So smart. So informed. So... media.

About the "Declaration of Principles" agreed to, without the force of formal law (yet) between Iraq and the US, one of the People's Tribunes in the White House Press Corps asked...

Q “Is there any precedent for this in history? I mean, there wasn’t anything like this after Korea or Vietnam or any other kind of American engagement.”

[Digest of General Lute's answer:] The US has been a party to a long-term agreement with Korea since the end of the Korean War and is a party to bilateral agreements with 100 other nations.

Nothing like this. Eveh. We have no bilateral treaties or executive level security agreements or negotiated basing rights with any other countries, including Korea. Or the Philippines. Or Germany. Or England. Or... Cuba, for that fucking matter. (2000 gold coins per year for Guantanamo... for as long as we like.)

DRJ at Patterico also notes Nancy Pelosi's Stepford Quisling greeting of this good news.

Posted by: Ace at 10:58 AM | Comments (25)
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A n attack on Giuliani, supposedly coming from Mitt Romney's campaign.

The last Romney attack involved a push-poll denigrating his religion which then strongly hinted it was at the behest of the McCain campaign. Anyone see a pattern here? They're dishonest two-fers, attacking one candidate while pinning the blame for the smear on another.

I notice several candidates are not implicated either on the direct smear side or indirect blowback side.

I think Dan Riehl is reaching here, but I'm sorry, my guess is that Huckabee's behind it. This one and the last one. I thought it at the time but didn't want to make unfounded accusations. But the guy has a rep for being pretty nasty behind that sweet-souled smile. And while everyone has a reason to attack Romney -- him being ahead until recently -- it's Huckabee who has the most to gain from separating strong social-con evangelicals from Romney.

I also note that several candidates aren't seriously challenging Romney in Iowa. But Huckabee is.

Of course there's also a decent chance that Ron Paul's unhinged minions are behind this, too.

Posted by: Ace at 10:25 AM | Comments (7)
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They told me that if George W. Bush were elected, lawless judges would imprison people at their whim, and they were right!*

It was a normal enough morning in a Niagara Falls courtroom, with Judge Robert Restaino plodding through his routine batch of domestic violence arraignments. That is, until a ringing cell phone pierced the air.

What followed was "two hours of inexplicable madness," including the jailing of 46 people, according to the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct. In a scathing report Tuesday, that panel recommended the city court judge be removed.

"Now, whoever owns the instrument that is ringing, bring it to me now or everybody could take a week in jail and please don't tell me I'm the only one that heard that," Restaino said on that fateful morning of March 11, 2005, according to the commission's report.

"Everyone is going to jail; every single person is going to jail in this courtroom unless I get that instrument now," he went on. "If anybody believes I'm kidding, ask some of the folks that have been here for a while. You are all going."

When no one fessed up, the judge, who was set to deal with 70 cases that morning, called back the 11 defendants he had already released on their own recognizance and set extra bail. All told, he ordered that 46 defendants be held in custody, according to the commission report. They were ultimately placed in crowded "holding" cells at the county jail, and some weren't released for a couple of hours.

NY judge. I'm sure he's a conservative.

* Instapundit's gag.

Thanks to Ogre Gunner.

Ummm.... Gabriel posted this last night.

Uh, Open Thread?

Posted by: Ace at 10:14 AM | Comments (18)
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Rudy also tanks in South Carolina, but it's the Huckabee thing I'm worried about. There are four potential nominees I find acceptable -- including St. John of Arizona -- and Huckabee isn't one of them, for so many reasons, including those noted by Robert Novak:

Who would respond to criticism from the Club for Growth by calling the conservative, free-market campaign organization the "Club for Greed"?

...

Huckabee is campaigning as a conservative, but serious Republicans know that he is a high-tax, protectionist advocate of big government and a strong hand in the Oval Office directing the lives of Americans. Until now, they did not bother to expose the former governor of Arkansas as a false conservative because he seemed an underfunded, unknown nuisance candidate. Now that he has pulled even with Mitt Romney for the Iowa caucuses and might make more progress, the beleaguered Republican Party has a frightening problem.

...

There is no doubt about Huckabee's record during a decade in Little Rock. He was regarded by fellow Republican governors as a compulsive tax-and-spender. He increased the Arkansas tax burden 47 percent, boosting the levies on gasoline and cigarettes. When he lost 100 pounds and decided to press his new lifestyle on the American people, he was hardly being a Goldwater-Reagan libertarian.

... Huckabee simply does not fit within normal boundaries of economic conservatism, such as when he criticized President Bush's veto of a Democratic expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Calling global warming a "moral issue" mandating "a biblical duty" to prevent climate change, he has endorsed a cap-and-trade system that is anathema to the free market.

...

Nevertheless, he is getting remarkably warm reviews in the news media.... Any Republican who does not sound much like a Republican is bound to get friendly press, as Sen. John McCain did in 2000 (but not today, with his return to acting more like a conventional Republican).

An uncompromising foe of abortion can never enjoy full media backing. But Mike Huckabee is getting enough favorable buzz that, when combined with his evangelical base, it makes real conservatives shudder.

Nevermind his pro-amnesty stance.

I didn't like all the vows of some in the party to not vote at all, or vote third-party, if a candidate they didn't like was nominated. I would make that same threat now in response to Huckabee's emergence, except I don't have to: Huckabee will be positively demolished by any Democratic candidate. It will be a blow out. He manages to take the less popular parts of conservatism and fuse it with the less popular parts of liberalism.

That's not a winning formula. It's a recipe for disaster.

Posted by: Ace at 10:09 AM | Comments (21)
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Eh...

It seems a bit of a firestorm has developed over some of my postings. I always intended this as a vehicle to pass along posts I found interesting to people in my District. I never expected a wider audience.

That being said, I have gone to posts, linked to articles from those posts, and cut and pasted some of these articles to my blog. My fault here is not properly acknowledging the original post as I should have.

Some of my blogger friends made me aware of this controversy today, for which I sincerely apologize. So I have asked them to remove links to my blog and I will let this be my final post.

For those offended, please accept my sincerest apologies.

Mike

The thing is, anyone who reads blogs quickly intuits the basic rules of attribution (as if they were not obvious already). So it's hard to credit his "Internet idiot" defense all that much. Double Plus Undead figured he'd claim he didn't know he was supposed to credit those he was quoting, and addressed that claim pre-emptively:

Thankfully, Barrett has no problem quoting blogs, so he can't pull the "I'm an Internet Idiot" defense here, and worm his way out of this. He knows to cite blogs if he's taking quotes from them. You can see here where Barrett quotes a RedState article. So not only is he a plagiarist, he's an elitist too. Barrett has no problem plagiarizing posts from lesser known people like Pat, Slublog and I, but he gives due citation to bloggers with some status. Gotcha!

Posted by: Ace at 09:33 AM | Comments (24)
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I guess this is old. But I've never seen it.

Finally, the truth is out there.

Really, really out there.

It all seems crazy, but then, it's on the Internet, so I guess it's true.

Damn you Steven King. Damn you to hell. (Please don't murder me.)

Thanks to AoSHQ Janitor.

On a Serious Note... Schizophrenia is a very sad condition, as his About page demonstrates.

You can see a lot of the tropes of Trutherism in his run-on rant about his life and how he "put the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together."

Posted by: Ace at 09:28 AM | Comments (22)
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A book collects up some charmingly chauvanistic ads.

And sometimes, when the wife fails to get the mail out in a timely manner... well, bitch gotta pay.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:14 AM | Comments (42)
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Alas it seems to be, based on current speculation, to be about Bill's continuing affairs with women, which will probably not hurt Hillary all that much. Last time he diddled an intern she got a Senate seat, which is more than what most betrayed women get.

It will raise questions about Hillary's honesty, about her grasping ambition, and about whether or not we want another 8 years of this psychodrama, but I think most people pretty much assume he's screwing everything within arm's reach and that Hillary will divorce him once she's safely won the presidency (or perhaps a second term).

Posted by: Ace at 09:06 AM | Comments (30)
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Fun.

Little hint: Speed counts, but not nearly as much as accuracy. Take your time teeing up on places whose position you know well.

Thanks to polynikes, via J-Gold at the Corner.

Posted by: Ace at 09:03 AM | Comments (41)
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No, I'm not kidding.

I'm sure this is all some sort of pansexual pagan ploy to bring Loki back to earth:

fficials in northern Sweden have just given the all-clear for the construction of the world's largest elk, or moose as the animal is known in North America.

Perched on top of a mountain, the 45-metre (148-foot) elk will double as a restaurant and concert hall that can seat up to 350 guests. From its antlers, more than 500 metres above sea level, visitors will be able to enjoy the spectacular view over the valleys below.

For over three years, officials from two northern counties have discussed the implications of having a gigantic elk straddling their border from its vantage point on top of Vithatten mountain.

Implications? Sounds sinister.

...

"This is such unbelievably good news. My whole body is shaking with joy," he told The Local.
...

Though its future may have been in the balance, the oversize elk has long had a name: Stoorn, which translates as 'The Big One' in the local dialect.

"The Big One"? Like "The Great Old Ones"?

I'm telling you this is code for some ancient pagan god-thing which will destroy the world.

The Scandis have a long history of meddling with forces they cannot possibly comprehend, but in the past such meddling has been restricted to less important matters -- socialism, nationalizing hookers, sodomizing penguins, marrying a walrus. Now their general stupidity threatens us all.

...

The cost of building the elk is expected to come in at around 60 million kronor ($6.5 million) and is to be financed entirely through private investment.

"We have had contributions ranging from one thousand kronor to four million kronor. People have really wanted to make this happen. There have been plenty of days when I have come close to crying but today I can do nothing but laugh," said Holmlund.

I'll bet, Holmlund.

Incidentally a "kronor" is a reindeer turd, the official currency of Scandi-land.

Thanks to dri.

Posted by: Ace at 08:28 AM | Comments (29)
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