A glowing, almost giddy review... what a shock.

Related: "Brokeback Mountain" Syndrome: Sure, they're just seizing on a pop culture moment to publicize themselves, but obviously they're right about many gays still trying to "pass" as straights, dating and marrying people of the opposite sex.

Howard Stern is no great political philosopher, but he always hits a good point about this. Put aside the more objectionable parts of the radical gay agenda. Let's just talk about simple acceptance of gays.

If gays aren't comfortable being gays, some will try to lead lives as straights.

Does any father want his daughter marrying a gay man? It's hell on the gay husband, but it's a loveless, empty relationship for the woman as well. And there will almost certainly be possibly-unsafe gay sex in the future, putting the wife at risk.

Thanks to Allah.

Posted by: Ace at 08:06 AM | Comments (63)
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Sorry, but I've included some of my own. I think they're good, and I don't want them to just disappear without notice. But I've tried to be objective about it.

Still, I can't be that objective, because if they didn't strike me as funny personally, I wouldn't have written them, right?

Anyway... the top 35, in as best an order of deepiness as I can figure it: more...

Posted by: Ace at 06:55 AM | Comments (24)
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Karol sent this to me, noting that she felt dumber for having read it. So, in a way, it's like a really cheap way to get drunk.

Could somebody please stop the spread of democracy in the Middle East? I do not like the way it's turning out. Iran for example has been having elections for almost thirty years, since the overthrow of the Shah, and look who wins them. Iran's election have produced presidents ranging from moderate right wingers like Abul Hassan Boni Sadr to full-tilt ultra-religious wingnuts like current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whose politics appear to only slightly to the left of Pat Robertson.

Uh, whatever. Iran is not having "democratic elections." It's not a democratic election when all moderate/secular/progressive candidates are simply struck off the ballot and not permitted to stand for elections.

It's not like we don't know how to put the brakes on Islamic democracy. Back in 1991 Algerian voters seemed on the brink of electing an Islamist government and the ruling party, supported by France and the US, just canceled the elections and outlawed the Islamist parties. But I'm sure there are less in your face, more artful ways of... not frustrating Middle Eastern democracy but calming it down. We got the the Deiboldt Corporation and Karl Rove could be looking for a new job any day now.

Again, I'm all over democracy, within reason. But full-frontal democratic governments, reflecting the will a majority are fine in theory but in practice it's scary as hell. I'm sure that's why we've done away with it here in the United States.

Note that his little joke doesn't really make sense. If we've done away with "scary" democracy, then he should be happy.

He's disguising his real complaint-- we have democracy in the US, the majority has spoken, and that's what he doesn't like. He'd prefer a system more like Iran's, with a Supreme Guardian Council disallowing "unacceptable" candidates, like pretty much any politician to the right of, say, Evan Bayh. And Evan Bayh would only be grudging allowed on the ballot.

Posted by: Ace at 06:24 AM | Comments (13)
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Estimate of 4.3% annualized GDP growth revised to a still-feisty 4.1% rate.

And yet many Americans remain unemployed and discouraged from seeking new jobs:

Posted by: Ace at 06:14 AM | Comments (16)
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WaPo/ABCNews Poll:

Bush's overall approval rating rose to 47 percent, from 39 percent in early November, with 52 percent saying they disapprove of how he is handling his job. His approval rating on Iraq jumped 10 percentage points since early November, to 46 percent, while his rating on the economy rose 11 points, to 47 percent. A clear majority, 56 percent, said they approve of the way Bush is handling the fight against terrorism -- a traditional strong point in his reputation that nonetheless had flagged to 48 percent in the November poll.

...

Bush's pre-Christmas rebound was fueled largely by a sharp increase in support among his core supporters. In the past month, the proportion of Republicans approving of the president's performance rose 9 percentage points, to 87 percent. And among conservatives, three in four said Bush was doing a good job, up 12 points from November. Among Democrats, independents and moderates Bush's support remained unchanged or increased only modestly.

...

The other cautionary note for the administration is that Bush's approval ratings and public optimism about Iraq have spiked in the past after instances of positive news, such as the capture of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein or the election in January of this year, only to recede later. But the gains in the latest poll represent a larger one-time jump than on previous occasions of favorable news from Iraq. Currently, 54 percent say they are optimistic about the situation in Iraq, up from 46 percent a year ago.

Rasmussen: Approve 47/Disapprove 51 (still an uptick).

Only CNN/Gallup is a recent sourpuss, putting Bush's approval at a weak 41%.

Bush Finally Woke Up? Update: Bush's father said he lost the 1992 election because he was low on energy and down a quart of charisma. The younger Bush has more charisma, but he seems to have inhereted his father's phlegmatic political stylings.

But perhaps he finally gets it that this "Reign not Rule" paradigm isn't working. The business of politics requires, it turns out, a lot of politics.

With the president's poll numbers hovering between 35% and 40% ever since Hurricane Katrina, it seemed as if the White House had entirely given up in the press war. And in giving up in that war, they were putting the real war at risk. Public support can only go so low before troops must come home.

If Sunday night's speech is a sign of things to come, then it will go down as a decisive break not just from the Bush of the past few months, but from the Bush of the past few years. In bringing his argument directly into people's living rooms--with candid, intelligent words--the president and his team finally may have realized that they've been a punching bag for far too long, and they actually have a case to make.

Over the past few years, the hardest thing for any conservative journalist to admit is that the White House has been entirely unhelpful. When the Clinton team had positive economic news, his Cabinet secretaries appeared on every morning talk show--perfectly happy to give Bill all the credit. With the Bush White House, we're lucky if economic figures even make the news. This despite the fact that we're enjoying a red-hot economy.

...

If it weren't for FOX News, talk radio, conservative magazines, and the blogosphere, it's doubtful that any good news would be heard over the chorus of the administration's critics.

I voted for Clinton in 1992 to help the economy. It's not that I thought his program was actually better than Bush the Elder's -- I thought meddling in the economy would only do harm (and fortunately that turned out to be more Clinton campaign vaporware) -- it's that Clinton expressed optimism, confidence, and energy regarding getting the economy moving again, whereas Bush the Elder seemed to be taking a wait-and-see attitude.

Confidence and energy count for a lot in life. And in politics. You can't change the facts on the ground, economically or militarily, but you sure the hell can stress the positive news and lay out strong case for yourself.

Bush has seemed quite willing to just let the National Review and Weekly Standard and, a bit, the blogosphere carry his water for him. We don't really mind doing that, but really, at some point you have to be your own Gunga Din.

Read the whole thing.

Posted by: Ace at 06:08 AM | Comments (8)
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I guess I have to agree:

Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy.

Posted by: Ace at 05:57 AM | Comments (42)
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A computer worm announcing "an investigation is underway" convinced a child porn offender that the gig was up.

Posted by: Ace at 06:51 PM | Comments (10)
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How delightful.

Thanks to Utron.

Posted by: Ace at 03:05 PM | Comments (10)
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I realize there's a genuine debate to be had here. (Of course, only conservatives are having it; our civil-liberties/libertarian conservatives are honestly debating the issue with more authoritarian/national-security-prioritizing conservatives.

But the politics of it continue to hurt the Democrats. Whether they're right or wrong or even right but actually wrong because they're dishonest and partisan in their objections.

62% of the public think the Patriot Act either goes just far enough or not far enough. Only 34% -- which is basically the entirety of the comitted liberal/Democratic base, plus some number of libertarians and small-government loving conservatives -- think it goes too far.

Posted by: Ace at 12:43 PM | Comments (35)
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Craig sends this newsblurb from the Merc:

...the Tennesseee Supreme Court dashed prosecutors' hopes of convicting Thomas Huskey as a serial killer. Courts had tossed out Huskey's confession (the centerpiece of the case), finding that incriminating statements were made not by Huskey, but by "Kyle," his alter ego, and although Huskey himself had been given a Miranda warning, Kyle had not.

I can't find the link to that story. This story, however, discusses the case, but doesn't mention the Miranda issue.

Good Lord All Mighty:

Thomas Dee "Zoo Man" Huskey once told authorities he killed four women.

Lawyers may debate it. Historians may reflect on it. But it now appears a jury will never decide it.

The state Supreme Court on Monday let stand a June lower court decision that guts the case against Knox County's first and only accused serial killer.

...

[Judge] Baumgartner's ruling, which was affirmed by the appellate court and left unchallenged by the state's high court, tosses out everything that directly ties Huskey to the 1992 slayings of four women.

Gone is Huskey's confession. Barred from use at trial is the "souvenir" jewelry authorities say he took from some of his victims and the rope they say he used to bind them.

...

Huskey's case is the most protracted in Knox County history and the most expensive in Tennessee history. It's been funded on the taxpayer dime. Isaacs and Moncier were appointed to represent Huskey.

...

Nichols is convinced that Huskey beat and strangled the four women, all thought to be prostitutes, and hid their bodies in a wooded area off Cahaba Lane in East Knox County. He is certain that Huskey turned from a rapist who stalked prostitutes and sexually battered them at a barn at the Knoxville Zoo, where his father worked as an elephant trainer, to a killer.

He points to the words from Huskey's own mouth to Knox County Sheriff's Office detectives and a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent soon after the bodies were discovered.

But the core issue has always been whether those words marked the confession of a stone-cold killer or the ranting of an insane man.

Huskey made his alleged confession via use of an alter ego, "Kyle," and his attorneys have long claimed he suffered multiple personalities.

Moncier insists that Kyle's confession to murder was a made-up tale designed by the alter ego to kill his host personality - Huskey. He says the details of Kyle's confession don't match up with crime scene evidence.

"There is certainly considerable questions in our minds whether Thomas Huskey did this or not," Moncier said Monday. "It has always been of great concern to Greg Isaacs and I that the only evidence in this case was the ramblings of an insane 'Kyle' and 'Kyle' never got the facts correct."

Nichols counters that jewelry belonging to some of the victims and rope similar to that used to bind the women was found in a bedroom of Huskey's parents' Pigeon Forge home, where Huskey was living.

He cannot use that evidence at trial because deputies arrived there via a flawed court document. Nichols had hoped the state Supreme Court would at least review his contention that Tennessee, like the federal government and many other states, should honor what's known as a "good faith exception."

Under the good faith exception, evidence obtained when officers believe the court order they are executing is legally sound should be allowed at trial even if it turns out the order was flawed.

Posted by: Ace at 12:36 PM | Comments (31)
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