I still don't think it was intentional, or even a particularly noteworthy story, but I have no doubts that this fired operator pretty much sums up the consensus thinking at CNN.

This just goes back to my long-standing complaint that many, many liberals do not understand, or simply reject, the idea that there are some situations in which a political discussion is inappropriate. They have such a burning desire to prosyletize their politics they can't help themselves from making stridently political statements to almost complete strangers in inappropriate venues (a dinner party, during work while manning the complaint-lines).

Part of this is due to the fact that their politics are constantly reinforced by their fellows and by the "official" media/academic culture of the country. But a lot of it is due to the fact that talking liberalism is, for liberals, what bragging about frequent church-goin' is to the stereotypical Bible thumper that so fills their mindspace. It's a way of declaring their own superiority. Believing the right dogma -- and testifyin' about it, calling out "Can I get a witness?" -- makes them "good people," among the Chosen, among the Elect.

It's political Calvinism, and it's pretty fucking annoying.

Posted by: Ace at 09:20 AM | Comments (47)
Post contains 217 words, total size 1 kb.

Fortunately, the poll concerns M. Chirac of France.

The French people long for can-do confidence... such as will be on display in the new French version of Starsky and Hutch, to be called "Duval et Madani," featuring more "sensitive," less "macho" heroes.

The show is expected to be a hit among the key French demographic of 18-54 year old Total Fucking Pussies.

Did I tell you they were almost exactly 30 years behind us in virtually all endeavors or what? The thirty-year rule is sometimes painfully accurate.

Thanks to Utron for that last bit.

Posted by: Ace at 09:13 AM | Comments (13)
Post contains 112 words, total size 1 kb.

But his grand-dad says "he's a good boy."

Some good kids just wind up hanging out with the wrong crowd. Drug-users, smokers, "fast girls" and boys with "busy hands," the Infernal Legions of Lord Lucifer... Could happen to anyone, really.

He also links to The Evangelical Outpost listing the 100 most underrated/overrated films by category. Some good picks on the list -- Tin Cup is woefully underrated, for example -- but I have a hard time believing that Dr. Strangelove is overrated, and Josey and the Pussycats is underrated.

Caddyshack? Definitely overrated. Animal House? No way.

Posted by: Ace at 09:03 AM | Comments (27)
Post contains 120 words, total size 1 kb.

Two Washington State DJ's have been deemed to have run afoul of McCain-Feingold campaign contribution laws. The offense? By railing against proposed gas tax increases, they (and their station) were making "in-kind" donations to, I guess, political groups opposing the increases.

They used to call it "free speech" or "entering the marketplace of ideas." Now it's called an "in-kind campaign contribution" and "potential crime."

Wow. Remember when we used to actually voice our opinions publicly, before John McCain wisely took that alleged "right" away from us, in an effort to "increase democracy." (Try to find that made-up fakey "right" in the Constitution!)

he radio station had to put a dollar value on what the hosts had said. The estimate of that in-kind contribution of $100,000 of airtime was reported as a campaign donation under state law.

...

In other words -- in the name of campaign finance "reform" -- free speech no longer is free. If that ruling withstands appeal, especially if it reaches the U.S. Supreme Court, it would have profound ramifications for media nationwide.

...

If this ruling is not struck down, anytime anyone in the media (including the Internet) decides to speak out on an issue, it could be considered an in-kind contribution.

And if federal or state election laws limit the amount of money that can be donated to candidates or causes, the mere mention of an opinion could be estimated (by the government) to be worth the maximum dollar amount allowed to be contributed and thereby prohibit any other reference regarding the subject.
...

f McCain and others get their way, there could be new legislation further rationing free speech to limit the First Amendment rights of the 527 nonprofit groups.

When the government -- and that means politicians who will do whatever they can get away with to preserve and increase their political power -- wants to silence its critics, it will do so.

But unlike in a dictatorship, it will be done very subtly, bit by bit, all in the name of reform, good government, cleaning up politics or whatever else a gullible citizenry will swallow.

Allow politicians to put a price on free speech and then keep your mouth shut when you discover it's more than you can afford.

Bear in mind, John McCain has always been a very thin-skinned politician. I can't help but he's rather pleased that the riff-raff may soon be limited to how many criticisms of him they may make.

The McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act

We had to destroy the village in order to save it.

Meanwhile... McCain is said to be increasingly palatable to Republican voters.

Except, of course, the actual committed base. Nominating McCain would rip the party in two.

Posted by: Ace at 08:37 AM | Comments (22)
Post contains 469 words, total size 3 kb.

Here is the latest missive from BBC dickhead John Simpson.
Ever on the lookout for a way to bash America, he has come up with a real doozy this time!

Faced with the horror of seeing Saddam on trial rather than George Bush, he does his best at spinning the BS.
How about this for pulling some inuendo out of thin air?

He will presumably defend himself by pointing out that the Americans and British, who later overthrew him, were only too happy that he invaded the newly established Islamic Republic of Iran, following the overthrow of the Shah - Britain's and America's ally.

Maybe Britain and America dropped a hint that they wanted him to invade? If so, we will certainly hear about it in court during the weeks ahead.

Brilliant! The world's biggest pacifist putz Jimmy Carter gave good old boy Saddam the wink wink nudge nudge for invading Iran! Maybe he just forgot his calendar and thought Reagan was already in office.

Then this mental midget goes on to conradict himself, practically in the same breath!

How about this for inconsistency?

The resistance movement has gone from strength to strength ever since the attack on Falluja, and though Tony Blair was wrong to think it might drive the coalition out immediately, the Americans and British have been on the defensive ever since.

Then 2 sentences later...

Six months ago, that road was the most dangerous in the country, with car bombs going off virtually every day.

Now there are scarcely any attacks at all.

The fact that British citizens are forced to pay the salary of this 21st century Lord Haw-Haw is pathetic!

Posted by: Tanker at 08:35 AM | Comments (2)
Post contains 286 words, total size 2 kb.

Rejected names for the aphrodisiac include "Ruffies-Whiz" and "Vaginal MSG":

A new nasal spray aphrodisiac for women that works in minutes may soon hit the market, according to a Local 6 News report.

Doctors said women who used the drug PT-141 in test studies felt a tingling or throbbing followed by a strong desire to have sex immediately after spraying their noses.

PT-141 is a synthetic version of a sex hormone that works on both men and women, according to a report.

Yes, I'm sure that's why the main purchasers will be men. Because we all have trouble getting that "tingly feeling."

"In the case of women, what we're really doing is sensitizing the vaginal tissue so when they get touched or stimulated, they would feel it a little bit more," Dr. Carl Spana said.

...

Shares of the biotech company jumped 20 percent earlier this week after word got out about the new sex drug for women.

Ace of Spades Health Alert: Ladies, be wary of men who just so happen to have an inhaler or decongestant spray on them when you need it. You just might end up with a whole different version of post-nasal drip.

Thanks to VonKreedon, who's not only the President of the Ruffies Aerosol Club, he's also a member.

Posted by: Ace at 08:10 AM | Comments (20)
Post contains 235 words, total size 1 kb.

The jokes:

For comedian Sarah Silverman, Sept. 11, 2001, the worst day in this countryÂ’s history, could be twisted into a business coup for American Airlines.

If only the company would use her suggested slogan: “American Airlines: First Through the Towers.”



...



In the movie “Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic” the 34-year-old jokester quips in the big-screen version of her one-woman show that it was doubly tragic “because it happened to be the exact same day I found out that a soy chai latte was, like, 900 calories.”

Couple of points:

I tend to get annoyed at comics whose main schtick is "shocking" me. It's a grating act at best. Sarah Silverman has always been a shock comic -- she's probably the filthiest female comic out there -- but the actual humor-to-shock ratio used to be much higher. Lately she just seems to be phoning it in with Wonkette humor -- "I'm cute and female, I'm talking about anal sex, isn't that incongrous and shocking?"

Neither of the jokes is funny. Both are derived from Howard Stern, and they were funnier when he did them... ten years or more ago. The first "joke" recalls his question about the plane in DC that crashed into a bridge: "Will this be a regularly scheduled stop in the future?" (or something like that).

The second is making a joke about one's own selfishness and callousness, as Stern would inevitably do after some serious, murderous natural disaster. As thousands died in a Mexican flood, let's say, he'd say, "What do I care. I've got my own problems. I can't heat my pool any hotter than 63 degrees." That joke also worked better for Stern, because of his long-developed character as a megalomaniac and sociopathic narcissist (which was probably about 60% real, in fairness).

There's always a question about when it's safe to begin joking about a tragedy, and I cerainly think that Sliverman has jumped the gun here -- deliberately -- in an effort to be "edgy."

But let's put aside questions of taste. Are the jokes funny? No, not really. They're, as Dave might have said in the past, quite old.

There's a rule, I'm pretty sure, that the more off-color or offensive a joke might be, the funnier it has to be to justify the offense. I once made a joke here about crippled people no longer wanting to be called "crippled" or "handicapped," but preferring the more politically-correct and sensitive term "People With Retarded Spines and Legs." I caught a lot of heat for that, and actually had to remove it after email after email came in saying I crossed the line. A shock joke, and, I think, a (darkly, sick) funny one, but ultimately not funny enough to justify the offense I'd given to anyone suffering from the affliction, oranyone who knows such a person, or anyone who just basically cares about their fellow man, period.

I put Silverman's jokes into that category, and they're not even as funny as the one I backed away from. And I'm not even a pro.

I'm not going to get on a high horse about Silverman. I'll just say she used to be one of my favorite comics, if not my actual favorite, but she's jumped the shark. If she's so spent of actually funny material she has to rely on unfunny shock value to convince people her act is worth watching, she's on the sharp decline.

After all, this is her movie. This is her top-drawer stuff, her chance to break through into wider public conscienceness. One would think the film should be filled with nothing but her very best A-material... and if this is her A material, I'd hate to see the sort of crap she's now doing on the road.

Which means, alas, that now she'll start getting big Hollywood contracts, just like Robin Williams did.

Thanks to the Artist Formerly Known As Boston Irish.

Thanks for the correction to Kristian. The DC flight I was referring to crashed into a bridge, not a building, as I originally wrote.

Posted by: Ace at 07:48 AM | Comments (24)
Post contains 693 words, total size 4 kb.

Via Traffic Non-Santa:

KURTZ: Welcome back to RELIABLE SOURCES.

Pam Hess, during Vietnam U.S. officials were often accused of distorting or even lying to the press to try to make it look like the war effort was going better than it was. When you were in Iraq did you feel like you were getting the straight story?

HESS: Certainly from the militarily I did. They have no interest in cooking the books, as it were, they -- they understand that they were blamed for Vietnam and what happened, and they don't want that blame again.

They want people to understand the kind of enemy that they are facing and how long it's going to take. And frankly, most of them said to me, "Please go back and tell them not to pull us out because we are finally at a point where we have enough people here now on the ground between soldiers and Iraqis that we can actually start doing some good and start turning things around. And if you pull us out, we're just going to be back here three years from now."

KURTZ: More optimistic, at least than some of the journalists.

HESS: Yes.

And... A terrific smackdown of Frank (Who?) Rich in the New York Sun.

Posted by: Ace at 07:26 AM | Comments (16)
Post contains 218 words, total size 1 kb.

It really makes no sense that I spend my entire Sunday rooting for a bunch of complete strangers, pampered millionaires who are having the happiest, luckiest lives of just about any human being who's ever lived on the entire planet.

If Eli Manning wins a game, do I get an Eli Manning check? Why is it so important to me that Plaxico Burress gets a lot of chicks jumping into a hot tub with him? I don't know Jeremy Shockey. Why should I care if he's having a wicked-awesome night right now?

I don't know. But I care. Or I used to. The Giants losing would send me into a 24 hour funk. But the Giants and Patriots games today were such debacles I don't even care that they lost. I'm kinda happy about it, actually. FEA, as Dan Rather would say.

If you feel like it, rant or cheer here.

Posted by: Ace at 05:40 PM | Comments (76)
Post contains 155 words, total size 1 kb.

An appropriately empty venue for an empty headed woman.

Also, Al Jazeera begins a "Don't Bomb Us" blog.

Posted by: Ace at 05:37 PM | Comments (18)
Post contains 26 words, total size 1 kb.