PUNK’D (WHITE HOUSE EDITION)

I’m sure by now most of you have familiarized yrselves with the Strange Case of Shirley Sherrod, the US Agriculture Dept official sacked by the Obama admin over a YouTube video of her telling an NAACP audience that she discriminates against white farmers ... only it turns out the clip took her words out of context and she was saying no such thing, etc.

The result of which is, of course, more screaming from both sides. The liberals say that Andrew Breitbart intentionally tried to portray a black Obama official as racist. Breitbart and his Tea Party posse say, “You started it by calling us racist, and why are you ignoring the fact that the NAACP is racist?”

And I’ve tried to follow the debate, but basically all I hear is:

“Yr racist!”

“No, YR racist!”

“No, YR racist!”

“No, YR racist!”

“No, YR racist INFINITY!”

“I know you are but what am I?”

Which bores the shit out of me. Which is probably racist of me at some level. Not that I’m saying racism isn’t worth debating. When someone actually starts a REAL debate instead of hurling tired polemics back and forth, let me know.

I’m also not that interested in the manner in which Andrew Breitbart posted the video, or the manner in which Fox News ran with it and milked it – sure, it was childish, amateur and irresponsible, but what else is new? Breitbart and Fox have been doing this kind of thing for years.

What’s far more interesting and disturbing is the fact that Team Obama fell for it and sacked Sherrod before even bothering to look into it. Because you would think that they would know better than to take the drastic step of firing someone on the word of Fox News and BigGovernment.com, both of which (1) openly have it in for Obama and (2) have a history of this kind of thing.

It’s already led to speculation that Fox News is a far more powerful force than anyone (or at least the Democrats) has realized, or at least can no longer be dismissed as a crank news organization (albeit one with awesome ratings) that most people don’t take seriously. I’m not sure Fox has quite that much influence, but what matters is whether the Obama admin thinks it does.

That’s a troubling notion in light of the jiu jitsu move Fox basically pulled here – first blasting Sherrod for saying racist stuff against Whitey (and simultaneously blasting Team Obama for allowing radical racists to work for him), then blasting the White House for jumping to the same conclusions and being all jumpy about race.

At this rate, Fox could start reporting stories from The Onion about Obama having the White House Jester beheaded for making jokes about the national debt, and Robert Gibbs would be forced to go on national television, apologize to the jester's family and promise an investigation into the beheading.

I’m joking, of course. Even the people at Fox (or at least Shep Smith) knows The Onion isn’t real news. I’m sure the Obama admin does too. It’s one thing to be hoodwinked by an out-of-context video clip, but who would be dumb enough to mistake a satirical Onion piece as a real news –

Oh.

Well, in that case, fuck it. I’m going back to bed.

News you can use,

This is dF

IT’S THE GUITAR THAT MADE THE KESSEL RUN IN LESS THAN 12 PARSECS

Two words: HELL yes.





This will look great next to the Bettie Page guitars that I also don’t have.

Interview with the creator here.

She’ll make .5 past light speed,

This is dF

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT YOU (HONG KONG VERSION)

Another Writer’s Block meme floating around that I’ve been meaning to get to:

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I assume they mean the city where I live rather than a specific neighborhood or house/flat. For me, that means Hong Kong, where I’ve been living for the last 14.4 years. And seeing as how I've picked up a lot of new readers in the past few weeks (hello), here's yr chance to learn a little about my city of residence.

LIKE

1. No driving: Cars, gas and parking spaces are expensive here, and traffic jams are legendary, so I don’t drive. And I don’t need to, since the public transportation system is extensive, reliable and (for the most part) cheap. So even though I have an hour commute to the office, I spend half of that on a ferry (with free Wi-Fi, even) and I can also read.

2. Food: You can get just about anything here – Chinese food, obviously, but lots of other Asian and Western cuisine (though if you love Mexican food, yr choices are slim). If you like variety and trying new stuff that doesn’t involve combining burgers with donuts, HK is right up yr street.

3. Taxes: Any Tea Party conservative will tell you that Hong Kong has a flat income tax. It doesn’t, actually – we do have tax brackets based on how much you make, but it still works out to something like 16% overall. Which, I need not tell you, is cheap. It’s also why conservatives wish America was like Hong Kong (except for being owned by Commies, I mean), which means they clearly aren't aware of our public housing and universal healthcare programs. Also, we have no sales tax or VAT, so there’s some novelty in buying stuff and paying exactly what it says on the price tag.

4. Proximity to Asia: Because Hong Kong is small, travel is popular here, so it’s always possible to get good deals for air tickets to other parts of Asia. And HK is a good start point for traveling around the region: going to most places won’t take longer than four hours by plane unless you want to go to Tibet, Australia or Sri Lanka. Also, we have some good airlines out here that don’t suck all the joy out of flying, unlike some airlines in the US I could mention (all of them).

5. Reserved seating at movie theatres: I’m not sure if they’ve adopted this in the US yet, but in Hong Kong (and other countries in Asia), we have assigned seating for films instead of sitting wherever you want. I like this because if the theatre’s not that crowded, you stand a better chance of getting a seat far enough away from people that you don’t have to endure being surrounded by people jabbering on their phone through the whole picture. These things matter.

DISLIKE

1. Property prices: Rent in HK is some of the most expensive anywhere, which is partly because property is a speculation game to most people here.

2. No rockinrolls: The Hong Kong music scene is dominated by professional big-money Cantopop, which is good if yr into Air Supply, Celine Dion and N’Sync. Which I am not. Rock comes and goes, but unless you can do karaoke power ballads or sound like big-name Japanese glam bands like L'Arc〜en〜Ciel, you probably won’t get far. That said, there is an underground indie/rock scene of sorts, but with little media support, you have to know where to look. To each his own, of course, but the upshot is that going to live shows is the one thing I had to give up in moving here. Which is as well since I'm old and decrepit now.

3. Air pollution: It’s pretty bad. Sometimes it’s epic. Which, as I’ve semi-joked in the past, is why I’m in favor of legislation and treaties to cut carbon emissions – forget about whether they’re responsible for climate change, I just want my oxygen less chunky.

4. Horrible diseases: I’m exaggerating a little here. But we were practically Ground Zero for SARS in 2003, and we get outbreaks of Legionnaire’s Disease, bird flu and swine flu here. So if the Flupocalypse ever really gets underway, we’ll probably be smack dab in the middle of it.

5. Hot air, arctic A/C: We stay somewhere between 27ºC and 32ºC for about eight-nine months a year – which isn’t so bad, except that every office building, shopping mall, restaurant and bus tends to run the A/C at around 10ºC. Which means it’s like walking from a furnace into an meat freezer when you go indoors. Feels great for the first ten minutes, but after that you need a parka – and odds are you won’t have one.

And there you are.

There’s more I could add to either list, but the “Like” category would be longer at the end of the day. I do like it here. It’s not perfect, but no place is. I’ve lived in enough cities and enough countries to know that much.

READ MORE ABOUT IT: Full coverage is here if yr interested and have nothing better to do this weekend.

Happy to be here,

This is dF

WE LIKE TO WATCH YOU BUY PORN

ITEM [via BoingBoing]: If yr ever in Uniontown, Indiana (population 50 – SAAAAAALUTE!) and need to pick up some porn, you may like to know that (1) it is available and (2) anti-pr0n protesters will take pictures of you and yr license plate and post them on this web site.



And I confess my first thought was, “Who buys porn and sex toys in adult shops anymore? Isn’t that why we have the Interweb now?”

But seriously ...

On a general level, I have a problem with tactics like this – we’ve seen it applied to everything from drunk drivers and sex offenders to people who view pr0n on library computers. And while it might be technically legal as long as it’s all public information, it’s also the kind of vindictive behavior known in some circles as “snitching”. But then I have little patience for people incapable of minding their own business, so I would say that, wouldn't I?

The other problem with name-and-shame tactics is that the snitches can't always be counted on to keep an accurate list (or to guarantee that anyone who gets on the list by mistake will be taken off, or to take any responsibility for any shame incurred by innocent people during the time they are on the list). And as we’ve seen, there is a real danger that some people can (and will) take this kind of thing too far.

In case of the Unionville anti-pr0n snitches, it’s doubly vexing because it involves an otherwise legal activity.

That said, I do recommend taking a look at some of the “shame” pictures – if only because nobody looks all that embarrassed to be photographed. Which is nice.

PRODUCTION NOTE: You’ll be seeing lots of crotch grabs, middle fingers and mooning. So it’s NFSW, is what I’m saying. Which is ironic for an anti-pr0n site.

Also recommended: the patriotic message to truckers.

For yr own good,

This is dF