Drool.

This one comes fully equipped with a century old castle, and it has a great Archvillain Lair name: "Dark Island."

Trouble is, it's in Canada, so it's cold as shit, and it's only available for rent, and you know how touchy landowners are about alterations to their properties. So forget about the shark tanks and lava cannons.

Thanks to dri.

Related: 15 of the Coolest Hotel Suites in the World, stolen from Hot Air.

Also in the sidebar there: the coolest abandoned/ruined hotels, the most secret bases. One stop shopping for the discriminating super-spy or megalomaniac archvillain.

Posted by: Ace at 10:27 AM | Comments (28)
Post contains 118 words, total size 1 kb.

The Detroit City Council has requested that Governor Granholm remove Kwame Kilpatrick from office for misconduct, and, of course also for Habadashery Likely to Cause a Disturbance of the Peace.

Granholm of course doesn't want to do anything controversial regarding her fellow Democrat and is content to let the criminal probe play out... for years and years.

Meanwhile, that hat is out on the streets, doing God knows what.

Note the article JMF quotes actually mentions the party affiliation of both, but at end he links an AP article which naturally omits such trivialities.

Posted by: Ace at 10:07 AM | Comments (30)
Post contains 130 words, total size 1 kb.

Good analysis of Obama's problem with rural voters, in Salon of all places.

The legions of pseudonym-laden online posters who follow in political punditry's wake are less restrained in describing the shortcomings of Sen. Clinton's Appalachian supporters. They suggest it has to do with her voters being racist, toothless, shoeless, and prone to marrying their cousins. In short, they characterize these "special" Democrats in much the same terms they used in quieter times to describe Republicans.

Mountain people have long been considered exotic. The eminent British historian Sir Arnold Toynbee described the residents of Appalachia in 1947 as "the American counterparts of the latter-day white barbarians of the Old World -- Rifis, Albanians, Kurds, Pathans, and Hairy Ainus." They have also served as a sort of Rorschach test for the rest of America. When the country needs iconic war heroes like Alvin York or Jessica Lynch, mountaineers fill the bill. If, periodically, this rich nation needs people to pity, poverty-stricken hillbillies make excellent poster children. And if backers of the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee need to explain why their preferred candidate is not connecting with downscale, rural voters -- a demographic that was once key to Democratic electoral success -- Appalachia can again answer the call. Obama supporters and members of the media can place the blame for his poor fortunes not on the candidate or his message, but on the moral failings of those benighted mountain people.

However, the unnerving truth for the erstwhile party of Jefferson may be that Appalachia, for all its legend and lore, is not that different politically from the rest of the small-town and rural parts of the country where 60 million of us live. And that could mean trouble for the fall.

...

In 2004, Kerry lost the rural battleground by about 20 percent and with it a close election. The rural vote was particularly telling in the pivotal state of Ohio, where a massive Democratic get-out-the-vote effort in cities and suburbs was more than offset by increased Republican success with rural voters. Many of those rural voters were Appalachian and blue collar, people who back before the name-calling were reliable Democrats. They gave Bush a second term.

I've cut out the numbers because I was told there would be no math on this blog. So I focused on the name-calling and condescension.

This whole name-calling thing is so counterproductive for Democrats. Every time they lose they denigrate those who didn't vote for them as racist, stupid, and all the rest of it. Republicans name-call, too, of course -- we're not fond of the latte-chuggin' tree-huggin' electric-car-pluggin' Jesus-muggin' speech-code-thuggin' effete perverted condescending Eastern liberal establishment faux intellectual Pansy Class -- but Republicans don't need their votes (and never could get them anyway). But Democrats do need rural voters, and could get them, and once in a while do (or at least enough of them to win elections).

Plus, the insults are of a different character. Liberals may not appreciate being reduced to a socio-cultural stereotype, but the fact is they're proud to be all the things they're accused of being. They just don't like it when you say it in a bad way.

On the other hand, no one likes to be called stupid or racist or pathetic.

Or bitter. Or clingy.

Every election cycle the Democrats try the tactic of insulting would-be voters into voting for them, and more often than not, it doesn't work.

But they're the smart, tolerant party, remember.

Oh, One Number: The writer notes that Obama's deficit with rural voters in battleground states is the same nine-point gap John Kerry faced in his losing effort.

Posted by: Ace at 09:20 AM | Comments (55)
Post contains 619 words, total size 4 kb.

Noah Pollack over at Commentary thinks that McCain is losing the Iran debate with Obama. He gives two reasons:

1. It seems to me that itÂ’s a victory for Obama. The Iran debate is being defined as one of diplomatic engagement versus diplomatic isolation, with Obama presenting himself as the bearer of a new strategy while McCain is portrayed as obdurately insisting on the approach of the Bush administration.

[...]

2. Why is McCain allowing himself to be dragged into a debate about presidential-level diplomacy, when the more important question — and the question whose answer is more politically favorable to McCain — is whether diplomatic engagement will actually get anything accomplished? McCain should be asking Obama what concessions he realistically thinks he’s going to get from the Iranians upon going hat in hand to Tehran.

He concludes that the issue is "a diversion that does no favors for McCain." I disagree. This isn't a about "engagement versus isolation." It's about naive appeasement masquerading as progress. Obama is fully embracing his propaganda and casting himself in the role of magic Peacemaker. But sitting down with Iran will get us nothing (except a self-satisfied leader, probably waving a piece of paper and hooting about "peace in our time") and give Iran exactly what it wants: more time to continue its nuclear development.

Even Obama's campaign recognizes the damage his "talks without preconditions" does to his image. Now they're busily trying to rollback his statement before the general, saying that he didn't actually mean "unconditionally" and that he didn't really mean he'd meet with Ahmadinejad.

As far as McCain finally, finally taking a swing at one of these nice easy pitches that Obama likes to give him, it's about damn time. Obama spent a significant portion of one speech explaining that McCain was being foolish because Iran is not a serious threat only to have to come back the next day and say, "Uh, what I meant was that Iran is a grave threat...the, uh, opposite of everything I said yesterday." Thank you, Senator Obama, for doing what Democrats do best: saying the first thing that pops into your head and having to nuance it away later.

So, is McCain losing the Iran debate? Not now, and certainly not in the general where Obama's foreign policy naiveté will be on full display to nicely contrast with McCain's foreign policy strength.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 09:03 AM | Comments (11)
Post contains 409 words, total size 3 kb.

Well! They're not waiting this time, are they?

[Andrea Mitchell:] "Other Clinton loyalists, but realists, say that that electoral map is a stretch in one regard: There are ... Republican governors and Secretaries of State, if you will, Katherine Harris-type election officials in those states. ... [Obama] has to go up against the establishment, which would be Republican, and he has to figure out a way to get a fair vote, if he's the nominee, in those red states."

Hillary's folks are pretty much throwing any crap and hoping it will stick.

Note that Andrea Mitchell gives this theory of the election-already-stolen a nonjudgmental reading, and in fact calls those pushing this rather premature conspiracy theory "realists."

Because we all know that most election fraud doesn't go on in big cities (such as, um, Chicago) where Democrats' political machines still operate. It goes on in small towns and suburbs where Republicans tend to hold more offices.

Posted by: Ace at 07:59 AM | Comments (37)
Post contains 177 words, total size 1 kb.

Not in those vehicles or on those vehicles, mind you. With those vehicles.

Actual Caption: Edward Smith with one of his former partners

Well, it is the "Love Bug."

Edward Smith, who lives with his current "girlfriend" – a white Volkswagen Beetle named Vanilla, insisted that he was not "sick" and had no desire to change his ways.

"I appreciate beauty and I go a little bit beyond appreciating the beauty of a car only to the point of what I feel is an expression of love," he said.

"Maybe I'm a little bit off the wall but when I see movies like Herbie and Knight Rider, where cars become loveable, huggable characters it's just wonderful.

"I'm a romantic. I write poetry about cars, I sing to them and talk to them just like a girlfriend. I know what's in my heart and I have no desire to change."

...

Mr Smith, 57, first had sex with a car at the age of 15, and claims he has never been attracted to women or men.

I don't want to be all liberal, but it seems to me this guy isn't hurting anyone, and if this is his preference, so be it. There's nothing to be gained by judging him or treating him with anything but tolerance and acceptance.

But his wandering eye has spread beyond cars to other vehicles. He says that his most intense sexual experience was "making love" to the helicopter from 1980s TV hit Airwolf.

What? What? You dirty bastard son of a bitch. String this filthy pervert up and let him stretch until his rotten head pops off.

As well as Vanilla, he regularly spends time with his other vehicles – a 1973 Opal GT, named Cinnamon, and 1993 Ford Ranger Splash, named Ginger.

Before Vanilla, he had a five-year relationship with Victoria, a 1969 VW Beetle he bought from a family of Jehovah's Witnesses.

But he confesses that many of the cars he has had sex with have belonged to strangers or car showrooms.

...

Mr Smith, from Washington state in the US, kept quiet about his secret fetish for years, but agreed to be interviewed as part of a channel Five documentary into “mechaphilia”.

He explains how his fetish began:

"When I turned 13 and the famous Corvette Stingray came about, that car was pure sex and just an incredible machine. I wanted it."

Eh, that'll do it.

Now, he's willing to admit his "mechphillia" perversion, but there is one thing he wants to be perfectly clear about:

"As far as women go, they never really interested me much. And I'm not gay.”

Thank goodness. For a second I thought he was weird or something.

Then again, when the lights go down, you're just looking for an engine-hum and an exhaust pipe, right?

Thanks to dri.

UPDATE (Jack M.): I think this story settles the Airwolf vs. Firefox debate once and for all.

Firefox would NEVER have succumbed to the unwanted sexual advances of Edward "Who's gonna drive you home?" Harris.

Unlike that wuss, Airwolf, who didn't exactly put up much resistance, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

Update [ace]: Okay, now I can see the attraction. Thanks to dri again for that.

Thanks! Railwriter suggested the new intro for the headline.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 07:31 AM | Comments (60)
Post contains 603 words, total size 4 kb.

Exclusive footage of his teleprompter, showing what teleprompted his outburst. more...

Posted by: Ace at 06:53 AM | Comments (18)
Post contains 21 words, total size 1 kb.

He says he now faces the "delicious dilemma" of deciding where to marry.

In related news, a less publicized decision of the California Supreme Court finally lifted the age-old ban on men saying things like "delicious dilemma."

Thanks to notropolis.

More [Gabe]: Sulu's is just one of many celebrity marriage announcements. Ellen Degeneres' (to hottie Portia de Rossi) got not one, but two days of coverage on FOX News over the weekend--and I saw it getting discussed on CNN as I was flipping channels today.

For those who are interested, Professor Volokh considered what will happen to these marriages if, come November, the Marriage Protection Amendment is enacted.

Posted by: Ace at 09:52 PM | Comments (72)
Post contains 132 words, total size 1 kb.

An unusual coincidence was caught on tape the day of the Sichuan Earthquake. If the poster is to be believed, strange lights were seen in the skies north and east of the epicenter just prior to the disaster.

That video was taken 10 minutes before the quake. Click here to see similar video from further west and 20 minutes earlier. There's more info in the sidebar description.

He suggests that it was caused by electromagnetic emanations from the quake (aka "earthquake light"), but it looks a lot like a circumhorizontal arc to me.

Circumhorizon arcs are cloud refraction phenomena that look like horizontal rainbows. They are supposed to be pretty rare, which makes its appearance over Sichuan Province minutes before the deadliest Chinese quake in 30 years a bit a coincidence. Perhaps it will remind some that we we are fooling ourselves if we think that we have any great understanding or influence over the world we live on.

Of course, commenters at Youtube are already insisting that the phenomena is proof that the U.S. triggered the quake with a space-based superweapon.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 09:13 PM | Comments (40)
Post contains 200 words, total size 2 kb.

Here's why I didn't mention this earlier: I thought Olbermann was getting a bad rap. Vaguely phrased and all that, but I figured, yeah, he meant Karl Rove, somehow or other, even though Rove is of course not a "cold blooded killer," given that he hasn't killed anyone (that we know of).

But... listening to Levin... I think I've changed my mind. It just make no sense to call Rove, Bush, Cheney, etc., "cold blooded killers," when it's only Cheney who occasionally shoots people in the face for looking covetously at his Hot Pocket. Honestly, it makes no sense. To be a "killer" you have to kill.

Olbermann could only have meant our troops.

Furthermore, his explanation fails because he claims he just meant 1) people in the Pentagon, 2) people in Bush's cabinet, and 3) "mercenaries" from Blackwater.

Note that two of those categories include, you know, troops. People in the Pentagon are troops, and almost everyone at Blackwater is a former soldier who either joined Blackwater for higher pay, a safer job (they don't do hunt and kill offense, after all) or because they were forced to leave the military due to the military's up-or-out system.

So even as he says "I couldn't possibly have meant troops" he says, basically, "Rather, I meant the troops in the Pentagon and the former troops protecting diplomats and other personnel in Blackwater."

Who he calls "mercenaries," once again.

Cocksucker.

Yeah, I think I'm buying Levin's interpretation, and wondering why the hell I gave this devilcocksucking faggotdwarf the benefit of the doubt.

Via Allah, who links a NYT bit wondering if the unhinged faggotdwarves at MSNBC are beginning to hurt the NBC brand.

Buzz: Industry gossips wonder if Bathtub Boy's increasingly erratic behavior means he's going to leave MSNBC in a huff.

Answer: No. Don't be insane. He's a loser and this is the first professional success -- or, um, let us say first professional notoriety -- he's achieved since he first rose to prominence thinking of different ways to say "And he hits a home run" back in 1953.

This show gets this loser laid -- this is the finger he used to imprecisely edit his Special Comment, you know.

Posted by: Ace at 05:52 PM | Comments (64)
Post contains 379 words, total size 3 kb.