Because covering the War for Western Civilization is so draining, man.

Coverage of GenCon. If you know what it is, you'll click; if you don't know what it is, there's no point trying to explain it to you.

Rumor: D&D 4th edition might be announced.

Great. I just got done coverting all my old "modules" to be 3.5 compliant. Sigh. You know what a bitch it was to give every single monster in the Vault of the Drow feats? It's like a whole city, man.

Thanks to Anonymous Geek for that.

And here are some inspirational posters with a Star Trek theme.

Via Locusts & Honey.

And this was linked in an unrelated post, but it makes more sense here. Glenn Greenwald's favorite inspirational poster, from Litvshe.

Republican. Looks like Kevin Smith or George Lucas, except with droopy eyelids and a chubby face and geek glasses. Makes crap money blogging. Speaks slower than Steven Hawking. Spends half the day linking stuff about Dungeons & Dragons.

It never ceases to amaze me that I'm not on a never-ending Tookie Slaughter with da ladies.

What a catch I am.

Posted by: Ace at 02:03 PM | Comments (33)
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Hm! Surveillance! Watching, monitoring, intercepting phone calls and emails, shadowing, bugging?

This crap actually works?

I'm so conflicted. On one hand, I would like to not be murdered when I attempt to fly or use public transportation.

But on the other hand, I am extremely concerned, well-nigh chagrined, at the thought of infringing upon precious civil liberties and privacy rights of people plotting to kill us 24 hours a day.

I am very worried that Britain has chosen the wrong "balance" here. If six to nine airplanes had to be blown up, with 1200 to 3000 casualties, in order to insure that these Youths of Undetermined Ethnic Extraction were not subjected to the scary-intrusive monitoring of the state -- well, I'm afraid I have to say, along with Dick Durbin and Ned Lamont and Harry Reid, that's more important that these YOUEE's retain all their privacy rights than up to 3000 innocent civilians retain their lives.

Because that's what the Constitution -- both the American one, and the kinda-fake British unwritten one -- demand.

Come on, Baby: Don't fear the reaper. We can be like Romeo and Juliette.

Or like Ned Beatty and the Backwoods Buggerer in Deliverance. Either/or. It's all good, baby.

Nedrenaline?

Lamont has been an outspoken critic of Lieberman for his support of the war in Iraq and his voting record on issues such as judicial appointments and intelligence-gathering techniques.

He has said he hopes to gain the support of disillusioned Democrats who oppose the war, as well as the nomination and confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and the controversisal renewal of the Patriot Act.

Via Ned Lamont's own website... for the moment.

Someone screencap that badboy.

Thanks to See-Dub, who thinks he's right just because he has "facts" to back his absurd claims up.

Detonator Was To Be MP3 Player: Cannibalized or used to smuggle in a timer, I suppose.

Did I mention I hate iPods? If you're walking around with an iPod, you're on the side of the terrorists.

H/t to Protein Wisdom, who appallingly attempts to link this to Lamont's electoral fortunes, and who then digustingly argues against the notion that this was Britain's comeuppance for supporting George Bush.

Gob. Smackingly. Vile.

Posted by: Ace at 01:28 PM | Comments (22)
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The Godfather of Open Threads, the Hardest Workin' Man in the Blogosphere, is not simply putting up open threads today.

There's big doings afoot, and he's on top of it.

He covers all the big stories -- a column by Ann Coulter he doesn't like, Jon Stewart making fun of Joe Lieberman, other Lamont/Lieberman crap, spats with TNR's Marty Peretz and Slate's Jacob Weisberg, the need to immediately withdraw from Iraq (without even linking it to the Terror Bust -- seems like a deliberately missed opportunity to me), etc.

Nary a single reference to the terrorist plot.

Not.

A.

Single.

Reference.

Ah, well. It's not like it's big news or anything. Must keep focused on the Big Issues, and the Big Issues are, of course, Lamont and Lieberman.

You know-- they accuse Bush of staging this terror bust just to distract them from the important Lamont-Lieberman contest.

And yet-- they are not at all distracted, are they?

Radio-silent. Message-focused. Reality-denying. Townhouse-conspiring.

Smart, tough.

Layers.

PS: Many Lamont-supporting lefties are wailing at the suggestion that this helps Lieberman. Why, Netroots Neddy has a smarter plan to take on terrorism than Joe Lieberman! So why should this be spun as a reason to vote for Lieberman?

Well... if you believe that... why are all you basket-case Lamont lovers embargoing the story?

Surely if Lamont could do a more effective job preventing terrorism as a Senator, you'd want to highlight this story rather than completely ignoring it?

Wouldn't you?

Hm?

Now, actually, I don't personally believe that this has much impact on the Lieberman-Lamont race at all. See-Dub suggested that to me last night, and I sort of shrugged, and said, "Well, it depends on how strongly he's committed himself to the civil-rights-at-all-costs position." The Iraq thing doesn't have a lot to do with this directly.

But... while I might not believe this "helps" Lieberman, it sure seems the unhinged Lamont-loving left believes just that.

Or else they wouldn't be so careful to absolutely embargo a major story.

Posted by: Ace at 11:57 AM | Comments (32)
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shawn keeps asking about the possibility of simply smuggling these bottles of liquid explosives in body cavities.

Hitting the wayback machine, to the first week of this blog, I noted a report from the (sensationalistic, trashy) tabloid the UK Mirror about Al Qaeda plans to smuggle plastic explosives in the, uhh, naughty parts of female terrorists.

Long story short, intelligence sources say that Al Qaeda has female suicide plane-bombers who intend to smuggle ten ounces of plastic explosives in their vaginas. They'd then take the explosives out in the privacy of the bathroom and detonate the plane. They'd like especially to blow up a plane over a major Western city-- Washington, DC is named in particular.

So, perhaps back to Plan A. The only reason this isn't done more, I suspect, is that terrorism is very definitely more of a male thing, and male terrorists are too homophobic to stick anything up their bungs. Kind of takes the sheen off of "Jihadist Holy Warrior Glory" when part of the battle is wrestling a high-explosive anal intruder up your squeakhole.

Something occurred to me a while ago. I realize many will take this as an enormously invasive tactic -- even those on the right.

But given the shenanigans that can go on in a bathroom, is it time to put video cameras in there, or optic-cable peepholes?

Before you say -- NO WAY! -- hang on. I have another suggestion. All airplane bathrooms will have a fold-down desktop style thing to cover your privates as you actually sit upon the john. (Men will have to become sitters when they pee, too, or sitztinkers, or whatever the Germans call it, or else just stand up like a man and let their freak-flag fly for the crew to see.)

Now-- invasive, yes. But with the partition over your lap, no one can actually see your dirty parts. What the crew would be looking for is strange and unexpected fiddling with the dirty bits that doesn't look like wiping.

I'm just throwing this out there. I do think this is a real problem. Anti-terrorism is like wack-a-mole-- hit one mole, and another one pops up.

PS... For any who care, that link should take you to the first page ever of this blog, from the first post, called, ingeniously enough, "First Post," to the second post, which is a now-dated, but still chuckleworthy, parody of "The Raven," called "The Donkey."

Posted by: Ace at 11:47 AM | Comments (35)
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I warned Slublog once about this. I don't want to take candy from a baby, but if the baby keeps sticking it in my mouth, well, eventually, I'm takin' the damn lolipop.

Late last night a Muslim apologist on CNN international was saying Muslims won't cooperate with police inquiries because they feel "finger of blame" is always pointed at them.

Well, there's a good reason for that. Muslims are almost always guilty of these crimes.

(Note: to say almost all terrorists are Muslims is NOT to say that almost all Muslims or terrorists. Check your Venn diagram to confirm this.)

It's about time they stop fantasizing themselves as the forever-maligned and admitted they have killers and savages in their midst, and they are, through their slience, protecting those killers and savages and permitting them to murder innocent people.

There is nothing more injurious than a perpetual, and entirely unwarranted, belief that one is a "victim." You're not victims. WE are all the victims. You are the people who offer them social sanctuary out of a combination of fear, identity-politics solidarity, misguided tribal loyalty, and the irrational conceit that, somehow, these Muslims who keep killing people or trying to are either justified or framed.

Last And now CAIR, forever worried about "backlash" against Muslims after Muslims kill people, objects to the term Islmaic Fascist.

We believe this is an ill-advised term and we believe that it is counter-productive to associate Islam or Muslims with fascism," said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations advocacy group. "We ought to take advantage of these incidents to make sure that we do not start a religious war against Islam and Muslims," he told a news conference in Washington. "We urge him (Bush) and we urge other public officials to restrain themselves.

Restrain themselves? That IS the restrained form of the descriptor. It is an attempt to seperate peaceful Muslims from the jihadists, by differently describing jihadists as not simply "Muslims," but "Islamic Fascists."

If we drop that praseology, you know what descriptor we're left with? Just plain old "Muslims."

What CAIR really seeks is for the world to stop noticing at all that the people forever jacking off to Al Qaeda murder-porn are all -- all -- Muslims.

Sorry. Reality is a little more important to me than "sensitivity" to a group that has not shown much "sensitivity" to non-Muslims' legitimate desire to not be murdered in large numbers.

So here is my considered, deliberate, and thoughtful respnse to that demand:

Fuck you, Terrorist Sympathizer. Fuck off, and die alone.

Quoting Myself:

"Is it just me, or is your first reaction after turning on the news and hearing someone say 'We must try harder to understand Islam' to wonder, 'Oh God, what did they blow up now?'"

Thanks to Christopher Taylor for the reminder. He's a damn good commenter on this site, and he has a damn fine blog, too. You should check it out.

Allah Has This Too... Plus video of Bush's remarks on the matter.

His one-word comment on CAIR's whining about the injustice of non-Muslims trying to protect themselves from Islamofascist mass-murder?

"Clockwork."

Pithy. It has great pith.*

* Where?

Shocker: Plotters Had Connections To 7/7 Tube Bombers: First CAIR takes the opportunity to make demands on America, now we find out these bastards are all conspiring with each other. It's a day of constant surprises.

Also a bit about the sort of explosive that was to be used:

...hydrogen peroxide-based liquid/slurry explosives in modified sports drinks bottles...

Again, I think the "bottled milk exception" is a potentially lethal loophole.

Posted by: Ace at 10:38 AM | Comments (55)
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I'm getting sick to death of being right all the time.

First captions of two photos of dead girl: Israeli airstrike killed her.

Later correction: She died from headwounds due to falling from a swingset; the Israeli srike just happened to occur at at about the same time, elsewhere.

Hurricane Katrina again, in full effect. Report all rumors and claims from interested parties as if they are verified, vetted facts.

Get the lie out as soon as possible. When you have the time -- if you have the time -- determine the actual facts and publish a minor correction that has 1/10th of the impact of the initial dishonest story.

Contract With The Old Media: Analog Kid proposes a contract between the Old Media and Young Media that will, hopefully, result in more accurate coverage.

Posted by: Ace at 10:22 AM | Comments (19)
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This seems like good news, and I'll take it as such.

However-- not to overly denigrate the Brits' response to the 7/7 mass-murders, but there was, I thought, a certain blaseness, a kind of pride in not taking the mass-murders all that seriously.

Yes, it's one thing to not panic, to show the reserve the Brits are justifiably famous for. It's another thing to be phlegmatic or blithe about such things.

I apologize for critizing the Brits for their response to their own 9/11. Reactions to tragedy are personal, and often idiosyncratic according to one's culture. I'm sure that many Brits thought the American response to 9/11 was sometimes maudlin, and sometimes stupid, with calls from many (on the left, natch) for "healing" and "closure."

On that latter point, of course, I quite agree.

But honestly, I saw so many reports where people just pluckily said, "Ah, life goes on. What can you do. Carry on and stiff upper lip and all that rot."

Pluckiness is good. But pluckiness combined with seriousness would be better.

I hope this current "Blitz Spirit" is a combination of both unwillingness to be cowed and a determination to cow the cowards as well.

Posted by: Ace at 10:15 AM | Comments (11)
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Some people have decided that the war on terror is passe. But although you may not be interested in terrorism, terrorism is still interested in you.

--by Heh.

I suppose that this will remind people of 9/11. So should this nicely done film released on the eve of 9/11's five year anniversary.

Five years.

It doesn't seem that long ago.

It sure seems to be ancient history to some, though.

Thanks to Craig for that.

More...

ABC News: Two "signinficant arrests" recently in Pakistan may have unraveled the plot.

Michelle Malkin would like to know if the chuckleheads at the BBC still find the "Terror Awards Show" funny.

In this case, it's a lack of familiarity -- with reality -- that breeds contempt.

A Broad Strata of British-Born Asian Men: Michelle notes helpfully that the proper spelling of the mispelled word "Asian" is "Muslim."

Thanks to several readers/commenters for that tip, and the "broad strata" joke.

Daily Kos Diarist Actually Makes Sense: Pleads with his fellow lunatics to stop indulging in absurd conspiracy theories and timing questionings.

ometimes dKos can be so very disappointing.

Here's some basic facts that some people seem to be having trouble dealing with regarding this morning's news of a thwarted terrorist attack. If you wrote a diary or comment this morning about how bullshit these latest threats are, please print this out and tape it to your monitor.

* bluesteel's diary :: ::
*

1) Terrorists genuinely exist and are trying to kill innocent people, regardless of anything done by George W Bush.

2) Not all reporting done on terrorist attacks is produced in order to cover up something else.

3) Not all reporting about terrorism designed to keep people scared.

4) The thwarting of a major attack is genuinely newsworthy.

His commenters, by and large, are either not having it, or saying, basically, "Yeah, you make a good point, but I don't put anything past Bush."

One commenter makes some sense:

[It was] Not Diversionary...

I don't think ... why ...

* Came after the Lamont-Lieberman primary, not the eve of ...

Ummm, good point, but one lost on your fellow maniacs. They said the same thing after Zarqawi was killed-- that it had been "timed" to convince the voters in California's District 50 that they had voted, correctly, for the Republican.

But, ummmm...

If you really wanted to time that, wouldn't you have killed Zarqawi before the election?

Not only do they question the timing of event occurring before elections, they question the timing of events occurring after them, because, uhhhh, the Bush administration wants to let voters know they made the right call in elections that have already passed.

The question-the-timing morons don't realize that not a single day in America is more than either one year before, or one year after, an election.

Thanks to Slublog, who's got blog-fever, pumping out all sorts of good stuff.

Posted by: Ace at 09:27 AM | Comments (27)
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"Keep filming! ... Better shots must be taken!"

Click the pic above for the blogswarm, as linked by Newsbusters.

Why is a "Civil Defense Rescuer" giving orders to the "independent media"?

And why was he at the first Qana massacre as well?

And why the eff did the media not earlier track down exactly who this guy was, despite constant questions about him from the dextrosphere?

Were they "intellectually incurious"? Or did they just not want to know the answer?

Also, Anderson Cooper, to his great credit, was pretty damn upfront about Hezbollah's censoring/massaging the news coming out of territory it controlled. Which is what I've been asking for. I understand there are compromises that must be made for safety's sake, but damnit, if you don't tell the public about these compromises, you're lying to them, plain and simple. And it would be better to not report at all than to report a Hezbollywood lie.

Old take on Anderson Cooper: Total douche

New Take on Anderson Cooper: Not a total douche at all

Both at this post at Hot Air.

Posted by: Ace at 08:43 AM | Comments (31)
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They definitely question the timing.

And isn't it queer that the emergency is declared within a day of Republican party leader Ken Mehlman launching an all-out offensive against Democrats following Joe Lieberman's loss in Connecticut, an offensive in which Mehlman, the White House and Republican operatives are claiming that Democrats no longer care about national security or the war on terror.

And just at that moment we get our FIRST ever red alert. Beam me up, Scotty.

Well I don't know if I'm technically authorized to give the order, but... Engage.

Engage like the wind.

Mary Katherine Ham -- as usual, the ants the picnic, the poop in the punchbowl -- splashes cold water on this "interesting theory."

Made sense to me. I was about to slap the flaming skull on this astounding citizen journalist scoop from the sinistrosphere.

Via Lorie Byrd, who was also up late live-blogging, and has lots of links.

Additional Reportage: Ned Flanders vs. Ned Lamont: A Comparison In Four Boxes.

Unrelated Update To Previous Post: Not sure how the hell I missed this inspirational poster for geeks. Glenn Greenwald, I'm told, actualy printed this out. It hangs proudly in his mudroom.

Thanks to Litvshe.

Heh: ABP notes that the "pro-Bush candidate," often seen necking with George Bush, got 48% of the vote in a Democratic primary.

Thanks to Heh.

Posted by: Ace at 08:18 AM | Comments (27)
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