The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel (1951) **
Strange, disjointed biopic of the famous German general with James Mason excellent as always. Hopefully I can find a non Henry Hathaway directed picture for my next viewing.

The Sons of Katie Elder (1965)**
Cartoon-ish Western with some awful acting, clichéd script, ham-fisted direction yet some beautiful cinematography by Lucien Ballard.

Sic Semper Tyrannis:
"McChrystal must be fired. Then he should be put on the retired list in his permanent grade with no end of career award. Then some thought should be given to the clear violation here of Article 88 of UCMJ. Active duty military people are free to express their opinions to their superiors. They are not and should not be free to use the press against the civilian government."

Agreed. But I do not expect it to happen. Obama doesn't seem to have the guts.

UPDATE: I was wrong.

UPDATE: Maybe not so wrong.

Lilies of the Field (1963)***
Character study with Poitier filling in the blanks in the spare script. A bit heavy with the score at times, but Poitier gives a well-deserved award winning performance.

Toy Story 3 (2010)****
Another success for Pixar and another sequel that is every bit as good as if not better than the original. Goes to some darker places than the previous films, but the kids won't mind.

Down to the Bone (2004)***
Tough, truthful, uncompromising, though not especially entertaining slice of working class American existence. Vera Farmiga is compelling and interesting.

The New Age (1994)**
It's not essential to care about the protagonist in a story or a film, but it is almost essential to care about something in the story/film. I had a hard time caring about anything in this movie and maybe that is Michael Tolkin's point. Either way you're left with some good ideas but not a good film. Apparently Isabelle Adjani was originally cast in the Judy Davis role and could possibly have been a better fit. Nowhere near as great as Tolkin's previous film.

He Was Tortured, But He Can’t Sue | The New York Review of Books:
"Canada, in other words, played a relatively small part in Arar’s injuries, as compared to the United States. Yet Canada’s Parliament issued a unanimous apology, and the government paid Arar $10 million (Canadian) for its role in the wrong done to him. Here in the United States, the response could not have been more different. US officials have never apologized to Arar. They persist in leaving him on a “no-fly” list, despite the fact that Canada has cleared him of any suspicion, much less wrongdoing. And when we filed suit in 2004 to seek damages from the US officials directly responsible for the decision to send Arar to his torturers, lawyers for the Bush administration argued that even assuming that federal officials had intentionally delivered Arar to Syria to be tortured, and blocked him from seeking court protection while he was in their custody, they could not be held liable for his injuries on the grounds that the case implicated secret communications and national security concerns not appropriate for court resolution. Regrettably, the courts agreed with the Bush administration position—and so has Obama’s Department of Justice."

I had hopes that I would be able to be proud of my government again. "Had" is the key word there.

Ne le dis à personne (2006)***1/2
Excellent French thriller with Dustin Hoffman look/act-a-like Francois Cluzet in the lead. A sort of "toutes les étoiles" cast, all excellent, but Kristin Scott Thomas steals yet another picture with a terrific performance. A straight-up thriller with no subtext to speak of, yet told with lots of style and inventiveness. Bogs down in the final act amid beaucoup exposition.

Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)**
Two stars for the 2, count 'em, TWO excellent battle scenes that incorporate actual footage. Otherwise a maudlin, melodramatic male weepie.

U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan - NYTimes.com:
"An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and Blackberries. The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said. While it could take many years to develop a mining industry, the potential is so great that officials and executives in the industry believe it could attract heavy investment even before mines are profitable, providing the possibility of jobs that could distract from generations of war."

Oh shit. Now we will NEVER leave Afghanistan!

Helen Thomas' Sisters: Media Got It Wrong | The Maynard Institute:
"In a telephone interview initiated by Journal-isms, three of them said Thomas was not calling for the destruction of Israel or the return of all Israelis to Europe or the United States, as has been the running narrative, but was expressing her opposition to the disputed Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.

'They should stop confiscating the land that belonged to the Palestinians. We feel that there should be a two-state solution in Palestine,' said one sister, who did not want to be identified. The sisters, who spoke from the home of one of them in the Detroit area, which houses the nation's largest concentration of Arab Americans, range in age from 87 to 95. Thomas is 89. A brother is 100. The family is Lebanese-American."

I must say when I first read what she was reported to have said, I had assumed she was talking about the illegal settlements in Gaza and the West Bank of which she is absolutely correct. But she caved so quickly and made other comments that seemed to suggest she meant ALL of Palestine.

Receiver Isaac Bruce's No. 80 to be retired by St. Louis Rams - ESPN:
"'To me he was a complete receiver,' said Mike Martz, the offensive coordinator in 1999 and the Rams' head coach in 2000-05. 'The other part of him, the humility that he played his entire career with, spoke so well about who he is as a man.' Bruce recalled another former Rams receiver, Jack Snow, taking him aside not long after Bruce was chosen in the second round out of Memphis in the 1994 draft. The Rams were terrible, but Snow told him he was willing to fight anyone who ran down his organization. 'We came to this organization that was at the bottom of the barrel,' Bruce said. 'At that moment I knew this was where I was supposed to be.'"

Thank you Mr. Bruce. Every time he was on the field he was compelling.

Tablet Magazine: Indispensable - by Lee Smith:
"Oren [Israeli ambassador to the US] disagrees. “'We are aware that this is a certain body of thought in the Washington bureaucracies and the think-tank world, but it is not so with the American people or policymakers,' he said. 'Israel is the only democratic American ally in the Middle East that can field a highly trained combat-proven army in 12 hours.'...'Our critics don’t get it,' Oren said. 'In Jenin, we went house-to-house and sent 23 soldiers to their death. But if we’re going to be called war criminals no matter what we do, then maybe that changes our thinking.'"

I love that: "no matter what we do". Yeah like even when we "defend ourselves" by pirating vessels on the open seas, blockading entire nations for years at a time, carry out assassinations all over the world, etc. How can we win when we're even criticized for that?

This guy Oren is a piece of work though. Now it is understandable why the US continues to stick by this rogue nation. Oren is very very good at his job.

Petulia (1968) ****
The first 20 minutes or so lead you to believe you are watching a goofy, kooky, kitschy 60's movie with all the attendant clichés. But stick with it and it ends up being a film that goes well beyond its time and hits hard at some uncompromising and revealing truths about people.

Despite pressure, Israeli PM firm on Gaza blockade:
"The 1,200-ton Rachel Corrie, which was carrying 11 pro-Palestinian activists, nine crew and hundreds of tons of aid, was intercepted in international waters, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) from Gaza's shore and was being escorted to the nearby Israeli port of Ashdod, the military said.
The military said Saturday's takeover began at 12:15 p.m. Israeli time (0900GMT) and took just minutes.Footage provided by the Israeli military showed three small navy vessels pulling up to the Rachel Corrie. In a second segment, footage from an Israeli aircraft hovering about the cargo ship showed the activists sitting down in the middle of the top deck."

They need to keep sending ships right after each other and force the Israeli navy "commandos" to overextend themselves. Just grind them down. Gandhi is the example to be followed. Just keep coming at them peacefully yet forcefully. This blockade is criminal and is in no way self-defense.

The Frontal Cortex: Memory Is Fiction:
"After all, we like to think of our memories as being immutable impressions, somehow separate from the act of remembering them. But they aren't. A memory is only as real as the last time you remembered it. The more you remember something, the less accurate the memory becomes. The larger moral of the experiment is that memory is a ceaseless process, not a repository of inert information. It shows us that every time we remember anything, the neuronal structure of the memory is delicately transformed, or reconsolidated."

U.S. Citizen Was Among the Dead on the Gaza Flotilla - NYTimes.com:
"Reports in the Turkish press identified the American as Furkan Dogan, 19, who was born in the United States before returning to Turkey with his family as a young child...The Cihan news agency reported that Mr. Dogan had one bullet in the chest and four bullets fired into his head from close range. Israel has blamed activists for the confrontation, which occurred as Israeli commandos dropped on ropes from helicopters onto the biggest of the vessels, the Turkish-owned Mavi Marmara."

For over 3 years you illegally occupy another nation, blockade its ports and seal off its borders illegally, severely restrict the flow of ANYTHING into or out of that nation, starve the nation's occupants including the aged, women, children, civilians, then you attack and murder unarmed foreign nationals attempting to confront the blockade and blame THEM for the war crime. Has Dick Cheney somehow become president of Israel? Is he really in control there? Because this looks like his fingerprints all over this one.

Actress Q'orianka Kilcher arrested at White House:
"U.S. Park Police have identified a woman arrested for tying herself to a White House fence as actress Q'orianka (kohr-ee-AHN'-kuh) Kilcher. Authorities say the 20-year-old Kilcher tied herself to the fence Tuesday and her 41-year-old mother, Saskia, poured a black substance over her. They told officials they were protesting a visit by the president of Peru. Q'orianka Kilcher's father is a Peruvian Indian."

Good for her!

Fort Apache (1948)***
THE source for all those movie clichés about the cavalry. Not as majestic or as visually stunning as The Searchers, probably because of the lack of color, but every bit as complex with the absurdities and cruelties of the military life fully exposed.

Vertigo (1958)****
I was going to give this one 5 stars but I'm not sure if I have ever given that many before. Can't seem to be able to do a search of the archives. Will look in to that possibility. At any rate, every time I see this film I see something new and that is the mark of a true 5 star film. This is the creepiest you will ever see Jimmy Stewart in a motion picture.

Don't Look Now (1973)****

Even Venice is creepy in this thriller, from the time when movies were made for adults not teens. George Lucas would change all of that.

The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)

You know how there are some films that are so bad they are good? This is not one of those. This one is so bad it is VERY bad. I can't give it a rating because it is one of those rare films that I could not watch in it's entirety. Believe me, there is no reason in the world for you to try and watch this picture.

Life of Brian (1979)****

"He's not the messiah. He's a very naughty boy!"

A Night to Remember (1958)****

Far superior to the execrable Titanic. The only flaw being some stilted, heavy-handed dialog in the opening and closing scenes.

Toxic chemicals and their effects on the body : The New Yorker:
"The inadequacy of the current regulatory system contributes greatly to the atmosphere of uncertainty. The Toxic Substances Control Act, passed in 1976, does not require manufacturers to show that chemicals used in their products are safe before they go on the market; rather, the responsibility is placed on federal agencies, as well as on researchers in universities outside the government. The burden of proof is so onerous that bans on toxic chemicals can take years to achieve, and the government is often constrained from sharing information on specific products with the public, because manufacturers claim that such information is confidential. Several agencies split responsibility for oversight, with little coördination: the Food and Drug Administration supervises cosmetics, food, and medications, the Environmental Protection Agency regulates pesticides, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission oversees children’s toys and other merchandise. The European Union, in contrast, now requires manufacturers to prove that their compounds are safe before they are sold."

I wonder just what does the Toxic Substances Control act do? According to the law then maybe Monsanto IS correct? WTF is going on here???

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine ****
As entertaining a book about the incredibly incompetent and corrupt US financial system as there could possibly be. It's just so depressing that it is not fiction.

Yellow Press - Elvis Costello:
"It is after considerable contemplation that I have lately arrived at the decision that I must withdraw from the two performances scheduled in Israel on the 30th of June and the 1st of July."

Good for him.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Mocked 'Dumb Fucks' for Trusting Him:
"More ammo for Mark Zuckerberg's privacy critics: The Silicon Alley Insider has a transcript of IMs between a then-19-year-old Zuckerberg, shortly after he launched Facebook, and a college friend. Zuckerberg's comments, strung together: 'Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard. Just ask. I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS.' Asked how, he responds: 'People just submitted it. I don't know why. They 'trust me.' Dumb fucks.'"

I really don't have a problem with a company providing free software in exchange for some personal information used to show me targeted ads while I use that software. That's the idea behind a lot of software on the Internet such as Google, Yahoo, etc. But if the company tells me to go ahead, use your real name, your real information because you can make this as private as you want and only those who you allow to see it will ever see it, when all along they had no intention of adhering to that standard, and not only that, if you opt out and want to delete your information you cannot! Really Mark? You don't know why all those people trusted you? BECAUSE YOU LIED TO THEM! That is something I have a big problem with. And that my friends is a little thing called "fraud" that apparently is no longer a crime in this country.

Welcome to the new privacy.

Carbs against Cardio: More Evidence that Refined Carbohydrates, not Fats, Threaten the Heart: Scientific American
"Will the more recent thinking on fats and carbs be reflected in the 2010 federal Dietary Guidelines for Americans, updated once every five years? It depends on the strength of the evidence, explains Robert C. Post, deputy director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. Findings that 'have less support are put on the list of things to do with regard to more research.' Right now, Post explains, the agency’s main message to Americans is to limit overall calorie intake, irrespective of the source. 'We’re finding that messages to consumers need to be short and simple and to the point,' he says. Another issue facing regulatory agencies, notes Harvard’s Stampfer, is that 'the sugared beverage industry is lobbying very hard and trying to cast doubt on all these studies.'"

OMFG who ARE these guys??? "We'll put it on the list of things to do", "Might be too complicated for dumb stupid consumers", "Lobbyists for Coke and Pepsi don't like it so probably not". Fuck the pyramids and all that other crap they create to make things "simpler" for us morons. How about this message "LAY OFF THE CANDY BARS!" to paraphrase Marlene Dietrich. It's very, very simple: eat as little processed/added sugar/flour as possible. And there is a mountain of evidence that overall calorie intake is not as important as the type of calories consumed.

Civil Eats - Supreme Court to Hear First GE Crop Case:
"The case began in 2006 when the Center for Food Safety (CFS) sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) on behalf of a coalition alfalfa conventional and organic farmers and environmental organizations over USDA’s approval of Monsanto’s GE “Roundup Ready” alfalfa, engineered to withstand repeated dousing of Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup. Farmers and environmental advocates raised alarm about the unintended spread of Monsanto’s patented variety and transgenic contamination of natural alfalfa given that alfalfa is pollinated by bees that can fly many miles distance.

In 2007 a federal district court agreed with CFS, holding that USDA had illegally approved the GE alfalfa and stopped any further planting until USDA complied with environmental laws. Monsanto, who had intervened in the case, appealed the ruling, but a federal Court of Appeals agreed with CFS, first in 2008 and then again in 2009.

Now, Monsanto has taken their case to the only court left—the U.S. Supreme Court. Monsanto was able to get the Court to take the case over the objection of both CFS and USDA. The Court only hears about 80 cases a year out of around 8,000 attempts. Here’s the point Monsanto wants addressed: although it is undisputed that USDA violated environmental laws and that the agency must rigorously analyze the crop’s impacts if it is to again approve it for sale, Monsanto is arguing that the lower courts should have allowed the planting of the now-illegal crop to go forward anyway, before the agency did its homework All lower courts agreed that the planting of Roundup Ready alfalfa should halt because of the unknown and potentially harmful impacts of the crop on farmers’ livelihoods and the environment."

So what Monsanto is implying, and indeed have said explicitly before, is that they should be able to plant whatever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want until the USDA can prove what they have planted is not safe. The Supreme Court thinks they have a point otherwise why take the case? Why hasn't Clarence Thomas, former Monsanto lawyer, recused himself from this? Do not be surprised if Monsanto wins this one. They are the Enron of chemical companies. Only this time it is our food supply that is at risk.

Will Goldman Sachs prove greed is God? | Business | The Guardian:
"People have to understand this Randian mindset is now ingrained in the American character. You have to live here to see it. There's a hatred toward 'moochers' and 'parasites' – the Tea Party movement, which is mainly a bunch of pissed off suburban white people whining about minorities consuming social services, describes the battle as being between 'water-carriers' and 'water-drinkers'. And regulation of any kind is deeply resisted, even after a disaster as sweeping as the 2008 crash.
This debate is going to be crystallised in the Goldman case. Much of America is going to reflexively insist that Goldman's only crime was being smarter and better at making money than IKB and ABN-Amro, and that the intrusive, meddling government (in the American narrative, always the bad guy!) should get off Goldman's Armani-clad back. Another side is going to argue that Goldman winning this case would be a rebuke to the whole idea of civilisation – which, after all, is really just a collective decision by all of us not to screw each other over even when we can. It's an important moment in the history of modern global capitalism: whether or not to move forward into a world of greed without limits."

I know some of these tea party types. Many are "Christians". This just reinforces the theory that the human brain is "designed" by and for hormones that drive its behavior. The very notion of a "self" is preposterous. We are dumb, stupid animals.

Your Tax Dollars at War: Information Clearing House - ICH:
"The 2011 military budget, by the way, is the largest in history, not just in actual dollars, but in inflation-adjusted dollars, exceeding even the spending in World War II, when the nation was on an all-out war footing.

"This military spending in all its myriad forms works out to represent 53% of total US federal spending.

"It’s also a military budget that is rising at a faster pace than any other part of the budget (with the possible exception of bailing out crooked Wall Street financial firms and their managers). For the past decade, and continuing under the present administration, military budgets have been rising at a 9% annual clip, making health care inflation look tiny by comparison."

Truly obscene. And what is almost worse is the fact that this is NEVER brought up in ANY political discussion. The first thing they go after is "entitlements" which is a code word for Social Security, which is completely funded by your tax dollars until 2037 at minimum. Yes, Medicare has funding problems. Fixable problems. But this military spending is THE reason why our debt is the way it is.

Don't Choke : The Frontal Cortex:
"Interestingly, it turns out that simple differences in presentation can influence whether or not a math problem gets processed as a 'verbal' problem or as a 'spatial' problem. (More spatial problems, such as rotating an object in your mind, are more likely to be processed in the right PFC.) For instance, when an arithmetic problem is presented horizontally (84 - 18 = 66) it's seen as more verbal, since we're 'reading' the numbers from left to right, just like a sentence. In contrast, when a problem is presented vertically it's seen as more spatial:
84
-18
66
In other words, merely changing the presentation of the problem can dramatically alter how the brain processes the information."

the only functioning economy the US has left - Niqnaq:
"It’s striking, of course, that all this is happening at a moment when, domestically, small businesses can’t get loans and close to 10% of the population is officially out of work, while state governments are desperately scrabbling for every available dollar (and some that aren’t), even as they cut what would once have been considered basic services. In contrast, the Pentagon is fighting its distant wars as if US pockets had no bottoms, the national treasury had no limits, and there was quite literally no tomorrow. And there’s one more small contrast to be made when it comes to the finest military in the history of the world: for all the private security guards, mountains of burgers, lakes of gasoline, miles of blast walls, and satchels of cash to pass out to the locals, it’s been remarkably unsuccessful in its pacification campaigns against some of the motliest forces of our time. The US military has been fought to something like a draw by relatively modest-sized, relatively lightly armed minority insurgencies that don’t even pass muster when it comes to shooting straight. Vast piles of money and vast quantities of materiel have been squandered; equipment by the boatload has been used up; lives have been wasted in profusion; and yet the winners of our wars might turn out to be Iran and China. The US way of war, unfortunately, has the numbers to die for, just not to live by."

And all of this is apparently untouchable, yet Social Security and Medicare are "bankrupting the country". Americans are the stupidest people on Earth.

President makes surprise stop in Afghanistan - Spokesman.com - March 28, 2010:
"President Barack Obama made a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Sunday for a firsthand look at the 8-year-old war he inherited and dramatically escalated.

After an overnight flight from Washington, the president landed in Afghanistan for a stay of just a few hours, all in darkness. He flew by helicopter from Bagram Air Field to the capital, where he was greeted at the presidential palace by Afghan leader Hamid Karzai, given just an hour’s notice of Obama arrival. A military honor guard stood at attention as Obama walked across red carpets.

It was Obama’s second stop in a war zone as commander in chief, coming about a year after a similarly secretive trip to Iraq."

Like Bush before him, Obama is a coward. The troops he sends to die don't have the option of staying just a few hours, all in darkness. It made me sick whenever anyone in the Bush administration made these "surprise" visits and it still does with Obama. Disgusting.

Matt Taibbi - True/Slant: The Catholic Church is a Criminal Enterprise:
"But these guys not only don’t kill themselves, they go out in public ranting about how wronged they are and how they’ve been fucked over by the evil New York Times for airing out their dirty laundry. Again, I admire the balls, but seriously, they must know the game is almost up. Sooner or later people are going to catch on, the state is going to make a move, and there’s going to be a hell of a lot of church property going up for auction along with the seized Escalades of DEA-busted drug dealers. Or maybe not in this lifetime — but one can only hope."

A bit over the top, but just a bit. Stuck in the middle of hard-right Catholicism though, it's apparent they have circled the wagons and girded their loins and battened down the hatches. The God of Love is nowhere to be found any more. It's Us against Them and Them is pure evil everywhere you look. Oh and Them is everyone else regardless.

So keep it up Matt et al. Constant pressure over and over may yet do some damage.

Dennis Kucinich Flips On Health Care Reform: Will Support The Bill:
"Kucinich explained his decision in the following terms: He fought to make the bill better as long as he could. The bill is now written and the decision is not whether it's the bill he'd want but whether it is better to support it as it is or oppose it. If this health care reform effort failed, just as Clinton's effort failed a decade and a half ago, it would make future attempts at reforming the system that much more difficult. 'This is a defining moment for whether or not we'll have any opportunity to move off square one on the issue of health care. And so even though I don't like the bill, I've made a decision to support it in the hopes that we can move towards a more comprehensive approach once this legislation is done', he said. 'A health care failure could destroy any transformative potential left in Obama's administration', he worried."

I don't understand the rationale that if THIS bill fails, all future bills will fail also. That's not even logically sound. And as far as this administration having any "transformative potential", they destroyed that as soon as they took office and picked Clinton's money men and decided to continue the Bush policies.

I don't understand, with a majority in both houses of Congress and control of the executive branch, how this party cannot create any constitutional law it wants. The Republicans were able to do just that for 8 years. It's just another example of the mind boggling ineptitude of Democrats.

The Reason So Many People Are Unemployed (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought):
"Now some people will claim that the Federal Reserve has done all it can to create more jobs but the recession is so deep this time that there’s nothing else it can do. But that’s just not true — even the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, says it’s not true. He was asked about this in a Senate hearing. As the Economist summarized his response: “Mr Bernanke does not want to risk a de-anchoring of inflation expectations. He is willing to accept 10% or greater unemployment and the resulting economic and political fall-out in order to avoid that risk.”"

What courage! Willing to accept political fall-out, willing to let millions lose their jobs all to prevent the "de-anchoring of inflation expectations".

But what do you do when your outrage meter is already at 10? There is no 11, just 10.

Official dogma: Iraq War a success - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com: "It was only a matter of time before American elites abandoned their faux regret over Iraq. For tribalists and nationalists, America can err in its execution but never in its motives."

It's like 200+ years of history never happened for these people.

Glenn Greenwald - Dick Cheney's Taunting
"In general, people who commit felonies avoid publicly confessing to having done so, and they especially avoid mocking the authorities who fail to act. One thing Dick Cheney is not is stupid, and yet he's doing exactly that. Indeed, he's gradually escalated his boasting about having done so throughout the year. Why? Because he knows there will never be any repercussions, that he will never be prosecuted no matter how blatantly he admits to these serious crimes."

Not just Cheney but Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, etc. all admitted to war crimes in public. This is what happens when you "look forward not backward". And there are people who wonder why "liberals", meaning any American who actually thinks laws matter, can't just give Obama a chance. I mean he's only been on the job for a year, what can one man do?

Good calories, bad calories ... - Google Books:
"The 11 Critical Conclusions of Good Calories, Bad Calories:
1. Dietary fat, whether saturated or not, does not cause heart disease.
2. Carbohydrates do, because of their effect on the hormone insulin. The more easily-digestible and refined the carbohydrates and the more fructose they contain, the greater the effect on our health, weight, and well-being.
3. Sugars—sucrose (table sugar) and high fructose corn syrup specifically—are particularly harmful. The glucose in these sugars raises insulin levels; the fructose they contain overloads the liver.
4. Refined carbohydrates, starches, and sugars are also the most likely dietary causes of cancer, Alzheimer’s Disease, and the other common chronic diseases of modern times.
5. Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating and not sedentary behavior.
6. Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter any more than it causes a child to grow taller.
7. Exercise does not make us lose excess fat; it makes us hungry.
8. We get fat because of an imbalance—a disequilibrium—in the hormonal regulation of fat tissue and fat metabolism. More fat is stored in the fat tissue than is mobilized and used for fuel. We become leaner when the hormonal regulation of the fat tissue reverses this imbalance.
9. Insulin is the primary regulator of fat storage. When insulin levels are elevated, we stockpile calories as fat. When insulin levels fall, we release fat from our fat tissue and burn it for fuel.
10. By stimulating insulin secretion, carbohydrates make us fat and ultimately cause obesity. By driving fat accumulation, carbohydrates also increase hunger and decrease the amount of energy we expend in metabolism and physical activity.
11. The fewer carbohydrates we eat, the leaner we will be. "

NFL Game Center: New Orleans Saints at Indianapolis Colts - 2009 Super Bowl

A good game, not a great game. The difference was New Orleans was the more aggressive team AND they did not make any big mistakes. Indianapolis seemed just a bit too controlled and methodical. They should have come out smoking in the first quarter when they had the Saints on their heels. The Saints were very tight and were playing very conservatively. The Colts let Drew Brees settle down and after that he was nearly flawless.

One refreshing change I noticed was the total lack of the "balance" comment regarding play selection. Both teams were "pass happy", the derogatory phrase usually applied solely to Mike Martz' offensive calls and in fact the Colts had the worst rushing record in the entire NFL during the regular season. But you can't second guess Mr. Manning, the unanimous choice for greatest quarterback ever.

Whatever.

This game was also the final nail in the coffin of the "run for 3 yards and a cloud of dust" offense that is the holy grail for old school, smash mouth, "real" footballers. You will NOT be able to win any more with Trent Dilfer and his ilk as your quarterback. The game is about the pass now once and for all. I'm not a big fan of the short passing game that was on display yesterday, in which the short pass is the substitute for the run, and firmly believe if the Colts had stuck to their regular season stretch the field offensive philosophy they would have won. But with all this passing going on, which is really unstoppable if you have a decent quarterback and the team executes properly, I predict the onside kick will be used much more often. And also, defenses will petition for a little bit of help rules-wise or else this will become like a basketball game.

Why we gain weight: Adiposity 101 and the Alternative Hypothesis of Obesity

Start from here.

On gospel, Abba and the death of the record: an audience with Brian Eno:
'"I think records were just a little bubble through time and those who made a living from them for a while were lucky. There is no reason why anyone should have made so much money from selling records except that everything was right for this period of time. I always knew it would run out sooner or later. It couldn't last, and now it's running out. I don't particularly care that it is and like the way things are going. The record age was just a blip. It was a bit like if you had a source of whale blubber in the 1840s and it could be used as fuel. Before gas came along, if you traded in whale blubber, you were the richest man on Earth. Then gas came along and you'd be stuck with your whale blubber. Sorry mate – history's moving along. Recorded music equals whale blubber. Eventually, something else will replace it."'

Green Bay Packers vs. Arizona Cardinals - Box Score - January 10, 2010 - ESPN:
"Green Bay Passing
C/ATT YDS AVG TD INT RATING
A. Rodgers 28/42 422 10.0 4 1 121.3"

Aaron Rodgers gave one of the all-time best performances by a quarterback in a football game, let alone a post-season playoff game. Such a performance, particularly the 10 yards per passing attempt, will win most of the time. The exception being...when Kurt Warner is the opposing qb. I don't think ANY quarterback has ever had the game Warner had in a playoff game or ANY game at any level. And I can't understand the deafening media silence about it. It seems they really do not like him AT ALL. And I understand he can be irritating even to his most ardent admirers. But damn the man can play this game! More touchdown passes than incompletions! One for the ages.

2009 In Review: Movies

**** a serious man
**** fantastic mr. fox
**** public enemies
*** coraline
*** the informant!
*** up
*** up in the air
*** where the wild things are
** cloudy with a chance of meatballs
** julie and julia
** men who stare at goats
** monsters vs. aliens
** star trek
* angels and demons

2009 In Review: Music

**** ac newman - get guilty
**** bruce springsteen - working on a dream
**** cheap trick - the latest
**** new york dolls - cause i sez so
**** pet shop boys - yes
**** raveonettes - in and out of control
**** soundtrack of our lives - communion
*** brendan benson - my old familiar friend
*** camera obscura - my maudlin career
*** mew - no more stories...
*** son volt - american central dust
*** the bats - the guilty office
*** the invisible cities - houses shine like teeth
*** the orange peels - 2020
*** tinted windows - tinted windows
*** yo la tengo - popular songs
** burning hearts - aboa sleeping
** god help the girl - god help the girl
** lily allen - it's not me it's you
** neko case - middle cyclone
** nous non plus - menagerie
** pete yorn & scarlett johansson - break up
** robyn hitchcock - goodnight oslo
** sting - if on a winter's night
** tegan & sara - sainthood
** tori amos - midwinter graces
** trashcan sinatras - in the music
** u2 - no line on the horizon
** wilco - the album
** young galaxy - invisible republic
* carbon-silicon - the carbon bubble
* chris isaak - mr. lucky
* the clientele - bonfires on the heath
* the postmarks - memoirs at the end of the world

Wunder Blog : Weather Underground:
"Arctic sea ice loss appears to have created a new atmospheric circulation pattern that brings more warm air in the Arctic, creating a positive feedback loop that causes even more sea ice loss. This feedback loop increases the likelihood that an ice-free Arctic in the summer will indeed come by 2030, as many Arctic experts are predicting. It's worth noting that such an atmospheric circulation shift was not predicted by the climate models. Indeed, the loss of Arctic sea ice over the past three years exceeds what any of our models were predicting (Figure 4). While we can rightly criticize these models for their inaccuracy, we should realize that they are just as capable of making errors not in our favor as they are of making errors in our favor."

But this is a major point that "climate deniers", as anyone who questions Al Gore are being so called, point out: a lot of the dire predictions of disaster are based upon models that by definition are incomplete. The arguments to "go green" should be based upon the obvious reasons: oil is finite, conservation saves and makes money. Companies are coming to that conclusion so stop with all the predictions of disaster.

Edge: TOXO — A Conversation With Robert Sapolsky
"In the endless sort of struggle that neurobiologists have — in terms of free will, determinism — my feeling has always been that there's not a whole lot of free will out there, and if there is, it's in the least interesting places and getting more sparse all the time. But there's a whole new realm of neuroscience which I've been thinking about, which I'm starting to do research on, that throws in another element of things going on below the surface affecting our behavior. And it's got to do with this utterly bizarre world of parasites manipulating our behavior. It turns out that this is not all that surprising. There are all sorts of parasites out there that get into some organism, and what they need to do is parasitize the organism and increase the likelihood that they, the parasite, will be fruitful and multiply, and in some cases they can manipulate the behavior of the host."

Every thought you have is a physical process.

An email from Noam Chomsky

It's about priorities not economics.

Pats' Belichick defends decision to go for it - Yahoo! News:
"Bill Belichick defended his decision to go for it on fourth down as criticism mounted Monday of the call that led to the New England Patriots stunning loss. The coach hailed as one of the NFL's best was a target of columnists, talk radio callers and two of his former players. Why, they all wondered, did he gamble with a six-point lead and just over two minutes to go against the Indianapolis Colts? The gamble failed and the Patriots lost 35-34 after leading by 17 points in the fourth quarter Sunday night."

Nice to have some other successful coach second guessed by 'experts' instead of Mike Martz for a change. There are so many things wrong with this. First of all, the whole premise that the entire game came down to this one play is ludicrous. What about the Patriots' fumble in the end zone? Why wasn't THAT the one play of the game? And statistically speaking, the odds were in his favor to go for it on 4th and 2 and not punt, particularly with an elite QB on the other team.

No, I did not question the decision to go for it, but I sure questioned the play calls the entire last series. Why keep going to Welker for minimal yardage when you have one of the best deep threats in all of football, Randy Moss? And if you ARE going to Welker repeatedly, why not send him a few yards BEYOND the barest minimum you need? Or even throw in a run if you insist on getting only the 2 yards necessary. At least the clock would have kept running.

The Case for God by Karen Armstrong - Hardcover - Random House
"We have become used to thinking that religion should provide us with information. Is there a God? How did the world come into being? But this is a modern preoccupation. Religion was never supposed to provide answers to questions that lay within the reach of human reason. That was the role of logos. Religion's task, closely allied to that of art, was to help us to live creatively, peacefully, and even joyously with realities for which there were no easy explanations and problems that we could not solve: mortality, pain, grief, despair, and outrage at the injustice and cruelty of life."

Throughout most of the book, Ms. Armstrong gives a wonderful summation of human history with an emphasis on human religious understanding. Full of insights, connections, perspectives, it is a tour de force and well done. But her point, that to deride religion is to misunderstand it, fails to convince. For sure, the "real" religion Ms. Armstrong describes is indeed a wonderful thing. The only problem is that for 99% of religious practitioners in the world today, their religious understanding bears only a fleeting resemblance to that. And their priests and rabbis and imams like it that way. THAT is the problem.

Director Polanski feels depressed in jail: lawyer - Yahoo! News:
"Director Roman Polanski is feeling depressed two weeks after his arrest in Switzerland to face U.S. extradition for a 1977 case involving the rape of a 13-year-old girl, his lawyer was quoted as saying on Sunday.

'I found him to be tired and depressed,' Herve Temime told the Sonntag newspaper, one of two newspapers he talked to after visiting the Oscar-winning director in a Zurich prison.

'Roman Polanski, who is 76, seemed very dejected when I visited him,' Temime told another newspaper, NZZ am Sonntag.

'Polanski was in an unsettled state of mind.'"

For the love of God won't someone DO SOMETHING so this poor man's mind can be settled again? He is such a very important member of our species I am not sure how we are going to survive without him in a happy state.

Is cropping a photo lying?:
"This is hardly photo fakery. Crops aren't lies. Full-frame photos aren't the truth. Kennerley himself could have easily taken that exact picture in the moment."

But he didn't take the picture Newsweek wanted. And THAT is why it is wrong to crop the picture. Newsweek wanted to portray Cheney in a particular light and the photo submitted did not do that. Why didn't Newsweek just commission an artist to create a comic of Cheney butchering meat? Because they wanted to lie to people using a "real" photo of him doing just that.

Secondly, Jason, you can't say the original photo is a lie in order to defend the crop as NOT a lie. If the source is a lie, how can the crop be the truth?

NFL - Indianapolis Colts/Miami Dolphins Box Score Monday September 21, 2009 - Yahoo! Sports:
This game completely demolishes all the old school adages about how to win a football game. Somewhere, Mike Martz has a big smile on his face when reading this box score. Miami had overwhelming advantages in number of plays, first downs, time of possession, rushing yards, only punted once, had no lost fumbles. They had a "balanced" offense in that they rushed 49 times and threw 33 times. They had over 400 yards in total offense.

And still lost.

The difference was the Colts scored and scored quickly when they had the ball. Why? They threw it and threw DEEP. 12.3 yards per pass ATTEMPT. Miami did everything "right". But so what? Final score is all that matters. Yes, against a mediocre offensive team, Miami's approach will usually succeed. But against a wide-open offense, forget it.

Behind the NFL’s Touchdown Binge - WSJ.com:
"This drive to efficiency may also apply to the people who make the rules. If it's human nature to promote speed whenever the action appears to be slowing down, it's no surprise the NFL decided, in 2004, to tell officials to crack down on the amount of contact defensive backs can have with wide receivers. In scientific terms, the NFL wanted to make the system flow more efficiently. (The fact that touchdowns make for good television might have played a role here, too.)"

A pretty good example of trying to make the facts fit the theory. The league has been tweaking the rules for years in an effort to generate more offense. And why is an NFL offense the only part of the game that is supposedly "more efficient" or "faster"? It's a game of offense AND defense and both have been "evolving". Modern defenses are very fast and VERY big. QB's need to be 6' 5" just to see over the linemen! And this theory kind of distorts evolution. Things evolve to fit their circumstances, their environment, NOT to achieve some ideal. There is no "progress" in evolution, no design, no intelligence. To think otherwise is to miss the point entirely.

Insta-Cake | MetaFilter
"Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix dry ingredients in a nonstick 8 x 8 pan or a loaf pan:
* 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (no fancy cake flour needed)
* 3/4 cup sugar (sweet but not cloying)
* 3 tablespoons cocoa powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* Additional spices to taste: try 1/2 teaspoon each of ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg to start

Add wet ingredients: stir into dry ingredients in the following order with a fork until combined, but do not overmix
* 3 tablespoons oil (the original used 4 T, and I've seen as high as 6 T, but 3 works just fine)
* 1 tablespoon white vinegar
* 1 cup cold water with 1 teaspoon vanilla added (you might also add 1 teaspoon of peppermint or almond extract)

Put into oven for 30 minutes for an 8 x 8 pan, or 40 minutes for a loaf pan. Cake is done when it pulls slightly away from the sides and/or a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean."

I've seen a few other "Wacky Cake" recipes, but this one has the least sugar and I can assure you it will produce one of the best tasting chocolate cakes you have ever tried. Icing is superfluous it is THAT good. And when I made it, I did not have a non-stick pan so I spread some oil in a glass pan and mixed the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl, then poured the wet ingredients into the same bowl in the proscribed order, mixed together with a fork until combined, then poured into the glass pan. Baked for exactly 30 minutes. Great recipe.

Singletary set the tone, which was tough and disciplined:
"Other coaches will do the same thing, typically in a panic. When Singletary gathered the defense around him, TV cameras showed a calm, determined face, without a hint of anxiety. At one point, he pointed backward toward the sideline with his thumb, like a hitchhiker in reverse. 'I really don't remember what I was saying,' he said later. 'Maybe: 'Let's get out of here.' ' The 49ers' defense, as recommended, held Arizona to a field goal, and the moribund offense suddenly revived itself and scored what would turn out to be the winning touchdown in a 2o-16 season opener. That timeout wasn't wasted. The 49ers finished the game with one remaining."

I told myself I would stop linking to sports writers' idiocy, but this one struck me because it emphasizes how these writers skew their writing depending upon their personal opinions of the coach. When Mike Martz was OC, he was derided for "wasting" timeouts, ie using them in unconventional situations. He was also declared "egomaniacal" in nearly every piece written about him, primarily because he wanted things done his way. Now, Singletary is praised for using unconventional timeouts and there is no question at all that he not just wants things his way but DEMANDS things are done his way. The team even uses his egomaniacal pronouncements as advertising! I point this out to re-emphasize my point: sports writers today are among the least talented and certainly the least journalistic writers around. They get paid for having an opinion (usually wrong) and for cracking jokes (usually bad).

Truthdig - America the Great ... Police State
"For those of us who had hoped that the Obama administration would present us with a rebirth of the old republic that was so rudely erased a few years ago by that team of judicial wreckers, Bush and Gonzales, which led, in turn, to a recent incident in Cambridge, Mass. that inspired a degree of alarm in many Americans. But what was most alarming was the plain fact that neither the president nor a “stupid” local policeman seemed to understand the rules of behavior in a new America, where we find ourselves marooned as well as guarded (is that the verb?) by armed police who have been instructed that they are indeed, once armed, the law and may not be criticized verbally or in any other way and are certainly not subject to any restrictions as to whom they arrest or otherwise torment. "

Glad to see that Gore Vidal is still around and still writing essays. Someone should tell him about the new tasers which are capable of 3 firings before having to be recharged. They taser grandfathers, pregnant women, naked people. They used to say "If you're innocent you have nothing to fear" but that is decidedly NOT the case any more.

A Death Foretold:

He became disinterested in fiction ever since that day. And he began to cringe whenever he heard the phrase "no regrets" for he had many. Nothing but, practically. And he began to see his life as a series of failed exercises, mistakes, blunders, well-intentioned but monumentally wrong decisions for all concerned. Outwardly he appeared at the very least, contented. Some might even say happy. But inwardly, he began to die from that day on. A slow process of letting go of everything that he had been clinging to for nearly all his life. It started out to be a difficult process. But as each thing began to fall away, it became easier. He was surprised at times by how easily he was able to do this.

Had he arrived, finally, at that place of peace? Had the letting go finally become enough? No, there was still more. Nine and a half years and still more to go. But it would happen. One way or the other, everything would become free again. And he felt it would happen soon. Very soon.

The Moody Blues Live at Ironstone, July 24, 2009 ****
Thoughtful, emotional, elegiac, yet always with a sense of humor and warmth which resonates through nearly every song in their repertoire, the 3 remaining members of the original band, augmented by 4 exceptional musicians including the star-in-waiting Norda Mullen filling in for departed member Ray Thomas put on a remarkable show tonight. Nothing new to promote except a DVD of a 1970 concert on the Isle of Wight, and no new material to try out, but their catalog is more than adequate to sustain a riveting 2 hour performance that ran the gamut from the near schmaltzy "The Day We Meet Again" to the iconic "Question". Maybe it's the fact that I have reached "a certain age" that I find the Moodies more and more compelling given their penchant for musing on the passage of time and the losses contained therein, but hearing them tear into their songs also is somehow reaffirming and uplifting. The lads may be paunchy and jowly, but they still love their music and their fans and life itself and seem intent on sharing that as long as they can.

Public Enemies (2009)****
Breaks new ground in the use of hi-definition digital video which brings a searing immediacy to the already exhilarating Dillinger story. Some beautiful camera work and design, well put together by Michael Mann. Leaves you with the question who was the bigger public enemy? Dillinger and his contemporaries, or the power-craving "G" men and their wire-taps and "enhanced" interrogation techniques?

Palin resigning as Alaska governor in surprise move - Yahoo!:
"In a rambling statement to the media, in which she took no questions, Palin, 45, indicated she wanted to extend her influence in U.S. politics and some analysts said she appeared to be laying the ground for a run at the presidency in 2012.

'We are not retreating, we are advancing in a different direction,' Palin said, employing the imprecise circumlocutions that characterize her public pronouncements. 'We know we can effect positive change outside government at this moment in time.'"

She "indicated she wanted to extend her influence in U.S. politics"? Um I think you have to HAVE influence before you try to extend it. At any rate she stayed true to form, taking no questions, which to her means picking on her. But I'm surprised that everyone seems to be at a loss to figure this out. Let me break it to you: she will have a talk show a la Limbaugh or Ingraham on Fox News or CNBC before the year is out.

The Rapture (1991)****
With this film, writer/director Michael Tolkin basically says "Okay, let's take the re-borns at their word and assume that this whole end-of-the-world-rapture business is true, literally, and see what happens." And he proceeds to do that in an austere, intelligent, minimally manipulative way and takes the story right to the end and lets us make our own judgments about it. Mimi Rogers is exceptional in a unique and powerful film.

Bug resurrected after 120,000 years: Scientific American:
"The tiny purple microbe, dubbed Herminiimonas glaciei, lay trapped beneath nearly two miles of ice in Greenland. It took 11 months to revive it by gently warming it in an incubator. Finally the bug sprang back to life and began producing fresh colonies of purple brown bacteria."

You just KNOW some idiot is going to leave a petri dish uncovered some night and BAM it's out the door! This could be the Mastodon Flu bug or God know's what else.

Can a machine change your mind? | open Democracy News Analysis:
"...what it feels like to be conscious of something, or to be in a particular state of pain or serenity, surely goes beyond those brain properties. A scientific description of what happens in the brain when someone has a certain thought or experience seems inevitably to leave out what the thought is about or the experience is like. Once again, there’s something left over, something which, if the person were observing their own brain states, they would be having in addition to seeing neurons fire and synapses wiggling."

ALL thoughts you have in your "mind" have a physical, material basis. To me, that is undeniable. Right now, our ability to explain and identify that physical basis is incomplete. We are getting there and I believe shall get there eventually, inevitably. No, I don't think consciousness is simply synapses wiggling. I think your entire body participates in consciousness. But it is a physical, material phenomenon nonetheless.

The Origin of Life: American Scientist
"If this notion turns out to be true, it will have important implications for a deep philosophical question: whether we should understand the history of life in terms of the working out of predictable physical principles or of the agency of chance. We are, in fact, arguing that life will appear on any planet that reproduces the environmental and geological conditions that appeared on the early Earth, and that it will appear in order to solve precisely the sort of "stranded electron" problem discussed above. The currently popular view that complex life was something of a frozen accident was set forth in Jacques Monod's classic book Chance and Necessity (1970). We, of course, are arguing the opposite, if only for a significant part of basic chemical architecture....It has not escaped our notice that the mechanism we are postulating immediately suggests that life is widespread in the universe, and can be expected to develop on any planet whose chemistry resembles that of the early Earth."

Interesting explanation for how life emerged from inorganic matter. I think every "how" is explainable. It's the "why" that is so perplexing.

The Torture Memos and Historical Amnesia:
"Accordingly, what's surprising is to see the reactions to the release of those Justice Department memos, even by some of the most eloquent and forthright critics of Bush malfeasance: Paul Krugman, for example, writing that we used to be 'a nation of moral ideals' and never before Bush 'have our leaders so utterly betrayed everything our nation stands for.' To say the least, that common view reflects a rather slanted version of American history."

That darned Noam Chomsky! Always remembering things. Why can't he move on, put the past behind him and work towards a better future? Now is not the time for looking back in anger or retribution.

God help us.

Steeler Harrison's pit bull attacks young son:
"Parise said Harrison has not had trouble with the animal in the past.

'I've been with that dog personally, he's a wonderful animal,' Parise said.

Parise said he doesn't know why the boy's mother let the dog out of the pen, other than to say he believes it was for a routine reason such as feeding or to care for the animal. The boy's mother does not live at the house, Parise said.

'There's no reason to believe that this is anything other than something that sometimes happens to children,' Parise said. 'The child should be fine.'"

I love it. Stupid is as stupid does. I used to be optimistic about the future prospects for society, human beings. But day after day after day you keep getting reminded just how obscenely stupid people truly are. We are a doomed species.

Angels & Demons (2009)*
Momma said "If you can't say something nice..." so here goes: There are some nice pictures of Rome and Ayelet Zurer is very attractive.

AND HE SHALL BE JUDGED: GQ Features on men.style.com:
"This mixing of Crusades-like messaging with war imagery, which until now has not been revealed, had become routine. On March 31, a U.S. tank roared through the desert beneath a quote from Ephesians: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” On April 7, Saddam Hussein struck a dictatorial pose, under this passage from the First Epistle of Peter: “It is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.”"

I'm not sure what to even think about this. It's abhorrent, for sure. Diabolical, certainly. And makes George W. Bush look like even more the fool than I could have possibly imagined. Remember the old SNL routine with Phil Hartman playing Ronald Reagan, pretending to be folksy, a bit daft, when "on camera" but then switching to master manipulator when off? Well that could NEVER happen with W as we can now know for certain. W was truly an idiot.

Bob Dylan | Together Through Life (2009)*
I think it is high time Mr. Dylan drops the singer part of singer/songwriter and just sticks to song writing. Maybe he could write Brian Ferry's next album or bring back Manfred Mann or The Byrds. Because he can write excellent songs. And this latest album just may be full of them. But his voice is just so very bad right now, and frankly has been for the past several years, it is incredibly distracting from the songs themselves. Plus, he's never been the best interpreter of his own material let's face it. Very disappointing.

Emanuel Rejects Trial for Memos' authors - washingtonpost.com:
"'It's not a time to use our energy and our time in looking back' out of 'any sense of anger and retribution,' Emanuel said on ABC's 'This Week.' His remarks reflect the White House's effort to claim a middle ground after the release of the memos, which had been top secret, angered backers of the Bush administration's interrogation policy."

Well then how about using some of your precious time and energy to prevent or at least discourage future violations of law out of a sense of...oh what's that word again...oh yes, JUSTICE? DECENCY? MORALITY? ETHICS? This administration is about nothing else than getting re-elected. It's almost an exact rehash of the Clinton years: the idea is simply to BE president. Not to govern. Not to uphold The Constitution. Not to try and make the world a better place. None of that. Just make sure you get re-elected and you win.

The Raw Story | Economist: US collapse driven by 'fraud'; Geithner covering up bank insolvency:
"In an explosive interview on PBS' Bill Moyers Journal, William K. Black, a professor of economics and law with the University of Missouri, alleged that American banks and credit agencies conspired to create a system in which so-called 'liars loans' could receive AAA ratings and zero oversight, amounting to a massive 'fraud' at the epicenter of US finance. But worse still, said Black, Timothy Geithner, President Barack Obama's Secretary of the Treasury, is currently engaged in a cover-up to keep the truth of America's financial insolvency from its citizens."

Why is this considered "explosive"? Has the author of this piece talked to average Americans? If so, he would find that EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS because it is self evident. We know what a Ponzi scheme is. We know what fraud is. I think the real problem is journalists are JUST NOW coming around to understanding what was done. It takes a while because all they really know is how to be a journalist. (Whatever that entails.) Hopefully they will be able to raise enough moral outrage before the whole thing is over and maybe we can manage to save a few bucks here and there. Personally, I think it is all over but the shouting and Mr. Obama has been a total and complete bust. His handling of the financial situation (it's not a crisis) has been an abomination, his plans for healthcare are disastrous, he supplicates himself (and hence ourselves) to Saudi kings, kisses Israel's ass as it continues its genocide against Palestinians and pledges to "win" in Afghanistan while the real source of trouble, Pakistan, goes off the rails. So I guess we try, try again in 4 years, huh?

NFL to make AFC West road format more reasonable - ESPN:
"East Coast and West Coast teams have complained about their cross-country trips. Under the proposed changed -- which does not require a committee vote -- the NFL will alter its AFC West scheduling formula so that no team would have to play at Oakland and at San Diego in the same season.

To modify the issue, the schedule will be adjusted so if a team is scheduled to play at Oakland, it would play at either Denver or Kansas City, two teams that are geographically closer to the east and midwest, and not at San Diego. If a team has to play at the Chargers, its schedule would include visiting either Denver or Kansas City and not the Raiders."

This is ridiculous. Are you telling me that an extra hour or so of sitting on an airplane is that big a deal to professional athletes? Unbelievable.

Obama: AIG can't justify 'outrage' of exec bonuses:
"In a letter to Geithner dated Saturday, Liddy said outside lawyers had informed the company that AIG had contractual obligations to make the bonus payments and could face lawsuits if it did not do so."

Yeah, and...? So what? I'm sure AIG faces dozens of lawsuits each and every day so why would these new lawsuits be so special? And each one of those new lawsuits would LOSE. But the fact of the matter is, the way this was done, and Paulson started it all, was just to hand over a blank check to these firms. Why Obama hired Summers and Geithner is the single biggest mistake of his presidency. A VERY stupid mistake.

The Curious Case of Neko:
I LOVE Neko Case. Of that there is no doubt. As lead chanteuse of The New Pornographers, she is without peer. Her voice is such a force that she elevates nearly everything she touches with it. My life is better off having listened to Neko Case.

I want to make that clear.

It's just that when I listen to her solo stuff, I am underwhelmed. I mean, there is obvious intelligence, thought, effort, art going on in her songs, I understand that. And she has some hooks, some strong melodies, some vibrant chord structures. And as for her lyrics, I like animals too, and nature and even indecipherability (is that a word?). But for some reason or another that perpetually escapes me, her songs just do not resonate with me. By that I mean, make me NEED to hear them over and over again. I listened to Middle Cyclone and while I like several tunes on it and adore her voice, I could never hear that album again and be quite content. And I LIKED it! But it does not compel me.

I am so sorry, Neko. I want to NEED you badly because I know how good you are. But it's just not happening.

Coraline (2009)***
Fantastic animation, art direction, voice work, technical expertise, all to the service of a story that fails to engage and resonate.

SFGate: Politics Blog : Schwarzenegger "compares legislature to dogs":
"Kicking off his major special-election reform campaign in San Francisco Thursday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger delivered some of the toughest medicine yet to those in his own party, saying critics who insisted he could close the state's $42 billion deficit through spending cuts alone 'are guilty of political cynicism at its worst.' Speaking at to a full house at the Commonwealth Club of California event at the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco, the governor said of the legislators: 'These are not serious people.'"

I was embarrassed when The Governator was elected. I was concerned that Arnold would be one of those "not serious" people. But I was wrong. I have not agreed with everything or even MOST things he has done or supported or tried to do, but I have to admit, he does take this seriously not as a politician seriously trying to advance his career, but as a person who truly thinks he has something to offer society as a public servant. Now I don't mean he is some sort of secular saint, far from it. But, like Nelson Rockefeller, the Kennedy's, et al, he really does seem to want to give something back to the society in which he has decided to make his home. If more of our elected representatives thought that way, approached their jobs that way, we would all be a lot better off. But instead we get career politicians who by necessity become beholden to moneyed interests because the costs of campaigning are so great. I think we could have done a LOT worse than Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Beat the Press | The Media Continue to Ignore Welfare for Citi Shareholders:
"The article even includes a bizarre statement to discourage those who oppose welfare for the super-rich: 'Nationalizing Citigroup outright would be a huge challenge, given the company’s size and international sweep. In countries like Mexico, for instance, a state-controlled bank might run afoul of local ownership regulations.'

This could almost be a line in a comedy routine -- Mexico is going to keep the United States from putting a bankrupt bank in receivership. It's too bad that the NYT didn't identify anyone who made such a statement, we all could ridicule this person until they faded from public life."

God bless Dean Baker! Righteous indignation when it is called for. Why isn't HE running the Treasury?

Senators to be grounded until tax bill OKd:
"The budget agreement contains nearly $16 billion in cuts, $11 billion in borrowing and more than $14 billion worth of temporary tax increases that all but a few Republican lawmakers have criticized as the deal killer. But as the budget impasse hit day 103 on Monday, state finance officials said they would have to pull the plug on the public works projects that have been allowed to continue thus far. In December, state finance officials said the state's fiscal crisis was so dire that they needed to halt financing for 5,600 construction projects across the state. Then last month, they agreed to exempt 276 projects that were either too far along in construction or would cost the state too much to halt and restart later. Now, those projects would have to be halted as well, Genest said."

Okay, enough. California needs to amend the 2/3 majority rule for budget passage, and to eliminate propositions from impacting the budget directly. I don't like taxes either, but they are a necessary evil if you want an orderly, functioning society. And believe me, try making money in a chaotic, dysfunctional society and see what good it does you to have your precious low tax rate.

Martz: 'People are determined to keep me out' - NFL- nbcsports.msnbc.com:
"“Maybe at some point in time he had a reputation of being arrogant or whatever but when we had him here, I worked with him, we had a lot of conversations and I felt very comfortable with him,” says Singletary. “We spent many hours together. You hear about Mike: ‘The guy’s arrogant. He’s tough to work with. He wants to throw ball all the time ... bottom line for me is he really tried to do what I asked him to do. My approach with him was I didn’t come at him as ‘I’m head coach around here.’ When you come at Mike Martz, you have to do it in a respectful way. Mike can be a very nice guy. But if you ask 10 people, you may get 10 different answers.”"

Lazy journalists love labels. It's shorthand for a story. And the laziest sports journalists work in television. Every time Mike Martz's name is mentioned on a football chat show, or during a game, the word "arrogant" is used. Never, NEVER have I heard an explanation or a basis ever explained. Even in print, they often just repeat the phrase without any backup whatsoever. To get to be a head coach in the NFL, you need to believe in yourself. This, in Martz's case, is called "having a big ego". Believing in your abilities and philosophy is called "arrogance". Now I ask you, why isn't Mike Singletary called arrogant when he demands that the offense by run-oriented? Why isn't that called run-happy?

Mike Martz is smart, knows how to be a head coach, players really like him. The current vogue in the NFL is for unproven head coaches. Hopefully Mike will be back soon.

Playing God in the Garden - New York Times:
"A few days later, once the slips of potato stem have put down roots, they're moved to the potato greenhouse up on the roof. Here, Glenda DeBrecht, a horticulturist, invited me to don latex gloves and help her transplant pinky-size plantlets from their petri dish to small pots. The whole operation is performed thousands of times, largely because there is so much uncertainty about the outcome. There's no way of telling where in the genome the new DNA will land, and if it winds up in the wrong place, the new gene won't be expressed (or it will be poorly expressed) or the plant may be a freak. I was struck by how the technology could at once be astoundingly sophisticated and yet also a shot in the genetic dark.

''There's still a lot we don't understand about gene expression,'' Stark acknowledged. A great many factors influence whether, or to what extent, a new gene will do what it's supposed to, including the environment. In one early German experiment, scientists succeeded in splicing the gene for redness into petunias. All went as planned until the weather turned hot and an entire field of red petunias suddenly and inexplicably lost their pigment. The process didn't seem nearly as simple as Monsanto's cherished software metaphor would suggest.

When I got home from St. Louis, I phoned Richard Lewontin, the Harvard geneticist, to ask him what he thought of the software metaphor. ''From an intellectual-property standpoint, it's exactly right,'' he said. ''But it's a bad one in terms of biology. It implies you feed a program into a machine and get predictable results. But the genome is very noisy. If my computer made as many mistakes as an organism does'' -- in interpreting its DNA, he meant -- ''I'd throw it out.''

You really have to read the entire article, and then try to figure out a way to deal with your overwhelming rage. Monsanto is so completely unconcerned about anything other than making money it's almost a parody. Unfortunately, it is an all too real beast in the world and a very effective one at that. It is to the biotech industry what Enron was to the energy industry. Yeah it's that bad.

Daschle withdraws as nominee for HHS secretary:
"'It really sets us back a step,' said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. 'Because he was such a talent. I mean he understood Congress, serving in the House and Senate; he certainly had the confidence of the president.' Said White House spokesman Gibbs: 'We're looking for a new nominee, but the problem has existed for quite some time and the work toward a solution to make health care more affordable won't stop or won't pause while we look for that nominee.'"

The only talent Daschle has is for sleazy schmoozing. He is on the payroll of the health insurance industry! How Obama could seriously think (and all indications are he still does) that this man was the solution to health care issues is beyond me. Look, this is not that difficult. The TRUE solution is ridiculous simple. The complications come in when you are beholden to private industry that has fed off the miseries of millions of Americans for so long they see it as their right to continue their craven, cruel ways. As I've said before, the best answer is Medicare for all. Single payer health insurance coverage is the only way to go. We already pay more than enough to cover it, and it is dead simple and THE most efficient way by any measure you care to use.

Obama budget official withdraws for tax reasons - Yahoo! News
"'I recognize that your agenda and the duties facing your Chief Performance Officer are urgent,' Killefer wrote in the letter to the president, asking for her nomination to be withdrawn. 'I have also come to realize in the current environment that my personal tax issue of D.C. Unemployment tax could be used to create exactly the kind of distraction and delay those duties must avoid.'"

WTF? Is it that difficult to find competent individuals that HAVE paid their taxes like most people? And it doesn't appear these are minor issues like a missing receipt for charitable contributions but serious violations regarding payroll taxes, etc. Things that a lot of people would go to jail for. This is a serious problem.

Saboteur (1942)**
The script is not up to the challenge of sustaining a 2 hour chase film. Hitchcock tries his best to liven things up with imaginative scenarios like a circus trailer, and the climactic sequence in the Statue of Liberty is still thrilling, but it takes a long time to get there and the implausibility of it all is hard to dismiss.

Family Plot (1976) **
Hitchcock's last film and not a particularly good one. It seems as if he was not really interested and aside from his silhouetted cameo, you wouldn't know he directed it. No sense of style to it, the script is dull at best, the look of the film is shoddy. It resembles TV movies of the time. Mildly pleasant, but forgettable.

U.S. peanut plant shipped salmonella-tainted products: FDA - Yahoo! News:
"More than 500 people in 43 states and Canada have been sickened in the outbreak, which also may be linked with eight deaths, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than half of those made ill are children. 'The team identified approximately 12 instances in 2007 and 2008 where the firm identified some type of salmonella ... and released the products,' the FDA's Michael Rogers told reporters in a telephone briefing. Records at the plant showed that after the company tested the peanut products and found salmonella, it sent at least some to an outside lab that showed no contamination. The products were then illegally shipped for sale, Rogers said. 'There (were) no steps taken (by) the firm as far as cleaning or to minimize cross-contamination,' Rogers said."

What this country needs to do is help the businessman who has to deal with tons and tons of paperwork. It costs so much money just to file all the paperwork. Get off the backs of businesses and the economy can work again! Yep. Government regulation is the problem.

Scharffen Berger, Schmidt plants to be closed:
"Hershey released fourth-quarter earnings Tuesday that were above analyst expectations and projected growth of up to 3 percent for 2009. The company said it earned $82.2 million, or 36 cents a share, in the quarter ending in December, compared with $54.3 million, or 24 cents a share, it earned for the same period last year."

One of the more cut-throat, greedy, stock-driven corporations around. Earnings ABOVE expectations, and they still want more. Let them eat chocolates?

Foreign Correspondent (1940)***
I find it interesting that the acting in most of Hitchcock's earlier films is in such a natural style especially as compared to other films of the era. It's very refreshing and gives his films a modern feel. This one is no exception. A complex plot about spies and thrilling sequences including an extremely well done plane crash in the Atlantic add to the fun.

New Yorker: How Should Obama Reform Health Care?:
"The results have been remarkable. After a year, 97.4 per cent of Massachusetts residents had coverage, and the remaining gap continues to close. Despite the requirement that individuals buy insurance and that employers either provide coverage or pay a tax, the program has remained extremely popular. Repeated surveys have found that at least two-thirds of the state’s residents support the reform. The Massachusetts plan didn’t do anything about medical costs, however, and, with layoffs accelerating, more people require subsidized care than the state predicted. Insurance premiums continue to rise here, just as they do elsewhere in the country. Many residents also complain that eight per cent of their income is too much to pay for health insurance, even though, on average, premiums amount to twice that much. The experience has shown national policymakers that they will have to be serious about reducing costs."

The writer takes a looong way to get there and uses inaccurate language to do so. We do not need to "reform health care", or "nationalize health care". We need to reform/nationalize health care INSURANCE! Once we do that, and remove the ability for private companies to gin the system for exorbitant profit, health care costs WILL come down. It has happened time and time again in country after country. Nobody pays as much as we do already and for lesser overall quality care. The only thing standing in our way is the insurance lobby. And I just don't think Obama is gutsy enough to actually take them on.

Synecdoche, New York (2008)****
Saw this too late for my 2008 review post, but clearly the best picture of the year. So dense, so layered, so emotional, it stays with you long after you leave the theater. Charlie Kaufman seemingly threw every idea he had into the film and, for me anyway, it worked beautifully. My only quibble would be the casting of Philip Seymour Hoffman in the lead. Yes you need a strong actor because he is on screen nearly every second and must carry the film, but I just did not find him appealing in the least and that hurt the overall impact a bit. Heck, Tom Noonan, who plays a character who is hired to play Hoffman's character in the film, would have been fine.

Torn Curtain (1966)***
Much better than Topaz, Hitchcock's other Cold War thriller. Julie Andrews seems very out of place though and yes I think Eva Marie Saint would have been a better choice. Some truly memorable sequences, beautifully structured shots, interesting camerawork...all Hitchcock hallmarks are available here. What holds the picture back though is a distractingly bad script and a few too many explanatory scenes which despite Paul Newman's best efforts are not in the least bit believable.

New Scientist: Did Our Cosmos Exist Before the Big Bang?:

"ABHAY ASHTEKAR remembers his reaction the first time he saw the universe bounce. "I was taken aback," he says. He was watching a simulation of the universe rewind towards the big bang. Mostly the universe behaved as expected, becoming smaller and denser as the galaxies converged. But then, instead of reaching the big bang "singularity", the universe bounced and started expanding again. What on earth was happening? Ashtekar wanted to be sure of what he was seeing, so he asked his colleagues to sit on the result for six months before publishing it in 2006. And no wonder. The theory that the recycled universe was based on, called loop quantum cosmology (LQC), had managed to illuminate the very birth of the universe - something even Einstein's general theory of relativity fails to do. LQC has been tantalizing physicists since 2003 with the idea that our universe could conceivably have emerged from the collapse of a previous universe. Now the theory is poised to make predictions we can actually test. If they are verified, the big bang will give way to a big bounce and we will finally know the quantum structure of space-time. Instead of a universe that emerged from a point of infinite density, we will have one that recycles, possibly through an eternal series of expansions and contractions, with no beginning and no end."

This is the kind of stuff that scares the hell out of me. Pondering The End is bad enough, but trying to imagine NO end is even worse.

James Wolcott's Blog: vanityfair.com:
"To understand how frightening it is to be a Gazan this morning, you need to have stood in that small slab of concrete by the Mediterranean and smelled the claustrophobia. The Gaza Strip is smaller than the Isle of Wight but it is crammed with 1.5 million people who can never leave. They live out their lives on top of each other, jobless and hungry, in vast, sagging tower blocks. From the top floor, you can often see the borders of their world: the Mediterranean, and Israeli barbed wire. When bombs begin to fall - as they are doing now with more deadly force than at any time since 1967 - there is nowhere to hide."

It's like poking a chained, starving, angry pit bull in the face with a stick then beating it senseless with a lead pipe when it barks at you. "If only it wouldn't keep barking at me we could have peace! It barks at me and I have to live in fear!" I simply cannot understand why Obama says nothing. All that hope I had is just about all gone.

2008 In Review: Movies

**** Speed Racer
**** Vicky Cristina Barcelona
*** Burn After Reading
*** I Have Loved You So Long
*** Wall-E
** Dark Knight
* Iron Man
* Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D
* Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
* Quantum of Solace

Loud Family - Ask Scott:
"Not to say this would be true of you, but for some reason it's generally a mild shock to people that songs aren't autobiographical, when something like a film or a novel, which goes into much greater detail, is just assumed to be a complete invention."

My first thought upon reading this was that perhaps we think songs are more autobiographical because they become that way for us, the listeners. Parts of our own lives fill in the gaps in the song, the song fills in some of the gaps in our own lives. I would also say that the best novels fill the same function and are thought to be autobiographical too to a certain extent. I think films tend to be less so because there are fewer gaps that need filling so they don't become so personal. But a song, like "Inverness" which is about a feeling, a feeling we all have known at one time or another, becomes such a part of our lives when we experience it that we assume it began as a part of the composer's life too.

Just a thought.

12/22/2008 - Bruce's return only illustrates decline of Rams - STLtoday.com:
"Before Sunday's game, Rams general manager Jay Zygmunt hobnobbed with 49ers offensive coordinator Mike Martz, the Rams' head coach from 2000-2005. The former enemies shook hands, smiled and chatted. I can't curse in the newspaper, so let me say this: The Martz-Zygmunt blood feud was a significant factor in the premature destruction of the Greatest Show Era. And so now they're shaking hands and being buddies? A little late, wouldn't you say? I wouldn't expect Isaac Bruce to understand the depth of that anger, which is shared by many here."

Another fine example of why I don't read most sportswriters often. Some actually stick to the facts, some actually have some expertise. Then there are others like Bernie Miklasz. "The depth of that anger"??? Perspective please! This is a sporting event! And the so-called "blood feud" between Martz and Zygmunt is conjecture or disgruntled 3rd party opinion. Maybe Zygmunt was talking to Martz about his heart condition (which both men share) and the fact that he was going to resign the next day (today). And this idiot gets all huffy because two possibly former enemies/rivals have made up, treated each other as they should with human dignity and respect? Shouldn't that be celebrated? Isn't that what sport is all about?

What sportswriters need to do is educate their readership on a fact of life: shit happens! Randomness rules! The Rams had some great seasons, now they are having some bad ones. The 49ers had some great seasons. Now they are struggling. You can do this with EVERY TEAM IN THE NFL! Nobody wins forever, all the time. Bill Belicheck was horseshit when he coached in Cleveland. He moves to New England and now he's a god. People have got to stop thinking that winning equates to worthwhile. There is a lot of entertaining stuff going on in any NFL game if you enjoy the sport. Don't get me wrong, I root for my team as much as anyone and am disappointed when they lose or play poorly. But to have a "depth of anger" inexpressible in polite company, and to carry grudges for years and years is just obscene. Even the best sometimes lose and lose often. This is why players get pissed off at the fans who boo. They know what it is like to give your best and have the ball bounce another way. Some things, MOST things, are just out of your control.

Glenn Greenwald: Senate report links Bush to detainee homicides; media yawns (reg. required):

"There are countless other episodes like this of human beings in American custody dying because of the mistreatment -- authorized by Bush, Rumsfeld and others -- to which we subjected them. These are murders and war crimes in every sense of the word. That the highest level Bush officials and the President himself are responsible for the policies that spawned these crimes against humanity have been long known to anyone paying minimal attention, but now we have a bipartisan Senate Report -- signed by the presidential nominee of Bush's own political party -- that directly assigns culpability for these war crimes to the President and his policies. It's nothing less than a formal declaration from the Senate that the President and his top aides are war criminals.

"This Report was issued on Thursday. Not a single mention was made of it on any of the Sunday news talk shows, with the sole exception being when John McCain told George Stephanopoulos that it was "not his job" to opine on whether criminal prosecutions were warranted for the Bush officials whose policies led to these crimes. What really matters, explained McCain, was not that we get caught up in the past, but instead, that we ensure this never happens again -- yet, like everyone else who makes this argument, he offered no explanation as to how we could possibly ensure that "it never happens again" if we simultaneously announce that our political leaders will be immunized, not prosecuted, when they commit war crimes. Doesn't that mindset, rather obviously, substantially increase the likelihood -- if not render inevitable -- that such behavior will occur again? Other than that brief exchange, this Senate Report was a non-entity on the Sunday shows."

Why are war crimes a bad thing everywhere in the world except in the good ol' U.S. of A? Where is the precious "change" if we do not prosecute these animals? Maybe Nixon was right that if the president does it that means it is not illegal?