NY Times has not a bad word to say about a boycott condemned by almost all of academia....
What Barry Rubin meant to pro-Israel bloggers....
Jerry Seinfeld, the most successful comedian in the world and maker of comedy for and about white people, isn't interested in trying to include non-white anything in his work.
When asked why he featured so many white men in his web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee during a Buzzfeed interview on CBS This Morning, Seinfeld seemed offended by the very question. "It really pisses me off," he said. "People think [comedy] is the census or something, it's gotta represent the actual pie chart of America. Who cares?"
BuzzFeed Business Editor Peter Lauria seemed hesitant to pursue the frank answer, but the comedian continued on anyway. "Funny is the world that I live in. You're funny, I'm interested. You're not funny, I'm not interested," he said. "I have no interest in gender or race or anything like that." He seems to suggest that any comedian who is not a white male is also not funny, though he's also likely fed up with the amount of bad comedy he's been forced to sit through in his (waning) career.
Which is too bad, because Seinfeld is downplaying the work of everyone from Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby to Aziz Ansari, Mindy Kaling, and Eddie Huang, who are all in various stages of their own sitcoms that just might turn out to be the next Seinfeld....
In conclusion: Yes, comedy should represent the entire pie chart of America, and the glorious, multicolored diversity pie should be thrown directly at Jerry Seinfeld's face.
No, you fool, Seinfeld isn't denigrating anyone. He's saying that we should judge comedians by the quality of their comedy, not the color of their skin.
Where did I hear something similar to that before? Definitely not at Gawker.
Someone saw this coming from a mile away:
Yeah, that's the ticket....
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich returned to work on Monday after four days of sick leave, issuing a warning about rising "radicalism" after more than two months of unrest on the streets but giving no word on a new prime minister. Yanukovich, caught in a tug of war between Russia and the West, is seeking a way out of a sometimes violent confrontation with protesters who have occupied city streets and public buildings following his decision in November to spurn a trade deal with the EU and accept financial aid from Moscow. As he returned to work, looking in fair health, a day before a new session of parliament, the political opposition took heart from fresh expressions of support from Western governments and pressed for more concessions to end protests. However, the European Union, whose foreign policy chief is due in Kiev late on Tuesday, played down suggestions it was working with the United States on a large-scale aid package aimed at nursing the economy through a political transition.It remains an uncertain situation upon Yanukovich's return.
Soldier surprised with special homecoming in Super Bowl ad...
An interruption to a post-game interview. What was with that? ...
THE debate over immigration reform, rekindled last week by House Republican leaders, bears a superficial resemblance to last fall’s debate over the government shutdown. Again, you have establishment Republicans transparently eager to cut a deal with the White House and a populist wing that doesn’t want to let them do it. Again, you have Republican business groups and donors wringing their hands over the intransigence of the base, while talk-radio hosts and right-wing bloggers warn against an imminent inside-the-Beltway sellout. Again, you have a bill that could pass the House tomorrow — but only if John Boehner was willing to live with having mostly Democrats voting for it. Except there’s one big difference: This time, the populists are right. They’re right about the policy, which remains a mess in every new compromise that’s floated — offering “solutions” that are unlikely to be permanent, enforcement provisions that probably won’t take effect, and favoring special interests, right and left, over the interests of the citizenry at large.Among the many problems, any form of legalization prior to enforcement is folly. And therein lies the problem. Obama will not sign a meaningful "enforcement first" bill, so either Republicans repeat the mistakes of the past, or the "principles" go nowhere while disrupting Republicans focus for 2014. Greg Sargent of WaPo, reliable conduit of Democratic thinking, notes that Republicans don't trust Obama to enforce the law, so will impose preconditions that will be unacceptable to Obama:
The facts of that event are well-known, but the photographic evidence has been scant. Then, Syria's branch of the Muslim Brotherhood led an uprising centered in Hama, a central city of around 400,000. In response, President Hafez Assad, the father of the current president, ordered 12,000 troops to besiege the city. That force was led by Hafez Assad's brother Rifaat. He supervised the shelling that reduced parts of Hama to rubble. Those not killed in the tank and air assault were rounded up. Those not executed were jailed for years. To this day, the death toll is in dispute and is at best an estimate. Human rights groups, which were not present during the slaughter, have put the toll at around 10,000 dead or more. The Muslim Brotherhood claims 40,000 died in Hama, with 100,000 expelled and 15,000 who disappeared. The number of missing has never been acknowledged by the Syrian leadership.As we know the lessons of the father have been well learned by the son. Kill enough people and no one will make you pay a price. Somehow the UN and Secretary of State John Kerry thought that they could get some sort of agreement to stop the killing in Syria. The latest round of talks ended on Friday, apparently in failure.
Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia raised expectations in January at a joint news conference in Paris that a way would be found to open humanitarian aid corridors and possibly establish local cease-fires in Aleppo and other cities and towns. But to the dismay of the United Nations and other humanitarian organizations, even those basic steps proved elusive.
Note: You may reprint this cartoon provided you link back to this source. To see more Legal Insurrection Branco cartoons, click here. Branco’s page is Cartoonist A.F.Branco...
China on Monday downplayed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to India as a bilateral issue, even as the state-media termed the trip as a failure for not succeeding in pinning down Beijing. "The visit you mentioned is an issue between India and Japan," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a media briefing while responding to a question on Abe's just-concluded visit to India. The visit evoked considerable media attention in view of the China-Japan diplomatic stand off over the disputed islands in East China Sea.
From the Occupy movement to the demonization of the rich embedded in virtually every word of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, I perceive a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent...This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendant "progressive" radicalism unthinkable now?Perkins' missive may just be "the most-read letter to the editor in the history of The Wall Street Journal." And now he's been forced to eat a little crow:
Amid the ongoing media furor and an ungallant rebuke from Kleiner Perkins, Mr. Perkins has apologized for the [Nazi era] comparison, without rebuking the larger argument.It's no surprise that Perkins was made to walk back his Kristallnacht reference---a fact that doesn't take away from his point. Predictably, when a person invokes a Nazi comparison people scoff, and Perkins compounded his scoffability quotient by invoking the Nazi comparison while defending the very rich, who were already not everybody's favorite people for whom to feel sorry. Nevertheless, what Perkins said isn’t even really all that controversial.
Egypt said 20 Al-Jazeera journalists, including both Egyptians and foreigners, will face trial on terrorism-related charges. Among them are three journalists employed by Al-Jazeera English, the Qatari-based international news channel. Award-winning Australian correspondent Peter Greste, Canadian-Egyptian producer Mohammed Fadel Fahmy, and Egyptian producer Baher Mohammed were arrested on Dec. 29 in a raid on a Cairo hotel room, which the network was using as a temporary bureau. The Egyptian government alleges that 12 of the Al-Jazeera journalists remain at large, while eight are in state custody, including Greste, Fahmy and Baher. Authorities have not set a date for the trial or released the full list of the defendants' names. However, in a statement released by the General Prosecutor's office, the Egyptian defendants have been charged with “crimes of belonging to terrorist organizations violating the law, calling for disrupting the law and preventing state institutions from conducting their affairs, assault on personal liberties of citizens and damaging national unity and social peace.”The report went on to say: Egypt has become among the most dangerous and difficult places to work for journalists. This cannot be news...especially to CBS reporter Lara Logan. Since the ouster of former President Mohammed Morsi, Field Marshal Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has become extremely popular among his countrymen for his aggressive handling of the Muslim Brotherhood. A video report from CCTV Africa offers some intriguing background:
Michael Dunn on trial on charges of 1st Degree murder for the shooting death of Jordan Davis[/caption]
