An Onion parody. RobG calls it "genius;" I don't know. I find it meh, but that may be that my politics are preventing me from appreciating it. They go pretty heavy on analogizing this new proposed law to the gun debate argument in the US.

Even so, not bad.

Posted by: Ace at 01:06 PM | Comments (11)
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His whiny you-a culpa at the link.

He offers two defenses so blatantly contradictory it takes a university president not to see them: First, that he was acting properly demanding the hiding of a cross inside a chapel, and second, that he was also acting properly in allowing university funds to support various sex-exhibits, as his job requires him to promote "openness" and "free expression" and other gay shit of this nature.

He then goes to the standard bullshit of anyone brought down by grassroots peevishness: That mean people wrote mean things about him, and specifically, about his "wife and daughters."

I don't doubt that crap like that was written. But it's just so blatantly dishonest to pretend that these were anything other than a few nasty emails written by the usual cranks and maniacs. Rather than admitting that his critics, most of whom are sober and civil, had something of a point, he claims this is only a "victory" for the death-threat pissants and death-wish losers.

Posted by: Ace at 12:52 PM | Comments (39)
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UPDATED: He won Best in Show too. First time ever for a moron-dog.

dlm didn't hit me with a bewappitus over it, but he/she did point out in a comment thread that this 3 year old beagle won Best Hound at Westminster.

dlm probably doesn't know I have a beagle.

Uno the beagle doing the job most beagles won't
do, which is sit still for 30 friggin seconds

Posted by: Dave In Texas at 12:24 PM | Comments (55)
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dlm is hitting me with the bewappitus* over my statement that many of Churchill's speeches were recorded, as we know them, by an actor.

This article disputes that. It states that Churchill's "beaches" speech was indeed recorded for broadcast by Churchill himself, and that the only source for the claim that an actor read it is the actor himself.

And further casting doubt on the claim is its dubious pedigree: It comes from David Irving, noted Holocaust denier/enthusiast, who peddled the absurd myth that the Dresden bombing was an entirely anti-civilian operation and grossly exaggerated the death toll to create sympathy for the Nazis.

So, there you go. Looks like it's mostly debunked. Even if you don't buy this guy's claims, the provenance of this tale looks pretty shaky, certainly too shaky to be credited as "accepted fact."

As Will Rogers said, more or less, "The problem of ignorance isn't so much folks not knowin' things, but folks knowin' things that just aren't true."

* "The Bewappitus" was a length of red semi-rigid whiplike rubber tubing my brother and my friends and I discovered sometime in high school. It was good for bewappitting, that is, hitting people with, but not so hard as to draw blood. It occupied a useful weapon-space in between a nerf bat and an actual bat.

Or maybe closer to a Pimp's Helper, a gym sock filled with nickels and golf balls.

I just remembered that because my brother just emailed me.

Posted by: Ace at 11:58 AM | Comments (21)
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Why didn't someone tell me this?: more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 11:57 AM | Comments (36)
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Instapundit recaps the by-now-old news.

There's now some blog-on-blog violence over this. James Joyner of Outside the Beltway calls Charles Johnson unfair, and worse, for drawing parallels between Obama's refusal to wear the American flag lapel pin and his volunteers'/staffers' choice of their own flag of allegiance.

Charles Johnson returns fire here.

Just weighing in on the blog-dynamic here, rather than the substance: I think a lot of bloggers, especially on the right, are interested in fairness. Or, to put that in a more accurate negative phrasing, interested in rejecting what seems to be easy pandering and hackery.

If something animates one emotionally, all bets are off, and the anger flows. But that's not hackery because it's a real feeling.

But if something doesn't really grab one, the next impulse is to write something unexpected and interesting which isn't hack. I think Joyner didn't feel the outrage here and so went to Plan B.

I didn't post this because I didn't really feel the outrage myself. Maybe I should have, but... it's so predictable and such a given I didn't really find it newsworthy. Shock: Leftist Terrorist-Apologists Fly Trendy Flag of Leftist Terrorism-Chic Cult Figure; News and Pictures at 11.

But even lacking the actual outrage, I'm in closer agreement with Johnson than Joyner:

If I’m “insinuating” anything, it’s this: when you actively pander to and encourage the radical leftist elements of your party, as the Democrats have been determinedly doing for the past eight years, you’re going to end up with embarrassing scenes like this.

And attacking the messenger who points it out is standard political damage control. This has nothing to do with “loyalty oaths” (although Obama will, of course, be forced to take a loyalty oath if he’s sworn in as President), and everything to do with the fact that Obama campaign workers apparently idealize a terrorist mass murderer.

Joyner apparently rejects guilty-by-pandering-to-odious-associations, which I think is high-minded, as in high-on-crack-minded. Lay down with dogs and you get fleas. I hold it against Ron Paul that he panders to and courts Truthers, LaRouchian Jew-haters, and new-look neo-Nazis, even if (I'm told) he's not one himself. I'm not going to change that standard to accommodate Barack Obama's message of Hope and Change and Being Born In Bodies Incorruptible After Death.

Personnel is policy, as they say. It's not 100% true but it's true enough that Obama can and should be rapped for this. A politician always winds up playing to his base through most of his career -- and this, these pro-terrorist radical leftist trust-fund revolutionistas, are Obama's base.

Hillary's supporters believe in little but power. And abortion. But mostly power f or power's sake.

Obama's supporters seem to believe in something more.

And since Obama steadfastly refuses to say what it is, exactly, that he believes in, apart from sitting by his Father's side after the End of Times, I think it's fair to divine his beliefs from those supporting him who are indiscreet enough to reveal their own.

Posted by: Ace at 11:38 AM | Comments (64)
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Not a big deal. I guess this is the only thing McCain's done in the last five years, apart from supporting the war, I approve of.

Notice the CNN clip does not feature the question that prompted this -- either McCain is joking in a friendly way, or else he's responding insultingly to an annoying and agenda-pushing reporter, I figure. But CNN dowdifies the clip so that we don't know which, and can't figure out if McCain's spleenish response is warranted.

The Deciders.

Another Hot Air ripoff.

Update: Multiple sources, some of them not maniacs, tell me that this is standard McCain kidding around, and that he frequently calls reporters "jerks" the way Bush dubs them with silly nicknames.

Posted by: Ace at 11:11 AM | Comments (18)
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I actually can't get into the schadenfreude that much here. The notion of someone having a chance to live a life the rest of us can only dream of, but then throwing it away for whatever reason, is just too depressing.

But maybe you guys have less sympathy for Latrell Spreewell.

Robert DeNiro emails to say Spreewell chose poorly.

Posted by: Ace at 11:00 AM | Comments (17)
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First a fun little video. The Berkeley City Council in its own seditious words:

And Harry Reid rides to the rescue.

“The only reason to recess is to block something, and the thing that got blocked by Reid’s stall tactic was the Semper Fi Act,” said spokesman Wesley Denton, referring to the bill introduced by his boss, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.).

“Democrats have chosen not to defend the Marine Corps, but to pander to anti-war protesters and Berkeley officials that are actively trying to impede military recruitment.”

It's almost as if the Democratic Party is institutionally anti-military and anti-America or something.

I know that can't be the case, though, as they all assure me they're gung ho to "get the real Al Qaeda." I guess they just won't be doing so with recruits from Berkeley.

Or most elite colleges, for that matter.

Just Up: On Hot Air headlines, this:

Berkeley erupted in violence Tuesday morning when the Communist, terrorist-supporting anti-war group crossed into Martin Luther King Park and assaulted pro-troop individuals. Riot police stood by, but did not stop the assaults.

Police agencies did not respond to calls for help.

...

MAF Exeutive Director Catherine Moy attempted to get help from the Berkeley police as the mayhem unfolded, but an officer hung up on Moy. Moy asked the California Highway Patrol to help in the emergency, but the CHP refused.

“I have never in my life experienced such inaction in the face of an emergency, “Moy said. “I will ask the Federal Government to investigate, as well as the State Attorney General. It is one thing to give free parking places to the City Council’s special interest anti-war groups, it is another to take sides and endanger the lives of others.”

I'm sorry, but the liberals' excuse that they're "just defending Berkeley's right to free speech" just went out the window. Physical assault countenanced by the city government and its police is not speech.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:49 AM | Comments (23)
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What was the first clue?

Maybe that absurd video where he's plainly speaking from years ago, and then the freeze-frame it to have another voice supposedly "his" talk about more current events?

Transterrestrial Musings, um, muses:

Of course, the other reason that I've long thought that he's dead is that our so-called intelligence agencies--the same ones that subverted our pressure on Iran last fall with their "intelligence" estimate that they're not building a bomb--have continued to tell me that he's alive. To me, the question is not whether or not he's alive, but why so many in the so-called intelligence community have been so determined to continue to attempt to convince us that he is for the past six years.

It's strange to me, too. I understand they don't want to come out and claim he's dead, only to be embarrassed by him proving he's alive and doing a victory lap, but why the absurd insistence they're "99% certain" he's alive based on audio of "him" speaking?

They do know that someone else recorded many of Winston Churchill's most famous speeches, right? They have heard of impressionists, right?

Moderate content warning for Gilbert Gottfried impersonating various comics, including Cosby, Jackie Mason, and Jerry Seinfeld:

Thanks to CJ.

Posted by: Ace at 10:09 AM | Comments (37)
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