Several people told me that my Apprentice parody was funny enough for SNL.

I guess SNL agreed. Just got done watching an unfunny version of the parody, featuring Bush as Trump, grilling Colin Powell, Condi Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld.

Not even a hat tip, either. Lorne Michaels needs to learn netiquette.

Do I really think that they stole? Eh, not really. It's a fairly obvious premise, I guess. Just annoyed that a crap version of the sketch can get on TV, whereas I'm lucky to be featured on Nasty Ned's Humor & Boobies Chat-Room.

Will whine for food.

Posted by: Ace at 12:32 PM | Comments (10)
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Seems like a good idea:

The Pentagon has a message for its troops serving in war zones: America Supports You.

ThatÂ’s the name of a new campaign, introduced Friday at the Pentagon by Charlie Abell, principal deputy under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness.

Abell said the program is designed so that the Department of Defense can “realize what’s going on and to be able to tell our soldiers and their families that we support you.”

The We Support You website can be found here.

Thanks to Tanker.

Posted by: Ace at 11:57 AM | Comments (2)
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That's not actually the shock. The shock is that the BBC of all people is reporting it:

The United Nations knew that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was stealing from the oil-for-food program - and, by extension, starving his own people - but did little to stop it, according to a special report by the BBC at the weekend.

After a six-month investigation, the BBC said it had evidence that Saddam took billions from the oil-for-food program, and that "these abuses were widely known about at the time". The BBC said there was evidence that Saddam demanded a kickback from companies that wanted to do business with Iraq under the oil-for-food program.
...

The BBC sent a reporter to Iraq and Jordan to track down people involved in the oil-for-food program, which has been described as the largest financial swindle in history. Virtually all said that Saddam took kickbacks from companies who sold goods to Iraq, and that the UN knew this. The businessmen - most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity - said it was standard to pay commissions, that nobody complained, and that was the price of doing business with Iraq.

A Jordanian banker said it was an open secret that contracts were inflated so Saddam could take 10 per cent. "We knew it was there," he said. "(But) actually, it's not our business, you know. Banks are (only) interested in their money, and to make money."

This is cute:

The allegations have left the UN fighting for its reputation. The oil-for-food program is being investigated by six US congressional committees and by the UN itself.

Many UN officials believe the US is trying to divert media attention towards the oil-for-food program as a way of punishing the UN for failing to back the war in Iraq.

Others believe the US is using the investigations as a way of distracting attention from the war. Mr Shay said: "Well, the UN is sure making it easy (to attack)."

Gee, you think?

Posted by: Ace at 11:05 AM | Comments (4)
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Mixing it up with foreign secret service personnel isn't specifically on the list of useful presidential attributes, but it's nice to know we've got a real scrapper in the White House.

Now With Video Update: Who else? The Daily Recycler's got it. Thanks to Florida Cracker.

Compare and Contrast Update: In the comments to the Alarming News post, Jeff from Shape of Days reminds us of John Kerry's somewhat different relationship with his Secret Service detail: "That son-of-a-bitch knocked me down."

Posted by: Ace at 10:37 AM | Comments (3)
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Pretty stunning, no matter what the context. And the context here doesn't help.

The left continues clinging to the myth that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," and that, really, the only possible beef with Bin Ladin is that he's not on our side-- "just someone who disagrees with you," as Chris Matthews might say.

Read it all, but here's a tease:

"He's really a remarkable man," former CIA agent Michael Scheuer told NBC's "Meet the Press." "[He's a] great man in many ways, without the connotation positive or negative. He's changed the course of history."

Scheuer's book "Imperial Hubris," which the CIA allowed him to publish anonymously earlier this year, was touted during the presidential campaign by critics of President Bush based on its claim that the U.S. is losing the war on terror. Scheuer ran the agency's bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999.

While he insisted he didn't mean to praise bin Laden, moments later the ex-CIA man told host Tim Russert that the al Qaida chief was "an admirable man. If he was on our side, he would be dining at the White House."

"He would be a freedom fighter, a resistance fighter," Scheuer added, suggesting that the U.S. would welcome an ally who killed 3,000 innocent office workers in a kamikaze sneak attack.

You will not be shocked that Israel is mentioned shortly thereafter, and not in a particularly positive light.

Posted by: Ace at 10:21 AM | Comments (5)
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It's a meta-blog kinda day. Wizbang is accepting nominations for the Best Blogs. No need to rush over to nominate me (they've already got me in a couple of categories) but you should nominate your favorites, especially the unjustly overlooked ones.

Wizbang's also doing awards based on ecoystem class (i.e., top 100, 100-200, etc.) so that some smaller blogs really have a chance to get some exposure.

And he welcomes self-nominations.

Thanks to Alarming News.

Posted by: Ace at 01:56 PM | Comments (10)
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I'm going to try -- try -- to fix my individual archive template so that the ads run side-by-side with the article. And so that that template looks more like my main page.

I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, so this could get kinda ugly today.

I'll be posting here and there, but readers might want to click on the main page rather than going to the individual entry post through Bloglines or the like.

I've been saying I'm going to try to fix this mess of a site of mine for a while. I'm going to try it, but I think I might just end up nuking my site entirely.

Here's hoping.

Any Ideas on How to Fix...?

1) The comment glitch-- it doesn't ask for your name, nor does it print it, calling everyone "No Author."

2) The Individual and Date based Archives have that error where the sidebar follows the page, rather than being side-by-side with it. How do I fix that? Which archive does that get fixed in?

If anyone knows, put me some f---in' information, if you wouldn't mind.

Posted by: Ace at 11:23 AM | Comments (20)
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I don't want a war of civilizations, although I fear we're on our way if not engaged in one already. And I don't want to quarantine the whole of the Islamic world and let it stew in its own hatred and backwardness until it produces a decent civil society-- which, historically speaking, could take 200 or more years.

But Muslims cannot allow large numbers of their faith to support psychopathic race-murder and then expect that our patience for this savagery will continue forever.

One of Holland's most popular political figures is calling for a five-year ban on non-Western-- i.e., Muslim -- immigration into his country. And I for one can't say I blame him.

It's a mistake to confuse a naive faith in the talismanic power of "tolerance" and an extreme PC attitude for actual weakness. It is weakness, yes, and it does allow those who would exploit PC nonsense to get away with literal murder. But only for a time. American timidity was a temporary condition, not an enduring one, and perhaps so too is European timidity and appeasement.

The Europeans have been virulently xenophobic and savage themselves in their past. Islamofascist provocateurs should bear that in mind.

And goodwilled Muslims should keep that in mind too, and more actively cooperate in purging our societies of these monsters. The American Constitution is not a suicide pact, it has been said, and neither, ultimately, is the European PC-weenie fetish for tolerance. At some point even the Dutch -- hell, even the Belgians -- will no longer be willing to accept terrorism and murder simply in order to pretend that a cherished ideal is actually working.

Humorous Update-- the Ace of Spades Effect: If Andrew Sullivan can suggest he's the most important force in American politics after George Bush, why can't I similarly claim to be similarly important in Europe?

At least I have evidence:

Wilders said that without swift, bold action, Islamic fundamentalism will topple the country's democratic system.

"The Netherlands has been too tolerant to intolerant people for too long," he said. "We should not import a retarded political Islamic society to our country. There is nothing to be ashamed of to say this. It's not Islam. I speak out against the facts."

You know he got that from me. You know it.

Posted by: Ace at 06:23 PM | Comments (11)
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A before-and-after photograph shows Kim's portrait has been removed from its place beside his father's, whatever that might mean.

Sure, it could be being cleaned. But don't they have, like, more than one of them?

Thanks to See-Dubya.

Posted by: Ace at 06:04 PM | Comments (10)
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Maybe this is a little bit ahead of the game, but I think I've seen enough. The kid saw someone who looked like he was feigning death, and probably was in fact feigning death. He shot him. There is no crime.

Let Congress know if you feel likewise.

Posted by: Ace at 05:34 PM | Comments (5)
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