She said he was a Souter in wolf's clothing. The Powerline guys said maybe she was just flacking for him on the sly, trying to make him more palatable to liberals by suggesting he was a liberal.

But maybe he is a liberal after all.

I didn't get to say this on the show today. But what can we read from his pro bono efforts on behalf of "gay rights"?

I don't really know the merits of the case, so I can't comment. But I find this a little distressing, not because I don't like gays, but because gay "rights," like abortion, is a useful proxy issue. I'm not pro-life myself (well, I'm a moderate; I support abortion rights with restrictions), but I tend to support pro-life candidates, not because I support their positions on abortion, but because I know it's a useful proxy to determine how they stand on 90% of other issues. If they can stand up to the New York Times editorial page on the crucial issue of abortion, they're not likely to be shirking violets on taxes or terrorism.

Same with this gay rights issue. Again, I have no idea if Roberts was on the right side or not, but I do know he personally chose this issue and dedicated a fraction of his limited pro-bono hours to litigate the case.

Does that make him a liberal? Or just a conservative with some liberal-ish or libertarian leanings? I don't know, but I'm beginning to suspect Coulter is right-- no one actually knows for sure.

Conservatives were quick to rebut liberals' charges that Roberts was too conservative for the court; his brief against abortion under the Bush I administration, they said, was not indicative necessarily of his real political leanings, because he was just acting as an advocate for his client (in this case, the first Bush Administration).

Okay, so if we believe that, we can't take his Reagan and Bush era memos as a reflection of his politics, right?

But this pro bono case wasn't a case he had to take. He chose to. He may have been acting tactically (to appease liberals later, should he be nominated for a court); he may have simply thought the provision in question was unconstitutional or just plain unfair.

But... he did choose this case himself. And he chose which side to argue on. Again, I don't know if he was right or wrong; I'm just saying that on one of the few cases where he took a position out of his own free will, he was on the liberal side of things.

Kaus makes this point in a different way. Let's say, Kaus reasons, he just took this case because of the general pressure at big law firms to do good work for liberal causes. Geeze, it's not like there'll be similar pressures to advance liberal causes on the Supreme Court now, right?

I don't know. I just don't know. This whole nominating process has become a farce. No one is allowed to ask candidates what their political or jurisprudential leanings might be, resulting in decisions made without much information at all.

Maybe Charles Schumer should be allowed to grill Roberts on his theory of jurisprudence... because I really would like to know for sure we're putting a conservative, or at least a moderate/conservative, on the Court.

Posted by: Ace at 04:46 PM | Comments (81)
Post contains 568 words, total size 3 kb.

Wow. Lawyers decided the information about the suspected terrorist cell could not be forwarded to domestic law enforcement, says Rep. Curt Weldon.

Yet another round of Bush-bashing will ensue if this is true. Nevermind the fact that liberals erected this wall in the first place, or that the entire country was asleep for thirty years on this issue.

Thanks to Eric.

Posted by: Ace at 03:05 PM | Comments (21)
Post contains 101 words, total size 1 kb.

Whatever. I'm convinced these people take a position opposite us, no matter how absurd the contrary position may be.

Posted by: Ace at 01:28 PM | Comments (8)
Post contains 39 words, total size 1 kb.

We'll be talking to radio host/blogger Brian "Radio Equalizer" Maloney," the point-man for the Air America embezzlement scandal.

We'll be sure to plumb the depths of the question that still haunts us all: "Did you hear what Al Franken said today?" (I imagine the answer is a simple "No, who the hell is Al Franken?," but we'll plumb those depths anyhow.

Have we retooled the show? Well, no, not yet. But we are refreshed. Sort of.

It'll be at Rightalk at 4 EDT. Look for "Hoist the Black Flag," which should be right under "Channel 1" at or after 4pm.

As always, the call-in number, which only JFH uses, is 866-884-TALK.

Oh, and... We'll be doing the last twenty minutes without a guest. Just talking about the news. If you have a call particularly for us, do call in and ask.

Posted by: Ace at 11:08 AM | Comments (50)
Post contains 155 words, total size 1 kb.

I don't mean to knock anyone's purely innocent and non-dangerous religious beliefs. So I'm not knocking this. Hey, if you believe you have to be covered head to toe when swimming, that's fine with me.

Still, it's a bit odd to see full-body covering as a "swimsuit."

I'm not the biggest feminist out there, but a bit of feminism in the Muslim world would do it a hell of a lot of good. Democracy is fine and all, but let's introduce these people to the miniskirt. That will really shake things up.

Thanks to OgreGunner.

Posted by: Ace at 10:57 AM | Comments (58)
Post contains 111 words, total size 1 kb.

Pretty high price to pay for that "You Are Ultimate Winner!" screen at the end of Japanese video games.

failure minutes after finishing his mammoth session in an Internet cafe, authorities said Tuesday.

The 28-year-old man, identified only by his family name Lee, had been playing on-line battle simulation games at the cybercafe in the southeastern city of Taegu, police said.

Lee had planted himself in front of a computer monitor to play on-line games on Aug. 3. He only left the spot over the next three days to go to the toilet and take brief naps on a makeshift bed, they said.

"We presume the cause of death was heart failure stemming from exhaustion," a Taegu provincial police official said by telephone.

Lee had recently quit his job to spend more time playing games, the daily JoongAng Ilbo reported after interviewing former work colleagues and staff at the Internet cafe.

NAKED COMPROMISING-POSITION CAR CRASH GUY: Hey.

VIDEO GAME GUY: Hey. So... how'd you end up here?

NCPCCG: I was driving my car at sixty miles an hour getting a wettie from a high-priced call-girl. You?

VGG: I, uh, unlocked the special secret Combat Arena level and I got the Silver Key to the wizard's fortress. Then I, uh, had a heart attack.

NCPCCG: I... see...

VGG: It's not as dorky as it sounds. See, I used the Red Amulet to open the doors to the Black Mage's Lair and then I killed a fire-breathing ogre.

NCPCCG: ...

VGG: And I was totally maximally levelled-up when I went.

NCPCCG: ...

VGG (sighing): I think I've made a terrible mistake. You think they'll have call-girls in heaven?

NCPCCG: I find that doubtful in the extreme.

Thanks to VonKreedon.

Posted by: Ace at 10:23 AM | Comments (17)
Post contains 303 words, total size 2 kb.

Thanks to Megan for this chilling report about that LA-to-London flight that was diverted recently:

The three Pakistani passengers, two in BC (business class) seats (8A and 14D) and one in economy, got our attention before takeoff with self upgrading, moving about the plane, changing seats several times and asking the crew about our layover, where we stayed, etc. We basically ignored them and wrote them off as bothersome.

During the bar service, two of the guys kept drinking a lot, and asking for refills before we got two rows away. Now we wrote them off as obnoxious, as well as annoying. We cut down the drinks to the guy in BC who wanted more scotch and wine with dinner.

After the meal service, the guy in 8A, who hadn't said a word, got up and went to 14D and spoke with him for 10 minutes. We didn't even know they knew each other as they had no prior contact.

The F/As (flight attendants) in economy were concerned over the behavior of the economy passenger and asked for a name check. The cockpit got back to us to let us know all had gone through secondary clearance in LAX and were all ticketed to Islamabad, Pakistan.

All the guys kept going to the bathroom and now we were checking the loos every time they came out. After 8A spoke with 14D, he (14D) went to economy and went straight to the overhead in 32CDE, took out a briefcase and brought it back to his BC seat. 32E was where the economy passenger was originally seated, but he had moved to 31G on the aisle. All the F/As were keeping an eye on these three and every time we would casually look at them, they were staring at us, watching everything we were doing.

The economy guy went to the back galley and kept the duty free sellers busy by asking to see everything and having them open several items to the point where one of them wrote on a piece of paper to another F/A, "He's distracting us, see what's happening in the cabin"....

I was communicating all this information to the cockpit, as well as our concerns. I don't think they took it as seriously as we did. That was until the economy guy went to the F/As in the back and asked them if we had been up in the air for 3 1/2 hours yet. He kept asking when 3 1/2 hours would be. At the same time, the 14D guy went up to the BC F/As and asked if we'd been flying 3, 3 1/2 or 4 hours yet.

Now most passengers ask how much longer we have to go and not if we've been flying a specific time, and we figured with all their drinking, they didn't want to know the time so they could face Mecca for their prayers.

They diverted to Boston for an early landing, and a SWAT team came aboard to detain the suspicious passengers.

By the time we got to the hotel, we were already on the news, and several hours later, we heard the passengers were interviewed, cleared and released. The FBI told me they felt they were on a test run surveillance flight, observing and watching our routine and looking for weaknesses in our security. All the authorities reassured us we did the right thing and that was backed up by the passengers who thanked us and said that they were so glad we watching out for their well being. I think as F/As, we sense when something just isn't right, and this flight had too many small incidents that didn't add up, and thankfully, we acted on our feelings.

Without profiling, the odd questions about how much time the plane had been in the air would have simply been ignored. It was the odd behavior, plus the men's ethnic background, that alerted the flight crew.

It's time to stop pretending that we shouldn't, and already don't, do this. Profiling is open to possible abuse, but it's even more likely to be abused when there are no guidelines about it and the state continues to maintain an official, bullshit line that it is illegal. That just means that people are expected to be "vigiliant" but cannot employ basic common sense to guide their vigilance, and it encourages those who actually use common sense to just lie to the authorities about it.

Posted by: Ace at 10:04 AM | Comments (8)
Post contains 765 words, total size 4 kb.

Hidden in his Author's bio is a "secret blog." It's a lot of random stuff about running and "ectomorphic body types," but then this tweaking of Arianna & Co.:

THE HUFFPO HYPOCRISY: SUVS the unspeakable truth about the anti-SUV crowd.they only hate those vehicles because every one in America can afford them. If SUVs were too expensive for middle class Americans, then only people like laurie david and Arianna would drive them. But since we can afford to drive them, and they are wildly popular and all over town, THERE MUST BE SOMETHING WRONG WITH THEM. If we all could afford private jets - then Arianna would want to ban them. But since only she can afford to charter them, she's ok with it. THAT'S THE GIST! christ i am itching all over the place.

Spot on, especially that bit about itching all over the place. And then there's this:

an observation: Jessica Alba just said in a recent interview that she once had an eating disorder. she looks fantastic. So - eating disorders work.

It's about time someone had the guts to say it.

Thanks to the Blogometer for this odd blogging Easter Egg.

Posted by: Ace at 09:53 AM | Comments (8)
Post contains 203 words, total size 1 kb.

The article notes it's rare indeed for someone this high up in the chain of command to be booted for such a thing.

I'll avoid the speculation as to which obvious-candidate "personal conduct" violation he's being investigated for. But I'll mention that a little bit of Internet Detective work discloses that he is or at least was married, which makes one obvious possibility a little less likely and another obvious possibility a little more likely.

Thanks to Andy the Squirrel.

MSNBC Specifies the Unspecified Personal Conduct: Says it's an investigation into "potential infidelity."

Thanks to DB.

Andrew Sullivan was just overcome with "heart-ache." He was so hoping it would be the other one. You know the one I mean. That would've provided him with material, and bandwidth donations, for six months, easy.

Posted by: Ace at 09:36 AM | Comments (10)
Post contains 152 words, total size 1 kb.

As covered below, Elizabeth Bumiller, hard-left hardcore hack, decided to slip in an anti-Bush non-sequitor into a rather lame piece about Bush's vacations.

I knew she'd done it before, but I'd forgotten when. She previously made certain to mention that CCR's Fortunate Son -- about a "Senator's son" who didn't have to go to Vietnam -- was not on Bush's iPod.

Not that it was on his iPod, which would be somewhat ironic and yes, a bit newsworthy. But that it wasn't. Which is akin to noting that John Kerry's iPod did not contain the Edgar Winters' classic Frankenstein.

Thanks to Slublog for the reminder. He's also ever so glad we have a professional media that doesn't stoop to the hyperpartisan snarking and inappropriately off-the-cuff politicized slams that amateur blogs do.

Posted by: Ace at 08:38 AM | Comments (7)
Post contains 149 words, total size 1 kb.