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January 10, 2006

Anybody Up For Cool Facts?

Either about Dick Cheney or Chris Klein? I keep asking, and people keep saying, "Nah, too soon."

I Hear Ya Update: No one wants to play. Okay. Damnit. Howza 'bout a flame war?

posted by Ace at 03:19 PM

Comments

Nah, too soon.

Pace yourself, pal.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Posted by: Dave at Garfield Ridge on January 10, 2006 03:20 PM

What Dave said.

Posted by: Michael on January 10, 2006 03:26 PM

I think the Cheney well has pretty much run dry.

Posted by: Sobek on January 10, 2006 03:28 PM

Compared to Cheney, Klein placates like a woman.

Posted by: Iblis on January 10, 2006 03:29 PM

Maybe some cool facts about one of your trolls?

Posted by: Madfish Willie on January 10, 2006 03:30 PM

I think it's time for Cool Facts About Your Old Pal Sandy.

Posted by: sandy burger on January 10, 2006 03:32 PM

"When placed in a predator-prey relationship, both Dick Cheney and Chris Klein rely on strength gained thru their past conquests to carry the day. Cheney remembers the night of the Cougar-man rampage thru Mexico. Klein remembers the 2 week spark off he had with both Dave @GR and Michael. And that, George, is the same motivational technique you should use as you prepare for Yorktown."

---Thomas Jefferson, to George Washington. Source: Stuff Jefferson Said, 4th Edition. Monticello Press, 1994. (Limited Edition Leather Bound edition that smells of mahogany.)

Posted by: Jack M. on January 10, 2006 03:34 PM

Jack, let's be serious: leather that smells like mahogany? *Furniture* smells like mahogany, leather smells like leather.

And I love carpet. And lamp; I love lamp.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Posted by: Dave at Garfield Ridge on January 10, 2006 03:36 PM

Too soon. And the Klein thing is already beginning to pall a bit for me -- it doesn't have the classic feel of the Paul Anka Integrity Kick, you know?

Maybe a thread on Paul Anka-style lounge acts is in order: Wayne Newton, Don Ho, Tom Jones.... It's a fertile field. Do they understand the meaning of integrity? Do they slice like Anka? Do the guys get shirts? What would Vinny Falcone think of their loose-shit operations?

(Plus Don Ho might get you a link to Insty since Ho claims he was saved by stem cells.)

Note: remove the asterisks from the above link -- Ace's nasty-filter doesn't like the Merc News either.

Posted by: Monty on January 10, 2006 03:39 PM

cool facts about Allah! cheney is done to death, klein... ehhh

Allah, a mysterious recluse, tirelessly works to increase his already impressive influence within the conservative academy by feeding selective news articles through an anonymous blogger known to his admirers simply as ace. (kinda like calling the fat kid "slim")

Posted by: Matt on January 10, 2006 03:41 PM

Or how about what everybody has been doing anyway... posting as some 'famous' person saying something that is 'fake but accurate'?

Posted by: Madfish Willie on January 10, 2006 03:41 PM

If you're up for a larf, the crew at Duncan Black's site is attempting to do math.

Arithtrios

Sample ASVAB Questions

Those Eschatonians - they're not book-smart,
I'll give them that.

Posted by: BumperStickerist on January 10, 2006 03:42 PM

Dave, ya..I know about that mahogany thing. I was just trying to roll all the TJ/DC/CK related jokes up into one nice bundle, so I took a little license there.

What can I say? I don't do this for a living. For which I am gracious, as it would otherwise interfere with this thing I have that works for me.

Posted by: Jack M. on January 10, 2006 03:43 PM

Fuckin' hammers can only dream of slicing like Dick Cheney.

Posted by: genghis on January 10, 2006 03:47 PM

Bumper, that Atrios bit is *awful*. . .

"They're quite likely culturally biased in some ways."

Yeah, just more of the White Man's Math again.

Our soldiers is stupid, again.

What a dick.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Posted by: Dave at Garfield Ridge on January 10, 2006 03:58 PM

Bumper's link does not function as a link should.

Stick a fork in Dick and Chris, they're done.

Posted by: Bart on January 10, 2006 04:22 PM

I vote for a flame war. If nothing else, it'll be fun to see what new ads appear on your site as a result.

Posted by: sandy burger on January 10, 2006 05:16 PM

I've got no fresh ammo for a flame war.
How many ways, for example, can I call you pompous homo-lover liberal in disguise?

Posted by: Bart on January 10, 2006 05:23 PM

When a girl breaks up with Chris Klein, he's over it before he hears the phrase "let's just be friends." But he is such a generous, compassionate man, that he will still bring her up in conversation for months, just to let her down easy.

Posted by: Matt H. on January 10, 2006 05:32 PM

How many ways, for example, can I call you pompous homo-lover liberal in disguise?

Pompous? That hurts, man. It hurts because it's true. Thanks for showin' me the mirror, man.

Homo-lover? Eh. Fair enough, I guess. I'm down with the queers.

But liberal?! You cut me deep. You cut me real deep, Bart.

Posted by: sandy burger on January 10, 2006 05:36 PM

That's pretty much my reaction, Sandy. Kind of like the classic Futurama moment:

Amy (modeling a new outfit): So? How do I look?
Leela: Like a cheap French whore.
Amy: French!?

Posted by: utron on January 10, 2006 05:44 PM

Seriuosly, I wish ace would go back and post on some of the great threads from the past, especially (i) ones with some of our 'mia' posters - hobgoblin, fat kid, etc and (ii) some of the troll flame wars.

Posted by: max on January 10, 2006 06:40 PM

Hey gengass i'm giving you one more week to get it right. Thats just the way it is. Thats just the way it friggin is. Slice like a screwdriver I will.

Posted by: Les Goodtit on January 11, 2006 12:58 AM

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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.

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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!
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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.”