Free Trade Stops Wars

A small bit of good news coming out of Kashmir.

UPDATE: Do I win an award for most ill-timed blog post?  What he said.

Web 2.0 in 4.5 Minutes

Hat tip: Russell Roberts

Rosie!

I’m with Mollie Hemingway on Rosie O’Donnell’s new variety show.

The thing that really annoys me about those fake news conference promos is the idea that we don’t remember who Rosie is.  Rosie, the problem isn’t that we don’t remember you — it’s that we do remember you, and we don’t like you.

Update: But I’d rather watch anything with Rosie than this garbage.

“Sex Should Not Be Advertised”

Dan Drezner refuses to live in a world in which Mr. & Mrs. Smith is deemed the third sexiest movie ever by Entertainment Weekly.  I refuse to live in a world in which people read Entertainment Weekly.

Meaning of post title (and a recreation of my favorite “sex” scene ever) here.

Why Is This So Hard?

Radley Balko, telling it like it is (or rather, how it should be):

Want an alternate scenario were Agent Hicks unquestionably comes out unharmed?  Here it is:  The cops never raid the Korbe home in the first place.  They approach Robert Korbe at work, or as he’s about to enter or exit his house.  They don’t put Korbe’s family, the raiding officers, and Korbe himself at risk with the violence of a paramilitary-style drug raid.  Christina Korbe isn’t put in the impossible position of having to determine in an instant if the armed men who’ve just broken into her home are cops or criminals.  Robert Korbe is arrested without incident, and becomes another drug war statistic.  Agent Hicks goes home to his wife and kids.  The Korbe kids don’t have to grow up without their mother, and the Hicks kids without their father.

Jim and Pam, Take 2

Regarding my silly letter (described by a friend as “the dorkiest thing i’ve seen ALL day”): why didn’t this make the cut for last week’s episode?

more about "Jim and Pam, Take 2", posted with vodpod

For Your Consideration

Despite the awful winners, stupid rules, and boring telecasts, I’m a sucker for the Oscars.  And so I always get excited this time of year when awards buzz picks up, even though I’m typically unable to see most of the movies nominated.

Most interesting to me: the “For Your Consideration” sites the studios put online to promote their films to Academy voters.  Typically, these sites at minimum list showtimes for special screenings so voters can get another chance to see the films on the big screen.

Of course, those screenings are only for the some 6000 Academy members who get to vote.  So what do these sites offer the rest of us?

Besides the immense pleasure we get from learning that Disney is actively campaigning to get High School Musical 3 a Best Picture nomination (check for yourself if you don’t believe me), we get access to free, legit PDFs of many great screenplays.  Many of the sites also sample potential contenders for Best Original Score.

Since there doesn’t appear to be a single list for available scripts, I thought I’d compile what I found here (Note: this list may be incomplete, and I may update it as more screenplays become available).  Broken down by studio:

Walt Disney Studios is campaigning on behalf of Bolt, Miracle at St. Anna, Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Wall-E, and the aforementioned HSM:3.  The only available screenplay is Wall-E, which has a pretty good shot at getting a nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

Miramax Films highlights Doubt and Happy-Go-Lucky, but neither have scripts uploaded.

Universal Pictures has scripts up for Changeling (original) and Frost/Nixon (adapted).  The studo is also promoting Mamma Mia! and The Tale of Despereaux.

Focus Features is pushing Burn After Reading (an original script by Oscar faves the Coen brothers) and Milk (original).

Warner Bros., no surprise here, is working hard to make sure The Dark Knight gets the recognition it deserves.  The only other film WB is promoting is Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino, but the script is not yet available online.

Paramount Pictures (with Dreamworks and Dreamworks Animation) has a fairly bare site, with just screening information for Indiana Jones IV, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar 2, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Tropic Thunder.  No scripts are currently available, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they eventually put up Benjamin Button.  If it isn’t available here, Warner Bros. (which is handling international distribution) is promising to upload it onto its BAFTA site.

Paramount Vantage has scripts up for The Duchess and Defiance (both adapted).  The adapted screenplay for Revolutionary Road will likely appear eventually as well.

——-

UPDATE 11/25/08

Don’t Knock It Until You’ve Tried It

Fascinating:

I went forty-six years before my first cigarette — oh, maybe I pretended here and there, but I never took a real drag. Then I made myself a smoker in thirty days.

This story isn’t about quitting smoking. It’s about starting. And starting, for me, included thirty-four different brands of cigarette, eleven lighters, spiritual revelations and moments of clarity, gatherings at alley mouths, unions with strangers on the streets of various cities, huddlings on a ragged porch watching the hand-cupped flare of a match in a snowstorm, a perpetual sore throat, a nagging cough, several puking sessions, a six-day headache, an increased appetite, a bout of vertigo, and a wicked case of what I can only call moral confusion. It also meant joining a kind of club, getting bitch-slapped by hegemony, trying to fit in, and not wanting to fit in.

Hat tip: Rod Dreher

Far Left?

Two good points by Ta-Nehisi Coates (emphasis mine)

OK, I went and read it after I decided to post. Am I the only not surprised that, in the midst of economic calamity and two wars, Obama’s going with some experienced hands? I feel like I keep reading this  “Newsflash: Barack Obama isn’t a leftie” story since the primaries. I never thought he was really to the left of Hillary Clinton. He just happened to be anti-war. That isn’t the same thing.

And:

How are the things after the “but” in opposition to what precedes it? Buchanan opposed the Iraq War. Hitchens supported it, but thinks Hillary would be awful. The thing that’s bugging me is Obama’s early nominations had swung hard left, whatever that would be, there’d be a ton of stories with headlines like “Obama abandons bipartisanship” and ledes like “He ran on change and bipartisanship, but President-Elect Obama has veered sharply to the left…”

Big Business v. Markets

A liberal understands capitalism better than the supposed capitalists.  Money quote:

The thing about this is that if this were generally true — if the CEOs of the Fortune 500 were brilliant economic seers — then it would really make a lot of sense to implement socialism. Real socialism. Not progressive taxation to finance a mildly redistributive welfare state. But “let’s let Vikram Pandit and Jeff Immelt centrally plan the economy — after all, they’re really brilliant!”

Armisen’s Obama

Jocelyn Guest, on SNL’s Obama:

While Armisen handily pulled off the arduous task of poking fun at a man we’d follow off a cliff, many critics agreed that his interpretation left a little something to be desired. Fred neither looks nor sounds quite like Barry.

The New Yorker’s Kelefa Sanneh put it this way: “[Armisen] speeds up at the end of a phrase to make everything he says seem declarative, and the way he frowns as a sign that he’s listening intently—but not much more; his Obama has no backstory.” Because the rest of the political impressions on the show have been so spot on this season—Tina Fey’s Palin, Jason Sudeikis’ crazy-eyed Joe Biden—an imperfect Obama stands out. With four-years of Barack-baiting to go, it might be time for Michaels to let go of Armisen and pick a replacement. So now big question looms: Who, If anyone, shouuld Michaels hire to match the hype surrounding Obama himself?

Darrell Hammond’s Bill Clinton aside, most SNL presidential impressions have never been particularly accurate.  We still remember Dana Carvey’s George H.W. Bush not because he actually sounded or looked like the man but because he spoke to our idea of him.

As for the two impressions from this season Sanneh praises, Fey’s Palin works so well not just because Fey looks and sounds a lot like Palin (and she does, of course), but because Palin is an easy target.  The jokes practically write themselves.  Likewise with Joe Biden.  Sudeikis’ impression isn’t nearly as precise (in appearance, voice, mannerisms) as Armisen’s Obama.  But it’s funny because Biden is funny.  Obama isn’t.

The bigger problem is that since Fey left to go do 30 Rock, SNL’s writing has suffered tremendously.  Despite the immensely talented cast, SNL typically only has two or three genuinely funny sketches.

Cabinet Talk

Guest blogging Marc Ambinder’s place, Mike Memoli has a good summary of the political/electoral ramifications of potential Cabinet picks.  But:

Rhode Island and Maine: Jack Reed for Defense would give Republican Gov. Don Carcieri a chance to flip a Senate seat in Rhode Island by appointing a Republican. Gov. John Baldacci could even things out by appointing a fellow Democrat in Maine to replace Sens. Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins, should either be picked.

None of this is going to happen.  Everyone seems to agree Gates will remain at Defense, at least initially.  Why sacrifice the filibuster-proof Senate?  On that, the latest from Minnesota: Franken says it’s down to double digits.

Isn’t Corruption Fun?

The New Republic’s John Judis on Obama’s selection of Bill Richardson as Secretary of Commerce:

I was never crazy about Richardson as Secretary of State for reasons I no longer need to enumerate, but I think he’s a perfect choice for Secretary of Commerce. He is an experienced governor; he has run a cabinet department; and he is, above all, an effective pol in a job that is highly political. The Secretary of Commerce is as close as you get to what the Postmaster General used to be. I know one shouldn’t say this aloud, but he is the cabinet officer in the best position to reward supporters and significant constituencies with money and contracts. And he represents a very important Democratic constituency.

Emphasis mine.  You’re right — you shouldn’t say that aloud.  For that matter, you shouldn’t even be thinking it.

Obama, Use the Pardon

Clemency expert Margaret Colgate Love:

Well, I think it would be preferable, in my view, if the president used the power more regularly to benefit ordinary people and he used it to help the public understand how the justice system works. . . And so I think it’s kind of distracting when you get a lot of celebrities who are applying who would not ordinarily be eligible under the Department of Justice’s own regulations. . . .

Cool Treehouses

Via Splice Today, eight awesome treehouses.  One, in particular:

The form and appearance of the treehouse are based on the aesthetics of a traditional Japanese lantern and the idea is that the house itself blends in with area around it and seems as though it is a beacon floating in mid-air.

It’s absolutely stunning.  All eight.

For more architecture, my friend Will has an interesting piece at Culture11 on the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired architecture of his neighborhood.

Free Dr. Pepper

Sunday, 12:01am.  24 hours only.  More here.

Hat tip: Peter Suderman

007 and Tradition

As is my tradition, I went to see the new Bond film on opening night.  There’s always something exhilarating about seeing a new movie with a packed house, but I’ve always found it to be especially so with Bond films.

And the reason is that the audience is different.  Sure, you get your typical date night couples, the people who go every Friday night to see the latest, well, anything.  But with a Bond film, as with any genre film, you get your rabid fans as well.  And the 007 fan base is particularly remarkable in its ability to transcend generational lines.

I have seen the last four Bond films on opening night.  And though it is a fairly young tradition for me, compared to the well-dressed elderly couple I saw on Friday night who have probably been doing this for the last four decades, I feel very much a part of something special.

Complicating matters is the way the Daniel Craig reboot has toyed with tradition.  Craig’s Bond is emotional and impulsive.  He’s far more comfortable using deadly force.  Moneypenny and Q are nowhere to be found.  And as Roger Ebert complains, 007 drinks beer.

A Open Letter to Jim Halpert and Pam Beesly

Jim and Pam,

You don’t know me, but over the past few years, I feel that I have gotten to know you both very well, thanks to the documentary crew that films you and your Dunder-Mifflin associates.

I felt like I was there on Casino Night when Jim confessed his love, and the two of you shared that first kiss.  I felt like I was there when Jim returned to Scranton with a new girlfriend.  I felt like I was there on Beach Day when Pam finally summoned the courage to be honest with Jim.

I felt like I was there when Jim asked Pam if she would be free for dinner; when the two of you held hands during Michael Scott’s Dunder Mifflin, Scranton, Meredith Palmer memorial, celebrity rabies awareness, fun run Pro-Am race for the cure; and when Jim proposed.

And through it all, I have been rooting for the two of you to make it as a couple.

I still want you to make it as a couple, and that is why I am writing you.  While I do not doubt your love for one another, I am worried about the health of your relationship.

First is the Worst

Nate Silver breaks down the varying degrees of success of popular political sites (including his own, the excellent FiveThirtyEight.com) at retaining readership since the election.  Unsurprisingly, The Atlantic is still kicking ass.

As this is my first post (in my latest attempt at blogging after many previous misadventures, anyway), I have no readership to retain.  And so I can only go up from here.  So here we go.

Will the second post be the best?  Will the third feature a nerd with a hairy chest?  Wait and see.  (But if this blog is to be successful, hopefully the answer to both of those questions will be “No.”)