Just a quick point

The person who made this decision needs to go to jail. And the sooner Wacko Jacko dies, the better for the world.
posted by Manchild at 5:00 PM

So the Pope weighs in

I had to kind of figure the Pope would be conservative on some issues. He's in his 80's. So he's not going to change his tack on things like contraception, abortion, women priests and the like. He's not a modernist by any means. And that's fine, I suppose, in and of itself. If the County Club called Catholicism wants to set some weird rules for its members, more power to 'em.

But it's kind of disappointing to see that in a world where true evil (invasions, wars, torture and killing of innocent people) exists, that the thing he must single out as "evil" is when two people want their lifelong love and commitment to each other to be recognised by the law. Oh, and they have the same type of genitals.
posted by Manchild at 11:45 PM

I'm glad I don't know Paris

Hilton, that is

I value my privacy quite a lot. How much more would a celebrity? Well, that blonde dumbfuck Paris Hilton has had the contents of her cell phone splashed all over the web, it seems. Whether it's photos of her making out with a chick, memo reminders to get "birth control kill pills" or the numbers of her celebrity pals and female fuck buddies... All have been exposed to the eyes of John Q. Nobody.

Sure, there's a certain titilation at learning the cell phone numbers of such hotties as Christina Aguilera, Shannon Elizabeth, Leelee Sobieski, Ashlee Simpson or Lindsey Lohan... but it's not like you can call them up, have them answer, and ask them out on a date, for fucks sake.

I don't know why hundreds of people would call Ron Pearlman, for example. To tell him he's a great actor and you loved his movies? Yeah. That'll make his day.
posted by Manchild at 7:00 PM

We are all of us living in the gutter

But some of us are looking at the stars

Not any more you're not.

No headlong rush back to the Dark Ages would be complete without dismantling the Hubble Telescope.

So that's that cleared up then. And in words of Dubya "What's next?"


posted by Manchild at 1:45 PM

No such thing as a stupid question?

We got one

Taken from The Guardian's report on the Kansas educational crisis.


John James, who warned that the teaching of evolution led to nihilism, and to the gates of Auschwitz. "Are we producing little Kansas Nazis?" he asked.

Yeah, I think we have all established that the reason Hitler targetted the Jews was because he was a staunch evolutionist. Idiot.

But the largest applause of the evening was reserved for a silver-haired gentleman in a navy blue blazer. "I have a question: if man comes from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? Why do you waste time teaching something in science class that is not scientific?" he thundered.

Now there's a stupid question if ever there was one. Man doesn't come from monkeys. And no one says man comes from monkeys. Except for creationists who love a good straw man argument.

Stupidity reigns in Kansas, and soon they will have a Flood.
posted by Manchild at 11:30 AM

The price of the budget

Cut $1.1 Billion from the Food Stamps program.

Meanwhile, children in "low to middle" income housing starve to death.


posted by Manchild at 11:20 AM

Garden State

Finally saw it.

First thing, major props to Zach as this is a very accomplished movie for a first time writer/director. And starring in it as well. That's more than was done in Lost in Translation, of which this movie reminded me.

I think it takes some balls to be able to say to a studio that you want to write and direct and star in a feature, when you're basically a little known tv actor. Oh, and Natalie Portman is to be your girlfriend. :) I mean, seriously, Natalie plays the sort of adorable young thing that I think every man could easily fall in love with in 4 days.

Despite the age difference thing, I felt the movie spoke to me as well. I could identify, and not always in a pleasant way, with what was going on. Not just in terms of moving away from home or recently going home and attending the funeral of a parent or anything like that. But in the sense that the death of a parent wakes you up to the world in a way that nothing quite like it before does.

And truthfully, I've always been a sort of emotionally numb person. The death of my father didn't devastate me the way I thought it would. I feel very much in the head, and not in the heart. Which has of course, screwed up more than one relationship.

And that was why the ending rang true then false and then suddenly true again.

True, because I remember having that conversation with a girl in my past. Telling her how I was basically too fucked up to give her or anyone what she wanted/needed. Not telling her that I knew she had been telling her friends that she had decided I was the guy she was going to marry. Needing the space to sort my life out, but ultimately just moving to yet another country and staying pretty much as fucked up as I've ever been.

Seeing Large insist that he'll call, and he'll be back, I was like Sam saying "No you won't, dude." I understood where he was coming from. And because it is still a regret of mine, I wanted him to stay, sure. But he gets on the stairs and leaves.

Then suddenly, he's back, and I'm going "What the fuck? Didn't expect that. But okay." It did kind of strike me as a tacked-on semi happy ending.

Until the camera pull back.

And then, I think, it's pretty clear, that this isn't happening. It's his imagination. It's what he will think about when he thinks "What if" over the coming years of his life. The room is too suspiciously empty for me to think otherwise.
Too many weird things about it, such as they are in baggage reclaim (before you get to customs/excise) yet Sam is there. (Surely only incoming travellers can get to there?) And they kind of set up that Large does have a vivid imagination. The start of the movie is in his head. It's just that it's so negative. The end of the movie is capped by another "in his head" piece. This one, sweetly positive. But ultimately just as destructive.

I don't know if it's just me, or if anyone else got something like that from the ending. But that's what I took from it.

And Ingrid where ever you are, I'm just as messed up today as I was then, but damn, I should have stayed.
posted by Manchild at 8:15 AM

Right versus Left

Sanity versus insanity

Here is an excellent article, which for me sums up beautifully the nature of the 2 dimensional dichotomy that so much of American media falls into.

Basically, the point that the article makes is that the right-wing can get away with saying just about anything in criticising the left. Calls of traitor, demands for people to be fired, punched in the face, or even rounded up, tortured and shot are met without criticism.

One website (run by an antiBush republican) wrote that dictators historically seduce their population into greater and greater atrocities until they reach a point where they dare not look at themselves, and become the dictator's most fanatical supporters.

Those people who supported the war and torture cannot ever allow themselves to doubt that they are in the purest of right. It has become an article of religious faith that the enemy is always totally wrong. Any suggestion that the war was unjustified, that torture was used on the innocent, or that US foreign policy is the penultimate cause of global unrest can never be allowed to even enter the minds of the fanatical Bush supporters, for to question the war is to question themselves.

And they dare not look too closely at themselves because they know what they will see, a person who supported the unprovoked invasion of a foreign nation, a person who supported the use of torture on innocent people, a person who supports dictators.

Ward Churchill's original article is a mirror held up for right-wing Americans to see themselves in. But like the vampires of legend, they fear mirrors, and will seek to smash them.

Anyway, the comments above aren't mine, but I agree with the general thrust of it. And since I've made a point of reading/responding to some of KMan's right-wing articles, I'm hoping he'll give me his view on this one.
posted by Manchild at 8:00 AM

Historic Ruling

Let's see how long it lasts

I have to admit, I was both suprised and thrilled when I saw this story. But mostly surprised.

By law, gays must be allowed to marry in New York

It turns out that state protections of the rights of the individual are often stronger than federal ones.

Still, this ruling comes from the New York State Supreme Court which is actually the lowest court in the state.

It will most likely be fought all the way to the highest court (the Court of Appeals) and I'm not optimistic about its chances for survival. But for a brief shining moment, New York looks a little more civilised.

The challenges to laws banning whites and non-whites from marriage demonstrate that the fundamental right to marry the person of one's choice may not be denied based on longstanding and deeply held traditional beliefs about appropriate marital partners.

I have never understood the argument that allowing gay people to marry somehow damages a straight-homophobic couple's marriage. I mean, marriage is not an exclusive club where members get together and hang out (and we'll have none of "those" people in our club thank-you-very-much). It's a commitment between two people who love each other. And no one is asking any churches to recognise it, or to proclaim it's not a sin or something. If churches want to base their laws on bits of a 2000 year old text, let them.

So if 2 gay people can get married, I don't see why anyone should be upset. There's little enough love and commitment in the world as it is. But if 2 gay people are forbidden to marry, then I get upset. Because with the first link, a chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.

posted by Manchild at 3:30 PM

Since Holz was curious, I'm doing the quiz but sticking to English. (Even Celine Dion didn't make my list.)

1. Song that sounds like happy feels:

Song 2, by Blur

2. Earliest memory:

My mother singing a song at the kitchen sink "I'm nobody's child" which I hated hearing because it made her cry, even if I didn't understand the lyrics or know anything about the song. (Still don't.)

3. Last CD you bought:

Can't remember. Don't generally buy them. Possibly the Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack, though technically I bought Kylie's greatest hits for someone at Christmas.

4. Reminds you of school:

The Boomtown Rats "I don't like Mondays". Because work is not so bad, even on a Monday morning, when you're the CEO. But school was a nightmare, especially on Mondays.

5. Total music files on your PC:

Which PC? I've got a quite pathethic 5 at work. I recently backedup by music from home onto two DVDs, but it was approximately 1500 music files.

6. Song for listening to repeatedly when depressed:

Anything by Nick Cave, or the Radiohead track which closes off "Romeo and Juliet" or the track "Wonderful life" by Black. And recently "Dad" by K's Choice, for obvious reasons.

7. Song that sounds British, but isn't:

Anything by U2.

8. Song you love, band you hate:

Road to Hell, by Chris Rea

9. A favorite song from the past that took ages to track down:

Honey by Bobby Goldsborough or Summer (the First Time) by Bobby Goldsborogh.

10. Bought the album for one good song:

The Alan Parsons Project "Old and Wise"

11. Worst Song to Get Stuck in your Head:

Kenny McCormick and Mr. Hanky sing "The most offensive Christmas song ever". It's impossible for me not to laugh like a loon when that song is playing in my head.

12. Best song to dump a beer on someone's head to, then storm out of the bar?:

Talk about a silly question. Even if I dumped a beer on someone instead of drinking it (like, if it was Bud or Heineken or carlsberg or Harp or some other muck) there's no way you could just storm out of the bar. Tossing the drink is going to get you in a fight, period.

13. Who should do this next?:

KMan. Because I don't know enough about Christian rock.
posted by Manchild at 7:00 PM

Bush is basically a Mr. Potato Head with Dick's hand up his arse, working the controls. Now you can too.

Build yourself a better Bush. (No, not some porn spam pussy excercise...)
posted by Manchild at 2:30 PM