We have so many of our own misfortunes we might as well consider someone else's.

Four pounds of coke. That's not like a little bag being surreptitiously slipped into an interior sub-pocket of your rolling suitcase. Four pounds takes some lifting. His defense -- that he was tricked by his dick -- was rejected as laudable but irrelevant. (I think that was the ruling, anyway.)

Paul Frampton, the Oxford-educated Louis D. Rubin Jr. Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy, told investigators he was duped into unknowingly carrying the drugs after being lured first to Bolivia with a promise of meeting a famous bikini model.

...

“As you might imagine I am in a state of shock and disbelief,” Frampton said in a telephone interview Wednesday night. “This is a gross miscarriage of justice. If this had happened in the United States, a jury would have obviously acquitted me.”

Would an American jury have acquitted him? Well, here's the woman he was hoping to meet.

It looks like she's smuggling four pounds of heaven.

Not guilty. So say we all.

Apart from the joke, his defense is transparent nonsense. He wrote messages clearly stating he was aware he was carrying drugs, that he was worried about drug-sniffing dogs, and that he knew the value of the coke (on delivery to Europe) was in the millions.

Against this, it's claimed:

In prison, Frampton was diagnosed with a schizoid personality disorder that results in poor judgment in practical matters and could leave him vulnerable to being easily duped.

He claims he went to Bolivia on some sort of crackpot invitation to meet this woman, and then... I don't know, wound up in an airport with four pounds of coke. I tried to understand it, but it makes no sense. Whether he intended to smuggle the drugs for money or for the hope of sex, he still intended to smuggle the drugs.

He says he doesn't think the bikini model, Denise Milani, had anything to do with his drug smuggling. So, she's off the hook.

He's a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill.

For Further Review and Study: Would you?

Posted by: Ace at 10:25 AM | Comments (304)
Post contains 394 words, total size 3 kb.

I say this is CYA because the Post's editorial board would like to think of themselves as the sort of people who put statesmanship above politics, but in fact they supported Barack Obama in this past election, the Man With No Plan.

Now they're surprised that President Campaign Mode is sticking with his woobie of permanent campaign mode?

The Post editorial board, which endorsed Obama in part because “the president understands the urgency of the problems as well as anyone in the country and is committed to solving them in a balanced way,” now warns: “Since his reelection, Mr. Obama has fueled a campaign-style effort to pressure Republicans to give ground on taxes. That’s fine, but it won’t be enough. At some point, he has to prepare the American people — and his own supporters most of all — for the ‘hard decisions’ required to put the country on a sound financial footing. That means spending cuts, it means entitlement reform, it means compromise, it means a balanced solution that will please neither House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) nor Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Only one person is in a position to make it happen.”

I realize this post seems to undermine the last, in which I said the media never notices the extreme partisan intransigence of the Democrats. But I still think I'm right. There is serious criticism and then there is just positioning oneself so that one can say, at some future point, "Oh, we told the Democrats to compromise too."

The Narrative of the last four years has been "Extremist Republicans won't compromise with the Democrats, who seek compromise and solutions." A couple of "Obama must rise above" editorials don't change that. A river isn't bent by the plunkings of a few raindrops.

Posted by: Ace at 09:45 AM | Comments (149)
Post contains 330 words, total size 2 kb.

So it'll be him and Michael Bloomberg. I'm sure there are a couple more but they escape me at the moment.

“Too many people in Washington believe that leading consists of imposing their will on the opposition. It is true of both parties,” Huntsman, a Republican, said during a conference call organized by the group No Labels. “This all or nothing leadership is an attitude that may work on military battlefields or in competitive business markets … but it’s a recipe for dysfunction in democratic politics.”

Quick, can anyone name a Democrat who's joined No Labels?

I was listening to the news yesterday and I heard Harry Reid urging people to shed their ideological and partisan straightjackets and seek a statesmanlike compromise all for the good of the nation. Yes, Harry Reid, the one who said he would never, ever compromise with a President Romney on anything; Harry Reid, who is a leader of the No Reform caucus in the Democratic Party.

Incidentally, his call for "compromise" involved simply passing the Democrats' preferred solution on debt and spending -- tax hikes for the rich, no spending cuts.

The press just reports this without comment. Harry Reid? The most partisan hack in the Senate? That's the guy calling for compromise and putting party aside?

Isn't it terribly strange that Harry Reid is considered by the press to be non-partisan while any Republican pushing a conservative policy preference is an ultra-ideologue?

Meanwhile, Salon Magazine (WHO?) urges no compromise and suggests instead taking us over the "mythical" fiscal cliff.

Posted by: Ace at 08:54 AM | Comments (238)
Post contains 274 words, total size 2 kb.

[Update]: The first round of IPs I forwarded to Pixy were found face down in the spam filter wearing lace wigs, Nike shoes and a smile. They've been recovered, fed, and given shots of penicillin, with emails sent to the affected commenters. If you haven't gotten an email reply, you were in the second round of IPs I sent over to Pixy, and he's busy delousing you now.

If you missed this post and are having trouble commenting, please follow the instructions below.

###

While we wait for Ace, I thought I'd see if I could get commenters who are having trouble posting back among the living.

There are about a dozen ways a comment can be blocked at the HQ, so some information from you will be helpful.

First, if you're seeing the error message below, your IP address is on the "this mofo is no longer welcome to comment here" blocked list. It may take a pardon from the Head Ewok to get you back among the living, but give it your best shot.

But if you enter a comment and it never makes it to the blog, or if it makes it to the blog briefly but then goes away, I should be able to get that cleared up pretty quickly if you'll email the following information to andy at aoshq d0t ©om.

• Your IP address*


• Your IP hash (if you know it)


• The primary nickname you use when commenting

* The IP address you provide needs to be the one the Internet sees you at. The easiest way to determine this is to click the following link on the device you're unable to comment from and scroll down until you see the address: WhatIsMyIP.com

Open thread in the comments. more...

Posted by: andy at 07:26 AM | Comments (589)
Post contains 302 words, total size 2 kb.

• Germany Won't Back Palestinian State At UN
  
• 100,000 Anti-Morsi Protestors Gather In Tahrir Square
  
• 2/3 Of British Millionaires Left Britain To Avoid 50% Tax Rate
  
• Man Who Brought Us Leno At 10pm To Rescue CNN
  
• It Does Appear That CNN Will Try To "Out-Left" MSNBC
  
• Obama Looking For Any Excuse To Go To Mexico
  
• Fitch Downgrades Argentina And Predicts Default
  
• Puerto Rico: Greece Of The Caribbean?
  
• Kristof's Breakthrough
  
• Catalonia Tilts Toward Independence
  
• Is Jesse Jackson Jr. Faking Bi-Polar Disorder?
  
• Obama Finally Does Something Right
  
• Jon Huntsman Defends Susan Rice
  
• Laura Ingraham Leaving TRN
  
• Hunter Kills Rare White Deer
  
• Five Hundred Million Dollar Powerball Drawing Tonight(warning:autoplaying video)
  
• Republican Senators Float National Dream Act
  
• The GOP Should Give Obama What He Wants
  
• America's Lost Decade In One Simple Chart
  
• The Coming Middle Class Tax Hike
  
• Review Of Red Dawn Remake
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:26 AM | Comments (296)
Post contains 150 words, total size 3 kb.

On the so-called "fiscal cliff", it seems like the last time we were being stampeded to do something now or there will be DOOM!!11! was the 2009 stimulus, and before that it was TARP. There's no way to prove the counterfactual, but it sure seems like we'd have been better off today without either of those ... the former in its entirety and the latter at the very least in the open-ended form it took.

Maybe I'm just in the "let it burn" mindset, but if it takes sequestration to get a spending cut, bring it on. And as far as letting the "Bush tax cuts" expire goes, maybe it takes that to move beyond "blame Bush". Plus, everyone knows that you can't just raise tax rates on the rich and generate enough tax revenue to close the gap to spending (skip to about 2:00 below if you're short on time).

As a matter of fact, we simply can't tax enough for D.C.'s spending appetite, so arguing about the details of who pays what is pointless. We've never collected more than 20% of GDP in tax revenues for any sustained period of time, and nothing indicates that we can do it now. Obamasized government's opening bet is about 25% of GDP. Good luck with that.

But, alas, this probably isn't going to happen. Our erstwhile guardians of the public fisc would rather explain why they did something ... even if it was the wrong thing ... than why they did nothing. So there will be a compromise, and it will kick the can down the road making the ultimate resolution of the problem even more painful.

There's no easy way out of the hole we've dug ourselves. The sooner we admit that, the better.

Posted by: andy at 04:25 AM | Comments (181)
Post contains 306 words, total size 2 kb.

Happy Wednesday.

Huh. Gennifer Flowers claims Bill Clinton called her for a get together in 2005.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:59 AM | Comments (196)
Post contains 24 words, total size 1 kb.

Since no one really reads the ONT especially on a Tuesday I'm just gonna phone it in.

Bad Movie Palooza

10 Really Bad Movies that Define "Bad Movies"

Bacon ipsum dolor sit amet andouille pork chop tri-tip pork belly chicken capicola strip steak jowl shank meatloaf filet mignon kielbasa pork loin beef ribs sirloin. Shank pastrami capicola brisket beef ribs filet mignon.

Prosciutto corned beef filet mignon brisket turkey. Short ribs t-bone shank hamburger. Tri-tip sausage ham hock pork meatball jerky. Prosciutto corned beef cow ribeye beef sirloin tri-tip chicken pork loin.

Cow t-bone shankle, shoulder bresaola chicken chuck ham. Turducken jerky meatball brisket, drumstick chicken leberkas tail beef ribs prosciutto bresaola tri-tip jowl filet mignon sirloin. Venison 'Food Fight'

The Best of MST3K: The Horror

Fugiat exercitation ullamco laborum. Pork belly pancetta pork et. Anim ball tip beef ribs aliquip "deep hurting" sirloin corned beef. Sirloin sausage rump, doner filet mignon short loin exercitation. Tri-tip sed sausage, fugiat shankle turducken short loin venison incididunt. Bacon pig beef reprehenderit venison, anim id ham hock.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:37 PM | Comments (687)
Post contains 925 words, total size 11 kb.

Hounddog.

Flowers, who enjoyed a lucrative modelling and acting career as well as top book sales following her announcement in 1992, has claimed that Clinton called her as recently as 2005, begging to see her.

...

'I picked up the phone and it was him,' she told host Susan Roesgen. 'And he wanted to come by my house and talk to me. I was taken aback; that was the last thing I expected.'

She added that, even when she refused to allow him to visit, he persisted.

'I said, "No you can't come over here",' she continued. 'He said, "I'll put on a hoodie and I'll jog up there" and I said, "No, I want you to leave me alone". And that was that.'

Yes, the Clinton marriage is as strong as ever. The media says so and everything.

Posted by: Ace at 04:31 PM | Comments (181)
Post contains 163 words, total size 1 kb.

After the presidential election, there were a lot of angry people on the internet, and a lot of racist tweets about the president. Some of these racist things were tweeted by kids.

Adults who express violent or racist sentiments are one thing.

But should teenagers who say stupid things on the internet be 'outed' to their schools and peers, and should their youthful history always show up on any google search of their name forever and ever?

Gawker sub-site 'Jezebel' seems to think so.

Morrissey collected the offensive tweets, along with the names of the students (the majority of whom are assumedly younger than 18 ), a gleeful accounting of the activities they’d likely list on college applications — such as their sports teams and pageants — their schools, the responses from school officials — the few who responded expressed disapproval — and the news that in most cases, the student had since deleted their Twitter account.

A deliberate effort seems to have been made to make sure this information shows up in a google search of these kids' names, for years to come.

Calling the president terrible names is a crime that should haunt people- even rash children- for the rest of their lives? Okay. You're about ten years too late, but okay, I'm game.

Did Jezebel do similar legwork to 'out' the people threatening to riot if Obama lost the election? Physical threats seem a bit more dire than name-calling, no?

How about the Bush-haters on Twitter and elsewhere? Certainly we know that many, many vicious thoughts were uttered about Dubya- including assassination fantasies. No Jezebel expose on that? Curious.

More to the point: have right-wing sites ever persecuted young kids who tweeted mean things about George Bush, John McCain, or Mitt Romney? No. They have not.

Not yet.

Is this really the kind of investigative journalism Jezebel wants to encourage, or become famous for? Where kids are subject to being haunted for the rest of their lives by the stupid things they did and said while in their formative years?

We need to stop pussyfooting around, and establish definitely that punishing children for ThoughtCrime is now an acceptable function of the political operatives who pretend to be journalists.

Because, we can go there. If they want to go there, we can do that too.
We are not required to behave honorably to opponents who are so bugfucking cuckoo for a politician now, that they can't hold their fire from young kids.

I hate to point this out, but: leftists have kids who misbehave and act stupidly in public, too.

This is the world you live in, kids. Everything you say in public — and even private — forums on the Internet has the potential to go more public and to become a permanent part of your Google footprint. Stupid, offhand remarks at 16 may mean you don’t get a job at 26.

Noted.

Tipster Spongeworthy:

Did those rags at Gawker really contact the schools these dumbass kids attend? They should be shunned for this—it isn’t Gawker’s job to rat these kids out. That isn’t journalism or even advocacy.

Yeah, I'm over the whole 'journalism' aspect. There is no such thing, and the sooner we embrace this new reality of ruthless Total Political War, the better.

Let's get on to the whole 'sauce for the gander' chapter of this saga, because that's where the action is now, frankly.

Thanks to Spongeworthy.

Posted by: LauraW at 03:08 PM | Comments (224)
Post contains 589 words, total size 4 kb.