RIP after a "history of heart challenges."

The left similarly has a history of heart challenges, and wastes no time in demonstrating such. Here's John Edwards' hand-picked blogmistress Amanda Marcotte:

The gates of hell swing open and Satan welcomes his beloved son.

The media sure forgot about Marcotte in a hurry, huh? We know the MSM loves them some leftwing blogs, so it's not like they don't know John Edwards' choice to be his online voice doesn't regularly engage in such vile speech. And yet while they leap to defend David Broder's Hero of the Proletariat credentials, they don't say boo about the constant stream of cancer- and death-wishes coming from their bookmarked daily-read blogs.

Posted by: Ace at 12:05 PM | Comments (197)
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Not electrocuted to death, but electrocuted to unconsciousness.

Friends decided they'd greet the arrrival of the PS3 by ceremonially pissing on the old PS system. They had a random drawing to see who'd do the honors.

And then...

Post was now so intoxicated he could barely stand. After the announcement Post without hesitation walked over to the Playstation and started urinating on it. For a moment everyone just laughed said student Amy Dixon. The mood quickly changed when Post fell to the floor unconscious. Not thinking about the video game console being still plugged in Post had just come close to electrocution.

After almost 10 seconds of being unconscious Post came to and was taken to Ivinson Memorial Hospital in Laramie. He was released the next day with no major injuries.

Alcohol was involved in the incident, eh? That's as surprising as finding out that pork chops and ice-cream cake are involved in Rosie O'Donnell's morning "aerobics." (Look, binge eating is an aerobic activity -- Google it!)

Thanks to Sinistar.

Posted by: Ace at 04:53 PM | Comments (79)
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I'm not overstating the melee part. This was like a ballroom blitz.

About 10 Toledo Police units responded to the melee with an estimated 15 people involved inside the restaurant. Five people were arrested and six people were hurt, including four who were taken to hospitals for minor injuries.

The sergeant said witnesses told him Christine Lewandowski, 56, repeatedly asked Sylvia Harris, 24, of Toledo to quiet her 1-year-old child, who was sitting in a high chair and screaming.

When the infant continued to scream, Ms. Lewandowski shouted at the baby to “shut up,” Sergeant Kikolski said.

ThatÂ’s when Ms. Harris lunged at Ms. Lewandowski and began punching the woman, the sergeant said.

Ten minutes of chair-throwing mayhem.

Two points:

People really shouldn't behave as if their outing to Denny's or Ihop is a once-in-a-lifetime magical experience to be treasured forever, and thus be terribly angry if the mean is marred by a noisy kid.

But seriously, Moms and Dads with misbehaving kids? Take 'em outside until they calm down. And if they don't, get everything to go.

Sure, it's a pain in the ass. Sure, it mars your magical Red Lobster experience. But the fact that you're obligated by the laws of God and man to put up with the screaming of your little monster doesn't mean the rest of us have somehow been drafted into doing the same.

Posted by: Ace at 04:44 PM | Comments (256)
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They should use the day to "reclaim patriotism." Question: Why does it need to be "reclaimed," as we are constantly told that they are the most patriotic people in America?

Isn't dissent the highest form of patriotism?

Gather in public. On Memorial Day, get your friends, kids, co-workers, neighbors, aunts, uncles, grandfathers, grandmothers, and anyone and everyone you know together to publicly support the troops and end the war. Be sure to check with your local authority for any permits you need for public gatherings. Contact local media to publicize your event. Before you get started, please take a moment of silence to honor the fallen. And during your event, make sure you conduct yourself respectfully—both for those serving in Iraq and the memory of the brave servicemen and women that Memorial Day honors. Share your plans here.

Question Two: If they're already so gung-ho patriotic -- and Edwards' checklist is a good run-down of "How To Behave Patriotically" -- why do they need to be told how to so behave?

If they're so patriotic, shouldn't they already being following Edwards' Five Easy Steps Towards Feigning Patriotism naturally?

Do men who find it easy to pick up chicks routinely consult Pickin' Up Chicks The Brian Dennehy Way for pointers and tips?

Or would you guess that the primary audience for such self-help books consists of men who really have no idea what they're doing with women?

So many questions the media could ask.

And yet-- they're all too busy defending David Broder from Glenn Greenwald's very special Important Action Alert and Pretty Vicious Rant.

Posted by: Ace at 03:55 PM | Comments (34)
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although you would never know it by the way Minnesota Public Radio spins it:

Despite declining popularity, Coleman comfortable in Senate re-election bid

Ah, yes. What would Ace say? Something about "it's how they frame the issue" I think.

Basically, the article says that Coleman (who had a combined favorable rating of 52% in 2004) is skating on thin ice because his new combined favorable rating is...

48%.

Which got me wondering. What's the margin of error for this poll?

Gasp! It's 4%.

So, statistically, Coleman could be in the exact same place he was in 2004. Only he's not. He is "declining in popularity" according to MPR.

I hope he isn't losing much sleep.

The more interesting poll results are the one's that fall outside the margin of error. Check this out:

Matched up again Franken, Coleman would win 54 to 32 percent. Against Ciresi, he would win 52 to 29 percent.

While Coleman is struggling with popularity, his negative ratings are well below those of Al Franken. According to the poll, nearly 8 of 10 Minnesotans know who Franken is and, of them, nearly a third have an unfavorable opinion of him.

Oh well. I guess Franken can always uses that incredible sense of humor to get himself back in Minnesotans good graces.

Oh.

Right.

Let me be the first to congratulate you on your re-election Sen. Coleman!

Posted by: Jack M. at 03:16 PM | Comments (12)
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This "free fall of WTC7" is a new one on me. I just heard of it from that Orleans-style lite FM conspiracy-rock song I linked over the weekend.

Look, it doesn't make sense. Let me state the obvious: The building fell at the rate it fell. Truthers seem to be suggesting it's physically impossible for the building to fall that fast, and yet, you know, it did. They want an "explanation."

Here's the explanation: When things fall, they accelerate at the constant g. (Constant for earth, I mean, at sea level.)

Like so many of their absurd charges, what they're saying just doesn't make sense. A building does not fall at or near g, they charge. And yet this one, um, did.

So, then comes the next step: Buildings do not fall at or near g, except in a (wait for it) Controlled Demolition.

What magical properties does a "controlled demolition" have that allow buildings to fall at speeds suspiciously close to g that unconrolled demolitions might lack?

It's like them claiming that the fact the buildings fell straight down is evidence of a "controlled demolition." After all, absent a controlled demolition, massively large buildings don't fall straight down, but rather topple over on their sides like cartoon buildings or three-foot-tall towers made of Legos. We all know that, right?

Apparently, it's only a controlled demolition that causes buildings to fall in peculiar ways, presumably changing the force and direction of gravity itself.

Without a controlled demolition, gravity apparently largely pulls buildings to their sides rather than straight down to the earth's core and its point-mass center of gravity.

With a controlled demolition, gravity loses its "normal" large sideways-pull property and buildings collapse straight down.

Without a controlled demolition, a building will defy basic physics and fall at some other rate of acceleration besides the earth-standard g.

Only with a controlled demolition, apparently, does the constant g apply to falling things.

A bit more fun from Rosie -- after informing us all, again, that "fire can't melt steel," she actually goes on to claim "pools of molten steel" were found at the bottoms of each of the collapsed WTC buildings (the two towers plus WTC 7).

So again, a controlled demolition has a curious property, this one affecting not gravity but the chemical properties of metals:

Fire can't melt steel, unless that fire is due to a controlled demolition, in which case not only can fire melt steel, but in fact can melt it so throroughly that "pools of molten steel" will be found at the bottom of buildings so destroyed.

Baffling.

Oh, and, by the way, Giuliani located NY's terrorism command center in WTC 7 because he knew 9/11 was coming and, ummmm... I guess he wanted to make sure that emergency command-and-control was degraded to increase civilian deaths. Or something.

They never quite say. They're just "raising questions," you know, not providing answers.

Good Point, Well-Taken: TallDave of the Dean Esmay blog takes me to task:

I don't know, not sure I can argue with Rosie's expertise here. When a person of her size says she knows how buildings collapse I can only assume she's speaking from lots of personal experience.

Touche. Admittedly, my personal experience is only limited to gravity's effects on a normal human mass, unlike Rosie, who is intimately familiar in a very tangible way with the effects of gravity on masses nearing the USS Missouri.

Because, as famed structural engineer/"Father of the Modern Cable-Span Bridge" Donald Trump has noted, Rosie is a "fat slob, she really is very fat, very fat and ugly, and gets no ratings because she's a self-desctructive loser who is also very fat. With no ratings."*

* Quoted from Donald Trump's monograph written for Modern Enginnering, titled Shearing Forces and Torque In Massive Structures: Rosie O'Donell Is Really Fat and Disgusting, Seriously, She's Such a Loser, Can You Imagine Her Poor Wife Having To Look At That Disgusting Pig Naked Every Night?

Posted by: Ace at 03:08 PM | Comments (49)
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One billion just to keep the Republicans from having any chance at all of taking the White House?

This guy could teach George Soros a thing or two about commitment.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is prepared to spend an unprecedented $1 billion of his own $5.8 billion personal fortune for a third-party presidential campaign, Ralph Z. Hallow will report Tuesday in The Washington Times.

"He has set aside $1 billion to go for it," a long-time business adviser to Mr. Bloomberg tells The Times. "The thinking about where it will come from and do we have it is over, and the answer is yes, we can do it."

...

"Mike has been meeting with Ross Perot's most senior people about how they did an independent run in 1992," the Bloomberg business adviser said.

Chuck "More Maverick Than McCain" Hagel suggests a third-party bid as well, and boosts Bloomberg's idea of running, suggesting a possible Bloomberg/Hagel ticket.

Though they made "no deals," Hagel says it's a "great" idea to consider a Hagel/Bloomberg or Bloomberg/Hagel bid.

I'm thinking Bloomberg won't spend one billion to be Vice President, though.

Now, does Hagel really think he can be elected, or does he simply think such a bid will guarantee a Democratic victory, which he sees as a net positive?

An NPR reporter notes that third-party bids rarely have any realistic chance of winning-- instead, they favor one or the other main-party candidates.

As Hagel has had nothing good to say about the Republican Party for going on at least ten years now, and now a word of criticism for the Democrats for almost as long, it really doesn't take a genius to figure out his rooting interest in all of this, now does it?

Posted by: Ace at 02:49 PM | Comments (29)
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But at least they tried. (Newsbusters link; click with a clear conscience.)

It is unclear what role, if any, religion played in the attack Mr. Shnewer and the five other men are charged with planning. (The sixth suspect, Agron Abdullahu, had no apparent connection with Al-Aqsa or the South Jersey Islamic Center.) The authorities have described the suspects as Islamic extremists, but the lengthy criminal complaint summarizing the F.B.I.'s 15-month undercover investigation of the group does not mention where -- or how often -- they prayed. Certainly there is no evidence that they picked up radical ideas at either mosque.

I'm kind of laughing at the idiocy of the NYT. Not just the obvious stuff -- they can't apparently see any religious motivation when Islamists are shouting "Allahu Akbar" as they fire guns at human silhouettes, but the less obvious stuff.

Apparently they think that criminal indictments usually do include the number of times the accused prayed in their bill of particulars. And therefore the lack of mention of such details is ipso facto evidence that the men did not pray at the mosque very often (if at all).

The only situation in which it would be proper to note such a thing in an indictment would be if the mosque -- or rather its leaders -- themselves being indicted as co-conspirators or on the related charge of advocacy to commit terrorism.

Little bit of legal knowledge for the New York Times: Most (nearly all) criminal laws have "state of mind" as part of their definition, usually (almost always) defined as "intent" to do the illegal thing. (In other words, even if you shoot your friend while hunting, you are not guilty of murder or attempted murder assuming you thought, incorrectly, he was a deer.)

Motive is not part of that "state of mind" for any crimes, with the notable exception of "hate-crime" penalty increases. (Which is why so many legal theorists find such laws unprecendented and wrong-headed -- they seek to penalize mere "thoughts" and "beliefs" rather than the age-old penalization of a simple intent to commit an illegal act.)

Another broad exception to the no-particular-penalty-for-motive can be found in death-penalty eligibility laws, which may specify stuff like a "motive to profit from the murder of the victim" as making a defendant eligible for the death penalty.

Those exceptions aside, "motive" is something cops look for in order to narrow a range of suspects -- but motive is almost never an actual element of a crime (and when it is mentioned in criminal law at all, it is not an element of the crime per se but an aggravating factor for increased penalties for that crime).

In the excellent book Homicide by David Simon, he notes that oftentimes cops have no idea what a drug-dealer's exact motive was in killing someone. And they're often annoyed at jurors' expectations that a precise motive will be provided. "Look," one cop says in Homicide (this is paraphrased), "I have no idea why Shortie the Crack Dealer shot Mickey the Shrimp. I just can prove he did it, and he intended to do it. I don't know what goes on in the minds of these idiots/lunatics/sociopaths, and the law simply doesn't require me to prove that. It only says I have to prove that Shortie the Crack Dealer did shoot Mickey the Shrimp, and that it was premeditated and intended. That's all. Motive is a crime-solving tool, but not an element of any crime."

Motive is often addressed in criminal trials, of course, but only to demonstrate intent, which is an element of most crimes. It's hard to claim you shot someone by accident when it just turns out you 1, hated that person and 2, stood to gain financially from his death and 3, went around for three weeks saying "I can't wait to shoot that son of a bitch because doing so will make me so happy I'll have a three-week full-body stroke-inducing orgasm."

So motive may be mentioned in an indictment, but simply as evidence as to what actually needs to be proved (intent).

When a bunch of guys are on videotape planning the murder of US soldiers, you simply don't need to delve deeply into motive. Because their intent is already proven conclusively.

I eagerly await the New York Times' page one story demolishing the "Bush Administration's claim" that Osama bin Ladin himself had "any religious motivation" in planning the 9/11 attacks.

That is where we're heading.

"Bullies:" Former co-host Karol actually knew the Duka brothers of the Dix Six plot back in her Brooklyn youth, and reports that they were thugs and bullies.

Which does sort of indicate that religion is only a contributing factor in the jihadist psychological profile. Essentially, these men are megalomaniacs, sadists, and psychopaths, animated, as many serial killers are, by their own sense of failure but the burning desire to "acheive something." (Most serial killers are lower-middle-class to middle-class types, often with civil servant jobs or some other lower-status job that pays the bills but is hardly associated with success, and the serial killer bug strikes them in those difficult 25-to-35 years when one begins to realize the cold hard truth that the dreams of one's youth have been beaten into a bloody pulp by the reality of life and one's own limitations.)

Animating all of these thugs is the fascist/psychopathic need to punish others for their own failures, losers pushed to prove they "matter" by imposing their otherwise-impotent wills on innocents to prove they can do so.

In that sense, religion isn't the primary animating motive for these guys. Simple brutish psychopathy borne of the Napoleon/loser complex is. But their religion -- by giving such vicious murder a spiritual and ideological justification -- is a very strong contributing factor, stripping away the usual social codes against killing and replacing them with a social code encouraging killing.

BONUS! Actually, there was strong evidence in the indictment the planned murders were religiously motivated. I even quoted this myself last week, but forgot it.

Volokh Conspiracy didn't:

“When it comes to defending your religion, when someone is trying to attacks your religion, your way of life, then you go jihad,” Eljvir Duka, 23, who also went by the nickname Elvis, is quoted as saying in the complaint.

Guess where that very quote was reported.

No, seriously, guess.

In the New York Times -- in a previous story about the Dix Six.

How bad is circulation at the New York Times? This bad: Not even fucking New York Times reporters read the fucking New York Times, even when they're covering the same story previously reported in the fucking New York Times.

They don't even read their own newspaper... for basic background.

And yet, you know, if you don't read it: You're a knuckledragging troglodyte.

More: Allah reproduces parts of the indictment noting a religious motivation.

So the very professional well-paid j-school-educated staff of the NYT was unable to read a fairly brief indictment, and yet the untrained blogger Allah managed this difficult trick.

Posted by: Ace at 02:35 PM | Comments (23)
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Via Sinistar, who warns this is his least favorite entry in the genre.

Seems okay. Not great. But what the hell else are you going to do tonight in between downloading porn and ignoring your families?

Posted by: Ace at 01:33 PM | Comments (12)
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JackM. directed me to this thread at Hot Air, in which secular conservatives (like Allah) and religious conservatives (like Bryan) are getting on each other's tits and all up in each other's business. JackStraw and others from this site are in on the action too.

The main point of contention seems to be whether the non-religious or non-social-cons are treated as "dhimmis" in the GOP. (The word "dhimmi" is used jokingly, the original commenter says, but the basic idea isn't a joke.)

I suppose it's good to thrash this out from time to time. Not that it will ever be resolved. Social cons are convinced they do nothing but "compromise for the sake of the party," which is controlled, by and large, by irreligious blue-state establishment types who only use them for votes; socially-moderate conservatives are convinced they have no input whatsoever in the party but are expected to show up on every election day to vote for whatever social conservative candidate the social conservative majority of the party has nominated from their own ranks.

It's like a family. Everyone's convinced they're the only ones making any sacrifices and everyone else is ungrateful and taking advantage of their consideration and patience.

For what it's worth, speaking as one of those secular dhimmis -- while I understand that the social cons have the biggest voice in the party, as they should, given their larger numbers (something like 2-to-1, which is a large-ish supermajority), I really do occasionally grow tired of the whining from social cons that they're the only ones expected to do any compromising.

Please. We secular cons compromise on virtually every damn social issue there is. Often we go so far to adopt the mainstream social-con position, albeit without as much passion as the actual social-cons have.

In terms of compromise, I think the secular cons -- the "1" in the 2-to-1 ratio -- basically compromise in inverse proportion, i.e. we give up twice as much, which is proper, as we have half the numbers and therefore half the electoral influence. The social cons give up half as much, which is proper, because they have double the numbers.

But some social cons often seem rather angry and petulant about having to compromise at all. And so do secular cons sometimes caterwaul about the compromises they have to make with "inflexible" social cons.

Coalition politics demands such compromises, of course. And in any event the constant whining by either side about how much each is giving in to the other is bad for the cause -- any cause, really. It just breeds resentment.

Ultimately the numbers are the numbers. If social cons can't push through the strong-form of various bits of the social con agenda, it's because they don't have the numbers. If secular cons can't change the party platform to avoid most social conservativism, it's because we don't even have close to the numbers.

So, basically, everyone should drink a nice tall glass of Shut Your Whining Pie-Hole juice and toke on some strong Hawaiian It Is What It Is weed.

JackStraw... offers an interesting comment. In response to this previous comment by a religious conservative,

Seriously, those on your side of the right are not the only ones being marginalized here. Just read a few of the comments about what some of you think of the evangelicals.

...he responds thus:

Take a good look at the primary process for the Republican nomination. Take a real hard look at the pandering the candidates do to people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. Do you see anything even remotely similar to that happening with secular conservatives? No, you donÂ’t. There is a litmus test and thatÂ’s just a fact.

Look, those on the Christian right should be thrilled. They have the power and any honest assessment will prove that out. What they donÂ’t seem to like is the criticism that comes with that which is normal. If it helps, think of us as Great Britain and you can be the US. We are your allies on virtually everything but we have our own goals, too. But because of your size the screwy primary system you guys dominate the agenda.

So you can to set a lot of the agenda but you get some inbound from your friends for focusing on things that we feel are second tier issues at best. Boo hoo. Anytime you want to trade places you let us know.

I think it's that last line that says it the best.

I don't think the primary system is "screwy," incidentally. Whatever the system -- assuming no anti-democratic smoke-filled-room dealing of secular establishment blue-state types -- social cons will come out on top, as they have the numbers.

Of course secular cons would do well to remember that everyone in the coalition prioritizes differently. If secular cons consider social issues "second-order at best," well, many social cons consider tax policy to be second-order.

And if social-con abortion politics costs the GOP votes -- well, I'm pretty sure that reducing taxes on the very wealthy costs the GOP votes, too. The "wealthiest one percent" mantra is repeated constantly, and I have to imagine that's because it tests well in focus groups.

We all cost the party votes-- that's sort of the penalty one has to endure for pushing any program.

Jack M's Update: Ace asked me to chime in on this, as I am the site's resident "social conservative". There are a couple of points worth addressing, I think:

1) Social Conservatives do provide the Conservative movement as a whole with a disproportionate share of resources, both financially and in terms of volunteers and activists. To the extent that people such as Robertson and Falwell are courted, it is as much a reflection of the value of their institutional networks as it is for their policy views. Do you think John McCain visits Falwell because he agrees 100% with Falwell's political agenda, or because he relishes having the Falwell mailing lists/voter guides working on his behalf? If secular cons lack the ability to create these kind of networks, whose fault is that?

2) When serving as the majority party, social conservatives are also more likely to see their legislative agenda thwarted not by a united opposition, but by the so called blue-state "secular conservatives". Unlike the Democrats, which have a caucus that is virtually unanimous in it's approach, Social Conservatives in the Republican Party are faced with having to overcome the defection of 5-7 Blue State Republican Senators on just about any important Social Conservative policy issue. As a result, when intraparty concessions are made these concessions tend to favor the position held by a few malcontents. Rarely do bills become more socially conservative thru intraparty debate. The intraparty concessions usually only flow one way. Even more infuriating, even after major concessions are made, many secular cons still vote aginst the deal. (Example: Olympia Snowe voted against the Bush Tax Cuts, even after the White House made significant reductions in the size of the Bush Growth Plan at her request).

3) To make the above even more annoying, the Secular Cons often make no bones about their disdain for the Social Cons, going so far as to adopt the same sneering rhetoric as the militant left in deriding the very people without whom the secular cons would have no viable national platform at all. It's one thing to constantly confront outright bigotry from the left; it's quite another to have to brook it from people who are ostensibly on your side. In this sense, hearing Glenn Reynolds snark about Fundamentalist Christians being ready to adopt the terrorist tactics of Fudamentalist Muslims is particularly outrageous. Or, if we are to give Glenn a pass, should we give Rosie a pass too?

4) Does this mean that we should run the secular cons out of the party? Of course not. I recognize the important role that they have to play in keeping the power brokers honest, and in helping keep the tent as big and as broad as possible. And I don't denegrate them as kooks (unless they are Libertarian Truthers like Ron Paul appears to be), even though my side of the party is often not shown the same courtesy. Secular cons aren't the enemy, and social cons aren't a malevolent force. But secular cons would buttress their standing if they would remember to dance with the girl that brought them to the party, rather than seem embarrassed that they aren't dancing with the media's belle of the ball. And social cons should remember that while their dance partner isn't perfect, at least it isn't some fraudulently arranged date of convenience like the guys on the left side of the floor have to deal with. Count your blessings.

Posted by: Ace at 01:24 PM | Comments (600)
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