Originally posted at NewsReal’s That’s What She Said

Every time news coverage of actress Anne Hathaway spikes, so does Berkshire Hathaway stock. At least, that’s the fantasy Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman promoted on his New York Times blog this weekend.

Why? The claim is that it’s the fault of robotrading algorithms, which now account for most of the market, and which sometimes rely among other things on trends in news coverage.

That’s the kind of dumb mistake human traders wouldn’t make. Unfortunately, they’d make other kinds of dumb mistakes.

“I, For One, Do Not Welcome Our Dumb Robot Overlords,” writes Krugman.

Where’s the evidence that Berkshire Hathaway shareholders are at the mercy of a half-baked fleet of starstruck retard-o-bots? Krugman cites The Financial Times, but the original source of this bizarre story is Huffington Post blogger Dan Mirvish, a media hoaxer the New York Times once called “a senior fellow at the Institute of Nonexistence.” On March 2, Mirvish wrote:

On the Friday before the Oscars, Berkshire shares rose a whopping 2.02%. And on the Monday just after the Academy Awards, they rose again, this time 2.94%. But it’s not just an Oscar bounce, or something Warren Buffett may have said in the newspaper, or even necessarily something the company itself is doing (i.e. rumors afoot to buy Costco). Just look back at some other landmark dates in Anne Hathaway’s still young career:

Oct. 3, 2008 – Rachel Getting Married opens: BRK.A up .44%
Jan. 5, 2009 – Bride Wars opens: BRK.A up 2.61%
Feb. 8, 2010 – Valentine’s Day opens: BRK.A up 1.01%
March 5, 2010 – Alice in Wonderland opens: BRK.A up .74%
Nov. 24, 2010 – Love and Other Drugs opens: BRK.A up 1.62%
Nov. 29, 2010 – Anne announced as co-host of the Oscars: BRK.A up .25%

Yes, the fearsome Hathaway Effect is based on eight dates in a two-year period analyzed by a professional media manipulator. But … but … studies show! Yeah, one “study” of a handful of data points.

I know, Paul. Markets are confusing, and math is hard. It’s been a while since you had to memorize all that information about sample sizes and correlation vs. causation for Stats 101. And it sure can be a hassle to RTFG. Fortunately, The Motley Fool cleared this up nearly three weeks ago:

Berkshire’s stock most certainly was up on Oct. 3, 2008, but there was more than an opening for Anne going on. Just two days prior, the stock had jumped almost 5% after Buffett got a dandy deal on perpetual preferred stock from General Electric (NYSE: GE ) .Meanwhile, on Feb. 8, 2010, did Anne Hathaway’s movie push up Berkshire’s stock? Or were investors anticipating the heavy buying from index funds that would be forced to add Berkshire to their holdings after it replaced Burlington Northern Santa Fe in the S&P 500?

The March 5, 2010 gain we can write off even more quickly, since the S&P gained nearly double Berkshire’s jump that day. What good is the Anne Hathaway signal if the stock still underperforms the rest of the market?

And of course, all good Fools know that the weekend of Feb. 27, 2011 something happened that was much more important than the Oscars — the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder letter was released. My wild guess is that the stock gains that Friday reflected anticipation about the letter, while Monday’s pop was due to Buffett’s bullish outlook in the letter.

Now run along, Paul, and check the inside of the fridge to see if a tiny Anne Hathaway turns the light on when you open the door.

Originally posted at NewsReal’s That’s What She Said

I always thought there was something a little off about Ina Garten. The woman substitutes basil for cilantro in her chili recipe. What kind of animal does such a thing?

This kind:

The “Barefoot Contessa” star allegedly turned down a request from the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

The foundation reportedly tried to contact the celebrity chef twice on behalf of a six-year-old boy suffering from leukemia who wanted to cook with her. And twice they were rebuffed.

Garten reportedly blew off the first request due to her busy book tour schedule. But 6-year-old Enzo decided to wait, skipping the chance to have another wish granted by the foundation. Bad choice, kid:

We’re told the organization went back to Ina this year … but her team responded with a “definite no” … once again, citing scheduling conflicts.

A member of Enzo’s family says the 6-year-old is heartbroken … and asked parents, “Why doesn’t she want to meet me?”

Ina Garten can’t spare 10 minutes to teach a dying kid how to stick Nilla Wafers in a dish of banana pudding? Maybe whip up a little guacamole? (Hold the cilantro!)

Of course, The Contessa has been swamped for ages, what with entertaining celebrity friends like Alec “my daughter is a ‘pig’” Baldwin, writing checks to Obama for America, and hosting Planned Parenthood Benefits at her home.

by Jenn Q. Public & Lori Ziganto

———

It came as quite a shock to the leader of one women’s organization when Joy Behar, ostensibly a comedian, called Sharron Angle a “bitch” on the “The View” last month. Sonja Eddings Brown, president of The Kitchen Cabinet, told The Daily Caller, “We thought Joy Behar was a classier act than this.”

To which we responded, “Ha ha ha ha ha!” followed by, “HA HA HA HA HA!” When our laughter-induced wheezing subsided — and we’re not gonna lie, there may have been some giggle-snorting — the idea for this post was born.

Before the obligatory lefty panty bunching begins in response to this post’s title, you should know that it’s not the first time we’ve been called mean girls and name-callers, and it won’t be the last. But we have refrained from calling Ms. Behar the b-word, and that gives us exclusive claim to the high road here.

Also, we’re bloggers, not holier-than-thou television “personalities” who get off on squawking about how we’re better than you because we vote Democrat. And we may have had a couple of beers while writing this post. Our readers are important to us and we’re willing to go the extra mile. For you.

So, with all of the fanfare a class act like Joy Behar deserves, we bring you her 9 most inane statements, the ones that should have even the Left shuddering in embarrassment. (Yeah, we’re not holding our breath either.) 

9. Behar Says White Men Were “Traumatized” By Obama’s Election

According to Joy Behar, white men had a traumatic year due to President Obama‘s election. Perhaps Joy Behar was projecting once again. Because we are pretty sure that lots of men have been traumatized by her and the nails on the chalkboard sound that is emitted every time she flaps her pie hole.

On an episode of her show on HLN back in January, Joy Behar and her fellow harpy Whoopi Goldberg were discussing Chris Matthews‘ offensive, and moronic, remark that during President Obama’s first State of the Union address, he “forgot for an hour that he was black.” Behar and Goldberg made the following inane statements:

BEHAR: Maybe he needs a new TV. (Behar and Goldberg laugh) What do you think he was driving at there? Because he’s a lefty- you know, he’s liberal.

GOLDBERG: Yeah.

BEHAR: And he likes Obama.

GOLDBERG: Yeah.

BEHAR: And yet, he says something stupid like that- you know, I forgot he was black. He would never say I forgot he was white if he was looking at Bush.

GOLDBERG: No. Well, white people (laughs)- you know, this is- this has been quite a year for the white man. (off-camera laughs from unidentified person/people)

BEHAR: (laughs) Traumatic.

GOLDBERG: Traumatic in many ways because the things that people say now, you have to think before you speak. It sounded great in his head, I’m sure, because I know Chris and-

BEHAR: Yeah.

Of course, desperately trying to spin because Chrissy is a lefty, thus they totally heart him. And he likes Obama, so that makes him even more super awesome. It’s funny how the oh-so-enlightened lefties are the ones who only see color and race, always, isn’t it? And if you merely disagree with someone of a different race, you must be traumatized. Because they are so scary and stuff!

Well, Joy, we are not traumatized by having to think before we speak. See, we aren’t idiots, so we always try to think before we speak. We don’t allow others to think for us and then merely parrot their talking points, no matter how inane, like you do.

We also don’t focus on the density of a person’s melanin count. Therefore, we don’t couch our thoughts and opinions worrying about racial implications. We say what we believe, to whomever we believe deserves it, whenever it is deserved. It’s a thing called equality. We treat everyone the same way.

Post-racial; y’all should try it sometime. Perhaps that would be too “traumatic” for you, though.

8. “Isn’t it a little racist to call it Black Friday?”

After a long day of celebrating the racist discovery of America by genocidal maniacs — because nothing says slaughtering the natives like can-shaped cranberry sauce and football — Americans like to switch gears a bit and target another racial group. Enter that quaint tradition of racial hatred known as Black Friday.

This from the woman who said of Sarah Palin’s supporters, “a lot of her base doesn’t even read.” But clearly she has a vastly superior intellect — how else could she offer such keen analysis of the racial animus embedded in the phrase “Black Friday”? And don’t forget, Joy identifies as a liberal, and we know where she gets her “liberal” streak:

It comes from umm, from being smart.

So smart that she thinks Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year, is a bad thing? We’d better not let this bobblehead know we’re dreaming of a white Christmas.

7. Behar, Obama and A Moronic Room With A View

In July, President Obama decided that appearing on “The View” was preferable to attending the 100th Anniversary of the Boy Scouts. Which makes sense, I suppose. I mean, the Boy Scouts are just a bunch of kids that other people were “punished by.” Plus, it’s all American like apple pie and stuff, which we know he thinks is super icky.

We thought that perhaps Joy Behar might revisit her scintillating and insightful commentary wherein she accused white men of being “traumatized” by a black president. But, alas, she didn’t. We, as gluttons for punishment apparently, watched “The View” episode. Eyes glazing over and minds wandering off, we heard only hard-hitting questions like this:

“Do you know CPR? Because, you take my breath away”

“Would you say that you are The MOST Awesome, or THE Most Awesome?”

“So, about your ‘laser like focus’ on jobs … your eyes are *gorgeous*, by the way”

“It’s so awful that the “f**king NASCAR retards” don’t get all the nuance-y nuane of your nuance-iness, isn’t it?”

Additionally, Joy Behar tweeted the following on the day of President Obama’s taping:

Classy! Only, you know, with a “k.” And the Nazi reference with the Herr comment: so original, Joy! And by original, I mean totally tired and lame.

Another sign of the Apocalypse? That the president of the United States considers Joy Behar and her cohorts on “The View” to be an important source of information and news. Although, to be fair, they may be slightly more credible than most of the members of JournoList.

6. George W. Bush “has no business talking to Jewish people”

You know, the Left doesn’t really spend quite enough time connecting the Bush/Cheney cabal to Nazis. If only they’d thought of that a few years ago, maybe a George W. Bush impeachment would be reality instead of just the source of countless nocturnal emissions among Media Matters “fellows.”

Or not.

Joy Behar is among the worst violators of Godwin’s law. Her comparisons of Donald Rumsfeld to Hitler and the Arizona immigration law to Nazism are nothing short of obscene.

You can always tell when Joy is throwing down the Hitler card because her standard “blah, blah, blah” morphs into “blah, blah, Nazi, blah.” Of course, that means someone has to actually listen to what this door-stopper has to say, and for that, we say, “Thank you, Newsbusters.” From the May 19, 2008 edition of “The View”:

It’s very interesting and ironic that George Bush Sr’s, George Bush, this one, his grandfather, this one, the late, I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but in this case it’s fun. [laughter] He was a United States senator, Prescott Bush, okay, he was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany, okay? This is his grandfather. He has no business talking to Jewish people when he’s got this right in his back yard, this guy.

The president of the United States should refrain from addressing 1.7 percent of the United States population because of charges that his grandfather profited from dealings with Nazis? The way Joy goes on, you’d think W. and his dad sit around at family reunions oohing and ahing over candids of Grandpappy Prescott and Uncle Adolf. Not to mention the way they gush over scrapbooked records of the family’s Nazi money laundering business.

Is there anyone on daytime television who consistently produces sound bites that make the viewing public stupider? This sapheaded ninnyhammer gets paid to give her opinion. By two networks.

5. Joy Behar Odiously Equates Arizona’s Immigration Law With Nazi Germany

Joy Behar likely doesn’t know what epistemic closure means (you know, because she’s a dum-dum) but she sure does take part in it. In one of her standard fits of hysterical and inane shrieking, she broke out the Hitler card. While I usually can’t in good conscience force one to be subjected to her, this video clip pretty much sums up her up in all her delusional and bitter old harpy glory:

On her April 26 broadcast, HLN’s Joy Behar suggested the new Arizona immigration law that would allow local law enforcement to arrest immigrants unable to produce documents showing they are allowed to be in the U.S. is comparable to “World War II Germany.”

“Do you think it’s kind of – doesn’t it feel like sort of Nazism a little bit?” Behar asked. “I don’t want to overstate it, but ‘may I see your papers,’ you know?”

It’s not surprising that Behar is hyperbolic and clueless, as always. It is however, hilarious. Or it would be, if it wasn’t so vile. Why don’t you talk to people who somehow managed to survive Nazi Germany, Joy? See if they think having to enter the United States legally is the same as being rounded up, dragged out of your home, and thrown into concentration camps under constant threat of death. Of course, you can’t ask the 6,000,000 people who were killed during the Holocaust.

Silly us. Thinking of such things would require a brain, wouldn’t it? And a soul.

4. Having Multiple Children is Immoral and Irresponsible

As Justin McCarthy points out, when even Rosie O’Donnell mocks your eco-fanaticism, you’ve gone too far to the Left. On the March 24, 2008 edition of “The View,” Joy Behar, mother of one, criticized the morally unacceptable, socially irresponsible act of choosing to give birth to multiple children. We’d put the relevant parts in bold, but the whole thing is breathtakingly cretinous:

HASSELBECK: I love a lot of kids. I think it’s great.

JOY BEHAR: Don’t you think that, that’s a little bit- how shall I put this- inconsiderate of the fact that you’re using more energy, you’re using up more gasoline.

HASSELBECK: No, you use one pot for 17 kids as opposed to 17 pots of water –

BEHAR: Oh one pot– Joint you mean.

O’DONNELL: Joy was saying is it irresponsible socially or ecologically to have that many children?

BEHAR: I think it is. I think that you’re using more of the resources of the world. You can adopt 17, that would be morally acceptable, but to give birth to 17 children?

HASSELBECK: I think it’s fantastic.

ROSIE O’DONNELL: I do too. But this is Joy who was an only child and who has an only child. So this is her world view.

HASSELBECK: So, do you think Marie is socially irresponsible?

BEHAR: No because Marie adopted.

[...]

BEHAR: It is very hard and very expensive to raise children.

O’DONNELL: But if they can afford it why shouldn’t they?

BEHAR: Because, I told you why, they’re snorting up the oxygen.

O’DONNELL: All right. We’ll be right back after this break and Joy is moving to China where you’re only allowed to have one child.

Kids, you’re gonna have to do a better job of hiding your oxygen-sniffing habits, ’cause Joy Behar is so onto you. Do you even realize how much carbon dioxide you’re spewing into the air? Um, well, Joy isn’t exactly sure, but it’s obviously too much. Why do you hate Mother Earth?

According to misanthropic environmentalist Joy Behar, the world doesn’t have enough energy and oxygen to sustain large families, but hunting and drilling for oil ought to be off limits and that awful Sarah Palin is “very mean to animals.”

Hey, you know how we can save the polar bears and bolster Joy’s “pro-choice” street cred without taking a single extra gulp of sweet, sweet oxygen? Why not classify those filthy, oxygen snorting babies as pollutants?! Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide will throw a parade in her honor.

Joy’s thoughts on the human plague illustrate the Left‘s utter disregard for human life and demonstrate the bizarre suspension of disbelief required to swallow this anti-human flavor of environmentalism. Maybe instead of going after eco-criminals (aka, moms and dads), Joy Behar should aim for a little firsthand experience with the whole “oxygen snorting” thing.

3. To Joy Behar, Abortion is Hunky Dory. It’s Profits That Are Super Bad. Plus, The Baby Could End Up a Pedophile!

Last year, a Planned Parenthood director, Abby Johnson, resigned after seeing an abortion on ultrasound. “The View” included the story in one of their “Hot Topics” segments, inexplicably calling it a “controversial” story. Although, we suppose in their collective minds someone not toeing the Planned Parenthood line is controversial. Joy Behar jumped into the mix to preach to all about morality and immorality. We know, we couldn’t stop giggling at the thought either.

Behar quickly denounced Planned Parenthood for making money off abortions. She called it “gross” and “obnoxious” before she stated, “I don’t see abortions as a profit-making industry. I think that that is the real immorality of it.”

The real immorality of abortion is the fact that the clinics profit. In Behar’s sad excuse for a mind, profiting is way, way worse than the killing of an unborn child. Of course, this cognitive dissonance, especially regarding abortion, isn’t new for Behar. When Focus on the Family ran an ad during the Super Bowl, featuring Tim Tebow and his mother, Behar and her fellow travelers were all up in Stepford Feminist arms. You see, Tebow’s mom did not abort him, even though there was medical risk involved. The ads didn’t even mention that at all; the ads merely showed the great love between a mother and her son. But that, of course, still didn’t stop the idiotic screeching by the feminist Left.

Behar, grasping at straws – and strawmen – in a desperate bid to say something nasty about the ads, could only come up with the following:

The only argument against any of it is, that, you know, he could just as easily become some kind of a rapist pedophile. I mean, you don’t know what someone’s going to be

Wow. A beautiful ad about the pride a mother has for her son, and all it conjures up for Behar is “But… but…. he could have been a pedophile.” Well, Joy, it’s true that you don’t know what someone is going to be sometimes. In your case, however, we do know. You will always be an irrelevant, bitter bint.

2. America Sucks Because We Can’t Fix Our Health Care System Like France, Denmark, & England

A few weeks before the 2008 presidential election, celebrated health care policy wonk Joy Behar channeled Michael Moore to outline her ingenious one-point plan for reforming the American health care system:

What they haven’t discussed in any of these debates is how other countries have solved this. France has solved it, Denmark has solved it, England has solved it. Why can’t we solve it? [applause] It’s ridiculous.

Omigosh, why didn’t Joy run for president? Better yet, why didn’t she just draft Hollywood’s favorite multi-millionaire neo-communist documentarian to run for the highest office in the land? With all those public policy lessons learned while filming “Sicko,” Michael Moore could’ve overhauled the health care system and still had plenty of time left over to topple capitalism.

But gee, maybe Joy does have a point. They’re awful sophisticated across that there pond. (Cue the banjo music.) Take the French, for example. They have wine. And stinky cheese. And berets!

Oh, and don’t tell anyone, but they’re looking to the filthy American swine for ideas on health care reform. Last year the Wall Street Journal reported:

As Congress fights over whether America should be more like France, the French government is trying to borrow U.S. tactics.

In recent months, France imposed American-style “co-pays” on patients to try to throttle back prescription-drug costs and forced state hospitals to crack down on expenses.

That brilliant French model of universal health care has been operating in the red since 1989. Their solution was to kick the can as far down the road as possible. And now, their fragile health care system is buckling under the weight of unsustainable entitlement programs and social welfare benefits are being slashed. Hence, the enthusiastic protests (read: violent street riots) taking place across the country.

In ever so ideal Denmark, lucky citizens pay the highest tax rates in the world and enjoy below-average life expectancy compared with the rest of Europe. Health care solved!

And do we really need to recount the horror stories coming out of Joy’s beloved United Kingdom? Like the practice of “patient-stacking“:

Seriously ill patients are being kept in ambulances outside hospitals for hours so NHS trusts do not miss Government targets.

Or the clever way the NHS deals with a shortage of anesthetists when pregnant women seek epidurals to ease the pain of labor:

Hundreds of British women are being denied epidurals to numb the pain of childbirth because there aren’t enough anesthetists to go around, and this has been going on for at least three years.

And why wouldn’t the British solution to dental care be the envy of every American?

Some English people have resorted to pulling out their own teeth because they cannot find — or cannot afford — a dentist, a major study has revealed.

Six percent of those questioned in a survey of 5,000 patients admitted they had resorted to self-treatment using pliers and glue, the UK’s Press Association reported.

Breast cancer mortality rates are 88 percent higher in the UK than they are in the United States, and British patients wait twice as long to see a specialist. So why wouldn’t Joy “The Brain” Behar want a heaping serving of what they’re having?

1. Joy Behar: For The Children ™ – Unless, Of Course, They Are Those “Demented” Homeschooled Kids

Joy Behar doesn’t just loathe people with minds of their own, she also hates their children. Excuse me, their “demented” children:

“A lot of them are demented when they’re homeschooled.”

Nice.

And wrong, as always. As Michelle Malkin notes, these “demented” kids have an excellent record of achievement. Of actual academic achievement and not made up stuff like “best recycler award” or, you know, community organizing. She goes onto say that homeschooled children are scared of other children. Nothing could be further from the truth. But, to be fair, Behar isn’t much familiar with truth.

I homeschool, Joy. My “demented” kid is two grades ahead. My “demented” kid is not afraid of other children; far from it. She plays with children of all ages, since she has not been indoctrinated to believe that she should only play with children her exact same age. Where, besides public schools, is anyone boxed into socializing with people of only their exact same age? That’s cuckoo pants. It would be similar to only working with, or caring about, people that share your lockstep mindset. Oh, wait.

Diversity of thought, freedom of individuality – those are concepts lost on Joy Behar. They are above her pay-grade, apparently.

If you want to see “demented,” Joy, take a look in a mirror. And stand back a bit, just in case it cracks. You’re welcome.

******************************

Joy Behar has said a lot of vomit-inducing things — Ralph Nader is “sexy” springs to mind — and spends plenty of time parroting the standard leftist talking points about everything from Christianity to the stolen election of 2000. But it’s her unrestrained asininity that makes us wonder why she’s on the air at all.

The answer, of course, can be summed up in two words: train wreck.

People tune in to Joy’s shows to see her make a fool of herself and to gawk at the drool and bile falling from the lips of this mouth-breathing numskull of a woman. And she rarely disappoints.

This week, I wrote a piece for NewsReal about filmmaker Kevin Smith getting tossed off a Southwest Airlines flight because the crew determined he was to fat to fly in the single seat he had purchased.  I enjoy Smith’s films and think he’s a talented writer, but his huge sense of entitlement rubbed me the wrong way.

After making the case that flying is a privilege, not a right, I wrote:

Right now we only have Kevin Smith’s side of the story, and it’s unclear whether the flight attendant used appropriate discretion in approaching him about her safety concerns. I certainly have no desire to see an overweight person shamed for being fat, and I hope that wasn’t the intention.

But a little personal responsibility goes a long way. If Smith had simply paid for a second seat as required by airline policy, he could have avoided the embarrassing situation.  And according to Southwest’s “Customer of Size Q&A,” there’s a 98 percent chance the price of the extra ticket would have been refunded.

Smith went on to complain that because of the airline’s “size-ist policy” he was “being profiled.” I guess flying while fat is the new breaking-and-entering while black.  Beer summit, anyone?

You can read the rest at NewsReal.

The piece received a lot of traffic, and comments were pretty evenly divided on the issue.  Several people made the case that the airplane, owned by a private company, was actually public transportation (thus proving my point about people feeling overly entitled.)  One of those comments was particularly despicable:

According to your unscrupulous logic, Rosa Parks should have moved because it was the Bus drivers choice. Like you said – public transportation “is a privilege, not a right”.

Yes, this person actually had the gall to equate a hero of the black civil rights movement with a fat celebrity demanding that he be allowed to potentially compromise the safety of other passengers on a private airplane.

There’s no comparison between Rosa Parks and Kevin Smith. It just isn’t there.

And you know what else? Being fat isn’t the same as being black.

I can’t believe I had to write that. This is why I don’t spend too much time reading comments – if you’re not careful, the trolls will make you lose your faith in humanity.

Freedom of speech is guaranteed to all Americans.  Freedom from judgment is not.

Consider the great décolletage debacle of ’09.

Meghan McCain threatened to delete her popular Twitter feed Wednesday night after receiving a torrent of comments about the revealing photo she posted.  Although many reactions were complimentary, some were negative and offensive, calling the Daily Beast columnist a “slut” and admonishing her for displaying considerable cleavage.  She wrote:

so I took a fun picture not thinking anything about what I was wearing but apparently anything other than a pantsuit I am a slut, this is … why I have been considering deleting my twitter account, what once was fun now just seems like a vessel for harassment … I am going to take some more time to think about it but seriously I was just trying to be funny with the book and that I’m a dork staying in … when I am alone in my apartment, I wear tank tops and sweat pants, I had no idea this makes me a “slut”, I can’t even tell you how hurt I am

Calling Meghan McCain a slut is infantile and idiotic no matter how skimpy her tank top.  It’s a nasty, overused pejorative that only reflects poorly on people who fling it around. Much like calling a woman a mashed-up bag of meat, it has no place in polite discourse.

But Twitter isn’t prime time television and there’s no promise or expectation that every interaction will be polite. For the famous and infamous, it’s a vicious celebrity gauntlet, not a genteel afternoon tea party.  Every tweet, every Twitpic, is an open invitation asking other Twitter users what they think of you. And sometimes they think you’re a slut.

Meghan McCain knows this.  In fact, that’s why celebrities like McCain use Twitter.  It’s a gargantuan, interactive global advertising platform offering unlimited promotion for the low, low price of $0.00.

I’ve followed Meghan McCain on Twitter for the better part of a year.  She’s done a brilliant job of building a large following she can leverage to promote her upcoming book.  In part, she does well with Twitter because of her penchant for oversharing, and for spitting invective at conservative bloggers and commentators.  She’s not afraid to dish it out, but can she take it?

Apparently not.  And that’s fine.  No one is forcing Meghan McCain to endure the trials and tribulations of fame.  Living in the media spotlight requires a thick skin.  Hell, even writing a blog with open comments places you in the line of fire.  Whether it’s your ideas or your body, when you put yourself out there for the world to see and hear, you’re going to get criticized.  A lot.  Plenty of it will seem unfair, and some of it will make you want to bring up your lunch or crawl back into bed.  Right or wrong, good or bad, it’s the price we pay for participating in the marketplace of ideas.  There’s no invisible rider on the First Amendment that promises to protect the thin-skinned from vile and demeaning criticism.

I’d love it if no woman had to suffer the stinging indignity of having her virtue called into question based on the size of her breasts or the way she dresses.  Been there, done that, and it sucks. If a public figure like Keith Olbermann had something foul to say about Meghan McCain, I’d be dialing up MSNBC to complain.  But there’s not much to be done about lonely strangers tweeting insults as they masturbate to the thought of Meghan McCain crying into her cleavage. She can ignore them or ridicule them, but they’ll always be there.

Meghan McCain has two choices: toughen up or drop out.  Expecting the world to stop judging her is not an option.

Update: Sister Toldjah and The Other McCain link. Thanks!

“It was something else but i don’t believe it was rape-rape,” insisted Whoopi Goldberg.

“Hollywood has the best moral compass, because it has compassion,” explained Harvey Weinstein, proud signatory of the Free Roman Polanski petition.

“We stand by him and await his release and his next masterpiece,” offered Debra Winger in a statement that criticized authorities for using “minor technicalities” to cause the suffering of the whole art world.

Polanski’s defenders plunged themselves headfirst into the sand, ignoring the plea transcript, refusing to consider his own flippant assessment of public reaction to his crime:

If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But… f—ing, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to f— young girls. Juries want to f— young girls. Everyone wants to f— young girls!

Among those who have signed the “Free Roman” petition, the sexual predator is the victim, and the innocence and security of a single child stolen in an act of forcible sodomy is a price worth paying for the creation of art. They are unwilling to see Polanski any other way because it would challenge their insular, elite beliefs about the world:

Considered a genius, unencumbered by morality and the complete opposite of what Americans have long considered the ideal, Polanski challenges society in real life the way Dracula challenges Victorianism in Stoker’s novel. Were they better read, they would perhaps see Polanski not as the Gary Oldman version of Dracula, a tortured loved-starved creature punished by a hostile and puritanical God, but as I see Polanski. He is like the Don Juan of Tirso de Molina’s The Trickster of Seville, sinister, spiteful and ultimately damned. But to see that in Polanski is to look past the European trappings and artistic prestige, and to see the man as equal to all others and thus worthy to be judged. This is a step these self-appointed elites cannot take, lest they admit they too can be judged by their true equals, their fellow Americans.

We have our own royalty in America, the celebrities we build up and tear down as part of our entertainment industry. But there is something seductive in the royalty of Old Europe, the idea that a person could be considered worth more than another and never really have to prove it. We all have such pretensions if we admit it, and the best of us cast off this burden to meet the world and all in it as equals, and rise and fall according to our abilities, our sweat, and our blood. Polanski represents for some the easier way, the illusion of class and worth, the comforting lie of elitism. For those who embrace that outlook there is no action too wicked to defend if it props up the lie and reinforces the artificial distinctions between us.

Especially if it happens to those of us they consider beneath them.

Read the complete Dracula analogy in the Red Alerts piece, Elitism, Europhilia, and Roman Polanski.

Big Hollywood has the names of every morally bankrupt Polanski supporter who signed the “Free Roman” petition, as well as a counter-petition for those in the entertainment industry who believe Polanski should be held accountable for his crime.

In addition, The New Agenda has organized a boycott of all films the pro-Polanski “signatories have directed, produced, acted in or otherwise participated.” A Jail Polanski Petition is available on The New Agenda home page.

Have Hollywood elites finally alienated those who line their pocketbooks?

While a musical protest of the Prop 8 outcome is certainly preferable to death threats, vandalism, and violence, I’m disappointed that the most vocal supporters of gay marriage still don’t understand that crapping all over Christians isn’t the way to change minds.

Prop 8: The Musical portrays Christians as thugs and hypocrites who will happily lie to themselves and others if it will prevent same-sex marriage. “If it works then we don’t care,” they sing. Is it really so difficult to understand that demonizing people for their religious beliefs is divisive and counterproductive? The cause would be better served by shelving the impulsive lashing out so that energies can be focused on analyzing why the “No on 8″ campaign failed. Clearly it’s time for a new strategy, and here’s a hint: attacking Mormons? Not so persuasive.

During a Monday appearance, Brad Garrett gleefully offended just about everyone on Fox and Friends during the After Show Show broadcast live on the Web. His rant targeted everyone from blacks to women to Jews. But then he revealed he’s an Obama supporter so it’s cool, right? See for yourself:

Click here to view the embedded video.

No matter who Brad Garrett votes for, he’s still a racist cretin.

Found via Hot Air’s headlines.

Updated 9/16/08 to replace video that was no longer available from Viddler with a YouTube clip.