Earlier this week, Italy got the ball rolling on the worldÂ’s longest suspension bridge, picking the contractor for their double six-lane-highwayed, four-railway-tracked goliath that will finally connect Sicily to the mainland.

I didnÂ’t even know they were building the thing. Yet again, no one tells me anything. And I sort of thought they already had a bridge there. Guess not. (They probably held off for as long as they could, but the SicialiansÂ’ complaints that the ferry ride made their donkeys seasick got to be too much.)

Anyway, I was going to use the occasion to do a little post-up on maybe the worldÂ’s longest suspension bridges - who this jumbo is knocking down the list, maybe links to nice pictures. Who doesnÂ’t like bridges, huh?

But then I noticed that the way they rank the things is screwed up. The longest isnÂ’t necessarily the longest. Your Mackinac suspension bridge, connecting MichiganÂ’s LP to UP, is over five miles long, but the Sicilian one, supposedly the worldÂ’s longest, is only two and half.

So what’s the deal? Apparently, the anal retentive bridge-nazis rank the things by “Span"

he general rule in judging record-breaking bridges seems to be to consider the longest span, or the longest point-to-point connection without a pier or arch underneath.

That got me pretty steamed at the bridge crowd, of course. Who is this shadowy cabal that they should tell me how to rank the things? Piers? What's that? When you're traveling across water, if you ain't on a boat, you're on 'bridge' my friend. No two ways about it.

(I’d like to get one of those schmucks in the car with me, get out a mile on the Mackinac, hundreds off feet up in the air and have them explain how we’re not on the “Bridge” part yet. “Oh, really, Mr. Bridge-Know-It-All? How bout you just step over the side and walk to the ‘Bridge’ part. I’m gonna keep using this crazy ‘elevated-over-water-but-not-a-bridge-thing’ and I’ll meet you there. Get going.” We'll see how much you’re talking about ‘piers and arches’ then, asshole.)

Yes, I got real steamed. But then I thought, “Reo, just do your own list, the way you damn well wanna, and if they're gonna cause trouble, let ‘em.” I would take them on.

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Posted by: Dr. Reo Symes at 05:45 PM | Comments (39)
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The good Dr. Reo Symes already posted this, but really, as the the Today show triumphantly squawks about a "staged" Presidential interview with the troops, how delicious is it that a Today show newswhore gets caught faking a flood report?

She notes that this street has "become part of the Passaic River" and that it's very hard to "control a canoe or a boat" in the water. Well, perhaps.

But you don't really need a canoe or boat when the water is ankle deep, as two guys walking across her shot demonstrate mid-burble.

Posted by: Ace at 11:21 AM | Comments (13)
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Michelle Malkin notes (in a bottom-post update) that Howard Dean's favorite singer, Wycliffe Jean, stated that "Father Saddam cries in prison" at the Several-Thousand Man March today.

Thanks to Allah.

Posted by: Ace at 11:17 AM | Comments (21)
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In his blog, he says they only did what anyone would -- think about their answers beforehand and practice with the microphone so they wouldn't choke on TV.

All of this is stupid. If the men were "coached" in the sense that they were told to say things they didn't believe, that's a major embarassment and an ill-using of our soldiers.

On the other hand, if this was just a pre-interview sort of thing -- for crying out loud, most people pre-interview. Even on my own dinky little webcast show, I pre-interview and say stuff like "Make sure you say that in the interview, and if I forget to prompt you, bring it up yourself. That's good stuff." And sometimes something interesting will be said during the commercial break, and I'll say "Okay, I don't want to waste that. I'll ask you that again during the show."

The media has been doing exactly this for 60 years and now acts shocked, shocked! to find out that interviews are frequently practiced beforehand and are not purely spontaneous. And that the questions and answers aren't exactly a surprise for either the interviewer or interviewee.

I mean, it's not like editors at the New York Times were caught inserting/suggesting their own words into an essayists personal testimonial or anything.

Posted by: Ace at 10:49 AM | Comments (48)
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Five bombings, only three deaths reported, of Iraqi soldiers killed far from a polling place by a roadside bomb.

This won't be a magic bullet, but each stage of the political process drains support from the insurgency by simply making it that much more obvious that the new Iraqi government is here to stay.

Duly Noted-- The Dogs That Didn't Bark: James notes that no one at the Daily Kos seems to have heard the news that the vote was a great success.

And Oliver Willis, talking up chaos and violence and blackouts and failure just 48 hours ago, hasn't said a word about the election.

His only post today (after the success of the elections was known) is a typically empty burbling about the need for a new black leadership, something that can be written any day of the year.

It's the equivalent of saying "It sure would be nice to cure cancer in our lifetimes." Gee, ya think?

Okay, in fairness, I didn't know the Several-Thousand Man March was held today. I remember sending Louis Farrakhan money for my tickets (I never miss it!) but never received them.

Still. Seems like there's a bigger and more surprising story than "Louis Farrakhan ill-serves the black community" today.

Posted by: Ace at 10:37 AM | Comments (9)
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When other Syrian ministers can't help but giggle at calling this a "suicide," you kind of have to start to wonder about it.

Posted by: Ace at 05:11 PM | Comments (3)
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Get your entries in by 11:59 Sunday ET over at Dave's. The winner will receive a DVD of the new James Bond's crime film, Layer Cake (widescreen, of course).

Here's one:

You only live twice
Once when you're born
and once when you look death in the face.

Okay, not really mine. That's literally a James Bond haiku, a haiku written by 007 himself, when he immerses himself into Japanese culture in the book You Only Live Twice (and gives the novel a name, to boot).

Notice: Loose shit on the syllables. So don't give me any crap when I don't follow the supposedly-proper format. I'm just emulating 007.

Posted by: Ace at 05:08 PM | Comments (29)
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The Emotional One calls NRO's anti-Miers writers "bullies" and tells them they can "go pull a Cheney," i.e., fuck off.

Sullivan ♥ Miers.

Scrolling down, he quotes The Metaphysical Girl Madonna "defending" religion. At least a goofy new-age/Old Testament kaballa/yoga "Energy" worshipping religion, at least. He's very heartened by that.

Finally, he makes a good point. A psychologist has urged terming suicide-bombing "altruistic suicide." Altruistic! Killing dozens of innocent people!

There are a couple of things wrong with this. First of all, of course, the dipshit death-loving psychologist chooses a deliberately positive word -- "altruistic" -- to describe the mass murder of innocent strangers. His point, such as it is, is that this sort of suicide (actually, homicide with an extra victim) is distinct psychologically from run of the mill suicides. Well, no shit. Run of the mill suicides don't have a bodycount exceeding one.

But he feels that this is sufficiently different to need a new term. Rather than choosing a neutral terminology -- such as "ideology-driven suicide" or "belief-based suicide/homicide" -- he chooses the term "altruistic," which is probably the mindset of the killer, but since when do we strain to look at mental disorders from the point of view of the criminally insane? Shall we now call "psychopaths" what they think of themselves as, "The Gods Who Walk The Earth And Prove Their Divinity By Taking The Lives of Mortals"?

Yes, here's a reasonable situation for the Excitable One to get excited. It would be one thing if this cocksucker proposed a purely neutral, clinically-nonjudgmental terminology. Instead, he injects moral judgment into his new coinage -- a judgment of full-fledged moral approval.

Unbelievable.

Oh, and? By the way? This really isn't that different from normal suicide in terms of motivation. Suicides are usually caused by narcissism, a desire to be noticed, and a desire to escape a bad circumstance. Considering the fact that Palestinians now frequently employ retarded teenagers as suicide bombers, it would seem that many suicide bombings are just animated by the same craving of attention and sympathy and need to escape as regular suicides.

Except, of course, they choose to enlist other people involuntarily into their suicide.

Thanks to Allah.

Posted by: Ace at 05:04 PM | Comments (26)
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Ever wonder what it might be like to play a FPS (first person shooter) while drunk? Well, wonder no longer.

Now that might get me to play online...!

Posted by: Harry Callahan at 03:25 PM | Comments (5)
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A memo slams the other actors considered for the role:

British actor Daniel Craig was confirmed as the sixth 007. He will be the first blond Bond - and, at 6ft, the shortest.

But according to a leaked memo from film producers, Craig was head and shoulders above his rivals for the part.

Hugh Jackman, it read, was "too fey", Colin Farrell "too sleazy", Eric Bana "not handsome enough" - and Ewan McGregor "too short" at 5ft10.

The email, from Cubby Broccoli's Eon Productions, added that Barbara Broccoli had championed Craig.

Jackman "too fey"? Whatever. There's not a chance in hell they could have gotten Jackman or Ferrell.

Thanks Dr. Reo Symes.

Posted by: Ace at 11:54 AM | Comments (43)
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