Great.

The party said it wanted to cut the legal age for sexual relations to 12 and eventually scrap the limit altogether.

"A ban just makes children curious," Ad van den Berg, one of the party's founders, told the Algemeen Dagblad (AD) newspaper.

Ohhhhhh... I see. It's for the children. The perverts are the only ones in society brave enough to speak for the sexually-oppressed children.

They want to protect children from "curiosity" by, um, satisfying that curiosity. If you have sex with a child, his curiosity is satisfied. No more mystery, right?

Genius-- let's protect our children from impure thoughts by allowing creaky old perverts to perform impure acts on them.

Kids are curious about sex, of course. How this fact can be construed to mean that filthy old pedophiles should be able to perv up on them at will is behond me.

Posted by: Ace at 09:55 AM | Comments (41)
Post contains 156 words, total size 1 kb.

Jack Murtha has demanded a full investigation into the "cold-blooded murder."

Thomas Autry, who authorities said will not be charged, had been walking home from his job waiting tables Monday night when four people got out of a car and chased him, Atlanta police detective Danny Stephens said.

One of the attackers had a shotgun and another had a pistol, Stephens said.

The suspects caught up with Autry, who yelled for help and pulled a knife out of his backpack. He kicked the shotgun out of one of the attacker's hands and stabbed both a 17-year-old girl who jumped on him and a man who also attacked him.

The suspects fled in their car but police found them later at a hospital where the girl was pronounced dead. The man stabbed in the incident was in critical condition, Stephens said.

They made the mistake of bringing guns to a knife-fight, which is a mistake if you're dealing with someone who's pretty good with a knife.

Posted by: Ace at 09:52 AM | Comments (45)
Post contains 185 words, total size 1 kb.

1. 9/11 Conspiracy Theories.

2. The, um, theory that the world is controlled by a cabal of shapshifting reptillian vampiric/satanic Jewish space-aliens.

In a you've got your chocolate in my peanut butter sort of genius synthesis, a delicious confection of crazy is invented.

several months ago i was doing some reading on a possible alliance that has been in exsistance with the military government and an alien race. i call this race the Anunnaki. (i could talk hours about who the Anunnaki are, but i'll just say they're an alien race believed to have visited earth thousands of years ago, and still mildly remain here today.) the alliance is thought to be this. the aliens agree only to abduct a number of humans for their experiments. in exchange the aliens give those in the know technology. this has sed to have been going on since shortly after the roswell crash. to make a long story short ... i'm under the impression that its possible that all the passengers on the planes were offered up as payment to the Anunnaki in exchange for some greatly advanced technology. what technology ... i dont know, but something big, something that would be considered a valueable asset to those wanting to control the masses.

That's from the threads at a goofball site called "Loose Change," a nutroots sort of blog with a heavy emphasis on insanity.

If that sounds crazy, then you'll have to check out the "debunking" of that theory, by someone who proposes something... well, equally as crazy, if not more crazy.

How Karl Rove and Jesse MacBeth fit into all this is not quite clear. But I'm sure they fit in there somewhere.

Posted by: Ace at 09:45 AM | Comments (29)
Post contains 294 words, total size 2 kb.

Lesson One: His name is Jesus Christ, not "The Despised One."

Posted by: Ace at 09:39 AM | Comments (19)
Post contains 21 words, total size 1 kb.

That's the claim from some on the hard left.

Mudville Gazette notes Jesse was brought to us by a Vietnam-era "peace activist" and military resistor. Heck of a deep-cover psyop, Greyhawk notes.

Posted by: Ace at 09:07 AM | Comments (10)
Post contains 44 words, total size 1 kb.

So says one poll.

For the first time since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, national security is no longer President Bush's trump card.

With violence grinding on in Iraq, a majority of Americans have been telling pollsters in recent weeks that they trust Democrats as much or more than Bush or his Republican allies in Congress to protect the country, combat terrorism and run a sound foreign policy.

"The advantage the president has had on national security is either much smaller now or is perhaps gone," said pollster Scott Rasmussen. "What has been new in the last few months is a decline in support among the Republican base. Republicans are beginning to have doubts about the connection between Iraq and the larger war on terror. And they are less confident that we are doing well in the war on terror."

That makes the Democrats' and media's salivating over the possibility of a November blowout more likely.

For those who want the GOP punished and chastised for their errant ways-- well, that's going to happen. You don't need to avoid voting; the GOP will probably lose one or both houses of Congress this November.

But maybe disaffected GOP voters should consider making sure they vote in record-high numbers-- to avoid a wholesale bloodbath.

Posted by: Ace at 09:04 AM | Comments (34)
Post contains 226 words, total size 2 kb.

I'd like to see the documentation -- receipts and such -- for this:

He said he was "carbon neutral" himself and he tried to offset any plane flight or car journey by "purchasing verifiable reductions in CO2 elsewhere".

Note he says he "tried" to offset his journeys. He tried? How often was he successful? How hard did he try? How much money, precisely, has he expended to "offset" any carbon-production his jet-setting was responsible for?

I expect the media to ask him this posthaste.

Posted by: Ace at 08:54 AM | Comments (13)
Post contains 92 words, total size 1 kb.

Isn't the first rule of Fight Club, "Don't videotape fight club?"

Thanks to Darwins Moustache.

Posted by: Ace at 08:49 AM | Comments (7)
Post contains 21 words, total size 1 kb.

This sounds like a hoax...

MENLO PARK, California (AP) -- They may sport love handles and Ivy League degrees, but every two weeks, some Silicon Valley techies turn into vicious street brawlers in a real-life, underground fight club.

Kicking, punching and swinging every household object imaginable -- from frying pans and tennis rackets to pillowcases stuffed with soda cans -- they beat each other mercilessly in a garage in this bedroom community south of San Francisco.

Then, bloodied and bruised, they limp back to their desks in the morning.

...

Inspired by the 1999 film "Fight Club," starring Brad Pitt and Ed Norton, underground bare-knuckle brawling clubs have sprung up across the country as a way for desk jockeys and disgruntled youths to vent their frustrations and prove themselves.

"This is as close as you can get to a real fight, even though I've never been in one," the soft-spoken Siou said.

...

Menlo Park police hadn't heard about the local club and said they wouldn't be likely to take action because the fights are on private property between consenting adults. That could change if someone complains or is sent to a hospital, police said.

Gints Klimanis, a 37-year-old software engineer and martial arts instructor, started the invitation-only "Gentlemen's Fight Club" in Menlo Park in 2000 after his no-holds-barred sessions with a training partner grew to more than a dozen people. Most participants are men working in the high-tech industry.

...

Fencing and hockey masks are the only protective equipment used. Several fighters have suffered broken noses, ribs and fingers.

...

"Boys have these warrior fantasies picked up from popular culture, and schools sort of force that out of them," he said. In these fantasies, "The good guys always resort to violence, and they always get the glory and the women."

There is also a sadomasochistic thread running through underground fight clubs, said Michael Kimmel, a sociology professor at Stony Brook University in New York.

"Real-life fight clubs are the male version of the girls who cut themselves," he said. "All day long these guys think they're the captains of the universe, technical wizards. They're brilliant but empty.

"They want to feel differently. They want to get hit, they want to feel something real."

Thanks to Riehl World View.

Posted by: Ace at 07:08 AM | Comments (40)
Post contains 391 words, total size 3 kb.

The times gets all gushy about efforts to introduce new Hispanic, Chinese, black, and gay characters into the comics.

Because we're so nostalgic for Super Samurai, Apache Chief, and Black Vulcan.

Kind of annoying is the introduction of a lesbian "Batwoman." First of all-- aren't lesbians already super-heroes of a sort? Second of all -- DC, in particular, periodically promises us they will stop with the 40's and 50's era nonsense of just making new Bat-characters and Super-characters. In the eighties, they got rid of Supergirl, for example, and promised us that was the end of the Superman knock-offs; from now on, there would be no Super-dogs, Super-monkeys, Superboys, Superwomans, etc.; Kal El would be the Last and Only Son of Krypton.

That held for about three months, then Superboy and Supergirl came back.

It's kind of lame to just have a new Batman, only this time, she's a chick. And a "buxom, lipstick lesbian socialite." Okay, admittedly, that last part has potential, but come on, you know they're not going to have any fun with this. As most gay characters are portrayed, she'll be about as sexually adventurous as a 88-year-old Oklahoma deacon.

Another effort to link old and new characters centers on Kathy Kane, the gay Batwoman who will appear in costume for the first time in a July issue of "52." Batwoman was introduced in 1956, but she was one of several, often silly additions to the Bat family, including Ace the Bat-Hound (1955), Bat-Mite (1959) and Bat-Girl (1961). In her latest incarnation, Batwoman is a wealthy, buxom lipstick lesbian who has a history with Renee Montoya, an ex-police detective who has a starring role in "52."

What really bothers me, though, is that DC is introducing a team of ten Chinese superheroes. And when I say "Chinese," I don't mean "Chinese-American." Nor do I mean Taiwanese. I mean Red Chinese, and furthermore, directly controlled by the Chinese communist government.

And they don't seem to be bad guys, from the NYT's description. No, they're heroes-- who just happen to fight for Truth, Justice, and the Great Leap Forward.

Check out the "Socialist Red Guardsman," for example.

I am less bothered by the multi-culti crap than I am by the multinationalist stuff. The Chinese government can be described in different ways -- strategic competitor, rival, enemy biding its time -- but it cannot be described as an ally. And yet DC Comics has decided, it seems, to propagandize on their behalf.

Liberals often criticize corporations for not having the interests of the American people in mind... and they are, often, right. They have their own interests in mind, which is the way of the world.

But I'm becoming a bit more liberal in my view of corporations, as I see DC Comics attempting to help the Chinese government by giving them their own super-team, and Google censoring on behalf of the Chinese government, etc.

Of course, I realize that liberals probably defend these actions. They don't mind when corporations act against America's best interests, so long as they're acting in one of America's enemies' best interests.

I can't wait until DC unveils the "New Jihadis," a super-team of radicalized Muslims who gain their powers from an unshakable belief in Allah and who have all sorts of neat powers, like being able to blow up civilians without remorse. Hey, it's an underserved segment of the market; might as well try to make a buck there too, huh?

PS, DC is kind of tone-deaf as regards its Chinese super-team. One character, "Mother of Champions," gives birth to a "litter" of 25 super-warriors every three days. Another character, "Seven Deadly Brothers," can split into seven different fighters.

Odd, isn't it, that two of the Chinese teams' members have the power of superpopulating, eh? Why no character named "One in a Billion"?

Might as well call the team "The Yellow Hordes" and be done with it.

Thanks to Kent.

Posted by: Ace at 12:51 PM | Comments (69)
Post contains 665 words, total size 5 kb.