Student voted "Most Likely to Be a Martyr."
— Purple Avenger

Where did this happen? Saudi Arabia? Iran? Yemen? Pakistan? Nope. Alexandria Virginia, US of fucking A. The student of course went on to join AQ and plotted to assassinate the president.

...This was the steady diet of hate the Saudi academy fed Ahmed Abu Ali, who joined al-Qaida after graduating and plotted to kill President Bush. Lest anyone think Ali was a misfit loner, he graduated valedictorian and was voted as the "Most Likely to Be a Martyr."...

Not surprisingly, this Saudi backed school has strong support from a local democrat who will be running for congress.

In fact, Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerry Connolly reportedly dismissed critics of the Saudi academy as "bigots" as he accepted a check from the Saudi Embassy for another $2.2 million to extend its lease. Perhaps not coincidentally, Connolly is running as a Democrat for Congress.

Its not that Connolly is anti-American or anything dire like that, its just that he's working for the enemy.

H/T Duane

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 06:22 AM | Comments (23)
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McCain finally gets it? Wants to lift federal restrictions on Oil companies. [Aurvant]
— Open Blog

I would have never believed it if I had not read it for myself.

Apparently the guy does listen when people scream loud enough. Perhaps with the constant bombardment of "Drill here, Drill now!" ringing in his ears day after day he has finally awakened to the real world. Just last week I heard McCain say, on the Today show, that he thought that drilling here in America was a bad idea and that we needed to find alternate solutions to reduce out dependency on foreign oil.

Oh, what a week can do for a guy:

In a major energy speech that implicitly criticizes Vice President Dick
Cheney, who dismissed conservation as a "personal virtue" in 2001,
McCain was to call for a variety of means to increase production,
including lifting a federal ban on offshore oil and gas drilling and
building refineries and nuclear reactors.

Could it be? Could he really be serious this time? Possibly. McCain skimps out on his plans for conservation and what federal measures might be taken to enforce conservation, but at least it looks like a step in the right direction.

I mean, he even told the Oil companies he was willing to do it:

Instead, McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, was to provide
Houston oil executives with more details of his proposal to lift the
federal moratorium on offshore oil and gas exploration in states that
want it. McCain's position is welcome news for the oil industry.

In the states that want it. That includes Alaska, and that includes ANWR.

If he means it, and I mean really means it then he might have an ever greater chance at beating Obama come this November.

Update [Ace]: I may have missed something, but this proposal doesn't include ANWR, which is not "offshore," or at least it's not covered. ANWR is covered by a specific moratorium, different from the ban on offshore drilling, and I haven't heard McCain say he wants to lift the ANWR moratorium. Quite the opposite. He keeps comparing it, dufusiously, to the Grand Canyon.

Posted by: Open Blog at 06:10 AM | Comments (54)
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You know who isn't a very funny satirist??
— Jack M.

Al Franken.

You know who that benefits?

Mitt Romney Sen. Norm Coleman.

The Washington Post runs an op-ed today in which columnist Michael Gerson nukes Al Franken from orbit. While we morons have long known that Franken is a talentless hack who owes whatever "fame" he has to a highly effective Haitian chicken-sacrificing voodoo pact with Baron Samedi, it appears that Franken's complete lack of talent has become so obvious that even the MSM has been forced to acknowledge it.

Satire has been called "punishment for those who deserve it." Writers from Erasmus to Jonathan Swift to George Orwell have used humor, irony and ridicule to expose the follies of the powerful, the failures of blind ideology and the comic weakness of human nature itself.

So what is Franken's "provocative, touching and funny" contribution to the genre? Consider his article in Playboy magazine titled "Porn-O-Rama!" in which he enthuses that it is an "exciting time for pornographers and for us, the consumers of pornography." The Internet, he explains, is a "terrific learning tool. For example, a couple of years ago, when he was 12, my son used the Internet for a sixth-grade report on bestiality. Joe was able to download some effective visual aids, which the other students in his class just loved." Franken goes on to relate a soft-core fantasy about women providing him with sex who were trained at the "Minnesota Institute of Titology."

Orwell would be so proud.

It's nice to see Franken being hoisted on his own retard (I know...don't e-mail me) for a change.

But what's even more interesting is this: it's one of the few times in recent memory that a liberal "entertainer"/"personality"(assuming one grants that Franken is one or has the other) has seen his invocation of the "satire" defense so thoroughly discredited by a typically left-wing newspaper.

Does anybody here remember Amanda "Godbags" Marcotte? Like Franken, when word of her vile "contributions" to the nation's political conversation gained widespread attention, she too played the "satire" card. Because, being morons, after all, we conservalibertaricans are obviously not nuanced enough to understand the subtleties of bashing the Virgin birth any more than we can understand the layers of complex thinking that led to Franken's production of the "Porn-O-Rama" article.

The difference is that I don't recall the major papers making an issue of Marcotte's comments. That was a story that was pushed by blogs and bloggers, and in many instances when they did touch on the controversy, the media reported on the substance of Marcotte's remarks only obliquely. In any event, even without the interest of the MSM, Marcotte became a political liability and ultimately resigned from the John Edwards campaign.

Franken isn't being given that luxury. The WashPo shows that it's willing to hold Franken to a different standard, almost as if he were a Republican or something.

And that's a welcome development. Not just for the quality of future political discourse, but because Orwell and Swift were hella good satirists.

They don't deserve to be forced to keep company with the Marcotte's and Franken's of the world. It's nice to see the Post can recognize when the line has been crossed too.

Posted by: Jack M. at 12:39 AM | Comments (32)
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The MSM Condemnation of Harsh Pentagon Lawyers
— Dave in Texas

Sometimes I think the AP uses the word "lawyers" to deflect criticism.

Maybe it's just me.

The Pentagon in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks pursued abusive interrogation techniques once used by North Korea and Vietnam on American POWs despite stern warnings by several military lawyers that the methods were cruel and even illegal, according to a Senate investigation.

...

"The guidance (administration lawyers) provided will go down in history as some of the most irresponsible and shortsighted legal analysis ever provided to our nation's military and intelligence communities," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., an Air Force Reserve colonel who teaches military law for the service.

Right.

I'm looking for citations of broken bones at Gitmo (I realize this article isn't just about Guantanamo, but that's the MSM narrative right now).

Not finding them (the broken bones thing).

Here's what I can find at stupid wiki about the Hanoi Hilton.

"murder, beatings, broken bones, teeth and eardrums, dislocated limbs, starvation, serving of food contaminated with human and animal feces and medical neglect of infections and tropical disease".

nothing about pissing on a Bible.

I'm trying to care about this. Ok, that's a lie. I don't give a fuck about these shits in Gitmo. And the dirty little secret the MSM doesn't seem to be able to deal with is most American's don't give a fuck about them either.

Yep. There it is. We just don't.

Hard to imagine I know. Most Americans care more about one another and their kids than they do about the refuse scooped up from the fields of Afghanistan who were pointing a Kalashnikov at their brother.

Go figure.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 07:37 PM | Comments (41)
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Moron Steals Steamroller, Gets Himself Killed, Family May Sue (genghis)
— Open Blog

(IÂ’ll update this with a video clip if and when it becomes available. I got this from multiple sources, so settle down AP)

In the wee hours of Tuesday morning, in the quaint hamlet of Blaine, WA, an 18 year-old man and two 17 year-old accomplices entered a construction site. The 18 year-old started up an unattended steamroller, tried to drive it up a dirt pile and was then killed when it flipped over on top of him. Police say that alcohol may have been involved, IÂ’m shocked to report.

The moronÂ’s parents just appeared on a local tv news broadcast and it appears theyÂ’re all fired up to sue the construction company because the construction site wasnÂ’t fenced in and the keys to the steamroller were left in it. According to mom and dad:

"They were just boys out looking to have a good time. Not causing trouble, not vandalize things”

Well, that’s good to hear, and that was about the mildest thing they said in the interview. Basically it was “they’re gonna’ pay” or “they’re gonna’ be sorry.” You get the gist.

Hopefully, if they do sue, the family will get some kind of award for their loss.

Posted by: Open Blog at 06:34 PM | Comments (123)
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AP Quotes from Patterico; No Word Yet if Payment Will Be Forthcoming
— Ace

Quoting from the email from Kozinski's wife, apparently without first seeking permission, and not, so far as I know, according with Patterico's license agreement, which specifies a charge of $500,000 per word.

Why does the AP imagine its free to cull freely from all other sources (including other news organizations -- which they all do all the time) but has a right to charge others from quoting a paragraph or two?

Thanks to DrewM.

Posted by: Ace at 03:39 PM | Comments (27)
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Foreign Poohlicy
— Ace

Thanks to Lumberjack.

Posted by: Ace at 03:01 PM | Comments (16)
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And So It Begins: Terrorist Who Killed US Soldier in Grenade Attack Petitions for Release -- Because He Wasn't Read His Rights
— Ace

Against that backdrop [the Boudemaine decision], navy Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler, Khadr's military-appointed defence lawyer, will use Wednesday's hearing to argue that the entire case against the Toronto-born accused terrorist should be thrown out on grounds U.S. authorities have never told him of his rights.

Which "rights" would those be?

The Supreme Court punted that issue to a district court judge, who will take six months to craft an opinion, which will then have to be reviewed by an appellate court, and then their decision will have to be reviewed en banc (by all members of the court, not just the three judges assigned to the case; big juicy cases are usually reheard en banc), and then, sometime thereafter, the Supreme Court will grant certiorari, find quibbles here and there with the lower courts' various rulings (as they always do), and then remand the case again to lower courts asking them to take another stab at the question which will hopefully, one day, pass muster and be recognized as the prevailing "constitutional" law by the Supreme court.

We won't know definitively if enemy captures have to be Mirandized for at least a year. More difficult questions will take much longer. (I hope the Miranda question will be an easy one for the court, but who can know, given Justice Fuckface Kennedy's continuing "evolution.")

Incidentally, this is a pretty stupid filing, because failure to read a suspect Miranda doesn't result, automatically, in his being released -- it only results in the suppression of any statements he made in absence of being advised of his rights. Unless almost the whole case against him is based on a confession, he can still be imprisoned.

But perhaps this lawyer thought that Super Sexy Celeberity Terrorists had special rights according to the Supreme Court, rights not afforded to us pissant US citizens (who are not super sexy because we don't murder people for Allah).

And who knows, his lawyer might turn out to be right.

Thanks to CJ.

Posted by: Ace at 02:28 PM | Comments (63)
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Some News Organization Reports Disovery of "Super-Earths"
— Ace

A certain news organization is on crack if they believe that it's somehow difficult for a professional (of a sort) writer to briefly paraphrase their nitwit reportage.

It's not difficult. It's just a hassle.

So here's the story (no citation):

Astronomers probing the galaxy for additional planets have found three terrestrial-type (Earth-like, rocky, as opposed to gas giants) which range in size from twice to ten times the earth's mass.

Such "exoplanets" are too far away to be photographed or otherwise visually image but are instead detected indirectly, usually by observing the wobble in the star they orbit caused by their own gravitational tug.

Numerous gas giants have been discovered orbiting distant stars in the past. But they're relatively easy to spot, as they're enormous. Finding the terrestrials is tricky. (Not sure if that was in this article, but it's true.)

This unnamed news organization claims that the discovery shows there are more planets in the universe than previously imagined, which is, by the way, the sort of hype and bullshit the MSM routinely serves to us, because astronomers have long believed that planets were not just common, they were nearly obligatory, and really simply have not have confirmation of this widespread hunch previously.

There. An unnamed news organization cost me five minutes of my time.

I can do this all day.

Thanks to jenjhis.

Visual! The news organization in question includes a lame graphic of a star and a planet, as if you can't imagine what that might look like.

To give my digest similar visual punch, here's one of the Eagles from Space: 1999 landing on a rocky (Earth-like) planet:

UPDATE [DinT]: Total fuckin ripoff. You think you can just streamline a nose, add some pod thingy feets outboard and a lame-ass exoskeleton?

Fargin commies... more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:52 PM | Comments (45)
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AP Announces $2.50 Per Word Charge for Quoting its Stories; Blogger Suggests Counter-Offer
— Ace

That's AP's plan, apparently, based on its decision that it is, unlike any other publisher, exempt from the "fair use" doctrine of copyright.

Here's my counter-offer:

I will limit the the words actually quoted from AP stories, limiting myself to paraphrase and direct quotes of relevant officials. (AP can't copyright someone else's words -- at best, they can pitch an unfair trade practices beef, but that's a harder case to make.)

Furthermore, I will no longer provide any links to any AP stories anywhere, and in fact may not even bother to mention the story comes from AP. I will cite instead a "news organization."

If AP wants a link, it can begin paying me $25.00 per link. I charge for advertising.

There's my counter-offer. It's not negotiable.

The AP's scheme resembles its previous "price schedule" for quoting its stories, which included this cute little nugget:

The AP claims that it can revoke the license at any time if it feels you're saying something negative about the Associated Press: "Publisher reserves the right to terminate this Agreement at any time if Publisher or its agents finds Your use of the licensed Content to be offensive and/or damaging to PublisherÂ’s reputation."

The AP picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue if it thinks it can charge people or outright forbid them from critiquing their coverage.

Perhaps politicians should copyright their words and begin charging AP to quote them, and perhaps politicians can and should revoke the license if they find people are unduly criticizing them.

Posted by: Ace at 01:38 PM | Comments (49)
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