28 August 2008 @ 10:40PM >> A report from the press area at the Democratic convention:

Here in Denver, there were audible cheers in the press pavilion from multiple directions when Barack Obama walked on stage. It’s outside the convention center and no regular delegates are here — only press.

And another:

Several members of the media were seen cheering and clapping for Barack Obama as the Illinois senator accepted the Democratic nomination Thursday.

Standing on the periphery of the football field serving as the Democratic convention floor, dozens of men and women wearing green media floor passes chanted along with the crowd.

As if to underscore the media’s Obama-worshipping, today’s New York Times carries this example of ostensible journalism entitled, “For a New Political Age, a Self-Made Man,” which essentially argues that the biggest challenge for Barack Obama is overcoming how great he is.

27 August 2008 @ 7:52AM >> If Senator Barack Obama becomes president, will he use the power of government to stifle speech he doesn’t like?

The answer clearly seems to be yes, considering he is now asking the Justice Department to investigate a political ad—one that I cited on Monday—that highlights his multi-year connection with unapologetic domestic terrorist Bill Ayers.

The Politico reports (emphasis mine):

Sen. Barack Obama has launched an all-out effort to block a Republican billionaire’s efforts to tie him to domestic and foreign terrorists in a wave of negative television ads.

Obama’s campaign has written the Department of Justice demanding a criminal investigation of the “American Issues Project,” the vehicle through which Dallas investor Harold Simmons is financing the advertisements. The Obama campaign—and tens of thousands of supporters—also is pressuring television networks and affiliates to reject the ads. The effort has met with some success: CNN and Fox News are not airing the attacks.

[...]

The Obama campaign plans to punish the stations that air the ad financially, an Obama aide said, organizing his supporters to target the stations that air it and their advertisers.

[...]

Obama’s campaign has written a pair of letters to station managers carrying the ads.

[...]

“Obama supporters have now sent more than 93,000 e-mails to the Sinclair stations that have decided to run the ad,” said Obama’s spokesman Tommy Vietor. “Other stations that follow Sinclair’s lead should expect a similar response from people who don’t want the political discourse cheapened with these false, negative attacks.”

[...]

“Why would Barack Obama be friends with someone who bombed the Capitol and is proud of it?” asks the ad’s narrator.

[...]

“With all our problems, why is John McCain talking about the ’60s, trying to link Barack Obama to radical Bill Ayers?” says Obama’s ad. “McCain knows Obama denounced Ayers’ crimes, committed when Obama was just 8 years old.”

The problem for Obama isn’t that the revolutionary organization run by Ayers and his wife bombed U.S. targets when Obama was a kid, the problem is that even today the only regret Ayers has is that he wasn’t successful in overthrowing the government.

As with Reverend Wright, this is someone Obama chose to embrace.

For four years, Barack Obama chaired an organization just after it was set up by Bill Ayers to advance his education agenda in Chicago. Ayers is clearly more than just “a guy who lives in my neighborhood,” as Obama disingenuously characterized him in a debate.

Does Obama not see why his refusal to explain his relationship with former Weather Underground leaders would concern people? If so, that fact alone should disqualify him from the presidency.

Americans do not want their president to be chummy with Marxist revolutionaries who tried to overthrow the very government he would be leading. To a presidential candidate with any judgment, this would be obvious.

But not only doesn’t Obama think he owes America an explanation, his campaign is actually trying to use the Justice Department to intimidate private citizens who believe that this is an important topic to address.

It’s interesting that the Obama campaign has not yet contested any of the facts in the ad. If the ad is “an appalling lie, a disgraceful smear of the lowest kind” as the Obama campaign maintains, then demonstrate what statements are false. And then maybe sue for defamation.

Why Barack Obama would choose to work for a Marxist bomber of American government buildings is a legitimate question, but in order to prevent any questions from being asked, Obama’s resorting to totalitarian tactics.

The Messiah says it’s time to shut up.

We must not question The Messiah. He will reveal The Truth to us, but only once we discard the False Consciousness to which we so bitterly cling. He’s helping us towards The Light by saving us from any knowledge that might stand in the way of His Ascension. We must not question The Messiah.

25 August 2008 @ 9:10AM >> Barack Obama launched his political career with a fundraiser in the house of Bill Ayers, an unrepentant terrorist who—along with his wife Bernardine Dohrn—founded a radical Marxist group in the 1960s called the Weather Underground.

The Weather Underground was responsible for a number of bombings around the United States, including the U.S. Capitol building and the Pentagon.

On the morning that the World Trade Center was collapsing, the New York Times ran an article on Ayers in which he was quoted as saying, “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” You have to wonder whether Ayers felt some level of glee watching the news that day.

The relationship between Ayers and Obama is extensive: for years, they worked together on a project called the Annenberg Challenge.

You’d think the media would delve into this relationship a little. If John McCain kicked off his political career at the house of, say, a bomber of abortion clinics, you probably would have heard about it by now. But the media, so clearly in love with Barack Obama, isn’t doing its job.

In election cycles a decade or more ago, that would have mattered more. But with the establishment media’s weakening grip on controlling coverage—ask John Edwards about that—the old gatekeepers can’t prevent this news from being discussed.

If anything, the media’s reluctance to discuss Obama’s shady connections may end up torpedoing the Democrats’ chances of taking back the White House. Ironic that the media’s desire to see Obama elected ended up causing the Democrats to nominate someone who might be the least electable candidate.

Because the media hasn’t been doing its job covering Obama’s connection to Bill Ayers, ads like this one are going to resonate this fall:

22 August 2008 @ 8:03AM >> Why are AT&T and Pacific Gas & Electric co-sponsoring a political event with the hard-left lobbying group MoveOn.org?

I don’t know why...I just know that they are.

Doesn’t seem like a wise business decision to me.

(Hat tip: Mickey Kaus)

20 August 2008 @ 9:07AM >> I know Senator Joe Lieberman isn’t that popular among Democrats anymore, but this Associated Press characterization is a bit much:

His top contenders are said to include Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Less traditional choices mentioned include former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, an abortion-rights supporter, and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic vice presidential prick in 2000 who now is an independent.

18 August 2008 @ 8:07AM >> Chandler Tuttle, who did some great editing work on Indoctrinate U, is coming out with a film of his own.

2081 is his soon-to-be-released short film adapted from the Kurt Vonnegut story Harrison Bergeron. The film is set in a future society where everyone is finally equal. People who excel in any area are deliberately handicapped by the government in order to enforce equality. People with above-average strength are shackled to weights to prevent their strength from being an unfair advantage. Those deemed too intelligent must wear earpieces that emit loud crackles and noises to stifle coherent thinking.

In other words, the world has finally become the egalitarian “utopia” that today’s social engineers desire.

You can see the trailer for 2081 at the film’s website, finallyequal.com.

15 August 2008 @ 8:59AM >> With just weeks until the new school year, we’re busy preparing for the Indoctrinate U fall campus tour.

If you’re interested in a screening of Indoctrinate U at your school, contact the Moving Picture Institute.

MPI—which in addition to organizing the campus screenings also provided funding for the film—recently posted a look back at the many exciting developments since the film’s trailer was first released last spring. Here are some highlights:

On March 19, 2007, Maloney appeared on the Fox News Channel’s Hannity’s America, where he showed clips from Indoctrinate U and launched a grassroots effort to promote the film. A dedicated website, Indoctrinate-U.com, went live the day of Maloney’s Fox appearance; it featured the trailer, advance reviews, and information about upcoming events. Its most innovative feature, however, was a system for allowing visitors to sign up for screenings in their area, along with a map to track sign-ups by geographical location (our sign-up system has since drawn the praise of The Economist, National Review Online, and others who recognize its power to circumvent the closed world of Hollywood).

Throughout the spring and summer of 2007, Maloney did dozens of interviews on syndicated talk radio. He also made numerous television appearances on shows spanning the political spectrum, appearing as a guest on CNN’s Glenn Beck Show, CNN Headline News, and the Fox News Channel’s Your World with Neil Cavuto. Meanwhile, newspapers and magazines across the country regularly featured Indoctrinate U. The Washington Times ran a detailed story on the film, highlighting MPI’s role in ensuring that it got made and promoted. Noting that “it takes a movie to bring across the amazing, campus-wide power of even a single expertly conducted case of P.C. intimidation,” National Review Online said that the film has “real power.” A glowing review in the Weekly Standard attracted a link from the Drudge Report, one of the Internet’s most highly trafficked news sites. The New York Post ran an extended interview with Maloney—and the New York Times published a review that generated vigorous debate about free speech on campus.

[...]

On Friday, September 28, Indoctrinate U screened at Washington, D.C.’s prestigious John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The marquee event at the American Film Renaissance Film Festival, the screening, which MPI co-hosted with the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, was a spectacular success. A sold-out crowd of 500 awarded director Evan Coyne Maloney a standing ovation. Cable outlet Home Box Office (HBO) attended the premiere to interview filmmakers and members of the audience for a documentary on the assault on the First Amendment.

[...]

These reactions tally with those of seasoned Hollywood veterans. At an October 13 event at the home of Patricia Heaton (Everybody Loves Raymond) and David Hunt (24), the film was celebrated and distributed to 200 industry insiders. Glowing reviews followed from Heaton, Kelsey Grammer (Frasier), Gary Sinise (Forrest Gump, CSI: NY), Jon Voight (Midnight Cowboy, Mission Impossible), and David Zucker (Scary Movie, Airplane, The Naked Gun).

Indoctrinate U’s impact has been felt in academe as well as Hollywood. Prominent professors such as Stanley Fish have grudgingly acknowledged Indoctrinate U’s timeliness and power. “Academics often bridle at the picture of their activities presented by Maloney and other conservative critics, and accuse them of grossly caricaturing and exaggerating what goes on in the classroom,” Fish wrote in an October posting at his highly trafficked New York Times blog. “Maybe so, but so long as there are those who confuse advocacy with teaching, and so long as faculty colleagues and university administrators look the other way, the academy invites the criticism it receives in this documentary.”

[...]

On January 29, Indoctrinate U kicked off its campus tour with a hugely successful screening at Duke University. Coordinated by campus groups from across the political spectrum, the highlight of the night was a sparkling discussion session with Maloney and Halvorssen that exemplified the ideal of free exchange that is so vital to the intellectual life of universities. “We promoted the event,” the organizers reported, “with an attempt to attract a diverse audience, ethnically, ideologically, and intellectually. We encouraged attendees to prepare to ask tough, penetrating questions during the Q&A. Evan and Thor were fantastic!”

Since then, Indoctrinate U has screened at twenty-seven college and university campuses around the nation.

[...]

Wherever Indoctrinate U plays, students rave about it. “The Indoctrinate U screening was a great success!” enthused a student at the College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University. “I was pleasantly surprised at how funny people thought it was—people were laughing throughout the entire film.” An East Tennessee State student agreed. “It was great to have the film at our school, and those in attendance will definitely be looking at their experiences on campus differently in the future,” he said. “It was refreshing to realize that there are people out there who realize that exposing the double standard in campus ‘diversity’ doesn’t make you a racist, a white supremacist, a neo-Nazi,” wrote a Cornell student. “I can’t tell you how many times I have been called a racist on this campus for talking about the same sorts of biased campus policies that appear in your film. Your film was a rare opportunity for validation.”

Meanwhile, public and private screenings continue. On April 14, MPI and the Manhattan Institute teamed up to co-host the New York premiere of Indoctrinate U. Held at the 500-seat Directors Guild of America Theater, the premiere thrilled the hundreds who turned out to see it. “The only thing that can be more gratifying to a filmmaker than having a packed house is having the house packed with a lively audience that responds enthusiastically,” Maloney said afterward. “It was truly a special night.” In the wake of the New York premiere, Maloney appeared on the Fox News channel to discuss the intrusion of politics into the higher education curriculum. In addition, John McWhorter, a former UC Berkeley professor who is now a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, published a hard-hitting op-ed in the New York Sun. “[A] sense of the politics of the nation as intellectually unassailable is so unquestioned in campus culture that it becomes easy to forget the rest of the country thinks differently,” McWhorter wrote. “Hopefully the film will bolster efforts to bring faculty representing a wider spectrum of views to college campuses.”

As this brief summary shows, Indoctrinate U is having a profound impact on debates about free speech, individual rights, and ideological one-sidedness on our college and university campuses. By revitalizing a conversation that had stagnated beneath reams of print —and particularly by moving that conversation into the arena of film—Indoctrinate U is motivating a new generation to embrace and defend the fundamental principles of academic freedom, free expression, and unfettered intellectual inquiry that are vital to the future of our nation. Now available in DVD and as a digital download, Indoctrinate U will continue to raise awareness and trigger vital debate for the foreseeable future.

13 August 2008 @ 8:02AM >> Last week, Rick Husong, who runs a company called “The Loyalty,” announced that a good way to show your loyalty to the modern messiah would be to hold an “O” sign over your head while walking down the street, kind of like a do-it-yourself perpendicular halo.

“We thought, ‘Let’s try and start a movement where even while walking down the street, people would hold up the O and you would know that they were for Obama,’” Husong said.

Despite plenty of snickering and negative feedback since his announcement, Husong is pressing on, explaining to U.S. News & World Report, “Our symbol ‘O’ is about much more than Barack Obama. It’s a symbol of unity, hope, solidarity, and an end to the divisiveness that has plagued this country for too long. It is the peace sign of our generation; a sign for those who are tired of the fear, the hatred, the greed, and the ignorance. There will be resistance, democracy requires it, but we believe that the good in the American people will persevere.”

Apparently, Husong is serious and this is not some sort of parody or Republican political jujitsu demonstrating the mindless conformity of Obama’s flock.

“People came out against the peace emblem in the sixties, making accusations that it was an anti-Christian symbol, an inverted crucifix, a satanic symbol, and a Communist sign. But like our ‘O,’ the goodness inherent in the peace symbol persevered, and today it is the international symbol for peace. The hand sign for peace was first a British form of giving someone the bird, then it became a war cry for victory. Today it is a symbol of peace & love. Once again goodness persevered. We too will persevere. Bring your hands together over your head to make a large ‘O’ and join us in our fight to take America back. Vote for Barack Obama.”

13 August 2008 @ 6:51AM >> From Scott Johnson’s “Driving Mr. Bin Laden” post at Power Line comes the Quote of the Day:

On Sunday the Guardian reported that Barack Obama’s Hollywood buddy George Clooney is planning a film that will provide a sympathetic portrayal of Salim Hamdan and Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift, Hamdan’s military lawyer. Hamdan was of course Osama bin Laden’s driver. It’s a relief that Hollywood has finally found an American officer connected to the war whom it can lionize.

12 August 2008 @ 9:01AM >> Fear of violence kills a book:

A romance novel about the child bride of the prophet Muhammad has been withdrawn because its publisher feared possible terrorist acts by Muslim extremists.

The Jewel of the Medina was to have been released on August 12 by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, with an eight-city tour for first-time novelist Sherry Jones, 46.

But the publishers apparently panicked after a professor in Texas who had been approached for a pre-publication blurb, strenuously objected to the work.

Denise Spellberg, who teaches Islamic history at the University of Texas at Austin, later described the novel as “soft core pornography”.

Jones rejects the charge. “It’s ridiculous,” she told the Guardian today.

“I must be one heck of a writer to have produced a pornographic book without any sex scenes. My book is as realistic a portrayal as I could muster of the prophet Muhammad’s harem and his domestic life. Of course it has sexuality, but there is no sex in my book.”

The withdrawal of the novel, first reported this week by the Wall Street Journal, set off an intense debate on the web among feminists, young Muslims, and academics.

Many of the bloggers recalled the death threats and uproar 20 years ago following the publication of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses.

There were also references to the global upheavals that followed the publication of cartoons in the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, deemed offensive to Islam. More than 100 people died in the ensuing protests.

[...]

The novel became a topic of discussion on a number of Muslim websites, with one blogger putting forward an action strategy to email blast the publisher.

Spellberg also raised her concerns with Random House. “Denise says it is ‘a declaration of war ... explosive stuff ... a national security issue’,” said an email from Jane Garrett, an editor at another Random House imprint that was quoted in the Journal.

“Think it will be far more controversial than the satanic verses and the Danish cartoons.”

The email from Garrett went on: “thinks the book should be withdrawn ASAP”.

11 August 2008 @ 8:19AM >> When a large world power invades a sovereign country in order to control the flow of oil, well, that’s the sort of storyline that normally brings hundreds of thousands of protesters to the streets chanting “No War for Oil.”

So, undoubtedly, we will soon see the masses of the world rise up and condemn Russia for its naked aggression against its smaller neighbor, Georgia.

I’ll be waiting, but I won’t be holding my breath.

6 August 2008 @ 8:58AM >> One year ago tomorrow, I was sued for defamation and interference with contract by a laundromat located in my former apartment building. For a while, my fiancee and I were customers of Todd Layne Cleaners until we tired of its rude and incompetent service. Eventually, I came to the informed conclusion that Todd Layne Cleaners “sucks” and is “overpriced.”

For expressing these two opinions to the neighbors in my building, a creature named Todd Ofsink, the “Todd” in Todd Layne Cleaners, sued me. (You see, Todd is fortunate enough to have a brother, Darren, who owns a big Madison Avenue law firm called Guzov Ofsink. Darren Ofsink’s firm is representing brother Todd.)

In response to the lawsuit, I created a website called ToddLayneCleanersSucks.com where I documented the case and the incidents that led up to it. This caused Ofsink to increase the damages in his lawsuit; instead of suing me for $20,000, it became $300,000.

I generally don’t write about my personal life on this site, but I wrote about this case last October after the New York Post got wind of it. And now that the case is approaching its one year mark, I thought it was time for an update.

The case is still ongoing, oozing through the courts with all the speed of cold molasses.

Initially, the court threw out Ofsink’s defamation claim, upholding my constitutional right to express my opinion about his business. The court should have thrown out the interference with contract claim too; that claim was just a smokescreen for the dismissed defamation claim.

Why is the case still alive? Because courts are reluctant to dismiss a case before the plaintiff has had an opportunity to gather evidence. The evidence-gathering phase is called “discovery,” wherein each side is allowed to demand evidence from the other. After the discovery phase is complete, I will have an opportunity to move the court for summary judgment. If I am successful, the case won’t proceed to trial, but instead, will be dismissed.

In my discovery demands, I asked for several things, including financial records to support Ofsink’s claim that my criticism of his business caused him to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars. I also asked for the store’s security camera tapes, because Ofsink swore under oath that I attempted to disrupt his business by “simulating masturbation” within his store. Later, Ofsink tacitly admitted his statement was false by recasting his earlier characterization as merely a “euphamism.”

Ofsink misled the court by making false sworn statements under oath, which is why he refuses to turn over the store’s security camera tapes or anything else. He knows that if caught lying to the court, he could be subject to monetary sanctions, or even criminal prosecution for perjury.

The deadline to produce discovery was in mid-February. Not surprisingly, nearly half-a-year later, Ofsink still hasn’t produced any of the required documentation. (Meanwhile, I’ve responded to his discovery demands in good faith, turning over 116 pages of documents he requested.)

Ofsink’s excuses for violating his discovery obligations are comedic. The following gives you a sense of his petty antics. (My requests are at the top of each scan, followed by his response.)

As you can see from these responses, Ofsink isn’t even willing to turn over evidence documenting his own claims. His strategy is to drag this case out as long as possible, hoping that I will eventually buckle and sign a non-disparagement agreement. That’s what he demands in exchange for dropping the case.

In other words, Ofsink will only stop using his brother’s law firm to harass me for engaging in free speech if—and only if—I agree to sign away my right to criticize his business.

It ain’t gonna happen.

In the meantime, I’ve filed a motion asking the court to compel Ofsink to comply with discovery, and I’m awaiting the court’s decision. That’s where things stand now.

The wheels of justice grind slowly, and the cost of exercising one’s most basic rights can sometimes be quite high. But if people don’t stand up to the Ofsinks of the world, we won’t even have the right to criticize lousy service from our local cleaners.

For an overview of the case, visit ToddLayneCleanersSucks.com.

5 August 2008 @ 8:23AM >> And, no, it’s not from The Onion:

Man gets Windows Vista to work with printer

I guess that’s one of those man-bites-dog stories.

4 August 2008 @ 8:04AM >> AngryJournalist.com, an anonymous gripe site for journalists, is an entertaining read for those who want to understand the mentality of people in an industry undergoing seismic changes. The top post currently reads:

I definitely agree with you. Im so sick of white, old males being dominant in the news field. That’s why it is going down. Could we get some young people, non-white folks in the industry? Oh wait, when we do, the old geesers just pass on our ideas anyway. There’s no use.

Much of the site reads like the verbal flailing of folks scrambling for life jackets on a sinking ship. You’ll also get a few laughs reading the site, but I suspect most of the comedy is unintentional.

(Hat tip: Bill Quick)