Right Wing Sparkle has all of the questions.

Now, reading through them, first I thought "these can't possibly be real," as they were too... homonormative. (The opposite of heteronormative, you see.) And then it dawned on me-- the survey was supposed to be a parody, or inversion, of the sorts of questions gays get asked. "How do you know your heterosexuality isn't just a phase?," etc.

So the survey's intent is not to challenge kids' heterosexuality, but rather their heterosexist notions about homosexuality.

I'm not sure, though, that that changes the situation much. Even assuming high school dolts can grok irony, which is doubtful, it's a bit of a fine distinction, and it's still inappropriate to be asking kids questions like this. For one damn thing, it sends the wrong signal to presuppose teenagers have slept with anyone of any gender, as the questions do. Those who actually don't have sex in high school are a sadly dwindling minority, and it doesn't help to have teachers reinforcing their feelings of being "different" than the other children by suggesting the "default" or "normal" sort of sexuality is to be having sex at that age.

Gee, for people trying to make a point about assumptions about sexuality, they sure don't seem to mind "marginalizing" and "alienating" kids who aren't having sex.

And it's just inappropriate.

They can't seem to teach kids where London might be, but they're damn sure they're going to come out of high school knowing everything there is to know about sex.

Posted by: Ace at 07:05 AM | Comments (16)
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The contents are not yet disclosed, but Allah suspects it's another da'wa, an "invitation" to join Islam, or die.

Also: Video of Ahmadinejad's speech in which he mocks the European's offer of building him a light water reactor as treating Muslims like "children" and mollifying them with "candy and nuts." And accusing anyone who objects to maniacs having an atomic weapon of having "mental problems."

He'd be the one to know, I suppose.

Posted by: Ace at 06:54 AM | Comments (12)
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Again: it's just creepy that they're so fascinated with kids.

Follow-up questions asked:

1) "Do you like movies about gladiators?"

2) "You ever seen a grown man naked?

3) "Have you ever been to a Turkish prison?"

I know they'll say they're just trying to make it easier for closeted gay teens to come out, to feel that they're not alone. But I hope they understand it does tend to look a lot like recruiting.

Maybe it's just semantics. I guess there's no way to tell a gay kid "it's okay to be gay" without also "recruiting" him into being gay. Same thing, just different words for it.

But... still.

And this particular case is just plain creepy. The teachers' weren't just seeking to allow gay kids more confidence in coming out; they seemed to be agitating for full-on homosexual experimentation, just to see if the kids dug on it.

A lot of our media seems like they really want to be DNC communications officials, and a lot of our teachers seem to want to really be sexual advocates. I wish they would drop the jobs they don't really want and move into the jobs that they really do want.

Thanks to the Boss-Man at Rightalk.

Posted by: Ace at 06:56 PM | Comments (57)
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Check out this bold prediction, delivered straight from God Himself:

The Rev. Pat Robertson says God has told him that storms and possibly a tsunami will hit America's coastline this year.

The founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network has told viewers of "The 700 Club" that the revelations came to him during his annual personal prayer retreat in January.

"If I heard the Lord right about 2006, the coasts of America will be lashed by storms," Robertson said May 8.

He added specifics in Wednesday's show.

"There well may be something as bad as a tsunami in the Pacific Northwest," he said.

Okay. Let's unpack this:

1) Either storms will hit the American coasts in 2006 or there'll be a powerful tsunami that strikes the Pacific Northwest.

Ummm... yeah. Pat, I would say the likelihood of the former approaches 100%. Which makes it a retarded "prediction." It's a sort of a cover-your-ass prophecizin', ain't it?

"Well, God told me that we'd have 100 days of drought so bad that the earth would simply blow away in the wind like the skin from a corpse, and/or we'll have five or six really bad days of 'sticky heat' where you 'can't do a damned thing with your hair.'"

Or, "Keep it on the Q.T., but I was gabbing with God -- no big deal; mostly we were talking about what a letdown this year's 24 has been -- and He says that either we'll have 'rains and lightning' this summer and/or 'Hot Hail,' as seen in the film Flash Gordon."

Way to go out on a limb while covering the field, Pat.

2) What is this "possibly" shit? God doesn't deal in possiblies; God, like Sam Jackson, tells you how it's gonna be. Robertson fudges this by suggesting that maybe he just misheard God ("if I heard God right").

Is God a mumbler? I figure -- this is just me, mind you -- that God has a great big booming voice, not unlike Charlton Heston, without the overacting and scenery-chewing, and when God puts you some f'n' information, it's pretty damn clear.

Note we're not talking about a "feeling of God," which many people report, and which may be vaguely interpreted. Robertson is talking about God speaking to him in specific words and in specific terms about specific future events. I find it implausible that when God seeks to impart prophecy upon one of His agents, he does so in qualified, cover-His-ass possibilities or speaks unclearly like Benecio Del Toro in The Usual Suspects.

"What?"

"I say God'll flip ya."

"What?"

"I said God'll flip ya for real."

So: He's either a charlatan or a lunatic. I don't see any other possibilities.

Posted by: Ace at 06:04 PM | Comments (53)
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6% positive. 94% negative.

Would I be out of line to suggest the film is God-forsaken, abandoned by God?

Time says it feels like it was done more out of duty than out of love of the project. Another reviewer says it feels like a "weary duty," which is a nice slam.

I had no interest in reading this because I read Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, which, at least in broad outline, is the same damn book. Knights Templar, the Jesus bloodline, the Merovignian kings-- all in Pendulum.

They even stole Eco's actual occupation (professor of semiotics) as the profession of the protagonist in this book (though everyone seems to be calling him a "symbologist").

Which doesn't mean it's a bad book. Some people tell me it's a bona fide page-turner of a pot-boiler of a ripping yarn.

But...

As fun as Pendulum was -- it's fun to read little sensationalist bits of history and invented history; it sort of makes you feel smart to read about real (and almost real) things in a beach-read thriller -- I couldn't imagine making a movie out of it, because it was just a lot of jibber-jabber about the Bahumet and the Temple of Solomon and such.

Which seems to be the problem with this movie, too. What's fun to read isn't necessarily fun to watch (and vice versa-- I don't think I'd be up to read the novelization of, say, Beverly Hills Cop).

Anyway, if you want to see a really fun, really smart super-conspiracy-theory-at-the-heart-of-a-great-institution movie, see National Treasure. It's no more goofy than The Da Vinci Code, and it actually treats its conspirators (here, the Founding Fathers) as heroes rather than subverting them into villains.

"Oscar-Winning Pedigree" Alert:

Didn't Tom Hanks also star in The Bonfire of the Vanities which was also based on a best selling novel and which flopped bigtime both critically and at the box office? -- Tilgath Pilsener III

Well, yeah! And also- - The Terminal. And also-- Purgatory.

And Ron Howard... well, he did do Apollo 13, The Paper, Night Shift, and Gung Ho. On the other hand, he did Far and Away, Ransom, and EdTV.

Akiva Goldman, the screenwriter, won his Oscar for A Beautiful Mind... which was a so-so screenplay, memorable only for its gimmicky twist. An okay twist, I'll grant you, but fictitious and not really appropriate for a biopic. Half of the reason the twist seemed so good is because it's the sort of thing you'd expect in a lurid thriller, not in a prestige biopic.

Know what else he's written? Well, okay, he wrote Cinderella Man, which I'm told is good. But here is is rap sheet:

I, Robot (2004) (screenplay)

Practical Magic (199 (screenplay)

Lost in Space (199 (written by)

Batman & Robin (1997) (written by)

A Time to Kill (1996) (screenplay)

Batman Forever (1995) (screenplay)

The Client

How this man gets work after that kind of horrific output is beyond me. Let's say that A Beautiful Mind was okay, and Cinderella Man is as good as people say it is.

Fine. He finally learned how to write a screenplay. But how the hell did he manage twelve years of on-the-job paid training?

He wrote Batman & Robin.

He wrote Lost in Space.

Draw your own conclusions.

The Da Vinci Infringement: Here's a plot-- about an ancient document, written way back in 1983, which has the exact same plot as the Da Vinci Code. An intrepid author recognizes his work has been ripped off, and seeks to expose the truth, but is thwarted at every turn by evil agents working for a large publishing house.

And it may even be true.

Now, even discounting the fact that formula thrillers are, get this, written according to a formula, and that this basic notion has been floating out there among the conspiracy goofballs for decades, The Da Vinci Code does seem to follow an awful lot of the specific plot points of 1983's The Da Vinci Legacy.

Sample:

1. A scholar is killed.

2. He is the fourth of his type to be killed.

3. Before he dies, he leaves a last message,

4. written in his own blood,

5. on his own body.

6. This occurs on page 35.

It occurs on page 35 in both.

Okay, again-- formula. In every thriller, there is an inciting incident of some kind that sets the ball rolling; in a James Bond film, yet another double-o agent has been killed, for example. (These Double-O's don't seem as tough as you might first think.) And so, yes, the gory, mysterious, numinous murder has to occur early in the book.

But... a message in his own blood on his own body? On page 35 in both?

And the similarities continue.

Thanks to Dave in W-S.

Posted by: Ace at 04:29 PM | Comments (88)
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Re: the defeat of a five-term (presumably RINO-ish) incumbent by a conservative newcomer in a statehouse primary:

Wait. Did you say that conservatives were upset with the actions of a 5 term Republican so they voted for a more conservative Republican in the primary rather than sit home or vote for a Democrat?

Damn. Thats brilliant. I wish I had thought of recommending something like that the other day when the whole party firster arguement was raging.

Oh wait. I did. -- Jack Straw

It's almost as if working to get more conservatives in office instead of sitting home throwing a tantrum would be more productive toward achieving conservative goals, or something.

Imagine that. -- Christopher Taylor

The problem is that only one-third (at most) of the Congress are fair to strong conservatives, and so they are opposed by a substantial majority, an alliance of RINO's, moderate Democrats (all three of them), and liberals.

I guess that reducing the number of conservatives in government might actually result in a less-conservative government, counterintuitively enough.

Posted by: Ace at 03:20 PM | Comments (29)
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A while ago a commenter, DeeDaGo, suggested some sort of "book club" thing here.

I didn't know if that was really what the readership -- consisting, basically, of morons -- was into.

But I've been getting used to reading books and short stories on-line -- it's not that hard on my eyes, though your mileage may vary -- and I've been thinking about suggesting a book available on-line to read and comment on, as a group.

I've been reading some of the Sherlock Holmes stories and books lately, but that's not what I'm considering at the moment.

I drop a lot of references to Cthulhu here, and I was thinking that I might force myself to read some of those stories (a couple for the second time), as well as earlier stories by Ambrose Bierce and R.W. Chambers that inspired Lovecraft. I've read Chambers' The Yellow Sign, but I never read the real story about the (fictitious) play The King in Yellow, The Repairer of Reputations. Maybe a group thing would force me through it.

I've searched around, and the Bierce stories that inspired Chambers are availabe on-line (and quite short), as are the Chambers stories that, in turn, inspired Lovecraft. Which, in turn again, inspired a whole lot of writers to start writing "weird horror" in the 20's and 30's (and through the present, of course).

Together the stories would trace the beginnings of non-traditional, science-fiction flavored horror. No vampires or werewolves here; just Damned Things from other planets of a color the human eye cannot see, and insectoid fungus aliens from Pluto inhabiting the mountains of Vermont. They're linked by the idea of the ruined city of Carcosa, which seems to be on another planet; Bierce first mentioned the "famous" city (which wasn't famous at all), Chambers wrote a story about a madness-inducing play about the forlorn and eerie place, and Lovecraft decided it must be home to one of his strange gods.

I think it's kind of interesting that Chambers' story postulated a play that drove viewers mad and caused them to obsess about it. In a way, that's what Bierce's, Chambers's, and Lovecraft's stories did to an entire generation of young writers. The core ideas would create a whole subgenre of horror/fantasy/sci-fi literature, and a large "circle" of devotees cranking out story after story connected to what would become known as "The Cthulhu Mythos" or "Cthulhu Cycle."

Just an idea. Let me know if anyone's interested.

But, pace Gore and Olbermann, you have to pledge to actually read the stupid things. (Not really.)

Bonus Blogosphere Tie-In: Chambers' big idea in The Repairer of Reputations is about a meme disseminated through an evil play, a meme that colonizes the minds of people and drives them mad; this idea is recapitulated in various Lovecraft stories, and the stories written by the other writers in the "circle." So the idea of potent meme itself became a meme.

Posted by: Ace at 02:14 PM | Comments (64)
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This time, he's forming an exploratory committee to guage interest in becoming a national embarrassment in a presidential race.

Republicans across America cheered the news that we might again have Tom Daschle to kick around anymore.

Check out this unrelated story, attached to the above one.

Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a White House hopeful who has sought the political middle on abortion, on Wednesday criticized Republicans for trying to erode access to birth control for women.

AP apparently thinks that being 100% pro-abortion is the "political middle."

I'm sure it's the "political middle" in the AP newsrooms. But how about in the country they're supposed to be covering?

"There's a quiet war going on in America — against the most basic rights of Americans to make their own personal decisions about family planning," Clinton wrote in a mass e-mail from her re-election campaign.

Oh yeah, that's "seeking the political middle ground" if I've ever heard it. I feel like I'm positively choking on all the centrism and moderation.

The New York senator complained that the Bush administration and congressional Republicans are whittling away at contraception options, particularly for poor women who rely on government-funded programs.

In related news, the AP just referred to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as "seeking the political middle on the question of exterminating all Jews."

The Political Middle Ground On Abortion

Keep your agenda off our pudenda!

Posted by: Ace at 12:26 PM | Comments (75)
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Mexico's policy advisor on this plan is, of course, Sol Rosenberg, who will be filing lawsuit after lawsuit with his bloody nub.

Posted by: Ace at 12:17 PM | Comments (17)
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Because God, you see, is all about the headware.

Posted by: Ace at 12:12 PM | Comments (5)
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