I never liked the show (never "got" it, really), but I know it has a cult following.

I was/am a fan of Patrick McGoohan's, though -- mostly from his recurring roles as villains in Columbo, and as Longshanks in Braveheart. McGoohan had one of the icily-brilliant demeanors of any actor, eveh, and I'm thinking Jim Caviezel is nothing like that at all. Not only is he not chilly, he's warm and gooey and emotive. (At least he was in Passion of the Christ and criminally underrated Frequency.)

There's some actor out there I think who has that ice-blood sort of demeanor, but it's on the tip of my tongue, can't think of him now.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:16 AM | Comments (37)
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Not sure if there's any political angle here. It's just good that deaths in Iraq are down and bad that deaths are up in Afghanistan, thanks to a Taliban freshly on the attack, perhaps aided by their new freedom-of-transit granted by Pakistan.

I would snarkily say "Quick, let's have a phased withdraw from Afghanistan," but the left's actual take is of course This proves once again we must withdraw from Iraq.

Posted by: Ace at 10:53 AM | Comments (15)
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Pics of the great man's stockpile. He was armed for bear ape.

He even had a flamethrower (on the right.)

BTW: I have no confirmation this is Heston's basement except this guy's say-so. I figure someone wouldn't lie about that, but who knows. Email chain letters and that kind of thing.

Thanks to 3rd Bird.

Damn: Even as I was adding a caveat, buzz tipped me it's a hoax, the basement belongs to someone else.

Posted by: Ace at 10:13 AM | Comments (494)
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Fake hooker can't flee the scene of a robbery because her getaway car was out of gas.

Woman lures man to scene of robbery, her two accomplices rob man and take off, and she hops into her getaway Audi, which is out of gas.

A foolproof plan unless you're a really big fool.

They told us fake hookers would suffer under a George Bush economy and they were right!

UPDATE: Economic Malaise Spreads to Actual Hookers

Nevada's legal brothels are having to offer gas cards and other promotions to lure customers. Geoffrey Arnold, president of the Nevada Brothel Owners' Association, said truckers are about 75 percent of the patrons at the state's rural "houses."

President of the Nevada Brothel Owners' Association? That's a job? How do you get that job?

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 09:34 AM | Comments (38)
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This time it's former Kerry foreign policy adviser Rand Beers, fretting that McCain missed out on all that good Vietnam-era political education due to his being "isolated" from the country in a cage.

Of course Obama -- A Different Kind of Politician (TM) -- makes the rote "rejection" of some comments, and yet, somehow, they just keep on coming.

This is a bad move by Obama -- and yes, with eight prominent Democrats trying out different variations of "McCain's service is meaningless/actually makes him a less fit candidate" to see which one the public might like, it's a move by Obama himself.

McCain fights dirty (or at least fights angry) when he thinks his honor or integrity or service has been impugned, and here it's beyond question. Hopefully McCain will wake up from his dream-world in which he and Obama nobly rise above "personal attacks" on the other and respond with some counter-fire.

So McCain doesn't have enough foreign policy experience because he was unfortunately "isolated" from the intensity of the leftist anti-war movement in America.

Given that Obama's "Chicago mainstream" pals are terrorist bombesr for the Weather Underground, we know he's familiar with that period and its predominant mode of leftist thought. So I guess he's the one with real experience, huh?

Audio: at Hot Air.

Allah notes that Rand Beers wants to claim John Kerry had the the requisite experience (given he was so closely associated with Kerry), so his distinction turns on whether someone served in the "ground forces" or not.

But Beers allows you didn't have to be in the ground forces to have garnered foreign policy experience -- so long as you were not serving in the military at all but experiencing the "turmoil" at home, then everything's jake.

So: Beers and Kerry have the sufficient military/foreign policy experience. Barack Obama, by dint of his not serving in the military and experiencing Vietnam through television, also has it.

The one guy who doesn't have it? The guy who spent five and half years being tortured by the enemy and who turned down early release to honor the principle of first in, first out, and stand in solidarity with his fellow captured servicemen.

Update: Good James Kirchick article in the Politico.

The only obstacle between Barack Obama and the presidency is the mountain of smears that will no doubt come his way. That’s the narrative that Obama supporters — and his swooning chroniclers in the mainstream media — would have us believe.

...

Writers Evan Thomas and Richard Wolfe concluded that the 2008 presidential election will be no different. “It is a sure bet that the GOP will try to paint Obama as ‘the other’ — as a haughty black intellectual who has Muslim roots (Obama is a Christian) and hangs around with America-haters.”

But has it been a “sure bet?”

Not really. Thus far, no one with any serious affiliation to John McCain's campaign has resorted to the alleged “scare” tactics in which Republicans — and, apparently, only Republicans — have been perfecting since Richard Nixon was first elected. On the contrary, if the past few months have showed us anything, it’s that the Obama campaign is the one dealing in crude smears.

[Recounts various Democratic denigrations of McCain's war record, from Jay "Sgt. Rock" Rockefeller to Rand Beers.]

It’s curious how anyone could argue that a man with such visceral understanding of the capacity for what America’s enemies will do to our men and women in uniform doesn’t fully appreciate the cost of war. But even more troubling is the unmistakable pattern of these smears, all of them unsubtly alleging that McCain is an unhinged, mentally unstable warmonger who would deploy soldiers capriciously because he hasn’t truly experienced the horrors of ground battle. Indeed, the claims of these four men — and the short period of time in which they were all uttered — are so similar in tone that one would be foolish not to at least consider the possibility they were coordinated by the Obama campaign.

Nevertheless, the fears of Obama supporters that their candidate lies eternally vulnerable to GOP smears exists only in their fevered imaginations....

The belief that “the Republican Party has been successfully scaring voters since 1968” is a comforting salve for Democrats. After all, it’s much easier for them to demonize conservatives than consider that the reason for their electoral defeats may lie with liberal ideas. Please don’t take that as a "smear.”

Posted by: Ace at 09:14 AM | Comments (67)
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Professor Orin Kerr writes, "This is bad."

If you're a registered sex offender, failing twice to properly register your home address is really dumb. But if you're a state legislator, punishing that with a mandatory life sentence -- as Georgia has done -- is even dumber.

The background to the case is here and it raises some good questions. I'll summarize:

Georgia law requires sex offenders to register---on a continuous basis---information including identifying characteristics, like height and weight, employment activity, and most especially residence. If the sex offender is living too close to schools, churches, or other places where children are likely to be, he is required to move. He then has 72 hours to report his new residence and to move there. Failure to comply is considered failure to properly register as a sex offender. Innocent mistake (e.g. typos on the form) is not an excuse. On the second violation, the law imposes mandatory life imprisonment.

Here, Cedric Bradshaw is a pedophile and a dumbass. When he was 19 he had sex with a 15 year-old. But he served his time and was released, subject to sex offender registry. He then was imprisoned for six months when he gave an invalid address on his first registration. After that, he had to move twice when it turned out the family members he was living with (a sister then an aunt) lived too close to areas where children were likely to be. He finally found a place, but transposed two numbers in the address. He also failed to move into the new place within 72 hours. He was caught and prosecuted for failure to properly register as a sex offender. The trial judge ruled that he had no discretion to do anything other than sentence Bradshaw to life imprisonment. The case is currently before the Georgia Supreme Court.

Good law or bad law?

Does your opinion change if the sex offender is on the registry for circumstances less horrific than statutory rape? Something like this:

Drunk frat boy grabs Hooter's waitress' boobs and is convicted of misdemeanor sexual battery (no registry). 2 years later, while celebrating his college graduation, he does the same thing. Now it is felony sexual battery and a lifetime on the registry with a life sentence hanging over his head.

Related: The trial judge in this case is a rather unimpressive specimen. At sentencing, he said:

"I'll leave it to the super Legislature, the Supreme Court, to decide the issues of constitutionality," he said.

That sounds like an abdication of duty to me. Of course, trial judges are elected in Georgia.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:54 AM | Comments (46)
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Obama's claim is that he is some transcendent -- and very centrist -- political figure who is not the typical big-city liberal pol.

He actually claims to have aided in the fight for welfare reform.

But he actually opposed welfare reform in 1997, while in the Illinois Senate.

Of course he did so in the typical way a politician opposes a popular measure: He claimed he was in favor of welfare reform in principle, but opposed the specific bill offered to actually advance it.

As usual, trying to have it both ways.

ABCNews actually reports this, although in a very soft-pedaled way -- they say it's a "move to the center," but it's actually a "move to dishonesty," as he's not simply changing his policies going forward but attempting to change stances he's taken in the past. And, as usual, I don't expect the MSM to mention much of this. They will happily sing the chorus of Obama's theme song, All the Stuff You're in Favor of, I Am Too, and Always Have Been, or At Least I Voted "Present" on It.

Posted by: Ace at 08:45 AM | Comments (12)
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What a newb.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who previously said the issue of gay marriage should be left up to each state, has announced his opposition to a California ballot measure that would ban same-sex marriages.

In a letter to the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club read Sunday at the group's annual Pride Breakfast in San Francisco, the Illinois senator said he supports extending "fully equal rights and benefits to same-sex couples under both state and federal law."

"And that is why I oppose the divisive and discriminatory efforts to amend the California Constitution, and similar efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution or those of other states," Obama wrote.

[...]

"Senator Obama opposes all divisive and discriminatory constitutional amendments such as the one in California," [Obama Campaign Spokesman] LaBolt said.

At first I thought he was just saying that it should be up to the states, but that he personally would vote against a marriage ban in his state. But LaBolt's statement forecloses that possibility and turns this into a genuine flip-flop. What's surprising is that this is a flop to the left.

Ed Morrissey has thoughts on what Obama's constant flip-floppery means:

There are only three possibilities for why Barack Obama has had to change his mind on almost every policy he has mentioned in this campaign:

1. HeÂ’s a liar who says what each audience wants to hear.
2. The election debate has changed his perspective on every issue.
3. He has no clue on any of the issues.

Another possibility is that he isn't in control of his own message. For example, how do we know that Obama actually wrote the letter to the LGBT Democratic Club or even read it? How do we know he approved LaBolt's statement or that it accurately reflects Obama's genuine beliefs? The answer to both questions is: we don't.

We generally expect that statements issued in a candidate's name come from the candidate, and whether they do or not, we impute the substance of the statement to the candidate. In Obama's case we've seen a pattern of conflicting statements in his name. I suspect that happens when different parts of his staff want different things. The left hand doesn't know what the far left hand is doing and Obama is too green to exercise meaningful control over his own office. The result is all these "distracting" and "inartful" statements.

In today's example, I'd bet my diploma that Obama hasn't given the issue of gay marriage much thought. But his staffers probably obsess over it, with some of them wailing about moderates in the general election and others, especially gay staffers, screeching about taking an even more radical position. Which side is more likely to be given the task of drafting a letter to a San Fran gay group?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:18 AM | Comments (63)
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