It is called for Mitt.

Ok Fredheads do a dance, on the floor, in the round.

Posted by: Open Blog at 06:09 PM | Comments (38)
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Let us hunt the polar bear.

Canadian Inuit are fighting US environmental groups who are pushing the US to declare the bears an endangered species.

Couple of thoughts.

It is a business and a source of income, for guides to take hunters on trips to hunt and bag bears.

If they don't regulate it well, they have a few good years of income and nothing after that.

Polar bears and their "plight" have been misrepresented for political purposes for years.

If the US declared them "endangered", it wouldn't affect Canadian law (oddly enough, Canada has its own system of government and currency. So I'm told). The Inuit fear that US hunters would be deterred from hunting.

Fear not Inuit. It'll take a little more than that.

And as we all know, polar bears are man-killers. Womens' periods attract bears, they can smell the menstruation. So we're putting the whole station in jeopardy.

The White Menace

more...

Posted by: Dave In Texas at 05:56 PM | Comments (38)
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Nah, not really. Just an open Michigan results thread.

Here's CNN's results page.

Hmmm... [ace]: They seemed to call that very quickly. With 11% in, Romney's only up 37-31.* I guess it's based on McCain underperforming in areas he was expected to carry.

* Corrected. Had the numbers wrong.

Ouch [Slublog] - 69% of the black vote went for "uncommitted." Seems Clinton's slash and burn tactics aren't going over all that well. (h/t: Hot Air)

Posted by: Slublog at 05:43 PM | Comments (41)
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Mitt takes Michigan and Fred moves up in the SC primary from 4 bucks this morning to over 1820!

I don't know if it means anything, but I know that you Fred Fanbois will be pleased as punch.

Update [Slublog] - More good news for Thompson. Rasmussen has Thompson up in South Carolina. If McCain loses Michigan tonight, the repercussions from that loss could put Thompson on top.

Posted by: Open Blog at 04:35 PM | Comments (24)
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There's so much backstory to this I don't know if I want to get into it. But they've finally done the dirty deed they've been trying to do for at least a decade:

Spider-Man fans are outraged that Marvel Comics has turned back the clock and dissolved the marriage of its wall-clinging superhero. While followers of the movie version know the character is single with a sweetheart, as far as comic book fans are concerned Spider-Man has been married to Mary Jane Watson for the past 21 years.

Now, in a plot twist by the publishers Marvel, Spider-Man, known otherwise as Peter Parker, and Mary Jane, make a deal with the devil-like villain Mephisto. The story, in Spider-Man comic number 545, sees the couple's marriage annulled in return for the life of Peter's Aunt May, of late stuck in a deep coma.

Suddenly, Peter is once again a 20-something bachelor, nerdy, living with his elderly aunt - and single. His marriage has been, in fact, erased from everyone's memory.

Mephisto says that he is offering the deal, in which Spider-Man's identity is also made secret again, because Parker's relationship with Mary Jane "is the rarest love of all", a bond that is "pure, unconditional and made holy in the eyes of He who I hate most".

Mephisto says: "A love like yours comes about but once in millennia and to take that away from Him ... is a victory like none other imaginable."

Marvel claims that a married Spider-Man made life difficult for its writers and had been a source of regret ever since the couple's big day in 1987.

Obviously all of these big life-changing events -- deaths, marriages -- are stunts designed to sell a few extra issues for a while. But then comic book writers are saddled with the fact they've changed their character. So they almost always start looking for a back door to undo the changes.

Anyone dead will be resurrected within a few months.

Marriage is tricker. You'd think it would be easier to ditch a marriage than to resurrect a dead character, but not so. Marvel debated for years over Peter Parker's marriage problem. They wanted the character to appear as he had since the beginning -- young, callow, dating -- and felt marriage made him seem too old to attract his traditional audience. And of course marriage often interferes with one's dating schedule.

They debated a divorce -- but felt that making Parker a divorcee made him seem even older. They debated killing Mary Jane off -- but felt that making him a widower of all things really aged him.

So some idiots thought they had a good solution to the problem-- they would reveal that for years and years the character called "Peter Parker" in the comics was in fact a clone of Peter Parker, and that the real Peter Parker had been a drifter all this time going under the name "Ben Richards" (the name of Uncle Ben, I think). At the climax of this story arc, Ben Richards would be revealed as the real, conveniently unmarried Peter Parker, and would take his rightful role as the real Peter Parker, and Spider-Man. The clone, fake Peter Parker the audience had known for years would abandon the Spider-Man mantle, and the Peter Parker name, and retire into obscurity with his wife, taking the name of Ben Richards.

The "Spider Clone Saga" sold a lot of books, so they kept this absurd storyline going on for years. Ultimately, it seems, Stan Lee decided this was all -- what's the word?, ah yes fucking stupid -- and so they reversed themselves at the last minute and killed off the "real Peter Parker" and kept the old "clone Peter Parker" and also reversed themselves by now saying the real Peter Parker was actually the clone and the clone Peter Parker -- the one you knew all along-- was actually the real one.

If you're confused, so were a lot of readers, and the entire stunt was regarded as a major disaster that would hurt Spider-Man books for years and years to come. I still don't think they've regained all the fans they lost with this particular stunt-reversal of a previously ill-conceived marriage stunt.

And so it goes, on and on, with a new stunt (Peter Parker reveals his secret ID as Spider-Man to the world, at a broadcast news conference!), also needing undoing.

I guess they figured they'd just bite the bullet and resort to the cheapest retcon device of all: It was all a dream. Thanks to a wish granted by the Devil.

Eh. This is why I gave up on this crap. That and, I guess, the sheer embarrassment of being able to legally purchase alcohol but hanging around in a comic book store checking to see if Witchblade's finally going to show full-on nipple.

Posted by: Ace at 04:32 PM | Comments (40)
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A research team at the University of Minnesota developed a technique (using rat hearts) that could be used to create new tissues or whole organs from your own cells.

She said one of the hurdles in creating so-called bio-artificial organs has been getting the complex structures. The process her team used keeps those structures in place.

After the living cells were implanted onto the framework, contractions began in four days. Eight days later, the hearts the scientists created were beating, according to a news release.

They propose using organs recovered from cadavers to provide the framework for the new organs.

Just thinking out loud here:

Valu-Rite vodka gets the job done for Ace, but since it contains small amounts - barely noticeable, really- of ethylene glycol, he may need a new pair of kidneys and perhaps even a liver at some point in the near future.

Just suggesting he keep that in mind, maybe bring a couple big ziploc baggies with him the next time Hobo Madness strikes.

Posted by: LauraW. at 04:29 PM | Comments (12)
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This comment in one of the "Huckabashing" threads today made me laugh, so I decided to highlight it for everyone to see.

Mike Huckabee is the Sanjaya of the Republican Party nomination contest. If everybody could vote for the worst candidate, he'd have been tossed out in the first few weeks. But the system only allows you to register votes for your favorites, damnit.

Posted by: Z as in Jersey at January 15, 2008 07:55 PM (kZT4X)

It's funny because it's true, but it makes me think: Can anyone here make a case FOR Huckabee being the nominee of the Republican party? Ace respectfully allowed all the Paul-istinians to make the case for their man several days ago, so maybe it's time to ask for any Huckapostles out there to de-lurk and try to make their case.

With my piece about Huck's disingenuous immigration policy, and the recent piece about Huck's pledge to bring the Constitution in line with "God's Policies", this seems to be "Bash Huck Day", but I'd really like to hear a sales pitch from a Huck supporter. I can't promise that you won't be mocked, but for what it's worth, the morons here even mock our King, so please think of it as friendly banter.

I'm gonna be SO glad when the political silly season is over, and we can get back to posting links to "stupid criminals" articles, NSFW YouTube videos, and LauraW spamming the site with kitten pictures; but while we're in the soup, let's make the best of it and see what the other side has to say.

UPDATE: HUCKAPOSTLES KEPT FROM COMMENTING ON THIS THREAD BY BUSHITLER'S REPRESSIVE PATRIOT ACT & THEIR RELATIVE SCARCITY AT THE AoSHQ, BUT MOSTLY BY THEIR RELATIVE SCARCITY AT THE AoSHQ.

(sorry, Ace. I like that "snowclone" so much I just had to try one for myself)

Thanks to all the commenters who gave their reasons to be at least moderately supportive of the Huck. I was hoping to get the opinion of a True Believer, but I guess the AoSHQ is a "no-go" zone for those type of people. Lord knows, they might get some secular cooties from associating with us heathen.

I respect everyone who listens to Huck's strong statements on immigration & foreign policy and wants to believe, but I still think he's selling a combination of perpetual motion machines and "magic beans" to the American people. Grand promises mean nothing if the promiser changes his mind more often than legendary moron "compos mentis" has to change his jockey shorts.

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 04:24 PM | Comments (44)
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Blah blah never trust exit polls blah blah sampling bias blah blah, but still a six point lead for Romney.

Update [Slublog] - More evidence of a Romney win? John McCain has reportedly left Michigan for South Carolina.

Posted by: Ace at 03:53 PM | Comments (25)
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Straight talk:

"No drilling in ANWR, nor in the Everglades, nor off the coast of Florida, nor off the coast of Florida... If states want to have drilling off their coast, as Louisiana does, that's their right. As a federalist, I will respect that as well."

"To think that drilling in ANWR is the solution to our incredible energy needs is frankly, is not keeping in the reality of what's there, and what it would take to get it out."

Some might consider this a dishonest "shuck and jive" pander to fuzzy-headed independents who think our energy woes can be solved by wind farms and Magic Beans.

Not so. This is Maverick talking here. This is the truth, straight up no chaser. We can miracle our asses into energy independence by continuing to pour billions into boondoggle "green sources" of energy.

He went on to promise that "before the end of my presidency, Detroit will produce a car that runs on love."

McCain's lying here. Alaskans want ANWR tapped. Trouble is, the Federal government owns the land in question. It's the Federal government making the decision to not drill in this Pristine Ecologically-Sensitive Wasteland and not the state itself. His claim of deferring to "federalism" as regards to this issue is a lie in its entirety, from beginning to end.

Bonus: The ruling has come down. Hillary: The Movie, a perfectly legitimate if politically-edgy documentary about the Sob Sister Number One, will have to go without advertising, because advertising on its behalf would run afoul of McCain-Feingold.

A conservative group must abide by campaign finance laws if it wants to run ads promoting its anti-Hillary Rodham Clinton movie, a federal court ruled Tuesday.

Citizens United had hoped to run the television advertisements in key election states during peak primary season. The court ruling means the group must either keep its ads off the air or attach a disclaimer and disclose its donors.

Lawyers for the group had argued its 90-minute "Hillary: The Movie" was no different from documentaries seen on television news shows "60 Minutes" and "Nova." That prompted skepticism and, at one point, outright laughter from the judges during a hearing last week.

Campaign regulations prohibit corporations and unions from paying for ads that run close to elections and identify candidates. Citizens United argued that the advertisements promoted the movie and should be treated as commercial speech as opposed to advocacy against the Democratic New York senator.

A three-judge panel disagreed. The film does not address legislative issues and was produced solely "to inform the electorate that Senator Clinton is unfit for office, that the United States would be a dangerous place in a President Hillary Clinton world, and that viewers should vote against her," the court wrote in an unanimous ruling.

The court ruled specifically that a 4.5 second disclaimer must run with all ads for the film, which is particularly bothersome (it is claimed) when running ten second advertisments.

Though I'm kind of wondering who the hell runs ten second advertisements. Still, even in a thirty second ad that's a lot of nonsense to spend your advertising budget on.

Further, the rule seems ridiculous, as here the makers of the film would not be required to announce that they're associated with a particular campaign (as most political ads do), but that they're not associated with any campaign. What's the point of a disclaimer announcing you have nothing in particular to disclaim?

Posted by: Ace at 03:23 PM | Comments (32)
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Still-- if all those National Guardsmen hadn't been backdoor-drafted into Bush's illegal war for oil, they all could have been standing in human pyramids holding the structure up.

So let's remember who's really to blame.

Posted by: Ace at 03:17 PM | Comments (14)
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