A freak blamed him for breaking up his favorite band. Unbelievable.

As soon as I heard this story, I knew there was only one blog to consult. Son of Nixon has a brief tribute to the axman, and a round-up of links.

Son of Nixon's not in a joking mode. The guy must have been pretty damn good.

The only good news, I suppose, is that Bob Dylan's getting a reprieve, and SoN will devote all of his energies towards hunting his White Whale, innocuous teenage actor Frankie Muniz.

Posted by: Ace at 10:59 PM | Comments (6)
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So... did Bill O'Reilly jump the shark?

Read Geraghty's summary of his radio interview on O'Reilly and decide for yourself:

I also mentioned that while the original story may have been an error, itÂ’s tougher to say that it was just an innocent mistake to not present the opinions of the forensic experts CBS consulted who said the document wasnÂ’t real, and for misrepresenting Marcel Matley as a forensic expert when his expertise is solely in handwriting. They also didnÂ’t mention that Matley said he canÂ’t verify a photocopy, and CBS only had photocopies of the memos.

(At what point does a mistake in vision become willful blindness? Didn’t Rather himself say “the camera never blinks”?)

OÂ’Reilly said he had covered all of this on his show earlier, and that no one was tougher on Rather than him. Okay.

I said that Rather kept insisting that the memo’s source was “unimpeachable”, which, I added, only told us that the source wasn’t Bill Clinton.

(Bill didnÂ’t laugh.)

“Rather is defending his people,” O’Reilly said, attributing Rather’s actions to loyalty to a longtime employee. (It’s ironic, just last weekend I just watched the last half hour or so of the movie “Shattered Glass.” One of the big themes of that film is the tension of New Republic editors who wanted to defend the reputation of reporter Stephen Glass, in the face of building evidence that Glass’s magazine journalism was largely imaginary. Loyalty to your subordinates is often an honorable trait, but it shouldn‘t be a higher priority than the truth.)

And then O’Reilly denied that he was too easy on Rather or anyone else, because he had reduced Rather “a puddle” when he had interviewed him. And he had interviewed Peter Jennings, and all these other mainstream media figures.

Hmmmm... "just looking out for the folks," Bill? Since when did Dan Rather -- who used transparently false documents to drive Bush out of the White House and then dishonestly used inexpert experts to defend them, all the while accusing his critics (his provably correct critics, let me add) of being "politically motivated internet partisans" -- become one of the "folks" that needed "looking out" for?

Again: did O'Reilly jump the shark?

Let's just say that he made a perfect splashdown just outside the shark pen barely getting his leather jacket wet, to be immediately hugged by Joanie, Richie, Pinkie Tuscadero and Jennie Piccolo.

More... And in The Corner, they're citing O'Reilly and some CBS blowhard whining about that bloggers are exploiting this whole damned "freedom of expression" loophole.

Nice job, O'Fonzereilly. I think you've got three seasons of declining ratings left. Richie was the heart and soul of the show, and he just left to direct Eat My Dust.

Irony is a Bitch Update: So... did Ace of Spades HQ jump the shark, too?

I'm worried it has. I began worrying especially when I read more about Ted McGinley. If you don't know who he is, the link in the title tells you; but suffice to say he's the patron saint of jump-the-shark-ings. If he joins your cast, you've almost certainly jumped the shark. Married With Children, Happy Days, The West Wing...

... and even The Love Boat, where, damn it all, he played a character called Ashley Covington Evans, also known as ACE.

Not even a win in the Wizbang Top 100 Blogs polling can save this site now.

Oh, well. A year is a decent run.

Posted by: Ace at 10:43 PM | Comments (18)
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Talk about bringing coals to Newcastle. By junior year I could have been a TA in such a course.

I entered college with 3 AP credits in "painful six-hour grinding sessions" and I "totally" aced the SAT section on "well-nigh constant self-gratification."

When your Mom asks you what the hell you're doing in the bathroom for an hour and a half, do you say you're "just fixing your hair"? Absolutely not-- that's the Joe Bloggs answer. Not even Heather Locklear spends ninety minutes working on her bangs.

Tell her instead you think you have a virulent stomach flu and that you fear you may vomit. That way, you get her off your tits for ten blissful minutes, and then she makes you hot cocoa later.

So, see, I sorta get the feeling that college students kinda know what they're doing on that score.

Maybe you start, I don't know, making character-building courses mandatory, rather than redefining the core mission of college as sexual evangelism.

Thanks to NickS.

Posted by: Ace at 12:05 PM | Comments (13)
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The typical blather is here.

Two points:

First, whatever our "cherished principles of federalism" might be, there's also the "cherished principle of amending the Constitution." Sometimes it needs to be modified to take into account a changing situation; that's what the amendment process is there for. Our current national income tax system -- and thus the method of funding for our government -- relied, after all, on "violating" our "cherished principles of federalism."

Second, liberal and libertarian commentors deliberately and dishonestly cast this debate in terms of states' rights-- a state's right to institute whatever marriage rules it wants, no matter what the federal government may say.

In fact, this isn't a case of state vs. federal power, but legislative vs. judicial power. Reynolds, Sullivan, and like-minded gay-marriage enthusiasts know that there is little hope for getting gay marriage enacted through the normal legislative -- democratic -- channels, and so they whine endlessly when steps are taken to prevent the judiciary from imposing such "marriages" on a recalcitrant population.

The fact of the matter is that state judiciaries routinely overturn state legislation-- and sometimes they overturn state constitutional amendments, claiming -- rather strangely -- that a state constitution is now in violation of the self-same state constitution. The only way to prevent such state-court law-making is to trump their purported power with an amendment they can't simply dismiss as "unconstitutional." And that requires a federal constitutional amendment.

I suppose we could call their bluff by modifying the FMA to say that no state or federal court has any power to compel civil unions or gay marriage, and that no part of any constitution shall be read as so compelling such an arrangement, and that any judicial opinion which seeks to claim otherwise shall be null and void and without any legal force whatsoever.

It's a compromise I can live with, and it would avoid this bullshit complaint about "states' rights." I can live with that kind of an FMA-- but can Reynolds and Sullivan?

Posted by: Ace at 09:24 AM | Comments (31)
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See especially the last update.

Is there a more clear admission that CBSNews is now an owned-and-operated wing of the Democratic Party?

Posted by: Ace at 09:14 AM | Comments (3)
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They say it's a gag gift, but it sounds serious to me:

Ready to trade that Yo for an Eh?

There are those who insist that smart American travelers should stow their Yankee identity and simply pretend they're Canadians to ensure safe passage overseas.

New Mexico-based T-Shirt King, in fact, is offering a "Going Canadian" kit for $25 that includes a T-shirt emblazoned with the Canadian flag and the phrase "O Canada," a matching maple leaf patch for luggage, a window sticker, lapel pin and a little guide called "How to Speak Canadian, Eh?"

Top Ten Ways To Convince a Stranger You're Actually Canadian

10. When you meet someone, attempt to make absolutely no lasting impression whatsoever; if he can remember your name or face after five minutes, you've given yourself away as a non-Canadian

9. Cultivate interests in Anne Murray, ice-fishing, and slowly going murderously insane during the eternal subarctic winter

8. Practice useful Canadian phrases, like "Let America handle it" and "What I think doesn't matter"

7. Do the research necessary to confidently explain why the Canadian Football League has only eight teams, and two of them are named the Rough-Riders

6. If you see a mouse, immediately leap upon the nearest table or desk while shrieking girlishly; if you are a girl, you must fall to the ground and feign a full-on conniption fit

5. Try to get into the mindset of living your life as an insignificant ice-peon of an irrelevant frostberg

4. As Canadians are painfully aware that the world regards them as shiftless ice-backs living in a no-account snow-ghetto, they are always embarassingly overexcited that anyone outside of Canada knows anything at all about their country; so practice squealing in delight when someone is able to name the capital of Canada, or any city in Canada, or the first name of at least one of the MacKenzie brothers

3. Simply pose as Canadian singer Gordon Lightfoot; don't worry about people challenging you, as no one knows who the hell he is anyway

2. Carry no religious articles on your person whatsoever, except perhaps a small devotional tryptych of Wayne Gretzky holding aloft the 1982 Stanley Cup

...and the Number One Way To Convince a Stranger You're Actually Canadian...

1. Practice the nuances and complexities of Canadian etiquette; for example, if someone embarasses himself at a party by divulging painfully personal information, attempt to make him feel less uncomfortable by immediately slashing your military budget by 40%

But This Isn't a Hate-Site Update: Apologies to my Communist friends to the North. But come on, a lot of your countrymen deserve it.

You're Canadians, after all. You must have developed a sense of humor about yoursleves by now.

How else could you live with yourselves?

Gonzo Republican Update: The Rightwing Nuthouse reminds us of a classic PJ O'Rourke analogy regarding the relationship between America and the rest of the world.

Nuthouse calls it "simplistic." I say it's dead-on. Call me a moron, but I think most things in life can be explained via the analogy of high-school politics.

No one ever gets over it. No one.

Posted by: Ace at 10:10 PM | Comments (59)
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Interesting point: if bloggers live and die by the numbers, why shouldn't those in the Old Media?

Why shouldn't Maureen Dowd's column have a Site Meter on it? Why shouldn't we see precisely how widely-read these people really are?

The media's always for accountability and transparency in every other industry. Why not their own?

And, if E.J. Dionne is attracting fewer readers than, say, Stinky Pete's Fly-Fishing & Extreme Taxidermy SuperBlog, wouldn't Dionne's bosses sorta want to know about that? And maybe look into precisely what it is about this Stinky Pete character that makes his blog so darn hitworthy?

Ratings and metrics come to every industry eventually-- until recently, however, it was impossible to measure the actual readership of columnists and reporters. But now, of course, it's quite possible, and I don't think the news media will resist the economic and business impulse to quantify and count, just as television and radio weren't.

I think the media will be doing just this eventually-- but they will not, of course, share the numbers with the public. Transparency and fully informing your audience go out the window when you're talking about protecting your own.

Hewitt links to this blog, making the same points as I do, only he sorta seems to have made them first.

Posted by: Ace at 10:03 PM | Comments (5)
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There's some email campaigning going on, which is to be expected. But now the feuding breaks out into the open, with Powerline dissing The Corner, and The Corner dissing back.

Note that the word Powerline originally used with reference to The Corner was, apparently, "sucks" -- that's where the edit occurs in mid-sentence. I assume that was the word of choice, because Jonah Goldberg quotes it.

Edited: I sorta weighed in on this one. I've since thought better of it. Let me play Switzerland for once.

No Controversy Here, Though! You should definitely vote -- again -- in the top 100 blogs category.

I really want to win that new car!

Posted by: Ace at 08:14 PM | Comments (14)
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No offense to adherents of traditional religions, but seriously, I think this is one faith-tradition I can really get behind.

The always-reliable Weekly World News presents us with a definite non-scoop:

AFRICAN TRIBE WORSHIPS SALMA HAYEK'S BREASTS!
By Mark Miller

The Mandinka tribe of Gambia, Africa, adheres to a religious practice completely unique to its people -- they worship actress Salma Hayek's breasts!

Completely unique? Ehhhh... Not completely. I think perhaps each of us might favor differing rituals, but the general religion is basically the same.

...

"As a special treat, Chief Tuamanguluka arranged for a movie to be shown here for the first time ever. The movie was Desperado, starring the blessed Salma Hayek as Carolina, a beautiful woman who works for the local drug lord."

When Hayek first appeared on screen, the Mandinkans were blown away by the sight of the 36C-25-37 actress. "Everyone gasped -- men, women, and children," recalls Kianga. "Salma was breathtakingly exquisite. She gave off a force, a light, an energy that came right through the screen and entered our very souls."

Here's the thing: There is nothing in this article yet that is in any way surprising or, indeed, newsworthy.

After that screening, all any of the Mandinkans could talk about was Salma Hayek -- her looks, her spirit, her energy.

Again: Still waiting for the actual news.

...

The Mandinkans found themselves especially affected by the sight of Hayek's breasts, which are often on full display in her movies.

You know, when they presented this story to their lawyers for vetting for possible slander, the lawyer just gave it a quick once over, declared it "absent malice," and then pleasured himself to the dirty parts of Frieda.

"Salma's chest globes are magnificent forces of nature," gushes Kianga. "They are large and firm and perfectly formed. Whenever they appear on screen, it is almost as though they are calling to us: 'We're here. We're here for you. Take power from us. Let us be your energy force. Close your eyes and let us engulf you.' "

In other shocking news, the sun rises in the east, monkeys think it's pretty cool throwing feces at human beings, and Mike Tyson would be a bad choice for an au pair.

Around their necks, the Mandinkans wear stone and wood amulets fashioned as miniature replicas of Hayek's awe-inspiring milk wagons.

Who doesn't?

Okay, "milk wagons" was pretty good, but now this guy breaks out the big guns:

One of the villages has even constructed a giant 37-foot high scale replica of Hayek's sweater puppets.

Heh.

Villagers form a large circle around the statue, hold hands, and dance themselves into a frenzy while chanting the following:

Oh glorious funbags of Salma, Fertilize our fields, protect us, and bring us luck.
Especially we ask for sexual potency from the
Life-changing, awe-inspiring twin peaks of Salma.
Suckle us with your magical orbs,
Squeeze our faces between those luscious flesh mounds, Our strength, hope and joy derive from the wondrous bazongas of Hayek!

They call this a "religious ritual." I call it "every Friday night since I was 26."

Gahiji Ngozi, a 22-year-old craftsman, speaks for the entire Mandinkan tribe when he says, "Worshipping Salma Hayek's breasts has added meaning, direction and wonder to my life."

Gahiji Ngozi, a 22-year-old craftsman, speaks for 95% of the male population, and around 5% of the female population as well.

Thanks to The Unpopulist for the tip, who also offers his own blogging awards, without all the boring nominating and voting. Good to see Son of Nixon get the recognition he deserves.

One tasteful bit of cheesecake beyond the jump. Hey, I'm celebrating my millionth hit. Allow me a little leeway.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 07:45 PM | Comments (17)
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The media seems to regard bloggers with disdain.

But that's only half true.

They regard conservative bloggers with disdain.

Left-wing bloggers get endlessly hyped, and are sought out for commentary for major news pieces.

But they're not liberal. Oh, no. It just so happens that they only want to quote liberals, talk to liberals, ask questions of liberals, and give press to liberals.

But I assure you they're otherwise right-down-the-middle centrist and fair-and-balanced.

Posted by: Ace at 01:11 PM | Comments (19)
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