Twenty four years?!?

But he watched Rosmary's Baby! This is a crime against humanity-- and, more importantly, a crime against the humanities!

Posted by: Ace at 12:53 PM | Comments (3)
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I think it's week 3. Hell I don't even know what day it is.

Vast Right Wing Conspiracy 35
Aristomenes 33
Buzzion 33
Red State NY 32
People's Republic of Baltimore 32
Monkey Sleeping 32
Sock Puppet Steve 32
Lab Rat 32
Dave R 32
Svenster61 31
NJ Conservative 31
Scubapj 31

I stayed up late last night watching the lackluster performance of the Cowgirls against an 0-3 team. Thrill of my life really. I think I saw Frank J. ask on Twitter last night "Do you think Jerry Jones would have built a smaller scoreboard if he knew the Cowboys weren't planning on scoring?"

Yeah. I was checking Twitter. The game was that riveting.

Speaking of riveting, here's some more ranking info; Ben, Gabriel and Drew are at 28, I have 26.

I'll bet Romo is at 14. And Delhomme somewhere around 9.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 12:15 PM | Comments (3)
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15-8. This was an expected vote, but... still. Something, I guess.

Schumer and Rockefeller are not so easily deterred, however, and say they will offer the public option via amendment.

Tom Harkin claims they've got 51 votes for it, and he thinks he's got 60 votes to break a filibuster.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa.), the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, said that the Senate "comfortably" has a majority of votes to pass the public plan, and that he believes Democrats can muster 60 votes to break a filibuster.

"I have polled senators, and the vast majority of Democrats -- maybe approaching 50 -- support a public option," Harkin said told the liberal Bill Press Radio Show. "So why shouldn't we have a public option? We have the votes."

"I believe we'll have the 60 votes, now that we have the new senator from Massachusetts, to at least get it on the Senate floor," Harkin later added. "But once we cross that hurdle, we only need 51 votes for the public option. And I believe there are, comfortably, 51 votes for a public option."

Um, the problem with that is that he assumes the public will be fooled by people who vote to end the filibuster (actually, just voting for cloture) but vote against the actual government-option amendment. He thinks they will be able to claim they voted against the measure and so protect themselves politically.

The public knows about this trick, and doesn't buy it, as was demonstrated last summer when the cloture vote on amnesty was billed, as it was, as the "real" vote on amnesty. Anyone voting for cloture on the government option is voting for the government option, no matter how they position themselves on the meaningless follow-up bill. The same as with amnesty. If it's guaranteed the bill will pass once cloture is voted on, then cloture is indeed the "real" vote.

Democratic Senator Ben Nelson, meanwhile, lays out what seems to be an impossibly high threshold -- he says any health care bill will not need 51 votes, nor 60, but a full sixty-five if it is to be accepted as legitimate.

So he seems to be telegraphing that he's not voting for it without significant Republican cover-- which he almost certainly won't have.

Posted by: Ace at 11:52 AM | Comments (1)
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Sounds about right.

Employee misconduct investigations, often involving workers accessing pornography from their government computers, grew sixfold last year inside the taxpayer-funded foundation that doles out billions of dollars of scientific research grants, according to budget documents and other records obtained by The Washington Times.

Science, again.

This may explain why so many grants are given to people studying erection-response in retarded fruit-bats and so on.

The problems at the National Science Foundation (NSF) were so pervasive they swamped the agency's inspector general and forced the internal watchdog to cut back on its primary mission of investigating grant fraud and recovering misspent tax dollars.

...

For instance, one senior executive spent at least 331 days looking at pornography on his government computer and chatting online with nude or partially clad women without being detected, the records show.

When finally caught, the NSF official retired. He even offered, among other explanations, a humanitarian defense, suggesting that he frequented the porn sites to provide a living to the poor overseas women. Investigators put the cost to taxpayers of the senior official's porn surfing at between $13,800 and about $58,000.

That's why I do it. There are a lot of underprivileged women in the San Fernando Valley.

Thanks to pjmomma.

Posted by: Ace at 11:17 AM | Add Comment
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Sorry, an add-on, but Good Lord.

The heart wants what it wants. Sometimes the heart wants to take naked pictures of, and then de-virginize, your teenage daughter-by-common-law-marriage.

Sometimes the heart wants to drug, rape, and sodomize a 13-year-old.

Artists -- true artists, I mean -- must never compromise.

Posted by: Ace at 10:26 AM | Comments (5)
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Good piece:

Roman Polanski raped a child. Let's just start right there, because that's the detail that tends to get neglected when we start discussing whether it was fair for the bail-jumping director to be arrested at age 76, after 32 years in "exile" (which in this case means owning multiple homes in Europe, continuing to work as a director, marrying and fathering two children, even winning an Oscar, but never -- poor baby -- being able to return to the U.S.). Let's keep in mind that Roman Polanski gave a 13-year-old girl a Quaalude and champagne, then raped her, before we start discussing whether the victim looked older than her 13 years, or that she now says she'd rather not see him prosecuted because she can't stand the media attention. Before we discuss how awesome his movies are or what the now-deceased judge did wrong at his trial, let's take a moment to recall that according to the victim's grand jury testimony, Roman Polanski instructed her to get into a jacuzzi naked, refused to take her home when she begged to go, began kissing her even though she said no and asked him to stop; performed cunnilingus on her as she said no and asked him to stop; put his penis in her vagina as she said no and asked him to stop; asked if he could penetrate her anally, to which she replied, "No," then went ahead and did it anyway, until he had an orgasm.

Can we do that? Can we take a moment to think about all that, and about the fact that Polanski pled guilty to unlawful sex with a minor, before we start talking about what a victim he is? Because that would be great, and not nearly enough people seem to be doing it.

Also worth reading at Salon is this older review of the "documentary" Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, a documentary only in the Michael Moore sense of it, a cheerfully mendacious bit of agitprop.

Because on one side you have bastards who think we should have a more continental view of the forcible (or "merely" statutory) rape and sodomization of a 13-year-old child, and on the other side, people aren't telling you what was hinky about the judge's actions, I'll tell you about the judge.

The judge, because he was worried about how Hollywood would react to a star director going to jail on one side and public reaction to him setting Polanski free on the other, actually attempted to script the sentencing phase of the prosecution of Polanski. He fed the prosecution lines, told them they should ask for X number of years in jail. He fed the defense lines, told them they should say "No jail time" and etc. And then, per his script, he would come up with a Solomon-like decision that would, he hoped, if the prosecution and defense said their lines properly, make it look like he had come to the only reasonable decision and so he shouldn't be criticized by anyone.

The prosecutor, I think, ultimately bailed on this stage-managing of a sentencing and dropped dime on the judge, although initially he was willing to play along. Hey, it's a judge-- you do what he wants. Most of the time.

The defense was willing to play along because what the judge wanted was, ultimately, to give Polanski a slap on the wrist, which is of course what they wanted.

The prosecutor didn't seem to mind the slap on the wrist either -- it's LA, after all, and celebrities (especially at that time) just didn't go to jail.

Polanski fled when he got the impression that maybe the judge was having second thoughts about the slap-on-the-wrist thing. See, the judge had let Polanski to off to Europe to direct a movie even during the sentencing phase (this is LA, remember: Art before justice), and a photograph was published showing Polanski having a gay old time at an Octoberfest when he was 1) supposed to be working and 2) supposedly about to face a judge for the forcible rape and sodomization of a 13-year-old girl. That made the judge look bad -- it was his goal to come out of this seeming like he hadn't given Polanski any special favors, etc. -- and he did probably start to think about giving Polanski more time than the script called for.

At any rate, while that was egregiously unethical behavior by the judge -- scripting a sentencing hearing with both counsels reciting the lines he'd given them, playing out an already-agreed-upon sentence like a stage play to trick the public into thinking thy were witnessing a live court case -- he was taken off the case when the prosecutor dropped dime on these antics, and, in any event, the judge never got to rule on the sentence at all as Polanski fled.

Further, the judge seemed to be working for Polanski's interests the whole time -- he wanted a slap on the wrist, something like 90 days not even in a jail per se but some kind of halfway-house sort of deal. He just wanted to arrange it so it didn't look like he was going easy on Polanski.

(Oh: And it's bizarre he fed them these lines, as it's pretty much what they'd ask for without the script. The judge's behavior was just plain weird, but it seems to have had no effect at all on anything.)

One can make a reasonable case that Polanski had reason to flee given this weirdness with the judge, but, again, the judge was then removed from the case and he had every opportunity to negotiate his return to the American criminal justice system.

At the end of the day: He forcibly (or at least statutorily) raped and sodomized a 13-year-old girl and we're supposed to get all weepy about his plight because in the interim he's delivered such major cultural contributions as Frantic and Pirates!

Oh, Here's My Proposal: Because the judge tried to stage-manage the trial and so it wasn't really "justice" at that point but a scripted faux reality show, we give Polanski a pass on any additional charges he might get for being a fugitive from justice.

So, we toss that stuff. Done. The judge acted badly, so we don't prosecute for actions that one can reasonably say were connected to the judge's bad behavior.

Now, we simply proceed to sentencing him for drugging, raping, and sodomizing a 13-year-old child, as should have been done 32 years ago, rather than letting him vamp off to Europe to direct a movie.

Posted by: Ace at 09:58 AM | Comments (13)
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They seem really sad about it too. Almost like it's unfair.

Unfortunately the rest of the story doesn't back up what is supposed to be a scary lead.

EuropeÂ’s center-right parties have embraced many ideas of the left: generous welfare benefits, nationalized health care, sharp restrictions on carbon emissions, the ceding of some sovereignty to the European Union. But they have won votes by promising to deliver more efficiently than the left, while working to lower taxes, improve financial regulation, and grapple with aging populations.

Europe’s conservatives, says Michel Winock, a historian at the Paris Institut d’Études Politiques, “have adapted themselves to modernity.” When Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Germany’s Angela Merkel condemn the excesses of the “Anglo-Saxon model” of capitalism while praising the protective power of the state, they are using Socialist ideas that have become mainstream, he said.

Really what the Times and Euro lefties are upset about is they've been co-opted by what passes for "the right". In fact that actually reflects an important victory for the left, the permanent acceptance of their most cherished principles.

Europe's political battles are fought over the ground ranging all the way from the left to the really, really far left. We haven't gone down that path, yet.

This is one of the reasons I would have supported Hillary over McCain. As it is we concede far too much ground to the left in this country as a given in terms of government's rightful role. A win by Maverick would have gone a long way to moving the political gravity of the country to the left and once things start moving in that direction, they are hard to reverse (see FDR and LBJ).

It's why defeating health care in general and a government option in particular is so important. Once people turn their very lives over to the beneficence of government, it's game over.

As for Europe, yes, Merkel in Germany and Sarkozy in France are improvements but they aren't enough to make an American conservative jump for joy. Merkel is already talking down promised tax cuts and the French have not exactly embraced reality yet when it comes to basic economics.

So as for the death of socialism in Europe, let's just say that unfortunately it's demise is being greatly exaggerated.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:15 AM | Comments (2)
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With a big twist, this time: Sarkozy is giving speeches that call out Obama for pussy-footing on Iran.

President Obama wants a unified front against Iran, and to that end he stood together with Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown in Pittsburgh on Friday morning to reveal the news about Tehran's secret facility to build bomb-grade fuel. But now we hear that the French and British leaders were quietly seething on stage, annoyed by America's handling of the announcement.

Both countries wanted to confront Iran a day earlier at the United Nations. Mr. Obama was, after all, chairing a Security Council session devoted to nonproliferation. The latest evidence of Iran's illegal moves toward acquiring a nuclear weapon was in hand. With the world's leaders gathered in New York, the timing and venue would be a dramatic way to rally international opinion.

President Sarkozy in particular pushed hard. He had been "frustrated" for months about Mr. Obama's reluctance to confront Iran, a senior French government official told us, and saw an opportunity to change momentum. But the Administration told the French that it didn't want to "spoil the image of success" for Mr. Obama's debut at the U.N. and his homily calling for a world without nuclear weapons, according to the Paris daily Le Monde. So the Iran bombshell was pushed back a day to Pittsburgh, where the G-20 were meeting to discuss economic policy.

Le Monde's diplomatic correspondent, Natalie Nougayrède, reports that a draft of Mr. Sarkozy's speech to the Security Council Thursday included a section on Iran's latest deception. Forced to scrap that bit, the French President let his frustration show with undiplomatic gusto in his formal remarks, laying into what he called the "dream" of disarmament. The address takes on added meaning now that we know the backroom discussions.

"We are right to talk about the future," Mr. Sarkozy said, referring to the U.S. resolution on strengthening arms control treaties. "But the present comes before the future, and the present includes two major nuclear crises," i.e., Iran and North Korea. "We live in the real world, not in a virtual one." No prize for guessing into which world the Frenchman puts Mr. Obama.

He didn't stop there, but I have to, as I can't quote the whole article.

Posted by: Ace at 07:50 AM | Comments (5)
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The US military is considering lifting the ban on women serving in submarines.
Boom chicka bow-bow...

Women account for about 15 percent of the more than 336,000 members of the U.S. Navy and can serve on its surface ships. But critics have argued that submarines are different, pointing to cramped quarters where some crews share beds in shifts.

Nancy Duff Campbell, an advocate for expanding the role of women in the U.S. armed forces, said it would be easy to resolve problems associated with so-called "hot-bunking."

Awwww yeahhhhh.

"They say, 'How could we have the women sleeping in the same area as men?'" said Campbell, co-president of the National Women's Law Center (NWLC).

"But they already separate where the officers sleep from the enlisted, so it's not like it can't be done."

Yeah, but the officers are dudes. I doubt the enlisted men are spending any time thinking about how to violate that boundary. Or about the smell of the officers' hair and the way they fill out a uniform.

Well, some of them are thinking that, but that's a small demographic.

We'll see how it all shakes out. Undoubtedly the US Armed Forces are the most professional and disciplined in the world and they can make this happen if they set their mind to it.

However. I have my reservations.

I think as a general rule it's wise to assume that among a hundred or so young men trapped together in a tin can, there are going to occasionally be those who behave like swine.

And that the number of those will increase steeply as the months wear on and on.

It's gonna take some pretty damn brave women, is all I'm saying.

Posted by: LauraW at 07:27 AM | Comments (7)
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It's becoming clear to some liberals that President Obama isn't quite as dreamy as candidate (or President Elect) Obama was.

First Richard Cohen in today's Washington Post.

Sooner or later it is going to occur to Barack Obama that he is the president of the United States. As of yet, though, he does not act that way, appearing promiscuously on television and granting interviews like the presidential candidate he no longer is. The election has been held, but the campaign goes on and on. The candidate has yet to become commander in chief.

The trouble with Obama is that he gets into the moment and means what he says for that moment only. He meant what he said when he called Afghanistan a "war of necessity" -- and now is not necessarily so sure. He meant what he said about the public option in his health-care plan -- and then again maybe not. He would not prosecute CIA agents for getting rough with detainees -- and then again maybe he would.

Most tellingly, he gave Congress an August deadline for passage of health-care legislation -- "Now, if there are no deadlines, nothing gets done in this town . . . " -- and then let it pass. It seemed not to occur to Obama that a deadline comes with a consequence -- meet it or else.

Obama lost credibility with his deadline-that-never-was, and now he threatens to lose some more with his posturing toward Iran.

Second, Howard Fineman in Newsweek and frequent yes man on Keith Olbermann's show.

The president's problem isn't that he is too visible; it's the lack of content in what he says when he keeps showing up on the tube. Obama can seem a mite too impressed with his own aura, as if his presence on the stage is the Answer. There is, at times, a self-referential (even self-reverential) tone in his big speeches. They are heavily salted with the words "I" and "my." (He used the former 11 times in the first few paragraphs of his address to the U.N. last week.) Obama is a historic figure, but that is the beginning, not the end, of the story.

There is only so much political mileage that can still be had by his reminding the world that he is not George W. Bush. It was the winning theme of the 2008 campaign, but that race ended nearly a year ago. The ex-president is now more ex than ever, yet the current president, who vowed to look forward, is still reaching back to Bush as bogeyman.

He did it again in that U.N. speech. The delegates wanted to know what the president was going to do about Israel and the Palestinian territories. He answered by telling them what his predecessor had failed to do. This was effective for his first month or two. Now it is starting to sound more like an excuse than an explanation.

To be sure this is just two data points but there are more out there. Watch Olbermann or Madow, if you dare. Even they are getting impatient with Obama, especially over his refusal to propose a single payer health care system and they are livid over his willingness to forgo even a robust Government Option.

I love that this is coming from the same types of folks who defended Obama's lack of executive experience by saying he ran a successful campaign. That retort sort of proved the point...running a good campaign means, you are good at running a campaign. It's not 'experience' that is transferable to being a competent chief executive.

Being President is hard and you don't get to vote Present.

One of the annoying things about the media from a conservative perspective is the herd mentality of Big Media. This is one case where it might help us. If it starts to become okay or even the Conventional Wisdom that Obama is damaged goods, then it will spread and be hard to stop.

Is the media ever going to after Obama the way they go after Sarah Palin? Of course not. They will still do their best drag his sorry ass along for a few years but once it becomes clear that he is hurting more than helping their cause (liberalism) they will cut him loose and pretend to never have heard of the guy. The fact that it's starting 8 months into his term is not good news for Obama.

Rara avis ain't what it used to be. On the upside, his pants are still perfectly creased so all hope isn't lost quite yet.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:44 AM | Comments (1)
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