...along with various other Democratic, err, luminaries.

Of course there's been flip-flopping on the issue by both sides; procedures aren't substance, and people will change their favored procedures in order to obtain the substantive outcome they desire. Happens all the time.

But there has been a great deal more flip-flopping on this issue by Democrats. The media loves to repeat the Democratic talking points that many Clinton nominees were "bottled up" by the Republican-controlled Senate, that vague language nicely avoiding specifying how many nominees had actually been filibustered.

Were nominees blocked? Yes, but here's the distinction the media seems unable to appreciate: The Republicans were the majority party in the Senate at that time (as they are now). The liberal MSM just doesn't seem to get it that the majority should be allowed to win in such contests, being, you know, the majority and everything.

And the media doesn't seem to note that most of the Clinton nominees held up by Republicans were held up in the closing year of his presidency. As can be expected-- no one wants to allow a departing president to pack the courts with judges as he's on his way out the door.

On the other hand, the Democrats began systematically blocking Bush's nominees from early in his first term.

Unless the filibuster is killed, it will only get worse from here.

Posted by: Ace at 02:44 PM | Comments (11)
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The story sparked a deadly riot.

The weekly news magazine said in its May 23 edition that the original source of the allegation was not sure where he saw the assertion that at least one copy of the Koran was flushed down a toilet in an attempt to get detainees to talk.

"We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst," Editor Mark Whitaker wrote in the magazine's latest issue, due to appear on U.S. newsstands on Monday.

The media does in fact have an impressive fact-checking system.

If a quote or purported fact portrays Republicans, the military, or America generally in a positive light, they check it to death to make sure they're not spreading propaganda.

But... if the quote or purpoted fact portrays those in a negative light, it pretty much gets into print with only the most cursory once-over by the editors. If it agrees with their basic world-view -- if it feels "right" in their gut -- then in runs.

Fact-checking comes later... after a couple of newly-minted corpses.

"There Is No Sanctuary" Update: Newsweek's Washington Bureau Chief, Dan Klaidman, claims there is "no institutional bias" regarding its publishing of an unverified smear as fact.

That's bullshit, of course.

But I think it says something that these rotten bastards are now forced to deny the the truth they could previously simply ignore.

Denial is one of the first steps to recovery, right?

Posted by: Ace at 01:49 PM | Comments (55)
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Sounds like they're asking for more than can be granted, but it does seem like they're looking for a way out:

The Bush administration, struggling to cope with a recent intensification of insurgent violence in Iraq, has received signals from some radical Sunni Arab leaders that they would abandon fighting if the new Shiite majority government gave Sunnis a significant voice in the country's political evolution, administration officials said this week.

The officials said American contacts with what they called "rejectionist" elements among Sunni Arabs - the governing minority under Saddam Hussein, which has generated much of the insurgency, and largely boycotted January's elections - showed that many wanted to join in the political system, including the writing of a permanent constitution.

But the political feuding that delayed the formation of the government for nearly three months after the elections has so far blocked the kind of concessions the Sunnis are demanding.

In particular, the Americans are pressing for Shiite hard-liners in the new Iraqi government to consider conciliatory gestures that would include allowing former Baath Party members to serve in the government, granting pensions to former army officers who served under Mr. Hussein and setting up courts that would try detainees seized in the anti-insurgency drive. Many of the detainees have been held for a year or more without legal recourse.

...

American officials say that while some Sunni groups will never lay down their arms, others have begun to recognize that their refusal to participate in the political process was a mistake. Meanwhile, the United States, battling a seemingly intractable insurgency, has begun to forcefully press for a political solution.

Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon news conference this week that the goal of the intensified insurgent attacks was to discredit the new government.

Senior American officers in Iraq and others in the Pentagon said the latest violence, which has killed nearly 500 people so far this month, had not prompted them to change their strategy of capturing or killing insurgents, cutting off their financing, pre-empting their attacks and training more Iraqi forces.

It's not Vietnam all over again-- this time the Administration won't be cowed by a last-gasp Tet Offensive.

Posted by: Ace at 05:48 PM | Comments (7)
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Two years of being unable to talk or feed herself, she regains those abilities:

While Gaskill's case doesn't parallel the late Terri Schiavo's exactly - Schiavo was in what some experts said was a persistent vegetative state for 15 years - doctors had all but given up hope that Gaskill would ever recover.
"I have never seen this happen in my career," her physician, David Schmeidler, told the AP. "I've read about it happening, the severely brain damaged recovering suddenly, but never seen it until now."

As with Schiavo, Gaskill's relatives claimed the disabled woman was responsive to them.

"In the last year and a half, she's indicated that she knows us; she has been watching TV and smiling," said her grandfather, Don Gaskill. "More recently, she started nodding her head when we asked her questions. Then a few months ago, she'd laugh out loud."

No comment.

Posted by: Ace at 05:42 PM | Comments (62)
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The New Vintage catches Thomas Sowell making sense, as usual:

Once you have ever had to go hungry, it is hard to get worked up over the fact that some people can only afford pizza while others can afford caviar. Once you have ever had to walk to work from Harlem to a factory south of the Brooklyn Bridge, the difference between driving a Honda and driving a Lexus seems kind of petty as well.

Posted by: Ace at 11:43 AM | Comments (23)
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The Sins is leaving the video-game business. Apparently their model of working is to have crush-sessions near the end of designing the game working 24 hours a day for days on end. No wonder there's so many damn bugs in these games.

Pointless Waste of Time notes that since the advent of the violent first-person shooter genre -- the games that allegedly desensitize young boys to actual violence -- violent crime has skyrocketed... downwards.

He also test-plays Halo 2 with "John," apparently a lunatic of some sort. Some funny stuff.

Posted by: Ace at 11:29 AM | Comments (3)
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No doubt about it; the current architect should be forced into the boardroom and told "You're fired:"

In an interview last night on MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” the developer Donald Trump panned the plans to build the Freedom Tower.

Calling the 1,776-foot building “a terrible design,” Mr. Trump said the master planner at the ground zero site, architect Daniel Libeskind, was “an egghead architect who really doesn’t have a lot of experience designing something like this.”

“It looks like a junkyard,” Mr. Trump said. “Frankly, I’d rather see nothing than see that pile of junk. I don’t want to have the terrorists win, Chris. And that’s what’s going to happen if we build this pile of junk.”

The star of NBC’s reality show “The Apprentice” said that instead of the Freedom Tower, he would like to see the Twin Towers rebuilt — one story taller.

“What I want to see built is the World Trade Center, stronger and maybe a story taller. … That’s what people want,” Mr. Trump said, according to a transcript of the interview. “They don’t want to be stuck with five or six buildings that were designed by a guy that shouldn’t be designing buildings, in my opinion.”

That is what people want.

Look, the WTC got knocked a lot for being boxy, graceless, and alienatingly massive. But that was before those bastards knocked them down.

I don't know about you, but I have a whole new appreciation for the Towers. I only got to go to the Observation Deck once in my life; I'd appreciate another chance. I think a lot of other people would, too.

Thanks to Someone.

Update: Donald Trump just proposed his own design for the towers. In his vision, they would be massive, "beautiful" buildings, shaped into massive "T's," adorned in gold filligree and pink Italian marble "like my incredible Mar a Lago estate."

He also proposed opening the "world's largest and most luxurious casinos" on the top ten floors of each building.

Posted by: Ace at 08:39 AM | Comments (35)
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I tried to get into the Comedy Cellar last night without reservations. I lied, I tried to read the list to grab someone else's name, I even claimed I was "media" and there to review the show. No dice.

I give myself great props for dropping that c***s***er "media" lie with a straight face and even a hint of "Don't you know who I am?"

But I did get to see Greg Giraldo (best known as one of the funniest regulars on Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn; more on that in a moment) as he was about to enter the club and as he was chatting with the Philippino woman who was guarding the door like a Nazi commandant. I told Girgaldo that if he could get me into the show, there would be "Hand-jobs a-plenty."

Well, he did a semi-fake laugh (it's tough to get comics to laugh, as they 1) have heard it all before and 2) are fragile-ego'd damaged persons who cannot bear to acknowledge someone else has uncorked a decent joke), and he didn't inquire further into my offer. If he had, I would have gotten to the actual punchline, which was that I wasn't offering him hand-jobs a-plenty; I was offering him the opportunity to provide such hand-love to me.

Oh, well.

He was wearing jeans and a leather jacket and not doing a very good job of convincing people he was a 17-year-old Young Turk rebel working in an autobody shop like a Columbian member of Danny & Kinicke's T-Bird dorkgang.

If you're curious about the ignominious fate of Colin Quinn's show, I got the scuttlebutt from the bouncer, who of course must have been a comic wannabe. He sure didn't seem particularly imposing; he seemed like a sweet-natured guy who wouldn't hurt a whisker on a bunny's nose.

But he says Comedy Central liked the premise of Tough Crowd, but, for whatever reason (political bias?) didn't like Colin Quinn. So Greg Giraldo will be hosting a show which is basically a complete clone of Colin Quinn's Tough Crowd (which, you know, was sort of just a clone of Politically Incorrect anyway), but without Colin.

I missed my opportunity to pitch a show-title for Girlado: Tough Crowd Without Colin Quinn.

So, no actual comedy, but I did get entertained by cab-driver named Julio who explained the dangers of being a cab-driver, his various run-ins with people who wanted to shoot him and take his money, and the dumb policy of New York's Taxi and Limousine Commission which forbids cab-drivers to carry any weapons at all, including mace, pepper spray, or even a baseball bat.

Posted by: Ace at 07:52 AM | Comments (6)
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Okay, Light Content Warning.

porn-parody site featuring hardcore for geeks, by which I mean blondes in bikinis seductively touching d20's, blowing on them for luck, rolling them in a sexy way, etc.

And that's just the first one. Very funny.

Thanks to Brock.

PS: Yes, I know this might be more than three minutes old. I've never seen it. Nyah nyah.

Posted by: Ace at 06:48 AM | Comments (10)
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It occurred to me during our various flame threads that I just didn't have much material on any but a couple of you.

So, for fun, and for future ammunition, please confess your dorkiest stories/attributes. Yes, you're knitting the noose that will hang you, but it's only fair. VonKreedon, JeffB, BBeck and I can't be the only ones here coughing up embarassing info about ourselves.

Posted by: Ace at 10:02 AM | Comments (350)
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