From an NY Times Op-Ed by the guy that did "Triplets of Belleville":
For many years the only successful animated movies were Disney productions aimed squarely at children � dependable moneymakers, perhaps, but nothing to make other studios salivate. Then in 1988, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" proved that adults would flock to see a movie with animation, giving a new generation of producers and movie studio executives a taste for the genre � and the money it could bring in. As a result there are two kinds of animated films today: those made by corporations and those made by humans who love the art of animation. The difference between the two is vast.
From I'm not a huge fan of Al Sharpton, but he does sometimes have a way of framing things that's refreshingly clear (and funny):
Long-shot Al Sharpton, who along with Dennis Kucinich shared the debate stage, accused Bush of "gay baiting. ... The issue is not who you go to bed with. The issue is whether either of you have a job when you get up in the morning."
I needed a refresher on what it takes to amend the Constitution. Here's what I found:
There are essentially two ways spelled out in the Constitution for how it can be amended. One has never been used.The first method is for a bill to pass both halves of the legislature, by a two-thirds majority in each. Once the bill has passed both houses, it goes on to the states. This is the route taken by all current amendments. Because of some long outstanding amendments, such as the 27th, Congress will normally put a time limit (typically seven years) for the bill to be approved as an amendment (for example, see the 21st and 22nd).
The second method prescribed is for a Constitutional Convention to be called by two-thirds of the legislatures of the States, and for that Convention to propose one or more amendments. These amendments are then sent to the states to be approved by three-fourths of the legislatures or conventions. This route has never been taken, and there is discussion in political science circles about just how such a convention would be convened, and what kind of changes it would bring about.
Regardless of which of the two proposal routes is taken, the amendment must be approved by three-fourths of states. The amendment as passed may specify whether the bill must be passed by the state legislatures or by a state convention. See the Ratification Convention Page for a discussion of the make up of a convention. Amendments are sent to the legislatures of the states by default. Only one amendment, the 21st, specified a convention.
It is interesting to note that at no point does the President have a role in the formal amendment process (though he would be free to make his opinion known). He cannot veto an amendment proposal, nor a ratification.
President Bush backed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage Tuesday, saying he wants to stop activist judges from changing the definition of the "most enduring human institution."Marriage cannot be severed from its cultural and moral roots, Bush said, urging Congress to approve such an amendment.
As far as I'm concerned, Bush has just put himself firmly in the camp of the bigoted. Being against same-sex marriage today is no different from being against interracial marriage or school integration forty years ago. Both stances betray the kind of fear and prejudice we should all be ashamed of.
And don't even get me started on that "activist judges" crap. If it wasn't for "activist judges," lil' dub-dub would be back on his dude ranch in Texas where he belongs. When conservatives carp about "activist judges," they only mean "judges who have the gall to disagree with us."
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to send some flowers to San Francisco.
A new place to spend your money. Chandra needed a new sweatshirt, so rather than go buy a UGA sweatshirt (which in this town is about all you can get), we decided to try out CafePress. For now we just have the sweatshirt and t-shirt available, but as time and inspiration arrive there may be more designs coming.
Isn't this a great headline?
About Half the American Public is Terminally Stupid
A new poll shows that 51% of Americans believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the US went to war with it last spring. Some 47% believe that clear evidence that Iraq was supporting al-Qaeda has been found in that country. Both of these allegations are false (whether they are lies is a different matter), and any halfway informed person should know by now that they are false. What do half of Americans believe happened to all that WMD? It is not as if it can just be made to disappear with the wave of a wand; and it certainly doesn't exist in Iraq today. [Juan Cole]
At least according to the Secretary of Education:
Education Secretary Rod Paige called the nation's largest teachers union a "terrorist organization" during a private White House meeting with governors on Monday.Democratic and Republican governors confirmed Paige's remarks about the National Education Association.
"These were the words, 'The NEA is a terrorist organization,' " said Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle of Wisconsin.
...
He was implying that the NEA has not been one of the organizations that has been working with the administration to try to solve 'No Child Left Behind,' " he said.
I just can't tell you how shocked I am at this news. I don't know how active she is now, but when I was a kid she was always involved with NEA meetings-- going to conferences, local chapter stuff, etc. Now I wonder what she was carrying around in that tote bag. I just hope that before Ashcroft locks her up in Guantanamo that they remember to feed the cat.
One of the bits of running schtick in our house is that if Chandra hears me rustling in the kitchen, she'll walk in the room and say, "Jason, what are you eating?" I'll look at her with my mouth stuffed full of Triscuits and say, "Nuffin." Usually I try and give her my best "Uh oh, I'm busted" look.
Somehow I find this less amusing:
This morning Bush campaign chairman Marc Racicot was interviewed by Juan Williams on NPR. When asked about the president's Air National Guard service he said, the president's and John Kerry's service "compare very favorably... He (i.e. the president) signed up for dangerous duty. He volunteered to go to Vietnam. He wasn’t selected to go, but nonetheless served his country very well …"He volunteered to go to Vietnam?
Marc, no he didn't.
Does he think no one is listening?
(For some reason Williams, made no effort to call him on it.)
Let's set aside the fact that pulling strings to get into the Air National Guard in 1968 is, on its face, quite the opposite of volunteering to go to Vietnam. When the president signed up for the National Guard there was a check box asking whether he wanted to volunteer for overseas service. And he checked off "do not volunteer."
Yes, and where have I been? The second question's easier to answer, thanks to this Visited States (Thanks, Jon). Here's my map:
I decided to only count states where I did more than just get out of the car and pee, or there would be another half a dozen states in red. I figure it doesn't count if your only knowledge of a state is how well kept the bathrooms are at Stuckey's.
Just for grins, I did the same thing at visited countries:
Having been to Russia makes me look much more widely traveled than what is really the case, but hey-- that's how the game is played, eh?
Today's WTF?!? moment, brought to you by the NY Times:
The Environmental Protection Agency should be allowed to use data from studies in which humans are intentionally doused with pesticides and other toxic substances, as long as strict scientific and ethical standards are met, a National Academy of Sciences report has concluded.
When the hell is it ever ethical to deliberately drop poison on people? My wife can't videotape a kid blowing his nose without getting signatures in triplicate from his parents, and now the NAS is saying, "Sure, go drop toxic substances on those guys. Let us know what happens." Is the head of the NAS named Himmler?
I've been giving NetNewsWire a look the last couple of days, and so far it looks good. I had tried some desktop software a while back to edit my blog, but it seemed to hose the whole site on a regular basis, so I had to quit. NetNewsWire doesn't offer a quick way to upload files as part of a post, but I haven't been able to do that through the web interface either, so it's not a huge loss. I like that it checks for updates for me, but am discovering that instead of keeping me from hitting my favorite web sites to check for updates when my brain needs a distraction, instead I am looking at a whole bunch of new web sites. So much for improving work productivity.
Mother Jones has a timeline comparing what Kerry and Bush were up to from 1966-1973.
Saw "The Triplets of Belleville" last night-- trippy little movie. It started stronger than it finished, but overall I enjoyed it. The movie's in French, except for the first and last sentences, which I assume were dubbed. No subtitles, though. That may seem weird, but it really didn't need them since there was hardly any dialogue. If you've ever seen any of Jacques Tati's "M. Hulot" films, just picture that same kind of almost-silent treatment, except more surreal. (I wouldn't have made this connection, except that at one point in Triplets you can see posters for "Les Vacances de M. Hulot" and "Gertie the Dinosaur"...)
Oh, please. "iPod people?"
Idea for a sci-fi horror flick: New York is invaded by zombielike robots. They ghost along the sidewalks, oblivious of pedestrians, and have frequent near misses with taxis and cyclists, causing chaos. They carry a secret weapon � no bigger than a deck of cards � that can render humans invisible. The only sign they are not quite human themselves: two white wires that run from their ears into their clothes, just below the neckline, as distinctive as the bolts in the Frankenstein monster's neck.. . . .
Much of America � the part that lives behind the wheel of a car and views life through the glare of the windshield � has long since adapted to life in a bubble. But city dwellers are supposed to be different; their constant interaction with other human beings, urbanites like to think, makes them more socially advanced creatures than the detached inhabitants of car culture. But could the iPod and similar high-capacity players be turning the vibrant sidewalks of New York into the pedestrian equivalent of the soulless freeway?
Piffle. Like we haven't had Walkmans for the last 20 years, letting people tune out when they want to. And didn't Joanie have one of those transistor radio things on Happy Days? Besides, New York is loud, and New Yorkers are even louder. The iPod's headphones are adequate for delivering music to your eardrums, but hardly powerful enough to drown out the Big Apple. Sounds to me like this reporter's just miffed because his sweetie didn't get him an iPod for Valentine's Day.
I need to brush up on my Herbert readings, I guess:
Just for the record, I'm not implying that the Bush family is as completely and utterly evil as the Harkonnen family. �The Bushes are as ambitious and ruthless as any American family with dynastic ambitions has ever been, but they don't, for example, have young boys drugged for the purposes of having sex with them, as the Baron does. �Whatever else they may be, they're not that bad. �At least I hope not. �That's the problem with these secretive families, you never know for sure.
Go read the whole thing...I may have to drop my Foundation reading for a while and read Dune again.
This is really funny, although if you look at the photo gallery you'll discover a protest sign with the URL "billionairesforbushorgore.com"...
From the NY Times:
The United States has been sabotaging its future for decades by starving the public colleges and universities that have moved millions of Americans into the middle class. These public institutions, which grant more than three-quarters of the country's degrees, have responded by creating larger classes, cutting courses and raising tuition.The gap between state aid and the real cost of an education is glaringly evident at the flagship public colleges, which often receive a pittance from the legislature while maintaining expensive, world-class programs that compete with those of top private colleges and universities. On average, the flagship public campuses get only about 30 percent of their budgets from the states, and in some cases the percentage dips into the single digits. The state legislatures have in effect become minority stakeholders that nevertheless control everything the schools do, from how they purchase paper towels to how much tuition they charge.
NY Times piece on H.R. Pufnstuf:
Have you ever thought you liked a terrible song just because you remembered it, mistaking mere recollection for actual nostalgia? That's the way it is for me and "H. R. Pufnstuf." I thought I had fond memories of the show until I had a chance to see it again, to hear the shrieks of an angry Witchie-Poo (the actress Billie Hayes in a ketchup-red wig), to be assaulted by swirling Day-Glo colors and a Freudian plot featuring a talking flute. Turns out that when I was 7, I had really, really bad taste.
Apparently TV Land is doing a marathon of this stuff, which brings back memories of when they had a marathon of it before, several years ago. I have no memories of watching these shows when I was a kid, but some of our fellow graduate students were pretty excited about the marathon, so we went over to their place to watch some of it. I think we got through maybe two and a half shows before we had to shut it off (or watch MST3k's take on "Mr. B flat"?). I think it must be some of the worst television ever made, and that includes "SuperFriends," which is my own entry in the beer-goggles-of-nostalgia line of shows I'm horrified to think I used to enjoy.
The laugh track! Not the laugh track again!
The original Star Wars trilogy is coming on DVD.
That's Snark of the Day, courtesy Josh Marshall:
Given the president's record as a businessman, and since he's now run the country hopelessly into debt, isn't it about time he sells the country off to some rich friends who will swallow the loss so he can move on to greener pastures?
I just got wind of the new version of OmniWeb, which is now in public beta. They've got a different implementation of tabbed browsing that's pretty cool, built-in support for subscribing to RSS feeds, and a "Workspace" feature that I haven't looked into yet. If you're an OS X person, I recommend taking a look...
So Dave Winer's complaining about the media again. That's fine, but then he ends with this:
Anyway, the average discourse in the blogosphere is no better than television. It's all pretty lame I guess. Whatever.
Ok, so apparently no matter how old you get, everyone's still got a petulant teenager inside them somewhere. I get that. But what's the point of ragging on "average discourse in the blogosphere?" I would contend that "average discourse" everywhere is pretty lame. Still, so what? There's a difference between some random schmuck with a web site talking about politics, what happened on the way to work, or why his butt itches and someone in the news media whose job it is to help keep the public informed on issues that matter. By all rights discourse on television should be held to a higher standard than "the blogosphere" as a whole.
Here's a perspective on the Bush National Guard story that I hadn't considered:
There's no question that the idea that Bush may have been AWOL during part of his tenure in the Guard is intriguing. But it's not nearly the most offensive aspect of his military history, and it's mired in uncertainty. We need to avoid getting caught up in the legalistic AWOL/not-AWOL arguments, and focus on what Bush himself admits when asked how he got out of the Guard 8 months early: "I was going to Harvard Business School and worked it out with the military."Imagine with me a soldier named Joe Smith, from Southeast DC. Corporal Smith joined the DC Guard to pay for his undergrad degree at UDC -- he was the first member of his family to earn a four-year degree. Smith has been posted in Tikrit for the past six months, and despite the fact that his Guard commitment was due to end on Dec. 31, he isn't allowed to leave the service, due to Bush's stop-loss orders. But Smith applied to business schools before leaving for Iraq, and has just been accepted into Howard Business School.
Will Corporal Smith, who has already served longer than the term for which he signed up -- and who has served in a war zone -- be able to "work it out with the military" so that he can go to the "other" HBS? Hell no. And that, folks, is a powerful testament to the arrogant sense of entitlement that permeates every cell of George Walker Bush.
I wonder what current National Guard folks think about this whole thing...
It was that other actor who was so important in ending the Cold War.
Remember those pictures of Iraq's WMDs that Powell trotted out last year? Well here's an update. At minimum, I think he owes the world an "oops, my bad."
Been hearing more and more about coming troop withdrawal, etc. in Iraq, such as this:
The U.S. Army has said it will gradually reduce its presence in Iraqi cities and hand over control to Iraqi security forces. The Army has so far given a detailed withdrawal plan only for the capital, Baghdad, which it envisages to be virtually free of U.S. troops by May.While pulling back from densely populated areas such as Baghdad, U.S. forces will remain nearby and ready to rapidly respond to civil disorder, U.S. officials have said.
U.S. commanders say the security situation is improving and the number of insurgent attacks including roadside bombings and hit-and-run firing are coming down. Still, the monthly U.S. casualty rate has remained steady with 251 soldiers dying in hostile action since May 1.
There was another piece on NPR the other day talking about some sort of lawyer brigade whose numbers are going to be significantly reduced as well. the Baghdad thing really struck me, though. Seems like January was pretty nasty, so I don't know where they're getting the "situation is improving" line. Not to mention that attack on the Kurds a few days ago...does the Bush Administration think that the insurgents are going to sit down with the IGC for tea and crumpets once the Americans skedaddle?
So I hear that Bush is going to be on "Meet the Press" this weekend. I don't normally watch the Sunday yakkers, but I might tune in to this one just to see what the overall tone is. Tim Russert has a reputation for being tough, but from what I hear he's also been known to let folks coast. Based on what I've seen of Dubya in the past, if Tim were to really push him I think he could expose the ugly petulant side of Dubya that typically only gets revealed on C-SPAN. Between the AWOL thing, going to Iraq for really no good reason, the economy, the disappearing Mars mission and Dubya's recent habit of trailing Democratic primaries for damage control, Mr. Russert's got plenty of ammunition...
From the NY Times:
For years, many self-described computer geeks seemed eager to usher outsiders onto their electronic frontier. Everyone, it seemed, had a friend or family member in the geek elite who could be summoned � often frequently � in times of computer crisis.But as those same friends and family members are called upon again and again to save the computer incompetents from themselves, the geeks' patience is growing thin. As it does, a new kind of digital divide is opening up between populations of computer users who must coexist in the same digital world.
. . . .
And some, tired of being treated like free help lines, are beginning to rebel. They are telling friends, relatives and random acquaintances to figure it out on their own.
Probably best left without comment...
That's "Weapons of Mass Destruction Related Program Activity Coveting." From the LA Times:
In a new twist, President Bush suggested today that Saddam Hussein's intent to surreptitiously acquire weapons of mass destruction was sufficient grounds for the Iraq war that ousted the dictator from power.
So here's the devolution, as I see it:
Finland is one of those "quirky news bite" countries, I guess. The only time you ever hear about the Finns is when someone gets wind of something nutty going on with them. But how many of you have heard of Värttinä, JPP, or Maria Kalaniemi? Hmph.
So CBS is sorry they showed Janet Jackson's breast. I'm sorry I live in a country where people care about breasts so much, and boobs so little.
From The Telegraph:
Tony Blair and George Bush have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for waging war on Saddam Hussein.
Yes, that's The Telegraph, not The Onion. In other news, Michael Jackson has been nominated for Pope, and Hugh Hefner has decided to join a monastery. Fire will rain from the sky in parts of Delaware...
