Pun Salad

'Pump-and-Dump' Spam Surge Linked to Russian Bot Herders.

(Via LGF.)

• I—seriously—saw my first 2008 campaign sign today, for presidential candidate John Cox, who might charitably be called a long shot.

  Between Cox and McCain, however, I'll take Cox. And that's without knowing much about about Cox.

• John Fund reports on past and current efforts in opposition to the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, abolishing state "affirmative action" programs, which passed on Election Day, 58%-42%. Tactics, which will surprise nobody familiar with the issue, involve outrage, obfuscation, frivolous litigation, intimidation, demagoguery, and dishonesty.

  Particularly striking is Fund's pairing of an old George Wallace quote:

  "I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever."

  with a quote from Detroit's Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick:

  "We will affirm to the world that affirmative action will be here today, it will be here tomorrow, and there will be affirmative action in the state forever."

  Of course, "affirmative action" has "officially" been sold as a temporary measure. Apparently Mayor Kilpatrick took his unintentional-honesty pills that morning.

• Over across the state, at that Other University, Joe Malchow forecasts some chilly times for free expression.
  It is time for Native American students to be outraged. And for administrators to coddle them, and for a slick frosty patina of offense-avoidance to be summoned from the heavens above Hanover that it may coat all our words and our deeds, preventing us from saying anything that might shock the gentle souls of those who derive their human worth from people other than themselves and times other than their own.

  He reproduces and analyzes e-mail from President Wright, who, among other things, is pretty put out by what 1920s-era Boston sportswriters said about Dartmouth back then.

• I know it's not just a New England disease, it just seems like that at times. Like President Wright, Boston Herald columnist Michele McPhee says
  Hey, I am all for First Amendment rights,

  … can you guess the very next word? I bet you can:

  but …

  Jacob Sullum describes the free speech fuss in Boston, where all the rapscallions would be out singing Christmas carols holiday songs were it not for Grand Theft Auto ads.

• Speaking of that upcoming holiday, CNN reports that Toys for Tots will now accept the donation of Talking Jesus dolls it previously rejected. No word on what changed, but I suspect they have been renamed "Talking James Brolin" dolls and reprogrammed to offer quotes originally uttered by the character of young Dr. Steven Kiley on Marcus Welby, M.D. Who could be offended by that?

• But, for me, nothing says Christmas Holiday Season like Santa hats on marine mammals.

• And (via Instapundit) our Aieee! We're all gonna die! URL du jour: It's those pesky killer asteroids again; they've apparently seen one too many Grand Theft Auto ads.

Better than you might expect. Better than it probably has any right to be. The basic idea is that three grown-ups, who had (putatively) been bullied and ridiculed as kids trying to participate in youth baseball, decide to form a team and compete against kids.

No, really.

The team is made up of Rob Schneider, David Spade, and Jon Heder, a combination with lots of experience in playing oddballs. They have a champion in Jon Lovitz, also despised as a teen, who's now rich (When talking to a contractor building a new stadium, he advises: "Keep it under a billion, that's all I got... on me.")

The movie works on its own terms, because it's unafraid to be as tasteless, lowbrow, and stereotypical as you can be in a PG-13 movie. It embaces and explores these qualities, in fact. You won't be culturally poorer if you miss it. But if you're easily amused (and I am) it's pretty amusing.