This is actually just a work-in-progress site.  It's half-done.  Right now it's not used, except as an emergency back-up when the main site goes down.

The actual site is at http://www.ace.mu.nu, or aceofspadeshq.com, which will redirect there.

If you're not seeing pictures on this site, it's because it's not really working yet.

If you've posted comments and no one seems to respond -- that's because most users can't see them.  Comments from the real site get posted here, but comments from here don't show up on the real site.

Basically, you should come to the real site.  It looks a little crappy right now and it breaks down a lot, but this one isn't quite ready yet.

Sorry.. should have put up this notice long ago.

Note from Pixy: Posts and comments automatically sync from the old site to this new site, but some authors aren't set up on the new site, and might show up as the wrong person....  Or as me.  As soon as that's fixed I'll remove this part of the notice.

Posted by: Ace at 01:01 AM | Comments (1411)
Post contains 184 words, total size 1 kb.

A bunch of Toronto Maple Leafs fans videotaped themselves watching Game 7 of the Leafs vs. Bruins game on Monday.

It turned out to be a brutal cock-puncher of a game. Pretty funny. Don't feel bad laughing at them. They're probably all Canadian. more...

Posted by: JohnE. at 12:32 PM | Comments (592)
Post contains 51 words, total size 1 kb.

Nice.

When Gundlach saw Casey, he put his head in his hands and cried. She licked his face, wagging her tail furiously.
"It was a total surprise," he said. "I owe her. I'll just try to give her the best life I can."

Casey and Sgt. Ross Gundlach served on over 150 missions together. They are together again.

Very sweet.

via the Man of Substance more...

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 08:32 AM | Comments (141)
Post contains 77 words, total size 1 kb.

Nice.

When Gundlach saw Casey, he put his head in his hands and cried. She licked his face, wagging her tail furiously.
"It was a total surprise," he said. "I owe her. I'll just try to give her the best life I can."

Casey and Sgt. Ross served on over 150 missions together. They are together again.

Very sweet.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 08:30 AM | Add Comment
Post contains 71 words, total size 1 kb.

I was replying to someone's question on some forum and couldn't get the freaking captcha shit to work and couldn't post it, so rather than wasting all this typing I did on a perfectly good answer, I'm making it a home improvement post.

The dude in question got red tagged on an inspection and wanted to know why. He had a 12-2 Romex and 14-3 Romex in the same box, and a couple of switches feeding lights. His description of his issue was horrible and didn't actually describe the precise situation, but here we go....

"Regarding new construction wiring and running 12/2 and 14/3 wire in the same box."

Are there two branch circuits here or one?

If one circuit. i.e. lights, If the #14 is going to lights and the #12 is the same circuit from the panel powering the lights (power inbound from panel, power outbound to lights), then you'd be REQUIRED to use a 15A breaker on that circuit.

more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 08:10 AM | Comments (96)
Post contains 835 words, total size 5 kb.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

Posted by: andy at 02:34 AM | Comments (242)
Post contains 15 words, total size 1 kb.

Pentagon furious w/Russia over new arms shipments to Syria. State Dept: We don't know anything about it. Russia: We've made no secret of it.

— Brit Hume (@brithume) May 17, 2013

This is beyond. This is beyond.

More accountable government highlights from this week below. more...

Posted by: JohnE. at 02:01 PM | Comments (549)
Post contains 75 words, total size 1 kb.

There is a legal concept of a hypothetical person, called the Reasonable Objective Person.

In cases where someone claims, for example, to have been offended, the law doesn't just say "give this person some money or other legal satisfaction because she says she's upset." That would be a subjective standard, in which every delicate eggshell limits your ability to move through the world.

Usually they say the question is not about how the complaining witness claims she felt subjectively herself, but how the Reasonable Objective Person in her shoes would have thought.

Note the Reasonable Objective Person standard limits this sort of complaint, because while a very thin-skinned complainant might honestly be offended, that doesn't mean she wins the case. She was, subjectively, offended. But the question remains-- would the Reasonable Objective Person have been offended? If not, an honest but overreacting complainant is told she loses.

But no more. Now the government says this Reasonable Objective Person standard is sexist and racist.

The letter contends the conduct in question need not be offensive to an "objectively reasonable person of the same gender in the same situation." That means that there is effectively no check on what might count as harassment.

Now we're all going to be judged by the standard of the thinnest-skinned, complainiest people who exist, and the Reasonable Objective Person will have nothing to say about it.

Posted by: Ace at 01:12 PM | Comments (239)
Post contains 272 words, total size 2 kb.

Husband of the year, from @conartcritic.

Guy got arrested for soliciting a prostitute.

Wait for it.

On his honeymoon.

Would this face lie to you?
Or have whore-sex?

Top twenty worst wedding dresses. Mild content warning as some of them are little risque, such as The Vagina Gown, which has one those Vagina People puppet-vaginas in the front.

Why? Why?

And then there's this one. Content warning -- This is a classy, classy gal who really wants you to notice that she has breasts.

I owe someone an h/t for that. But I forget who.

This picture makes me doubt they'll have children.

Posted by: Ace at 12:16 PM | Comments (132)
Post contains 115 words, total size 1 kb.

I juiced the headline but only slightly -- senior Treasury officials were told, and they are senior staffers of the Administration.

The Treasury Department’s inspector general told senior Treasury officials in June 2012 he was investigating the Internal Revenue Service’s screening of politically active organizations seeking tax exemptions, disclosing for the first time on Friday that Obama administration officials were aware of the matter during the presidential campaign year.

Now this does not get you to Barack Obama himself, but "senior Treasury officials" are not strangers to the President. They are not far-flung functionaries.

Obama's claim that he "didn't know" until last Friday is looking... like a lie.

Discussion at Breitbart.

Posted by: Ace at 10:41 AM | Comments (307)
Post contains 159 words, total size 1 kb.

courtesy @theonerory

I was just asking Piers Morgan: He was the sophisticated, urbane one for claiming the government could be trusted with every conceivable power to interfere with our lives, and we all were the yokels who thought that maybe flawed people, working for a powerful corporation whose business was exerting control over one group of citizens at the behest of another group, maybe could not in fact be so completely trusted?

Apparently "sophistication" consists of forcing your brain to believe daft, stupid, childish things.

Anyway, as these two jackass ponces love flattering themselves, I'm sure that in a couple of days they'll have assembled a Narrative in which they may have been wrong, but they were Wrong for the Right, Rationalist Reasons.

Links are to Hot Air and videos below are from NR, so you don't have to worry about Feeding the Beast.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:08 AM | Comments (260)
Post contains 202 words, total size 2 kb.

Why would they set up a question for Lori Lehrner to answer? I image so they could claim they'd disclosed the matter themselves, and apologized for it, in advance of an IG report that was about to blow up.

Kevin Williamson flagged the question as likely planted two days ago.

The question at the ABA conference came from Washington-based tax lawyer Celia Roady, a lobbyist in the firm of Morgan Lewis. Roady is certainly well-versed in the issue at hand: She was named to the influential Advisory Committee on Tax Exempt and Government Entities in 2010 by Douglas Shulman, at that time commissioner of the IRS. Lerner is the director for tax-exempt organizations at the IRS. Roady was serving on the Advisory Committee on Tax Exempt and Government Entities while tea-party groups and other conservative organizations were being targeted by the IRS. Not exactly a question out of the blue — Capitol Hill sources described the question as “planted” and say the IRS has informally admitted as much.

And today Miller confirms this.

Miller indicated today that Roady was in fact instructed by the IRS to ask the question, and the Lerner knew about the question in advance.

“Who told her to ask the question?” asked Republican representative Kenny Marchant.

“I don’t know, actually, I’m not sure, might have been Lois Lerner,” Miller responded. He went on to say that the IRS intended simultaneously to inform Congress, but admitted the agency only inquired about the congressional calendar.

The planted question reveals coordination at high levels of the IRS with regard to the disclosure of the sensitive information. Lerner and Miller testified before Congress two days before Lerner addressed the ABA, but said nothing about the IRS’s scrutiny of Tea Party groups.

Nonetheless, Miller maintained, “I always answered questions truthfully.”

So when Congress asked, they said nothing about it, but then when the IG Report was about to embarrass them, they created a fake question in order to appear they were being forthcoming and candid in answering random questions from a crowd.

Draw your own conclusions.

Posted by: Ace at 08:44 AM | Comments (188)
Post contains 393 words, total size 3 kb.

Everyone seems to be talking about this clip, which received a standing ovation in the chamber.

Linked below. Oh, for those of the Twitter-centric persuasion, he can be followed at @MikeKellyPA. more...

Posted by: JohnE. at 11:22 AM | Comments (162)
Post contains 55 words, total size 1 kb.

If the organization is nonpartisan, and, as Obama always wants to remind us, "independent," why would Obama's electoral fortunes have weighed into their decision on whether or not to perpetuate a lie?

The IRS commissioner "has known for at least a year that this was going on," said Myers, "and that this had happened. And did he share any of that information with the White House? But even more importantly, Congress is going to ask him, why did you mislead us for an entire year? Members of Congress were saying conservatives are being targeted. What's going on here? The IRS denied it. Then when -- after these officials are briefed by the IG that this is going on, they don't disclose it. In fact, the commissioner sent a letter to Congress in September on this subject and did not reveal this. Imagine if we -- if you can -- what would have happened if this fact came out in September 2012, in the middle of a presidential election? The terrain would have looked very different."

Video at link (safe link to Weekly Standard).

via @peeteysdee

Posted by: Ace at 06:51 AM | Comments (443)
Post contains 215 words, total size 1 kb.

A certain forgettyness.

Oh, by the way, he was also asked if he made any notes about these matters. Notes which could be subpoenaed.

His answer: "I don't remember."

more...

Posted by: Ace at 06:20 AM | Comments (344)
Post contains 78 words, total size 1 kb.

Who will rid me of this troublesome Tea Party?

President Obama and Co. are in full deniability mode, noting that the IRS is an "independent" agency and that they knew nothing about its abuse. The media and Congress are sleuthing for some hint that Mr. Obama picked up the phone and sicced the tax dogs on his enemies.

But that's not how things work in post-Watergate Washington. Mr. Obama didn't need to pick up the phone. All he needed to do was exactly what he did do, in full view, for three years: Publicly suggest that conservative political groups were engaged in nefarious deeds; publicly call out by name political opponents whom he'd like to see harassed; and publicly have his party pressure the IRS to take action.

Mr. Obama now professes shock and outrage that bureaucrats at the IRS did exactly what the president of the United States said was the right and honorable thing to do. "He put a target on our backs, and he's now going to blame the people who are shooting at us?" asks Idaho businessman and longtime Republican donor Frank VanderSloot.

And of course there's more there.

Peggy Noonan is also worth reading.

We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate. The reputation of the Obama White House has, among conservatives, gone from sketchy to sinister, and, among liberals, from unsatisfying to dangerous. No one likes what they're seeing. The Justice Department assault on the Associated Press and the ugly politicization of the Internal Revenue Service have left the administration's credibility deeply, probably irretrievably damaged. They don't look jerky now, they look dirty. The patina of high-mindedness the president enjoyed is gone.

Something big has shifted. The standing of the administration has changed.

As always it comes down to trust. Do you trust the president's answers when he's pressed on an uncomfortable story? Do you trust his people to be sober and fair-minded as they go about their work? Do you trust the IRS and the Justice Department? You do not.

The president, as usual, acts as if all of this is totally unconnected to him. He's shocked, it's unacceptable, he'll get to the bottom of it. He read about it in the papers, just like you.

But he is not unconnected, he is not a bystander. This is his administration. Those are his executive agencies. He runs the IRS and the Justice Department.

A president sets a mood, a tone. He establishes an atmosphere. If he is arrogant, arrogance spreads. If he is to too partisan, too disrespecting of political adversaries, that spreads too. Presidents always undo themselves and then blame it on the third guy in the last row in the sleepy agency across town.

Posted by: Ace at 05:45 AM | Comments (203)
Post contains 477 words, total size 3 kb.

The IRS hearing on Capitol Hill has begun. At the moment, notorious tax cheat and scumbag Charlie Rangel is speaking.

Don't worry, the administration and Democrats will get to the bottom of this. They have their best low level men working on this. Low Level Men!

Live feed below the jump.

It Depends on What the Definition of "Is" Is [Rick Tempest]: Every scandal needs a catchphrase, and Steve Miller just offered one up.

Speaking of his previous testimony, he said:

"It was inccorect but not untruthful."

Miller just also asked for more money for the IRS, so that they could do their jobs better.

more...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:58 AM | Comments (447)
Post contains 111 words, total size 1 kb.

• Low Information Americans Not Paying Attention To Obama Scandals
  
• Want To Keep Obama's IRS Scandal In The News? Use Dem Tactics Against Them
  
• Detroit's So Broke That It's Sending Trustees To Hawaii
  
• Venezuela Facing A Toilet Paper Shortage
  
• Another Gosnell?
  
• What Kind Of Person Fakes A Right-Wing Hate Crime Against Themselves
  
• Barack Obama's Bizarre Movie Idol
  
• Toronto Mayor Involved In Crack Cocaine Scandal
  
• The News Agency Obama Was Spying On Is Still Licking His Boots
  
• Michael Barone: In Defense Of Jason Richwine And Charles Murray
  
• Jay Carney Has Really Enjoyed This Past Week
  
• Woodward, "I Would Not Dismiss Benghazi"
  
• This Is Why I Never Jump On Those Hero Of The Week Stories
  
• Man Arrested For Rubbing A Pepperoni On His 'Pepperoni' In A Grocery Store
  

Sorry for the short news dump, my dog rolled in deer crap this morning and I had to spend 30 minutes washing it out.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:14 AM | Comments (253)
Post contains 157 words, total size 3 kb.

Happy Friday.
more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 01:44 AM | Comments (336)
Post contains 15 words, total size 1 kb.

What the Modern Spy is Carrying

On Tuesday the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested  Ryan Fogle, a third secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and accused him of being a CIA agent and attempting to recruit a Russian as an agent.

The FSB also released a list of the equipment he was carrying:  wigs, sunglasses, lots of cash, a map, compass, a recruitment letter, cellphone, flashlight, pocket knife, key holder, pepper spray, batteries, notebook,  and a cigarette lighter.

It's decidedly lo-tech but then there's no school like the old school. Hell I carry about half of this on a daily basis - and more when I'm out looking to have a pretty good weekend in Vegas.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 04:52 PM | Comments (789)
Post contains 1072 words, total size 13 kb.