The customer, as they say, is always right.

And always non-deceptive, too, it turns out.

Bauer took a lie detector himself (neither Larry "Lenny" Marchant nor Will "Squiggy" Folks have done so), to prove, he says, that he had "nothing" to do with Marchant's sudden outbreak of viral blabbedy-mouth.

He says this proves he was telling the truth on that point.

I say that I now want the lie detector experts to themselves take lie detector tests, to prove the integrity of the tests they say they performed.

In a GOP gubernatorial debate last week in Charleston, Haley accused Bauer of being responsible for charges of marital infidelity against her. Larry Marchant, one of the two men who have claimed past relationships with Haley, was a consultant to the Bauer campaign until the day of the debateÂ…

Bauer on Monday released the results of a lie detector test he says he took Sunday night in Columbia, administered by an independent, FBI-certified polygrapher. Bauer says another independent, certified polygrapher reviewed the charts Monday to verify the result.

“The voters now know that I had absolutely nothing to do with the unfortunate revelations made about Ms. Haley in the last two weeks,” said Bauer.

There are things I have some degree of uncertainty about here -- like if the allegations might, possibly, be true.

One thing I am unwilling to entertain any doubt about is Bauer's central role in this.

I don't care if Kuato himself comes along and does his Open your mind... mutant mind meld with Bauer and deems him honest.

If that were to happen, I would just start looking to see if Bauer had made any wire transfers to Mars.

Posted by: Ace at 02:07 PM | Comments (74)
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Apparently the International Sikh Conspiracy has succeed in keeping the news down to a slow crawl today.

Posted by: DrewM at 11:54 AM | Comments (465)
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Sacred Honor Brigade hit hardest.

Haley has a 20 point lead, getting 43% of the vote. Gresham Barrett looks like the favorite for the second runoff spot. He's at 23%, followed by Henry McMaster at 16%, and Andre Bauer at 12%.

Two weeks ago Haley held a 21 point lead in the race. Since then she's gained 4 points, Barrett's standing has improved by 7, McMaster's has dropped by a couple points, and Bauer's gone down a single point.

Only 13% of voters believe the allegations about Haley's marital infidelity. 54% flat out do not believe them and 33% are unsure. Haley will, however, be in trouble with voters if they ever are proven. In that case 42% think she should drop out of the race.

Thankfully, the primary is tomorrow. Unfortunately, it looks like they'll be a runoff on June 22, so still plenty of time for sour grapes and dirty tricks.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:35 AM | Comments (219)
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Back in April, Wikileaks released a highly edited video showing a US helicopter attack on terrorists that killed 2 Reuters reporters who were embedded with the terrorists.

Now federal authorities have arrested an Army soldier in the case.
If it's true, this dirt bag should be breaking rocks in Leavenworth for a long, long time.

SPC Bradley Manning, 22, of Potomac, Maryland, was stationed at Forward Operating Base Hammer, 40 miles east of Baghdad, where he was arrested nearly two weeks ago by the ArmyÂ’s Criminal Investigation Division. A family member says heÂ’s being held in custody in Kuwait, and has not been formally charged.

...He said he also leaked three other items to Wikileaks: a separate video showing the notorious 2009 Garani air strike in Afghanistan that Wikileaks has previously acknowledged is in its possession; a classified Army document evaluating Wikileaks as a security threat, which the site posted in March; and a previously unreported breach consisting of 260,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables that Manning described as exposing “almost criminal political back dealings.”

“Hillary Clinton, and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning, and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public,” Manning wrote.

If Manning is guilty, it's disappointing that an American solider would take it upon himself to defame and endanger his fellow servicemen in such away. The incident involving the helicopter attack had already been investigated and there was no criminal culpability. All Manning was doing by leaking the video was helping terror enablers to create a propaganda tool. Some might call that giving aid and comfort to the enemy. I'm not sure they are wrong.

As for the rest of the material he is alleged to have leaked, I don't doubt there are a lot of interesting things in them and that the government abuses it's power to classify things but that's simply not a decision for a 22 year old a Army Specialist to take upon himself.

Added: It appears Manning got caught because he couldn't keep his mouth shut about the diplomatic cables. This apprently crossed some code of honor for one hacker who then reported him.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:00 AM | Comments (166)
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Breaking now:

WASHINGTON, D.C. (BNO NEWS) -- Hearst Newspapers says White House reporters Helen Thomas is retiring, effective immediately.

Below, something I created this weekend. Enjoy. more...

Posted by: Slublog at 08:20 AM | Comments (357)
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Baby, there's a shark in the water.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:01 AM | Comments (302)
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Last night's DJIA futures were down about 1%, but seem to have recovered overnight. "It was all just a bad dream," officials said soothingly. "Just go back to sleepy-bye, my darlings."

Many economists are predicting the end of the Euro, but Jean-Claude Trichet insists that it's only a flesh wound. "We'll make it up on exports!", cry the optimists. (No word yet as to who in the world has enough money to buy those exports.)

Even the lunatic-state North Korea is not immune to economic pressures. Due to the failure of the "You'll do what I tell you and like it!" economic plan, and failing health, Kim Jong-Il is trying to establish the succession of power in preparation for the day when the Devil comes to collect his black shrivelled raisin of a soul. Heightened tensions with South Korea have put world markets on edge.

"Our representative was apparently smoking crack-rock", said Hungarian officials over the weekend, in response to questions about Hungary's potential for default on its debts. "Seriously, this dude was tripping balls. We're not broke or anything -- honest! Pinkie swear!" Hungarian officials then whipped out rolls of Hungarian bank-notes and riffled them. "Check out this cheeze. Does this look like we're broke, bitches?"

In other news, California is still boned.

Brought to you by Purina Human Chow.

Posted by: Monty at 04:27 AM | Comments (152)
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This month's Air & Space has an article titled "The Last Gunfighter". In the article, it talks about the downsizing of the air superiority fleet- specifically, the F-15 and its replacement, the F-22- and goes on to quote a significant training officer as saying that if there aren't enough dedicated air superiority fighters in the air, it will invite offensive fighter sweeps by opposing air forces.

My thoughts below... as usual, this is a long post. more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 08:58 PM | Comments (94)
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Last call for the weekend.

Video: DonÂ’t touch me

Okay this was on Red Eye a few days ago and on HotAir. So I guess it's about time for us to cover it as well. Here reporter Dan Noyes tries to ask an administrator of San FranciscoÂ’s Laguna Honda Hospital at a public meeting about allegations they've been spending donations to a patient gift fund for their own entertainment.

The hospital's creepy PR guy, Marc Slavin, then proceeds to touch the reporter repeatedly despite being asked not to. He ends up touching the guy 41 times, 18 times after being told not to. I suspect he was trying to distract the reporter and goad him into taking a swing, which would have been totally justified in my view. But the reporter didn't take the bait and now the video has gone viral. And Marc Slavin will forever be known as the creepy touching guy.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:58 PM | Comments (839)
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The G20, meeting in Busan, South Korea, failed to reach a consensus on how to deal with the ongoing financial crisis. Geithner & Co. want everyone to focus on their domestic markets rather than relying on exports to drive their economies (Keynes forever, baby!). But European leaders are balking -- mainly because most of them cannot grow their economies by focusing on their domestic markets. Germany is a good example: their economy, like China's, is founded on exports. Take away the export market and the German economy collapses. The Europeans are also right in the middle of a huge headache caused by a decade of profligate spending, and they're in no mood for a "hair of the dog" speech.

Germany, in fact, may be precipitating the fall of the Euro sooner rather than later. Der Spiegel is reporting that the German Federal Constitutional Court may block Germany's portion of the EU bailout package (via ZH), which would basically sink the whole thing. I think Germany is simply positioning itself to leave the Euro and go back to the Deutschmark -- many Germans were against the Euro project from the beginning, and being told that they have to bail out their more profligate neighbors is causing a massive political backlash.

Meanwhile, back on our own shores, Commodore Bernanke of the USS Keynes says: "Ramming speed!" And in a bit of (surely unintentional) hilarity, Bammer's vaunted Debt Commission is broke. Remember: the first time is tragedy, the second time is farce. The Depression was a tragedy, so this must be the farce.

Unsurprisingly, the futures for the Dow and S&P 500 are down as of this writing. The Euro took another shot to the nuts: it's sitting at $1.19 against the US dollar, and is almost sure to fall further given the failure of the G20 talks.

Posted by: Monty at 04:31 PM | Comments (250)
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