Battlestar Galactica fans will be dismayed by this little tidbit buried in the LA Times last week:

Ronald D. Moore, the executive producer who runs "Battlestar Galactica," is gearing up for the long goodbye by taking on a new task. He will take the director's chair for the first time next season as his dramatic reinvention of the hokey 1970s' space opera treks toward the end. The final 20-episode run will kick off in -- you read it here first -- early April.

No word on why January (the planned start date) was not going to work. They're also considering breaking the final season into two parts to be shown in 2008 and 2009.

If they do hold off until April, BSG will have been off the air for over a year, not counting the Razor movie which comes out at the end of the month.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:29 AM | Comments (31)
Post contains 156 words, total size 1 kb.

They say politics makes strange bedfellows, I guess this is proof of that.

Pat Robertson, one of the most influential figures in the social conservative movement, will announce his support for Rudy Giuliani's presidential bid this morning in Washington, D.C., according to sources familiar with the decision.

Robertson's support was coveted by several of the leading Republican candidates and provides Giuliani with a major boost as the former New York City mayor seeks to convince social conservatives that, despite his positions on abortion and gay rights, he is an acceptable choice as the GOP nominee.

I think the media and politicians over value these types of endorsements but this can only help Rudy in his quest to at least not be openly at war with social conservatives. And Mitt has been racking up a lot of notable social-con endorsements lately (most recently Paul Weyrich), so anything Rudy can do to stall that type of momentum is a plus for him.

Still, if anyone had told me 2 or 3 years ago that Pat Robertson would endorse Rudy Giuliani I’d have asked for a sip of whatever it is they were drinking, yet here we are.

An additional thought…Remember when everyone cheered Rudy for practically ripping Ron Paul’s heart out of his chest and showed it to him, ala the cult priest in The Temple of Doom, for suggesting that ‘blowback’ from U.S. policy was the cause of 9/11? Well, how is Rudy going to answer the inevitable questions about Robertson’s agreement with Jerry Fallwell’s assessment that 9/11 was due in part to the secularization of America?

Strange bedfellows indeed.

Posted by: DrewM. at 05:55 AM | Comments (43)
Post contains 273 words, total size 2 kb.

They say politics makes strange bedfellows, I guess this is proof of that.

Pat Robertson, one of the most influential figures in the social conservative movement, will announce his support for Rudy Giuliani's presidential bid this morning in Washington, D.C., according to sources familiar with the decision.

Robertson's support was coveted by several of the leading Republican candidates and provides Giuliani with a major boost as the former New York City mayor seeks to convince social conservatives that, despite his positions on abortion and gay rights, he is an acceptable choice as the GOP nominee.

I think the media and politicians over value these types of endorsements but this can only help Rudy in his quest to at least not be openly at war with social conservatives. And Mitt has been racking up a lot of notable social-con endorsements lately (most recently Paul Weyrich), so anything Rudy can do to stall that type of momentum is a plus for him.

Still, if anyone had told me 2 or 3 years ago that Pat Robertson would endorse Rudy Giuliani IÂ’d have asked for a sip of whatever it is they were drinking, yet here we are.

An additional thought…Remember when everyone cheered Rudy for practically ripping Ron Paul’s heart out of his chest and showed it to him, ala the cult priest in The Temple of Doom, for suggesting that ‘blowback’ from U.S. policy was the cause of 9/11? Well, how is Rudy going to answer the inevitable questions about Robertson’s agreement with Jerry Fallwell’s assessment that 9/11 was due in part to the secularization of America?

Strange bedfellows indeed.

Posted by: DrewM at 05:55 AM | Comments (43)
Post contains 277 words, total size 2 kb.

And one last thing before bed, so the morning crew will see it first thing. We're neck-and-neck with Michelle Malkin.

I've made it so you don't even have to go over to the Weblog Awards Site to vote for Ace. How's that for service?

Just click into the extended entry (I've stuck it there so it won't slow things down too terribly on the main page). [Removed because it was slowing things down. please click to the Weblog Awards page to vote -- Gabe]

In the spirit of moron-camaraderie, you should still head over and vote for:
Slublog in "Best of the Rest"
Nice Deb in "Best New Blog"

The morons tell me that:
Climate Audit deserves your vote in "Best Science Blog"
Gateway Pundit in "Best of the Top 250"
Average Gay Joe in "Best LBGT Blog"

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:44 AM | Comments (3)
Post contains 124 words, total size 1 kb.

It's not like our military men and women are adults or anything and capable of choosing their own leisure materials. No, we must ban Penthouse and Playboy from stores on military bases.

Pornographic material was banned from being sold in military establishments nearly 10 years ago, but Christian group American Family Association claimed that adult fare, including Penthouse and Playboy material, is still being sold in the stores, USA Today reported Monday.

The Pentagon deemed those materials aren't explicit enough to pull from its stores.

"They're saying 'we're not selling stuff that's sexually explicit' -- and we say it's pornography," Donald Wildmon, head of the American Family Association, told USA Today.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:19 PM | Comments (102)
Post contains 129 words, total size 1 kb.

War, what is it good for:

Close to 90,000 children who would have died before age 5 in Afghanistan during Taliban rule will stay alive this year because of advances in medical care in the country, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Sunday.

The under-5 child mortality rate in Afghanistan has declined from an estimated 257 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2001 to about 191 per 1,000 in 2006, the Ministry of Public Health said, relying on a new study by Johns Hopkins University.

The U.N. and aid agency Save the Children both hailed the advances in health care in Afghanistan.

"This is certainly very positive news," said the U.N. spokesman in Afghanistan, Adrian Edwards. "To come from such low life expectancy to see this improvement does appear to be an indication that the work on the health sector here is beginning to pay off."

Of course the little carbon-dioxide factories will hasten the death of the earth, so we can still blame Bush for that.

Posted by: Ace at 07:07 PM | Comments (12)
Post contains 190 words, total size 1 kb.

This story is surprisingly refreshing. It may be the fact that this AP writer is as relieved as congressional Democrats that they won't have to register votes on impeaching Vice President Cheney.

House Democrats on Tuesday narrowly managed to avert a bruising debate on a proposal to impeach Dick Cheney after Republicans, in a surprise maneuver, voted in favor of taking up the measure [which Democrat Dennis Kucinich introduced with privileged status so as to avoid Democratic attempts to block it].

The article doesn't go into why it would have been a "bruising debate" for Democrats. Here are a few reasons off the top of my head:

(1) Impeaching a sitting Vice President is not all that popular with the public.

(2) Impeachment is pretty popular with the Lefty fringe which has been driving the party for the last few years. However, it's likely poison for moderates that Democrats would like to attract in the general.

(3) Congress is already sitting at super-low approval rates, in part, because it's gotten no work done.

(4) The premise of the impeachment relies on losing the Iraq War; Democrats appear to have missed their opportunity (knock on wood).

(5) Related to (4), this would make foreign policy the dominant issue for the 2008 elections, as it was in 2004 and 2006. Democrats have examined public sentiment and found that things look more like 2004 than they do 2006.

What else am I missing?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:12 PM | Comments (27)
Post contains 236 words, total size 2 kb.

This was on the front page of the Washington Post today with the headline "Teen Wins Fight for Antiabortion Club at School."

With prayer, persistence and a lawsuit against the Stafford County schools, the 16-year-old recently succeeded in starting what might be the region's only antiabortion club in a public high school. The Pro-Life Club, which attracted about 20 people to its first gathering, also promotes teen sexual abstinence as well as opposing abortion. Hoffmeier said her legal fight was a matter of equity.

These kinds of clubs always made me uncomfortable when I was in high school. And I was a pretty hard-core Catholic (still am pretty Catholic, just not like in highschool).

But I'm pleased to see news like this getting widespread attention. Too many people are confused as to what activities schools can prohibit.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:19 PM | Comments (17)
Post contains 147 words, total size 1 kb.

Columnist James Pinkerton has an interesting article premised on the idea that Clinton's support for drivers licenses for illegals is "a slow hemorrhaging" that will finish her off in the general even as it's ignored during the primaries.

He analogizes her situation to that of Michael Dukakis in 1988. Dukakis was way out ahead of Bush 41 in the national polls after having shrugged off attacks from then-Senator Al Gore on the topic of prison furloughs during the primary.

I'll cut to the chase, but you should read it all:

Now fast-forward to 2007. I'm long out of partisan campaign politics, but Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton reminds me a lot of Dukakis. As he was two decades ago, she's from a big state, has a lot of money, is ahead in the polls - and she's been grievously injured. This time, the issue isn't prison furloughs, but driver's licenses for illegal immigrants in her "home" state of New York. Clinton has broadly defended Gov. Eliot Spitzer's unpopular plan, even as most New Yorkers have reviled it.

During the Philadelphia debate of Democratic hopefuls on Oct. 30, Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, aiming from way back in the Democratic pack, took a stab at Clinton. Her position was "troublesome," he said, adding, "I think the American people are reacting to it."

Yes, they are, but not inside the "nominating wing" of the Democratic Party, which doesn't worry about illegal immigration. So just as Gore failed to get anywhere in criticizing Dukakis 20 years ago, Dodd is not destined to get any lift from his Clinton criticism.

But the country, of course, is bigger than a few lefty-dominated presidential primaries and caucuses. If Spitzer can't sell his licenses-for-illegals plan to New Yorkers in 2007, how can Clinton hope to defend that plan to Americans in 2008?

This may explain why she's starting to backpedal.

CROWLEY: If I wrote a story that said: "Absent a broad illegal immigration bill, Hillary Clinton agrees about giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants," is that correct?

CLINTON: No. What I have said is that I support what governors are trying to do. And governors are on the front lines because of the failures to get comprehensive immigration reform.

Video at the second link if you want to subject yourself to both Clinton and Candy Crowley. Masochist.

UPDATE: Moron km points me to this post of his from last week.

I don't think this makes much difference to Democratic primary voters and caucus goers. They probably agree with her. There's a lot they favor when it comes to illegal aliens: sanctuary cities and in-state college tuition, to name a couple.

So for the time being, this is no big deal.

Assuming she gets the nomination, though, it will be a huge deal.

km has more good stuff at the link.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:56 PM | Comments (48)
Post contains 478 words, total size 3 kb.

MKH will be appearing on Red Eye tonight.

No word if Levy will use the Halftime Report to grill her on the steel cage death match that I hear she and Suzanne Sena are planning in a "winner takes all" bid for my affection.

Which is odd, really. I mean, what if I don't want the winner? She could have a scarred up face or something.

Anyway, set your DVR's east-coasters, and make with the viewing.

Red Eye: It's like Archie Comics, if Betty and Veronica entered the Thunderdome.

UPDATE: As always, here is an artists conception of what the Ham-Sena fight might look like. If they were dudes. From the future. Which they aren't. Freakin' gay artists.

Posted by: Jack M. at 02:39 PM | Comments (15)
Post contains 126 words, total size 1 kb.