Old post. If you read the inside-joke explanation thread, you might have seen the mention that the old schtick used to be that this site was a lavishly-funded group effort, with a huge staff and gorgeous corporate offices on the secret 103rd floor of the Empire State Building. That's why there's the reference to the "staff" and stuff.

(And that, by the way, is a direct swipe from Mark Leyner's Et Tu, Babe, which I've always acknowleged. His basic premise. But no one seems to have read that book, so it didn't seem right to let a good premise die a lonely death just because his publisher didn't market his book very well. So I "reintroduced" the schtick for what seems to be, sadly, a larger audience.)

...

Since I was a kid, I always enjoyed the humorous and sometimes poetic group-names given to different animals. It was interesting that one said a school of fish but a pack of wolves; it was fun that one said a parliament of owls and an exultation of larks. A shrewdness of apes, a crash of rhinoceroses, an ostentation of peacocks-- just great stuff.

And of course it was just flat-out cool that one said a murder of crows.

But this practice was also extended to naming groups of people. One could say a skulk of thieves (cool!), a rascal of boys (cute!), and, if one could keep a straight face, a neverthriving of jugglers (goofy!).

I don't know if I'd ever actually say a superfluidity of nuns, but it's nice to know that I could, if I wanted to.

I threw the crack Ace of Spades HQ Etymology and Semiotics Department at into researching other collective-names. After 1200 billable hours of research, all paid for by the ultra-secretive cryptofascist benefactor we know only as "Mr. Tranh," we've discovered even more collective-nouns for groups of people, these more relevant to the world we live in today. We plan to use these in everyday conversation; we hope you'll find some use for them too.

... from the Home Office in Pocatello, Idaho...

Top Ten Lesser-Known Collective Nouns for Different Groups of People

10. A gesticulation of Italians

9. A corruption of Congressmen

8. A moustache of policemen

7. A tumescence of pornstars

6. A shriek of liberals

5. A waddle of Rosie O'Donnells

4. An armpit of feminists

3. An insignificance of Canadians

2. A malodor of Frenchmen (also acceptable: a quavering of Frenchmen; a surrender of Frenchmen)

...and the Number One Lesser-Known Collective Noun for a Group of People...

1. A crimewave of Kennedys

Honorable Mentions:

A doddering of seniors

A twaddle of Democrats

A condescension of reporters

A kegger of collegians

A genocide of Germans

A trust-fund of "peace" marchers

A vapidity of Maureen Dowds

Posted by: Ace at 04:47 PM | Comments (77)
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I just got a nice email from a reader, who likes the site -- including, alas, the retarded shit you morons post in the comments -- but he's bewildered by the inside jokes.

I thought maybe it would be good to have a thread where people can ask "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" so they'll be on the inside, too.

So, ask away, if you care. Either I or a trained AoSHQ inside-joke professional will try to explain.

This site has always been thick with inside joke and old references, but, as the "Layers" post shows, even I have trouble keeping up with it, and I'm on this site, sadly, 12 or 15 hours a day.

Incidentally, I just noticed last week-- there really hasn't been a single Paul Anka reference, at least that I've noticed, in six months or so.

I guess it ran its course.

Posted by: Ace at 01:47 PM | Comments (424)
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Ever keep repeating a joke and forget where the hell you got it from in the first place?

I asked LauraW where she'd gotten "Layers" from, and, with an assist from WickedPinto, she found this old post.

From DU, regarding the death (...?) of terrorist (...?) Al Zarqawi:

225. It's all a part of the WALTZ!

Get this FACTOID: If the USA spooks create this character, then if you are al Quaeda "why not" take advantage of his martydom? There are many layers ... sometimes it's hard to really know THE TRUTH.

After which LauraW echoed, Layers.

So, there you go.

Smart. Tough. Promiscuous with capitalization.

Layers.

I'm told Wuzzadem came up with the Smart, Tough crack.

Posted by: Ace at 01:23 PM | Comments (11)
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Photoshops from Six Meat Buffet:

If only people of opposite political beliefs, diverse sexual orientations, and varying degrees of emotional stability could put aside their differences and come together for a session of shared consensual fantasy role-playing, teamwork, and bitching and arguing about who gets the +3 flaming vorpal sword, Holy Avenger and who gets the potion of detecting secret doors.

Posted by: Ace at 01:11 PM | Comments (16)
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In fairness, they lasted longer against the Italian soccer team than they did against Hitler.

The Wehrmacht didn't need a shoot-out, for example. And there are, as of yet, no reports of Frenchmen delivering Jews to the Italian soccer team for "evacuation" to the east.

So: progress.

Be proud, France. Another "moral victory," which is just like a true victory, except without the actual "victory," which, let's face it, is an "Anglo-American cultural hegemonic concept" anyway.

France

We could have won. If we felt like it.

Posted by: Ace at 12:22 PM | Comments (53)
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I won't link her. She's obviously enjoying her fifteen minutes of infamy.

But if you're curious, yes, indeed, she has all but retracted her earlier, half-hearted semi-apology, and finds righteous strength from the five or six nutjobs who think that threatening someone's kid is an appropriate way to protest the Iraq War.

Six Meat Buffet has more, and includes a pic of her site-meter.

She's up from an average of 40 or so people per day to 26,000 hits yesterday.

Hmmmmm...

I don't want to say anything about Goldstein's kid or wife, but I do want some of that crazy blog-traffic. (Crazy, here, used in both senses.)

So... okay. If I began threatening to kidnap Bill From INDC and lobotomize him by using a Bedazzler (TM) to pierce his frontal cortex with classy rainbow-colored rhinestones, thus turning him into my own personal Homo Sex Zombie (with an elegantly Bedazzled (TM) fuckskull), you think I could get some hits?

What if -- and I'm just left-braining here, people -- I threatened to kidnap Instapundit and bring him to my own personal wildlife preserve and then hunt him down like an animal a la The Most Dangerous Game and then mount his head on my wall above a plaque reading "Heh"?

Okay. Let's think bigger. Let's say I knock Drudge unconscious with a gagful of ether and then strap him down to a operating table next to a cart loaded with rusty antique Victorian surgical instruments and medieval weapons and then, when he asks me why I'm sharpening the spikes on a morningstar while wearing nothing but a Viking helmet and a cockring, I just smile and say "DEVELOPING HARD...!"

I'm not threatening to do these things. Per se. I'm just floating up some trial balloons. Someone's serving up hot steamin' crazy-pie and I want my slice.

Letters... Goldstein Gets Letters... Homo Sex Zombie-to-be Bill has Jeff's hate mail, making me curious as to whether he's writing it.

At any rate:

Like you facist hypocrites never send threats to liberals. Jeff, you got everything you deserved. At least Dr. Frisch didn't go around pushing the UC-Santa Cruz chancellor to suicide like your chipmunk-faced chink bitch friend Michelle Malkin. Only conservative fags like to play the victim. You have a small dick.

The hat-trick:

-- accusing someone of being a "fascist," for the billionth time, while still not realizing the word has two s's in it;

-- gratuitous slam at Michelle Malkin, who has nothing to do with this, while calling her a "chink" (PS, she's not a "chink," she a "flip");

-- and lovingly, tolerantly accusing an opponent of being a "fag."

Strong. Tough.

Tolerant. Educated.

Intelligent. High-Minded.

Layers.

And remember: even subliterate, homophobic, racist retards like this letter-writer are 100% certain they're morally, intellectually, and culturally superior to you.

After all, they voted for Kerry.

And they support "Fag Marriage." And, who knows, one day maybe even "Chink Marriage."

Hey, it's just not fair that chinks aren't allowed to visit their loved ones in the hospital. I know there are security concerns with all the nunchucks and dangerous dry-cleaning chemicals that chinks are always hiding beneath their floral silk robes, but still, can we at least pretend they're human beings?

Posted by: Ace at 11:39 AM | Comments (81)
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Heh.

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?

The JEWS are using the REPUBLICAN PARTY to move in on you, and YOU are left DEFENSELESS.

Thanks to Jules, or as I call her, "Stacy."

Some Kidz Are All Right: I had to put in paragraph breaks. I don't know why it is some people can't grok that paragraph breaks are pleasing to the eye and increase readability.

And the opening clause is tendentious, but it gets good from there.

If the Right's political sin is sadism (and it is), then the Left's is narcissism. Too many leftists get high on indignation - turning themselves into righteousness junkies. They no longer reason out their opinions but simply pick sides and fling ad hominem attacks at anyone who disagrees with them while parrotting whatever political position they feel makes them look smartest and most compassionate. All conflicts (current and hsitorical) are reduced to the struggle between a Good Victim and an Evil Opressor.

Current Leftist critics of Israel aren't anti-semites, but they do tend to demonize Isarel in order to maximize their self-righteousness. I suspect they've unconciously transplanted Rousseau's romantic (and needless to say, racist) notions about the Noble Savages and corrupt Europeans into the current political discourse. Arabs = post-colonial non-Europeans= underdog = good. Isrealis = European = imperialist = bad.

This equation is absurd since Israel has a huge population of non-European Jews and a lot of the Arabs are fascists, theocrats, and openly racist. I've learned the hard way that any Leftist who sees the situation as morally complex and advocates a route to peace that doesn't involve the destruction of Zionsim gets called naive or racist by the pro-Palestinian Left, even when (like me) they are appalled by the Occupation and think Zionism was a mistake. Even worse, they insist one of accusing them of anti-Semitism when one hasn't! It's the only response they've memorized. "If someone says your criticism of Israel is unfair, accuse them of shutting down the debate by calling you an anti-Semite." It's enough to make one despair!

No, it's enough to make one either despair or finally have the balls to break with the left.

Everything he says is sort of in the "no shit, Sherlock" category, but it's encouraging to see a lefty acknowledging what is obviously true.

They spend so much time and effort avoiding the obvious truth. It's nice to see one decide it's really not worth all that trouble to swerve and carom and just let himself collide with the truth.

The truth is like sex. It's only awkward, painful, and scary the first time. After that, it's kind of fun.

Posted by: Ace at 11:03 AM | Comments (17)
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...that the Coulter plagiarism charges are absurd.

Sorry to beat a dead donkey, but this really shows the left for how sad, desperate, and impotent they are. Read the list of alleged "plagiarized" passages and decide for yourself.

In many cases, similar word choices can be explained, rather easily, as a case of simply describing the same brief fact pattern. When I read the passage about Annie Sprinkle, the ex-low-level-porn-"star" who did gynecological caberet for a while, I could see the next word coming... and not because I had read Coulter or the source she allegedly "plagiarized" from. I had read this all in some other magazine -- maybe the Village Voice, or some other left-leaning rag that thought Annie Sprinkle was "empowering" or something -- and there are simply no other words to describe her form of "performance art." Unless one postulates that one must resort to tasteless word-substitution to avoid "plagiarism" -- look, if the woman lets you look into her naughty bits with a flashlight, there is really only one way to say that. The proper word for her naughty bits is "vagina" and the simple word for flashlight is, well, "flashlight."

To avoid "plagiarism," Coulter would have needed to write "Annie Sprinkle invites audience members to look insider her Quavering Cavern of Carnality with an electric torch (as the British call it)." I mean, honestly.

But that's not the worst. The worst, the saddest and most desperate examples, are alleged cases of "plagiarism" where Coulter doesn't actually even use similar words. I mean, there are instances of alleged plagiarism where she uses entirely different words altogether to describe the same basic facts.

Like this. And I apologize for the scatalogical example.

Example 6: "Christ submerged in a jar of urine. — NEA-funded exhibit"

Alleged Source: "'Piss Christ' featured Christ on a cross in a vat of the artist's own urine." (“How the NEA Pollutes American Culture,” The Boston Globe, Jan. 24, 1995)
(Identified by Raw Story & The Rude Pundit)

Need I suggest that there are only a limited number of ways to convey the idea of a crucifix submerged in urine? And need I further point out that, among these limited number of other ways to describe it, Coulter did in fact choose one of these other ways?

Here's one that's not dirty:

Example 6: "In a private speech — not a brief on behalf of a client — Souter attacked affirmative action, calling it 'affirmative discrimination.'"

Alleged Source: "In a May, 1976, speech reported in a newspaper account, Souter said he opposed affirmative action, calling it 'affirmative discrimination.'" (Ibid)
(Identified by John Barrie/New York Post)

What? The only words "copied" there, apart from articles and prepositions, are "speech," "affirmative action," and "affirmative discrimination." The last is Souter's key quote, quoted in the original; obviously, you want that quote. The whole point of quoting someone is, well, using his own words, with quote-marks around them to indicate they are someone else's words.

I guess these idiots think that Coulter should have substituted the term "oral declaration" for "speech" and come up with an entirely new coinage to describe affirmative action.

That's plagiarism? The left seems to define plagiarism as not copying words, organization, ideas, etc., but simply as re-reporting the same fact pattern with different words, organizations, and ideas. If Coulter mentioned that Washington had crossed the Delaware on Christmas Eve, the left would cite this as "plagiarism," because, you know, other writers had also noted this obscure fact.

Honestly, it's sad, and I will not even speculate about the hateful, impotent, beaten-down, psyches of the morons who catalogue this silly shit in hopes of finally bringing The Despised One down. I will say they seem to have a lot of free time on their hands.

I'll also say their pathetic writings resemble the claw-marks on the padded cell-walls of a lunatic.

Whoops. There's that "crazy" charge again.

Anyway, see for yourself. It's so petty and childish and unhinged it makes me feel dirty even sharing blogspace with them.

Thanks to CraigC for prompting me to finally post on this.

More... A Krazy Kos Kid dismisses these inconvenient "facts" and suggests, well, just frigging lying:

...Let it sink into the national subconscience [sic] that Ann Coulter is a plagiarist... even if it's not true.

Bear in mind, these are the same cats who mention Hitler's "Big Lie" proposition approximately every fourth sentence. (As if they disapprove of it.)

Strong. Tough. Goebbellian.

Layers.

Thanks to the Purple Avenger for that.

Purple Avenger also notes the Freudian slip of writing "subconscious" as "subconscience."

He thinks it's a Freudian slip; I think it's just the left being smugly semiliterate as usual.

Still. Kinda funny.

Posted by: Ace at 10:40 AM | Comments (55)
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Stephen Hawke? Ethan Dorff? I dunno. Forget who's who, which isn't a big deal, because they're neither of them in movies anymore, now that friggin' Marky-Mark and Donnie Wahlberg from the Backstreet Boys are taking all their roles.

Anyway, he babbles a bit here about what it means to be a "real man," sounding every bit as convincing as a squrrel explaining what it means to be a "real NFL interior lineman."

Thanks to Laddyboy for the tip.

Oh, and Donnie Wahlberg did a better job in Saw II than Ethan Dorff could have done, anyway.

Posted by: Ace at 09:56 PM | Comments (59)
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Yeah, yeah, another open thread.

Finally, Some Props For Kristin Davis: Voted the most beautiful woman in the world by readers of UK's Daily Mail. I think she's more heartbreakingly cute than actually beautiful, but that's just quibbling.

And then there's Lisa Baur, who never got her props.

Lisa Baur, playing "Shelley Dubowski"
in Animal House

And yeah... she looks pretty good without the sweater, too.

This woman was in one movie, and has one other credit on IMDB.

How that happened, I don't know. I guess someone snapped her up and she didn't have to work anymore.

I've got these dumb economic stories I've been sitting on all day because of this stupid Frisch thing. I think Lisa Baur will be the new Cowbell Girl.

Posted by: Ace at 05:26 PM | Comments (93)
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