Disasterous short-cuts taken in a major construction project in Louisiana?! The deuce you say!

Actually, the fault seems to lie with the Army Corps of Engineers, who extended the levees down not even half the depth required to hold them up during a medium-sized hurricane. Apparently the problem was so obvious that engineers say they "cannot fathom" (ahem) how it was missed.

So, yeah, it may be a little too early to start suggesting corruption played a role. Perhaps this was just gross incompetence.

But this is Louisiana we're talking about. So we'll just have to see.

Posted by: Ace at 12:35 PM | Comments (11)
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She's taking this "I want to remain a virgin" thing a little too far.

In related news, Jessica Simson and Nick... I don't know, Simspon I guess, are splitting up.

I say this is "related" because I swear I cannot tell any of these people apart.

Posted by: Ace at 12:28 PM | Comments (8)
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Yeah, you've seen it. I'm linking it so I'll always know where it is.

Question: How many of you guys saw Shatner do Rocket Man, when it aired originally? I did.

Anyone remember what that was on? (I do. It's a trivia question.)

The Original: Wicked awesome.

Tried... to find Chris Elliot's terrific spoof of this, way back from a 1992 episode of the David Letterman show. Alas, there are numerous references, but no video.

Posted by: Ace at 11:37 AM | Comments (26)
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Six year olds.

Here's my thoughts on six-year-olds' sexuality: They don't have much of it, and what little they do have of it should be let alone.

I know that's a crazy idea, but I swear, I think I might just be on to something with it.

Anyway:

A Stockholm court ruled that the stories the man had read out were deeply pornographic and completely inappropriate for the age group....

It said the stories were about children having oral sex with each other.

The man's lawyer told Swedish radio that he would appeal against the verdict as he had not meant the stories to be seen as pornographic and had not acted with intent.

Children having oral sex with each other? Yeah, I agree. Nothing pornographic about that. I remember I had a book called Rainy Day Blues-Beaters which had as suggestion #8 "Bored? Trying blowing your brother!" And then there was that great part in The Cat in the Hat where Thing One and Thing Two invited over a dozen transexual whores and had a "Sausage Surprise Party."

Good times, good times.

More at Brea Canyon.

Posted by: Ace at 10:56 AM | Comments (19)
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Apparently they're duck-billed platypusses, or maybe Gila monsters, or perhaps Jesus Lizards.

The statement was made in case deciding that a woman who killed her child by taking lots of drugs (including a hit of meth on the day of her delivery) couldn't be charged with manslaughter.

After all, all she did was kill a marmoset. Or maybe a three-toed sloth. Or a fruit bat. Or a ginko tree.

I'm not sure which, but it wasn't a human being. Judges told me so.

I suppose the decision has a certain amount of logic to it: If you can deliberately abort a child, why should it be a crime to negligently abort one?

The strange things one must be required to believe in order to fully support abortion on demand, no questions asked, just seem to continue growing in number.

Excellent Point By SobekPundit:

Interestingly, this descision does not rest on the "reasonsing" (such as it is) behind Roe v. Wade, which expressly recognized that a state has a legitimate interest in protecting the unborn. Roe decided that the woman's interest in individual autonomy trumps the state's interest (and, presumably, the fetus' interest in not having its arms torn out of their sockets).

But what interest is the Hawai'i Supreme Court trying to protect? It's not the mother's reproductive autonomy; the mother's interest in getting loaded? Since when is that a Constitutionally protected interest?

In fairness, crystal meth -- or, as I call it, "rock sugar" -- is really, really good.

I'm sure that somewhere in the Constitution there's a "penumbra" guaranteeing my right to get really cranked up on meth and then light sleeping hobos on fire.

But...

Hubris actually bothers to read the case, and finds it turns on statutory construction:

I skimmed over the actual decision. The court was applying Hawaii's statutory definition of "person":

HRS § 707-702(1)(a) states that "[a] person commits the offense of manslaughter if . . . [h]e recklessly causes the death of another person." HRS § 707-702(1)(a). The HPC generally defines "person" as "any natural person." HRS § 701-118(7) (1993). Furthermore, for the purposes of HRS chapter 707, HRS § 707-700 defines "person" as "a human being who has been born and is alive." HRS § 707-700.

If the statutes say (for the purposes of manslaughter) that a "person" is "a human being who has been born and is alive," how could the court find otherwise on that aspect of the case? There's no way the definition can be met until birth. Am I missing something?

Well... you're right that this seems to be the fault of the legislators, rather than the judges.

To a degree.

But bear in mind: the baby actually was born. The article states that she caused the death of her "newborn son."

Which gets back to the courts' job in interpreting the law. The damage was inflicted when the baby was, according to the statute, "not a human being," but the actual death was caused to (again according to the statute) "human being."

So, it wasn't a human being when she was killing it, but it was one when it was killed.

She did cause the death of a human being, it seems, because it was (as I read it) born alive, but in a deathly condition.

Posted by: Ace at 10:31 AM | Comments (31)
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It all seems sort of silly to me, but I haven't read it.

Did I catch the article right? It's illustrated by Larry Elmore of Dungeons & Dragons fame?

Posted by: Ace at 10:13 AM | Comments (17)
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So, yeah, a lunatic kind of woman -- one of those really scary Christians, who seems to be in the religion chiefly for the opportunity for screaming hysterics -- traded familes with a New Agey family. The father of the New Agey family was annoying, but his wife was okay.

In fairness, the New Agey family was into astrology, mandalas, "solstice parties" (with the obligatory drum-circles), and they interviewed a psychic on their radio show, and the New Age husband was annoying about pushing his beliefs on the woman.

But... still... the overreaction here was pretty unwarranted. The New Agers were not, in fact, Satanists or Witches or anything.

She had one of the most cringe-worthy meltdowns ever seen on reality TV. "They're not Christians!" she screamed repeatedly. "They're into all sorts of dark-sided stuff!" She also rebuked them multiple times in Jesus' name. She also rebuked the camera crew, again, calling upon her God Warrior powers.

The Malcontent has what he calls "the best six minutes and 23 seconds of televison ever broadcast."

Jay Leno has a little clip, but trust me, it's the most reasonable part of the meltdown. She was screamin' and rebukin' like it was going out of style.

If you care to see her on Leno, see the Malcontent again. But really, that's nothing compared to the actual meltdown.

Posted by: Ace at 09:32 AM | Comments (46)
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Hokay:

A man has pleaded guilty to trespassing in connection with a fatal horse-sex case.

James Michael Tait, 54, of Enumclaw, was accused of entering a barn without the owner's permission. Tait admitted to officers that he entered a neighboring barn last July with friend Kenneth Pinyan to have sex with a horse, charging papers said. Tait was videotaping the episode when Pinyan suffered internal injuries that led to his death.

Internal injuries, guys.

Now, I can completely see doing a horse. I mean, some of these young colts have legs and butts like, well, young colts, I guess.

But letting a horse do you? That's just weird. F'n' perverts.

The prosecutor's office said no animal cruelty charges were filed because there was no evidence of injury to the horses.

Well, yeah. Obviously.

The guy who sent this to me doesn't want to put it up on his own site. Completely unrelated, I'll link this post at Red State Rant about the female Belgian Muslim convert now believed to have been responsible for a suicide attack against American troops in Iraq last month.

Posted by: Ace at 09:00 AM | Comments (34)
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As you've probably heard, MoveOn ran an ad noting that there were 150,000 US troops in Iraq, and Bush had no plan to get them out. This narrative ran as the ad displayed a picture of British troops chowing down. They were id'd as Brits based upon their camoflage patterns, and, more obviously, that one man was wearing khaki shorts, part of the British uniform collection but not part of the American one.

MoveOn, honest truth-tellers they, then photoshopped the picture to put the shorts-wearing Brit into American long-pants camoflage fatigues. (See end of post.)

The story has been picked up by CNSNews, which isn't really big media, but at least it's something.

Well, my sources inform me they've had another go at the ad. This time, they've taken out the picture entirely and have replaced it with a picture of what they say is "undeniably" a US soldier in standard field dress.

He's identified as Lt. I. M. Gorn.

I don't know... that satiny tunic, the holstered phaser... something about this picture seems hinky too. They might want to consider a third go at it.

Posted by: Ace at 08:38 AM | Comments (13)
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Long ago, Error Theory pointed out that the wall around the Flight 93 Memorial had 40 translucent blocks to symbolize the 40 victims of the terrorists...but that it also seemed to have an additional four translucent blocks, which would seem to memorialize the four dead terrorist killers who also died in the crash.

He says those strange "extra" translucent blocks are still there.

Some will say this is just looking for offense, trying to find symbols where they're not actually present. Nonsense. The entire memorial is abstract; it is designed precisely as a symbolic tribute.

If all of these little "secret features" of the memorial mean nothing, why is the designer so unwilling to change him? Why does he not just say, for example, "Ah, yes... I didn't intend it, but I do see where you might be a bit uncomfortable with the four additional translucent blocks. Let me just take them out. They didn't mean anything, anyhow."

When supposedly inadvertant and accidental bits of symbolism are defended for no good reason, I begin to doubt the inadvertance and accident of it all.

Posted by: Ace at 08:19 AM | Comments (16)
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