Toure, whose area of expertise is Being Black, attacked Ben Carson as an Uncle Tom, someone who exists just to "assuage white people's guilt" about being racist. Incidentally, this is exactly what he said about Herman Cain, too. So, in addition to saying stupid things, he also recycles all of his stupid things. He is uncreative in his stupidities.

Ben Carson addresses that on Megyn Kelly starting at around 1:55. He calls the sort of people who cannot address actual policy and philosophical questions and who are thus required to only speak in personal attacks, "unintelligent."

Rush Limbaugh also addressed Toure, calling him a young fool.

I don't know why people say "young" as an insult. First of all, Toure is not that young. He was born in 1971. Yes, 1971. When Toure was born, George Harrison's All Things Must Pass was the number one album.

He is actually becoming far too old to gracefully play the juvenile.

Second of all, "young" has no good effect as an insult on people. Young people love calling themselves young. Meghan McCain can't write type a single column without congratulating herself on being young, as if she worked real hard to arrive at her current age.

I'm sure Toure, who actually departed the category of "young" before Lost debuted, is delighted to be called young.

Just saying, it's not an effective insult to call people by things they consider compliments.

He's an idiot. Let's leave it at that.

You can also try "punkmouth."

Posted by: Ace at 12:12 PM | Comments (4)
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Just kidding about that, actually.

Their new dolphin logo won't have the helmet, and they say they're going back to colors more like their original colors, "true aqua and true orange."

I honestly wouldn't even have noticed the lack of a helmet. I forgot the dolphin had a helmet. Honestly, gun to my head, I couldn't even have told you it was actually a dolphin. For all I know it might have been Gloria Estefan on a jet-ski.

The team says this will constitute a "complete re-branding." I say that's the kind of thing PR people say about everything. Like "this will constitute a full-spectrum repositioning of the brand in the market with complete exploitation of all synergistic efficiencies." These people should be made to shut up or speak properly.

Actually this post is a complete waste of time and I don't know why I bothered. I guess I just want to say that Pixy has been alerted about the comment sitch.

Posted by: Ace at 11:46 AM | Comments (8)
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Raiders is my favorite movie. It's actually why I even care about movies. Raiders was the first movie I even loved.

Lucas and Spielberg, along with writer Lawrence Kasdan, recorded the session where they brainstormed ideas for Indy. I don't know where the tapes are, but there is a transcript online.

G —... The fact that he is slightly scruffy. You don't know it until it happens. Now, several aspects that we've discussed before: The image of him which is the strongest image is the "Treasure Of Sierra Madre" outfit, which is the khaki pants, he's got the leather jacket, that sort of felt hat, and the pistol and holster with a World War One sort of flap over it. He's going into the jungle carrying his gun. The other thing we've added to him, which may be fun, is a bull whip. That's really his trade mark. That's really what he's good at. He has a pistol, and he's probably very good at that, but at the same time he happens to be very good with a bull whip. It's really more of a hobby than anything else. Maybe he came from Montana, someplace, and he... There are freaks who love bull whips. They just do it all the time. It's a device that hasn't been used in a long time.

S — You can knock somebody' s belt off and the guys pants fall down.

G — You can swing over things, you can...there are so many things you can do with it. I thought he carried it rolled up. It's like a Samurai sword. He carries it back there and you don't even notice it. That way it's not in the way or anything. It's just there whenever he wants it

S — At some point in the movie he must use it to get a girl back who's walking out of the room. Wrap her up and she twirls as he pulls her back. She spins into his arms. You have to use it for more things than just saving himself.

G — We'll have to work that part out. In a way it's important that it be a dangerous
weapon. It looks sort of like a snake that's coiled up behind him, and any time it strikes It's a real threat.

L — Except there has to be that moment when he's alone with a can of beer and he just whips it to him.

Note that, bizarrely, it's Spielberg and Kasdan offering up dumb ideas here (make someone's pants fall down, whip a can of beer to him). Lucas isn't actually saying anything stupid. Spielberg did offer the whip-the-girl gag used to good effect in Temple, but make someone's pants fall down?

Eh. I guess the motto of a brainstorming session is "no judgements, no internal editing."

But what happened to George Lucas? He seems like he knows his onions here. He's like... the smartest person in the room. What the hell happened to him, that he eventually became the King of Bad Ideas?

Quick Review of the Blu-Ray version of the Indy films: Don't buy it. The packaging is lovely and all that, but they just about ruined Raiders. They did some strange color and contrast correction to the opening Jungle Trek in which they turned the gorgeous green-and-black-shadows of the original into a much lighter, less lush yellow-brown sort of thing. I'm not sure if it's due to the higher resolution -- it probably is -- but the whole Idol Chamber set now looks as fake as Pam Anderson's boobs, too.

I don't know if Lucas does this on purpose. But Raiders, the most important film to be transferred to Blu-ray here, was botched badly. I don't even like watching it. I turned it off and put on my DVD version. I don't know what they do later because I never bothered watching the rest. Temple of Doom looks good, but, you know. Kind of, "Who cares?" I've learned to like Temple of Doom a lot more than I used to, but the sequels are, well, sequels.

It might be that a casual fan of the series wouldn't even notice this. But these sorts of things are not made for the casual fans, are they? When people think of Indiana Jones they're really not thinking about Temple or Crusade. And... the opening of Raiders is the most important part of the whole movie. They botched the most important ten minutes in the eight and a half hour of movies on the discs.

So congratulations, George Lucas. In five years, when you release a restored-to-its-former-glory Raiders, you'll suck another $35 out of my wallet. Good for you.

Wow: Turns out George Lucas really did have his share of bad ideas, too.

Such as... making Indiana Jones a pedophile.

No, seriously. Remember Marion's line, "I was too young, it was wrong and you knew it," and Indy's answer, "You knew what you were doing"?

I always assumed she was like 18. Actually I never gave it much thought -- I assumed it was actually Contrived Filler Dialogue To Establish That These Characters Have Conflict to Justify Their Arguing Later. Like, I assumed it meant nothing at all, and was just come up with as "This dialogue will do, as far as justifying the undercurrent of anger."

But to the extent I thought about it I figured she was a college girl, maybe 18, when they began an affair.

Nope.

Eleven.

eorge Lucas: I was thinking that this old guy could have been the mentor. He could have known this little girl when she was just a kid. Had an affair with her when she was eleven.

Lawrence Kasdan: And he was forty-two.

George Lucas: He hasnÂ’t seen her in twelve years. Now sheÂ’s twenty-two. ItÂ’s a real strange relationship.

Steven Spielberg: She had better be older than twenty-two.

George Lucas: HeÂ’s thirty-five, and he knew her ten years ago when he was twenty-five and she was only twelve. It would be amusing to make her slightly young at the time.

Steven Spielberg: And promiscuous. She came onto him.

George Lucas: Fifteen is right on the edge. I know itÂ’s an outrageous idea, but it is interesting. Once sheÂ’s sixteen or seventeen itÂ’s not interesting anymore. But if she was fifteen and he was twenty-five and they actually had an affair the last time they met. And she was madly in love with him and he Â…

WTF.

From the Political Hat. Holy crap.

I know the rule in brainstorming is "no judgments, no internal editor," but may I suggest a slight caveat to that rule?

They seem to have blundered into this area by pushing the idea that Indy is only quasi-ethical, basically a grave-robber who steals artifacts for money, and so on. I think this is an attempt to push that idea still further, into the realm of overkill and, frankly, outrage.

I kind of don't know what to say about it. They do seem to agree mutually that this sort of thing would make a hero (albeit a tarnished hero) "interesting" rather than repellent.

Posted by: Ace at 10:03 AM | Comments (302)
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I don't get Kennedy's deference to "federalism" in this case -- what we're talking about isn't states democratically making decisions, via their political branches; we're talking about state judges anti-democratically making decisions.

I'm pro-federalism but not pro-judicial-lawmaking, whether at the state or federal level. Politicized courts at the state level aren't owed any deference. They do not speak for "the state" as its elected representatives do.

But apparently Kennedy sees no distinction.

Posted by: Ace at 09:42 AM | Comments (228)
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Intellectual property.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 08:40 AM | Comments (240)
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Yes, please.

How the media and liberals/leftists (but I repeat myself) think of this: A goonish, benighted conservative politician once again pushes censorship and quashes the free exchange of ideas.

What they never consider: Pracitcally everything.

[T]he double standard is glaring. I have zero doubt that a professor would have immediately understood the problem with the assignment if the name to be written on the paper had been “Mohammed” or “Martin Luther King” instead of Jesus. I also hope that a professor would understand he had crossed a line if he asked an atheist, like me, to bow down to a shrine. The fact is that universities these days rely on double standards to function, as the overwhelming majority of colleges, like FAU, maintain unconstitutional speech codes that typically ban inappropriate, offensive, or hurtful speech. If the plain language of these codes were followed, they would not last a day, since every professor and student would be found guilty of violating them. In order to exist, these kinds of codes must be selectively applied.

But it's even more retarded in thought than that. Consider, there might be some kind of a bracing Kill Your Assumptions/Smash Your Symbols experience were a Christian to stomp on the name of Jesus. (Just roll with the hypothetical for a moment.) In that particular case, the Christian would, arguably at least, be learning (or at least being subject to) some kind of lesson that The Word is Not The Thing and The Symbol Is Not the Signified and also various Question Your Beliefs type kindergarten horsehshit.

But does a Muslim learn that lesson from stomping on the name Jesus? No. How about an atheist? Again, no. How about a gay guy who hates "Bible Thumpers"? No. How about a feminist who hates the Patriarch and considers patriarchal religion to be the most important perpetuator of Male Privilege? Again, obviously not.

These folks don't learn any of these Very Important Lessons from these actions. In fact, they learn the opposite lesson, don't they? While the Christian is arguably learning to "not be so tribal in outlook," or something, the other groups are learning the power of tribalism.

After all, their symbols aren't being smashed. The symbols of their Destested Enemy are being smashed. Their Symbols are being elevated by contrast to the treatment of the Symbol of the Enemy.

This isn't just about double-standards. It is about that, of course, but it isn't just about that. It's also about the bizarre assumptions encoded into the Non-Thinking among our supposed Cognitive Elite.

Because, obviously, if you wanted to teach all students something along these lines, you'd ask each to smash the symbols of something personally/psychologically important to himself or herself. How on earth is a committed Patriarchy-hating church-hating feminist learning about smashing her own symbols by trodding on the symbols of the Other? In that case, she learns no lesson at all, except "You're awesome and people who disagree with you suck."

What lesson is that? We do not need to teach people to have an overinflated opinion of themselves and to denigrate the beliefs of people not like them. People are already kind of pretty good at that already.

Now, if the professor asked the Christian to stomp on Jesus, the Muslim to stomp on Allah or Mohammad, the feminist to stomp on a Giant Vagina costume, and the atheist to stomp on a sheet of paper reading "Trivial acts of intellectual rebellion will make Daddy notice and love me," then I concede the lesson would have had some actual purpose to it. I wouldn't necessarily agree with the lesson -- it's still too much to have a state-funded school demanding public renunciations of faith from its students -- but I would concede there was some sort of lesson lurking around there. Or, if not a lesson, at least an experience. (And experience is the raw stuff of "lessons.")

But of course they did not do that, because they wouldn't do that. They wouldn't even think of doing that. Because they do not want to ask any part of the Leftist/Diversity coalition to give up, or even question, any of their bugaboos and shibboleths. In fact, the entire exercise, as constructed, is simply a coalition-unification exercise which increases In-Group Solidarity by identifying an Out-Group Other and inviting the In-Group to further debase the Out-Group, and moreover takes it one further step by demanding the identified and marginalized member of the Out-Group himself participate in and thus condone his own debasement.

The bizarre assumption at work here seems to be that Only Christians are capable of tribal and/or irrational thought, and thus that only Christians need to be "educated" out of such thinking.

Not only is this ridiculous and bigoted on the face of it, but if only Christians need to be educated -- if everyone else arrives at University without needing any further moral or intellectual instruction in How to Think -- why are anyone except Christians permitted in these courses?

Remember the starting assumption: Only Christians need these sorts of lessons. That being the case then, no other students should gain credits from taking the course.

Of course the professor would object to such a rule because that would mean virtually no one would take his course and he'd be fired. So instead he teaches a course, supposedly offering "lessons," but largely to people he's already decided have no need of his "lessons."

Absurd and vile. It's so goddamned stupid and evil in that lazy, casual, thoughtlessly dumb way in which most evil is committed. No one bothers to think; no one troubles himself with questions; no one ever applies the Shoe on the Other Foot test to make sure he's not just cocooning himself in a world that flatters himself and reassures him that anyone who Looks Different from him is just bad and wrong.

Posted by: Ace at 07:36 AM | Comments (328)
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They shot a pilot. I assume the "daily" part of it. I suppose they could do it weekly, like a bon-bon at the end of the week.

Either way, it promises to faithfully capture the zeitgeist of Obama's America: it will be awful.

In related news, NBC reached out to Anderson Cooper to see if he'd be interested in replacing dead-man-walking Matt Lauer on the Today show. At this point, Lauer's fate is about as mysterious as the guy on Columbo who tells Patrick McGoohan "I'm going to keep blackmailing you for every penny you have and there's not a damned thing you can do about it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to perform a minor but dangerous DIY electrical-repair operation in my isolated mountain cabin."

And then the camera goes to Patrick McGoohan, whose eyes narrow in that "Hmmmm..." kind of way.

"And you've told no one else about this blackmail information,
or about your relationship with me?
Absolutely no one else, you say?"

Lauer, paid $25 million a year to deliver third-place ratings, seems to be in a negative-leak war with his employer. For example, Matt Lauer is whining about being poorly used by NBC.

According to RadarOnline.com: 'Morale just couldnÂ’t get any lower among the cast and crew of Today. Matt feels that he was set up by producers to fail by participating in the interview with Ziegler.

Ziegler did a documentary about Sandusky. I'd explain this situation further but I don't really care. The point is, someone in Lauer's camp is claiming NBC set him up to fail. He misspelled "DNA." Which you would think would be an easy one. It's spelled the way it sounds.

Posted by: Ace at 06:13 AM | Comments (338)
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HumpDay Ace-A-Thon Wrapup

Good Morning darling hearts!

That pain you are experiencing is one last wee petite hunchback bite on your wallet-leg. Yes, the Ace-A-Thon continues but is drawing to a close. Like certain reptiles, Ace gorges only a few times per year and must make these means last over long empty stretches of bad hobo hunting.

Please consider transferring some part of your vast millions to Ace (via either the PayPal link on the top-left-sidebar of this blog, or by doing some Amazon shopping via the link at the top-right-sidebar of this blog).

It's a nice thing to do.

Also, hunchback bites are dangerously septic and you should see a doctor immediately. If the bite starts to fizz, forget first aid and just use a saw.

Unplanned Addendum: I was about to post this when Ace put up a totally uncharacteristic morning post. Does it seem to you guys that he has been squishing the ace-a-thon posts on purpose when he can?

Hah. He is seriously uncomfortable when we do this fundraising thing. It's cute.

Posted by: LauraW at 07:19 AM | Comments (70)
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Happy Wednesday.

The White House is telling Sens. Paul, Cruz, and Lee not to filibuster gun control legislation because it's unwelcoming to the families of kids killed by gun violence. Um, okay?

Gen. Petraeus, in his first public remarks since the scandal that put him out of a job, apologizes and thanks supporters.

Thanks to Obamacare, insurance companies will see medical claims costs per person rise an average of 32 percent by 2017 in the individual insurance market. But that's the average. In some states, it's much worse: "62 percent for California, about 80 percent for Ohio, more than 20 percent for Florida and 67 percent for Maryland."

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:48 AM | Comments (647)
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Okay look I know you're not gonna read any of this stuff plus I didn't feel like writing anything either but apparently there are these things called contractual obligations and damage clauses. So hows about you pretend this is real legit ONT, I make the blog mid-term nice and easy-peasy and Ace and his bastard lawyers are none the wiser. Dealio? Oh and if someone does blab, we're gonna all hunt you down and make your momma cry when she sees what was done to you.

A Worthwhile Government Initiative

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Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:30 PM | Comments (527)
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