Republicans: Putting Government between you and your emergency care

Wingnuts such as Joe (The Palmetto Prat) Wilson are worried that immigrants will get coverage under health care reform.

That is false. It is false.

Illegal immigrants won't be covered--that condition is not only in various reform bills but it's also in pre-existing statutes the reform will conform to. Since that can't be true, maybe they are concerned that, whether covered by insurance or not, immigrants might receive care from physicians and hospitals?

I presume so: I think what they're indicating is that if anyone is brought to an ER injured badly after an auto accident, the Doctors will have to determine whether the patient is an illegal immigrant or not -- be forced to check papers -- before delivering care.

You can't tell merely from looking at an injured human being what country they are citizens of.

Which means that as we American citizens lay injured and bleeding in the ER, medical personnel won't be able to give care until they've checked our citizenship and immigration papers. If we don't have papers, we don't get treated. If you, as even a native-born American citizen, have papers but they were destroyed in the car crash and fire you barely survived, the hospital won't be able to treat you because you can't prove you're not an illegal immigrant.

I'm not sure how Republicans expect to deny emergency care (again, we're discussing mere medical care, not insurance coverage, which will not be part of the reform plan) other than immigration-checking every injured person in every emergency room in the USA. I can't figure out any other way of denying all medical care (not coverage) to immigrants besides this except for tattoing or implanting 'US CITIZEN" on every citizen of the USA. Of course, even tattoos and implants can be removed in traumatic injuries, so that wouldn't be foolproof either.

I would like to ask Rep Wilson and every other Republican trying to demagogue this issue: Why will you prevent my doctor from treating me if I don't have my citizenship papers on me at the moment I need life-saving emergency care?

PS: Rob Miller is running against the wingnut Joe Wilson who shouted "You lie" during Obama's speech. Send Miller some money.

Media Maron

A little more comedy now-- but for a change, it's about an American. The main news, should you want to skip the rest, is that Marc Maron has a new Podcast and it's great. It's called WTF and it's free on iTunes or not on iTunes

I didn't know of Marc Maron much before he started the ill-fated morning program Morning Sedition on Air America way back when. The show was a revelation: smart and powerful hilarity. There was plenty of satire, but very little of "let's have someone imitate a given politician" or "let's write a gag that's not funny but is remotely topical" that passes for satire nowadays, and none of the "Wow, lesbians and midgets are hilarious" that has bizarrely become a standard of unfunny "funnymen." He's left-of-center but I'd be hard-pressed to call him a "political comedian" because most people who do that are about as funny as Jay Leno with chin cancer, and Maron's stuff and that of his writer/performers is usually much more oblique than just reformulating headlines.

Someone has kindly put up an archive of the comedy bits from Morning Sedition, and they are still funny. Especially if you can cast yourself back to the very dark days when Bush was running things but it was somehow treasonous to mention you were ashamed the President was from Texas (unlike now, when the preferred term is for a sitting President is "Stalinist African-born Hitler" -- get right on that Diane Sawyer).

Give these bits a listen -- they're still hilarious. (also they feature Kent Jones, who appears as Rachel Maddow's sidekick now, the multifarious Jim Earl, Wyatt Cenac, and a lot of other good comics).

Maron parted ways with Air America (meaning they shafted him several times), but he's kept a unique and darkly hilarious take. Here's an hour-plus long standup set he did a few weeks ago. It's great how relaxed and natural he is. I'm not a fan of mere "Setup. Punchline. Repeat" comedians and he's certainly gone way beyond that. It's theatrical in the most basic sense, and had me roaring with laughter.

Go check out Marc Maron's new WTF podcast, either on Itunes or not on Itunes. He tells a few stories, rants a bit, and has a long and interesting conversation with Jeffrey Ross (who I respect a lot more after this interview).

There's a lot of Maron's history I've left out-- I've just put up mostly what drew me to his work. If you want to read more, you can start with Wikipedia and visit his website.

BBC America, Hear Our Plea

Regular readers will know that I'm a hardcore fan of British media -- especially comedy. Here's an American who knows which radio sitcoms are airing on BBC4 most weeks -- and often who wrote them. BBC (radio and TV and even their website) is a world treasure. So much great stuff.

But even for those not so involved, if you asked most Americans what entertainment forms you think of when prompted with "British," it's worth a wager that in the top five responses would be "comedy" (even higher if you eliminate music and musical groups).

This is to point out that BBC America for the past few weeks has aired no comedies -- no sketch shows, no sitcoms, no Monty Python, no comedy quizzes no news parodies, no historical comedy-dramas. There are a couple talk shows with comedy caulking (Graham Norton and Jeremy Ross), but no straight comedy. Here's a paste of the lineup for today:

BBC America Schedule, Wed. Sept 2

01:00:00 AM  You Are What You Eat
02:00:00 AM  Dragons' Den
03:00:00 AM  The Graham Norton Show
04:00:00 AM  How Clean Is Your House?
04:30:00 AM  How Clean Is Your House?
05:00:00 AM  BBC World News
06:00:00 AM  BBC World News
06:30:00 AM  BBC World News
07:00:00 AM  BBC World News
08:00:00 AM  Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares Revisited
09:00:00 AM  Cash in the Attic
10:00:00 AM  Antiques Roadshow
11:00:00 AM  Bargain Hunt
11:30:00 AM  Bargain Hunt
12:00:00 PM  You Are What You Eat
12:30:00 PM  You Are What You Eat
01:00:00 PM  How Clean Is Your House?
01:30:00 PM  How Clean Is Your House?
02:00:00 PM  Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares Revisited
03:00:00 PM  Gordon Ramsay's F Word
04:00:00 PM  Hotel Inspector
05:00:00 PM  Gordon Ramsay's F Word
06:00:00 PM  Kitchen Nightmares
07:00:00 PM  BBC World News America
08:00:00 PM  Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares
09:00:00 PM  Gordon Ramsay's F Word
10:00:00 PM  BBC World News America
11:00:00 PM  Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares

BBC News is great, and I'm glad they expanded it. Some of the other shows are okay timewasters, but there's nothing there which would make me say "I have got to see that." Much of it is just dross of the drossiest sort.

On other days they have more interesting programs in the evening, and I don't hate Gordon Ramsay -- I'm just not that interested and he's on every day it seems.

There's tons of great entertainment on BBC and other UK stations: please, BBC America, air some of it in America.

One example is QI, which is Stephen Fry's entertaining, bizarre, and interesting (Quite Interesting) comic quiz show. There's a bit of a push to get it aired somewhere on US TV, and that's a cause to get behind. Here's a Facebook page devoted to getting QI aired in the USA. Go pitch in and read about the program. It's great that John Hodgman will be a panelist this season!

I'd love to see QI on BBC America, but there's a lot of other stuff that would be wonderful to see, too. I've often wondered if some shows they are airing (e.g. How Clean is your House?, You Are What You Eat?, and The Hotel Inspector) get much viewership, or if they're just nearly free to license.

I'd be extremely interested -- and, of course, surprised -- to see ratings for BBC America's various programs, but there is no way their current strategy is the strongest lineup they could put forward, even giving viewership, licensing, and pecuniary issues. If IFC can air The IT Crowd and Graham Duff's wonderful pot-dealer sitcom Ideal, with those Mancunian accents that regularly cause even an anglophile like me to use Closed Captions (I love you Johnny Vegas, but Moz's slurred rasp can be a bit hard to decipher), then surely BBC America can run some of the many great shows that are on offer on UK TV nowadays.

Adult Swim is airing The Mighty Boosh, fer chrissakes, which is as funkily British as Melton Mowbry pies with gooseberries, jellied eels, Stilton, and HP sauce.

[I'm sure competition from stations like IFC and Adult Swim--and of course PBS for the tonier productions-- is a challenge to BBC America. But BBC A weren't airing Ideal anyway and it's been years since they aired The Boosh, so that can't be the driving force behind their odd programming choices.]

Please!

Danger!

I've been saying things like this for some time, and it appears it's catching on.

Today, Michael Waldman (KagroX) at Dailykos.com:

You're going to force me to pay an insurance company for shit insurance that as a free market actor I decided not to even try to buy?

Fuck the hell out of that.

Amen.

I started out presuming that Baucus, Conrad, and the conservaDems actually wanted health care reform that would work -- meaning it would work for citizens, not just for insurance companies. Then Baucus managed to diddle and delay a Finance Committee bill: delay serves nothing but killing good aspects of the bill.

Of course, wingnuts and astroturfers have spent the delay killing the public option, leaving the bill with a mandate which will shovel money to insurance company CEOs. It will changes some of their past abuses but will inevitably not consider the next wave of abusive practices that will make health insurance a hated commodity (i.e., insurers will plant--or find -- new loopholes to screw consumers).

Pre-existing conditions and lifetime caps will be gone, to some extent--but how will they work around that when they want to boost quarterly profits? And what about recission? (Supposedly it will be banned, but individuals will have to appeal the recission -- lovely during a medical crisis.) What about the next as-yet-unnamed scam the insurance companies come up with to screw people out of both their premiums and their life-saving care?

Think that'll get fixed before you die? Considering how hard taking on insurance companies proves to be, don't bet on it. Just mandatorily pay your money to Stephen Helmsley (2008 compensation: over $3 million) and prepare to get screwed.

People will end up hating their insurance and the Democrats -- not just the insurance companies -- will get blamed for it.

The stupidity of this scheme is just incredible.

At least keep a public option so one isn't a criminal if one doesn't reward Stephen Helmsley for his stock-dating scam.

Note to the unnamed White House official who included individual mandates in the list of so-called "goodies" that progressives will love: you are so utterly full of shit.


As Atrios put it: "mccain attacking obama on both corporatist and noncorporatist stuff. neat trick, they'll pull it off too."

They sure will. If people don't like their health insurance, they will blame Obama, and the Democrats. The Republicans will campaign against it, win, and rip out every change that was made. Welcome back, recission! Welcome back refusal due to pre-existing conditions! Welcome back, annual and lifetime caps! With half-measures, the Dems will apparently put together a healthcare system that people will hate. In a few years, Republicans will change it back to the current one!

Funny, and possibly not perfectible

Twitter / Peter Serafinowicz. A simple quote: "'He was revolting, yet mysterious; like a circular turd.'"

I find this sublimely hilarious.

But while I'm laughing, I have to be a pedant and say that while "circular" communicates the impression for most people, I'd think that some would prefer "torus" or "toroidal." "Toroidal" and "turd" would have the same first letter. Better for funny!

So, to belabor it beyond all reckoning, "toroidal turd" is the ideal rendering for the sense of the phrase, but it drains the joke for those without understanding of the topological term "toroid."

Still, as it stands, it's a friggin' funny line.

Peter Serafinowicz may be the funniest Twitterer I've seen.

Thank you Peter Serafinowicz, who spans the Atlantic as a funny person. He will be known to all funny-seekers here and there soon.

Roger Ebert: Smart Guy

I have come to understand Roger Ebert's take on movies more as years go by.

Nowadays Roger Ebert has had serious cancer, and has been treated in the US system. He's also a smart guy -- and not dead.

Roger Ebert's Journal: I'm safe on board. Pull up the life rope

His prior entry on health care "Death Panels." A most excellent term. is itself excellent: with graphics from one of the most powerful silent movies of all time.

I've come to like Ebert as a movie reviewer more and more. I don't always agree with him totally -- I generally don't disagree but may quibble. He's both empathic and analytical. He loves cinema. He gives movies a break, especially if they're trying to do something interesting.

In this legislative health insurance scrum, he's fighting a battle he isn't getting paid for, and he'll get screamed at by Cracker Nation. He's one of the good guys. Yet again.

Political Idiots?

Jed at Daily Kos quotes some anonymous WH person: "The president continues to operate under the belief that liberals will warm to the bill when presented with a goodybag that includes an individual mandate...."

I can't believe the administration has a leading political idiot who would call the individual mandate part of a "goodybag."

What part of "pay a mandatory tax to a private health insurance company with a CEO who makes five million dollars a year -- or be a criminal" is a "goody?"

Without the public option, there should be no mandate. Even with a public option, I'm not sure there should be a mandate.

I keep hearing DC politicians, the President included, who say we need a "uniquely American solution" to health care.

Forcing the middle class and poor to enrich private insurance companies who are already making outrageous profits is "unique." It sure isn't American to me.

And an individual mandate is political suicide, to boot.

I Wish

Where people are carrying guns near a Presidential event, I wish some folks would stand with signs that read "Book Depository."

What Digby Said

About insurance "reform" with a mandate that individuals buy health insurance from insurance companies:

Hullabaloo: "Insurance 'reform' will end up being defined as the government acting in concert with the insurance companies to force Americans to buy their expensive product --- and it will play perfectly into the right wing populist argument that's gaining currency. Without a public plan as a low cost option, this thing looks a lot less like reform and a whole lot more like a shake down. I could see the new Newtie Populist Republicans using that against all these Blue Dogs and Corporate Senators in their districts next time and taking them out. Personally, I'd be hard pressed to say they were wrong."

Force me to buy private insurance-- hand over cash to Aetna -- or be a criminal?

Fuck that. Forget it. I'm a progressive and want health care reform, but Congress putting in a sluice from my wallet to an insurance company? No way.

If I had a car I'd have to buy auto insurance -- but I don't own a car. What do I have to do in order not to be forced to purchase insurance: stop breathing?

It's an unfunded mandate on every person in the USA. Add the public option and it's not so bad.

Halperitinitis

Shorter Mark Halperin:

The agitated lunatic waving the assault rifle and the bystander trying to reason with him are similarly responsible for the spray of bullets.

That is a metaphor. It's probable this will cease to be metaphorical before August is over: I wonder what Halperin will think then?

Halperin is the unscrubbed taint of journalism.

Alastair Campbell watches In the Loop

Yet more In the Loop blogging and re-blogging.



It's an open secret that the character of Malcolm Tucker (played by Peter Capaldi) in In the Loop is based on Tony Blair's main advisor, Alastair Campbell.

In March, just before the movie opened in the UK, Campbell watched the movie and discussed it with critic Mark Kermode for BBC2's The Culture Show.

Oddly enough, Campbell isn't flattered by the portrayal. Go figure. Though he did laugh at the "Shitting Forecast" joke.

Alastair Campbell writes about the circumstances of this viewing and interview.

====

Also, The Onion AV Club has a long and wide-ranging interview with Armando Iannucci. The whole thing is worth reading. Here's one exchange of interest:

AVC: In that case, it’s almost more poignant than funny, because the abruptness just increases how pathetic it is.

AI: I wanted this to be about people who are several rungs down, and all the decisions are being made through there. The guy I met from the CIA said he spent his first year at the CIA doing desk paperwork, and dreaming that someone would tap him on the shoulder and say, “Listen, you’ve done very well, we’re going to move you through that door and show you the real CIA. Go through there, that’s where all the big screens are, all the equipment and the surveillance.” It never happened. There is no “over there.” It’s just this. Marker pens. He said they got a lot of their intelligence from the Baghdad newspapers, because they were actually more accurate than what they were getting back from their operatives.

In the Loop / Armando Iannucci Links

Update: In the Loop is now available on demand on many cable and satellite systems. Check on this page for details. Now you don't have any excuse.
---------

I'm really into In The Loop, so I'm adding a few links that may interest people who liked the movie or who are considering it.

Audio interview from Sound of Young America, which is a pretty thorough gabber for a US program. Asks about On the Hour and The Day Today, as well as quite a bit about various Alan Partridge incarnations.

Audio Interview by Terry Gross on Fresh Air.
-----+++----



Video interview by Charlie Rose on PBS. Roses' tics are on display but Iannucci has a few minutes to talk.

Audio interview with Leonard Lopate on WNYC in New York. A good radio interview, and not too long.

I wrote a post about Iannucci's stuff before I saw the move, and another after I'd seen it (a review). In those I mentioned the Metacritic scores (more reviews there), and they've stabilized at the stellar score of 84, now from 23 reviewers.

Rotten Tomatoes now has In the Loop at a great score too: 94% Fresh. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif [ As an aside, I appreciate what Rotten Tomatoes does, and used them exclusively for a few years. But Metacritic came along and seems to do a better job of it, although they don't have a cable presence. Note, oddly, that there's one critic that got a "rotten" score at RT but a 70% positive score at Metacritic, which shows that even these pseudo-objective things have subjective elements. I prefer Metacritic overall.]

Spencer Ackerman, yes the Attackerman Spencer Ackerman of the Firedoglake megablog, consulted on the movie and is in the credits, and that linked post talks about how he got the gig, some of what he did, and some background on Iannucci in DC (Ackerman relates a few things that Iannucci also talks about in various interviews: getting into the State Dept. briefing with a BBC pass, the youth of various policymakers, etc). Nice mix of behind-the-scenes, fanboy, and hail-to-the-hack.

{Spencer Ackerman's name in Credits of In the Loop.}

If you haven't seen In the Loop, getcherass out and watch it. You'll laugh a lot.

UPDATE:

Two of my earlier posts about the movie:

A preview with background, written from a US perspective before seeing the movie.

My review of the movie, written just after seeing it. In short, it's great.

Country First!

Sarah Palin is holding her "I'm Quitting Serving Alaska" ceremony. CNN is airing it. I was watching it but then the stupidity piled too high.

I figured she'd have hired a speechwriter for it, but it's apparent that she wrote this mess herself. It's Word Salad Shooter. Hyper-grievance machine. Mention miltary a lot, even in odd contexts (to the press: in honor of our military, don't make things up!).

Every Clause! Sounds! like it is! Punctuated with! an! exclamation point!

John McCain thought this woman should be a heartbeat from the Presidency. Country First! I hope she makes the few remaining sane Republican's lives a living hell. After all, Republicans aggrieve her too -- and they'll hear about it from her.

As Atrios twitters it: "republican pres primary will be teh awesome"

In The Loop: Review

Most U.S. political satire not on Comedy Central is of a certain form nowadays. The tone is light and joshing or picayune and shallow: poking fun at the speech patterns or physical tics of politicians; making the most superficial attributes (Fat! Funny accent!) of a person or institution an engine for punch lines -- impressions rather than characterizations. Such satire is relatively easily cranked out, but it's not serious about being funny or being thoughtful.

In the Loop (2009, Directed by Armando Iannucci) is not that type of squishy satire. It's brutal and abject and hilarious. Some of the most shameful political events of recent years (the leadup to a really stupid war) are modified a bit for fiction's sake. A crew of venal, stupid, feckless, cowardly, selfish -- and sometimes even relatively decent and well-meaning -- characters are set loose to relive them.

The greatest joy of In the Loop is the dialogue: at times sophisticated and at times horrifically profane -- and sometimes both at once. Rapid, sometimes overlapping, full of allusions and absurdities. Much will be written about the baroque maledictions of Scottish spin doctor Malcolm Tucker (played by Peter Capaldi as a reanimation of Alastair Campbell, more-or-less Blair's Rove), and he's indeed pyrotechnical in his brutish profanity, but the dialogue flows naturally from all of the characters and their situations and is full of gags that made me laugh every few minutes.

Iannucci and his writers bless the actors by writing a fairly tight script but encouraging them to improvise and flesh out their characters. This semi-improvised style is everywhere nowadays, but it's rarely done this well: the quality of the cast and story makes it seem natural rather than more of the arid jokesmanship that is so common.

The actors come through splendidly, with Capaldi making a scrawny Scotsman into a fearsome figure. But I most enjoyed the take of Chris Addison (as Toby Wright, the young ministerial aide), who routinely made me guffaw with some of the best lines delivered well and ideal reaction shots. Gina McKee, as a competing aide, deserves special notice for sublime adroitness and self-assurance that could have fit into a political drama--except she was comical to boot. Tom Hollander (as Minister Simon Foster) played not just a punching bag for Malcolm Tucker but a three-dimensional character with a nuanced arc that made me feel for him.

Many aspects of the plot are drawn from actual events: dodgy dossiers, secret committees, unreliable informants. To those who know about the lead-up to the Iraq war these are sadly familiar, though transformed a bit. Since the film is not a political thriller but instead a kind of farce, some story points are not perfectly believable in real-world terms--farce rarely is. the absurdity added to the story works well in this realistic-seeming comic world.

This movie is right up my alley: some of my favorite UK comedy minds working on a political story I know fairly well, applying a great cast to do the work, and dealing with America, my home. But I watched it with Americans who were't familiar at all with these things and each of them loved In the Loop, too.

The UK / US tension works beautifully, and not just in a painful gag that turns Americans' jokes about British teeth back on us. The asymmetry of power amplifies the stereotypial British comedy figure of the put-upon loser. The sad sack minister Simon Foster (Hollander), is practically giddy that he will get to play in the big leagues with US policymakers. He comes, he sees, and he is conquered repeatedly -- but ultimately is done in by a tiny problem back home. Like Basil Fawlty or Alan Partridge or Mark Corrigan of Peep Show, he is ground to dust for our amusement. And I was more than amused.



Grade: A
Absolutely not for children, due to adult situations and filthy language.

------


A point of personal privilege. Some of my favorite British comedy writers wrote the film. In addition to Armando Iannucci, Jesse Armstrong (of Mitchell & Web, The Thick of It, and the monumental Peep Show), Simon Blackwell (a writer for many of the funniest things in the past decade, including Armstrong & Miller, Moving Wallpaper, Monkey Trousers, and also The Thick of It), and finally Tony Roche, who the world owes much thanks to his great creation World of Pub.

UPDATE:
Two more of my posts about In the Loop:

My preview from a US perspective, written before seeing it.

A collection of links, audio, and video about the film, centered around media related to the US theatrical release.

Looping Into In the Loop

In the Loop is a new movie written and directed by one of Britain's leading comedy creators and impresarios, Armando Iannucci.

This is my personal preview of the movie, set to open this week here in the USA. I haven't seen the movie yet -- I am eagerly anticipating it -- but I've seen and heard most of Armando Iannucci's previous work. I thought I'd get my thoughts in order before viewing it.

If you've paid attention to good British TV and radio comedy (yes, they still have real radio comedy in the UK beyond skits, prank calls, and DJ banter -- and lots of it is good) in the past couple decades, you know the work of Armando Iannucci. Some of my favorite things he's been involved with are:

On the Hour, a seminal fake news radio program.
The Day Today, the TV version of On the Hour -- very funny.
Alan Partridge (played by Steve Coogan) in his various radio and TV incarnations.
Various Lee & Herring shows
Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, in which the funny is funnified.
Time Trumpet
The Thick of It, about which more below.

Along the way Iannucci gave huge boosts to the careers of Chris Morris, Steve Coogan, Richard Herring, Stewart Lee, Doon Mackichan Chris Addison, Rebecca Front, Peter Baynham, Patrick Marber, and many others.

Two points about the lists above: from his efforts with these programs and people alone, Iannucci will have a lasting impact on comedy. And if all you've seen of British Comedy is The Office (as good as it is) and Little Britain, you are missing some of the smartest and funniest stuff on the planet.

It's hard for me to identify a through-line on Iannucci's comic sensibility, in part because it's likely changed during his long tenure, but also because it's multifarious. He's had a hand in sitcom, satire, parody, and surreal comedy. His production work has extended to standup (Stewart Lee's recent program), a new take on old-fashioned sitcom (Lab Rats), fake cinema-verite, and outright falsified history (2004: The Stupid Version). One thing that makes his comedy so varied is that he picks funny people and turns them loose to do what only they can do.

His own material (mainly on his various self-named series) has a strong dose of the bizarre and surreal atop absurd tilting at serious topics.

All these streams of his sensiblity have come together in recent years in his TV show The Thick of It, which is set near -- but not quite in the nexus -- of the centers of power in Whitehall: a relatively low-wattage fictional government department (the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship). As Iannucci said recently concerning his new movie:

"I want even people who might think, "Oh, it's all about politics" to actually know that it's really just about office politics really."

That's the central conceit of The Thick of It: the offices involved are full of great comic characters wonderfully played, scheming (mainly from the periphery of power) about various machinations that impinge on them from higher up the food chain.

In the TV show, the character who provides the audience's point-of-view portal to this world is the relatively normal young Junior Policy Advisor Olly, played by Chris Addison. The character who seems to suck up most of the air in each episode is the volcanically and creatively profane Malcolm Tucker, embodied by Peter Capaldi. (I believe Malcolm Tucker is modeled on a real person: Alistair Campbell, Tony Blair's spin doctor-- kind of like Blair's Karl Rove -- who was prone to screaming vulgarities as a tool of intimidation.)

Hand-held camera gives a cinema-verite feel, but the characters don't break the fourth wall [I'm looking at you, The Office]: the viewer is an omniscient and unnoticed observer, which gives the action a natural texture. Adding to this is the limited improvisation: while the plot and character points are largely pre-written, the actors are encouraged to improvise the words and manner they use. This makes for a realistic conversational tone, as well as some immensely florid verbal brutality.

The movie In The Loop is set in the same "world" and some of the actors are the same, but most of the characters are new -- apparently only Peter Capaldi's vulgarian Malcolm Tucker remains, which should be fun.

To me as an American, the addition of US-centric actors (especially James Gandolfini) and events (the leadup to a stupid war) mean I'll be seeing a bit of the US through Iannucci's eyes. That will be most welcome.

In the Loop opens this Friday in selected theaters in the USA.

Early reviews are quite good (it currently has a 77 rating at Metacritic, from 6 reviewers, with only the New Yorker's Anthony Lane being relatively unimpressed (spoilsport!). Reports out of Sundance Festival, where it premiered, were positive. * See update

When I see it, I'll post a few thoughts here.

Iannucci has given a few US interviews recently:

• LA Times, 19 July
  
• ComingSoon.net 20 July
  
• Hollywood & Fine, 21 July

* UPDATE As of 11:30 p.m. on Thursday, the reviews have improved impressively: Metascore is now 84 from 15 reviewers, which makes among the top 10 best-reviewed current movies -- better than even Star Trek. That may not last, but it at least will be very well acclaimed overall no matter how the remaining critics weigh in.

Also, Armando Iannucci is slated to be a guest on Charlie Rose on Friday, July 24 (tomorrow). Check your local listings.

Update: Friday, 24 July, noon: The NY Times has put up clips of earlier Iannucci work with short intros written by Armando I. Covers some of the same topics as the post above, and quite informative (plus some good clips).

Final Update:
Two more of my posts about In the Loop:

My review, written just after seeing it. In short, it's great.

And a collection of links, video and audio about the movie, mainly related to the US release.

Wanker of the Day

Hedy Lamarr's 1966 defense lawyer.

Hedy Lamarr is not a wanker, however. Fascinating person.

Swan Counting from Alaska

Okay, I know there's a swan count. I know that, by custom only the royals in the UK are allowed to --though they do not -- eat swans (with apparently a few exceptions, such as possibly St John's College Cambridge). But why is the Queen, on swan counting day, riding on a steamer -- and especially one named Alaska?

Queen watches as boatmen count her swans

Dan's Papers - July 17, 2009 - Palin Coming

Update, the story in many details appears to be fake, as I sensed in the post.
+++

If it is true that Palin is moving to the Hamptons (and there are some scents of falsity* about elements of this piece), then I bet she's getting a job with Fox News.

Palin Coming to Hamptons?

Sarah Palin is moving to Hampton Bays on August 1. That is the talk of the Hampton Bays Diner on Ponquogue Avenue in that town, where residents gather before work every morning to discuss the latest news.

I think she's gonna be such a huge prima donna so quickly that she'll piss off even the toadies at Fox eventually.

* Re the falsity, there are quite a few howlers in fact and tone by whoever fabricated the "emails." For instance, there is no Piggly Wiggly in Alaska.

So maybe the whole piece is an attempt at humor (which fails imo), or the kernel of truth is that she may be moving to the Hamptons.

---
Update, the story in many details appears to be fake.

Iannucci in DC

Twittering about a screening of his movie In The Loop, which is kind of USA-inclusive version of The Thick of It focusing on the lead-up to a (faux) Iraq war. With such US notables as James Gandolfini added to the UK cast.

Twitter / Armando Iannucci:

"screening in front of DC insiders got big laughs but also quite emotional afterwards on war. senate people saying 'that's how it happened.'"

I'll bet there's something to that. Can't wait to see it.

Republican Party : The Face of

Senator Sessions, the face of the glorious Republican Party.

To start, his real name is: Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III
- One part Jefferson [Davis, president of the Confederacy?]
- One Part Antebellum South (Beauregard....Beauregard? Seriously?)
- One part comic paterfamilias idiocy: His father was proud enough of that name to deign him the third?

Sessions didn't name himself, but the irony of a Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III calling out anyone else on their lineage is laughable.

Born in Selma. Selma? He graduated college in 1969 and he wasn't fighting for black voting rights -- it appears he was working against them.

Sessions called the ACLU and the NAACP "communist-inspired."

He jokingly (well, he later claimed it was a joke) said that the Ku Klux Klan was not so bad until he found out that some of them smoked marijuana.

He was denied a Federal Judgeship because of his racist comments. Even a Senator from his own state (Howell Heflin) voted against him.

More via Steve Benen:

A former career Justice Department official who worked with Sessions recalled an instance when he referred to a white attorney as a "disgrace to his race" for litigating voting rights cases on behalf of African Americans. Sessions later acknowledged having made many of the controversial remarks attributed to him, but claimed to have been joking.

What's more, Thomas Figures, a former assistant U.S. Attorney in Alabama and an African American, later explained that during a 1981 murder investigation involving the Ku Klux Klan, Sessions was heard by several colleagues commenting that he "used to think they [the Klan] were OK" until he found out some of them were "pot smokers." Sessions once again acknowledged making the remark, but once again claimed to have been kidding. Figures also remembered having heard Sessions call him "boy," and once warn him to "be careful what you say to white folks."

The once and future Republican Party.

Finally, it's too easy to make fun of people for their voice and accent. But if the Republican party wants to make Foghorn Leghorn-esque speech patterns the voice of their party, then keep Jeff Sessions in the forefront. May you lose many more national elections. [Run, Haley, Run!]

Middle-School Orthography

Versha Sharma at TPM has done us a service: Pasting text of Palin's freakish "taking my remaining marbles" speech. Palin's gubernatorial site has a version of the text up, but it's been changed to eliminate some of the more egregious middle-school-caliber affectations.

For instance, compare this snippet from your original with the cleaned-up remnant on her website:

Original (from TPM):

But it hasn't been cheap - the State has wasted THOUSANDS of hours of YOUR time and shelled out some two million of YOUR dollars to respond to "opposition research" - that's money NOT going to fund teachers or troopers - or safer roads

Palin's cleaned up version on the Alaska state website:

But it hasn't been cheap - the State has wasted thousands of hours of your time and shelled out some two million of your dollars to respond to “opposition research” – that’s money not going to fund teachers or troopers – or safer roads.

So TPM has done a good thing by preserving the original--she's childish not just in thought but in writing. Maybe Bill Kristol writes with RANDOM capitalized WORDS and that's why he LIKES her so?

Separated at Birth?

Young Warren Oates and Timothy Olyphant


An interesting-sounding biography of Warren Oates is out: Warren Oates: A Wild Life. WFMU interviewed the author, Susan Compo, which is where I saw the Oates photo.

Why I Don't Read Slate

I used to read Slate a lot, back for the first year or so it existed. Why'd I stop? "Doghouse" Riley points out one reason:

Bats Left/Throws Right: "C'mon, Dickerson. It's Slate! It's the home of the Special Reverse Twist Counterintuitive Contrarianism masquerading as Just Common Sense."

William "Lord" Saletan, concern troll, is another reason. As is the fact that I can't justify giving page views to a publication that pays Mickey "Goat blower" Kaus, he of infinite chips on his shoulder, a salary.

Mark Sanford of the Palmetto State

Palmetto is Buenos Aires slang for a hand job.

Way to go Mark, you sanctimonious hypocrite!

Farsi for Chalabi

The Republicans who want Obama to stamp his feet and screech about the situation in Iran are the neocons who only speak to Persians with surnames that are Farsi for "Chalabi."

John Ensign: Piety for thee, but not for me!

Commandment Seven (or six, depending on your sect):

YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY.

When he was a Representative, Sen. John Ensign voted for the public display of the Ten Commandments on government property during the Judge Ray Moore (Alabama) fracas.

The bill Ensign voted for includes:

- States that the Ten Commandments have 'a significant impact on the development of the fundamental legal principles of Western Civilization' by setting a code of moral conduct and promoting respect for the laws of the United States

- States that the Ten Commandments are a "declaration of fundamental principles that are the cornerstones of a fair and just society"

- States that the public display of the Ten Commandments should be permitted in government offices and courthouses

The Ten Commandments were so important to John Ensign that they needed to be put in government offices. They weren't so important that he has to obey them himself.

The Capital of the World

Since when is a housing project in the South Bronx the Capital of the World?

Manhattan is maybe the capital of the world. A housing project in the South Bronx is farther away from that "Center" than an Amish farm in Lancaster County, PA.

Sotomayor also didn't just "get into" Princeton. She spent four years there and was the first or second person in graduation grades.

You can possibly get in with affirmative action slide-by (though you still must be very smart), but you can't get virtually every professor to give you A's for four years. She was a very smart person as an undergraduate. I doubt John Derbyshire could have ever gotten so high on graduation, even in his homeland of the UK.

Those who want to paint her as a dummy are thinking that every superlative achieved is "affirmative action" if the receiver isn't white.

And. speaking as a while male, I think that's why no one darker than me (or lighter, for that matter) should ever trust a Republican.

Can this be true?

Concerning the 1968 true-crime drama The Boston Strangler: "20th Century Fox originally hired English playwright Terence Rattigan [The Winslow Boy, The Browning Version] to write the screenplay based on Gerold Frank's book, but he wrote it as a comedy and was replaced by Edward Anhalt. In Rattigan's version, the killer was revealed, by a computer, to be [20th Century Fox head] 'Daryl F. Zanuck' ."

It's at IMDB (which is suspect) but also at Turner Classic Movies and at Fox Studio Classics [UK], though all are similarly worded and perhaps repurposings of one error somewhere.

But if it's true, major kudos to Terence Rattigan.

500 Years

What a creepy and ahistorical lot. First Lindsey Graham says "...one of the reasons these techniques have survived for about 500 years is apparently they work. "

Now Gary Bauer comes up with what is (to him) a Jesus-approved justification for torture.

The more appropriate question is, 'What is a follower of Jesus permitted to do?'"

Well, Gary, Torquemada was an extremely pious religious man. And he wasn't even the worst of the torturers of the time.

Clearly, he was a follower of Jesus and was permitted to torture-- and that's part of why those techniques have survived for five hundred years.

Lindsey Graham: Grand Inquisitor

Lindsey Graham: "I mean, one of the reasons these techniques have survived for about 500 years is apparently they work. "

Yes, these techniques work great for identifying witches.

Also, for gathering false information to start a war in Iraq. They work great for that, too.

I'm supposing...

Since Charlie Crist has announced he will run for senate, I'd wager there's some artificial insemination going on so he and his beard wife can have a bouncing baby to strengthen his candidacy.

Kevin Eldon + The Cassettes: Mobile Phone

I'm announcing in my candidate for Summer Single 2009 right now, with the nuanced, multilayered, and darkly undertoned brilliance of "Mobile Phone" by Kevin Eldon and the Cassettes.

---

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

Or visit here: View eldon-mobilephone-mp3

---

Kevin "The Actor" Eldon is already the Olivier of his generation, with roles in Big Train, Nighty Night, Lee and Herring (and merely Lee) projects, Brass Eye, and many more great things including the splendid Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg movie Hot Fuzz.

Little did we know that he was a musical genius as well.

Great song, Mr. Eldon!

If you haven't heard the BBC Radio 4 series Poet's Tree featuring Kevin Eldon and written by Eldon and Stewart Lee, you're in for a treat.

Photo of Kevin Eldon by David Bailey's Son. Nice job!

+++
UPDATE April 2010
For some reason this has become quite popular, and I'm not at all sure the file host above will survive too many downloads. Just in case, here's another.

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

Or visit here: View eldon-mobilephone-mp3

I'm not sure where I found this originally-- it may have been on Adam and Joe's BBC 6 Music show.

+++
RE-UPDATE: April 14, 2010

Thanks to the commenter Google Got Lost, I've discovered that the reason so many are downloading this song is because Adam Buxton played it on this past Sunday's (April 11) edition of his excellent new Radio 6 Music show Adam Buxton's Big Mixtape. Listen to the whole program on the Big British Castle's website via BBC iPlayer here.

I guess Adam obliquely refers to this blog during the following, his lead out announcement of the track:

Kevin Eldon and the Cassettes there with a track called "Mobile Phone." I'm pretty sure you can download that if you search for it on the Internet. It is available. And Kevin, of course, in case you don't know, is one of the country's finest comedy actors. He's been in TV shows like Big Train and Nighty Night and Brass Eye. He was in Dead Set, Charlie Brooker's zombie sitcom recently. His character Paul Hamilton, who is like a very pretentious poet is amazing. If you ever get the chance to see Kevin doing that you should definitely take it. He did a series on Radio 4 I think called Poet's Tree, with Paul Hamilton doing his poems. And "Mobile Phone" by Kevin Eldon and the Cassettes is just a guaranteed smash in our car, at least. I hope it has a beneficial effect wherever you are.

"Mobile Phone" starts about 17:30 into the program, and the whole show is excellent. I'm glad it's not for sale anywhere because I'd hate to have put it up if it were commercially available.

Here's one American who digs you, Corporal Buckles!

As a bonus, here's a blog post at A Silly Blog with Adam's comments about what he's listening to, including "Mobile Phone."

The "Anarchists' Convention" Republican

I never was a lefty, so I couldn't make much sense of the various schisms and divisions and splits and feuds that grew within lefty movements. John Sayle's short story "The Anarchists' Convention" [collected in the book of the same name] captured the idiocy of it all: the fights over trivial issues, doctrinal tussles that seemed medieval, personal slights that grew into great battles with no discernable external effect, and the long-burning feuds that are rarely referred to openly but which twist a petty vendetta machine into an "ideology."

I suspect this process is why Mickey Kaus is now unreadable by few besides Glenn Reynolds. Someone pissed Kaus off in the eighties and he can't get over it-- but he also can't explain it or even understand he's caught up in it any more than the people in the Sayle's story can.

Such a grand movement! A glorious impulse (real or imagined) that splintered into petty and irreconcilable shards of supposedly similarly intentioned do-gooders, each of which had, to others in the movement, an unseen despicable purpose. To outsiders it was all so labrynthine, so boring, so idiotic, and so utterly without purpose. However, if you're a villager, it all makes senese.

I said I wasn't a lefty, so I never bought into this kind of cannibalism. I've long been a Democrat, so I saw tough times but not nihilism like the lefties and anarchists see daily -- and not what the Republicans see now.

The GOP seems to be approaching that territory now. [With the understanding that Republicans will always have a large set of Big Money Boys to fill a trough in which all can abide.] The Teabag Parties are a good sign of this already -- God help us if the capital L Lefties had a Pacifica Radio that was as large and as well-funded as Fox News. The Teabag Parties would have hyper-caffeinated all US soil and all its territorial waters.

• Pissing matches near the top
  
• Blame cast broadly
  
• Recriminations
  
• Despite their great (and misplaced) belief in Twitter, even there their leadership splits and fails.
  


• Funny that Christians approve of torture more than non-Christians. Well, that's the kind of Christians that Republicans have created.
  
  

As I said, the Big Money Boys won't let this go on for long. They'll have a few "thinktanks" and some astroturf to salvage what will become a pretty strong braindead group from all this detritus of their movement. And facts on the ground will make things easier for them, I'm sure (things will get better, which they will exploit; or things will get worse, which they will exploit).

But it's fun to watch for now, because it's a spectacular flameout.

Very Skillful, Mr. Colbert

"[T]here was no significant difference between the groups in thinking Colbert was funny, but conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements...." *

That's a real testament to the skill of Colbert.

I'm not generally fond of the improvisational funny, partly because the bounds of "improvisation" are, oddly, fairly circumscribed in a narrow and specific way. The observer is meant to laugh at how well the performer is improvising: "Gee, they thought up that quip on the spot!" But we've all known people who can make up funny quips. Even Peter Cook couldn't make them funny all the time.

Colbert has created his own little world he works in. Most of his show is written, but the countless gestures, moues, and quips aren't-- he improvises lines and gestures in addition to the writing. And he has a fully fleshed out character (one that's defined as "that specific Colbert twat" rather than the general Improv Comic's world of "someone who may make a funny quip occasionally."). His character is so fully formed that he can actually perform the Talk Show Interview in character.

Colbert can pay attention to the shifts and drifts of the daily and weekly news, and to the currents of ideology that week. He can make that funny with his pre-formed character, a lot of funny gags from writers, and his own improvised delivery and asides. And he makes the character seem as natural as Bill O'Reilly or Hannity playing themselves--as the study above seems to indicate.

Of course, Colbert is by all accounts a very nice guy. But, most of all, he's funny.

And, of course, your average Republican really is dumb.

---
*
SOURCE
The Irony of Satire
Political Ideology and the Motivation to See What You Want to See in The Colbert Report
Heather L. LaMarre -The Ohio State University, HLaMarre@gmail.com
Kristen D. Landreville - The Ohio State University
Michael A. Beam -The Ohio State University

Simpletons think Complex Questions are Simple

From (Republican, of course) Rep. Joe Barton's YouTube page, with this info: "When Rep. Joe Barton asked the Nobel Prize winning Energy Secretary, Dr. Steven Chu, where oil comes from - he got a puzzling answer."

Dr. Steven Chu is a Nobel-Prize winning Physicist.
Joe Barton is evidently a sub-idiot.

This really is exasperating. It's like a very young child asking one of those "simple" questions such as : "How does television work?" There is a simple metaphorical answer ("Images come over the wires!") that doesn't tell an adult much.

But if an adult asks such a question, one has to probe how much they already know about how the world works.

In the case or Rep. Barton, I guess one would have to ask him "Have you ever heard of geological time? Plate tectonics? Continental drift? Subduction? Pangea or Gondwana? As for Alaska, have you heard of glaciation?"

It appears, from Rep Barton putting that clip on his own Youtube page that the answer would be "No, I don't really know about any of those."

And then, the answer to him would have to be, as it would be for a six-year old child: "God put it there."

And again we are forced to ask, What are the bipartisan solutions that can be reached with someone who is proud of asking that and thinks Chu's answer is "puzzling" but doesn't realize the question is juvenile?

I realize that there are Democrats who aren't geniuses, too. But Republican congresspeople, like Barton, seem to be proud of it.

Jeez.

Miscellaneous notes on my mind

• Re the DHS report (which was initiated under Geo. Bush): Hey, wingnuts: If your hero is Ronald Reagan and you're collecting Ayn Rand books, you're fine. If your hero is Timothy McVeigh and you're collecting fuel oil and fertilizer, you're not.
  
  Why do Republicans want to be associated with Timothy McVeigh, the KKK, and Stormfront? Can't they just say "Good: keep us sane conservatives safe from those violent kooks?"
  
  
• Re the OLC torture memos: really disgusting stuff from a bunch of sadistic cowards. I would hope that Yoo, Bybee, and especially Addington could be prosecuted.
  
  But I'm with Kevin Drum's current thinking on whether the CIA operatives should be prosecuted: " It just seems as if tackling the practical issues involved in figuring out who did what, and under what circumstances, is too vast an undertaking for too small a probable return. "
  
  You'd basically shut down the CIA during the investigation.
  I figure there's a better than 50/50 chance the CIA operatives would be acquitted anyway, thereby legitimizing torture by a jury of their peers.
  
  If there weren't 20 other epochal crises left to Obama by Bush, I'd be more inclined to say go for the prosecutions of the CIA guys.
  
  
• Related: I'm still stunned about the absolutely horrible collection of shit-hurricanes that Bush and his Fox News government left behind. Not just a wretched recesssion, but a financial crisis that cripples attempts to ease recession (Federal Reserve interest rate at zero -- for the first time ever -- by the time Obama took office), and a huge deficit to boot, during the only time when governments must spend massively to prevent collapse.
  
  From the big things to the smaller things. For instance, here's George W. Bush in 2001, speaking to the President of Mexico:
  

  Mr. President, you and I are keeping the pledges we made in Guanajuato this past winter to expand the freedom of trade, to build an equitable prosperity, and to honor the rule of law.
  
  We have before us a great prospect, an era of prosperity in a hemisphere of liberty. In this task, our cooperation is broad and unprecedented. Our sense of trust is strong, and it's growing.

  
  
  Then 9/11 happened, Bush got all "Let's get Saddam for no good reason," then Bush got tired of playing President and Mexico has gone to hell just like nearly everything else the idiot touched.
  
  
• Following from the above: I've long been a partisan Democrat, but I've voted for a handful of Republicans in the past. After seeing how horrendously these people can clusterfuck everything they touch, I'll sit out an election with a bad Democrat rather than vote for another Republican, no matter how anodyne they seem. The "decent" republican I vote for (say, if I had the opportunity to vote for Olympia Snow, though I don't live in Maine) may end up supporting the countricidal lunatics years down the road. They're unsafe in positions of power.
  
  If the scale of the failures weren't so immense, I probably wouldn't feel that way. But they are immense, they were supported by nearly every elected Republican for nearly eight years, and I do feel that way.
  

I've seen various wingnuts complaining that Democrats keep pointing an accusing finger at Bush when discussing America's current problems. Well, I'm pointing at the problems he created or exacerbated. The economy and foreign policy are the main things the President has to pay attention to, and he didn't just fuck them up in ways that ended in January 2009. The consequences of Bush will last for years if not decades.

I'm still hearing giggles from wingnuts about the horrible deeds of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, and neither of them left the steaming pile of fetid sewage behind that Bush and Cheney did.

Thomas Paine, Not a Republican

I've been gobsmacked to see references to and (apparently) readings from Thomas Paine as part of the wingnut freakout du jour.

Many of Thomas Paine's ideas were not just radical for his time, but would be scandalously radical now.

For instance, Paine was a proponent of a guaranteed minimum income (note, this is NOT the minimum wage, but a guaranteed minimum income.

He was a scabrously anti-religious deist ("The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum." and "What is it the New Testament teaches us? To believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married; and the belief of this debauchery is called faith.")

Those comments couldn't be uttered without corporate apology on Fox News today, 200 years after Thomas Paine's death.

Chris Kelly has a short rundown of Paine clashing with the Republican Party ethos.

I'm amazed that self-professed conservatives would evoke the radical spirit of Thomas Paine, given how his spirit would knock out their underpinnings.

While Obama isn't a radical, it's less surprising that he would evoke Thomas Paine, as he did in his inaugural address.

As some of you may note, I enjoy UK radio, and there's a nice current series called "Mark Steel's in Town," where Mark Steel goes to various smaller places in Britain and does a standup routine written for that locale. I enjoy Steel quite a bit (he did a wonderful series called "The Mark Steel Lectures" for both radio and television, one episode of which, in each medium, focused on Paine). [These Lectures also gave Emma Kennedy a chance to perform for the public, and Steel is sainted in that regard.]

One of the towns he visited for "Mark Steel's in Town" was Lewes (pop. 16,222), where Paine spent some years. I've put it up for those who may be interested. The section about Paine begins around 8:30 in, but the whole episode is quite ably handled and funny.

Mark Steel's in Town: Episode 3 - Lewis. Broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on April 1, 2009.

Finally, one more Paine quotation that reminds me of Obama:
"Moderation in temper is always a virtue, but moderation in principle is always a vice."

A Drizzling Easter Morning

And he is risen? Well, be it so . . .
And still the pensive lands complain,
And dead men wait as long ago,
As if, much doubting, they would know
What they are ransomed from, before
They pass again their sheltering door.

I stand amid them in the rain,
While blusters vex the yew and vane;
And on the road the weary wain
Plods forward, laden heavily;
And toilers with their aches are fain
For endless rest--though risen is he.

Thomas Hardy wrote many great things. If only he'd have been a slam poet, thoughtful as they are.

Happy Easter.

Nice one, Charlie Brooker

I really like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, but the US could use someone like Charlie Brooker. [I presume a prole at the Guardian put "Daily Show" in the subhead for this article, sadly.]

He's a columnist for the Guardian, but I knew him first from his TV. He does tv-fiction (a previous comedy called Nathan Barley about new media peasants like those in Shoreditch Twat, and a reality-show-based zombie horror thriller dramedy called Dead Set.] And he does tv-factual -- His new show about news, Newswipe, is as funny as his TV-in-general show Screenwipe, but feistier.

Newswipe on Youtube [On Youtube each link is only to part 1 of each episode so you'll have to scour youtube for later segments, but it's worth it]:

Newswipe Episode 1

Newswipe Episode 2

Newswipe Episode 3, the most recent episode. --they include a nice look at the looniness of Fox News and especially Glen Beck from a Brit. And a thought-provoking mini-documentary from Adam Curtis about "Oh, Dearism" and how it obfuscates political argument. Episode 3 is the best so far, at least to this Yankee.

Shorter House Republicans

George Bush taxed the rich too much.

No wonder they believe Obama's a socialist. They apparently believe that George W. Bush demanded too much of billionaires.

Rockbox Again. And Better

Rockbox is coming along well (I've long been a fan). I'm eagerly anticipating when they have software ready for the amazing Sansa Clip -- soon I hope!

Also, it appears that Apple keeps pilfering ideas from Rockbox and implementing them -- partially -- in their fantastically overpriced and partially crippled players.

Rockbox has had speech - support for years. It's a heartening thing about the software. I've been choked up more than once due to blind users writing to express their pleasure in being able to use an MP3 player.

I'm glad the blind will have an off-the-shelf player now. But I'm pretty sure Rockbox implements it better, cheaper, and with much more leeway to do what the user actually wants (rather than what Steve Jobs likes).

Since I last wrote about it, in the link above, the Rockboxers have done some amazing things. A much more flexible and robust installation program. Best of all, a fully usable USB stack. Video in almost all players. Even more sound formats. Rockbox does nearly everything better now.

It's a thing of beauty. Rockbox: now more than ever.

How Fey can Wes Anderson get?

I enjoyed Rushmore. The soundtrack helped greatly.

I just saw about 15 minutes of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. It was awful.

Wes Anderson repeatedly tries to make something as naive and evocative as the novel The Young Visiters [sic] and fails.

From what I've seen, Wes Anderson can get infinitely fey. He probably will, though his credit card commercial isn't totally fey.

Wes Anderson is five+ years gone bad, and I just noticed. I'm almost as bad as Wes Anderson--except I'm not infinitely fey.

Talk Radio Party

Tomasky::

"One presidential mention has exposed to public scrutiny something that only political insiders have known for a long time. Limbaugh is the emotional leader of the GOP. We – we Beltway intellectual types – have talked up figures who give conservatism a face that is, to one degree or another, respectable. It's David Brooks, or it was Irving Kristol, or Norman Podhoretz, or Leo Strauss.

We have done this because, well, because at various points it may have been sort of true. But we also did it because we want to think that we've been engaged in a war of ideas conducted on a high intellectual plane.

That notion, unfortunately, is fatuous."

He's not just a propagandist-- he is emotionally in line with the Republican base. Resentment, ridicule, hatred, and bigotry (especially against blacks and women) are his prime tools, and they really are the emotional heart of Republicanism.

The fact that he's an oxycontin junkie and thrice-divorced are somehow not relevant.

Dreher-eck

Roy Edroso pointed to this insanity from rightwinger Rod Dreher:

The question, though, is not whether the Sixties (or the Enlightenment) were good or bad, but whether on balance the Sixties (or the Enlightenment) were good or bad. I answer in the negative.

There's a lot wrong with that Rorschach blot. What's with that crazy guy? Why is he still considered credible enough to have a slot even at beliefnet?

I wrote a comment over there but doubt it will appear. I'll paste it here:

Dreher: "We are free -- but for what?"

Well, before the Enlightenment, most people in Europe could not read or write. Most couldn't own land. Most had to worship at a specified church where the scriptures weren't even read in their native tongue. Most had to pledge fealty to their (regional) King and (local) Lord, were conscripted to fight in whatever battles the authorities wanted one to undertake. They had little to no freedom of speech. Physics and chemistry didn't exist (and no, alchemy doesn't count). There was no such thing as democracy. Etc. etc.

And that was just the males. Things were even worse for women.

Other than that, the bulk of people were free to scrabble their whole short lives for whatever maggoty scraps the Baron would let them have.

Perhaps there was some dolt in the Dark Ages who thought that society had lost so much since the Stone Age. He may have even said "We are free: but free for what?"

A religious person who would value pre-Enlightnment religion over later practice has to me an extremely frighteningly positive view of forced religion. The Taliban aren't called "medieval" because of their mode of dress.

Governor Jindal

Jindal's cadence sounds just like Jack McBrayer.

UPDATED: It appears we're not the only ones who figured that Jindal = Kenneth the Page from 30 Rock.

My Late 2008 Movie List

I watch a fair number of movies so I thought I'd put together a list. Better late than never.

Fave Movies of 2008 -- in no particular order.

• 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Can't say enough good about this movie.)


• Doubt (Not ideally directed but has so much else good about it.)


• Wall-E


• Man on Wire (A documentary that does a bit more than tell a story.)


• Encounters at the End of the World (A documentary that again gives Herzog some room to ruminate. Includes Henry Kaiser.)


• Frost/Nixon (Much better than I anticipated. In all likelihood it'll be another fifteen years before Ron Howard makes another movie I like.)


• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Especially the first half or so.)


• Tropic Thunder (A decent Hollywood comedy!)


• In Bruges (Small movie about low-life criminals. Moves quickly, great dialogue: uproariously funny at times, very dark at others, and skillfully done.)


• The Visitor (Off-kilter slice-of-lifer. Another good small movie of an entirely different sort.)


• Hancock (An attempted blockbuster with a few feints that move it out of standard-issue territory.)

Haven't seen but really should:
Synecdoche, New York (Generally love Charlie Kaufman.)
I served the King of England (Czech cinema returns!)

Overrated by others in my estimation:
The Wrestler (A melding of two weak po-faced melodramas with a smattering of a few good behind-the-scenes wrestling bits. Rourke doesn't pull it off IMO except in the physicality of the wrestling.)
Slumdog Millionaire (Liked it ok but the raves seem overdone.)
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (By-the-numbers. Saddens me to say it because I've liked Woody Allen films that nearly no one else can stomach, and I consider him my kind of genius.)
Be Kind Rewind (A wretched mess, and not in a good way.)
Changeling (Yuck. Amateurish in script, direction, and much of the acting. Also made the true story it was based on less compelling due to hyper-sentimentality, clunky writing, and staid direction.)

Good things I saw late.
[Though these are pre-2008, they were among the most memorable flicks I saw last year.]

Young Children (2006. A first-rate drama.)
Michael Clayton (2007. Not quite what one expects, pulled off with grace.)

Not Quit a Glyph

How about this for a name: The War Profiteers Formerly Known As Blackwater?

Oligarchs

No shit!

Let's have every power-suited American Psycho who signed off on Credit Default Swaps get charged with fraud (no matter what they claim the CDS were, they weren't really what was claimed).

Confiscate their homes and accounts like we do with drug dealers. Have their families fend for themselves and make common cause with Henrietta Hughes.

And have these scumbags breaking rocks in the hot sun. For years. Ideally until all the banks are fully recapitalized plus 20 years.

"Entitlements" and the Left

To quote Atrios, in full:

I believe this is what we in the professional blogging biz call "trolling," but I'll bite. The Left, including yours truly, will create an epic 360 degree shitstorm if Obama and the Dems decide that cutting Social Security benefits is a good idea.

See also:

Matthew Yglesias , quoted in part (read the whole post):

I’m not sure what the administration’s thinking is, but certainly I wouldn’t be silent if he were to propose draconian cutbacks in Social Security and Medicare. On the other hand, if Obama wants to get the long-term public fiscal situation in check by tackling its main root cause—runaway cost inflation in the health care sector—I would applaud that

Hilzoy, also quoted in part (read the whole post):

Or, in short: once Obama comes out with specific proposals on entitlements, I will say something about them. Until then, my little piece of the Silence of the Left should not be taken to reflect anything more than not knowing what, exactly, he proposes. (It's certainly not that I am "afraid to express concerns", as Rep. Jim Cooper suggests in the Politico piece.) Some things that go by the name of "entitlement reform" are fine. Others are not. If Obama proposes the latter, there will be no "honeymoon" or "breathing room". But until I have some idea what, exactly, Obama proposes to do, I don't really see much point in speculating.

And if my failure to comment on this has "buoyed the spirits of reformers who would like to see drastic changes in the way Social Security works", they have a surprise in store for them.

My sentiments reflect those above.

Fortunately, I'm pretty sure Obama doesn't believe most of the patent bullshit that spews from Politico.

Deep Thought

It's too bad that the steady thoughtful hand of George Bush can't lead us blandly through the horrific suppurative minefield he led us into.

Concentrate the Mind

The US economy lost a job every five seconds in January.

+ While some reporter asked Robert Gibbs a 20-second question, four jobs were lost.

+ While James Inhofe blathered for a minute, 12 jobs were lost.

+ During an episode of Hardball with Chris Matthews, 720 jobs were lost.

There is no indication the economy has hit bottom yet.

[Calculations: January has 2,678,400 seconds (31 days x 24 hours x 60 minutes x 60 seconds). 598,000 jobs were lost in January. 2,678,400 seconds divided by 598,000 is 4.48 seconds per each job lost. I rounded up to five seconds per job lost. This doesn't count holidays, weekends, or non-office hours.]