This has already been a great Christmas season for me...I didn't hear Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer or Dominic the Donkey once. You have to take your victories where you can get them.

Now, without further ado, my contributions to A Very Special Ace of Spades HQ Christmas....

NORAD Tracks Santa. Can't have the old boy sneaking up on us. And don't worry Bush wouldn't shoot down Santa just to piss off America. Or would he?

"A modern day George Bailey". Man volunteers to be laid off so his friend can keep his job and support his four kids. Wow.

And finally, below the fold...Apollo 8, the Moon and the Book of Genesis. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 03:06 PM | Comments (41)
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To carry on a little with Ace's earlier Christmas memories post, what was your favorite Christmas gift ever? Still got it?

Nah, this wasn't mine.

This was...

more...

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 01:17 PM | Comments (237)
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Blago couldn't appoint someone to the seat... but he could use his influence to help get someone in (like Beau Biden's seat-warmer) who didn't have much more political ambition and could be trusted to give the seat up when Emanuel was ready to return to Congress.

Emanuel has not yet resigned from his congressional post. When he does, his position will be filled by a special election. But there was discussion about whether Blagojevich could appoint an interim replacement, according to the criminal complaint in the governor's case.

Days after Emanuel and Blagojevich spoke about Emanuel's seat, the governor is overheard telling aides on secret wiretaps he wanted Emanuel "to get the word today," about raising money for the governor and that when "[Emanuel] asks me for the Fifth CD thing, I want it to be in his head." The "Fifth CD" was a reference to Emanuel's 5th Congressional District seat.

So, Blago wanted something from Emanuel, and Emanuel wanted something from Blago. Nothing was "promised," the report says, but gee willickers, one can't help but suspect that favors might have been discussed. Blago certainly thought it was time to talk fundraising.

I don't get the article claiming Blago could appoint a Representative. I thought all representatives had to be popularly elected. Maybe they mean he could appoint the Democratic candidate, who would almost certainly win, thus making the appointment as candidate effectively the appointment to the seat.

I think it's time for the Rahm Emanuel resignation watch. He's too close to this. Plus, he saw this as a short-term gig; he wants to be in the House leadership anyway.

I say: Two weeks. He'll soon decide to spend more time with his fixers and fundraisers.

Swiped from Hot Air's headlines.

See Also: Obama's "investigation" prompts more questions than it answers.

And Even More: Closed loop:

The Obama transition staff never explained what "inappropriate contacts" meant until releasing its report Tuesday, despite numerous press questions.

"Inappropriate" in Obama transition-speak can be defined two ways: "unethical" or "discussing an explicit quid pro quo"

When the Obama report says nothing inappropriate occurred, that's what it means.

It's also worth understanding how "lawyered-up" this process was.

Greg Craig, the incoming White House Counsel, conducted his inquiry by taking questions to each transition staff member's lawyer. The lawyers then went to the staff members and collected the answers. The lawyers then gave the answers to Craig.

In some cases -- team Obama won't say how many -- Craig would go back to either the staff member's attorney or the staff member directly for clarification. But it appears Craig's direct questioning of staff was very limited.

Additionally, there was no independent effort to verify any of the information provided by the staff member or the staff member's attorney. If, for example, a staff member's attorney said there was no e-mail or text messaging with Blagojevich or his staff, Craig took that at face value. No one knows if there was any e-mailing or texting, by the way.

Posted by: Ace at 10:16 AM | Comments (41)
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Christmas Rapping + Lighted House. more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:05 AM | Comments (19)
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It wasn't blogs that killed the beast-- it was Craigslist.

The New York Times Co's November advertising revenue fell 20 percent, the company said on Wednesday, illustrating how the financial crisis is aggravating dizzying revenue declines at U.S. newspapers.

Ad revenue at the publisher's New York Times Media Group, which includes the Times newspaper, fell 21.2 percent from a year earlier because of a drop in real estate and jobs classified advertising.

...

Total company revenue fell 13.9 percent.

Santa's left a lump of coal for the New York Times. They've been naughty.

Posted by: Ace at 09:00 AM | Comments (44)
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Found on ABC News:

The story wonders how photographers were allowed to take such good pictures despite the Obama security detail. The likely answer: because the Obamas wanted the pictures taken. Helps with the whole "New Camelot" image.

Still, I wonder whether the press will refer to Obama's 90-minute workouts as a creepy, indulgent obsession?

Yes, that's a rhetorical question. I'm no longer surprised by the media's double-standards. I'm just looking forward to the day they're no longer allowed to get away with it.

Cult of Personality [ace]: Not to be all fascism-yelly, but the fact is that fascist cults of personality routinely offer up their Dear Leaders as idealized physical perfections. We see this with Putin, often photographed shirtless and shootin' bears or demonstrating his mad judo skillz. Mussolini was hailed by his admirers as a man who wore out a different horse every day, and a different woman every night.

Kim Jong-Il was reported to have achieved a whole host of ludicrous athletic feats, including, impossibly, scoring something like a thirty-six in an eighteen-hole round of golf.

So we have here a guy in so-so shape, not fat, but also not especially well-muscled, with a bit of a man-boob situation being praised, in an "objective" media source's report, as having "chiseled abs and chest."

As Slublog notes, the game is played selectively. George Bush's fitness routine was a weird obsession; Obama's is simply the necessary process for becoming the Ultimate Male (cf. "Thunderlips").

Bush was never slobbered over by the media for having an extraordinarily low resting heartbeat, nor for being in what appears to be near-peak physical condition for his age. On the other hand, the smoker Obama is hailed as a deity for having moobs.

Note also the differing reactions to physical attractiveness -- Sarah Palin was derided as a beauty-queen chillbilly Caribou Barbie for being kinda awfully hot. But the media indulges its id when it comes to Obama.

Some Snark:

That's one dull chisel.

--red speck

I'll be in my bunk.

-- Chrissy Matthews

Posted by: Slublog at 09:51 AM | Comments (204)
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Comments thread for if there happen to be any headlines today. My quick glance at the wires and news aggregators:

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services has issued its report on abuses at the FLDS Yearning for Zion Ranch. DFPS says it was required by law to intervene based on the information it had. FLDS responds that the Texas agency is just covering itself and needs to learn how to apologize. The criminal cases are ongoing: nine men in total have been indicted for crimes ranging from sexual abuse of a minor to bigamy and failure to report child abuse.

Martin Feldstein, writing in the Wall Street Journal, suggests that defense spending would be excellent economic stimulus. Defense spending will be more useful in the long run and less susceptible to corruption than Obama's Great Infrastructure Project. On the other hand, Feldstein's suggestion still requires us to believe that the federal government can spend its way out of a recession.

Jim Lindgren compares the Blogojevich complaint and affidavit with Obama's internal report on his staff's contact with the Illinois governor and finds that the only two contacts mentioned in the affidavit do not appear in Obama's report.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:09 AM | Comments (26)
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...but not as ugly as standing by and letting a fucktard plagarize content.

Iowahawk (AKA Dave Burge) is one of the funniest men on the interwebthingy, and even though he's a filthy Iowa Hawkeye fan, he's still a fellow native Iowan who's made good. Those of us in Iowa who have web access are just as proud of Mr. Burge as we are of other native Iowans who've made good, like John Wayne, Wyatt Earp, Herbert Hoover, the guy who played "Peter" on "Office Space" (Ron Livingston) or the woman who does the voice for Mrs. Krabappel on the Simpsons (Marcia Wallace). Dave put up a parody ad for "Congressional Motors" at his site back before Thanksgiving, and almost as soon as his genius hit the web, some douchebag "right-wing"* talk show host cut and pasted it onto his own station's website without a whisper of attribution to the creator.

Here's a link to the fucktard and his station's (cough, cough) OPEN COMMENTS SECTION (cough).

Now I'm not encouraging anyone to drive to San Diego to put a boot in Mr. Roberts' ass. I'm all about the love; and in the spirit of the Holiday Season, maybe we could show Mr. Roberts just a little glimpse of the love we have for asshats who steal the work of others and pass it off as their own. It's a tough love, but it's fair.

For all the old-timers here, I'm thinking of that Progressive internet calendar from the Pacific Northwest that was open for ANYONE to add events. You remember the one I'm talking about (hint, hint, hint). And, courtesy of our brudda Sean M. over at doubleplusundead **, you can get the contact information for the San Diego radio station here, if you're so inclined.

Just a couple of suggestions:

1. Don't threaten violence. We're better than that.
2. Don't limit yourselves to commenting on the offending post. If that post goes all "Cool Facts About Dick Cheney" and builds up 3000 comments, they'll just bury it like a cat turd in a litterbox. Be creative and mention Rick Roberts' plagarism in other, unrelated, posts on their website.
3. Sean M. gave out the on-air contact number for KFMB. Rick Roberts is on-air from 5am to 9am Pacific Time (7 to 11 Central, or 8 to noon Eastern). As the old AT&T jingle goes.........."reach out, reach out and touch someone".

* - Yeah, I used "scare quotes" when I called him a right-wing talk show host. Mostly because I'm right-wing myself, and I refuse to be associated with a thieving bag of crap like Mr. Roberts.

** - This is what's commonly referred to as a "hat-tip" among the internet crowd. The associated link, where you send traffic to the site where you originally noticed the content is also considered to be a required courtesy on the web. I mention this because I feel that Mr. Roberts is just the sort of douchenozzle who googles his own name daily, and if he reads this post I'd like to give him some helpful hints on how to play well with others on the internet. Because I'm all about the love.

Merry Christmas, Morons.

(This Internet Lynch Mob has not been endorsed by Mr. Ace or the O'Spades Corporation, mainly because he didn't get the chance to get a heads-up before I posted it. Got a problem? farmerruss "at" gmail "DOT" com. I'll probably ignore your email, but at least you can say you said your piece. And you can be damn sure that I won't steal your rant and post it here as my own original work.)

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 04:59 AM | Comments (103)
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Posted by: Ace at 09:09 PM | Comments (32)
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Ragnar notes he did have the compassion for this pardon:

John Allen Aregood of Riviera, Texas. Conspiracy to harbor and transport illegal aliens.

Also at the Jawas: Only 20% of MSM stories mention scandal-ridden Ohio AG Mike Dann's party affiliation.

Guess what percentage mention "Republican" when reporting Palin's daughter's boyfriend's mother's drug bust?

I'll let you click for the answer.

Posted by: Ace at 06:17 PM | Comments (50)
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