Help Wanted -- Michael
— Ace

Are you bored with your job? Are you stuck in a dead end career? Do you wish you could find a position that offered upward mobility, excitement, and professional growth?

If you have expertise in explosives or nuclear physics, here is an opportunity you might not have seen at Monster.com:

By PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press Writer
36 minutes ago

CAIRO, Egypt - In a new audio message Thursday, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq called for explosives experts and nuclear scientists to join his group's holy war against the West. "We are in dire need of you," said the man, who identified himself as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir — also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri — the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq.

"The field of jihad (holy war) can satisfy your scientific ambitions, and the large American bases (in Iraq) are good places to test your unconventional weapons, whether biological or dirty, as they call them."

Abu points out that the job is sure to be exciting:

He also said that more than 4,000 foreign militants have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 — the first apparent acknowledgment from the insurgents about their losses.

There is no pension plan, but the package includes the biggest perk of all -- martyrdom!!

It was unclear why al-Masri would advertise the loss of the group's foreign fighters, but martyrdom is revered among Islamic fundamentalists, and could be used as a recruiting tool. The Arabic word he used, "muhajer," indicated he was speaking about foreigners who joined the insurgency in Iraq, not coalition troops.

Only dumbshits need apply

Posted by: Ace at 11:18 AM | Comments (55)
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Justice: AoSHQ Style [Jack M.]
— Ace

With a little bit of "Oz" thrown in for good measure.

Or do I repeat myself?

The Title to the Article really says it all: "Victim's Name Tattooed on Child Killer's Forehead".

And, as a matter of fact, it was:

The kicker? It appears that the tatooing may have been done by other inmates.

Anthony Stockelman, serving a life sentence at the Wabash Correctional Facility for killing Katie Collman, was found with the words "Katie's Revenge" on his forehead.

Corrections officials at the facility are investigating the matter, and have contacted state police to assist in the investigation.

Officials said Stockelman is now being held in protective custody. Officials said they aren't sure if the tattoo was done by another inmate. Katie's father John Neace heard about it from friends, and figures other prisoners are responsible.

Of course, I have no doubt that this Stockelman pervert will eventually sue the State's prison system for allowing him to be "victimized" in this way. And he will probably be able to force the State to pay for getting the tattoo removed as well.

But the thought of him having to wake up and look at that in his mirror for the next several years?

That's justice.

Prison justice.

UPDATE: Dan Riehl alerts me (and provides a link) to the fact that a blog broke the original story which led to the TV News account that I linked to at the beginning of the piece. Since the TV account didn't mention this, I was unaware that a blogger had originally broken the story. The above link takes you there now.The blogger, Lilo, has some follow up info about how the parent's of the dead little girl have gone on to do some inspirational things. You should stop by and read the piece.

Posted by: Ace at 10:21 AM | Comments (115)
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China Attacks US Satellites [Sobek]
— Ace

As far as I can tell, it's a temporary "blinding" rather than permanent damage, designed to keep us looking at China but not from looking at anything else. From the UK Telegraph:

China has secretly fired powerful laser weapons designed to disable American spy satellites by "blinding" their sensitive surveillance devices, it was reported yesterday.

Purple Avenger comments: "As an aside, we're now at war with China. They've been shooting at our sats."

I don't know if that means we're at war, really. Apparently people can do all kinds of things to the US, like Iran funding attacks in Iraq or Mexico teaching people how to invade our borders, and we don't really consider it "war" until we retaliate. And nothing in the article suggests we're going to do that. Quite the contrary:

"The hitherto unreported attacks have been kept secret by the Bush administration for fear that it would damage attempts to co-opt China in diplomatic offensives against North Korea and Iran."

The Bush doctrine ("if you're not with us, you're against us") is actually nothing of the sort. China is clearly against us, but the US is for some reason under the impression that we can leverage them to our advantage in certain areas. Even to the point that we'll take a couple of attacks without comment to avoid diplomatic concerns. This is the height of "nuanced" (read: useless) foreign policy, but the Lefties of course will never give Bush et al. due credit.

One thing that concerns me: the Administration was trying to keep this story secret. So why is it showing up (a) at all, and (b) in a British paper?

Posted by: Ace at 10:05 AM | Comments (62)
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Joementum drowns the Kos Kid [Jack M.]
— Ace

Jane Hamsher freak out index soars to record high.

Check out the following article in the WashPo today.

Here's what the lazy among you need to know:

A new Quinnipiac poll out this morning shows Sen. Joe Lieberman, who is running as an independent, leading businessman Ned Lamont (D) 49 percent to 39 percent. Former state Rep. Alan Schlesinger (R) receives a measly five percent support, while seven percent of the sample remains undecided...

Lieberman, not surprisingly, leads Lamont 69 percent to 15 percent among Republicans and 50 percent to 36 percent among self-identifying Independents. Even among Democrats Lieberman receives 37 percent support -- 20 points below the number backing Lamont -- but still respectable for a Senator who six weeks ago lost own party's nomination.

And while Lamont led among the 35 percent of the sample who said that Iraq was the most important issue in the election, Lieberman carried an advantage among the 65 percent of voters who cited some other issue as most critical to them this fall.

Hmmm...65% of the respondents felt that Iraq was not the main issue of the campaign? And Independents support Lieberman by 14 points?

It must hurt to be a moonbat. No one snatches defeat from the jaws of victory quite like them.

After all...if Lamont wasn't a one-trick pony being ridden hard and put up wet by Kos, he might have had a chance to win this race. Then again, had he not been a one trick pony being ridden hard and put up wet by Kos, he would never have been nominated.

It's a conundrum. Let's just be thankful that it's one our political opponents have to worry about answering.

But because I'm a decent guy, I'll give them a clue: No one defines "lose-lose" proposition more than the Kossacks.

No one.

Posted by: Ace at 09:22 AM | Comments (43)
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Giuliani On Clinton
— LauraW.

Let's stop the bickering.

"The idea of trying to cast blame on President Clinton is just wrong for many, many reasons, not the least of which is I don't think he deserves it," Giuliani said in response to a question after an appearance with fellow Republican Charlie Crist, who is running for governor. "I don't think President Bush deserves it. The people who deserve blame for Sept. 11, I think we should remind ourselves, are the terrorists - the Islamic fanatics - who came here and killed us and want to come here again and do it."

"Every American president I've known would have given his life to prevent an attack like that. That includes President Clinton, President Bush," the former mayor said. "They did the best they could with the information they had at the time."

He goes on to say that if terrorists need Iraq as a rallying point, all the more reason to defeat them decisively there.

I'm still pissed at Clinton; but can't really pick on Rudy for not indulging in the blame game (which is, in truth, a pointless and bitter activity). He has a positive campaign to run.
I don't like him, but I do respect him. Meh. That might be enough.

Posted by: LauraW. at 09:07 AM | Comments (72)
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Norwegian Sitzpinklers
— LauraW.

Follow the linkage at Johnny Triangles.

"When boys are not allowed to pee in the natural way, the way boys have done for generations, it is meddling with God's work," Kleppe told the newspaper.

In the name of hygiene of course.
Hey, I've got a great idea: separate facilities for the boys and the girls. Behold my genius.

Posted by: LauraW. at 07:09 AM | Comments (79)
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Headin' Home, Yo
— Ace

I'd planned to blog during the day and catch a plane at night, but that doesn't really work out so well. So I'll be headed to the airport tomorrow. My blogging tomorrow will be limited to what little I can toss up while I'm at the airport.

Sorry... didn't mean to blow blogging off for three days straight, basically.

But I should be home around 6 o'clock, though I have a feeling I'm not going to run to the computer.

BTW, the nonworking video was supposed to be "Temptation" by Corinna. Obsession, Fascination, Temptation. Cute, huh? But I guess her company got it yanked down.

Posted by: Ace at 10:42 PM | Comments (14)
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Peace Fever: Ramadan Edition
— AndrewR

I went to Michelle Malkin's site on a whim and found this.

It looks as if immigrants youths want to turn nightly rioting during the Islamic holy month of ramadan into an annual tradition. Around 8:30pm last night violence erupted again in Brussels, the capital of Europe...Youths threw stones at passing people and cars, windows of parked cars were smashed, bus shelters were demolished, cars were set ablaze, a youth club was arsoned and a shop was looted. Two molotov cocktails were thrown into St.PeterÂ’s hospital, one of the main hospitals of central Brussels. The fire brigade was able to extinguish the fires at the hospital

Go Brussels Fire Department!

but youths managed to steal the keys of the fire engine.

Oh.

The authorities are especially nervous since the Belgian municipal elections are being held on Sunday October 8th. It is likely that the elections will be won by anti-immigrant, “islamophobic” parties.

Yeah, that would be a shame. Imagine electing people who think it's wrong to set fucking hospitals on fire.

More here.

Posted by: AndrewR at 07:05 PM | Comments (63)
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Art Historians Prove Mona Lisa Was All Knocked Up; Dan Brown Soils Himself At The Thought Of The Possibilities
— AndrewR

I don't actually find this all that fascinating, but apparently it's a big deal:

Researchers studying 3-D images of the “Mona Lisa” say she was probably either pregnant or had just given birth when she sat for Leonardo da Vinci’s 16th-century masterpiece. The clue was something she wore...Scans turned up evidence of a fine, gauzy veil around Mona Lisa’s shoulders — a garment women of the Italian Renaissance wore when they were expecting, a leading French museum researcher, Michel Menu, told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday.

A wry grin spread across Robert Langdon's face as he stared at the 3-D infrared image in front of him. Here at last was the incontrovertible proof he'd been looking for. Throughout its history, the Catholic Church had always tried to cover up the fact that women were the child-bearing half of the human race; how many people, he wondered, knew that Opus Dei had blackmailed Arnold Schwartzenegger into making Junior? Sure, it had been a crude cinematic piece of male-birth propaganda, but it had served up the same tired old lie that they'd been disseminating for centuries: Men were better at having babies than women.

Langdon wondered how many of the people with him in the room realized that female pregnancy had always been associated with the sacred feminine. From the crude mud huts of Mali to the daub-and-wattle dwellings of Neolithic Britain, the mystery of childbirth had always been closely tied to the distaff half of the species. Until the Church had come to power, at any rate.

He stared at the picture and wondered why his creator, Dan Brown, had made him such a big pussy. Could it be that Brown really wanted to be a woman himself?

Which, for what it's worth, is my theory.

Posted by: AndrewR at 04:01 PM | Comments (29)
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Deceit and the Left
— Slublog

DR, our resident "conservative Republican" recently made a confession on Citizen Smash's blog:

I think you are just trying to provoke needless confrontation at our vigils. We at Code Pink will not tire from our mission of bringing the troops home, no matter how much deceitful propaganda is written about us.

If you can prove we do not support the troops, we will more than gladly stop holding our vigils. Until then, please drop the divisive charade and try to accept that one can oppose the war while supporting the troops.

This "conservative Republican" has been active on the threads lately, calling his "fellow" conservatives "Bushbots" and the like, while mouthing suspiciously liberal-flavored phrases. Now we find out he's a member of one of the most vile anti-war organizations in the United States. And in that Smash thread, unlike here, he doesn't claim to be a conservative Republican. He does have this to say, though:

Again, the people of Fallujah may be your enemies, but they are not Code Pink's.

We stand behind the people of Fallujah 100%.

This thread isn't entirely about DR, though, but of a trend he likely represents. I have spent a lot of time on conservative sites, and know a lot of conservative people. None of them has ever admitted to going into a liberal site pretending to be a liberal. Sure, some of us have trolled liberal sites from time to time stirring up the pot, and I'm sure conservatives do pretend to be liberals at times, but the practice seems more widespread on the left.

Some weaselly little techno musicians actually encouraged it:

"For example, you can go on all the pro-life chat rooms and say you're an outraged right-wing voter and that you know that George Bush drove an ex-girlfriend to an abortion clinic and paid for her to get an abortion. Then you go to an anti-immigration website chat room and ask, 'What's all this about George Bush proposing amnesty for illegal aliens?'"

How effective can this practice really be? I've seen it on numerous discussion boards, heard callers try to fake conservatism on various radio talk shows (Howie Carr does an especially fine job rooting out and slapping down such offenders) and have seen examples of it on the web.

This practice isn't clever and I doubt it has allowed liberals to win many converts. In fact, it shows an inability on the part of liberals who practice it to articulate what they really believe. If the Republicans keep gaining in the polls, I think we can expect to see more of this type of behavior.

I am not an especially partisan Republican. I voted for our Democrat congressman in the last election, and I have voted Democrat for governor a few times. The left's actions since Bush won in 2000, and especially since he was re-elected in 2004, though, have changed me a bit. Until the Democrat party separates itself from the fringe left, until a Democrat politician has the courage to speak out against an "anti-war" organization that mocks the sacrifice of wounded troops; until a Democrat politician has the decency to stand up against the unhinged element in their party, I will vote straight Republican.

And I'm from Maine, so that means voting for Snowe and Collins. And that hurts.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a Daily Kos diary to create...

UPDATE - Warden found this site, which has a few "suggestions" for CodePinkers on how best to "support the troops." Some examples:

Life-sized coffin with idea that potential recruits can "try out" their future/post-service home? "Real military benefits include this oak box?"

Chalk: Bring sidewalk chalk to draw outlines of fallen soldiers at the entry way of the Center, or draw footprints with arrows and a message saying, "This way to death/war/lies/deception"

"Mothers don't let your children grow up to be killers"

Some support.

Posted by: Slublog at 03:25 PM | Comments (118)
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