Yup, purely an "internal struggle."

Here, some jihadists prepare Nick Berg for victory in his own internal struggle against sin. That sin? Having his head contiguous with his neck, which is considered sinful for nonbelievers according to the Koran.

Hey, in any struggle -- even in a purely "internal" one -- there are going to be some collateral casualties here and there. Can't make an omlette without sawing the head off some Jews, after all.

Thanks to Village Idiot.

Hey... Maybe it would be time better spent were we to stop teaching non-Muslims that "jihad is a purely internal struggle against sin" and maybe start convincing more actual Muslims this.

Just brainstorming here. Thinking outside the box. Noodlin'.

Posted by: Ace at 01:11 PM | Comments (17)
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So dumb.

"Ghost riding the whip" a stunt in which a driver gets out of his car and dances around and on top of the slowly moving vehicle to a thumping hip-hop beat has gotten at least two people killed, led to numerous injuries and alarmed police on the West Coast and beyond.

A fad among devotees of a West Coast strain of hip-hop music called "hyphy," the stunt has been celebrated in song and performed in numerous homemade videos posted on YouTube.

"It did not take Einstein to look at this thing and say this was a recipe for disaster," said Pete Smith, a police spokesman in Stockton. "We could see the potential for great injury or death."

Earlier this month, Davender Gulley, a ghost-riding 18-year-old, died after his head slammed into a parked car while he was hanging out the window of an SUV in Stockton, police said. In October, a 36-year-old man dancing on top of a moving car fell off, hit his head and died in what authorities said was Canada's first ghost riding fatality.

36?

Here, supposedly, a car is stolen by an opportunistic thief as a jackass prances on his trunk. I don't buy it, but it has a happy ending.

And there's this classic. As some snipe about NASCAR, you're rooting for collisions. This idiot does not disappoint.

Posted by: Ace at 12:12 PM | Comments (37)
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MSM Catches Up With Blog Morons: Iraqi Judge: Saddam To Die Saturday At Latest.

At latest.

The physical transfer of Saddam to Iraqi authorities was believed to be one of the last steps before he was to be hanged, although the lawyers' statement did not specifically say Saddam was in Iraqi hands.

''A few minutes ago we received correspondence from the Americans saying that President Saddam Hussein is no longer under the control of U.S. forces,'' according to the statement faxed to The Associated Press.

Munir Haddad, a judge on the appeals court that upheld Saddam's death sentence, said he was ready to attend the execution.

''All the measures have been done,'' Haddad said. ''There is no reason for delays.''

By the way, for the Glenn Ellison Ellensburg crowd out there: No, not a single conservative thinks that Iraq will suddenly become peaceful because of this. No one thinks the various terrorists are fighting for Saddam. No one cares about him. The Shi'a terrorists are fighting to make Iraq a revolutionary/reactionary theothug state like Iran, the Sunnis are fighting to get a bigger piece of the country they once owned, and Al Qaeda is just fighting to kill Americans and moderate Muslims and generally make the world a worse place. None of those groups gives a fig about Saddam.

This isn't about winning the war in Iraq. It's about justice, and justice sings sweetly from a suddenly tightened rope.

...

Within the day, possibly. Allah says don't be suprised if there's breaking news on this by 4pm Eastern.

Confirmation from a source of Confederate Yankee's: It's goin' down, soon, within hours. FoxNews confirms the death warrant has been signed, and it's supposed to happen by Saturday, Iraq time. Confederate Yankee thinks it will happen by midnight, Iraq time, which I guess is 4 o'clock on the East cost.

Plus, the Washington Post editorial board tells Saddam's Angels to grow the fuck up:

…there is something unreal about the cries of foul from human rights groups demanding perfect procedural justice from a country struggling with civil war, daily bombings and death-squad killings. The reality is that by the trial’s end, there was no significant factual dispute between prosecution and defense: Saddam Hussein acknowledged on national television that he had signed the death warrants after only the most cursory look at the evidence against his victims. That, he testified proudly, “is the right of the head of state.” Exactly what would a perfect trial be capable of discovering?

Largely the same folks who called for the Duke Lacrosse team to be suspended because, hey, even if they weren't guilty of rape, they were definitely guilty of lesser crimes, such as drinking while a year or two from 21, hiring a stripper, and having a skin tone somewhere between Scarlett Johanssen and Lenny Kravitz.

Hey Now... Jules Crittendon also titled his post Dead By Dawn.

He writes about what Saddam's death means to him. More Fruit Loops for the rest of us.

His contacts in Iraq also figure it's actually already happened, though I don't know if that's still good speculation given the recent reportage on the signing of the death warrant.

Posted by: Ace at 11:25 AM | Comments (36)
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I'm beggin' him to send this to me or email me with details.

Kempermanx is not, so far as I know, a psychotic lunatic. So enjoy:

Had lunch with my Bar friend, who gave me his copy of the original complaint, which I am sending to KC. He said that the Bar will file additional charges against Nifungu soon. They will not amend the current charges, but will charge him with more serious charges, SOON. Nifungu is a DEAD MAN WALKING.

The Long Knives are out in force now, and it is going to get REAL ugly!!

Please email me, dude.

Posted by: Ace at 11:19 AM | Comments (16)
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Nice to have intuitions confirmed by an expert. Not an expert on par with a Joseph Rago, mind you, but at least a lesser sort of expert.

To classify this as a “stunning rebuke” would be an understatement. I am not familiar with North Carolina law or procedure, but in Pennsylvania not once have I ever a seen a prosecutor or assistant prosecutor actually brought up on an ethics complaint for their official duties (there have been complaints filed when a prosecutor is arrested for a crime, like DUI, drug possession, etc.).

...

Some of you may be thinking that there is so much more they could go after him for, such as the dubious (and in my opinion unconstitutional) lineup procedure, his failure to consider alibi evidence offered by one of the defendants prior to charges being filed, failing to turn over DNA results in a timely fashion, and his failure to even speak with the accuser (I refuse to call her a “victim”, because I think it’s pretty clear nothing happened to her at the party), on whose word the entire case rests, for nearly a year, and for bringing charges when the accuser had given multiple, and differing accounts of the event.

Given all that, it seems like nailing him with an ethics complaint for his press comments is akin to getting Al Capone on tax evasion charges.

But at this point I think it was the only thing they could do. The main reason is that all of the actions mentioned above are still in the process of playing themselves out at trial. But after the trial is completed or the charges dropped (and if there is any justice in the world the charges will be dropped), Nifong could be looking at a whole new set of Ethics Complaints.

He also agrees with Michael's take that the NC Bar feels forced to take this action to avoid looking like scumbags. Here' s Michael:

I don't think so, although this is a popular slam against lawyers. Attorneys get suspended or disbarred every day for a wide range of professional misconduct, some of it fairly technical ethical violations. The information is public -- you can look in the back pages of any bar association journal from a substantial state for the proceedings of the ethics panel, and you will see what I mean. But these efforts normally get no publicity in the media. Still, in my experience the overwhelming majority of lawyers have no tolerance for the sleazebags that demean the profession.

The situation with Nifong is more complicated than an attorney in private practice. As a prosecuting attorney representing the state, Nifong has virtually absolute discretion regarding who he chooses to prosecute. (This is especially true if he works with a grand jury which formally issues the indictment.) If people don't like it, they can elect a new prosecutor to represent them. So it's pretty much impossible to challenge him for bringing charges against the accused, even if their reputations were "besmirched" in the process.

Looks to me like the N.C. Bar is disgusted with him anyway, and went looking for anything else they could find to smack him down. The mere fact that the Bar is bringing charges on its own motion, I should hope, would be enough to irrevocably "besmirch" Nifong's professional reputation and kill any aspirations he may have had to advance in N.C. politics or obtain a judicial appointment.

My take -- Nifong fucked up and the legal community in N.C. wants him to pay for embarrassing them.

Huck agrees that it's not as hard to be disbarred as I suggested, and thinks that's Nifong's fate:

If the allegations about Nifong are true (lying to the court, the public, unethical practices as to the lineup, etc.) he probably will be disbarred, or at least suspended for some period of time. If he's prosecuted and convicted, disbarment would be automatic.

Both lawyers, though, again, not experts in the law like Joseph Rago.

Monty asks:

Nifong should be disbarred, no question about it. Whether he will be is another question (and I think it's unlikely). But this really isn't the most important question to ask. The important question is, why did the Duke faculty, supposedly guiding lights of reason and tolerance, fall all over themselves to believe in the guilt of these boys? Even when it became obvious that the whole case was a lie? And why have no public apologies been tendered, not just to the accused but to the entire Lacrosse team, whose season was terminated for what turns out to be no good reason at all?

Entropy responds with the obvious -- by quoting Bonfire of the Vanities:

Weiss had an election coming up, and the Bronx was 70 percent black and Latin, and he was going to make sure the name Abe Weiss was pumped out to them on every channel that existed. He might not do much else, but he was going to do that

Every assistant D.A. in the Bronx Â… shared Captain Ahab's mania for the Great White Defendant.

It's a liberal tenet that most black people are good, wise, and honest, and most white people (save those who are members of the Church of Latter Day Liberals) are lying, cheating, oppressive and greedy bigots, the sort of people who would rape a black stripper just because they could.

So of course they assumed the lying whore was telling the truth.

No, one shouldn't be prejudiced against blacks. And yes, prostitutes can be raped, and frequently are.

But honestly, this woman's story was changing from the first moments she told it. She was drunk off her ass, but how much latitude do you give to a rape-charge just because the alleged victim is falling-down inebriated? Is that really something, as Nifong seems to believe, that adds credibility to a charge?

He was obviously pandering to his minority voters, but to the extent he really believed this bullshit, it was partly because he drank the liberal Kool-Aid. Women never lie about rape. Just because you're a sketchy stripper who may or may not be a part-time prostitute doesn't mean you can't be as upright and honest as a church leader. Etc.

He took these silly talking points to the extreme, and now he's thoroughly trashed them.

In a way, this might be the NC Bar's way of saving those liberal articles of faith by purging itself of someone who's compromised them. Shoot the messenger, keep the message.

More... Mary Katherine Ham does the best HamNation report she's ever done, says Allah. A tour of things that did not happen in Durham; on the scene reporting from where sordid events did not take place.

Posted by: Ace at 10:54 AM | Comments (20)
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Men are the ultimate feminists. It's not that we're lazy or swinish. It's that making you clean is our way of participating in The Race For The Cure (TM).

Women who exercise by doing the housework can reduce their risk of breast cancer, a study suggests.

The research on more than 200,000 women from nine European countries found doing household chores was far more cancer protective than playing sport.

Dusting, mopping and vacuuming was also better than having a physical job.

The women in the Cancer Research UK-funded study spent an average of 16 to 17 hours a week cooking, cleaning and doing the washing.
...

Out of all of the activities [studied], only housework significantly reduced the risk of both pre- and post-menopausal women getting the disease.

Housework cut breast cancer risk by 30% among the pre-menopausal women and 20% among the post-menopausal women.

...

The international authors said their results suggested that moderate forms of physical activity, such as housework, may be more important than less frequent but more intense recreational physical activity in reducing breast cancer risk.

Make me a turkey sangwhich, bitch, if you know What's Good For You.

Thanks to chickpea.

Not Really Related: From Allah, a WikiHow article on How To Hide An Erection.

Not sure a real "man" wrote this piece. "He" completely missed some obvious ways of hiding an erection -- for example, this "guy" didn't mention anything about disguising it with a severed hobo's head.

Posted by: Ace at 09:13 AM | Comments (74)
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Another 48 hour clock.

Didn't he get a 48 hour countdown three years ago?

The road not travelled.

Posted by: Ace at 04:01 PM | Comments (161)
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Document Here... At the Smoking Gun. Reading it now. It seems to be cataloguing Nifong's statements to the media as not merely being injurious to the accused, but false.

I see now why the first report only mentioned that one bite, as most of the 17 pages are quotes from Nifong and the dates he supplied those quotes to the meida.

Allegations 124 and 125 start the conclusory case against Nifong. (Page 11.) Those allege that Nifong made statements about the "attack" -- that no semen was left behind because a condom was used -- that he knew, or should have known, was untrue, based upon the "victim's" claim that no condom was used.

Thus, "misleading." Or a flat out lie. Picking and choosing which parts of his victim's story matched the evidence.

...

Okay... All the way through, and it does seem to be only about improper extrajudicial statements prejudicing the defendants, though there are those two specific recitations alleging misrepresentation. At the very end it says "Nifong engaged in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation," but those charges are only directly addressed by the two sentences I noted.

Maybe it's a good sign -- they've decided to hang him already, and are just casting about for any pretext for doing so. Kind of rough justice for his deciding to hang the Duke Non-Rapist Lacrosse Players without a fully vetted case.

I guess the stuff about the improper photo array, and failure to produce DNA results, can't be addressed by the Bar until the judge in the case actually rules on these issues, in order not to prejudice his ruling?

...

This story is crap. The only one of the four citations of possible professional misconduct they cite is Nifong's making statements injurious to the reputations of the accused -- surely the most penny-ante of the charges, and one of the ones most frequently breached by prosecutors, right?

Gabriel, Michael, do tell: I don't want to be a total cynic, but I have a sneaking suspicion that many prosecutors -- not most, but many -- get away with some of the crap Nifong pulled on a regular basis. The difference here is these shoddy tactics being used in the service of something obviously so grossly unjust; that he would stoop to cheating because he grew to suspect his witness was a liar and the defendants were innocent.

And I also think the bar is hestitant to disbar any lawyer for practically anything, short of stealing a client's money or dealing crack.

But in this case, where we pass overzealousness easily into the realm of intentional malice, is it a decent possibility? Or still a likelihood of a mere slap on the wrist?

Posted by: Ace at 02:58 PM | Comments (54)
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I hate it when someone chumps me:

Cars fly through the air as Nissan launches its latest model, the Qashqai, with a viral advertising campaign that centres on the dangerous and fictional world of Japanese Qashqai Car Games.

The online spot revolves around a driver involved in the new urban sport known as Qashqai Car Games. The stunt cars used are the new Nissan models, a crossover compact car larger than a hatchback but smaller than an SUV.

The concept was created by TBWA\London and TBWA\G1-Europe. The most robust part of the integrated campaign will roll out with the launch of online films showing stunts performed by supposed "professional" Qashqai drivers. The pan-European effort brings the games to life throughout the online world and the official website of the "games" qashqaicargames.com.

Thanks to Riehl, blogging up a real storm today.

Posted by: Ace at 02:04 PM | Comments (11)
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Alive, alas.

Posted by: Ace at 01:23 PM | Comments (19)
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