Check out this story from CBS News:

Did you catch Representative West saying he “tried to sound the alarm but no one listened?”

As someone who is reasonably politically informed, I didn’t remember said flag being raised, so I did some research, and I discovered something very interesting.

Rep. Allen West was featured in the piece as “one congressman … who said he tried to blow the whistle on the whole thing before Christmas.”

If West was blowing any whistles, it appears he was doing so pretty quietly.

“I read the legislation, and I raised the flag. Unfortunately, no one paid attention to what I was saying at the time,” West said. “It is absolutely a tax increase on [the middle class].”

What CBS omitted, however, was that the tax cut extension (and attendant fee) passed the House by unanimous consent — which means nobody stood up against it at all. It was brought to the House floor on Dec. 23 at 10:03 a.m., and had passed by 10:05.

Politico did run a story about two House freshmen who were considering maybe standing up against the bill, but neither of them were West, and neither of them did.

We requested comment from West but haven’t heard back yet.

So in 2 minutes, by unanimous consent, without the input of someone who was so offended by the legislation before him that he “sounded the alarm,” the legislation passed without his objection.

Would’ve been nice if CBS called him out for his complete and utter lie.

Unfortunately for Huntsman, who’s deleted all his attack videos on Romney from his campaign site and YouTube channel, the internet doesn’t forget.

What was that about personal attacks, Mr. Huntsman?

Yeah. I thought so.

You’re almost the perfectly lubricated weathervane you’ve accused Romney of being, sir.

Well, that fine example of the new tone was later followed by an apology almost a week later. Kind of.

He wants to elevate the conversation?

That’s lovely. How about starting by not calling for the execution of political opponents you don’t agree with? I think that would be a good place to get started, but that’s just me. After all, I’m not a professional Hollywood entertainer like Mr. Jones.

It’s still astonishing to me that this blatant call for violence got less attention than a map on Palin’s website got after Gabby Giffords was shot and we were all lectured on the need for a “new tone.”

What do we have here?

Seems like the Europeans who are most gung-ho about military action in Libya are the same folks who have the most to lose as far as oil prices. How about that?

This wouldn’t be as galling if Europe didn’t haul out the “war for oil” mantra during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq as a means of discrediting the motives of the Bush administration. It’ll be really interesting to see how good old Europe dodges that mantra when their interests are way more obviously motivated by oil than the US ever was.

Posted via Posterous

At the sixth-floor pantry in its glossy Upper East Side headquarters, employees can pick from a health-conscious menu of celery sticks, bananas, freshly made peanut butter and 100-calorie snack packs.

There is also free Coke, Pepsi, orange Fanta, ginger ale and Mountain Dew — exactly the types of drinks Mr. Bloomberg this week said he wanted to prohibit poor New Yorkers from buying with their food stamps.

“We have all the junk in the world up there,” a Bloomberg employee, who declined to be named for fear of upsetting the company, said during an interview outside the offices at 731 Lexington Avenue. “I mean, you can gain 15 pounds in a hurry.”

Isn’t that special?

It amazes me how often politicians advocate things for others they don’t do for themselves.

Source

via Jeremy Charette

It’s with great irony that I’ve unearthed a clip from 2007 of then-Senator Obama having a chat with some reporters about Iraq, and in it, he enflames the Muslim world. Take a look.

President Obama made the following remarks mid last week…

“As a practical matter, as commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States, I just want him to understand that this stunt that he is pulling could greatly endanger our young men and women in uniform who are in Iraq, who are in Afghanistan.”

His words strike me as surprisingly empty. Is burning a Koran or protesting a mosque any less inflammatory than a US Senator and Presidential candidate standing in front of a group of reporters, mic in hand, and accusing our soldiers of essentially carpet-bombing civilians? Does he not see how that could be used as recruiting material for Al Qaeda?

While standing in front of those reporters, did he give a moment’s consideration to how his remarks would affect them or their ability to do their job as he essentially painted them as war criminals using rhetoric commonly used by organizations like Al Qaeda and Hamas? I reckon he didn’t because, at that time, he was in the blind pursuit of power.

Remember, Mr. President… This is the YouTube generation. Everything you say at all times is recorded somewhere and you can’t hide from your words.

Military personnel threw away, and ultimately burned, confiscated Bibles that were printed in the two most common Afghan languages amid concern they would be used to try to convert Afghans, a Defense Department spokesman said Tuesday.

The unsolicited Bibles sent by a church in the United States were confiscated about a year ago at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan because military rules forbid troops of any religion from proselytizing while deployed there, Lt. Col. Mark Wright said.

Such religious outreach can endanger American troops and civilians in the devoutly Muslim nation, Wright said.

“The decision was made that it was a ‘force protection’ measure to throw them away, because, if they did get out, it could be perceived by Afghans that the U.S. government or the U.S. military was trying to convert Muslims,” Wright told CNN on Tuesday.

Troops at posts in war zones are required to burn their trash, Wright said.

The Bibles were written in the languages Pashto and Dari.

Good thing it wasn’t a buttload of Korans or there would’ve been beheadings.

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By now if you are a political junkie you know that the Queen of the White House press corps, Helen Thomas, was heard to voice the anti-Semitic sentiment that all the Jews in Israel should “go back to Germany and Poland,” where they came from. So far, the tepid response from the oh, so racially sensitive left and the Old Media has been nothing short of breathtaking.

But this lack of interest in a racist comment by a high profile member of the media isn’t de rigueur. One must only recall the firestorm that radio/TV guy Don Imus kicked up back in 2007 when he called some African-American basketball players ”nappy-headed ho’s.” Imus was immediately excoriated and forced off the air.

Thomas, however, is being treated with a total lack of concern by the same overly race-conscious media that destroyed Imus. One would think that racism is racism no matter who says it or toward which race, creed, religion or people the evil sentiment is directed. If standing against racism was the goal, one would think that the left and its Old Media buddies would be just as incensed at Helen Thomas wishing a new Holocaust upon the Jews as they were over Don Imus’s using a racial slur against some black basketball players.

But thus far, Helen Thomas is being given a pass while Imus was at the top of the most shrill news coverage starting only hours after he made his on air comment and lasting for at least a week of condemnation.

That’s because Don Imus was a white guy going after black people. Helen Thomas is a known and unapologetic liberal and you will never see the vultures in the media eat one of their own. If you’re gonna argue with me on this one, fine, but you’d better have a damn good explanation as to how Thomas’ remarks have faced, to put it lightly, yawns.

Source

Here’s the ad.

There’s no logic behind the banning of this ad. None. ABC and Fox are both guilty (although Fox is reconsidering) and I just can’t understand what’s objectionable.

This is very much in line with what I talked about in IT.tv Episode 77. We’re all bout “body image” and “acceptance” until we aren’t. We love “accepting” bodies of all shapes and sizes until we have to actually look at them. The woman in this ad is beautiful (gorgeous, in fact), and probably is very comfortable in her own skin, but God forbid we show that to the world. We want women to not be self-conscious, but then we tell them we want them to cover up or not be shown on TV. Meanwhile ads from Dove, Victoria’s Secret, and others are allowed to air with women in equal states of undress unchallenged.

Sounds fair to me.

I, for one, genuinely wish that the climate crisis were an illusion. But unfortunately, the reality of the danger we are courting has not been changed by the discovery of at least two mistakes in the thousands of pages of careful scientific work over the last 22 years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In fact, the crisis is still growing because we are continuing to dump 90 million tons of global-warming pollution every 24 hours into the atmosphere — as if it were an open sewer.

It is true that the climate panel published a flawed overestimate of the melting rate of debris-covered glaciers in the Himalayas, and used information about the Netherlands provided to it by the government, which was later found to be partly inaccurate. In addition, e-mail messages stolen from the University of East Anglia in Britain showed that scientists besieged by an onslaught of hostile, make-work demands from climate skeptics may not have adequately followed the requirements of the British freedom of information law.

But the scientific enterprise will never be completely free of mistakes. What is important is that the overwhelming consensus on global warming remains unchanged.

Is it supposed to reassure me that scientists, in the face of a major scandal involving data collection, are so stubborn and unwilling to listen that they still believe what the lying data told them? The data wasn’t found to be partly inaccurate.

1. The hockey-stick graph that we’ve all been shown a thousand times simply isn’t based on the data collected. At all. Period.

2. The scientist that ran the facility has said that the data that was in fact collected demonstrated no measurable climate change over the past 15 years. None. While the Goracle would like you to believe that this is merely a slip-up in paper management, the continuing evidence demonstrates that any data disproving global warming was happening and an immediate threat was discarded, destroyed, lost, or “modified” so as to suit the purposes of those whose employ depended on global warming being real.

3. Gore mentions that the e-mails were stolen; as if that makes them not true. The contents of those e-mails are not disputed, and since their release, two people have resigned over them. They’re true, regardless of the method by which they were obtained.

4. The consensus that was built by scientists was built mainly based on the data that we’ve discussed in the prior 2 points.

It is also worth noting that the panel’s scientists — acting in good faith on the best information then available to them — probably underestimated the range of sea-level rise in this century, the speed with which the Arctic ice cap is disappearing and the speed with which some of the large glacial flows in Antarctica and Greenland are melting and racing to the sea.

Note the word “probably.”

Everything else in this piece is spoken with authority, but for some reason, he felt the need to say “probably” here even though he builds on it. Guess he couldn’t set up his point too stridently in case the data was proven wrong again.

Because these and other effects of global warming are distributed globally, they are difficult to identify and interpret in any particular location. For example, January was seen as unusually cold in much of the United States. Yet from a global perspective, it was the second-hottest January since surface temperatures were first measured 130 years ago.

Difficult to identify and interpret in any particular location.

Unless that location is a place that has ice, in which case it’s a breeze. If that ice recedes, we’re doomed. As for the second hottest January… That sounds really bad, right? Except for the fact that half the world is going through the last month of summer in January. I’ve noticed we can’t find that number (I wonder how many 10ths of a degree it was warmer?) anywhere today. Just references to the statement.

Similarly, even though climate deniers have speciously argued for several years that there has been no warming in the last decade, scientists confirmed last month that the last 10 years were the hottest decade since modern records have been kept.

Actually I don’t know anyone who would call themselves a climate denier. For the most part, everyone agrees that there is, indeed, climate.

That notwithstanding, most people arguing the validity of anthropogenic global warming (often abbreviated AGW) have said for years that the climate is cyclical and not linear. The odd thing, however, is that the only person who came forward and said that there has been no appreciable global warming in the past 15 years was Phil Jones, one of the folks at the center of the IPCC scandal.

The heavy snowfalls this month have been used as fodder for ridicule by those who argue that global warming is a myth, yet scientists have long pointed out that warmer global temperatures have been increasing the rate of evaporation from the oceans, putting significantly more moisture into the atmosphere — thus causing heavier downfalls of both rain and snow in particular regions, including the Northeastern United States. Just as it’s important not to miss the forest for the trees, neither should we miss the climate for the snowstorm.

When it snows excessively, it’s because of global warming. If, however, it’s the warmest January in decades, it’s also because of global warming. If you have a mild summer, it’s because of global warming, but if you have a hell of a hot brutal summer, that’s because of global warming.

It seems that no matter what the weather conditions (or climate, when taken as an aggregate) are, Al Gore and his ilk have managed to turn it into evidence to prove their point. The problem is that the evidence doesn’t really prove his point any more. Is something happening in our atmosphere? Sure, but the reality is that we don’t know what it is, let alone if human beings are causing it, so maybe the hysteria should be toned down a bit and instead of falsifying data to demonstrate a desired conclusion, we actually try to figure it out.

And it wouldn’t hurt to stop listening to blowhards like Al Gore in the meantime.

Source

His excuse was equally lame. He explained to me that school was his priority and he had to drop everything when he needed to do something for school. That’s cool, but that doesn’t explain away why you didn’t have the decency to do the right thing about our interview which I was left hanging for. The “prodigy” who understood everything and was brilliant and talented was now taking the “I’m just a kid” defense.

Fine. His lame-ass excuse not withstanding, I forgave him. No need to hold a grudge.

As time moved on, more and more of the tech world got to know the vunderkind and his name became synonymous with the wonder that is tech for young people. In fact, two years ago he made the astonishing discovery that if you buy a domain and install WordPress on it, the idiots in the tech media will call you a brilliant entrepreneur. Brusilovsky was again touted as a great prodigy because he figured out how to install WordPress, give out accounts, and call it a business. He also had an associated conference of the same name. How could he fail! He’s a prodigy! Oh yeah, and all his friends from the valley promoted it for him free of charge. Damn straight the kid had people attend. Any monkey would attend a conference if you got enough heavy hitters behind it.

Of course, the WordPress install got bogged down, and eventually hacked because it wasn’t maintained properly. On top of it, Brusilovsky was caught flat-out lying about the uptake of his new “venture.” When the whole thing started collape, Brusilovsky and his supporters yet again dragged out the “he’s just a kid. What did you do at 17?” defense. Well, probably not as much as him, but then again I didn’t have bloggers who get thousands of comments on every post every day and hang on my every word telling me how I great I was because I toasted a hotpocket.

But that’s me.

Now Brusilovsky is in trouble again, and this time it’s pretty damn serious.

On Monday evening I received a phone call from someone I trust who told me that one of our interns had asked for compensation in exchange for a blog post. Specifically, this intern had allegedly asked for a Macbook Air in exchange for a post about a startup.

After an investigation we determined that the allegation was true. In fact, on at least one other occasion this intern was almost certainly given a computer in exchange for a post.

The intern in question has admitted to some of the allegations, and has denied others. We suspended this person while we were sorting through exactly what happened. When it became clear yesterday that there was no question that this person had requested, and in one case taken, compensation for a post, the intern was terminated.

Ooof… That sounds bad with a capital B. Kid gives up a cushy job at Tech Crunch for an attempt at securing himself a MacBook Air? How long before the prodigy trots out the “I’m just a kid” defense?

Answer: not long.

In some way or another, a line was crossed that should have never been. At this time, I do not want to go into details, but I will publicly say that I am truly sorry to my family, friends, TechCrunch, and especially the tech community. Since 2006 when I first got into the internet, I have felt comfortable, and working at TechCrunch has made this experience even better. TechCrunch is not to blame for any of this — TechCrunch has given me the opportunity of a life time. I can never say thank you enough for TechCrunch for the amazing last nine months I’ve had.

This is the first day of the next learning stage for me. Yes, I am young, but from here, I can only learn more. To my family, friends, colleagues and especially, TechCrunch, I am sorry. I am taking this entire experience, learning and moving on.

For those who have messaged me with your thoughts — thank you. At this point, I’d like to take some time to myself after the Teens in Tech Conference, to focus on school, and enjoy being a teenager. I’ve invited Michael and my friends from TechCrunch to come the conference as well.

In some way or another a line was crossed? Wow, he really is a prodigy. That’s right along with how the government points out, when they eff up, how “mistakes were made,” not how “we made mistakes.” But he’s careful to remind everyone that, in fact, he’s just a teenager.

Really, Daniel? Because from what everyone says about you when you do right, you’re a prodigy; someone who’s so smart we all pale in comparison and someone who’s huge success is due to his massive knowledge.

In reality? You are just a kid, but in this case, right and wrong are still pretty damn obvious. You crossed a line, you screwed up, and you blew a great opportunity. “In some way or another, a line was crossed.” No Daniel, you crossed a line and it wasn’t because you’re a kid or because you didn’t know better. It’s because you got greedy and sought to use the power you had to better yourself materially. I refuse to believe that you didn’t know that was wrong, so stop playing the dumb kid game.

You failed.

The true measure of our life is not our failures, but what we learn from them, so make sure you stop with the “I’m a kid” crap, take responsibility, and get yourself all squeaky clean as soon as possible because frankly, from what I’ve seen of your time as a prodigy, I’m not all that impressed.

22-year-old Caressa Cameron of Fredericksburg, Virginia has become the seventh Black woman in history to be named Miss America.

The Virginia Commonwealth University student took home the crown Saturday beating out Miss California, Miss Tennessee, Miss Louisiana and Miss Kentucky for the title and a $50,000 scholarship.

Her win came as a surprise to some considering that Rush Limbaugh was judging the competition.

Really? Why did that come as a surprise?

Oh right, because you’re dumb and think he’s just a mindless racist bigot.

Maybe a trip to the mirror is in order if you wanna see a real racist bigot, huh?

Source

Although the sudden acceleration issue erupted publicly only in recent months, it has been festering for nearly a decade. A computerized search of NHTSA records by The Times has found Toyota issued eight previous recalls related to unintended acceleration since 2000, more than any other automaker.

That article appeared in the LA Times on 12/23.

Immediately following the posting of that article, a representative from Toyota commented here, offering a link where Toyota would give “a more complete and accurate picture of the issues raised.” Brilliant, I thought.

Here’s a very interesting segment of that very news release (which can be found here).

Q2: Toyota has conducted numerous recalls related to sudden acceleration over the past decade in the U.S. and Canada, including two previous floor mat recalls. But the problem has continued. Does this mean that the previous recalls were not successful in eliminating the problems and if so, why not? In particular, why wasn’t the 2007 recall of Lexus ES and Camry floor mats effective in preventing catastrophic accidents such as the Saylor case?

Toyota has conducted two all-weather floor mat (AWFM) recalls after receiving reports that if the floor mat (either by itself, or if it is placed on top of an existing carpeted floor mat) is not secured by the retaining hooks, the mat can move forward and interfere with the accelerator pedal returning to the idle position. If the mat is properly secured, it will not interfere with the accelerator pedal.

As reported in the law enforcement investigation, the floor mat in the Saylor accident was not only improperly secured, it was incompatible and incorrect for the vehicle. The recall recently announced addresses the fact that incompatible floor mats, or multiple floor mats could be installed and that the remedy must address that possibility.

Notice how they continued to comment on the floormats, but didn’t address the possibility that there was more going on than that. This is how Toyota “set the record straight.”

Well, it’s now the last day of January, roughly 5 weeks after this story broke, and here we are with Toyota issuing one of the largest car recalls in US history for… You guessed it… A faulty design of the gas pedals on the car. This wouldn’t be so bad if:

a: It wasn’t the second recall, the first of which applied to the floor mats and a limited subset of models.

b: People hadn’t been telling them all along that it wasn’t just the floormats and that there were other issues that needed to be addressed.

This is the point where I point out something that should be obvious to anyone paying attention:

This story would be interesting if it wasn’t so aggravating. For years, American companies have been dinged on their car quality while Honda and Toyota were held up and revered as the model by which all car companies should be functioning.

Well, if they were, we’d have even bigger problems.

We sure would. And if this was GM it would be beaten into the ground as the biggest news story ever. Instead? One and done.

Source

Have you noticed, though, that those numbers aren’t coming out quite as much? That the drumbeat to leave Afghanistan and Iraq has dwindled? That suddenly everything domestic is more important?

Of course you have, because the numbers make The Great One^tm look bad.

Don’t take my word for it, though.

Notice that the death numbers pick up in July, right around the time McChrystal was complaining the loudest that he was being ignored?

And notice from July onward, the most deadly months of both wars happened under Obama’s watch.

Now, some will be quick to jump out and blame former President Bush for these numbers, but that’s a hard sell when you consider:

a: The numbers were much lower under President Bush (oddly, though, lower when they were a “big deal”).
b: The numbers exhibited a large uptick 7 months after President Obama took office, meaning the “Bush Hangover” defense is, at the very least, moot.
c: The President has not made any substantial strategic changes to our war effort, has made no effort to bring the troops home, and has not answered the criticisms of his “men on the field,” something he chastised McCain for during the debates.

Now let’s be straight here. This isn’t really about President Obama for me; this is about the Bush critics. Nothing has changed except for their level of chatter, and while they were “concerned” about fatality numbers when a Republican was in office, that concern seems to have dwindled when the casualties are, in fact, worse than they’ve been since 2001. So much worse, in fact, that they’ve almost doubled since Bush’s last year of 2008.

Let the cries begin, just don’t hold your breath.

Casualties via iCasualties, the same site that liberals loved for 8 years.

Former chief United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter was arrested in a Pennsylvania sex sting in November on a litany of charges involving a lewd Internet conversation with a person he thought was a 15-year-old girl.

Ritter, 48, allegedly masturbated in front of a Web camera while he was engaged in conversation in an Internet chat room with an undercover cop posing as the teenage girl. He declined to discuss the charges Thursday when reporters visited his New York residence.

“I said there would be no comment,” Ritter said, according to the Albany Times Union. “Why don’t you guys just go away?”

Heh… No no Scotty boy; they’re gonna hang around…

The chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991-98 and harsh critic of the war in Iraq, Ritter is accused of contacting the “girl” while using the handle “delmarm4fun” last February.

Ritter, of Delmar, N.Y., allegedly told the girl, “Emily,” that he was a 44-year-old man from Albany, N.Y., according to an affidavit of probable cause.

The undercover officer then told Ritter he was a 15-year-old girl from the Poconos region of Pennsylvania, at which point Ritter asked for a picture in addition to one “Emily” had posted on her account, according to the affidavit prepared by Barrett Township Police Det. Ryan Venneman.

Ritter then sent a link to his Web camera and began to masturbate while it was focused on his genitals, according to the affidavit. The former U.N. official then allegedly provided his cell phone number.

“He then continued to masturbate on web cam and he again asked how old I was,” the affidavit continued. “He was advised again that I was 15 years old. He said he didn’t realize that I was 15 years old and turned off his web camera. He stated that he didn’t want to get in trouble.”

Ritter then allegedly told the “girl” that he fantasized about having sex with her, to which the officer replied, “guess u turned it off [no problem].”

Ritter then asked the girl if she “want[ed] to see it finish” before reactivating his Web camera and ejaculating, the affidavit read.

What a fine upstanding citizen, right?

Now, the takeaway question.

Seeing as Mr. Ritter was hailed for his “character” as he flip flopped around like a dying salmon on a hot rock during the Iraq war’s early days, and contradicted his own findings as weapons inspector, how are we meant to judge his character now?

And if this story is indeed true (and come on, would the police go public with it if they weren’t 100% sure?), how is this such a small story compared to the mere soliciting, of an adult, by someone like Larry Craig, or cheating on one’s wife with another adult (insert any politician / celebrity here).

I think we can safely stop pretending that Scott Ritter has character now, either way.

Source

How tasty, right?

As could be expected, since this wasn’t a right winger that said it, we’re being told again and again that we had to take it context. After all, when you’re a left-winger, like Reid, and you make a racist remark or use a racially derogatory term, the context must be discerned and true intent must be deciphered. Context in other cases, of course, is irrelevant, because if you’re a right-winger or a non-approved white person, you’re a racist; context-be-damned.

To be clear, there has been nearly no universal outrage at Harry Reid’s remarks, and he hasn’t distanced himself from them. In fact, he not only admits having made them, but he has apologized to President Obama who called for Trent Lott and Don Imus’ heads on a platter after Lott made a remark that could only be interpreted as racist (it wasn’t outwardly racist no matter how tortured your look at it is) and Don Imus’ “Nappy Headed Ho” remark. Needless to say, Obama immediately accepted the apology because, as stated earlier, Reid is an approved white person. Apparently, in context, with the benefit of being Black Approved^tm, you can call the president a Negro of Convenience without fear of repercussion.

I find it funny that this is all going on amidst another controversy in the use of the word Negro.

A fiery blast from the past is conjuring controversy in the new millennium. The word “negro” is now featured on an official U.S. document and now many are questioning if the Census Bureau is being insensitive.

It’s a word that many African Americans associate with segregation, so imagine how shocked many were to see it on the 2010 U.S. census form.

“The fact that it’s 2010 and they’re still putting ‘negro,’ I am a little offended,” said Secaucus resident Dawud Ingram.

Question #9 on the this year’s census asks about your race. One of the boxes you can choose is “black,” “African American,” or “negro,” all placed next to the same box. Ingram said it’s not a word he uses to identify neither himself nor anybody else.

“African Americans haven’t been going by the term ‘negro’ for decades now. It’s really confusing,” he said.

But census officials disagree, saying they found some older African Americans identify themselves that way and they’re trying to be inclusive. In a statement, they said: “Results from the census in 2000 showed that a number of respondents provided a write-in response of ‘negro’ when answering the question on race.”

In fact, Congress approved the form more than a year ago. Newark resident Jabbar Ali can’t believe it.

“I thought it was something we left behind a long time ago – the word ‘negro,’” said Ali.

Chanou Wilshire said the census form doesn’t give her an option since it’s got “African American,” “black,” and “negro” next to the same box.

“It’s highly offensive,” she told CBS 2.

The mere mention of the word is “highly offensive.” In fact, this story has been playing out quite a bit in the local New York media to the point that it’s near inescapable. Every two-bit hack local news reporter is cramming a mic into the face of the first black person they can get to to get their reaction to the word Negro being on the census form. The universal reaction, of course, is outrage, and the outrage is that the word is dated, and hails from the darkest times of Antebellum America.

The word being on the census form is offensive to the point of mobilizing outrage.

A Senator using it to discuss a black man running for President? Not so offensive.

I’ve heard a lot of talk about double standards between right and left and the use of racially inappropriate terms, but this isn’t even a left-right issue. This is a curious issue of manufactured outrage versus subdued reactions or a lack of reaction at all.

Incidentally, I don’t think the term Negro on a census form indicates racist intentions. I also don’t think that Harry Reid was being racist just in his use of the word Negro, but that’s because I’m smart enough to see that using a word one time doesn’t necessarily equate to racism / hatred. I’m not part of the offenderati culture, and I refuse to be, but it’s hard to reconcile offense at a word with no target against lack of offense at use of that same word when aimed at a specific target, to whom it would likely apply. If context is indeed important, than shouldn’t using the word as a derogatory term carry more weight than using it on a form for voluntary classification purposes?

Unless, of course, we’re just talking purely about using the word as a club of convenience with which we can beat our political opponents over the head, in which case we’re doing just fine.

There’s no way to spin this as Obama doing anything but lying. Period.

Transparency my ass.

Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.