Three Stars. On DVD and PPV now.

A documentary that brings together Jimmy Page, U2's The Edge, and Jack White of the White Stripes and the Raconteurs to talk about the electric guitar and rock and roll.

It's a good movie. Here's the one thing that I didn't like: The whole thing was supposed to be about bringing these three guys together, right? And, hopefully, filming their discussions and inevitable jam session, right?

Well, yeah, but apparently they didn't have much of a conversation, because 75% (or 80%) of the movie isn't about them together, but consists of individual interviews where they talk about their past, and what drew them to rock, and the era they grew up in, and etc. Now, the individual interviews are, in fact, interesting -- did you know Jimmy Page played on Goldfinger? Yeah, the Shirley Bassey Bond theme -- but I kept waiting for the individual interviews to be over and them finally to stick with the three men together.

There's very little of that, really. Some good guitar stuff (great moment when The Edge teaches Page and White his special, pared-down method of playing the E chord), but not enough of it, and definitely very little of these guys talking together.

Still, it's a damn fine documentary.

Here is my absolute favorite moment of the movie.

All those guitar gods whose solos you play air-guitar to? You know what they do in their downtime?

They play air-guitar to their guitar gods.

This movie really made me want to listen to Zeppelin again. And Link Wray. And The Jam (The Edge cites The Jam's appearance on TOTP as opening his eyes to music).

And also... U2. Because I never liked U2, because I didn't like Bono. But The Edge, on the other hand, is such a... cool, understated guy, I think he completely balances out Bono's annoying messianism and makes it okay for me to like the band. The Edge here really was the star, because everything he said was interesting and just... pure information. Just very much fact, fact, interesting anecdote, fact, insight, small amusing joke, fact, fact, fact.

Page was cool too, but he didn't talk as much. I didn't get the sense of him I got about The Edge.

And Jack White? Erm... need to talk less and lose some attitude. Eh, maybe the other guys were just as annoying when they were young but age (and a huge stack of money) have mellowed them out.

Really good documentary which anyone who has even a passing interest in rock will like.

Just wish they would have talked to each other more.

But, as The Edge says, "The guitar is my voice."

Oh: Speaking of rockumentaries, I have two more to recommend. Under the fold.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 07:59 PM | Comments (305)
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Ahhh... My other boy with the Mane of White Gravitas Hair is suddenly all interested in New Hampshire. Isn't that special.

Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) will travel to New Hampshire to address the Hillsborough County GOP Lincoln-Reagan dinner March 19, the county committee announced today. Pence is considered a long-shot (at this point) contender for the White House in 2012; he's been making moves as if he has higher office in mind--he added pollster Kellyanne Conway to his political team recently...

Long-shot? Nonsense. He (and T-Paw, and Thune, and Daniels) are only "long-shots" at this point because no one knows they're running yet and they don't have name recognition. Everything is the names we already know -- Romney, Palin, Huckabee.

Posted by: Ace at 06:38 PM | Comments (177)
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Good evening and happy Hump Day all.

Argentina looking for a Falklands rematch?
Well they've claimed control over the waters surrounding the Falkland island and are talking about a possible blockade. Apparently they're upset that Britain is going to drill for oil near the islands. Sadly the Iron Lady is no longer in charge so their ploy may succeed.
Also how an Argentine scrap dealer helped start the war.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:33 PM | Comments (427)
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The man was infatuated with Joe Biden.

I did not see that one coming.

The man, whom Mercer described as having an “infatuation” with the vice-president, reportedly had made it past several security checkpoints using forged credentials that weren’t of particularly high quality. The man will not face charges, the report says, but has been committed to a psychiatric facility.

Infatuated with Joe Biden? Yeah, I'm guessing "psychiatric facility" is the right way to go.

On the other hand, Joe Biden is an extraordinarily sexy man:

Posted by: Ace at 04:09 PM | Comments (96)
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I listened to this the other day. It made an impact on me, enough that Pawlenty became (very, very tentatively) my current #1, moving ahead of John Thune.

Oh -- and yeah, he's running. I got an invite to a CPAC T-Paw Blogger Happy Hour. You know who sponsors those? Guys who are running for president. (And no, I'm not even going to CPAC, so no, I am not being bought off by that vaunted "DC Cocktail Circuit.")

Three things are appealing here.

1) His very, very real and not-fake-at-all blue collar upbringing.

2) His impressive indictment of Obamanomics. He's pretty damn fluent.

3) And 3, for those who are really angry, when Dennis Miller suggests that the anger level is building to the point where there might actually be an insurrection, Pawlenty doesn't really disagree. I think it's imprudent to say that, but hey, that will appeal to some. (Oh -- he's running down the Republican Party, too: "We got fired for a reason.")

That said, I know nothing about him, except for his previous pandering about global warming. I don't know his record.

I was sort of hoping to wait on Campaign 2012 season, but we're sort of in it already.

I was talking to someone in the comments, and mentioned my own list of guys I like -- Pawlenty, Pence, Thune, Daniels. Someone said none of those guys gave her "leg thrills."

Well, it could be because no one knows these guys yet. So, I guess it's time to start getting to know them.

(Seriously, I don't know anything about Pawlenty or any of the others, not really.)

Posted by: Ace at 02:30 PM | Comments (590)
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Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, with the support of new Governor Bob McDonnell, has filed a petition with the EPA to reconsider its finding based on what is now acknowledged by ClimateGate heavy Phil Jones to be very unsettled science.

He has simultaneously filed a petition with the Federal Appeals court asking a review of the EPA finding.

The Richmond Times Dispatch takes an adversarial approach (one that was absent in its reporting of the previous administration's Climate stance) and frames the issue early, first by couching the skeptical view in purely financial terms:

"The attorney general is acting in the best interests of the citizens of Virginia," McDonnell said in a statement.

"The current federal position could have a negative impact on job creation and economic development in the commonwealth and should be reconsidered."

And rebutting that with a strong appeal to authority that ignores everything learned in the past few months in regards to the data that authority is based on:

A commission appointed by previous Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, a Democrat, found that global warming could spread disease in Virginia, threaten coastal areas and imperil native animals such as crabs.

The panel, which included scientists, business people, lawmakers and environmentalists, unanimously adopted its final report in 2008.

Several more such appeals to authority follow, but my favorite is from Va State Sierra Club director Glen Besa who screeches:

"[The attorney general] is questioning climate change."

and

"apparently wants to bring the Scopes monkey trial to Virginia."

Despite the Dispatches one-sided reporting, its comment gallery is full of cogent rebuttals by average readers who have somehow found information not disseminated by the MSM.

I bet right about now Al Gore wishes he could go back in time and not invent the internet.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 02:01 PM | Comments (107)
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True? I don't know. But it's sort of standard politics (except for the bribery part). So why shouldn't it be true?

Not only do Democrats face the possibility of losing their congressional majorities, massive losses in state house races could jeopardize redistricting next year and set back the progressive agenda for at least a decade.

So, the Clinton Empire is planning to strike back.

Big Government has learned that Clintonistas are plotting a “push/pull” strategy. They plan to identify 7-8 national figures active in the tea party movement and engage in deep opposition research on them. If possible, they will identify one or two they can perhaps ‘turn’, either with money or threats, to create a mole in the movement. The others will be subjected to a full-on smear campaign. (Has MSNBC already been notified?)

Big Government has also learned that James Carville will head up the effort.

Posted by: Ace at 11:51 AM | Comments (278)
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I linked this last week but it got yanked off the servers after an hour due to "inappropriate content" -- that content being some graphic photos of the mayhem and murder caused by KSM.

It's now up on servers without a censorship policy, and it's worth watching.

As My Thompson Gitmo (yeah, I don't get the name either) says:

If you listen to the tape or watch the video (above), itÂ’s clear that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed understood the difference between information he surrendered while under duress and information he volunteered while not under duress, stating four times that he felt no force or coercion to offer his confession.

We here at MyThomsonGitmo encourage you to watch the video and listen to the mpg in entirety. If nothing else, you may gain a new appreciation for the term “enemy combatant” as well as al Qaeda’s religious determination to kill you.

I have to tell you -- you know how conservatives accuse liberals of forgetting about 9/11?

I have to confess: Good Christ, sometimes I forget, too. I mean, I don't forget intellectually. But I forget on the more important visceral level. I forget in my gut.

And then I watch this and I remember again.

Posted by: Ace at 10:47 AM | Comments (64)
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I love that she's said this, as Allah does.

Not only is it 100% right, but it gets me off the hook for the constant claims that anyone who suggests a third-party is jackass and counterproductive must be a GOP shill.

Well, actually, I am a GOP shill, but it's good to have Palin as a wingman on this point.

Her point about American politics being a two-party system is correct -- and people really need to understand this. It is structurally a two-party system. It wasn't designed intentionally to be that way, but that is the way it is designed.

There are -- there will always be -- two parties. Two. Now, it's possible one party might collapse and be replaced by a new party (I won't insult your intelligence by giving you the example of this). But there will always be two parties.

This is not Europe, with a parliamentary system. A parliamentary system permits -- and encourages -- third parties (and forth and fifth and sixth and seventh and eighth parties, too) because voting for these parties is not, in fact, counterproductive or futile. Anyone with a seat in parliament can vote for a government, and therefore can demand concessions and even a formal role in that government. So if a party only gets 5% of the vote, it can in fact leverage that 5% of the vote into 5% of the power -- and sometimes a lot more than 5%.

America is a winner-take-all country. Winner take all. As someone in the Bush Administration said when the media suggested that he didn't have a mandate because he only got 49% of the vote -- "He got 49% of the vote but 100% of the presidency."

And the government -- the President and the administration he picks -- is directly elected. Congressmen do not elect the president. A minor-party Congressman cannot parlay his one vote into some sort of leverage on the President.

Further, in most of Europe, you can vote for just a party. And what happens is: If a party gets 18% of the vote, they then get to appoint 18% of the members of parliament. (Or, you know, there's some formula that is supposed to approximate that... approximately.) In many countries, people don't vote for a specific person, but a party with a slate of politicians, and which people on that slate actually get into office depends on vote-share (and their connections within the party).

In America, we vote specifically for this person or that.

This is the way it works: You get 51% or you go home. There is no mechanism to reward a potent third-party with 33% of Congress just because it got 33% of the vote.

You know what you get for a quite-high 33% vote share? You get to give a five minute concession speech, thirty seconds of which will be broadcast on local tv stations.

I cannot stress this enough. Dreamy-eyed revolutionaries bewitched by the idea of an uncorrupted, untainted third-party Tea Party do not understand, or are so disconnected from reality they disregard, the fact that in America, 33% means you lose, you lose utterly, you lose completely, you lose absolutely, and you have no voice in American politics whatsoever, at least on a formal, holding-office level.

33% means you have the right to stage protests. Just like you had at 0%.

33% means you get to "send a message." Same as you could at 0%.

There are only two paths to actual Tea Party power:

1) It aligns with and merges with the Republican Party.

2) The Republican Party aligns with and merges with the Tea Party.

I mean, they're essentially the same thing -- I guess some people are really hung up on the name issue, and really (childishly, I think) want to call their new club "the Tea Party," and it it's not specifically called "The Tea Party," they want none of it.

But either the Tea Party coopts the Republican Party or the Republican Party coopts the Tea Party, or, most likely (as history demonstrates), they both coopt each other a bit.

EdwardR. just sent me this kinda-damaging article about Marco Rubio. We talked a bit, and then EdwardR. mentioned he didn't like Rubio's support of a high-speed train line in Florida (with federal money, natch).

I wrote back:

I understand taking a locally-popular position. It happens. It's
life. You can't vote on stuff if you can't get elected. This is
something I really wish more conservatives would understand. I read
all this fine rhetoric and cant about principles and integrity that
has nothing to do with the real world. There is little allowance made
for the exigencies of the real world.

The "Tea Party" bewitches people because it's uncorrupted -- but it's
uncorrupted precisely because it hasn't actually engaged with the
corrupting political process. Yet. I can only scream that what
people don't like about their sell-out/unprincipled/lacking
integrity/RINO Republican office-holders is not a problem with
Republicans - it's a problem with HUMAN BEINGS, and the Tea Party guys
are human beings too, and the moment they're forced to choose between
electoral fortunes and principles they too will make the same
self-interested decision that most humans make.

You have to accept *some* amount of corruption/cynicism in people.
It's the human condition. Those insisting that they won't vote for
anyone so corrupted are saying basically they won't vote for a human
being.

I think that's an important point, and I'm sorry to come down on the side that says a bit of cynicism and corruption is okay, but, as Deputy NSA Brennan said, 20% isn't so bad.

But yeah -- the thing is, the Tea Party is uncorrupted precisely because it's not -- yet -- part of the inherently corrupting process of politics.

You think Marco Rubio set out to lend his support to a guy who turned out to be corrupt himself? Of course he didn't. But that's politics -- a guy supported him, he supported the guy back, that guy turned out to be corrupt.

Anyone in politics is tainted by this sort of stuff. So it is nothing to say "The Tea Party isn't tainted like that." Well of course they're not tainted -- yet. They haven't had the opportunity to be tainted.

At the end of the day, we're all people. Tea Partiers too. And people err and people fail. To suppose that a hypothetical third-party Tea Party would contain only incorruptible stalwarts is to simply ignore 300 years of American politics (not to mention 100,000 years of human history).

I really think this is a big attraction of this third party idea -- that this party, this party that doesn't exist yet, hasn't betrayed us and hasn't failed us.

Yet, I have to interject. Because if I know human beings -- and, despite being something of a shut-in, I think I do -- I can predict with 100% confidence that these human beings too will betray and self-deal and sell-out principles if given half a chance.

Anyway, that's my ramble. Now let's hear from someone whose credentials on this point are unassailable:

Asked what her advice would be to conservatives as the November elections approach, Palin first lavished praise on the Tea Party movement, calling it “a grand movement” and adding, “I love it because it’s all about the people.”

But she quickly pivoted to the broader question of whether the Tea Party movement might successfully field its own candidates in national elections, and on that point she sounded far from convinced.

“Now the smart thing will be for independents who are such a part of this Tea Party movement to, I guess, kind of start picking a party,” Palin said. “Which party reflects how that smaller, smarter government steps to be taken? Which party will best fit you? And then because the Tea Party movement is not a party, and we have a two-party system, they’re going to have to pick a party and run one or the other: ‘R’ or ‘D’.”

And hit the link and check out the chart at bottom to see what happens when a hypothetical Tea Party runs against the Democrats and Republicans.

Guess who wins?

No the Tea Party. And not the Republicans.

And it's a blow-out, in fact.

So if that's what people really want -- unchallenged liberal Democratic rule for a generation -- hey, have fun.

I'm not interested in "sending messages" when those messages come with the other, all-caps message: BARACK OBAMA AND HIS MOST STALWART LIBERAL ALLIES WIN, IN BLOW-OUTS, FOR AN ENTIRE GENERATION.

Posted by: Ace at 10:27 AM | Comments (478)
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I am getting some emails that the banning software is acting up again and banning people. Please confirm you're banned (the system will give you a specific message stating that your IP address -- a series of twelve or so numbers -- is banned).

And then send that IP to me. And I will get you unbanned.

I just wrote to Kemp:

I've tried to explain this: We have an automated banning system which
bans spam. Sometimes a spammer fakes your IP. (They fake a lot of
IPs.) And then it gets banned.

And sometimes you just accidentally set off the software's tripwires
by using a couple of words that spammers use. Like, maybe, it's
learned "Lace Wigs" is spam so if you do a joke post about Lace Wigs,
now you're banned, because the software obviously doesn't understand
irony or parody.

I will contact Pixy immediately about unbanning the IP. He's on New
Zealand time, though, so this might take a day or two... our emails
tend to cross without being read.

That last part is important, and a reason that some people who I previously said I'd get unbanned remain banned. Pixy's on a whole different time-cycle, and further, he's got a real job. He does this hosting stuff as a favor, and because he's a conservative who wants to make a difference.

But what happens, sometimes, is that I write him and he misses the message. Happens to me too -- I get a lot of emails.

And then I assume the banned IP has been unbanned... but sometimes it hasn't been.

So... what I'm going to do is do a big email of a bunch of banned IPs, and make sure he sees them. Like, if I don't get a reply, I'll write back in a day.

So please email me your banned IP addresses with the subject line, in caps, UNBAN and then your IP address.

Should take a day. If he misses the email, two days. If he misses that one, three days... but we will get you all unbanned.

Oh: I should say I am making that up about the "Lace Wigs" example. I don't think that's really a word-pair that will get you banned. I'm using that as a for-instance. The system has some AI script it uses to determine if a comment is spam. Words used, rapidity of comments being posted after each other, stuff like that.

The system screens out a lot of spam -- you can see that it still permits an awful lot of spam, too. Without the system, we'd have ten times as much spam.

But it frequently bans real commenters too.

Trust me -- when I ban people, I tend to make an announcement. I don't do stealth-bans.

Posted by: Ace at 09:45 AM | Comments (196)
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