...according to Sertorius, who sent me this last week.

By the way, I am really, really out of it due to a weeklong flu that seemed to be going away but now is back with a vengeance. I'm in a permanent fog of Tylenol Cold and Nyquil.

I know there are a bunch of emails I was supposed to respond to, but now I just can't remember what they were. If I haven't gotten back to you about something, email me again to remind me, please.

And regarding the donations people have made: I haven't forgotten about thank-yous for those; I just haven't had the focus to start writing them. I apologize for their lateness.

Anyway, on to the WWII flicks: more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:46 PM | Comments (173)
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It's a family affair.

"Many people see it as a crime, but we've done nothing wrong," said Patrick, an unemployed locksmith.

"We are like normal lovers. We want to have a family. Our whole family broke apart when we were younger, and after that happened, Susan and I were brought closer together," he said.

Patrick, who is 30 years old, was adopted and, as a child, he lived in Potsdam.

He did not meet his mother and biological family until he was 23. He travelled to Leipzig with a friend in 2000, determined to make contact with his other relatives.

This law is out of date and it breaches the couple's civil rights
Lawyer Endrik Wilhelm
He met his sister Susan for the first time, and according to the couple, after their mother died, they fell in love.

"When I was younger, I didn't know that I had a brother. I met Patrick and I was so surprised," said Susan, who is 22.

She says she does not feel guilty about their relationship.

"I hope this law will be overturned," Susan said.

"I just want to live with my family, and be left alone by the authorities and by the courts," she went on, in a hardly audible voice.

The amateur leftist webzine Slate bullet-points the controversy nicely:

1) They were raised separately. 2) They met when he was 23 and she was 15; they began living together a year later. 3) They have four kids. One has epilepsy; two have "special needs"; three have been put in foster care. 4) The brother has served a two-year sentence for incest. 5) He recently got a vasectomy. Couple's arguments: 1) The law is outdated. 2) It violates our civil rights. 3) We're not hurting anyone, so just leave us alone. 4) The law lets couples with genetic risks (due to advanced age) or hereditary diseases have kids, so why not us? 5) If we live together and don't have more kids, how can the government prove we're having sex without becoming dangerously invasive?

It's nice the brother/husband finally got a vasectomy, but maybe he should have done so before siring (or, perhaps, "courting," as Max Blumethal might say) two "special needs" children and another one an epileptic.

To note the obvious, if one buys the arguments underlying gay marriage, then marriage is to be based primarily of considerations of romantic love, not a state interest in stable family creation and maintenance, and furthermore should not be limited due to "arbitrary" and "capricious" considerations often present in non-prohibited "normal' marriages, it follows that the couple should be left alone to their "love" which "doesn't affect anyone else."

Yeah, I know. Gay marriage advocates always find ways to differentiate other "capricious" and "arbitrary" restrictions on marriage by right of romantic love, because "studies" prove, say, polygamy is "bad for the children."

All arbitrary and capricious restrictions on marriage are fine, except for the one about the partners having different genders. That one -- and only that one -- is right out.

Posted by: Ace at 12:14 PM | Comments (70)
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Lots of money.

Sell-out crowds.

Posted by: Ace at 11:29 PM | Comments (130)
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or does the following photo currently running on the front page of Drudge Report look like a compilation of every Pink Floyd album EVAH?

Supposedly the picture's got something to do with a story about "climate change."

Which is a hard enough story to take seriously on it's own anyway.

Now?

Forget about it.

For some reason, I just can't get past hearing the Floyd song "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict" to even attempt to read the article.

Posted by: Jack M. at 08:34 PM | Comments (64)
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Look at Daniel Radcliffe's dramatically lit psychic pain in Equus. Weird play. Sheesh. Why do child stars get so dark?

I got some better lines for him:

SOMEWHERE, OOOVER THE RAINBOW, WAAAY UP HIIIIGH
THERE'S A LAND THAT I HEARD OF ONCE IN A LULLABY

SOMEWHERE, OOOVER THE RAINBOW, SKIIIIES ARE BLUE
AND THE DREAMS THAT YOU DARE TO DREAM
REALLY DO COME TRUE!

There we go. Ever so much nicer than getting naked and stabbing horses in the eye.

Why can't I stop looking at his nips?

Posted by: LauraW. at 07:02 PM | Comments (39)
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He can kill people with his mind. Seriously, it's what he claims.

The government kidnapped him at age 3 and has been training him in the art of psionic assassination since then. Why him? Well, he's half-Indian and half-Celtic, and for some reason, those races make for particularly powerful psionicists.

And guess who his target is now? That's right -- the drunken tyrant George Bush, who he will bring down: With his mind.

Bonus: He looks extremely goofy. Now, look, there's no rule that assassins need to be good-looking, or at least serious looking, and hey, I'm sure a lot of them do look like goofs.

But still. This guy? Come on. He even talks funny.

I guess I've just signed my death warrant by saying that.

Avenge me.

Posted by: Ace at 02:28 PM | Comments (82)
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Not even all the CGI effects in the world could properly bring to life the epic fantasia the left and liberal media have constructed of the Hero-Gods Wilson and Plame.

And myth-making pays good money.

Posted by: Ace at 01:59 PM | Comments (2)
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Dan Riehl thinks it's the most science-packed and effective debunking of the theoenvironmental theory of Global Warming, ever. From Channel 4 in Britain, which I imagine is a BBC channel. (Could be wrong, of course.)

You can see the whole 76 minute take-down here.

You can also watch it here and here, should Google yank it, ahem, "by request of the usert."

Dan says it gets a bit redundant, but hey, so are the theoenvironmentalist cranks in making their case.

Posted by: Ace at 11:05 AM | Comments (142)
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No, I didn't see it last night -- I was still feeling too sick from my standard knock-me-on-my-ass CPAC flu.

And now I'm finding it's sold out, at least in IMAX, which is how I'd wanted to see it. Unless I make the commitment to drive an hour and a half to Manchester, CT, there's no way I'm going to be able to see it in IMAX this weekend.

Dave's review is here. He likes it, with some reservations.

Without having read his review yet, I see a couple of things likely to make me not love this movie. The surrealistic all-CGI background thing worked pretty well in Sin City, but I think 300 may take this style to an excess which I won't enjoy. Even Sin City, as terrific as it was, sometimes grated in its hyper-stylization.

Although this hysterical review at Ain't It Cool News says it's the "most ass-ruling" movie ever made, I have a feeling that two straight hours of almost uninterrupted decapitations and slow-motion eviscerations will grow wearisome for anyone who's over the age of 15.

And the dialogue -- I appreciate the sentiment behind heavy-metal slogans like "No retreat, no surrender" and "Tonight we dine in HELL!," but I have a feeling I'm going to be hearing just far too many of such Megadeath choruses, and that, too, will begin to grate. It makes sense for guys in combat to constantly psyche themselves up for battle by repeating such battle-cries, but it's not the most interesting dialogue I can imagine.

I'm not bothered by the fact the movie "departs from history" -- I hate to be a douche, but I don't buy much of this early "history" anyway; studying Roman history I was taught that "historians" basically made up simple-to-grasp, dramatically-satisfying, suspiciously-"Hollywood"-style clever tactics that won this or that war, when the truth was that the tactics employed were pretty much the same in every battle (and, besides, "amateurs study tactics; professionals study logistics") -- and so I don't mind, in principle, the story is about the mythology of the battle, the battle of Thermopylae as it resonates in the collective unconscious and all that jazz. That said, I'm not sure I'll really be on board with pushing the battle as far into fantasy mythology as far as the movie seems to.

As some have snarked, no one has ever mentioned actual Dungeons & Dragons ogres as having been in the Persians' order of battle.

None of those taken together will be enough, probably, to make me dislike the movie; but I'm seeing it with reduced expectations, because I think they will ultimately make me like it less than Sin City.

Now checking Dave's review, he writes, as regards the buff, practically naked Spartans:

I can't vouch for anyone else, but I definitely felt a lot more gay while watching this movie. I mean, I've never found British actor Gerard Butler (veteran of such awful schlock as Dracula: 2000 and Tomb Raider 2: The Cradle of Shite) to be a good actor, but while watching his Leonidas strut onscreen, I admit, I was pretty turned on throughout the movie. Not in a gay way, mind you-- I was turned on like a Viking.

Eh, I like Butler a lot, and I really enjoyed Dracula 2000. Schlock, yes-- but well-done schlock.

...

Bottom line? 300 is about as far from history as you can get, but damn if it's not a great time in the theater. For some reason, while watching it I kept thinking of just how much manly fun a movie like Conan the Barbarian was-- you feel your testosterone surging simply by sitting in 300's audience.

Dave also notes that the film is occasionally funny, which is something I didn't expect it to be, and I thought all that nonstop "Molon labe" talk would make it a bit too solemn for my tastes. Glad to hear there's a bit of humor mixed in with the beheadings.

Then again, in an email to me, he mentions one of my pet peeves:

I'm sure the fighting sequences will grate on you-- more of that super-cut editing again that you (and admittedly, I) hate-- but overall, the vibe is pretty cool.

As a rule I hate what I think he's talking about, but who knows, Snyder seems to know what he's doing, and maybe he's made this sort of fight-editing actually work for a change.

So I think I'm in a good position to review this movie, if I can actually get tickets for it: I'm interested in it, but not really filled with the sort of terribly high expectations that are inevitably disappointed.

As the studio is expecting a big opening weekend -- and the large number of sold-out shows seems to confirm -- if you want to catch 300, you might want to start thinking about buying tickets well in advance. Like, it's not too early to buy tickets for a midnight showing tomorrow.

I'm even looking on Craigslist for scalpers' IMAX tickets. IMAX is pretty much impossible to see at this point, at least for the next couple of days.

Okay, I'm Bailing: I'd wanted to see it today, just because I want to, plus I wanted my review to be more timely as regards the opening weekend, but I give up. I'm seeing tomorrow night at 9.

Honestly, the studios ought to give out free passes to bloggers likely to promote the film. Of course this is a self-serving complaint, but do they want to take advantage of internet buzz or not? How difficult is it to arrange a single early screening in each of the big cities, anyway? Of course they do it for movie critics; in case they haven't noticed, people are reading them less and bloggers more.

It's simply a fact: I reach more people on this stupid moronblog than any of the various smaller-market movie critics they're arranging critics' screenings for. So do all the other mid- to big bloggers. No, we're not as big as the critics at the huge papers, but all those local papers? A much bigger readership.

Self-serving, I know, but also true. And not completely self-serving, because, truth be told, I can easily wait mid-week to see this movie. I just had wanted to review it in a timely fashion, to actually have a review posted before the bulk of readers inclined to see it had already seen it, and also to help the movie's opening box office (assuming it deserves to be helped).

I can wait 'till Monday to do it. Just figure it would be better for the studio if I could have gotten a review up Friday.

I guess I'll just see Zodiac today (again, not very timely) or get Hollywoodland on PPV (very untimely indeed).

Posted by: Ace at 10:49 AM | Comments (70)
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Patterico has the key quote, which is a good place to start.

Once you're done there, you'd do well to go Confirm Them's interview with court watcher Jan Crawford Greenberg, who opines:

doubt my predictions will surprise any of you who’ve read my book (and for those of you who haven’t, I highly recommend it). In Supreme Conflict, I argue that George W. Bush succeeded—where past Republican presidents failed—in achieving clear change on the Court. The Roberts Court, with Justice Alito replacing Sandra Day O’Connor, is more conservative than the Rehnquist Court. Alito is more conservative than key swing voter O’Connor; Roberts is, if anything, more of a principled judicial conservative than Rehnquist. And both Roberts and Alito will be highly effective in making their points without pushing away a wavering justice. We’ll see that this term.

It's not just partial-birth abortion. In three other hot-button cases -- school integration, a suit to compel the EPA to reduce global warming, and McCain-Feingold -- Greenberg expects the court to tack to the right. (I'm not up on what these cases are about, but I would guess, for example, the McCain-Feingold case is not about the rubbishing the whole law as unconstitutional, but challenging one or two particular overreaches of the law.)

Greenberg also faults both the White House and Bill Frist for not responding aggressively enough to the constant Democratic fillibusters, allowing the liberals to gain confidence that they'd pay no price for their obstructionism (which turns out to be the way it, well, turned out). A man I have little use for -- Trent Lott -- would have been a much more effective opponent of the fillibusters had he still been in a leadership position, Greenberg claims.

Posted by: Ace at 09:49 AM | Comments (24)
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