Thursday, May 24, 2007

The Madness of King George

It’s going to get worse

That’s was President Bush’s message today during his press conference.

President Bush warned Americans to expect "heavy fighting" this summer during a critical time in his war strategy.
Answering reporters' questions at a White House news conference, Bush said the developments would occur once U.S. military reinforcements are in place in mid-June.
"We can expect more American and Iraqi casualties," Bush said.


Meanwhile, there are reports that Bush is planning for a second surge later this fall.

So, to summarize, things are going very badly in Iraq. The first surge is not working. Bush is warning that we will see more casualties throughout the summer. And they may be planning a second surge on top of the first one by the end of the year.

Is Bush crazy!?! Up until now I have questioned Bush’s competence and judgment, but not his sanity. But this is truly demented if he is planning to push ahead with his war and send even more troops in the face of the highest level of opposition to the war ever recorded.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Top 100 Actors

Here is the list of my Top 100 Favorite Actors along with a representative movie that underscores why I like them. I'm working on a list of Top 100 Actresses that I will post later. I pulled this together pretty quickly so I may have some additions and deletions later on. You can quibble that it’s not necessarily the best actors by any means (Tim Conway is included but not Laurence Olivier, for example), but they are the ones that I personally like the best to date. In alphabetical order:

Woody Allen (Take the Money and Run)
Fred Astaire (Royal Wedding)
Kevin Bacon (Stir of Echoes)
Alec Baldwin (The Shadow)
Antonio Banderas (Mask of Zorro)
Orlando Bloom (Lord of the Rings)
Humphrey Bogart (Casablanca)
Ernest Borgnine (The Wild Bunch)
Marlon Brando (The Godfather)
Yul Brynner (The King and I)
George Burns (Oh, God)
Nicolas Cage (National Treasure)
James Cagney (Yankee Doodle Dandy)
Jim Carrey (The Mask)
John Cleese (A Fish Called Wanda)
George Clooney (Oh Brother Where Art Thou)
Sean Connery (From Russia With Love)
Tim Conway (Apple Dumpling Gang)
Gary Cooper (High Noon)
Kevin Costner (JFK)
Bing Crosby (Going My Way)
Russell Crowe (The Insider)
Tom Cruise (Born on the Fourth of July)
Billy Crystal (Running Scared)
John Cusack (Grosse Pointe Blank)
Matt Damon (Bourne Identity)
Robert DeNiro (Taxi Driver)
Johnny Depp (Pirates of the Caribbean)
Leonardo DiCaprio (Catch Me If You Can)
Kirk Douglas (Spartacus)
Robert Duvall (The Paper)
Clint Eastwood (Dirty Harry)
Erroll Flynn (The Adventures of Robin Hood)
Henry Fonda (The Oxbow Incident)
Harrison Ford (Raiders of the Lost Ark)
Michael J. Fox (Back to the Future)
Morgan Freeman (Million Dollar Baby)
Clark Gable (Gone With the Wind)
Richard Gere (First Knight)
Mel Gibson (Lethal Weapon)
Cary Grant (Arsenic and Old Lace)
Hugh Grant (Knotting Hill)
Gene Hackman (The French Connection)
Tom Hanks (Apollo 13)
Charlton Heston (The Ten Commandments)
Dustin Hoffman (The Graduate)
Bob Hope (The Princess and the Pirate)
Hugh Jackman (X-Men)
Samuel Jackson (Pulp Fiction)
Tommy Lee Jones (The Fugitive)
Danny Kaye (The Jester)
Gene Kelly (An American In Paris)
Val Kilmer (Willow)
Kevin Kline (January Man)
Don Knotts (The Incredible Mr. Limpet)
Jack Lemmon (Some Like It Hot)
Peter Lorre (Maltese Falcon)
Ewan MacGregor (Star Wars)
Steve Martin (All of Me)
Lee Marvin (Dirty Dozen)
Ian MacKellen (Lord of the Rings)
Steve McQueen (The Great Escape)
Viggo Mortensen (Hidalgo)
Eddie Murphy (Beverly Hills Cop)
Liam Neeson (Rob Roy)
Paul Newman (The Sting)
Jack Nicholson (As Good As It Gets)
Al Pacino (Author, Author)
Gregory Peck (To Kill A Mockingbird)
Sean Penn (Sweet and Lowdown)
Joaquin Phoenix (Walk the Line)
Brad Pitt (Twelve Monkeys)
Richard Pryor (Stir Crazy)
Anthony Quinn (The Guns of Navarone)
Robert Redford (Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid)
Kenau Reeves (The Matrix)
Burt Reynolds (Hooper)
Kurt Russell (Tombstone)
Peter Sellers (The Pink Panther)
William Shatner (Star Trek)
Martin Sheen (Apocalypse Now)
Arnold Schwarzenegger (Total Recall)
Gary Sinise (Forrest Gump)
Will Smith (Men in Black)
Wesley Snipes (Blade)
Kevin Spacey (L.A. Confidential)
James Spader (Stargate)
Sylvester Stallone (Rambo)
Jimmy Stewart (It’s a Wonderful Life)
Donald Sutherland (MASH)
John Travolta (Primary Colors)
Dick Van Dyke (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang)
Eli Wallach (The Good, The Bad and The Ugly)
Denzel Washington (Crimson Tide)
John Wayne (True Grit)
Orson Welles (Citizen Kane)
Gene Wilder (Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)
Robin Williams (Good Morning Vietnam)
Bruce Willis (Die Hard)