Worst Movie Title Ever

Quantum of Solace.

As Lisa said in response to "Yahoo Serious Festival" on a marquee, "I know all those words, but that makes no sense".

Texas Education Jumps the Shark

The Texas Board of Education has a six-member panel in charge of choosing textbooks.

You know where this is going ...

... wait for it ...

... three of them, including the chairman, are now creationists.

Local Dallas coverage here. A response from sane Texans here.

The title of this article from the Houston Chronicle is a triumph of understatement, "Board's actions could put students at a disadvantage." Could?

The chairman also believes in abstinance-only sex education.

I don't live there any more, so I don't care as much as I used to. But, damn, they're giving Kansas a run for the money on being the U.S. poster child on scientific ignorance.

Wow factor photos

These are amazing.

McCain letter to Obama

From 2006, this letter illustrates some of McCain's disdain for Obama. I don't know what private assurances Obama gave McCain, and the former should be held responsible if he did break his word. But the letter is dripping with sarcasm. I sure wouldn't want this sort of rhetoric coming out of the White House. Can you imagine?

Dear Mr. Putin,

Thank you SO much for invading Georgia. I can't tell you how relieved I am to be disavowed of the false notion that Russia is a responsible world power.

...

P.S. Sarah says "hi".

Comic

A friend of mine from Dallas (thanks, Chad!) sent me this.

Obama and McCain do comedy

Obama and McCain at a roast in NYC. Kind of bizarre, but it is funny. Apparently they do this every year, but I'd never heard of it before. Obama's is better, both in audio quality and content. They both make many of the same jokes: Joe the Senator, # of of McCain's houses, "that one", "Obama = messiah".

Obama's is stronger toward the beginning than the end. He's got good writers. A few awkward moments, though. His comment about AIG drew some awkward applause. It ends on a serious and eloquent note.

McCain spent a few moments offering praise of Obama, which drew strong applause from everyone in the room except Obama. I don't know if this was bitterness, or if he just didn't want to seem like he was applauding himself. He ended on a funny gag about setting unreasonably high expectations for Obama.

Joe the (not so much a) Plumber

This is funny in many many ways:

"Joe the Plumber" ...

- is not a plumber, at least not a licensed one. He's been practicing illegally.
- is named Sam.
- asked a question about having to pay more taxes that, according to this article, Obama's plan would not require of him. And, he currently owes back taxes.

In short, he's about as qualified for the title applied to him by Senator McCain as "Sarah the Vice President".

Reason for hope

This hit me today.

Barrack Obama's father is from Kenya. He's black. His first names ryhmes with Iraq. His middle is Hussein. His last rhymes with Osama.

He's running against a war hero with lots of experience, including 2 presidential runs.

And, although nothing is certain, he is by all accounts going to win by a Reagan v Modale landslide.

He's winning for many reasons, not the least of which is the extreme unpopularity of the sitting Republican regime and current economic crisis. Maybe any Democrat could have won this election.

But he had a sizable lead even before the Wall Street dive. He's winning largely because he is more charismatic, more intelligent, and cooler under pressure. He exhibited these traits against both Hillary Clinton and John McCain. He's run a better campaign than either of them.

The superiority of his VP choice has been well documented.

I guess it just deflates some of my cynicism to see a candidate, who had all kinds of bad reasons to lose, winning for mostly the right ones.

Nostalgia overload

Why presidential debates should be more like game shows

Keri (my girlfriend) commented last night that the moderator needs a buzzer to keep the participants from continually speaking beyond the time allotted. Tom Brokaw did a poor job of enforcing this - just saying "come on guys, play by the rules" over and over again accomplished nothing. This is free national publicity, of course they will speak as long as they can. An annoying buzzer, a gong, or perhaps the Oscar-esque "get off the stage" music would help.

Other ways in which the debates would be better if they were more like a game show:

• The audience votes on 5 words or phrases each participant is not allowed to use.
  - McCain, you can't say "maverick", "earmark", "special interests", "pork-barrel", or "Miss Congeniality" (we'll have to add "cronyism" next week - that was a new one).
  - Obama, you must do without "20th century solutions to 21st century problems", "worst financial crisis since the Great Depression", "using a hatchet where you need a scalpel", "tax cut for 95 percent of Americans", and "I agree with Senator McCain".
  A candidate who uses one of these must down a shot of liquor (specific liquor to be chosen by the opponent).
• Anyone using "Wall Street" and "Main Street" in the same sentence has to spend 2 minutes in a phone booth full of slugs.
• Before the debate, each participant must provide to the moderator all accusations to be made - voting record, public speeches, whatever. The network will display a near-real-time summary of the straight dope on each of those accusations as they come up during the debate (I know I could look them up online myself, but I'm lazy). If you make an accusation not on that list, you must retract the statement and speak clearly these words - "perhaps my opponent deserves to be President more than I do".
• Bonus points for correct pronunciation of "Ahmadinejad" and "nuclear".
• If the moderator has time for, say, 20 questions, he or she will pick 40 of them and supply them to one of the candidates (chosen either randomly or based upon the winner of a thumb war). That candidate gets to split the questions into 2 piles of 20, and the other candidate gets to choose which pile of questions is used during the debate.
• Live audience members get to shoot the candidates with water guns if they don't like what they're hearing. Or maybe one of these.
• David Petraeus, Henry Kissinger, and Warren Buffet must be on camera during any portion of the debate in which they are mentioned, and each must either nod or shake his head disapprovingly in concert with how the candidate portrays him.

Can you think of more?

Religulous

I went to see Religulous last night. Very fun movie. I was cracking up the whole time (except the last ~10 minutes - I'll get to that later).

It wasn't a good documentary. Things were edited to make most of the interviewees look as bad as possible. Comments were often followed with film clips of cartoons, famous movies, or low budget passion movies. He went for the cheap laugh too much for the film to have any journalistic integrity.

I did find it educational though. I learned some things, for example, about the myths predating Jesus from which the gospels borrowed (especially Horus).

It was more personal than I had anticipated. Bill Maher spoke of his upbringing - he was raised Catholic, but his mother was Jewish. They quit going to church when he was in Jr. high. There was a section where he interviewed his mother and sister - his mother was pretty funny. He also spoke of how he's addressed religion through comedy over the years.

Maher's skilled at calling bullshit on people while still engaging in civil conversation. Most of the film was focused on Christianity, but he also covered Judaism and Islam (no eastern religions). His general M.O. was to approach religious folk and ask them questions about their faith, then point out what he saw as inconsistency or just plain silliness. It was a good style, as he generally gave people enough rope to hang themselves.

The last 10 minutes or so got very heavy handed, focusing on the dangers of religious belief in a time of nuclear proliferation. It wasn't a bad message, but the radical switch in tone was awkward.

The main point he drove home at the end is that doubt is good. It's a much healthier state of mind than certainty in fairy tales. I could not agree more.

I don't expect the film to convert anyone. But I hope it at least spawns some meaningful debate. 

But mostly, it was just damned funny.

Biden vs Palin, VP debate

In short, Palin exceeded low expectations, Biden played nice but got some good shots in.

The moderator (Gwen Ifill) didn't push either candidate for clarification as much as Jim Lehrer did last week. This was disappointing, but it did mean they got to cover more topics.

Palin made a comment early on that she wouldn't necessarily answer the question of the moderator or Biden, that she was going to talk from the heart straight to the American people. This American person would prefer she just answer the dang questions of the moderated debate in which she's participating. She's a VP candidate, she can gab a mike whenever she wants to talk straight to us. She also complained later about her previous interviews being clouded by media bias. I sure hope nobody bought any of that. And I sure hope she's serious about answering direct questions from the electorate from now on.

Biden mostly hammered on how wrong McCain's been about everything. I thought his strongest moment was near they end when he called "bullshit" on McCain being a "maverick", after the 3rd or 4th time Palin used the term.

Palin called the Obama-Biden plan for pulling out of Iraq, and setting a timeframe for the pullout, is like "waving a white flag of surrender". I wish they would have expanded more on this. If leaving now equals surrender, that means we haven't won yet. And if we haven't won yet, I'd like to know what the criteria for victory is. Palin did make one comment like "we won't leave until the Iraqi government shows it can govern itself", but that's to vague.

This was about the folksiest debate I've ever seen. From the streets of Wasalia to the diners of Wilmington, we got to hear a lot about how these two were out there talking to "real people facing real problems", "average Americans", "middle class", yadda yadda yadda. Palin actually used the terms "hockey mom" (since when did hockey become such an all-American sport?) and "Joe six-pack". Biden's remarks resonated a little more with me than Palin's, but I don't much go for scripted sentimentality from anyone.

I did find it interesting that he struck emotional chords better than her - that should be her strength. Especially when he bordered on tears talking about a child struggling to survive.

My new desktop picture

Star Wars actually doesn't rock any more, since Lucas spat all over it with the three prequels, but it still gives me a nostalgia fix.

Chewbacca on the drums is the best.

Heroes Season 3

Spoiler warning ...

I liked Heroes Season 1, even though I thought it fizzled after Five Years Gone. It was silly, and every time Mohinder opened his mouth about evolution I wanted to claw my eyes out, but good TV with strong comic book inspiration.

Season 2 was okay, but a letdown. I was disappointed they couldn't come up with a better storyline than a new future catastrophe to avoid (season 1 was a nuke in NYC, season 2 was a virus). I forgave it, though, since the writer's strike cut it short. The main weaknesses were:

1. Splintering into too many storylines.
2. Heroes were getting too powerful, especially Sylar and Peter who absorb others' powers. It gets to the point where you can't even remember everything everyone can do, and every few minutes you wonder, "why didn't he/she just use X to avoid situation Y?"
3. Everyone's related to everyone else. The first few, "oh my goodness, you're actually my mother!" moments are okay, but when it happens every episode, it loses its punch. Plus, like tracking the powers, it's just a headache keeping up with the connections.

Now it's season 3, and it's pretty much the same thing. Yet another catastrophe to avoid, heroes keep getting more and more powerful (c'mon writers, you steal everything else from comics - there's a reason Kryptonite was created), still more familial ties. And characters just do things that don't make sense. Like, why didn't Sylar escape at the bank in episode 2?

And I can't stand the Mohinder storyline. It's a ripoff of the fly, he's always been a horrible portrayal of a scientist (though I will grant that this is consistent with most comic book scientists), and it's just not interesting how he stumbles onto discoveries instead of figuring them out. Now we've got the ability to give everyone in the world powers - maybe they'll do something interesting with this plot line, but I don't think so.

There is some good - I always like the Hiro storylines, and the interaction between Hiro, Ando, and speedy-girl is fun. I am curious to learn who Tracy is. I hope she's not just Jessica, that there are a dozen or so clones running around. And I look forward to Claire's development into a badass.

I'm still into it enough to keep watching it, even though it's been on a steady decline since the end of season one.