Bravo, sirs!

Get this information to DU ASAP.

Thanks to Matthew.

Posted by: Ace at 01:58 PM | Comments (9)
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Regarding the antipatriotic left's incessant whine that being unpatriotic is the truest form of patriotism....

...I have to observe that it's odd -- people who have spent the past year saying that Bush took us to war to enrich Halliburton somehow now think it's beyond the bounds of civilized discussion to question people's motives on the war.

-- Traffic Non-Santa

And yes, the left has expressly questioned the patriotism of its opponents on numerous occasions.

But let's say they didn't. (Although, you know, they did.) You're going to accuse people of murdering 2000 American soldiers to stuff money in the pockets of your "Republican friends" and win elections so that you turn the country into a fascist banna-republic junta-led despotism, and then you piously whine that it's off-limits to question your patriotism?

There's an expression first used by Voltaire as a rejoinder to such a claim. Although my French translation is sketchy, I think it goes something like, "Fuck you and the whores you rode in on."

If I've got this right, it's perfectly acceptable to say that Bush began a war he knew was unnecessary to help his Repubican "buddies," but it's outlandishly out-of-bounds to suggest that people who do nothing but slander America may be something less than fully on board with this whole "love of country" thing.

For God's sake-- the same people who claim to be such patriots spend half their time ridiculing patriotism as the precursor to Naziism. So, what, they're saying they fully endorse the initial stages of fascist militarism?

And on "helping Republican friends," once again, this time with feeling:

A friend is someone who'll help you move.

A best friend is someone who'll help you move... a dead body.

But a Republican friend is someone who'll start a "phony war of choice" based on "twisted intelligence" in order to build a Trans-Caspian Pipeline and/or give big contracts to Halliburton and then "smear" anyone with the "courage" to "speak Truth to Power."

Uhhhhh... no. On the few occasions I ask my "Republican friends" for favors, they say stuff like "Get a haircut, hippy" or "It was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve," which is actually sort of hurtful, because whose business is it if me and my friend Steve choose to always wear coordinated or "matched theme" outfits when we go out together?

Posted by: Ace at 01:40 PM | Comments (10)
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Aaron's cc is putting together a deck of playing cards with bloggers on each card, and he wants your votes.

He might sell them at some point, which I think is a pretty good idea. Hell, he'd have to expect to sell at least 500 or 1000 decks. Enough to justify a print run, I guess. (Honestly, I have no idea.)

And no, I don't need your help in voting, because he's already reserved the Ace of Spades for this site, which was really totally cool of him.

Then again, it would have been sort of confusing to have the two of diamonds also be the Ace of Spades.

Hey Now... Co-host Karol is on the list for the hearts suit. Give her a vote.

Posted by: Ace at 12:57 PM | Comments (7)
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Okay, so a lot of them are just plain fake. But they have important (bullshit) stories to tell anyway.

See-Dubya links to a take-down of the newest Fauxdie Murphy on the left -- warcrime fabulist Jimmy Massey -- and takes us down memory lane regarding the original, Micah Wright, who claimed on his blog that he was a Special Forces kill-crazy madman who saw "the shit" in Panama and you were an ignorant chickenhawk to dispute him.

Later it turned out that the most "military action" he'd seen was a brief stint as an ROTC officer, and the only "shit" he'd seen was doing jumping jacks on the field to the north of the Quad, and on top of that he'd left that program before completion for one reason or another. (I think it's because he was secretly "tapped" by the CIA for their special Mechwarrior force, codenamed "METALSTORM CRIMSON ULTRA.")

And, oh yeah, he happens to link a couple of my funny takedowns on this lying sonofabitch to boot.

I'm not reposting those-- See-Dubya is. But seriously, pretty good stuff I think.
Especially "Wea Culpa," my own brave confession about certain... inaccuracies about my own history that I've peddled in order to win arguments.

Posted by: Ace at 12:25 PM | Comments (11)
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Regarding San Fran's vote to encourage schools to ban military recruitment:

"You know, if I'm the president of the United States, I walk right into Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium and I say, 'Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds,' " O'Reilly said Tuesday on his radio show as San Franciscans were approving the two measures.

"Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead," O'Reilly went on. "And if al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead."

Strongly worded, maybe over the line (never cool for anyone to suggest that Al Qaeda should strike America), but there is a good point here, perhaps marred by the ill-advised statement about Coit Tower.

Honestly: If you are against the military, if you believe a smile can be your nuclear umbrella, then why shouldn't you live with the consequences of your beliefs?

It would never happen, of course, but it an experiment along these lines would have some value. True, the value would be gained at the expense of human lives, but a dangerous belief -- possibly one that could result in millions of lost American lives -- would be forever refuted.

Posted by: Ace at 12:14 PM | Comments (60)
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Don't pick a fight with a deranged retard. When enranged, they gain the strenght of twenty men, and come at you with full retard-strength fury, a cyclone of elbows and teeth and brightly-colored mismatched sneakers.

Check out her web-chat.

Omaha, Neb.: In Appendix 4 of the Independent Review Panel, Peter Tytell, a widely acknowledged typewriter and document examination expert concluded that "the Killian documents were generated on a computer" and that they "were not produced on a typewriter in the 1970s and therefore not authentic." Given his indisputable expertise, wouldn't this end the debate as to whether or not they were forgeries?

Mary Mapes: Not at all. Document analysts disagree all the time. That is the point of the profession. They serve as expert witnesses in cases all the time. It is an art and science that is more akin to hair analysis than to DNA testing.
Besides, there is no one typeface or document analysis God. They are many people with experience.

Note that these documant analysts who support the authenticity of the documents are not named.

One thing I thought was pretty funny was that, while Mary Mapes was blasting bloggers for casting doubt on the documents, she was more than happy to cite left wing bloggers making the (specious) case the documents were real. She didn't call them bloggers, though; she called them "experts."

I don't know if she's found real experts to authenticate these documents -- I pretty much doubt it -- so I'm guessing she's still relying on ultrapartisan lefty blogger "experts" as proof of the documents' authenticity.

Kinda funny. Bloggers are partisan and not to be trusted, unless they agree with you. Then they're the Gold Standard.

Are you gonna trust Mary Mapes, or your own lyin' eyes?

I don't understand why the MSM, when questioning her, simply doesn't put that .gif up and ask her to explain it.

Oh, wait, I do. First, it came from a partisan political operative, and second, the evidence is just too damning. They question her with some amount of toughness, but, at the end of the day, they want to leave the question open. Putting that graphic up simply closes the "debate" completely, and even Mapes' skeptics want to keep hope alive.

Journalism Is The First Draft of History, Book Deals Are the Baldfaced Lies of History Update: One of the document authenticators Mapes employed -- and then completely ignored -- calls Mapes on her various lies, ommissions, and distortions.

Best bit: A dog-ate-my-homework moment. Emily Will sent Mapes a .pdf file outlining her concerns and doubts about the documents, but Mapes claimed she couldn't open the file.

Another woman the file was sent to said she had no problem opening it.

Mapes read that goddamned file. She just wanted to feign ignorance, so she could tell her higher-ups that "experts agree this is authentic."

Thanks to Bart.

Posted by: Ace at 11:27 AM | Comments (27)
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Here. Skip past the interminable thank-yous.

Last month, the world learned of a letter written by al Qaeda's number two leader, a guy named Zawahiri. And he wrote this letter to his chief deputy in Iraq -- the terrorist Zarqawi. In it, Zawahiri points to the Vietnam War as a model for al Qaeda. This is what he said: "The aftermath of the collapse of American power in Vietnam -- and how they ran and left their agents -- is noteworthy." The terrorists witnessed a similar response after the attacks on American troops in Beirut in 1983 and Mogadishu in 1993. They believe that America can be made to run again -- only this time on a larger scale, with greater consequences.

Second, the militant network wants to use the vacuum created by an American retreat to gain control of a country -- a base from which to launch attacks and conduct their war against non-radical Muslim governments. Over the past few decades, radicals have specifically targeted Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and Jordan for potential takeover. They achieved their goal, for a time, in Afghanistan. And now they've set their sights on Iraq. In his recent letter, Zawahiri writes that al Qaeda views Iraq as, "the place for the greatest battle." The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. We must recognize Iraq as the central front in our war against the terrorists. (Applause.)

Third, these militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region, and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia. Zawahiri writes that the terrorists, "must not have their mission end with the expulsion of the Americans from Iraq." He goes on to say: "(T)he jihad ... requires several incremental goals. ... Expel the Americans from Iraq. ... Establish an Islamic authority over as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraq? Extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq."

With the greater economic, military and political power they seek, the terrorists would be able to advance their stated agenda: to develop weapons of mass destruction; to destroy Israel; to intimidate Europe; to assault the American people; and to blackmail our government into isolation.

Some might be tempted to dismiss these goals as fanatical or extreme. They are fanatical and extreme -- but they should not be dismissed. Our enemy is utterly committed. As Zarqawi has vowed, "We will either achieve victory over the human race or we will pass to the eternal life."

I could quote more, but I'd end up quoting the full thing. It's pretty strong stuff, an effective speech, persuasive to any who will listen.

Posted by: Ace at 11:13 AM | Comments (19)
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Bruce Willis rocks!

Posted by: Harry Callahan at 11:09 AM | Comments (6)
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He's supposedly died from unspecified causes. But consider the source:

One of Saddam Hussein's closest aides, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, has died, Iraq's former ruling Baath party says.

"The leader of the resistance... died on 11 November, at 0220 [Thursday 2320 GMT]," the statement said. There is no independent confirmation.

Mr Douri, 63, was the most senior figure in the former regime still at large. The US had offered a $10m reward for information leading to his capture.

In recent years he was accused of financing insurgent groups in Iraq.

It's quite possible he simply wished to retire from the fight, being too sick to continue, or worrying that we were getting to close to him, and so the Baathists are claiming he's dead.

We'll need to see the body, which of course will not be provided to us, unless it was important to him to, say, be buried with his family.

Posted by: Ace at 10:50 AM | Comments (5)
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He was attending a wedding with his daughter.

It's possible his killing will further alienate moderate Muslims:

Akkad also produced and directed "The Message" (1976), a film about Islam's prophet, Mohammed, and "Lion of the Desert" (1981), which tells the story of a Muslim rebel who fought against the Italy's World War II conquest of Libya. Both starred Anthony Quinn.

Then again, black Muslims protested the showing of The Message in America, so maybe not.

Thanks to Salomeh.

Posted by: Ace at 10:43 AM | Comments (4)
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