And now Kerry is displaying his characteristic Gallic nuance on the rather binary, yes-or-no question of whether or not he was actually in Cambodia, as he has frequently, stridently, resume-paddingly alleged.

Was he in Cambodia? His answer is the same as to the questions, "Would you have gone to war with Iraq?" or "Do you support gay marriage?"

Sort of yes, but not really, although in a way yes, but also no. Yes, for all helpful political purposes; but no, to the extent "yes" might be used against me politically.

"Nuance" over policy questions is one thing. "Nuance" over yes-or-no historical facts completely within his competency to answer is another thing.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: The Liberal Spirit Squad in the media is aiding and abetting John Forbes Kerry's political need to have it both ways on every question, one way to appeal to moderates, another way entirely to appeal to his Howard Dean lovin' leftist base.

He may be the first presidential candidate in American history to exist on a quantum level. As the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle informs us, the exact position of a nuclear particle cannot be absolutely determined; it exists in a wide range of positions at once, a probablistic "cloud" of multiple and varied positions rather than a single definable state.

Determining where Kerry falls on a position at any moment is much like attempting to pin down the exact location of an electron. Like an electron, he manages to be many places at once, and it is beyond the ken of mortal minds to plum its quantum mysteries.

And like an electron, the actual act of measuring his position actually changes his position, moment to moment. A reading on Kerry's position when he's on television will not be the same reading observed when he's delivering a speech to a liberal organization.

Posted by: Ace at 11:28 AM | Comments (22)
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The media doesn't want to cover any of the allegations against Kerry, but it seems to me that this is the most clear-cut lie. And once you start down that road, can you really stop?

The Kerry defenders keep claiming that we can't question anything having to do with Kerry's Vietnam record, because, well, he was there. This argument has the unstated assumption that he can allege anything at all about his service -- even flat-out lie about it -- and we cannot question any of these claimed facts because, once again, he was there.

Well, as James Lileks points out, Bush was in the Texas Air National Guard; presumably, if Bush claimed to have repelled a VietCong air attack, no one would claim that this lie was above examining simply because Bush was there (that is, in the TANG).

Bush was at Yale and the Harvard Business School, and yet were he to claim to be a summa cum laude scholar, I don't think the media would give his lie a pass because he was there.

Kerry deserves credit for all the things he actually did in Vietnam. He does not deserve credit for things he did not do in Vietnam, even if he claims, dishonestly, that he did. The media has a strong interest in blurring the line between these two rather clear-cut categories; at some point it will have to give up the mantra that we're supposed to believe shameless lies simply because he was there.

Kerry deserves credit for being in Nam for four months. He does not deserve credit for being in Nam longer than that-- he filed Paperwork for Papercuts in order to get out of Nam as soon as possible. (Even a bit sooner than that, it looks like.) He derves credit for serving four months; he does not deserve credit for serving a full tour, which he did not serve, the same as a man who donates $50 to a worthy cause deserves $50 worth of respect, not $5000 worth, even if he falsely claims to have donated $5000.

He was there is not a license to lie.

And, PS, media: As regards Cambodia, he wasn't there, so I don't understand how the he was there defense is even applicable.

Posted by: Ace at 11:10 AM | Comments (1)
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Funny, funny site.

Thanks to Jeremy.

For a moment, I was pissed off at how professional (and funny) this site was.

Turns out it's National Lampoon. Whew.

Posted by: Ace at 09:27 AM | Comments (7)
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Funny stuff from The Onion.

It's funny. It's funny and it's true.

Thanks to Lucianne.com.

Posted by: Ace at 01:30 PM | Comments (19)
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The Crush Kerry website may have a problem.

I'm told that whatever outfit is running their commenting software is not only not doing his job properly -- people are attempting to sign up for comments and yet not being permitted to comment -- but then he's rude to those who write polite emails about this problem. He's telling one person she should "go back to Russia" and calling her an idiot.

An idiot, because she was asking for help.

I'm posting this in hopes that Crush Kerry will check their trackbacks and become aware of this problem.

And also, because I've experienced something similar. Back when I started this blog, the Ann Coulter Fan Site message boards linked me, and of course I wanted to read what they were saying. But even reading those boards required registration.

So I registered.

And registered.

And registered.

And registered.

I was unable to actually access the site.

I asked people who were posting there to mention this problem directly to the webmaster. They did, but I was never contacted, nor was the problem fixed.

I emailed the webmaster four times explaining the problem. All of the letters were polite. I never even received a reply.

I don't know if this is coincidence or conspiracy, incompetence or intentional act.

But it seems to me there may be a lot of very left-wing nastygeeks working at these outfits, and some of them may be engaging in a bit of politically-motivated vindictiveness as regards customers they don't agree with. Probably a bit of freelancing their employers don't know about.

I don't know if Crush Kerry is paying anything for the service, but if they are, they might want to re-evaluate their use of that service until the employee involved is disciplined or fired.

Maybe Not Entirely a Conspiracy: A correspondent says that the Ann Coulter boards are among the buggiest on the planet. Fair enough-- but all those emails without so much as a reply?

Ann Coulter is paying her webmaster, surely. So this isn't some gratis service where one can say "You get what you pay for."

Very odd. I'd've never mentioned it, except for the fact that Crush Kerry's webmaster is now calling readers "idiot."

As Kausfiles says: Two incidences constitute a trend!!!

Related Point: Liberals talk a lot about the untrammelled right to free expression-- at least when one of their own is being "censored."

I notice, however, that when liberals actually control an institution -- Hollywood, academia, the great publishing houses -- they're none to eager to help those they disagree with have their voices heard.

Ann Coulter's first book was fairly obviously destined to be a best seller. And yet all the big publishers passed.

Her second book was now very obviously destined to be best seller, as the first one had been; all the big publishers passed again.

I don't know if she even tried to get her third book published by one of the big houses, but I'm sure that even if she had, they all would have passed on this now two-time best-seller.

Mel Gibson's pro-Christian (and therefore pro-conservative, it is generally thought) Passion of the Christ couldn't get financed by anyone; he financed it out of his own pocket. And it took forever to land a distributor; he finally convinced a small distributor to "take a chance" on a film that was pretty much guaranteed to turn a nice profit. (Maybe no one expected it to gross $300 million, but everyone knew a Mel Gibson directed Jesus story, made for peanuts, would in fact easily make back its costs several times over.)

We are currently seeing a barrage of leftist documentaries, and films with strong anti-Bush or leftist messages (The Manchurian Candidate, for one). We know that in fact conservatives number anywhere from 150% to double the number of liberals; one would think that if Hollywood saw potential profits in leftist documentaries, it would also see 150% to double the profits in right-leaning documentaries.

And yet there are none. (Apart from the microbudgeted Michael Moore Hates America, which no one outside of the Instapundit blogcircle has ever even heard of.)

Conservative academics in left-dominated fields are commonly told by their mentors that they have almost no chance of tenure at universities; they are advised to work for a think tank, or pursue their academic interest as an amateur or popular writer.

And the newsmedia?

Are you joking?

I would have a little more sympathy for leftists crying "censorship" if they could demonstrate a bit of the even-handedness and regard for free expression they whine so much about when they are the ones in power-- which, in many cases, they are.

Do as they say, not as they do.

Seems to me the moment they control an institution they immediately set about punishing/censoring speech they don't agree with and using the colossal power of major establishment institutions to promote speech they agree with. And only that kind of speech.

Coulter Boards Mystery Solved: Not any partisanship going on, just an absentee webmaster from whom none of the moderators have heard in quite some time.

So it's not, as of yet, a trend at all. Drat. And here I was all full of frothing rage.

Posted by: Ace at 01:10 PM | Comments (14)
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California private "alternitve" school for Latinos forced to shut down its phoney diploma operation, after teaching kids a whole bunch of "facts" that aren't so factual.

Good stuff:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A chain of private California schools that taught immigrants there are 53 U.S. states and four branches of the U.S. government was ordered to stop handing out phony diplomas this week, state Attorney General Bill Lockyer said on Friday.

...

The company charged its mainly Latino students $450 to $1,450 for a 10-week course based on a 54-page book that was riddled with errors, according to a lawsuit filed on Monday.

Students learned that Congress had two houses -- the Senate for Democrats and the House for Republicans; that the U.S. flag had not been updated to reflect the addition of Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico to the "original" 50 states; that the federal "administrative" branch oversees the Treasury Department (news - web sites); and that World War II occurred from 1938 to 1942.

...

The workbook also refers to the play, "Death of a Traveling Salesman," not Arthur Miller's classic "Death of a Salesman."

Thanks to The Perfect World.

Top Ten Other Necessary Corrections to "Facts" Taught to Students at Fraudulent Latino Alternate School

10. Contrary to the school's textbook, the National Anthem is The Star Spangled Banner, not Maria from West Side Story

9. There is no requirement that the President, before taking office, must track and kill a panther using only his bare hands

8. The Framers of the Constitution did not include Martin Luther King, Jr., Caesar Chavez, or Walter "Sweetness" Payton

7. Patriotic pampheteer Tom Paine should not be credited as having originated the aphorism "If there's grass on the infield, play ball"

6. The process for amdending the Constitution is not divided into Talent and Swimsuit Competitions

5. The War of 1905 occurred between Russia and Japan, not, as the textbook incorrectly states, between Russia and "Steve"

4. "Steve" is also not responsible for the Bataan Death March

3. The Articles of Confederation failed because they did not provide for a strong federal executive, not "because they lacked a 99 Cent Value Menu"

2. The current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is not Oscar de la Hoya

...and the Number One Necessary Correction to "Facts" Taught to Students at Fraudulent Latino Alternate School...

1. The Statue of Liberty is not intended to depict Agent 99 from Get Smart

Posted by: Ace at 11:09 AM | Comments (13)
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Non-Timing of Non-Alert Said to be "Suspicious"

I can't wait for Oliver Willis and Josh Etc. Marshall to start spinning this, in perfect contradiction of their previous positions ("Alerts are bad; they do nothing but scare us and gin up pro-Bush support").

The fact that they haven't yet commented is evidence that even they are aware how tricky it will be to make hay out of this. They're both right now trying to figure out how they can now say "No alerts=politically timed" whereas they've been screaming "Alerts=politically timed" for at least a year.

Well, Marshall is trying to figure out how to argue that, at least. Oliver Willis is just eating Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, waiting for Josh Marshall to comment either way. Then he'll just link him and parrot him.

Update! Oh, Yeahhh!: Oliver Willis doesn't just drink the Kool-Aid, he's become the Kool-Aid.

Why wasn't I notified immediately?

Update to the Update! Oliver Willis is crying racism because, supposedly, blacks are said to be fond of "red" Kool Aid.

I am amused by Willis' casting of this insult into less-insulting terms. He prefers to think he's easily likened to the Kool Aid guy because he's black. He finds that nicer than the truth, and I don't blame him.

No, Oliver, you're being likened to the Kool Aid Jug Guy because you're 1) morbidly obese and 2) you've drank the Kool Aid, Jim Jones style.

But mostly, I think, because you're fat. Almost 90% that one.

Actually, 100% that one. The Jim Jones thing is just a "distraction" from the "real issue," which is that you're a big fat fatty-head. With a weight problem.

How I wish that when people criticized or insulted me I could just deny the obvious reason for the attack and blame it, through some self-defensive and convoluted reasoning, as "actually" being an attack on my race.

PS: The partisan hack Atrios apparently just discovered the racial slur database that Willis uses as his evidence of racism. Just another example of Willis parroting the words of others.

Remember-- this is the idiot who coined the (unfunny) expression "The Right Wing Wurltizer" to describe conservatives aping the talking points of other conservative bloggers and/or pols/hacks. The guy who uses "Wurlitzer" as an insult (not that that really makes any sense, when you think about it) himself does nothing except link and parrot the thoughts of others.

If any Willis readers are here (actually, I suspect Willis is here occasionally, since he suddenly has a Batman Begins link without any attribution), I pose the Willis Challenge:

Please link in the comments a post of Willis' in which he makes an observation or argument which is both original and substantive. The only seem to see hack, kneejerk sarcasm -- which is pretty easy to do, and I should know -- and parroting the talking points established by others.

Yet Another Teenage Update: Bill from INDC fisks the racial slur database -- some of these are just ridiculous; I can't believe that anyone every called a black person a "Sleestak" (the lizard creatures from Land of the Lost). Anyone calling blacks "Sleestaks" is obviously just not serious enough about his racism.

Sleestaks? Sleestaks? What on earth would be the point of such an insult? To make yourself look like a retard?

There's a good punchline at the end of Bill's post. Turns out Filet-O-Fish is guilty of vicious racial insensitivity himself.

And, in related news, Margaret Cho is complaining about racial insensitivity directed towards Asians. Apparently some people have taken to calling Asians "Mon Calamari," despite the fact that they are neither red nor especially lobster-looking:

She's also upset that some have taken to calling homosexuals "Uruk Hai," as in "Hey, look, there are some of those queerie Uruk Hai; let us harass them and steal their armor."

Posted by: Ace at 09:33 AM | Comments (31)
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Even those who had previously objected to tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve are now declaring "It's time."

Even if Bush doesn't want to tap the reserve, is it really necessary at this time to continue filling it? Can't that be delayed until prices moderate?

I half want him to tap it just to hear Joshua Micah Rosencrantz Guildenstern Marshall decry the "suspicious timing" of the move -- timing which would, I'm guessing, be even more suspicious than President Clinton's similar move in the late summer of 2000.

John Kerry will rip Bush for the "politically motivated decision" even as he, in the very next breath, takes credit for having suggested the idea a year ago (back when oil cost $35/bbl).

Meanwhile... Oil breaks the $45 mark on Mexico hurricane worries.

Posted by: Ace at 09:22 AM | Comments (12)
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The Worst Recovery Ever just keeps on producing strong numbers:

Nonfarm business productivity rose at a 2.9 percent annual rate in the second quarter, the Labor Department (news - web sites) said, well ahead of the 2 percent gain expected by Wall Street.

Labor costs also rose, which is portrayed in the article as "bad" (in that it adds to inflationary pressures), and yet I'm not sure it's such a bad thing that workers are getting paid more. Doesn't that usually indicate a tightening labor market? That ol' supply and demand thing?

Guess what?

Posted by: Ace at 09:13 AM | Comments (7)
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Michele is very annoyed by the pro-sex teen-porn Planned Parenthood is selling to children.

She notes something that I've long been angered about -- or at least I've been angered about it since I've been an adult:

Here, go look at this advice page. I'll wait.

Are you as appalled as I am? I hope so. Or am I just a prude or hopelessly naive when it comes to teens and sex? There are words on that page I never even heard of until I was in my 20's. Kids are doing things I haven't attempted myself. Anal sex? They are giving advice on anal sex to teenagers?

I don't buy into the "oh, they're going to do it anyhow, so let's just educate them properly about it" attitude. Maybe they are going to do it (it obviously including every kind of sex imaginable) but my daughter is not. Sure, sex can be wonderful and pleasurable and beautiful. But not when you're 14 and you don't fully understand the emotional consequences of giving it up at such an early age. How many 14 year old girls are going to remain with the guy they are with now? Does anyone tell these girls that 10 years from now they are going to most likely regret all of their sexual escapades? 14 year old girls go through guys faster than Jennifer Lopez. Are we supposed to believe that it is healthy for these girls to go down on every guy they date? I'm sorry, but a girl at this age is not capable of having a deep, meaningful, mutually respectful, healthy relationship that could withstand the emotions that come with intimately sharing your body with someone.

The liberal manner of discussing sex with children (have I mentioned these were children?) is to tirelessly promote it under the guise of "just being honest."

But they're not being honest. Here's honest advice about sex to a girl:

They guy you think you're in love with? You're not, and you'll break up within six months to a year. Most likely one or the other of you will cheat. If either of you go to college, forget about it.

You know all that stuff about sex being safe if you're "careful" about it and you "communicate your fears and desires with your partner"? That's bullshit. You're not careful about sex (no teenager is terribly careful) and you'll be pregnant within a year if you keep having sex. Every time you have sex you have about a 10% chance of getting knocked up (nearly 100% if your boyfriend "forgets" to pull out) and there's almost no way to avoid getting pregnant with those odds.

And your boyfriend doesn't want you "communicate your fears and desires." He just wants to have sex, preferrably without a condom, and he doesn't much care about what your "fears and desires" on that score might be. When he knocks you up, the best you can hope for is half-payment for your abortion.

You might not think an abortion is a big deal, but you almost certainly will once you have one. Sex won't seem like such innocent fun at that point, and you'll probably either recoil from having sex or demand that your boyfriend wear a condom each and every time from that point on. He won't like either of those, and within a few months he'll break up with you in order to have sex with someone more willing to have unprotected sex.

By the way: Did I mention that you're not really in love? That "special" feeling you're feeling is actually not special at all; you'll feel that "special" feeling hundreds of times in your life. It lasts about a month and half, before which either you or more likely your boyfriend will get that "special" feeling about someone else entirely.

The kid you're going to get pregnant with, on the other hand, will last about 70-75 years.

PS: You also run a smaller chance of contracting an STD.

Have fun!

Now, that's the straight truth about teenaged sex. When I was a teenage male myself, I didn't want girls thinking about any of that; I just wanted to get laid.

But the above is, of course, the truth, and all adults know it. And we all know it because we've all lived through it, or at least much of it. What we haven't lived through ourselves, we've heard about from friends.

Which makes it seem odd to me that adults at Planned Parenthood are selling teenaged sex as something it isn't.

If they want to tell "the truth about sex" -- why not state all of the above?

They're only interested in "the truth about sex" to the extent that "truth" makes sex seem fun, safe, and benign.

Liberals remain in a state of arrested development, in which they are always "rebellious" (read: slavisly trendy) teenagers. They have some deep need to seem "cool" or "with it," which is, frankly, something most people also need, but the terms by which they evaluate their "with-it-ness" remain more or less the same terms employed by a 16-year-old.

No teenager wants to sound "uncool" by knocking sex or by urging caution about it, which is understandable-- they're teenagers. Idiots, in other words.

But what precisely is the excuse for an adult liberal? How many young girls have to get knocked up due to your terrible, reckless advice, just because you have a borderline-pathological need to not seem "unhip" to a child?

Posted by: Ace at 08:33 AM | Comments (9)
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