That first Firefly episode Christina Hendricks was in, Our Mrs. Reynolds, was built for Freudian explication: First, the ship, Serenity, is obviously shaped like a penis--because the show is, essentially, Mal Reynolds Swaggering Dick in Space. Saffron uses her feminine power to defeat Mal and other crew members. She tries to seduce Mal, and when he eventually gives in, she knocks him out with a poison kiss. Saffron disables the ship and sets it on a course to pass through a large gate or orifice, a figurative vagina, that will kill everyone inside, and she escapes. Saffron wins that round. But Mal and the crew win round two, partly because Saffron's feminine power is useless against Inara, who also has it.

While the ship is coasting toward the gate, they hatch a plan to disable it with a huge rifle (another phallic symbol). Jayne shoots the gate at the last second--shooting the rifle from waist level, like a large penis. The gate is disabled, and the ship is able to pass through unharmed. The people in charge of the gate die instead. There is a long shot of the ship passing through the gate.

So the ship's predicament is mirrored by the conflict within the ship--but with a different outcome.

In round three, Mal catches up with her. She immediately tries to seduce him again, but he has learned about her evil power and punches her in the face to knock her out. Then Mal goes back to "the good feminine power," Inara. more...

Posted by: rdbrewer at 05:16 AM | Comments (427)
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I guess I didn't telegraph this enough, but I was kidding when I said I might not "hit" Christina Hendricks.

I mean: Seriously.

It looks like two polar bears in a Greco-Roman wrestling match.

I didn't have an "I'd hit that like..." joke so I went the other way and pretended she wasn't hot. I thought it would be obvious I was kidding.

I've written fan fic for an attempted Firefly spin-off series I call Saffron: Intergalactic Space Whore (Moderate Content Warning).

I know I didn't telegraph this because people are still asking, "Dude, do you not think she's hot?" So it's on me.

So, for the record: She's hot.

I'd hit that with the berserker fury of a dozen Norsemen. I'd hit that so hard she'd sing the aaa-aaa chorus of The Immigrant Song.

I'd hit that I like I turned a Bag of Holding inside-out and dropped it into a Portable Hole.

Hitting that would fill me with such transcendental bliss the final three seasons of Lost would seem like time well spent.

I'd hit that so hard Disney would make an amusement ride out of it, and then, 20 years later, they'd make a series of four increasingly-tedious films about it starring whoever plays Johnny Depp in the year 2031.

I'd hit that so hard Dominique Strauss-Kahn would turn to me and say, "That was completely out of line." I'd hit that so hard Bernard Henry-Levi would convince Barack Obama to launch a limited kinetic action against my nards.

Posted by: Ace at 08:48 PM | Comments (574)
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My apologies up front but this is a short notice ONT. As Maet says, the show must go on so here goes.

A mail carrier who was caught using a yard as his personal toilet will not be fired.

Kinda explains this story. The US Postal Service Staggers Near Collapse. I can't believe it would take someone 3 years to figure out what ails the Postal Service.

Congress gave him until the end of 2011 to report on the USPS's woes. But Herr and his team concluded that the postal service's business model was so badly broken that collapse was imminent. Abandoning a long tradition of overdue reports, they felt they had to deliver theirs 18 months early in April 2010 to the various House and Senate committees and subcommittees that watch over the USPS. A year later, the situation is even grimmer. With the rise of e-mail and the decline of letters, mail volume is falling at a staggering rate, and the postal service's survival plan isn't reassuring. Elsewhere in the world, postal services are grappling with the same dilemma—only most of them, in humbling contrast, are thriving.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:22 PM | Comments (886)
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I don't know what this thread is about, but some people wanted a music thread.

I don't really listen to music. I'm not into "pleasure."

What I'm mostly into is spite. Spite, and envy, and hate.

Posted by: Ace at 04:19 PM | Comments (751)
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She'll be taking a bus tour of the nation's historical sites, she says.

Starting in Washington DC on Sunday, Mrs Palin, the former Alaska governor and Senator John McCain’s vice-presidential running mate in 2008, will travel up through New England, “through our nation’s rich historical sites” in the coming weeks, she announced on her website.

...

The trip, which will propel Mrs Palin back into the limelight after several months of relative anonymity, follows a number of other moves that suggest that either she is serious about a presidential bid or simply attempting to burnish her celebrity appeal.

“Our nation is at a critical turning point,” Mrs Palin said in a statement. “As we look to the future, we are propelled by America’s past. It’s imperative that we connect with our founders, our patriots, our challenges and victories to clearly see our way forward.”

The Telegraph suggests it's a several month trip, which seems incompatible with also gearing up for a run, but I keep being told she's tearing up the rulebook and stuff so I guess why not.

T-Paw made a mistake, I think, in suggesting he was getting tired of speculating about Palin, because he wants Palin's supporters, obviously, and has to share their interests.

“Who knows? I don’t know if she’s running or not,” Pawlenty said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” during a campaign stop in New York City. “We need to quit worrying about polls and bus tours and get onto the issue of how we’re going to fix the country and get the country back on track.”

It's a deflection back to the issues but the problem is the supporters he needs to court believes Palin is the way to get the country back on track.

This is going to be tough for others, if she runs. Her supporters take a dim view of anyone who attacks her, but you have to attack an opponent, right?

Hysterical Jag-Off Andrew Sullivan Makes A Funny: Safe link to Weasel Zippers. Don't click on that -- yet.

First, guess: What does Andrew Sullivan suggest Palin's quasi-campaign film is like?

Got it?

No wait-- don't get tricky or clever. Don't outsmart yourself, dude.

Think of the stupidest, most kneejerk, most obvious, 3am losers arguing in an AOL political forum idiotic comparison you can make. No Sergei Eisenstein. Let's be a little less know-it-all and a little more automatic bumper-sticker reflexively stupid, okay?

Got your guess now? Okay now click and confirm you're correct.

There is tendency attributed to bloggers. That they shoot from the lip, are hysterical rather than measured, emotional rather than analytical.

There is truth in that. But oddly, the blogger the Make Believe Media has chosen to elevate to the status of Important Pundit is the one blogger who exemplifies the worst of the stereotype of bloggers as obsessive, crazy cranks with too much time and too little sobriety.

Thanks to a commenter, who suggests I'm "onside" with Sullivan re: Palin, and since he says "onside," I must conclude he is a damn foreigner. Most likely British, though I will go as low as "Canadian."

Posted by: Ace at 03:16 PM | Comments (288)
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Again, I do not know why this is the comeback rather than the lead attack.

But either way, this is the message.

Media Thesaurus:

Republican Spending = "spending"

Democratic Spending = "investments"

Republican Cuts = "cuts"

Democratic Cuts = "reforms"
more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:40 PM | Comments (170)
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She says that on dates Sarah Palin will "literally come up within the first 20 minutes." And that takes her out of the "mood."

Well... um... like that's every quote-unquote column you write, and that's your quote-unquote job, and...

You seem to weirdly blame Sarah Palin for everything in your life...

And... you just brought up Sarah Palin without prompting in answer to a completely unrelated question...

And... so.... I sort of have a feeling that it's you bringing it up....

So...

Eh. My comment on this will be chivalrously vague.

Magic Plausibility 8-Ball on this theory:

IF THAT MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER.

Posted by: Ace at 01:20 PM | Comments (361)
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2.5%? Right, that's what I thought.

Wait-- You said 25%?!?! One in four? What?

Ehhhhh... I'll tell ya, we do wind up spending 25% of our time discussing gay issues.

But 25% of the population? Seriously? A quarter of the country is gay?

Gay as in "homosexual" or gay as in "that's gay, man"? Definitely, okay, 25% is gay as in "dude, stop being gay, I don't need to see a replay of every gimme 5-yard gaywad pass you make on this drive."

Oh you meant "homosexual."

Magic Plausibility 8-Ball says "TRY AGAIN."

I think it was after the Florida gay rep, the one who was hitting on interns, another male blogger said to me, "Do you realize we're like one of the eight straight men in the Republican Party?"

And I said, "Shut up, I'm not paying you to talk, I'm paying you to dance sexy for my pleasure."

Sometimes the American public believes things that are almost as goofy as West African belief in witches stealing men's penises, Iranian belief in sorcery, genies, and Magic Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man Mahdis, conservative belief that World Net Daily is an actual news site, or French intellectuals' belief that Dominique Strauss Kahn is not a serial rapist.

Homosexuals, The 25% Minority

Take a look at the commenter above you.

Now take a look at the commenter below you.

Now go watch your Criterion Edition copy of Rent, because you're a homo.

Posted by: Ace at 12:34 PM | Comments (325)
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Wishcastin' William catches Paul Ryan stating his disinterest in the presidency with three uses of the words "right now."

Like when Dominque Strauss Kahn says "I'm not sexually assaulting you, right now."

But that doesn't mean anything. Like Chris Christie, sure, he's thinking about it. He must be.

But in 2012, or 2016? Almost certainly the latter.

And similarly, Dominque Strauss-Kahn will be sexually assaulting you in the next few months or so-- Oh wait, there he goes. He's sexually assaulting you.

Posted by: Ace at 11:47 AM | Comments (106)
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That statement? "Die in a fire."

A man who'd raped her 13-year-old daughter was let out on...a three day pass.

She objected.

Antonio Cosme Velasco Soriano, 69, had been sent to jail for nine years in 1998, but was let out on a three-day pass and returned to his home town of Benejúzar, 30 miles south of Alicante, on the Costa Blanca.

While there, he passed his victim's mother in the street and allegedly taunted her about the attack. He is said to have called out "How's your daughter?", before heading into a crowded bar.

Shortly after, the woman walked into the bar, poured a bottle of petrol over Soriano and lit a match. She watched as the flames engulfed him, before walking out.

The woman fled to Alicante, where she was arrested the same evening. When she appeared in court the next day in the town of Orihuela, she was cheered and clapped by a crowd, who shouted "Bravo!" and "Well done!"

The punchline is: He died of systemic shock due to severe third-degree burns suffered by full-body immolation. Ba-dum-dum-tssss.

The woman is undergoing "psychiatric evaluation" and may be prosecuted for murder, or as I like to call it in this situation, "murder."

Her friends and family are asking for her to be released. I think this is an easy call. The state psychiatrist just has to say "temporary ten-minute insanity," and everyone agrees to believe that, and they let her go.

But we really know what's going on. What she did was actually justified, but the law can't admit that, so we'll just say one-time acute psychotic break and be done with it.

Damn It All: I did not check the date. This story is from 2005.

That is old, even for me.

Thanks to joncelli for that.

Related News: Hey, did anyone notice there's been a lot of shark attacks lately?

Might as well link that, since I'm linking seven year old news.

Resolution: Since this story is set around the Age of Sail, I can report the ending now.

The woman was pardoned and set free.

Since This Is A Wasted Post: I don't usually link current pop music, but I have to make an exception for the "Spice Girls," I think they're called, and this song "Wannabe."

I think it'll be a hit. But that's an easy call. I will go further: I think this Fab Five has something called "staying power," and will be remembered with the greats, like Elvis, Bob Dylan, and Cat Stevens, who, by the way, I also predict will not become some kind of weird Islamofascist recluse.

Posted by: Ace at 11:06 AM | Comments (285)
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