Hotels are being evacuated and The Strip is closed.

FNC says people are trapped on the roof.

Streaming video at Foxnews.com.

Fire is reported to be out of control and several of the top floors appear to be involved.

UPDATE: Watching the live feed on Fox, it looks like they are getting it under control. There are no more flames visible and the black smoke has turned white, which would seem to mean the fire department is getting water on it.

Also, FNC is now saying there is no one trapped on the roof at this point.

Posted by: DrewM. at 11:37 AM | Comments (17)
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A couple that really caught my eye... I guess you'd have to have grown up in the NY area at about the same time as me to remember these:

That hand has six fingers. Always freaked me out.

(The first is the intro to the 4:30 movie on ABC, which showed Planet of the Apes flicks and lesser sci-fi and horror flicks constantly for chubby kids like me who should have been out playing afterschool instead of watching tv. The second is the intro for a horror-movie slot, I think on channel 9.)

For a ton more of these, just scan down at the Corner. The Six Million Dollar Man intro remains super-cool.

Posted by: Ace at 11:30 AM | Comments (9)
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I think it's safe to say they're pretty unhappy about the new routes for Philadelphia International.

"Just doing it made me feel better, but I'd still like to say what I wrote directly to the idiot head of the FAA," homeowner Michael Hall told the Philadelphia Daily News for Thursday's editions.

Don't worry Mr. Hall. Someone will make sure he gets your message.

tip: James

Posted by: Dave In Texas at 11:17 AM | Comments (29)
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I linked this last night without realizing I'd already met the man before -- and you have almost certainly met him too.

He was a fixture on cable during the immigration fight, unapologetically calling for open borders and insisting that any border-control measures taken by the US were racist.

And he's an important player in Maverick McAmnesty's campaign.

He'd be a much more natural fit for a liberal Democrat -- but they wouldn't touch him. McCain, however, has gladly made him part of his staff.

Dr. Juan Hernandez, McCain Hispanic outreach director: “We must not only have a free flow of goods and services, but also start working for a free flow of people.”

Here's another quote from the link above:

TANCREDO: I had a great argument one time with a gentleman by the name of Juan Hernandez who was at that time the minister of that ministry that I just mentioned, the Ministry for Mexicans Living in the United States.

And I asked him that very question. What he told me the purpose of his ministry was to push people into the United States, it was to—by the way, it was also AFC work with them so that they did—he was with the community, he said. He was three days a week in the United States, four in Mexico.

By the way, he himself is a dual citizen born in Texas, university—teaching at the University of Texas and on the Vicente Fox cabinet. And he said, “I work with the community in the United States, the Mexican community because I don‘t want them essentially going native on us. We want them continually tied emotionally, linguistically, politically to Mexico, because then they‘ll continue to send money home.”

And I said to him, that does not sound like—you know, you‘re doing something that‘s actually the act of an unfriendly government.

CARLSON: Well, of course, it doesn‘t in any way serve American interests. It undermines our country in a pretty direct and direct and obvious way.

TANCREDO: Tucker, his response. Let me tell you his response.

CARLSON: Yes.

TANCREDO: At the end he goes, “Congressman,” in an incredibly condescending way. He goes, “Congressman, it‘s not two countries; it‘s just a region.”

CARLSON: That is not my view, to put it mildly.

TANCREDO: Not mine either.

McCain wouldn't merely be as bad a liberal Democrat on immigration, he'd be worse. Liberal Democrats fear this issue. McCain can't wait to get into it again, as demonstrated by his hiring of an open-borders firebrand who proudly proclaims that even sixth and seventh generation Americans of Mexican decent should have a policy of "Mexico First."

Mexico First.

Unbelievable. McCain is not only refusing to make himself palatable to conservatives, he's still actively sticking his thumb in our eyes. As usual.

And he's as proud as a peacock over that New York Times endorsement, posting it right on his site.

The New York Times' main reason for endorsing him?

Still, there is a choice to be made, and it is an easy one. Senator John McCain of Arizona is the only Republican who promises to end the George Bush style of governing from and on behalf of a small, angry fringe. With a record of working across the aisle to develop sound bipartisan legislation, he would offer a choice to a broader range of Americans than the rest of the Republican field.

We have shuddered at Mr. McCainÂ’s occasional, tactical pander to the right because he has demonstrated that he has the character to stand on principle. He was an early advocate for battling global warming and risked his presidential bid to uphold fundamental American values in the immigration debate. A genuine war hero among Republicans who proclaim their zeal to be commander in chief, Mr. McCain argues passionately that a countryÂ’s treatment of prisoners in the worst of times says a great deal about its character.

The Times' is quite right: McCain is the best candidate for anyone who wishes a liberal Republican candidate to face the liberal Democratic candidate.

Why conservatives should agree to this six-of-one-half-a-dozen-of-the-other echo, not a choice, is beyond me.

And if the Times isn't enough of an authority to sway your vote, note McAmnesty also picked up the coveted endorsement of noted pro-sovereignty advocate Geraldo Rivera.

Trifecta! And now the founder of the Minutemen, Mel Martinez.

Posted by: Ace at 11:12 AM | Comments (52)
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It's a slow Friday, so what not a little entertainment courtesy of the USMC?

It's kind of cool to hear a sports arena full of people cheering real heroes for a change.

h/t The Corner

Posted by: DrewM. at 10:52 AM | Comments (18)
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Mitt Romney.

You know who that benefits?

Mike Huckabee.

The debate demonstrated that with November in mind, the GOP would be extraordinarily well served by either Romney or Giuliani at the top of the ticket, and made Huck a very tempting choice for Veep given his abilities to communicate.

But Romney won the night, and perhaps the nomination as well.

A new twist on my favorite joke. Everytime you think it has been beaten into the ground, it just comes back. Like Herpes. Of the mind!

Posted by: Jack M. at 09:54 AM | Comments (17)
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It's weird when people "in real life" who don't know that I'm blogging direct me to things in the blogosphere. The guy in the carrel next to me just pointed me to video from the debate last night in which Romney is being asked about Ronald Reagan. A loud "He raised taxes" can be heard in a near-whisper.

Allah points out:

Scandal du jour on the left, rooted in the near-religious belief that you’ll always find a Republican cheating if you look closely enough. Riehl almost certainly has this right: Some NBC staffer, possibly Brian Williams, was trying to get Russert to elaborate on a vague question. A mike picked it up, everyone there — including Romney — heard it, and Mitt jumped in.

This put me in mind of the last big cheating-at-the-debate scandal, which was embraced so completely by the Left that Salon hired a NASA photo analyst to try and convince us that President Bush was getting help:

The images provide the most vivid details yet of the bulge beneath the president's suit. Amateurs have certainly had their turn at examining the bulge, but no professional with a résumé as impressive as Nelson's has ventured into public with an informed opinion. In fact, no one to date has enhanced photos of Bush's jacket to this degree of precision, and revealed what appears to be some kind of mechanical device with a wire snaking up the president's shoulder toward his neck and down his back to his waist.

This was part of the Democrats' attempt to convince the world that the president is an idiot and they spent a lot of time on it. (Before switching to the idea that they were completely bamboozled by his unholy facility with deception, of course.) Since no one's going to credibly claim that Romney needed help at the debate, I expect this rumor will die down fast.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:59 AM | Comments (32)
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Boy, I just did not see this one coming. All the lectures on civil rights from Chris Dodd, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama came to nothing yesterday when the Senate considered immunity for telecommunications companies which cooperated with the terrorist surveillance program. All the Republicans and 12 Democrats voted to reject an attempt to drop immunity from the bill. It's as if no one cares about the children anymore.

Expressing his anger, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said the maneuver has put the fate of the entire bill in jeopardy. A temporary surveillance law, passed in August, is due to expire next Friday. The Bush administration and GOP leaders have opposed requests from Reid and other Democrats for an extension.

[...]

The issue has spilled over into the Democratic presidential race: Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.) have said that they oppose legal immunity for the telecoms, but neither was present for yesterday's vote. In a series of e-mails to supporters yesterday, the liberal group MoveOn.org urged Clinton and Obama to help lead a filibuster to block the immunity legislation in the Senate.

Some members of Congress are trying to get the new FISA law done before the temporary surveillance law, passed in August, expires. That law came with scary "broad powers" to eavesdrop on terrorists and temporary immunity for telecom companies who acted in good faith to comply with government requests for assistance. If Congress doesn't pass a new law or an extension, the old rules kick in and the ACLU goes to the bank (not that I expect that to happen; too many Democrats have crossed over for Reid to filibuster).

Come to think of it, that temporary law marked the beginning of the congressional Democrats' losing streak. Reid has been "expressing his anger" for the past six months. I think it might be time for a different tactic.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:40 AM | Comments (18)
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Those aren’t my words or the words of some rightwing, neo-con newspaper columnist but of the American diplomat leading the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Anbar Province, John Matel.

You may remember Mr. Matel from last fall’s dust up at the State Department over a then lack of volunteers for duty in Iraq (a shortfall that was subsequently met). He wrote on the State Department’s own public blog essentially that his colleagues needed to suck it up and get to work.

During his time in Iraq he’s also kept a personal blog and he has some thoughts on the situation there and what’s been accomplished to date.

It may take a while for the magnitude of this to sink in. I can walk around in the same places where heavily armed American & Iraqi forces could not safely walk only months ago. Here the debate has shifted to providing everyday services such as sewer, water and electricity. Marketplaces where insurgents dumped headless bodies last year are now crowded with shoppers. Children are returning to school instead of being abused by terrorists and coerced into deadly activities. What a difference a year makes!

Sometimes you just have to win. Some conflicts just need to run their courses and some bad guys just need killing. Nazi ideology was not discredited UNTIL it was defeated on the battlefield. No amount of peaceful persuasion or appeasement worked. People thought communism was a viable alternative to the free market UNTIL it ignominiously collapsed. Massive economic evidence and even the presence of a very large and deadly wall running down the middle of Berlin did not convince the believers to abandon their failed ideology. Earlier forms of terrorism from the Barbary Pirates to the Bader-Meinhof didn’t go away until they were defeated. We tried appeasement in the 1930s and we tried ignorance in the 1990s. These things did not work.

As they say, read the whole thing and check out his other posts for a look at life in the new Anbar Province.

Posted by: DrewM. at 07:20 AM | Comments (11)
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Those arenÂ’t my words or the words of some rightwing, neo-con newspaper columnist but of the American diplomat leading the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Anbar Province, John Matel.

You may remember Mr. Matel from last fallÂ’s dust up at the State Department over a then lack of volunteers for duty in Iraq (a shortfall that was subsequently met). He wrote on the State DepartmentÂ’s own public blog essentially that his colleagues needed to suck it up and get to work.

During his time in Iraq heÂ’s also kept a personal blog and he has some thoughts on the situation there and whatÂ’s been accomplished to date.

It may take a while for the magnitude of this to sink in. I can walk around in the same places where heavily armed American & Iraqi forces could not safely walk only months ago. Here the debate has shifted to providing everyday services such as sewer, water and electricity. Marketplaces where insurgents dumped headless bodies last year are now crowded with shoppers. Children are returning to school instead of being abused by terrorists and coerced into deadly activities. What a difference a year makes!

Sometimes you just have to win. Some conflicts just need to run their courses and some bad guys just need killing. Nazi ideology was not discredited UNTIL it was defeated on the battlefield. No amount of peaceful persuasion or appeasement worked. People thought communism was a viable alternative to the free market UNTIL it ignominiously collapsed. Massive economic evidence and even the presence of a very large and deadly wall running down the middle of Berlin did not convince the believers to abandon their failed ideology. Earlier forms of terrorism from the Barbary Pirates to the Bader-Meinhof didnÂ’t go away until they were defeated. We tried appeasement in the 1930s and we tried ignorance in the 1990s. These things did not work.

As they say, read the whole thing and check out his other posts for a look at life in the new Anbar Province.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:20 AM | Comments (11)
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