From Jonah Goldberg:

Giuliani's chief selling point seems to be that he'll have "what it takes" to be tough in the war on terror. That may well be the case. But Giuliani's foreign policy experience is, at best, limited. Meanwhile, McCain's experience is deeper than the rest of the field's combined. There's no evidence that Giuliani is more of a hawk than McCain, who has spent the last four years arguing that Bush needs to be more aggressive in Iraq and who argued for a troop "surge" years before anyone used the word.

After 9/11, Giuliani earned his reputation for showing his sensitive side. After 9/11, McCain said to our enemies, "May God have mercy on you, because we won't." How can conservatives argue that Giuliani is The One because he's willing to be a tough SOB on the war on terror, while deriding McCain because he's been such an effective SOB to a president and party who, McCain believes, haven't been tough enough?

In response, McCain has decided to slap conservatives out of their haze. In what his campaign is billing as major speeches, the first on Wednesday at the Virginia Military Institute, McCain plans to make his candidacy a referendum on victory in Iraq. It is a truly bold and courageous gambit. At a time when the polls advise running away from the war, McCain will embrace it.

By positioning himself to the hawkish right of the Bush administration, McCain might be able to make the election a referendum on the future of Iraq, rather than a referendum on the last four years. As a war hero with two sons in the military, McCain can argue with obvious moral authority that while we may have blundered our way into Iraq, it would be an even greater blunder to get out before winning.

There are many reasons to have reservations about McCain: his love of regulation, his animosity toward free-marketers or simply his age and temper. But conservatives who claim that the war trumps everything but won't even consider pulling the lever for McCain have some growing up to do.

Via Hot Air, with some good audio of McCain busting on for-it-before-they-were-against-it Democrats.

Not my first choice. But if Giuliani falters, Romney never catches fire, and Thompson either doesn't run or stumbles once he does, he's our back-up, and this really isn't the moment for over-my-dead-body vows. In the areas where the president has the most power -- foreign policy and the shape of the courts for the next decade or two -- there is simply no comparison between Hillary! and Obama and McCain.

So if it comes down to McCain, I'll just quote Hillary!'s endorsement of John Kerry, "You don't have to fall in love. You just have to fall in line." That was said with Hillary's characteristic charm and tact, but the basic point is valid.

Posted by: Ace at 11:41 AM | Comments (30)
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The best defense is offense. I'll put this past the jump because it's kind of nasty to think about. more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:55 AM | Comments (38)
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Tish Durkin seems to be a reasonable liberal. Here she reads the unreasonable lefties the riot act. Though she also vows she'd give righties the same treatement were she addressing war supporters, at least the left gets to hear this for once.

She questions their patriotism: she calls them out for actively praying for defeat and American military and Iraqi civilian deaths.

Maybe it's just the contrarian in me, but it is these other things that I feel the need to stress, especially to those who are now reveling in their rightness about the war. Those who opposed the war seem to feel that they are the perfect opposite of those who sold the war - and of course, in the important sense of the invade-or-not-to-invade question, they are. But in their collective allergy to any fact that may complicate their position; their proud blindness to the color gray, and their fervent faith in their own infallibility, the two sides have always struck me as very much the same.

...

I know that these anecdotes will sound as if Karen Hughes or somebody paid me to cook them up, but they all really happened: The day I met Riyadh, he told me what he had been doing before the war. He and his family would sit around and listen to underground BBC radio. And if the French or somebody else in the U.N. seemed to come up with something that would offer the world a glimmer of hope that war could be avoided, their reaction was not, "thank God." It was: "Oh shit."

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It's easy to rewrite a very complex story as a dark fairy tale that begins and ends with the evil of Bush and Cheney. This, presumably, is why so many people are doing it. But it's still wrong.

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Finally, what depresses me, and makes me despise so much war criticism even when I agree with it, is that so many of those positing it seem so happy about what's gone wrong. They seem to relish the probability that Iraq will get worse and worse so that they can be righter and righter.

This isn't new.

I remember an anti-war activist who was staying in our hotel in Baghdad, who had not come to Karbala for that first ashura. A good person trying to do good things, she had stayed behind to prepare a media alert on the horrors of the occupation -- which, especially at a time when the coverage out of Iraq was largely very upbeat, was a very worthy thing to be doing. Still, one thing really bothered me about her. When, upon everyone's return from Karbala, the activist heard that the day had actually been free of violence, and full of jubilation, she looked as if she had tasted a bad olive, and spit out her response: "Oh, fuck."

How she must be gloating now. Reality has made sages of the most dire prophets. It's perfect: Iraq really has gone to hell, and the demon neocons are the ones that sent it.

Like liberals - and thinking conservatives, and sentient beings -- everywhere, I gravely doubt that the troop surge - so little so late -- will do anything to save Iraq. But for the sake of the Iraqi people, I sure hope it does - even if that helps the Republicans.

Read the whole thing. One point she makes, which I'll just paraphrase as I've quoted so much, is that lefties' simplistic fantasies about Bush/Cheney being the root of evil neatly disobligates lefties from thinking very hard about war -- when is it necessary, under what circumstances, what actions may a tyrant take to revoke his cherished national sovereignty, etc.

By simply repeating the mantra "Bush, Cheney, neocon, Halliborton, blood for oil," liberals answer the above questions with childish reductivism: Just elect someone who's not pure evil like Bush, and all the thorny problems of war and peace go away.

The comments are fairly predictable. In between liberals claiming of course they root for America in its wars are other liberals claiming they've been forced to root for America's enemies... by Bush and the right, of course, who are also guilty of making them treasonous in thought. Here's one guy:

I agree that there are some anti-war activists who want to see Iraq get worse and worse -- this is certainly childish and counterproductive. The thing is, I can't blame them.

The American left has been so traumatized during these past six years (or even the past 26 years) that many of us have stopped caring about what's going on in the outside world. It's a luxury we simply can't afford right now. An entire generation of leftists (myself included) have been 'partisanized' -- we've been forced to look at the world in purely political/Machiavellian terms because the stakes are so high at home.

In short, blame Rove, Bush, Gingrich and Reagan for destroying the political center in this country and forcing liberals to fight for justice AT HOME instead of abroad.

He allows the left are partly to blame, and then offers the curious assertion that the left is no stranger to self-criticism. If only. But then he concludes, of course, that he simply has no feeling left to care much what happens in Iraq, because the "war" at home so dominates his emotions.

Merely rooting for one's enemies (without taking tangible treasonous action to aid them) may not actually result in any real-world ill. Of course our enemies know there is a large-ish fifth column in America who are essentially their stateside cheering section, and those cheers both boost our enemies' morale and reduce that of our own troops, but a lefty can claim that that is a natural consequence of Bush's warmongering and so is hardly their fault. (That is, after they got done denying every premise and sub-premise of the statement.)

But whether this praying for American death and defeat actually has any consequence besides the inevitable corruption of the spirit, it does, inarguably, make it rather difficult to take the left's criticism seriously. Serious criticism -- constructive, reasonable criticism -- would start with the premise that it is important for America to win (or at least not lose as badly, if indeed that is inevitable) and offer suggestions as to how to accomplish that.

But the left does not start with that premise, even if they claim they do. They actively desire an American defeat, to defeat Bush politically and to chasten the American people so that they do not make war on a kite-flying sovereign peaceful murderous tyranny again. So it's a bit impossible to have any real give and take with them -- it woud be like a football coach asking his opponent what his best strategy might be. Obviously, the opponent is not going to give him a straight answer to that question, because he's invested in the first coach's defeat.

Nearly as invested, in fact, as the left is in American death, defeat, repudiation, and humiliation.

More Patriotism! This commenter was all for deposing dictators... until Bush tried it:

I had always wanted America to be the world's policeman; sending in troops to depose dictators of all stripes, then a diplomatic corps to re-build government and infrastructure. To allow the people of sudanburmarhodesia wherever, a chance to determine their own fates.

Naive, yes. But it wasn't until Bush tried what I dreamed of that I realized it. The truth is, I did not want Bush to get the credit if it worked.

Nuance!

The fact is that the left has always made very idealistic noises as regards foreign policy -- usually as a club to bash the US with for so much as tolerating corrupt tyrannies, as if we had to the power to advance foreign countries' politics by a full milennium and make them all democratic and peaceful and just.

They were idealistic, at least in cant, that is, until Bush and his warmongering neocons championed idealism. Then suddenly they became Kissingerian realpolitikers overnight.

Except when they're not, of course. The left still criticizes the US for dealing with nasty regimes like Sadui Arabia and Pakistan. What, precisely, are they suggesting? That we invade those countries as well? What, exactly?

Posted by: Ace at 10:25 AM | Comments (77)
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Pointless video about a stupid jerk, via Treacher at Blowing Smoke.

Am I ashamed of myself? Definitely.
Am I doing Satan's work? Yes.

Posted by: LauraW. at 06:29 AM | Comments (76)
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That was me (Pixy). Sorry! Trying to do too many things at once...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:25 AM | Comments (109)
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More here.

Posted by: Ace at 11:25 PM | Comments (13)
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Sorry about that, everyone!

Not the most auspicious start to our beta test, with the whole thing shutting itself down after just a few hours. I've fixed it, and put in place an automatic restart script, and we're back up again.

I'll resume sending out the beta keys now.

Update: Second batch has gone out. I'm going to go have some lunch, then start in on the third batch.

There are still keys available so if you want one, email me at beta -at- mee -dot- nu. If you just comment here I can't find your email address, so I can't send you a key, which makes me sad. Then I have to go look at pictures of kittens to cheer myself up.

So remember to email me! Do it for the kittens!

Update 2: Third batch has gone out. If you've requested a key and I haven't got back to you, either I didn't get your email or I goofed; about equal probability, so it's worth sending me another.

If you haven't jumped on the bus yet, the story is, I'm starting up a new blogging (and other things) site called mee.nu, and I'm inviting people to beta test it. As an incentive, beta testers get a lifetime free account; no ads, just you and your blog and the open road...

There will still be free acounts after the beta period, but those will be ad-supported.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:32 PM | Comments (15)
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A real mounting for a fake mount.

True? Or not true? Looks true to me.

Turn down your sound before you click, because it's one of those annoying YTMND things that plays a short music bite over and over (and kind of loud).

This should put rest to claims that anyone spending all their days and nights playing RPGs will never get laid. She's in inspiration to us all.

Thanks to Markus.

Posted by: Ace at 04:44 PM | Comments (43)
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Note: I just thought I'd highlight something that doesn't come through in my review. Although I seem pretty damn negative about this movie -- and I'm still bewildered at some of the choices made, the bloated running length, etc. -- overall, it's a fun movie, and I liked it quite a bit. I'd give it three stars, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in the basic premise (and who understands this is one of the goriest movies ever made; a lot of that gore is played for silly laughs, but some will still find it pretty disgusting).

I have a lot of criticisms of it, and I think it could have been a minor classic were it not sabotaged by over-indulgence, but overall -- hey, it was a fun three hours and twelve minutes, and I didn't get bored at any point, except for Tarantino's interminable yak-yak parts, when I got very bored indeed, bordering on physically angry at Tarantino.

But that said -- the good parts of Death Proof make the whole featurette worth watching. Well, worth watching like a porno -- fast-forwarding to the action. And Planet Terror is largely a hoot. And the trailers... awesome.

...

Big box office disappointment:

Harvey Weinstein told me this morning that he's "incredibly disappointed" with the half-than-expected $12 mil box office for Grindhouse released on Easter Weekend (a controversial move itself). So much so, that he's considering abandoning the double feature as a single feature concept and re-releasing the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez movie around the U.S. "in a couple of weeks" as two separate feature-length movies with additional footage put in. grindhouse_bigfinalposter.jpgThat's what Harvey says The Weinstein Co. is already intending to do with the film's release in Europe: split it into two separate pics, Tarantino's Death Proof and Rodriguez's Planet Terror.

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So this is why The Weinstein Co. is now deciding to suck it up and do in this country what it probably should have done all along. "First of all, I'm incredibly disappointed. We tried to do something new and obviously we didn't do it that well," Harvey told me today. "It's just a question of how is it going to hang in there. But we could split the movies in a couple of weeks. Make Tarantino's a full-length film, and Rodriguez's too. We'll be adding those 'two missing reels' that's talked about in the movie." (At one point in Grindhouse, a sex scene is interrupted because of "two missing reels" -- one of the many conceits and indulgences.)

Weinstein pointed to several reasons why Grindhouse did so poorly in theaters over Easter weekend. "Our research showed the length kept people away. It was the single biggest deterrent. It was 3 hours and 12 minutes long. grondhouse1.jpgWe originally intended to get it all in in 2 hours, 30 minutes. That would have been a better time. But the movies ran longer, the [fake] trailers ran longer, everything ran longer," Harvey told me.

Okay, let me say that having seen the film, cutting it into two will not work. Neither of these "features" is capable of standing on its own. That isn't to say Grindhouse is a bad movie; I liked it a great deal. But neither "feature" is long enough or strong enough to justify release as a stand-alone picture. They work together -- especially with those fake trailers, the best part of the whole damn thing -- but won't work alone. Together, they're a spoof/homage to crap cinema; on their own, they're just sort of, well, crap cinema, period.

What was really needed was a great deal more editing. Both "features" clock in at nearly 90 minutes (89 minutes for one, 87 minutes for the other). That is unacceptable and grossly miscalculating an audience's patience for this fare.

Three hours and 12 minutes is a long time to spend in the theater. Personally, I thought the time went by pretty quickly -- except for Tarantino's endless, mindless, pointless scenes of meaningless dialogue he uses to pad out his 50 minute mini-movie into a bloated 87 minutes. more...

Posted by: Ace at 03:36 PM | Comments (43)
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Nuance.

Sometimes a "clear scientific consenus" is dispositive and sometimes it is simply just plain wrong.

Coincidentally enough, a scientific "consensus" ends all debate when it reinforces a leftist agenda item, but means absolutely nothing at all when it undermines it.

But don't be fooled -- this has nothing to do with politics. Lefties just happen to all be scientific geniuses (or genii) capable of independently verifying the validity of scientific conensuses (or consensi) through their own painstaking experimentation in their basement laboratories/hydroponic pot farms.

Thanks to DaveS.

Posted by: Ace at 03:13 PM | Comments (30)
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