Bitch, please, part II.

This just goes right through my egalitarian soul: Spain's Prince Felipe subject to search at Miami International Airport; knickers reportedly in a twist.

"The prince and his bodyguard felt they should not be subjected to the screening, but if they do not have an escort from the State Department or the Secret Service, it is required,'' Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Lauren Stover said. "It's the law.''

The couple had only given six hours notice instead of the standard three days required by the State Department for an expedited security check, the newspaper reported.

Am I supposed to take European royalty seriously now? Hell, I didn't even realize Spain still had a crown prince. Seems a bit...anachronistic.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas sent the royal family a letter of apology about what he called a "lamentable situation.''

"The facts I have received thus far indicate an apparent disregard for protocol and disrespect of His Highness and his delegation. ... I have called upon our County Manager to conduct a complete investigation into this matter,'' he wrote Thursday.

As far as I can see, the only breach of protocol was committed by the prince, who evidently thinks of the US as some colonial outpost where the local peasants should bow him through security with appropriate forelock-tugging and a touch of groveling. Nice to see the mayor accomodating him.

A Spanish consular official in Miami, who refused to give his name to the paper, said it would be Consul General Javier Vallaure's decision whether to file a complaint.

"We don't consider this the proper way to treat our future king,'' the official said. ``It's a breach of protocol.''

Know what? if your future king wants to travel through the US, it behooves him to follow our protocol, which, apparently, requires a 3-day notice or at least a security escort. We're in the middle of a war your country is in the process of pussying out of and we have security issues with foreigners, so just shut your freakin' cakehole and follow instructions. Otherwise your prince can just get in line with the other shlubs and have the security people pawing through his undies. Fuck'm.

Bitch, please.

Deeply religious superstar Madonna

There are many words that would play better as a modifier there than "religious". Psychotic is one.

will play no Friday night gigs on her upcoming world tour - because the teaching of the Kabbalah forbids it.

How much longer is she going to pretend she's serious about this? She's done some half-assed reading and decided this belief system will make a nice accessory, like when she used to wear a crucifix (how's that for blasphemy?)

The "Holiday" hitmaker has pledged to respect the Jewish practice of Shabbat, the religion's sabbath, by dining with her close family every Friday rather than working. And Madonna, who is married to British filmmaker Guy Ritchie, hopes her move with convince the world she is very serious about the mystical teachings of the Kabbalah. A source says, "This shows just how much Madonna is influenced by Kabbalah. She is completely focused on following her beliefs no matter what lengths she has to go to."

"Until it becomes inconvenient, of course, at which point she will abandon this set of deeply-held beliefs like all the others."

Besides, why should I respect her committment to her religious beliefs when she blithely-even deliberately-tramples on the beliefs of others?

You are David Brooks! You're exceedingly smart, but
your writing is as compelling as wallpaper. You
are a thoughtful though hard-line conservative,
but lack any of Safire's verbal pyrotechnics.
In addition, you dress like you're colorblind.
Fall down, juvenile.


Which New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Are You?
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I'd argue if I could. Via Plastic Gangster.

According to the "Which Big Lebowski character are you?" quiz:

Why don't you check it out? Or we cut off your Johnson!

I'm not, really. I just have trouble relating to people sometimes.

[Via Ryne McClaren.]

Memo to Jimmy Carter.

Shut your hole and know your role, you embarrassing relic from a thankfully dead age of American malaise and impotence.

"President Bush's war was ill-advised and unnecessary and based on erroneous statements, and has turned out to be a tragedy," Carter said. "And my prayer has been that brave young American men and women, and others who are there, that their lives will be spared and there will be some peaceful resolution of the war."

My prayer is that we actually win the damn war and they can come home knowing they changed the world. The only way this war becomes a tragedy is if you have your way and we cut and run like a scalded dog.

Carter, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002,

Hardly the first or only time that particular award has been so hilariously misdirected.

also blamed what he called Bush's pro-Israel policies for engendering animosity against America.

"The prime source of animosity towards the United States is the lack of progress in dealing with the Palestinian issue," Carter said, adding that past U.S. administrations since Harry Truman's have maintained a "balanced position" in dealing with the rights of the Arab population within the Jewish nation.

So...if you're right (and you're not) that anger over our "balanced position" on the Palestinian cause culminated in the fiery death of about 3,000 Americans, who in their right mind would advocate unbalancing our position in favor of the side that did the killing? Ludicrous. Moot, of course, since the rest of the Arabs don't give two shits about the Palestinians except for their utility as wedge between the US and Israel. And if this country ever abandons Israel, God help us.

[Link via Allahpundit.]

Today's dose of Schadenfreude.

In the immortal words of Nelson Muntz, "HAha."

Trojan Horse Attacks Mac OS X:

Until now, Mac users have prided themselves [Have they ever. -ed] on running a system that has been largely virus-free. Few Mac OS X users run antivirus software, or are wary of double-clicking files they've downloaded or received in e-mail.

And why is that? Is it because the wicked cool Apple OS is so special, so unique, it's virtually virus-proof? Er...no, actually.

Security consultant and virus expert Ken Vanwyk, said there was nothing special protecting Mac OS X, or Linux for that matter, from malicious code.

"They're all susceptible to viruses and Trojans, just as Windows is," he said. "They just haven’t been targeted yet."

Vanwyk cautioned OS X users not to open e-mail attachments unless they were expecting them.

"If OS X users are being careful, I don’t see they should be rushing out to buy antivirus software," he said. "But if it goes the way of Windows, anti-virus product is in their future."

Davis said the Trojan most likely appeared because of Apple's growing influence in digital music.

"Given Apple's previous market share, OS X wasn't a challenge," he said. "As Apple becomes more visible, it's more of an attractive target."

I just thought about Lileks and smiled sadistically. I don't particularly want him hit with a virus, of course, but his occasional Odes to Apple make me grind my teeth.

[Thanks to Angela for the link and the shared glee.]

Notes from half a game.

Went to the Dayton Dragons opener last night and they lost like Mets (11-3). I mention this only to report that as I was walking past Brixx bar on my way to the game they were playing "Loser" by Beck on the patio outside. I'm sensing a lack of love for the team, but it could have been coincidence.

Anyway, I left after the 4th because I'm a dumbass and didn't take a jacket, and got home to discover the Mets also losing like Mets (10-8), didn't check the details, then this morning I find out Erickson wasn't pitching because he strained a hammy during the warmup.

Ahem.

Strained his hammy during the warmup. Is this some kind of karmic payback for something? Did Nelly Doubleday lay a curse on the guys when he sold out, or is it something more sinister? Maybe something connected to Kevin Mitchell cutting the head off his girlfriend's cat? Continuing to monitor the situation.

The Alamo opens this weekend.

Despite, or maybe because of, the generally bad reviews, If I can convince Angela to see it I might go (she's a transplanted Texan and therefore the control subject by which I will set the bullshit meter), but I must point out there has never--and I mean never--been a good movie made about the Alamo. It's a cursed property. The advance word on this one is particularly bad; months ago when they were running it for test audiences I heard disturbing rumors of Davie Crockett all but wetting himself during the battle. Call me a rube, but I prefer my heroes steely eyed and devil-may-care, and I don't care to see the King of the Wild Frontier gibbering in the corner with fear.

Excellent snark:

No one here gets out alive, not the director, not the screenwriters (a phone book's worth), not the cast, and not the audience, who, a few dollars lighter and a few hours closer to death, get a chance to glimpse their own mortality reflected in the dead, shark-eyed glare of the bankruptcy of another big-budget prestige picture.

That's just good writin'.

Because they can't.



Sometimes I have to wonder just what kind of dimwits are running the show in Iraq. If our troops can't fly Old Glory, they might as well be wearing baby blue helmets.

You are a GRAMMAR GOD!


If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!


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That was satisfying.

The world goes on turning in my absence.

For those who might be wondering where the hell I was last week (and there can't be many of you), I spent the entire week riding around in a Big Truck with my older brother, getting filthy grimy (2 showers in six days--I repulsed myself by Thursday and was near-hysterical in my demands that we halt and ablute ourselves at a truckstop), eating terribly (road food report: Snyder's makes a mustard and Vidalia potato chip, as well as like-flavored Funyun type snack rings. Found the chips at a diner outside Pittsburgh and the rings at a Truckstop on I-74 in Indiana. Also, the Hostess apple spice cupcakes have a harsh chemical overtone that coffee really brings out, unlike the orange cupcakes.), and not sleeping. We had a near-miss on a delivery that stressed me out so much I think I induced Sean to have an anxiety attack, causing his left hand to go numb. (We made it with 3 minutes--THREE--to spare.) I learned that big trucks have three enormous batteries, that it's sort of hit-or-miss cranking the engine when you only have two, what a battery smells like when the posts burn off, that a forklift *can* move a truck loaded with 40-someodd tons of steel enough to push start it, that it's possible to restart the engine by popping the clutch on a truck rolling uphill if you have enough momentum, and that hooking one of the batteries up backwards is a Very Bad Thing.

But it was fun. Steel mills are interesting, and trucking is a weird profession. I'd been out on a truck before with Michelle, but she was what Sean refers to as a "lazy drop-and-hook bastard" (meaning she doesn't drive a covered wagon or a flatbed and doesn't have muscles like a stevedore.) Anyway, I'm back, so further posting delays are due to indolence rather than absence.

Ride your pony.

How to dance properly.

[via Ace of Spades.]

The joke that writes itself.

Via Jonah Goldberg in The Corner: Fitness icon Richard Simmons cited for slapping man

Simmons, 55, known for his tank tops and outrageous manner, was ticketed for misdemeanor assault after allegedly striking the man across the face while in line at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on Wednesday night, police said.
''He apparently said 'Hey everybody, it's Richard Simmons, let's drop our bags and rock to the '50s,''' said Sgt. Lauri Williams, a reference to a series of his well-known videos. ''Mr. Simmons took offense and said he had to 'bitch slap' him.''

Blessed are the cheesemakers.

This is the good part: There's going to be a limited re-release of Life of Brian (LA, NY, check local listings.)

This is the ass part:

Rainbow president Henry Jaglom says, "We decided this is an important time to re-release this film, to provide some counter-programming to The Passion."

"Important"? "Counter-programming"? Handy rule of thumb: when you become more pompous than the people you're trying to spoof, you have jumped the shark.

Babylon's a-fallin' to rise no more.



Compelled by one of the best reviews of anything I've ever read, by Matt Labash in the Weekly Standard, I just bought the most extraordinary cd box set I've ever heard, Goodbye, Babylon, a six-disc set of early 20th century gospel that runs the musical gamut, as Labash notes, of "everything from Sacred Harp singing to hillbilly romps to field-holler prison chants to front-porch blues to jubilee quartets to old-timey country to Sanctified-congregational singing to Pentecostal rave-ups." The sixth disc is devoted entirely to sermons, mostly from the twenties. (Sure, I got a few odd looks when I pulled up to the gas pump with a sermon about the Black Diamond Train and its passenger manifest of liars, gamblers, and thieves blaring from my car speakers. I maintain this is not only no worse than blasting Eminem so my neighbors can hear it, it's infinitely better.)

The review is amusing, maybe slightly more so for those of us raised as Southern Baptists, but the music is divine. If you have any interest in gospel or old time music, it's well worth acquiring.

Well, this is kinda pleasant, actually.


You are Walt Whitman! Champion of the
Transcendentalist American Ideal, Walt Whitman
is one of the first poets to use the "free
verse" form in America. He has been
imitated, but will never be duplicated, just
like you! Except for by everyone else who gets
Walt Whitman ;)


Which famous poet are you? (pictures and many outcomes)
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Cool. I dig Whitman.

[Via Rodya.]

Wanton hubris.

That's what Patrick Stewart's got, assaying one of Peter O'Toole's seminal roles in Showtime's ill-advised remake of "The Lion In Winter". The project has disaster written all over it; Stewart and Glenn Close are about as subtle as a matched pair of sledgehammers, and I suspect it's going to resemble a Master Thespian skit more than a serious attempt to invoke Goldman's vision of a Plantagenet family Christmas.

[Via Dean Esmay, via a heads up from Bernadine.]

The re-Reconquista

Victor Davis Hanson analyzes the Spanish elections.

Anything I could add would be de trop.

One of those good news/bad news things.

The good news: there's a project afoot to film Beowulf. And they want to cast Sean Connery as Hrothgar.

The bad news that will render the good news irrelevant: they have no fucking idea what they're doing.

Beowulf prefers to see himself as an ordinary man, but for his particular skill in slaying monsters.

Are you fucking kidding me?

The monster in this case is not a creature of mythic powers, but one of flesh and blood - immense flesh and raging blood, driven by a vengeance from being wronged. Beowulf wants to do the right thing, but what the right thing is, becomes increasingly unclear.

I just love it when filmmakers decide it's a good idea to force a modernist mindset on an ancient property. Apparently the Northmen are supposed to ask themselves why Grendel hates them. Maybe at the end they'll all hug and beat their swords into plowshares. Pass.

Post script: I should also point out that removing the mythological underpinnings makes the struggle just another pointless pissing contest. How can you have a guy who has a "particular skill in slaying monsters" and then make the monster not a monster? I mean, seriously, what the hell?

If you love Looney Tunes, buy this.

Movie roundup.

I saw The Passion of the Christ the Saturday after it opened, but I haven't been able to post about it for a couple of reasons. First, because I don't really have anything distinctive to add to the Babel of voices raised for and against it already, and second, because my reaction to it was intensely personal and I've been struggling to find the words to express my amazement with the film. I cannot describe how far it exceeded, even transcended my expectations.

To be honest, I was initially interested primarily in hearing the dead languages being spoken; I'm a language freak and studied Latin in high school, and that was the offbeat note that caught my interest when I first heard Gibson was interested in making the film. Like most people, I thought he was probably going to lose his shirt, making a film with such a tiny niche market--who in their right mind thought John Q. Public would sit still for two hours of Jesus movie in languages no one speaks anymore?--and I admired him for being determined enough to go ahead and do the project because it obviously meant a great deal to him. This was a novel experience, as I had never previously had cause to admire Mel Gibson for much of anything; I've never been a fan of his acting or his direction.*

It was therefore an enormous surprise to find that he is capable of coaxing incredible performances from more talented actors than himself (Jim Caviezel is wonderful, but Maia Morgenstern absolutely broke my heart.) It was further a surprise to find that he was able to put together a movie about grotesque human brutality, and to focus unflinchingly on that brutality, but to put the visual sequences together in such a way that the camera turns away just as it all becomes too much to bear. I know many people found the violence bordering on the pornographic; I can only say I didn't find it so. Sam Peckinpah, The Matrix, Bonnie and Clyde--that's the pornography of violence. To me the difference is that the violence here is not glorified--it's simply presented as a fact. I've seen reviews that question the authenticity of the gore--I can only wonder if any of them have done any research at all into Roman culture. They didn't own most of the known world because they shrank from violence.

Speaking to the other concerns I think are legitimate, the questions of anti-semitism and the quasi-absolution of Pilate--well, those are to a certain extent, within the eye of the beholder. I was never taught and have never felt that the Jews were to blame for the death of Christ; I watched with what I hope was a critical eye and never felt that the movie was trying to say otherwise. I recognize that Gibson's father has said some woefully ignorant and hurtful things, but I wouldn't tar Mel Gibson with his father's brush, and think it's shameful of others to do so. He's a grown man, he has his own mind and has made his own statement. Judge him on that. The characterization of Pilate is sympathetic, but as his actions don't deviate far from the Gospel, I see that as an interpretive call, and I'm not prepared to argue either way.

Because none of that is the point of the story. The sacrifice was inevitable; no one could have stopped it had they wanted to, apart from Christ himself. Complaints that the movie didn't show enough of His teachings fall on deaf ears here; King of Kings is for rent any time you want to see it. Complaints that the resurrection wasn't emphasized enough also seem to me to miss the point of the scope of the movie. This is an illustration, limited by human imperfection, of the suffering and sacrifice upon which the Christian faith is founded. And many people want to be moved by that message. The fact that there is apparently a great spiritual thirst for this movie, at this time and in this place, gives me greater hope for the future than I have had in a long time. It's certainly not a perfect film, none of them are. But for the here and now, it's good enough.

*Braveheart's an interesting movie, if wildly inaccurate, but the performance in it that catches my eye is not Mel's grandstanding martyr, but Patrick McGoohan's fascinating, imperious, dominant turn as Edward Longshanks. He made me believe he was a Plantagenet.

---

On a much less serious note, I saw Hidalgo this past Saturday. I have a confession: I just don't much like Viggo Mortensen. I didn't really like him as Aragorn, even; I find him pretentious and earnestly dull on screen, and his inability to use his eyes expressively leaves me utterly cold. The good points of his performance: his Western drawl wasn't excessively painful (I've heard much, much worse) and the one thing I must concede: the man sits a horse beautifully. In a horse movie this is, naturally, of primary importance. He also fights well, in sudden bursts of energy, and has a few moments of levity that threaten to bring the character to life before he sinks back into Hamlet's brooding melancholy yet again. That inky cloak must have been the first thing he threw into the saddle bags when he left.

The bad: well. He mumbles. His voice seems to be trying to come out through his nostrils. He's supposed to be half-Lakota; letting the question of blue eyes and recessive genes go for the moment, why does he have to have blond hair? I know it's a nitpick, but it was distracting.

But it would be unfair of me to say that Mortensen actually spoils the film; that's accomplished more by sloppy writing and editing that has the energy of the film dissipated long before the supposed climax of the action has been reached. I didn't and don't object to the fact that it's not really based on a true story ("This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."*), but the modernist agenda of the script (written by the hack who wrote "Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron", yet another anthropomorphic horsey whitey-is-evil piece of animated tripe from Disney) makes the dialog painful to hear, and clumsy side plots involving nascent feminism among the Arabs (Shyeah. Right.) and the purchase of a slave boy (apparently only included in the film for the sake of ethnic diversity, as he's left at loose ends at the conclusion) weaken the narrative frame, and made me yearn for the days of John Ford. My advice: you'd be better off buying a copy of The Searchers or Cheyenne Autumn. If you're going to let yourself be manipulated, at least let a master do it and not some hamfisted amateur.

*The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

Update: Ian Hamet informs me, correctly, that I attributed "Spirit" to the wrong company. Dreamworks, not Disney, was responsible for that particular fiasco.

Excellent.

I scored a mere 25 (out of a possible 160, apparently) on the Libertarian Purity Test. This pleases me. If I'd scored much higher I'd worry about my conservative bona fides.

Up yours, George.

Word from IMDB about Clooney's next project after "Ocean's 12":

Syrina is based on See No Evil, the memoirs of former CIA operative Robert Bauer and claims that meddling by "White House and Pentagon pen-pushers" sealed the fate of the thousands that died in the tragic 9/11 terrorist heist in September 2001.

Rot in hell, you stupid lefty fuck.

Interesting.


Heart of Glass


What is Your Heart REALLY Made of?
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And thank you very much Quizilla for putting that song in my head. [Via Ben Kepple.]

Everyone's crazy but me and thee...

...and sometimes I have my doubts about you.

James Bowman on the quadriennial entertainment of the LaRouche campaign, and why it's not substantively different from the campaigns for people we don't necessarily think of as having lost their minds.

Why I hate the Oscars.

Sean Penn? Sean freakin' Penn gets best actor for that one-each by-the-numbers pot boiler? Worse, Tim Robbins collects yet another undeserved award for his tics and grimaces. Charlize Theron's best actress role: lesbian, check. Serial killer, check. Uglied up for the role, checkcheckcheck. Guaranteed Oscar bait. And finally, the "we realize we fucked up two years running so here's every Oscar you've been nominated for this year, no matter how undeserving the film in question may have actually been" series of make-up Oscars for Return of the King. (For my money, the most egregious of these was the soundtrack award to Howard Shore.)

I regret it every damn time I break my standing rule not to watch this massive waste of time.

Here's the WWI flying ace...


You are Snoopy!


Which Peanuts Character are You?
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Those who know me are laughing about the "sheer joy for life" line. They can, of course, bite me.

(Via Bill McCabe.)

I do swear a lot.

You're The Catcher in the Rye!

by J.D. Salinger

You are surrounded by phonies, and boy are you sick of them! In an
ongoing struggle to search for a land without phonies, you end up running away from
everything, from school to consequences. In this process, you reveal that many people
in your life have suffered torments and all you really want to do is catch them as
they fall. Perhaps using a baseball mitt. Your biggest fans are infamous
psychotics.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

"Phonies" is harsh. (Via Mike Toole.)

I really don't know why this stuff catches me off-guard.

Roger Ebert's just weird. I was reading his review of "Welcome to Mooseport" (his is one of the very few positives), and ran across this:

We question that such a naive and innocent town could exist in America, and are almost relieved to find that the movie was shot in Canada. Has it seemed to you lately that Canada is the last remaining repository of the world Norman Rockwell used to paint?

No, Rog, it hasn't, and you really need to get out of Chicago more.

Strictly from Dixie.

Via Farm Accident Digest, the Yankee or Dixie quiz. I scored a solid 68% to the Dixie side; would probably have been more definitively Dixie but for the fact that my parents moved up to Chelmsford, Mass. for a little over a year when I was learning to talk. So I drawl a bit, but I do it very quickly.

Shillin' for George.

It's a fulltime job.

Ryne McClaren, an otherwise excellent blogger, defends the indefensible:

And is it just me or is there something sort of sick about the mind of John Henry here, whining about the Yankees acquiring a player that Boston was also chasing? It's as if he believes that a second set of rules should apply to the Yankees, just because they're not drowning in their own half century of embarassment.

I think it's more that he's pissed that there's already a second set of rules for the Yankees.

"There is really no other fair way to deal with a team that has gone so insanely far beyond the resources of all the other teams," Henry said in an e-mail to reporters.

This coming from the man who wrote the checks for baseball's third highest payroll last year.

The difference between poor ol' John Henry's club last year and the 2003 World Champion Marlins? Only $48,112,879 bones.

The difference between 2003 Champs and Steingrabber's also-rans: about $100M. Hmm.

This year, John-boy is going to drop $125.1 million on the boys in Beantown.

So John Henry, spare me the crocodile tears, m'kay?

"The Yankee payroll will account for approximately 9.6% of total MLB payroll in 2004." Can you possibly think this is a good thing for the game as a whole? Or does that just not matter?

Responded Steinbrenner: "Unlike the Yankees, he chose not to go the extra distance for his fans in Boston."

And so continues the history of the Yankees and their whipping boys to the north.

There's that sweet-natured joshing that's made Yankee and Yankeefan alike beloved throughout the baseball nation.

Required reading for Mets fans.

Mike Toole* captures the exquisitely ironic joy of Metsochism : Arod's timeline as a New York Met.

*Huge thanks to Sheila O'Malley for recommending Mike Toole's blog in the first place.

James Cameron looming threateningly on the horizon of history once again.

That's a long-winded way of saying I hate Titanic.

Anyway, this is what the King of the World is contemplating: a 'fictionalized' story about the destruction of Pompeii taken from Charles Pellegrino's Ghosts of Vesuvius, which is non-fiction. But this is what has me worried:

Variety says that the Lightstorm trio will sift through the book to create a fictionalized account, which likely will tie into the politics of Rome, an empire whose demise may have been hastened by the devastation of Vesuvius.

Er, probably not. That's like assuming the US government would collapse if a hurricane took out the Hamptons.

Al Leiter feels my pain.

Probably more keenly than I do, actually. I can tune it all out if I have to.

"I find it curious that this was a deal that somehow only the Yankees could get done," Leiter said yesterday from his home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "I mean, any team, or any team with the financial ability -- and there are more than a few -- would gladly spend $16 million a year to get Alex Rodriguez, as great a player as he is."

Leiter was referring to the financial burden the Yankees will assume when all the money changes hands and questioned how a tentative deal with the Red Sox was not approved while this one was.

Well, that's the multi-million dollar question, now, isn't it? My own case of sour grapes aside, the whole thing reeks of bad faith. Every time Selig opens his mouth I see George Steingrabber's fingers moving in the back of his throat.

[A]t least before he was buried away down in Texas. Now he's just a few miles away across the river in the Bronx, and we get to hear about his exploits all the time.

"I don't think salt in the wound describes it enough. It's more like rubbing salt, and then pouring hydrogen peroxide and rubbing alcohol and rust in there at the same time."

Yeah. Just like that. But lemon juice instead of hydrogen peroxide.

The insolence of office.

Ian Hamet rails against the boobs in T-Mobile's customer service department, saving me the trouble of considering them for my next cell contract.

Better and better.

The Yankees don't just get ARod, they get him cheap:

Rangers - 3 years/$140M
Yankees - 7 years/$120M.

Yeah. The great thing about baseball is it's so fair.

Yankee pact with Satan all but confirmed.

Announcement any day now.

Bubba Ho-Tep DVD

Due out May 25.

Sheila's going to be pissed.

Nothing like a good literary dust-up: modern Irish writer Roddy Doyle declares that James Joyce 1) could have used a good editor on Ulysses, 2) wasn't Ireland's best writer, and 3) that his reading 3 pages of Finnegan's Wake was a "tragic waste of time". And hilariously, he chose a Joyce birthday celebration to air his views.

[Via the Creator of Worlds.]

This is why I read Farm Accident Digest.

For quotes like this:

"That evil, uncaring man daring to act like he doesn't want to blender up all those common folk into a slurry prized by the rich for its ability to enhance the look of caviar when viewed through a monocle."

Envy me again.

Bubba Ho-Tep comes to Dayton.

Shake your groove thang.

Hilarious AICN spoiler-riddled review of 'street dance' movie "You Got Served" here. (Again, though, it's hard to spoilerize a film when you can smell the stench coming off the premise months in advance.)

More fun than a barrel of Gaugins.

Mr. Picassohead. View my artistic genius here.

(via Midwest Conservative Journal.)

New debit card.

My credit union just replaced my old debit card, which expires this month, and I noticed that the card art, which used to feature a closeup of a pile of money bathed in a warm, golden light, has been replaced with a picture of a carefully selected group of people unknown to me. By the lack of uniforms and the age and ethnicity groupings (African-American couple in their 20s, white couple that could be anywhere north of 60, and white middle-aged family grouping with token adolescent female sprog) I would say this group is intended to represent me, the customer. Unfortunately I, the customer, would prefer to be represented by a glamorously lit pile of anonymous coin and paper, since I don't particularly care for pictures of people I don't actually know. (I am also mystified by the ubiquity of the anyonymous "hunk" calendar. Actors, ballplayers, singers--fine. At least I can be sure they can speak or sing or run or do something other than pout suggestively while flexing their rock-hard abs.) So much for aesthetics.

Re the Superbowl flashing incident.

1) Is "I'll get you naked by the end of this song" an appropriate sentiment for the Superbowl? If yes, defend your answer.

2) That sun thing looks damned uncomfortable.

3) Suggestion: bring back the marching bands with the half-time salute to the history of mayonnaise. Seriously.

Like to take her ticket and punch it for her.

Gwyneth Paltrow, having recently declaimed that she couldn't possibly entertain the thought of raising her children in a dangerous country like America, now asserts that England's hospitals aren't good enough for her to give birth to the little darlings--and nothing will do but that she must have them in LA, on Madonna's advice. Way to win friends and influence people in both countries.

I see a pattern here.



create your own visited states map
or write about it on the open travel guide

One of these days I'm going to have to go take a northern vacation and finish the CONUS, at least. [Via Bill McCabe.]

"Return of the King" fifth viewing commentary.

Viggo Mortensen and Elijah Wood could both eat corn through a picket fence.

Given that I must perforce accept the idea that Denethor is derelict in defense of the city and the women and children were not sent away before the armies of evil encamped outside the walls, what the hell are they doing on the first level of the city when the gates are sundered? Are they too stupid to have removed themselves to the upper levels prior to this action? And would the deaths of people that goddamn stupid be any real loss to the gene pool?

Miranda Otto looks like she's going to throw up every time the script calls for her to do anything but moon at Aragorn. She also has pipecleaner arms, and I am not convinced she could have hacked the head off a Nazgul's mount in two blows (or twenty, for that matter.)

Denethor: he's oil-soaked and sending up shooting flames the size of one of the signal beacons. Having him run the length of the courtyard and plunge into freefall in this condition is ludicrous. If you're going to go that far why not also have one of the Nazgul fly by and chomp him? Yeah, and then have it drop him on top of a spire so he can be impaled as well. Because apparently we just hate Denethor so much it's not enough to kill him once over and be done with it.

The hobbits are way too in touch with their tear ducts.

I would have preferred the orc general not suddenly assume a fearful aspect at the sight of the onrushing Rohirrim. That guy should have gone down with a sneer of defiance.

As a dog returneth to its vomit.

The Mets are talking to Todd Zeile. Kill me now.

(And thank you, Paula, for bringing up such a painful subject. Next time give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice on it.)

Kingdom roundup, with spoiler.

This post has been delayed by my natural indolence, but I might want to refer to some of this later, so here it is. First, Victor at Rightwing Film Geek pointed to the article in last Sunday's Telegraph, wherein we are informed that "senior British academics" are annoyed with Ridley Scott's Crusader project.

Then Ben Kepple took a crack at rewriting the script, turning it into "Dude, Where's My Sword?"

Let me note at this point, apart from the specious "Brotherhood of Muslims, Jews and Christians" and painting Guy de Lusignan as the villain of the piece, I haven't heard anything egregiously wrong about the basic plot of the story that contradicts what I know about the Crusades (concerning which I am not, admittedly, an expert.) I believe Saladin was considered by contemporary Christians to be quite chivalrous, for a heathen, so that shouldn't be considered revisionist. I am a bit concerned about this quote from Scott:

"At the end of our picture, our heroes defend the Muslims, which was historically correct."

Not sure in what context this could occur, unless he's talking about Balian d'Ibelin keeping the Christians and Jews in Jerusalem from slaughtering the Muslims in the city before surrendering it to Saladin. More research is obviously required, and more detail about the film than has trickled forth so far. While I agree in theory with Victor (supra) that the Crusades were counterattacks against the Muslim expansion and not, as so often mischaracterized by self-mortifying lefties, wars of Christian aggression, I'm not sure Scott has said anything about the film so far to indicate that he's making an apologetic on behalf of Islam. From the Telegraph article:

Sir Ridley's spokesman said that the film portrays the Arabs in a positive light. "It's trying to be fair and we hope that the Muslim world sees the rectification of history."

Trying to be fair is fine. Rectification of history...we'll see.

My spoiler policy: I generally try to avoid spoiling most films until most people interested in seeing them have had a chance to do so, but some films are so poorly conceived I waive the spoiler rule and consider the details more of a forewarning than a ruination. If you're sensitive to that kind of thing stop reading.

Finally, a filming update with spoiler:

Yesterday, they shot one of the most dangerous scenes filmed so far in Loarre: it shows the moment when Balian falls into the forge and burns alive while his workshop burns up around him.

Interesting. One must assume that's the ending, unless they plan to have him rise Phoenix-like from the pyre. Update: Apparently it's not Balian who falls into the forge, it's a priest of some kind. I'm not sure if that's better or worse.

Bill McCabe unfair to Elves.

Legolas-free zone, my eye. Hate the game, Bill, not the player.

(2BC recognizes the value of all members of the Fellowship. Even Boromir, who took way too damn long to die.)

Hm.

Van Helsing trailer here. I can't make up my mind whether this is going to rule or suck, but I doubt it's going to fall between the poles.

Skippy.

Courtesy of my cousin Loraine, the 213 Things Skippy Is No Longer Allowed To Do In The U.S. Army. Samples:

35. Not allowed to sing 'High Speed Dirt' by Megadeth during airborne operations. ('See the earth below/Soon to make a crater/Blue sky, black death, I'm off to meet my maker')

48. I may not use public masturbation as a tool to demonstrate a flaw in a command decision.

58. The following words and phrases may not be used in a cadence- Budding sexuality, necrophilia, I hate everyone in this formation and wish they were dead, sexual lubrication, black earth mother, all Marines are latent homosexuals, Tantric yoga, Gotterdammerung, Korean hooker, Eskimo Nell, we've all got jackboots now, slut puppy, or any references to squid.

198. Not allowed to lead a 'Coup' during training missions.

Pinch me.

I must be dreaming. I just read on AOL (via AP) that Al Franken has signed with a yet-to-be launched liberal radio network (not NPR, a new one) with the intent of running opposite Rush Limbaugh's noon to three slot.

Franken said he planned to use a mix of interviews, calls from listeners and scripted comedy. He said he planned to have a co-host with long experience in radio, but he said that role had not been finalized.

Have any of these people checked out Franken's comedy chops lately? He hasn't been funny since Christ was a corporal. And just who is it that thinks this is a brilliant idea?

Last November the company was bought by an investment group led by Mark Walsh, a former America Online executive and adviser to the Democratic National Committee, from the venture capitalists Sheldon and Anita Drobny.

I thought venture capitalists were eeeeevil. And I know damn well the people behind AOL are.

Franken, whose earlier book was called "Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot,'' said he plans to call up his nemesis for advice on his own show since Limbaugh has often said he wonders why new radio hosts don't seek out his counsel.

Ah, there's that mordant wit, that breath of fresh, cleansing air. You know, I don't particularly like Limbaugh, but he's at least twice as quickwitted as Franken. If Franken has the temerity to call him up during his show, Rush will eat his lunch for him.

"I'll ask him advice: how he approaches a show, how he frames an issue. If it doesn't happen it will be - very understandably - because he won't take my call,'' Franken said.

Somewhere Rush Limbaugh just sprouted enormous wood. Sorry about the visual.

Zombie trailer alert.

Check out the Shaun of the Dead trailer.

"Let's run it up the flagpole and see if the rats desert the sinking ship."*

When Ed Koch is the voice of reason and actually expresses himself as befits an elder statesman in support of the Bush presidency, we live in a world run amok.

[Via Charles Austin.]



*Wild public acclaim to the first one to name the show that quote is from. $5 says Bernadine does it.

Moments in ideal casting.

Johnny Depp as 17th century rake and poet John Wilmot in The Libertine.

Edmund Blackadder: Mrs. Miggins, there's nothing intellectual about wandering around Italy in a big shirt trying to get laid.

Well, sure, I can see that.

Via Rodya Guevara at Farm Accident Digest:

What Famous Leader Are You?

Yes, I will invent the future of mankind. As long as I can do it from my couch while watching the fight scenes in the Rings movies on slo-mo.

Even better.

What Classic Movie Are You?

Wandering rogue on the...river...shadow...what?

The sequel without equal.

Bubba Nosferatu: Curse of the She-Vampires.

God bless Bruce Campbell and the B-Movie.

Proper weather at last.

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening - Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

What price culture.

The Dayton Opera association puts on 4 shows a season; next season we get Le Nozze de Figaro (good), Tosca (less good; I've seen it five times already. Get a new workhorse.), Little Women (hah?), and Opera Goes to the Movies.

Now, I never get tired of Mozart, and I'm willing to put up with yet another staging of Tosca, even at $62 a ticket, if the rest of the season is worth it, but the other two items have me worried. This is the Little Women writeup in the newsletter:

The New York Times has hailed it as a "masterpiece", our third production is a stunning and moving adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's masterpiece novel, Mark Adamo's Little Women.

(Sic, sic, sic. Just wanted to emphasize that the mangled grammar is theirs, not mine.)

Premiered in 1998 at the Houston Grand Opera, Little Women is already being heralded as one of the most beloved American operas.

My conservative instincts are balking. I hate modern classical music with a passion; just about anything post Stravinsky makes my skin crawl. If that makes me a troglodyte, so be it.

Then we come to the item that makes me scowl: Opera Goes to the Movies. This is apparently the orchestra and a series of neophyte opera singers performing selections from operas featured in movies. I don't mind a revue, and the selections are potentially interesting, but for $62 I could rent all the movies involved and still have plenty left for a pizza. Deluxe, even. The hell of it is, if I balk at renewing because I'm tired of Tosca, suspicious of Little Women, and not interested in the free-floating ariafest, I lose my seat--and my seat is prime. So knowing my tendency to just not go if I think I'm not going to enjoy what's ahead of me, I'm potentially going to eat 3 of the 4 tickets. Gad.

[No, there's no point to this. Just pointless bitchery.]

Now there's a useful campaign guide.

Greg pointed me to Ace of Spade's D&D guide to the Democratic candidates (which was apparently linked on The Corner as well.)

Movie Hell.

Time to catch up on stuff I bypassed at the theater:

The Order: Bad theology, albeit a moderately interesting premise. Heath Ledger confirms the fact that he can't act.

28 Days Later: Remind me not to be in England when the Apocalypse comes. Those guys apparently intend to act like fuckers when it's nut-crunching time. Pretty standard zombie fare, imo; I don't see what all the excitement was about.

Bad Boys II: Bang. Screech. BOOM. Crash. One funny bit where a boy comes to pick up Martin Lawrence's teenage daughter.

Barbershop: Fully as funny as I was told, and that's saying something. The ATM subplot is hilariously stupid, and each of the barbers has a fully realized character. Loved it.

Wrong, wrong, WRONG.

What the hell is going on with the weather? In Springfield, Ohio, on January third, it should not be in the fifties. There shouldn't have been a thunderstorm two nights ago, replete with lightning. I should be ass-deep in snow by now, perhaps with a scrim of ice on top and underneath, just to make the driving extra treacherous. As I discussed with Angela, if this keeps up much longer we're going to have a false Spring, wicked freeze, crappy real Spring, and mosquitos the size of bats all next year. Gad. Somebody fix this, please.

Another genuine faux controversy.

In a frankly embarrassing attempt to garner Dixie Chick-esque notoriety and boost sales, Willie Nelson has penned an anti-war song to be debuted at a Dennis Kucinich rally--yes, I know, in the words of Iago the parrot, I too could have a heart attack and die from not surprised. In further shocking news, he persists in thinking it's all about the oil:

There's so many things going on in the world
Babies dying
Mothers crying
How much oil is one human life worth
And what ever happened to peace on earth

Not that anyone was weeping before we invaded Iraq, of course. No children's prisons, no mass graves. Nothing to see here, folks. Keep moving, it's all about the oil, vote Kucinich.

Oh, and the rest of the lyrics suck too.

[Thanks to Angela for the link.]

Holiday wrap-up.

Finished Lord of the Rings right before Christmas, and was somewhat surprised to find that most of the things I thought Jackson got wrong to some degree were actually pretty much spot-on. I've seen it 4 times now, and can readily identify the bits I know are going to be added on the extended edition, so I'm wondering if I should even bother with the theatrical release of this one (I do have the other two, and I hate a partial set.)

Saw Peter Pan Wednesday and felt...I don't know...rewarded by the whole experience, I guess. I had reservations--general dislike of child actors, lukewarm memories of the Mary Martin live action version from the sixties (a grown woman cannot pass for a pre-teen boy, I don't care if she's Sarah freakin' Bernhardt, that just gives the whole story a very weird vibe), and the Disney cartoon made Neverland look too appealing, without any hint of real danger (why do you think Michael Jackson named his Freak Farm after it?). So I wasn't sure what I was going to get, aside from possible kick-butt eye candy in the fx department.

There was eye candy, but more importantly, this version strips off some of the mawkish sentiment that makes the Martin version so unwatchable (some, not all), and adds some very dark undertones. Hook is geniunely menacing, for a change (Jason Isaacs is an utterly ruthless pirate.) Peter is not altogether likeable, as he shouldn't be, and completely self-centered. There's been a buzz in some quarters about inappropriate sexual tension between Peter and Wendy, but that's essentially the main theme of the story as originally written. I thought it was both tasteful and evocative. Basically the movie is screwed by timing--coming out anywhere near a boxoffice behemoth like ROTK means it's going to be seen by a far smaller audience than it deserves, and it's a pity.

Tim Blair recaps the year in quotes.

The hilarity starts here.

And reminds me how much I miss Juan Gato in the process.

TB: Which are you more likely to violate: the Third Law of Thermodynamics, or the Mann Act?

JG: I'm pretty sure it'd be Third Law of Thermodynamics. Too bad it wasn't which I'd prefer to violate. No, that'd probably still be the Third Law. Once I break free of that bastard, there'll be no stopping me.

Via Bill McCabe, yet another LOTR personality test, this one a bit different from most.

You are most like Aragorn (Stryder) Son of Arathorn

Aragorn's decisions often seem against conventional wisdom, but he knows what to do and why it must be done, regardless of the cost.
You are good at making contingency plans and come up wiith efficient means to acheive clear-cut ends. You are highly independent, and continue on with your plans even in the face of data that might suggest to others that it's no longer feasible. Time alone is important and solitary activities refresh you. You have a tendency to introspection. In your desire for clarity in life, you may have the tendency of being remote or even "heartless". You try to schedule your life as much as possible. You tend to finish your work before resting.

As the foil to Aragorn, Sauron clearly embodies the evil side of this personality.

Traits: Pragmatic, autonomous, ingenious, resolute. On the dark side you could desire power and domination.

Hm. Ok. I can't really argue with those (and wouldn't argue with "ingenious" out of sheer egotism anyway.)

Eowyn If I were a character in The Lord of the Rings, I would be Eowyn, Woman of Rohan, niece of King Theoden and sister of Eomer. In the movie, I am played by Miranda Otto. Who would you be? Zovakware Lord of the Rings Test with Perseus Web Survey Software

Well, of course I am.
[Via Bill McCabe.]

Return of the King.

Saw it twice today, back to back. Despite my misgivings (and despite living up--or rather, down--to a handful of those misgivings), I'd have to say it holds up admirably well. If I can spend 7 hours in a theater and still be ready to see it again, it's a damn good movie.

That said, there are minor peeves, most of which I think will be straightened out by the expanded edition. Worst mischaracterization: Denethor. Biggest unintentional laugh: tie--Sam and Frodo on Mt. Doom, and Denethor's final moment on screen (there will be more discussion of this last point after more people have seen it.) Best one-liners: Gimli. Best farewell speech: Theoden. Best defiance of the laws of physics that govern mere mortals: Legolas, for the third time. (The cave troll in Fellowship, the flying wrong-sided horse mount in Towers, and...well. You'll know it when you see it, if you haven't already read about it.) Biggest threat to take over every blessed key moment of the plot: Gandalf (and here I thought ubiquity was reserved for God hisself.)

Three musical performances, only one of which I endured without squirming (after you've seen it feel free to guess which.) At least five possible points at which they could have ended the movie (the endings do drag on a bit.) One scene that plays like a curtain call. Good stuff.

For all my bitter fellow Gen-Xers.

And I'm talking about those of us on the leading edge of Gen-X, at that. Via the ever-vigilant Andrea Harris, an apparently new site to keep an eye on: Boomer Deathwatch (soon to relocate to www.boomerdeathwatch.com), a gleefully mean-spirited site about the rat-in-the-snake generation sopping up all the gravy.

End of the whole LOTR thing.

No point in finishing the book when he's not following the book. [Spoiler link courtesy of Angela.]

Thank God he's not filming Beowulf. Here's hoping he never gets a shot at filming The Hobbit.

LOTR "Race the Boxoffice" update:

Looks like I'm going to have to concede defeat. Just to the stairs of Cirith Ungol, about 50 pages shy of the end of the 4th book, and I don't see how I can finish all of "Return of the King" tonight. I'll take a stab at it, though my pre-ROTK time might be better served watching the extended Towers video than reading a text I suspect is in peril of being adapted in somewhat ham-handed fashion. Sounds like I'm pre-bashing, eh? Not really. I'm looking forward to the Paths of the Dead and Pelennor Fields, at least, and though the clip I saw of Pippin with the Palantir could best be described as devouring the scenery, I have to keep in mind that I saw that clip deprived of dramatic context. Anyway, it's not like I can pretend I'm not geeked about the whole thing, I just want to be prepared in case Arwen shows up with a sword somewhere.

Best photoshop of Hussein so far.

Steve H. at Little Tiny Lies wins the prize. (I'd post the picture itself, but I'm not sure how he'd feel about that, and he's a lawyer, after all.)

LOTR "Race the Boxoffice" update:

End of book III, switching back to Sam and Frodo and the Taming of Smeagol. So engrossed I didn't know about Hussein until I signed on to AOL this afternoon. Huzzah!

LOTR "Race the Boxoffice" update:

End of book II, beginning of book 3 (or end of "The Fellowship", beginning of "The Two Towers", if you prefer.) The fellowship is broken. Boromir is about to...er, depart. As it were.

Fully geeked.

Check out ROTK stills here.

In celebration of the countdown.


Congratulations! You're Merry!


Which Lord of the Rings character and personality problem are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Well, they got the bloodlust right, anyway.

LOTR "Race the Boxoffice" update:

The Council of Elrond is over. Next up: The Ring Goes South (II ch. 3). I make no excuses for my sloth.

Killer sweet.




Which Martial Arts Movie Star Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

[Via Greg in the Captain's Chair.]

Cruise Control.

Johnathan Last gives The Last Samurai a qualified thumbs-up in the Weekly Standard for "trying" to be a great picture. Since I haven't seen it, and won't because it stars Tom Cruise, I can't address the film on its own merits. What I can address, however, is Last's half-hearted defense of Cruise as movie star:

Though say what you will about Cruise, one fact remains: He's no Steve Guttenberg. Or Mark Harmon. Or Brad Pitt. Or any other of the disposable, pretty-boy movie stars who have crowded the multiplex on and off for 20 years. Tom Cruise is the leading man of his day and, all things considered, he's probably better than this generation of moviegoers deserves. (Historical footnote: In 2035, when the Thalberg awards are handed out and all is said and done, George Clooney will be considered the star of his generation, but that's then and this is now.)

I'm sorry, but he's sure as hell not what I deserve; I can't possibly have been that evil. He is the disposable pretty boy of his generation, which Guttenberg and Harmon are not (who the hell thinks they're "pretty"?) As for Pitt, I can name at least two movies in which his performance was tolerable ("Thelma and Louise" and the somewhat limp remake of "Ocean's 11"), which is two more notches than I can count on Cruise's coup stick.

If you tour Cruise's filmography, you'll see an actor doing competent work in movies that are better than they have to be.

I see a performer giving exactly the same performance, without variation, in every stinkin' film he's ever been in. He is himself in every movie, in the worst possible sense; I can never get the sense that he's anyone but TOM FUCKING CRUISE every moment he's on screen.

For every "Days of Thunder" there's a "Color of Money";

You say that as though there were a qualitative difference between the two.

for every "Mission Impossible: 2" there's a "Minority Report."

That's a sore point with me; a potentially great premise ruined by bad casting. His performance in every movie is the same. Minority Report is Cocktail is Risky Business; only the props and costars change.

His popcorn films are often mediocre ("The Firm") and even his prestige movies can be terrible ("Born on the Fourth of July," "Far and Away," "Eyes Wide Shut"). But if you do the numbers, he bats about .600 and hits to all fields with power ("Rain Man," "Top Gun," "Magnolia").

You could easily replace Cruise in "Rainman" with any reasonably competent actor, or even a mediocre actor of Cruise's own caliber, and it would be essentially the same. Dustin Hoffman did all the heavy lifting (not that I necessarily agree "Rainman" is a good example of a base hit; it's more like a seeing-eye single than a double to the wall. "Top Gun" is an execrable piece of crap and I found "Magnolia" unwatchable. So by my count he's more Rey Ordonez than Alex Rodriguez.)

And above all else, with Tom Cruise you always get the sense that at least he's trying.

And that's exactly what I have against him. When I watch a movie I don't want to see the wheels turning. With Tom Cruise I always feel like I have to supply half the lead performance.

Golden calf alert.

Michael Crichton challenges the sacred beliefs of the environazis in his address to the Commonwealth Club--and it's a pip:

So I can tell you some facts. I know you haven't read any of what I am about to tell you in the newspaper, because newspapers literally don't report them. I can tell you that DDT is not a carcinogen and did not cause birds to die and should never have been banned. I can tell you that the people who banned it knew that it wasn't carcinogenic and banned it anyway. I can tell you that the DDT ban has caused the deaths of tens of millions of poor people, mostly children, whose deaths are directly attributable to a callous, technologically advanced western society that promoted the new cause of environmentalism by pushing a fantasy about a pesticide, and thus irrevocably harmed the third world. Banning DDT is one of the most disgraceful episodes in the twentieth century history of America. We knew better, and we did it anyway, and we let people around the world die and didn't give a damn.

I can tell you that second hand smoke is not a health hazard to anyone and never was, and the EPA has always known it. I can tell you that the evidence for global warming is far weaker than its proponents would ever admit. I can tell you the percentage the US land area that is taken by urbanization, including cities and roads, is 5%. I can tell you that the Sahara desert is shrinking, and the total ice of Antarctica is increasing. I can tell you that a blue-ribbon panel in Science magazine concluded that there is no known technology that will enable us to halt the rise of carbon dioxide in the 21st century. Not wind, not solar, not even nuclear. The panel concluded a totally new technology-like nuclear fusion-was necessary, otherwise nothing could be done and in the meantime all efforts would be a waste of time. They said that when the UN IPCC reports stated alternative technologies existed that could control greenhouse gases, the UN was wrong.

I can, with a lot of time, give you the factual basis for these views, and I can cite the appropriate journal articles not in whacko magazines, but in the most prestigeous science journals, such as Science and Nature. But such references probably won't impact more than a handful of you, because the beliefs of a religion are not dependant on facts, but rather are matters of faith. Unshakeable belief.

Rachel Carlson, you ignorant slut.

Paula: you might want to forward the link to PETAfriend. Just for the pleasure of watching her turn plaid with rage.

[Via Arts & Letters Daily.]

LOTR "Race the Boxoffice" update:

As of 0900 the hobbits are headed for the Barrow downs (chapter 8). That's 145 pages, but I did take time out last night for 1) an hour's nap, 2) the baking of banana bread, and 3) some online chat. I'll make up for the lapse this weekend, probably.

That's mah boy.

My brother, the ASCAP artist.

(What he says in the Heaven Hill clip about drinking and driving down home back in the day is God's own gospel truth, btw.)

And now we join the countdown already in progress.

Note the placement of the ROTK countdown button atop the left-hand margin. In lieu of an advent calendar this year, I've decided to see if I can re-read all three Lord of the Rings volumes (technically all one volume, since I finally bought the hardbound single-volume edition a couple of years ago), appendices optional, before the movie opens next Wednesday. I'm also trying not to read any reviews. Yes, I'm sure it kicks a huge amount of ass, and yes, I seethe with an appropriate level of envy at those of you who get to see it before I hit the noon show on Wednesday, and those of you who get to see the trilogy in the theater. You can all bite me. I just don't want to hear any debates about how he deviates from the %#%$# book in this one until I actually see it for myself. Thanks.

LOTR "Race the Boxoffice" progress report: Prologue: Concerning Hobbits begun 0400 EST. Correction: 1600. Judas Priest, if you can't do the math, don't put it in military time.

Nerd alert.

[Butthead] This is the coolest thing that I have ever seen. [/Butthead]

[Via Dean Esmay.]

Hobbitmania.

Peter Jackson would like to film The Hobbit.

"I'd be interested in doing it because I think it would give continuity to the overall chapter," he said.

Many of the lead "Rings" characters do not appear in The Hobbit, but the wizard Gandalf, played by Ian McKellen, and Gollum, the cave dweller corrupted by the powerful ring, do and should make a comeback. Arwen, the elf princess played by Liv Tyler, could also feature again, Jackson said.

Arwen? ARWEN?? I realize Jackson's got a major boner for Liv Tyler, but given the fact that she is not going to be aging backward during the interim, just how the hell would Arwen fit into the prequel that occurs some sixty or so years before the action in the Ring cycle?

Not to mention the fact that Ian Holm can't be expected to film an entire movie where he's in nearly every scene with his face taped back, and replacing him as Bilbo could be difficult.

A salute to my least favorite song by an ex-Beatle.

"Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine no possessions',
A poor little schoolboy who said 'We don't need no lessons'."
--Elvis Costello, The Other Side of Summer

[Steer from Damian Penny, who probably doesn't hate that song as much as I do.]

Protester inadvertently says something sensible.

Re the bear hunt in New Jersey:

"I fought against this day for 10 years,” Smith said. “One week of bear hunting, nothing’s going to be solved. Come spring the bears will still be eating our garbage and still be walking through our back yards."

Dead right, sister. So can I take it you're for extending bear season to a more reasonable length?

[Thanks, Paula.]

My favorite dead film writer.

Hollywood continues to plunder the rich vein of Philip K. Dick short stories. If we're lucky one or two of the movies will actually end up resembling the stories on which they were based.

(Minority Report sucked, by the way. Tom Cruise in a Dick movie is an obscenity.)

And this is the frontrunner, folks.

Howard Dean on Hardball regarding Iran, via today's Opinion Journal:

The key, I believe, to Iran, is pressure through the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is supplying much of the equipment that Iran I believe mostly likely is using to set itself along the path of developing nuclear weapons. We need to use that leverage with the Soviet Union, and it may require us buying the equipment the Soviet Union was ultimately going to sell to Iran, to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

I guess for Howie history's just something that happened to other people.

Oh, and that would be a dumb plan even if the Soviet Union did still exist.

More eye candy.

Download the Prisoner of Azkaban trailer here.

Eye candy.

Download the Troy teaser trailer here.

Look how they messed with my boy.

From IMDB:

After 18 actors working on the Lord of the Rings trilogy threatened to write an open letter to Time Warner Chairman Richard Parsons complaining about the small size of their bonus payments, New Line Cinema agreed to create a "bonus pool," negotiated by "one of the actors everybody trusted," the London Daily Telegraph reported today (Tuesday). However, although a measure of peace has been restored between the actors and the studio, the group is nevertheless demanding an audit of the films' accounts, the newspaper said. The Telegraph observed that producers were originally able to negotiate low-paying deals with several actors (it specifically named Orlando Bloom, who plays the elf Legolas) because they were struggling unknowns at the time.

Panties all in a bunch.

My lands, pass the salts. People are evidently delinking Lileks because he dast use the "f" word a few days ago. And the man has actually apologized for using it, despite the fact that he gave ample notice of his use of harsh invective at the head of the column. That's a gracious human being (and a fine writer). I'm pleased to note he doesn't apologize for his honest opinion of Salam Pax; he only apologizes for his language.

Btw, the idea of sending someone a letter with notice of intent to delink is hilariously adolescent. You said something I don't like; now we're not friends anymore and I don't want to hear from you ever. Pardon me while I shrug.

Warning you now.

Put whatever you're drinking down before you read this.

Sic transit gloria blogdomi.

James Lileks is irked [scroll down to "Finally"] by Salam Pax' tone of sneering condescension in his open letter to Bush in the Guardian. There's been some righteous indignation following the publication of the letter and much linkage of Lileks' enjoyable mini-screed, usually prefaced by the phrase "I never liked Salam Pax". My lone comment: what did you expect, exactly? Reading his blog ("dearRaed"--no, I'm not linking to it, because I think he's a pissant) during the war I garnered the distinct impression he was personally pretty well insulated against his government, and therefore in all likelihood at least slightly connected to the Ba'ath party. Is it any real surprise he wouldn't be overjoyed by the overthrow of a regime from whose murderous policies he was apparently benefitting? And was anybody but the anti-war crowd taking him seriously prior to the publication of this letter? Because I'm getting a distinctly hurt tone out of the warblogger commentary on the issue, and I'm at a loss to figure out why.

PSA.

If you're planning a trip to Vegas, hear me now and believe me later: do not--I repeat, do not--book your hotel through LasVegas.com. Due to their dysfunctional relationship with the Hilton (and, one suspects after several lengthy chats with their staff, with every other hotel on the strip), they are evidently unable to process a refund in less than 3 months, and the convolutions hinted at in the description of why they are unable to process the refund in a reasonable length of time make one wonder if they can possibly remain solvent for much longer. In other words, the people at this company could fuck up a two-car funeral. Avoid them at all costs. (And no, I wouldn't trust them to book a show, either.)

That is all.

Yeah, baby.


You're the warlike Rumsfeld! So simple, so
subtle, so darned...cute. God bless you, Donny!


Which member of the Bush Administration are you?
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[Via Damian Penny.]

Keith Richards, arch-conservative.

Or at the least, aging gracefully. Unlike Mick.