Hush.

Darkness gathers.

Flashback: The Onion Point-Counterpoint Sept. 26, 2001

Probably my favorite The Onion piece ever.

"We must retaliate with blind rage" vs. "We must retaliate with measured, focused rage."

Both sides make great points.

Weird Science

Salt water is apparently flammable.

Thanks to Hot Air Headlines for making me wonder what reality truly is.

Never Forget.

Don't Count Him Out Yet! Okay, I Did, and Still Do, But You're Not Me

Senator John McCain isn't the most popular Republican candidate (and has been having various campaign troubles), and for a lot of good reasons. Still:

Having breakfast in the Courtyard by Marriott in Concord with CNN's Candy Crowley when who should walk in the door but McCain himself, arriving to get ready for the afternoon speech in the hotel's ballroom. He walked over to the table to chat.

"Are you all alone?" [Washington bureau chief Susan Page] asked.

"I fired 'em all," McCain joked. (Not really. An aide who had been parking the car then arrived.)

Via USAToday and HotAir. The man laughs in the face of adversity, instead of avoidng the press or sulking or anything. I like that.

Would that he had better positions, but hey. He's better than the Democratic nominees, anyway. (I know, I know. Low bar.)

Movie reviews: Die Hard 4, Transformers

Both were good. Transformers was better.

Transformers was really, really good.

The end.

I'm back.

Yeah, well, I actually got back on Tuesday. Of last week.

Anyway, here's an article about how Things Might've Been if we had never invaded Iraq, from Opinion Journal:

Given the problems and U.S. casualties in Iraq, polls show a large majority of the American people believe the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. Yet if we imagine what the world would look like today if Saddam Hussein had not been deposed, it seems clear that almost no outcome in Iraq would be as adverse to the interests of the United States as today's world with Saddam still in power.

It's a good article, and certainly something to keep in mind when you hear of politicians say the War was a mistake.

I'd like those selfsame politicians (mostly, but not exclusively Democrats) to tell us, on the record, what alternative strategy and tactics they'd've used, and how it would be better. Perhaps, in some sort of forensic debate.

Return to Tunguska

The mysterious event in 1908 has been mysterious for a hundred years. There was some apparent impact, burned trees, and other strangeness. But now, a new lead:

In late June of 1908, a fireball exploded above the remote Russian forests of Tunguska, Siberia, flattening more than 800 square miles of trees. Researchers think a meteor was responsible for the devastation, but neither its fragments nor any impact craters have been discovered.

Astronomers have been left to guess whether the object was an asteroid or a comet, and figuring out what it was would allow better modeling of potential future calamities.

Italian researchers now think they've found a smoking gun: The 164-foot-deep Lake Cheko, located just 5 miles northwest of the epicenter of destruction.

The Tunguska Event has intrigued me for a long time. I never bought the ideas that it was a UFO crash, or a miniature black hole, or a small bit of antimatter, but none of the less esoteric explanations really seemed to explain everything. I'm looking forward to further reports.

Blogging Will Be Light(er)

My vacation starts on Wednesday. I have a lot to do before then, I won't be using any computer much during, and I'll have a lot to do after-- so there won't be much going on here for a while.

Just, you know, FYI.

Open thread, if anyone wants one.

Big Trouble in Red China

Via Sachi at Big Lizards:

Recently, we have started to hear one disturbing story after another coming out of China:
Poisonous pet food;
Toxic toothpaste;
Dangerous toys, and so on.
All of a sudden, we started to notice that one of our largest trading partners was not living up to the standard we demand. But in fact, China’s sloppy business practice has been noticed by many businessmen all over the world who have dealt with them over the years. Only recently, however -- when their products started to kill us (and especially our pets!) -- have we started to pay attention.

China's a big deal. Between these problems, their enormous population, their increasing military spending, and their support of Iran and North Korea, they may not be a global superpower, but we need to be careful. (I guess I'd label them a regional superpower.) As Sachi says, they're a major trading partner, so Sino-American relationships are... Complex. And I didn't mention Taiwan, which squares that complexity.

Read the whole post-- China's got a a lot of enviomental problems that it doesn't need to have. I wish the American Left would try to help clean China up as much as it tries to clean up America, but for some reason, The People's Republic gets a pass. It shouldn't.

Forget the cats- bring in the robots.

Funny stuff here.

Probably older than Time Itself, but new to me and funny.

(And, yes, that's an Optimus Prime Mr. Potato Head on June 19th. In stores now.)

Robots. Lol. Yeah.

New Element: Moronblogroll

I'm compiling a list of Official Ace of Spades Moronbloggers, so that we can all harass each other on all our blogs.

I'm sure I've only scratched the surface, but I'll be adding more as I see them and are suggested to me.

Other questions and comments? Um, comment.

Tag, I'm It; No Tagbacks

Since Nice Deb (whose blog is much better than mine; go read it), tagged me, apparently Internet Honor requires me to answer some questions forsooth. (And I guess I get to change them and add my own, right?)

Yay, verily:

1) What book(s) is/are you reading now?

I'm currently reading Mickey Spillane's Micke Hammer novels. They're fun, see?

2) Favorite historical event (domestic)?

I'm going to go with the War of 1812. The Limeys wanted a rematch, but got pwn3d!

3) Favorite historical event (International)?

It's always amused me how Prussia doesn't exist anymore.

4) You’re giving a Hollywood pitch (25 words or less) about your Blog — GO

It's not updated enough, it's not very good, but it's free.

5) Other than where you live now, what city do you like?

Anywhere, as long as some friends are there. Seriously.

6) Favorite TV series:

Babylon 5. It was intelligent science fiction drama, with good special effects and better writing. (And there's a new DVD due out next month!)

7) Are you a Wilsonian Idealist or Nixonian Realist in foreign policy?

I dunno, man. I'm more of a Reagan Interventionist or Jeffersonian Jihad-Killer. (It's not that I want the U.S. to police the world, it's that for our own safety, the world needs policing. And since there's no international Batman or someone, it falls to us.)

8) Favorite B- movie?

Oh, man, this is a toughie. I think Teenagers From Outer Space has a lot of charm. I mean, yeah, Plan 9 is hilarious, but Teenagers From Outer Space is pretty neat.

9) Chain restaurants and franchises: spawn of the Devil, or necessary for modern life?

The latter. Dave Barry once said that people just want to go to a place where they know the food is mediocre. In my case, it's the familiarity and knowing what you're going to get. Also, there are soem chains that have foods I love love love.

10) What upcoming movie are you most looking forward to?

Transformers. They're- get this- more than meets they eye, right? I mean, they're *robots*. In disguise.

I'll update this later with links. Also, I'll think on who I should be a-taggin'.

Update: Negatory on that last bit- I tag everyone who reads this post, has a blog, hasn't been tagged, and wants to. Change whatever; my blog authority is roughly nil. (Links still be come.)

To Do List

By, uh, Monday?:

Hit counter.

Actual blogroll.

Longer posts about stuff.

Links to things I found myself that aren't on every blog I read or should read.

Other suggestions, Dear Theoretical Reader?

Funniest thing I've read in a while.

I don't know how I've missed it, but Iowahawk is hilarious. The most recent is a noir spoof about Dan Rather, in a continuing series.

Um.

So I kind of forgot my password.

Not that I was goingn to post much, but some.

Me am smart.

R.I.P. Bobby "Boris" Pickett

Via WizBang Pop. Very sad. "Monster Mash" is a fun song, and he did several others in his Karloff voice- "Monster's Holiday," "Monster Rap," "It's Alive."

McCain (Re)Launches Campaign!!!

Well, I commented about this at Ace's blog, and Slublog's got more on it too, so I may as well post about it.

...Okay, I was bluffing. I got nuthin'.

Just this marker, and I've held this view for a long time: Neither Sen. John McCain nor Sen. Hillary Clinton will be their party's Presidential nominee. Too many negatives among their respective bases, for starters.

Who will be the nominees, I really don't know. Right now, I'll guess it'll be Guiliani vs. Obama. Next week, I'll probably guess Romney vs. Edwards or Thompson vs. Gravel. (No, I don't know who Gravel is, either. And note I didn't say *which* Thompson.)

Wednesday Krauthammer!? (x4)

Catch-all catch-up. When I started this blog, I kinda thought I'd have more time and more material, and a regualr weekly feature would just be a small percentage of my postings. (I need a better word for "Whoops.")

Anyhoo. March 30th: He contends that the real War on Terror is being fought in Iraq, not Afghanistan, and he's very convincing.

Thought experiment: Bring in a completely neutral observer — a Martian — and point out to him that the United States is involved in two hot wars against radical Islamic insurgents. One is in Afghanistan, a geographically marginal backwater with no resources and no industrial or technological infrastructure.
The other is in Iraq, one of the three principal Arab states, with untold oil wealth, an educated population, an advanced military and technological infrastructure that, though suffering decay in the later years of Saddam Hussein's rule, could easily be revived if it falls into the right (i.e., wrong) hands.

He's got a lot more, too.

April 6: Iran's seizure of British sailors and Marines.

April 13: Thoughts on the Surge in Iraq.

April 20: The shootingat Virginia Tech, and its coverage.

I really don't have anything to add.

More about Russia

I'm not sure how long this has been going on, but Stratfor.com has a "weekly intelligence briefing" at Bill O'Reilly's website. Yeah, struck me as weird too.

Anyway, the current one is an analysis of Russia's historical cycles, and where it is now, and what's likely to come. Interesting stuff, methinks.

Breaking: Boris Yeltsin, R.I.P.

From MSNBC:

Former President Boris Yeltsin, who engineered the final collapse of the Soviet Union and pushed Russia to embrace democracy and a market economy, has died, a Kremlin official said Monday. He was 76.

Obviously, there's more there (apparently, heart failure). Considering his age, I guess it wasn't that unexpected.

Also, I have no real idea how to react to this. I mean, his record (at least from my [American] perspective) was pretty mixed.

Maybe I'll have more later, after it sinks in and I've caught up with what I meant to post yesteday. (I *may* have time later today, dunno. For this piece of breaking news, I made time.)

Update: Not getting a lot of traction in the blogosphere that I see; even with residual VTech and Blue Angels reporting, it's pretty slow news-wise today. Dunno. I mean, yeah, my reaction was kind of a shrug-- and I presume that that's many others' reaction as well-- but it should be at least noted, yes?

I Really Have No Idea What I'm Doing

Updates should be a-comin' by Sunday. Or maybe on Sunday.

Oh, and I need to install some kind of hit-count-o-matic.

(This is harder than it looks, folks. Also, I'm kinda lazy.)

Setback for Separatists

I'm not entirely sure why, but the idea of our Neighbor to the North splitting up amuses and fascinates me.

But it apparently won't happen soon. Betsy Newmark points to this BBC article about recent elections. For us non-Canadians, the fallout is that Canada remains and will remain in one piece.

Which is for the best, really. Still, if Quebec seceded, that might inspire other provinces to think hard about doing the same, and maybe some of the would want to join the U.S. Probably not, but it'd be fun to watch, and there's little chance of serious violence erupting.

And that's kind of what I live for-- interest without danger. (Oh, and I suppose it's roughly equally concievable that Oregon or Maine or some other state would consider seceding from the Union and joining Canada. Why, I don't know, but whatever.)

Update to a Couple of Posts Ago

From Big Lizards:

Nobody that Bush nominated to replace Gonzales would even be given a confirmation hearing, let alone a vote.

Well, there you have it. Attorneys General nominees do need to be confirmed by the Senate, which kind of makes firing the current one a bad idea.

Unless Bush conditions Gonzales's departure on his replacement's confirmation- in that case, it'd be Out With the Rumsfeld, In With the Gates Redux.

I don't know. I'm really not feeling this story. Go read Patterico.

Oh My God, This Is Funny

From Hot Air, all the Rocky films in twenty-some seconds.

I haven't actually seen any of them, but it's still hilarious.

(And yeah, I've been itching to link to Hot Air for a while now.)

Belated Krauthammer

Too busy to blog the past few days; this week probably won't be much different. Sorry, Nice Deb, and any theoretical lurkers. (Yes, I'll put up a SiteMeter counter dingus someday. And I'll do the normal blog-pushing kind of stuff eventually-- I kind of want to have more content before I try to increase visibility and do any branding and whatnot.)

Ahem. Dr. Krauthammer's column this week is about Attorney General Albert Gonzales and U.S. Attorney-Firing-Gate. He says Gonzales should go based on his incompetence in handling what should not have been a crisis/scandal/controversy.

Personally, I'm not sure. I mean, yeah, there's plenty of grounds for dismissal, but really. Appeasement doesn't work. At this point, the Democrats will just be emboldened by Gonzales's ouster, and clamor for more.

Keeping him in won't solve the situation either, granted. So I'm going to boldly say it's a tough call.

My question, though, is this: If Gonzales gets replaced, who should replace him? Honestly, I don't have any answers. No one President Bush would actually appoint would satisfy the Democrats. Unless Bush goes nuclear and appoints the Democrats truly despise like John Bolton or someone. That might be neat. (Is Bolton even a lawyer? Is that even a requirement? I should do some actual research. I mean, I'm not even sure whether or not the Senate would need to confirm a replacement.)

Yeah, I obviously have no idea what I'm doing.

So I Saw TMNT

One of my New Year's resolutions is to see more movies- not necessarily in the theater (though so far, I have)-- but *period*. It just seems like I hadn't seen many the past few years.

Anyway. I was looking forward to TMNT for a while- I've been a fan of the franchise off and on for a long time, and hey! CGI!

This was a really good film. It's kind of a "family" film-- i.e. for kids-- but not entirely. (There wasn't anything too adult-themed or violent or scary or anything, but it didn't have the more puerile elements of some kid's movies, like annoying sidekicks and youth-identification characters.) It had a lot of action, some neat character stuff, some genuinely funny moments (but not too many for an action-drama)... And it was really a family film in that the main theme was family. Both the Turtles and the main protagonists dealt with that issue in different ways, and the "main" villain, while kind of built up as a nasty, evil guy, really isn't. Not so his henchmen/co-workers. That was kind of neat.

From a technical standpoint, the CGI was quite good. Much better than the Muppet-suits of the previous three TMNT films (though that's a very low bar), for starters. I'm something of a fan of traditional/cel animation, but the CGI in this flick was well done. In one scene, it starts to rain, and you can see the individual droplets on the characters, for example.

So while I didn't have great expectations for this film (having seen the previous films, cringed at the memory of the 80's cartoon and the "Fast Forward" iteration of the current [and also otherwise quite enjoyable] series, and read many of the original comics), I did want to see it, and I'm glad I did.

So I Saw 300.

I liked it. Much has been written about it-- so I see no need to belabor various points.

That said, it was impressive on a technical level, it was very much a Guy Movie, it was good versus evil, and had a lot of action.

It was bloody and grim, but had a few darkly humorous moments. It was violent and macho, but the heroes displayed romantic love, familial love, love of freedom, love of country, and love of one's way of life.

And, dude, the Persians were *freaks*, man!

Friday Krauthammer- Catchup Edition

Well, I missed Charles Krauthammer's last column, which was about the Case of "Scooter" Libby, and it's worth reading as a kind of summation of the case and its history. (Personally, while I followed the story, I wasn't really engaged, and now that Libby's been convicted, I care even less.)

Today, though, he discusses Vice President Dick Cheney-- or more accurately, the Left's view of him, and again, it's well worth reading. (Remember, the term BDS- Bush Derangement Syndrome- was originally Krauthammer's.)

Ice on Mars

Via MSNBC:

With a radar technique, astronomers have penetrated for the first time about 2.5 miles (nearly four kilometers) beneath the south pole’s frozen surface. The data showed that nearly pure water ice lies beneath.

Martian ice itself isn't news, but the extent of it and the method by which it was discovered are.

Open Thread-- Because, Hey, Why Not?

Lost was really good last night. It's been good all season, says I.

Seriously, though-- talk about whatever you want- I really need to get some work done.

Oh, really? Yes, really.

Via Yahoo, a Norwegian study shows that, basically, having a sense of
humor lengthens your lifespan:

Adults who have a sense of humor outlive those who don't find life funny, and the survival edge is particularly large for people with cancer, says Sven Svebak of the medical school at Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

I know I've heard this, and that laughter is the best medicine, but, really. It only stands to reason that if you enjoy life, you'll want to keep on keepin' on.

Kind of obvious, but it amuses me that there was funding and everything for this. (That makes it a self-reinforcing public service, you know.)

Let's Try This Again, Shall We?

Empty post/open thread/statement of intent/"Yeah, I'm going to actually post here."

Friday Krauthammer

Charles Krauthammer has long been one of my favorite columnist/pundits. It's not really because of any agreements I have with him (though frankly, there've been many)-- there are people who I basically agree with, but just can't stand the presentation of their assertions. No, it's because of his elequence and erudition. He's very persuasive.

Anyway. the good Doctor's column this week is about one of my top-tier political interests- Outer Space. Specifically, the idea of a Moonbase:

The moon is a destination. The idea this time is not to go to plant a flag, take a golf shot and leave, but to stay and form a real self-sustaining, extraterrestrial human colony.

And he's right. He argues against the Space Shuttle, which I disagree
with, though probably largely on a "But it's so cool!" visceral level.

Regardless, it is of the utmost importance that we spread Humanity and Civilization beyond this island we call Earth. I know that the 18th and 19th Century ideal of Manifest Destiny is outmoded, but as long as there's an endless frontier and no current inhabitants, we should be out there-- exploring, colonizing, learning, advancing.

Read it all, and I'll have more on Space in posts to come. Part of the impetus for this blog was to cover and call attention to things that should receive more attention. Outer Space (and what we do with it) definitely does.

First Post

Yeah. There clearly aren't enough blogs out there, so here's mine.

Expect colors and things to shift a bit in the coming weeks.

Not that I expect any readers for a while; I'm just saying.