You do remember us and the whole "tax cuts" thing, right?

Sen John Kerry, D-Mass., said, "I'd rather spend the money on the infrastructure, on direct investment, on energy conversion, on other kinds of things that much more directly, much more rapidly and much more certainly create a real job. Something I personally have never done, myself, you know, but they are important to real Americans. I'm told."

Don't get too carried away with your marvelousness. They're just smiling faces.

First president (elect) in my lifetime that I can remember working on his legacy before he actually took the office.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 07:56 PM | Comments (25)
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I have no idea if the chest compressions formed here are fake. A doctor at LGF says they are completely fake -- far too gentle -- and that this footage of a 12 year old's death, taken by a "freelance cameraman" who just happens to be his brother, are staged for effect.

CNN's pulled it now. It's quite possible they didn't pull it at all, but just put it someplace else in the course of the day and no one's yet found it again.

But for the moment, it looks possible that CNN is checking into the story -- checking they should have done before running it in the first place.

Thanks to CJ.

Posted by: Ace at 02:05 PM | Comments (83)
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(posted with the AceCorp seal of approval)

Update #2 Having some technical issues, probably due to the biblical-scale flooding here in the northwest. For the moment, this is the comment/flame thread for the game. If more interest develops in the liveblogginess, it can be added at any time in the game.

Update: The reason I haven't put the liveblog thingy up yet is due to lack of interest. So far, no one's signed up. And no one here wants to watch two+ hours of my drivel scrolling by (though I did plan on having some interesting polls people could vote on). This is probably the wrong blog to do this on. I gather most of you would rather we liveblog figure skating or the Tony awards.

Is anyone interested in helping liveblog the BCS Championship/wrecking the blog tonight? There are about 7 or 8 spots left open for volunteers. If interested, shoot me an e-mail at xgenghisx@gmail.com. In your e-mail, tell me which team (if either) you're rooting for. That way I can stack the deck against Florida provide balance among the participants. The game/liveblogging starts at 8 p.m. Eastern.

Posted by: Open Blog at 04:21 PM | Comments (444)
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Allah's post is typically defeatist and depressive, which I think strikes precisely the right tone.

Jeb, Kit Bond, now Voinovich. For some odd reason Republicans are deciding 2010 isn't an appealing time to run. Candidate recruitment, which had been bad in recent years, is getting worse still.

The good news is that it opens the door for those "fresh faces" we'd all like to see. The bad news is that it's damn hard to get elected as a "fresh face."

Make sure you scan down to his final "Hmmmmm" link. Bond and Voinovich, who both backed the auto bailout, appear vulnerable.

I believe that the numbers are dictating our strategy to us. It's what most Republicans believe anyway -- and if you can't get elected any other way, hey, why not try standing on principle and see how that goes?

Positive Spin? Kapsar Hauser--

Wow! It's just like 2004 when all the Democrats were retiring because they were clearly out of power forever.

Very true. Things change fast. Past performance is not indicative of future results, objects may be closer than they appear, etc.

Posted by: Ace at 12:48 PM | Comments (154)
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Solid points:

Entitled “Burn It Down,” the video features images of magazine advertisements, mostly for high-end fashion brands, in which women are depicted in sexualized ways—for instance, there’s a Levis ad in which the outline of a jeans pocket is shown on a woman’s bare buttocks—or, in some instances, shown on the receiving end of stylized sado-masochism. Interposed with these images are notes for a sort of mini-lecture about violence against women.

“Violence and objectification are a normal part of women’s lives,” the viewer is told. “In the US, the media bombards us on a daily basis with images that regulate how we think: about our bodies, our sexuality, our ethnicity, our relationships, and our very existence.”

Wait a minute. Notice how glibly this script puts violence and “objectification” on the same moral plane, as if the models in the fashion ads, in being hired for display as sex symbols, were victimized in the same way as if they had been assaulted. To equate violence with “objectification” serves the propaganda purpose of expanding the universe of victimhood so as to include every pretty girl who’s ever been made uncomfortable by a stranger’s lingering glance.

It's simply not avoidable: If you want to increase the terror of, say, "objectification" by speaking of it as it were rape, you simply cannot avoid trivializing rape by reducing it to the level of "objectification."

I don't find feminists very persuasive when they natter on about decidedly secondary concerns like "objectification" in the first place. But hey, even if I buy this "objectification" is a Bad Thing, can we stop trivializing rape as Just Another Bad Thing, Akin to Objectification?

Superinflating your rhetoric like this grabs attention nicely and cheaply, but it also deflates the solemn horror of rape itself.

Posted by: Ace at 11:42 AM | Comments (151)
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The perfect storm in Obama's favor, as he will ride the "Bush destroyed the economy, I can't be held responsible" horse until it dies of exhaustion.

As James Pethoukis points out, this will work... up to a point.

But can a repetitive "Blame Bush" mantra allow Democrats to hold their huge Congressional majorities in 2010 and get Obama reelected in 2012 if they economy is as bad they think it will be? The latest iteration of Obama's stimulus -- I mean "economic recovery" -- package indicates that Team Obama has its doubts about voter patience and the economy. The larger-than-expected tax cuts, even if they are really just disguised government spending, are an effort to rejigger the plan to provide more economic oomph this year. Indeed, as the CBO said when Obama adviser Peter Orszag ran the joint, using infrastructure spending to juice the economy is "totally impractical." There just aren't enough "shovel-ready projects" to make effective use of the hundreds of billions Obama wants to throw at the recession.

And Obama has good reason to doubt the patience of voters. Recall that bad economies propelled Ronald Regan and Bill Clinton to the White House -- and both gentlemen saw their respective parties suffer badly in the very next midterm election because of voter economic anxiety. To quote Oscar Rogers, the impatient "financial consultant" on Saturday Night Live, American voters want Washington to "Fix it!" and fix it fast.

And, really, how can Obama avoid taking responsibility when he will be so actively meddling in the economy? It will be his decision to forego deep and permanent new tax cuts, his decision to not extend the Bush tax cuts, his decision on how to spend the remaining $350 billion in TARP money, his decision to quasi-nationalize healthcare, his decision to push a cap-and-trade carbon emission program and his decision to spend hundreds of billions on a "green" industrial policy. It might even be his decision to try and reunionize the American laborforce. Obama will "own" the battered economy, perhaps almost literally, given Uncle Sam's bailout binge.

So what standard should voters hold Obama to? How about this one: The 1981-82 recession last lasted 16 months and was followed by an explosive recovery thanks largely to the Reagan tax cuts (even though they were slowly implemented). The current downturn, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, started in December 2007. Mr. Obama better hurry.

The expected deficit for this fiscal year (beginning late in 2008 ) is $1.2 TRILLION dollars. Supposedly deficits will get smaller in the following years, but I doubt that.

All restraints on spending have been lifted. This works like gangbusters in Obama's favor. Like a CEO who only cares about next year's bonus and not about what happens after he leaves the company, Obama can bust the budgets like there's no tomorrow to prove he's "doing something" about the economy, hoping the public doesn't realize that 1) he may actually be doing something bad to the economy and 2) that the price of his attempting to over-juice the economy with lots of newly printed bills in time for his reelection will be significantly reduced growth and significantly higher inflation and significantly higher interest rates and significantly higher inflation, not for the duration of a recession, even a long one, but perhaps for an entire generation.

20 years.

But he is fixed on 2012. He's not running in 2016 (or rather we hope he's not running in 2016). Or 2020. Or 2024. He can spend money we don't have and reduce the prosperity of this nation for 20 years as long as it buys him some traction for 2012.

Other presidents have this same fact driving them, of course. They too are, selfishly but understandably, looking their own reelection prospects and not the mess they'll leave ten or fifteen years down the road.

But most presidents face considerable checks on such impulses. In this crisis-all-the-time environment, this Greatest Depression Since the World Was Young era, economists are now claiming that Obama may, and should, spend like there's no tomorrow, because, as they claim, perhaps there won't be a tomorrow.

As difficult as it will be for Republicans to resist this superheated talk of impending doom, it is crucial we resist and at least put some check on these bankbreaking plans of "stimulating" the economy with $1 Trillion more, in addition to all the bailouts (also running in the near-trillion range). This isn't merely a partisan imperative. It isn't just to deny Obama his easy 2012 win, paid for by the misery and decline of the next generation. It's to save that next generation, and convince the public that a country which has come to a crisis due to overspending and too much fake money can't get out of it, at least not without serious damage to the economy later, by overspending more and flooding out even more fake money.

The calls to do something, do anything will be cacophonous and Cassandrian. But the GOP, if it is to survive at all, cannot allow Obama to spend trillions in newly-printed dollars each year simply to goose his chances for 2012.

Red Ink Unlike Anything Since WWII: A projected 8.3% deficit will shatter all records since the Good War.

Posted by: Ace at 10:34 AM | Comments (121)
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(Stolen from the headlines at Hot Air)

Sweet Creeping Jesus. Of all the reasons to give for the McCain Kerfluffle of 2008, he's gotta go with "we pissed off our illegal immigrant base"?

What do you do when an honorable man who's given 120% for his Country goes bad and starts crapping behind the couch and responding to Nigerian email scams? Is there a locked Alzheimer's ward in the US Senate? 'Cuz I'm thinking we might want to encourage Johnny to go with the nice Nurse Ratched and spend the rest of his term playing checkers with Robert "Sheets" Byrd.

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 10:20 AM | Comments (119)
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Meanwhile, Hamas keeps digging "defensive tunnels."

There was a Michael Keaton/Gina Davis movie called Speechless. They played speechwriters for opposing presidential candidates, just like Carville and Matalin. Keaton was the conservative, though.

It was a crap movie. But I do remember one bit. Davis and her candidate were all up in arms about the conservative candidate's proposal to dig a ditch between America and Mexico to control the borders (horror!).

The public began to sour on the plan, until Keaton branded the ditch "The Friendship Ditch" in a speech, and then everyone really got behind the "friendship" of it all.

"Defensive tunnels."

Let's call them "Partners for Peace Tunnels" and be fucking done with it.

Surely No Anti-Israeli Bias from AP, Right? Photo: A Hamas rocket (a defensive rocket, I'll bet) being launched from a clearly civilian structure.

The AP doesn't mention that in the caption. True, you can see it, but for some reason they choose not to highlight it.

Also unmentioned? Using a civilian base to launch attacks renders it a military site which may be lawfully attacked. Says who, those murderous Jews? No, says he Geneva Conventions which the AP is so high on when they can be used to cudgel America or Israel.

Posted by: Ace at 09:00 AM | Comments (65)
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I'm no stranger to bitterness and pettiness in such wrenching matters, so... I understand.

Of course, this is a jackass claim. Here's the stupid analysis: When an organ is donated it becomes the property of the donee. And then it immediately stops being "property" at all, as it becomes part of her body. And just as a man can't attempt to get one of his wife's breasts as part of "equally dividing the joint property," or a woman can't claim a testicle, he can't sue for a kidney.

There are better ways to say "I'm really, really angry at you" than being a petty jackass, although, I have to confess, I haven't actually found such ways myself yet. I'm assured they exist, though. Every ex-girlfriend insists this to be the case, and why would they lie to me?

Posted by: Ace at 08:45 AM | Comments (42)
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Defensive tunnels?

Let's check the record:

IDF: Hamas built underground city

In light of diplomatic pressure, army officials know forces must inflict heavy blow on Hamas in days left till completion of Gaza operation. Forces operating in Strip become familiar with enemy's modes of operation, say Hamas formed underground city of tunnels, weapons

Hanan Greenberg

...

IDF forces operating in northern Gaza have quickly become familiar with the enemy's modes of operation. According to commanders and soldiers, Hamas has built an underground city of tunnels and holes paved with weapons.

Many Hamas members have dug tunnels for themselves under their homes and hid weapon caches in them.

One of the Air Force strikes in Gaza, not far from the Shifa Hospital, revealed weapons hidden in the area. Following the explosion, the bottom part of the bunker was blown away, exposing a maze of tunnels.

IDF officials said the terrorists emerge from the tunnels, hide in them, attempt to kidnap soldiers into them and place different traps in a bid to attract the soldiers. The Hamas men try to initiate close combat, face-to-face, and use different methods – covering tunnels with dolls, placing explosives in schools and wearing IDF uniform.

According to Reuters, Israelis' aircraft's anti-missile flares are "weapon systems," but according to Jimmy Carter (writing in the WaPo), Hamas' weapons-and-kidnapping-tunnels are "defensive" in nature.

Don't you know that it's different for Jews?, as Joe Jackson didn't quite say.

Thanks to CJ and Dan F., respectively.

Posted by: Ace at 08:23 AM | Comments (65)
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