Okay, for legal reasons, and for truthful reasons, I'll just say that the guy that the NY Daily News is suggesting might be the caught-on-camera subway onanist doesn't really look all that much like the owner of this New York restaurant.

Compare this pic to the this pic of the perv. Kinda sorta similar, but the perv seems to have more weight on his face. And also, that blissed-out sleepy sorta look. Not sure why.

Turns out one of the restaurants owned by the guy is located in a neighborhood I spend a lot of time in.

In the previous post on this, Scott noted in the comments...

Lowered expectations?

[From the witness' statement:] "I saw him massaging himself and then he unzipped and pulled it out. I thought, 'I can't believe he's doing this in the middle of the day!' "

No Pocket Pool Before 9:00 PM!

I love New York!

Good stuff. "I can't believe he's doing this in the middle of the day."

Well, as people who drink before 5pm sometimes say, "It has to be the right time to publicly masturbate somewhere in the world!"

From WC Varones, via Karol, who's happy her meat-eating boyfriend kept her out of the vegetarian Quintessence joint.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:18 PM | Comments (14)
Post contains 407 words, total size 3 kb.

Gee willickers, I wish Bush would press Sharon into making all sorts of politically-difficult concessions to the Palestinians so that paedoterrorism like this would end!

Oh, wait, he did? Sharon forcibly removed all Israeli settlers from Gaza?

Hmmmm.

I know the answer then: More concessions!

It's just gotta work this time, I know it!

As Neville Chamberlain said, If at first you don't succeed, just give them Tel Aviv and see what happens then.

Posted by: Ace at 12:44 PM | Comments (12)
Post contains 92 words, total size 1 kb.

Similar to my prescriptions, but Baseball Crank elaborates and hits ones I forgot, like this one:

1. Don't Run Against The Social Right

People vote on issues; they vote on personalities; but they also vote, on a deeper level, for that hazy space between the two, a set of ideas about the world and a sense that the candidate is more on their side than the other guy. Which is another way of saying that people can vote for a candidate they don't personally like (more than 50 million people pulled the lever for John Kerry), and they can vote for a candidate they don't always agree with, but they will not vote for a candidate if they identify him as being against them. And this is particularly true of social/religious conservatives (I use the two terms here as largely synonymous, although there are culture warriors on the Right like Stanley Kurtz who aren't especially religious), who are accustomed to feeling beseiged and sneered at by the leading lights of popular culture in journalism, entertainment and academia.

The classic example of running against social conservatives was the brief and unsuccessful 1996 presidential campaign of Arlen Specter, who openly cast himself as the man to save the GOP from the Religious Right. John McCain is perhaps a more graphic example: while McCain himself has a solidly socially conservative, pro-life voting record in the Senate (he voted for both Clarence Thomas and Robert Bork for the Supreme Court, among other things), he repeatedly picked fights with social conservatives in the 2000 primaries. Many of those fights were with the crazier people on the Right - Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Bob Jones - but what mattered was that McCain went beyond simply distancing himself from those figures to openly inviting the media to play the traditional morality play of Good McCain vs. Bad Religious Right. Unsurprisingly, the voters McCain thus implicitly portrayed as villains abandoned him in droves (see here for a contemporaneous example of the push-back).

I'll mention this again: for those put off by Rudy Guiliani's "pro-abortion" position...

1) That was in New York. He will not bring a pro-abortion agenda to the federal level.

2) Bush is well-liked by social conservatives, but he is not the most forward-leaning on the pro-life position. Alan Keyes is strongly pro-life, and he has no chance of winning. Even Bush's rhetoric is not strongly pro-life, or, rather, it's pro-life, but he doesn't mention it very often.

I think the difference between Guiliani and Bush on this (and similar issues) will be one of degree.

3) This is going to be decided ultimately in the courts, and while I do imagine there's a fair probability of Guiliani appointing a moderate or liberal to the court, I imagine he'll appoint mainly conservative judges with a strong bias in favor of judicial modesty and a strong bias against judicial law-making.

4) Social conservatives should think more tactically. It's always better to win 70% of a loaf than 0% of a loaf. "Conscience" doesn't dictate that you should help elect a candidate you oppose just because the one you could support doesn't agree with you wholesale.

And one more point. During the California recall election, I got into an argument over on Free Republic about Schwarzenegger. Yes, Schwarzenegger was liberal on certain issues, I noted, but on most he was strongly conservative, and even where he was liberal, he wasn't as liberal as the Democratic alternative.

One poster ripped into me, calling me a RINO and a sell-out and the like, and urging me to have the "courage of my convictions."

The problem was, of course, that he really didn't want me to have the courage of my convictions. He wanted me to have the courage of his convictions; my convictions were different. Similar at numerous points, but different at some terms.

I think social conservatives get upset because they feel they're always expected to compromises with social-moderate conservatives, whereas the socially-moderate conservatives never compromise.

That's simply not true. Socially-moderate conservatives frequently compromise in order to keep the criticial alliance with social conservatives intact. We frequently support and defend policies which are not of our liking (or, at least, not our top preference) simply because we know that a party split would bring back unfettered liberal government.

It's just not true that social conservatives do all the compromising. If it feels that way, it's largely just because people of course are most aware of when they're not getting what they want, and less aware of when others aren't getting what they want.

Posted by: Ace at 11:10 AM | Comments (61)
Post contains 774 words, total size 5 kb.

The Buffalo Hummer.

You've got the lightning gun. Or, at least, this guy does, in prototype:

But the star attraction was a simple black briefcase that Bitar promised would shoot lightning bolts. He and Fry placed the briefcase (innocuous-looking, if you ignored the pointed needle a few inches long sticking out the side) on top of a carpeted podium, plugged it into a wall socket and flipped a switch. Then they stood back.

Iridescent streaks of purple lightning snaked out of the briefcase, accompanied by the deafening rattle of what sounded like an M-16, and even in the noisy hangar, conversations momentarily ceased.

"It looks like something out of a 1950s movie," one onlooker commented.

Bitar's technology is based on a technique pioneered more than 100 years ago by the eccentric Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla. The StunStrike uses an electrical charge to break down the air in front of the weapon to create a path for sparks generated by a "resonant transformer," better known as a Tesla coil. Unlike a typical Tesla coil, however, Bitar's invention uses electronics to tune and direct the spark stream. It goes about four feet.

"We can tune it all the way down so it feels like broom bristles, and all the way up to knock you down," Bitar informed a group of gawkers.

Uhh, kinda cool, I guess, but the thing has a range of four feet. You know what else can stun a man and knock him down from a range of four feet?

A baseball bat. I think I'll apply for a Pentagon grant.

The guy's lower-lethality weapons run towards the Biblical-- stuff that strikes you blind, stuns you, and projects the "Voice of God" into your head.

Thanks to Slublog for the Buffalo Hummer and Dave from Garfield Ridge for the lightning gun.

Posted by: Ace at 10:47 AM | Comments (23)
Post contains 306 words, total size 2 kb.

They've gone off their trolleys:

A secondary school is to allow pupils to swear at teachers - as long as they don't do so more than five times in a lesson. A running tally of how many times the f-word has been used will be kept on the board. If a class goes over the limit, they will be 'spoken' to at the end of the lesson.

The astonishing policy, which the school says will improve the behaviour of pupils, was condemned by parents' groups and MPs yesterday. They warned it would backfire.

...

"Within each lesson the teacher will initially tolerate (although not condone) the use of the f-word (or derivatives) five times and these will be tallied on the board so all students can see the running score," he wrote in the letter

"Over this number the class will be spoken to by the teacher at the end of the lesson."

Parents called the rule 'wholly irresponsible and ludicrous'.

"This appears to be a misguided attempt to speak to kids on their own level," said the father of one pupil.

Well, actually, no it's not. The teachers apparently don't get to curse back at the students.

Oscar Wilde noted, devilishly, that the best way to avoid temptation is to succumb to it.

But there really are people who think like that. For them, the best way to avoid bad behavior is to simply redefine it as not-bad behavior. Problem solved!

Posted by: Ace at 09:47 AM | Comments (9)
Post contains 276 words, total size 2 kb.

Well! That didn't take long:

For more than a few lefty bloggers, Pres. Bush bears a lot of responsibility for the suffering that is expected. Diarist Patricia Taylor at Daily Kos: "Historically, it is the National Guard, along with other emergency personnel, who attempt to provide emergency services to the community in disaster relief situations like Katrina. And where are these National Guard right now? Iraq."

Wampum calls it "A Bush-made catastrophe in the making..."

Skippy the Bush Kangaroo and Swing State Project make similar points.

So does Steve Gilliard, who writes: "The next closest thing to this is a nuclear explosion."

Just as the unhinged left credited Bill Clinton for the rising of the sun and the flowering of the fields, so too do they blame Bush for natural calamities.

Bush is like Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon. As I live in one of the bluest of all blue-state cities, I'm really worried about the coming "Hot Hail."

Posted by: Ace at 09:28 AM | Comments (122)
Post contains 170 words, total size 1 kb.

As a supporter of Operation Iraqi Freedom I am sick and tired of all the morons screaming unilateral intervention. As an historian I am doubly so.

I'll take a battalion of Salvadorans over an army of Frogs any time!

By the way, if you want to complain about lack of foreign troops, why don't you take into account the Americans, Brits, and Aussies constituting about the same percentage in Iraq as in Korea?

Note the similarity between Froggystan and Ethiopia.

Of course we did have a whopping 177 Froggies helping out on D-Day!

Posted by: Tanker at 09:27 AM | Comments (17)
Post contains 113 words, total size 1 kb.

... is translated here.

I'm not done with it yet, but the early bits of it seem more of an expression of principles and desires than an actual blueprint for governance. I assume the "crunchy bits" come later.

I think this is interesting:

1st -- Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation:

(a) No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam.

(b) No law can be passed that contradicts the principles of democracy.

(c) No law can be passed that contradicts the rights and basic freedoms outlined in this constitution.

Note that the document is vague in that (a) clause. Does (a) mean no law can contradict the rules of Islam, all of which which are undisputed, or does it mean -- hope, hope -- that no law can contradict the rules of Islam which are in fact found to be "undisputed," whereas the "disputed" rules can be contradicted by law? Seems it could be read either way.

In any event, (b) and (c) seem to guarantee democracy and freedom, and if there's a tension between democracy and freedom and the rules of Islam, the document doesn't, by its own express terms, state which will have the higher priority.

As has been pointed out, these sorts of vaguaries are common in constitutions. Ultimately most questions are settled by political/popular means, not by recourse to a previously-written guarantee. If the Iraqis want a theocratic Shari'a based state, they'll have it, whatever the constitution may say, and if they want a secular state that pays respect to Islam while not being dictated to by Islam, they'll have that too.

Posted by: Ace at 09:23 AM | Comments (10)
Post contains 287 words, total size 2 kb.

Way back in '97, Mother Jones magazine noted sever liberal pundits calling for the assassination of Saddam Hussein.

Thomas Friedman, foreign affairs columnist, New York Times, Nov. 6: "Saddam Hussein is the reason God created cruise missiles. ...So if and when Saddam pushes beyond the brink, and we get that one good shot, let's make sure it's a head shot."

George Stephanopolous, former Clintonite and current ABC News analyst, on ABC'S "This Week," Nov. 9: "This is probably one of those rare cases where assassination is the more moral course...we should kill him."

Sam Donaldson, co-host of "This Week," Nov. 9: We should kill Saddam "under cover of law.... We can do business with his successor."

...

Jonathan Alter, Newsweek, Nov. 17: "It won't be easy to take him out. ...But we need to try, because the only language Saddam has ever understood is force."

Newsweek, Dec. 1: "Why We Should Kill Saddam."

But now that Pat Robertson has similarly called (less emphatically) for exploring the assassination option with regard to anti-American thug and dictator Hugo Chavez, the liberal media has its panties in a twist (as usual).

I don't get it. How can they be so transparent?

Mother Jones has apparently been consistent on the issue-- they're against assassination, period, and they don't like it when liberals in the media make noises about assassination, either.

But the establishment media has seen its own call for assassinations and now makes a major story about a political has-been saying something similar.

When will Sam Donaldson and George Stephanopolous and Jonathan Alter apologize for expressing such plainly-disgusting views?

Posted by: Ace at 08:54 AM | Comments (27)
Post contains 286 words, total size 2 kb.

At Michelle's.

The good news is that the storm, which had threatened to be one of the most catastrophic in history, is weakening, and has not sank below-sea-level N'Orleans beneath the Gulf of Mexico.

It's still bad for a lot of people, though.

And, in case you missed it, Bush may tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in order to lower the surging cost of oil. He's expected to announce his decision at 1 PM ET (in twenty minutes).

Posted by: Ace at 08:40 AM | Comments (3)
Post contains 82 words, total size 1 kb.