[Scene: Evening. A corner of a nondescript parking garage’s top level. Michelle Malkin enters, dressed unintentionally conspicuously in bright yellow trench coat and matching fedora/handbag combo. She appears perturbed, dejected, and paranoid.]

MALKIN

Am I late? Why am I even here?

[Bryan Preston enters.]

MALKIN

Bryan! What are you doing here?

PRESTON

You can’t do this, Michelle! It’s just too dangerous for such an angel of God! And if something happens to you, who’s gonna tie my shoes and give me daily sponge bath?

MALKIN

Shove it, you imbecile. I’m meeting a source — someone I trust.

PRESTON

Yeah, I know. You’re meeting with your mole inside La Raza! [Takes pompous pose.]

MALKIN

How do you know that?! Have you been looking through my closets again?

PRESTON

Uh huh… [Drools on himself.] But I also found this in my inbox yesterday. [Hands her a note, which she quickly scans.] They’re going to kidnap you and put you in a work camp for non-illegals.

MALKIN

This is written in crayon. And it’s in your “handwriting.” [Expressed with air quotes.]

PRESTON

At least let me put on your coat and hat until we can make sure it’s safe for your sweetness, Miss M.

[Michelle sighs heavily and acquiesces. He dons her hat, coat, and handbag. Michelle hides. Enter La Raza Mole (LRM).]

PRESTON

[Clears throat. Poorly imitating Michelle’s voice.] Hiya there. Are you my source? Wow. You’re almost as cute as my friend Bryan.

[LRM, immediately recognizing Bryan Preston wearing Michelle’s clothes, draws a large calibre pistol, shoots him once in the chest, once in the head. He drops a newspaper clipping (the beginning of this column) on Bryan’s corpse. LRM exits. Malkin approaches and spits on body. She picks up newspaper clipping and begins reading aloud.]

MALKIN

“Welcome to the revolution.

“There’s no point in hiding it any longer. The more observant members of society have already figured out that there’s a secret Latino movement under way to evict every last Anglo-European American from the Southwest and reclaim the land that Mexico lost in the Mexican-American War of the mid-1800s.”

The evidence I’ve been looking for! I’ll expose them tonight on The Factor for sure! People will take me seriously again.

[Michelle retrieves voice recorder from the coat on Bryan’s body and presses the record button.]

Note to self: Have Janet Murguìan framed for Bryan’s murder. Replace favorite trench coat.

[Michelle exits.]

In These Times senior editor Salim Muwakkil:

The national movement to gain reparations for the descendents of enslaved Africans was a fast-rolling bandwagon until slowed by events of 9/11. Well, it’s accelerating again.

In truth, it’s been picking up momentum since Hurricane Katrina blew the cover off this nation’s well-camouflaged race/class divide. The distress revealed in that storm’s wake moved even President George Bush to urge redress of poverty’s racial disparities. He quickly moved past that urge, but the national conversation continues.

As I see it, the question of reparations for racial slavery and Jim Crow apartheid is one of the nation’s most substantive issues. It’s also one of the most disparaged.

Editorials like this one give me solace, and by my estimation they’re getting more frequent. If you’re into emailing or IMimg links to fellow political junkies, be sure to get this one out.

Marse Arse says: “I ain’t nevah heard a payin’ no n––––– fuh no work!”

Michelle & Jesse were not reached for comment.

Michelle and Jesse are taking a break from blogging this week, although it appears that we’ll all be graced by new episodes of VENT.

I haven’t heard of a couple of the guestbloggers she’s chosen as fillings, but the others are certifiable lightweights who bang forth respective litanies of wingnuttery to satisfy the synapses of thousands of tens of lazy warmongers.

Expect limited Malkin blogging around these parts. Not that I’ve ever promised you guys anything anyway…

Here’s a column on reparations for Afro-Americans that’s worth emailing to friends and family. The last two grafs:

Blacks worth $6k; whites $88k
…
African Americans that favor reparations should stop allowing discussions to be guided by perceptions that: 1) reparations are unlikely ever to be awarded; 2) reparations are undeserved by African Americans since all ex-slaves are dead; 3) today’s white Americans have not injured African Americans and should not be required to pay for sins of their forbears; 4) it is impossible to determine who should get what and how much; and 5) African Americans must become self-reliant and determine their own fate and stop waiting for relief from external sources.

Don’t be deceived; opponents of reparations have benefited from a system of white privilege that is imbedded in American society. Let’s stop acceptance of a system of white privileges and Black disadvantages that has accrued advantages for whites for fifteen generations.

Or as Malcolm X, that stalwart of the civil rights movement, put it:

If you are the son of a man who had a wealthy estate and you inherit your father’s estate, you have to pay off the debts that your father incurred before he died. The only reason that the present generation of white Americans are in a position of economic strength…is because their fathers worked our fathers for over 400 years with no pay…We were sold from plantation to plantation like you sell a horse, or a cow, or a chicken, or a bushel of wheat…All that money…is what gives the present generation of American whites the ability to walk around the earth with their chest out…like they have some kind of economic ingenuity. Your father isn’t here to pay. My father isn’t here to collect. But I’m here to collect and you’re here to pay.

A sustaining din of indignation has a steady source in the blogging collective surrounding Michelle & Jesse Malkin.

It appears to be getting more shrill as the group grows. This week saw a raising of stakes of sorts: paranoia of media manipulation in the coverage of the continuing slaughter in Lebanon, Joe Lieberman’s primary loss to a political fish, and the arrests of alleged violent jihadists in Britain.
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It appears that some asshole has decided to take the MW link off of Michelle’s Wikipedia article. This was a point of contention long before I took over, so this is nothing new.

I am an active user of Wikipedia, but I tend to only edit typos; I’m not much of a contributor. I wouldn’t feel comfortable adding or subtracting from this particular article in any capacity, anyway. (Although sources have confirmed that Michelle or Jesse did perform significant editing of her Wiki article as an anonymous user.)

If you feel strongly about whether a link to MW deserves to be on MM’s article, and you’re an experienced editor, you know what to do.

Update: (8/13, morning) It has come to my attention that the title should be “Wikipedists Unite!” I think I’ll leave it as-is, though.

Thanks to everyone who’s contributing over there. If another debate begins in the Talk Page of the article in question, someone may want to point out that LGF Watch is in the external links (EL) list of the Little Green Footballs article.

That would be an interesting discussion of NPOV/Critics sections of the EL guidelines.

Update: (8/14, early morning) Just to be clear: I’m neither angry over this nor sending anyone off to further an agenda. I should also point out that “puerile” is one of those words that one should be able to spell in order to use it with command. (Hint: Search in the talk page.)

Let it be known that I would be willing to consider removing the “SS-Schütze Malkin” banner if The Immigration Blog happened to be removed from These Prestigious Internets. Think of it as a Roadmap to Mutual Understanding.

A letter to the editor of the NJ’s Courier Post eloquently expresses what observers have long understood:

A member of the opinion class, [Michelle Malkin] makes her living by being perpetually irate.

In her column, she served up her usual dish of half-truths covered with a venemous sauce of sarcasm, ridicule and contempt for those whose ideas differ from hers. Her columns are meant to incite rather than provide insight. Given a pile of bricks, she’d throw them at others rather than build a bridge.

[Link]

NB — the specific column the reader refers to is listed at the top of the letter; not that it really matters.

Although I’ve been silent about what some bloggers are dubbing “Reutergate” (also “Billowgate” and “Slightly-More-Smokegate“) I’ve been following its unfolding.

I’ve found the following posts to be a good survey of my own thoughts on the topic.

• An LGF Watch Parody, Probably a photoshop…
• S,N!’s You Call This a Scandal?
• The Liberal Avenger’s In Defense of Reuters.

As with every blogswarm, there is something important to take away. The moral:

It’s journalistically unprofessional to alter photographs. If you get caught, you’re going to lose your job. (But if you can probably get away with it, because photo editors are overworked and underpaid. Increase your chances and your bankroll by cropping out limbless kids!)

Submorals:

1. Conservative bloggers are desperate for scandalous material pointing to international media bias. Anything to take the spotlight off of Israel’s total decimation of Lebanese infrastructure. (As evidenced by the posts linked above, this cannot be overstated.)
2. [Something to do with aerial dog feces. I haven’t fully derived this. Wingnut nutrition, I think.]
3. An impulsive and irrational contingent of outrage junkies is scouring the Prestigious Internet for photos that prove Capt. America was stabbed in the back with the dagger by Prof. Left in the library.

Of course the Second Universal Law of Political Blogging, the negation of Manshake’s tagline is true, has dictated the wingnutosphere’s behavior over the past few days. They are an amazing bunch; you’d think they didn’t have anything better to do.

More bad writing. Michelle navel gazes by proxy:

I’m excited to welcome Ian Schwartz, formerly of Expose the Left, to the team over at Hot Air. He’s an energetic and innovative young entrepreneur who helped kick off the video revolution on the right side of the blogosphere. Ian will be working with us, and starting college this fall, as we expand our programming and operations. We’re lucky to have him!

(BTW, that’s the whole post. No need to click through.)

Update: (8/7, evening) Silly me. I’ve been distracted today by talented dead writers. I didn’t even bother to go to Expose the Left to get Ian’s take on his new gig. I see this:

Beginning August 17th, the archives of Expose the Left will be accessed through a different link then [sic] it is now.

We’re in for a bumpy ride, folks. If you’re the praying type, beg the Almighty for him to take Bryan’s failures as an example, thus knowing his place and not posting much in the way of text — Amen.

As of yet, his Hot Airian purpose is not clear. Sporadic, yet frequent, updates as they come in. Developing…

Do they deliver The Washington Times down in Hell?

MADRID — The Spanish government has approved a divisive bill allowing reparations for victims of the Spanish Civil War and the ensuing dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco, one of the darkest chapters of Spain’s modern history.

The bill also bans symbols and references to the 1939-1975 Franco regime in public buildings and asks local governments to rename streets or plazas that are named after the former dictator or allude to his regime.

[Link]

It appears that Michelle is somewhat upset over a high ranking California politician using the word “cracker” to describe San Diegans who wish to deny civil rights to immigrants. Capt. Queeg has reduced himself to calling it a “racial slur.”

I use the term myself: on this blog and in everyday conversation. I generally don’t follow the accepted denotation of the word, i.e. “poor white Southerner,” but in the sense that Malcolm X used it, namely “white racist,” especially the potentially violent variety. Therefore, I do not consider the word to be a “racial slur,” but a “racist slur,” or a pejorative meant to attack the racial bigotry of an individual or group.
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Here’s an interesting profile in the NYTimes of the small town of Pearson, Georgia.

antiwar.blog:

In its lead story August 1, the Hebrew edition of Ha’aretz online reported that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) claim that Hezbollah missile launchers and Hezbollah fighters were in and around the building in Qana which they shelled early Sunday morning was false.
…
Initially, Israeli military sources had reported that the deaths in Qana where caused not by the Israeli air attack early Sunday morning, but by an accidental explosion, many hours later, of Hezbollah ordnance that was stored inside the building. According to the Ha’aretz article, this is not true. Israeli Air Force sources have admitted, according to Ha’aretz, that the deaths in Qana were caused by the Israeli shelling. Between 30 and 60 deaths were reported as a result of the building collapse. Many bodies are still believed to be buried beneath the rubble.

Additionally, the claim of the IDF that leaflets were dropped on the weekend warning of an attack were also untrue. The leaflets were actually delivered “some days” before the weekend, according to military sources.

Michelle has attempted to make hay out of “asking questions” concerning the atrocity at Qana. Just as with our own military’s penchant for covering up massacres as they have occurred in Iraq and Afghanistan, the IDF went into CYA mode and found the jingoblogs to be willing victims of misinformation and exploitation.

As a proud Pajamahideen and member of the New Media, I’m sure Malkin will be eager to give her readers a quick update and will question the veracity of Israeli military spokesmen in the future.

[via LGF Watch]

Bryan Preston, “Hot Airian” extraordinaire, offered up a poorly written rant last night in an attempt to point out some of the mainstream press’s misplaced priorities. I’ll go through the post itself with commentary. Don’t think of this as a “fisking,” but as a focused exposition of why The Prestigious Internet, especially the blogosphere, has been testing my imperturbability lately.

Today’s news featured anti-semites on rampages. Every day since 9-11 seems to have featured anti-semites on rampages somewhere in the world, but two of today’s stories happened right here in the US of A.

The phrase “anti-semites on rampages” is very queer. It’s not usual to use the word rampage when referring to a single person. So after reading the first sentence a couple times, then the second sentence a few times, it was still unclear if Bryan means to say that different groups of anti-semites are going on wholly different rampages (like in the case of the Danish Muhammed cartoons) or if individual anti-semites are going on their own mini-rampages? And how the hell does a day feature anything, much less an anti-semite?
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