And yet this is actually a plausible defense thanks to Justice Kennedy of the US International Supreme Court.

Thanks to blacksheep.

Posted by: Ace at 11:59 AM | Comments (27)
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It's been a while since we had a main-page babe post (probably because Slu has everyone terrified to click below the fold). But it's a slow news day and Jack M. has a thing for this chick. Also, I'm mildly interested in this movie and hope Hollywood doesn't ruin it like they do all action heroine flicks. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 11:55 AM | Comments (44)
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At least in the media's telling. Karl notices you can just swap out "Bill Braskey" for "Barack Obama" and the old Saturday Night Live sketches read like media dispatches:

Just fill in Barak Obama, and you could picture Katie and her fellows around a bar:

"Obama's family crest is a picture of a barracuda eating Neil Armstrong."

"His poop is considered currency in Argentina."

"I once saw him scissor-kick Angela Lansbury."

"Did I ever tell you about the time Obama took me out to go get a drink with him? We go off looking for a bar and we can't find one. Finally Obama takes me to a vacant lot and says, 'Here we are.' We sat there for a year and a half — until sure enough, someone constructs a bar around us. Well, the day they opened we ordered a shot, drank it, and then burned the place to the ground. Obama yelled over the roar of the flames, 'Always leave things the way you found 'em!'"

"He once punched a hole in a cow just to see who was coming up the road."

"He hated Mexicans! And he was half-Mexican! ...And he hated irony!"

Before meeting Barack Obama, the Knight Rider computer KITT was actually straight.

Barack Obama knocked up Jamie Simpson just by sneezing on her picture.

The Dodge Viper's pre-production codename was "Barack Obama's Dick."

Barack Obama holds the world record for most hard-boiled egg eaten-- one. The record stands because he has hunted down and murdered everyone trying to beat it. He holds many records, but that's the one he's most proud of. "Anyone can eat hard-boiled eggs," he says, "but not many can eat human heads."

Slubog's on fire with this Obama-branding-the-world thing.

Posted by: Ace at 11:34 AM | Comments (45)
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...with (pounding wood) just six days left in the month.

A Pentagon official notes this Grim But Not Nearly as Grim as the Liberals Would Like Milestone in stating that the surge, by any metric chosen, has been an unqualified -- and for many, an unwelcome -- success.

The surge in Iraq has been a success by any measure, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said during a news conference July 23.

...

The surge has allowed Iraq to make improvements from security, political and economic standpoints, Morrell said. The last of the five surge brigade combat teams recently left Iraq.

“By every metric that we measure violence in Iraq, there has been a dramatic improvement from where things were before the surge,” Morrell said. “I'll just point to one, and that is [that] in July of last year, we had 79 U.S. [servicemembers killed in action] in Iraq. We have four thus far this month.”

The dramatic security gains have provided room for political and economic successes. “You name it, it is happening in Iraq,” Morrell said. “Do you want to talk about political gains? We've had basically all the major benchmark legislation passed.”

The Sunni bloc has returned to the government, 10 of 18 Iraqi provinces are under local control, and Najaf International Airport has reopened. “You see a $300 million luxury hotel opening up in the Green Zone [and] $50 million in refurbishment of the airport road,” Morrell said. “There's economic investment, and there's political progress. There's increased security. All those things are undeniable, and they are attributable to the fact that we plussed up forces in there.”

Moqtada al-Sadr moved briskly through the fashionable Paris throngs, his trademark Armani duster coat snapping smartly in the vigorous breeze blowing up from the quays below.

At a dilapidated phone kiosk outside 27 1/2 Rue Montaigne, he fingered a curious coin -- a small white-gold coin depicting an eagle gripping a bloody heart in its talons, a micro-computer chip gleaming in the eagle's left eye -- and clinked it into the phone's coinslot. He casually glanced about to see if he was being observed; thankfully the assortment of Left Bank cafe-goers and fat happy tourists had other concerns besides a stylish and brutally handsome man in a telephone booth.

He authoritatively punched the secret code into the phone -- Six Six Six -- and was swept by pneumatic action through a series of of stainless steel tubes snaking their way through the Paris Underground. The black wings of his coat furling around him like piratical war-flags, he was deposited upon the Italian marble flooring of his European lair -- his "Outer Sanctum," he thought to himself as his sensuous lips curled into an enigmatic half-grin.

He was immediately greeted by his ruthlessly efficient and efficiently ruthless manservant -- or, more properly, womanservant -- Contessa Connie Moistburrow, her blazing red hair framing a face that recalled, simultaneously, an innocent schoolgirl and gorgeous whore who worked the roughest docks. In hell.

Her face lighted up upon seeing Moqtada's eyes, his deep dark pools of raw sexuality and restless intelligence and also confident masterfulness a hint of artistic brilliance. Plus he looked like he probably had a big one.

She could hardly stop herself from embracing this man, this black-clad sex-god, but her training halted her mid-step and she struck an attentive pose.

"The modifications have been made to your personal gyrocopter," she said, her breasts heaving beneath the sheer silk of her shirt. I'm pretty sure you could see some nipple poking through on the right, but maybe that was just her IdentiBadge. Sure looked like a nipple, though.

"This pleases me," Moqtada said with a knowing smile, for he knew this simple statement -- "This pleases me" -- filled his lovesick whore-child of a chief assassin with happiness, and also vaginal lubrication.

"What are your orders, My Leader?" Contessa Connie Moistburrow asked, but her tone said Tie me up like a coked-up gibbon having an epileptic seizure. And stick a wallet in my mouth so I don't bite off my tongue. From all the man-matter you'll be filling my she-void with.

"Have the men assemble in the Hall of Victory -- at dawn."

"At dawn, sir?"

"Well, dawn-ish," Moqtada said. "It is Casual Friday, after all. And it's Achmad's birthday. We'll have a bit of cake and then -- we don our Strike Armor. Our Casual Friday Strike Armor, though. I want to see lots of Hawaiian shirts over their cybernetic active torso defenses. There's no reason we can't have a bit of fun while conquering the infidel pig monkeys."

-- Excerpt from Sex-Assault on Fortress Loveblast (A Moqtada al-Sadr Action Thriller), by Moqtada al-Sadr, published by everyone in the mainstream media. Copyright 2008.

(A previous excerpt is here, as well as in the comments.)

Correction: A Better Where alerts me to the fact that iCasualties says 11 have been killed -- seven hostile, four non-hostile.

iCasualties, however, includes at least two "July deaths" which are not July deaths at all -- they include the two soldiers whose bodies were found in July, but who were kidnapped and killed in May of 2007.

I don't know of other cases like that, but I am suspicious of their figures given that misleading method of counting. Also, for example, a Navy man killed accidentally on a flight deck (presumably of an aircraft casualty) is counted as an "Iraq casualty." I guess it is, sort of.

Even taking the rest of iCasualty's figures as accurate, the true numbers would be five killed by hostile fire, four killed by non-combat mishap.

Posted by: Ace at 11:11 AM | Comments (21)
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So, he was there. So, he was running. So, he was scared.

Plus, a staffer all but confirms his, erm, friendliness with Rielle Hunter

Can the MSM continue ignoring the obvious questions of why he was there, why he was running, and why he was scared?

My guess: They'll sure try like gangbusters.

A hotel security guard told FOXNews.com he intervened this week between a man he identified as former Sen. John Edwards and tabloid reporters who chased down the former presidential hopeful after what they're calling a rendezvous with his mistress and love child.

The Beverly Hilton Hotel guard said he encountered a shaken and ashen-faced Edwards — whom he did not immediately recognize — in a hotel men's room early Tuesday morning in a literal tug-of-war with reporters on the other side of the door.

"What are they saying about me?" the guard said Edwards asked.

"His face just went totally white," the guard said, when Edwards was told the reporters were shouting out questions about Edwards and Rielle Hunter, a woman the National Enquirer says is the mother of his child.

The guard said he escorted Edwards, who was not a registered guest at the hotel, out of the building after 2 a.m. Edwards did not say anything while he was escorted out, said the guard, adding that at times the reporters on the scene were "rough on him," sticking a camera in his face and shouting questions.

The guard did not recognize Edwards at the time of the incident, but said he concluded it was the 2008 presidential hopeful after hearing reports about the incident and finding an Enquirer reporter's notebook at the scene.

The guard said during the chase the reporters had dropped the notebook, which he picked up. "This book has everything in it on him," he said, referring to Edwards. The guard later confirmed Edwards' identity after being shown a photograph.

A former campaign staffer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told FOXNews.com he wishes he were "more surprised" to hear reports Edwards was visiting Hunter. "I'm definitely upset by it. I wish I was more surprised, though."

Edwards this week has repeatedly refused to comment on the Enquirer report. Asked about it on Thursday at an event in New Orleans, he said: "I have no idea what you're asking about. I've responded, consistently, to these tabloid allegations by saying I don't respond to these lies and you know that ... and I stand by that."

Thanks to mediamole.

Posted by: Ace at 10:21 AM | Comments (56)
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The improper bet? He bet a pile of pot.

It's funnier than that, actually. Watch it. It gets funnier in the middle, and then funnier still at the end. more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:53 AM | Comments (38)
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Linked: Novelist Andrew Klavan's WSJ piece on the similarities between Bush and Batman in their respective struggles against terrorism and an unappreciative public; and a funny video where a guy asks man-on-the-street interviewees to identify if a quote comes from Bush or Batman.

Posted by: Ace at 08:59 AM | Comments (47)
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Harry Reid's attempt to interfere in the commodities exchanges failed this morning along mostly partisan lines. Democrats are blaming high gasoline prices on "excessive" speculation in oil and gas futures. This is typical of Democrats, who would rather blame hedge funds (framed as "fat cats", but who serve an important market purpose) than deal with the actual problem.

Republicans managed to hold to their promise to let no legislation move without provisions for increasing domestic production. It's also nice that they opposed the anti-speculation bill, something I would hope they would have done anyway. More regulation of hedging activity, especially regulation like this which is aimed at secondary effects rather than actual misconduct, just drives investment overseas. Congress didn't learn enough from SOX.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:00 AM | Comments (57)
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Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:23 AM | Comments (25)
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Yep, apparently its time for another thrilling episode of The Deciders™, where the media thinks you need to be treated like a mushroom -- i.e. kept in the dark and fed shit.

...we have decided not to cover the rumors or salacious speculations. So I am asking you all not to blog about this topic until further notified...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 06:20 AM | Comments (43)
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