January 03, 2010
— DrewM Final week of the season.
Strangely the two biggest games are Baltimore v. Oakland and the Jets and Bengals. If the Ravens and Jets win they are in the playoffs. If one or both lose, I think there's a scenario where Ace of Spades HQ makes the AFC playoffs.
UPDATE [DaveinTexas]: The Raven's Willis McGahee demonstrates the proper use of the stiff arm.
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— Purple Avenger Headline: "Will latest jobs bill really produce jobs?"
Subhead: "More spending is certain, more jobs are not in Democrats' new jobs bills"
...The job creation issue is complicated. Much of the money in the House bill goes to programs that may stimulate the economy but don't appear to directly put people to work...So, if all this Stim v1.0 money is still parked in Washington fiddling while Rome burns, enacting a Stim v2.0, that even the Associated Press (the propaganda wing of the DNC), seems skeptical about, is supposed to be better? This bungling insane clown posse can't manage to get the Stim v1.0 money pushed out into the street, and that monstrosity was passed about 10 months ago, and we're supposed to believe they do any better with Stim v2.0?...Even the investment in "shovel-ready" highway and bridge projects may not immediately translate into a reduction in the nation's 10 percent unemployment rate.
Republicans cited government figures showing that, as of Sept. 30, only 9 percent of $27.5 billion for highways in the first stimulus bill had been spent. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that of the $39 billion in the new House jobs bill directed to the departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development, only $1.7 billion will get spent before next October...
This is just more magical thinking. As the AP article notes elsewhere, a LOT of this Stim v1.0 money isn't doing "new stuff", that would actually like...create some jobs, the states and people getting it have been using it as a cheap book keeping trick to offset declining state tax revenues. I suppose these are the mythical "saved jobs" creatures rumored to lurk in the hinterlands somewhere up above the snowline...kinda like Yeti or Bigfoot. Rumors, just the idle moonshine and Sterno fueled talk of ignorant townsfolk and vagrants.
More spending is certain, more jobs are not
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— Open Blog Jason Reitman (son of iconic comedy director Ivan Reitman) is probably one of the most promising young directors around, having directed the darkly comic Thank You For Smoking as his feature debut, and following that up with the comically dark Juno.
So, while waiting for the lights to go down on his latest, Up In The Air, I had to wonder: Would it be comic? Would it be dark? What would the ratio of comic to dark be?
As it turns out, way more on the dark, not so much on the comic.
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January 02, 2010
— Open Blog Welcome to another edition of Cat
The 30 Most Important Kittehs of 2009
Including teh awesome kitteh.
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06:00 PM
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— Open Blog File this under dog bites man.
He and his 5-year-old grand-daughter escaped to a safe-room and minutes later the police arrived.
The fervent Islamist threatened the police with his axe and was shot twice (non-fatally).
He is pleading innocence, saying he just intended to scare the 74 year old man.
Obviously Westergaard is at fault here. Maybe a nice apology will get Islamic fundamentalists to call off the medieval hit-men. It's worked so well for Obama so far.
UPDATE: I didn't think to include a link to the famous cartoons. Thanks to IreneFingIrene & others for reminding me.
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— Dave in Texas According to a memo from Henry McMaster to the other attorneys general, outlining a phone call he received from Nelson on Thursday evening.
Said Nelson claimed he didn't ask for the Nebraska Medicare provision, and also there's a great way to fix the whole problem.
“Senator Nelson insisted that he had not asked for the Cornhusker Kickback to be placed in the U.S. Senate version of the health care bill to secure his vote. Senator Nelson told the attorney general that it was simply a ‘marker’ placed in the U.S. Senate version of the bill and assured the attorney general that it would be ‘fixed,’ says the memo.
The document goes on to say: “Senator Nelson said it would be ‘fixed’ by extending the Cornhusker Kickback (100% federal payment) on Medicaid to every state.”
"Fixed". He's confusing the "repair damage" definition of "fixed" for a different one I think.
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02:50 PM
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— Ace A piece that's now a week old and a week late.
I don't get this bit:
6. The Dark Knight ( Christopher Nolan, 2008 )Christopher NolanÂ’s global mega hit raked in over $1 billion worldwide, and itÂ’s not hard to see why. Featuring some of the most striking set designs since Blade Runner, NolanÂ’s towering vision of Gotham City looked glorious in IMAX...
I concede there is some set design work in The Dark Knight. But it was the original Batman movies (the Burton ones) that featured the in-your-face (and I think excessive) set design stuff. Gotham was a mostly fake city, a mix of models and matte paintings and the occasional quasi-fascist sculpture.
The Dark Knight's whole schtick -- set-design-wise -- was to take Batman out of the realm of fantasy and set it in an entirely real-world context. Which is why the "Gotham City" is a not-disguised-at-all Chicago, and why so many sets are actually real locations.
Were there sets? Of course. But "the most striking set design since Blade Runner"? The whole point of the sets was to be not all that striking, and to look pretty real, real enough that you can't tell the real locations from the sets.
This Batman didn't even have the Batcave. This Batman didn't even have the Gothic castle called Wayne Manor. This Batman didn't even have Arkham Asylum. This Batman didn't have the "City of the Future" CGI simulation of Gotham City the last one did.
All big locations requiring a lot of set design to create heft and mood. Here? Well, there was a restaurant... there was a bank or two... there was a dingy basement... there was a penthouse apartment (that I'm pretty sure was a genuine space)... there was... Well, I can only really think of Bruce Wayne's not-the-Batcave secondary underground space as an example of notable set design, and that seemed deliberately understated.
Not saying that those aren't sound directorial choices. Just wondering how the heck that's "the most striking set design since Blade Runner."
I don't really know what the hell this guy is talking here. I guess he could mean "so understated it's actually striking!," but who the hell uses the word "striking" to mean understated?
You know what movie had really striking set design? Annie Hall. I mean -- wow! They created the fantasy city "New York" out of nothing but models and dreamstuff! (Annie Hall's cluttered apartment was achieved through a combination of matte painting, layered compositing, and a technique called "greenscreening"... )
Other Mentions: Alexthechick wonders how the conservative fave The Incredibles failed to make the list.
There are three movies I want to mention too, as coming entirely from left right field and clubbing you over the head with a strongly conservative message you never in a thousand years would have expected.
Blast from the Past. Okay, this was actually released in 1999, but close enough. (I'm sure it was on cable in 2000.) A weirdly in-your-face and strident manifesto of a movie basically stating that the values of the 50s are far superior to the "values" that came later.
Representative line:
"And were does he get all this [useful information about manners]?"
-- "From the oddest place. His parents."
Kate & Leopold. Savaged by critics as anti-feminist, basically the same idea as Blast from the Past but now going even more old-school with it, positing the manners and decorum and values of the 1870s are superior to today's mores.
17 Again. I know some people think I'm crazy in recommending this one, but a lot of people who gave it a chance reported back, "Hey, you were right -- I thought it was going to be stupid but it's actually a very funny movie!"
Another weirdly, strongly conservative movie. The "conservative values" part of it comes due to the fact that a near-40 Matthew Perry is magicked back into his 17-year-old former body (played by Zac Efron, who's very good), and attends the same high school as his kids.
But see, he's still an adult in his mind, and furthermore, very protective of his children. This leads him to say hilariously fuddy-duddy things as a 17-year-old -- for example, when a bully tries to pick on him, and asks (as bullies do) "What are you gonna do about it?," he says without embarrassment or shame: "Well, first, I'm going to call your father." Hey, he's 40 -- he doesn't buy into this "no telling" rule kids have; he's not screwing around. Step out of line and he's going to have a discussion with your dad about it. And if you call him a tattle-tale, well, maybe he'll tell on you about that, too.
But the really conservative scene is when he's in class with his daughter, being taught about safe sex (by Margaret Cho, no less) and, to combat the go-have-sex-everyone's-doing-it message the teacher is pushing, he basically gives a three minute speech about the virtues of abstinence and that the real point of having sex is to have a baby, a tiny thing "you never imagined you could love so much."
This conservative personally found his jaw dropping a little bit.
Oh, and the whole conflict is that Matthew Perry hates his life and resents his wife and even his kids. See, as a 17 year old, he was a basketball super-stud with a big college career ahead of him... but he walked away from that when his girlfriend surprised him by announcing she was pregnant. So he married her, took a job, and began supporting his young family, rather than pursuing his (self-oriented) dreams.
So, in the end, will he learn that far from ruining his life, this was the best thing that could have happened to him, and far from making all the wrong choices, he in fact made all the right ones? Well, I don't want to give away any spoilers so I won't say.
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— Ace And Charles Johnson's "I Win" button is of course blocking the account of someone who disagrees with him and might have the better argument.
The background was that Johnson of course deemed a photoshop of Obama shining Palin's shoes a horrific example of right wing racism, and ignored the part of the story that said a registered Democrat was forwarding it around.
Ohhhh boy: "Seriously thinking about consulting my lawyer."
Thanks to... not sure I should say. more...
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— Gabriel Malor There's something missing from the report, but I just can't put my finger on it:
Youths burned 1,137 cars across France overnight as New Year's Eve celebrations once again turned violent, the French Interior Ministry said on Friday.Car burnings are regular occurrences in poor suburbs that ring France's big cities, but the arson is especially prevalent during New Year's Eve revelry.
The number of vehicles torched was only 10 short of the record 1,147 burned this time last year, even though the Interior Ministry mobilized 45,000 police during the night -- 10,000 more than 12 months ago.
It said police detained 549 people overnight, compared with 288 in 2009 New Year celebrations. However, unlike in previous years, there were no direct clashes between police and youths. "The few disturbances that did take place were brought swiftly under control," the ministry said in a statement.
Here's a hint. The French YOUEEs do not look like these guys: more...
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— Purple Avenger A shiny new executive order as of 29DEC09
I'm still working slogging my way through this monstrosity of an EO consisting of twisty/twisting/twisted little mazes trying to digest it and figure out what it all means.
Here's what I've found so far that I'm 100% sure of:
-- There's a 10 year "default" on declassifying classified info unless a longer time frame was specified and justified.
-- Unclassified information may BECOME classified upon submission of a FOIA request for it...thus allowing for a public veneer of openness while reserving the right to clam up if said openness should prove inconvenient when someone actually learns of a document's existence and has the nerve to request it.
Its a very lengthy and tortuously worded EO and people will be analyzing its ramifications for quite a while I suspect. I don't imagine the professional intelligence community is terribly happy about the Byzantine procedures outlined here. Their jobs just got a lot harder.
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