Gagdad Bob on the elections

My Drudge and blog-addled brain usually finds Gagdad Bob's exquisite writing to be almost exhausting. But even I can grasp this post on the elections.

"I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it.”

When you're ready for a grim, Mark Steyn world view, without the humor, try the Brussels Journal.

Contemporary anti-Semitism in Europe (at least when coming from native
Europeans) is related to anti-Americanism. People who are not prepared to resist
and are eager to submit, hate others who do not want to submit and are prepared
to fight. They hate them because they are afraid that the latter will endanger
their lives as well. In their view everyone must submit.

"Gotta Let Your Hijabs Hang"

Several blogs including Powerline link to a Christian Science Monitor article about the lack of "Radical Islam" breeding grounds in the U.S compared to Europe.

In a nation where mosques have sprung up alongside churches and
synagogues, where Muslim women are free to wear the hijab (or not), and where
education and job opportunities range from decent to good, the resentments that
can breed extremism do not seem very evident in the Muslim community.

"The culture is qualitatively different [in the American Muslim community] from what
we've seen from public information from Europe, and that actually says very
positive things about our society," says Jonathan Winer, a terrorism expert in
Washington. "We don't have large populations of immigrants with a generation
sitting around semi-employed and deeply frustrated. That's a gigantic
difference."

For some reason this obvious paragraph gets overlooked:

Most Muslim immigrants came to America for educational or business
opportunities and from educated, middle-class families in their home countries,
according to an analysis by Peter Skerry of Boston College and the Brookings
Institution. In Europe, the majority came to work in factory jobs and often from
poorer areas at home.

I might also observe, based on my own experience, that US ghettos are already pretty well occupied, thank you, by some serious individuals who could teach a brother a thing or two about intimidation. Try torching a bus in Houston's 5th ward and see how long you live. Come to think of it, try torching a bus in a well-armed Anglo suburb and see how long you live. Things are different here.

Finally, I'm trying to imagine an underfed recent Muslim arrival trying to get a section-8 queen to wear a hijab if she don't wanna. He'd get bitch-slapped all the way back to Trashcanistan.

Marketers Think and God Laughs

Drudge links this article about companies "implicated" in providing E. Coli contaminated bagged spinach. He doesn't mention the delightful name of the first company involved, "Natural Selection Foods". Awkward.

Ghost Dancers for jihad

via Instapundit

"...To read some blogs today, you'd think that this was the 9th century, with camel-riding Jihadis ready to descend on helpless American towns, swinging unstoppable scimitars. It's not that way; it's more like the Ghost Dance or similar movements borne of frustration at losing, movements that do their damage all right, but that are doomed to fail. I don't mean to understate the threat, which is real enough. But it's not on the order of the Cold War, you know, and we won that one."

Ghost Dance?? I don't even think Sioux Falls was threatened by Ghost Dancers. I seem to remember Sitting Bull his-own-self observing about white Europeans "There is no end to them", meaning he and the Ghost Dancers were severely outnumbered. I think we can observe that there is no end to the Islamists right now and for the next several generations. And what's more, the Ghost Dancers already knew they had lost. I don't think the Islamic movement has been informed of that yet, and they have no particular reason to believe it.

"Fundamentalist" Islam is ascendant politically and populationally in Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan (which has nukes and a greater population than Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan combined), other Trashcanistans, and parts of Africa. Even if Iran undergoes a Pistachio Revolution (it won't and if it does it will be a bloody mess), Pakistan is just a well-placed car-bomb or two from its own Islamist government.

To much of the third world Islam is the great equalizer in the undeclared war with Western dominance. As they have in the past, parts of Central and South America will tacitly side with our enemy. China will assist Islamist countries in order to keep us too busy to respond to their Taiwan grab, (2009).

Scimitars? Putting aside nukes, across the entire third world there are young men who can do things with batteries, cell phones, diesel fuel, ammonium nitrate, etc, of which the post-gearhead western culture is almost completely ignorant.

Of course we’re not helpless but we will lose mightily until we decide to win.

"The Path to 9/11" - Engineers for jihad

I thought the "docudrama" did an excellent job of showing the sincerity and skill set of your average jihadist. They all seemed to be competent in existing in the western culture, they all seemed skilled at rapidly putting together things that go "bang" and they all seemed to enjoy their work. I think this is probably pretty accurate and pretty scary.

Everyone knew the guy in college who liked to experiment with guns, gelatin, firecrackers and lighter fluid. Typically they were 1)engineering majors 2)smart 3)otherwise pretty normal (unlike Atta, most of them wouldn't mind having their genitals washed, especially by a female).

Now, take characteristic 3), deny it access to normal female relationships and a good job, indoctrinate it non-stop with Jew-hatred, America-hatred, jealousy, and a sense of purpose. Train it in all the creative ways to wire up explosives, conceal them, transport them, etc, and then reward each improvement with praise and emotional re-enforcement. Repeat at least 100,000 times (more if you throw in Malaysia, Indonesia, India, etc) and you've got quite an army to work with, and not a uniform among them.

Late getting home from work - can't live blog

Damn, too late to live blog the whole thing, maybe I'll do the President's speech instead.

7:32 - Doesn't make a big deal of the "contested election", classy
7:33 - I thought O'Neill left his briefcase at a party, not at a seminar - More legacy rescue
7:34 - Nice to see the lady from "24" and Gary Schandling as C. Rice - I don't doubt that Clarke was ignored. New brooms can't help but sweep clean at that level
7:37 - O'Neill tells Clarke that PC rules the day
7:38 - Atta looking for loan for crop dusters
7:42 - Mideast suspects have been applying for flight school. Didn't some of these get their papers illegally
7:46 - Khatami refused entry by INS?
7:48 - KSM meets Atta, suggests Moussaui, Atta seems wrapped tight, got the eyes right
7:50 - Moussaui grounded in OK flight school, paid cash for next flight school, visited by INS, famous laptop bagged as evidence
7:53 - O'Neill interested in laptop. Really? FISA request by Colleen Rawley? - No guess not
7:56 - Moussaud taling about Taliban and UBL in Europe? Mossaud's character has all the earmarks of conflation, even if he really exists.
7:58 - Moussaud warns "Kirk", sounds mighty speculative

COOL they're breaking for Bush
8:20 - "Kirk" tells Tenet that they're planning something big. Tenet "threat information is off the charts". Clumsy writing here.
8:22 - Rice doesn't come off bad so far
8:24 - O'Neill announces new position at WTC "new sheriff in town?" I wonder
8:25 - Derivative of "Spanish Caravan" playing in background in Madrid. What? No drums?
8:28 - AQ heading for the mountains, cool music for once, Moussaud looks worried
8:30 - America must prepare, tell them "Kirk", "Patricia" shows up again to sound worried, Aviation, hijackers
8:31 - Bush believes AQ is a real threat and wants to try Predator, Hellfire missile is not ready, legality in question? Tenet comes off terribly, Clarke looks like a genius of course
8:33 - Moussaud will be dead soon, I'm betting, cameraman looks scary - yep
8:38 - I wonder if Rick Rescorla met O'Neill in his first two weeks on the job
8:40 - back to "Patricia" and "Kirk" "as true an ally as we ever had" re Moussaud, think Hitchens thought highly of him
8:42 - Atta's got daddy issues, gee really?
8:43 - do we get to see them go to the strip clubs? damn! What about Atta's desire to not have anyone wash his genitals?
8:45 - baggage check shows "Warning", etc
8:46 - back to the sticker from last night
Maybe not up for this last part.
8:53 - Who said Building two was secure? I've always wondered. Was O'Neill there? I guess so. It's unfortunate he only had two weeks to prepare - I know he died there
9:05 - too much camera shake
9:06 - Clarke is the Decider!!

Solid ending - Good Enough

Live-Blogging "The Path to 9/11" Sunday Night, Central Time

I'll be forgoing the Simpsons premier tonight to do something I haven't tried before - live-blogging.

Now, live-blogging a docudrama is probably dumb, but good practice for more important stuff and who knows maybe I'll contribute something useful, or learn how to type really fast. Obviously, I haven't seen the show yet. I'm not hoping for much even though I have enjoyed watching Clinton, Berger, et al, squirm.

6:58 - America's Funniest Video, nice segue
7:00 - I'm going to need commercial breaks
Long disclaimer - okay
Black and white opening, sad piano music - now I know how to feel.
Co-executive producer Thomas Kean. I think he'll have plausible deniability.
7:05 - more disclaimer, odd how it tries to get gravitas from the commission's own admission of it's limitations
7:07 - Shakey-cam!!!
7:08 - Legacy rescue for John O'Neill, "no one gets in the building without a sticker". Was he really at work at 7:15 am? I think I read he was out til 2:00 am the night before.

7:12 - Okay, down to business, 1993
Ramzi Yousef looks like Jim Caviezel - no I take that back.
7:15 - nice special effects on fuse lighting
7:18 - most movies do a poor job of showing the shock wave (and flesh displacement) of explosions, this one not too bad.
7:20 - good job showing inside of firefighter's mask
7:25 - CSI moment with the bomb squad, rapid VIN ID. Needless "tension", move on.
7:27 - Brief review of Kahane shooting, cool.
7:31 - A police procedural - with music!!, dull
7:33 - FBI guy beefing to John Miller, reporter, dull
7:36 - Muslim informant with a concience, looking for more money, saying I told you so
7:37 - Okay, we've established that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was a party boy
7:38 - so far the bad guys are for more interesting, a reaction that makes me check my reason for watching
7:40 - somebody tipped off the press - really??
7:44 - waayy too many close-ups. Come back Sergio Leone, all is forgiven
Not sure blogspot can handle all this posting
7:46 -"See if Janet Reno has any balls" - Waco reference - nice
7:47 - Ramzi Youself aka "Horseface", calls to mind the movie "Rockers" featuring a drummer named "Horsemouth"
7:49 - didn't know he tried to bomb Bhutto - hid out in the Phillipines? Wonder if he ever met McVeigh and Nichols?
7:56 - If I'm Beavis and Butthead I say "Ramzi Yousef is Cool!!"
7:58 - Phillipine police worry about warrants before opening laptops??
7:59 - good to see Donnie Wahlberg as "Kirk". He was great in Band of Brothers
8:00 - Stephen Root ("Dodgeball", Bill on King of the Hill) as Richard Clarke
8:02 - O'Neill, Hands on the neck "We don't lose this guy" - oy vey
8:09 - O'Neill in a restaurant, is this where the love interest comes in?
8:10 - Pakistan has flies, okay, I knew that, head covering for hottie
8:13 - This Yousef guy is really interesting. Sort of a Muslim Scarface
8:16 - Good tension right here. You sort of care about the informant Ishtiak
8:22 - Freeh wants Bill Gavin to arrest Yousef. This is the first indication of the Sec of State holding up the process of arresting someone important. Fictional?
8:23 - Freeh gives the go-ahead
8:25 - hate to admit it, but I'm completely involved at this point. Wonder if Ishtiak survives?
8:29 - I hope Ishtiak is a real character. His dialogue about innocents seems contrived.
8:32 - here comes the scene where Yousef reveals his lack of money for taking down the towers
OOOH disclaimer time, need a brownie and bathroom break
8:36 - jump to 98, UBL Fatwa
8:37 - Richard Clarke looks like Kenneth McMillan, the crazy guy from Twin Peaks. "Kirk" wonders why John Miller can find UBL but we can't
8:42 - Okay, Massoud of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan appears, meets "Kirk" "Mark" and "Alex" CIA
8:44 - Mary Jo White shows up. O'Neill actually did hang out at Elaines, as I remember it.
8:47 - good scene with CIA in Afghanistan, jump to Tenet, Amy Madigan as "Patricia", Cool
8:50 - "War is about killing the enemy and destroying their property" "How do you win a long and orderly war"
8:51 - "I did not have sexual relations with that woman"
8:53 - Can't kill UBL on purpose, "Lets go"
8:54 - Sandy Berger doesn't have authority
8:55 - Money shot showing Bergers sweating the UBL grab. Does seem forced and fake.
8:56 - John Miller, journalist, comes off smarter than anyone else, of course
Did the State Department really ignore warnings about increasing security in Nairobi?
8:58 - Dude, "Kirk" is everywhere, here comes Nairobi bombing, cheesy explosion
9:01 - Big fictional scene with "Patricia". Like Madigan but she's got the worst lines.
9:04 - What's with the damn drums while they're arresting the guy in Nairobi?
9:06 - precursory chemicals? Isn't that precursor? Could be wrong
9:08 - al shifa aspirin plant missiling, John Miller in Khartoum at same time? Really? Wow.
9:09 - I guess I didn't need this show to remind me that Clinton was a fuck up
9:10 - Zawaharie says the "war has begun". I bet he would be pissed.
9:12 - Washington warned Pakistan that they were preparing to missile UBL, Northern Alliance in trouble, Taliban executing survivors. Seems believable
9:17 - Al Qaeda training camp, KSM proposes plan "the Planes Operation" catchy.
9:19 - Clinton is Satan, heh
9:20 - imagined conversations between KSM and Zwaharie - no one's bitching about that.
9:22 - Everyone gripes about Halliburton making money off the Iraq war but no one complains about all those Toyota trucks the Taliban use ; )
9:23 - Ressam at Canadian border, millenium plot, sharp-eyed US Customs agent, missed her name, should know it. Ammonium nitrate is not urea, dialog doesn't match bag label, weird scene.
9:30 - Arrests prior to New Years, As South Park says "we need a montage!!"
9:33 - Giuliani won't cancel Times Square celebrations, false tension here. Why does John O'Neill sound like Robert DeNiro? Way too much arty-farty camera work here. Give it a rest Oliver!
9:37 - John Miller "we dodged a bullet" gosh he's smart!
9:38 - now back to 9/11, in case you forgot, good close though, another disclaimer,
wait for it, wait for it...

Overall, B+.
Good action in foreign locales. Actor who plays Yousef should get a Grammy. Keitel not convincing.

I'm ashamed to admit I found the terrorist far more convincing than those trying to catch them, except "Kirk". CIA operatives on the ground come off very brave and competent. I don't doubt for a moment that they were and are. Thanks guys.

ABC is covering itself with a special Nightline until 10:00pm. Clarke gets more camera time. Yay.

A Canticle for Mohammed

The Brussels Journal has several posts on illegal aliens occupying Belgian Catholic churches with full support of the bishops.

Perhaps most notably:

Churches have been occupied in every Belgian diocese, except the
diocese of Hasselt. Some churches currently have 700 people living in them. Many
of the sans-papiers are Muslims. They pray in the aisles while the walls display banners with the name of Allah.

UPDATE: Welcome Desparate Irish Housewife readers. Thanks for the link Susan!

Bush on immigration

Great speech!!! Awesome!!

Didn't believe a word of it.

Black History of Drag Racing

If like me you look to IowaHawk mainly for humor, you'll be surprised and impressed by his extensively sourced, by blogosphere standards, review of Black Americans in drag racing and stock car racing. Black History Month: Quarter Mile Soul

Top 10 Signs...

Strategy Page has the Top 10 Signs that the Unites States is About to Bomb Iran. Do not mistake this for a prediction.

Before any major military operation, there are always tell tale signs. With
all the talk about Israel or the United States bombing Iran's nuclear
weapons program, it would be wise to check for the signs before taking the
pundit prattle too seriously....

My favorite:

8 -Sudden loss of cell service near some air force bases (from which heavy
bombers would depart). At the same time, there would be sightings of Middle
Eastern looking guys around these bases, trying to get their cell phones to
work, while being observed by what appears to be FBI agents.

....These warning signs are no secret, and intelligence officers regularly run
down their check lists. As a result, nations will sometimes stage a false
alert by deliberately performing many of the items on someone's check list,
with no intention of following through.

Where Can I Get "Do Not Euthanize" Orders?

Drudge is linking to LifeSiteNews about euthanasia of patients at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. This time the report is sourced back to National Public Radio, so those suspicious of LifeSite may find some corroboration. Might make some people think about their Do Not Resuscitate orders.

If the story turns out to be true, I'm sure we can find a bioethicist, maybe even a whole committee of them, who will defend the practice.

Port Security

As much as I’m enjoying watching Democrats and parts of the Left suddenly embrace racial profiling, I can’t find anything wrong with Bush’s statement -

"I think it sends a terrible signal to friends around the world that it's OK for a company from one country to manage the port, but not a country that plays by the rules and has got a good track record from another part of the world can't manage the port..."

Many of the 9/11 hijackers including Mohammed Atta spent years in Germany. Have we denied Germany access to our defense markets?

Which port owners are doing a good job of security? Do we have a metric? Are any of them US firms?

Someone tell me when Bill Frist became the Right’s go-to-guy on national security.

Having Your Genome "Done"

Christopher Hitchens (connect from his website to "Shalom Professor Gates" to avoid the Times free registration), writing in the LA Times, offers a brief but fascinating look at mitochondrial DNA testing, or having your genome "done" and the potential surprises awaiting us all.

The fantasy of ethnic purity is simply a fantasy, and the fantasy of racial
purity is not even a delusion, because we are all of the same race. Ex Africa
semper aliquid novi, as the Romans phrased it. There is always something new out
of Africa.

I don't think these guys will be surprised to find out Henry Louis Gates was descended from a female Ashkenazi Jew.

Caving In To a Rebellious Adolescent

I’m a little late to the party on the Cartoon Jihad, but does it seem like parts of the conservative blogosphere, especially Christians, another one here, are engaged in a kind of moral preening in their desire for the European and American press to self-censor in deference to the fragile sensitivities of Muslims?

Let me be clear, I don’t seek a "clash of civilizations", nor do I agree with the unfettered "right to blaspheme". I don’t seek vengeance for the portrayal of Jews and Christians in the Arab press. I don’t seek vengeance for the western press’s willingness to denigrate Christianity at every opportunity.

I see this strictly as a child-rearing problem.

Christianity, Judaism, the west in general, and Hinduism all have a stake in seeing Islam finally pull out of its 600-year adolescence and join the adult world. The first conversation any parent has with a rebellious adolescent is "as long as you live under this roof, you will follow my rules." Well our rules, even the indulgent parent Europe’s rules, include freedom of expression and freedom of the press. Period. You don’t like it, move out, but we are not changing the rules.

The radical Muslim world has been throwing tantrums for decades and until now the only adults willing to enforce the rules have been the wicked uncle Israel and the stern but forgiving United States. Finally, Western Europe may be on-board as a willing partner in child rearing, so why should anyone lose their nerve now? Because the tantrums are getting louder and longer?

Also, Hugh Hewitt's (at Radio Blogger, scroll down) insistence on seeing it as a strategy issue, i.e. what happens if Pakistan becomes too radicalized thanks to these cartoons and stops being our ally, doesn’t recognize the larger issues. Pakistan is already radicalized. They’ve been burning US flags for years to protest our presence in Afghanistan and Iraq. The country is loaded with radical madrassas and imams. How is western civilization showing a united front on free speech and free press going to further radicalize them?

If we’re constantly worried about what our children’s friends think of us, we’ll never make it as parents. Why should a bunch of grown-ups, however boorish their behavior, subject themselves to the rule of violent adolescents?

Richard John Neuhaus get it right.

Noonan on The Coretta Scott-King Funeral

Soxblog nails it exactly on Peggy Noonan's "pompous imperious tone she customarily adopts when she’s trying to show her highly cultivated sensitivities especially when compared to the rest of pundit-dom. Counter-intuitively, Noonan found the services to be “wonderful--spirited and moving, rousing and respectful, pugnacious and loving.”

He does credit her with a couple zingers.

Rich Chocolatey Irony in New Orleans

The same day Austin Bay links to a Houston Chronicle story about New Orleans gang wars transplanted to Houston, we get this from Lou Dobbs tonight:

(scroll down about a 1/3 of the page)
REV. JESSE
JACKSON, RAINBOW-PUSH COALITION: There's a profound population shift. The Latino
population was 3 percent. It's now 20 percent, and it's not just South Central
Latin America. It's also east and Europeans as well.

They have been
trafficked in and their cheap labor has been used while businesses are still
locked out. So you have outside workers displacing New Orleans citizens and
outside no-bid contractors displacing Katrina areas citizens.

DOBBS:
What would you -- at this point, is this a conspiracy of circumstance, the
devastation that the failed New Orleans and the displacement of hundreds of
thousands of New Orleans residents who can't get back? Give us your thought.

JACKSON: Well, number one, these workers are not just coming across the
border, they're being sent for, brought in and hired. They've been trafficked in
often working on the very exposing condition without of course any health
insurance.

A couple points:

The legal day laborers won’t have health insurance either.

Most day labor crews I saw in six weeks there had appropriate personal protective equipment, especially respirators - certainly better than the locals had.

Many "no-bid" contractors had pre-hurricane contracts to provide emergency response to hospitals and hotels. Other hotels arranged no-bid contracts because they hired the first company in the door who promised them a rapid re-build in exchange for letting their laborers stay in the few tenable rooms.

How many bids do you want in the middle of a flood response, by the way? If you’re getting bids while the city floats away, you’re thinking like FEMA.

From what I’ve seen, everyone there is working hard - black, white, Hispanic, etc.

Please remember who is inciting divisiveness.

Can We Avoid Creating a New Political Correctness?

Seems the pro-military right, of which I’m a proud if dissolute member, has decided to make Joel Stein famous - most notably Hugh Hewitt and Michelle Malkin. Why? The few military people I know or am related to will not have their self-esteem dented by this callow 30-something. His Warriors and Wusses column is bound to seem funny to his 10 best friends. Otherwise, it’s just another flat attempt at hip humor.

Stein used to be at Time and on VH1. Now he’s at the LAT. Does this seem like someone whose career you want to help salvage? We might as well get our shorts in a wad about a South Park episode.

By the way, the selling points for South Park and “24” for conservatives has been their refreshing assault on political correctness. Seems to me that we risk creating a new political correctness if we insist on attacking someone as clearly out of his depth as Stein is. If he had said the same thing on Saturday Night Live, we wouldn't even have noticed. Since he's a columnist we're upset.

It’s a cliché, but the best approach is to ignore him.

Or do what American Digest did. Ow.

Would you like chili powder in your chocolate?

Flew from New Orleans to Houston and back today. The Big Queasy is still pretty ragged. Most traffic lights downtown are still not working. Most hospitals are still not open. Overall it’s a little cleaner than before Christmas. Found an open Subway sandwich place that was very busy and the help was friendly.

No doubt New Orleans will be “chocolate” again. I understand that Mexicans drink a LOT of hot chocolate, and I know that’s what Mayor Nagin meant. During my six weeks of consulting in NO I ran into several workers, white and black, complaining about the number of Hispanics in the clean-up work crews. Heh. Get used to it.

Speaking of the mayor, he’s about as “chocolate” as a PayDay bar.

Memo to Department of Homeland Security. If you’re going to wear your official DHS shirts on the jet, don’t ride First Class, or vice versa. It tends to make you look like UN “assessment teams” waiting for the 5-star hotels to open up.

Hollywood's decline might be an urban myth. Let's prove it anyway

I'd like to believe there's a crisis in Hollywood, just because. Roger Ebert says the crisis is an urban myth.

"...that has been tiresomely created by news media recycling one another. By mid-December, according to the Hollywood Reporter, receipts were down between 4 percent and 5 percent from 2004, a record year when the totals were boosted by Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," which grossed $370 million. Many of those tickets were sold to people who rarely go to the movies. 2005 will eventually be the second or third best year in box-office history. Industry analyst David Poland at moviecitynews.com has been consistently right about this non-story."

Hard to argue with his appraisal. If however, there is a crisis, it seems like some of it may be related to the relative freedom of its star actors and directors.

As a father of teenage girls, I'm at least vaguely aware of what's likely to put them in a theater seat. Let's start with Orlando Bloom who caused girlish giggles around the world in his turn as Legolas in the Lord of The Rings trilogy. He came off of those films ready to be a star and was even banking on his sword and sandal resume by starring in "Troy" with Brad Pitt. So what's the best way to market two of the prettiest male stars in the world to the "all-important" teenage demographic? Of course. Put them in an R-rated movie that suburban parents will not willingly allow their 14-year old daughters to see. The old studio system would have never allowed this bone-headed move.

Next let's put Orlando as the lead in ANOTHER R-rated (and dull, although I thought Bloom was very good) sword and sandal epic "Kingdom of Heaven". Finally, now that he's 29 and almost past his expiration date as a teen star, we'll pair him with Kirsten Dunst in the teen-friendly romance he should have made two years ago. His only career moves now are to take over Hugh Grant's honorary simpering light comedy roles or grow some wrinkles fast and start taking "heavy" roles.

How about Jake Gyllenhaal. He was well-known for almost being Spider-Man and for the cult favorite "Donnie Darko" and even got good reviews in the god-awful "Day After Tomorrow". What's next? Of course, gay sheep herder. Would a studio boss allow this?

Mickey Kaus (spoiler alert) says Gyllenhaal is the problem with the movie.

That big Oscar nomination would be for Brokeback Mountain--which would be perverse because Gyllenhaal's the fatal problem with the movie. He doesn't seem to have any particular appealing quality that would cause Heath Ledger to carry a torch for him for decades. Gyllenhaal's early-on attempts to charmingly romp in the wilderness fall flat--it wasn't just Meghan Daum's date who was checking his watch in the first half of the film--and in the second half of the film he starts to whine. Big love for Gyllenhaal is supposed to be the motor that drives the movie, but the motor doesn't turn. The film only comes alive when Gyllenaal is dead, and we're left with Heath Ledger in his trailer. ...

Maybe. Could be that the best possible movie about sheepherders (The Sundowners) has already been made. Could be that a pretty good chick flick about granite-jawed silent types touched by tragedy (The Horse Whisperer) has already been made.

The Passion of Sam Alito

Does it seem like the Senate in general and Dems in particular are incapable of learning anything about their public image?

If you’ve seen Dreyer’s great silent film "The Passion of Joan of Arc" then you might remember some of the opening scenes where Joan’s accusers are filmed - without make-up – bulbous-nosed, hunch-backed, flabby-joweled, and leering at the girl, who looks up at them with angelic peace on her face.










As far back as Ollie North’s appearance at the Iran-Contra hearings we were presented with camera angles that accentuated the hunch-back, flabby-joweled, bulbous-nosed, hairline-enhanced Senators scowling disapprovingly over their schoolmarm reading glasses while they read their carefully scripted questions at someone who appeared, for most viewers, to be a paragon of American manhood. They sat on a high podium which allowed North to be filmed looking up like David at so many decrepit Goliaths, and showing himself to be in fine physical condition, in a neatly pressed uniform with lots of fruit salad, taking his oath. Below is Arthur Liman, chief counsel of the Senate select committee. A nice post on him here.

Jumping ahead 19 years we have John Roberts, open-faced and bright-eyed, a man of some privilege yes, but looking fit, rested, non-alcoholic, and "together". Again he’s looking up at his corrupt inquisitors, small-time Jabba the Huts.

Finally, there’s Samuel Alito. Working class background, nice wife, schlubby haircut but not hairline-enhanced, and not totally weird like Bork’s. Again, he sits like Joan looking up at corrupt inquisitors including Teddy (the Tick) Kennedy.

Democrats continue to portray themselves as the party that beats up on America's best. Time for a new studio setting.

Hitchens describes "the torpid majesty of a Senate proceeding" here where it backfired on Republicans.