So it's Monday. Could be worse I guess - like if it were Tuesday.

Steven Seagal is...a Sheriff's Deputy
Okay I was vaguely aware that Steven Seagal is still alive and it turns out that while he's been defeating ship hijackers, train hijackers, and evil oil companies in Hollywood, he's also been a real life deputy with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office in Louisiana for almost 20 years.

Now A&E has a new reality series based on this called what else Steven Seagal: Lawman. It's basically a Seagal version of COPS. According to the site's blurb, "in addition to going out on patrol, Seagal is an expert marksman who has worked with their SWAT team and has instructed Jefferson Parish officers in firearms and hand-to-hand combat." I mock but part of me does wants to see drunken, shirtless guys gets busted by a husky Steven Seagal. Of course one slight issue is that Seagal has a distinctive running style that can only be described as 'mincing'.

Posted by: Open Blog at 06:10 PM | Comments (384)
Post contains 396 words, total size 4 kb.

Speechless.

Golly.

Who's thinner-skinned, Obama or his acolytes in the media?

Of course the Palin skits are mentioned as "dead-on" portrayals. But this, this was just unfair and so wrongy wrong.

Nitwits.

UPDATE: Sure, MNF too. Might as well have some entertainment out of this post. Okaaaay, separate MNF thread.

UPDATE 2x: Slublog offers his unique perspective on the president's CNN security detail.

He'd take a bullet for Barry. You know he would.

More: Yahoo News (whatever that is) runs with it.

All wee wee'd up. It'll be network news tomorrow night. Bet me.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:24 PM | Comments (224)
Post contains 117 words, total size 1 kb.

She needed to carry a box in the car.

Wouldn't fit inside the car. (Apparently it's one of those boxes that don't fold.)

Needed to carry it on the roof, then.

But it would blow off if on the roof.

No problem -- she put her kid inside the box, on the roof of a moving car, to make sure it didn't blow away.

The kid, you see, was a paperweight. On a moving vehicle. And, by the way, the big square-footage of the box would make for a terrific sail perfectly capable of lofting a kid, should she reach speeds around 40mph.

Posted by: Ace at 03:06 PM | Comments (121)
Post contains 115 words, total size 1 kb.

Two big sources of postings since Thursday -- Letterman and Democrats rooting for America to lose wars.

Together in one tasty package.

In now a famous “You Tube” moment, Bill O’Reilly of the Fox News Channel, went on Letterman to be the recipient of the host’s rude and sophomoric antics. As the segment shifted into high gear, O’Reilly asked Letterman a pointed and direct question: “Do you want the United States to win in Iraq?”To the surprise of no one but his sycophants, Letterman could not or would not answer the question. When pressed by O’Reilly to answer, the best he could do was to play to his mostly left-leaning audience for cheap debating points and say, “It’s not easy for me because I’m thoughtful.”

But Republicans thought it was funny that the thick-witted ingenue finally learned the lesson that a smile actually doesn't work as an umbrella -- a lesson, incidentally, it is crucial that this hyperpartisan narcissist learn if America is to survive his governance -- so you know, time for a thousand stories about how Republicans root against America.

And when Democrats actually rooted against America to lose war and for US troops to die in greater numbers? Silence.

Posted by: Ace at 02:01 PM | Comments (218)
Post contains 232 words, total size 2 kb.

Okey doke. Nobody gets to exercise succession planning better than this outfit.

SARAROGHA, Pakistan – Flanked by heavily armed fighters, the new leader of the Pakistani Taliban sat on a blue blanket, amiable and relaxed as he cracked jokes and mixed in threats of vengeance for deadly U.S. airstrikes.

Remember the name, Hakimullah Mehsud.

South Waziristan. It's like a Hellfire magnet or something.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 01:23 PM | Comments (60)
Post contains 99 words, total size 1 kb.

Again, Politico and the Democrats phrase the story the same way: Mean Republicans used to accuse the Democrats of rooting against America, but now here are Republicans really doing that, for serious and stuff.

Really?

There are two charges: One, that Republicans cheered that Chicago had lost the Olympics, and two, that we react "rapidly" to bad economic news.

Addressing these in order:

1. Who gives a wet stool either way. It's trivial.

2. Oh, right, Republicans shouldn't note that Obama's economy is woeful, because, of course, it's not as if Democrats and the Leftwing Media claimed that Bush's very good (on average) economic numbers hid "ominous clouds of an an approaching storm" or were very, very bad in their own right, every single time a report came down.

But let me address Markos of the Daily Kos:

Moulitsas was more blunt. “So when did wingnuts start cheering against America? Their unbridled joy at losing out to Brazil is a bit unseemly, isn't it?” he asked, adding: "America, f—- yeah!" has become "F—- America, Yeah!"

Let me quote him again. When civilian contractors -- really just security guards hired to guard stuff because the military is out there doing actual attack-the-enemy warfare -- where murdered and their bodies hanged by Al Qaeda, Kos opined thus:

Every death should be on the front page (2.70 / 40)

Let the people see what war is like. This isn't an Xbox game. There are real repercussions to Bush's folly.

That said, I feel nothing over the death of merceneries. They aren't in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.

The "war" they were engaged in was protecting oil rigs from being blown up by Al Qaeda.

In fairness, I should note that Kos' comment divided his readers, some of whom supported his "Screw them" position, but others who condemned it...

I'm completely shocked at what you just wrote, Kos. I don't even know what to say.

I feel for every single person who dies over in Iraq that wasn't committing a crime. Many of these people are over there simply to provide security to people travelling in very dangerous areas.

You need to rethink this position, and post-haste, because it casts a VERY bad light on you.

...but again, Kos, courted by Democrats and sometimes hired as a consultant by Democrats, said this, and never retracted (despite some strong criticism), and half of his readers agreed with him on the point.

So, you know, if the Democrats routinely root and pray for American battle deaths, and say "Screw them" to murdered and mutilated Americans, why exactly is it so bad that I take a bit of childish glee in seeing Obama humiliated over a trivial affair like the Olympics?

Chicago is a very corrupt town, and the hope of the Daley machine was got lots of federal grants which he could skim. The Daley Machine's interests was profits, not the national interest. They are mercenaries. Screw them. I feel nothing.

Posted by: Ace at 12:47 PM | Comments (184)
Post contains 543 words, total size 3 kb.

I skipped out on mentioning, as Verum Serum demonstrated, all of Letterman's supposed hypocrisy in skewering politicians caught up in sex scandals.

I skipped this for a few reasons:

First, I don't really think vanilla hypocrisy is the greatest sin. The Leftwing Media likes to treat hypocrisy as if it's worse than the actual sin itself, and they do so only as pretext to scream about Republican sex scandals while only whispering about Democratic ones. (Always failing to note the Democrat at the center of a sex scandal is a Democrat, of course, too.)

Second, it is, of course, his job to goof on this stuff.

Third, I'm guilty of the same type of hypocrisy, and so are many, but that hardly means I'm going to give up goofing on Larry "Wide Stance" Craig.

On the other hand: Check out this clip of Letterman with Dr. Phil, in which Letterman will not stop ragging on Sarah Palin (supposedly) for failing to talk to her daughter about birth control. (I say supposedly because Letterman is really just going after Sarah Palin for anything at all, and doesn't much care if his weapon of choice here is a 17 year old girl.)

Watch him immediately dismiss Dr. Phil's mention of the fact that Barack Obama's mother was 18 when she became (unexpectedly, I'd imagine) pregnant with him. "Well I've got no problem with 18!" Letterman "jokes."

But there's a deeper hypocrisy here.

Anyone who thinks the marriage-avoiding, commitment-phobic, young-staffer-banging intended to get his long-time live-in girlfriend pregnant out of wedlock, please raise you hands.

No one?

Okay, how about: Anyone who thinks this was an accidental pregnancy on Dave's part (but possibly a semi-deliberate or deliberate one on his long-time live-in non-wife girlfriend's part) raise your hand.

Did he not know that the pill sometimes doesn't work and it's always advisable to wear a condom even for back-up purposes? And that it's further advisable if you're refusing to give your long-time live-in girlfriend any sort of long-term commitment and that she might just one day decide to do something about that?

And, anyone who thinks Letterman jaw-boned his unofficial wife into getting an abortion -- which she refused -- keep your hands raised.

In fact -- how many people kinda-sorta suspect that Harry is not Letterman's first child, but instead, the first child he wasn't able to convince a girlfriend to "take care of"?

Ah... I see a lot more hands.

Did the 93-year-old David Letterman not know about birth control? Do they not sell Trojans in New York City?

Does Sarah Palin need to have "The Talk" with Letterman?

But here's this rotten old crank castigating a 17 year old for the same thing. Neither was married when these pregnancies occurred. Letterman only married this woman when his son -- technically a bastard by his choice -- was six. Maybe he should give Levi Johnston the same six years to see if he, too, will eventually get around to doing the right thing.

Now that's hypocrisy. But it's not the hypocrisy that's the worst thing here. It's just his transparent glee in trashing a 17 year old girl, and her mother too.

I begin to wonder about what a bad, bad parent Mother Letterman is for failing to instruct her elderly son at any point in his life about the consequences of unprotected sex.

What a whore that woman is, eh?

Affair Called Off Due to "Age Differences:" A second woman -- apparently an intern on the show -- says she slept with Letterman, "long before his marriage," but given Letterman's had a twenty-three year (IIRC) relationship with his live-in girlfriend, not apparently when he was actually single.

I see references to Holly Hester being either an "NYU student" or "NYU alum" at the time of the affair. Not sure which -- based on a credit as a staff producer for Married With Children in 1992, I imagine she was out of college... but just out of college when the 102-year-old sexual Gollum Letterman used his celebrity to use her.

It's not a crime or anything.

But one would think that an elderly lech would perhaps comprehend that young people sometimes act on chemical impulse, too.

Oh Dear: Treacher dug this up. A skit called, "Would you like to eat a sandwich in Dave's office?"

Oh Hell's yeah!, exclaimed nobody at all.

More Letterman: Claim from Audience Member That in Latest Show He Apologizes to Wife: Wow, it's really cool he's parlaying his bad behavior into a multi-week ratings goose.

Drew Carey, I think, was just on Conan's show and said "It must be tough for ratings for you when there's all that sex stuff going on on Letterman." ("No comment," said Conan.)

And so it is. People are tuning into Letterman for the reality-show spectacle of the man.

And he's milking that.

Obscured in this: He's not funny, and has not been funny for going on 15 years, and he's being rewarded for bad behavior.

Maybe Conan should sock his wife in the kidney for his own ratings goose.

Posted by: Ace at 11:58 AM | Comments (194)
Post contains 880 words, total size 6 kb.

Great recap of the debunking of the "Hockey Stick" graph showing basically unchanged temperatures throughout the last millennium, and then a dramatic spike at millennium's end (the "blade" of the otherwise straight "stick").

If you've shied away from the topic because it always felt in medias res to you, this article is a pretty good first-things-first explication.

Thanks to CharlesA.

Posted by: Ace at 10:34 AM | Comments (153)
Post contains 120 words, total size 1 kb.

In Allah's Quotes the Day, he featured two: One an attack on the self-styled elites who do nothing to advance anything at all except their own outsized sense of self-importance, and the other the elites ragging on the "far right" Sarah Palin:

The "elites," incidentally, seem to have a confused definition of "far right." Sometimes they speak of the "far right" as if it is a programmatic, ideological thing. But they mostly seem to speak of it as purely tonal in nature, as applies to Sarah Palin.

But elites are so smart they tend to be confused by how much brilliance is crackling up in their big brains.

I am a bit perplexed at how either confused meaning applies to Sarah Palin. She is not "far right" ideologically -- she is solidly in the mainstream of conservativism.

As for the case that she is extremist in tone -- what on earth could they possibly be thinking of? I can only think of two things.

First, the "death panel" coinage, which is perfectly accurate and perfectly par-for-the-course as far as political invective. Bear in mind that the same liberals and "moderate Republicans" (actually moderate Democrats) who shrieked about this either used, or had no particular problem with, the Democrats' standard playbook on Medicaid reform/cuts in the 80s and 90s, which consisted of claiming that Republicans would force your grandma to eat cat food and throw her out on the street to die.

Is "death panels" strident? Tendentious? Designed to provoke a reaction? Of course it is. As is most of political communication -- it just happens to be effective at expressing a dark truth the Leftwing Media, Democrats, and "moderate Republicans" wish to obscure.

The other thing that comes to mind -- and this is what I think the main "indictment" against Palin as a ranting, vicious member of the extremist far right -- is that she alone dared to insult the man whose trousers David Brooks noted were immaculately creased:

more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:20 AM | Comments (265)
Post contains 530 words, total size 5 kb.

You don't say.

The most widely touted outcome of last week's Geneva talks with Iran was the "agreement in principle" to send approximately one nuclear-weapon's worth of Iran's low enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia for enrichment to 19.75% and fabrication into fuel rods for Tehran's research reactor. President Barack Obama says the deal represents progress, a significant confidence-building measure.

In fact, the agreement constitutes another in the long string of Iranian negotiating victories over the West. Any momentum toward stricter sanctions has been dissipated, and Iran's fraudulent, repressive regime again hobnobs with the U.N. Security Council's permanent members. Consider the following problems:

...The "agreement" undercuts Security Council resolutions forbidding Iranian uranium enrichment. No U.S. president has been more enamored of international law and the Security Council than Mr. Obama. Yet here he is undermining the foundation of the multilateral campaign against Tehran's nuclear weapons program. In Resolution 1696, adopted July 31, 2006, the Security Council required Iran to "suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development." Uranium enriched thereafter—the overwhelming bulk of Iran's admitted LEU—thus violates 1696 and later sanctions resolutions. Moreover, considering Iran's utter lack of credibility, we have no idea whether its declared LEU constitutes anything near its entire stockpile.

By endorsing Iran's use of its illegitimately enriched uranium, Mr. Obama weakens his argument that Iran must comply with its "international obligations."

There's more at the link.

I get the feeling Obama is angrier at General McChrystal than he is with the Iranians.

On the upside, the crease in Obama's pants are probably still immaculate. So we got that going for us.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:31 AM | Comments (96)
Post contains 284 words, total size 2 kb.