It's been a day or so since TusharD, a regular here at Ace of Spades HQ, has commented on the site. Since we strongly encourage (i.e. force through blackmail) the regulars to comment at least once a day to keep the stats up, his absence has been missed.

Fortunately, he has a good reason.

Two good reasons, actually.

TusharD is now the proud father of Agastya and Atharvan, twin boys who were born September 25. Agastya was 6 lb 9 oz, and Atharvan was 6 lb 10 oz. Normally, the sudden entry of two new brown people into the world would cause us to soil ourselves, but we'll make an exception in this case.

Congratulations, Tushar. Those of us who are parents are encouraged to give plenty of good advice to the new parents in the comments. My advice? When the nurses in the hospital want to take the little guys into the nursery for the night, let them. Trust me, it's the best sleep you'll get in weeks.

Posted by: Slublog at 04:54 PM | Comments (129)
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Byron York at The Corner has the story of Ted KennedyÂ’s attempt to add hate crimes legislation to the 2008 Defense Authorization Act. Why is a hate crimes bill relevant to funding the militaryÂ…because thatÂ’s where the hate is!

"This amendment will strengthen the defense authorization act by protecting those who volunteer to serve in the military," Kennedy said. "The vast majority of our soldiers serve with honor and distinctionÂ…but sadly, our military bases are not immune from the violence that comes with hatred."

According to York, Kennedy is worried the problem is getting worse.

Kennedy suggested that the alleged problem might be getting worse, citing a Southern Poverty Law Center report that extremists are joining the military, putting it, in Kennedy's words, "at a higher risk of hate-motivated violence."

In all honesty I doubt Kennedy really believes hate crimes are a big problem in the military or that he's even given it much thought. ItÂ’s just that his desire to pass a bill adding sexual preference and gender identity to the list of protected classes is so strong heÂ’s willing to use whatever club is handy. If it means smearing the military, so be it.

By the way, KennedyÂ’s law is not limited to the military and a vote is scheduled for tomorrow.

Posted by: DrewM. at 03:31 PM | Comments (37)
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Back in 1967, before satellite imagery was at your fingertips on the intertubes, nobody thought it would be a problem. You couldn't see from the ground that the building was shaped like a swastika.

Well now you can.

The Navy will spend $600,000 to alter the shape of a building built in 1967 that looks like, I shit you not, a swastika.

I am not an architect, and I don't play one on television either, but, help me here, did somebody not look at the floor plans and raise their hand and ask the question?

Uhm. uh, 'scuse me, Mike? Does that kinda, I dunno, remind you of something? Something that we, you know, asploded off of the Riechstag about 22 years ago? Turn it like this, see? See? I'm just sayin.

The Navy decided to alter the buildings' shape following requests this year by Anti-Defamation League regional director Morris Casuto and U.S. Rep. Susan Davis.

"I don't ascribe any intentionally evil motives to this," Casuto said of the design. "It just happened. The Navy has been very good about recognizing the problem. The issue is over."

Well, as many of you know, I'm not a big fan of ascribing bad intentions to people I just don't know.

I got no problem pointing out stupid.

Posted by: Dave In Texas at 01:25 PM | Comments (82)
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From the amateur leftist webzine Slate.

Finally they're putting their skills to use against a subject they're not buffoonishly ignorant about.

Posted by: Ace at 12:22 PM | Comments (20)
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The BBC doesn't seem to answer the important question: are the Kurds copacetic with this new "hot-pursuit" agreement?

Journalism, yo.

Posted by: Ace at 12:19 PM | Comments (6)
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It just so happened that this fugitive happened to know precisely whose palms to grease in order to help get Hillary! critical support from local politicians.

He just knows these things.

Certainly Hillary! or her staff weren't feeding him the names or anything. That would involve her closely with an illegal fraud and campaign donation scam, and we know of course that is impossible.

Posted by: Ace at 11:30 AM | Comments (15)
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The deuce you say! I hear you all screaming.

Somehow straining to find a connection between the MoveOn BetrayUs ad and a Republican's asserted lack of concern for the troops, David Schuster demands a Congresswoman name the last man in her district killed in Iraq. He pounces when she doesn't recall the name he has in mind.

Putting aside this is a somewhat ludicrous comparison, ConservativeBelle finds that, at least based on publically-available information like zip codes, the fallen soldier in question didn't even live in the Congresswoman's district at all.

Posted by: Ace at 10:36 AM | Comments (29)
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Yup. Even though other NYTs staffers admit it violated the paper's policy to give MoveOn such a huge discount (which wasn't really the standby rate as claimed, as standby ads can run any time in a seven day window, and MoveOn wanted the ad to run specifically on the day of Petraeus' testimony), the NYT claims there was "no bias" in the generous discouting because they couldn't even begin to guess what sort of advocacy might run under an ad slammer-headlined "General BetrayUs."

As they had no idea which political way this ad might cut, of course they are innocent of political bias.

They don't think we're "poor, uneducated and easily led" as the Washington Post once declared. They think were actually diagnosably learning-disabled.

UPDATE [Dave in Texas]: MoveOn pays the Times an additional $77,508 for the ad.

Also, some liberal blogger complains (no link, it's in the article) that Rudy Giuliani's campaign should have to pay up too for an ad they ran at the standby rate, but the Times confirms they were not asked to commit to a date and they didn't.

Posted by: Ace at 10:31 AM | Comments (15)
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I didn't bring down my laptop because I didn't think I'd need it.

Now it turns out I have a friend's apartment all to myself Friday and Saturday and Sunday morning, but he's taking his laptop.

If anyone in the NY area wouldn't mind me using an old, barely-working laptop you may having hanging around just because you can't bear to delete all the pron you have stored on it, let me know. I can of course do the internet cafe thing, but I'm lazy and would rather blog from the comfort of my friend's bathtub.

Posted by: Ace at 10:27 AM | Comments (26)
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I've taken a skeptical view of all the bad polling for the upcoming elections, but damn, if we can only win part of the solid south (okay, border, whatever) with a Favorite Son we are in more trouble than I'd thought.

I cannot conceive of Hillary! actually winning this thing. But perhaps my power of conception is lagging.

Posted by: Ace at 10:23 AM | Comments (59)
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