Bumped.

Okay, first of all, the football pool. I tried running one of these with just fifteen or so people on an old chat-site I used to frequent. Keeping track of stats was a bitch.

Math is not part of the Ace of Spades Lifestyle (TM).

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Posted by: Ace at 06:04 AM | Comments (104)
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...the press coverage is rather less than the "flood the zone" standard reserved for important stories like the Augusta Golf Course's male-only membership.

Gateway Pundit has videos of "ambulances" picking up gunmen for a getaway and actually being used to fire missiles on Israel.

And yet, shockingly enough, Israel may occasionally fire on these illegal ambulances. (It is of course a war-crime to wear the badges and insignia of medical relief and enter combat.)

Thanks to Larwyn.

Posted by: Ace at 05:10 AM | Comments (9)
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The book reviewed here seems pretty tired and cliched. As does the reveiw itself.

There’s a new book in town that’s getting everyone riled: Guy Thomas Blews’s Marriage & How to Avoid It, which stakes out a bold arena for combat. In a nutshell, Blews’s claim is that a happy marriage is impossible. This is, he asserts, because human beings in general — but, really, when you come down to it, mainly men, grrr, the tigers — are incapable of lifelong relationships. They are compelled, at some point, to voyage out of the stifling environs of the wedding vows and bang that chick in marketing.

The tragedy for both Blews and his argument — which is as old as the hills, and about as sprightly — is that he is such an obviously damaged individual. Those opposing his claims have simply pointed out how uniquely unqualified he is to comment on marriage, rather than attack his actual argument head-on.

Here's what I find interesting, though. Now the title of the review is
Spare us men's natural urges. The reviewer, a woman, is less than convinced by Blews' (no comment) thesis that men must stray:

It’s an idea that is always announced a little proudly. Men’s “natural physical urges” are “so strong” that they “cannot control themselves”. Men, of course, wouldn’t look proud of a single other “natural physical urge” “so strong” that they “cannot control” it — such as soiling their pants, or succumbing to sleep at the wheel of the car and being smashed to death under a lorry.

...

Interestingly, the self-help section in my local bookshop carries no books about curing infidelity aimed at men. This is, presumably, because the kind of men who buy into this theory of monogamy being impossible would rather exhaust themselves in persuading a sceptical humanity that their vices are irrevocable “natural urges” rather than simply to try to become better human beings.

...

But surely, at some point, he must ponder what the results of his theory will be. For myself, I can think of few things more aspirational than an old couple holding hands. That speaks of a lifetime of jokes, shags, winks, kids, secretly slagging off the neighbours, 52 Christmas trees, and crying with laughter at a some terrible new haircut.

BlewsÂ’s touted alternative, by comparison, does not seem like anything to wish for. For while society might still have a sneaking regard for the rampant stag, ultimately it dislikes a weak, priapic, sybaritic old goat in a Bath chair.

Okay... so she's pro-monogamy, pro-marriage, and anti- this whole idea that men must cheat.

Not very unexpected. Pretty conventional, and not really all that arguable. Not really breaking any ground here, but then, it's tough to break ground when stating the obvious.

So what the hell is this doing in the review?

Of course, the concept that a man simply cannot be satisfied with a mere, single woman is ancient. The Greeks thought that men couldn’t be satisfied with women, full stop, and that they would have to flee into the bed of another man to have a decent relationship. The idea of homosexuality as a solution isn’t, oddly and sadly, much touted in modern society, but the theory behind it — that men must roam from the home — is still the same.

Boldface mine.

So, let me get this straight: This reviewer is against male infidelity, but she's willing to make an exception for male homosexual infidelity -- she finds it "odd" and "sad" that society does not "tout" this as a "solution."

There is a weird thing about pro-gay liberals. It's one thing to be gay friendly. But it's another thing -- and a weird, sort of condescending thing -- for straight liberal women to be sooooo absurdly pro-gay they actually pine for the day when their men are encouraged to have affairs with other men.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: There are few gay men who are as into male homosexuality and gay culture as straight liberal women.

Can she really mean such an absurd thing? That she really wishes that society would promote homosexual liasons between married men? What does that accomplish, precisely? Is it not cheating if it's gay cheating?

Or is this just her knee-jerk, unthinking, "You go, boys!" gay empowerment reflex?

I imagine it's the latter. But how freaking weird is it if this woman is so absurdly pro-gay she's willing to let her husband bang the hottie in marketing -- so long as that hottie has a penis. Hey-- wouldn't want to "oppress" one's husband's sublimated homosexual desires, right? It's all well and good to suppress his heterosexual desires for other women, but mustn't keep him from "exploring" his homosexual desires. Indeed, such explorations must be nutured, even encouraged. Even "touted" as a "solution."

To do otherwise would be to be heteronormative and homophobic and just basically bad.

Thanks to Joe in Ohio.

Posted by: Ace at 04:08 AM | Comments (50)
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How do you make a story about a goo-goo transparency in government bill, regarding a kinda boring spending practice, interesting?

Make it a whodunnit detective story.

No knock on Wonkette, but Wonkette tends to go for the sensationalist and silly. So, when Wonkette gets into a story -- as they have here -- that means the story's got a high Q rating now.

As Instapundit says-- Thanks, Secret Hold Senator!

Also From Instapundit: An analysis shows that poor folks in America earn almost the exact same fraction of the median income as poor folks in socialist utopia Sweden do.

But the median income in America is higher, and what the rich can earn is much higher than that.

Socialism doesn't seem very good at raising the income of the poor.

It is, however, very good at limiting overall income and sharply limiting the incomes of the rich.

Which is nice enough, if the only thing that matters to the poor is knowing that no one else is too much richer.

Posted by: Ace at 03:32 AM | Comments (386)
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Gob-smackingly vile torture.

From The Corner, where Jon Podhoertz and Andy McCarthy are having an interesting dialogue about Fitzgerald, and whether or not this was an overzealous and/or politically-motivated investigation.

Scroll down until yesterday AM, and then start reading up.

It's good that both those on the left and right can have such divergent opinions on this.

Wait, did I say the left? I don't know how that slipped in there.

Meanwhile, Tom Maguire notes that David Corn, the reporter who co-wrote the book confirming Armitage as the leaker -- and acknowledging, reluctantly, it was done without malicious intent -- is yet still trying to spin his non-malicious leak as somehow part of a greater Bush strategy to punish Joe Wilson (scan down to "Keep Hope Alive").

Hysterical.

The facts on the ground may change, but the conclusion remains e'er fixed, like the North Star, in the sky.

Posted by: Ace at 03:27 AM | Comments (5)
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The song brings back such memories... people drinking and dancing and strainging to talk above the music... and me listening through the dormwalls, as I applied a second layer of undercoating to my Drow High Priestess miniature "Empress Ezzmerelda."

And then pleasuring myself to same.

Good times.

Thanks to steve_from_hb.

Memories Upon Memories: Actually, that song has always bothered me. That "spooky synth" intro was from some dumb record I had as a kid-- a haunted house album or something, or maybe a synthesizer-heavy "Sci Fi Music" album I had. (Look, I'm talking age nine.)

Google doesn't answer the question for me. Anyone know where that intro comes from?

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Posted by: Ace at 03:11 AM | Comments (16)
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I found this pretty gob-smackingly vile as I watched it yesterday. But then, it's Juan Williams. He's a professional buffoon and it's hardly news that he spends all day saying idiotic things.

Still, for fans of the Hume smackdowns of Juan Williams (which we haven't had many of recently, due to their vacation schedules), it's a solid entry in the long-running series.

Thanks to Larwyn, via a tip from BizzyBlog.

Posted by: Ace at 02:43 AM | Comments (11)
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The actual crash in Kentucky killed 49 and left a lone survivor, the copilot, in critical condition.

The parody left, it seems, just one survivor, with a big ginormous freakhead.

I don't know-- should the intro to the show have been cut? Given how brief and seemingly truncated the Conan plane-crash bit is, it maybe was substantially cut at the 11th hour, to keep the basics of it (plane crash to allow Lost) parody) while keeping the actual plane-crash stuff to a minimum.

There was a horrible disaster last night. But plane crashes are always horrible, and happen on occasion. Should Snakes on a Plane be pulled from theaters, too?

HotAir asks if the segment would have run had the crash occurred on the Left Coast-- well, probably not. But I don't know if that's entirely due to Hollywood disregard of Middle America. It's just a fact that you "feel" disasters more the closer they hit to home.

I know, for example, I've criticized the Spanish and British responses to terrorism in ways I'd be pretty pissed off at were Spaniards and Brits to return the favor regarding 9/11. (Which, of course, they did.)

So, I don't know.

GoogleMaps Pic Of Runways: johnd01, aka Mrs. Sally McKibbish, has used GoogleMaps to show where the doomed flight was taking off from, and where the pilot thought he was taking off from.

He notes that had the plane been on the correct runway, the crash would have occurred 3/4 of the way down the strip, about the time it was supposed to take off from the ground.

Edited? Anwyn thinks the actual crash was edited from the bit.

Not Related At All... but trying desperately to keep some of those Drudge click-throughs that have stumbled here. Dog Crashes Car As Owner Teaches It How to Drive and Top Ten Excuses Offered By Dog For Crashing Car.

This is more serious, but pretty good: Why liberals are so succeptible to 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Posted by: Ace at 02:38 AM | Comments (23)
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Dan Riehl nails him. Hard.

He doesn't appear to have been 19 at the time of his fabrication, as he claims. He seems to have been 21.

Further, this doesn't seem to have been a "summer internship," as he claimed. It seems to have been a bona fide first job in the media.

Seems that some habits are hard to break.

Gee, I wonder why this guy is working for an online 'zine.

Posted by: Ace at 12:38 PM | Comments (26)
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I'm not quite clear yet. Can you provide a visual statement for us morons?

Like, say, French troops flying the national flag?

Ah. That should do it.

Via Free Republic.

Allah Fact-Checking Service: He says that's just the UN flag with the sunlight washing out any emblems to make it look entirely white.

Posted by: Ace at 08:42 AM | Comments (355)
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