I'd still like to boycott these nasty bastards. Whether they've succumbed to public outrage or not, what sort of bad chemicals do they have in their heads to have made them make this decision in the first place?

NBC reversed course Saturday and decided to air a conservative group's television ad thanking U.S. troops.

The ad, by the group Freedom's Watch, asks viewers to remember the troops during the holiday season. NBC had refused to air the ad because it guides viewers to the Freedom's Watch Web site, which NBC said was too political.

But in a statement issued Saturday evening, NBC said:

"We have reviewed and changed our ad standards guidelines and made the decision that our policy will apply to content only and not to a referenced Web site. Based on these amended standards the Freedom's Watch ad will begin to run as early as Sunday."

NBC' head of standards and practices, Alan Wurtzel, notified Freedom's Watch's media consultant Saturday by e-mail, writing: "This will confirm that the Freedom's Watch spot is approved for air."

NBC initially said that airing the spot would violate the network's prohibition on controversial issue ads. Wurtzel, in an interview Friday with The Associated Press, said NBC found nothing wrong with the ad's content, but rather objected to the link to http://www.FreedomsWatch.org, viewing the Web site as too political.

The group's home page is critical of liberals and has a link to a page urging lawmakers not to "cut and run" from the war in Iraq. The home page also links to another Freedom's Watch page dedicated to ways to assist the troops and provides links to organizations that send care packages to soldiers.

UPDATE (DrewM.): The lawyer who originally objected to spots is a big time Democratic donor. Try to contain your shock.

Posted by: Ace at 03:50 PM | Comments (31)
Post contains 319 words, total size 2 kb.

I've been busy today and I don't know if I'll be around tonight.

Anyway, Open Blog if you like. And I guess this can be an open thread for whatever they're supposed to be for.

Posted by: Ace at 03:45 PM | Comments (25)
Post contains 41 words, total size 1 kb.

“Just wait, it’s early.” That’s what a lot of Fredheads keep saying about the Thompson campaign. The Daily Standard says it looks like Fred has picked his moment and is putting it all on the line in Iowa… and aims to finish ‘a strong third’.

FORMER TENNESSEE SENATOR Fred Thompson has decided to take his campaign and virtually all of its resources to Iowa in an all-or-nothing attempt to register a strong showing in the caucuses here on January 3. "We're getting ready to make this not only our second home, but our first home," he told a small gathering of supporters at the Polk County Convention Center on Friday night. Thompson and his wife Jeri chatted with the crowd before making their way through the exhibits at the Iowa Farm Bureau's annual meeting in downtown Des Moines.

Beginning Monday, December 17, Thompson will launch a bus tour that will take him throughout the state. From the beginning of that trip through caucus night, Thompson will essentially live in Iowa, taking only a one-day trip out of the state to celebrate Christmas at his home in Virginia.

"Iowa is critical to our campaign, and it may in fact be everything to our campaign," says one Thompson official. "If we don't do what we need to do in Iowa, it will be tough to compete effectively down the road."

If Iowa is that important, why only give it two and a half weeks of full effort? Is that really enough time? I am not an expert on Iowa politics but it seems the candidates that have been working hard there have built up not only a base of support but an organization that will turn out voters on what is likely to be a cold winter night right after a long holiday season.

As for the ‘strong third place showing’. Huh? Right now only Mitt and Huck are really competing for Iowa. Is coming in ahead of the guys who aren’t really trying, good enough for the guy who was supposed to be the savior of conservatives?

The story coming out of Iowa is either going to be HuckÂ’s miracle charge to the front or MittÂ’s big comeback against forces from beyond this world. Short of beating one of the top two, thereÂ’s no real story line for Fred is there?

I want to believe but the whole Thompson strategy has really been a puzzle to me from the start.

Posted by: DrewM. at 02:18 PM | Comments (60)
Post contains 417 words, total size 2 kb.

New York City has its own Nurse Mike, and he isn't all that popular with Republicans.

I guess the GOP is mulling their need for a Nurse Mike in the White House.

This causes me to wonder: Is Huckabee willing to throw the idea of limited government out the window any time there is a plausible (or even not so plausible) public health argument for doing so? What does it mean when he says it is the government's "responsibliity" to create a "culture of health," and that there should be federal legislation pushing employers encourage healthier lifestyles among their employees?

This excessively personal style of his rankles me. Oh yes, I know he wants to help me. He really cares about my health.

It's nice and all, but here's the deal, Nurse Mike H: If I want a fucking full-time health monitor I'll fucking get married, all right?

Instead of a Culture of Health, how about we instead work towards a Culture of Shut Up And Leave Me Alone?

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Y'all got on this boat for different reasons, but y'all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything, I know this - they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave.

Via Hot Air.

Posted by: Ace at 12:44 PM | Comments (76)
Post contains 295 words, total size 2 kb.

Because, see, the surge is working, and General "BetrayUs" apparently isn't betraying us at all.

Thanks to Instapundit.

Posted by: Ace at 12:39 PM | Comments (41)
Post contains 44 words, total size 1 kb.

Content Warning for sexuality and language.

A rap chick, "Riskay," sings a song about trying to figure out if her man has been cheating on her. Her solution is olfactory in nature.

Did I mention the Content Warning?

From a site called Confessions of a Call Girl, via spongeworthy. Of course. Who else would send this?

Posted by: Ace at 12:32 PM | Comments (22)
Post contains 72 words, total size 1 kb.

Although I've seen some arguments on the right that AIDS has been treated entirely differently from any other communicable disease due to politics, the fact is it isn't easy to spread like, say, a flu. Whatever arguments he might make regarding this, it's a decidedly non-mainstream position and political poison.

I should also note that by 1992 it was fairly clear that the AIDS pandemic earlier feared in the early 80's was not a real possibility. In the early eighties, when AIDS seemed as if it could be a disease that wiped out a significant fraction of the human population, the quarantine position seemed more defensible. But by 1992, with new cases occurring but hardly in an explosive, exponentially growing fashion, it's harder to defend.
The guy cannot win. Furthermore, I don't even know if I'd want him to win, even versus Hillary, should he be nominated. As someone I talked to from NRO said the other night, if Huckabee's nominated, we'll have Hillary Clinton running to his right.

PS, after I quote this, I'll defend my constant Huckabee bashing.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:08 PM | Comments (33)
Post contains 925 words, total size 6 kb.

Yeah... it's that slow today.

I just skimmed the article, but I think the infraction is described in the following line:

... reports said Baldwin was in Toronto shooting a movie...

Before everyone cracks to hard on him, try to remember all the good Daniel has brought to the world. For instance, one of his characters gave Wickedpinto his favorite post-coital cuddle phrase:

I took off your clothes. I cleaned you up. I tied you down. I also saved your ass.

Posted by: Open Blog at 12:04 PM | Comments (16)
Post contains 99 words, total size 1 kb.

"Gone out with?" Bill didn't seem like a goer-out kind of guy, just more of a putter-inner. At least until the shackles came off when Hillary got her Senate seat. Which really freed him up to date... extremely wealthy white women.

Gee wilickers, I sure hope the race-baiters in the GOP can resist playing the race card against Obama.

Like those enlightened Democrats are able to.

Posted by: Ace at 09:42 PM | Comments (103)
Post contains 108 words, total size 1 kb.

From the guys who brought you the Matrix sequels... though why they're promoting that I don't know.

Okay, I'm not going to ruin it for you, but once you get past the first few seconds of the old Speed Racer intro, it seems pretty downhill from there.

The Mach 5 in the cartoon was beautiful. It looked like a glorious cross between a Corvette Stingray and some badass archangel's dagger. So, of course, they had to pimp it up and make it stupid-looking.

Oh, and, yeah: They made it a cartoon. Not a genuine cartoon. A live-action movie that looks utterly ridiculous.

Hey, it's whimsical, baby. Because that's what we need more of. Whimsy.

Thanks to dri.

Yeah, thanks for nuttin', buddy.

It's still awful, but... as far as the car, he seem to has two different ones. One looks like the car from his show. The other is the tricked out, stupid looking jet-racer sort of car. I guess it's supposed to be like an Indy car. And, actually, that stirs a memory; I think maybe in one or two episodes he did drive an alternate model of the Mach 5.

Why they're including it in the movie, though, is beyond me. The crappy looking fake Mach 5 seems to get used for the big race at the climax.

I have a feeling Rollerball will soon be replaced as the worst sci-fi remake of all time.

Yup: Freezing an image at the end I see the tricked-out crap-car has a 6 on it, not a 5. So it's the Mach 6, I guess, the supercar he gets near the end to replace the Mach 5.

Yeah, that's what you want to do. Replace the star of the movie for the climax with some unknown character no one likes.

For Those Who Prefer Their Memories Unsullied:

Take Two: more...

Posted by: Ace at 08:43 PM | Comments (51)
Post contains 325 words, total size 3 kb.