She's selling her house -- and her hand in marriage, hopefully to the same lucky bidder.

She's tried night clubs and online dating sites, but now a 42-year-old single mother is looking for love where everyone else's heart is breaking — the real estate market.

After a year of trying to sell her four-bedroom home and eight years of singledom, Deven Trabosh is offering her South Florida home and a shot at marrying her on the Internet.

"I figured let's combine the ad because I'm looking for love and I'm looking to sell the house," said Trabosh, a Barbie-esque blonde who teeters around the nearly 2,000 square-foot house in patent leather heels.

Her Craigslist ad markets her, um, properties as "A Princess Lost in America, and has a more enticing picture.

But then, you know real estate photos. It's not what you see, it's what the picture is crafted to keep you from seeing.

Thanks to pjmomma.

Posted by: Ace at 01:53 PM | Comments (115)
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You know that Massachusetts legislator who explained how he'd interrogate child-rape victims into psychological trauma if the state passed a minimum-sentence law?

CNN actually covers it.

Guess what? They can't find out what party he belongs to. They can only verify that he is a "legislator" of some sort.

That's from Dave @ Garfield Ridge, so you know it's fresh.

Posted by: Ace at 01:36 PM | Comments (29)
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This one from Amnesty International: the Rolling Gitmo Replica.

Complete with sad looking chained up prisoner.

A Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs is quoted about how it misrepresents actual conditions at Guantanamo, but that misses the point. The only people who like this sort of nonsense are raving lefties who imagine this kind of silliness is really speakin truth to power.

The rest of us look at it and say "It's nicer than I thought it was. Sure wish they'd do something about that".

Weasel Zippers via Nice Deb

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 01:34 PM | Comments (39)
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The wave, called Pororoca, is a tidal bore at the mouth of the Amazon River. ItÂ’s created when the leading edge of the incoming tide from the Atlantic forms a wave that travels up the river. Still a secret to most, the wave has developed into somewhat of a legend amongst surfers and an annual championship has been held there since 1999.

Watch the video below the break. more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 01:01 PM | Comments (17)
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I don't have a legacy media link on this, but a few lefty blogs are talking about the reintroduction of the Federal Marriage Amendment in the Senate on Wednesday. They are tittering because Senators Vitter and Craig are cosponsors. Because of course, to leftists, gays are monolithically in favor of gay marriage. Erm, not to imply anything about Vitter and Craig. Heh.

UPDATE/CORRECTION: ::Sigh:: I see that Allah's laughing about it, too. Also, Britt in the comments correctly points out that Vitter was in trouble for lady hookers, not laddy hookers. My bad.

Original Post Continued:
Anyway, social cons who support the federal amendment will have to be content with knowing that a few senators haven't forgotten their issue. It's not likely to get out of committee, thank God.

Meanwhile, John McCain sat down with social conservative leaders in Ohio in an effort to reassure them that he's better than Obama. I think he's striking back at Obama's similar effort two weeks ago.

And, according to participants, [McCain] indicated that he would take seriously their requests that he choose an anti-abortion running mate and would talk more openly about his opposition to gay marriage -- a pledge he carried out later in the day by endorsing a ballot measure in California to ban gay marriage.

"It was obvious there were a lot of changed hearts in the room," said Phil Burress, who led Ohio's anti-gay-marriage ballot measure in 2004. "We realized that he's with us on the majority of the issues we care about."

[...]

Many conservatives have been upset that McCain opposed a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, a position he said he took because he believes states should decide the issue. At the meeting, McCain sought to reassure conservatives by emphasizing his work on behalf of an anti-gay-marriage measure in his home state.

No one is sure how important the gay marriage issue was in 2004. Pro-traditional marriage groups claimed that the presence of so many state amendments and initiatives made a difference for the presidential and state races. But, exit polls showed that it wasn't high on the list of the average voters' concerns. I suspect that the issue is of more importance to social conservatives than the rest, and that McCain will need those voters.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 12:41 PM | Comments (25)
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They had trouble activating the suicide belt. Fortunately, American troops -- who are all about the helpin' -- were there to assist him.

Multinational Forces Iraq named Abu Khalaf as al Qaeda's emir, or leader, of Mosul who was killed during a raid by Task Force 88, the hunter-killer teams assigned to disrupt terrorist command networks in Iraq and elsewhere. Khalaf was killed by US forces as he reached for a gun and his associate attempted to detonate his vest.

...

Khalaf had close ties to foreign al Qaeda terrorists, according to his associates in custody. "Khalaf traveled much of the time with foreigners," the US military said. Abu Khalud, his aide wearing the suicide vest at the time of his death, was a Syrian national.

The US military has decimated al Qaeda's command network in Mosul since major operations kicked off early this year.

Unfortunately, our troops murdered a civilian woman at the terrorist house as well, who was innocently attempting to detonate the suicide belt on her fallen friend/murder-pimp.

(Sarcasm, she was Al Qaeda too.)

Posted by: Ace at 12:28 PM | Comments (34)
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Actually it's called "Britain's Missing Top Model," but amputees are featured prominently.

WWTDD is angry that this will be the vilest of cheap exploitations, with competitions like "Open this Can."

Question: the Asian model on the right is hot and has no visible disability. I'm guessing she's deaf.

How do you keep her from running away with the competition? Deaf people have a disability, but I wouldn't say a deaf person is at any particular disadvantage in a foot race. Sort of the same thing here.

Thanks to spongeworthy.

Hm: Readers say the "Asian" girl isn't Asian and seems to have a full prosthetic leg.

So, two strikes against her.

Posted by: Ace at 11:47 AM | Comments (66)
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Noonan has a must-read op-ed today about McCain's media problem, but I suggest that those who have already decided that Obama will be president should skip it; she's extremely pro-McCain.

She starts:

The big political headline this week, of course, involves John McCain's endless and humiliating attempts to placate Mitt Romney by bowing to demands he hire his operatives and pay his campaign debt. So far all he's got is a grudging one-sentence endorsement from that rampaging rage-aholic Ann Romney.

Oh wait, got confused, that's Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Like frogs in a pot, we tend to become accustomed to some pretty outrageous things as the campaign season heats up. The slow accumulation of extreme positions or idiotic blunders is overlooked simply because it's Business As Usual. "Of course Candidate A has larger-than-life mistakes," says the voter, "she's a larger-than-life person! And her opponent is the same, anyway." Hell, that explains John Kerry's entire candidacy. Half the country woke up one morning in December 2004 and thought, "what the hell was I thinking," although they'd never admit it in mixed company.

During campaigns, candidates have to do something so unusual that voters are jolted out of their adrenaline high and take notice of just how far from the ordinary things have strayed. Howard Dean's "YEEAAARRGH!" comes to mind. A whole bunch of Democratic voters realized that night that Dean is a nutcase; they didn't actually know anything new about him. Rather, they realized just how far from acceptable the race had strayed.

And that's why the so-called "October surprise" is so important. I was quietly banging my head on my desk when Obama's Rev. Wright issue broke in the spring. That would have been the perfect story to get voters' attention in October. It's just the sort of thing that would cause even Democratic voters to pull back from the brink. But now it's come and gone and been rationalized away. Pfleger and Meeks were just Business As Usual, and so too Ayers. What Democratic voters and Obama-leaning independents need is a slap in the face and a stern, "Look at what you've done!" But I don't think it's going to happen from any future revelations about Obama's associates. They've already reached a nice, familiar boil on that issue. Throwing another log on that particular fire isn't going to change anything.

So I'm pleased that Noonan is pointing out another surreal moment in Election 2008. Hopefully, some voters will have a waking moment: "What the hell? Is he actually paying off Clinton's lenders in order to buy her supporters?" The answer is "Yes" and "No, this is not Business As Usual." The only thing distinguishing this from corruption is the fact that Clinton hasn't explicitly promised to deliver the goods.

We need more of the same, especially in the two months prior to the election. My money is on the presidential debates. We all know that Obama's going to want zero debates and McCain will want as many as he can possibly get. I firmly believe that Obama will open his mouth one day and tell us what he really thinks. He's too inexperienced not to make the politician's most obvious mistake. To most effectively take advantage of this, McCain needs to be grabbing issues that resonate with voters.

So, as the summer goes on, oil will increasingly be on voters' minds. McCain has already staked out a strong position on oil, one that has broad appeal for both conservatives and increasingly for liberals. (I'm not saying he couldn't improve on ANWR, mind you). Now he just needs to lay in wait for Obama to say something truly outlandish---something that conforms with his true beliefs, but about which he has thus far managed to prevaricate.

The War on Terror is another issue that fulfills the same criteria. McCain already has the popular position, especially in key states. He needs to keep the Iraq War in the news and in the minds of voters long enough for Obama to tell us just how he really feels about it. The presidential debates are a perfect opportunity. They're not too early that voters have time to adjust. And with a candidate as radical as Obama, there are plenty of issues that provide fertile ground for a trap.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 11:04 AM | Comments (26)
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Tired of the same old pussycats and ice-skaters and Christmas revellers?

How about some exxxtreme snow-globes with some balls?

Yeah, now there are some snow-globes for a man.

Posted by: Ace at 11:00 AM | Comments (19)
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Will the last man in the Mahdi Army please turn on the Victory Lights?

The Mahdi Army suffered a significant blow during fighting against Iraqi and Coalition forces this year, according to an Iraq intelligence report. The heavy casualties suffered by the Mahdi Army have forced Muqtada al Sadr, the leader of the Mahdi Army and the Sadrist political movement, to change his tactics and disband the Mahdi Army in favor of a small, secretive fighting force.

"More than 2,000 cadres from the Mahdi Army leaders were killed recently," an Iraqi intelligence official told Gulf News. "This led to the almost complete collapse of the army," the official said. An estimated 1,300 Mahdi Army fighters "escaped to safe houses in Iran." Muqtada al Sadr currently resides in Qom, Iran, under the protection of Iran's Qods Force.

The Mahdi Army took heavy casualties while opposing the Iraqi security forces in Basrah and the South and against US and Iraqi forces in Sadr City during operations to secure the areas in March, April, and May. More than 1,000 Mahdi Army fighters were killed in Sadr City alone, according to a Mahdi Army commander in Baghdad. Another 415 were killed in Basrah. More than 400 were killed during fighting in the southern cities of Najaf, Karbala, Hillah, Diwaniyah, Amarah, Samawah, and Nasiriyah in late March and early April, according to numbers compiled by The Long War Journal. Thousands more have been wounded our captured.

The setbacks in Baghdad, Basrah, and the South have forced Sadr to turn the Mahdi Army into "a secret military organization," the Iraqi report stated. "The number of members doesn't exceed 150-200, hugely down from the total estimated number of 50,000 in the past two years."

50,000 down to 150-200? "Decimated" means "reduced by ten percent." What's the word for "reduced by 99.6%"? Oh, right -- destroyed.

Dave Price frets we've played right into Sadr's masterful hands:

Who wants to be tied down with thousands of followers anyway? This was probably his plan all along.

Yes it's just an efficiency-increasing move. Sadr's Iranian hiding hole has banners up telling his followers Don't terrorize harder, terrorize smarter.

Posted by: Ace at 10:27 AM | Comments (62)
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