BillSaysThis

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.

If you enjoy soul music, especially coming from a pack of slum-raised white Irish teenagers, witha bit of comedy thrown in, then you’ll enjoy The Commitments–it’s been one of my favorites, watched over and over, since the initial release in 1991. The soundtrack, much of it provided by the young Irish kids who play the bandmembers, is terrific; I’m truly surprised that more of them didn’t become known as actors or musicians.

Andrew Strong, for example, is the closest thing this film has to a bad guy, he plays the lead singer and is amazingly arrogant but the others put up with him because he can sing soul like no white boy should. Since this came out, he’s made a string of records but never achieved any real success which is too bad because he really does have the voice.

Robert Arkins plays Jimmy Rabbitte, the focal character in this ensemble as the band manager, but this is his first and only acting part as far as I can find. In the movie Arkins is all ideas and energy but doesn’t sing or play, while in real life he’s primarily a singer with his own band.

The movie sort of plays out like the film of an imaginary rock opera album like Tommy or Quadraphenia, if that makes any sense. First are a bunch of scenes with wheeler-dealer Rabbitte gathering the players together, including some very strange blokes that show up for advertised auditions at his house. Most of the selected musicians aren’t much good with their instruments (except the medical student piano player and Strong) except for Joey “The Lips” Fagan, the one older member who’s toured with a long list of great American soul singers, yet the band comes together as tight and nearly professional in a matter of weeks. Rehearsals, kids, are really important, you see.

They play their first gig, a couple of songs at an anti-drug benefit at the church’s community room, and everyone is at the top of the world. Time to introduce some troubles: Fagan, who is twice the age or more of the others, sleeps with two of the three Commitmentettes. Strong pisses everyone off with his unearned arrogance and the drummer so much that he quits. A couple of more gigs are arranged, though, and the overall momentum is upwards; Rabbitte even arranges a nice review in one of the local newspapers. Then comes the night Wilson Pickett is supposed to jam with the band after his own show. And it all falls apart, so quickly that we’re into the epilogue almost before one realizes just what’s happened. Terrifically paced ending unlike so many other films.

Which isn’t too surprising when you remember that the movie is based on a novel by Roddy Doyle, one of the top novelists of the last 25 years, and he co-wrote the script and that the director is Alan Parker (Midnight Express, Pink Floyd’s The Wall, and, another personal favorite, Bugsy Malone). These guys drop you into a place you’ve never been and show you some great characters going through a true episode.

Note: Doyle wrote two more novels, The Snapper and The Van, which with The Commitments make up his Doylestown Trilogy (referring to the section of Dublin where the people live). Each of them was made into a very good movie, each very different than this one.

Definitely recommended

• Pam is funny!
• Karl: Learning Music Theory With Java
• Via Simon: My RSS feed should now validate due to the Blogger software update. PS – I met Simon a few years back at a Sun internal XML technical briefing, cool guy, but that was the day I totally threw my back out and was an invalid for weeks afterwards.
• Now that SocialText has raised a funding round, they ought to try and hire me. Blogs, enterprises, developers, and so forth, an excellent convergence of my skills. Who reads this knows one of the principals there?
• Whump must have had an amazing time at the Soiree yesterday, or else been extremely busy at work reading up on all the cool new schizznit.
• Scoble needs to find a new comment system as his provider is apparently out once again.
• John Lim has a very informed take on Tim O’Reilly’s talk at Reboot 2003 on The Open Source Paradigm Shift. Though I do wish John would move his blog to a better host.
• Multi-axis congratulations and best wishes to Zimran on the sheepskin and license; I hope he sees less rain than I did during the honeymoon.
• Toe wrestling! World championship toe wrestling, only in England, of course, would such an event occur. Right?

I’ve enhanced the PHP class that powers the little box over towards the top of the left column of the home page, Countdowns, with a new field, TIPS, to allow for text that pops up in a little yellow box when you position your mouse over the text when the event is linked to another web page. Even updated the PHP Classes package for those interested in using it themselves, woot! (Code is available under the BSD license.)

For all you fans waiting anxiously for another installment:

• Would this wedding location been available if one of the parents wasn’t a Congressman?
• $62.6 million sounds pretty good but are the studio execs really happy? Reviews like Oliver’s are among the reasons I’m not jumping to hand over my movie money.
• Why are some people so comfortable making idiotic assertions yet unwilling to stand behind them?
• While I may agree with the sentiment, the shirts are not in any way a good idea and I don’t want one. This should have been in the form of a question but is such emphatic consistency really necessary?
• Are there legitimate uses for DeCSS and similar software? Of course. Are the folks at the MPAA and its backers a bunch of head in the sand doofii? Of course.

The three young guys responsible for a disgustingly popular Bum Fights video series were sentenced to a $500 fine, 280 hours of community service, and three years’ probation Friday. I couldn’t find more detail than the Mercury News had in a brief mention but I don’t understand how they got off so lightly–they made a deal to plead guilty to a single count of conspiring to stage an illegal fight. The videos they produced sold only 300,000 copies and also featured homeless men and women performing such entertaining acts as ripping out teeth and ramming themselves into doors.

Let’s jut make a conservative guess that these guys (Ryan McPherson, Zachary Bubeck, and Daniel Tanner) made about $7 per video net of production and marketing costs, or about $2.1 million total; not unreasonable conjecture when the tapes and DVDs sold for something like $19.95 each. And in exchange for all the harm they did to the featured players, the DA in San Diego made them cough up a big $1500 without even putting a felony on their records.

I wonder, though, what the police and DA would have done if they came upon two of these poor people fighting over a bottle of alcohol or a nice sleeping bag. Say a knockdown, dragged out affair in a visible location with one of the men really doing damage to the other. Somehow that sounds like the kind of situation where the “winner” would get a real prize: felony assault and one to three years in a state prison.

So Ryan, Zachary, and Daniel ought to thank their lucky stars that business-oriented crimes are seen as much less important, especially when the defendants have some cash to mount a good defense. Fortunately for sanity, these clowns also face civil lawsuits from some of the performers where one can hope they’ll have to disgorge their ill-gotten gains.

I’m watching the USA-Brazil match from the Confederations Cup tournament over in France at the moment, about 10 minutes left in the game, and I want to know where the heck FIFA gets the referees for this tournament. The guy working this match is just sad. He gave our defender Carlos Bocanegro a yellow just now for a perfectly legal slide–both feet went straight into a ball and he didn’t turn his soles up at the Brazilian (Kleberson?) on the other side of it. Five minutes ago he gave Ernie Stewart a yellow for diving when Stewart clearly fell after jumping over the legs of a challenging Brazilian defender. Meanwhile at the end of the first half he walked right past an obvious penalty kick when Landon Donovan (what a great player!) was interefered with in the box.

Not that our players are blameless for the current score, 1-0 in favor of the Yellow and Blue, because the defense has been too loose and the passes not nearly good enough. And other than Donovan and to a lesser degree DaMarcus Beasely, none of the Americans has made an offensive mark. Clint Mathis, expecially, has not contributed nearly enough.

Adriano’s goal, in the 22nd minute, was a combination of what I mentioned. First, he intercepted a weak pass back to goalie Tim Howard, and then Howard had to come way off the line to stop Adriano’s initial shot due to lack of support and was way out of position to stop the rebound. Though I question whether Howard played the initial shot correctly, so that there shouldn’t have been a rebound.

Final: Brazil 1, USA 0. So Brazil makes up for their loss to Cameroon in the first game since Turkey also lost to the African side today. The Americans slip to 0-2 and with their only match left against that same Cameroon team, cannot advance even with a win. After making the Final 8 at last Summer’s World Cup, we get nada, niente, from this tourney; only the top two in each group go on so even if we get a win (for a total of three points) against Cameroon, they’ll still have six points as will the winner of Turkey-Brazil or four points for each in event of a draw.

Admittedly we didn’t bring our top team to give some players a rest after the end of the European club seasons and coach Bruce Arena expects a stronger side for the upcoming CONCACAAF Gold Cup. ESPN also has a good article by Marc Connolly that explains what our coaching staff is looking for from different players during the series.

Well, not really, of course, but our own special GWB today explained the away the failure of American forces in Iraql to find any bio or chem weapons by claiming that looters must have stripped all the sites and all the documents. But gee Prez, if the bad men took the weapons (and why would they give enough of a shit about the documentation to take it too?), and those forces are the ones killing one American soldier a day on the ground there, how come none of the stuff has been used yet? Puh-leeze!

Pick your characters, backgrounds, and props, add some narrative and dialog et voila:

Careful, though, since the FAQ says: “How can I edit or delete my comics? People who have donated to Stripcreator now have access to the comic deleting feature.” And the toy doesn’t offer a simple way to download the results to your PC, I had to do a screen print and paste it into a new image in PaintShop Pro. Still, could be fun.

[via Scobelizer]

Late June is an odd time to be getting new television, but this is the new millenium, baby, and TV has changed. Summer’s not just for snoozing any more as people more and more decide that the beautiful weather is no reason to tear their eyes away from the tube. Personally, Summer has never been an excuse not to watch but rather a time to catch shows missed during the original runs. And catch the occasional cool, mislaid original like Northern Exposure

So this weekend brings us the first new episodes of the year from Monk (tonight at 10 on USA) and Sex and the City (Sunday at 9 on HBO), both of which will split their runs of original shows into two parts in blatant attempts to milk the ratings. The NY Times gives us an elaborate, insightful review of the latter. This is the last season for our four sexual adventurers and the producers know it, so I expect to see Carrie and Crew go out on a high note. Lots of laughs, lots of sex (Samantha targets a hot waiter in the opener), and a few poignant turns on the dance floor of life.

Monk, on the other hand, is just in its second year and after winning surprisingly high ratings last season has been rewarded with a significant uptick in budget. Which means more location shooting in San Francisco and interior work in Los Angeles where last year as much as possible (including all interiors) was done in Canada. If you missed Tony Shalhoub’s excellent performance as the titular detective, don’t skip it now. The show is as much–more?–about exploring his character, in a highly comic way, as it is about solving the week’s mystery.

And what a character Monk is: a top detective with the San Francisco Police Department, he simply cratered after his wife died (four years before this series began) and all the little things that most of us are able to push aside in daily life became magnified a hundred or more times for him. We’re not talking about keeping clean but a fear of germs so deep he won’t shake hands and seals his clothes and toiletries in plastic when packing for a trip. Behavioral quirks: Monk counts all the parking meters he passes walking city streets.

Plus, he has a sidekick, wonderfully played by Bitty Schram, who is paid to be Monk’s, well, caretaker, to help him past all the little hurdles his near-insanity puts in front of him. Of course, Schram also serves as Watson to his Holmes and has a good share of subplots mainly focusing on how the job impacts her personal life.

The other new show I’m watching is Last Comic Standing. The first three episodes have already aired, which were the regional roundups and the Vegas semi-finals, and now the 10 finalists have moved into a house together in the Hollywood Hills. Prize is pretty big for this crowd of aspiring standups: a special on Comedy Central and an “exclusive talent contract” with NBC. Original episodes air Tuesdays on NBC and then repeat on Saturday on Comedy Central.

In general, I’d never found a reality or talent competition show enjoyable until catching an episode of Last Comic Standing, which has enough performers that each one only gets, at most, the best 60 seconds of material on the air, and has very little off-stage, get to know them crap. I mean, it does have a little of that but not for every single contestant and then only brief clips. Also, I think the judges selected a pretty good group for the final 10 though starting this week the show opens up the voting to the public, not a feature I like. The use of well-known comics like Buddy Hackett, Joy Behar, and Colin Quinn to give feedback to the performers but not vote (I guess this is how the American Idol trio of bigmouths works too) adds to the show because the ‘scouts’ are all actually capable of being funny on the spot.

Plus, The Wire, which I think anyone who has HBO has to watch even though the first three episodes have already aired, it’s just that good. And starting Sunday it’s on right after Sex and the City, an odd combination of high quality TV.

While I was composing the previous post, my blog got moved to the new system. Which gave me a scare for a moment because when I tried to store the post into Blogger’s database, I got a database error; fortunately my practice of clicking CTRL+A, CTRL+C before clicking the Post button once again saved my efforts from oblivion. You should see no difference on the published page, which is kind of unfortunate because that means the new system doesn’t include either of the major new features for which I was hoping: trackback and comments. Oh well.

Today is the 50th anniversary of the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for treason; today also saw the publication of an excerpt of Ann Coulter’s new book, allegedly also non-fiction, called Treason, in which she asserts that the late Senator Joe McCarthy was a true patriot and not the power-hungry leader of a witchhunt he is remembered as today. While there turned out to be some truth to the claims regarding Julius Rosenberg, there is no truth in the absurd claims of Ms. Coulter.

Coulter probably should have been named Today’s Asshat, by the way. At least the last recipient of the honor had the good sense to resign the next day.