Why didn't I cover this previously?

Because I didn't have a Taiwanese animation, that's why.

Getting spoiled.

The American media has to get on this bandwagon. more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:49 PM | Comments (65)
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The bad news isÂ…itÂ’s from the defense budget and will essentially hollow out our military.

The recommendations are from the Sustainable Defense Task Force (I do not think those first words mean what they think they mean) which is an ad hoc group of think tanks and legislators led by Barney Frank andÂ… Ron Paul. Frank and Paul together? What could go wrong?

Just the gutting of the military.

The Air Force must retire six fighter air wings equivalents, and at the same time build 301 fewer F-35 fighters. The nuclear bomber force will be completely eliminated in the name of unilateral disarmament—the B-1 and B-2 and B-52 and other bombers will still be able to drop bombs, but their nuclear weapon wiring and controls will simply be removed. Procurement of the new refueling tanker and the C-17 cargo aircraft will be canceled. Directed energy beam research and other advanced missile and space warfare defense projects will also be eliminated or curtailed.

Active duty Army personnel will be slashed from 562,400 to 360,000. That includes elimination of about five active-component brigade combat teams (the report is not exactly). The Army will also suffer a myriad of other cuts, including closure of overseas bases.

The Marine Corps would be cut by 30%, from 202,000 to 145,000, and the other funding cuts planned for the Corps mean the United States will not be able to mount a major amphibious landing on any hostile shore. Marine Corps programs to be killed include the V-22 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft and the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle.

Granted, a lot of this is pie-in-the-sky thinking from liberals, itÂ’s their wish list but itÂ’s not like they donÂ’t have a friend in a very high place. Remember this Obama video from the campaign? In his heart, he thinks theyÂ’re right. So while this may well be the leftÂ’s outer marker, it gives you an idea of what weÂ’re up against in the coming years.

And if you donÂ’t think it could happen, well it happened in the 70Â’s and itÂ’s already happening now as the Air Force considers retiring its entire B-1 Bomber fleet. ItÂ’s kind of ironic that the poster child for the Reagan defense build up may well wind up being emblematic of the Obama draw down (though I guess the F-22 will be remember as the beginning of the end).

The Navy is already seeing the disastrous effects of not spending enough and improperly managing the training and maintenance resources they do have.

more...

Posted by: DrewM at 01:18 PM | Comments (158)
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I don't know how the media continues to fall for this. Martin Eisenstadt is a confirmed/admitted hoaxster/prankster who likes seeing his name in the paper.

He likes "leaking" information about people in the headlines -- and he put a derogatory story into the MFM in 2008, claiming Sarah Palin didn't know that Africa was a continent, not a country.

Here's Howard Kurtz on him.

He also pranked the media (and me) into buying his claim that Joe the Plumber had hooked up with SNL cutie Kirsten Wiig.

(But that was the first and last time I got punked by him.)

And now he denies a "report" that he had sex with Elena Kagan, wishing to get out in front of the story.

It's obviously a spoof. And further, he's parodying Will Folks a little.

So, his asinine prank gets on a dumb news feed in New Zealand, and the media pick it up and run it.

So now these lazy, stupid, unprofessional nitwits in the media are running his "apology" over the allegation, as well as his claimed (nonexistent) link with The Heritage Foundation.

Media?

Hello?

For the last time: The guy is a fake.

Stop trying to tie him to conservative think-tanks.

It's a goof, do you not get it?

Now, the feed being picked up there is just automated -- they seem to run automatically whatever pops up on the NZ "Scoop" feed -- but shouldn't they, um, not be posting things without checking at all from a feed that seems to be easily pranked?

More: Guys, see, it's a goof.

PS: He doesn't even change his name, so it's not hard to pick up on.

Posted by: Ace at 12:41 PM | Comments (72)
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Hot stuff.

A former Justice Department attorney who resigned last month in protest of the Obama administration's handling of a voter intimidation case involving the New Black Panther Party accused a top Justice official of lying under oath about the circumstances surrounding the decision to drop the case.

J. Christian Adams, now an attorney in Virginia and a blogger for Pajamas Media, told Fox News in an exclusive interview that aired Wednesday that Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez provided false testimony in May to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, which is investigating the department's decision to drop charges against three members of the radical group in a case that the government won.

Perez told the commission that the facts and the law didn't support the case against the group.

"I know about the truthÂ…and I know what the truth is and I know to say the facts and law don't support the Black Panther case is not true," Adams said, adding that Perez ignored his warnings not to provide false testimony.

"We made it very clear that continuing to say that the facts and the law don't support this case would not be consistent with the truth," he said.

Here's his interview on FoxNews: more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:30 PM | Comments (67)
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This one even worse.

It's being reported by other outfits, but the citation is only to Radar Online (linked above), who say they've learned this and that about the audiotape but do not make it available for checking.

Could be false, then. The split between Gibson and his ex-girlfriend is pretty nasty; both have restraining orders out against each other. (No, I didn't know any of this; I don't really follow this stuff. Just reading it now.)

"You're an embarrassment to me," Mel tells her at one point.

"You look like a f***ing pig in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of n***ers, it will be your fault."

Mel's attorney told RadarOnline.com that he is no longer commenting on the case and said Mel's publicist is the only Mel official who will speak for him.

Mel's profane outbursts are littered with references to Oksana being a "whore" and "c**t".

In another tirade, Mel tells Oksana: "How dare you act like such a bitch when I have been so f**king nice."

He warns, "I am going to come and burn the f**king house down... but you will blow me first."

Whoops: I didn't include the hat-tip -- thanks to Brian at SnappedShot.com.

Microsoft's KIN phone sold so poorly it's no longer even a thing. 5000 units in 48 days. From Microsoft, we're talking about.

Posted by: Ace at 12:16 PM | Comments (135)
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Have you ever felt as if you've been cheated?

Posted by: Ace at 12:01 PM | Comments (120)
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Well, that last part is their hope, but it's 99% likely they'll be successful at that goal.

The TroopAThon begins in less than 15 minutes.

Posted by: Ace at 11:46 AM | Comments (17)
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Bump [Gabe]: So, like Lauraw said, Ace seems a little down what with the vaccinations and other issues that come from getting bit by a free-range, organic, and antibiotic-free homosapien. And I was considering some things that might cheer him up. Like a ten-part series of 2,000-word posts on the Law of the Sea Treaty.

Or you could . . . well, you heard the lady. Do you get what I'm sayin'?

Semi-Annual Subscription Drive

Our host, in better times

Good Afternoon Morons, nitwits, pinheads, dipshits, bitter partisan hacks, racist teabagging scum, douchebags, scuzzbuckets, puppet abusers and assorted uncategorized mental deficients.
I love each and every one of your bumpy little noggins.

Yes, it's that time again. We're passing the cup.

Just got an email from Ace, who is day-stalking a hobo under an overpass somewhere. He seems down.

The guy never complains about anything, but today he's bitching that he's snapped his favorite fillet knife, he's all out of wire ties, and his stash of freeze-dried hobo livers is running low.

To make matters worse, in a rare moment when he didn't have the upper hand, he suffered a nasty bite that needs attention just as soon as the tell-tale dental impression fades a bit. I asked him where he got the bite and he just said 'in the crawlspace.'

Ace never asks us to post a money bleg for him. We just do it because our own safety depends on him getting his medications in a timely manner.

Please click the paypal button (upper left sidebar) and toss the fuzzy feller a little coin if you could.

Posted by: LauraW at 11:23 AM | Comments (107)
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Well, more like of the past 20 years, with a few classics from before tossed in.

Content Warning for language/sexual allusions.

Really awesome list. Loving this. So far, Glengarry Glen Ross and and Full Metal Jacket seem to get a special love here, getting three insults on the list. Caddyshack, Fish Called Wanda and The Breakfast Club get two.

Thanks to 3rd Bird. more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:09 AM | Comments (96)
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Alan Simpson is one of ours; but what about Democrat Erskine Bowles?

Bowles is actually suggesting a not-so-horrible solution focusing chiefly (but only chiefly) on spending cuts.

Bowles, a North Carolina investment banker and former Clinton White House chief of staff, is suggesting a cap on overall government spending and revenue of 21 percent of gross domestic product. The federal government currently spends 25 percent of GDP and takes in 15 percent as revenue, though both numbers are a bit distorted by the recent recession. By 2035, according to the Congressional Budget Office, spending could leap to 35 percent of GDP with revenue at 19 percent. By those numbers Bowles is suggesting that some 90 percent of the gap should be closed by cutting the spending side of the ledger.

...

All this would, of course, require massive restructuring of social entitlements. In return, other panel Democrats would demand higher taxes — a supposed “no go” zone for Republicans. But perhaps such a heavy bias toward spending cuts could pry loose a couple of GOPers if tax increases focused on eliminating breaks rather than raising rates.

Then again, tax increases of any sort might not be necessary, assuming spending cuts. If the economy grows somewhat more like it has through the 20th century than what is assumed by dreary CBO forecasts, that alone would reduce projected budget deficits by 25 percent in 2035.

One way to view this is that if Erskine Bowles is offering this as his first negotiating point, we can pull him closer to something good.

One suspicion I have, though -- and I may be overthinking/conspiracy-theorizing here -- is that if Bowles and Simpson have made a deal, where in they swap places, basically, and Bowles offers a spending-cut heavy plan to try to win over the Democrats, but Simpson will reciprocate and sell the GOP on higher taxes.

Each man agrees with the other to use his credibility with his respective tribe to push the other's priority, figuring, perhaps, that that way, at least they can get both sides closer to each other for a deal.

I realize this opinion may not be popular, but several years after the Bush tax cuts I thought he'd cut tax rates too much, since, even in the growing-economy years of 2006 and 2007, we were still running a $200 billion deficit. Yes, I know, he also overspent, but one has to calculate the nation's unending appetite for government spending into one's budget plans. (The nation claims a higher commitment to lower government spending than it actually believes in; a lot of people are rugged individualists with no need for government money at all, at least until their own subsidy is on the chopping block.)

I started to think that rather than cutting to nice multiples-of-five numbers 10%, 15%, and 25% for the lower income brackets, he should have cut (later data suggested) to 10.5%, 15.5%, and 25.5%, or even 11%, 16%, 26%. Not that he should have known this a priori or anything; but if a deficit remains persistent (even if relatively small) in times of growth, then your income to outgo ratio is off. Either one needs to be higher or the other lower.

I'd've preferred Bush hadn't just spent himself up a storm, but, if he knew himself he was game for some Big Daddy Government, he should have been a little more conservative on the tax-cut side.

There's a certain moral issue that attaches for many (including me) about running up the debt rather than getting our priorities and budgets squared away and shipshape. Certainly his relatively puny deficits were used against him politically.

Posted by: Ace at 11:01 AM | Comments (73)
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