Do *you* know the events behind this painting?

You may recognize it as George Washington crossing the Delaware River. But when did he cross the river? And why?

Historical illiteracy is a shame, for not only is understanding our history vital to knowing who we are, but learning this history is incredibly satisfying.

I just finished David McCullough's latest, 1776. Since I'm a fairly avid reader of history, I didn't learn much in the book that I didn't know already. Yet, I still recommend it highly.

Not because it's definitive, nor because it's academically rigorous-- I recommend it because it's damn good reading.

I know how unusual it is to read a *book* review here at Ace's-- Highlights for Children being more his speed-- so why don't you come on over to Garfield Ridge and learn why I enjoyed McCullough's book so much. . .

Continue reading "The Greatness Of History."

Posted by: Ace at 07:32 PM | Comments (21)
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Just watched a hilarious new reality show on Fox called Hell's Kitchen with this Brit chef who's name escapes me but who seems to be of great notoriety holding a contest for the last chef standing to win his own restaurant. Knowing Fox it is probably an air conditioned Taco Stand somewhere in East L.A., but that is for another day.

This guy, whose name I will stop right now and look up...Gordon Ramsey... is a total jackass and I really like him. The show is typical of Fox Reality Shows and obviously scripted to a great degree, but who cares. This guy gives hard-ass slave-driving executive chef new meaning. His accent is thick and his tongue is sharp. Love him! more...

Posted by: Ace at 06:53 PM | Comments (11)
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This is a simple link. To a blog. Not mine.

It belongs to a blogger, dedicated to arming those who care against the predatory predelictions of those who don't.

In light of this verdict, I link to this, just to remind one and all, that, while our commentary is wonderful, there are others pro-actively involved in the fight in many other ways.

I give you The Lifeguard--one of the most welcome additions to my blogroll, ever.

Posted by: Ace at 02:48 PM | Comments (2)
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Un-fucking-believable. Michael Jackson is an innocent man. This alone should prove to the rest of the world once and for all that the people in California are stark raving lunatics.

Oh well. He will move to some nice indonesian island somewhere and stalk foreign children now.

Update from John: He doesn't have to go anywhere, Jen. He can just park his ass at Neverland and act like nothing happened. Just like he did last time. Parents will continue to bring their children right to his door.

After all, he's Michael Jackson.

Update from John II: Reader brak points out that the morons at DU are celebrating this as a "victory" - There are multiple threads popping up there right now. As brak says: WTF?

Update by Jen: This proves it. California is full of retards. Ranks 43rd out of 50 states for smart folks. Thank God Texas was smarter than California or I would have had to skip this little factoid.

Update by Dave: Well, look on the bright side-- at least Jacko can get back to dating now. I hope he finds himself another nice woman, like Lisa Marie.

P.S. If Jackson will be with us in the free world for a while longer, might as well get back to making fun of him. Let's start with a revisit to this *really* old link (new to Ace).

Update By The Therapist: I'm already making fun of him: Michael Jackson To Celebrate At Chuck E. Cheese.

Posted by: Ace at 01:20 PM | Comments (82)
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Spielberg says new movie reflects post-9/11 unease.

Puh-lease:

Steven Spielberg said on Monday that War of the Worlds, his remake of the classic tale of alien invasion, could be taken as a statement of America's deep unease following the September 11
attacks.

Yada yada yada, blah blah blah, then:

Spielberg said each time the story has been told there has been a larger backdrop. "Today's shadows 9/11. I think the film has found a place in society," Spielberg told a news conference after the premiere in Tokyo.

Spielberg noted that Wells' original story, beyond being science fiction, was a statement against British colonialism. In 1938, Orson Welles famously terrified audiences who believed his radio version of War of the Worlds was a real news item.

I call BS.

I know Spielberg is a typical Hollywood liberal, and I'm sure he'd like to attribute the inevitable success of War of the Worlds to the movie striking some chord with Americans who believe that the Bush administration has "gone too far" in it's response to 9/11.

But he's a huckster of the first order, and he's only playing the role of agitator so that he can get a little of that free publicity that he saw going to Revenge of the Sith.

Look for more detailed analogies soon:

"If you'll notice, the people who are under attack by the alien spacecraft have a real look of 'shock and awe' on their faces."

[posted by John from WuzzaDem]

Posted by: Ace at 12:12 PM | Comments (16)
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I just heard on the Radio they will be announcing the Jackson Verdict in one hour.

Update By Ace: Cool. It's finally over. I'm happy to say I don't think I've written one post about this.

The trouble is-- we all know he did it. But from what little I know of the case, I'm not sure they've really proven much. Only one victim is willing to claim he was molested; the others deny it. And that one victim and his family... well, they're not really a credible bunch.

It will be interesting to see if the jury basically just ignores the "beyond the reasonable doubt" standard and substitutes a different standard, like, "come on, we know this freak is jerking off young boys; who cares if there's evidence for it or not?" Sort of reverse jury-nullification -- just nullifying the actual standard of evidence needed to convict, in a manner that hurts the defendant rather than the prosecutors. (The OJ jurors jury-nullified, I think.)

I think he'll walk.

Update by Jen: I think he probably will as well. I think he will probably get the conviction for giving alcohol to a minor though. That one they all but admitted to doing. Either way I think Jackson will make a bolt out of the country at the earliest possible opportunity. I do not see him just going to prison and taking his medicine and I do not see him staying in the country waiting for the mothers of his children to take them back.

Update By John: Are we talking about the guy who wears the sequin glove and does that "moonwalk" dance?

Update by Jen: Is the Verdict leaked?

I cannot imagine the folks at court tv want this on their site if this comes down other than true. More: This is what I would think a clerk would type up for signature by the judge and jury. Maybe they just posted the guilty forms and didn't post the innocent forms. I doubt he gets convicted on ALL counts.

Update by Dave: Uh, I've got nothing. I was just feeling left out.

Although, if Jacko does go to jail, anyone want to take bets on how soon he gets the "Oz" treatment?

Update by Jen: Final bets folks... I say guilty on a few of the lesser charges. I hope I am wrong.

Not Guilty of Molestation... Not Guilty of anything. Unfucking believable. He needs to call OJ and start a club called, "Thank God for the Assclowns who Serve on LA Juries Appreciation Organization."

Update by John: Jen said it best: Un. Fucking. Believable. Congrats to all the freaks outside the courtroom.

Does this mean that the courts don't give a shit about our kids? Maybe. Or maybe celebrity is more important than the safety of children. But don't think for one moment that the jury would have found someone whose name was Joe Smith not guilty on all ten counts.

Posted by: Ace at 11:37 AM | Comments (21)
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You can either portray vampires as monstrous predators on humanity, and make the humans the interesting characters, in which case you've got a good film on your hands, like Fright Night or any of the Blade movies. (Yeah, I know, "the Daywalker" is a half-vampire or somethin'.)

Or you can make the vampires the angst-ridden anti-hero brooding romantics, in which case you're making a basically shitty movie that appeals to no one but Goth geeks.

Lilkes sucks the life out of the latter sort of vampires:

I hate vampires. They’re just mosquitoes with backstories. Oh, but they’re so romantic, being damned and all! Feh. Women like the Eastern European accents and brooding looks; if most vampires were pale gangly nerds who spoke in falsettos, “Interview With a Vampire” would be one page long, and consist of two questions: have you ever operated a deep fryer before, and can you start Monday? I can’t stand their annoying superiority – oh, you mere mortal, behold me, who is stronger and will live forever, barring any accidents involving photons or stakes. Superior? Well, if it’s a one-on-one match, I suppose, but have you guys ever accomplished anything besides striking poses in red velvet smoking jackets? You’re the worst sort of European: our most compelling advantage appears to be our ready access to antique furniture, over which we may artlessly sprawl in dank mansions. Hey, Fangboy: Ever invented anything? Tell you what: fifty of us against fifty of you. We’ll bring stuff humans have invented. You bring your teeth.

He trashes Underworld in the course of trashing Goth-y anti-hero vampire movies, which is too bad, because while Underworld definitely did play into that whole goofy template, it was still an okay movie.

He mentions a cliche in movies that always annoys me:

You will have some opponent who is physically threatening. And yet humans can go toe-to-toe with them (at the climactic fight), because the humans bother to do things like pick up automatic weapons and grenades, while the monsters continue relying on claws and teeth.

Makes sense for Aliens (they're just large insects with limited intelligence), but not vampires. One thing I like about the Blade series is that apparently Blade's vampiric-opponents have grokked to the whole "ranged weapon" thingee.

The same thing sort of happens in Matrix, with those stupid squid-ships. They're powerhouse war-machines, and they look cool grappling with you and using short-range lasers to carve through your hull, but apparently the super-genius computer running the Machine City never thought to add a couple of Vulcan cannons on to a tentacle or two, or maybe a Hellfire missile launcher.

Star Wars 3 annoyed me similarly with those dumb little robots that would cling to your ship and... explode? No. They would just carve up your wing with very low-powered laser-torches. Kinda dumb to build a weapon that takes six hours to disable even a tiny fighter.

Any monster needs a reason why it doesn't use advanced weaponry. Predator uses some advanced weaponry, and we know why he doesn't use other sorts (he has a code; he is, after all, a sportsman, and like sportsmen, you don't blow up your pray with grenade launchers). Or you're just an animal, like the Aliens. Or you're just stupid, like zombies.

But damnit, if a monster has brains, access to weaponry, and no code restricting it from using same, that monster/robot/squid-ship had better sport some ranged weaponry and stop with this "let me just see if I can get past the machinegun cannons and then hopefully get into hand to hand combat with my otherwise-outmatched opponents" nonsense.

Thanks to LauraW for the tip.

But the Vampire in Fright Night Didn't Use Weapons, Either: Well, sometimes "overconfidence" and "insufferable arrogance" is a (barely) good enough excuse. And let's face it, Chris Sarandon was up against the kid from Herman's Head and f'n' Roddy McDowell -- not the most imposing male figures one can imagine -- so one can understand he didn't really see the need to break out the Glocks to take care of them.

Still... one would think he'd have blocked out sunlight from the windows of his basement lair with something more substantial than black paint. Oh, well. Still a great climax, which works wonderfully the first time you see it. And I guess that's the test.

Posted by: Ace at 11:25 AM | Comments (17)
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by Zelda of The Urban Grind

While Ace gets settled, I just thought I'd put up something in response to hist latest post on Time magazine's anti-American bias.

Unfortunatly, anti-American bias is nothing new in the American MSM. It's just more noticeable now that Newsweek's irresponsible Koran flushing tale sparked riots where about sixteen people were killed. It's great that Ace, and others blog about it. Also, I supposed writing letters to the editors is fine. Yet the only response these editors will give, if anything, is that as journalists, their job is to get to the "truth" without having to worry about something as "trivial" as citizenship.

No, the MSM needs to be hit where it really hurts -- their wallets. Most people don't realize that 95% of a magazines revenue comes from advertising. Newstand and subscription sales may, or may not even offset their mailing costs. I know this first hand since I used to sell magazine advertising.

So a few weeks ago, I started a new blog -- Madison Avenue Maverick which provides the names of Newsweek's advertisers, their addresses, their heads of marketing, and their advertising agencies which place their print media.

Currently, the focus has been just Newsweek. But it may just include Time, and other publications going forward. As I see it, if Terry Rakolta was able to get sponsors to boycott "Married With Children" and if gay rights groups were able to get Dr. Laura's talk show cancelled even before it aired, then I don't see why us ordinary concerned American citizens can't have a similar effect.

So feel free to write these companies and their ad agencies. I mean, we're *all* potential customers of theirs, so it might just work.

Posted by: Ace at 11:20 AM | Comments (5)
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Iranian women are getting cranky. And you know that when women get cranky, women get results.

The protest was the first public display of dissent by women since the 1979 revolution, when the new regime enforced obligatory veiling. "We are women, we are the children of this land, but we have no rights," they chanted. More than 250 marched outside Tehran University, and about 200 others demonstrated two blocks away after hundreds of riot police swarmed in and barred them from joining the main protest.

There were reports that the police clubbed several women, though there were no hospital reports of injuries. Demonstrators said they saw some women being detained and dragged away by officers. But the situation appeared to stabilize, and after about an hour of demonstrating, the women disbanded without further incident.

Has the Protest Babe Phenomenon hit Teheran? I hate to further swipe from Betsy, so I'll just try to tease this bit:

Yet, candidates are aware of the role women can play in their election and have employed young, liberal women to campaign for them in a gesture that suggests they favor more freedom for women.....

The article states that these women are basically politically mercenaries, using sex appeal to sell candidates who talk up reform but do little else.

One hopes that they begin Protest-Babing in earnest. It would help the cause of freedom, and I sure could use another spate of pics of chicks in tight little baby t-shirts.

Posted by: Ace at 11:06 AM | Comments (3)
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Over at James Lileks' new ScreedBlog, he fisks (please, give me another word) Time's latest attempt to claim we're torturing lots of detainees.

Do I think we're torturing some important detainees? We'd better fucking be. But I doubt there's a written policy for those guys; I have a feeling most of those guys are disappeared and never heard from. And tortured by top men, as it were, who do not need guidance from Rumsfeld on how to get tongues wagging, and who will not spill to a reporter.

But as for general interrogation techniques for lower-level detainees: Note that Time thinks it's just terrible -- terrible! -- that our thuggish torturers will occasionally resort to jabbing a recalcitrant detainee roughly in the chest with a finger.

It's fucking madness, people. This is the sort of shit that goes on in every interrogation room in every police station fifteen times a day in America, even with run-of-the-mill armed robbers, drug-dealers, and one-off murderers, and Time breathless reports that we might be roughly finger-jabbing the chests of committed, trained mass-murderers whose every waking moment is dedicated to slaughtering as many civilians as possible.

The Chicago Way Update [Ace]: See-Dubya, who due to some oversight is one of the four bloggers not guest-blogging here, notes the the press isn't from Chicago and just doesn't understand how you take down Capone.

Missing Hat-tip Update: Thanks to NickS. for alerting me to the Lileks item.

Posted by: Ace at 10:16 AM | Comments (13)
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