BillSaysThis

Novelist Jane Smiley sent in a short but sweet letter to the editor at the NY Times today and, contrary to usual practice, I’ll reproduce it here:

Maybe once was a fluke — the 2000 presidential election — but now it’s beginning to look like a pattern. Representative Tom DeLay is trying to force Texas to gerrymander before the next House election, and the Republicans in the California Legislature are holding Gov. Gray Davis hostage to a recall (news article, July 2).

It looks as if the G.O.P. has decided not to abide by the duly registered wishes of the voters, but to attempt every means to overturn elections that go to Democrats. Are we living in the third world? Is the United Nations going to have to send in election watchers to make sure we have free and fair elections?

Wake up, America! Your government is being stolen right out from under your noses by the right wing. It not only can happen here, it is happening here.

The sentences emphasized with bold are to me one of the key questions about what’s going on these days. The speeches and actions coming out of the GWB posse are such a load of crap that I’m increasingly challenged to understand current poll results. What, I wonder, is so broken with the Democratic Party that they can’t take advantage of such blatant behavior?

You watch shows like The Sopranos, The Wire, NYPD Blue, and such, and realize that being a witness in a serious trial is not a task one takes on lightly. There’s a reason, beyond the certainty of avoiding a fickle jury, why television detectives go to the lengths of getting a confession–NYPD Blue demonstrated this clearly in an episode where the only useful eyewitness was one the squad’s little boys–and that’s because of the danger to witnesses. In fact, the NY Times has an excellent (though lengthy) article today on the killing of a witness named Bobby Gibson: Justice, Safety and the System. Certainly raises the question in my mind of what I would do if confronted with the situation.

In The Coming, Joe Haldeman posits a society in the year 2054 where politics has devolved to the point where even I would be looking at GWB as an excellent President. University of Florida astronomy professor Aurora Bell detects an anomalous reading in her monitoring of gamma rays which translate literally as the message “We’re coming” repeated over and over again. Checking with a colleague on the Moon, her determination that the message has been sent from the outer reaches of the Solar System, from a trip travelling barely below the speed of light is confirmed. The ship will arrive at Earth in three months, on New Year’s Day.

Aliens on the way? Haldeman leaves the answer to that question for the very end of the story, though since this only runs a thin 217 pages that isn’t too long to wait. He’s not writing about aliens here, anyway, but about how humans will prepare for the meeting. Though his societal evolution isn’t positive–The Coming was published in 2000, before our latest round of troubles truly began–it also isn’t that different from today except for homosexuality being outlawed (seems like he got that wrong) and urban traffic coming under control of automation.

Sadly, this book simply never develops the narrative energy I need although Haldeman is a good enough author that I kept reading, hoping for the best, and he does have a way with words. The story is just really slight, even though he tries to pump it up with a subplot involving the professor’s husband and a local mobster. Honestly, for the first 100 pages I was still expecting the ship to show up and have that be the main focus but no.

Haldeman posted a bit of the beginning as unformatted text to his personal website.

Not recommended

A new problem for the French Terrorist!

The comic strip has its own page now, woot!

What a blast! This was a fun, wink at the audience, trash ourselves kind of movie with plenty of sexy bodies of both genders to fill out the slack. Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle has what it takes in a Summer movie, unlike, say Matrix: Reloaded or The Hulk: put the featured attractions on the screen and skip the rehash of Philosophy 201.

Sure most of the eye candy is barely-clothed women, especially the Angels and Bad Angel Demi Moore, but there are some hot guys; the script even uses Alex’s (Drew Barrymore) predilection for bad guys to pick out targets. Terrific soundtrack, with a nice mix of current and classic tunes, lots of dancing especially from Natalie (Cameron Diaz), and an explanation of how Bernie Mac and Bill Murray came to be brother Bosley’s. Eye twisting stunts but thankfully, except for some wire work, few special effects–there’ve been quite enough unnecessary impossible visions this Summer.

Best of all, writers John August and Cormac and Marianne Wibberly keep the plot simple and moving towards the climax. The few subplots, like Alex’s inadequecies and assassin’s target Max, are short and work to support the main story. Now don’t get me wrong, Full Throttle isn’t literary quality cinema, it’s a campy and fun, get out of the house and enjoy a couple of hours movie.

Recommended

Next time you’re in Manhattan, or at least the next time I’m there, diet or no, I’m going to visit Larry Forgione’s Signature Cafe at Lord & Taylor’s department store on Fifth Avenue to try a new kind of ice cream sandwich! First on the list: “Dense, nutty chocolate bread provides the wrapper for two sandwiches, one filled with chocolate ice cream, the other with peanut butter…”

The pumpkin returns to have fun with the French Terrorist!

Texas: Republicans try to steamroller an extra Congressional redistricting. This is the leadership’s second attempt after the Democrats foiled them a while back by fleeing to Oklahoma.

California: Republicans try to recall Gray Davis, less than a year after his re-election. though not all state Republicans are in favor. Darrell Issa, a Republican Congressman who made millions providing Americans with devices to evade the police, is putting up a huge amount of money (somewhere around $1,000,000) to fund the recall campaign; Issa, of course, has declared himself a candidate to replace Davis should the recall make the ballot.

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]