I like it. But what about the leather biker cap Marlon Brando wore in The Wild Ones?

But what if your cat is attending a more formal soiree? You could go this way:

More stylish looks for cats here.

As silly as this is: This is America. I'm actually proud that someone got it in his head to be a feline haberdasher, and did it, and is selling his cat chapeaus.

Between a country where someone has a goofy idea like this and turns it into a small amount of money (which really just represents time which can be spent on other uses), and one that doesn't, I like the country that has cat hats.

Thanks to JimS.

Posted by: Ace at 10:29 AM | Comments (198)
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Behold our "allies".

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the shootings, which it said were in retaliation for the desecration of the Korans at Bagram airfield. Afghan security sources said the two were a U.S. colonel and major with NATO forces.

The Koran burnings have ignited anti-Western feelings in Afghanistan despite an apology from U.S. President Barack Obama and a call for restraint from Afghan leader Hamid Karzai.

Thousands have taken to the streets in protest. Twelve people were killed and dozens wounded on Friday, the bloodiest day yet in demonstrations.

An Afghan security source said the American officers were found dead with gunshot wounds deep inside the heavily fortified interior ministry.

"There is CCTV there and special locks. The killer would have had to have the highest security (clearance) to get to the room where they were killed," the source told Reuters.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed two of its servicemen had been killed in Kabul but declined to say if the shooter was a member of the Afghan security forces.

It's time to go.

We've been at war in Afghanistan for over a decade and have degraded al Qaeda's ability to use that country as a base from which to train and attack us. The battle has moved to other places such as Yemen and the Horn of Africa and we need to continue to focus on them.

We should move to a smaller footprint that enables special operations forces and CIA paramilitary types to kill key people when necessary. The days of tens of thousands of troops trying to create a civil society there simply must end. If these savages want a country run by Islamic fundamentalists again, they are welcome to it. As we pull out we should arm all the warring factions to the teeth. Let them spend all of their time killing each other.

Added: Via @slublog, Michael Ramirez sums up Obama's apology over the Koran burnings.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:13 AM | Comments (273)
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Algae. Wind. Dreams from My Father the Nut.

In his [Obama's] defense, a reasonably scientific study did claim just that: National Microalgae Biofuel Production Potential and Resource Demand, by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).

However, there are a few leetle problems with it, which PNNL themselves pointed out:

•It would take acreage equivalent to the area of South Carolina to generate that much oil
•It takes 350 gallons of water for every one gallon of oil you produce
•Meeting that water requirement would take 25% of our irrigation capacity
•It takes even more water than that unless you use lakefront and oceanfront real estate

Without subsidies (i.e. your money) to prop them up, they're a giant truckload of FAIL. Even now wind farms in California and Europe are idle and rusting because the cost to maintain them is higher than the value of the energy they produce.

But you'll keep paying for rail cars full of ethanol taken to California, pulled by diesel engines. Because your government is retarded.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 07:23 AM | Comments (163)
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When people are freaked out they do freaky things.

Shortly after the Japanese submarine I-17 successfully shelled an oil refinery near Santa Barbara, fear moved from the depths of the sea to the heights of the sky. First put on edge after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and then frightened two-fold by the ability of the Japanese to reach our coast as proven with the bombardment of Ellwood, the jumpiness of the military and civilians alike was more than reasonable. When Army radar spotted a blip 120 miles off the coast of southern California, an alert was sounded and shortly thereafter a blackout was ordered.

The varying reports of the morning’s events represent the mass confusion and paranoia of the time. Some reported there were just a few planes, while others claimed to have seen several dozen aircraft. There were even reports that planes were shot down, when in reality, nothing was hit by the AA guns—except three civilians killed and a few buildings damaged by friendly fire. Guns fired at the flying object for more than an hour between 3:15 and 4:15 a.m. on 25 February 1942.

I guess that silly movie 1941 was more historically accurate than I thought.

more...

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 06:16 AM | Comments (62)
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Because content is king.

Posted by: andy at 04:19 AM | Comments (260)
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The movie Act of Valor hits the theaters today so be a good moron and go see it this weekend. I'd love to see a good turnout for this movie to shove it in Hollywood's face that it is quite alright to make a pro-America, pro-military movie.

Speaking of valor, on this day in 1968, Airman First Class John Levitow was flying on his 181st combat sortie in an AC-47, when what was supposed to be a "routine gunship mission" ended with Levitow's actions earning him the Medal Of Honor. This is his story, The Saving Of Spooky 71.

Suddenly Spooky 71 was rocked by a tremendous blast. Against odds of at least one in a million, an enemy 82mm mortar round exploded inside the gunship's right wing, shredding the paper-thin fusalage with thousands of fragments and lethal shards of hot metal. All five crew members in the rear of the plane were hurled to the floor, bleeding from shrapnel wounds. Spooky 71 fell into a steep, descending turn to the right, momentarily out of control. The flare, torn from Owen's hands by the blast, rolled around the aircraft floor fully armed amidst several thousand rounds of live anmunition for the Miniguns.

Through a haze of pain and shock, Levitow, with more than 40 shrapnel wounds in his legs, side, and back, saw one of the crew lying perilously close to the open cargo door. As he dragged the wounded man to safety, Levitow spied the armed, smoking flare rolling eratically around the cargo compartment. How long had it been since the safety pin was pulled inadvertently--five seconds? Fifteen seconds? Levitow had no way of knowing. He did know that the timing mechanism could have been damaged, which might result in premature ignition. In a matter of seconds the flare would ignite, its intense heat turning the stricken gunship into an inferno.

Weakened from pain and loss of blood, and partially paralyzed by his wounds, Levitow tried vainly to pick up the flare, which was already spewing highly toxic smoke throughout the cabin. The plane was still in a 30-degree bank. Seconds ticked by. Finally, as he watched the flare skidding around on the floor, he threw himself on the flare, dragged it to the open door, a trail of blood marking his path, and pushed it out just as it ignited in a white-hot ball of flame. Levitow then lapsed into unconsciousness.

Posted by: CDR M at 05:37 PM | Comments (484)
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I decided to just rant about this on Twitter. I had an idea that I would put this review into proper order on the blog, but meh, it's such a crap movie I'm not sure I can do this again.

Basics that I didn't mention: Ryan Gosling plays the press secretary (??? -- the movie doesn't make it clear what his exact function is) to a front-running liberal dream candidate played by George Clooney. Clooney essentially has an extended cameo in the movie -- but he wrote the screenplay, so don't worry, you'll be getting some Full-On Clooney here.

Twitter goes in reverse order so keep scanning down to expose more and more of the feed, then find the post reading:

I saw Ides of March. It's as repellently stupid as @NolteNC said it was.

From about 2 hours ago, as I write this, at 6:30 ET.

Because this movie is so absurd, I sort of want to do a live-chat of it some day. But I don't want people to pay for this dreck, so maybe when it's on HBO or something.

I don't want to put cash in their pockets but I will say that as far as laugh-out-loud unintentional hilarity-- a MST2K goof-on-it-with-friends movie -- it's... well, it would serve that purpose admirably.

As you'll see in the review, it's actually very MST3K, because it is so divorced from reality it has a sci-fi vibe. I asked aloud, "What planet is this supposed to take place on?" I'm still not sure. It's a Type M planet, Earth-like in many respects... but apparently it's somewhere where very rich people cannot withdraw $900 from an ATM.

It's a movie by dumb people who think they're smart, for dumb people who also want to think they're smart, by people who don't know anything at all about the business of politics but think a few Cynical Sounding Lines of Dialogue will authenticate it all, for people who also don't know anything about the business of politics and will be fooled by a few Cynical Sounding Lines of Dialogue.

It, seriously, is retarded. At least films like Porky's know they're aiming at a very low brow. This film is so stupid it thinks it's actually smart.

Politics At The Expense of Art? At no point in the movie is anyone less than 100% enthusiastic about the abortion, so there's no drama on that point. The drama comes in on the "How do rich people secure $900 for this purpose?"

I'm wondering if the original play did contain some stuff qualms about the abortion-- perhaps the girl didn't want an abortion, and the drama comes in when Ryan Gosling pressures her to have one. And maybe that's where he's supposed to lose himself to this Beast Called Politics.

However, in Clooney's world, it would count as a liberal strike against the film to Push the Rightwing Narrative On Abortion, so maybe he just took that all out and made her say "Abortion? Of course!"

And then that necessitates making the acquisition of nine hundred whole dollars -- by wealthy people -- the main source of drama.

Point is, if that's what happened, it would be a liberal deliberately making a story less dramatic and less interesting than the original form he found it in, simply to earn Gold Stars from the Daily Kos and Amanda Marcotte.

Posted by: Ace at 02:29 PM | Comments (367)
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Algae, you say? I wonder whatever happened to this?

Fast forward a couple of years, citizen, and forget that inconvenient idea. The New Five Year Plan revolves around powering our cars with pond scum.

To give you an idea how impractical this is at its current stage, let's look at a couple of numbers. In 2010, the U.S. produced about 138 billion gallons of gasoline. At $3.00/gallon, that's a market worth north of $400 billion annually.

Obama's magical solution? Spending $0.085 billion on researching algal fuels now with a proposed increase to this research of $0.014 billion.

He says algal fuels can replace "up to" 17% of a $400 billion revenue stream yet proposes to invest $0.099 billion to achieve this? We either need to be investing several orders of magnitude more in this miracle technology or zero. Given the Federal government's track record as a venture capitalist and our current financial situation, I'll go with zero.

This is more laughable than a call to inflate your tires, which at least has the advantage of being something you can do immediately and for free (or thereabouts).

We may bitch about our choices to replace this clown, but none of them, not even Luap Nor, are as unserious about the problems we face and the solutions to them as Obama is.

Posted by: andy at 12:50 PM | Comments (254)
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Obama says that he is planning to have the federal government support 'biobased products' in order to create jobs. Geoff, at Innocent Bystanders:

You can see that the biobased industry is dwarfed by the industries itÂ’s seeking to replace, so even assuming the best-case scenario where the 50% increase in federal purchases will result in a 50% increase in jobs, the President is creating a paltry number of positions.

But thatÂ’s been the hallmark of the Obama administration: lots of fanfare and grandiose claims; ridiculous implementation and no results.

If by results you mean net jobs gains, then no. But if he ever gave a damn about job creation, he wouldn't squander the opportunities he's had to assist it, just to score obnoxious political points.

All this is, is more crooked leftism; another batch of Solyndras coming down the pike. Why should Obama change his tack? Why should the leftists in this administration stop bending the course of government in order to help their friends loot the treasury?

Why, when they keep getting away with it?

Here's another example of what I'm talking about, in terms of taking the lamprey's-eye view of just absolutely everything.

Here's one Deveda Francois, a former campaign office manager for Obama in 2004 (somebody screencap that for me?).

Deveda Francois was dismissed from a $72,400 job at the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity in February 2011 after the agency alleged she distributed confidential information and pressured grant recipients on hiring, according to a review of state documents and interviews by the AP and the Better Government Association.
----------------------
Jakubek said the agency discovered Francois' wrongdoing, referred allegations to authorities and dismissed her in February 2011. Francois was fired for pressuring grantees to hire certain people, sharing confidential information with people who could benefit from it, reviewing and discussing grant requests with applicants, using her state computer to do work for Diamonds in the Ruff and more.

She also allegedly used the power of her position to 'punish' a grantee who did not obey her hiring demands.

It looks for all the world like there is absolutely no valuable part of Francois' public sector job that wasn't sold, misallocated, or used as a lever. And she's just one of the little fish.

This is Obama's background. This is where he grew up, politically. How he learned to behave with power. And so now we all have to live in Cook County.

Naturally Francois has been rehired with back pay and a bonus. Gotta love those Chicago judges.

Not sure what the point to this post was. My outrage-meter already redlined and exploded a couple of years ago, and apparently there's no political will to enforce the law in this country anymore. Just registering disgust, I guess.

Thanks to Gabriel.

Posted by: LauraW at 12:41 PM | Comments (38)
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I wish I knew who said this -- maybe @dancollins. He wrote something like, "Dear Stupid Critics, please bear in mind you're reviewing a war movie, not a war."

Critics can't seem to tell the difference. Is this a movie about the War on Terror? Oh, I don't like that. So a movie about it bad.

While critics attack this movie, where actual fighting men are the heroes, what do you imagine their reaction will be to the Obama Personally Kills Bin Ladin movie coming soon? Do you suspect, as I do, that shifting the locus of Heroism away from the icky soldiers and towards the effete, professorial douchebag in the Oval Office will cause them to realize, Clint Eastwood-style, that "some men just need killin'"?

I expect a lot of whoops and war-drums emanating from our effeminate, anti-American critics for that movie.

This one? Where the heroes are the actual, oh, what's the word, literal heroes?

Not so much, not so much. I see the word "propaganda" thrown out a lot, and the words "recruitment video."

But that's to be expected, as critics are generally highly resistant to any sort of crude, pandering wish-fulfillment political fantasy, no matter whose ox it gores, no matter which Political Team it so overtly champions.

Jeff Emanuel begs to differ.

So does Christian Toto at Big Hollywood.

By the way, I saw Ides of March. John Nolte was pounding it as the stupidest movie he ever saw. I suggested a live-chat review while watching, but he didn't want to start over.

I'll be reviewing that later, maybe tomorrow-- with spoilers out the ass. I really need you to understand how stupid and pointless this movie is.

Posted by: Ace at 11:35 AM | Comments (237)
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