Guinness World Record holder for the 'Most Pierced Woman', Elaine Davidson, poses for a photograph in the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland showing some of her five thousand nine hundred and twenty piercings...

If you slap her I bet it sounds like somebody dropped a janitor's keyring.

Posted by: LauraW at 05:57 AM | Comments (50)
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Pen Hysterical Letter That Cannot Be Improved Upon By Blogger

I shit you not.

The party’s central committee called Steven Spielberg’s film an attempt to “slander Soviet Communists” and poison the young against them. It called Ford and Blanchett “capitalist puppets”.

“Our moviegoers are teenagers who are unaware of what happened in 1957,” said Sergei Malinkovich, the chief of the St Petersburg Communist Party chief. “They will go to the cinema and will be sure that in 1957 we made trouble for the United States and almost started a nuclear war. It’s rubbish.”

Party members were equally scathing in comments posted on its website. Andrei Gindos said: “Harrison Ford and Cate Blanchett are second-rate actors serving as the running dogs of the CIA. We need to deprive these people of the right to enter the country. And then finally we will defeat Moose and Squirrel! Mwa ha ha haa.”

I might have tampered with that last bit.

Read the whole thing. The letter conjures up the very caricature of old-timey Soviet propagandists. They threaten to beat the actors if they visit the USSR Russia.

Seriously, though. Blanchett and Ford...'running dogs of the CIA?'

I love the wording and the notion. I slurp it up. Let us all dip our balls into this concept.

The article goes on to allow some Australian chickie archaeologist to get all red and puffy about Indiana Jones' archaeological technique and ideology. She impeaches the “imperialist assumption that artefacts [sic] in far-flung parts of the world needed ‘protection’ supplied by the West”.

Proving that PC anti-Western programming has so infected Western academia that they no longer recognize the merits of the tradition they have casually inherited or what immense good it has done in 'far-flung parts of the world.'

And that for the Left, all entertainment is propaganda, and must be kept on-message.

Posted by: LauraW at 05:14 AM | Comments (51)
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For our old AoS moron pal Dr. Reo Symes, who had an affinity (some would suggest perhaps unhealthy) for bridges, today is the 125th anniversary of the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge.

It was designed by German immigrant and engineer John Roebling, who built almost a dozen suspension bridges in his career, including this one in Cincinnati, and this one in Waco Texas. (fun Dave in Texas fact: I took a leak off the Waco bridge in '78*).

But the Brooklyn bridge was his largest, having a span of 1595 feet, almost 600 feet longer than the Cincinnati bridge.

Roebling began the construction but was injured in an accident (foot crushed by an arriving ferry while he was on the dock), and 24 days later died from infection. His son Washington Roebling took over the project, and it was completed in 1883. On opening day there were two parades, an hour long fireworks show, and a visit from President Chester A. Arthur, the 21st President of the United States. I remember he was 21st cause of that construction guy in Die Hard with a Vengeance who knew Chester was the 21st President and also the Customs Collector for the Port of New York even though that wasn't part of the clue from Jeremy Irons.

Anyway, happy birthday Brooklyn Bridge. And best regards to you, Dr. Reo Symes, wherever you are.

* I have not taken a leak off of the Brooklyn Bridge but I am considering it.

Bonus: Couple of Dr. Reo Symes old bridge posts here and here.

Roebling's Erection [ace]: Kinda funny scene including the opening of the Brookyn Bridge from Kate & Leopold. The bit is from about 1:55 to 2:20.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 02:57 AM | Comments (29)
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While you are enjoying time with family and friends this weekend, take a few minutes to remember the men and women who have fallen in service to our country.

Men like Specialist Ross McGinnis, United States Army.

The White House announced Friday that a Pennsylvania soldier who jumped on top of a grenade in Iraq and saved the lives of his comrades will posthumously receive the Medal of Honor.

Â… McGinnis was perched in the gunner's hatch of a Humvee when a grenade sailed past him and into the truck where four other soldiers sat. He shouted a warning to the others, then jumped on the grenade. The grenade, which was lodged near the vehicle's radio, blew up and killed him.

Lt. Col. Anne Edgecomb, an Army spokeswoman, said McGinnis easily could have jumped out of the truck and saved himself.

"The instinct is, jump out of the vehicle, but his four buddies were in the vehicle with him ... and he chose to place himself on top of the grenade and absorb the impact, and it saved their lives," Edgecomb said.

Spc. McGinnis was 19 years old.

You can read about the four previous Medal of Honor recipients in the Global War on Terror here.

For the stories of other American heroes, visit Blackfive and their "Fallen But Never Forgotten" series.

(h/t Hot Air Headlines)

Posted by: DrewM at 05:50 PM | Comments (29)
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I'll be here and there but I actually have some plans this weekend. I know I took the day off already pretty much. Apologies.

Update - [Slublog] - In the comments, RobG points out this website for his sister-in-law. She has Adenocarcinoma and no health insurance, so I'm sure any donations you could make toward her treatment would be appreciated.

Posted by: Ace at 11:10 AM | Comments (86)
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So much for being a uniter.

Obama sharpened his rhetoric against some of the most vocal voices against immigrant workers and migrant worker programs.

“A certain segment has basically been feeding a kind of xenophobia.
ThereÂ’s a reason why hate crimes against Hispanic people doubled last
year,” Obama said. “If you have people like Lou Doggs(sic) and Rush Limbaugh
ginning things up, it’s not surprising that would happen.”

Is Obama McCainÂ’s best hope of getting more conservative votes?

Let’s see if McCain takes this chance to stand up for Rush, Dobbs and others who disagree with him on immigration. Something along the lines of, ‘we can disagree on this important issue without assuming bad faith or ill will on the part of those that disagree with us’ might help McCain on the margins. Of course, he didn’t become The Maverick by standing up for conservatives so I am not exactly holding my breath.

UPDATE [Dave in Texas]: Several commenters have asked "I wonder where Obama got his stats?" It's a good question. I know it wasn't the FBI Hate Crime Statistics website. Because they haven't published 2007 yet.

Perhaps it was the United States Department of Just Making Shit Up?

Posted by: DrewM at 10:28 AM | Comments (82)
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Geraghty asked and was assured that this was simply "poor wording" on McCain's part.

Which isn't true. McCain specified the date by which he hoped to pass Comprehensive Piece of Shit, and it is a mere year into his hypothetical term of office. No it's not: It's his first two weeks.

The border cannot be secured in a year. (Or two weeks.)

Ergo, the promise is an empty one he has no intention of fulfilling.

Except through nonsense deceptions like asking his political appointee head of ICE to certify the border as "secure," and then, gee whiz, his subordinate so certifies it. Hurray.

DUH: January 2009 will be his first several weeks in office. He wouldn't be inaugurated until the the second week in January.

So he's not even giving himself a year. He's giving himself two weeks to secure the border.

Thanks to someone.

A-derrrr. I was thinking he'd take office in January '08. I'm always behind on changing over to the new year.

If McCain made the mistake I did (which I imagine he did) and meant to say 2010, well that's one year. One whole year to secure a border that has not been secured, ever, in the history of the American republic.

Posted by: Ace at 08:55 AM | Comments (67)
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Ahhhhh, it's a beautiful thing. She makes the mistake of blundering into saying out loud exactly what leftists believe, the government should just take over the whole industry, so you just watch your attitude Mister Big Oil Company man.

Funnier yet, she blurts out the word "sociali...", then pauses, then plods on and completes the thought. Either she's hoping it didn't really come out, or as Allah suggests she's just so fucking dumb she doesn't know what the proper term is.

I'm not ruling out dumb.

Eh, I've changed my mind after watching it again. She meant nationalize, just couldn't find the word. She did define it for us though, so that was helpful.

via HotAir

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 08:31 AM | Comments (79)
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HMS Trafalgar, one of the UK's nuclear subs, ran aground during a training exercise in November 2002 (the article says October, but it's wrong). The Royal Navy's investigation was just made public and the culprit is: tracing paper!

A nuclear-powered Royal Navy submarine needed £5m worth of repairs after it struck the seabed because a piece of tracing paper covered its navigational chart, investigators have found.

The tracing paper had been used on the chart to protect it from being written on, obscuring vital information.

[...]

The report said tracing paper had been a contributory factor in previous groundings and recommended its use should be strongly discouraged.
It noted that the navigation plan had been "flawed both in concept and execution" and the chartwork supervision was inadequate.

Joe Hazelwood is wondering why he didn't think of that.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:52 AM | Comments (25)
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I see DrewM. has posted too. I'll leave my take up anyway.

McCain stated he'd push for the Comprehensive Piece of Shit again by January 2009 -- he doesn't think it will be done by then, but he wants it done by then.

That would seem to indicate he lied about his "secure the borders" first pledge. If the borders have not be secured for, what, let's just call it thirty years instead of forever, it's an impossibility they'd be sealed within a single year of John McCain presidency. Despite making the pledge to "secure the borders" first, he has pushed for exactly none of the steps necessary to do so. It strains credibility to imagine he will suddenly advocate a border fence and the like as president when he's only grudgingly allowed, as a candidate and senator, he'll build the "goddamn fence" if we insist on it.

John Hawkins unloads on him and announces he won't be supporting him.

Ed Morrissey spins (lamely) that this isn't necessarily a contradiction -- it is, of course, unless one bizarrely conceives the border can be secured in a single year -- but then notes the hard choice we face. Barack Obama will push for the Comprehensive Piece of Shit, too, and will do an awful lot of other things we don't like.

What surprises me is that John McCain fetishizes his own integrity and honor and yet apparently doesn't think a promise made to conservatives "counts" -- perhaps he imagines we're children, or perhaps legally incompetent lunatics, who cannot enter binding contracts, and thus the contract he made with us can be voided without consequence?

I don't know. For a man to whom integrity and honor is supposedly so important one would imagine he'd be slightly less cavalier about lying and breaking a promise, even if he didn't like that promise.

Doubtless he disagrees with us. He thinks his policy is better. So what? The point of a promise is to, well, promise future outcomes, even if one wouldn't choose those outcomes in absence of a promise.

One doesn't really have to promise to do things one wants to do. One makes promises to do things one would not do, absent the promise.

This is the nasty edge of McCain's conception of himself as impeccably righteous -- he believes he's so above the rest of us in terms of honesty and integrity he can also decide what constitutes a lie and what constitutes bad behavior and what represents a broken promise. As in, his mind, his presidency is absolutely indispensible to America, tiny deceptions like this are not merely excusable, but downright imperative, and thus justified.

Or perhaps it's simpler: John McCain is unfailingly honorable; if he acts in a way that seems to be dishonorable, you must be perceiving it incorrectly, because John McCain is unfailingly honorable.

In fact, I imagine he conceives that there's a great deal of integrity in his "having the guts" to tell the conservative troglodytes what they needed to hear in order to secure the nomination.

I held off on this last night because I didn't know what to do. I guess my heart is with Hawkins, though my brain says Morrissey's right... Obama would be (marginally, I think) worse than McCain.

But Obama hasn't really flat-out lied to me.

That counts for something.

Posted by: Ace at 07:15 AM | Comments (174)
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