Must-read:

Welcome to Congress's new and dirtier earmark game, in which the big spenders are setting all the rules. In front of the cameras, both parties claim to have found earmark religion, and are talking up a bill that would reform the way Congress asks for billions in goodies for lawmakers' home districts. Behind the scenes, they're working feverishly to keep the earmarks rolling, this time using a technique outside of the legislative process and hidden from public view.

...

[The] new House appropriations chief, Wisconsin's David Obey--a spender for our time-- [was put] in the distasteful position of having to live up to his party's election promises to fix the earmark boondoggle. He begrudgingly promised a "moratorium." And last week, when Mr. Obey celebrated the passage of his $464 billion 2007 spending bill, he bragged that Democrats had fulfilled their promise and "stripped all earmarks from the measure."

"This decision doesn't come without pain," intoned Mr. Obey. "Many worthwhile earmarks are not funded in this measure, but we had to take this step to clear the decks, clean up the process and start over."

The key language here is "not funded in this measure," and it explains why Mr. Obey is still smiling through his pain. Congressional members, led by appropriators and an army of staff, have already figured out a new way to keep their favors in the money, and it might as well be called 1-800-EARMARKS (which unfortunately is already taken). All across Washington, members are at this moment phoning budget officers at federal agencies--Interior, Defense, HUD, you name it--privately demanding that earmarks in previous legislation be fully renewed again this year. There might not be a single official earmark in the 2007 spending bill, but thousands are in the works all the same.

And getting far less scrutiny than before--if that's even possible. Under this new regime, members don't even have to go to the trouble of slipping an earmark into a committee report, where it might later (once the voting is over) come in for criticism. All the profligates need now to keep the money flowing is a quiet office and a cellphone.

Despite a congressional desire to keep this quiet, the evidence of marathon dialing is mounting. Lobbyists, thrilled their clients are still getting earmark handouts, are now publicly crowing about this underground program. Sens. John McCain and Tom Coburn--anti-earmark warriors--sent a letter to the Department of Energy last week wanting to know how that agency was handling the demands. On the same day, DOE chief of staff Jeffrey Kupfer delivered an internal memo to agency officers acknowledging that "offices have begun to receive requests from some Congressional offices, asking that the Department continue to fund programs or activities that received earmarked funds in prior years," and laying out a procedure for handling such orders.

And of course porkbarrelling tax lice don't even need to trouble themselves to dial a phone. Bureaucrats are actively soliciting Congressmen for which earmarks they want, though may have been ashamed to slip into a report:

From: Kratz, Jeff (Appropriations)
Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2007 12:11 PM
To: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Subject: Subcommittee deadline
The Labor-HHS deadline for all requests will be April 13, 2007.

This deadline includes any programmatic funding, project funding, bill or report language requests that your Senators would like to submit for the FY2008 LHHS bill.
Please submit all requests by e-mail and deliver a hard copy to SD-156.

Please e mail your requests to Bettilou_Taylor@appro.senate.gov
As we develop specific instructions on format -- I will forward that information to you.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Yup, that appears to be the email address you can write to if you'd like to request your own bridge to nowhere. So, given that Bettilou Taylor is your employee, why not start asking her for shit?

And Ask Jeff Kratz For Your Own Private Military Airplane While You're At It: JackM. says Kratz' email should be: jeff_kratz@appro.senate.gov

Posted by: Ace at 12:09 PM | Comments (31)
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Ken sends this. It's pretty leftwing, but it's still kinda funny to see "Condi" doing Fergie's "Fergilicious."

Lyrics at This Just In, which seems to have created the video.

Posted by: Ace at 12:00 PM | Comments (10)
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Brought to you by my new favorite hockey team, the Washington Capitals.

Why are they my new favorite hockey team? Because I got to party with them on Super Bowl Sunday, as I was at the same bar the team attended following their overtime victory over the New York Islanders, and Olaf Korzig bought me a couple of shots after I congratulated him for being named player of the game. That's pretty much all it takes to make them my new favorite team.

Anyway, despite their status as my new favorite team, their PR department clearly did not think their Valentine's Day PR promotion through. Why do I say that? This is why:

Stop by the community relations table behind section 104 at the Caps game on Saturday, Feb. 10, for a ValentineÂ’s Day Puck Surprise. For $25 you can buy a package that includes an autographed puck with HersheyÂ’s Kisses. WhatÂ’s the surprise? Almost every puck is autographed by a Caps player.

I know, sounds like a deal right? Heh. It Turns out some "lucky" pucks dont have autographs on them. What happens if you spend $25 on an unsigned Valentine's Day puck?

If the puck you select is not signed, Alexander Semin will sign it for you personally after the game!

Ahhh...nothing says Valentine's Day like Semin.

But, to the Caps credit, they are worried about exposing minors to Semin. From the official rules:

Only the winner will be allowed to meet Semin. If the winner is under the age of 18, he or she may be accompanied by one adult.

So, it's kind of like the Junior Prom. It's a chaparoned date with Semin.

In any event, I suppose it's the thought that counts. So cross your fingers, ladies (and Rosetta) you just might get all the Semin you could possibly want on Valentine's Day. Start buying your tickets now!

Posted by: Jack M. at 11:48 AM | Comments (19)
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Cheese lovers can now watch cheddar mature 24 hours a day on the internet.
West country farmers set up the Cheddarvision website featuring a 25 kg block of cheddar, reports ITN.

Farmer Tom Calver said: "How many other cheeses do you know of on the internet that have their own webcam and a live feed to the internet? I don't think many."

The highlight of the day on www.cheddarvision.tv is at around 10am when the cheese at the Somerset dairy is turned.

I am sincerely thinking of investing in some electronic equipment. Can anyone recommend a serviceable webcam setup? I want to showcase some of the critters that visit my yard at night.

I hope I can get more hits than a funky old block of cheese.

Update: OOPS. Link added, just click the pic.

Posted by: LauraW. at 10:50 AM | Comments (89)
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Cute post over at Mr. Minority.

Follow his link to the article for more gems like "Dongda Hospital for Anus and Intestine Disease Beijing."

Posted by: LauraW. at 07:25 AM | Comments (67)
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I love Justice League of America. Love Batman, love Superman.

I liked the "know how I know you're gay?" part of 40 Year Old Virgin.

Together, they're crazy delicious. Content warning. If you're a pussy.

Thanks to Matthew from Newsbusters.

There are a lot of JLA parodies on Youtube and such, featuring inappropriate dialogue from other movies. Most aren't very good, alas.

This is the orignal as far as I know, featuring the Super Friends. It's old, but very funny.

Posted by: Ace at 03:17 PM | Comments (35)
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A quantum leap in cybernetic facial analysis software.

The left will, as usual, go apeshit for maligning Ms. Marcotte's looks.

In my defense--

I never intended to malign anyone's looks, ever. All of my posts here are satirical in nature and not intended to mean anything at all that might get me criticized, or denied the opportunity to work in the John Edwards campaign. Every single word I've posted on this blog, ever, has been either "ironic" or simply a flat-out lie.

And, oh yeah: I was just playing a character.

Thanks to Pajamas Mediocrity for so thoroughly advancing the technology of artificial intelligence.

Hoist On My Own Retards: Rosetta suggested it, but Slublog did the deed:

Oh, well. At least it's not that mincing pederast Wicket.

Important Action Alert: It is Wicket, it turns out. As one of Feministe's commeters declares, "Oh, it's on now."

More... photomatching results below the fold.

Once again, I have to stress that it was never my intent to malign the delectable Ms. Marcotte's physical appearance whatsoever. If my words have been taken out of context by some rightwing godbags, well, that's their problem, not mine. All of my writings are entirely satirical in nature; quite frankly, half the time I don't even know what the hell I'm writing, being all goofed up on a special mixture of barbituates, Robitussin, and shark repellent.

I promise you will not be seeing such hateful (but pefectly good-humored satirical) images on my site the moment I begin blogging full-time for the Silky Pony. Which is why he'd better hire me posthaste.

I have a pretty vicious rant and important action alert I'm holding off on at the present moment, but unless I see some of that sweet, sweet Edwards medical malpractice money, I'm pulling the trigger. more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:55 PM | Comments (164)
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There may be more to this story. It is possible, I guess, that the prosecutors did not, for reasons I could not even begin to guess at, charge the man for murdering the mother, chosing instead to make its case on the death of the fetus she carried.

Maybe.

But I see here a headline that tells me a man got the death penalty for killing a fetus, and yet he was only convicted with one count of capital murder.

Pardon me for suspecting he was actually convicted of killing the teenaged mother, and that AP is spinning this as an assault on abortion rights.

Texas Man Gets Death for Killing Fetus

By ELIZABETH WHITE
Associated Press Writer

SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- A former youth pastor was sentenced to death Wednesday for killing a teenager and her fetus in what is believed to be the first such order in Texas, the nation's busiest death penalty state.

Adrian Estrada, 23, was Mb>convicted Friday of one count of capital murder for the death of Stephanie Sanchez and the fetus, of which he was the father.

If he was convicted in the death of the fetus, why is there only one count of capital murder, and why does the story say he was convicted for "the death of Stephanie Sanchez and the fetus"?

Wouldn't that be two counts of capital murder, if in fact he'd been convicted of killing the fetus at all?

"This is a significant case," said Bexar County prosecutor Susan Reed. "This is significant for the state."

A 2003 Texas law amended the definition of the word "individual" to include an "unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth."

The death sentence is Texas' first in the death of a fetus, said Dave Atwood, founder of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, which monitors capital cases.

Sanchez, 17, was three months pregnant Dec. 12, 2005, when her body was found in her family's home. She had been choked and stabbed 13 times. During the trial, DNA evidence was presented to show Estrada was the father.

Estrada, a former youth pastor for a church, admitted to the stabbing the day after the killings. Prosecutors also said he worked out at a gym and went shopping after the crime. He showed no emotion when his punishment was read.

I'm guessing -- the AP's slapdash reportage compels me to guess -- that the death of the fetus was used as an intensifier to make him eligible for the death penalty. A "special factor" or whatever it's called in Texas that can make a murder a capital murder.

As such special, death-qualifying factors typically include "murders committed for economic gain" -- a rather broad category, embracing quite a few murders -- it hardly seems to be unreasonable that a murder involving a pregnant woman would also appear on the laundry list of death-qualifying offenses.

In any event, he wasn't "convicted" for killing the fetus, nor is he getting the death penalty "merely" for killing a fetus.

Thanks to RobG.

A Texas Cop... named Kmack puts me some information:

The DA was commenting on the fact that this was the first trial where the option of life without possibility of parole was offered as an alternative to death in a Capital case.

The fetus had nothing to do with anything in this case.

What a suprise that the media picks a headline that has nothing to do with the real story.

Find the San Antonio news on the web and watch the interview with the DA.

I can't find the story he's talking about, but this older story makes it plain that capital murder was proven under the provision for causing multiple murders:

SAN ANTONIO -- A former youth minister was found guilty Friday of fatally stabbing his teenage girlfriend and her unborn daughter.

Jurors deliberated for about an hour before returning their verdict against Adrian Estrada, who was a pastor at El Sendero Assembly of God church.

His girlfriend, Stephanie Sanchez, also a member of the church, was three months pregnant when prosecutors said Estrada killed her at her home in December 2005.

During closing arguments, prosecutor Scott Simpson demonstrated to the jury how he thought Estrada killed Sanchez.

"This is for that baby that caused me all this trouble," Simpson said.

But defense attorney Suzanne Kramer told jurors that the defendant should not be convicted of capital murder because he didn't intend to kill the fetus.

"The law with death of multiple persons is that he has to have separate intent and conscious desire to cause Stephanie's death and not incidental that the baby was going to die," Kramer said.

So the AP story is sort of true -- the death penalty was sought under the multiple-murder special provision, for which purposes the intentional death of a fetus is a satisfactory circumstance -- but it hypes, overstates, and spins the story as being a sentencing only for the death of a fetus.

And this background could, rather easily, have been included in the AP dispatch -- at least, it could have been, had it not so thoroughly undermined the "metanarrative" of abortion-rights-under-fire it was trying to sell.

And, of course, they could also include the other death-qualifying provisions in the Texas code, among which is almost certainly a murder caused for economic gain, just to let the public know that this isn't some super-special selective imposition of the death penalty only for the purpose of protecting fetuses.

When you read a state's death-qualifying provisions, you come away wondering, "Well, what in hell won't qualify you for the death penalty?"

Posted by: Ace at 01:50 PM | Comments (22)
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Collapsed in her casino-hotel room.

But she seemed so healthy.

Sorry. Someone was going to say it anyway. I figured it might as well be me who threw himself on this particular bad-taste grenade.

Thanks to Dan and Jeff.

They had nothing to do with that joke, by the way.

Posted by: Ace at 01:06 PM | Comments (150)
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Ahem. Don't get your hopes up. The moment I saw this doofus and his "armor" -- which looks suspiciously like a cross between a TIE-fighter flight suit and gladiator armor from TRON -- I thought, "Wait, this looks like the idiot who's been trying to create 'anti-bear armor' for years, so he can, for unfathomable reasons, pet grizzly bears without being mauled to death."

And then, five seconds in, he said it -- the new "infantry armor" is based on his previous anti-bear armor designs.

Background on this guy's eternal quest for armor allowing him to pet, and fight, bears.

A blog with more links.

More video, showing him proving the efficacy of his ant-bear armor, by showing that it protects from truck-impacts. Bears' favored attacks, of course, are, in order: 1) Mauling/raking with the foreclaws; 2) suffocating a victim via a "hug;" and 3), hit-and-run collisions while driving a Ford F150.

And now, the actual "full-body exoskeleton infantry armor" itself.

I just about busted a gut when he showed off the "anti-bear spray" on the left forearm-- the guy is trying to sell this to the US military for use in the war on terror, but goddamnit, he's still going to build his goofball armor with an array of anti-bear defenses, isn't he? Because we all know Muslims have dire bear animal companions, like Druids in D&D.

And then it gets better -- because among the features of this super-duper Starship Trooper armor he's most proud of is a digital clock -- showing 20 different time zones! Twenty! -- built into the armor's crotch.

It flips open like a small circular plastic dick.

Yeah. I can see why he's so eager to show that off.

Because that's gonna be the first question DARPA asks him -- "But does it come with a clock?"

You, Sir, are a goof.

I don't know who sent this, but whoever you are: Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

BREAKING: US Troops Capture Six "High-Ranking Kodiak Bears" In Sadr City: Well, I guess I'm the asshole then, aren't I?

In my defense, the MacKenzie Brother "Take off, eh, you hoser" accent really didn't inspire confidence in his engineering acumen.

Posted by: Ace at 01:02 PM | Comments (53)
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