A video about a talented goldsmith and jeweler specializing in bespoke jewelry.

What's bespoke? I got this; I just looked it up last week. It means "spoken for" as in "per a specific client's request." Bespoke clothing is tailor-made per client request, as opposed to off-the-rack clothes.

As you will see in the video, she has no hands.

She says people wonder how she can make jewelry without fingers. She says she doesn't understand how people can make jewelry with fingers -- "They must get in the way," she says.

Posted by: Ace at 11:58 AM | Comments (203)
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Senators briefed by Secretary of State John Kerry say his private remarks are at odds with the administration's public statements about the status of the US' policy on Syria.

The most surprising thing about this is we apparently have a policy on Syria. That whatever it is isn't working is not a surprise.

“[Kerry] acknowledged that the chemical weapons [plan] is being slow rolled, the Russians continue to supply arms, we are at a point now where we are going to have to change our strategy,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, who attended Kerry's briefing with lawmakers on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. “He openly talked about supporting arming the rebels. He openly talked about forming a coalition against al Qaeda because it’s a direct threat.”

KerryÂ’s private remarks were a stark departure from the public message he and other top Obama administration officials repeatedly have given in public. Shortly after the meeting ended, Sens. Graham and John McCain described the meeting to The Daily Beast, The Washington Post, and Bloomberg View. Given newly-released intelligence on the growing al Qaeda presence in Syria, as well as shocking new evidence of Syrian human rights atrocities, the senators said they agreed with Kerry that the time had come for the United States to drastically alter its approach to the Syrian civil war.

Let's be honest, the US lost any leverage it might have had when it failed to follow through on retaliatory attacks against the Assad regime following the use of chemical weapons.

And you know what? That's ok.

Had the US attacked Syria last summer we wouldn't have leverage as much as a giant mess that would have involved either attacking and not removing Assad or the attacks would have been the start of an ever more robust effort to remove Assad.

Either way, it would have been a bigger mess only with US finger prints all over it.

Yes, the humanitarian toll of the Syrian civil war is immense. The toll of every war is beyond what people should have to endure. The fact is, some wars have to be fought to the bitter end. The question before us is should the US be involved in that fighting? To me, the answer is clearly no. We should do whatever we cant to help Assad and al Qaeda groups continue to bleed each other dry. Then you can call me when they are both dead or too exhausted to continue. Once that's been accomplished we can talk about helping the Syrian people get back on their feet. Until that time, it's their fight to win or lose.

Posted by: DrewM at 01:40 PM | Comments (310)
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The cobloggers are talking about this list from The Federalist of the top ten books people claim to have read but really haven't.

I hope I am not breaking any confidences when I say one cob says he read five of the books, half the list.

So is he just very smart, or is he just really good at lying?

Moby Dick is the book I always think I should read but never do. I "read" it in high school, and by "read it," I mean I did not read it. I read a few parts necessary to do a paper on it.

As I recall, the book was largely about a whale. My memory also informs me there was some mention of a ship.

But a teacher who I respected claimed that was the one book he'd bring to a desert island if he had only one choice (excluding the Bible; he meant only literature/fiction), and I've always thought there must be something really good in there.

Posted by: Ace at 10:25 AM | Comments (751)
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Ace is taking a sick day and news is kind of slow so in case you missed it, here's Andy's podcast post from last week that went up a little later than normal on Friday.

###

Townhall.com editor and Fox News contributor Guy Benson joins Ace, Gabe, Drew and John to talk about how the 2016 GOP field is shaping up, the Democrats' disaster prep. for 2014 and other fun topics.

Ace also treats you to an impersonation or two.

Questions & comments here: Ask the Blog

[MP3 Download] | Subscribe: [RSS] | [iTunes]

Follow on Twitter:
AoSHQ Podcast (@AoSHQPodcast)
Ace (@AceofSpadesHQ)
Drew M. (@DrewMTips)
Gabriel Malor (@GabrielMalor)
John E. (@JohnEkdahl)
Andy (@TheH2 and @AndyM1911)

Open thread in the comments.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:09 AM | Comments (398)
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When he's not slumming here with astronomy posts CAC does election predictions over at The Federalist.

His latest breakdown of this year's Senate races are now up.

Right now, the Republicans are projected a net gain of seven seats, enough for a 52-48 majority in the Senate if ]Alaska Senate Democrat Mark] Begich manages to hold on.

...

What are some races to watch in the month ahead? Oregon could become interesting, particularly the possible contrast of a pediatric neurosurgeon (Dr. Monica Wehby) running against Senator Jeff Merkley. The stateÂ’s exchange is a complete disaster, and Dr. Wehby, focused almost entirely on the health care law, raised an impressive $500k in the last quarter. Since we have no polling data for this match up, weÂ’re going to leave this race as moderate-Democrat. Lastly, Georgia is still a Republican-favored race worth watching. We havenÂ’t had any non-partisan sponsored polling in a while, but the Democrat, Michelle Nunn, has been fund-raising well and picked up endorsements from several former Republican Senators. The stateÂ’s electorate makes getting to the mid-40s easy, but winning is another matter. Still, the Republican field is wide open, and if it turns bitter, a damaged candidate could give her a further boost.

One of the wildcards in this or any scenario is amnesty.

So why with the chance to take control of the Senate and increase their margin in the House are Republicans flirting with the idea of a divisive intra-party fight that takes focus away from ObamaCare? Sean Trende has a few thoughts (with an assist from our own AmishDude".

5) Republicans are afraid of winning.

In the course of my musings on Twitter, AmishDude suggested that the real motive here is that the GOP leadership is actually concerned about the implications of a landslide. Of all the suggestions put out there, this seems to make the most sense, and synthesizes the above theories reasonably well while addressing most of my pushbacks on them.

The idea is twofold. First, a landslide would present as much of a problem as it does an opportunity for those who might want to revisit the issue in 2015, especially if the GOP establishment (or its donors) believes this is a must-do before the 2016 elections. The base would be even more agitated after a big victory, and appalled at any compromise on this issue if the GOP picks it up in 2015. In addition, absent a majority, Democrats wouldnÂ’t have the same incentive to support a bill that contained further compromises, especially since they already view the bill as a compromise in the first place. TheyÂ’d be better off watching Republicans flail and fail to pass a bill as their own base abandons them; this is roughly what happened in the mid-2000s.

This makes sense of the timing issue. Perhaps the GOP really did plan on letting the issue die last summer, when taking the Senate looked like a 50-50 shot, and breaking even in the House seemed like the order of the day. But then the Obamacare rollout hit, and suddenly Republicans looked like they might enjoy a 2010 redux.

If only the GOP were this clever and devious in dealing with Democrats as they are conservatives.

The problem with all this talk that amnesty is a question of timing, that it will be more acceptable next year than it is now, misses two big things.

First, amnesty is unacceptable as a matter of policy and principle. Timing is irrelevant.

Second, imagine the GOP holds it together long enough to win big by focusing on ObamaCare and punting on immigration. Are they really then going to pivot away from ObamaCare and onto amnesty?

Sadly all we're really debating is when the GOP will do something incredibly stupid and not if they will.

Remember all of this the next time someone from Team GOP says conservatives are helping Democrats. If the GOP would stop doing dumb things, we'd be happy to fight the Democrats but we're not there yet.

Added: Right on cue.

Conservatives burning bandwidth on a stupid Coke ad and not talking about Obamacare. ("I'll take, 'Why will we fuck up 2014?' Alex!"

— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) February 3, 2014

Yes, the danger to distracting from the GOP's ObamaCare message is a handful of people on Twitter, not the GOP's congressional leadership's focus on amnesty.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:03 AM | Comments (344)
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Glitches bitches.

Roughly 22,000 Americans have filed appeals with the government to try to get mistakes corrected, according to internal government data obtained by The Washington Post. They contend that the computer system for the new federal online marketplace charged them too much for health insurance, steered them into the wrong insurance program or denied them coverage entirely.

For now, the appeals are sitting, untouched, inside a government computer.

..

“It is definitely frustrating and not fair,” said Addie Wilson, 27, who lives in Fairmont, W.Va., and earns $22,000 a year working with at-risk families. She said that she is paying $100 a month more than she should for her insurance and that her deductible is $4,000 too high.

When Wilson logged on to HealthCare.gov in late December, she needed coverage right away. Her old insurance was ending, and she was to have gallbladder surgery in January. But the Web site would not calculate the federal subsidy to which she knew she was entitled. Terrified to go without coverage, Wilson phoned a federal call center and took the advice she was given: Pay the full price now and appeal later.

Of course that 22,000 number is probably too low. There are no doubt people who don't even realize that this screwed up system screwed them up.

So to sum up:

Error filled? Check

Bureaucratic nightmare? Check

Real people being hurt by the hubris of an indifferent political class? Check

Yeah, let's do a big immigration amnesty with these guys. What could go wrong?

Posted by: DrewM at 06:26 AM | Comments (215)
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Happy Monday.

Let's start with some data on old media versus new media, provocatively titled "Buzzfeed is the Future."

The Greek manufacturing sector grew for the first time in 53 months.

Gov. Jindal talked immigration, marijuana, and the death penalty on CNN's "State of the Union" yesterday. Rep. Ryan was also talking immigration on ABC's "This Week."

[ RSS]

[On iTunes]

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:54 AM | Comments (259)
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Pete Seeger - A Good Communist Party Member

Who also happened to write a couple of decent songs and sang. He's best known these days for his folk songs (If I had a hammer, Where have all the flowers gone, etc) but for him totalitarian ideology always came first which is why over his lifetime he managed to support Hitler, Stalin, Ho Chi Minh, and Pol Pot.

In the "John Doe" album, Mr. Seeger accused FDR of being a warmongering fascist working for J.P. Morgan. He sang, "I hate war, and so does Eleanor, and we won't be safe till everybody's dead." Another song, to the tune of "Cripple Creek" and the sound of Mr. Seeger's galloping banjo, said, "Franklin D., Franklin D., You ain't a-gonna send us across the sea," and "Wendell Willkie and Franklin D., both agree on killing me."

The film does not tell us what happened in 1941, when - two months after "John Doe" was released - Hitler broke his pact with Stalin and invaded the Soviet Union. As good communists, Mr. Seeger and his Almanac comrades withdrew the album from circulation, and asked those who had bought copies to return them. A little later, the Almanacs released a new album, with Mr. Seeger singing "Dear Mr. President," in which he acknowledges they didn't always agree in the past, but now says he is going to "turn in his banjo for something that makes more noise," i.e., a machine gun. As he says in the film, we had to put aside causes like unionism and civil rights to unite against Hitler.

For years, Mr. Seeger used to sing a song with a Yiddish group called "Hey Zhankoye," which helped spread the fiction that Stalin's USSR freed the Russian Jews by establishing Jewish collective farms in the Crimea. Singing such a song at the same time as Stalin was planning the obliteration of Soviet Jewry was disgraceful.

Why I Bought a House in Detroit For $500

I sorta have mixed feeling on what Drew Philips did - on one hand it's crazy as a young naïve white dude to buy a shell of house deep in a declining Detroit neighborhood and try to fix it up, but on the other hand I do admire his ambition and tenacity and see the spirit of the early American settlers in what he's accomplished.

One day Will and I rode past a white Queen Anne in Poletown on a quiet corner. Next to it sat two empty lots, plenty of space for a dog and a garden, a shed and a pond. The neighbors were friendly and kept their homes well-maintained, but there were four other abandoned houses on the block. The neighbors said the Queen Anne had been abandoned for a decade, simply left behind by the previous owner like a shredded tire on the highway, anything of value stolen long ago. It had a mangy wraparound porch and a big kitchen, but no chimney - I could build one of those - and the first time I cautiously walked inside, I knew it would be my home.

...I purchased the house in October 2009 at a live county auction for $500 cash. I was 23 years old.

I'm not certain I've accomplished anything other than taking one abandoned home off the street, teaching a few kids how to read, or bearing witness to a something larger than myself. I'm not certain I've become an example to anyone or necessarily changed a whole lot for the better. But I'm still here. I go to bed and I wake up every day in Detroit, in a house I built with my own hands. Sometimes success means just holding on.

As a friend who grew up in Poletown put it, "We want things to flourish, but we want them to have roots."

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:47 PM | Comments (605)
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• Healthcare.gov Can't Handle Appeals Of Enrollment Errors
  
• Republicans Can Take The Senate If They Don't Screw It Up
  
• Progressivism Kills
  
• The Limitations Of Capitalism
  
• Support For Obamacare Plummets Among The Uninsured
  
• Don't Expect College Athletes To Unionize Any Time Soon
  
• 9/11 Truther Interrupts Post Super Bowl Presser
  
• The Big Chide
  
• Christie Punches Back At The NYT
  
• Solidarity For Whom? Fractures In Feminism
  
• MYRA: Obamaccounts Or A Good Start?
  
• Three Killed When A Pair Of Cell Phone Towers Collapse
  
• Philip Seymour Hoffman Found Dead Of Drug Overdose
  
• Killed By...Ace Of Spades Heroin?
  
• Of Motes And Beams: Bridgegate Edition
  
• A (Lame) Duck Dynasty
  
• Woman Steals Reporter's Car On Camera
  
• Syrian Civil War Still Ongoing
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:05 AM | Comments (275)
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Obama claims that Benghazi is a false scandal which is only talked about because people on FoxNews keep talking about it.

Full video below. He denies everything. He also denies denying everything. more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:11 PM | Comments (94)
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