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.