Deadly.

The McCain quote -- "It came down to lying or losing; I chose lying" -- comes from one of his audiobooks. So it's a real quote.

Via MelissaTweets. (Melissa Clouthier.)

Context of Quote: Brandon in Baton Rouge explains--

It's a quote on how McCain was sucking up to people in South Carolina by saying he supported their flying of the Confederate flag in 2000, when the polling in that state showed him in danger of losing the primary to W.

For someone who whined for YEARS that he lost that particular primary due to dirty push-polling by W, he sure seemed to know he was going to lose there and was selling out his personal integrity in a vain attempt to push through and win.

Ah yes I remember that now.

Thanks!

Posted by: Ace at 07:33 AM | Comments (141)
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They should be giving him a medal, not an indecent exposure citation.

According to the Kanawha County Sheriff's Department, 61-year-old Eddie M. Campbell from Belle was caught at Booker T. Washington Memorial Park in Malden with his shirt off and his pants around his ankles.

Deputies say Campbell was sitting on a park bench with an armless mannequin on his lap, holding it with one hand -- pleasuring himself with the other.

When the deputy identified himself, Campbell stopped, pushed the mannequin off him and pulled his pants up.

All of this happened in a residential area and close to a church, according to Deputies.

Brett Favre's Crocs: I guess I should link this too (NSFW headline).

Sterger said that Favre first began to call her early in the season and leave strange, friendly messages on her voicemail. She played me one of these voicemails over the phone. It was Brett turning on the Mississippi simpleton charm on his way to practice giving Jenn a friendly good ol' boy hello to a pretty lady. It was odd, but nothing incriminating. Then the phone calls from Brett started to turn weird.

Sterger claimed she spurned Favre's advances because he was married, but also because she was working for the Jets at the time she didn't think it was the best idea to start a torrid affair with the team's highest profile player (the Jets have not responded to a question about any knowledge of the Favre/Sterger saga at this time). Plus, if she went forward with how aggressive he was and how skeeved out she was to some of her superiors, she suspected she might lose her job. The interactions were flirty and strange but she didn't think there wasn't anything that made her too uncomfortable. But then, one night, Sterger received a picture on her phone which was so shocking that she just tossed it across the room. It was his dick. Brett Favre's dick. And it happened multiple times.

I didn't link this before because Sterger was noted as a bit of a fame-seeker who'd gotten her job based on her boobage. I'm inclined to believe her, but there's no evidence for any of this.

She refused to make the voicemails and photos available to Deadspin. In fact, she doesn't seem to have even given them the go-ahead to write this up while citing her.

So, it's... kind of irresponsible.

Still, it is sort of funny, and people are posting as "Brett Favre's Crocs" so I guess the word is out anyway.

Posted by: Ace at 06:19 AM | Comments (151)
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More on Robert Rizzo, the $1.5 million/year city manager (total compensation) with 20 weeks paid vacation/sick days.

In 2005, fewer than 400 voters cast ballots in a special election that cleared the way for City Council members to dramatically boost their own salaries. In that election, more than half the votes cast were absentee ballots, the method of voting most susceptible to fraud.

Four voters told the Los Angeles Times that city officials walked door-to-door urging them to vote absentee. One later was counted as voting absentee even though she said she never filled out a ballot. Two other voters said local council members had personally collected their ballots for delivery, a violation of state law. In addition, a retired Bell police officer has identified at least 19 people he says voted in Bell but were either dead or living outside the country at the time.

One Bell resident, who insisted on anonymity, told the Times he was assigned the job of collecting absentee votes. "Our objective was to retrieve [absentee ballots], and if they were not filled out, instruct them how to fill it out, and if not, fill it out for them," he said. The man has provided a statement to Los Angeles prosecutors, who have opened an investigation.

Oh, and the reason his picture looks like a mugshot, meep informs me, is that it is a mugshot -- he got arrested DUI recently.

Robert Rizzo, the highest paid
part-time employee on Earth in Huttspace.

Corrected: I said voter fraud may have gotten him his job, but the article doesn't speak to that; it speaks to a vote on the office holders' getting to set their own pay. I corrected to reflect this.

Posted by: Ace at 06:02 AM | Comments (82)
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Because sometimes Gabe doesn't get up at 5:30 am.

Posted by: Ace at 05:49 AM | Comments (55)
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Of course, of course.

Thankfully some Muslims will speak out against it.

When we try to understand the reasoning behind building a mosque at the epicentre of the worst-ever attack on the U.S., we wonder why its proponents don't build a monument to those who died in the attack?

New York currently boasts at least 30 mosques so it's not as if there is pressing need to find space for worshippers. The fact we Muslims know the idea behind the Ground Zero mosque is meant to be a deliberate provocation to thumb our noses at the infidel. The proposal has been made in bad faith and in Islamic parlance, such an act is referred to as "Fitna," meaning "mischief-making" that is clearly forbidden in the Koran.

The Koran commands Muslims to, "Be considerate when you debate with the People of the Book" -- i.e., Jews and Christians. Building an exclusive place of worship for Muslims at the place where Muslims killed thousands of New Yorkers is not being considerate or sensitive, it is undoubtedly an act of "fitna"

So what gives Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf of the "Cordoba Initiative" and his cohorts the misplaced idea that they will increase tolerance for Muslims by brazenly displaying their own intolerance in this case?

Do they not understand that building a mosque at Ground Zero is equivalent to permitting a Serbian Orthodox church near the killing fields of Srebrenica where 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered?

Posted by: Ace at 05:46 AM | Comments (82)
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Ah, good to have football back, even if it's excruciating watching the Cowboys and Bengals future CFLers stink up the joint. If you're a Bengals fan, you can't feel terribly good about pass protection after watching Palmer spend more time on his back than Jenna Jameson on the set.

Anyway, wanted to open with something I'm deliberately not linking to, just because it would make a good guy's life a bit more difficult.

Phil Anselmo, former frontman for metal act Pantera, is a New Orleans native and monstrous Saints fan. While I was looking up news on them, I found him floating around on a fairly big website furiously exchanging info on who was likely to make the team and get cut. A question then popped up on the thread asking him what he was up to, musically. Despite a flurry of "ignore him" and "go away" posts by the other posters, he took several minutes to compile some links and write a nice note to this fan of his. It's not so much that that's so earthshaking, but it matches up with my own encounters with him- no matter the situation, makes time for his fans and treats them like his best friend. So, good on ya, Phil- don't ever change, babe.

Now, onto something a bit more nightmarish. I have to credit ol' dirty /b/tard for this one... more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:47 PM | Comments (36)
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Okay I was out most of the day so that means another video Sunday.

Hey Remember MIA

Ace has already covered her pretentious posturing as a pseudo-terrorist-wannabe. Now here's the ultimate skewer - a parody video that's better than her original: MIA Brentwood Style.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:00 PM | Comments (692)
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Oh yeah. Nothing at all sketchy about this.

He had been a waiter in 2002. Then he rented apartments on commission since then.

Apparently he saved up $4.8 million for the victory mosque. more...

Posted by: Ace at 04:54 PM | Comments (170)
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They did learn how to negotiate hard.

Still. A champion embracing his moment, with Jerry Rice and Russ Grimm, gracefully, as gracefully as he played the game.

Wide Receiver Jerry Rice. I love the guy's accomplishments too much to hate how many times he beat the Cowboys. Offensive Guard Russ Grimm. A guy in the trenches who handed my team some pain.

And Emmitt Smith. 4 NFL Rushing titles. 18,355 career rushing yards. Led the NFL in rushing 4 times, 3 Super Bowl Titles, League MVP honors in 1993, the Super Bowl MVP Award (XXVIII), selected to the Pro Bowl 8 times.

And he has a heart of gold.

Congratulations Emmitt.

Hey, since we're talking football and it's Sunday afternoon, those of you who want to throw down in the AceofSpadesHQ Pickem Hootenanny, check this out and sign up. more...

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 12:46 PM | Comments (181)
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What benefits?

Well, let's start out with a generous paid vacation.

How generous?

Twenty weeks. Twenty weeks of paid vacation. So his job, which only apparently took little more than half a full working year to do, paid $787,000 for a half year's work, and then paid him almost the same for his "vacation."

When you have twenty weeks off, it's not a vacation. It's a part time job.

The records say Rizzo was to receive $386,786 in paid vacation and sick benefits this year on top of his base salary. Casso said city officials were still trying to understand the compensation agreement. But the documents appear to show Rizzo was being paid for 107 vacation days and 36 sick days a year.

Average salary of a City of Bell resident? $29,000 per year.

Robert Rizzo, the best-paid part-time worker on Earth.

Why, oh why, does that look so much like a mugshot?

Anyone want to guess that maybe there's, I don't know, maybe some kind of old-country Sicilian organization involved here?

Via Vermotaigne.

Posted by: Ace at 11:16 AM | Comments (240)
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