George Michael Bluth, I mean. Here he acts like a total dick during the filming of Knocked Up, except he's not even in that movie, but he is in the director's upcoming pathetic-dorks-in-HS movie Superbad (which there's some good buzz on), so this is actually just to raise awareness of that movie.

Fake, in other words. Totally, totally fake.

But kinda funny. Mostly if you were a fan of Arrested Development. Also noteworthy because Cera really seems to be embracing the internet as a method of raising his profile. (He previously spoofed this interent rage "Impossible is Nothing" with his funny spoof "Impossible Is The Opposite Of Possible.")

There are two ways to use free media-- push (show your vag in public, engage in annoyingly attention-whoring behavior) and pull (do something someone might actually want to watch and link).

Of course, he doesn't have a vag to flash, so I guess he's forced into the pull model.

Posted by: Ace at 04:27 PM | Comments (7)
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The article doesn't bother saying it, but given that Bush promised to cut the deficit by one-half by 2009 or so, and we've already had several years of declines (including this rather sizable 33% fall), I'd say he's carried out on that promise with several years to spare.

Cowbell worthy? Sure, why not.

Vaulting well over previous deficit-reduction benchmarks.

Posted by: Ace at 02:26 PM | Comments (57)
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Couldn't they just have gone to therapy for a few weeks?

Posted by: Ace at 02:19 PM | Comments (10)
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Well, I thought that would have been rather obvious, myself.

But what do I know.

Posted by: Ace at 02:17 PM | Comments (13)
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If the current situation is "intolerable" and a threat to national security, why not begin actually following the already-enacted law?

DeMint notes on his blog that the immigration reform bill includes border security "triggers" that are already required by law or can be implemented now:

The Senate immigration bill calls for the following security benchmarks to be completed as a “trigger” before other parts of the bill go into effect. Bill proponents claim these provisions can be implemented within 18 months. All of them can be implemented under current law:

• Bill Trigger #1 – 18,000 agents border patrol agents;
--- This is already scheduled under current law: Customs and Border Patrol Press Release 8/4/2007: “In May, President Bush announced his commitment to hire an additional 6,000 agents by the end of 2008, bringing the Border Patrol’s total strength to 18,000 agents.”

• Bill Trigger #2 – 200 miles of vehicle barriers, 370 miles of fencing, and 70 ground-based radar and camera towers, and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles;
--- This requires less than is already required under current law. The Secure Fence Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush in 2006, already requires 700 miles of two-layered reinforced fencing along Southwest border, mandates DHS achieve operational control over entire border through “virtual fence” that deploys cameras, ground sensors, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, and integrated surveillance technology.

• Bill Trigger #3 – End “catch and release” and provide ICE 27,500 beds for immigration detainees;
--- According to DHS, both of these triggers have already been accomplished. DHS Press Release 10/30/2006: “Ended ‘Catch-and-Release’ Along the Borders: In 2006, the Department of Homeland Security and ICE re-engineered the detention and removal process to end this practice along the border… ICE also increased its detention bed space by 6,300 during the fiscal year 2006, bringing the current number of funded beds to 27,500 immigration detainees.”

• Bill Trigger #4 – Secure identification documents with photo and biometric information and operational employment verification system to determine work eligibility
--- The REAL ID Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush in 2005, already requires secure identification documents with photo and biometric information.
--- The Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2007, passed by Congress and signed into law in 2006, already provides $113 million to fully expand the Basic Pilot / Employment Eligibility Verification (EEV) system to be a national employment database.

Jeff Sessions meanwhile informs the President the amnesty bill is "flawed fatally" and "fundamentally" and needs not a few cosmetic amendments to fix it, but a full-on rethinking and redrafting. He also advises our inattentive decider in chief to actually read the goddamned thing before pressuring people to vote in favor of it.

Posted by: Ace at 01:48 PM | Comments (88)
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...according to a cop who spoke with him. So Nifong knew from the start this case was -- at the very least -- extraodinarily shaky, even if one was so credulous as to believe Mangum. Didn't seem to have made him cautious whatsoever.

KC Johnson is live-blogging the Nifong hearing.

Posted by: Ace at 12:50 PM | Comments (16)
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Good article on one of my personal bugaboos.

Ticking down the reasons for conspiracy-theorizing, he mentions:

Many people want to blame those they loathe for as much of what they do not like as possible. Just about everyone who believes in hidden conspiracies attributes those conspiracies to those they hate. People who hate President George W. Bush blame him and his administration for 9/11. Egyptians who hate Israel have blamed AIDS on Israeli prostitutes. Indeed, attributing to Jews hidden conspiracies -- the "world Jewish conspiracy," the Protocols of the Elders of Zion -- is the oldest and most common belief in a hidden conspiracy.

Sorta obvious, but it does tend to cast doubt on conspiracy theories when the villains working the puppet strings are always conveeeeinently enough people the conspiracy theorists hate anyway. (As I hated the mob when I was younger (and still do, though now I have a bigger object of hatred), of course I believed the mob had killed Kennedy.)

No one ever seems to posit a conspiracy theory with someone he supports behind it all. Funny how that always works out for 'em.

Well, maybe not "no one." The infamous post-WWII conspiracy theory -- that FDR had advanced warning of the Pearl Harbor attack, but let it happen anyway in order to inflame public opinion (largely isolationist) to support a war he was determined to drag the country into (sound familiar?) -- had a lot of liberal or left-leaning believers, but they did seem to otherwise like FDR.

So there's that one. And no others.

A Lot of People... here still believe in the JFK assassination theory. Well, I don't mean to beat up on you too much -- hey, I'm a fellow-traveller, or at least I was -- but honestly, every central claim supporting the theory has been well-rubbished by now, multiple times.

Except for the Magic Bullet thing -- the improbability of one round causing so many wounds. But that's an improbability, not an impossibility. WWII veterans will tell you of bullets that hit inside their helmets and then orbitteed around their heads, skating on the inside of the helmet, before flying out without harming them (other than a bit of bullet-burn along the skin).

That's extraodinarily improbable -- and yet, it happens.

Another reason (I forgot about this one) I started to lose credence in the JFK conspiracy theory is when I began learning of the RFK conspiracy theory, based on mostly the same sort of crap. Minor conflicts in testimony, the suggestion that it was "too easy" to get RFK, claims Sirhan Sirhan was a patsy, a reluctance by the government to turn over all autopsy information, etc. Same crap, similar conspiracy.

Honestly, at that point you sort of have to check your internal compass and make sure it's giving you a good reading towards Sanity North.

Thanks to Andrew for that.

Besides... We've already been told the truth about this.

That clip took me 20 minutes to find and it doesn't even seem to be working. Great.

But trust me, if it were at all working, you would appreciate it.

Posted by: Ace at 12:38 PM | Comments (50)
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This really demonstrates the awesomeness of the American economy.

For all of Saudi Arabia's oil wealth, it still only equals Tennessee in GDP.

My home state of little traffic-jammed New Jersey? Equals Russia.

Thanks to Brown Line.

Posted by: Ace at 11:50 AM | Comments (64)
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Second, according to an LAT/Bloomberg poll: Giuliani 27, Thompson 21, McCain 12, Romney 10.

Rasmussen has Giuliani and Thompson knotted up at 24.

He'd better run at this point. Otherwise he's taken away some vital oxygen from actual candidates.

Posted by: Ace at 11:47 AM | Comments (28)
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Now for the unceremonious dumpage. Sorry. Got busy here.

From Rocketeer, an indispensible resource for AOSHQers. Modern Drunkard Magazine features short stories, poems, awards, product reviews and much much more.

Thomas Paine reminds us that today is the twentieth anniversary of Reagan's 'Tear down this wall!' speech.

And an addition to the 'Australians are tough bastards' file, from Tushar: After brawl, man leaves finger in bar, walks down street before he realizes it's missing.

"He didn't know it was missing until he left the (pub)," police Inspector Mark Kellert told The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper. "He was out on the street and realized there was blood on his hand, noticed his finger was missing, and went to hospital."

Let me tack on one more item: 3D Printer that creates objects out of granulated sugar. Pics of the CandyFab 4000 and all the geeky details you can stand.

Posted by: LauraW. at 11:27 AM | Comments (12)
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