BBC Tracks Down Notorious Internet Troll

Sometimes you just gotta smack down these f-kers.

Via Althouse:

'The important thing is to ensure the neck snaps and there’s a quick death...'

Well, that's an Althouse-style title for the post, but that's who first came to mind when reading this piece at Los Angeles Times, "India has no shortage of aspiring hangmen." The quote on the "neck snaps" was highlighted at the essay in the hard-copy version, and it still kind of sticks out as so matter-of-fact:

Pawan Kumar is looking for a job. Not just any job; he wants to be India's newest hangman.

Kumar, 50, an apparel salesman from a family of executioners, says it's in his DNA, demonstrating with well-callused hands how to slide a hood over a condemned person's head, grease the noose and wrench the lever so the floor parts like a wave.

He acknowledges that he's never performed a hanging, India's preferred execution method, but says he's witnessed several and practiced using sandbags.

"The important thing is to ensure the neck snaps and there's a quick death," he says.

RTWT.

'Exmoor Emperor'

Althouse has the story of the mounted head of the 9 foot deer stag that was Britain's largest indigenous animal at the time it was killed. A hunter apparently nabbed him fair and square. But clearly, killing a majestic animal like that is the perfect trophy for abolitionists, not tourists.

See "'To come out and proudly boast you have one of the country's most magnificent creatures hanging on your wall is both unscrupulous and, frankly, professional suicide'."

Really Amazing Pictures of Ann Althouse at Sunset

Just head over there and check it out, "Autumn Sunset."

I don't think I could take as beautiful of photographs, even if I had that kind of photo gear. Simply wonderful.

Ann Althouse Attacked at Wisconsin Capitol Singalong

This is generating some interesting discussion: "Attack on Althouse at the Wisconsin Capitol singalong" (found at Memeorandum).

Plus, Althouse gets picked up at Breitbart TV, and from the comments there:

As they keep doing this kind of behavior on a near daily basis now, they do not realize that America has grown tired of this and their patience will eventually wear thin. Because the left is losing power and their true agenda is now exposed in the light of day for the Communist agenda that it is, they are desperate to achieve that ever elusive and imaginary Utopia their leader has promised. When in reality, all they accomplish by doing this is to unite the opposers to Obama's agenda even more.

Not to mention the fact that some day, probably soon, they will pick on the wrong person and find out what it feels like to have your ass beat, and good.

Well, yeah. All in self-defense, of course.

New York Mets Unload Francisco Rodriguez

Althouse gets excited over Milwaukee's acquisition of star closer Francisco Rodriguez: "Unloading a 'crippling financial obligation,' the Mets deal Francisco Rodriguez to the Brewers."

Ann links to the New York Times, and there's some informed opinion in her comments section. But I'll tell you: Mets fans should be pleased. With Rodriquez, who was the Angels' ace closer for years, you'll bite your fingernails and then keep munching down to the knuckles. The dude had so many clutch blown saves I lost my voice screaming at the TV. Plugging in "Rodriguez Blown Saves" on Google pulled this piece up, "The Worst Season of Francisco Rodriguez's Career":

Rodriguez is still very difficult to hit against, due to the tremendous amount of movement on his pitches. However, this year his control problems have been even worse than in the past: only 60% of his pitches have been strikes – the lowest total of his career – and only 54% of his first pitches have been strikes. He has gotten into more 3-0 counts (9% of the time) than any other season in his career, and has gotten into fewer 0-2 counts (19%) than any other season. His overall strikeout rate is down, and yet he has received more called third strikes than usual this year, suggesting even less dominance (as evidenced by the relative lack of swings and misses with two strikes).

I get pissed just reading that!

But see Sports Illustrated on the big picture: "Brewers, Mets both get what they need from K-Rod trade."

Althouse Responds!

I knew it!

Robert Stacy McCain is the master link troll!

See Ann Althouse, "Charging with fists raised at Althouse: from the right, it's Robert Stacy McCain, from the left, it's Thers."

Robert Stacy McCain should be pleased that Thers decided to attack me on the same day, because I wouldn't have rewarded his attack with a link if it wasn't funny to find myself in the "Clowns to the left of me/Jokers to the right" position.

There's a lot there, but one line I'm saving for comment on another post. Well, one or two lines.

Ann Althouse a Rube? Nah, Robert Stacy McCain's Just Trolling for Traffic

C'mon Robert. Althouse a rube?

We know Althouse breaks political convention, and she's been hammering Obama for some time now. Besides, you just like posting her picture.

I like this one:

Added: Now a Memeorandum thread, with The Lonely Conservative, "Was Voting for Obama Rational?"

Althouse Taken Down??!! — UPDATE: Althouse Restored!

Seriously!

Check the Blogger link to Althouse --- and poof!!

Also, at Instapundit, "ALTHOUSE’S BLOG IS DOWN ..." And more here.

And at Red State, "Google/Blogger going after Ann Althouse?"

And at Althouse2, Ann's backup blog:

You know, I'm beginning to suspect that there's some behind-the-scenes campaign to report my blog as abusive. People who hate/fear the Althouse blog could make a loud noise to Google.

No doubt.

But Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Murder is throwing up a smokescreen, suggesting the take-down is due to a post at Althouse on the job finalists for a new dean at the University of Wisconsin law school.

Added: More from Althouse2, "'So, your blog goes down right after being reported as a cesspool of [misogyny] and homophobia? Hmmmmm . . .'"

UPDATE: Althouse's blog is up: "Is this thing really back?"

UPDATE II: Check Patterico, who's taking this pretty seriously: "Don’t Let Google Off the Hook: Evidence Aplenty That Cretin “Nitecruzr” Represents Google — And Even Has the Ability to Flag Your Google Account!"

Tricia Willoughby Speaks to Madison Tea Party Rally

Via Ann Althouse:

RELATED: From Althouse, "A 14-year-old girl speaks at the Tea Party rally in Madison and is drowned out by chants, boos, and cowbells."

Ann Althouse in 1981

The eternal student:

When Ann Althouse Gets Ahold of Those Archives...

Here she is, on the news of the $100K bid for JournoList, "Andrew Breitbart offers $100,000 for the full Journolist archive — with a promise to keep the source secret":

Surely, somewhere among the 400 members of that former discussion group, there is someone who feels motivated to fulfill the desire of the information to be free. I've listed reasons why I think it would be doing a good thing to make the archive public, and now there is an additional motivation — $100,000. Now, virtue is mixed with venality. But virtue is mixed with venality when it comes to keeping the archive private. The motivations for not disclosing are not pure. People are protecting their careers, hoping for favors from powerful and well-placed co-Journolisters. Breitbart has added economic incentive to the other side of the balance, and he fortifies his offer of payment with an ethical....

Lots more at the link.

100K is a lot of dough, but even the most self-interested might not want to get on the receiving end of Althouse's wrath (or at least Garance won't sell out):

RELATED: "'Welcome to the Journolist Top Secret Progressive He-Man Wingnut Haters Club and L33t H4xoR Chat Room'."

Customers Wait Hours for Apple's iPad...

...But Ann Althouse was able to pick one up no problem:

More pictures at the link.

Turns out the salesman was an Althouse fan.

Also, at the Charlotte Observer, "Hordes Pack SouthPark for Apple's iPad Release: Customers Wait Hours for a Chance to Purchase Coveted Gadget." Plus, at NYT, "Live Blogging the iPad’s Big Day" (via Memeorandum); and "Across the Country, the Devoted Gather for the iPad."

Althouse 6-Year Blogiversary

Ann started blogging January 14, 2004.

I've posted at least once, each day in these 6 years, an average of 8+ posts a day. I've never had a guest blogger (or a ghost blogger), and I've written — with real enthusiasm — on the hardest work days, on the day I wrecked my car, the day I had surgery, the day I drove 1235 miles in one day, and the day I got married. And over 2,000 other days.

The picture's from Austin, "At the Caffeine Dealer":

Ann Althouse on Andrew Sullivan's Campaign to Destroy Sarah Palin

From Ann Althouse, ""Andrew Sullivan Has Discovered the Michelle Goldberg/Ann Althouse Diavlog." Ann rebuts one of the "lies" of Sarah Palin, alleged by Sullivan:

Calling something like this a lie marks you as someone who's centered not on finding out what is true, but on destroying someone. It doesn't motivate me to go through the rest of the long list systematically to see what each item is about, and it certainly doesn't make me want to look at the list and accept the conclusion that wow, Sarah Palin really is a terrible liar.

Click Memeorandum if you want to see Sullivan's long, long list of Sarah Palin's "lies." As everyone knows, this man is truly sick.

SCOTUS Hearings: Sotomayor Backs Off on Empathy; Experts Allege Weak Grasp of Law, GOP Thinks She's Lying!

From Ann Althouse, "Did You Notice How Sonia Sotomayor Has Backed Away From Any Identification with Obama's Notion That "Empathy" is a Component of Judging?"

Also, check Ed Morrissey, "Sotomayor’s So-So Reviews Thus Far."

Plus, Glenn Reynolds is rounding up commentary from the legal community AND it's devastating. For example, Randy Barnett, "Mike Seidman on Sotomayor":

On the Federalist Society Online Debate on the Sotomayor hearings (click here and scroll down), my Georgetown Law colleague Mike Seidman - a cofounder and intellectual leader of the Critical Legal Studies movement in the 1980s - is brutally candid in his opinion of Judge Sotomayor's testimony today:

Speaking only for myself (I guess that's obvious), I was completely disgusted by Judge Sotomayor's testimony today. If she was not perjuring herself, she is intellectually unqualified to be on the Supreme Court. If she was perjuring herself, she is morally unqualified. How could someone who has been on the bench for seventeen years possibly believe that judging in hard cases involves no more than applying the law to the facts? First year law students understand within a month that many areas of the law are open textured and indeterminate—that the legal material frequently (actually, I would say always) must be supplemented by contestable presuppositions, empirical assumptions, and moral judgments. To claim otherwise—to claim that fidelity to uncontested legal principles dictates results—is to claim that whenever Justices disagree among themselves, someone is either a fool or acting in bad faith. What does it say about our legal system that in order to get confirmed Judge Sotomayor must tell the lies that she told today? That judges and justices must live these lies throughout their professional carers?

Perhaps Justice Sotomayor should be excused because our official ideology about judging is so degraded that she would sacrifice a position on the Supreme Court if she told the truth. Legal academics who defend what she did today have no such excuse. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Also at Volokh Conspiracy, "Sotomayor (and Hatch & Feingold) on Fundamental Rights and the 14th Amendment," and "Sotomayor Again Misstates Fundamental Rights Doctrine."

And don't miss Byron York, "Republicans Don't Believe Sotomayor's Stories":

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are convinced that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has not been candid with them in under-oath testimony about her speeches and legal activism ...

Republican aides worked through the night, Tuesday into Wednesday, studying the 108-page transcript from Tuesday's hearing. They believe Sotomayor told a variety of stories, none of them entirely truthful, to explain her series of infamous "wise Latina" speeches. And they question her efforts to distance herself from the work of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, on whose board she served for twelve years in the 1980s and early 1990s.

See also my previous entry on Sotomayor's ties to PRLDEF and radical organizations, "Committee for Justice Advertisement: Sotomayor, Like Ayers, Supported Terrorists."

On today's hearings, see the New York Times, "Republican Senators Press Sotomayor on Abortion Views."

The big question: Will Sotomayor be confirmed? Well, "absent what Senator Lindsey Graham describes as “a complete meltdown” (a partial thaw wouldn’t do it), the only real questions that face Sonia Sotomayor concern the furniture and color of curtains she wants in her new office" (link).

More at Memeorandum.

Cartoon Credit: Americans for Limited Government.

Ann Althouse Marriage Controversy

I sent Ann Althouse an e-mail congratulating her on her recent engagement (as did many others, no doubt). She's marrying her longtime commenter Meade, and this is after two years of communicating online and a couple of months of courting in person.

But Andrew Sullivan has issues with it, and Althouse responds:

Why is this something that you choose to mock? Is there something ridiculous about a blogger coming to love someone who she first knew through writing in the comments and developed an affection for over a period of years? Or is it just that we decided to marry within 2 months of meeting each other in person? My parents met in the Army and got married 2 weeks later and loved each other until they died many decades later. I'd really like to know what part of my experience deserves "OMFG."

AND: Sullivan posts the time line part of the email I sent him and says:

I did watch [Bloggingheads], but got a little confused with the various timelines (I'm not much clearer now). And I'm all in favor of the right of straight bloggers to marry their straight commenters. It's a civil right. And more than I am currently allowed after living with my husband for almost five years.

This isn't about legal rights. This is about how individuals treat each other, and I want to know why you disrespected me. Explain why you linked to Pandagon's scurrilous OMFG, which, as you know, means "Oh, my fucking God." Is that the way you mean to speak to me? Is that the way you talk about God?

I doubt Ann will be doing Bloggingheads.tv with Sullivan anytime soon. Why she still tolerates Matthew Yglesias is beyond me, but Ann's nice that way ...

The "OMFG" reference is to Jesse Taylor at Pandagon, who illustrates one more time the demonology and intolerance of the nihilist left.

**********

UPDATE: Meade provides a phenomenal reason why folks should read the comments sections:

I agree with Beta Conservative in objecting to the personal attacks on Andrew Sullivan. I also agree with Althouse and many others that, as free and full citizens of this great nation, same sex couples deserve all the rights and responsibilities accorded to opposite sex couples.

FWIW, the digital arc that led me to the woman who I love and promise to marry went something like this: Somewhere around September 25, 2001, I read an article on Islamist terrorism in the NYT magazine by a writer who was new to me, Andrew Sullivan. I found that article to be eloquent and persuasive. A web search on his name led me to Andrew's blog which led me to James Lilek's blog, Glenn Reynold's blog, and, finally, Ann Althouse's blog.

Although I have disagreed with some of the positions he's taken since 2001, I will be forever grateful to Andrew Sullivan for what he wrote following September 11 and for being the first in a series of links that led me to my true love, Ann Althouse.

Now that's some interesting degrees of separation.