10. "No! Oh my dear sweet God, no!"

9. "Surely you must have mis-heard! You couldn't possibly mean the Jeff Gannon!"

8. "Oh the humanity!"

7. "This is sadder than that story of that little girl forced to live in an attic in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam."*

6. "My Beloved Wife, I apologize for taking the coward's way out. But I fear I cannot go on living in a world in which Jeff Gannon doesn't have White House press credentials. PS, I'm sorry, but if I'm going to hang myself in the garage, I might as well be masturbating while I do it. Try to keep the kids away until you've cleaned things up."

5. "We've fought and fought for a conservative majority, and just when we think we've finally broken through... THEY TAKE JEFF GANNON FROM US! FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING HOLY, THEY TOOK JEFF GANNON!"

4. "Well, that's it for me. I'm moving to Canada."

3. "This is like when they killed JFK, and RFK, and Martin Luther King, and John Lennon, all rolled into one, except it's even worse, because it's JEFF FUCKING GANNON!"

2. "J-J-J-eff G-G-G-annon? Are you sure?" (seizing your lapels) "MY GOD MAN, ARE YOU SURE?!!"

...and the Number One Conservative Reaction To the News That They "Got" Jeff Gannon...

1. "Errrmm... Jeff who, now?"

A Chill Wind Stifling Dissent Update! Prof. Shade pre-emptively comes clean and makes a full disclosure before the Internet Detectives at the Daily Kos can out him.

Okay, before this goes any further--

Lynne Stewart?

Yeah, I tapped that.

The Real Mystery...

...is how the bassist from Right Said Fred got into journalism.

There's your Pulitzer, baby. Just waitin' for the takin'.

*Credit Where Credit's Due: "That little girl forced to live in an attic" line swiped from Ari.

Posted by: Ace at 03:43 PM | Comments (96)
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You probably have no idea what this is all about.

Power Line Blog has a quick explanation.

Go ahead, read it. I'll wait. I'll just be here, looking at The Sun's Page 3 girls.

Back? Okay.

So, summing up:

1) Jeff Gannon's real name is Jim Guckert.

2) As an employee of a software company, he registered domains for clients, some of which had sexual-sounding names. But he himself wasn't a pornographer and, indeed, none of those sites were actually launched.

3) He writes for Talon News.

4) The Bush White House Press Department gave him some daily press credentials from time to time.

5) He asked a slanted, partisan question... from the right.

6) Douchebags over at the Daily Kos are speculating about his sexuality.

7) Mr. Gannon resigned his press credentials, owing to embarassment over... over I'm not really sure what, to tell you the truth. I guess he just wanted to spare the Bush Administration the embarassment of... well, again I'm sorta stumped.

I bring this up, because some nitwit liberals are crowing in my comments that "THE JEFF GANNON STORY IS BREAKING!!!" and you, like me, are probably wondering "Who in the hell is Jeff Gannon, and why the hell should I care?"

Yeah.... nice going, liberal bloggers. You brought down your well-known bete noir, the famous muckraking conservative journalist Jeff Gannon.

While you guys are pummeling Mr. Gannon for having the temerity to ask loaded partisan questions (Helen Thomas, anyone?) and for registering web-sites with gay-porn-sounding names of the sort you frequent, we'll just be sitting here, waiting for Dan Rather to retire, and getting ready to force Eason Jordan into retirement as well.

Nice victory, guys.

I don't know how we'll ever be able to survive without Jeff Gannon.

First, I think we'll have to figure out how we survived all these years not even realizing he was on our team.

And Apologies to Mr. Gannon: I don't mean to imply you're a nobody -- hey, you got press credentials; you write for a pretty good on-line news service -- and I certainly don't mean to imply you did anything wrong.

I'm just sort of giggling about the fact that the unhinged left -- so desperate for any victory at all -- are now crowing about the fact they "took out" an unknown internet reporter.

More... Well, I can't really get through it -- I think I've overdosed on BREAKING JEFF GANNON SCANDAL NEWS at this point -- but Bill from InDC has more on this very, very, very important story.

Posted by: Ace at 03:31 PM | Comments (38)
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Michele has the creepy ones here:

Egad.

And she links to the Anti-Valentines here.

Send at your own romantic peril.

Posted by: Ace at 02:05 PM | Comments (6)
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Whoops, I forgot I don't work for Reuters. Let's try that headline again.

"Civil Rights" "Activist" Convicted of Aiding Terrorists

Much better that way, I think:

NEW YORK (AP) -- A veteran civil rights lawyer was convicted Thursday of crossing the line by smuggling messages of violence from one of her jailed clients -- a radical Egyptian sheik -- to his terrorist disciples on the outside.

The jury had deliberated 13 days over the past month before convicting Lynne Stewart, 65, a firebrand, left-wing activist known for representing radicals and revolutionaries in her 30 years on the New York legal scene.

Stewart faces up to 20 years in prison on charges that include conspiracy, giving material support to terrorists and defrauding the U.S. government.

Minutes before the verdict was read, Stewart said she felt ``nervous. I'm scared, worried.'' When she heard the pronouncement, Stewart began shaking her head and wiping her eyes. The courtroom was filled with her supporters, who gasped. She will remain free on bail, but must stay in New York, until her July 15 sentencing.

The trial focused attention on the line between zealous advocacy and criminal behavior by a lawyer. Some defense lawyers saw the case as a government warning to attorneys to tread carefully in terrorism cases.

Ummm, tread carefully, New York Times? It's a simple rule: Don't illegally smuggle messages from one terrorist to another.

It's not exactly a rule fraught with vagueness, you stupid silly assholes.

Stewart was the lawyer for Omar Abdel-Rahman, a blind sheik sentenced to life in prison in 1996 for conspiring to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and destroy several New York landmarks, including the U.N. building and the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels. Stewart's co-defendants also had close ties to Abdel-Rahman.

Prosecutors said Stewart and the others carried messages between the sheik and senior members of a Egyptian-based terrorist organization, helping spread Abdel-Rahman's venomous call to kill those who did not subscribe to his extremist interpretation of Islamic law.

What a peach.

And yet there are those who maintain there's no Fifth Column of anti-American, terrorist-sympathizing traitors in this country. Everyone is free to form their own "allegiances of conscience."

The hell with that. Lock this ugly whore away for the maximum. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Thanks to See-Dubya.

Ward Churchill Update: From later in the report:

But she also testified that she believed violence was sometimes necessary to achieve justice: "To rid ourselves of the entrenched, voracious type of capitalism that is in this country that perpetuates sexism and racism, I don't think that can come nonviolently."

Ms. Stewart, you're about to go to a place where getting that third helping of pudding won't come nonviolently, either, you horrid evil cow.

Posted by: Ace at 01:04 PM | Comments (24)
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He's not running.

How disappointing. I was looking forward to seeing the sort of Franken energy and talent that catapulted him from being a featured performer on Saturday Night Live in 1975 to a full cast member in 1995, after a mere 20 years of working on the show and whining to Lorne Michaels.

Posted by: Ace at 11:33 AM | Comments (4)
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Mega-update on Easongate from Michelle Malkin, who notes the story is -- despite the best efforts of our Ant Media Overlords -- breaking through into the mainstream.

Best bit comes from Marvin Olasky:

Bloggers have reported the story extensively, often accusing Jordan of giving aid and comfort to terrorists and their appeasers. This is the type of story that's harder to cover than one in which dollars clearly change hands, but it may be a more subtle form of bribery. Fox is beating CNN in the United States, but CNN is No. 1 around the world and wants to stay that way. What better way than to kiss up to Europeans and Middle Easterners than by telling them what they want to believe about those awful Americans?

The establishment media, instead of circling wagons to protect one of their own, should investigate. If anyone has evidence of soldiers knowingly targeting journalists, let's hear it. If there is no evidence, Jordan should clearly and loudly apologize, and CNN should stop giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

And, interestingly enough, you ought to know that as blog-readers, you're better-connected than Chris Matthews and Judy Woodruff. (Okay, as multicellular organisms, you're probably better connected to reality than they, but still.)

Hugh Hewitt reports that even after Easongate had been the rage of the blogosphere for more than a week, talking-head newstwits still hadn't even heard of the story at all.

Or at least they claimed not to. Sometimes feigning ignorance is the best way to avoid giving any opinion that could get you into trouble.

Al Gore still hasn't heard the "details" of Juanita Broadderick's rape charges, for example.

Posted by: Ace at 10:43 AM | Comments (4)
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Fraudulent Indian heritage, fraudulent military service, and now, of course, fraudulent "academic" writings.

University of Colorado officials reviewing Ward Churchill's writings and qualifications will find questions about his scholarship and accuracy dating back at least eight years.

"If he is going to get fired, it is going to be for making up data, and that's one thing you can't get away with in the academic community," said Thomas F. Brown, who holds a doctorate from Johns Hopkins and is an assistant professor of sociology at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas.

Brown is one of two professors at different universities who have published or have sought to publish detailed critiques of Churchill's work. Others have questioned his work in interviews.

Summing up his other ventures in profitable fraud:

But today, Churchill's intellectual rigor is the third area to face scrutiny in the academic and political world since his views about the Sept. 11 attacks - he called some of the victims "little Eichmanns" - became widely known.

His claims of Indian heritage, which remain unconfirmed by anyone other than Churchill, as well as the shifting tales of his military service, remain the source of public debate as Churchill battles calls for his resignation or dismissal.

Churchill, who has asserted at different times that he was of one-sixteenth Creek or three-sixteenths Cherokee ancestry, now refuses to discuss anything about his past or questions about his academic qualifications.

"None of those questions are relevant to anything," Churchill said Tuesday. "This is not an issue about me. This is an issue about what I said. I'm not going to turn it into the ... National Enquirer."

But while Churchill has been unable or unwilling to produce anyone who can testify to his claims of Indian ancestry, or his accounts of facing combat in Vietnam, he has many defenders of his academic record.

And who might those defenders be?

"I've read a fair amount of his work, and a lot of it is excellent, penetrating and of high scholarly quality," said Noam Chomsky, linguistics professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an anti-war activist.

Well knock me over with an eagle-feather.

I'd say that Ward Churchill (Indian name: "Great Resume Embroiderer") is in heap-big trouble.

Posted by: Ace at 10:13 AM | Comments (15)
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Donald Rumsfeld Criticized For Failing to Have a "Plan"

Umm, can I speak freely? IKEA sucks.

Five people are in hospital today after hundreds were crushed as the opening of England's biggest Ikea store turned into a riot.

Nine ambulances were sent to the outlet in north London after reports that up to 20 people had suffered heat exhaustion when the opening at midnight descended into chaos. Staff closed the doors after half an hour amid fears the stampede could become a Hillsborough-style crush.

Andrea Mitchell immediately condemned the American reconstruction effort for failing to get all of IKEA's air conditioning working properly.

Security guards said they were put "under siege" by customers who attacked them, leaving one guard with a dislocated jaw. The store remains closed and a cleanup operation is under way. Ikea apologised for the chaos and admitted the store was understaffed - but added that some customers "behaved like animals".

Ted Kennedy suggested the customers' behavior was encouraged by, if not specifically authorized by, the Gonzalez "Torture Memos."

...

Customers criticised the store. "I'm amazed at how badly organised it was," said Karni Mahmood, 37, from Enfield. "I only came here to buy a cheap sofa." Latyia Arpesh, 23, from Tottenham, said: "I was pushed to the ground and people clambered over me. I feared for my life."

She called for the United Nations to take more of a lead in restoring order and then called Ariel Sharon "a vampire."

...

As medics helped the injured, customers carried on shopping. A woman with pot plants said: "I've come from Birmingham for this." Jilal Patel, 29, from Tottenham, said: "I was queuing at 11am. Nothing is going to stop me from getting my sofa."

It is the common aspiration of all of humanity to crave:

1) freedom

2) low-cost some-assembly-required sofas executed in the design-school best described as Swedish Homosexual Moderne

Thanks to NickS.

Posted by: Ace at 09:27 AM | Comments (15)
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Football Fans for Truth offers up the Top Ten Most Dumbass Dean Quotes.

They're better that Geraghty's.

Posted by: Ace at 09:17 AM | Add Comment
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There are a couple of different sorts of charges leveled.

The first sort is of the "Okay, might have happened, so f'n' what?" variety.

The second sort of charge is of the "Yeah, you wish she did that" sort.

Separate them out for yourselves:

Female interrogators repeatedly used sexually suggestive tactics to try to humiliate and pry information from devout Muslim men held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to a military investigation not yet public and newly declassified accounts from detainees.

The prisoners have told their lawyers, who compiled the accounts, that female interrogators regularly violated Muslim taboos about sex and contact with women. The women rubbed their bodies against the men, wore skimpy clothes in front of them, made sexually explicit remarks and touched them provocatively, at least eight detainees said in documents or through their attorneys.

Horrors. That sort of treatment usually costs me $10 admission and a buck a minute in tips.

The inquiry uncovered numerous instances in which female interrogators, using dye, pretended to spread menstrual blood on Muslim men, the official said. Separately, in court papers and public statements, three detainees say that women smeared them with blood.

Torture!

...

Some of the newly declassified accounts of detainees evoke scenes from a rock music video. German detainee Murat Kurnaz told his lawyer that three women in lacy bras and panties strutted into the interrogation room where he was sitting in chains. They cooed about how attractive he was and suggested "they could have some fun," he said.

Three words: Gob. Smackingly. Vile.

But it gets even worse:

When Kurnaz averted his eyes, he said, one woman sat on his lap, another rubbed her breasts against his back and massaged his chest and a third squatted near his crotch. He head-butted the woman behind him, he said, knocking her off him. All three ran out and a team of soldiers stormed in and beat him, he said.

...

Esmail said "she bent down with her breasts on the table and her legs almost touching" him. "Are you going to talk," she asked, "or are we going to do this for six hours?"

Time for a repost... caution: content warning. more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:11 AM | Comments (12)
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