Horrific.

It's not just a religious war. It's a Range War style fight, with farmers against cattle-grazers. In this case, though, the farmers are almost all Christian and the cattle-grazers all Muslims.

Funerals took place for victims of the three-hour orgy of violence on Sunday in three Christian villages close to the northern city of Jos, blamed on members of the mainly Muslim Fulani ethnic group.

While troops were deployed to the villages to prevent new attacks, security forces detained 95 suspects but faced bitter criticism over how the killers were able to go on the rampage at a time when a curfew was meant to be in force.

Media reported that Muslim residents of the villages in Plateau state had been warned by phone text message, two days prior to the attack, so they could make good their escape before the exit points were sealed off.

Survivors said the attackers were able to separate the Fulanis from members of the rival Berom group by chanting 'nagge', the Fulani word for cattle. Those who failed to respond in the same language were hacked to death.

One local paper said the gangs shouted Allah Akhbar (God is Great) before breaking into homes and setting them alight in the early hours of Sunday. Churches were among the buildings that were burned down.

...

"We have over 500 killed in three villages and the survivors are busy burying their dead," said state information commissioner Gregory Yenlong.

"People were attacked with axes, daggers and cutlasses -- many of them children, the aged and pregnant women."

Much of the violence was centred around the village of Dogo Nahawa, where gangs set fire to straw-thatched mud huts as they went on their rampage.

The explosion of violence is the latest between rival ethnic and religious groups. In January 326 people died in clashes in and around Jos, according to police although rights activists put the overall toll at more than 550.

"The attack is yet another jihad and provocation," the Plateau State Christian Elders Consulatative Forum (PSCEF) said.

Posted by: Ace at 03:26 PM | Comments (112)
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From Australia, this time.

Stabbed in the back while having sex by a third woman whom he was encouraging to join in in a three-way.

Posted by: Ace at 02:55 PM | Comments (98)
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That's one of the problems, I guess.

[Axelrod's] -- and to a degree Obama's -- problem is that they aren't used to governance that requires multi-party and intra-party skills, where the chief executive isn't in absolute control of all levers of government. The "Chicago Way" is profoundly misunderstood. It isn't, first and foremost, about bullying politics; it's about absolute control and the means to achieve it. The "Chicago Way" would never work in DC, and I believe their frame of reference doesn't allow them to see DC otherwise.

Well, it's that, and the fact that Obama is a diehard, true-believer left-liberal for whom the word "compromise" is anathema. How do you compromise with (as they see it) near-Hitlerian evil?

Posted by: Ace at 02:13 PM | Comments (74)
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That's pretty odd. Even odder -- her ex-husband was in the passenger seat, and leaned over to take (bad) control of the wheel while she trimmed her hedges.

And... uh... They were driving off to see the woman's new boyfriend.

Obligatory picture:

Eric Massa just emailed to say "I wouldn't hit that. But does she have a brother in the Navy?"

Posted by: Ace at 01:53 PM | Comments (154)
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Well, he did say that, sort of.

Rep. Massa describes a confrontation with Emanuel in a shower: "I am showering, naked as a jaybird, and here comes Rahm Emanuel, not even with a towel wrapped around his tush, poking his finger in my chest, yelling at me."

Audio here.

Via corporate shill Hot Air (joking... jealous), this guy gives you the skinny on those allegations of Massa's gross misconduct in the Navy.

Yeah, according to these accounts, he was sticking his hands down the shorts of fellow shipmates and mounting them while they slept, without so much as a "by your leave."

He says he didn't report on this three years ago (despite being, it seems, a conservative) because the accusers wouldn't go on the record and he felt squeamish about destroying Massa and his family.

Beck, by the way, is talking about this now, and is playing along with Massa's claim that all he did was "tell a dirty joke." I don't know if this is his real, incredibly naive belief, or if he's greasing the source for tomorrow's interview and fishing in troubled waters.

I hope it's the latter. If he really believes that Massa just told a dirty joke... Well. He's willing to believe anything, then, isn't he?

If he's just playing along -- terrific. We can use this pervert.

Posted by: Ace at 01:06 PM | Comments (242)
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Previously, Titus had expressed reservations about Pelosi's Abortion but voted for it after changes... and arm-twisting, of course.

Democratic Rep. Dina Titus dropped her opposition today to the House health care bills, saying changes have been made since she voted against it in committee in July and it has now won her support.

Titus had been walking a political line of supporting health reform, but opposing several elements of the House plan -- particularly its surtax on higher-wage earners she feared would snare many couples and small business owners in her Southern Nevada district.

The balance was a smart political move in Southern Nevada, where the congresswoman's district remains politically split. She will have to face voters next fall.

The surtax on "Cadillac Plans" is currently in the Senate bill that Nanny-Nan wants everyone to vote for.

Now she says she doesn't know if she can support the currently-envisioned Frankenstein bill.M

As if to illustrate that, Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., a freshman who supported an earlier version of the bill, said she is now undecided, citing questions about what the final measure would include.

"I think what's happened in my district is there's a great deal of uncertainty," she said.

Posted by: Ace at 12:37 PM | Comments (47)
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A Democratic politician and a reporter, in bed together. Who'd'a thunk it?

Gossip columnists are reporting that CNBC Washington correspondent and New York Times writer John Harwood has split from his wife, Frankie Blackburn, because of his alleged affair with Senator Cantwell.

The details of the supposed affair have not been released other than that the two have dated.

These allegations have not been confirmed by either source but according to 'Page Six,' the online gossip magazine, Harwood has said, "I don't feel comfortable talking about my family life."

Sources also say Harwood 'sobbed' to a DC paper asking to keep his affair quiet and out of the paper.

She's up for reelection in 2012, not 2010, alas.

A Cooter of Corruption: This isn't the first time Cantwell has played the other-woman homewrecker.

Posted by: Ace at 12:22 PM | Comments (156)
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From a speech Sarah Palin gave in Calgary over the weekend:

"My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse. Believe it or not – this was in the ‘60s – we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn’t that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada."

Predictably, the sinistrosphere is having a conniption crying "hypocrite! hypocrite!" like a bunch of idiots.

First of all, no Republican, and certainly not Palin, is suggesting that the solution to expensive American healthcare costs is to prevent Americans from going to Canada to get care. So, on its face, there's no hypocrisy to this...even if we ignored the obvious details: she was a child and it was an emergency.

Second, even on a charitable reading, the fool Lefty commentators don't have a point because, as usual for the breed, they have only a passing familiarity with reality. They suggest that it's hypocritical for Palin to say that Canadian-style healthcare isn't right for America because she benefited from it as a child. In fact, nationalized medicine didn't exist in Whitehorse (Yukon) until 1972.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 12:09 PM | Comments (60)
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A lawsuit filed by the father of fallen Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder against the despicable and deranged Westboro Phelps kooks.

I'm not the legal guy so I'm not really qualified offer up any analysis. The case was filed by the Marine's father for intentional infliction of emotional distress for their asinine and offensive protest at his son's funeral in Westminster, MD., it resulted in a $5MM judgement against Westboro, but was overturned by the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals.

Here's my analysis: these Phelps assholes are batshit crazy obnoxious bags of douche, and I would not lay down my life (or lift a finger) to defend their right to speak publicly if all they were doing was ordering a bacon cheeseburger at Jack in the Box.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 12:06 PM | Comments (56)
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Posted by: Ace at 11:59 AM | Comments (41)
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