As we all know, because liberal Democrats tell us so, it is physically impossible to intercept a missile, and even if it were possible (which it's not), the enemy would just implement easy and cheap countermeasures, such as arming its missiles with anti-anti-ballistic-missile laser beams. You know, cinchy stuff like that.

So, stop being such stupid simpletons and stop believing everything Ronny Raygun told you.

That said, apparently the laws of physics don't work in Israel.

It had been thought that short-range rockets couldn't be intercepted, since they're in flight for such a short time.

Maybe we should move NASA there so we can take advantage of that strange defies-physics property of Israel, and start building a faster-than-light spaceship outside Tel Aviv.

Thanks to Ben, from the sidebar.

Posted by: Ace at 01:20 PM | Comments (127)
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Smart observation seconded by Allah Pundit: Both men are striving to stress a different thing.

That way, they can both "win" in the eyes of their respective caucuses.

Harry Reid, who, like, is supposedly pro-life (uh-huh), is now super-dedicated to preserving Planned Parenthood's funding, along with cherry blossoms and cowboy poetry.

Boehner is talking up cuts.

The idea is that there is probably a deal here and each man is pre-spinning his victory. Boehner talking up the cuts (because he gave away the Planned Parenthood issue), Reid about Planned Parenthood (because he gave a little more on the cuts).

Like I said in an earlier thread, the Planned Parenthood deal is something we really need the Senate and the Presidency to do, so it was probably a negotiating point all along -- something of greater importance to your opponent, that you can use to pressure him and eventually trade in for something else.

I have a feeling we're not going to like the deal, even if you don't mind the Planned Parenthood thing. The party is going to spin the number as impressive, but I'm thinking it's going to be like $38 billion. A pittance, and not really even the Bigger Pittance sought, or the Good Compromise for the Pittance we would have at least preferred. Like $45 billion.

Oh: I just heard Boehner saying that we've pretty much reached a resolution on all issues, except spending.

Ergo, to me, it sounds like he traded in his negotiating point, and, um... did not in fact yet get the cuts sought.

A negotiating point isn't really useful if you offer it up early and don't secure a reciprocal concession in turn.

I'm lowering my guess to $36 billion.

Posted by: Ace at 12:55 PM | Comments (160)
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Prudence? Or pandering to the angry left?

I have to say "prudence," actually. A probe into the matter is justified; there was definitely a major mistake made here, and if there is serial incompetence, someone needs to be out of a job.

Everything looks on the up-and-up, but if the shoes were on the other foot, and 7000 votes had been entered late for Kloppy, I sure would have wanted a probe, and would have been outraged had there not been one.

So I guess I'm okay with this.

"We're going to do a review of the procedures and the records in Waukesha before we certify the statewide results," Haas said.

"It's not that we necessarily expect to find anything criminal. But we want to make sure the public has confidence in the results,"

Yes, it is important to make sure there were no shenanigans and, assuming there weren't, that the public knows that the possibility of shenanigans has been examined and no shenanigans have been found.

I'm not afraid of the probe because it seems like it will just confirm what we think we already know -- honest error, and now the numbers are accurate.

I have a feeling that if the shoes were reversed on this point, the left would be baying, because they would definitely not have the confidence I do in the cleanness of the vote. They would be very worried indeed what any probe might turn up.

Thanks to Tami.

Posted by: Ace at 12:11 PM | Comments (132)
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Can this possibly be true?

This is Wired, so I guess I believe them, but this... unbelievable. And scary.

And the government wants to retain this ability?

The Obama administration is urging Congress not to adopt legislation that would impose constitutional safeguards on AmericansÂ’ e-mail stored in the cloud.

"The cloud," I understand, is just email stored on external serves. Like any free email account. Like gmail, or yahoo.

As the law stands now, the authorities may obtain cloud e-mail without a warrant if it is older than 180 days, thanks to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act adopted in 1986. At that time, e-mail left on a third-party server for six months was considered to be abandoned, and thus enjoyed less privacy protection. However, the law demands warrants for the authorities to seize e-mail from a personÂ’s hard drive.

A coalition of internet service providers and other groups, known as Digital Due Process, has lobbied for an update to the law to treat both cloud- and home-stored e-mail the same, and thus require a probable-cause warrant for access. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on that topic Tuesday.

That's insane. That's insane.

Generally these questions turn on the question of whether a person has a "reasonable expectation of privacy" when making a communication.

All I can say is that I honestly believed that the government wasn't allowed to snoop in my email. I thought it was private. I realize any company can break its own privacy rules and read it themselves, but I thought there would be measures to punish that if it happened. Same as anyone at the Post Office could steam open a letter of mine, if he wanted.

Who thought that their email was Anything Goes for government snoops? I didn't. And if I'd known that, I wouldn't ever have used it at all.

If this is going to be the policy, then tell us so we can make arrangements going forward.

This idea that the government can take the position, quietly, that they're not going to tell you you have no privacy so they can continue exploiting this ignorance... well, if someone doesn't tell me I don't have an expectation of privacy, then my beliefs should rule.

Thanks to Reverend Jim.

Posted by: Ace at 11:53 AM | Comments (109)
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A massacre that has shocked Brazil.

The mass murderer, who killed 10 girls and two boys, was named by police as 24-year-old Wellington Menezes de Oliveira, a former pupil at the Tasso da Silveira primary school.

De Oliveira eventually took his own life after police shot his legs and he fell down some stairs.

Western reports seem to be embargoing something -- something you can find on Al Aribiya, but which the Guardians of Our Mindthoughts don't seem to think we should know.

A Google translation of Al Aribiya's report shows that the even Muslims aren't as determined to cover up Islamic connections as the Western media:

sites that the young man is a Muslim who converted to Islam some time ago, reinforced what it said summaries of the preliminary report prepared by the police includes what she said about his half-sister, and her name Rozhelain Oliveira, he was eager always on the lookout for Islamic Affairs, expressed several times tendency to link Islam and the Islamic militants and their news, it does not come out of the house a lot and did not have a lot of friends and used to spend almost all his time on the computer.

It also included the message, described by Lt. Beltrami as "complex" without explaining that this word, the recognition of the young that people infected with HIV, while the TV station, "O Globo" reported on some local neighbors, as suffering from depression.

In the face of these obvious facts continued Newspapers Brazilian TV in linking the crime committed by the young man his inclination to Islam, said that the newspapers that the letter left by the included refers to its association with Islam and he embraced the belief that true religion and that he praised terrorism and suicide attacks, but it turned out later that the message completely free of the claim which was not based on any reliable source.

Al Aribiya, oddly enough, notes that the New York Times is pinning this on... Jehovah's Witnesses. Well, not really, but the New York Times buries his Islamism very much down-page and makes a muddle of his actual religious beliefs.

A letter found in Mr. OliveiraÂ’s pocket made it clear that the attack was premeditated, and that he intended to die, but it offered no motive for the shootings.

Instead, he left explicit instructions for his burial — he wanted to be near his adopted mother, who died in 2009 — and the disposition of his house, which he wanted to donate to an animal shelter. He asked to be buried in a way that reflected some aspects of Islamic tradition, including in a white sheet he said he left in a bag on the first floor of the school, but he also asked Jesus for eternal life.

In the only reference to his deed, he sought “God’s forgiveness for what I have done.”

A longtime neighbor and former member of Mr. OliveiraÂ’s church said Mr. Oliveira had been a lifelong JehovahÂ’s Witness before turning to Islam two years ago. Other neighbors on the street where he grew up said he had few friends and spent many hours in front of his computer on social networking sites. In the past year, several said, he had taken to wearing black clothing.

“People thought it was strange when he began wearing black, but we could never imagine he was going to do something like this,” said Fabio Santos, 27, who said he knew him for more than 10 years. “Maybe it was because his mother and grandmother had died.”

Now, I have to say the Times does give this a mention, but yet... it's buried, isn't it? And they still insist the letter gives "no motive" for his crime.

None? Not even an inkling?

While the New York Times expresses bafflement, Brazilian media is actually doing some reporting.

In an interview with Radio Band News, Rosilane Menezes, sister of gunman Wellington Menezes de Oliveira, said he was strange, reserved and without friends.

"He was so focused on things related to Islam and had let his beard grow long. He was weird, he was on the internet all day reading related issues and it was very strange, very secretive," she said.

Wellington left a letter with disconnected sentences, but with fundamentalist tendencies, said Lt. Col. Djalma Beltrame, commander of Battalion 14.

"He was on the internet using Muslim sites... It's crazy. Only a crazy person could do this to children, said the commander..."

Again, Western media keeps euphemizing this letter as "rambling and incoherent." Well, I'm sure it's that; that's how psychopaths tend to write. But "rambling and incoherent" is intended to suggest there is nothing here to suggest a motive, whereas, as the Brazilian police will tell you, there in fact is: "fundamentalist tendencies."

We can't know yet his exact motive. It's possible he was just an Islamic Jared Loughner, confused and lost from reality, and that his Islamism was more a symptom of his disease rather than the disease itself.

But it's interesting to note that once again a media which seizes any chance to label communists and Jihadists as "likely Tea Partiers" simply refuses to report actual facts when it comes to likely jihadis.

As that last blog notes:

The 36-paragraph AP article, makes no mention of his Islamic affiliation or beliefs.

36 paragraphs. And not any room to tell Americans (or anyone who doesn't speak Portuguese) what the Brazilians already know.

If the rest of the world can and should be emulated by the West -- what say we follow the leads of the Muslim world and Brazil and report the actual facts of the case, rather than acting as Guardians of Mindthoughts constantly suppressing relevant information that the rabble just can't be trusted to know?

Posted by: Ace at 11:23 AM | Comments (102)
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On one hand, I didn't know that either.

On the other hand, I'm not being paid to run this war.

The deputy commander of NATO forces in Libya acknowledged Friday that the alliance struck rebel tanks outside the eastern oil town of Brega a day earlier but blamed the deadly incident on a lack of communication from the rebels.

Rear Adm. Russell Harding said "it would appear that two of our strikes yesterday may have resulted in the deaths of a number of TNC forces," referring to the Transitional National Council, the rebels' de facto government. Doctors said that at least five people were killed in the Thursday morning strike, the second friendly fire incident in less than a week involving NATO forces and the rebels battling Libyan strongman Muammar Gadhafi.

"I'm not apologizing," Harding told reporters in Naples, Italy. "The situation on the ground was extremely fluid and remains extremely fluid. And up until yesterday we had no information that the TNC or the opposition forces were using tanks."

What the hell.

And if you think that's dumb, how about a general proposing US ground troops in Libya?

Asked if the U.S. would provide troops, Ham said, “I suspect there might be some consideration of that. My personal view at this point would be that that’s probably not the ideal circumstance, again for the regional reaction that having American boots on the ground would entail.”

Um, no.

As I wrote before I had counted on Obama's feckless (if inconstant) pacifism to keep him from making the same mistake as LBJ and deciding his ego was on the line and so better men than him should die to prove how "tough" he is.

I'm not sure of that anymore.

This general really should get his head on straight. We cannot piss away good American troops' lives everywhere. We cannot and must not put troops in another civil-war situation.

If the answer is stalemate, so be it. If Obama wanted to cleanly win the war he missed his opportunity by delaying so long to rain airstrikes on Qadaffy's mercenaries. If it's now to be a divided state, then so be it.

Who the hell cares? If Qadaffy acts up we bomb the crap out of Tripoli.

What is this absurd sentimentalist regard for world maps with countries that have constant borders? Do we care if Libya breaks up into West Libya and East Libya? Is learning a new contour on a map so difficult for us?

No more using soldiers just to spare the lives of foreigners.

Yes, it would be better if the rebels won, but they're not strong enough for that. All we can do is keep Qadaffy from winning.

And that's all we should do.

By The Way: I don't think there's any question that putting ground troops into a live war would require a Congressional resolution.

That's full commitment. That's solemn war.

Posted by: Ace at 10:33 AM | Comments (196)
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From rdbrewer in the sidebar, he keeps on making the case that the Department of Energy must be eliminated.

“It interferes with and takes away our choices on what kind of showers we want, what kind of toilets we want. What kind of light bulbs we want. But most of the Department of Energy is an impediment to producing energy. Not one barrel of oil is produced by the Department of Energy. But the Department of Energy stops a lot of oil from being produced,” Paul said.

I agree. I didn't used to, not because I loved the DOE but because I thought it was outside the Overton Windown. I don't anymore. I think it's merely an uphill fight.

Paul's basic idea to eliminate the nonessential cabinet-level departments is a good one.

As a transitory step, we can and should combine Education, Energy, Housing and Urban Development (and another one I think I'm forgetting; Update: Oh, he Department of Health and Human Development, duh) into a much-diminished, much-smaller Department of [Whatever]. Human Development or whatever other euphemism for welfare you wish.

Turn the education functions into almost nothing but a pass-through for collecting some federal funds and then returning those funds directly to the states for spending on education, with a very small bureaucracy (like, 100 people) given some make-work for pilot programs or whatever. Do pretty much the same thing with the other departments, turning federal funding pretty much into a check returned with almost nothing taken out of it back to the states.

I think you need that transitory step, because people will scream and freak out if you suddenly aren't "investing" any money into education. But if it's all just returned to the states (minus some small amount for bureaucratic make-work), you can say, truthfully, you're actually "investing" more than ever; you're just not skimming any of it to support a useless bureaucracy.

Once that transitional step is in place, we can work every year to simply reduce the silly exchange of state citizens' money coming into the department and then simply being sent back to the states, until the states are doing almost all of this.

Posted by: Ace at 09:30 AM | Comments (235)
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Via Hot Air, another show of contempt for his own constituents.

Moran generally has a problem with his constituent veterans getting all uppity with him. He has previously expressed his belief that a 24-year veteran opposing him in an election did not perform any kind of "public service." Unlike Moran, of course. Who's been in the shit in the Dupont Circle Theater of War.

What they do is that they find candidates..usually stealth candidates that haven't been in office, haven't served or performed in any public service. My opponent is typical, frankly. And of course for 24 years he's taken a government check, because of course, the military is still part of the federal government, and yet his principle platform is to cut government spending.

His opponent took a "government check" during this time. Unlike Moran, I guess, who refused all of his government checks because he already had all the money he could ever want or need from that cancer-curing SuperDrug he discovered a few years back, if you remember.

So this is a pattern.

The pattern continues.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:13 AM | Comments (96)
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It was a scam, of course. Drudge's crafty headlines make it clear, on the off chance it wasn't before.

Jesse Jackson says the budget fight is the Civil War all over again, because apparently we have $4 billion earmarked to enslave blacks. Or something.

"[T]his really is a Civil War fight,” Jackson said. “This is making the federal government dysfunctional on the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. These guys will support three wars. They’ll support tax dodgers. They’ll support the wealthiest Americans getting tax breaks. They want to cut into education and health care. This is an ideological battle.”

Jackson said those trying to shut down the federal government are doing so to make an “ideological-religious point.”

“This is a Civil War fight,” he said. “I think Time magazine has it right. This is the 150th anniversary of the 1861 Civil War. Now those are determined to shut the federal government down to make their point — their ideological-religious point.”

He repeats "Civil War fight" twice in case you missed it the first time.

Tally: 2 war, 1 fight, enslavement 1

Eleanor Holmes Norton says the proposed budget cuts are like "bombing innocent civilians."

“We are absolutely outraged. This is the functional equivalent of bombing innocent civilians,” she said.

“It’s time that the District of Columbia told the Congress to go straight to hell,” Norton continued...

Tally: War 2, fight 1, enslavement 1, bombing 1, war crimes 1, straight to hell 1

Granny Rictus McBotoxImplants says it's a "war on women."

“There is actually a war on women,” the California Democrat said...

“We have to create a drumbeat across America.”

Tally: War 3, fight 1, enslavement 1, bombing 1, war crimes 1, straight to hell 1, drumbeat (for war) 1

A lefty FaceBook campaign to dump trash on Boehner's house.

Tally: War 3, fight 1, enslavement 1, bombing 1, war crimes 1, straight to hell 1, drumbeat (for war) 1, campaign for malicious vandalism 1

Dingy Harry Reid says the GOP wants women to get cancer.

"Republicans want to shut down the government because they think there's nothing more important than keeping women from getting cancer screenings. This is indefensible and everyone should be outraged," Reid said on the Senate floor.

Tally: War 3, fight 1, bombing 1, enslavement 1, war crimes 1, straight to hell 1, drumbeat (for war) 1, campaign for malicious vandalism 1, gender-discriminating bioterrorism 1

Dingy Harry also says this is throwing women under the bus.

Reid, D-Nev., said it is "shameful" that Republicans are trying to move "an extreme social agenda" that will "throw women under a bus even if it means it will shut down the government."

Tally: War 3, fight 1, bombing 1, enslavement 1, war crimes 1, straight to hell 1, drumbeat (for war) 1, campaign for malicious vandalism 1, gender-discriminating bioterrorism 1, gender-targeted vehicular manslaughter 1

Louise Slaughter says GOP freshmen were elected to "kill women."

In Â’94 people were elected simply to come here to kill the National Endowment for the Arts. Now theyÂ’re here to kill women.

Tally: War 3, fight 1, bombing 1, enslavement 1, war crimes 1, straight to hell 1, drumbeat (for war) 1, campaign for malicious vandalism 1, gender-discriminating bioterrorism 1, gender-targeted vehicular manslaughter 1, government conspiracy to commit serial killings of women 1

Okay, now I'm just being sort of silly because I'm bored. And that's just today.

But whatever you do: Don't use heated rhetoric that conjures images of war and might inspire violence!

On the other hand, Obama merely calls the budget fight -- which most other people would call his "job duties" -- a "distraction."

A "distraction"? His actual job duties are a "distraction" to him? A distraction from what?

Why, scenic Williamsburg, of course!

Thanks to lacyunderalls for pointing out the Louise Slaughter claim, which really buttons it all up.

Posted by: Ace at 08:49 AM | Comments (187)
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Sorry bout that, I've been chasing my tail all week on planes and trains and automobiles.

1 Boeheim's Aneurysm DALE 43 of 63 119 119
2 Behold A Pale Unicorn Albert's Beanie 38 of 63 111 111
3 Vatican Assassin Warlocks Josh 37 of 63 110 110
4 buzzion buzz 36 of 63 108 108
5 My BigEffinDeal Bracket KenM 43 of 63 88 88

Format is Correct picks (x of y), points and possible points.

Congrats to Boeheim's Aneurysm, who showed us all how it's done except for that UCONN pick over Butler. But hey, even President "Screw Military Families" didn't see that one coming.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 07:26 AM | Comments (26)
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