I'm giving myself one more shot. Click here at 4:05 Eastern to listen.

Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom was nice/stupid enough to offer to cohost, and I thought that sounded like a good/disastrous idea. So we're going to give that a go.

Our guest today will be Clint W. Taylor, who's been all over the Yale Taliban issue, and does the "Nail Yale" blog over at Townhall.com.

Posted by: Ace at 11:52 AM | Comments (41)
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She thinks she ought to wait a few years to run, because right now she's so head-turningly hhhhhhot she'd just distract us too much.

She says: "I think Hillary Clinton is fantastic. But I think it is too soon for her to run. This may sound odd, but a woman should be past her sexuality when she runs. Hillary still has sexual power, and I don't think people will accept that. It's too threatening."

With all due respect, an expert on sexual power -- her husband -- would seem to disagree.

There's also less subjective evidence. Like this:

And that's a "glamor shot," too.

Thanks to pupster.

Posted by: Ace at 10:31 AM | Comments (94)
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Posted by: Ace at 10:31 AM | Comments (12)
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Sorry, I put these all up before I left for my "studio."

I guess it's Atrios time.

Posted by: Ace at 10:31 AM | Comments (18)
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From yesterday's Best of the Web. The unthinking, reflexive contempt for anything the majority of Americans seems to believe is the precise analogue of jingoism. If jingoism is reflexively patriotic, this anti-jingoism is reflexively anti-patriotic.

In today's Yale Daily News, senior James Kirchick weighs in on the controversy over Yale's admission of erstwhile Taliban spokesman Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, and he makes a very insightful point:

Outrage over religious fascism ought to be the province of American liberals. But in Hashemi's case it has been almost entirely trumpeted by Fox News, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and right-wing bloggers. A friend of mine recently remarked that part of his and his peers' nonchalance (and in some cases, support for) Hashemi has to do with the fact that the right has seized upon the issue. Our politics have become so polarized that many are willing to take positions based on the inverse of their opponents'. This abandonment of classical liberal values at the expense of political gamesmanship has consequences that reach far beyond Yale; it hurts our national discourse.

During the past several years liberalism has come to be defined less by what it stands for than by whom it stands against. "The enemy of George Bush is my friend" might as well be the credo of American liberals at this moment in history. And since George Bush is the leader of our country, it follows that "the enemy of my country is my friend."

Correcting this may require waiting another three years, until Bush is out of office. In 2009 either a Democrat or a different Republican will be president. In the former case, liberals will have to act responsibly; in the latter, they will be forced to face the reality that hatred of Bush is not sufficient to win elections. Until then, brace yourself for more of the same.

Posted by: Ace at 10:18 AM | Comments (17)
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Cowbell? You bet your ass.

- U.S. consumers perked up in March as economic activity gained momentum, sending an index of sentiment about the economy to its highest in almost four years, according to a report released on Tuesday.

The Conference Board, a private research firm, said its measure of consumer sentiment spiked to 107.2, up from an upwardly revised 102.7 last month and well above Wall Street's median forecast for a slight gain.

Grabbing that Golden Cowbell, like Indiana Jones grabbed the golden idol at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Bonus cowbell material below (mild content warning).

more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:37 AM | Comments (16)
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There have been a lot of these lists, but this one goes all the way to 100. (Mild content warning for the occasional bad-taste cover.)

It's good to see "Joyce" back, and Millie Jackson on the crapper. And it's really hot to see the "Sensual Black Man and Sensual Black Woman."

My favorite is below (slight content warning, but it's nothing worse than you've seen in a Boris painting). more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:20 AM | Comments (25)
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Look, Ma, no mass:

Scientists funded by the European Space Agency believe they may have measured the gravitational equivalent of a magnetic field for the first time in a laboratory. Under certain special conditions the effect is much larger than expected from general relativity and could help physicists to make a significant step towards the long-sought-after quantum theory of gravity.

Just as a moving electrical charge creates a magnetic field, so a moving mass generates a gravitomagnetic field. According to Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, the effect is virtually negligible. However, Martin Tajmar, ARC Seibersdorf Research GmbH, Austria; Clovis de Matos, ESA-HQ, Paris; and colleagues believe they have measured the effect in a laboratory.
Their experiment involves a ring of superconducting material rotating up to 6 500 times a minute. Superconductors are special materials that lose all electrical resistance at a certain temperature. Spinning superconductors produce a weak magnetic field, the so-called London moment. The new experiment tests a conjecture by Tajmar and de Matos that explains the difference between high-precision mass measurements of Cooper-pairs (the current carriers in superconductors) and their prediction via quantum theory. They have discovered that this anomaly could be explained by the appearance of a gravitomagnetic field in the spinning superconductor (This effect has been named the Gravitomagnetic London Moment by analogy with its magnetic counterpart).

I don't know what any of that means, either, except:

1) It's not so dopey that they have gravity on the Millenium Falcon, and

2) Flyin' cars are that much closer.

Posted by: Ace at 11:20 PM | Comments (94)
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Only one side effect: women taking it will become sexually insatiable and grow enormous cans.

I was born at the wrong time. Fifty, sixty years from now. That's when I would have like to have been born.

A contraceptive pill that may reduce the risk of breast cancer and heart disease and eliminate periods could be available within the next five to 10 years.

Scientists believe the development could transform the lives of millions of women and would be safer than current forms of oral contraception, which carry a higher risk of breast cancer and heart problems.

The new Pill could also bring an end to the problem of premenstrual syndrome and other painful gynaecological conditions such as endometriosis.

But experts warned that progress on developing the new contraceptive is being hampered by political pressure from pro-life groups and the Bush administration in the US, who object to the fact it works in the same way as the so-called abortion pill.

...

The new Pill also stops periods altogether, in contrast to the current versions which mimic menstruation with bleeding each month.

A world without periods.

Science.

Posted by: Ace at 11:08 PM | Comments (59)
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I've been complaining about this for some time. In non-serious, light-comedy roles, Harrison Ford is terrific. He was good as Han Solo and perfect as Indiana Jones.

But whenever he does "serious" acting (which usually isn't all that serious), he reverts to the same method. It's this screamy, spittle-flinging style of overemoting that Sean Penn laughs at as being "too unrestrained."

Screenhead has assembled a montage of Harrison Ford's one-note growly/yelling guy "acting."

Bleg... It looks funny, but I can't hear a thing. Some audio setting on my computer got switched. I can hear .wmv files I've downloaded, but when I try to open up a film in a site, I get no sound. Does anyone know what setting I might have changed, and how to fix it?

I don't know if this is a related problem, but the speaker icon has disappeared from my start up tray, and I can only access sound by going into settings. I've got everything cranked up to 10, but no sound.

Posted by: Ace at 07:02 PM | Comments (20)
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