Thank you all.

As is tradition, Project Valour IT kicks off it's annual fund drive today. See CDR Slamander's for more information on this great cause.

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Posted by: DrewM at 07:51 AM | Comments (57)
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This is more of an addendum to last night's post than anything else. Obama appears to be abandoning his promised commitment to end government torture.

As a candidate, Mr. Obama said the CIA's interrogation program should adhere to the same rules that apply to the military, which would prohibit the use of techniques such as waterboarding. He has also said the program should be investigated.

Upon review, Mr. Obama may decide he wants to keep the road open in certain cases for the CIA to use techniques not approved by the military, but with much greater oversight.

Advisers caution that few decisions will be made until the team gets a better picture of how the Bush administration actually goes about gathering intelligence, including covert programs, and there could be a greater shift after a full review.

I say "appears" to be flopping because this has all the hallmarks of the other situations where he comes along in 8 hours and offers a "clarification". First, the information comes from Obama's advisers, who apparently think they are authorized to make these kinds of decisions and release them to the media. Second, it's bound to upset some very loudmouthed folks on the Left. The President-elect's usual response to that is to declare that no decisions have been made and "please don't hurt me."

Now, don't get me wrong. I'd love it if Obama saw some sense when it comes to intelligence policy; maybe when he gets some security briefings, he will. But this is another situation where he doesn't seem to stand for anything because the men and women on his team aren't taking direction from him, but rather doing what they want and saying it's all in His Name.

The Administration-elect is only a week old and already it's foundering because of a lack of leadership.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:05 AM | Comments (127)
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Thank you to all of our nation's veterans.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:35 AM | Comments (34)
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Frankly, Israel would be better off with George Galloway as special envoy. This Malley guy is a real piece of work.

...Aides said Obama had sent senior foreign policy adviser Robert Malley to Egypt and Syria over the last few weeks to outline the Democratic candidate's policy on the Middle East...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 04:36 AM | Comments (67)
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Unicorns, UFO's, its all the same shit I guess (link is to a 2002 CNN article).

...former White House chief of staff and an international investigative journalist want to know what the Pentagon knows, calling on it to release classified files about that and other incidents involving unidentified flying objects, or UFOs.

"It is time for the government to declassify records that are more than 25 years old and to provide scientists with data that will assist in determining the real nature of this phenomenon," ex-Clinton aide John Podesta said Tuesday...

...Podesta was one of numerous political and media heavyweights on hand in Washington, D.C., to announce a new group to gain access to secret government records about UFOs.

Specifically, the Coalition for Freedom of Information (CFI) is pressing the Air Force for documents involving Project Moon Dust and Operation Blue Fly, clandestine operations reported to have existed decades ago to investigate UFOs and retrieve objects of unknown origins...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 09:08 PM | Comments (81)
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The "President-elect of the United States" has been giving mixed signals. He talked a lot of game, but it turns out he doesn't actually stand for much of anything.

First, he was for involuntary servitude for college students, then he decided that it should be voluntary and pay $40 per hour! Then he deleted his website and we have no idea what he wants.

Then, he was for the Polish missile-shield when he was talking to Poland's president, but backtracked when he was talking to the U.S. press. (Now, Poland is kowtowing to Obama, saying it was all a misunderstanding.) This is an echo of Obama's NAFTA gaffe with Canada, which was also blamed on a misunderstanding with one of Obama's advisers.

This morning he was for closing Guantanamo Bay, and having the detainees face criminal charges in U.S. criminal courts, courts using the Uniform Code of Military Justice, or new, specially created national security courts. This evening, he has backtracked yet again.

"There is absolutely no truth to reports that a decision has been made about how and where to try the detainees, and there is no process in place to make that decision until his national security and legal teams are assembled," said Denis McDonough, a senior foreign policy adviser for the transition team, in a statement.

So where did those original reports come from? According to the AP, Obama's legal advisers.

One hand doesn't know what the other is doing so we end up with many conflicting statements. Mr. President-elect has to keep "clarifying" the positions his subordinates keep releasing on his behalf. It's almost like he has no leadership experience whatsoever.

Ah Ha!

I knew I'd written something just like this before; it sounded so familiar. Here's what I said July 1st when Mr. President-elect started flip-flopping after he finished off Clinton.

We generally expect that statements issued in a candidate's name come from the candidate, and whether they do or not, we impute the substance of the statement to the candidate. In Obama's case we've seen a pattern of conflicting statements in his name. I suspect that happens when different parts of his staff want different things. The left hand doesn't know what the far left hand is doing and Obama is too green to exercise meaningful control over his own office. The result is all these "distracting" and "inartful" statements.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:22 PM | Comments (133)
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Clothes, recriminations and the future.

Heh...she just took a shot at Sullivan and Trig Trooferism. Of course she did it by knocking 'some bloggers' but we know who she is talking about...an insane fuck who writes for the website of a formerly respectable magazine.

Um, she really needs to do a little differentiating between lefty nut job bloggers who flung shit like monkeys in the zoo and guys like Ace who you was out there fighting for her and McCain. A lot of her support started in the righty blogoshpere and she shouldn't be lumping them in with the likes of Sullivan. Just saying.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:05 PM | Comments (178)
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Well, of course he'd say that.

I know it is absurd to debate the rules of a reality that does not exist, but this genuinely irks me. You cannot kill a vampire with an MDF stake; werewolves can't fly; zombies do not run. It's a misconception, a bastardisation that diminishes a classic movie monster. The best phantasmagoria uses reality to render the inconceivable conceivable. The speedy zombie seems implausible to me, even within the fantastic realm it inhabits. A biological agent, I'll buy. Some sort of super-virus? Sure, why not. But death? Death is a disability, not a superpower. It's hard to run with a cold, let alone the most debilitating malady of them all.

More significantly, the fast zombie is bereft of poetic subtlety. As monsters from the id, zombies win out over vampires and werewolves when it comes to the title of Most Potent Metaphorical Monster. Where their pointy-toothed cousins are all about sex and bestial savagery, the zombie trumps all by personifying our deepest fear: death. Zombies are our destiny writ large. Slow and steady in their approach, weak, clumsy, often absurd, the zombie relentlessly closes in, unstoppable, intractable.

However (and herein lies the sublime artfulness of the slow zombie), their ineptitude actually makes them avoidable, at least for a while. If you're careful, if you keep your wits about you, you can stave them off, even outstrip them - much as we strive to outstrip death. Drink less, cut out red meat, exercise, practice safe sex; these are our shotguns, our cricket bats, our farmhouses, our shopping malls. However, none of these things fully insulates us from the creeping dread that something so witless, so elemental may yet catch us unawares - the drunk driver, the cancer sleeping in the double helix, the legless ghoul dragging itself through the darkness towards our ankles.

Thanks to Slu.

Posted by: Ace at 05:49 PM | Comments (62)
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I'm not selfish. I'm just ahead of the curve.

Thanks to DrewM.

Wait... Did they time this announcement to coincide with the Age of Obama?

Posted by: Ace at 04:28 PM | Comments (77)
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How many turned out?

I'm still tired from Friday night. (Went out with a friend. It turns out I can't even have three drinks anymore without it reacting with my panic medication and giving me an unwanted three-day dose of barbituates.)

UPDATE [DiT]: sorry, I goobered up the email addr for Austin on the 15th, it's moronapaloozasa@yahoo.com

Sorry bout that. That email addr isn't actually me, it's one of the morons who set the meeting up. But I'm still the one who goofed up the spelling, mahbad.

Posted by: Ace at 02:16 PM | Comments (160)
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