Leave it to Mark Steyn. . .

. . .to unearth this gem.

On slow news days. . .

. . .like these, the best you can do is find something that might be entertaining. I think this is: The 27 Most Hilarious Album Covers Of All Time.

As expected. . .

. . .the three punkass dirtbags who broke into the home of a 73-year-old woman, kicked her in the face, and beat her until she suffered a shattered hip have been arrested. One of them was a minor (15), unfortunately, so his name hasn't been publicized. As for the other two, their names are Anthony Aaron Adkins (18), and Brent L. Coley (20).

McCracken County Sheriff Jon Hayden and his staff did their usual excellent job in picking these punks up as quickly as they did. Let's just hope the Commonwealth's Attorney has a sense of the outrage this crime generated in the community and prosecutes these thugs accordingly.

UPDATE: Some better coverage of this story can be found HERE. This coverage comes from the Paducah Sun, which has all its content walled off from anyone who doesn't subscribe to their dead-tree edition. I've always been somewhat mystified as to their rationale for doing so. I guess they figure their paper is so vastly superior to every major metropolitan daily in the nation that they can thumb their nose at us mouth-breathing yokels who like to keep up with local news but don't want to fork over the dough for their confiscatory subscription rates. Be that as it may, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services was kind enough to acquire permission distribute the story so that hayseeds like me can revel in the glory that is the Sun's top-notch fishwrap.

As long as we're on the subject. . .

. . .of criminals, I might as well show the lighter side of criminality. Here are some classic mugshots. And, no. None of them are of me.

Three punkass dirtbags. . .

. . .invaded the home of a 73-year-old woman in the nearby town of Paducah, Kentucky today, kicking her in the face and beating her until her hip was shattered. A 73-year-old woman. They were looking for money.

The county sheriff is a man named Jon Hayden, and he is a fine man who has done an excellent job in office. He'll get these guys, sooner or later. Unfortunately, the law prevents him from giving these guys what they truly deserve, but he'll get them.

I'm sure that any assistance that can be given to the McCracken County Sheriff's Department would be much appreciated, as well as the Commonwealth's Attorney for the 2nd judicial district, Tim Kaltenbach.

Susan E. Rice. . .

. . .is just a tad too honest in this moment, but that's a rather endearing quality for a foreign policy adviser to a Democrat presidential candidate.



The Clinton camp will make good use of this in the coming months, but it's still one to file away for the fall.

Oh, yes. I'm digging this whole "protracted fight" thing. To quote the French guard at the castle in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", "Oh, yes, it's verra nice-a."

Things are shaping up. . .

. . .beautifully for John McCain right now, due in no small part to his handling of the Obama phenomenon. While some conservatives groused about his supposed "mistreatment" of Bill Cunningham in the wake of his comments where he repeatedly referred to Sen. Obama by his middle name, he certainly looks like a virtual paragon of virtue compared to the Hillary supporter who is apparently running around in an "Osama for Obama" t-shirt.

By the time the two Democrat rivals are through with one another, they're both going to be extremely damaged goods, facing an electorate filled with independents who will have come to realize that the two of them represent the same old politics they've deplored for so long, and the final result will leave one half of the Democratic base with an extremely bitter taste in its mouth.

Best of all, by then, John McCain will be the one person in the race who hasn't done a thing to so enrage the supporters of the losing candidate. Not all of them -- perhaps not even a majority of them -- will cross over to vote for McCain. But, a very significant portion of them will, and that will spell doom for whichever candidate emerges victorious from the extremely bloody fight we're about to witness.

(Sigh) Please let this summer last forever. . .

I'm with Rush. . .

. . .on the whole Texas/Hillary thing. Allowing Obama to claim victory right now would free him up to reshape his campaign for the general election by tacking to the center. What we need is more bloodletting between the Democrats. What we need is to have her in the fight for as long as possible. Because, as long as Hillary has a shot in hell, she will continue to find ways to unite Republicans.

Obama simply doesn't inspire the passion among conservatives that Hillary Clinton does. He doesn't have the rich vein of easily mined opposition research material that Hillary Clinton has. He isn't surrounded by the readily remembered bogeymen that she is.

And, as long as Hillary is in the race, she can do much of the dirty work that John McCain would otherwise have to do. Now, McCain gets to sit back and take notes -- watching as the two of them tear each other limb-from-limb.

It's reminiscent of the old, low-budget professional wrestling matches I enjoyed so much as a child: two guys who hate each other beating one another to a pulp using folding metal chairs, foreign objects, illegal holds, and opportunities to engage in all manner of chicanery while the referee is incapacitated after having been knocked temporarily unconscious by a man careening helplessly off the ropes, only to have a "fresh" wrestler who hates both of them come into the ring in his street clothes and whip the tar out of both of them.

Oh, yes. This is going to be good.

I can't believe I'm about to. . .

. . .say this. It is so utterly beyond my ken that I hesitate to even put it into words. I'm hoping that someone will contact me and straighten this out, because the world just seems like an alien place to me at this moment. But, unless it's some kind of joke, Andrew McCarthy has found something to bitch about!!!!

Will someone please email me and tell me this is some kind of satire, or that I'm dreaming? Please???

This is precisely why. . .

. . .John McCain doesn't want folks like Bill Cunningham saying things in his name that create an appearance of prejudice or bigotry: because nothing happens in a vacuum. Imagine the kind of hostile treatment John McCain would be receiving right now if he had embraced Cunningham's rhetoric in Ohio.

"Senator McCain, on Rush Limbaugh's radio show today, a caller related to Rush that her daughter thought Barack Obama 'looks like Curious George,' who is a cartoon monkey. Given your campaign's embrace of Cunningham, and the views expressed by the guests on Rush Limbaugh's show today, don't you think Senator Obama and African-Americans in general have a reason to be concerned that there's a concerted effort to exploit Senator Obama's race by your campaign and some conservative talk radio hosts as a wedge issue?"

Rush did the smart, and right, thing when informed of just what Curious George is and repudiated the remarks. However, I can't help wondering why some of the conservatives who were so enraged with McCain when he repudiated Cunningham's remarks aren't accusing Rush of "throwing a fellow conservative under the bus".

Of all the people. . .

. . .whose remembrances of William F. Buckley I have wanted to read, Jay Nordlinger is in the very top tier. I can't think of a person whose writing style is better suited to pay tribute to the man.

I hope there's someone out there working on a book of collected anecdotes and tales-to-tell by the people in William F. Buckley's life. And, I hope Jay Nordlinger edits it.

Looks like we're in. . .

. . .for the proverbial long, hot summer with regard to the Democrats' nomination process. Suddenly, the media have managed to shame themselves into giving something other than glowing coverage to Barack Obama. Or, perhaps the Clinton campaign finally shamed them into it. In any event, the press has finally decided to at least give the appearance that they're making at least a half-hearted attempt at doing its job.

The Tony Rezko case has to be the only story of its magnitude to have such little build-up since Juanita Broaddrick told her story to Lisa Meyers. And, like the Broaddrick story, it will likely be all but ignored by the ignorati holding forth at our mainstream press outlets. The the extent that it will be touched upon, most coverage will be prepended with an obligatory, "While Obama isn't considered to be a focus of the trial. . ."

Our old pal Howard Dean. . .

. . .has decided to take on John McCain by attacking his integrity. And, really, that's just fine by me. It gives me an excuse to post this hilarious video.

WARNING: Adult language/content.