Supposedly this will help with cracking down on their financial transfers.

I guess.

The United States has decided to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country's 125,000-strong military branch, as a "specially designated global terrorist," according to U.S. officials, a move that allows Washington to target the group's business operations and finances.

...

The designation of the Revolutionary Guards will be made under Executive Order 13224, which President Bush signed two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to obstruct terrorist funding. It identifies individuals, businesses, charities and many extremist groups engaged in terrorist activities. The Revolutionary Guards would be the first national military branch included on the list, U.S. officials said -- a highly unusual move because it is part of a government, rather than a typical non-state terrorist organization.

The order allows the United States to block the assets of terrorists and to disrupt operations by foreign businesses that "provide support, services or assistance to, or otherwise associate with, terrorists."

...

The main goal of the new designation is to clamp down on the Revolutionary Guards' vast business network, as well as on foreign companies conducting business linked to the military unit and its personnel. The administration plans to list many of the Revolutionary Guards' financial operations.

"Anyone doing business with these people will have to reevaluate their actions immediately," said a U.S. official familiar with the plan who requested anonymity because the decision has not been announced. "It increases the risks of people who have until now ignored the growing list of sanctions against the Iranians. It makes clear to everyone who the IRGC and their related businesses really are. It removes the excuses for doing business with these people."

For weeks, the Bush administration has been debating whether to target the Revolutionary Guards Corps in full, or only its Quds Force wing, which U.S. officials have linked to the growing flow of explosives, roadside bombs, rockets and other arms to Shiite militias in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Quds Force also lends support to Shiite allies such as Lebanon's Hezbollah and to Sunni movements such as Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Although administration discussions remain ongoing, the initial decision is to target the entire Guards Corps, U.S. officials said.

Can we then charge the five captured Quds Forces guys as terrorists?

Posted by: Ace at 06:15 PM | Comments (62)
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Minus the French part it would be pretty cool.

He will leap head-first from a weather balloon 25 miles above Earth and plummet at more than 1,000mph with only a parachute for company.

He will face external temperatures of minus 100c while inside his carbon-fibre suit it will be a stifling 65c - almost 150 fahrenheit.

And most amazing of all, Michel Fournier is actually looking forward to it.

The daredevil Frenchman, a greyhaired 63-year-old former paratrooper, aims to become the first person to break the sound barrier in free-fall.

As he plunges through the stratosphere at supersonic speed, he also hopes to break three more world records - for the longest sky dive, the highest parachute jump and the highest altitude achieved by a human in a balloon.

Thanks to DaveR.

Posted by: Ace at 06:08 PM | Comments (44)
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As prepared by the plaintiff, Johnathan E. Riches ©.

That © appears on the complaint. Apparently he's copyrighted his name.

I have now opened myself up to liability by printing it here.

Thanks to MattM.

Posted by: Ace at 04:31 PM | Comments (32)
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I've got a night off before I've got to go back to the salt mines, so I thought I'd toss this out there. Seems like the kind of thing this crowd would be into.

David Wong's The 10 Most Awesome Movies Hollywood Ever Killed.

Fans of the popular video game wept tears of joy when a Halo film was announced in 2005. Other bodily fluids escaped when it was announced that the Lord of the Rings guy (Peter Jackson) was on board to produce and Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy) was in talks to direct. But suddenly, in the fall of 2006, both of the studios financing the film bailed out.

Why it didn't get made: The rumored budget offered about 200 million reasons, with a dollar sign in front. To break even, every single person who bought the last Halo game would have to go see the film version seven times. Also, Microsoft's deal included demands that Gates & Co. have creative control over the project. If you don't see why that would be a problem, then you've apparently never heard of Microsoft.

Anyone who's ever played the game knows why this is so disappointing. Those panoramic views of the Halo, the super-hot AI chick, the holy-shit-what-the-hell-is-going-on vibe when they discover the Flood...it's criminally retarded not to make this movie. I'd be willing to bet the domestic box office would have easily earned back the original budget, and that's before you even factor in overseas screenings, DVD sales, and merchandising.

In the right hands, this could have been the next Star Wars. If it had turned out to be even half as cool as I imagine it, I'd have seen it three times in the theater, and bought the DVD and Master Chief feminine napkins. And I'm not the only one. Loose shit, guys.

Anyway, I don't follow Hollywood scuttlebutt enough to have my own nomination for this hall of shame, but here's my one idea I'm pretty sure they'd never get right:

Do Terry Pratchett. It's time, studio guys; the audience is there, the CGI technology is there, Peter Jackson apparently can't hold down a job anymore-all we need is for you to pony up a couple hundred million or so and then let him go nuts.

Don't try to adapt any of the books, either; the fanboys will be at your throats because Foul Ol Ron's lines don't appear in the right order, or something silly like that. Instead, hire Pratchett himself to write an original screenplay. Same discworld, same people, but new story. I'd center it around the two coolest characters: Granny Weatherwax and Sam Vimes. Make them both try to solve the same crime while out-badassing the other. Avoid the "Ewok Trap" by making it intense enough that you just barely get the PG-13 rating. Give us a super-real CGI Ankh-Morpork, and then show us every damn inch of it. Make Alan Rickman useful again by casting him as Lord Vetinari.

I'd punch my mother in the face to see that movie, and so would millions of other people. And when we were done Hollywood would have enough money to fund ten sequels if they wanted to turn it into a franchise.

But I'm not holding my breath.

Posted by: AndrewR at 03:45 PM | Comments (171)
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You may scoff, but the guy did file a lawsuit. A lawsuit demanding the Dr. Evil-esque figure of "63,000,000,000 billion dollars." Which I think is more commonly known as 63 hextillion dollars, actually (to the extent it's known of at all), but what's a few thousand orders of magnitudes between friends?

I'm going to take a wait and see attitude towards this. As the last paragraph here suggests, he seems to be a fan of Ron Paul (The Only Man Who Can Save America), which makes me thinks his credibility is pretty solid.

Embattled NFL quarterback Michael Vick, facing federal charges related to his alleged participation in dogfighting, has been hit with a "$63,000,000,000 billion dollar" lawsuit filed by a South Carolina inmate who alleges the Atlanta Falcons star stole his pit bulls and sold them on eBay to buy "missiles from Iran," FOX News has learned.

Jonathan Lee Riches filed the handwritten complaint over "theft and abuse of my animals" on July 23 in the U.S. District Court in Richmond, Va.

Riches alleges that Vick stole two white mixed pit bull dogs from his home in Holiday, Fla., and used them for dogfighting operations in Richmond, Va. The complaint goes on to allege that Vick sold the dogs on eBay and “used the proceeds to purchase missiles from the Iran government.”

The complaint also alleges that Vick would need those missiles because he pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda in February of this year.

“Michael Vick has to stop physically hurting my feelings and dashing my hopes,” Riches writes in the complaint.

Riches wants $63 billion dollars “backed by gold and silver “ delivered to the front gates to the Williamsburg Federal Correctional facility in South Carolina. Riches is an inmate at the facility serving out a wire fraud conviction.

Let's just say the narrative may be right though the facts are wrong.

Let's imagine what the bill of complaint might look like here:

Michael Vick took the following actions causing injury to the complaining party:

1) Swore allegiance to Al Qaeda

2) Stole a couple of the complaining party's dogs

3) Violated the various US trade embargoes with Iran as well as numerous weapon possession laws by purchasing missiles from the Iranian government

4) Continues "physically hurting and dashing [the] hopes" of the complaining party

Stephanie (I think) sent this to me, and from the quotes in the email, I thought she was just simply insane. I was about to just click away from it, figuring this was some nut making wild allegations, or trying to be funny.

But nope, it's a real lawsuit.

A spokesman for Michael Vick just emailed me to say he "has all reasonable hope" that a settlement can be reached for "somewhere in the neighborhood of ninety three thousand trillion billion dollars."

John Cole of Balloon-Juice Just Emailed Me, Too... to tell me that even if I debunk this lawsuit as specious, "it still doesn't prove that things are going great in Iraq."

True enough, and I'm very sorry I misled my readers by suggesting that.

Posted by: Ace at 02:03 PM | Comments (39)
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I see now why the NYT is so prone to comical errors. Those vaunted multiple layers of painstaking editorial oversight are apparently being employed to edit an online fake-encyclopedia in order to denigrate a competitor.

The staff of America's Paper of Record (TM) are also busy dicking around on the internet all friggin' day childishly vandalizing Wikipedia entries on George W. Bush and Tom Delay.

One edit claims Delay was a "Grand Dragon" of the Republican Party.

Nuance.

I'm not sure what annoys me more -- the obvious root-and-branch True Believer liberalism that permeates the place (which, of course, they strenuously deny) or the fact that America's "Paper of Record" (TM) has time to fuck about all day on the internet but cannot seem to ever properly find the correct quotation for George W. Bush's "infamous sixteen words" on uranium in Africa Niger [ed-- it sounds better to say "Niger." That way we can link it up with those French forgeries that Bush never mentioned and the CIA never relied upon. Let's run with that!]

More Nuance From The New York Times: Editing Condi Rice's entry to say she's become not a pianist but a "penis."

Big yucks.

Must be that very sophisticated Gothamite wit that rubes like me just don't "get."

Race-Baiting, Now? A NYTser edits Bill Frist's bio to claim, strangely, he is an "African-American."

If the NYT gets lucky, they'll find out it's just one goldbricking idiot doing these edits.

If it's several, they've got a problem.

Have you ever seen anything so childish?

"Paper of Record." Best of the brightest.

Mm-hm.

Edit: Picking up some sleuthing in the comments, I posted here that maybe one of the NYT wiki-editing brigades had been found.

I rushed to post before really considering if it really mattered. Further, the guy named says it wasn't him, it was someone else, and where can you go from there?

So I'm deleting out the mention, though it remains in the comments. Bear in mind, he denies it, and seems to have not understood even what I was asking about.

Posted by: Ace at 01:51 PM | Comments (42)
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Yeah... you know that whole long-roiling media debate about whether embedding with the US military effectively turns reporters into propaganda pawns?

I expect we'll hear very little of that here. I think the watchwords will be "incredible bravery" and "true old-school reportage."

And will Keven Frayer be permitted to report the massacres and such that Hamas never allows its reporter-stooges to report, unless they wish to publicize the massacre as a glorious battlefield victory?

I rather doubt it.

And that's okay with the MSM. It may not be the truth, but it's Hamas' version of the truth, and shouldn't Hamas' version of the truth be publicized?

Posted by: Ace at 12:53 PM | Comments (12)
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As I know Oldman is a site favorite, as is Batman, I figured I wouldn't waste my fruitless search for the "Elvis" speech asking Can you live with it? from True Romance. I looked for the Can you live with it? clip for the Giuliani post but came up empty. But I stumbled upon this.

Oldman forgets one rather important virtue of Gordon's in ticking them down: he's got incredible courage. Arguably more so than Bruce Wayne, because Bruce Wayne is a self-made superhero, and Gordon is just an average guy (well, not quite average) who could be shot down on the street at any time.

Maybe Oldman didn't read Batman: Year One. He should.

Topical Hook: Uggcchhh. Pat Freakin' Leahy has a speaking role in Batman, apparently with both Bale and Heath Ledger (the Joker).

Is it too much to hope for that he plays Joker Smilex Victim Number Three? Fingers crossed! more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:32 PM | Comments (16)
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Giuliani's bit about "The Next Foreign Policy" (his, I gather):

We must learn from [the pre-9/11 escalation of terrorist attacks against us without meaningful reprisal] for the long war that lies ahead. It is almost certain that U.S. troops will still be fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan when the next president takes office. The purpose of this fight must be to defeat the terrorists and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and to allow these countries to become members of the international system in good standing. We must be under no illusions that either Iraq or Afghanistan will quickly attain the levels of peace and security enjoyed in the developed world today. Our aim should be to help them build accountable, functioning governments that serve the needs of their populations, reduce violence within their borders, and eliminate the export of terror...

We cannot predict when our efforts will be successful. But we can predict the consequences of failure: Afghanistan would revert to being a safe haven for terrorists, and Iraq could become another one—larger, richer, and more strategically located. Parts of Iraq would undoubtedly fall under the sway of our enemies, particularly Iran, which would use its influence to direct even more terror at U.S. interests and U.S. allies than it does today...

And on gay marriage, which he's always claimed to oppose, he's also finding more disagreement with "civil unions" as they're currently conceived.

Giuliani has described himself as a backer of civil unions and is frequently described that way in news reports. But he began distancing himself from civil unions in late April, when his campaign told The New York Sun that New Hampshire's new law goes too far because it is "the equivalent of marriage," which he has always opposed for gays.

Giuliani's aides offered little explanation of what specific rights he would support for same-sex couples.

In an interview and follow-up e-mails, Maria Comella, the campaign's deputy communications director, told the Globe that Giuliani supports domestic partnership laws similar to the one he initiated in New York in 1998.

The New York law primarily ensures benefits to partners of municipal employees. The law created a registry of partnerships that also helps city residents obtain partner benefits from private companies that extend them. However, most of the registrants are unmarried heterosexual couples.

Comella said Giuliani has always supported the New York model of domestic partnership laws but she did not explain what is widely viewed as an inconsistency in his position.

Not pimpin', just postin'.

Though this new CBS poll, showing Giuliani twenty points out ahead of even Teh Mighty Fred, does again raise the question: Could you live with him as nominee if you had to?

I could, of course, even though I'm almost as unhappy with some of his social positions as true social cons. But if this whole Teh Fred thing turns out to have been a bit of a flash in the pan, the Giuliani Option is going to have to be reconsidered, especially by those who have written him off.

38%? I'm no mathematician, but I my powers of guesstimation tell me that's more than three quarters of the way to a majority. In a fairly divided field, no less, in which some are still holding out for Newt Gingrich.

Would it help ease the sting if it's kept in mind that Giuliani would likely spank Hillary! Clinton in ways she could only dream her husband would?

Posted by: Ace at 11:54 AM | Comments (62)
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Not to disagree with defense expert Noah Shachtman, but...

1) It's never smart to take options off the table. He seems a little over-surprised by a military guy wargaming possible scenarios. This is news?

2) It's "new" that the Air Force denigrates ground-pounders? Really? Hasn't the Air Force been, in the main, crowing about its capacity to win wars entirely through the air since... well, I think I'm going to have to go back to the Mongolifier brothers on this one. First time a balloon went up the rapidly-created Army Balloon Command announced it should get to control all defense spending as obviously the future of warfare would be determined by non-rigid dirigible "deep interdiction" combat.

This isn't new, Noah. Honestly. The Air Force has had as core doctrine the belief it could win just about any war, anywhere, through "deep interdiction" (that is, bombing the hell out of bridges, supply lines, factories, tank columns, and oil fields... and, uh, cities, too, when necessary) since for-ev-eh. Even when they say of course they need the Army and Marines to hold the ground they've conquered through the air, a lot of them don't mean it. They're just being nice.

The talk about disbanding either the Army and Marines is more interesting, in the way that many bad ideas are very interesting, but even that isn't really new. The question as to whether the Army or Marines are essentially duplicative pops up among (dopey) defense geeks all the time.

Back to the first point: Bombing Iran's oil fields. One could have political objections to such a move, but what is the military objection to it? Would it work or not?

How long could Iran survive without oil?

Noah Shactman responds:

Ace, I'm not trying to imply that these rivalries are anything new. But there has been renewed aggression on both sides, as the wars have slogged on.

Also, there's a difference between a general officer not wanting to take options off of the table -- in response to a pesky reporter's question, say -- and him wondering aloud how loud of a boom Iran's refineries would make. Two different things, no?

Hugs,

nms

If there's "renewed aggression," I defer to you on that. I have no idea if the aggression is renewed or just more of the same service-jockeying we've always had.

As to the second question -- no, I don't think there's much difference. I like lower-level people making, essentially, threats that top-level policymakers aren't permitted to make. A bit of reminding about what we could do if we so chose is never unwelcome.

I don't see the problem. Is there a worry his remarks will drive Iran into being an enemy state?

Posted by: Ace at 11:43 AM | Comments (46)
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