This clip is pretty well done.

Posted by: Ace at 12:03 PM | Comments (12)
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The American economy is healthy enough to fight off the Aisan flu.

As well as Alan Greenspan trying to tank the economy to show up his successor.

Posted by: Ace at 11:52 AM | Comments (53)
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Also found on St. Andrew of the Sacred Heart-Ache. Here's why AIDS is so rampant in Africa:

1. Ritual cleansing. This is not, sadly, some kind of elaborate bath. It has to do with the laying of ghosts. The belief is that when a husband dies his ghost will 'follow' his widow; and it will drive her mad unless she is 'cleansed'. Traditionally, cleansing requires the widow to have sex with a close male relative - perhaps her husband's uncle. Once this is done - often with a fee payable to the lucky uncle - the widow is deemed cleansed, and the ghost will disturb her and the family no more. Of course, if the husband died of Aids, and his widow also has the syndrome, then she will probably pass it on to Uncle.

...

2. 2. The secret society. ... In the villages of rural Zambia, boys who reach the age of 12 or 13 undergo a ritual that initiates them into manhood. It's the usual sort of thing - circumcision plus lectures on adult behaviour and a few tattoos. As a result of this experience, the boys of any one year form a special bond, which will last a lifetime. They call it their secret society. In future years, when one such boy visits the home of another, he will be offered, and be expected to accept, the sexual use of his host's wife. This is not considered adulterous, as long as the husband is present throughout.

3. 3. Dry sex. ...

Dry sex is what it sounds like. For reasons that baffle me and perhaps most European men, many Zambian and other African men prefer to make love to a woman when she is, or appears to be, unaroused. A truck-driver told me that he liked his partner to be `dry and tight' because it made her feel like a virgin. He found a moist vagina distasteful - `like she's making water', as he put it. To satisfy him, his girls had to be difficult to penetrate.

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing is that the women go along with this. The reason, I'm told, lies in the fundamental relationship between the sexes in southern Africa: the woman will do anything to make her man happy. To ensure that she is in a suitable condition when her man wants to make love, she boils up a concoction of roots, leaves and herbs, a secret recipe handed down from mother to daughter. The resulting brew has an astringent quality that both dries and firms vaginal tissue.

I think the usual reasons given for the ridiculously high rate of AIDS in Africa (1 in 5, and 1 in 3 among the young) are more important (widespread prostitution, refusal to use condoms), but those reasons -- especially #3 -- do help explain why AIDS has done in Africa what it hasn't done in any other part of the world -- explode into the general population.

Posted by: Ace at 10:58 PM | Comments (77)
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Asian markets in free-fall. Nikkei down 3.34%.

Thanks to Allah.

Alan Greenspan Should Drink A Nice Tall Glass of Shut-Up Juice: ...and accept he's not the fed-head anymore.

Posted by: Ace at 10:13 PM | Comments (53)
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Nah, I didn't misspell that. It's either a real word or it should be.

Police in Poland have launched a nationwide hunt for a man who farted loudly when asked what he thought of the president.

Hubert Hoffman, 45, was charged with "contempt for the office of the head of state" for his actions after he was stopped by police in a routine check at a Warsaw railway station.

He complained that under President Lech Kaczynski and his twin brother Jaroslaw, the country was returning to a Communist style dictatorship.

When told to show more respect for the country's rulers, he farted loudly and was promptly arrested.

He was let out on bail but didn't show up for arraignment.

Now he's a flatulent fugitive, squeaking poofs to power.

I guess Poland's a little annoyed that no one's making Polish jokes anymore.

Via HotAir.

Posted by: Ace at 08:43 PM | Comments (26)
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And check out Romney's praise of Coulter near the end of this clip:

She fragged a decent, capable conservative candidate.

But she's more important than Romney. After all, she "stands up" to liberals in ways no mere president ever could.

Via a gloating, simply delighted Andrew Sullivan.

Question:

If Andrew Sullivan is happy, shouldn't you be saddened?

PS: That video was shot by the son of Sydney Blumenthal, so you know about what you're getting.

Seems he's got all of his father's integrity but none of his brains. Turns out that "suspiciously pale" National Black Republican Association representative was in fact the husband of the woman attending the booth almost all of the day, but just left hubby there for a bit alone.

Guess what color skin she has?

Barnett... on Coulter.

My Giuliani-Pimping Stealth Attack on Mitt Romney: At least that's what someone speculates is the reason for this post.

Please. I like Mitt Romney a lot. I expect the contest come down to Giuliani and Romney, and I would be pleased to have either as a nominee. Given the fact that I emphatically do not think Giuliani has this all sewn up by any means -- he hasn't shifted enough to the right, which not only makes him less attractive to the Republican base when they find out his positions, it also makes him less attractive to me, personally -- I have no interest in knocking Romney.

I'd say it's 50-50 right now. I like Dick Morris' analysis that first will come quarter-finals in the Center-Right and Right brackets (Rudy vs. McCain, Romney vs. whichever other social conservative rises to challenge him), then the winner of the Center-Right vs. Right candidates. And then, finally, the championship of Republican nominee versus Democratic nominee.

One good of Giuliani's candidacy which few conservatives can object to is that Giuliani is at least beating McCain in the Center-Right bracket, making it less likely McCain will be our nominee.

But while I'm more in favor of Giuliani, I like Romney an awful lot, and could give a fig about his flip-flopping. I'd like to see more cynical, calculataing flip-flopping from Giuliani, but apparently his pride won't permit it. (Or, again, he just might be a lot smarter than me.)

If it wasn't clear from the post, I'm not blaming Romney for this. Romney had no idea what Coulter would say when he mentioned she'd be following him. He's an innocent bystander in this -- well, innocent of everything but a naive belief that Ann Coulter has some sort of functioning internal editor.

My point here was to convince those who are defending Ann on the grounds that she "stands up to liberals" -- well, yes she does. She also winds up bringing disrepute on those who could "stand up to liberals" far more than she could ever hope to. A President Romney would have a lot more influence on the Supreme Court's makeup than Ann Coulter ever could, her useful criticism of Harriet Miers notwithstanding.

It's a tenet of the fightin' fightin' nutroots that you spray your invective around indiscriminately, without thought to its effectiveness or blowback, because it's the fightin' fightiness of the fight that really matters, not actual results. Or prudence. Or simple decency.

I reject that. Most conservatives do, at least when they see such infantile tactics used by the left. But when it's Ann, well, many conservatives find themselves defending the fightin' fighty fightiness of the nutroots.

To some extent I understand that -- Coulter was for many, and is still for some, a beloved figure.

She was once for me.

But it also occurs to me that if we had told her to knock it off earlier, she might be more responsible now.

Remember when she suggested the 9/11 hijackers should have flown their planes into the New York Times building?

I defended that-- then. It was a joke, I said.

And yet, of course, when Michael Moore suggested that the terrorists should have killed red staters (as they'd voted for Bush, unlike most New Yorkers), I, and all other conservatives, were outraged.

As we should have been: It's reprehensible to suggest that the terrorists merely chose the wrong set of Americans for murder. It blurs the line -- which should be kept bright, sharp, and inpentrable -- between political opponents who are to be argued against in the political arena and foreign enemies who are to be killed by the thousands.

Yes, Ann was speaking extemporaneously there in an interview, and not writing. And that excuses the remark to some degree -- we all say stupid things when our mouths move more quickly than our brains. But she never truly apologized for that. She just said it was a joke, and moved on.

And we didn't demand anything more of her than that.

And so she's learned: She can say whatever she wants and the more controversy she can generate, the higher her book sales, and she never has to fear losing the core audience that makes her rich. She just has to keep writing the occasional sharp column, speak the occasional offensive slur or judge-assassination "joke," and she'll just get more and more popular.

It was a bad precedent to set, letting a fellow conservative joke so shamelessly about the "good outcomes" that could have flowed from the 9/11 attack, had only the terrorists chosen their victims more congruently with conservative desires. Liberal media bias is irrefutable, but I doubt that many have "joked" so cavalierly about 9/11 and paid so light a price.

I excused her then, and it was wrong to do so. Had conservatives spoken to her with one voice then and told her in no uncertain terms that joking about terrorists helping out the cause by killing one's political opponents, she might have begun editing herself within the limits of civil discourse.

But we didn't, and so she hasn't. Why should she?

Posted by: Ace at 08:35 PM | Comments (121)
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For a while I wasn't posting about Giuliani, or any other candidate, you know. Even when I thought there was an interesting story or poll to link, I avoided it.

But now apparently the presidential race has started. I'm as unhappy about this fact as anyone. So please excuse all the Giuliani stuff -- it is, unavoidably, the news.

I try to give fair coverage to Romney too (and I do like him), but Rudy's the front runner and the more interesting story. And then of course there's my bias.

As for the others -- well, Gingrich hasn't declared yet and I really don't think the other alternatives are particularly serious candidates.

Honestly. I'm not any happier about this than you are.

Posted by: Ace at 01:58 PM | Comments (45)
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And even though their husbands may have 12000 or so sexual partners (4000 virgins, 8000 previously married women, by one scholar's count), don't feel bad for the wives, because they get to be the first and most beloved among the 12,000 other members of the heavenly seraglio.

Top cat, baby.

The article notes the rich scholarly debate over whether these thousands of concubines have anuses, incidentally.

Via Tinkerty Tonk, thanks to Lance.

Posted by: Ace at 01:49 PM | Comments (19)
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Bryan Preston:

[W]hatÂ’s the big headline coming out of CPAC? Is it that Josh Sparling won a much-deserved award? Is it that conservatives remain committed to the war for freedom against terrorism? Is it that this post-blowout CPAC was the largest CPAC ever? Was it that I got to be on a teevee show?

No. The headline coming out of CPAC is that Ann Coulter said an awful thing. Which is what she wants, since itÂ’ll keep her profile up and help her sell books. She doesnÂ’t care that conservative heroes and leaders and thousands of other less known conservatives who were present will end up getting tarnished by her remarks. She doesnÂ’t care that sheÂ’s putting the CPAC organizers in a bind, since sheÂ’s their biggest draw but also their biggest liability. She probably doesnÂ’t care that sheÂ’s John EdwardsÂ’ spokesmodel. She probably likes the attention. ItÂ’s all about Ann. And thatÂ’s the problem.

Michelle (Ms. Malkin if you're nasty):

With a single word, Coulter sullied the hard work of hundreds of CPAC participants and exhibitors and tarred the collective reputation of thousands of CPAC attendees. At a reception for college students held by the Young America's Foundation, I lambasted the substitution of stupid slurs for persuasion-- be it "faggot" from a conservative or "gook" from a liberal--and urged the young people there to conduct themselves at all times with dignity in their ideological battles on and off campus.

I made something else explicitly clear: Not all of us treat the communication of conservative ideals and ideas as 24/7 performance art. You can and should use humor to convey your message. You can enlighten and entertain--without becoming a tired old schtick. You can joke without becoming the joke.

And of course all the Republican presidential candidates are forced to weigh in (NYT link).

They could be talking about their biographies, their values, their vision for the future. Instead they're talking about a cable-news clown.

I'm just tired of it.

Posted by: Ace at 01:41 PM | Comments (328)
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A lot of glowing reviews for Churchill's wife's book popping up on the Internet, such as on Amazon, written by someone calling herself "Truthforce."

No wonder Truthforce is such a fan of Churchill's wife, Natsu Saito. Natsu Saito is Truthforce.

Truthforce is busly composing a rebuttal noting Natsu Saito's meteoric nine-month rise to prominence in the blogosphere, her book's topping of mention on the New York Times bestsellers list, and of course Russ Feingold's reading of passages from her reviews on the Senate floor.

Posted by: Ace at 01:35 PM | Comments (8)
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