And took pictures of him naked, and made him wear a diaper.

What an ingrate. Usually I have to pay $50 for that kind of treatment.

It's not that I necessarily disbelieve that US interrogators sometimes resort to psychosexual humilitaion against terrorists. It's that I don't care.

As LGF points out, the NYT once again breezes by powerful circumstantial evidence that this guy's a terrorist in order to depict him, credulously, as an innocent-as-a-lamb victim.

And, as Charles notes, they claim sexual abuse a lot. Almost in a... hungry, wistful way.

Like the terrorist who claims he was actually raped by women.

Uh-huh.

Andrew Sullivan, by the way, apparently somewhat clueless about the mechanics of male-female sexual coupling, hyped the terrorist's account as plausible.

And, of course, chilling.

Posted by: Ace at 04:14 PM | Comments (37)
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I know, I know. They've always been revolting. But now they're rebelling.

Kinda interesting post by a Kos diarist who admits to feeling scared to write on the issue of Kosola due to the masses of slavering Krazy Kos Kultists ready to defend their man.

And she's got some questions about how Kos makes his endorsement decisions. Why was he so quick to throw Kos Kid Paul Hackett under the bus for evil establishment-blessed Sherrod Brown?

In fairness to Kos himself, he has not, as of yet anyway, deleted the post.

It's a little whiny, though, I think. Like in this update:

If I were not completely against it in a philosophical sense, I would delete this diary right now. As is not unusual, many people have cherry picked issues and portions of the diary, seized upon them and are having a fine time criticising the entire diary on the merits of those portions of it. Which is not surprising, but still hard to take.

Honestly, I regret posting this here at DKos. I don't regret ANYTHING I said in the text or in the comments, but it's fucking exhausting trying to respond to 300 people at once, especially when some of the most vocal and vitriolic commenters are people with whom I have heretofore had good relationships -- and will evidently NOT have good relationships henceforward.

I remember Andrew Sullivan complaining how he was losing audience as he, umm, "evolved" into the "true consevative" he is now (by which I mean "not a conservative"). No one really has any "right" to an audience. You say something your audience doesn't like, and they might just desert you.

It's life. There really is no loyalty in entertainment or news-blogging. People don't have the time to be "loyal." They go to sites they like for their own enjoyment, not out of a sense of obligation. Oh, there's some loyalty, of course, but not an endless supply.

I wouldn't be at all happy if you retards all deserted me, but I hope that, should it happen, I also won't whine about it like Andrew Sullivan did.

"Maryscott" at Kos isn't whining like Sullivan, but, you know, either say what you think or don't, but don't complain that an audience shouldn't react badly to something you say.

The Kos Kids are crazy. They want crazy 24/7/365. Gotta feed the crazy jones.

She knew what she was getting into when she started posting there. And she's one of the Kraziest Kos Kids of them all.

Props for daring to acknowledge the pink elephant in the room, though.

Eh. It's been a big week for crazy. I'm kind of tired of it.

There's something about these internet tubes that warps the mind, I think.

Why More Bloggers Ain't On TV: Maryscott O'Connor, doing her level-best to convince the MSM she is not, in fact, a lunatic.

Allah is shocked that that woman can, in a glam shot, look like this, at least for 1/48th of a second.

Not that she's really super-hot there. But you can really see the difference between a kind camera and an unkind one.

Does this prove the WaPo hates lefty bloggers? Well, I think the MSM hates most bloggers, and yeah, probably hates the lefty bloggers more than the righties, because they don't care about us. They care about the opinions of people like Maryscott, and are hurt by their criticism.

Ours they just ignore. We're beneath them, no-account, not even worth the anger.

Oh: And it occurs to me the WaPo might have treated her like a mental patient because she is, in actuality, a mental patient.

You know what the key to life is?

Not raving like a lunatic.

If you can avoid that, you're halfway there.

(I will lay off the comma-in-fact-comma tic for a little while. And I'll try to avoid calling people insane. As long as they stop freakin' baiting me into calling them crazy.)

Posted by: Ace at 02:23 PM | Comments (54)
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Huh? Wha? Fut the wuck?

What did she contribute, exactly? Her theories that 9/11 was an inside job? If so, why tell the FBI? Presumably they were in on it.

I talked about 9/11 conspiracy theories in my Research Methods class a few weeks ago. Afterwards, a student lent me a copy of a video called In Plane Site that has some fascinating footage of the planes crashing into the two towers and of the Pentagon immediately after the crash there.

It’s a little overwhelming trying to sift through the enormous amount of information on the web claiming that there are anomalies about the standard 9/11 story. One of the strangest anomalies is a picture from the Plane Site video showing just how tiny the hole in the Pentagon was that was allegedly produced by a 757. There’s one shot that is really shocking – you see the hole punched in the wall at the Pentagon and then you can see inside the Pentagon into an adjacent room that is still intact. There’s a book open on a stool that is not singed or burned – it looks perfectly normal. How could a 757 with 8000 gallons of jet fuel crash into a building and not have any effect on a book a few feet away from impact?

In thinking about whether there is reason to be suspicious of the standard story, the thing that I find most interesting is the huge difference in attention paid to the different events. Think about how much youÂ’ve seen and read about the collapse of the towers and how little youÂ’ve seen and read about the crash at the Pentagon. ShouldnÂ’t there be some media curiosity about how security at the PENTAGON was breached almost an hour after the first plane crashed into the WTC? ShouldnÂ’t there be some curiosity about how such a big plane full of fuel caused such little damage?

Speaking of conspiracy theories, there was a fascinating article in the New York Times on Sunday by Theodore Sorenson and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. about John F. Kennedy’s plan to end the Vietnam War. Their op-ed piece states that at a press conference on November 14, 1963, Kennedy said “That is our object, to bring Americans home.” Ten days later he was dead. Coincidence? Or was ending the Vietnam War unacceptable to the power structure in war$hington, d.c.?

Discussing 9/11 conspiracy theories with her class?

Also, I'm having an interesting exchange on the abbeyweb about the aa77@pentagon 911 conspiracy theory. So far, I'm the only Mulder.

...

It doesn?t seem crazy to me to wonder whether aa77 crashed someone other than the Pentagon (over the Atlantic, for example) and a much smaller, military plane or missile hit the Pentagon the morning of September 11, 2001.

A lot of things don't seem crazy to you, Deb. Because you're not hooked up right.

Hypothesis: AA77 crashed somewhere over the Atlantic. A military plane crashed into the Pentagon.

Hypothesis: Animals become agitated and spooked in your presence.

The big question here is WHY. Was there someone inside the US military who was in on the plot with al Qaeda? Was it an accident, as the military scrambled to defend against the invasion?

A bigger question is HOW. How did the military arrange for this 40 minutes after the planes hit the WTC?

An even bigger question is WHEN. When will Deb's doctor finally hit the correct dosage?

She also cites a guy for the proposition that 9/11 was part of the "larger oil game" to seize oil before the "peak oil crisis" hits.

(BTW, the peak oil crisis isn't so crazy; it just postulates, basically, that we're running out and about to hit the point at which supply can no longer keep up with demand, no matter how much more you drill. Heck, we might be in the early stages of that now. The crazy part is suggesting that the US Government engineered 9/11 as a pretext for... well, not seizing any of the oil in Saudi Arabia or Iraq.)

She links this conspiracy film about the Pentagon strike as well.

Post title: what REALLY happened on 911?

Hyperlink: aa77@pentagon=lie?

Hey, Deb, seriously. I have a pet theory that conspiracy-theory-mongering is a low-intensity form of paranoid schizophrenia. Since you're in the field of sychology, can you refer me to any academic papers that explore this link?

Or am I, you know, just diagnosably insane to suggest such a lunatic theory?

A Riff In The Style of Jeff Goldstein:

"You've got a lot of hate in you, Deb.
One day that hate is gonna burn you up."

Deb: It keeps me warm.

"Still. The burning and all."

Deb: Do you have any prepubescent children?

Or is that more Wuzzadem?

Hokay... I hope that is my very last Frisch post, and the last time I'll even have to write that name.

But I suspect it won't be.

I Already Lied: Sorry. Talk Left condemns She Who Won't Be Named, but that's easy-peasey, as apparently she considers Goldstein a friend.

Many of her readers, however, are not about to stop defending the indefensible. After all, they've had so much practice getting good at it.

It's what they do. It's all they do. more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:31 PM | Comments (33)
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Link Fixed. Sorry, Allah changed the URL.

Also, an Update everyone probably knows about. Frisch did indeed tender her resignation.

...

Every time I try to get out, they pull me back in.

She's making various suggestions that Goldstein has doctored her quotes or, oddly enough, taken down his own blog to bury the evidence... against her.

Soon we'll be hearing she was "taken out of context," just being "ironic," or, with apologies to Ice-T, "just playing a character."

Michelle Malkin is checking to see if Deb Frisch really resigned. I suspect it doesn't matter if she did or not, because there seems to be someone in the university's administration with the same last name as hers.

I'm guessing this is more of an arranged sabbatical than a resignation. Once the heat's off, the guy who just happens to share her last name will get her on the staff again.

Again, just speculation. But "Frisch" isn't a very common name, now is it? And with all apologies to my "new buddy," but I just can't imagine how someone with her intellect landed any kind of university gig without some help.

"War$hington"? How oxymoronic.

If this cat who's also named "Frisch" is related to Deborah at all: Sir, your daughter, or niece, or whatever, needs some help with her "issues."

PS: I wouldn't contact the guy named Frisch, because he's not necessarily related to her, and he doesn't seem responsible for hiring or disciplining staff.

Seriously. Even if he is related, you can't persuade family to go against family. And I suspect Deb has caused her family more troubles than she's caused Goldstein's family, anyway. They're victims too.

Goldstein seems to be getting results. Someone must have talked to the loon, as she doesn't seem the sort to offer even a faux-apology of her own volition.

Posted by: Ace at 11:54 AM | Comments (44)
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Warning: Headline may be slightly Dowdified.

Facing criticism, potential 2008 presidential candidate Joe Biden on Friday defended his recent remark that "you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent."

The Delaware senator said his words were taken out of context.

Taken out of context? How original.

...

The senator said he has had an "incredibly strong" relationship with the Indian-American community in Delaware and that his comment was misinterpreted.

"I was making the point that up until now in my state, we've had a strong Indian community made up of leading scientists and researchers and engineers," Biden said. Lately, he said: "We're having middle- class people move to Delaware, take over Dunkin' Donuts, take over businesses, just like other immigrant groups have, and I was saying that ... they're growing, it's moving."

"I could have said that 40 years ago about walking into a delicatessen and saying an Italian accent in my state," Biden added.

He then added he was proud to see Indian-Americans advancing in the Slurpee and Slim-Jim dispensing industries, and that he really admired Indian heroes like the enforcer from Octopussy and Mola Ram from Temple of Doom.

"Soon, Kali-Mal will rule the world," the snazzy-collared blowhard Senator said. "And I'm not joking."

Posted by: Ace at 11:31 AM | Comments (12)
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Sheesh. The worst of both worlds. Old-country arranged marriage provincialism, new-world lawsuit-happy Saul Rosenbergism.

Massachusetts man whose family traveled all the way to India to check out a possible bride for his son is suing the womanÂ’s relatives because she was too ugly and unpolished for his baby boy.


In his lawsuit, Dr. Vijai Pandey of Belchertown claims his wife, son and daughter were “shocked” to discover the Indian woman was “ugly with dark complexion and protruded bad teeth and couldn’t speak English to carry on conversation.”


Pandey then called off the arranged marriage, according to the lawsuit posted on the Web site thesmokinggun.com


“I felt cheated, really, and there was no remorse from the other side, like it was our mistake,” Pandey told the Herald yesterday. “I felt taken advantage of.”

No remorse for being ugly?

Remember that thing about her "dark complexion"? Well, she obviously isn't good enough for the doctor's kid, because he's light-skinned.

Pandey pointed out that his youngest son was “extremely handsome” had a “fair complexion” and spoke English. Pandey said in the lawsuit that he was assurred compensation if Savita wasn’t “beautiful and suitable,” the lawsuit claims.

...

Again with the complexion:

In the lawsuit, Pandey claims the Giris sent him a picture of Savita but he “couldn’t tell much about Savita’s complexion and beauty from it.”


...

Note that he got a picture. If the picture wasn't clear enough, and a "light complexion" was so crucial to him, should't he have asked for a better picture before jetting off to New Dehli?

Pandey is suing for $200,000 to cover travel expenses, other expenses and emotional distress.

Dr. Pandey will also be suing all of you, as well as the people you work with and handle.

Unless you have a "fair complexion." In which case, you just might get to marry his son.

Man, if this guy is suing for "emotional distress," I can't wait for the countersuit by the girl deemed too ugly and dark-skinned to be marriagable.

Posted by: Ace at 10:28 AM | Comments (22)
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Pirates sequel has biggest opening in Hollywood history.

Wow.

Here's the thing. When I saw the first Pirates movie, I liked it an awful lot. It's strange, but despite what seems like a natural for Hollywood -- pirates, with swordfighting, chandelier-swinging, ships broadsiding each other with cannons -- they haven't made a decent pirate movie since Captain Blood, and oh, by the way, that sucked too, I don't care what anyone says.

So they finally made a good pirate movie.

But -- have any of you watched it again?

Rewatching the movie is... well, not quite painful, but you do sit there wondering what on earth you found so charming about it the first time around. And the ending, which was overly-busy and overly plotty and draggged on first viewing now seems interminable.

Another thing... I don't want to have to turn in my Heterosexual Membership Card, but on first viewing, Keria Knightly was supernova-hot. On watching it again... eh.

Reviews for the sequel have said stuff like there's so much going on in this movie you eventually sort of enjoy it, but you feel "bullied" into it.

I'm sure I'll see it, but, as with Superman, I don't really feel the urgency of seeing it.

Posted by: Ace at 09:58 AM | Comments (45)
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She also says she's gotten threats, which is definitely not cool.

In a post called "white flag," she writes:

I wrote some inflammatory comments at a blog by a guy named Jeff Goldstein called protein wisdom that infuriated many bloggers and commenters. Many of these bloggers emailed my boss at the University of Arizona to tell on me.

In hindsight, the things I wrote were over the line of nastiness. I apologize to Mr. Goldstein.

I have resigned from the University of Arizona so there is no need for other enraged people to write to administrators there.

Some blogs have posted comments that I perceive to be physically threatening. I have contacted the FBI and the Pajamas Media staff to determine how to proceed with this aspect of this unbelievable experience.

My intention in this post is to de-escalate the situation. The comments that started this all were nasty, not threatening. But I feel very threatened by the response.

Jeff - I lost my job. You won. Could you call off the troops?

She says she wasn't fired, but resigned, and wasn't even pressured to resign. Not sure why she would resign then, but whatever.

No word on whether she'll be attending anger-management therapy.

Goldstein did turn her into a verb. Nice.

I'm not sure whether it's proper to gloat, but really, she did cross the line pretty badly, and she does need help.

Thanks to "Todd" and Pupster.

Hmmmm... I question the timing.

I wonder if this "resignation" is of the permanent kind, or of the temporary kind, lasting just long enough for the controversy to blow over.

And will this woman be getting any psychiatric help? I guess she wouldn't admit that in a post.

And, damnit, what did Blackfive say that he gets all the Frisch-love? What the hell do I have to do to get a name-check?

Posted by: Ace at 08:49 AM | Comments (208)
Post contains 327 words, total size 2 kb.

What's this?

CENTER OF MANAGEMENT AND LAW / PRESIDENT

For that, we order Dr. Hazem Anwar Alnasery, assigned to the Health Department Center, and Dr Mothny Abas, president of the Central Health Testing Department, to be members of the Anthrax Operation Room. This order will not cancel the previous order assigned to Dr. Mostafa Fathee, president of the Central Health Testing Department and president of the Health Research Institute. Thanks.

Signed
Zohir Saeed Abd Elsalam
10/13/2002

Maybe they were just fans of the band Anthrax, and the "Anthrax Operation Room" plotted ways of getting them to tour in Tikrit.

And maybe they wanted to disperse the band, in weaponized, sub-15-micron size, by airborne deliverys systems:

An appendage to the Biological Committee Decision, on 10 March 2002, subsequent to the biological activity combined list review, that was received after the delegate’s return from Moscow, and in reference to the concluded meeting convened on 10 April 2002, [when] the (GRL) draft list study was completed. – The Biological Section is evaluating what is shown in the third revised attachment for the continuous observation and examination plan. - The grades are subject to change according to the automation of export and import controls, according to resolution 1051 (1996) issued in document No. (S / 2001 / 560) which shows us the following:

...

a. Paragraph 7-1 from the revised statement and the (GRL) draft about the aircraft sprayers that are able to scatter dust. The dispensing percentage exceeds the one liter suspended liquid per minute or 10 grams of the dry substance per minute, therefore the size of the aerosol or dust portions were increased to the size of (15) microns or less.

From 2002. And from the bioweapons scientist called "Dr. Germ," too.

Thanks to RocketsBrain.

Posted by: Ace at 08:17 PM | Comments (36)
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Everyone's been wondering who would be the next Elvis, the next Beatles, the next Sex Pistols, the next Nirvana.

Turns out it's Justin Timberlake. To give myself props, I had him on my top-five list of music revolutionaries. (I had Patrick Swayze as number one, because, you know, She's Like The Wind is one of the most controversial singles ever cut, and I figured he's due for a comeback.)

U.S. singer and heartthrob Justin Timberlake wants to push the boundaries of pop music with a new album, "FutureSex/LoveSounds", that marks a departure from his earlier chart-topping style, he said on Friday.

Timberlake's first solo album, "Justified", sold more than seven million copies and the 25-year-old, whose relationship with Hollywood actress Cameron Diaz is a regular feature in tabloid newspapers, has also moved into acting.

His new album is due to be released on September 11.

"I realize that I have a platform to push the sound of pop music. That's the only responsibility that I put on myself in recording the album," Timberlake told a news conference at the start of a promotional tour.

"If I'm not going to push it, then who's going to push it?"

Indeed! Who else but Justin Timberlake. I do not overstate matters when I say that Justin Timberlake is to music what Albert Einstein is... to music.

Again, that's Jeffrey Ross' joke, though he probably stole it from someone else.

Banning Advice Needed: A commenter -- probably an otherwise valuable one -- has crossed the line as far as I'm concerned.

Defending Justin Timberlake -- Justin Timberlake! -- he writes:

Not to defend the 'Lake, but "Cry Me a River" was, by pop-chart standards, pretty weird-sounding and oddly constructed, like a long-lost old Prince song or something.

I really don't think we need this sort of person posting here, no matter how witty or insightful his other comments may be. I'm not sure I want to live in a world where I voluntarily associate with someone who defends "the 'Lake."

If you have an opinion, let me know.

Not to Frisch on anyone, but this "person" isn't even human to me. If someone went all Richard Speck on his skull, I don't think I could care less.

Posted by: Ace at 06:06 PM | Comments (84)
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