We've had a couple of these overnight book threads before and they seem to be fun, so I thought I'd throw one up and see what you all have going on bookwise.

I just finished Ender's Game and World War Z which were recommended by a bunch of folks in response to my Sci-Fi bleg a few weeks back.

I enjoyed both a lot. I thought Ender's was clever but it felt like it dragged a bit in parts, mostly after the big reveal. World War Z was a lot of fun but creepy as hell. Damn, I have got to get prepared for the coming zombie apocalypse.

Up next for me, back to non-fiction. In this case a biography of Winston Churchill. That just seems appropriate as we conservatives head off for our time in the wilderness.

Enjoy the last few hours of the Bush administration. The shit officially hits the fan at noon.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:59 PM | Comments (261)
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So claims an intel source cited by the Washington Times.

An al Qaeda affiliate in Algeria closed a base earlier this month after an experiment with unconventional weapons went awry, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Monday.

The official, who spoke on the condition he not be named because of the sensitive nature of the issue, said he could not confirm press reports that the accident killed at least 40 al Qaeda operatives, but he said the mishap led the militant group to shut down a base in the mountains of Tizi Ouzou province in eastern Algeria.

He said authorities in the first week of January intercepted an urgent communication between the leadership of al Qaeda in the Land of the Maghreb (AQIM) and al Qaeda's leadership in the tribal region of Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan. The communication suggested that an area sealed to prevent leakage of a biological or chemical substance had been breached, according to the official.

"We don't know if this is biological or chemical," the official said.

Posted by: Ace at 06:52 PM | Comments (111)
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"Planetary Trends" being a catch-all for natural processes like cyclical warming and cooling periods, oceanic and volcanic effects, and (I hope, though it doesn't say so in the question) for variations in that big ball of fusion-fire hanging right over us. The last theory--that solar input has overwhelmingly the largest effect on average global temperatures--just roared into the public mind this past year with the discovery that several solar cycles seem stuck at historic minimums.

The poll:

Forty-four percent (44%) of U.S. voters now say long-term planetary trends are the cause of global warming, compared to 41% who blame it on human activity.

Seven percent (7%) attribute global warming to some other reason, and nine percent (9%) are unsure in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Democrats blame global warming on human activity, compared to 21% percent of Republicans. Two-thirds of GOP voters (67%) see long-term planetary trends as the cause versus 23% of Democrats. Voters not affiliated with either party by eight points put the blame on planetary trends.

In July 2006, 46% of voters said global warming is caused primarily by human activities, while 35% said it is due to long-term planetary trends.

In April of last year, 47% of Americans blamed human activity versus 34% who viewed long-term planetary trends as the culprit. But the numbers have been moving in the direction of planetary trends since then.

What a pity that just as we started winning the information war global warming alarmists have taken the White House and Congress.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:08 PM | Comments (145)
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Fuck you.

If you get sick of it, skip to the end, to see a cultish chant to "serve our president" from all of the various B- and C- and F- list celebrities on display.

Remember when they put out a similar video after 9/11? Nope, me neither.

Also at Big Hollywood: Dirk Benedict apparently outs himself as "that way" and accuses the new Battlestar Galactica of being pussifed and amoral.

Posted by: Ace at 02:52 PM | Comments (320)
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A bit more embarrassment from the gaffe-prone wife of America's gaffe-prone incoming Veep:

During the taping of the Oprah Winfrey show today, Dr. Jill Biden said that her husband, the vice president-elect, was given a choice of being either vice president or secretary of State.

This revelation came after Vice President-elect Joe Biden told Oprah that after then-Sen. Obama offered the job of VP he asked for some time to think about it and talk it over with his family.

Mrs. Biden interjected: "Joe had the choice of being secretary of State or vice president." She then seemed to realize she'd said something she wasn't supposed to have said.

God love 'er. She hails from has heard of Scranton.

Previously: I didn't post it when it was current, but Biden recently shot his mouth off:

He said he would bring more to the job than any of his predecessors, except possibly Lyndon B. Johnson. "I know as much or more than Cheney," Mr. Biden said. "I'm the most experienced vice president since anybody."

This is stupid. Cheney was also a legislator, but then he was (I believe) chief of staff to President Ford and later Secretary of Defense for Bush the Elder. A position in which, of course, he was the civilian secretary responsible for prosecuting the wildly-successful Gulf War.

Joe Biden hasn't done a single fucking thing except vote for 30 years.

Good love 'im, but he's an idiot.

Incidentally, he's also stupid for bringing up the possibility that he might only be less experienced than LBJ -- who of course took office as President after John F. Kennedy, who was sort of like a proto-Obama, was assassinated in office.

Great thing to put out there for people to consider, Joe. Gird your loins.

Thanks to DrewM.

Posted by: Ace at 11:58 AM | Comments (161)
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This story doesn't say, exactly, while Bill Ayers was denied entry to Canada. I suspect it's because of his terrorist past, but they don't say so.

William Ayers, the 1960s radical whose ties to President-elect Barack Obama caused trouble for his campaign, was turned away from Canada Sunday night as he tried to enter the country for a series of educational events.

...

Ayers, a co-founder of the violent Weather Underground group and current education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, told the Toronto Star that he didn't know why he had been turned away.

According to Kugler, Ayers was told he could request a hearing but that would mean some sort of detention and a possible two week wait. Ayers opted to return to Chicago.

People are so touchy about terrorism these days.

Thanks to jaleach.

Posted by: Ace at 11:21 AM | Comments (63)
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Most expensive inauguration in history, and I'm also counting future history, at least for the next 40 odd years.

Here's some whining about the cost:

A grandmother of four sent the White House a tongue-in-cheek invitation to hold the inauguration at her house under rented tents, proposing to free up millions of dollars to feed and house the poorÂ…

“I was just outraged when I was made aware of the amount of money being spent on a party,” said Sandra Mikovich-Pogorelc, a manager for a pharmaceutical company near San Diego who e-mailed her disgust to the White House.

“The money could be used for other things. I don’t resent anyone who goes. I just feel it’s such a waste…”

Internet blog sitesÂ… are filled with discussions about the human suffering that could be alleviated with the $35 million to $40 million being spent on the inauguration.

Ahem. That was, as the Deceiver tricks you, from January 2005.

Having been ridiculed for their obvious double standard, ABC News at least attempts to pretend they object to this outsized cost the way they objected to Bush's frugal $40 million inauguration.

The People's Party? Shyah, right.

Visitors who hadn’t raised hundreds of thousands of dollars couldn’t get closer to the performance. “Excuse me! You got tickets? If you don’t have tickets, you have to go to ‘General Population,’” shouted a guard at an entrance near the memorial, gesturing with her arms to turn around and head back away from the show.

The concert was supposed to be part of “the people’s party,” said Shawn Paterniti, who had come with his wife Mia from Columbia, Md., to see the show. “But still, you have the VIPs who want their front-row seats. So I guess they get their tickets no one knows about,” he said, as he and his wife headed to join the “general population,” far away from the performances.

“It seems odd to have a VIP section for a concert about unity,” quipped the local blog DCist.com. The blogger, Kriston Capps, suggested a new name for the event: “We Are One, but Some Are More One Than Others.”

The fact of the matter is that Obama is The New Messiah, the Risen Christ.

And he can point to scripture to defend this incredible expenditure. Let us recount Mary's annointing of Jesus' feet -- which Jesus accepted, if I have this right (and pardon my ignorance of scripture if I don't have it right), not because it gave him great pleasure, but because he wanted to permit Mary to make this sacrifice, as her conscience directed her.

John 12:1-8

1 Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.

2 There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him.

3 Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.

4 Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him,

5 Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?

6 This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.

7 Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this.

8 For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.

The poor we will always have with us, but The One we will only have for four to eight years.

So The One is simply doing us all a kindness, allowing us to sacrifice for our own souls.

He's doing this for us. We demanded (apparently) we fete him like a king; he's merely acceding to our deep desire to give him worship.

Posted by: Ace at 11:05 AM | Comments (60)
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Not only did I repost a story that Drew did, I did the same basic headline joke.

Well.

Okay, I missed that.

Anyway, I'm deleting this misfire in favor of a... open thread, I guess.

Whoops.

Posted by: Ace at 11:25 AM | Comments (117)
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If this deal goes through, I don't think they'll be calling him a robber-baron again.

The NYT's editorial on Mexican media magnate/monopolist thief Carlos Slim Helu (called "Mr. Slim" instead of "Mr. Helu;"):

Mr. Slim is richer even than the robber barons of the gilded age…. It takes about nine of the captains of industry and finance of the 19th and early 20th Centuries — [John D.] Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, John J. Astor, Andrew Carnegie, Alexander Stewart, Frederick Weyerhaeuser, Jay Gould and Marshall Field — to replicate the footprint that Mr. Slim has left on Mexico.

But the momentous scale is not the most galling aspect of Mr. SlimÂ’s riches. ThereÂ’s the issue of theft.

Like many a robber baron — or Russian oligarch, or Enron executive — Mr. Slim calls to mind the words of Honoré de Balzac: “Behind every great fortune there is a crime.” Mr. Slim’s sin, if not technically criminal, is like that of Rockefeller, the sin of the monopolist.

Slim is wealthy enough to bail out the NYT precisely because he enjoys the near-monopoly they fret about. Notice, however, they're not unwilling to accept the money of a monopolist thief. They can rail about how horrible this ill-gotten loot is, but when push comes to shove, they want some of it themselves.

Posted by: Ace at 09:49 AM | Comments (41)
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Just being announced.

President George W. Bush has commuted the prison sentences of two former Border Patrol guards whose convictions for shooting a Mexican drug dealer ignited debate about illegal immigration.

More...

Bush didn't pardon the men for their crimes, but decided instead to commute their prison sentences because he believed they were excessive and that they had already suffered the loss of their jobs, freedom and reputations, a senior administration official said.

The action by the president, who believes the border agents received fair trials and that the verdicts were just, does not diminish the seriousness of their crimes, the official said.

Compean and Ramos, who have served about two years of their sentences, are expected to be released from prison within the next two months.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:05 AM | Comments (182)
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