Yeah, I know. The headline alone made me say WTF?

Osteo-Odonto-Keratoprosthesis.

Near as I could figure out from the name, bone-tooth-eye prosthesis.

The technique, pioneered in Italy in the 1960s, involves creating a support for an artificial cornea from the patient's own tooth and the surrounding bone.

The procedure used on McNichol involved his son Robert, 23, donating a tooth, its root and part of the jaw.

McNichol's right eye socket was rebuilt, part of the tooth inserted and a lens inserted in a hole drilled in the tooth.

Blinded in an accident 2 years ago, he says he sees well enough now to get around and watch television, so you know, there's a downside.

Remarkable stuff.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 11:28 AM | Comments (10)
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All around great guy Dean Barnett has checked into the hospital, badly sick with the East Coast bug that's going around and also (it seems) a flare-up in his cystic fibrosis.

This site's own Russ from Winterset and his wife are expecting -- but there are complications with the pregnancy.

I wish them all well. Terrible... I hope Dean gets better and Russ' kid comes out throwing 90 mph fastballs.

Thanks to Kathy, Larwyn, and PetiteDov.

Soxblog writes back...

I'll be fine - thanks much for the best wishes. Much appreciated.

Good. Also, he's out of the hospital and watching TV.

Posted by: Ace at 10:35 AM | Comments (20)
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Okay, maybe the left does have a point: Some of us -- not all of us -- have to lighten up a bit.

Some of us also need to calm the fuck down with their attempting to "liberate" the rest of us from our sexual hangups. Why they always need to attempt this liberation by appearing naked in public with a bullwhip sticking out of their asses, or saying the word cunt on the Today show, is beyond me.

I'm a fan of filth and deviant sexual acts but hey, let's keep that sort of behavior in the privacy of my dentist's office, where it belongs.

From L to R: the left one, the right one

But in this case: Sheesh.

Although it should be noted the sexy-pic stuff was largely a pretext. What got her tossed from office, then? Golf.

The mayor of a small Oregon town who came under fire for racy pictures of her posted on the Internet was recalled in a close vote Monday.

According to the person who spearheaded the recall drive, Ron Miller, the vote was 142 in favor and 139 against the recall of Mayor Carmen Kontur-Gronquist.

She came under fire after she posted photos of herself posed in lingerie on a fire truck on her MySpace page.

...

But the voters weren't really just angry about the picture, some said.

Miller said the recall vote was also about some of her decisions as mayor of the small town, located along Interstate 84 between The Dalles and Pendleton in the Columbia River Gorge. That included her management of the city golf course, where she eliminated two positions during the fall and winter. That apparently did not sit well with some of the big golfers in town.

A budget-cutter and a dirty, dirty whore?

Can we get a recount?

People really don't seem too get this idea of the internet being public, do they?

Thanks to carl carlson.

Unrelated Bleg For Dr. Aaron Abramowitz, DDS: Did you find an earring, by any chance?

Posted by: Ace at 09:45 AM | Comments (44)
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I thought this was going to be a negative ad against Barack Hussein Obama.

It is. It's just that he made it himself.

Big props to the Real Revo for this ad. I hate swiping vids usually (except from Hot Air; they gots the huge traffic anyway), but I think this one needs all the exposure it can get.

And thanks to RD for the tip.

Posted by: Ace at 09:29 AM | Comments (75)
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Whether or not Ed Morrissey's claim of a skewed sample in the CBS/NYT poll holds water or not I don't know-- there really are more self-identifying Democrats than Republicans at the moment.

We have this argument every two years, and frankly I'm just tired of it. If I have to write another post about cooked samples I swear I will jump off a 150 foot building (and I predict the Leftist Media will spin this as the desperate act of a lonely, sexually-deprived, chronically self-abusing man with nothing to live for now that Prison Break and Monk have ended their seasons, pretty crappilly, I might add).

Nevertheless, an LAT poll shows McCain ahead.

And another poll shows both Hillary crumbling in must-win Pennsylvania (I don't know why I call it must-win -- she's going to lose whether she wins it or not; it's all but moot) and McCain tied with the Democrats.

Bear in mind the public knows McCain but does not know much about Barack Hussein Obama. They don't know he's the most liberal member of the Senate, nor that he is a doctrinaire left-liberal who's idea of "Hope" and "Change" consists primarily of the hitherto-unexplored policies of raising taxes and increasing spending, along with intentionally losing a crucial war just to keep his netroots' fans donating cash.

Posted by: Ace at 08:48 AM | Comments (39)
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On the Corner now.

Oh Lord [Ace]: Such a shock. I guess I sort of imagined he'd outlive me.

This is hardly his most important moment, but I love the fact that he told Gore Vidal he'd punch him in his fucking prissy face.

Not nearly an adequate tribute, but I do love this so. more...

Posted by: Slublog at 08:20 AM | Comments (75)
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A suppose its a bit better than Crunchy Frog or Spring Steel Surprise, but probably a close second with a case of anthrax or beri-beri

...Terry McAuliffe told a business group in Madison on Tuesday it ‘‘sure is’’ possible the former first lady and the Illinois senator could become running mates...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 08:01 AM | Comments (15)
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Can't slip a thing past this guy, huh?

Yes, Poindexter, that's rather the fucking whole point of a killer robot. Just like prom night is a a "threat to virginity."

At least I hope it is. I missed mine and I'm hoping to finally get an invitation this year. Call me, Tiffany. I may be old and broken down but I can legally purchase Zima. And nunchucks, if that gets you hot.

I'm not sure why AFP had to specify the robots in question are "automated," as opposed, I guess, to all those non-automated robots out there, which we typically just call "refrigerators" or "Schick Mach III razors" or "mechanical pencils," but I guess the MSM knows best.

Increasingly autonomous, gun-totting robots developed for warfare could easily fall into the hands of terrorists and may one day unleash a robot arms race, a top expert on artificial intelligence told AFP.

"They pose a threat to humanity," said University of Sheffield professor Noel Sharkey ahead of a keynote address Wednesday before Britain's Royal United Services Institute.

Intelligent machines deployed on battlefields around the world -- from mobile grenade launchers to rocket-firing drones -- can already identify and lock onto targets without human help.

There are more than 4,000 US military robots on the ground in Iraq, as well as unmanned aircraft that have clocked hundreds of thousands of flight hours.

The first three armed combat robots fitted with large-caliber machine guns deployed to Iraq last summer, manufactured by US arms maker Foster-Miller, proved so successful that 80 more are on order, said Sharkey.

But up to now, a human hand has always been required to push the button or pull the trigger.

It we are not careful, he said, that could change.

Military leaders "are quite clear that they want autonomous robots as soon as possible, because they are more cost-effective and give a risk-free war," he said.

Yeah, a war in which our boys don't get killed or maimed. Who'd want that. Why, it might give us some sort unfair advantage fighting vicious terrorist monsters or something.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 07:41 AM | Comments (62)
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This is a little inside baseball but it nicely demonstrates just what tools the Democrats are.

Reid and Dick Durbin are accusing Senate Republicans of ‘stalling’ debate on a housing bailout bill. How did those nasty Republicans do that? By voting FOR a motion Reid himself made.

Yesterday Reid brought up a bill that would have cut off funding for the troops in Iraq and set a withdrawal date. They seem to do this every week or so, I imagine itÂ’s a fundraising tactic. Normally the Republicans filibuster, the nutroots hit the donate button and business goes on.

But the evil Republicans didn’t play by the rules and called Harry’s bluff basically saying, ‘hey, there’s a lot of good shit going on in Iraq to talk about, so let’s have it’. This sets the stage for 30 hours of floor debate on Iraq.

Now Reid is upset that he canÂ’t bring up the housing bailout bill and because the Republicans exposed him as a craven jackass who uses money for the troops as part of just another legislative game to be played.

And to top things off by demonstrating just how clueless he is, Reid said yesterday that ‘a civil war rages’ in Iraq. Harry? You need some updated talking points.

So when Senate Democrats say they ‘support the troops’, remember what they really mean is they support their use as a political weapon but not much else.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:37 AM | Comments (16)
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Pixy finally found out what was causing the frequent site outages:

Hi guys.

This was happening again just now, and finally I was able to catch it in
the act.

The mail server that runs on this machine is going insane and eating all
the memory. Looks like one user is getting spammed to death, and that's
causing all the problems.

I've reconfigured his email to simply delete spam as it arrives, and I'm
working on reconfiguring the mail server so it doesn't do this.

Sorry about the troubles we've had with this recently, but now that I
know what it is I should be able to put an end to it.

Ace - I'm currently off on my three days a week of paid work, but after
tomorrow I'll be back to finalise your move to the new system.

Best regards,

Pixy

I've had e-goddamned-nough of this fucking bullshit and so I wrote a guy I know who works for a Republican Senator. I won't say who as I don't know this fellow wants it known he sometimes associates with the likes of me (or, frankly, you lot).

For what it's worth, this was my email:

Hello [unnamed dude]. I have a problem, as does the whole blogosphere, and I thought I'd bring it to your attention.

Spam commenters are hijacking bandwidth across the blogosphere and frequently bringing down sites with their relentless overloading of our sites' mail and comment systems. Congress has acted against telemarketers and email spammers before. I know this is not the biggest issue for you all, but it also should be a fairly uncontroversial issue to resolve.

I repeat, they're not just advertising on our sites somewhat illegally without our permission, violating normal rules of contractual advertising agreements. They tend to post the filthiest porn links possible, often on sites which are G- rated, so that their porn come-ons are visible to children, etc. My site is R rated, but still I blanche at some of the sick crap that pops up in most recent comments. I don't think that someone visiting a non-porn website should have to see this crap.

Furthermore, unlike email spammers who merely (and I use that word advisedly) fill up a mailbox and slow it down with their relentless spamming, these guys are able to actually bring down websites for long periods. My site is frequently down because of them. So any First Amendment issues seem rather slight -- their "right to spam my site with porn comment come-ons" is actually interfering with my right to express myself and have my readers be able to access my writing.

As my readers are primarily coming to the site to read my posts and my cobloggers' posts and comments from fellow readers, and not, primarily, to read about the latest teenage girl fetish video websites, I really think we ought to have first priority as regards First Amendment conflicts.

I feel sort of stupid bringing this to your attention, as it is, in the scheme of things, rather small beans. But I also think it would be relatively easy to expand current spam laws to embrace these -- well, I will not pollute your email box with the curse I want to use. Let me just say I'm not a fan.

Thank you so much for your attention and support,

Ace

I guess I'm link-whoring a bit here, but I hope others get on this with me. Yes, it's not the biggest issue. But it is an issue, and Congress can and should act to do something about it.

Especially if you're a blogger or sitemaster and can personally testify to the havoc caused daily by these fucking assholes who should all die in a fire, write whatever Congressmen or Senators you know.

We really shouldn't have to put up with this crap.

Old But So Satisfying: Notorious Russian spammer murdered, bludgeoned to death, hopefully by a penis-enlargement tube filled with Pure Discount Mexican Viaggra.

Thanks to Eric.

More: As always, I had more to say and didn't really plan it out before I hit "send." I wrote him again to further make my case.

Sorry [unnamed dude], I couple of points I wanted to make.

First, Congress has cracked down on email spammers -- I think the law begins blocking domains that send email spam, right, until local authorities get a handle on it? Plus fines and such. But the effect has been to re-direct their efforts to an unregulated area-- massively spamming blogs and other websites. They didn't stop, they just found new victims.

Further, while Google and Yahoo and other email providers have monstrous server capacity and can absorb a good deal of this spam, we bloggers and website managers have a far more limited amount of server capacity and power. In essence, whether these bastards intend it or not, they are essentially engaging in cybersabotage, harming the net in massive scale Denial of Service attacks. If a hacker deliberately overwhelms a website with such an attack, he could go to prison. . These guys, as far as I know, face no sanction at all, despite the fact they are deliberately doing the same thing -- or if not quite deliberately, wholly indifferently to the damage they cause.

The effect is the same either way. Deliberate or not, this is essentially malicious computer hacking and knocking out websites through illegal action. Or action that should be illegal, but as far as I know is not.

Again, thank you. It's not a sexy issue I realize. There is some hot-button element to the issue, though, as I assure you most of what these guys advertise is illegal, from sham pills to child pornography.

Sincerely,

Ace

Update: I wrote another congressional contact and got this reply:

I definitely sympathize with you on this issue.

This may work as an issue for us. Not only is it the right thing to do, but social conservatives (who have not had an issue on the floor in a while) would rally to the cause because it goes after porn and indecency...plus it would just feel good nailing these a-holes. I will bounce the idea around with conservatives on the hill. Thanks Ace.

Posted by: Ace at 06:14 AM | Comments (54)
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