UBM’s hottest threads of 2008

Happy New Year to all.

I want to start 2009 by taking a quick look back. Specifically, to the five blog posts which generated the most comments here in 2008. (Thanks to Vince Spence for this idea.)

5. “Fucking liar” [93 comments]

Posted on March 4. This was the stomach-turning tale of Margaret “Peggy” Seltzer, the white woman who got a big book deal by pretending she’d been raised in South Central L.A.... a foster kid running with the Bloods and sleeping with a pistol under her pillow.

My friend S.O.L. commented: “There are two kinds of ‘publishing stars’ that I hate: people who fuck up their own lives and write about them -- despite having no discernible writing talent. And people who fictionalize their lives and write about it as if it were true.

“The question: is she going to fade into the obscurity of a punch line or is she going to get a huge check to publish her REAL memoir?”

Thankfully, Ms. Seltzer has faded into obscurity.

4. “Ward Connerly on Barack Obama” [95 comments]

Posted on July 11. I streamed a few minutes’ worth of a radio interview with black conservative Ward Connerly. He couldn’t understand why other black conservatives would consider voting for Obama.

The comments drifted into a feisty policy discussion on affirmative action. Odocoileus wrote: “What ending Aff Am does is open up the bottom ten percent of the seats in each [elite college] class to mediocre white kids. What’s billed as a movement to end reverse discrimination is actually just special pleading for second raters.

“Since elite colleges have never admitted students purely on merit, the question of whether black students have the merit to attend is a red herring. There is always plenty of room at the Ivies for dumb ass rich kids, and dumb ass Canadian hockey players.”

3. “Random wrongness” [101 comments]

Posted on December 22. I introduced you to Sharece Thomas by way of her YouTube video titled “WHY DA FUCK I GOTTA TIP ??”

That set off a raucous debate about the racial politics of tipping.

I’m sure it’s still fresh in everyone’s memory.

2. “Stuff White People Don’t Like” [122 comments]

Posted on March 21. The concept is self-explanatory. Much fun was had by all with this.

Procrastinating redcoat commented: “White people certainly don’t like big butts on women... proof, if proof be needed, we’re not half as clever as we like to think we are.”

1. “Racist political witchcraft” [160 comments]

Posted on June 25. In which I busted a white dude who pretended to be a black nationalist with a website called power2obama.com. The idea was to frighten gullible white folks by presenting Obama as a race radical. Dude pulled down the site after this post. (Now he’s trying to sell the power2obama domain name for $997.)

Guy’s name is Mike Cornelison. And he actually commented in the thread (using the name “You Know Who”).

“I am so fucked,” he wrote. “The hate mail is coming in from all corners. I just ruined myself online and I only have myself to blame. I was just so furious that people were buying this great uniter line and I wanted to create a little creative exercise in what it would be like to see someone who bought into every ounce of hate Reverend Wright and the like were willing to spoonfeed him.

“What a painful fucking lesson to learn. And no, I’m not asking for sympathy, I’m just stating the facts.”

Thanks to everyone who left comments here in 2008. UBM is nothing without you!