by Smitty
“I never stab anybody in the back. I always stab in the front.”
Keep your pimp hand strong, Nigel!
via American Power
Category: Uncategorized
Resting Place For Mainstream Media
by Smitty
Slashdot links the MOMA announcing an exhibit: ‘Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop‘
…the first major exhibition devoted to the history of manipulated photography before the digital age. Featuring some 200 visually captivating photographs created between the 1840s and 1990s in the service of art, politics, news, entertainment, and commerce, the exhibition offers a provocative new perspective on the history of photography as it traces the medium’s complex and changing relationship to visual truth.
After this election, I expect to see a serious book or three in the specifics of how media has been manipulated, first in TV Age, and now in the Internet Age. [Aside: aren’t these Ages getting younger as we go?]
I don’t see much value in getting angry about this. The real feedback loop that will minimize the shenanigans, and drive people toward honesty is laughter. You can’t make dishonesty illegal through a court of law. You can only minimize dishonesty through the court of public opinion. The likely penalty in lost power has got to exceed whatever transient value gained by, for example, claiming some random pile of trip on YouTube triggered a demonstration that led to the death of an Ambassador and three others.
But that’s just the extreme example. Far less overt examples of spinning in the media, like the Katie Couric interview with Sarah Palin, or the infamous edit of a man carrying a rifle at a Tea Party event, beckon. As we forge a post-Progressive future in the United States, I think the realization will dawn that escaping total collapse was a near-run thing. It’s certainly too early to rule out a partial collapse.
Stacy McCain really should set about compiling a hefty list of examples of media bias.
The Obama-Clinton “Prisoner’s Dilemma”
by Smitty
While they have a senior-subordinate relationship, at that altitude, Obama and Clinton are more like peers, especially in the broader scope of the Democrat Party, where Barack is hoping Bill will loan enough luster to Obama to somehow win re-election. Thus, Benghazi-quiddick (we should limit the -gate suffix on scandals lacking a death toll) resembles the classic game theory example The Prisoner’s Dilemma:
Two men are arrested, but the police do not have enough information for a conviction. The police separate the two men, and offer both the same deal: if one testifies against his partner (defects/betrays), and the other remains silent (cooperates with/assists his partner), the betrayer goes free and the one that remains silent gets a one-year sentence. If both remain silent, both are sentenced to only one month in jail on a minor charge. If each ‘rats out’ the other, each receives a three-month sentence. Each prisoner must choose either to betray or remain silent; the decision of each is kept secret from his partner. What should they do? If it is assumed that each player is only concerned with lessening his own time in jail, the game becomes a non-zero sum game where the two players may either assist or betray the other. The sole concern of the prisoners seems to be increasing his own reward. The interesting symmetry of this problem is that the optimal decision for each is to betray the other, even though they would be better off if they both cooperated.
Here, we have two public figures who both look negligent over a tragedy. And they hold grudges against each other going back. They can both get hammered together, or can try to minimize their damage by pinning blame on the other.
| Clinton absorbs | Obama accuses | |
|---|---|---|
| Clinton accuses | In this variant, Clinton steps up and takes responsibility for failures as Secretary of State, scuttling her 2016 hopes, with the idea of saving Obama’s re-election. I’ll point you to Kevin DuJan at HillBuzz for that analysis. |
If they both escalates the accusatory posturing, then the bleeding may not stop until both are completely ruined. Yet, accusations are their stock in trade. They just have to do it subtly. |
| Obama absorbs | They both stand there and take the hit. Re-election now, and possible election in 2016 for Hillary only happens if the electorate enjoys some truly raging outburst of amnesia. Unlikely in Internet Age, thank you, Al Gore. Taking responsibility is something you make your opposition do. Never apologize, never explain. Which outs both of them as lousy leaders. |
Obama steps up and admits how badly he tubed Benghazi-quiddick, in order to save Hillary’s 2016 presidential hopes. |
The bad news about this ‘game’ is that the price of admission is four human sacrifices. Those deaths were tragic for the four, and their families. The shame for the United States, and the increased boldness of our enemies, is far worse. Then there is the damage done to the validity, the basic confidence the people have in our government, brought on by the shameless deceits of the Obama Administration.
No good can come of the Obama-Clinton game. Beyond the entertainment value, the best we can hope for is minimal collateral damage.
More at Granite Grok, and Roger Simon analyzes the electoral impact and the general pulse of the Left.
via Breitbart
Update: thank you for linking, Instapundit, Hogewash, Victory Girls, and Dinocrat.
Update II: linked at God’s Own Crunk. Also, for those who dislike the labeling in the table, please feel free to offer an improved version somewhere on this vast internet. Otherwise, my guess is you’re firing for effect. In the wrong direction.
Update III: more at Daily Pundit:
Some people think Barack Obama is cold and calculating. I don’t. I think he’s a tangled ball of twisted emotions, primary among which are fear and hatred. Some part of him might understand that he’ll damage himself by trying to damage the Clintons, but I just don’t think he’ll be able to help himself.
Getting inside that noggin isn’t the least bit interesting to me. I just want to see BHO distanced from levers of power.
Michael Brutsch, Troll Behind Reddit’s ‘Jailbait’ and ‘Creepshots’ Sections
A couple of quick points up front:
- I’ve never used Reddit, and had no idea that it rivaled Twitter and Facebook in terms of viral online distribution.
- Adrian Chen and Gawker are vile scum.
Nevertheless, there is a car-wreck-on-the-highway factor in Chen’s article about Michael “Violentacrez” Brutsch that makes you stare with ghastly fascination at this seamy underside of the Web. Perhaps the grimmest part is when Brutsch begs for mercy:
When I called Brutsch that Wednesday afternoon and told him I knew who he was . . . he pleaded with me in an affectless monotone not to reveal his name.
“My wife is disabled. I got a home and a mortgage, and if this hits the fan, I believe this will affect negatively on my employment,” he said. “I do my job, go home watch TV, and go on the internet. I just like riling people up in my spare time.” . . .
The problem was, he explained, that if his identity got out, his many enemies would start attaching lies to his name because they simply don’t like his views. They would say he was a child pornographer, when all he had done was spearhead the distribution of thousands of legal photos of underage girls. . . .They would Google-bomb his name and the word “pedophile” along with his publicly-traded company’s name. . . .
He needed to keep his anonymity to protect his ability to express things many people think but hardly anyone says. With Violentacrez, “I got the freedom to talk about my personal life, my personal feelings… I’m sure there’s more than one person in this building who’s a pervert,” he said, referring his office building.
He asked a number of times if there was anything he could do to keep me from outing him.
This is the stage of Kübler-Ross called “bargaining.” And as Dr. Phil might say, “How’s that workin’ out for ya, Mike?”
Of course, Chen had made up his mind to “dox” Brutsch, a 49-year-old resident of Arlington, Texas, before he ever contacted him, and you’d have to be a sadist to enjoy reading Brutsch’s desperate attempt to avoid the consequences of his exposure, despite the fact that Brutsch is a vile sociopathic monster undeserving of sympathy.
What do I mean by “vile sociopathic monster”? Brutsch created (and was a sort of online cheerleader for) some of the worst possible stuff on Reddit, most especially the “Jailbait” section:
His speciality is distributing images of scantily-clad underage girls . . .
Violentacrez decided to create a safe space for people sexually attracted to underage girls to share their photo stashes. . . .
Jailbait was the online equivalent of systematized street harassment. Users posted snapshots of tween and teenage girls, often in bikinis and skirts. Many of these were lifted from their Facebook accounts and thrown in front of Jailbait’s 20,000 horny subscribers.
Violentacrez and his fellow moderators worked hard to make sure every girl on jailbait was underage, diligently deleting any photos whose subjects seemed older than 16 or 17. Violentacrez himself posted hundreds of photos. Jailbait became one of Reddit’s most popular subreddits, generating millions of pageviews a month. “Jailbait” was for a time the second biggest search term bringing traffic to Reddit . . .
Yeeeesshh. “Millions of pageviews a month.”
His name is Michael Brutsch — that’s B-R-U-T-S-C-H — and he lives in Arlington, Texas, and if he should suffer brutal violence at the hands of a mob of enraged parents who descend on his home, brandishing baseball bats and tire irons, well, that would probably be illegal.
Far be it from me to condone reckless vigilantism.
In his defense, perhaps, some might protest that this was all just harmless online fun, and that IRL (in real life), Brutsch is an honest, decent, responsible, law-abiding citizen. However . . .
In 2010, Violentacrez hosted a legendary “Ask Me Anything” thread” . . . He was asked what was the creepiest thing he’d done “IRL” . . . . “That’d be a tough call,” Violentacrez wrote, “Perhaps oral sex with my 19-year-old stepdaughter.” It was completely consensual, he claimed in the post, and went on to brag about how awesome it had been in graphic detail.
This happened over ten years ago, Violentacrez claimed. When his then-wife, the girl’s mother, found out, she “got mad, then got over it,” Violentacrez wrote.
OK, either (a) he was lying, or else (b) he’s a complete monster. And even if he was lying, what kind of monster would tell such a lie?
Chen says he was tipped to to Brutsch’s identity by “a former online friend . . . [who] had become disgusted with his obsession with underage girls.” Brutsch was responsible for a lot of other offensive content at Reddit, but “Jailbait . . . apparently sprung from a sincere interest.”
An “obsession with underage girls”? A “sincere interest”? And Brutsch — again, that’s B-R-U-T-S-C-H, of Arlington, Texas — boasted “in graphic detail” about the “awesome” sex he had with his stepdaughter?
Probably nothing to it. Just harmless Internet shenanigans.
On the other hand, lots of folks in Texas have guns. Maybe some of those gun-toting Texans will notice the part of Chen’s article excerpted by Britton Peele of the Dallas Morning News:
The Gawker story contains quotes from both Brutsch and others who have interacted with him, including one user who once visited him while on business in Arlington. ”He’s a really a good guy,” she said. “He has the manners of a Southern gentleman. A bunch of neighborhood kids were over playing at his house.”
Reckon he has a “sincere interest” in those “neighborhood kids”?
B-R-U-T-S-C-H . . .
That Winning Combination
Administration ‘Completely Wrong’ About Libya, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz Admits, But ‘That Doesn’t Mean It Was False’
Ladies and gentlemen, The Queen of Unintentional Comedy:
PIERS MORGAN: “It is pretty un-American to be putting out completely false statements before you know the facts. Isn’t it?”
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: “Piers, it is not okay for you to be saying that the administration was putting out completely false statements. They put out information that they had at the time based on the intelligence they were given…”
MORGAN: “That turned out to be completely wrong–”
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: “Well, that doesn’t mean it was false.”
MORGAN: “What?”
Hat-tip: Marooned in Marin on Twitter.
The Tears of Unfathomable Sadness
Andrew Sullivan emotionally implodes over the latest poll:
The Pew poll is devastating, just devastating. Before the debate, Obama had a 51 – 43 lead; now, Romney has a 49 – 45 lead. That’s a simply unprecedented reversal for a candidate in October. . . .
Seriously: has that kind of swing ever happened this late in a campaign? Has any candidate lost 18 points among women voters in one night ever? And we are told that when Obama left the stage that night, he was feeling good. That’s terrifying. On every single issue, Obama has instantly plummeted into near-oblivion. . . .
Look: I’m trying to rally some morale, but I’ve never seen a candidate this late in the game, so far ahead, just throw in the towel in the way Obama did last week – throw away almost every single advantage he had with voters and manage to enable his opponent to seem as if he cares about the middle class as much as Obama does. . . .
Read the rest. I should resist the temptation of schadenfreude.
I should. But I can’t.
Rule 5 Sunday: Bat Out Of Hell
— compiled by Wombat-socho
It’s that time again. Lock the door to the office, draw the blinds, put your feet up and enjoy the view. Disclaimer: many, some, or all of these links may lead to pictures of nekkid wimmens most unsuitable for work. The management is not responsible, period. You is been warned.
The Valley of the Shadow lost no time in submitting Louise Robey as his Gothy Muse for this month. Hit his tip jar! Brian Noggle returns with an examination of the shoulder padding industry’s collapse, Laughing Conservative goes Down Under for Emily Scott, and the Eye of Polyphemus is on Sarah Shahi.Randy’s Roundtable returns from a week’s bereavement leave with Shannan Click, while Senator Blutarsky gives the people what they want: Olivia Munn. First Street Journal doubles up on the Rule 5 this week after taking a week off; this week’s twofer is all about women drivers – or, more correctly, airplane drivers and wrench wenches.
Our favorite cowblogger serves up Hannah Simone, the ever-delightful Zooey, and Courtney Bingham.
A View From The Beach continues to torture us with pictures from his Italian vacation, Rome with and without rubble, the isle of Capri, the Amalfi Coast, Pompeii, and Florence.
This week, El Opinador Compulsivo presents Fifty Shades of Rule 5, beginning with Malena Morgan, Emma Mae, a video of the Miss Bum Bum Brazil contestants, Megan McKenzie, Mrs. F. Krueger, and a special mention for Kandi Strauss, who normally wouldn’t have met Sr. Opinador’s exacting standards but was included because of her, ah, unique approach to traffic boosting, which will NOT be adopted here at The Other McCain. 😉
Soylent Green gets back in sync with Monday Motivationer Kerie, Tuesday Titillation Kimber, some discombobulation, Humpday Hawt Jessica, some Debate Snooch, counterprogramming, Corsetcare: The Debate, Happy Hour Hottie Bailey, Overnightie Sunny, and a Spamgasm. (No canned meats were harmed in that last post.)
Proof Positive’s Friday Night Babe is Tiffani Amber Thiessen, his vintage babe is Mara Corday, and along with Sex In Advertising, we get the obligatory 49ers cheerleaders. Dustbury only has one link this week, but it’s a Zooeypalooza. (Because there is never enough Zooey.) At The Camp of the Saints, it’s Natalia Belova, the Rule 5 News, and Pam Geller. Three Beers Later busts our cultural preconceptions by bringing us Gangnam Style without the fat dudes. ;_;
The Daley Gator’s DaleyBabes this week included Ayano Washizu (with a Rule 5 roundup), Lacey Chabert, Kristianna Loken, Christine Lakin, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Candace Smith, and Keenyah Hill.
Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Links for next week’s Rule 5 Sunday should be sent to the Rule 5 Wombat mailbox no later than Saturday, October 13.