The blue's all wrong, guys.

Getting the blue right is the hardest part of costuming Superman. You can do whatever red or gold you please, but if you make the blue too light or too pastel he looks, well, gayer than he does already. And Bryan Singer (who is gay, yes, but who is pretty damn careful about getting the main points of a superhero film right) is already going wrong on this baby-blue crap.

The best blue for the Big Blue Boy Scout was in the 70's Superman films, and even that blue looked wrong from time to time. But that was the closest, so just use that, Singer. There's no need to reinvent the wheel.

If you want a different blue, go a little darker and richer. A little. Not that horrid navy Dean Cain wore. The muscles won't show up as well, I'm guessing, but at least Superman won't look like hospital orderly wearing inappropriately tight scrubs.

And lose the glossy shine on the "S" badge, dummies. Do I have to tell you everything?

Finn McCool and KenJ May Have Been Right Update: This other picture, now on Drudge, is closer to the mark, I think:

Well, all right then. That looks kinda good. Not exactly as I envisioned it, but I guess if I just wanted to envision it I wouldn't have to pay $11.00 to see a stupid movie.

Posted by: Ace at 07:13 AM | Comments (40)
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From my limited memory of Catch-22:

"Where's Dunbar?" Yossarian wanted to know.

"They disappeared him."

"Dissappeared him? What does that mean? Where is he?"

"No one knows," Doc Daneeka said. "He's disappeared."

"Who did this? Who are 'They'?"

"They are the ones who disappeared him," Doc Daneeka said sagely. "It's best to not ask too many questions. Because They might be listening."

To borrow from another cynically humorous take on WWII, "And so it goes."

They got Cookie Monster. They disappeared him. He was once in fact a "Cookie" Monster, but...

...not according to the well-meaning social engineers of PBS. After three decades, they’ve announced he’s not a Cookie Monster at all. In the interests of teaching kids not to be gluttons, CTW has transformed Cookie Monster into just another monster who happens to like cookies. His trademark song, “C is for Cookie” has been changed to “A Cookie Is a Sometimes Food.” And this is a complete and total reversal of Cookie Monster’s ontology, his telos, his raison d’etre, his essential Cookie-Monster-ness.

If the Cookie Monster is no longer a cookie monster, what is he? Why didn’t they just name him “Phil: The Monster Who Sometimes Likes to Eat a Cookie”? Conceptually, this is no different than the idiot animal rights types who want their dogs and cats to be vegans, too. Cookie Monster cannot help being a Cookie Monster any more than your tabby can stop liking fish. It is their nature to do so. Why not just declare that Big Bird is now an elm tree? If the ineffable, inexorable, immutable nature of Cookie Monster’s cookie-eating can be erased for some good cause, why should Big Bird’s birdness be safe?

Just keep in mind that these are the same sorts of jackasses who are against teaching abstinence in high school or middle school as an effective way to avoid pregnancy and STD's.

That's just silly, they say. Kids are going to have sex no matter what we say.

But, apparently, if Cookie Monster now acknowleges cookies to be a "sometimes food" to be consumed in moderation as part of an otherwise balanced and nutritious meal regimen, that that, you see, will turn the kids off the cookies and on to, say, brussel sprouts.

Right.

If that will work, why not introduce a new Muppet, "Gina, The Green Hairy Monster Who Believes In Waiting For the Right Man At the Right Time," who can sing songs like "Anything he wants, give him slightly less, and he'll still be happy about it, because he's a horny bastard and will probably have an orgasm if you just wink at his package."

I haven't really worked out the meter or the rhyme. I don't do this for a living. This is all, like, new to me.

Thanks to NickS.

Posted by: Ace at 06:46 AM | Comments (19)
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As Time magazine would ask, were he a conservative, "Is it good for America?:

George Soros told a carefully vetted gathering of 70 likeminded millionaires and billionaires last weekend that they must be patient if they want to realize long-term political and ideological yields from an expected massive investment in “startup” progressive think tanks......building an ideas
production line for liberal politicians...refer to themselves as the Phoenix Group...Rob Stein, a veteran of President Bill ClintonÂ’s Commerce Department and of New York investment banking, convened the meeting of
venture capitalists, left-leaning moneymen and a select few D.C. strategists on how to seed pro-Democratic think tanks, media outlets and leadership schools...

Senior Democratic National Committee (DNC) officials were quietly briefed about the meeting in recent weeks. DNC Chairman Howard Dean was aware of it... one senior DNC source said the organizers “kept that list [of attendees] kind of tight.”

I guess that doesn't count as "illegal coordination," right? No, let's keep investigating Tom DeLay's golf trips.

Why isn't the right doing this? I know we're in power now, but 1, you have to spend to recruit new talent if you want to stay on top and 2, damnit, if Soros keeps pouring money into liberals, I just might find myself saying, "You know, Nancy Pelosi really does have a point, whatever the hell it is she's talking about."

...The Democracy Alliance will act as a clearinghouse and is expected to channel much of its money to new organizations and existing ones such as John PodestaÂ’s Center for American Progress and David BrockÂ’s Media Matters for America...

Great. Make sure O-Chubb gets kept flush in Filet-O-Fishes while I have to scrimp just to get that cheese on my Whopper.

...

Participants were tight-lipped, saying they wanted to keep media expectations low...

Probably a sound idea. Because this isn't going to work. Because the fundamental problem is that while soft-liberalism has a good amount of popularity, it's still not quite as popular as center-rightism, and, even worse, the Democratic Party is prevented from playing its best game (that is, soft liberalism) by hard left socialists like Soros and Michael Moore.

Other participants included former White House press secretary Mike McCurry and New Democrat Network president Simon osenberg...Ingersoll said funding transparency is a priority, which she said would contrast with some
right-wing groups...But transparency was not on display among the Scottsdale participants contacted by The Hill...One source at the DNC with direct knowledge
of the agenda said that the Phoenix Group had three specific goals at the outset. It wants to create liberal think tanks, training camps for young
progressives and media centers...

“This is bigger than that,” the DNC source said.."

The bigger they are, the more fun it is to laugh at them when they fall on their faces.

Thanks to RCL, who wants to know if the left will finally cop to the "Vast Left Wing Conspiracy" charge.

Or call it a cabal. That sounds more sinister. And the Wiccans will appreciate the hat-tip.

Posted by: Ace at 06:37 AM | Comments (21)
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There's a blog-tag kind of game going around the Internet, where you're supposed to name five things you hate that everyone else loves, and then pass it on to other people. I've avoided answering one of these in the past (I think it's a little blog-cliquey), but I answered over at AriGoesDown and then realized that, hey, I've got a lot of hate in me and I don't mind sharing it.

This is a narcisstic post and contains crude language (turning off my f-bomb censor), so unless you give a fig about what I hate and the vile language I'll stoop to in expressing that hated, move on the next post. more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:16 PM | Comments (117)
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Okay, still thrashing about for a name. But now I'm fixated on the idea that there should be an X in the title-- X Factor, Frequency X, something like that.

The ideal name would be something a little science-geeky, like Variable X, except that that sucks, or have some sort of subtle (not cutesy-poo) double meaning.

Come on! There are thousands of you! One of you retards must have a good name in you, sitting somewhere in that rotten crap-organ you laughingly call a "brain"!

You guys are always hitting me with esoteric knowledge about medicine, engineering, military tactics, etc. And JeffB., that pussy, corrects every minor little spelling error I make. And yet no one can come up with a good name? (A name that does *not* include the word "fuck" -- I didn't think I had to specify that, but, then again, I'm waist-deep in morons here.)

Something with an X. Come on, come on. I know someone's got the perfect name.

Stop the Madness X Update: Okay, X just sucks. I get it. If you've got a good idea for a title, by all means share. But you can stop with the X titles now; everyone thinks it's stupid, and I guess at this point I agree.

I am considering a swipe from Son of Nixon. "A Bazillion Monkeys Running Amok in My Pants," which he thinks is the funniest possible sentence (well, dependent clause, really, before JeffB gets up my nose about it) possible in the English language.

"Or then again, no," as Sir Elton John would say.

Posted by: Ace at 04:13 PM | Comments (249)
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What happens when Michele from ASV, Jeff Goldstein, and Bill from InDC get together on Rightalk?

It's the train wreck I wanted to deliver but didn't quite manage.

The beginning is sort of boring. But just stay with it. Don't worry; it's not long. It ends with a longer string of f-bombs than I intended and then a hang-up.

Eeeeesh.

Prank? Not sure.

Survey Says: Punk'd. The comments at Michele's seem a little more lighthearted and flirty than one would expect after a bona fide on-air meltdown.

Note to self: Idea to start off show with wacky radio pranks will have to wait.

For a couple of weeks.

Little Yellow Man In My Head Update: Parody of my appearance on last week's show...?

There's a voice in my head that tells me sometimes "Ace, everything is not about you," but I tend not to listen. Because he's got some sort of an agenda and he's out to get me.

Posted by: Ace at 01:56 PM | Comments (49)
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SondraK is campaigning to be my t-shirt babe, although, seriously, there are no more shirts to peddle.

She sends me this pic of a gal who really "gets" the Ace of Spades LifeStyle (TM). Not Quite Safe For Work; no nudity, but weapons-grade cheesecake.

Posted by: Ace at 12:15 PM | Comments (28)
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And it's strange to say this, but I join with every other conservative New Yorker (there are eight of us; not even enough to field a softball team without inviting in a couple of libertarians who only ever want to talk about smoking pot in lighthouses) in saying, "I'm hoping we lose five."

A Plea From New Yorkers

Take our votes away from us before we do some serious harm. We're f'n' bonkers.

Posted by: Ace at 12:01 PM | Comments (13)
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Welllll... not really. Just trying to get the New York Times and Washington Post interested.

Actually, it's Democratic Senators trying to kill the investigation into Clinton-era hijinks:

Senate Democrats are quietly trying to kill a 10-year legal probe that implicates several senior Clinton administration appointees for obstruction of justice, the Daily News has learned.

The Democrats, saying that the $21 million investigation by Independent Counsel David Barrett should have ended long ago, succeeded in attaching an amendment to a spending bill Tuesday to cut off his funding by June 1.

But two sources close to the investigation said that if the legislation becomes law, it will thwart Barrett from making public a final report that names senior officials in the Clinton Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service who allegedly buried a tax fraud case involving former cabinet member Henry Cisneros.

"It's about obstruction of justice," said one of the sources. "People are willing to take drastic actions to kill this report."

The Democrats want to do this "quietly," and their poodles in the MSM hop-to.

Shhhhh. Be very quiet. Democratic skullduggery is afoot, and we don't want to make any loud noises which might wake the public.

Posted by: Ace at 11:48 AM | Comments (5)
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He might have phrased his meaning a bit more accurately and more tactfully, but for crying out loud, this is the guy who couldn't articulate the simple line "Then consider this a divorce" in Total Recall.*

As Mickey Kaus has been saying, there is an awful lot of political goodwill to be scooped up by anyone with the guts to say what a majority of Americans believe.

Once again: Immigrants-- not bad
Illegal immigrants -- also not bad, although acting illegally (in an understandable fashion)
Honest debate over this issue -- required; and if it takes a goofy muscleman to start it, that's fine by me

* And they actually showed that line in all the commercials for the movie, and even after hearing it six billion times, I still wasn't sure what the hell he was saying.

Gob-Smacking Stunner Update: I forgot to mention. You were probably all on tenterhooks wondering about the Democrats' reaction to Arnold's statement. You were all scratching your heads thinking, "Gee, what way will they come down on this? It's so hard to guess."

Well, be perplexed no more.

Democrats were quick to react to the governor's statement with outrage.

I hate to be all, well, male and everything, but you know, just because you say things like "I'm outraged" or "gob-smakingly vile" and all that juiced-up emotional language... well, what the hell does that really count for? Who cares about someone's emotional reaction to a statement?

Yannow?

If the Dems want to de-feminize themselves and maybe get a bigger share of the male vote, it would behoove them to stop going into histrionics worthy of He Who Shall Not Be Named.

Who has time for this kind of drama?

The Democratic Party

We're bitchy and high-maintenance. Now run out to the store and buy us some bon-bons or we'll call up our sisters and say bad things about you.

Posted by: Ace at 10:54 AM | Comments (16)
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