I hope Kevin Drum is right, Newt's Recipe for Success. "And speaking of politicians and sound bites, does it strike anyone else that Sarah Palin has basically become a social media version of Ann Coulter? That is, they're both conservatives whose schtick mostly depends on generating liberal apoplexy over their periodic word bombs, and who are both fading away because they're having problems coming up with new material that's fresh enough for anyone to care about? I didn't even know Coulter had yet another book out until I saw it at the bookstore today (in almost self-parody fashion, it's called Demonic), and likewise nobody seems to care very much anymore about whatever Palin's latest plea for attention on Facebook says (though Tina Brown apparently hasn't gotten the message yet)."
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
McConnell’s Deal
Yesterday Ezra Klein explained Mitch McConnell’s surprising proposal to empower Barack Obama. "The process McConnell is proposing would go like this: First, Obama would submit a request for a $700 billion increase in the debt ceiling, along with a nonbinding proposal to cut spending. That would automatically trigger a $100 billion increase in the debt ceiling to give Congress time to consider the request. Congress could then vote to either approve or disapprove of the president’s request. If they disapprove of it, however, Obama could veto their disapproval, and unless two-thirds of both chambers voted to overturn his veto — a virtually unthinkable outcome given that Democrats control the Senate — he could raise the debt ceiling anyway.
The same thing would happen, albeit in $900 billion increments rather than $700 billion increments, in fall 2011 and summer 2012. Take it all together, and Republicans would almost completely forfeit their leverage over the debt ceiling. In return, they’d get to make Democrats vote repeatedly to first raise the debt ceiling and then to “approve” of raising the debt ceiling. As Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said, this “gives the president 100 percent of the responsibility.”
Or, to put it differently, 100 percent of the blame. Raising the debt ceiling is unpopular. That’s part of why House Republicans are demanding such massive concessions in return for doing it. But McConnell, who leads the Senate minority and wants to lead the Senate majority in 2013, would not have to vote for any increases in the debt ceiling, nor would his members. That’s why this appeals to him: It would force Senate Democrats to repeatedly vote to raise the debt ceiling, and he hopes that would make it easier to defeat them in the next election. As David Corn described it, the message to the president is: “You drive. We’ll carp.”"
While other Republican leaders predictably balked at the idea he followed up with In praise of McConnell’s plan. "If you want to take a generous view of McConnell’s motivations here, you’d say that the canny Kentuckian, whose understanding of the way polarization and party discipline dominate today’s congress vastly exceeds that of any other politician, realized that it was no longer safe to assume that the two parties would always reach agreement in time to lift the debt ceiling, and in that world, the debt ceiling was too dangerous to the American economy.
The cynical interpretation of McConnell’s motivations is that McConnell sees that the White House is winning the politics of this issue, and he knows that Republicans will eventually be forced to agree to something. When they do, President Obama will be the great Compromiser-in-Chief. He’ll have shown himself willing to face down his party to make a deal and he’ll get credit for making it impossible for Republicans to continue to say no. After three years during which McConnell had slowly but surely destroyed Obama’s reputation as a postpartisan unifier, the White House will see its core political brand revived and invigorated. Obama will be a lock for reelection."
Kevin Drum was less insightful but more entertaining. It's Now Official: The GOP is a Party of Sixth Graders. "WTF? This is possibly the most juvenile, most buck passing, most transparently mendacious proposal I can recall from any party leader in recent memory. The bright idea here is to force Democrats to repeatedly vote to raise the debt ceiling during campaign season, and to repeatedly force Obama to lay out enormous budget cuts that have no purpose except to piss off interest groups. The whole thing is so patently, ridiculously political that it's breathtaking. It ought to be named the "Gratuitous Embarrassment of Barack Obama and the Democratic Party Act of 2011."
Does McConnell really think that he's being clever here? That his purpose isn't plain to everyone? The Republican Party has now passed from Alice in Wonderland to Lord of the Flies. It's like dealing with a bunch of kids on a playground. Are McConnell and Boehner trying to prove Obama's point that he's the only adult at the table right now?"
He followed up, Class Warfare Boomerangs on the GOP. "But I suppose there's a bigger picture here than just McConnell's cynicism. And the bigger picture, obviously, is that McConnell wouldn't have proposed giving Obama his debt ceiling increase with only political strings attached unless he was convinced that Republicans were losing the PR battle for a more comprehensive deal. And since the only real stumbling block to a comprehensive deal was Obama's insistence on revenue increases, McConnell must have felt that they were losing the PR battle even there. After years of owning the tax issue, this must have come as something of a tectonic shock.
Which is.....interesting. Obviously, Obama has been positioning himself all along as the reasonable, centrist guy, willing to agree to trillions in spending cuts as long as Republicans are willing to close a few modest tax loopholes. Last week Republicans derided Obama's repeated focus on tax breaks for corporate jets as class warfare etc., but you know what? It must have been working. Somewhere down in the bowels of the GOP's polling operation, they must have discovered that the public was buying Obama's pitch that "the wealthy need to pitch in too.""
Klein followed up today Snatching press releases from the jaws of policy concessions. "The split, in other words, pits the Republican establishment against the conservative base, and the establishment's record in such match-ups hasn't been so good over the last two years. My guess, meanwhile, is the White House will line up with the conservatives on this one, because for both substantive and political reasons, they really want a deficit deal, and see this as more evidence that this debate is going well for them and poorly for the Republicans."
He goes on to say, if the plan becomes the norm, it's the end of the debt ceiling as a political issue. "That's a big step in the wrong direction if you think we should give congressional minorities a semi-regular opportunity to hold the economy hostage in return for major policy concessions. But it's a step in the right direction if you believe that such high-stakes hostage opportunities are an insane and dangerous way for our political system to operate and that, in the long run, the country would be better off minimizing the harm that partisanship and gridlock could do to our economy rather than maximizing it. I'm mostly in that latter camp, but if the rest of the political system was there with me, we wouldn't be embroiled in this debt-ceiling debate at all."
Kevin Drum asks Has Wall Street Given Up on Boehner?. He got a message saying, "[Some very conservative investment bankers] said it was common knowledge that McConnell was taking very serious back-channel heat from Wall Street because the conclusion was that there was no reliable leadership in the House with Boehner unable to control his caucus and Cantor making his leadership play now. They view Boehner as out. In other words, McConnell is Wall Street's only viable player and so he is taking all the calls. And those calls are not saying to insist upon cuts only come hell or high water. They are saying raise the F-Ing ceiling NOW."
Drum said: "This sounds sort of plausible to me, but your mileage may vary. In any case, the final paragraph of this email amused me because I noticed the same thing yesterday, and it's a testament to the efficiency of the conservative messaging machine. Literally within a few hours, I swear that every single conservative politician and pundit had adopted the line that talks had broken down because it was just impossible to negotiate with a socialist thug who was obviously dealing in bad faith. (The "bad faith" in question, of course, was Obama's continuing insistence that modest revenue increases be part of any deal.) The speed with which this talking point made the rounds was truly impressive."
The same thing would happen, albeit in $900 billion increments rather than $700 billion increments, in fall 2011 and summer 2012. Take it all together, and Republicans would almost completely forfeit their leverage over the debt ceiling. In return, they’d get to make Democrats vote repeatedly to first raise the debt ceiling and then to “approve” of raising the debt ceiling. As Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said, this “gives the president 100 percent of the responsibility.”
Or, to put it differently, 100 percent of the blame. Raising the debt ceiling is unpopular. That’s part of why House Republicans are demanding such massive concessions in return for doing it. But McConnell, who leads the Senate minority and wants to lead the Senate majority in 2013, would not have to vote for any increases in the debt ceiling, nor would his members. That’s why this appeals to him: It would force Senate Democrats to repeatedly vote to raise the debt ceiling, and he hopes that would make it easier to defeat them in the next election. As David Corn described it, the message to the president is: “You drive. We’ll carp.”"
While other Republican leaders predictably balked at the idea he followed up with In praise of McConnell’s plan. "If you want to take a generous view of McConnell’s motivations here, you’d say that the canny Kentuckian, whose understanding of the way polarization and party discipline dominate today’s congress vastly exceeds that of any other politician, realized that it was no longer safe to assume that the two parties would always reach agreement in time to lift the debt ceiling, and in that world, the debt ceiling was too dangerous to the American economy.
The cynical interpretation of McConnell’s motivations is that McConnell sees that the White House is winning the politics of this issue, and he knows that Republicans will eventually be forced to agree to something. When they do, President Obama will be the great Compromiser-in-Chief. He’ll have shown himself willing to face down his party to make a deal and he’ll get credit for making it impossible for Republicans to continue to say no. After three years during which McConnell had slowly but surely destroyed Obama’s reputation as a postpartisan unifier, the White House will see its core political brand revived and invigorated. Obama will be a lock for reelection."
Kevin Drum was less insightful but more entertaining. It's Now Official: The GOP is a Party of Sixth Graders. "WTF? This is possibly the most juvenile, most buck passing, most transparently mendacious proposal I can recall from any party leader in recent memory. The bright idea here is to force Democrats to repeatedly vote to raise the debt ceiling during campaign season, and to repeatedly force Obama to lay out enormous budget cuts that have no purpose except to piss off interest groups. The whole thing is so patently, ridiculously political that it's breathtaking. It ought to be named the "Gratuitous Embarrassment of Barack Obama and the Democratic Party Act of 2011."
Does McConnell really think that he's being clever here? That his purpose isn't plain to everyone? The Republican Party has now passed from Alice in Wonderland to Lord of the Flies. It's like dealing with a bunch of kids on a playground. Are McConnell and Boehner trying to prove Obama's point that he's the only adult at the table right now?"
He followed up, Class Warfare Boomerangs on the GOP. "But I suppose there's a bigger picture here than just McConnell's cynicism. And the bigger picture, obviously, is that McConnell wouldn't have proposed giving Obama his debt ceiling increase with only political strings attached unless he was convinced that Republicans were losing the PR battle for a more comprehensive deal. And since the only real stumbling block to a comprehensive deal was Obama's insistence on revenue increases, McConnell must have felt that they were losing the PR battle even there. After years of owning the tax issue, this must have come as something of a tectonic shock.
Which is.....interesting. Obviously, Obama has been positioning himself all along as the reasonable, centrist guy, willing to agree to trillions in spending cuts as long as Republicans are willing to close a few modest tax loopholes. Last week Republicans derided Obama's repeated focus on tax breaks for corporate jets as class warfare etc., but you know what? It must have been working. Somewhere down in the bowels of the GOP's polling operation, they must have discovered that the public was buying Obama's pitch that "the wealthy need to pitch in too.""
Klein followed up today Snatching press releases from the jaws of policy concessions. "The split, in other words, pits the Republican establishment against the conservative base, and the establishment's record in such match-ups hasn't been so good over the last two years. My guess, meanwhile, is the White House will line up with the conservatives on this one, because for both substantive and political reasons, they really want a deficit deal, and see this as more evidence that this debate is going well for them and poorly for the Republicans."
He goes on to say, if the plan becomes the norm, it's the end of the debt ceiling as a political issue. "That's a big step in the wrong direction if you think we should give congressional minorities a semi-regular opportunity to hold the economy hostage in return for major policy concessions. But it's a step in the right direction if you believe that such high-stakes hostage opportunities are an insane and dangerous way for our political system to operate and that, in the long run, the country would be better off minimizing the harm that partisanship and gridlock could do to our economy rather than maximizing it. I'm mostly in that latter camp, but if the rest of the political system was there with me, we wouldn't be embroiled in this debt-ceiling debate at all."
Kevin Drum asks Has Wall Street Given Up on Boehner?. He got a message saying, "[Some very conservative investment bankers] said it was common knowledge that McConnell was taking very serious back-channel heat from Wall Street because the conclusion was that there was no reliable leadership in the House with Boehner unable to control his caucus and Cantor making his leadership play now. They view Boehner as out. In other words, McConnell is Wall Street's only viable player and so he is taking all the calls. And those calls are not saying to insist upon cuts only come hell or high water. They are saying raise the F-Ing ceiling NOW."
Drum said: "This sounds sort of plausible to me, but your mileage may vary. In any case, the final paragraph of this email amused me because I noticed the same thing yesterday, and it's a testament to the efficiency of the conservative messaging machine. Literally within a few hours, I swear that every single conservative politician and pundit had adopted the line that talks had broken down because it was just impossible to negotiate with a socialist thug who was obviously dealing in bad faith. (The "bad faith" in question, of course, was Obama's continuing insistence that modest revenue increases be part of any deal.) The speed with which this talking point made the rounds was truly impressive."
Tour de France 2011
I really don't care about the Tour de France, but this photos from In Focus is amazing.
"The 98th Tour de France cycling race kicked off on July 2, as 18 teams of nine riders departed from the the Passage du Gois in western France. Mark Cavendish of Britain just won the 11th stage of 21, which took place today in Lavaur, but French rider Thomas Voeckler still wears the yellow jersey of the overall leader. The first half of the tour this year has been plagued by crashes, most notably Netherlands rider Johnny Hoogerland's tumble into a barbed-wire fence after being bumped off the road by a car. The Tour continues until July 24, heading into the Alps for grueling mountain stages in the second half of the race. The entire tour will cover a distance of 3,430.5 kilometers (2,132 miles). Collected here are images from the first half of the 2011 Tour de France. Part 2 will be published when the tour is complete. [38 photos]"
"The 98th Tour de France cycling race kicked off on July 2, as 18 teams of nine riders departed from the the Passage du Gois in western France. Mark Cavendish of Britain just won the 11th stage of 21, which took place today in Lavaur, but French rider Thomas Voeckler still wears the yellow jersey of the overall leader. The first half of the tour this year has been plagued by crashes, most notably Netherlands rider Johnny Hoogerland's tumble into a barbed-wire fence after being bumped off the road by a car. The Tour continues until July 24, heading into the Alps for grueling mountain stages in the second half of the race. The entire tour will cover a distance of 3,430.5 kilometers (2,132 miles). Collected here are images from the first half of the 2011 Tour de France. Part 2 will be published when the tour is complete. [38 photos]"
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Debt-Limit Harakiri
The Wall Street Journal in Review & Outlook: Debt-Limit Harakiri explains Mitch McConnell's odd proposal to let Obama raise the debt limit himself. You have to read it with a crazy WSJ Editorial Page filter but it's interesting watching the politics play out. I take it to mean the McConnell understands the limit has to be raised and he's looking for a way to save face.
Edward Tufte’s “Slopegraphs”
Charlie Park has a nice post on Edward Tufte’s “Slopegraphs”. They were first mentioned in 1983's The Visual Display of Quantitative Information but they didn't catch on. Park describes them, shows the only three examples he's found and talks about their future now that Tufte has named them.
Only Take Tech Advice From Real Geeks
What did the iPad first remind you of? Was it the Newspad in 2001? Alan Kay's Dynabook? The Young Lady's Illustrated Primer in Diamond Age? Or was it the Star Trek PADD (even if you didn't know it's name)?
There have been a few apps that use the Next Generation look and feel in calculators or other things but now there's an official Star Trek PADD app. It doesn't do anything real like a calculator, it's just a toy with info on Star Trek and sound effects and it's $5. Fair enough.
But here's the part I don't get. If you review iPad apps, shouldn't you be familiar with Star Trek? Sure there's no requirement and I know The Next Generation was a generation ago, and iPad are used by more than just geeks, but if you were reviewing such an app, for a geeky app review site would you admit something like "I’m a Trekkie by no means, though I watch the odd episode." or "We'd be lying if we said we knew much about Star Trek." I wouldn't.
(And no I have no intention of buying the app.)
There have been a few apps that use the Next Generation look and feel in calculators or other things but now there's an official Star Trek PADD app. It doesn't do anything real like a calculator, it's just a toy with info on Star Trek and sound effects and it's $5. Fair enough.
But here's the part I don't get. If you review iPad apps, shouldn't you be familiar with Star Trek? Sure there's no requirement and I know The Next Generation was a generation ago, and iPad are used by more than just geeks, but if you were reviewing such an app, for a geeky app review site would you admit something like "I’m a Trekkie by no means, though I watch the odd episode." or "We'd be lying if we said we knew much about Star Trek." I wouldn't.
(And no I have no intention of buying the app.)
Happy Birthday Neptune
How long is a year on Neptune? Just under 165 earth years. Why is this significant? Because Neptune was discovered on September 23, 1846, which made yesterday it's birthday. To say Happy birthday Neptune, "These four images, taken a few hours apart with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3, show Neptune, the eighth and outermost planet of the Solar System. Hubble’s images were taken to celebrate the first complete orbit of the planet since its discovery in 1846. The four images show different faces of the planet as it rotates on its axis."
Universe Today has a nice article explaining how Neptune was discovered by noticing irregularities in the orbit of Uranus and suspecting a planet's gravitational effect might be the cause. It also has some details on where Neptune is.
Universe Today has a nice article explaining how Neptune was discovered by noticing irregularities in the orbit of Uranus and suspecting a planet's gravitational effect might be the cause. It also has some details on where Neptune is.
Movie Reviews
Yet again here's some catching up on movie reviews. This should be a good way to avoid reading about the debt ceiling.
Horrible Bosses - I was surprised that I found this really funny. Jasons Bateman and Sudeikis and Charlie Day are three friends with horrible bosses, each in a different way. In a nod to Strangers on a Train (and Throw Momma from the Train) and with some advice from a consultant, they decide to murder each others bosses. The setup is just ok, but once they start recon I was laughing consistently. Kevin Spacey is great as the obnoxious boss he's played before and Jennifer Aniston is good as the sex crazed dentist. Colin Farrell is a bit over the top as the coke addict son of Donald Sutherland with a family chemical business, but it's probably mostly his haircut. Refreshingly it's not just grossout humor, but genuinely funny (and involved) situations and dialog. And it doesn't hurt seeing alumni from The Wire.
Tree of Life - Terrence Malick's latest is not for everyone. Think of it as poetry or music rather than a novel. There's no plot and barely any narrative at all. I think (and I'm really not sure on this basic point but it doesn't really matter) that Sean Penn is an adult who's brother has died which triggers fragments of memories of his childhood growing up in a suburban town. It's mostly short voice overs that trigger a flood of images. There's an opening segment where the mother wonders "what do we mean to god" and that triggers a 20 minute scene of space imagery meant to suggest the origin of the universe and creation earth with the evolution of life including a couple of scenes of dinosaurs. One approaches another and pins it down and then walks away. I've seen lots of articles wondering about this but to me it obviously mirrors a scene later in the film where one brother pins the other one. We're not so different from animals, even previous generations of them. I really like it for the first two hours or so, though several people in my theater got up and left saying they didn't come for a National Geographic special. I thought the narrative would come together at the end a bit, it seemed like it was spiraling to that, but it didn't and I got impatient with it. This film is (obviously) not for the casual movie goer, but like Kubrick and Fellini, no one makes films like Malick. I have a hard enough time editing down vacation photos or making an iTunes playlist in anything but chronological order, I don't know how he strings together images and scenes into what he does.
Midnight in Paris - Woody Allen's latest is about a writer on vacation with his fiance and her parents in Paris. He's a bit neurotic and is struggling with finishing a novel instead of being a screenwriter. Sound at all familiar? He falls in love with Paris or rather a nostalgic view of Paris. The movie takes a fantastical turn which I think worked really well. The problem is the main character is just Owen Wilson doing Woody Allen and the others are mostly thin standins for characters. I usually like Rachel McAdams but she has nothing to do here. It's a great idea and has some very fun moments, overall I liked it, but I think he should have spent more time on it and refined it into something great. Maybe someone will remake it.
Super 8 - I knew very little about Super 8 going into it but had hope since it got very strong reviews. However nothing stuck with me. It just seemed like a series of scenes and after 10 mins I forgot them. Really, halfway through the film I wasn't remembering parts of it. Part of it was how I saw it. The back seat of a small BMW in a drivein in the rain is not ideal. Part of it was I think the storytelling. It felt like parts of Lost where there's a mystery that's slowly revealed but is in the end inconsequential. And it was that way in big mysteries and little ones. For example, there's a scene where kid is outside screaming for Lucy, we don't know who Lucy is. It turns out it was his dog and the animals have gone missing from the town. Did we have to turn the name of his dog into a mini-mystery? The big reveal was pretty obvious and was just an excuse for a story. The action scenes didn't do much for me either. There's a big train crash that happens where the kids are filming at night. It goes on and on there's no way any of them would have survived but they do. Things explode right next to them but the worst that happens is they're knocked down. It just didn't feel right. But I think I have to give it another shot to be fair.
The Perfect Host - I caught a preview of this on HDNetMovies. Clayne Crawford just robbed a bank and is on the run. After his getaway runs into a snag, he goes to a mailbox, finds a postcard and knocks on David Hyde Pierce's door and pretends to be a friend of a friend to hide out there. Pierce is a character and is preparing a dinner party and things get strange between these two. There are a few big turns and it was pretty fun, but there are a few too many turns at the end and it doesn't hold together. Pierce is great in this role and is the reason to see it, but catch it on cable or as a cheap rental.
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps - I think the reviews (as I remember them) got this right; there's a pretty good movie in here but it's lost in bunch of extra stuff. Gekko is out of jail and while broke, he's hawking a book Is Greed Good? and lecturing. Shia LaBeouf is a young trader who's dating Gekko's estranged daughter Carey Mulligan. LaBeouf's firm is a standin for Lehman and Josh Brolin's is representing Goldman. At times, characters deliver exposition explaining the actual financial crisis, it's barely a parallel. I thought most of the plot was pretty obvious, but it spent too much time on extraneous things. Do we have to see Susan Sarandon as LaBeouf's mom who's flipping houses? LaBeouf must be good because he wants to invest in green nuclear fusion but am I didn't buy a chief scientist calling him all the time asking for $100 million investment. I still don't know why Mulligan was dating a trader at all. And I didn't for a second buy that a investment bank CEO would be out motorcycle racing with a young trader on a day the market was crashing because it was too depressing. Or another CEO wandering Central Park midday. Things felt too constructed and not tight enough and too obvious in places. The Charlie Sheen cameo was telling. I remember liking Bud in the first film, now of course Sheen is a joke. LaBeouf didn't do anything to make me care about him, Mulligan deserved better (well not really but her character in An Education did).
Tamara Drewe - This was a fun British countryside farse based on a good graphic novel (serialized as a comic strip) by Posy Simmonds which is a modernization of on the novel Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy (whew). It's set at a writer's retreat in a small country town and there are a lot of characters. The adulterous crime novelist and his faithful wife/editor, the beautiful young girl back from the big city, the stableboy (well not quite but that's a good enough word), the two bored teenagers, the rock star, and various writers. The nice thing is that they are all fully realized characters and not just caricatures. Stephen Frears made a fun diversion, I don't know why it never really got a US distribution.
Love Crimes of Kabul - I saw this on HBO last night and I don't know why it's not in IMDb. It's a documentary following three women in prison in Afghanistan for "moral crimes". Basically they all are accused of having sex while not married. Both they and the men are in prison and the system is setup so that if they marry their possible 20 year sentences are greatly reduced. One got pregnant out of wedlock, her boyfriend refused to marry her, so she reported him in hopes that fear of staying in prison will convince him to marry her. An 18 year-old was found in a closet with her 17 year-old boyfriend and turned in by her father. She wants to marry the boy, him not so much. Doctors verify her virginity but her fate in uncertain. Another girl ran away from an abusive home and was taken in by a woman who then tried to sell her. Now both are sharing a cell and the woman wants the girl to marry her son because the family can't afford a virgin bride for him. This is not just pre-60s US mores with strict legal ramifications, this is a completely different way of thinking. Marriages are arranged and come with dowries. The rules seem outdated but are so ingrained (and I guess ordained by God) that even though these people broke them, there's no questioning them, not even the thought of it. One guard explains that pre-marital sex is a crime but sodomy is so much worse it isn't even listed as a crime. The film was fascinating as it exposes a society with rules and logic that I can in no way fathom. I understand why we're there or what we hope to accomplish even less.
Hot Coffee - I missed this at IFFBoston but caught it on HBO. Everyone knows about the woman who spilled McDonald's coffee on her lap and sued because it was too hot but most view it as an example of what's wrong with the legal system. The real facts aren't well known and this films covers them. Once you see the photos of the burns she suffered you're convinced. But the film just uses this case as a jumping off point to explain real distortions in the legal system. Large companies (like tobacco, drug and insurance companies) have funded campaigns to convince us that they are at the mercy of a legal system run amok with frivolous lawsuits and out-of-control monetary awards. It's not really true and the legal reforms are hurting real people. They cover a family who's son has cerebral palsy because of malpractice. They won a judgement based on what a lifetime of care would cost but because of caps, that was cut by 75%. Now what are they supposed to do? It also covers the Jamie Leigh Jones case. She was a Halliburton employee who was raped and because of an employment contract her case went to a biased arbitration instead of a trial. It's all good stuff and well worth seeing.
The Pawnbroker - This is a great 1965 film by Sidney Lumet starring Rod Steiger. Sol owns a pawnshop in Harlem and is completely dissociated from his life. He lives alone in a high rise, has few friends, ignores questions and is annoyed by people trying to be nice to him. The reason is he survived a Nazi concentration camp and is still in shock. Everyday events cause him to remember scenes of his children dying or his wife being raped or other atrocities. We see these in short flashbacks. This was the US first film to address the Holocaust and also was the first film to pass the Hayes Code with brief nudity. It's from the sixties so by today's standards the images aren't too bad but it's still remarkably effective at evoking sympathy for the main character and at making comparison between ghetto life and war. Steiger is great and got the films only Oscar nomination. That he lost to Lee Marvin in Cat Ballou is ridiculous. The score is by Quincy Jones and introduced the song Soul Bossa Nova, now known as the theme to Austin Powers.
The Rack - This is Paul Newman's second film and is only recently available on DVD. He plays a Korean war prison returning home and court-martialed for giving aid and comfort to the enemy. He was tortured and signed some documents. Walter Pidgeon is his Colonel father and Lee Marvin was another prisoner who testifies against him. In parts it's dated, particularly how his father acts. But for its time it was exploring topics that weren't covered a lot. It's also not simplistic and takes a few turns I wasn't expecting. It's based on a teleplay by Rod Serling, which explains everything. Worth your time to watch.
Mr. Hulot's Holiday - This was my first Jacques Tati film who I heard of because of last year's The Illusionist. Tati made six features and this was the first to feature Hulot. It takes place at a seaside resort in a small hotel with various guests. He's kind of a Chaplinesque character, silent, a bit awkward and causing trouble. While Chaplin and Keaton were the center of the action, Hulot seems to cause a problem and then we watch it travel through the other characters in the scene who usually barely notice him. I suspect at the time it mocked specific societal norms but much of that was lost on me now. Instead it's a rather entertaining film with charming characters and a very slow pace. There's sound but it's mostly sound effects, background noises, music and some mumbling. I'll admit to hitting fast forward a few times. Still, it put a smile on my face and made me interested in trying a few other of his films.
Horrible Bosses - I was surprised that I found this really funny. Jasons Bateman and Sudeikis and Charlie Day are three friends with horrible bosses, each in a different way. In a nod to Strangers on a Train (and Throw Momma from the Train) and with some advice from a consultant, they decide to murder each others bosses. The setup is just ok, but once they start recon I was laughing consistently. Kevin Spacey is great as the obnoxious boss he's played before and Jennifer Aniston is good as the sex crazed dentist. Colin Farrell is a bit over the top as the coke addict son of Donald Sutherland with a family chemical business, but it's probably mostly his haircut. Refreshingly it's not just grossout humor, but genuinely funny (and involved) situations and dialog. And it doesn't hurt seeing alumni from The Wire.
Tree of Life - Terrence Malick's latest is not for everyone. Think of it as poetry or music rather than a novel. There's no plot and barely any narrative at all. I think (and I'm really not sure on this basic point but it doesn't really matter) that Sean Penn is an adult who's brother has died which triggers fragments of memories of his childhood growing up in a suburban town. It's mostly short voice overs that trigger a flood of images. There's an opening segment where the mother wonders "what do we mean to god" and that triggers a 20 minute scene of space imagery meant to suggest the origin of the universe and creation earth with the evolution of life including a couple of scenes of dinosaurs. One approaches another and pins it down and then walks away. I've seen lots of articles wondering about this but to me it obviously mirrors a scene later in the film where one brother pins the other one. We're not so different from animals, even previous generations of them. I really like it for the first two hours or so, though several people in my theater got up and left saying they didn't come for a National Geographic special. I thought the narrative would come together at the end a bit, it seemed like it was spiraling to that, but it didn't and I got impatient with it. This film is (obviously) not for the casual movie goer, but like Kubrick and Fellini, no one makes films like Malick. I have a hard enough time editing down vacation photos or making an iTunes playlist in anything but chronological order, I don't know how he strings together images and scenes into what he does.
Midnight in Paris - Woody Allen's latest is about a writer on vacation with his fiance and her parents in Paris. He's a bit neurotic and is struggling with finishing a novel instead of being a screenwriter. Sound at all familiar? He falls in love with Paris or rather a nostalgic view of Paris. The movie takes a fantastical turn which I think worked really well. The problem is the main character is just Owen Wilson doing Woody Allen and the others are mostly thin standins for characters. I usually like Rachel McAdams but she has nothing to do here. It's a great idea and has some very fun moments, overall I liked it, but I think he should have spent more time on it and refined it into something great. Maybe someone will remake it.
Super 8 - I knew very little about Super 8 going into it but had hope since it got very strong reviews. However nothing stuck with me. It just seemed like a series of scenes and after 10 mins I forgot them. Really, halfway through the film I wasn't remembering parts of it. Part of it was how I saw it. The back seat of a small BMW in a drivein in the rain is not ideal. Part of it was I think the storytelling. It felt like parts of Lost where there's a mystery that's slowly revealed but is in the end inconsequential. And it was that way in big mysteries and little ones. For example, there's a scene where kid is outside screaming for Lucy, we don't know who Lucy is. It turns out it was his dog and the animals have gone missing from the town. Did we have to turn the name of his dog into a mini-mystery? The big reveal was pretty obvious and was just an excuse for a story. The action scenes didn't do much for me either. There's a big train crash that happens where the kids are filming at night. It goes on and on there's no way any of them would have survived but they do. Things explode right next to them but the worst that happens is they're knocked down. It just didn't feel right. But I think I have to give it another shot to be fair.
The Perfect Host - I caught a preview of this on HDNetMovies. Clayne Crawford just robbed a bank and is on the run. After his getaway runs into a snag, he goes to a mailbox, finds a postcard and knocks on David Hyde Pierce's door and pretends to be a friend of a friend to hide out there. Pierce is a character and is preparing a dinner party and things get strange between these two. There are a few big turns and it was pretty fun, but there are a few too many turns at the end and it doesn't hold together. Pierce is great in this role and is the reason to see it, but catch it on cable or as a cheap rental.
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps - I think the reviews (as I remember them) got this right; there's a pretty good movie in here but it's lost in bunch of extra stuff. Gekko is out of jail and while broke, he's hawking a book Is Greed Good? and lecturing. Shia LaBeouf is a young trader who's dating Gekko's estranged daughter Carey Mulligan. LaBeouf's firm is a standin for Lehman and Josh Brolin's is representing Goldman. At times, characters deliver exposition explaining the actual financial crisis, it's barely a parallel. I thought most of the plot was pretty obvious, but it spent too much time on extraneous things. Do we have to see Susan Sarandon as LaBeouf's mom who's flipping houses? LaBeouf must be good because he wants to invest in green nuclear fusion but am I didn't buy a chief scientist calling him all the time asking for $100 million investment. I still don't know why Mulligan was dating a trader at all. And I didn't for a second buy that a investment bank CEO would be out motorcycle racing with a young trader on a day the market was crashing because it was too depressing. Or another CEO wandering Central Park midday. Things felt too constructed and not tight enough and too obvious in places. The Charlie Sheen cameo was telling. I remember liking Bud in the first film, now of course Sheen is a joke. LaBeouf didn't do anything to make me care about him, Mulligan deserved better (well not really but her character in An Education did).
Tamara Drewe - This was a fun British countryside farse based on a good graphic novel (serialized as a comic strip) by Posy Simmonds which is a modernization of on the novel Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy (whew). It's set at a writer's retreat in a small country town and there are a lot of characters. The adulterous crime novelist and his faithful wife/editor, the beautiful young girl back from the big city, the stableboy (well not quite but that's a good enough word), the two bored teenagers, the rock star, and various writers. The nice thing is that they are all fully realized characters and not just caricatures. Stephen Frears made a fun diversion, I don't know why it never really got a US distribution.
Love Crimes of Kabul - I saw this on HBO last night and I don't know why it's not in IMDb. It's a documentary following three women in prison in Afghanistan for "moral crimes". Basically they all are accused of having sex while not married. Both they and the men are in prison and the system is setup so that if they marry their possible 20 year sentences are greatly reduced. One got pregnant out of wedlock, her boyfriend refused to marry her, so she reported him in hopes that fear of staying in prison will convince him to marry her. An 18 year-old was found in a closet with her 17 year-old boyfriend and turned in by her father. She wants to marry the boy, him not so much. Doctors verify her virginity but her fate in uncertain. Another girl ran away from an abusive home and was taken in by a woman who then tried to sell her. Now both are sharing a cell and the woman wants the girl to marry her son because the family can't afford a virgin bride for him. This is not just pre-60s US mores with strict legal ramifications, this is a completely different way of thinking. Marriages are arranged and come with dowries. The rules seem outdated but are so ingrained (and I guess ordained by God) that even though these people broke them, there's no questioning them, not even the thought of it. One guard explains that pre-marital sex is a crime but sodomy is so much worse it isn't even listed as a crime. The film was fascinating as it exposes a society with rules and logic that I can in no way fathom. I understand why we're there or what we hope to accomplish even less.
Hot Coffee - I missed this at IFFBoston but caught it on HBO. Everyone knows about the woman who spilled McDonald's coffee on her lap and sued because it was too hot but most view it as an example of what's wrong with the legal system. The real facts aren't well known and this films covers them. Once you see the photos of the burns she suffered you're convinced. But the film just uses this case as a jumping off point to explain real distortions in the legal system. Large companies (like tobacco, drug and insurance companies) have funded campaigns to convince us that they are at the mercy of a legal system run amok with frivolous lawsuits and out-of-control monetary awards. It's not really true and the legal reforms are hurting real people. They cover a family who's son has cerebral palsy because of malpractice. They won a judgement based on what a lifetime of care would cost but because of caps, that was cut by 75%. Now what are they supposed to do? It also covers the Jamie Leigh Jones case. She was a Halliburton employee who was raped and because of an employment contract her case went to a biased arbitration instead of a trial. It's all good stuff and well worth seeing.
The Pawnbroker - This is a great 1965 film by Sidney Lumet starring Rod Steiger. Sol owns a pawnshop in Harlem and is completely dissociated from his life. He lives alone in a high rise, has few friends, ignores questions and is annoyed by people trying to be nice to him. The reason is he survived a Nazi concentration camp and is still in shock. Everyday events cause him to remember scenes of his children dying or his wife being raped or other atrocities. We see these in short flashbacks. This was the US first film to address the Holocaust and also was the first film to pass the Hayes Code with brief nudity. It's from the sixties so by today's standards the images aren't too bad but it's still remarkably effective at evoking sympathy for the main character and at making comparison between ghetto life and war. Steiger is great and got the films only Oscar nomination. That he lost to Lee Marvin in Cat Ballou is ridiculous. The score is by Quincy Jones and introduced the song Soul Bossa Nova, now known as the theme to Austin Powers.
The Rack - This is Paul Newman's second film and is only recently available on DVD. He plays a Korean war prison returning home and court-martialed for giving aid and comfort to the enemy. He was tortured and signed some documents. Walter Pidgeon is his Colonel father and Lee Marvin was another prisoner who testifies against him. In parts it's dated, particularly how his father acts. But for its time it was exploring topics that weren't covered a lot. It's also not simplistic and takes a few turns I wasn't expecting. It's based on a teleplay by Rod Serling, which explains everything. Worth your time to watch.
Mr. Hulot's Holiday - This was my first Jacques Tati film who I heard of because of last year's The Illusionist. Tati made six features and this was the first to feature Hulot. It takes place at a seaside resort in a small hotel with various guests. He's kind of a Chaplinesque character, silent, a bit awkward and causing trouble. While Chaplin and Keaton were the center of the action, Hulot seems to cause a problem and then we watch it travel through the other characters in the scene who usually barely notice him. I suspect at the time it mocked specific societal norms but much of that was lost on me now. Instead it's a rather entertaining film with charming characters and a very slow pace. There's sound but it's mostly sound effects, background noises, music and some mumbling. I'll admit to hitting fast forward a few times. Still, it put a smile on my face and made me interested in trying a few other of his films.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Debt Ceiling Stuff
Balkinization has some good posts on the debt limit.
Sandy Levinson asks Will Obama drive us over the cliff while proclaiming his constitutional purity?.
"So are we going to go over the cliff, with Obama, the legendary former professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago and president of the Harvard Law Review, saying, like Buchanan, "I know this is terrible, but what do you expect me to do, since I've sworn to uphold the Constitution?" Or will he, like Lincoln (and other predecessors), decide that driving over the cliff in the name of constitutional fidelity, when faced with a Congress that is traducing their own such duties, isn't really such a great idea? If that is the decision, will he do by becoming, almost uniquely, a Type I "constitutional defier" (violating the Constitution in order to save the American order, which Michael Stokes Paulsen argued, incidentally, was a power given by the Oath of Office, which is how he defended Abraham Lincoln and, more recently, George W. Bush). Or will he, like most political leaders, decide that there might be some merit in the Section Four argument for presidential authority after all, whatever grade it would receive from his mentor at the Harvard Law School?
As Jack argues, incidentally, it is vital that Obama begin to educate the public about the unconstitutional behavior of his Republican adversaries, and if there is anything we seem to know about him, it is that he will be extremely reluctant to do so. But without such attempts at public education, preferably in a nationwide address addressed to the greatest potential crisis since September 11, he allows all of this to be reduced to "pure politics," with the Constitution serving only as a "suicide pact." Will that be his legacy to American constitutionalism?"
Larry Tribe posts two letters on the constitutionality of the debt ceiling.
Finally Sandy Levinson writes An anecdote from almost 50 years ago in which he describes his reaction to the Cuban Missile Crisis at the time and now. It's short and very much worth a read. "I will let all of you make any applications you wish to the present Debt Limit Crisis."
Sandy Levinson asks Will Obama drive us over the cliff while proclaiming his constitutional purity?.
"So are we going to go over the cliff, with Obama, the legendary former professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago and president of the Harvard Law Review, saying, like Buchanan, "I know this is terrible, but what do you expect me to do, since I've sworn to uphold the Constitution?" Or will he, like Lincoln (and other predecessors), decide that driving over the cliff in the name of constitutional fidelity, when faced with a Congress that is traducing their own such duties, isn't really such a great idea? If that is the decision, will he do by becoming, almost uniquely, a Type I "constitutional defier" (violating the Constitution in order to save the American order, which Michael Stokes Paulsen argued, incidentally, was a power given by the Oath of Office, which is how he defended Abraham Lincoln and, more recently, George W. Bush). Or will he, like most political leaders, decide that there might be some merit in the Section Four argument for presidential authority after all, whatever grade it would receive from his mentor at the Harvard Law School?
As Jack argues, incidentally, it is vital that Obama begin to educate the public about the unconstitutional behavior of his Republican adversaries, and if there is anything we seem to know about him, it is that he will be extremely reluctant to do so. But without such attempts at public education, preferably in a nationwide address addressed to the greatest potential crisis since September 11, he allows all of this to be reduced to "pure politics," with the Constitution serving only as a "suicide pact." Will that be his legacy to American constitutionalism?"
Larry Tribe posts two letters on the constitutionality of the debt ceiling.
Finally Sandy Levinson writes An anecdote from almost 50 years ago in which he describes his reaction to the Cuban Missile Crisis at the time and now. It's short and very much worth a read. "I will let all of you make any applications you wish to the present Debt Limit Crisis."
Fighting Voodoo Economics
Kevin Drum wrote about Fighting Voodoo Economics "So the question isn't whether Republicans are contradicting themselves. They have a theory in which they aren't. Instead, the question is this: can Barack Obama persuade the American public that Keynesian economics is basically correct and that Republican economics is therefore crazy? Good luck with that. Everyone loves paying less in taxes, and there's a very big chunk of the public that also loves spending cuts as long as they're aimed at poor people. So they have every personal incentive to buy into the GOP's high-minded justifications for stuff they want to do anyway. And they do. After three decades, we still haven't figured out how to effectively fight voodoo economics. It would be nice if Obama started talking sense instead of caving in to conservative nonsense, but the problem goes way beyond just him."
The Murdoch Media Empire Slowly Crumbles
Kevin Drum wrote The Murdoch Media Empire Slowly Crumbles "Oh lovely: they hacked into the medical records of his infant son. What's more, this story suggests that this kind of thing wasn't limited just to News of the World, nor just to the tabloids. Even the Sunday Times was in on the fun. So here's the question: how long will it be before we learn that some of Murdoch's properties in the United States were engaged in the same kind of behavior? Tick tick tick....."
The Sunscreen Smokescreen
Information is Beautiful has a graphic, The Sunscreen Smokescreen. "This time, the question was simple: How much sunscreen should I wear? I’m a pale geek who burns. I wanted to know the optimal. A simple question with a simple answer, right? Wrong. This simple question took me on a massive journey through the data, information myths and misinformation that surround our perception of sunscreen. I’m calling it the Sunscreen Smokescreen."
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Big Dig Light Fixtures Worse Than Disclosed
The Boston Globe writes Worries about lights were kept in the dark. I didn't know anything about this.
"The Big Dig already had a tragic experience with dangerous falling objects. A tunnel ceiling panel had collapsed in 2006, killing a woman a few hundred yards from where the nine corroded fixtures were discovered on Feb. 16. State engineers had no way of knowing how many more of the 25,000 lights in the Big Dig tunnels had become unstable - and plenty of reason to fear that corrosion was widespread after years of saltwater leaking into the tunnels.
But the engineers in charge kept quiet. They filed no written report. They didn’t brief their boss. And when they asked federal regulators for money to fix a corrosion problem that “could’’ lead to falling light fixtures, they didn’t disclose that one had already fallen."
"The Big Dig already had a tragic experience with dangerous falling objects. A tunnel ceiling panel had collapsed in 2006, killing a woman a few hundred yards from where the nine corroded fixtures were discovered on Feb. 16. State engineers had no way of knowing how many more of the 25,000 lights in the Big Dig tunnels had become unstable - and plenty of reason to fear that corrosion was widespread after years of saltwater leaking into the tunnels.
But the engineers in charge kept quiet. They filed no written report. They didn’t brief their boss. And when they asked federal regulators for money to fix a corrosion problem that “could’’ lead to falling light fixtures, they didn’t disclose that one had already fallen."
Saturday, July 09, 2011
Harry Potter Summary Poster
The Burrow's Studio Blog has some cute Harry Potter Posters! that show the whole plot in comics form on a giant poster.
Friday, July 08, 2011
Where did matter come from?
io9 has another good post in their Ask a Physicist series Where did matter come from? addresses the question of why the universe is made of matter and not anti-matter. We really don't know.
The History of the Space Shuttle In Focus
The last space shuttle launch was today. A week ago, In Focus shows in photos, The History of the Space Shuttle - Alan Taylor "From its first launch 30 years ago to its final launch scheduled for next Friday, NASA's Space Shuttle program has seen moments of dizzying inspiration and of crushing disappointment. When next week's launch is complete, the program will have sent up 135 missions, ferrying more than 350 humans and thousands of tons of material and equipment into low Earth orbit. Fourteen astronauts have lost their lives along the way -- the missions have always been risky, the engineering complex, the hazards extreme. As we near the end of the program, I'd like to look back at the past few decades of shuttle development and missions as we await the next steps toward human space flight. [61 photos]"
Two From The Big Picture
Wildfire threatens nuclear facility "The Las Conchas wildfire in New Mexico spread dangerously close to the Los Alamos National Laboratory this week, causing the evacuation of the town and the shutdown of the lab, which is the headquarters for US military research. The laboratory was created during World War II to develop the first atomic bomb for the Manhattan Project and houses highly sensitive materials. As a precaution, scientists are monitoring radioactivity in the air. The fire is the largest wildfire in the state's history, covering more than 100,000 acres.(Editor's Note: We will not post on Monday, July 4th, we'll see you again on Wednesday, July 6, 2011.) -Leanne Burden Seidel (34 photos total)"
Ash covered landscape "Puyehue volcano in southern Chile has spread volcanic ash far and wide since it erupted in early June. On Monday, Argentina's president announced that economic relief would be provided to residents affected by the ash in the southwestern region of Patagonia. And as recent as July 1 ash in the atmosphere was disrupting flights at the Buenos Aires airport. These images show how the earth's landscape has been affected. Here's a link to view our original post on June 8. -- Lloyd Young (32 photos total)"
There are a ton of nuclear winter looking photos. This one made me wonder where Jennifer Connolly was:
Ash covered landscape "Puyehue volcano in southern Chile has spread volcanic ash far and wide since it erupted in early June. On Monday, Argentina's president announced that economic relief would be provided to residents affected by the ash in the southwestern region of Patagonia. And as recent as July 1 ash in the atmosphere was disrupting flights at the Buenos Aires airport. These images show how the earth's landscape has been affected. Here's a link to view our original post on June 8. -- Lloyd Young (32 photos total)"There are a ton of nuclear winter looking photos. This one made me wonder where Jennifer Connolly was:
The Straight Story on Comparative Taxation
The Straight Story on Comparative Taxation "These data show that on overall taxation, we went from being around the middle of the pack to being among the lowest taxed nations—in other words, the 2009 results is not anomalous. On the corporate side, we used to collect a much larger share of GDP in business taxes, but that’s flipped and we’re now among the lowest by that metric as well."
What Twitter users asked the president
Boston.com has a nice infographic on What Twitter users asked the president "At a town hall Tuesday, President Obama answered a few of the thousands of questions posed by Twitter users in the past week. Below, the percent of recent questions asked by Twitter users, and White House journalists, that mention selected topics."
Thursday, July 07, 2011
Storm on Saturn Catches Its Tail
NASA - Catching Its Tail "The huge storm churning through the atmosphere in Saturn's northern hemisphere overtakes itself as it encircles the planet in this true-color view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. "
"This picture, captured on Feb. 25, 2011, was taken about 12 weeks after the storm began, and the clouds by this time had formed a tail that wrapped around the planet. Some of the clouds moved south and got caught up in a current that flows to the east (to the right) relative to the storm head. This tail, which appears as slightly blue clouds south and west (left) of the storm head, can be seen encountering the storm head in this view.
This storm is the largest, most intense storm observed on Saturn by NASA’s Voyager or Cassini spacecraft. It is still active today. As scientists have tracked this storm over several months, they have found it covers 500 times the area of the largest of the southern hemisphere storms observed earlier in the Cassini mission (see PIA06197). The shadow cast by Saturn's rings has a strong seasonal effect, and it is possible that the switch to powerful storms now being located in the northern hemisphere is related to the change of seasons after the planet's August 2009 equinox. "
"This picture, captured on Feb. 25, 2011, was taken about 12 weeks after the storm began, and the clouds by this time had formed a tail that wrapped around the planet. Some of the clouds moved south and got caught up in a current that flows to the east (to the right) relative to the storm head. This tail, which appears as slightly blue clouds south and west (left) of the storm head, can be seen encountering the storm head in this view.
This storm is the largest, most intense storm observed on Saturn by NASA’s Voyager or Cassini spacecraft. It is still active today. As scientists have tracked this storm over several months, they have found it covers 500 times the area of the largest of the southern hemisphere storms observed earlier in the Cassini mission (see PIA06197). The shadow cast by Saturn's rings has a strong seasonal effect, and it is possible that the switch to powerful storms now being located in the northern hemisphere is related to the change of seasons after the planet's August 2009 equinox. "
Advertising Inserted Into Reruns
I know that to gain ad revenue, TV shows do product placements. Now it seems they are digitally inserting new advertising into reruns. /Film reports WTF: ‘Zookeeper’ Advertising Inserted Into ‘How I Met Your Mother’ Reruns?. I don't think I care, at least for these I'm sure I wouldn't notice, but this could make for some fun anachronisms.
Wednesday, July 06, 2011
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