Category: Personal

Paying for yesterday’s idiotic assertion from Pseudo-president Bush. Ten soldiers were injured in the next day! The Administration’s idea of a response? To repeat the offer of big dollar rewards for information leading to the capture of Saddam or his sons. The arrogance of this Administration is simply beyond belief.

A lightweight outing from 1985 featuring Hugh Grant, The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain is the story of “the first mountain in Wales” and depends for whatever plot energy it might have upon an understanding that the Welsh still resent being considered part of England. Apparently.

This is a period piece set in 1917 when almost all the men in Britain of fighting age were either off fighting World War I, home injured, or dead. Grant plays a junior government cartographer supporting his brassy senior in surveying the heights of Wales. In the first village they come to, that which they have always believed to be a mountain falls short by 16 feet and is fated to be marked on maps as just a hill. A clear insult to their virility from bossy Englishman!

The movie overall reminds me of plenty of other films like Local Hero, The Seventh Stream, and Waking Ned, only not nearly as well done. Very cute idea, I suppose, but the romance that’s supposed to drive Grant’s character to the necessary conclusion is forced and neglected–when he first kissed Tara Fitzgerald I couldn’t understand why, or at least why she responded with so much passion, since the set up was not nearly sufficient.

Grant was coming off his first big hits, Sirens and Four Weddings and a Funeral, and one wonders if the accompaying publicity work and/or notoriety were getting inside his head because his energy level is quite far down the scale from those efforts. Perhaps he was attempting to ‘act’ and show he didn’t always play the same character each time out. Colm Meany, with a juicy role as the only healthy young man in the village to service all the lonely ladies, does somewhat better but not up to his work in, say, The Snapper or The Van.

Not recommended

Usually, top aide Rove is close enough to ride herd on Pseudo-president Bush. Apparently that wasn’t the case this morning and Our Leader let his lips loose:

“There are some who feel like that conditions are such that they can attack us there,” Bush told reporters at the White House. “My answer is bring them on. We have the force necessary to deal with the situation.”

The fact that American soldiers are dying and being seriously injured on a daily basis ought to be telling these clowns in D.C. something but they just don’t seem to be listening. After all, just yesterday he admitted that resolving the situation in Iraq will take a “massive” American presence for years to come. Wonderful, no?

The Man is keeping the brothers and sisters down but never fear, Undercover Brother and the Brotherhood are on the job. Mr. Feathers thinks he can stop a brother and Sistah Girl from defeating The Man’s plot to brainwash all brothers and sisters, but not when White She Devil makes it a threesome. Especially not in this funny flick, sort of a black Matt Helm to Mike Myers’ Bond update.

Eddie Griffin has the title role, and a ‘fro to go with it. Aunjanue Ellis plays Sistah, Chris Kattan is Mr. Feather, and Denise Richards is White She Devil (yup, that’s the actual character name and Mr. Feather introduces her as “Black-man’s Kryptonite”). Really good casting and a bunch of decent actors in supporting roles (Chi McBride, Dave Chappelle, Neil Patrick Harris, and Billy Dee Williams), not to mention a really funky soundtrack.

Malcolm Lee, Spike’s cousin, directed and does a reasonably good job here. It’s his second film in the chair as he also wrote and directed 1999’s The Best Man. John Ridley (Three Kings) wrote the script based on an Internet cartoon he created–the cartoon can still be seen on the Urban Entertainment website.

Definitely Recommended

I ‘met’ Dawn online while handling some support issue on the Blogger mailing list, we traded some friendly email, and since then monitor her blog. Let me tell you, if I was single and living near D.C., she would be high on my Have to Date list. (Note to TS1: this is just hypothetical.) She prints on her homepage buttons that say “Oral Sex: Donations accepted” and a Virginia license plate mockup that says “GR8 LAY”. But best of all is language like this:

“I found myself feeling incredibly horny today. Seriously, today is one of those straddle-anything-that-moves days. Unfortunately, that turned out to be a lively piece of plastic, but still — it was something. 🙂 Something about this heat brings out the sex-starved, raving lunatic in me.”

Are you single, smart, attractive guy living in her area? Get your ass in gear!

Based on a MeFi thread, a couple of months ago I signed up for free subscriptions to Maxim and Stuff. Amusing but not very readable–have no doubt that I am only interested in the photographs–so I used a made up name for their subscription rolls. Tom Stevens likes these kinds of magazines, I don’t. There were assurances that these subscriptions were given only to bulk up the audited numbers they use to sell ad space and no third party marketing would be sent.

A bald faced lie, apparently, as Mr. Stevens has received his first piece of junk mail. Paper, not email, since I gave a completely useless email address at least. Chase Manhattan Bank thinks that Tom needs a credit card. Simple enough, everyone needs more of those, but for some reason Chase thinks a special credit card personalized with a photo of Tom’s own pet would make him enthusiastic about a new piece of plastic.

So I think this could be very amusing, akin to the old stories about family pets getting onto marketing lists, and we’ll be following the companies who want Stevens as a customer on his own page: Selling Tom Stevens.

Another 77 shots, these taken by a friend and professional photographer, which you know you want to pore over until they’re burned into your brain. Also known as Wedding #2 over in the side bar.

Three weeks and some have passed since I put my lovely, Springsteen-inspired Telecaster up for sale and in all this time only one kind soul has come to try it out. Not one real expression of interest in the bargain-priced Line 6 Flextone amp. I’ve taken a textad on MetaFilter, how could I go wrong for $10, but though there’s been a decent (4.6% on 1100 ad views plus some clicks from the All Ads page) numbers, not one offer.

Yesterday I did receive an amusing email, though, and I reproduce it here without the author’s permission. Now, I could be wrong and this could be a language-based mixup since the sender claims to be from Indonesia but it does really sound like one of the scams I’ve read about recently on the Internet.

“Dear Sir,

I’m a customer from Indonesia

I was visited your site, I was interested to buy your pruduct :

– 1979 Fender Telecaster, serial number S829780

Qty:1

Tell me, how can I buy it from you?

Do you accept credit card for the payment?

How much is the best price for me (including VAT and packaging) if you ship it to Indonesia.

I really need these products for my clients in my country please reply me a.s.a.p

I hope we can be a great partner in business

Best Regards

Togu Catharina”

I googled the name given but there were no matches. So I sent off a reply (which didn’t bounce so the email address given might be real–the sender used a form on my site so it had to be done by hand) and said:

“No credit cards accepted. For international shipment I would require a certified check and product would not be shipped until the check clears (and I have the cash in my account). If this is of interest to you, let me know and I will investigate the shipping costs for sending approximately 50kg to Indonesia. I do not see how VAT would apply since I am a private individual; you would be responsible separately for any payments such as customs or tariffs due to our government.

Thanks for your interest.”

I’m interested to see if there’s a response at all and if so, would this person actually want to spend the money? At least the message was good for a laugh if nothing else. Meanwhile, the guitar and amp are still looking for a good home and a good price.

Simple roundup, all freeware:

• SlimBrowser: My choice for tabbed browsing on top of Internet Explorer (with built-in popup blocker). Some limitations but the developer releases new feature versions very rapidly and pays attention to the user community.
• GotDotNet Workspaces: SourceForge for the .NET folks
• HijackThis: Spyware finder
• Empty Temp Folders: does just what the name says, plus a little more.
• SharpReader: the current RSS Aggregator champ.

[mostly via Scobleizer]

The Senate Majority Leader, already under scrutiny as spokesman for Republican revisionism, has now come forward with a proposal in response to this week’s SCOTUS anti-sodomy law ruling. Frist is suggesting that he may put up a constitutional amendment which allows marriage to occur only between one man and one woman.

But his own language undercuts his position. If marriage is a sacrament, as he said on today’s episode of ABC’s This Week, than there is no way under the American system of separation of Church and State that this amendment should be enacted. One might argue that other laws, such as prohibitions on murder and theft, are rooted in religious belief but these laws also have distinct value to society independent of theist dogma.

Prohibition of same sex marriage, conversely, has no such value. One might, possibly, argue that such unions will not produce children but then again, neither will all heterosexual couples. No, the only justification for such laws is personal distaste for such behavior and even though this distaste is widely-held cannot pass muster. Sacrament, indeed, shows that this is and ought to remain a personal mattter.

[via DailyKos]

If you own a domain name, do you own the ‘telephone number’ version. For example google.com is 466453.com and microsoft.com is 642767638.com; click on either of those and you’ll see someone has been thinking ahead. Just like companies like to grab the toll-free phone number associated with their name or product, some companies have figured that for a few bucks a year they might as well do the same based on a telephone keypad. But I just can’t see shelling out the $15 or so per year for 245572978447.com.

[via teoti blog]

A romp, a giggle and tickle, a little of the old wink wink nudge nudge with American accents. From the writers of Scary Movies I & II, comes Not Another Teen Movie, sendng up teen romance flicks the way their other film did the teen horror genre. Perhaps not quite as successfully, but still worth 90 minutes of lifespan on cable. Mix together the following and add some Mike Myers influence: She’s All That, Can’t Hardly Wait, Varsity Blues, the American Pies, plus every ’80s John Hughes movie you can remember. In fact, the high school in the film is actually named for Hughes, Molly Ringwald makes a cameo, and Paul Gleason reprises his Breakfast Club role and detention room riff. Lots of laughs.

Recommended

Truly striking article on the fact that some individuals, able to function normally or above (math graduate with honors at university, for example), even though they have essentially no brain. “Instead of two hemispheres filling the cranial cavity, some 4.5 centimetres deep, the student had less than 1 millimetre of cerebral tissue covering the top of his spinal column.” Some additional detail here and here. Talk about your outliers! [via MetaFilter]

Dan Gillmor from your paper often mentions tech-oriented business or political stories that are not being covered reasonably by our larger media organizations, so it isn’t unreasonable to ask that your paper be more aggressive than others on important stories, tech-oriented or otherwise. Also, since I’m a daily subscriber and read the MN front to back each morning, I would like to see such coverage even if Gillmor did not write such material.

In this instance I would like to see better coverage of what’s happening in D.C. regarding Iraq and how the current Administration handled the situation. President Bush has stated that his critics are revising history with their arguments but from where I sit the truth is just opposite–he and other Republicans are changing their arguments and assertions in regards to Hussein and WMD and Iraq-al Quaeda.

A very current instance would be Sen. Frist’s appearance on the Today show.

Today’s remarks can be compared to his previous statements, which have been compiled here:

http://billmon.org/archives/000281.html

Bottom line: what would be really useful and interesting to read is the response one of your reporters gets by pointing out this contradiction to the senator. Despite this being a free country/free speech/however one characterizes it, I as a private individual simply do not have access to this man or other important politicians where your organization does, so I’m asking you to do what I can’t.

Thanks,

Bill Lazar

[I did send this to the address specified on the paper’s website, very early this morning, but no response at the close of business.]

Paul Krugman’s column today in the NY Times explains how serious, methodical, and confident of success the Republican Party has become at realizing its goals. And this is not, NOT, a good thing. Krugman quote House Majority Leader Tom DeLay: “It never ceases to amaze me that people are so cynical they want to tie money to issues, money to bills, money to amendments.” Remember, it’s not too early to make a donation of time, money, or webspace in support of your choice for 2004 Democratic nominee or the Democratic Party. As garret wrote, it’s far too early to give up on this fight.

Meanwhile, the French Terrorist has come up with a new plan, sort of:

Previously: #1 and #2

Now I can understand why a real estate developer like Kenneth Fitzhugh would try and make up an excuse like his wife falling down the stairs to the basement to avoid a conviction but you’d think a published novelist like Michael Peterson would be able to figure out a better cover story.

Yay for an intelligent Supreme Court decision in the Texas anti-sodomy law case. Boo for Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote, “the court has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda.” He also teamed up with Clarence Thomas as the two no votes (against the other seven) in a case that questioned the rights of defendents to competent representation. This guy is very scary if for now limited in his ability to destroy the country because Sandra Day O’Connor often listens to her smart inner voice and casts her vote against Scalia.

The problem may rear it’s ugly head very soon in a big way if rumors regarding two retirements from SCOTUS turn out to be correct; admittedly, the rumors were stronger a month ago but given the strength of initial reaction I wonder if the people in the know simply stopped talking to cool off the heat. The rumor wire says that O’Connor and Chief Justice/Gilbert & Sullivan fan William Rehnquist will retire from the court shortly after the current term ends next week.

Federal judges, especially including the Supremes, are appointed to their positions for life. So Clarence Thomas, for example, whom Maureen Dowd said yesterday has been driven mad by the impact affirmative action has had on his life and career, was appointed by ‘Bush 41’ at age 43 and could potentially serve for 35-40 years. Not counting those taken earlier by death, the justices seem to serve into their late 70s or early 80s.

The next part of the rumor says that if Rehnquist does step down, GWB’s posse will go for a trifecta by elevating Scalia to Chief Justice and appointing two new associates. Talk about your worst case scenarios! This Administration’s track record in appointing federal judges at lower courts is already atrocious–and I say that not just on a political level but because they’ve even ignored the freaking American Bar Association recommendations–and giving them this kind of opening at the top will have as much destructive, negative impact as the recent tax cuts and environmental policy decisions on our future.

Note: The DailyKos, which I’ve been reading in the aggregator thanks to Karl, has an insightful post on the decision pointing out that Scalia’s dissent shows how the decision may very well drop any further legal restraints on anti-homosexual discrimination including bans on gay marriage. Personally, I think this sexual preference-based distinction is foolish and as harmful to our society as gender- or race-based biases and will be glad to see them all safely in the past.

In the garden

There is a small bush

Growing next to a taller weed.

The bush yearns for sunlight

But the weed is a bully and will not

Let enough light get through.

A refreshing wind wafts

Through the garden yet once again

The bully weed steals most.

The bush spends days

Yearning for the weed to leave

Yearning for the wind and water.

Can a bush dream?

Can a bush lust and long for what is missed?

Surely in some measure.

So then why not

The same for the weed as well?

And well for the weed.