Last week various news outlets reported that Al-Qaeda planned to release a new video on the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks. It now appears that good ol’ hackers blocked their effort:
Western intelligence suspects two hackers who have targeted Islamicist sites before were responsible: Aaron Weisburd from Internet Haganah and Rusty Shackleford from the web group My Pet Jawa.
Yes, Rusty Shackleford. Win.
From CNN:
McCain senior domestic policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin said Tuesday the BlackBerry mobile e-mail device was a “miracle that John McCain helped create.”
Holtz-Eakin should watch out. Calling it a “miracle” goes into St. Barack territory.
from the Telegraph:
Prof Shigemura says Kim was not seen in public for the 42 days after September 10, 2003, and in his book “The True Character of Kim Jong Il” claims the man that North Koreans refer to as the “Dear Leader” died of diabetes.
We were sort of excited but then learned here that this recent attention to the claim is because of an article [subscription required] in Shukan Gendai, a trashy “news” magazine whose claim to fame is having published nude photos of gold medal-winning Romanian gymnasts in their official team leotards. [We realize that the preceding sentence doesn't make sense; but the whole shitstorm involved the uniforms and some nude photos, related, somehow.] The Independent also ran a story on KJI today (on which Yonhap reported), but is characteristically far less bullish (or, has far less bullshit):
Speculation was mounting last night over the health of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il. He has not been seen in public for more than three weeks, and, according to a source who has seen intelligence reports, five Chinese physicians entered North Korea about a week ago and are still there.
But our guess is that KJI is still alive and well, since we haven’t yet heard of any reports of a secret plane flight from North Korea to Cuba.
…said somebody, some McCain surrogate giving an interview on MSNBC before the start of the fourth and final day of the RNC.
America’s new VPILF successfully blew off that pregnant-daughter thing; bringing that son-in-law-to-be on stage after her address seemed to pretty much seal it away, by showing Palin engaging in one of the finest traditions of middle American women:
…making a poor in-law’s life miserable. Seriously. Drag him out in front of 40 million Americans on prime-time television (we’re not talking Oprah here—oh God Sarah Palin wasn’t thinking of trotting out her kids on the Oprah show?) where the “elite media” is sure to point to his face with neon-sign caption “the baby’s father.” Does even John Edwards deserve that?* And even disregarding the baby thing, if America weren’t at the mercy of our beloved middle-class gals, the Bill of Rights would be eleven amendments long, and one of them would say that no man shall be compelled to present himself at a girlfriend’s family’s political convention. Well, something like that, maybe with broader language to protect every law-abiding citizen from situations of extreme awkwardness before an extended/quasi family and their 40 million friends.
But we digress. How about that other middle-class women thing, the part about having to make your ex’s life miserable? Unfortunately she can’t engage in this time-honored activity because she has been happily married to a high-school sweetheart (oh god)… or can she?
Remember, choosing Sarah Palin was McBRILLIANT (it must be true because you heard it on the Rush Limbaugh show). That can only mean that she is also McBRILLIANT; and yes, America, Sarah Palin has pursued a McBRILLIANT plan to allow her to “double down” on her appeal as the embodiment of the working middle-class American woman: she tried to ruin a ex-in-law’s life.
Hence we Sarah Palin fans can rest assured that troopergate is yet another step in her McBRILLIANT strategy of generating a barrage of “false flag” scandals in order to distract the evil media while highlighting and “doubling down” on her all-American character.
Also none of this matters because Sarah Palin is smoking hot.
*He does, actually.
…and as a bonus, a few comments on the RNC which we saw right after Ron Paul’s speech. Transcript after the jump!
Via Der Spiegel:
Are the Germans training their own Barack Obama?
The New York Times: A Cast of 300 Advises Obama on Foreign Policy
My first impression when I saw the headline was “Wow, Obama really has some nuts. No wonder Jesse wants to cut them off.” Then I read the article and realized that Obama doesn’t actually take advice from Leonidas on how to run the world and make our enemies cower in fear. Yea, I know. Sucks.
But what if Senator Obama hired the cast of 300 as his advisers? Better yet, what if he became Leonidas? Our foreign policy would then look something like this:
Barack Leonidas rules.