The policy of mistakenly calling Osama bin Ladin "Barack Obama," I mean.

Watch the first video -- outrageous! and compare it to the second, which isn't apparently very outrageous at all.

Obama doesn't mind what Ted Kennedy calls him, so long as he also calls him a cab.

Posted by: Ace at 02:35 PM | Comments (12)
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He had heard there was a SEAL Team ready to cross the Okinawan border to get him.

But it's not all roses. The Yemenis seem to have promised him a quick release.

We'll see if the US Special Forces respect that promise.

Yemeni al Qaeda leader Jamal Badawi has surrendered to police in Yemen. Badawi was the leader of the al Qaeda cell that responsible for the December 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen. Al Qaeda carried out the bombing using suicide attackers in explosive-laden inflatable boats. Seventeen 17 US sailors were killed in the strike. The FBI placed a $5 million reward for Badawi's capture.

Badawi is believed to have surrendered to authorities after negotiations with the government to halt attacks in exchange for a reduced sentence or freedom if he promises to eschew violence. Yemen has had a revolving door policy of jailing and releasing al Qaeda operatives in exchange for promises to lay down their arms.

Thanks to dri.

Posted by: Ace at 02:20 PM | Comments (9)
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Holy. Shit.

That is a hurricane-sized bugout. I remember about that many getting out of the way of Rita a few years ago. I remember it cause I had my brother in law, his wife, two of their kids - one who was married, his wife, their two kids, five dogs and two cats living with us for five days.

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders says it's gone reasonably well, and said he was amazed at the minimal number of casualties.

Me too.

UPDATE: Commenter Hoodlumman takes time off from looting your homes (hey, it's implicit in the moniker) to point out it is a million people moving now.

On the plus side, I am now Rightwingsparkle's hurricane evacuation destination.

Come on Zephyr.

UPDATE2: Gabriel might get smoked out.

This is (or these are) a bad fire(s). Son of a bitch.

Posted by: Dave In Texas at 02:06 PM | Comments (40)
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The Kurdish "liberation"/terrorist party responsible for so much trouble with their neighbors to the north has been banned by al-Maliki.

Whether that's enough, and whether al-Maliki can influence the Kurds to actually act against their own "freedom fighters" is questionable.

Posted by: Ace at 01:05 PM | Comments (13)
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I had a dream like this one time.

I forget if it was a good dream or a bad dream.

All I know is that when I woke up my ass was on fire and my spleen had been swapped out with a Romeny For Senate pin.

Thanks to Dave At Garfield Ridge.

Posted by: Ace at 12:17 PM | Comments (66)
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No one saw this coming I'm sure.

According to (ahem) Shirley MacLaine:

"The smell of roses drew him out to my balcony where, when he looked up, he saw a gigantic triangular craft, silent, and observing him. It hovered, soundless, for ten minutes or so, and sped away with a speed he couldnÂ’t comprehend. He said he felt a connection in his heart and heard directions in his mind."

The gave him directions? Really? Shouldn't he have disclosed his status as an agent of a foreign power previously?

Pic swiped from Moonbattery.

Posted by: Ace at 11:57 AM | Comments (40)
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Rudy fired on him today on this issue, hoping, I guess, to arrest a groundswell for Thompson. I'll get to that in a minute.

First, Teh Fred's plan:

Fred Thompson met with the sheriff of Collier County Florida today and rolled out a new anti-illegal immigration policy initiative that focuses on seven main policy points: 1) No amnesty; 2) Attrition through enforcement; 3) Increased enforcement of current laws; 4) Reduced incentives from jobs; 5) Bolster border security; 6) Increased prosecution; and 7) Rigorous entry and exit regulation.


Collier County is the only county in Southwest Florida to have its deputies trained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to allow them to serve as local immigration and deportation agents. After a quick briefing on the county’s program, which Thompson said should serve as a “model” for counties across the country, the former senator focused on how best to enforce current immigration laws.


At the center of Thompson’s immigration proposal is a crackdown on sanctuary cities, about which he said, “Some of our cities in this country, for their own individual reasons and notions, have basically said to their locals, ‘You can’t cooperate with federal authorities. If you run across illegal aliens, you cannot cooperate with [the federal government], you cannot reveal them to federal authorities.’ That’s wrong.


“I propose that we cut off some discretionary funding to those cities. If you’re going to do that, you’re not going to do it with federal money. As far as colleges and universities are concerned, part of the law is that you may not induce people to come in illegally and become part of the university by giving them in-state tuition treatment, unless you give it to everybody else, which of course nobody does. But they continue to do so. There are discretionary funds there that need to be cut off from colleges and universities that insist on violating the law.”

Um... perfect.

Now Rudy fires on Thompson, questioning some votes he cast as a Senator. Jim Geraghty finds these attacks ticky-tack at best. And he also notes that Thompson was in the overwhelming Republican majority on most of those votes. It's a fact the part has changed its opinion -- or rather grown comfortable about expressing the true opinion it's had all along -- and so it matters less what a politician did or said in the nineties than what he says and does now.

And I'm sorry, as much a fan as I am on Rudy Giuliani, he still doesn't get it, and is still contriving to keep his old pro-illegal policies with a bit of spin. He wants a fence, sure -- "a highly technological fence," that is, meaning, "not a fence at all, just some camera towers and drones." He says he wants to issue a national employee ID to make sure all immigrants in America are working here legally, apparently thinking we're dumb enough to not see the flaw in this plan: illegal immigrants do not forge documents in order to pose as legal immigrants most of the time, but rather to pose as American citizens, who will not be required to carry the employee ID card. So, um, how would that cut down on illegal workers?

Sorry, buddy. No sale. You are continuing to lose a nomination that was yours for the taking due to your stubborness.

This is a huge issue, obviously. New York Dems are scared witless that Elliot Spitzer's plan to give drivers' licenses to illegals will cost them the state, and the GOP has renewed hope that this issue will help them in 2008:

When Republican Jim Ogonowski launched his long-shot bid for Congress, he prepared for an upbeat campaign in his Democratic, working-class district of Massachusetts, based on a winning r¿sum¿: affable hay farmer, former Air Force lieutenant colonel, and brother of an American Airlines pilot whose hijacked plane slammed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

But by last month, although opinion polling showed that he was well liked, he was still running 10 points behind Democrat Niki Tsongas with just weeks to go before a special election. The campaign needed a way to go beyond biography, to persuade Northern Massachusetts to vote Republican. They found it in illegal immigration.

On Tuesday, Ogonowski still fell short, but Tsongas's 51 to 45 percent victory was a shocker in a district where both John F. Kerry and Al Gore took 57 percent of the vote, and where liberal Democratic Rep. Martin T. Meehan served comfortably for eight terms. The underwhelming victory of the wife of deceased former senator Paul Tsongas has rekindled Democratic concerns about an immigration issue they had hoped had been put to rest.

"This issue has real implications for the country. It captures all the American people's anger and frustration not only with immigration, but with the economy," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus and an architect of the Democratic congressional victories of 2006. "It's self-evident. This is a big problem."

Republicans, sensing a major vulnerability, have been hammering Democrats, forcing Congress to face the question of illegal immigration on every bill they can find, from agriculture spending and housing assistance to the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

...

"I think the Democrats are on the wrong side of this issue, and if they continue down this path, they are going to lose a lot of seats," said Matt Wylie, a strategist for the Ogonowski campaign.

...

"Immigration played into the economic issue," said Francis Talty, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell who followed the Tsongas-Ogonowski contest. "Do you want illegal immigrants to get in-state [university] tuition? Do you want them to get driver's licenses? Do you want their children to get benefits under SCHIP? It was the benefit side that has real resonance, not the deportation thing."

A new national poll for National Public Radio, conducted by the Democratic polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, and the Republican firm Public Opinion Strategies, found that voters are more likely to side with Democrats than Republicans on war, taxes and spending, the economy, health care and health insurance for children, often by wide margins. On immigration, the Republicans hold a 49 to 44 percent lead.

As much as there is to like and admire about Giuliani, the man either has to get right on the issues or get out of the race. Not only is his immigration waffling bad policy, it's bad politics, giving the Democrats a pass on the one hot-button issue they're truly vulnerable on at the moment.

(A Romney internal poll has Fred leading Rudy in SC (actually Rudy's in third according to the poll), for what's it's worth.)

More: Fred's thoughts on the "achievable" solution of attrition through enforcement at the Washington Times.

Bad Spin From Thompson: Or at least spin I don't approve of. He too seems to be sticking to past votes that should be repudiated.

From the first-linked article:

Thompson campaign spokesman Jeff Sadosky noted that the bill in question only had support from two Republicans in the Senate because many saw it as a stepping-stone to a national ID law. “[Giuliani] is basically criticizing us for being Republican,” Sadosky said, “once again aligning himself with Senate Democrats.”

I realize this raises all sorts of red flags with privacy-minded conservatives, but you can't have genuine enforcement of immigration/work rules without a hard-to-forge national ID. Our country continues to be a soft target for both illegal workers and terrorists because it's easy as hell to forge many state IDs (or forge the documents necessary to get yourself a real, though fraudulently obtained, state ID).

I don't get this resistance. You have to show state-issued ID for many purposes already -- including employment, where you have to present a passport of SS card. So I don't understand why conservatives are just fine with being required to show easily forged IDs but balk at being asked to show difficult to forge IDs.

Do some of us anticipate having to go "off the grid" like John Connor in the very near future? Whom does the current system benefit apart from criminals, terrorists, and illegal aliens?

Posted by: Ace at 11:13 AM | Comments (35)
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The good news is there's a detective movie that's supposedly pretty good.

The bad news is that it's directed, competently if shakily, by Ben Affleck, who's a dick and this will just make him worse.

It stars his kid brother, who seems okay. At least he hasn't become a big enough star to piss me off yet with his stupidity. Give him time.

On the other hand, it should be noted this review is from The New Republic, raising the question: Was the reviewer even in the theater screening the film, or was he in Germany or Kuwait?

Posted by: Ace at 10:30 AM | Comments (25)
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To share with other reserve officers and law enforcement personnel in California, for anti-terrorism work.

Marine Gunnery Sgt. Gary Maziarz said patriotism motivated him to join a spy ring, smuggle secret files from Camp Pendleton and give them to law enforcement officers for anti-terrorism work in Southern California.

He knew his group was violating national security laws. But he said bureaucratic walls erected by the military and civilian agencies were hampering intelligence sharing and coordination, making the nation more vulnerable to terrorists.

He has admitted to breaking the law, and for that will and should have to face the consequences of his actions.

SeeDubya asks a couple of good questions:

"...how utterly horrifying that these bureaucratic roadblocks were apparently so absolute and our ability to address the threat of domestic terrorists so circumscribed that these men--including high-ranking officers--felt they had to break the law and risk their careers in order to protect the country.

and

"One also wonders whether this sort of prosecution would convince leftist goofballs who think we're living in a police state, maaan that this sort of lawbreaking in pursuit of terrorists is Officially Discouraged and actually lands officers in the brig."

I'll add one of my own.

Will their punishment for breaking the law regarding the care and handling of classified material exceed that punishment meted to Sandy Berger?

UPDATE: Couple of comments, including one from ol smoking jacket Seedub himself, raise questions as to motivation and altruism. That would make it worse than it already is, and it's bad enough.

Posted by: Dave In Texas at 10:06 AM | Comments (16)
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When you really need a hack partisan rag to spin news absurdly, you turn to Newsweek.

Wow.

The media is refusing to report the good news in Iraq, but it's... Bush's fault?

And now they only report on it in order to claim he's lying about it?

Is this a joke?

Their claim is that while Bush is trying to inform the public of the breathtaking drop in casualties, he's not highlighting the one statistic Newsweek approves of: That deaths due to Iranian-made EFP's are dropping too, along with every other type of terrorist attack. And he's concealing that, of course, because he wants to attack Iran.

The trouble is that the Administration (or the military) is putting out all these statistics, of course.

Last month the spin from the left was that the military was lying about the lowered number of casualties, "not counting," supposedly, shots to the front of the head as murders or some crap. (The left just made that up -- the military includes all deaths in its stats.) Now they're claiming the military is lying by not highlighting lowered deaths due to EFPs, though of course they've reported them.

But they haven't highlighted them. So they're, you know, lying.

It seems to me the media is doing an awful lot of non-highlighting. Are they admitting they're lying as well?

Newsweek claims that the reason for the drop in EFPs can't be guessed at -- the implication they try to make is that perhaps Iran is now just choosing to behave better.

Well, maybe. Or maybe it has to do with British special forces crossing the border to gun down Iranian agents smuggling weapons across the border. And maybe it has to do with the fact that a major recipient of those EFPs -- Al Qaeda -- is now begging for forgiveness from the local populace and asking for a second chance.

The British and Australian SAS forces are reportedly working with American special forces to patrol the border to prevent weapons - including surface-to-air missiles and parts for IEDs (improvised explosive devices) - from reaching the hands of Iraqi insurgents.

According to the article, the SAS have engaged in at least six "intense firefights" with both Iranian and Iraqi Shi'ite arms smugglers. The fighting has reportedly taken place on both sides of the Iran-Iraq border, and Iran has fired mortar shells across the border.

Or maybe Newsweek's right -- Iran just decided to be nice all of a sudden and stop murdering Americans.

Fuck you assholes.

I was going to mention of Glen Beck's horrible, horrible statement and chastise him a bit, but I don't think I have the stomach for it now.

Commenters were joking about how the left intended to take credit for the military successes. I bet no one thought of this particular tactic.

Thanks to Looking Glass.

No Highlighting = Lying For Political Purposes? Very well. I look forward to Newsweek's article on the liars of the Democratic Congress, who continue to insist there is no provable progress due to the surge, and even when they allow that such a thing is "possible," they certainly don't highlight it.

As the Global Warming Alarmists say:

The science is settled. The facts are in.

Anyone who disputes the success in Iraq is a Victory Denier, not unlike a Holocaust Denier.

That's how it works, right?

Posted by: Ace at 09:08 AM | Comments (67)
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