...by publishing a shrieking-hysterics screed of a "news article" which states, in essence, that Bush is more concerned about America's national security than any Democrat.

I suspect that the average American has two competing images of George Bush. The first is of the leader who responded so vigorously to 9/11. ...

The second image is of a president perceived as slow off the mark this year when Hurricane Katrina hit....

By breaking and emphasizing the story of Bush's efforts to spy on terrorists, The New York Times and the liberal congressional Democrats have reinforced the first image of Bush just as it was beginning to fade from public consciousness.

Sort of like dirty-kinky rightwing hot actress Lara Flynn Boyle said:

The former star of The Practice, 34, has gone against the grain of a large number of her Hollywood counterparts to pledge her support for the Republican leader. She says, "I'm Irish Catholic, so a Democrat by blood. But I'm 100 per cent for Bush. I want my president to be like my agent: not afraid of people, but wants my best interest."

I explained what made her dirty-kinky rightwing hot here. And then, just to up the ante and prove she subscribes to the Ace of Spades HQ Lifestyle (TM), she got bored on an airplane and allegedly took off her clothes and attempted to have sex with random passengers.

In my book, that's a woman you listen to. She has the wisdom a Gandhi. But a Gandhi who probably will let you get to third base over your first-drinks non-official ambigu-date.

Thanks, As Usual, To Persnickety Jeff For the Spelling Corrections. What would I do without him? Oh, right. I'd enjoy my life.

Posted by: Ace at 09:13 AM | Comments (16)
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For the gun-bunnies.

Posted by: Ace at 08:42 AM | Comments (15)
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(click the pic)

Kind of hit and miss, as phtoshops tend to be. But some smiles in the bunch.

Oh, And This One's Okay Too...

more...

Posted by: Ace at 08:28 AM | Comments (7)
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More absurdity from those whose skin is so thin you wonder that you can't see their spleens:

Four days after the city's transit strike ended, Mayor Michael Bloomberg was still coming under fire for his use of the word "thuggishly" to describe the actions of the leaders of a union that is mostly minority.

"Michael Bloomberg, don't be nasty and mean," attorney Norman Siegel said Monday, standing on the steps of City Hall. "Be positive. Together, we can improve race relations in New York."

The civil rights attorney noted that more than 70 percent of the Transport Workers Union's 33,000 members are "of color." And while he didn't believe Bloomberg's use of the word was in itself racist, Siegel said, "The perception out there is that it is racist. And the reaction has enormous racial overtones."

Oh, the perception.

Bloomberg used the word Dec. 20 during a briefing on the first day of the three-day strike that forced millions of riders to spend extra hours commuting. The mayor complained that union leaders had "thuggishly turned their backs on New York City and disgraced the noble concept of public service."

Some criticized him for using the word, saying it was racist in the context of a mostly minority union. A Bloomberg spokesman said it was wrong to bring race into the situation.

Siegel challenged the mayor to use the dispute over the one word as a "springboard" to focus attention on racial issues in the city — especially the fact that the mayor is surrounded by top advisers who are mostly white, and that the top managers of the Metropolitan Transit Authority that runs subways and buses also are mostly white.

Ahhh... Bloomberg says "thuggishly," so we have to direct more attention -- read "money" -- to "racial issues." Is that how it works?

Of course that's how it works. It's really too bad that Bloomberg brought race into this dispute. Unlike, say, one of the leaders of the transit strike, who compared his cause to Rosa Parks'.

Posted by: Ace at 08:18 AM | Comments (19)
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Anyone think Howard Dean and John Kerry will praise Bush for his diplomacy?

Poland's two-month-old government plans to keep soldiers in Iraq next year, countering the previous government's pledge to pull out of the U.S.-led operation by this week.

The government asked Polish President Lech Kaczynski, the head of the army, to approve the plan to prolong the eastern European country's military mission in Iraq.

``Our plan is determined by the United Nations prolonging its mission in Iraq and requests from the Iraqi government, which asked us to keep our forces there longer,'' Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz said at a press conference in Warsaw.

About three-quarter of Poles oppose the country's participation in the military occupation of Iraq, according to a June survey for the Warsaw-based Center for Public Research. ...

Poland plans to reduce its contingent to 900 soldiers in March from 1,400 now and then cut the number of soldiers stationed there ``gradually'' until a decision is made to withdraw them completely, General Stanislaw Koziej said at the press conference.

Posted by: Ace at 08:11 AM | Comments (2)
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It's not actually their official review of the film; it's a column called "Connections," in which critics offer their "perpectives on art and ideas."

But still-- if Spielberg has alienated a NYT art critic...

The theory asserts that terrorism is a violent and extreme reaction to injustice - the last resort of the oppressed. Typically, this injustice theory is used to explain left-wing terrorism. It not only coincides with the justifications offered by terrorists themselves, but it also accompanies a belief that a just cause lies behind the terrorist attack. The theory is never applied to right-wing terrorism - whether of the brown-shirt or Timothy McVeigh variety - and thus pre-selects its proofs.

...

The precise truth of what happened is mired in the secrets of spycraft, but the film shapes the sources and evidence to lend support to the injustice theory. Which poses a challenge for Mr. Spielberg: How does he propose to undermine terror? Simple: by eliminating injustice and increasing understanding. Mr. Spielberg has said that he will be buying 250 video cameras and distributing them to Palestinian and Israeli children so they can share films about their own lives. Perhaps there will be peace, then, at the end of that?

Yeah, that'll work.

Liberals essentially deny the idea of conflict. Conflict leads to stuff they don't like (economic sanctions, war) so they're always trying to suggest it's, ahem, "fictititious." Communication is the magic solution to all conflict. If we only just talked to each other more honestly and saw each other as human beings, all conflict would melt away...

And of course that's absurd. I think at this late date the Palestinians and Israelis -- and Americans and Al Qaedaists -- understand each other perfectly. Additional communication isn't going to help, Spielberg.

The other pathetic thing here is Spielberg's hubris. His good intentions can't be faulted; he does want an end to war, which is always nice. But he has to postulate a theory under which he's actually capable of himself helping to end war, and the theory he's struck upon is that what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict needs for resolution is a really fair-minded movie infused with liberal sensibilities.

When all you have is a hammer tie-dyed shirt, all the problems in the world begin to look like nails the second encore at a Donovan reunion-tour show.

Posted by: Ace at 07:57 AM | Comments (29)
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Another cool street-acrobatics video, this time (apparently) from Russia.

Some good jumps, and the climbing is pretty impressive.

If these kids can do all this, how come Bart Conners' Gymkata sucked so bad?

Thanks to John.

Posted by: Ace at 09:35 PM | Comments (14)
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...but $350 per month on BlogAds just wasn't working for me.

I know, I know... if you're doing it for money you shouldn't be doing it at all. But I don't buy that. I'm a Republican. If I could figure out a way to get paid watching old episodes of Simon & Simon I'd do it.

I'm going to be adding a second sidebar to the site shortly. I know that some asked me not to, but for most of you, you're viewing this on bigger resolutions, and the whole right side of the page is just blank anyway. The page will expand to fill up your browser-area.

For the 10% of you on 800 x 600 resolutions, the site will still have 480 pixels-width of main text area, which is only a little smaller than the old set up (which used to be a little less than 600 pixels of main text area). Margins will be a little smaller to help keep the page from being too long for those on lower-resolutions.

When I can figure out how to do it I'm going to ad top headlines in the sidebar too-- not my most recent posts, but the top headlines of the day. I don't link a lot of interesting stories because I don't have anything to say about them; but once I get the top headlines up and running, I'll pretty much be linking every interesting story I come across. So the site will, I hope, better serve as a first-read newsite. There'll be the normal blogging in the main area, and then a Drudge-linke run-down of other headlines on the side.

The extra ads are annoying, I know, but I'll also be taking this blogging-thing a little more seriously with more money from it coming in. So, you know, there is that.

Posted by: Ace at 09:31 PM | Comments (36)
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Over at Free Republic:

A cafeteria worker thought it was odd that a fourth-grader would pay for his lunch with a $20 bill.

The cashier at Marquette Elementary School was right. The cashier, who also noticed that the texture of the paper wasn't right, alerted the school's police officer, Patrolman Greg Tatum, who asked the 10-year-old about the money.

"He reached into his front pocket and pulled out more," Tatum said.

The discovery Tuesday led to the arrest of three fourth-graders at the Gary school, where police and school officials confiscated $179 in counterfeit money.

...

Police arrested two 10-year-old boys and a 12-year-old girl. In all, police identified seven fake 20s, three 10s, one five and four ones, Otano said.

Yep, they were also counterfeiting ones.

Which is further evidence for my theory that children are fucking stupid.

Posted by: Ace at 09:25 PM | Comments (13)
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Very positive news:

At first, as scientists grew to appreciate the complexity of cancer genetics, they despaired. "If there are 100 genetic abnormalities, that's 100 things you need to fix to cure cancer," said Dr. Todd Golub, the director of the Cancer Program at the Broad Institute of Harvard and M.I.T. in Cambridge, Mass., and an oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. "That's a horrifying thought."

Making matters more complicated, scientists discovered that the genetic changes in one patient's tumor were different from those in another patient with the same type of cancer. That led to new questioning. Was every patient going to be a unique case? Would researchers need to discover new drugs for every single patient?

"People said, 'It's hopelessly intractable and too complicated a problem to ever figure out,' " Dr. Golub recalled.

But to their own amazement, scientists are now finding that untangling the genetics of cancer is not impossible. In fact, they say, what looked like an impenetrable shield protecting cancer cells turns out to be flimsy. And those seemingly impervious cancer cells, Dr. Golub said, "are very much poised to die."

Despite the thousands of possible genetic abberrations and reconfigurations, scientists have discovered all cancer develops along ten pathways, and that shutting those pathways down can eliminate the disease.

Cells typically repair genetic defects....

But one of the first things a cell does when it starts down a road to cancer is to disable repair mechanisms. In fact, BRCA1 and 2, the gene mutations that predispose people to breast and ovarian cancer, as well as some other inherited cancer genes, disable these repair systems.

Once the mutations start, there is "a kind of snowball effect, like a chain reaction," Dr. Vogelstein said.

With the first mutations, cells multiply, producing clusters of cells with genetic changes. As some randomly acquire additional mutations, they grow even more.

In the end, all those altered genes may end up being the downfall of cancer cells, researchers say.

"Cancer cells have many Achilles' heels," Dr. Golub says. "It may take a couple of dozen mutations to cause a cancer, all of which are required for the maintenance and survival of the cancer cell."

And undoing just one of those mutations -- repairing one key mutation through genetic-drug therapy -- would kill the cancer and stop it from replicating further.

So cool.

Posted by: Ace at 08:16 PM | Comments (6)
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