, in the Year of Our Lord 2009:

LINDA HARRISON...

Who? You Ask...

A future Statute of Liberty

30 jul 09 @ 8:08 pm edt Comments

CAMBRIDGE: CITY OF SINS

It seems that, at least once a week, I find myself saying: How does Iowahawk do it? How does he get a hold of these documents? The man is amazing.

He's now gotten his hands on an op-ed by Professor John Evans Evans-John of the Harvard School of Harvard Faculty Asshole Studies. Two highlights:

When I first learned of the arrest of my colleague Professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates after he stood up to the fascist jackboots of a declasse, ill-educated Cambridge police officer, I was of course angered -- but scarcely shocked. L'Affaire Gates simply aired, in public, the dirty 100-thread-count table linen of an American culture where Harvard faculty assholes still face a daily struggle against profiling, abuse, and insolence.

It will come as no surprise that Skip's arrest was the talk of the Douchebag Room at the Harvard Faculty Club last Friday. I and a group of colleagues had assembled for our weekly lunch; I opted for their competently-prepared Ahi Tuna Tartare and an amusing glass of '05 Hospices de Beaune Premier Cru Cuvee Cyrot-Chaudron. I had noticed that the Frantz Fanon Memorial Booth -- Skip's long-reserved lunch spot -- was uncharacteristically empty, and asked our waiter Sergio for an explanation.

"Professor Skeep, he no is come today," said Sergio. "I tink he is in the jail."

Our table exchanged knowing glances, for we knew immediately that Skip was only the latest victim of a system that singles out the Harvard faculty asshole for stigmatization and unequal justice. It is a system that all of us knew too well, and provided an opportunity for an open conversation about our shared experiences as Harvard faculty assholes in America while waiting for Sergio to bring the dessert cart.

Turns out that the Professor himself has suffered his own indignity at the hands of the notorious Cambridge P.D., as he relates:

...last winter I was slated to deliver the keynote address for an intradepartmental asshole colloquium at Lowell House. Running late, I temporarily parked along Plympton. As I emerged from my Audi, I discovered that I had captured the unwelcome attention of a CPD officer. "Hey Buddy, is that your car?" he barked.

"Why? Because I'm a Harvard faculty asshole in America?" I cleverly retorted.

"No asshole, because this is a snow route and you can't double park here," he sneered, concocting a flimsy excuse for his continued harassment. "You have to move it now."

"That's Professor Asshole to you, you fascist townie," I explained, tossing him the Audi's remote-start key. "Need a valet? Call your mother at the brothel."

It doesn't take an experienced asshole rights activist to tell you what happened next: my Audi was on its way to impound while I rode to the Cambridge Police Station in the unheated vinyl rear seat of Bull Conner's squad car. To add insult to injury, the desk officer refused my request for a dignified background bookshelf for my booking photos.

Thankfully the Constitution still allows even Harvard Assholes a bare modicum of human rights, so I used my allotted phone call to alert the Dean and the Faculty Grievance Committee to my plight. In those 35 excruciating minutes I wasted away waiting in that stark cell, I wrote the opening chapter of "Letters From a Cambridge Jail," my forthcoming scholarly magnum opus on the grim legacy of Asshole oppression in America.

Eventually my arrest record was expunged and I agreed to meet the loathsome arresting officer at President Faust's office for a conciliatory off-record "beer chat." As the University Counsel had predicted, the lure of free limitless alcohol proved irresistible to the simpleminded Irishman, and he was soon happily signing confessions of guilt and abject apologies. Still, even after he was fired, I was left to pick up the pieces of my shattered psyche.

Wow...who knew of this side of the dark underbelly of Amerika existed? Where is 60 Minutes? Or MSNBC? Or PBS???

Please take the time to click here and read the whole upsetting thing. [tip of the fedora to Instapundit]

30 jul 09 @ 2:06 pm edt Comments

A VERY BRITISH PLOT

The great and witty Daniel Hannen, Conservative MEP for South East England, weighs in on the Obama Birth Certificate matter with his usual gravity:

A thought occurs. If the forty-fourth president was indeed, as the “birthers” aver, born in Kenya in 1961, he would have been born a British subject. Perhaps his entire career is a clever scheme to bring the colonists’ rebellion to an end and revoke the Declaration of Independence.

If so, we should ensure that the reunification of the two states happens on the best possible terms. It would be nice if Americans learned to make tea properly (clue: the water has to be seriously hot). They might even find that the rules of cricket repay study. As for Britain, we could begin by adopting (or readopting) low taxes, sheriffs, a separation of powers, open primaries, localism, the direct election of public officials, a non-state healthcare system, capitalism, patriotism and sovereignty. The more I think about it, the more attractive it looks.

Now that's a conspiracy theory I can wrap my head around.

SIDENOTE: Have you noticed you never see U.S. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter and MEP Hannan in the same room? Just asking...

30 jul 09 @ 1:46 pm edt Comments

SPOT-ON QUOTE OF THE DAY...

...is awarded to Michael Barone of The Washington Examiner:

[Henry Louis 'Skippy'] Gates, on the other hand, had the power to destroy [Sergeant James] Crowley's career. And he seemed to enjoy wielding that power, or at least to be acting in reckless disregard of his capacity to destroy the professional life of another human being. Yes, Gates was jet-lagged and presumably irritated that he was locked out of his house. But the possibility that Crowley was a decent professional, not at all a racist, properly investigating a possible crime, doesn't seem to have occurred to him. Crowley was just one of the little people, a disposable commodity in the career of an academic superstar.

I think this is one of the reasons the police union officials and Crowley's colleagues on the Cambridge police force reacted so strongly and bravely.... They recognized that a Harvard swell was threatening to destroy one of their peers, and one whom they seem to genuinely admire, on a totally specious basis for his own fun and profit.

Please take the time to click here and read the full posting.

30 jul 09 @ 1:36 pm edt Comments

THE NEW CREEP

I have not commented on the whole issue surrounding the President's birth certificate because it is indeed a demented pipe dream of some that they have found the big unicornish 'Gotcha!' This past Tuesday, the Editors at National Review Online published what I think is the definitive take-down of the Birthers. As they wrote:

The fundamental fiction is that Obama has refused to release his “real” birth certificate. This is untrue. The document that Obama has made available is the document that Hawaiian authorities issue when they are asked for a birth certificate. There is no secondary document cloaked in darkness, only the state records that are used to generate birth certificates when they are requested.

There is some good that may come out of this issue rearing its foolish head again: if it reminds us that Barack Hussein Obama has not released many documents that should be. Over at Red State, Erick Erickson writes:

Fixating on it now is wasting time, precious time, when there are other issues on which those with time on their hands can fixate.

Barack Obama not releasing his birth certificate[*] fits a pattern of non-disclosure from the man.

Most notoriously, Barack Obama allowed is campaign to accept foreign donations, a matter that got passing mention from the Washington Post and not much else.

...

But there is more.

Take this list from a emailer:

Punahou school records
Occidental College records
Columbia University records
Columbia thesis
Harvard Law School records
Harvard Law Review articles
scholarly articles from the University of Chicago
passport
medical records
files from his years as an Illinois state senator
Illinois State Bar Association records
baptism records, if any
adoption records

You and I know that the press would never let a Republican get away with any of that. Look at the scrutiny upon scrutiny the press subjected Sarah Palin to. There are plenty of records out there we could be focusing on — and frankly they are records that could do far more damage to Barack Obama politically.

Quite. And the Editors at NRO agree:

One of the unfortunate consequences of this red-herring discussion is that there are plenty of questions about Obama’s background and history that we would like to have answered. In spite of two books of memoirs, there remain murky areas in his biography. And when it comes to those college transcripts, count us among those who’d love to know whether Dr. Bailout ever took an advanced economics class and how he performed in it.

I've heard some on the Left compare The Anointed One to LBJ, some to FDR, some to Wilson. So far the comparison that works best, if you're comparing him to American Presidents, is to Richard Milhouse Nixon.

Please take the time to click here to read the full NRO editorial and here to read Mr. Erickson's full posting.

*I believe Mr. Erickson means to say: 'Barack Obama not releasing his ORIGINAL birth certificate'.

30 jul 09 @ 11:22 am edt Comments

THEY'VE GIVEN US THE ROPE...

...and now we're proceeding, at a nice clip, to hang ourselves...

In today's The Wall Street Journal, Debra Burlingame has up a great report/commentary on a situation that deserves widespread attention...and condemnation:

Last May at the National Archives, President Barack Obama warned that “more mistakes would occur” if Congress continued to politicize terrorist detention policy and the closure of Guantanamo Bay. “[I]f we refuse to deal with those issues today,” he predicted, “then I guarantee you, they will be an albatross around our efforts to combat terrorism in the future.”

On June 17, at the Administrative Maximum (ADX) penitentiary in Florence, Colo., one of those albatrosses, inmate number 24079-038, began his day with a whole new range of possibilities. Eight days earlier, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Denver filed notice in federal court that the Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) which applied to that prisoner—Richard C. Reid, a.k.a. the “Shoe Bomber”—were being allowed to expire. SAMs are security directives, renewable yearly, issued by the attorney general when “there is a substantial risk that a prisoner’s communications, correspondence or contacts with persons could result in death or serious bodily injury” to others.

Reid was arrested in 2001 for attempting to blow up American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami with 197 passengers and crew on board. Why had Attorney General Eric Holder decided not to renew his security measures, kept in place since 2002?

It seems inexplicable considering this:
In December 2008, the Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss Reid’s lawsuit. It cited the example of ADX inmate Ahmed Ajaj as an illustration of “the dangers inherent in permitting a group of inmates, of like mind in their opposition to the United States, to congregate for a prayer service conducted in a language not understood by most correctional officers.”

While imprisoned for passport fraud in 1992, Ajaj assisted in the plans to destroy the World Trade Center on Feb. 26, 1993, making phone calls to Ramzi Yousef and speaking in code to elude law enforcement monitoring. Ajaj tried to get his “training kit” to Yousef, which included videotapes and notes he had taken on bomb-making while attending a terrorist camp on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Reid’s own SAMs on correspondence had been tightened in 2006 after the shocking discovery that three of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers at ADX, not subject to security directives, had sent 90 letters to overseas terrorist networks, including those associated with the Madrid train bombing. The letters, exhorting jihad and praising Osama bin Laden as “my hero of this generation,” were printed in Arabic newspapers and brandished like trophies to recruit new members.

Miss Burlingame offers a theory:
What drove the Obama administration’s decision to cave in to Reid’s demands? The president after all has repeatedly pitched supermax and the federal prison system as a secure alternative to Guantanamo, citing the fact that it handles “all manner of violent and dangerous criminals.” Yet the last thing he needs, as his administration engages in its hasty effort to shut Gitmo down by a fast-approaching deadline, is for lawyers and human-rights activists to use a hunger-striking, near-death prisoner to launch a propaganda campaign fashioned right out of the Gitmo detainees’ playbook. Lawyers who shamelessly compared Gitmo to Nazi concentration camps would think nothing of casting supermax as the next “symbol of America’s shame” and a “rallying cry for our enemies.”

If true—and, knowing how Tiberius Obamacus operates, it seems very possible—this, I believe, is what is often described as a 'cynical move'.

Please take the time to click here and read the full article. [tip of the fedora to Donald Douglas]

Over at The Corner, Andrew McCarthy weighs in with some spot-on commentary:
Sure it's nuts, but as I detaileda couple of weeks ago, detainee policy in the Obama/Holder Justice Department is now being shaped by former Human Rights Watch lawyer Jennifer Daskal, who thinks incarceration is tantamount to torture (recall her complaint that one jihadist, "a self-styled poet," was being subjected to severe mental trauma: He "found it was nearly impossible to write poetry anymore because the prison guards would only allow him to keep a pen or pencil in his cell for short periods of time").

...

Yet, even as Holder is making the "securely detaining" argument out of one side of his mouth, he's abandoning the SAMs out of the other. And all the while, Obama is pushing to close Gitmo and bring scores of these trained terrorists into the civilian prison system. It's madness.

Since 20 January, we witnessed nothing but madness.

Permanently linked at THE ROAD TO SERFDOM on the WWU-AM page.

30 jul 09 @ 10:48 am edt Comments

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

INTERNATIONAL RULE 5 BIKINI FEST WEEK: 29 JUL 09

The serene and calm Robert Stacy McCain has proclaimed and declared the week of 27 July through 02 August to be...

International Rule 5 BikiniFest Week!

Please click here to read the posting wherein he lays out the reasons why he has issued this order and the rules for submission. Herewith a highlight from the proclamation:

The amazing coincidence here is that International Rule 5 BikiniFest Weekjust happens to occur during the nadir of the mid-summer doldrums, when our blog traffic would otherwise suck worse than Andrew Sul . . . oh, you don't really expect me to finish that sentence, do you? Hit the tip jar, or I just might, and in such a way that you'll never get enough brain-bleach to erase that mental image.

Please hit the man's tip jar so that he can purchase more shoe leather, then enjoy my submission for Wednesday, 29 July, in the Year of Our Lord 2009:

SHIRLEY EATON...

29 jul 09 @ 7:08 pm edt Comments

IF ITS MITT, YOU MUST QUIT

Both Smitty over at The Other McCain and Jimmie Bise over at The Sundries Shack have had up good postings recently that deal mainly with Mitt Romney and the state health care plan he originally authored in Massachusetts. The Plan is in big financial trouble with the Legislature looking to cut some 30,000 legal immigrants from the system. One of the questions that has been raised lately is: given the failure of this socializing experiment that Governor Romney sponsored, will his chances if he runs for the Republican nomination in 2012 be damaged by this further black mark on his conservative creds?

Jimmie adopts a wait-an-see attitude:
I can understand how conservatives would look askance at Romney for supporting his state’s government-run health care plan. I wasn’t a big fan when I heard of it and it’s turning out pretty much the way I expected it would. However, I don’t see where the state has been seriously injured by it at this point (at least not to the point where it can’t recover fairly quickly) and we’ve learned quite a few things from his experience. I don’t hold a state experiment against him when I have no real evidence that he wants to take that experiment nationwide today.

If he comes out of his experience with state-run health care wiser and with a strong dedication to federalism, then he’ll be a formidable candidate in 2012. If not, then I’ll line up against him. But I’m not willing to make that call yet. I’m inclined to give him some room to think.

So does Smitty [who is the Capo Di Tutti Capi of Federalists]:
If Mitt Romney segues from a state governor with some experience in health care implementation to a Federalist warrior bent on restoring state's rights, and implementing the Federalism Amendment, he's got my support.

Conversely, and I don't think it likely, but if Sarah Palin runs a Long Haired Barack campaign, replete with personality cult and paper-thin promises that just moves the country infinitesimally closer to tyranny, then she's lost me. I think the New England, Noonan-approved, Progressive elite could be replaced with a button marked 'Yawn'. We must esteem principle over personality, or we've lost the intellectual battle before even suiting up for combat.

If they were talking about anyone other than Mitt Romney as he is, chances are I would be joining my friends in manning a post in the Wacht Am Romney, but, as a resident of the Nor'east, I lived through and observed closely his career in The People's Republic Of..., from the time he came on the scene running against Ted Kennedy until his run for CinC last year, and I can tell you holding on to principles is most definitely not his strong suit. To put it bluntly: Mitt Romney has been, and continues to be, a wishy washy squish—remolding himself as the situation warrents—a shape-shifter par excellence.

I personally like the guy, but the term 'rank opportunist' is one I will forever associate with him. Most of the charges against him in this regard during the campaign were true.

As Governor he was tested in his first months in office and found to be quite the empty suit and judged weak by the hardball-playing [and corrupt] solons in the Great And General Court. After a short time, they even began to mock him in public and ignore his pronouncements altogether. The Massachusetts Constitution John Adams wrote, and that was debated in the Convention of 1781, made the Governor of Massachusetts weak [the Founders had lived through some God-awful Royal Governors]. Traditionally, therefore, the Governors of The Commonwealth have had to go outside of the process and use the bully pulpit to effect change and/or have the skill to outwit the pols in the Legislature and/or play ball like a pro. Mitt Romney never grasped this and, thus, he was ignored and even ridiculed. His Administration would submit a budget and, literally, it would be put aside and forgotten. The Senate and House would then go ahead and write their own. The Governor would complain and denounce—but not in any forum that would do him any good. Sometimes his words even descended into a whine. At the end of it all, the Great And General Court would get its way and Mitt would sit there and look pretty.

It seemed to me he thought his semi-socialist health care scheme would make it through the legislative process fairly unscathed because it was a very Democratic idea. In other words, he proposed a Democratic-inspired plan out of weakness. Well, as Harry Truman I believe once said: if the choice is between a 'Democrat' and a Democrat, the people will choose the Democrat every time. So, yes, the Legislature mucked with it [much like the Congress is now mucking with Obamacare]. And the outcome was a bloated travesty that had so many hands on it, it was oily and slippery. Good work Mitt! [The people of Massachusetts are now paying for their foolishness in not fighting the socialization of health care. Good luck to them; I hope they roll it back. (Thank God for federalism.)]

My message to my friends Smitty and Jimmie: put Mitt out of your minds; he's just another Weenie David like Brooks and Frum. If indeed Mitt comes out of his experience any wiser, don't be fooled: he'll be wiser weener, but he'll be a squishy one.

SIDENOTE: I'll have more to say about federalism in a future posting. Smitty has been posting some great stuff on the subject and I'm in the process of gathering them all for re-reading before I comment on this issue that is near and dear to my heart too.

29 jul 09 @ 2:40 pm edt Comments

BORDER-LINE CRIMINAL NEGLECT OF READERS

With the setting-up of the new IG-Gate Scandal tracking site and other matters [Bikini-Fest judging takes a lot of hard work], I've been neglecting other sections of this site for some weeks now. I apologize. I've started to make things right and have updated the following sections this morning:

Page            Section               #Links of
                                        Added
============== ==================== =========

IN GENERAL      TRAMPLED UNDERFOOT        5

MUSIC           IN-A-GADDA-DA-VIDA        4

BRITAIN         PREPOSTEROUS ALBION       3
                THE FLAMES OF ALBION      1

FILM/TV         ON LOCATION               4

THE OTHER ARTS IN BRIEF                  8

29 jul 09 @ 9:54 am edt Comments

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

INTERNATIONAL RULE 5 BIKINI FEST WEEK: 28 JUL 09

The serene and calm Robert Stacy McCain has proclaimed and declared the week of 27 July through 02 August to be...

International Rule 5 BikiniFest Week!

Please click here to read the posting wherein he lays out the reasons why he has issued this order and the rules for submission. Herewith a highlight from the proclamation:

The amazing coincidence here is that International Rule 5 BikiniFest Weekjust happens to occur during the nadir of the mid-summer doldrums, when our blog traffic would otherwise suck worse than Andrew Sul . . . oh, you don't really expect me to finish that sentence, do you? Hit the tip jar, or I just might, and in such a way that you'll never get enough brain-bleach to erase that mental image.

Please hit the man's tip jar so that he can purchase more shoe leather, then enjoy my submission for Tuesday, 28 July, in the Year of Our Lord 2009:

MARILYN MONROE...

28 jul 09 @ 8:58 pm edt Comments

IG-GATE: Evening Edition

I've just added seven new links over at the new IG-GATE page [please click here for an explanation of the new site]. That makes a total of ten for today.

One of them is the latest from Stacy McCain:

Readership of The American Spectator includes former AmeriCorp inspector general Gerald Walpin, who was fired last month on orders from President Obama. In a telephone interview today, Walpin said he noticed last week's report that Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) had contacted White House officials in March, publicly vowing that sanctions against Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson didn't prevent the city from getting its share of bailout cash.

Questions about what role Matsui may have played in Walpin's dismissal are being asked on Capitol Hill, and the ex-IG himself is curious about the Sacramento congresswoman's intervention, which drew attention after it was highlighted by California blogger Eric Hogue.

On the larger question -- whether political pressure over his investigation of Mayor Johnson's St. HOPE Academy was a factor in the June 10 quit-or-be-fired ultimatum from the White House -- Walpin is certain.

"I have no doubt about that," Walpin said.

Please take the time to click here and read the rest. Stacy says he will be out tomorrow wearing down more shoe leather. While so many are sitting back and relaxing this summer, he's relentless in his pursuit of truth, justice, the American Way, and hits.

Click on the image in the upper-right of the right-hand column to check out all the links available at...

IG-GATE: The Inspector General Scandals - Linkage Site

Your one stop for all things related to the set of scandals collectively know as IG-GATE.

28 jul 09 @ 8:07 pm edt Comments

BEING NOWHERE

With his last two columns, David Chauncey Gardiner Brooks has caused the contempt felt for him by Paco and Stacy McCain to boil-over once more. I think them justified. Other conservatives and libertarians I know and who I respect keep telling me he is a worthwhile read and a man of some wisdom; sorry dear friends [and brother], but I just don't see it. At his best these days, he's reminds me of milk and melba toast and at his worst he is a nothing but a odious little shit. His past two columns show this latter side.

From Saturday instant, Dr. Paco offers a good diagnosis of what makes Chauncey tick:

Remember when you were in high school, and there was always a sort of aristocracy – the "cool kids" – which consisted mainly of athletes and cheerleaders? And remember how there was always at least one total bozo who flitted about the edges of the group, desperate for its approval? He’d typically be some guy who couldn’t make the football team (or any other team, for that matter), but was more than happy to serve as “equipment manager” (i.e., the fellow who collected the dirty towels and jock-straps after practice). The cool kids tolerated him as a kind of court jester, and so great was his hunger for acceptance that he’d unhesitatingly bury his self-respect in order to get a little attention from them – even if the attention consisted mainly of dipping him headfirst in the toilet and bumming money off him (never repaid) for pizza.

David Brooks bears a remarkable resemblance to this type of attention-starved hanger-on....

I think your really onto something there friend Paco. But I think you have to also factor in the following which is very closely related to your theory. From a posting of mine on 09 October 2008:

Why is it that a number of official conservatives seem to crave acceptance from the Left? Why do they allow themselves to be hoodwinked by their smooth operators? Deep down, do they think that their naturally conservative temperaments are a bad set of feelings like lusting after their best friend's wife—something sinful? Is this why they insult their own and praise those who would not hesitate to destroy them? Mr. Brooks is a self-hating conservative. I hereby nominate the following song, Fodderstompf by Public Image Limited, to be their official theme song:

We only wanted to be loved
We only...
Love
We wanted to be accepted by society
We wanted to be accepted
We wanted to be accepted as people

We only wanted to be loved
We only wanted to be loved
Love
We wanted to be loved
We only wanted to be loved
We only wanted to be loved
We only wanted to be loved

...

Be bland
Be dull
Be boring
Be in love

Only wanted to be loved
Only wanted to be loved
Only wanted to be loved
Only wanted to be loved
Love

Every time I walk up and down the street
I look at people and I think why don't you love me
Why don't you love me
We only wanted to be loved
We only wanted to be loved
We only wanted to be loved
We only wanted to be loved
We only wanted to be loved
We only wanted to be loved
We only wanted to be loved
We only wanted to be lovedddd

Stacy McCain [in his latest fisking of Chauncey's latest column] offers his reasons for feeling so contemptuous towards the original Bobo:

...In an era when the newspaper industry is laying off newsroom personnel to the tune of a thousand people a month, David Brooks is paid a full-time salary by Sulzberger. In return for this salary -- his compensation package is rumored to be in the neighborhood $300,000 annually -- Brooks is required to produce only two 800-word columns per week.

Do the math, and this amounts to 104 columns per year, at nearly $3,000 per column, so that Brooks' rate is somewhere around $3.50 a word -- and yet he apparently cannot be bothered to do any actual reporting.

Byron York breaks news every time he files for the Washington Examiner, a tabloid that is distributed free on the streets of the nation's capital. Yet that ungrateful wretch Brooks is indulged as he wastes 804 words -- yes, I counted -- doing philosophy, rather than journalism. To borrow a phrase from Hunter S. Thompson, it's "enough to make a man wonder what newsprint is for."

My grievance with Brooks is not merely because, as Sister Toldjah says, he's a phony political chameleon. Politics aside, Brooks is a goddamned disgrace to the profession of journalism.

There's also more from Stacy from this past April here.

Cheers to both Paco and RSM for their regular fisking of him. And don't forget that Noonan, Frum, and Graham deserve to be added to the schedule too.

28 jul 09 @ 2:36 pm edt Comments

TAXING NAMES

From the National Journal [via W. James Antle at AmSpecBlog], we learn:

Face-lifts, tummy tucks and hair transplants could be hit with a new tax to help finance the trillion-dollar healthcare overhaul plan, according to sources familiar with the Senate talks.

The Senate Finance Committee has discussed imposing a 10 percent excise tax on cosmetic surgery deemed unnecessary for medical purposes. The idea was broached in a meeting with OMB Director Orszag in mid-July, after which Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus told reporters he had heard some "interesting," "creative," and "kind of fun" ideas.

Mr. Antle has named this new tax, quite appropriately I think, The Pelosi Tax. Although, if they decide to put an excise tax on every body embalmed, you would be forced to call that The Real Pelosi Tax.

One last thought: 'kind of fun'?!? WTF.

Please click here to read the full report.

28 jul 09 @ 2:02 pm edt Comments

THE SPOT-ON QUOTE OF THE DAY...

...is awarded to Sister Toldjah:

David Brooks and David Frum. David and David. I hate to say it but some days it’s like reading Dumb and Dumber.

Please take the time to click here and read her full posting. [tip of the fedora to Stacy McCain]

28 jul 09 @ 11:36 am edt Comments

IG-GATE: Garter Belt Edition

I've just added three new links over at the new IG-GATE page [please click here for an explanation of the new site]

Robert Stacy McCain:
http://ig-gate.blogspot.com/2009/07/200907202233-garter-belt-bailout.html

Judicial Watch:
http://ig-gate.blogspot.com/2009/07/200907240001-special-inspector-general.html

LA Times:
http://ig-gate.blogspot.com/2009/07/200907210001-tarp-watchdog-cites-lack.html

Click on the image in the upper-right of the right-hand column to check out all the links available at...

IG-GATE: The Inspector General Scandals - Linkage Site

SPECIAL THANKS YOUS:

To Stacy McCain of THE OTHER MCCAIN for the Full Metal Jacket Reach-Around Award today

To INSTAPUNDIT for the link

To Pundette for featuring this site in PUNDIT & PUNDETTE's 'Today's Featured Blog'

28 jul 09 @ 11:23 am edt Comments

Monday, July 27, 2009

IG-GATE: THE WEBSITE

The set of scandals collectively know as IG-GATE continue to generate news, commentary, and analysis, and therefore the number of links listed over in the UNWELCOME DISTRACTIONS of the WWU-AM page had grown so great that the section was fast becoming a muddled mess.

Therefore, I have created a special site to act as a repository for all of the IG-GATE-related links:

IG-GATE: The Inspector General Scandals - Linkage Site

I will be continuing to update it as I did over at WWU-AM before. As of this moment there are 172 entries available. I hope it will help you keep up with the latest developments.

Any comments or suggestions or links are welcome.

Thank you all for your indulgence over the past five days as I setup the site.

Bob Belvedere

27 jul 09 @ 9:05 pm edt Comments

INTERNATIONAL RULE 5 BIKINI FEST WEEK: 27 JUL 09

The great and wonderous Robert Stacy McCain has proclaimed and declared the week of 27 July through 02 August to be...

International Rule 5 BikiniFest Week!

Please click here to read the posting wherein he lays out the reasons why he has issued this order and the rules for submission. Herewith a highlight from the proclamation:

The amazing coincidence here is that International Rule 5 BikiniFest Weekjust happens to occur during the nadir of the mid-summer doldrums, when our blog traffic would otherwise suck worse than Andrew Sul . . . oh, you don't really expect me to finish that sentence, do you? Hit the tip jar, or I just might, and in such a way that you'll never get enough brain-bleach to erase that mental image.

Please hit the man's tip jar so that he can purchase more shoe leather, then enjoy my submission for Monday, 27 July, in the Year of Our Lord 2009:

JAYNE MANSFIELD...

27 jul 09 @ 8:54 pm edt Comments

DUMB-HOUNDED

Paco asks a very good question: Is Lindsey Graham Our Chuck Schumer?

He's not talking necessarily about their political stands, but, rather:

I’m talking about each man’s addiction to mugging for the television cameras and playing for maximum personal publicity.

Paco goes on to write about Senator Graham's conduct during the recent SCOTUS nomination hearings and during the immigration reform debates of recent past. He then offers this spot-on comeback:

And now, apparently swinging back to RINO mode (another jock-strap collector trying to garner favor with the cool guys), he has this to say about conservatives: “If we chase this attitude … that you have to say ‘no’ to every Democratic proposal, you can’t help the president ever, you can’t ever reach across the aisle, then I don’t want to be part of the movement because it’s a dead-end movement.”

No, Senator Droopy, it is the RINO “movement” that is a dead-end; it stops right at the front door of the Democratic Party. You’ll have to pardon principled conservatives if they decline to pile up in that particular cul de sac.

Paco, like David Chauncey Gardiner Brooks, he only wanted to be loved.

I think one might say that Lindsey Graham is a Hollow-Gram of Chuck Schumer.

Please don't hold the pun against Paco and click here to read his full posting.

27 jul 09 @ 8:04 pm edt Comments

STEYN OF THE WEEKEND

A double shot for these doubly awful times...

From his latest appearance on the Hugh Hewitt Show, Mr. Steyn gets right to the heart of the rush to socialize health care in America [emphasis mine]:

HEWITT: Study after study shows millions of Americans will get pushed into this awful government plan.

STEYN:Yes, and when you think about it, that’s a highly rational act on the part of any employer. I mean, we live now in an economy where there’s 10% unemployment. The idea that employers need to offer health insurance for their workers, when there is a government alternative in such an economy, is preposterous, and it is, it has the effect, whatever plan comes up, and this is where I don’t want to get too wonkish about it, because I think he understands that if he passes any plan, then he can do what he wants after it’s passed, because the fact of the governmentalization of health care cannot be undone. But that’s why it’s urgent for him, in effect, to just sort of stand on his head and say black is white and up is down, because if the news gets out that 88 million Americans are going, who currently like their health insurance are not going to have that, then that’s far more than any benefit of all these supposed millions of uninsured people. That’s why he has to, I hesitate to use this word about the President, but that’s why he has to basically lie, because he’s in a hurry to get this through in any form, and then do what he wants with it afterwards.

In his weekly syndicated column, he looks at Gates-Gate:

But what of our post-racial president? After noting that “‘Skip’ Gates is a friend” of his, President Obama said that “there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.” But, if they’re being “disproportionately” stopped by African-American and Latino cops, does that really fall under the category of systemic racism? Short of dispatching one of those Uighur Muslims from China recently liberated from Gitmo by Obama to frolic and gambol on the beaches of Bermuda, the assembled officers were a veritable rainbow coalition. The photograph of the arrest shows a bullet-headed black cop — Sgt. Leon Lashley, I believe — standing in front of the porch while behind him a handcuffed Gates yells accusations of racism. This is the pitiful state the Bull Connors of the 21st century are reduced to, forced to take along a squad recruited from the nearest Benetton ad when they go out to whup some uppity Negro boy.

27 jul 09 @ 2:44 pm edt Comments

A WISE AMERICAN WOMAN

Last Friday night, CNN reporter Rick Sanchez tweeted as follows:

do u know how much money i’d make if i’d sold out as hispanic and worked at fox news, r u kidding, one problem, looking in mirror

Hmmm...must have attended to a public school. Anyway...the lovely and talented Julie Banderas of Fox News Channel tweeted a great response:

As a wise Latina woman, I have no comment other than to say if I were Rick Sanchez, I wouldn’t look in the mirror, period.

Stiiiii-rike! Dead center over the plate. Bravo JBand.

A Fox News spokesman said the following:

Everyone knows that Rick is an industry joke, he shows that he’s a hack everyday. And he doesn’t have to worry about working at FOX because we only hire talent who have the ability to generate ratings.

You're Out, man-boy girlie-man!

Big tip of the fedora to Allahpundit—all quotes taken from his posting here.

27 jul 09 @ 2:36 pm edt Comments

TUNE IN THIS EVENING FOR A VERY SPECIAL EPISODE

I'll be posting a major announcement this evening around dinnertime ET. It will explain why I haven't been blogging much or updating the other parts of my site over the past five days. So, please come back tonight for this very special episode of TCOTS with your whole family.

27 jul 09 @ 2:18 pm edt Comments

Sunday, July 26, 2009

HE FOUGHT THE LAW AND THE LAW WON

I've been hesitant to comment on the Henry Louis Gates story because there was an awful lot of misinformation flying about for the first few days after it broke. There still may be more that comes out soon ['Was the confrontation recorded?' is one], but I think we've learned enough to conclude that Mr. Gates was in the wrong and Officer Crowley did the right thing. If your a fan of the TV show Cops, you've doubtlessly seen how dangerous old folks who are out-of-control can be, so I find no fault with the arrest.

Over at No Sheeples Here, Carol has up a great posting on this subject that I encourage you to read in full. Here are two spot-on highlights:

Being a lawbreaker by using illicit drugs and a scofflaw, President Obama seems intimately familiar with being on the wrong side of the law. Many will say it was youthful indiscretion but it is precisely because of his attitude towards law enforcement that Gates-aquiddick is a distraction that has backfired on this otherwise unflappable POTUS. The distraction is all negative now.

I had forgotten that BHO admitted he was a serious drug user and didn't pay his parking tickets.

And...
Now comes the revelation that Henry Louis (Skip) Gates, Jr. controls a tax-exempt, non-profit charity, Inkwell Foundation, Inc, that managed to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in direct support in one year, yet only gave out $27,500 in grants, the bulk of which went to Gates' employees and Harvard colleagues.

On this last item, she provides a link to a posting by Dan Riehl, who has the goods on the 'charity'. I won't link to it here because I want you to read Carol's first. She also provides a link some good aggregating that's been done over at the Real Barack Obama site.

Jules Crittenden also has up a good posting on this matter. A highlight:

But apparently Gates still doesn’t get it. If he wants a New Yorker article and a PBS documentary out of this, he’s going to have to dig deep and challenge his own thinking on race relations. A simple misunderstanding and flared tempers lacks a little umph and isn’t going to cut it. Hard to get indignant about that. But I dunno, Professor Gates, there could be something in this idea that we are entering a new phase in race relations, some new ground you can chart out. Maybe we’re approaching a place in this country where no one can make immediate assumptions, throw around accusations, and make demands anymore. Where there has to be some room for nuance, understanding. And the recognition that racism is a two-way street. Think about it.

26 jul 09 @ 6:15 pm edt Comments

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