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October 26, 2004

A Bit o' Optimism

Some of you think I'm being a nervous Nelly. Well, I'm just telling you my gut, which frankly changes week-by-week. If you want to prove me wrong-- vote.

But just to inject a little optimism into the discussion, Hugh Hewitt interviewed the indispensible political analyst Michael Barrone, a man who has a reputation that's more important to him than political pimping. He says that Bush could win 35-36 states.

That's not as big a statement as it may read at first blush; for one thing, a lot of things could happen. I could, for example, be hired on as Paula Zahn's guest-host for election week.

For another, we already know (or at least we hope!) that Bush is going to win a majority of states, but many of those states are pretty small.

Still, sounds kinda good to me.

I'm confused. How can you be both
so insightful and so goshdarn funny at once?
You're like James Spader in Tuff Turf, only
hotter, and without the slightly
Cornelius-from-Planet-of-the-Apes nostrils.

Update: Hugh Hewitt also links an article further exploring John Kerry's continuing insistence on posing as a "real man" and "regular guy" who "really digs this crazy new sport of 'Base-Ball' that's so popular with the masses" and yet who continues incorrectly announcing the scores of Red Sox games.

He reminds me of Dennis Finch from Just Shoot Me, a geeky guy lying to his wife in an effort to appear more manly. When Finch was actually exhibiting his prized Abyssinian at a cat-show, he claimed to have been playing rugby. "It was rough stuff," he said. "Lots of blood. I scored two tabernacles and a walkabout."

Go Sox! Really knock those tabernacles out of the park.

Is There Such a Thing as Too Much Kim Richards: CNN/Gallup/USAT have Bush up by 8, 51-43, in Florida.

Oddly enough, Florida is shaping up to be semi-safe for Bush.

That CNN article is pretty funny. Although the main hed announces their own poll shows Bush beating the crap out of Kerry, a sub-hed is quick -- too quick, one might say -- to announce that other polls show the contest tighter.

Once again, the liberal media seems to be rather begrudging about their own polls when they show the wrong man ahead.

posted by Ace at 01:56 AM

Comments

Hijacking this thread too:

Was it Tuff Turf that opened with the guy riding a bike and singing, boo-bop-a-lee-bop, my baby?

Cause I kinda thought it was but I might be confused because I thought that was Matt Dillon doing that, not James Spader.

But I was all wet about Switek being played by Chris Penn the other day, too, so I'll look to this group of Tuff Turf experts to straighten me out.

Good to hear that from Barone. Hewitt's predictions along this line seemed a little fanciful but this is a nice boost.

Posted by: See Dubya on October 26, 2004 02:16 AM

I actually don't know. I only half-saw parts of it at a party. I had never heard of the movie before. I asked a guy, "Why are you showing this stupid movie?" and he said, "Kim Richards, man." And so I watched her dance around a bit, but what the movie was about, I could not say.

It seemed to involve James Spader on a motorcycle and Kim Richards playing a Madonna-clone called "Frankie" or something.

Posted by: ace on October 26, 2004 02:55 AM

She also was in the sitcom "Nanny and the Professor"

Posted by: ordi on October 26, 2004 03:04 AM

Hewitt: Interesting that comes out in the Scotsman, not an American paper.

Florida: This is Kim Richards in a white sequined push-up bathing suit, blazing away with a .454 Casull, driving a Jaguar with Tawny Kitaen on the hood banging a cowbell good news.

Tuff Turf: I saw it at a friends' house and I think, looking back, he may have been more interested in James Spader or whoever the Boobopaleebop guy was cause he replayed that like eight times.

Posted by: on October 26, 2004 03:23 AM

That was me with the boobopaleebop stuff.

HD Miller called Kerry "Senator von Munchausen" (over at travellingshoes.blogspot.com) for his goofy exaggerations, like "running" the Boston marathon. Here's another one in the Munchausen files.

Posted by: See Dubya on October 26, 2004 03:26 AM

Kim Richards....now there's a blast from the past! She rocked as Tia in "Escape To Witch Mountain" with Ike Eisenman.

Posted by: Da Goddess on October 26, 2004 04:33 AM

Unfortunately, the Kim Richards nude scene in "Tuff Turf" used a body double. When I learned that, a little light went out of my life. Don't forget that everyone's favorite drug user, Robert Downey Jr., was also in that movie.

Posted by: Brass on October 26, 2004 09:53 AM

Tuff Turf?

How on earth did that come up? I have not thought about that film in 10 years!!! Why would I?

I do not feel as alone in the world as I did when I woke up this morning. What a strange, strange reaction to a obscure movie reference.

Thank you, Ace.

Posted by: Tom Vaugahn on October 26, 2004 10:19 AM

Ace, all you need to know about this coming election is where the candidates are campaigning. Yesterday Komrade Kerry and Comrade Clinton were campaigning in Philly, an area that should be so solidly locked in for them that they wouldn't bother.
Yesterday Dubya was campaigning in Iowa, a state that the Gorebot took in '00.
Forget the polls, look where the candidates are campaigning.
Oh, since my wife has a gun...who is Kim Richards?

Posted by: Peter on October 26, 2004 12:48 PM

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Top Headlines

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.

Robert Mueller, Former Special Counsel Who Probed Trump, Dies

“robert mueller just died,” trump wrote in a truth social post on march 21. “good, i’m glad he’s dead. he can no longer hurt innocent people! president donald j. trump.”

TJM has thoughts on Superheros and Iconography

Canadian School Designates Cafeteria And Lunchroom As "No Food Zones" For Ramadan
Canada and the UK are neck and neck in the race to become the first western country to fall to Islam [CBD]

Chuck Norris, Action Icon and 'Walker Texas Ranger' Star, Dies at 86

Podcast: Sefton and CBD have a short chat about Iran, the disgusting SAVE Act theater, Mamdani's politicizing of St. Patrick's Day, and more!

Official confirmation from the Joint Chiefs of Staff: the Warthog is now strafing Iranian fast attack boats