It’s hard to believe that Karl Rove is abandoning President Bush during his time of need. Now that Bush is at the lowest point of his presidency in public opinion polls, Rove has decided it’s time to cut-n-run. Rove should stick around and take his lumps with Bush since this disaster of a presidency is largely of his making. This notion that he can slip away and shed responsibility for this mess with the lame excuse that he needs to spend more time with his family is pathetic.
Rove is one of those political figures with whom I have a difficult time imagining any redeemable qualities. He is right up there with Tom DeLay, Ralph Reed and Kenneth Starr among the people in politics who I like the least. There are lots of people in politics who are just as hard-right and just as partisan, but nevertheless have certain traits or characteristics that I can still find admirable. While I might disagree with their politics, I still imagine that I could like them on a personal level. Rove has never struck me that way. Perhaps that is unfair, but this latest move strikes me as the height of the “I’m out for me, the heck with everybody else” mentality that is the core of today’s Republican political philosophy.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Don't blame it ALL on Bush
George W. Bush may very well be the worst president in U.S. history. But Democrats are making a mistake if they try to pin all the blame for everything that is wrong with his administration on him personally. We should not focus so intently on Bush. Sure, he's exceedingly stubborn and unwilling to change even in the face of overwhelming public disapproval, but just replacing Bush with some other Republican is not going to make things better. In fact, it could make things much worse.
The real culprit that we are up against is the Republican governing philosophy. It has been especially awful under George W. because he had a Republican-controlled Congress for most of his presidency and was thus unfettered in his pursuit of Republican goals. Fortunatley, Bush's incompetence prevented him from fully achieving all of the Republican's goals, but we might not be so lucky if another Republican president is elected. Imagine how bad Ronald Reagan might have been had he not been somewhat constrained by a Democratic Congress.
Look back at the string of awful presidents we had during the early part of the 20th Century: Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover. Do you think that it was coincidence that we just happened to get three really bad presidents in a row? Not if you realize that it wasn't Harding, Coolidge and Hoover as individuals that were so bad, it was the Republican philosophy of making government serve the interests of big business and not regular people that made them so bad.
If we allow people to think that it was all Bush's fault individually they might conclude that there is no problem electing another Republican like Guiliani or Romney or Thompson, as long as it's not George Bush. But Bush was only a part of the problem, and a small one at that. Remember that Bush did fine as Texas governor mostly because he was following a conservative Democratic governing philosophy under the tutelage of Bob Bullock and Pete Laney. It was only after he jettisoned that philosophy in favor of a non-compromising partisan Republican one that started to spiral downward.
The real culprit that we are up against is the Republican governing philosophy. It has been especially awful under George W. because he had a Republican-controlled Congress for most of his presidency and was thus unfettered in his pursuit of Republican goals. Fortunatley, Bush's incompetence prevented him from fully achieving all of the Republican's goals, but we might not be so lucky if another Republican president is elected. Imagine how bad Ronald Reagan might have been had he not been somewhat constrained by a Democratic Congress.
Look back at the string of awful presidents we had during the early part of the 20th Century: Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover. Do you think that it was coincidence that we just happened to get three really bad presidents in a row? Not if you realize that it wasn't Harding, Coolidge and Hoover as individuals that were so bad, it was the Republican philosophy of making government serve the interests of big business and not regular people that made them so bad.
If we allow people to think that it was all Bush's fault individually they might conclude that there is no problem electing another Republican like Guiliani or Romney or Thompson, as long as it's not George Bush. But Bush was only a part of the problem, and a small one at that. Remember that Bush did fine as Texas governor mostly because he was following a conservative Democratic governing philosophy under the tutelage of Bob Bullock and Pete Laney. It was only after he jettisoned that philosophy in favor of a non-compromising partisan Republican one that started to spiral downward.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Bridging the gap
When the bridge in Minnesota collapsed last week it focused the nation’s attention on our strained roadways and our penchant for putting off and delaying necessary maintenance on our infrastructure.
Now, U.S. Rep. Oberstar is proposing a 5-cent gas tax increase to fund bridge inspections and repairs. The bill would hike the federal gas tax to 23.4 cents a gallon from 18.4 cents and raise an estimated $25 billion over three years.
I’m glad to see someone taking responsibility and proposing a solution. We can’t continue to let our nation’s infrastructure deteriorate and someone has to pay for it one way or another.
Quite frankly, with the way that gas prices are jumping around these days, I doubt that anyone would even notice a 5 cent increase in the gas tax.
Nevertheless, President Bush has come out against the increase apparently because he thinks all tax increase are bad no matter what. I guess he would prefer to spend the money in Iraq reparing bridges that the insurgents blew up so that they can blow them up all over again.
Fortunately, we only have to put up with Bush’s fiscal irresponsibility and failed presidency for 18 more months. I just hope no more bridges collapse before then.
Now, U.S. Rep. Oberstar is proposing a 5-cent gas tax increase to fund bridge inspections and repairs. The bill would hike the federal gas tax to 23.4 cents a gallon from 18.4 cents and raise an estimated $25 billion over three years.
I’m glad to see someone taking responsibility and proposing a solution. We can’t continue to let our nation’s infrastructure deteriorate and someone has to pay for it one way or another.
Quite frankly, with the way that gas prices are jumping around these days, I doubt that anyone would even notice a 5 cent increase in the gas tax.
Nevertheless, President Bush has come out against the increase apparently because he thinks all tax increase are bad no matter what. I guess he would prefer to spend the money in Iraq reparing bridges that the insurgents blew up so that they can blow them up all over again.
Fortunately, we only have to put up with Bush’s fiscal irresponsibility and failed presidency for 18 more months. I just hope no more bridges collapse before then.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Hall of Fame conundrum
In light of Barry Bonds’ breaking the home run record, it will be interesting to see how the baseball Hall of Fame responds to the steroid scandal that has plaugued professional sports for the past decade and a half.
When Hank Aaron broke the Babe’s record in 1974, it was pretty much a given that anyone with 500 or more home runs would be in the Hall of Fame. You had players like Willie Mays, Frank Robinson, Harmon Killebrew, Mickey Mantle, Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams, Ernie Banks, Eddie Matthews and Mel Ott. They were soon joined by Reggie Jackson, Mike Schmidt, Willie McCovey and Eddie Murray.
The Hall also opened its doors to players who were just shy of the 500 mark such as Lou Gehrig, Stan Musial, Willie Stargell, Dave Winfield and Carl Yastrezemski. In fact, you had to go all the way down the list to poor old Dave Kingman at 442 to find someone who apparently did not pass muster with the high priests of the Hall of Fame.
Since then, however, there have been a whole slew of ballplayers who have raced past Kingman into the elite realm of baseball power hitting. Along with Bonds, the list now includes Sammy Sosa, Ken Griffey Jr., Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Frank Thomas, Alex Rodriguez, Fred McGriff, Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez, Gary Sheffield, Jose Canseco and Jeff Bagwell. Will any or all of these players be locks for the Hall of Fame? Or have they all been too tainted by the steroids scandal? We already saw Mark McGwire get passed over last time during his first year of eligibility. What about Slammin’ Sammy and Griffey Jr.?
Some of the players such as Palmeiro and Canseco have openly admitted to past steroid use. Would it be fair to keep them out of the Hall because they were honest, while possibly enshrining others who may have lied or covered up past use? And what if a player just worked out at the gym a lot and never used steroids, but now people are suspicious and won’t vote for him? What a mess.
We may just have to look back at the 1990s as the Juiced-ball era and just accept that it was a period when steroids were rampant and may have impacted players’ performances, similar to the way we view the Dead-ball era during the early 1900s.
When Hank Aaron broke the Babe’s record in 1974, it was pretty much a given that anyone with 500 or more home runs would be in the Hall of Fame. You had players like Willie Mays, Frank Robinson, Harmon Killebrew, Mickey Mantle, Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams, Ernie Banks, Eddie Matthews and Mel Ott. They were soon joined by Reggie Jackson, Mike Schmidt, Willie McCovey and Eddie Murray.
The Hall also opened its doors to players who were just shy of the 500 mark such as Lou Gehrig, Stan Musial, Willie Stargell, Dave Winfield and Carl Yastrezemski. In fact, you had to go all the way down the list to poor old Dave Kingman at 442 to find someone who apparently did not pass muster with the high priests of the Hall of Fame.
Since then, however, there have been a whole slew of ballplayers who have raced past Kingman into the elite realm of baseball power hitting. Along with Bonds, the list now includes Sammy Sosa, Ken Griffey Jr., Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Frank Thomas, Alex Rodriguez, Fred McGriff, Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez, Gary Sheffield, Jose Canseco and Jeff Bagwell. Will any or all of these players be locks for the Hall of Fame? Or have they all been too tainted by the steroids scandal? We already saw Mark McGwire get passed over last time during his first year of eligibility. What about Slammin’ Sammy and Griffey Jr.?
Some of the players such as Palmeiro and Canseco have openly admitted to past steroid use. Would it be fair to keep them out of the Hall because they were honest, while possibly enshrining others who may have lied or covered up past use? And what if a player just worked out at the gym a lot and never used steroids, but now people are suspicious and won’t vote for him? What a mess.
We may just have to look back at the 1990s as the Juiced-ball era and just accept that it was a period when steroids were rampant and may have impacted players’ performances, similar to the way we view the Dead-ball era during the early 1900s.
New Home Run King
Barry Bonds broke the home run record last night, hitting his 756th career blast off of the hapless Washington Nationals during a home game in San Francisco.
It’s kind of sad and ironic that Bonds will likely never be inducted into the Hall of Fame despite holding the career home run record. But the taint of the steroid scandal is too strong for most people to ignore. Despite Bond’s denials and/or protestations of ignorance, people will always believe that he benefitted from an illegal drug that enhanced his strength and stamina beyond normal means. One could argue that steroids alone are not enough to make a great ballplayer and that it still took a boatload of talent for Bonds to get to where he is today. Just look at all the other players who we know or suspect took steroids and fell far short of breaking the home run record. But you can’t get past the fact that without steroids, some of those home runs that piled up over the years would have fallen short of the fence and been recorded as flyball outs instead.
Unlike, for example, Pete Rose who broke Ty Cobb’s career hits record fair and square. The scandal that felled Rose - gambling - had no impact whatsoever on his performance on the field and thus, in my opinion, should not have resulted in permanent banishment from the Hall of Fame.
Here is how the baseball home run list shapes up now. I guess I haven’t been paying attention lately because I was surprised by the number of current players who are now in the top echelon. Active players are in bold with their ages in paretheses, but only A-Rod is considered to be a future threat to the home run record at this point.
1. Barry Bonds (42) 756
2 Hank Aaron 755
3. Babe Ruth 714
4. Willie Mays 660
5. Sammy Sosa (38) 604
6. Ken Griffey Jr. (37) 589
7. Frank Robinson 586
8. Mark McGwire 583
9. Harmon Killebrew 573
10. Rafael Palmeiro 569
11. Reggie Jackson 563
12. Mike Schmidt 548
13. Mickey Mantle 536
14. Jimmie Foxx 534
15. Willie McCovey 521
16. Ted Williams 521
17. Ernie Banks 512
18. Eddie Mathews 512
19. Mel Ott 511
20. Frank Thomas (39) 505
21. Eddie Murray 504
22. Alex Rodriguez (31) 500
23. Lou Gehrig 493
24. Fred McGriff 493
25. Jim Thome (36) 490
26. Manny Ramirez (35) 489
27. Gary Sheffield (38) 478
It’s kind of sad and ironic that Bonds will likely never be inducted into the Hall of Fame despite holding the career home run record. But the taint of the steroid scandal is too strong for most people to ignore. Despite Bond’s denials and/or protestations of ignorance, people will always believe that he benefitted from an illegal drug that enhanced his strength and stamina beyond normal means. One could argue that steroids alone are not enough to make a great ballplayer and that it still took a boatload of talent for Bonds to get to where he is today. Just look at all the other players who we know or suspect took steroids and fell far short of breaking the home run record. But you can’t get past the fact that without steroids, some of those home runs that piled up over the years would have fallen short of the fence and been recorded as flyball outs instead.
Unlike, for example, Pete Rose who broke Ty Cobb’s career hits record fair and square. The scandal that felled Rose - gambling - had no impact whatsoever on his performance on the field and thus, in my opinion, should not have resulted in permanent banishment from the Hall of Fame.
Here is how the baseball home run list shapes up now. I guess I haven’t been paying attention lately because I was surprised by the number of current players who are now in the top echelon. Active players are in bold with their ages in paretheses, but only A-Rod is considered to be a future threat to the home run record at this point.
1. Barry Bonds (42) 756
2 Hank Aaron 755
3. Babe Ruth 714
4. Willie Mays 660
5. Sammy Sosa (38) 604
6. Ken Griffey Jr. (37) 589
7. Frank Robinson 586
8. Mark McGwire 583
9. Harmon Killebrew 573
10. Rafael Palmeiro 569
11. Reggie Jackson 563
12. Mike Schmidt 548
13. Mickey Mantle 536
14. Jimmie Foxx 534
15. Willie McCovey 521
16. Ted Williams 521
17. Ernie Banks 512
18. Eddie Mathews 512
19. Mel Ott 511
20. Frank Thomas (39) 505
21. Eddie Murray 504
22. Alex Rodriguez (31) 500
23. Lou Gehrig 493
24. Fred McGriff 493
25. Jim Thome (36) 490
26. Manny Ramirez (35) 489
27. Gary Sheffield (38) 478
Monday, August 06, 2007
Realists vs. Fantasists
Fantast — n. an impractical dreamer. (Webster’s New World Dictionary)
Michael Ignatieff, a former Harvard professor and now a member of the Canadian parliament, pens a mea culpa about his support for the Iraq War in this week’s New York Times Magazine.
It is an intersting and reflective piece that makes a point I’ve been stressing for some time — that the war supporters have grasped onto an impractical and unrealistic fantasy with regards to their expectations for Iraq.
The people who truly showed good judgment on Iraq predicted the consequences that actually ensued but also rightly evaluated the motives that led to the action. They did not necessarily possess more knowledge than the rest of us. They labored, as everyone did, with the same faulty intelligence and lack of knowledge of Iraq’s fissured sectarian history. What they didn’t do was take wishes for reality. They didn’t suppose, as President Bush did, that because they believed in the integrity of their own motives everyone else in the region would believe in it, too. They didn’t suppose that a free state could arise on the foundations of 35 years of police terror. They didn’t suppose that America had the power to shape political outcomes in a faraway country of which most Americans knew little.
It would be nice to live in a fantasy world where the United States could galavant around the world righting wrongs, overthrowing dictators, establishing democracies and other superhero pursuits. But that is not the reality and people who ignore reality inevitably run into trouble.
That doesn’t mean we can’t do things to oppose dictators or support the creation of democracies, but we have to do it from a foundation based in reality. Right now the President of the United States and his enablers (the 30 percent or so of the population that still supports him) are living in a fantasy world. They continue to believe - four and half years later - that we are “winning” in Iraq and that we are “making progress.” They warn of dire consequences if we pull out, just as they boasted of glorious triumphs during the earliest stages of the conflict. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now.
GOP Presidential candidate Ron Paul said it well during the latest Republican Debate in Iowa as Josh Marshall notes:
It's sort of obvious now that he said it. But I had not quite thought of it that way. The same people now continually raising the stakes on the price of redeployment from Iraq with increasingly lurid tales of genocide, ethnic cleansing and regional implosion are pretty much exactly the same people who gamed us into this mess in the first place with another bunch of fairy tales.
Michael Ignatieff, a former Harvard professor and now a member of the Canadian parliament, pens a mea culpa about his support for the Iraq War in this week’s New York Times Magazine.
It is an intersting and reflective piece that makes a point I’ve been stressing for some time — that the war supporters have grasped onto an impractical and unrealistic fantasy with regards to their expectations for Iraq.
The people who truly showed good judgment on Iraq predicted the consequences that actually ensued but also rightly evaluated the motives that led to the action. They did not necessarily possess more knowledge than the rest of us. They labored, as everyone did, with the same faulty intelligence and lack of knowledge of Iraq’s fissured sectarian history. What they didn’t do was take wishes for reality. They didn’t suppose, as President Bush did, that because they believed in the integrity of their own motives everyone else in the region would believe in it, too. They didn’t suppose that a free state could arise on the foundations of 35 years of police terror. They didn’t suppose that America had the power to shape political outcomes in a faraway country of which most Americans knew little.
It would be nice to live in a fantasy world where the United States could galavant around the world righting wrongs, overthrowing dictators, establishing democracies and other superhero pursuits. But that is not the reality and people who ignore reality inevitably run into trouble.
That doesn’t mean we can’t do things to oppose dictators or support the creation of democracies, but we have to do it from a foundation based in reality. Right now the President of the United States and his enablers (the 30 percent or so of the population that still supports him) are living in a fantasy world. They continue to believe - four and half years later - that we are “winning” in Iraq and that we are “making progress.” They warn of dire consequences if we pull out, just as they boasted of glorious triumphs during the earliest stages of the conflict. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now.
GOP Presidential candidate Ron Paul said it well during the latest Republican Debate in Iowa as Josh Marshall notes:
It's sort of obvious now that he said it. But I had not quite thought of it that way. The same people now continually raising the stakes on the price of redeployment from Iraq with increasingly lurid tales of genocide, ethnic cleansing and regional implosion are pretty much exactly the same people who gamed us into this mess in the first place with another bunch of fairy tales.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Brothels, bad movies and textbook censors
A lot of famous people have died in the last few days starting with Marvin Zindler, the Houston-based TV news personality whose claim to fame was exposing the infamous Chicken Ranch brothel in La Grange many years ago. The movie “Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” was based on the Chicken Ranch story and one of the characters in the film is based on Zindler. I became familiar with Zindler from watching him on TV whenever I was in Houston visiting my in-laws. In his later years, he was mostly known for his hyped up restaurant health inspection reports during which he delighted in knocking establishments for “Slime in the Ice macine.” The news reports said he did his last newscast from his hospital bed the day before he died at age 85.
On the same day, it was reported that the reknowned director Ingmar Bergman died. That brought back memories of my college film class when I was forced to watch his movie “Cries and Whispers.” It was horrible. Just awful. Yuck! It was the one film in the class that I truly disliked. I’ve never seen any of his other films, so I hesitate to dismiss all of his works, but I clearly did not understand what the film critics saw in that particular movie.
Finally, today I noticed the NYTimes had an obituary for Norma Gabler, who with her husband led the successful crusade to influence and intimidate school textbook publishers into reflecting their conservative viewpoints.
What struck me from reading the obit is that I would have agreed with the Gablers on many points. The thing that first set them off was a textbook that omitted the words “Under God” from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. I agree that was an outrageous abuse of “political correctness.” Likewise, when they discovered other inaccuracies in textbooks or noted imbalances - such as the famous case where a history textbook spent more time on Marilyn Monroe than on George Washington - I could see their point. So in one respect, they did a good thing by forcing the textbook publishers to be more accurate and aware of the educational needs of their audience.
Unfortunately, the Gablers took it too far. They weren’t satisfied with just correcting inaccuracies in the textbooks. They also insisted on forcing conservative ideology into the books and censoring things that they did not like such as coverage of Vietnam or Watergate or Evolution. But the success they had in these areas also forced liberal groups to get active in textbook editing to counter their more extreme efforts, so perhaps in that respect their overall legacy was a positive one.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Tearing down the wall
One thing I am fairly confident in predicting as a result of Rupert Murdoch’s takeover of the Wall Street Journal, is that the storied paper’s unhinged, wingnutty editorial/opinion section will be unaffected. I can’t see how Rupert Murdoch could make the WSJ opinion section any worse. The big tragedy is what the takeover will do to the vaunted and highly respected news section of the paper. Murdoch is sure to tear down the wall that seperates the wingnutty opinion section from the rest of the paper, thus infecting the news department with his brand of right-wing ideologically driven “reporting” as evidenced by Murdoch’s other ventures including the slimy New York Post and the godawful Fox News Channel. He will then declare the end result to be “Fair and Balanced.”
When that happens, it will be a sad day in journalism.
When that happens, it will be a sad day in journalism.
Unplugged, Part II
OK, so I wasn’t really back so much. Just as I was getting caught up on work from my last vacation, I ended up taking another short vacation when my brother-in-law came to town with his family. We’ve had a lot of fun the last few days going to Natural Bridge Caverns, the River Walk and the San Antonio Zoo. Then we took turns babysitting each other’s kids so that the couples could go out and do things like eat at nice restaurants and watch movies in real theaters.
My other brother-in-law was in town too for Army training and was able to drop by one evening for dinner. So we’ve had a good time, but now it is finally time to get back to business. And this time I mean it! Really.
My other brother-in-law was in town too for Army training and was able to drop by one evening for dinner. So we’ve had a good time, but now it is finally time to get back to business. And this time I mean it! Really.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Unplugged
OK, I'm back.
I've been on vacation for the past week with no access to a computer since last Wednesday.
We went to Dallas and had a great time going to the Dallas Zoo, the Dallas World Aquarium, Fair Park, West End Market and lots more. We apparently missed out on a lot of rain while we were up there too. We were fortunate to not have any of our trip interrupted by rain, while back home it looks like we got more than four inches.
I've got a lot of catching up to do at work so I won't have much time for posting for a bit. I'm also way behind on national news as I paid little attention to worldly matters during that time. The only bit of news that seeped into my offline vacation realm was the fact that Tammy Faye Bakker died. That's too bad. I think she proved to be more sincere in her faith than her ex-husband did.
More later.
I've been on vacation for the past week with no access to a computer since last Wednesday.
We went to Dallas and had a great time going to the Dallas Zoo, the Dallas World Aquarium, Fair Park, West End Market and lots more. We apparently missed out on a lot of rain while we were up there too. We were fortunate to not have any of our trip interrupted by rain, while back home it looks like we got more than four inches.
I've got a lot of catching up to do at work so I won't have much time for posting for a bit. I'm also way behind on national news as I paid little attention to worldly matters during that time. The only bit of news that seeped into my offline vacation realm was the fact that Tammy Faye Bakker died. That's too bad. I think she proved to be more sincere in her faith than her ex-husband did.
More later.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Rats!
I took my son to see his second movie in a theater over the weekend. We went to the new Palladium at The Rim, which I’ve been eager to check out, and saw “Ratatouille,” the latest Pixar masterpiece.
It was a great movie, but just a little too involved at some points for a 3-year-old. A couple of times during the movie, Nathan said he wanted to turn it off and watch something else. That’s something he can do when we are at home watching stuff on the DVD or the DVR, but not at the cinema. He also didn’t understand why we had to be at the theater at a specific time or why we had to wait 10 minutes for the show to start once we got there.
My wife stayed at home with our daughter, Isabel. At 20 months, she is not going to sleep through a movie like she did last year when we went to see “Cars.” But she is not old enough to sit through a movie yet either. In fact, she has shown no interest in TV at all so far, which is fine with us. I think by this age Nathan was already into watching Barney.
I’m sure Nathan will love Ratatouille once we buy it on DVD and he gets to view it multiple times at home. Meanwhile, I’m sure it is without doubt the best movie I will see in the theater this year.
It was a great movie, but just a little too involved at some points for a 3-year-old. A couple of times during the movie, Nathan said he wanted to turn it off and watch something else. That’s something he can do when we are at home watching stuff on the DVD or the DVR, but not at the cinema. He also didn’t understand why we had to be at the theater at a specific time or why we had to wait 10 minutes for the show to start once we got there.
My wife stayed at home with our daughter, Isabel. At 20 months, she is not going to sleep through a movie like she did last year when we went to see “Cars.” But she is not old enough to sit through a movie yet either. In fact, she has shown no interest in TV at all so far, which is fine with us. I think by this age Nathan was already into watching Barney.
I’m sure Nathan will love Ratatouille once we buy it on DVD and he gets to view it multiple times at home. Meanwhile, I’m sure it is without doubt the best movie I will see in the theater this year.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Birthday movies
My wife bought me a whole slew of movies for my birthday so I am stocked up on films that I need to see. Our movie watching habits have changed dramatically since the kids were born. We very rarely go to movies at the theater any more. We almost never rent movies anymore either because we can never be sure when we will have time to sit down and watch a movie. We will occassionally watch a movie on pay-per-view on the spur of the moment, but most of the time I like to buy the used DVDs from Hollywood Video or Blockbuster for my collection and those are the ones we typically see.
For my birthday I got:
Casino Royale (James Bond)
The Da Vinci Code
Flags of Our Fathers
Letters From Iwo Jima
Mission Impossible III
The Good Shepherd
Everyone’s Hero
Tom and Jerry: Shiver Me Whiskers (Mostly for my kids)
I also got some birthday money and went out and bought:
Happy Feet
X-Men III: The Last Stand
Blood Diamond
This will catch me up somewhat on my 2006 movie watching. Here is the list of 2006 films that I now have seen or own (a * means I’ve actually watched the movie):
*Pirates of the Caribbean II: Dead Man’s Chest
*Night at the Museum
*Cars
X-Men III
*The Da Vinci Code
Happy Feet
Casino Royale
MI III
*Devil Wears Prada
*World Trade Center
The Good Shepherd
Curious George
Blood Diamond
The Wild
Flags of Our Fathers
Letters From Iwo Jima
United 93
*An Inconvenient Truth
Everyone’s Hero
I haven’t seen anything that has come out in 2007 yet but eventually I expect to see:
Ratatouille
Spider Man III
Pirates of the Caribbean III
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
and probably Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Oh, and also Live Free or Die Hard.
For my birthday I got:
Casino Royale (James Bond)
The Da Vinci Code
Flags of Our Fathers
Letters From Iwo Jima
Mission Impossible III
The Good Shepherd
Everyone’s Hero
Tom and Jerry: Shiver Me Whiskers (Mostly for my kids)
I also got some birthday money and went out and bought:
Happy Feet
X-Men III: The Last Stand
Blood Diamond
This will catch me up somewhat on my 2006 movie watching. Here is the list of 2006 films that I now have seen or own (a * means I’ve actually watched the movie):
*Pirates of the Caribbean II: Dead Man’s Chest
*Night at the Museum
*Cars
X-Men III
*The Da Vinci Code
Happy Feet
Casino Royale
MI III
*Devil Wears Prada
*World Trade Center
The Good Shepherd
Curious George
Blood Diamond
The Wild
Flags of Our Fathers
Letters From Iwo Jima
United 93
*An Inconvenient Truth
Everyone’s Hero
I haven’t seen anything that has come out in 2007 yet but eventually I expect to see:
Ratatouille
Spider Man III
Pirates of the Caribbean III
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
and probably Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Oh, and also Live Free or Die Hard.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Political obstructionism
I’ve always known that Republicans, at least the modern day authoritarian/fundamentalists running the show now, have been far more lock-step partisan than Democrats could ever muster. But this post by Anonymous Liberal really lays it out well and is worth a long excerpt. Hat tip to Ann!
I think it is key right now for people to realize that Republicans are using obstructionism as a political tool and not a legislative tool. They are not obstructing bills because they think they are bad or harmful. They are obstructing bills because they want to make Democrats look bad by making it so that they can’t accomplish anything. And then President Bush can go out, like he did the other day, and lambaste the Democrats in Congress for not getting things done.
It is incredibly cynical what Republicans are doing today and the only reason they can get away with it is because most people don’t care enough to pay attention and because the media is more interested in celebrity gossip and scandal than they are about matters of state.
I’m afraid the only way to fight this kind of partisanship is to be equally partisan in the voting booth. Sometimes I want to support certain Republicans, and in the past I have, because I think they are good, well-meaning politicians whose positions are not so radically different from my own. But when these same Republicans form a block in the House or Senate that prevents anything from being done for purely partisan reasons, they have gone too far and the only recourse is to throw them out and put in a filibuster-proof Democratic majority.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure that is possible considering the state of our democracy today.
A better option, of course, would be for a core of moderate, mainstream conservatives to break away from the radical group leading our nation over the cliff and help the rest of us to steer the country back onto course.
Since at least the beginning of the Clinton administration, the defining feature of our political system has been an intense Republican partisanship.
No Republicans were willing to sign on to Clinton's major policy initiatives. His tax bill passed only when Al Gore cast the deciding vote; every Republican opposed it. And his health care bill was defeated when Democrats joined every Republican in opposing it.
When the Republicans took over in 1994, they began changing rules and procedures in an effort to shut Democrats out of the legislating process. They initiated the K-Street Project, which was an effort to systematically purge all Democratic lobbyists from Washington. They implemented a majority-of-the-majority policy so as to ensure that only bills that a majority of Republicans supported would even be considered. They shut down the government in a budgetary squabble. They investigated everything and subpoenaed everyone imaginable, including the Socks the Cat. And they made a mockery of our constitutional system and paralyzed our country for over a year by insisting on impeaching and trying a popular Democratic president over matters related to a sexual indiscretion.
When President Bush took over, the Republican-controlled Congress grew even more aggressively partisan. Under Karl Rove's direction, Republicans in Congress actually pursued a policy of attempting to minimize bipartisan support for legislation (and thereby keep Democrats from taking any credit). They would tinker with bills that had bipartisan support by adding provocative amendments and provisions until no self-respecting Democrat could support the final product. In the Senate, Republicans went as far as attempting to eliminate the filibuster.
They solidified their majority in the Fall of 2002 by shamelessly politicizing the issue of terrorism just a year after the 9/11 attacks. The goal was to turn terrorism into a Republican (as opposed to bipartisan) issue. And, of course, unlike the previous six years, in the first six years of President Bush's term, the Republican-controlled Congress conducted no oversight at all and issued no subpoenas.
And now that the Republicans are a minority again, they have resorted to partisan obstructionism of an unprecedented scale. Republicans in the Senate are now using procedural tactics to block just about everything, including bills that have already been passed by overwhelming margins:
Remember the Congressional Ethics Reform package, for instance? It passed both houses of Congress by substantial majorities: 96-2 in the Senate, and 396-22 in the House. And yet, strange to say, the Republicans are refusing to let it go to conference, where both houses agree on a uniform final version of the bill to enact.
And the filibuster has gone from being a tool of last resort to a daily occurrence:
Normally, filibusters are used only when one side feels that some bill is exceptionally important. They have always been for special circumstances, not for everyday use. But the Senate Republicans have, essentially, decided that they are going to require not a majority vote, but 60 votes, for everything more important than naming post offices. And that is unprecedented.
Unprecedented but, sadly, not unexpected.
If you're still not convinced, consider all the major pieces of legislation that have been enacted in the last two decades. What do they all have in common? Virtually all of them were Republican initiatives that important Democrats agreed to support: welfare reform, the Bush tax cuts, No Child Left Behind, the Medicare prescription drug bill, the Iraq War authorization, the Military Commissions Act, etc. The only real exception was the Clinton tax bill, but that's the exception that proves the rule; that bill passed without a single Republican vote (at least in the Senate).
In other words, for a long time now, bipartisanship has been a one-way street. It only happens when Democrats are willing to go along with an idea that most Republicans support. It almost never happens in reverse. In the Senate right now, Republicans are even blocking the bills that many Republicans themselves support. The goal is to make Congress look as ineffectual as possible. And to accomplish that goal, Republican leaders are blocking everything, for no other reason than to stop anything constructive from occurring.
I think it is key right now for people to realize that Republicans are using obstructionism as a political tool and not a legislative tool. They are not obstructing bills because they think they are bad or harmful. They are obstructing bills because they want to make Democrats look bad by making it so that they can’t accomplish anything. And then President Bush can go out, like he did the other day, and lambaste the Democrats in Congress for not getting things done.
It is incredibly cynical what Republicans are doing today and the only reason they can get away with it is because most people don’t care enough to pay attention and because the media is more interested in celebrity gossip and scandal than they are about matters of state.
I’m afraid the only way to fight this kind of partisanship is to be equally partisan in the voting booth. Sometimes I want to support certain Republicans, and in the past I have, because I think they are good, well-meaning politicians whose positions are not so radically different from my own. But when these same Republicans form a block in the House or Senate that prevents anything from being done for purely partisan reasons, they have gone too far and the only recourse is to throw them out and put in a filibuster-proof Democratic majority.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure that is possible considering the state of our democracy today.
A better option, of course, would be for a core of moderate, mainstream conservatives to break away from the radical group leading our nation over the cliff and help the rest of us to steer the country back onto course.
$250,000 per minute
Wow! Now that’s putting it into perspective. We spend more money than I make in five years every single minute that we are in Iraq.
As we debate what to do in Iraq, here are two facts to bear in mind:
First, a poll this spring of Iraqis — who know their country much better than we do — shows that only 21 percent think that the U.S. troop presence improves security in Iraq, while 69 percent think it is making security worse.
Second, the average cost of posting a single U.S. soldier in Iraq has risen to $390,000 per year, according to a new study by the Congressional Research Service. This fiscal year alone, Iraq will cost us $135 billion, which amounts to a bit more than a quarter-million dollars per minute.
We simply can’t want to be in Iraq more than the Iraqis want us to be there. That poll of Iraqis, conducted by the BBC and other news organizations, found that only 22 percent of Iraqis support the presence of coalition troops in Iraq, down from 32 percent in 2005.
If Iraqis were pleading with us to stay and quell the violence, maybe we would have a moral responsibility to stay. But when Iraqis are begging us to leave, and saying that we are making things worse, then it’s remarkably presumptuous to overrule their wishes and stay indefinitely because, as President Bush termed it in his speech on Tuesday, “it is necessary work.”
We can’t afford universal health care at home — but we can afford more than $10 billion a month so that American troops can be maimed in a country where they aren’t wanted?
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Losing its grip
Jonathan Gurwitz has an interesting column in today’s paper basically warning the GOP that it may be losing its grip on Texas.
I agree with much of what Gurwitz says, even if I don’t agree with his tone. I think it is a good sign that Texas may be veering back to being a two-party state rather than a one-party monolith as it has been for the past decade. I think the signs that Gurwitz sees are pretty clear and I don’t think there is much that mainstream Repubicans like Gurwitz can do to change it as long as the GOP is being led by the authoritarian/fundamentalist wing of the party.
He makes the key point that the growing Latino vote in Texas will knock the GOP back into minority status if they can’t win more than 40 percent of that demographic. But I disagree very strongly with his characterization of Latino voters:
So I guess that makes Democratic voters anti-family and anti-faith. Sheesh!
Or better yet, if Latinos are supposed to be pro-family why would they ever vote for Republicans? The Party of Rudy Guiliani who is currently on his third marriage and estranged from his kids? Or the Party of Fred Thompson who dumped his wife of 30 years to find a trophy wife 25-years his junior?
With the combination of the Republican Party’s anti-immigrant zeal, its continuing pursuit of the disasterous Iraq war and the overall unpopularity of President Bush in general, Republicans will be hard-pressed to win anywhere close to 40 percent of the Latino vote in 2008.
I agree with much of what Gurwitz says, even if I don’t agree with his tone. I think it is a good sign that Texas may be veering back to being a two-party state rather than a one-party monolith as it has been for the past decade. I think the signs that Gurwitz sees are pretty clear and I don’t think there is much that mainstream Repubicans like Gurwitz can do to change it as long as the GOP is being led by the authoritarian/fundamentalist wing of the party.
He makes the key point that the growing Latino vote in Texas will knock the GOP back into minority status if they can’t win more than 40 percent of that demographic. But I disagree very strongly with his characterization of Latino voters:
Latinos are natural GOP voters, strong on family, self-reliance and faith. Republican candidates simply need to make them follow their inclinations to the voting booth.
So I guess that makes Democratic voters anti-family and anti-faith. Sheesh!
Or better yet, if Latinos are supposed to be pro-family why would they ever vote for Republicans? The Party of Rudy Guiliani who is currently on his third marriage and estranged from his kids? Or the Party of Fred Thompson who dumped his wife of 30 years to find a trophy wife 25-years his junior?
With the combination of the Republican Party’s anti-immigrant zeal, its continuing pursuit of the disasterous Iraq war and the overall unpopularity of President Bush in general, Republicans will be hard-pressed to win anywhere close to 40 percent of the Latino vote in 2008.
Global warming is threatening baseball!!!
OK, this is the final straw! It’s gone too far now. Our national passtime is being threatened by the global warming crisis, according to the latest report from the New York Times.
Softer bats!!! Why didn’t Al Gore warn us about this in his movie? Surely people wouldn’t be sitting still knowing that our ballplayers may soon be forced to use squishy bats in the near future.
Naturally, I blame President Bush and all those people driving Hummers, SUVs and big trucks (bigger than a Dodge Dakota, naturally, which is what I drive).
I just hope that it is not already too late!
...a warming of the local climate could also affect the ash used for bats, some scientists say. As temperatures rise, the ash wood that now makes an ideally dense but flexible bat might turn softer because of a longer growing season.
Softer bats!!! Why didn’t Al Gore warn us about this in his movie? Surely people wouldn’t be sitting still knowing that our ballplayers may soon be forced to use squishy bats in the near future.
Naturally, I blame President Bush and all those people driving Hummers, SUVs and big trucks (bigger than a Dodge Dakota, naturally, which is what I drive).
I just hope that it is not already too late!
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
GOP Family Values
How does the Republican Party get away with portraying itself as the party of “family values?” I just don’t get it.
Today we learn that Republican Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, who was elected to Congress in 1998 to fill in for the disgraced adulterer and would-be Speaker Bob Livingston, has been caught in his own sex scandal.
Glenn Greenwald gives a good rundown of the whole sordid affair.
This is just another in a long line of Washington sex scandals and by my count Republicans have been the culprits in twice as many of these as Democrats during the past decade.
And yet this myth persists that Republicans are somehow morally superior to Democrats because of their intolerant and often hypocritical stand on “family values.”
Right now the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination is Rudy Guiliani who has been divorced twice, is estranged from his kids and had to drop out of the 2000 Senate race against Hillary Clinton when it was revealed that he was having an affair at the time.
And now here comes Fred Thompson, the supposed saviour of the political right, who it turns out divorced his wife of nearly 30 years just as his Hollywood career was taking off in 1985. Thompson then had dalliances with a string of celebrity starlets before getting remarried a few years later to a woman who is a quarter century younger than him.
I guess it wouldn’t be so bad if Republicans weren’t so insistent on presenting themselves as the Holier than Thou party, but somehow this whole charade persists.
Today we learn that Republican Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, who was elected to Congress in 1998 to fill in for the disgraced adulterer and would-be Speaker Bob Livingston, has been caught in his own sex scandal.
Glenn Greenwald gives a good rundown of the whole sordid affair.
This is just another in a long line of Washington sex scandals and by my count Republicans have been the culprits in twice as many of these as Democrats during the past decade.
And yet this myth persists that Republicans are somehow morally superior to Democrats because of their intolerant and often hypocritical stand on “family values.”
Right now the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination is Rudy Guiliani who has been divorced twice, is estranged from his kids and had to drop out of the 2000 Senate race against Hillary Clinton when it was revealed that he was having an affair at the time.
And now here comes Fred Thompson, the supposed saviour of the political right, who it turns out divorced his wife of nearly 30 years just as his Hollywood career was taking off in 1985. Thompson then had dalliances with a string of celebrity starlets before getting remarried a few years later to a woman who is a quarter century younger than him.
I guess it wouldn’t be so bad if Republicans weren’t so insistent on presenting themselves as the Holier than Thou party, but somehow this whole charade persists.
McCain down and almost out
John McCain’s presidential campaign has apparently imploded.
It’s all over for him. His brand of maverick conservatism just doesn’t sell in today’s GOP culture of strict fealty to the “conservative” movement. The problem for McCain is that conservatism is no longer the leading ideology of the GOP, rather it is radical right-wing authoritarianism that is driving the party.
Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) presidential campaign took another serious blow Tuesday when two of his top strategists left the effort, prompting a series of rumors that McCain may be considering a withdrawal from the race.
Terry Nelson, McCain's campaign manager, and John Weaver, the senator's longtime chief political strategist, have stepped aside.
It’s all over for him. His brand of maverick conservatism just doesn’t sell in today’s GOP culture of strict fealty to the “conservative” movement. The problem for McCain is that conservatism is no longer the leading ideology of the GOP, rather it is radical right-wing authoritarianism that is driving the party.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Never too late
The New York Times finally came out with an editorial the other day calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
I’d say it is about time! I came to that conclusion three full years ago.
I was opposed to the war from the beginning and questioned the administration’s rationale before they pulled the trigger.
In other news, Colin Powell is desperately trying to restore his tattered image by claiming that he tried to talk Bush out of going to war sometime before he shot his global credibility by making a speech before the U.N. chock full of bogus and trumped-up claims of Iraq’s WMD arsenal.
I’d say it is about time! I came to that conclusion three full years ago.
I was opposed to the war from the beginning and questioned the administration’s rationale before they pulled the trigger.
In other news, Colin Powell is desperately trying to restore his tattered image by claiming that he tried to talk Bush out of going to war sometime before he shot his global credibility by making a speech before the U.N. chock full of bogus and trumped-up claims of Iraq’s WMD arsenal.
Seven Wonders
Since all but one of the original Seven Wonders of the World no longer exists, someone came up with the bright idea of selecting seven new wonders of the world. So they had a list of nominees drawn up and then opened up a big, worldwide vote. The final results were just announced the other day and they are mostly impressive with just a few quibbles.
The new Seven Wonders include (in no particular order):
Chichén Itzá pyramid, Mexico
Christ the Redeemer statue, Brazil
The Great Wall of China, China
Machu Picchu, Peru
Petra, Jordan
The Roman Colloseum, Italy
The Taj Mahal, India.
The Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt was not included in the voting because it already has Seven Wonder status as the sole remaining wonder from the original historic list.
Some famous monuments that just missed making the list include the Statue of Liberty in New York; The Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, and the Acropolis in Greece.
The new Seven Wonders include (in no particular order):
Chichén Itzá pyramid, Mexico
Christ the Redeemer statue, Brazil
The Great Wall of China, China
Machu Picchu, Peru
Petra, Jordan
The Roman Colloseum, Italy
The Taj Mahal, India.
The Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt was not included in the voting because it already has Seven Wonder status as the sole remaining wonder from the original historic list.
Some famous monuments that just missed making the list include the Statue of Liberty in New York; The Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, and the Acropolis in Greece.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
GOP losing the money race
The leading Democratic presidential candidates are smoking their Republican counterparts in the quarterly fundraising race.
Barak Obama continues to impress with his fundraising prowess raking in an impressive $31 million last quarter to lead the field. Hillary Clinton wasn’t far behind with an equally impressive $27 million.
Meanwhile, John Edwards has slipped back into second tier status with $9 million followed closely by Bill Richardson with $7 million.
On the Republican side, Rudy Guiliani leads the pack with $17 million, just half as much as Obama and $10 million shy of Hillary. Mitt Romney, the previous leader, has slipped back to second with a meager $14 million and limping along at the back of the pack is John McCain who raised $11 million but reportedly has just $2 million in cash-on-hand.
It looks like McCain has just about run out of gas and Guiliani and Romney are clearly not going to be competitive at this pace so the Republicans only hope now is that Fred Thompson or someone else will jump in at the last minute to rally the troops. But quite frankly, Bush has screwed things up so royally for Republicans this time around that I don’t see that happening.
Barak Obama continues to impress with his fundraising prowess raking in an impressive $31 million last quarter to lead the field. Hillary Clinton wasn’t far behind with an equally impressive $27 million.
Meanwhile, John Edwards has slipped back into second tier status with $9 million followed closely by Bill Richardson with $7 million.
On the Republican side, Rudy Guiliani leads the pack with $17 million, just half as much as Obama and $10 million shy of Hillary. Mitt Romney, the previous leader, has slipped back to second with a meager $14 million and limping along at the back of the pack is John McCain who raised $11 million but reportedly has just $2 million in cash-on-hand.
It looks like McCain has just about run out of gas and Guiliani and Romney are clearly not going to be competitive at this pace so the Republicans only hope now is that Fred Thompson or someone else will jump in at the last minute to rally the troops. But quite frankly, Bush has screwed things up so royally for Republicans this time around that I don’t see that happening.
Quid Pro Quo
Lie and obstruct justice to cover Dick Cheney’s rear and we will make sure that you get off scot free. That was the deal that Scooter Libby had from the beginning.
The fact that Bush is using his presidential powers to cover up the misdeeds of his own administration is a far worse abuse of the privilege than anything President Clinton ever did.
There was a concerted effort directed out of the vice presidents office to try and damage Ambassador Wilson’s credibility by exposing his wife as a CIA agent. Cheney was pulling the levers while Scooter Libby and Karl Rove did the dirty work of blabbing to the media. The fact that Richard Armitage had earlier talked to Bob Woodward about it is inconsequential since Woodward did not publish the information and Libby and Rove were not even aware of what Armitage was doing at the time.
By exposing Valerie Plame Wilson’s covert role with the CIA, the Bush officials damaged an undercover operation that was tracking Iran’s nuclear ambitions at a time when such efforts are most vital to our nation’s security. Clearly, if something like this had gone on under a Democratic administration, every Republican who is defending this garbage would have been howling for blood.
This is the most corrupt and criminal administration since the Nixon Whitehouse only worse because, in addition, Bush is an incompetent doofus compared to the whily but whipsmart Nixon.
Friday, June 29, 2007
NBA Draft
I've never paid much attention to the NBA Draft before. I watched it a little closer this year because I'm still all buzzed about the Spurs winning their fourth championship and because I had the odd happenstance of running into Greg Oden in a McDonalds here in San Antonio during the NCAA Playoffs.
It will be interesting to see if Oden's star rises in the NBA or if he will be overshadowed by Kevin Durant or some other player who went lower down in the draft.
Looking back on the draft history going back to 1960 I can pick out about a dozen No. 1 picks who went on to become certified superstars:
1960: Oscar Robertson
1969: Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabar)
1974: Bill Walton
1979: Earvin (Magic) Johnson
1984: Akeem Olajuwon
1985: Patrick Ewing
1987: David Robinson
1992: Shaqille O'Neal
1996: Allen Iverson
1997: Tim Duncan
2002: Yao Ming
2003: LeBron James
There have been many examples over the years of superstar players who weren't the top picks in the draft. Looking back now with perfect hindsight the teams that passed on these players look pretty foolish:
1972: Julius "Dr. J" Erving: No. 12
1978: Larry Byrd: No. 6
1987: Scottie Pippen: No. 5
1996: Kobe Bryant: No. 13
1998: Dirk Nowitzki: No. 9
2001: Tony Parker: No. 28
1984 was an especially intersting year for the draft. Some have called the greatest draft year in NBA history. That was the year that Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest player to ever step on the court, entered the draft. And he went at No. 3.
Nobody can really blame the Houston Rockets for selecting Akeem Olajuwon with their No. 1 pick that year. Olajuwon went on to be one the greatest basketball players of all time (if not THE greatest) and led the Rockets to back-to-back championship titles. But the Portland Trailblazers have to still be kicking themselves for taking Sam Bowie as the No. 2 pick that year and leaving Jordan to go to the Chicago Bulls.
1984 was also the year that Charles Barkley was drafted (No. 5) and John Stockton (No. 16).
It will be interesting to see if Oden's star rises in the NBA or if he will be overshadowed by Kevin Durant or some other player who went lower down in the draft.
Looking back on the draft history going back to 1960 I can pick out about a dozen No. 1 picks who went on to become certified superstars:
1960: Oscar Robertson
1969: Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabar)
1974: Bill Walton
1979: Earvin (Magic) Johnson
1984: Akeem Olajuwon
1985: Patrick Ewing
1987: David Robinson
1992: Shaqille O'Neal
1996: Allen Iverson
1997: Tim Duncan
2002: Yao Ming
2003: LeBron James
There have been many examples over the years of superstar players who weren't the top picks in the draft. Looking back now with perfect hindsight the teams that passed on these players look pretty foolish:
1972: Julius "Dr. J" Erving: No. 12
1978: Larry Byrd: No. 6
1987: Scottie Pippen: No. 5
1996: Kobe Bryant: No. 13
1998: Dirk Nowitzki: No. 9
2001: Tony Parker: No. 28
1984 was an especially intersting year for the draft. Some have called the greatest draft year in NBA history. That was the year that Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest player to ever step on the court, entered the draft. And he went at No. 3.
Nobody can really blame the Houston Rockets for selecting Akeem Olajuwon with their No. 1 pick that year. Olajuwon went on to be one the greatest basketball players of all time (if not THE greatest) and led the Rockets to back-to-back championship titles. But the Portland Trailblazers have to still be kicking themselves for taking Sam Bowie as the No. 2 pick that year and leaving Jordan to go to the Chicago Bulls.
1984 was also the year that Charles Barkley was drafted (No. 5) and John Stockton (No. 16).
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Freedom reigning
It’s hard to believe that this little farce was played out three years ago.
Three years ago today, the U.S. officially transfered sovereignty to Iraq in a “secretive ceremony” that was moved up two days “to thwart insurgents’ attempts at undermining the transfer.”
Bush was passed a note from National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice that put it this way: “Mr. President, Iraq is sovereign.”
Bush wrote “Let freedom reign!” on the note and passed it back...
As the story notes, 858 U.S. soldiers had been killed in Iraq at that point. As of today, the number is 3,570.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Fred Thompson - Lobbyist
Oh my! This doesn’t seem likely to burnish Thompson’s Reaganesque image:
Good thing for Thompson that he has an R after his name. If he were a Democrat this would be enough for the rightwing media to bury him under tons of negative coverage.
Fred Thompson, a likely Republican presidential candidate, on Tuesday defended his work as a Washington lobbyist, telling The Associated Press that lobbying is an important part of life because "government's got their hands in everything."
The actor and former U.S. senator from Tennessee added, "Nobody yet has pointed out any of my clients that didn't deserve representation."
Thompson, who likes to cast himself as a political outsider, earned more than $1 million lobbying the federal government for more than 20 years. He lobbied for a savings-and-loan deregulation bill that helped hasten the industry's collapse and a failed nuclear energy project that cost taxpayers more than a billion dollars.
Good thing for Thompson that he has an R after his name. If he were a Democrat this would be enough for the rightwing media to bury him under tons of negative coverage.
Why Congress can't get anything done
Republicans are back in the minority and naturally that means they are back to their obstructionist ways.
Senate conservatives in the 110th Congress are obstructing and blocking legislation at a rate more than double that of the past two Congresses combined.
During the first six months of the current Congress, there have been 13 cloture votes on motions to proceed — “each one wasting days of Senate time.” In comparison, there were just four cloture votes on motions to proceed during the the first sessions of the 108th and 109th Congresses combined.
The result: The House of Representatives has passed 239 pieces of legislation during the 110th Congress yet few have made it through the Senate, with conservatives “objecting to just about every major piece of legislation” that Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has tried to bring up.
The legislation being blocked by right-wing senators has broad public support:
– Conservatives blocked debate on raising the minimum wage (54-43, Roll Call Vote #23)
– Conservatives blocked debate ethics reforms (Rejected 51-46, Roll Call Vote #16)
– Conservatives blocked debate on funding for renewable energy (Rejected 57-36, Roll Call Vote #223)
– Conservatives blocked a vote on funding for the intelligence community (Rejected 41-40, Roll Call Vote #130)
– Conservatives delayed legislation fulfilling the 9/11 Commission recommendations (Passed 97-0, Roll Call Vote #53)
In April, Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-MS) acknowledged, “The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail… so far it’s working for us.” It just isn’t working for the American people.
Good poll news
Wonderful news today. George W. Bush’s disasterous presidency is turning our nation’s youth into a new generation of Democrats.
Actually, it’s not just young people who hold these views. I think most Americans across the spectrum favor these issues. It’s just the decent thing to do — provide a minimum level of health care for those who can’t afford any better; treat the millions of illegal immigrants who are already here and aren’t going to leave like human beings; and allow consenting adults who love one another to get married and keep your nose out of their business. It’s pretty simple. It is only when the right wing noise machine cranks up and begins spewing its paranoid, hateful propaganda in an effort to scare people into opposing these common sense positions that everything gets gummed up.
Last week the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed 52 percent of respondents saying they want Democrats to win the presidency in 2008 while only 31 percent favored Republicans.
That poll also showed Hillary Clinton extending her lead for the Democratic nomination while Barack Obama and John Edwards are both falling back.
Meanwhile, a recent CNN poll shows an overwhelming 67 percent of Americans are now opposed to the war in Iraq and 63 percent want to begin withdrawing troops immediately.
Young Americans are more likely than the general public to favor a government-run universal health care insurance system, an open-door policy on immigration and the legalization of gay marriage, according to a New York Times/CBS News/MTV poll....
More than half of Americans ages 17 to 29 — 54 percent — say they intend to vote for a Democrat for president in 2008. They share with the public at large a negative view of President Bush, who has a 28 percent approval rating with this group, and of the Republican Party. They hold a markedly more positive view of Democrats than they do of Republicans.
Actually, it’s not just young people who hold these views. I think most Americans across the spectrum favor these issues. It’s just the decent thing to do — provide a minimum level of health care for those who can’t afford any better; treat the millions of illegal immigrants who are already here and aren’t going to leave like human beings; and allow consenting adults who love one another to get married and keep your nose out of their business. It’s pretty simple. It is only when the right wing noise machine cranks up and begins spewing its paranoid, hateful propaganda in an effort to scare people into opposing these common sense positions that everything gets gummed up.
Last week the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed 52 percent of respondents saying they want Democrats to win the presidency in 2008 while only 31 percent favored Republicans.
That poll also showed Hillary Clinton extending her lead for the Democratic nomination while Barack Obama and John Edwards are both falling back.
Meanwhile, a recent CNN poll shows an overwhelming 67 percent of Americans are now opposed to the war in Iraq and 63 percent want to begin withdrawing troops immediately.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
The Liberal Media myth
Did you know that an MSNBC investigative study found 144 political donations by newsroom employees between 2004 and today? And of those 144 donations, an overwhelming number went to Democrats?!? Wow!!! Proof positive that the media has a liberal bias!!!
Yeah, right.
That is 144 donations out of more than 100,000 newsroom employees across the nation. Less than 2/10ths of 1 percent.
Furthermore, it proves nothing that someone may have voted Democratic or contributed to a Democratic candidate or cause as concerns their actual news reporting (assuming they do news reporting - most newsroom employees have nothing to do with political coverage).
What this bogus “study” tells us is that they are desperate to prop up the myth of a liberal media in the face of the overwhelming takeover of public discourse by the right-wing noise machine. The Op-Ed pages and the TV opinion shows are already chock full of conservative wingnuts. They would be happy to throw bricks at liberals on TV, but, other than Keith Olbermann, there are none. They are left trying to invent liberal bias out of the straightforward news coverage, most of which is rigidly centrist and objective to a fault. So rather than trying to demonstrate actual bias in news reporting, they try to infer bias by showing that reporters tend to vote Democratic or donate predominantly to liberal causes. But even in that effort they come up short, as the pathetic excuse of a study by MSNBC so aptly illlustrates.
Robert Parry has a good synopsis exposing the myth of the liberal media. I want to highlight this one part where he talks about the exact thing that the MSNBC study purports to do:
I’ve worked in the news business for nearly 20 years in both the liberal Northeast and in the most conservative parts of Texas. I would describe most of my fellow newsroom workers during that period as leaning left, but mostly apolitical. Furthermore, those who were liberal were intimidated by the constant condemnations of the media by right-wing harrassment groups - even in the Northeast. If you were too conservative in your reporting, you were safe. If you were too “liberal” you were risking your job.
There were also plenty of “conservatives” in the newsrooms where I worked. One guy I worked with was an exceptional reporter who gave no indication of his political views. But after I got to know him I learned that he was very conservative (religious right). We became good friends and would debate politics quite often. Then one day an editorial writing position opened at the paper and we both applied for it. I’ll give you one guess as to who got tapped for the job.
That was in Lubbock, by the way. I guess I should not have harbored any illusions that they would allow a liberal to join their editorial board. Nevertheless, my friend was an excellent choice for the position as well, although it added absolutely no ideological diversity to the paper’s opinion section.
Most people who buy into this liberal media myth don’t have the foggiest clue as to how news organizations work. There is a bias to the news media, but it is not based on ideology. It is based on money. The Paris Hilton coverage is a fine example of this. We are getting this endless dreck on Paris Hilton because it sells advertising. That’s what it is all about.
Yeah, right.
That is 144 donations out of more than 100,000 newsroom employees across the nation. Less than 2/10ths of 1 percent.
Furthermore, it proves nothing that someone may have voted Democratic or contributed to a Democratic candidate or cause as concerns their actual news reporting (assuming they do news reporting - most newsroom employees have nothing to do with political coverage).
What this bogus “study” tells us is that they are desperate to prop up the myth of a liberal media in the face of the overwhelming takeover of public discourse by the right-wing noise machine. The Op-Ed pages and the TV opinion shows are already chock full of conservative wingnuts. They would be happy to throw bricks at liberals on TV, but, other than Keith Olbermann, there are none. They are left trying to invent liberal bias out of the straightforward news coverage, most of which is rigidly centrist and objective to a fault. So rather than trying to demonstrate actual bias in news reporting, they try to infer bias by showing that reporters tend to vote Democratic or donate predominantly to liberal causes. But even in that effort they come up short, as the pathetic excuse of a study by MSNBC so aptly illlustrates.
Robert Parry has a good synopsis exposing the myth of the liberal media. I want to highlight this one part where he talks about the exact thing that the MSNBC study purports to do:
Another way to illustrate the fallacy of the “liberal media” argument is to hypothesize that a survey of editorial workers at, say, Murdoch’s New York Post would find that most editorial employees voted Democratic – not an unreasonable assumption for professionals living in New York City – and a minority voted Republican.
Under the logic of using how journalists voted to determine the bias of the company where they work, such a survey would “prove” that the New York Post was a liberal newspaper dominated by pro-Democratic articles. But it’s a decidedly conservative newspaper bristling with pro-Republican commentary.
The reason is simple: the woman writing obits or the guy doing the copy editing or the reporter covering the police beat – the working stiffs who may have voted Democratic – have only marginal influence over the newspaper’s slant. The content – and especially editorial opinions – are determined in the corporate offices by top editors and executives who report back to Murdoch.
I’ve worked in the news business for nearly 20 years in both the liberal Northeast and in the most conservative parts of Texas. I would describe most of my fellow newsroom workers during that period as leaning left, but mostly apolitical. Furthermore, those who were liberal were intimidated by the constant condemnations of the media by right-wing harrassment groups - even in the Northeast. If you were too conservative in your reporting, you were safe. If you were too “liberal” you were risking your job.
There were also plenty of “conservatives” in the newsrooms where I worked. One guy I worked with was an exceptional reporter who gave no indication of his political views. But after I got to know him I learned that he was very conservative (religious right). We became good friends and would debate politics quite often. Then one day an editorial writing position opened at the paper and we both applied for it. I’ll give you one guess as to who got tapped for the job.
That was in Lubbock, by the way. I guess I should not have harbored any illusions that they would allow a liberal to join their editorial board. Nevertheless, my friend was an excellent choice for the position as well, although it added absolutely no ideological diversity to the paper’s opinion section.
Most people who buy into this liberal media myth don’t have the foggiest clue as to how news organizations work. There is a bias to the news media, but it is not based on ideology. It is based on money. The Paris Hilton coverage is a fine example of this. We are getting this endless dreck on Paris Hilton because it sells advertising. That’s what it is all about.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Hillary = Spurs?
Matthew Yglesias surprised me with this analogy. In a post critical of Barack Obama for a position he took on liquified coal, Yglesias says “Obama may be like LeBron (James) but Hillary Clinton is like the Spurs.”
Wow!
But it kind of makes sense. While I like Obama and would not hesitate to support him for president if he won the Democratic primary, I still see him as being too inexperienced to best the more seasoned Hillary Clinton team. Obama may have the star power right now, but Hillary has that core competency thing going and knows how to play the game well on all levels.
Wow!
But it kind of makes sense. While I like Obama and would not hesitate to support him for president if he won the Democratic primary, I still see him as being too inexperienced to best the more seasoned Hillary Clinton team. Obama may have the star power right now, but Hillary has that core competency thing going and knows how to play the game well on all levels.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Wikipedia vs. Conservapedia
Slacktivist has an interesting post comparing Wikipedia with the new “Conservipedia,” which purports to be a conservative alternative to the Wiki.
The argument from the right is that the Wikipedia is “too liberal,” which means that it actually includes liberal views and opinions along with conservative ones. This is identical to the authoritarian right’s criticisms of the mainstream media. They are “too liberal” compared to Fox News and the Mooney Times precisely because they are not completely exclusionary and one-sided all the time.
Needless to say the “Conservipedia” is a joke as Slacktivist makes clear when you compare its entries with the better informed and more comprehensive Wiki.
The argument from the right is that the Wikipedia is “too liberal,” which means that it actually includes liberal views and opinions along with conservative ones. This is identical to the authoritarian right’s criticisms of the mainstream media. They are “too liberal” compared to Fox News and the Mooney Times precisely because they are not completely exclusionary and one-sided all the time.
Needless to say the “Conservipedia” is a joke as Slacktivist makes clear when you compare its entries with the better informed and more comprehensive Wiki.
AFI Top 100 updated
The American Film Institute has updated its list of the 100 Greatest Movies of All Time. I can’t believe it’s been 10 years already. It seems like just a few years ago that they came out with their first list.
If you go to the website linked above you can download their Top 100 list with a comparison to the 1997 list. You can also download the official ballot with all 400 nominated films that were used to make up the Top 100 list.
Below is the new AFI list followed by my Top 100 list if I had voted using their official ballot. My list, of course, reflects my own personal viewing tastes as well as being restricted to movies that I have actually seen. Also, their list is in rank order while mine is just alphabetical.
The AFI List
1 CITIZEN KANE
2 GODFATHER, THE
3 CASABLANCA
4 RAGING BULL
5 SINGIN' IN THE RAIN
6 GONE WITH THE WIND
7 LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
8 SCHINDLER'S LIST
9 VERTIGO
10 WIZARD OF OZ, THE
11 CITY LIGHTS
12 SEARCHERS, THE
13 STAR WARS
14 PSYCHO
15 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
16 SUNSET BLVD.
17 GRADUATE, THE
18 GENERAL, THE
19 ON THE WATERFRONT
20 IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE
21 CHINATOWN
22 SOME LIKE IT HOT
23 GRAPES OF WRATH, THE
24 E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL
25 TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
26 MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON
27 HIGH NOON
28 ALL ABOUT EVE
29 DOUBLE INDEMNITY
30 APOCALYPSE NOW
31 MALTESE FALCON, THE
32 GODFATHER PART II, THE
33 ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST
34 SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS
35 ANNIE HALL
36 BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, THE
37 BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, THE
38 TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, THE
39 DR. STRANGELOVE
40 SOUND OF MUSIC, THE
41 KING KONG
42 BONNIE AND CLYDE
43 MIDNIGHT COWBOY
44 PHILADELPHIA STORY, THE
45 SHANE
46 IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT
47 STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, A
48 REAR WINDOW
49 INTOLERANCE
50 LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, THE
51 WEST SIDE STORY
52 TAXI DRIVER
53 DEER HUNTER, THE
54 M*A*S*H
55 NORTH BY NORTHWEST
56 JAWS
57 ROCKY
58 GOLD RUSH, THE
59 NASHVILLE
60 DUCK SOUP
61 SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS
62 AMERICAN GRAFFITI
63 CABARET
64 NETWORK
65 AFRICAN QUEEN, THE
66 RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
67 WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?
68 UNFORGIVEN
69 TOOTSIE
70 CLOCKWORK ORANGE, A
71 SAVING PRIVATE RYAN
72 SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, THE
73 BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID
74 SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, THE
75 IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT
76 FORREST GUMP
77 ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN
78 MODERN TIMES
79 WILD BUNCH, THE
80 APARTMENT, THE
81 SPARTACUS
82 SUNRISE
83 TITANIC
84 EASY RIDER
85 NIGHT AT THE OPERA, A
86 PLATOON
87 12 ANGRY MEN
88 BRINGING UP BABY
89 SIXTH SENSE, THE
90 SWING TIME
91 SOPHIE'S CHOICE
92 GOODFELLAS
93 FRENCH CONNECTION, THE
94 PULP FICTION
95 LAST PICTURE SHOW, THE
96 DO THE RIGHT THING
97 BLADE RUNNER
98 YANKEE DOODLE DANDY
99 TOY STORY
100 BEN-HUR
Mike’s List
1. The Adventures of Robin Hood
2. The African Queen
3. Airplane!
4. All the President’s Men
5. Amadeus
6. An American in Paris
7. Annie Hall
8. Apollo 13
9. Back to the Future
10. Bambi
11. Ben-Hur
12. The Birds
13. Blazing Saddles
14. Born on the Fourth of July
15. Braveheart
16. The Breakfast Club
17. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
18. Casablanca
19. Chariots of Fire
20. Citizen Kane
21. A Clockwork Orange
22. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
23. Cool Hand Luke
24. Die Hard
25. Dirty Harry
26. Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
27. Duck Soup
28. The Empire Strikes Back
29. Fast Times at Ridgemont High
30. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
31. Finding Nemo
32. The French Connection
33. The General
34. Ghostbusters
35. Giant
36. The Godfather
37. The Godfather Part II
38. Going My Way
39. The Gold Rush
40. Goldfinger
41. Gone With the Wind
42. The Graduate
43. Grease
44. The Great Escape
45. Groundhog Day
46. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
47. High Noon
48. It’s a Wonderful Life
49. Jerry Maguire
50. Jurassic Park
51. The King and I
52. L.A. Confidential
53. Lawrence of Arabia
54. The Lion King
55. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
56. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
57. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
58. M*A*S*H
59. The Maltese Falcon
60. Mary Poppins
61. The Matrix
62. Meet Me in St. Louis
63. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
64. North By Northwest
65. On the Waterfront
66. The Outlaw Josey Wales
67. Patton
68. The Philadelphia Story
69. Pinocchio
70. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
71. Planet of the Apes
72. Platoon
73. Pulp Fiction
74. The Quiet Man
75. Raiders of the Lost Ark
76. The Road to Morocco
77. Rocky
78. Schindler’s List
79. The Searchers
80. Sense and Sensibility
81. The Shining
82. Singin’ in the Rain
83. Some Like it Hot
84. The Sound of Music
85. Spider Man 2
86. Stagecoach
87. Star Wars
88. The Sting
89. Taxi Driver
90. The Ten Commandments
91. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
92. This is Spinal Tap
93. To Kill a Mockingbird
94. Toy Story
95. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
96. 2001: A Space Odyssey
97. Unforgiven
98. Vertigo
99. Witness
100. The Wizard of Oz
If you go to the website linked above you can download their Top 100 list with a comparison to the 1997 list. You can also download the official ballot with all 400 nominated films that were used to make up the Top 100 list.
Below is the new AFI list followed by my Top 100 list if I had voted using their official ballot. My list, of course, reflects my own personal viewing tastes as well as being restricted to movies that I have actually seen. Also, their list is in rank order while mine is just alphabetical.
The AFI List
1 CITIZEN KANE
2 GODFATHER, THE
3 CASABLANCA
4 RAGING BULL
5 SINGIN' IN THE RAIN
6 GONE WITH THE WIND
7 LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
8 SCHINDLER'S LIST
9 VERTIGO
10 WIZARD OF OZ, THE
11 CITY LIGHTS
12 SEARCHERS, THE
13 STAR WARS
14 PSYCHO
15 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
16 SUNSET BLVD.
17 GRADUATE, THE
18 GENERAL, THE
19 ON THE WATERFRONT
20 IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE
21 CHINATOWN
22 SOME LIKE IT HOT
23 GRAPES OF WRATH, THE
24 E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL
25 TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
26 MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON
27 HIGH NOON
28 ALL ABOUT EVE
29 DOUBLE INDEMNITY
30 APOCALYPSE NOW
31 MALTESE FALCON, THE
32 GODFATHER PART II, THE
33 ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST
34 SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS
35 ANNIE HALL
36 BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, THE
37 BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, THE
38 TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, THE
39 DR. STRANGELOVE
40 SOUND OF MUSIC, THE
41 KING KONG
42 BONNIE AND CLYDE
43 MIDNIGHT COWBOY
44 PHILADELPHIA STORY, THE
45 SHANE
46 IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT
47 STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, A
48 REAR WINDOW
49 INTOLERANCE
50 LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, THE
51 WEST SIDE STORY
52 TAXI DRIVER
53 DEER HUNTER, THE
54 M*A*S*H
55 NORTH BY NORTHWEST
56 JAWS
57 ROCKY
58 GOLD RUSH, THE
59 NASHVILLE
60 DUCK SOUP
61 SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS
62 AMERICAN GRAFFITI
63 CABARET
64 NETWORK
65 AFRICAN QUEEN, THE
66 RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
67 WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?
68 UNFORGIVEN
69 TOOTSIE
70 CLOCKWORK ORANGE, A
71 SAVING PRIVATE RYAN
72 SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, THE
73 BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID
74 SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, THE
75 IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT
76 FORREST GUMP
77 ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN
78 MODERN TIMES
79 WILD BUNCH, THE
80 APARTMENT, THE
81 SPARTACUS
82 SUNRISE
83 TITANIC
84 EASY RIDER
85 NIGHT AT THE OPERA, A
86 PLATOON
87 12 ANGRY MEN
88 BRINGING UP BABY
89 SIXTH SENSE, THE
90 SWING TIME
91 SOPHIE'S CHOICE
92 GOODFELLAS
93 FRENCH CONNECTION, THE
94 PULP FICTION
95 LAST PICTURE SHOW, THE
96 DO THE RIGHT THING
97 BLADE RUNNER
98 YANKEE DOODLE DANDY
99 TOY STORY
100 BEN-HUR
Mike’s List
1. The Adventures of Robin Hood
2. The African Queen
3. Airplane!
4. All the President’s Men
5. Amadeus
6. An American in Paris
7. Annie Hall
8. Apollo 13
9. Back to the Future
10. Bambi
11. Ben-Hur
12. The Birds
13. Blazing Saddles
14. Born on the Fourth of July
15. Braveheart
16. The Breakfast Club
17. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
18. Casablanca
19. Chariots of Fire
20. Citizen Kane
21. A Clockwork Orange
22. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
23. Cool Hand Luke
24. Die Hard
25. Dirty Harry
26. Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
27. Duck Soup
28. The Empire Strikes Back
29. Fast Times at Ridgemont High
30. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
31. Finding Nemo
32. The French Connection
33. The General
34. Ghostbusters
35. Giant
36. The Godfather
37. The Godfather Part II
38. Going My Way
39. The Gold Rush
40. Goldfinger
41. Gone With the Wind
42. The Graduate
43. Grease
44. The Great Escape
45. Groundhog Day
46. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
47. High Noon
48. It’s a Wonderful Life
49. Jerry Maguire
50. Jurassic Park
51. The King and I
52. L.A. Confidential
53. Lawrence of Arabia
54. The Lion King
55. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
56. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
57. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
58. M*A*S*H
59. The Maltese Falcon
60. Mary Poppins
61. The Matrix
62. Meet Me in St. Louis
63. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
64. North By Northwest
65. On the Waterfront
66. The Outlaw Josey Wales
67. Patton
68. The Philadelphia Story
69. Pinocchio
70. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
71. Planet of the Apes
72. Platoon
73. Pulp Fiction
74. The Quiet Man
75. Raiders of the Lost Ark
76. The Road to Morocco
77. Rocky
78. Schindler’s List
79. The Searchers
80. Sense and Sensibility
81. The Shining
82. Singin’ in the Rain
83. Some Like it Hot
84. The Sound of Music
85. Spider Man 2
86. Stagecoach
87. Star Wars
88. The Sting
89. Taxi Driver
90. The Ten Commandments
91. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
92. This is Spinal Tap
93. To Kill a Mockingbird
94. Toy Story
95. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
96. 2001: A Space Odyssey
97. Unforgiven
98. Vertigo
99. Witness
100. The Wizard of Oz
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Summer vacations
Excuse the lack of blogging this week. It's not that there is nothing I want to write about. It's just that I have no time. I'm covering for two other people at work this week while they are on vacation. I hope to be back soon.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Champions, again!
This photo sums up the Cavs series nicely, I think. Tim Duncan stuffing the ball back in LeBron James’ face in Game 1. That’s when you had the first inkling that it would be a sweep.
I do want to add, however, that I am not a LeBron basher. I went into this series kind of down on LeBron because I thought he was too arrogant, cocky and immature. But after seeing how he handled himself throughout the series, my respect for him has gone up. I think he definitely has what it takes to be a super-duper-star in the NBA.
I’m very happy that the Spurs swept the series. I didn’t want it to go to a Game 5. And we have Manu Ginobili to thank for that. In the fourth quarter last night it turned into the Manu show - with some support from Duncan, naturally. But without Manu’s effort at the end I think the Cavs might have slipped the noose and forced another game. Besides hitting all of his free throws, which were crucial, Manu made two exceptional drives to the basket and hit a big 3-pointer. But the play I liked the best was an assist. Manu had the ball at the top of the key, beyond the 3-point line when he suddenly gave a head fake and then fired a bullet pass right through the heart of the Cavs defense to Fabricio Oberto who had just inched away from his defender and was standing under the basket. Oberto made the easy basket and drew a foul for a 3-point play. Brilliant!
Tony Parker was of course great through the first three quarters and richly deserved his MVP trophy while Tim was just happy to get ring No. 4.
Are they a Dynasty? Damn straight! The Spurs are the most successful sports franchise of the past decade. The core of their team is locked up - assuming Duncan re-ups in ‘08 - through at least 2010. I can’t see the Spurs making any major adjustments over the off season. Duncan, Parker and Ginobili are all superstars. Bruce Bowen is hands-down the best defender in the NBA. Oberto has stepped up to be a valuable addition as a center who fits well with the rest of the team - he practically has a mindmeld going with Manu.
Robert Horry says he wants to play one more year and get his 8th championship ring. Michael Finley has some more good years in him and Brent Barry rounds out one of the best benches in the league with a roster full of 3-point aces. Even Francisco Elson and Jaques Vaughn have held their own as subs who can step in to give the stars a break. The only player on the team who seems to be expendable at this point is probably Beno Udrih.
I think the Spurs will be back next year whether the national media likes it or not. And this business of not giving the Spurs the R-E-S-P-E-C-T that they deserve is starting to make them look rather silly.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
MVP prediction
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Tony Parker will be the NBA Championship Series MVP, especially if he outscores Tim Duncan in Game 4. So far, Parker has been the high-point scorer, including last night when he was having an off night. Duncan has been consistent, but Parker has overshadowed him in every game so far.
As for Bruce Bowen, I think he deserves a special award for the defensive hex he has put on LeBron James. The problem with being an excellent defensive player is that most people only notice when you screw-up. Otherwise, all your work is just expected.
Last night’s game was a real struggle for the Spurs. Nothing was going in. Poor Manu didn’t score a single basket the entire game until he hit a few free throws in the final seconds. Fortunately, Bowen and Brent Barry stepped up to nail four and three three-pointers, respectively, to make up for Manu’s sputtering offense. Still, that only kept the team just barely ahead of the Cavs, who fortunately were struggling even worse than the Spurs to make their shots. All in all it was an ugly game, but a sweet victory nonetheless.
As for Bruce Bowen, I think he deserves a special award for the defensive hex he has put on LeBron James. The problem with being an excellent defensive player is that most people only notice when you screw-up. Otherwise, all your work is just expected.
Last night’s game was a real struggle for the Spurs. Nothing was going in. Poor Manu didn’t score a single basket the entire game until he hit a few free throws in the final seconds. Fortunately, Bowen and Brent Barry stepped up to nail four and three three-pointers, respectively, to make up for Manu’s sputtering offense. Still, that only kept the team just barely ahead of the Cavs, who fortunately were struggling even worse than the Spurs to make their shots. All in all it was an ugly game, but a sweet victory nonetheless.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Beatles influences
It’s the 40th anniversary of The Beatles’ “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” album and the accolades keep coming.
My introduction to the Beatles came in the mid-80s in college when I picked up a two-album collection called Rock 'n' Roll Music.
It was an awesome compilation put together by George Martin himself. I was literally blown away. I recorded the double-album onto a compact disc and played it in my car until the tape was literally worn out. To this day, “Twist and Shout” is probably my favorite all-time Beatles recording. My first Beatles album I purchased after that was “Abbey Road” followed by “The White Album.” By the time I finally got around to getting “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” it didn’t have the same impact it might have if I had bought it first.
But I had also been exposed to Sgt. Pepper’s years earlier in the form of the critically-panned movie that starred Peter Frampton and the Bee-Gees. I thought the movie was great (I was 12 at the time) and had no clue that all the music was by the same band.
The Express-News had an editorial in today’s paper commemorating the anniversary and in it they note that The Beatle’s musical foundation was based on “Elvis, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley.” Elvis and Chuck Berry, sure. They even recorded a version of Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven.” But Bo Diddley? What about Little Richard whose falsetto “woooooooo” was constantly immitated by Paul? And what about Buddy Holly? If we are going to talk about musical influences, you have to mention the kid from Lubbock, Texas. Paul has said many times that they chose the name Beatles (Silver Beetles initially) because they wanted to be like Buddy Holly and The Crickets.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Chiggers
I had to laugh at this Nacho Guarche cartoon the other day. Considering the infestation of chiggers we are dealing with here this spring, his suggestion of replacing the Spurs’ coyote mascot with a chigger actually has some merit.
Chiggers are nasty little bugs that live in the tall grass and undergrowth and leave little red welts wherever they bite. My wife and little boy are especially susceptible to them.
I’ve been spraying pesticides and clearing brush in our back area, but it only seems to have put a dent in them so far. But I’m planning a major “surge” this week and I’m confident that my backyard will soon be liberated from these parasitic pests.
A positive Spurs column
After reading the New York Times’ front page slobbery kiss-up to LeBron James that barely even mentions the San Antonio Spurs, I was pleasantly surprised to find this excellent column in the Washington Post:
Duncan's Exclusive Company
Damn straight. Tim Duncan is a better ballplayer than James, who, to be fair, is still far too young and immature to make a good comparison. Duncan is just not as flashy. He is not the kind of player who is ever going to do a 360-degree spin, behind-the-head dunk. If Duncan has a clear shot at the basket, he is going to very carefully push the ball into the basket - very efficient, not very exciting. Duncan doesn’t play to the crowd, he plays to win.
Duncan's Exclusive Company
Now that LeBron James has become ABC's savior of the NBA Finals -- and LeBron says he is honored to be compared to Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Oscar Robertson and Gandhi -- we interrupt this homeroom crush for some genuine education.
The San Antonio Spurs are going to school Cleveland and win their fourth title, in six games or fewer, because they have the best player on the floor in the series. Tim Duncan, despite getting less love than jury duty, is maybe the largest difference-maker since Jordan....
When the Spurs are finished polishing off Cleveland, Duncan will not only eclipse Bird's three rings, he will join Magic and Michael as the only leading men with more than three championships with the same franchise since Bill Russell. Four decades after Russell, Duncan would join a class of three....
The perception of Duncan mirrored his team; he was coming off a season in which his body was breaking down and there simply were too many quick, young big men to rise over.
As usual, his detractors missed the importance of Duncan. His game has never been about explosiveness; it's about efficiency. His degree of difficulty has nothing to do with hang time and more to do with angles and trajectory, all the skill-level amenities missing from contemporary front-court players...
Drama is at a premium for Duncan, too; he's had the same coach, Gregg Popovich, his entire career. Often expressionless and unemotional since his days at Wake Forest, where the Duke student section referred to him as "Spock," there is a monotony to the way Duncan plays and carries himself that doesn't resonate in a culture run by celebrity.
He gets penalized for consistently playing and living between the lines while so many of his look-at-me peers obliterate the boundaries and become more popular for it. Polarization sells; professionalism is so '90s....
LeBron James reinvigorates the "Next Michael" debate after a sterling week of basketball. Meanwhile, if anyone wanted to look long and hard, Tim Duncan belongs at the top of that class more than Kobe, more than Dwyane Wade and certainly more than LeBron. More than any of them, he's won at a higher level.
Damn straight. Tim Duncan is a better ballplayer than James, who, to be fair, is still far too young and immature to make a good comparison. Duncan is just not as flashy. He is not the kind of player who is ever going to do a 360-degree spin, behind-the-head dunk. If Duncan has a clear shot at the basket, he is going to very carefully push the ball into the basket - very efficient, not very exciting. Duncan doesn’t play to the crowd, he plays to win.
Maverick McCain
Why isn’t John McCain doing better in the Republican primary race? I predicted earlier this year that McCain would be the GOP nominee in 2008. He has the most experience; solid name recognition; he’s the closest thing to a Reaganite conservative in the race; he is firmly in the “pro-life” camp on abortion; he is an ardent defender and apologist for the War in Iraq; etc, etc.
So how is it that he now finds himself lagging behind the liberal former Mayor of New York and the used-to-be-liberal former Governor of Massachussetts?
Is it because of his reality-based position on the immigration issue? I thought it was quite admirable that he stood up to the bullying of the other GOP candidates to defend the compromise legislation now in Congress. None of the other candidates have a realistic approach to the issue. All they can do is mouth idealistic pieties and pretend like this would somehow make the whole problem go away.
I suppose the immigration issue is the best indication as to why McCain is not doing well. His willingness to break away from the lock-step formation of the party faithful on issues such as immigration, gun control, campaign finance reform and the environment has given him the “Maverick” label which is would be an advantage in a national campaign, but is actually a disadvantage in a primary race.
But is this really enough to overshadow McCain’s solid conservative positions on other issues? According to his Wikipedia entry, McCain has “a strong pro-life voting record, a strong free trade voting record (including a 100% rating from the Cato Institute), wanting private social security accounts, being against socialized health care, supporting school vouchers, supporting the death penalty, supporting mandatory sentencing, and supporting welfare reform.”
All in all, a miserable record by my standpoint, but apparently not pure enough to suit the party faithful. So how is it that they would instead turn to a guy who is pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-gun control, etc. etc. as the alternative?
I’m flummoxed. I just don’t understand these people.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Senate succession
I have to agree with Matthew Yglesias that the Wyoming law on U.S. Senate succession is fair.
The sudden death of Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., might have given Democrats an opportunity to expand their razor-thin majority in the Senate, but state rules in Wyoming require that the governor, a Democrat, appoint a replacement from the same party as the prior office holder.
Other states should consider adopting this kind of rule.
The sudden death of Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., might have given Democrats an opportunity to expand their razor-thin majority in the Senate, but state rules in Wyoming require that the governor, a Democrat, appoint a replacement from the same party as the prior office holder.
Other states should consider adopting this kind of rule.
Jefferson indicted
As I suspected, the reason Democrats didn’t immediatly jump up and denounce Rep. William Jefferson after his indictment and demand that he be stripped of his committee assignments was so that he could do so on his own.
Hopefully, Jefferson will now have the decency to resign from Congress and not drag his constituents and his party through a protracted fight. In the meantime, everyone should remember that when former Speaker Tom DeLay was indicted the Republican response was to award him a choice seat on the House Appropriations Committee.
Bush's surge
Bush’s surge in Iraq is cleary not working and even the Wall Street Journal can see the writing on the wall.
Can the Iraq 'Surge' Be Salvaged?
When the Bush administration decided to send tens of thousands of additional troops to Iraq, the strategy rested on an unspoken trade-off: U.S. troops would risk greater casualties to tamp down violence and buy the Baghdad government time to make the political compromises needed to reconcile the country's warring factions.
But a resurgence of sectarian violence and attacks on U.S. troops, coupled with little to no progress on crucial Iraqi political goals, is already spurring discussion about whether the current strategy can succeed.
Unpatriotic
In another thread at All Things Conservative my old friend Mark Harden has been having a grand old time calling me a “dumbass” and “unpatriotic” because I had the temerity to challenge Bill’s assertion that the sudden dismissal of terrorism charges against a 20-year-old Gitmo detainee (Age 15 at the time of his incarceration) is somehow supposed to be a sterling example of our “fairness.”
I asked how it was fair that this kid was left to rot at Guantanamo for 5 years before ever being brought up for a trial, only to have all the charges thrown out on a technicality.
Either way you look at the case it is a travesty. If the kid did nothing wrong, it’s a travesty that he spent the past five years at Gitmo. If he is truly a threat to the United States, then it is a travesty that they can’t seem to get their act together and bring charges against him.
And the last thing anyone would say about this case is that it is a sterling example of U.S. jurisprudence and “fairness.” But I’m apparently unpatriotic for saying that.
I asked how it was fair that this kid was left to rot at Guantanamo for 5 years before ever being brought up for a trial, only to have all the charges thrown out on a technicality.
Either way you look at the case it is a travesty. If the kid did nothing wrong, it’s a travesty that he spent the past five years at Gitmo. If he is truly a threat to the United States, then it is a travesty that they can’t seem to get their act together and bring charges against him.
And the last thing anyone would say about this case is that it is a sterling example of U.S. jurisprudence and “fairness.” But I’m apparently unpatriotic for saying that.
Banished
It seems I’ve been banished from my perch as one of the liberal punching bags over at All Things Conservative. I was in a bit of a snit the other night when Bill threw up one of those inane posts questioning whether Hillary Clinton has had plastic surgery recently. I sniped that it was a sexist thing to obsess about and noted that it never seemed to be a big issue that Ronald Reagan dyed his hair black for eight years. Well, Bill took that as a personal attack and went ballistic calling me “pathetic” and claiming that I always say something insulting whenever I post a comment over there.
He went on to conclude that “We don't HAVE to hear from YOU on EVERY single post.”
So I have to interpret that as a “you’re not welcome around here anymore, take your ball and go home” comment. And it is Bill’s blog so I will respect his wishes.
In the meantime, I suppose I should spend more time posting on my own blog.
Mike, you get pissed off at just about everything I write. You do so because you are either an angry, sad person, or you just want to rock the boat. It's getting old.
So you can take your sexist comment and shove it. How dare you sling that kind of insult at me.
He went on to conclude that “We don't HAVE to hear from YOU on EVERY single post.”
So I have to interpret that as a “you’re not welcome around here anymore, take your ball and go home” comment. And it is Bill’s blog so I will respect his wishes.
In the meantime, I suppose I should spend more time posting on my own blog.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
The Conservative media
I’ve recently been reading David Brock’s book The Republican Noise Machine which presents a thorough history of how the rightwing came to totally dominate the news media today, all while pretending to be struggling against an all-powerful (and non-existent) elite liberal power structure.
I guess that I am just used to the strange dichotomy of conservative domination of the media while they continue to harp about the “liberal media,” but when it gets spelled out in such detail as in Brock’s book it starts to make your head spin.
Here is a little test. Go to Google and type in Conservative columnists. The first item to pop up will be a link to Townhall.com which features a collection of no fewer than 60 conservative columnists in a single convenient location.
Now do the same thing with Liberal columnists and the first thing you see is a link to a site called BoycottLiberalism.com which presents a list of the Top 25 liberal columnists in America. They apparently had to struggle to come up with 25 names for their list since almost half of them are not columnists in the traditional sense at all.
Seymour Hersh, for instance, is an investigative journalist and not a columnist and he is only published infrequently in the New Yorker, not weekly or even monthly. Likewise, NPR and PBS folks like Bill Moyers and Juan Williams don’t have regular print columns. Molly Ivins passed away recently. Robert Sheer got canned by the LA Times. Walter Cronkite stopped writing his column after an all-too brief run. I’m not sure that Jesse Jackson still writes a column and as for Noam Chomsky, I don’t know what the Khaleej Times is supposed to be, but he is certainly not published regularly in any forum that most Americans would be able to find.
The truth is as I said long ago, the voices of the left are continuing to grow fewer and weaker and conservative domination of the media continues to grow unabated. And we will continue to hear conservatives whine about the “Liberal media” until the day that theirs are the only voices that are ever heard.
I guess that I am just used to the strange dichotomy of conservative domination of the media while they continue to harp about the “liberal media,” but when it gets spelled out in such detail as in Brock’s book it starts to make your head spin.
Here is a little test. Go to Google and type in Conservative columnists. The first item to pop up will be a link to Townhall.com which features a collection of no fewer than 60 conservative columnists in a single convenient location.
Now do the same thing with Liberal columnists and the first thing you see is a link to a site called BoycottLiberalism.com which presents a list of the Top 25 liberal columnists in America. They apparently had to struggle to come up with 25 names for their list since almost half of them are not columnists in the traditional sense at all.
1 Frank Rich - NY Times
2 Maureen Dowd - NY Times
3 Paul Krugman - NY Times
4 Seymour M. Hersh - The New Yorker
5 Nicholas Kristof - NY Times
6 Eleanor Clift - Newsweek
7 Helen Thomas
8 Bill Moyers - Wide Angle (PBS)
9 David Corn - The Nation
10 Jesse Jackson - Chicago Sun Times
11 Noam Chomsky - Khaleej Times
12 Michael Kinsley - Washington Post
13 Bill Press - MSNBC / Sirus Radio
14 David Broder - Washington Post
15 Julianne Malveaux - USA Today
16 Molly Ivans - Fort Worth Star-Telegram
17 Ronald Brownstein - LA Times
18 E.J. Dionne - Washington Post
19 Juan Williams - NPR
20 Ellen Goodman - Boston Globe
21 Joe Conason - New York Observe
22 Walter Cronkite - NPR
23 Susan Estrich - Creators Syndicate
24 Robert Sheer - (formally LA Times)
25 Arianna Huffington -
Seymour Hersh, for instance, is an investigative journalist and not a columnist and he is only published infrequently in the New Yorker, not weekly or even monthly. Likewise, NPR and PBS folks like Bill Moyers and Juan Williams don’t have regular print columns. Molly Ivins passed away recently. Robert Sheer got canned by the LA Times. Walter Cronkite stopped writing his column after an all-too brief run. I’m not sure that Jesse Jackson still writes a column and as for Noam Chomsky, I don’t know what the Khaleej Times is supposed to be, but he is certainly not published regularly in any forum that most Americans would be able to find.
The truth is as I said long ago, the voices of the left are continuing to grow fewer and weaker and conservative domination of the media continues to grow unabated. And we will continue to hear conservatives whine about the “Liberal media” until the day that theirs are the only voices that are ever heard.
Comic survey results
The Express-News finally ran a story the other day about the comics survey it conducted several months ago.
The good news is that Zits topped the list and Luann ranked in the top 10 along with Garfield and Baby Blues. Pickles also slipped into the top 10 wich was filled out with a bunch of old standards like Family Circus, Blondie, Beetle Bailey, Hi & Lois, and Hagar the Horrible.
Garfield was the top choice of the 18 and younger crowd while Zits won the votes of folks between 18 and 54. Family Circus won in the 55 and up category.
The losers, those that ranked in the bottom 10, included Bizarro, Cathy, Dilbert, Tumbleweeds, the Amazing Spider Man, Prince Valiant and all of the political comics including Doonesbury, Nacho Guarche, Mallard Fillmore and Prickly City.
This wasn’t entirely fair, however, since many of these comics have the distinct disadvantage of not being in the daily comics section. Dilbert, for example, was banished years ago to the wastelands of the E-N Business pages and most comics readers probably assume that Scott Adams must have retired along with Bill Watterson and Gary Larson. Tumbleweeds and Prince Valiant are both Sunday only comics that don’t appear in the daily section. Neither do Doonesbury, Nacho and Mallard, which are all found on the Op-Ed pages.
So the biggest losers would have to be the daily comic section strips that hit the bottom including Bizarro, Cathy, Amazing Spider Man and Prickly City.
I can’t explain why Bizarro would be ranked so low. I think it is a pretty good strip and probably comes closest to touching that magic spot once occupied by The Far Side (although it is still a good distance away, I will admit). Cathy was once one of my favorite strips back in the 1980s when it first came out. But sometime in the 1990s it started to become tiresome and repetitive and I lost interest. However, being tiresome and repetitive is pretty much status quo on the comics page these days (See Blondie, Beetle Bailey, Hi and Lois, Hagar the Horrible, etc.) so that doesn’t explain why it would end up in the bottom section. The Amazing Spider Man is just awful. It is obviously written by complete morons who come up with stupid plots and stupider dialogue. But it is also the strip that my three-year-old son insists that I read to him everytime he sees me with the paper, so maybe that is the target age range they are shooting for.
Finally, there is Prickly City and I have to say that its bottom ranking is very well deserved. It is horribly drawn and consistently offensive with the sole purpose of spreading rightwing propaganda. It is, however, slightly better than Mallard Fillmore.
The good news is that Zits topped the list and Luann ranked in the top 10 along with Garfield and Baby Blues. Pickles also slipped into the top 10 wich was filled out with a bunch of old standards like Family Circus, Blondie, Beetle Bailey, Hi & Lois, and Hagar the Horrible.
Garfield was the top choice of the 18 and younger crowd while Zits won the votes of folks between 18 and 54. Family Circus won in the 55 and up category.
The losers, those that ranked in the bottom 10, included Bizarro, Cathy, Dilbert, Tumbleweeds, the Amazing Spider Man, Prince Valiant and all of the political comics including Doonesbury, Nacho Guarche, Mallard Fillmore and Prickly City.
This wasn’t entirely fair, however, since many of these comics have the distinct disadvantage of not being in the daily comics section. Dilbert, for example, was banished years ago to the wastelands of the E-N Business pages and most comics readers probably assume that Scott Adams must have retired along with Bill Watterson and Gary Larson. Tumbleweeds and Prince Valiant are both Sunday only comics that don’t appear in the daily section. Neither do Doonesbury, Nacho and Mallard, which are all found on the Op-Ed pages.
So the biggest losers would have to be the daily comic section strips that hit the bottom including Bizarro, Cathy, Amazing Spider Man and Prickly City.
I can’t explain why Bizarro would be ranked so low. I think it is a pretty good strip and probably comes closest to touching that magic spot once occupied by The Far Side (although it is still a good distance away, I will admit). Cathy was once one of my favorite strips back in the 1980s when it first came out. But sometime in the 1990s it started to become tiresome and repetitive and I lost interest. However, being tiresome and repetitive is pretty much status quo on the comics page these days (See Blondie, Beetle Bailey, Hi and Lois, Hagar the Horrible, etc.) so that doesn’t explain why it would end up in the bottom section. The Amazing Spider Man is just awful. It is obviously written by complete morons who come up with stupid plots and stupider dialogue. But it is also the strip that my three-year-old son insists that I read to him everytime he sees me with the paper, so maybe that is the target age range they are shooting for.
Finally, there is Prickly City and I have to say that its bottom ranking is very well deserved. It is horribly drawn and consistently offensive with the sole purpose of spreading rightwing propaganda. It is, however, slightly better than Mallard Fillmore.
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.
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.
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)
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)
Saturday, May 19, 2007
A Spurs appreciation
I'm really, really hooked on the San Antonio Spurs. They are one of the best basketball teams ever and it is thrilling to watch them play. So it really amazes me that they seem to be constantly dissed by the rest of the nation as either boring or now, in a bizarre flip-flop, as a team of thugs and cheaters.
I guess when you have a reputation as "good guys" for as long as the Spurs have had, it doesn't take much for people to latch onto to turn that around quickly. It reminds me of the political hype from presidential campaigns where sweeping judgments and stereotypes of candidates are based on flimsy and sometimes false evidence. But all it takes is for the charge to get repeated enough times and it sticks.
The Spurs remind me a lot of the 1998-2000 New York Yankees team I loved so much. They don't rely on a superstar to pull them through every game. Instead, they just play great as a team.
What is so great about the Spurs team is that they have so much depth off of their bench. The team is naturally built around their superstar Tim Duncan. But they also have two other superstars in Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili who can carry the team if Duncan is having an off night.
In addition, they have perhaps the best defensive player in the league in Bruce Bowen and then to top it off they have a whole bench full of key role players like Elston Howard and Fabarico Oberto to provide picks and blocks.
But their secret weapon is the fact that they have no fewer than five guys who are absolutely deadly from the 3-point range: Michael Finley, Bruce Bowen, Robert Horry, Brent Barry and, of course, Manu Ginobili. When they start hitting their three-point shots, it doesn't take long for a close game to turn into a 12-15 point blowout.
The Spurs just finished off the Phoenix Suns, who were probably the best team they will face in the playoffs. That means unless they fall apart and/or someone gets very lucky, they have a clear shot from here on out for their fourth NBA title.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Iraq vs. Texas
The Wall Street Journal had an interesting story the other day about a dispute between the Iraqi government and a Texas company hired to build an electric utility plant south of Baghdad. The plant is currently shuttered and unused with gleaming new equipment just collecting dust.
The Texas company, Southeast Texas Industrial Services Inc., ran into lots of problems trying to fulfill the $283 million contract beginning with security issues. The construction site was the target of multiple insurgent attacks and the Iraqi government failed to provide effective security. In addition, the Iraqi government was constantly behind in making payments for the project almost from the beginning. Finally, when the Texas company was forced to spend millions providing their own private security in order to get the work done they were accused of cheating when they tried to pass those costs on to the Iraqi government.
But what I found most interesting about the story was the role of the Bush administration via their representatives at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Who do you suppose they sided with in this dispute? The Iraqi government, of course. They accused the Texas company of being “unreliable” and “incompetent.” How’s that for an ironic twist. Of course, they can’t side against their puppet regime in Baghdad and any extra money that must be ponied up is ultimately going to come out of U.S. coffers in the end. So it is really no surprise that they would give the American company the back side of their hand in this dispute.
The Texas company, Southeast Texas Industrial Services Inc., ran into lots of problems trying to fulfill the $283 million contract beginning with security issues. The construction site was the target of multiple insurgent attacks and the Iraqi government failed to provide effective security. In addition, the Iraqi government was constantly behind in making payments for the project almost from the beginning. Finally, when the Texas company was forced to spend millions providing their own private security in order to get the work done they were accused of cheating when they tried to pass those costs on to the Iraqi government.
But what I found most interesting about the story was the role of the Bush administration via their representatives at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Who do you suppose they sided with in this dispute? The Iraqi government, of course. They accused the Texas company of being “unreliable” and “incompetent.” How’s that for an ironic twist. Of course, they can’t side against their puppet regime in Baghdad and any extra money that must be ponied up is ultimately going to come out of U.S. coffers in the end. So it is really no surprise that they would give the American company the back side of their hand in this dispute.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
JFK assumptions were wrong
This is really cool!
A new study by a former FBI ballistics expert is casting fresh doubts on the Warren Commission's conclusion that John F. Kennedy was killed by a lone assassin.
Eventually, the house of cards that the Warren Commission based its conclusions on will collapse and the officials who have been propping it up all this time will be forced to admit that there was more than one gunman (i.e. a conspiracy).
A new study by a former FBI ballistics expert is casting fresh doubts on the Warren Commission's conclusion that John F. Kennedy was killed by a lone assassin.
The "evidence used to rule out a second assassin is fundamentally flawed," concludes a new article in the Annals of Applied Statistics written by former FBI lab metallurgist William A. Tobin and Texas A&M University researchers Cliff Spiegelman and William D. James...
They found that the scientific and statistical assumptions Guinn used -- and the government accepted at the time -- to conclude that the fragments came from just two bullets fired from Oswald's gun were wrong.
"This finding means that the bullet fragments from the assassination that match could have come from three or more separate bullets," the researchers said. "If the assassination fragments are derived from three or more separate bullets, then a second assassin is likely," the researchers said. If the five fragments came from three or more bullets, that would mean a second gunman's bullet would have had to strike the president, the researchers explained.
Eventually, the house of cards that the Warren Commission based its conclusions on will collapse and the officials who have been propping it up all this time will be forced to admit that there was more than one gunman (i.e. a conspiracy).
This can’t be good
An area the size of California in Antarctica melted in 2005.
I’m sure this is just more global warming alarmism. Nothing to see here. Not to worry. Go back to what you were doing. Never mind.
Vast areas of snow in Antarctica melted in 2005 when temperatures warmed up for a week in the summer in a process that may accelerate invisible melting deep beneath the surface, NASA said on Tuesday.
A new analysis of satellite data showed that an area the size of California melted and then re-froze -- the most significant thawing in 30 years, the U.S. space agency said.
I’m sure this is just more global warming alarmism. Nothing to see here. Not to worry. Go back to what you were doing. Never mind.
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