Not that you actually need one at all. But if you did, the Daily Telegraph has the one for you.

And, best of all, it's actually written by Charlie Bo himself! Try to spin that, Axelturfers.

A small taste of the pizza to whet your appetite:

Talking of "the One", apparently I'm his first broken campaign promise. Well, thanks for that. He said he'd get some kind of shelter mutt and then he changes his mind and comes up with me - a Portuguese pure bred. Talk about sky-high negatives before you've even started.

Trust me, this will all end in tears. These Obama people have never even owned a dog and - I'm being frank here - I just don't trust these Democrats. What happened to the last pets they had in the White House? That cat Socks got dumped on Bill Clinton's secretary Bettie Currie and his dog Buddy got mysteriously run over by a truck.

Go over to the Telegraph for the rest of the pie.

Posted by: Jack M. at 02:07 PM | Add Comment
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As Uncle Jimbo notes, the forces already had standing orders to shoot to kill should an innocent life be in jeopardy. Obama merely ordered them to do what they already had orders to do -- take the shot if the Captain's life was threatened.

It seems that the commander in the field read this order liberally and decided, hell, they're pointing guns at the guy, he's in danger, pop them.

Like Clinton did with regard to Al Qaeda targets, Obama seems willing to give only vague if not outright meaningless orders and trust the troops to do what they ought to be ordered to do -- the catch is, of course, that Obama, having not technically told them to do much of anything, can disown and pillory them if they make an error or if the outcome is poor.

Via Jules Crittenden, with more.

Posted by: Ace at 09:27 AM | Add Comment
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He's served both Bush and now Obama. And he says Pakistan keeps him up at night.

PAKISTAN could collapse within months, one of the more influential counter-insurgency voices in Washington says.

...

"We have to face the fact that if Pakistan collapses it will dwarf anything we have seen so far in whatever we're calling the war on terror now," said David Kilcullen, a former Australian Army officer who was a specialist adviser for the Bush administration and is now a consultant to the Obama White House.

I like his offhanded put-down of Obama's euphemisms.

"You just can't say that you're not going to worry about al-Qaeda taking control of Pakistan and its nukes," he said.

...

When he unveiled his new "Afpak" policy in Washington last month, the US President, Barack Obama, warned that while al-Qaeda would fill the vacuum if Afghanistan collapsed, the terrorist group was already rooted in Pakistan, plotting more attacks on the US.

"The safety of people round the world is at stake," he said.

Laying out the scale of the challenges facing the US in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Dr Kilcullen put the two countries invaded by US-led forces after the September 11 attacks on the US on a par - each had a population of more than 30 million.

"But Pakistan has 173 million people and 100 nuclear weapons, an army which is bigger than the American army, and the headquarters of al-Qaeda sitting in two-thirds of the country which the Government does not control," he told the Herald .

As Joe Biden said, mark my words and gird your loins.

Posted by: Ace at 09:13 AM | Comments (1)
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I believe the children NEA are our future.

Officials who manage the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program sent letters this week to parents notifying them that the scholarships of up to $7,500, were being rescinded because of the decision by the Education Department. Citing the political uncertainty surrounding vouchers, a spokesperson for Mr. Duncan told us that it is not in the best interest of students and their parents to enroll them in a program that may end a year from now. Congress conditioned funding beyond the 2009-10 school year on reauthorization by Congress and approval by the D.C. Council. By presuming the program dead -- and make no mistake, that's the insidious effect of his bar on new enrollment -- Mr. Duncan makes it even more difficult for the program to get the fair hearing it deserves.

That's not to mention the impact of the last-minute decision on these families. Many of the public charter schools already have cut off enrollments for the upcoming school year; the deadline for out-of-boundary transfers for the public schools has passed. No doubt Mr. Duncan is right about possible disruption for new students if the program were to end. But scholarship officials have been upfront with parents about the risks, and the decision really should be theirs. Let them decide whether they want to chance at least one year in a high-quality private school versus the crapshoot of D.C. public schools.

Obama hates black people.

Thanks to someone.

Posted by: Ace at 09:08 AM | Comments (7)
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Those mean conservatives just won't let her do it as much as she'd like.

I was going to do a more in depth post on this but Gabe pointed me to an excellent take down of Ginsburg's position at the Volokh Conspiracy.

Let me just say why I think this is a bad and more importantly, a dangerous idea. What it really amounts to is a judge looking for a way to pretty up his or her personal opinion. Since they can't find any precedent or support in America's legal traditions they have to go in search of one.

It would be far more honest for Ginsburg, Breyer or Kennedy just to say, "this is what I think and I'm on the Court so you can't stop me from making it the law". Alas, that would never do. Instead they drape their policy preferences in the warm blanket of 'learned colleagues' who represent sophisticated places like Europe. It's not a naked power grab, they will say. It's simply bringing the US into the family of right thinking nations. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 08:33 AM | Comments (4)
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Obama defends his policies by saying "I won." I won, therefore I am entitled to push the program I ran on.

But here's the program he ran on.

But there is no doubt that weÂ’ve been living beyond our means and weÂ’re going to have to make some adjustments.

Now, what IÂ’ve done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut.

I can understand his claim of a mandate for the program he championed. But where is his mandate for a program he not only didn't announce, but in fact promised the precise opposite of?

Posted by: Ace at 08:22 AM | Add Comment
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Answer: None, but only because Lord God King Obama killed them, and that is by definition a Good Thing.

I had these in the sidebar but it seems to be a trend: HuffPoster defends Somali piracy as some sort of low-tech Captain Planet environmental vengeance; and a poster at Crooks and Liars agrees.

(Both links to friendly sites.)

It's self-parody at this point.

And speaking of parody: Joe Queenan spoofs the Obama administration's resort to absurd euphemisms like "man caused disasters" and "overseas contingency operations."

Yet, if the intention of the Obama administration is to tone down the confrontational rhetoric being used by our enemies, the effort is already reaping results. This week, in a pronounced shift from its usual theatrical style, the Taliban announced that it will no longer refer to its favorite method of murder as "beheadings," but will henceforth employ the expression "cephalic attrition." "Flayings" -- a barbarously exotic style of execution that has been popular in this part of the world since before the time of Alexander -- will now be described as "unsolicited epidermal reconfigurations." In a similar vein, lopping off captives' arms will now be referred to as "appendage furloughing," while public floggings of teenaged girls will from here on out be spoken of as "metajudicial interfacing."

A Taliban spokesman reached in Pakistan said that the new phrasing was being implemented as a way of eliminating the negative associations triggered by more graphic terminology. "The term 'beheading' has a quasi-medieval undertone that we're trying to get away from," he explained. "The term 'cephalic attrition' brings the Taliban into the 21st century. It's not that we disapprove of beheadings; it's just that the word no longer meshes with the zeitgeist of the era. This is the same reason we have replaced the term 'jihad' with 'booka-bonga-bippo,' which has a more zesty, urban, youthful, 'now' feel. When you're recruiting teenagers to your movement, you don't want them to feel that going on jihad won't leave any time for youthful hijinks."

Last link via Hot Air.

Posted by: Ace at 07:37 AM | Add Comment
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I'm so not excited about this new movie. Mostly it's because I'm getting older and I'm pretty sick of people fucking around with (and usually fucking up) some of the coolest things from my childhood. Yeah Lucas, I'm looking at you.

That said, as much as I want to hate this movie and everyone who is involved with it, I don't think that's going to be possible. You see, the movie had a special premiere, with the cast and all, at a military base in Kuwait.

Here's part of one soldier's experience.

The cast went out of their way to entertain us before and after the movie was shown. They were more than happy to interact with the soldiers (Eric Bana leaped out of his “reserved” seat and sat next to a female soldier who invited him next to her) and they took their time describing their experiences making the film and answering questions and requests (Quinto obliged a soldier who asked him to call his daughter back in the states and say hello to her). I was truly impressed and grateful in the fact that they went out of their way to thank us and to offer this film to us. I’ll admit that this review won’t be as objective as it could because of the way the cast lent themselves to us. My biggest thrill was walking up to J.J. Abrams after the film and having the opportunity to give him my general impressions of it. How many times does a geek like me get a chance to do that?

For fucks sake, how am I supposed hate them now?

Note to Hollywood, not only is this the right thing to do, it's awesome advertising. Let's face it, this film didn't need any free publicity, any extra buzz to score a huge opening weekend. Abrams and crew clearly did it because it was the right thing. Good for them.

Below, the most recent trailer (I think) for the movie which may or may not have been posted here already. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 07:10 AM | Comments (1)
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Heh. Yeah, it's a little old. But new to me.

Posted by: LauraW at 06:42 AM | Add Comment
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moshi moshi

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:13 AM | Add Comment
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