Zombietime: Obama "science czar" is a totalitarian crank
— Purple Avenger

As they say you gotta go read it all.

I'll add a bit more to Zombie's "proof". Some may claim the book being cited is all faked up for the scans, HOWEVER, a used book dealer search for the ISBN shown on the back cover does indeed turn up a book that appears substantially identical to the one Zombie claims to have taken the scans from.

Click here for: ABE ISBN book search.
Click here for: Alibris ISBN book search.

So, unless there is a conspiracy here "so vast" that it includes planting forged copies of a fake book with used book dealers around the planet, and altering the ISBN database accordingly, then its pretty clear that the book in question does exist. Trig and 9/11 truthers will probably believe in this "vast conspiracy" of book dealers though, since you know...in the history of the world, fire has never melted steel.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 06:06 PM | Comments (3)
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Overnight Open Thread – Friday Night Smackdown (genghis)
— Open Blog

Item #1: Think youÂ’ve got a stressful job? How does it stack up against the job these guys had? For most people, if you fall at work itÂ’ll most likely be out of your chair because you fell asleep at your desk. (Note: to get the slideshow to advance to the next pic hover your cursor over the right side of the current pic)

Thanks to PoconoJoe.

Item #2: Looking for a gift for that special moron? Next time youÂ’re in Washington D.C. be sure to stop by My Obama Shop, located in MetroÂ’s Union Station.

From the Cato Institute, courtesy of Jubal Anderson Early.
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Posted by: Open Blog at 05:56 PM | Comments (3)
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Report: Extensive Secrecy Cited in Limiting Effectiveness of Wiretap Program
— Dave in Texas

Please allow a few moments for the contradiction to sink in.

It was so secret it didn't work as well as it could have. This is the conclusion of an internal review of the program reported today.

What. The Fuck? It was too secret? (nyt link, forewarned)

Apparently it's overwrought secrecy led to a quagmire of policy defense, the constant struggles with a contrary opposition party and excessive legal challenges kept them from making it work as well as it could have. That's my first take on this unusual charge of "oversecretness".

Had it only been a little more "open". Everything would have been as right as rain.

Background and all too familiar arguments are also regurgitated, repeated in advance of an upcoming event, I forget what it could be:

- It ran in October of 2001 without a Justice Department legal opinion.

- It really should be carefully monitored. (I would suggest by members of Congress who can't remember what they were told about it.)

- It was broader than activities publicly acknowledged by the Bush administration, monitoring "monitoring huge volumes of records of domestic emails and Internet searches, as well as bank transfers, credit-card transactions, travel and telephone records."

You know. The kind of stuff that happened prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001. That shit.

- It "may have contributed to a counterterrorism success".

- Other sources of information were used in conjunction! Analysts say it was useful, but so were other things. There is "difficulty" ascertaining it's specific usefulness, in that it was combined with other sources of information.

blah blah blah.

I'd just add a couple of thoughts, from an idiot.

One, the program continues under the current administration.

Two, I can't wait to see the defense of these practices under the current administration, which, while rhetorically unserious about the nature of the threat, cannot afford to allow that perception to remain prevalent in the minds of the public should another attack occur. The pre-November Obama talked a great game about correcting these "offenses". The post "oh shit I have to deal with this stuff now" Obama cannot afford to appear as though he pulled down the very things that have kept those attacks from harming the nation.

Cat on a hot tin roof.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 03:58 PM | Comments (2)
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Sorry About Comments
— Ace

Had trouble posting earlier today, too.

I've contacted Pixy about this but haven't had a response yet.

Update from Pixy: Sorry, I was up late (6AM) because we were doing our beta launch at my day job. Comments, as most of you (I think) have noticed, were working - if you were reaching the right server.

The problem was a brief DNS glitch earlier which left the domain pointed at the old server for a few minutes. If you happened to pick up the IP address during that time, you could be stuck with it for up to four hours (or more, if your ISP's DNS server doesn't work right, which is usually the case).

As always, I'm at help@mu.nu if you need, um, help. With mu.nu. Help with other stuff I charge $300 an hour, four-hour minimum.

Update from Pixy: Did some more digging, and found some problems with the new DNS setup, which should all be fixed now. Sorry about that; I'll waive my callout fee this time.

Posted by: Ace at 12:26 PM | Comments (2)
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Rogue? Palin's "Pals Around with Terrorist" Attack Delivered Almost Verbatim From McCain Playbook
— Ace

Palin' comment was disowned by many McCain staffers and offered as evidence she was hard to control and/or "going rogue."

I actually do sympathize with their attempts to distance themselves from the attack -- after all, it's a vice presidential candidate's duty to act as attack dog, making the attacks the presidential candidate would prefer not to. Admitting a line of attack was cooked up at campaign headquarters and given to the veep candidate as a script is incompatible with this good cop/bad cop routine.

Still, while the McCain campaign had practical and understandable reasons to not take possession of the attack, they really went too far in pushing the claim entirely on to Palin -- who was already being savaged by the liberal media. True, you don't want McCain claiming authorship of the attack, but why can't mere staffers, entirely unknown to the general public and not running for anything, take some of the bad-cop heat on this?

A recent leaked email demonstrates that Palin said precisely what she was asked to say, and authorized to say. Almost verbatim.

But on the subject of linking Obama to ex-Weatherman Bill Ayers, it turns out that Palin hadn't gone rogue. Balz and Johnson answer this question pretty definitively. They've obtained an e-mail from campaign adviser Nicolle Wallace sent to Palin on the morning of October 4rd, with an attached New York Times article about Obama's relationship with Ayers.

Turns out that the McCain campaign was a week away from running an ad linking Obama to Ayers. The e-mail from Wallace, according to Balz and Johnson, reads as follows: "Governor and Team: rick [Davis], Steve [Schmidt] and I suggest the following attack from the new york times. If you are comfortable, please deliver the attack as written. Please do not make any changes to the below without approval from steve or myself because precision is crucial in our ability to introduce this."

McCain HQ had suggested the following line: "This is not a man who sees American as you and I do -- as the greatest force for good in the world. This is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country."

At the event, Palin said this:

"Our opponent ... is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country. This is not a man who sees America as you see America and as I see America."

I suspect this was all due to McCain's chief psychological problem (and a problem which would have made him a bad president, by the way -- just not as bad as President Oh-Bum-Looker). His overweening vanity was and is a crippling defect. He knew damn well that to beat Obama, who was the front-runner throughout the campaign except for a couple of magical weeks after Sarah Palin had lit the country on fire, he would have to attack Obama and expose his unsavory connections and paint him as a dangerous selection for president.

But his vanity, and his often absurd sense of "integrity," wouldn't permit him to do this, or at least wouldn't permit him to do this and be blamed for it. A bit like Richard Nixon reading the transcripts of the Oval Office tapes and flinching from all the expletives and ranting, "The president does not use expletives!"

Similarly, "John McCain does not engage in personal attacks!" Um, yes you do. You do all the time. You just can't acknowledge it to the public, and, worse yet, you can't even acknowledge it to yourself.

It's dangerous for a man to be a secret to himself.

And so, this: These attacks had to be made (and should have been made; the country has a right to evaluate whether a man who chums about with unrepentant terrorists "shares their values," as the poll questions say).

But John McCain does not make personal attacks.

Especially against the first serious (half) black candidate for office, and someone his media friends hold in such (excessively) high regard.

So McCain refuses to ever make something approaching a serious issue of this out of his own mouth (blowing a key opportunity to do so, when asked directly about it, at the third and final debate with Obama), instead only having Palin make the attack.

And then, when questioned about it, McCain staffers let her twist in the wind for it. I don't know if McCain ordered them to do so; it's just as likely they knew that McCain's vanity was such that he would never want such attacks associated with him, and thus did what they thought he'd want them to do.

Thanks to Heather.

Posted by: Ace at 12:16 PM | Comments (1)
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Stupid: ABC News Spins on Obama's Check-Out
— Ace

The most amusing thing here is that ABC News desperately wants to absolve Obama from the sin of checking out a 16-year-old's ass... but has no problem claiming Sarkozy was the guilty party.

The studio's liberal workers peal with laughter as Sarkozy, rather than Obama, is accused. Because, you see, as comedians say, Obama is just not funny under any circumstances. Accuse Obama of this and it's silent as a funeral; accuse Sarkozy and suddenly the liberal staffers at ABC "get" what is so damn funny about this.

ABC News is pretty sure he's only watching his own footing, despite the fact that he has stopped moving and is safely positioned on the stair when he looks down in the direction of the 16-year-old's booty. Oh, maybe he's looking at her footing. Or someone's footing. Or anything, except that which it appears he's looking at.

Not only that, ABC News is pretty sure this is purest gallantry on Obama's part; he's just trying to make sure that Pretty Young Thing successfully navigated the stairs.

How dare you for suspecting otherwise.

Now Sarkozy on the other hand.... Maybe comics can start replacing the name "Obama" with "Sarkozy," and then maybe they can find some humor in this presidency.

Meanwhile, the President leaves the G-8 with a huge consolation prize:

He's got his hand on her footing.

Or Maybe He Was Bowing To Her Ass? I seem to remember the media spinning in the same who-are-ya-gonna-believe-Obama-or-your-own-lyin'-eyes when he clearly bowed to the Saudi king, too.

In the nineties, liberals and the media (BIRM) engaged in semantic parsing to try to explain that Clinton wasn't really lying when his words were clearly dishonest. (Depends on what the meaning of "is" is; I was never alone with Monica Lewinsky, not once, except when I was playing hide the cigar with her, but I never "felt" like we were alone; depends on how you define "sexual relations.") In these cases the media offered "context" and "fresh ways of looking at the evidence" all of which, of course, were intended to discredit the obvious truth at hand.

And now, in the late 00's, the media is engaging in photographic or visual parsing with Obama. A look is not really a look; a bow is not really a bow. It may appear that way to you, but that is just because you are unsophisticated and lack the expert look- and bow- analytical abilities of your superiors, the MSM, and furthermore, you lack a crucial understanding that the MSM has and you don't: Obama never errs and never appears the fool, ever, never ever ever.

This latter fact -- as hard-wired into the structure of the universe itself as the speed of light -- trumps all other supposed "facts."

Posted by: Ace at 11:15 AM | Comments (15)
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The Wheel Turns Round
— Dave in Texas

The richest man in Omaha says we need a bigger, better, more craptastical stimulus package. Because nothing gets an economy running again like the federal government spending billions on political favors. Others (including me) are asking, if the first one was so junked up (Warren's estimate is "half"), and we've only spent about 10% of the funds, how about fixing that instead?

Because that's not the plan? I don't know, I don't do this for a living you know.

A few months ago I shared this old political cartoon with LauraW, and we both noted the similarities. Copyright says "Chicago Tribune, 1934". Some few years after the initial stock market crash, well into FDR's "spend us outta this mess" plan.

Oh how we both laughed and laughed, LauraW and me. Funny stuff.

The players:

Donald Richberg, co-wrote National Industrial Recovery Act, executive director of the NRA.

Henry Wallace, 33rd VP, Secrectary of Agriculture, Progressive Party candidate for President 1948. Enamored with the Russian revolution.

Rex Tugwell, Undersecretary of Agriculture, later head of the Resettlement Administration. Socialist, utopian (knucklehead).

Harold L. Ickes, Republican - Bull Mooser - Republican. Secretary of the Interior, Director of Public Works Administration, and father of guess who?

"Plan of Action for the U.S." Spend! Spend! Spend:

Under the guise of recovery - bust the government - blame the capitalists for the failure - junk the Constitution and declare a dictatorship

It's old.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 01:45 AM | Comments (2)
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Overnight Open Thread – All Your Facebook are Belong to Us (genghis)
— Open Blog

Miscellaneous ramblings and mayhem to keep you off the streets overnightÂ…like midnight basketball for morons.

This one has Ace of Spades HQ written all over it: Teen Held Facebook Page Hostage for Nude Photos.

”PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Oregon State Police say two female college students report being locked out of their social networking sites by a hacker who demanded nude photographs. A 16-year-old Clackamas, Ore., youth is accused in the case. The Oregonian says the high school student is expected to face computer crime and theft by extortion charges in Clackamas County Juvenile Court.”

I wonder if I can do that with your comments? May have to experiment with that later. Meanwhile, it didnÂ’t take long for professional handwringers and bedwetters to get involved in this case:

”The president of a Canada-based nonprofit called Bullying.org said hijacking someone's account and blackmailing that person has happened before but is not common. More common are direct threats from text messages, e-mails or the creation of a Web page to spread lies or rumors about victims, said Bill Belsey, a middle school teacher and president of Bullying.org. The National Crime Prevention Council, along with Belsey's Web site, urge Internet users to change passwords regularly and not share personal account information.”

Should we really be surprised that something called “bullying.org” is based in Canada? I haven’t bothered to visit them yet but something tells me that it’s not geared towards suggestions on how I can improve my bullying skills. The advice about safeguarding your passwords and access codes is spot on though. So if you want to go ahead and send them to me at the tipline I’ll be sure to keep them safe for you. So what finally did our intrepid hacker in?

”The OSU student called police May 6 to report receiving five e-mails over a two-day period from someone who claimed to have taken over her MySpace and Facebook pages. The e-mails said the only way she could regain control of her social-networking pages would be to send nude photographs of herself, Westbrook said. When she didn't respond, another e-mail arrived requesting photos of her bare feet.”

ItÂ’s always the feet that trip you up. If nothing else though, I think weÂ’ve found our new site administrator in case Pixy ever says the hell with us all. Which he probably wants to do just about every night. All we ask is that he put up with the abuse just a little bit longerÂ…until the kid gets out of juvi.

TonightÂ’s sponsor is below the foldÂ…
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Posted by: Open Blog at 05:07 PM | Comments (8)
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More Stuff About the Pedodent
— Ace

Vid of the child Obama ogled at 0:13. Pretty clear she's not an adult.

Thanks to Jacob R. more...

Posted by: Ace at 04:32 PM | Comments (7)
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Obama Photo Of The Day, Part II
— DrewM

And the chumming around with murderous dictators continues.

It was more handshake diplomacy by President Obama as he became the first US president to exchange a face-to-face greeting with Libyan leader Moammar Qadhafi.

As Chairman of the African Union, Qadhafi was invited to attend the G8 Summit Leaders dinner tonight in LÂ’Aquila, Italy.

As the chiefs of state and heads of government gathered for a class photo, Qadhafi approached President Obama and they shook hands. It was a polite encounter, conducted according to protocol. Qadhafi smiled, Mr. Obama not so much.

Back in the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan would sooner have cut off his arm than shake hands with Qadhafi.

So, you know, that's awesome.

No word on if Qadhafi gave Obama a book.

Posted by: DrewM at 02:33 PM | Comments (1)
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