New Orleans has only been underwater for a day or so, but I guess it’s never too early for hair-trigger charges of racism to surface. The latest meme is that Yahoo! News is racist because it reports that black people “loot” while white people “find” things. Blogger Dustin3000 displays the following picture and asks readers if they notice anything different between them:

I know, I know! The man in the first photo is holding a garbage bag full of junk, which is consistent with having entered into a store and looted it, while the man and woman depicted below hold only two items they reportedly found elsewhere. No? That’s not it? OK, how about this, then: the stories were written by two different news agencies, with different reporting policies, and those big racist meanies at Yahoo! had the gall to carry both companies’ feeds.

Using that strategy, of course, one can “prove” just about anything. Maybe now someone will “prove” Google News is run by a bunch of anti-Semites who think Israel is guilty of terrorism but Hamas and al-Qaeda are militants at worst, or freedom fighters, at best. It can’t be that hard to do; just locate one article written by al Jazeera, Indymedia or any of the other nutball organizations Google considers “news,” and two more from Reuters or the BBC.

UPDATE: Via commenter Geoff, Chris Graythen, the photographer who wrote the “finding” piece weighs in. Apparently, he chose the word “finding” rather than “looting” because … surprise of all surprises … that’s what he thinks happened:

I wrote the caption about the two people who ‘found’ the items. I believed in my opinion, that they did simply find them, and not ‘looted’ them in the definition of the word. The people were swimming in chest deep water, and there were other people in the water, both white and black. I looked for the best picture. there were a million items floating in the water – we were right near a grocery store that had 5+ feet of water in it. it had no doors. the water was moving, and the stuff was floating away. These people were not ducking into a store and busting down windows to get electronics. They picked up bread and cokes that were floating in the water. They would have floated away anyhow. I wouldn’t have taken in, because I wouldn’t eat anything that’s been in that water. But I’m not homeless. (well, technically I am right now.)

Never mind that, though. To the race pimps, all that matters is that one news agency accused a looter of looting, another news agency didn’t accuse two non-looters of looting, therefore, everyone’s a racist.

UPDATE x2: The offending page has now been “privatized,” which I assume is a euphemism for “taken down in embarrassment.” Nevertheless, the Idiette insists an apology is due – from the AP, of course, not from her.

UPDATE x3: Snopes muddies the waters further, alleging it is “true” that the news described a black guy as “looting” and two white guys as “finding.” They are reasonably clear on the fact that the AFP and the AP are two different news agencies, but you have to read their article carefully, thoroughly and a bit defensively to figure out the real issue: the black guy in one picture really was carrying a bag of stuff he almost certainly looted (AP photographer Dave Martin claims to have witnessed it), and the two white guys in the other really were holding two individual grocery items they almost certainly did not loot.

The Other Xrlq is calling it quits converting to a group blog. The original Xrlq may eventually do so as well, but not before at least four of the following events occur:

1. Spoons becomes a group blog, too.
2. Sunnis in Iraq embrace the new federalist constitution, admitting sheepishly that their past opposition was “all about ooooiiiiiilllll.”
3. Eric Alterman admits there really is a liberal media, even if it’s not quite as bat-sh*t crazy liberal as he is.
4. Cindy Sheehan admits that while Iraq has its problems and it sure does suck to lose a son, “removing Saddam Hussein from power was, on balance, a good thing.”
5. Hell freezes over.
6. Hell, Michigan doesn’t.
7. Michael Moore admits that Roger and Me, Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11 and just about everything else he’s said or done since “that third grade term paper I did on Vietnam” has been based on a lie, a mistruth, an untruth, a half truth or a quarter truth.
8. Jerry Falwell admits that while his faith in God remains strong, “there’s a danged good case to be made for atheism, too.”
9. Hugo Chavez admits he didn’t really win that recall “election” last year, although he did win a lot of money by betting his best friend that Jimmy Carter would fall for it.
10. Pat Robertson admits himself to a mental institution.

Much has been made lately over Special Order 40, which purports to prohibit L.A.P.D. officers from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to inquire into the immigration status of any individual. I say “purports” because the order is blatantly illegal. Unfortunately, relatively little has been made of that fact, which I didn’t know about myself until I recently heard Rod Bernson talk about it on KFI last week. Section 834b requires all law enforcement to cooperate fully with ICE, and to report anyone they suspect of being here illegally. Just in case that wasn’t clear enough, subsection (c) of that statute goes on to expressly prohibit “[a]ny legislative, administrative, or other action by a city, county, or other legally authorized local governmental entity with jurisdictional boundaries, or by a law enforcement agency, to prevent or limit the cooperation required” by the statute.

It’s too bad California doesn’t have an attorney general to enforce the law. Since we don’t, maybe it’s time for cops subject to this illegal, unenforceable non-order to literally “take the law into their own hands” by actually complying with it for a change? Think of it as civil obedience. What’s Mr. Rikki Klieman going to do, fire them?

The Los Angeles Times weighs in against the No Competition for American Airlines Act Wright Amendment. Good.

I think this class should take a field trip here.

I’m not sure which is the most disturbing: the fact that I’m the #4 hit for “muppet porn,” the fact that this means three other people outrank me, or the fact that someone actually went Googling in search of muppet porn.

First, the good news: apparently, the victim of that horrendous videotaped 2002 beating Matt Drudge exhumed last week (and which I blogged about as well) survived the attack, and is in good enough health to be pissed off about the fact that this video is being broadcast all over the Internet and local TV news. Her injuries included dizziness and some hearing loss, although it’s not clear from the KGO story whether she still has these problems now or if they were temporary following the attack.

Now for the bad news: the Oakland P.D. has been asleep at the switch for three years, and now, according to KRON account, the statute of limitations appears to have run. Or has it?

(more…)

You know, it sure is a good thing that John Roberts donated some of his free time to help some far-left attorneys win a pro-gay-rights case a few years ago. If he hadn’t, they might, like, oppose him.

UPDATE: Gay bloggers do better.

Lately, credulous Moonbats everywhere have been attempting to whitewash Cindy “Don’t Question My Patriotism” Sheehan’s most unpatriotic statement that “[t]his country is not worth dying for” by claiming that “this country” was a reference to Iraq, and not to the U.S. Don’t believe them. Here’s the quote, in context:

I take responsibility partly for my son’s death, too. I was raised in a country by a public school system that taught us that America was good, that America was just. America has been killing people, like my sister over here says, since we first stepped on this continent, we have been responsible for death and destruction. I passed on that bullshit to my son and my son enlisted. I’m going all over the country telling moms: “This country is not worth dying for. If we’re attacked, we would all go out. We’d all take whatever we had. I’d take my rolling pin and I’d beat the attackers over the head with it. But we were not attacked by Iraq. We might not even have been attacked by Osama bin Laden if [drowned out by applause]. 9/11 was their Pearl Harbor to get their neo-con agenda through and, if I would have known that before my son was killed, I would have taken him to Canada. I would never have let him go and try and defend this morally repugnant system we have.

Here’s a tidbit from an ad for the law offices of James Sokolove that ran on Fox News Weekend Live today:

If you or a loved one took Vioxx and suffered a heart attack, stroke or death, call 1-800-807-0594.

So, if you took Vioxx and are now dead, be sure to call that number pronto.