Still don't think you want it?

So recently there was a City of Heroes Film Festival contest. The actual winning videos weren't so great, unless you were already familiar with the game, so I didn't mention it on here. But check out the Origins! video. The best of what this game has to offer.

William Safire is a Tool (part XXXVII)

When does William Safire get all ACLU? Why, when it's politically convenient, of course.

Sentenced to Be Raped

Chilling and yet hopeful and yet depressing.

As Manda put it ...

That's a heart wrencher

Fake news is better than pseudo-news

A little while back, Bill O'Reilly called the audience of the Daily Show 'stoned slackers'. Well, Comedy Central did a little research. Turns out people who watch the Daily Show are more likely than Bill's audience to be better educated in general, and about politics in particular.

Andy Rooney enjoys stereotypes

Atrios with his friend Carlos. Not only do I know a handful of first-time voters, my friend Megan is a newly-naturalized Italian-American voting for the first time (not counting the Missouri primary). She's lived in the US since she was 14, and doesn't even have an accent.

Are there brand-new Americans with a shaky command of English? Yes. Does that mean they're incapable of being well-informed about US politics? Has Andy Rooney checked out the half-dozen foreign language channels on his cable? Telemundo's a broadcast station in most major markets!

They're still learning English, they're not stupid.

Space Age Technology, Today!

I finally broke down and bought an ipod for my birthday. Too many people compared owning one to meeting the Baby Jesus for me to refuse any longer. Plus the headphone jack on my laptop doesn't work quite like it should and last time I sent it in the Best Buy people were clueless. Anyhow, though the ipod is a neat piece of hardware, Apple BLOWS. Firstly, check out that pretentious bag. LAME!!! What you can't tell from my friend Anne modeling it is that it's made from this ultra soft fancy platic that makes me want to vomit because it's so lame. And don't even get me started on the boutique that is an Apple store.

The worst offense, however, is that Apple forces you to use itunes to transfer music over to your player. It's pretty obviously a bald faced attempt to get you to buy music from the online itunes store, which it takes you to if you ever so slightly click in the wrong place, but what's worse is that it's a terrible way to organize your music. I, as I'm sure many people do, have many MP3s which have inconsistent ID3 tags, which for the non-nerds out there means that the file names and some of the other aspects which the computer uses to categorize them, don't follow one system. Some, for instance are grouped by album, so they are in a folder named for the album and are named by song, but don't include all the information about album and artist on each individual file. Part of the tags is genre, which was all over the place. The long and short of this is that I spent the better part of yesterday trying to get my twelve hundred MP3s into a unified system of tags. This, of course, could have been avoided if the ipod showed up as a portable hard drive and I was able to simply move folders over as they appeared in my Windows directory, but, again, this wouldn't force the joy of itunes on me. Screw you Apple for stealing my day. I love my ipod.

Best Zombie Movie EVER

Shaun of the Dead is one of the best movies you’ll see this year. What are you waiting for? Don’t read this review! Just get your ass up right now and run, or zombie shuffle, yourself down to the local cinema and see this movie ASAP. Unless, of course, you don’t like your movies too spectacularly good. If, on the other hand, you prefer to see merely mediocre or outright awful movies then perhaps you’d be better served seeing Aliens vs Predator, or whatever Sandra Bullock’s latest is.

Shaun of the Dead is a comedy/romance/horror zombie flick. If this sound a tad odd, well it is, but in the best way possible. The trailer unfortunately includes a couple scenes which, though funny in the film, in a trailer make it look like more of a spoof than it is. In fact, it’s not a spoof at all, even though it does contain scattered references to zombie movies past and present. The film centers on Shaun, just an ordinary guy who hasn’t made much of his life until a zombie epidemic breaks out around him. The film uses the older “slow moving” zombie variety which lends itself well to certain comedic scenes, but the film IS still a horror flick, which we’ll get to later. The comedy is pure Brit, with much of it coming out in banter, usually between Shaun and his main mate Ed, and in great “British” reactions to zombie scenes. I know I’m not doing the comedy any justice by describing it like this but just trust me that there are more laughs per minute in this movie that just about any I can think off from the last couple years.

Though most of the film is one of the best comedies I’ve seen in a while (along with Zach Braff’s wonderful Garden State), it is after all a zombie film and it doesn’t let you forget it. There is gore, and sometimes a lot of it, along with “jump moments” but this is, I think, one of the strongest elements of the movie. Because the comedy is so endearing and disarming that those moments which in another film you’d see coming a mile away really surprised me sometimes. Characters die in this film, because, you know, zombies, but there is no fodder here, at least not among the main character set. I’m not suggesting that you’ll go home and cry about a character that kicked the bucket, but group interaction meant so much to the comedy that when someone got lost I really noticed, unlike other films where five generic soldiers get eaten before we’re whittled down to the stars.

Again, there is gore here, so if you’re squeamish you should be ready to cover those eyes in a couple spots, but even if you watched the whole movie with a blindfold on it’d still be among the best films of the year.

Here's the trailer, even though it doesn't represent the film as well as it could.

I Would Have Posted About This Earlier, But I Was Drunk

Micheal Moore came by Camden last Monday (on my bithday no less!) and I've been meaning to post my thoughts about it, but I've had a lot on my mind lately and I wasn't sure exactly what about it I wanted to specifically mention.

First, some logistical things. The show was at the Tweeter Center in Camden, New Jersey, which is right across the river from Philadelphia. According to my local friends, numerous performers at the Tweeter introduce their shows with a rousing "Good evening Philadelphia!" which, considering Camden's status as a post-industrial meltdown city, is potentially offensive. Moore knew where he was though, and even compared Camden to his hometown Flint and Rutgers - Camden to his own University of Michigan - Flint Campus ("In New Brunswick Rutgers is just Rutgers, but in Camden it's always Rutgers - Camden"). The show was supposed to start at eight, but people really trickled in slowly, so they didn't start until closer to nine, which will be more important later.

The show was what you'd expect from Micheal Moore, that is, a lot of funny, a lot of complaining about both sides of the aisle, and a lot of invective and troop rallying against Bush and it was all good. A big target for Moore were all the "liberals" out there hand-wringing about how Kerry isn't the most exciting candidate ever. The Republicans don't do this, he says, they're sharks; always moving forward, always on the attack. We need to stop whining and just do the job before us, that is, beating the shit out of Bush. This goal shouldn't be as hard as we're making it either, Moore tells us, because when you poll on the issues only around 30% of Americans identify with the Republican platform. We've just got all the slackers on our side (which is good because "they get us the best 'stuff'"), but we shouldn't be pissed off at them, we just need to figure out a way to motivate them.

Moore had a list of advice for the Kerry campaign, but in the interest of fair play, he also had a series of campaign comercials that he made for the Bush campaign, which was the real "Big Funny" of the show. He said they would be put up on his website, but I can't seem to find them. For a brief moment there I considered trying to explain them here, but then I realized that that would pretty much rob any humor in there, so just wait your asses till they're online.

The show wrapped up with a focus on voter registration and turnout and Mike brought a number of people up on stage to register right then and there, which was pretty cool. All in all it was a great show, and you should check to see if his tour is coming near where you all are at. Rutgers subsidized the show, so my tickets were free, but it'd still be worth it if they hadn't been.

Do they really expect this to work?

This isn't even a `smear campaign'. This is chicken little as a campaign strategy. It's one thing to play into the biases of your constituency to encourage voter turnout -- but this strikes me as downright patronizing. Do they honestly expect the people of West Virginia to be this damn dumb?

Via Atrios

Update: Atrios has an image of the pamphlet, for Arkansas rather than WV.

Your one-stop evidence shop

I'm just going to crib from Trapper John, over at Kos:

Ever want to rattle off Bush's misdeeds to an undecided coworker, but couldn't quite come up with the best list of shame? Ever want to illustrate the administration's failure on healthcare, but find yourself wondering exactly how bad the statistics were? Well, furrow your brow no more -- the Senate Democratic leadership has developed a remarkably good webpage, one that serves as a one-stop shop for arguments and facts.

And here's a slightly more direct link than the one he provides. Note the way the statistics on this site are from actual reputable gatherers of statistics, not lunatics funded by Richard Melon Scaife.

Spitting in the wind

In response to Ann Coulter's misogynist joking around, I sent the following email to Alan Colmes just now:

Dear Alan,
Ann Coulter says lots of outrageous and stupid things on your program. You and I know this. And you can't challenge every outrageous and stupid piece of vapid conservative rhetoric that floats across your show -- while entertaining, you would most likely be fired, and replaced with an even more mild-mannered Democrat. I'll just have to live with that.

But how could you just laugh off Ann Coulter's misogynist statements -- two in the span of a few minutes! -- that women are `not that bright'? Even Sean [Hannity] pointed out that it was out of line -- he just didn't make her apologize. Which is exactly what I think you should do: on the next episode, or the next time she comes on your show -- I've no doubt it won't be long, she seems to be in a semi-regular rotation -- call her on it. Make her apologize for her derogatory and offensive comments. And if she doesn't, make it clear that you don't believe she's capable of what minimal level of civility is required for `Hannity & Colmes', and is an inapporpriate guest.

Sincerely,
Dan Hicks

Maybe after I do this a couple hundred times, he'll actually listen, and politely suggest that Ann was slightly out of line, and he would appreciate an apology.

Yeah, pretty much

I've been thinking (obsessing over) the state of the media and its place in our democracy the past few days, which has led to a rather nasty little vicious cycle of despair and acute depression. This lead me, today, to contemplate blogs.

My thoughts are in line with Ezra's over at Pandagon. The internet is an unprecedented development in the history of human society: a forum where (nearly) anyone can set forth with their opinion on whatever, and where (nearly) anyone else can read and respond to that opinion nearly instantly, regardless of the distance separating the two. But while this means good, important ideas can be discussed and shared with astounding ease, it also means we're inundated with even more crap than before. There are two institutions vital to democracy precisely because they help us flush the crap and keep the ... whatever good happens when you poo. Blogging, and the internet more generally, are no replacements for quality public education and rigorous journalism. The only people who think so, the people waxing triumphant and idiotic in the wake of the CBS memo fiasco, are hard-right conservatives -- the acolytes of an ideology which, since the days of Goldwater, have seen journalism and education not as providing a foundation for democracy, but instead as weapons to be used by one side or the other in political warfare.

Wow! Journalism!

An actual journalist at an actual newspaper completely debunks the `Kerry flip-flops' meme. Naturally, don't expect conservatives to stop saying this.

Now, I and many other people saw back in the Fall of 2001 that the Bush administration would do everything it could to invade Iraq, and the vote to authorize force, while portrayed by Bush at the time as otherwise, was really a vote to declare war. Why Kerry didn't see that is beyond me. Why Kerry didn't realize the WMD `evidence' was all smoke and mirrors is beyond me. But he can still claim that the Bush administration pulled a fast one, and his approval for the threat of force against Iraq does not express approval for the execution of the war. Which I believe is the point of view of most Americans these days.

Bush Administration: We Need More Homeless People!

Christ. Why not just institute a `beat the working poor with sticks' program?

Though many a dorky fan disagreed with the casting of Jesica Alba as Sue Storm in the upcoming Fantastic Four movie, I have to say she doesn't look terrible in the costume. Now if she can pull off the acting... 

Better than the Ukraine

Jon Carroll, long one of my favourite columnists, puts things back in perspective.

Voter terrorism

Professional Republican Asshole Laura Ingraham was on The Factor tonight, paired up against some moderate journalist from the Washington Post. They were talking about how the Democrats were `playing the race card' -- some independent group made an ad talking about how Republican educational policies are bad for minorities, which they are, so this whole segment was a non sequitur -- and the journalist mentioned something about how Republicans have intimidated minorities to keep them from voting. Not surprisingly, Laura and Bill both started to shout him down.

Except, um, Republicans do that kind of shit.

Cute

Via Kos

Reading Kerry's Mind

William Safre reports in from some parallel universe where he is psychic and any of this is good advice for the Kerry campaign.

What a tool.