According to the Pentagon Humanity-Stealing Torturers.

A suspect in the bombing of the USS Cole warship in Yemen has confessed to the attack, the Pentagon has said.

Walid Mohammad bin Attash is said to have made his confession in a hearing at Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba.

Seventeen sailors died and 37 were hurt when the Cole was rammed by suicide bombers in the port of Aden in 2000.

Mr Attash also said he helped plan the 1998 bomb attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 213, the Pentagon said.

Partial transcripts of the alleged admission made during a closed-door hearing were released by the US defence department.

The US hearings have been widely criticised by lawyers and human rights groups as sham tribunals, with no chance for the defendants to get a fair trial.

...

"I put together the plan for the operation a year and a half prior to the operation," Mr Attash told a military panel, according to the transcripts.

Asked where he was at the time of the attack, Mr Attash reportedly said he was with al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

According to the transcripts, Mr Attash also said he served as a key liaison in Pakistan between Bin Laden and the cell chief in Nairobi for the embassy bombings in east Africa.

"I was the link that was available in Pakistan. I used to supply the cell with whatever documents they need - from fake stamps to visas, whatever," he said in the transcripts.

A depressed Rosie O'Donnell just ate three gallons of Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream.

That doesn't really have anything to do with the Cole bombing story. She does that every Monday at 7 o'clock.

Posted by: Ace at 03:07 PM | Comments (29)
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Just getting into the details of the state bar's nearly-angry rejection of Nifong's motion to have his ethics charges dismissed.

Here's the actual document, and here's a news brief on the denial of motion.

Posted by: Ace at 02:45 PM | Comments (18)
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Four years after the beginning of the war he so forcefully championed, and he ain't taking back a damn thing.

Good on him.

Posted by: Ace at 02:14 PM | Comments (16)
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By the numbers.

The study also confirms that John McCain has, according to voting record, become more liberal as the years have worn on. Starting out with a conservative voting record in the 80's (out of a possible 99), which then

dipped to the 70s during the mid-1990s, into the 60s in the late 1990s and into the 50s starting in 2004.

So, in this crucial pre-election period, when he's on his best conservative behavior in an effort to garner GOP primary votes, he's actually trended more liberal.

On social issues, he's rated a 46-- slightly left of center.

The article calls this "interesting," and my kneejerk reaction was to think "only to those who haven't been paying attention," but it actually is a bit of a surprise. I would have guessed that McCain had goosed his conservative voting record in recent years. Apparently he hasn't even lowered himself to the pretense.

Posted by: Ace at 02:01 PM | Comments (12)
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An old friend from the Fray days used to justify the Iraq War -- then only a pipe dream of "The Madmen" directing our foreign policy -- by calling it Plymouth, Iraq. An example for the rest of the world to follow, it was hoped, showing the Muslim world that there's more to life than death.

Four years on, that seems to have been wildly, naively optimistic.

Except.

Except for Kurdistan, which is indeed part of Iraq, the part of Iraq no one ever talks about much, for the same reason no one ever talks about Canada much. It's peaceful, it's prosperous, it's clean, it's safe. It's boring. And of course such boring lives, lacking the excitement of war, murder, and mayhem, are what most of the world dreams of (at least, that part of the world that isn't actually dreaming of war, murder, and mayhem).

A whole new town called “American Village” is under construction next to the luxurious Khan Zad hotel on the road between Erbil and the resort town of Salahadin. Foreigners and locals alike are snapping up the properties well in advance.

Iraqi Kurdistan is still a Third World country in many ways – there is no sewer system, for instance, and the electricity fails every day. Unemployment is high. But it’s a Third World country with hope, and it is rapidly moving upscale. New houses cost more in and around Erbil than they do in some parts of the United States. An average sized 200 square meter lot can cost as much as 150,000 dollars – and that’s before a house is built on it. There are literally thousands of brand new houses here in this city, and the population is still just a little bit shy of one million.

Arabs are moving up here from the center and south – when they can, and as long as they are cleared by internal security – and they’re hired to do menial jobs the Kurds no longer want. Sunni Arabs were once the oppressors of Kurds. Now they are reduced to the same low status as migrant Mexican workers in the United States.

Ahem.

The ancient old city walls next to downtown are an impressive sight, but inside the walls is a vast slum. Well, it was a vast slum until recently. A few months ago the residents were moved out so the city government can fix it up and restore it.

Erbil isnÂ’t pretty, as Paris and Vienna are pretty. Some of it is aesthetically brutal, and much of it is still rough around the edges. But itÂ’s stimulating and interesting all the same. The go-go-go and build-build-build attitude is infectious. Every time I come here it looks cleaner, and richer, and more like a normal place.

...

I have never seen so much construction going up so quickly anywhere. (There is more in Dubai, but I have never been there.)

The Hilton hotel chain is building a massive full-service tourist resort that will take five years to construct. It may seem dumb to build a tourist resort in Iraq of all places, but this is Erbil Province, not Anbar Province – there is no war, no insurgency, and no terrorism here whatsoever. The Middle East is a funny place. One part of a country may be consumed by blood, fire, and mayhem, but that rarely means the whole country is dangerous -- even when that country is Iraq.

Maybe the best propaganda we can inject into Iraq are daily reports from Kurdistan.

Posted by: Ace at 01:49 PM | Comments (32)
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Since people are offering offsets for carbon -- and other stuff -- figured it would make for a good thread.

I personally can offer sex-offsets, for any worried they're getting more than their "fair share." I haven't been with a woman since college, and have had little other sex during this time frame. Given the way I look, my attitude, my lack of charm, and the fact I make crap money writing a stupid moronblog -- I don't expect this to change much in the ensuing years.

Especially because I'm beyond my "good years." If those were my good years, Dear Lord, I quake at the thought of middle age. So please send me some money.

Hollowpoint's also advertising:

Let's see- the Harley gets better gas mileage than my car, so that should yield a few credits every time I ride. Nevermind the high duration cams, unburned fuel doesn't count.

Deer exhale carbon dioxide, eat carbon dioxide absorbing plants, and fart methane. Eating them also means less cattle need to be raised- therefore every deer I shoot and eat should be worth quite a few credits- just last fall I removed 4 of these carbon-negative beasts from the woods and into my freezer.

I've no kids that I know of- chalk up a few more credits.

That man-made global warming theory is bullshit will not prevent me from taking the money of anyone willing to pay for my selfless, carbon-reducing lifestyle.

Slublog can be had too:

I don't like airplanes, and have not flown since 2003. That is four years of carbon credits I've built up.

I promise you - if you pay me money, I will stay on the ground.

It's like planting your own rain forest.

Of course Iowahawk is the real first-to-market genius in this area. He's got bumper-stickers and everything!

Hummer Drivers... will now be credited with "environmental damage offsets" to off-set the horrible environmental damage caused by the production of its ostentatious "lifestyle vehicle" competitor, the Prius.

Posted by: Ace at 12:12 PM | Comments (97)
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A very sad post from her daughter.

Posted by: Ace at 11:40 AM | Comments (17)
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I know there's a lot about this. The thing of it is, the left has actually been successful in setting the agenda for debate. Rather than discussing real life threats to us -- like Islamist terrorists -- they've bullied the country into worrying about whether the sea level will rise 23 inches by the end of the century.

If you don't have anything positive to contribute about a real threat, start blathering about a pretend one that plays better to your political base.

That said, this Krauthammer piece is must-reading. It exposes not just the blatant hypocrisy of the lefty millionaires piously instructing us all that we must consume less, but the transparent dishonesty of pretending their "carbon offsets" result in their actually being "carbon neutral."

It's a scam. No carbon is being offset anywhere.

Goldman Sachs has been one of the most aggressive firms on Wall Street about taking action on climate change; the company sends its bankers home at night in hybrid limousines.

--The New York Times, Feb. 25

Written without a hint of irony--if only your neighborhood dry cleaner sent his employees home by hybrid limousine--this front-page dispatch captured perfectly the eco-pretensions of the rich and the stupefying gullibility with which they are received.

Remember the Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore global-warming pitch at the Academy Awards? Before they spoke, the screen at the back of the stage flashed not-so-subliminal messages about how to save the planet. My personal favorite was "Ride mass transit." This to a conclave of Hollywood plutocrats who have not seen the inside of a subway since the moon landing and for whom mass transit means a stretch limo seating no fewer than 10.

Leo and Al then portentously announced that for the first time ever, the Academy Awards ceremony had gone green. What did that mean? Solar panels in the designer gowns? It turns out that the Academy neutralized the evening's "carbon footprint" by buying carbon credits. That means it sent money to a "carbon broker," who promised, after taking his cut, to reduce carbon emissions somewhere on the planet equivalent to what the stars spewed into the atmosphere while flying in on their private planes.

In other words, the rich reduce their carbon output by not one ounce. But drawing on the hundreds of millions of net worth in the Kodak Theatre, they pull out lunch money to buy ecological indulgences. The last time the selling of pardons was prevalent--in a predecessor religion to environmentalism called Christianity--Martin Luther lost his temper and launched the Reformation.

The article continues by exposing "carbon offsets" for what they are -- not genuine reductions in carbon production, but in simple political innoculation against the charge of hypocrisy.

The Profit of Doom: Bill Hobbs isn't content to rip Al Gore a new asshole; he sets to tearing him three new assholes plus a never-before-seen orifice of his own invention he's provisionally calling a "lower abdominal utility duct."

Al Gore's buying carbon offsets from a company he himself founded and serves as chairman of... meaning he buys his "offsets" from himself.

And lots of other good stuff as well.

By The Way: Al Gore's "rebuttal" to the story about his home consuming 20 times the electricity of the average American home was laughable.

First of all, he noted he uses solar panels and the like. Fine -- but the electricity he's still consuming from carbon-emitting sources is still 20x what the average American home consumes. So his solar panels have brought him down from 22 times the power to a mere 20 times the power -- this is is his idea of leading a "carbon neutral" lifestyle?

Furthermore, he engaged in the shoddy bait-and-switch of noting he was investing in renewable energy sources -- like burning garbage for power. But the question was about his carbon-dioxide emissions, not whether or not those emissions were coming from a "renewable" source. It doesn't matter if you burn hydrocarbons in the form of petroleum or gas or in the form of garbage -- you're still burning hydrocarbons, and when you do, you produce water vapor and carbon dioxide (as well as some other pollutants, and methane, a more serious greenhouse gas).

Thus his reubuttal failed to address the question -- deliberately. It would be like him saying he was investing in burning trees to create power. A "renewable" power source, to be sure, but hardly reducing the carbon dioxide associated with generating the power.

But the liberal and scientifically illiterate media went right along with it anyway -- what do mere facts matter when we're trying to save the world?

I should note, though, that global warming really is happening, and that all of the scientists -- well, not all of them; but most of them, and that's good enough -- say so.

Shep Smith told me so. And he looked right into the camera and told me to "read up" as he informed me of this.

More Offsets! BrownLine hasn't owned a car for years; now he's looking to get paid for his abstemiousness. And why shouldn't he?

And this guy? Well, he's owned a right mint.

Posted by: Ace at 10:57 AM | Comments (78)
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The "some guy" guy who actually suggested her husband for the Niger trip.

Thanks to Phinn.

Posted by: Ace at 10:47 AM | Comments (33)
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I'm going to claim credit for this development, given that the writer of this piece was an old Fray opponent of mine (and a bit of an asshole) and surely could not have come up with this thesis without my yeomanlike popularization of the term.

Well, maybe he could. He lives and breathes identity politics, after all.

I do think there's something to the idea of Obama's appeal partly grounded in whites' subconscious belief, caused by watching too many Hollywood movies, that if they just elect an nice, avuncular black man like Obama, he'll step out of the shadows to "help us get our swing back" and maybe even help us through prison.

Although I do question the constant criticism of the "Magical Negro" by lefties based on the archetype being "unthreatening." When did it become "authentically black" to seem threatening and menacing? Are the people we like and consider heroes usually "threatening"? True, rap guys are, as well as some black athletes; but is that a good thing? In any other race or culture, is the capacity to menace and threatened championed as a virtue above most others?

Anyway, Hot Air has some excerpts from the article.

Posted by: Ace at 10:32 AM | Comments (25)
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