One of the last mentions. Just in case you don't know, some of the morons will be meeting in Boston this Saturday night, 8-12 or so. (8 to ? sounds kinda gay, like we're going to wind up in a hot tub with the singer of 96 Tears.)

If you want to come, write laura at laurawtips (at that google-based email service, if you know what I'm saying) for specifics.

Posted by: Ace at 09:25 AM | Comments (18)
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Karol pulled her stunt of distributing pamphlets promising the real truth of 9/11 at Ground Zero yesterday, floating the almost-too-incredible-to-believe theory that 19 radical Muslims working as an Al Qaeda cell crashed four planes into buildings and the earth six years ago. She says most appreciated it. And those that didn't appreciate it... well, I guess that was the plan.

Mary Katherine Ham was there too, snapping pictures, reporting on the Truthers.

The enthusiastically eyelinered boy on the right of this picture was extra obnoxious. Most of the Truthers spoke in quiet-to-slightly-raised tones with people or silently held signs. This guy yelled into the crowds of commuters and mourners: "If you believe the official story, you're in psychological denial! You're sheep! You are sheep!"

"Enthusiastically eyelinered boy." Heh. I know that whenever I'm trying to get to the bottom of a global conspiracy, the first guy I turn to is the dude who just came off of playing Magenta in a guerrilla street theater all-drag performance of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Posted by: Ace at 09:11 AM | Comments (26)
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That Sandy Burger. Always misplacing codeword-clearance irreplaceable documents down his socks, and then into his shredder! What a character!

Well, he did his job, didn't he? He protected the Crime Family. He gets to be a capo again.

Posted by: Ace at 09:01 AM | Comments (24)
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel has decided that a sanctions regime against Iran would be a waste of time and damaging to the German economy. This is probably the nail in the coffin for multi-state diplomatic efforts with the mullah-run rogue state.

Germany's new stance has made it even more likely that Iran will face aggressive (read: military) efforts to keep it from continuing its nuclear development. Irritatingly, that may be okay with Germany.

[A]ccording to diplomats from other countries, [the Germans] gave the distinct impression that they would privately welcome, while publicly protesting, an American bombing campaign against Iran's nuclear facilities.

One can hardly blame Germany for hoping the U.S. will take care of Iran; it doesn't have a force projection capability to speak of. The shameful thing is that Germany may condemn a bombing campaign that it wanted.

Europe is caught in a trap of its own making. It really doesn't like the U.S., but it knows that there are some things that simply cannot be done without our help. It's even harder for prideful European leaders who ran on platforms opposing America to be seen working with the U.S. on international problems like Iran.

Fortunately, Merkel doesn't have that problem. She's worked hard to repair the damage done to German-U.S. relations caused by her rabid anti-American predecessor, Gerhard Schröder. The question now will be whether she has the courage to publicly support her convictions.

UPDATE: I see that Ace got to this story before me. Confine your comments to the issue of European love-hate for the U.S. Ace has thoughts on war with Iran.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:57 AM | Comments (11)
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And Germany makes the surprise and indelicate public announcement that they will oppose such efforts.

They can't have it both ways. There may -- may -- be a small chance that non-military methods can check the Iranian mullahs' nuclear ambitions. They can either support this non-military method as they like, or not; but some action will be taken.

As we've long thought, Europe is simply Chamberlainized beyond redemption. It was this same nonsense, actually, that forced the war in Iraq they so opposed.

Over at Hot Air, a digest of the buzz in DC; full-scale bombing operations are being planned and everyone seems to know it. Which is rather suspicious in itself; it does seem to a deliberate leak designed to increase diplomatic leverage.

FoxNews says the timeframe is sometime in the "next 8-10 months," which I suppose is just far enough off to allow the world to digest either it can attempt to forestall this through real efforts to denuclearize Iran themselves, or we will do it for them, using the means the most abhor.

From Allah's link, the real "Neocon Madmen" -- Iran's Mullahcracy -- trying to talk tough:

The new head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards warned the United States Tuesday that Tehran has identified its "weak points" in Iraq and Afghanistan and would launch a crushing response to any attack. The comments by Mohammad Ali Jaafari, appointed head of the elite force by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, just 10 days ago, come amid mounting tensions between Tehran and Washington over Iran's controversial nuclear drive and its role in Iraq.

"The Revolutionary Guards have identified all the weak points of the enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan and based on this have consolidated the defensive capabilities of the country," General Jaafari said.

"And if the enemy wants to take any impudent action the Islamic Republic will for sure give a decisive and teeth-breaking response," he said, according to state broadcasting.

Jaafari did not explicitly say that Iran would strike the US "weak points" if attacked but Tehran has always warned of a tough response to any aggression while insisting it would never initiate an attack.

I don't mean to be over-sanguine about war as I was before Iraq, but I do know that the US military remains capable of at least one mission: Utterly destroying and decapitating an enemy government/power structure and rendering a country ungovernable and ungoverned.

At this point I'd gladly trade continuing chaos in Iraq for fresh anarchy and mayhem in Iran.

Oh, and... There's this business about Israel bombing Syria's nascent nuke program, too. So says the rumor about the recent incursion into Syrian airspace.

Posted by: Ace at 08:46 AM | Comments (24)
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Given that we're already just slightly ahead of (or behind) the replacement rate, the enviros now simply want us troublesome humans to reduce ourselves. A culling, we might call it.

The amateur leftist webzine Slate snarks a bit about this, as usual, just to seem above it all and avoid committing to a position. The article is, however, generally sympathetic to the Agent Smith thesis: Humans are a virus.

Oh, if we all just disappeared. According to The World Without Us, Alan Weisman's strangely comforting vision of human annihilation, the Earth would be a lot better off. In his doomsday scenario, freshwater floods would course through the New York subway system, ailanthus roots would heave up sidewalks, and a parade of coyotes, bears, and deer would eventually trot across the George Washington Bridge and repopulate Manhattan. Nature lovers can take solace in the idea that the planet will thrive once we've finally destroyed ourselves with global warming. But Weisman takes the fantasy one step further: Let's not wait for climate change, he says. Let's start depopulating right now.

Instead of burning down our numbers with oil and gas, we might follow the advice of the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, who tells Weisman that everyone in the world should stop having kids all at once. Weisman isn't up for quite so drastic a measure, but he makes his own pitch, moderate in comparison: Let's cut the birth rate to one child per couple, for a few generations at least. The population would dwindle by about 5 billion people over the next century, he says, ensuring the habitability of the Earth for the 1.6 billion who remained. At that point, they could all reap the rewards of a more spacious planet, sharing in "the growing joy of watching the world daily become more wonderful." It seems like a notion from the fringe, but Weisman's book has become a mainstream best seller. Could population control be the next big thing in green culture?

...

What's the environmental cost of having a child? In the crudest terms, you've added another version of yourself into the world, which means you're potentially doubling your carbon-dioxide emissions over the total life of your family. That's a high estimate, since our kids won't spew as much greenhouse gas as we do—automobiles, appliances, light bulbs, and everything else will become more efficient in coming generations. But these marginal improvements aren't going to make our babies carbon-neutral. They'll just contribute to global warming at somewhat lower rates than we do.

Our other green lifestyle choices can't even begin to offset the cost of adding a brand-new CO2-emitter to the population. When I ran my own numbers through Al Gore's carbon calculator, I discovered that a switch to 100 percent wind and solar power would reduce my emissions by just 1.3 tons per year. That's not even enough to account for one quarter of today's average American. Meanwhile, I'd have to do quite a bit of driving around in a Hummer H3 to mimic the environmental impact of creating another version of me. Not to mention the fact that my children might eventually decide to have their own children, who would emit even more carbon dioxide down the line.

Critics of population-based environmentalism point out that the people most likely to cut back on their baby emissions are also the ones most likely to instill their children with green values. It's the Idiocracy argument: If all the eco-conscious Americans stopped having kids, their numbers would decline. But having fewer greenies around would be a net loss for the environment only if each greenie baby did more good for the planet than harm—i.e., if the value of his or her vote exceeded the costs of his or her CO2 emissions. (If that's true, environmentalists should have as many children as possible, to stuff the ballots for Dennis Kucinich.) It's also naive to assume our children will embrace our values just because we want them to; for all our preaching, we might end up with a generation of rebellious, gas-guzzling teenagers.

...

As a global solution for climate change, Weisman's depopulation plan may not have much of a chance. ("I knew in advance that I would touch some people's sensitive spots by bringing up the population issue," Weisman told Washington Post readers in an online chat, "but I did so because it's been missing too long from the discussion.") But that's no reason to neglect birth rates from the personal calculus of living green. With the rise of consumer-driven environmentalism, it may be that the McKibben moment has finally arrived. Whether it's eating vegetarian or wearing organic eye shadow, we're all shopping for absolution. We know that babies add more to global warming than anything else in our home. Isn't it time to cut back?

They're not pro-environment, they're just on the other side.

Thanks to Dave from Garfield Ridge.

Posted by: Ace at 08:27 AM | Comments (58)
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Senator Clinton's staff have claimed that Norman Hsu's history of business problems and criminal convictions didn't show up on a background check because they didn't use Hsu's two middle names in the search.

So you're telling me that if I have judgments against me under the name Gabriel R. Malor, they won't show up when someone does a background check for Gabriel Malor? In the words of Cartman, "Sweeeeet."

A background check shouldn't have been the only thing causing Democrats to look a little closer. A man comes out of no-where and raises a million dollars? Did no one wonder who he was?

There is this, too:

Irvine, Calif., businessman Jack Cassidy told the FBI that he sent at least three e-mails to a Clinton campaign official on the West Coast this summer, specifically raising concerns that Hsu was engaged in a risky investment scheme and was using Hillary Clinton's name "in vain" to solicit people for his business proposition, according to a person directly familiar with the matter.

...

Clinton spokesman Wolfson said the campaign did an initial public records search in January when Hsu began raising money. The inquiries from Cassidy this summer prompted the campaign to do a second vetting of Hsu, which turned up nothing derogatory.

Clinton had two shots (at least) to find out about Hsu. Don't blame her, though, it's just that her staff is incompetent.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:13 AM | Comments (25)
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Who's your daddy now bitches?

Col.-Gen. Alexander Rukshin, a deputy chief of the Russian military's General Staff, said in televised remarks. Though, unlike a nuclear bomb, he hastened to add, the "DOAB" doesn't hurt the environment.

In related news, the USAF has announced the development of a truly enviro-friendly bomb inspired by the paint rounds "Oddball" fired from his tank in the WWII documentary Kelly's Heros. The MOAPB (Mother Of All Paint Balls) will be a 50,000lb non-lethal device that can cover 1,000,000 square foot area with sticky biodegradable weapon jamming goop.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 04:58 AM | Comments (29)
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Some things you might have missed while Pixy was duct taping the server back together:

I hope Katie Couric got a t-shirt out of her trip to Iraq because she sure didnÂ’t get any ratings.

In the battle of exclamation point candidates, Teh Fred!Â’s campaign takes a swipe at Hillary! over her having issues with campaign donors. Again. (Via Hot Air Headlines)

Fidel CastroÂ…Truther. The membership of that club just keeps getting more and more disgusting.

And most importantlyÂ…I am tied for the lead with 11 points in the football pool!

Posted by: DrewM. at 07:17 PM | Comments (15)
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Sorry about that, folks. We had another little server meltdown there.

I have a shiny new server with 3x the awesomeness ready to go, and we'll be migrating across to it next Sunday. That should mean a lot fewer little accidents.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:11 PM | Comments (25)
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