About four times today I was asked if perhaps the swine/Mexico/H1N1 flu story is manufactured hysteria.
It certainly seems like another shining moment for Big Media. 257 people get the flu and 300,000 pigs have to die.
Last time we saw this level of media attention, people were eating each other in New Orleans.
Meanwhile, scientists are now basically saying it's flu season.
FLU SEASON? OH MY GOD! ITS FLU SEASON! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!
I need another round of Ovechkin therapy.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
The Best So Far
Ya. I don't care who you are, this is sick:
"In comes Ovechkin...gets around Drury...gets around Morris...(illegible) scores....incredible goal, by Alexander Ovechkin"
You'll see in the replay that Morris actually grabs a stick off the bench as he's playing Ovechkin after his own shatters on an attempted chuckwagon from the point. Drury looks silly trying to make the hit, and Ovechkin kicks the puck up to his stick just before going to his knees for the backhand.
What a great highlight.
"In comes Ovechkin...gets around Drury...gets around Morris...(illegible) scores....incredible goal, by Alexander Ovechkin"
You'll see in the replay that Morris actually grabs a stick off the bench as he's playing Ovechkin after his own shatters on an attempted chuckwagon from the point. Drury looks silly trying to make the hit, and Ovechkin kicks the puck up to his stick just before going to his knees for the backhand.
What a great highlight.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Desperation Causes Global Warming
This article smacks of the kind of desperation we've become more and more accustomed to.
One thing I didn't see in the article is how the balance is affected by differences in life expectancy. If thin people live 20 years longer, on average, than heavy people, is that enough time to make up the difference in CO2 output?
Wait.
Sorry about that. For a moment there I actually considered this "study" something worth more than abject ridicule. I will refrain from further comment until it can be determined what affect ridicule has on the environment.
One thing I didn't see in the article is how the balance is affected by differences in life expectancy. If thin people live 20 years longer, on average, than heavy people, is that enough time to make up the difference in CO2 output?
Wait.
Sorry about that. For a moment there I actually considered this "study" something worth more than abject ridicule. I will refrain from further comment until it can be determined what affect ridicule has on the environment.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
We Have Created the Piracy Threat
Abe Greenwald is very concerned about Obama's "overreaction" to the pirate issue, and concludes:
Let’s face it: on Sunday, we only created more pirates.
Thus, one of the best lines I have read in quite some time.
UPDATE: From humor to reality in 24 hours:
Somali pirates vowed to hunt down American ships and kill their sailors and French forces detained 11 other brigands in a high-seas raid as tensions ratcheted up Wednesday off Africa's volatile eastern coast.
Now we're going to have to let them become a nuclear power so they'll be nice to us.
Let’s face it: on Sunday, we only created more pirates.
Thus, one of the best lines I have read in quite some time.
UPDATE: From humor to reality in 24 hours:
Somali pirates vowed to hunt down American ships and kill their sailors and French forces detained 11 other brigands in a high-seas raid as tensions ratcheted up Wednesday off Africa's volatile eastern coast.
Now we're going to have to let them become a nuclear power so they'll be nice to us.
More Hope and Change
Can you imagine the unmitigated outrage had a Republican administration released a report about left-wing extremists as politically motivated and thin as this one?
The backlash from the poor, victimized, left would last a generation.
Powerline has the takedown. Enjoy.
By the way, who put a right-wing extremist in charge of Texas? States rights? Who ever heard of such a radical concept?
UPDATE: Actual photographic evidence of right-wingers on the cusp of terrorist activity.
The backlash from the poor, victimized, left would last a generation.
Powerline has the takedown. Enjoy.
By the way, who put a right-wing extremist in charge of Texas? States rights? Who ever heard of such a radical concept?
UPDATE: Actual photographic evidence of right-wingers on the cusp of terrorist activity.
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
The Rest of Us Can Say It Now
Barack Obama on Iraq:
"From getting rid of Saddam, to reducing violence, to stabilizing the country, to facilitating elections -- you have given Iraq the opportunity to stand on its own as a democratic country. That is an extraordinary achievement."
It sure is, especially given that Obama and the rest of the Democratic Party worked so hard to prevent that achievement. Kudos to him though, for at least having the stones to admit they failed.
"From getting rid of Saddam, to reducing violence, to stabilizing the country, to facilitating elections -- you have given Iraq the opportunity to stand on its own as a democratic country. That is an extraordinary achievement."
It sure is, especially given that Obama and the rest of the Democratic Party worked so hard to prevent that achievement. Kudos to him though, for at least having the stones to admit they failed.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Observed Only in the Breech
The true value of film editing can only be appreciated when something is viewed without it. I was fortunate/unfortunate to have received a stark lesson in the values of editing today.
I was watching The Abyss, a cult-type favorite I really liked when it first came out and through the years, on television. Having not seen it in a while I was having a splendid time until I realized I was watching something that wasn't even in the film...and it was awful.
(Forgive me if you aren't familiar with the film.)
Ed Harris, rescued by the aliens at the bottom of the ocean after disarming the nuke activated by the crazy Seal guy, ends up in a long conversation with the aliens. They explain they are about to destroy civilization with a gigantic tsunami (hence the storm plot in the movie). They do this because humans have been so mean to each other; always warring and nuking and raping and nuking and killing and nuking...you get the picture. It was 1989 and Hollywood was in its ninth year of Republican leadership.
So, anyway, the aliens' bright idea is to teach us a lesson about destroying each other on a relatively small scale by taking us out on a large scale. They show Ed Harris a long series of news clips demonstrating how evil we are on a water TV complete with audio, by way of explanation. "You can't know" we will nuke the planet, pleads Ed Harris (in retrospect, a reasonable point).
But then, as if in all their television monitoring over the years they never once caught wind of a single kind act by a human being, they are touched by Ed Harris's selfless act of giving his own life to disarm the nuke. Because of it, they change their mind, even as gigantic, 1000-foot waves literally hover over most major cities and hundreds of thousands of terrified humans (most of which were American cities and people, just to remind the viewer where most of the evil comes from).
By the time Harris checks in with his underwater mates we have been treated to well over five minutes of preaching about our violent ways. Harris, in turn, gives us another few minutes as he relays the message to the crew and, ostensibly, the world. The highlight is when a guy on a surface vessel turns to the military officer on board and says something like "I guess you're going to have to find a new line of work." Because, after all, we received the alien wave message loud and clear. It's time to put away "childish things."
It was an absolutely putrid ten minutes of film, Hollywood holier-than-thou preaching 101, which I could have lived with taken on its own. But when you look at it over the whole of the movie, you realize it was the entire point of the film, personified by the slowly-going-insane Navy Seal character maniacally driven to nuke the unknown (the aliens).
Because of the unedited plot, Ed Harris goes from saving his crew (believable, ironically because humans have a long history of acts of kindness toward each other) to saving the world (the kind of stupid ideological tripe that gives people a Messiah complex).
It is an amazing sign of plot weakness, in my opinion, that an entire plot can be erased from a film simply by removing ten minutes from the climax. But worse, now that I know the original intention of the film makers, the entire movie - a pretty cool movie in its original form - is ruined.
Junked.
Flushed.
Given that most people do not find it entertaining to be insulted, it was probably wise to remove the plot line from the original film. In other words, it was a wise editing decision and the movie was very successful. Far less wise was the release of the original ending, the sci-fi equivilent of the teary-eyed pollution Indian, which should never have seen the light of day.
I was watching The Abyss, a cult-type favorite I really liked when it first came out and through the years, on television. Having not seen it in a while I was having a splendid time until I realized I was watching something that wasn't even in the film...and it was awful.
(Forgive me if you aren't familiar with the film.)
Ed Harris, rescued by the aliens at the bottom of the ocean after disarming the nuke activated by the crazy Seal guy, ends up in a long conversation with the aliens. They explain they are about to destroy civilization with a gigantic tsunami (hence the storm plot in the movie). They do this because humans have been so mean to each other; always warring and nuking and raping and nuking and killing and nuking...you get the picture. It was 1989 and Hollywood was in its ninth year of Republican leadership.
So, anyway, the aliens' bright idea is to teach us a lesson about destroying each other on a relatively small scale by taking us out on a large scale. They show Ed Harris a long series of news clips demonstrating how evil we are on a water TV complete with audio, by way of explanation. "You can't know" we will nuke the planet, pleads Ed Harris (in retrospect, a reasonable point).
But then, as if in all their television monitoring over the years they never once caught wind of a single kind act by a human being, they are touched by Ed Harris's selfless act of giving his own life to disarm the nuke. Because of it, they change their mind, even as gigantic, 1000-foot waves literally hover over most major cities and hundreds of thousands of terrified humans (most of which were American cities and people, just to remind the viewer where most of the evil comes from).
By the time Harris checks in with his underwater mates we have been treated to well over five minutes of preaching about our violent ways. Harris, in turn, gives us another few minutes as he relays the message to the crew and, ostensibly, the world. The highlight is when a guy on a surface vessel turns to the military officer on board and says something like "I guess you're going to have to find a new line of work." Because, after all, we received the alien wave message loud and clear. It's time to put away "childish things."
It was an absolutely putrid ten minutes of film, Hollywood holier-than-thou preaching 101, which I could have lived with taken on its own. But when you look at it over the whole of the movie, you realize it was the entire point of the film, personified by the slowly-going-insane Navy Seal character maniacally driven to nuke the unknown (the aliens).
Because of the unedited plot, Ed Harris goes from saving his crew (believable, ironically because humans have a long history of acts of kindness toward each other) to saving the world (the kind of stupid ideological tripe that gives people a Messiah complex).
It is an amazing sign of plot weakness, in my opinion, that an entire plot can be erased from a film simply by removing ten minutes from the climax. But worse, now that I know the original intention of the film makers, the entire movie - a pretty cool movie in its original form - is ruined.
Junked.
Flushed.
Given that most people do not find it entertaining to be insulted, it was probably wise to remove the plot line from the original film. In other words, it was a wise editing decision and the movie was very successful. Far less wise was the release of the original ending, the sci-fi equivilent of the teary-eyed pollution Indian, which should never have seen the light of day.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Minus All the Beer Drinking
So, GD2 came to us a couple of months ago and asked if she could play rugby.Fine by me.
She saw her first action today, and won a three game tourney in Rogers. She's the one in the picture who looks like she's yelling at her little sister.
Would you cross that? I would not cross that.
Saturday, April 04, 2009
Historic Washington D.C.
Tom D. went all the way to the nation's capitol, spent a couple of weeks there, and sent back pictures - complete with commentary - of the historic, patriotic journey.Above we have the midwest, a way stop on the way east: The first shot of a small solitary tree standing up to the harsh prairie winds, was shot while rolling somewhere through Obama-Land, South of Rockford. I call it "Hope."
Obama has a tree, while other presidents have something a little more significant: The second was taken about 50 miles West of Indianapolis in Indiana and it must cause a certain percentage of traveling heads to explode everyday.
Finally, the arrival; and the first and last sign of anything even remotely historic: The third is the historic marker I mentioned in Laurel, Md., about 15 miles North of D.C. It's right next door to where we stayed for two weeks. So not only did the father of our country rest his head frequently right in the area, so did Ted J.
From George W. to Ted J. in just a few generations.
Exhibit B, apparently you can buy "taxation without representation" plates in D.C., designed for those who, despite being surrounded by the rubes every day, still would prefer to have them make the decisions:
Lastly, having heard the Great One was out of town, Tom and Ted decide to just leave:
Great trip guys. Too bad there aren't more historic sites to visit in D.C.
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