I ain't gonna lie. I always hated Kurt Loder. Maybe just because he was so overpromoted when hired by MTV when I was young. They kept insisting (despite the fact that I wasn't arguing it) that he was a "real journalist" with such (presumably real journalistic) outfits as Rolling Stone.

I felt like I was being asked to swear an oath of loyalty to the Cult of Kurt Loder every fucking time I just wanted to watch the Bananarama girls dance.

I also hated the fact that he provided the Sonorous Monotone of Official Establishment Approval on all those "Sex in the Eighties" and "Sex in the Nineties" specials which promised to be "thoughtful examinations of real-world sexual issues confronting the youth of today," even though they were just extended advertisements for teenage promiscuity. Yeah, at that time, I was a big fan of teenage promiscuity, and perhaps even something of a minor promoter myself, but even then I knew it was wrong for adult-run organizations to be pushing this on us. We had enough bad fucking ideas as it was without having The Establishment encourage us further and suggest exciting new pathologies.

Besides, if you were doing something wrong and you had your jivey uncle telling you it was okay, it just ruined it.

Well, times change. First he ripped Michael Moore a new ass over SiCKO, now he's touting blogs and their role in unmasking Scott Beauchamp and Franklin Foer.

So many years later, and I'm left with the question:

How much did Kurt Loder want to strangle Tabitha Soren to death?

And -- did he strangle her to death? Haven't seen much of her lately.

Posted by: Ace at 02:59 PM | Comments (26)
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The other one was nice, but I guess we needed -- what's that lovely term of Hitler's? Ah yes -- Lebensraum.

Michelle has the most withering round-up of these bastards in action.

And of course a "Peace Mom" using her kid as a prop gets distracted by a drum circle and drops her baby to the ground.

Priorities. But then, I'm sure she's getting laid tonight so it all works out.

Posted by: Ace at 02:46 PM | Comments (99)
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The State Department has filled all 48 slots for placement in Iraq with volunteers. The department has dropped its plan to go to "directed assignments."

Note that this is unofficial; an announcement may come tomorrow.

Question: Any negative repercussions for those who refused to serve?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:21 PM | Comments (16)
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Full article.

If convicted of all five* counts, he could be sentenced up to 30* years.

Posted by: Ace at 02:15 PM | Comments (20)
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The Clinton campaign must be feeling pretty set upon by the media, after their weeks of "poor Hillary" comments and their warning to CNN. ABCNews has a story on Clinton donors who had been pardoned by her husband. Clinton's staff responds:

"We have raised over $65 million from over 200,000 people," said Clinton campaign manager Howard Wolfson, adding sarcastically, "I appreciate your bringing the instance of this $5,300 and these three people to our attention."

Tactless? Graceless? Oh, yes. And absolutely tone-deaf coming from a campaign that's already been too cavalier about accepting questionable donations. It's not illegal for her to accept donations from folks who were pardoned by her husband. But it looks bad, especially since it also appears that Clinton has gained other benefits from her husband's pardon-spree in January 2001.

In August 2000, during her first Senate run, Clinton met with the Hasidic community in New Square, where many members were working to obtain clemency for four members of their community who had been convicted of stealing tens of millions of dollars from the state and federal government.

The town overwhelmingly voted for Clinton, and in January 2001, the four men were granted clemency.

[...]

Hillary Clinton's brother Tony Rodham was paid $244,769 over 2½ years by a carnival company, United Shows of America, owned by Edgar and Vonna Jo Gregory. The Gregorys had been convicted of bank fraud and were seeking pardons. Tony Rodham has said he mentioned their pardon application to his brother-in-law, who ultimately granted the Gregorys a pardon.

It's only fair that we should warn Senator Clinton: Congress is considering vastly expanding the definition of bribery when it comes to accepting favors in exchange for "official action."

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 01:02 PM | Comments (15)
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Supportin' the troops, Cambridge style.

“We have never seen anything like this decision in Cambridge before,” Patterson wrote. The city is changing for the worse if decisions like this are allowed to be made.”

Yup. The only mitigating circumstance here is that the donation boxes were set up in polling stations, so that people could donate on their way to vote. Someone (unnamed, of course) complained about this being "too political" and thus got all the boxes -- which had been put there and promoted at personal expense -- tossed out.

Wanting to give a soldier a fucking XBox game is now "too political"?

Posted by: Ace at 12:58 PM | Comments (32)
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But remember, Mohammad El-Baradei has redefined the main purpose of his job, in his own words, to prevent any hostile action against Iran.

So this is what he comes up with.

Goldfarb:

Now the IAEA's report is out, and they find the Iranians to be "generally truthful." The Iranians had "accidentally" received blueprints for a nuclear warhead (as part of an illegal transfer of nuclear know-how), which were "accidentally" discovered by the IAEA, and we are still supposed to believe that (a) they aren't working towards a nuclear weapon, (b) they don't have other blueprints with which they weren't quite so careless, and (c) the IAEA's standard for compliance has always been "generally truthful." This wishful thinking can only lead to one conclusion--a nuclear Iran.

Posted by: Ace at 12:48 PM | Comments (7)
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This serious: The military is figuring out how to resupply our troops in landlocked Afghanistan should our, um, ally Pakistan close their borders to us.

Posted by: Ace at 11:36 AM | Comments (15)
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From the good Dr. Shackleford, via LGF.

Posted by: Ace at 11:24 AM | Comments (11)
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Okinawa? Either that or Iraq. I don't know, they share a border and are pretty much the same country so it's hard to distinguish.

Posted by: Ace at 11:18 AM | Comments (10)
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