Why do they do this?

They've seized a town in Afghanistan, and will soon face the full fury of the US military (along with some international troops).

I definitely don't mind that they so frequently choose to attempt a conventional sort of battle. I just don't understand how they can be so stupid to face the US military on its own terms.

International and Afghan troops have begun a major offensive to retake a strategic town in southern Afghanistan from the Taleban, Nato sources said.

Nato says Afghan and British ground troops used heavy gunfire against the Taleban on the outskirts of Musa Qala.

It says the main assault will be carried out overnight by US soldiers who have been dropped in by helicopter.

The Taleban say they have 2,000 troops defending the town in Helmand province, which they seized in February.

Musa Qala is the only substantial town the Taleban hold in Afghanistan. For now, they say they are holding their ground.

The BBC's David Loyn, in Kabul, says the town has been the main centre of drugs trading in the country since the Taleban moved in in February and has taken on symbolic importance for both sides.

Friday's attack by British and Afghan forces began in the afternoon, from three directions. Further raids are expected to be carried out on Saturday.

The main assault is being conducted overnight by US troops, who were deployed just before sunset, and have the added advantage of night vision equipment, Nato said.

The Taleban defences include hundreds of mines.

Mines will certainly steal some lives from US soldiers, but the static line of defense hasn't worked since World War I.

A true victory will consist of killing every one of these bastards to the last "man." Hopefully we're deployed to make escape impossible. And hopefully our commanders on the ground will make surrender rather difficult as well.

"What's that? I can't hear you over the sound of my RPG."

Thanks to dri.

Incoming! Mikeylaw snarks:

FLASH DIRECTIVE TO ALLAH:

Prepare hundreds of virgins for new arrivals from Musa Qala. New arrivals may require medical attention for numerous bullet wounds. Body parts may not arrive all at same time.

That is all.

Posted by: Ace at 01:37 PM | Comments (22)
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It's certainly controversial at the leftist propaganda outfit NBC, I'm sure.

Freedom's Watch President and CEO Bradley Blakeman told FOX on Friday that this is not the first time NBC has turned down his group's ads and believes it has a specific objection to his group's support for the War on Terror.

"NBC asked us to re-vamp our Web site. They wanted to censor us, and we said, 'No we're not going to be censored,'" Blakeman said, noting that the organization's Web site points to more than 20 other non-profit Web sites where readers can thank and support troops.

NBC also objected to using images including military uniforms and vehicles and asked for proof of government approval for the group's use of the images in its ads.

Freedom's Watch says it has never been questioned on that before and paid for the rights to use the images from an independent licensing company.

They say they do not object to the ad -- except to brand it "controversial" -- but say "controversial" ads cannot include a website's URL-- in this case, www.freedomswatch.org.

They claim they've applied this rule "consistently."

Oh? Has MoveOn.org not been permitted to note its website in their ads? Or were their ads not deemed sufficiently "controversial" to invoke this "evenly applied" rule?

Thanks to dri and MikeS.

Correction: I got freedomswatch.ogr's URL wrong myself. Unlike NBC, I had no motivation of censorship. I'm just a fucking idiot.

Thanks to thefightinggop.

Posted by: Ace at 01:17 PM | Comments (39)
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L to R: Bonnie; Clyde; the guy who gets to
play with Bonnie and Clyde

"Spaz" tells me that the Philly tabloids are fixated on this story for reasons that escape me entirely.

I Have A Feeling: That somewhere around $3-4,000 of the defrauded money is going to be hard to recover, barring invasive surgery.

Posted by: Ace at 01:09 PM | Comments (30)
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No, not sex with her husband. The possibility that a loss in Iowa will quickly lead to the dominoes falling in New Hampshire and then South Carolina... and then Katie, bar the door.

Posted by: Ace at 10:18 AM | Comments (69)
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The Jewish spies, it seems, attempt to ferret out information from unsuspecting Syrian officials by sending them quizzes that ask about their Sexual Purity and/or the Locations of Chemical Warfare Agents.

Syrian authorities have blocked Facebook, the popular Internet hangout, over what seems to be fears of Israeli "infiltration" of Syrian social networks on the Net, according to residents and media reports.

Residents of Damascus said that they have not been able to enter Facebook for more than two weeks. An Associated Press reporter got a blank page when he tried to open Facebook's home page Friday from the Syrian capital.

Syrian officials were not available for comment Friday because of the Muslim weekend, but some reports have suggested that the ban was intended to prevent Israeli users from infiltrating Syrian social networks.

In addition, Syria feared their national morale might be sapped by Jewish infiltrators throwing sheep at them and sometimes having "zombies" bite them.

More seriously, Syrian intelligence attempted to cultivate Zarqawi as an ally and asset. Zarqawi turned them down because he didn't want to act in Syria's interests. He just wanted to cut people's heads off and blow up schoolgirls.

Posted by: Ace at 10:16 AM | Comments (8)
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Free here, thanks to Slublog.

Mr. Huckabee likes to say he cut taxes in Arkansas 94 times, and has collected devotees around his promise for sweeping tax reform via the "fair tax." He promises to abolish the IRS, and along with it all current income, corporate, payroll and other taxes--to be replaced with a 23% national sales, or consumption, tax. He's also promised repeal of the 16th amendment--which established the income tax--to ensure Americans don't get double-taxation.

The chances of actually accomplishing this are about as likely as Christmas three times a year. But the benefit of Mr. Huckabee's dreamy tax proposal is that it has, until now, allowed him to avoid talk of his own checkered tax past in Little Rock. That tenure included sales tax hikes, strong support for Internet taxation, bills raising gas and cigarette taxes, etc. By this week, Mr. Huckabee had been slammed on this tax history so much he was no longer disputing the details. When asked if he didn't have a "mixed" record, Mr. Huckabee shot back: "Most everyone who has ever governed does," before insisting that even the great Reagan had raised taxes while at the helm of California.

Another benefit is that Mr. Huckabee hasn't had to talk about what he'd do with the existing, messy tax system. When I pointed out the unlikelihood of a fair tax, and asked how he'd handle the real-world questions of the Bush tax cuts, the exploding AMT and high corporate taxation, Mr. Huckabee allowed that he'd keep the Bush cuts, said something about the problems Democrats face with the AMT, and launched back into a discussion of the virtues of the fair tax.

Huckabee's embrace of the fair tax is like Al Gore's embrace of campaign finance reform in 2000: An unserious but politically helpful "position" taken chiefly to insulate himself from his own record.

And the fair tax? Is fucking nuts. Not only won't it be done, can't it be done -- it shouldn't be done.

Posted by: Ace at 10:08 AM | Comments (95)
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Video here.

More:

JOE SCARBOROUGH: This is the same New York Times editorial page that ran columns after George W. Bush was elected in 2004 saying evangelicals were closer to Osama Bin Laden than our allies in Europe. That of course came from Garry Wills. Then Maureen Dowd said that evangelicals were going to take us back to the Dark Ages. I think there is some hostility, on the New York Times editorial page, toward evangelicals.

DAVID SHUSTER: They still get it right on occasion.

If only those who screamed the loudest about religious tolerance actually believed in religious tolerance themselves.

As Instapundit says of global warming: "I'll believe there's a crisis when they people shrieking that there's a crisis begin acting as if there's a crisis."

Shuster doesn't believe in tolerance or amity. He's a full blown culture warrior -- and hater. He's not pro-tolerance, he's just on the other side, to steal another Instapundit quip.

Thanks to CJ.

Posted by: Ace at 10:04 AM | Comments (10)
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Vengeance bobbitting is officially a craze in Thailand.

Out: Thai tranny hookers. In: Thai tranny porn.

Wasn't Me:

Posted by: Ace at 09:22 AM | Comments (16)
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He panned Romney's speech and he approved of Hillary's attacks on Obama.

If the MSM had bothered checking his own website, they'd have found him to be an ex-Hillary staffer.

Goshdarnit, checking stuff on the internet is so hard!

Thanks to Justin.

Posted by: Ace at 08:59 AM | Comments (51)
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Not the 189,000 jobs forecasted by that private ADP report earlier this week, but still solid. And likely to be revised upwards, as usual.

Employers added a modest 94,000 jobs to their payrolls in November, the unemployment rate held steady at 4.7 percent and wages grew briskly, encouraging signs the nation's employment climate is holding up in the face of turbulence in the housing and credit markets.

...

The 94,000 new jobs in November came after a surprisingly strong payroll gain of 170,000 in October. The unemployment rate stayed at a relatively low 4.7 percent for the third straight month.

...

The performance was better than economists were expecting. They were forecasting that the unemployment rate would nudge up to 4.8 percent and they also said they thought employers would boost payrolls by around 70,000.

...

Workers with jobs saw brisk wage growth last month.

Average hourly earnings rose to $17.63 in November, a 0.5 percent increase from the prior month. That marked the biggest monthly gain since June. The only other time the monthly gain was higher was in October 2005. Economists were expecting a more moderate rise of 0.3 percent. Over the past 12 months, wages grew by 3.8 percent.

Solid wage growth supports consumer spending, a vital ingredient to a healthy economy. But a sustained and rapid pickup in wages -- if not blunted by other economic forces -- can stoke inflation, which can eat into any wage gains.

...

Overall, the employment and wage figures were encouraging because they suggested the labor market is not cracking under all the strains plaguing the economy.

Not cowbell, but still good.

Posted by: Ace at 08:53 AM | Comments (13)
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