Just realized Gabe hadn't put one of these up today or yesterday. Fuckin' slacker.

Maybe also overnight thread, in case no one posts anything else tonight.

Posted by: Open Blog at 06:24 PM | Comments (54)
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In 2004, we might have said John Kerry would make a terrible president and his plans would set the nation back 30 years. Rather than evil, we would have called him misguided. He thought he was doing the right thing. His heart was in the right place, even if his policies were wrong. His beliefs were honestly held.

On the other hand, a not insignificant number of liberals thought Bush was evil and should be tried for war crimes. How can some liberals hold such visceral and vitriolic hatred for us and our beliefs? In a 2007 paper, Jonathan Haidt and Jesse Graham, a couple of social justice researchers, managed to come up with an explanation. Brace yourselves: it turns out that our beliefs are immoral. more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 05:01 PM | Comments (116)
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Well, yea, you'd expect that from them I guess.

...Hispanic leaders said they provided the margin of victory in Florida, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada.

“We feel like we had a big stake in the election and that’s what prompted this historic turnout,” said Janet Murguía, president of the National Council of La Raza. The advocacy group did wait long to begin publicly pushing the new president-elect to recognize this support with key White House and Cabinet positions.

“At some point in the first term we would definitely expect to see an effort to move responsible immigration reform,” Ms. Murguía said. “It would be a big mistake not to act on this important priority.”

This is at odds with where the majority of the public is though. House reps, particularly democrats in economically hard hit areas, could face a LOT of public pressure like happened last time. When it comes to getting reelected or taking a bullet for La Raza, you don't need a Ouija board to know how that plays out. La Raza loses that vote every time. The prime directive for any politician is stay in office.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 04:49 PM | Comments (84)
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Eagles and the Bengals. First one in 6 years.

A tie is like a win to the Bungles.

A tie is like a loss to the Beagles.

Hate that.

Also, I picked Cincy. Covered the nine.

BOOYAH

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 02:49 PM | Comments (59)
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Kinda funny. more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:16 PM | Comments (27)
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Wait, this isn't Michael Bay. It's J.J. Abrams. Kind of looks like that, though.

A bootleg copy of the trailer. Watch it before they take it down.

The origin story of James Tiberius "Maverick" Kirk:

Can't wait to hear the theme song, as rendered by Aerosmith.

Dirty Harry, who found it, uses his telempathic abilities to detect possible crappiness and misfiring.

DrewM. (who tipped me) has a bad feeling about this. And Dirty Harry doesn't think it feels right for Kirk and Spock to fight. Eh, maybe, maybe not. It's important to remember we joined the original series at least a year, probably several, into Kirk's command. So Kirk, McCoy, and Spock already were sorta friends. Here, in the beginning, maybe not so much.

Although I have trouble seeing Spock himself get into a pissing match at any stage in his career.

I still have hopes, but based on this trailer, it's way too ginned up with sturm and drang and exposions and CGI monsters.

Hmmm... Thinking about it: the movie's box office won't be determined by older Trekkies, who are already a given, assumed market. It wil be determined by how many non-Trekkie teenaged boys the movie gets. So the trailer is probably cut to stoke their interest, primarily. Obviously all this stuff is in the movie, but presented at a less frenetic pace it might be good. TOS of course had a fight or a rubber suit monster before every commercial break.

Also, I guess Spock's story arc here is whether he chooses the human or Vulcan path. He might be less dedicated to subverting his emotions at this time. By the end, I'm sure he'll chose the Vulcan way, maybe because he snaps someone's neck in a Vulcan rage or something. I guess that could work.

That's a tiny bit non-canonical, because Spock was already showing the Vulcan reserve in the flashbacks to his time with Captain Pike, the Man in the Box, but 1, who cares, and 2, Spock might have been conflicted at the time, slipping between his human and Vulcan sides as whim might take him.

Posted by: Ace at 12:11 PM | Comments (98)
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In case you didn't know (I didn't), the series starts off with a 2-hour movie -- not two episodes from the show run back to back, but a two hour movie that serves as a prologue to the season. (Twenty-six hours of Bauer this year, I guess.)

It takes place entirely in Africa -- a change of scenery for once.

Sounds good:

It’s a taut, exciting, emotionally impacting two hours, packed full of iconic Bauer moments–my favorite, when he’s talking trash to the useless UN worker and says “Why don’t you go hide in the shelter with the rest of the children.”–and moves effortlessly into the new season.

Thanks to MarkU.

Posted by: Ace at 11:55 AM | Comments (28)
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A long analysis at Smal Wars Journal.

Executive Summary: The situation is far less succeptible to surge tactics due to Afghanistan having a larger population than Iraq (32 million versus Iraq's, what, 25 million?), and furthermore dispersed in small villages rather than concentrated in cities. There is no chance of achieving the doctrinal requirement of 20 insurgent troops (including indigenous forces) per 1000 of the population, even in the Pashtun areas. An optimistic projection of adding eight combat brigades (as opposed to the five surged in Iraq) only gets us a 10:1000 ration of COIN forces to population, which would be helpful, but still is only half of what doctrine suggests.

Add to that the fact that the borders are well-nigh unsecurable and that the Pashtuns in Afghanistan are determined to assist the insurgency -- and that we can't often pursue them across the borders -- and the magnitude of the problem becomes apparent.

Michael Yon, in fact, suggests that we not even attempt the surge, as he thinks the 15,000-40,000 troops we could conceivably insert into Afghanistan aren't enough as it is. He says finish the job in Iraq first.

Bush really should have increased the size of the armed forces by a division or two on Sept 11.

Another point that seems worth mentioning is that thanks to the great (leftwing happy-talk) global crusade against mines, we can't seed the various terrorist trails with mines and channel them into trails controlled by US forces. This despite the fact that the US is extremely cautious about marking, and later removing, mines, and that the loss of life from unimpeded Taliban infiltration into Afghanistan greatly exceeds the possible civilian deaths from minefields (with prominent warning signs and directions to non-mined, but guarded, alternate routes).

Correction: Small Wars Journal, not Long War Journal.

Posted by: Ace at 11:47 AM | Comments (34)
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Overwhelmingly.

That doesn't make it a done deal. The full Parliament still has to vote on it, but the cabinet vote is a pretty good indicator of how they'll vote.

Of course, the Mookster sez "armed resistance" if the occupier does not leave. Which is a great reason to keep disarming them.

“I repeat my demand to the occupier to leave our land without keeping bases or signing agreements,” Mr. Sadr said in a statement read to thousands of supporters at Friday prayers. “If they keep bases, then I would support honorable resistance.”

After issuing his strongly-worded statement he went to a soul food joint and ordered four fried chickens and a coke.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 11:02 AM | Comments (21)
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Ed Morrissey writes that the Diocese of Charleston is backing a South Carolina priest who sent a letter to parishioners which informed them that they "place themselves outside of the full communion of ChristÂ’s Church and under the judgment of divine law" if they vote for Obama rather than McCain.

And then Ed goes on to discuss whether the mere act of voting for a pro-choice candidate constitutes "formal cooperation" with abortion, and thus results in automatic excommunication. Though he doesn't come right out and say that such voters should be excommunicated, he suggests that this would be a permissible reading of the Catechism. And he spends quite a few words explaining that the Church should not ignore its teachings in favor of popularity.

He is wrong, both as to the diocese's support for Father Jay and in his discussion of the Church's teachings with respect to Catholics who vote for pro-choice candidates. I usually try and steer clear of religious issues here (with one disastrous exception last year), but Ed's insistence that Catholics must be single-issue voters goes against the teachings of the Pope. And I won't be silent about that.

Moreover, he misinterprets Father Jay's letter and the diocese's response in a way which may mislead readers into thinking that his own harsh preference has more support than it actually does. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 09:30 AM | Comments (214)
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