It's over, more or less:

The United Arab Emirates company that was attempting to take over management operations at six U.S. ports announced today that it will divest itself of all American interests.

The announcement appears to head off a major confrontation that was brewing between Congress and the Bush administration over the controversial deal.

Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) announced on the Senate floor shortly before 2 p.m. that Dubai Ports World would "transfer fully the operations of U.S. ports to a U.S. entity." Warner, who had been trying to broker a compromise on the issue, said DP World would divest itself of U.S. interests "in an orderly fashion" so as not to suffer "economic loss."

It was not immediately clear how the divesture would be handled or what U.S. company would take over the operation.

Warner's announcement came just hours after Republican leaders from the House and Senate met with President Bush to tell him Congress appeared ready to block the deal.

I guess at this point this is the best possible outcome. The issue goes away, the ports will be run by an American operation (assuming, say, Halliburton is willing to take over), and, to the extent American security was compromised, it no longer is.

But the political damage has done, both to Bush domestically and as a foreign leader seeking to build bridges with what supposedly are moderate governments in the Islamic world.

Reax Roundup at Michelle's.

Posted by: Ace at 11:04 AM | Comments (41)
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I'm hesitant to put up someone's claims, especially since that Pina Colada Mom story, but what the hell.

It's just someone's claims in a Craigslist post, so it could be 100% made-up, or 75% made up. Or actually more or less true.

Pretty horrifying if it is true, though.

Thanks to Dave. No, not that one. Or that one. Or that one. One of the other Daves.

Posted by: Ace at 10:59 AM | Comments (25)
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Not the Eighth; they've tried that before. Not even the Third, about quartering troops in people's homes (aren't lethal drugs "troops," and isn't a man's body his ultimate "home"?).

Nope. They're saying it violates the First Amendmet. The one about free expression.

Stupid:

The American Civil Liberties Union claimed Wednesday that California's lethal injection method violates the First Amendment rights of execution witnesses by not allowing them to see if the inmate is experiencing pain before death.

The federal lawsuit says the only reason San Quentin State Prison officials inject a paralyzing agent is to sanitize the execution and prevent witnesses from perhaps seeing convulsions.

The paralyzing drug, according to the lawsuit, "makes it impossible for witnesses to determine whether death row inmates in California are being subjected to substantial and unnecessary pain before dying."

The induced paralysis, the group argued, conceals significant information to which the public is entitled.

Well, the First Amendment is about free expression, not free receipt of other's information, although I suppose that's implicated to some extent.

The executee's bodily convulsions are "speech"? Any port in a storm, I guess.

Allow me to quote a very smart judge in issuing my own dismissal of this lawsuit:

Or, in the words of the competition judge to Adam Sandler’s title character in the movie, “Billy Madison,” after Billy Madison had responded to a question with an answer that sounded superficially reasonable but lacked any substance,

Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I'veever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response was there anything that could even be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Deciphering motions like the one presented here wastes valuable chamber staff time, and invites this sort of footnote.

Thanks to Frank.

Posted by: Ace at 09:31 AM | Comments (48)
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Noonan on Clooney:

Which gets us to George Clooney, and his work. George Clooney is Hollywood now. He is charming and beautiful and cool, but he is not Orson Welles. I know that's like saying of an artist that he's no Rembrandt, but bear with me because I have a point that I think is worth making.

Orson Welles was an artist. George Clooney is a fellow who read an article and now wants to tell us the truth, if we can handle it.

More important, Orson Welles had a canny respect for the audience while maintaining a difficult relationship with studio executives, whom he approached as if they were his intellectual and artistic inferiors. George Clooney has a canny respect for the Hollywood establishment, for its executives and agents, and treats his audience as if it were composed of his intellectual and artistic inferiors. (He is not alone in this. He is only this year's example.)

And because they are his inferiors, he must teach them. He must teach them about racial tolerance and speaking truth to power, etc. He must teach them to be brave. And so in his acceptance speech for best supporting actor the other night he instructed the audience about Hollywood's courage in making movies about AIDS, and recognizing the work of Hattie McDaniel with an Oscar.

...

But Mr. Clooney's remarks were also part of the tinniness of the age, and of modern Hollywood. I don't think he was being disingenuous in suggesting he was himself somewhat heroic. He doesn't even know he's not heroic. He thinks making a movie in 2005 that said McCarthyism was bad is heroic.

How could he think this? Maybe part of the answer is in this: The Clooney generation in Hollywood is not writing and directing movies about life as if they've experienced it, with all its mysteries and complexity and variety. In an odd way they haven't experienced life; they've experienced media.

Ben Stein, meanwhile, wants to know if Hollywood has any gratitude left, apart from that which they shower on the people who vote them accolates:

I did not see every second of it, but my wife did, and she joins me in noting that there was not one word of tribute, not one breath, to our fighting men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan or to their families or their widows or orphans. There were pitifully dishonest calls for peace -- as if the people we are fighting were interested in any peace for us but the peace of the grave. But not one word for the hundreds of thousands who have served and are serving, not one prayer or moment of silence for the dead and maimed.

Basically, the sad truth is that Hollywood does not think of itself as part of America, and so, to Hollywood, the war to save freedom from Islamic terrorists is happening to someone else. It does not concern them except insofar as it offers occasion to mock or criticize George Bush. They live in dreamland and cannot be gracious enough to thank the men and women who pay with their lives for the stars' ability to live in dreamland. This is shameful.
...

Hollywood is above all about self: self-congratulation, self-promotion, and above all, self-protection. This is human and basic, but let's not kid ourselves. There is no greatness there in the Kodak theater. The greatness is on patrol in Kirkuk. The greatness lies unable to sleep worrying about her man in Mosul. The greatness sleeps at Arlington National Cemetery and lies waiting for death in VA Hospitals. God help us that we have sunk so low as to confuse foolish and petty boasting with the real courage that keeps this nation and the many fools in it alive and flourishing on national TV.

Thanks to DDG for the first and Michael for the second.

Posted by: Ace at 08:47 AM | Comments (78)
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The latest: "cryogenically freezing" himself (in a fridge) to claim he was "legally dead" at the time of the census.

But this isn't the first stunt:

In 1986 he claimed he was possessed by the spirit of an ancient ape and was not legally a person. This failed in court.

In 1991 he filled out his form in Latin and nailed it to a tree. In 1996 he hovered over Garden Place in a hot air balloon and was deemed to be out of New Zealand's legal air space. In 2001 he was genuinely absent, in Australia tending to a dying friend.

He now has five years to work on his next stunt, which he says could involve either time travel or hypnosis so he believed himself a turnip, not a person.

Something tells me that this guy is not quite as afraid of being noticed as his actions might suggest.

Thanks to Craig.

Posted by: Ace at 08:36 AM | Comments (14)
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She seems to be smiling, though.

And Al-Jazeera gets some points in my book for censoring a picture of Saint Cindy.

Looks like Samarra Cindy got what she wanted:

But Richard Grenell, the spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, said the protesters had been invited in but had refused to do so because media representatives were not allowed to accompany them.

"We invited them in to the U.S. mission in a small group," Grenell said. "They were not willing to separate themselves from the media."

Sheehan and three other American women then sat down in front of the building, refused to leave, and were arrested.

Do not question her media-whoring.

Thanks to Steve for that last bit.

Posted by: Ace at 08:33 AM | Comments (16)
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As the war in Iraq grinds into its fourth year, a growing proportion of Americans are expressing unfavorable views of Islam, and a majority now say that Muslims are disproportionately prone to violence, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The poll found that nearly half of Americans -- 46 percent -- have a negative view of Islam, seven percentage points higher than in the tense months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, when Muslims were often targeted for violence.

Often? Or three or four times?

...

According to the poll, the proportion of Americans who believe that Islam helps to stoke violence against non-Muslims has more than doubled since the attacks, from 14 percent in January 2002 to 33 percent today.

The survey also found that one in three Americans have heard prejudiced comments about Muslims lately. In a separate question, slightly more (43 percent) reported having heard negative remarks about Arabs. One in four Americans admitted to harboring prejudice toward Muslims, the same proportion that expressed some personal bias against Arabs.

Though the two groups are often linked in popular discourse, most of the world's Muslims are not of Arab descent. For example, the country with the largest Muslim population is Indonesia.

Now from some spin from James Zogby and Juan Cole.

...

James J. Zogby, president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute, said he is not surprised by the poll's results. Politicians, authors and media commentators have demonized the Arab world since 2001, he said.

"The intensity has not abated and remains a vein that's very near the surface, ready to be tapped at any moment," Zogby said. "Members of Congress have been exploiting this over the ports issue. Radio commentators have been talking about it nonstop."

Juan Cole, a professor of modern Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan, agreed, saying Americans "have been given the message to respond this way by the American political elite, mass media and by select special interests."

Cole said he was shocked when a radio talk show host asked him if Islamic extremists would set off a nuclear bomb in the United States in the next six months. "It was ridiculous. I think anti-Arab racism and profiling has become respectable," he said.

The article fails to mention the recent Jeep Jihadi attack on celebrating college basketball fains.

There is invidious prejudice, as Supreme Court decisions have termed it, and then there is simply acknowleging the world as it really is. Liberals don't seem fond of the latter, confusing it with the former, but the fact is that it is extremist (and possibly sexually inadequate) Muslim men who will randomly attempt to kill dozens or even hundreds of innocent civilians. And no one else.

As has been said many times before, not all Muslims are terrorists, but virtually all terrorists are Muslims.

Thanks to Slublog.

Posted by: Ace at 08:27 AM | Comments (20)
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FALSE story, as I feared. Oh well, it's still fun. Fake but hilarious.

If you like pina coladas, gettin' caught in the rain, if you're not into yoga, if you carried me for eight months three weeks and delivered me by c-section:

MARSEILLES, France --

Perfect.

Skirt-chasing playboy Daniel Anceneaux...

Even better.

...spent weeks talking with a sensual woman on the Internet before arranging a romantic rendezvous at a remote beach -- and discovering that his on-line sweetie of six months was his own mother!

"I walked out on that dark beach thinking I was going to hook up with the girl of my dreams," the rattled bachelor later admitted. "And there she was, wearing white shorts and a pink tank top, just like she'd said she would.

"But when I got close, she turned around -- and we both got the shock of our lives. I mean, I didn't know what to say. All I could think was, 'Oh my God! it's Mama!' "

And then he thought, "In this crazy topsy-turvy world of ours, who's to say what's right and what's wrong?"

But the worst was yet to come. Just as the mortified mother and son realized the error of their ways, a patrolman passed by and cited them for visiting a restricted beach after dark.

....

"Mom called herself Sweet Juliette and I called myself The Prince of Pleasure, and unfortunately, neither one of us had any idea who the other was," said flabbergasted Daniel.

"The conversations even got a little racy a couple of times.

"But I really started to fall for her, because there seemed to be a sensitive side that you don't see in many girls.

"She sent me poems she had written and told me about her dreams and desires, and it was really very romantic.

"The truth is, I got to see a side of my mom I'd never seen before. I'm grateful for that."

Well, dude, you saw that "side" once before.

When starry-eyed Daniel asked Sweet Juliette to send him a picture, Nicole e-mailed him a photo of a curvy, half-clad cutie she'd scanned from a men's magazine.

"The girl in the picture was so beautiful, I begged Juliette to meet me on the beach -- and Mom said yes," he recalled. "Mom says she was falling for me, too, and she just wanted to meet me, even though she knew I'd be disappointed when I saw her. "

It gets worse.

"Dad was ticked for a while and he forbid Mom to talk to anybody on the Internet ever again," said embarrassed Daniel.

Yes, that's probably for the best.

Yeah, I know, it sounds fake, but it's still pretty good.

So I waited with high hopes and she walked in the place

I knew her smile in an instant, I knew the curve of her face

It was my own lovely lady, and she said, "Oh it's you."

Then we laughed for a moment, and I said, "I never knew.... MOM."

Wish I could be a fly on the wall at the next family dinner.

DAD: Pass the butter-sauce.

DANIEL: Here you go.

DAD: How are things at the hospital?

DANIEL: Okay. I'm planning ot taking courses to learn how to operate the MRI and CAT scan machines.

DAD: Outstanding. Is there a promotion involved?

DANIEL: Well, bigger skill-set, bigger paycheck.

DAD: Excellent, excellent... so, um, Daniel... you almost porked Mom, huh?

DANIEL: Yeahhhh... funny story about that...

DAD: I don't think so.

Thanks to scott.

The Internet

Bringing families closer for 10 years.

It Was Fun While It Lasted Update: Snopes: False.

Posted by: Ace at 07:47 AM | Comments (15)
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On Wednesday afternoon, Mercer's mock Liberal leadership auction on EBay had garnered 72 bids - with the leading one at $24,500. The bid was surpassed numerous times later in the day.

Mercer is offering a 15-minute conference call with his writing staff to help craft a campaign message, and also guarantees use of a colour printer - one running low on magenta ink - for producing campaign material.

Fifteen minutes and one mediocre printer should do the job, according to Mercer.

"That should be enough to put you in charge of what was, until recently, a major Canadian political party,"' says his auction ad.

Wait. Canada?
Y-A-W-N

Oh, how rude, I'm so sorry.
Now what in the world were we just talking about?
Oh well. I'm sure it was nothing important.

Posted by: LauraW. at 06:31 AM | Comments (2)
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Not even from his cold, dead hands.

A Russian pensioner has designed his own coffin to include space for his prized collection of porn mags.

Vladimir Villisov decided to have a special coffin made after surviving a heart attack and realising he did not want to leave the magazines behind.

"The girls in those magazines have been my companions for years, and I want them to accompany me to the next life," said the unmarried 65-year-old from Mramorskoe.

Posted by: LauraW. at 05:25 PM | Comments (69)
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