What do lefties do when faced with incontrovertible proof of what a wretched flip-flopping liar Captain Bullshit is?

Bury, obfuscate, misdirect.

Very nice tip from republicangirl:

Seems someone 'athomeboy2000' has hijacked the new McCain video and added it to digg with a new title.
'McCain's pretty lame' and added it to the 'offbeat' catagory pets and animals. Very dirty trick.

Pathetic and sad.

Here's the video of Obama earning his AOSHQ nick.

Posted by: LauraW at 06:04 AM | Comments (33)
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As much as Obama would like to give the impression that he's not afraid of John McCain, you'd think he could come up with something better than this. He has agreed to appear on the same stage as McCain in August.

In an interview, Mr. Warren said over the weekend that the presidential candidates would appear together for a moment but that he would interview them in succession at his megachurch. [...]

Mr. Warren, the author of the best-selling book "The Purpose-Driven Life," said he had called each man personally to invite him to his event, which will focus on how they make decisions and on some of Mr. WarrenÂ’s main areas of focus, like AIDS, poverty and the environment.

I don't know anything about Rick Warren, but doesn't this virtually guarantee that he is only hours or days from either saying something incredibly stupid or being discovered to have said something incredibly stupid years ago? Given the track records of the other men of faith to get involved in this election it wouldn't be a surprise. He's now got the bad juju of both candidates to deal with.

Also, click the link if you want to read about James Dobson's transparent attempt to limp back into the spotlight. In a stunning and simply unpredictable reversal, he says that "the possibility is there" that he might endorse John McCain. Oh, he's not going to do it right now. But he's considering it for the next time he feels like he's not getting enough attention.

It's probably unfair, but religious folk involved in politics always feel slimy to me. I think it's the result of blessedly apolitical parishes growing up.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 10:12 PM | Comments (40)
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...but are we really going to pretend to treat this as a major blunder? Some German politicians are complaining about Obama's new speech site underneath the Victory Column.

Still, even as the issue of his speech's location has now been settled, a number of politicians in Berlin are still dissatisfied with the site. The Siegessäule -- or Victory Column -- was erected in memory of Prussia's victories over Denmark (1864), Austria (1866) and France (1870/71). The column originally stood in front of the Reichstag, Germany's parliament building, but was moved by Adolf Hitler to its current location in 1939 to make way for his planned transformation of Berlin into the Nazi capital "Germania."

"The Siegessäule in Berlin was moved to where it is now by Adolf Hitler. He saw it as a symbol of German superiority and of the victorious wars against Denmark, Austria and France," the deputy leader of the Free Democrats, Rainer Brüderle, told Bild am Sonntag. He raised the question as to "whether Barack Obama was advised correctly in his choice of the Siegessäule as the site to hold a speech on his vision for a more cooperative world."

Andreas Schockenhoff of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats said, "the Siegessäule in Berlin is dedicated to a victory over neighbors who are today our European friends and allies. It is a problematic symbol."

If it were such a problem, you'd think they would have gotten rid of it. Or perhaps cautioned Obama about it after his Brandenburg Gate overreach. In fact, the column is so distressing that Germany has put out universally recognized do-not-approach markers in the form of a little giftshop and cafe. For a few euros, you can walk to the top and take pictures so you can immortalize the view from this Nazi-tainted artifact. Millions of visitors have done it. Banality of evil, I guess.

I think the objections have little to do with the appropriateness of the speech site. This is an opportunity for these politicians to continue to insert themselves into the election. Have you ever met a European who wasn't eager to share an opinion about American politics?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:21 PM | Comments (39)
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Obama is either very bad at math, does not know how long the President's term of office is or he's planning on repealing the 22nd Amendment.

Here he is talking about his sold out world tour.

"(T)he objective of this trip was to have substantive discussions with people like President Karzai or Prime Minister Maliki or President Sarkozy or others who I expect to be dealing with over the next eight to 10 years.

And it's important for me to have a relationship with them early, that I start listening to them now, getting a sense of what their interests and concerns are."

Unfortunately, comedy writers across America still can't find anything funny about the guy.

Posted by: DrewM at 12:56 PM | Comments (898)
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I'm not old enough to remember this but I'm sure some of the more, um, senior morons can fill the rest of us in on what it was like. Dave in Texas?

The important thing is we got there and beat the Ruskies to it.

And below the fold an AoSHQ PSA...No matter how old they are, do not fuck with an old school astronaut. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 11:27 AM | Comments (75)
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Last Sunday word came in about a large scale attack on a small and remote US base in Afghanistan. 9 soldiers were killed in that battle.

In the few cases like this where the enemy decides to fight toe to toe the news seems to follow a familiar pattern...initial reports of US casualties, then a few days later news of how badly out numbered our troops were but still held off the larger force.

Today the next phase gets underway...tales of heroism of American soldiers.
Stars and Stripes has details on last week's fight in AfghanistanÂ’s Kunar province.

Immediately, a grenade exploded by Stafford, blowing him down to a lower terrace at the observation post and knocking his helmet off. Stafford put his helmet back on and noticed how badly he was bleeding.

Cpl. Matthew Phillips was close by, so Stafford called to him for help. Phillips was preparing to throw a grenade and shot a look at Stafford that said, "Give me a second. I gotta go kill these guys first."

This was only about 30 to 60 seconds into the attack.

...Two hours after the first shots were fired, Stafford made his way — with help — to the medevac helicopter that arrived.

"It was some of the bravest stuff I’ve ever seen in my life, and I will never see it again because those guys," Stafford said, then paused. "Normal humans wouldn’t do that. You’re not supposed to do that — getting up and firing back when everything around you is popping and whizzing and trees, branches coming down and sandbags exploding and RPGs coming in over your head … It was a fistfight then, and those guys held ’ em off."

Stafford offered a guess as to why his fellow soldiers fought so hard.

"Just hardcoreness I guess," he said. "Just guys kicking ass, basically. Just making sure that we look scary enough that you donÂ’t want to come in and try to get us."

There's more, much more, about the fight and the bravery of the men who fought and died there at the link. Read it all.

h/t BlackFive

Posted by: DrewM at 09:22 AM | Comments (24)
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Its a devious and cunning wizard donning what appears to be a +9 cloak of invisibility to work its satanically inspired world destroying magic.

...1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it...

...2. There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None...

...3. The satellites that measure the world's temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year (to the temperature of 1980)...

...4. The new ice cores show that in the past six global warmings over the past half a million years, the temperature rises occurred on average 800 years before the accompanying rise in atmospheric carbon. Which says something important about which was cause and which was effect...

...What is going to happen over the next decade as global temperatures continue not to rise? The Labor Government is about to deliberately wreck the economy in order to reduce carbon emissions. If the reasons later turn out to be bogus, the electorate is not going to re-elect a Labor government for a long time. When it comes to light that the carbon scare was known to be bogus in 2008, the ALP is going to be regarded as criminally negligent or ideologically stupid for not having seen through it. And if the Liberals support the general thrust of their actions, they will be seen likewise...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 04:09 AM | Comments (107)
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The recurring theme in the MSM about rampant cannibalism in Iraq appears to have been vastly exaggerated.

Oh, wait...did I say cannibalism? Its so hard to keep their lies straight I get confused sometimes. The cannibalism thing was Katrina, Iraq was the profusion of looting at archaeological sites thing.

Dr Curtis admits that he was “very surprised” at the lack of recent looting, but stresses that the team had only been able to visit eight sites, although they are the most important in the south (an area which represents very roughly one fifth of Iraq). “It may not be typical of the country as a whole, and the situation could well be worse further north,” he warned.

When asked why the feared looting had not occurred in the southern sites, Dr Curtis offers a number of explanations: the watchtowers erected with Italian assistance in late 2003, roving police teams which supplement site guards, efforts by local antiquities staff, and the drying up of the international market for Iraqi antiquities.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 06:21 PM | Comments (20)
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Keyboards are something I'm very passionate about -- I've spent decades of my life pounding on them. I know a good one when I see it. The world is not filled with good ones, its filled with crap that saps your productivity and induces more typing errors than you might otherwise make. I agree with PC World, the IBM Model M is the best that has ever been. I'm typing one one right now and they'll pry my carefully guarded stash of spares from my cold dead hands.

Their resulting 101-key design, 1984's Model M, became the undisputed bellwether for the computer industry, with a layout that dominates desktops to this day. As we peek under the hood of this legend, you'll soon see why many consider the Model M to be the greatest keyboard of all time...
...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 03:02 PM | Comments (75)
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On Thursday, I told you about the American Physical Society's new-found recognition that there is a "considerable presence" of skepticism within the scientific community of anthropogenic global warming. (A day earlier than most other political blogs noticed, I might add; AOSHQ: where you either get the news first or months late!) APS is now presenting articles in its magazine and on its website which debate the question. But it turns out that APS is not quite ready to admit that the global warming consensus is crumbling.

In just two days this thing has turned into an embarrassment for just about everyone. APS has "reaffirmed" its position on anthropogenic global warming; it turns out that the Physics and Society magazine and online forum is the only component that wants to have this debate. APS's controlling body is taking action to straighten things out. As a result, I'd say the organization as a whole is about to lose some credibility:

Christopher Monckton, Viscount of Brenchley wrote a paper which suggests that the impact of CO₂ on global warming is overstated by the IPCC and that government efforts to regulate emissions may be counterproductive. His paper is here at the APS site. But notice a curious editorial edition in red at the top of the page:

The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article's conclusions.

The preceding article, which lays out a defense of the IPCC does not contain any warning at all and makes no mention of peer review. It sounds to me like someone at APS isn't as ready to acknowledge the "considerable presence" of AGW skepticism as editor Jeffrey Marque of Physics and Society. Viscount Monckton is not amused:

This seems discourteous. I had been invited to submit the paper; I had submitted it; an eminent Professor of Physics had then scientifically reviewed it in meticulous detail; I had revised it at all points requested, and in the manner requested; the editors had accepted and published the reviewed and revised draft (some 3000 words longer than the original) and I had expended considerable labor, without having been offered or having requested any honorarium.

Click over to NRO's the Corner to read the rest of his very, very aristo-British letter which asks that the red letter warning be removed or that he be given an explanation. One thing is certain, APS just made global warming skeptics less likely to participate in any of its future "debates."

Hey, I wonder if that was point...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 01:24 PM | Comments (77)
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