Remember that story a few days ago about Airbus not meeting its production deadlines, and losing business to Boeing? Crushed the stock price. Cost it a lot of business.

The CEO of Airbus' parent company just happened to have sold stock before that news became public.

European Aeronautics Defence & Space Co.'s French co-CEO, Noel Forgeard, described as an "unfortunate coincidence" the stock sales in March on which he earned 2.5 million euros ($3.1 million) in profits.

Strong. Tough.

Posted by: Ace at 10:38 AM | Comments (15)
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More great news.

Pizza, 17 beers a day, and lots and lots of coffee.

We live in an age of miracles and wonders, and by "miracles" I mean "beer" and by "wonders" I mean pizza.

Thanks to VonKreedon.

Posted by: Ace at 09:46 AM | Comments (20)
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Of course she claims she "mispoke." But it does sort of clue you in to her headspace.

The Kossification of the Democratic Party is all but complete.

And... Kos favorite and Democratic consultant Larry Johnson says Karl Rove's mother committed suicide because he's such a bastard.

Oh, a Kerry spokesman said that he should be worried about being cornholed in prison.

Strong. Smart.

Posted by: Ace at 09:27 AM | Comments (15)
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Two frequent topics here in one delicious package.

The religious affiliation of most superheroes you've ever heard of. In a lot of cases, of course, it's pure conjecture, or only slightly evidenced.

Given the wealth of support for both major theories about Batman's religious background (Catholic and Episcopalian), it seems most likely that both are correct, and that Bruce Wayne's father (the source of Batman's surname, Scottish heritage, wealth and social standing) was an Episcopalian, while his mother (the key source of Bruce's early religious upbringing and ingrained religious feelings) was a Catholic.

How people argue that Batman may be a Catholic is beyond me. It's possible, of course, but everything about him says WASP, no? And Batman's so Gothic that, were he a Catholic, one would expect the rich, dark, and often scary imagery of Catholicism to be more prominent in his stories/home/origin tale.

Thanks to the Influence Peddler.

Posted by: Ace at 10:37 AM | Comments (47)
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Since we seem to have gotten into the evolution debate somehow (thanks a lot, Feisty), I thought I'd ask a few questions.

If creationists/ID'ers prefer a literal interpretation of the creation of life as described in Genesis, do they also subscribe to the literal interpretation of the creation of the stars and the heavens? If God, literally, shaped living creatures with his own hands, does it not also follow he literally shaped the stars with his own hands?

If so, do you reject the standard model of star formation?

And if so, what accounts for the fact that we can observe what seem to be new stars a-borning?

If the formation of the stars, as described in Genesis, on the other hand, is to be taken as figurative -- God conceived the stars during Genesis, and as his will and foresight are perfect, that was as good as "creating" them outright, for he set in motion the forces which would, over aeons, form the stars, with devine precision -- why is such a figurative reading of God's creation of life so abhorrent?

If God could create the stars by simply conceiving them and creating all the natural forces of the universe that dictated their actual formation, why not the same with the biological processes which eventually created life?

If we're going by the Bible's text, what in the text alerts you that one is to be taken figuratively, and the other completely literally?

Further, if you accept the standard scientific model of star and planetary formation, how do you account for the fact that life seems to have arisen long, long, long after the creation of stars and star systems? Why such a long gap between this "day" of creation and subsequent "days"?

Just curious.

Posted by: Ace at 10:31 AM | Comments (372)
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I read about this cat's site in Discover. Basically, he's a physicist working for the mathematics department of a university, because, he says, physics is now mostly about string theory, and he thinks string theory is, as his blog's name would have it, "Not even wrong." (As Wolfgang Pauli once said of a paper that was too incomplete to even evaluate.)

His problem with string theory would seem to be that there is simply no experimentation going on to either confirm or deny any of the moving parts of string theory, putting physicists in a difficult place. Physicists, he says, are accustomed to not sweating the rigors of a theory, because they know that ultimately they'll be corrected by an experiment. But string theory allows (or has thusfar allowed) no experimentation, so physicists have begun simply makin' shit up, more or less. And they continue "refining" a theory that simply has no evidence for it.

Obviously, I have no idea if he's right or not. I suspect he's right because he sounds reasonable. That's really not a scientific reason to trust him, but I am thoroughly out of my reckoning here.

Anyway, he links this guy, who he seems to be having a physics blog-feud with.

Finally, as near as I can tell Lubos has finally gone completely bonkers. In his last few ranting postings, people who disagree with him no longer have the intelligence of dogs, but are compared to squirrels (or, in my case, microbes). His latest posting is about why the scientific status of string theory and of evolution theory are the same (although he thinks “evolution is more dogmatic while string theory is more open-minded work in progress”), and I’m sure the people at the Discovery Institute will enjoy it greatly. He goes on about the fact that at one point, under great duress, Jacques Distler did admit in the comment section of a blog that he disagreed with Lubos on this point. Lubos compares this to Judas’s betrayal of Jesus:

This almost sounds like a story from the New Testament except that in the past, there would be 1 Judas in such a story. Today we have 387 Judases with various confused and triply corrupt self-interests and relations to the bad players in the game of life.

Instead of dissociating themselves from LubosÂ’s increasingly nutty postings about string theory, some string theorists such as Moshe Roszali and Joe Polchinski instead have decided this is a good time to encourage him and start participating in the comment section of his blog.

It's kind of funny that physicists are engaging in the same smack-talk as political bloggers. I can't follow any of the science; I'm just reading this crap to see people call each other "idiots" and "bonkers."

(Oh, by the way, the latter guy, Lubos, would seem to be a conservative based on the "social" links in his sidebar, and also a fervent Darwinist.)

Posted by: Ace at 10:04 AM | Comments (44)
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I don't think these emails require apologizing for. Olbermann gets baited, and he's immature enough to enjoy the partisan sniping. Frankly, it was a good thing that one guy in the media (well, sort of the media, MSNBC) was willing to correspond with his critics, even in such a childish manner. That won't be happening anymore, at least not for a while.

I'm also not sure about the propriety of sharing someone's emails. Then again, I did it, too.

Anyway, here's Keith's emails, which are not polite. In fairness, he was baited by someone who said Zarqawi was his "hero," and the truth stings, provoking a hot reaction.

But I'm just so amused that Keith Olbermann -- last seen announcing "I don't answer to anybody" -- apparently does answer to his higher-ups after all.

"I apologize to anyone who might take offense at my part of this correspondence. It goes without saying that I should not have replied to these abusive and hateful E-mails, but I wonder how many of us could receive literally hundreds of them questioning our patriotism, religion and ethnic origin, without succumbing to the natural wish to confront such hate?"

Lloyd Grove snarks that Olbermann's method of "confronting hate" seems to consist of telling people to "Go f--k your mother" and "Kill yourself."

Tough talk... but when former colleague, now boss, Dan Abrams tells him to jump, he asks "How high? And would you like a cocoa-butter handjob?"

Posted by: Ace at 09:16 AM | Comments (17)
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Okay, the good news that you probably know.

Iraqi official claims Al Qaeda is coming to an end in Iraq, and that the government forces now have the upper hand.

Another official says the security situation will improve enough that the US may draw down a significant number of its troops from Iraq by the end of this year, with the last US soldier leaving in 2008.

452 raids since Zarkky bit it, 104 insurgents killed, 750 arrested.

But in an email published prominently by Andrew Sullivan, that's just terrible news:

I cannot support the war in Iraq. Not because I think Saddam was a good leader. Not because I think Iraqis donÂ’t deserve a chance. Not because I think this war we-shouldnÂ’t-have-started has not morphed into the war we-canÂ’t-afford-to-lose.

I cannot support the war in Iraq because after all the lies, the mistakes, the hubris, the Constitution shredding, the cover-ups, the undercover outings and, most importantly, the torture, if we win this war during the Bush presidency, he and his like will take it as a vindication of their actions and they will be emboldened to further damage my country.

This is not Bush bashing. This isn't hyperbole. I truly believe that President Bush is a danger to my country. And winning the Iraq war while he is in office would be the true end of the United States as we know it.

LetÂ’s get Bush out of office.

Every once in a while a liberal lets the mask slips and admits he supports the troops -- the Al Qaeda troops. Because they realize, correctly, that a Bush win in Iraq will be politically disasterous for them. Thus, they and the terrorists are effectively on the same side. As one prospers, so does the other.

And it is crucial to them that we lose this war. If our military isn't losing the war quickly enough for them, well, then, by God, we'll just have to surrender.

We cannot afford to win this war. That is what they believe.

For his part, Sullivan "tepidly" (as Allah says) claims he's in favor of progress in Iraq, no matter who the president is, and then agrees in principle with the emailer, saying it will take America generations to recover from Bush.

Gee-- remember the days when Sullivan wrote of a "fifth column" within America which actively rooted for Al Qaeda? Well, we'll have none of that harsh talk anymore. Now the people he branded as fifth columnists aren't his opponents; they're his audience.

Thanks to Allah at Hot Air for that tip.

Posted by: Ace at 09:05 AM | Comments (27)
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Just read.

Okay, that little wooden q-tip thing was intended as a support for the "Laughing Head."

The museum thought they were separate pieces, and exhibited the small q-tip support independently.

Further, it's sticking to its guns, stating that:

The Academy said the judging panel assumed the two pieces were separate and decided the support was better.

...

In a statement, the Academy said Mr Hensel's work, One Day Closer To Paradise, was submitted as two separate pieces.

"Given their separate submission, the two parts were judged independently.

"It is accepted that works may not be displayed in the way that the artist might have intended."

Thanks to JohnS.

Posted by: Ace at 08:30 AM | Comments (26)
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Good stuff. Unless fake.

As an overall picture, time has been an element in affecting negatively the forces of the occupying countries, due to the losses they sustain economically in human lives, which are increasing with time. However, here in Iraq, time is now beginning to be of service to the American forces and harmful to the resistance for the following reasons:

1. By allowing the American forces to form the forces of the National Guard, to reinforce them and enable them to undertake military operations against the resistance.

2. By undertaking massive arrest operations, invading regions that have an impact on the resistance, and hence causing the resistance to lose many of its elements.

3. By undertaking a media campaign against the resistance resulting in weakening its influence inside the country and presenting its work as harmful to the population rather than being beneficial to the population.

4. By tightening the resistance's financial outlets, restricting its moral options and by confiscating its ammunition and weapons.

5. By creating a big division among the ranks of the resistance and jeopardizing its attack operations, it has weakened its influence and internal support of its elements, thus resulting in a decline of the resistance's assaults.

6. By allowing an increase in the number of countries and elements supporting the occupation or at least allowing to become neutral in their stand toward us in contrast to their previous stand or refusal of the occupation.

7. By taking advantage of the resistance's mistakes and magnifying them in order to misinform.

Dave In Texas has a few more quotes from Zarkky, like "The only chance we have is to get the Americans fighting somebody else (Iran)."

He says the authenticity of the documents has been questioned. Well-- of course they have been!

Look, it's a propaganda war. Al Qaeda knows it, we know it, the Iraqi governmment knows it. It is not inconceivable that the Iraqi Government wrote this up themselves as a bit of psyops to destroy the insurgents' morale.

There's nothing wrong with that... except that our press is ravenously hungry to disprove anything that seems to hurt Al Qaeda, and if they were successful in debunking the documents, it would harm the new Iraqi Government.

Are they real? I don't know. In the documents Zarkky seems more capable of self-criticism and honest evaluation of his situation than I would have guessed. I had pegged him as the Hitler type, ordering around phantom armies and executing generals who dared to tell him he was losing.

More... No wonder the media and the left are so suspicious of the documents. They expressly name them as assets in Zarkky's strategy:

Based on the above points, it became necessary that these matters should be treated one by one:

1. To improve the image of the resistance in society, increase the number of supporters who are refusing occupation and show the clash of interest between society and the occupation and its collaborators. To use the media for spreading an effective and creative image of the resistance.

Stingray asks, “How successful was al-Zarqawi in enlisting the American mainstream media to turn the American people against the war?”

I'm a pessimist and a cynic, but my reaction here is a cop's skepticism upon learning that a woman hated by her husband has "cooincidentally" been "accidentally" killed: "No one gets that lucky."

Posted by: Ace at 08:20 AM | Comments (81)
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