And they say bloggers are sloppy.

1: If these allegations involve sex and Charlie Sheen (as they do), they are not "shocking." They are "expected."

2: If these allegations involve sex and Charlie Sheen (as they do), they are not "allegations." They are "facts."

The only thing that surprises me is the gay porn stuff.

Richards says in her declaration that during their reconciliation last September, she discovered Sheen was visiting websites with "very young girls, who looked underage to me, with pigtails, braces, no pubic hair, performing oral sex with each other."

Richards also claims in her 17-page declaration that Sheen accessed other websites "Â…involving gay pornography also involving very young men who also did not look like adults."

The declaration, filled with lurid allegations, was filed by her new lawyer, Neal Hersh. Richards also claims Sheen has problems with gambling and prostitution.

Richards says that Sheen told her that he has a madam.

Richards, who sought a restraining order, claims that Sheen told her after she allegedly discovered the websites, "I hope you f-king die, bitch."

Married to Denise Richards. Still dicking around with porn, prostitutes, and gambling.

Okay, I guess that is sort of shocking.

How sexually jaded do you have to be to have Denise Richards in your bed and think to yourself, "Ehhhh, that's nice and all, but I've really got to look at something sexy on the Internet"?

Posted by: Ace at 11:11 AM | Comments (85)
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Whoo-hoo!

It may be that he gave Dana Priest the leak about black prisons. The tipster, DB, says that, but the article doesn't; maybe he heard a televised report update.

A CIA officer has been relieved of his duty after being caught leaking classified information to the media.

...

One official called this a "damaging leak" that deals with operational information and said the fired officer "knowingly and willfully" leaked the information to the media and "was caught."

The CIA officer was not in the public affairs office, nor was he someone authorized to talk to the media. ... In the course of the investigation, the fired officer admitted discussing classified information including information about classified operations.

The investigation is ongoing.

A Justice Department spokesman said "no comment" on the firing. The spokesman also would not say whether the agency was looking into any criminal action against the officer.

Jeff Goldstein has a good post about the anti-war anti-patriots in our nation who lie in order to achieve the "greater good" of injuring Bush politically. He's speaking there of media types and political activists spreading memes they know to have been discredited or fully disproven, but his take on their belief as to what they feel justifies their misbehavior applies to these CIA c-suckers as well:

...this collection of ideologues are relatively few in number, but they nevertheless have a disproportionate influence on the foreign policy pronouncements of those in the Democratic (and Libertarian) Party(ies) who wish to win their support—some of whom, sad to say, aren’t mere panders, but actually believe they are justified in promoting debunked memes if, in the end, it serves the greater good.

And such arrogance—the idea that the “greater good” is theirs to define, and that they are justified in a certain rhetorical latitude in order to guide the masses toward their conclusions—borne of elitism and the assumption that their feelings on matters of national importance are so correct that they must be instituted, is at the root of highly-charged partisan division in this country.

Goldstein calls them tinpot Machiavellianists; I call them Machiavellian Marxists. They're the worst sort of villain -- the villain who thinks his villainy is justified because he's actually the Hero of the story. At least a mobster knows, in his heart of hearts, what he's doing is actually evil.

But there is no internal moral restraint in such people. Anything and everything can be done, no matter how underhanded, dishonest, or borderline treasonous, because they serve a greater good than mere law or ethics.

Posted by: Ace at 10:59 AM | Comments (42)
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Okay, in an earlier post, I said something about beating Goliath with the jawbone of an ass.

I guess David used that to kill a lion. He used, what, a sling, to kill Goliath?

I guess I just had trouble believing a sling bullet could kill a giant. They only do d4 damage.

Posted by: Ace at 10:50 AM | Comments (38)
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Very old (a year old, in fact), but fun.

Found through the blog of the All-Ace All Stars (if I can call them that, which I can, because they're all fake internet pseudonyms of mine, as are all of you reading this), Innocent Bystanders.

Posted by: Ace at 10:31 AM | Comments (14)
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That's what Pulitzer Prize winning internet puppeteer Michael Hiltzik is facing.

I've learned... that the paper is investigating his work in general for other signs of dishonesty.

Well, a guy willing to put words in the mouths of psuedonymous internet personas might not be above putting words in the mouths of anonymous sources, too.

Seipp also quotes from a recent NR article noting that, basically, this guy is a real f'n' asshole.

Roger Simon meanwhile plays Freud with this very-damaged person. I played Freud myself in the comments, stating that the reason he couldn't simply say "I'm sorry, this is embarrassing" is:

His personality defect won't allow it. His history -- reading coworkers' emails (probably to make sure they weren't saying bad things about him) and his childish invention of phantom "supporters" -- indicate a man-boy of incredibly thin skin, a decidedly overinflated ego, and a complete inability to confess error.

I like this observation of Simon's:

There's a possible irony in all this too. It may be that blogging is more the big leagues than the mainstream media. In blogging, you're out here on your own. It takes self-discipline that is not as necessary in mainstream venues where you are (sometimes) back-stopped by editors and by the "reputation" of your journal (diminishing though that may be). Perhaps Hiltzik, a relative newcomer to the online world, was simply in over his head.

I think that's a pretty good point. Bloggers know there's a limit to what they can get away with. Reporters and columnists know -- or think they know -- they're "too big to fail" and may allow themselves a bit more latitude, shall we say, in their behavior.

Or, putting it another way: They're a bunch of arrogant pricks who think they have special status and license.

They do have special status and license, unfortuately. At least, that is, until they're caught dirty.

I also think he's right about being a "newcomer" to the Internet. The first ten errors I had to admit hurt. I didn't want to confess them, but I knew I had to, but I did sort of want to make them go away somehow. I didn't want people to laugh at me, or think me stupid or ill-informed, etc. But I did sort of know everything would be worse without the confession. So I gave it up.

The thing is, once you do that about ten or twelve times, it stops hurting. I make so many mistakes on this blog I really can't even track them. I simply had to acknowledge long ago that I'm 1, a moron, and 2, a somewhat slapdash one at that.

It is what it is.

I don't think this braying jackass was ever forced before to confess error. He was always able to justify his bad behavior and bad reportage and bad ethics. At least to himself. So this whole idea of taking your lumps like a man is completely new to him.

Eh. Like getting cornered in a prison shower, it only really hurts the first time. Then you start to give it up like a bitch.

Via Instapundit, who really should be having more fun with this, but then, he's deficient in his gloating skills.

Posted by: Ace at 10:13 AM | Comments (10)
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Could it be -- stay with me on this; it's kind of tenuous and complicated -- that it's because the MSM keeps insisting to the public that the economy is actually very weak?

Nah, it couldn't be that.

After exploring a host of possible reasons for a lack of public confidence in the economy -- while studiously ignoring the most obvious one -- and quoting John Zogby, of all people, along the way, the article offers:

For months, the Republicans have held a losing hand on the array of issues facing the nation, and even on their strongest issue, terrorism, often the best they can do is muster a tie with the Democrats in polls. But on the economy, at least, the White House is hopeful that better use of the bully pulpit can boost public confidence.

"The advantage the White House has on this issue, which they don't on other issues, is the reality really is good," says Mr. Ayres. "The truth may not set them free, but it might improve public perception. So someone with an ability to articulate the good economic news in a compelling and memorable way day after day after day could have an effect on public perception."

Yes, and maybe if spin in a circle really, really fast I can burrow down through the street and into the subway tubes.

The media was determined to get the message out -- really OUT -- that the economy was strong under Clinton. It's all about imagery and tone -- how many times did you see that montage of cash registers beeping and snapping open and printing presses rolling off crisp new $100 bills whenever a story about Clinton's economy was introduced? Hundreds of times, I'll bet, if you were watching the network news in the 90's.

It's a powerful visual cue. Playing "Happy Days Are Here Again" with it would hardly add to the effect. When people see that, they know the economy is strong, there is money to be made, and if they're not out there scrambling and hustling to get a piece of the new wealth, they're falling behind.

Have you ever seen that visual cue for the Bush economy? Not once, I'll bet, and not just because you don't watch the nets anymore.

The economy is based on a lot of factors, but one important component is public confidence. A confident public spends, invests, takes financial risks that will probably increase the net wealth of the nation. An public without confidence in the economy does not spend, avoids investment, and refuses financial risks.

The media is making damn sure that, however good the economy is based on numbers, it is completely sabotaged at the critical human-psychology level.

Repeating myself: We will always have to pay a "Republican tax" on the economy when a Republican is President, because the media's determination to sabotage public confidence will always reduce the economy's strength by a half-percentage point or more.

Posted by: Ace at 09:22 AM | Comments (17)
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Don't call Mike Vallely a "skater fag," I think would be the lesson here.

It's not that he actually kicks the crap out of them; the fight ends before it can get to that point. But... he does take on four guys at once.

I would think a four-on-one situation would be a pretty tough go, but I guess Bruce Lee movies aren't lying to me -- if you're pretty tough and they're pretty wussy, you can take on a whole bunch of ninjas.

Oddly enough, the rule of "fighting the hero one at a time," which I always thought was pretty silly in movies, is more or less followed here. It's not so much that they wait to attack him; it's just that he pushes one guy, then punches another guy in the face, etc. My favorite part is when he blindly punches one guy while completely looking in the direction of his next possible opponent.

Thanks to steve_in_hb.

Posted by: Ace at 08:47 AM | Comments (40)
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Sundries Shack on Kossacks "being over" 9/11:

TheyÂ’re not over the 2000 election. TheyÂ’re not over the 2002 election. TheyÂ’re not over the 2004 election. TheyÂ’re not over crap that happened during the Vietnam era for goodness sake.

But theyÂ’re over 3000 dead Americans.

Did I link this? I quoted it, but I don't think I linked it directly, but you may have read it if you followed Patterico's links. It's Hiltzikoshi's utterly disingenuous defense to his childish antics, his last post (I guess) before the LATimes pulled the plug on his blog.

Great reading, especially the comments, which savage him nicely.

The Unabrewer calls it, quite justifiably, "the most pathetic blog post ever written."

Posted by: Ace at 07:54 AM | Comments (24)
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I never would have guessed:

Men and women are actually from the same planet, but scientists now have the first strong evidence that the emotional wiring of the sexes is fundamentally different.

An almond-shaped cluster of neurons that processes experiences such as fear and aggression hooks up to contrasting brain functions in men and women at rest, the new research shows.

For men, the cluster "talks with" brain regions that help them respond to sensors for what's going on outside the body, such as the visual cortex and an area that coordinates motor actions.

For women, the cluster communicates with brain regions that help them respond to sensors inside the body, such as the insular cortex and hypothalamus. These areas tune in to and regulate women's hormones, heart rate, blood pressure, digestion and respiration.

"Throughout evolution, women have had to deal with a number of internal stressors, such as childbirth, that men haven't had to experience," said study co-author Larry Cahill of the University of California Irvine. "What is fascinating about this is the brain seems to have evolved to be in tune with those different stressors."

...

The scans also showed that men's and women's amygdalas are polar opposites in terms of connections with other parts of the brain. In men, the right amygdala is more active and shows more connections with other brain regions. In women, the same is true of the left amygdala.

Scientists still have to find out if one's sex also affects the wiring of other regions of the brain. It could be that while men and women have basically the same hardware, it's the software instructions and how they are put to use that makes the sexes seem different.

Scientists also speculate that "differing genitals" may play a role.

So, there you go. Women navel-gaze because their brains have evolved to study their "inner woman."

Posted by: Ace at 07:45 AM | Comments (13)
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The way ghey one from the Next Generation, alas.

I think I've linked something along these lines before, and the home was shown in Trekkies 2. So-- shut up, Dave.

But on this website, the guy who made his house into a Star Trek set offers to provide you with the same service.

I have to admit-- it looks like the Enterprise. A LOT like the Enterprise.

But look at all that wasted space. What the hell does he plan to do with the space he used for the Transporter bay, for example? I guess it could make a funky (if small) dance floor, but somehow I get the feeling this guy isn't hosting a lot of parties.

Now-- if someone designed their home to look like the inside of dungeon filled with treasure and magic items, then I'd say-- well done, sir.

But this is just stupid.

Posted by: Ace at 06:47 AM | Comments (73)
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