As they say, liberals are just conservatives who haven't been mugged yet:

Since then I've thought a great deal about the death penalty. It's hard not to, and not just because a heinous crime hit so close to home. More recently, lawyers, politicians and even Supreme Court justices are increasingly questioning the role of the death penalty in our justice system. I always thought I knew exactly where I stood on this issue, but now I find myself constantly wavering.

...

Before this happened, I likely would have argued that this young defendant had extenuating circumstances beyond his control. But not anymore. Maybe it's because my daughter is almost the same age as Constantine was when he was killed, or maybe it's because the reality of experience trumps theoretical beliefs. Whatever the reason, when I looked at the young man sitting at the defense table, I didn't see a victim. All I saw was the man who took my family member's life.

Thanks to OgreGunner.

Posted by: Ace at 11:24 AM | Comments (16)
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Hokay:

Joshua Adam Gardner, 22, visited Stillwater Area High School three times in December and January, posing as "Caspian James Crichton- Stuart IV, the Fifth Duke of Cleveland" and telling students he was 17 and was interested in attending the school.

He also claimed to be 27th in line for the British throne.

"Becoming 'Caspian,' I was given respect," Gardner said in a jailhouse interview broadcast Monday on NBC's "Today." "And people ... don't look at you in that way that they would look at a sex offender."

"I didn't mean to hurt anybody," he said.

Reporters at the Stillwater school newspaper, the Pony Express, tought "Caspian's" story would be an interesting feature.

"He was demanding that we call him 'Your Grace,'" said Chantel Leonhart, one of the paper's managing editors. "He even demanded that the principal call him 'Your Grace.'"

...

However, his description of his British lineage didn't ring true to co-editor in chief Matt Murphy. Plus, he couldn't spell the name of the castle he claimed was his home, and the British consulate in Chicago told them there was no such title as the Duke of Cleveland.

More research led the students to Web sites linking the pseudonym to Gardner's real name and to a Florida state registry of sex offenders.

The student reporters learned that Gardner was convicted in 2003 of criminal sexual conduct in Winona County, in southeastern Minnesota, for having sex with his underage girlfriend two years earlier. The girl was 14 and Gardner was 18.

...

Gardner said he didn't know that their age difference made having sex with the girl illegal.

Well, he knows now, but as a 22 year old man he's cruising the schoolyards as Baron Lovemuscle Von Fatcock.

The ruse never had a chance of working. Everyone knows that 27th in line for the British throne is actually John Bolton's Moustache.

Posted by: Ace at 11:14 AM | Comments (6)
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The school's student body is 90% Muslim, so...

Osama Saeed, co-ordinator of the alliance of Glasgow's main mosques and Muslim organisations, said he could see no reason why the main faith of the school should not change.

Ummm... no, I can't either. Oh, wait, except for one: It's a Catholic school owned and operated by the Catholic Church.

But I suppose that's just a little nit.

Posted by: Ace at 11:09 AM | Comments (18)
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Why should this be? There are plenty of TV shows that actually encourage a healthy, vigorous sex life. Like Oz. I like to "role-play"* that show, and have my girlfriend walk into the bedroom in handcuffs while I scream "Fresh fish!" and throw burning toilet-paper rolls and human waste at her. It's hot.

Anyway:

study by an Italian sexologist has found that couples who have a TV set in their bedroom have sex half as often as those who don't.

"If there's no television in the bedroom, the frequency (of sexual intercourse) doubles," said Serenella Salomoni whose team of psychologists questioned 523 Italian couples to see what effect television had on their sex lives.

Bear in mind, of course, that they're watching Italian TV, which is either porn (thus releiving the need for sex) or Baywatch (which you can't follow unless you're paying close attention).

* Note I said "role-play," not roll-play. Although, seriously, mixing D&D in with sex is pretty hot too. d20's can easily be adapted for use as "marital aids," and it's always fun to ask someone to make their saving throw versus arousal.

Posted by: Ace at 11:03 AM | Comments (15)
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Well-put:

The media did their best to neutralize the impact of this pitiful spectacle, with expert commentators on hand to assure us that smart fellows like Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden were only going through the motions for the sake of all that MoveOn.org fund-raising gravy. Don't worry, Ted and Chuck and Pat are way too savvy to believe this junk. Thus democratic politics reaches a new level of circular hell: The spin is that it's only spin.

As I understand it, with the Jack Abramoff dirty-money stuff, lobby groups give big bucks to politicians to advocate various things which, pre-check-cashing, the politicians may or may not have believed in. But this last week of Senate hearings has been so absurd it may bring the whole system into disrepute: Big-time Democrats are out there dancing for dollars in a cause so obviously non-viable that their media buddies feel obliged to signal that it's merely a charade.

Posted by: Ace at 10:37 AM | Comments (9)
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...and thus making the earth take on a slightly different orbit.

This "theory" is obviously dumbass and in fact may simply be a hoax, a joke. Still, it's so goofy I thought I'd post it.

Posted by: Ace at 10:25 AM | Comments (10)
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Don't fear the reaper and all, but one had less to worry about on that score than the other:

The bodies of Helen Godet and her caretaker of nine years, David Lund, were found Friday in the home they shared in the Bayview district near Monster Park.

They left notes dated Dec. 27 indicating that Lund had strangled the widow when she decided she couldn't take her own life, then swallowed a fatal dose of antifreeze, police said.

"She was supposed to drink the poison, but she could not do it,'' said Inspector Dennis Maffei of the homicide detail. "She did sign a suicide note -- it said that she wanted to kill herself. . . . It was just time.''

Most suicide pacts involve elderly couples in which at least one of the partners is in poor health, police said. "This was indeed different,'' Maffei said.

The relationship itself was an unlikely one, but those who knew the two said it was close and genuine.

Lund was 30. Helen Godet was 106.

Via Football Fans For Truth, which pronouces, with good reason, Oliver Stone's Alexander to be the gayest film ever made, and that includes both To Wong Fu With Love, Signed, Julie Newmar and the Village People's Can't Stop The Music.

Not even Rosario Dawson's naked kazungas can de-homofy this movie.

Related: Great-grandmother returns from Iraq. Not a fighter, but she did have to wear full body armor while working as a clerk in a PX. She just wanted to help soldiers.

Posted by: Ace at 10:06 AM | Comments (7)
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Marine bomb expert shaken but not deterred by IED

Its a good thing that this guy is too busy to be reading the NY Times. Otherwise he might think he is losing the war.

Instead he spends all his time defusing IEDs in Iraq. And you don't want to piss him off!

Burghardt, who was looking to clear an evacuation route for the vehicles, hopped into what he thought was a recent bomb crater. He said he saw an interesting piece of shrapnel in the 4½-foot- deep hole and wanted to investigate. As he took a closer look, the shattered gravel beneath his foot suddenly shifted, revealing a package wrapped in orange plastic and a cordless telephone base station.

Realizing that he had just stumbled onto a primed explosive, Burghardt stuck his knife in the dirt and dredged up a red detonating cord that led to a pair of 122 mm artillery shells. He cut the cord with scissors and told the rest of his team to stay back.

“I thought I had done good,” Burghardt said.

But what he didnÂ’t realize was that a second detonating cord ran from the base station to a third artillery shell buried behind him. The triggerman, figuring perhaps that he wouldnÂ’t lure anyone else into the trap that day, placed a telephone call to the base station.

“That’s when I heard the distinct crack of that artillery shell,” Burghardt said.

The explosion sent Burghardt 10 feet into the air and dropped him in a heap on the road as his team watched in horror.

Medics cut away his bloody pants to reveal that the backs of his legs had been studded with shrapnel and bruised from the top of his boots to his waist. As they prepared to place him in a stretcher, Burghardt shouted, “No.” He didn’t want his teammates or the insurgents to see him carried from the scene. He was going to walk.

“I was really pissed off that they got me, that after all this time, they got me,” Burghardt said. “I figured the triggerman was still watching, so I flipped him off. I yelled, ‘[Expletive] you! I’ll be out here next week!’”

Posted by: Tanker at 09:41 AM | Comments (16)
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Hey, if unrestricted seating was too dangerous for a Who concert, surely it's not a good idea for paradise.

Look at the numbers. Year in, year out, people are getting trampled to death.

Posted by: Ace at 10:23 PM | Comments (24)
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Some call it "White Bristle Justice"

John Bolton's moustache smells like peanut butter, orange marmelade, and roast beef.

-sorry, did I say roast beef?
I meant Death. (LauraW.)

Dick Cheney's cock and John Bolton's moustache once got into a fight in New Mexico.

The government had to create a story about the atomic bomb to cover up the true story. (anonymous)

Posted by: Ace at 06:23 PM | Comments (335)
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