Well, it's the only way to talk to the morons.

Jonathan Gruber, a nationally recognized health economist who devised the economic underpinnings of Obamacare (Gruber hates the term), said his three comic-loving kids encouraged him to use the hip format of the graphic novel — basically an expensive comic published in book form — to tell the story of the complicated plan to 300 million Americans.

Unlike most comic books, GruberÂ’s wonÂ’t have a superhero like Batman or Captain America or a villain like the Joker, he said.

“I’m going to use the facts to tell the story,” Gruber, 45, told the Pulse yesterday. “I’m the narrator guiding the reader through the law. It’ll have lots of pictures and text.”

Speaking of comic books: Although the Spider-Man musical is still officially in previews (but at full price), the critics have collectively decided to break the embargo now and start reviewing it. Supposedly it's as bad as ObamaCare.

I'm going to guess the critics are right, based on this insight:

In essence, Taymor and Berger tie themselves in knots trying to shove the inherently dualistic nature of melodrama into a psychological hexahedron of their own creation. Great conceptual artists like Taymor are rarely comfortable with melodrama, which has struggled for respect throughout history. Fine. Stay away. But be wary of putting a comic book on the stage.

Time and again, the show runs away from what I suspect the creators feared would be too predictable or cheap, but that we miss. There is no direct Peter-to-Spidey transformation scene. There are no shooting webs (not substantively, anyway). There is no rush of romance. There is no truth. Every time old Spidey gets someone to fight, beyond the eight-legged critter, the villain is immediately defanged by absurdly cartoonish behavior, nixing any of the stakes. His other main foes, The Lizard, Swarm et al., are reduced to a rushed and belated cinematic montage that looks more like a garish version of an outre presentation during Fashion Week. And yet, in other moments, the show is as terrified of its genre as a 1960s mother worried about the eyesight of kids devouring comics under the sheets.

This is something that plagues this kind of show over and over again: Directors basically hate the material and seek to change it, either by spoofing it ridiculously (Batman and Robin) or making it into some overly-complicated angsty jibberish (Ang Lee's Hulk). This is partly true of The Green Hornet, except that movie actually does work pretty well as a comedy. Just not in the other way it should have worked.

In the end, the material is the material. If it's not elevated or adult enough, well, that's the deal going in. There's really no way to change that, and attempts to do so result in failures on all levels.

As is the case with ObamaCare, actually. It's a socialistic redistribution of wealth (both cash-money wealth and health care resources wealth) and attempts to disguise that wind up making it a failure on all levels, too, including a failure with the socialist left who are its intended audience.

A thing is what it is. It exists best in its genuine fundamental form.

Thanks to Mr. Anderson.

Posted by: Ace at 08:09 AM | Comments (131)
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Don't mock him. He's speaking heresy.

[T]he most talked-about speech at this year’s meeting, which ended Jan. 30, involved a new “outgroup.”

It was identified by Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia who studies the intuitive foundations of morality and ideology. He polled his audience at the San Antonio Convention Center, starting by asking how many considered themselves politically liberal. A sea of hands appeared, and Dr. Haidt estimated that liberals made up 80 percent of the 1,000 psychologists in the ballroom. When he asked for centrists and libertarians, he spotted fewer than three dozen hands. And then, when he asked for conservatives, he counted a grand total of three.

“This is a statistically impossible lack of diversity,” Dr. Haidt concluded, noting polls showing that 40 percent of Americans are conservative and 20 percent are liberal. In his speech and in an interview, Dr. Haidt argued that social psychologists are a “tribal-moral community” united by “sacred values” that hinder research and damage their credibility — and blind them to the hostile climate they’ve created for non-liberals.

“Anywhere in the world that social psychologists see women or minorities underrepresented by a factor of two or three, our minds jump to discrimination as the explanation,” said Dr. Haidt, who called himself a longtime liberal turned centrist. “But when we find out that conservatives are underrepresented among us by a factor of more than 100, suddenly everyone finds it quite easy to generate alternate explanations.”

A little somethin'-somethin' for the New York Times to chew on:

“If a group circles around sacred values, they will evolve into a tribal-moral community,” he said. “They’ll embrace science whenever it supports their sacred values, but they’ll ditch it or distort it as soon as it threatens a sacred value.”

The professor started looking into the matter when several colleagues wrote that they had to falsify their political beliefs in order to avoid discrimination.

Thanks to Charlie Brown's Dildo.

Posted by: Ace at 07:15 AM | Comments (174)
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"Obama Plans Jobless Aid Help for States". That's the title of the article -- I guess they felt that using the world "help" was less alarming than "bailout". Yet that's what this is.

Pull quote:

Rising unemployment has placed such a burden on states that 30 of them owe the federal government $42 billion in money borrowed to meet their unemployment insurance obligations. Three states already have had to raise taxes to begin paying back the money they owe. More than 20 other states likely would have to raise taxes to cover their unemployment insurance debts. Under federal law, such tax increases are automatic once the money owed reaches a certain level.

And here's another fun thought: most states' fiscal problems are only just beginning. But hey...let's all just blame Meredith Whitney for being an alarmist; things will surely work themselves out somehow.

Posted by: Monty at 06:13 AM | Comments (170)
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Clip created by Drew M.

Sam Donaldson, arrayed in full Romulan Battle Eyebrows, assaults Supply Side economic theory.

Ronald Reagan responds by sitting Maynard Keynes' mom down and telling her that her son was a failure and a dirty hippie. more...

Posted by: LauraW at 04:25 AM | Comments (111)
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He who would be a great soul in the future must be a great soul now.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:47 AM | Comments (113)
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I deliberately avoided watching Christina Aguilera faceplant on the anthem last night, and after watching the YouTube clip of it, I kind of felt like I had to weigh in.

For the unaware, I spent the last decade singing opera for a living, and I sang the anthem at college sporting events, pro sporting events, and officer promotion ceremonies for the Army. I also hired anthem singers for the two years I played college hockey.

There are ways to sing the anthem, and there are ways not to. Below the fold, we'll talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly... there are many. more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:08 PM | Comments (192)
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Remember Obama's Cairo Speech?

Well the Egyptians sure don't. Here's what his 'unprecedented' speech and outreach has bought us:

According a Zogby International Report, “Egyptians are disappointed with President Barack Obama and have a decidedly negative view of U.S. policy in the Middle East.”

Here are some Zogby public opinion numbers, after two years of an Obama foreign policy that was silent on human rights in the Middle East but apoplectic on Jewish apartment condos in Jerusalem:
- 85% had an unfavorable attitude toward the U.S.
- 87% had no confidence in the U.S.
- 92% named the U.S. as one of two nations that are the greatest threat to them

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:08 PM | Comments (780)
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Here's a clip from a 1987 White House press conference. An impertinent pervstache asks President Reagan about who should take the blame for the deficit.

Andrea Mitchell was working at the White House then for NBC and was not out sick that day.
She asks President Reagan a question in this later moment in the same session, at 5:45.

So she can't say she didn't know he was one of those icky Conservatives. Nice try, you dishonest bint.

Thanks to Drew for the clips.

Posted by: LauraW at 02:58 PM | Comments (119)
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Interesting.

"What's the worse-case scenario?" McBaeth said. Answered Rood: "It's happening."

...

A Steelers fourth-quarter touchdown and two-point conversion (also paying big odds as an exotic bet) put the game over the 45½-point total that Las Vegas bookmakers had assessed would be the best number to draw bettors considering a game between two of the NFL's top defenses.

"The combination of the 'over' and the Packers' victory was lethal," Rood said. "It's the worst Super Bowl I've seen since being here in 1993. There was no getting around it. Not a great scenario."

...

Nevada gaming authorities are expected to release by Tuesday the final numbers of how state casinos fared. Last year, there were $82.7 million bet on Super Bowl Sunday, with state casinos collecting $6.8 million.

This year, the deficit should border on a Vegas bloodbath, considering that a $1-million bet and scores of five-figure wagers like those Rood allowed Sunday were public payouts.

Posted by: Ace at 01:48 PM | Comments (96)
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A clip of Justified (which I don't think is really a clip, but just a scene shot only for a commercial) under the fold.

If you like guns, Raylan Givens will be baiting criminals into drawing on him so he can shoot them dead Wednesday at 10 on FX (why the Marshall Art Mullen lets him get away with this is a separate question); and the new season of Top Shot starts up on History Tuesday at ten.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:54 PM | Comments (97)
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