Deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that phone, you need me on that phone.

We use words like voicemail, PIN code, caller ID. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline.

I have neither the cell-minutes nor the bars to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said "press 1 for English," and went on your way.

Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a Razr, and text a post.

Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.

"Did you order that room service?"

"YOU'RE GODDAMNED RIGHT I ORDERED IT!"

Perhaps we should stop this. The witness has rights.

I so totally wanted to write that. Thankfully Cuffy Meigs was on the ball and did it first.

Bonus! Though Bobby C. Calvan courageously deleted his own blog, Double Plus Ungood managed to grab a part of the cached version. Click for more True Tales of Telephonic Terror -- if you dare.

Posted by: Ace at 10:03 AM | Comments (26)
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Interesting.

Right now I'm searching for this funny clip FoxNews is running.

Giuliani tells the story of finding out the mob had (or would) put out a contract on his life for $800,000. Years later, he found out the mob had (or would) put out a contract on him for... $400,000.

"I was going in the wrong direction," he ends the story with a laugh.

Rudy Giuliani on Thursday brushed off new reports that top mob bosses narrowly decided not to put a hit on him back in the 1980s, saying it wasn't the first time he'd learned of such a plot.

"You get used to it," Giuliani told syndicated radio talk-show host Mike Gallagher.

"Dapper Don" John Gotti, the late head of the Gambino crime family, and Colombo family boss Carmine Persico in 1986 mulled the idea of snuffing out then-Manhattan U.S. attorney Rudy Giuliani, according to testimony given Wednesday during the murder trial of a retired FBI agent.

Giuliani, now the Republican presidential frontrunner, at the time headed the federal government's prosecution of the mob. But the other three chiefs of New York's five mob families — Bonnano, Lucchese and Genovese — rejected the plan, according to an FBI agent who testified Wednesday in the murder trial against a retired agent, The New York Post reports.

Giuliani said there were plenty of plots against him, and believed he was briefed about this specific one at the time.

"Sure, I knew about it. I mean these things go back into my history. I remember being briefed by the FBI at different times. ... They overlap a little, I get some of them confused," Giuliani said.

"You get used to living with it and you make a choice and you say to yourself, itÂ’s worth doing what youÂ’re doing and itÂ’s always a remote possibility," he said, adding he remembered one of the plots included an Albanian group, forcing him to get protection for one of his assistants.

During the trial Wednesday, FBI agent William Bolinder, testifying for the prosecution, offered as evidence a memo by mob informant Gregory Scarpa Sr. given to his FBI handler Lindley DeVecchio in 1987.

"On Sept. 17, 1987, sources advised that recent information disclosed that approximately a year ago all five NY LCN (La Cosa Nostra) families discussed the idea of killing USA (United States Attorney) Rudy Giuliani and John Gotti and Carmine Persico were in favor of the hit," the memo reads.

Posted by: Ace at 09:56 AM | Comments (27)
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I'm glad they allowed one of our commanders to give a frank assessment of Iraq without cranking the volume up to 11 and blaring his ill-considered candor all over the world, thereby demoralizing our troops.

Kudos, MSM. You got this one right, burying the story in the American interest.

Update: Oh, I seem to be misinformed. It wasn't one of our commanders declaring Iraq to be "darkness becoming pitch-black;" it was in fact Osama bin Ladin, or rather the actor hired to play the deceased Al Qaeda leader.

So I guess I know why the media went radio-silent on this:

Recent report from US commanders in Iraq have stated al Qaeda in Iraq has been set back by a combination of the latest offensive and the willingness of local Iraqis to turn on the terror group. Based Osama bin Laden's latest audiotape, al Qaeda central command agrees that the fight against the US and the Iraqi government is not going well.

A clearer picture of Osama bin Laden's view on the state of jihad in Iraq emerges after the release of the full transcript of Osama bin Laden's latest audiotape, Not only does bin Laden admit errors in the Iraqi leader's ability to unite the tribes and Sunni insurgent groups, he views the situation in Iraq as dire for al Qaeda. Bin Laden accuses his foot soldier of "negligence" for failing to properly employ IEDs, laments the unwillingness of Iraqis who do not wish to attack their brothers in the police and army, and closes his statement by saying "the darkness [in Iraq] has become pitch black."

Whatever you do, MSM, don't report this. It's obviously not news, and even if it is "news," it's not news you can use.

Posted by: Ace at 09:49 AM | Comments (11)
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Definitely worth a read.

NewsBusters: Have you run into any people of any ideology who say that I just don't believe these kinds of things are happening?

MALONEY: Yeah, oh yeah. And actually, your choice of words is fortuitous because there is a quote from a guy in the film from a guy who describes himself as a liberal Democrat he is now the president of the organization called FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and they actually defend people whose rights have been trampled on campus. And they are very successful and primarily their task is just to get the stories out. So they're an example of how shedding light on the problem can be effective.

Now they, the gentleman who is the president of it now his name is Greg Luganov [ph], I interviewed him for the film when he was their head litigant and I asked him that very question. And he said, I didn't really believe it was happening myself until I became the guy who got the FIRE cases.

So here's the guy who was a First Amendment specialist, who joined this organization believing there is a problem--I mean obviously he wouldn't have joined the organization if he didn't--but he really had no idea how vast the situation was until he became, as he put it, became the guy who got the FIRE cases. You basically phrased it exactly as he did in the film and I think it's an interesting coincidence because a lot of people don't believe it until they see the cases. And the cases that we hear about, that's the tip of the iceberg. We never hear about the cases where people don't fight back. We never hear about the cases where people go away quietly. I don't know what percentage of overall cases this represents, the cases that we do hear about, but either way, it means there's a lot more happening that never hit the media.

NewsBusters: You think, speaking of the media, do you think that part of the reasons that there hasn't been a lot of coverage is that the media are liberal?

MALONEY: Well, I think people's point of view definitely colors how they perceive some of these cases and I'll give you an example.

A gentleman from the New York Times wrote an article about our film and ostensibly, the article is to talk about the film and the cases in the film and the issues that we raised, he actually spent 75 percent of his article or something around there talking about one case that was not in the film. And the case that he selected seemed to be an odd choice because he chose to talk about a case up at Cornell where a student newspaper was unable to publish for an entire year, I believe because they had violated someone's sense of decorum. And if I remember it right, what this writer said in the New York Times was that this proves there is not a problem of free speech on campus because the paper was allowed to publish again after a year.

And I couldn't believe that. What if the National Security Agency had shut down the NYT for an entire year after they exposed how we were tracking terrorist financing because if that had happened, if they were shut down for a year, I certainly don't think they would be citing that as an example of they're being no problem if they were once again allowed to publish after a year. So I think that is an example of why the media doesn't see that as being a problem. Because with a guy, they don't care if his paper is shut down for a year, they just say, well as long as it's able to publish again eventually, it doesn't matter. But let's be honest with ourselves. I know that their viewpoint would be different had it been their paper that got shut down.

So yeah, I think that the media's perspective on things definitely leads to a lot less coverage of these problems; because they don't see them as being problems.

That's very similar to a claim made by Stanley Fish in reviewing the movie. Fish looked at a case documented by Maloney and concluded it was no big deal, the system worked.

The case involved a kid who had put up a flier for a black conservative speaker whose book was titled "Leaving the Plantation" or the like. He was arrested for putting up fliers, and then subject to an eighteen month campaign of investigations and harassments, mostly involving the university threatening to expel him if he did not sign a statement saying he was a racist in need of counseling. Finally this guy called a lawyer -- FIRE, in fact, if memory serves -- and took the school to federal court.

With a large judgment against them now in the offing, the university finally relented and claimed, oddly, that justice had been served and that the university had achieved its goals in the long, long persecution.

And at this point Stanley Fish says, "What's the big deal? The kid got off, didn't he?" Uh, yeah, Stanley. The kid got off. With only a year and a half of his college career spent fending off official university investigators and threats of expulsion.

Perhaps one can say it was a character-building exercise and that the university really did him a favor, while we're at it.

Any interest in seeing it? Well, it's tricky -- exhibitors will show the film in your area, but only if you sign up (naming your city) so that Maloney can take that list to theater owners to prove consumer interest for a showing. Well worth it.

I have to admit at this point that Maloney sent me the DVD at my request a while ago for a review, but I've been slow to do so. But it's damn good. Definitely worth signing up on the internet for and then paying eight-fifty to see.

Posted by: Ace at 09:41 AM | Comments (6)
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Via the Big A, a story I thought was the typical stupidity until I watched the video.

Assuming the video isn't fake (a rather large assumption right out of the gate, I admit), what the hell is going on? The story claims that winds have been ruled out as the culprit -- something I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss. A very light swing seat with a broad enough cross section to act as a sail, held, say, by a light chain, could easily be propelled by the wind. After all, we're used to seeing swings rocking gently in the wind all the time.

Still, I have to admit this particular swing gets bigger ups than I'm used to seeing.

Posted by: Ace at 09:29 AM | Comments (43)
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I meant to blog this when it happened, but the fires and the Beauchamp thing distracted me. Judge Leslie Southwick, President Bush's nominee for the Fifth Circuit, was finally confirmed yesterday by the Senate.

As usual, Southwick's extensive credentials did not keep Democrats from trying to keep his confirmation stuck in committee. This time, though, we had some unusual help: Senator Diane Feinstein. She crossed over and voted with the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee to send the vote to the Senate floor.

In the Senate, Democrats Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Feinstein again voted with Republicans and Independent Joe Lieberman to confirm Southwick. It should be noted that many of these folks (but not Feinstein) were part of the now-expired "Gang of 14" compromise.

My question: why would Feinstein break ranks for a Mississippi judge aimed at the Fifth Circuit? She had previously announced that after meeting with Southwick, she was convinced of his qualifications and that he wasn't racist (the charge made by the obstructionist Democrats). Is that all it took?

Feinstein has impressed me in the past on the question of judicial nominations. I don't remember whether it was Alito or Roberts' Judicial Committee hearing, but she was the lone Democrat not to parrot Biden's insults and histrionics.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:45 AM | Comments (11)
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Heh.

They're laughingstocks.

I guess this is the appropriate place to note that Foer whined to Howie Kurtz yesterday, claiming a second conversation with Beauchamp -- this one not monitored by the army -- in which Beauchamp, as Ellie Reeves pleaded, re-affirms the story.

Michael Goldfarb of WS tipped me about this last night, and I guess I don't have much to say about it. FWIW, I believe Foer that Beauchamp re-affirmed the story. I also believe this is pretty irrelevant.

Howie Kurtz seems to think this more or less settles the story. All you need is a liar to repeat his lie and that makes it true.

TNR has yet to explain why it chose to conceal these conversations.

Michael Yon on second chances:

. When I replied that I just have a little blog, the word caught his ears and he mentioned Beauchamp, who I acknowledged having heard something about. LTC Glaze seemed protective of Beauchamp, despite how the young soldier had maligned his fellow soldiers. In fact, the commander said Beauchamp, having learned his lesson, was given the chance to leave or stay.

It can be pretty tough over here. The soldiers in BeauchampÂ’s unit have seen a lot of combat. Often times soldiers are working in long stretches of urban guerrilla combat dogged by fatigue and sleep deprivation. This is likely one of the most stressful jobs in the world, especially when millions of people are screaming at you for failures that happened three years or more ago, and for decisions to invade Iraq that were made when you were still a teenager. Just as bad is the silence from the untold millions who have already written off your effort as hopeless. Add that to the fact that buddies are getting killed in front of you. (More than 70 killed in BeauchampÂ’s brigade.) I see what these young men and women go through, and the extraordinary professionalism they nearly always manage to exude awes me on a daily basis.

Lapses of judgment are bound to happen, and accountability is critical, but thatÂ’s not the same thing as pulling out the hanging rope every time a soldier makes a mistake.

Beauchamp is young; under pressure he made a dumb mistake. In fact, he has not always been an ideal soldier. But to his credit, the young soldier decided to stay, and he is serving tonight in a dangerous part of Baghdad. He might well be seriously injured or killed here, and he knows it. He could have quit, but he did not. He faced his peers. I can only imagine the cold shoulders, and worse, he must have gotten. He could have left the unit, but LTC Glaze told me that Beauchamp wanted to stay and make it right. Whatever price he has to pay, he is paying it.

Well there is some perspective.

On the other hand, Michael Yon wants the "cowards" at TNR "treed like raccoons" so he can wear them as a hat.

Posted by: Ace at 08:39 AM | Comments (29)
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As an update to Drew's (and Doc Weasel's ) tribute to Bobby C. Calvin, The Man Who Tells You How It's Gonna Be, this breathtaking account of courage under absolutely no fire whatsoever, from the Warrior Brave himself.

So much great stuff in this guyÂ’s blog! HereÂ’s more, about a U.S.-led raid on Sadr City, targeting a Shiite insurgent leader who was hiding there. The Army said that the only casualties were insurgents, but Iraqi police said that a woman and three children had been killed! Our brave, impartial hero set out to tell the story:

...the story that was already being composed in my mind. I was after vivid descriptions that could, if warranted, paint a scene of chaos, anger and grief.

From the nerve center of his operation, presumably some hotel in the Green Zone, our hero expertly attempted to send a woman into the scene of the carnage to gather some really troubling details...

Why, it's like a Michael Yon dispatch, except with the gripping danger of pushing telephone buttons!

There's more, so much more. That's just a teaser. After admitting he didn't know jackshit about the story he had already written (inventing facts wholesale) in his mind, he "writes around" the story (that is, attempts to construct a narrative without any of those hard-to-track-down facts), and of course turns in a story of women and children being murdered by US troops.

Though I do have to quote this, just because it will provide for a thousand parodies:

Ultimately, it is up to us to decide how far we will take our quest for the truth. In has nothing to do with courage or fear. ItÂ’s about a mission.

Sometimes a man can be pushed too far. And when his back's up against the wall, dialin' a phone's just as easy as breathin', as Rambo might say.

I'll tell you what Neal: I'll make some phone calls without an armed bodyguard and without personal armor. Then I'll have walked a mile in this jackass' fluffy slippers. Can I criticize him then?

Posted by: Ace at 08:27 AM | Comments (30)
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Dear BDS sufferers, Moonbats, and Lefties of all stripes: you know that repression and loss of free speech you've paradoxically been bitching nonstop about for the last few years?

This is what it really looks like. From the Italian left, of course.

The Levi-Prodi law lays out that anyone with a blog or a website has to register it with the ROC, a register of the Communications Authority, produce certificates, pay a tax, even if they provide information without any intention to make money.

------------------------------------------

the Levi-Prodi law obliges anyone who has a website or a blog to get a publishing company and to have a journalist who is on the register of professionals as the responsible director.

Even a teenage catblogger would have to pay a fee and have editorial oversight in order to post pictures of Signor Puffy.

The comments to that post are interesting:

if you read through the document, you see how often the document obsessively repeat
"... the goal of the present proposal is to foster and encourage pluralism...":
Now... you could say that if you want to encourage pluralism, then why to emit such a law in the very first place ?

Reminds me of The Fairness Doctrine, which was also enacted to promote a 'pluralism' of sorts.

Italian bloggers are of the opinion that this law has come about because internet communication has been too successful at rousing Italians against the corruption that endlessly plagues their country.

Though it pleases me to point out that this law originates from the center-left, the idea of shutting up private citizens has broad appeal in Italian government and no one of any party has spoken against it, AFAIK.

Meh. Doubt it will work, anyway. Besides the enforceability aspect, there's the fact that many bloggers don't have real lives. I shudder to think of the repercussions.

A million 35-year old men erupting from their mom's basements and hitting the unfamiliar outdoors en masse, with murder in their eyes.

Good luck with that, Italy.

Thanks to Man of Substance.

Posted by: LauraW. at 08:08 AM | Comments (14)
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Responding to a question at a town hall meeting in Davenport, Iowa, Rudy Giuliani gave his views on torture. It's a lengthy answer and the transcript can be found here.

The short version is that Giuliani, like President Bush, says that torture is illegal, but that torture definitionally does not include things like waterboarding or sleep deprivation. He says, "America should engage in aggressive questioning of Islamic terrorists who are arrested or who are apprehended. Because if we don’t, we leave ourselves open to significant attack.”

“So let’s be careful on how we define this. And, sure we should be against torture. But we should not be against aggressive questioning. And the line between the two is going to require some really difficult decisions about drawing it and kind of trusting each other with the discretion for the president to make decisions about what has to be done in the interests of the American people.’’

He's right and this was a great answer to the question of torture. It places the decision-making with the executive, where it should be, rather than with the legislature. Not everything that is reported to be a human rights violation really is. And there's no doubt that Giuliani, if elected, would continue "aggressively questioning" terrorists.

He also made some swipes at the media; I've put them in the extended entry. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:14 AM | Comments (24)
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