The Picture:

The Caption:

Desiree Goodwin leaves federal court in Boston, Monday, April 4, 2005. A federal court jury on Monday found that Harvard University did not discriminate against Goodwin, a library assistant who claimed her repeated bids for promotion were rejected by school officials because they saw her as 'just a pretty girl.' (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

-- from AP, via Yahoo [Emphasis added]

Hmmmm... they rejected her claims that she had been denied promotions simply because employers saw her as "just a pretty girl."

The jury also found against her on several other grounds. To wit, that she had not been discriminated against because her employers...

(a) saw her as "just an electric toothbrush;"

(b) viewed her "just a restored P-51 Mustang fighter;"

(c) regarded her as "just a 600 square foot fourth-floor walk-up on East 79th street;" or even

(d) judged her as "just a snowtrooper taking part in the famed battle of Hoth."

A lot of people go through life with the vague suspicion that they are either average-looking or slightly unappealing.

It's not too many people who have the luck of getting a court decree stating that fact for the official record.

Thanks to LauraW.

LauraW Update: She brings da funny to her own tip--

I feel bad for her. I was once denied a promotion for being too damned beautiful.

Of course, they claimed I was grossly unqualified, hostile to management, didn't actually work there, blah blah blah.

I think we all know what was really going on.

Don't have to explain it to me, sister. I been there. Ohhh, I been there.

I live there, as a matter of fact.

Now I Get It: She's a Scorcher Update: Joe Mama, if that is his real name, suggests that this picture suggests better why she might have thought people thought of her only as "just a pretty girl."

Posted by: Hoke at 10:53 AM | Comments (24)
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Their pictures were shocking. Their timing amazing.

Or rather not so amazing. The photographers were at least "tipped off" by terrorists as to where to be to snap juicy execution or murder pictures.

Michelle Malkin is all over this outrage.

As are the Powerline Boys.

And Michelle's got her own idea of what a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph ought to look like:

BTW-- When's Leni Riefenstahl getting her posthumous Pulitzer? She took some dynamite pictures too.

Posted by: Ace at 09:59 AM | Comments (29)
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ACE: Hoke. How are you doing?

HOKE: Well enough, I suppose.

ACE: Sorry for all that stuff I said about your weight problem.

HOKE: You didn't insult my weight. I hung up on you when you began attacking my family.

ACE: Oh. Well, I had meant to get around to it. You should really do something about that. Chins, you know. Once you're even in the plural area with chins, you've already gone wrong.

HOKE: I'm not a pound overweight. I'm thinner than you are.

ACE: Well, maybe it's just the way your stupid wife dresses you. Anyway, I just had a really great idea for a blog post, and I thought--

HOKE: Look, if you want to blog, just stop with this stupid retirement ploy and start blogging again.

ACE: Oh, no. Oh no, brother. I am done with that rat-race. But I had an idea for a post you might want to write.

HOKE: Okay... whatever.
more...

Posted by: Hoke at 09:22 AM | Comments (7)
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That's what Marvel used to call itself, back when I read comic-books at least. That's about the extent of my own comic-book knowledge, but I figured Ace's readers might appreciate the memory.

Ron Brownstein doesn't call the GOP the House of Ideas -- not quite -- but he does seem to understand that the intellectual momentum is moving from right to center:

From Social Security, to intervention in the sad case of Terri Schiavo, to the appointment of conservative federal judges, every major debate positions the parties in the same way: Republicans are on offense, Democrats on defense.

The debate on the federal budget isn't about whether to raise taxes to reduce the deficit, it's over how much more to cut taxes. Washington isn't examining how to expand coverage for those without health insurance, but whether to cut the Medicaid program that provides the central strand in our society's safety net.

...

Former Democratic presidential candidate and former Sen. Bill Bradley last week suggested that the party faced this problem because it had not developed enough compelling ideas.

There's some truth to that; congressional Democrats, for instance, have made a tactical decision not to offer an alternative to Bush's Social Security initiative.

...

Only future elections will settle [these debates]. But both analyses point to the same conclusion: The fate of both parties hangs mostly on the public's verdict about Republican ideas.

Update: Serendipitious brilliance is catchy on Ace's site. JackM. points out that GOP Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska wears an Incredible Hulk tie when girding for political battle.

Posted by: Hoke at 09:05 AM | Comments (10)
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Via Kausfiles, Howard Dean patiently attempts to explain to his fellow Americans that they are terminally stupid, and the prognosis is grim:

We have to acknowledge people's fears. It's not just about gay rights and abortion. It's fear of what happens to their families. What they need is a signal from the Democratic Party that we're going to make it easier for them to raise their kids. The mistake is to think we're going to talk people out of their fears. These are not logical fears. Most kids will turn out fine, even in this era of bad stuff on television and things like that. You cannot sit down and logically explain to people why they have their fears.

Emphasis added.

Howard Dean further empathized with the plight of the middle-class, noting the lack of truly-fashionable Husky-sized overalls and the employment challenges facing drooling inbred Appalachian trash, "such as (pointing) you hillbilly-hucklebucks over there."

I have to cop to this one: there was a point, way back in June, when I thought this idiot actually had a chance. I ate crow for that pessimism, but obviously not enough of it.

Posted by: Hoke at 08:21 AM | Comments (11)
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I'm not getting even a share of of the pitiable ad revenue Ace calls his income, so I'm taking it easy today. If I'm in Ace's house, I'll play by Ace's rules. And I'll just re-link old material all day long.

But not Ace material. His old material is more burned-out and broken-down than Harry Dean Stanton in a John Hughes movie.

Which movie? Any of them. They're all the same.

Scout tips to this old "interview" with Ace by Wuzzadem and the Unpopulist.

Pretty darn funny, and the best part is that Ace gets no credit whatsoever for it.

It does deal with previous concerns that Ace had fled and wasn't coming back, for what it's worth.

Posted by: Hoke at 08:04 AM | Comments (1)
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Thoughts and prayers for him. He's a political opponent, but not an enemy.

Sad news tipped by Johnny.

Posted by: Hoke at 07:51 AM | Comments (5)
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Ace called me to see how the blog was going, and to let everyone know he's doing okay. I took the liberty of recording the conversation (easy enough with a Sansung 3250) and I have transcribed the call for any who are interested.

ACE: Hoke, what's up? Blog going okay?

HOKE: You're still getting some hits off Instapundit, so it's okay for the day at least. What's going on exactly? Is this real? Are you retired?

ACE: Well... I don't know. After I wrote that post, I got to thinking. You know, I called it the Greatest Post I'd Ever Written In My Whole Useless Life, and I meant that to be a joke, but when I started to think about it-- it wasn't really a joke. A year and a season of blogging and I'm still basically on Oliver Willis' level. That's... well that's just sad.

HOKE: You get a good zinger in once in a while.

ACE: So does f'n' Gallagher, you know? And at least he's actually got a career. People have heard of the Sledge-O-Matic. Ninety percent of the public don't even know what a "blog" is. I hate to say it-- but Gallagher's got heat, you know?

HOKE: Without doubt.

ACE: So I'm just thinking, up or out baby, up or out... I can't just keep writing a bunch of silly shit for a tiny gaggle of sniggering retards. Uhhhhh... don't say I called them that.

HOKE: Got it. Edit it out.

ACE: Right. Call them, I don't know, what the hell are they? What would you call such... specimens?

HOKE: Intelligent, good-natured people?

ACE: Yeah... I guess. Oh well, run with it. White lie and all.

more...

Posted by: Hoke at 07:16 AM | Comments (20)
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Hoke Malokey here again, steering this listing ship to safer shoals.

While Ace is on an "away team" -- hopefully not permanently -- I'll be guest-blogging.

Ace is, I imagine, trying to figure out where to go from here. "Here" meaning a middling practitioner of an obscure hobby.

Gun to my head, I'm guessing he'll go back to his first love -- the promotion and management of cockfighting exhibitions -- but I really don't know for sure.

Posted by: Hoke at 05:53 AM | Comments (25)
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Anyone have the skill to do a simple mash-up and the desire to slap one together quickly?

Please let me know. PS, I guess you have to be able to download a song, too.

(NOTE: This is not actually a post. This is a bleg.)

Posted by: Ace at 06:39 PM | Comments (64)
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