Liberals keep insisting there have been "zero" successful tests of anti-missile technology.

This word "zero" you keep using. I do not think it means what you think it means.

For the first time, a Navy ship at sea successfully shot down a long-range missile in its final seconds of flight, the military said Wednesday.

The test was seen as an important step toward giving ships the ability to shoot down weapons as they are about to hit their targets. Until now, the Standard Missile 2 was only launched from ships to intercept a long-range missile in the early or middle stage of flight.

For the test, a missile fired from the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai was destroyed in its final stage by an SM-2 launched from USS Lake Erie.

The Navy already can shoot down a missile in its final stage with a Patriot Advanced Capability 3, or PAC-3, missile launched from land.

But you know, there's no chance we could ever shoot down an Iranian Shahab-3 missile. Because they're magic, and equipped with +3 bracers of ABM protection.

Posted by: Ace at 06:56 AM | Comments (16)
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The credulous Mohammad ElBaradei seems to be impressed by the Iranians latest kinda-sorta-maybe reply to demands they stop enriching uranium.

But he simultaneously says they're just three months away.

Posted by: Ace at 06:51 AM | Comments (5)
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Don't question his centrism:

In Washington the other day, I got a chance to tell Al Gore something I’d meant to say for a long time, which was that I thought his real strength, his real contribution, was as an observer—writer, explainer, outsider—and not as a politician.

...

Gore has a certain aura of nobility about him these days—a mixture of rue, acceptance and lofty goals that makes him almost, well, endearing. As I talked to him at the East Coast premiere of the documentary film about him (“An Inconvenient Truth”), I wondered whether his newfound sense of peace and purpose meant that he had given up the idea of ever running for president again—or whether that is precisely what, in an indirect, Zen-like way, he’s doing. My answer to my question: he’s available if fate decides to befriend him.

Great.

Gore is depicted as a guy who learned to love the land, who was exposed to the pioneering work of an environmentalist at Harvard and who, seeing his older sister die from smoking cigarettes, came to despise the misuse of science in the name of commerce. Now heÂ’s found his lifeÂ’s calling in his missionary work: an itinerant preacher dragging a black wheelie and an Apple laptop through airports as he summons mankind to repel the Forces of Doom.

...

If he is happy to be a selfless oracle, perhaps that is partly because he’s become a very wealthy one. I’m told that he has a ton of Google stock—he got in early—and that his investment firm is doing well and that its work dovetails very nicely (logistically and financially) with his more visible environmental evangelism. He’s always been a devoted family man; now he’s a doting grandpa.

So why would he even fleetingly consider politics again?

For one—to paraphrase a slogan once applied to Barry Goldwater—in his heart, Gore knows he’s right. He’s been ahead of more curves than a NASCAR driver: the concerns about global warming, the implications of the rise of the internet, the need to be wary of deadly friction along the faultline between Islam and the West, his early and deep opposition to the launching a war in Iraq. It’s an impressive record.

“The reason people don’t like Gore is that he has been right so damn many times,” James Carville told me with an appreciate laugh.

Edited out of the story was Fineman's awkward attempts to French kiss Gore.

They're not even pretending anymore... except, actually, they are. They have dropped any kind of pretense of objectivity in their reporting and commentary, except when you criticize them for it, in which case they piously claim their only agenda is "The Truth."

Posted by: Ace at 06:48 AM | Comments (24)
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Of course, he didn't exactly check the height of his victim, did he?

A judge said a 5-foot-1 man convicted of sexually assaulting a child was too small to survive in prison, and gave him 10 years of probation instead.

His crimes deserved a long sentence, District Judge Kristine Cecava said, but she worried that Richard W. Thompson, 50, would be especially imperiled by prison dangers.

"You are a sex offender, and you did it to a child," she said.

But, she said, "That doesn't make you a hunter. You do not fit in that category."

Thompson will be electronically monitored the first four months of his probation, and he was told to never be alone with someone under age 18 or date or live with a woman whose children were under 18. Cecava also ordered Thompson to get rid of his pornography.

Is that bad? It gets worse. Look how lenient the judge has decided to treat him even if he violates the terms of probation:

He faces 30 days of jail each year of his probation unless he follows its conditions closely.

I don't know if that's a misprint or what, but that means he could violate probation and assault another child and get less than ten months in jail for doing so.

My favorite part of these bleeding-heart judges -- like Leona Brinkema -- is that they always end their sentencing decisions by attempting to make it sound as if they've really been tough on the criminal.

"I want control of you until I know you have integrated change into your life," the judge told Thompson.

Wow. You tell 'im, judge. He sexually assaulted a child, and you're letting him back on the street, but you'll be "controlling" him until he "integrates change" into his life.

"I truly hope that my bet on you being OK out in society is not misplaced."

Well, that's the best we could have had -- the hope that he won't assault another child back out on the streets.

Oh, wait, no it's not. You could have put him in jail and insured he wouldn't sexually assault another child.

So-- apparently it was too much of a risk to bear that this little midget pervert will be violated in prison, but this judge is quite willing to put a child at risk of violation at his hands.

That's some sweet liberal compassion and understanding for ya.

Posted by: Ace at 06:04 AM | Comments (50)
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Slightly below the white-hot 5.7% growth predicted by economists, so obviously we're in a depression:

U.S. economy shot forward at an upwardly revised 5.3 percent annual rate in the first quarter, the fastest growth in 2-1/2 years, as companies built up inventories and exports strengthened, a Commerce Department report on Thursday showed.

First-quarter growth in gross domestic product was more than triple the 1.7 percent annual rate recorded in last year's fourth quarter, though still slightly below Wall Street economists' forecasts for a 5.7 percent pace.

Prices remained in check, with the core personal consumption expenditures price index that the Federal Reserve favors rising at a 2 percent rate compared with 2.4 percent in the fourth quarter.

...

In addition, exports were stronger than originally reported, rising at a 14.7 percent annual rate rather than 12.1 percent.

More delicious cowbell here, in several formats, including Whitesnake, Justine Bateman, and Johnny Coldcuts.

Posted by: Ace at 05:07 AM | Comments (108)
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But I never caught this in Return of the Jedi. How did I miss it? Han full-out grabs up on Leia's rack, then she checks out his package.

And if Dave thinks that's old, wait 'till he sees this.

Similar, But Worse: Riker checks out the package of a crewmember who appears to be Martin Short's great-great-great-great grandson.

Posted by: Ace at 02:14 PM | Comments (19)
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Improvement is almost immediate -- within 20 minutes -- but only temporary -- not more than four hours or so.

After being given the pill, patients are able to speak and answer simple questions.

It's not a cure yet, but anything that can awaken a comatose brain, even temporarily, is doing something that heretofore hasn't been possible.

Thanks to DDG.

In related news, Michael Schiavo just said "Whew! That was a close one!"

Posted by: Ace at 12:05 PM | Comments (22)
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...as does his entire family.

He adds a new twist: uncontrollable muscle twitching.

And another doctor claims it's real:

The UC Davis trained physiologist is leading a medical team at Oklahoma State University in Tulsa, researching what is now called Morgellons Disease.

With cooperation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Wymore's team is studying Bay Area patients and others from around the country. His first finding disputes the frequent diagnosis of delusions.

"Pathologists and dermatologists and lab reports [said] that these were textile fibers appearing in the skin of the sufferers. Now that's just not true, to be perfectly blunt about it," says Prof. Wymore.

Wymore says his tests rule out not only textile fibers, but also worms, insects, animal material and even human skin and hair. He says the filaments are not an external contamination.

Instead, they are a substance that materializes somehow inside the body, apparent artifacts of something infectious. More results are expected soon. And Wymore says skin problems are not the worst symptoms.

He says a neurotoxin or microorganism may disturb muscle control and memory.

"The neurological effects are the much more severe, life altering and much more dangerous of the conditions," explains Prof. Wymore.

I'm just linking and quoting. I still think it's just textile fibers or -- get this -- hair.

Still... science isn't decided by majority vote.

Thanks to David and SWOOD.

Posted by: Ace at 11:51 AM | Comments (22)
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One labels Hamas a "security force" clashing with "gunmen," while the other labels Hamas "gunmen" and their opponents the "police force."

Can't we just agree they're all thugs and police forces simultaneously?

I view this situation much the same way I view a game between the Eagles and Cowboys.

I'm rooting for a lot of injuries.

Posted by: Ace at 10:53 AM | Comments (22)
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Crossblog nails it:

Taylor was definitely the better singer, but I think his decision to not be a hot girl will cost him votes.

More interesting than whether off-key Kate or Taylor Frankenstein will win is the fact that these guys:

...won some kind of European pop music contest.

“We are meat eaters in a vegetarian café” singer Mr. Lordi said on how it feels to be in Eurovision.

It's time for Rolling Stone to start including GWAR on their weekly lists of the 100 most influential bands of all time. I'm not saying GWAR should beat the Beatles, Led Zep, AC/DC, the Sex Pistols, or Cream; I'm just saying they should clock in somewhere ahead of The Doors and The Eagles.

Gib says your life will be better if you follow his link and watch the video for Hard Rock Hallelujah, and I can't imagine how that could fail to be sound advice.

You'll want to go to Multimedia Lounge, then Video, then look for Finland/Lordi and click on that.

Liveblogging the Lordi Video:

Okay, sorta-cute Goth chick in high school. Not a bad start.

Now there's some cheerleaders. They're eh-cute, but they're cheeleaders, so that's okay too.

Now "Lordi" makes its entry after darkness and lightning.

The cheerleaders all fall to the floor, apparently dead, killed by the super-intense hard-core sound of Lordi. The Goth chick is apparently immune, because she has the name "Lordi" written on her notebook, which is, I guess, a magical charm against Lordi's satanic music.

The song is about as bad-ass as something from Kip Winger. They're about as Satanic as Rico Suave. What is wrong with Europeans? You expect these guys to be dark death-metal, and instead they're trying to be a sunnier, poppier version of Def Leppard.

Now the cheerleaders arise from the dead, animated, I guess, by Lordi's very cheesey keyboards, and look like zombies fresh from the grave. But still kinda hot, because they're in their cheerleader outfits.

Now the Goth chick leads the Zombie Cheerleaders down the halls of the high-school, striking terror into her non-undead schoolmates as she pumps her fist into the air indifferently to Lordi's not-particularly-driving backbeat.

End of video.

Gib, you f'n' lied to me. My life has not improved one iota. In fact, in many ways, it's now worse than ever.

Posted by: Ace at 10:27 AM | Comments (43)
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