Thursday, May 29, 2003

Today is Bob Hope's 100th Birthday!!! I'm glad to see that he made it this far, same as George Burns a few years ago. I just started reading his memoir called "Don't Shoot! It's Just Me!" but I need to finish reading my Bing Crosby biography first.
Maybe they will play some old Bob Hope movies tonight to celebrate. I can hope, anyway.
Check out the Official Bob Hope web site.

The administration's lies from the Iraq war are finally starting to catch up with them. Now it is just a question as to whether anyone will notice or even care.

The Washington Post reports here that Bush officials are starting to "hedge" on their certainty that Saddam ever had any weapons of mass destruction.

Oh, and remember at the beginning of the war when we bombed that underground bunker in the hopes of killing Saddam? Well, now it turns out that there was no bunker there.

And remember the story of Pfc. Jessica Lynch's heroic rescue after being held as a POW in Iraq? Yeah, that's right, more lies. Read about it here.





Here is report today from the Financial Times in London about the economic disaster that Bush is creating for the country:

"The Bush administration has shelved a report commissioned by the Treasury that shows the US currently faces a future of chronic federal budget deficits totalling at least $44.2 trillion in current US dollars.

The study, the most comprehensive assessment of how the US government is at risk of being overwhelmed by the "baby boom" generation's future healthcare and retirement costs, was commissioned by then-Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill.


But the Bush administration chose to keep the findings out of the annual budget report for fiscal year 2004, published in February, as the White House campaigned for a tax-cut package that critics claim will expand future deficits.

The study asserts that sharp tax increases, massive spending cuts or a painful mix of both are unavoidable if the US is to meet benefit promises to future generations. It estimates that closing the gap would require the equivalent of an immediate and permanent 66 per cent across-the-board income tax increase."





Tuesday, May 27, 2003

Saw X-Men II over the weekend and also saw Matrix Reloaded the week before that. So I guess I'm all caught up on my summer movie watching for awhile, at least until Finding Nemo comes out next week.
I give both movies a thumbs up. The Matrix sequel did not disappoint on the special effects action sequences and I thought the story line was advanced in an interesting direction with a particularly enticing tease at the end of the film that should be resolved in the final chapter.
Don't listen to the movie critics who are panning this film. Most of them probably panned the first film when it came out, but now hold it up as the gold standard and bash the sequel by comparison. I don't think you need to compare the two films any more than you need to compare two chapters of the same book. Which one did you like better? What does it matter? The only thing that matters is whether or not you like the book.

X-Men II on the other hand was not like the next chapter of a book so much as the latest issue of a comic book series and for my money it was a better movie than the first. Perhaps that is because the characters were already established for me and they could dive straight into the narrative of the story without any long detours to flesh out background details. Whatever the reason, I was entertained by the film and look forward to No. 3 which is undoubtedly in the works.