Little Green Footballs’ Charles Johnson called out wingnut blockhead Dan Riehl yesterday. Dan accused unknown media conspirators of ‘lightening’ a photo of Trayvon Martin to play upon Americans’ sympathies. After all, black people look bad, light-black people look better, everyone knows this, and you assholes are trying to play games with Dan’s UNIVAC mind.

So many people read Charles’ post (27,000 hits and counting), it ended up at the top of Memeorandum yesterday. Dan, being brilliant as well as race-blind, called Charles stupid, lame, irrelevant, and tweeted that if Charles ever came by the neighborhood, he’d get beaten up. This came in between Dan raining the internet with half-eaten grubs, beating his sagging chest and pissing on the trees in front of his apartment.

Well, this wanted attention can’t go without some attention. Dan will have the world know what an idiot Charles Johnson is. Also, can you just believe these blacks? Or the Negroes and the black people?

What’s sad is how willing Johnson has been to throw away everything he seemed to once understand about the media and turn on so many once friends to do it. Worse is the race-based ignorance of so many blacks I’m seeing in attacking me, when they should be criticizing the media, instead

When Dan makes a race argument — ‘black people look guilty, grey people look less guilty’ — the blacks who react badly to it do so out of “race-based ignorance.” The guy who’s telling black people how the world sees black people is telling black people they’re stupid because they’re black. This is some sort of towering feat. Does Imbecile have a Mt. Everest? Consider it climbed.

No where [sic] have I said a darker image of Martin would suggest he was somehow guilty of something, or that it might justify his being shot in any manner.

Dan: “Clearly, it has been lightened, or softened, somehow. Along with other possible alterations, he looks far more, perhaps innocent is the right word . .”

Dan didn’t say that the dusky criminal face of Trayvon made him guilty of anything. He merely said the liberals photoshopped it to make him appear “far more, perhaps innocent.” Can anybody understand these blacks? Why can’t Dan say the dead kid belongs in a penitentiary yearbook? Everybody’s gone crazy.

Johnson, the many progressives and now many blacks who have been attacking me over it are being played and they don’t even know it. If anything, blacks especially should feel insulted and upset at the media, including the AP – not me. My whole point questions their judgement [sic] and worldview, not Trayvon Martin’s, or Zimmerman’s.

You have just read one of the greatest paragraphs in the history of blogging. The photo was never altered. But “many blacks,” who have seen more ethnic faces than Dan Riehl, remain mute in the shadow of the Associated Press’ racial crime. All Dan’s done, with his insect blogging, is question America’s judgment and worldview. That’s all. Dan’s also erecting a desert pyramid in his shorts.

By seeming to prefer using a lighter image of Martin to further fuel the story line that he was a total innocent in the encounter and Zimmerman is guilty before all the facts are clear, my concern is that they feel that making Martin look less black in the eyes of the their [sic] readers, somehow makes him look less guilty of something.

Are you cringing yet? You didn’t think you could have empathy for such an asshole. You surprise yourself.

As for the many blacks attacking me, when it’s actually the media, including the AP, who appears to be saying to them, lighter is better, while darker is bad, and they aren’t even able to see that, the pre-judgment and ignorance on display is just sad . .

Shall we just tiptoe away? Yes, we should. Dan is unconditionally pathetic.

When you’re a wingnut ass, what do you do when one of your own gets exposed? Turns into an object of loathing? Becomes the thing despised? You call upon your worst instincts, that’s what you do. Big-league Conservative blogger Dan Riehl:

. . a widely viewed photograph of Martin appears to have been altered, somewhat.

Here is what appears to be the original via the Miami Herald.

The one below has been observed in the media and at forums such as Democracy Now. Clearly, it has been lightened, or softened, somehow. Along with other possible alterations, he looks far more, perhaps innocent is the right word, in the altered image . .

Charles Johnson: “. . it’s a photograph of a low resolution copy of the picture on a sign at a protest — not ‘the original’ at all.” The light-skinned one is the original, Dan.

But check that: black people look guilty. The blacker, the guiltier. And liberals are playing games, so that the innocent Trayvon “looks far more, perhaps innocent.” That’s why the grayish Trayvon is clearly classic liberal bullshit. Dan thinks the murder is a political tug of war, and we’re conspiring to pull decent people over to our side for the big win. Dan Riehl is just dogshit. He reacts to Charles blogging his epic, stupid ass:

Punch him, Dan. It’ll prove you’re a stupid motherfucker. Same LGF thread, Dana Loesch. She is furious about the death of Trayvon Martin because liberals:

“But people have, screaming and crying and making this about a race, y’know, all of this and freaking, there have been a rash of break ins, and, they, I mean they interviewed one of the black neighbors as well, and she was like ‘yeah a lot of the break ins, y’know it’s a mixed neighborhood, some of this has been, y’know, black criminals coming and doing this.’ This is one of the black women that lived in the neighborhood, and she was like ‘YES!’”

Irate that people are angry. Some of the criminals were black, so, like, yes!

“They’re going to stoke this any way they can. This administration. Unbelievable.”

They won’t leave poor ol’ Zimmy alone. The nerve of this President, and this America. Now a video. Asking Trayvon’s mother if he ate chicken? WTH?

Someone posted the clip over at Topix.com, in the African American forum. Reaction:

THX00451, Seattle, WA:

***LMMFLWAO!!!***

Truly hilarious video! That she-rilla looks like something out of “Gorillas in the Mist”…

Too funny, just laughing his ‘mother fucking lily white ass off.’ Over at Google groups, in both the alt.politics and alt.fan.rush-limbaugh forums, more routine hate:

Peter Polk:

Doesn’t this un-presidential nigger know when to shut his mouth for his own good? Anybody who votes for this fool is an idiot.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57403200-503544/obama-if-
i-had-a-son-hed-look-like-trayvon/?tag=pop;stories

Bravo. Also, Conservative net-shouters, The Astute Bloggers, with the monster scoop:

PREDICTION:

THE CASE AGAINST ZIMMERMAN IS ABOUT AS GOOD AS THE CASE AGAINST THE DUKE LACROSSE TEAM.

That’s right-wing logic. Since he’s a “nigga” on his Facebook page, it makes sense that Zimmerman killed him. Do any of you really believe America is a post-racial paradise?

MAYBE THE REAL CRIME HERE IS HOW THE LEFT DELIBERATELY TRIES TO FOMENT RACE-WAR TO ADVANCE THEIR SOCIALIST GOALS

UPDATE: The picture isn’t even Trayvon, and the ‘nigga’ graffiti came courtesy bloggers.

Jawa Report apparently took down the altered image . .

Make note of the added text which is not visible anywhere except for the original one posted at “Backwoods Home Magazine” which Jawa Report used as shown in my included screenshot.

Wildly conflicting reports out of Moammar Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte say he’s been at least captured this morning. Some sources say he’s been killed. Either way, we might take it for good news as the town has erupted in a hail of celebratory gunfire.

The BBC:

The BBC’s Gabriel Gatehouse in Sirte: “I have spoken to the man who says that he captured him… he said he found him hiding in a hole”:

Commanders for Libya’s transitional authorities say they have captured ousted leader Col Muammar Gaddafi.

Unconfirmed reports say Col Gaddafi has been killed, and AFP obtained a mobile-phone image apparently showing his face covered in blood . .

He’s captured. He’s wounded in both legs,” National Transitional Council (NTC) official Abdel Majid told Reuters news agency.

“He’s been taken away by ambulance.”

CNN:

Conflicting reports surfaced Thursday that deposed Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is dead or has been captured. Deafening celebrations erupted in Tripoli, but none of the reports could be independently verified.

Gadhafi was killed, AbdelHakim Bilhajj, head of the National Transitional Council’s military arm in Tripoli announced live on Al-Jazeera Arabic Thursday. Gadhafi’s death was also reported by National Transitional Council television station Al-Ahrar. It did not cite a source.

A cell phone photograph distributed by the news agency Agence France Presse appeared to show the arrest of a bloodied Gadhafi. CNN could not independently verify the authenticity of the image.

Gadhafi’s capture was also reported by Libyan television, citing the Misrata Military Council.

Here’s the cell phone pic:

UPDATE: The tide of reports has swung in favor of Gaddafi being killed. The New York Times:

Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the former Libyan strongman who fled into hiding after rebels toppled his regime two months ago in the Arab Spring’s most violent uprising, was killed Thursday as fighters battling the vestiges of his loyalist forces wrested control of his hometown of Surt, the interim government announced.

Al-Jazeera television showed what it said was Colonel Qaddafi’s corpse as jubilant fighters in Surt fired automatic weapons in the air, punctuating what appeared to be an emphatic and violent ending to his four decades as the self-proclaimed king of kings of Africa.

Good news.

I’m not a conspiracy guy, I’m not out to get Ron Paul. I might not care for his politics, but he’s likely the most benign monster lurking in the Republican closet. So I’m less motivated to attack him than probably 50 other right-wing assholes.

But, as for controversies, I’m in on this one: Ron Paul wears eyebrow toupees. Really. He carries an unhealthy narcissism relative to his supra-orbital hair, and attends to it by pasting ‘brow falsies.

What? Where the hell did this ‘news’ come from? From a handful of people who noticed a strange thing about the 75 year-old in Tuesday night’s Dartmouth debate. It took a couple of days, but somebody dug up the quizzical pic. The image is running wild across the internet:

That is . . uh . . hmm. It looks to be a brow wig. With a normal human brow loitering in its proper place, underneath. I had no idea such toupees had cause to exist, but apparently they do (vanity, thy name is Pete Gallagher). Hard to explain that image absent photoshopping or some hirsute lens flare. Credit Paul’s intrepid staff, they did try:

Jesse Benton, a campaign spokesman, insisted that Mr. Paul had been the victim of the elements, namely a heavy pollen season in New Hampshire, and called accusations that he’d been artificially enhancing “stupid” and “insulting.”

“Dr. Paul’s allergies acted up a touch,” Mr. Benton said . .

Yes, when you get allergies, your eyelashes crawl in your ears. Sure.

Anyway, I thought it all preposterous. He has weird eyebrows — who cares? I went on to the ‘image’ Google, and I looked and I checked. And nothing jumped out. Yeah, it was odd that his eyebrows got darker with age. It was strange that his eye hair progressed to perfectly monochrome and linear over the decades. But what do I know of these things? Andy Rooney’s eyebrows were a riot. A white riot, but they’re a fungible, mystifying chaos.

And then I came across this pic from a February 2010 article in the New Mexico Independent. Now, I’m convinced:

I’m amazed by this. Eyebrows, of all things.

It’s good when dudes kill a terrorist. But it’s a bummer to have women in power. And you certainly don’t want them on the front page of your Jewish Orthodox newspaper:

Der Tzitung, out of Brooklyn.

Where the hell did Audrey Tomason go?

Who: Marilyn Davenport. (Apparently there are still people with names like this. Cindie Millington. Dex Fairlight.) She is a “Tea Party activist and member of the central committee of the Orange County Republican Party.”

Where: That would be Orange County, California. Birthplace of Dick Nixon.

What: Hilarious e-mail.

Punchline: “Now you know why no birth certificate”

Excuses:

1.) “You’re not going to make a big deal about this are you?” she asked me. “It’s just an Internet joke.”

2.) “Oh, come on! Everybody who knows me knows that I am not a racist. It was a joke. I have friends who are black. Besides, I only sent it to a few people–mostly people I didn’t think would be upset by it.”

(Good explanation. She knows it’s offensive, so she didn’t send it to people who’d be offended. She probably didn’t send it to any of her Negro buddies. ‘She’s never burned a cross on my lawn,’ one remarked.)

3.) “I simply found it amusing regarding the character of Obama and all the questions surrounding his origin of birth,” Davenport wrote. “In no way did I even consider the fact he’s half black when I sent out the email. In fact, the thought never entered my mind until one or two other people tried to make this about race.”

Bonus Excuse:

From Tim Whitacre, Orange County Republican activist . . “As a private individual, she is just real big on Birther stuff. One of her passions that drives her is the president’s lack of forthrightness about where he was born. Marilyn believes that nobody knows where he was born and so this picture says a thousand words . . She is known as a pleasant, loving person and it kills me that she is being attacked by this non-story knowing her mindset.”

Apology:

“We all know a double standard applies regarding this president. I received plenty of emails about George Bush that I didn’t particularly like yet there was no ‘cry’ in the media about them. One only has to go to Youtube or Google Images to see a plethora or lampooning videos and pictures of Obama, Bush and other politicians. That being said, I will NOT resign my central committee position over this matter that the average person knows and agrees is much to do about nothing. Again, for those select few who might be truly offended by viewing a copy of an email I sent to a select list of friends and acquaintances, unlike the liberal left when they do the same, I offer my sincere apologies to you–the email was no meant for you. For any of my friends or acquaintances who were the recipients of my email and were truly offended, please call me so I may offer a sincere verbal apology to you.”

Reasons Not to Cry:

Michael J. Schroeder, former chairman of the California Republican Party . . “This is a three strikes situation for Marilyn Davenport,” Schroeder said. “She was a passionate defender of former Newport Beach city councilman Dick Nichols who stated that he was voting against putting in more grass at Corona del Mar’s beach because, he said, there were already ‘too many Mexicans on the beach.’ She was also on the wrong side of the fence with the Los Alamitos mayor and his White House watermelon patch picture. Now, she has managed to top both of those incidents by comparing African Americans to monkeys. She has disgraced herself and needs to resign. If she doesn’t, the Republican Party must remove her.”

Fast Facts: Marilyn will be resigning her position, she just doesn’t know it yet. The story broke Friday, and it’s only Saturday.

h/t: R. Scott Moxley at OC Weekly.

ADD: Everybody’s hot to see a pic of Marilyn. I worked to dig a decent one up, but I couldn’t find it. You’ll have to live with this expanded image from her Facebook page:

Covetous wretch! Centaur has earned the love of his family. By standing long hours under a pitiless sun. Posing for photos. Cramming tourist lucre into his arm-garter. Bearing the beads of clan Trey Anastasio given him the night before. You sir have no right! No claim! You are lame. Away with you!

Over at Tucker Carlson’s wingnut site, The Daily Caller, they picked up an article from the Charlotte Observer: “In North Carolina you can let your gun show”

The article ran a photo [below] of a man open-carrying a pistol: ‘Eric Shuford Jr., 67, of Cary typically keeps his Russian 9 mm Makarov sidearm with him from the time he wakes up . .’

In Tucker’s online fishwrap, though, it came with a different image:

It’s a shocking image, really, one to question the editor’s taste and sanity, to say nothing of his pro-gun stance. Because that photo is perhaps the most infamous open-carry image of all time, burnished in our memories by violence.

The woman, Meleanie Hain, was an open-carry nut in Pennsylvania. She sued her local sheriff for a million dollars because of the emotional trauma she said she suffered when he revoked her permit after the soccer game photos became widely distributed. Another:

The Hain brouhaha and 2nd amendment deification went down at the end of 2008. About a year later, in October of 2009, her unhinged husband came home and shot her dead. He then turned the beloved gun on himself, ending his life as well.

I remember it. I wrote a post with my take on the paranoid psyches of the people involved: how the use of firepower as a crutch to lessen anxiety actually makes you vulnerable. ‘If only Meleanie had seen that her paranoia was well-founded in the relationships she kept with paranoid gun nuts like her husband,’ one wonders. ‘If only she’d traded in her gun for some dignity and common sense . .’

Meanwhile, maybe the firearms freaks should leave her alone?

She was shot dead, fellas.

Dr Michael Kamrava investigated over new multiple birth scandal

THE doctor who helped Californian Nadya Suleman become pregnant with octuplets has reportedly transferred four embryos to another patient.

A woman in her late 40s went to Dr Michael Kamrava hoping to become pregnant with one baby.

She is now five months’ pregnant with quadruplets and hospitalised. With no insurance, she was transferred to a county hospital for the births, which might not be for two or three months.

The new case has fuelled controversy over the ethical standards of Dr Kamrava’s practice and whether the fertility industry needs more regulation.

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine, which has guidelines limiting the number of embryos that can be transferred depending on the woman’s age and other circumstances, said it was also examining the doctor’s practice. No laws govern this issue.

Well, if nothing else, he’s brought a screeching halt to the lives of two IVF mothers. Pity the woman in her late forties with gestating quadruplets–that is very dangerous. Now she’s stuck for months in the hospital while they monitor her daily for vascular problems: embolisms, pre-eclampsia.

And how is it that these insurance-less desperates get access to the high-tech stuff? The doctor must know they have limited means, so why is he implanting them with so many embryos? This sounds like one of those ‘Law and Order’ episodes where the clinic doctor is spreading his own seed.

Okay–is there any argument for implanting six (or more) embryos in a young, healthy woman? That it’s a good strategy? Or that selective reduction isn’t a reasonable procedure? What that medical team had to deal with in delivering the 8 tiny babies was obviously a challenge, hats off to them.

Spokesman says octuplets mom receives food stamps

AP – The California mother of octuplets already receives food stamps and disability payments to help feed and care for her six other children. Publicist Mike Furtney said Monday that Nadya Suleman receives $490 a month in food stamps.

‘Struggling’ octuplets mom, Nadya Suleman, looks to God for help

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The California mother of newborn octuplets said Monday she was counting on God to help provide for her family but acknowledged that she already was “struggling” financially to raise her first six children.

Nadya Suleman, 33, widely criticized for undergoing fertility treatments when she already had six children, expressed confidence in her ability to care for her brood during a nationally televised interview on NBC’s “Today” show.

In addition to the six boys and two girls she gave birth to on Jan. 26, Suleman is the mother of four older boys and two girls, including one set of twins, ranging in age from 2 to 7.

Divorced and living with her mother in suburban Los Angeles, she said all 14 were conceived with in vitro fertilization from a single sperm donor, identified only as a friend.

“I will feed them. I will do the best I possibly can,” Suleman said of her newly expanded family. “And in my own way, in my own faith, I do believe wholeheartedly that God will provide in his own way.”

Suleman said she also was hoping for help from “volunteers, friends and family,” adding that her mother, Angela, deserves much of the credit. “I was struggling, but it was OK … thanks to my mother,” she said.