First they said it shouldn't be directed to the columns page, but the letters editor. When it was sent there, it was ignored as well.

Allowing, by design, Bill Ayers' lies to stand unchallenged in the paper of record retard.

Bob Owens runs it exclusively in Pajamas Media. A smoodge of it:

Billy goes on about how the Weather Underground came into existence because “peaceful protests had failed” and “after an accidental explosion killed three comrades.” The explosion of the townhouse in Greenwich Village was the result of a bomb factory which was preparing bombs containing roofing nails for use at a Fort Dix enlisted club. The inclusion of roofing nails can have but one purpose and that’s to injure or kill people. Prior to this event Bill’s wife, Bernardine Dorhn, placed a bomb of the same design at the Park Police Station in San Francisco and killed Officer McDonnell. Additionally, I was still inside the Weather Underground when the townhouse blew up and the commitment to sabotage and terrorism had already been established and the purpose was the overthrow of the United States government.

...

I must conclude by acknowledging that in one respect Bill is probably being absolutely truthful. When he says that “I never killed or injured anyone,” he is most likely being totally honest. Bill, like Charles Manson, never exposed himself to any kind of danger. He always gave orders and then left it to his then-girlfriend, Diane Oughton, and others to implement his plan. If you listen closely you can even hear the similarities in the arguments Manson and Billy use today to justify what they did: the 60s made me do it.

The NYT isn't about printing the news; it's about suppressing it, to create the illusion that the record is settled by censoring all challenges to the record it puts forward.

Posted by: Ace at 05:50 PM | Comments (43)
Post contains 330 words, total size 2 kb.

Just kidding, it's his colleagues' tribute to him.

Swiped from Hot Air, where Allah notes his own man-crush.

Posted by: Ace at 05:41 PM | Comments (20)
Post contains 30 words, total size 1 kb.

I wonder if we'll see six thousand video cuts of the treasures being returned to the museum.

- Iraqi soldiers have seized 228 apparently stolen antiquities and arrested seven members of a gang suspected of trafficking in such items, a security official in Basra said Tuesday.

Soldiers in Abi al-Khasib in southern Iraq's Basra province last week found 168 items and arrested five people in one raid and seized 60 more artifacts and detained two people in another, the official said.

The troops found sculptures, intricate gold jewelry, decorative silverware and ceramic bowls buried in gardens and under a stone slab in a kitchen.

Note that the article is not clear at all on whether these are among the objects stolen after the 2003 invasion. It mentions those, but doesn't say if these were from those thefts or later ones. Or even previous ones.

Thanks to Stumbo.

Posted by: Ace at 04:01 PM | Comments (35)
Post contains 165 words, total size 1 kb.

FoxNews just did a clip about his stint at the show that I hope will go up on YouTube.

It's just not going to be the same. Brett Baier is fine, but he's no Brit.

Posted by: Ace at 02:58 PM | Comments (22)
Post contains 49 words, total size 1 kb.

Above the Main Post Update: Obama's lawyer Gregory Craig (remember him?) says prosecutors interviewed Obama.

President-elect Barack Obama and two of his top advisers were interviewed last week by federal prosecutors probing Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's alleged bid to sell Obama's vacated Senate seat, according to a report issued today by an Obama lawyer. The lawyer, Gregory Craig, concluded that Obama and his aides engaged in no improper conduct in connection with the Senate opening.

Problematic? I don't believe that Obama would care enough about the Senate seat to risk his own neck engaging in bribery. However, I also think that Obama and Emanuel knew how the Chicago game was played and would not react with righteous indignation to the solicitation of a bribe -- they might steer Blago away from such a thing towards safer waters, but would not outright rebuke him.

So the problem comes if Obama's team's statements to Blago were more nuanced when it comes to improper solicitations than they're admitting. And their statements to prosecutors about their discussions had better be accurate, or else they risk an obstruction of justice charge.

Fitzgerald wouldn't have the guts for that. But it will be interesting to see how his information and Obama's claims match up.

Nothing legal will come of this. However, there might just be grist for the political mill. Not sure if I want to relive the endless scandals and endless farcical denials of the Clinton administration, but we may be on that track -- a long period of time when Obama is plausibly accused of lying and obstructing justice and yet there's never any resolution.

Thanks to CJ for the alert.

...

Here's a nugget:

See also the bottom of page 3 for a friendly chat between [Obama short-lister Valerie] Jarrett herself and an Illinois SEIU chief, who told her that Blagojevich had told him he wanted to be Health and Human Services head. They both agreed, allegedly, that “it would never happen,” but if you’re looking for evidence that people in Obama’s inner circle knew that Blago was interested in a position with Team Barry, there you go.

That's not the same as knowing Blago was offering an express quid pro quo.

But then, Barry's not entirely candid, is he?

Go-Betweens and Cut-Outs: JackStraw wants to know about indirect, back-channel discussions between the camps:

Who did Obama appoint as his political director? Patrick Gaspard, Vice President of SEIU Local 1199. What is the job of the politcal director? Probably has a lot to do with politics. The SEIU also endorsed and was the most active union working for Obama during the presidential election.

Gaspard used to be a muckety muck with America Coming Together, a sleazy 527 that used to be run by Harold Ickes and was funded by Soros but that's a whole different kettle of fish. ACT was sued out of busiess by the FEC a couple years ago for raising over $130 million of illegal coin for John Kerry.

Yet, astonishingly enough, he does not appear in the report. Odd, no?

It has been alleged that Balanoff, Pres of the SEIU in Chicago, served as a go between for Obama and Blago. Ya think there might have been a chance that Gaspard spoke with his former, former as in a couple days ago, colleague about some politics stuff?

Said it before, I'll say it again, the SEIU is a thoroughly corrupt organization and is going to be damaging to Obama sooner or later.

Posted by: Ace at 01:46 PM | Comments (62)
Post contains 593 words, total size 4 kb.

Science? Settled. Evidence? Overwhelming.

Dissenters? Fired.

Noted energy expert and Princeton physicist Dr. Will Happer has sharply criticized global warming alarmism. Happer, author of over 200 scientific papers and a past director of energy research at the Department of Energy, called fears over global warming "mistaken".

...

In 1991, Happer was appointed director of energy research for the US Department of Energy. In 1993, he testified before Congress that the scientific data didn't support widespread fears about the dangers of the ozone hole and global warming, remarks that caused then-Vice President Al Gore to fire him. "I was told that science was not going to intrude on public policy", he said. "I did not need the job that badly".

Kinda-Sorta Barely Related: Californian cosmetic surgeon uses human fat lipsucked out of patients to fuel his car. To save the environment.

Posted by: Ace at 12:59 PM | Comments (96)
Post contains 182 words, total size 1 kb.

Admiring mustaches:

"Today is Mustache Monday," [QB Shaun] Hill said of the effort, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. "It's for the throwback game. Every day we go to meetings and we go by these beautiful pictures and we admire these [former 49ers greats'] mustaches."

The Detroit Lions have taken a similar pledge, and plan, for their last game, to grow "their first pubes."

Thanks to Matt M.

Posted by: Ace at 12:44 PM | Comments (27)
Post contains 85 words, total size 1 kb.

Packed snow is 90% of the way to ice. But that's what they're driving on Seattle.

Driving in a Winter Wonderland Frozen Hell
of Packed Snow and Collided Cars

To hear the city's spin, Seattle's road crews are making "great progress" in clearing the ice-caked streets.

But it turns out "plowed streets" in Seattle actually means "snow-packed," as in there's snow and ice left on major arterials by design.

"We're trying to create a hard-packed surface," said Alex Wiggins, chief of staff for the Seattle Department of Transportation. "It doesn't look like anything you'd find in Chicago or New York."

Nope. You can drive in New York.

The city's approach means crews clear the roads enough for all-wheel and four-wheel-drive vehicles, or those with front-wheel drive cars as long as they are using chains, Wiggins said.

The icy streets are the result of Seattle's refusal to use salt, an effective ice-buster used by the state Department of Transportation and cities accustomed to dealing with heavy winter snows.

"If we were using salt, you'd see patches of bare road because salt is very effective," Wiggins said. "We decided not to utilize salt because it's not a healthy addition to Puget Sound."

...

Seattle also equips its plows with rubber-edged blades. That minimizes the damage to roads and manhole covers, but it doesn't scrape off the ice, Wiggins said.

That leaves many drivers, including Seattle police, pretty much on their own until nature does to the snow what the sand can't: melt it.

The city's patrol cars are rear-wheel drive. And even with tire chains, officers are avoiding hills and responding on foot, according to a West Precinct officer.

Between Thursday and Monday, the city spread about 6,000 tons of sand on 1,531 miles of streets it considers major arterials.

The tonnage, sprinkled atop the packed snow, amounts to 1.4 pounds of sand per linear foot of roadway, an amount one expert said might be too little to provide effective traction.

"Hmmm. Six thousand tons of sand for that length of road doesn't seem like it's enough," said Diane Spector, a water-resources planner for Wenck Associates, which evaluated snow and ice clearance for nine cities in the Midwest.

Well, you can't use too much sand. That might pollute the beaches of Puget Sound with non-native sand.

Even the cop cars are frozen up.

911. What is your emergency?

-- There's an intruder in the house! What should I do?!

Are you near a hill?

-- Yes.

I would suggest "reverse psychology," then. Start yelling "Oh I hope someone home-invades and rapes me," and see if that discourages him.

And what's the result of this policy?

Utterly unexpected:

Sunday was full of car crashes, even after several pleas from State Patrol and local police to stay off the roads.

The State Patrol responded to 157 collisions Sunday in King County.
Â…
Between noon and midnight on Saturday, the State Patrol responded to 246 collisions Â… in King County.

Someone's going to die. And those who love fish but hate people will call it environmental justice.

Posted by: Ace at 12:31 PM | Comments (200)
Post contains 566 words, total size 4 kb.

Charles Johnson makes a point here: Why is it that the MSM has never offered the visual proof he constructed of the famously alternating GIF?

Seems to be two possibilities:

1. They didn't think of it and would prefer not to acknowledge the contribution of a non-guild member.

2. The GIF is damning and ends all debate.

Incidentally, Rather continues clinging to the claim that the forgeries were never "officially" determined 100% to be fakes. This is... true, in a way. The CBS report by Boccardi and Thornburgh says that, that there is no proof one way or the other. (By the way: For those keeping score -- the media likes to note that a Republican, Thornburgh, wrote the report, but fails to note that Boccardi of the AP is almost certainly a liberal Democrat, and fails to note the whole investigation was paid for by CBS. And he who plays the piper calls the tune. They darkly hint that Thornburgh's Republican affiliation taints the report, without pausing for a moment to consider that perhaps the report is too easy on CBS due to the fact that CBS paid for the report.)

While the report claims that, an appendix by an expert leaves no doubt whatsoever that the documents are forged. If one wants to see the real verdict on the documents, one must look to Appendix 4, where an expert declares without equivocation they were produced on a modern computer:

(2) The font/typestyle of the documents: The Thornburgh-Boccardi report provides the analysis of forensic document examiner and typewriter expert Peter Tytell, both in the text and at greater length in the report's Appendix 4. Tytell is a diplomate of the American Board of Forensic Documents Examiners and a highly qualified expert on the issues raised by the typographic characteristics of the documents. Tytell examined the official Bush Guard documents as well as the CBS documents procured from Burkett and concluded that the Burkett documents were produced on a computer in Times New Roman typestyle.

According to Tytell, Times New Roman was designed in 1931 for the Times of London and was only available on typesetting and other non-tabletop machines until the desktop publishing revolution in the 1980s. Tytell concluded that the Times New Roman typestyle was not available on a typewriter in the early 1970s and that the Burkett documents must have been produced on a computer. The Thornburgh-Boccardi report states: "The [Thornburgh-Boccardi] Panel met with Tytell and found his analysis sound in terms of why he believed that the documents are not authentic." If the documents are not authentic, they are frauds.

It seems that CBS' "complete" PDF of the Thornburgh report is not quite complete enough to include that damning appendix.

But it's still findable on the web. Barely. If you do enough googling to find the right search terms, and then conduct a new search. The obvious search -- Thornburg Rather -- leads to the top result of the CBS "complete report" which fails to even mention it originally ran with appendices.

The Republican-tainted Thornburgh did a confused old man, as well as his employer CBS, a favor by pretending there was a shred of doubt when their own expert said otherwise. But that little favor has of course now become the main finding of the report, in Rather's and the MSM's telling, as was inevitable.

Posted by: Ace at 11:58 AM | Comments (34)
Post contains 579 words, total size 4 kb.

Via Newsbusters. The laugh is precious, but then he lets him off the hook.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:28 AM | Comments (55)
Post contains 54 words, total size 1 kb.