First, they let Muslim maniacs murder his father. Now they're determined to let the same fate befall his 13 year old son, Lieuwe Van Gogh.

Wouldn't want to enrage them by preventing an escalating mass-stalking.

You know how most stalkings end, right? Either with an arrest or a murder. Looks like option A is out.

Because it's easier to let the Islamists kill a few people here and there than to provoke widespread inconvenience.

As they say, a brave man dies just once, a coward dies a thousand deaths.

The Europeans are chosing to die a thousand deaths, and they deserve each and every one of them.

Posted by: Ace at 02:16 PM | Comments (17)
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In honor of Hugo "VIVA" Chavez, courtesy of readers. more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:08 PM | Comments (8)
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Over at this site, which I have absolutely nothing to do with.

NOT SAFE FOR WORK. REAL SEX WITH FAKE DINOSAURS.

Posted by: Ace at 11:49 AM | Comments (17)
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So I got an e-mail today.

That's right. "An" as in "one".

I'm a very sad and lonely man. One truly is the loneliest number that you'll ever know.

Anyway, this e-mailer wanted to know what exactly I had "learned from Spiderman". (You might remember that I said I had learned quite a bit from him in my Doc Ock thread).

Which got me in a pensive and reflective mood. And you wouldn't like me when I get pensive and reflective....

Actually, that isn't true. That's the lead sentence to my "Life Lessons I Learned from The Hulk" thread.

But the fact remains; before today I had never sat down to contemplate all the things that Spiderman has taught me.

And now I have.

Presented, after the jump, are the practical, everyday life lessons that I have learned from Spider-Man.

I hope you take as much from them as they have given me. more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:41 AM | Comments (13)
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A new microbudget film that postulates a zombie rising down south when (hee) a cracker's meth lab blows up and, presumably, fires up corpses with enough speed to reanimate them.

It's called The South Shall Rise Again.

It looks just stupid and cheap enough to be worth watching.

Posted by: Ace at 10:54 AM | Comments (33)
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FedEx is testing the defense systems on members of their fleet.

Called the Guardian, the defense system uses a multi-band laser to throw off the infrared heat detectors employed in many shoulder-fired missiles.

The move is a part of a $109 million feasibility study conducted by
the Department of Homeland Security to see if such a system can be
implemented fleet-wide in a cost-effective manner.

Posted by: LauraW. at 10:38 AM | Comments (8)
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I had no idea previously why ESPN's NFL Primetime was able to give us good clips while everyone else gave shitty clips. PT offered most of the key plays in a scoring drive, or a defensive stand on the one yard line, while everyone else showed weak-ass clips of a WR catching a six yard TD with no context whatsoever of the drive that preceded it.

Turns out, ESPN had a legal exemption that allowed them to do this. But no longer.

The biggest difficulty with editing highlight packages is that there are so many games and so little time. In 1987, ESPN bought itself a few extra minutes. In a historical footnote to the deal that brought the NFL to the channel, Bristol negotiated an exemption to the traditional two-minute limit on highlights. The network got permission to show three- to five-minute packages of NFL games in the 7 p.m. window immediately before the Sunday night game. And thus was the greatness of NFL Primetime concocted.

With all this breathing space, ESPN could show fans huge chunks of important drives, concentrate on key matchups, and splice in video from previous games. The other networks would show a couple of 1-yard touchdown runs and a few shots of the head coaches grimacing meaningfully. Primetime would show how they got to the 1-yard line—six straight runs behind the left tackle, or a balanced attack that kept the defense on its heels. I remember editing a Los Angeles Rams highlight—that gives some idea of how far back we're talking—that consisted of several shots of the Rams using motion to create wide-open passing lanes. In the pre-NFL Sunday Ticket, pre-ESPN2, pre-NFL Network era, this was innovative, appointment television, especially if (like me) you rooted for an out-of-market team.

Sunday Night Football has now departed for NBC, and as a consequence ESPN has lost its rights to those long 7 p.m. highlight packages.

The NFL is being stupid. It's those long clips that create interest in watching football. The short clip packages are useless. It's like watching baseball highlights-- wow, another home run that looks exactly like the eight million other home runs shown in clips. Without the context, the build-up, the score is meaningless.

The article says NFL Primtime is now on Monday night at some point (I was wondering where the hell it went). I'm not sure if they still show the long packages that made it the best football show on TV (and that includes the actual games). But, as the writer of the linked article notes, watching clips on Monday night seems kind of pointless. I guess maybe I can wait a day, but all the enthuiasm for watching the highlights dissipates after midnight on Sunday.

While You're Down There... This piece about people trying to often to be funny is 85% right. The author insists, as all good lefties do, that Bill Hicks is funny, and doesn't mention how detrimental Sex & the City was (not for the exaltation of brazen hussies, but for the very bad idea, adopted by many, that constant cute observations about life made in real life is a charming trait, rather than one likely to provoke someone into murder).

Still. The piece makes the point I have before:

What is the upside of being funny? Well, apart from getting noticed, it's safer to hide behind the mask of humor, especially in a culture skeptical of intellectualism. Andrew Stott, an English professor whose academic treatise Comedy explored the philosophy of humor, sees it like this: "Being funny is a means of avoiding scrutiny. It's a deeply concealing activity that invites attention while simultaneously failing to offer any detailed account of oneself. The reason humor is so popular today is that it provides the comfort of intimacy without the horror of actually being intimate."

Wit and glib jokes are fine in small doses, but really, they're mechanisms of hiding the real self and for disguising the fact you don't really have very much interesting to say. (That's 99% of the reason I go for so many gilb jokes. Trust me, if I had something substantive to say about, say, Iran, I would say that instead.)

They're especially pernicious in movies, because movies are supposed to be about revealing character. But a "witty" character never reveals his character, except to show that he is witty, which is a superficial character trait at best.

And too much of this goes on in real life, too.

I remember vowing at some point after college to stop being funny, because I considered it clownish and also cowardly. It didn't last very long, but I think my instincts were sound.

On Comedies: I should say that "wit" is useless in a comedy. Not jokes per se, but wit.

Funny stuff that comes out a character's flaws is funny. Whether it's Happy Gilmore's explosive anger or Clouseau's stupidity, the humor is coming from a character trait.

They're not trying to be funny in the movie's fictive universe.

But when a character in a movie or tv show tries to be funny -- tries to be witty or cute -- it just almost never works.

Look at Seinfeld. The early shows are all but unwatchable because most of the intended humor comes from Jerry cracking jokes and trying to be funny. The later shows shift the humor away from Jerry's act-incorporated-into-a-sitcom into George's inadequacy and rage, Elaine's cynicism and hussiness, Kramer's... weird exuberances and enthusiasms. Jerry gets a little funnier in the show when they dwell on his one or two characteristics (shallowness, pettiness), but he's still not funny when he tries to be funny.

Late in the show's run he makes a cute comment, but the laugh only comes when Elaine asks him, disgustedly, "Isn't that from your act?"

I was just watching twenty minutes (all I could take) of some godawful movie called Friends & Lovers or something where every character was always "on" and being "witty." It was horrible. None of it was funny, partly because it was clear these weren't the characters talking, it was the screenwriter talking through his characters, which were merely puppets for his not-terribly-impressive wit. Not only were the jokes entirely unfunny, but they prevented any real character development to boot.

Posted by: Ace at 09:01 AM | Comments (55)
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Sticky Notes liveblogged the good crazy.

Can't wait until they kill this guy.

Video: Of the devil remark, and more coming, at Hot Air.

The DU'ers... loved Chavez' speech, it seems.

Thanks to Slublog. Be right back, I'll find some choice quotes.

2. Was that Great or What?

Better yet it went over well to his audience, they aplauded, they laughed, Hugo was a big hit. Hope he doesn't recieve a big hit.

3. BUSH IS NOT THE DEVIL !!!!!
he just works for him

4. WOW.... Chavez kicked Bush ass !
Chavez gave a fantastic straight to the point speech, that told it just like it is... The imperialism of the US is going to destroy the world, if not stopped.

No political side-stepping, no forked-tongue talking; Chavez spoke in the common mans language !

He brought up Noam Chomskys book and recommended everyone at the UN to read it.

Unbelievable speech !

VIVA CHAVEZ !!!!!!
VIVA CHAVEZ !!!!

6. I know it'll never happen but..
..can you imagine Stewart and Colbert having this guy as a guest LOL!!

LOL. What about Olbermann? LOL. Wink.

14. It takes a nutjob to know a nutjob.
Which is why Chavez comments about Bush were so bang on. Calling him the Devil and that it still smelled of sulphur up there, and that a psychiatrist should be called in to understand Bush's comments or whatever...I mean, that shit is just pure gold. Hugo brought his "A" material, and should be headlining on the comedy club circuit. Even if a puffed-up, blustering demagogue like Chavez was delivering these comments, it was friggin' great to hear them. Bush is a puffed-up, blustering demagogue himself, so....

10. Still smells of Sulfur!
Oh he was funny!!! The talking heads are having a fit!

13. Good for him
It's a really fitting name for Bush.

17. and THAT is the ONLY thing we'll EVER hear about that speech
in the corporate media. never mind the rest, they'll be harping about this EVERY time they mention the name chavez from now until doomsday, just like they can't say the iranian guy's name without screaming that misquote about him 'wanting to wipe israel off the map'. BOTH of whom, i might add absolutely HAMMERED bush on his war-mongering oil-thieving policies, but we'll not be hearing that part.

its instances like this that prove beyond a doubt just WHERE the corporate media's allegiances lie.

You know what else the corporate media won't report? That the Democratic base is unapologetic in its love for a banana-republic communist tyrant and thug who cancels and steals elections, just so long as he's a declared enemy of America.

Posted by: Ace at 07:56 AM | Comments (65)
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Syria Torturing People For the U.S.?

See-Dubya at JunkYardBlog finds it unlikely too:

Oh, wait a minute. Even as I google around while I write this I see that AG Gonzales has in fact already said it was a deportation, not a rendition.

"Mr. Arar was deported under our immigration laws. He was initially detained because his name appeared on terrorist lists, and he was deported according to our laws," Gonzales told reporters.

This makes a lot more sense than thinking we were relying on Syria to do our interrogatin' for us. We deport people back to hell-holes all the time. So does Canada.

This timeline from the Toronto Sun makes the case for rendition look even less credible.

OK, so let's disregard the unlikeliness of an assist from Bashar Assad to ferret out terrorists. During the period of torture, Mr. Arar received only infrequent visits from Canadian consular officials, several months apart. And the claim is that the U.S. was having the guy squeezed for intel? I suppose it could work this way, but it just doesn't pass the smell test.

Posted by: LauraW. at 07:23 AM | Comments (21)
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Brent Crude Spot (immediate delivery, I think that means) below $60.

Meanwhile, futures are slightly higher. From that Daily Kos diary I linked yesterday, I got my new word "contango," which just means that spot prices are lower than futures, an inversion of the usual situation which indicates a glut.

But while future deliveries are slightly higher than spot deliveries, future prices keep falling too, so there doesn't seem to be any reason to think that prices are going to jump up before the election.

Futures Prices Just Fell... Another ten cents per barrel since I wrote this post, two minutes ago.

The Saudis usually trim production around this time, but they're not doing so now:

Venz and Iran have issues now with big, poor populations. They want revenue NOW. They wanted to cut quotas this meeting. Saudi said no.

For whatever reason -- perhaps to stall conservation efforts or big investments in new energy source development, or simply to avoid a worldwide recession that will force a drop in both price and volume of oil sold -- the Saudis want the price of oil down closer to $50 per barrel. All from this dKos diary.

They may be a little late. The Air Force has been trying to devolop a blend of petroleum (kerosene) and synthetic fuel for its planes, as they're the service most affected by increases in oil price. They just tested a 50/50 blend of typical jet fuel and "FT" fuel (some kind of proprietary alternate fuel) in two of the eight engines of a B52, and the fuel worked just fine.

They believe they can start making this fuel from coal. Texas Rainmaker's piece also notes a $3.5 million dollar investment in a new clean coal plant, which would convert coal to gas and burn without much by way of pollutants.

Blogs for Bush also notes these developments, and how they could lead to a vastly decreased dependency on Chavez', the Sheiks', and Ahmadinejad's oil, under the headline "Suck It."

Add in the big new oil reserves found in the Gulf, and opening up ANWR for oil exploration, and maybe we've got a little somethin'-somethin' goin' on.

Whoops: Futures back up the $0.10 they just dropped.

Guess I shouldn't just keep refreshing trying to extrapolate a trend from very short-term moves.

The Conspiracy Theory That Makes Sense: Bush has one way to reduce the cost of oil, and only one. (Well, two: he could sell a lot of the oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but he doesn't want to do that, and that would be seen as nakedly political... precisely how it wasn't seen when Clinton did it.)

A big part of the price of oil is an "instability premium" paid for fears of future disruptions. Bush can reduce this instability premium by calming the global situation... at least until after the election.

The markets seem to like the fact that the French and Russians and Chinese will block any sanctions, or any actions whatsoever, against Iran. And in all likelihood the Lebanese ceasefire removed a big chunk of the instability tax, too.

So it could be that Bush forced a ceasefire on Israel, and is willing to take a go-slow approach on Iran for now, in order to calm the markets and drop the price of oil. Which was, in fact, killing him.

Conservatives might be pissy about such a sell-out of foreign policy principle for political gain; but then, you can't have airstrikes on Iran in any event if the Democratically-controlled Congress has paralyzed you through perpetual impeachment investigations. And you can't defeat Hezbollah's patron if a change in Congress prevents you from taking any action against Iran whatsoever.

Lefties can't bring this conspiracy up, really, because it involves Bush doing what they want him to do.

If only for the moment.

But I guess when Bush gets serious about Iran after the elections, they can question the timing. For once they might not be crazy to do so.

Then again, wars don't have to be fought on the left's schedule, do they?

Posted by: Ace at 07:20 AM | Comments (16)
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