News Herald: Jun 8, 2009

Whip It Good
Monday, June 8, 2009

(Bill Gurstelle is guest blogging here on Boing Boing. He is the author of several books including Backyard
Ballistics, and the recently published Absinthe
and Flamethrowers. Twitter: @wmgurst)

I'm into bullwhips. I make 'em, read about them, use them, and write about them. Being able to handle a bullwhip is an impressive skill. There's a section in Absinthe and Flamethrowers that covers the basics in terms of whip use and technique. If you don't think learning the bullwhip is Golden Thirdstuff, you haven't tried it.

The following movies are my Top Whip Movies, chosen for having characters known for their whip using skills. (Interested readers are invited to write me with their favorites. Whip experts will note that the movies below include both stockwhips and cat-O-nines, which are quite different from one another in purpose.)

1. All Indiana Jones Movies. My son Andy is a graduate student in archeology currently on a dig in Ghana. I gave him a bullwhip as an undergraduate. I wonder if he brought it, and if it could go as carry-on luggage?

2. Legend of Zorro ("Nobody leaves my tequila worm dangling in the wind,") Mask of Zorro, and the many other Zorros

3. King of the Bullwhip. This 1950 oater stars Lash Larue, the king of the bullwhip, hence the title.

4. Catwoman. Yes, a pretty bad movie, but it has Halle Berry in a tight leather outfit cracking a whip.

5. Blues Brothers. Jake Blues sings the theme from Rawhide in Country Bob's Bunker, while cracking a conveniently placed bullwhip.

6. Bullwhip (with Rhonda Fleming and Guy Madison.) GM is an underappreciated talent.

7. Mutiny on the Bounty. I seem to remember some sailors getting flogged.

8. Jailhouse Rock. I vaguely remember Elvis getting flogged.

9. The Ten Commandments. I also seem to remember some Israelites getting flogged. "I can flick a fly from my horse's ear without breaking his stride," - Vincent Price as he gently pets his whip in what I think is the best whip related scene from The Ten Commandments,

Whip It Good

[Source: Good Times Society]

posted by 88956 @ 11:55 PM, ,

ABC News analyst: 50-50 chance that explosion brought down Air France jet from Rio to Paris

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John Nance, the former FAA administrator, and now an aviation consultant to ABC News, says that there's a 50-50 chance that the missing Air France jet went down in an explosion. The story was just on ABC. They tended to downplay Nance's comments, but I have to admit, i was wondering about the possibility of terrorism as well. Obviously, it's too soon - and it's suspicious that no terrorist group is claiming credit, since they're usually not very shy about such things.

ABC News analyst: 50-50 chance that explosion brought down Air France jet from Rio to Paris

[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]

ABC News analyst: 50-50 chance that explosion brought down Air France jet from Rio to Paris

[Source: Health News]

ABC News analyst: 50-50 chance that explosion brought down Air France jet from Rio to Paris

[Source: Wb News]

ABC News analyst: 50-50 chance that explosion brought down Air France jet from Rio to Paris

[Source: World News]

ABC News analyst: 50-50 chance that explosion brought down Air France jet from Rio to Paris

[Source: Advertising News]

posted by 88956 @ 11:43 PM, ,

What Kind of Book Will Bob Woodward Write About Obama?

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What Kind of Book Will Bob Woodward Write About Obama?

[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]

What Kind of Book Will Bob Woodward Write About Obama?

[Source: Boston News]

What Kind of Book Will Bob Woodward Write About Obama?

[Source: Broadcasting News]

What Kind of Book Will Bob Woodward Write About Obama?

[Source: Onion News]

posted by 88956 @ 11:04 PM, ,

ON GOSSIP.

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So John Cole has pretty much addressed this, but last week Jonathan Chait criticized me and others for referring to Jeffrey Rosen's piece on Sonia Sotomayor as "gossip".

"Gossip" is an effective label for those who wish to denigrate Rosen's reporting or the reputation of TNR, but it's an inaccurate one. Gossip is unverified information. Gossip is something you hear all the time--say, Senator X mistreats his staff. No serious publication can pass off gossip as reporting. However, if you actually speak with the principals firsthand--you interview staffers for Senator X who report that he mistreats them--then what you have is reporting. That's what Jeff did. He spoke first-hand with several of Sotomayor's former clerks, who provided a mixed picture. Unsurprisingly, they declined to put their names on the record, but that's utterly standard for people who are speaking in unflattering terms about people they worked with or for.

Chait is one of my favorite writers on the interwebs, but this is less than persuasive. A big publication printing gossip doesn't change the definition of gossip. The issue isn't that the information was "unverified" as in, no one told Rosen these things, it's that it was objectively unverifiable, as in, assertions about Sotomayor's intelligence are unprovable. Rosen, as a well-respected legal expert, could have made that argument himself in some form, but he didn't, possibly because he wanted to present it as an "unbiased" observation. But since the source is anonymous, there's no way to judge the individual's motivations or perspective. There's reason to give people anonymity under certain circumstances to relay unpleasant information about a colleague or a superior, but not when that information can't be verified. Anonymous, unverifiable information is gossip.

Most oddly, Chait suggests I, along with others have some sort of agenda against the New Republic. I can only speak for myself, but in my many posts on Sotomayor and Rosen, I didn't say anything about the New Republic except that to identify the publication Rosen had been writing in.?

-- A. Serwer

ON GOSSIP.

[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]

ON GOSSIP.

[Source: Circulation News]

ON GOSSIP.

[Source: Online News]

ON GOSSIP.

[Source: News Article]

ON GOSSIP.

[Source: 11 Alive News]

posted by 88956 @ 10:24 PM, ,

Cheney Supports Gay Marriage

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It's not surprising when Vice President Dick Cheney disagrees with President Obama. But it is surprising when he takes a more progressive position than the president.

Said Cheney: "I think that freedom means freedom for everyone. As many of you know, one of my daughters is gay, and it is something we have lived with for a long time in our family. I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish. Any kind of arrangement they wish. The question of whether or not there ought to be a federal statute to protect this, I don't support. I do believe that... historically the way marriage has been regulated is at the state level. It has always been a state issue and I think that is the way it ought to be handled, on a state-by-state basis... But I don't have any problem with that. People ought to get a shot at that."

Cheney Supports Gay Marriage

[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]

Cheney Supports Gay Marriage

[Source: The Daily News]

Cheney Supports Gay Marriage

[Source: Rome News]

Cheney Supports Gay Marriage

[Source: The Daily News]

Cheney Supports Gay Marriage

[Source: News 4]

posted by 88956 @ 10:14 PM, ,

Obama On LGBT Pride Month

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A presidential proclamation marking Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month.

Available in full after the jump.

Obama On LGBT Pride Month

[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]

Obama On LGBT Pride Month

[Source: News]

Obama On LGBT Pride Month

[Source: 11 Alive News]

Obama On LGBT Pride Month

[Source: World News]

Obama On LGBT Pride Month

[Source: Duluth News]

posted by 88956 @ 8:57 PM, ,

Conservatives launch Sotomayor attack

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Prominent Republicans and conservative interest groups seek to portray Sonia Sotomayor as racist and un-American

Prominent Republicans and conservative interest groups have unleashed a campaign to portray President Barack Obama's supreme court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, as racist for suggesting that white men don't always make the best judges and un-American for using a Spanish pronunciation of her name.

What Obama has portrayed as Sotomayor's strength as an American of Puerto Rican descent raised in the Bronx who made it to Princeton and Yale, bringing areas of experience and understanding not immediately evident among the white male majority on the supreme court, is being played by her opponents as evidence that she was nominated because she has a racial agenda.

Newt Gingrich, the Republican former speaker of the house of representatives, and Karl Rove, George Bush's chief strategist, have both called Sotomayor "racist" and said she should withdraw as a nominee over comments she made in 2001. In a talk at the University of California, she offered the view that a female Hispanic judge would better understand certain issues around race and gender than a white male.

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life," she said. "Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging."

To some Americans, Sotomayor's comments appear self-evident. They point to the personal experience that Thurgood Marshall brought as a black man elevated to the supreme court during the civil rights era. But conservatives said her comments are evidence that she will be biased against whites and men.

Gingrich, in a Twitter feed to more than 340,000 followers, said she should resign. "Imagine a judicial nominee said, 'My experience as a white man makes me better than a Latina woman.' New racism is no better than old racism," wrote Gingrich.

He sent a second tweet a few minutes later saying: "White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw."

Rove and two Republican members of congress also called Sotomayor racist.

The White House warned the Republicans to be "exceedingly careful" about such language. Some Republican strategists said the tactic could backfire if it alienates large numbers of Hispanics who support the party.

But other conservatives took up the cudgel.

Rush Limbaugh, the country's most popular talk radio host with millions of listeners, said the party should press the issue.

"If the GOP [Republican party] allows itself to be trapped in the false premise that it's racist and sexist and must show the world that it isn't, then the GOP is extinct," he said.

Critics are also using Sotomayor's pronunciation of her own name as a stick to beat her. The judge, whose parents hail from the Spanish-speaking US territory of Puerto Rico, uses a Hispanic pronunciation. Some critics have taken up a call by a prominent conservative magazine, the National Review, arguing that she should Anglicise it. The writer, Mark Krikorian, said that "there ought to be limits" to the demands made on English-speakers to try and pronounce foreign names.

While the accusations of racism are considered extreme among many Americans, they are likely to shape the challenges to Sotomayor when she faces her congressional confirmation hearing.

Obama sees Sotomayor's background as reflecting the "quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people's hopes and struggles, as an essential ingredient" he said he wants to see in the next supreme court justice.

But that experience and understanding is being interpreted by some Republicans as bias. Senator Orrin Hatch, a member of the judiciary committee, portrayed Obama's desire for empathy in a supreme court justice as "a code word for an activist judge".

Hatch, said that while he is keeping an open mind, the judge will have to answer for her 2001 comments. He said he will not support her if she intends to use the law to implement social policy.

"I will focus on determining whether Judge Sotomayor is committed to deciding cases based only on the law as made by the people and their elected representatives, not on personal feelings or politics," Hatch said in a statement.

Critics have also latched on to Sotomayor's history of legal activism in the 1980s when she served on the board of a legal group tackling discrimination against minorities in New York and cases involving alleged racism involved in police brutality and the imposition of the death penalty.

The group won cases that redrew constituency boundaries to increase the number of Hispanic elected officials. It also launched a defamation case, and lost, against a former Reagan administration official for claiming that most Puerto Ricans in the city were on food stamps.