Sure, it's just one battle, and there have been many in which hundreds of civilians have perished.

But how sweet is it that the good guys won one for a change?:

Ordinary Iraqis rarely strike back at the insurgents who terrorize their country. But just before noon today, a carpenter named Dhia saw a troop of masked gunmen with grenades coming towards his shop and decided he had had enough.

As the gunmen emerged from their cars, Dhia and his young relatives shouldered their own AK-47's and opened fire, police and witnesses said. In the fierce gun battle that followed, three of the insurgents were killed, and the rest fled just after the police arrived. Two of Dhia's young nephews and a bystander were injured, the police said.

"We attacked them before they attacked us," Dhia, 35, his face still contorted with rage and excitement, said in a brief exchange at his shop a few hours after the battle. He did not give his last name. "We killed three of those who call themselves the mujahedeen. I am waiting for the rest of them to come and we will show them."

Dang...! Didn't have to go all "pre-emptive," Dhia. I imagine the condemnation from Kofi Annan will be swift and fierce.

Well, not fierce. Kofi Annan doesn't do fierce. Fierce might rumple his thousand-dollar suits.

It was the first time that private citizens are known to have retaliated successfully against insurgents. There have been anecdotal reports of residents shooting at attackers after a bombing or assassination. But the gun battle today erupted in full view of half a dozen witnesses, including a Justice Ministry official who lives nearby.

The battle was the latest sign that Iraqis may be willing to start standing up against the attacks that leave dozens of people dead here nearly every week. After a suicide bombing in Hilla last month that killed 136 people, including a number of women and children, hundreds of residents demonstrated in front of the city hall every day for almost a week, chanting slogans against terrorism. Last week, a smaller but similar rally took place in Baghdad. Another demonstration is scheduled for Wednesday in the capital.

Let us have more of this. Much more.

But there may be consequences for this heroism:

Meanwhile, a group of armed neighborhood men stood watch on the roof of the house, guarding the streets leading to the Husseiniya mosque and Dhia's shop.

"I am sure they will be back," one of the guards said. "We killed three of them."

These men are savages and killers, so I don't doubt there's a good chance they'll be back.

But they are also rather cowardly, and prefer to score their "military victories" against buses full of twelve-year-old schoolgirls and other unarmed civilians.

We will see. Let's hope if they do come back, they die in even greater numbers than before.

Thanks for AndrewF for this great news on this sad day.

Posted by: Ace at 12:36 PM | Comments (39)
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A lot of people want me to ban this person or that. I resist these calls, generally, because I don't wish to stifle people's opinions.

But here is what can definitely get you banned:

Comments that advocate, or seem to advocate, political violence as payback for losing a political dispute.

Not on this fucking site, ever. If you want to post such murderous impulses, go find a nice white-power or survivalist site with less dedication to the principle of lawful political agitation.

Not again. And I'm not fucking kidding about this.

Posted by: Ace at 11:54 AM | Comments (71)
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It's not a proper revolution anymore until it has a marketable name. Not being snide; just noting that peaceful revolutions need a bit of PR. Like stacked Lebanese babes in tight shirts.

Gateway Pundit reports:

A Central Asia expert with the Russian newspaper Vremya Novostei, Arkady Dubnov, said the situation in Kyrgyzstan was irreversible.

"The only question now is when the government will be changed," he told Ekho Mosvky radio, adding that the protests were "another link" in the chain of political change sweeping through the former Soviet Union.

But this revolution isn't entirely peaceful, either. Quoting lightly from StatFor:

In this case, however, the protests have run to violence: Opposition factions in western and southwestern Kyrgyzstan, where there are high populations of ethnic Uzbeks, have taken to storming government buildings, beating policemen and vice versa, as they protest corruption and demand Akayev's resignation.

he opposition is using a tried-and-true tactic: Calling protestors into the streets, betting that government security forces won't put up a serious show of force. This is key to the "velvet" revolution -- to push security forces themselves into giving way or, better yet, siding with the protesters themselves. We are told that in this case, the activists maintain secret contact with government security leaders in order to quietly negotiate the desired outcome.

I prefer breasts to beatings, myself.

Via Instapundit, disappointing reports that Russia just might fight this one.

Posted by: Ace at 11:47 AM | Comments (6)
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Yes, I know, I'm beating a dead horse. I suppose we'll soon have another corpse to beat.

Still:

According to news reports, Mr. Schiavo lives with a woman named Jodi Centonze, and they have two children together. Surely any court would consider this prima facie evidence of adultery. And this is no mere fling; a sympathetic 2003 profile in the Orlando Sentinel described Centonze as Mr. Schiavo's "fiancée." Mr. Schiavo, in other words, has virtually remarried. Short of outright bigamy, his relationship with Centonze is as thoroughgoing a violation of his marriage vows as it is possible to imagine.

The point here is not to castigate Mr. Schiavo for behaving badly. It would require a heroic degree of self-sacrifice for a man to forgo love and sex in order to remain faithful to an incapacitated wife, and it would be unreasonable to hold an ordinary man to a heroic standard.

But it is equally unreasonable to let Mr. Schiavo have it both ways. If he wishes to assert his marital authority to do his wife in, the least society can expect in return is that he refrain from making a mockery of his marital obligations. The grimmest irony in this tragic case is that those who want Terri Schiavo dead are resting their argument on the fiction that her marriage is still alive.

Politics Makes Whores of Us All Update: If the Republicans have been less than heroic on this issue, at least they have good reasons -- of the cynical sort -- for their cowardice.

The public wants the tube yanked, to the extent they care at all, which they largely do not.

I suppose Republicans deserve some small amount of praise for the late-in-the-game half-measures they've taken. Politicians are whores, and will always be so, and few have hearts of gold. Still, the whores at least tried, tenatively and half-heartedly, to do the right thing.

Which is reason for light praise as far as whores go, I reckon.

Thanks to KCTrio for the bad polling news.

Posted by: Ace at 11:29 AM | Comments (33)
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By another .25% click:

The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to raise its target for the federal funds rate by 25 basis points to 2-3/4 percent.

The Committee believes that, even after this action, the stance of monetary policy remains accommodative and, coupled with robust underlying growth in productivity, is providing ongoing support to economic activity. Output evidently continues to grow at a solid pace despite the rise in energy prices, and labor market conditions continue to improve gradually. Though longer-term inflation expectations remain well contained, pressures on inflation have picked up in recent months and pricing power is more evident. The rise in energy prices, however, has not notably fed through to core consumer prices.

The Committee perceives that, with appropriate monetary policy action, the upside and downside risks to the attainment of both sustainable growth and price stability should be kept roughly equal. With underlying inflation expected to be contained, the Committee believes that policy accommodation can be removed at a pace that is likely to be measured. Nonetheless, the Committee will respond to changes in economic prospects as needed to fulfill its obligation to maintain price stability.

Not really cowbell-worthy -- hell, who gets jazzed over increased interest rates? -- but it does indicate continuing confidence in the economy's fundamentals. The economy is strong enough, apparently, to ride on steadily and briskly, without the benefit of artificially-low-interest-rate training-wheels.

Thanks to someone who seems to be a new Deep Stoat, whom I will therefore call Deep Stoat Part II, in honor of the (universally reveilled, google tells me) sequel to Deep Throat.

Posted by: Ace at 10:45 AM | Comments (20)
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She'll be dead soon. They got their coonskin.

I thought a law authorizing de novo (from the start, i.e., all-new) review of the facts in a state court case would at least merit an injunction while the judge read the record, but apparently not.

It seems to me there was only one sort of law which could have saved Terri. Any law leaving any discretion in a judge's hands would result in her death.

They should have just passed a law stating that no one who had behaved in a manner incompatible with marriage could remain a guardian of a wife without that wife's explicit written consent and approval. Schiavo's engagement to the woman he's had children by would disqualify him as a guardian, obviously.

Related: Clinton Taylor notes in the the American Spectator that one's personal possessions are apparently now better protected by the law than one's life.

If You Say So Update: Bill (not from InDC) opines:

I've been reading a lot in the legacy media that dying of thirst and starvation is a really peaceful way to go. If that's the case, we should propose it as a new method of capital punishment to replace lethal injection, etc.

And sounds cheaper, too. And if there's any doubt about the constitutionality about this, we can always bring in Michael Schiavo to offer hearsay testimony that the condemned had previously told him, "Yeah, you know, when I go out, I want to go out hungry, baby."

Just substituted judgment, you know. Hearsay, yes, but "credible and consistent" I think.

Thomas Sowell has similar thoughts. Thanks to Ryan for that.

A Lot of Things Died 15 Years Ago, Michael Update: Making the case:

"Terri died 15 years ago," Schiavo said, referring to the collapse and cardiac arrest that doctors say virtually destroyed her brain. "It's time for her to be with the Lord like she wanted to be."

Terri died 15 years ago, but apparently his "marriage" to her lives on, and by extension his right to make life and death decisions about her does as well.

An interesting trick.

Good Piece by guest blogger Dorian Davis (at what point does a "guest" become an official cast member, I want to know) over at Alarming News.

Second Verse, Same as the First Update: But I don't care. This is a point worth making, as often and as from as many angles as possible. Cynical Nation offers:

Seems a lot of people want to have it both ways. On the one hand, they defend Michael Schiavo's right to "move on" with his life. On the other hand, they point out that as Terri's "husband," he is her closest living relative, and her fate should rest solely with him.

Well if he's her husband, then he's certainly guilty of adultery, as well as de facto bigamy. Sounds like open-and-shut grounds for divorce to me. Too bad she's in no condition to serve papers on him, huh?

Look, no one can blame him for wanting to move on with his life, but in so doing, he should cede his role as her legal guardian.

Pandora's Box Update: One largely-unexpressed notion that I think is animating the kill-Terri brigade is the belief that if we allow the judges to inquire into who really remains a husband, we'll be opening a Pandora's Box of litigation over these matters in the future.

Fair enough; though generally judges are quite willing to go through years of appeals and review in the case of a man sentenced to be executed; not sure why they should recoil from a thorough examination as regards the execution of the innocent.

But this idea isn't very persuasive, either. Many people die without the convenience of a husband; in such cases, there may be disputes between parents and siblings as too what to do. Courts, of course, must determine who is in the best position to speak on behalf of the silent patient.

Is it such an enormous judicial burden to also conduct such an inquiry as regards a husband-on-paper only?

One last chance to enlist the feminists: Consider that by marrying a man you give him the power of life and death over you, even after he ceases being a family member in fact.

Do feminists concede this power of life-and-death over women to men -- estranged men, virtual-stranger men-- by simple virtue of a piece of paper titled "Certificate of Marriage"?

As Johnny Carson (RIP) would have said, "I did not know that."

Posted by: Ace at 09:38 AM | Comments (193)
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Let's pray it's so.

The New York Times reports this, interestingly enough.

It makes the "Tet Offensive" analogy a bit stronger. Sometimes a sudden offensive is not a sign of strength, but a desperate last gasp.

Posted by: Ace at 11:35 AM | Comments (7)
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Video of the prank; and the guy didn't just say "ass," either.

And they say bloggers are too quick to put up "scoops" without fact-checking beforehand.

Posted by: Ace at 11:19 AM | Comments (11)
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Personally, I don't think this idea is really all that outrageous. If Bill Maher has said one true thing in his life, it's that liberals are all wet about kids just being "little adults" to be treated as such.

They're not little adults. Different rules apply, and different rules have always applied. And if teenage high school cheerleaders are now bending over and shaking their asses and seductively grinding, well, that's not really appropriate for high school kids.

'Sides-- it's not like you have to sexualize cheerleaders. I grew up with just the saddle-shoes and skirts and stiff, robotic choreography, and I could barely keep my head from exploding over that fairly tame fare.

But in any event, this is obviously the sort of story that can be used to demonstrate that the GOP is the anti-sex party, and a bunch of crazy religious zealots, and just basically people who are no fun at all and ruining things for the rest of us.

Trouble is, that narrative doesn't quite work, as the lawmaker suggesting a ban on high-school freak-cheerleading is a Democrat.

An earlier AP version of the story noted this; the current version does not.

Why?

Three guesses, and if it takes you all three, let's be honest, you're a salivating moron.

Thanks to Eric for the tip.

Posted by: Ace at 10:14 AM | Comments (23)
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I took some ribbing for having never seen the "Star Wars kid" video before, and linking it as a "new" bit of funniness.

But on Arrested Development last night, the son (George Michael Bluth) was seen in his garage doing the same clumsy light-saber maneuvers with a broom.

So: Was I behind the cultural zeitgeist?

Not at all, mon frers. I am exactly where I have always been: I am the cultural zeitgeist.

So, suck it. Suck it hard, weisenheimers.

Posted by: Ace at 10:08 AM | Comments (19)
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