In their attempts to beat up the president for vetoing the expansion of children's health care, the Democrats got a seven-year-old to give their radio address. The child was meant to illustrate what the president vetoed - health coverage for poor families who couldn't afford insurance.

The facts of this child's situation are quite different from what has been claimed.

Instead of pointing out those facts, the press is highlighting anti-Bush ads on this topic in stories that are thinly-disguised efforts to rehash the talking points.

This gives conservatives yet another opportunity to play our favorite game - what if a Republican had done this?

Oh, wait...we already know what happens when Republicans do this sort of thing. The lack of consistency in the media is pathetic.

Posted by: Slublog at 07:41 PM | Comments (48)
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Guess the band from the simplified, stylized cartoons of them. Scroll over each and let your mouse pointer sit a second to see if you're right.

Posted by: Ace at 07:25 PM | Comments (14)
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Romo: 4 INTs, two returned for touchdowns. 17-7 as the half ticks down.

Wow: I hated the outcome but a hell of a game.

NFL.com doesn't have the clips of the game up yet, but when they do, I suggest watching it.

NFL.com is the best non-porn site on the internet. Great clips whenever you want them.

Posted by: Ace at 07:05 PM | Comments (110)
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First two bits from FishWrap. At the moment polls say Hillary! beats everyone, but I can't believe that is true or will hold up.

The Kristol-Podhoertz argument is interesting: If the GOP is doomed to lose once-red Ohio, any win will have to come via picking up a blue or purple state like PA or NJ. Perhaps Giuliani can't swing that -- it certainly doesn't look like he can take NY or NJ -- but can anyone else?

Posted by: Ace at 06:22 PM | Comments (30)
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His family denies it. A biographer says different.

Meh. I grew up reading Peanuts -- actually I learned to read by reading Peanuts -- but I don't know if this is true or if I give a damn either way.

Mr. Michaelis said that he was surprised to hear how upset some members of the family were, but that “to their children fathers are always heroes, and very few families can see beyond that paterfamilias.” After interviewing hundreds of people, going through every one of the 17,897 comic strips Schulz drew and doing extensive research, Mr. Michaelis said, “this was the man I found.”

“Did I get the story right?” he asked. “Absolutely. No question.”

Mr. Michaelis referred to numerous interviews throughout Charles Schulz’s life in which he talked about his own “melancholy” and anxieties. “I have this awful feeling of impending doom,” he said on “60 Minutes” in 1999. “I wake up to a funeral-like atmosphere.” Many portraits of Schulz pick up the same theme. Rheta Grimsley Johnson’s 1989 biography, “Good Grief: The Story of Charles M. Schulz,” similarly describes him as depressed and plagued by panic attacks, despite a large family and mammoth financial and critical success. Nor does it seem that Mr. Michaelis made a secret of his perspective. He wrote an appreciation of Schulz in Time magazine in December 2000 after his death at 77 in which he clearly laid out the thesis he expands on in his 655-page book, sometimes word for word.

...

“David couldn’t put everything in,” she said, but added, “I think Sparky’s melancholy and his dysfunctional first marriage are more interesting to talk about than 25 years of happiness.” She quoted her husband’s frequent response to why Charlie Brown never got to kick the football: “Happiness is not funny.”

The Nose on Your Face has a blog exclusive, a "lost" Peanuts panel which seems to be evidence of Schulz's darker side.

A Digital Brownshirt Rat-Out: From Uncle Jefe, who says he knew "Sparky" Schulz, and I believe him:

Well...I grew up in the front row on this one! I knew Sparky, his wife Jean ( a very well respected and well loved woman in the community), their sons Craig and Monty, daughter Jill...

Sparky was very uncomfortable socially. He held an annual Senior Olympics Hockey tournament at his ice rink in Santa Rosa, and many of the people in attendance didn't like him at all. He was described as aloof and arrogant; I think it was more his social ineptness that cast him in that light, though aloof was fitting. My own personal experience was that he was a grumpy sourpuss of a man who rarely smiled (when he did it seemed pained), was very picky, demanding, and didn't like us (the kids who played hockey there). He liked the figure skaters (Jill was quite accomplished and a very nice person), and let them get away with murder. Their messes and bullshit always got blamed on us.

I liked 'Peanuts' as a kid. I didn't care for Sparky.

Atilla says that anyone reading Peanuts and not gathering the writer was depressive or melancholy is an imbecile, and I believe him too.

Posted by: Ace at 04:31 PM | Comments (48)
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I can't think of any other reason to explain this.

Correction: Oregon, not Virginia. My bad.

Posted by: Ace at 03:23 PM | Comments (24)
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Because obviously the vandals/arsonists don't hate Jews, they just hate Zionists, which are fair game.

Posted by: Ace at 03:13 PM | Comments (35)
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On the six o'clock show. He may be doing it right now.

Thanks to Larwyn.

Posted by: Ace at 03:04 PM | Comments (10)
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Will appeal the verdict in her file sharing lawsuit with the RIAA.

On Myspace, she outlined her attorney's strategy for turning the tables on the 6 companies who were awarded a $220,000 judgement.

"He explained how we're going to take the RIAA's theory of making [files] available and appeal it," she wrote. "He also explained how if we win, this would stop the RIAA dead in their tracks!!! Every single suit they have brought has been based on this making available theory, and if we can win this appeal, they would actually have to prove a file was shared and by someone other than their own licensed agent."

Oooooh-kay.

She further declared she will be "a thorn in their side" and will not "be bullied".

Background here.

Posted by: Dave In Texas at 02:05 PM | Comments (37)
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Seems like news to me, but apparently The Deciders disagree. Only they are qualified to judge if captured enemy terrorists claiming a set-up to malign US Marines and inflame sectarian passions and undermine the war effort is actually newsworthy and worth any column-inches at all.

Seems like such a reverse-the-entire-narrative story would be somewhat interesting for some reporter out there, but what do I know. I only have a magna cum laude law degree and not that very-difficult three-semester easy-peasy journalism degree.

Buried in the mountain of exhibits attached to the once secret Haditha, Iraq murder inquiry prepared by US Army Maj. Gen. Eldon A. Bargewell is an obscure Marine Corps intelligence summary (see pdf) that says the deadly encounter was an intentional propaganda ploy planned and paid for by Al Qaeda foreign fighters.

Veteran military defense attorney Gary Meyers said he never understood why the Naval Criminal Investigative Service special agents leading the Haditha criminal investigation didn’t “examine the linkage” between Al Qaeda, the local insurgency and the events at Haditha. Meyers was an attorney on the defense team that successfully defended Justin Sharratt, a Marine infantryman accused of multiple murders at Haditha.

The report – apparently overlooked by a Washington press corps awash in leaked Bargewell documents and secret Naval Criminal Investigative Service reports – shows that Marine Corps intelligence operatives were advised of the scheme to demonize the Marines by an informant named Muhannad Hassan Hamadi. The informant was snared by 3/1 Marines on December 11 2005 and decided to cooperate.

The attack was carried out by multiple cells of local Wahabi extremists and well-paid local gunmen from Al AsaÂ’ib al-Iraq [the Clans of the People of Iraq] that were led by Al Qaeda foreign fighters, the summary claims. Their case was bolstered by Marine signal intercepts revealing that the al Qaeda fighters planned to videotape the attacks and exploit the resulting carnage for propaganda purposes.

Eleven insurgents involved in the attack are identified by name and affiliation in the details of the summary. All of them were killed or captured in the days immediately following the Haditha incident.

During the November Haditha battle, the insurgents secreted themselves among local civilians to guarantee pursuing Marines would catch innocent civilians in the ensuing crossfire. On January 6, 2006 six insurgents who tried to do the same thing at another location in Haditha were turned in to Coalition authorities before they could mount a similar assault, the report says.

Posted by: Ace at 01:58 PM | Comments (28)
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