... which are of course marred anyway by the lack of a widescreen format.

And so you might want to think about buying the Playstation 3.

At least in a couple of years. When the prices come down, and when game-designers actually begin figuring out how to maximize the performance of the new platform's hardware.

Until then... well, there's always some titles by the Bogas Brothers that you might want to pick up.

Thanks to Fat Kid.

Posted by: Ace at 08:41 AM | Comments (10)
Post contains 105 words, total size 1 kb.

450 economists, including five Nobel laureates (PS, someone nominate me already), have endorsed Bush's plan for personal accounts as part of the Social Security system.

But...

This may be the first time youÂ’ve heard about this because the Washington Post and the New York Times havenÂ’t reported it. Neither has USA Today or the LA Times. According to a spokesman at Cato, it hasnÂ’t been reported on any of the major TV networks, either. No one is reporting this story.

I grow weary of hearing about the MSM's superior "news judgment" as regards what is and what is not important enough to report upon. Especially as concerns print media, where it's not a difficult trick to slip in eight or ten column inches on a story. It's not as if they're limited as to space.

"News judgment" = "liberal instincts as to what is 'good for America' and/or 'good for the Democratic Party'"

Posted by: Ace at 08:37 AM | Comments (7)
Post contains 171 words, total size 1 kb.

Loose shit on this yesterday-- Trump hadn't been offered the job, but he is offering his services to rebuild the towers, as they were, except five stories taller:

Donald Trump, escalating his war against the "empty skeleton" Freedom Tower, will offer his own design for a rebuilt 111-story "World Trade Center" at Ground Zero at a press conference tomorrow.

As a commenter said (approximately)-- anything better than that fey tinkly-glass monstrosity.

Let Trump do it... if he's serious, and it's not a publicity stunt. Don't give me any crap about Trump. Yeah, he's a blowhard and a doofus, but he does know how to build buildings, and he's got the right plan-- and maybe the juice to pull it off.

Plus, Kendra from The Apprentice needs a project to work on. I don't know if she knows lickspit about building skyscrapers, but I know she's adorable. And that's enough for me.

Trump Is Only Cheap and Tawdry When Designing Things Himself Update: And this time he's not. He will be proposing the Twin Towers II plan-- same towers, just five stories higher.

Posted by: Ace at 08:11 AM | Comments (32)
Post contains 196 words, total size 1 kb.

Gee, if the media aren't liberal, why do liberals dream up Krazy Konspiracy Konfabulations to defend the media everytime they get caught dirty?

From a "business futurist" (read: diagnosed maniac) over at the Huffington Compost:

Newsweek getting "caught" like this has Karl Rove's stink all over it. Am I the only one who sees this pattern at work? ...one that is destroying the credibility of the press? Not that the press hasn't made its own mistakes (thanks NY Times/Jason Blair)...but when it comes to "big news" stories where The White House gets to shout "How dare you!" because sources turn out to be shady (even though the facts of the story are never refuted)...

Come on, folks...who's going to benefit most from living in a country where when CBS or Newsweek says the people in power have done something bad those people can do their best Ronald Reagan imitation and say "There they go again."

The solution? Full disclosure of all sources when it comes to stories like this? I'm not sure.

But what I AM sure about it that any mainstream press organization that publicizes ANYTHING bad about this administration had better make sure they've got their source on tape and fingerprinted...not just for their own protection, but for the protection of America!

I don't do photoshops, so I'll just describe two funny ones.

First photoshop. Muslims burning the American flag. On the right, Admiral Akbar warns: "It's a TRAP!"

Second photoshop. Coupla guys sitting around a viewscreen in a badly-pixelated, old-school videogame spaceship scene. On the viewscreen is a smug Michael Isikoff. Caption: "SOMEONE SET US UP THE KORAN."

There you go.

Really no point in my buying photoshop when I'm so verbally brilliant as to paint pictures in yo's mind like that.

H/t to Brak.

Posted by: Ace at 07:31 AM | Comments (31)
Post contains 316 words, total size 2 kb.

Andrew Sullivan does the only thing he's still good at: beating up on the New York Times:. Regarding the Times' decision to charge fifty bucks a year to read the likes of Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich:

I can understand the economics of this, as newspaper circulation declines. But I wonder if, in the long run, this is a wise move on their part. By sectioning off their op-ed columnists and best writers, they are cutting them off from the life-blood of today's political debate: the free blogosphere. Inevitably, fewer people will link to them; fewer will read them; their influence will wane faster than it has already. The blog is already becoming a rival to the dated op-ed column format as a means of communicating opinion journalism. My bet is that the NYT's retrogressive move will only fasten the decline of op-ed columnists' influence.

One can only hope. He also links this tell-all by an ex-BBC conservative. Prepare to be shocked: the BBC hates Republicans and loves the UN.

And speaking of the UN, FBI investiator Robert Parton was quoted in court filings stating that the Oil For Food whitewash was flawed, and yes, he quite because Volcker was going soft on Annan.

Shockingly enough.

Back to Sullivan. He then goes about defending Newsweek, if you can believe such a thing... echoing Newsweek's defense of their being previous RUMORS about the flushing of the Koran, as if four rumors equals one factual verification. He cites, get this, the Daily Kos to boot. And then he says this:

So we have evidence of the abuse of Islam by U.S. interrogators; we have four citations of the Koran incident; Newsweek has not retracted the story; and more will no doubt come out. One thing worth reiterating: the notion that this obscenity simply couldn't have happened in the U.S. military (something I believed two years ago) is no longer an operative assumption.

Obscenity, you stupid shrill jagoff? Obscenity? Flushing a book down the toilet in order to get a terrorist's tongue moving? Let's see: Andrew doesn't approve of even mild physical coercion, he screams about "humiliation," and now even psychological gambits -- like the flushing of the Koran alleged here -- are "obscenities."

Fuck you, asshole. You've spit more bile at the Catholic Church in one month than this alleged "obscene" incident would constitute.

As that black guy from Aliens said, "Well what the hell are we supposed to use? Harsh language?"

I'm pretty sure Delicate Andrew would be pretty outraged by that as well.

Instapundit makes a couple of good points on this matter, including pointing a dagger right at Excitable Andy's palpitating heart:

I want to add that I don't think there's anything immoral about flushing a Koran (or a Bible) down the toilet, assuming you've got a toilet that's up to that rather daunting task, and I think it's amusing to hear people who usually worry about excessive concern for religious beliefs suddenly taking a different position. Nor do I think that doing so counts as torture, and I think that it debases the meaning of "torture" to claim otherwise. If this had happened, it might have been -- indeed, would have been -- impolitic or unwise. But not evil.

And anyone who thinks otherwise needs to be willing to apply the same kind of criticism to things like Piss Christ, or to explain why offending the sensibilities of one kind of religious believer is "art" while doing the same in another context is "torture." If, that is, they want to be taken at all seriously.

He also wants to know why the media are willing to effectively censor news stories featuring black criminals, in order not to inflame white bigotry against blacks, but have no second thoughts about running unsourced stories that inflame Muslim passions against the US.

Well, he doesn't really want to know why. He knows why. We all do.

It might have something to do with reporters voting 2 to 1 in favor of Kerry over Bush. Yeahp; two in every three reporters admitted to voting for John Kerry; one in every three just lied, knowing this survey would not be used for any purpose they'd approve of.

Well, not one in three. But one in six abouts.

Meanwhile, the media apologists are out in full force. ABC's Nightline helpfully explains to us that this really isn't a story about shoddy journalism... but rather a story that underscores the US's poor image in the Muslim world.

The pressies love attention, except when it's bad attention, and then it's time to switch topics.

Speaking of switching topics.

Democrats float filibuster compromise. I'm actually starting to wonder if Frist really has the votes, and cojones, to go nuclear, as it appears to be the Democrats sweetening their terms, not the Republicans:

With a showdown looming, a small group of Senate Democrats floated a compromise Monday on President Bush's stalled judicial nominees, offering to clear five for confirmation while scuttling three others.

Under the proposal, circulated in writing, Republicans would have to pledge no change through 2006 in the Senate's rules that allow filibusters against judicial nominees. For their part, Democrats would commit not to block votes on Bush's Supreme Court or appeals court nominees during the same period, except in extreme circumstances.

Officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said that Democrats involved in the compromise would vote to end any filibuster blocking a final vote on Richard Griffin, David McKeague and Susan Neilson, all named to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Democrats would also clear the way for final votes on William H. Pryor Jr. for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and Janice Rogers Brown for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Both are among the nominees most strongly opposed by organized labor as well as civil rights and abortion rights groups and others that provide political support for the Democratic Party.

Three other nominations would continue to be blocked under the offer: those of Henry Saad to the 6th Circuit Court, Priscilla Owen to the 11th Circuit and William G. Myers III to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Not a bad deal at all, really. I know that Democrats can of course claim all of Bush's nominees are "extreme" and thus begin filibustering again, but then the Republicans could simply execute the nuclear option. It's not like we're really losing much here-- except for three judges, who maybe should be confirmed on principle, but really, in exchange for an end to filibusters...? Worth it.

The Frech Suck. Breaking news. Must credit Ace.

French hatred is not a purely American phenomenon; those who know them best hate them even more than we do. A delightful survey of Europeans dishes:

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Britons described them as "chauvinists, stubborn, nannied and humourless". However, the French may be more shocked by the views of other nations.

For the Germans, the French are "pretentious, offhand and frivolous". The Dutch describe them as "agitated, talkative and shallow." The Spanish see them as "cold, distant, vain and impolite" and the Portuguese as "preaching". In Italy they comes across as "snobs, arrogant, flesh-loving, righteous and self-obsessed" and the Greeks find them "not very with it, egocentric bons vivants".

Interestingly, the Swedes consider them "disobedient, immoral, disorganised, neo-colonialist and dirty".

But the knockout punch to French pride came in the way the poll was conducted. People were not asked what they hated in the French, just what they thought of them.

"Interviewees were simply asked an open question - what five adjectives sum up the French," said Olivier Clodong, one of the study's two authors and a professor of social and political communication at the Ecole Superieur de Commerce, in Paris. "The answers were overwhelmingly negative."

Huh. Imagine what kinds of rotten pricks you have to be to get the goo-goo Swedes angry at you.

Finally, just to infuriate you: Arab journalists lecture on how ignorant we all are, and how racist, etc.

Let me just say this: For a culture constantly accusing others of "arrogance," it really makes little sense for you to constantly be implying your own superiority, now does it?

This war is largely animated by the outsized egotism, combined with the severe inferiority complex, of many in the Arab/Muslim world. (Yes, those two go together quite a bit.)

I'm afraid this war will not end until some people get the fuck over themselves already.

Posted by: Ace at 11:04 PM | Comments (44)
Post contains 1418 words, total size 10 kb.

Major Caveat/Correction: See below.

I love it when a good plan comes together.

I was just talking about this in the pre-interview with Deroy Murdock-- or at least about the then-dormant plans for the Twin Towers Two design.

Ogre Gunner just tipped me that Donald Trump announced on Hannity's show that he'll be taking over the building of the new WTC.

This is second-hand, obviously. I can't confirm it. But it's great news if true-- which I assume it is, because Ogre Gunner is a pretty good tipster.

Kismet-- because we were definitely going to hit this with Deroy Murdock tomorrow. Now we'll have a bit more to talk about on it.

Unconfirmed Update: I've only got one anonymous source, but if it works for Al-Newsweek, I don't see why it doesn't work for me.

Ogre Gunner says that Trump will be making the official announcement 10 or 10:30 Wednesday morning.

He also provides this link to to the Twin Towers II plans I mentioned above.

Glorious. F'n' glorious.

Correction/Caveat: Sean Hannity's website forums do not mention this.

I am informed by readers who heard the show that Trump was not the caller, but rather someone involved in trying to bring back the real Twin Towers. It's sketchy, but the impression I get is that this person claims that Trump will be taking over design/construction... or at least believes he will offer himself up to do so.

It's not a done deal yet, it seems. It may not even be an almost done deal.

Posted by: Ace at 01:46 PM | Comments (50)
Post contains 286 words, total size 2 kb.

Well, at 4:05 actually, on Rightalk.

Our guests will be Brian Anderson, author of South Park Conservatives: The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias, and Deroy Murdock, nationally syndicated columnist and frequent NRO contributing author.

We'll be discussing a lot about media bias, including the Newsweek fiasco, plus the explosion in the conservative Shadow Media, Democratic double standards on blacks and gays, and the awful World Trade Center design and the not-dead-yet dream of just rebuilding the towers five stories taller.

This time around I'm not freaking at all so there should be less of that Klonopin/Michelob Ultra Light scatterbrainedness that marred the last show.

Then again, who knows, maybe that was working for me. If so, back to being drugged to the point of a light coma for the following show.

Karol will also not giggle as much. I told her not to load up on goofballs before air-time, but did she listen? No.

They never do.

Posted by: Ace at 01:29 PM | Comments (16)
Post contains 175 words, total size 1 kb.

There, I said it. Everyone knows it's true. Japan is an amazingly interesting country, but they eat ice-cream filled with chunks of horse-flesh and they've got love-hotels and honey-comb hotels and they're strangely open/repressed about sexuality.

Their dirty-pictures manga porn isn't supposed to show pubic hair (a cultural taboo), so they get around that by making their cartoon-harlots barely pubescent. Which, you know, really makes no damn sense at all.

And don't get me started on that bizarre Godzilla movie featuring Godzookey, or whatever they called "Little Godzilla" in it.

And now...

They're selling a Russian Roulette toy-gun & game. For kids, of course.

Even more disturbing than the concept is the art chosen to adorn the package.

Boy, that kid looks like he's having all sorts of fun having his brains blown out (make-pretend, of course).

Because you know all boys aged 8-13 really want to re-enact that scene from The Deer Hunter.

We also all want to re-enact that big Polish wedding sequence, but, you know, that gets pretty costly. The damn dresses alone would cost a fortune!

So we'll just stick with putting guns to our heads and pulling the triggers.

Thanks to OgreGunner.

Even More Bizarrely Japanese Update: If the gun "shoots" you in the temple, you don't hear a "bang." Nope, a pair of pink hippo feet spring out and knock you in the head.

That's what kids dig. Suicide and cute pink hippos.

Posted by: Ace at 10:58 AM | Comments (49)
Post contains 255 words, total size 2 kb.

Same point I'm making, but it's being made elsewhere, including at the tony and respectable New Criterion:

Here's a question: Why is it that all the stories you read in Time-Newsweek-The New York Times-The Washington Post-Etc. or see on CNN-The BBC-CBS-NBC-Etc., why is it that all their stories about Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, etc., why is it that the presumption, the prejudice, the predisposition never goes the other way? Why is it that their reporters always assume the worst: that we're doing dirty at Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., and are primed to pick up and believe any rumor damaging to the United States? Shakespeare knew that rumor was a “pipe/blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures,” not to be trusted. So why do these journalists, trained to sift evidence, to probe sources, to listen beyond the static of rumor: why do they only do so in one direction, so to speak? Yes, I know that's a self-answering question, at least in part, but it is worth pondering nonetheless. Austin Bay calls the incident at Newsweek “The Press’ Abu Ghraib.” I hope that he is right.

Hat tip to Austin Bay, who similarly observes:

The “Vietnam-Watergate” motive’s also in play. That’s a tired and dirty game but for three decades it’s been a successful ploy for the New York-Washington-LA media axis. It’s rules are simple. Presume the government is lying– always make that presumption, particularly when the president is a Republican. Presume the worst about the US military– always make that presumption, even when the president is a Democrat. Add multi-cultural icing– the complaints and allegations of “Third World victims” are given revered status, the statements of US and US-allied nations met with cynical doubt and arrogant contempt. (Yes, the myth of the Noble Savage re-cast.)

But there is "no institutional bias" that led to the reckless and deadly decision to print this "story." After all, Newsweek's Washington Bureau Chief says so.

And Newsweek is all about the credibility.

PS: I would again mention that Judith Miller's reportage is an example of reportage the left can claim did "go the other way," that is, helped George Bush make the case for war.

Judith Miller wasn't fired, but her own paper rebuked her reportage. And the left still never shuts up about her. Neal Gabler just whined about her this weekend on Fox Media Watch.

That said-- Judith Miller had multiple sources for all her representations. Trouble is, those sources seem (seem) to have been relying on mistaken intelligence.

It's not as if she was allowed to print stories about Saddam's WMD's based on one anonymous sources' say so and a government official's vague non-denial, as happened here.

Posted by: Ace at 10:32 AM | Comments (8)
Post contains 459 words, total size 3 kb.

It's just another one of those coincidences.

Posted by: Ace at 10:22 AM | Comments (8)
Post contains 41 words, total size 1 kb.