Philadelphia Eagles Cheerleaders show you beach-going ladies how to shape up your butt for bikini season.

If ever there was an urgent, public service announcement it would be this one.

Note to Excitable Andi: These are "power glutes". Accept no substitute.

Posted by: Jack M. at 01:44 PM | Add Comment
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I'd say Vidal has a light touch of senile dementia, but he's pretty much been like this since he was 25. Everything's always a big conspiracy, and he notoriously had a Truman Capote level of sympathy for OKC bomber Timothy McVeigh.

No one cares what Gore Vidal says, except maybe for Tim Robbins and Gore Vidal himself, but I'll note the moron's maunderings anyway.

And what about Mr. McCain? Disaster. Who started this rumor that he was a war hero? Where does that come from, aside from himself? About his suffering in the prison war camp?

Everyone knows he was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. ThatÂ’s what he tells us.

UPDATE [DiT]: When Gore Vidal calls you a crypto-Nazi, you tell him you are gonna knock him in the goddamned face, and he will stay plastered.

Posted by: Ace at 10:19 AM | Comments (67)
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To all fathers who are readers, and of course all readers' fathers. And my own, of course.

More here, including this one, this one, and, if you really want the spirit of the day ruined unwholesomely, this one.

Posted by: Ace at 10:11 AM | Comments (19)
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Quoting The Untouchables, Obama stated knife < gun.

That's true, as far as it goes. But it's incomplete. The full chain of inequalities is:

knife < gun < Frank Nitti in a tree with a machine gun

Just sayin'. Sometimes bringing a gun isn't really enough.

Just like Hillary didn't seem to have really watched Rocky when she compared herself to a lumbering white guy beaten by a fleet footed black guy, Obama doesn't seem to have made it all the way through The Untouchables. I' m pretty sure he can accurately explain the ending of Enchanted, though.

Posted by: Ace at 09:51 AM | Comments (19)
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(well, in 2005, after her eleventy-fifteenth birthday)

Correction: Commenter "notropis" took out valuable time from posing his action figures in sexually compromising positions to point out that it was actually her "eleventy-fifth" birthday. Thank you for alerting me sir and not going directly to the AoSHQ Ombudsman. Mr. Plover doesn't take kindly to errors such as this. I'm in your debt.

(end of correction)

STFU, I just got the intertubes here at my remote compound, so trying to catch up. From the AP comes an interesting (by which I mean boring, but something to read between your exhaustive and desperate search for free porn) story about a semi-Scandi/Dunedain and her brain.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) – “A Dutch woman who was the oldest person in the world when she died at age 115 in 2005 appeared sharp right up to the end, joking that pickled herring was the secret to her longevity.

Scientists say that Henrikje van Andel-Schipper's mind was probably as good as it seemed: a post-mortem analysis of her brain revealed few signs of Alzheimer's or other diseases commonly associated with a decline in mental ability in old age.”

Pickled herring. Finger food for the deranged. At least she didn’t mention this. And why wait for “old age?” I feel a mental decline just writing this. Let’s continue:

”Van Andel was the oldest living person in the world at the time of her death in 2005 in the Dutch city of Hoogeveen, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.”

“Though she had problems with her eyesight, she was alert and performing better than the average 60- to 75-year-old.”

“Dr. Murali Doraiswamy of the Center for Aging at Duke University, not associated with the study, said it is unusual and valuable.

In the first place there are few "super-centenarians" - people 110 and older - alive at any one time, a slim proportion of the world's population and a scant number even compared to those who reach 100 years.

As a result, he said, there are few chances to study brains as old as hers.”

That’s because zombies usually get to them first. Krakatoa will be doing an exhaustive and in-depth follow-up post on this as part of his on-going series “The Undead: Why do they hate us and what is the root cause?” Also, in the native Scandi tongue, the word “Hoogeveen” has its origins in describing a sex act so vile that I cannot repeat it here on this family-friendly blog.

In summary, a couple of pieces of advice. First, from the so-called “researcher” who studied/ate her brain:

"It is very important to treat the elderly as normal people, as if they are 50 or 60."

In other words, with contempt. And from our dearly-departed subject, Ms. Henrikje van Andel-Schipper:

“Asked what advice she would give to people who want to live a long time, she once quipped: ‘Keep breathing.’”

Which most of you already try to do, through your mouths, but something to keep in mind.

Footnote: When she passed and went away into the Undying Lands of the West, she left behind her most prized possession: a ring which was precious to her in life and had been in her family for many years. It has since disappeared, but her distant relatives have offered a substantial reward for its safe return. Authorities attempting to locate the ring have so far been unable to develop any solid leads.

Posted by: Open Blog at 10:28 PM | Comments (17)
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You may have heard that Iowa is experiencing catastrophic flooding this week. In addition to the flooding, we had a tornado on May 25 that wiped out more than half the town of Parkersburg and another tornado this last Wednesday that hit a Boy Scout campground along the Missouri River in Western Iowa, killing four scouts. The total body count of the tornados and flooding around the state has risen to 15, and we've got hundreds of millions of dollars in damage lying underneath the brown floodwaters. That's not even considering that we may lose 20% or more of the corn crop from delayed planting and some of the seeds that did manage to get planted drowning in the saturated soil. We'll soon be to the point where corn can't be replanted (it can only go so far into the fall before the frost kills it, and usually if you haven't gotten your corn in by now, you're gonna switch the ground to beans instead), and that'll throw a mother of a wrench into the corn price works.

The one thing I'm proud of right now is the absence of voices coming from my state cursing FEMA and President Bush for not "preventing" this tragedy. Compared to the opera we saw in Nawlins' in the aftermath of Katrina, it's nice to see people suck it up and get to work rebuilding their homes & businesses when Mother Nature takes a giant dump on them.

Instead of blathering on with an essay glorifying the Midwestern Work Ethic, I'm going to ask you to go over to the Cake Eater Chronicles and read what Kathy wrote the other day. She's already said everything that needs to be said, so follow the link, read the piece, and drop an "Amen, Sister" in her comments if the spirit so moves you.

The one thing I'd like to address quickly is the NCAA track athletes who helped fill sandbags and try to save neighborhoods in Des Moines this week. Drake University in Des Moines is hosting the NCAA track & field championships this weekend, and there are literally hundreds of athletes who finished their events and immediately went down to the river to help anyway they could. We've got Northerners, Southerners, Easterners & Westerners (and Conservatives, Liberals & Libertarians, I'm sure) all pitching in to help Iowans save their homes and businesses. Next time you see some college athlete in a "revenue sport" acting like a horse's ass, remember these kids and know that not all athletes are self-centered and spoiled. I know that for every memory of a house or business befouled with floodwaters, there will be another warm memory of a stranger who showed up out of nowhere and asked "What can I do to help?" God bless 'em.

UPDATE: Damn, I forgot to plug my favorite "Kansas City Based Iowa-centric blogger". State 29 has pictures and multiple links to articles on all the flooding, so go to his/her site if you want more info on the Iowa floods.

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 07:31 PM | Comments (32)
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If the ladies want war porn, the ladies get war porn.

The very first of many Future Combat System vehicles was unveiled June 11 on Capitol Hill for viewing by lawmakers, members of the press and taxpayers alike.

Prototype 1 of the Non-Line of Sight Cannon, one of the eight manned ground vehicles within Future Combat Systems, was displayed on the National Mall in front of the U.S. Capitol Building.

This cat was engineered to be safer, more mobile, more accurate, have more firepower and less moving parts, and less personnel to operate than the Paladin. Perhaps more importantly, it is designed with the future battlefield in mind, with networking capabilities allowing other friendly units to know what it knows.

Purrrrrr

More background on NLOS-C mission objectives here.

Posted by: Open Blog at 05:22 PM | Comments (41)
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DrewM (no relation) had a great post earlier today about the Obamessiah and his new found appreciation for gun and knife fights.

The only thing missing? A Slushop to seal the deal.

So I asked, and Slu came through.

Is it just me or does Urkel's "if they bring a knife, we'll bring a gun" rhetoric sound a little less than threatening from a man in a bike helmet?

I report and I decide. And I say, "Yes...Yes it does".

Posted by: Jack M. at 03:13 PM | Comments (29)
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Today is the 231st anniversary of the adoption of the Stars and Stripes as the official flag of the United States of America. Today also marks the 233rd birthday of the US Army. Below are two videos that celebrate the storied paths of these great American institutions. One video you have probably seen before and one you may have missed.

HT FloppingAces.net more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 12:23 PM | Comments (20)
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Ex-sailor gets book thrown at him for his part in an assault of a "vampire".

I know, the last thing I open-blogged was about the undead. Am I being paranoid, or is there something going on out there the we just don't want to admit?

Who's really crazy?

Stephen Walters was high on a mixture of painkillers, amphetamines, cocaine and LSD when he and two friends beat, burned and attempted to poison an acquaintance in the Colonial National Park in September, Walters' lawyer said Tuesday.

Ok, I admit that sounds pretty crazy.

But:

Walters and two others admitted to stabbing their friend Jonathan Barron, lighting him on fire and using a meat marinade injector in an attempt to poison him with a mixture of Barbicide, a disinfectant used in salons, and silver thermal compound, an electronics adhesive...

Walters told the judge that Davidson selected the liquid cocktail for its vampire-killing properties.

You have to admit -- He was at least semi-rational. Some experts assert that you need to use silver to kill the undead. Maybe Walters was the one thinking clearly in all this.

Remember, just in case -- they can only come in if you invite them.

Can I come in?

Posted by: Open Blog at 10:45 AM | Comments (45)
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