She claims she's broke.

...The [probation] report says: 'She indicates she can not afford to continue to pay for the treatment program and she needs to work...

Obviously, one can burn through a lot of coin living a Hollywood lifestyle on a panhandlers income (does anyone remember the last paying gig she had? I don't), while supporting a major substance abuse habit, and picking up the tab for a pack of remora that surround and enable her.

Maybe she should simply do what the little people do when they run into a jam and need money - sell some of your shit, downsize your abode, cut back on the partying and stay home more, eat cheaper food, or in her case bed some wealthier suckers.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 05:54 AM | Comments (76)
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With all these extreme and obvious fuckups coming from Boards of Elections around the country, I can only imagine that there's a rule that the max IQ to be on a board or its staff must be around 70.

The latest from New York City:

A vote for Republican Carl Paladino could actually be a vote for Green Party gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins – if you follow the directions printed on the November ballot.

In what appears to be yet another “royal screwup,” the city Board of Elections printed a sample ballot that instructs voters to fill the “oval above” a candidate’s name.

The correct oval is actually below each candidateÂ’s name.

The Board of Elections says it will put accurate instructions in each voting booth and distribute cards with a proper sample ballot. On the other hand, why bother:

Neal Rosenstein, voting coordinator for the New York Public Interest Research Group, said the error wonÂ’t have a large impact on voters because most donÂ’t even read the instructions.

It amazes me that a broken-down, beat-up, and graffiti-ed ATM can process hundreds of transactions every day with perfect accuracy, but the government can't handle regularly scheduled elections even with months to prepare. Every. Damn. Election.

Democrats will bleat about Voter ID and the "intimidation" they imagine when official poll watchers are present while they futz with people's ballots. In fact, a real challenge to the legitimacy of elections is ballot instructions that fool voters into casting votes for a candidate other than the one they want.

But, of course, Democratic objections to Voter ID and state-authorized poll watchers aren't really about having fair and legitimate elections. They're about boosting Democratic prospects. And if the ballot instructions send GOP votes to the Green Party candidate? Just minimize it: "most people donÂ’t even read the instructions."

Uh huh. How much you want to bet that Republicans are more likely to read the instructions than Democrats or Independents (especially those squirrely Greens). Yeah.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:51 AM | Comments (63)
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I've mentioned before my fondness for Lincoln Preston and Douglas Child's "Pendergast" series of supernatural thrillers. The novels are always outlandish, but have generally been fun, quick reads -- and Pendergast, the brilliant, eccentric, aristocratic FBI agent, is one of my favorite detectives in all of fiction.

So you'll know how much it pains me to report that Wheel of Darkness is a piece of shit. This is harsh language, but the book deserves it. It pairs Pendergast up with the series' least-interesting and shallow character (Constance Greene), takes them out of their usual academic/museum milieu and places them on an ocean liner (in a series of plot developments so stupid I was rolling my eyes), and transitions between straight mystery and supernatural horror in such a ham-handed fashion it's hard to believe that the same authors who wrote this book wrote all the others. It's like their research for the book consisted of an afternoon watching Titanic, The Poseidon Adventure, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. And the liberal lean is so pronounced it's a wonder everyone doesn't fall over. Class-warfare (rich people are wasteful, arrogant and bullying!)? Check. Preference for Eastern "mysticism" over Western rationality? Check. Anti-corporate screeds? Check.

A reviewer on Amazon compared it to a bad Murder, She Wrote episode where Pendergast was channeling Angela Lansbury, and I really couldn't argue with that judgement. Awful, awful book. Preston and Child have built up a lot of goodwill with the books in this series, but Wheel of Darkness is so bad I almost don't want to continue with the other books. I'm going to give Cemetery Dance a try, and if that doesn't live up to expectations, I'm going to give up on it. I don't want my fond memories of Aloysius X. A. Pendergast tainted.

In other news, I am still working my way up the western face of a mountain of paper called The Oxford History of Western Music by Richard Taruskin.

I also just bought copies of the three-volume history of Nazi Germany by Richard J. Evans: The Coming of the Third Reich, The Third Reich in Power, and The Third Reich at War. One question that historians have tried to answer (with mixed success) since the end of the war is how a high civilization like that of Germany could devolve into barbarity so quickly. The question has only become more complicated as time has gone by and new documents and primary sources have come to light; I'm hoping that these books can shed some light on the issue, because it has implications for our own country going forward. Culture and the relationship of the citizen to the state are vital issues -- was Germany's example an anomaly, or was there something deeper and more universal at work there?

And finally, on a more light-hearted note, I picked up a copy of P. G. Wodehouse's "Wooster and Jeeves" stories called Carry On, Jeeves. Jeeves is a wonderful creature: smart, capable, unflappable, calm, and subtle, an anchor to Bertie Wooster's "refined gormlessness". It's a snapshot of a Victorian Britain that was already disappearing by the time the stories were published in 1919 (just after the disaster of World War I), but the stories have a gentle charm and humor that never grows stale. (The "Wooster and Jeeves" DVD set is also available, with Stephen Fry as Jeeves and Hugh Laurie ("House") as Bertie Wooster. Recommended!)

[EDIT: CanaDave reminds me that it's Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.]

Posted by: Monty at 04:36 AM | Comments (103)
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I love the smell of ONT in the evening. Smells likeÂ…failure.

Most people would believe that Billy Squier did irreparable harm to his career by prancing around in the Rock me Tonight Video (Link not safe for eyeballs - it cannot be unseen), and most people would be right. But if you think about it, the warning signs were there all along:

IÂ’m sorry I had to do that to you. Well, not really, but you can pretend I am. IÂ’ll make it up to you later in the post. I promise. You can trust me. more...

Posted by: Genghis at 06:00 PM | Comments (710)
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From GMU's awesome tally site and just updated today with statewide totals:

more...

Posted by: CAC at 12:25 PM | Comments (241)
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I hate em right back.

ItÂ’s worse than that. Democrats arenÂ’t just dateless dweebs clambering upon the Statue of Liberty carrying a wilted bouquet and trying to cop a feel. Theirs is a different kind of love story. Power, not politics, is what the Democrats love. Politics is merely a way to powerÂ’s heart. When politics is the technique of seduction, good looks are unnecessary, good morals are unneeded, and good sense is a positive liability. Thus Democrats are the perfect Lotharios. And politics comes with that reliable boost for pathetic egos, a weapon: legal monopoly on force. If persuasion fails to win the day, coercion is always an option.

At the damned heart of every legislative and executive encumbrance they inflict on us is this: they are buying votes to stay in power over us. Health care. Cap and tax. Environmental bullshit. Financial regulation. Union pension bailouts.

All of it boils down to this. Control over us. Squeeze the goose until it can't lay again (see Europe, et.al.).

This is not an election on November 2. This is a restraining order. Power has been trapped, abused and exploited by Democrats. Go to the ballot box and put an end to this abusive relationship. And letÂ’s not hear any nonsense about letting the Democrats off if they promise to get counseling.

I wouldn't believe em no matter what they say. Nov. 2, restraining order. Put it on em.

Lori Ziganto via Twitter

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 12:17 PM | Comments (95)
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Late late late. Had a meeting at work this morning. Things happen.

Here's some west coast cheerleaders.. at least I'm ahead of their game times.

IMPORTANT UPDATE (Russ from Winterset):

Beef: It's what's for dinner.

Update from Dave. She represents Iowa well. more...

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 09:10 AM | Comments (211)
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I think these articles are read best together. The two ideas here seem begging to be synthesized.

Wretchard discusses the "fainting" reaction of the left to any utterance of blasphemy.

Doc Zero writes that Williams was fired to halt the "preference cascade" of blacks maybe deciding what conservatives had to say wasn't so crazy.

Both articles are at heart about faith, dogma, zealotry, and blasphemy. As is often pointed out, a faith that lacks confidence in itself must create a system of double-think, of coercive consent, because that faith will likely fail entirely if exposed to any sort of critique or evaluation.

The faith cannot abide questions, because it has no respectable answers. So the process must be aborted before it has begun: The orthodoxy must create an emotional reaction of revulsion to any questioning, so prevent the faithful from taking that step.

This emotional reaction is of course the "fainting spells" Wretchard speaks of -- it is not enough for the insecure left to deem a position wrong; if it's merely wrong, it needs to be argued about, and it can't survive that. It must instead be morally aborrent, so that the zealot reacts to the toxin of questioning much like a jogger coming across a decomposing body on the side of the road -- it must be internalized that the correct response to such a horror is to retch, and faint, and call the authorities post-haste.

This is how the leftist faith protects itself from the infection of doubt. (Meanwhile, of course, patting itself on the back for being so open-minded and adept at "negative capacity" and so on and suchlike.)

Political correctness is one of the primary inoculants used, of course; questions of policy must not be questioned (or even thought about terribly hard), but instead an immediate emotional response of hatred, revulsion, shock, horror, and outrage must be instilled in the faithful to short-circuit such blasphemous thoughts.

There is a sidebar thought here, which I always yap about: Leftists, having abandoned conventional, traditional, normal morality (even about murder-- try getting a leftist to have a genuine emotional, moral response of anger to the perpetators of 9/11, or a horrific murder committed by a minority), still have that instinctual drive to render moral judgments and demonstrate moral outrage. But the usual objects of such outrage are foreclosed to them; it would be "unsophsticated" to blame the Muslims who flew the planes in the WTC and Pentagon and Pennsylvania ground for their crimes; it would be "judgmental" to judge a murderous minority for his outrages.

But the impulse to judge, to burst out in moral outrage, still exists in them, and burns as bright in their hearts as in the hearts of any fire-and-brimstone revival preacher. But the natural objects of moral scorn now being deemed off-limits for such scorn, their moral outrage is directed towards other matters. Misdirected, I would say; you can't get an emotional, moral response out of them about the 19 Muslims who killed 2996 people, but bring up Halliburton or the "Trans-Caspian Pipeline" and their eyes will light up with rage.

Similarly with any minority found to have committed an outrageous murder; they will pass on rendering judgment on him, but mention "The System" or "Jim Crow" and you will find on your hands a person ready to judge and all in favor of some retributive justice.

This is why they seem so alien to us: they have trained themselves to not have the natural (and right) feelings of moral outrage about the things they should be morally outraged about, instead directing their outrage about murders and rapes towards... abstractions like "The System" or entirely innocent parties (like "society").

I don't know exactly how that fits in to the blasphemy/innoculant regime, but it's in there somewhere.

Oh: In case it needs to be said, no, I'm not focusing on minority murderers because only minorities commit murders.

It's that leftists do not consider white people a protected class, obviously, so a white murderer is allowed the moral scorn (at least some of it) that is natural and right. A leftist doesn't mind callling a white murderer a scumbag and killer and etc. It's only when the murder is committed by a member of a protected class that they engage their talents of misdirection of moral rage and begin looking to vent their outrage at abstractions and innocent third parties.

And, of course, sometimes the victims themselves -- as Ward Churchill demonstrated when he called the victims of 9/11 "Little Eichmanns."

When a horror is perpetrated, the reaction of horror will come out. But good little leftists have trained themselves nicely to rarely direct it at the actual monsters committing the horror.

Posted by: Ace at 08:47 AM | Comments (161)
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Not a lot, and probably not all that more than has already been publicized in rightwing media -- but some chemical agents were found.

In August 2004, for instance, American forces surreptitiously purchased what they believed to be containers of liquid sulfur mustard, a toxic “blister agent” used as a chemical weapon since World War I. The troops tested the liquid, and “reported two positive results for blister.” The chemical was then “triple-sealed and transported to a secure site” outside their base.

Three months later, in northern Iraq, U.S. scouts went to look in on a “chemical weapons” complex. “One of the bunkers has been tampered with,” they write. “The integrity of the seal [around the complex] appears intact, but it seems someone is interesting in trying to get into the bunkers.”

Meanwhile, the second battle of Fallujah was raging in Anbar province. In the southeastern corner of the city, American forces came across a “house with a chemical lab … substances found are similar to ones (in lesser quantities located a previous chemical lab.” The following day, there’s a call in another part of the city for explosive experts to dispose of a “chemical cache.”

This seems important:

But the more salient issue may be how insurgents and Islamic extremists (possibly with the help of Iran) attempted to use these lethal and exotic arms. As Spencer noted earlier, a January 2006 war log claims that “neuroparalytic” chemical weapons were smuggled in from Iran.

Smuggled in from Iraq? Not sure if he means Iran, or the weapons were smuggled from Iraq to somewhere else.

Update: The author, Noah Schachtman, got in touch with me -- it was just a typo. He meant Iran. I have changed the quote to reflect ths.

Posted by: Ace at 07:52 AM | Comments (139)
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A little while back, Obama was busted here on AOSHQ for his interesting take on historical events.

And today, this:

Obama quoted Abraham Lincoln again yesterday "that government should do for the people what they cannot do better for themselves."

He has used this quote over and over again, and as ever, the mainstream press helplessly accept his every utterance as geese being force-fed for pâté.

Now, I can't seem to find this quote directly attributed to Abe Lincoln anywhere, which is why I am asking Moron Nation to help me find it.

Because I'll bet you dollars to donuts Abe didn't actually say what Obama is implying he did. It is more likely that, as in the case of "Islam always being part of America," this is either an outright fantasy or it opposes Lincoln's original context and intent.

By the way: if you aren't following Mr. Knoller on Twitter, please consider it. He has a nifty job.

FASTEST. UPDATE. EVER.

The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves in their separate, and individual capacities. In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere.”

Yes. The opposite meaning. The very opposite.

UPDATE NUMBER B: A nicely-executed post on this very subject, linked by Mike in comments. Thanks, Mike.

Thanks to MJ at H2.

Posted by: LauraW at 07:24 AM | Comments (144)
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