An ABC News blog is saying that Ron Paul's run for the presidency is officially over. Paul posted a video in which he said:

"Let us hope that we can one day look back and say that this campaign was a significant first step that signaled a change in direction for our country. Our job now is to plan for the next phase."

He wants to continue the revolution from his congressional seat and encourages you to buy his book. As with Mike Huckabee, I am hoping I never have to hear from this fellow again.

Yeah, I don't really expect that to be the case either. Dammit.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 01:32 AM | Comments (11)
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Lefty blogger Kevin Drum is frustrated that the blue-on-blue attacks are providing ammunition for John McCain.

Obama foreign policy advisor Susan Rice, referring to Hillary's "red telephone" ad, said today of Obama and Clinton that "they're both both not ready to have that 3 am phone call." Jerome Armstrong is unhappy about this, saying that this three second clip is all John McCain needs to go after either candidate in the general election. Obama has gotten similar criticism (including from me) for providing Republicans with ammunition by circulating "Harry and Louise" style flyers attacking Hillary's healthcare plan.

In a similar vein, Hillary said today that presidential candidates need to pass a "commander-in-chief threshold." And who's done that? "I believe that I've done that," she said. "Certainly, Sen. McCain has done that and you'll have to ask Sen. Obama with respect to his candidacy." Bingo! Instant TV material for McCain this fall.

Now, there's no question that this stuff sucks. Hillary sucks more on this score since her team has been doing more of it than Obama's team, but they should both knock it off.

Drum can add one more incident to his list, as another Obama foreign policy adviser goes "off the record":

[Samantha] Power told The Scotsman Mrs Clinton was stopping at nothing to try to seize the lead from Mr Obama.

“We f***** up in Ohio,” she admitted. “In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio’s the only place they can win.

“She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything,” Ms Power said, hastily trying to withdraw her remark.

Obama, borrowing a tactic from Clinton, has already denounced Power and distanced himself from her remarks. Damage done; send out the next little trooper. I was ready for Clinton to be finished on Tuesday (and I still think that she can't win based on the numbers), but if she's going to stick around, at least it's going to be fun. Please, sir, can I have some more?

More numbers trouble for Clinton: There will be no knockout blow from Puerto Rico, which was going to be the last place to vote. It was also widely reported that Puerto Rico was winner-take-all. Most commentators attempting to predict to whom the remaining pledged delegates would go were putting all of Puerto Rico's 55 delegates in the Clinton column. Whoops:

[Puerto Rico will] change the voting process from 8 caucuses to a primary with voting places in all 1,800+ barrios in Puerto Rico's 78 municipalities. This is done in light of the hundreds of thousands of Democrats expected to turn out on June 1, a late date in which we would have originally expected a pro-forma vote with low turnout.

The change will make Montana and South Dakota the last states to vote on the Democratic side. It also turns out that Puerto Rico is not winner-take-all, which means things just got much harder for Clinton. For those who are counting, Obama is still ahead of Clinton by one hundred delegates.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 01:22 AM | Comments (12)
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More here.

"You love life, and we love death."

Um, yes.

The thing is though, while we love life, you monsters are making us... not love, but let us say appreciate death a lot more every day.

And then what?

What's your plan then, O Brave Warriors of God?

Well That's Progress For the BBC, I Guess: First the BBC called this massacre an "accident." Then they upgraded it all the way to an "incident."

Guns in school? What an appalling idea:

“We realized something happened so I cocked my handgun,” Yitzhak Dadon told Ynet Thursday evening.

“I went up on the roof and waited for the terrorist. Meanwhile, I saw blood and shattered glass,” Dadon said. “The terrorist continue firing in the air, so I waited to see him again, and then I shot him twice in the head.”

That's from the same link at "an incident" above, at My Pet Jawa.

More... As Allah's headline says, maybe Bill O'Reilly was right about the Huffington Post after all.

A site shouldn't need to shut off comments after a vicious attack on Israeli civilians for fear that its readers will celebrate the murders, should it?

Posted by: Ace at 07:29 PM | Comments (53)
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Update (since I am a moron and didn't include the link last night): officials say letters received not connected to the bombing.

We're such pranksters! Yes we are!!!

The message on the card: "Happy New Year, We Did It."

The envelope also contained a packet of approximately 10 sheets of paper that seemed to be a political manifesto railing against the Iraq war and a booklet. The aide didn't know what the booklet was. A second aide, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said similar letters arrived in as many as 10 offices.

Good to know. One of our retarded auto-contrarians (actual morons) wondered so much why anyone would run, run like the wind, from an explosion.

Perhaps because they aren't used to this? Fuckwit?

The asshole who did this and didn't care if he carved off someone's legs left a love note.

"Happy New Year, We Did It."

Happy Spring Equinox motherfucker. I hope we drag your ass into the machine, and bury you for 50 years, you cocksucker.

Respectfully submitted, David C. in Texas. Sgt. At Arms.

UPDATE: oh... ace posted about the emails to congressperps already. And I didn't notice that.

I'm not giving him cover, per se. But I did eff this up. Still, perhaps I freshened it up a bit.

Did you hear about that Japanese gal with the hooters?

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 07:28 PM | Comments (16)
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"We did it" is the major message of the email, along with what I'm sure is standard-issue leftist cant.

Posted by: Ace at 05:10 PM | Comments (57)
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Over millions of years, but still.

Edited: A shoddier-than-normal initial skim caused me to think this article said a lot more than it does, and it provoked a much more strongly worded post than you now see.

I think I caught the initial version before it even published, but in case it went up for a second, here's your official notice: I changed the post.

Posted by: Ace at 05:03 PM | Comments (20)
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Those of you who don't file a tax return, for reasons best kept to yourself, probably wondered "hey, how do I get me some of that free money if they said I had to file a tax return before I can get it?"

Some of you also probably wonder about the mysteries of the vagina but Lord knows I can't help you with that.

Wonder no more. You can use the IRS Free File program to get your economic stimulus package Fedbucks™.

Question: If giving me $1200 is good for the economy, wouldn't giving me $12,000 be ten times better for the economy?

Just wanted to float that idea, in case any Senators are reading.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 02:50 PM | Comments (27)
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Eh. Kind of neat to look at, if you're queer for rocks and water.*

* Of course I'm using "queer" in the old-timey sense of "fanatical," which I got from Chicago ("her baby's queer/for all that jazz"), which itself is queer in the more traditional senses of either "odd" or '"characterized by picking up slang from lavish Hollywood musicals."

Posted by: Ace at 01:31 PM | Comments (30)
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A recent California Court of Appeals case has been making some waves as the precursor to the end of homeschooling in this state. Michelle Malkin, Susan Duclos of Wake up America, and Darleen Click at Protein Wisdom have all noted it and discussed the implications of the case with some degree of outrage. I admit, it sounds pretty bad the way the LA Times writes:

Parents who lack teaching credentials cannot educate their children at home, according to a state appellate court ruling that is sending waves of fear through California's home schooling families.

Advocates for the families vowed to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court. Enforcement until then appears unlikely, but if the ruling stands, home-schooling supporters say California will have the most regressive law in the nation.

"This decision is a direct hit against every home schooler in California," said Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, which represents the Sunland Christian School, which specializes in religious home schooling. "If the state Supreme Court does not reverse this . . . there will be nothing to prevent home-school witch hunts from being implemented in every corner of the state of California."

The ruling as described would effectively end homeschooling in California, and I agree that it would be an outrageous result. Fortunately, the LA Times misunderstood the case and that misunderstanding was carried over into the discussions of the bloggers listed above, who appear to have discovered the issue because they read the LA Times article or each other. (I am amused to discover that Memeorandum has aided the dissemination of an untrue meme.)

The short version: The LA Times got it wrong in the first sentence of their article. Parents without teaching credentials can still educate their children at home under the various exemptions to mandatory public school enrollment provided in § 48220 et seq. of the Cal. Ed. Code. The parents in this case lost because they claimed that the students were enrolled in a charter school and that with minimal supervision from the school, the children were free to skip classes so the mother could teach them at home. There is no basis in law for that argument. If only the parents had attempted to homeschool their kids in one of the statutorily prescribed methods, they would have prevailed.

On the flipside, I go into more detail about the case and just where the LA Times went wrong. Though fun and probably helpful for homeschool advocates, the OUTRAGE over this case is based on a completely manufactured premise. But they and the LA Times should be admonished for unnecessarily scaring parents. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 01:12 PM | Comments (238)
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Just one guy:

Via Allah (of course), who's rather down on reading Larger Truths into the actions of a single lone nut.

Well, I suppose. On the other hand, I personally grow weary of an unhinged chorus of hateful leftists suggesting just sort of this type of political violence on a daily basis without the slightest effort at internal discipline and of course no corrective scrutiny from the MSM.

Maybe he's just a nut. Maybe he's a nut who somehow got the idea that blowing up a fucking recruiting office would catapult him to the status of You are Ultimate Winner.

And where would he have gotten that idea, I wonder?

Kinda-sorta related: They're already planning Chicago '68 style violence if the Obamessiah is denied.

Yeah. It's absurd to read anything at all into the left's well-nigh constant suggestion that violence is the only, if not outright preferred, solution, or to speculate that some among them do not treat such talk merely as pure rhetoric.

Michelle Malkin has more round-up.

Posted by: Ace at 12:11 PM | Comments (104)
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