Short Cuts

Some more reviews of movies I was either too busy or too lazy to review before. Enjoy.

G.I. Joe: Not your daddy's G.I. Joe movie. America is mentioned in passing once or twice, but this revamp of the Joe team is headed by...NATO. Giggle at will. A lot of effects, not much acting, but a few skin tight suits to keep the boys happy. Since all of the West's real enemies gave up at the end of the Cold War, Hollywood has had to invent bad guys and heroes or just steal them from fifty-year-old comic books. Iraq? Iran? Afghanistan? North Korea? International terror? Come on, you can't make a movie about those boring subjects. We need something ripped from the headlines. Hence, this movie.

The Taking of Pelham 123: Highly enjoyable thriller with John Travolta and Denzel Washington. Does the original Pelham (starring Walter Matthau) justice. Travolta and some henchmen hijack a subway car and hold the people inside hostage. Mayhem ensues. Travolta is great. Washington is quite good, too, but Travolta has the better part. Always more fun to play the bad guy.

Crank 2: Completely implausible and totally over-the-top. Also fun as hell. Check your incredulity at the door and just enjoy. Jason Statham plays a guy who has an artificial heart which needs to be shocked every few minutes or he'll die. As if that's not enough, he has to find the guys who have his real heart while dodging cars and bullets along the way.

Antichrist: Great, great movie, but not for everybody. If you hated anything by Bergman, then you'll hate this flick. A man and a woman (they remain nameless throughout) lose their child in an accident. The man takes the woman to the woods to help her recover. He's a therapist. She's a decidedly uncooperative patient. There's blood and violence, but the horror is mostly of the psychological kind. This movie pulls no punches. Beware.

Two Fists, One Heart: Paint-by-numbers Australian flick about a boxer and his desire to please his father. And his girlfriend. And himself. This has Redemption Theme written all over it. You've seen it all before, but it's an okay movie.

Surrender

Whoa.

This is a huge shift in foreign policy:

AP: President Barack Obama is prepared to accept some Taliban involvement in Afghanistan's political future and appears inclined to send only as many more U.S. troops as needed to keep al-Qaida at bay, a senior administration official said Thursday.

The sharpened focus by Obama's team on fighting al-Qaida above all other goals, while downgrading the emphasis on the Taliban, comes in the midst of an intensely debated administration review of the increasingly unpopular eight-year-old war.

McChrystal wants troops. The President doesn't want to send them. Solution? Don't declare the war's over - declare an enemy isn't an enemy.

As for the "increasingly unpopular war" stuff, it doesn't always mean what the media wants it to mean. If they mean "increasingly unpopular and pull out now," they're wrong. If they mean "increasingly unpopular with the way it's being fought," then they're on the money.

Eight years ago, the Taliban provided a haven for fanatical religious thugs to get boned up on how to shoot guns and knock down buildings. Eight years later, the US is prepared have them involved in Afghanistan's political future. Spin it any way you want, but this action only has one label: surrender.

Time: Last month, Taliban fighters in Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan, hijacked two NATO fuel tankers. The robbery escalated into an international incident because NATO aircraft, following a German request, bombed the two stranded tankers while civilians were siphoning free fuel. The death toll — more than 125 Afghans perished, nearly half of them civilians — overshadowed the gruesome fact that the Taliban had beheaded one of the tanker drivers. Beheadings and killings of NATO supply drivers are a common occurrence, according to several private security contractors.

Wonderful ally, that Taliban. Man, the outlook for the political future in Afghanistan looks pretty good, huh?

The Most Trusted Name in News

Via Hot Air.

The guys at CNN are unbelievable.

Here's Wolf Blitzer (the man who went -$4600 on Celebrity Jeopardy) and crew fact checking an SNL skit about Obama. Talk about sticking up for your guy. Fact checking a negative comedy skit about a politician? CNN's more transparent than a window.

At the end of the clip, they find time to pull out SNL's take on Sarah Palin, which they call..."dead on."

My favorite CNN/YouTube clip is underneath this one.



Fast forward to 1:23 to see your Fact Checker in all his glory:

The Bus Idles - McChrystal

From the Telegraph:

According to sources close to the administration, Gen McChrystal shocked and angered presidential advisers with the bluntness of a speech given in London last week.

The next day he was summoned to an awkward 25-minute face-to-face meeting on board Air Force One on the tarmac in Copenhagen, where the president had arrived to tout Chicago's unsuccessful Olympic bid...

Word is the president is furious over McChrystal's speech. A taste:

[McChrystal] told the Institute of International and Strategic Studies that the formula, which is favoured by Vice-President Joe Biden, would lead to "Chaos-istan".

When asked whether he would support it, he said: "The short answer is: No."

He went on to say: "Waiting does not prolong a favorable outcome. This effort will not remain winnable indefinitely, and nor will public support."

That may be, General, but it isn't your problem. Your problem is to follow orders from your civilian commanders. Public support and long term strategy are concerns of the president. Your job is to carry out orders until you retire or get canned.

I may agree with McChrystal's assessment, but you can't have a military commander mouthing off in another country about how much smarter he is than the president. It smacks of insubordination and brings up memories of MacArthur vs. Truman. Didn't end so well for MacArthur.

One more speech like this and expect the bus to arrive for McChrystal.

The Hyperbole Bus

It looks like Obama isn't alone in jumping aboard the Hyperbole Bus today.

Here's Peggy Noonan, with more of her insipid flowery prose:

Who are The Elders? They set the standards. They hand down the lore. They're the oldest and wisest. By proceeding through the world each day with dignity and humanity, they show the young what it is that should be emulated. They're the tribal chieftains. This role has probably existed since caveman days, because people need guidance and encouragement, they need to be heartened by examples of endurance. They need to be inspired.

Who are these Elders-with-a-capital-E of which she speaks?

Newspaper reporters and TV anchormen.

She begins the piece with this:

When William Safire died the other day, we lost one of the Elders of journalism and the argumentative arts. We've been losing a lot of them lately: Walter Cronkite, Bob Novak, Don Hewitt, Irving Kristol. "The stars seem to be going out one by one," said Howard Stringer at Cronkite's memorial.

No, the piece isn't satirical. Yes, Pegs really believes this stuff.

See My Movie. And Know Your Place.

Vis-a-vis Whoopi Goldberg saying that Polanski didn't commit "rape-rape," and that Europeans look at 13-year-old girls differently than US citizens, here's director Luc Besson, as quoted in the Telegraph: "I have a lot of affection for him, he is a man that I like very much but nobody should be above the law. I don't know the details of this case, but I think that when you don't show up for trial, you are taking a risk."

Just so. The kicker is, Besson is French. More proof that Goldberg's theory is insane. The fact that no one is calling for her to be canned is telling.

Besson's comments came after he refused to sign a petition calling for Polanski's release. The Telegraph reports that 100 movie bigwigs have signed it so far.

Could Hollywood be any more removed from the people that they're trying to sell tickets to? This is rape, not shoplifting.

Here's a post I wrote a while back. I think it holds water:

Musing on Fans, April 6, 2009

I was doing some work last night and had the TV on in the background. The Academy of Country Music Awards was on. As company, it was good enough for me. During the broadcast, I heard the presenters and award recipients say the word "fans" dozens of times. Fans-this, fans-that. "I'd like to thank the fans." And, "If it wasn't for the fans, I wouldn't be here." And, "The fans made this song a hit." The speeches were maybe ten or fifteen seconds long, and all of them revolved around record labels, family, and fans.

Country music is good at marketing itself to the people that matter: the fans that buy albums and listen to the radio.

Contrast that with the Oscars, where the show is designed to prove how far the movie business has gone in alienating its audience. Every speech is about "me," followed by an endless string of names that the home audience has never heard of. Agents, script consultants, producers, on and on.

A few years back, Hilary Swank made the faux pas of forgetting to mention her husband during her Academy Award speech. She was knocked around for it by the rags. I asked: why? It was perfectly understandable. These people dispose of marriages like coffee cups. (Swank is since divorced).

After thanking their sycophants, movie stars then get on a soap box. You have the writer of Milk preaching for gay rights, Sean Penn thanking "Commies" and "homo lovers" for granting him the Best Actor award, and any number of stars bashing the former US President. When they're finished, they go to a ritzy after-party, get drunk, and sometimes drink and drive. Want to meet a movie star? Depends how much they've had to drink and how fast they're driving. Movie stars can afford to buy ten thousand BMWs, but not one chauffeur.

During this year's Oscars, I heard the word "fans" exactly twice, one time as a joke from Will Smith (he correctly observed that action movies are great because they have one thing that most Oscar contenders don't: fans). Someone else mentioned the fans almost by accident. And that was that. All of the other speeches were about people we've never seen and never will.

Think about that. A room full of people, rich because people buy tickets to watch what they do, and it never crosses their mind to thank the people buying the tickets.

It really is amazing that people still line up to meet movie stars, or ask for their autograph, or even go to the movies. We know these people don't give a damn about us. To paraphrase Warhol, they tell us how to think, how to vote, how to behave and, more importantly, how to look while we're behaving. We pay their salaries and treat them like royalty while they treat us with indifference. They'd just as soon never meet us, let alone shake our hands. But we love them.

Amazing. Amusing.

Whoopi Goldberg

This gave me a sick, creepy feeling. Watching someone split hairs about rape vs. rape-rape, whatever the hell that means. My comments follow.



Polanski's a good film director, and I like most of his movies. But he's a confessed rapist of a 13-year-old girl, and he skipped out before being sentenced. You can give his movies all the five stars you want, but facts are facts: he never paid for the crime of drugging and raping a girl.

Whoopi Goldberg goes for the gusto in defence of a Hollywood family member. First she gives us a strange definition of rape and rape-rape, then tells us that in some parts of the world, 13-year-olds are looked upon as fair game. Goldberg: "Well, you know, I have to tell you, again, we're, we're a different kind of society. We see things differently. The world sees 13-year-olds and 14-year-olds, in the rest of Europe, they are seen often times--"

She was interrupted before finishing what would have been an abysmal statement. But you get her drift. She finally closes the point thus: "I do know that not everybody sees things the way that we see things."

Ah. Polanski got the shaft because US rape laws are too narrow for a hip Euro guy like Polanski.

This is disgusting.

They save the best for last, though, as all of The View ladies break every rule in the feminist handbook and blame the victim's mother and the victim herself for being with Polanski in the first place.

Two thoughts: If the exact same language had been used on Jay Leno or Glenn Beck's shows, the screams for a boycott would be deafening. Considering The View's target audience is primarily homemaking women who probably have kids, Goldberg should be canned.

Between the Lines

It's not his fault. They all do it. The hollow words, the meaningless threats, the tired warnings. That sound you hear is the roar of inevitability.

Ask North Korea. Threats and threats and threats. Then they made a nuke, test fired a missile into the Yellow Sea, and now nobody says boo. There they sit. The game's over.

The one guy who didn't follow the script was George W. Bush. Right or wrong, he did something after threats didn't work. It got him a two-term presidency, but it also got him lambasted as a dummy and an evil dictator the world over. Politicians want the former, but not at the price of the latter.

There's the big L word: legacy. Or the G word: guts. They don't always go together too well.

Some guys do well with their legacy by going the gutsy route, but it's so damn risky. Better to play it the easy way, the way most Western politicians do when faced with thugs.

Here's President Obama's weekly address from this morning. I'm reading between the lines:

This week, we joined with the United Kingdom and France [this is NOT a unilateral decision] in presenting evidence that Iran has been building a secret nuclear facility to enrich uranium [this is different then the totally out in the open facility; they have two]. This is a serious challenge to the global nonproliferation regime [which didn't stop North Korea, but hey, there's always hope], and continues a disturbing pattern of Iranian evasion [please ignore the word "pattern," as it might make you believe that they won't change their tune after we ask pretty please]. That is why international negotiations [this is NOT a unilateral decision, et cetera] with Iran scheduled for October 1st now take on added urgency [as opposed to before; now it's important].

My offer of a serious, meaningful dialogue to resolve this issue remains open [no doubt the Iranian dictators will listen this time - because we're serious]. But Iran must now cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and take action to demonstrate its peaceful intentions [last month they shot women in the street for taking part in political demonstrations; the regime also hangs people for the crime of being gay; but now they have a chance to show their peaceful intentions; look, we all know this a load of bull, but I have to say this stuff].

On this, the international community [this is NOT a unilateral decision, et cetera] is more united than ever before. Yesterday, I stood shoulder-to-shoulder with our European allies [this is NOT a unilateral decision, et cetera] in condemning Iran’s program. In our meetings and public statements, President Medvedev of Russia and I agreed [this is NOT a unilateral decision, et cetera] that Iran must pursue a new course or face consequences. All of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council [this is NOT a unilateral decision, et cetera], and Germany [this is NOT a unilateral decision, et cetera], have made it clear that Iran must fulfill its responsibilities [okay, okay; Iran doesn't have any responsibilities except to themselves, but we're going to pretend that they share the same world view as us. We're making it up. Easier that way].

Iran’s leaders must now choose [I hate using that 'with us/with the terrorists' language, but I wrote this first thing in the morning and I was still a little groggy. Don't ask me about it later] – they can live up to their responsibilities and achieve integration with the community of nations. Or they will face increased pressure and isolation, and deny opportunity to their own people [sure, this paragraph was full of beans, but cut me some slack. Iran doesn't have any responsibilities, true, and they don't care if they're isolated, fine, and they don't care about their own people, okay. But...well, what do you want me to say? It's all a farce, anyway].

These are the urgent threats of our time. And the United States is committed to a new chapter of international cooperation [this is NOT a unilateral decision, etc. Huh? Come again? Oh. How can there be international cooperation when nobody's cooperating? Search me.] to meet them. This new chapter will not be written in one week or even one year [sorry, but this my out. I know it's a bit slippery, but come on, there's nothing I can do about this stuff. Iran's going to get a nuke one way or the other. If they get it within a year, I need to be able to say that it was going to take more than a year to get international cooperation kick started. A week, a year, who cares? I'd say 'decade' but you'd think I flipped my lid]. But we have begun. And for the American people and the people of the world [in case you thought this was a unilateral decision], it will mean greater security and prosperity for years to come [in other words, we aren't going to accomplish jack; but it feels good to know that in some mystic future, you'll have a safe, secure life. Anybody got a glass of water?].

Pressure For Whom?

Jake Tapper:

This morning President Obama, French President Sarkozy, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will accuse Iran of building a clandestine underground nuclear fuel manufacturing plant, which Iran's leaders have hidden from weapons inspectors, senior administration officials tell ABC News...

The president is expected to say that this news "increases pressure on Iran to come clean about its nuclear program," a senior administration official tells ABC News. He will described "great and increasing doubts about the strictly peaceful nature of the program -- which is what the Iranians suggest."

Uhhhh...How does this even remotely increase pressure on Iran to come clean about its nuclear program? Saddam Hussein violated international law for years, ignored sanction after sanction, kicked weapons inspectors out of his country, and refused to say where his weapons of mass destruction were. So Bush invaded and bingo, people around the world called Bush's war illegal and dubbed him Hitler.

Will Obama et al have have the stones to roll the dice like that? Unlikely. Obama has been saying for over a year that he's willing to have a chat with Iran. He said this even though he knew about the second secret reactor. So for him, this is just old news. When the US failed to condemn Ahmadinejad's "election" and the violence that followed, this sent a clear message: no matter what happens, we're still willing to talk. And talk. And talk. Which translates as "time."

At a stretch, I can one day see some cruise missiles or an Israeli airstrike. But a full-on, "Here's your pressure, jerkwad" invasion is a fantasy. And Ahmadinejad knows it.

75 Years. In Case You Were Curious.

Reuters: A British store is launching a range of underpants for left-handed men, an innovation it says will save them both time and embarrassment in front of the porcelain.

The new range, by UK-based Hom, will have a horizontal opening instead of a vertical slit accessed from the right-hand side, breaking a tradition that has lasted for 75 years.

"In our view, this is a vital step toward equality for left-handed men," said Rob Faucherand of Debenhams store.

Harper

Well, maybe someone with a fancy title was reading the Twitter reports of women being gunned down in the streets of Tehran.

"It's Not Every Day They Get To Hang Out With Actual NFL Athletes."

The Detroit Lions haven't won a game this season.

If that has a familiar ring to it, it should. They didn't win a game last season, either.


NFL Players Mentor Troubled Detroit Lions

Frank Rich and Cindy Sheehan

Frank Rich pulls out all the stops on this one: Sarah Palin as Grand Wizard of the Klan. Joe Wilson stepping over the free speech line. People protesting against their government = violent rage. Joe Wilson giving carte blanche to the oh-so-many nutcases out there, and man, there's plenty of 'em.

NYT: With all due respect to Jimmy Carter, the racist component of Obama-hatred has been undeniable since the summer of 2008, when Sarah Palin rallied all-white mobs to the defense of the “real America.” Joe Wilson may or may not be in that camp, but, either way, that’s not the news. As we watched and rewatched the South Carolina congressman’s star turn, what grabbed us was the act itself.

What made the lone, piercing cry of “You lie!” shocking was that it breached a previously secure barrier. It was the first time that the violent rage surging in town-hall meetings all summer blasted into the same room as the president. Wilson’s televised shout was tantamount to yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater. When he later explained that his behavior was “spontaneous” rather than premeditated, that was even more disturbing. It’s not good for the country that a lawmaker can’t control his anger at Barack Obama. It gives permission to crazy people.

Where was all this talk when Cindy Sheehan and thousands of others were protesting Bush at every turn?

Speaking of which, I have to tip my hat to Cindy Sheeehan. I thought she was just some loudmouth who would pipe down as soon as Bush left office. Turns out, she really is anti-war, no matter who is boss. This was Sheehan last month:

Cindy Sheehan and other antiwar activists held a press conference today at the Oak Bluffs School, where the White House press corps is working as its reports on President Obama during his vacation in Martha's Vineyard

Sheehan said that she's opposing Obama the same way she opposed George W. Bush. "The facade has changed but policies remain the same," she told reporters. "Integrity in our movement means we have to do same for Obama as we did for Bush."

Who knew that Cindy Sheehan would give me a cold slap of integrity right in the kisser?

Funny, though. I don't hear much about her these days. It could have something to do with ABC News anchor Charles Gibson's attitude: "Anybody who has given a son to this country has made an enormous sacrifice, and you have to be sympathetic. But enough already."

Odd. A few years back, Charlie gave interviews to Sheehan with words like, "Mom Stands Her Ground," and "Can Anti-War Moms Stop Bush?" written on the screen.

Now it's, "Shut up, Cindy."

Crazy

AP: A criminally insane killer from eastern Washington is on the run after escaping during a field trip to the county fair that his mental hospital organized.

Why such a dangerous person was out in public was a question many, including Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire, were asking as authorities searched for Phillip Arnold Paul...

Paul was committed after he was acquitted by reason of insanity in the 1987 slaying of an elderly woman, whose body he soaked in gasoline to throw off search dogs. Paul buried the woman's remains in her flower garden.

In 1991, Paul walked away during a day trip to a Washington lake and was later captured. He attacked a sheriff's deputy in the jail booking area, knocking him unconscious, and was convicted of first-degree escape and second-degree assault.

The Most Trusted Name In News

It looks like it's "pick on the media day" over at Hot Air. I'll play along. They link to this clip of Wolf Blitzer taking part in Celebrity Jeopardy and...he doesn't do so well.

Wolf must have signed an ironclad contract with the guys at Jeopardy. I'm guessing his agent couldn't get the episode yanked.

(If you don't have time to watch the almost unwatchable beating, here's the gist: Andy Richter, the comic from The Tonight Show, utterly thrashes him. It's so bad, Wolf ends up with -$4600, and Trebek has to chuck him a lifeline. Fast forward to 7:02 for the embarrassing conclusion, though kudos to Richter for picking up $68000 for a children's hospital).

One Way Of Looking At It

The disgrace that is modern journalism bleats its horn again. The Washington Post:

What happened next was a scandal that has shaken ACORN to its core. O'Keefe and Giles secretly videoed ACORN workers in the District, Brooklyn and Baltimore as they coached the secret filmmakers on how to evade taxes and misrepresent the nature of their business enterprise to get into a home.

In the wake of a public outcry over Giles and O'Keefe's videos, which went viral on YouTube and conservative Web sites last week, Congress has taken action. Thursday the House voted 345 to 75 to defund the organization, handing conservative Republicans a major victory. They have long seen the liberal group -- which offers housing and other services, including voter registration, to the poor -- as a shady operation devoted to electing liberals and siphoning off taxpayer money for a permanent underclass.

Everything these days is framed as "blank" and "conservative." If a couple of liberal filmmakers had made a similar video, the first sentence of that second paragraph would read: In the wake of a public outcry over Giles and O'Keefe's videos, which went viral on YouTube and [the web] last week...

The hosannas about offering housing and "other services" to the poor is a laugh. Other services being advice on tax evasion and how to import child prostitutes from overseas. Great.

So far, four ACORN offices have been exposed coast to coast, and five ACORN staffers have been canned.

Other than that, nothing to see here, folks.

Good thing the videos went viral, otherwise you wouldn't have heard a word about it. As Jon Stewart said, he's embarrassed these two amateurs outscooped him and he's only pretending to be a journalist.

Aren't they all.

I Really Care About Nucle--Michael Jackson's Dead?

I was walking down the street a few minutes ago and heard some jackass blaring a radio from his mid-life-crisis Jeep. In a roundabout way this got me thinking that there hasn't been much trouble in the world lately. Weird connection, I know, but it went something like this: If a friend told me about a guy blaring a radio outside his house, I'd shrug and say, "Yeah, there's fools everywhere." But when Jeep Guy does it in front of my place, it becomes, "There's goddamn fools everywhere!"

The debacle in Myanmar a long time back - feels like long; it's been a year - proved to me that caring is about proximity, both in time and place. Modern media has the power to make every place on the planet seem like it's right next door, if only for a few minutes. The tsunami (or was it an earthquake?) in Myanmar was on everybody's minds last year. The president had to do something, we had to raise money to help the people. Even peaceniks were saying that an invasion would be proper, to topple the government in Myanmar because the thugs weren't feeding their people.

And it all went away. Just like that. I have to assume that Myanmar's people are still living in abject poverty and that their rulers are still thugs. But I haven't received a chain-email request for money in a long, long time, and nobody on Facebook has the word "Myanmar" on their profile, declaring that we need to help these people. In a strange way, Myanmar just ceased to exist.

Maxim: time doesn't heal all wounds; it heals our wounds.

Caring is about proximity and time. The 9/11 memorials prove that. 8 years on and there's token gestures of remembrance, but not too many moments of silence in the office. The anniversary of Pearl Harbor warrants an occasional hat tip on the evening news, and in fact if it wasn't for the evening news' hat tip, nobody would remember the date of Pearl Harbour. And when's the last time somebody asked us to remember the dead from Waterloo? When women were being gunned down in Iran a couple of months ago, everybody was glued to the Twitter reports. Now, nothing.

Time. Proximity. They're all that matters when it comes to caring. Tornado in Kansas? Interesting. Tornado on my street? Terrifying. The thug states of the world understand this better than anyone. Give people enough time and they will forget everything. The further away the "crisis," the faster they'll forget. Nowadays, it only takes a few weeks, even less if a pop star dies.

Not that any of this is all bad. We'd be basket cases if we wandered around for the rest of our lives feeling exactly as we did the moment after something traumatic happened. But I do laugh when people screech how concerned they are with far flung places on the earth that are going through a hard time. My answer? "Call me in a year." There's no chance they will. (Incidentally, I Googled "Myanmar," clicked the news link, and was greeted with the today's headlines: Seven Bomb Blasts in Myanmar. Apparently no one was hurt. In other news: Myanmar Doubles Political Arrests; Elections a Sham, Group Says).

So there I was walking down the street thinking about this kind of stuff, and then I flicked to Drudge and it suddenly seemed prescient or at least apropos:

Czechs and Poles expressed rancor and relief Thursday that President Barack Obama had scrapped plans for a U.S. missile defense shield on their territories, reflecting deep divisions over a proposal that had also enraged Russia..."Considering Iran as a threat has been a wrong policy since the beginning," said Kazem Jalali, the spokesman for Iran's influential parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy. "Iran has said that it is ready to discuss and share responsibilities in global security."

Whether it's a good or bad idea isn't my point. Fact is, a decision like this doesn't happen the day after 9/11, but it does happen 8 years after 9/11. That's life. Always the way it goes. A little bit of quiet - besides, you know, the odd missile from North Korea landing in the ocean - and things like missile shields seem unnecessary and kind of silly to people with an Everyone's Beautiful In Their Own Way bent. The administration says that they're not really scrapping missile defense, they're redesigning it. Doesn't sound so bad. Besides, if the Russians and Iranians agree with it, then it must be a good idea.

Proximity and time. Thugs building missiles in Iran? A little nervous. Thug loading a shotgun outside my door? A lot nervous.

Should you care about Iranian missiles and American defense shields? Depends what happens next. See you on Facebook.

Your Daily Preening (II) - Updated

In the previous post I had a few extra paragraphs and then I deleted them. Race is a touchy subject and I'd said my bit. The paragraphs I deleted were about noticing that a lot of people are bringing up racism vis-a-vis the president, but that I haven't seen any overt examples of racism to back up the claims. I went on for a bit and then stopped. Racism is stupid, and I know it when I see it. I'd said enough. [I caught some email flack over this, of the "Chicken," variety. The deleted paragraphs were wiped out during the draft, not in response to criticism. My point was that writing about phony racism is boring if you spend too long on it. There's nothing you can say to make someone change their mind if they see a bigot around every corner].

In this clip below, NBC finds a couple of lame swastika signs which I suppose could be about race. If you've read this blog then you'll know my feelings on the Nazis and their symbol. Idiots use the swastika these days for all kinds of things, some of them race, but mostly because they think someone's an overbearing jerk. Their boss is a Nazi. Seinfeld's "Soup Nazi." Bush is a Nazi. Everybody they don't like - Right or Left - is a Nazi. The Nazi name and its symbol have become jest. Is that good or bad? You tell me. Anyway, in this case I think the boneheads with Nazi signs are just that: boneheads with Nazi signs. I don't figure race has anything to do with it. It seems every mass rally for any event on Earth comes with a few token Nazi signs.

New York governor Paterson has said that the word "socialist" is racist. Kurtz wrote today that "communist" and "like Russia" are racist. The Obama "Socialism" sign is supposedly racist, and Maureen Dowd claims that Rep. Wilson is racist for calling Mr. Obama a liar.

I guess this is going to be the way it is from here on out, and it's shameful for the media to push it this hard with such a lack of evidence. It's self perpetuating: if you call something racist, people will avoid using it, therefore why not start calling everything racist? If "socialism" is racist and "liar" is racist, what's next? But that's probably the point.

Six months ago a great many people celebrated the first black president in US history. 6 months later, politicians and network newsies are claiming the country is overrun by the Klan.

Jimmy Carter has weighed in. He adds more fuel to the fire by claiming that yes, the furor over Mr. Obama from his opponents is simply racism.

This is irresponsible stuff from writers and politicians alike. Before the Iraq invasion, I remember millions of people around the world marching against Bush's war. People were mad as hell. They called him every name in the book. I was in Italy at the time, and the stuff they were writing on the walls about Bush (Italians love their graffiti) was mean and dirty. But that's life: when people are mad, they say so. Now, though, it's all being summed up as simply 'racism.' This doesn't bode well.

If someone is a racist, they deserve scorn and ridicule. But if someone has a real beef about something and wants to speak his mind, nothing could anger or alienate them more than being told their words aren't worth listening to because it's just bigotry. This kind of stuff can only divide people further. I don't like where it's heading.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Your Daily Preening

Howard Kurtz:

Is it racial?

Are the protesters, tea-partiers, birthers, deathers, doomsayers and hecklers motivated, at least in part, by a distinct discomfort with the country's first black president?

Or is that a smear against disgruntled Americans who have every right to express their dissent?

There is no definitive answer, of course, since we are talking about millions of people, from Joe Wilson, the disrespectful congressman who's now raised $700,000 for his "you lie" outburst, to the woman who told Arlen Specter that Obama is trying to transform the US of A "into Russia, into a socialist country."

But I began to suspect that race was a factor for at least some critics when I heard them shouting about "the Constitution" and "taking our country back." Maybe Obama's health-care plan is an awful idea and his budget is way too big, but how exactly is any of this unconstitutional? Clearly, for some folks, there's a deeper rage at the man occupying the White House.

You started wondering about racism when you heard people shouting about the Constitution? Sure wouldn't want those critics to shout about "the Constitution." That's dangerous talk, all right.

There is not one bit of racism in any of Kurtz's examples of disgruntled people. Nada. As for the "taking our country back" stuff, I assume two things: 1) people are going with the "Congress shall make no law" stuff and running with it, and 2) they might not understand the constitution any better than the people who said George W. Bush was shredding the thing on a daily basis.

The Left wanted to "take the country back" since 2000, when Dubya "stole" the election. Hey, buddy, is that a white trash smear?

Talking about racism when there's no evidence of it is lazy and boring.

Get The Net. A Sports Guy Thinks He's A Journalist Again (II)

Uh-oh. Another sports "journalist" thinks he's a journalist.

Mike Lupica used to appear on ESPN to talk like a know-it-all and come off like same. For all I know, he still does. But in this piece for the NY Daily News he decides to go deep, then get outraged:

Across from the World Trade Center site there were more flowers than usual outside Engine 10, Ladder 10, the legendary New York firehouse known as Ten House. There are always more flowers, and signs, and photographs and flags, when there is another anniversary of Sept. 11.

OK. Good start. But wait...

We promised ourselves we were going to be a better city and a better country because of what happened. We told ourselves that we knew what really mattered now. In the aftermath of the worst day the city and the country had known, we promised to find the best in ourselves, and in each other.

And on this most recent anniversary of Sept. 11, the country seems as full of hate and noise as it has ever been. This is an America where Rep. Joe Wilson, whoever he is, thinks he can call the President of the United States a liar, Wilson talking to the President the way he would the help, or some waiter who was supposed to bring him another drink.

Ah, get bent. Screaming about politics has been going on forever. It took a break for a few weeks after 9/11, and then it came back. Did anyone think it wouldn't?

Human being are a political animal. We like to scream about politics, and sometimes we say outrageous things. Lupica's only upset because after a half-dozen years of Bush being called Hitler, it's now his guy that's getting yelled at.

There's a danger in sarcasm. You need to be good at it or you look kind of stupid. Lupica's words, with my immediate thoughts: "This is an America where Rep. Joe Wilson, whoever he is [you just said who he is], thinks he can call the President of the United States a liar [he doesn't think he can - he can, and he did], Wilson talking to the President the way he would the help [Mike would know?], or some waiter who was supposed to bring him another drink [so that's how you're supposed to ask waitresses for another round - you yell "Liar!"]."

Sports "journalists" are good for a laugh. In this case I got a double dip: amusing sanctinomy with a side dish of bad metaphor.

Life's Overrated

I think Sarah Palin hit it on the head with the "death panel" thing. Her opponents see it as demagoguery, but they keep coming around to it. They call it "end of life care," or, as Evan Thomas puts it (without uttering the dreaded Palin's name), "Although demagogued as a 'death panel,' a program in Wisconsin to get patients to talk to their doctors about how they want to deal with death was actually a resounding success."

Well, what exactly is a "program to get people to talk to their doctors about how they want to deal with death?" If that's not a death panel, what is? I guess you could call it a death group, or a death meeting, but it's all the same thing: old people sitting around with their doctors talking about buying the farm.

That's the thing about dummies like Palin. They're so dumb, they have to say things simply so that they make sense. How provincial. In the world of big thinkers, death panel will lose against program in Wisconsin every time.

In Thomas' latest piece he uses his dying and now dead mother as an example. It's tough to go after a guy when he does something like that, but at the risk of being heartless, let's look at what he says:

There is no way we can get control of costs, which have grown by nearly 50 percent in the past decade, without finding a way to stop overtreating patients. In his address to Congress, President Obama spoke airily about reducing inefficiency, but he slid past the hard choices that will have to be made to stop health care from devouring ever-larger slices of the economy and tax dollar. A significant portion of the savings will have to come from the money we spend on seniors at the end of life because, as Willie Sutton explained about why he robbed banks, that's where the money is.

The next time you're at the hospital, don't ask if they can save your life. Ask if they can make sure not to overtreat you.

Pretty much gives the whole game away, doesn't it? He doesn't say "death panel," nor does he say "rationing," but it's all in there. He is quite literally saying that the best way to bring down the cost of health care is to save money on keeping old people alive.

Palin was right. With ObamaCare there will be death panels. If that makes you uncomfortable, just call them something else. Rationalize while you're rationing. Or for the love of Pete, just learn to think of death properly. Thomas: "Until Americans learn to contemplate death as more than a scientific challenge to be overcome, our health-care system will remain unfixable."

He's right. Death is more than science. It's dollars and sense. Ready to do your part?

Google Who?

This one brings back memories. When I lived in South Africa, it was a living hell trying to find a) a place with internet, and b) a place with internet that worked. As for installing it in your house, forget it. It took two months for the phone guys to show up and put in a line.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A South African information technology company on Wednesday proved it was faster for them to transmit data with a carrier pigeon than to send it using Telkom , the country's leading internet service provider.
Internet speed and connectivity in Africa's largest economy are poor because of a bandwidth shortage. It is also expensive.

Local news agency SAPA reported the 11-month-old pigeon, Winston, took one hour and eight minutes to fly the 80 km (50 miles) from Unlimited IT's offices near Pietermaritzburg to the coastal city of Durban with a data card was strapped to his leg.

CNN Screws Up. Blames Everybody Else.

The righteous indignation in this piece from CNN is a joke. They got caught reporting a story that wasn't a story, and boy are they angry:



I agree with White House press secretary Robert Gibbs: "Before we report things like this, checking would be good," Gibbs said.

Responding directly to a CNN reporter's question about whether the public should have been notified about a training exercise, Gibbs was harshly sarcastic: "If anybody was unnecessarily alarmed based on erroneous reporting that denoted that shots had been fired, I think everybody is apologetic about that."

When another journalist noted that the Coast Guard was holding a news conference to take questions on the morning's events, Gibbs jabbed: "Hopefully CNN will go."

I've seen some pieces asking why the Coast Guard would hold such an exercise on the anniverary of 9/11. Oh, I don't know, maybe because it's a Friday. Maybe they were due for a refresher. Maybe they just felt like it. Point is, it's good to have the military work on their training no matter what day of the week it is. The only reason this story made the news is because CNN reported that shots had been fired - and they hadn't.

"Case of the Month"

America always goes bigger.

The ball's rolling on human rights stuff down in the US. Their payouts make Canada's human rights game look like the minor leagues:

Star-Tribune: Four years after Abercrombie & Fitch refused to let a teenager help her autistic sister try on clothes at its Mall of America store, state officials have fined the company $115,264 for discriminating against a disabled person. The hefty penalty from the Minnesota Department of Human Rights pleased the Maxson family of Apple Valley, which was forced to push hard for satisfaction after the retailing giant refused to apologize for the incident and even questioned whether the girl was disabled. The fine was levied in June but made public this month...

Note that the state also gets their pound of flesh:

In her ruling, Sheehy concluded that Abercrombie & Fitch violated the Minnesota Human Rights Act and ordered the company to pay the girl $25,000 and cover the family's attorney fees of $41,069. The company had to pay the state a $25,000 fine and cover other expenses totaling $24,194.

The human rights department is pretty proud of it, too. They list it on their website as the Case of the Month. You'll also be able to find it in their newsletter, The Rights Stuff. Catchy.

Jump Spin

Drudge points out a pretty good way of making sure that something turns out all right in the end. Here's CNN:

Two out of three Americans who watched President Barack Obama's health care reform speech Wednesday night favor his health care plans — a 14-point gain among speech-watchers, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation national poll of people who tuned into Obama's address Wednesday night to a joint session of Congress.

14 points in one night? That's a hell of jump. Must have been a killer speech. But wait. What's this fine print at the bottom of the page...

The sample of speech-watchers in this poll was 45 percent Democratic and 18 percent Republican.

Oh.

It's been a while since I had fun with pollsters, and so, some more Poll Vaulting:

Get The Net. A Sports Guy Thinks He's A Journalist Again.

You know how I like to make fun of sports "journalists" all the time? I rest my case.

I caught this via Hot Air. They call it the worst piece of sports writing in history. They're right.

The sports "journalist" is named Mark Whicker. He tells Jaycee Dugard what she's missed while being imprisoned in the backyard of a maniac for almost two decades. A taste:

It doesn't sound as if Jaycee Dugard got to see a sports page.

Box scores were not available to her from June 10, 1991 until Aug. 31 of this year.

She never saw a highlight. Never got to the ballpark for Beach Towel Night. Probably hasn't high-fived in a while.

Uhhh. Okay. Got a bad feeling about this. He continues:

•Michael Jordan did indeed win the big one, and five others.

•Yeah, this golfer really is named Tiger Woods.

•Stock car drivers now marry international models and are invited to the White House.

•Domed stadiums, like the ones in Houston and Minneapolis, are considered obsolete, or at least unfit for baseball.

He goes on with his sports retrospective for a while and finishes with a flourish:

•And ballplayers, who always invent the slang no matter what ESPN would have you believe, came up with an expression for a home run that you might appreciate.

Congratulations, Jaycee. You left the yard.

As I was reading this piece I was saying aloud, "What the hell is this?" I thought The Onion was putting me on.

Whicker issued this apology after readers flipped out:

For Tuesday's Register, I wrote a column that clearly offended and outraged large portions of our readership.

It was not my intention to do so. But it's obvious that I miscalculated the effect the column on Jaycee Dugard, and the events that she might have missed during her captivity, had on those who read, buy and advertise in our newspaper.

Would someone please remind the sports "journalists" that they aren't journalists?

Acting Means Doing

Receiving resumes and headshots from actors can be a grating, frustrating thing.

Why is it whenever producers send out a casting call and ask for an actor's reel, they're met with the usual junk: "Here's my resume and headshot. I don't have a reel...yet! But I'm training at such-and-such a school, and I'm taking improv classes, and I'm a really hard worker..."

Snore.

There's no excuse anymore for an actor to not be able to show a producer what they look and sound like.

Case in point. Here's Hugh Laurie in his hotel room. He was was already a well known British actor before he got the part on House. But he did a reading anyway. And because he was out of the country at the time, he did it via video. It helped seal the deal (rumour has it that Bryan Singer didn't even know Laurie was British after he watched this).

Actors: hire a video guy for a half-hour, or turn on your web cam, and act. Read a phone book or a soliloquy or whatever. It makes a difference.

Overexposed

BBC: US President Barack Obama is set to make one of the most critical speeches of his presidency, as he faces Congress over his plans for healthcare reform.

Yawn. Another month, another "critical" speech. You'd think the greatest speaker ever would have nailed it down by now. See you in October.

I had a juggler buddy who could juggle seven pins at the same time. It looked awesome. When I asked him why he didn't do it in his show more often, he replied, "It's a 'look-what-I-can-do' trick. After five seconds, nobody cares."

Tricks get old fast.

Intellectual Alert - Bob Herbert

People get paid for this kind of analysis. Unreal. No wonder the papers are tanking.

The ultimate intellectual alert, compliments of Bob Herbert at the New York Times (I know - using the Times is cheating because it's so easy to cherry pick, but cut me some slack):

Maybe the economic stress has been too much. Looking back at the past few months, it’s fair to wonder if the country isn’t going through a nervous breakdown...There is no end to the craziness. The entire Republican Party has decided that it is in favor of absolutely nothing. The president’s stimulus package? No way. Health care reform? Forget about it.

There is not a thing you can come up with that the G.O.P. is for. Sunshine in the morning? Harry Reid couldn’t persuade a single Senate Republican to vote yes.

Incredibly, the party’s poll numbers are going up.

We need therapy....The wackiness is increasing, not diminishing, and it has a great potential for destruction. There is a real need for people who know better to speak out in a concerted effort to curb the appeal of the apostles of the absurd.

A little alliteration from aggravated authors.

Don't agree with the president? You're not stupid. You're nuts.

A little further down the page, Herbert borrows a page from the nervous breakdown manual, forgets what he's saying, and ends up with Multiple Personality Disorder. For such a sane and intelligent man (you know, compared to half the country), he's pretty careless with the shoot-self-in-foot gun:

The Obama administration’s biggest domestic priority is health care reform. But the biggest issue confronting ordinary Americans right now — the biggest by far — is the devastatingly weak employment environment. Politicians talk about it, but aggressive job-creation efforts are not part of the policy mix.

Nearly 15 million Americans are unemployed, according to official statistics. The real numbers are far worse. The unemployment rate for black Americans is a back-breaking 15.1 percent.

Five million people have been unemployed for more than six months, and the consensus is that even when the recession ends, the employment landscape will remain dismal.

Well, then, maybe that's why the country is going bonkers. They can't believe the gobs of money being spent by an administration with no sense of proportion or direction while the economy circles the bowl.

Genius.

Whoa

NBC: A Pennsylvania history buff who recreates firearms from old wars accidentally fired a 2-pound cannonball through the wall of his neighbor's home in Uniontown, Pa.

William Maser, 54, fired a cannonball Wednesday evening outside his home in Georges Township that ricocheted and hit a house 400 yards away. The cannonball, about two inches in diameter, smashed through a window and a wall before landing in a closet. Authorities said nobody was hurt.

State police charged Maser with reckless endangerment, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct.

"Girls Like That Like To Have Fun."

Going away to college just ain't the same anymore.


Facebook, Twitter Revolutionizing How Parents Stalk Their College-Aged Kids

The Contradictions of a Bonehead

Michael Moore, vis-a-vis capitalism being evil and the only answer being democracy. Or democracy as he defines it:

"Democracy is not a spectator sport, it's a participatory event," he told a news conference. "If we don't participate in it, it ceases to be a democracy. So Obama will rise or fall based not so much on what he does but on what we do to support him."

Got it. Participate, but only if you toe the party line. And if Mr. Obama's plans tank? Not his fault. Your fault. Your shame.

Being taught lessons on democracy by Michael Moore is like being taught skydiving by Wile E. Coyote.

The Bus Arrives - Van Jones

AP: President Barack Obama's adviser Van Jones has resigned amid controversy over past inflammatory statements, the White House said early Sunday.

Jones, an administration official specializing in environmentally friendly "green jobs" with the White House Council on Environmental Quality was linked to efforts suggesting a government role in the 2001 terror attacks and to derogatory comments about Republicans.

Van Jones has a cool name, but it didn't help. Signing a 9/11 "Truther" petition doesn't look so good on a resume.

If I was a politician or an advisor, I would dread weekends. People often get dumped on a Friday or, in this case, Saturday at midnight on Labor Day Weekend. Easier to dodge the op-eds that way. By Tuesday morning, it never happened.

Horror Throwback

I sat down and watched The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for the first time since I was 12 years old. After watching the flick, I went on imdb.com to see what other people thought of it. I wasn't surprised: a 7 out of 10 rating, with a lot of people calling it a masterpiece.

It isn't. The first half is kind of scary, but the second half is pretty funny until it's simply irritating. The girl screams, and screams, and screams, and screams, and screams...it really goes on for that long, to the point where you're hoping Leatherface will just do her in already.

That said, I can see how it would have been pretty effective in the '70s, back before slasher flicks became the mainstay of the horror genre.

On another note, I took a sidle over to The Exorcist to see what people thought of it. The flick happens to be my favorite horror film of all time, and it looks like a lot of other people like it, too. But I was struck again by how genre fans see themselves as experts and mindreaders. Case in point: someone wrote an innocent comment on the imdb.com site, asking if Regan playing with the Ouija board caused her possession.

Well. How dare you? Here's the answer from one commentator (and only one; apparently it dignified no further response):

This has been very well-discussed around here. You might want to read thru some of the older posts - it's been thoroughly tossed around. Regan did not become possessed thru the Ouija board alone. Any number of factors led up to her possession - puberty, her father's absence, her isolation and loneliness - factors that made her vulnerable. But the possession itself is strictly the act of the demon. Regan is a totally innocent victim, and did not bring the possession on herself, even thru use of a Ouija board.

So there.

Stuff like this cracks me up. I suppose that somewhere, somehow, either Billy Friedkin or William Peter Blatty said that these were the reasons Regan got possessed. What I remember from Friedkin's commentary on the DVD is one long lecture about spirituality, the death of his and Blatty's mothers, and a comment now and then about how he liked to film people walking up flights of stairs. It's the most dreadfully boring and utterly irrelevant director's commentary ever.

Genre fans are great fans, but they're also the most stubborn and protective. Who else sits on a website and so thoroughly tosses an issue around that when someone wanders by and asks a question, they're instantly told to pipe down and search the archives? It's 2009. The movie was made in 1973. It still has an active chat room?

I remember Alfred Molina gave an interview shortly after Spider-Man 2 came out. He played Doctor Octopus in the movie and the interviewer asked him if fans were now approaching him on the street. Molina said something like, "Well, you meet a different kind of fan. I'll ask them if they liked the movie and they'll say, 'Nevermind that! Tell me if Doc Oc really believes...'"

If a genre fan believes something is the best movie ever, then you cannot question one frame of it. They know. You do not. And, if you do question it, be sure to search "Ouija board" to see how wrong you are before you dare question poor Regan's innocence.

For the record, I've always thought that the Ouija board brought on Regan's possession. If you look at the movie - and just the movie; no interviews, no books, no blogs, just the movie - Regan shows a Ouija board to her mom. The little puck thingy dances across the board, moved by an invisible force. Five minutes later, Regan's possession begins. So sure, maybe somewhere Friedkin floated a line that the Ouija board had nothing to do with Regan puking pea soup - a story I've never read or heard - but anyone watching the film for the first time would see the Ouija board as a very significant reason that she starts going off the rails, as opposed to, say, pubescence.

I write movie reviews for this blog, so I guess I can come off like a know-it-all, too. But reading comments on imdb.com that profess so much knowledge is a laugh. Sometime a movie is just a movie, and sometimes the scene you're watching really is the scene you're watching.

Steyn In Haiku (II)

The Canadian Human Rights Commission took it on the chin the other day, as Athanasios Hadjis - one of their tribunal members - handed down a half-hearted verdict on Marc Lemire. Hadjis then said the verdict was a no go because it violates the Canadian Charter's rules on freedom of expression.

Steyn Wars has been going on for a long time, but this looks like a fatal blow to the folks that want to shut you up whenever you have something to say that they don't want to hear. Maybe. Apparently there's an appeals process, but either way you slice it, when a guy jumps back from the party line and says that his own outfit is out to lunch, that's bad for business.

There can't be a better time for more Steyn In Haiku:

A tale of two Marks
One a K, the other C.
Dude, where's my bigot?

*****

Left wing censor crowd
Athanasios, why? No!
Back to mom's basement

*****

Jenny Lynch, QC
The queen of censorship, moi?
CV time arrives

*****

Levant: "Gimme more."
Lefty losers: "Bite my tits."
The rest is silence

*****

Shaidle, Steyn, Levant sell
There's cash in this Nazi game
Heil Amazon

*****

Stark Raving

Via Hot Air and Michelle Malkin. Here's Democratic Representative of California Pete Stark: "You get the f*ck out of here or I'll throw you out the window."

The clip's actually a year old, which goes to show that you can do and say pretty much anything and survive as a politician these days.

The bigger laugh for me comes when Stark constantly asks the interviewer if he has an economics degree, a master's degree, or has ever taken a class in economics.

Which would prove what? All the economic eggheads in America were running the show last year and the economy took a mammoth powder. Personally, I'd feel much better with a plumber running the economy. At least the guy would do some basic math and figure out that spending far more than he earns will put him under.

Maxim: when a man with basic common sense confronts a self-described intellectual, the intellectual will lose his temper first.

Maxim: when someone asks if you have a college degree, you have won the argument.

Want more fun from the "intellectual" Stark? No problem. Here it comes, from an incident in 2004:

In May 2004, Stark responded to a constituent Army National Guard member's letter critical of Stark's recent vote on the war in Iraq by immediately calling the service member's telephone and leaving a feisty response on voicemail which was later broadcast on San Francisco's talk radio station KSFO.[8] Stark's harsh voicemail was transcribed as follows:

“Dan, this is Congressman Pete Stark, and I just got your fax. And you don't know what you're talking about. So if you care about enlisted people, you wouldn't have voted for that thing either. But probably somebody put you up to this, and I'm not sure who it was, but I doubt if you could spell half the words in the letter, and somebody wrote it for you. So I don't pay much attention to it. But I'll call you back later and let you tell me more about why you think you're such a great goddamn hero and why you think that this generals [sic] and the Defense Department, who forced these poor enlisted guys to do what they did, shouldn't be held to account. That's the issue. So if you want to stick it to a bunch of enlisted guys, have your way. But if you want to get to the bottom of people who forced this awful program in Iraq, then you should understand more about it than you obviously do. Thanks.

For the record, the clown's been in office since 1973. Must be a pretty brilliant guy.

The money quote comes in the last five seconds:

Crisis Time Again

The "swine flu pandemic," a news story started by Matt Drudge five months ago, is getting some more play this month. It's been an on-again-off-again story of doom since April, when I watched as a newscaster broke in to tell me that someone had a cold and was being quarantined. Five months on, the word "quarantine" is gaining traction:

A "pandemic response bill" currently making its way through the Massachusetts state legislature would allow authorities to forcefully quarantine citizens in the event of a health emergency, compel health providers to vaccinate citizens, authorize forceful entry into private dwellings and destruction of citizen property and impose fines on citizens for noncompliance.

If citizens refuse to comply with isolation or quarantine orders in the event of a health emergency, they may be imprisoned for up to 30 days and fined $1,000 per day that the violation continues.

I guess I'll hedge my bets by saying that a flu pandemic is certainly possible, but what kind of flu pandemic? Let's say a relatively harmless three-days-in-bed flu makes the rounds. Will three days of such a flu whip up such a media frenzy that a bill like the one above could be seen as reasonable? And, if that were to happen, would anyone on Capitol Hill say, "Hey, I've got this thing called the constitution. It says something about not being deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law?"

Let's take another look at the US rule book, otherwise known as the constitution (something all of these legislators supposedly swear an oath to). I know, I know, these next three passages look really long and boring, but bear with:

Amendment IV: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V: No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment XIV: Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Whenever I hear American politicians say that the state should do something to citizens for the citizen's own good, I often remember some these amendments in the rule book. They are not about what the state should do, but what the state must not do. The constitution isn't there to protect or increase the power of the state, it is there to keep that power in check.

Yet a few sneezes and coughs are enough to give the state of Massachusetts the idea that the constitution isn't worth the paper it is printed on. Searches without warrant. Destruction of private property. Imprisonment - excuse me, "quarantine" - without charge. Home invasion. Each individual case decided by...whom? Ah, but we can worry about that later. Let's just get it on the books: the power.

As for equal protection under the law, sell me another one. If a governor or his mistress gets a cold, do you really think they'll wind up in a cramped hospital ward beside Johnny Public?

As Rahm Emanuel, the president's chief of staff, said about the economic meltdown last year: "Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before."

I got it, Rahm, I got it.

Putz

What's the deal with everyone calling NYT columnist David Brooks a "conservative?" I just read this article that shows Brooks to be a political sycophant of the highest order (as if we needed anymore proof), chock full of liberalism, and yet it begins and ends on the same note: David Brooks is a conservative, or a "center-right columnist." People have been saying it forever: he's a conservative.

For the past year people have been saying things like, "though a conservative, David Brooks agrees with Obama." For Brooks' part, he more than agrees with Obama, he thinks they're cut from the same cloth. Here's Brooks:

"And, then, the war in Iraq has caused me to rethink things in a much more modest [way], and that is Burkean, too.”

[Brooks] recognizes something similar in the current president. “Obama sees himself as a Burkean,” Brooks says. “He sees his view of the world as a view that understands complexity and the organic nature of change.”

Ah. So it's not so much conservative/liberal, as it is smart/doofus. Naturally Brooks is in the smart camp, the Burkean camp.

I'm from the Don Rickles camp: David Brooks is an arrogant snob who sold his soul to political masters a long time ago. He's a putz. Take this bit from Brooks: "My line is, the Clinton people would tell you you’re a complete and total asshole. The Obama people say, ‘We love you. You’re a great guy. It’s sad you’re a complete and total asshole.’ They’re always very mature about it.”

Wonderful. When's the last time you were pleased that people who loved you thought you were a pathetic jackass?

As a liberal or conservative, the guy's a joke.

The Other Side Of Everything

I caught this over at Hot Air. It's a pretty big Say What? moment:

I don’t know if you know this or not, but one of his favorite topics of humor was indeed Chappaquiddick itself. And he would ask people, “have you heard any new jokes about Chappaquiddick?” That is just the most amazing thing. It’s not that he didn’t feel remorse about the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, but that he still always saw the other side of everything and the ridiculous side of things, too.

That's one of Ted Kennedy's old friends, an ex-editor of Newsweek and the NYT. Only in the surreal world of the political sycophant could you say that your hero sees the lighter side of things because he jokes about a woman that was left in his car to drown and die. "She died, huh? How ridiculous."

Audio:

"He Floated Over On His Carpet, Looked Me In The Eye, And Said No."

The Onion's on a roll. This piece endears their writers to me more than any other from the past year. The elephant in the room, the genie in a bottle, it's all in there. Gorgeous.

Here, they skewer the bogus sports "journalists" that have covered for baseball's juicers over the past decade. Replace the word "genie" with the word "steroids" and there's virtually no difference between the below "senior baseball analyst" and the hacks from ESPN, TSN, Yahoo Sports, Fox Sports...


Baseball Superstar Accused of Performance-Enhancing Genie Use

"Even If The Minotaur Did Act Inappropriately - And I'm Not Saying He Did..."

Yet another beauty from The Onion.


Is Using A Minotaur To Gore Detainees A Form Of Torture?

Money-Money-Money...

Reuters: The Obama administration will raise its 10-year budget deficit projection to roughly $9 trillion from $7.108 trillion in a report next week, a senior administration official told Reuters on Friday.

"The new forecasts are based on new data that reflect how severe the economic downturn was in the late fall of last year and the winter of this year," said the official, who is familiar with the plans.

Whoa. That's quite a hike. Two trillion bucks. $2000000000000.00. Or two million million. However you look at it, what did this new data do, fall out of the sky and land in the Oval Office with an announcement of, "Sorry! Forget to tell you?" 2009 is winding down and we're still finding out just how bad 2008 was. Interesting. Equally interesting that this kind of news always comes out at the end of the week.

It seems like only a month ago the administration used the "worse than we thought" excuse. But I'm wrong. It wasn't a month ago. It was three weeks ago.

In other news, the guy who made that Obama Joker poster got outed. Turns out he's just some guy in Chicago that kind of likes Obama, kind of doesn't.

As for me, I think I know what the Joker makeup on that poster symbolizes. Take it away, Joel...

Faintheart

To paraphrase: "They may take our lives, but we'll never take their freedom."

Disgraceful news from the land of kilts and bagpipes:

The Lockerbie bomber tonight landed in Libya to a hero's welcome as thousands greeted him at the airport waving flags and posters.

Hours after leaving jail, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi boarded a plane back to his homeland.

His release prompted a furious reaction from America with Barack Obama branding it a mistake.

As a guy over at Hot Air pointed out, the terrorist spent 11.57 days in jail for each one of his victims.

Apple Sauce and Cow Dung

A major league boneheaded remark from the premier of Ontario:

Toronto Sun: "I think that the Conservatives are bringing kind of a small view to what we're doing here," McGuinty said. "We are participating in a remarkable adventure largely without precedent in the annals of human history. We're inviting people to come here from the four corners of the world.

"It's only natural and predictable that in those circumstances from time to time there will be a little bit of friction ... we need a place in a civilized society to address those kinds of concerns," he said.

"Inviting people to come here from the four corners of the world." Yeah, that's never been done before. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free in Wawa, Ontario. Who knew?

His remarks are in defense of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, an organization whose goal is not about human rights but about telling you how you should live your life.

It should be scary when a politician defends a social program by declaring it's a great adventure that's never been done before. Picture the conversation:

"You sure about this?"
"No idea. But it's going to be great!"
"How do you know?"
"Don't. But it's great!"
"But..."
"Stop asking so many questions. You're ruining the adventure."
"Great."

Adventure and Government. Those words go together about as well as apple sauce and cow dung.

The Ontario human rights racket is run by Barbara Hall. Here she is in the same Sun piece:

The commission is also working on forcing transit systems in Thunder Bay, Sudbury and Hamilton to call out all stops for visually impaired passengers and is keeping a close eye on Oshawa and other municipalities who have tried to restrict the growth of student housing through zoning by-laws.

The public education role will also be beefed up, she said.

"In the past we had one staff person for the whole of Ontario that did public education," Hall said. "Now we will have more and we'll have the capacity to work with communities on the education that is the best for them."

Keeping a close eye on...beefed up...best for them...

Sounds pretty innocent to me. Oh, and by the way, when she says "now we have more" people to run education in Ontario, what she means is, we have a lot more of the taxpayers' money to spend on our social engineering projects. Man, that recession's been tough on everybody.

Once again, it needs to be said: not one person in the Ontario Human Rights Commission is an elected official. Their Ontario Human Rights Code is written by them and enforced by them. They are not trained educators, law enforcement officials, or even politicians. They're just people that have a permanent job of deciding that what you're doing just won't do.

Canada's a funny place. We rail against oppression everywhere, pay lip service to freedom, but when an unelected bureaucrat declares that she's keeping an eye on cities and plans to educate your children properly, it's a big yawn. If your neighbour told you that your kid isn't being educated properly and needs retooling, you'd freak. When a bureaucrat you've never met says the same thing, you shrug.

Funny. Delicious.

SBQD At Your Service

Remember that gaffe Obama made a while back about the Post Office vs. UPS and FedEx? It was a blooper that everyone promptly buried, especially the man himself.

Not Jesse Jackson, Jr, though. He thought it sounded great and now goes after it whole hog:



"Look at it this way, Larry. There's Federal Express, there's UPS, and there's DHL. The public option is a stamp. It's email. And because of the email system, and because of the post office, it keeps DHL from charging $100 for an overnight letter. Or UPS from charging $100 for an overnight letter, because of the public option. Some of us don't have a problem buying a stamp, rather than going that route."

These guys are either crazies or drunk.

1) UPS and FedEx can't compete with the post office in letter delivery by law, so the comparison is useless unless you're trying to make the exact opposite point that Jackson is. 2) Since when was the internet a "public option email system" in answer to the outrageous corporate monsters at DHL and UPS? 3) It's pretty frightening, but the poor guy seems to think - I'm taking him at his word; sue me - that if the post office folded tomorrow, FedEx, DHL, and UPS would all charge $100 for letter delivery.

Nevermind that anyone with enough cash for a fleet of Cessnas and a few bicycles would wipe out FedEx by doing it for a buck. And then DHL would charge 98 cents. And then UPS would charge 94 cents. And then Sean Berry's Quickie Delivery would charge 75 cents. We'd trade prices until one of us goofed, charged too little, couldn't get out from under, and went bust. The other guys would find the market value - ie, what people are willing to pay before telling you to stick it - and settle into making decent profits while offering the odd special and concentrating on customer service and faster delivery time to draw customers away from the competition. Until yet another guy came along with a more efficient way of doing it and charged less, forcing the competition to either meet that price or start calling themselves "high end" and chasing the mail snobs.

See, that's how the market (I know, I know - it's a scary place, don't get caught there after sundown) operates. Unless it's providing them with boffo campaign donations, clowns like Jesse Jackson Jr don't have a clue. Or they're lying. Take your pick on which is worse.

The only place geniuses like this will run health care is straight into the ground.

CSI Won't Be The Same

Once in a while I catch one of those Bill Curtis shows on TV. He's the guy that does American Justice and Cold Case Files. In virtually every one of the Cold Case stories, the crook is done in by his DNA: a cop will go through a 20-year-old file, find a stained pair of underwear, send them to the lab, and bingo, a match is discovered and the quiet weird guy at the end of the street is put away for life.

Whenever I see the show, I always think, "Man, if it wasn't for DNA they'd never get any of these guys." That's because the DNA is all the cops and prosucution have, and it's virtually all they need. There's a one in a zillion chance that the DNA belongs to somebody else, so if it's your spit on the beer bottle then you're done like dinner.

But what if that wasn't the case? What if you needed more than just DNA to pin somebody down?

From the NYT:

“You can just engineer a crime scene,” said Dan Frumkin, lead author of the paper, which has been published online by the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics. “Any biology undergraduate could perform this.”

Dr. Frumkin is a founder of Nucleix, a company based in Tel Aviv that has developed a test to distinguish real DNA samples from fake ones that it hopes to sell to forensics laboratories.

The planting of fabricated DNA evidence at a crime scene is only one implication of the findings. A potential invasion of personal privacy is another.

Next question: who says it hasn't been done a hundred times already?

I Dub Thee, Therefore Thou Art

Vis-a-vis the Obama/Joker poster, an LA Weekly guy has this to say:

To be honest, though, I do believe the poster appeals to people who see in it a validation of their own racial prejudices, even if they can't acknowledge them. That my short post hit such a deep, raw nerve clearly shows that race was very much part of the illustration's attraction.

Got it. If one were to draw a Telly Tubby, and I were to call that person a child molestor, his angry reaction to my charge would prove beyond all doubt that he is a child molestor.

Reading minds is just so easy.

The National Felony League Makes It Official

Hang, shoot, electrocute and drown dogs, lie to your bosses, lie to the Feds, lie to everyone in sight, go to jail, come out during a recession and...welcome to your 2-year contract worth $5.2 million, baby.

The NFL has now confirmed its garage league status beyond all doubt.

Photo: AP