Branch robbery:

The man walked into the bank with tree branches duct taped on his arms and demanded money from the teller. The teller filled the bag with cash and the suspect took off. A dye pack inside the bag exploded.

Guards became suspicious when the "tree" began browsing pamphlets about opening up a money-market account. "Trees tend to be more conservative," a bank officer explained. "They prefer CDs."

Police have questioned three poplars and four larches, but as of yet the thief remains at large.

Thanks to Paul.

Posted by: Ace at 11:46 AM | Comments (44)
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...brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.

My thoughts exactly.

Posted by: Ace at 11:30 AM | Comments (73)
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Allah digests a Michael Yon interview with AP's stringer in Baqubah.

His command of the facts, and of elementary journalistic standards, is quite astounding.

And these are the guys AP relies upon for 90% of its reportage in warzones like Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza and Lebanon.

As Bob Owens notes, the AP actually has a supposed real reporter in Baqubah, and yet he still hasn't gotten around to covering the massacre.

Posted by: Ace at 11:25 AM | Comments (1)
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"Everyone agrees" the UN is a corrupt abettor of tyranny and genocide. So why don't we have more stories about this?

In a mere five minutes and thirty-seven seconds United Abominations' title track encapsulates a litany of complaints against this "blot on the face of humanity," as Mustaine sneeringly calls it, from its practical indifference to ethnic cleansing and state-sponsored terrorism to the "mire of hypocrisy, bribes, kickbacks and corruption" it mucks around in. "The U.N. is where our so-called allies undermine us, and we pay 22 percent of the tab to host our enemies here at home," Mustaine intones during what is almost certainly the only song this year to name check Kofi Annan's son Kojo ("Held hostage by Oil-For-Food/Yet their own plates are full off the fat of their lands/There's no blood on their hands, right Kojo?") thunders along.

"I have a feeling a couple years from now, people are going to be saying, 'Who the f--k is Kojo?'" Mustaine laughed in a recent telephone interview from Amsterdam amidst the hustle and bustle of the United Abominations world tour. "But you know what? I bet some of the kids who bought this record looked his name up after reading the lyrics and know a whole lot more about the Oil-for-Food scandal than they did before."

Not everyone is amused by Mustaine's battering of the blue helmets. "I just wonder which abomination he considers worse: Eradicating polio or ending obstetric fistula?" Mark Leon Goldberg sniffs on UN Dispatch. "Or is it the campaign to reduce childhood mortality rates by two-thirds that gets the aging rocker's blood boiling? I suppose he can take his pick."

...

It's the lack of outrage that has Mustaine outraged. "Why doesn't Michael Moore do an expose on the UN?" he asked, adding, "When I see Syria on the Security Council [in 2002-2003], am I supposed to feel secure? It's mad....They just rely on UNICEF, this one good thing they're doing, to cover up all the stuff that they're not doing, to put them beyond dissent. I'm not impressed. How long are they going to sit by and watch Hezbollah fire Katyusha rockets into Israel from Lebanon? That's a question I'd like answered."

Speaking of Israel, on another track, "Amerikhastan," Mustaine envisions a dystopian future wherein a "legion of bankrupt souls with a lust for revenge" brings civilization to its knees. "You must ignore the focus groups," he advises in his melodic howl. "You must send in the Mossad/Turn off the BBC and CNN/And don't look back."

I'm always amused at how the UN takes credit for humanitarian aid for which they are merely a conduit. The UN isn't paying for that aid. The US, Britain, Australia, and a few other rich countries are. We could all do this same thing on our own, or in combination with others as part of a non-UN collective; and we'd be doing it more efficiently, too, and with more actual aid reaching the needy and less of it pocketed by effete career UN bandits.

In those functions in which the UN is uniquely qualified to act as the supposed voice of the world -- chastening tyrants and killers and rogue regimes, coordinating and championing interventions against them -- it fails.

The only thing it's good at is spending other people's money, and it's not even good at that.

Syria Invades Lebanon... encroaching three kilometers over Lebanon's border.

When I returned I was surprised to find no mention of this whatsoever anywhere else in the media. I assumed the story had to be false. How could Syria invade three kilometers into any region of Lebanon without triggering a diplomatic and media storm?

So I asked Michael Young, opinion page editor at BeirutÂ’s Daily Star, if the story was bogus.

“It is true,” he said, “but the problem is that the 3 kilometers are in isolated areas, so that it isn't making headlines. However, the UN will be discussing border issues this week, I think, and that will be brought up. The Syrians are ratcheting up the pressure, but with the attack against UN troops in the south, they are, as one UN official put it, playing with fire.”

Indeed. Invade a country, attack UN troops, and the UN will soon be "discussing border issues." If that's not "playing with fire," I don't know what is.

Posted by: Ace at 10:48 AM | Comments (25)
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The "perky Eva Braun of morning chat," as Ann Coulter said (approximately).

"During the tuberculosis story in June, Couric got angry with news editor Jerry Cipriano for using a word she detested— 'sputum' —and the staff grew tense when she began slapping him 'over and over and over again' on the arm, according to a source familiar with the scene. It had seemed like a joke at first, but it quickly became clear that she wasn’t kidding."

Sputum. Heh.

The scripts don't get sputum. That's just. The way. It fucking. Is. Don't make a maniac out of me.

Bonus! NBC News justifies its fawning coverage of Gore's Live Earth propaganda coup, claiming "global warming" isn't a political issue at all.

NBC and its cable networks devoted a total of 35 hours of air time Saturday to the Live Earth concerts, organized by Al Gore to call attention to what he calls a global warming "crisis."

...

Wasn't NBC, whose news division covers the debate over climate change, providing a huge platform for advocates on one side of a contentious issue? And isn't the network helping a prominent Democrat -- who granted "Today" an interview last week in which he was asked again about his presidential ambitions -- raise money?

Dan Harrison, an NBC senior vice president, does not back away from the message. He calls the Gore effort "an initiative we believe in," including parent company General Electric. "I really don't think climate change is a political issue," Harrison says.

Really?

"Everyone agrees it's happening. If it's a political issue, it's whether the political will exists to address that change. We know we need to do something, and this is a way to heighten awareness."

"Everyone agrees." As usual, they mean "everyone who counts agrees," which most decidedly doesn't include you.

Via Instapundit. I think.

Posted by: Ace at 10:31 AM | Comments (29)
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Huh! The US Constitution -- the Constitution -- manages only a good approval rating among Americans.

I guess the ones who don't like it are annoyed by the crap that's claimed to be in the Constitution but isn't and/or leftists.

Support for the Constitution may be overstated, however, as it is suspected that Ron Paul's 5000 supporters bought fifty extra phone lines each so that they could each register their uncompromising support for the charter multiple times.

What an odd poll. Who would even think to poll the approval rating of the Constitution?

Bush Approval Rating At 39%: Sounds low, but that's his highest since May 13. (And hey -- the Constitution itself only manages a 63% approval!)

Gee... I wonder what could have caused his support to crumble around mid-May and then suddenly perk back up around now.

Posted by: Ace at 10:05 AM | Comments (42)
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I've gotten tired of abandoning the dozens of stories I find interesting every day just because I don't have anything interesting to say about them in a full post. So I'm back to updating the Headlines in the sidebar.

Hat tip to Allah for revealing something to me. I used to actually hold off on putting some stories in the Headlines, thinking I might write a post about them. And so sometimes I never got around to even noting them.

Allah demonstrates the obvious solution to this -- put them in the headlines first, and if you decide you want to write more about them later, do so. Duh.

Posted by: Ace at 09:56 AM | Comments (21)
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I have to think this is a good thing -- particularly if they bring him down. He continues to coddle Iran and his thugbuddy Sadr. He's part of the problem, and it's time the Iraqis recognized that.

For four years, Iraqis have been waiting in lines at gas stations in Baghdad, waiting for their lives to get better. But, as CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan reports, the situation has gotten worse and their government is now in crisis.

That has led senior Iraqi leaders to demand drastic change....

Even those closest to the Iraqi prime minister, from his own party, admit the political situation is desperate.

...

Iraq's prime minister is facing his most serious challenge yet. The no-confidence vote will be requested by the largest block of Sunni politicians, who are part of a broad political alliance called the Iraq Project. What they want is a new government run by ministers who are appointed for their expertise, not their party loyalty.

...

Leaders of the Iraq Project claim they have the necessary votes to force al-Maliki to resign, but that has yet to be tested in parliament. For now, the U.S. is still standing by the Iraqi leader – publicly at least.

Posted by: Ace at 09:50 AM | Comments (7)
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In Afghanistan. Not that anything like that happens in Iraq or Lebanon or anywhere else, of course.

Posted by: Ace at 09:30 AM | Comments (13)
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Ah, wedding day.

This is for all you lucky lovers out there who found that one special girl who makes your heart go pitter-pat.

Posted by: LauraW. at 02:38 PM | Comments (67)
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