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November 10, 2004

Ann Coulter v. Keith Olbermann

It's not pretty, folks. It's worse than the trash-can beat-down Sonny Corleone gave to Carmine in The Godfather.

PARENTAL ADVISORY: CONTAINS SCENES OF INTENSE GORE:

Somberly reporting that "all this data here is from the office of Florida's secretary of state," Olbermann listed five Florida counties where the registrations are majority Democratic -- and yet (!) the counties went for Bush.
A quick glance at the Congressional Almanac indicates that all five counties in Olbermann's conspiracy theory are in the Florida Panhandle, where most people have been registered as Democrats since their grandfathers registered them to vote shortly after the Civil War....

As if anticipating Olbermann's idiotic conspiracy theory two years ago when he wrote the most recent almanac, Michael Barone specifically notes that these Panhandle counties -- though still majority Democratic in party registrations -- have been voting for Republicans for president for many years. This would include the 2000 presidential election when the three voting districts at the centerpiece of Olbermann's conspiracy theory voted for Bush by 69 percent, 66 percent and 57 percent. The only way Barone could have made this any clearer to the "Countdown" host would have been to begin the chapter, "Dear Keith Olbermann ..."

...

The only scandal is that a purported news program would raise insinuations of vote fraud based on the party registration of Southern Democrats living in the Florida Panhandle -- without anyone at the show checking the Congressional Almanac. (It's especially attractive to be promoting a theory based on a lack of basic information, in the self-righteous, smug manner of Keith Olbermann.)

No election in the United States can be discussed intelligently without reference to Michael Barone's Congressional Almanac. At any half-serious television news station, the Congressional Almanac is as common as a phonebook.

But at MSNBC, Keith Olbermann can go on air with the major breaking story that five conservative Democratic Panhandle counties voted for Bush, without one person on the show: (1) consulting the Congressional Almanac, (2) looking at the results of the 2000 election, or (3) apparently ever having heard of "Southern Democrats." (They're all Republicans now!)

In case you needed more on the genius theories being hatched on MSNBC's "Countdown With Keith Olbermann," even if every one of these counties went unanimously for Kerry -- count them up, Keith! -- that's still, at most, about 50,000 votes. Bush won by 350,000 votes in Florida.

So I guess we can add "math" to Keith's growing "I Don't Do" file, along with "Reading the Congressional Almanac," "Basic Show Prep," "Getting My Attitude in Line With My IQ" ... (By the way, shouldn't Keith Olbermann be avoiding "time is running out" motifs wherever possible?)

Memo to Olbermann: "Smug" is hard one to pull off. You have to have something to at least partly back that attitude up. When you're a borderline imbecile, it's very difficult indeed.

Smug, lazy, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.

posted by Ace at 10:43 PM

Comments

I love her.

She is just so, well, "rough".

And you can bet that if Bush and the Republicans we put Our faith in fuck up, Ann will be there in black leather with a whip.

Posted by: ScottK on November 10, 2004 10:53 PM

"Ann will be there in black leather with a whip."

God! Stop it Scott. I'm getting hot just thinking about it.

Posted by: Ron on November 10, 2004 10:55 PM

It was Carlo, not Carmine, who got the trashcan beating by Sonny in the Godfather.

Fav line: "Come on, you think i'd make my sister a widow?"

Uh, yup.

Posted by: fasterplease on November 10, 2004 11:11 PM

I love Ann, she is a total bitch but in that good way. She is like Ball Breaker Barbie. I love when she gets under Alan Colmes' skin and he starts stuttering.

Posted by: Jennifer on November 10, 2004 11:11 PM

I thought it was "Come on, you think i'd make this kid an orphan before he was born?" I could be totally screwing this up with another line. I have seen those movies so many times it just runs together.

Posted by: Jennifer on November 10, 2004 11:14 PM

"Smug, lazy, and stupid is no way to go through life, son".

Ace, you have just listed the qualifications necessary to work for the MSM.

Posted by: on November 10, 2004 11:55 PM

There I did a blind comment again.

Ace, Is there any way you can kick back a comment that does not have a name.

Posted by: Jake on November 10, 2004 11:57 PM

As the Duke said, lo these many moons ago, "Life is tough. It's tougher if you're Keith Olbermann."

Posted by: Mr. Bowen on November 11, 2004 12:47 AM

Nice bodyslam. Olbermann is... unpleasant. It's the combination of oily hubris and strident dim-wittedness. He's in-your-face stupid. He should be sportscaster or something.

BTW, for a minute there I thought I was reading Ace and that the blockquote was part of some joke to be revealed at the end.

Posted by: rdbrewer on November 11, 2004 12:47 AM

That was one of the most surprising things about getting a television after nearly four years of doing without--that Olbermann had been promoted from sports-doofus to news & talk-doofus.

He was insufferable doing sports, why would anyone want to watch him do the news? Whose bright idea was that?

Posted by: H.D. Miller on November 11, 2004 01:13 AM

In addition to Olbermann peddling the theory that Bush stole the election to his viewer,...

Tree...Forest...Get It? Very dry.

Posted by: Dear Johns on November 11, 2004 01:56 AM

Man, that was brutal.

Hot, even.

Posted by: ccwbass on November 11, 2004 03:40 AM

ann coulter makes my balls wobble. yet she looks like she hasnt eaten solid food in at least a decade

Posted by: gummo on November 11, 2004 05:17 AM

Yes, the fellow whose soul was just too beautiful to work for ESPN or talk about what Clinton did with Lewinsky is now a foot soldier passing on conspiracy theories for the Democratic Underground, or worse.

Posted by: Tom on November 11, 2004 09:58 AM

Coulter is priceless! I crack up every time I read one of her articles. She really has a way with words.

Posted by: opine6 on November 11, 2004 10:24 AM

Do you ever stop to think that these are real people you're talking about with real feelings? I cried for hours after reading your cruel posting. What do I tell my children when their classmates read your blog and taunt them with your words? Oh the pain, oh the cruelty!

Posted by: Keith Olbermann on November 11, 2004 12:33 PM

"keith olberdope,"
stupid is as stupid does.

Posted by: guinsPen on November 11, 2004 08:58 PM

If you love Ann, you must be one of the stupidest people on the planet.

Ann Coulter probably has some intelligence, but she sold out long ago to the dark Gods of Republican elitism. Her theories are easily debunked (if you care to leave Faux News and Rush long enough to do a quick Google) and her Adam's apple drives me insane.

Keith Olbermann, on the other hand, is brilliant. He's also a Cornell graduate, like the bitchy Coulter, but has actually used his intelligence for the betterment of us all and not just for his pocketbook. I think if you'll check his facts, you'll see that this is A.) an on-going story in which facts change and B.) the only newsman out there who is looking out for democracy.

Maybe you Republican twits are so scared Bush might actually not have won that you're willing to give up your democracy in allowing these unsecured, paperless machines to count our votes. I, for one, wouldn't want to feed any personal information of mine into a machine that uses a Windows OS. Those are the most easily-hacked pieces of trash on the market - granted a mass market.

I am an Independent who thinks Bush is a fascist imbicle of the highest resort. He is committed to taking about your freedoms by scaring the life out of you: if you work for a small business, I hope you're ready to pay for your own health care; those of you who are barely making it - I hope you're ready to work until you drop, because you're not going to be able to purchase your own stock on which to retire - unless you're just generally sharp that way and know which stocks to buy without a broker (I don't and will readily admit it).

Keith isn't too worried about Ann and, frankly, neither am I. I rather suspect his ratings will be up, tremendously, next time they're counted. He's the most popular newscaster now amongst the Independent and Democrat set - and there are still 49 percent of us. If you count the third-party voters, guess what? We're at 50 percent, all.

Divided right down the middle.

Posted by: annisaman on November 26, 2004 10:37 PM

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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.

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