Remember, this is what they put forward themselves as public relations tool.

This is how they wish to be seen. This shows them, they believe, in their most flattering light.

The video, which appears to have been posted first on Google last December in an alleged anti-Al Qaeda Web film, shows five insurgents standing behind three blindfolded prisoners kneeling at the edge of a burning pit.

"And now that we have captured these scums who committed this dreadful crime, we will burn them with this fire," the Al Qaeda leader says in Arabic. "The same fire which they committed their crime with.

"And I swear by God almighty that, I swear by God almighty that we will have no mercy on them," he continues. "Allahuakbar, Allahuakbar."

As he speaks, two of the insurgents pour liquid on the blindfolded prisoners. Then they push the bound men into the pit, where they are engulfed in flames.

Video below for those who can take it. And perhaps to send friends who claim that "Abu Ghraib was worse than Al Qaeda" and similar vacuities.

The video is here with Massive Red Siren Extreme Graphic Content Warning. The burning incident occurs around 5:00 in, but if you stick around a bit more you can see their disgusting cutting of a captive's throat.

Also charming is the Walking Euthanasia Advertisement chirping in his childlike voice about jihad.

Posted by: Ace at 12:40 PM | Comments (26)
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I'm going to avoid the heavy-duty hackery here. I'm not suggesting the left is more inclined to outbursts of psychopathic violence than the right.

I will note, though, that the MSM is intensely interested in stories that fit the narrative of the latter while studiously ignoring the politics of left-wing lunatics.

Thanks to both RD and Andrew.

Posted by: Ace at 11:55 AM | Comments (47)
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He just doesn't learn.

Let's face facts: Romero's zombie films are largely overrated. I'm sure Night of the Living Dead was quite the shocker in 1968, but it's 2008 now, and forty years on it's... how do I put this? Lame.

His own remake of Night of the Living Dead? Unwatchable.

Dawn of the Dead is cute and I guess I still like it, but it's mostly fairly boring. There's very little actual horror in it -- I'm only recalling two horror moments at all -- and plays mostly as comedy and social commentary. The comedy is okay, the social commentary is fine, but it's almost a zombie movie as an afterthought.

The best thing about it is that cheap, stock B-movie music.

Compare his Dawn of the Dead to the remake. I know I've watched that a dozen times, and right now it's sitting proudly on my DVR, waiting for me like an old lover. Romero's version I don't think I have the patience for anymore.

PS, that blonde guy could not act.

I think my take on this one is a bit embarrassing, but true: Dawn of the Dead is the sort of movie you convinced yourself (and others) you liked far, far more than you actually did.

Like fucking Repo Man, though I never fell into that trap myself. Just about everyone I've ever met swears it's great, though.

They're lying to themselves.

Oh I don't mean to say Dawn of the Dead isn't good or a minor classic. It is. But... let's not get carried away with ourselves.

The less said about Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead the better. I didn't exactly hate Land of the Dead, but I wouldn't watch it again unless you paid me... oh, around $20-30 bucks. Not a lot of money, I admit, but I'm right there saying that to watch this movie again I need to at least be making as much per hour as a mall security guard.

The guy's made basically two decent movies in his whole 40+ year career, and both dated, and both at least 30 years ago.

What the hell did Allah expect? At this point I imagine he's also counting on a reinvigoration of the Coccoon franchise with a hot new sequel that makes you remember all over again why you fell in love with Dom Ameche.

Giving Him His Props: Okay, his premise was terrific (and audacious -- he destroyed the whole world on zero budget) and he single-handedly created one of the sturdiest and most reliably entertaining sub-genres of horror.

But his actual execution was always decidedly... workmanlike, at best, and he hasn't even been that good in a long, long while.

Undead: This is awful and I'm slapping a big Graphic Violence Content Warning on it.

It's a Russian guy jumping 100 feet, it says, off a building. And walking away from it.

If this is fake (must be, right?) it's a damned good fake.

[dri.]

DRI's Review of the Last Awful Romero Picture: I'm so used to the leftist samzidat messaging that Land of the Dead barely even phased me.

But dri seizes on a very interesting point. Check it out after the jump. more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:34 AM | Comments (55)
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Well, we all have to die of something, eh? Might as well die in a catastrophic tunnel failure.

The new crop of engineers trained in "context, ethics, and communications" will probably be able to say a few nice words about the dead, maybe even something inspirational.

Posted by: Ace at 10:32 AM | Comments (89)
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I thought this was fake, but the second part of the vid seems to be a legitimate news report on the girl. Apparently she was on ABC's Wife Swap.

Stay with it.

Of course the real villains here are her parents. I have no idea what sort of world they imagine they're preparing their daughter for. But I do not think the world she will one day enter will be one revolving entirely around her.

And that is going to cause some major problems.

Thanks to JasonF.

Speaking of Spoiling Kids... Take a look at what all of you parents -- all of you -- are going to have to buy your kids soon.

It's both reassuring, creepy, and threatening, like a pimp's love.

Unrelated, I'm sure:

This is the bizarre romantic future envisioned by David Levy in his new book, Love and Sex With Robots: "Love with robots will be as normal as love with other humans. While the number of sexual acts and lovemaking positions commonly practised between humans will be extended, as robots teach us more than is in all of the world's published sex manuals combined. Love and sex with robots on a grand scale are inevitable."

...

In Japan, home of the Tamagotchi and Honda's ASIMO robot, scientists have made significant leaps in creating realistically lifelike robots whose response to stimuli gets more sophisticated with each new model.

...

For about $7,000, you can be the proud owner of a robot "sex-doll" and comes complete with "nipple sensors," Mr. Levy says. It will likely be in the next five years, he adds, that an android is created so lifelike that sex with a robot starts becoming normal practice.

It could also be a solution for the masses of socially awkward or unattractive people to fulfill their sexual urges and desires when all other avenues to meet a partner have been exhausted. "Not everybody can go out and get a date when they want one," Mr. Levy said.

Bunk.

Thanks to Asher.

Posted by: Ace at 10:03 AM | Comments (90)
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He said that Edwards thinks Obama "is kind of a pussy" and not "tough."

He said that. That Edwards finds another man insufficiently masculine and badass. And now he's apologizing for using the word "pussy," rather than speaking offensively senseless gibberish.

The MSM. It's a different world, baby.

Posted by: Ace at 09:24 AM | Comments (22)
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From Jackie Danicki at Blowing Smoke.

Posted by: LauraW. at 09:13 AM | Comments (18)
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It gets better and better.

hereÂ’s increasing speculation in Washington and among McCainÂ’s supporters that the Arizona maverick will instead run to the center and pick a more liberal vice presidential candidate.

The theory goes like this:

Barack Obama has become his partyÂ’s front-runner because he has expanded the Democratic Party. His big rallies draw crowds of nearly 20,000, unheard of for a primary campaignÂ…

This is a strategy that simply wonÂ’t work for McCain because there is a certain bloc of core, loyal and principled conservatives who will never vote for him no matter what he says now, who he picks to run with, or who the Democratic nominee might beÂ…

So, McCainÂ’s only option is to run hard for the middle and hope that his centrist ticket can beat the soaring rhetoric and high promises of a likeable guy like Obama with little experience and a liberal voting record.

Allah analyzes this idea and finds it wanting, as do I.

First, while there is a "core" of conservatives who may not vote for McCain under any circumstances, there are many more conservatives who don't much like the Maverick but can, when it comes down to it, pull the lever for him. I'm one of those, I think.

At some point, though, Maverick McAmnesty makes himself more or less indistinguishable from a Democrat and pushes that larger group of not-falling-in-love-but-falling-in-line conservatives into the sit-this-one-out camp.

Further, I strongly question how many true "independents" there are that can be swayed by such moves. Most independents aren't really all that independent; they have a definite preference for one basic political philosophy or the other. Picking up a fairly negligible chunk of this small group will be more than offset by the losses caused by a large conservative boycott of the top of the ticket.

Perhaps McCain sees no other path to victory. Certainly the large numbers of new Democrat voters Barack Obama has made is daunting. But if that's the case, then McCain simply cannot win against Obama anyway. Gaining 1% of true swing-both-ways independents at the cost of 10% of conservatives will produce a worse loss, not a closer one.

If McCain is thinking Lieberman for Veep, well, look here: Lieberman's a good man and certainly pro-war enough for me but he's hardly likely to move many votes. He certainly didn't seem to be a compelling candidate in 2004.

If he's thinking Hegel... I'm sorry, that's the Rubicon for me. Do. Not. Want.

And Huckabee? He'd be violating the most important rule of picking a VP, picking someone prepared to take over as Commander in Chief at a moment's notice. Huckabee is a naive buffoon whose understanding of anything apart from religion is paper-thin... and even his religious understanding seems pretty superficial and weak.

Permanent. Republican. Majority.

Dead and buried, forever, much the same as Star Wars died with Episode I.

Thanks to Slublog.

Posted by: Ace at 08:34 AM | Comments (101)
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Ally:

Saudi ArabiaÂ’s rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted, according to court documents revealed yesterday.

Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced “another 7/7″ and the loss of “British lives on British streets” if they pressed on with their inquiries and the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intelligence.

It gets better: the threat was delivered by very high-ranking roaming Ambassador of Islamic Love Prince Bandar, himself a target of the investigation.

Posted by: Ace at 08:04 AM | Comments (31)
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The House Science and Technology Committee's opinion on NASA's plan to revisit the moon: BOOOORING.

And, frankly, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin is sick of hearing them complain.

"I'm always intrigued by the idea that since we've spent a few days on the moon that the place is now uninteresting for all future time and that we should ignore it and head straight for Mars," Griffin told lawmakers Wednesday, reports Florida Today. The NASA chief also dismissed criticism of NASA's plan from a conference of scientists at Stanford University, as "foolish."

The real reason NASA wans to go back is that they left some shit behind. Jean jacket with a bitchin' mix tape in the pocket.

At no time in history has a lost jean jacket containing a bitchin' mix tape ever been recovered by its owner. I think we can all agree that this singular human achievement is well worth the proposed $104 Billion and more than a decade of development.

Plus they're all totally excited to check out what happened to that RB on rye with extra mayo that Eugene left under a rock near one of the flags. Boys will be boys.

Posted by: LauraW. at 07:59 AM | Comments (37)
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