57 and counting!

h/t Marc Ambinder

Double Innumeracy: He says he's just got one state to go -- he didn't visit Hawaii or Alaska.

Now, I grant you that numbers higher than five are tricky. 47 states, 50 states, 57 states... who can distinguish between such vast numbers.

But I think a president should be able to tell the difference between one and two.

Of course he probably meant one state besides Alaska and Hawaii. Which I guess makes sense. With those three included, that accounts for all sixty states in America.

Posted by: DrewM at 01:25 PM | Comments (68)
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Welcome to the party, pal.

Cooper: Lanny, let me start off with you. We haven't heard from you tonight. Your take on Barack Obama's speech earlier?

Davis: You haven't heard from me tonight. And I'm not sure — I’m not sure you want to hear from me tonight but —

Cooper: We heard from Paul Begala. This is your big chance.

Davis: Well, actually, I don't think we heard very much from Paul Begala. We did hear an awful —

Cooper: All part of the conspiracy against Hillary Clinton, I suppose.

I doubt any of these sudden realizations by liberals that, golly-gee-willickers, the media really does have a strong liberal bias, will effect any change.

First of all, I think almost all of them already knew this. I think everyone, including those in the media themselves, is simply lying through their teeth when they claim the media is impartial and fair to all sides.

Second of all, this is a once-in-a-blue-moon event where liberal bias actually hurts a Democrat of any note. Once Hillary bows out, we'll never hear about this from any liberals again. They didn't say anything before because it previously always worked to their advantage. It will do so again, and that will be the end of this topic.

It is funny, though. I keep hearing this from liberal Hillary supporters-- they're suddenly awakened to liberal media bias. They're shocked, shocked to find liberal media bias going on in the liberal media.

Posted by: Ace at 01:00 PM | Comments (42)
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Fertile Myrtle.

It's a happy Mother's Day for an Arkansas woman—she's pregnant with her 18th child.

Michelle Duggar, 41, is due on New Year's Day, and the latest addition will join seven sisters and 10 brothers. There are two sets of twins.

...

The fast-growing family lives in Tontitown in northwest Arkansas in a 7,000-square-foot home. All the children—whose names start with the letter J—are home-schooled.

Duggar has been been pregnant for more than 11 years of her life, and the family is in the process of filming another series for Discovery Health.

...

Duggar said she's six weeks along and the pregnancy is going well. She and her husband, Jim Bob Duggar, said they'll keep having children as long as God wills it.

...

The other Duggar children, in between Joshua and Jennifer, are Jana, 18; John-David, 18; Jill, 16; Jessa, 15; Jinger, 14; Joseph, 13; Josiah, 11; Joy-Anna, 10; Jeremiah, 9; Jedidiah, 9; Jason, 7; James, 6; Justin, 5; Jackson, 3; and Johannah, 2.

"Jinger."

Thanks to DPUD, who proclaims "fine, you win, it is a clown car."

Plus another installment of Around the Moronosphere in 80 IQ Points.

Which includes Code Pink's newest initiative to convince the American people they're just normal folks like you--

The women's anti-war group has told ralliers to come equipped with spells and pointy hats Friday for "Witches, clowns and sirens day," the last of the group's weeklong homage to Mother's Day.

"Women are coming to cast spells and do rituals and to impart wisdom to figure out how we're going to end war," Zanne Sam Joi of Bay Area Code Pink told FOXNews.com.

Zanne Sam Joi. Is going. To perform rituals. And impart wisdom.

Reality. Based. Community.

Posted by: Ace at 12:46 PM | Comments (47)
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How do all these terrorist-sympathizing radicals keep mistakenly thinking that Obama is one of them?

One of Barack ObamaÂ’s Middle East policy advisers disclosed today that he had held meetings with the militant Palestinian group Hamas - prompting the likely Democratic nominee to sever all links with him.

Robert Malley told The Times he had regularly been in contact with Hamas, which controls Gaza but is listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organisation. Such talks, he stressed, were related to his work for a conflict resolution think tank and had no connection with his position on Mr Obama's Middle East advisory council.

“I’ve never hidden the fact that in my job with the International Crisis Group I meet all kinds of people,” he added.

...

Mr Malley, who is a respected commentator on Middle Eastern issues and was part of President Clinton's negotiating team at the Camp David talks, has come under attack in recent months from right-wing bloggers.

Today, asked if Obama campaign was aware of his contact with Hamas, he replied: "They know who I am but I don't think they vet everyone in a group of informal advisers."

Randy Scheunemann, Mr McCain's foreign policy chief, suggested Mr Malley was part of an emerging pattern which has seen other advisers repudiated after throwing confusion over policies on trade and Iraq.

"Perhaps, because of his inexperience, Senator Obama surrounds himself with advisers that contradict his stated policies," said Mr Scheunemann.

Here's the website for the International Crisis Group, which bills itself as...

The International Crisis Group (Crisis Group) is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation, with some 145 staff members on five continents, working through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict.

He's never hidden it, so I assume Obama wasn't in church the days he discussed his Hamas connections.

Thanks to Portly Pirate.

By the way, it demonstrates that McCain is "losing his bearings" by noting that Hamas has endorsed Obama.

Gee, I wonder where they could have gotten the idea he would sympathize with their agenda.

Non-Correction: I took the flaming skull down and injected a cautionary note for a minute because I hadn't checked what the International Crisis Group actually was. If it was, say, a firm involved in K&R (Kidnap and Ransom) negotiations with terrorists, then of course it would have to talk with terrorist kidnappers on occasion, and all the sturm and drang I was suggesting wouldn't be fair.

But I looked it up, and it appears just to be an egghead "peace" organization. So if they're talking to Hamas, it's because that's their strategy for "peace."

And Obama's.

Posted by: Ace at 12:03 PM | Comments (50)
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Pretty interesting.

Be aware that this isn't really an ego-stroke article for neocons like me (and many of you); Sonny is the "neocon" in this analysis, and his singular mode of dealing with threats -- "Attack" -- is deemed disastrous (and his own ultimate undoing).

It's not really terribly insightful, despite being written for the National Interest by the "Alfred von Oppenheim Scholar in Residence at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin, Germany." But it is clever how the brothers Corleone are cast as archetypes representing legal-diplomatic
liberal institutionalism (Tom Hagen), unilateral neocon Jacksonianism (Sonny) and "realism" (Michael), the latter just a Goldilocks-like not-too-hot-not-too-cold middle position.

Quite frankly Maureen Dowd has used The Godfather as the pop-cultural hook for a thousand mix-and-match moroncolumns, so this isn't a new idea. But it is well-done.

Here's Tom the liberal:

First, like many modern Democrats, Tom believes that the family’s main objective should be to return as quickly as possible to the world as it existed before the attack. His overriding strategic aim is the one that Hillary Clinton had in mind when she wrote in a recent Foreign Affairs article of the need for America to “reclaim its proper place in the world.” The “proper place” Tom wants to reclaim is a mirror image of the one that American politicians remember from the 1990s and dream of restoring after 2008—that of the world’s “benign hegemon.”

...

It is this “Pax Corleone” [i.e., the peaceful situation in which order is maintained due to the pre-eminence of the Corleone Family Superpower] that Sollozzo, in Tom’s eyes, must not be allowed to disrupt. In dealing with the new challenger, however, Tom believes that the brothers must be careful not to do anything that would damage the family business. The way to handle Sollozzo, he judges, is not through force but through negotiation—a second trait linking him to today’s liberal institutionalists. Like more than one of the leading Democratic contenders for the presidency, Tom thinks that even a rogue power like Sollozzo can be brought to terms, if only the family will take the time to hear his proposals and accommodate his needs.

Throughout the movie, Tom’s motto is “we oughta talk to ‘em”—a slogan which, especially since the publication of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, is the line promoted by the lawmakers and presidential hopefuls of the Democratic Party, who now say that immediate, unconditional talks with America’s latest “Sollozzo” (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) are the only option still open to Washington for coping with the Iranian nuclear crisis.

The partyÂ’s growing veneration of diplomacy as the sine qua non of American statecraft rests, as it did for Tom, on two assumptions: first, that despite their aggressive posturing, the Sollozzos of the world would rather be status quo than revolutionary powers; and, second, that the other big families have a vested interest in sustaining the Pax Corleone and will therefore not use the familyÂ’s distraction with Sollozzo as an opportunity to make their own power grabs. Working from these assumptions, todayÂ’s consiglieres have prescribed the same course of action regarding Iran that Tom prescribed for dealing with Sollozzo: a process of intensified, reward-laden negotiation that they believe will pave the way for his admission as a normalized player into the familyÂ’s rules-based community.

...

But the hope Tom offers the family is a false one.

For in order to be successful, the consigliere’s diplomacy must be conducted from a position of unparalleled strength, which the family no longer possesses. Tom no longer has the luxury of always being the man at the table with the most leverage. The era of easy Corleone dominance is over. Power on the streets has already begun to shift into the hands of the Tataglias and Barzinis—the mafia equivalent of today’s BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China). Like the current international system, the situation that confronts the Corleone family is one of increasing multipolarity—a reality that is lost on Tom, who thinks he is still the emissary of the dominant superpower (a delusion that many Democrats apparently share).

...

The other families have no more incentive to thwart his maneuvers than Russia and China have to thwart those of Iran. And because Tom fails to see this, his strategy is the wrong one for the family, and the wrong one for America.

Thanks to Jeff Larkin.

Already Done! See-Dub takes on the article at Michelle Malkin's.

He has two big problems:

First, Michael is pretty "neocon" in his outlook, too. He's just not as dumb about it as Sonny. But apparently the author missed the whole baptism sequence.

And this line:

MICHAEL: I don't feel I have to wipe everybody out, Tom. Just my enemies.

Second, and this is a great point -- Who's Fredo in this analogy? You know, the idiot clown who "goes against the family" and actively supports the family's enemies?

You know who.

Thanks to DPUD for that.

Posted by: Ace at 11:34 AM | Comments (33)
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...and he lists the channels that have declined to hire him, including small-tater ones like Discovery and National Geographic. And Fox.

If taking delight in the stinky tatters of this senile old hack's career is wrong, then baby, I don't want to be right.

Bumped, just to give Slublog's p-shop a prominent placement.

Posted by: Ace at 10:43 AM | Comments (59)
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The guys at Fark call this guy posting his music on MySpace "the worst musician eveh."

I would never say anything like that about someone trying to make their dreams come true. His music is... interesting. Lots of energy. As Paula Abdul would say, he really "colors up" his songs with his "beautiful spirit."

On the other hand, I'm 50% sure I'm being punked.

Because, dude? Really?

No seriously, he's got a lot of potential. I would never say anything bad about a guy who gives off a Travis Bickle sort of vibe, and writes songs like "Painful Childhood," "No One Understands Me," and "Damien: You Must Repent."

Dude:

Nigel Tufnel's head just exploded.

That's "The Beast," a six necked guitar, built because... um. Just because I guess.

Posted by: Ace at 10:41 AM | Comments (28)
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A small bit of good news.

The leadership of the Germantown Masjid has refused to conduct funeral services for Howard Cain, the bank robber who killed Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski with a Chinese-made semi-automatic rifle.

"No, we will not bury him at Germantown Masjid," said Tariq El Shabazz, managing director of the mosque. "We don't want one slight scintilla hinting that we condone his behavior."

...

"We don't tolerate that kind of behavior," El Shabazz said. "Their actions are not from Islam. You don't dress like a woman, you don't rob people or transgress against them or commit murder. On all three grounds, they are dead wrong."

...

Since Sunday morning, Imam Abdullah has been preaching five times a day about the officer's murder.

Abdullah "is rough on his own people," Jabbar said. "He's an elder in the mosque, a religious teacher who has stature and he makes you feel the wrath of Allah."

At Friday's Jumah prayers, "Abdullah is going to deliver a very strong message about that kind of behavior, and take the position that the Muslim community has to stand against something like this," said Jabbar, referring to the killing of a police officer.

"You have to be clear and come out against them, even if they are in your flock," he added.

Asked if the burial service would take place at the Philadelphia Masjid, at 47th Street and Wyalusing Avenue, a source said: "I'm telling you now. We ain't burying him here."

More of this please.

Posted by: Ace at 10:13 AM | Comments (28)
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Consider our awareness of the issue raised.

By the way, it's 48 degrees where I am. In May.

A new Year Without a Summer on the way? I'm not just looking at a short-range local weather pattern. Last year was one of the coldest on record and as far as I know temperatures the world over have continued to be under the long-term average.

Oh, wait, it's "climate change" now, not "global warming." Global warming of course includes global cooling. How absurd of me.

Hmmm... A bit sketchy, but it appears local papers (including the Boston Globe) attempted to downplay the warnings of record snowfall predicted for Maine. Which resulted in a public inadequately informed about the subsequent melting of the record-level snowpack.

Does providing accurate information about snowfull no longer fit the MSM's metanarrative that the earth is getting warmer?

Thanks to A Time Like This.

Posted by: Ace at 09:27 AM | Comments (19)
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"Donair Pizza" is pizza topped with gyro-like donair meat. Corrected from original.

A newspaper invited readers to share "passive aggressive roommate tales," though I'm not sure that calling someone "soyfucker" counts as passive aggressive. Seems pretty direct to me. This blog recounts some of the better stories.

Via PetiteDov, who struggles to psych herself up about voting for McCain.

Correction: I really should have read those Google slug-lines more carefully.

Donair pizza isn't a chain, it's pizza topped with donair or doner meat. A gyro-like "meat."

Anonym writes:

Oh dear. First, a doner pizza is a pizza topped with doner meat. You don't put meat in a compost heap because it attracts vermin. Like mice, or indeed rats.

Ah. Well that makes good sense.

That said, I'll give up "soyfucker" and "bacon is life" when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.

Posted by: Ace at 09:13 AM | Comments (39)
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