Gee willickers, that was fast!

A spokesman for the new design said that the panel wanted to avoid all controvery or symbols of Islamism in the new design, and so chose a happy, uplifting central feature, the folded table cloth from a family-style Italian bistro.

"Everyone loves bistros," the spokesman said. "A lot of people think of Heaven as a nonstop family-style sharing of calamari and mussels in hot sauce, and we think this design symbolizes that. We're happy to have finally put this controversy behind us."

Thanks again to Allah for this exclusive tip.

Posted by: Ace at 11:06 AM | Comments (50)
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LGF reposts his animated GIF showing the supposed 1972 typewritten document over a MSWord document with default settings and fonts... and of course they're a perfect match.

Powerline too notes their break on the story, musing:

Have things changed in the ensuing year? Well, sure. I think the MSM are more careful about documents now, and perhaps about other claims that can readily be fact-checked. My own impression, though, is that, far from having ameliorated since last year, the liberal bias of the MSM has, if anything, worsened. I think the fact that alternative media now exist has prompted some reporters and editors to abandon even the pretense of objectivity.

That seems about right to me.

Cribbed again from the metablog cheatsheet known as the Blogometer.

LGF Link Fixed. Thanks for the correction, Il.

Posted by: Ace at 10:48 AM | Comments (2)
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Is humanity a cancer?

Or, as Agent Smith would have it, merely a virus?

It's an important question to debate, and Depak Chopra isn't afraid to ask the "tough questions."

He's also not afraid to ask the "moronic questions." Or to mention the "Gaia hypothesis" with a straight face. (Or at least he seems to have a straight face through the keyborad; I imagine he was giggling like a schoolgirl on goofballs when he wrote that.)

He's also not afraid to charge you $1500 for a retreat just to be in his company, and also have essence of Holy Aloe massaged into your buttocks.

Which sounds like a pretty good scam, actually. Coming soon-- the Ace of Spades HQ Spiritual Awareness Weekend. Nothing but Kentucky Fried Chicken, beer, and Donita Dunes videos.

Then we'll commune with nature by shooting bottle-rockets at squirrels and raccoons.

Thanks to Allah Pundit, who really should get a blog or somethin'. This young upstart seems to have the chops.

Posted by: Ace at 10:28 AM | Comments (23)
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Kind of inevitable, I guess.

I haven't been this distraught since the left bagged Ultimate Champion Man-God Jeff Gannon, who was just like a berserking barbarian in a Frank Frazzetta painting, only not as much of a pussy.

Update: Resume Padding. Well, Michael Brown didn't quite have the experience he claimed.

Matthew thinks it's a perfect case of life imitating The Office:

Brown's official biography on the FEMA Web site says that his background in state and local government also includes serving as "an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight" and as a city councilman.

But a former mayor of Edmond, Randel Shadid, told The Associated Press
on Friday that Brown had been an assistant to the city manager. Shadid said Brown was never assistant city manager. "I think there's a difference between the two positions," said Shadid. "I would think that is a discrepancy."

-- Quoted here.

[From the first episode of The Office, "Training Day:"

In episode "Training Day."
First--
Gareth: "I'm the assistant regional manager."
Brent: "Assistant to the regional manager."

In one of the best episodes, in which David may take his band "Forgone Conclusion" On the road again:

Gareth: "Will you be needing a road manager?"
Brent: "I manage myself."
Gareth: "I could be the assistant road manager."
Brent: "Well, assistant to the road manager."

Posted by: Ace at 10:18 AM | Comments (9)
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Damn, this was just about the funnest* thing I ever wrote. The quickest, too, because video games are so incredibly annoying and similar. It was humor borne of an intense loathing and anger.

But I guess not a lot of people saw it at the time... I'm getting some links off a World of Warcraft messageboard site, so maybe it's time again to share my frustrations with first-person-shooter computer games with the world again.

Very funny, if I do say so myelf. It's funny, because it's all undeniably true.

BTW, I say in that post that the language is "PG-13." Well, PG-13 allows you only one or two uses of the F-bomb, and I certainly exceeded that quota. So R for language.

* Not a typo. I meant funnest, not necessarily funniest, although it's up there on the list too. It was just such a breeze to write.

PS: What the hell does a guy have to do for a Slashdot link, anyway?

Figured this would be right up those geeks' alley.

Posted by: Ace at 10:03 AM | Comments (11)
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The left, paranoiac until recently about Bush suspending the Constitution and imposing a military-patrolled police state on Amerikkka, now is very, very angry that he didn't do just that in Louisiana.

Wizbang wants you to hypothesize that he did just that, and write a fulminating, frothing critique of the sort that would have been found on Kos or Atrios the day after Bush Accepted Caesar's Crown.

The best entry will win the writer fifty large.

And when I say "large," I mean dollars. That's large to me.

Thanks to the Blogometer, which is, as most of us are, still down on the bayou.

Just To Get The Ball Rolling: Try making up some fake quote by Shakespeare or Jefferson or someone. Like this:

The evil men lie in wait for their opportunity to seize power, after engineering chaos and crisis of their own design. George W. Bush is a dirty cocksucker who didn't win in 2000, no matter what the New York Times said.

-- John Milton

Posted by: Ace at 09:48 AM | Comments (3)
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Okay, yeah, I know: Instapundit used to constantly link to people doing little funny posts/tributes to himself. I don't think he was narcisstic, necessarily, just sort of being nice to people who were puffing him.

I've tried to avoid that, but...

SobekPundit has an "interview" with me, and I feel okay about posting it, because it's kind of funny and sort of insulting. Not pure kissy-ass, like all of Instapundit's Insta-love posts were.

I guess I also have to post it because (after picturing me as, ummm, Cindy Brady), he pictures me as the hero from Krull, and life's too short to not link a good Krull reference.

Although-- for the future? If you really want to flatter me-- Ash from the Evil Dead/Army of Darkness song-cycle.

Ash, baby. It's gotta be Ash.

Posted by: Ace at 09:18 AM | Comments (18)
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I think the word that ought to be in quotes is "mulls."

They're mulling it? Chewing it over?

I think the rest of the article makes clear that it's more a question of "how" than "if," thankfully.

Mulling Becomes Elektra: Coalition forces sweep rogue town (or, as Madelein Albright would have it, a "town of concern") and detain 200 terrorist suspects.

Thanks to BrewFan, or, as I call him, "Dirty Stinking Gutter-Drunk."

Posted by: Ace at 08:06 AM | Comments (6)
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The design selected to honor those who gave their lives fighting terrorism in the first battle of the new war has some nice elements. A tower of wind chimes, each sounding a different note, will represent the voices of the dead. A little eerie and ghostlike, but perhaps you need that to make people remember. Ghosts aren't noticed unless they act in a spooky way.

But why shape the memorial in a big red crescent? They call it "The Crescent of Embrace."

What embrace could they be thinking of? The embrace of an Islamofascist murderer as he grabbed a stewardress from behind and slit her throat? Is that what the big red crescent is supposed to symbolize-- the gushing slashed throat of an unarmed woman?

I rather doubt it.

What the hell is this "embrace" and "crescent" shit doing in a memorial to valor?

Remember the outrage when Ronald Reagan visited a cemetery for Nazi soldiers at Bitburg (sp?)? The left-leaning press went nuts at that. So I guess I'm a little off-put by elevating the Religion of Islam as the main "victim" of the 9/11 massacres.

That is how many people see it... but the great majority don't. The great majority of people want memorials to honor the actual victims and heroes.

I actually don't mind when Bush oh-so-frequently mentions Islam as a religion of peace, or says that a great world religion has been hijacked by butchers. There's some truth in that, and if that truth is overstated and stretched a bit, that can be excused as diplomatic nice-nice.

But it is beyond inappropriate to memorialize the (literal) fallen of flight 93 with an enormous symbol of the religion which animated their killers to murder them.

Yes, we should always keep in mind that Muslims are victims of terrorism too. And that many Muslims don't support terrorism. And etc.

But can we keep the PC out of a memorial for the dead? Is there no tribute that can be built without these ridiculous One World not-so-stealth messages?

And, actually, can we have a single tribute that honors old-school stuff like valor and selflessness, rather than just the fact that people died?

I'm tired of the left's methods of "honoring" the fallen. They only are capable of "honoring" the dead of 9/11 as victims. The heroes of 9/11 were victims, of course, but they were more than that too-- they were heroes who fought back, and not in vain. They gave their lives to save others. They knew they were doomed, but they fought back anyway-- because they knew that was the right thing to do.

I realize that the left isn't comfortable with the idea of fighting back, but I grow very weary of the hard pacifist left having such complete control over our memorials.

Allah Wants Proof Of Intent: Well, if the name "The Crescent of Embrace" doesn't tip you off, how about this?

The idea of the Crescent of Embrace, Murdoch said, is to be a gesture of healing and bonding.

Healing and bonding are nice. But once again, the deliberately clueless left seems to have lost the thrust of the plot here. Healing and bonding come after a tragedy.

This is a memorial to those who died in a tragedy, and thus are incapable of healing or bonding.

They fought back. They died. No healing, no bonding. Their last actions were not of healing, but of courage in the service of survival, and sparing other their fate.

But of course we couldn't possibly honor such retrograde, troglodytic actions. Depak Chopra just wouldn't approve.

Family Members Chose The Design?: Well, some family members did (which? Were they selected for their enlightned views?), but there were more chefs in the kitchen than that.

A 15-member jury made up of family members, community members and design professionals was tasked with making a final recommendation on the design. Five finalists were selected from 1,011 designs.

15 members in total. And community members and "design professionals" (not sure that most designers skew belligerent in their response to terrorism) chose the design.

There were 40+ victims, and, just guestimating here, about 200 or more close family members affected by the massacre.

15 people chose the design, of which only a fraction (let's guess-- about a third or a little bit more) were actual family members of the fallen.

So let's not rush to say "the families" chose this until we have all the facts.

Some Snark: Jaceonline suggests we erect "The Mama Cass Memorial Subway Sandwich Shop" while we're at it.

Again, no controversial symoblism there. The sandwich is simply an age-old symbol of friendship and togetherness. Look, everyone loves sandwiches; everyone enjoys eating a nice sandwich with their buddies. Of the top ten memories in my life, three involve sex, two involve winning money at gambling, and the other five involve sandwiches.

I'm sure Mama Cass would be thrilled by such a lovely tribute. And I've got just the design:

It's your own fault, baby, for trying to deep-throat a monster balogna love-machine like myself.

Posted by: Ace at 07:34 AM | Comments (126)
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Federal Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rules that "Dirty Bomb" Padilla can be held as an enemy combatant.

Good.

Update:

Read the decision here. Note that it is written by Judge Michael Luttig, who has been mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee. FYI. (Thanks for the link to Michelle Malkin).

Posted by: Harry Callahan at 07:11 AM | Comments (6)
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