Whatever that means. I think it's a sort of service where they alert you when one of the blogs you've subscribed to updates.

It's free to subscribe. I wish I could tell you this is a great service you absolutely need to sign up for, but I can't, because I haven't used it yet, and I don't know how the hell to use it at all.

But I do know that Rusty Shackleford told me I should do this some time ago, and he's a Professor, so I thought I should listen to him. Professors "know shit."

This is a cutting-edge blog, all right.

Ummmm... Forget it for now. It's not working. At least I don't think it's working. The thing isn't even connected to this blog. I think I just created some new blog on bloglines.

I'll have to ask Rusty Shackleford about this. Or Allah. He seems to get it.

Posted by: Ace at 10:36 PM | Comments (11)
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I was suprised that some readers were surprised that John Forbes Kerry -- he who "volunteered" and said "send me" -- actually attempted to avoid service in Vietnam altogether, and, failing that, signed up with an outfit which was at the time not engaged in combat and promised to be a safe billeting.

It's true, and it's utterly uncontrovertible, which is why the media never mentions it. They can't argue against the facts, so they simply don't report the facts, and allow the suggestions of the Kerry campaign to carry the day unchecked.

DelphiGuy provides this link.

A sample:

Senator John Kerry, the presumed Democratic presidential candidate who is trading on his Vietnam war record to campaign against President George W Bush, tried to defer his military service for a year, according to a newly rediscovered article in a Harvard University newspaper.

He wrote to his local recruitment board seeking permission to spend a further 12 months studying in Paris, after completing his degree course at Yale University in the mid-1960s.

The revelation appears to undercut Sen Kerry's carefully-cultivated image as a man who willingly served his country in a dangerous war - in supposed contrast to President Bush, who served in the Texas National Guard and thus avoided being sent to Vietnam.

The Harvard Crimson newspaper followed a youthful Mr Kerry in Boston as he campaigned for Congress for the first time in 1970. In the course of a lengthy article, "John Kerry: A Navy Dove Runs for Congress", published on February 18, the paper reported: "When he approached his draft board for permission to study for a year in Paris, the draft board refused and Kerry decided to enlist in the Navy."

But don't expect to read about this is Douglas Brinkley's haigiography:

A newly-published biography of Sen Kerry by Douglas Brinkley, A Tour of Duty, makes no mention of the requested deferment or planned year in Paris. At the time, it was still unclear just how long America would remain in Vietnam, and it might have seemed that a year's deferral of service could render enlistment unnecessary.

And don't expect a mention from Chris Matthews, Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, the other alte kacher on CBS (accursed be his name always), or any of the other libdweeb newstwits populating our airwaves.

Kerry's own diary and previously-published remarks admit that, in choosing the Swift Boats, he did not intend to go to war. He did not expect to go to war. He expected to be safely off the coasts of Vietnam. (The Cong & NV were not known at the time for their blue-water navy capabilities.) Like other men at the time, he chose to "volunteer" under the gun, choosing a safer area of military service than the likely assignment should he be drafted (i.e., Army infantry or Marines).

Not unlike, actually, George W. Bush of the Texas Air National Guard (or Al "Scoop" Gore, for that matter).

It turned out that the Swift Boats were then deployed into more-hazardous river patrol duties, but Kerry himself admits he wasn't expecting that when he signed up.

Again, all of this is uncontroverted. No one disputes this. But once again, the media uses its power to supress inconvenient facts to avoid any need of disputing them at all.

The hell of it is, of course, that even with all of this obvious-reluctance to go to Vietnam, John Forbes Kerry could still have had a decent story to tell-- had he told the truth. If he had forthrightly admitted he sought to avoid service, but served honorably nevertheless when he could not avoid doing so, he'd still get credit for someone who did his duty, albeit reluctantly.

The same as a million other men who did their duty-- reluctantly.

But Kerry has never wanted to actually be seen as just like "a million other men." He's never accepted the mere status as "veteran;" he's always insisted on being a war hero. Not one among a Band of Brothers, but the Noble Class among them.

He could have simply told the truth. But he lied, and he continues to lie, claiming again and again to have "volunteered" out of sheer guts and principle to defend our nation. He doesn't think the mundane truth is sexy enough, so he's concocted a Bright Shining Lie.

I'll let DelphiGuy conclude for me:

I can't blame people for not wanting to go to war, nor could I blame them for joining up so they could pick a relatively safe assignment.

I'll grant any human being that right whether it be Bush, Kerry or Clinton.
However, don't come out with self-aggrandizing speeches on the issue which belie your recorded stances and feelings on the matter.

Posted by: Ace at 09:52 PM | Comments (7)
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And I'm sure you're all crushed to hear the arrogant nation in question is France:

British bureaucrats are racking up one success after another in securing coveted posts in the new European Commission to the chagrin of the French, who have traditionally dominated it.

...

The quiet summer coup by the British has set off a fresh bout of soul-searching in Paris, where angst over lost influence at the heart of the European Union has become a part of daily discourse.

Jean-Pierre Chevènement, the former interior minister, said this week that France had been brushed aside with the dud job of transport commissioner while the Anglo-Saxon camp had walked off with all the prizes. "It's undeniable that the free-marketeers and Atlanticists have taken the lion's share in this commission," he told Le Figaro.

With job selection barely beginning for the next five-year term, the British have netted the powerful cabinet jobs in the external relations, budget and trade directorates.

The French are trailing so far with only one senior appointment: competition policy. It is a poor showing for a country that has always regarded the commission as a branch of its own civil service.

The British-led "counter-revolution" in Brussels has been gathering pace with the arrival of the Austrians, Swedes and Finns over the past decade, but it has now shifted into a higher gear after the "Big Bang" enlargement of the former communist states in Eastern Europe.

Michel Barnier, the foreign minister, tacitly acknowledged yesterday that France had paid a price for its high-handed treatment of the new EU states and failure to grasp that Paris no longer had the clout to impose diktats on Brussels.

"France is not great when it is arrogant. It is not strong if it is alone," he told senior French ambassadors. "France certainly has to conduct its own diplomatic action without shrinking back, but it increasingly has need of others. And the first reflex, I say bluntly, must be European."

Let me be more blunt: France's first reflex must be non-cocksucking. It's second reflex can be "European," but honestly, the big problem here is the cocksucking. It's the cocksucker-tendencies that really irk.

Posted by: Ace at 09:39 PM | Comments (6)
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Josh Marshall Speculates Terrorists Seek to "Distract" From Bush's Bumbling Performance at Upcoming Convention

Terrorism is now the likely cause of the double bombings.

Well, that's not really a shock.

As much as the liberals would like to pretend that Bush is fighting a "fictitious war" against a "fictitious threat," inconvenient reality keeps intruding.

Add another 150 Russians to the bodies that liberals have to wish away in order to maintain their illusion that Love Is the Answer.

How many deaths will liberals' delusions withstand?

As John Forbes Kerry (probably) asked in 1971-- "Who wants to be the last man to die-- for a lie?"

I sure don't. I don't know why Matt Fucking Damon does.

Posted by: Ace at 06:23 PM | Comments (20)
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For some time, I've been casting about looking for guest contributors who could help shoulder the blogging load. Recently I received the following essay in an email, and I think the writer's words are important for all of us.

If You Touch My Hoagie One More Time, I Will Fucking Kill You

by Rich "Psycho" Giamboni
Special Guest Columnist for Ace of Spades HQ

If you touch my hoagie one more time, I will fucking kill you. I don't mean that metaphorically. I mean I will fucking reach across this table and literally, physically kill you.

You had your fun. You thought you were cute. You thought it was clown-time, and you were driving the little car. You touched the top of my turkey and provolone hoagie, and now I've had to rip off the piece of bread that you fucking contaminated.

Well I've got news for you, Chuckles. Clown-time is over. Now it's Psycho-Time. And if you touch my goddamned hoagie one more time, I'm going to fuck you up so bad you'll end up looking like Kuato from Total Recall.

Don't believe me? Think I'm joshing with you? Look at my face: I am not joshing with you, pal. I am deadly serious, and if you so much as fucking lay another finger on this sandwich you'll enter a world of hurt of beyond your very capability to conceive. No fuckin' foolin', you touch this hoagie one more time and I will spill life's blood all over this fucking Quizno's.

You finished your fucking cobb salad and now you're still hungry. Well, Poindexter, who the fuck told you to order that fucking cobb salad? I sure as shit didn't. You looked up at all the delicious, filling sandwiches you could have had and instead you went all queerbait on me. That was a mistake, amigo. That was a very bad mistake.

But I implore you-- if you value your very life, don't compound your error by touching my hoagie again. I shit you not, that will be the very last mistake you ever make.

Okay, okay. Now you're getting "funny" again. Now you're holding your hand a couple of inches away from my hoagie. Well aren't you cute? You're like a sixteen-year-old girl who just got her tits looking all sweet and ripe in her party dress. You're a doll, Susan. You're an absolute plum.

But if your fucking hand actually crosses the sandwich Rubicon, I am going to go apeshit up and down your spine. I am going to punch your fucking kidneys until you piss blood out of your fucking eyeballs.

Think I'm being farcical? Think I'm just "pulling your leg"? Right now I'm a 747 filled with only flying elbows and head-butts and I'm running an ad that says "Fly Me." You want to fly me? I offer Frequent Flyer Miles for fuckers who touch my sandwich. I'll take you to hell and back-- no extra charge.

You want to know how serious I am? You know that part in Dirty Harry when he says, "Go ahead, make my day?" Well imagine Clint Eastwood with a fucking turkey and provolone hoagie he's been looking forward to since 10:30 AM.

That's how fucking shit-serious I am, baby. You touch my hoagie again, I'm going to Dead Pool your grinning fucking face until I turn your brain into a slushing mess resembling gray applesauce.

I've got a little switch in my head. I call it my "Psycho Switch." And you're about to flip it. You flip that Psycho Switch, and I go into Full Retard Berserker Mode. I'll come at you with 100% retard-strength. I'll be all over you like a whirlwind of spazz-slaps and drool.

We don't have to go down this road, Chester. If you want a sandwich, they'll make you another one. Don't let your urge to nosh lead you into the grave. But if you want to play, we can play. I consider myself a bit of a "gamer."

So go ahead. Roll the dice. Let's see how all this plays out. But I warn you: This isn't Yahtzee. You won't be collecting pairs of fives. You'll be collecting your fucking teeth out of the Condiments Bar.

You're pulling your hand away now. Congratulations -- you chose wisely, my friend.

And now you're looking up at the menu-display over the cashier's heads. You're smartening up by the minute, Chief. Buy yourself a nice toasted ham and swiss sandwich. Ain't no lie, a nice toasted ham and swiss sandwich beats a trip to the morgue every day of the week, hands down. And that's the name of that tune.

Oh, and-- while you're up? Do me a solid and and grab me a pack of barbeque-flavor Ruffles. I forgot to get them. Thanks.

Rich "Psycho" Giamboni is an award-winning columnist for Hearst Newspapers. His most recent book is Take Back What You Said About Kevin McHale Or I Will Take a Shit in Your Jeep. His column appears here while Helen Thomas is vacationing.

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah: This set-up is Onion-esque. So friggin' what? Psycho Giamboni can write what he wants.

Posted by: Ace at 02:09 PM | Comments (26)
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Two polls are a trend:

Bush's favorable rating of 54% was his highest since April. By contrast, Kerry's 52% was his lowest since January.

Bush dominated on personal traits such as "honest and trustworthy" and "stands up for what he believes in." But Kerry continued to lead Bush when people were asked who would better handle taxes, education, Medicare and the economy.

The Lead May Not Be Big, and It Might Not be Permanent, But It Is Real Update: How do I know?

I know because the Kerry Camp believes it's real. The "let's debate once a week" ploy was last trotted out when Kerry was an unknown candidate well behind Bush in the polls. We didn't hear anything about weekly debates when Kerry was ahead in the polls, now did we?

The Poverty Figures Aren't Enough To Help You, So Stop Dancing Like a Jackass Update: Poverty climbs 4%; Kerry's retarded celebrations climb 40%.

Update: LAT Poll Shows Push Pulling Ahead in 3 Battlegrounds: Now up in MO, OH, WI.

But...

New FoxPoll shows dead heat, with Kerry up eleven points (49-3 in battlegrounds. (This particular finding has a MOE of +/- 6, though.)

Possible Correction: Clark says I might have misheard; he thinks that this referred to independents in swing states only, which is a little better (but not much). But he's not quite sure either-- this item really did whir by.

More: Edges Kerry in PA among LV's?

Update: Fred Barnes, at the end of the Brit Hume show, mentions that he knows that Kerry thinks he's in trouble because he's asking for weekly debates. Advantage-- Ace of Spades HQ by an hour.

Posted by: Ace at 12:55 PM | Comments (9)
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The SwiftVet who served on John Forbes Kerry's boat -- the man the media is forever claiming simply does not exist -- calls him a liar on his one-man SuperCommando Cambodia Incursion.

Related: Kausfiles thinks he spies a sea-change in the Conventional Wisdom.

But don't get cocky yet. The Conventional Wisdom is always wrong. That's why they call it conventional wisdom rather than just "wisdom."

Connected to the Main Item by "Shadowy Links": Not-glaringly-unfair-or-biased AP account of John O'Neill.

John Forbes Kerry's first line of defense -- let the liberal media completely ignore the story and thereby suppress it -- has failed.

His second line of defense -- let the liberal media "debunk" the story using selective evidence and charges of "partisan interests" (all the while failing to comprehend that perhaps John Forbes Kerry's campaign has a "partisan interest" in his alleged record as well) also just jumped the shark.

The third and last line of defense is a direct personal refutation of the charges. He's always hoped to avoid that, and it's not clear he can convincingly manage it, even with his liberal media Spirit Squad cheering him on.

But They're Still Trying, Bless Their Hearts: Newsweek, one of the most reliably partisan rags around, claims that stuff we already knew (the official reports say that there was "small arms fire" during Kerry's Bronze Star engagement) proves the case that Thurlow & Co. are lying.

What about the obvious rejoinder that Kerry wrote the after-action report?

Lambert’s surviving military records do not include the initial recommendation for this medal, so there is no way to know who filled the required role of witness to vouch for Lambert’s actions. But the citation contains such detail about the actions of both Thurlow and Lambert—actions that Kerry cannot have known since his launch was on the far side of the river—that it seems implausible Kerry could have written either the recommendation or this citation.

Oh, I see, it "seems implausible." There's no way that a man writing an after-action report for the entire sqaudron of boats could possibly have asked his fellow officers about their actions during the events before writing his report.

I mean, there you go right there. Check and mate. It "seems implausible" that Kerry asked Thurlow, "What were you doing during this event?"

This ridiculous bit of fancy relies upon the unstated and obviously-wrong assumption that a "report" can only contain reports of events witnessed first-hand, sort of like sworn court testimony. This is absurd; were this the case, no unit could submit a single after-action report, because each and every man would have to submit a personal report of what he personally did and saw.

Obvious, an after-action report for the entire unit will contain some reports of things seen by all and some reports of things seen by only some of the men-- not everything will be personally witnessed by the writer. It is, you see, a report, gathered from the unit as a whole, not the personal eyewitness testimony of the man writing the report.

This is so obvious that John Barry of course needs to suggest this assumption while not actually stating it; were he to state it, it would be blatantly obvious he's just making silly shit up.

If that's John Barry's notion of what a "report" is -- direct eyewitness testimony only -- than how on earth did he write his own report?

Since John Barry was not a direct eyewitness to any of the events he reports upon, it "seems implausible" that he could possibly have written this article. After all, "reporting" requires being a first-hand eyewitness to the events reported; as it "seems implausible" that John Forbes Kerry could possibly have written a report about events he did not personally or directly witness, it must also "seem implausible" that John Barry wrote his report.

Please tell me this is a joke. This is outrageous. The press is inventing rationales that "seem implausible" to "debunk" the SwiftVets.

Posted by: Ace at 12:39 PM | Comments (3)
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The liberals always claim that he didn't, or at least there's "no evidence" that he did.

Well, there is some evidence. In the form of John Forbes Kerry's 1971 (close to the events) recollection:

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's 1971 testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee reveals that the then anti-war activist admitted to writing many of the battle reports during his four months of combat in Vietnam.

Kerry told the committee on April 22, 1971, "...I can recall often sending in the spot reports which we made after each mission..."

Kerry also said that many in the military had "a tendency to report what they want to report and see what they want to see."

Found on FreeRepublic.

Posted by: Ace at 11:47 AM | Comments (2)
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He's an ace marksman, apparently, and he would have easily won the gold if Olympic rules did not bar superheroes like the Flash, Hulk, and Kim Jong Il from competing.

Remember: This man shot thirty-eight-under-par his first time golfing. (That's not a joke-- that's what the NK Press actually reported and stands by.)

And that's not the limit of his triumphs. (Okay, this one is a joke.)

Life Imitates Top Ten Lists: I am sometimes scary-prescient:

3. Insists he could enter and win the Tour de France, "if he felt like it"

Okay, the Olympics aren't the Tour de France, but I did get the "if he felt like it" part correct.

Posted by: Ace at 11:38 AM | Comments (4)
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Thanks for all the Cho-tips. I've got the main story on Yahoo now. I'm trying to think of something to do with the story.

Nick points me in a potentially fruitful direction -- she's releasing a "rap CD" on "health and nutrition" -- but if that picture on Drudge really is Cho, I might have to lay off the Cho-is-fat jokes.

OTOH, Vapid Vamp Wonkette seems to think it's not Cho, and castigates Drudge for posting a picture of one Asian in place of another.

I don't know. Compare:

The first picture says, "Love you long time." The second says, "It puts the lotion in the basket."

Either that first pic isn't Cho or else she should marry that photographer and never be fifteen feet away from him for the rest of her life.

Update: Ryan tips that Wonkette has reversed herself:

We mocked Drudge, and now we have to give him the mad props for creative photo editing. Because this is Margaret Cho. We're guessing this 'undated' photo is from her anorexic pill-head days. We like her better now.

I should have known better than to rely on Wonkette. What could I have been thinking?

Rocketeer adds in the comments that this could just be a photography trick. Something about an 18mm lens. I have no idea what he's talking about, but it sounds good to me.

Another Correction: Johnny Catbird points out Cho's "book" isn't a book, but a "rap CD" on "health and nutrition." My apologies.

I read "rap CD on health and nutrition" but my brain just couldn't process such ridiculousness.

Posted by: Ace at 11:23 AM | Comments (11)
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