True child of the 60's, I guess

Even though I knew what this was going to be about, I still misread the headline:

Dictionary says: What I was thinking of is supposed to be "pants suit" or "pantsuit." Oh, well.
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Via: Daily Pundit

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 23:49:06 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Sockpuppeteria

In which nothing is what it seems! Jules Crittenden summarizes, in his own inimitable style!  Read on...

UPDATE MCMLXIX: Someone claiming to be Greg Mitchell at a website purporting to be that of Editor & Publisher asserts that he exchanged emails with someone he believes to be Col. Boylan or possibly someone who has hacked into Boylan’s email. The person presenting himself as Mitchell claims that Boylan definitively stated he did not send the offending email to the person who has been claiming to be Glenn Greenwald. Which means that (a) Boylan is lying or (b) someone else is using his keyboard or (c) Greenwald composed and emailed the offending statement to himself, or (d) a previously unknown personality co-habiting within the entity we refer to as Greenwald. Or as the entity that for practical purposes we’ll refer to as “Greenwald” claimed in the Greenwaldian puppetry matter (e) maybe someone in his household did it. I don’t know. In any case, it remains funny that whoever did that mocked Greenwald by saying he lacks the ethics of a journalist.

(Quoted only because it's amusing.)

For the background to all this, start here.
For earlier sockpuppetry that may have involved someone who claimed to be at least one of the current protagonists, there's this.

Posted by: Old Grouch in Linkage at 23:19:26 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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GAO confirms trend, WAPO: "Z-z-z-z-z-z-z"

Ace:

Oct. 7: Washington Post Defends Decision To Report Plummeting Casualty Rates on Page 14 Because There's No Proof It's A Trend

Oct. 30: GAO Reports Decline In Violence Is In Fact A Trend; Washington Post Reports This On... Page 14

From the comments:

...[W]hy don't you just admit that you were asleep at the switch (or perhaps "otherwise engaged") when this story transitioned from "Not yet a Trend" to "Trend" to "Old News" at 2:00 am on the night of October 14th?
I have it on good authority that the Deciders left it in the "Trend" status for nearly a full minute, but no enterprising reporter picked up on it... too bad! -- "sherlock"

Later:  The Post reports 1944-45:  No trend.


(Actually, Don Surber noted this first, and deserves a link.)

Posted by: Old Grouch in The Press at 17:36:27 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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I'm told cold showers help

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysia's Muslim men are suffering sleepless nights and cannot pray properly because their thoughts are distracted by a growing number of women who wear sexy clothes in public, a prominent cleric said.

Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, the spiritual leader of the opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, said he wanted to speak about the "emotional abuse" that men face because it is seldom discussed, the party reported on its Web site Wednesday.

"We always [hear about] the abuse of children and wives in households, which is easily perceived by the eye, but the emotional abuse of men cannot be seen," Nik Abdul Aziz said. "Our prayers become unfocused and our sleep is often disturbed." -- Associated Press report posted at Fox News

Pathetic.

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Via: "Ward Cleaver"

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 16:55:42 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Simmering scandal or unseasonable silliness?

Glenn links to posts by Ron Rosenbaum and Mickey Kaus about a rumored "potentially devastating sexual scandal involving a leading Presidential candidate." [Rosenbaum]  Supposedly the Los Angeles Times has the story, but is sitting on it.

Rosenbaum tackles it as a question of journalistic ethics:

Why are well wired media elite keeping silent about it? Because they think we can’t handle the truth? Because they think it’s substantively irrelevant? What standards of judgment are they using? Are they afraid that to print it will bring on opprobrium. Are they afraid not printing it will bring on opprobrium? Or both?
...
And what about timing? They, meaning the DC elite media, must know if it comes out before the parties select their primary winners and eventual nominees, voters would have the ability to decide how important they felt it to the narrative of the candidate in question. Aren’t they, in delaying and not letting the pieces fall where they potentially may, not refusing to act but acting in a different way—taking it upon themselves to decide the Presidential election by their silence?

Kaus simply indulges in this speculation:

My vestigial Limbaugh gland tells me it must involve a Democrat, or else the Times would have found a reason to print it.

Both, by the way, take pains to declare that whatever-it-is isn't the John Edwards affair allegation (broken by the National Enquirer earlier this month, and pretty much ignored by everyone since).

I have ceased viewing the national press as neutral in political matters. Taking that perspective, I find myself disagreeing with both commentators. If a Democrat is involved, the press wants to minimize damage. If a Republican, the opposite.  That is what is driving the decision-making, not airy concerns about relevance or appropriateness.
more...

Posted by: Old Grouch in The Press at 02:19:45 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Comcast interfering with Google traffic?

"Comcast users are reporting 'connection reset' errors while loading Google. The problem seems to have been coming and going over the past few days, and often disappears only to return a few minutes later. Apparently the problem only affects some of Google's IPs and services. Analysis of the PCAP packet dumps reveals several injected fake RSTs, which are very similar to the ones seen coming from the Great Firewall of China [links in original - o.g.]-- Slashdot: Google Caught in Comcast Traffic Filtering?

If Comcast gets enough major players angry, we might– possibly– get to the bottom of this.

UPDATE 071101 22:35:  Here come the lawyers (via Slashdot).

Yesterday:  Comcast flap attracts Congressional interest

Posted by: Old Grouch in Linkage at 22:03:46 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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God bless you, Mr. Johnson

Via: Tam

Posted by: Old Grouch in Linkage at 19:05:45 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Comcast flap attracts Congressional interest

Two Senators on Friday called for a congressional hearing to investigate reports that phone and cable companies are unfairly stifling communications over the Internet and on cell phones.

Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said the incidents involving several companies, including Comcast Corp., Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc., have raised serious concerns over the companies' "power to discriminate against content." -- AP Story posted at google news

Previously:

• If J.Random Hacker was doing this, he'd wind up in jail (updated)
• AT&T censorship problems fixed
  

Elsewhere (via Consumerist):

Posted by: Old Grouch in Linkage at 03:33:07 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Clipfile: October 29, 2007

"Enjoyable as they are, pop-culture metaphors aren't really of much use, especially when you're up against cultures where life is still defined by how you live as opposed to what you experience via media." -- Mark Steyn

Posted by: Old Grouch in Clipfile at 02:51:29 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Oh, THOSE illegal aliens

Jules Crittenden:

I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that when faced with an alien menace, the Dems will be mainly interested in trying to figure out why they hate us. Expect to see Richard Dreyfus as secretary of alien affairs. On the Republican side, candidates have been largely silent. Only Giuliani has come out for a strong extraterrestial defense.

Apropos of nothing, anybody else remeber the Firesign Theatre's spoof of the  "Aliens must report their addresses annually" radio spot back in the 1970s?

Posted by: Old Grouch in Linkage at 02:03:23 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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