A lot of out of state commentators, such as Jim Geraghty of NRO’s Kerry Spot and Powerline, believe that Nethercutt’s new ad blasting Patty Murray’s “Osama is popular because he builds daycares” speech will be devastating. I am not so sure. Pushing this line should help keep Nethercutt in the running, but I don’t see it pushing him over the top. Eastern Washington should react predictably, but then he was probably going to win there anyway. Unfortunately, too many in Western Washington (including much of my family) don’t see anything wrong with her speech.
Continue reading ‘Bin Laden Daycare’
Well the first presidential debate is in a couple hours and I can reliably inform you that I will not be watching them. Unlike most political junkies, I find the “scripted for mass consumption” events (convensions and debates) to be completely boring. All of the life in these events have been intentionally stripped away to prevent any negative impact. And beyond that, substative questions don’t seem to be the deciding factor. In 2000, it was Gore’s signing that pissed people off. In 1992, it was Clinton’s compassion and Bush looking at his watch that is remembered. In 1988 it was the Vice Presidential Debate that had the memorable line. The 1980 and 1984 debates were pretty good, and featured candidates that could articulate a coherant view — and shockingly talked to eachother.
BKM over at Swimming throught the Spin has come across what may be and uncomfortable truth for the Kerry campaign: Kerry sounds like C3PO. Today’s Best of the Web picks up the theme and has a great list of quotes from Episode IV, but the best is from Episode V:
Continue reading ‘The truth, From a Certain Point of View.’
Blogging while not quite sober. Met Mark and friend at the College Inn Pub tonight. The pub was not very smoky — Jeannie was the only smoker around us, and had a lot of fun. It was great to spend time with Mark and make fun of Michelle — I’m now in trouble for a couple comments that are actually my fault not other’s. I do find it odd that last call was at midnight and we were kicked out before 1PM.
I managed to make it home just fine. I walked since I am positive it wouldn’t be legal to drive. And even managed to walk the distance in about 15 minutes breaking my record. Chloe wasn’t too happy about getting her 11PM feeding at 2AM but she’ll live. I’m off to bed since I have 9 and 10 AM meetings.
Update: After being made to wait for 3 hours for her late night feeding, Chloe was VERY insistant that her morning feeding happen close to on time. Snarky Kat ususally feeds her before 6AM. Chloe woke me up with a head-but and loud purring at 6:30AM. Since she was being cute and nice I didn’t make her wait any longer.
For as long as Snarky Kat and I have owned our new house (5 months), I’ve been meaning to insulate the walls of the upstairs bedroom. The attic has insulation on the ceiling surfaces, but there was none on the walls of the upstairs bedroom. So this Saturday, we finally installed the R-13 insulation that I bought a month or so ago. It only took a couple hours, though we need to get another roll to finish the closet and stairs area. Snarky Kat cut the insulation to length, while I stapled it into the stud cavities. The hardest part was moving around in the
Dan Rather’s “unimpeachable source” has been found here.
I’ve ment to comment on this for a while. But I must be important since I’ve received a death threat. From the IP address (209.172.244.102), the threat came from Mercer Univeristy in Georgia. From their web page:
Mercer University is a church-related institution of higher learning that seeks to achieve excellence and scholarly discipline in the fields of liberal learning and professional knowledge. The University is guided by the historic principles of religious and intellectual freedom, while affirming religious and moral values that arise from the Judeo-Christian understanding of the world.
Seems like someone needs a refresher course in Judeo-Christian understanding and the principles of intellectual freedom.
So I saw “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow”. Wow what a horribly boring movie. I can understand why a 12 year old boy might like it — there are giant robots and explosions. But the plot is beyond simplistic with logical holes bigger than the robots, from an elite mercenary organization that, with even a couple minutes notice of an impending attack, can only get one airplane into the air to an island on none of the protagonists had any information on yet Frankie (Angenina Jolie) knows the best way to gain access to the island is through an underwater vent. In addition the much heralded look, with the soft focus and blurred colors, gave me a headache.
Oh well, I was expecting it to suck and was not disappointed.
Update: NRO has a favorable review.
The visual accomplishment of the film is so amazing that it takes awhile to get around to the plot. It’s a good plot, a satisfying, comprehensive romp through every sci-fi and fantasy convention a lover of those genres would wish.
Wow. I think the visual effects can cause more than a headache — apparently massive brain damage and delusions are possible.
Update II: Some more thoughts
Although I hated the focus/wash effect, I don’t dislike the retro view of the future — 20K Leagues Under the Sea is very cool (probably because when written it was futuristic). But my problem was that there was nothing unique or interesting. The plot arc is stolen from a couple James Bond Movies as is Q, other characters and their “color” dialog are from Indiana Jones (Joe = Indiana, Polly = Marian, Kaji = Sulla), and there wasn’t a single character I liked — I wanted them all to die as soon as possible.
I can usually forgive typical movie errors (I still like Armageddon), but the errors in this movie are pretty bad. And if it is supposed to be a “feature”, well B-movies suck except for the small parts of the movie that people remember. All of the Godzilla movies are long, boring, and uneventful, except for the few cool scenes with Godzilla smashing stuff. This is why Jurasic Park III wasn’t too bad — more dinos less people. The only times during the movie that might have been interesting were ruined by the slow and uninventive banter between Joe and Polly. When Polly directs Joe to turn his too modern plane left, I mumbled to my self “that’s a neat trick”* and began seriously considering walking out.
* Little Anny’s horrible line during the final space battle in the mediocre “Star Wars: The Phantom Mennace”.