Adding a little bit of nuance to the record that the nuance-obsessed press forgets.

"Do you remember what it was like after September 11th?"

No, Mr. President, they don't.

An important quote was offered to Brit Hume:

The Surge will be his legacy, and he can take pride in that.

Posted by: Ace at 10:54 AM | Comments (69)
Post contains 54 words, total size 1 kb.

Ed looks askance at his calls for "patriotic" coverage.

Eh. So he's not an objective journalist. Who is? Christian Amanapour?

There are a lot of advocacy journalists in the Middle-East. In fact, almost everyone there is. I can't get very incensed that Joe admits his own agenda. Unlike professional journalists (and I use that term advisedly), he has no career to protect by lying about his own biases and agenda.

A brief mention of a PSM essay written by a tool at The Moderate Voice. I only even mention it because both Instapundit and Hot Air link it.

The Moderate Voice, of course, defends the MSM down the line and questions how any, um, "civilian" like Joe could possibly have anything of value to add to reportage.

Here's some value -- he has a high profile, at least among conservatives on the internet, and will work to show that Israelis (especially in Sredot) are suffering in this war at Hamas' hands, something the MSM isn't particularly animated to show themselves. They far prefer Hamas' hard-luck tales.

So, a bit of balance will be provided, even if it comes from someone who forthrightly admits he's not really a balanced reporter.

I will point out that I have had occasionally read The Moderate Voice, and I have, to this day, never seen it take a position that wasn't clearly and safely -- and all too predictably -- liberal.

Just for shits and giggles, I'd like to see The "Moderate" Voice actually criticize liberal policy or belief. Just once. Just to establish they can in fact manage such a Herculean task.

I think I will rename this site "The Moderate Ace of Spades." No change in my politics; but I guess we're all "Moderates," really.

Here's Joe reporting for Pajamas TV (free registration required).

One Thing That's True... is that by offering up his pro-Israel agenda so unabashedly, he diminishes his credibility as an objective source and thus can't help Israel as much as if he lied about it, or at least concealed it.

That's true... but that kind of credibility is gained via a lie. The MSM does this all the time, of course, purporting to be neutral referees when in fact they are determined partisan actors. To the extent they have more credibility for their purported objectivity, they should not. It's a lie.

Posted by: Ace at 08:38 AM | Comments (102)
Post contains 400 words, total size 3 kb.

Sounds like a plan.

Along with the emancipation of women, sexual liberation has become very much a part of politics around the world. To the conservatives, both these issues challenge ‘family values’.

But what if there were no families? What if we say no to reproduction?

My understanding of reproduction is that it is the basis of the institutions of marriage and family, and those two provide the moorings to the structure of gender and sexual oppression. Family is the social institution that ensures unpaid reproductive and domestic labour, and is concerned with initiating a new generation into the gendered (as I analyzed here) and classed social set-up. Not only that, families prevent money the flow of money from the rich to the poor: wealth accumulates in a few hands to be squandered on and bequeathed to the next generation, and that makes families as economic units selfishly pursue their own interests and become especially prone to consumerism.

So it makes sense to say that if the world has to change, reproduction has to go. Of course there is an ecological responsibility to reduce the human population, or even end it , and a lot was said about that on the blogosphere recently (here, and here), but an ecological consciousness is not how I came to my decision to remain child-free.

Because reproduction is seen as a psychological need, even a biological impulse, that would supposedly override any rational concerns arising out of a sense of responsibility, ecological or otherwise, I would like to propose emotional conditioning to counter such a need or impulse to reproduce. Using my own life as a case study, I conclude that I came to a resolve not to reproduce through largely unconscious emotional reactions . I like children, but every time I fantasized of having one, I felt pangs of guilt over how for this 'impulse' of mine, someone else would have to put their body on the line.

David Thompson terms this as another proposal in the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEM).

The personal is not political, and it's solipsistic, nevermind stupid, for this woman to extend her personal choices into some kind of universal political movement.

The Intolerance of Tolerance: Liberals are determined to always think not merely well of themselves, but to think the absolute best of themselves. It's very hard, for example, to get a liberal to admit that any political choices they make are rooted in mere selfishness, that is, that the policy they propose would benefit themselves. They always claim some higher purpose, some disinterested reason for their political beliefs.

Now, it's not easy to get anyone to admit selfish motives, but it sure is easier to get a conservative to admit them. Sure, a conservative tends not to offer "personal selfishness" as his first rationale to oppose higher taxes -- there are plenty of disinterested, non-selfish reasons to offer -- but eventually, down on the list, if pressed, a conservative will say "Even if all you say is true, I want to keep my money, because it's my money. There are good reasons apart from this to oppose the government forcibly exacting more money from me, but even if they all fail, I want to keep my money."

This is practically an impossible admission to ever extract from a liberal.

Another example: Liberals who are not ideological atheists, but who are also not religious, will not admit that someone who goes to church every Sunday and believes passionately in God might be more "spiritual" than they are. They will insist their "spirituality" merely takes a different, less obvious form.

Um, no. Concede this one. Obviously the flame of spirituality doesn't burn very brightly in you (as it doesn't in me). Someone who believes in God and frequently think of God and His works is probably more "spiritual" than someone who almost never does.

In this case, this woman seems to feel guilty about her non-maternal instincts. She seems defensive about why she feels no strong drive to procreate but so many of her fellow women do.

Rather than simply making a perfectly defensible argument (if one is even needed) such as "Well, this is my choice and I should have no shame about that" or "People are different, and I just don't seem to have the reproductive drive" or anything along the lines, she feels compelled, it seems, to argue that not only is her decision defensible, but also optimal and universal, in that all women should join her in her I Don't Know Nothin' About Birthin' No Babies Crusade.

A perfectly valid choice is thus warped and perverted into a lunatic call for the extermination of the human race as part of the Gender Wars.

What the hell does she care if other women don't agree with her and want to have children? Why must her decisions be all women's decisions?

Because that's how her mind works. It's just not possible that she is interested by selfish motives (the desire to live the simpler life of a non-parent). It's not even possible to admit she is making one valid decision among many.

No, it must be the case she is making the Best Possible Decision for all people, for all women. And she's got a blog manifesto to prove it.

This, I submit, is puerile and simply fucking weird. This is childish. Children do this -- they are still in the phase of believing, as their loving parents do, that they are perfect in all ways possible. They cannot admit imperfection; they even have difficulty admitting mere ordinariness.

Posted by: Ace at 07:43 AM | Comments (220)
Post contains 946 words, total size 6 kb.

For comments on the items in the Top Headlines sidebar. A link to these comments is stickied at the top of the Top Headlines column.

Also, today and tomorrow are the last days to vote in the Weblog Awards. Our lead is once again shrinking, so if you wouldn't mind...clicky, clicky. Sometimes it takes a few minutes for the poll to load. Be patient and Drew promises more cheesecake.

More [DrewM.] There will certainly be a reward of some sort should the lead return to more respectable levels by this evening. We have had any terrorist go boom videos lately, have we? Those are always fun.

So, you know...vote. Vote like a Chicago Democrat, early and often.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:19 AM | Comments (55)
Post contains 124 words, total size 1 kb.

Alice H was at the Capitol in Denver this afternoon taking pictures of the rallies (keep scrolling, great stuff).

I've tucked a few under the fold to keep them from blowing out the margins.

The pro-Israel group was on one side of the street. On the other side...well, they're not just pro-Palestine, they're full on pro-Hamas:

And anti-Israel:

Let Alice know what you think.

[I fixed the margin issues and made images clickable for full size -- PA]

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:04 PM | Comments (116)
Post contains 76 words, total size 1 kb.

(Slid over the transom just before open blog is about to close…and this might be a little early for the overnight thread, but oh well. Also, for you right coasters, it might be nice if you held off on discussing “24” until the left coasters have a chance to watch it. I think it airs at 8 p.m. on both coasts so do the math.)

Has anyone been watching the online webisodes of “Battlestar Galactica: Face of the Enemy?” I can’t recall anyone posting the fact that these were online (Mr. Malor I’m looking at you), but stumbled across them while trying to find out when the final new episodes were going to air (January 16th btw).

Anyway, the location of the webisodes is here. Looks like there are 10 episodes in all, with the final one to be posted on January 12th.

In other news, from Florida comes the story of a woman who went to her doctor, complaining of headaches, and they discovered sheÂ’d had a knife stuck in her head for 3 years. Seems like the kindaÂ’ thing youÂ’d remember happening to you (though she was a victim of an assault) Safe for work vid with just a quick x-ray shot is here.

Finally, please vote on which of the following terms we should use for the new administration after He is inaugurated/crowned/anointed/declared a living saint and/or prophet/Messiah:

1) Obamalot
2) Obamelot

Not sure which vowel looks best. Or suggest your own term.

Posted by: Open Blog at 05:26 PM | Comments (195)
Post contains 264 words, total size 2 kb.

And it happened in one of the reddest of the red states here in flyover country. Sadly, it just happens to be mine.

"The first day we went into the recording studio, I was telling my friends, 'I'm about to go into a recording studio' and they were like, 'What song are you going to sing?' and I was like, 'It's a secret,'" said Morgan Mayers.

Karen Sokolof Javitch wrote the song, using a melody she created for a musical about Princess Diana. She said she asked the girls to record it in hopes of capturing their energy and spirit.

"They brought it to life," she said. "I have goose bumps about it now, just talking about it."

She said the song is about hope for a better world and she hopes Obama gets to hear it soon.

"He's got two little girls younger than these girls, so he could relate and could relate to the song," she said. "I hope he would be proud of it."

I've long known that Girls Inc. was nothing more than an indoctrination center for The New Glorious Socialist Revolution disguised as a place for "disadvantaged" girls to, well, I don't actually know what they do other than try to indoctrinate low income girls into their New Glorious Socialist Revolution. And foment racism, sexism, and many other -isms that are supposedly not practiced by the Left in this country, despite the fact that they wrote the book on -isms. And don't get me started on their abortion views.

Anyway, for those of you brave enough to click the link at the bottom of the story and actually watch the music video linked there, I salute you. I could only stand a few seconds of it before I said to myself "how sad," and shut it off.

Excrement question: If you did watch the video, did "Hitler Youth" pop up in your mind?

Posted by: Open Blog at 04:20 PM | Comments (81)
Post contains 336 words, total size 2 kb.

I can't believe he has to defend this.

“The techniques…were necessary and are necessary to be used on a rare occasion to get information to protect the American people,” Bush said during an expansive exit interview that aired on Fox Sunday.

Citing an interrogation with Al Qaeda strategist Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, which included simulated drowning, otherwise known as “waterboarding,” the outgoing president said, “We believe the information we gained helped save lives on American soil.”

Roughing up scumbags (with sincere apologies to bags of scum, everywhere), kept more of this from happening.

Have we forgotten this horror?

I haven't.

The dirty little secret about hand-wringing over interrogation, and waterboarding, and Gitmo, and all the other things the left and their accomplices in the goddamn media have screamed about up until today, that have passed since that horrible day, is that we, by and large, we Americans, don't care what you have to do to these monsters to prevent this from happening again. To forestall another Beslan in Kentucky, or Indiana.

We. Don't. Care.

Fuck them. If they had to yank some fingernails to keep your children safe, which by the goddamn way they've NEVER done...

yank em.

Nail bombs, AK-47s and guided airplane missiles are unhealthy for flowers and other living things.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 01:15 PM | Comments (184)
Post contains 228 words, total size 2 kb.

How far can he push the Obamatons?

Although Mr. Obama has not publicly identified which priorities will have to wait, advisers and allies have signaled that they may put off renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, overhauling immigration laws, restricting carbon emissions, raising taxes on the wealthy and allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military.

Other signature promises may be addressed in piecemeal fashion in the opening weeks of the Obama administration but then put on a long track toward more comprehensive resolutions. For example, Mr. Obama plans to include what aides call “down payments” on his promises to expand health care coverage and promote energy independence in the economic recovery package he is developing, as a sign of dedication to the broader goals.

He's also going to put off closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.

I do believe I've heard this song before: more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 11:43 AM | Comments (65)
Post contains 169 words, total size 2 kb.

Joe Biden in Pakistan:

Slublog envisions it as CSI: Scranton.

He collects the evidence, God love 'im.

Posted by: Ace at 10:04 AM | Comments (78)
Post contains 19 words, total size 1 kb.