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November 02, 2004

Voter Guide-- Addendum

Reader-submitted issue guidance to help you make your choice tomorrow, plus a couple I thought of my own self. In ~~some~~ most cases, I'm sorry, but I couldn't resist the urge to edit/tweak.

Don't hate me.

STAR TREK CAPTAIN

BUSH: Come on, easy-- The Captain. The only captain.
KERRY: Either Jean Luc or Janeway, or maybe that black dude that used to play Hawk on Spencer: For Hire. He just can't make up his mind. Take a poll and decide if we need to kiss up to women or blacks or the French this week. (by Nick Kronos)

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER MOVIE

BUSH: Commando
KERRY: Junior (by Nick Kronos)

AUTOMOBILE

BUSH: '77 primer-gray Silverado Dooley, naked-lady mud flaps
KERRY: Pea-green Volvo station wagon, "This Car Climbed Mt. Washington!" and "I Brake for Snail-Darters" bumper stickers. (by See-Dubya)

MILITARY HERO

BUSH: George Patton, Douglas MacArthur, Stonewall Jackson
KERRY: "Hawkeye" Pearce, "Jenjis Khan," that snivelling little pussy writer from Saving Private Ryan (Nick Kronos)

REFRESHING BEVERAGE WHOSE NAME CONTAINS AN HONORIFIC

BUSH: Dr. Pepper
KERRY: Mr. Pibb's (by See-Dubya)

STAR TREK VILLAIN

BUSH: Khaaaaan!!!
KERRY: Those dipshits on that hippie world where everyone gets stoned off the pollen of the alien plants and sits around singing Scarsboro Fair and going to "snuggle parties"

60's TV CHICKS

BUSH: Catwoman, Ginger, Maryanne, Agent 99, Marcia
KERRY: That Girl, Mrs. "Lovey" Howell, Jan (by Nick Kronos)

FAVORITE MOVIE MOMENT

BUSH: Sonny Corleone beating the shit out of Carlos with the trash-can lid
KERRY: When Meg Ryan shows up at the end of Sleepless in Seattle (suggested by Nick Kronos)

ANDROID

BUSH: Terminator Model T-800 Series 101 (also Robocop)
KERRY: Human protocol droid C-3PO (also "Johnny-5" from Short Circuit) (by Stumbo)

COMIC STRIP CHARACTER

BUSH: Steve Dallas (Bloom County); Linus (Peanuts); Hobbes (Calvin & Hobbes)
KERRY: Billy in Family Circus running one of his ridiculously torturous trails to get from point A to a very nearby point B; Mary Worth; Cathy; Dondi (by Lord Floppington)

DEFINING SCI-FI/HORROR MOVIE QUOTE

BUSH: "I'm here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I'm all outa bubblegum."
KERRY: "I don't know if you've been paying attention, man, but we just got our asses kicked! Game over, man! Game over!" (by Krakatoa)

CAUSE TO SMILE AFTER HEARING WORD "NANTUCKET"

BUSH: reminds him of dirty limerick about Nantucket
KERRY: reminds him his wife owns Nantucket (by Stumbo)

KEY QUOTE FROM "THE ROAD WARRIOR"

BUSH: I'm the best chance you've got.
KERRY: I'll talk to this Humungous fellow! He's a reasonable man! Open to negotiation! (by bbeck with latter quote contributed by small car guy)*

CHARACTER FROM GIANT-MONSTER JAPANESE CINEMA

BUSH: Godzilla
KERRY: Those two tiny twin women who live in box and sing songs to Mothra (also: Godzooky)

HAIR METAL SONG EXPRESSING KEY THEME OF CAMPAIGN

BUSH: "unilateralism" -- Whitesnake's Here I Go Again (On My Own)
KERRY: "nuance" -- Warrant's Every Rose Has Its Thorn

* I had to change this one. SmallCarGuy sent me a similar one using one of my favorite lines from the Road Warrior, and definitely John Kerry's true definining RW quote.

posted by Ace at 03:11 AM

Comments

I just wanted to give you fair warning that I'll be dispatching lawyers to sue you for attempting to suppress the African-American vote in the comic-strip character category. The results do not reflect the popularity of the "Huey" character from the "Boondocks" strip, and you should be ashamed of yourself for disenfranchising this bold, fictional voice.

Posted by: Sean M. on November 2, 2004 05:05 AM

I have to disagree on the ST Captain bit. Picard is the obvious choice for Kerry, being that Picard is a nuanced Frenchman more prone to negotiate than launch any photon torpedoes. Bush on the other hand, is much more similar to Sisko, the Emissary and a family man that kicks ass and takes names. Laura probably wouldn't take too kindly to any Orion slave girls in the Oval Office.

Back in '92 there were "Picard/Riker" campaign bumperstickers. That's the ticket fielded by the Dem's this year, a diplomat and a pretty boy without enough experience to ever get his own ship.

Posted by: rw on November 2, 2004 05:27 AM

You left out the most obvious choice for cartoon character: Ziggy.

Posted by: Smack on November 2, 2004 07:23 AM

Automobile

Bush - I don't drive no stinkin' Cheevy.

Posted by: Ron on November 2, 2004 08:00 AM

Re Catwoman, we are obviously talking about Eartha Kitt or at least Julie Newmar. NOT Lee Meriwether. Catwoman should not look like she drives a station wagon.

Posted by: Kerry on November 2, 2004 08:02 AM

Dude, this was a great bit. Funny as always.

Posted by: Marty on November 2, 2004 08:12 AM

Better than the Mothra women.

Hero Boy, the spoof of those movies on an episode of Freakazoid. (The Mothra women were therein replaced by two sumo wrestlers, who sang in an even higher key.)

Anyway, Hero Boy tries to kill the giant monster attacking Tokyo, but only gets squashed. He's congratulated by the general for this, because he made people laugh.

Posted by: Rich Baldwin on November 2, 2004 09:24 AM

Did Anyone do LOTR character?

Bush: Theoden
Kerry: Denethor

Posted by: matt on November 2, 2004 09:39 AM

Ace,

Your at it AGAIN with all this loose shit....don't make a fuckin' psycho outta me Ace, I am waringing you....cut the fuckin' shit Ace.

And as for automobiles, Dubya would drive a Green '71 Hemi 'Cuda or a white '68 Mustang 427 Shelby GT OR, at the very least, a '70 Burnt-Orange GTO Judge with a 440. Not some faggy grey 77' Silverado. You are REALLY pissn' me off Ace.

I am warning you for the last time....I got a shovel and a bag of lime right here next to me....

Posted by: Swiftsure aka Vinny Falcone on November 2, 2004 10:02 AM

Amazon.com Widgets

Now Available!
The Deplorable Gourmet
A Horde-sourced Cookbook
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Top Headlines

TJM definitively ranks the films of Alfred Hitchcock

@KFILE 21m

Politico is reporting that multiple people have abruptly resigned from Eric Swalwell's gubernatorial campaign: "Members of senior leadership have departed the campaign, including Courtni Pugh, a strategic adviser who served as Swalwell's top liaison to organized labor groups."

So the campaign is collapsing due to the truth of the sexual harassment allegations.
That hissing sound you hear is the air going out of the Swalwell campaign. UPDATE: No it wasn't, it was just Swalwell one-cheek-sneaking out a fart on camera
Eric Swalwell more like Eric Farewell amirite
thanks to weft-cut loop.

This is the dumbest AI bullslop I've seen in a while: the CIA can use "quantum magnetometry" to track an individual man's heartbeat from twelve miles away
I wouldn't click on it, it's not interesting, it's just stupid clickslop. I just want to share my annoyance with you.

Oil prices plunge on bizarre realization that Eric Swalwell may actually be straight. A rapey molester, allegedly, but a straight one.

Artemis II Crew releases clearest images of the Far Side yet recorded

Classic Rock Mystery Click
This is super-obscure and I only barely remember it. Given that, I'll give you the hint that it's by the Red Rocker.
And I guess you think you've got it made
Oh, but then, you never were afraid
Of anything that you've left behind
Oh, but it's alright with me now
'Cause I'll get back up somehow
And with a little luck, yes, I'm bound to win
Now twenty people will tell me it's not obscure, it was huge in their hometown and played at their prom. That's how it usually goes. When I linked Donnie Iris's "Love is Like a Rock," everyone said they knew that one and that his other song (which I didn't know at all) Ah Leah! was huge in their area.

Sarah Longwell spotting

Tuq'r's makeover is 100!

Alfred Hitchcock learns to talk with TJM

Ryan Long goes to the No Kings rally to pick up young liberal hotties and is greatly disappointed in the quality of the mish
thanks to stevey

You know we "joke" about the GOPe just "conserving" leftist things?
David French just posted:

Populists ask what conservativism has ever conserved?
Well its about to conserve birthright citizenship!
Posted by: 18-1

I couldn't hate this queen of the cuck-chair more if it paid seven figures and came with a corner office.

TJM definitively ranks the films of John Boorman.

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.