"Whatever is necessary... whatever is necessary."

Posted by: Ace at 02:28 PM | Comments (61)
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Another good photo essay from Zombietime, who's sort of the Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom of the dextrosphere.

At the bottom of that post you'll see a link to some nude-in type event. I suggest you click on it -- at home, NSFW -- because 1) the dudes hanging in the trees like chimps with their little shriveled wieners look like deranged former members of the Spin Doctors and 2) that Butterfaced chick about halfway down has like the biggest knockers I've seen in one of these nude protests.* It's like Hooter City there. Population: Two.

* I'm not counting the knockers of morbidly obese women. Or men, for that matter.

dri, via the lovely and talented Bama Pachyderm.

Posted by: Ace at 01:51 PM | Comments (36)
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Shot up by a man wearing a "flag vest."

I know everyone is springing to the assumption "right wing survivalist gun-humping lunatic," but remember, dissent is the highest form of patriotism.

It's also not clear what sort of flag.

There may have been two attackers. One man is confirmed dead, but it's not clear if this is a victim or a perpetrator who greased himself as the cops closed in.

One person is confirmed dead in a shooting at Westroads Mall. Up to 10 people may have been shot - Action 3 News has learned 4 people may have been taken to the hospital. Witnesses report hearing up to 20 shots and seeing people fall to the ground.

There are possibly two suspects. One of them may be among the dead. Radio reports indicate one person has a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Another suspect may be in custody - according to police reports.

That excerpt from this local rush report, thanks to Dave at Garfield Ridge.

Posted by: Ace at 01:09 PM | Comments (35)
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The new meme from the MSM is that Bush has been lying about Iran's nuclear ambitions, as he knew all about this NIE report long ago (and, presumably, believed this load of crap to be true).

This narrative, so convenient to the political agenda of the liberal MSM, is, alas, not true, though I'm not sure that matters anymore.

July 11, 2007: Thomas Fingar, one of the main authors of the NIE l.i.e., delivers this testimony to Congress:

Iran and North Korea are the states of most concern to us. The United StatesÂ’ concerns about Iran are shared by many nations, including many of IranÂ’s neighbors. Iran is continuing to pursue uranium enrichment and has shown more interest in protracting negotiations and working to delay and diminish the impact of UNSC sanctions than in reaching an acceptable diplomatic solution. We assess that Tehran is determined to develop nuclear weapons--despite its international obligations and international pressure. This is a grave concern to the other countries in the region whose security would be threatened should Iran acquire nuclear weapons.

Two points: This reversal by the "intelligence" (giggle) community was quite recent and Bush cannot be charged with "lying" for not precognitively glimpsing the future of their sudden changes in heart.

More importantly: This means the entire NIE is based on quite recent "intelligence" which I have to doubt has been vetted all that well.

Sketchy evidence. Recently obtained. Quickly vetted. And that leads to this overstated nonsense of "high confidence" of an Iranian nuclear freeze.

Who's the task manager for the NIE -- Franklin Foer?

Check out Hot Air for video of John Bolton ripping this piece of shit to shreds. Also be sure to check out the sort of glaring error that typically finds its way into what is supposed to be the best and most accurate product of the "intelligence" (titter) community.

Clarification: My source requests I omit a part of this post. I'll do so.

Posted by: Ace at 01:07 PM | Comments (28)
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Jiggity asks this about Wayne DuMond, who was violently castrated by unknown vigilantes after his rape of a cheerleader, and then apparently raped one or two more women.

First of all, "rape" is often defined as a violation of a woman with the penis... or an object or digit. So it's not clear (at least I haven't checked) if DuMond's subsequent rapes were of the penile variety or the violation by proxy sort.

Besides that, it's a myth that castrated men can never achieve an erection. Without testosterone, their sex drive falls -- but not necessarily to zero; and without their testes, they can't, of course, produce sperm.

But they can still get erections. Not all of them, and not all the time, but it's just not true that castration results in complete impotency.

That old thing about eunuchs being assigned to guard harems may have been a good idea from the Bey's point of view -- lowered sex drive should lower the incidence of the help schtuping one's whores, and there's little chance of your guard getting a concubine pregnant -- but it was not in fact a guarantee that the harem guards wouldn't have non-procreative sex with the harem girls.

Posted by: Ace at 12:51 PM | Comments (28)
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As they say, if you've lost Walter Cronkite, you've lost the nation. And Hans Blix is the Walter Cronkite of WMD apologism and soft-pedaling.

Blix said the U.S. agencies likely acted because they heard «all the rhetoric of World War III _ and either we have the Iranian bomb or we have the bombing of Iran.

...
.
«The intelligence services got a lot of blame for the invasion of Iraq that they had exaggerated what they saw ,» Blix said. «This time they do not want to carry the responsibility.

Apparently we're to believe the Iranians have 3000 centrifuges furiously spinning out weapons-grade uranium just so they can, um, make some really kickass (but lethally carcinogenic) glow-in-the-dark watches.

Thanks to CJ.

Posted by: Ace at 12:38 PM | Comments (50)
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Dave Wiegel at Reason with the quote of the day:

The Huckabacklash hypothesis relies on the mainstream media getting bored of Huckabee and deciding to exposes his personal weirdness and scandals. There is no indication of this happening. Here's one (admittedly flawed) metric: Do a Lexis search for mentions in major newspapers of "Romney" and "Tavares," as in Daniel Tavares Jr, the murderer released by a judge Romney appointed. There were 59 mentions from January 1 to December 3 for a story that broke about two weeks ago. Then I did a search for "Huckabee" and "Dumond," as in Wayne Dumond, the paroled rapist who committed murder after a parole board, urged on by Huckabee, let him out. Twenty-five mentions from January 1 to December 3 for a story that had been pushed by various people all year.

The fact is that reporters really, really like Huckabee. One reason is his general affability but another is something the other GOP candidates can't steal: His liberalism.

How much do liberal reporters ♥ Huckabee? Well, here's the Washington Post's red-diaper baby and proud liberal EJ Dionne singing the praises of Fuckabee,lauding him for his "policy pragmatism" (read: liberalism) and "loyal distance" from Bush on the War On Terror (read: Edwards/Kerry/Obama negotiator/multilateralist/peacenik).

ike Huckabee, who just stepped down as Arkansas' governor, is the brightest star among Republican presidential dark horses.

It's not just because he, like a certain other Arkansan, has ties to a town called Hope, nor because he lost 105 pounds and has written a popular diet book. And it's not only because he is mastering a conservative form of triangulation blending religious conservatism with policy pragmatism.

Huckabee, if he chooses to run for president in 2008, has another asset: while front-runners John McCain and Rudy Giuliani have placed large bets on the success of President Bush's Iraq policy, Huckabee has maintained what you might call loyal distance.

This is what Huckabee said in an interview here last week when I asked him about the surge: "The honest answer for me is that I'm not subjected to the same piles of military and diplomatic information and intelligence that he has, and I'm going to have to trust that the advice that he's based his decision on as commander in chief is good. I don't honestly know. I hope it's right. I have to hope that, because there are going to be people from my state that are going to be asked to go and make it right.''

...

"I think the Republicans have got to be engaged in the protection of the environment. We've not been on the front of that. We need to be. From my perspective, that's a position that I ought to have not only as a Republican conservative, but as an evangelical. Evangelicals ought to be concerned about the stewardship of the earth.''

Terrific. I'm sold. Where do I sign up?

Also, I think I might as well declare my party as "Democratic" while I'm at it. Why not? Why not cut out the middleman?

Posted by: Ace at 12:23 PM | Comments (26)
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He says he's not endorsing, but he is.

This is old by now but someone suggests I post it.

He also suggests reading Thompson's remarks on Charlie Rose, and Rush's remarks about those remarks.

Well, look: If the Limbaugh semi-endorsement can vault him into a potentially winning position, terrific. Frankly I'm surprised there hasn't been much impact from this yet; I doubt there's a more influential conservative out there than Limbaugh.

Posted by: Ace at 12:08 PM | Comments (35)
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Or even Jesus Moose.

Context and more snark from milblogger Jeff Emmanuel at Red State.

The impulse by liberals to impute the sins of Islam to Christians is well-nigh irresistible. It's a two-fer: they get to engage in apologism for the barbaric but misunderstood cultures of swarthy foreigners while also insisting that the real enemy -- fellow US citizens who happen to believe in Jesus Christ -- are actually worse.

It's not true, of course, but that's never stopped them before.

Yep, Christians sure do get freaked out by depictions of Jesus in not-quite-Biblical contexts, don't they?

Who, exactly, does Barbara Fucking Walters think is buying "Karate Jesus," for the love of God?

Posted by: Ace at 11:51 AM | Comments (28)
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Actually, the full quote is:

Get a life, pussy.

And if you ever want a piece of me, name the time and place. I'm sick of pussies like you writing these sissy fucking messages. You can't even write - what the fuck are you talking about?

I think I'll suspend my usual criticism of reporters slagging off bloggers for now.

Because seriously? Kos really is a fucking sissy.

Correction: JackM. corrects me to note that, while Kos posted this email exchange, it actually appears to be an argument between Joe Curl (the Wash Times guy) and some other Kos sissy.

Posted by: Ace at 11:43 AM | Comments (23)
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