Just click on the link, and then click on the video. Try NOT to read Dave's explanation of what happens in the video.

Just scan down to the link and hit it. Let the magic just surprise you.

Very funny. Trust me.

And While You're Down There Update: Might as well read this story of a drinking contest that ended rather badly.

A drinking contest? Ending badly? Heavens, what is the world coming to. Next thing you know and they'll have some article up about people doing tequilla shots and then making perfect jackasses of themselves.

Posted by: Ace at 10:29 AM | Comments (6)
Post contains 114 words, total size 1 kb.

By Ace and the unofficial staff of Ace of Spades HQ.

10. Errors in navigation caused by conflict between global positioning system and graph paper (David)

9. Insubordinate gamers often accuse their higher-level officers of "munchkinism" or of being "the DM's pet" (Dave from Garfield Ridge; adapted a little)

8. Too many jeep's wheels have been blown out due to running over a misplaced d4 (Ace)

7. Morele is hurt when players refer to others as "Non-Player Characters" (vonKreedon)

6. Insist on establishing a "marching order" with painted miniatures before every patrol; fights often break out as someome is always stuck with being represented by a Parcheesi pawn or the shoe from Monopoly (Ace)

5. It's not the D&D per se that disqualifies, it's that most gamers can't meet the IDF's prerequisite minimum charisma of 8 (David)

4. Gamers' idea of "intelligence gathering" is going to the local bar, ordering a "mead," and asking the bartender, "So, any interesting rumors and/or opportunities for adventurers?"

3. More selfish recruits ignore the battle plan and go straight after the targets with the "the most experience points" (Patrick)

2. It is simply not a recognized defense to a court-martial that you are Chaotic Evil and simply being faithful to your "character concept" (adapted from Vecna)

...and the Number One Further Reason the IDF Discriminates Against D&D Dorks...

1. Six words: "Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt!" (David)

Beating a Dead Paladin's Warhorse Bonus Entry:

0. Applications from gamers seem to include a suspicious number of "natural 18's" and successful rolls for psionics

Posted by: Ace at 09:54 AM | Comments (7)
Post contains 279 words, total size 2 kb.

I don't know exactly how credible Statfor is, but they have a chilling story about the Ukraine (requires subscription).

I can only quote a little bit, as this is from their premium-content dispatch:

Summary

High-profile deaths, officially declared suicides -- declarations that nobody in the country seriously believes -- seem to be becoming a tradition in post-"Orange-Revolution" Ukraine. These "suicides" probably are the result of a political agreement made to avoid a power struggle between new and old government elites. The cost of achieving this goal likely will be more "suicides," yet these deaths could bring about a power struggle within the current government.

Analysis

Internal Ukrainian politics in the aftermath of the "Orange Revolution" would be fun to watch except for the number of the country's elites turning up dead.

Yuri Lyah, one of Ukraine's richest men and considered former President Leonid Kuchma's personal banker, reportedly committed "suicide" by chopping himself several dozen times with a paper cutter. Kiev medical sources close to the investigation said about 10 of the wounds in Lyah's neck were bad enough that one would have been enough to cause death. Since Lyah's gun was
readily available in his office desk at the time of his "suicide," it is difficult to believe that he chose to inflict several severe wounds on himself in the course of committing suicide -- unless you presume he wanted to torture himself well before dying. Ukrainian law enforcement officials brushed away media questions about the death of the banker -- who, by all accounts, knew too much about how dirty or clean Kuchma's finances were -- and refused to explain what probably cannot be reasonably explained.

Also:

* a minister close to Kuchma also committed "suicide" by gunshot, although witnesses report hearing two gunshots from his home.

* a state security agent "committed suicide" by hanging himself from a position too high to access without a ladder, and yet there was no table, chair, or desk nearby to explain his mysterious elevation.

And etc. Stratfor isn't crystal-clear about this, but it seems to be a case of the old regime taking out those who know too much, rather than payback by the Yushchenko faction. Although that's really just speculation on my part. Stratfor notes that some of these "suicidal" government officials also have potentially damaging information about Yuschchenko.

I had joked a month ago about the payback that would come from the Yushschenko poisoning. But if that's really happening, it's not a joking matter at all.

One more little bit: Yushchenko seems to want to unite the country and co-opt members of the old regime, corrupt or not. Meanwhile, his hot Prime Minister, Yulia Timoshenko, seems to want to go after the old regime and lock up as many of them as possible.

Posted by: Ace at 08:48 AM | Comments (6)
Post contains 472 words, total size 3 kb.

Video pops up automatically; you have to register to view it.

I may have additional numbers in a little bit.

Posted by: Ace at 08:31 AM | Comments (1)
Post contains 44 words, total size 1 kb.

...are collected up at RatherBiased. Click the cartoon for more.

Posted by: Ace at 07:11 AM | Comments (4)
Post contains 26 words, total size 1 kb.

10. Simply cannot satisfy frequent requests that standard IDF uniform be redesigned to include pockets for "material components"

9. Too many fighters add levels in the "Dorkwad" prestige class, reducing their combat effectiveness

8. Still reeling from the tragedy of D&D playin' soldiers who advanced on a terrorist position "protected" by a Prismatic Wall

7. Gamers turn their noses up at standard-issue weaponry, insisting that they deserve +3 Uzis of Vorpal Firepower

6. You try giving a top-secret military briefing to a bunch of giggling geeks who won't stop interrupting you with cries of "It's only a fleshwound" and "Ni!"

5. Known D&D players violate morale-protecting "Don't ask, don't tell" rule; soldiers don't want to have to worry that they're being assigned dangerous missions just because they killed their commander's favorite familiar

4. It just looks bad on television when soldiers kill terrorists and immediately begin looting their bodies for "gold pieces" and/or "magic items"

3. D&D-playing soldiers would complicate peace talks with Hezbollah, who are known supporters of Gamma World

2. After every damn shot they take, they ask "Did I score a critical hit?"

...and the Number One Reason the IDF Discriminates against D&D Players...

1. Keep demanding that they "level up" every time they so much as shoot a rat, despite the IDF's strict rule against running a "Monty Haul campaign"

Posted by: Ace at 01:04 PM | Comments (45)
Post contains 244 words, total size 2 kb.

Democrats are always staunch defenders of a near-absolute right to free speech, except when they're running for something:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday sharply criticized the sex and violence in video games and other entertainment directed at children, calling the prevalence of such images an epidemic.

Mrs. Clinton, a Democrat from New York, also called on industry leaders to create a uniform ratings system that would warn parents about sex and violence in video games, television and other forms of entertainment that children might be exposed to. By contrast, parents now look to a patchwork of ratings systems that differ from one sector of the industry to another.

This is a Dick-Morris-style microinitiative. She's not proposing anything really new; we already have ratings for TV and records and videogames. She just wants to homogenize the various systems.

Which is sort of a good idea. A very, very small good idea. A good, but almost wholly useless idea.

Yeah, there's some minor advantage to having cross-media standardization of ratings; but the ratings, different as they are, aren't exactly as obscure as a Sanskrit translation of Beowolf.

TV-17 means that people under 17 are cautioned against watching this show. "E" meens for everyone, "T" means Teen, and M means "Mature" as far as videogames. And in case you weren't sure what "E" or "T" or "M" meant, it says so right under the big letter.

This isn't exactly bewildering.

Senatrix Clinton then discusses these sorts of warnings in the only manner in which a liberal feels safe in discussing them: as a public health threat, citing "stuides" that show that people who, say, play Half-Life 2 are more likely to start abducting railroad hobos and lobotomizing them into Roger-Miller-singin' humanoid sex-robots:

At a forum held by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Mrs. Clinton cited studies indicating that children who are exposed to graphic images of violence display more aggressive behavior.

"It is a little frustrating when we have this data that demonstrates there is a clear public health connection between exposure to violence and increased aggression that we have been as a society unable to come up with any adequate public health response," she said.

Oh, have a nice tall glass of STFU juice. If you want to play the morality card, be a man and f'n' play the morality card. Don't do it via this double-talk about a "public health response."

Not an outrage. Just a continuing source of annoyance.

I suppose that's her master plan.

Senatrix Hillary Rodham-Clinton For President

No longer a nitrous-oxide fueled bitch-machine on wheels; now just very annoying in an electorally-viable fashion.

Posted by: Ace at 12:19 PM | Comments (20)
Post contains 448 words, total size 3 kb.

A re-post of one expert's opinions on torture. And when I say he's an "expert," I mean he's a professional torturer.

I'll stop reposting this the minute people stop claiming that torture doesn't work.

If you haven't read this, it's compelling, revealing, and, yeah, a little chilling. It comes from The Atlantic Monthly, so there shouldn't be too much doubt about the sourcing and such.

You may still object to torture, arguing that it is simply too immoral to be countenanced.

But as they say, you can have your own opinions, but not your own facts. And the fact is that torture works. It worked 3000 years ago and it still works today.

I am always annoyed by people who wish to make difficult judgment calls artificially easy by simply declaring that one possible option "can't work anyway" or is "ineffective" or "unnecessary" or the like. They say the same thing about racial profiling-- they claim there's not even a utilitarian case to be made for it, as there is no utility to it whatsoever.

We are confronted with a difficult choice. We have a technique which is proven to get results (or at least better results than just shooting the shit with a dedicated religious fanatic trained to resist interrogations) and yet is arguably immoral.

We can argue about that choice, but let's not be childish and pretend that we don't even need to consider that choice because "torture doesn't work."

It does. Deal with it.

Second Verse Same As the First Update: A similar argument made here, noting that Kausfiles, too, is a bit skeptical of the claims that "torture doesn't work."

If it doesn't work, why does the CIA seem to want to try it? Are they simply sadistic?

And as I said:

Of course torture works. Not always, and not necessarily quickly, but take a look at the films of our brave captured Vietnam pilots being coerced into reading anti-American screeds for North Vietnam's propaganda uses.

These were brave and strong men, some of the most disciplined in the world. And they broke. They didn't want to say those horrible things, but there does come a point at which the human spirit fails.

Posted by: Ace at 11:24 AM | Comments (19)
Post contains 371 words, total size 2 kb.

Via Instapundit, a round-up of possible unrest in Iran by Samizdata.

One point: this stuff comes from the SMCCDI, a student movement for reform. They are on the side of the angels, but I've got to say I've found a lot of their previous reports to be, let us say, overly optimistic. Sometimes just plain fanciful.

You can hold mistaken opinions as a blogger or alt-news site, but when you start publishing incorrect facts, credibility suffers big-time. Or at least SMCCDI's credibility has suffered as far as I'm concerned.

I wish everything they say is true. I just don't have much confidence that it is.

Still.

Posted by: Ace at 11:21 AM | Comments (13)
Post contains 114 words, total size 1 kb.

Please sign the petition to ask Sony to knock it off with its silly cease-and-desist order against the most important rock band of the past 30 years.

Beatallica is the canary in the coalmine of the tortured-metaphor for the continued right of untrammelled free expression.

This aggression will not stand.

Note to Others Seeking to Emulate the Amazement That Is Beatallica: When you're doing a fusion thing, try not to pick the two most litigious bands in rock history.

Try, maybe, a Richard Marx/Foghat fusion. I think they'd be happy to just have the recognition.

Update! Allah tips that, despite being generally protective of his copyrights, Lars Ulrich actually supports Beatallica's right to continue doing parodies.

Kick-ass parodies, that is.

I'd Buy That Album For a Dollar Update: Jason thinks it's time for a Rick Astley/Blue Oyster Cult fusion band:

Personally, I think I'll start "Blue Astley Cult" with such songs as "Never Gonna to Fear The Reaper" and "Burnin' Together, Forever."

You know the best thing about it? Rick Astley was a tremendous rocker, of course, but I always thought he needed, how shall I put this?, more cowbell.

He really needed to explore the studio space, and he just didn't.

Posted by: Ace at 10:11 AM | Comments (9)
Post contains 206 words, total size 1 kb.