I missed this with all the Duke stuff. An attack by Algerian Islamist terrorist group (but I repeat myself) GSPC, affliated with Al Qaeda, kills at least 30 in a bombing near the PM's office.

4/11, as Pam of Atlas Shrugs notes.

Thanks to Larwyn.

Posted by: Ace at 09:29 PM | Comments (1)
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Brian Reagan's one of those guys who's been on TV hundreds of times but no one ever thinks of him when they think of big comics. I always liked him. Well, not always. First I thought he came off as too much of a goof. It was only later he grew on me.

I can't find the bits of his I like best -- about ordering "pie" and driving in a Lunar Rover Vehicle -- but this is pretty funny.

No content warning. He doesn't curse or work blue. But the quality is pretty crappy.

Another one.

More clips here. Sometimes he goes on a bad riff so long. Sometimes he stays on it so long it gets funny and he pummels you into laughing, but other times it's just annoying.

Oh, God... I'm dying. Dying. Here, the Bob & Tom show radio appearance. The part about meals on an airline.

Posted by: Ace at 09:01 PM | Comments (33)
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Andrew Sullivan's heart just jumped. The Catholic orthodoxy is partly kinda-sorta aligning with the Andrew Sullivan Orthodoxy (TM)!

POPE Benedict, elaborating his views on evolution for the first time as Pontiff, says science has narrowed the way life's origins are understood and Christians should take a broader approach to the question.

The Pope also says the Darwinian theory of evolution is not completely provable because mutations over hundreds of thousands of years cannot be reproduced in a laboratory.

...

"Science has opened up large dimensions of reason ... and thus brought us new insights," Benedict, a former theology professor, said at the closed-door seminar with his former doctoral students last September that the book documents.

"But in the joy at the extent of its discoveries, it tends to take away from us dimensions of reason that we still need. Its results lead to questions that go beyond its methodical canon and cannot be answered within it."

...

Speculation about Benedict's views on evolution have been rife ever since a former student and close adviser, the Vienna cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, published an article in 2005 that seemed to align the Church with the "intelligent design" view.

...

In the book, Benedict defended what is known as "theistic evolution," the view held by Roman Catholic, Orthodox and mainline Protestant churches that God created life through evolution, and religion and science need not clash over this.

"I would not depend on faith alone to explain the whole picture," he remarked during the discussion held at the papal summer palace at Castel Gandolfo outside Rome.

He also denied using a "God-of-the-gaps" argument that sees divine intervention whenever science cannot explain something. "It's not as if I wanted to stuff the dear God into these gaps - he is too great to fit into such gaps," he said in the book.

End material defines "theistic evolution" thus:

The main Christian denominations interpret Genesis as an allegory on how God created life and accept the scientific theory of evolution as an explanation of how species developed. This is known as theistic evolution.

Actually if you read the article it's not terribly clear what exactly he's saying. He speaks mainly in the negative, he doesn't think this and he didn't mean that.

He's like the Alan Greenspan of metaphysics.

Posted by: Ace at 07:52 PM | Comments (68)
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The Eternal Hunt For the Great White Perp:

Compare the attention given the Duke case with that accorded a far more heinous crime, one whose victims have thus far failed to arouse the sympathies or even the notice of those who found so much enjoyment in their condemnation of the lacrosse players. Chances are, unless you live in Tennessee, you will not recognize the names Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. Christian, 21, and Newsome, 23, both of Knoxville, were driving through that city together on the night of January 6 when they were kidnapped and murdered. NewsomeÂ’s burned body was found along some railroad tracks on January 7. Christian remained missing for two more days until her body, stuffed in a trash can, was found in a home not far from where NewsomeÂ’s was found. Police and prosecutors allege both victims were raped before being killed. Yes, both. Three men and a woman have been charged with the crimes in a 46-count grand jury indictment handed down in Knoxville on January 31.

The story was given a few brief mentions on the AP wire, which were in turn carried on the Fox News and ABC News websites, but youÂ’ll find no mention of the crime in the online archives of CNN, MSNBC, CBS News, the New York Times, or the Washington Post. Run a similar search for stories on the Duke case and youÂ’ll be sifting through the results for hours. ... Yet the murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsome are known to almost no one outside Tennessee. Why?

ItÂ’s simple: the four suspects accused of killing Christian and Newsome are blacks from the inner city of Knoxville.

...

To even broach the topic of inner city crime is almost a social taboo, rather like discussing the brideÂ’s old boyfriends at a wedding reception. But the figures, as they say, do not lie, and we do no one a service by trying to ignore them. Here in Los Angeles, for example, there were 481 murders investigated by the LAPD in 2006, but almost half of them occurred among the 18 percent of the cityÂ’s population living in South and South-Central L.A. These areas are almost exclusively black and Latino.

Eh, so a man and woman were both raped, murdered, and then burned to their bones.

No news there. No metanarrative that provides a teachable moment for the pale male hegemony.

Just black thugs doin' black-thug shit. Nothing to see here, folks. Move on.

I'm Watching Anderson Cooper... because I wanted more reaction to the Duke case.

Guess what? He barely covered it. He devoted the entire panel part of his show -- which is like 45 minutes of an hour broadcast -- to l'affaire Imus.

Which is really the bigger story here? Which really provides a starkly dramatic moment about race as it is lived and breathed in America?

You'd think that there wasn't, you know, a rather major and rather juicy story breaking today like a red dawn in Hell.

But of course Anderson Cooper focuses like a laser on the rather trivial Imus dust-up.

A great story needs a great villain. It wasn't a great black shark in Jaws, now was it?

Posted by: Ace at 07:31 PM | Comments (24)
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It's about time some more veterans started running on our side. Democrats took the House partly because of Iraq veteran candidates.

For most congressional candidates, Iraq is an issue. For one, it's a destination. But not one that will derail his candidacy, he says.

Marine Capt. Duncan Duane Hunter wants to claim the seat now held by his father, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon)...

The 30-year-old Hunter, a reservist and also a Republican, signaled his intentions several weeks ago and began the early work to mount a campaign. But now he has been recalled to active duty, most likely to deploy to Iraq in the next few weeks for his third tour of duty there.

Military regulations ban politicking by active-duty personnel. Still, Hunter said Tuesday that he had no intention of scuttling his nascent campaign and instead would recruit his wife and brother to act as stand-ins while he's gone.

"It's going to be a kind of surrogate campaign while I'm over there," he said.

A graduate of San Diego State, Hunter enlisted in the Marine Corps shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He served in Iraq in 2003 and during the assault on Fallouja in early 2004; he left active duty in September.

...

If he serves the standard seven-month deployment, Hunter should return in time to officially file as a candidate.

The 52nd Congressional District includes suburbs east of San Diego and much of the Anza-Borrego Desert. Republicans hold a 46% to 30% edge over Democrats in voter registration there. In his last election, Hunter's father received 66% of the vote.

He's got the name (Duncan D. Hunter), he's got the bio, he's got the partisan edge.

Pretty much only one thing can keep him from winning, and you can count on the HuffPo's rooting for that possibility with all the blackness of their little hearts.

The Law Against Politicking While In Service: ...may stand as far as the behavior (active campaigning), but it won't stop him from running.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution means it when it states the qualifications for federal office -- it means those qualifications and none others. No law can impose new qualifications, such as not being part of the active military while running.

He may have to request a temporary leave to do a few weeks of campaigning, which, hopefully, which will be all he needs.

Posted by: Ace at 06:52 PM | Comments (62)
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A rather nasty glimpse into the Arab Muslim mindset at the end:

British forces have hit back at Iraqi insurgents who killed six colleagues last week, by launching an operation in which they shot dead more than 20 gunmen of Basra's rogue militias.

The attack began when a battalion-size force was sent into one of the southern city's toughest terrorist strongholds, three miles from where four soldiers, including two women, were blown up in their Warrior armoured vehicle.

An armoured force of 400 troops from the 2Bn The Rifles and 2Bn The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, both of which suffered fatalities last week, entered the Shia Flats area on the western outskirts of Basra to search for hidden weapons. The district is notorious as one of the most dangerous in southern Iraq.

"We wanted to make quite clear there's nowhere in Basra we cannot go," a British commander told The Daily Telegraph yesterday. "We are prepared to be there in daylight and take whatever comes our way. We are not being bombed out or intimidated."

Initially there was no response as the troops began searching homes where they recovered some small arms. But then the atmosphere changed.

"It was all going very well but then there was a sense something bad was about to happen as we noticed children starting to speak into their mobile phones and point at us," the commander said. "At this stage it became clear that the militia was massing for some kind of attack."

They fought their way back to safety.

Posted by: Ace at 06:46 PM | Comments (7)
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And on top of that, Home Depot and Pfizer are cancelling their sponsorship of England.

Tony Blair yesterday claimed the spate of knife and gun murders in London was not being caused by poverty, but a distinctive black culture. His remarks angered community leaders, who accused him of ignorance and failing to provide support for black-led efforts to tackle the problem.

One accused him of misunderstanding the advice he had been given on the issue at a Downing Street summit.

Black community leaders reacted after Mr Blair said the recent violence should not be treated as part of a general crime wave, but as specific to black youth. He said people had to drop their political correctness and recognise that the violence would not be stopped "by pretending it is not young black kids doing it".

It needed to be addressed by a tailored counter-attack in the same way as football hooliganism was reined in by producing measures aimed at the specific problem, rather than general lawlessness.

...

Giving the Callaghan lecture in Cardiff, the prime minister admitted he had been "lurching into total frankness" in the final weeks of his premiership. He called on black people to lead the fight against knife crime. He said that "the black community - the vast majority of whom in these communities are decent, law abiding people horrified at what is happening - need to be mobilised in denunciation of this gang culture that is killing innocent young black kids".

...

Answering questions later Mr Blair said: "Economic inequality is a factor and we should deal with that, but I don't think it's the thing that is producing the most violent expression of this social alienation.

"I think that is to do with the fact that particular youngsters are being brought up in a setting that has no rules, no discipline, no proper framework around them."

Black leaders in England were angry at Blair's "frankness." "I wonder what we need to do to be treated fairly by the British government and offered greater political influence and economic opportunity," one Sheffield black youth minister said. "Perhaps it's time we began blowing up subway cars and airplanes, eh?"

Lot of frankness for the problem of a black subculture that mainstreams criminality and violence.

And yet no tough talk for Britain's de facto state religion, Islam.

Posted by: Ace at 06:39 PM | Comments (11)
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Such pathetic, impotent little sissies.

"Some people" say he shouldn't run. "Some people" say he is putting his career before his family. "Some people" say he is trying to get the sympathy vote.

By: sl26 on April 11, 2007 at 10:31am

That's right, he made up his cancer. For the sympathy vote.

The Repug candidates just keep displaying dysfunctions and fallacies......Kb>maybe there is a God. Hmmmmm now I just got to pick the right one!

By: Robinsong on April 11, 2007 at 10:58am

...

Geez ...the GOP line up for the 2008 presidency looks like a scene out of "Night of the Living Dead"

By: tcuoohjohn on April 11, 2007 at 11:04am

This one's not so much nasty as ludicrously ill-informed:

Correct me if I'm wrong..... But as far back as I can remember(and that's a long way back), Presidential candidates had to pass a physical exam to qualify to run for president. And even though he is in remission, the fact that he still has lymphoma exists. I don't think that he will qualify to run at the top of the ticket. Possibly as a VP candidate.

By: Tallytowngal on April 11, 2007 at 11:07am

Yeah, that's right. The Constitution specifies that a President must be a natural born citizen, be 35 year old, and be certified as "reasonably healthy" by the Surgeon General.

Um, not.

Presidents typically disclose their medical records voluntarily, unless they're Clinton, and want to cover-up a mid-eighties bout of herpes (or whatever it was he was hiding, and continues hiding). There's nothing in the Constitution about this.

Horrs!

Why hasn't this man resigned all his work to spend time with himself, and to comfort himself in his time of need. Selfish, selfish Hollywood repug, keeping himself from himself like that just so he can pursue his own dreams without regard to his own own needs or the needs of himself.

By: edgemo on April 11, 2007 at 11:09am

...

Shit. This sets the scene for a Thompson-Jeb ticket where Thompson succumbs following the election.
By: gcallaghan on April 11, 2007 at 10:58am

THAT'S BULLSHIT!

JEB WOULD HAVE TO DEMAND THAT HE STAY ON FOREVER ........LIKE TERRI SCHIAVO.

WOULD JEB LET FRED THOMPSON REMAIN MARRIED?

HE TRIED TO VOID MICHAEL SCHIAVO'S MARRIAGE LICENSE.

By: BLOGGINGBITCH on April 11, 2007 at 11:19am

...

Oh I know.... Thompson can pick Tony Snow as his VP ...

By: tcuoohjohn on April 11, 2007 at 12:54pm

Those are the ones still up there. Guess what? They've already begun deleting this vileness. Here's some of the ones they already zapped:

Sorry someone else already cashed in on the "I have cancer" thing....think of something else

By: Warmglobe on April 11, 2007 at 11:21am

...

The sympathies over his lymphoma don't even come close to outweighing the contempt I have for him or any others who wish to continue down this path of destruction the PNACers have sent us on.

By: rivrgrrl on April 11, 2007 at 12:59pm

The Conservative/Republican movement is a cancer upon the face of the earth. Water seeks its own level. What these people fight against is the CURE.

By: situationcritical on April 11, 2007 at 01:29pm

...

This cancer is developed from a sudden loss of self-worth.

By: Erdgeist on April 11, 2007 at 01:32pm

Don't question their humanity.

Thanks to Hollowpoint.

Posted by: Ace at 05:57 PM | Comments (22)
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These guys asked Tancredo and Hunter to submit video responses to questions -- general ones on immigration, guns, and taxes/business -- and they did.

Duncan Hunter is one to watch out for. A real dark-horse at this point, but who knows. Stranger things have happened. He seems to be a free trade skeptic, which is fine with me, because I'm a free trade skeptic, or at least agnostic, myself. Still, the whole of the Republican establishment is free trade, so he's most likely doomed, but who knows. Combat vet with two sons in the miltary. Seems like a good resume.

Is it ridiculously superficial to note "Duncan Hunter" sounds like a President's name? Like if you were writing a hack action screenplay, and needed to come up with a name for the President, you'd call him Duncan Hunter. And he'd order your action hero Max Cable to stand down and not go crazy killing bad guys all over the place, but Max Cable would just say, "Sorry, President Hunter. Today's my day off. And my hobbies are taking names and kicking ass."

See? Yeah, it all works. Almost writes itself from there.

Posted by: Ace at 04:27 PM | Comments (30)
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Old, old, old attempt to jump a rocket car one mile off a eight and a half story ramp across a river.

Let me spare you the suspense: Not even close.

I don't know if it's worth watching, because it takes a while to get to the jump, and it's neither successful nor, well, spectacuarly unsuccessful. Basically the car just disintegrates after coming off the ramp and falls into the river with its parachutes kinda-sorta opening to slow its fall.

Of course there's this guy. There are almost no clips of him on YouTube; just people doing stunts with his toy Stunt Cycle.

I swear, this must have been the only jump he ever successfully made.

Posted by: Ace at 04:03 PM | Comments (16)
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