don't see this
latest comments:
Sometimes, someone comes up with a concept so blindingly obvious one wonders why it wasn't thought of earlier. Ruben Bolling's latest is a great example:
Well put, Ruben.
Last week, Fabrizio McLaughlin and Associates, a GOP polling firm, released a strategy memo based on their recent Battleground State Survey that reveals undecided voters "are currently poised to break away from President Bush and to John Kerry."
Among the reasons:
- They are more than twice as likely to see things headed down the wrong track as compared to voters overall.
- They give President Bush a net negative job approval rating.
- A solid majority sees the Country as being worse off than they were 4 years ago.
- They are significantly more pessimistic about the current state of the nation’s economy.
- They are significantly more likely to favor the federal government doing more as opposed to doing less.
The conclusion: "Clearly, if these undecided voters were leaning any harder against the door of the Kerry camp, they would crash right through it."
Be sure to check out the other memo too. Thanks, Taegan!
werkz advice: skip it.
So I watched the last thirty minutes of '21 Grams' last night. The reason I didn't see it all in one shot was that it was boring. Really boring. Fans of Amores Perros (myself among them) are treated to intertwining storylines that are all sleep inducing. You don't even see the car accident! A total waste of space.
It's a clear, cool blue sky morning. Instant good mood resulting.
So I'm moving all the stories to the front page, at least for when they are originally published. This means all reviews/advice columns/news items will be on the front page at first. Also, I'm adding guest reviewers to the site, and eventually (coding item #3) they'll be able to add/modify their own article and comment on existing articles as well. But I'm a long way from there at the moment. However...everything big needs to start small, so here we go:
Check out Dwight's new review!
p.s. a nice side effect is that i can finally group the blog posting by categories under the "news" section which is how they were originally intended ot work. yay!
“Exclamations at the meeting descended into vituperative (e.g., Congresswoman [Carolyn] Kilpatrick’s [D-Mich.] tawdry, anatomical comment yelled loud enough so the press could hear it outside) and ending with the obscene racist epithet repeated twice by Yale Law School alumnus Congressman Melvin Watt of North Carolina,” Nader wrote Cummings.
As reported by The Hill, Kilpatrick told Nader to “get your ass out” at the June 22 meeting.
Um, describing the statement "get your ass out" as a "tawdry, anatomical comment" seems overblown. And Nader is an overblown ass. So it fits. Go CBC!
werkz advice: go see it today!
"Super Size Me" is one of the best—and certainly (with the exception of _Cane Toads: An Unnatural History_) funniest—documentaries I’ve ever seen. Most people know the gist of the film: a man eats nothing but McDonald’s food for 30 straight days. But the success of the film lies in how it goes about its business. The director/star Morgan Spurlock is charismatic and likeable—from the moment he steps in front of the camera and addresses it, you feel yourself immediately warming to both him and his project. And when the opening credits role, appropriately, to Queen’s “Fat-Bottomed Girls,” you’re hooked.
The film is indeed shocking and effective—there’s no faking the surprise and concern on Spurlock’s medical advisers’ faces as they watch his downward slide. Similarly, there’s delicious humor in Spurlock’s discovery that more kindergarteners recognize Ronald McDonald (or even Wendy) than George Washington or Jesus. What’s especially nice is that Spurlock’s argument is about more than McDonald’s; it’s about the American relationship to food and fitness in general. So he does more than not eat; he also tries to exercise only as much as the “average American,” and he explores fast food’s marketing, its intrusion into school systems, and a whole range of related social issues. McDonald’s is only a symbol of a larger problem—a symbol that they have eagerly set themselves up to become. Occasionally Spurlock seems less then objective, but you forgive him for it (as you might not Michael Moore) because you can literally see the damage that is being done to him—he has an immediate and personal stake in the movie. The end result is a funny convincing, and moving picture that—after you finish laughing—will make you think seriously about not just what you eat, but how you live in general.
A quick postscript:
Sadly, the backlash against this movie has already begun. I was infuriated to stumble across a recent episode of _20/20_ and see John Stossel trying to dismantle the film. Of course he was skeptical, and of course he found people who lost weight eating McDonald’s. But his counterargument was disingenuous, because one of his examples ate only salads, and the other worked out two hours a day. Stossel is purposefully ignoring the larger attack of Spurlock’s film—the American culture and attitudes of which McDonald’s is emblematic, not McDonald’s itself—and he seems oblivious to anything resembling nuance.
Moreover, why attack this film? McDonald’s doesn’t need the help; it has armies of PR people, and advertises daily on almost every network. Does John Stossel and _20/20_ really need to weigh in? A more conspiracy-minded critic would suggest pressure from _20/20_’s advertisers, but I blame sheer thoughtlessness and opportunism: It’s easy to pick on a small-budget labor of love.
The unplugged telephone is a nice detail.
Happy Bastille Day!
And congrats to Richard Virenque! He won every climb on a day that belonged to France.
Okay, I've got a new review to throw up, but I want to do three things beforehand to alter the system itself. All require some coding changes on my part, and the last item is fairly intense. With any luck, I'll have the first two changes and the review up during my lunch break.
Until then, check out the dastardly fox memos Wonkette scored. A sample:
2004-04-06, John Moody
From: John Moody
Date: 4/6/2004
The events in Iraq Tuesday are going to be the top story, unless and until something else (or worse) happens. Err on the side of doing too much Iraq rather than not enough. Do not fall into the easy trap of mourning the loss of US lives and asking out loud why are we there?
Um, yeah. The "easy" trap. Right.
Does this remind anyone of anything?
He said it so many times that CBS and ABC both spliced a sort of dance mix and inserted it into their reports on the evening news: "The American people are safer....The American people are safer....The American people are safer."
Oh, that's right. It's this parody altered slightly. Very slightly. All we now need is a backdrop saying "America Is Safer" and we're all set. Pay no attention to the Dick behind the curtain...
Because of stories like this. And within it, gems like this about how Moore (who wrote/directed Canadian Bacon starring John Candy) is an idiot tell the tale best:
Canadian Bacon has a 20-second scene that presages the Michael Moore to come. In an echo of the 1959 Peter Sellers movie The Mouse That Roared, it turns out Canada actually has a superweapon that threatens the United States. The Clinton-like president sends a commando team into Canada. Needless to say, the elite U.S. commandos do nothing but bungle, comically. Then at one point, a commando falls and injures himself. The nearest other commando turns and, without hesitation, shoots his comrade repeatedly through the head. It's an ugly, sadistic scene totally out of place in what is otherwise a slapstick farce. Though it gets the message across: Michael Moore deeply, deeply hates the United States.
First, anyone who invokes "X hates America" is instantly in trouble with me, unless X lives in a foreign country. Most people who even claim to hate America and live here probably would change their tune given a trip to another country. Plus, it's a meaningless argument, because Moore, of all people, would disagree with the statement.
Second, although I haven't seen Canadian Bacon, the idea of a commando shooting his teammate because he was injured doesn't seem sadistic: it seems like something out of Hot Shots or any of the Zuckerman oeuvre. Everyone know the old "kill me now, don't leave me behind" cliche.
Third, interpreting any John Candy movie (who is Canadian) as a reason someone "hates America" is idiotic. What's next? Do people who enjoy SCTV or "Strange Brew" hate America? Are people who like "Black Adder" secretly hoping to restore the monarchy to America?
Easterbrook and others keep harping on bad facts in previous Moore movies (which I haven't seen) and for the (in their mind) absurd implication that the Bush family is connected to the House of Saud. This isn't a "we went to war for oil" thesis, however. It's sane and rational. If I had a longstanding business relationship with someone, I might help them out from time to time. Why is this heresy? The next thing you know, Easterbrook et al will be saying that lobbyists don't actually "promise" anything to people. Grow up, folks. There is always a quid pro quo. The question is whether it is money (illegal) or influence (legal) or power (also legal). In the Bush/Saud relationship, it is all three.
Did I mention I hate Easterbrook? But I still don't think he hates America. Just that he hates Michael Moore.
I almost managed to complete my weekend wallet tourniquet, with a minimal amount of financial bleeding occuring yesterday. If I can just make it to the end of the month without too much damage I'll be set for the summer.
The alternative is not pretty.
On the weekend front I only saw Brad and Adriana and a few of their friends, and that only for a brief period on Sunday. Enough time to get some mini-golf in, however, which was fun despite the high temps. And to see "Anchorman".
And to see all the Mooninites episodes I have on TiVo.
Nader is officially a joke.
The Nader/Dean debate is going like this:
- Audience member asks question.
- Dean offers substantive answer.
- Nader offers cliche, attacks Dean.
- Dean rebuts Nader's charge, asks for Nader's support to help defeat Bush.
- Nader attacks Dean.
Nader has already said "Dean was a insurgent...now he's a detergent, for the dirty linen of the Democratic party" and "Dean used to claim he was a hairshirt, now he's a linen handkerchief". Great points, Ralph.
I just had two weeks of work get dimissed by my boss. Not a happy meeting. Nicely, it also means I'll have to work much harder to make up for the lost time. Oh, well. At least I'm getting fairly confident with Illustrator and relearning my sealegs under InDesign. It's been a few years since I used PageMaker, but InDesign is very easy to use.
Okay. Back to work.