Scanner : racism

Racist Small Town Hoodlums Getting Away with Murder

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:10:00 GMT

Brandon Piekarsky entering court before his acquittal on third-degree murder charges. Piekarsky's level of involvement in the killing is unclear, as he wasn't believed to have helped in the beating.

On July 12th, in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, a group of white teenagers were walking home when they came across a young Hispanic man in the park with a teenage girl. One of them yelled out, "Isn't it a little late for you to be out? Get your Mexican boyfriend out of here."

The Mexican man, whose name was Luis Ramirez, became enraged and screamed back at them and began calling for backup. Eighteen-year-old Brian Scully then traded punches with Ramirez, with no one ever agreeing on how the fight actually got started. Derrick Donchak, then 19, jumped on top of the badly-beaten Ramirez and, with a piece of metal between his knuckles, began pummeling Ramirez's face. Miraculously, Ramirez was able to recover and the boys ran off, hurling more racial slurs back as they ran. This enraged Ramirez, who chased after them until a quick blow to the head from Colin Walsh, a 17-year-old component of the all-white group, wiped him out. While Ramirez was down, Scully (it is said by witnesses) kicked Ramirez in the head, causing him to foam at the mouth and convulse. He died as a result of that brutal blow.

At the boys' trial, no one seemed to dispute these facts (except which boy did what.) Nonetheless, the jury acquitted the accused of third degree murder and various other charges while convicting them of simple assault. The defendants and their families emerged from the courtroom triumphant, while legal observers say this was on obvious miscarriage of justice:

"There's been a complete failure of justice," said Gladys Limon, staff attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, who attended the trial and informed Ramirez's family of the verdict. "It's just outrageous and very difficult to understand how any juror could have had reasonable doubt."

She said the evidence "clearly established that Luis Ramirez was brutally beaten."

Prosecutors cast Ramirez as the victim of a gang of drunken white teens motivated by a dislike of their small coal town's burgeoning Hispanic population. But the jury evidently sided with defense attorneys, who called Ramirez the aggressor and characterized the brawl as a street fight that ended tragically. [New York Daily News]
As Avery Friedman argues persuasively in the video from CNN yesterday, this was a pretty clear-cut case of jury nullification: the weight of evidence against the accused was so powerful that it's clear the all-white jury -- like similar juries in the South during the Civil Rights struggle -- was not going to convict two young white men of murdering a Mexican. Even if, as Friedman says, "the only reason he is dead is because he was Mexican." [Crooks and Liars]

Now, some activists are putting pressure on the state's Democratic Governor, Ed Rendell, to speak out about the hate crime. They believe the worst is still to come from a town that is almost 100% Caucasian and only 1% Hispanic...

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Nearly-Naked Gisele Poses With a Bunch of Naked Black Men, Raises Questions of Race

Emily Farris — Wed, 06 May 2009 23:01:00 GMT

Norwegian fashion photographer Sølve Sundsbø recently shot a series with supermodel Gisele Bündchen surrounded by very buff, very naked black men. The contrast in skin tones is striking, but are we supposed to read more into it?

As one commenter over at Project Rungay said: "wow, those photos are fierce. can't tell if the guys are her slaves or if they're raping her. interesting race dialogue. the first photo is super sexy."

What do you think? Have a look and let us know in the comments section.

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[Racialicous via Jezebel]

Video Of The Day: Because Sometimes Racism Is Funny!

Ina Maier — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:04:00 GMT

Wait for it. Juuuuuust wait for it.

[via]

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Italy's Long National Nightmare Is Finally Over...

Brian Fairbanks — Mon, 04 May 2009 22:01:00 GMT

The long national nightmare that is Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's "Bill-Clinton-Multiplied-By-90,000" marriage has finally come to an end.

Today, we'll look back on Silvio's many... many... many reasons for driving his wife to, at long last, file for divorce...

-defended Mussolini as a guy who sent people "on vacation" and didn't kill anybody

-claimed "Communists eat children"

-has been linked on numerous occasions to the Mafia

-"If I wasn't already married, I would marry you right away," and "With you, I'd go anywhere" are quotes attributed to Berlusconi, apparently speaking to Mara Carfagna, the showgirl-turned politician. Berlusconi's wife, Veronica Lario, demanded an apology in an opposition newspaper following the alleged incident

-was accused of making "sexist remarks" when he said right-wing women are hotter than left-wingers (he obviously has never seen Ann Coulter on television.)

-celebrated Obama's election by calling him "handsome" and "even tanned."

-answering a question about rape in Italy and soldiers being sent out to put a stop to it: "We would need as many soldiers as beautiful women and I don't think that would be possible, because our women are so beautiful."

It goes on and on... are you getting a picture? You must be wondering at this point what the final straw was for a lovable wackjobjackass like Silvio Berlusconi. The answer comes to us from the Times Online:

Ms Lario, who met Mr Berlusconi nearly 30 years ago, attacked last week his plans to field young attractive showgirls in the European Parliament elections next month as “shameless rubbish to entertain the Emperor”.

Her fury was fuelled by the revelation that her husband had attended the 18th birthday party of Noemi Letizia, a friend’s daughter, and had given her a diamond and gold necklace. Ms Lario said that he had never attended his own children’s 18th birthday parties.

Sick, sick, sick.

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Sloppy Seconds: Hand Jobs Involving the Mouth

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:08:00 GMT

The teabagging hilarity continues: this roundup of great tea puns is well worth checking out.

While we're at it, here's another made-up Fox News "scandal."

An obviously crazy man bit off his own penis in our old neighborhood of Ft. Greene, Brooklyn.

Everyone should rent the original UK version of State of Play before the American version comes along tomorrow and bores everyone to death.

Tennessee schools hate on the gays by blocking websites favorable to their cause.

A Baptist preacher, who kind of looks like Luke Wilson, was beaten and tased multiple times by the border patrol for refusing to open his trunk.

Kari Ferrell, the Utah hipster-grifter, is taking New York City by storm with her awful tattoos and creepy promises to give guys hand jobs with her mouth. Wha?

Is this the end of Rolling Stone Magazine?

President Obama released all those pesky interrogation memos from the Bush administration. Of course, nothing will ever come of this.

Brad Garrett yelled at paparazzi about "turbans" and is now accused of making racial slurs.

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Top 10 Feminist Icons... From A Male (Part One)

Brian Fairbanks — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:10:00 GMT

This is Scanner Brian-- and Scanner Brian alone-- with a list that needed to be done. Males have something against admitting they are feminists, perhaps because they mistakenly believe the term applies only to women.

Today, I decided to set out to right that wrong-- much as these women (and one man) did over the course of their very interesting lives. The result is pure history-filled entertainment and not meant to be definitive by any means. For one thing, Gloria Steinem, Virginia Woolf, and Sylvia Plath should be on a list of the great feminists, to be sure, but I found that so much has been written about them already and decided it was best to spare you my half-assed attempts to say something original about them. (By the way, we excluded Susan B. Anthony from this list because of her staunch anti-abortion stance-- these ten, in no particular order, were the ones we personally appreciate the most...)

Karen Silkwood. In her lifetime, nuclear plant whistleblower Karen Silkwood was not known as a feminist, but that doesn't matter to us. She stood up to those (men) who tried to put her in her place, who told her she couldn't have a romantic relationship with another woman. They told her she should keep quiet about being contaminated by plutonium at the plant where she worked, even though incompetent management had caused the exposures. But she didn't listen, even when there were numerous threats on her life. As you may already know, Silkwood was killed in one of the great unsolved murder cases in American history. Of course, everyone knows she was run off the road by agents of Kerr-McGee and/or the US Government-- although she crashed into a guardrail en route to deliver documents to a New York Times reporter, documents that were missing from the wreckage, damage was also found to her rear bumper, suggesting she was actually hit from behind. Nora Ephron scripted and Mike Nichols film of Silkwood, which was nominated for several Academy Awards in 1984.

Louise Brooks. Brooks was a dancer and movie actress who told the studios to stuff it when they wanted to force her to perform in lame "sound pictures." She ignored the "You'll never work in this town again" threats and decided she didn't need those control freak men in Hollywood. Instead, she moved to Germany and starred in the first film to ever feature a lesbian character, Pandora's Box, now regarded as a classic. Her sexually-charged performances in German cinema were all censored or remained unreleased for years. "By her own admission, she was a sexually liberated woman, not afraid to experiment, even posing fully nude for "art" photography, and her liaisons with many film people were legendary, although much of it is speculation."

Crystal Lee Sutton. A sadly overlooked feminist icon if there ever was one, Sutton is known as "the real Norma Rae." In the early 1970s, Sutton worked at a textile plant in South Carolina, making $2.65 folding towels. She soon got union fever and stood up to harassment and sexism to become the spiritual leader of the entire labor movement in this country. Of course, a few years later, Sally Field starred as a character based on Sutton's early work with the ACTWU.

Kate Chopin. Missouri native Chopin wrote the Awakening at the turn of the 20th century, and it couldn't have been better timed-- from the perspective of history. In 1899, it couldn't have been met with more of an out-of-touch backlash. Chopin's novel about a woman's struggle with societal standards, motherhood vs. self, and "the woman as property" norm took America by storm, with the outcry so great that her publisher delete the book before most members of the public were able to purchase it. Nonetheless, its "unwholesome" attitude toward sex was one of the key factors in sparking the century's feminist movement.

Shirley Chisholm. What didn't this feminist superhero accomplish in her life? (We didn't want you to actually answer that, but if you're looking for a torch-bearer, see Bella Abzug, below.) Chisholm, who would be my Congresswoman were she still alive to represent my district, was the first African-American woman of Congress, the first on a major-party ballot for President and the first woman on the Democratic ticket. Chisholm went on to receive more than 150 votes for President at the 1972 DNC. (The best anecdote about her is one unrelated to her feminism. When racist Governor George Wallace was shot and very nearly assassinated during that same Presidential campaign, Chisholm caused a huge uproar for visiting him in the hospital.)

Continue reading in Part Two.

Wacko Right-Wing Politician Hit With Nude Photo Scandal

Brian Fairbanks — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:02:00 GMT

Pauline Hanson has railed against an "Asian invasion" in Australia, been to jail for electoral fraud, appeared on Dancing With the Stars, and made a strong political comeback, all over the course of a relatively brief career.

Now, Hanson's bid "as an independent at the upcoming 2009 Queensland state election" may be in jeopardy after a series of nude and raunchy photos have surfaced...

When Hanson was 19, she posed for another teenager who she fell for thanks to his awesome Harley Davidson motorcycle. At least, that's what her now ex-boyfriend told the Australian papers that originally published these photos. At some point, he convinced her to pose for his camera:

Unfortunately, these censored pics are the only ones released by the media.

Two things: one, this girl looks older than 19 and two, how can we be sure this is her? Hanson denies it, flat out, although that's the obvious talking point for a right-wing politician. The publisher of the original photos claims that his paper did "a very, very extensive checking process which... involves stripping out colours, looking at the pixel count in images. These images are not doctored. They are not fakes, it's not her head stuck on somebody else's body."

While the model may be entirely human, how do we know the model is Pauline Hanson?

Australia's major political parties could care less-- they were in unanimous agreement that the photos will not affect this weekend's election...

Read more about this story here.

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Moran Stirring Up Controversy By Suggesting We Need To Get Rid Of Obama

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:31:00 GMT

We're trying to decide who's funnier: the guy above or the moran in this story...

The village idiot in Fort Walton Beach, Florida has spoken: he would like us to "get rid of" Obama, and will sit on his porch with his misspelled signs, waving the confederate flag until the Black Man is out of the White House.

We report on local Republican Larry Ford, who is causing guffaws all around the world with his special brand of populism... and this sign has gotta be seen to be believed...

Larry posted two copies of this sign in his front yard. And no, we're not going to make fun of a typo... just because it's a typo...

As for the misspelling, Larry says: "I think everybody knows who I'm talking about, don't you? American people are the stupidest people in the world, but something like that I think they can figure out."

Amen, brother, amen.

The local Democrats are taking it in stride: "(Obama) won, get used to it.... He won fair and square, unlike the election in 2000, when Bush didn't win fair and square. And we put up with him for many, many years."

The New Republic ends their story with this:

Ford said he will leave the signs up "until we get rid" of Obama.

Via TNR.

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Happy Friday the 13th, Fraidy Cats

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 14:44:00 GMT

Hey, it's Paraskavedekatriaphobia Day everybody! Did you watch out for black cats (isn't that terribly racist?), avoid crossing under ladders (as if there's even an opportunity for that in today's paranoid construction job), and, honestly, who opens umbrellas in the house anyway? Don't you wait until you step out of the doorway so the umbrella doesn't get caught inside?

Seriously, though, have you ever wondered why the number 13 is such a big deal and why a Friday the 13th means a damn thing besides "bad Halloween ripoff?"

Wikipedia, of course, provides the annotated and also impossible-to-skim answers. We'll summarize it for you below:

1) The fear of a Friday that falls on the 13 is a phobia. That really long word up there is the name of that phobia. We'll just call it The Fear for our purposes here.

2) Honestly, no one really knows why The Fear is The Fear. The first known reference to The Fear was made in an 1869 biography of some guy named Gioachino Rossini.

3) "One theory states that it is a modern amalgamation of two older superstitions: that thirteen is an unlucky number and that Friday is an unlucky day." That settles it for us, but you can read on.

4) Another interesting note: "According to the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina, an estimated 17 to 21 million [crazy] people in the United States are affected by a fear of this day. Some people are so paralyzed by fear that they avoid their normal routines in doing business, taking flights or even getting out of bed. "It's been estimated that$800 or $900 million is lost in business on this day." Despite this, representatives for both Delta and Continental Airlines say that their airlines don't suffer from any noticeable drop in travel on those Fridays."

Via Wikipedia.

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Sloppy Seconds: What Amy Adams Does in Private

Emily Farris — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 22:43:00 GMT

Do you believe that NBC paid crazy baby lady ~~Angelina Jolie~~ Nadya Suleman nothing for her sit down with Ann Curry? [Jossip]

Our favorite headline of the day: 'Nude biker leads trooper on chase in bad weather.' [AP]

Boo: a brewery in Brooklyn has been ordered to stop making its Obama ale. That's too bad. We've had it and it's good. [The Brooklyn Paper]

After seemingly racist photos of her surfaced, Miley Cyrus is being sued for $4 million "on behalf of all "Asian Pacific Islanders living in Los Angeles County." Good luck with that Lucie Kim. [FadedYouth]

Ah! Will U2 just go away for, like, a little while? They're playing for an entire week on David Letterman to promote their upcoming album. [Yahoo!]

Apparently Amy Adams, girl of Scanner Brain's dreams, is actually a bad girl, telling BlackBook magazine, "I misbehave. I just do it in private." We imagine this only means he loves her more now. [People]

Is This Another Murder-Coverup of a Black Man?

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:03:00 GMT

Police in Mississippi want you to believe that Billey Joe Johnson, Jr. died of a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head while in park during a routine traffic stop. Police want you to forget that Billey Joe was black, his girlfriend was white, and that the angry white father keeping them apart was a friend of the police officer on the scene.

They also want you to forget that the official report has one glaring inconsistency in the death of an all-star high school football player weighing several major scholarship opportunities.

But Johnson's family and the NAACP are questioning whether Johnson died from a self-inflicted gunshot. A lawyer for the family has said Johnson's wounds did not appear to be consistent with a shotgun wound.
Willie Gaines, head of the George County chapter of the NAACP, said he, like many others in the community, believes Johnson had too much to live for to take his own life. The morning of his death, he was scheduled to attend an awards banquet. [Denver Post]
A witness heard two shots, not one, at the scene where Billey Joe died, according to an independent investigation launched by the Mississippi NAACP. The pathologist in that investigation has indicated that it would be impossible for a bullet from a self-inflicted shot to enter in the manner that it did. He also said that given the length of Billey Joe's arms and the length of the shotgun, it would have been impossible for him to hold the weapon and fire it at himself. [dead link, via Color of Change e-mail]

Even with this evidence, will the truth ever come out? Did the cop shoot Johnson? Did the father of his girlfriend, who had been ordered not to see the boy? All we know is that on the night in question, Johnson tapped on the girl's window, where her mother was waiting or hiding or happened to be passing by in the inside hallway. The mother called the police and Johnson took off. Color of Change notes: "This fact was not a part of the original story given by the police."

Later, he was stopped for what the police say was a pair of traffic violations: running a red light and blowing a stop sign. The cop claims he was taking Johnson's driver's license back to the car when he heard a shot and the sound of glass shattering. He turned and saw Johnson's last moments...

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While You Were Sleeping: The 3-D Porn Movie

Brian Fairbanks — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 14:08:00 GMT

Ever wonder what repairing a sex doll is like? Wait, you already knew this job existed?

We're hoping Kanye West is kidding when he says he wants to change his name. We are not amused.

Shockingly, your wife may become upset if you turn out to have a secret Playboy subscription.

Try not to panic-- 71,000 jobs were lost yesterday alone.

The hookers are flocking to Florida for the Super Bowl.

Good God! Molly Ringwald is 40 years old. Oh, and she's expecting twins...

The world's first-ever 3D porno flick (or so the producers claim, probably without having done any research) is all set to shoot. We'll, of course, provide a look behind the scenes, assuming this doesn't go way over budget, as an experiment of this magnitude is bound to do.

And forgive Paris Hilton, for she knows not what the hell she's saying.

Today in WTF: Drunken Negro Face Obama Cookies

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:44:00 GMT

"My brother-in-law is Cuban, so there... I'm not racist."

FAIL.

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Nazi Coffee Bad For Business

Scanner Matt — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 20:10:00 GMT

The coffee company, Tchibo, and gas station chain, Esso, have discontinued a joint advertising campaign in Germany. "Tchibo never meant to hurt anyone's feelings," company spokeswoman Angelika Scholz said, claiming Tchibo and Esso were unaware of their new campaign slogan's old significance.

The campaign slogan was, "Jedem den Seinen" which means, "to each his own" or "to each what he deserves". Guess who also liked this expression? That's right. Nazis. The almost exact expression, "Jedem das Seine" hung at the entrance to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where 56,000 people died.

The signs, which appeared at German gas stations advertising coffee (not gas, that would be unbearably awful), were removed yesterday.

Reuters reports:

Salomon Korn, the vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany told the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper that the campaign reflected either "unsurpassed tastelessness" or "total historical ignorance".

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Once You Go Black

Emily Farris — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 20:07:00 GMT

Do you remember what you read on the Internet in 2005? Neither do we, which is why we feel absolutely fine visiting (or revisiting) the subject of one Miss Susan Crain Bakos and her deep, intense, oozing, throbbing love for black men—even though, to the best of our knowledge, she has done nothing newsworthy of late.

Bakos, who is apparently very smart and important, has written many books on love, sex, and relationships and topping the New York Press' list of most read articles is her "A White Woman Explains Why She Prefers Black Men." From the very first sentence we knew it would be pure poetry...

"Black skin is thick and lush, sensuous to the touch, like satin and velvet made flesh."

From there, it only gets better. After explaining that, in the beginning, she pretended she was going after black men because white men no longer wanted her over-the-hill body, she finally admits thats her attraction to black men has nothing to do with what she can't have, and everything to do with what she can:

"I want black men. They want me. We look at one another and exchange a visible frisson of sexual energy in the lingering glances."

To each her own, so still totally understandable. Until the next sentence, of course, when it gets weird:

"And our attraction is based first on race."

Huh? (Not that we're not first attracted to bearded men, but all men—regardless of race—look better with beards!)

"We are not those couples who 'happen to fall in love' with someone of a different race or more purposefully come together but out of some greater sense of interracial understanding and respect. Not as politically-correct men and women do we seek one another out. The Internet has made it a lot easier for us to find each other now. Men advertise: ebony seeks ivory. Women write: seeking tall, dark, and handsome. Very dark. We are not the same people who say: Race is not important. It is important to us. We have race-specific desires."

Right, because of the skin. And the sex. After pointing out that "these guys" (are they like That One?) aren't "the marrying kind," Bakos goes into why the sex is so, so, soooooo good.

"They look better than white men, they touch and kiss and make love better than white men. Statistically, their penises are only a fraction of an inch bigger on average, but they seem bigger and harder."

Also, apparently, black men age like a good bottle of wine while white men have the shelf life of, well, white bread.

The article goes on and on and on and on and on.

Obviously, there has been some Bakos backlash.

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[Image]

While You Were Sleeping: Weekend Weddings

Brian Fairbanks — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 15:52:00 GMT

Someone has been posing as a thirteen-year-old Australian girl on the internet and posting nude photos, license plates, and phone numbers online predators. Unsurprisingly, the cops want to do the job themselves.

Censorship reigns supreme in America, even in art galleries.

What's worse than getting married at a Waffle House? Getting married at Taco Bell.

Roland Burris-- forgotten footnote or future Senator? History will be decided today.

What happens when you're Elvis Costello and you're on tour with The Clash and the Damned? Painful pranks.

Charlotte Church is old enough to have a baby? Holy God, we must be getting old.

A man solved a Rubik's Cube... after 26 years of trying. We're not supporters of just giving up when something doesn't work, but...

'Til Death will return for a fourth season.

Prince Harry apologized for calling someone a "raghead" and another a "Paki."

And Kevin Costner was in the hospital while, on an unrelated note, Fergie got married in Malibu.

RNC Candidate Produces "Barack the Magic Negro" Song

Brian Fairbanks — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:02:00 GMT

If you think the historic and decisive victory of Barack Obama has dealt a death blow to this country's racial intolerance, you're going to want to see this...

Chip Saltsman, the genius who turned Mike Huckabee's win in the Iowa caucus to a triumphant defeat down the road, is running to be the head of the Republican National Committee. Since, as is the case with Sarah Palin, the vilest candidate should win here and, with the unfunny "parody" song he handed out to colleagues at Christmas and the huge uproar over the weekend, we would peg him as the new front runner for the job.

Here's a video someone made set to the song. Our second favorite, way less amusing, is here. There's nothing to say here except these people are incredibly sad... just sad...

...with caveats: 1) The video opens with Paul Shanklin, an Al Sharpton impersonator (more like "mocker"), letting everyone know this is closed captioned for the "thinking impared." Yes, that's how he spelled it. Oh, and there are no captions in the video whatsoever. 2) Even if the rest of the ignorant lyrics fail to turn you off, just keep reminding yourself that Saltsman is white and the use of the word "Negro," his defenders argue, is completely acceptable because he's "being funny." 3) The smack-yourself-in-the-forehead break in the song, which either Saltsman or Shanklin use to claim that people vote for Obama because "this is about justice"-- as if those tens of millions of votes were all because people feel sorry for the Civil Rights Era (yeah, tell that to the Jesse Jackson '84 and '88 campaigns, and to George Bush, who would be relieved to know it had nothing to do with him.

If the video gets pulled (it has been once already), please email us at scanner@nerve.com and we'll get another version up immediately.

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Three Men Jump 12-Year-Old Girl, Beat Her Up, Call Her A Hooker... Then Arrest Her

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 20:25:00 GMT

We've been reading about this story for a few days now, but we were waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Yes, this story is so shocking, we assumed it was fake, exaggerated, or rife with accidental factual errors or some combination of the three. Unfortunately, though, the Galveston Police Department has not released a plausible denial, so we have to assume that, to a large extent, this is a true story...

Here's what we (think we) know:

1) A 12-year-old African American female is playing in front yard in Galveston, Texas two years ago. Out of nowhere, a van pulls up and three men jump out, call her a prostitute and grab her. When she screams "Daddy, Daddy," they clamp her mouth shut and beat her on the mouth and face. Her father responds to her cries (hero!) and starts beating up the men (not heroes.)

2) The men (if one can call these pieces of shit that) turn out to be police officers. All kosher so far, right? Whoops-- it turns out they were plainclothes cops, didn't identify themselves as police (big no-no, as any boy in blue will tell you), and were supposed to be responding to a report of three Caucasian prostitutes in a different part of the neighborhood. What excuse did these officers provide for seizing on the pre-teen black girl? She was wearing "short shorts." (We'll refrain from making a crack about how all preteen girls would be prostitutes under these guidelines since, well, preteen girls are surely acting more and more like prostitutes these days, anyway...)

3) The girl, who is an honor student, was released and subsequently arrested while in school, where she is an honor student. She was charged with "assaulting a public servant"-- which itself is almost a sick joke, since every word of that charge is a boldfaced lie.

4) No one heard about the case for two years because, quite justifiably, the girl and her family were afraid to tell anyone. An intrepid reporter spotted the ongoing case on a court docket and blew the lid off the whole thing. Of course, the mainstream media are ignoring the story-- probably because the family is poor, black, from Texas, and probably unwilling to cooperate with the obnoxious press. We can't say we blame them, although we hope that this gets major publicity and that all three police officers lose their jobs...

...if this is a factual story, of course.

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Teens Identified In Robbery After Mom Walks By

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 14:02:00 GMT

Here's your dumb criminals of the month: not only were they caught preparing for the robbery, chased out of the targeted store by a woman with a flyswatter, but after being tackled by a random security guard who was on to them before they even put on their "masks," one of them realized his Mom was one of the gawking bystanders.

The weirdness continues below...

1) Herman Sakaria, a local security guard, was heading toward his car when he noticed two sixteen-year-old males covering over their license plate. Sensing something was up, he lurked in the shadows and watched as the youths put plastic bags over their faces (!) and pulled out steak knives.

2) The youths ran into a store and demanded cash. For some reason, Stuff.co.nz's version of the story insists upon describing the store's proprietors as a "a Korean man and woman" (while, at the same time, ignoring the ethnicities of the culprits and their captor, depicted above in a censored photo taken by an onlooker.)

3) The shopkeepers chased the kids out without using a weapon, apparently, although the woman did beat one of the kids with... a flyswatter. Meanwhile, Sakaria was waiting for the robbers and tackled them as they left the premises.

4) Sakaria held the boys down until police arrived (in America, the story would've gone: "he eventually was forced to release the boys after twenty minutes because the police hadn't respond to the 9-1-1 call, assuming someone had dialed it at all.") While one of the boys was moaning and groaning under the guard's knee, he looked up and noticed a woman walking by. "Oh shit," he said, "There's my mum."

5) The boys could received up to 14 years in prison apiece.

Coda) The bizarrely-written story concludes:

"Police say the incident is a reminder for Rodney residents to batten down the hatches during the Christmas and holiday period to divert potential robberies and burglaries."

A reminder based on what? This incident, which closer to theater than crime, is a reminder that someone might burglarize our apartments? Whatever you say, coppers...

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Merry Christmas... From the KKK?

Brian Fairbanks — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:43:00 GMT

What does that look like to you?

You wouldn't be the first to say: "burning cross." However, as Gizmodo points out, it's actually a 210-LED light holiday cross from the American Family Association and not at all affiliated with the KKK. Not at all...

As the season for joy nears, people are already getting ready for their Xmas lighting decoration. And if you are a store manager at the American Family Association, that means a burning cross in your doorstep. Because nothing says "Let's celebrate Jesus' birthday" better than the symbol of his dead in glowing LED glory, 210 of them. [Gizmodo]

Who the hell came up with this? Doesn't the AFA focus group all their new products? Wait, never mind... the problem is that they probably did market test this cross and it was give the A-OK by Middle Americans...

More scariness here.

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Say What? Lindsay Lohan Uses The C-Word On Obama

Brian Fairbanks — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:50:00 GMT

Maybe we misheard her... but does Lindsay Lohan call Obama the "C-word?"

And not the C-word you use if you want to see us next Tuesday...

Check out this idiotic response (or is it a simple slip of the tongue) in an interview Lindsay gave to Access Hollywood. (Rumor has it that the interview continues and Lindsay discusses the whole Ugly Betty controversy, but we stopped watching after about ten seconds...)

Yep, that's definitely the C-word: "colored."

Via Access Hollywood.

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Get Your Muslim On

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 18:13:00 GMT

The new animated version of David Rees' genius cartoon Get Your War On has had us cracking up since its premiere in late July.

Now comes its finest moment so far: Accounts Payable's reaction to the election of Barack Hussein Obama as President of the United States...

That's some good shit, right there. Although we've loaded our .22, just to be on the safe side.

Seriously, there are crazy racist fools out there that really believe this stuff. Strangely enough, they are all apparently hiding out in Austria:

Veteran Austrian television personality Klaus Emmerich has triggered a storm of criticism for his racist comments about Barack Obama, the US president-elect. [...]

...the respected US expert has stained his own report card with a string of blatantly racist remarks regarding the election of Barack Obama in the US. Speaking on a talk show on the Austrian public channel ORF on Wednesday, he said: "I wouldn't want the Western world to be directed by a black man. When you say that is a racist remark: right, without a doubt."

Americans are "racists, now as before, and it must be going very badly for them that they so convincingly ... send a black man, and a black, very good-looking woman, into the White House," he said. [Queer Conservative]

Via 23/6.

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The Election Is Over... And Now The Truth Comes Out

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:14:00 GMT

Sarah Palin doesn't know what countries are in North America. She can't name the countries that belong to NAFTA and she thinks Africa is a country, not a continent. Nor could she name most of the countries in North Africa. It's frightening to imagine how close this woman came to being second-in-command of the United States.

Here's a rundown of all the stories the McCain campaign is leaking about Sarah Palin in an effort to a) pin the blame on someone on b) to doom her 2012 chances, because God knows, even GOPers want nothing to do with this person...

1) Palin spent thousands of dollars more on her clothes-spending spree than was reported. She also charged some of the purchases to credit cards owned by staffers, who have not been reimbursed. One scorned aide quipped that it was "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," while another claims the real horrors will emerge once the RNC runs an audit. McCain, meanwhile, was kept in the dark about the real details, staffers claim, since he would surely have been offended by Palin's greed.

2) Steve Schmidt, the man who proposed Palin for VP, was the one who turned down her request to give a concession speech on Election Night. It's amazing to us that this Governor and national figure had no idea Vice Presidential candidates never make concession speeches.

3) Palin refused to prep for the Katie Couric interview, did not know that Africa is a continent, could not name the countries of North America or the ones belonging to NAFTA, and on and on.

4) Palin decided to go after the William Ayers issue without approval from the campaign's top people. McCain reportedly wanted nothing to do with the Ayers, Wright, and other "smear" angles-- so good for him.

5) To top it all off, Palin greeted McCain advisers in only a towel, telling the visitors they should hang out with Todd, whom Newsweek calls "laconic," while she prepared herself.

Meanwhile, the truth about McCain's inner circle emerges as well:

1) McCain's advisers got together prior to the final debate and agreed the election was over but that they shouldn't tell their candidate that.

2) McCain still doesn't understand why one of his heroes, John Lewis, went after him publicly.

And other interesting tidbits, according to Newsweek, about Obama:

1) He considered the debate format a terrible environment in which to personally shine as a candidate, even taking a dig at Brian Williams for his "dumb" global warming question.

2) Obama's team shot down all of his arguments for considering Hillary as VP. Meanwhile, as we already knew, McCain and Clinton talked on the phone earlier in the campaign because they were so chummy, another reason to make the Obama campaign nervous.

3) During the period of unrest at Palin-McCain rallies, the Secret Service warned the Obamas about an uptick in death threats and other eerie warnings. "Why would they try to make people hate us?" Michelle asked. Welcome to Republican campaign tactics, Madame First Lady.

See more expanded versions of these at the Newsweek site.

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While You Were Sleeping: The Lapdancers And The Prime Minister

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:08:00 GMT

A New England Patriots cheerleader was booted from the squad after Facebook pictures showed her drawing penises and swastikas on a passed-out girl's body.

The New York Times wants you to know that stretching before exercise is actually a bad idea.

And so it begins... check out what this Floridian DJ did to "celebrate" Obama's victory...

Mark Larsen, who is white, dressed in blackface makeup at the start of his show.
“This gives me that Uncle Tom feel,” said Larsen, who also joked about changing his name to Marcus Washington Larsen. “Are you sure this comes off? Because I don’t feel like running for president.”

Before Tuesday’s election, Larsen talked about seeing a long line of black people waiting to vote at a Tampa Bay area polling place, saying they “looked like the line for takeout at Big Tim’s Barbecue” in St. Petersburg. And shortly after putting on the blackface makeup Wednesday, he told a caller he presumed to be black that “You love (America) because you have a man of color going to the White House. Before that, you probably were a malcontent." [Tampabay.com]

Lost in all the election hoopla yesterday: Massachusetts decriminalized marijuana of less than one ounce.

Why do we get the feeling this is going to be terrible? Antonio Banderas may be playing Salvador Dali.

Even these exotic dancers were unable to get the British Prime Minister's attention.

And Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling are over... are you reading this, Scanner Emily?

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Election Nightmare Video Scarier Than Saw V, For Sure

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 19:46:00 GMT

John McCain spoke in front of a large rally in Pottsville, Pennsylvania on Monday and was met by a few dozen demonstraters, and, as often happens at these things, the discourse quicky turned vitriolic...

In this video, a man can clearly be heard shouting "Bomb Obama" on multiple occasions and then saying he knows people who will shoot the Senator from Illinois if he becomes President. We always caught wind of a guy who claims to be a Democrat (somehow we doubt that) saying he could never vote for a black man.

With the polls tightening, although Obama expanding his lead in several red and swing states, we are certainly going to see more of this fear, hatemongering, racism, and general unpleasantness in the next five days. (Memo to McCain supporters: if your only reasons for not supporting Obama are guys he served on a school board with or the fact that you heard he was "born in Kenya," maybe you should do some fact checking before talking to people with cameras.)

By the way, see also this HuffPo piece: McCain Funded Work Of Palestinian His Campaign Hopes To Tie To Obama

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While You Were Sleeping: Mike Myers Is An Inglorious Bastard

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:08:00 GMT

Is there any reason to shoot yourself in the arm? For one man, not getting laid is reason enough.

If you happen to spot a tour bus belonging to The Kills, please contact the Feds.

And the verdict on the Apple iTunes store's fate...

Bowing to mounting pressure from the multimedia giant, the Washington, D.C.-based Copyright Royalty Board declined a request from the aforementioned NMPA to increase song royalties from 9 cents to 15 cents on songs purchased through iTunes and other digital retailers, according to CNN.com.
The decision was the board's first on digital downloads and will set royalty rates for the next five years.

A spokesperson for Apple had hinted that the company thought the six-cent hike would mean the store would operate at a loss and that Apple would close it down if that occurred. How much of this was talk, we'll never know...

Apparently, CHANGE stands for Come Help A Nigga Get Elected... according to one racist assmunch of a teacher in Florida. (His words, not ours.)

Drunk driving isn't funny. Except when it's a local newscaster intentionally playing Demolition Derby with parked Acura sedans and refusing a police order to get out of the car with your open bottle of vodka.

In related WTF news, a woman was kicked out of a Mothers Against Drunk Driving booth... because the injuries she received thanks to a drunk driver were too disturbing.

Looks like Mike Myers and Brad Pitt are the stars of Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards. This'll either be genius or terrible, as there's no way it can be in between.

Speaking of Brad Pitt, his wife Angelina Jolie appeared in public for the first time since giving birth to the celebrity baby seen above. Apparently, she's suffering from post-partum depression, but was "all smiles" at a film premiere in New York last night.

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Top 5 Most Offensive Commericals We Can Think Of At The Moment

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:04:00 GMT

We've been so busy renting DVDs from a certain mail order/internet service that we haven't watched television, certainly not television with commercial interruption, for what seems like years now. So it's a very jarring experience to go over Scanner Emily's house, eat casseroles, and watch something from the modern era called The Biggest Loser and stare in mute agony at the barrage of filth and garbage that gets thrown back in our faces. By the advertisers, of course.

This got us thinking about how grateful we are not to see commericals, especially this atrocious fivesome, ever again. Here are five television ads someone hopefully got fired over...

5. "Racist" McDonald's African-themed commercial. 'Nuff said.

4. When the guy gets out of the car in the beginning of this Credit MacDaddy commercial, we were deathly afraid it would be a zombified Rick James.

3. Forget whether the makers and signer-offers of this ad should be fired, they should downright be imprisoned for exploiting our veterans for monetary gain. It's so bad, it'll almost make you forget about the Republican Party's exploitation of 9/11 victims for political gain... naw, not really...

2. This one's just probably offensive to our intelligence. Although we don't even want to think about the possible number of people who actually trusted that guy with their money.

1. The top ad here (Senator Chambliss' ad against then-incumbet Democratic Senator and Vietnam Vet Max Cleland), which famously linked a man who lost limbs for his country to Osama Bin Laden (and succeeded in defeating that man), is easily the most offensive commercial in human history. Here's a bonus... a commercial that's either a) extremely offensive or b) not offensive at all, depending on your point of view. Just staying neutral on this one, we have to admit it's hard to explain why this might be offensive. Maybe it's that it's not effective... or that it turns domestic violence into a Hollywood action sequence... or that it's just plain terrible and a waste of money better spent actually helping victims of spousal abuse.

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Debate Coaches Show Kids How To Do It By Completely Losing Their Sh*t

Brian Fairbanks — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:34:00 GMT

In a March, a debate tournament in Wichita, Kansas was overrun by immature, obscene, loud, petty, and obnoxious people-- the coaches.

William Shanahan of Fort Hays University and Shanara Reid-Brinkley from University of Pittsburgh got into an extremely heated screaming fight over-- surprise, surprise-- race. But what's most ironic about all this is that Reid-Brinkley seemed to have set Shanahan off on his long and insane rampage by criticizing, of all things, the Fort Hays coach's body language.

This video had been online recently but had disappeared. We just found it in another YouTube posting, uncut and still ugly...

The Associated Press tried to get in touch with these fools for comment, but what's left to be said besides "why didn't someone tell these assholes to get the hell out?" We can't think of a better way to have resolved this than to get two people to carry them out, one taking the arms, the other the legs, and give the students the peace and quiet they needed to finish their competition in civilized peace.

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GOP Senate Candidate's Son In Hot Water For Racist Facebook Profile

Brian Fairbanks — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:00:00 GMT

Bob Schaffer is a Republican in the Senate seat fight for his life in Colorado, in one of the hottest races in the country. Unfortunately for him, his son has a Facebook page that is only going to help his opponent raise insane amounts of money.

Among its many highlights, Justin's page features:

1) a gun-toting Jesus in front of the Confederate flag asking WWRJD? (What Would Republican Jesus Do? The answer, this year, would be to vote Bob Barr, probably.)

2) Obama admitting he's gay.

3) And by far the most offensive one of all, the image that could incite a huge backlash... and no, not the one you're seeing at right, in which Obama is depicted as Count Chocula...

"I do not agree with the sentiment or content of the offensive material, especially the 'bumper sticker' that references slave labor. It is clear that my actions were juvenile, disrespectful, and a mistake on my part.

"The offensive materials directly contradict the values that my parents taught me and are forbidden in my parents' home. My Facebook page is solely my responsibility, and I am saddened that my actions have reflected poorly on my sisters and parents."
His father spoke to 9NEWS on the phone after an event in Glenwood Springs Monday evening and said, "My wife and I have initiated a process of firm and severe discipline with our son."

Where do we start? Okay, first of all... how do you not agree with the sentiment on your Facebook page? Why would it be there at all? For example, Annie Hall is listed under our favorite movies on Facebook, so you'd automatically and correctly assume we agree with its sentiment.

Notice too that Shaffer the Candidate does not say, "What my son said was wrong. If we can't beat Obama on real issues or real truths about who he is, then we should just all vote Nader and admit defeat." (Don't worry, we're just dreaming aloud.) Did we mention that the kid has a pic of Obama dressed as a Muslim at the White House... and no, this ain't the cover of the New Yorker we're talking about?

See more of the page, which has been taken down or set to Private, at Talking Points Memo and this mirror site, which has been down for a while.

EXCLUSIVE: Toby Keith Worships Satan, Ted Nugent, And Lynch Mobs

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:57:00 GMT

Toby Keith, America's highest-rated terrorist, is sending the liberal blogs into a tither after his appearance on the Colbert Report last night.

And it isn't even for anything he said-- actually, it's for a song he's been singing for years and which was a smash hit single after 9/11, containing lyrics that most thinking people would find insane and dangerous had they not been avoiding country music radio since 1976...

Why Stephen Colbert, who out of character is a practicing liberal and would never be caught dead allowing a person like Toby Keith to get away with ruining what little is left of this country's well-being, should allow this guy to sing this song, "Beer For My Horses" (God, what a cheesy ass song, not even including its cultural ignorance) and not goof on him mercilessly is beyond us:

Grandpappy told my pappy back in my day, son
A man had to answer for the wicked that he'd done
Take all the rope in Texas
Find a tall oak tree, round up all of them bad boys
Hang them high in the street
For all the people to see

Yo, that's about lynching, okay? Not cool, Colbert! Why didn't you attack him on that? As Max Blumenthal pointed out at the HuffPo:

During the days when Toby Keith's "Grandpappy" stalked the Jim Crow South, lynching was an institutional method of terror employed against blacks to maintain white supremacy. According to the Tuskegee Institute, between the years 1882 and 1951, 3,437 African-Americans were lynched in the United States, mostly in the heart of Dixie. Felonious assault and rape (read: corrupting "the flower of white womanhood") were the two most frequent justifications for lynch mob actions.
Georgia was ground zero for lynch mob activity. Though most of the Peach State's victims were black, one of its most high-profile hangings claimed the life of a Jew, Leo Frank. Frank, a college-educated Northerner, was wrongly convicted in 1913 of murdering a 13-year-old girl after a show trial in which his prosecutor portrayed him to a grand jury as a bisexual pervert. Before the trial, one juror remarked, "If I get on that jury, I'll hang that Jew for sure."

You can imagine what happened to Frank and others like him, in Keith's glorious, Hitler-esque vision of the South. By the way, if Toby Keith loves lynching, then we can also correctly assume he worships Satan, who is a big fan of eye-for-an-eye anarchic lawlessness, and Ted Nugent, who is a racist pigporker and will kill us all with his 2,227 guns.

PS. Besides being a world-class shitbag, Toby Keith is also a talentless wanker we'd easily take in a fight, with a Guantanamo hood over our heads... bring it on, indeed.

Via the Huffington Post.