Just stealing from Hot Air. Bad news: Rasmussen says he now trails Huckabee nationally.

Good news: He has a couple of effective ads out right now, and, as Allah notes, he continues offering up sound, mainstream-ish conservative policy proposals while Giuliani and Romney snipe at each other and Huckabee attempts to enlist St. Paul as his Secretary of the Treasury.

Posted by: Ace at 02:29 PM | Comments (22)
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UPDATED: In case you missed this last weekend, some dude has been copying posts made on AOSHQ and elsewhere and passing them off as his own work. From DoublePlusUndead's continuing plagiarism coverage.

That link is Look True North's biography page, it links his blog, and confirms who it is, using the combined info from those three links, we can find out that not only is it Michael Barrett, who ran for the House of Representatives in 2006, he is a Vice-Chairman of the Minnesota Republican Party! Pat also noted that Barrett may be running again for the House in 2008.

Original post follows below the fold. more...

Posted by: LauraW. at 01:30 PM | Comments (56)
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And lonely men, I'm thinking. The RPMs and foot-pounds those soft hands can generate in full mechanical masturbatory fury...

I'll be in my bunk. With my sadly inadequate organic meat-paddles.

I haven't been this turned on since I noticed the Robot from Lost in Space had, in fact, an actual package:

...which made his Sub-Dom homoerotic relationship with Dr. Smith even more exquisitely tantalizing.

Danger, Will Robinson. My sensors are detecting teh hotness.

Thanks to Dan Collins.

Related: Boston Mulls Spanking Ban: Damnit, what am I going to tell my girlfriends and/or robots? (But I repeat myself.)

Just a request made of a legislator now, but Boston loves banning stuff.

This Guy could give robots a run for their money, at least in spanking area. Fourteen spanks, or rather "claps," per second, he claims. Guinness record.

Gee, with a talent like that, I'm surprised he's reduced to just giving away money by posting free online videos.

Posted by: Ace at 01:14 PM | Comments (12)
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Wow.

On Thursday the eggheads will revise the 3rd quarter GDP snapshot of the country's economic growth. It was preliminarily called at 3.9% -- already a pretty sizzling number -- and may be revised up to 4.5% (smokin' up your kitchen) or even 5% (inferno, grab the cash from the icebox and evacuate the premises).

The Deciders, however, are entirely unimpressed:

In normal times, a U.S. recession would be a distant prospect. The biggest piece of economic data this week is the revision of third-quarter U.S. GDP growth rate, probably to a far-from-recessionary 5%. But these are not normal times.

By "normal times" I'm pretty sure they mean "periods in which a Democratic President is in office."

Newsbusters comments:

If (emphasis "if") Thursday's actual result is 4.9% or higher, it will be the best GDP growth since the third quarter of 2003, and the second-best since the second quarter of 2000.

The second quarter of 2000? Doesn't that mean the GDP growth would be higher than at the end of Clinton's term? And the other big quarter -- the eyepopping 6+% rate in 2003 -- was also not hit during Clinton's presidency.

The economy was strong under Clinton. That is not arguable, except, I guess, by lunatics. But the lunatics in the MSM are determined to pretend that when Bush's presidency consists of quarter after quarter of solid-to-strong growth and low unemployment, we're in a fucking recession, or we are just barely dodging a recession, or we will be in a recession next week.

I don't think they've pined for anything quite as strongly except perhaps the long-anticipated Iraqi Civil War. Their longing for both demonstrates an obsession bordering on the sexual.

Posted by: Ace at 12:39 PM | Comments (57)
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Some good ones.

Bonus: Vid from French TV about the late unpleasantness in the banlieus. As Michelle says, you don't need a translation for fire and chaos.

Posted by: Ace at 12:26 PM | Comments (10)
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We've won, says Don Surber, which may or may not be premature but I'm not quite sure it can be evidenced from a "Declaration of Principles" reached on the future Iraq-US relationship.

Still, it sure seems like good news. Surber writes:

This should have made Page 1.

With a sailor kissing a nurse on Times Square.

Funny how while the Democrats were calling for a troop withdrawal and the surrender of Iraq to al-Qaeda — while the New York Times was even condoning genocide — President Bush changed course and won the war.

Incredible.

The New York Sun seems alone in thinking this is a big deal.

As I've said before, I'm not sure that Bush's change-of-course and Petraeus' new strategy won the war, so much as it helped take advantage of trends already underway. "The surge won the war" is a compelling narrative, direct and simple, but it may well be that Bush's blundering stubbornness earlier in the war, and of course our troops' amazing heroism in darker times, actually wore out the enemy and set the table for the victories that would later follow.

What won the war might have been Bush's "simplistic" and nuance-lacking determination that we would not give up no matter how bad things to get. In this one crucial determination he seems to have been right, even if he (arguably) got so much else wrong.

H/t CJ.

Posted by: Ace at 12:13 PM | Comments (32)
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At Dan Riehl's site:

Life has not improved for the inhabitants of France's poor, ethnically diverse suburbs since the riots of 2005, despite millions of euros in cash pledges and President Nicolas Sarkozy's election promises.

...

"Nothing has changed," said Mehdi Bigaderne, a spokesman for ACLEFEU, an association helping youths in Clichy-sous-Bois.

"I don't think they learnt any lessons from 2005."

So let me get this straight: Since Sarkozy took office six months ago, he has not, in fact, managed to educate the uneducated, employ the unemployable, nor soothe the perpetually outraged?

I'm interested in the "lessons from 2005," as Mehdi Bigaderne believes them to be. Would those lessons be something along the lines of "Give arsonists and killers whatever they want?"

Posted by: Ace at 11:34 AM | Comments (25)
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20 kronor is the going rate for a filthy scandi snowbilly Christmas hug. The "Hugs for the Lonely" drive will run about 3 weeks.

Damned Scandis have reduced Christmas to nothing more than a brazen opportunity to raise money for charitable work and services to the needy.

"Christmas is a very difficult time for many people," he [Swedish Red Cross communications director Johan af Donner] said.

Yeah, how'd you like to make 20 kronor the hard way pal? F'n' do-gooder.

Posted by: Dave In Texas at 11:31 AM | Comments (10)
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Well! When you put together a panel consisting of Helen "Jews Stole My Pulitzer Application" Thomas, Dan "I am not a hack" Rather, and David "Who am I? Seriously, I'm not even sure" Gregory, that's the sort of nuance you're likely to get from The (Ex-) Deciders.

Gregory's statement was in response to a prompt from Dan Rather, who asked if Dan Bartlett was a "Minister of Propaganda," by the way.

Thanks to CJ.

The Nazis Twice in One Day Update [Gabe]: For those of you wondering when the last time a "Ministry of Propaganda" was used, you guessed correctly.

Incidentally, the number one Google result for "minister of propaganda" leads you right to a collection of materials from Joseph Goebbels.

Posted by: Ace at 11:26 AM | Comments (17)
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I actually posted this in the sidebar last week, but it seems this is the week when everyone noticed the story. Dri sends this video of the story.

Eh. I don't care. I'm tired of writing about Ron Paul, period. Even making fun of him has gotten old.

Posted by: Ace at 11:12 AM | Comments (16)
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