Lost in Kafka Airport

A pretty good send up for anyone that had to sit through boring lectures about Kafka or, worse yet, actually had to read some of his "books." Everyone else will just be saying, "Huh?"


Prague's Franz Kafka International Named World's Most Alienating Airport

Lemme guess: I'll catch grief for not bowing to Kafka's literary greatness. "Books" is in quotation marks because he never technically wrote a book. Now turn inward and argue with yourself about whether Gregor was a cockroach or a beetle. Or neither. I'll be at the bar.

Quantum of Grimace

Quantum of Solace is being released on DVD and Blu-ray today. Big deal. I guess it's worth a look if you can rent it, but I wouldn't lay out 20 bucks on the thing.

Here's what I had to say about the movie back in November:

Director: Marc Forster
Writers: Purvis/Wade/Haggis
Starring: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench
Runtime: 1 hr, 45 minutes

I watched some episodes of American Idol last year. My favorite critique of Simon Cowell's: "You did a good job with that song, but it was forgettable." That is excellent, excellent criticism. Don't fight to be good; fight to be remembered.

This is Quantum of Solace's problem. It is not great, not bad, not anything. It's forgettable. It's a generic action picture that happens to have a character named James Bond. He uses the line, "Who do you work for?" more than once, without a hint of embarrassment. The line has been used so often in spy stories that Austin Powers made a joke out of it. That was a decade ago. If you think that's bad, Quantum of Solace even has this fresh and original dialogue: "You're suspended until further notice." Quantum of Solace's hero could have been named John Smith and it wouldn't have made a difference.

The Quantum story picks up where Casino Royale left off. Bond's girlfriend has just died and he is out for blood. Following the so-so opening theme song, Bond chases people, fights, chases people, fights, and finally stumbles upon the arch villain of the movie. The man's name is Dominic Greene. As his name suggests, he is a pitchman for green environmental projects. His latest scheme is a bid to stop the deforestation of Bolivia.

It's only later that we find out that Greene is truly deranged. Not only does he kill people, but he's lying about saving the planet. He couldn't care less about the water table of Bolivia. Even worse, he's in bed with the most vicious, evil entity on earth: the United States of America and the CIA. The lead CIA man in the film is a chuckling boob, and is more than happy to have a go at killing an MI6 agent. During discussions about how twisted the CIA and US government are we're treated to a few helpings of, "Americans will do anything for oil."

Good grief. Is this the best they could do, a bad guy from the op-ed page of the New York Times? Paul Haggis helped with the script so I'm not surprised it went down this road, but I thought they'd have something else to level it off. Nope.

The movie is literally a Bourne rip-off, with very little "Bond" in it. The one or two cheesy one-liners sound flat and aren't funny this time around. Connery and Brosnan's delivery was far better. Hell, so was Daniel Craig's in the last movie. But that was the last movie.

The fight and chase sequences are cut way, way, way too fast for a Bond film, and could easily have been taken from Bourne outtakes because you can never focus long enough to see if Daniel Craig or Matt Damon is driving the car. The one five-second sex scene in Quantum isn't sexy, and the violence is way over the top, making Bond as indestructible as a Van Damme.

Maybe they were going for a younger crowd. Maybe they had such good luck with the "dark side" of Bond in Casino Royale that they forgot who Bond is. We want to like him and be like him, not just watch him wreck stuff and see him get punched in the face over and over again.

Quantum of Solace has turned James Bond into regular action fare, removing all of his charm and killing his humour. When he drinks a martini, he drinks to get drunk and forget his sorrowful past. When he kisses a woman good-bye, it's a quick peck on the lips. This is Bond? James Bond? Even the Bond theme takes a backseat, as it is only used at full volume during the closing credits. In the film, the theme is replaced by a lame action movie beat. (This is probably a cheap shot, but I even have a problem with the movie's posters: since when does Bond walk side by side with a girl, looking dirty and morose? Where's the tux? The smirk? The confidence? Or in the other poster, since when does Bond carry a howitzer instead of his slick pistol? Is he compensating for something since his girlfriend died?)

Though this movie is an early hit, I think it's riding on the reputation gained from the last outing. Another one or two like Quantum of Solace and they could sink the franchise.

Cowell's pragmatic criticism fits this film perfectly: forgettable.

Teaching Newspeak (V)

Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano, when questioned why she's replacing the words terrorist attack with man-caused disaster:

Instead of referring to threats from terrorists, Janet Napolitano is referring in her speeches to “man-caused disasters.” In an interview, a reporter for Germany’s Spiegel Online asked Napolitano whether her avoidance of the term terrorism means that “Islamist terrorism suddenly no longer pose[es] a threat to your country?”

“Of course it does,” Napolitano replied. “I presume there is always a threat from terrorism. In my speech, although I did not use the word ‘terrorism,’ I referred to ‘man-caused’ disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.”

Good grief. The people running the United States are bent. Fun.

"Hey, Bob, why didn't you tell me an axe murderer was in my house?"
"I did."
"You said 'uninvited guest.'"
"I didn't want to scare you."
"But he damn near chopped my head off!"
"Nuance, Dave. Nuance."

The Old Chops

Ian Tyson had the best voice since Nat King Cole.

I really believe that.

There were times 20 years ago that I would sit and play Nat albums, then some Sinatra, and then some Tyson. Theirs were my Three Great Voices.

Outside of country and western circles (with Tyson, heavy on the western), Tyson didn't have the fame of a Nat or a Frank. After his Ian and Sylvia marriage and folk days were over, he donned a cowboy hat and kept it there. He wrote stories instead of songs, and he once said that the songs coming out of Nashville were boring and tired. He would eventually settle down in Alberta. Another marriage went under the wheels and still he was singing. Until he couldn't.

I watched a pretty good interview of his tonight, and his rasping voice was stunning. Gone was the voice that could climb the scales with ease. The low bass, the high falsetto. He could do it all. He was certainly the most pleasant sounding singer, the kind of guy that could keep you company. He sounded like an older brother would sound. Most of his songs were happy ones, some of them sad, but they all said something concrete. No hidden meaning. Rarely did he have a song that sounded as if it was on the album just to take up the number 11 slot.

His chops left him last year. I know I've been in one place too long because I've lost all track of music. When I was on the move, I used to know music well. I would keep an ear out for new songs and fancied myself a professional listener of anything but rap, and even that I would listen to enough so I could play it at parties. Lately it's been way way too much news, too much sports radio, and not enough music. I have to get back to my roots: classical for a half hour, then country, then metal, then folk, then some old standards by the Rat Pack and their contemporaries. (My mixed tapes used to drive ex-girlfriends nuts; now I can blame it on the computer's shuffle feature).

I heard some of Tyson's new stuff tonight. He sounds like a cross between Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen. If you aren't a fan of either, then you might not like Tyson's new sound, but he's worth listening to. He always has a good story to tell.

But, man, I'll miss that voice. Adelita Rose. Irving Berlin is a Hundred Years Old Today. Old Corrals and Sagebrush. Four Strong Winds. Good stuff.

My dad dug Tyson a lot. Introduced me to him. I wonder if he'll dig Tyson's new sound. Hope so.

Here's Tyson with his old voice, singing the greatest travelling-man-break-up song of all time:

The Curious Case of George

Galloway, that is.

Canadian immigration officials turned British MP George Galloway away at the door and told him to go home. They accused him of being a supporter of Hamas, which Canada declares a terrorist organization.

Naturally enough, the Canadian blogosphere has turned it into a free speech issue. I guess I'll play ball.

1) Constitutional free speech is meant for citizens, not guests, and it doesn't apply to anybody at the border. The border's a no man's land. The next time you try to cross either way across the US/Canadian border, tell the customs official that he wears ladies underwear [I originally posted that as "tell him his mother wears ladies underwear." Long day, and I got caught between a "mom insult joke" and a "dude insult joke." But it would be an interesting thing to say just to see a man's reaction], his president/PM is a total idiot, and that you wish everyone in his homeland would just die already. See how far you get before he a) puts you through a body cavity search, b) rips your car down to the chassis, and c) hands you a wrench and tells you to put it back together yourself before driving home.

2) Do I think Galloway should have been admitted to the country? I guess so, unless the story's true that he's raised money for Hamas and that his intent was to raise more money by speaking in Toronto. The Canadian government would be idiots to declare Hamas a terrorist organization, yet allow someone to throw a fundraiser for them in Canada's biggest city.

3) No one's mentioned this point yet, and there's no way to prove it, but maybe this is Canada stating, "You started it." Only last month, the UK didn't allow a Dutch MP to enter Britain. The MP, Geert Wilders, was invited by a member of the House of Lords. No dice. When he arrived in the UK, they kept him on ice for hours before kicking him out, saying they were afraid of protests from the Muslim community. In effect, Britain announced that all bets were off. It was now perfectly legitimate for a Western government to bar a visiting MP from entering their country.

The Commonwealth Games does not include the Netherlands, but pretty soon it might not include the UK. There's a political shift going on and the UK is slowly being marginalized as a power to be taken seriously or perhaps any power at all. As for it being the "mother" of Canada and the Commonwealth, a message has been sent: sorry mom, we're moving on with our lives.

The Hits Keep Coming

Look, I hate broken records as much as the next guy, so I guess I should apologize if I'm turning into one. But I can't help it. Every single day provides another piece of whacky news from Washington DC. What's the old saw? "Where's the outrage?" I guess it left with President Bush, because these days no one seems too creeped out by the strange stories emanating from the capital of the USA.

Next up, the WSJ quoting Attorney General Eric Holder, vis-a-vis closing down Gitmo. Where will the prisoners go upon release? Beats him. Maybe the moon, or maybe your neighbourhood. Read on:

Attorney General Eric Holder said some detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may end up being released in the U.S. as the Obama administration works with foreign allies to resettle some of the prisoners...

For "people who can be released there are a variety of options that we have and among them is the possibility is that we would release them into this country," Mr. Holder said. "That process is ongoing and we've not made any determinations or made any requests of anybody at this point."

Long pause. Deep breath. "Say what?"

The White House's idea of governing seems to be the Eternal Floating of Things. They float out cabinet appointments to see how they play. When the appointee is discovered to have a shady past, they tell them to resign (except for the Treasury Secretary, who was appointed anyway). They float out money saving techniques like telling wounded vets to find their own insurance. When Jon Stewart (!) snipes them for it, they back off. Now they're floating the idea of releasing enemy combatants (my fault - according to the White House, they're now called something else, but I can't remember what) into the streets of America.

Throwing things against the wall to see if they stick is a good idea when cooking pasta. In politics, it's stupid.

I often develop a smirk when I hear people use the word "experts." Think about it for a second. Let's say you, Mr. or Ms. Regular Joe Blow, somehow got into the Oval Office. You were on a tour, but suddenly you're in a meeting between the president and his advisers. One of them says, "Where should we send the Gitmo prisoners?" And somebody else says, "How about into the country? Let's tell the Wall Street Journal."

Your advice would be...what?

Pelosi's Cat Cam

Is everyone in Washington nuts?

You might as well take all of the news out of Washington DC, throw it in a blender, and mix yourself the most mind blowing daiquiri of all time.

This video is on Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's YouTube channel. It's called "Cat Cam." It stars her pet cats, and Rick Astley.

Yes, you just read that. I went looking around to see if it was a hack job, but apparently not. It's a legitimate video from the office of the person who is third in line for the presidency of the United States. She just helped design bills spending a trillion bucks, but hey, she's not nuts: she's eccentric.

It will probably be removed now that Drudge has linked to it, so take a look while it's still up. It's been around for two months. Somehow the media missed it. Whoever thought this was a good idea has to be out of their mind.

I'm still waiting to see if it's a prank. Has to be. Right? My favorite comment from the YouTube channel: WTF was THAT??? Quite.

Teaching Newspeak (IV)

Via Hot Air:

Daily Mail: Using 'Miss' and 'Mrs' has been banned by leaders of the European Union because they are not considered politically correct.

Brussels bureaucrats have decided the words are sexist and issued new guidelines in its bid to create 'gender-neutral' language.

The booklet warns European politicians they must avoid referring to a woman's marital status.

This also means Madame and Mademoiselle, Frau and Fraulein and Senora and Senorita are banned.

The Artist's "Duty"

Via Steyn, via Scaramouche, quoting the Montreal Gazette:

Editorial cartoonists have a duty...

And that's where I stop reading.

I find nothing more insipid than anyone telling artists (whether they be cartoonists, painters, sculptors, writers, film directors, so forth) what their "duty" is.

There are no guidelines for art, and there are no "duties" artists need follow. None. Catching hell for written libel is one thing, doing your "duty" as an artist is quite another. When someone says that an artist has a duty to do something, they mean they wish artists would shut up and do things their way.

Here's what I had to say a couple of weeks back when Kathleen Parker pulled the same stunt. It bears repeating:

2) Who is Kathleen Parker to tell cartoonists what they have to be aware of? There's only two things cartoonists need to know: the paper in front of them, and the pen in their hand.

A painter's only duty is to paint. A writer's only duty is to write. A cartoonist's only duty is to draw. A filmmaker's only duty is to roll camera. All of those duties are to themselves. If they go broke, then they didn't find an audience. Maybe they'll take it up as a hobby. But no one should tell them which parts of life are off limits.


Blake's The Blasphemer.

I've Loved You So Long - Review

Director: Philippe Claudel
Writer: Philippe Claudel
Starring: Kristin Scott Thomas
Runtime: 117 minutes
French with subtitles

This movie is the very definition of "character study," and it probably would never have been filmed in Hollywood. Made in France, I've Loved You So Long breaks a lot of the rules reserved for "gripping emotional drama." There are no ups and downs, no twists, no subplots, no shifts in tone. The movie is an emotional straight line from beginning to end, neither extremely dark or blissful.

A movie like that is very hard to keep interesting, especially when it runs close to two hours. I've Loved You So Long (Il y a longtemps que je t'aime in French) somehow overcomes this problem. It's a satisfying film, with a good cast and a brave script.

Kristin Scott Thomas plays Juliette Fontaine, a woman just released from prison for the crime of...something. We don't know what. Since she's been away for a long time, we know that it must have been a heinous act. As one character says in the film, "15 years? What did you do, kill somebody?" The days of Les Mis and being locked up for an eternity for stealing bread are long gone. If you get put away for fifteen years these days, you really did something.

Juliette's sister Lea (Elsa Zylberstein) picks Juliette up from prison and takes her home to live with Lea's family. Lea's husband Luc (Serge Hazanavicius) doesn't want her there, and especially doesn't want her around his kids. Naturally enough, he wants to know when she's going to get a place of her own. Lea says it will happen when it happens, but that she wants to get to know her sister. Not get to know her again, but get to know her in the first place: she never visited Juliette in prison, and in fact was forbidden to by their parents.

Juliette knows no one from her past. Every face she's seen for the past 15 years has belonged to a prisoner or a guard. Her family disowned her. No one visited and no one wrote. She is starting her life over, this time as an ex-con. And, thanks to a good script and director, this movie bears no resemblance to Rachel Getting Married or any other sanctimonious "poor-me-just-out-of-prison" nonsense.

The film has no real plot. The question of what crime Juliette committed is the Hitchcockian (Hitchcockesque?) McGuffin in the film. It motivates some of the characters and adds to audience interest, but it isn't critical to the story. Plot is an afterthought. Instead, the film shows this woman adapting to real life and learning how to live again, but without the usual preachy scenes of, "You don't know what it's like on the inside," or, "Nobody loves me anymore." One great line in the movie is when Lea calls prison "inside," and Juliette says, "Would you stop calling it 'inside?' It's called prison."

As I said, this movie doesn't get made in Hollywood. Take one scene where Juliette becomes trusted enough to look after Luc and Lea's kids for the night. In Hollywood, Juliette would abuse this trust by allowing the kids to wander into the street, or dropping a curling iron on their arm, or carelessly allowing one of them to fall down a flight of stairs. At that moment, Luc or Lea would walk in the front door and say, "Ah ha! We knew we shouldn't have trusted you. How could you let this happen to our daughter?" Then the screaming would begin, or the obligatory scene where Juliette realizes they're right, she is worthless, and goes outside to hug herself and cry.

That's Hollywood. In this movie, Juliette puts the kids to sleep. She sits down on the couch and nods off. Lea comes home. Juliette wakes up and they say hello. And that's that.

So what's the movie about? Search me. It's just the story of a woman who gets out of prison and starts to live her life again. It walks a fine line between interest and boredom and I think it pulls it off. The ending won't stun you because you'll see it coming a pretty long way off. In fact, you might consider it a cop out, and I wouldn't blame you. But I don't think it matters much. Juliette is the point of the whole thing, and Kristin Scott Thomas makes watching her worthwhile.

The cast helps because they're excellent, and the script helps as it's refreshing not to be treated to Obligatory Scenes. Juliette isn't hooked on dope, she doesn't blame anyone else but herself for her problems, she doesn't spend half the movie crying, and there isn't one flashback scene in the whole film.

Incredible. And satisfying.

Photos: Rotten Tomatoes

Those Famous Last Words

"Your dad's going to be pissed off at you."

You don't know the half of it.

Drag Me To Hell - Preview

It's good to see Sam Raimi leave the web slinging behind for a while and go old school with his Evil Dead roots.

Not much new here, but it might still be cool. Call it a cross between Thinner (gypsy curse) and The Amityville Horror (flies and other creepy stuff in the house).

Random aside: winter can't end soon enough. It's been a long cold one, and there hasn't been a decent movie out in ages.

Economics 101

Sometimes I like to do a little ego stroking, then I remember that only rocket science is rocket science. Other stuff is actually quite simple. Like the economy.

Here's George Will, quoting an economist:

"The failure of Lehman Brothers and the near-failure of Merrill Lynch raised the interest rate at which profit-seeking lenders were willing to lend to highly leveraged investment banks. The market thereby forced Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to change their business models drastically and to convert to commercial banks. If that isn't effective regulation, what is? Protecting firms from failure (Bear Stearns, AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup) and mitigating their losses with bailouts renders this most appropriate form of regulation much less effective."

Here's me, back in November:

I said this before, and I still believe it: the system did not fail. The system worked perfectly. People tried to game it for political and financial reasons, and the system chopped their hands off. That's the way systems should work. When you cheat them, they make you pay. Today's crying about a failed system is a smoke screen. The only thing that failed were the cons and tricks that the players used to try and make a buck. They goofed.

Left to itself, there is no doubt that the market would rebound. Yes, some jobs would be lost, and some money would go up in smoke, but probably no more than the taxpayer money that is being poured into the stratosphere every day trying to stave off the inevitable.

Granted I am no economist, but even I understand what happens in a marketplace. Borrowed too much? Expanded too quickly? Built lousy cars? Let unions drive your payscale through the roof? Went billions into debt? Paid your CEO hundreds of millions? Guess what? The market is going to screw you.

I like mine better. I should also point out that "probably no more than the taxpayer money" should now read "definately no more than the taxpayer money." It's been five months since I wrote that post. That was before the $800,000,000,000,000 spending bill signed in February, and the $410,000,000,000,000 spending bill signed yesterday. One trillion two hundred ten billion in two months? Thank God these incredibly smart experts know what they're doing.

Fat chance. The economy is not difficult, no matter how these gurus want to dress it up. Maxim: a little girl with a lemonade stand who sees rain on the horizon will be able to tell you as much about economics as any finance executive.

Surprise?

Lately I'm reading a lot of stuff saying people are worried that Mr. Obama doesn't have what it takes. He's lost some allies, and conservative turncoats are again turning coats, leaving him behind.

A lot of liberal writers are surprised by the mild Obama backlash. Howard Fineman is worried that Obama appears to be in over his head. Gone are the whispers of the "smoothest transition ever," as more executive appointments end up under the wheels. All of the hope and change talk has been replaced by doom and gloom, while spending skyrockets and the markets tank.

I ask: why the surprise?

Who, after all, is in the White House? A very liberal junior senator from a politically corrupt state, whose experience at being the boss of anything is exactly zero. He was allowed to skate through the election process on a rhetorical platform (did anyone ask what the American people should be hoping for, or changing to?). This amateur politician was then handed the keys to the biggest piggy bank in the world. Now people are wondering why he's disorganized as hell and spending like mad. Surprise, surprise.

Tapper Again

A recent highlight from Jake Tapper over at ABC, a journalist who might just take the quotation marks from around the word "journalist."

Tapper in Political Punch: Then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., one year ago this week, swooped in from the campaign trail to -- along with then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. -- vote for an amendment to impose a one-year moratorium on earmarks for fiscal year 2009...Today, of course, President Obama will sign into law more than 8,000 earmarks for FY 2009, part of the $410 billion omnibus spending bill.

A Hill Of Beans

Via Drudge.

Someone at Reuters knows BS when he sees it:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told an audience on Friday "never waste a good crisis," as she highlighted the opportunity of rebuilding economies in a greener, less energy intensive model.

Highlighting Europe's unease the day after Russia warned that gas exports to the EU via Ukraine might be halted, she also condemned the use of energy as a political lever.

Sentence

Vis-a-vis that post I wrote about the Mounties and the guy who killed a man aboard a Greyhound bus. News today:

The family of a man who was beheaded on a Greyhound bus says his killer is "getting away with murder," but the judge who found him not criminally responsible for the "barbaric" slaying says the law doesn't unnecessarily punish the mentally ill...

"Mr. Li will get help," said his lawyer, Alan Libman. "The Canadian public can be assured that the review board will take into consideration the protection of the public. Mr. Li advised me after court that he's going to work with his treatment team because it's his desire to get better."

Li will be placed in an institution. He will be up for review each year to decide if he's well enough to be released into society.

And that's that. For now.

Looking Back on Palin

I was rummaging through some old blogs looking for a quote when it occurred to me how quickly we forget the past. Stuff seems terribly important at the time, then a month goes by and it's like it never happened. Think Enron, Myanmar, the Washington sniper, or Hillary vs. Obama. All of that angst and angry rhetoric: poof. Gone from the conversation.

Anyway, I stumbled upon some blogs I wrote about Sarah Palin. In all of the blogs I wrote in defense of her, I never said she would be a good vice-president. In 2008, that always made my friends stop in their tracks. They would say she'd be a horrible VP, and I would say, "When have I ever said she would be a good one?" They'd pause and say, "But you defend her all the time." And I would reply, "Sure. As a woman in politics receiving unbelievably harsh treatment for being a woman, I am on her side completely."

They would shake their heads to clear the cobwebs, ignore my point, and get back to telling me about a woman's right to choose or some such.

Sad fact is, most of the friends and occasional enemies that argued with me about Palin were women. Palin really struck a nerve with the ladies on both sides of the border. So-called feminists treated her extremely badly during last year's election. That's the main reason I came out of 2008 believing I am a bigger feminist than any of my female friends. In fact, I think I'm the only true feminist among them.

In any event, I stumbled upon this blog from September 13th of last year. In it I saw a quote from Cintra Wilson at Salon, from an article she wrote on September 10, 2008.

I read it over and was disgusted by the vitriol coming from her keyboard. Back in September it simply struck me as hypocritical and lame. Now I see it for what it was: utter fear, hatred, and bigotry, by a woman towards a woman.

Did feminists really write stuff like this last year? Yes they did. Quite a lot of it, too. Like most "commentary" on Palin, Wilson's piece didn't raise any eyebrows. She wasn't dragged onto The View to explain herself, David Letterman didn't use her as a punching bag, there was no outrage and no calls for apology. It was what it was: perfectly acceptable. Looking at it now, the date suddenly seems interesting. Wilson wrote it on September 10. The anger and fear of 9/11 were long gone from her mind. So was the goodwill and solidarity of 9/12.

Here's the bit:

I confess, it was pretty riveting when John McCain trotted out Sarah Palin for the first time. Like many people, I thought, "Damn, a hyperconservative, fuckable, Type A, antiabortion, Christian Stepford wife in a 'sexy librarian' costume -- as a vice president? That's a brilliant stroke of horrifyingly cynical pandering to the Christian right. Karl Rove must be behind it."

Palin may have been a boost of political Viagra for the limp, bloodless GOP (and according to an ABC/Washington Post poll she has created a boost in McCain's standing among white women to a 53 over Obama's 41). But ideologically, she is their hardcore pornographic centerfold spread, revealing the ugliest underside of Republican ambitions -- their insanely zealous and cynical drive to win power by any means necessary, even at the cost of actual leadership.

Sarah Palin is a bit comical, like one of those cutthroat Texas cheerleader stage moms. What her Down syndrome baby and pregnant teenage daughter unequivocally prove, however, is that her most beloved child is the antiabortion platform that ensures her own political ambitions with the conservative right. The throat she's so hot to cut is that of all American women.

Of course, they'll never be done with Palin for being a woman. I was looking for a photo to put up with this blog and found this piece from the LA Times, dated 7 hours ago:

Newly released academic research suggests that Sarah Palin's sexiness, while great for selling copies of Vogue magazine and political buttons about the hottest governor from the coldest state last fall, may actually have hurt her vote-getting ability, which seems to be what elections are about.

AOL News also covers the story, with the headline Sarah Palin Too Pretty to Attract Voters. The First Post has it as Sexy Sarah Palin needs get ugly to win in 2012.

Researching a woman's sexiness in order to decide her political viabilty. Tell me, my dear feminist friends, what you think of that?

In other news, the Chicago Sun-Times reports, "First Lady Michelle Obama's bare arms fashion continues to fascinate and make us all realize we need to do more on upper body strength."

The Bus Arrives - Owens

"He feels shocked and totally betrayed."

That's ESPN's Stephen A. Smith, describing Owens' reaction to being tossed under the bus by the Dallas Cowboys.

Owens would feel that way. No doubt he feels shocked and totally betrayed if a waitress puts too much cream in his coffee.

Owens is a locker room's worst nightmare and a killer of quarterbacks. When Parcells was head coach, the two barely spoke. As for QBs, if Garcia and McNabb couldn't stand him, it shouldn't be a surprise to see that Romo couldn't either. Add Owens' baby ways to the Cowboys' signing of Roy Williams last year for over $50 million, and the writing was on the wall.

How badly did the Cowboys want Owens out of town? Try this: last year they paid him a $12 million signing bonus as part of a deal worth $34 million for four years. By releasing him, ESPN says the Cowboys will now take a $9 million hit on the salary cap.

No one's sure where Owens will end up next. Jim Rome floated the Raiders' name on the air, but then said even Al Davis wouldn't want T.O. near his quarterback. I wouldn't be bold enough to put anything past Davis, but we'll see.

One thing's certain: guys like this always get another job worth big money. Not long ago, Sean Avery was vilified in the NHL. People were talking about his career going in the toilet and that he might have to play in Europe. That was three months ago. Now he's playing for the New York Rangers.

We'll see T.O. in the fall, where he can get started poisoning another desperate team's locker room.

Public Enemies - Preview

Michael Mann? Johnny Depp? A movie about John Dillinger? Gold.

The Sea Claims Another Few Men

Sad day for the friends and families of these men:

AP: The Coast Guard called off the search Tuesday for two NFL players and a third man lost at sea off the Florida coast after their boat capsized during a fishing trip.

Officials said the search would end at sundown, with Oakland Raiders linebacker Marquis Cooper, free-agent defensive lineman Corey Smith, who played with the Detroit Lions last season, and former South Florida player William Bleakley still missing in the rough, chilly seas.

I only remember a few man overboard alarms from my ship days. Each one of them ended with the body never being discovered.

The sea is vast and cold, and it's rare to find someone if they aren't spotted the instant they go over the side. I remember one time the alarm went off roughly six hours after a guy had disappeared. The ship turned around and headed back, but no luck. We never found him, and neither did the Coast Guard plane flying overhead.

If you want to feel futile, stand on the deck of a ship and look through your binoculars for hours on end, trying to spot a waving hand or a bobbing head. Pretty soon the waves lose all clarity, you're sun blind, and you realize that the chance of finding someone in thousands of square miles of ocean is remote at best.

Rest their souls.

Hitchens on UN-Free Speech

Christopher Hitchens spends this piece talking about Pakistan and the UN, but it might as well be a commentary on Canada and its human rights commissions:

The thought buried in this awful, wooden prose is as ugly as the language in which it is expressed: Watch what you say, because our declared intention is to criminalize opinions that differ with the one true faith. Let nobody say that they have not been warned.

More. Worth reading.

Putz Drinks Kool-Aid, Gets Cramps (II) + "Intellectual" Alert (Brooks II)

It's like Christmas. A twofer of my current hobby horses.

David Brooks has been doing some sweating over the Obama administration. Things looked so rosy and cheerful. What could have gone wrong? Brooks:

Those of us who consider ourselves moderates — moderate-conservative, in my case — are forced to confront the reality that Barack Obama is not who we thought he was. His words are responsible; his character is inspiring. But his actions betray a transformational liberalism that should put every centrist on notice.

As a bonus, Brooks throws in another "intellectual" line. I scanned the article before reading it through, knowing I would find it. I wasn't disappointed. Everyone's using the word these days:

We moderates are going to have to assert ourselves. We’re going to have to take a centrist tendency that has been politically feckless and intellectually vapid and turn it into an influential force.

What a putz. Just so I'm clear: smart guys (i.e. "moderates") like Brooks thought Obama was the cat's meow. They spent months telling people that Obama wasn't anything to be afraid of. He was The One. He was The Speech Maker. The Saviour. Mr. Cool. But now that he's proven to be the regular tax-and-spend liberal that all of us dummies said he was, Brooks is bewildered and lost. He's looking to his "moderate" friends to turn around a dumb moderate-right population to become an "influential force."

Sorry, Brooks. You don't get back in the game that easily. If you're so smart, so intellectual, you should have seen this coming last year. But you didn't. Why, only last week you described Obama's team like this: "The people around Obama are smart and sober. Their plans are bold but seem supple and chastened by a realistic sensibility."

A week later and they're all dangerous left wing loons?

Realistic sensibility (what the rest of us call "reality") has smacked Brooks in the face and he doesn't like the bruises. He's lurching around for a crutch or someone to lean on. To use his words he's been "chastened," if not by Obama then by his own embarrassing willingness to get drunk on political Kool-Aid. Now the hangover's killing him.

Who's he to call anyone politically feckless and intellectually vapid? Take a look in the mirror, pal.

Jennifer Love Hewitt Breaks The Bank

Jennifer Love Hewitt Pays Magazine $2.2 Million To Run Photos Of Her Baby

Mounties in the News Again

The Mounties made the news a couple of times last week. Once because of an inquiry into a Taser death. Another time because the Mounties didn't send out a search-and-rescue team until days after being told of an SOS signal in the snows of British Columbia. One woman was later found dead.

These stories reminded me of a piece I wrote last summer. It was my reaction to the RCMP's handling of the Manitoba killer who murdered someone on a Greyhound bus. I think my comments still hold water:

For Everyone's Safety, August 3, 2008

Can someone tell me exactly what the RCMP are for?

I don't mean the guys in their pretty red jackets. We know what they're for: parades, handing out sports trophies, and posing for pictures.

I'm talking about the guys that show up brandishing weapons and acting like the best thing to hit law enforcement since Walker Texas Ranger. They're loud, they're proud. They carry big guns and wear black SWAT outfits that make the ladies swoon and macho men cream in their pants. They are...drum roll...the Mounties. Protectors of the innocent and smiters of evil.

What hogwash.

Last week, a 22-year-old man was sitting on a Greyhound bus travelling through Manitoba. He was apparently minding his own business when his seatmate stood up and stabbed him to death. According to witnesses, the murderer was very calm. No rage, no screaming lunacy. He stabbed the victim anywhere from 40 to fifty times. One witness described the murderer as "robotic."

The bus driver pulled over to the side of the highway, and he and the other passengers exited the vehicle. Witnesses tell us that the murderer stayed aboard the bus, cut off the man's head, and held it aloft for all to see. The witnesses know this, because three of them went back aboard the bus to check on the victim. That is when they saw the murderer cutting up the young man. At that point, the murderer ran towards them, knife in hand. The witnesses, bus driver included, ran back off the bus and slammed the door shut, locking the murderer inside.

They kept a vigil at the door, making sure the killer couldn't get out. It was then that the killer showed them the man's severed head and dropped it to the floor in front of them. Yet they kept their vigil, not running off to the nearest farmhouse and hiding behind the barn.

The cops eventually showed up and a standoff ensued. You know the type: brave cops surround a vehicle or building, and wait for the killer to do whatever it is he's going to do, until he gets tired and quits. All the while, a "crisis negotiator" is there, talking to the man in soothing tones, promising he won't come to any harm.

Cops, you see, don't like confronting people carrying weapons. It's safer outside. Safer, they tell us, for "everyone involved, including the suspect." Sure. We honestly believe you when you say you're worried about the suspect's safety.

Only in the surreal world of today's police will you find a crisis negotiator attempting to negotiate with a man that has just decapitated someone.

Oh, but the story from Manitoba gets worse. During the several hour standoff, the murderer kept himself busy. Here's an RCMP transmission, recorded and posted on YouTube: "Badger is armed with a knife and a pair of scissors and he is defiling the body at the front of the bus as we speak."

"Badger" was the codeword for the murderer. Macho types always come up with such great nicknames, don't they? Makes them feel like they're doing something cool.

Another transmission: "Okay, Badger's at the back of the bus, hacking off pieces and eating it."

After the standoff, the RCMP immediately told the press that the transmissions needed to be removed from the internet because they were not for "public consumption." Setting aside the unfortunate choice of words in that statement, it's no surprise the Mounties didn't want this stuff on the airwaves. The Mounties wouldn't want people to know that these brave men in uniform had ringside seats for the evening's cannibalism show, and did absolutely nothing to bring it to an end except sit on their macho asses and play sportscaster (neverminding the fact that, as Canadians, no one on that bus thought to do anything about the guy while he was stabbing the victim 50 times; we'll save that argument for another day).

The scene eventually ended the way it usually does: on the murderer's terms. He tried to jump from a window and the police arrested him. But not before the bastard had done such awful things to the victim that his parents will be having nightmares for the rest of their lives, and the chances of an open casket funeral are remote.

Speaking of the parents, the RCMP weren't done with their latest laughfest. Too busy playing CSI Miami, the cops forgot to tell the victim's family about the whole thing. The victim's father didn't find out about his son's demise for 24 hours, and it wasn't anyone official that broke the news. Rather, it was a news reporter at his front door, seeking a reaction piece.

Those brave Mounties. Last year, a man from Europe was sitting in the Vancouver airport, waiting in the baggage room. He couldn't speak English, had never been on an airplane, and couldn't understand why his mother wasn't coming to pick him up. He was a big, simple, innocent guy. He sat there for almost a complete day, and nobody helped him. Finally he wigged out and started throwing things around in frustration. The RCMP showed up, Tasered him, sat on his back with his face to the floor, and within twenty seconds the man was dead. No negotiator for him. Just high voltage, and brave cops pinning him to the ground.

Or how about this one: earlier this year, the Mounties showed up in the hospital room of a man suffering from pneumonia. He was lying in bed. The man was delirious, and he had a knife in his hand. Time to call the negotiator? Nah. They zapped the man with the good ol' Taser. The man, by the way, was 82 years old. In their defence, a Mountie spokesman said, "Whether the person is 80 or 20, we are dealing with a person who had a deadly weapon in their hand." Like, say, a man in a bus carving someone into little pieces?

Yeah, they're brave all right. Some guy without a weapon goes into airport rage, or an old timer goes nutty in bed, and the Mounties have no problem - what's the phrase? - "taking them down." But a murderer with a knife carves up a mother's son for hours on end, and they do nothing except give a play-by-play on their cute walkie-talkies. Guess they forgot to charge their Tasers back at the office.

The lack of bravery among cops in nothing new, nor is it only lacking in Canada. In the US, when a gun nut goes whacko, it's usually a gunpacking witness that solves the problem, or the murderer just gets bored of the whole thing and shoots himself in the head. The police, you see, are outside "securing the area" for "everyone's safety."

Keep up the mantra, guys, I'm sure it will help you sleep better at night. Too bad the victims won't be.

Lovely Day For a Protest

Drudge is having a chuckle over this next story, posting it as his headline-of-the-hour.

I don't mind playing along. The enviro-boobs are always good for a laugh:

CNSNews: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had to cancel an appearance Monday at a global warming rally in Washington, D.C., that was hit by a snowstorm because her flight was delayed, her office told CNSNews.com.

(AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Cherry on Ovechkin

Here's Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau on Don Cherry's rant against Ovechkin:

MSN Sports: "(Don's) a friend of mine. And he's an idol of mine. I mean, I love what Don Cherry has stood for for 30 years. I just think that even the smartest people in the world are wrong sometimes, and I just thought he was wrong," Boudreau said before the Caps' game against Florida on Sunday. "Because he doesn't know Alex like we know Alex."

Cherry put the hammer down on Ovechkin during Saturday's "Coach's Corner" segment on Hockey Night in Canada, spurred by the brewing off-ice rivalry between him and Sidney Crosby.

"I'm going to tell you about this guy: He's got a free ride. He runs at guys, does this stuff," Cherry said. "I am predicting somebody's going to get him. And somebody's going to get him good. There's somebody out there -some big defenceman is going to be sitting in the weeds. As he cuts across centre ice, somebody's going to cut him in half."

They're both right. Boudreau for standing by his player, Cherry for saying Ovechkin's an idiot who is asking for trouble. Ovechkin has a habit of celebrating a goal like an NFL wide receiver or European soccer player.

I saw Cherry's Hockey Night in Canada appearance last night. His words look sharper on paper. It didn't sound to me like Cherry wanted Ovechkin to get labelled. He just thinks it will happen sooner or later. I've been thinking the same thing for quite a while.

Cherry's also right about soccer being a lame sport. What's the old Simpsons bit? "Long games, low scoring, and ties? You betcha!"

Plus, when stuff like this passes for good tactics in a "sport," you know you've got problems:

"Intellectual" Alert - Emanuel

If you've been reading the blog, then you'll know "intellectual" is my latest buzz word to watch. Everybody seems to be using it with extra zeal these days.

Here's a bit from Politico:

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel charged Sunday that conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh is “the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party.”

I've probably used the word more than a few times in my life, but starting last year it occurred to me that it's the most meaningless word in the language. Take Emanuel's use of it: "intellectual force." What can that possibly mean? Since "intellectuals" are supposed to be smarter than the rest of us, then Emanuel must mean that Limbaugh is the driving force behind the GOP's "intellect," or "intelligence." To hear Emanuel tell it, Limbaugh is somehow raising the IQ of his listeners whenever he opens his mouth.

Limbaugh as schoolteacher? Hardly. What Emanuel meant to say was "ideological force" or perhaps "philosophical force." But, being a goof, he used "intellectual" instead, thinking it's the same thing.

My firm belief: anyone who uses the word "intellectual" is a sap.