They say it's the fault of their direct-deposit company, ADP. The Radio Equalizer isn't so sure.

Oh, By The Way: Hoist the Black Flag will be on again tomorrow, and we'll be talking to The Radio Equalizer (Brian Maloney) about Air America. And other stuff.

Is Air America... Telling the Truth? Fat Kid says he missed a paycheck, too:

Uh, FWIW my paycheck came late last week too. Apparently it was BofA that had the snafu though - electronic pmts weren't going through all kosher-like - so I didn't get paid for a day or two.

More, So Much More, At Michelle: On the NYT's and MSM's failure to cover the story, Day By Day checking in, etc.

A RedState blogger muses:

When the Swift Boats Veterans for Truth started getting some traction with their accusations against Kerry, the NY Times immediately sent two top reporters to Texas to try to link their funding back to the Bush campaign. After a week of digging, The Times produced a lengthy expose and a fancy chart that basically proved that Texas Republicans historically help each other get elected.
The horror.

The dollar amount of the donation in question was $250,000. The dollar amount in the Air America scandal is almost $900k.

I'd say that if a legal $250k donation justifies sending two reporters halfway across the country for a week, $900k of embezzled funds in your own city probably justifies one reporter for a half day.

But that's just me...

MSM SOP. The media was very interested in Bush's large-but-perfectly-legal campaign warchest in 2000, and his opting out (legally) of the campaign finance system, but not so much interested in Gore's illegal donations from Chinese nuns, nor AG Janet Reno's claim that the independent counsel law didn't require her to appoint an independent counsel... because Al Gore said no wrongdoing occurred, and that, apparently, was enough for her.

Posted by: Ace at 09:33 AM | Comments (10)
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Investigators say UN officials took kickbacks and should have diplmatic immunity removed. But wait for the juicy liberal pro-UN bias:

Investigators probing claims of wrongdoing in the Iraq oil-for-food program accused its former chief, Benon Sevan, of corruption for taking illegal kickbacks and recommended his immunity be lifted for prosecution.

The investigators said a former U.N. procurement officer sought a bribe and should have his immunity lifted as well. Alexander Yakovlev also was accused of collecting nearly $1 million in kickbacks outside the oil-for-food program.

The third report by the Independent Inquiry Committee, led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, was a new blow to the scandal-tainted $64 billion program. For the first time, it gave a motive for Sevan's actions, saying his finances were ``precarious'' shortly before his alleged misdeeds.

Some critics have accused the United Nations of squandering millions and even billions of dollars in its mismanagement of the program. Yet Volcker's team found that Sevan appeared to have received kickbacks of just $147,184 from December 1998 to January 2002.

Only? I didn't realize AP now didn't sweat nearly $150,000 in corrupt kickbacks.

Besides, there's more smoke here. Sevan had an extra $600,000 in his bank accounts that he claimed came "from his mother" (now conveniently deceased). But investigators talked to her bankers and found that she'd never had anything approaching like $600,000 in her accounts. [No link; a paraphrase from a FoxNews channel report.]

Posted by: Ace at 09:17 AM | Comments (12)
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For all the grief that Israel and especially Ariel Sharon gets, doesn't it seem like they'er doing a hell of a lot to defuse the conflict with the Palestinians, at no small risk to themselves?

I have to imagine Bush plays a part here, too.

Israeli security officials on Monday considered far-reaching new arrangements for Gaza's international border crossing, including the deployment of foreign inspectors, after Israel pulls out of the coastal strip in the coming weeks.

An Israeli agreement to let foreigners replace Israeli inspectors at the Egypt-Gaza crossing at Rafah would be a major concession and give Gaza's Palestinians relatively unfettered access to the world for the first time in decades.

The deployment of foreign inspectors is supported by U.S. envoy James Wolfensohn, who has been trying to broker an agreement between the two sides on border crossings.

Wolfensohn has urged Israel to make a decision on border arrangements before the withdrawal starts next week. He also has said the withdrawal will only be a success if fenced-in Gazans can move freely — a prerequisite for reviving their battered economy.

The European Union, meanwhile, said it was willing to play a role in providing customs officers and training for the Palestinian Authority as part of bolstering security at the border.

The Security Cabinet, a group of top ministers, began meeting Monday afternoon, but it was not clear when a decision would be made. If the Rafah model is approved, it could be applied to the Palestinian airport and seaport.

Israel already has agreed to allow the Palestinians to rebuild their Gaza seaport, a project that could take years to complete. Gaza's international airport stopped operating after the outbreak of fighting in 2000, when Israel destroyed the runway.

Israel's main concern about the border crossings and ports is that militants could use them to smuggle weapons and infiltrate comrades into Gaza from Egypt after Israel leaves.

Under the current arrangement, Israeli troops patrol a narrow strip between Gaza and Egypt — the so-called Philadelphi road — and Israeli security and customs inspectors are posted at the Rafah crossing.

Europe will provide "customs officers" and "training" for the PA (as if the PA is keely interested in keeping out explosives and forbidden weapons). I don't see anything about actual troops for enforcement.

Benjamin Netanyahu resigned from the cabinet in protest. I can see his point about reducing security, and sure, I like him a lot, but it does strike me that he's playing politics, currying favor with the ultranationalist right.

I think the current formula is smart in its basics. Get the settlers out of undefensible areas, retreat back behind well-defended walls, let the Palestinians police themselves... if they can. If they can't, well, it's either time for those European countries so passionately in favor of the Palestinians to put their own troops on the line to calm things down.

Posted by: Ace at 09:08 AM | Comments (6)
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Lung cancer.

Guess they're not kidding about smoking. Something to bear in mind.

Posted by: Ace at 09:06 PM | Comments (50)
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So, like, I guess he won the argument.

A man who got angry with his wife because she wanted to cuddle after sex when what he really wanted to do was watch sports on television was sentenced to death for killing her with a claw hammer.

Christopher Offord, 30, was sentenced Wednesday by Circuit Judge Dedee Costello, who said the brutality of the crime outweighed any mental problems Offord may have had.

"The defendant struck his wife approximately 70 individual blows after spending a happy interlude with her," the judge said. "Her desire to cuddle after sex does not justify the extremely violent, brutal response of the defendant."

Justify 70 blows with a claw-hammer? Of course not.

But a mitigating factor at least? That's a tougher call.

It's a very surprising case all around.

I mean, he doesn't look like the sort of guy who'd kill a woman with seventy blows from a claw-hammer, just because she wanted to snuggle.

It's not like he's got dem crazy-eyes or anything.

Thanks to Chickpea.

Posted by: Ace at 01:01 PM | Comments (36)
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Cal from Football Fans For Truth has her doubts about the study.

Feisty Republican Whore weighs in as well.

Posted by: Ace at 09:25 AM | Comments (19)
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Pretty good, although it really skews towards the war-as-entertainment side of things.

Which I don't know is a bad thing, necessarily, given that we are at war. I see a lot of commercials selling the career-boosting side of military service. Trouble is, we need people who are keen on going to war right now, not so much people who just want to earn money for college.

This video doesn't seem to portrary war realistically. But, let's face it, it's compelling to see explosions. And a wall absolutely obliterated, brick-by-brick, by machine-gun fire.

Posted by: Ace at 09:21 AM | Comments (3)
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Pretty sad, but I took the day off from blogging yesterday and pretty much just watched TV. And lost a bunch of on-line poker tournaments.

Just to keep everyone updated on the scary-exciting Ace of Spades Lifestyle (TM):

Fox keeps running repeats of Arrested Development, often two or four in one night. If you're still not watching this show, give it a shot.

The Comeback continues to be smart, funny, and cringy. The show is a total ripoff of The Office (British version), but it's a well-done ripoff. Or, as Liam Neeson in The Dead Pool might say, "It's not a rip-off. It's an homage."

Reality TV whores should check out Kill Reality, running on Bravo or one of those other homo-channels. Evil Rob from Survivor wrote and is now producing a low-budget (and presumably awful) horror movie, and every person in the cast is a reality-tv, um, "star."

The real star is Johnny Fairplay. He's funny and conniving and juvenile as can be expected, but he's also not the villain he played on Survivor. He's still not going to win any good citizenship awards, but he's basically a normal guy; the Johnny Fairplay thing is largely (but not completely) an act.

Also on the show are of course the two Jennas from Survivor, who I'm just sick of, Ethan from Survivor, still nice and boring as room-temperature vanilla ice cream, "crazy" Stacy J. from the second season of The Apprentice, and some other people from Real World, Paradise Hotel, The Bachelor, and other reality tv shows that I, believe it or not, don't watch.

There's also some woman who was given a role in the picture just as a favor, pretty much. But she's completely unappreciative and tries to rewrite the script to give her character more lines. She also insists she can't play "Detective Kozlowski" because 1) she isn't Polish and 2) can't pronounce the name. As Rob points out, yes, she's not actually Polish, but she's also not, get this, a detective either, and this is why they call it "acting."

The woman seems to have some strange beef against the Polish. She really finds it offensive that she's to play someone of Polish descent. After all, all of her "fans" might really think she's Polish and then... who knows. They'd think that she builds submarines with screen doors.

And her singleminded determination to get her minor, just-a-favor character more lines is pathetic and a little funny. Rob comments, "I'm sure a lot of great actors do this all the time, trying to prove further into the depths of their character. Then again, I'm pretty sure that none of those actors were on Paradise Hotel."

Posted by: Ace at 09:08 AM | Comments (3)
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Greg Gutfeld, editor of Maxim, is hysterical. And pretty darn rightwing.

Floyd tipped me to this in a recent comment.

Actually, I already had been reading him, but avoided linking him because it's... well, because he's writing on Arianna Huffington's blog. I just didn't want to link her blog.

But he's really, really good.

Posted by: Ace at 08:48 AM | Comments (9)
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Not delivered by the piano-man who's found the song that makes it so tough, but by a pneumatic nail-gun shot right into the chest.

Supposedly the man slipped and accidentally shot himself through the heart with the gun, piercing the wall of his heart with the nail.

Well... okay. It's possible. But there are an awful lot of "accidental" self-shootings, and "accidental" insertions of 12" Steve Austin action figures (in jogging suit, with exposable bionics under the skin of the arm) into the rectum.

And, by the way, that reduces a figure's price on eBay a hell of a lot more than just taking it out of the original box.

Worth it? Absolutely. But just know the tradeoff.

Posted by: Ace at 11:39 AM | Comments (11)
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