...a show started, I think, by Hard News Dan Rather.

He was, as you can imagine, living with one of Letterman's previous staff-bangs, so she told him the tale and so on.

The Leftwing Media finally gets a scoop and instead of reporting it they turn it to personal advantage. Who could have seen that coming.

Thanks to the Warden for that update.

Sorry to bump Maet's always-cool ONT, but if I don't advance the post, no one's going to see there's a juicy update.

Vid:

From this blog, with a full recap, and review of the odd performance.

...

Hmmm. No wonder this sad unfunny clown is so bitter.

In an uncharacteristically personal revelation for David Letterman, the host took to his "Late Show" stage Thursday to admit that he was the victim of an extortion attempt -- and acknowledge that he has had sexual relations with more than one staff member.

...

The individual threatened to go public with the allegations unless Letterman paid him $2 million.

Letterman told his audience on Thursday that he contacted the Manhattan District Attorney's Special Prosecution Bureau. That led to a sting operation, in which Letterman met with the individual and handed the person a fake $2 million check. That person was arrested on Thursday.

"This morning, I did something I've never done in my life," Letterman said on Thursday's edition of CBS' "Late Show." "I had to go downtown and testify before a grand jury."

As part of the testimony, Letterman admitted that he had engaged in sexual relationships with staff members.

"My response to that is, yes I have. Would it be embarrassing if it were made public? Perhaps it would," Letterman said. "I feel like I need to protect these people -- I need to certainly protect my family."

Eh. Blackmailers suck.

On the other hand, so does Letterman.

Posted by: Ace at 10:22 PM | Comments (5)
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Welcome to the ONT my droogies.

The only Known Video of Anne Frank

Taken in July 1941 when she was 12 years old. A year later she would start her diary and less than 3 years later she would die at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 07:59 PM | Add Comment
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Bumped because I like movie cliche threads.

...

It is standard that in any thriller, the hero has to be isolated, so that he has to face the danger alone. (Or with the few allies the script provides.)

If he just calls the cops, no movie. Or a different movie, at least -- a police procedural. But you can't have cops as the heroes in every movie. (Just 30% of them.)

Enter the cellphone -- the biggest pain in the ass invention to any scriptwriter since, well, writer's block.

And soon after, enter the cliche: In the movies, your cellphone just never works. Ever. Never ever ever.

Well, for the first twenty minutes it can. And then -- no signal.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 06:36 PM | Comments (4)
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I'm derelict on this story.

First came the revelation that when a 15 year old sophomore had come to him to tell him he had had sex with a much older man, Kevin Jennings didn't report it.

Now it turns out he also wrote the introduction to a book called Queering Elementary Education -- yes, elementary -- which was blurbed by, oh, why not?, Bill Ayers.

And supposedly he praised a NAMBLA guy at some meeting, saying he'd been "inspired" by him.

That last bit relies upon an transcript, and we should probably wait until we hear the tape and confirm to our own satisfaction he's saying what he's supposed to have said, and also that the guy mentioned really is part of NAMBLA.

So for now, how about those first two bits?

Obama is either so incompetent, and surrounded by such incompetence, he doesn't find out the most basic stuff about his appointees, or he's so leftist he thinks this is no big deal.

Posted by: Ace at 06:26 PM | Comments (2)
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From Conan O'Brien: more...

Posted by: Ace at 03:42 PM | Comments (8)
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They should shake their cup for Roman Polanski. He understands the importance of their mission.

ACORN, the troubled anti-poverty group, is fighting to survive in the aftermath of an undercover video scandal. Its government funding is threatened, and so is the money it receives from foundations and other donors.

ACORN is fighting back, but that is also draining resources.

...

Several major funders told NPR that they've ended or are reassessing their ties with ACORN and its affiliates. The Ford Foundation gave almost $2 million in recent years, but says it has suspended ACORN funding because of concerns about inadequate financial controls.

The Marguerite Casey Foundation gave ACORN more than $4 million from 2003 to 2007. But spokeswoman Kathleen Baca says the grants are not being renewed...

The Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Bank of America and JPMorgan also say they've ceased making grants to ACORN and its affiliates.

Bucking the tide is the California Endowment, giving them $500,000.

Thanks to William Amos.

Posted by: Ace at 02:35 PM | Comments (4)
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This is more unexpected and satisfying than you might think -- a week back, Obama's highest approval rate came from FoxNews --at 54%, above the next highest reading of 52%, and well above most other polls' findings of 49-51%. (Since then, Gallup has come out with an unlikely 54%, and CBS/NYT has come out with a enough-acid-to-supply-a-Burning-Man-festival rating of 56%.)

So it's nice to see that Fox's last reading was a bit of an outlier and they now too find Obama stuck right in the 49-51% range.

Check out questions 5-8. Obama's free-spending ways poll very poorly, and most want the spending cut, not expanded further.

Thanks to AHFF Geoff.

Bonus: Gallup finds split in party ID the smallest since 2005, at six points, 48 Dem (and leaners) to 42 Republican (and Rep leaners).

As Morrissey notes, this should be remembered when Leftwing Media polls consistently feature a double-digit skew towards the Democrats.

It might, however, have to do with the fact that pollsters are ignoring the leaners. It seems independents are breaking to lean to the Republicans, without actually identifying themselves as Republicans.

Leaners actually donÂ’t make much difference to the overall gap, but are still a critical part of the story. Even without them, the gap is only eight points, which is actually up from the spring, when it was six points. However, the gap among independent leaners has shifted dramatically. Democrats had an eight-point lead with them as recently as fall 2007. Republicans took their first lead with these voters in the entire four-year run of this survey, 15%-13%, reversing a 17%-11% lead for Democrats in the first quarter of this year.

So if a pollster just goes with party ID alone -- ignoring leaners -- he will conveniently overlook the fact that more independents now lean the GOPs way, and by not correcting for that fact, he'll wind up with a sample too skewed to the left.

Which is what I anticipate they'll do.

But note that even without that goose from independent leaners, the gap is still only 8 points, and not the 11 and 12 point gaps we keep seeing in polls like the CBS/NYT comedy.

Oh: Forgot the cowbell.

Posted by: Ace at 02:16 PM | Comments (1)
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The Messenger Probe just finished its Mercury flyby and it has spectacular new photos of Mercury's odd "bright spot." There's just one problem:

A NASA spacecraft that completed its third and final flyby of the planet Mercury on Tuesday, snapping new pictures of the innermost planet, had a small data hiccup that has delayed release of the best close-ups, mission engineers said Wednesday.

[...]

Messenger also took snapshots during its close approach, but "we had a little bit of a hiccup in the data" that has delayed the release of those images, said Eric Finnegan, systems engineer for the mission at Johns Hopkins APL. "It's coming," he added.

Sure it is, just as soon as your photoshop boys are finished with it, right Finnegan?

Ladies, gentlemen, and multigender readers, put on your tinfoil caps and put me some knowledge. The moron who writes the bestest explanation for what the Messenger probe really saw -- and what NASA is covering up -- will get many front-page accolades, a year of free AOSHQ, and Lauraw will punch you in the junk!

I think the only rational explanation for the "hiccup" is that they found the President's birth certificate. (Yes, I took that low-hanging fruit to keep you lazy morons from it. Do better.)

Note for passing crazies: This is a contest. I despise conspiracy theorists. I don't believe NASA is covering anything up. And I am not saying this because of a permanent injunction not to bother those nice people over at NASA and JPL for their numerous cover-ups, conspiracies, and hidden secrets. I know that there isn't a man in a black suit attaching a bomb to the underside of my car right now and I never, ever check under the car each and every time I use it for such a bomb. Really.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 01:22 PM | Comments (1)
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We need an explanation? Isn't "I can buy beer and cigarettes" enough?

Reason starts by noting that it's not true that this is a liberal-conservative thing -- the liberals are, except for the HuffPo's sub-cretins, mostly lining up behind the hitherto-undebatable proposition that raping 13 year olds is a bad thing. Fair enough point -- as mentioned yesterday, the French public, too (as opposed to the politico-celebrity swells) is pretty much aghast at this rapist.

Later on it gets uglier, as Matt Welch quotes from Polanski's own memoir, Roman by Polanski (ha... ha...), in which he tells us how he gets his pedophilia on.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:20 PM | Comments (2)
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Tim Blair wades into the archives to find a bunch of Then and Now posts, with CJ plainly taking 180-degree-opposite oppositions a scant handful of months ago.

The most enjoyable one is this -- and note the disclaimer -- fresh, I imagine, added upon Blair's discovery of it.

Culminating in, as usual, a banning:

And now IÂ’m blocked:

Forbidden

You donÂ’t have permission to access this server.

You know whose fault this is? The mess boys who stole the strawberries.

Posted by: Ace at 12:22 PM | Comments (2)
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