I always knew this effete strutting fop would be the first canary to sing; why did it take him so long to realize that?:

David Kay — a former U.S. adviser in Iraq — spent months questioning Aziz and others. He says Aziz quickly turned on Saddam and could testify at any trial.

"He talks about direct orders to murder, to assassinate, to kill," says Kay.

NBC News has learned U.N. investigators probing corruption in the U.N. oil for food program were scheduled to question Aziz last week. That session was delayed for security reasons.

...

U.S. officials say Aziz already has implicated the French and others, claiming payoffs were made with the understanding that recipients would support Iraq on key matters before the U.N.

"He pointed to specific individuals in Russia and France, in the United States — that received favorable treatment," says David Kay.

Now, sources tell NBC News that Aziz has indicated he's finally ready to talk about alleged bribes to U.N. officials. U.N. investigators refuse to comment.

The UN "investigators" are about as eager to get to the bottom of this mystery as was Kevin Costner in No Way Out.

Don't You Ever Dare Question My Movie References in Front of the Enlisted Men Update: "Private Joker" Patton from Opinion8 dares to challenge me on my No Way Out reference, pointing out that Costner was only obliquely involved in the murder in that movie.

To which I reply:

1) You think it's easy coming up with a dipshit reference for every one of these stories?

and more importantly,

2) In No Way Out, Costner was actually long-suspected Soviet mole YURI, which was the real mystery at the heart of the movie.

So he really didn't want to get to the heart of the actual mystery, now did he?

You're young, soldier. Cocky. I see a bit of myself in you. You could be squad leader someday if you just come to terms with your problems with authority and get with the program. Straighten up and fly right, Private Joker. Why don't you come on in to join the team for the big win?

Now drop and give me forty and don't let it happen again.

Posted by: Ace at 08:00 PM | Comments (14)
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CBS' 48 Hours to Report Jon-Benet's Killer Linked to Rape of Girl Who Attended Same Dance-School

I know, I know: It's CBS. It could be completely fabricated.

Still, if this is true, some people will owe the Ramsey's a mighty big apology. Including, of course, myself:

CBS News says that JonBenet Ramsey's killing has been linked to the rape of another little girl who took dance lessons at the same school in Boulder, Colo.

In a report to be broadcast Saturday night on 48 Hours Mystery, the network says that JonBenet's parents are no longer suspects.

...

CBS interviews the parents of a girl identified only as Amy, who was attacked nine months after the Ramsey killing by a man who broke into her bedroom. He fled when her mother woke and came into the room.

Both parents say they were struck by the similarities between the two crimes, but police in Boulder appeared to be uninterested.

I don't know how it can be the case that the parents are "no longer suspects" and yet the Boulder police are "uninterested" in pursuing the lead that would render them non-suspects, but, again, this is CBS News, after all. Certain allowances must be made.

Posted by: Ace at 04:27 PM | Comments (11)
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Here's another thing I don't get:

You know the gagillion shows now running on E! and VH-1 where they show something from pop culture and then some nitwit comments on it?

Few questions:

1) Who the fuck are these people? I swear to God, some of these people are even more nobodies than I am.

First of all, half of them seem to be from some magazine called "Blender" which I never fucking heard of. I don't know what "Blender" is; I imagine it's some sort of gay soft-core stroke-mag showing naked college boys seductively using kitchen appliances.

Are half of them from Blender, or is it the same unfunny chick with the Lisa Loeb "You Say" smartie-glasses over and over and over again?

She's so fucking non-memorable in terms of looks and wit I have no idea if it's the same girl or there's like a whole Terminator production line of useless marginally-attractive unfunny "No, no, negative" bore-clones.

2) Why are none of them funny? And why do the unfunniest ones have the job description "comedian" listed under their stupid fucking faces? Instead of saying they're "comedians," I think a Chyron should just run under their yammering idiot-mouths saying "Don't worry; I don't know who the fuck I am either."

3) Who, precisely, decided to give "Ant" from Last Comic Standing a career, and isn't this a violation of some provision of the Patriot Act? It certainly can't be good for troop morale, and undoubtedly it provides "material comfort" to our terrorist enemies.

4) Why is the lead singer from Skid Row on every fucking one of these shows? Does his agent specialize in sarcastic-wisecrack pop-culture clip-shows? Can't he like, I don't know, once in a while maybe sign autographs at a KISS convention?

Look, apparently Sebastian Fucking Bach has a lot of fucking opinions about Pop Rocks and the replacement "cousins" from The Dukes of Hazzard, but why would he imagine I care to to know them?

Seriously, "Sebastian": When C.C. DeVille from Poison seems to have more shame and integrity than you do, it's time to start thinking about making some course-corrections in your life.

It just angers me.

I think I could get together with my best buddies Stubby and Stinky Pete and do a much better Remember Last Week? show than these buffoons.

Actually, I think what I'd do is a show called Remember Our Last Show?, in which each new show is actually just some clips of us making snide comments from the previous show, but then we comment upon our previous snide comments in a glib, sarcastic way. Near the end of each show we might have a segment called Remember Twenty Minutes Ago?, where we'd comment on the earlier comments in that very show.

It's all very meta and very Charlie Kauffman. I'm hoping to win a Peabody.

Posted by: Ace at 02:02 PM | Comments (16)
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So, okay, the stuff on the runways is always "couture" and that means that nobody's supposed to actually wear it, unless you're Cher and you're stoned out of your mind on peyote.

The stuff they don't show on the runways is called "ready-to-wear," which is a little strange thing to be calling clothes -- I mean, one would hope the "ready-to-wear" aspect is sort of implied; I usually don't expect the need to buy batteries from Radio Shack for my swearters, nor do I expect my pants to come with an Allen wrench and "some assembly required" directions in Swedish -- and this ready-to-wear stuff are the clothes they actually want you to buy and which will actually be available in stores, but these clothes they don't show on the runway.

They're a secret or something.

On the other hand, they show outfits like this on the runway.

Now, seriously. What is that? Can someone explain that to me?

What is the point here? Is that supposed to be promoting the designer, rather than his clothes? In what way? Who looks at that and says, "Ah yes, very fashion forward; this guy definitely knows how to dress someone up like a poodle. I'll be on the look-out for this guy's hand-bags."

This is one of the things I don't get.

Posted by: Ace at 01:33 PM | Comments (11)
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Wooden robotic has-been Harrison Ford has signed on to the project, which will hopefully decimate US troops' morale for years to come.

Top Ten Harrison Ford War Movies, Had He Been Making Movies During World War II

10. A light romantic comedy titled Guess Who's Giving It To Your Wife Back Home?

9. What If They Threw a War To Stop Global Fascism and No One Showed Up?

8. A thoughtful documentary named Japanese Kamikaze Suicide Bombers: Why Do They Hate Us?

7. An untitled project likening FDR to Adolf Hitler, and meanwhile likening Adolf Hitler to beloved child-star Jackie Coogan

6. The Big Lie: Archival Films Prove That No "Planes" or "Bombs" Struck Us At Pearl Harbor

5. Worldwide Nazi Domination: Let's Take a Wait-and-See Attitude About It, Huh?

4. Some stupid film about the fucking Crusades trying to pin thousand-year-old shit on America (always a favorite Hollywood go-to project)

3. Indiana Jones and the Quest for a Negotiated Settlement

2. A lightheared "screwball" comedy called Unstoppable Nazi Supermen Will Inevitably Conquer the World!

...and the Number One Harrison Ford War Film, Had He Been Making Movies During World War II...

1. A science-fiction classic titled Star Wars, which tells the story of how militaristic "Rebels" unilaterally declared pre-emptive war on the peaceful, kite-flying "Galactic Empire" and their "agrarian reformer" leader Emperor Palpatine, who was, after all, considered the "George Washington" of his people and actually quoted from the Declaration of Independence

Caveat: The article claims:

It is probable that the film will strike a different tone to the only major feature about the US's previous war in Iraq, 1999's Three Kings, which told the story of a group of cynical, self-serving US soldiers. West's coverage of the war has tended to side with US troops.

We'll see. "No True Glory" doesn't exactly sound rah-rah to me. And I suspect the leftist British Guardian's judgment as to what consitutes "siding with US troops" diverges quite a bit from my own.

Defending My Attack Update: It occurs to me that this attack may be premature, as at least one poster points out.

I'll say this, though. Hollywood has a template for movies about wars they don't like, and they pretty much don't like any of them. Sure, there's the occasional pro-war film like Heartbreak Ridge, but those tend to be lower-budget, not-terribly-prestigious genre films little removed from action movies in terms of seriousness and respect.

When it comes to "prestige" projects, Hollywood tackles wars the same way, just about every time: It acknowledges the sacrifice and heroism of actual soldiers, while suggesting -- if not outright stating -- that this sacrifice and heroism is all in the cause of a futile or wrongheaded cause. The personal virtues of soldiers are admitted; the cause for which they fight is generally deemed senseless.

Even Saving Private Ryan, about a war few can quibble with (though some do), was said to be, either by director Steven Spielberg or a critic reviewing the film, "at heart an anti-war movie, as all war movies must be."

Certainly it must be acknowledged, in any serious war movie, that war is hell -- hellishly violent, hellishly terrifying, hellishly destructive, and hellishly wasteful of the lives of good young men (and some not so young men, and some women too). And yet it would be satisfying to see more war movies which were not merely the equivalent of Zombie Survival Horror films on a battlefield.

Yes, in the final analysis, soldiers, as they fight, are fighting for survival -- their own, and the survival of the man next to them. Certainly they give little thought to geopolitics as bullets and mortars rain down on them.

But it would be helpful, on occasion, to note that their sacrifices and heroism are not in vain; that they fight for something actually worth fighting for, whether it be for freedom, America's security, or to simply eradicate the psychopathic terrorist scum holed up in Fallujah.

I don't know what tact No True Glory will take. But the title and the general Hollywood template for prestige war movies suggests to me we will see good young men being wasted in a "useless war," sacrificed for nothing except stupidity and hatred and a failure to "communicate effectively" with people about whom we still haven't figured out "Why do they hate us?"

Yes, the soldiers will be praised, even as they are chewed apart in battle; but there will be no tribute to the mission they ultimately give their lives for.

I'd like to be suprised. But at this point I very much doubt I will be.

Geek Patrol Update: Emperor Palpatine, not "Constantine." I knew Constantine wasn't right, but I coudln't think if the right name. All I could think of was "Darth Siddious." Stupid prequels.

Please excuse this horrible gaffe. I swear, I'm a dedicated Star Wars fan and I knew that! I knew that! Just on the tip of the tongue and wouldn't roll off!

I will not be turning in my polyhedral dice anytime soon. As George Bush the Elder said, "You wouldn't want your career judged by a single incident, would you?"

Posted by: Ace at 11:39 AM | Comments (20)
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I hope it's ironic.

Thanks to AndrewF, or, as I like to call him, "AndyF."

Posted by: Ace at 11:35 AM | Comments (14)
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I suppose it's not a controversial point in most quarters, but Mary Beth Cahill of the Kerry campaign doesn't seem to get it.

She thinks the SwiftVets had "reach" due to the mainstream media's enthusiasm for the story (suppress your giggles). In fact, the mainstream media attempted to embargo the story for as long as possible, until the alternative media forced them to cover it.

In the end, it seems the MSM's -- and the Kerry campaign's -- strategy of embargo backfired. By the time they deigned to refute the charges made by decorated war veterans who honorably served with Lieutenant Kerry, the story was fairly well publicized.

Need I say-- ten years ago, the embargo strategy would have worked?

No more. Sorry, MSM/DNC Continuum. You're passionate defenders of free expression, so long as that franchise is kept as narrow and exlcusive as possible, restricted to the sort of people you think should be allowed to share their opinions with the world. No more. The franchise is now much broadened, and it will be broadened still further.

You'll always have the advantage. But you'll no longer have a monopoly.

Posted by: Ace at 11:27 AM | Comments (3)
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I'm not sure if I should root for them or against them. It's irrelevant in any case, since no one (except conservatives, of course!) is listening:

"The party in certain respects is fossilized," says Gerstein, 37. "It's trapped in the last vestiges of the New Deal coalition. That coalition is no longer an electoral majority or even close to it."

A former aide to Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., Gerstein wrote in The Wall Street Journal that Democrats have "fallen right back into the elitist, weak-kneed, brain-dead trap" they thought they'd escaped with Bill Clinton.

...

He called for more muscle in foreign policy, more respect for religion and "banishing Bob Shrum and his tone-deaf Chardonnay populism" from future presidential campaigns. Shrum, 61, was nominee John Kerry's top adviser.

Meanwhile, via Kausfiles, who has a whole riot of must-read posts, this excellent catch of a Ron Brownstein LA Times piece:

In a provocative cover article this month, New Republic Editor Peter Beinart argues that today's Democrats should follow the example of Reagan (then a centrist Hollywood Democrat), Roosevelt (the former first lady), Reuther (the great labor leader) and other prominent activists who founded Americans for Democratic Action in 1947, largely to build a Democratic constituency for opposing the spread of communism during the Cold War.

...

Beinart argues that Democrats today need a comparable centrist movement that will define a "fighting faith" for resisting "totalitarian Islam" and reclaim the party's identity from those on the left — like filmmaker Michael Moore — who he believes see the struggle against America's new foe as "a distraction if not a mirage."

...

If a Republican had been elected president in 1948 by promising to roll back Soviet control of Eastern Europe through military invasion, the ADA generation probably would have been defined primarily by opposition to the administration's direction too.

Emphasis added.

It's not exactly his point, this does suggest that Democrats have a hard time, based on simple partisanship, supporting a Republican's foreign policy initiatives.

Kaus sums it up this way (in fairness, I think he actually distorts Brownstein's point a little, which is more charitable to Democrats and suggests their opposition is based on principle):

It was a lot easier for Democrats to put the anti-communist struggle "at the center of their hopes for a better world" when a Democratic president (Truman) was waging that struggle than it is for them to put the fight against "totalitarian Islam" their centerpiece when its being waged by a president from the opposing party. ...

And of course Kaus also announces himself as a gay marriage skeptic:

Hmmm. When exactly did support for gay marriage become an essential Democratic party principle akin to racial equality? Was it when Anthony Lewis' wife decided to impose it on Massachusetts? Seems like only a few years ago the concept was an entry on the New Republic's "to be assigned" list. (Sullivan got the job.) Now we must embrace it or leave the party? Isn't that rushing things a bit? ...

And I like to think he's trolling for an Ace-a-lanche when he takes this gratuitous, but scrumptious, swipe at my bete noir (a French term meaning "excitable Betty"):

And isn't this contradiction [i.e., wanting to win the "hearts and minds" of the Muslim world, while simultaneously pushing for gay marriage, which most Muslims -- even the moderates -- find morally repugnant] a big problem for Andrew Sullivan too? (No wonder he wants to wage war on Islamic fundamentalists rather than win them over. He has no hope of winning them over to his full notion of freedom.)

Posted by: Ace at 10:37 AM | Comments (4)
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Good post by Luskin on the educational establishment's unending fascination with the failed pedogogy of "look-say" reading.

Phonics works, and worked for a hundred years. But now we're using something that doesn't work and kids can't read. But the educrats won't change.

More on the "Reading Wars."

This debate illuminates a problem I have with Bush's bullet-point style of persuasion. For years -- especially when campaigning in 2000 and then shortly after the election-- he praised phonics and argued we needed to return to that pedagogy.

A smart person who's pretty politically savvy told me that was one part of Bush's agenda she didn't agree with. "I don't like this phonics thing," she told me. "Why can't kids keep learning to read they way we did when we were kids?"

But, of course, phonics was the way she learned to read as a kid. "Look-say" or "whole-word" teaching didn't come fully into vogue until later. I know I learned to read through phonics (at least in class).

But Bush has this tendency to speak in shorthand, and it gets him into trouble. This person actually supported Bush's call to return to older, more effective ways of teaching children to read, but because he didn't make a very strong effort to explain what phonics was, this person thought he was calling for some newfangled and untested pedagogy. When in fact he was doing the opposite: calling for a rejection of the newfangled pedagogy, now tested and found wanting, and calling for a return to the old ways of teaching reading, the exact methods she favored.

Bush is the Great Miscommunicator, alas.

More links here.

Posted by: Ace at 09:19 AM | Comments (23)
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A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I had to run an errand that could improve my life a little. It did. Some of you wanted to know the big secret; I was torn between spilling and keeping it to myself. Since I teased it, I'll tell it. Maybe it will help someone else out there.

This isn't political, and if you don't have anything similar to anxiety or panic attacks, it's probably not worth your time to read.

(Piece pushed ahead in queue.) more...

Posted by: Ace at 06:09 AM | Comments (71)
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