December 28, 2004 by s.z.

Stalker Babe News As a service to our Canadian readers (and to medical students needing interesting psychiatric case studies for class projects), here's the latest Rachel Marsden news. First (as one of you pointed out), if you compare Rachel's photo from her site with the photo here, you will note that she has appropriated Julia Roberts' body.  Strange, that. Secondly, she will be on "The Dennis Miller Show" today (claiming to be a "journalist"), along with Peter Fonda and Nigella Lawson. However, this may be a rerun, since we learned from The Commentarythat she has already been on Dennis's show.  Twice, in fact.  (Has the stalking already begun?)   And, while Ann Coulter was a no-show for her scheduled spot on Rachel's radio program earlier this month, she will make it up to Rachel on January 8th.  (She'd better be there this time, because Rachel will NOT be ignored!)  The Commentary also reports: Rachel Marsden will appear on Fox News in early January on a program hosted by a prominent media figure named elsewhere in this column. Hmmm.  The lead item in this issue of The Commentary is: First, the whole Bill O'Reilly incident with his telephone indiscretions with a female producer was amusing in that the outspoken firebrand of Fox News was spinning himself. Whether he harassed the young woman or not wasn't the question. It was the lurid details of the allegations themselves that were entertaining. It proved that conservatives can have fun too. So, my guess is that Rachel is going to appear on Bill's show, and then they will sexually harass each other on the phone for the rest of the decade.  I wish these two crazy kids all the best! And speaking of Rachel's appearances on Dennis's show, here's part of what  Ilana Mercer had to say: The audience went ape as Marsden complained (and loudly: neo-concubines have foghorns for voices), "The only action Democrats ever gave us occurred in Clinton's pants." Like her role model Ann, Rachel seems to have a fixation on the Clenis. Here's part of her latest column: Socialists hate the idea of traditional marriage, and prefer the 'common property' model exemplified by Bill and Hillary Clinton. It’s a marriage that "takes a village"--not to raise a child, but to figure out which floozy Bill has been busy banging behind Hillary’s back on his morning McMuffin errands. I think Ann would be envious of the way that Rachel worked a Clenis reference into a piece about same-sex marriage.  But here's more from it, so you can see why we Americans need Rachel to appear on our TV shows: But it’s not generally the gay community that’s whining about not being able to marry. Gays comprise a very small segment of the population, and they’re not clamoring to have their relationships legitimized through a religious institution such as marriage, when religion has, and always will, consider their lifestyle to be sinful. Andrew Sullivan really isn't gay?  And when those gays and lesbians went to San Francisco (and the state of MA, and various other locations) and got married, I guess they were just pretending too.  And "city hall" is actually a religious institution.  Gee, it's a good thing that Rachel is around to straighten everybody out, or we might have thought that gay marriage was actually a gay thing -- when, as we read above, it's actually a liberal/socialist/Clenis thing. One of the few reasons ever given for why gays would actually want to marry is that they want 'legal benefits'.According to the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) website, these benefits include access to family health and auto-insurance policies, family bereavement leave, and dependency benefits through worker’s compensation. As she continues, you will note that Rachel doesn't give any reason why they shouldn't have these "legal benefits" (notice how she segues from this point to Cher's "Divorthe Court"), so even she must agree that this is a resonable request.  Therefore, she buries it with shrill, nasty, and unfunny mockery.  Once again, Ann would be envious. They also want to marry so that they can drag each other through the court system in a messy divorce, just like straight people do. Rachel, who was just sentenced in connection with her last stalking case, knows a thing or two about the court system and messy cases . . . This last reason actually provides the best justification for allowing gay marriage. Picture gay "Divorthe Court", with singer/actress-turned-judge, Cher, deciding who gets the chaise lounge, the accent chair, the crock pot, and the Tom Cruise DVD collection. It’s hard to imagine gays wanting to sell out to an institution that has rebuffed them, just for the sake of cheap car insurance, a little time off, a few compo bucks, and legitimized access to Judge Judy and Jerry Springer. Yeah, it's "hard to imagine," but see how easily Rachel does it (and with no assistance at all from "reality")!  Watch for Rachel's new photo at her website to be this one, but with Rachel's face pasted over Ann's. 4:57:27 AM

You Must Answer Questions Ten Before I'll Read Your Blog Again Also annoying today is Hugh Hewitt, who is now the world's foremost expert on blogging (because he wrote a book, Blog, which says that he is).  Today he's blogging about how the mainstream media has lost the public's (i.e, Hugh's and some of his blogger friends') trust, due to the fact that Hugh and his friends know more about kerning (and Jesus' hatred of Democrats) than the so-called "real journalists" do.  So, to start earning that trust back, jounalists need to appear before the Blog Unamerican Activities Committee and answer some questions. Everyone brings baggage to the reporting of the news.  Some of us lay that background out for the world to see --most reporters don't. A sure sign of something to hide is the hiding of something, and the unwillingness of MSM to tell us about their staffs is a giveaway that the lack of intellectual diversity in the newsroom is a scandal. What questions would I like answered? Very simple ones: For whom did the reporter vote for president in the past five elections?  Do they attend church regularly and if so, in which denomination?  Do they believe that the late-term abortion procedure known as partial birth abortion should be legal? Do they believe same sex marriage ought to be legal?  Did they support the invasion of Iraq?  Do they support drilling in ANWR? If I know the answers to those ten questions, I can quickly decide what degree of trust with which to approach a reporter's reporting.  Um, not to quibble with a blogging expert, but isn't that eleven questions? Even "low trust" reporters can earn trust, of course, but degrees of suspicion are a fact of life.  Only MSM pretends otherwise, and bloggers have exposed that pretension as the fiction it really is, even if most of MSM want to continue the charade. Before I know how far I can trust Hugh, I will need the answers to the following ten questions: How many times has he noted it when InstanPundit got something wrong?  How many links to reviews that were critical of his books has he posted?  Has he ever subjected a story put out by the Bush White House to the same scrutiny as he did to the Wash Post one about Intelligent Design?  How come his bio doesn't indicate who he voted for in the last 5 presidential elections?  As a devout Christian, isn't he troubled by the racism of Little Green Footballs?  If not, why not?  Is so, why does he link to it?  What is his full name?  What is his quest?  What is the air speed velocity of a sparrow?  And when did he quit beating James Lileks? Like I said, once I have Hugh's answers to the above questions, I will quickly decide what degree of trust with which to approach his writing.  Until then, I will consider him to be only slightly more trustworthy than Ann Coulter, and not nearly as manly. Oh, and speaking of Blog: Understanding the Information Transformation That's Changing Your Paradigm, and Using it to Maximize Your Potential and Make Big Bucks, World Magazine has an article about Glen's tome and his thesis that conservative "web logs" have toppled the old media.  Here are a couple of paragraphs from it: The most recent example of blog-driven news was "Rathergate." 60 Minutes 2 on Sept. 8 ran a story bashing President Bush's guard service, basing the piece largely on memos purportedly written in 1973 by his then-superior, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian. But hours after the memos were posted on the internet, bloggers Buckhead, PrestoPundit, Powerline—and Hugh Hewitt—debunked them by calling in document experts and questioning the integrity of broadcast icon Dan Rather. CBS first stood by its story, but relentless blogger attacks forced the news veteran into a corner from which he would ultimately issue, on the air, an unapologetic apology. [...] On election night, blogs leaked the result of early exit polls that heralded a Kerry victory, leading to Democrats' euphoria and Republicans' depression until the actual vote count came in. Mr. Hewitt believes that left-wing bloggers were part of a deliberate disinformation campaign, what he calls "black blog ops," which signals the potential of blogs to be misused. Were the poll results leaked as part of a "black bag op" conducted by the Democratic Party or pro-Kerry groups?  I don't know.  (But if it was a covert operation, I have to say that I am very hurt that nobody invited me to join in.) Of course "blogger Buckhead," who was the first to make public allegations about the Rather documents, is really Harry W. MacDougal, a lawyer with ties to conservative Republican causes, and a member of the Federalist Society.  (In fact, he helped draft the petition that urged the Arkansas Supreme Court to disbar President Clinton after MonicaGate.)  And he isn't a blogger, but is instead a commenter at New Republic.  Some folks reportedly "marveled at Buckhead's detailed knowledge of the memos and wondered whether that suggested a White House conspiracy." So, was "Rathergate" a White House or GOP conspiracy that used Free Republic and the conservative bloggers in some sort of "black bag op"?  Again, I don't know.  But I do know that a book about blogging which alleges that left-wing bloggers were part of a deliberate disinformation campaign should at least ask a question or two about Buckhead.   That is, if it's a trustworthy book. 3:26:23 AM

Annoying News for Today Today's Wash Post has an article about "Facebook," which is apparently Friendster for college students.  Facebook sounds really, really anoying. There is great social wisdom to be gleaned from the Facebook, which went online at a small group of schools last winter and now is used by about a million students at nearly 300 colleges. You can wander through profiles of people you wish you knew, imagining what they must be like. You can compare the number of "friends" you have listed in your profile to the number of "friends" your roommate has, to calibrate how good you should feel about yourself. If your number is low, you can message some people you met at last night's party, asking if they, too, will be your "friends." [...] The Facebook has a way of taking over a school's culture. Students talk about checking their accounts four or five times a day, not only to research people but also to read private messages others have sent them through the Facebook network and to read comments others have scrawled on their virtual "walls." ("MEATWAD WAS HERE.") They talk about their morning ritual: wake up, go to the bathroom, check e-mail, check the Facebook. They talk about the Facebook's inexorable pull -- even for those who don't join. And while interviewing George Washington University students, the author found two really annoying ones that seem to just beg us to hate them (emphesis added): You can establish yourself in the clique structure by listing your interests ("guns," "making out," "pink shoes") and the Facebook "groups" you belong to, which anyone can create. They include names such as "Cancer Corner," for students who love to smoke, and "I Want to Be a Trophy Wife and You Can't Stop Me!" Each school that belongs to the Facebook has a different private network, inaccessible to outsiders, and on GW's network, there is a lively debate over the acceptability of turning one's polo shirt collar up. Almost a thousand students have demonstrated their brave nonconformism by joining anti-popped-collar groups, while a small segment aligns itself with the preppy ethos through a group called "Collars Up!" "It really does help you kinda get to know people," says Anne Oblinger, a freshman who created the "Ann Coulter Fan Club" and also belongs to "Collars Up!," "Republican Princesses" and "Preppy Since Conception." Getting to know people -- without their knowledge, of course -- can be a particularly useful tool during the first few weeks of freshman year. "You would meet someone and you would just run upstairs and go online and type in their name," says Oblinger's sorority sister and fellow freshman Ali Scotti (interests: "shopping, Bill Clinton, wearing pearls"). "People call it the 'stalker book,' " she says. The Facebook's friends section is, for some people, the most important of all. It lists the number of friends a person has at his or her own school and at other colleges that also belong to the Facebook. The Student Association president has 747 friends at GW alone. Some people watch the growth of their friend counts carefully. "I'm not competitive," says Scotti, who has 157 friends at GW and more at other schools. "Well, okay, that's a lie. A little bit competitive." I hereby declare Facebook (and Ann and Ali) a much greater threat to our culture than The Plot to Murder Christmas, and I urge Bill O'Reilly to start railing against them. Oh, and all WO'C readers can count each other as "friends," meaning that you each have about 3000, which is WAY more than Ali and Anne. Nyah, nyah! 2:11:15 AM