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.