Powerline:

It is sad that the Democrats have voted en masse against a judge who by any rational standard should be non-controversial. Owen was re-elected to her position as a Justice of the Texas Supreme Court by an overwhelming majority, and received the highest possible rating from the American Bar Association. By contrast, Ruth Ginsburg, whose history as an ACLU lawyer and activist could have made her a more legitimately controversial figure, was confirmed on a 97-3 vote. Historically, Republicans have never adopted the Democratic tactic of first smearing, then voting against judicial nominees with whom they disagree politically. It will be interesting to see what the Republicans do next time we have a Democratic President.

Meanwhile, Decision '08 begins a "Coalition of the Chillin'," bloggers who aren't outraged by this deal.

I'm moving from the outraged camp to the chillin' camp. It's not such a horrible deal, and, if DeWine and Graham are to be believed, the nuke option remains on the table -- even in this Congress -- should their compromise-partners fail to honor the spirit of the deal.

Thanks to the National Journal's Blogometer, which would get a lot of hits if people could actually link to it.

Posted by: Ace at 08:46 AM | Comments (16)
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I haven't been this f'n' psyched since Meadowlark Lemon joined the cast of Hello, Larry. A Harlem Globetrotter and Kim Richards? Almost too much of a boy's dream come true to be real.

She'll be doing three episodes.

Prediction: She'll play a wisecracking, somewhat depressive lesbian.

As with her role as a mentally-challenged woman in Riding the Bus With My Sister, this is an actor who continues to stretch.

Thanks to Chickpea.

I do not think there will be any liveblogging. There is, sadly, always the risk that if you record too many gay-pleasing shows, your TiVo will begin thinking you're gay.

Funny article there, by the way. Very old, of course.

Posted by: Ace at 08:08 AM | Comments (4)
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Obviously, there have been a lot of rumors about Zarqawi, and we can't take them terribly seriously.

But... there seems to be a drip-drip-drip quality to this latest series of rumors. I don't know if that really ads to the credibility of any of them; but it is sort of different that at least these rumors have follow-up rumors.

Posted by: Ace at 07:49 AM | Comments (14)
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Simon & Schuster Young Adult Book Aimed at 14-15 Year Olds Is All About "Rainbow Parties," Where Kids Have Semi-Anonymous Group Oral Sex

Unbelievable.

I guess I have something more to say than unbelievable, but for now, I'll just link Michelle Malkin.

Thanks to Brak.

Cautionary Tale? Bullshit: An unnamed poster notes:

I don't know. It doesn't sound that bad to me. From the USA Today article:

Bethany Buck, Ruditis' editor at Simon & Schuster, came up with the idea for the book and says she hopes it will "scare" young readers.
Suzanne Kelly, a buyer for the Chester County Book and Music Co. in West Chester, Pa., which will stock a limited number of Rainbow, agrees. She says the book's message that oral sex "really is sex" and that teens can contract STDs through such sexual practices far outweigh the controversial story line.

"I can't imagine anyone reading this book and saying, 'Hey, what a great idea. Let's send out invitations...."

The Claw rejoins:

Ah, that explains it...he was never a teenaged boy.

Yes, teenaged boys would send out invitations. All teenaged boys want to do is have sex. I guess some/many/most teenaged girls want to as well, but historically, they've been the brakes on the process.

The whole idea of a "cautionary tale" is just ass. In the fifties, there were dirty-ish magazines featuring names like Teenage Confidential and the like that would be all about good girls going bad and taking barbituates and having lots of sex and then having an epiphany or some tragedy that convinced them that they had chosen the wrong path.

But, obviously, no one was reading those stories for the obligatory moral point cynically packed in to the last two pages. They were reading for the barbituates and the sex.

This is so well-known and so obvious I'm surprised this guy even attempts this spin.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls spoofed this convention -- unbridled transgressive hedonism for an hour and half, capped by a judgmental and moralistic narrative that explained all the "lessons learned" -- and really, apart from the gigantic boobs and lesbianism in the film, it's really only that final two minutes that work at all, because it's funny. The narrator makes so many moralistic points, so ham-handedly, in just two minutes it makes you crack a smile (something the rest of the film failed to do).

If this Rainbow Party book is informative or a "cautionary tale," then really so is Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, or most of Russ Meyers' gigantic-tits-and-Nazi-murderers oevure, because a lot of those movies also have the quaint 50's censor-pleasing convention of the quick recap of "lessons learned."

So why not make Beyond the Valley of the Dolls available in junior high libraries, too?

Posted by: Ace at 06:47 AM | Comments (142)
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Okay, if you haven't seen Star Wars III yet (and you should wait for DVD, by the way), there's an embarassing moment when Vader is told something sad (take a guess), and he lets out this ridiculous "NOOOOOOOOOO" whine/wail.

So that's what you need to NOOOOOOOOO to find this parody funny.

Great stuff, and I know it's not old, because Dave sent it to me.

Posted by: Ace at 06:31 AM | Comments (10)
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...over the past few weeks. So they say, at least.

Syria has arrested more than 1,200 people trying to cross the border into Iraq in recent weeks and sent many back to their home countries because of suspicions they were trying to join the insurgency, Syria's U.N. ambassador said.

Ah. A catch and release program. Typical.

Fayssal Mekdad also denied rumors that terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi may be seeking shelter in Syria.

Mekdad said Syria suspected that those arrested — mostly foreigners — intended to carry out illegal activities in Iraq. They were sent back to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Libya and other countries, he said.

"We gave a lot of information to the United States on these issues, which prevented many attacks, but regrettably, the United States did not recognize such kind of help," he said in an interview.

Syria's ambassador to the United States, Imad Mustafa, said Tuesday that Syria had stopped security and military cooperation with the United States in the past few months after Washington failed to respond to repeated Syrian overtures. Mekdad said contacts continued "until a few weeks ago."

Syria provided the United States with intelligence on al-Qaida after the Sept. 11 attacks. But President Bush ordered sanctions against Damascus a year ago after longstanding complaints that Syria was supporting terrorism and undermining U.S. efforts in Iraq — allegations it denies.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has steadily stepped up her rhetorical attack, from saying Syria was not doing enough to guard the border with Iraq to accusing it of permitting insurgents to stage their operations from Syria.

Not sure what to make of this, but it seems Syria is trying to get back in our good graces, despite (because of) our taking a firm stance.

Diplomacy and happy-talk is nice and everything, but sometimes it doesn't hurt, and may even help, to lay down the law.

Posted by: Ace at 06:25 AM | Comments (4)
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I forget now, is the good news in the War on Terror a distraction from the economy, or is the good news about the economy a distraction from the War on Terror? It gets so confusing:

The U.S. economy expanded at a 3.5 percent annual rate in the first quarter, faster than the government previously estimated, as the trade deficit shrank and consumer spending was stronger than initially calculated.

The second estimate of gross domestic product, the total volume of goods and services produced in the U.S., follows an advance calculation of 3.1 percent reported April 28 and growth of 3.8 percent in the final three months of 2004, the Commerce Department said today in Washington.

The figures reinforce the suggestion yesterday from Jack Guynn, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, that the U.S. Fed can keep raising interest rates to control inflation and not derail the expansion. The report may also help quell concern that the world's largest economy is losing momentum because of higher energy prices, economists said.

``Energy prices may have contributed to caution in business spending, but consumer spending is still quite strong and real estate is through the roof,'' said Mike Englund, chief economist at Action Economics LLC in Boulder, Colorado, before the report. ``The economy isn't showing much sign of weakening, and with hindsight this looks like a period of strong and steady growth.''

Inflation accelerated from the fourth quarter, although today's report showed no increase in the previous estimates for the January-March period. Corporate profits grew less than in the fourth quarter. Spending on home construction soared.

Thank you, Vinny Falcone, for watching over our economy
and riding its ass, and insuring no loose shit happens during
our quarterly cut-offs.

Thank you, Gene Frenkle, for playing that cowbell...
like the wind.

And thank you most of all, Paul Krugman, for inducing
the economy to grow, by hyp-mo-tizin' it with your crazy-eyes.

Guess what? I got a feeveh. And the only. Prescription. Is more cowbell. I gotta have more cowbell.

Thanks again for that kickin' theme to Blaster's Blog.

And thanks to Morpheus for the actual tip.

Geeze. Lot of thank yous on this. Worse than Sean Penn receiving the Irving G. Thalberg Lifetime Achievement Award for Being a Good Actor While Simultaneously Being a Completely Humorless Prick.

Can We Break Out of the Range-Bound Funk? Update: Sure would be nice to see the Dow finally get above 10,800 or so in the next couple of weeks.

Posted by: Ace at 06:16 AM | Comments (7)
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Great Scot, this is a freaky looking dude.

Thanks to Dave. Linked today by the Corner, so I know it isn't old yet.

Posted by: Ace at 02:30 PM | Comments (45)
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Ohhhh God, it's so dumb. It's sooooo dumb. It's such a horrible waste of time.

And yet it's funny.

It's funny, partly because it's well done, which means that, for all the time I just wasted, some poor schmuck spent a hell of a lot more time writing the code.

Sith Sense: Darth Vader "reads your mind" via 20 questions.

Three words. Idi-fucking-otic.

Thanks to Ogre Gunner.

Uggchhhh... It's annoying to be taunted by Darth Vader, especially when he isn't any good at this game. He only got an orange after a whole bunch of guesses, and guessed "gold" even though I told him the thing wasn't yellow. Yeah, he guessed platinum correctly after that, but still.

There's a downside to the darkside-- it makes you a retard.

And yet he just keeps taunting you, despite the fact that a precocious five year old with no midichlorians at all could have gotten those quicker than he did.

Posted by: Ace at 11:21 AM | Comments (53)
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By terrorists, who consider them high-value targets, and encourage their murders in how-to powerpoint quiz desgined to train jihadis.

Of course, Linda Foley (of "the US military is deliberately killing journalists" infamy) will have nothing to say about that because...

...well, I hate to go to the knee-jerk bomb-throw of accusing her of having sympathies for the enemy, but really, if someone can provide an alternate explanation, I'm all ears.

Posted by: Ace at 10:55 AM | Comments (15)
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