Because you know it's really the Jews and Buddhists and Christians who are are arming up and going infidel hunting.

What a strange world. Members of an Unnamed Religion Prone To Violent Extremism routinely butcher and murder members of other religions (and insufficiently devout members of their own), and it's the sensitivities of this Unnamed Religion Prone To Violent Extremism we're supposed to devote so many of our brain-hours to appeasing.

According to Dearborn Mayor “Jack” O“Reilly, Jr., the release of information about the case was delayed until after Zarkot’s arraignment and late in the day that marked the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. City officials feared that announcing the arrest of an armed Arabic man so close to anniversary of the attack would stir anti-Muslim sentiments and fan the flames of terrorism.

”We didn’t want this to become more than it is,“ O’Reilly said. ”There are certain things that the media latches onto, and this would have turned into a story about terrorism. That’s not the kind of tone we want to set."

Of course, this would-be Brave Warrior of an Unnamed Religion Prone To Violent Extremism intended to carry out his massacre on Sept. 11. He chose that date. But our very-sensitive officials were very cautious to keep the public in the dark despite that not-altogether-ludicrous possibility that there were others like this bastard out there as part of a team effort at random murder.

Life imitates dumb movies and TV shows. Whenever there's a city threatened by a volcano or nuclear bomb or crazed serial killer, the Authority Figures decide not to alert the public because they don't want to "start a panic." This despite the fact that an orderly evacuation and/or improved public vigilance could be a pretty good idea. And I always used to think, "How stupid. They just are trying to avoid the expense of showing an evacuation sequence and the even greater expense of having to empty the areas of the city where the story continues, to show that most people have (wisely) gotten out town until the threat is over."

Now I know better. It's real. The Authority Figures really do routinely deny the public relevant information for absurd reasons. Non-Muslim Americans have never in our history engaged in some sort of a pogrom against Muslims, even in the nervous days of tears and rage after 9/11, but our Smart, Tough government-types know we're all just a bunch of Over-Armed Yahoos just jumpin' at the chance to kill some swarthy innocents.

Posted by: Ace at 11:21 AM | Comments (27)
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Underwhelming, huh? Yeah. Kind of obvious but good empty calories for political junkies hungry for a snack:

At this point, it is possible to envision how each of the three could lose their particular advantage as the campaign unfolds. Any hint that Giuliani is not the best candidate to win in November could doom his campaign. Any serious challenge to ThompsonÂ’s conservative credentials could do the same to him. Anything less than decisive wins in Iowa and New Hampshire could mean the end for RomneyÂ’s team.

At the same time, simply holding their ground is not sufficient for any of these candidates. If they are to win the nomination, they must gain ground in one of their competitors strongholds....

This leads to a fourth candidate, John McCain, who is a very long-shot at this point. But, he is still hanging around in case all three of the other candidates stumble.

The big news, I guess, is not that Thompson had a bounce, which was expected, or that Rudy barely (by most polls) held on to the front-runner status, but that John McCain is getting a second look from Republicans.

I'm not going to plug him, but he certainly has been acting lately like a guy I could vote for -- if I weren't so strongly predisposed against him already. My own position has changed on him from When Pigs Fly To Hell For Dove Bars to If He Can Pull It Out, He Deserves My Support.

I mean, this is some bloody-juicy steak tartare right here.

Allah's got some issues over the "they ought to be thrown out of the country" line. Me, not so much. 1, it seems off the cuff, 2, I don't think he was being literally serious and 3, quite frankly, if they love France Iran so much why don't they just marry it already.

Posted by: Ace at 11:04 AM | Comments (37)
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Hm. I needed a psychiatrist to tell me this crap.

Ranting Rosie O'Donnell is full of rage, has a profound distrust of men, craves pub lic adoration, shows signs of post-traumatic stress disorder and dishes out her anger mostly to women because of deep-seated abandonment issues over her mother's death, said a psychiatrist after reading her latest memoir, "Celebrity Detox."

...

O'Donnell has insight into her neuroses - but is unable to control them, or change her behavior, says Dr. Robert Butterworth - a Los Angeles clinical psychologist who has done extensive work in the area of childhood trauma.

"Freud would have a field day with this book - everybody is somebody else," Butterworth said after reading the 200-page mix of adult musings, random childhood flashbacks and reams of prosy writings from Rosie's blog. "Obviously, she has a whole thing with men. Donald Trump is like a substitute daddy paying for something that happened in her past," he observed.

...

She calls the ultra-conservative Hasselbeck - with whom she clashed frequently on-air - a "fist in a frill."

...

THE root of many of the rotund comic's issues, the shrinks agree, was her mother's unexpected death from cancer when O'Donnell was only 10.

Traumatized, she hid her psychological scars behind aggressive humor and a tough, tomboy façade. But, in one of her book's most explosive chapters, she admits to breaking her own fingers as a way to stanch her emotional pain and seek attention.

"Mostly by myself, in my bedroom, with a heavy wooden hanger or a small Mets baseball bat," O'Donnell writes. "My hands and fingers usually. No one knew. My secret."

She also hints - but never confirms - that she was sexually abused at the hands of a "strange man" who came in her bedroom window at night.

The bizarre revelation, presented as a hazy memory of telling her mom the next morning that "a man came at night and got me," pops up as a flashback juxtaposed against Rosie's teary and rage-filled confrontation with Walters over the Trump flap while they got their hair and makeup done in ABC studios.

O'Donnell explains her off-camera confrontation with Walters by relating a murky recollection from her Long Island youth in 1971 - "memories . . . more in feeling than form" -when she told her mother of the frightening intrusion by a mysterious man.

She says she never felt her mom believed her story - or that the man kept returning.

I won't go the easy route (and nasty) route about this rape story, except to say it sounds like an utter hallucination, and if your mom, your protector, isn't buying that "mystery man" is sneaking through your window every night to molest you, that's probably some pretty good evidence it was all in that bloated vat of bad chemicals you call a head.

What is amazing is that Rosie never was funny, and obviously was always hideously unattractive, and yet she is, hateful as it is for me to admit it, a Major Celebrity.

It reminds me of that Supreme Court nominee who was challenged on grounds of being stupid. One of his boneheaded supporters said something like, "People with mediocre minds have a right to be represented on the Supreme Court too," perhaps the most damning show of "support" in the past century.

How sad does one have to be to actually look at Rosie and say, "Yeah, there's a together woman with a lot on the ball, delightful and funny and attractive, the sort of person I wish I could meet, maybe even wish I could be?" She's a celebrity for that sad segment of our society that can't even aspire to venerate someone with genuine talent and charisma like, say, Bruce Villanche.

I guess I get a bit of that too, given that the more pathetic specimens on the left view me as a kind of low-level celebrity or minor political macher.

I've got a bit of that "Rosie O'Donnell magnetism," I suppose.*

* And of course you guys too. We were all celebrities that night, with our own very sad pathetic corps of paparazzi.

Honestly, I'm trying to avoid all this crap, because I don't want to throw traffic to a lame site that has a collective man-crush on me, but I do see some of you are over there. Please stop, they're not worth it. You're arguing with lice.

Bonus! Dem- and Ron Paul donor Barry Manilow won't appear on The View because he refuses to share the stage with someone as despicable as Elizabeth Hasselback.

Unlike most celebrity stunts, I'm willing to give Manilow his props for courage here. He gets invited to be on television about as frequently as I do. I admit he's putting his conscience before his career; by refusing to come on The View, he's forgoing literally dozens of dollars from the gate of his massively unpromoted concert at Six Flags Hershey Park (where, in a musical first, the horn section will ride the Log Flume throughout the show).

Posted by: Ace at 10:22 AM | Comments (59)
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There has been a quasi-Messianic vibe surrounding this guy for a while; he doesn't seem to have supporters so much as he has Disciples.

But after a bit of snark from a Washington Times blogger, the deification of Ron Paul (the Only (Son of) Man Who Can Save America) achieves semi-official status:

I'd like to chastise some of my fellow Ron Paul supporters. I think that by allowing comments that say some pretty nasty things about her, Andrea is showing considerably more class than those of you who are making those kind of comments.

REPENT!!! And maybe even retract and apologize.

Individual journalists are not responsible for unfair, biased media policies, and though we can almost be forgiven for going into attack mode out of our consequent frustration, we need to occupy a higher ground. Defend Ron against untrue accusations, and point out the superiority of his positions. But try to imagine the respectful way in which HE would respond to someone like Mrs. Billup in a public forum, and make your responses be of a similar caliber.

Seriously, apart from his excellent performance in that Lemon Party advert, I really can't think of any particular reason to beatify Ron Paul yet.

Maybe after he puts us on the gold standard again. Wait, that's too easy; the gold standard is for pussies. The platinum standard, I guess. Every dollar in America will be backed by three atoms of platinum.

Fun fact: All of the platinum ever mined in the world in all of history could comfortably fit in a a living room. I read that. That doesn't mean it's true, but someone did take the time to write that down.

Posted by: Ace at 09:53 AM | Comments (29)
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Survey: Most Americans Love Jake, Hate The Fat Man

There's also this. Shhh. We don't want to wake up public opinion; it's having itself a little nap.

U.S. combat deaths in Iraq for the last month have dropped by more than two-thirds compared with October of last year, while the total death toll has been reduced almost 50 percent since September.

An analysis by Cybercast News Service, based on Pentagon casualty reports, reflects a steady decline in the casualties, which the U.S. military says represents progress in Iraq.

...

"I don't want to be too optimistic and say we turned a corner," Danielson told Cybercast News Service. "But success breeds success. The more havens we are able to find, the more encouraged Iraqi citizens will be to come forward and help us find people."

October reportedly marks the fifth consecutive month of decline in deaths, and the lowest rate of casualties since March 2006. As of Oct. 28, 31 American military casualties in Iraq were reported by the Department of Defense -- 25 of these were combat-related.

That's compared to the first 28 days of October 2006, when the Pentagon reported 90 U.S. military casualties, 86 of which were combat-related. That''s a 71 percent drop in combat deaths from October 2006 compared with October 2007.

This October also showed a 48 percent reduction from last month's total deaths, as the first 28 days of September saw 60 casualties, 38 from combat. That''s a 34 percent reduction in combat deaths.

Arts & Entertainment: Local Art-House Theater To Host Retrospective on the Oevure of Steven Seagal
Panelists Will Answer Question, "What the Fuck Was Up With The Fringe Jacket In "On Deadly Ground"?

In addition there's an Anbar-style "awakening" now going on in Taji.

"(The Taji Awakening) involves all the sheiks (in Taji), both Sunni and Shi'a. Over the period of four weeks now, it has gathered momentum," Burke said. "The movement here has become dynamic."

He said that the largest gathering of Sunni and Shi'a sheiks in Iraq occurred on Aug. 20 in the Taji area and that the terrorist forces in the area are now "on the run" because of the sectarian reconciliation. As a result, the overall quality of life in rural North Baghdad Province has improved, with marketplaces "flourishing" and critical infrastructure needs being met, according to Burke.

Col. Mike Bridges, who heads up the governance section of the EPRT, concurs with Burke that progress has been made, but specifies that the reconciliation starts at the local level. "It really did start with our brigade commander's philosophy in engaging the senior tribal sheiks," said Bridges. He added that the brigade commander tired of his soldiers getting hurt and of good local people being terrorized when they tried to make changes in their community. The changes in Taji began with a simple outreach program using fliers to promote the idea of Iraqi national unity against terrorism with the support of Americans.

Col. Bridges said that the sheiks realized this year that they really were neighbors who have lived together for a very long time. They are now using their traditional roles to bring about the sectarian reconciliation.

"It's been building momentum," he said. "More and more of them are saying 'Hmm. (Al-Qaeda in Iraq) is just a few guys. This is our home.' They're coming together and are looking for some kind of means to make this legitimate. The first (reconciliation meeting) I went to was only a dozen sheiks. The next one was 120. I didn't go to the next one, but our boss, Mr. Burke, did, and there were 1,000 Sunni and Shi'a tribal leaders together under one tent. Their family members were wearing T-shirts that said 'One Iraq, Stop Sectarianism, Stop the Violence.'"

Col. Bridges finished by saying that the troop surge is essential to the reconciliation of the Iraqi Sunni and Shi'a communities. According to Bridges, before the surge, soldiers would visit communities and then leave, whereas now they are embedded in the communities, empowering them to fight terrorism in Iraq.

"The surge has only been really in effect for two months," Bridges says. "It took all that time in the spring to get all the surge troops on the ground. They had to get oriented to the communities and neighborhoods that they were operating in. You have to give them time to affect the surge."

Dustin "Screech" Diamond To Appear At Six Flags At Busch Gardens, Sign His New Album, Act Wildly Inappropriately Around Your Teenaged Daughters

And this is several days old now, but tribal leaders kidnapped by jihadis have been quickly freed thanks to tips from locals.

Just 24 hours after the capture of 11 Sunni and Shia tribal leaders in northern Baghdad, the Iraqi Army has freed eight of the sheikhs. Meanwhile, Multinational Forces Iraq has identified the Mahdi Army commander responsible for the kidnappings and has begun to name other Mahdi Army leaders as being involved in criminal and insurgent activity.

Iraqi soldiers conducted the raid in a yet-to-be-identified region near Baghdad, likely with the aid of US Special Forces and killed four of the kidnappers. "We have rescued eight of the hostages and are working to free the others. We killed four of the kidnappers," Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al Askari said.

POETRY CORNER

"Kitten Piss and Tuna Fish"

Kitten Piss and Tuna Fish
smell alot alike, it's nifty!
Some may say coincidence
But I think God is thrifty!

You should also know that you can now get Stain-Free Haggard Pants for $60 for two pair. Pretty good, huh?

Rip-offs: I'm 99% sure the Jake and the Fat Man joke is from a Letterman Top Ten. The Kitten Piss poem is from an old National Lampoon, from the Ian Maxtone Graham (sp?) era.

Posted by: Ace at 09:45 AM | Comments (6)
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But wait -- Didn't Israel just hit Syria? Where was the Rain of Holy Fire? Do the Mullahs observe the one-week rule before making that phone call after a hook-up?

There are times we despair that they are holding all the high cards. Terrorism, terror missiles, a love of death that trumps most concerns about their own well-being.

We hold some high cards, too, though. And they know it, and it scares them.

Those who love life can be ruthlessly deadly when forced to be, too.

Posted by: Ace at 09:41 AM | Comments (21)
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What's a Lemon Party? I gather it's a euphemism for very old gay dudes all getting together in a wrinkly scrum and playing shuffleboard with their genitals.

This fake commercial on the edge of not safe for work. It's not actually pornographic, but that's the sort of thing it's making a joke about. So as usual, a warning. Thanks to Scott for this, who tells me he's "Checker-Playing Priapic Septungenarian Number Three." But he says he just did it for the per-diem, so everything's cool. more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:06 AM | Comments (24)
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They're stripping the entire exterior of the condo I live in. Last week they were working on nearby units but not mine; today they actually began hammering like Angry Gods right on the outside of my bedroom walls.

It was the wrong night to stay up 'till 4am. Though one can say that of most nights.

It's now lunch time. They stopped... for now. The angry hammers still echo in my eardrums though. And they'll be back at it within ten minutes.

Not really related, but I want to thank everyone who came out to the party on Saturday night, and tell those who couldn't come they were missed. It was wonderful to meet so many people, and I have to say, apart from the simple pleasantness of meeting nice people, I really had a non-egotistical, sort of at-peace-with-the-universe glow from so many people just being so damned charitable and friendly to me. I know that I didn't get to spend nearly enough time with everyone as I would have liked; I was trying to be a Proper Host and say a brief hello to everyone.

I really don't say this often enough, but I do appreciate your caring enough to read this site, and, even more than that, caring enough to send well-wishes whenever you suspect (or I whine) that my life is going badly, or at least not as fabulously as I'd always hoped it would. That kind of psychic support is something that unfortunately too few people have, and as one of the few luck enough to have that kind of utterly undeserved kindness of strangers, I do appreciate it, and realize what a strange and nice thing it is.

Posted by: Ace at 08:54 AM | Comments (155)
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I have counted the votes, and you morons decided that you wanted me to publish the epic poem that won Fox News' Miss Suzanne Sena's heart.

It's perhaps the finest work ever published in the history of the blogosphere. I say that humbly. The credit, of course, does not go to me. I am simply the vessel thru which Suzanne Sena's inspirational essence flows. (See how great that line is? It merely hints at what is to come.)

I'll put this epic masterpice in the extended entry, so that you won't have to read it if this is of no interest to you. Don't let the fact that this will most likely be thought of by future generations as a work that is as important as "Beowulf" prejudice your decision.

And now, for your voyeuristic pleasure, I present to you my masterpiece. How long did it take me to write it? A lifetime, my friends. A lifetime.

UPDATE: They are trying to bury my masterpiece with lots of new posts, so I am bumping this one closer to the top. Humor me, or I'll publish Volume II. more...

Posted by: Jack M. at 08:50 AM | Comments (59)
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The author of the massive Wheel of Time series had been suffering from cardiac amyloidosis. He was working on the 12th and final book in the series when he died due to complications from his disease.

I just started reading the series last month after years of mocking its length and what I believed was the repetitive nature of the novels. I have to say, I've been enjoying it a great deal.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:47 AM | Comments (22)
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