I think we'd all feel better about this if we hadn't spent so much life and treasure on Iraq, but...

For what it's worth, I think I agree with our intervening in Libya. Certainly the reasons for it make a lot more sense to me than our invading Iraq did, even back before we learned all we have about Bush & Co's lies.

Yes, we have our own problems. But I think I agree with this intervention because, when I think of my country sending people to risk their lives in the name of all of us...this is what I want them to be doing it for.

One of the many faults with the Iraq war, as I have come to see i,t is that we couldn't spark a rebellion at the point of a gun. In the case of Libya, the rebellion has clearly already been sparked...and not by us.

What we're doing, and fortunately we're not alone, is going in to stop a rebellion from being violently quashed. That's what we should be doing, I think (this puts me in a minority, BTW). I look at it this way:

You're walking along and across the street you see a man and woman fighting outside a cafe. From what you can hear, she's leaving him. She gets up from the table and starts to walk away. Whereupon, he says "Oh no you don't," grabs her from behind and smashes her head onto the sidewalk.

Do you go over and try to stop it? I sure hope I would.

I know Adrianne Palicki to be a gifted actress

She deserves better...

A Tale of Two Teen(ish) Stars

The CBS late show lineup gave me a look at a couple of young stars on their shows last night.

First, David Letterman had as his second guest (following Steve Martin, a position I wouldn't give to a monkey on a rock) the young actress/singer Selena Gomez, 18.

I know one or two of my readers (hello, Calvin) have crushes on or otherwise admire Miss Gomez, and who am I to call them creepy old guys?

But for myself, what I saw in the interview was a perfectly attractive young woman...with whom I have no references in common.




In the past, thinking like this is what led me to my Women my own age series, which turned out to be a good idea, being devoted to appreciations of women who remember the same television as me.

But then something made me wonder: Is it truly age? Or is someone like Selena Gomez someone who I'm just not going to have much of anything to talk about? No matter how lovely she is; how wide or narrow the gap in our ages? Here's what happened.

Craig Ferguson's second guest was Brie Larson, 21, also an actress and singer, whose work was unknown to me. She knocked me out. Why would I find Selena Gomez to be someone I could either take or leave, and Brie Larson so very charming, in consecutive television appearances?

(Hell, Larson even makes me want to see Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, something I had no interest in previously.)

But back to Brie Larson vs. Gomez: Look at all they have in common. Here are two young women, in the same situation (being interviewed by a late night host), who do exactly the same jobs.

Who are quite close to each other in age. Certainly more so than either is to me. Though, I would imagine that a girl could learn a lot in those three years. For the record, that last line wasn't meant as a smutty comment. For once.

Both started acting as pre-teenagers, and recording in their mid-teens. I had a look at the videos for their most successful songs (successful in this case being a relative term--neither has exactly burned up the top 40).

They even make approximately the same kind of music: "Power girl" with a touch of the Lolita.

(Gomez tends towards dance and Larson a little more towards pop rock.) And they both sound as if they've been helped to greater or lesser degrees by studio technology.

Gomez's solo single, "Tell Me Something I Don't Know," strikes me as a fine mass-market teen pop song, but what I can't quite see is what she brought to it.

What makes her performance better than any other adorable young lady in a recording studio with Autotune might have done? (Or, bending over backwards to be fair, any worse.)

Larson's "She Said" I don't think is as good a song as "Tell Me Something," (though it's definitely better in the radio mix than on an in-studio live clip I saw), but as the old saying goes, it's got a good beat and you can dance to it.

So why my preference? Let's start with the obvious: As Feguson says, Brie's adorable.

Just look at that dress. To say nothing of the way she practically flies into his arms for a hug when she comes out. (This reminds me...I must kill Craig Ferguson.)

(It's a joke, Craig, we're cool).

But seriously: What is the difference? Is it simply a matter of taste? Probably at least in part, tho I think it's also partly that Larson appears to have a vocabulary. Girls who can talk are so sexy.

But maybe that's another part of the answer there. Based on these clips--and what better way to judge two women you've never met and don't know than by seven minute clips of them on television? Based on these clips, Gomez is still a girl.

Nothing wrong with that. All the women I've ever liked were girls once. But Larson seems to me to be already a young woman.

(Again, I'm not making a cheap sex joke there. There's a lot more to being a woman than just having had sex, just as there is to being a man.)

I'm a fairly unabashed Duran Duran fan, especially the classic stuff

I've actually got two of their greatest hits collections (in my defense, they were going cheap). I think they're better when they keep to the clubs ("Sunrise") instead of trying to make dreary rock albums (the rest of that album), but that's a matter of taste.

And I especially like this interview. Here's a taste, on what one member (Nick Rhodes) thinks of:

Testosterone-fuelled ROCK critics...If you look at musicians, we've always been very respected for what we created, whereas a certain breed of [music journalist were never gonna like us.

Elsewhere in this interview, you may learn some things you didn't know. I did. Such as that, one of their former guitarists is now in the gay porn world and is selling models of his own penis. Fancy.

Apparently in Australia, it's like 1970 or somethin'.

Actual headline:

Out-of-wedlock pregnancies: a sin?

Now this is the New York I wish I could've visited

I just haven't felt like going there, since they scrubbed away all of the graffiti. But even if you're not with me on that, just try to stop watching this. Go on, try. I dare you. I double dog dare you.

Then you're not doing it right.

In 2003, Piscopo was convicted of sexually assaulting a female church member during a deliverance ceremony in which Piscopo said he expelled the devil from the woman's body.

Blame Canada

Time once again for another exciting episode of...

"Who's searching for me now?"

Only this time, we have a clue!

Today's contestant comes to us from an IP Address for Telus Communications in Abbotsford, British Columbia. In Canada, home of at least two of my vast reading audience as well as six of the seven Saw films.

But here's the clue: Whoever this is, he (or she) found this blog by Googling for "ben saulchurch varkentine." "Saulchurch," as at least one of you knows, is the screenname I used to use about 10-15 years ago on rec.arts.drwho...

Charlie Sheen's managers are two of the producers of the Saw films

I'm sorry, I'm sure this makes me a bad person, but the truth is I'm enjoying the Sheen meltdown just so much more since I realized that. Now it makes sense. This whole thing is just karmic payback for Saw 3D sucking so bad and so loud.

Especially since one of the manager/producers in question is the one generally blamed by obssessive fans like me for killing the series-rightly or wrongly; I don't want to get into that and you don't want me to either.

(That manager is also the one about whom Sheen allegedly made anti-semitic comments. Which I in no way condone, of course. Fucking up my most-loved recent film franchise is one thing, but I see no reason to bring a man's ancestry or culture into it).

So it's come to this

Oh, fuck

Robert Reich on why Barack Obama is going to lose the election in 2012:

Shortly after the Democrats' "shellacking" last November, I phoned a friend in the White House who had served in the Clinton administration. "It's 1994 all over again," he said. "Now we move to the center."

As someone mentions in the comments on HuffPo: That's great--as long as he remembers that "the center" is somewhere to the left of where he is now.

...many in the Obama White House have concluded that the president should follow Clinton's campaign script -- distancing himself from congressional Democrats, embracing further deficit reduction, and seeking guidance from big business. If it worked for Clinton, it must work for Obama -- or so it's supposed.

If you remember, this is exactly what I was afraid of.

Say, in case you've been wondering what Keith Olbermann thinks about the doings in Wisconsin...

...when you accomplish all this by parliamentary trick – after your national party has spent two years and more decrying Congressional reconciliation – when you deny the minority the right to participate in the outcome whether by compromise or protest, you cut through the cacophony of political-speak in this country and you transmit your sneering indifference towards democracy to ordinary citizens who do not normally pay attention.

...the Republicans have overplayed their hand in a way that seems startling even for them, and they shall inherit the proverbial wind.

.

I'm sure Steve Ditko and Stan Lee will be glad to hear that

Julie Taymor has been removed as director of the troubled Spider-Man musical. I have nothing to say about that, not having seen it. However, this paragraph in an NYT article (linked above) on the subject did catch my eye:

“Julie’s an extremely sensitive person, and she has always felt like a mother to her plays, a mother to her characters,” Jeffrey Horowitz, a friend and artistic director of New York’s Theater for a New Audience, said Wednesday. “This is like a mother being taken away from her family. She loves that family. She wants that family.”

Mr. Horowitz, repeat 3,000 times:

They're not her characters.

They're not her characters.

Geena Davis is wrong.

Davis, the actress perhaps best known for "Thelma & Louise" and the failed TV series "Commander in Chief" in which she played the president of the US) gave a speech last month in which she criticized the stereotyping of female characters in films and television.

"Gender stereotypes remain deeply entrenched in today's entertainment and there has been no significant progress over the last 20 years," Davis was quoted as saying at the gala held at UN Headquarters by the Agence France Presse.

I wasn't sure if I agreed with that, so I went to look at a list of popular films of 20 years ago, in order to compare them with those of today. What I found saddened and surprised me. Turns out, it's not merely that there's been no progress.

There's actually been a decline in the presentation of non-stereotyped female characters in films and television over the past 20 years. Check this out. In 1991, these were some of the most popular films of the year:

"Silence of the Lambs," with Jodie Foster as the FBI trainee matching wits with Dr. Lecter.

"Terminator 2: Judgment Day," with Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, one hell of a female role model as far as I can see (as was Lena Headey, in the same role, in the much-missed-at-least-by-me TV version).

Then there's Disney's "Beauty and the Beast," in which care was taken to make Belle more than just the beauty of the title, but well-read and outspoken as well.

This brings me to “The Addams Family." Well, that whole movie is about people who behave in ways which the mass of their culture find unusual or odd (and don't care that they do).

The women certainly aren't left out of this. Morticia (Angelica Huston) may be, as she defines herself in the sequel, "...just like any modern woman trying to have it all. Loving husband, a family..." But the way in which she tries to have it all is, shall we say, outside the realm of what is considered normal.

And Wednesday Addams (Christina Ricci) is a deeply weird child; I mean that in a good way.

So that's movies. And who were women television watchers finding on their sets 20 years ago?

Women like Roseanne, Clair Huxtable, Murphy Brown, Jessica Fletcher, The Golden Girls, Lisa Simpson. Even the female students on "Head of the Class" (who were, by virtue of the show's premise, by definition exceptional young women).

Powerful woman characters all--whose shows may or may not have ever explicitly invoked feminism--I'm honestly not sure--but were feminist all the same. And check out that demographic spread!

Before I go on, I wanna go back to Davis' speech for a second.

"What message are we sending to girls if there are so few female characters. If the characters are devalued, stereotyped, sidelined or simply not there at all," Davis said.

Remember that, as I move onto looking at the most popular films of today: Now I have to admit upfront that I haven't seen any of the current top five. If you have, and I'm wrong about what I'm about to say, please write in.

But I see a lot there that evidently either have no female leads, or limit them to girlfriend/romantic interest/wife parts. "...devalued, stereotyped, sidelined or simply not there at all."

As for popular contemporary TV?

I see shows that are willing to showcase talented women...but only if they sing. Not if they are committed to an ideal, even if that ideal is their own intelligence. I see shows with admittedly popular female characters...that nevertheless are subservient to men in their jobs. I see a show whose whole premise, as I understand it, was about two men raising a child without a woman. I see a show about "Desperate Housewives." I see the show "IJust Wanna Man!" excuse me, "The Bachelor."

But mostly, I see I see shows with women who are mostly young, white; white-collar, and successful. As compared to the variety in the 90-91 batch cited above (with the possible exception of "Mike & Molly").

(Even "House," which I think used to have some pretty good images for women, has either driven those women away or drained them of their strength.)

So what's the answer?

Darned if I know. I just know...it saddens and surprises me.

Let skeptics among you be reminded, Kimmel is Sarah Silverman's ex-boyfriend.

Who are we to say he couldn't really attract hotties if he didn't have a TV show with his name in the title?



But ok, so maybe this isn't that funny.

Not that I can blame them, in this case

Have a look at this Toronto Star piece on Arizona and Utah's race to be the first states to designate Official guns.

What’s next? Will crime-ridden Louisiana adopt the MAC-10 machine pistol, firing 1,000 rounds a minute? And how about Sarah Palin’s beloved Alaska, with its 1,500-pound coastal brown bears? The Marine Corps M72A7 anti-tank rocket, perhaps?

You know, I'm not sure, but I think the Canadlians just might be mocking us.

Stay well, Roger. We need you.

Roger Ebert reviews Hall Pass, a movie I had no intention of seeing, and have no intention of seeing, but may be worth existing just for inspiring his review:

It is perhaps hard-wired into men that their eyes should be constantly on the prowl. Maybe it's an evolutionary trait, and our species has developed it to encourage the sowing of human seed in many fields. Women, by contrast, have evolved to be sure their mates gaze in admiration at them alone and nobody else. There's a famous story by Irwin Shaw, “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses,” about an estranged couple who decide to make up. They go for a stroll down Fifth Avenue, but break up all over again because the man can't prevent his eyes from straying. He loves his mate — yes, he really does — but you see the girls are so pretty in their summer dresses.

WTF else do you know who makes literary references in the middle of a review of a movie by the same makers as the Goodbye Girl remake?

The plot of the movie is meh. It involves the lads and their posse being cycled through several unsuccessful and quasi-slapstick situations showing their cluelessness, immaturity and how women easily see straight through them. Meanwhile, the wives and their posses have a great time on a getaway retreat. Women seem to get along perfectly well when set free from men, but men seem uncomfortable without women. It probably all involves which gender has the greater need to be reassured.

God bless you, Tennessee.

I take back everything I ever said about you. No really, I do. I know, you think I'm being ironic because of that whole Tennessee Stage Company/my play, "The Girl in the Boat" thing, but nothing could be farther from the truth.

I take it all back: You know, about Tennessee being insane and all. I have decided to take this step because I've realized how much I should really appreciate you. You're always there for me whenever I want illustration of how republicans are, by definition, big flaming hypocrites.

Case in point:

Tennessee Jumps on the Anti-Sharia Bandwagon

While a number of other states have filed legislation seeking to keep Sharia out of the courts, Tennessee is going one giant step further by attempting to outlaw it entirely.

(emphasis mine-BV)

Senate Bill 1028, introduced by State Sen. Bill Ketron, gives the state Attorney General authority to designate "Sharia organizations," defined as "two (2) or more persons conspiring to support, or acting in concert in support of, sharia or in furtherance of the imposition of sharia within any state or territory of the United States."

Hm. That seems un....something. Oh darn, what is it, it's on the tip of my tongue...oh yes: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." (again, emphasis mine)

The bill states its intent is not to outlaw free religion, or the practice of Islam. It claims that Sharia presents a real threat to Tennessee.

Trust me on this one: I pose a more real threat to Tennessee.

Tennessee is just the latest in a string of states to consider anti-Sharia legislation. But unlike in some other states, where the language in the legislation avoids explicitly mentioning Sharia by name, Tennessee's bill goes so far as to call Sharia "treasonous" and incompatible with the U.S. Constitution.

"...or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" (Once again...ok, you get it).

This may be the part of this I most dearly love. They've devised an excuse to violate the Constitution on the grounds that this thing they've invented is incompatible with the Constitution. Beautiful.

Tennessee....I really just have to just stand back in awe. Thank you, Tennessee. For the love...for the laughter...For the Boys.

There's an AP story going around today about "Obama's Shifting Stance on gay marriage."

A couple things I feel compelled to comment upon.

You likely know how I feel about the overarching issue. In a few words: Full legal rights. Now. This is a position that has the dual advantages of being one, right, and two, growing in popularity.

Opinion polls show a steady rise in Americans' embrace of gay rights, and young voters solidly back positions their grandparents opposed, including gay marriage.

But as ever, I am left speechless (well, almost) by the statements of the anti-gay marriage politicians...although I suppose the larger point is that there are fewer of them:

Five or so years ago, Obama's decision might have touched off fierce Republican criticisms. But reaction Wednesday was comparatively sparse and muted from mainstream GOP groups and individuals.

Still:

One exception was former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, an evangelical minister who is considering a second try for the presidency.

"I think it was an absolutely boneheaded political move, and I think it was a boneheaded policy move," Huckabee said in an interview. He said Obama seems to say, "I don't answer to the voters."

Read the very first quoted paragraph in this post again, and then read that Huckabee quote again. See the first problem? Second problem is, last time I looked, we don't elect politicians to do exactly what the majority wants on every issue.

We can discuss whether that's good or bad, but we don't. We choose who we think is the best person (ideally), and if we don't like how they do the job, we fire them. That's how they answer to us. Not by being passive instruments of our will.

Incidentally, here are a couple of things in which Mike Huckabee believes with which a majority of Americans disagree:

Evolution. Huckabee doesn't believe in it. As of last year only 40% of us agree with him.

The Bible. Huckabee believes it is literally true. Not only is that belief shared by only one-third of us, but more of us could name the ingredients in a Big Mac than could name all 10 commandments. (Personally, I couldn't do either. I'm a Buddhism-influenced person, and I prefer Burger King).

I'm sure if Huckabee were to be elected president (a scary but unlikely thought) we could count on him to set policies which "answered to the voters" on those issues, aren't you?

The AP piece continues:

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said Obama cares little about the Constitution...

Except for the 12 years he spent teaching and lecturing about it, of course.

Again: Though surely we can disagree about how he interprets it, to just blithely assert that he doesn't care about it? The President?

This is the sort of thing that makes me think Republicans show up to a battle of wits half-prepared.

This is turning out to be a more popular feature than I imagined.

That's right kids, it's time once again for another episode of...

"Who's searching for me now?"

Tonight's contestant comes to us from an IP Address for something called Optimum Online (Cablevision Systems) in Brooklyn, New York, here in the great USA. To my knowledge, I do not know anyone in Brooklyn, New York.

But whoever this is, he, she or undecided (and with some of my friends past and present it's hard to tell) found this blog by Googling my name; stayed around for almost eight minutes and did at least some searching of my posts from the last few years, finally leaving after looking at this open letter to Elizabeth Hurley .

Do you suppose it was Miss Hurley, her cleavage, or my usual sort of useless witty remarks that drove them away?

Good ole "man on dog," always associating himself and his party with honor...

This just needs to go viral as widely and as fast as possible.

One for the '80s electronica lovers out there

It was John Hughes & Molly Ringwald's birthday recently, and I should've taken note, (among other reasons) because their movie Pretty in Pink brought me OMD.



Who remain one of my favorite groups; I love this song from their recent reunion LP. The video's really fun, too; full of "souvenirs"...how many can you spot?

On the positive side, this makes me think about Michelle Obama's breasts. On the negative side, it also makes me think about...

...In her latest comments, Bachmann slammed First Lady Michelle Obama's move as part of her physical fitness campaigns, plus decisions by the Obama administration proper, to promote breastfeeding.

"I've given birth to five babies, and I've breastfed every single one of these babies," Bachmann said. "To think that government has to go out and buy my breast pump for my babies..."

Proof yet again that conservatives should never try to be funny

It's just not their métier.

Andrew Breitbart, at it again?

The conservative blogger – who is at the center of a lawsuit over a video his site posted depicting a government official as racist – now has a cartoon on his Big Government site portraying First Lady Michelle Obama as a plump, hamburger-scarfing glutton.

In the cartoon, posted over the weekend, the First Lady is sitting at a dinner table with President Obama.

"I've stepped up my efforts to control America's eating habits by telling restaurants to lower portion sizes and fat content," a double-chinned Michelle Obama says, referring to her anti-obesity campaign, which celebrated its one-year anniversary last week.

I've seen one or two people comparing this to the hay that was made from Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign, in the '80s. Thing is, people who made fun of that did so because they felt it was an overly simplistic slogan that didn't take into account the realities of addiction as a sickness. IIRC, that was usually made clear by the comedians who made fun of it..

Cartoonists James Hudnall and Batton Lash' motive, however...well we have to consult the article linked above to know that because otherwise there's no way we would, based on the work. But they say they're making fun of the First Lady's anti-obesity campaign because

"We find the 'do as I say, not as I do' approach of the Obamas hypocritical and ripe for ridicule. The First Lady seeks to enforce healthy eating on the nation, while indulging on snacks in public appearances," said Lash, pointing to the recent White House Superbowl menu, which included deep-dish pizza and buffalo wings.

I suppose there might be a case to make for that. But I also feel that the cartoon is both unfunny, which may be a matter of personal reaction, but at least as importantly doesn't make that case. I defy anyone to tell me that's what they got out of that cartoon, like it or not.

Also I think Lash, sadly, apparently misunderstands the difference between enforcing and encouraging. So far as I know, no police are raiding homes because children reported their parents for eating hamburgers and pizza.

Unlike what happened in the Reagan '80s with one or two stoner parents. I'm just saying is all.

What the hell kind of a sick, fucked-up list of movie dragons doesn't include...

Toothless Fish Plz by *BellaNique on deviantART


...or the dragon in Dragonslayer?



This kind.

Rebel, Rebel

Shirley Sherrod is suing Andrew Breitbart. And while I wish her luck, part of me feels in a perverse way that we ought to thank him, as well, for reminding us of how the Obama White House, which just loves to piss on its progressive base, well, when a dirty right-wing flack like Brietbart says jump, they say how high?

I'm sorry, on your what?

Heidi Montag: I Blew Millions On Music Career

Sometimes, it is about how you say it

...social scientists at Tufts University's School of Arts and Sciences have found that outrage talk is endemic among commentators of all political stripes, but measurably worse on the political right.

Hands up, the first person who's surprised. But wait a minute.

Granted that these folks are scientists and I'm not, the example they give of "outrage talk" from both the left seems to me to be at least flawed, and maybe even totally incompatible with the example from the right

Those examples are

"Whether it’s MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann spitting out his coffee because of some conservative transgression or radio host Michael Savage venomously impugning the character of immigrants, cable television, talk radio and blogs overflow with outrage rhetoric, and even mainstream newspaper columns are not above the fray," they said.

Well, as I say...wait a minute. Keith Olbermann spitting out his coffee (it's called a Spit Take, o bright sparks of Tufts Uni) is by definition an attempt at a comedic reaction. We can discuss whether or not it succeeds as comedy in any given case, but a person who uses the spit take is at least trying to be funny. I would argue they're not even being satirical, but (more importantly) they're certainly not spewing venom. Just coffee, I guess.

But Savage, on the other hand...well, take a look at the most recent handful of quotes as tracked by Media Matters, just as some examples. Forget whether or not you agree with what he's saying, that's not my point (and if you're reading my blog, there's like a one percent chance that you do, anyway). Look at how he's trying to say what he's saying. Is he even trying to make a joke? Forget failing/succeeding, is he even trying?

My point is not that Keith Olbermann has never said anything that went over the top, rhetoric-wise. He has and he's been quick to admit it. My point is, rather than spotlighting the finding that the right is considerably meaner than anything on the left, these scientists appear to have thought they had to tie their own hands by assuring us of their finding, "Oh, but the left is mean too!"

Well, no wonder that's their finding...if they're counting a spit take in the same category as Michael Savage saying that immigrants expect free education, that they are to blame for the bedbug epidemic (and that leprosy, tuberculosis & cholera will follow in their wake). And yes, both of those are real.

It's that old demon bugaboo false equivalence, and unfortunately, it is very, very...President Obama. I do not think we will ever rise above this tragically dark cloud until we accept the truth that when we are talking about vitriol, we are talking, overwhelmingly, about the right.

This is not to say that no one on the left ever has their little slips of frustration, either (including me). But with the right, I think, it isn't little slips. It's their everyday mode of discourse, 24/7.

But of course, I'm not a scientist.

This is a surprisingly great article

...on how Conan O'Brien was able to come back riding on "the wave of the future," in other words the digital media audience. I say "surprisingly great," because you don't always find two big chunks of Truth in articles about TV stars, but this one has these:

"The boomers have overstayed their welcome," declares the man credited by many with creating the phrase "viral video," Douglas Rushkoff, the author most recently of Program or Be Programmed, a book about digital media. "Generation X is finally at the stage where they can have the jobs the boomers had, and the economy crashes. There's nothing left for them...

and

O'Brien sits back in his office, guitar in hand, trying to make sense of his personal and digital evolution. First he thinks it through as a performer: "The Beatles were trying to be the Everly Brothers, and they couldn't quite pull it off. Elvis really wanted to sound like Dean Martin. But, you know, by failing …" He stops and starts again. "You have an image in your head of this iconic person. For me, it might have been Johnny Carson, where you grow up with him, and you think, 'Well, that's who I need to be' -- to realize that feeling I had when I was 8, sitting in my parents' house and watching him. And then things happen, and you think, 'Oh, my God, I didn't -- that fell apart.' But it's the failure to be that person or to completely follow through on what he did that leads you to something that's much better."

The moron strikes back

Once again, I have received a comment from a critic of President Obama.

How's that Obama thing working out for you?

I won't pretend that every single thing he's done has been a winner with me, but...pretty good, actually.

BTW, the link in the poster's screenname leads to nothing. But searching that name suggests they are Rick Fader, an Ohio resident of Hungarian descent who fancies himself good with tools, and a graduate of Wayne High School in Huber Heights, OH (Class of 1988). God, I love what the internet has done to would-be anonymous cowards.

Anyway, as happens too frequently to be merely coincidence with these kinds of comments, he seems not to have cared that the post he's commenting upon is over two years old. I guess that he couldn't slow down long enough to notice that in his hurry to call me a

Moron.

This is ridiculous, of course. If I were a moron, I'd be running NBC (and/or MSNBC).

To get back to this timely comment: He responds to my querying of the qualifications and experience of Sarah Palin and Dan Quayle by first using a snark term apparently favored by "birthers," then adds:

I mean at least [Obama] had experience as a COMMUNITY ORGANIZER....Hahahaha What a JOKE.

Well, first of all, the American people chose President Obama. They must've thought he was experienced enough for them. John McCain and George H. W. Bush chose Palin and Quayle, respectively...and the American people made them pay for it to greater and lesser degrees.

But also, say what you will about Obama, and I've said some good and bad...but it's hard to deny he's smart. I mean, he's not an idiot. You can't say that about the other two.

Please don't hesitate to write if you have any other questions or witty observations.

Come on down!

Time once again for another episode of...

"Who's searching for me now?"

Tonight's contestant comes to us from an IP Address for something called Newnan Utilities in Sharpsburg, Georgia here in the great USA. To my knowledge, I do not know anyone who works for a utility company in Sharpsburg, Georgia.

But whoever this is, he, she or undecided (and with some of my friends past and present it's hard to tell) found this blog by Googling my name, looked around for exactly one minute and then motored.

Your move, o mystery utilitarian.

Oh dear GOD no...

Just when you thought it couldn't get any sadder.

Alec Baldwin to Replace Keith Olbermann?

As most of you know...

... West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin is one of my writing icons (and a good bet to win a screenwriting Oscar this year for The Social Network).

Here's info on his new HBO show, and movie on the John Edwards affair (which he is also set to direct).

Hey Joe, don't let that door hit you in the ass on the way out, mmkay?

Joe Lieberman went on TV recently to insist that there really were Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.

...or er, at least, that Iraq was "developing" them.

Now this is, in itself, no surprise. Joe Lieberman is a boob, and a two-faced one besides. We've long known that. So it's no shock, just kind of saddening in a wholly expected way, to see him trot out this old chestnut in a Q & A with Arianna Huffington (and others):

I'm basing it on the so-called Duelfer Report. Charles D-U-E-L-F-E-R conducted the most comprehensive report on behalf of our government. And it was, nobody thought it was partisan. I want to be very clear: he didn't find big caches of weapons of mass destruction. But he found, and proved I think, that Saddam had every intention, and particularly to develop nuclear weapons, was developing chemical and biological weapons, and had a structure in place including nuclear scientists that he was prepared to support if he broke out of the sanctions, which he was inclined to do.

God in Heaven, Joe. I have every intention of developing my own TARDIS so I can have Cameron Diaz, Winona Ryder, Jennifer Connelly, Helena Bonham Carter, Natalie Portman and Laura Prepon when they were good. Which I am inclined to do. Doesn't mean I can be sued for child support as the father of Natalie Portman's baby.

Another thing: Here is an item about the report he cites from the AP:

Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2004; 5:53 PM
Contradicting the main argument for a war that has cost more than 1,000 American lives, the top U.S. arms inspector said Wednesday he found no evidence that Iraq produced any weapons of mass destruction after 1991.

Y'get that there, Joe? "No evidence."

Also, from a related Washington Post article on the same report:

Duelfer's report said that no chemical weapons existed and that there is no evidence of attempts to make such weapons over the past 12 years

As I say, all this, like the fact that Lieberman is a two-faced boob, is what we already knew. But what we didn't know, or at least I didn't, is just how patronizing he could be to a woman...who just happens to have better information than he.

Because when Ms. Huffington quiered his assertion, the following exchange took place:

LIEBERMAN: ... these are not unfounded. Go read the Duelfer Report.

HUFFINGTON: There is nothing in the report that proves anything that you have said.


Dripping with condescension, Lieberman retorted, "I don't think you've read it, sweetheart."

(emphasis mine)

Ooh-boy...

New Amazon book review

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II

Ah...you can always depend upon Tennessee

Think Progress:

Tennessee Tea Party Demands School Curriculum Not Focus Too Much On The ‘Minority Experience’

You know, as I read this I'm reminded that in my play The Girl in the Boat, there is a fleeting reference to a never-seen character named José. When the play was produced in the insane state, I was asked to change the name, on the grounds that apparently, there were no Mexicans in Knoxville, Tennessee. Somewhat to my later chagrin, I agreed.

Better to change my sign than my sex, I suppose.

In September 2009, I linked to-

Sex and relationship monthly astrology: Virgo

--Virgo being my astrological sign at the time and indeed for most if not all of my life. Now that I'm a Leo, I thought it might be amusing to visit the newly-relevant page...

How to attract and date a Leo man: A Leo man needs a woman who is grounded in reality and can help him keep his feet on the ground...

Yeah, that's fair.

...Usually the royal Lion's romances do not last that long, when his emotional ideals of a grand and magnificent romance coming crashing to reality.

Well, that's kind of a bummer, if not exactly untrue. I do like being called "The royal Lion," tho, I admit it...

Sex will never be dull with a Leo, though, and they will master every move they know.

Ahem...

Oh please, Tom. If we had that kind of power, do you think we'd waste it on a small-time crook like you?

Tom DeLay: Liberals Sentenced Me To Jail

I don't know about you, but I could really use some comedy right about now

So here's comedian (and Woman My Own Age) Maria Bamford...

Jokes.com
Maria Bamford - Cults
comedians.comedycentral.com
Jokes Joke of the Day Funny Jokes

So sue me, this makes me happy

Tom DeLay, once the most powerful man in the House of Representatives, was sentenced to three years in prison Monday.

Art by Fred Wessel

Via ArtistADay.

Have I mentioned lately that Christian Bale is a fucking self-important nutball?

Christian Bale has hit back at "patronizing" suggestions he picks movies that require him to lose weight, insisting it is "horrible" to drastically alter his body for extreme roles.

"To be honest, I find it laughable that it's considered some f**king gimmick -- it's so patronizing. For God's sake, do people not understand what a pain it is to do? It's as though it's some comment about, 'Oh, it's easy for him, because he's done it a bunch of times.' It's not easy, it's not fun -- it's horrible.

"I would never pick to do that, but (playing Eklund was) a part that I like and he's a welterweight and he's a crack head. I don't know about you, but I've never seen a welterweight with any fat on him - or a crack head. So it's just what you end up having to do. Somebody told me that somebody wrote something about my 'trademark weight loss'. I'd just like to p**s on that guy's shoes."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/dailydish/detail?entry_id=80476#ixzz1AKEbysTd

One or two of us were saying that back in August or so, but it's nice to have confirmed

The Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was an avoidable accident caused by a series of failures and blunders by the companies involved in drilling the well and the government regulators assigned to police them, the presidential panel named to study the accident has concluded.

Now I look forward to seeing the terrible price which the politicians will make those companies pay.

Also, I look forward to having an orgy with Teri Polo, Olivia Wilde, Beau Garrett, Anna Faris and a 31-year-old Blythe Danner. Seems just as likely.

Todays "Who's searching for me now?" question

Someone in Villeneuve, Bourgogne, France found this blog early this morning (my time) by googling "varkentine.blogspot.com." To the best of my knowledge I do not know anyone in Villeneuve, Bourgogne, France. I don't even know anything about it.

I wonder if it's that place where the ladies wear no pants I've heard so much about. That would be cool.

Proof positive that Karma is real

Folks who got their audio book version of President Bush's new memoir Decisions Points on Christmas were surprised to see chapter headings like "Bushit" and "Innocent Children Die" when they popped the CD into their computers on Christmas morning.

Nice going, Brainiac

The Northwest Raptor & Wildlife Center says a young bald eagle found shot in the wing is under round-the-clock care.

The center's Matthew Randazzo told the Peninsula Daily News Saturday that the eagle's wing is broken and contains bullet fragments. He says it's unlikely the bird will be able to fly.

The male bird was found floundering on the ground near Beaver, about 10 miles north of Forks. The wildlife center in Sequim and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife are seeking information about the person who shot the bird.

Shooting a bald eagle is illegal. The birds are protected under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.

Greetings, programs! (So I've seen Tron Legacy...)

I walked out of the theater with a stupid great smile on my face; humming the ending credits music from the original.

I was pleased.

Oh, before I go on, one quick word about the music, which as one or two of you know was and is one of my favorite features of the original.

I was hoping Daft Punk would find a way to work in a line or two of melody from that Wendy Carlos' score, but if they did, I missed it (and I was listening).

However, though nowhere near as lovely Carlos' for the original, the music in the new film does works just swell. It's just unlikely to be on whatever-the-equivalent-of-my-iTunes will be in 30 years, as Carlos' is.

Now, to the film itself: Yes, the visuals are exciting, but you expect that going in; it's really the least you expect from a Tron movie (and one of the few the first one completely delivered on).

Where it surpasses its predecessor is in the characters, human and non-human, and in the performances. In the first movie, I think, few of the performers had any idea what they were doing.

It's hard to blame them. The movie was pioneering in its use of computer graphics and imagery in a way that few if any saw coming. As a result perhaps, too much of the performances have an aimless quality which tends to impede drama.

Times have changed.



It's no longer news that Jeff Bridges can act his ass off (Last Picture Show, Tron 1, The Fisher King). Bridges returns, 28 years after creating the role (has to be some kind of record), as Kevin Flynn, the protagonist of the original. He owns it.

It's Flynn grown wiser and more accepting of his obligations, both in our world and in the one he created. This grown up Flynn may not please some who expect the man-boy from the first film, but it was the right choice for this one.

As Quorra, Flynn's "apprentice" in the digital world, Olivia Wilde gives a performance that...I think I want to think about and maybe see at least one more time (before I label it). Suffice it to say that she seems awfully human for a program, but there's a reason for that.

The last scene in the movie focuses on Quorra's face. Beyond that I won't reveal the context. But Wilde made me feel. I don't mean she made me feel something emotionally (though she and the film did) in this case, I mean she made me feel what the character was feeling, the sensation. That's gotta be some kind of acting; she's more than just eye candy, though she does look good (pretty darn good).

Bruce Boxleitner also returns to his role as Alan Bradley. It's smaller than in the original, but key, and Boxleitner wears it comfortably.

Those are the good points, now to the bad. I'm going to try to put this so as to avoid spoilers, at least of a specific plot turn, but I am now going to reveal something I haven't seen in the ads, so if you want to go, go now.

The problem comes when Alan's alter-ego shows up. Something happens that I saw coming (one of a couple). It's an inviting idea. But the way in which it is executed suggested to me that it was done quickly and cheaply (presumably when someone realized the movie's called Tron and he's barely in it), rather than being a part of the story from the very beginning.


Garrett Hedlund is well-cast as Flynn's son, but it's an unremarkable part. However, he does everything the film asks of him, and it works, so I won't pick too hard. He may indeed have some game, but I'd need to see him in a better role.



The only woman other than Wilde with star billing in the film, Beau Garrett, merely is eye candy.

I have no idea if she's got any "game," simply because the film doesn't ask her to display any.


And then there's Michael Sheen. Oh dear. Camping it up to beat the band, he resembles nothing so more than Dana Carvey impersonating David Bowie on Saturday Night Live.

This choice of direction doesn't work for me, but at least the part is small and over with quickly.

As for the story, it's true that there are places where it slows to a glacial pace, and others where it is hard to fathom who is who and what's going on.

I don't care. First of all, it's like a Light Cycle only sputtering momentarily before continuing upon its merry way (Light Cycles sputter, right)

And second, compared to what the first one delivered in terms of character and story, this
one is frickin' Lord of the Rings.

I mean, watching a Light Cycle chase in 2010. Totally worth the wait.

And I can't say that about every genre sequel I've seen this year.

(Further to that aside, the headline on the Salon review of this film is "A $170 million insult." Trust me, I know what it feels like to be insulted by a film series of which you are a cult fan. It doesn't feel like this.)

End of line.

Well of course the gay lobby doesn't own the rainbow. Mork does.

An activist for a sub-group of the anti-gay group the National Organization for Marriage is speaking out against the use of the rainbow as a symbol for gay rights. "We are the real rainbow coalition. The gay lobby does not own the rainbow," she said.

South Park was right.

A couple of years ago, when Indiana Jones/Crystal Skull came out, I had a gut feeling that I shouldn't watch it, so I didn't. I didn't watch it in the theater, I didn't watch it on DVD, and I didn't watch it on premium cable.

Now that it has made its way to basic cable, however, I decided to gird my loins and sit through it, albeit with DVR remote at the ready. So now I have.

The China Probrem
Tags: SOUTH
PARKmore...

This has been a review.

I don't know about you, but I've really been getting a kick out of having Conan back on TV

And here's just the most recent of many reasons why.

I don't think I've ever been so depressed to be proven right

Me, this blog, September 24th, this year:

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.

Howard Fineman, HuffPo, today:

The tax-bill fight is revealing a crucial fact about President Obama's new, post-"shellacking" White House: it is increasingly being run by veterans of the Clinton era.

The significance of this staff shift is beyond the operational. The Clinton-era alums, by outlook and experience, represent a centrist, pragmatic, pro-business "wealth-creation" wing of the Democratic Party that flourished during the Clinton presidency in the 1990s.

Outside the White House per se, the president is getting key support from John Podesta, whose Center for American Progress has placed dozens of staffers in key positions inside the administration.

CAP supports the tax-cut deal, perhaps not surprising given that Podesta was once Bill Clinton's highly regarded chief of staff.

In which my love/hate relationship with Aaron Sorkin continues

Okay. You all know how good a writer I think Aaron Sorkin is, how thankful I am for his work, how much I prize my West Wing and Sports Nights DVDs. Also, I saw The Social Network this week, and thought it was the best film made from one of his scripts since The American President.

Sorkin has a piece on the Huffpo this morning attacking Sarah Palin for, in so many words, torturing and killing and slicing up animals for pleasure.

Now, lord knows I hold no brief for Sarah Palin. I think she makes Pamela Anderson look like a genius, I honestly don't get the whole "It girl" thing, and I hope that on his death bed--far away may that be--John McCain dies knowing exactly what he inflicted upon his country.

And though like Sorkin, I eat meat, I don't want animals tortured (not even John "Jigsaw" Kramer did that). So given all of the foregoing, why do I have any problem with Sorkin's new piece? Two reasons. First, this sentence:

Like 95% of the people I know, I don't have a visceral (look it up) problem eating meat or wearing a belt.

"Look it up?" Geez, Aaron, condescending much?

And second, the whole rest of the piece just isn't as well written as it could've been...or as I've seen such statements made before. For example:

Now, the trick in shooting deer is you gotta get 'em out in the open. And it's tough with deer, 'cause these are clever, cagey animals with an intuitive sense of danger. You know what you have to do to get a deer out in the open? You hold out a Twinkie.

That animal clopped up to me like we were at a party. She seemed to be pretty interested in the Twinkie, so I gave it to her. Looking back, she'd have been better off if I'd given her the damn vest. And Bob kind of screamed at me in whisper, "Move away!" The camera had been re-loaded and it looked like the day wasn't gonna be a washout after all. So I backed away, a couple of steps at a time, and closed my eyes when I heard the shot. Look, I know these are animals, and they don't play bridge and go to the prom, but you can't tell me that the little one didn't know who his mother was.

That's gotta mean something. And later, at the hospital, Bob Shoemaker was telling me about the nobility and tradition of hunting and how it related to the native American Indians. And I nodded and I said that was interesting while I was thinking about what a load of crap it was. Hunting was part of Indian culture. It was food and it was clothes and it was shelter. They sang and danced and offered prayers to the gods for a successful hunt so that they could survive just one more unimaginably brutal winter. The things they had to kill held the highest place of respect for them, and to kill for fun was a sin.

And they knew the gods wouldn't be so generous next time. What we did wasn't food and it wasn't shelter and it sure wasn't sports. It was just mean.

That speech, as if you're not already all way ahead of me, is from a television episode called "The Hungry and the Hunted," of the TV series Sports Night, and was written by...Aaron Sorkin.

Those fuckers.

Ok, I'm sorry to those of you who thought you were done seeing me rant about Saw...but it was just announced that the Saw 3D DVD will only be released in the theatrical cut on the DVD. If one were to want to see an unrated cut--which is the last hope some of us had for a Saw VII we could live with--one would have to get the Blu-Ray.

(And in my case, a Blu-Ray player.)

So, fuck them.

Saw 3D was a letter to Saw fans like me (the ones who cared about stronger writing and characterization)...a letter that was just two words long. And this is the exclaimation point.

(and to add further insult to injury, or just to add that extra dollop of cheese, they're calling it Saw: The Final Chapter on DVD.)

I feel so dirty.

Dear England: Make up the spare bedroom, we're coming back. Much love, the colonies

Tea Party Nation Founder: 'A Wise Idea' To Only Let Property Owners Vote

Judson Phillips, the founder of the group Tea Party Nation, has defended his comments that the Founding Fathers' original plan to only allow property owners to vote "makes a lot of sense" because "property owners have a little bit more of a vested interest in the community than non-property owners."

Oh, those wacky Canadlians

A teacher has been suspended after she gave her Grade 8 students a sexually-explicit multiple-choice test that included questions about anal sex, lesbian encounters and penis sizes.

Several parents filed complaints after students at Andre-Laurendeau High School, on Montreal’s south shore, were asked whether or not “blacks have bigger penises” or if they agreed that “all sexual positions are comfortable.”

Two sexologists contacted by QMI were split about the value of the test.

As in so many other things, George Carlin was right

For myself, I have solved this political dilemma in a very direct way. On Election Day, I stay home. Two reasons: first of all, voting is meaningless; this country was bought and paid for a long time ago. That empty shit they shuffle around and repackage every four years doesn't mean a thing.

Second, I don't vote, because I firmly believe that if you vote, you have no right to complain. I know some people like to twist that around and say, "If you don't vote, you have no right to complain." But where's the logic in that? Think it through: If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and they screw things up, then you're responsible for what they've done. You voted them in. You caused the problem. You have no right to complain.

I, on the other hand, who did not vote—who, in fact, did not even leave the house on Election Day—am in no way responsible for what these politicians have done and have every right to complain about the mess you created. Which I had nothing to do with.

I think I just figured out why John McCain and Joe Lieberman are each other's BFF

They're both two-faced boobs.

Yes!

This makes me so happy, I think I am now officially over how much Saw 3D sucked. What does? This does:

Joe Rehyansky: Allow Lesbians To Serve In Order To Give 'Straight Male GIs A Fair Shot At Converting' Them

I know what you're thinking: Who is Joe Rehyansky, and how did he take his finger out of his nose long enough to type the above? I'm glad you asked, because the answer gets to the heart of just why that statement fills me with such joy. You see...

Joe Rehyansky, a former official at the Chattanooga, Tennessee [emphasis mine, natch-BV], District Attorney's office, recently penned an op-ed opposed to allowing gays in the military, in which he argued that lesbians should be allowed to serve in the armed forces, in part because it would give straight male soldiers a chance to "convert" them.

Tennessee. Nothing good comes of being there.

A wookie roar of mourning, please...

...for Irvin Kershner, who directed the single best "Star Wars" film ever: The Empire Strikes Back.It's the most entertaining, the sheerest pleasure to watch, the most inspirational, that rare sequel to improve on the original.

It's also the one George Lucas had the least to do with the filming of. I don't think that's a coincidence.

(This probably goes without saying, but as ever when talking about the original "Star Wars" trilogy, I'm talking about it before Lucas changed them.)

Get me, I'm a Wiko Source

This blog is listed as a source for something called "Wiko News."

I'd say Fox has become a parody of itself, but, what self?

FoxNation.com Reposts Anti-Obama Article From The Onion, Doesn't Mention It's A Joke

Honestly...

Just in time for Thanksgiving!

Take heart, friends. That stupid, pious hypocrite Tom Delay has been convicted.

He faces five years to life in prison.

I hear the birds singing...

By all rights, seems like this should've taken place in Tennessee

Former priest accused of trying to hire hit man

...

In a murder-for-hire case worthy of a Dan Brown novel, a Roman Catholic priest has been arrested on charges that he solicited a hit man to kill a teenager who had accused him of sexual abuse.

If you're anything at all like me...

...this will make you cheer and laugh.

Dragonboy from Dragon Boy on Vimeo.

It reminds me of Wall-E, inasmuch as it's a romantic story told without dialogue (less even than Wall-E), yet fantastically clear.

PS: I must thank Roger Ebert for putting this in his Journal.

If The Unworthy Swine (mk II) is responsible...

... for this, Miss Anne, just say the word and I'll have him wishing he were swimming through broken glass.

Anne Hathaway stormed out of her birthday dinner with her parents and boyfriend, Adam Shulman, Friday when the conversation took a turn for the worse at restaurant Tocqueville on East 15th Street. One witness told us, "It sort of came on pretty suddenly. Everyone got pretty quiet. She left crying, and then her boyfriend followed her, but her parents remained." A second witness said, "She told the server, 'We just need a few minutes,' and then she walked out and didn't return." A third witness said, "Her father said, 'Let's not talk about it tonight; it's her birthday.' " A rep for Hathaway, who turned 28, acknowledged she was at Tocqueville but said the drama "never happened . . . The only time Anne left the table was to take a phone call. She did not leave the table upset."

They've had months, years, to make this "world" of what it could be.

Sentences that offend me both morally and from a linguistic POV.

"We have to deal with the world as we find it,"

From:

Top White House Senior advisor, David Axelrod, on why Democrats are going to cave on extending the tax cuts for the wealthy.

Why it offends me morally:

If I have to explain this, you must not have been reading this blog very long.

Why it offends me from a linguistic POV:

"As we find it" makes it sound like they, to use the common phrase, "were born yesterday." Sorry, no. Mr. Axelrod, we--the people who voted to put you (via your bosses) in the White House--we are dealing with the world as we find it.

Every single day, we wake up in that world and we do as best as can to play the only cards we're dealt. You and the President, Mr. Axelrod, are dealing with the world as you have (at the very least, through benign neglect) made it. There's a slight difference.

Do not go asking for our sympathy, get off the fucking cross and do the jobs we hired you (we thought) to do. You have two years until your next worker review, and we want to see a sharp improvement in your performance. Or we will get ourselves another guy.

This has been a warning.

This isn't even worthy of Tucker Carlson

Conservative pundit and Daily Caller editor Tucker Carlson perpetrated a hoax last weekend by posing as Keith Olbermann in a series of emails to a Philadelphia columnist.

On Tuesday afternoon, a set of emails surfaced on the Philadelphia news site Phawker. Phawker said that the emails showed the "100% for real" correspondence between Olbermann and Philadelphia Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky over the weekend. In the emails, "Olbermann" talks about his boss, MSNBC President Phil Griffin, in hyperbolic, insulting terms.

On Tuesday night, Yahoo's Michael Calderone reached Carlson by phone. Carlson confirmed that he had, in fact, sent the emails posing as Olbermann.

"Could you resist?" Carlson said. "It was just too funny. The flesh is weak."

Look, we've long known that Carlson is an awful human being; a suckup little creep. But by his standards, this qualifies as just barely, even...twatlike. Making up emails and sending them as though they were by another person? Fancy!

Tsk, Tucker. What happened to you?

One of those "I think I agree with 99% of this" post links

Lincoln Mitchell: From the Audacity of Hope to Timid and Kvetchy

It is strange that a candidate who was able to read voters so well has become a president who seems to think citizens simply want legislation. Voters don't care about legislation; they care about outcomes.

Adam Sandler: The new Woody Allen

...but only in this context.

To shock of all, Obama "signals compromise with GOP."

A chastened President Barack Obama signaled a willingness to compromise with Republicans on tax cuts and energy policy Wednesday, one day after his party lost control of the House and suffered deep Senate losses in midterm elections.

Sigh. Mr. President, let me put this simply: THEY'RE NEVER GOING TO COMPROMISE WITH YOU. NEVER. IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. EVER. If they wouldn't do it when you had the House and Senate, what fantasy of denial leads you to believe that they'll do it now?

With his comments, Obama largely followed the lead of Republican leaders who said earlier in the day they were willing to compromise — within limits.

With unemployment at 9.6 percent, both the president and the Republicans will be under pressure to compromise. Yet neither must lose faith with core supporters — the Republicans with the tea party activists who helped them win power, Obama with the voters whose support he will need in 2012.

He's already lost our support. And one reason is: None of us are even the slightest bit surprised that he "largely followed the lead of Republican leaders."

I think he's right

I've been wondering for a day or two if anyone else got the same uneasy feeling I got from listening to Jon Stewart's final comments at the anger/sanity rally. So far, the only person I've seen come close to expressing it is Keith Olbermann:

Keith Olbermann: Jon Stewart Jumped The Shark At Rally

Well hell, I want to be straight with her too...

...but I don't think she'd like--oh, I see what you're saying.

Miller To Maddow On Gay Marriage: 'I Want To Be Straight With You'

A Democratic Congressman is making noises about impeaching Chief Justice Roberts

I'd love to see it, but considering this is the congress that let the Bush, Cheney and the vile Rumsfeld walk away clean, you'll forgive me if I don't hold my breath. I also can't help thinking that if the Democratic "controlled" congress had done a better job opposing Roberts in the first place we wouldn't be in this fix.

There can be only one explaination for why this is so amazing.

And that is that the Democratic party had nothiing directly to do with it.

I would have embedded this, but for some reason defying understanding they've chosen to make it autoplay only. So I'll just link to it. "It" is a get-out-the-vote ad released by MoveOn.org and
starring Olivia Wilde.*

*Bisexual doctor on House (and lucky enough to have gotten out while the getting was good).

Co-star of Tron 2 (the aforementioned other genre sequel I'm most looking forward to this year).

Actually a pretty good actress.

Oh, and Maxim's Hottest Woman in the World, 2009.

And...Democrat.

Dear lord, I think I'm going to cry

New poster for the other genre sequel I'm most looking forward to this year.

To shock of none, conservatives belong to 100% white, 99% Goyim country club

Conservatives like John "I made my money the old fashioned way: I inherited it" (actual quote) Raese and Rush "The Incredible Julk" Limbaugh.

Proof yet again that Walmart is trying to kill us

On the left: Walmart cooking spray. On the right: Walmart furniture polish.

Via Cal da Canadlian.

Further observations on my downstairs neighbor

In case you missed the first set...

Ok, I feel the need to get this down. About 15 minutes ago (as I wrote this in an email to a friend), I woke up and went to the bathroom. I could hear our friend, the flower snoring beneath me.

I turned on my space heater and was about to get a drink before going back to bed when I heard a knock at my door. "Who is it?" I said, pretty sure that I knew who it was. "It's Derek" (the delicate flower.).

The following conversation took place (as best I recall) after I unlocked and opened the door-which, BTW, took me three or more tries--just woke up, remember.

DF: Could you turn down whatever's playing, please? (he may not have said please).

Me (incredulously): The music?

(let me explain why I was incredulous. What he was talking about--we have to assume--was the music coming from my little iPod speakers the size of one hand.

But what kind of music, you may wonder. One of my thumping dancefloor anthems? No, strangely enough I don't find my Kylie Minogue terribly soothing for sleep, so I was listening to the likes of the soundtrack to Godspell, and Miles Davis. Y'know, hard-hitting stuff like that.

The speakers were on the floor next to my bed, yes--where I've had them many nights before without complaint. Now back to our exchange)

DF: Well whatever it is, I can hear it.

Me: You have remarkably keen ears.

DF: Are you being snotty?

Me: What time is it?

DF: It's five AM.

Me: Ok, I'm being snotty. You see this thing on my nose? (I was indicating one of the nasal strips I had bought a few days ago). This is something I got to help me breathe easier so that I wouldn't disturb you with my horrible snoring. I have gone to more trouble for you than I have for some women I have known. We live in an apartment. Deal with it.

And I shut (did not slam) and locked the door.

(Neither of us raised our voices during the discussion, BTW)

Now, I think I have a pretty good idea what happened. Obviously, something about my getting out of bed, walking the few feet to the bathroom and using it woke him. And I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do about that.

Remember, I know for a fact that he'd been sleeping not five minutes before, so I don't think it was my hard-rockin music...but whatever. Rather than take the few minutes it would've taken to go back to sleep, as you or I would...he decided he had the right to come up here and complain to me.

BTW, I could hear him snoring again as I was writing this, so I know I didn't terribly upset his sleep patterns. I wish I had a "sum-it-all-up" paragraph here, but I don't. As I say, I just wanted to get this down. But I do feel pretty safe in saying: It's not me. It's him.

Now, to try to return to my own blissful tranquility...

Questions for the Universe

Wouldn't you think that in this day and age, there'd be an easy way to find out which issues of Mad Magazine (or stories from same) were reprinted in what paperbacks?

What do they mean "back?"

The very latest congressional generic trend chart: GOP back in the driver's seat.

Actually, it's become undeniably apparent that the GOP never left the driver's seat...

So it's come to this.

Police agencies across the country are recruiting thousands of civilians for a growing number of duties previously performed by uniformed cops, in an unusual concession to local budget cuts.

The positions -- some paid and others volunteer -- are transforming every-day citizens into crime-scene investigators, evidence gatherers and photographers in what some analysts suggest is a striking new trend in American policing.

"It's all being driven by the economy and we should expect to see more of it," says University of Pittsburgh law professor David Harris, who analyzes law enforcement practices. "As budgets are squeezed, an increasing number of duties are going to be moved off officers' plates."

You realize what this means...

(story via HuffPo)

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.