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July 16, 2005

Rove-Plame-Wilson Haiku Exhibition

Seems like LauraW and Dave from Texas started a haiku war without telling me:

Covert ops haiku

Valerie, you minx
I dare not breathe your secrets
C.I.A. vixen

Secret's safe with me!
And your neighbors, and your friends.
And the D.C. press--

No one else need know
What time you punch your time-card
nine-to-five ninja!

-- LauraW

"Untitled"

Judith Miller said
my source must have been coerced,
why is he giggling?

-- Dave From Texas

My own:

Double-Oh Mom

Top secret mission--
Get young daughters to soccer practice
Codenames: Unicorn and Pretty Princess

posted by Ace at 12:29 PM

Comments

Get out of my hair
Valerie says to Joseph
Go to Africa

Come back with no proof
The evil Bush we will thwart
BWH HA HA HA HA

Posted by: BrewFan on July 16, 2005 12:38 PM

judith miller and the times
to make something of nothing
what a privilege

Posted by: trey on July 16, 2005 01:00 PM

getting noticed

hey I'm famous now
poems, lauraw, teh funnay
sweet blog bucks are next

Posted by: Dave in Texas on July 16, 2005 01:39 PM

Rove, say it ain't so
Covert ops revealed, oh no!
What's that? Nevermind!

Say what, Bob Novak?
Twas not Karl Rove, afterall
Then whom, might we ask?

Posted by: jmflynny on July 16, 2005 04:56 PM

So secret that she
Wore sunglasses in her big
Fashion mag photo.

Posted by: Sean M. on July 16, 2005 07:39 PM

Joe Wilson, spy man
Jethro B. in Burberry
double-naught moron

Posted by: Rocketeer on July 18, 2005 09:27 AM

Joe Wilson, hero
and always nonpartisan,
except when he is

Posted by: Slublog on July 18, 2005 10:29 AM

Fifteen minutes fame?
Wilson is way past that mark
Warhol lied, the creep

Posted by: Slublog on July 18, 2005 10:33 AM

Poor Joe Wilson's rep
Upper East Side's Party King
going down in Plames.

Posted by: Rocketeer on July 18, 2005 10:43 AM

Delivered pizza once
to Langley’s janitor crew.

Am I a spy now?

Posted by: Rocketeer on July 18, 2005 10:47 AM

Josh Micah Marshall
crying in his drink of choice
Probably green tea

A whiff of scandal
The left jumps on it and screams
Somewhere, Rove just laughs

As attention wanes
Wilson and Plame grow desperate
Next stop: Hefner's mag

Posted by: Slublog on July 18, 2005 11:00 AM

Now there's one Playboy
that I will NOT be buying -
Joe in the buff (YUGH).

Posted by: on July 18, 2005 11:14 AM

Double-Oh Mom II: Bake Another Day

Val's biggest secret?
What flavor bundt cake she'll bring
to the school bake sale.

Posted by: Rocketeer on July 18, 2005 11:20 AM

Then there's Oliver
who says Rove is not that smart
Pot and kettle, bud

Posted by: Slublog on July 18, 2005 12:05 PM

Hipocrisy Cliche = Dinner Reminder

Ah, Pot and Kettle.
To O Dub, that's no insult -
his stomach rumbles.

Posted by: Rocketeer on July 18, 2005 12:27 PM

Rove smiles and giggles,
Pens invitation to Donks;
'Let's go snipe-hunting.'

Posted by: lauraw on July 18, 2005 12:50 PM

The war cry goes forth
Moonbats unite! Don tin caps
And the spittle flies

Posted by: Slublog on July 18, 2005 12:54 PM

Kos rallies the troops
One last moment of glory
Pickett's charge, part two

Posted by: Slublog on July 18, 2005 01:01 PM

Remember those sheep
leaping en masse to their end?
An omen for Dems.

Posted by: lauraw on July 18, 2005 01:34 PM

DU is abuzz
with dreams of Rove in handcuffs
And other pipe dreams

'Rove must go!' they cry
overheated in their words
And free with their bile

But it's not to be
and while they are distracted
Bush plots his next move

Posted by: Slublog on July 18, 2005 02:06 PM

Best they keep busy
with their non-scandal scandals
and not global chess.

Posted by: lauraw on July 18, 2005 02:55 PM

Well, there's a war on,
But the KOSsacks don't know it
It's all "Plame Plame Plame"

It has been this way
since school - loser kids blurting
at the back of class

making life harder
for the one's who want to work
and make life better.

While serious folks
do the nation's higher math,
leftists throw spitwads.

Posted by: Rocketeer on July 18, 2005 03:35 PM

P.S.

I'm not questioning
their patriotism. No.

It's just that they're - dumb.

Posted by: Rocketeer on July 18, 2005 03:41 PM

To those on the left
the only war that exists
is against the right

Republicans are
the real enemy, not those
who kill with terror

Posted by: Slublog on July 18, 2005 03:54 PM

The Left on the Day's News

Part I: Domestic Response to Terror

PlameRovePlameRovePlame
RoveRoveRoveRoveRoveRoveRove
PlamePlamePlamePlameRove

Part II: Taking the Fight to the Enemy

Hugs! Hugs! Hugs! Hugs! Hugs!
Hugs UNDERSTANDING Hugs Hugs
Wait! I'm your friend! BOOM.

Posted by: Rocketeer on July 18, 2005 04:16 PM

Part III: On Domestic Policy

Chimpy McHitler!
Halliburton and Enron
Bush Crime Family!

Posted by: Slublog on July 18, 2005 04:29 PM

integrity kick

Is it just me that
taps fingers on the table
while writing these things?

Posted by: Haiku in Texas on July 18, 2005 11:18 PM

Tattered curtain falls
Last act for the clown Wilsons
Someone get The Hook

Posted by: on July 19, 2005 02:02 AM

Amazon.com Widgets

Now Available!
The Deplorable Gourmet
A Horde-sourced Cookbook
[All profits go to charity]

Top Headlines

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

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