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September 17, 2004

Ratherbiased.com Mentioned in New York Times

Near the end, in a typically slanted New York Times piece that seems to suggest it's unclear whether or not the documents are forgeries.

So, Allah gets mentioned by the New York Sun. Ratherbiased.com gets mentioned by the New York Times. Powerline gets on Hume. LGF gets mentioned by O'Reilly, Brit Hume, and, well, everybody else.

And what's Ace of Spades get?

I just got added to my Aunt Hazel's Friendster list.

So don't worry about me. I'm doin' just fine.

(chugs from bottle of Val-U-Rite discount vodka;
then whispers harshly:)

I'm doin' just fine.

Brit Hume Non-Mention! Brit Hume mentioned tonight that Burkett had compared Bush to Napoleon and Hitler... something I just reported two nights ago. And I know that post got an awful lot hits from an awful lot of people.

Any mention of the Acester?

Nope. Nothin'.

Brit Hume gave me the shitfinger.

But don't worry about me. I'm sitting here with my box of Val-U-Rite discount vodka and an Oliver-Willis-Sized carton of Funions.

I'm doin' just fine.

(begins knitting crude noose out of heavy extension cords)

I'm doin' just fine. And dandy.

posted by Ace at 02:11 AM

Comments

I didn't even deserve the mention in the Sun. Suddenly, I have survivor's guilt.

Posted by: Allah on September 17, 2004 02:31 AM

Uh, Ace, you want to close those italics at some point?

Posted by: Eric Pobirs on September 17, 2004 02:39 AM

New York Times? New York Sun? O'Reilly? Forget those losers, Ace - you're on MY blogroll! Do you realize what people pay just for a SHOT at that?

Posted by: Johnny Walker Red on September 17, 2004 02:42 AM

Let me stress that whatever else may come out of all this, Mr. Paul Anka remains the only important one on that stage.

Posted by: Allah on September 17, 2004 02:46 AM

Johnny,

Um... You have a good blog, but I'm looking for some paper.

That's going to be my new blog-coinage: gettin' a little paper.

I expect it will become just as popular as "newsjacking."

Allah,

I'm not asking to be Paul Anka. But is it too much to ask to be a Graham, a John, or even a Joe?

Posted by: ace on September 17, 2004 02:49 AM

Do you really want to be Joe? We don't even know where he is.

Posted by: Allah on September 17, 2004 02:51 AM

Eh. I'm just kidding. Sort of. I'm getting enormous traffic (for me); hell, once Truth Laid Bear updates it's FUCKING TRAFFIC NUMBERS FOR ONE TIME THIS MONTH, I'll be in the top twenty-five blogs as far as traffic.

Posted by: ace on September 17, 2004 03:01 AM

I'll be in the top twenty-five blogs as far as traffic.

You know, there probably aren't enough Filet-o-Fish sandwiches on earth to soften that particular blow for O-Dub.

Posted by: Allah on September 17, 2004 03:05 AM

Yeah, but does that fat tub of fat know that?

For one thing, dumb Truth Laid Bear won't update.

For another, is Captain Jollypants keeping his eye on my traffic?

Posted by: ace on September 17, 2004 03:09 AM

The NY times needs to answer me this. Just this one question.. And Alla mabey you can help them with this one..

Where the fuck is JOE!

Posted by: Arvin on September 17, 2004 03:10 AM

By the way, thanks for all your help in promoting this site. I don't know if I mentioned this, but I was just about to give up the blog entirely when you sent that email along.

Posted by: ace on September 17, 2004 03:10 AM

I'm wondering if the munu server is going to survive until November 2. :)

Posted by: Pixy Misa on September 17, 2004 03:16 AM

Post editorial headlined, "Bad Week at Black Rock."

I've used the Bad Day at Black Rock joke twice, once as a headline.

Any mention for Ace of Spades?

Nope. They just keeping giving me the shitfinger.

I feel like Bill Burkett. There are powerful forces conspiring to deny me what I so clearly deserve, i.e., a book deal.

Posted by: ace on September 17, 2004 03:17 AM

Pixy,

I actually wanted to ask you about that. Is it a problem?

Posted by: ace on September 17, 2004 03:17 AM

So far it's fine, and if it were only you it wouldn't be a problem at all, but all of munu seems to be booming. Yay team!

Just don't do an LGF on me. 120,000 unique visitors a day! Their server is twice the size of ours and it's been having problems.

Posted by: Pixy Misa on September 17, 2004 03:42 AM

In times like these, Ace, I think it is important to remember the
following paraphrase from Red Forman (of 'That 70's show'):

Someday, son you, too will be married. You will see your wife
turn into that (points at loyal, menopausal wife), and then-
-...-?...--you'll die.

Posted by: just a man on September 17, 2004 03:49 AM

"But don't worry about me. I'm sitting here with my box of Val-U-Rite discount vodka and an Oliver-Willis-Sized carton of Funions."

What are Funions?

"Any mention of the Acester? Nope. Nothin'. Brit Hume gave me the shitfinger."

Hey, I've been linking to you! That and a buck will get you something off of the McDonald's Extra Value Menu.

James

Posted by: James R. Rummel on September 17, 2004 04:05 AM

Ace,

I just started reading you in the last few days. You're great. I love your humor and your "colorful" language too, but it ain't gonna get you on prime time.

Good thing, too. You wouldn't want to clean up your act, now would ya?

Posted by: BlurBlog on September 17, 2004 04:19 AM

Shiftfinger - man, I love those guys. I have all their CDs. Too bad about the drummer.

Posted by: Johnny Walker Red on September 17, 2004 04:20 AM

And by the way...I've been hearing a lot of allusions around these parts to the Paul Anka tape. Permit me a little bragging, but I caught the reference right away from my real life. So let me ask you (you too, Allah)- have you heard the Hank Jr tape? The Linda McCartney? The Buddy Rich? How about the Casey Casem? Oh there's more, my friends. Much more.

Posted by: Johnny Walker Red on September 17, 2004 04:26 AM

Unheralded Ace
Can only take comfort in
Wonkette's cold embrace

Posted by: seahay on September 17, 2004 09:15 AM

I think Ace meant FUNYUNS

http://www.taquitos.net/snacks.php?snack_code=131

Don't get all Rathery on us, Ace!

Posted by: seahay on September 17, 2004 09:42 AM

Your time will come, Ace. Hold on, it's only been a week! Watergate was stretched out from June 72 till Nixon's resignation in August 74. Since then thousands of books have been written, and movies too. I've been sitting here, hoping your site won't crash from all the new visitors because the discussions and research we're all doing with you is important. You are part of history being made. I expect to see your name in indices of many future books. I hope you are downloading/saving all your articles with the comments since Rathergate/Kerrygate broke onto a CD or whatever you guys do. I know it's going to be a valuable part of history.

Besides, who needs to be liked or admired, anyway!

Posted by: BR on September 17, 2004 10:53 AM

What does Ace get? Ace gets linked on every board I frequent.

Posted by: Sailor Kenshin on September 17, 2004 11:46 AM

What does it say about me that I keep trying to get linked - from Ace?

Posted by: The Black Republican on September 17, 2004 12:16 PM

TO: Sailor Kenshin - yes, me too. I've been crediting Ace wherever I go too. It's been quite a job going allllll the way down to that "hot trhead" when I post elsewhere now, to pull up the great stuff here. One time I started using "Find" "Pollsters", then the comments were just above it. But darn it, then Ace used the word "pollsters" again!

Posted by: BR on September 17, 2004 01:26 PM

On this board, So many nihilistic hipsters showing off while America burns. While kids are losing lives and body parts. While the great constitution that gave us peons a semblance of equality, is being savaged. After all the ratherizing one fact remains; Kerry was in country Bush was in cognito (or mentally in disposed). What more is there to say? Oh you hip wits will find something to muddy the swiftwaters.

Posted by: td on September 24, 2004 01:10 AM

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Top Headlines

Kid punks CNN chump by speaking truth to retard

Podcast: CBD and Sefton talk birthright citizenship, the 14th Amendment and SCOTUS, no boots in Iran, Artemis II and refocusing NASA, the NBA's hatred of everything non-woke, and more!

In more marketing for Project Hail Mary, scientists say they've found the biosigns indicating life growing on an alien planet. It's not proof, just signatures of chemicals that are produced by biological metabolism, and it could be nothing, but scientists think it's a strong sign that this planet is inhabited by something.

In a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, a team of scientists announced the detection of dimethyl sulfide (along with a similar detection of dimethyl disulfide) in the atmosphere of an exoplanet called K2-18b. This is actually the second detection of dimethyl sulfide made on this planet, following a tentative detection in 2023.
Tons of chemicals are detected in the atmospheres of celestial objects every day. But dimethyl sulfide is different, because on Earth, it's only produced by living organisms.
"It is a shock to the system," Nikku Madhusudhan, first author on the paper, told the New York Times. "We spent an enormous amount of time just trying to get rid of the signal."

He means they tried to prove the signal was caused by things other than dimethyl sulfide but they could not.

Artemis moon shot a go, scheduled for 6:24 Eastern time tonight
Great marketing arranged by Amazon to promote Project Hail Mary. Okay not really but it does work out that way.

TJM talks John Boorman, director of Excalibur

Good rickroll

What? Skeleton of the most famous Musketeer, D'Artagnan, possibly discovered in Dutch church closet.
Dumas picked four names of real musketeers out of a history book, D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. So there was an actual D'Artagnan, though he made most of the story up. (Or, you know, all of it.)*

Charles de Batz de Castelmore, known as d'Artagnan, the famous musketeer of Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, spent his life in the service of the French crown.
The Gascon nobleman inspired Alexandre Dumas's hero in "The Three Musketeers" in the 19th century, a character now known worldwide thanks to the novel and numerous film adaptations.
D'Artagnan was killed during the siege of Maastricht in 1673, and there is a statue honoring the musketeer in the city. His final resting place has remained a mystery ever since.

A lot of Dumas's stories are based on bits of real history. The plot of the >Three Musketeers, about trying to recover lost diamonds from the queen's necklace, was cribbed from the then-almost-contemporaneous Affair of the Queen's Necklace. And the Man in the Iron Mask is based on real accounts of a prisoner forced to wear a mask (though I think it was a velvet mask).
* Oh, I should mention, Dumas says all this, about finding the names in an old book, in the prologue to his novel. But authors lie a lot. They frequently present fictions as based on historic fact. The twist is, he was actually telling the truth here. At least about these four musketeers having actually existed and served under Louis XIV.
Fun fact: You know the beginning of A Fistful of Dollars where the local gunslingers make fun of Clint Eastwood's donkey and Eastwood demands they apologize to the donkey? That's lifted from The Three Musketeers. Rochefort mocks D'Artagnan's old, brokedown farm horse and D'Artagnan is incensed.

A commenter asked which should be read first, The Hobbit of LOTR?
Easy, no question -- read The Hobbit first. It's actually the start of the story and comes first chronologically. It sets up some major characters and major pieces in play in LOTR.
Also, the Hobbit is Beginner-Friendly, which LOTR isn't. The Hobbit really is a delightful book, and a fast read. It's chatty, it's casual, it's exciting, and it's funny. In that dry cheeky British humor way. I love that the narrator is constantly making little asides and commentary, like he's just sitting next to you telling you this story as it occurs to him.
LOTR is a very long story. Fifteen hundred pages or so. The Hobbit is relatively short and very punchy and easy to read. If you don't like The Hobbit, you can skip out on LOTR. If you do like it, you'll be primed to read LOTR.
Oh, I should say: The Hobbit is written as if it's for children, but one of those smart children's stories that are also for adults. Don't worry, there's also real fighting and violence and horror in it, too.
LOTR is written for adults. (It's said that Tolkien wrote both for his children, but LOTR was written 17 years later, when his children were adults.) Some might not like The Hobbit due to its sometimes frivolous tone. Me, I love it. I find it constantly amusing. Both are really good but there is a starkly different tone to both. LOTR is epic, grand, and serious, about a world war, The Hobbit is light and breezy, and about a heist. Though a heist that culminates in a war for the spoils.

The Hobbit Challenge: Read two more chapters. I didn't have much time. Bilbo got the ring.
I noticed a continuity problem. Maybe. Now, as of the time of The Hobbit, it was unknown that this magic ring was in fact a Ring of Power, and it was doubly unknown that it was the Ring of Power, the Master Ring that controlled the others.
But the narrator -- who we will learn in LOTR was none of than Bilbo himself, who wrote the book as "There and Back Again" -- says this about Gollum's ring:
"But who knows how Gollum had come by that present [the Ring], ages ago in the old days when such rings were still at large in the world? Perhaps even the Master who ruled them could not have said."
In another passage, the ring is identified as a "ring of power."
I don't know, I always thought there was a distinction between mere magic rings and the Rings of Power created by Sauron. But this suggests that Bilbo knew this was a ring of power created by Sauron.
Now I don't remember when Bilbo wrote the Hobbit. In the movie, he shows Frodo the book in Rivendell, and I guess he wrote it after he left the Shire. I guess he might have added in the part about the ring being a ring of power created by "the Master" after Gandalf appraised him of his research into the ring.
I never noticed this before. I know Tolkien re-wrote this chapter while he was writing LOTR to make the ring important from the start. And also to make Gollum more sinister and evil, and also to remove the part where Gollum actually offers Bilbo the ring as a "present" -- Bilbo had already found it on his own, but Gollum was wiling to give it away, which obviously is not something the rewritten Gollum would ever do.
But I had no memory of the ring being suggested to be The Ring so early in the tale.

Finish the job, Mr. President!
Melanie Phillips lays out the case for the total destruction of the Iranian government and armed forces. [CBD]

TJM acts like he knows anything about John Wick and screenwriting. It's embarrassing, really.

Podcast: Sefton and CBD talk about how would a peace treaty with Iran work, Democrats defending murderers and rapists, The GOP vs. Dem bench for 2028, composting bodies? And more!

Oh, I forgot to mention this quote from Pete Hegseth, reported by Roger Kimball: "We are sharing the ocean with the Iranian Navy. We're giving them the bottom half."

Batman fires The Batman
Batman is disgusted by the Joachim Phoenix version of Joker
Batman tries to fire Superman
Batman is still workshopping his Bat-Voice

Forgotten 80s Mystery Click: Red Leather Suit and Sweatband Edition
And I was here to please
I'm even on knees
Makin' love to whoever I please
I gotta do it my way
Or no way at all

Tomorrow is March 25th, "Tolkien Reading Day," because March 25th is the day when the Ring is destroyed in the book. I think I'm going to start the Hobbit tomorrow and read all four books this time.
The only bad part of the trilogy are the Frodo/Sam chapters in The Two Towers. They're repetitive, slow, and mostly about the weather and terrain. But most everything else is good. Weirdly, the Frodo-Sam chapters in Return of the King are exciting and action-packed and among the best in the trilogy. (Though the chapters with everyone else in Return of the King get pretty slow again. Mostly people talking about marching towards war, and then marching towards war.)

Sec. Army recognizes ODU Army ROTC cadets for their bravery and sacrifice in private ceremony
[Hat Tip: Diogenes] [CBD]

TJM gives you a brief tour of his movie collection.

Forgotten 80s Mystery Click
One day I'm gonna write a poem in a letter
One day I'm gonna get that faculty together
Remember that everybody has to wait in line
Oh, [Song Title], look out world, oh, you know I've got mine

US decimation of Iran's ICBM forces is due to Space Force's instant detection of launches -- and the launchers' hiding places -- and rapid counter-attack via missiles
AI is doing a lot of the work in analyzing images to find the exact hiding place of the launchers. Counter-strikes are now coming in four hours after a launch, whereas previously it might have taken days for humans to go over the imagery and data.