Indeed, their joint report is pessimistic about the al-Maliki government and its willingness to make helpful political compromises.

But note the desultory mention MSNBC gives to the rather upbeat admission of Carl Levin of real, tangible progress being made in Iraq.

"We are also encouraged by continuing positive results – in al Anbar Province, from the recent decisions of some of the Sunni tribes to turn against al Qaeda and cooperate with coalition force efforts to kill or capture its adherents..."

Levin also admitted real and tangible increases in security in Baghdad, and noted that 11 of the 12 divisions of Iraqi armed forces will be trained by the end of this year.

Indeed, there are "pessimistic" notes coming from passionate anti-war liberal and converted anti-war fake-conservative douchebag Warner. But they were already anti-war -- is the fact that they continue making anti-war noises the real story? Or is the real story that these two anti-war douchebags concede real and tangible military progress?

Obviously the latter -- but the MSM chooses to spin it otherwise.

Notice the MSM's rather selective use of the man-bites-dog principle. Obviously man-bites-dog stories are more interesting than dog-bites-man stories. When a conservative Republican makes anti-war noises -- joins the anti-war cause -- the MSM can't stop talking about it, overplaying the story to the hilt, justifying the excess of their reportage on the basis that it's a man-bites-dog story. The fact that this is unexpected is what makes it newsworthy.

Well, here we have two guys already on the record in favor of withdrawal and defeat bludgeoned by the facts into admitting significant progress in Iraq.

One would imagine this would get the man-bites-dog treatment.

Nope. Even though that's the unexpected and interesting part of the news, they instead play the same old dog-bites-man story that Levin is (shock!) still as anti-war as he ever was.

I grow weary of the MSM telling me its reportage is dictated by objective rules like man-bites-dogs but then choosing to suspend these supposedly objective rules whenever following them might undermine the Media Party's agenda.

More: Levin Declares the Surge Has "Utterly Failed"... in the Iraqi parliament, at least.

Where American troops are not, to my knowledge, deployed.

On the battlefield, where they're actually deployed, they're making success of such a sort that not even Carl Levin can deny.

And yet the MSM dutifully reports: Failure. At least according to the freshly relocated goalposts.

Worse Than Dog Bites Man: It's dog bites man where the dog already announced his intention to bite the man. Making Levin's biting of the man even less newsworthy:

"I'm going to try to see if we can't shift the attention of the American people from the report on the military situation to a report on the political situation since everybody acknowledges that it's the failure of the political arena and the political areas that are the cause of the ongoing violence in Iraq," said Levin, who is taking his eighth trip to Iraq since the war began.

So basically Levin wanted to see if he could con the media into reporting the story with his slant.

What a shock that he succeeded.

Remember Harry Reid's Jedi Mind Trick regarding Democrats who voted against the Comprehensive Piece of Shit, thus muddying his preferred narrative that Hispanics shouldn't vote for anti-Hispanic Republicans?

When another reporter pressed him on Democrats opposed to cloture he cut the person off: “Let’s not focus on Democrats,” Reid said.

And, surprise surprise, the NYT editorial the following day contained numerous mentions of Republicans and not a single mention of a Democrat voting against the Comprehensive Piece of Shit -- indeed, they refused to even include the word "Democrat" in the article at all.

How surprising that Carl Levin's attempt to "shift the focus" has been so wildly effective.

Posted by: Ace at 02:53 PM | Comments (10)
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Batman and Maximus and sixguns. Not too shabby.

Christian Bale is having a charmed effing career. Six or seven years ago no one heard of him.

Via PetiteDov.

Posted by: Ace at 02:23 PM | Comments (35)
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Inverting the old saying, good news is no news.

FoxNews was recently called out -- rightly, I think -- for reporting less on Iraq as the war turned badly and the nation turned against the war. Other MSM outlets pounced on that, of course; Keith Olbermann especially snickered.

Well now it appears the MSM has lost interest in the war as the news is relatively good. Anyone think this will make Countdown tonight?

And what's worse-- a reluctance to trumpet bad news and military set-backs, or a reluctance to report good news and military victories?

Another Astounding Flip-Flop: A few months ago anti-war liberals were complaining that the Bush case for war could not be falsified. If we were winning in Iraq, they claimed, Bush claims that that success shows we should stay the course. If we were losing in Iraq, they said, Bush would claim that the very fact we were losing proved we should stay the course, as we couldn't afford to lose.

Another fair complaint... although what is being complained of here is simple reality: A loss in Iraq would be somewhere between "extremely harmful" to "calamitous" to American foreign policy, so yes, Bush is going to argue that we can't afford to lose and thus it really doesn't matter whether we're winning or losing at any moment. Whether we're winning or losing at a particular time is a temporary condition. What never changes is that a defeat would be disastrous.

At any rate, this was the liberals' complaint. They all parroted it. Ha, ha! Look at the silly Bush Administration! No matter what the facts are, he argues it's important to push through to victory!

Well. Then I'm sure they'll note this interesting spin from Hillary!: Now that we're winning in Iraq, it's the perfect opportunity to bug-out and leave Iraq to Al Qaeda and al-Sadr/Iran!

Seems to me that Hillary! also has a non-falsifiable syllogism on Iraq: If we're losing, we need to abandon Iraq; if we're winning, we also need to abandon Iraq.

Anyone think the lefty bloggers will even mention this?

Of course not. And yet Bush's formulation was good comic fodder for them for a month. Look how stupid Bush is, they all tittered. No matter what the news might be, his conclusions never seem to adjust.

Well? Is Hillary likewise stupid or dishonest? How about Matthew Yglesias & Kevin Drum & Co. themselves?

Also at the Hot Air link is the suggestion that General Petraeus might testify on 9/11. This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. The White House needs to get its moronic partisan brigade under control. It's one thing to be partisan; it's another thing to be a moron about it. The stunt of arranging Petraeus' testimony to occur on 9/11 is so transparently manipulative that far from helping the cause it will actively sabotage it.

I feel the need to remind some high-ranking Republicans once again: We're conservative, guys. Not retarded. There is a difference I assure you.

The condescension and contempt demonstrated towards conservatives by the GOP rivals and sometimes exceeds that demonstrated towards us by the liberal Democratic Party and the MSM (but I repeat myself).

Ramesh Ponuru "Hears" Congress Chose the 9/11 Date: If they did, they're stupid and they're stepping on a day that should be as free from overt politics as possible. But perhaps their idea is to have the 9/11 commemorations crowd out Petraeus' report, and perhaps reduce two bad news cycles for them to only one.

If so, then they're the ones who should be castigated.

Thanks to TopsecretK9.

Posted by: Ace at 02:14 PM | Comments (13)
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Unlike the Eustace, WA incident, this seems to have been the camel's idea, not the woman's.

Posted by: Ace at 01:23 PM | Comments (33)
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Mark sends me another episode of the game show that's sweeping the media. A California Representative was charged with assault and battery at an airport; since the article refuses to say, it's time for all of us to play Guess the Party!

Perhaps we should just start calling the Democratic Party the Mystery Party. Because whenever a Democrat is caught up in some bad business, the media have an extraordinarily difficult determining which political party he belongs too.

Via the "very smart real military bloggers" at The Sniper.

Update: The party affiliation has now been added to the above-linked story. However, CNN is still playing Guess the Party with viewers.

Call in to CNN! I hear if you correctly Guess That Party you win a car or something.

MSNBC Too: Funny how they just seem to conveniently forget all the goddamn time.

Posted by: Ace at 12:01 PM | Comments (63)
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That's the claim, at least. It's nicknamed "Frozen Smoke" because it's basically just air (especially the Invisible Killer carbon dioxide) tricked by sneaky materials chemists and engineers into taking solid form.

A MIRACLE material for the 21st century could protect your home against bomb blasts, mop up oil spillages and even help man to fly to Mars.

Aerogel, one of the worldÂ’s lightest solids, can withstand a direct blast of 1kg of dynamite and protect against heat from a blowtorch at more than 1,300C.

Scientists are working to discover new applications for the substance, ranging from the next generation of tennis rackets to super-insulated space suits for a manned mission to Mars.

It is expected to rank alongside wonder products from previous generations such as Bakelite in the 1930s, carbon fibre in the 1980s and silicone in the 1990s. Mercouri Kanatzidis, a chemistry professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said: “It is an amazing material. It has the lowest density of any product known to man, yet at the same time it can do so much. I can see aerogel being used for everything from filtering polluted water to insulating against extreme temperatures and even for jewellery.”

You can buy some now, and there's video of this Miracle Crap over at the Hyscience link. But I guess this is not an example of the bomb-resistant sort of Frozen Smoke, as the guy handling it says the slightest pinch will shatter it into thousands of pieces.

It's still pretty cool though. You gotta be able do something neat with a solid whose density is almost as low as air itself.

Posted by: Ace at 11:54 AM | Comments (40)
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Sic 'im.

The lead attorney for pro football star Michael Vick said Monday that the Atlanta Falcons quarterback will plead guilty to dogfighting and related charges and will "accept full responsibility for his actions and the mistakes he has made."

Billy Martin, heading up Vick's legal team, issued the following statement:

"After consulting with his family over the weekend. Michael Vick ask that I announce today that he has reached an agreement with Federal prosecutors regarding the charges pending against him. Mr. Vick has agreed to enter a plea of Guilty to those charges and to accept full responsibility for his actions and the mistakes he has made. Michael wishes to apologizes again to everyone who has been hurt by this matter. The legal team and Mr. Vick will appear in court in Richmond on August 27th."

His attorneys are awaiting word back from the NFL about Vick's "career options."

I'm not sure how the NFL can take the massive PR hit from letting this criminal remain in the league. Then again, they give MVP awards to thugs like Ray Lewis, so who cares about some tortured dogs?

Posted by: Ace at 10:59 AM | Comments (53)
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Over at Hot Air they have Alex Jones melting down over (inter alia) what he claims is a "think tank" which is a "White House front" demanding that Democracy be repealed so that Bush can serve for life. In response to this, he calls for the deaths of all neocons.

You may wonder what the hell "think tank" with real "connections" to the Bush Administration this could possibly be. Certainly no "think tank" I know of wants Bush President for Life -- indeed, most conservatives aren't even sure they want Bush made President for 2007, but are simply resigned to accepting that fact.

MonicaB. has found what must be the article Alex Jones is convinced is a bona fide plan for action for declaring Bush President for Life. What think tank is from? The very famous, very influential "Family Security Foundation, Inc.," which I'm sure you're all familiar with.

And it's written by the very famous, very well-connected Bush official "Phillip Adkinson," who you all know has often been called "Rove's Brain." He's the puppetmaster that pulls the strings of the sub-puppetmaster, you know.

So, what we have is one wackadoo no one's ever heard of writing an article no one's ever read, an then this other pussy scumbag Alex Jones ginning this up as an excuse to rant about how much he and his other "good old boys" are itchin' to shoot or lynch "neocon yuppies" (i.e., Jews and other undesirables, such as non-Truthers of any religious persuasion).

PS, I call shenanigans on the "Family Security Foundation, Inc." and "Phillip Adkinson." I'd like some evidence they actually, you know, exist in the real world.

Posted by: Ace at 10:44 AM | Comments (65)
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Cooooooool.

Thanks to dri. Below my reasons for guessing this might in fact be an attempt at a Lovecraftian story.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:33 AM | Comments (55)
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It has been noted in a few places that Sean Hannity introduced Rudy Giuliani at a fundraiser a few weeks ago. Expect the left blogosphere to take the opportunity to freak out about “Faux News” and “blurring” between journalism and advocacy.

The details are here.

Hannity declined to comment, but his bosses at Fox News Channel and WABC, flagship station for his national radio show, defended their marquee star by arguing that he's not a journalist and shouldn't be judged as one.

"Sean is not a journalist - Sean is a conservative commentator," said Bill Shine, Fox's senior vice president of programming. "Sean doesn't hide, and never has hidden, his beliefs from anyone."

There is an important distinction between journalism and advocacy in the traditional media. But that distinction is relevant only because traditional media sources portray themselves as unbiased. IÂ’m sure youÂ’ll agree that no one would be surprised or outraged if Rush Limbaugh introduced a GOP candidate at a function. But thatÂ’s because Limbaugh, by no stretch of the imagination, can be confused for a journalist.

Is Hannity in the same situation as Limbaugh? more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 09:55 AM | Comments (23)
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