The Washington Post discovers a HUGE blog getting over 1000 hits a day (WOWWWW!!!) and starts promoting the hell out of it.

What's the blog's focus? Why, pictures of dead American soldiers and Iraqi "civilians" in Fallujah, of course!

What else could it be?

Posted by: Ace at 09:34 AM | Comments (5)
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How do I tease this delicately? On a British reality TV show, former David Beckham concubine Rebecca Loos was asked to, errr, manually stimulate a boar in order to, ummm, extract his genetic material for breeding.

Now, of course, this sort of thing happens on farms all the time. (And it's not always motivated by economics or husbandry, either.)

Thank Goodness we have people keeping a sharp eye on this:

The RSPCA condemned the scenes as "morbid and sordid".

But in its ruling today, Ofcom said the stunt was not degrading or harmful to the pig involved.

I'm perpetually amused by left-leaning prudes who obviously object to salacious material, but they are committed to the (false) notion that they are completely sexually open-minded. And thus they always cast their objections to pornography and its french-kissing-cousins as some kind of concern for the "victim" of "exploitation."

Mickey Kaus even tried that tact in order to criticize the Janet Jackson boobie-flash-- "Gee willickers, the S&M pantomime was degrading to women!" -- even as he continued to claim he thought it was otherwise no big deal to show that sort of thing to children.

The stunt may indeed have been borderline pornographic and distasteful, but it was certainly not harmful to the pig. Matter of fact, he hasn't stopped talking about it for a week. You can't say three words to him without him somehow working it in that he got that "killer hand-job" from Rebecca Loos.

He just keeps asking you if you think she's going to call. It breaks my heart to have to tell him "I think she's moved on."

Thanks to Robert McClelland.

"Chinese...? I was thinking Indian myself. Manual sex always gives me a yen for chicken tikamasala."

More here, if you really need it.

Thanks to Nick Kronos, who I'm told has a blog his own damn self.

Posted by: Ace at 09:16 AM | Comments (9)
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And, look, not to be alarmist or anything, but as Elizabeth Edwards said (approximately): If Ace of Spades HQ doesn't win Top 100 Blog, there just might be violence in the streets.

I wouldn't want to encourage that. Then again, I also don't feel strongly enough about to discourage it, either.

The one way to avoid this ugliness is to vote for Ace of Spades HQ as the top 100 Blog, every day.

Posted by: Ace at 09:04 AM | Comments (6)
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It worked precisely as we all knew it wouldn't:

We think it was Justice Brandeis who said the states should be laboratories for reform. Regarding health care, Tennessee tried a decade ago and the price is now coming due. Hillary Rodham Clinton should call her pollster if she plans on carrying the state in 2008.

In 1994, Tennessee passed what was then a very hot New Democrat idea--call it government managed care--a version of the reform the former first lady was also pitching nationwide. TennCare promised the impossible dream of politicians everywhere: Lower health-care costs while covering more of the "uninsured." They got the impossible, all right. After 10 years of mismanagement and lawsuits, TennCare now eats up one-third of the state's entire budget and is growing fast. Governor Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, is preparing to pull the plug and return the state to the less lunatic subsidies of Medicaid.

...

The skyrocketing costs led previous Governor Don Sundquist, the Republican who had inherited the program, to try to impose a state income tax. His efforts failed, fortunately, but in 2002 Mr. Bredesen was elected promising to cut TennCare's costs.

That, too, has been impossible. Left-wing legal activists have sued the state with impunity to underwrite the cost of nearly unlimited care. A Nashville non-profit called the Tennessee Justice Center has hamstrung reforms for years by suing to enforce a series of consent decrees, some of which predate TennCare.

Prescription drug costs alone increased 23% last year, as there are effectively no limits on the number or types of drugs the system will pay for. If a doctor prescribes aspirin, TennCare pays for it. Ditto for antacids for heartburn and other over-the-counter products. If TennCare denies a claim for a drug or any other type of care, an appeal can be filed for next to nothing. Fighting each appeal costs the state as much as $1,600 in legal fees. With 10,000 appeals filed every month, it's often easier and cheaper to pay a claim, regardless of the merits.

Gee, who'd've guessed?

Thanks to NickS.

Posted by: Ace at 08:59 AM | Comments (11)
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Now that's old school discipline.

Caution: Contains genuine violence. A teacher really does punch a student in the head.

Posted by: Ace at 08:54 AM | Comments (3)
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Tim Rutten of the LA Times writes that Rather's downfall was due to a combination of 1) bloggers watching him and 2) only bloggers watching him, and PunditGuy digests it for you:

It had been more than four decades since any general election gripped the American public's attention in the way this one did. More than eight out of every 10 voters said they followed the contest between George Bush and John Kerry closely and of that group, 82% said television was their primary source of news. Nearly 85% of the Americans who cast a ballot said they closely followed the returns on election night and fully 97% of that group said they watched television news to do so. In fact, interest was so keen that 51% of the voters said they watched television news past midnight.

So where did the CBS coverage, which Rather anchored, rank? Dead last among the broadcast networks, all three of which finished behind Fox and CNN. Just 9% of those who cast ballots relied on CBS for their news, barely ahead of MSNBC, which was watched by 6%.

Posted by: Ace at 08:44 AM | Comments (2)
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Our only citation for this is Tavis Smiley. Which does not precisely inspire confidence.

Still.

As the man says: Heh and/or Indeed.

Posted by: Ace at 05:15 PM | Comments (5)
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There is such a doctrine as truth in advertising, after all, and it is not completely toothless.

Yawn. The typical idiots -- Greens, mostly -- are determined to sue Kerry into the White House.

Posted by: Ace at 05:07 PM | Comments (1)
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The pride of the Belgium Army? Rats. Giant African pouched rats, to be mroe specific.

Seriously. They've taught the sniffy little buggers to scent out explosvies in landmines.

Awwww.

Take away the carnivorous swarming and the filth and the virulent disease and the propensity to shit in your food-- they really are kinda cute.

Also From Pundit Guy-- Virtual Bubble Wrap: I actually posted this a long time ago, but, for some reason, a lot of you seemed to like it. Probably because you're, you know, retarded and all.

It's the fun of popping bubble-wrap without all the guilt.

Posted by: Ace at 03:00 PM | Comments (9)
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Alarming News tipped me to a rumor that the wife of a rather prominent one-time Bush judicial appointee had just (sadly) died. And yet there was no coverage of this that I saw.

She didn't mention it, and I didn't mention it. One of her readers, however, provides evidence that this sad event did in fact happen:

ESTRADA, LAURY GORDON

Of Alexandria, VA, passed away unexpectedly on November 28, 2004. She was 46. She is survived by her loving mother, Ruby Gordon; and her devoted husband, Miguel Estrada. She also leaves behind her three loving dogs, Zeus, Ruby and Jackson and her chestnut mare, Lily, all of whom she loved deeply.

I wish her family -- and her dogs and horse -- well.

Posted by: Ace at 02:55 PM | Comments (1)
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