If you're on Facebook, it may be time to erase any personal info that might link it to you and sign off for good. In case you really need to be there, make a new account and beware: They are about to make everything you ever posted completely searchable with common search engines.

UPDATE: Alex in the comments: Well, no, not really.

Below the fold: A funny Internet video. more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 08:18 AM | Comments (245)
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I'm told "this is the future".

I don't think I like it, but the future rarely asks for my little ol opinion.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 07:14 AM | Comments (151)
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Seems like a few mourners for Dear Leader weren't appropriately toeing the line, so they got the Nikolai Yehzov treatment.

Disappearing in North Korea. Happens a lot.

Historical photoshoppin below the fold. Now you see a Kommissar, now you don't.

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Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:15 AM | Comments (222)
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Friday!

More bloggy stuff than news this morning, but it's a start:

Lawgeeks and other bloggers should check out this legal brief by pseudonymous blogger Aaron Worthing, who is resisting an attempt by a convicted bomber to out him. Aaron is a great legal blogger and that brief is an awesome legal take-down.

Old blog-fodder Keith Olberdumbass has apparently been sidelined by Current TV. I bet his bathtub's getting sick of him right about now.

Oh, and my best buddy and his wife are flying in today, so I won't be around until after the new year. My best to you all. Behave. Drink responsibly. I'll see you in 2012.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:56 AM | Comments (259)
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Early but it wasn't like anything better was happening.

How Did We Win in Iraq?

Not by changing to a kinder-gentler counter-insurgency strategy - but by adding a lot more troops and getting up close with the enemy and defeating him with classic vicious hard combat.

The corps commander in Iraq during the surge, now the Army chief of staff, General Raymond Odierno, reportedly said that nothing he was doing before the Army published its new counterinsurgency doctrine changed once it was published. A new doctrine did not break the back of the counterinsurgency in Iraq. That was done by the addition of 50,000 more soldiers and Marines to the fight. Note:These were not aid workers or even forces imbued with a new doctrine (most of them had never read it). Rather, they were 50,000 mostly combat troops, prepared to take the fight to the enemy. And it was a hard and vicious fight — one that often required the full combined-arms panoply (armor, artillery, close air support) to win. Somehow, much of the true narrative of this fight is being lost in favor of one that emphasizes getting along with the locals, building schools, and helping farmers. All of these activities were, of course, important, but they pale in comparison to the benefits of increased security, which was only bought by hard fighting. One brigade commander captured it perfectly when he said, “I know all about counterinsurgency doctrine. It means shake hands in the light and kill at night.”

Posted by: Maetenloch at 04:00 PM | Comments (1123)
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By the way, I'm taking tomorrow off. This one day off for Christmas thing just doesn't work for me. If anyone wants to guest blog, please do!

Oh, here's some more Ron Paul: I wrote most of the newsletters but not the "ten" or so sentences people don't like. Someone else (who? it's a mystery!) wrote those.

Dude, it's more than ten damn sentences.

He also confesses he wrote the "economics" parts, which is alarming, because racism, antisemtisim, and homophobia I understand. I get those. Those are kind of normal. I know how to deal.

The stuff I don't know how to process is an adult man freaking out over the "ugly" "New Money." Like a, what's the word?, bloody lunatic.

Posted by: Ace at 02:08 PM | Comments (356)
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Perry flubs a question about Lawrence v. Texas. The question was how his support for limited government could be squared with his (putative) support for anti-gay-sodomy laws, as Texas once had, but which were struck down in Lawrence v. Texas.

He didn't recall the case.

A voter at a meet and greet asked him to defend his criticism of limited government in the case.

“I wish I could tell you I knew every Supreme Court case. I don’t, I’m not even going to try to go through every Supreme Court case, that would be — I’m not a lawyer,” Perry said at the Blue Strawberry Coffee Shop here. “We can sit here and you know play I gotcha questions on what about this Supreme Court case or whatever, but let me tell you, you know and I know that the problem in this country is spending in Washington, D.C., it’s not some Supreme Court case.”

In 2003, the Supreme Court deemed TexasÂ’ anti-sodomy law to be unconstitutional in a 6-3 ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, and the case nullified anti-sodomy laws in 13 other states at the same time. Perry, a strong opponent of gay marriage and the ability of homosexuals to serve openly in the military, served as governor when this case was decided.

Asked by Ken Herman, a columnist with the Austin American Statesman, for clarification on whether he knew what the case concerned, Perry responded, “I’m not taking the bar exam…I don’t know what a lot of legal cases involve.”
When told that the Supreme Court case struck down the Texas sodomy law, Perry said, “My position on traditional marriage is clear and I don’t know need a law. I don’t need a federal law case to explain it to me.”

Everyone acts like they knew this stuff after they hear the answer themselves. If anyone's thinking "Duh, everyone knows that;" well, when prompted, you do. Personally I get this case confused with the one that came before it -- the one that actually upheld such anti-sodomy laws. Was that Bolling v. Texas? I forget.

Did you? Did you remember that just five or six years before a Scalia opinion upheld these laws? Can you name it?

Or was Lawrence v. Texas the one that upheld the laws and then the Kennedy-authored one came later?

Bolling v. Colorado? I don't know. There was then an opinion upholding so-called "special rights" for gays.

I know the holdings, and I've read these opinions, but I've always been a bit spotty on the case names.

But he's dumb so whatever.

This is the Jeopardy Effect. When I play Jeopardy (on TV, I mean), I "know" 80% of the answers... after I hear them. After I hear them, I say, "Of course, duh, I knew that."

But how many do I know before I hear them, and actually call out? About 60%. There's a 20% gap here. But a lot of people seem to credit themselves for "knowing" that 20% of answer they didn't really "know," until they were reminded.

After everyone heard Charlie Gibson's version of the Bush Doctrine (which was wrong, by the way), everyone "knew" that too.

I guess I was alone in the country in actually not really being able to recall the actual Bush Doctrine. I guess that's because I'm stupid. Or, that I'm actually smart and don't need to always tell myself "I knew that, now that I'm reminded of it!!!" I can just sort of admit, "I forgot that. But now that you mention it, yes, now I remember. Whereas before I did not."

But we all "know" things. It's important to us to always feel like we "know" things. Even when we don't. We make up stories about our own perfect recall.

Santorum leaps into third, according to Rasumussen, but it's the holiday season, and polling is difficult. In that poll Romney and Ron Paul are in a dead heat. Apparently the Republican Party is still deciding whether or not "racism" is a bad thing or not.

But in Real Clear Politics Poll of All Polls, Perry has a slight advantage in most ground gained.

But Santorum must be rising some, because Perry has released an ad knocking him on his Compassionate Conservatism big-spending ways:

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Posted by: Ace at 11:58 AM | Comments (639)
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But how do you know if it's male or female? Doesn't matter if it's Arcturian (Where?)

Anyway, I don't see a future for this.

Let's be realistic: The costumes will be awful. Furthermore, they probably should be awful. Who wants to have sex with an alien Xenomorph?

Okay that one guy raising his hand nervously in the back. But for everyone else, the only possible alien you could have sex with is the Green Orion slave girl. Okay, she's green. Wowsers. All the other hookers -- I mean, "ladies of whoring" -- will just be wearing alien deedle-bopper antenna.

Or Spock-ears. Which are no different than Elf-ears. And I've already had sex with a hooker wearing elf-ears, at the Tolkein-themed Whore of the Rings bordello.

I would like to see two aliens fight in the cathouse, though. That could be sexy. more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:31 AM | Comments (378)
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Life is like a Katharine Heigl movie: Horrible.

This is the one from Tuesday, but it's now downloadable rather than streaming.

Posted by: Ace at 09:07 AM | Comments (73)
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Ugly.

Anyone who wants to vote must sign a form at the polling place pledging to support the eventual Republican nominee for president. Anyone who refuses to sign the pledge will be barred from voting.

During a brief meeting Wednesday at the state Capitol, the State Board of Elections voted 3-0 to approve three forms developed by the election boardÂ’s staff to implement the loyalty pledge requested by the state GOP.

The board also held a drawing that determined Texas Rep. Ron Paul will appear first on the primary ballot, followed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the only other candidate who qualified for the ballot.

It's designed to weed out spoilers from the Democrats, who won't be having a primary, and probably also from among the Ronulans. But do they really think that folks that would vote simply to upset the election are going to abide by a loyalty pledge?

And, on the other hand, aren't they more likely to weed out folks who do take oaths seriously and who cannot commit to supporting all of the possible GOP candidates? I know I can't take that oath in good conscience because there is no circumstance under which I will support Ron Paul for president.

Comments poll: Would you take that oath?

Update: This was too good not to promote up to the main post:

83 Here's how we're going to enforce this:

If you say, "I swear I'll vote for any Republican in the general election" 15,000 times, we'll just take your word for it.

If you say it between 10,000 and 14,999 we're going to need to verify your vote in some fashion.

Posted by: The Virginia GOP at December 29, 2011 12:55 PM

Stupid Party, your table is ready.

The Oh-It-Gets-Worse Update: The loyalty oath requirement is probably illegal.

State election law requires that primary election requirements, like, e.g., a loyalty oath, be approved by the State Board of Elections at least 90 days before the primary. The State Board of Elections approved this change only yesterday. Virginia's election is on Super Tuesday, March 6, which is only 68 days away.

On the one hand, great, I can plan to vote that day. On the other hand: goshdamn these state parties are filled with complete idiots.

Thanks to Slu for the link.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:36 AM | Comments (281)
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