Oy . MKH says that Lamont moves so stiffly and awkwardly in his ad you think he's doing a parody, and maybe he is. Maybe his campaign manager is Andy Kauffman, returned from the dead, and this is merely the most expensive comedy performance-art show ever staged.

For a bit of star-power, Lamont went to Joel Silver and got the Crypt-Keeper to do an ad for him too. For some reason, Paul Newman's doing the Crypt-Keeper's voice. Not really sure why.

Jim Geraghty predicted Michael Steele would win in Maryland.

Well, at the moment, he's tied, according to one poll, which means, I think, he wins by 4 or five points.

I'm adding 4-5 points to every Republican running in the Senate. 2-3 might be more conservative, but I'm guessing those independents are largely conflicted and will turn out even more lightly than usual in a midterm. I say they're conflicted because while they no longer believe we should have gone to war in Iraq, they also don't seem to like the idea of losing. They're more frustrated and saddened by the war than ready to make the ideological commitment to surrendering. The Democrats don't even really offer them that choice clearly, even if they were in that sort of a mood.

So, my predictions:

Burns holds.

Steele takes a Democratic-held seat.

Talent wins -- if not now, then in the subsequent litigation.

Corker wins.

For some reason, I think Allen's going to lose, even though my "add 4 or 5" points would say he's going to win. Virginia voters should, of course, vote anyway. Don't mean to be pessimistic. Just one of those feelings. It's the Mark Warner thing, I guess -- Virginia has expressed a preference for Democrats who claim to be conservatives, even if they (in this case) end up voting with the ultraliberals like John Kerry and Ted Kennedy.

Virginia is, in other words, retarded.

Same for Tom Kean, Jr. For reasons that outright baffle me, New Jersey voters seem A-OK with political corruption and judges imposing gay marriage on them against their preferences.

New Jersey is just liberal. Liberal, and stupid.

So, Republicans hold the Senate. Everyone immediately begins talking up Michael Steele for Vice President in '08.

And finally we can stop talking about Condi in '08.

Posted by: Ace at 03:26 PM | Comments (27)
Post contains 395 words, total size 3 kb.

The Political Pit Bull conceives of it working differently: more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:32 PM | Comments (13)
Post contains 897 words, total size 5 kb.

Good on McCain.

I waver on him. Some weeks I despise him and would vote against him for President, even if it meant electing Hillary!.

Other weeks I only mildly resent him and would vote for him, although very reluctantly, and only if there weren't a third-party candidate getting a solid .1% of the vote.

I guess today I'm in the latter frame of mind.

But more fun than the actual story is, as Allah notes, how St. Andrew of the Sacred Heart-Ache will react. For so long Andrew Sullivan has held McCain up on a pedestal, then flipped him over and put his penis in his mouth. (An act of honor and love, not a sexual act, remember. NTTAWWT.)

Well, now McCain has slapped him in the face with that very same penis.

And not in a friendly, "How's it going, buddy?" kind of way, but in that nasty, degrading Rocco Sfreddi sort of way.

Posted by: Ace at 02:15 PM | Comments (27)
Post contains 168 words, total size 1 kb.

They call it a robot. I call it a an automaton toy at best.

It barely moves. It has almost no animation in its face, and its mouth doesn't even seem to open when it sings. It doesn't walk; it stands rooted in one place like a lamp-post. It doesn't even seem to move its arms.

"Robot"? It's a plastic statue with a couple of low-power servos in it.

However, they overcome the most important technological hurdle: giving it perky, diamond-hard nipples.

Priorities. Take care of the big things first, then work on the pesky details when you gear up for manufacturing.

Thanks to My Pet Jawa.

Posted by: Ace at 02:04 PM | Comments (16)
Post contains 113 words, total size 1 kb.

Disagreeing with Allah is good for traffic. So let me do so again.

He says the ad is misleading because it fails to state that Democrats oppose not wiretapping, but wiretapping without a warrant.

I think that's incorrect. Or rather, it's correct, but requiring a warrant as we understand the concept destroys the entire program.

The details of this are sketchy, and what I'm about to write may be 99% bullshit. But this is my understanding of what's going on.

When we speak of "wiretapping," we have the image of an FBI guy posing as a telephone repairman entering a building's basement to clip into a single line. And then FBI agents sitting around, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes as 1970's era magnetic-tape disks spin, recording, and they listen to the conversations.

That's not what the NSA is doing. I don't believe that's what the NSA has ever done.

The dirty secret here -- which Bush has to obfuscate -- is that the NSA indiscriminately intercepts and records virtually every broadcast communication signal in the entire world, except those which it may be legally forbidden to intercept and record, such as those calls beamed between stations in the US.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:53 PM | Comments (43)
Post contains 1993 words, total size 12 kb.

I'm not gloating. I think right now I'm actually sorry to see it go, and I'm sympathetic for the Hell on Earth its citizens will go through for the next twenty years, until they emigrate to other countries.

Did you know it was this bad?

Maybe [the marauding Youths of Undetermined Ethnic Extraction] felt invulnerable because there is so much torching, so few arrests, even fewer tough jail terms, and no bad publicity for criminals. Facts pop up once in a while like fish bubbles on a quiet lake—hundreds of cars burned on a relatively calm night, at least a hundred every night all year long, 2500 policemen injured since January 2006—and disappear without consequences.

...

France suffers from the absence of healthy sensationalism to deal appropriately with sensational events. Words bring people to life. The victim of this vicious attack hardly exists in the public mind. Her friends and family are shown from a distance walking into the hospital, a professor speaks a few words, there is no image of her face in happier times.

The most moving description comes from 30 year-old Rachid, cited in Le Parisien. He was standing at the bus stop when the bus went up in flames. He saw the young woman get off the bus, almost fainted at the sight of her burning body, “she was black but she looked white, her skin was peeled.” Overcoming his fear that he would cause further harm by touching her, he carried her away from the bus, even more afraid that it might explode. He tried to douse the flames by covering her with his jacket and at the same time handed his cell phone to a friend who called for an ambulance.

Why we arenÂ’t shown RachidÂ’s heroic face? Is he afraid of being identified by neighborhood racaille that would seek revenge if they could get their hands on him? Police investigators are encouraging escaped passengers who had not yet not come forward by offering them the exceptional possibility of testifying anonymously.

At least a hundred cars per night?

Posted by: Ace at 12:26 PM | Comments (75)
Post contains 341 words, total size 2 kb.

Get it all out.

Posted by: Ace at 11:54 AM | Comments (346)
Post contains 12 words, total size 1 kb.

I didn't know you could fill that position if you weren't a Congressman. Guess I was wrong.

The objective, neutral Lauer spins for Kerry -- calling it inconceivable that a liberal would say what liberals like himself say all the time -- and then enforces party discipline by scolding Democrats for abandoning Kerry in his hour of need.

He was just about to threaten to reduce federal highway-construction aid to Harold Ford's district and state before he was cut off by a commercial break.

And... Chris Matthews lambasted by local Florida press for not even trying to ask about local Florida issues in his disasterous attempt at moderating a debate between Davis and Crist, candidates for Florida governor.

He wasted most of the time asking about Iraq and other national, federal government issues governors simply have no say in whatsoever. He apparently did no homework or research whatsoever -- asking about the huge crime rate in Florida, for example, unaware crime is at a 30-year low -- and instead just decided to wing it and do his normal Hardball schtick.

Critics say the nadir of the "debate" came at about the halfway point, when he became bored with the gubernatorial candidates and brought out Joe Wilson and David Corn to discuss Plamegate among themselves for fifteen minutes, then said "And now David Schuster has a report on why Dick Cheney is such an asshole."

Posted by: Ace at 11:31 AM | Comments (18)
Post contains 248 words, total size 2 kb.

I've never done that before. I didn't even realize I could. Part of the reason I closed it was just to test if I could do so.

I'm not sure that's a smart thing; if you guys want to argue, I shouldn't presume to tell you you can't.

But maybe just a bit of chill-out time would be helpful.

Please don't start it up again here. I'll reopen the thread's comments later so everyone can continue making the same stupid statements they've been making in these same stupid arguments they've been making for ten stupid years.

As a wise man once said to me, "You guys know that when the space aliens come, we're all going to be on the same side, right?"

Posted by: Ace at 11:04 AM | Comments (75)
Post contains 133 words, total size 1 kb.

Influence Peddler thinks they're producing ED-209. It does have an audio warning system.

I think it's just the Sentry Guns from the extended version of Aliens.

Either way, it's cool.

Robots and machine guns -- you know this is just a disaster waiting to happen, but an awesome disaster.

Meanwhile... The Air Force just implemented SkyNet, though they're calling it calling it the Air Force Cyberspace Command, for PR reasons. (Contains link to real article plus parody.)

Posted by: Ace at 10:47 AM | Comments (10)
Post contains 87 words, total size 1 kb.