Looking for something saddening to read on this Saturday?

Here's a lengthy, and chilling, look at the Senate and White House's failure to effectively address climate change. It'll take you about 10 minutes to read, but IMO it's well worth your time. However, if you want the shorter version, here it is in two sentences:

1. There is no hope.

2. Give up.

(when I say saddening and chilling, I mean...)

Because when you think hip, you think James Carville

Even Democratic strategist James Carville was forced to admit of Christine O'Donnell 'Now, this is one hip woman,' on CNN's Crossfire.

With what, a stopwatch?

Top Evangelical David Barton: Maybe Government Should 'Regulate Homosexuality'

I think this is the best poster I've seen for this yet

Laudable Listening

Jon Stewart interviewed on NPR. Fair warning: You'll need to set aside about 45 minutes, but I think you'll find it well worth the time.

This is one of those "I think I agree with every single word of this" link posts

Keli Goff: Why We Shouldn't Blame the Bullies for the Recent String of LGBT Suicides

The kids doing the bullying are not really the ones at fault. The message they are receiving from adults is that today in 2010 it may not be okay to call someone the N-word on the playground, but it is okay to call someone the F-word.

Would be funny, if only...

H/t Cartoon Brew, via my friend Corey.

An open question for viewers of House (MD)

Is it me, or has the writing gone to absolute hell these past two episodes?

Isn't that giving an unfair advantage to the sexually active, straight male teacher?

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) says that even though "no one" came to his defense in 2004 after he said that gay people and unwed mothers should be banned from teaching, "everyone" quietly told him that he shouldn't back down from his position.

He also implied that not banning gay people and women who have sex before marriage from teaching would be an attack on Christians, and defended his position on banning gay teachers because he holds the same position on women who have sex outside of marriage.

"[When I said those things,] no one came to my defense," he said, the Spartanberg Herald-Journal reported. "But everyone would come to me and whisper that I shouldn't back down. They don't want government purging their rights and their freedom to religion."

Write?

I think Aaron Sorkin is one step away from becoming a parody of himself. And you know that's not easy for me to say, loving most of his work the way I do. It's just that first there was this Daily Beast article in which he rants defensively:

“I wrote all 45 episodes of Sports Night. I wrote the 88 episodes of The West Wing during the four years I was writing the show. I wrote 22 episodes of Studio 60,” he says, referring to the television shows he created. “I understand that’s different from other shows where the show-runner assigns episodes out, and the show-runner just does a final polish on his typewriter. That’s not what I do. I collaborate with a great many people. I collaborate with the director. I collaborate with the actors. I collaborate with the designers. But I’m a playwright. I don’t write by committee. I write by myself.”

If that is so...why did each and every one of those shows have a writing staff at all? I could list, here, the names of all the other writers whose names are on the scripts of all those shows. Some of these are credited alongside Sorkin and some are not. And some he really did write all by himself.

But you can't tell me television networks will pay an entire room full of writers when one guy is actually generating 100% of the content. And of course, he wasn't. Do I believe all or almost all of those scripts went through rewrites (something more than "a final polish") by Sorkin (whether his name is on them or not) in his role as creator/chief writer/producer? Yes I do, absolutely, and very much to their benefit in nearly every case.

But that's not at all what he seems to be suggesting in this quote. Instead, he seems to be suggesting that every thought presented or word spoken onscreen in the shows he created was his and his alone. And I'm sorry, I just don't buy it.

I know about the oversensitive writer (believe me...I know about the oversensitive writer). This may be part-and parcel of the breed, and especially not shameful in those of us still hammering away upon our own individual walls.

But in a multiple-award winning, millionaire screenwriter who is so famous that his name actually gets used in movie ads...it's just unseemly.

So that's the first thing that got me thinking my man Sorkin was veering towards self-parody. And here is the second.

In The Social Network, Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) models Facebook on Harvard's legendary final clubs, private groups made up of some of the school's most privileged students. But the clubs are as secretive as they are exclusive, which meant researching them was no easy task for screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. Luckily, he got a hand from one of the school's most famous alums: Natalie Portman.

Way to distance yourself from that "elitist" label, Mr. Sorkin. I'm sure her experience as a beautiful if annoying movie star is very typical of Harvard grads.

Now how did I not see this coming?

The latest from George "Greed can be a powerful ally" Lucas...

George Lucas watched the massive success of “Avatar” and “Alice in Wonderland” in the 3-D format and decided it was time for a return of the Jedi.

“Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace” will return to theaters in 3-D in 2012 and will be followed in the stereoscopic format by the five other live-action movies set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic special-effects shop is overseeing the 3-D conversion. 20th Century Fox will release them, as it has done for all previous “Star Wars” films.

You have to get up pretty early in the morning to slip anything past Cong. Steve King

Cong. Steve King (R-IA) claims Colbert right-wing persona actually just a put-on.

Actually, that's the last thing I'm worried about

The CS Monitor has an article on Bill Clinton's advice for Obama. Though I think some or even much of it is good advice, I also think it's all stuff Obama must already know in his bones.

It's just a matter of whether or not he can find enough Democrats with the spines to do what needs to be done (and good luck with that).

So I don't want to talk about the advice. No, what jumped out at me was this assertion by the writer, Brad Knickerbocker (excellent name BTW):

Clinton speaks from experience. Two years into his first term, he got whacked by Newt Gingrich and the GOP’s “Contract with America.” Obama now faces a GOP whose base is more energized than Democrats are (although both parties have the "tea party" movement to worry about), and which has just unveiled its “Pledge to America.”

Honestly, I am not worried about the tea party movement. They (and their effect on the GOP) are handing Obama and the Democratic party everything they should need to hold onto or even increase their majorities in the senate and house.

What I'm worried about is that they won't grab onto those teacup-nuts and use 'em to knock down some bodies. What I am worried about is that Obama will react to a mid-term "whacking" as Clinton did.

No, not by having an affair--by all accounts President Obama is deeply and passionately in love with his wife, and devoted to his family. But by resorting to the straddle-every-issue, don't-offend-anyone strategy that Clinton embraced from (at least) 1994-1996.

Though at least I almost certainly don't need to worry that he'll start listening to the likes of Dick Morris (aka the gnome who lives under your bed and nibbles at your toes), as Clinton did...

"The bottom line is that, issue by issue, we're liberal."

...We're just afraid to admit it.

Bob Cesca reminds us of a few things.

The "both sides" meme [is] a very popular and very serious false equivalency based upon the notion that somehow both sides are equally to blame for this or that. Hell, even Jon Stewart's forthcoming rally is founded upon the false "both sides" meme -- organized around the misguided observation that there's equal levels of insanity on both sides -- as if the unmitigated blather and glaring contradictions from the tea party people, talk radio hosts, Fox News Channel and the Republicans who pander to all three is somehow equivalent to, say, a comparatively minor group like Code Pink. It's a cop-out argument meant to sound fair-minded, but bears no resemblance to the reality of a lopsidedly insane far-right.

The first new music review I've written in almost three years has been posted

It's at my old stomping ground of Ink 19, and it's of the revived Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark's collection of new songs, History of Modern.

Of which you can get a taste from the ad below.

Aaron, suck it up: Studio 60 failed because it wasn't your best work.

October is going to begin and end well for me, moviegoing-wise.

It’s opening with The Social Network, directed by David Fincher but most importantly to me written by Aaron Sorkin, whose work I tend to love.

I love his work but I don't always think he's right. Case in point:

As ]Sorkin] revs up, we coast over the statistic that one in four Americans still believes Barack Obama was not born in the United States (“There’s just too much bad information getting out there, and I have to believe that’s mostly the fault of the Internet, which isn’t held to any standards of accuracy”).

Oh god, he's back on this again.

Stop being pissed at the bloggers about S60, Sorkin.

Maybe you've been writing nonfiction too long. Maybe you've forgotten that your ficticious characters are 99 and 44/100% pure wish-fuffilment. It's the politicians and the journalists, Aaron.

There's bad information out there because few or no real politicians these days have the morals of your West Wing, and at least as few journalists these days have the talent of your Danny Concannon.

Not the people on the Internet, 95% of who are just trying to get through their lives after those people who actually have power and influence get through with them.

But anyway, that's how the month of October is starting in movies for me.

It's going to end with...oh shoot, what was that again...it's a heartwarming musical romantic comedy...I just can't think of the title...oh yes, that's right, I remember now, it’s...

Nile Crocodile

Nile Crocodile
Originally uploaded by geoftheref

its the one the only croco! strongest reptile on earth! stay away or else.

Tristan Deyoung-Dreykuss

(da nephew)

Observations on my downstairs neighbor

Apparently he's such a precious flower that he's called the manager--twice--to complain about my snoring. According to what he told her, it's actually driven him from his home at night, when he takes to the streets in his car rather than...oh just, say, toughening up, the crybaby.

So has anyone got a good snoring remedy?

I don't doubt that he can hear me...because I can hear *him.* (The floors here are thin.) Difference between us, I haven't been whining about it...

The manager just suggested that I move into an open apartment across the hall from where I am now, so he's no longer be right beneath me. I'd rather not do that (I happen to like the views from my windows)...

Sometimes I have to wonder

Do the Democrats--and specifically President Obama--realize that they won the last election?

In Talking Points Memo:

Onward and Downward
... Dems preemptively moving to compromise on tax cut politics? It appears House Democrats may be moving toward accepting half a loaf on the policy front in exchange for conceding the politics to the GOP.

Oh well, it would've been nice if they'd acted like winners for a while (y'know, when they actually were)...but don't worry, they'll be losers again soon enough.

Dear Anti-Mosqueteers...

Do you realize you're coming off so deranged that you're making my man Jigsaw look sane?

Do you care?