My search for "conan lucas" also turned this up. It's... well, I don't know if it's good. It's definitely geeky, though.

Posted by: Ace at 01:08 PM | Comments (18)
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That top AQ leader in southern Iraq getting his, metioned in the story below.

From My Pet Jawa, which also has video the bomb-strike on the second house to which jihadis fled, but you'll have to go over there for that.

Posted by: Ace at 01:02 PM | Comments (12)
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Karol's gone insane, as this NYPress article details.

n September, on the anniversary of the attacks, Sheinin and others will stand at Ground Zero and hand out pamphlets, titled “The Truth About 9/11.” The inside will not be filled with the rants of crazed pseudo-scientists about the inability of fire to melt steel (then why do we fireproof steel?) or the claim that Donald Rumsfeld tipped his hand regarding the impending attacks in Parade magazine. No, Sheinin’s pamphlets will contain actual truths about 9/11, especially the truth that so many “truthers” cannot seem to grasp: that 19 Muslim men of Middle Eastern descent hijacked four planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

...

“Arguing with them is pretty pointless,” said Sheinin. “You have to mock them, you have to show how stupid they really are.”

I see Karol and the Truthers as two sides of the same crazy coin. One side claims it was the US government; the other side it was some fantastical scheme of "Islamic radicals" determined to establish a "global caliphate."

Let's use our heads here, guys: It was the blacks. Duh.

Posted by: Ace at 12:13 PM | Comments (39)
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Awesome:

The thumb and fingers can move and grip just like a human hand and are controlled by the patient's mind and muscles.

...

The technology has been tested by a number of people, including US soldiers who lost limbs in the Iraq war.

Mr Gow, who is the director of rehabilitation engineering services at NHS Lothian, told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme: "It's the first hand to come to the market that's actually had bending fingers just like your own hand."

...

Juan Arredondo, from Texas, who lost his hand in Iraq in 2004, has also been fitted with one of the hands.

"Every day I have the hand, it surprises me," he said.

"Now I can pick up a Styrofoam cup without crushing it. With my other hand, I would really have to concentrate on how much pressure I was putting on the cup."

Posted by: Ace at 12:06 PM | Comments (32)
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Who could have predicted?

One year. This was back in 1981-1983. This is the nonsense that helped elect Ronald Reagan.

Christine Groth, 53, was in critical condition last night at Grant Medical Center, where police said she had surgery for multiple stab wounds.

Mr. Groth, 67, was arrested at the home and charged with attempted murder.

"When officers arrived, she was coherent enough to say he stabbed her," said homicide detective Wayne Buck. "He said to the officers, 'What did I do?'"

For next-door neighbor Ralph Clark, it was a frustrating flashback to Dec. 16, 1981, when he watched as Groth was carried from the house after stabbing himself.

Police said Groth used a knife to kill his first wife, Eva, and cut their 13-year-old daughter's head. He then stabbed himself during a standoff with police.

"If they let him out this time, there's no justice," Clark said.

After recovering from his wounds, Groth was ruled incompetent to stand trial. Court records show that he was hospitalized until pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter in July 1982. Sentenced to one to 10 years in prison, he was paroled in July 1983.

Posted by: Ace at 11:38 AM | Comments (26)
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MSM style misleading headline, though here it's quite accurate.

Here.

Here.

Here!

Here, nowhere else.

(Here.)

As Dennis Miller said of this former member of a terrorist organization, "If you saw your grandpa going on like this, the moment he left the room you'd turn to your family and say, 'Hey! What the fuck are we going to do about grandpa? Is anyone keeping an eye on him? Do we know he's not eating his feces?'"

Posted by: Ace at 11:21 AM | Comments (20)
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The man then went on to plug his remaindered book The Conservative Soul six thousand times.

Doctors thought the strange, bleeding bumps on Aaron Dallas' head might be from gnat bites or shingles. Then the bumps started moving.

A doctor found five active bot fly larvae living beneath the skin atop Dallas' head.

"I'd put my hand back there and feel them moving. I thought it was blood coursing through my head," Dallas told the (Glenwood Springs) Post Independent.

"I could hear them. I actually thought I was going crazy."

...

"It was weird and traumatic," said Dallas, of Carbondale. "I would get this pain that would drop me to my knees."

...

Dallas' wife, Midge Dallas, teased him about it.

"I told him, 'I will love you through your maggots,'" she told the newspaper.

But Dallas saw little to laugh about.

"It's much funnier to everyone else," he said. "It makes my stomach turn over. It was cruel."

I don't know if it's that funny to me either.

He got them from a trip to Belize.

Make Belize Your Vacation Destination

Come for the diamond white beaches.

Stay for the maggots we put in your skull in Santaria voodoo rituals

Thanks to Paulitics.

Posted by: Ace at 11:12 AM | Comments (31)
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Seems a little silly in the scheme of things -- what is a fake call-in competition compared to fake news from Iraq or Lebanon? --<but maybe it takes something this dumb, this arrogant, and this deliberately deceptive to wake the British public up to the BBC's games.

An editorial review revealed viewers had been misled in shows including Comic Relief and Children In Need, some of which featured fictitious winners of phone-in competitions.

Mark Thompson, the BBC director-general, said the failures within the corporation and by its suppliers, have "compromised the BBC's values of accuracy and honesty".

"There is no excuse for deception," he said.

"I know the idea of deceiving the public would simply never occur to most people in the BBC."

Ahem.

...

In the Comic Relief programme, a caller who successfully answered a question in a competition for a celebrity prize was actually a member of the production staff.

What could possibly go wrong with a state-operated media monopoly designed to propagandize and anaesthetize its viewers?

Posted by: Ace at 11:04 AM | Comments (10)
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Bad day to be a bad guy:

Abu Jurah, an al-Qaeda cell leader, died Saturday in the Arab Jabour area just south of the city after U.S. troops received word that he and 14 others were meeting at a house there, a U.S. statement said.

About an hour later, the 1st Battalion, 9th Field Artillery Regiment fired two Excalibur precision-guided shells at the house, destroying it. An unmanned aerial vehicle saw people leaving the rubble and loading the injured into a vehicle.

An AH-64 Apache helicopter attacked the vehicle and destroyed it, the statement said.

Three people were seen fleeing into a second house, which was destroyed by a U.S. Air Force F-16 jet that dropped two 500-pound guided bombs on it.

Now that's some sweet combined arms -- artillery, UAVs, Apaches, F-16's all hammering these guys from different directions.

I think there's something humorous about every house and vehicles these guys run to blowing up on them. I wonder what the Arabic is for "He hates these cans!"

Posted by: Ace at 10:37 AM | Comments (27)
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"Dogfighting." Canine snuff theater.

On July 7, federal authorities conducted a second search of the Surry, Va., property owned by Vick that is the center of the dog fighting investigation.

According to court documents filed by federal authorities earlier this month, dog fights have been sponsored by “Bad Newz Kennels” at the property since at least 2002. For the events, participants and dogs traveled from South Carolina, North Carolina, Maryland, New York, Texas and other states.

Fifty-four pit bulls were recovered from the property during searches in April, along with a “rape stand,” used to hold dogs in place for mating; an electric treadmill modified for dogs; and a bloodied piece of carpeting, the documents said.

During a June search of the property, investigators uncovered the graves of seven pit bulls that were killed by members of “Bad Newz Kennels” following sessions to test whether the dogs would be good fighters, the documents alleged.

Members of “Bad Newz Kennels” also sponsored and exhibited fights in other parts of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, New Jersey and other states, according to the filings.

On Vick’s Web site, he lists his birthplace as Newport News, “a.k.a. BadNews.”

...

Sometimes, dogs weren’t fed to “make it more hungry for the other dog.”

Fights would end when one dog died or with the surrender of the losing dog, which was sometimes put to death by drowning, strangulation, hanging, gun shot, electrocution or some other method, according to the documents.

Vick initially said he had no idea the property might have been used in a criminal enterprise and blamed family members for taking advantage of his generosity.

Sick. Goldstein thinks he's probably looking at jail and possibly the loss of his NFL career. If so, good riddance to bad rubbish.

Sports Illustrated thinks he'll be gone, too, assuming he's guilty, which, let's face it, he almost certainly is.*

[M]ake no mistake about this: [new NFL commissioner] Goodell will act swiftly and severely if Vick is found guilty on any of the charges. Not just because of the cruel and cowardly acts Vick is alleged to have been part and parcel to at the dogfighting compound in Virginia. But also because if the allegations are true, Goodell will feel used by Vick in a big way. In April, at the NFL Draft, with stories swirling that Vick's property had been used for dogfights, Vick told Goodell he had nothing to do with it and was rarely at the home in question.

I believe if Vick is found guilty, there will be tremendous pressure on the Feds and the judge to send him to jail and not just put him on probation. And I also believe that if he goes to jail, when Vick gets out, Goodell will be under similar pressure to suspend him for a year or longer. One of the most disturbing aspects of the indictment is it alleges Vick was involved in the dogfighting ring for six years. This was not just an occasional lark according to investigators. This was Vick's off-field sport. This was his poker, his billiards, his pickup basketball.

...

The league seems ready to take a deep breath, take the picketing and the angry columns and the righteous indignation for now. But the hammer will be heavy if Vick is found guilty of even a portion of the alleged charges.

* Goldstein counsels caution in branding him guilty in the wake of the Duke Lacrosse Case. Seems like good advice, but the fact is at least 95% of people accused of a crime are in fact guilty, and the Duke case did not change this fact.

I don't think the problem is really assuming, provisionally, that most accused of a crime are guilty. I certainly figured the Duke Three were guilty of what they were charged with when the story first broke. I don't feel any shame in that. Who would have thought that a DA would act as Nifong did? Certainly the NC State Bar and Attorney General's office were shocked by his behavior.

The problem comes with not just softly assuming guilt but being downright certain of it in the face of great evidence of innocence.

And the circumstantial evidence against Vick appears strong. We know in this case a great and heinous crime was committed (unlike in the case of the Duke Not-A-Rape); we also know Vick's property was used in this crime. The only question is whether Vick knew about it and participated. We don't know that, but certainly it doesn't look good for him.

Alas... We won't have the bad publicity coup of seeing the Falcons play the Browns, whose mascot is a dog, this year. Not even in preseason. They play Cincinnati but not Cleveland in preseason.

I question the schedule. I guess the NFL just "plans these schedules a year or two in advance," huh? (That's ironic, btw: They do plan the schedules far in advance. )

Posted by: Ace at 09:54 AM | Comments (130)
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