[via Mediaite]

Every editorial news outlet seem to conveniently omit themselves from the ‘media’ that is irresponsibly perpetuating her nonsense, thus creating the impression, even in the eyes of her most ardent skeptics, that Sarah Palin is important enough to counter. The cycle for responding to Palin seems to have taken a concrete form:

1. Read the new Palin op-ed/tweet/facebook note/book/etc.

2. Find the sections of the piece where her logical thought process and factual accuracy are at their worst (this is probably the easiest part)

3. Bitch and whine about how her points are factually wrong (obviously), while explaining these fallicies to a group of elite literary folks, deemed such by their willingness to sit through an entire article, paragraph, or sentence. Clearly this is not the demographic that needs converting.

After coming out with her new op-ed this morning, Gawker, the Atlantic, Media Matters, and a host of others have spit out this same formulaic, predictable retort to her inane Bachman-esque psycho-babble.

The weird part is that these pieces tend to take on tones as petty and childlike as Palin’s original argument.  It’s sort of like if a little kid calls you a phooey-head. Your two options are to either explain that they are the one that is a phooey-head, or walk away and ignore them, because they are a little kid. And while it should be shame on Marcus Broccoli and the Washington Post for publishing this in the first place, blame should also be thrown on all these media outlets for making people think that what Sarah Palin says is serious enough to be refuted.

It doesn’t.

But if not for that premise, why publish it at all? Is it, indeed, a new phenomenon that bicycles are the mode of transportation du jour for the hip, liberal 18-and-ups? Surely not. Definitely not in northern California. The weather’s too nice. Says so right in the article.

So why — WHY? — would a writer, editor, copy editor, managing editor, or anyone else up the line think we, the supposed intellectual elite, we who follow pop culture like fiends, we who read, we who live and breathe, need another article about bike hipsters?

And what aids the differencing is that few people wear helmets, and everyone is wearing ordinary clothes — none of the sleek and gaudy costumes you see on cyclists pumping through the peninsular hills and whistling down Sand Hill Road to the Caltrain station. They are themselves on wheels.

There is a deeply pleasing randomness about the campus cyclists, as though one morning university officials had assigned a bicycle to every member of the Stanford community, come as you are, without considering for a moment matters of fit — or fitness.

What a rush! Some mouth-breathing yokel in Pennsatucky just dropped a jaw, packed his bags, tightened his belt and went west. Tally-ho!

Except, probably not. Because the guy who read this phone-in on the bikes, the youngs, and the hips probably read yesterday’s piece on the bikes, the youngs, and the hips as well. Probably the one from the day before, too. Might’ve even re-blogged it.

They’re called “newspapers”, or at least they used to be. Now I think its all mostly referred to as “content”. Its a mediocre word that, with alarming regularity, excuses mediocrity in form. It has no value because its supply is unlimited. You can get it for free. You can consume it forever and never be satiated. A steady diet of nothing.

Still, one might assume that news — specifically, the difference between that which is and that which is not — might cross someone’s mind from time to time. But slash the street names, the quip about the weather, and the word “Stanford” and you could cycle this as an article about Brooklyn. Or Portland. Or Seattle. Austin. Chicago. D.C.

Everyone rides the goddamn bike.

So whats your angle, NYT? Who is this for? Was that even a consideration? Is this a money thing? A cheap attempt at marrying your coastal audiences?

Why are you doing this to me?

[New York Times]

Gothamist reported

So let’s see–if you are auditing an organization that combines this with this, I don’t think I would need a full two years to put the pieces as to what’s going on here. In addition to a huge backlog of unresolved applications and a litany of complaints ranging from bribery to low morale, from where we sit, it seems pretty clear that these people are just simply drunk, all day long.

For example, when issuing citations, the SLA decided that fruit fly infestations are analogous to putting crap booze in a top shelf bottle, so they combined the offenses into one indiscernable category. Clearly these people are purists.

Other highlights from today’s Skint:

12:30pm: new york hot dog + coffee’s last giveaway of the season: 100 free spicy kimchi bulgogi hot dogs >>
7pm: michael winterbottom twofer: ‘code 46‘ + ‘24 hour party people,’ 92yt, $12 >>
7pm: drink up + meet your match (or the other way around) @ the brooklyn meatup, bell house, $10 >>

Hoover, 38, who is stationed at Fort Meade, credited his 18 years in the U.S. Army with giving him the attitude needed to win an eating contest. “The Army has taught me to inhale first, taste later,” Hoover said.

Well that makes sense, especially when you consider what they eat in the army these days. But it probably also had something to do with this guy being from Maryland. Just the night before this digusting spectacle, the winner had enjoyed “soft crab stuffed with crab Imperial.”

[link]

I think of myself as something of a pinball revisionist — I started my career on a high-tech, faux-holographic Star Wars Episode I machine in Milwaukee. While a part of me wishes pinball-nouveau had taken off (the last time I saw a Star Wars pinball machine was at the Greyhound terminal in Washington, DC, half-broken, dirty, abused and neglected), I’ve come to appreciate the purity of the classic style.

Surely he’ll get to these eventually, but two places not mentioned where you can fulfill your flipper fancy are Tommy’s in Greenpoint, whose table is in really good shape, and, of course, Barcade.

(minor) UPDATE: The Great Pumpkin moved to his own domain. He also visited Tommy’s, which turns out to be a Wheel of Fortune machine, but he didn’t seem to have as good an experience there as we did (or, at least, we think we did. Maybe it was the beer talking), so approach that one with caution. Oh we’re also no longer sure if they have pinball at Barcade. That was probably the beer talking, too. Accuracy fail.

If you didn’t read that, let me tell you how it boils down. Basically, that site you love to hate, Look at This Fucking Hipster, couldn’t get enough of its actual subjects to sign the waiver for their upcoming (surely to be deck as fuck) book, so they’re hiring real, live posers to model in their “best (worst) hipster attire.”

Nyuck, nyuck.

They’ll be shooting this Friday, September 4 between 11am-5pm at:

233 Norman Ave. between Russell and N Henry in Greenpoint. Buzz #202.

Unfortunately, WTPWB won’t be able to make it, because we have, you know, day jobs and so forth (laame), things to do during the day, you know how it goes.

Where do you come in? Well, the way we see it, these douches are just asking to be pranked/messed with/disrupted. As pacifists, or at least lazy folks, we don’t condone or encourage violence of any kind (although stunts like theirs surely try our patience), but whatever you come up with to otherwise FUCK SHIT UP at this photo shoot, we encourage you to totally go for it.

We’re a young blog, and we’ve heard that young blogs can make a name by giving stuff away, so if you can document your stunt and send us some pics/documentation (which we’ll post, anonymously, on this website), Jeff will give you his iPod. No, that’s not a joke.

ONE FREE IPOD TO THE FUNNIEST, MOST ELABORATE OR MOST INTERESTING PRANKSTER.

It’s 80 gigs, with a bunch of music on it if you want. You read it here first.

Ass covering: We are dead serious about the nonviolence thing. Anyone gets hurt, anything expensive gets broken, any animals harmed, that’s all on you. And you lose the contest. And maybe go to jail. Consider yourself warned.

Address:
12 wyckoff Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11237
(L train to Jefferson Street)

We might need Dr. Sanjay Gupta to help out with this one. In another WTPWB exclusive, we are going to take a look at why it is that getting convicted of a multi-billion dollar fraud seems to severely disrupt normal heart function.

If you’ve been following the mess around Allen Stanford, including today’s creepy new details about blood oaths with Antiguan bank officials, you know that this is not a normal man. On the one hand, his whole heartfelt plight has been at least a little entertaining, and has produced some fantastic quotes, our favorite one being, ”If you say it to my face again, I will punch you in the mouth.” (He followed this up by immediately qualifying that he would in fact, not punch his interviewer in the mouth).

If you’ve been unfortunate enough to miss this circus, basically the SEC raided his Houston office (they have boats?), in a real official way and took a bunch of documents, uncovering a Ponzi scheme massive fraud that, according to Stanford, is DEFINITELY NOT a ponzi scheme. But Stanford was nowhere to be found. It was largely believed that he was spending some time in sunny Antigua, where the bank at the center of the scheme is based. Then, he finally turned up in Virginia, and faced the music–er, sort of.

You see, he was set to appear in court today for a hearing. But instead of going to court, Stanford was instead rushed to a local hospital because his heart was apparently beating as fast as ruby throated hummingbird. 

It remains to be seen what will come of all this for Stanford, so it may be unfair to speculate, but it sure does seem like all these rich fraudsters come down with something awful right before their trials. Remember this, back in 2006? Kenneth Lay “died” died of a heart attack in his family home, just months before he was to be sentenced to life in prison, and everyone seemed to just forget about the whole thing…well, in fairness, I’m guessing this guy didn’t forget. And maybe he tried to get on the boat a little too late, but last week there was this whole debacle about B. Madoff.

As we’ve mentioned here before on WTPWB, we are NOT about conspiracies, just science fact, but once again, we just couldn’t resist.