The AP has pre-game comments from Senators Graham, Specter, Biden, and Kerry ahead of General Petraeus' report on Iraq. The headline notes "Biden faults Petraeus' assessment", though it might have been more accurate to say "Biden ignores Petraeus' assessment."

Biden went on Meet the Press and had this to say:

The reality is that, although there has been some mild progress on the security front, there is, in fact, no real security in Baghdad or Anbar province, where I was dealing with the most serious problem, sectarian violence.

This is consistent with the Left's most recent tactic as they start to panic ahead of positive reports coming out of Iraq: portraying military progress as irrelevant.

Biden did distinguish himself from other Democratic Presidential candidates by noting that he would never vote to cut off troop funding. Talk of "dates certain", "benchmarks", and "cutting funding" are still being batted around by the Left as they frantically seek to end the Iraq War before more good news stiffens the spines of the wavering public. (Video is available at CrooksandLiars, but you'll have to suffer Biden's infantilisation of our military; he only refers to soldiers as "kids.")

That was Kerry's take. He continues to suggest that things would just work out if only we would set a date on which to cut and run.

Specter continues his disgraceful performance on Iraq:

As I've said in the past, unless we see some light at the end of the tunnel here, very closely examining what General Petraeus and others have to say, I think there's a general sense that there needs to be a new policy.

Someone should have mentioned that the troop surge was a change in policy. His remarks are not surprising, given that he was opposed to the surge from the beginning. He said in December that he was "inclined to support the conclusions" of the Iraq Study Group. Does he still agree given the group's latest report?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:56 PM | Comments (88)
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An author at lefty site ThinkProgress is lamenting the fact that "

On Friday, CNN correspondent Kelli Arena commented on the new bin Laden tape (see it on YouTube):

At times he comes off like an angry blogger chastising Americans for electing President Bush twice and the Democrats for not doing more to stop the Iraq war.

The New York Times' David Brooks followed suit and simultaneously ridiculed blog commenters while speaking on PBS's NewsHour (see it on YouTube):

You read this thing, and itÂ’s like heÂ’s been sitting around reading lefty blogs, and heÂ’s one of these childish people posting rants at the bottom the page, you know, Noam Chomsky and all this stuff.

I don't think that's far from the truth. I doubt bin Laden is reading the Left Blogosphere, but it is undeniable that terrorist PR efforts make use of the internet to fashion their message. I don't think that there is a more ready-made package of anti-Bush, anti-War on Terror media than that provided daily by the Left Blogosphere.

Which net-savy terrorist may be writing bin Laden's script? The Telegraph has an article today linking traitor Adam Gadahn to bin Laden's latest video. Gadahn is the only American charged with treason in the last 55 years.

What surprised analysts was his use of the language of Left-wing protesters, which showed detailed knowledge of the economic travails of middle America.

...

A former senior US intelligence official said: "It has Adam Gadahn written all over it." Mike Baker, a former CIA covert operations officer, said the tape left bin Laden with "the title of biggest gas bag in the terrorist world".

ThinkProgress may want to address why bin Laden sounds so much like a progressive commenter while it takes legacy media and the Right Blogosphere to task for noticing the similarity. Just think, the next leftist commenter whose rantings you try to avoid could be working for the other side.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:09 PM | Comments (14)
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Strong words came from Israeli Industry, Trade, and Labor Minister Eli Yishai, as reported in the Jerusalem Post today. Yishai was referring to eight Israeli neo-Nazis who were recently arrested, each of whom were granted favorable immigration status under the Law of Return. All eight were admitted from the former Soviet Union.

The Law of Return provides that immigrants can receive Israeli citizenship if they can claim one Jewish grandparent. They need not be Jewish themselves to benefit from favorable immigration status.

The arrests have set off debates throughout the country about amending the Law of Return. Claims of discrimination against immigrants from the former Soviet states are also being traded.

Finally, Drew can add these fellows to his Dumb Criminal Round Up; they videotaped their crimes, which include assaulting Orthodox Jews in the street, vandalizing synagogues, and attacking people they thought were punks, gays, or (ironically) foreigners.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:34 PM | Comments (8)
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The genius of invention.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

The Armchair Cruiser.

Armchair Cruisers has added a new niche to the personal transportation market with its offerings – the company’s magnificently upholstered motorized armchairs range in size from single to three seaters and cost from US$3995 for the single seat electric drive model, to US$7995 for the gas-powered V-twin love seat.

Videos of the sweet rides available here.

That loveseat is sa-weet!

Rednecks motorize just damn everything. I watched 'Trick My Truck' this weekend and got educated.

All those years wasted in college when I could have been learning something useful.

Posted by: LauraW. at 03:10 PM | Comments (10)
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There’s another Democratic debate tonight but you may not have heard much about it because it’s the ‘Spanish’ debate. I use the quotes around Spanish because the candidates, even the two who speak Spanish (Richardson and Dodd), will speak in English while their answers are translated. At least that’s the theory, I am sure those two will work in as much Spanish as possible.

But fear not, non-Spanish speakers can use their closed captioning to see what the candidates say.

I get there are a lot of people who speak Spanish in this country (Univisioin, which is airing the debate, is apparently the 5th most watched network in the country) but why conduct the debate in Spanish? Is the pool of native born Americans of voting age who speak Spanish but not English that big? And arenÂ’t naturalized citizens from any country supposed to demonstrate a proficiency in English before becoming citizens and thus eligible to vote? So, what exactly is the purpose of this exercise?

The one interesting thing about tonight is that it doesn't seem the Democrats have spoken about immigration in any of their previous debates (and God help me, I think IÂ’ve seen them all), including the one that took place the night the amnesty bill died in the Senate. It seems likely that will change tonight.

Univision offered the Republicans the same chance but all the candidates declined or failed to respond save one. John McCain. Oh and when the idea was originally floated in June, RNC Chairman and Senator Mel Martinez thought the idea was just swell.

“I think it would be terrific, I think it would be a good idea,” said Martinez, whose candidacy for RNC chairman was opposed by some conservative Republicans because of his stance on immigration reform. “I’ve been looking for ways in which I could encourage something like that happening. I think having candidates address the largest minority group in America would be a terrific thing.

“A network that the Hispanic community of America watches would be the right forum,” he said.

The debate airs tonight on Univision from 7-8:30.

Posted by: DrewM. at 01:17 PM | Comments (17)
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Stories about her brother's tour in Iraq, blowing up children in a fashion reminiscent, presumably, of Jenjis Khan.

A few minor technical Beauchampian problems: He wasn't in Iraq, he was in Afghanistan. And he says he saw no children being blown up.

The college newspaper is apologizing, but I don't see why. The facts may not be true, but the overarching narrative is correct. After all, we know that surely at some point US troops have blown up children, either accidentally, negligently, or part of a hard moral choice about collateral deaths; what does it matter what the actual facts are?

The story speaks to a deeper Truth. And it's this deeper truth that's what really matters.

Journalists? No. Philosopher-Kings. Journalists report facts. Philosophers weigh heavy issues of Truth. And Kings, of course, are The Deciders.

Posted by: Ace at 01:17 PM | Comments (12)
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From Bob Dylan, of all people, via the only song of his I really, really like.

Let's hope the pumps will work because the vandals didn't steal the handles.

Thanks to Paul Anka's lighting guy, who swears he was a rather good boss. Just all about the conscious (sic) and integrity.

Posted by: Ace at 11:56 AM | Comments (8)
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A reader wrote to me that I ought to be looking into this possibility, as that's the job of bloggers. I ignored him because I figured it was a dead end.

Maybe not quite dead, though.

The Booman Tribute asserts that all contemporaneous, proof-of-recent-life references are made when the video is frozen, with only an audiotrack playing (which is much easier to fake, of course).

Osama Bin Laden's widely publicized video address to the American people has a peculiarity that casts serious doubt on its authenticity: the video freezes at about 1 minute and 58 seconds, and motion only resumes again at 12:30. The video then freezes again at 14:02 remains frozen until the end. All references to current events, such as the 62nd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan, and Sarkozy and Brown being the leaders of France and the UK, respectively, occur when the video is frozen! The words spoken when the video is in motion contain no references to contemporary events and could have been (and likely were) made before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Allah is, bless his skeptical heart, intrigued but cautious, noting that a statement made while the video is flowing about "Democrats' inability to implement your desire to end the war" suggest it's of recent vintage.

I'm not altogether sure of that, A-Man. The Democrats were also intent to end the war in 2004 -- John Kerry, anyone? -- when we know Osama was alive, and so it is quite possible bin Laden would make precisely such a reference back then. He has, if I'm not mistaken, made these sorts of references in the past, has he not? About the need for politicians to end the war? The reference to Democrats being unable to end the war may be a reference to their failure in the 2004 elections, not their success after the 2006 elections.

So I don't know if that single reference proves he was alive after the November 2006 elections.

As a general matter, when someone is doctoring a video, you have to assume there's a reason for the doctoring. What reason could that be? I imagine there's several possibilities, but one that must obviously be considered is, well, the obvious one. That he's dead, and they had to take an old tape of him and stick in current-events references to project the falsehood that he's actually alive at all.

Stop the ACLU is following this story and collecting up opinions, and Dan Riehl is interested in the less-juicy implication that he appears very weak, based on his lack of making his typical hand gestures.

Interesting. I guess the situation is as it was: People may suspect he's dead, but they have no clear proof he is, and so the most one can say is that he "might be dead." I don't see the current tape changing that; it still seems like he might be dead. It's awfully curious that all of the demonstrable references to recent events occur during freeze-frames. Why should that be, if not to clumsily hide the fact they are bits of new audio layered in to establish proof of life?

Posted by: Ace at 11:52 AM | Comments (33)
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Why, female pr0n, of course! What did you think?

Check out all the fantasy men in the layout at the above link.

Don't worry, the link is quite safe for work.

Stein hoist to Dr. Sanity, via Insty's wiffe Dr. Helen.

Posted by: Open Blog at 08:22 AM | Comments (30)
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Mrs. Peel posted this in a comment over at Splitters, and it's just too cute not to steal.

Singin' In The Rain

Suffers for the lack of suspiciously ethnic aliens, if you ask me.

Posted by: LauraW. at 07:52 AM | Comments (6)
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