The judge says it was entrapment.

Manatee County Judge George K. Brown Jr. weighed in Tuesday, tossing the misdemeanor case, in a six-page order that questions the extent to which the detective controlled the nature and direction of the sexual conversation.

"This particular 93-year-old man was encouraged and/or enticed to proceed with the police officer's direction of conversation," Brown wrote.

...Milio, the attorney said, is an old man who enjoyed flirting with a pretty woman. Milio never had any intention to pay for sex.

...After Milio's arrest, prosecutors declined to file a charge against another elderly Bradenton man accused in a solicitation sting in Bradenton -- his second charge in 20 years.

That 93-year-old man promised to return several hours later with $30 to seal the deal. A prosecutor said the state was unable to prove the man intended to return.

The pending charge against Milio blocked him from getting into an assisted living facility, Grieco said. That now may change.

I'm glad these guys got off (as it were) but they should never have been arrested in the first place. Do we really want to live in an America where 90+ year old men can't pay for a little 'happy time'? Did we lose a war or something?

Posted by: DrewM at 09:41 AM | Comments (21)
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In exchange for the bodies of two dead soldiers, Israel released 5 live killers.

Among the men who arrived at the border in an International Committee of the Red Cross convoy was Samir Qantar, Israel's longest-serving Lebanese prisoner. Wearing jeans and a grey sweater, he was mobbed by reporters and well-wishers on arrival.

Hezbollah has prepared a triumphal welcome for the five men freed under a deal seen by many Israelis as a painful necessity, two years after the two soldiers' capture sparked a 34-day war that killed about 1,200 people in Lebanon and 159 Israelis.

Israel retrieved the corpses of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev only after agreeing to release Qantar, who had been serving a life term for the deaths of four Israelis, including a four-year-old girl and her father, in a 1979 Palestinian guerrilla raid on an Israeli town.

The four others are Hezbollah fighters captured in the 2006 conflict. All five were to be flown to Beirut ahead of a huge Hezbollah rally to welcome them in the evening.

... Israel denounced the planned festivities.

"Samir Qantar is a brutal murderer of children and anybody celebrating him as a hero is trampling on basic human decency," said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman Mark Regev.

Well Mr. Regev, that's the kind of people you just cut a deal with.

Retrieving soldiers killed in battle is a noble act but doing it in this way simply lowers the value of every other soldier captured in the future. It's not as if these murderous thugs need an excuse to kill anyone but rewarding them for doing it by returning their compatriots alive and well removes any incentive they have to keep prisoners alive.

While today's swap will hopefully bring some comfort to the families of the two soldiers, it's hard to see how this is anything but a sad and dangerous day for Israel.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:23 AM | Comments (46)
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Usually, these sorts of posts are put up to decry the stupidity of parole boards when they buy into sob stories & release criminals too early. Not this time.

As a Christian, I believe that forgiveness is required of me; therefore, I am willing to forego sentencing Ms. Atkins to an eternity of Sucking The Barbed Cock of Satan, interspersed with coffee breaks (Starbucks, of course - what else do you think they serve in Hell?) and quick baths in the infamous Lake of Fire. Which is pretty big of me, unless you consider the fact that I don't have the authority to send her there in the first place. That sort of forgiveness is strictly between her & The Big Dude In The Sky. He knows what's in her heart, and he'll do the right thing.

All that being said, there's still the matter of her debt to the Sovereign State of California. She owes them a life sentence, and I see no reason to discharge her from that debt. Just because her brain is rotting from cancer, we're supposed to give her a pass on her crime of performing a 81st-trimester abortion on Sharon Tate without a medical license? I. Don't. Think. So.

And when you come back at me with the argument that her cancer treatment is costing the State of California millions of dollars every year, I've got just one word in reply:

Placebos.

UPDATE:
(Post corrected to fix the bad math in my bad joke. All better now.)

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 07:08 AM | Comments (68)
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Okay, so the fact that Delaware's Joe Biden has a history of saying dumb things is hardly new but this has to be a new low.

“If John (McCain) wants to know where the bad guys live, come back with me to Afghanistan. We know where they reside. And it's not in Iraq.”

No bad guys in Iraq? Really Senator? Well, there seems to be less of them for sure but that's because no one took your ideas about how to deal with the situation seriously.

Perhaps Biden should stick to what he knows best, plagiarizing British politicians, insulting Indian-Americans and commenting on Barack Obama's storybook qualities.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:28 PM | Comments (48)
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Bush: No.

I think I'll trust the American people to decide how to spend their money.

I remember the stupid mandate from Jimmy to turn up (or down) the thermostats. That nonsense made it's way into the workplace.

Not my house though. When I was sweatin in 1978 I turned the thermostat down.

And waited for my dad to bitch about it. I always blamed one of my sisters. "Girl stuff" I said.

It actually worked. He was dumb about that stuff. Like me.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:11 PM | Comments (45)
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Supply, demand. Present, future. Why, someone could make a mark in this world suggesting these concepts were somehow linked in some fashion.

In a dramatic move yesterday President Bush removed the executive-branch moratorium on offshore drilling. Today, at a news conference, Bush repeated his new position, and slammed the Democratic Congress for not removing the congressional moratorium on the Outer Continental Shelf and elsewhere. Crude-oil futures for August delivery plunged $9.26, or 6.3 percent, almost immediately as Bush was speaking, bringing the barrel price down to $136.

Now isnÂ’t this interesting?

Democrats keep saying that it will take 10 years or longer to produce oil from the offshore areas. And they say that oil prices wonÂ’t decline for at least that long....

Traders took a look at a feisty and aggressive George Bush and started selling the market well before a single new drop of oil has been lifted. What does this tell us? Well, if Congress moves to seal the deal, oil prices will probably keep on falling. ThatÂ’s the way traders work. They discount the future. Psychology and expectations can turn on a dime.

The congressional ban on offshore drilling expires September 30, so that becomes a key date. A new report from Wall Street research house Sanford C. Bernstein says that California actually could start producing new oil within one year if the moratorium were lifted. The California oil is under shallow water and already has been explored. Drilling platforms have been in place since before the moratorium. TheyÂ’re talking about 10 billion barrels worth off the coast of California.

Thanks to GarandFan.

Posted by: Ace at 03:12 PM | Comments (52)
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Wow.

Although McCain of course pandered to La Raza, he also managed a Sister Souljah moment:

Let me just tell you sir, I talked about the people who have come across here illegally and those who have died in the desert. I know that — I come from a border state. I’ve been in Mexico many times. But there’s also drugs coming across our border, sir, that are killing Americans too. And they’re working right there [applause] — yes, sir, and they’re working right there and sending people who just want to come across the border illegally to cover their own activities. [voice rising] The United States of America has to have secure borders, sir, and I will do that. And that’s necessary even if you may disagree. Our nation’s national-security requirements are — that we have secure borders. But we can address this issue in a humane and compassionate fashion, I am committed to that and you have my commitment to it, and we will make it the highest priority, and if you don’t think that we have to secure our borders, then I respect your view but we just disagree.

Hot Air has audio of the question and response at the above link.

Interestingly, this same cat -- clearly an open borders guy, and an arrogant open borders guy to boot -- was praised by Barack Obama.

McCain is bad on immigration. There is hardly any question of that. But while McCain is soft on illegal immigration, Barack Obama is basically an open borders advocate.

Posted by: Ace at 02:59 PM | Comments (18)
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As Allah points out ObamaÂ’s Hope and Change speech on Iraq was filled with lots of new old crap.

New however was Joe LiebermanÂ’s response.

Senator Obama this morning said that he wants a foreign policy that is “tough, smart, and principled.” This afternoon, I ask: was it tough when Senator Obama voted to order U.S. forces to retreat from Iraq on a fixed timeline—regardless of the recommendations of our military commanders, regardless of conditions on the ground? Was it smart when Senator Obama opposed the surge and predicted that it would fail to improve security? Was it principled when Senator Obama said that he would order U.S. troops to retreat from Iraq, regardless of the humanitarian consequences for millions of innocent Iraqis—even genocide? Was it tough and principled when Senator Obama said he would be open to changing his plan for Iraq after going there and talking to General Petraeus—only to change that position a few hours later after being heatedly criticized by organizations like Moveon.org? I say respectfully, the answer to all of those questions is no.

Senator Obama also said this morning that he wants a foreign policy that recognizes that we have interests “not just in Baghdad, but in Kandahar and Karachi and Tokyo and London.” But what Senator Obama does not seem to recognize is that—in an interdependent world—what happens in Baghdad affects our interests in Kandahar and Karachi and Tokyo and London. What Senator Obama does not seem to understand is that—had we taken the course he had counseled and retreated from Iraq—the United States would have suffered a catastrophic defeat that would have left America and our allies less safe not just in Baghdad, but in Kandahar and Karachi and Tokyo and London.

IÂ’m guessing Lieberman isnÂ’t such a big fan of ObamaÂ’s self-styled superior judgment.

Posted by: DrewM at 02:08 PM | Comments (31)
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I'd say Obama owes Gateway Pundit a finder's fee for helping him track down the last of these statements which, I guess, are now to be considered nonstatements that never existed, DoubleThink style.

Look, up in the steady gaze of his own conscience...
it's a hope... it's a change!
It's Captain Bullshit!

Thanks to CJ for the tip and, of course, Slublog for the pic. Also to DrewM. for suggesting the photoshop.

PS, if you look at his emblem -- I think that's cow-flop.

Hitchens on Captain Bullshit: Worth reading, as ever:

If it is true, as yesterday's three-decker front-page headline in the New York Times had it, that "U.S. Considering Stepping Up Pace of Iraq Pullout/ Fall in Violence Cited/ More Troops Could Be Freed for Operations in Afghanistan," then this can only be because al-Qaida in Iraq has been subjected to a battlefield defeat at our hands—a military defeat accompanied by a political humiliation in which its fanatics have been angrily repudiated by the very people they falsely claimed to be fighting for. If we had left Iraq according to the timetable of the anti-war movement, the situation would be the precise reverse: The Iraqi people would now be excruciatingly tyrannized by the gloating sadists of al-Qaida, who could further boast of having inflicted a battlefield defeat on the United States. I dare say the word of that would have spread to Afghanistan fast enough and, indeed, to other places where the enemy operates. Bear this in mind next time you hear any easy talk about "the hunt for the real enemy" or any loose babble that suggests that we can only confront our foes in one place at a time.

One point Hitchens didn't make about the contrast between Iraq and Afghanistan: The left is fond of insisting that for every terrorist (or, as they have it, "terrorist") we kill in Iraq, we make two more. And yet they all claim to be gung-ho about sending tens of thousands more troops into Afghanistan... and even conduct the Great Overmountain Invasion of Pakistan (a nuclear armed state of one hundred and seventy million, by the way) while our troops are conveniently positioned there.

The left never actually explains what it is about Arab terrorists in particular that grants them this hydra-like strike-one-head-off-and-two-shall-grow-back property, and why Pakistani/Asian terrorists do not share this special super power.

I would submit that they believe the same thing about both groups, and that War Never Solved Anything, and Arms Are Made For Hugging, and all that jazz, but lie about this belief as regards Afghanistan because most realize that's the one war they cannot oppose, undermine, and subvert with any hope of clinging to power.

But Democratic voters are less shy about telling pollsters their true beliefs:

On Afghanistan, however, independents side more closely with Republicans than with Democrats. Majorities of Republicans and independents think the war in Afghanistan was worth fighting and that the effort there is linked to the eventual defeat of terrorism more broadly. Majorities of Democrats disagree.

As Allah notes, Qunnippiac conspicuously doesn't give us the exact numbers for that particular tidbit.

Wonder why?

Posted by: Ace at 01:29 PM | Comments (40)
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He'l l be around to contribute 100 days a year, as a guest host of Wallace's show or guest anchor at the new Special Report, or to host major political events (elections), but his days as Fox's Jewel in the crown are over.

Damnit. His contract is up at the end of this year, which is when he will semi-retire.

Shocking fact in the article: Brit Hume is 65. What?

I really can't imagine any other guy in this role.

Posted by: Ace at 01:07 PM | Comments (36)
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