This is a campaign button from the 1980 election that I stole from my mom back in high school during Reagan's last couple years in office. I wore it proudly on the army trenchcoat I was wearing at the time, and yes I got weird looks from other kids who couldn't figure out what I was trying to say. Not that I knew, either. Anyway, I recently rediscovered it in a collection of old stuff from home, and it struck me as weirdly relevant again.
Robert Scheer Interview | "Nothing Prepared Me for Bush": ""
Here's an excerpt from the intro:
With over 65 percent of Americans disapproving of our current president, why can't we get some credible opposition in Washington? As we head towards midterm elections, and look ahead to those of 2008, it's a question that is weighing heavily on millions of American minds.
. . . .
Robert Scheer spent over 30 years interviewing American presidents and candidates since Nixon, but it was only in retrospect that he discovered a disturbing pattern. Scheer's new book Playing President: My Close Encounters with Nixon, Carter, Bush I, Reagan and Clinton - and How They Did Not Prepare Me for George W. Bush explores the crippling effects the campaign process had on every candidate he interviewed - and how our presidents have become increasingly out of touch with American voters.
As one of the last print journalists to spend extended periods of time with candidates, Scheer's close examination of our political process, and how the media covers it, points to the flaws that led to the election of George W. Bush. AlterNet spoke with Scheer about what we got right, what we got wrong, and why in the face of such an unpopular president, we still find ourselves "drowning in lesser evildom."
Sounds like an interesting film. An Iraq War documentary shot by soldiers out in the field.
As a result, War Tapes feels far more raw and political than network coverage. One of its main targets is KBR, a Halliburton-owned military contractor that the soldiers suspect of war profiteering.
'Why the fuck am I out here guarding this truck full of cheesecake?' asked Mike Moriarty, another of the film's central subjects. 'The priority of KBR making money outweighs the priority of our safety.'
But War Tapes is no Michael Moore rant. Scranton said one of her main goals was to deepen and complicate our conception of the war, not politicize it."
The Washington Monthly: "For most of us, trickle-down economics is more like Republican water torture."
Just so's you know. That hundred bucks you're planning on giving away to try and make up for untold years of shortsighted energy policy? If you do it, we're going to donate ours to the ACLU.
I've posted this before, but didn't realize at the time the profound effect it would have on the feline members of the family. Every time I play it, our boys in particular start running around the house looking for signs of the apocalypse. Big, big fun for the humans.
I'll have to admit that I don't fully understand what's going on here, but I'm operating under two assumptions:
With that in mind, check out savetheinternet.com.
Ollie & Frank neglected to mention this little tidbit. You'll have to follow the link in this to get at more pictures, and I wish my Russian was good enough to offer a translation, but apparently the good folks at Disney would occasionally re-use animation, probably to save time and money.
This Russian website documents, with frame grabs, some of the many times Disney animators recycled animation from one film into another. I'd love to see an expanded version of this listing (in English). Missing from this Russian post are the numerous appearances of the whirlpool from the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" sequence in Fantasia and the windblown weed from The Old Mill.
Incident was Friday, story came out Saturday. How did I not hear about this until now? Students successfully blocked Dubya's way? Is that not news? Go fightin' whatever-your-mascot-is!
When protesters blocked the route Bush was to take to the Hoover Institution, somebody apparently thought it was a good idea to create a ruse by driving a firetruck toward the crowd and claiming that it needed to get through for an emergency.
The protesters didn't buy it, ugly words were exchanged, and Bush ultimately had to have lunch with former Secretary of State George Shultz somewhere else. If officials at the Secret Service or the White House had a hand in this -- and given recent events and our own experiences, we wouldn't be surprised -- they owe the protesters, the firefighters and the people they're supposed to be protecting some kind of apology. If local cops or firefighters took this one upon themselves, then they have only themselves to blame the next time someone doesn't yield to their flashing lights.
In software development, there are a number of different established theoretical models. There's the "Waterfall," which indicates that you start at a high level and then work your way down into the details.
There's also the "Spiral," which illustrates iteration. the idea is that you may cover some of the same ground multiple times, but each pass you get closer to what you're ultimately after.
I don't know if there are similar models for filmmaking or animation, but if there were this is how my particular model would look:
Incidentally, this is also what it looks like when Chandra goes to the grocery store.
To be a little more charitable to myself, I have made progress this weekend, but it's been in wildly varying areas:
And yes, I may be sleeping in the guest room for that grocery shopping crack.
Congress Is Giving Away the Internet, and You Won't Like Who Gets It | TPMCafe
Firedoglake - Firedoglake weblog » Al Gore Rises to Aid the Earth… and Run in ‘08?
Still getting caught up after attending the KC Filmmaker's Jubilee, and haven't had time to post my thoughts. In no particular order:
These are my shoes, photo courtesy Levenson Photography.
Two thoughts:
I've seen a couple posts from folks talking about the recent spate of retired generals coming out for Rumsfeld's ouster who seem concerned about the military taking on civilian leadership. Yes, it would be bad if military officers were trying to push around civilians. However, that's not what is happening here. The key word folks seem to be missing is "retired." None of these guys are actually in the military anymore. They're civilians, and as such have every right to to call for Rumsfeld's resignation.
NPR had a story this morning where a current general made a statement re: civilian control of the military. I forget who the reporter was, but the statement was prefaced as a "defense" of Rumsfeld. It was no such thing. All that general did was re-state that civilians should be in charge of the military.
No one has suggested that Rumsfeld should be replaced by a military man. All anyone is saying is that he (and face it, his boss) has screwed up royally and it's past time for someone new to take the reigns.
Holy Crap. Now excuse me while I go get gas for the lawnmower so I can cut the grass.
(Via Harald Siepermann.)
Beck's coming to Athens, and Chandra begrudgingly allowed me to try and get tickets. Tickets became available at noon, and were apparently all gone by 12:01. Drat.
Seriously? Tiger Woods had to apologize because he said he was a "spaz"? What-EVER.
Dubya may be hell-bent on blasting Iran into smithereens when all they've managed to do is make enough enriched uranium for a glow-in-the-dark watch.
This has been sitting on my hard drive for a while, and I just now got around to watching it. I want more like her.
Bring cat-5 cable. Everything may be up-to-date in Kansas City, but the wireless internet access is flaky in the hotel room.
That Bill of Rights card from EFF you're carrying around in your wallet triggers metal detectors in airports. TSA folks find this very amusing.
Once upon a time, I was involved with a project that I was summarily canned from. In addition to being let go, I also had to sign a document saying something to the effect that I wouldn't discuss the project or indicate that I had ever worked on it. Because of that I have to be a little more vague than I normally would.
I worked on this project for about a year, and in that time delivered a series of Flash animations wrapped up in a Director project. I subcontracted for some of the content and animations, and wrote some of the rest myself. I would have to go back and dig through the materials to get an exact figure, but if memory serves I ultimately delivered somewhere around two hours of material. It's not the greatest set of materials ever developed, but given the budget I had it's not too bad. Getting cut from the project wasn't the most fun I've ever had, but I suspect in the long run it's not a bad thing (for a lot of reasons I won't go into here).
Earlier this week I learned that the project has a web presence, and my animations are available on the site. Not only are they on the site, but the section of the site where the animations are housed have nothing but those animations. Aside from a different interface to present them, they are essentially unchanged. Either the work wasn't so bad after all, or the clients couldn't get it together to do anything more after firing me.
So here's the dilemma. I checked the list of credits and acknowledgements, and there is no mention of me or transparent media anywhere on the site. On one hand I look at the site and it's not necessarily something I want to be associated with. On the other hand, other people are taking credit for my work. In principle, that's not cool. Whether it's worth doing anything about is sort of the question of the week...
It would need some re-working, but this cartoon would make a great t-shirt.
There's an interesting post on Firedoglake about an ad the Republicans have put together. The idea is that it's supposed to fire up their base with the charge that Democrats want to censure and/or impeach the president. Pachacutec figures that it's a bluff and that it would do more to get the Democrat's base excited. I don't know if I agree, but it's an interesting thought.