See, in his original email to us, Ace asked the Innocent Bystanders to guest-blog for one day. Cuz, he had some frickin' personal stuff going on.

It's now day three, and the guest bloggers are still doing the heavy lifting here. Why?

According to Ace:

I haven't kicked you guys off yet because I am still dragging ass two days after the move.

I'm back, but still a zombie. I don't seem to be able to sleep enough or eat enough.

Waaa waaa waaa. What a pussy. Ace, it's time to butch up and get back to work. And kick us out. Because at the end of the day, guest bloggers can't be trusted.

They might do something totally irresponsible. Like posting links to Spanky & Our Gang.

I coulda put that up as an embedded video on your site, but I'm not drunk enough yet.

Yet.

Not scared? Huh. Just imagine that your site was featuring Tommy James & The Shondells.

Oh yeah. That'll put some crystal blue persuasion to you.

P.S. I think I deserve some props for finding the two worst music videos ever.

P.P.S. The interesting thing about those two videos is that they were both shot in the same place. Some of the footage is the same. But where is it? They both have lots of garden scenes, and they both seem to be an a volcanic island. I'm guessing Kauai, which is known as the "Garden Island." I'm basing this on the falls in the Tommy James video. The other islands of Hawaii don't have running water features like Kauai (the setting for the old "Fantasy Island TV show). But I'm just guessing; haven't been there in awhile. Does anybody know?

Posted by: Ace at 06:03 PM | Comments (35)
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I'm not sure how the business will do, though, considering they couldn't even persuade male models to pose in the skirts, and even the only manikin willing to wear them is just plain creepy.

The "Rainier"

From the product info:

Carpenter pants meet a man's skirt: That about sums up the Rainier. It even boasts a hammer loop on the right side.

Oh, yeah. If anyone thinks you're a little too femme walking around in a skirt, you can always just point to that hammer loop and shut them all up immediately.

In your face, basher! This here's a tool-skirt!!!

Most rugged, manly carpenter clothes are named after European princes, I'm pretty sure.

Hang on, it gets worse. The miniskirt for men:

The "Tenino"

Easy access, baby.

Now, as bad as the short-skirt look is on a guy, the long hippie-chick skirt is even worse.

The "Silverdale"

The "Pacific" is another winner, if you thought Adam Ant's 80's get-up was pretty cool except just not gay enough.

The "Pacific"

Don't drink, don't smoke, what do you do? Well, I wear skirts with big buttons. How's that for starters?

Thanks to Brett.

Update from John (from WuzzaDem...whatever)

I dunno, anything would be an improvement over this:

I'm thinking Silverdale.

Posted by: Ace at 05:38 PM | Comments (54)
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A guy lives to 112 on junk food.

LOS ANGELES - George Johnson, considered California's oldest living person at 112 and the state's last surviving World War I veteran, had experts shaking their heads over his junk food diet.

"He had terrible bad habits. He had a diet largely of sausages and waffles," Dr. L. Stephen Coles, founder of the Gerontology Research Group at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Friday.

The 5-foot-7, 140-pound Johnson died of pneumonia Wednesday at his Richmond home in Northern California.

"A lot of people think or imagine that your good habits and bad habits contribute to your longevity," Coles said. "But we often find it is in the genes rather than lifestyle."

Like I said, life is just a crapshoot.

*Michael lights another cigarette, swigs some Jack*

AP - Man lives to 112 despite junk-food diet

Posted by: Ace at 04:09 PM | Comments (8)
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God bless the Ohio Supreme Court for standing tall in defense of freedom of speech. In a ruling today, the OSC bravely defended the right of personal injury lawyers to solicit clients immediately after an accident.

Friday, September 01, 2006

James Nash

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

The Ohio Supreme Court has scrapped a proposed ban on "ambulance chaser" attorneys who sign up clients immediately after an accident.

Lawyers and accident victims swamped the court with more than 600 letters opposing the ban, many noting that insurance companies can and do contact accident victims to pressure them to settle claims. Others said that many victims need speedy legal assistance and disputed the notion that solicitations from lawyers tarnish the profession.

I say again, God bless these noble jurists for listening to the sweet reason of their brethren of the bar.

Of course, the OSC is not going to say who voted which way, but that's just a technical legal thingamajig:

Court spokesman Chris Davey said the court will not announce which justices voted for and against the ban, because it is a rule of the court rather than a case.

Seventeen states prohibit lawyers from soliciting accident victims as clients 30 to 45 days after the incident, according to the American Bar Association.

Not everyone was pleased:

Supporters of an Ohio ban say it’s unseemly for lawyers to prey on people in vulnerable conditions — some still hospitalized — and that it contributes to negative perceptions of the profession.

What negative perceptions could they possibly be talking about?

"People get in accidents and they get a bunch of letters from attorneys about becoming their clients," said Columbus lawyer Jason Blue, whose firm specializes in injury and malpractice cases. "I think it confuses and irritates them. Lawyers should at least wait for the victims to get back from the hospital."

But Jason, if you wait that long they might be off drugs. Sheesh.

There actually is a credible public interest argument against such a rule. The proposed ban on lawyer solicitations could give insurance companies an unfair advantage.

Attorney General Jim Petro also objected to the proposed ban, writing that it "could potentially have negative consequences for Ohio consumers." A Petro deputy elaborated that a do-not-solicit rule would tilt the playing field in favor of insurance companies, which would take advantage of the rule to pressure victims to settle claims within 30 days of an accident.

The Ohio Academy of Trial Lawyers, on the other hand, supported the rule, saying it would hold lawyers to a "higher standard of ethical integrity."

The Columbus Dispatch - Ambulance Chaser Ban Fails

Feel free to post your favorite lawyer joke in the thread below.

Posted by: Ace at 02:17 PM | Comments (29)
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ace is still out and about this holiday weekend, and he asked Yog Sothoth to rouse me for a first hand explanation of how the holiday we call Labor Day came to be.

The commie labor unions had organized a couple of parades in 1882 and 1884 in New York and Toronto. Dancing, and prancing and their typical suction-cup-enlarged genitalia commie bullshit.

Why we gave a shit about Toronto I'll never understand.

Anyway, to placate the bastards I decided to make it an annual event, and later a holiday. Where we all take a day off.

To celebrate work.

And you bastards thought FDR started this crap, didn't you? Didn't you?

window lickers.

Oh and the Knights of Labor got their ASSES handed to them by those American Federation of Labor window lickers.

Posted by: Ace at 02:06 PM | Comments (13)
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Ace hasn't kicked my digital tuckus off this blog yet.

So I thought I'd pass this along ...

The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency said it had successfully completed an important exercise involving the launch of an improved ground-based interceptor missile designed to protect the United States against a limited long-range ballistic missile attack.... In the exercise, a target missile was launched from Kodiak, Alaska. And for the first time, the ground-based interceptor missile was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California. Previous launches have been from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

I'm a little unclear - the article is very persistent on the fact that this is, in fact, the first successful test. But I know there have been several tests in recent months that have been deemed a success. Somebody put me some education.

They don't help by writing with a confusing tone like this ...

Officially, the $85 million test was designed to collect data rather than shoot down the target....It was the first involving a live target since interceptor rockets failed to leave their silos during tests in December 2004 and February 2005....It was also the first since the ground-based system, which is part of a layered shield that includes naval and aerial components, was activated to guard against ballistic missiles test-fired on July 4 and 5 by North Korea.

So it sounds (from al-Reuters) that "we finally did it" when my understanding is that "we've been doing it ... this is old hat."

Reuters Sux Update:

Contrast the tone above with this from the DOD PR release:

The exercise was designed to evaluate the performance of several elements of the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS), and mission objectives included demonstrating the ability of the Upgraded Early Warning Radar at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., to acquire, track and report the target warhead, and also to assess the performance of the interceptor missile’s rocket motor system and exoatmospheric kill vehicle, which is the component that collides directly with a target warhead in space to perform a “hit to kill” intercept using only the force of the collision to totally destroy the target warhead. Initial indications are that the rocket motor system and kill vehicle performed as designed. ...Although not a primary objective for the data collection flight test, an intercept of the target warhead was achieved.

So technically, the "kill" wasn't part of the test. But it would sure seem that our little overachievement would be cause for celebratory enthusiasm.

Look, maybe Reuter's tone is appropriately cautious and skeptical. But, given that DOD Missile Defense Agency isn't lying, I like the straight ahead tone so much better.

Heck, I don't need this to know Al-Reuters sucks. So there.

Ace's Note: I haven't kicked you guys off yet because I am still dragging ass two days after the move.

I'm back, but still a zombie. I don't seem to be able to sleep enough or eat enough.

Like A Viking/Boston Irish and I were discussing the increasing number of aliments (back, tendonitis, numbness in feet and legs from sitting too long, DVT, or "Deep Vein Thrombosis") that are effecting us now that we're off warranty. I'm still zonked from a move two days ago.

He told me a funny story. Well, a horrifying one. A friend of his was taking care of his baby, which fell asleep in his arms. At about the same time his foot fell asleep. (This happens to me with alarming fequency now.) So, he figures, his foot's asleep, no big deal. He'll just walk it off, walk it back awake.

As he's carrying the baby, he steps on one of the baby's toys and hears a pop. He figures he just broke the baby's toy. No big deal.

He gets the baby to bed. The paraesthesia in his foot begins to go away. He begins to feel pain.

He hadn't broken the toy; he'd snapped his ankle cleanly. But his foot was so asleep he didn't feel it for five minutes.

So, there you go. Welcome to the end of youth.

Posted by: Ace at 01:00 PM | Comments (40)
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We 're not buying the "moderate" crap any more.

"Moderate" Muslims are merely the "acceptable" political wing of Jihad, Inc., and it's about time to treat them as such.

I don't want to hear from any more "moderate" Muslims. Deport them. I'm only interested in hearing from liberal Muslims who actually accept the Enlightenment and liberal democracy.

Posted by: Ace at 12:02 PM | Comments (33)
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...in an upcoming film in which he plays one of the two murderers documented in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood.

Weren't two movies about these guys enough? Just because Truman Capote had a bit of a crush on a cold-blooded killer, we have to keep seeing movies about the very complex sociopath Perry Smith?

I don't see any reason why Daniel Craig can't play a gay character, but this certainly doesn't help establish his very weak James Bond cred any further.

BOND
You expect me to talk?

GOLDFINGER
No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to blow me.

BOND
Well why didn't you say so? Turn off this
silly laser machine and let's have some guy-fun.

GOLDFINGER
I didn't expect you to be so receptive. I
pretty much cobbled together this whole
atom-bomb-in-Fort-Knox scheme to make
you notice me.

BOND
I've had my eye on you since I heard you
had "The Midas Touch."

GOLDFINGER
Oh, my cheeks are burning!

Barbara Broccoli has just about achieved what was heretofore thought impossible-- killing James Bond.

After the last five or six movies, I won't be sad to see him go. And I watched just about every Bond every time TBS played all of them twice a year.

I can't believe I'm going to say this, but A View To A Kill turns out to have been the best of the end-of-the-era Bonds.

The only thing that can save Bond now is a final box-office drubbing and the sale of the franchise who has some idea what the hell it's all about.

Posted by: Ace at 11:36 AM | Comments (43)
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Background here. Clinton is upset that a movie to be shown on 9/11, "The Path to 9/11," correctly recounts the episode where US forces were ready to capture or kill bin Ladin but the White House would not give them the greenlight.

And another review here, as well as the unconfirmed tip that George Mitchell was already personally campaigning against the movie.

And now CraigC tips this from Rush Limbaugh:

Rush let it out in the first hour this morning that, according to what he called an unimpeachable source, Billy Bob intended to personally call Eiger today to demand that ABC recut the 9/11 movie.

Legacy, baby.

Listen closely for the roar of millions of liberals compaining of Clinton's thuggish attempt to chill the free speech rights of artists.

Can you hear it?

You might have to try to stop breathing for a few minutes. It's very faint, but it is very loud in its faintness.

In other news, Tim Robbins is planning to publish a book called Aw, Just Leave Me Out Of This.

Posted by: Ace at 11:22 AM | Comments (43)
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Well, they adore it; the rest of us hate it. Johnny Triangles digests (with lots of video, including of Ronald Reagan) VH-1's The Drug Years, featuring a lot of people who just can't get over the amazing fact that when they were in college and no families or financial obligations they could get laid a lot and go to a lot of concerts and smoke a lot of pot.

This is a glimpse of the way America could be, the idiot interviewees keep saying.

No, moron. This is the way America was, is, and always will be, at least for 18-21 year olds.

And when I became an adult, I put away childish things.

Too bad so many just can't seem to get over it.

The 70s is portrayed as an era when mainstream America "misinterpreted" the lofty messages and ideals of the 60s radicals and just used drugs minus the enlightened mindset and goals of the hippies. People in the 70s just used drugs for narcissism and hedonism apparently, while in the hands of the hippies drugs were tools to save the world. To this I say "bullshit." Drugs were just as much about narcissism and hedonism in the 60s as they were in the 70s, the only difference was that the users in the 70s were unpretentious and honest enough to be real about it and not dress it up with preachy sermonizing and new age pseudointellectual blather. What kind of "revolution" leaves the existing power structure intact at the end of the day? That's not a revolution at all. Everything they supposedly rebelled against is still intact, and even more hypocritically, the rebels joined the establishment once it was time to make some money and pay some bills. Revolution, my ass. Eat a dick.

And of course the 80s are despised as the Decade of Greed and Izod, supposedly because those are the years when idealism turned to cynicism.

Johnny Triangles thinks the Woodstockers just hate the 80s because that was the decade they got old and couldn't pick up college-age hippie chicks anymore.

I think his theory is closer to the mark.

Posted by: Ace at 09:24 AM | Comments (164)
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