Because, the UK Independent believes, France fears Iran's proxy terrorist army Hizballah shooting at its peacekeepers in Lebanon if it supports the US position.

Isn't the UN supposed to attempt to avoid wars?

They're making war unavoidable, as there are simply no options short of war it is willing to contemplate, let alone support.

Fine. There will be a war.

Irrelevancy Alert: The left-leaning Council on Foreign Relations will meet with Ahmadinejad in NYC.

Posted by: Ace at 07:59 AM | Comments (20)
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Polls, polls, polls.

Bush at 44%, his best showing in a year.

Amid falling gas prices and a two-week drive to highlight his administration's efforts to fight terrorism, President Bush's approval rating has risen to 44% in a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. That's his highest rating in a year.

The poll also showed likely voters evenly divided between Democratic and Republican candidates for Congress, 48%-48%. Among registered voters, Democrats had a 51%-42% advantage.

...

Bush's approval rating has edged up largely on the strength of Republicans coming back to the fold — 86% with him now compared with 70% in May.

...

The new poll found likely voters more prone to vote for candidates who support Bush on terrorism, 45%-28%, and evenly divided on those who support and oppose Bush on Iraq. More than a quarter said Iraq is their top concern this fall. For the first time since December 2005, a majority of people did not say the war there was a mistake; the split was 49%-49%.

Bush's terror-fighting techniques drew mixed reviews. A 55%-42% majority supported his policy of wiretapping phone conversations between U.S. citizens here and suspected terrorists in other countries without getting a court order.

But by 48%-41%, people said it would be worse to convict defendants on evidence they are never shown, as Bush wants, than to let some suspected terrorists go free. And 57% said the United States should abide by the Geneva Conventions that bar humiliating and degrading treatment of prisoners; Bush wants to write U.S. standards that critics such as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., say would weaken protections.

That last bit surprises me. 57% support McCain on this?

A Democrat offered negative spin.

Democratic pollster Geoffrey Garin said Bush's approval goes up and down with each poll, and the even division of likely voters has been constant for a month. "There's no momentum here," he said. "The story is Republicans at a standstill."

Well, even if the division of likely voters has been even "for a month," that still means that this is a fairly new development, even if only the parties have been polling likely voters.

It does seem that much of the GOP's gain, though, comes from the simple fact that polling companies are now switching over from polls of registered voters (or even just plain old adults) to likely voters. Which means the gains are largely on paper, but which also means that Republicans were never in quite as bad a shape as they seemed. So why were they all freaking out?

That said, there's also a genuine change in GOP fortunes. Maybe the public reads into things like a chapter of the Democratic Party planning a screening of Loose Change as a party building/fundraising stunt. They've since cancelled the event, but they wanted to show the film.

A lot of it has to do with gas prices. Jim Geraghty catches the St Petersburg Times still yammering on about how voters are angry about gas prices, failing to note the rather big news that gas prices are plummeting and the voters aren't quite so angry anymore.

And speaking of gas prices: JohnS sends me a link debunking claims of a conspiracy theory by "BigOil" to dump the price of gas and therefore get Bush re-elected. Not only is the posting pretty informative, it's from an unlikely source: A DailyKos diarist, who worked for the oil industry and kind of knows what the hell he's talking about. Even more remarkable is that many of the Kos posters seem to agree with him. (Many, but of course not nearly all.)

Geraghty also notes other data points that suggest a GOP victory in November, which of course you won't read about in the New York Times.

Here's one:

Percentage of Republican Base Voters who say they are “almost certain” to vote this November: 81 percent

Percentage of Republican Base Voters who say they are “very likely” to vote this November: 14 percent

Last cycle that 95 percent of Republicans were “very likely” or “almost certain” to vote: 2004

And he notes the latest breakdown from the Congressional Quarterly shows the GOP winning 15 more seats than the Democrats (including leaners), with 12 up for grabs.

More Gas News... National average now $2.50 and falling.

The Kossacks crying conspiracy theory are particularly upset that in key states -- like, say, Ohio, or border states -- the gas prices are lower than they are in, say, Boston or New York.

Gasoline prices continue to tumble briskly, dropping Monday to a U.S. average of less than $2.50 a gallon for the first time since March.

Service stations even are beginning old-fashioned gas wars to avoid losing customers to price-cutting rivals.

“Traders were racing to see how high they could take it. Now, retailers are racing to see how low. It's crazy,” says Mike O'Connor, president of the Virginia Petroleum, Convenience and Grocery Association.

A Wawa station in Gainesville, just off Interstate 66 in Northern Virginia, dropped to $1.999 Sunday, prompting competing 7-Eleven stations to match. That triggered lines and drained at least one station's tanks.

And check this out:

A hefty 42% of Americans polled over the weekend said they think fuel prices are being manipulated by the Bush administration to help Republicans in an election year. The USA TODAY/Gallup Poll has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Gee, I wonder which 42% of the public that might be.

The reaction of partisan liberals to all this is instructive. When gas prices were high, they complained, but were of course secretly quite happy to have such expensive gas.

Now that prices are tumbling, they're openly angry about it.

Posted by: Ace at 07:20 AM | Comments (56)
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Titgate Snark: From JackStraw:

You see the way that tall one is posing? Feminist.

The one on the left is a dirty, dirty hussy who's showing off the vague outlines of her indistinct knees.

Found at The Arabist via An Englishman in New York.

Meanwhile, an argument slightly more important than Titgate is going on, started by Bryan Preston at HotAir, regarding Islam's inherently violent (?) nature.

Follow his links to read responses by Dean Esmay and Bill From INDC and Robert Spencer of JihadWatch. Although I thought I agreed with Preston and Spencer, Esmay and Bill do make some good points questioning whether Islam is inherently violent.

Posted by: Ace at 06:45 AM | Comments (34)
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You, who are on the road,
Must have a code that you can live by.
And so, become yourself,
Because the past is just a good bye.
Teach your children well,
Their father's hell did slowly go by.
And feed them on your dreams,
The one they pick, the one you'll know by.

We shudder at the indoctrination of Muslim youth to hate the West.

But then, I think about my own obligations as a Lutheran parent to teach my children the faith of our fathers. That includes teaching them what I believe is wrong.

No parent can avoid the obligation to teach their children well. Inescapably, you will transmit your cultural, moral and religious biases.

So what do you think about Jesus Camp? more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:10 AM | Comments (67)
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I derive no great joy out of slamming John McCain. I admire his service to our country, and admire the way he conducted himself in the face of horrific torture and imprisonment by the Vietnamese.

Further, during my time on Capitol Hill, I had the occasion to talk with Senator McCain on several occasions, and I always found him to be a candid and funny individual.

But if this article in the Guardian is correct, Senator McCain should, in my opinion, no longer be considered a viable option in the 2008 Presidential campaign for anyone who takes the War aginst Terror/Islamofascism seriously.

Because, it is abundantly clear, that the Senator lacks seriousness on this fundamental issue.

We have all witnessed McCain's drive to weaken the torture standards that govern the conduct of our intelligence officers. But until now, most people didn't know what the tactics that constituted "torture" in Mr. McCain's mind actually were.

Now we do.

According to the Guardian, McCain believes that the following actions are torture which should be outlawed, regardless of the amount of intelligence they may produce, or the number of American lives that might be saved.

Do you agree with the Senator? Let's look at what he is upset about:

The techniques sought by the CIA are: induced hypothermia; forcing suspects to stand for prolonged periods; sleep deprivation; a technique called "the attention grab" where a suspect's shirt is forcefully seized; the "attention slap" or open hand slapping that hurts but does not lead to physical damage; the "belly slap"; and sound and light manipulation.

Induced hypothermia? Wow. Those drunks who take their shirts off at Green Bay games are tortutring themselves.

Standing for prolonged periods of time? Wow. Military Drills on Parade Grounds are now torture. Poor cadets.

Sleep Deprivation? Wow. Those 48-72 hour hospital resident shifts are, apparently, "torture" too. How did we ever develop the finest medical system in the world?

Grabbing a suspects shirt? Wow. Is it still torture if you are only grabbing it to tuck it in, Senator?

An "attention slap" that leads to no physical damage? Wow. I suppose when I clap, my hands are torturing each other.

The belly slap? Wow. Who knew that Moe, Larry, and Curly were really the most fearsome torturers since the Spanish Inquisition?

Sound and Light Manipulation? OK...I'll admit it here. Those Pink Floyd Laser Shows really are torture for anyone who is a) over 16, or b) sober.

That's it. That's what the fuss in the United States Senate is all about. The President believes that these techniques (which are less stressful than half of the fraternity stunts I was subjected to) should be available to glean information from terrorists.

Senator McCain believes they rise to the level of such egregious affronts to human dignity as to be forever considered beyond the pale.

I hope that Andrew Sullivan and Lindsey Graham can deliver a lot of votes for you, Senator McCain.

Because you are demonstrating, by your own moral preening, that you are manifestly unfit to be entrusted with the security of the American people in a time of war against the enemy we currently face.

Which is a shame. You could've been a contender.

UPDATE:Allah over at Hot Air posted a similar thread earlier this evening, which I missed reading in my rush to scarf wings and drink beer in advance of the Monday Night Football game. Just an FYI in case you were interested in seeing where the A-man comes down on this issue.

Posted by: Ace at 07:24 PM | Comments (156)
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My biggest problem with the whole Titgate blowup is that it's boring. Wake me up if one of these hits:

1. Instapundit kills his teen au pair-gate

2. Jane Hamsher gets caught wearing a swastika bikini-gate

3. Sean Hannity devours an illegal Mexican on live T.V.-gate

4. Atrios poses nude wearing a Klan hood-gate

5. Katie Couric lays eggs that hatch into the creatures from Aliens-gate

6. Andrew Sullivan gets caught with a woman-gate

That last one could get ugly.

Posted by: AndrewR at 02:20 PM | Comments (37)
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Great piece entitled Head In The Sand Liberals. He writes of liberals' fantasy that Jihadists are driven by the same sorts of inputs liberals imagine they, like all other "repressed" peoples, should be driven by -- the desire for more economic hand-outs from the West, increased opportunities for education, etc. -- rather than the single input the actually are driven by -- a xenophobic interpretation of Islam that would make the KKK itself blush:

But my correspondence with liberals has convinced me that liberalism has grown dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world — specifically with what devout Muslims actually believe about the West, about paradise and about the ultimate ascendance of their faith.

On questions of national security, I am now as wary of my fellow liberals as I am of the religious demagogues on the Christian right.

This may seem like frank acquiescence to the charge that "liberals are soft on terrorism." It is, and they are.

...

I donÂ’t know how many more engineers and architects need to blow themselves up, fly planes into buildings or saw the heads off of journalists before this fantasy will dissipate. The truth is that there is every reason to believe that a terrifying number of the worldÂ’s Muslims now view all political and moral questions in terms of their affiliation with Islam. This leads them to rally to the cause of other Muslims no matter how sociopathic their behavior. This benighted religious solidarity may be the greatest problem facing civilization and yet it is regularly misconstrued, ignored or obfuscated by liberals.

There's a great amount of odious liberal condescension at work here. No matter how many times Jihadists say "We are killing you because Allah commands it," liberals keep saying back, "Oh, pish-posh. We know what's really driving you -- a need for more day-care and infrastructure development."

Don't liberals believe in actually listening to the diverse narratives of oppressed peoples? Or is that just a cover for making up their own one-size-fits-all narrative and hegemonically imposing it on the world's repressed?

Related: Top Ten Reasons The West Will Lose The War On Terror. Sad but possibly true.

This links back to Ponuru's and Goldberg's premature statements about how the Republicans deserve to lose the November elections. When something seems inevitable, it's comforting to begin telling oneself that one deserved it, rather than fighting to make sure it doesn't happen.

Of course, Ponuru and Goldberg are talking about the much-smaller-states midterm elections.

But many liberals are convinced we cannot win this war. Or, more accurately: They are convinced we cannot win this war in a way they find morally acceptable. And for many, fighting a war is itself morally unacceptable.

Ergo, the steady drumbeat from the left that we deserved it, we actually blew up the WTC ourselves, etc. They have decided the only liberally-correct response to the War on Terror is to lose it, and they're comforting themselves, as Ponuru and Goldberg do, by telling themselves, basically, "We didn't want to win it anyhow."

You can't win a war unless you fight it. And the left simply doesn't believe that Western civlilization is worth defending -- despite the ironic fact that Western civilization is the most "progressive" civilization ever to grace the earth.

But not quite progressive enough. Ergo, it must not be defended, and we must all learn to accept becoming, essentially, slaves to hegemonic, violent, vicious bin Ladinism.

Wow: A scorching video for today's Vent.

I would say that this latest episode is pretty much the breaking point for most.

Posted by: Ace at 01:45 PM | Comments (190)
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That handy jpg courtesy of WuzzaDem. It's self-updating, by which I mean non-updating. It just doesn't need to be updated. Ever.

If you don't donate to WuzzaDem, the terrorists have won.

Posted by: Ace at 01:36 PM | Comments (8)
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Today's entries in honor of Titgate, and the literal and intellectual onanism it's engendered. more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:47 PM | Comments (18)
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Or at least its second calender week.

This is possibly the stupidest left-right blogwar yet. This is even too stupid for me to care about, and that's saying something.

The whole thing reminds me of idiotic chatroom "That's not what I said/Yes you did" arguments. They all work the same way: Person A says something. Person B reads into that the most uncharitable interpretation possible, and slams Person A for saying something she didn't. Person A argues that's not what she said; Person B insists she did.

The argument quickly moves away from any discussion about any live issues to a silly debate over who said what.

Anne Althouse snarked about Bill Clinton choosing the most Lewinsky-esque blogger at the all-white blogger panel as the chick he wanted placed right in front of the Little He. This was almost entirely a joke about Clinton's known horndogism. Feminsting complained she was being judged on her looks, which wasn't really true; Althouse was snarking about Clinton judging her on her looks, and wasn't judging Femisting's looks (at least not initially). (It should be noted that as Feministing pens high-minded posts like "Why I Don't Fuck Republicans," judging her on her looks seems the most charitable method of judging her.)

From there it spiraled into further stupidity, with a rather silly argument all around about who was more faithful to feminist principles that no one on either side really believes. To wit, that no one should even notice that someone has a pretty nice set of mommysacs, even if that particular someone seems to not generally mind if a political correligionists thinks they're just swell.

And it continues. I have no idea why. But everyone is linking this idiotic argument and commenting on it.

An idiot I used to know from Slate's The Fray chatroom -- and a past-master of the moronic "Yes you did say that/No I didn't" style of public discourse -- takes a rather obviously ironic quote of mine and claims I meant something I didn't.

My quote? I posted a dishy picture of Jill from Femiste (a different blogger than Jessica from Femisting), stating I just wanted everyone to be able to keep track of "the hussies" in the debate. The idiot Orcinus then quotes me:

[Orcinus:] Then, of course, there are the troglodytes on the right blogosphere (like this pathetic example of masculinity) who chimed in thus:

[Quoting Ace:] That's right, I said "hussy." Wearin' lipstick. Smiling.

Like a whore.

Excuse me-- precisely how much more obviously did I need to signal my intent was ironic, and that I was just posting the pic because she's a cute chick?

Does Orcinus really believe that I believe that "wearin' lipstick" and "smiling" makes one a whore? (The apostrophe at the end of "wearin'" was kind of a tip-off itself.)

Does he actually believe that anyone has used the term "hussy" in a non-ironic fashion since 1958? Who says hussy anyomre? No one does, that's who. That's why it's a funny word.

Of course he doesn't believe any of these things, or else he's more dreadfully stupid than I could imagine (and, to paraphrase Han Solo, I can imagine quite a lot of stupidity on his part). It's just an excuse to get his own little payback for six year old chat-feud and, perhaps, get a link from Atrios or Kos.

Somehow The InstaWife (Dr. Helen) seems to have been drawn into the whole debacle of decolletage, with leftwing commenters going on and on about her breasts.

And not in a good way. Yes, one could go on and on about them at length, but the idiots at Sadly, No! aren't doing so in the obvious way, e.g., what a freakin' rack. Or: No wonder Instapundit pretends at times to be a semi-conservative. He's in the oppsosite situation of most men: He's got a smokin'-hot spouse who's more conservative than he is, and he needs to placate a bit.

(Contra Chris Klein, sometimes one does need to placate.)

Although I think this affair is stupid all ways around, I have to say the left is being stupider. They're blowing up a bit of snark into their favorite meme of "Republicans hate vaginas, and aren't too crazy about breasts, either."

You got us. We're all so afraid of "girl parts" we fall into epliptic seizures when confronted by them. That's a conservative's idea of foreplay.

I don't even get what the left is claiming. One one hand, conservatives only apparently value women for their sexual desirability. But simultaneously they advance the claim that we're all so sexually repressed and woman-hating that we throw conniptions of outrage if we see the outline of a breast (or, Heaven forfend, full-on camel-toe). Which is it? It seems to me that they can't both be true at the same time.

They also make another pair of contradictory claims at the same time-- that the're hip and pro-sex to enjoy a little boobage, and also that they're too enlightened to use sexuality to advance themselves, or take positive notice of someone else's use of their sexuality to advance themselves. Again: Which is it?

Although the right is guilty of giving this whole argument much, much more attention than it deserves, at least the complaints make some kind of sense from a standpoint of logical consistency. (Though I don't see the sense of arguing that feminists should never meet with Clinton. This may make good sense to conservatives, but to liberals, it's an unnaceptable premise. Not wrong: Unacceptable. Liberals will never even countenance suggestions like this, so it seems silly to argue this premise to liberals.)

Ali Bubba covers the argument with the appropriate level of seriousness, i.e., none at all.

I'm not sure what anyone on the left is actually arguing, so I have trouble responding to them. If they'll just tell me, clearly, whether I'm a sexist masher/online groper who sees women only in terms of their genitals and tits, I can respond to that, or, alternately, if I'm a reactionary sexual prude who falls faint at the sight of a nipple, I can respond to that as well.

But I really need to know what I'm charged with, first.

BTW: Can anyone really claim they're not talking about this story just as a way to 1) reel off exceedingly easy-to-write partisan bash-posts and thus please the most red-meat-cravin' true-beleivin' readers; 2) talk about jugs in a socially acceptable fasion; and 3) troll for links by bigger blogs?

That's the only reason I'm writing about it. Anyone else want to claim higher motives?

The involved parties have another motive -- actual skin-in-the-game, wanting to win a heated argument they're actually invested in, etc. -- but what about the 99% of bloggers who aren't instant parties to this dispute?

Does Orcinus claim to really be advancing the cause of feminism, I wonder?

Well, he does, I'm sure. He's always been such a self-righteous, self-deluded little prick.

Posted by: Ace at 11:12 AM | Comments (112)
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