It seems so.

Posted by: Ace at 03:56 PM | Comments (41)
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His oft-used joke -- a sarcastic "Thanks for that" or "Yeah, thanks" when he's given a question he finds uncomfortable -- provokes a 13-year-old girl to tears.

I'm sure the media will play this as the non-story it is. There's no way they'll pull a Coulter and somehow edit his remarks into "Thank you, Sweet Little Girl. I hope you and your whole family are killed by a car-bomb."

Hmm. Gee, I wonder what Keith Olbermann's show will spend 40 minutes on tonight.

It's a mystery, all right. I guess we'll all just have to tune in to find out!

Posted by: Ace at 02:42 PM | Comments (29)
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I've been blaming it on my Dell, but it turns out my Dell is just fine. I system restored six times today trying to undo the nonexistent glitch in the computer.

It was the stupid modem all along. I've had the internet crap out on me dozens of times, sometimes for three or six hours at a time, in the past six months. I kept assuming that I had fixed the problem through various efforts on my end, because the connection eventually came back. Usually after lots of system restores, connection repairs, and turning the machine on and off thirty eight times. Since it would usually come back on after one of those attempts, I assumed that it was fixed through my moronic efforts.

Nope. The modem just sucks.

Right now I'm in and out of connecting. I have a cable guy coming tomorrow between 2 and 5, supposedly.

Posted by: Ace at 01:53 PM | Comments (44)
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The Thompson thing is rather silly. I can't wait until the general election, when the LAT stops trying to frighten conservatives by charging Thompson is a liberal and starts trying to frighten moderates by charging Thompson is an "extremist rightwing ideologue." Then we'll be able to sample the LAT's previous claims about him.

As for McCain -- what can you say? The man seemed to absolutely delight in demeaning the very people whose votes he knew he'd be needing down the road. It's true that McCain is good on earmarks/spending/fiscal conservatisism -- but did he actually go into Righteous Crusader mode over that issue? Did he name names of his Senatorial porkbarrellers and hypocrites? Did he use his high profile and massive clout with the liberal media to bring this issue to the forefront of the national debate?

Of course not. Why? Because conservatives would have been pleased by such a crusade. And thus, for McCain, it lacked the tantalizing factor of angering his would-be supporters.

Rudy Giuliani displeases the base on abortion. Notice his style in doing so, however: He's low-key about it, he's apologetic about it, and he does not, in fact, insult conservatives for having a different (consensus) opinion on the subject nor attempt to mau-mau them in the liberal media for having that opinion. He does not try to badger them into changing their deeply-held beliefs; he tries to say "Look, we disagree, and I respect your disagreement with me, but look how much we agree on."

Whatever self-righteously self-destructive demons drive McCain, they make this sort of conservative-friendly pitch anathema to him. He's pro-war (thankfully!), but he cannot rouse himself to attack Democrats or wavering Republicans for abandoning Iraq to Al Qaeda and Iran. He's only capable of rousing to anger and relishing a fight if it's with conservative Republicans.

In his mind, if he's kissing up to Democrats and the liberal media, that's just "straight talk" and "bipartisan outreach."

If he's kissing up to his own fellow party-members, that's unforgivable pandering of the basest sort, and he just won't truck with such whoring.

I'm sorry, but we're just not looking for that kind of "leadership." We had two months of it during the amensty debate, and two months was plenty. We certainly don't need four or eight years of it.

Posted by: Ace at 11:23 AM | Comments (59)
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Whoops! Now that's what I call "a real boner!"

(AP) -- Last weekend, Bend gas station owner Kent Couch settled down in his lawn chair with some drinks and snacks - and a parachute.

Attached to the lawn chair were 105 balloons of various colors, each 4 feet around. Bundled together, the balloons rise three stories high.

Couch carried a global positioning system device, a two-way radio, a digital camcorder and a cell phone. He also had instruments to measure his altitude and speed and about four plastic bags holding five gallons of water each to act as a ballast - he could turn a spigot, release water and rise.

Destination: Idaho.

Nearly nine hours later, Couch was short of Idaho. But he was 193 miles from home, in a farmer's field near Union, having crossed much of Oregon at 11,000 feet and higher.

Ironically, his high-flying stunt coincides with the grim milestone of the 3,519th American soldier killed in Iraq.

I added in the last sentence. But you know AP wanted to slip that in. So I just re-wrote the story the way they all feel it should have been written.

Thanks to dri.

Posted by: Ace at 11:02 AM | Comments (38)
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Attempted murder is the highest form of patriotism.

Want to know the kicker? The MSM is covering up the anti-war lunatic's motive, refusing to inform the public why he shot the airman.

this 22 year old guy walked up to him and asked him if he lived in the house. When Jon said yes, the guy said “not any more” and shot him point blank in the chest. He tried to shoot him again, but his gun jammed. Jonathan made it into the house. The guy then shot himself. Turns out the guy left a couple of suicide notes stating how much he hated the military and he wanted to go out making a statement, so he chose to make his statement on Independence Day trying to kill a soldier.

The most the MSM will say is that he was "angry at the government." Angry in what way? They're not telling. They know, but they've decided the public doesn't need to know such trifling details.

The American Thinker on the media's code of leftist omerta:

If Airman Schrieken had been an abortionist or homosexual, this story would be front page news for the New York Times and the lead story on CBS News with Katie Couric for at least the next month. But since Schrieken is serving in the military, even his hometown newspaper, the Columbus Dispatch, has ignored this story.

Predictably, a law enforcement spokesman says that Marren’s suicide notes “were indicative of an individual suffering from mental-health problems”, but that raises the question of how anyone could identify anyone suffering from mental-health problems amidst those devoted to bizarre conspiracy theories and the virulent anti-Americanism of the antiwar movement. If anything, Marren would have fit right in unnoticed.

It is also worth noting that Marren was merely following the logic of the anti-war movement’s standard public rhetoric. Their language is laced with suggestive undertones justifying attacks against our military, calling our armed forces fighting the War on Terror “baby-killers”, constantly invoking the specter of Abu Ghraib, and citing their grossly inflated statistics of civilians accidentally killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Such reckless and unbalanced rhetoric (they’re not quite as adept at keeping statistics on those murdered by terrorists) fuels the hatred that drives someone like Marren to violence against a member of our own military.

They're really unbelievable, aren't they? I'd like to say nothing they can do anymore would shock me, and yet every week or so they find a way to do just that.

Racist "Code Words:" The media is ever eager to read the supposed "subtext" of "racist code words" such as "welfare queens" and the like.

Funny that they completely miss not-at-all-subtextual messages like this:

... and apparently don't ever worry that such hate speech might actually impel some of the less reality-based members of the Reality-Based Community to commit acts of violence.

If a Republican opposes amnesty, he's sending messages that it's okay to beat and kill illegal immigrants. When the left openly calls for murder, the MSM just doesn't seem capable of reading not the subtext but the actual text of their messages.

"Apparently At Random:" So the MSM describes the selection of Schrieken as a target.

Ummm, not quite random. They leftist was gunning for a US serviceman. The particular serviceman might have been "random," but the class of victim sought was not.

Question: If someone looked for black people to shoot and happened to shoot him in the heart, would the media blithely report the victim as chosen "apparently at random"? Or would it, you know, note the fact the shooter wasn't perfectly random in his choice of victim?

Posted by: Ace at 10:29 AM | Comments (43)
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Last rites:

Abdul Rashid Ghazi is said to have died in heavy fighting at the Lal Masjid compound.

...

The fighting has already left some 50 militants and eight soldiers dead.

Commandos stormed the facility before dawn when last-ditch efforts to negotiate a surrender failed.

More than 13 hours later, troops were still trying to root out the defenders who are reportedly armed with rocket-launchers and machine guns.

Army spokesman General Waheed Arshad said: "Militants are taking positions in almost every room, they're fighting from room-to-room, they have positions in the basement."

Maybe the Pakistanis should withdraw from Pakistan, etc. Baker-Hamilton. You know the drill.

A video report at the link. Below video on the storming of the Red Mosque.

Bill Roggio live-blogged the assault:

After a week of negotiations and skirmishes at the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, which left over 20 dead and 100 wounded, the final assault on the compound has begun. Pakistani security forces, led by the elite 111 Brigade, the Special Services Group, and the Pakistani Rangers, launched a major offensive early Tuesday morning Pakistan time on the radical Islamist mosque in the heart of Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. Islamabad is said to be rocked with explosions. Metroblogging Pakistan provides the details of the opening moves of the assault, with rolling updates.

...

Maulana Abdul Aziz and Ghazi Abdul Rasheed, the leaders of the Red Mosque, have repeatedly threatened to launch a suicide campaign if the mosque was assaulted by Pakistani security forces. Abdul Aziz is in government custody after attempting to escape the mosque in a burka on July 4. Members of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which is the new name of the banned terror group and al-Qaeda affiliate Lashkar-e-Taiba, were also captured attempting to escape the mosque late last week. Jamaat-ud-Dawa has been put on the Specially Designated Global Terrorist list.

Ghazi Abdul Rasheed, who has held out in the Red Mosque, has been reported captured. He was reportedly on the phone with Aaj TV when Commandos "apparently arrived at his location in the Red Mosque compound in central Islamabad."

"Commandos are at the door of my room," Ghazi told Aaj TV. Ghazi threatened to martyr himself rather than be taken alive.

For once, a jihadi leader who's true to his word.

Posted by: Ace at 10:13 AM | Comments (31)
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Continuing to strike fear into the hearts of, well, everyone, Taser has released an electrified round that works with any 12-gauge shotgun. The Wireless eXtended Range Electronic Projectile, or XREP, is a fin-stabilized, self-contained round with no wires leading back to the gun and a maximum range of 100 ft. Previous Tasers, such as the C2 civilian model I was hit with a few months ago, are only useful within around 30 ft.

The XREP punctures the target with multiple probes, and then unspools to dangle from the unfortunate belligerent's body, all the while applying Taser's infamous rapid-fire electrical pulses. As an added bonus, any helpful passerby trying to yank the XREP out of the target before the 20-second discharge cycle is finished will also get zapped, thanks to a "hand-trap wire" that's nestled
in among the other hanging cables.

From Popular Mechanics, via Instapundit.

Posted by: Ace at 10:05 AM | Comments (14)
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Huh. Madonna can't play a guitar solo and it turns out she's deceptive and manipulative. Who knew?

The fake solo comes near the end, when she's near an amplifier, "wailing on her axe."

Andrew Sullivan is said to be on suicide watch. But that has nothing to do with the Madonna fakery; it's just the Tuesday blahs.

Rock stars (or fake rock stars) get away with so much. Listen to her intro. Demanding that the "motherfuckers" in the stadium "jump up and down" for her song. Who else can get away with that crap?

Hey, motherfuckers! I'm about to blog! Everybody give it up! Come on, motherfuckers! I don't want to see anyone's feet touchin' the ground for this post!

Come on I don't see you jumpin'! Get on your feet motherfuckers! Whoo! I'm about to lay some sizzlin' links on y'all! Give it up! Jump up and down like retards! Check out that hot sidebar of headlines! Let me hear you, bitches!

Can anyone else in the world pull this bullshit and not be locked up in a the loony-bin?

Posted by: Ace at 09:53 AM | Comments (46)
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Eh. The only thing that will ruin you is being caught with a dead girl or live boy.

No one's claiming the escorts are dead.

Ergo, I don't care.

Really? Allah mentions that this might hurt Rudy, since Vitter is one of his southern campaign chairmen.

Well, Mayor Villaraigosa of LA is embroiled in major sex scandal of his own, and he's one of Hillary Clinton's four national campaign chairs.

True, the media will be interested in one and not at all in the other (what is inside Hillary that draws her to "bad boys"? Must be all that raging female heterosexuality!), but hey, if we're looking at campaign chairs, the Democrats don't have a lot of room to talk.

Connecting The Dots: Mickey Kaus tries, again, to establish a Bill Clinton-Princess Diana affair.

I doubt it. Both seem pretty centered to me, highly disciplined types well above a tawdry affair that might put their respective countries into crisis.

Correction: PetiteDov corrects me and says that Kaus is only trying to link Diana and billionaire Teddy Forstmann. Is that all? I guess on second reading it does appear that way; but what's that bit about listening to conversations that mention another woman that might surface with allegations about Bill?

Bob Livingston's Replacement: Fishwrap rounds up reactions and notes...

Vitter was first elected to Congress in a 1999 special election to replace former House Speaker Bob Livingston, who resigned after admitting on the House floor that he had committed adultery.

Fishwrap asks how could a Havard educated man be so dumb? In Vitter's defense, he was using prostitutes before that 1999 special election -- indeed, he was using them during the Clinton impeachment crisis. So he's not dumb at all. I guess.

But seriously, what causes this? Well, first, normal human nature. Including humans' drives to act in selfish but self-destructive ways. A strong dose of arrogance (most of the people in Washington have never, ever lost a single campaign for office -- that's how they got to Washington!) verging on believing they're untouchable only compounds that. Someone who's never really had to pay for bad behavior will be inclined to commit more bad behavior.

Toss in the general low ethics and morality of DC and buddy system of politicians protecting each other and even recommending whores to each other and you've got a Sex Panther level stink of licentiousness and entitlement.

But really, who cares? It's his wife's and family's problem, not mine. It's time to MoveOn.org.

Posted by: Ace at 08:47 AM | Comments (65)
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