Son of a bitch. This guy writes something so obvious and yet fairly novel (well, nothing's really new, but this is pretty close to newish) that explains why Republicans are winning now, why they're winning where they're winning, and how they could easily stop winning.

In three words: Affordable Family Formation. Where it's affordable to buy a decent house with a yard and get your kids into a decent public school-- that's Red State country. Where it's expensive to do so, that's Blue State country.

And if the Republicans want to keep their tiny electoral edge, they'll have to work hard to expand the areas in which Affordable Family Formation is possible.

I'm so angry right now I could spit. This is going to be the meme that everyone's talking about in a month, and I had nothing at all to do with it. Shit, this guy's coming up with stuff like this and I'm making Foghat jokes.

Thanks to Kausfiles, who also notes (quite quotably) that the New York Times' newly-announced policy of charging diehard Democrats fifty clams per year to read Paul Krugman is the ultimate in liberal cocooning.

Posted by: Ace at 01:31 PM | Comments (15)
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A self-styled "art terrorist" calling himself Bansky slipped this prehistoric rendering of a hunter-gatherer milling down the aisles at Wal-Mart, looking for the on-sale boxes of brontosaurus burgers, into an exhibit at the British Museum.

The faux artifact remained in the exhibit for "quite some time," he says, until he tipped the Museum off by posting about the prank on his website.

Kind of funny, but if my experience is any guide, no one looks very carefully at this shit in museums anyway. You see one rock or sarcophagus and you've pretty much seen them all.

You could slip in an aged VHS copy of Steven Seagall's Hard to Kill among the flints used to hunt prehistoric aurochs and no one would take notice. (Interestingly, no one took any notice of the actual release of Hard to Kill, either.)

If you want to impress me, slip a Rennaissance-style oil painting of the guys from Foghat on to the wall in the Dutch masters section. Then I'll give you big props.

Thanks to LauraW.

Posted by: Ace at 11:52 AM | Comments (18)
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I love it. Yeah, they nabbed one Republican state rep (that we know about so far), but a bunch of Democratic state senators.

Oh, and by the way, Howard Ford Jr.'s uncle is accused of threatening to kill an undecover federal agent.

I'm sure it doesn't have anything to do with his job performance, though.

Posted by: Ace at 11:43 AM | Comments (4)
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And I'm still an 80's music geek, too, so this is up my alley.

Again from Crosblog, which I linked for the ghost-whore story, a new show on NBC where "veteran" (read: washed-up) bands come to perform their signature songs, and a "current" song as well (read: horrible balads by 'N Sync), competing for prizes.

First up: Loverboy vs. Flock of Seagulls. Oh, and Arrested Development (I seem to remember them) and Tiffany.

I know Billy Squier really doesn't want to do this, but come on, man. I've gots to hear Everybody Wants You or In the Dark again, baby.

Oh, and... In case you haven't heard, INXS is lowering themselves to auditioning a new lead singer for their band on a show called Rock Star.

Yeah. I'll watch it. Damn straight I'll watch it.

Co-hosted by another reality TV favorite, Dave Navarro of Jane's Addiction, Red Hot Chili Peppers, that show with Carmen Electra, and of course Celebrity Poker Showdown.

Posted by: Ace at 10:45 AM | Comments (56)
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They were told to stay put; many didn't. They were told to avoid the elevators; many ignored this advice and got to street level as quickly as possible.

Good on them.

I know -- through a friend -- someone who did the same thing. This guy was rather old, and he had been through the 1993 garage-bombing of the building. And he knew how long it would take to walk down upwards of 100 floors of stairs. Especially for an old man, but I can't imagine too many twenty-somethings would be sanguine about that sort of downward trek, either.

So, after the first airplane struck the first tower, when his bosses said "Sit tight, we'll be okay," he said, "Screw you guys, I'm going home."

And headed for the stairwells. And got the hell out of Dodge.

And it probably saved his life, of course.

Thanks to NickS.

Posted by: Ace at 10:37 AM | Comments (33)
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No wonder the Democrats are so enamored of their European kinsmen.

Plan B from Outer Brussels. If Europeans reject the new constitution (which, frankly, I could care less about, except that the cocksucker European bureaucratic elites really seem to want it), they'll just have a re-vote. Or so some say.

On the other hand, al-Reuters says the French PM has rejected such a notion.

Let's hope that whatever happens, a great many Europeans are dismayed and even filled with "heart-ache" and write a lot of navel-gazing columns and letters to the editors and maybe get off of America's tits for like five minutes.

Thanks to The Shadow.

Posted by: Ace at 10:31 AM | Comments (6)
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You tell me what's the weridest part:

1) There's a brothel preserved as a museum in (wait for it) Butte, Montana.

Heh-heh. Heh heh heh. Heh heh heh. Butte.

2) Just as the New York Times was about to do a story on it, they open the doors for the reporter and find the cathouse museum to be the victim of illegal entry. It is suspected the thieves entered "through the back door."

Heh-heh. Heh heh heh. Butte. Back door. Heh heh heh.

3) The thieves made away with "antique sex toys." Not really sure what that means, pre-latex, before the great leap forward in sex-toy technology. I'm figuring it's stuff like wooden hammers with which to smash yourself in the genitals. Meat tenderizers, so to speeak.

Heh heh. Meat.

Hey-- people were made of tougher stuff back then.

4) But the thieves cheesed it before making it to the upper levels, where more valuable prehistoric sex toys were kept. Why?

"I think they got scared out as they were in the process," Giecek said.

More specifically, he's pointing to supernatural interference.

"I do think a ghost scared them off," he said.

In 1992, thieves who broke into the brothel and were caught said they were scared off the second floor by a ghost. Maybe the same thing happened here, he said.

Look, when you're in a whorehouse, the clanking of chains and rhythmic moaning does not necessarily indicate an ectoplasmic intruder.

Ectoplasm. Heh heh. Ghost choad. Heh heh heh. A heh heh heh heh huh huh heh.

Posted by: Ace at 10:21 AM | Comments (15)
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NYT's stock price keeps falling, along with its credibility and prestige.

PS: If you take any advice from me on financial matters and actually attempt to sell any media company short, you really are a moron, and you deserve anything you get.

Posted by: Ace at 10:12 AM | Comments (2)
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Well, it is the season for re-runs, right?

So let me get this straight. Newsweek runs a piece citing a "source" (in the original-- called "sourceS") suggesting that a new report would substantiate the flush-Koran stories.

The report comes out. It mentions the allegations -- not much of a shock, as jihadis have been making these claims since 2002 -- but does not mention any substantiation. It just lists the claims.

Newsweek's Howard Feinman claims, "See? We wuz right!"

Oh, really?

Once again, I have to go on record as saying I'm actually nearly 100% certain that the Koran has been treated in a disrespectful manner dozens of times to push the psychological buttons of these religious crazies.

But I'm kind of certain of a lot of things I can't prove. That doesn't mean I can report them as fact. I know that, and I'm just a goddamned amateur moronblogger. I'm not a hotshot reporter for a major (though irreparably tarnished) newsweekly featuring multiple layers of painstaking editorial fact-checking.

Hypothetical for the liberal reporters who think this story is so goddamned important it has to be reported, substantiated or not:

Imagine a Christian religious fundamentalist terrorist. Say an abortion-clinic bomber.

During interrogation -- trying to get the guy to squeal on his compatriots -- an FBI officer tears up the Bible. And then spits on the man's own crucifix.

Does anyone imagine that the New York Times, Newsweek, CNN, etc., would be troubled by such "outrageous" tactics? (For the record: I wouldn't be.) Do you think they'd bother reporting them, even if substantiated?

And if they did report them, don't you think they'd be careful to "contextualize" the interrogation by noting 1) it is not physically coercive, but merely psychologically so and 2) done to achieve a greater moral good?

It's been said too many times to even have an impact anymore, but apparently all religions are to be tolerated except 1) Christianity and 2) conservative Judaism.

Posted by: Ace at 09:37 AM | Comments (2)
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Several days old, but I never got around to posting it.

Long story short: facing an embarassing defeat in Westphalia and general discontent about Germany's ailing economy, Schroeder engineered quickie early elections by deliberately getting a vote of no confidence from the Parliament (the requirement for early elections). He had his own people vote "no confidence" in order to allow him to call for early elections.

Which raises the question: why didn't the opposition vote "confidence" to forestall this? I guess they were taken by surprise, or else really want a chance to take Schroeder down when he's wounded.

But obviously Schroeder figures this is his best chance to cling to power.

Of course I don't follow German politics very closely, but I have formed an impression or two, and one of those impressions is that Gerhard Schroeder is a fucking douche-tool.

I hope the conservatives in Germany can get it together, double-quick, and oust this dickhead. But European conservatives often seem even less competent than the American Republican Party.

Posted by: Ace at 08:54 AM | Comments (14)
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