I've tried to blog this twice so far with no success. Here goes.

Seems that some big European soccer star is cl;iqy vbp[phj tapbpnvorenv [powq[ hkl;

UGH. Dammit.

Anyway, the State of California is paying handsomely to extradite this cat. I don't know what he did, I assume he went on some killing spree or something the last time he was in Hollywood.

Sorry I can't inform you better on this. Can't seem to get through the article without blacking out and slumping over the keyboard.

Caught something about 250 million dollars. Wow. That has to be the biggest bounty EVER. This dude must be worse than Zarqawi.

California still has the death penalty, right?
Fry in Hell, you limey bastard!

Posted by: LauraW. at 06:52 AM | Comments (150)
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I didn't read far enough into the article about the Duke accuser's changing story to realize how substantially this New Improved Accusation altered previous models.

It's worth reading. But you can, and should, just read Allah's excerpt from now. If you're like me and haven't really engaged in this story until recently (and superficially) you'll probably be baffled by, for example, this business about "psuedonyms." But read it.

The skinny: The accuser claimed that her attackers used psuedonyms during the attack-- "Adam," "Brett," and "Matt." (And, occasionally, "Dan.") This neatly explained why she couldn't name her attackers -- they were using code-names like the guys from Reseveroir Dogs.

In previous accounts, while the Mystery Men used psuedonyms, they were still nevertheless distinct, individual people. Or, rather, figments of her imagination, but let's just avoid the semantic debate and compromise on "constructs." Adam did this and this, Brett did this, Matt did this. Dan, when he actually existed, did this, and then when he didn't exist, his duties were taken over by one of the other three constructs.

After Nifong "helped" her match these constructs to living people by providing her with a photo ID lineup containing no one but Duke lacrosse players (so she couldn't possibly miss accusing a lacrosse player, even if she guessed randomly), these constructs were matched with specific, real people. Adam became -- Oh, I don't know, say Finnerty. Matt became Seligmann. Brett was the other guy. Dan was... well, Dan was a utility infielder ready to jump into the batting order whenever the manager called his number.

Seligmann always presented a problem for Nifong, and the accuser, because Seligmann had those damnable ATM receipts -- and photographs -- indicating he simply was not present during almost all of the time frame of the rape.

Now, here's the payoff. Via Maguire, I found this good blog, Durham In Wonderland. He's read the defense filings, and he explains precisely why this pseudonym business is important. He uses a three slug analysis -- "The Problem," "The Frame," and "The Mockery" -- to show how the accuser's story keeps running into an impossibility ("The Problem"), is massaged along by helpful questioning/coaching by Nifong to avoid the problem ("The Frame"), and how in each case this perjured, and possibly suborned, new testimony is virtually mocking the court by being so transparently revised, re-edited, and retro-fitted to just come within striking distance of agreeing with the known facts.

An example of what I mean: You accuse your child of stealing a cookie from the cookie jar. The child claims she couldn't have taken it, she was out playing with Sally. You point out that Sally is away with her parents in Puerto Rico ("The Problem"). She says she actually meant her friend Henrietta ("The Frame"). When you express bafflement at why she originally said she was playing with Sally, she claims, conveniently, that she's always had trouble telling the two apart, and gee willickers, always sort of thought they were the exact same person ("The Mockery").

Her New Improved Testimony -- at least the parts the defense highlights -- all reads like that. An impossibility in her testimony is demonstrated to her; she changes her story to avoid that problem; and then, to fend off the inevitable question as to why she had it so badly wrong the first few times around, she offers up a claim of being unable to tell one person from another or, absurdly enough, the difference between a "mustache" and a "five o'clock shadow."

Anyway, back to the payoff. Remember-- until now, "Adam," "Matt," and "Brett" (and sometimes "Dan") were specific, individual people. Seligmann's inconvenient alibis prove he could not perform all of the actions formerly attributed to him.

That's a problem. But not a problem Nifong and his All-Star Rape Accuser can't solve if they put their heads together. more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:28 AM | Comments (37)
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No Cable News Outfit Is Breaking Out of Regularly-Scheduled Repeats To Give This Live Play, But... It was an explosion, and at least early judgments are that it was a terrorist attack of some kind.

Actually, that link just takes you to an AP story which doesn't mention terrorism. That comes from FoxNews.com's headline:

Police in Athens Say Explosion at U.S. Embassy Is an 'Act of Terrorism'

So, for the moment, terrorism.

But this could be the work of Greek communists/anti-globalists, and Greeks are merely "swarthy," not technically brown, so I don't know whether or not to wet the couch yet.

Still no reports of casualties.

Dan Riehl (of the ZaPoohder film) is covering this as news comes in too, and he thinks (according to email) that the timing of the attack points away from Al Qaeda, coming, as it did, during a time when the building was relatively empty.

On the other time, a smelly anti-globalist couldn't possibly have gotten up this early. Eh, maybe he figured he'd spark up, launch a terrorist rocket attack, and then go to bed.

Thanks to Paulitics for the FoxNews update.

...

Super-short news stub here-- area cordoned off, but police do not yet confirm an expolsion at all.

CNN is more comfortable about calling it a "blast."

No reported injuries yet.

Allah seems to be doing the most collecting right now.

So far, it looks like either not an attack at all, or a relatively weak attack, like a single grenade. So far it doesn't seem like a major incident. It may not even be "an incident."

This article... from Sinistar seems the most certain it was a "blast" which "ripped" through the embassy. Not a lot of hedging there.

I guess the FoxNews stub was just way behind the times.

Posted by: Ace at 09:33 PM | Comments (25)
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Klingons. The "Empire of Peace."

Riiiiight.

I'm outraged about this threat. Klingons look like "brown people" to me.

Well, maybe not "people" per se, but they're brown.

Egad. I just soiled myself.

Posted by: Ace at 08:57 PM | Comments (11)
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Mesablue snaps pictures of the uneasy calm after the vandalism that engulfed the westernmost neighborhood of Baghdad.

Seven hundred people are reported to have died in the sectarian fighting, but there is no independent confirmation of that report.

Posted by: Ace at 08:25 PM | Comments (16)
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They say her actions fail to demonstrate the integrity the Air Force expects from its members.

She says she's been fighting for other people's freedoms, now she's just exercising her own.

She's on the left. They say she's a mother of two.

I'll say.

I agree with Rob on this (who has more links). She knew she wasn't supposed to do this, it's utter bullshit that she "didn't expect any problems," she felt like violating her service contract to get some Playboy money and exposure, and she should be booted out.

It seems there are a lot of ways people can intentionally get themselves tossed out of the military, if they have a mind to.

Why she couldn't have just finished out her current term of service and then done this, I don't know.

Oh wait, yes I do: Because then Playboy wouldn't have been particularly interested in her. They made it clear, I'm guessing, that the whole pictorial depended on her being an AF sergeant at the time of the shoot; she had to either violate the AF's code or forgo the offer entirely.

Which would mean that Playboy is civilly liable, if the government wanted to push it, for tortious interference with a contract, but of course no one would.

The Air Force loses an NCO, a woman loses a career, and Playboy, which no one ever even jokes about anymore, gets a little press, but I guess they were the most desperate of the three.

I mean, you don't even hear the old "I read Playboy for the articles" jokes anymore, because people just don't even read it not to read the articles anymore. They don't even eye it on the magazine racks.

Not A Violation of Any Code Or Order? Jones thinks it's not:

She's not an officer, she's a staff sergeant.

So it's not punishable as "conduct unbecoming an officer."

If there is a regulation or order prohibiting air force members from posing nude, then it's violation of an order.

Otherwise, how could they punish her?

The General Article, Art. 134? I think it was struck down as too vague to enforce.

Even in the military you can't just make shit up as you go along and punish retroactively.

Army Lawyer, where are you now?

Not an army lawyer or anything but, back when i was in the army a spc4 in my unit posed nude in playboy and she got in trouble for using her uniform in the spread. Ya cant use your uniform for moneymaking activity. Just sayin. Anyway that is what she got in trouble for, had she been all the way nude and not worn her uniform for the photoshoot she might have been ok.

There's no rule preventing posing for nudey mags? I can't believe that. Then all those muscular marines can pose for all the gay internet sites they want without any reprecussions?*

* Please? Please be true? Can I even dream of living in such a world?

Posted by: Ace at 08:00 PM | Comments (108)
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You know, for a friggin' retard, he's pretty crafty.

Washington intelligence, military and foreign policy circles are abuzz today with speculation that the President, yesterday or in recent days, sent a secret Executive Order to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director of the CIA to launch military operations against Syria and Iran.

The President may have started a new secret, informal war against Syria and Iran without the consent of Congress or any broad discussion with the country.

The bare outlines of that order may have appeared in President Bush's Address to the Nation last night outlining his new course on Iraq:

Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.

We're also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region. We will expand intelligence-sharing and deploy Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies. We will work with the governments of Turkey and Iraq to help them resolve problems along their border. And we will work with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region.

"The bare outlines," you know. Just telling us the entire purpose and strategy of the "secret plans." But he didn't tell us the details of what targets would be hit, and when, and by which named members of our Special Forces, and where their wives and children reside, work, and go to school.

Admittedly, this is pretty dirty pool, particularly against a "mischief-maker" like Iran which has been so forthright and upfront about its military moves against the United States.

Via Instapundit.

I'm pretty sure some lefty made a similar claim before -- Bush is covertly announcing "secret plans" through major public addresses. Maybe it was Corn, maybe Milbank. One of those ninnies. Anyone remember that? May have been an Instapundit catch as well.

Posted by: Ace at 06:58 PM | Comments (46)
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Moves up the "sexual offense" to avoid the little problem of Seligman's ATM records showing him outside the house when the "assault" took place.

But whoops -- turns out now she's claiming it happened when his cell-phone records show him on the phone with his girlfriend.

Maybe he was calling his sweetie to say, "Hey, how you doin'? Me? Nothin' much. Just gang-rapin' a hooker. Yeah, I may be late. Can you TiVo The Apprentice for me?"

Eh, eventually she'll lie her way into a timeline that makes sense. I'm sure there's least forty seconds of the night when the defendants' wherabouts can't be accounted for.

Prosecutor Mike Nifong defended the new changes to the story, saying, "Let me quote King David from the Bible: 'Oh well, that's why God gave pencils erasers!'"

The claim that the Bible contains any references to pencils, erasers, or God's creation of the same cannot be independently verified.

Posted by: Ace at 06:04 PM | Comments (14)
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Available right off his website, so the left can't accuse me of driving him to suicide or the like.

David Wu's biography perplexes me, as I can find no record whatsoever of any military service, and yet he asserts such service is a prerequisite for supporting war.

Well, if that's the case, I can only include he 1) does not support the war in Afghanistan or 2) for reasons unknown deleted all references to his extensive, heroic military record from his official bio.

I'll be calling him tomorrow to find out. If you want to as well, please do, and note the response.

I'll also be asking him, at the end of the call, what he intends to do about the spiralling sectarian conflict in the "cycle of violence" between the Cardassians and Bajorans.

Portland office: (503) 326-2901

DC office (where presumably he can be reached, unless the Democrats have knocked off early again from their promised 5 day workweeks): (202) 225-0855

You can also try faxing him or, if you're in his district, emailing him at the contact points here.

Now, I'm determined to get an answer from Wu, or at least his staff, because, of course, all of the lefty bloggers that push this argument -- "You must enlist up if you are to have the right to endorse a war!" -- have avoided my question. The closest to a response comes from Sadly, No!, who, under a link called "Response," links to a year-old response on another blog to an entirely different argument made by Warren Christopher of NRO.

But, hey, it says "Response" on it, so the lefty readers will assume there is indeed a response there, and go on their merry ways.

But no one, in fact, is answering the question. Because there is no answer. If there is a requirement that one must have served previously, or enlist up now, as a predondition to supporting a war, that means that no one on the left can support the war in Afghanistan, either -- or rather, no one on the left except the 0.001% of the left that has served in a foreign war or is currently awaiting deployment to Afghanistan.

(And, again, most of them really don't support the war in Afghanistan either, but they pretend they do, so they can rhetorically bash the Bush Administration for not finishing the war against Osama. So they're at least on record as supporting that war, even if dishonestly, and cynically agitating for their poor, uneducated black and brown fellow Americans to be the last ones to die for a lie.)

There is no answer possible, so they just sort of pretend they missed the question.

David Wu will also avoid the question, but at least we have his phone number, and, as a supposed representative of the people, has a duty to at least take the calls.

So let's see him -- or at least his junior staffers -- squirm a bit.

David Wu, smiling after destroying
a Taliban weapons cache... with his mind

Military Picture Found: Well, it took some hunting by Slublog, but it does turn out that David Wu has a military record.

I was wrong. I apologize for my error.

Captain David Wu,
commander of the USS Excelsior,
credited with scoring nine direct hits
on Taliban positions with Photon Torpedoes

Again, I am sorry for denigrating the honorable service of a starfleet officer.

Posted by: Ace at 05:12 PM | Comments (49)
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They failed, at least on the first vote. Now they're trying to stall and twist arms until they can get their precious pork-without-public-notice back.

And then there was drama.

So when the motion to kill the bill came to a vote, Durbin and the Democrats lost! [ed. note: At this point, the Senate erupted. The chair, who I think was Maria Cantwell, banged the gavel repeatedly to bring the room to order. The Democrats were frantically performing triage in an attempt to recover.]

It should be noted that a majority should never offer a motion to table if they arenÂ’t sure they can win. It was very embarrassing. Especially since Durbin was trying to kill a proposal that his Leadership colleagues in the House offered!

Anyways, after the motion failed, DeMint asked for a voice vote, which is common. It's basically used to save time since de facto support of the bill was decided when the motion failed. However, Big Ted Kennedy objected, which is all that it needed to skip a voice vote.

The Dems are now off the floor whipping the hell out of their members for when they take a real roll call vote later this afternoon.

Stay tuned...

UPDATE (4:07pm): They are voting now. Reid was waving his hand on the Senate floor right now as if to say, "Hurry up!".

UPDATE (4:23pm): Actually, they are only voting to acquire the attendance necessary to vote on the bill. Crazy, I know. Anyways, a reliable and friendly source in the Senate is telling me, "This is absolutely amazing. Senate Dem Leaders are twisting arms and defying Senate precedent in order to reverse an earmark reform vote that was based on Nancy PelosiÂ’s proposal. The irony is thick. This is happening on a bill in which Democrats are claiming to clean up a culture of corruption in Washington. It is only the 5th vote of the 110th Congress and we are back to business as usual."

UPDATE (4:29pm): It should be noted that Senate Democratic freshmen, Jim Webb and Jon Tester, voted with Republicans to not kill the proposal. Will Reid successfully whip them into changing their vote?

UPDATE (4:34pm): Harry Reid is talking right now. He just said that DeMint's proposal is disrupting the overall bill, which took a lot of time to put together. He just said that the weak earmark reform rules "were carefully vetted with weeks of work from our staff" and that it's "preferrable" to DeMint's proposal.

UPDATE (4:44pm): DeMint is speaking now. Man, the guy is a champ. He just said he felt like he was still in the House. He then compared this vote to the disgusting 3-hour vote on the Medicare drug bill in 2003. That's going to hurt the Dems in tomorrow's press if the mainstream media isn't playing favorites.

"If the mainstream media isn't playing favorites."

And what are the odds of that?

...

UPDATE (5:04pm): The Senate is having another quorum call to bring all the Senators to the floor for a vote. The funny thing is...all the Senators are on the floor. Transparent stalling tactics.

The Not Ready For Prime Time Legislators.

Thanks to Larwyn.

Meanwhile, just in case anyone isn't convinced the Reality Based Community is back in charge -- Congressman David Wu (D-Antares VII) just claimed on floor of Congress that the Bush Administration is nothing but a cabal of Klingons.

Klingons. Seriously. Not the "Vulcans" he prefers. (He said that, too!)

New York Money Klingons, I think he meant.

Faux Klingons, actually, the sort who are called "G'rakht'a Hhroar," which translates, approximately, into "Klingon Who Has Not Yet Tasted First Blood," or "Food-Fowl Pretending To Be A Gorthon Bird of Prey."

At the current moment, the crack Ace of Spades research team is having difficulty locating David Wu's service records for the various tours of duty in Afghanistan he surely served. We know they must exist (otherwise how could he criticize others for supporting a war they've not fought in?), but we just can't locate them at the moment.

The state of the union... is strong.

Update On Earmark-Transparency Bill: The attempt to strip it out of the main bill failed, it seems.

You can read where the Senators voted here. "Yea" votes were to strip the tough transparency rule out (i.e., the wrong vote); "Nay" votes were to keep it in (i.e., the right vote.)

Notice any, uhhh, patterns in the voting? Apart from useless dinosaur Pete Dominici, I don't see a single (R) voting "Yea."

For the record, Barak Obama voted Nay, as did his pectoralis muscles.

Correction! I may not have seen a Republican voting to save his bacon except for Dominici, but that's just because I'm an imbecile.

i counted 7 Republican "yea" voters Bennett, Bunning, Domenici, Hatch, Lott, Smith and Voinovich. i think most of them are up in"08 too.

The fact that I missed Lott, of all people, should have told me I my once-over was seriously deficient. Thanks to mark for looking more carefully.

Posted by: Ace at 04:36 PM | Comments (39)
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