Number of bowl games today: 1

Name of bowl game: BBVA Compass

Location of bowl game: Historic Legion Field in Birmingham Alabama

Contestants: Houston and Vanderbilt

Time: 1pm Eastern

Enjoy. By the way if you haven't seen how Alabama girls take a loss you are missing something special. via BenK

I'm guessing alcohol was involved.

But if you haven't seen it set to Miley Cyrus' "Wrecking Ball" you are missing something even better (below the fold):

UPDATE: I lied, there's another bowl game in 15 minutes or so.. the FCS Championship. Towson and North Dakota State. Don't ask me what FCS is, I have no idea. Or Towson. I know what North Dakota is. more...

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 08:48 AM | Comments (313)
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Wild Card Weekend. KC at Indianapolis, 4:35pm. New Orleans at Philadelphia, 8:10pm.

Tomorrow San Diego at Cincinnati and San Francisco at Green Bay.

I read that Proctor & Gamble bought up the remaining Cincy tickets and Meijer picked up the rest of the Colt tickets so the fans wouldn't face a local broadcast blackout. They are donating them to military personnel and families. Good on them.

The blackout/sellout rule is a stupid anachronism from the days when ticket sales were the major revenue streams. Ticket sale revenue isn't a pimple on a sow's ass anymore and the league needs to get rid of this stupid rule.

ok cause it's the playoffs.. some more

I know.. Cincy plays tomorrow but I like her.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 12:28 PM | Comments (716)
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Here ya go. Now Vic can release the news Kraken.

Just a reminder for those interested in playing the NFL Fantasy Playoff Challenge. Click the link, search for AoSHQ in the groups section and enter the password "val-u-rite".

Posted by: CDR M at 05:24 AM | Comments (235)
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Bill Overstreet Jr. WWII Fighter Ace, Big Damn Hero.

In 1944 this P-51 fighter jock chased an Me109 under the Eiffel Tower. Got the kill too.

Just how much clearance was that you ask? Well, from the ground to the floor of the first platform is 186 feet. I can't quite tell how far it is from the bottom of the arch to the top of the first platform, but it looks roughly 1/3 of that 186 feet, so I'm gonna say from the ground to the bottom arch he had about 120 feet to play with. While firing in pursuit. While being fired at by the enemy on the ground.

No wonder they still talk about it.

But that was only one of the many times Bill Overstreet put his life on the line for his country and comrades.

I'll just excerpt one bit from this article from an interview of Overstreet, but read the whole thing including the part about his one-second parachute opening before a crash in a spinning Bell P-39 Aircobra. There are several photos.

Another mission that didnÂ’t turn out as expected occurred when Bill flew with a sinus infection. He and his group were escorting a sortie of bombers, and in chasing German fighters away from the flight, he engaged in a power dive from 30,000 feet, chasing after a Messerschmitt Bf 109. The extreme change in pressure caused his eyes to swell shut, blinding him. Bill was able to keep his plane in the air by control feel, but had no way to determine his heading or carry out a landing. Calling on his radio for help, one of BillÂ’s mates, Indicated that he could see BillÂ’s plane and gave him instructions to get the plane pointed in the right direction, then got on his wing and together the two made their way back to the base in England. Bill was talked through a straight-in approach and landing. It took several days under the care of the BaseÂ’s doctors before the swelling had gone down enough for Bill to see again.

He landed his P-51. Blind.

He returned home in October of 1944, taught gunnery school and became an accountant while in the reserves. He worked for a CPA firm until his retirement in 1984.

In 2009 he returned to France and was awarded the Legion of Honor. Pierre Vimont, the Ambassador of France to the U.S. who pinned the medal on him credited Overstreet for his "heroic contribution to the liberation of France." He also recalled Bill saying "thank you" more than once.

With respect Captain, I think you had that exactly backwards sir. Thank you. May you rest in honored glory.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 06:19 AM | Comments (178)
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American troops spilled their guts fighting Al Qaeda in Fallujah in 2004.

And now, AQ has driven out all representatives of the Iraqi government and raised its flag over government buildings.

The capture of Fallujah came amid an explosion of violence across the western desert province of Anbar in which local tribes, the Iraqi security forces and al-Qaeda militants have been fighting one another for days in a confusingly chaotic three- way war.

...

Elsewhere in the province, local tribal militias claimed they were gaining ground against the al-Qaeda militants who surged into urban areas from their desert strongholds earlier this week after clashes erupted between local residents and the Iraqi security forces.

Tribal fighters are fighting Al Qaeda, as they did in the Anbar Uprising (which now seems like a century ago, but it was only 2006 or so).

“All the tribes of Anbar are fighting against al-Qaeda,” he said. “We are happy this fight is taking place. We will confront them face to face, and we will win this battle.”

But it was unclear whether all of the tribal fighters battling the al-Qaeda militants were doing so in alliance with the Iraqi government.

The tribal fighters had been battling Maliki's government, but now seem to be focusing on Al Qaeda. For the moment, anyway.

Posted by: Ace at 03:40 PM | Comments (368)
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Who killed the most people? Well, OJ Simpson, obviously.

But speaking of actors' characters killing imaginary people, the winner is.... Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose characters were responsible for 369 on-screen deaths.

A bit down from the top the list is Christian Bale, who it is claimed killed (as an actor) 161 people on screen.

Am I forgetting some movie he did with a huge bodycount? Sure, American Psycho, but he only killed like 5 people there. What am I forgetting?

Ah, I checked IMDB. Among other movies I'm forgetting Equilibrium, where he kills an awful lot of people. In fact, he killed 118. All on-screen.

Also stolen from VA Viper, this martial arts silliness. It gets good starting at 1:00.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:53 PM | Comments (230)
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Via NRO, this sounds exactly right.

How can you diagnose when somebody is suffering from ideological obsession?

Consider the case of the Affordable Care Act. This law was supposed to provide for universal health insurance for all Americans. Yet the law is filled with exemptions, and the Administration has granted even more exceptions and exemptions as the implementation date for the law approached on New YearÂ’s Day.

Here are just a few of the exemptions that were incorporated in the law itself: people who can’t afford coverage, even with a subsidy; people with income levels too low to require filing a federal tax return; members of certain Indian tribes; people who can claim a hardship; people who will have a short gap in their coverage; members of certain religious groups that conscientiously oppose insurance benefit programs (e.g., the Amish); members of a “health care sharing ministry”; people in prison; and people who are not lawfully in the United States.

In the last few months, with all the mess associated with the new health exchange websites, and all the other chaos associated with the law, the Administration has granted new exemptions...

So, what does this have to do with ideology? Well, despite all those other exemptions, waivers and extensions, one group has not been able to obtain an exemption, despite repeatedly asking for it, petitioning for it, and finally suing for it — religious organizations that have a moral objection to facilitating contraception, sterilization, and abortion, as would be required under the so-called HHS Mandate.

For these groups, there is no flexibility at all. There is instead an adamant insistence that they will have to cooperate, regardless of their deeply-held religious beliefs. The Amish get out of the law entirely, but when it comes to Catholic dioceses, schools and charities agencies, the government offers nothing except artificial and unsatisfactory “accommodations”.

....

The government wonÂ’t even grant temporary respite while legal challenges are working their way through the courts. They canÂ’t even bring themselves to give a break to the Little Sisters of the Poor, who spend their entire lives caring for needy elderly people.

Why is this? It’s not that hard to understand. The current Administration is entirely beholden to an ideology of sexual liberationism that considers contraception, sterilization and abortion to be “sacred ground”. They consider this ideology to be so central to life that they will brook no opposition, and will do whatever it takes to bring to heel anyone who opposes them.

That is an ideological obsession. It is dangerous to the souls of those who suffer from it, and it is dangerous to any society in which they wield power.

This reminds me of the suspension of Phil Robertson. It's not about the positions themselves. I think gays and the gay-friendly have the right to argue for greater accommodation of gays, and I think it's just swell if women wish to dwell exclusively on "women's issues," fixating entirely upon reproduction. Back to the Future, you know. The way it used to be.

The problem comes in that you are not even permitted to disagree. You cannot object; you cannot opt-out. The various Leftist Cultural Asks are, apparently, so powerfully certain and true that the government will actually legally punish you for suggesting otherwise.

Posted by: Ace at 01:14 PM | Comments (211)
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More true than funny, this Onion post tweeted by @charlescwcooke spoofs the dominant, privileged leftist cultural's hatred of all things religious -- while noting that it's the religious who are actually doing something about the left's claimed highest value of helping the poor, efault">while the left just talks about doing something about helping the poor.

@heavyhokie points out the joke is at the expense of the average Onion reader. So a joke with an actual risk factor.

Posted by: Ace at 11:52 AM | Comments (451)
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There's an old rule in lawyering:

When the facts are on your side, pound the facts.

When the law is on your side, pound the law.

When neither are on your side, pound the table.

Meaning, of course: When your argument is weak you have to turn the proceedings into a carnival, introducing a ton of irrelevant, tendentious claims to confuse the jury.

When a dolt like Chris Hayes has the worst side of an argument, as he frequently does, he resorts to emotional histrionics.

Let's note that no one on the right was cheerleading for the deaths of the "global warming" scientists. In fact, despite Chris Hayes' dishonest attempts to cast the "global warming" scientists as in the clutches of icy death -- and so more heartless were the right for finding mirth in their predicament -- virtually every news story stressed the fact that the team was in no imminent danger whatsoever.

Apparently unlike Chris Hayes, I bothered to read several stories about this incident, and every one of them I read included a paragraph just like this one:

The 22 crew members of the Akademik Shokalskiy stayed with the icebound vessel, which is not in any danger and has enough supplies on board to last for weeks. They will wait until the ice surrounding the ship breaks up, which could take several weeks, ASMA Emergency Response Division manager John Young said.

They were not in peril. They were merely inconvenienced. At worse, they'd be icebound until the ice broke up of its own accord; their own supplies might last that long, but if it got too close for comfort, they could have additional supplies ferried in by helicopter.

Hayes' fancies himself a truth-telling intellectual, but his entire screed is predicated upon a series of lies: 1, that the right was laughing at the plight of the scientists, 2, that there was any plight to laugh at all, and 3, that Obama's birth certificate is real.

I just thought I'd mention that last one to bother him.

And far from making an intellectual case as to why colder weather and thickening ice do not undermine the case for "global warming" (hint: cold is the opposite of warm), he resorts to ridiculous ginned-up nonsense nonsequiturs about people not caring enough for twenty two strangers in no imminent danger who they never heard of before three days ago.

To the extent Chris Hayes has any argument here at all, it is this: These "global warming" scientists are good people are are well meaning and only want to save the world, is all. Therefore, it is evil to say that their theories are wrong.

Which, come to think of it, is pretty much the only arrow in the progressives' argumentative quiver.

Posted by: Ace at 11:07 AM | Comments (378)
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The doctor's office manager eventually gave up, and performed the surgery absent an authorization from the insurer.

Paperwork problems almost delayed suburban Chicago resident Sheri ZajcewÂ’s scheduled surgery Thursday, but Dr. John Venetos decided to operate without a routine go-ahead from the insurance company. That was after VenetosÂ’ office manager spent two hours on hold with the insurer Thursday, trying to get an answer about whether the patient needed prior authorization for the surgery. The office manager finally gave up.

“I’m not a happy camper,” said Nate Zajcew, the patient’s husband. The couple signed up for a Blue Cross Blue Shield bronze plan through the federal HealthCare.gov site on Dec. 16. “I understand it’s just a matter of paperwork and yesterday was a holiday. I can be an SOB, too, at times, but since they’re going on with the procedure, it’s OK.”

And it took a UK paper to report this story:

Hospital staff in Northern Virginia are turning away sick people on a frigid Thursday morning because they can't determine whether their Obamacare insurance plans are in effect.

Patients in a close-in DC suburb who think they've signed up for new insurance plans are struggling to show their December enrollments are in force, and health care administrators aren't taking their word for it.

In place of quick service and painless billing, these Virginians are now facing the threat of sticker-shock that comes with bills they can't afford.

'They had no idea if my insurance was active or not!' a coughing Maria Galvez told MailOnline outside the Inova Healthplex facility in the town of Springfield.
She was leaving the building without getting a needed chest x-ray.

'The people in there told me that since I didn't have an insurance card, I would be billed for the whole cost of the x-ray,' Galvez said, her young daughter in tow. 'It's not fair – you know, I signed up last week like I was supposed to.'

Posted by: Ace at 09:51 AM | Comments (475)
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