Happy Friday.

MAJ Nidal Hasan sent a small packet of papers to Fox News ahead of his trial, which is scheduled to begin next week. Included in the packet is a renunciation of his U.S. citizenship and soldier's oath and a denunciation of democracy. Fox has posted some of the documents.

A credible threat has caused the U.S. to close dozens of diplomatic missions through this weekend. The warning cites an Al Qaeda regional affiliate.

That alarming, but vaguely implausible claim that a family's Google searches led police to raid their home turned out to be untrue. It was a tip-off from a former employer, who found the father's search history on his former work computer, that led to the police visit.

Congress is getting special treatment. OPM is going to construe Obamacare to let congressional staff keep their health plans after all, rather than force them onto the exchanges.

Aaand, a cover medley to round out the week: more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:49 AM | Comments (338)
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Via Hot Air, a fascinating glimpse into an area of medicine I didn't even know was an area of medicine.

It is freaky to think of death, or life, for that matter, as anything other than a binary proposition. You are either dead or you are alive. There is no "mostly dead." That's why that worked as a joke in The Princess Bride.

But in reality there actually are stages of death; the average person isn't aware of them. But doctors specializing in "resuscitation medicine" are.

I've heard of "clinically dead" and "medically dead" but never really read about why one was "mostly dead" and the other was all the way dead.

I was surprised to learn resuscitation is now a medical specialty, and it's very strange to hear someone discussing what is, essentially "light to moderate death," and talking about curing this light-to-moderate death.

Speaking of the need to cool the body down to around 32 degrees C, which protects the brain (a cold brain requires less oxygen, even in death) and prevents cell breakdown, this Doctor Parnia says:

We use pads that get attached to the thighs and the upper body. In a matter of hours, the cooling machine brings the body temperature down to the desired level. But you could also do this at home, if you found someone there in cardiac arrest. Call an ambulance, administer CPR and place a bag of frozen peas or other frozen vegetables on the patient. It helps to protect the brain.

SPIEGEL: What do you do that is not regularly done?

Parnia: Among other things, we check continuously how much blood and oxygen gets to the brain. If we have at least 80 percent of normal levels, the person tends to do better. If his condition doesn't improve, we follow steps that includes the use of an automatic machine to give compressions and breathing and eventually put him on ECMO.

When he says "if his condition doesn't improve" he means the condition of death.

Freaky right?

Rightly used, reanimation could play a major role in the therapy for many life threatening conditions and thousands more will be saved.

...

SPIEGEL: Is this truly a realistic scenario?

Parnia: Of course we can't rescue everybody, and many people with heart attacks have other major problems. But I will say that if all the latest medical technologies and training had been implemented, which clearly hasn't been done, then in principle the only people who should die and stay dead are those that have an underlying condition that is untreatable. A heart attack is treatable. Blood loss as well. A terminal cancer isn't, neither are many infections with multiresistant pathogens. In these cases, even if we'd restart the heart, it would stop again and again.

SPIEGEL: Doesn't the idea of "bringing people back" imply that they weren't really dead in the first place?

Parnia: I think the state they are in corresponds to the cultural concept we all have of death. We encounter it in movies and books all the time. That is my basic message: The death we commonly perceive today in 2013 is a death that can be reversed.

Full brain death -- after the brain cells have begun to degenerate -- cannot be reversed. But his very strange point is that most forms of death are treatable.

Heart attacks, wounds: These things can be repaired while the patient is "dead" and then the heart may be re-started. As is convenient for the doctor, as odd as that sounds.

He noted the actual point of irreversible death is not well known. But it is known that there is something of a "gray area," as he calls it -- bodily processes stopped, but cells not yet degenerating, brain not deprived of oxygen long enough to be permanently damaged. A corpse that would often get shipped to the mortuary... and yet it could still be "reanimated," as he says.

Anyway, give it a read.

Posted by: Ace at 08:45 AM | Comments (309)
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Update on the Googling 'Pressure Cooker Bomb' and 'Backpack' Leads to Government Search Story

A recall signal has been sent to the #outrage ninjas. And I already had t-shirts made up and everything.

Sigh.

The Modern Trifecta

"Tan Mom and Octomom?"

Yes. And now with more Leathers.

Next on TLC: The Scrotum Show

Ms Manners: 7 Rules For Texting Your Tool

Sexting isn't 'Nam - there are rules.

"tumescence is of the essence".

Also #HACKED.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:01 PM | Comments (722)
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He didn't touch this woman -- no headlock, no weird tongue stuff. Maybe he felt he had to be proper because she was, you know, the Deputy Mayor of a nearby city.

But he did begin peppering her with "What's Your Sitch?" questions at a professional event.

She says she did not feel harassed -- but she did think it was inappropriate, and reported the "strange encounter" to San Diego Democratic head Jess Durfee, who thanked her for the information and then, of course, did nothing.

Despite the fact that the major players here -- Lori Saldana, Jess Durfee -- are alive and perfectly capable of communicating the national media continues its intense interest in not asking them any questions.

Posted by: Ace at 03:45 PM | Comments (167)
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Is this a story? I dunno. I'm doing an awful lot of scandal stories. Eh, it's interesting.

So was there an affair? Let's look at the evidence.

For one thing, he denies it. That's not a good sign.

For another thing:

Yeahhh... pretty cute in a soft librarian way. That's not a good sign either.

Third, she's Rumanian. I don't know anything about Rumanians but it sounds sexy so that's not good either.

Then there are the emails themselves, which are just gilding the lily at this point.

In the emails Cretu called the Bronx. N.Y.-born Powell “the love of her life” and left a clear impression she was writing about the twilight of a romance, TheSmokingGun.com reported Thursday.

In response to the websiteÂ’s questions, the former four-star general issued a statement insisting he has not been unfaithful to his wife, Alma.

“This was a friendship that electronically became very personal and then back to normal,” Powell told the website.

“She sent photos on a regular basis. Lots of family photos with her nieces, who she adores, family reunions, formal business sessions, her wedding and some bathing suit photo ... Never anything improper,” Powell said.

Oh just so Colin Powell knows: A significant number of foreign diplomats are officially spies, and every diplomat not officially a spy is also actually a spy, in as much as their job is to gather intelligence for their country, and also, when ordered to, to act as spies as their country may require.

So good work, Colin. There's no problem whatsoever with a secret love affair with a foreign diplomat.

This idiot's reputation has been shrinking since I first heard of him. Never has a man been so praised for so little. Until Barack Obama, obviously. Maybe Ryan Leaf before him.

Okay, here's the takeaway: There is no such thing as electronic privacy. It doesn't exist. It never did, and anyone who thought it did was living in a fool's paradise. Anytime a hacker takes an interest in you he can unspool your life for the world.

People have to stop saying anything of interest in emails and go to the telephone. Written material should be mailed. Who knows, for romantic ventures, perhaps the old-world feel of the paper letter will take on the feel of something stealthy, exciting, and ancient.

If you want some substance, AllahPundit has now covered the Benghazi story, discussing the oft-floated theory that the fairly large CIA presence there was involved in weapons transfers to the Syrian rebels.

Posted by: Ace at 03:00 PM | Comments (286)
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Meh.

Beer smells like a sock and makes you pee every hour. #RINO

Young adult drinkersÂ’ alcoholic beverage preferences have changed dramatically over the past two decades. In the early 1990s, 71% of adults under age 30 said they drank beer most often; now it is 41% among that age group. There has been a much smaller decline in the percentage of 30- to 49-year-olds who say they drink beer the most, from 48% to 43%, with essentially no change in older drinkersÂ’ beer preference.

Plus beer has all that excess water in it. If I'm gonna give my kidneys a workout, I'm gonna give them a proper workout. No hydration for you, kidneys. You find a way to catalyze that poison without water. Toughlove, baby.

Posted by: Ace at 02:35 PM | Comments (123)
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It's that time again where we greet the greatest annual influx of space debris: the 2013 Perseids are here! Peak night is Sunday, August 11th through the early morning of Monday August 12th where locations in the western United States might enjoy 70-100 an hour. Even with a lower rate in the rest of the country, the Perseids will still put on a grand show, with gold and green fireballs frequently spotted.

Sure, HuffPo, the L.A. Times, Buzzfeed, and a host of other media sites will offer you a guide to the "ten best" spots, and show lots of time lapsed video from Sedona, but that isn't very useful for those of us who don't live in Nowhereville, USA.

What about a dark-sky guide for the rest of us?
Read on. more...

Posted by: CAC at 03:00 PM | Comments (98)
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Phony scandal.

This is from Drew Griffin and Kathleen Johnson, reporting under the aegis of Jake Tapper's The Lead on CNN. I hate publicizing CNN but he does good work, and the show's ratings are rising.

I think you'll agree this is a pretty large story.

Sources now tell CNN dozens of people working for the CIA were on the ground that night, and that the agency is going to great lengths to make sure whatever it was doing, remains a secret.

CNN has learned the CIA is involved in what one source calls an unprecedented attempt to keep the spy agency's Benghazi secrets from ever leaking out.

Since January, some CIA operatives involved in the agency's missions in Libya, have been subjected to frequent, even monthly polygraph examinations, according to a source with deep inside knowledge of the agency's workings.

The goal of the questioning, according to sources, is to find out if anyone is talking to the media or Congress.

It is being described as pure intimidation, with the threat that any unauthorized CIA employee who leaks information could face the end of his or her career.

In exclusive communications obtained by CNN, one insider writes, "You don't jeopardize yourself, you jeopardize your family as well."

Another says, "You have no idea the amount of pressure being brought to bear on anyone with knowledge of this operation."

I can't quote the whole thing and you should definitely click over just to register your patronage of this article.

He goes on to note that polygraphing typically occurs once every three to four years, and this level of constant polygraphing is never done for a broad group, but only for people actually suspected of espionage or the like.

There's additional stuff over there too.

And don't forget Congressman Wolf's thusfar-unproven-but-looking-true belief that Benghazi survivors have been ask-threatened into signing additional Non-Disclosure Agreements about that deadly night.

Finally, CNN interviewed on the Benghazi suspects -- a man who the FBI has never interviewed and apparently can't find. Let Noah C. Rothman explain to you how the media is already busy categorizing that as "Not News."

Posted by: Ace at 01:42 PM | Comments (305)
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"I'm not a monster, I'm sick," he says, and speaks of his "sexual problems," starting with being a lifelong viewer of pornography, and ultimately his "sexual addiction."

He is apparently surprised to know that a mother he abducted away from her son was not a virgin.

He goes on to specify that his victims had "multiple partners," so, you know.

He was sentenced to life plus one thousand years which is a cutesy way to appease the public by just making up a ridiculously large number.

If we're not putting people like this to death, why do we even have the death penalty at all?

more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:06 PM | Comments (223)
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CBS did, for three seconds, include a chyron identifying him as Democrat, but did not mention it in the script; NBC and ABC apparently still don't know which party he belongs to.

And, more importantly, neither do their viewers.

Political scandals come in two flavors:

1. "A Republican Culture of Corruption That May Have Started From the Very Top"

or:

2. "Some Guy"

And I can't seem to avoid the conclusion that the media is only interested in Great National Discussions which put Republicans on the back foot.

Newtown: Great National Discussion on Guns

Trayvon Martin: Great National Discussion on Guns and Race

Gosnell: Great National Discussion on Jodi Arias

And the less said about Politico, the better.

Sandra Fluke/"Slut:" Politico says #WarOnWomen

Todd Akin: Politico says #WarOnWomen

Bob Filner: Politico says, "Hey, #FunFact, did you know Bob Filner was a Freedom Rider for Civil Rights?"*

* No really. I'm not making this up. I'm quite serious.

This happened.

Posted by: Ace at 11:56 AM | Comments (323)
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