Robert Loggia Minutemaid Commercial

Sometimes the absurd is delicious.

Sex Education

Read this, it's hilarious.

Which Is It Ann?

Ann Rice says she pro life and pro Hillary. If I had paid attention in logic class I would probably know the Latin name for self negating statements.

Separated at Birth: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Andrew Keen

Various Sports and Their Stories

• Phil Rizzuto died, may he rest in peace. He was a great ball player, a good announcer and a good and decent man. It's guys like him who make it difficult to truly hate the Yankees.
• Jose Offerman goes berserk and went all whack-a-mole on a pitcher and catcher with his baseball bat after getting drilled in minor league baseball. What a Huckleberry!
• One of the Rutgers Women's Basketball Team members is suing Don Imus for referring to the team as "nappy headed hos". At the risk of defending the uber-asshole Don Imus, I would suggest to this over sensitive Amazon that she stop being such a whiny wench. People are going to say mean things to you, get over it. You're six foot four, 200 pounds if you're an ounce and yet you plan on going into court and crying about how that old mean man said mean things about you and a dozen other woman, I'm ashamed of you.
• The Yankees and The Red Sox are going to go at it hammer and tongs for the remainder of the season. As much as I would like to see the Yankees season end in ignominy, disgrace and despair, I must admit, it's fun to care about every single game, even against teams like Tampa Bay.

The Beautiful Country

What a truly great film this is. The other half picked up a bunch of DVDs the other day - 10 for $20 - and this was in the pile. I'd never heard of it but that's not surprising. I miss a lot of stuff when it first comes out.

"Bui doi" is the racist insult Binh must endure. It means "less than dust" and is given to Vietnamese children of American fathers. Binh's story is an immigrant's story but it's also a kind of homecoming. Which is to say he belongs here (in the U.S.) in part because he's so marginalized in the country of his birth. There's a scene where Captain Oh (played by Tim Roth), the captain of a slave ship that's taking Binh to America, turns to Binh and says:

I've been thinking about you.
You've never really had any fun, have you?

Binh: Never had a good time.

Captain Oh: You should go somewhere new.
Go somewhere clean. Get a new start.
You should go to...

Binh: I go to America.

Captain Oh: I offer you a new life, you choose an old dream.

I love that.

The Beautiful Country isn't perfect. At times it almost feels like an allegory (not that there's anything wrong with that) but it's grittiness gives a realism that saves Binh and his story from being merely symbolic.

Make a point of seeing this movie. It'll be 2 hours well spent.

Illusory Post 9/11 Unity

Read Mark Steyn, he's always good, but I really agreed with this part:

For a start, the author overstates the immediate unity post-9/11. Even then, there was a big difference between the "righteous rage" crowd and those who wanted to wallow in bathetic weepy let's-hold-hands-and-drone-"Imagine" candlelight vigils and retreat into antiquated tropes about "root causes" like global poverty notwithstanding the middle-class backgrounds of Mohammed Atta and co). The second time round, there won't even be a momentary veneer of unity. The angry left will be demanding by lunchtime "What did Bush know and when did he know it?" and citing eminent scientists such as Professor Rosie O'Donnell to demonstrate that it couldn't possibly have been anything but an inside job. The less angry left will demand not a punitive military response but a 12-month blue-ribbon commission co-chaired by Lee Hamilton to call witnesses and investigate where the administration went wrong. Less motivated types will be convinced - like British public opinion after the Glasgow attack and the sailor kidnappings - that it's blowback for Iraq. And a big chunk of the rest may even plump for the Spanish option post-Madrid: Oh, dear, we seem to have caught your eye. What would it take for that not to happen again?

Actually, that's pretty much the whole thing, still I agree with every word of it. I remember that shortly after 9/11 we were all supposed to stop what we were doing at the appointed hour, light a candle and have a moment of quiet reflection, prayer etc.. I felt ridiculous. While Islamicists danced in the streets of Gaza, Riyadh, Islamabad and Newark, citizens of the most powerful nation the world has ever seen gazed, teary eyed, into their collective navel. We need less Phil Donahue and more William Tecumseh Sherman.

Holy Cow, I'm a Feminist!

You Are 81% Feminist

You are a total feminist. This doesn't mean you're a man hater (in fact, you may be a man). You just think that men and women should be treated equally. It's a simple idea but somehow complicated for the world to put into action.

Are You a Feminist?

Men have always found me unattractive, now I know why. (Just kidding ladies, really I am, just look at the score above.)

Glory

Some say an army of horsemen or footmen or rowers

Is the most beautiful thing over the coal-black earth,

But I say it is that thing, whatever it is,

That one loves and desires. Sappho (630-570 b.c.)

I watched Glory again yesterday and something struck me. It's hard to describe exactly, which is probably why it was shown rather than told, but how beautiful it was when the black soldiers assembled in formation and ran head long to certain death in battle. They were no longer slaves to any man or to anything, not even themselves. They had freely given up all that this world has to offer for something greater than themselves and in doing so became something entirely different from what they were before. It was this becoming that struck me as beautiful.

Woodchucks in The Garden

When I was in college, I lived at a bed & breakfast in Coventry which was beset by a plague of woodchucks. These furry, little marmots would devour an entire garden of zucchini, peas and tomatoes overnight. They would also put dozens of marmot holes all over the horse paddock, just large enough for horse to step into and break it's leg. It was a big problem.

The owners of the farm were concerned about the horses and angry at varmints eating their dinner, so they did something about it. They put out traps and more importantly they encouraged me to shoot the little bastards on sight, a job I pursued with great alacrity. Some would even say with far too much alacrity. After trapping and/or shooting a few dozen woodchucks, I began to notice a few things; fewer woodchucks, no new holes in the paddock and fresh vegetables from the garden.

In the Boston Review of Books Glenn C. Loury wonders why we have so many people in prison and so many new prisons even though crime has dropped precipitously since 1992. I'm no expert, certainly no Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences at Brown University or a 2002 Carnegie Scholar, but I think that if you kill or imprison enough malefactors, you have a decent chance of riding a horse with four sound legs and eating a salad with fresh vegetables.

51 Games Left

There are 51 games left in the regular season for both the Yankees and the Red Sox, Boston leads the Yankees by seven games. The Sox play the Yankees six times in the next 56 days, three at home, three away. The Red Sox have a slightly easier schedule with their opponents in the remaining 51 games having an average winning percentage of .483 while the Bomber's opponents average .512 and the Sox have 25 home games and finish off the season at home to the Yankees 23 home games and they finish off the season away.
Of course none of this means anything in real life because anything can still happen and often does. I think all things being equal, which they aren't Boston has the edge, the Yankees have an up hill climb to capture the AL East. Of course the Evil Empire is right in there for the wild card race, which may lead to a Boston - New York ALCS which is like the World Series only more important.

Wowie Kazowie!

Them Aussies must be tough as nails.

(link via Hugh Hewitt)

All Five Continents

One of the things I like best about blogging is that people from all over the world have access to what, if anything, I'm thinking. Most of the visitors to this site are from North America, followed by Europe, Oceania, Asia, South America, and rarely Africa. As you can see from the map, we have had visits from every continent, except Antarctica.

Peter Gabriel's San Jacinto

Is one hell of a song, perhaps his best.

Red Sox Lose 0-1

When you lose a ballgame 0-1 it's always tough, especially when the tying run was thrown out at the plate.

Ortiz hit a grounder that second baseman Josh Barfield ran down in short right-center. With no chance to get Ortiz, Barfield held the ball but alertly threw home then Crisp decided to break for the plate.
Martinez scooped Barfield's throw on the right side, and shifted his body across the plate, shielding Crisp from sliding under the tag to preserve Cleveland's precarious lead.
"Coco had a chance and in this type of game you take it," Francona said. "Victor did a great job of blocking the plate. If the throw's just a little off there, Coco scores." Yahoo Sports

Don't believe a word of it. Coco Crisp inexplicably slowed up half way between home and third and did not slide. Manny Ramirez who was on deck, was nowhere to be seen and wasn't there to tell Coco to slide. Why did Coco slow up, where the hell was Manny? They both screwed the pooch.

Predicts or Causes?

Those damned cats:

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours. His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live.

The WMTN Profile

Shamelessly lifted from the Normblog via Kim du Toit.
Why do you blog? Because after 9/11 I became a news junkie and there seems to be so much out there to comment on and I'm vain.
What has been your best blogging experience? Every now and then I'll write something that pleases me and someone will comment on how they liked it too. My puny ego needs that.
Who are your intellectual heroes? Recently I have become a Norman Borlaug aficionado. If I can do 1/100 of what this man accomplished, I'd be very content. Abraham Lincoln is brilliant, perhaps the most brilliant writer I have ever read.
What are you reading at the moment? I hate to admit this, but I am between books at the moment.
Who are your cultural heroes? Tough question. There are a lot of actors, directors and musicians I like, but few rise to the rank of hero. I think what James Brown did to quell any potential violence after MLK was murdered was heroic.
What is the best novel(s) you've ever read? Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary. I seem to have a penchant for unfaithful women.
What is your favourite poem? Probably, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at A Blackbird" by Wallace Stevens, because I feel it echos some of my West Hartford experiences
What is your favourite movie? Millers Crossing. It's a very handsome movie and just once I'd of liked to have uttered some dialogue as clever.
Who is your favourite composer? J. S. Bach. I know some may think he's too mathematical but the order appeals to me.
Can you name a major moral, political or intellectual issue on which you've ever changed your mind? I go back and forth all the time on capital punishment. On one hand I think that if you have complete control over someone it's immoral to kill them. On the other hand, how complete is that control when murderers are set free after 10, 15 years in prison only to murder again. If by our squeamishness or moral vanity we somehow suffer a convicted murderer to live and he kills again, the responsibility is ours, not theirs.
What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to disseminate? Equal treatment before the law is as good a place as any to start, after that it would be hard to screw things up completely.
What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to combat? Wahhabism will be the cause of the next major world war.
Can you name a work of non-fiction which has had a major and lasting influence on how you think about the world? I guess the pat answer would be the Bible, there you have it.
If you could choose anyone, from any walk of life, to be President, who would you choose? Unfortunately they would have to be a politician because a normal decent person would be devoured in Washington, at this point I would have to say Rudy Giuliani. He's may be a ruthless bastard, but he's our ruthless bastard.
What would you do with the UN? Board it up, preferably while occupied, set fire to it, sow the ashes with salt so nothing will grow there again as testament to the complete mockery of all things decent and truly progressive the UN has become.
Do you think the world (human civilization) has already passed its best point, or is that yet to come? Oddly enough I think the next 100-500 years will see an explosion in human civilization. We will have some tough times, but I think it is our destiny to colonize the stars.
What would be your most important piece of advice about life? It's not all about you.
Do you think you could ever be married to, or in a long-term relationship with, someone with radically different political views from your own? Probably not. My wife and I have similar views on most things, but not exactly the same. I couldn't be in relationship with someone who is rabidly anti-American or pro-abortion.
What do you consider the most important personal quality? Kindness/Honesty
What personal fault do you most dislike? Dishonesty.
Do you have any prejudices you're willing to acknowledge? I think most liberals have never thought out their positions because they have never been challenged on them. Which is why someone like Naomi Wolf, who is supposed to be bright, responds with "I can't believe you think that...." when you disagree with her. Notice, there's no argument there, just an expression of disbelief.
What is your favourite proverb? It's easier to wear slippers than to carpet the world. I like that one because it's kind of stupid and funny, yet some people need to hear it
If you were to relive your life to this point, is there anything you'd do differently? More education, less menial jobs.
Where would you most like to live (other than where you do)? Ireland, Montana, New Zealand, Argentina, anywhere there are lots and lots of big trout.
What would your ideal holiday be? A year long sailing, fishing adventure with my family. We'd stop in different countries hang out a bit, teach the kids something about where we were, do some fishing then head on out.
What talent would you most like to have? I'd love to be able to sing like Pavarotti, if I sounded like that you'd never shut me up.
What would be your ideal choice of alternative profession or job? Writer for David Letterman or Dennis Miller .
Who is your favourite comedian or humorist? Dennis Miller.
Who would play you in the movie about your life? Colm Feore.
Who are your sporting heroes? Lou Gehrig and Ted Williams. Sad to say, but modern sports stars are stars not heroes.
If you could have one (more or less realistic) wish come true, what would you wish for? A president, congress and senate committed to conservative principles.
How, if at all, would you change your life were you suddenly to win or inherit an enormously large sum of money? I would be difficult to find for a long while, that whole fishing and sailing thing. That and have all me enemies killed.

Christopher Hitchens: Islamicist Out To Murder Women

Only at the tail end of the coverage was it admitted that a car bomb might have been parked outside a club in Piccadilly because it was "ladies night" and that this explosion might have been designed to lure people into to the street, the better to be burned and shredded by the succeeding explosion from the second car-borne cargo of gasoline and nails. Since we have known since 2004 that a near-identical attack on a club called the Ministry of Sound was proposed in just these terms, on the grounds that dead "slags" or "sluts" would be regretted by nobody, a certain amount of trouble might have been saved by assuming the obvious. The murderers did not just want body parts in general but female body parts in particular.

As always you should read the whole thing if you haven't done so already.

Separated at Birth: Jon Podhoretz and Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force

Okay, so I added a mustache but still they're pretty close.

Separated at Birth: Al Terzi of WFSB and Kent Brockman of KBBL-TV

If you are unfamiliar with Al Terzi, believe me when I say the resemblance is uncanny.

I went to a basketball game at Georgetown with the UCONN Alumni Association and for some reason Al Terzi and his wife went too. He's a pretty normal guy, kinda quiet. The only thing very remarkable about him, that I noticed, is that his hair is always impeccable. Nice thing to have in his line of work.