Todd Akin got rapped for saying "legitimate rape," thus seemingly restricting the definition.

Is anyone going to fault Ashley Judd for constantly enlarging the definition of the term to include coal-mining, commenting on someone's Puffy Face, or owning an iPad?

Posted by: Ace at 02:35 PM | Comments (243)
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I've never seen a group of people more incapable of maintaining stable relationships, holding steady employment, and keeping their substance-abuse impulses in check spend so much time on making sure other people don't make bad decisions.

The aphorism is true: For Leftists, anything that is not illegal shall be mandatory. Anything that is not mandatory shall be illegal.

You will live life according to their whims or you won't be permitted to live at all.

Posted by: Ace at 01:45 PM | Comments (186)
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Interesting point from Allah: They're both designed to fail at their supposed goal, so that additional legislation may be passed.

The game works like this: Start with something minor and niggling that actually won't achieve the stated goal. However, because it's so minor and niggling, only a minority objects and you can ram it down everyone's throats.

A year later, when your law designed to have no appreciable effect towards achieving its stated goal has no appreciable effect towards achieving its stated goal, you can now pass some Supplementary Legislation to put some "teeth" into your original designed-to-fail law. As the Party of Control is encroaching on liberty in baby steps, you don't notice, like the frog that doesn't jump out of the bath of slowly-escalating-temperature water.

As with the Assault Weapon ban, none of this makes any sense, and is just designed to push laws on Disfavored Cohorts while sparing Favored Cohorts of the law's effects.

The exemption for milk-based beverages means that, even though Bloomberg's avowed goal is "combating the obesity epidemic in New York City," Starbucks customers can order, say, a Venti White Hot Chocolate with whole milk and whipped cream (640 calories) but not a venti black coffee with four teaspoons of sugar (60 calories). A 20-ounce Coca-Cola, which is banned outright from food service establishments, has 243 calories. Fruit juice and smoothies, which often contain more calories per ounce than sugar-sweetened soda, can continue to flow freely.

Why are White People Big Gulps permitted whereas Other People's Big Gulps are banned? Well, one's a Favored Cohort. The other one isn't.

Someone on twitter, @tedwayne73, said we Bloomberg should justify the differing treatment of soda and triple mochaccinos with a bit of PR terminology: he can call the sugar in soda (and only the sugar in soda) "Assault Carbohydrates."

Update: Nurse Bloomberg will address his 8 million patients... now.

I can't find any online stream of the presser and it doesn't look like the cable news networks are cutting to it. If you know of a channel or link, please let me know.

Posted by: Ace at 01:07 PM | Comments (201)
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@gabriel_malor notes that the decision is from the "New York Supreme Court," but remember, New York names its courts oddly; the "Supreme Court" is the lowest-level court. (The highest level court, analagous to the US Supreme Court, is the Court of Appeals.)

But still a nice thing.

The regulations are "fraught with arbitrary and capricious consequences," the judge wrote. "The simple reading of the rule leads to the earlier acknowledged uneven enforcement even within a particular city block, much less the city as a wholeÂ….the loopholes in this rule effectively defeat the state purpose of the rule."

If this is the suit noted by the next article (which I'm 99% sure it is), then the action to enjoin was brought by the American Beverage Association and a local Korean grocer.

Starbucks will continue selling sugary coffee drinks under the "half milk" loophole, a special little loophole created by Bloomberg and his minions to make sure that the Crusading Liberal White People who support this ban are actually not affected by this ban. If Starbucks had been included in the ban, the shrieking from Bloomberg's Crusading Liberal White People supporters would have been deafening, and the thing would have been killed.

So they made certain that the ban didn't apply to White People's Big Gulps, even though they contain nearly as much sugar and much more caffeine than Other People's Big Gulps.

For example, Lattes are exempt because theyÂ’re more than half milk and itÂ’s OK for customers to fill their own cups of large coffee with all the sugar they want.

Starbucks announced it plans to continue offering 20 ounce venti-sized drinks because of the milk content. Like DunkinÂ’ Donuts, customers will also be able to add their own sugar to their coffee.

Note to Bloomberg: Milk itself is full of sugar.

Below, for no good reason except it's funny, Paul Rudd questions Starbucks' size-naming conventions.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:40 AM | Comments (412)
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A lot of good stuff, including goofin on the media for its bias.

Here are some of the better jokes:

IÂ’m honored to be here tonight, and to have this opportunity to represent my people.

As you know, my people are one of our nation’s most accomplished minority groups – doctors…lawyers…business owners…and of course, I’m referring to the Republican Party.

They say this is a place where you can come and tell jokes about the PresidentÂ…poke fun at yourselfÂ…set political ambition aside and just generally say anything you want.

Kind of like the Romney campaign.

I spoke to Mitt the other dayÂ…told him that I was doing the Gridiron dinnerÂ…he said that 47 percent of you canÂ’t take a joke.

This of course is the night for the Washington press corps and the President to kick back, share a few laughs, not take things seriously and just generally enjoy each otherÂ’s company.

Kind of like the PresidentÂ’s interview on 60 Minutes.

The Gridiron Dinner used to be known as the night the media and the administration set aside their differences — back in the days when they had some.

I was on the treadmill the other day and I caught something about the supreme and infallible leader ordained from on high stepping down, and I got all excited, but then I realized it was just the Pope not the President.

...

ButÂ…what a difference a day makesÂ…now some people have asked me if I intend to run for President in 2016?

And the answer is that I have no plans to run. IÂ’ve made that clear, over and over againÂ…in IowaÂ…in New HampshireÂ…and in South Carolina.

...

The truth is – I am too skinny to run. At least that’s what my friend Chris Christie keeps telling me.

Chris pointed out that my biceps are half the size of ObamaÂ’s guns. Not the presidentÂ’s, MichelleÂ’s.

...

I was one of Rick PerryÂ’s strongest supporters. I supported Rick because heÂ’s a loyal friend, a great governor, andÂ…oopsÂ…I forget the third reason.

...

YouÂ’ll have to excuse me for a second. IÂ’m drying up. I need a drink of water.

I was hoping to finally meet Mayor Bloomberg here tonightÂ…Â…Â…thatÂ’s a lie

I was also hoping to see Harry ReidÂ…..thatÂ’s another lie

...

The Menendez scandal is disturbing. Soliciting prostitution is completely unacceptable. We would never put up with that in Louisiana.

Great to see the new Senator from Massachusetts – Elizabeth Warren. My staff tells me we’ve got a lot in common.

Well from one Indian politician to another, I want to wish you all the best in your new job.

I ran into Joe Biden earlier today. I donÂ’t think he recognized me though. He asked me to go get him a Slurpee.

...

I see Eric Holder is with us tonight. I actually heard a rumor that due to sequestration, the attorney general can only afford to ship a couple hundred illegal guns across the border this year.

I saw a bumper sticker on the way over here that said, “Honk if you’ve been released by Janet Napolitano.”

I understand that to save money – the President’s Secret Service detail is being replaced by Joe Biden with a shotgun.

Mr. President, I see a lot of famous people here tonight. Some of our top journalists. I donÂ’t see Bob Woodward, though. He sends hisÂ…regrets.

...

You know, a lot of people warned me that if I voted for Mitt Romney, a Wall Street robber baron who hid his money in secretive Grand Cayman bank accounts would end up running the U.S. Treasury.

I see Jack Lew is here tonight. Good thing that job went to you instead, Jack.

...

This may surprise you, but IÂ’m looking forward to President ObamaÂ’s second term.

It will be refreshing to hear him stop blaming all the countryÂ’s problems on the last four years.

People say that the President and I both have trouble laughing at ourselves.

We canÂ’t laugh at ourselves. That would be racist.

...

Then he makes a decent pitch for his run for President:

The greatest thing about having parents who are immigrants, is that they force you to understand the value and uniqueness of our freedom.

Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religionÂ…you name it, they put great value on it and they never take it for granted.

And to them, there is no greater person than the one who has sacrificed all to keep us free.

I want to thank you all for letting me participate in this little piece of freedom here tonight.

Good night and God Bless.

Posted by: Ace at 10:40 AM | Comments (187)
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This Aaron Sorkin supercut demonstrates that he recycles the same lines over and over again throughout all the shows and movies he writes. But it also demonstrates something else: Everyone in Aaron Sorkin's ideal fantasy worlds is white, except for Dule Hill, D.L. Hughely, and Benson.

More crap like this here.

The other thing I noticed is that Aaron Sorkin is just stuff he ripped off of David Mamet's early work mixed with "Friends." From David Mamet he took the dialogue that alternates between artificially clipped and artificially long as well as New Faux City sayings he's heard Ethnics say on TV ("Not for nothin'"). The "Friends" part is the sitcomy Cutesy Banter, the Sassy Catchphrasing, and the frequent Reversions to Childhoood (raspberries, head-slaps, sticking out of tongues).

Sick day: I'm really sick so I'm going to be link blogging. My brain don't work too good today.

Posted by: Ace at 09:50 AM | Comments (229)
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Headline 1:

"N. Korea says it has scrapped armistice that ended Korean War"

Headline 2:

""Climate Change Tops List of Security Threats in the Pacific Says ADM Locklear".

North Korea is threatening war on the Korean peninsular (and to nuke the US) and the top US military commander in the region says "climate change" is our biggest security threat.

Yeah.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:52 AM | Comments (191)
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• Worst Gun Control Idea Yet
  
• Cost Conscious, Budget Cutting White House Planning Moochelle's 50 Birthday Bash Ten Months In Advance
  
• Anti-Biotic Resistant Superbugs Will Come To Your House With A Knife And Cut You While You Sleep
  
• Conservative Iowa Law Professor Denied New Trial In Political Discrimination Case
  
• China's Polluting Space Too
  
• A Serious German Anti-Euro Party Has Formed
  
• Bloomberg Prances Through Education Disaster
  
• Listen To This Adam Carolla Rant
  
• Japan Arms The Philippines
  
• Dude, Nice Marmot
  
• Scandals Are Only One Half Of The Catholic Story
  
• Fired Republican Staffer Taking On Hollywood Over Internet Freedom
  
• Delhi Gang Rape Suspect Kills Self In Jail
  
• North Korea Voids 1953 Armistace
  
• Paul Ehrlich's False Gospel
  
• Ninth Circuit Rules Gov't Agents Need Reasonable Suspicion To Search Laptops, Other Property At Border Checkpoints
  
• The Revolt Against FEMA
  
• Fourth Circuit Denies Qualified Immunity For Botched SWAT Raid
  

Follow me on twitter

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:14 AM | Comments (321)
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[Bumped by DrewM. I didn't mean to step on this earlier. Just keeping things running like Ace would want until he gets here.]

It's about time!

Six Massachusetts residents, backed by a gun-rights group, are suing four police chiefs, claiming restrictions they place on gun licenses violate their Second Amendment rights.

A state law allows police to issue licenses to carry guns with restrictions limiting their use for sporting reasons, hunting or target practice. The federal lawsuit filed by Commonwealth Second Amendment Inc. claims those restrictions prevent gun owners from using or carrying handguns for protection.

The suit says policies on when to issue restrictions vary widely from town to town. Some communities refuse to issue licenses to carry guns without restrictions, while others issue some license without restrictions, but only if the applicants establish that they have a pronounced need to carry a gun, the lawsuit says. Still other towns issue licenses without restrictions.

When I moved to MA, one of the considerations on which town to live in was the attitude of the local police chief with respect to the second amendment. This was pre-Heller & McDonald so you just had to shrug your shoulders and go with it, but after McDonald I said there's no way these arbitrary "may issue" schemes can stand. We'll see now.

(via Michael Graham)

Posted by: andy at 08:15 AM | Comments (163)
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Happy Monday.

Intrade shut down yesterday, apparently amid some legal troubles.

A Maryland state legislator proposed legislation to restrain the authority of school administrators to discipline a student who “brings to school or possesses” an image of a gun or an object that might look like a gun but isn’t one. The bill also includes a mandatory counseling provision for administrators who can't tell the difference between a gun and a thing that sort-of resembles a gun, like a pop-tart or a finger.

Harvard searched the email accounts of several staff members last year after word of a major cheating scandal made the papers. School administrators were looking for the source of the leak.

Oy. 2,800 decomposing pigs found in the river supplying Shanghai's drinking water. Yay, China.

President Obama's favorability numbers dropped precipitously last month from 66/32 approve/disapprove to 56/41 . . . in New York. I have no idea the reason or significance.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:50 AM | Comments (161)
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