It would be a capture of enemy combatants rather than a kidnapping if Hamas observed the Geneva Conventions, but of course they don't. Only US and Israel are bound by those.

Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said from Damascus Friday that his militant group was prepared for an Israeli ground invasion of the Gaza Strip and could abduct abduct more soldiers if Israel attempts the incursion.

"If you commit a foolish act by raiding Gaza, who knows, we may have a second or a third or a fourth Shalit," he said, according to Reuters. Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas in a cross-border raid more than two years ago.

Thanks to Dave in Texas.

Posted by: Ace at 02:28 PM | Comments (54)
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As soon as he saw me, his eyes went wide with fear, this home-owner says.

Well. Yeah. He the burglar didn't expect he'd be the second-most psychotic person in that house. I'm pretty sure he was counting on top honors.

Six-foot-tall fitness fanatic Torvald Alexander, 38, was wearing a full God of Thunder outfit - complete with flying red cape and tinfoil silver-winged helmet - when he spotted the raider in his front room rifling through a desk.

Mr Alexander, who runs building firm Alexander & Summers in Edinburgh, Scotland, said the burglar threw himself out of a first-floor window of his £350,000 home in the Inverleith area of the city when he opened the door and confronted him.

The man landed on a roof outside the window, which broke his fall, enabling him to escape.

Mr Alexander said: 'As soon as he saw me, his eyes went wide with terror.

'He looked like he had had a few drinks and decided to do a late night break-in, but he hadn't counted on the God of Thunder living here.

'We were both startled but then the instant reaction was that I ran at him and he just jumped straight out of the window.

'I think I would be quite scared if someone looking almost like a gladiator ran at them.

I don't feel like working out and I don't look good in red, so maybe my strategy will just be to soil myself and start singing gibberish songs about space-herpes.

That should scare someone too.

I will send you to JWF for the picture, which is quite worth the click.

Posted by: Ace at 01:35 PM | Comments (102)
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Ride the tiger, reap the whirlwind:

Israel is poised to launch a major ground offensive into Gaza tonight after allowing hundreds of foreigners living in the devastated territory to evacuate.

After a week of air strikes that have killed at least 420 Palestinians and left scores of buildings in rubble, the Israeli army was set to fling hundreds of troops and tanks into a blitz to stamp out HamasÂ’s military wing, The Times understands.

I understand, too.

Despite the looming onslaught, more Hamas rockets – which have so far killed four Israelis – were fired into southern Israel today.

Note the way that is written. Despite the looming onslaught, the massive barrage of rockets continue.

How about:

Because the massive barrage of rockets, which have killed four Israelis, will not end, the ground war looms.

Cause. Effect. It's only a difficult concept for Hamas' jock-sniffers in the European and leftist American press.

The Islamist group vowed that its attacks, which have lasted for years and which finally provoked the massive Israeli campaign, would not stop.<

“I call on the resistance to continue pounding Jewish settlements and cities,” said Sheikh Abdelrahman al-Jamal at the funeral of a hardline Hamas political leader killed, together with his four wives and 11 children, in an Israeli air strike on his home.

“We will remain on the path of jihad until the end of days.”

The IDF has scheduled the end of days for this Tuesday.

More: Hamas Declares "Day of Wrath:" The Day of Wrath will join the other days of the Hamas week, Day of Vengeance, Day of Massacre, Day of Murder, Day of Senseless Bloodletting, Day of Explosively-Expressed Grievances, and of course Day of Intense Cultural Inferiority Complex and Extreme Sexual Confusion which Leads to Outbursts of Psychopathic Violence.

Day of Wrath. Also known as "Friday."

srael is on heightened security alert today after Hamas declared a "day of wrath" after the killing of a senior Hamas leader in Gaza.

Thousands of security personnel were on alert after the Islamists called for "massive marches" after the main weekly Muslim prayers, starting off from the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem and from all other mosques in the West Bank.

Witnesses said that violent scenes had been reported in east Jerusalem, with protesters throwing rocks at soldiers. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that thousands of extra officers had been deployed to deal with the ongoing clashes.

Posted by: Ace at 12:53 PM | Comments (69)
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Content warning on the pics in the article, which show yobs with bloodied foreheads and slack after an alcohol-induced purge.

The first picture is especially bloody, so have a caution.

Violence scarred celebrations and led to a bloody New Year across the country as emergency services endured a chaotic end to 2008.

Ambulance control centres reported receiving 999 calls as often as once every seven seconds - the second highest volume of calls since the Millennium - as binge drinkers turned nasty in the freezing temperatures.

Many of the calls related either to alcohol-fuelled assaults or excessive drunkenness.

Booze contributed to time-wasting calls to 999 operators too, with one man calling to ask if New York was in America, and what time it was there.
Elsewhere, while large numbers were ferried to hospitals, in some areas injuries were treated by paramedics in 'booze buses' to leave ambulances free for more serious emergencies.

In Essex, so many drunk people were arrested that all 200 of the constabulary's cells were filled, and overflow revellers had to be shipped to neighbouring Kent to be held for the night.

If I can make a quick point: Europe forever flatters itself by contrasting itself -- erudite, educated, prosperous, well-mannered, bourgeois -- with America -- drunken, stupid, fat, loud, obnoxious, and ill-informed.

They do this by the same trick every time: They compare their stable, well-behaved middle classes and working with our less well-behaved, less refined lower classes.

Of course this is stupid. It is comparing apples to oranges, or, more accurately, one population's most well-behaved cohort with another population's least well-behaved one.

Compare most of the American lower class-- which, despite not having much money, tends to be industrious and fairly law-abiding -- with the European lower class and the comparison changes quite a bit. The American lower class is far more ambitious and self-improving than the "No Future" drunken yobs of Europe.

If Europe sees more of our lower classes than they do of ours.... well, that's because our lower class is industrious enough, ambitious enough, culturally curious enough, and diligent enough to set aside money... to travel to England and the Continent.

Unlike the lower classes in Europe, whose idea of travel is hopping the ferry to start a drunken, blood-and-vomit-spraying riot in another nation's soccer stadium.

The difference, apparently, is that the American lower classes believe they can prosper if they work and save -- and they do so prosper -- unlike the lower classes of Europe, which know they have, as the Sex Pistols sang, No Future. So why not spend virtually every night getting slosh-drunk at the pub?

Posted by: Ace at 12:40 PM | Comments (64)
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Up 30% from last year's tally of 848.

Thanks to CJ.

Posted by: Ace at 10:11 AM | Comments (97)
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Paterson close to picking her, officials say.

His choice couldn't come a moment too soon, with Princess Caroline embarrassing herself on a daily basis. If he let the public get to know her any further, she'd be done.

Posted by: Ace at 07:54 AM | Comments (150)
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I think this is really a sidebar item, but news is hard to come by lately.

Is this a fake? Sure, that is the suspicion. But they have a PayPal page, which would seem to put them on the hook for fraud if they didn't really have a product.

I figure this is an "aspirational" product, if you will. As the soda won't ship until mid-January, maybe the just want to see if they can sell enough of it to make it worth actually making it. If they don't get enough interest, they'll give refunds.

Light content warning on the product. It's a hentai-themed soda.

"Tentacle Grape" soda, featuring a logo of a hentai heroine cowering as evil green tentacles reach out for her.

If this catches on, they'll launch their next flavor, tentatively called "Bukake Berry."

Thanks to dri.

Posted by: Ace at 07:49 AM | Comments (25)
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A low-tech lynching:

Senate Democratic leaders think Roland Burris, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's pick to fill President-elect Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat, will likely show up on Capitol Hill Tuesday for the opening day of Congress, according to a Democratic aide familiar with Senate Democratic leaders' plans.

They have prepared a contingency plan in case he does, the aide added.

Burris will not be allowed on the Senate floor, according to this aide and a Senate Democratic leadership aide.

The aide familiar with Senate Democratic leaders' plans said if Burris tries to enter the Senate chamber, the Senate doorkeeper will stop Burris. If Burris were to persist, either trying to force his way onto the Senate floor or refusing to leave and causing a scene, U.S. Capitol Police would stop him, said the aide.

"They (police) probably won't arrest him" but they would call the sergeant-at-arms," the aide said.

When asked about what would happen if he shows up and tries to be seated, Burris told the Chicago Tribune that he's, "not going to create a scene in Washington." He added, "We hope it's negotiated out prior to my going to Washington."

Delicious. Democrats calling the cops on a brown person merely attempting to exercise his political rights. Seems like old times.

...

Rachel, who sure sounds like she knows what she's talking about, writes:

I'm not sure of the legal rules for this, but Rolando Cruz was somebody who arguably "deserved" the death penalty, even if he didn't actually kill anybody. He wasn't an innocent victim picked out by prosecutors. Instead, they had a reward for information about the murder. Rolando Cruz wanted money really bad, and so knowingly made up false information in order to get the reward. However, he accidentally made up some information close to the actual facts, and so the detectives involved decided he was the murderer, and then framed him.

Legally, all he did was provide a false statement to the police, and didn't deserve much punishment. Morally, I couldn't care less about executing somebody who interferred with a murder investigation and tortured the family just for money.

That's interesting context, and sure, this guy is a piece of shit, but prosecutors are not supposed to convict and seek the death penalty against someone just because it's 1) easiest to get a conviction against this guy and 2) he's a piece of shit. The death penalty for a false statement is a pretty steep sentence, and even I, an Evil Murderous Republican Fascist, finds that a bit disproportionate.

Not to mention that a prosecutor isn't supposed to be interested in convictions per se, but in justice, in actually convicting the guilty.

There is also that little matter of the actual rapist/killer going free because Burris was hellbent to put the wrong man to death.

There wasn't just doubt that this guy was innocent. There was serious evidence, well-nigh conclusive, he was innocent. Lead detectives and chief prosecutors do not resign willy-nilly over a few incongruent facts. They not only knew, based on DNA, that Cruz was innocent, but that another man was guilty.

Posted by: Ace at 07:26 AM | Comments (57)
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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.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:05 AM | Comments (51)
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Staged celebrations, without Fidel though. Pity.

One good citizen, who grew up in the post-revolución paradise expresses her hopes about our new President:

I hope he gets rid of the blockade," 42-year-old Ana Luisa Mas said earlier at a Havana farmers market as she bought a pork leg for her family's New Year's celebration, referring to decades-old U.S. trade sanctions. "We are very hopeful that with Obama our relatives will be able to visit us more, and send us more money.

Whatever would she need money for, in Fidel's "rice-cooker" paradise? If I outlive that fucker (doubtful, since their health care system is teh awesome-er than ours), I will spit on his obit.

More over at Babalu Blog (natch).

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 06:24 PM | Comments (103)
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