I mean, I'm kidding; of course that's what it is, and has always been.

Still, the details of the thing give it life. It's all pretty shabby.

‘Everything in the Mansion felt old and stale, and Archie the house dog would regularly relieve himself on the hallway curtains, adding a powerful whiff of urine to the general scent of decay.’

Many girls, it seems, endured these living conditions for the chance of becoming a centrefold in Playboy magazine — an invaluable career boost for any glamour model.

Others admitted that they stayed only for the cosmetic surgery to which Hefner treated them as a birthday presents, keeping a running account with a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon.

Legendary lover: Hugh Hefner has a reputation for the high life, yet it seems many of his former 'girlfriends' have become disenchanted with life in the harem

But St James — with big university debts — was more interested in the weekly pocket money which Hefner paid all his girlfriends. ‘Every Friday morning we had to go to Hef’s room, wait while he picked up all the dog poo off the carpet — and then ask for our allowance: a thousand dollars counted out in crisp hundred-dollar bills from a safe in one of his bookcases,’ she says.

‘We all hated this process. Hef would always use the occasion to bring up anything he wasn’t happy about in the relationship. Most of the complaints were about the lack of harmony among the girlfriends — or your lack of sexual participation in the “parties” he held in his bedroom.

‘If we’d been out of town for any reason and missed one of the official “going out” nights [When Hefner liked to parade his girls at nightclubs] he wouldn’t want to give us the allowance. He used it as a weapon.’

Girls living at the house have a strict curfew -- they have to be in early at night (except for two official going-out nights), I guess to tend to Hef, or his other guests.

It's worth a read. Even if you don't think you're interested, you may wind up being interested. Not in a good way.

Posted by: Ace at 10:52 AM | Comments (229)
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When Bloomberg agitates for the Ground Zero Mosque, he cites the spirit of the First Amendment. Freedom of religion and all that.

But he seems to forget other parts of the First Amendment, like the explicit part about the state being forbidden to establish (or even further, as Court decisions have said) a religion.

Because his his government has been working hard, secretly, to push this mosque and therefore the Muslim religion.

In fact, it turns out that Team Bloomberg was heavily involved in operating the political machinery needed to ensure that various regulatory agencies approved the controversial project -- which has rightly drawn the ire of many 9/11 survivors and victims' families.

REUTERS
Daisy Khan

Even to the point of pressing Community Board 1 to cast an approving vote -- so that the chairman of the Landmarks Preservation Commission could be given the "political cover" he so urgently sought before his agency denied landmark status to the existing building.

That not only raises First Amendment questions -- it also provides serious doubts about the legitimacy of the LPC vote, which appears to have been dictated far more by politics than by any consideration of the building's architectural and historical merit.

Bloomberg's community affairs commissioner even ghost-wrote a letter to CB1 on behalf of Daisy Khan, wife of mosque promoter Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Meanwhile, officials intervened to obtain permits so that prayers could be conducted at the site.

More at the link; Bloomberg has been very slow in responding to FOIA requests for these documents, and many he won't turn over, citing privileged communication.

Thanks to rdbrewer.

Posted by: Ace at 09:33 AM | Comments (94)
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Game changer?

On Wednesday, the frenzy got fresh fuel: Noble confirmed its earlier estimates that the field contains 16 trillion cubic feet of gas—making it the world's biggest deepwater gas find in a decade, with enough reserves to supply Israel's gas needs for 100 years.

It's still early days, and getting all that gas out of the seabed may be more difficult than it seems today. But Noble and its partners think the field could hold enough gas to transform Israel, a country precariously dependent on others for energy, into a net-energy exporter.

I'm guessing energy starved countries in Europe and around the world are suddenly going to have a new found respect for their favorite whipping boy. It's one thing to beat up a relatively poor country with nothing you need, it's quite another to deal with an increasingly prosperous country that exports a vital commodity. Ask the various Gulf states how they'd be treated if they weren't sitting on so much Black Gold.

As Eli Lake imagined it on Twitter (where I first saw this):

Dear Europe, Stop trying our officials in absentia and maybe we'll give u better prices than Gazprom. Yours, Israel

Naturally, no good thing is ever cost free. The usual suspects are using this to stir up trouble.

Despite these problems, Israel's gas find is making waves abroad. Lebanon has staked out its own claim to offshore gas. In August, lawmakers in Beirut rushed the country's first oil-exploration law through its normally snarled parliament.

Lebanon's oil minister, Gebran Bassil, an ally of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, said in late October that his ministry hopes to start auctioning off exploration rights by 2012.

Iran, Israel's arch-nemesis and Hezbollah's chief backer, has also weighed in. Tehran's ambassador to Lebanon, Qazanfar Roknabadi, last month claimed that three-quarters of the Leviathan field actually belongs to Lebanon.

Mr. Landau, the Israeli infrastructure minister, denied the claim and warned Lebanon that Israel wouldn't hesitate to use force to protect its mineral rights.

No doubt the Obama administration is hard at work trying to figure out how to force Israel into not only a freeze on settlement construction but also an off-shore drilling moratorium.

It's going to be awhile before they can start exploiting this find but it seems a new and large variable has been added to the complex Mideast equation.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:30 AM | Comments (56)
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And that message? We need you to fire us as soon as possible and start with a new batch of fresh, cheaper employees who understand how they got their jobs in the first place (that is, by the last batch being fired wholesale).

The country's more in the mood to take on public-employee unions than it has been since, who knows, Calvin Coolidge, and this is what they pull? Not smart. There are tens of thousands of unemployed people who'd love to have these jobs.

Time for a bloodletting? Oh definitely. But I always think that.

Why the NY Post is calling the whistleblowers "snitches" is beyond me. But it's always been a sort of blue-collar paper. I guess they feel they're supposed to call anyone who calls out union misbehavior a "snitch."

These garbage men really stink.

Selfish Sanitation Department bosses from the snow-slammed outer boroughs ordered their drivers to snarl the blizzard cleanup to protest budget cuts -- a disastrous move that turned streets into a minefield for emergency-services vehicles, The Post has learned.

Miles of roads stretching from as north as Whitestone, Queens, to the south shore of Staten Island still remained treacherously unplowed last night because of the shameless job action, several sources and a city lawmaker said, which was over a raft of demotions, attrition and budget cuts.

"They sent a message to the rest of the city that these particular labor issues are more important," said City Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Queens), who was visited yesterday by a group of guilt-ridden sanitation workers who confessed the shameless plot.

Halloran said he met with three plow workers from the Sanitation Department -- and two Department of Transportation supervisors who were on loan -- at his office after he was flooded with irate calls from constituents.

The snitches "didn't want to be identified because they were afraid of retaliation," Halloran said. "They were told [by supervisors] to take off routes [and] not do the plowing of some of the major arteries in a timely manner. They were told to make the mayor pay for the layoffs, the reductions in rank for the supervisors, shrinking the rolls of the rank-and-file."

New York's Strongest used a variety of tactics to drag out the plowing process -- and pad overtime checks -- which included keeping plows slightly higher than the roadways and skipping over streets along their routes, the sources said.

The snow-removal snitches said they were told to keep their plows off most streets and to wait for orders before attacking the accumulating piles of snow.

From Ed Morrissey, who says he's skeptical because it's a Councilman (Republican) claiming he was told this; the story does aid him, since he's being blamed by constituents for the mess, and public union employees are always a nice scapegoat for Team Red.

But... I believe it. Sounds good to me!

More: Hm, not sure why Ed is skeptical. Reading on, I see the NYPost has verified the story, mostly, from independent sources in the sanitation department:

But multiple Sanitation Department sources told The Post yesterday that angry plow drivers have only been clearing streets assigned to them even if that means they have to drive through snowed-in roads with their plows raised.

And they are keeping their plow blades unusually high, making it necessary for them to have to run extra passes, adding time and extra pay.

One mechanic said some drivers are purposely smashing plows and salt spreaders to further stall the cleanup effort.

Commenters note that a newborn baby died due to a late ambulance, slowed by the snow.

Posted by: Ace at 08:29 AM | Comments (144)
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I've been hard on Christine O'Donnell, but I'm going to guess nothing comes of this, except for the embarrassment factor. Campaign funds can't be used for personal expenses, I guess, but I also know that a candidate running for office has a lot of campaign-related expenses which have a personal nature. Like eating on the road. So the exception is so huge as to swallow the rule.

If O'Donnell could legally pay herself a salary from campaign funds (which, I understand, she could), she could use campaign funds for many expenses of her daily life. And she's been "campaigning" for office for a long time, so I can't figure out how they're going to separate her truly personal, non-campaign expenditures from legal campaign expenditures that just so happen to involve candidate upkeep.

The embarrassment factor, though, comes in because most people expect candidates to have sufficient gainful employment to have their personal situation squared away, and campaign donations are usually used just for campaign-related staff and ad buys and the like. O'Donnell seems to have used at least some of her campaign funds (even if legally) for her personal upkeep, which sort of stresses the chief knock on her: She didn't seem to have any real gainful employment except for running for office.

I'm going to link the AP story about the investigation, an ABCNews report filed today about her denial on GMA, and then a pro-O'Donnell website's claim about the "half the rent" charge, which is probably part of the investigation.

AP:

Defeated Tea Party candidate Christine O'Donnell, who ran for vice president Joe Biden's former Senate seat, is reportedly under federal investigation for using campaign funds for personal expenses, the Associated Press reports.

The criminal probe is being conducted by two federal prosecutors and two FBI agents, an anonymous source told the AP. The matter has not yet been referred to a grand jury.

Spokespersons with the FBI in Washington and the Delaware Attorney General's office declined to comment.

But O'Donnell campaign spokesman Matt Moran told ABC News the wire report was the first he had heard of an alleged investigation.

"The anonymous source seems politically-motivated and may well be tied to the ultra-liberal, George Soros-financed, former Sen. Biden staffer-run CREW [Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington] complaint," Moran said.

The left-leaning watchdog group filed complaints with the Delaware U.S. Attorney's office and Federal Election Commission in September alleging the Republican candidate misused campaign funds.

"Left-leaning." A bit of an understatement but thanks for at least that.

ABCNews:

"There's been no impermissible use of campaign funds whatsoever," O'Donnell told "Good Morning America" today. "You have to look at this whole thug politic tactic for what it is. ... I'm confident that we will be cleared of any charges.

"You don't need a tipster to show that this was politically motivated. We were informed that the Delaware political establishment was going to use every resource available to them, including launching phony investigations ... tying me up with lawsuits to make sure I can't move forward politically," she said. "I even expect more things to come, that's their tactic."

On the rent allegation, I got an email from what seems to be a very pro-O'Donnell website. Here's what they claim on the rent issue:

Christine O'Donnell's campaign reported that her U.S. Senate campaign paid "half the rent" on the condominium townhouse that Christine lived in in Wilmington, Delaware.

So imagine my surprise, when I visited my friend Christine after the election at the famous townhouse condo. Er, condos -- there are two of them!

We should have expected the Delaware news media and national news media to be completely incompetent in mis-reporting this information.

The reason the O'Donnell campaign paid "half" the rent is because 1 of 2 townhouses is 100% dedicated to office space and the other townhouse is living space. There were and are TWO (2) completely different townhouses.

But both condos were contracted through the same realtor in one single contract.

So "half" the rent pays for ONE (1) of the TWO (2) completely different townhouses.

Assuming that's true, it's hard for me to see how someone could prove a violation of law. What, she used the office space a little too much for personal reasons? I doubt there's any sort of metric to determine what "too much" is. I have a feeling most "misuse of campaign donations" charges will be similarly hampered.

That website also stresses that the source of the charges against O'Donnell comes from a single person, apparently linking to CREW.

More: This WaPo article on the investigation is more detailed than the AP one.

One former O'Donnell staffer, Kristin Murray, recorded an automated phone call for the Delaware Republican Party just before the primary, accusing O'Donnell of "living on campaign donations - using them for rent and personal expenses, while leaving her workers unpaid and piling up thousands in debt."

Another former aide, David Keegan, said he became concerned about O'Donnell's 2008 campaign finances as she fell behind on bills and had no apparent source of income besides political contributions. He submitted an affidavit to CREW alleging that she used campaign money to cover meals, gas, a bowling outing, and rent to a landlord, Brent Vasher.

Vasher, a nephew of Keegan's and a one-time boyfriend of O'Donnell, declined comment when asked by The AP if he had been contacted by authorities. Vasher bought O'Donnell's house in 2008 after she was served with a foreclosure notice, then charged her rent to stay there, according to CREW's complaint.

Meals, gas, and rent, I think, will all wind up being legal uses of campaign funds (if all i's are dotted and t's crossed). The bowling outing seems more personal, but the moment there's anyone political there at all, bingo, it's a campaign expense, same as a businessman taking his friend/potential client out to dinner writes that off as a business expense.

That's my guess, at least.

Headline Corrected: I initially misread the pro-O'Donnell Delaware News website and thought it claimed that her accusers were not in a position to level charges against her. But I misread; they're not sure they're the people feeding information to CREW, and further, I also misread in that one of them clearly is in such a position (he served as "interim treasurer" for O'Donnell for a spell). So I've deleted the part of the headline that said her accusers didn't have the information with which to even make charges; that's just wrong, and due to a misreading.

Posted by: Ace at 08:05 AM | Comments (200)
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It's old man.

Conservatives (thanks in large part to the Tea Party movement) have promoted awareness of the Constitution to the American people, natural rights, limited governmental power. Nora (accept the pudding! oh you will accept the pudding Nora) calls this "lip service". So the MFM must try to marginalize it. Klein must have skimmed over the part about "effective techniques" in the talking points memo, and instead chose the brainy approach, "nobody can understand what it means because it's "over 100 years old".

Really? That's it, it's inscrutable because it's over 100 years old? Thank goodness our betters are super-smart so they can tell us what it really means.

Here's something else that's more than 100 years old.

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself."

- James Madison, Federalist #51

Very difficult to understand, so old. The Constitution defines the role of government, and places constraints upon its power. I may have to read that again, there's lots of more than 100 year old words in it.

Memo to Ezra "the Constitution is Too Damn Old" Klein: before the new Republican members of the House of Representatives read the Constitution in the 112th Congress, they're going to swear an oath to uphold and defend it.

It's not a gimmick.

via Slublog

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 07:25 AM | Comments (119)
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Some guy named Colman McCarthy, who "directs the Center for Teaching Peace in Washington and teaches courses on nonviolence at four area universities and two high schools", crams so much stupid into this 800 word piece it has to be a record.

A taste.

Will the Ivies have the courage for such stands? I'm doubtful. Only one of the eight Ivy League schools - Cornell - offers a degree in peace studies. Their pride in running programs in women's studies, black studies, and gay and lesbian studies is well-founded, but schools have small claims to greatness so long as the study of peace is not equal to the other departments when it comes to size and funding.

At Notre Dame, on that 1989 visit and several following, I learned that the ROTC academics were laughably weak. They were softie courses. The many students I interviewed were candid about their reasons for signing up: free tuition and monthly stipends, plus the guarantee of a job in the military after college. With some exceptions, they were mainly from families that couldn't afford ever-rising college tabs.

In this guy's universe, peace, "women's studies, black studies, and gay and lesbian studies" are important elements of a university's offering but ROTC classes are academically soft.

Okay, let's do a little compare and contrast.

Here's the Army ROTC curriculum at Sienna College, a small Catholic School in upstate NY. ROTC is not something you major in (there are only 8 classes and none are full 3 credit courses). ROTC is an add on to a student's regular course work that is specifically designed to get them ready to enter the Army after graduation. It's not a separate academic discipline, nor does this class list reflect the additional summer and post-graduate training students receive.

Now let's pick a few classes offered in "Women's and Gender Studies" at Columbia that McCarthy seems so fond of.

WMST BC3123y Women and Art 3 pts. Discussion of the methods necessary to analyze visual images of women in their historical, racial, and class contexts, and to understand the status of women as producers, patrons, and audiences of art and architecture.

WMST BC3130y Discourses of Desire: Introduction To Gay and Lesbian Studies 3 pts. Who or what constitutes the subject of gay and lesbian studies? Explores historical, methodological, and epistemological crisis points of essentialism/constructionism; sexuality across cultures; gender versus sexuality; bisexuality and the binary regimes of hetero/homo and male/female; community; identity; the politics of liberation; the place of feminism in les/bi/gay studies.

WMST BC3132x Gendered Controversies: Women's Bodies and Global Conflicts 4 pts. A seminar investigating the significance of social, political, and cultural conflict centered on issues concerning women's lives.

WMST BC3134y Unheard Voices: African Women's Literature 4 pts. Themes include the politics of the canon in Africa, the problems of language, postcolonial counter-discourse, the African-American continuum, and Third World and Western feminism. Readings include novels, short stories, poetry, and drama by Elora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta, Nawal El Saadawi, Miriam Tlali, Bessie Head, Molara Ogundipe-Leslie, Ama Ata Aidoo, and Tess Onwueme.

Let's see...which class do you think has higher standards, one taught by Army officers or the expert in charge of this class?

CSER W3918x Transnational Transgender Social Formations: Political Economies and Health Disparaties 4 pts. This course contextualizes contemporary transgender identities and communities within global social formations. Contemporary transgender social formations in South America, Central America, South Asia, and East Asia will be examined along with indigenous transgender communities in North America and Western Europe. Discussions of transgender social formations will be framed by historical, political, and economic contexts, and how transnational flows of global capital have impacted transgender identities. There will also be comparative analyses between transgender social formations and other sexual mintority communities and between transgender communities from various geographies. Particular attention will also be paid to health disparities among transgender communities, especially in relation to HIV/STI and mental health vulnerabilities. Health disparities will be seen as a manifestation of transgender stigma, social marginalization, and racial stratifications (that often lead to survival sex work) that affect many transgender communities globally. The class will end with an examination of the construction of whiteness and how transgender identities have been normalized as "white" in the West.

The world would do just fine if no one ever studied 'transgender issues". It would be noticeably less well off without the American military and the young men and women who serve in it.

Oh McCarthy doesn't want you to think he doesn't appreciate and admire those who serve in the military, he thinks they are swell...just like those who serve in the Taliban.

To oppose ROTC, as I have since my college days in the 1960s, when my school enticed too many of my classmates into joining, is not to be anti-soldier. I admire those who join armies, whether America's or the Taliban's: for their discipline, for their loyalty to their buddies and to their principles, for their sacrifices to be away from home. In recent years, I've had several Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans in my college classes. If only the peace movement were as populated by people of such resolve and daring.

Maybe this super genius should go to Afghanistan or Pakistan and talk to some members of the Taliban about their views of Women's or Gay and Lesbian Studies (or even just women studying and whether or not gays and Lesbians should be allowed to live). I'm sure he'd come away impressed with their loyalty to their cause, if he came away at all.

Added: I have a somewhat related proposal, expand Junior ROTC programs into more high schools across the country.

I've never served in the military but I did spend three years in my school's Navy Junior ROTC program. That experience gave me an introduction to the military, its history and most importantly, a lifelong appreciation for those who did go on to serve.

It was much more of an old fashioned civics course that had long since gone out of favor by the time I was in HS in the mid 80s.

There will always be idiots like McCarthy but expanding JROTC programs will not only lead to more people opting to serve in the military but it will give far more people at least a cursory introduction and appreciation for the institutions and people that keep this country safe.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:00 AM | Comments (199)
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I hate to do another CPAC post for the second day in a row, but instead of doing another "Year in Review" post last night, I played Civ5 and watched the OK State game. So you're getting this instead.

One thing overlooked by some, but not everyone, is that while the groups boycotting CPAC this year are socially conservative, not all socially conservative groups are boycotting CPAC. A glance at the list of participating organizations reveals many are involved, including:

The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property
Americans United for Life
Conservative Party USA
Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute
Christians United for Israel
David Horowitz Freedom Center
Let Freedom Ring
Prison Fellowship

In short, social conservatives are still welcomed at CPAC. Though the Left is gleefully snickering about a conservative crack-up (when are they not?), as usual, reality looks nothing like their claims.

The other thing I want to repeat from yesterday (because I keep seeing this places): Family Research Council did not "pull out" or "quit" CPAC over GOProud, notwithstanding its protestations to WND that it has been involved "for a decade." It hasn't been involved in CPAC for a few years and, in fact, now operates a rival conference, the Values Voters Summit. Though I'm certain FRC genuinely opposes GOProud's participation at CPAC or any other conservative event, FRC wasn't going to participate this year anyway. FRC's role in the boycott appears simply to be to draw groups away from its major competitor.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:05 AM | Comments (179)
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Dear me, our postilion has been struck by lightning.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:02 AM | Comments (159)
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Well in the last thread I announced I will be doing a 10 part series on 10 works every moron should know. I am daytripping to LACMA with the lady to actually shoot some video for you morons- a rare shot of my fat ass explaining art. Since that is taking longer than expected, its an ALL-MORON edition this week.

As always, if you paint, sculpt, shoot, draw, assemble, or otherwise dabble in the visual arts, shoot a JPEG with Title, your AoS handle, dimensions, medium, dimensions and year HERE to see it on AoS and to have your fellow morons praise/laugh at you.
Several of the submissions I have received are actually from what I would call at least locally established artists (many of them lurkers here), which got me to thinking... of all the famous dead artists, if they were alive today, who might we find lurking or posting here?

Anyway, onto the Morons: more...

Posted by: CAC at 07:54 PM | Comments (35)
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