In other other interesting news, the New York Times fired its second token conservative yesterday. Ben Stein, of the late John Hughes' Ferris Bueller's Day Off, was relieved of his financial column for acting as "a commercial spokesman for FreeScore, a financial services company," according to Felix Salmon. Not too long ago the Times declined to renew William Kristol's contract because of the error-riddled dreck he scribbled in crayon on ripped paper bags and then forced into the NYT courier's chubby cheeks for transport. I completely agree with both decisions but find it sickening that the Times can't seem to part with Maureen Dowd,  a plagiarist, total luddite, and liberal sycophant; or Alessandra Stanley, who writes her column using a quill filled with unhappiness and checks her reporting against the ingredients list on a box of crack-cocaine. Simply put:  The Times needs to hold its writers to a higher standard.

Birthers after the jump.
Some really smart people, like the Examiner's Tim Carney and David Freddoso, are calling the heavy birther coverage the product of media bias. Here's their argument:

Twenty-eight percent of Republicans believe President Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States, and 30 percent are "not sure," according to this poll.

But before liberals begin to smirk, here's a poll from 2007, in which 35 percent of Democrats said that President Bush knew in advance about the 9/11 attacks, and 26 percent were not sure.

The next thing they say is that the media ignored the 9/11 conspiracy theories because they were covering for liberals but have latched on to the birther movement because it's led by conservatives. The only problem with this assessment is that in the wake of 9/11 NO ELECTED DEMOCRATS SPONSORED LEGISLATION ACCUSING PRESIDENT BUSH OF ALLOWING 9/11 TO HAPPEN. There were no U.S. Rep. Randy Neugebauers out there. No former Clinton Administration officials making birth certificate jokes while campaigning for executive office in their home states. In short, the poll results reveal what citizens feel. But as we've seen with the birther movement, even elected officials are hoping/praying/wishing that this is true. And that, folks, is scary.

Perhaps of equal significance, TV wasn't taking its cues from the Internet in 2001. But it's sure as hell doing it now. Goddamn dinosaurs.

Child porn, compulsory abortions, and Obama birthers after the jump.

• David Malakoff, a former science editor at NPR who was found to have downloaded and viewed child pornography on his work computer, was sentenced yesterday to "five years probation, a fine of $5,000, 600 hours of community service, and he will have to register as a sex offender for 25 years," according to the Examiner. U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle saw something in Malakoff that judges don't see very often in these cases: A person worthy of her sympathy and mercy. "In explaining the exceptional step of sentencing below the guidelines," wrote the Examiner's Scott McCabe, "the judge said Malakoff had already thrown away a successful career and has to live with the stigma of being a sex offender for most of the rest of his life. But the strongest argument for the lesser sentence, Huvelle said, was that Malakoff had been raped as a 9-year-old boy and he had looked at the child pornography over five hours last year to relive his own rape." Malakoff lucked out; most victims of pedophilia who perpetuate the cycle of molestation and assault as adults–even through a proxy like child pornography–end up behind bars.
• Another good one from the Examiner: David Freddoso reported earlier this week that John Holdren, President Barack Obama's science czar, "approved of and recommended compulsory sterilization and even abortion in some cases, as part of a government population control regime" in the late 1970s. Freddoso's proof? Ecoscience, the book that Holdren co-authored with fellow Malthusians Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich. If the horrific significance of this is lost on you, dear reader, please surf your uninformed ass over to Wikipedia. Or better yet, search Google using the terms "China" and "one-child policy."
  
• In other batshit-crazy news, the Washington Independent's Dave Weigel reports that the birthers are at it again: "Six months into Obama’s presidency, after scores of embarrassing legal defeats, and even after tussles between the attoneys who’ve turned frivolous lawsuits about the president’s citizenship into full-time jobs, the cottage industry of conspiracy theories about the president’s birth shows no signs of disappearing...The urban legend has become too pervasive for Republicans to avoid. In February, Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) introduced a much-mocked bill that would require presidential campaigns to provide “a copy of the candidate’s birth certificate.”...As of July 15, nine fellow Republican members of Congress were backing the bill." The upside folks is the more time spent fighting or promoting a contentious, bither-sponsored bill amounts to less time spent TRYING TO TAKE AWAY OUR GUNS/JOBS!

That's all for me. See U next week!