Category: Personal

The Washington Times is reporting that the families of 11 dead illegals to sue U.S.. That is, 11 people who died while attempting to illegally enter the United States from Mexico, across the desert in Arizona, and their families are now suing our government. The families claim that a failure to put fresh water stores out in the desert, where tighter controls were forcing the migrants, contribued to their deaths.

I say, so what if it did? Not to be heartless but why is our government financially liable when people from another country choose to violate our laws and are then killed or injured in the attempt? And how did the attorneys come up with the number of $3.75 million per person anyway? In any event, the attorneys are stretching facts to meet their needs–what a shock–so I wonder if this will end us anything more than another publicity stunt to help people who break our laws.

This is a serious pushbutton issue for me, as I’ve written before more than once. This is America, we welcome many immigrants with open arms, but only if you come on our terms.

A Man Who Would Shake Up Science – the new Wolfram book looks like an absolute must read, wonder if it will scale the bestseller lists…

Charleton Heston is Michaelangelo, Rex Harrison is Pope Julius II. Watch them go from fierce antagonists to squabbling brothers while Julius takes up the sword (and some magnificent armor) to fight off the French and German invaders. What is The Agony and the Ecstasy? It is the love of God, the love of something greater than a man and a woman. Or so then sort of hottie Diane Cilento finds out as her lifelong love for the painter goes unrequited.

This film is reasonably typical of the biblical/religious epics of the late ’50s and ’60s. Hell, it starts off with some kind of battle scene where there is no identification of who is fighting, or why, and we barely recognize that Heston is trying to carry a block of marble back to Rome for a Vatican statue. The politics exposed are farcical and bare only the slightest connection to what really happened in those years. Not to mention we are suppose to believe that a warrior pope would take the time to personally oversee a troublesome artist. Still, if you like your films on this kind of old-time larger than life scale, you might enjoy it.

Woody Allen is once again a comic god. Hollywood Ending is funnier than anything he’s made in years. The script is sophisticated, well-plotted but Allen has still found ways to positively stuff the dialog with jokes and use the hysterical blindness for some terrific physical humor as well. Plus he drapes the sets with some incredibly luscious women who are also fine actors–Tea Leoni, Tiffany Thiessen, Debra Messing, and Jodie Markell not counting the unnamed extras.

The interplay between Allen and the Chinese translator (Barney Cheng) is priceless. The translator, a local business student, has no future film interest so he says things that no one concerned with repercussions would. Likewise, the scene where Allen attempts to make up with his estranged punk rock musician son ScumbagX (nee Tony), as he stutters and blusters his way past the green spiked hair, the many piercings, and the rat eating that’s part of ScumbagX’s stage act. Mark Rydell, who’s usually on the other side of the camera as the director (On Golden Pond, The Rose), is a natural playing Woody’s agent.

Highly recommended

Greg Bear has been one of the top science fiction authors of the last two decades, especially since the release of Eon in 1985, and this is shown in part by the fact that he is one of only two authors to win a Nebula Award in every category. Recently his novels have focused on what he terms The New Biology; I missed Darwin’s Radio but clearly I need to get a copy in hand.

Vitals does indeed focus on biology, specifically the intersection of evolution and the incorporation of parasitic intestinal bacteria and the possibility of immortality. Bear gives us antagonistic twins, Hal and Rob Cousins, both top of their game biologists who, we read, might have succeeded in their quest if only they could have put aside their lifelong sparring and shared. Instead they fall into the target sites of a separated Russian husband and wife who have pursued, with seemingly much success, the same avenues for 70 years and who are not interested in johnny-come-lately competition. Instead they send deadly agents who use engineered bacteria as often as conventional weapons.

Bear has not written a Hollywood-style thriller so don’t expect a happy ending. He has written an engaging thriller, with pacing velocity increasing as we move through the second half, and forced me to stay awake into the early morning hours to get to the end. The setting is the present day, the backdrop is believable, the characters real, the ending…unnerving. One of my favorite lines is the next to last sentence:

“History is my brother’s fist smashing into my face forever.”

Highly recommended

Reading Safire in the Times today, I saw a link to “www.edwardjayepstein.com, the Web site of my unfazed Angletonian friend.” An actual live link, which is most unusual for the NY Times, so I clicked through. Epstein’s site, although marked still under heavy construction, has quite a lot of interesting material. The man has been an investigative reporter since (at least) the mid ’60s who focuses often on the Intelligence community.

There is much material on the events of last Sep. 11, information and questions that need answers. A collection of what Epstein terms fictoids, bits of information that have somehow come to be taken for the truth even though there really is none. For example, lie detectors. Everyone “knows” that they are imperfect machines, otherwise the results would be accepted in court, but the reality is that lie detectors measure nothing in a meaningful, scientific sense. “There are still no peer- reviewed test using randomly distributed true and false answers.” Many other topics touched on and whole books by the author are posted. The site is even interactive, with contests, questions, and an Ask Ed feature.

Check it out but set aside a couple of hours for interesting exploration. Lots of material for the warblogging crowd which, except for one brief mention on Instapundit, doesn’t seem to have picked up on him.

Latest Harry Potter Novel Delayed – oh the sadness, the pain, the tears fall all over the world!

The last part of a cold, at least for me, is the weird part where I am woozy for a number of hours and there is no difference if I lie die and watch TV, sit up and read, or walk around. Of course running in tight little circles or pretending to be a figure skater by spinning in place makes the feeling worse.

Steven points out that kids are the same everywhere, protesting US policies in Saudi Arabia wearing American branded clothing or protesting globalization in Washington, D.C. wearing clothes made in Asia. Which is a handy lead-in because I was going to point out the same regarding an equally ridiculous yet completely unsurprising protest at Santa Clara University yesterday that I read about in the still unlinkable SJ Mercury news.

SCU is a private, Jesuit-run school here in the South Bay. The school’s investment policy forbids owning stock in, among other industries, companies that make weapons. One of the South Bay’s larger employers is Lockheed-Martin, one of the largest weapon manufacturers. Lockheed-Martin, which employs many engineers, recently gave the university’s engineering school a $50,000 gift. Students marched yesterday demanding the school return the gift and that it synchronize the investment and donation policies. Which leads to the simple but obvious question: How many of SCU’s engineering graduates go to work for the defense giant each year?

Who has the better arched eyebrow, The Rock or John Belushi? You forgot about Belushi, didn’t you?

Actions speak louder than words and seeing Phil Ringnalda migrate his weblog from Blogger to MoveableType is surely one that speaks loudly. Phil has been the main source of tech support for Blogger users for the past year out of the goodness of his own heart (that is, he volunteered and didn’t even get so much as a link from Blogger head Evan Williams’ own site), he’s written scripts that make a variety of archive formats simple, and he’s never taken enough credit for his work. Phil stepped in because Evan didn’t have the time to do it, we know he’s work hard to keep things working and moving to the next level, but one thinks that there had to be someway to keep Phil happy and in the camp.

Tilting at Victory, ‘Quixote’ Tops Authors’ Poll – what, no Heinlein or Asimov? I want a recount

It really sucks being sick when you want to be strong for someone close to you. And I hate coughing, someone needs to explain how this is a survival strategy.

I could write a lot about Harlan Coben’s ninth novel. I would say that Harlan has achieved his goal of writing a crisp page turner. That his characters are full and his plot is not even close to predictable. That he knows how to engage the reader’s emotions. Since this book, as good as the rest is, depends on plot I wouldn’t even try and summarize it here. Trust me, this is worth the price of the hardback.

I wish I could tell you that he won another Edgar the other night for last year’s Tell No One but that novel was only nominated for Best Mystery and didn’t win.

Someone very close to me lost a parent today so postings and email will likely be slow from me for the next few days.

On the spur of the moment a buddy and I went to see this movie, mainly to see if The Rock will be the next big action hero (we agree, he will) and to just gawk at the luscious Miss Hu. The story of The Scorpion King is a mishmash of mythical history althou one wonders how a Hawaiian beauty ended up in ancient Egypt. Or how an ancient Egyptian, even just one, even knew of the existence of China. Still we didn’t expect anything resembling veracity, so no big disappointment.

The Rock didn’t have a lot of dialog, which was a good decision, but he also didn’t rely too much on his trademark arched eyebrow either. Steven Brand, an English actor in his first major film role, was reasonably slimey smart and sort of Russell Crowe-ish as the bad guy, Michael Duncan Clarke was okay, albeit sporting weird facial markings, as the fighting buddy. Grant Heslov played his usual lovable, weak-willed, vaguely Arabic sidekick (like his True Lies role without the computers). Chuck Russell is workman-like as the director; his previous history is all over the place including an Ah-nuld film as well. The script by David Hayter (X-Men) was solid and smart.

Overall, much more enjoyable than expected.

On this day in 1961:

– The author was born in a small cabin deep in the mountains of West Virginia, the child of a Martian and a Man in Black. Oh, wait, he was born in a nice Jewish hospital in the middle of Newark, NJ to a nice couple whose families came from Eastern Europe. Fortunately, no pictures exist either way. Also on this day:

– JFK established the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

– On The Edge of Night, Judy and Margie worry about Ed as he and Mike track killer Tersa Vetter to a deserted mine shaft.

– Thirteen young people set out from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans, Louisiana, to test a new federal law against segregation but these Freedom Riders never made it to New Orleans.

Thanks Mom and Dad!

You knew I was seeing this smack flick on opening night. Preceeded by sushi dinner with six pals, just love those 911 rolls, and a well-managed line outside the theater (thanks, Fandango). Did I enjoy the movie? Perhaps not as much as the bulk of the geek audience I saw the show with, they gave a standing ovation, but I thought the movie was really good, really cool.

The weakest point was the Green Goblin’s costume. The mask especially was far too rigid and ’70s Saturday morning cartoonish. Tobey Maguire was, Saturday Night Live goofs aside, a really good choice for the hero role since he can actually act. Willem Dafoe is always good as the slime although it’s too bad he had to wear that stupid mask for much of the show. Kirsten Dunst can act but I think they must have used some serious special effects on her breasts because she didn’t look anywhere near as large in, say, Bring It On. Yowsa!

Sam Raimi mainly directed genre flicks but steps up to the plate big time. David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Panic Room) gets a good balance between the original comics and the needs of a $100 million movie production. The studio has already signed off on the next Spider-Man movie, for release in two years and the entire cast and Raimi have been firmed although the writing duties are going to Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, the guys behind the current TV version of Superman, Smallville, and the recent DeNiro/Murphy comedy Showtime.

Highly recommended!

I need to start checking earlier on Thursdays cuz dammit I want to win!

Science is our friend:

Mutant viruses order quantum dots – Virii force the dots into ordered structures which will eventually allow them to be used in circuits that are far smaller than anything possible with optical or electron beam lithography.

From Fields to Factories: Plant-Based Materials Replace Oil-Based Plastics, Polyesters. Uses include packagin materials and even drink cups at McDonalds.

Using Robotics, Researchers Give Upgrade to Lowly Rats – Bionic rats towards what end?

The Hilarious:

Bush Declares Judiciary ‘Crisis’ – Politicians have an amazing ability to selective experience reality. When Clinton was president and the Republicans controlled the Senate, he couldn’t get a judicial nomination out of committee, leading to the vast majority of the current vacancies, but now that Bush faces similar circumstances he feels free to blame the Democrats. What a doofus we elected!