Okay, when's he going to actually start boxing and selling his poop?

And yeah, okay, I admit, I might pick up a few boxes as collectors' items. I'm not going to play with the poop, mind you; keeping it in its original boxes will increase the resale value.

So I'm not saying it's a bad idea; I just want to know how much I'm going to have to shell out to keep my Star Wars collection complete.

Posted by: Ace at 09:34 AM | Comments (19)
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And a Pentagon spokesman mocks him as she shows the tape.

The U.S. military command Thursday released previously unseen images of a video purportedly posted by al-Qaida in IraqÂ’s leader, showing him decked out in American tennis shoes and unable to operate his machine gun.

Authorities also said 31 “foreign fighters” had been killed since April and 161 al-Qaida in Iraq leaders were killed or captured since January, seriously undercutting the group’s logistical abilities.

The video, discovered in a series of raids in April on purported al-Qaida in Iraq safe houses in the Youssifiyah area, 12 miles southwest of Baghdad, gave a view of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that the Jordanian-born militant chose not to show the world, said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, spokesman for the U.S. command.

Al-Zarqawi is “very proud of the fact that he can operate this machine gun, and he proclaims that, and all of his close associates are very proud of what Zarqawi does,” Lynch said in a briefing in which he played a snippet from the video posted by militants on April 25.

But as the previously unseen video was shown, Lynch mocked al-Zarqawi, suggesting his weapon jammed and he was unable to fix it.

“It’s supposed to be automatic fire, he’s shooting single shots. Something is wrong with his machine gun, he looks down, can’t figure out, calls his friend to come unblock the stoppage and get the weapon firing again,” Lynch said.

“This piece you all see as he walks away, he’s wearing his black uniform and his New Balance tennis shoes as he moves to this white pickup. And, his close associates around him ... do things like grab the hot barrel of the machine gun and burn themselves,” the military spokesman added.

Video at the link.

Thanks to Mark.

Longer Video here.

Thanks to Cuz for that.

Posted by: Ace at 08:59 AM | Comments (55)
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1. Release the original Star Wars trilogy.

2. Suppress the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD.

3. Finally release the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD after forcing fans to buy the Greedo-shoots-first abortion.

4. Profit.

Be patient; the guy's only sold these videos in 15 different formats and versions already.

He's making 10 million dollars per second.

No, really.

Eventually we'll get a Special Edition of the prequels, where Greedo shoots first, killing every single major character in those awful movies. The "trilogy" will last for only three minutes, but they'll be three graphically-violent minutes, like the last five minutes of The Godfather except with laser-bolts burning through Jar-Jar and Aninkin's occiptal lobes in super-sadistic slo-mo, and they will be the highest grossing DVDs in the history of the entire universe.

Posted by: Ace at 08:09 AM | Comments (28)
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1. Live-cam a Bald Eagle nest in your backyard.

2.

3. Profit

No, really.

Be patient with the video, sometimes you have to refresh the page a few times before it loads.
Because the guy's traffic is ten million hits per day.

Posted by: LauraW. at 08:03 AM | Comments (26)
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Perfect:

Excuse me, I'm sorry, and I beg your pardon, but the jury's decision on Moussaoui gives me a very bad feeling. What we witnessed here was not the higher compassion but a dizzy failure of nerve.

From the moment the decision was announced yesterday, everyone, all the parties involved--the cable jockeys, the legal analysts, the politicians, the victim representatives--showed an elaborate and jarring politesse. "We thank the jury." "I accept the verdict of course." "We can't question their hard work." "I know they did their best." "We thank the media for their hard work in covering this trial." "I don't want to second-guess the jury."

How removed from our base passions we've become. Or hope to seem.

It is as if we've become sophisticated beyond our intelligence, savvy beyond wisdom. Some might say we are showing a great and careful generosity, as befits a great nation. But maybe we're just, or also, rolling in our high-mindedness like a puppy in the grass. Maybe we are losing some crude old grit. Maybe it's not good we lose it.

...

I have the sense that many good people in our country, normal modest folk who used to be forced to endure being patronized and instructed by the elites of all spheres--the academy and law and the media--have sort of given up and cut to the chase. They don't wait to be instructed in the higher virtues by the professional class now. They immediately incorporate and reflect the correct wisdom before they're lectured.

I'm not sure this is progress. It feels not like the higher compassion but the lower evasion. It feels dainty in a way that speaks not of gentleness but fear.

In 1988, Michael Dukakis pretty much lost the election when he offered a bloodless, technocratic response to a question about what penalty he would like as a personal matter were his wife to be raped and murdered.

That's sort of a nasty question, isn't it? But still: His failure to say emphatically that, even if opposing the death penalty as policy matter, he would, as a human being, want the murderer of his wife to be killed -- and not necessarily through the orderly procedures of state-administered justice -- separated him from most of America, who had no question at all what sort of justice they'd want for someone who stole away a loved one.

But that was 1988.

Today, America would apparently agree with him.

We have lost something. We have a simple confidence in our own humanity, and our own right to exist. We now have to apologize for that right, and show "nuance" and "sophistication" in any effort to vindicate that right.

Posted by: Ace at 09:28 PM | Comments (98)
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The weisenheimers started up in this thread.

Valerie Plame Wilson was so close to single-handedly ending Iran's nukular program, but Bushco blew her cover. -- stupid typcal f'n' moonbat

The way I heard it, Plame was in Waziristan and had Bin Laden in her sights when KKKarl Rove personally blew her cover and aborted the mission in order to prolong the War for Oil. -- wait just a minute

Valerie is also an amateur chemist. She formulated a new fuel from grass clippings. Bush's friends in Texas destroyed the formula. -- stupid typical f'n' moonbat

If you know any cool facts about Valerie Plame, Double-0 Soccer Mom, and/or her super-duper suave husband, Ambassador Slambassador of Love Joe Wilson, please share them.

Friend of mine says that Valerie Plame was going to remotely cause all of Iran's nuclear facilities to meltdown simultaneously. That's right-- she was going to split all their atoms... with her mind.

That is, before Karl Rove and a bunch of his bullyboys not only outed her and thus permitted Iran's nuke program to go forward, but then they stuck her on a pinball machine re-enacted the R-rated parts of The Accused.

Also, Joe Wilson is the only white man in the world to ever successfully pull off using the expression "chillax, Homes" in a non-ironic fashion.

Again, that's just what I heard.

The Most Shocking Fact About Valerie Plame Of All: Believe it or not, she's shopping a book to publishers.

Why Can't You Morons Be As Funny As Instapundit's Emailers? One of Instapundit's smart, erudite readers notes the ever-diminishing returns of the BDS left's attack on the "rightwing mainstream media:"

2004: "Darn you mainstream media, you're ignoring a US ambassador whose visit to Niger exposed Bush!"

2005: "Darn you mainstream media, you're ignoring a UK official whose memo to 10 Downing exposed Bush!"

2006: "Darn you mainstream media, you're ignoring a comedian whose performance at a press roast exposed Bush!"

Heh. Read the whole thing. Wait a minute, you just did.

Posted by: Ace at 06:50 PM | Comments (179)
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Posted by: Ace at 06:29 PM | Comments (17)
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Funny how Mary McCarthy gives money to liberals and gets vouchers from liberals, took and yet our MSM can't bring itself to mention her partisan leanings.

In the Christian Science Monitor today, author/liberal appeasement specialist Steven Simon guarantees us Iran will not use an atomic bomb nor give one to terrorists.

In an effort to deter the international community from imposing sanctions against Iran, the mullahs are trying to instill fear in the Western capitals that if pushed to the wall, they will resort to extreme measures. Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei took the lead in stressing, "The Islamic Republic is prepared to transfer the experience, knowledge, and technology of its scientists." However, such statements have to be viewed in the context of Iran's maladroit attempts to fend off international pressure, as opposed to an actual willingness to share its nuclear know-how with its many terrorist allies.

Ah. They're threatening to transfer nuclear technology to terrorists, but Steven Simon knows better. He knows the minds of the Iranians better than the Iranians do, you see.

Last time we came across his name, he was being identified in the media merely as an "author" as he vouched that Mary McCarthy was a good, solid intelligence agent.

Just mentioned on O'Reilly. Not the McCarthy angle; he just mentioned Simon's article.

Again, ad nauseum:

The MSM forever natters on about a neocon cabal in our national security apparatus, but they never whisper even the possibility that there's a neoliberal cabal fighting them hammer and tong sickle.

Partisanship and ideology are only bad or even worth mentioning when it's partisanship from the right.

No, strike that. Partisans and ideologues only exist on the right; these rightwing partisans are opposed not by left-wing partisans, but by nonpartisans, who are just full of "common sense" and a "smart, reasonable plan for what's best for America's national security."

Update: Simon wrote a similar piece two weeks ago with Richard F'n' Clarke for the NYT (pay to read, but the headline is "Bombs That Would Backfire," so you can figure it out from there).

Posted by: Ace at 03:17 PM | Comments (17)
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Let's recap.

Brinkema very nearly ruled the death penalty inapplicable because of some forbidden coaching of peripheral witnesses in the case.

She almost certainly wanted to toss the death penalty as a possible punishment; but she knew she'd face hell for that decision.

She figured the prosecution, which was struggling throughout the case, couldn't sell the jury on the death penalty anyhow.

Then something amazing happened. Moussaoui opened his mouth and testified -- bragged, really -- about his role in the attacks, his foreknowlege of them, his inclusion in the planning, his delight that they were successful.

Disaster for Brinkema, who was hoping the death penalty would tank without her fingerprints on it.

No problem. Just say you don't believe Moussaoui and rule against the prosecution:

The judge presiding over MoussaouiÂ’s sentencing told trial lawyers that she doesnÂ’t believe MoussaouiÂ’s claims on the witness stand that he knew advance details of the Sept. 11 plot.

“I still think that Moussaoui was not accurate in a lot of what he said about how much he knew about what was going to happen with which particular buildings and when,” U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said during a closed hearing on April 21 outside the jury’s presence. Transcripts of the hearing were released Tuesday.

MoussaouiÂ’s bombshell testimony on March 27, in which he took the stand against the advice of his court-appointed lawyers and claimed a direct role in the 9/11 plot after years of denial, revived a moribund prosecution case. Defense attorneys have argued that Moussaoui lied on the stand either to inflate his role in history or antagonize the jury into making him a martyr through execution.

Specifically, Moussaoui claimed that he and would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid were to have flown a fifth plane on 9/11 into the White House, and that he also knew the World Trade Center towers were targeted.

Brinkema made her comment during a debate over jury instructions. She defended a technical ruling in favor of the defense as a way of “evening the playing field” in response to her concerns about Moussaoui’s testimony.

Even though jurors have no way of knowing about BrinkemaÂ’s editorial comment presuming they obey rules against following news coverage, prosecutor David Novak objected to her remark.

“With all due respect, that’s the jury’s decision to decide whether they found him to be credible or not,” Novak told Brinkema.

I'd like to know what that "technical point" the prosecutors lost was.

Strange, but the jury came to the very odd decision that Moussaoui was responsible for causing damage to the city, but not for causing any deaths. How can this be? Of course, it can't be, rationally.

Don't Speculate, Especially If You Can Just Read Update: The questionnaire for deciding Moussaoui's fate is not overly complicated. How the jury could have found he cause disfigurment, damage, and emotional distress but not actual deaths is beyond me, but it's not Brinkema's fault.

It's the fault of some asshole jurist who knew she'd have to vote yes on the death penalty if she answered that in the affirmative. So she just pretended the answer was no.

Clarification: I mean Brinkema did not seem to make the jury instructions for imposing the death penalty unduly difficult to follow or meet in the affirmative.

I don't know what her specific ruling was. She might have severely limited the jury's ability to consider Moussaoui's amazing courtroom admission, by ruling something along the lines of "You may consider his testimony to the extent it may show his remorse or lack of it, but you may not consider it as far as responsibility for the deaths caused in the attack. The prosecution must prove that burden with its own evidence."

I don't know how she could justify such a ruling. And of course I don't know what the ruling was-- when will the transcript be out? Just saying, it's possible she really put the big hurt on the prosecution.

Or maybe she didn't. I don't know. I don't trust an MSM reporter as regards "technical rulings." Most rulings in law are "technical" in nature. It doesn't mean they're not important, which seems to be the intended suggestion here.

Her reference to "evening" things -- mitigating the damage Moussaoui caused himself in his confession of full guilt, through her terrorist-friendly ruling -- makes me think it's something along the lines of "You can consider his testimony for X but not for Y," where Y is the Big Magilla.

Big Old Roundup At Allah's Bit on Hot Air: Reactions all over, and Allah has great fun with the "at least we didn't martyr him" brigades.

He has the jury questionnaire on mitigating circumstances. No jurors agreed that his martyrdom was relevant, and only nine jurors agreed he'd had a bad childhood and that his dad had a temper -- and those were the mitigating factors that garnered the most support from the jury.

I still don't get how this moronic jury found Moussaoui caused damage to NYC on 9/11 but no actual deaths.

But juries make those sorts of inconsistent findings all the time.

Which just proves they're stupid.

Also, check out Giuliani's appearance on Hardball. He tries to put a happy face on the verdict, being the diplomatic politician, claiming he's very happy at least we live in a country that is courageous enough to be so stupid as to permit murderous vermin like Moussaoui stay alive. I guess calling Americans gutless pussified nancyboys wouldn't help his chances in 2008.

I really enjoyed Matthews spinning that rationality, rather than vengeance and emotionalism, had carried the day here, the same as it did after the, um, Boston Massacre. Not sure how Chris came up with that historical analogy, but he sure was eager to give the jurors their Liberal Media Cookie for Good Behavior.

Posted by: Ace at 02:16 PM | Comments (29)
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An elite list; you have to weigh at least nine bills to even make it to the bottom of the pigpile.

The article notes this guy was popular in bellyflop competitions.

Well, yeah.

And that guy is the svelte athelete of the bunch. At least he can move.

Nay-- he can fly. Well, plummet, really, but it's not like thin people defy gravity either.

Thanks to Greg in Philly.

Posted by: Ace at 02:00 PM | Comments (10)
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