Gotta admit, I haven't been re-linking my old stuff very often. Because, you know, I've already re-linked it a thousand times.

This wasn't really terribly funny, but it was kinda nasty. And sometimes nasty is an acceptable substitute for funny.

Just so you know, several of the jokes have to do with Oliver Willis denigrating someone's looks. To refresh your memory, and so you get the joke, Willis had just put up a bunch of not-very-flattering pictures of the very sexiful Michelle Malkin and basically called her ugly.

Yes, I'll give you a moment to let that sink in.

Oliver Willis.

Called.

Michelle Malkin.

Ugly.

He also tried his hand with a bit of racism in making hi-larious jokes about her Filippino heritage.

Anyway: the Oliver Willis SAT's.

Posted by: Ace at 12:41 PM | Comments (10)
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Well, all of that's obvious e-fucking-nough. Not really breaking any new ground there.

What's fascinating is how this Mensa chapter-president gets to that conclusion:

Under Saddam Hussein, in fact, cars were as rare on the streets of Iraq as ATM machines. Owning a car was a sure sign of deep loyalty to President Hussein, who tightly restricted the import of these expensive, luxury items. While palace cronies whizzed about Baghdad on Italian radials, the average Iraqi, who earned less than $300 annually, succumbed to public transportation and shoe leather.

The Bush War has changed all that. Foreign exchange has put more dinars in the hands of consumption-minded Iraqis. Near the top of the list of luxury items flowing into the country is the automobile. More than 1 million used cars have entered Iraq during the past two years, according to a police survey referenced by the Riyadh-based IFP report, "Rebuilt Iraq." Less than half that number existed in the entire country before the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Mosul, for example, which previously had only 57,000 registered cars, now has 125,000.

Cars don't kill people, as any state trooper knows. People do the killing. But suicide car bombers can't do their thing without cars. In the new Iraq, thanks to Bush's War, the bombers are daily wreaking bloody havoc.

Hmmm... Bush's illegal war pumps millions into the economy, letting ordinary Iraqis buy cars for the first time, and so, um, the car-bombings are his fault.

Les Payne's (perfect name, no?) next column: Bush Increases Drug-Use Among Underclass By Improving Economy.

Because, seriously, crack ain't cheap.

It's all a CIA plot, I tells ya.

Posted by: Ace at 12:32 PM | Comments (26)
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Again: happy Fourth of July, huh?

Even as the valor of what they did on one beachhead after another is properly honored, the American fighters of the Pacific War were not heroes. The desperation of island combat included exchanged barbarities of which no one would willingly speak for a generation. On the American side, there were foul racism, vengeful refusals to take prisoners, a generalized brutality that extended to a savage air war.

And there's more, of course. As The New Editor paraphrases, if you didn't like our reasons for fighting WWII, you'll hate our reasons for fighting in Iraq:

This isn't even moral equivalence with fascists. At least they killed for a reason. We're worse.

Note: Do not question James Carroll's patriotism.

James Carroll loves America. It's that passionate, crazy sort of love Ike Turner is justifiably famous for.

Not to give away the ending of What's Love Got To Do With It?, but James, honestly, America doesn't need you. After America dumps your abusive ass, we'll go on to record modestly-popular themes for James Bond and Mad Max movies.

Relinking Something I Didn't Write: Punitive Liberalism. An essay on the left's nasty impulse to forever put our country in the hairshirt.

It's only through savaging America that one expresses one's "higher patriotism," you see.

The sub-hed is What Regan Vanquished.

Well, not quite vanquished. Contended against, diminished, won a few battles against.

They're just not going away.

There is a certain sort of person whose intellectual vanity causes him to reject what he considers the low-class and uneducated "standard" form of patriotism exhibited by his cutlural and moral inferiors. It's the impulse to differentiate oneself from one's (putative) lessers and thereby elevate oneself into the ranks of the elite.

The same shallow impulse that causes eggheads to reject good movies, such as Dumb & Dumber, because they've got mass appeal.

It's high school jackassery, in other words. No different than suddenly deciding 'N Sync is now 'N Stync.

Carroll, you're not denigrating your intellectual inferiors when you denigrate the heroism of American soldiers. You're denigrating yourself. You're simply showing yourself to be a bitter, nasty, intellectually-insecure (and rightly so) old hack whose politics are, and will forever be, shaped almost entirely by a fucking Crosby Stills & Nash song.

Posted by: Ace at 12:02 PM | Comments (38)
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She's doing, I think, the right thing.

Reporters shouldn't have the right to defy judges' orders... but then, they can, as Miller appears ready to do, accept the sanction for defying them. The same as any other American.

What are we talking about here? We're talking about several months in jail; she'll be freed when the grand jury wraps up its investigation, supposedly in October.

It's not the worst thing to ever happen to someone. And it's not as if her jailing will be cause for shame. Quite the opposite-- she'll be praised for having the courage of her convictions, and, I think, rightly so.

And, let's face it, she'll get a book-deal out of it, and it will sell better than it otherwise would because it will be filled with details of her (not so onerous) ordeal.

Four months in the slammer gives you plenty of time to write.

I should be so lucky.

Posted by: Ace at 11:43 AM | Comments (6)
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Taranto notes:

And Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California said on "Fox News Sunday" (no transcript online), "One of the things that bothers me is . . . the groups all mobilize, the money all raised, the expectation of spots back and forth--I think that is destructive, candidly, to the process. And this Judiciary Committee is pretty solid."

Why would Democratic senators go out of their way to distance themselves from the "groups" whose bidding they've eagerly done in the past? Perhaps because they realize that this time they cannot deliver. For all the nervousness on the right, the GOP is in an extremely strong position. This will be the first time since 1986 that a Republican Supreme Court nominee will face a Republican Senate, and the 55-seat majority is more than during any GOP presidency since Hoover's. And unlike in 1987 (Bork) and 1991 (Thomas), this time there are well-funded interest groups on the right as well as the left.

True, the Democrats may be willing to use the filibuster, a weapon they didn't deploy in previous Supreme Court battles. But seven senators are now on record as pledging to abjure this tactic except in "extraordinary circumstances," and, as we noted last month, at least five who were not parties to the compromise seem to have a disinclination to filibuster.

But one must also weigh the Republican Senators who are Beloved of the New York Times. You know the list.

The Democrats might not filibuster, but we might ultimately lose on an up-or-down vote on an "extremist" (i.e., mainstream conservative) jurist due to McCain's burning passion to have Chris Matthews say nice things about him.

Posted by: Ace at 11:36 AM | Comments (3)
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Not real, but real funny.

Thanks to Way Off Base, who pans Batman Begins, mostly because of its horribly-photographed fight sequences.

I hated that too. But the movie was still, on balance, a three-star effort.

Posted by: Ace at 11:27 AM | Comments (3)
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Oliver Filet-O-Fish Willis opines:

Am I being too cynical in noting that IÂ’m not surprised that they picked a pretend district attorney to help pick out the next supreme court justice?

Pretend?

Not quite so pretend:

He was admitted to the Tennessee bar in 1967 and commenced the practice of law, serving as an assistant U.S. attorney from 1969-1972.

A U.S. attorney is a federal prosecutor. Not a DA, exactly, because the "district" involved is the United States of America.

Ahhhh... the left. On the one hand, they're filled with kneejerk hatred. But, on the plus side, they're also dumb and ill-informed.

Posted by: Ace at 11:12 AM | Comments (13)
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Slaughtering Iraqi civilians by the busload ain't doing the trick, so the Islamoretards have a new strategy: killing or kidnapping diplomats from Arab/Muslim countries:

It's difficult to devise a dumber strategy than this, and it reeks of desperation. Some of these countries have significant sympathy in their population for AQ's goals in the region. However, these attacks not only risk alienating their less-lunatic enables in the Middle East, they threaten to turn Arabic governments from positions of benign neglect to active and deadly opposition to AQ and its supporters. No government will blithely allow its envoys to become targets for Islamists, no matter how sympathetic they might be.

Zarqawi must know this -- he's crazy, but so far we've seen no evidence that he's stupid. To go out of his way to antagonize countries like Egypt and Bahrain, he must realize that all other options have run their course and have failed. He risks accomplishing what George Bush has tried for years: uniting Arabs in the Middle East to fight terrorism and to support democracy, specifically in Iraq.

Ever had a losing hand in poker you couldn't get away from? So you re-raise in a desperate attempt to drive your opponent out of the pot? And then when he re-re-raises, you go all in?

It doesn't work. It just doesn't.

You may drive out the weaker hands -- namely, countries like Pakistan -- but you won't drive out the big stack with the strong hand. The one who will beat you in the showdown; the one you're just feeding money to.

And the big stack's name is America.

Bonus Question For The Daily Kos: "Why do they hate Arab/Muslim diplomats?"

Imperialism, I'm guessing. Or something to do with Guatemala in the 50's. Not really sure what happened in Guatemala in the 50's, but then, I get the feeling that the Kossacks don't really know either.

Another Question: Will the left rebuke Al Qaeda for its "unilateralist," "you're with us or you're with the anti-terrorists" ultimata?

And you thought John Bolton was too lacking in "nuance" for diplomacy. Last time I checked, he wasn't, you know, shooting people he was trying to persuade.

Hmmm... well, mabe I should see if it works before denigrating such a strategy. I have to say I wouldn't have minded if Colin Powell had bound and ball-gagged Dominique De Villepain and had The Gimp sodomize him in the basement of the UN building.

Then again, I'm not sure if Dominique would have minded so much, either.

Posted by: Ace at 10:58 AM | Comments (4)
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Strange, but also dumb:

James Henry Smith was a zealous Pittsburgh Steelers fan in life, and even death could not keep him from his favorite spot: in a recliner, in front of a TV showing his beloved team in action.

Smith, 55, of Pittsburgh, died of prostate cancer Thursday. Because his death wasn't unexpected, his family was able to plan for an unusual viewing Tuesday night.

The Samuel E. Coston Funeral Home erected a small stage in a viewing room, and arranged furniture on it much as it was in Smith's home on game day Sundays.

Smith's body was on the recliner, his feet crossed and a remote in his hand. He wore black and gold silk pajamas, slippers and a robe. A pack of cigarettes and a beer were at his side, while a high-definition TV played a continuous loop of Steelers highlights.

The viewing was concluded by Suprise Guest Griever Mean Joe Greene showing up to throw a nasty, stinky sweaty jersey in the deceased's face.

"It was a lovely moment," the funeral director said. "We'd hoped to get Franco Harris to stiff-arm the body as he ran through the mortuary -- you know, just give the corpse a nice forearm-shiver -- but we're happy enough with the cameo we got."

Thanks to Slublog.

Posted by: Ace at 10:44 AM | Comments (3)
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Sort of surprising... but then not so surprising.

Hell, if Bush consciously lied to get us into war, I'm not quite sure I'd be against impeachment, either.

An awful lot of rosy liberal assumptions are implicit in that if.

I wonder what a poll would reveal were we to have asked, "If President Bill Clinton were to be found to have raped Juanita Broaddrick and hired detectives to stalk and frighten her to keep silent, would you support removal from office?"

I have a feeling that would have crossed the 50% threshold, too. Maybe the 60% threshold.

If.

If if's and but's were candies and nuts, we'd all have a lovely snack.

I like the fact that the left is dwelling on impeachment, though. It leaves them with less time to think of new ways to fuck up the country.

Posted by: Ace at 10:38 AM | Comments (20)
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