In tough fighting in Baghdad. A "grim milestone" the media prefers not to trouble the public with. Might give them the wrong idea.

The U.S. military said on Monday 93 rebels were killed and 57 captured in a 10-day operation against al Qaeda-linked insurgents northeast of Baghdad.

In an unusually detailed video news conference broadcast to journalists in Baghdad from Diyala province, Colonel David Sutherland said Iraqi troops had fought well in the operation and were improving their capabilities every day.

He said 25 weapons caches, including around 1,200 Katyusha rockets, had been found during operations dating back to November in the area around a remote village called Turki.

Sutherland said U.S. and Iraqi forces had gradually isolated the insurgents since November before launching the 10-day assault backed by air strikes from January 4 to 14. Last week, the Iraqi army said it had killed about 50 rebels in the area.

Right next to that article Yahoo has this feature linked:

As has been frequently noted, the MSM is eager to profile the fallen -- the human cost of war -- but not so eager to mention the cause the fallen fought for, nor the human cost of war they inflicted on our enemies.

Posted by: Ace at 12:57 PM | Comments (95)
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Not quite ready for their HD close-ups. And you thought you had problems.

Pornography has long helped drive the adoption of new technology, from the printing press to the videocassette. Now pornographic movie studios are staying ahead of the curve by releasing high-definition DVDs.

They have discovered that the technology is sometimes not so sexy. The high-definition format is accentuating imperfections in the actors — from a little extra cellulite on a leg to wrinkles around the eyes.

Hollywood is dealing with similar problems, but they are more pronounced for pornographers, who rely on close-ups and who, because of their quick adoption of the new format, are facing the issue more immediately than mainstream entertainment companies.

Producers are taking steps to hide the imperfections. Some shots are lit differently, while some actors simply are not shot at certain angles, or are getting cosmetic surgery, or seeking expert grooming.

“The biggest problem is razor burn,” said Stormy Daniels, an actress, writer and director.

I doubt it. Who cares if I can see a guy's razor burn or his five o'clock shadow, for that matter.

What?

Oh. Ohhhh.

Ms. Daniels is also a skeptic. “I’m not 100 percent sure why anyone would want to see their porn in HD,” she said.

That's like saying "I'm not 100 percent sure why a man would want to stick a nitrous oxide feed into his ass while engaging in light petting with a Salvadoran circus midget."

Because it's there, baby. Because it's there.

The technologyÂ’s advocates counter that high definition, by making things clearer and crisper, lets viewers feel as close to the action as possible.

“It puts you in the room,” said the director known as Robby D., whose films include “Sexual Freak.”

I don'k know, "Robby D." I think I can stand staying back a good fifteen to twenty feet from "the action." I don't need my porn turning into a virtual Gallagher concert, you know.

Sexual Freak, huh? Must be one of those "couple's movies" I've heard so much about.

Thanks to CX and someone else who I think linked this in a comment.

Posted by: Ace at 12:50 PM | Comments (43)
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They must. Otherwise, why would they fight so hard to keep black criminals out of prison and out on the streets, when they live longer, healthier lives in prison?

State prison inmates, particularly blacks, are living longer on average than people on the outside, the government said Sunday.

Inmates in state prisons are dying at an average yearly rate of 250 per 100,000, according to the latest figures reported to the Justice Department by state prison officials. By comparison, the overall population of people between age 15 and 64 is dying at a rate of 308 a year.

For black inmates, the rate was 57 percent lower than among the overall black population — 206 versus 484. But white and Hispanic prisoners both had death rates slightly above their counterparts in the overall population.

The Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics said 12,129 state prisoners died between 2001 through 2004.

Eight percent were murdered or killed themselves, 2 percent died of alcohol, drugs or accidental injuries, and 1 percent of the deaths could not be explained, the report said.

The rest of the deaths 89 percent were due to medical reasons. Of those, two-thirds of inmates had the medical problem they died of before they were admitted to prison.

It's all the exercise -- the weightlifting, the baseball, the vigorous Greco-Roman showering, etc.

Posted by: Ace at 12:37 PM | Comments (12)
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Al Qaeda in Iraq, though, which as we all know, has nothing whatsoever to do with the "real" Al Qaeda.

These people are simply kill-crazy insane. This proves it-- they are winning this war, at least where it ultimately counts, in the court of public opinion. And yet they planned to actually slaughter Americans on American soil and thereby guarantee themselves the full and utter decimation they deserve.

Sources tell ABC News that the plot may have involved moving between 10 and 20 suspects believed to be affiliated with al Qaeda in Iraq into the United States with student visas — the same method used by the 19 al Qaeda terrorists who struck American targets on Sept. 11.

U.S. officials now require universities to closely track foreign nationals who use student visas to study in the United States. University officials must report international students who fail to arrive on campus or miss class regularly.

In August, the FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement alerted intelligence agencies and state and local law enforcement about 11 Egyptian students who had failed to report to their classes at Montana State University. The students were ultimately apprehended.

Still, despite the heightened precautions, some security analysts fear that skilled terrorists — handpicked because of their clean records and because they are carefully trained — could still slip through an academic setting.

The plot was discovered six months ago, roughly the same time that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, was killed by coalition forces. Sources tell ABC News that the suspects involved in the effort to launch the U.S. attack were closely associated with Zarqawi.

The plan also came only months after Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's No. 2, had requested that Zarqawi attempt an attack inside the United States.

"This appears to be the first hard evidence al Qaeda in Iraq was trying to attack us here at home," said ABC News consultant Richard Clarke, former chief counterterrorism adviser on the U.S. National Security Council.

"Operatic insanity," Hitchens called it.

Posted by: Ace at 12:25 PM | Comments (21)
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The highest-ranking Islamist to surrender so far, he was captured in an area near where the United States conducted an air strike against what it called al-Qaeda operatives two weeks ago.

So we didn't get him, but we sure put him on fuckin' notice.

Meanwhile, Ethiopian soldiers open fire on Islamist "demonstrators" in Mogadishu.

They're not screwing around.

Posted by: Ace at 12:11 PM | Comments (19)
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A PennStateMarine sent this. Pretty funny stuff. He suggests it as a jumping off point for a new Steven Segal type thread.

So: Fun Things To Do In First Class

Refer to the flight attendants as "waitress", even the male ones

Talk to yourself loudly about the dangers of Global Warming. Finish by asking, "Does this thing go any faster?"

Without provocation, insist the flight crew guard against any of "those people back there" from using "our" restroom

While sitting on the First Class toilet with your trousers at your feet, open the door, tap your champagne class on the door frame and ask for a refill

More after the jump. more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:27 AM | Comments (172)
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Hey, I used to knock Instapundit for saying this, but I guess I can't help myself: Gee, I'm glad we don't have a fucking war to fight or anything.

Two of NetTeller's executives charged with "handling billions of dollars in illegal gambling procedes." They've left the US and one imagines they're not coming back.

NetTeller, for those of you who don't know, isn't a poker company per se; rather, it's a transfer service by which you can put money into a poker account. Most credit card companies reject the transfer of money into poker accounts by absolute policy (too many people lose money gambling, and then claim their money was criminally transferred by an identity thief, costing these companies a lot of money; and sure, it really happens, but the biggest losses are from people falsely claiming credit card fraud). And thus NetTeller exists as buffer. You put your money into NetTeller, then NetTeller allows you to put money into a poker account.

Theoretically you could use NetTeller for any money-transfer purpose, but, who are we kidding? It's there for poker. And maybe porn.

Meanwhile, the DoJ is demanding that the world's biggest banks provide information on all this dirty poker money as part of its stepped-up of efforts at rooting out terrorist financing of Omaha 8 tournaments.

Thanks to Warden.

PS: Given how narrow the Democrats' victory was in Virginia-- does anyone doubt this nanny-state douchebaggery cost the GOP the Senate?

My friend steve_in_hb, who was just finally coming around to the idea that maybe Republicans weren't those puritan scolds the left paints them as, now hates the party more than Indiana Jones hates Nazis.

Posted by: Ace at 10:16 AM | Comments (118)
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Pardon the abiguity of the referent of "his" in that sentence. But I think the ambiguity serves the headline. Once Instapundit gets done explaining to Andrew Sullivan what Instapundit's position is on the surge, perhaps he can tackle the thorny question of telling Andrew Sullivan what Andrew Sullivan's position on the surge might be.

A lot of people defended Democrats who reversed themselves on the surge because they had last urged more troops back in 2004. Jim Geraghty defended this as a change in position based on a change of situation, for example. (I'd link the post, but it seems that the former The Kerry Spot is now The Hillary Spot, and previous TKS entries have been retconned out of existence, like Supergirl.)

But Andrew Sullivan can't be so excused -- he was supporting "more troops" virtually up to the moment Bush began signalling support for the idea.

Coincidence? He just happened to stop bashing Bush for not supplying more troops to stabilize Baghdad at the very moment he decided to bash Bush for doing precisely that?

People can have differing opinions on the surge, but one person can't possibly have so many positions, all of which seem to be suspiciously driven by an automatic gainsaying of whatever Bush might be doing this week.

Memo to Sullivan: You don't like the FMA. We get it. We heard you the first eight thousand times when you said so directly; we don't need these stealth criticisms of it running through your every post about Iraq.

Geraghty, by the way... has a good post about Democrats' calls for "sacrifice" for the war.

Sacrifice what, specifically? They don't say, really. Because "sacrifice" in the abstract sounds sort of good and noble, but sacrificing something tanglibe and real is kind of a downer. I guess that's why they call it "sacrifice."

Posted by: Ace at 10:03 AM | Comments (78)
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I can't verify this, but if it's true, it does suggest that D'Souza has gone rather far down the road of appeasement, as the entire premise of the book suggested to me.

Posted by: Ace at 09:47 AM | Comments (12)
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A reader writes that he actually sent the emails, hoping to get people annoyed at the idiot I wanted to nail.

So nothing there. Reverse agent-procateur sock-puppetry, I guess.

Kind of wasted the morning, though.

Good thing I'm such a restrained reporter, holding off on posting stuff until I can verify them. Why, I could work for AP!

Posted by: Ace at 09:40 AM | Comments (3)
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