Some stories that are currently rocking the wires:

1. The Danish parliament has okayed prescription heroin for addicts in treatment and rehab programs.

2. German police dogs will wear shoes on the job from now on.

3. Anchorage holds a "Running of the Reindeer" which prompts these delicious quotes:

"Normally we just eat them," said Mark Berg, a spectator who has lived in Alaska since 1967. "I just made some jambalaya the other day out of reindeer sausage. I've eaten more of their cousins than they want to know."

"We thought, 'Ok, they're just going to mosey along,' but they took off running," said Amanda Pelkola, who dressed as a carrot with a friend. "We got smoked by the reindeer."

Oddly, AP took those quotes out of their later versions of the story.

4. I'll just give you the headline: "'Girl' at Japan school was 38-year-old man."

Feel free to discuss these headlines or any other stories of the day.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 01:09 PM | Comments (10)
Post contains 164 words, total size 1 kb.

Dave in Texas didn't like the story and put it into the sidebar, but seems like something worth discussing.

Do we care? Or are we going to pretend our only interest is in how awful Hillary is for spreading this?

I don't know. I can't say I'm perfectly comfortable with B. Hussein Obama's Muslim heritage when we're currently at war with a lot of very bad Muslims. Sure, he'll "understand" them. I'm not sure if understanding is what I'm looking for in a president at this point.

Posted by: Ace at 11:39 AM | Comments (143)
Post contains 93 words, total size 1 kb.

Pardon the lack of blogging, trying to get some of this redesign stuff done as well as take care of some personal business.

Okay, so Liberrocky mocked up a new banner some time ago. Really cool. I passed that on to Jen of Demure Thoughts for her to play with.

I asked her, "Look, if you start to play with this, you're not going to make it all girly are you? I don't want it to look like Bethany's MySpace page."

She was offended by the question.

After arguing about serif vs. sans serif for a while, we seemed to be on the same page.

This is her current mock-up, which I think isn't just white hot, but shite-hot, as the singer from The Darkness says about his brother's guitarwork.

I know the white background on the banner is different, and I resisted it at first, but now I'm thinking it's nice and stark and clean. The black on white is kind of skull-like, anyway. And it's less Instapundit-ish. Instapundit has a good design, and I guess I sort of aped the basic color scheme, but it's good to not be quite so derivative.

Thoughts?

Well! Slublog took Jen's design and just ran with it.

I'm proud for the first time in my adult life to post tits and silly shit on the Internet. more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:19 AM | Comments (97)
Post contains 256 words, total size 2 kb.

I feel like I read something about this a few months ago, so it may be OLD!, but Jahiliyya sends along this article about a microwave emitter that can put voices in your head. It also covers "disrupted neural control," which sounds badass, and "microwave heating," which sounds like my dinner last night.

That's neat and all, but this tease at the very end of the piece caught my eye:

While the investigations reveal intriguing techniques for non-lethal torture, the report does not mention plans for carrying out specific experiments or studies in the future.

So blasé. So over it. So mad scientist who just wants you to LEAVE ME ALONE so he can figure out his precious technological breakthrough and forget about the consequences. Not that the particular consequences here should rule out further development. I'm just saying, let's not pretend that this stuff doesn't matter.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 11:14 AM | Comments (18)
Post contains 157 words, total size 1 kb.

Forget about Iseman. McCain's real problem this spring is going to be the campaign finance maze he finds himself in. The short version of the facts goes like this:

McCain, needing money this summer, applied for and qualified to take federal matching funds from the FEC. Authorization to disperse that money was approved at the FEC's last meeting in December. None of that money has been paid to McCain yet and now that he's on top he doesn't need it. He wants to withdraw from the system so he doesn't have to abide by a primary spending limit of $54 million (which he's already close to).

Here are the problems: (1) he may have used his matching funds qualification to secure a loan in December, something that locks him into the system; (2) he may have used his qualification to get on the ballot in Ohio and other states; (3) he may not be able to officially withdraw or get a stop order on the instruction to Treasury to pay funds because the FEC is without a quorum; (4) the FEC doesn't have a quorum because Obama put a stop on the confirmation of nominees worked out between President Bush and Harry Reid. Oh, also, the DNC is suing to prevent him from withdrawing.

This is known as the "lawyering up" stage of presidential politics, an essential step for any man or woman who wants to get to the White House. A very long and thorough analysis of the situation is here. The answer they reach is that McCain is probably okay, but it's not exactly a clear win. If you're interested in this, or have been (understandably) confused by the legacy media's coverage, I suggest you read it.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 10:45 AM | Comments (18)
Post contains 297 words, total size 2 kb.

Yes, I have been thinking about this possibility myself.

And I've been avoiding commenting on the McCain situation.

I've beat up on him a lot, and did not much like the idea of beating up on him over a sleazy, dubiously-sourced NYT hit piece.

However.

I am an adult and so are most of you, at least according to nominal age.

I believe men and women spend large amounts of time together for one reason and one reason alone.

ED EXLEY: Why is Lynn Bracken seeing Bud White?

PIERCE PATCHETT: Why do men and women usually see each other, detective?

I am not convinced that there was enough improper here to sink his candidacy. It could be she really grooved on him. It could be she was just using her attractiveness to attempt to advance her employer's agenda, and McCain was, being a man, not going to call the cops just because a hot woman wanted to hang around with him a lot.

It could be he was attracted to her but never took that last step that turns it from ill-advised flirtation to betrayal.

Or it could be the more typical reason.

It's not that men and women can't be "friends," as they supposedly are. Or that women can only offer one thing to a man. I rather like women. I like talking to them. Even the ones I'm not sleeping with.

However, as regards that latter category... well, I'm not sure if there's ever been a woman I genuinely liked "as a friend" where I didn't also ponder that there may be some other interest we might have in common, and not one of the ones "friends" usually enjoy together, such as bowling or making fun and sexy photo-collages of Andre Agassi in his mulletted prime (sigh).

This could all be, ultimately, mostly nothing. And mostly nothing is good enough, even though mostly nothing implies partly something.

On the other hand... maybe I'm just weak, and maybe the women I've known are also weak, but based on personal experience, I'm not buying that men and women suddenly become the fastest of friends, spending lots of time together, for no particular reason except "friendship."

I have actual friends (honestly!), and it doesn't work like that with friends. The evolution of a friendship takes a somewhat longer time, and there never is that level of frequency of contact, even with a newfound "best friend." Well, maybe in grade school when "best friends" were so amazing and all.

I really don't want to pound McCain over a sleazy story. But I've heard the "We're just friends!" story from a woman before, and to be honest, I think I've offered the "We're just friends!" story myself... once. And in neither case was that strictly speaking perfectly candid nor technically accurate.

Bgates:

I've suspected a sexual relationship between Maverick and Iseman ever since the volleyball scene.

Oh God... before he made the Maverick-Iceman/Iseman connection, I still held out hope this story was basically untrue.

Now I fail to see how it could possibly be anything but true.

I don't think I believe in God, but I do believe this: He has a wicked sense of humor.

Posted by: Ace at 08:46 AM | Comments (75)
Post contains 551 words, total size 3 kb.

My guess, shared with Patterico last night, was Gateway Pundit, who's pretty damn awesome.

But Captain Ed is darned good too.

His first post is on Obama's Sudetenland Strategy for the Middle East.

Posted by: Ace at 07:49 AM | Comments (35)
Post contains 43 words, total size 1 kb.

A dating service video that is just on the edge of plausibility.

There is a "Dating on Demand" site, by the way I checked. Not that that proves much. more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:55 PM | Comments (37)
Post contains 46 words, total size 1 kb.

Theremin virtuoso Pamelia Kurstin.

What's a theremin? Beats the hell out of me. I think she's casting spells.

Hey, it beats watching the Oscars.

thanks Charles F.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 07:23 PM | Comments (34)
Post contains 33 words, total size 1 kb.

...is probably not going to happen.

However, you're free to talk about it, if you're "that way."

Posted by: Ace at 05:11 PM | Comments (74)
Post contains 21 words, total size 1 kb.