Kinda neat. You can keep zooming in on this picture almost forever.

Thanks to A. Weasel.

Posted by: Ace at 07:32 PM | Comments (12)
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Heather MacDonald skewers the idea that Mexican immigrants are just dying to vote GOP, if only we'd permit them to.

George BushÂ’s political strategists have long promoted amnesty for illegal aliens as a device for increasing the Republican vote among Hispanics. They also warn that denying rights to illegal aliens will hurt the GOP. A Hispanic backlash in California after Proposition 187 (the 1994 voter initiative that denied illegal aliens many publicly funded services) turned the state from red to blue, they claim; a similar rout awaits the party if it does not embrace liberal immigration policies.

There is scant evidence for either of these ideas. The 1986 amnesty signed by President Reagan did not trigger a Latino surge into the Republican Party. And California’s Hispanics leaned as strongly Democratic before Prop. 187 as after it. Hispanic voting patterns in California have held steady since 1988—they vote approximately two-to-one for Democratic presidential candidates. California’s shift from red to blue would have happened with or without Prop. 187, as defense-industry whites left the state, replaced by liberal high-tech professionals, and as the Hispanic portion of the electorate tripled from 7 percent to 21 percent.

“But Hispanics are Republicans waiting to emerge,” counter the Bush strategists. Socially conservative on homosexuality and abortion, Hispanics just need to be invited into the party by an amnesty and not scared off by immigration enforcement. This “social values” argument has been around since the early 1980s, and it’s still awaiting confirmation. The majority of Hispanics vote their perceived economic interests, rather than their social values (evangelical Hispanics may be an exception to this rule). Blacks are equally conservative on gay rights and other favorite liberal crusades, and that doesn’t affect their allegiance to the Democratic party.

Bonus fact: Welfare use actually rises among Hispanic immigrants between the second- and third-generation. Why? No idea, but I'd guess it might have something to do with the successful assimilition of immigrants into liberal racial-identity/entitlement-culture politics. Not really the melting pot we learned about in third grade.

Posted by: Ace at 07:25 PM | Comments (7)
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Billy Jean King, Madeleine Albright, and Senator Barbara Mikulski all give Hillary! some lady-love.

Interesting fact: If I'm reading the Constitution correctly (and I think I am), should Hillary be elected president, eighth in line in the order of presidential succession would be the Indigo Girls (falling between the Secretaries of Commerce and Interior).

Huh. The Founders really did plan for everything.

Posted by: Ace at 07:10 PM | Comments (8)
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Rubbishing previous computer models showing the dinosaur moving quickly.

Gee. Computer models modeling inherently unknowable phenomena sure can produce willdly divergent results depending on their starting assumptions, can't they?

In related news, the most cutting-edge state-of-the-art climate computer models now prove, conclusively, that the Ross Ice Shelf hunts prey in well-coordidated "attack packs" by communicating in a complex code of yips and trills.

And also, can puff out its colorful neck-fringe as a mating display.

And also, it cries a little bit every time you turn on a light.

Via Hot Air.

Posted by: Ace at 06:55 PM | Comments (14)
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In context, the quote isn't all that outrageous.

"I am a gay woman and I have children. Your comment that you just made, it sort of invalidates my family," said Cynthia Fish, a mother of a 6- and 8-year-old. "... I wish you could explain to me more, why if we are sending our troops over to fight for liberty and justice for all throughout this country, why not for me? Why not for my family?"

Romney paused, asked Fish about her children and then praised her.

"Wonderful," Romney said. "I'm delighted that you have a family and you're happy with your family. That's the American way. ... People can live their lives as they choose and children can be a great source of joy, as you know. And I welcome that."

But then Romney repeated his view of marriage. [Ed.-- "But"?]

"Marriage is an institution which is designed to bring a man and woman together to raise a child and that the ideal setting for society at large is where there is a male and a female are associated with the development and nurturing a child," Romney said.

The former Massachusetts governor acknowledged other scenarios that raise children.

"There are other ways to raise kids that's fine: single moms, grandparents raising kids, gay couples raising kids. That's the American way, to have people have their freedom of choice," he said.

Romney does seem to have a habit of glibly wrong-footing it in an effort to pander to virtually anyone he's speaking to. The various parts of this statement seem hard to reconcile. If it's so wonderful this gay woman is raising kids, why not extend marriage to her? And if it's so important to preserve the traditional family, why praise hers as "wonderful" and "the American way"?

I certainly wouldn't have insulted the woman, and I'm not suggesting Romney should have. But I keep getting this read off Romney that his superficial positions have absolutely no intellectual undergirding to them. Eggshell conservativism -- the surface is smooth and cool, but be careful not to apply any pressure to it, else it crack and spill out a big gooey mess.

Video of Luntz's Focus Groups: At Hot Air.

Romney's credited as being in-command and up-front. I just can't help but imagine that's 90% simply because he's saying stuff Republicans agree with. And had Giuliani chosen the same road, he'd likewise be credted as in-command and up-front, and his flip-flops would have been entirely forgotten.

Am I saying most Republicans are dumb? No, of course not. I'm saying most people are dumb, period. We're all morons here, but, frighteningly enough, we're among the best-informed and most critically-thinking morons in this whole moronic country.

On The Other Hand... It's pretty clear to me that the MSM loathes Romney with nearly BDS-level hatred, which is a definite plus in his favor.

Why do they despise him so? Well, most importantly, he's the most socially conservative (as far as stated current positions) of leading candidates. There's a small element of additional hatred due to their belief that he doesn't really believe half the stuff he's saying. They don't mind when, say, Edwards clearly panders to the left, but goshdarnint, does it discomfit them when they believe someone is pandering to the right.

I also think they believe he's a dim-bulb, so they have their typical I'm-smarter-than-them bias.

They tend to think every Republican is either dumb, crazy, evil, out-of-touch or all four, of course. I mean:

Eisenhower: Dumb, out-of-touch

Nixon: Crazy, evil

Reagan: Dumb, crazy, evil, out-of-touch

Bush the Elder: Dumb, out-of-touch

Bush the Younger: Dumb, crazy, evil, out-of-touch

In that last respect, Bush can claim to be truly Reaganesque, at least in the media's opinion.

At any rate, I don't want to be too down on Romney. He's an acceptable candidate and has, it seems, a fair amount of managerial talent and energy. (Something I'm looking for after six and a half years of Bush's inattentive governnance.

I just wish he'd do a better job of not merely regurgitating what he supposedly believes, but recite why he believes it in a convincing and consistent manner.

Sort of like... Fred.

Posted by: Ace at 05:51 PM | Comments (23)
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This is the video in question. I've linked it before. It's sorta funny, not hilarious, and goes on for too long.

O'Reilly descended even further into buffoonishness by "standing up for the 2-year-old folks" in questioning the severe mental trauma this little girl (Adam McKay's daughter) experienced in making the video. First he argued about it with Geraldo, who suggested, rather common-sensibly, that the girl 1, had no idea what she was saying and 2, would probably quickly forget the whole thing and 3, would probably not start shooting heroin with Lindsay Lohan next week simply because she screeched the word "bitch" in a skit.

O'Reilly would have none of it. He knew that these nefarious Hollywood types had put this young girl into grave psychological danger. He cited as evidence Factor voters and Factor emailers supporting him 3-to-1 or so. Then he had on one (1) hand-picked child psychology expert who warned us all of the dangers of "aggressive language" in a child's behavioral development, and how the lessons she'd learned in making the video might spill over to her conduct in preschool and life generally. Oddly enough, he did not have on an expert to challenge his position and to offer the rebuttal, "Are you fucking out of your mind, Sir?"

I realize that stories about Hollywood Babylon make for good ratings, but honestly, I can't recall being more embarrassed to have O'Reilly vaguely "on my side" in recent memory. Turning this non-issue into another Ludicrous-style crusade is, in my humble opinion, A Pander Too Far.

Instapundit's been hyping The Dangerous Book For Boys. I haven't read it (I live it), but I imagine a big part of the book is the idea that we should calm down a bit regarding children's safety. I'm all for protecting children, but there comes a point at which the Child Protection Police become not only nutty but creepy. At some point they push a little too hard, and their real agenda is exposed: They're not so much interested in controlling risks for children as in controlling the behavior of adults, using the children they claim to care so much about as cute cudgels against their opponents.

"For the children" is just as transparent a rhetorical catspaw when coming from Bill O'Reilly as Hillary! Clinton.

Anyway, here's hoping Hot Air or someone else YouTubes this. It was just embarrassing. I'd say O'Reilly jumped the shark, but we all already knew that. By this point he hasn't merely just jumped the shark, he's embraced jumping the shark not as a desperate ratings-scrabbler but as good, solid Polk-winning programming, and has re-conceived the show as The Bill O'Reilly Shark Jumping Spectacular.

By the way, this was on last's night show, not tonight's. Tonight I imagine he's covering the lastest Missing Girl Story for twenty minutes under the guise of criticizing the media for overcovering the story.

Posted by: Ace at 05:28 PM | Comments (68)
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The state's sitting AG, Jon Bruning, who claims (claims) he has an internal poll already showing him nine points ahead of Hagel among likely Republican primary voters.

Sweet.

Although the internet model favored by the left is goofy and Joiny McJoinerton, it works. Electorally it hasn't had great success -- the sinistrosphere's biggest victory, after all, is switching Sen. Lieberman from D to I -- but the DNC is obviously in terror of these maniacs (and who wouldn't be?) and now the entire party courts them.

As uncomfortable as I am about moving from commentary to yay-team spirit squad advocacy, I think this is the way the right of the blogosphere has to go if it too wants to shape the national debate. We need to get behind this guy -- and behind a challenger-to-be-named-later for Lindsey Graham.

Thanks to someone.

Posted by: Ace at 04:20 PM | Comments (34)
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Frank Luntz had one of his focus groups on Fox this morning. As Luntz leans Republican, he doesn't stack his focus groups with the sorts of Republicans that, say, Chris Matthews would, i.e., liberal Democrats.

The take-away: Giuliani did well. Romney did very well. Apparently they found him to be the most straight-talkin'est candidate of the bunch, the most in command of the issues. And they especially liked his answer to the yet-again-asked question about his Mormonism -- partly, I think, they liked his refusal to distance himself from the Church of Mormon, but I have a sneaking suspicion some were reassured to learn that Mormons do in fact believe in Chirst.

I mean that as less of a knock than it seems. I imagine that many know little at all about Mormonism, except that it's a weird desert cult of some type, and are happy to find out it's just a sort of cocked-hat version of Christianity.

They thought that flip-floppin' Romney was the most upfront and honest of the candidates. Which means I was almost certainly right when I suggested that a hypothetical Giuliani flip-flop on abortion and gay rights would cost him much less than he would gain. Ultimately, party regulars want to hear you endorsing party-consensus positions. They'd rather that a candidate would have always held such views out of unshakable conviction, but if a fudger who supports them now is a satisfactory choice.

Giuliani calculated, bizarrely to my mind, that what primary voters craved was "authenticity," even if that authenticity dictated taking positions 180 degrees away from primary voters' preferences. No. They want authenticity. They need a candidate with veiws congruous to theirs.

Which brings us to Mr. Straight Talk Express -- I'm sorry, the former Mr. Straight Talk Express. Not only did Republicans hate his answers on immigration, they were disgusted (registering their disapproval on approv-o-meters) by his admission he'd never actually read the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq before casting his vote. Though he did make a credible case that he had all the information he needed from other sources -- when you're going to war, Read the Fucking Manual, is what the voters seemed to think.

McCain seemed downright testy in his charm offensive with New Hampshire voters (this from CNN footage). When voter after voter told him they didn't like the immigration bill, he shot back -- I'm not kidding -- that they were welcome to propose their own legislation on the matter, but until then, they had no standing to question his plan. Surely this was a glitch in his intended statement -- challenging other candidates to come up with a plan (though, you know-- opponents do have a plan: let this monstrosity die and go back to negotiation when we're in a stronger bargaining position), but from what I saw, a Senator paid over $160,000 per year to legislate was arguing with would-be supporters by demanding that they, with their free time, come up with their own 1,000 page immigration bill.

Luntz' two word executive summary: "McCain lost." Howie Carr says stick a fork in him, he's done; the winner of Dean Barnett's McCain Campain Dead Pool may be someone with an early date in July.

Huckabee, of course, is getting some good buzz about his dignified and intelligent answer to a question designed to embarrass him. I also liked the way he challenged the question as "unfair." Technically, it's not quite unfair to ask him about a strange belief that much of the country thinks is nutters. That could just be called hard-edged questioning... assuming that other candidates with even weirder beliefs had their doctrines rigourously questioned as well. And yet, no close questioning about Edwards' remarkable assertion that the War on Terror is just a bumper sticker, nor about his vile pandering to anti-American psychotic "Truthers."

Nope. The only "weird beliefs" the media is interested in is Huckabee's fundamentalist Christianity and Romney's Mormonism.

Something odd: Huckabee and Brownback sounded similar notes on the question of Creationism, but I found (as Allah did) Huckabee to be dignified, intelligent, and likable, whereas I wanted to slap Brownback in the face with a frozen haddock.

Fred surges to second place nationally, Rasmussen and his own internal polling show. Also at that link, an increasingly unhinged Ann Coulter excortiates him for merely voting to remove Clinton from office on one count, as opposed to two.

Hey, Ann? I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's fucking time to MoveOn.org.

(On the other hand, the Hannity interview revealed something I didn't know -- Thompson voted for McCain-Feingold. However, I give him some space on this, first because I liked his answer (he blamed Clinton for bringing in more corrupt money than anyone had ever imagined; clever to blame Clinton for a bad vote) and also because, let's face it, McCain created this tsuanami. I give Thompson a pass for the same reason I gave Bush a pass: Once McCain and his liberal goostesteppers had announced The Republic Would Wither And Die Without Campaign Finance Reform, it took a very brave politician, in a very safe seat, to defy their collective diktat.

I continue to really like Duncan Hunter, and he's still my favorite for Veep, whether or not Huckabee has got some sort of Jimmy Stewart thing going for him or not.

Bonus points to Giuliani for reading (he says) the whole amnesty bill, which I very much doubt McCain has, and for offering up specific criticisms, like the bill's lack of any effective way to determine when or if supposedly-temporary guest-workers actually leave the country. (They won't, of course.)

Then again, maybe he just copped Jeff Sessions' outstanding demolition of the bill, published by JackM., below.

I have to say I'm pretty comfortable with this field. Then again, I'm a blue state Republican, as you know. I think Giuliani would be a good President in most ways should he win the nomination by some miracle, Romney's showing unexpected strength and poise, and Fred! is, well, Frednomenal.

McCain seems pretty much out of the race so I don't have to worry about that. He's not projecting "authenticity" and "straight talk" at this point. What he's projecting is a sense of angry entitlement, near-anger at being questioned about his policies and his right to be President, and is coming off like off like a nasty old man.

Posted by: Ace at 08:20 AM | Comments (358)
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I had that one time. The doctors called it "middle school."

A man has sued the maker of the health drink Boost Plus, claiming the vitamin-enriched beverage gave him an erection that would not subside and caused him to be hospitalized.

The lawsuit filed by Christopher Woods of New York said he bought the nutrition beverage made by the pharmaceutical company Novartis AG at a drugstore on June 5, 2004, and drank it.

Woods' court papers say he woke up the next morning "with an erection that would not subside" and sought treatment that day for the condition, called severe priapism.

They say Woods, 29, underwent surgery for implantation of a Winter shunt, which moves blood from one area to another.

In related not-at-all specious lawsuit news, the judge suing a dry cleaners for $67 million for losing his pants for a couple of weeks has dramatically lowered the damages he believes he's owed.

To $54 million. No, really.

Posted by: Ace at 08:03 AM | Comments (76)
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SUPREME HEADQUARTERS ALLIED EXPEDITIONARY FORCE

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!

You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.

But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory!

I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory!

Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.

Dwight D. Eisenhower more...

Posted by: Slublog at 05:27 AM | Comments (112)
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