Extreme graphic violence warning. The graininess of the video helps reduce the gore, but the video shows the victim of a Gaza stomping-to-death lynching. Oddly, the lack of blood makes it more ugly; a human being has been reduced here to an amorphous pulp of biological mud and post-human oatmeal.

Background at Little Green Footballs.

Jimmy Carter, the Sage of Savannah, instructs us that not honoring these thugs' electoral victory by pretending an election transforms them into non-thugs was a "criminal act" on the part of the United States.

Psst, Jimmy-- Hitler got elected too!

Carter said the consensus of the U.S., Israel and the E.U. to start funneling aid to Abbas' new government in the West Bank but continue blocking Hamas in the Gaza Strip represented an "effort to divide Palestinians into two peoples."

"All efforts of the international community should be to reconcile the two, but there's no effort from the outside to bring the two together," he said.

He says this while praising Hamas and knocking Fatah for corruption. Plainly he's taken sides here.

I think what he means by "reconcile" is that we should up-arm Hamas so they can kill Fatah. I don't mind the killing Fatah part, but I'm confused as to why we should 1) intervene in a nasty civil war at all and 2) furthermore intervene on the side of declared terrorists and murderers.

I'm not surprised why Jimmy Carter supports this -- he's always had a soft-spot for tyrants, butchers, torturers, and Jew-killers. But I'm a little baffled at why I should follow his advice on this point.

Posted by: Ace at 11:58 AM | Comments (25)
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Wow. We're really going to finish this primary up in one day.

As many as 25 states could hold primaries that day, and Illinois joins several delegate-rich states in settling on the early date, including California, New York and New Jersey.

"As many as 25 states?" No, "as many as 48 states." Given that the contest will almost certainly be setted on that day, barring some less-than-likely almost-equal split in victories, there's simply no reason for any state to volunteer for probably-meaningless mop-up services after February 5.

Sure, if there is some near-even split, those few remaining states left to select delegates would become critical. But that seems a longshot.

Cons of the new system:

-- smaller candidates never have a real chance to "catch fire" by scoring wins or strong seconds in smaller, cheaper-to-politick states like New Hampshire and Iowa

Pros:

-- we have a national election; why shouldn't we have a national primary?

-- smaller candidates never really do "catch fire" with early small-state wins, anyway. They attract media attention and Time covers before losing to the establishment consensus candidate we all knew was going to win anyway.

-- we won't need to bother with that three or four months of back-page reporting on the only remaining candidate winning the last few remaining uncontested primaries.

-- We never have to hear again how about how thoughtful the voters of New Hampshire and Iowa are. As if the rest of us are morons or something.

Posted by: Ace at 11:44 AM | Comments (29)
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They were formerly supporters of the bill, and then, after some booing and some serious reverse constituent outreach (i.e., constituents screaming bloody murder at them), waverers.

They seem to be waverers no more. (For the moment.)

Write them to thank them. Positive reinforcement is good, too! Critical, really. If these guys think we've decided they're dead to us, then they really have no other option but to coddle up more to agribusiness lobbyists and La Raza...

Thanks to Drew.

Posted by: Ace at 11:05 AM | Comments (6)
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Hilarious -- Gitmo terror-poets wax poetical about their unjust confinement, and of course a lawyer helps get their scary-important doggerel published.

Here are a few short excerpts:

When I heard pigeons cooing in the trees
Hot tears covered my face
[ed-- was he sure those were tears?]

...

Oh, God,
Grant serenity to a heart that beats with oppression
And release this prisoner from the tight bonds of confinement.

...

To be with my children, each a part of me
to be with my wife and the ones I love
to be with my parents, my world's tenderest hearts
I dream to be home, to be free from this cage.

...

America, you ride on backs of orphans
and terrorize them daily
I am a captive, but the crimes are my captors'.

Here are longer versions, come containing the "verses" noted above:

[no] IS IT TRUE?

Is it true that the grass grows again after rain?
Is it true that the flowers will rise up again in the Spring?
Is it true that birds will migrate home again?
Is it true that the salmon swim back up their streams?
It is true. This is true. These are all miracles.
But is it true that one day we'll leave Guantanamo Bay?
Is it true that one day we'll go back to our homes?
I sail in my dreams. I am dreaming of home.
To be with my children, each one part of me;
To be with my wife and the ones that I love;
To be with my parents, my world's tenderest hearts.
I dream to be home, to be free from this cage.
But do you hear me, oh Judge, do you hear me at all?
We are innocent, here, we've committed no crime.
Set me free, set us free, if anywhere still
Justice and compassion remain in this world!

...

[no] HUMILIATED IN THE SHACKLES

When I heard pigeons cooing in the trees,
Hot tears covered my face.
When the lark chirped, my thoughts composed
A message for my son.
Mohammad, I am afflicted.
In my despair, I have no one but Allah for comfort.
The oppressors are playing with me,
As they move freely around the world.
They ask me to spy on my countrymen,
Claiming it would be a good deed.
They offer me money and land,
And freedom to go where I please.
Their temptations seize
My attention like lightning in the sky.
But their gift is an empty snake,
Carrying hypocrisy in its mouth like venom,
They have monuments to liberty
And freedom of opinion, which is well and good.
But I explained to them that
Architecture is not justice.
America, you ride on the backs of orphans,
And terrorize them daily.
Bush, beware.
The world recognizes an arrogant liar.
To Allah I direct my grievance and my tears.
I am homesick and oppressed.
Mohammad, do not forget me.
Support the cause of your father, a God-fearing man.
I was humiliated in the shackles.
How can I now compose verses? How can I now write?
After the shackles and the nights and the suffering and the tears,
How can I write poetry?
My soul is like a roiling sea, stirred by anguish,
Violent with passion.
I am a captive, but the crimes are my captors'.
I am overwhelmed with apprehension.
Lord, unite me with my son Mohammad.
Lord, grant success to the righteous.

The left is getting serious about releasing terrorists now -- whenever they would spring a degernate murderer from prison, they would first find him to have "the soul of an artist" and "great literary potential."

I'm not kidding. They do it all the time. Kill one, three, ten people -- write a few fucking poems or a brief screed and the left starts saying you're too important a literary voice to be kept in jail.

Posted by: Ace at 11:01 AM | Comments (53)
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I've got a brownout going in my area, power on for five minutes then off for twenty or thirty, so I'm not sure how much blogging I can actually do. Here's an open thread for headlines and stuff.

Some good stuff:

Virtual Fence Is Virtually Useless. See-Dub notes why it's so useless. Oddly enough, the people most against real border enforcement (like Bush and the WSJ, whose article he fisks) are most in favor of the "virtual fence." I imagine that's because their commitment to enforcement is only rhetorical -- "virtual," if you will.

Naked Couple Plunges To Death From 50 Foot High Office-Building Roof. Officers speculate they were having sex, maybe trying to join the Street Level Club.

Menage-a-tois atop French Political/Media Establishment Actually Manages To Raise French Eyebrows. Sego Royal's baby-daddy (the couple never wed), and head of the Socialist Party of which she was the latest candidate for President, had an affair with a hot-ish journalist who, as it turns out, covered the Socialist Party and profiled him for Paris Match. Now she's booted him out and wants his job.

MichaelSO sends this noting the parallels with the Clinton "marriage" are too blatant to ignore, and thus the American media won't touch this quite-newsworthy story.

Improvised Male Chastity Belt Fails Initial Proof-of-Concept Trial. Cock in a lock.

The key hole had been superglued so firemen had to use hydraulic cutters to release him.

He was eventually freed after two-and-a-half eye-watering hours.

But did he bust one? Thanks to LauraW.

In Religion of Perpetual Hissy-Fits news, Pakistan's Minister of Religious Affairs & Improvised Explosive Devices wants to know “How can we fight terrorism when those who commit blasphemy are rewarded by the West?,” in reference to the knighthood granted to Salman Rushdie.

Hmmm. Maybe changing your own thinking might help. Perhaps it's not the case that another culture's peaceful actions, which you disapprove of, are not "provocations" and cannot justify terrorism. Just a thought.

Old by now, but if you haven't read it, this piece on the horrific conditions at an Iraqi orphanage/concentration camp is harrowing. Of course it takes the US military to discover it and liberate the starved boys.

Fair, balanced, and incompetent: An LAT reporter correctly notes that the current big offensive around Diyala and Boquba has uncovered 1000 or more roadside or buried bombs (a Time report, btw, says that most of these were found based on tips from locals). So it's disappointing to see this reporter can't even get the well-publicized name of the operation right.

The Religion of Burning Shit and Screaming Like Lunatics In The Street: "Peace Fever" sweeps through the Muslim world over the Rushdie knighthood. With lots of pictures. I can almost taste that sweet, sweet peace.

Chronic Masturbator Annoys Woman Who Stabs Him Twice In Middle of Act, So He Goes Out To Garage To Finish The Job. Internal organs lose out in priority to an external one.

Posted by: Ace at 10:10 AM | Comments (81)
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Video at NewsBusters: Chris Matthews doesn't know he's on the air while disparaging his own network.

Thanks again to CAD Daddy.

Posted by: LauraW. at 09:29 AM | Comments (9)
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Just a little fun for the morning. Fake movie trailer for 72 Virgins from National Lampoon.

Recommended by Nemo in last week's Friday Video Party and tipped again by CAD Daddy.

Posted by: LauraW. at 04:10 AM | Comments (22)
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You can't handle The Truth!

"And who's gonna stand on that stage protecting us from the Federal Reserve? You? Lieutennant Weinstein? Somewhere deep inside of you in a place you don't even like to think about you want me on that stage, you need me on that stage!"

Thanks to someone.

Posted by: Ace at 02:51 PM | Comments (234)
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More of a game for a long car ride, but whatever.

Name characters from Beatles songs.

Here are the rules to clear up ambiguities. I'm anal, sue me.

1) Named characters are of course permitted.

2) "Characters" may be real people.

3) All the various pronouns -- "I," "me," "you," "her," etc., are not "characters." Neither are nonspecific nouns ("Girl," "Baby").

4) Characters may be "named" by a specific title. Royal titles, mostly. If you know what I'm saying, and you probably do.

5) Characters who are not named but who are identified as being singular, specific people count. The simple rule here? "The" as part as an identifying description makes it a singular, individual character for these purposes. Without a "the," a description isn't a "character." E.g., "pornographic priestess" isn't a specific character.

5 a) Other articles or modifiers are non-specific and don't count (e.g., "Your Mother" is not a a character name as it is non-specific -- could mean all of your mothers, which is what it does seem to mean. Neither is John's mention of "my mother" and "my father" in Yer Blues, because... well, the references are specific but only with respect to a non-specific "I.") "Rich Man" isn't a character, as he's a Rich Man, not the Rich Man.

5 b) "The" doesn't count, though, when used to identify a group. The game is about individual characters, not groups (e.g., "the children" doesn't count).

6) A character doesn't need to have been given a full name. First names are fine, as are last names.

7) The character must be specifically named or referenced in the song, not known by outside-the-song trivia. In other words, you can't say that Peter Fonda is the character "she" in She Said, She Said.

Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields are not characters, they are places. They were only character names in that dopey Sgt. Pepper movie with Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees.

Anyway. Lot of rules, but then, I want to avoid the bloody knife-fight that broke out when I made the game up.

Posted by: Ace at 02:25 PM | Comments (230)
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In politics, they say, a day can mean a lifetime.

Yesterday:

The names of possible GOP primary challengers to Graham fly across the Internet: Gov. Mark Sanford, U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett, Attorney General Henry McMaster, Charlie Condon, Mark McBride, Oscar Lovelace, Greg Ryberg and Buddy Witherspoon.

The name mentioned most often is State Treasurer Thomas Ravenel.

Today:

South Carolina Treasurer Thomas Ravenel was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury for distribution of cocaine.

The indictments accuse Ravenel and another man of distributing less than 500 grams of cocaine starting in late 2005.

Ravenel was a rising political star elected treasurer in 2006. He started his political career two years earlier, finishing a close third in the Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat while funding his own campaign.

Here's some, umm, blow-back:

...

Thomas Ravenel is the state chairman for former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign.

Questions for potential Graham challengers:

1) Are you strongly in favor of enforcement-first?

2) Can you, if necessary, self-finance your campaign?

3) Do you sell blow off the back of your chopper and/or van?

Thanks to Nordbuster for the first link and JFH for the second.

Posted by: Ace at 01:43 PM | Comments (42)
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