Solipsistic

From Hardball:

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.

Another day of testimony in the Scooter Libby trial. Former “New York Times” reporter Judith Miller took the stand today, the first time she testified publicly against Libby, who was the source she chose to protect, leading her to spend several weeks—many weeks in jail.

HARDBALL‘s David Shuster is standing by at the courthouse.

David, I was shook today to hear that Scooter Libby told Judy Miller, told Judy Miller, that it was the vice president‘s inquiry about a uranium deal in Africa that led to Joe Wilson‘s trip. This is the first time we‘ve heard out of the vice president‘s office, even secondhand, ad admission, a confession that that trip was because of a question raised by the veep, not because Mrs. Wilson, Valerie Plame, thought her husband needed a junket.

DAVID SHUSTER, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT: Right, I mean, it was the missing piece of the puzzle that the vice president‘s office has been loathe to acknowledge these last three years and that certainly Scooter Libby has not want to come out of this trial. But it did happen when Judy Miller was testifying about a conversation with Scooter Libby in June of 2003. And she testified that Scooter Libby brought up Joe and Valerie Wilson.

And it was during this testimony, when Judy Miller said that she was told by Libby about the genesis of Joe Wilson‘s trip, and that it was the vice president who had asked the CIA about an intense report that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger in 2002, and that, according to Miller, Libby told her that the CIA then followed it up with Joe Wilson, but that Libby was also adamant, according to Miller, in saying the vice president‘s office didn‘t know anything about this trip, the vice president‘s office didn‘t get a report from the CIA, it was the fault of the CIA.

And, Chris, what was so remarkable is the glimpse that Judy Miller‘s testimony offered us again, about the extent that—extent to which the vice president‘s office wanted to blame everybody else for the faulty intelligence. They were blaming the CIA for not getting back to the vice president‘s office. They were blaming the State Department and the Energy Department for having a footnote in a report that expressed the dissension about what aluminum tubes were for. And according to Miller, Libby said, “It‘s not our fault that we didn‘t see this in this report.”

It was always somebody else‘s fault. And it goes to the idea, Chris, that even after the war had begun, the vice president‘s office was adamant about suggesting that everybody else was unanimous in agreeing that Iraq was trying to expand a nuclear program.

Serious setback to a run at the White House in '08.

The Daily Show has its take on the Obama smear. Stick around until the last minute of video for some fantastic business reporting and to learn the identity of the special guest who recently subbed for Sean Hannity.

Hint: This special guest isn't afraid of the dark. The dark's afraid of him.

While in Borders yesterday, I scanned a copy of Newsmax magazine, the print edition of the Conservative website. I picked up the magazine by accident, mistaking it for U.S. News and World Report. Newsmax uses the same color scheme on their cover as well as a very similar typeface. I can only assume these design choices were made largely to mislead, either to fool conusmers or to subconsciously convince readers of the magazine's reputability due to its similarity to U.S. News.

When I first opened the magazine, my first thought was when did U.S. News dumb down so significantly. The typeface was huge--larger than Boy's Life--a sure sign that the magazine is catering to beginning readers or those with short attention spans. The layout was garish. It looked like the kind of publications I used to make on the Commodore 64 program Newsroom. I've seen more impressive xeroxed 'zines.

The whole magazine felt like an extended blog: opinion heavy and fact-lite. Having "news" in its title is a criminal misnomer. Please don't read Newsmax.

And more about the notorious publication that created the story. An interesting, short read.

Ran across this program on CSPAN this weekend. A panel of women opinion-makers, sponsored by the National Review Institute, was speaking about the state of conservatism and how it could be improved. I've got a suggestion: how about promoting some better opinion-makers then Michelle Malkin and Laura Ingraham. (Ingraham's radio show is nearly unlistenable. Liberal counterpart: Randi Rhodes, although she strikes me as more sincere.) These speakers, who exude superiority and insincerity, are doing nothing to advance discourse and more often serve as water carriers than opinion leaders. (And yes, I know there are many liberal voices of notoriety doing the same.)

Teddy Roosevelt tells it like it is:

[The President] should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole.

Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

A little antidote to the anglo cure for the inner city blues offered up by paternalistic pablum like Freedom Writers.

Mike Judge's follow-up to the cult hit Office Space was held onto by 20th Century Fox for well over a year before it was finally dumped into a few theaters in the late summer. Fans of Office Space cried foul and lambasted the studio, but after seeing the movie, I can sympathize with the studio. Idiocracy is intermittently funny and hilarious at points, but it is a drab (purposefully so), bizarre film that will likely even leave many fans of Judge's work dissatisfied.

Idiocracy is the story of a shiftless Army private (Luke Wilson) and prostitute (Maya Rudolph) who get drafted into a top secret military hibernation project. They'll be put to sleep and reawakened in one year, perfectly preserved. But, of course, this plan goes awry and they don't awake until the year 2505. The future is ugly, coarse, and incredibly stupid.

The movie, like many dystopian stories, is not so much about the future as it is about poking fun at the present. Think Futurama meets Transmetropolitan. The film is primarily a reflection on our tendency to celebrate the inept and lowbrow. Do you spend most of your evenings watching Flavor of Love reruns and eating biggie size fries? These actions will have dire consequences for future generations.

Idiocracy is under an hour and a half and mercifully so. The future is so unappealing and the people so stupid that we are happy to be out of their company sooner than later. The movie also lacks much in the way of narrative drive. It has many funny ideas that never coalesce into a sustainable narrative.

Yet, the movie has enough very funny moments, is short enough, and features some good performances from the leads. Luke Wilson carries the movie with his easygoing charm and Maya Rudolph (SNL) gets solid laughs without trying too hard. It's definitely worth a look on video. Because hardly anyone has seen the film, expect high praise in some corners. It's obscurity and treatment by the studio will lead to overvaluing by many film geeks.

Maybe this is apocryphal, but it sounds consistent with Bush's many statements on Iraq, his myopic view of the situation, and his sense of destiny and calling.

Let's see if anything comes of this.

Via Crooks and Liars.

Hugh Hewitt creates a loyalty oath and the White House discourages dissent. We are being told debate over the war--a basic and necessary exercise of a citizen's responsibility in a democracy--is the greatest threat to our security.

Shorter and more accurate State of the Union address.

...he's just too self-satisfied. I agree with much of what he says, but he rarely brings antyhing new to the table. Like The Nation, you can be pretty sure exactly what he's going to say way ahead of time. Most of Olbermann's points are just a recycling of the left-leaning blogosphere's talking points for the day. (A charge that, at times, could just as easily be leveled against this blog.) Also, he's not clever or funny enough to pull off the above-it-all air he regularly adopts.

Anyone else find his show kind of superfluous?

Scooter Libby's claim White House was out to get him may fall apart under closer scrutiny.

I have always been fascinated with Scientology, particularly how odd it is. I am amazed how many notables have become engrossed in this faith whose core beliefs seem heavily influenced by Flash Gordon.

Here's some out there entries from Wikipedia that describe the super villain of Scientology: evil space dictator Xenu of the Galactic Confederacy. No, I am not making this up.

I wonder if Scientologist tourists refuse to visit establishments that fly the flag of the (Galactic) Confederacy?

Mere posturing from the Republican presidential nomination in 2008? Who knows, but Hagel has been taking it to the President lately, and I hope he continues. I also hope his anger leads to definitive action.

Via Atrios.

Took a day off with the wife to celebrate her birthday. She's 29 for the second year in a row.

Love you, sweetheart.

Just reading the full text of the President's speech. These speeches are almost always tremendously boring no matter who is the President. They are rote and prefunctory. It's about as much fun as listening to Jack Valenti's speech at the Academy Awards, but much longer.

Of note, Bush's new health care plan--no opinion on this one--and several mentions of Iran in the speech.

If you're interested, the left-leaning site Think Progress has an extensive rebuttal of the President's speech at their site. I'm not vouching for the quality of the material, but it will give you a heads up on many of the criticisms soon to be leveled at the President.

Talking Points Memo has the story.

An alarming piece in the New York Times about China making adoption more difficult:

ACCORDING to a State Department report released this week, American citizens adopted 6,493 children from China in 2006, a decline of 18 percent from the previous year’s total of 7,906. And yet, just over a month ago, this newspaper reported that China had prepared strict new criteria for foreign adoption applications because the country claimed it lacked “available” babies to meet the “spike” in demand.

China has always limited foreign adoptions, and it does not publish reliable statistics on the number of children in its orphanages. So how is one to know whether the decrease in adoptions reflects a lack of supply or a lack of demand?

In the week following the report on the new guidelines, more than one bewildered person said to me, “But I thought there were lots of babies in orphanages in China!” My response was to helplessly reply, “So did I.” My understanding of this was based not on conjecture, but on having been to China twice to adopt, having seen orphanages with my own eyes, and on research and other eyewitness accounts. Many hundreds and perhaps thousands of orphanages operate in China, most of them full of girls.

According to a February 2005 report in The Weekend Standard, a Chinese business newspaper, demographers in China found a ratio of 117 boys per 100 girls under the age of 5 in the 2000 census. Thanks to China’s one-child policy, put into effect in 1979 in order to curb population growth, and a strong cultural preference for male children, this gender gap could result in as many as 60 million “missing” girls from the population by the end of the decade, enough to alarm even Chinese officials.

And what happened to these girls? According to the International Planned Parenthood Federation (a term that takes on a whole new meaning when referring to China), there are about seven million abortions in China per year, 70 percent of which are estimated to be of females. That adds up to around five million per year, or 50 million by the end of the decade; so where are the other 10 million girls? If even 10 percent end up in orphanages... well, you do the math...

To read the whole thing, you have to complete a free and easy registration process.

From
The New York Times:

The chief defense lawyer for I. Lewis Libby Jr. told a jury today that his client was innocent of perjury and obstruction of justice charges and that White House officials had sought to make him a scapegoat in the investigation of the leak of a C.I.A. operative’s name to protect Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff.

In his opening statement, Theodore V. Wells Jr., said that the unnamed White House officials wanted to protect Mr. Rove because they believed his survival as President Bush’s political adviser was crucial to saving the Republican Party.

“Scooter Libby was to be sacrificed,” Mr. Wells told the jury on the trial’s first day, using the nickname of Mr. Libby, who was Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff. It was important to keep Mr. Rove out of trouble because, Mr. Wells said, he was the “lifeblood” of the president’s political operation and “was most responsible for seeing the Republican Party stayed in office. He had to be protected.”

Academy Award nominations were announced this morning.

It's a largely deserving crowd. (Film fans can't ever expect the Academy to consistently select the year's best, but they did a pretty good job this year.)

The best picture group has one of the weakest entries in Little Miss Sunshine. I did like the movie, but I can think of at least ten movies I've seen in recent weeks that were far superior. Also in the category, The Departed was a flashy letdown, but it has enough of the Scorsese oomph to make it a worth a look. (Mark Wahlberg, who supplied the film's best moments, did get a Best Supporting Actor nomination. Other notable highlight: Alec Baldwin, well known liberal, playing an FBI man who sincerely and enthusiastically states, "I love the PATRIOT Act!") The Queen, nominated for Best Picture as well, captures a fascinating moment in the history of the royals and is remarkably breezy given its pedigree. The film is pure Oscar-bait making its nomination pre-ordained.

I have not yet seen best picture nominee Letters from Iwo Jima, but I loved Flags of our Fathers, which is considered the lesser of the Eastwood Iwo Jima diptych.

The Academy Awards often get it wrong, but it is the only high profile film competition around meaning I inevitably get sucked in. I can't help it.

Much paper work to complete as I prepare to graduate and look for work. Enjoy the wealth of erudite posts below.

Obama's Islamic education? Not so much.

See an earlier post I ran about Fox News going overboard with this unsubstantiated story.

Bush's approval rating at 28% according to a new CBS News poll.

Senator John Warner (R-VA) has announced his intention to support an anti-surge ammendment. Glenn Greenwald reminds us of this classic moment of Iraq war justification shared by Warner on Larry King Live:

Because Saddam Hussein from the very beginning after 1991, decided that he's going have to endure some type of inspection regime as he continues to build weapons and he's become very skillful to keep these manufacturing base of weapons of mass destructions active, mobile and beyond the ability of any inspections to really catch it. And this is proof of it. We've given them all the information, they can't find it.

The fact that we did not find WMD proved that Saddam had them and was very skilled at hiding them.

Keep these kind of logical leaps in mind as the war drums begin to beat for an attack against the people of Iran.

Bill Kristol on war critics.

And a big thank you to Juan Williams for deflating Kristol's quintessentially anti-American talking points.

And "six to nine months"? How much longer do we have to be told just give us "six more months"? We have been living in a state of "the next six months will determine everything" for over three years.

Atrios shares the script:

Regarding Iran, we have of course been here before. People start running around talking about how "serious people" all understand the "dire" threat posed by some country or other, headed up by the latest incarnation of Hitler. What should be done isn't quite clear, but serious people understand that something has to be done. Pretty soon all "serious people" understand that we must have the "courage" to "face the threat" with the appropriate degree of seriousness, and all proposals of "what we must do" which don't involve the blowing up of nontrivial numbers of people are quickly relegated to the "unserious" camp.

Two of the year's best trailers also work as fascinating short films.

This trailer for Little Children is one of the best I have ever seen.

I saw the trailer for Tears of the Black Tiger last night and was completely bowled over. It's for a garish Thai western that looks otherworldly and fantastic. It is extremely violent, however, so you may wish to avoid it. After you click on this link, click on "Trailer." It will open a new blank window. Just give it awhile--do something else while it is downloading--and it will open in few minutes.

A question folks will ask when they leave this film will be "what really happened?" Below I offer my SPOILER heavy take. Take a look when you finish seeing the film and please add your own two cents in the comment section.

SPOILERS BELOW

If the film told us definitively that Ofelia's journey was a delusion or reality, "Labyrinth" would be a lesser film. The film is challenging because it asks you to decide and doesn't answer the question. I would argue there is no answer.

To believe the fantastic is necessarily to depart reality. A more clinical diagnosis would be that seeing fairies necessarily means you're delusional. The captain cannot part from reality--he is cruel, exacting, meticulous. He can't see the fantastic because it lies beyond his comprehension. He knows what is so. How significant that he is the one who encounters the faun and does not see him.

Ofelia, being young and willing to believe, has not been convinced that fairies are not real. If you believe a monster is under your bed, it is there. You are not eaten by it because you are able to avoid it.

del Toro has created a film that shows us that fantasy and reality can coexist. Is the fantasy real in the film? But that is the wrong question. Fantasy is never real.

Can we believe everything we see on the screen that exists beyond the normal? If we want to, we can. Is this a tragedy or the story of a homecoming? That's up to you.

Found this photo on a site that has indexed hundreds of thousands of free stock photos. Pretty fun to browse through. Kos has a compendium of all kinds of copyright free images.

Critical reaction to this inter-channel stunt was ho-hum.

However, a jaw dropping moment did occur when Colbert said he had to leave The Daily Show because he was being sexually harassed by Jon Stewart. For those with short memories, the reason the statement was so audacious.

Apparently, the "findings" of the very controversial and critically eviscerated The Bell Curve are still finding their way into conventional discourse. (The book claimed to show a strong correlation between race and IQ.) Ezra Klein offers a roundup of some critiques of the work.

I found this one particularly interesting. It's an excerpt from a longer piece in the conservative magazine The American Spectator. If economist Thomas Sowell--author of the piece--is right, the authors made a fundamental mistake--the kind that you're warned against in Stats 101:

Perhaps the most intellectually troubling aspect of The Bell Curve is the authors' uncritical approach to statistical correlations. One of the first things taught in introductory statistics is that correlation is not causation. It is also one of the first things forgotten, and one of the most widely ignored facts in public policy research. The statistical term "multicollinearity," dealing with spurious correlations, appears only once in this massive book.

Multicollinearity refers to the fact that many variables are highly correlated with one another, so that it is very easy to believe that a certain result comes from variable A, when in fact it is due to variable Z, with which A happens to be correlated. In real life, innumerable factors go together. An example I liked to use in class when teaching economics involved a study showing that economists with only a bachelor's degree had higher incomes than economists with a master's degree and that these in turn had higher incomes than economists with Ph.D.'s. The implication that more education in economics leads to lower incomes would lead me to speculate as to how much money it was costing a student just to be enrolled in my course. In this case, when other variables were taken into account, these spurious correlations disappeared. In many other cases, however, variables such as cultural influences cannot even be quantified, much less have their effects tested statistically....

Once in a Sunday school class, I was presented with a chart that showed a correlation between the removal of prayer from schools--pinpointed to the Supreme Court's Engel decision in 1962--and the rise in teen sexual activity and school violence. Of course, you can only rarely isolate one variable--particularly outside of a tightly controlled environment--and say its fluctuation is directly responsible for the rise or fall in another variable. Correlation is not causation. Microwave oven ownership has also increased since 1962, so the case can just as easily be made that microwaves in the home lead to a greater likelihood of teen pregnancy.

From the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

Rich Little won't be mentioning Iraq or ratings when he addresses the White House Correspondents' Dinner April 21.

Little said organizers of the event made it clear they don't want a repeat of last year's controversial appearance by Stephen Colbert, whose searing satire of President Bush and the White House press corps fell flat and apparently touched too many nerves.

"They got a lot of letters," Little said Tuesday. "I won't even mention the word 'Iraq.'"

Little, who hasn't been to the White House since he was a favorite of the Reagan administration, said he'll stick with his usual schtick -- the impersonations of the past six presidents.

"They don't want anyone knocking the president. He's really over the coals right now, and he's worried about his legacy," added Little, a longtime Las Vegas resident.

No. An actual broadcast from the morning Zoo Crew over at Fox News. (Scroll down the page just a bit to see the video.)

Be sure to watch to the end of the approximately two minute clip to hear the kicker. Maybe its time to send Bernard Goldberg over to Roger Ailes's house to write another searing expose.

Via Atrios.

From Daily Kos:

Specter: Now wait a minute, wait a minute. The Constitution says you can't take it away except in the case of invasion or rebellion. Doesn't that mean you have the right of habeas corpus?

Gonzales: I meant by that comment that the Constitution doesn't say that every individual in the United States or every citizen has or is assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn't say that. It simply says that the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended.

The relevant excerpt from the Constitution (Article 1, Section 9):

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

Because the Constitution doesn't explicitly say the "the privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus exists for all citizens; no, we really mean it," Gonzales is choosing to interpret that it is up to the Executive to determine at all times who receives habeas corpus. Isn't it understood that the rights laid out on in the Constitution are for all citizens and supersede the Executive? The Constitution does make exception in cases of rebellion or invasion, but Gonzales did not say this. He stated, "...the Constitution doesn't say that every individual in the United States or every citizen has or is assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn't say that. It simply says that the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended."

Be afraid.

Not up to writing a full review now, but if you get a chance you should check out this fascinating comic drama that captures perfectly how we now live--at least young marrieds in the suburbs. This film manages to be both damming and compassionate. You may find the ending to be too neat, but I think its a subversive little twist to our expectations and storytelling convention. It's an examination of our sins with a promise of grace.

Director Todd Field (In the Bedroom continues to make these fascinating, quiet dramas that are both literary and not period pieces, a rare occurrence. One of the year's best films.

Maybe it's SOP for Senators belonging to the same party as the President to use committee hearings to praise the President's men. But Orrin Hatch's (R-UT) behavior in this regard seems particularly egregious. I've listened to him a few times over the past years when one of Bush's judicial nominees comes before the Senate Judiciary Committe. His questioning usually consists of leading questions and effusive praise. According to Glenn Greenwald, his questions to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales were more of the same.

Kal Penn, who you may remember from Harold and Kumar--he played Kumar--and both Van Wilder movies, usually plays an affable goofball, but this week he has been featured on two television shows--24 and Law and Order: SVU--losing it and nearly executing two young men. The similarity of these climactic scenes was odd. The fact that the occurred within one day of each other even stranger.

The Washington Post debunks D'Souza's thesis in a few short paragraphs:

On Sept. 13, 2001, the television evangelist Jerry Falwell offered a stunned, grieving nation a startling diagnosis of al-Qaeda's motivations. "I really believe," he said on Pat Robertson's show, "The 700 Club," "that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.' "

At the time, Falwell's analysis was roundly denounced as hysterical and elicited a pointed disavowal from President Bush. But Dinesh D'Souza, a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, has decided, essentially, that Falwell was on to something. The Enemy at Home calls America's culture war synonymous with its war on terrorism and flatly blames the country's left for 9/11. But unlike Falwell and Robertson's outburst at a moment of crisis, D'Souza's is offered in a spirit of cool reflection. The result is the worst nonfiction book about terrorism published by a major house since 9/11, but with the country still facing a serious jihadist threat, it's worth trying to understand D'Souza's own exercise in finger-pointing...

Colbert wholeheartedly supports premise that liberals caused 9/11, the premise of Dinesh D'Souza's (The End or Racism) new book. Video of interview here.

Essential viewing.

10:30 Central Time

John and Hillary may not get very far in the race for the presidency.

Very interesting interview with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki featured in the Washington Post

Maliki disputed President Bush's remarks broadcast Tuesday that the execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein "looked like it was kind of a revenge killing" and took exception to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's Senate testimony last week that Maliki's administration was on "borrowed time."
The prime minister said statements such as Rice's "give morale boosts for the terrorists and push them toward making an extra effort and making them believe they have defeated the American administration," Maliki said. "But I can tell you that they have not defeated the Iraqi government."...

"I know President Bush and I know him as a strong person that does not get affected by the media pressure, but it seems the pressure has gone to a great extent that led to the president giving this statement," Maliki said...

Maliki spoke slowly and seriously for most of the conversation, but occasionally broke into a smile, such as when he was asked whether Bush needs him more than he needs Bush. "This is an evil question," he said, laughing.

The evidence.

Woody Allen muses.

According to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. From the International Herald Tribune:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says federal judges are unqualified to make rulings affecting national security policy, ramping up his criticism of how they handle terrorism cases.

In remarks prepared for delivery Wednesday, Gonzales says judges generally should defer to the will of the president and Congress when deciding national security cases. He also raps jurists who "apply an activist philosophy that stretches the law to suit policy preferences."

The text of the speech, scheduled for the American Enterprise Institute, was obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press. It outlines, in part, what qualities the Bush administration looks for when selecting candidates for the federal bench.

"We want to determine whether he understands the inherent limits that make an unelected judiciary inferior to Congress or the president in making policy judgments," Gonzales says in the prepared speech. "That, for example, a judge will never be in the best position to know what is in the national security interests of our country."

Gonzales did not cite any specific activist jurists, or give examples of national security cases, in his prepared text. The Justice Department is appealing an August decision by U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit, who ruled the government's warrantless surveillance program unconstitutional and ordered it stopped immediately.

Additionally, attorneys representing terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay are challenging the legality of a law, signed by President George W. Bush in October, that authorizes military trials. Those challenges raise the possibility that trials will be struck down by a federal appeals court or the Supreme Court.

Gonzales, a former Texas Supreme Court justice, has in the past warned about judges who inject their personal beliefs in cases. But his prepared remarks Wednesday mark his sharpest words over concerns about the federal judiciary — the third, and equal, branch of government.

Judges who "apply an activist philosophy that stretches the law to suit policy preferences, they actually reduce the credibility and authority of the judiciary," Gonzales says. "In so doing, they undermine the rule of law that strengthens our democracy."

From Daily Kos.

The presidency moves one step closer to monarchy.

What there was of it. A black eye for our nation's media and opinion makers.

Calls Tony Snow out on the idea that opposing the war is aiding "the enemy."

From an interview with NewsMax (not a legitimate news source):

NewsMax: Are you making some of the same arguments Jerry Falwell made after 9/11, when he blamed the attacks on America's immorality?

D'Souza: No, Falwell was making a theological point, that God is punishing America for its sins by giving us 9/11. That's not my point at all. I'm asking a secular question: Why did the people who did 9/11 do it? It's not because of U.S. troops in Mecca -- there are no U.S troops in Mecca – and it's not because "they hate us for our freedom," as Bush once said. Actually, they hate us for how we use our freedom. And they see America as imposing its perverted culture, its sexual freedom, its extreme version of separation of church and state, on the rest of the world.

But of course it's not America that is promoting all this, it is the cultural left. So it is the cultural left's view of America – a kind of Gomorrah on a hill – and its efforts to promote those values abroad that is the main source of anti-Americanism in the Muslim world.

So is D'Souza saying that some of the logic of the terrorists is sound? Is he promoting capitulation to the terrorists through the alteration of our sexual mores?

In what may be a further erosion of the principle of checks and balances, the White House may be stacking the deck.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Two of the most violent hours ever to be featured in the primetime. I'm surprised this doesn't have critics in an uproar. Certainly more disturbing than seeing Janet Jackson's breast. I'm not going to say this has no place on television, but it does point to a coarsening of our culture. The two-parter focused heavily on torture including, not one, but two scenes of knives pushed slowly into flesh.

24 is hardly alone. A recent trend among horror films--typified by movies like Hostel--focus on torture scenarios or villains who get their jollies not from killing but from causing extreme pain in their victims. Dehumanizing--which is the effect of torture--is the motive of today's boogeyman. These films have been aptly labeled "torture porn." The money shots include the severing of digits and appendages.

24 has crossed over into the "torture porn" realm. Early in the series, to torture or not to torture were the questions that haunted the show's heroes. When President Palmer chooses to torture one of his own staff members in season two, it is a climactic moment in the series. He has to wrestle with the decision and is haunted in the aftermath. Now torture comes quickly and often in the show. There is little context. Like the prerequisite gun battles and explosions, episodes are just as likely to feature a torture moment.

The ticking time bomb scenario--never encountered but frequently cited by torture apologists--is always present on 24. Torture is always a necessity because danger is always imminent. Of course, Jack Bauer's world is not the real one, but there are just enough real details to lull us into a sense that this is our world. Jack Bauer becomes our avatar in a world forever at threat level Red. We live vicariously through him and through him confront our own fears in a post 9/11 world.

Torture is never justified, but when we enter the hyper-real world of Bauer we can begin to believe that it is necessary. My fear is that 24 is making the question of torture less nuanced and making us less sensitive to its effects on the tortured and torturer. We are letting our fears of terrorism and our desire for security cloud our judgement and moral responsibility.

A spolier heavy discussion of the message of Curse:


Spoilers ahead!

Like Hero I found the conclusion both false and unsatisfying. The State prevails and the horde of faceless servants, citizens, and soldiers all yield to the State. Yes, there was tragedy in the family of the emperor and he paid a heavy price for his perservance, but he does perservere. Even his empress knew that her attempts to defeat the Emperor would necessarily fail. Perservernace was right and inevitable. ("Thou shalt not fight city hall.") His scheming and padeocide are not so much villainous as they are his moral imperative. He is first and foremost the Emperor and to fulfill this role he will sacrifice his own family. This is not a tragic misstep, but a necessary evil. The whole tragic mess is presented as inevitable and this may make you feel more than a little uneasy.

I am a Western viewer with my own cultural biases, a spirt of rugged individualism, and a desire for a Democratic government that vigorously self-regulates. The film makes me uneasy, but I think with good reason. It's a morality play in service to a dangerous view of the State.

Make no mistake, Zhang Yimou's (House of Flying Daggers) latest movie has some of the most beautiful set and costume design that you will see on screen this year. It's a sumptuous feast for the eyes.

But it's also a poor excuse for dramatic filmmaking. The plot is convoluted and relationships between characters murky, making the task of keeping up with who is backstabbing whom needlessly complicated. The film grinds on towards its inevitable conclusion which much like the director's Hero ends in a way surely to be unsatisfactory to Western audiences. It all boils down to very expensive, lush agitprop.

But at least Hero had verve and fantastic fight scenes. Flower feels more like a stiff exercise and the fight scenes so clearly augmented by CGI as to lose suspense. Like the recent Star Wars episodes and both Matrix sequels, the CGI-heavy action scenes betray any sense of reality, making the fight scenes consequence-free. The multitudes of faceless soldiers squaring off against one another look artificial so we fail to invest in their fate. Who cares if another amalgam of pixels is deleted from the green screen.

Curse is a slog that's a poor imitation of the director's own work and other recent epic wire-fu imports. The movie, however, will make a perfect film to demonstrate home entertainment systems. The film's rich pallete and epic bombast is gonna help move widescreen plasmas.

Piggybacking on the post below: Those in power will abuse their power.

We fail to be responsible citizens if we don't actively employ a healthy skepticism toward our government and its claims.

Rod Dreher, contributor to National Review, changes his mind about power, depravity, and the White House in a recent NPR essay. Listen to the powerful essay here.

Via Glenn Greenwald.

Fellow National Review author Jonah Goldberg responds.

Here's a story that should give you pause about the Pentagon and CIA collecting financial records of citizens and US corporations. This is a definite break with past practices.

The Pentagon has been using a little-known power to obtain banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans and others suspected of terrorism or espionage inside the United States, part of an aggressive expansion by the military into domestic intelligence gathering.

The C.I.A. has also been issuing what are known as national security letters to gain access to financial records from American companies, though it has done so only rarely, intelligence officials say.

Banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions receiving the letters usually have turned over documents voluntarily, allowing investigators to examine the financial assets and transactions of American military personnel and civilians, officials say.

The F.B.I., the lead agency on domestic counterterrorism and espionage, has issued thousands of national security letters since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, provoking criticism and court challenges from civil liberties advocates who see them as unjustified intrusions into Americans’ private lives.

But it was not previously known, even to some senior counterterrorism officials, that the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency have been using their own “noncompulsory” versions of the letters. Congress has rejected several attempts by the two agencies since 2001 for authority to issue mandatory letters, in part because of concerns about the dangers of expanding their role in domestic spying.

The military and the C.I.A. have long been restricted in their domestic intelligence operations, and both are barred from conducting traditional domestic law enforcement work. The C.I.A.’s role within the United States has been largely limited to recruiting people to spy on foreign countries...

This part of the article was particularly worrisome:

Usually, the financial documents collected... do not establish any links to espionage or terrorism and have seldom led to criminal charges, military officials say. Instead, the letters often help eliminate suspects.

“We may find out this person has unexplained wealth for reasons that have nothing to do with being a spy, in which case we’re out of it,” said Thomas A. Gandy, a senior Army counterintelligence official.

But even when the initial suspicions are unproven, the documents have intelligence value, military officials say. In the next year, they plan to incorporate the records into a database at the Counterintelligence Field Activity office at the Pentagon to track possible threats against the military, Pentagon officials said. Like others interviewed, they would speak only on the condition of anonymity.

An unbelievable story of two abducted boys found--one after 4 1/2 years.

Will the President attack Iran? Will Congress give the necessary authorization? According to Glenn Greenwald, the second question is moot:

As a nation, we can and should engage in vigorous debates over whether a military offensive against Iran is desirable, prudent, disastrous, or just plain crazy. But it is just as crucial that we realize that the Bush administration has embraced theories of executive power which assert that the president has the authority to initiate a military attack on Iran regardless of whether the American people, or their representatives in Congress, approve of such an attack. . . .

As the Iran debate proceeds, it is necessary to remember that the president believes he is the "sole organ" in all such matters, and he has full, limitless and unchecked authority to do whatever he wants.

I would modify Glenn's comments slightly by adding that the White House believes whatever the President does in the name of "the war in terror" is within his power. Of course, who knows when "the war on terror" will end.

But will we attack Iran? My guess is at this point is that Bush will begin an engagement with Iran via his plan to secure Iraq. It won't be an outright declaration of war against Iran, but merely the next step in our war against Iraq. Of course, this will be a giant mistake and another sneaky way to broaden the conflict--see also the secret funneling of funds for the war in Afghanistan toward the undeclared war against Iraq.

This morning, EJ Dionne delivered the cutting, but appropriate, observation that recently ousted White House Counsel Harriet Miers was good enough to serve on the Supreme Court--in the President's estimation--but not serve as lawyer for the White House.

From Andrew Sullivan:

John Burns provides, as usual, indispensable analysis. But this paragraph, buried by the NYT, leapt out at me this morning:

A Shiite political leader who has worked closely with the Americans in the past said the Bush benchmarks appeared to have been drawn up in the expectation that Mr. Maliki would not meet them. "He cannot deliver the disarming of the militias," the politician said, asking that he not be named because he did not want to be seen as publicly criticizing the prime minister. "He cannot deliver a good program for the economy and reconstruction. He cannot deliver on services. This is a matter of fact. There is a common understanding on the American side and the Iraqi side."

Views such as these — increasingly common among the political class in Baghdad — are often accompanied by predictions that Mr. Maliki will be forced out as the crisis over the militias builds. The Shiite politician who described him as incapable of disarming militias suggested he might resign; others have pointed to an American effort in recent weeks to line up a “moderate front” of Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish political leaders outside the government, and said that the front might be a vehicle for mounting a parliamentary coup against Mr. Maliki, with behind-the-scenes American support.

If this is the case, this president is lying to us once again. It's one lie too far. If all of this is a ruse to depose Maliki and attack Iran, the constitutional consequences of a runaway, duplicitous president are profound.

Via TPM.

According to uber-review site Rotten Tomatoes, it was...

Basic Instinct 2.

From Think Progess, albeit without presenting the comments in context, nevertheless:

“I would confess I’m no expert on Iraq.”– Defense Secretary Robert Gates, during congressional hearings yesterday. “Later, asked about reaching the right balance between American and Iraqi forces, he told the panel he was ‘no expert on military matters.‘”

From CBS Sportsline:

The Notre Dame myth: Two years and Charlie Weis' best "win" is a loss to USC.

From Fox Sports:

New Alabama head coach Nick Saban has flatly denied any rumors that Wayne Huizenga flew to Tuscaloosa to interview him for the open Miami Dolphins head coaching job.

Chuck Hagel (R-NE) on Bush's plan for escalation:

During questioning of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Hagel called the new strategy “morally wrong” and “tactically, strategically, militarily wrong,” and declared, “I have to say, Madam Secretary, that I think this speech given last night by this president represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam.” Members in the hearing room clapped as Hagel concluded, “I will resist it.”

Bush made the following claim in his speech last night:

The violence in Iraq -- particularly in Baghdad -- overwhelmed the political gains the Iraqis had made. Al Qaeda terrorists and Sunni insurgents recognized the mortal danger that Iraq's elections posed for their cause, and they responded with outrageous acts of murder aimed at innocent Iraqis. They blew up one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam -- the Golden Mosque of Samarra -- in a calculated effort to provoke Iraq's Shia population to retaliate. Their strategy worked. Radical Shia elements, some supported by Iran, formed death squads. And the result was a vicious cycle of sectarian violence that continues today.

The ongoing violence in Iraq is not merely a response to elections. This is disingenuous.

Democrats to block funds for escalation of the war.

From the BBC:

US forces have stormed an Iranian consulate in the northern Iraqi town of Irbil and seized six members of staff.

Via Yglesias.

My wife picked up on this line early in Bush's speech:

Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons: There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents. And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have. Our military commanders reviewed the new Iraqi plan to ensure that it addressed these mistakes. They report that it does. They also report that this plan can work.

Via The American Prospect:

The New York Times reported last night that during his pre-speech meeting with congressional leaders today, Bush was asked why he thought this strategy would succeed where previous such efforts had failed. "Because it has to," Bush replied. Reassuring words from the leader of the free world.

In the words of Sam Beckett, "Oh boy."

Here is the exact passage of the President's speech that has me fearing an expansion of the war:

Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.

We're also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region. We will expand intelligence-sharing and deploy Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies. We will work with the governments of Turkey and Iraq to help them resolve problems along their border. And we will work with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region.

Carrier strike groups and patriot missiles will not be very useful against clusters of insurgents hiding out in the neighborhoods of Baghdad. These measures are being taken to strike large targets of interest in other nations. This is clearly an escalation.

A fascinating war of semantics took place among pundits over the past several weeks. Is Bush's plan to send more troops into Iraq an "escalation" or a "surge"? Escalation implies that the war is getting larger in scope. Surge implies a quick push that will quickly dissipate.

With last night's frightening speech--no this is not an unfair assessment--Bush's plan officially became an escalation. By making a promise to pursue terrorists into Iran and Syria--forget for a moment whether this is is sound policy or not--Bush officially escalated the war. I'm terrified. My fear is that the 20,000 troops are being sent to Iraq not merely to provide more security but to serve as the first wave of an assault into both Iran and Syria.

How will Congress react? Will they stymie the President and force the war to end early?

I'm skeptical given their lack of chutzpah in the past, but maybe the war and president are so resoundingly unpopular at this point that Dems, and a few of the GOP, will bring the war to a swift conclusion.

Florida deserves to end the season as national champions after a truly genius game, but their season does have one blemish. Their only loss of the year came at Auburn.

I don't think Auburn would have beaten last night's Florida team, but I do think they would have been able to apply more pressure to Chris Leak and give him trouble as other SEC squads had all season. I think Auburn could have played the Gators down to the wire.

Meaning what? The nation's best football is played in the SEC. The only way for the SEC to clearly establish national dominance is to take a page from the USC playbook and pick better non-conference opponents.

How can we make the BCS better since we're not getting playoffs until at least 2010? (Post season television contracts have already been established through that year.) Conferences should not get automatic BCS bids--why is the relatively weak Big 10 deserving of an automatic BCS bid, when scrappy MAC champ Boise State is not?--and Notre Dame shouldn't be given a spot just because they are able to finish with a BCS ranking of #12 or higher.

The current system is goofy and rewards legacy and conferences with big war chests. Why is the Big 10 more deserving of a spot than the MAC? Only because they're the Big 10. That's just dumb. College football needs to allow for the ascendancy of scrappy schools like Boise State. The NCAA basketball tournament allows for the ascendancy of overacheivers like George Mason who shocked the nation by making it to last year's Final Four.

Also of note: Had USC, in its final game of the season, beaten UCLA, Florida would have played Notre Dame(!) in a BCS bowl and never have gotten a shot at the national championship.

You would think with a whole season to reference and last night's debacle, the voters for the AP and Coaches polls would finally get it right. You would be wrong.

Here's both the polls.

Ohio State was voted #2. After seeing last night's contest, who cannot say that both LSU and USC should not be ranked ahead of the Buckeyes? The Buckeyes didn't just lose. They were humiliated--thrashed--revealing the relative weakness of the Big 10. I would also place Boise State ahead of the Buckeyes by virtue of the fact that they went undefeated. But going undefeated only seems to matter for schools with a legacy of winning. Voters placed Ohio State at #2 not because of quality play, but because they played in the championship game. But they were clearly not the #2 team in the nation last night.

For those who care, my top ten for the season:

1. Florida
2. USC
3. LSU
4. Boise State
5. Ohio State
6. Louisville
7. Wisconsin
8. Auburn
9. Michigan
10. West Virginia

Trying to be a team player, I went to see this movie with my wife and sister-in-law. I thought I would hate it--not because I hate romantic comedies--but because I find formula boring and tedious. And this film was all formula. Pure product. This movie is all about showing pretty people wearing nice clothes, living in nice surroundings, and making cute small talk. A perfect bore, but will serve as comfort food for many romantic comedy fans. The final moment of the film--the money shot of trifles such as this--shows the two happy couples dancing around in a perfectly furnished living room and it evokes magazine liquor ads. ("Good times. Good friends. Maltsby's Scotch.") This is the most egregious moment in an empty, predictable film that feels more like filmed a J Crew catalog than movie.

Pointed and accurate.

From The Indepdendent. (Note the use of the word "exploitation" in the lede which cripples the story from the get-go, but the rest of the reportage seems sound):

Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to statements such as one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in 1999, while he was still chief executive of the oil services company Halliburton, that the world would need an additional 50 million barrels of oil a day by 2010. "So where is the oil going to come from?... The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies," he said.

Oil industry executives and analysts say the law, which would permit Western companies to pocket up to three-quarters of profits in the early years, is the only way to get Iraq's oil industry back on its feet after years of sanctions, war and loss of expertise. But it will operate through "production-sharing agreements" (or PSAs) which are highly unusual in the Middle East, where the oil industry in Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world's two largest producers, is state controlled.

Opponents say Iraq, where oil accounts for 95 per cent of the economy, is being forced to surrender an unacceptable degree of sovereignty.

Proposing the parliamentary motion for war in 2003, Tony Blair denied the "false claim" that "we want to seize" Iraq's oil revenues. He said the money should be put into a trust fund, run by the UN, for the Iraqis, but the idea came to nothing. The same year Colin Powell, then Secretary of State, said: "It cost a great deal of money to prosecute this war. But the oil of the Iraqi people belongs to the Iraqi people; it is their wealth, it will be used for their benefit. So we did not do it for oil."

Supporters say the provision allowing oil companies to take up to 75 per cent of the profits will last until they have recouped initial drilling costs. After that, they would collect about 20 per cent of all profits, according to industry sources in Iraq. But that is twice the industry average for such deals.

Greg Muttitt, a researcher for Platform, a human rights and environmental group which monitors the oil industry, said Iraq was being asked to pay an enormous price over the next 30 years for its present instability. "They would lose out massively," he said, "because they don't have the capacity at the moment to strike a good deal."

Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister, Barham Salih, who chairs the country's oil committee, is expected to unveil the legislation as early as today. "It is a redrawing of the whole Iraqi oil industry [to] a modern standard," said Khaled Salih, spokesman for the Kurdish Regional Government, a party to the negotiations. The Iraqi government hopes to have the law on the books by March.

Several major oil companies are said to have sent teams into the country in recent months to lobby for deals ahead of the law, though the big names are considered unlikely to invest until the violence in Iraq abates.

James Paul, executive director at the Global Policy Forum, the international government watchdog, said: "It is not an exaggeration to say that the overwhelming majority of the population would be opposed to this. To do it anyway, with minimal discussion within the [Iraqi] parliament is really just pouring more oil on the fire."

Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman and a former chief economist at Shell, said it was crucial that any deal would guarantee funds for rebuilding Iraq. "It is absolutely vital that the revenue from the oil industry goes into Iraqi development and is seen to do so," he said. "Although it does make sense to collaborate with foreign investors, it is very important the terms are seen to be fair."

Via Talking Points Memo. Many war supporters consider it gauche to say the fighting is "about the oil." I'll be generous and say it's not completely about the oil, but anyone who thinks the seizure of the one of the world's largest oil reserves wasn't a substantial factor in launching the war is deceiving themselves.

A frequent charge leveled by global warming detractors is that scientists pushing the theory have it in their best interest to perpetuate the theory in order to continue receiving research grants. Why the inverse is rarely considered is puzzling. Might those who publicly speak out against global warming also have monetary reasons for doing so. Not surprisingly, the answer is yes. From Yahoo News:

ExxonMobil Corp. gave $16 million to 43 ideological groups between 1998 and 2005 in a coordinated effort to mislead the public by discrediting the science behind global warming, the Union of Concerned Scientists asserted Wednesday.

The report by the science-based nonprofit advocacy group mirrors similar claims by Britain's leading scientific academy. Last September, The Royal Society wrote the oil company asking it to halt support for groups that "misrepresented the science of climate change."

ExxonMobil did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the scientific advocacy group's report.

Many scientists say accumulating carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from tailpipes and smokestacks are warming the atmosphere like a greenhouse, melting Arctic sea ice, alpine glaciers and disturbing the lives of animals and plants.

ExxonMobil lists on its Web site nearly $133 million in 2005 contributions globally, including $6.8 million for "public information and policy research" distributed to more than 140 think-tanks, universities, foundations, associations and other groups. Some of those have publicly disputed the link between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.

But in September, the company said in response to the Royal Society that it funded groups which research "significant policy issues and promote informed discussion on issues of direct relevance to the company." It said the groups do not speak for the company.

Alden Meyer, the Union of Concerned Scientists' strategy and policy director, said in a teleconference that ExxonMobil based its tactics on those of tobacco companies, spreading uncertainty by misrepresenting peer-reviewed scientific studies or cherry-picking facts.

Dr. James McCarthy, a professor at Harvard University, said the company has sought to "create the illusion of a vigorous debate" about global warming.

Via Crooks and Liars.

Democrats send a letter to the President stating the above.

Full text here.

One wishes they'd had the guts to show such resoluteness before the war was so unpopular, say before it even got started.

This December saw the release of horror remake Black Christmas. All reports are that this movie is pretty horrible, but I'd highly recommend the original.

It's a low budget wonder from director Bob Clark (A Christmas Story). The movie is extremely creepy, relatively light on the gore, and has some good performances for a low budget horror film. The movie was actually quite influential and created much of the slasher film syntax that would be recycled for the next thirty plus years. Critics often mistakenly cite Halloween as being more innovative then it really is and being responsible for today's slasher films. Actually, Black Christmas beat Halloween to the punch by four years. (Pscyho, of course, being the true granddaddy.)

The movie is seminal, has been endlessly copied, and is pretty unsettling. Clark brings subtlety to the genre and scares us by not showing and not explaining. The movie proves more disturbing in that it doesn't try to explain away the villain's psychosis or its origins. It also features early perfomances by Andrea Martin (SCTV, My Big Fat Greek Wedding) and Margot Kidder (Superman).

Once January rolls around, studios start dumping their worst product into theaters, or at least what they consider the lowest quality or least likely to succeed. This doesn't usually let up until sometime in March. Sometimes a fun movie slips in, but you're best advised to think twice about seeing a movie that opens in January.

Often Oscar-bait like Dreamgirls will make it to your theater in January, but this movie was first released in December in many larger metropolitan areas. The bad January movies are the ones that open all over the nation on the same day, such as the bargain basement Shrek knockoff Happily N'Ever After. Note: I haven't seen Happily yet, but the previews for the film seem to do nothing to disabuse viewers of the idea that it is indeed a bargain basement Shrek knockoff. In fact, it appears to celebrate it.

Which brings us to a horror movie opening today entitled Thr3e. Using a number to spell your title was a little bit ridiculous when Se7en first did it, but doing at this point is kind of sad. It's a transparent attempt to get viewers to associate Thr3e with an older serial killer drama they enjoyed much more. (Yes, some people did enjoy the bleak and lurid Se7en.) The title alone should warn you off this movie.

It's like naming your low cost soda knock-off "Dr. WalMart."

"Do you like Dr. Pepper? Well then you'll probably settle for this if you only have a quarter and possess a willingness to lower your expectations."

The theater where I have consistently encountered the worst behavior in my city is the very classy art theater at the Plaza Frontenac. This theater, nestled in a very upscale mall that sells $3000 purses and the like, shows foreign films and small independents. It was one of the few outlets to see some of these films in the city so if you are eager to see the new Almodovar, you may have to head deep into the county to the land of Lexus and Neiman Marcus. My car's a little beat up and I'm always worried they're gonna not let me onto the mall property once they see the giant gash on my driver's side door. The mall is relatively small, but you're always sure to see at least one security guard diligently patrolling the parking lot.

I wrongly assumed that due to the nature of these films, that the theater would be populated largely by obsessive cineastes and film snobs; the type of people who know how to behave at the movies and are angered by those who don't. I'm beginning to think that the reason most of these upscale moviegoers go to these movies, however, is because they're supposed to. Why buy season tickets to the opera? Because that's what people with money do. Why develop a refined wine pallete? Because you're supposed to. Why own a $3000 dollar purse? Because it's expected. Why go to see the latest Judi Dench costume drama? It's your duty. (It's worth noting that the Frontenac doesn't tend to show the most edgy independent and foreign films, but do show the ones that are more likely to be nominated for Academy Awards.)

At the risk of sounding like a classist--I will from here on out refer to the moneyed class of the county as "these people"--the way these people carry on at the theater is horrid. Some talk throughout the entire film. You can turn around and give them perturbed looks, ask them to "shhh," ask them to please stop talking--this works the best--but sometimes the talking continues. If you are dealing with more than one talker--last night we are encountered about twelve--scattered throughout the theater these techniques don't work. I had a better experience watching House of Wax in the city where people in the county fear to tread unless its to see a ball game or go to the symphony.

City folks seem to know how to behave a little better at the movies. For us, eight dollars is a more sizable investment. It represents a larger portion of our income. When we pick a movie, it's not becuase we have to, but because we really want to see it. We expect everyone to be quiet because we paid eight dollars to see this movie. I think "these people" in the county go to see important films out of duty, are often only marginally interested in the movie they are watching, and feel entitled to behave any darn way they please in the theater. Money has its privileges and apparently one of them is treating the movie theater like your living room.

If you have to talk at the movies, do it quickly, quietly, and into the ear of the person sitting next to you.

Yes. This is posting 1,001. Just wanted to share.

Carry on.

Civil liberties continue to erode under the leadership President Bush:

President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned.

The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.

That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.

I tried to present this information as dispassionately as possible without snark. Let this story speak for itself. We can all agree that Bush is eroding the liberties we have always assumed were ours.

He did so with yet another signing statement. Pay attention libertarians. This is not what you want in a president.

Chuck Klosterman--author of the very enjoyable Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs--shares why he hopes college football never has playoffs.

As a fan of the 2004 Auburn Tigers, I can't agree with him.

I predicted Notre Dame to lose to LSU, 35 to 14. Final score was 41 to 14. LSU could have easily tacked on 14 more points if they had run a more agressive offense in the fourth quarter. No reason to of course, but it was clear that the Notre Dame defense had not improved since last year's drubbing at the hands of Ohio State. They had the worst secondary in the BCS and LSU QB Russell exploited it at will.

What did we learn: Brady Quinn was clearly not the best college player as the voters for the Maxwell Award determined. I can think of ten better players off the top of my head who have stepped up and won the big games for their team this season. Two of them play for Boise State. As for great QBs, they win the big games, beat ranked teams, play better under pressure, and are more mobile than Quinn demonstrated this season. Listening to the national media this morning, it was clear the Quinn lovefest is waning. It is clear that much of the media hadn't really paid any attention to the Irish until last night. It was clear from Notre Dame's very first game of the season--at Georgia Tech--that this team was only so-so.

The Irish had no business being in that game. The only reason they were there is because they sell tickets. Why they finished in the polls just low enough to be given a BCS bowl bid is yet another example that the BCS and poll system are broken. The Irish knew their chances were slim. How else do you explain a fake punt attempt on the first possession deep in your own territory when the score is still close? With that call, which failed, Weis showed his hand early and let everyone knew he had little confidence in his team's ability to win the big game.

Can we stop being told what a genius Weis is and how he has returned the Irish to greatness? His record is roughly similar to the two previous coaches, Bob Davie and the prematurely fired Ty Willingham. Yes, his real ability will be determined in the next two to three seasons when we observe the players he has recruited reach maturity, but let's hold back on the superlatives until the Irish manage to put up impressive victories against someone beside the service academies.

We can all hope that Notre Dame enters the polls next season at about #25.

Here's a little gem of a romance about two European immigrants trying to make a life together in a small farming community. Set in 1920, Sweet Land is a gentle, meditative, and disarmingly sexy look at love deferred. Due to some complications that I won't spoil here, recent emigre Inge (Elizabeth Reaser) cannot go through with her arranged marriage to Olaf (Tim Guinee), a farmer seeking a helper and companion.

Olaf is aloof and possesses a strong desire to become more American, avoiding the use of his foreign tongue. He is visibly embarrassed by Inge who is clearly alien in her language and attire. Inge, a German, is also feared by much of the town who have a lingering anxiety toward Deutschland. She does, however, find kindness in the home of hapless farmer Frandsen (Alan Cumming) and his wife Brownie (Alex Kingston).

It will be no surprise to viewers that the two begin to warm to one another, but how they get there will be. Olaf is almost immediately attracted to the beautiful and kind Inge, but it takes time for him to fall in love. Their consummation is deferred, but it is during this time that the two begin to admire and then fall for one another. The final moments before their consummation--occurring off-screen--are the most passionate filmed moments of the year.

The cast is uniformly excellent, including John Heard as a rigid pastor and Ned Beatty as an unforgiving banker. The performances by Reaser and Guinee are kind and assured. Reaser as Inge delivers a particularly strong performance. Through much of the movie we cannot understand what Inge is saying--she barely speaks English--but Reaser expertly conveys exactly what Inge is feeling. These relatively unknown actors will stun you and completely win you over by film's end.

Sweet Land is one of the year's best film's.

Listening to The Paul Finebaum Show--an Alabama sports talk show--you would think that Bear Bryant had risen from the grave and was returning to Tuscaloosa. The fans calling into the show are ecstatic and Saban hasn't even recruited a player yet.

Notre Dame, #11 in the country, has not beaten a ranked team in two years.

LSU 35, Notre Dame 14

It appears that I was wrong about the attractiveness of the head coaching position at Alabama. (Of course, they are giving Saban $30 million.) This hire will help the University enter pre-season polls much higher than teams usually do when they are under new direction.

Does Saban have the magic touch to reinvigorate the program?

Yahoo Sports writer Dan Wetzel rips into Saban and Alabama's athletic director. Must be an Auburn fan.

Mega criticism site Metacritic has a compilation of best of film lists from across the nation.

USC dismantled Michigan at the Rose Bowl proving to me that the Trojans losses to Oregon State and UCLA were more the result of being a young team than lacking talent. The team showed they have matured and will start next season as #1. One has to wonder how they will do if phenom reciever Dwayne Jarrett enters the NFL, but this team recovered handily from the loss of both Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart. Expect them to go undefeated next year and once again play for the national championship.

Anyone who stayed up for the primetime game on Fox was treated to one of the most entertaining contests in sports history. Boise State shocked many--but not those who paid attention to them this year--by beating the storied Oklahoma Sooners. It was odd that Oklahoma was so heavily favored especially for anyone who got to watch QB Jared Zabransky and running back Ian Johnson play this year. Oklahoma and Stoops are consistently overpraised, however, and it is this phenomenon that earned them a spot in the 2004 national championship game where they were crushed by USC. College football is alone in the sports world in letting popularity determine champions.

Not to take anything away from Boise State. They out-coached and outplayed Oklahoma. The game was the stuff of fairytales and even ended with a marriage proposal from the star running back to the head cheerleader. Boise State ran several trick plays to stymie Oklahoma and ensure their win. On the first overtime possession, Boise State went for the win instead of the tie, succeeded, and further revealed how broken the college football system is. This team, who went undefeated, deserved a shot at Ohio State.

College football is broken. It gives far too much power to algorithms and sports writers who give far too much credence to intangibles like character, team history, and how much they like the coach. I love college football, but the BCS stinks and is just another attempt to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Wednesday night's game between LSU and Notre Dame will further reveal the broken bowl system as LSU takes advantage of the worst defense of any team in the BCS. Notre Dame gets to play in the Sugar Bowl because of a legacy system that rewards you for your grand daddy's accomplishments and because of the big bucks they bring in. Notre Dame can fill the seats and guarantee many TV viewers.

Do you think the networks were happy with this year's Cardinals, Tigers World Series? No. They'd feature the Yankees versus Red Sox every year if this was somehow possible. (I know they both play in the same league, but that would still be a fantastic sporting event.) The point is that every other sport lets the players decide who plays in the big games. College football still hasn't embraced the logic of this imperative.

Also of note, Wisconsin defeated Arkansas 17 to 14 even though the Badgers rushed for -5 yards.

Auburn pulled off a win against Nebraska at the Cotton Bowl in one of the worst directed telecasts of the year. The sportscasters failed in delivering an adequate play-by-play. The direction was inexplicable at times such as a key moment when Auburn came down with a questionable reception in the end zone. Would it be called a touchdown? An incomplete pass? We watched the refs anxiously and the director cut away to a shot of fans eating pizza.

Pizza!? Inexcusable.

The onscreen graphics were often mislabeled. The sportscasters could not pronounce the names of the players and misidentified others. Viewers were told the down count was 3 and 9 when it was actually fourth down. The sportscasters and presentation were a hindrance to comprehension and enjoyment of the game. Fox Sports really did a lousy job on this one and treated the Cotton Bowl as an also ran.

What about the game? I spoke to my father in law on Sunday night and told him if Auburn did win, they would win by three. Final score: Auburn 17, Nebraska 14.

Auburn's first quarter play was atrocious and doubtless had fans convinced we were about to witness yet another pre-12:00 drubbing. The defense was porous and the offense lackluster. The defense was very fast this year, but they frequently gave up the big yardage plays and then were forced to dig in their heels in the red zone. As the game progressed, the defense improved and capitalized on some poor play calling by Nebraska. At the end of the first half, the score was tied 14-14.

In the second half, the Auburn defense looked phemonenal and shut down the heralded Zac Taylor and crew. Auburn's offense improved substantially, but continued to fail to close the deal in the red zone. (It was sad to see running back Kenny Irons, who never completely recovered from early season injuries, failing to break the game open.) Auburn had to settle for one field goal in the second half. Due to the stifling defensive play, however, this was enough to win the game.

Auburn should start next season in the top ten and are likely to return to a New Year's Day bowl game.