I have a hard time getting into the vlogging thing.

Although I have no problem watching ordinary TV news, I tend to abandon video blogs in the first minute of play. Something really different has to be happening on that tiny 'screen' to grab my attention.

This site has a funny schtick, for example.
The title 'Summer Jobs' has some chuckleworthy moments.

This post is pretty much a bleg for vlog recommendations. Please drop a link in the comments if there are any vlogs that you frequent or think we would enjoy.

Posted by: LauraW. at 12:08 PM | Comments (18)
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The legendary body turns 50.

I suspect some of you will be googling yourselves past exhaustion over this news.

Posted by: LauraW. at 10:24 AM | Comments (36)
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Totally awesome.

Julian Bending's blunt descriptions of his properties have been causing a stir.

In contrast to the usual flowery language, Julian warns prospective buyers of the "pong" in one house, adding: "It's difficult to imagine a more disgusting house."

Julian, 40, of Glastonbury, Somerset, describes others as "wonderfully grubby", "overlooking hairy-a***d builders" and "would suit witch".

A two-bedroom terrace in Glastonbury is advertised as "having all the charm and poise of a vicar on crack".

His customers are pleased that he isn't one of those realtors that waste their time by lying about unsuitable properties. He claims that the sellers are grateful too, that they don't have to deal with people coming around who aren't interested in a good strong pong.

This article contains a few more of his funny quips.

Posted by: LauraW. at 07:39 AM | Comments (13)
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The Italian contact he met after the ex-FSB "businessmen." This might be the most interesting twist yet. Hard to say if this is just coincidence or something more sinister.

The last person to meet Alexander Litvinenko before he succumbed to the agonising effects of radioactive poisoning is a self-professed expert in nuclear materials.

International 'security consultant' Mario Scaramella, who joined Litvinenko for the now infamous clandestine meeting in a London sushi bar, headed an organisation which tracked dumped nuclear waste, including Soviet nuclear missiles left over from the Cold War.

...

Yesterday other customers of the sushi restaurant answered an appeal by health agencies for them to undergo medical checks. Some 200 worried members of the public came forward, also including customers of a Mayfair bar where Litvinenko held another meeting on the day he was poisoned.

...

Prof Scaramella has strongly denied any involvement in the murder and Litvinenko's family, who blame President Putin, say they do not question his loyalty. Having given an interview to The Mail on Sunday earlier in the week, Prof Scaramella yesterday said he was unwilling to say any more because he was 'co-operating with the authorities'. Earlier, he had acknowledged that 'something very strange is going on'.

Our investigations have established that:

l He has a deep knowledge of nuclear materials and their whereabouts around the globe.

l Although he describes himself as an environmentalist, he has detailed knowledge of the activities of Russian agents.

l Some of the institutions listed on his impressive CV appear to have no record of him, prompting questions about a career involving a large number of posts around the globe.

Prof Scaramella agreed to meet us in his home city of Naples to respond to allegations circulating on the internet that he was an intelligence agent in the pay of several secret services. Arriving in the lobby of a hotel flanked by two bodyguards, he produced a professional-looking dossier detailing his career.

As the meeting progressed, Prof Scaramella denied he had links to any secret services and became irritated. "You are sounding like the police,' he said. "Do not use this information against me."

Prof Scaramella's knowledge of atomic materials is clear, however. The Mail on Sunday has discovered that in June last year Italian police launched an investigation into an alleged plot to smuggle uranium into the country after being tipped off by Prof Scaramella.

He told officers that the uranium was hidden in a suitcase and had originated from an undisclosed country in the former Soviet Union. Within just 24 hours, police in Rimini made four arrests.

At the time all Prof Scaramella would say was: "I was investigating the activities of former KGB activities in San Marino (a tiny independent republic near Rimini).

"I was also looking into the trafficking of arms from the former Soviet Union and possible links with Italian terrorist groups. During this I was passed a document that said there were former KGB men in San Marino looking at selling nuclear military material.

"I told the police that 10kg of uranium was hidden in a suitcase and on its way to Italy on June 2; and on June 2 the arrests were made and the uranium found. It was enriched uranium 90 per cent capable of making a small atomic bomb. Also an electronic target device was seized."

The uranium plot came a year after Prof Scaramella announced that he had information that 20 nuclear warheads had been lost by a Soviet submarine in the Bay of Naples.

Prof Scaramella told the Mitrokhin Commission, which investigated KGB activities in Italy, that he had been passed the information from Russian intelligence sources.

A dupe? Someone used by his Russian intelligence sources to suggest a sushi meal with the ex-spy, in order to give the "bad fish" theory a go?

And perhaps someone positioned to take the fall if things went bad? A patsy?

Or a second poisoner, delivering either a second dose to Litvenenko, perhaps as back-up in case the "ex" KGB operatives weren't able to get him to drink the poisoned tea (or whatever)?

As there was polonium 210 found at the hotel bar where Litvenenko had met the Russian busnessmen covert agents earlier in the day, it seems elemenatry that the Italian couldn't have been responsible for the earlier poisoning.

More... I've been meaning to summarize the bazillion articles about this, many linked at Drudge. Allah's done it for me.

This Italian cat looks good as the poisoner -- except for the timeline. How could a sushi-bar poisoning result in the Polonium turning up back at the hotel bar where Litvenenko had met the KGB agents earlier?

But that timeline doesn't seem as firm as it did before:

[The] Independent... places him in the hotel bar with the Russians at 10 a.m. and having sushi with Scaramella at 3. Funny thing about that, too: their source for the timing of the first meeting appears to be Lugovoy, the former KGB agent who as of now is the prime suspect. Lugovoy was allegedly accompanied by two other men, including his “business partner,” Dmitri Kovtun. Kovtun finally came forward yesterday to profess his innocence — and in passing claimed that the meeting happened at 4, six hours later than the Independent has it and at a time when Litvinenko was, supposedly, having sushi with Scaramella.

Scaramella claims that he presented Litvenenko with information they were both being targeted for death by the Kremilin. Which raises the unlikely possibility that Scaramella was actually the target of the poisoning (and the even more outlandish possibility that Litvenenko was to be his poisoner, but mishandled the toxin and killed himself).

Are these guys all being carefully tested for any minute trace of Polonium 210?

The Two-Poisonings Theory... is slightly buttressed by this, from Hot Air:

Whoever poisoned him with this stuff really knew what he was doing, too. According to the Daily Mail, “giving him too much would have caused almost instant death while it took weeks for him to become gravely ill, giving the killer ample chance to escape.”

You don't want the guy dropping dead right in front of you in public. Obviously, the cops are going to take an immediate interest in you should that happen.

So what if you give two the victim two lower doses, hours apart, each dose guaranteed to not overwhelm the victim's system and let him walk away under his own power, but together guaranteed to kill him?

Posted by: Ace at 04:25 PM | Comments (49)
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Oddly enough, the very patriotic guardians of the Lebanese people -- Hezbollah -- strongly opposes any investigation into the murder of a Lebanese PM.

Gee, you'd think that maybe Hezbollah had an allegiance to states which are enemies of Lebanon or something.

Lebanon's political crisis moved toward a new danger point Saturday as the U.S.-backed government approved an international tribunal for suspects in the 2005 assassination of a former prime minister Rafik Hariri despite warnings of mass protests by its opponent Hezbollah.

Last-ditch attempts to reach a compromise between the government and the pro-Syrian camp, led by Hezbollah, appeared to fail Saturday as the Cabinet moved forward with its meeting on the U.N.-created court.

The tribunal is a key bone of contention in the power struggle between allies and opponents of Syria in Lebanon. Anti-Syrian forces -- mainly Christian and Sunni Muslim -- dominate the government, but are facing a campaign by the mainly Shiite pro-Syrian camp to bring the government down.

The political crisis became potentially explosive this week with the assassination of an anti-Syrian politician, raising worries of more violence that could tear apart the country's fragile sectarian seams.

The anti-Syrian bloc brought out some 800,000 people for a mass rally at the funeral of the politician, Pierre Gemayel, on Thursday. Hezbollah has shown it can bring out similar numbers for its protests -- and if it goes ahead with its threatened demonstrations, many fear it could start a spiral of street action.

Earlier Saturday, two key anti-Syrian Lebanese politicians met with Parliament Speaker Nabil Berri, an ally of Hezbollah and a Syria supporter, in an apparent attempt to find a compromise.

U.S.-backed Prime Minister Fouad Siniora offered to put off the contentious Cabinet vote for several days if six pro-Hezbollah ministers who quit the government earlier this month return. Hezbollah demands that the government be changed to give it and its allies more power, or else it will launch mass protests to topple Siniora.

But the reconciliation bid appeared to have failed, and the Cabinet meeting approved a U.N. draft for the tribunal.

Peace is an illusion when the enemy is interested only in war. There is going to be a bloodletting; it cannot be avoided. One side must win and the other must lose.

BARTENDER: Is there going to be a fight?

WYATT EARP: I think there must be.

There is simply no compromise on with the terrorists; the goals are irreconcilable. The terrorists wish to kill anyone who stands in their way of theocratic fascism; the non-terrorists would prefer not to die. You cannot finesse this point; there is no halfway, split-the-baby compromise between "death" and "life."

Posted by: Ace at 02:18 PM | Comments (38)
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With all the chaos and death, it's easy to miss the fact that in actual engagements with the enemy, the US military is performing amazingly.

Michael Fumento, embedded with the Ramadi forces, says that while we're in a frustrating "grind" in our fight against the terrorists, we are in fact grinding them into dust. Albeit slowly.

Ramadi is both a litmus test for the counterinsurgency effort in Iraq and a laboratory. If we can defeat the insurgent and terrorist forces here, there is no place we cannot defeat them. And from what I found, we are defeating them. It's painfully slow, and our men there are still dying in inordinate numbers from a broad variety of attacks. But a multitude of factors, including tribal cooperation, the continual introduction of more Iraqi army and police, the beginning of public works projects, the building of more Forward Operating Bases (FOBs), the installation of more small operational posts (OPs), and plunking down company-sized Combat Operation Posts (COPs) smack in the middle of hostile territory are destroying both the size and the mobility of the enemy. This time the rats are dying in place.

More after the jump, but the article is worth reading in full.

Thanks to The Purple Avenger. more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:12 PM | Comments (15)
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This video is flagged, so you may have to sign up/sign in to a YouTube account to watch it. It's worth it, and it's easy enough to sign up if you haven't yet.

Two guys seem to be sort of getting into it in that pussy way in the beginning of the video. A man and woman walk by at around the :40 mark. For reasons unknown -- maybe because either the guy or girl told them to break it up and go home -- one of the two guys takes a shot at either the walking man or his girlfriend. Whatever his intent, he ends up hitting the chick in the face.

This is a mistake. Her boyfriend is clearly a boxer, and he pounds the stuffings out of both guys.

Thanks to yls.

Similar... The video quality on this one is too bad for me to tell if it's faked. It certainly smells a little fishy, a little too perfect.

An English yob tells his camera-holding buddy he's going to "Happy Slap" the next pedestrian he sees, randomly. It's gonna be great fun slapping (very hard, with a wind-up and all of his body's momentum behind him) some random ly chosen citizen.

Or maybe it won't be as fun as he thinks.

Posted by: Ace at 01:28 PM | Comments (57)
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They almost make it too easy. Mary Katherine Ham compares the media coverage of last year's Black Friday with this year's.

In both cases, strong retail numbers. But last year -- before Nancy Pelosi singlehandedly ushered in a New Age of Freedom from Want, the coverage was decidedly more downbeat, with "reluctant shoppers" "lured" to spend their last few bits only by discounts on shoddy cut-rate goods and irregular mutton.

And now -- "Black Friday Starts Off Holiday Season With a Bang." (AP/Reuters, naturally.)

They're not even hiding it.

Posted by: Ace at 12:03 PM | Comments (26)
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In a bleeped line, she seems to say, "Just go to Texas and suck George Bush's dick."

This sort of sub-moronic agitprop from low-functioning celebrities trying to cling to the edginess of a youth they can barely remember -- well, who really cares, apart from Madonna's Apostle St. Andrew of the Sacred Butt-Plug?

I'm just linking this because of this line from Allah--

This was also the concert that got pimped on Drudge a few weeks ago for the part where she descends to the stage bound to a cross. They cut it from the broadcast, but the redemptive power of watching an aging whore perform opera bouffe with Christian symbolism shone through nonetheless.

Edgy stuff:

"Depth" on the cheap -- only those as shallow and superficial as the sheen on the pages of celebrity-gossip magazine find "deep" at all.

Posted by: Ace at 04:35 PM | Comments (63)
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I thought she was just shot dead. Well, she was. Thanks so much to Drew for pointing out that, before Putin decided to can it with the subtletly, she too was poisoned.

Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a fierce critic of Russia's President Putin, was shot dead in October 2006 following a suspected poisoning attempt and death threats.

Now, this story is decades old and most of you probably know it. But, just for background, poisoning defectors/traitors/inconvenient persons is something of a tradition in the KGB.

Including, as it turns out, poisoning such people specifically in London with exotic, hard-to-detect, fast-decaying poisons.

It was one of the most notorious acts of assassination carried out during the Cold War.

Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was killed by poison dart filled with ricin and fired from an umbrella in London in 1978.

Markov, a communist defector working for the BBC World Service, left his office at Bush House in the UK capital on September 11 and walked across Waterloo Bridge to take the train home to Clapham in south-west London.

As he waited at a bus stop moments into his journey home, he felt a sharp jab in his thigh and saw a man picking up an umbrella.

He developed a high temperature and in four days was dead.

A post mortem, conducted with the help of scientists from the UK government's germ warfare centre at Porton Down, established that he had been killed by a tiny pellet containing a 0.2 milligram dose of the poison ricin.

Markov's assassination was detected only because the pellet carrying the poison had not dissolved as expected.

His assassin has never been captured despite close cooperation between British and Bulgarian authorities, including Interpol.

Markov, a playwright and satirist who had broadcast scathing accounts of Communist high life to Bulgaria, was the subject of two failed assassination attempts before he was killed.

And in the years following his death efforts were made to reveal the chain of command which led to the order for his assassination being given.
KGB suspected in assassination

It is believed that the operation was supported by the technical staff of the Soviet KGB and seems to have involved many senior members of the Bulgarian secret police.

In June 1992 General Vladimir Todorov, the former intelligence chief, was sentenced to 16 months in jail for destroying 10 volumes of material on the case.

A second suspect, General Stoyan Savov, the deputy interior minister, committed suicide rather than face trial for destroying the files.

Another Bulgarian spy, Vasil Kotsev, who was widely believed to have been the operational commander of the Markov assassination plot, died in an unexplained car accident.

Scotland Yard says the case remains open.

It's "open" in the sense that the actual specific culprits aren't locked up. There's not much of a whodunnit here, either.

Posted by: Ace at 04:12 PM | Comments (17)
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