It's not new but it's new to me (I think this is from the NFL Network).

Anyway, it's pretty cool, especially Tony Dungy talking about what they mean to Derrick Thomas.

Hope you morons have a great weekend. I plan to do the same.

tip via kevlarchick

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:54 AM | Comments (59)
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From an Afghan National Army soldier's skull.

The 2.5-inch unexploded ordnance became lodged in the patient's scalp during an improvised explosive device attack. But when the patient arrived for treatment, doctors thought it was only a piece of scrap metal, the Air Force reported.

"Initially, I thought it was a spent end of some sort of larger round," Lt. Col. Anthony Terreri, the radiologist at the Craig Joint Theater Hospital who checked the patient's CAT scan, told the Air Force.

They removed the people they could, the rest donned protective gear and risked themselves to save him.

It reminded me of this story, some of you know it. (Then) Captain John Oh and his surgical team, and an NCO trained in explosive ordnance removal carefully withdrew an RPG from the side of a soldier from the 10th Mountain Division in Iraq. And he survived his wound.

I never really know how to acknowledge this kind of dedication and courage, except to tell people about it. I hope it's something. I know it's not enough.

*not trying to avoid naming the branches of service involved, it's not apparent to me from the stories if they were Army or Air Force. Which doesn't matter in terms of their amazing service, just in terms of me giving appropriate acknowledgement.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:17 PM | Comments (92)
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Yeah it's early but what the hell. It's been a long week and I figure the East coasters are already buzzed.

The Great American Pizza, Guns, And Strip Club Map

Based on user-added bookmarks in Google Maps. So which of these dominates your area?

And much as I love pizza and guns, I'm thinking that the US needs some more strip clubs to balance things out. Plus based on my experiences Houston is dominated by strip clubs and boot stores. At least that's all I've ever seen when passing through. And why does Hawaii hate pizza so much? Too much pineapple and not enough spam?

Posted by: Maetenloch at 04:44 PM | Comments (949)
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Because, she says, "all black people are good athletes."

Did Norah -- sweet, pretty retard Norah -- come up with this herself or did she read it on Kos?

Ah: My bad. It was on LGF:

Newt Gingrich, at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, appealing to the base with a loud dog whistle: We Need a President, Not an Athlete.

"Dog whistle" is the new hotness term for the old and busted "racial code words," of course.

Thanks to Drew.

Posted by: Ace at 01:54 PM | Comments (479)
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I'm going to pull some quotes but you really should read the whole thing.

Still, this recent dust-up with Mr. Karzai—his outburst against the West, his melodramatic statement that he, too, could yet join the Taliban in a campaign of "national resistance," his indecent warning that those American and NATO forces soldiering to give his country a chance are on the verge of becoming foreign occupiers—is a statement about the authority of the Obama administration and its standing in Afghanistan and the region.

Forgive Mr. Karzai as he tilts with the wind and courts the Iranian theocrats next door. We can't chastise him for seeking an accommodation with Iranian power when Washington itself gives every indication that it would like nothing more than a grand bargain with Iran's rulers.

In Afghanistan, and throughout the Middle East, populations long in the path, and in the shadow, of great foreign powers have a good feel for the will and staying power of those who venture into their world. If Iran's bid for nuclear weapons and a larger role in the region goes unchecked, and if Iran is now a power of the Mediterranean (through Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Beirut), the leaders in Kabul, whoever they are, are sure to do their best to secure for themselves an Iranian insurance policy.

...

In word and deed, Mr. Obama has given a sense of his priorities. The passion with which he pursued health-care reform could be seen at home and abroad as the drive of a man determined to remake the American social contract. He aims to tilt the balance away from liberty toward equality. The very ambition of his domestic agenda in health care and state intervention in the economy conveys the causes that stir him.

...

All this plays out under the gaze of an Islamic world that is coming to a consensus that a discernible American retreat in the region is in the works. America's enemies are increasingly brazen, its friends unnerved. Witness the hapless Lebanese, once wards of U.S. power, now making pilgrimages, one leader at a time, to Damascus. They, too, can read the wind: If Washington is out to "engage" that terrible lot in Syria, they better scurry there to secure reasonable terms of surrender.

Earlier today Allah asked on Twitter why some like Sarah Palin and Liz Cheney feel obliged to defend Karzai. It's a good question and one I considered the other day when I did it myself. The short answer for me is, he's the only game in town. It's not out of love or respect but out of the fact we are inexorably tied to him at the moment and our COIN strategy requires an indigenous government. Right now, for better or for worse, that means Hamid Karzai.

Obama's fighting with Karzai only highlights the inconsistencies in Obama's Afghanistan policy...add troops but announce the deadline for pulling out, set a stable government as a condition of success and then undermine it. It's all smoke and mirrors designed to walk the line between the need to be seen as strong on defense by moderate/independent voters but not too strong that the leftwing base desserts him.

As Ajami points out, the real pros in the region, the ones whose lives literally depend on reading the tea leaves and navigating the competing power centers, aren't impressed with Obama's straddle. They see the writing on the wall and are acting accordingly...they can't count on the US so they will make deals with our enemies, nations that are in it for the long run.

This is typical of Obama's 'above it all', passive-aggressive crap. By not fully committing to the effort, he forces others to walk away from us. He will then use that 'abandonment' or 'lack of progress' as his excuse to pull out. He'll pretend it was forced on him, nothing he could have done about it. The fact is by his actions and inaction, he will have set the stage and manipulated the outcome.

Lives will be lost, we will be less secure and America will be weaker.

Posted by: DrewM at 01:15 PM | Comments (117)
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More of that smart diplomacy I was promised -- major players on the world stage obnoxiously insulted according to where they are on our juvenile president's "Who's Hot/Who's Not" list.

Europe's most famous Cold War warrior and former communist political prisoner was excluded from a ceremony yesterday where Russia and the U.S. took steps toward world peace.

Vaclav Havel, the president of Czechoslovakia and then Czech Republic for 13 years, was not invited to the signing of the START II nuclear arms reduction treaty by President Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev...

Incidentally, regarding Obama's sneer that Sarah Palin is "not an expert in nuclear policy" -- Um, I'm sorry, but when did Obama become one himself?

Note no one in the media even asks this question because they believe that his liberalism makes him (like themselves) All-Purpose Exports On Every Issue Under the Sun.

Posted by: Ace at 12:44 PM | Comments (146)
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Olbermann, who has parlayed weak ratings into big salaries and lots of power at MSNBC, attempts to build on his lack of success by posting even weaker ratings. I guess now they'll make him chief operations officer.

Meanwhile, Olbermann's felater Phil Griffin, president of MSNBC, writes in a email written to one of Shuster's fans, objecting to the suspension:

From: Griffin, Phil (NBC Universal)

Sent: Wed 4/07/10 11:16 PM

Sorry, but this is a business and I need team players. He was not moral, ethical or professional and that is not fair to the 500 people who work at msnbc.

Thanks for your note,

Phil

That to me seems to say he's all done. He didn't just call it a lapse.

Regarding Shuster, I would have thought that after his gonzo-nasty-liberal act at MSNBC no other real news company could hire him. His only other employment opportunities, I thought, would be at Salon or Media Matters or other nasty-liberal outfits.

And yet he was taping a pilot for CNN.

Let me express my extreme doubt that if anyone with right-leaning sympathies had vented them in the manner Shuster did, he couldn't get hired as a straight reporter anywhere -- including Fox.

Posted by: Ace at 10:44 AM | Comments (261)
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Republican - Ed Lynch
Democrat - Ted Deutch

The FL19 district, where I live, was reliably electing Wexler in the 65% range in past elections, when there even was a challenger. Wexler had run unchallenged in the past sometimes.

This is a district the Democrats take for granted, and the Republicans largely gave up on as hopeless. If the Democrats lose their unassailable bastion of the FL 19th, I'm thinking this could be a harbinger of a real blood bath in Nov.

This race hasn't gotten much play in the national press, but its something worth keeping an eye on. People are pissed off down here, real pissed off. People I know who were Democrats their whole lives pissed off. The possibility of defections/crossovers is pretty high IMO.

Well, that's my read as someone who lives in this district.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 10:30 AM | Comments (59)
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How many seats will Republicans pick up?

The 79 seat prediction is a little silly - it involves enhancing Rasmussen's 9-point spread with a 3.4% kicker to represent under-polling conservatives; but Rasmussen is probably polling conservatives just fine -- but the rest of the numbers are pretty possible. Somewhere between 51 and 65 seats, unless something changes.

Dick Morris continues predicting the Senate will flip, too.

Presaging the looming Republican sweep is the shift in the party ratings on various issues. Rasmussen has the Republicans ahead by 49-37 on the economy and 53-37 on healthcare. His likely-voter poll shows GOP leads on every major issue area: national security (49-37), Iraq (47-39), education (43-30), immigration (47-34), Social Security (48-36) and taxes (52-34).

When Republicans are winning issues like education, healthcare and Social Security — normally solidly Democratic issues — a sweep of unimaginable proportions is in the offing.

Question: Why are big-name Republicans giving Charles Schumer a free pass? If Scott Brown can win in Massachusetts, surely the caustic, arrogant, uber-liberal and hyperpartisan Schumer can be beaten.

In another interesting poll, Scott Rassmussen McGoebblesGoering finds that the public thinks that big money contributions pervert our politics. But even more of the public blames a biased media.

Fifty-five percent (55%) of U.S. voters continue to think that media bias is a bigger problem in politics today than big campaign contributions, identical to the finding in August 2008.

Thirty-two percent (32%) say big contributions are the bigger problem, but thatÂ’s down four points from the previous survey. Thirteen percent (13%) more are not sure.

Posted by: Ace at 09:49 AM | Comments (136)
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Looks like it's on all 3 cable nets.

The Weekly Standard has some of the prepared remarks that hit Obama's foreign policy.

In foreign policy, weÂ’ve got the makings of the Obama Doctrine: coddling our enemies while alienating allies.

The administration eased sanctions on Cuba and sided with Chavez against Honduran democracy. They wonÂ’t bring up human rights with China because, quote, 'we know what they are going to say.' They offer tepid sanctions on North Korea and 'gold stars and cookies' for the Sudanese President. They send letters to Iranian mullahs but can barely muster a word of support for the Green Movement seeking freedom and womenÂ’s rights in Iran!

Hits back at Obama over experience with nuclear issues. Probably not a great line but it got applause.

Great line... "Jerusalem is not a settlement and Israel is an ally".

Wow, this meat is so red the cow is still alive. Of course, it's a political speech, so you know, it makes sense.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:45 AM | Comments (121)
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