Eli Manning was en feugo!! Unconscious! Cooooool as the other side of the pillow!

Did you see that one pass? Off the back foot, across the body, across the middle of the field! Exactly like they tell you throw it! The only error he made in judgement or mechancis there was failing to throw the ball with his feet! Other than that-- PERFECT!!

Boy, I'm happy! I'm so f'n' happy right now! Whoo-hoo! I'm so happy we gave away all those draft picks to get Eli Manning, rather than taking the next available quarterback-- a no-talent nobody called Ben Rothlisberger! Hah! Ben Rothlisberger! What a douchebag! He only throws to his own receivers!

But don't worry! Manning just needs to "mature"! Because everyone knows that laughable inaccuracy can be cured through experience! It's not as if basic hand-eye coordination is essentially innnate or anything!

Good luck, Pittsburgh! You're going to need luck with that erratic idiot Ben Rothlisberger at the helm!

Posted by: Ace at 12:51 PM | Comments (82)
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After linking Florida Cracker's quote of a hate-whitey writer in the Amsterdam News -- she wrote "shed no tears for the white coal miners[,] they will be taken care of" -- I went off on a riff:

Yeah, those Appalachian coal miners just had it too f'n' good, didn't they? Tradin' on their "white skin privilege" to claim cushy, glamorous jobs in their fancy-pants coal mines with their gold-plated flashlight-helmets and plat-ee-num picks and shovels, driving home in their Lambourghinis to snort coke off the asses of movie stars in their million-dollar mansions.

Okay, so the point is, you know, the assumption by some black people, espeically those who are racist against white people, that we're all rich, right?

Comes the rebuttal:

Dont know Mr.Phelps, nor have I ever read his writings.

First of all, Phelps is a white anti-gay nutter. I'm not making a "gotcha" issue of that; he's a fairly obscure figure. I'm just noting it, because Florida Cracker (and I) both slammed this f'n' maniac too. And he was "one of us."

But based on the posts I am reading from you White people, you seem to have a preoccupation with Black thought, and all things and people Black.

Actually, no. I've barely written about black issues here, or white-black disagreements. Partly because it's just not one of my top interests; partly because it's an f'n' minefield I just don't have the concentration to tip-toe through.

Here is a something to consider; why dont you continue to live in your White only world, continue to worhip, play, and work with only Whites. I will do the same in my Black world, and we will all just pretend that the other race does not exist? Rantings from some Black writer in Harlem will not effect your life style, your numerous government protections, or Mommy and Daddy's trust fund one insey bit.

I find it amusing that, after knocking this odd belief that all whites are rich (PS, I'm not, born poor and as of yet "staying true to my roots"), this guy comes in here to talk about our "trust funds."

And doubly funny is this is most likely one of those leftist guys who will trot out the statistic that 1% of the people in this country own or control 50% of the wealth in the country, or whatever numbers they offer. (The numbers seem to shift all the time; they don't seem to actually know what the exact figures are, but they know that, essentially, rich people have more money than the rest of us. Which seems sort of obvious, but for some it's apparently a revelation).

And yet he'll see no contradiction in offering that factoid and ranting about "trust fund whiteys."

If 1% of Americans own or control 50% of the wealth in this country (and, look, Oprah and Michael Jordan alone own about 10% of that, nevermind that nitwit from BET), doesn't that sort of sharply limit the number of whiteys who could possibly be trust-fund babies?

By the way, I point out genuine anti-black racism when I see it, and in fact banned one poster here for engaging in it. If racism is a bad thing, shouldn't we all be committed to exposing racism of all kinds?

I guess not. Right, only whites can be "racist." Because we have the "power."

Like those coal miners. They had lots of power, right? So they could be racists, whereas a writer (generally considered a higher-status job than coal-miner) can't be.

Posted by: Ace at 09:41 AM | Comments (22)
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(Howard) "Dean" and "Sam" (Alito) duet, with animation. Just plain goofy.

Teenaged girls are the engine of the evolution of the English language:

THE teenage girl is the most powerful influence on the evolution of the English language around the world.

...

"Valley Girl has gone beyond a fad and is now rooted in different forms of English around the world," Ms Tagliamonte said. "Girls are the single most powerful force in the English language today." The research was among work discussed at the annual meeting of the American Dialect Society in New Mexico over the weekend.

...

"Females are very quick to pick up on any aspect of fashion, whether it is clothing or speech, that shows off status. Men are less quick to do so," he said.

True dat. Men don't like buying into hip lingo, except when done ironically. We just don't like gettin' jiggy with English. It's because we're sexually repressed, it turns out:

Barry Spurr, senior lecturer in English at the University of Sydney, said social pressures meant Australian men in particular were more reluctant to display their language abilities.

"They are afraid to be seen expressing thought because they are sexually insecure," Dr Spurr said. "They want to be seen to be real men and the standard for real men wouldn't be seen to express a thought.

"The big problem in Australia is getting young men to talk at all. Girls are much more orally adventurous."

Ahem.

And it's not a new phenomenon:

In addition, women seeking prestige pick up fashionable new words faster than men. Experts believe this has been going on for centuries. A Finnish study of 15th-century English court correspondence shows that aristocratic wives moved from archaic "ye" to "you" significantly earlier than their husbands.

Really? I think I'm moving back to "ye," then. I won't be henpecked into using these edgy, hip neologisms.

Thanks to the A-Man.

Posted by: Ace at 09:01 AM | Comments (17)
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I've long wondered:

I understand that normal troops cannot be issued head-to-toe bomb-squad-type armor for reasons of cost, comfort, and mobility.

But what about specialty troops? I'm thinking primarily of shock-troopers -- or stormtroopers, if you will -- tasked with house-to-house fighting.

Obviously, these guys would not be very mobile, but their mobility could be enhanced by having them mainly scoot around in armored infantry carriers where the streets permitted it, and on trikes where the streets were too narrow, carrying heavy weaponry in carts. They'd ride as much as possible, march and run as little as they could manage. They'd have to rest a lot, I'd imagine, but it would pretty demoralizing for an enemy to face a group of shock-troops that were all but invulnerable to handheld weaponry.

I imagine the more confident a soldier is about his chances of surviving a hit with a bullet, the more likely he is to fire like a madman at enemy soldiers.

As the juggernaut corps cleared an area, normally-equipped soldiers would secure the area, let the juggernauts rest (or perhaps swap armor with them, so the fresher troops would then take the next lead, and the tired guys who were just in the armor could armor-down and take the less demanding task of securing the area they just cleared).

This is almost certainly a very naive question. I'm sure the military has discounted this sort of thing for one reason or another. Still, as someone who really doesn't know anything about fighting or armor or fighting in armor, I'm not sure of the actual reasons for not having such equipment and troops trained to fight in very heavy armor for short durations.

Can anyone enlighten? What's wrong with this idea?

The Armor Singularity? Bullington tips that In ten years, the armed forces hopes to have a more effective battlesuit that will weight 50 pounds rather than 120. It involves (GIVE ME THE INSTALANCHE!) nanotech fabrics, apparently.

Okay, maybe, in 10 years. But what about right now? We already have very survivable armor; it's just not suitable for all-purpose use. But what about very specialized uses, like clearing out the toughest parts of a terrorist-rich Fallujah neighborhood?

I understand the problems with heat and exhaustion. But can't these be reduced in intensity by having two teams leap-frogging past each other, then resting? And letting them drive just about everywhere, except when they actually have to enter a house?

Again, this would be a specialty, heavy-armor unit. We have specialty troops for all sorts of purposes. Why not for this one?

Posted by: Ace at 08:46 AM | Comments (47)
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For want of a nail and all that:

...Scotland on Sunday can reveal the secret which doomed some of Britain and Poland's finest soldiers and gave rise to a series of myths about the ill-fated battle.

High levels of iron in the soil around the Dutch town of Arnhem and its infamous bridge caused radio interference and prevented the beleaguered Allied soldiers from communicating with their headquarters. Previously it was though the problem was caused by faulty radios.

That meant vital supplies fell into German hands and Allied soldiers were killed or captured because they had run out of ammunition.

Franlin Delano Roosevelt, miserable failure at planning for an illegal war of choice.

Posted by: Ace at 07:55 AM | Comments (14)
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I'd heard, kind of, about the left's allegation about "defective" body armor being sold by "rightwing warprofiteer defense contractors."

Now, the thing is, if this were a serious allegation, conservatives would be outraged about it. Believe it or not, liberals, we actually do care that our boys are equipped with the best weapons and armor that money can buy.

But I never really pursued this story, because the left has so little credibility at this point that I figured they were making a big deal out of something fairly trivial.

Once upon a time, there was a boy who cried wolf. Perhaps you may have heard of him. There were books and cartoons about him and everything.

Anyway, thanks to a links found in the comments, I can present you with this "scandal," as noted by one of the Daily Kos' "diarists."

From Long Island Business News:

The Army and Marine Corps have recalled about 18,000 bullet-resistant vests produced by DHB Industries' Point Blank Body Armor Inc. subsidiary, according to wire reports.

Reuters said that the Army and Marine Corps announced the recall on Thursday. The Army recalled 8,083 vests out of a total of 873,000 it has used in the field. The Marine Corp recalled 10,342 out of about 191,000 being used.

DHB did not return two calls to its offices seeking comment about this recall. The Marines already recalled 5,000 vests made by Point Blank in May, Reuters said.

The wire service indicated that the military said vests were being recalled because they fell short of specifications set for the equipment.

And from Newsday:

"The recall comes as a result of an operational test and evaluation surveillance study that revealed that some of the lots of outer tactical vests produced may not meet specifications," said Marine Maj. Gabrielle Chapin.

In a statement, Larry Ellis, DHB's president, said that, "To our knowledge, none of the hundreds of thousands of outer tactical vests that Point Blank has manufactured have failed in the field - an extraordinary achievement. All testing procedures for these vests were approved by, and conducted under the close supervision of the U.S. government."

The Army recalled 8,083 vests dating from 1999 to 2001. The Marines recalled 10,342 dating from 2000 and 2001. Military officials said, however, that the recalled vests were a fraction of the approximately 181,000 vests that have been fielded.

The vests were designed to protect against 9 mm pistol rounds and some fragmentation threats, the Pentagon has said. Pentagon officials said that while the vests may have failed to meet specifications in tests, they did not fall short of the requirements for the threat they were designed to repel.

Form your own conclusions. The charge, in short, is that 10% of this company's armor jackets failed to meet the Pentagon's specifications and were recalled -- meaning, presumably, the company in question is not paid for them, but has to produce armor that meets specifications if they want to keep their payment.

Not that the armor failed in combat-- that it failed to meet specification, which is a higher threshhold. Of course, I'd like everything that comes out of a factory to meet specifications, but not even the Japanese manage that, and I imagine it's doubly hard when production gets ramped up for quick manufacture (which I would guess, but do not know for a fact, happened here).

It's not that the left shouldn't point stuff like this out. In fairness, the right generally doesn't highlight stories like this, and we depend, sort of, on the left to bring them to our attention.

But... perhaps the left would get more attention from the right, and the general public, if they were more reasonable in their conclusions, less shrill in their attacks, less conspiratorially-minded in their theses?

It has been noted too many times to bother doing so again, but I'll bother anyway: a correctly functioning politics requires two serious parties. Attack and defense and counterattack are all part of the crucial business of the marketplace of ideas. But when one party is simply not serious, its claims get dismissed, sometimes a little too quickly, and the marketplace of ideas becomes somewhat dysfunctional.

The left will undoubtedly uncover real abuses and real outrages. They already have, of course -- it was the left shouting for months about Jack Abramoff, whereas many on the right are just now getting up to speed on the issue.

But honestly: the left will find the public more receptive to their genuine discoveries of malfeasance, incompetence, and outright criminality if they are more discriminating about what they choose to shout about. Some things are worth shouting about; some things are worth merely noting, perhaps with a bit of snideness, but not with the amps perpetually turned up to 11. And not everything should or can be connected to the left's central complaint that George Walker Bush is the Beast of the Apocalypse.

The Beast of the Apocalypse, incidentaly, isn't George W. Bush. It's Fred "Hunter" Dryer. Trust me on this; I have my sources.

PS: I don't think it really helps to tie this story to the CEO of the company's lavish $10 million Bat Mitzvah for his daughter, either. Yes, it's excessive. Yes, it's tacky. Yes, it's conspicuous consumerism, or perhaps conspicuous congregationalism, at its most egregious.

But the injection of the standard leftist template of "rich imperial plutocrats having too much fun while you slave as trog mindthralls in the ultracobalt mines of Rigellus-7," plus some not-so-stealth anti-semitism, hardly helps non-leftists take the story more seriously.

A strong point, as they say, is not aided by the indiscriminate inclusion of weak points.

The Bat Mitzvah itself was noted on this site as being, well, in bad taste. But I'm not sure I comprehend how this guy's poor judgment in thoroughly spoiling his daughter really has much at all to do with the issue of defective armor.

Yes, he got rich by selling hundreds of thousands of units of expensive, high-tech body armor. What the hell did you expect? Did you think this stuff was chiefly made by independent mom & pop operations who are suffering due to unfair competition with the Walmarts of Weapons Tech?

"Rich defense contractors" needs to be eliminated from the left's active vocabulary. Have you ever heard of a poor defense contractor? When you get a contract with the world's biggest single purchaser -- the US government -- for large numbers of expensive products bought from a small pool of potential of manufacturers (due to both the scale of operations required and security and quality screening), it's not likely you're a pauper. And you certainly won't be a pauper once those crazy Pentagon-money checks start coming in.

Posted by: Ace at 07:21 AM | Comments (54)
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Brilliant.

Decision '08 named her the Jackass of 2005 as well. Partly based on her opposing the War in Afghanistan as well as the war in Iraq.

They all do, really. I'll give her props for at least being honest about it.

SondraK has advanced word on a Sean Penn/Cindy Sheehan project. Well, not really, but it's funny.

Posted by: Ace at 06:04 AM | Comments (9)
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Not sure if he's doing this for the comedy or whether he agrees with what he's saying. Doesn't matter. It's funny either way.

Thanks to both Boston Irish, who thinks the audience is confused by Colbert's non-Jon-Stewart-ish ambivalence on the issue, as well as Dirty Centaurs/Fort Awesome.

Babs Streisand, Invidious Islamophobe? Boston Irish (scan down) wonders.

Posted by: Ace at 05:59 AM | Comments (20)
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Nice. That's Wilbert Tatum, writing in the (mostly) black Amsterdam News.

I'm pretty sure shed-no-tears-for-tragically-killed-white-people was the main thrust of MLK's "I have a dream" speech.

Yeah, those Appalachian coal miners just had it too f'n' good, didn't they? Tradin' on their "white skin privilege" to claim cushy, glamorous jobs in their fancy-pants coal mines with their gold-plated flashlight-helmets and plat-ee-num picks and shovels, driving home in their Lambourghinis to snort coke off the asses of movie stars in their million-dollar mansions.

I'm glad only white people can be guilty of irrational and vicious racial hatred, or else I might be worried about these guys.

Oh, and... Fred Phelps' band of lunatics is also coming to celebrate the miners' deaths. Why? The article doesn't say why. Honestly, does this freak show need a reason?

Posted by: Ace at 05:10 PM | Comments (93)
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Whatever. It's as if liberals simply have never heard the words "cost-benefit analysis" or "trade-off" before.

NYT:

A secret Pentagon study has found that at least 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to their upper body could have survived if they had extra body armor. That armor has been available since 2003 but until recently the Pentagon has largely declined to supply it to troops despite calls from the field for additional protection, according to military officials.

The ceramic plates in vests currently worn by the majority of military personnel in Iraq cover only some of the chest and back. In at least 74 of the 93 fatal wounds that were analyzed in the Pentagon study of marines from March 2003 through June 2005, bullets and shrapnel struck the marines' shoulders, sides or areas of the torso where the plates do not reach.

Thirty-one of the deadly wounds struck the chest or back so close to the plates that simply enlarging the existing shields "would have had the potential to alter the fatal outcome," according to the study, which was obtained by The New York Times.

For the first time, the study by the military's medical examiner shows the cost in lost lives from inadequate armor, even as the Pentagon continues to publicly defend its protection of the troops. Officials have said they are shipping the best armor to Iraq as quickly as possible. At the same time, they have maintained that it is impossible to shield forces from the increasingly powerful improvised explosive devices used by insurgents. Yet the Pentagon's own study reveals the equally lethal threat of bullets.

Soldiers aren't all in favor of more armor:

U.S. soldiers in the field were not all supportive of a Pentagon study that found improved body armor saves lives, with some troops arguing Saturday that more armor would hinder combat effectiveness.

...

But many soldiers say they feel encumbered by the weight and restricted by fabric that does not move as they do. They frequently joke as they strap on their equipment before a patrol, and express relief when they return and peel it off.

Second Lt. Josh Suthoff, 23, of Jefferson City, Mo., said he already sacrifices enough movement when he wears the equipment. More armor would only increase his chances of getting killed, he said.

"You can slap body armor on all you want, but it's not going to help anything. When it's your time, it's your time," said Suthoff, a platoon leader in the brigade's 1st Squadron, 33rd Cavalry Regiment. "I'd go out with less body armor if I could."

More armor might save your life from a bullet. Then again, if more armor fatigues you or simply slows you down, you might wind up catching a bullet you wouldn't have otherwise.

And there are comfort considerations, too. It's easy for the pencil-necks at the NYT to talk about throwing on another 15 pounds of hot armor on to our troops, but the soldiers have to march, dig, run, fight, live, eat, shit and sometimes sleep in their armor.

A lot of soldiers in Vietnam didn't wear the armor they were issued. Apparently today's troops are a lot better about helmet and armor discipline, but there was a reason Vietnam troops often ditched their flak jackets despite the additional danger doing so exposed them to.

Posted by: Ace at 02:55 PM | Comments (117)
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