Sorry the post is so late…shit happens. I’ll make it up to you Saturday night with a proper flame war. So start gathering your best insults. There will also be a musical component so you may also want to start bookmarking your best and worst music vids in order to be prepared. It’s quite possible that “sickinmass” will also read excerpts from his most recently published tome entitled “comments I have made.” (Vic was actually the ghostwriter on it, but I’m not gonna’ get into the middle of that ancient and bitter dispute) As it is every night, comment at will about whatever’s on yer drunken, addled minds.

HereÂ’s a concerned kitten to help you make it through the night:

Addition: How to tell if your cat is trying to kill you. I tacked this on to a post a couple of weeks back, but we're all about preserving public safety. Ace has mandated that in addition to an average of a minimum 15% "The Warriors" content that we also put up these PSAs from time to time. A new one, to be released early next week (a joint effort between AoSHQ and the USDA) addresses proper storage and handling procedures regarding game such as hobo.

Notice: Posted by permission of AceCorp LLC. Please e-mail overnight open thread tips to xgenghisx@gmail.com. Otherwise send tips to Ace.

Posted by: Open Blog at 08:33 PM | Add Comment
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Just a head's up in case you don't know. They have an odd split-season schedule. It's at 10 on USA.

The premise is that the slacker hero pretends to be psychic and consults with the police to solve crimes. In fact, he just has a few oddball skills such as a photographic memory and sharp power of observation, but he pretends he's using psychic powers because, well... he just sort of enjoys lying to people. It's his hobby. He's the kind of guy, who I kind of know in real life, who would rather make money via a scam, even if he could make the same amount of money with less effort working honestly. (Actually, I think I'm like that, now that I think of it.)

This show has grown on me a lot. I used to think it was annoying and both tried too hard (to be cute) and tried too little (to construct any kind of plausible mystery).

What I've come to appreciate about the show is that it's slapdash and loose-limbed. It feels like they wrote it the night before without troubling themselves too much about it. And the sets are often laughably, Ed-Wood-level amateurish.

And yet, despite the apparent lack of any effort whatsoever, it's pretty enjoyable. The show, like the main character, is just coasting amiably by with as little effort possible.

And every once in a while it's funny. But even when it's not funny ha-ha, it's funny amusing.

Anyway, if you haven't seen it and have nothing to watch at 10, give it a shot.

Whoops: Apparently I'm wrong. Last night my DVR told me a new episode was being recorded tonight, but I don't see it now.

Damn, I'm sorry. I was just getting psyched about it coming on.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 05:44 PM | Add Comment
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And we feel like staying the course.

Michener asked this question, at the end of his (in my humble opinion) epic novel.

"Where do we get such men? They leave this ship and they do their job. Then they must find this speck lost somewhere on the sea. When they find it, they have to land on its pitching deck. Where do we get such men?"

Where indeed. Men and women. Who sacrifice so much.

So very much.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:28 PM | Add Comment
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I don't know what it is about Fridays, but interesting articles about the demise of newspapers keep showing up on my desk each week. So far we've heard from two newspapermen, one who suggested we are on the brink of a revolution in journalism and another who traced the paperdämmerung to three men considered pioneers in the industry.

This week I came across a former newspaper editor and current Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals judge who links faltering investigative journalism with a loss of accountability in government. It's tucked into the end of this opinion released yesterday (PDF) about a police officer who released an internal memo to a newspaper. Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III's concurring opinion starts on page 21. It's very short. The heart of it:

It is well known that the advent of the Internet and the economic downturn have caused traditional news organizations throughout the country to lose circulation and advertising revenue to an unforeseen extent. As a result, the staffs and bureaus of newsgathering organizations—newspapers and television stations alike—have been shuttered or shrunk. Municipal and statehouse coverage in particular has too often been reduced to low-hanging fruit. The in-depth investigative report, so essential to exposure of public malfeasance, may seem a luxury even in the best of economic times, because such reports take time to develop and involve many dry (and commercially unproductive) runs. And in these most difficult of times, not only investigative coverage, but substantive reports on matters of critical public policy are increasingly shortchanged. So, for many reasons and on many fronts, intense scrutiny of the inner workings of massive public bureaucracies charged with major public responsibilities is in deep trouble.

The verdict is still out on whether the Internet and the online ventures of traditional journalistic enterprises can help fill the void left by less comprehensive print and network coverage of public business. While the Internet has produced information in vast quantities, speedy access to breaking news, more interactive discussion of public affairs and a healthy surfeit of unabashed opinion, much of its content remains derivative and dependent on mainstream media reportage. It likewise remains to be seen whether the web—or other forms of modern media—can replicate the deep sourcing and accumulated insights of the seasoned beat reporter and whether niche publications and proliferating sites and outlets can provide the community focus on governmental shortcomings that professional and independent metropolitan dailies have historically brought to bear.

There are pros and cons to the changing media landscape, and I do not pretend to know what assets and debits the future media mix will bring. But this I do know—that the First Amendment should never countenance the gamble that informed scrutiny of the workings of government will be left to wither on the vine. That scrutiny is impossible without some assistance from inside sources such as Michael Andrew [the plaintiff]. Indeed, it may be more important than ever that such sources carry the story to the reporter, because there are, sad to say, fewer shoeleather journalists to ferret the story out.

Discuss.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:54 PM | Add Comment
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I think this is overdetermined, personally. A smart friend of mine -- a Democrat who supports Palin -- boils it down to "Professional women hate her because, as a group, they hate themselves and hate their lives and hate their husbands, and resent this working-class upstart for having the life (and husband) they wish they did." Clarification: He was speaking of liberal-ish, feminist ball-buster type women, of course. Not all professional women. I really should have made that clear, but I didn't, so now professional women are defending themselves in the comments. I apologize -- I screwed up. I knew what I meant in my own mind but didn't write it properly. Obviously, professional women who like Palin are not so gripped with envy.

A bit reductivist, but I think that does play into it too.

VanDerLeun thinks it's because she's beautiful, which is part of it, certainly. (Note: His piece has the url fragment "best_palin_anal," which I suppose is short for "best palin analysis," but I am suspicious he's tailored it for the the old Google. He's crafty, isn't he?)

He links this provocative piece, one section of which is pure feminist flamebait nirvana, which I'll quote too.

In playing to the weak, wallflower women who don’t want to distinguish themselves in any way, feminism has become an advocacy group for those who lack appeal. With time, it has become an advocacy group for those women who work at not having any appeal. And I’m not talking sex appeal. I mean, being ready to engage in dialogues instead of monologues; talking to people in some way other than as a cross stepmother; motivating your man to come home instead of go out somewhere else, when he’s in the mood for some sex; acting like that’s important to you. We’ve seen the incremental rise of a counterculture of females who are in a great hurry not to have any appeal to anyone else, or to be beholden to anyone else — except other females who don’t have any appeal to anyone else and aren’t beholden to anyone else. They’re a grown-up version of those chubby goth chicks you knew in high school who didn’t know how to behave in public, didn’t care to learn, were horribly out of shape, and kept to their own at all times.
Most of our female politicians seem to think thatÂ’s their constituency. This is a sensitive paradigm, and the prospect of shifting it makes a lot of people uncomfortable.

He lists a lot of other reasons they hate Palin, but those aren't as flame-baity fun. (Good stuff, though: Read it.)

Palin's beauty comes with other baggage, too: Because she's such an attractive figure, she's a natural target for tabloid coverage, which is only exacerbated by the fact that the media is determined to tabloidize her in order to make her unacceptable as a leader. That link notes that Levi Johnson, who turns out to be exactly the sort of trailer trash the left claimed he was, is going on Tyra Banks to dish on Palin and to talk about what he and Bristol knew about birth control.

Is that fair? Well, I can't help but think that Levi Johnson has been courted particularly ferociously not just because Palin is an interesting, ratings-generating figure, but because the media wants to make her into a Jerry Springer buffoon.

Where is their interest in, say, allegations that Joe Biden's daughter was a cokehead? Surely we can learn all sorts of cautionary tales about drug use from that story, just the same as we can learn about birth control and youthful sex from Levi Johnson.

But the media doesn't pursue it. Partly because Joe Biden is a goofy old bastard, and his daughter, most likey, is no head-turner (I confess I don't know; I'm going by the averages), but largely because the media wishes to protect Joe Biden (and therefore Obama) from any hint of scandal or "messy family lives" (as Sarah Palin's just-less-than-picture-perfect family life was often referred to).

They don't want to tabloidize him, and so they are not knocking on doors and burning up the phone lines to get Joe Biden's daughter's boyfriends on TV.

The media has their narrative. Sarah Palin, low-class frost-neck chillbilly, and Joe Biden, serious, accomplished man deserving of respect and privacy. The fact that Slow Joe claims a lower-class upbringing himself, and has been caught lying multiple times about his woeful academic record, doesn't change that.

He's a Democrat, and therefore deserving of praise. Palin's a Republican and deserving of nothing but contempt and hatred.

This is the main reason I so loathe the media's claims that Michelle Obama is one classy, nicely-put-together Helen-of-Troy-level beauty. It's not that silly claim in and of itself -- it's because I know the flip-side of such coverage. While Michelle Obama is hailed as incredibly beautiful, Sarah Palin is denigrated as an igloo-trailer beauty queen, and to the extent her beauty is mentioned at all, it is cast in nastily disrespectful terms, as if she's a porn princess and the only reason men like her is because she's a bit of tasty muffin.

If Michelle Obama's so hot, where is the "analysis" suggesting she appeals to men, as Sarah Palin apparently does, primarily due to her suitability as a masturbatory aid?

I've heard that said a dozen times said of Sarah Palin -- not by the MSM, per se, but by the likes of Bill Maher and a dozen other nasty little men they have on their supposed "news analysis" programs to say the things they want said but know they can't say themselves.

The flip-side of Michelle Obama adulation is sheer viciousness against Sarah Palin (and before her, the Bush Twins, who were tagged as sluttish hell-raisers because they ordered margaritas at a Mexican restaurant while a year underage). We didn't hear much about Chelsea Clinton's wild nights (and I'm pretty sure she had them); just what a wonderful, awesome, smart kid she was.

And the Bush Twins? A couple of loose-assed lushes who might or might not be relaxing with inebriants stronger than liquor. (Wink, wink.)

Meanwhile Joe Biden's daughter is alleged to have done coke. No media interest in this story whatsoever.

The media wishes to punish Republicans for daring to hold office, and they know damn well the worst way to hurt someone is to attack his or her family. And so they do.

By the Way: I am tipped to something I didn't want to discuss, because I'm not really down with blog-fights. AllahPundit doesn't like the Worf type insults directed at Michelle Obama, and has warned, vaguely, that indulging in such could result in a ban.

I get where he's coming from: My attacks on Michelle Obama are ugly stuff. Furthermore, the left is always eager to spin any attack on the Obamas as racist, so I get why someone would want to keep a weather eye on such remarks.

My defense as to why I indulge in it is simple: The leftist media angers me so much I want to engage in push-back and, to the extent I can, tear Barack Obama's wife into shreds with the same ugly savagery the MSM shreds Sarah Palin and Bush's daughters.

Now, the best way of handling this, which is probably how Allah prefers handling it, is to shame the MSM into stopping such personal attacks on a politician, and especially stop personal attacks on his or her family.

But I know, as I'm sure Allah does, that shaming these people will not work. They are shameless. They don't feel guilty about these ugly assaults; they feel pride, convinced they are doing the right thing.

So the "shame them" approach is definitely the higher-minded and more moral approach. It has one deficiency: It is utterly futile.

Now, my attacks on Michelle Obama aren't really going to change the world much, either. But at least they are cathartic.

If you're going to go after Bristol Palin, I can't stop you. I can, however, pour the same venom on Michelle "Predator Queen" Obama. Tit for tat.

The Chicago Way-- You put one of mine in the "Fashion Faux-Pas" file, I put one of yours in the Romulan High Command.

Piling On? Eh, fuck it. I'm still pissed off about Palin and the Bush girls.

Michelle O's visit to Europe, with ominous Klingon war-music.

Posted by: Ace at 01:52 PM | Add Comment
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I had it in the sidebar but it's clever enough for here.

Now, they're talking about giant mutant crabs. And they intend no metaphor.

But as I watch this I hear the media saying, "Obama's breaking all rules of conventional economics and spending trillions we don't have. And yet there are some negative nancyboys who whine about the so-called 'consequences.'"

Unintended. But it's there.

"There's going to be a lot of flash photography... I'm sure the crab will enjoy the attention."

Also somewhat amusing (but less so): NCAA expands March Madness to include 4,096 teams.

Posted by: Ace at 01:10 PM | Add Comment
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Hmmm...

Tax havens that refuse to share information with other countries will face "sanctions" under an agreement being thrashed out at the G20 summit on Thursday, a British finance minister said.

"I am expecting there to be sanctions against countries that don't sign up," Stephen Timms, financial secretary to the Treasury, told reporters on the sidelines of the summit in London.

"In due course there will be a list produced of countries that don't sign up... what's being discussed today is the timing, he said, promising: "The era of banking secrecy is over."

European officials at the summit have expressed concern that China is blocking plans to publish a list of countries that fail to comply with tax-sharing agreements.

Timms said that while the Group of 20 developed and developing nations had made "a very remarkable start" to cracking down on tax havens and unregulated offshore jurisdictions, there was a long way to go.
"We do now need to see tax information agreements signed. There is a lot of work to be done," he said.

Not sure what to think about this. I think the suspicion is, of course, that such tax havens are being used to dodge taxation on money actually made in another country, which ought to be taxed.

And before you object to the way I put that -- if I can't dodge taxes by declaring myself a Cayman Islands corporation, why should anyone else? If you really are a Cayman Islands corporation, sure. But the suspicion is that the money is not being earned there, by and large, but merely recognized there.

Lorien tipped this, stating that he was shocked that no conservative blog had mentioned it. Well, I'm mentioning it, but I don't know the tax codes well enough to know if this is an overstep.

Anyone better informed care to shed light?

Posted by: Ace at 12:49 PM | Comments (5)
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I had this in the sidebar with a huge quote but it looks absurd.

So here's Vanity Fair's profile of NYT nepot Pinch Sulzberger. It's indifferently interesting -- he's not a very interesting man, and the article is not savage enough to hook me. It portrays him as ineffectual and untalented and unentitled but in a soft way, denying me the bloody red meat I want.

Still, there is the occasional useful paragraph, like this:

To a degree some of his top staff consider unwise, he tends to promote people based not on a cold-eyed assessment of their talent but on how comfortable he feels around them—on how much fun they are. As Arthur was deciding between Howell Raines and Bill Keller for the executive-editorship of the newspaper, in 2001, the reserved Keller kept a professional distance. The gregarious Raines sought to sweep Arthur off his feet. “I remember seeing them at the 2000 Democratic convention, in Los Angeles,” said an editor at another newspaper. “Joe Lelyveld [then the Times’s executive editor] was there. He was running the paper. But what everyone noticed most was how Howell Raines seemed glued to Arthur. It was evident that Howell was seducing Arthur, insinuating himself. Howell is a brilliant journalist, and he exudes confidence. You could watch him making this big impression on Arthur.” Raines became the executive editor.

I can't quite recommend it, but I've been reading it on and off all day trying to find something quote-worthy in it. It's a good profile, I guess... except the subject of the profile is a weak man whose greatest achievement was being born.

Posted by: Ace at 12:23 PM | Add Comment
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"Multiple" confirmations, the Enquirer says. And a US attorney refuses to confirm or deny, which sounds like confirmation-talk to me.

U.S. Attorney George Holding revealed yesterday he “was not going to confirm or deny any investigation” regarding Edwards that was first reported by the ENQUIRER earlier this week.

....

Edwards has [] denied paying either campaign staffer Andrew Young, who claims to be the childÂ’s father or Rielle Hunter, his admitted mistress, any funds from the campaign war chest. Fred Baron, a longtime Edwards supporter, claimed to have provided the hush money. Baron died last fall.

Ah, Fred Baron again. The most generous man on the face of the earth. It is no coincidence, I think, that the economy sputtered out when this Titan of Altruism died.

Oh, and I personally am dispensing with the whole "It's National Enquirer, so take it with a grain of salt" thing. Their batting average is high.

Posted by: Ace at 12:10 PM | Add Comment
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You must be THIS old to view social criticism of Obama's creepy cultists.

From Treacher:

This video doesn't have any profanity or naked people or violence, so presumably it's the sociopolitical content they find offensive.

Video below the fold. more...

Posted by: LauraW at 11:49 AM | Comments (1)
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