Well! If I had known my scoop -- or rather DP's scoop -- about the DailyKos' "Killitary" post was going to break so big I would have publicized it more!

Not only was it deleted from the DailyKos -- without explanation or refutation by the supposedly troop-supportin' Kos himself -- but it's now also gone missing from the InColdBlog blog, where it was cross-posted. Fortunately, LGF got screencaps of the cached versions of the deleted posts.

Or should I say, Soviet-like, the nonposts.

Take-away: Liberals and leftists eagerly impugn and slander the troops they claim to support... so long as they think they're talking amongst themselves. The moment their vicious hatred is exposed to a wider audience -- not just of liberals and leftists who nod in approval of the libels -- they delete the posts and pretend they never existed at all.

Has Kos actually defended the troops by refuting the post? By noting it was pure jackassery and hatred? I haven't seen such a post, and I doubt I will. Because such a statement would be intensely controversial among his readers, and half of his commenters -- the ones who forget they're supposed to pretend they support their troops -- would claim that the "Killitary" post got it right. And then he'd just have to delete even more.

So instead he just stealthily deletes the post, and another lefty blog salutes and follows suit. Because they have to stay on message -- Liberals Support The Troops! -- even if that message is a transparent lie and exposed as such whenever liberals dare to express their actual beliefs.

What They Really Think: Chris Hedges, the terrorist-apologist douchebag, the former NYT "reporter" who turned a routine college graduation speech into a moonbat rant about the war, now proudly reports on all sorts of alleged misbehavior among our troops, based, supposedly, on interviews with them. Most of it's small-bore stuff. He's got one repulsive little anecdote (allegedly), and trumps up penny-ante shit to fit with his thesis:

The military is by and large composed of psychopaths.

Sound familiar? The left is singing hoseanas about this Nation hit-piece.

But they support the troops. They say so. A leftist wouldn't lie to you, now would he?

Posted by: Ace at 10:43 AM | Comments (49)
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I trust you'll understand.

The Beast needs to be fed.

About a dozen hobos from across the country and more than 100 civilians converged at an old quarry in Akron this weekend to camp out, show off their wares and ride trains.

...

This summer's meeting is in advance of the national hobo gathering in August in Britt, Iowa.

The park district has a large collection of hobo memorabilia, and set up interpretational exhibits throughout the woods on things like using tin cans for cooking and setting up a hobo camp, or "jungle."

The gathering's non-hobo attendees rode a train in, ate authentic hobo stew and saw "tramp art" being made: rail road spikes turned into knives, whistles and cooking implements.

Authentic hobo stew. Delicious. Here's the recipe:

One authentic hobo, minced
Thirty cans of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup
Salt to taste
Cillinatro, to give your hobo stew that gourmet feel

Yum.

Anyone have a spare room near Britt, Iowa this August? And a spare crawlspace and a spare meat-smoking shack?

Thanks to IllTemperedCur.

Posted by: Ace at 09:57 AM | Comments (39)
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I'm not sure I care about Laurie David's rebound romance with a fellow-minded ecopath, or that the jilted (?) Larry David is now bunking with ecopaths Ted Danson and Mary Steinberger.

But come on, that headline.

Well played, NYPost. Well played.

Via Kausfiles, who's all about the tabloidish gossip about politicians and political figures. He's been on quite a crusade lately over the LAT's embargoing the LA Mayor affair.

My take: None of this really matters all that much, however, since the media contrive reasons to report the dirt on every Republican, it's a good thing if the MSM dropped its pretensions and just admitted tabloid stuff like this is news, even if it's not the most important news, and reported it about everyone. If they're permitted to maintain their stance that this stuff is beneath them, then they'll continue applying that rule selectively, only reporting embarrassing personal details about Republicans. Because only there do you have the needed deeper narrative ("hypocrisy!").

Posted by: Ace at 09:35 AM | Comments (20)
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The left is sometimes so shamelessly dishonest and childish that it's difficult to even argue against them. The bad faith they exhibit is so obvious that it seems pointless to note it -- it must be obvious to they themselves, after all, and apparently they're pretty comfortable in the gutter.

Greg Sargent -- or "The Sarge," as I call him, owing to his heroic service chasing down Taliban in Afghanistan -- claimed that "values voters" ought to be greatly upset by Giuliani's "unhinged' use of the word "bullshit" at a rally.

After being the subject of great mockery and buffoonification for this idiocy, he now announces:

Memo to wingnuts: There's a little something about Rudy's "bulls#$t" moment that we know and that you don't know.

He then quotes from a NYT article, which he seems to have found at Ann Althouse's, published today, noting that during this rally many of the white cops in attendance were drunk and rowdy, and further some waved "racist" signs like "Dump the Washroom Attendant," a reference to David Dinkins, who was in fact about as competent at city management as a washroom attendant.

Then, as "The Sarge" always does, he begins demanding apologies for imagined misdeeds committed by his political opponents:

Note to wingnuts: This moment actually had great resonance for African Americans in New York for many, many years. It was a key chapter in the history of both race relations in the city and of Rudy's own rise to power. And Rudy's own campaign internally conceded that this was really, really bad -- that he'd sought to rile up an audience carrying signs saying things about Dinkins like "dump the washroom attendant" without denouncing their crude displays of racism. This is all actually common knowledge to lots of people. You could have established this basic history and context with five minutes on Google or Nexis before holding forth on it.

But let's say it's not even your fault that you didn't know anything about this. And let's even concede that we should have spelled the history and context out better in our initial post. Now that you actually know a little something about the topic at hand, isn't it time for some follow-up posts explaining to your readers whether the moment's worthy of attention and what people should think of it?

The childishness here, of course, is that Greg Sargent obviously didn't remember any of this "context" himself, or else he might have mentioned it in his post. He is therefore, it seems, demanding an apology from himself for failing to recall the "context" of a rally that occurred 15 years ago.

But of course he pretends that he knew it all along -- "I meant to do that!" -- and that when he was focusing laser-like on the word "Bullshit!" and its anathemic repulsiveness to "values voters," what he was really talking about was Giuliani's supposed racial insensitivity, his inclination to "provoke riots" in order to take over government via the putsch, and, uh, whatever else he's now claiming.

Gee, Sarge, if that was what was really important about this rally, why is that there is not a single mention of "rowdy cops" or "racial insensitivity" in your original post? Why did you only mention the invocation of the unholy profanity "Bullshit" and the incongruity of "values voters" supporting such a blasphemer? Indeed, why were you concentrating on "values voters" at all, given that what you now claim was your inexplicably-unmentioned true complaint all along was not about "values" about language and decorum, but about race relations and beer-hall putsches?

I'm supposed to apologize to The Sarge, though, it seems.

Tell you what, The Sarge: The apology is on its way, the moment you prostrate yourself before your audience for your disgusting dishonesty and self-serving claims about "what you knew" but didn't see fit to mention until a NYT article published today alerted you to it.

There is just something wrong with leftists such as Sargent. An spiritual emptiness and an intellectual insecurity that unhinged belief in partisan liberalism satisfies. If one believes in the Doctrine of the Cult, then one is transformed incorruptible, and, it seems, infallible.

Why else believe in such twaddle if not to become Jesus-like in virtue and God-like in intellect?

And damnit, even if The Sarge beclowned himself here, why, wait! He's a lefty! He can't have been wrong! Ah, it seems that there were these other things to be concerned about at this rally, and he must have meant those when talking about "values voters" and the horrible profanity "Bullshit!"

Because, you know, it's just not possible he may have erred in judgment or have been ignorant of any facts from 15 years ago.

The Sarge's new argument is not a good argument, God knows. If he wanted to inform his readers fully of the "context" of Giuliani's cop-rally, he might have shared this "context" with them as well:

Those were grim days for race relations in New York City, the early 1990s. There were nearly 2,000 murders each year, blacks and whites died in high-profile racial killings, and a riot held a divided Brooklyn neighborhood in thrall for three dangerous nights.

On Jan. 9, 1994, another match landed in this tinderbox: a caller reported a burglary at a Harlem mosque. The police ran in, and Nation of Islam guards threw punches and broke an officerÂ’s nose.

The mosqueÂ’s minister, accompanied by the Rev. Al Sharpton, drove downtown to register their outrage with the police commissioner, a street theater ritual grudgingly tolerated by past mayors.

Except the new mayor — Rudolph W. Giuliani, fresh off his November victory over the city’s first black mayor, David N. Dinkins — decreed that no one would meet with Mr. Sharpton. No more antics, no more provocations.

“I’ve taken a golden opportunity to act like a sensible mayor rather than a mayor who will be moved in any direction,” he said. “I’m an observer of the last 10 years of this city, and I hope to God we don’t continue in that direction.”

But his new argument is at least not as riotously absurd as his last argument.

He's welcome to make his new argument.

But he's not permitted to claim his new argument was in fact his argument all along, and demand apologies (for the millionth time) from "wingnuts" who fail, according to him, to read a post about the word "Bullshit" and "values voters" as about racism and fascists marching on Rome.

Coming Next: Greg "The Sarge" Sargent claims he only wrote that hysterical (in both meanings of the word) post in order to cleverly draw attention to Giuliani's gestapo tendencies, tricking dumb "wingnuts" into mentioning it!

Oh boy, Greggie! Boy is my face red! You sure are some kind of Pointdexter Brainiac of an Einstein, I'll say that for sure!

What a clever feller. I never could keep up with those slick city geniuses. I'm a simple man with simple pleasures, like whittlin' corn-cob pipes and raping stray dogs.

Layers.

Posted by: Ace at 09:23 AM | Comments (32)
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Goofy video, worth it for the cameos.

Thanks to phin of Agent Bedhead.

Posted by: Ace at 08:17 AM | Comments (14)
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Ouch, baby, very ouch. I feel like I have to links this because people will think I swiped from her. Not so.

She explains very neatly why I can't get into Pottermania:

There are two ways, I think, that one can present magic: as something that can be done, but only at a price; or as a mysterious force that is poorly understood. So in Orson Scott Card's Hart's Hope, women who perform magic must pay the price in blood, their own or that of others.

Those prices provide the scarcity needed to drive the plot forward. In the Narnia books and the Lord of the Rings, on the other hand, magical power has no obvious cost. But we don't need to understand the costs of magic, because the main characters can't perform it. ...

But there have to be generally accepted rules.... if your characters will be using magic, they must do so by some generally believable system.

Yet in the Potter books, the costs and limits are too often arbitrary.
A patronus charm, for example, is awfully difficult - until Rowling wants a stirring scene in which Harry pulls together an intrepid band of students to Fight the Power, whereupon it becomes simple enough to be taught by an inexperienced fifteen year old. Rowling can only do this because it's thoroughly unclear how magic power is acquired. It seems hard to credit academic labour, when spells are one or two words; and anyway, if that were the determinant, Hermione Granger would be a better wizard than Harry. But if it's something akin to athletic skill, why is it taught at rows of desks? And why aren't students worn out after practicing spells?

The low opportunity cost attached to magic spills over into the thoroughly unbelievable wizard economy. Why are the Weasleys poor? Why would any wizard be?

...

The answer, as with so much of JK Rowling's work, seems to be "she didn't think it through". The details are the great charm of Rowling's books, and the reason that I have pre-ordered my copy of the seventh novel: the owl grams, the talking portraits, the Weasley twins' magic tricks. But she seems to pay no attention at all to the big picture, so all the details clash madly with each other. It's the same reason she writes herself into plot holes that have to be resolved by making characters behave in inexplicable ways.

She also gets at something I forgot to mention in my review: the fact that in these "mysteries," virtually all of the answers to the mystery are known to the allies, friends, and family of the hero -- in fact, sometimes everyone except Harry seems to be in on the Big Secret -- but are for some bizarre reason these vital facts withheld from him until appropriately late in the book. Usually with the explanation "I didn't want to worry you."

Well, you know, when the world's greatest evil undead archmage has a vow of vengeance against one, maybe a bit of worry is actually appropriate, and Dumbledore, Sirius, and the rest of the gang might want to consider that it's a bit nonsensical to deny Harry key information (sometimes necessary to saving his life) in order "to protect him."

On the other hand... A very positive review of the new book here, spoiler free for the first part, then come the spoilers.

Posted by: Ace at 10:03 PM | Comments (264)
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I was sort of pulling for Jessica Biel, but I can't say for sure they got it wrong.

As Holly said in Die Hard 2, "John, why does this keep happening to us?"

Posted by: Ace at 07:55 PM | Comments (20)
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Wow, I thought the PaulBots were pretty damn psyched to have every bit of Ron Paul news forced down the throats of everyone unfortunate enough to have an IP address.

But when an article notes that Ron Paul himself admits to being sympathetic to the conspiracy-deranged Birchers, suddenly the Important Action Alerts go out and posts get deleted.

You guys are creepy. This is the Cult of the Eternal Loser at work here.

Bonus: Ron Paul thrallsite, "The Daily Paul," announces big celebrity booster-- Mr. Barry Manilow.

Wowsers.

Via The Malcontent, which I'd usually toss a light content warning on due to the big gay ads on the side, but then, I just had the "Real Jock" ad on here myself for a week so really, what's the point?

Jagoffs: From the comments in Say Anything's post. Rob had said,

When the opposition is trying to silence you, you know youÂ’re on target.

Here's how a PaulBot answered:

How clicheÂ’ of you. Ron Paul should be wearing that t-shirt. I wish people like you werenÂ’t so stubborn, arguing just for fun. You would do well to read some history NOT written by Mr. Rogers or Uncle Sam. Perhaps without your brand of venom, dissenters would be more willing to be open and honest about ther views. Unplug your TV!!!!!!!!!!!

Psychopaths. You know, if you losers had a single thing going on your lives, you would find that most of your energy was directed towards those more worthwhile pursuits, rather than wallowing in this childish, manic-obsessive sublimation of all your petty hopes and dreams into this quixotic fantasia that Lord God King Ron Paul turning America into a Magical Wonderland where you didn't get atomic wedgies every three days.

The religious impulse can, sometimes, be a horrible thing -- Al Qaeda comes to mind -- but what is a little unnerving is that there are millions of people deeply, deeply driven by the religious impulse but they don't even know it, because they don't actually believe in God. So instead that impulse, that desire for the divine quickening, just gets sublimated into other interests.

Honestly, guys, if you're looking for transcendence, trust me, Ron Paul cannot grant it to you. I suggest you try Jesus Christ. Not because I really have an awful lot of faith that He can deliver the transcendence you crave, either, but I am reasonably confident that between Ron Paul and Jesus, Jesus is by far the likelier to deliver you unto the Kingdom of Heaven you seek.

I'm getting the profile of these guys -- they're irreligious and indeed pride themselves on being relentlessly, courageously logical, but they're really lost lambs in search of a savior, and they've decided that savoir is a septungerian charlatan and professional conspiracy theorist and all-around twink of a crank named Ron Paul.

Let me tell you my favorite part of that douchebag featured on Screw Lose Change, the "Proud True Conservative" who "took the red pill like Neo" and now understands 9/11 was an inside job. It was this:

After telling us our own government murdered 3000 Americans, he seamlessly begins repeating Ron Paul's ignorant talking points about "fiat money" and the Federal Reserve.

So let me get this straight: You just straight-up accused the government of murdering 3000 people in order to advance a cryptofascist conspiracy whose end goal is to plunge America into totalitarian darkness, which, in your estimation, seems a perfect segueway into discussing how American money used to be silver certificates backed by silver but now has only the "fiat value" the bankers assign to it.

These, in your estimation, are complaints of roughly equivalent gravity, which naturally elide into one another?

Is this not prima facie evidence of a disordered mind?

In related news, all you Seekers of Enlightenment will be cast into the Pit of Fire to burn in Hell for all Eternity unless you stop worshipping the false god Ron Paul, and, to make matters worse, Hell only has basic cable.

Posted by: Ace at 06:44 PM | Comments (69)
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Since I'm clearing the decks of all the reviews I've meant to write but haven't, I'll just ask:

Has anyone else seen this miserable piece of shit?

What a disappointment. I initially had no interest in this movie, then critics began praising it for Gibson's genius at executing simple but visceral thrillers.

Wrong. Half of it is a sadistic forced march through the jungle, then the other half is running through the jungle back home. I liked the first part better, when at least I could tell myself "Sure, this is sort of boring and unpleasant, but the wicked-cool vengeance action is coming!"

Then the vengeance action came. I wept.

There are simple plots and then there are non-plots. This movie is in the latter category. The action is lame and nothing that hasn't been done before -- again, see Rambo if you want a dude running through the jungle randomly taking people out with snakes and crap -- and I really have to stress the randomness of the villain take-outs. Suddenly a snake bites one; suddenly a pather eats another. Has nothing to do with the hero, Jaguar Paw; it just seems the jungle is coming alive to save him.

His big clever attack on the villains is an, um, bee-bomb. He wraps a wasp's nest in big jungle fronds and throws it like a buzzing grenade. Ooooh. Oh, and the curare poison darts, I guess.

There's really no pacing here at the end. Just every five minutes, some guy gets it from a snake. Or a panther. Or an, um, bee bomb.

The Mayan capital was supposed to be breath-taking, I guess, but for once -- I really could have used some CGI, guys. Just looked like a couple of pyramids and some weirdly-pained and plumed jagoffs milling about.

I was sort of wondering how on earth Jaguar Paw could possibly escape the long decapitating the captives sequence, and couldn't see any possible way to fight off so many armed guards. It occurred to me that the old Conveniently Occurring Solar Eclipse could happen, but I figured that was too obvious, too cheesy, and too cliched.

Um.... wrong. That's exactly what happened.

Just like in A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court. And, um, the Martin Lawrence California Negro in a Medieval English Court flick Black Knight.

Liked it a lot more in Black Knight.

At the halfway point of the movie, a spooky, disease-demented girl delivers a prophecy, basically suggesting that Jaguar Paw will be the undoing of the entire Mayan Empire. Okay, so.... I guess Jaguar Paw will rally the other tribes to overthrow them? Nah, historically jackass. Okay, not PC, but I guess that means Jaguar Paw will help the European conquistadors destroy the Mayans? Again, not PC, but that's pretty much what happened to the Aztecs; Cortez was greatly assisted by the tribes the Aztecs had subjugated and murdered for years. So, okay, I guess that's what this big prophecy means: For his ultimate vengeance, he'll lead the Apocalypse-bringing white men against the horrid Mayans.

Nope. Cop-out. The prophecy is just forgotten. At the end Jaguar Paw just slides back into the jungle, and the conquistadors show up and, presumably, get ready to do some hardcore conquistadoring. He leaves the two groups of conquerors, indigenous and European, to their own devices, which is fine, but I'm still scratching my head about what that spooky insane girl was talking about.

I guess... she was just insane. Fine, I guess. But then why did I have to listen to her for three minutes?

Also, the whole conceit in speaking in ancient Indian tongues is pointless. It might have made sense with The Passion, but as far as I know there is no Gospel of Jaguar Paw nor a Squid Ink's Letter to the Corinthians, so I'm really not getting the need for linguistic accuracy in a dumb jungle-run chase movie.

Only good part: For the first time (I think), we get to see the blunt-force impact from a club cracking a skull enough to cause a puslating arterial spray right out of the head. Sure, we've seen the arterial spray from necks and chests before; but right out of the forehead? Nice.

So, there you go: There is precisely 3 seconds of worthy material here. Enjoy.

Posted by: Ace at 05:57 PM | Comments (58)
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I've been noticing lately that I cannot find any of my old posts via Google. None. Even when I include key words I know are prominent in them. And I include "Ace of spades" or "ace of spades hq," which you would think would bring them up pretty fast, right?

I just tried to find my old post on Dana Stevens' absurdly glowing review of Shooter. My search terms? "ace of spades stevens shooter slate." And permutations thereof.

Not a single hit.

In fact, the only hits that come up are other bloggers linking me for that post. Right Wing News, for example.

But the site that should, presumably, be at the top of the list?

Not there. Gone.

Simply searching for "Ace of Spades" or "Ace of Spades HQ" does bring up some hits for the website generally, but how can it be that no specific posts can any longer be found on Google?

Or on Yahoo, for that matter.

I'm going to write Google about this, but I already know what they're going to claim.

Have any other right-leaning bloggers noticed a complete Google-search blackout on your sites?

"Don't be evil." Indeed.

Maybe I'm Paranoid: Gabriel Malor says that a site-specific search -- for ace.mu.nu -- will bring up old posts, but that is a change from the way it used to be, when "ace of spades" in the search box was enough to do the trick.

"Hot air thomas" has no problem bringing up the recent post on "Scott Thomas" as the sixth item found. No site-specific search needed there.

So what gives?

False Alarm: Malor says it's about putting quotes around "ace of spades" and stuff. It's different than it used to be, but I guess I jumped the gun on screaming "purge!"

Posted by: Ace at 05:02 PM | Comments (41)
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