Charles Darwin gives it two thumbs up!

A British teenager died attempting a leap between two buildings, copying the free-running craze, a British newspaper said Thursday. Free-running, or parkour, was developed in the Paris suburbs in the 1980s. Expert jumpers leap gracefully across rooftops and run along high ledges.

Gee, I wonder why someone would have needed to run like a madman across rooftops in the first place? You don't suppose he was being followed by Inspector Clouseau do you?

By the way, suburbs in France (Froggystan?) have the opposite meaning of suburbs in America. Their suburbs, or banlieues, are decaying slums worse than any ghetto on this side of the Atlantic.

Some other notable attractions of these socialist utopias are:

Independence Day Fireworks

Women's Rights Advocacy

Boy Scout Training

Ace's Update: Say what you want, but these guys make really cool videos.

I've heard of worst past-times in the French slums.

Posted by: Tanker at 08:55 AM | Comments (7)
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WuzzaDem has a parody involving a stick figure.

Posted by: Ace at 08:40 AM | Comments (2)
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A guy broke in to a couple's house five nights in a row to steal the wife's panties.

. According to an affidavit filed in Garfield County District Court, husband Carlos set a trap for Taylor that would have made MacGyver proud. Using only a coffee cup, string, and a bra, Carlos nabbed Taylor (and then beat the intruder silly with a wooden leg taken off his baby's crib).

Thanks to Ron.

Posted by: Ace at 08:38 AM | Comments (13)
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-It's always our fault.

Hey now.
Here's something nobody cares about!
Let's post that on Ace's site.

Its amazing what those bacteria were able to do when there were no humans around to stop them. Because we can stop them you know.
And we can stop ice ages. With our...big impressive weapons and...space crystals and special calming herbs.

UPDATE: Secret CIA report suggests agents have infiltrated a ring of bacteria bent on Earth's destruction....impacting painfully...

Posted by: LauraW. at 06:46 AM | Comments (40)
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So, yeah, some suggested I ask a couple of folks to step in and provide some blogging, when I'm either busy prepping the show or, more likely, painting my extensive army of 25mm fantasy miniatures.

I've asked a few of the people whose tips I post the most frequently on the theory that, hey, if I'm posting 90% of what they send me, I can risk that 10% of non-Ace-approved stuff slipping through.

And I'm pretty sure they won't link to shock sites like Fat Kid would.

Anyway, LauraW. and Tanker will now be posting news items here, and maybe even their observations or riffs, as they see fit. Or until I see fit. Can't let the, ahem, quality of this site fall off too badly.

They'll be the Bones and Spock to my Kirk, the Doc and Gopher to my Stuebing.

As long as they remember there's only one important one on that stage, everything should be copacetic.

Anyway, I hope you welcome them kindly. They've provided an awful lot of the stories I've posted here, so they've already been doing a lot of stuff to make the site interesting and fun, but now they'll be doing it with one less level of painstaking editorial fact-checking and oversight.

Couple of questions you might have:

1) Q: Ace didn't ask me. Does that mean he thinks I'm a retard?

A: Yes. Yes it does.

2) Q: Is Ace retiring or taking off?

A: No, not really. I just think that everyone would probably appreciate just more stories and more content here, and more discussion threads where you morons can completely ignore the story posted and just talk about whatever stupid moroncrap your stupid moronbrains find "interesting."

3) Q: Is this a shameless sham of a self-serving quest to create a Daily Kos-like cult of personality, farming out actual blogging to legions of drooling mindthralls and then reaping some truly crazy blog-money off the efforts of others?

A: Mind your own business. What are you, a cop or something?

Anyway, hope you like LauraW's and Tanker's posts. You've liked them in the past, so I guess you'll probably like the new stuff, too.

Posted by: Ace at 09:41 PM | Comments (42)
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SupportGayJudgeRoberts.blogspot.com.

Hey, I don't make this stuff up. I just link it.

If confirmed, the Gay Judge Roberts would be the first-ever gay justice not named "David Souter."

I keed, I keed.

Thanks to Beth, or, as I call her, "Beth."

Beth (a.k.a. "Beth") also wants you to help bring awareness to Day By Day creator Chris Muir's efforts to promote the thermal ablation method of treating cancer. Chris' sister has cancer, and she's currently undergoing those treatments.

Posted by: Ace at 04:46 PM | Comments (9)
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Joker politics, again.

The funny thing is that these jackasses think they're being daring by glorifying terrorism and "raising questions" about whether or not it's moral to murder innocent civilians.

As regards the circles these douchebags travel in, the truly daring statement would be a firm statement against terrorism. That would draw shocked gasps from the audience and possibly lead to true artisitic martyrdom.

Why is it that daring artistes only want to shake up the assumptions of people outside the theaters, outside their cliquish circle of like-minded "rebels," with their shock theater stunts? Why don't they ever attempt to question the assumptions of themselves, their fellow thespians of outrage, and of their jaded patrons?

They're not questioning the assumptions of anyone actually likely to view this nonsense. They're affirming those assumptions.

You know, I've written a lot of liberal-bashing posts, and never once did I imagine I was challenging the assumptions of my readers. My readers chiefly agree with such bashing; how the fuck is that taking a brave stance?

The only posts I worry about are those where I actually do challenge the general politics of my readership or a specific plank of conservatism.

So... if I understand that, if I a lowly blogger understands that it's not "daring" to simply reinforce the beliefs of one's audience, how come these jackasses are forever braying on about their supposed bravery in "confronting" an audience by reinforcing what it largely already believes?

When the hell has an art patron actually been shocked by some anti-Catholic painting/collage? For the love of Tanner, such fare couldn't be more conventional and less likely to provoke a reaction from a viewer if it were a fucking picture of a puppy and kitten all tangled up together in a ball of yarn with the caption "Can't Wait For Friday!"

Edit: I'm informed this is an American opera, not a British play, as I first headlined the post.

Posted by: Ace at 01:12 PM | Comments (18)
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It seems that (ignored) data-mining found Atta's cell, and it might have found the rest of the crew, too, had we done more of it.

Kaus quotes Heather MacDonald:

It's okay for Home Depot to buy my digitized credit-card receipts, says the privacy "community," to see whether I would be a soft touch for a riding mower. But if government agents want to see who has purchased explosive-level quantities of fertilizer, they should go store to store, checking credit-card receipts. Data-mining opponents would deny terror investigators a technology in common use in the commercial sector, simply because they think government should be kept inefficient to limit its power ....

I grow weary over the hysteria over the claim that the government is going to be looking over all our library records. For the love of everything holy, do you think the government gives a rat's ass that you've read all of the Elfstone of Shannara books? Yes, it's embarassing, and such information could easily lead to blackmail in the wrong hands, but give me a frigging break.

These people act as if the feds are going to come knocking just because you bought an old copy of The Story of O from an eBay second-dealer.

There's libertarianism, and then there's just a sort of goofy solipsistic paranoia. As if most of us are important enough that the feds should dedicate manhours and money to tracking our purchases at Bed Bath & Beyond.

I understand why a lot of left-liberals feel this way -- their political philosphy is largely just a system of self-affirmations, a political/personal reinforcement of the truism that everyone is the hero of his own life's story -- but I don't get conservatives who succumb to this silliness.

Posted by: Ace at 11:40 AM | Comments (41)
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Their title. The article is okay, worth reading I suppose, but it's chiefly worth noting because of that title.

The Guardian really actually had to bring in an outside columnist (from the Financial Times) to make the case that the British didn't deserve two weeks of random violence and mayhem.

Headlines are supposed to be provocative and grabby. The Guardian apparently thinks it's provocative and controversial that terrorism is not justified nor the fault of its victims.

Judging by the sort of filth that gets published in that paper, I figure they do know their audience, and that is, in fact, a interesting debate point among its readers.

Posted by: Ace at 11:29 AM | Comments (5)
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I thought he already played that. In Annie Hall. In The Deer Hunter. In... everyfriggin'thing...

Just kidding. Love the guy.

CHRISTOPHER WALKEN has come clean about what his dream role would be - playing a zombie!

The actor told the Calgary Sun newspaper: "I love zombie movies because they can be any budget.

"I wouldn't mind being in one. I wouldn't have to play a zombie but I find them really interesting."

Christopher Walken and zombies... does it get any better?

I say "Nay." Nay, I say.

Thanks to LauraW, or as I call her, "Miss LauraW," to differentiate her from the black one ("Downtown LauraW").

PS: Did anyone find that remotely racist? The white Julie Brown is "Miss" Julie Brown, and the black Julie Brown is "Downtown" Julie Brown, like she's a freakin' shady informant sitting on a stoop feeding information to Starsky and Hutch (or Simon & Simon; it really doesn't matter).

This was MTV, remember. PC TV. Kurt Loder. Tabitha Soren. All the rest of the chuckleheads.

Maybe they could have been more subtle and called the white one "Good teamwork and highly intelligent player" Julie Brown and the black one "Natural physical gifts" Julie Brown.

Guy Dupree adds:

I didn't think much of it at the time until the 3rd one, the asian chick showed up: the Inscrutable Julie Brown. Offended the hell outta me.

It was even worse when Adam Curry kept telling her she had on an "insidious skirt" or was looking "positively nefarious and crafty."

Posted by: Ace at 10:55 AM | Comments (18)
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