From where he posts his blog. Well, no wonder!

In case you care, the numbers identify his various housemates. 1 = "Ellison," 2 = "Wilson," 3 = "Thomas Ellers," 4="Rick Ellensburg," 5-8 = as of yet unidentified devoted fans/housemates of Greenwald's.

0 is of course Greenwald himself.

From Dorkafork at Bill from INDC, who also has Kevin Smith (who I don't really like) describing his odd meetings about writing a Superman sequel with the moron/hairdresser Jon Peters.

By the way: Smith can rip into the previous scripts, and Jon Peters idiotic (and money-grubbingly mercenary) ideas for the movie, but I've read what is purported to be Smith's Superman Lives script, and it is the most amateurish, fan-boyish piece of crap I have ever read in my life.

I have to throw a cautionary note on that, though, because it was so amateurish and so fan-boyish that I suspect it might have just been an amateur fanboy writing it, then slapping Kevin Smith's name on the top.

But there were a lot of links in the Internet tubes claiming this was Kevin Smith's "great" script, and you know, the Internet tubes don't lie.

PS: While I'm not a big fan of Kevin Smith's movies, I do like one movie he "did," An Evening With Kevin Smith, a compilation of his college speeches where he trashes Hollywood mercilessly. The man gives good embarassing anecdote.

That's where that bit about Jon Peters/Superman Lives is from. (Superman Returns was known in development as Superman Lives for a long time.)

Now, if you're a fan of Kevin Smith, or Prince, or just like hearing very embarassing stories about celebrities, check out this long, long, long but very funny four part rip on the weirdness that is Prince.

I know, you're thinking, "I already knew Prince was weird."

Oh, dear. Darlings, you don't know the half of it.

Here's one short anecdote. Prince's assistant complains that Prince lives in "PrinceWorld," and doesn't understand that some things are simply impossible. He will call her at 4 AM in the morning and say, "I want a camel, now," and she will have to argue with him that it is difficult to arrange a camel purchase and transport (and stable) at 4 AM in the morning.

Another one: At a debut party for an album, Prince asks who among the crowd has accepted Jesus as their Savior. He then divides the room up into Christians and non-Christians. Then he says, "All the women in the non-Christian section, go over with the Christians, because the Bible says that Christians can take women away from the non-Christians."

True fact. It's in the Bible. The New Revised Prince Bible, but still.

Posted by: Ace at 12:29 PM | Comments (19)
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Okay. Here is The Artist Formerly Known As George Michael. Not as cute as in his "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" days to be sure, but still passable.

Here is the dude he was caught "snogging" with and "cannoodling" and also "fondling," and no, I'm not kidding.

George Michaels does not, it seems, follow Chris Klein's rule of only screwing 8's and above. George Michaels, quite obviously, does indeed placate.

You must go to the full story, which can be found at JunkYardDog Blog.

Michaels screamed at the papparazzi, saying, and again, this is not a joke:

In a sweat, the ashen-faced singer declared: "Are you gay? No? Then f*** off! This is my culture!"

His public-park paramour said (did I mention? not a joke

"OK, I admit I was there for sex. But I'm astonished a man as famous as George should even think about doing it. It's potentially so dangerous."

Somewhere, in a somewhat shabby apartment in a not particularly elite neightborhood of London, Andrew Ridgely is sitting back in deepest contentment, sipping a Foster's, and thinking, "Life is good. Life... is damn good."

Okay, that part was a joke. But here's the thing: Is there a one among you who will be me a thousand dollars it's not one thousand percent true?

Flashback: Top Ten Signs That You, George Michaels, Should Probably Just Give It Up Already.

Note that links to the old blogspot site are sketchy, and may leave you way above or way below the actual location of the article.

Posted by: Ace at 12:03 PM | Comments (35)
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Uh-huhhhh...

"If I was president, this wouldn't have happened," said Kerry during a noon stop at Honest John's bar and grill in Detroit's Cass Corridor.

Of course, my headline is a pale imitation of Bryan's from Hot Air, Kerry: I Can Control The Wind And The Waves And Iran's Terrorists.

He has a breakthrough new plan for resolving the 50 year old war, occasionally punctuated by brief outbreaks of peace, in the Middle East.

One word: Pudding.

No, wait, that's just something he likes to dip his balls in.

One word: Diplomacy.

I think I'm going to use this miracle solution "diplomacy" to try to get out of paying my rent this month.

I mean, we come at this from entirey different points of views with entirely irreconcilable agendas-- they want their money; I don't want to pay it; they want their apartment kept in a more or less pristine state; I want to sell off the oven, refrigerator, and doorknobs for crack -- but I'm sure through the magic process of diplomacy we can bridge our differences with pathways of understanding in gazeebos of harmony festooned by daffodils of peace and primroses of respect and, you know, other gaywad shit of this nature.

Posted by: Ace at 11:28 AM | Comments (30)
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Some people ask if it's permissible to track-back an article, or even add someone to a blogroll. Chad didn't know it was permissible to send other bloggers emails promoting an article on their site.

So here are "the rules," at least as I understand them:

1) Bloggers appreciate emails tipping to stories. I know I do. There are a couple of cautionary notes here:

a) Don't flood bloggers with emails pimping marginal pieces. Send out your best stuff. Or the most interesting stories you find.

b) Please, please, please, for the love of everything holy, DO NOT just link a story which has already been linked by Drudge or Instapundit and expect a link to your site. "Finding" a story on Drudge or Instapundit and wanting a link for it is much like an astronomer wanting credit for the discovery of a new heavenly body, tentatively called "The Moon."

c) You may also want to send along tips to stories with no request to a link to your own blog, i.e., just send the URL of the actual story. However, this is by no means necessary. If you found it, and you alert the blogger to it, I think it's fair for you to get a link right to your site, where people can then click on the whole article, if they want to read more.

2) You don't have to ask permission to track-back. It's always permissible. I have never heard of someone saying "How dare you track me back." If someone really finds you objectionable, I guess they can always delete the trackback. As I suspect Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Greenwald do.

a) But you can't trackback on my site, because trackbacks are hopelessly fragged.

3) You also don't have to ask permission to blogroll someone. It's an honor, and it always helps one's standing in the ecosystem, which some people care about.

4) On the other hand, it's kind of a dick move to ask someone for a "link exchange." That's a quid pro quo, and most people don't appreciate that. It's better to just blogroll the blog you like -- if you like them, you should link them, whether it's reciprocated or not -- and then send them an email informing them they've been blogrolled, and maybe they want to check out your site.

Little story: A while ago I realized I didn't have Iowahawk on my blogroll, and he didn't have me on his. I began a letter to him suggesting a link exchange. Then I realized how dickish this was, so I just added him, then told him I'd added him and invited him to add me. He did.

a) But bear in mind that the bigger the blogger, the more of such requests he gets (often from people who have never even read his site, but have just seen it was a big blog on the Truth Laid Bear ecosystem).

b) It might help to mention you are, in fact, a reader of the site, and kind of signal that by mentioning the blogger's interest/schtick/style. You don't have to kiss ass, just prove you are actually a reader, not a random person looking for a link. Bloggers usually want to help their readers; random dudes on the internet, less so.

c) Also keep in mind that being blogrolled is no big deal. Starting bloggers think if they can just get on the blogroll, then the hits will start rolling in. That's what I thought when I started. It's not true. You get hits from people linking your blog in a post, not by having a link in the blogroll. People usually don't even bother with blogrolls-- they have their own favorites bookmarked on their own computers -- and they almost never just randomly click on a blogger's blogroll just to "check a new site out." Getting blogrolled is a cosmetic thing that will goose you in the ecosystem, but it doesn't expand your audience, and no one except bloggers keep tabs on the ecosystem either.

I am told that being blogrolled puts you up in Google and Yahoo searches a little, but trust me, those searches are bullshit hits by people who will almost certainly never come back to your website again.

5) Sock-puppetting to create a false impression of widespread popularity is frowned upon, unless you're a rabidly left-wing blogger, and you have a Magic Boyfriend living in your Rio pad you can conveniently pin it on.

Well, that's all I can think of at the moment. If you have anything more questions about netiquette, I'll answer them.

The Biggest Rule of All: Rule Zero: When excerpting another blogger's work, do not post most of it or "take the heart" out of the piece and put it on your own site. What is left, then, for the reader to read on the original writer's site?

You should tease a piece, quote some good stuff, but not all the good stuff; be mindful that if someone wrote something good, he'd like a little traffic off it, and will not appreciate you simply posting almost the entirety of his piece on your own blog.

When quoting an MSM article discovered or at least brought to wide attention by a blogger, you can quote a little more, but still, bear in mind, the blogger who found it has earned some traffic for his news-scouring skills, and you should still leave enough of the article behind so that someone has a reason to click-through to it.

I'll tell you, nothing pisses me off more than seeing an entire Top Ten of mine posted on another blog with a simple "Via Ace" link at the end. Gee, thanks. You just posted the entire list. Why would anyone now click on that link to read more?

This is a difficult thing to do. You have to balance a couple of things-- you want to inform your own readers and put up a nice quote for them to read, but on the other hand, you don't want to just completely rip someone else off and post most of the substance of his piece on your site. It's a balancing act, and sometimes you fail.

If you're in the situation, which comes up a lot, where you almost can't quote anything without stealing the heart of the piece, you have three options:

a) Just digest the piece and provide the link to the quote or the piece.

b) Do an Instapundit-style blind-link that just says "Heh" or something. In my experience, these aren't very good links, because people have to know what they're gonna get before they click.

c) Post the quote, even if it does steal the heart from someone's find, but make damn-sure you then scour the site for something ELSE interesting to click on, and then tease that at urge your readers to click on it.

This is a tricky one, and sometimes you'll find you've gone too far and pretty much stolen something from someone. I know I do from time to time. If that happens, bear in mind you owe someone a prominent link in the very near future.

Another Common Situation: What if you find an MSM article just quoted and linked with little analysis on a blog, and you want to do a longer, more thoughtful, more substantive piece on the article? Do you still have to leave all the good quotes behind at the blog you found it on?

I think the answer is "No." Here, you have in mind something more ambitious than the original blogger did; for him it was a throwaway link, for you, it's the basis for something approaching an essay. In that case, you can link directly to the original article and quote from it to your heart's content.

However, you should still hat-tip the blogger at the end, and you should still look for something else on his site to link to with a nice, juicy tease so that he'll get some traffic off your post, even if not for the original bit that caught your attention.

Since I never write long, thoughtful, substantive pieces, I never run into this situation myself, but I'm informed it does happen.

Incidentally, I "stole the heart" of that Muslim's Letter to His Fellow Faithful piece. I did take care, however, to really tease the site I got it from at the end, with promises of boobies and heinies which I knew, in all likelihood, would send a lot of traffic to the guy.

Again, it's an art, not a science.

One More Thing: When sending an email tip, include your blog's URL, even if you're just sending an article without the expectation of a link!

Even if you don't get a full "go here and read" link, you are still owed a hat-tip, at the very, very least. (Which of course counts as link on the ecosystem, if you care, and most smaller bloggers do.)

Don't assume the blogger you're sending the tip to knows what your blog is, or even if you have a blog! A bunch of times I got good tips sent to me from someone calling himself by his first name, and I just thanked him, by his first name, at the end of the post. I did not not know this person actually had a blog, called "The SkinnerSphere." Thus, no hat-tip to his blog.

It wasn't that I was being a dick; it's just I didn't know this person was a blogger at all. He didn't alert me in his email as to his blog. I knew of the Skinner Sphere, but not that this guy was associated with it-- he'd only given me a not-terribly-uncommon first name.

Bear in mind that there are a lot of blogs out there, and most bloggers simply do not know the names associated with the blog. I know Glenn Reynolds does Instapundit, and Tom Maguire does Just One Minute, and Charles Johnson does LGF, and Roger Simon does, well, Roger Simon; but really, after that, I get a little bit shaky on matching names to blogs. And I imagine most other people do, too.

Except Allah. He knows everything going on in the blogosphere.

So, you know, include your blog, and the URL, please. It's easy for you to type it or add it as a sig; it's a little more difficult for someone else to open up a Google search and look for the URL himself.

Addendum: If you want traffic, name your blog beginning with the letter "A," as blogrolls go in alphabetical order.

I stumbled on to the Ace of Spades name. You cannot imagine how fortuitous this was.

Were I to do it all again, I would name this site, "AAAAAAYYYY!!!!: Fonzie-Conservativism for FonzoCons" or something.

Karol says I overstate the underutilization of a blogroll. She says she randomly clicks on blogrolls all the time.

Well, most people don't, but I guess there is some usefulness to being on a blogroll. I'm saying it's not a big deal, not that it's no deal at all.

She also points out that she gets loads of hits from Michelle Malkin's blogroll. I do too. But I think that's mostly because we have similar audiences, and most people who read me also read her, so it's just convenient, after going to Michelle's, to punch my link, rather than type it out in the URL bar.

Plus, you know, I "introduced" newbie Michelle Malkin to the blogosphere, and gave her one of her first links.

And look where she is now.

This isn't a blog. It's a rocket pad, baby.

Posted by: Ace at 10:07 AM | Comments (78)
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I guess the answer she was looking for was, "I wouldn't want to spoil our friendship."

Thanks to CraigC.

Posted by: Ace at 09:51 AM | Comments (18)
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Story here.

Top Ten Ways In Which Keith Olbermann Alleges Bill O'Reilly Is Just Like Hitler

10. Hitler's greatest crime was oppressing people with strong ratings in key demos

9. Hitler instructed his SS to tell people "I'll give you the last word," and then, you know, not

8. An entire chapter of Mein Kampf is devoted to suggesting a "Final Solution" to "Internet Smear Merchants, like Stuart Smalley"

7. Early in the war, Hitler praised Stalin as a "stand-up guy" and thanked him for "coming in here and taking the heat"

6. One of the vilest of the Nazi Race Laws was the one that commanded people to "Keep it pithy"

5. Hitler forced Jews to wear yellow stars indicating their Jewish heritage as well as "name and town, name and town"

4. Hitler's enemies? 1) Jews 2) the French 3) Russians/Slavs 4) "jackanapes and poltroons"

3. The last diplomatic communique Hitler sent to Stalin before launching a surprise invasion against his one-time ally read simply, "I'm sorry, I have to wrap this up, we're coming up on a hard break"

2. Thousands of adoring fans would throng Hitler at his rallies, shouting back key slogans of Naziism, such as "Deutschland Uber Alles," "One Nation, One Blood, One Will," and "Who's Lookin' Out For You?"

...and the Number One Way In Which Keith Olbermann Alleges Bill O'Reilly Was Just Like Adolf Hitler...

1. It's a little known fact that the Third Reich was not created primarily to engage in mass genocide or world conquest, but rather to endlessly shill "Hitler Factor" t-shirts, coffee mugs, and "No Jew Zone" caps, just in time for Father's Day

Updating Andy Warhol: In the future, everyone will be compared to Hitler for fifteen minutes.

Simpsons Did It! Beautiful Atrocities has already remarked, and documented, that in the future, everyone will be Hitler for Fifteen Minutes.

Damn it all.

Thanks to Phil for alerting me to my typo on "communique," which usually I wouldn't sweat (my first language is "Spelling Error"), but here it ruined the flow of a good joke.

Thanks, Phil.

Posted by: Ace at 09:17 AM | Comments (101)
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Stace actually tried to tip me to this article a time ago, but I thought she was directing me to the antisemitic comments. I didn't know the article was stupid; I figured it was just a defense of Israel.

But it is so much funnier now.

Drobny's post's conclusion:

So my conclusion is that the bloggers who violently hate Israel and see it in black and white terms are not really liberals. They may even be anti-Semites, but they are not representative of the liberal community that was so active in achieving racial and ethnic equality. It is a contradiction for a true liberal to be an anti-Semite. Furthermore, I would not put it past the right wing to flood the liberal blogs with hateful criticisms of Israel to advance a perception that liberals are anti-Israel or anti-Semitic. And I see Karl Rove's fingerprints all over this.

The very first -- the first! -- comment to Drobny's hypothesis:

I consider myself of center-left and I have Jewish blood in my veins. I was raised a Christian.

I have these questions for American Jews.

1. Why is there no real debate in the United States about the Israel-Arab conflict? I am not an idiot. I have travelled all over the world, including Israel and many countries in the Muslim world. There is more honest debate in Israel about the conflict than there is in the US. And why is it that when any American challenges the parameters of the I/A conflict debate in the US, they are automatically branded as an anti-Semite. Why are Americans who don't tow the Likud/AIPAC line in our political discourse labelled anti-Semites?

2. Why are Americans who call for the end of the illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza labelled anti-Semites?

3. Why is any criticism concerning Israel considered an affront to American Jews? How is criticism of Israel an attack against American Jews?

4. Israelis and American Jews are not the same. I've been to Israel. Israelis are not culturally the same as Americans Jews or British Jews or French Jews or Australians Jews or Argentinian Jews. Why do American Jews tie their existence to what happens to Israel? And if American Jews are so passionate about Israels's right to occupy Arab land, then why don't they make aliyah and defend Israel with their blood? Why should the US be a proxy defender of Israel's existence? Why should Israel's national interests supercede America's national interests?

5. Israel is an advanced industrialized state. Why should the US taxpayer pay for the defense of Israel when American Jews won't even defend Israel's occupation with their own blood?

6. Israelis neither cares about nor identifies with the interests of the United States. I would like to know how America supporting and subsidizing Israel and its illegal occupation furthers the interests of the United States. Why should the US sacrifice its national survival for the interests of Israel? Why should Americans die for Israel? What has Israel ever done for us? What has Israel ever done for the US that deserves such unqualified loyalty by Americans?

5. If Americans are rabidly anti-Semitic as some posters claim, then why don't these Jewish accusers make aliyah and go to Israel where they will feel safe from ugly American and be safe in the arms of their fellow Jews in Israel where you can actually take part in the Occupation and defend the occupied territories with their own blood?

Guy seems, uhhh... very preoccupied with "Jewish blood." Count the references.

Of course, it's actually a Karl Rove Sock Puppet.

KARL ROVE is using the JEWS who are moving in on you using the BLACK MAN as MUSCLE and you are left DEFENSELESS.

Posted by: Ace at 09:00 AM | Comments (32)
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Caution, Retards in Area

Click the pic for the link.

The story is kind of pathetic, but the picture is going to be the next Ace of Spades HQ tee shirt logo.

Thanks to skinbad.

Posted by: LauraW. at 08:47 AM | Comments (69)
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A good but depressing digest.

CONTENT WARNING: Contains snide allusions to Glenn Greenwald and the Magic Boyfriend.

Interviewer: Did you inform them that you were about to abduct Israeli soldiers?

Hassan Nasrallah: I told them that we must resolve the issue of the prisoners, and that the only way to resolve it is by abducting Israeli soldiers.

Interviewer: Did you say this clearly?

Hassan Nasrallah: Yes, and nobody said to me: “No, you are not allowed to abduct Israeli soldiers.”

"We are all Hezbollah."

Apparently so.

Posted by: Ace at 08:41 AM | Comments (8)
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Did I say a lefty website? I meant a "rightwinger posing as a lefty under orders from Karl Rove," of course.

Please excuse my error.

Forgive me for this but Alan Dershowitz's children should be hit by a 5000 lb. bomb made by an American military-industrial corporation, sold to Israel, and misfired into his home. Then he can talk to me. I will offer my sincere condolences.

That's from "BooMan" of "The Booman Tribute" blog. Not a commenter, apparently. The lead blogger, the owner/creator, of a lefty website with a longish history.

Karl Rove really has us rightwing Jew-hatin' sockpuppets working over time, eh?

As Drobny (cited below) seems interested in sockpuppetry, perhaps he'd be willing to mention the case of Glenn Greenwald on his next HuffPo Post?

Yes? No? Possibly?

Posted by: Ace at 08:35 AM | Comments (19)
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