ACE O. SPADES, HETEROSEXUAL. The blogosphere is a gold mine for writers. I don't mean you can make a ton of money doing this -- I mean it in a figurative sense, which is the only sense in which most writers, online or off, will ever see much gold of any sort. That is, you can observe certain human behaviors under glass -- the glass of your monitor, in this case -- in much the same way Ibsen used to observe the behaviors of that scorpion her kept in a beer mug on his desk.

Let us follow the tail-swishings of one Ace O. Spades:

5:03 pm: Mr. Spades declares a member of Monty Python who is leftwing unfunny. "Now, I didn't want to go into all that, because even as I pump up John Cleese as the greatest performer and writer on Python, it turns out he's a bit of a New Age left-liberal space-case prick himself. Still, he's not as loud about it..."

9:00 pm: Terry Gilliam isn't funny either! "Terry Gilliam Renounced His American Citizenship Due To Bush's 'Brazil'-like Persecution of Charismatic Rebel-Terrorists... Brazil? Fey, precious drivel. Boring. Not funny, and I don't care how many people insist to me that it is funny... 12 Monkeys. Okay -- that movie I liked a lot. No compaints on that one. Still..."

4:14 am: Wonkette isn't funny, they're only pretending they are -- their japes at Michelle Malkin and Karl Rove were, despite all appearances, deadly serious, and they only pretended they were funny because they were bad at the investigative reporting for which Wonkette is known. Plus they're gay: "boychiks pretending to be 15 year old high school girls... creature of indeterminate gender identity... for a guy who's had more cock in and out of him than a Purdue regional distribution center, you'd think he could manage to lay off the constant gay/transexual 'jokes' for five minutes... This too-gay-even-for-Showtime act is growing thin," etc.

Mr. Spades admits that he was wrong about the Belgian BBQ tax story that had previously incensed him, which means he was "punk'd," which is not the same as being gay.

5:28 am: Ace considers an actress' appearance on Letterman, and a related link, which he's pretty sure is a joke, but which has "naked pics. A lot of naked pics. And a movie of naked chicks which is, yes, officially pornographic." Rosie O'Donnell joke appended.

1:08 pm: British hostages released. "It's about time Feminists invested themselves into knocking the nuts off our enemies for a change."

1:40 pm: New Die Hard movie coming out! Things will blow up! "Presumably John McClane will see through this scam early on, to reassure the few liberal members of the audience that we're not questioning their patriotism."

2:25 pm: Grisly Australian murder story repeated. "Wonkette's about to run a picture of Karl Rove toting the bloody head under his arm, suggesting it's a good tip while tossing in a couple of exclamation points to demonstrate they're not quite vouching for its accuracy." Because Wonkette is serious, and gay.

2:54 pm: Lengthy discussion as to whether Serenity is better than Star Wars. "Dorks" appears in headline, so no fair making fun.

7:28 pm: Essay on Dr. Mrs. Ole Perfesser link about how guys don't like for women to ask about their position on abortion. No data or even anecdotes about such queries cited, but Mr. Spades is incensed:

If moonbattish political conformity is important to a woman, so much so that she really isn't interested in getting to know a guy unless he voted for Mondale whenever he's had the opportunity (if he changed residences in 2002 just to vote for Mondale in his last Senate bid, bonus points!), then, hey, it's better to find these things out early...

It may be superficial to ask about politics as if that's the measure of someone's character, but 1, to a liberal, your politics are indeed the sum and entirety of your character...

...BTW, the answer to this question is always, "Yes, she's a One Week Wonder; they all are." Maybe not just a week, maybe a Golden Fortnight; maybe not even a full week. But yeah. Pretty much... Rosie O'Donnell...

...most guys are quite a bit more conservative than women, and when a woman says she wants a really liberal guy for her man she's usually thinking "I'd like nice gay shopping buddy that will occassionally cuddle with me, like I've seen on television"...

...which is something they'll never think about Mr. Spades, by God! Now, if only he could get one of them to have sex with him, he might not have to spend so much time writing about Firefly, Star Wars, and Rosie O'Donnell.

Thank God he can't climb out of that mug.