Overnight Open Thread (1-20-2014)

New Media Rule: Thou Shalt Not Report Critically on a Transgendered Person

Which is why Caleb Hannan, a writer for Grantland, is receiving death threats and his editors are groveling. So what happened?

Well he wrote this story about an amazing golf putter (and it is a good read by the way) which opens with a late night youtube video:

I play golf. Sometimes poorly, sometimes less so. Like all golfers, I spend far too much time thinking of ways to play less poorly more often. That was the silver lining to my sleeplessness - it gave me more time to scour YouTube for tips on how to play better. And it was then, during one of those restless nights, that I first encountered Dr. Essay Anne Vanderbilt, known to friends as Dr. V.

She didn't appear in the video. As I would later discover, it's almost impossible to find a picture, let alone a moving image, of Dr. V on the Internet. Instead, I watched a clip of two men discussing the radical new idea she had brought to golf.

So he tracked her down and interviewed her about how she came to invent the Oracle.

But it wasn't just the science behind Dr. V's putter that intrigued McCord. It was the scientist, too. For starters, she was a woman in the male-dominated golf industry. She also cut a striking figure, standing 6-foot-3 with a shock of red hair. What's more, she was a Vanderbilt, some link in the long line descending from Cornelius, the original Commodore. All of this would have been more than enough to capture McCord's attention, but what he found most remarkable about Dr. V was where she had been before she started making putters. She told him she had spent most of her career as a private contractor for the Department of Defense, working on projects so secretive - including the stealth bomber - that her name wasn't listed on government records. "Isn't that about as clandestine as you can get?" McCord asked me.

Well after that it's a tough story to summarize so I'll just let Sonny Bunch of the Free Beacon do it.

Hannan's crime? The publication of this story. It's hard to summarize in any sort of succinct way; you should really read the whole thing. It is about putters and the mental aspect of golf. It is about physics and science and placebo effects. But it is also about a fraudster who lied to golf experts and the public and investors, a mentally unstable person who, as it happens, was transgendered-and took her own life before the publication of the story.

And because Dr. V committed suicide and Grantland published the story revealing her multiple frauds, Caleb Hannan is now one of the most hated men on the internet. Even his fellow journalists are calling for his imprisonment for reporting in the first degree as well as murder.

And as DrewM points out even Hannan's editor is throwing him under the bus and admitting that the transgendered community should get veto power over any negative stories about a transgendered person - a privilege that no other group is offered and one that guts journalistic integrity.

Wait - The One Has a Flaw?

A former White House official was quoted as saying that President Obama is "really good at campaigning. Maybe not governing".

"The Hindenburg? Really good at flying. Maybe not fireproof".

Heh.

MLK Was Only 39 Years Old

One thing that's long amazed me is that King was so young when he was assassinated. At the time I thought him a man in his 50s, but he was actually a mere 39 years old. If he were alive today, he would only have just turned 85 yesterday.

I'm surprised as well - that means he was only 34 when made his "I have a dream speech" and 35 when he received the Nobel Peace Prize.

So Opposing an Iran Deal Makes You Jewish?

Well that seems to be what this cartoon in The Economist is getting at. Because it's simply not possible to oppose a deal unless you're a Joo or in their thrall.

Google Buses and Income Inequality

So enough Google employees live in San Francisco that the company runs private buses that pick them up from SF locations in the morning and takes them to the Mountain View campus 35 miles south and then back in the evening. No big deal right?

Well you'd be wrong because a lot of people in SF seem to hate Google, hate Google employees, and hate their free bus rides and blame them for income inequality in the city. The tensions and protests have now gotten so bad that Google has had to hire private security guards to protect the bus-riding employees.

How the Swedes Deal With Their Free Health Care

They buy private insurance so they can be sure of seeing a doctor in less than a few weeks.

One in ten Swedes now has private health insurance, often through their employers, with some recipients stating it makes business sense to be seen quickly rather than languish in national health care queues.

More than half a million Swedes now have private health insurance, showed a new review from industry organization Swedish Insurance (Svensk Försäkring). In eight out of ten cases, the person's employer had offered them the private insurance deal.

"It's quicker to get a colleague back to work if you have an operation in two weeks' time rather than having to wait for a year," privately insured Anna Norlander told Sveriges Radio on Friday. "It's terrible that I, as a young person, don't feel I can trust the health care system to take care of me."

The insurance plan guarantees that she can see a specialist within four working days, and get a time for surgery, if needed, within 15.

Foxy Merkins - A Movie That You Won't See

Even though the title and summary have potential if they were given to the right exploitative director with a guaranteed Cinemax slot.

Margaret is a down-on-her-luck, lesbian hooker in training. She meets Jo, a beautiful, self-assured grifter from a wealthy family and an expert on picking up women, even though she considers herself a card-carrying heterosexual. The duo hit the streets, where they encounter bargain-hunting housewives, double-dealing conservative women, husky-voiced seductresses, mumbling erotic accessory salesmen, and shopaholic swingers. Navigating the bizarre fetishes and sexual needs of their "dates" brings into focus the hilarious differences between the two hookers, fellow travelers who share the road, but only for a while.

Instead they're going for poignant and subversive. :-(

Open Kitchen Concept: Good or Bad?

Well Mrs. Maetenloch is not a fan - she thinks they're smelly, noisy and not suited for any kind of messy cooking like stir-frying. I guess it comes down to whether you're kitchen focus is on cooking or socializing.

Nun Gives Birth to Baby Boy in Italy

A Salvadorean nun who said she had no idea she was pregnant gave birth in Italy this week after she felt stomach cramps in her convent and was rushed to hospital, Italian media reported on Friday. The 31-year-old mother and her baby boy, who weighs 3.5 kilograms (9 pounds), are doing well and other new mothers in Rieti hospital have begun collecting clothes and donations for her, the reports said. "I did not know I was pregnant. I only felt a stomach pain," the nun was quoted as saying at the hospital, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

Well on one hand who's more primed to accept an immaculate conception story than the Catholic Church. On the other hand that story is only good once every few millennia and sure puts a lot of pressure on the boy.

The Yahoo AoSHQ group. Bla bla bla.

And my twitter thang.

Tonight's post brought to you by the guide:

Notice: Posted by permission of AceCorp LLC and the Tranny Mafia. Please e-mail overnight open thread tips to maetenloch at gmail. Otherwise send tips to Ace. No transgendered people were harmed in the making of this ONT.

posted by Maetenloch at 10:34 PM

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