ACORN Videomaker James O'Keefe's Funder: Facebook Investor Peter Thiel

I'm really glad this aspect of the story is out now.

Leftovers from the reported volume of money "Paypal don" Peter Thiel gave O'Keefe for his previous stunt in February could have easily been used to fund the ACORN videos filmed this summer.

There's just no way that the February "Taxpayers Clearing House" thing cost $30,000. [via The Village Voice; another fun story about Thiel's politics here at Valleywag]

"Huh, Collateral Damage"

George Clooney has made a defecation out of one of my all-time-favorite nonfiction books. (Thanks, jerk. Really: Thanks. Thanks especially for the ham-fisted, Big Lebowski stunt casting.)

Beep Boop* seems enthusiastic about this turkey; though Videogum is more in my camp—but: Why trust us? Why not view the trailer and a clip or two from the actual Jon Ronson documentary and decide for yourself?

[Note: This last clip is of Jim Channon, the man Jeff Bridges is playing in the Clooney adaptation. Do you not notice how much more amazing and wildly implausible and frankly more compelling the real guy is?! Ahhhhhhhhrrrrrrrggggggghhhhh!!!1!!]

*My 2003-era blog idols are in their twilight.

Someone Had To Say It.

But because this is a Washington Post editorial by a "reasonable" Republican no criticism of the conservative movement may be proffered without a "pox on both houses" attack on Democrats for doing the exact same thing, all the time, but worse.

Because Nancy Pelosi (D-Boogeyman) accused town hall disrupters of "carrying swastikas" (they were). And because unnamed "liberal antiwar protests" were chock-full of Hitler mustaches. Because Michael Moore said something dumb about the Patriot Act. And because Representative Brian Baird decried "Brownshirt tactics."

Here's the thing about that last one: the people intentionally disrupting town hall events and trying to turn them into anarchic carnivals of rage and possible violence are literally, actually guilty of "Brownshirt tactics."

Both the Nazis and Mussolini had Brownshirts and Blackshirts, their violent followers (many of whom were angry, disenfranchised-feeling war vets resentful of elites), attack socialists and union leaders, often on behalf of capitalists unhappy with leftist governments. Brownshirts marched through socialist strongholds in order to provoke attacks, and then they ginned up more support by holding up those who were attacked as martyrs. Does that sound familiar?

Thanks for this, Pareene. [via Gawker]

Pollution In My Neighborhood Explained By WNYC

Ewwwww!

Governor Rod Blagojevich

WTF is this unbelievably ballsy blanketing of the court of public opinion?

Intellectual Property Theft [Forever 21 vs. A Girl At Threadless]

I know the internet is always illegally downloading your stuff, Corporate America, but that is no reason to steal its ideas. [ finkenstein]

Dude Be A Caricature

Remember that scene from the first episode of Nathan Barley wherein some "urban lifestyle magazine" goons defend the hipness of a crass "rock/paper/scissors" ripoff by saying (paraphrase): "Idiots think it's cool because it's rude, when actually it's cool because it looks like it's cool because it's rude"? (Here it is at minute 2:43 if you missed it.)

Well Gavin McInnes, formerly of Vice Magazine, just did something like that stupid, but for real.

(Of course, I still check this site regularly, so I really shouldn't complain)

Jerk Behavior, Explosion-Related, Oil Companies

With the past few years of record profits, you'd expect oil firms to be able to responsibly deal with massive explosions that ruin people's homes. The fact that your instincts are so totally, flagrantly wrong is why no one pays you the big bucks:

[Via Josh Spear. Found on BeepBoop.] Nearly three years ago, Ian Silverstein, one of my dear friends and guest contributors to this site was simply minding his own business, asleep, when his home and everything in it was destroyed by Britain’s largest peacetime explosion.

His life would never be the same.

It’s now known as the Buncefield Depot explosion, and little has been done to remedy the situation for the people affected by this massive incident. Ian lost everything, his beautiful home, all of his belongings, and years later he suffers from symptoms caused by the blast. Frankly, he’s lucky to be alive– and he knows it, but deserves closure and help from the companies that caused it.

Literally, nothing has been done to help him with his situation — or anybody for that matter. The local authorities have failed him, the governments have failed him, insurance has failed him, and the companies that operated the facilities — Total and Chevron — have ducked blame entirely. The massive companies made more than £18 billion in cash last year, but can’t help a few people out when a leak in their tanks caused massive and catastrophic damage to dozens of people’s lives.

A Walking Tour Of The Homes Of Washington DC's Plutocratic Overlords

[Thanks, Emily Z.!]

Mutually Consensual Murder In 18th Century New England

From contributing editor for Rolling Stone and Harper's, Jeff Sharlet:

There aren't a lot of readers out there who'll be intrigued by the news that Library Journal's Nancy E. Adams considers my "evocation of the mood of theologian Jonathan Edwards’s work" in my recent book The Family "one of the most compelling this reviewer has ever read," but for a literary sinner in the hands of an angry God like me, it's high praise. The media response to the book has focused almost entirely on the contemporary politics of The Family and the group's role in the Cold War, but for my money, the scariest pages in the book are those about Jonathan Edwards, the most brilliant thinker -- and possibly the creepiest -- in 18th century New England. I wrote part of my chapter about Edwards in a cabin in the woods at the MacDowell Colony. I'd stay up late into the night, reading and re-reading a crumbling, early 19th century edition of Edwards' A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton, a bestseller in its day. I was stuck on -- maybe trapped in -- the story of a young woman named Abigail Hutchinson, a subject of great fascination to the theologian. But I didn't know why until one night, around three in the morning, the fog of arcane language cleared. I realized that I was reading an account of a mutually consensual murder; perverse ascetism; the slow starvation to death of Hutchinson under Edwards' approving gaze.

I ran through the woods in the dark up to the main hall of the writer's colony, where there's a stack of VHS tapes next to an old TV. Somebody had left P.T. Anderson's Boogie Nights, behind. I'd seen it before, but I watched it again, an escape, both fabulous and bleak, from the Edwardsian mood that in the woods seemed to surround me.

[via the Revealer, which I always knew I had in my Google reader for a reason.]

UN Diplomats Using Immunity Status For Human Trafficking, Cooking, Cleaning and the Dishes

Meet Lauro Baja: a former UN Ambassador with a smile like some Filipino Rupert Murdoch. Baja's a defendant (along with his wife Norma, their adult daughter and the family-owned Labaire Travel Agency) in 15 civil charges including trafficking, forced labor and racketeering. After filing a motion motion to dismiss all 15 civil charges last July, Baja is now invoking the Vienna Convention and is seeking the shelter of diplomatic immunity.

While most of these specific charges stem from the Baja's escaped housekeeper, Marichu Baoanan, the practice seems to be scandalously widespread with upwards of 42 separate allegations noted by the Government Accounting Office. Worse still, the U.S. State Department keeps no record of abuse allegations accusing foreign diplomats—probably for the same reason that the Department of the Interior is toking up, snorting blow and having sex with oil industry reps. But let's take these scandals one at a time:

Baoanan, 39, a nurse, came to New York from Manila to the United States to earn money for her family. According to a federal lawsuit filed in June, she paid $5,000 to Baja and a travel agency run by Baja's wife for a promised nursing job.

But she ended up working full-time as the Baja's personal maid and was paid only $100 for three months of work, including cooking, doing laundry and cleaning the four-level ambassador's residence in Manhattan, she said.

[...] besides long hours with low pay, Baoanan was forced to sleep in the basement with only a sheet, her employers refused to buy proper shoes and clothes, and she was called "stupid" and "slow."

During one incident, she said the former ambassador "just stared" and did nothing as Facundo's 5-year-old son hit her with a broom, spat and kicked her in the face.

"My eyes became blurry ... from crying every night," she said, breaking down. "They did not treat me like a person."

After three months, she eventually escaped with the help of a fellow Filipina, lawyers for Baoanan said.

In the Bajas' defense, they do throw a nice cotillion:


[Via The Phillipine Reporter, The Epoch Times and the activist blog, End Trafficking]

Calling all H.P. Lovecraft Readers

I need you to let me know if this is an accurate imitation — or merely Lemony Snicket-style gothic camp masquerading as a highly specific and intellectually engaged parody:

SELECTIONS FROM
H.P. LOVECRAFT'S
BRIEF TENURE AS A
WHITMAN'S SAMPLER
COPYWRITER

[Excerpt:]

Chocolate Cherry Cordial
You must not think me mad when
I tell you what I found below the
thin shell of chocolate used to disguise
this bonbon's true face. Yes!

Hidden beneath its rich exterior
is a hideously moist cherry cordial!
What deranged architect could have
engineered this non-Euclidean aberration?
I dare not speculate.

Yeah, no kidding it's from McSweeney's. [via Maud Newton]

Batmobile To The Dark Side

It looks like political jerks have figured out my main qualms with The Dark Knight and are touting them all as a good thing. For example, the WSJ's Andrew Klavan:

There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.

Thanks, doofus. Remember that time Bush personally put himself in harm's way? Oh, wait he didn't ever.

Creepy Japanese McDonald's Ad Parody Translated

An update to a previous post.

Reservoir Water! [Guess What I Finished Today!]

[Also: Enjoy* this clip from a commercial for that horrifyingly suggestive Super Soaker, the Oozinator.]

*Don't enjoy it that way, obvs. (Creep!)

I'm Loving It, This Here Strawberry Shortcake

My friend Ed translated this Japanese for me. He says:

The attached ad has big white letters which say Merry Christmas. The small letters in parentheses say 'Shit!' on the right and 'lie down' (or perhaps something more sexual) on the left.

I know this is satire, but I suspect some comic timing has been lost.