Sounds like the next Faulkner. Or Jacqueline Susanne. Whichever.

Josh and Ellen become Left Coast do-gooders. Greg becomes a sociopathic neoconservative journalist, the go-to guy for character assassinations conjured by a right-wing California senator. Boxer said that although she didn’t intend for the characters to represent the American political equation, “I hope people will understand the issues I raise about why people are blue or red or purple.”

Boxer said the novel explores “why people become liberals and conservatives. We explore the battle between liberals and conservatives at so many levels.”

The feting she gets from celebrities, who claim to have read her book (celebrities don't read books, or even scripts; they only read "coverages") is pretty amusing.

Posted by: Ace at 09:47 AM | Comments (29)
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Constant appeals for vigilance have a shelf life, its true. So how do you exhort commuters to keep an eye out for bad guys, when their eyes are glazed over from orange alert, yellow alert, etc.?

A little word play may be in order.

Five hundred Washington buses and about 90 subway cars now carry advertising posters with creative dictionary definitions of made-up words urging commuters to keep an eye out for danger and respect fellow travelers on the busy "Metro" system.

"Sumpnspicious," -- a play on the slang pronunciation of "something suspicious" -- is defined as "n. (noun) unattended package or odd, unusual behavior that is reported to a bus driver, train operator ... station manager or Metro Police."

Other definitions include "PlanBdextrous: ... adj. (adjective) able to plan an alternate route home in case Metro is inaccessible due to unforeseen circumstances."

"Tariq'scellphoneiswiredtohisduffelbag: what you might say to the police when you report 'sumpnspicious'"

OK, that last one was not in the article.

Posted by: LauraW. at 05:42 AM | Comments (13)
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I think this may be kinda old, but very cool nonetheless.

Local Eyam lore tells befuddling stories of plague survivors who had close contact with the [bubonic plague] bacterium but never caught the disease. Elizabeth Hancock buried six children and her husband in a week, but never became ill. The village gravedigger handled hundreds of plague-ravaged corpses, but survived as well. Could these people have somehow been immune to the Black Death?

Stephen O'Brien of the National Institutes of Health in Washington D.C. suggests they were. His work with HIV and the mutated form of the gene CCR5, called "delta 32," led him to Eyam. In 1996, research showed that delta 32 prevents HIV from entering human cells and infecting the body. O'Brien thought this principle could be applied to the plague bacteria, which affects the body in a similar manner.

Thanks to Kevin.

Posted by: Ace at 04:34 PM | Comments (13)
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Look at the pics. They seem to be whoopin' it up to me, having a grand old time.

Two-thousand zero-zero
party over, whoops, out of time
so tonight I'm going to party like it's 1999...

If the left doesn't want to be accused of delighting in the deaths of soldiers (aka "mercernaries"), maybe they shouldn't treat "vigils" for the dead of war like it's a tailgate party outside a fucking Phish concert.

Posted by: Ace at 03:08 PM | Comments (69)
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Third Quarter Annual GDP Growth Rate a Frisky 3.8%

- Economic activity expanded at an energetic 3.8 percent annual rate in the third quarter, providing vivid evidence of the economy's stamina even as it coped with the destructive forces of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The latest snapshot of the country's economic performance, released by the Commerce Department on Friday, even marked an improvement from the solid 3.3 percent pace of growth registered in the second quarter.

Growth in the third quarter was broad-based, reflecting brisk spending by consumers, businesses and government.

"Holy Katrina! The economy weathered two major hurricanes and in spite of that showed accelerated growth," said Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics. "I think what this shows is that fundamentally the economy was and is in really good shape."

In related news, Paul Krugman just tried to hang himself, but he was too f'n' short to reach the noose.

He blames Karl Rove.

Posted by: Ace at 02:40 PM | Comments (25)
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Just to improve morale. Content Warning. more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:52 PM | Comments (81)
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Mr. Wilson's original claims about what he found on a CIA trip to Africa, what he told the CIA about it, and even why he was sent on the mission have since been discredited. What a bizarre irony it would be if what began as a politically motivated lie by Mr. Wilson nonetheless leads to indictments of Bush Administration officials for telling reporters the truth.

From the WSJ, culled from FreeRepublic.

It's time for Congress to make a criminal referral to the Justice Department regarding Joe Wilson's serial perjury in his hearings. Although he admitted lying to the media -- calling it a "little dramatic flair" -- I do believe he continued to maintain his wife had nothing to do with sending him to Niger.

If we're going after perjurers, let's start with Perjurer Zero.

Posted by: Ace at 01:37 PM | Comments (30)
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Neat.

The correct genetic sequence is supposed to read A-T, C-G, A-T, A-T. But in dyslexics it reads T-A, G-C, T-A, T-A.

A geneticist was quoted as saying, "Well, I guess that kinda figures, right?"

Posted by: Ace at 01:23 PM | Comments (6)
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As of last night's report.

Now that Saint Fitzgerald has said, essentially, he cannot say that Plame was covert, will CNN stop referring to her as a "covert" "undercover" "spy"?

I rather doubt it.

Posted by: Ace at 01:13 PM | Comments (5)
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It's "unconstitutional" to preclude convicted sex-offenders from dispensing candy to children?

The ACLU's beef is, of course, that it's "unconstitutional" to continue heaping punitive punishments (not as redundant as it looks) on ex-convicts. But there are a lot of civil restrictions on ex-cons. Does the ACLU likewise support ex-cons' 2nd Amendment right to buy as many guns as they like?

I don't know the answer to that; it's possible that the ACLU's love of criminals trumps its hatred of guns, and maybe they actually do think that convicted armed robbers, killers, and rapists should have free access to handguns and shotguns.

But whatever their stance is-- it is not a criminal punishment to restrict the behavior of ex-cons as regards certain hazardous activities and purchases. It's a kind of regulation, really-- and liberals love regulation, don't they?

Banning convicted child molesters from participating in Halloween is not like denying them any place to live or any ability to work at any job. It's one day a year, a minor holiday, and one intended chiefly for children. Perverts can take the day off and save themselves the hassel of having to buy all those bags of miniature Clarke bars and just spend the night in the basement watching porn.

Posted by: Ace at 01:09 PM | Comments (10)
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