And so it begins

John Feinstein's basketball column is back, meaning it's that time of year again when Galley Slaves readers, regardless of their politics, begin exchanging their more vicious barbs over who will make a run in March. No surprise, both ESPN and AP have Duke at the top of their preseason polls. Indeed, four of seven Blue Devils are seniors, including J.J. Redick and Shelden Williams. (Speaking of the latter, I wonder if cheerleaders do in fact say to him, "Do it to me Sheldon, you're an animal Sheldon, ride me big Shel-den"?)

Also highly touted are Texas, Villanova (this will change since Curtis Sumpter is injured), UConn, and Michigan State. Let's also not forget Syracuse, which still has Gerry McNamara (who must be close to 30 by now).

Not that any of this really matters. As Feinstein points out, "It is worth remembering that a year ago at this time no one dreamed Washington would be a No. 1 seed or that West Virginia would come within seconds of the Final Four. People thought Illinois had a nice team, but no one was predicting 37-2 and a trip to the championship game for the Illini. It was laughable to think that Bucknell would be the team that would end Kansas's season or that Vermont would send Syracuse packing on the same remarkable night."

Not to mention millions of brackets that were torn to pieces.

But this year will be different. I can feel it.

It's a Doberman, Let It Have Its Ears

Nan Aron seems pretty cavalier about what sounds an awful lot to me like animal neglect, if not cruelty:

Nan Aron lost the fish this summer.

Aron, the founder of the Alliance for Justice, one of the liberal armies in the war over the judiciary, has lived in her Woodley Park rowhouse for 30 years. There's a small brick pond in the front yard and, much to the delight of the neighborhood children, she filled it with fish over the summer, about 20 goldfish and koi. But summer was also the start of a season of high-stakes judicial battles.

While Aron and her allies were working long hours trying to defeat the confirmation of now Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., her fish disappeared.

"The problem was I was responsible for the fish," Aron says with a bit of self-deprecating humor. "My one responsibility at home was to feed the fish, talk to the fish and protect their safety, and I'd come home and start counting" and realize that there was trouble.

The casualties of war. But when you come from a family of social activists, you can look into an empty pond and find the positive.

"We'll start again next year and hopefully I'll be a little more attentive," Aron says.

Where's PETA when you need them?

Bonus: Alternate headline, "You're going to be covered in red paint. That'll distract the eye."

They've Got the Worst [bleep]ing Attorneys

The Angry Clam notes that amid the other election news last night was this tidbit: The city of San Francisco passed a ballot measure banning the sale of all guns in city limits.

Never mind that this runs contrary to state law and that the city lacks the authority to do so. As the Clam says,

Problem: they tried this in the 1980s, when Feinstein was mayor. It didn’t work then, because the California Court of Appeal ruled that state firearms regulations preempt such local regulations, and localities lack the power to ban guns. Likewise, when West Hollywood tried to ban “Saturday Night Specials,” a different district of the Court of Appeal rejected the law as preempted by state law.

I Hadn't Packed for That

Michael Brandon McClellan has more on the Somali pirates, including this great quote:

When asked if the pirate attack would prevent them from cruising in the future, one responded:

"We're English old boy. We don't get frightened by things like this."

Les Cousins Dangereux

Have you noticed these eerie parallels between the next-generation Xbox and the dearly departed Sega Dreamcast?

Unsettling, if you're planning on rushing out to buy Xbox 360. (Mind you, I own and adore a Dreamcast.)

Vinick for President!

In search of a ratings boost, NBC execs came up with the brilliant idea of having a live presidential debate on last Sunday's West Wing. Overall, the numbers were still weak: According to Lisa de Moraes, the show still finished third with 9.6 million viewers, behind ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (18 million) and CBS's Cold Case (16 million).

But it doesn't end there. Someone at Rockefeller Plaza thought it equally clever to conduct a Zogby poll, asking viewers who they thought performed better: Democratic congressman Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) or Republican senator Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda). Prior to the debate, Santos, the presumed successor to Jed Bartlet, led among younger audiences 54 percent to 37 percent. (And it is the younger audience those execs are desperately after.)

But the post-debate numbers show Senator Vinick now leading Santos among 18- to 29-year-olds by 56 percent to 42 percent. In other words, the age bracket NBC execs covet the most prefer the Republican who is supposed to ultimately lose. As de Moraes points out, Smits was even well-armed with such hard-hitting lines as:

What did liberals do that was so offensive to the Republican Party? I'll tell you what they did. Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation.... So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, "liberal," as if it's something dirty, something to be ashamed of, something to run away from, it won't work, senator, because I will pick it up, and I will wear that label as a badge of honor.

Somehow, audiences were not seduced by the sweeping rhetoric. Alda as Vinick, I am certain, was supposed to come off as old-fashioned, stodgy, out of touch--exactly the way a Republican should be. Instead Alda, the veteran actor that he is, actually appealed to viewers with his earnestness and folksy charm.

So what do the West Wing's writers and producers do now, knowing their target audience favors, good God, a Republican? Here are three options:

1. It turns out Vinick has some skeletons in his closet. He had an affair. With a male staffer. And, for good measure, he had a drinking and drug problem. How sweet the irony that his own conservative base would abandon him because of his loose morals!

2. Vinick is such a nice guy there's no possible way he could really be a Republican. Maybe he has a change of heart and decides to switch parties like the senator from Vermont. And he becomes Santos's veep. Everybody lives happily ever after.

3. Vinick is assassinated--by a far-right militiaman who used a gun that could have been banned under a Santos administration.

Oh, the possibilities.

The Heart of a Lion and the Hide . . . of an Oliphant

What to say about TO and the end of the Philadelphia Eagles?

Let's go to Galley Friend and Cowboy Superfan L.B.:

When the Eagles picked up TO, they knew they were making a huge roll of the dice. On one hand, they knew a big-play WR was probably the last element they needed in order to make it to the Super Bowl--and win. On the other hand, they knew (they *had* to know, didn't they?) that eventually the dude's enormous ego and attitude would require running him out of town. So the gamble was that the former would happen before the latter.

And actually, the gamble almost paid off--theycame up just 3 points short in the Super Bowl last year.

Now (to continue the gambling metaphor here), they've done the smart thing: cut your losses. This season's probably beyond repair, but at least they can move on. (Better to have done that during this past offseason--surely they could've found somebody dumb/desperate enough to take TO in a trade . . . but better late than never.)

I agree with L.B. except that I'd go further--the Eagles were right to keep TO around and not trade him, because the poor value they would have gotten (a future second round pick, at best) would not have compensated them for having TO playing against them.

So, the Eagles to a chance which almost paid off and have now moved on. Where are they going from here? Nowhere, obviously. I'll be very surprised if they sneak into the playoffs. (If I ran the team, I would have sent McNabb in for the surgery after week two; when you play hurt, you tend to get hurt.) But they have had three goals in the Owens endgame and are close to accomplishing them:

(1) Get TO off the team. They did that yesterday.

(2) Don't pay him. At most, the team will have to pay Owens for four more games this season. Owens will lose his appeal--the Eagles front office has been creating the paper-trail for this showdown since the beginning of the summer.

(3) Destroy TO's career so that no championship-contending team will want him and that even bottom-feeding teams won't give him more than a one-year contract. The last thing the Eagles want is for Owens to show up in a Redskins (or Ravens) uniform next season. The way things have played out, that's much more unlikely today than it would have been if the Eagles had cut Owens during training camp. Owens is more radioactive today than he was three months ago--and football people have seen that he isn't the same receiver he was last year.

(Don't be fooled by TO's gaudy numbers--the Eagles have thrown the ball almost 80% of the time this season and on pass playes that weren't screens, TO was the first, second, and third option. Under that scenario, the team's #1 receiver couldn't help but have monster stats. Still, the tape doesn't lie: Owens is slower than last year and his body is starting to break down. Wide receivers don't get better after 30.)

So the Eagles have made the best of a bad situation. The only two questions left are: (1) Were they right to make the gamble in the first place? And (2) Will they regroup next year, the way the Pats did after winning their first Brady Super Bowl and missing the playoffs the following season?

They Said He Was Some Kind of Scientist . . .

The new publicist for Tom Cruise, that is.

C'MON!

You know you want to read it: How the Death Star Works. Really, it's all about the Superlaser.

More: How the destruction of the second Death Star created a holocaust on the moon of Endor.

I Should Say So--Look at the Blouse!

The cruise ship pirate attack story keeps getting better and better: It turns out that Somalia has three "well-organized pirate groups" operating off its coast and that since March 15 there have been 25 pirate attacks in Somali waters.

More: The cruise ship employed a sonic weapon against the pirates.

Good Night, Good Luck, Have a Smoke

Just a few thoughts on Good Night, and Good Luck, which I had caught over the weekend thanks to tickets courtesy of David Cirilli of Ken Sunshine Consultants (other than the free tickets, I've received nothing for this blurb--not even a free bag of popcorn or Junior Mints. And those who prefer Raisinets to Goobers can go back to Russia!):

David Strathairn is a serious actor. My bet is he gets the Oscar nod. After a few scenes, you get the impression that Murrow's opinion of himself and his crusade for truth, justice, and the American Way is as high as Joe McCarthy's (or better yet, your modern-day network anchor). Still, Murrow's interview of Liberace, in which he asks the pianist if he'll ever settle down and get married is priceless. In addition, Strathairn deserves props for being a nonsmoker who, true to his character, smoked like a chimney for all 90 minutes. I don't think there was a single scene showing him without a cigarette.

Who is the real enemy in Good Night, and Good Luck? It's not McCarthy. Ultimately it is television and Bill Paley's vision for CBS versus that of Murrow and Fred Friendly's. (As CBS president, Paley sees a future not with Murrow's preachy talk show but, rather, with the more lucrative $64,000 Question.) It's obvious this movie is director George Clooney's Quiz Show moment.

Look carefully at the footage from the McCarthy hearings and you will see sitting there quietly a young Bobby Kennedy. Interestingly, he isn't quoted saying anything.

Performances across the board are stellar. But in particular is Ray Wise, a B-movie actor who I think deserves a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for the role of Don Hollenbeck. A war correspondence in North Africa during the war, Hollenbeck worked at CBS until his untimely death in 1954, an apparent suicide. Wise's Hollenbeck is sad and earnest. I asked a friend who actually knew him during his days at PM Magazine if Hollenbeck was really as sympathetic. My friend says he was indeed, "a very, very nice man."

At the very least, you'll leave Good Night, and Good Luck with a hankering for a smoke and a drink and maybe listen to some Cool Jazz. Not such a bad idea at the moment.

Ride 'Em, Cowboy

Today Andrew Sullivan commits what will certainly be the first of many fawning words about Brokeback Mountain. (Will it be this year's Team America!?!) The only problem is that Sullivan doesn't know much about the movie industry. In an effort to make Brokeback Mountain out to be more than it is, he gives us all sorts of hyperbole about how important this "fascinating cultural moment" is. He tells us:

But that two very hot Hollywood leading men would be prepared to take on these roles, that a director as accomplished as Ang Lee would direct the movie, and that a studio as mainstream as Universal would produce it strikes me as a significant development. A few years back, it would have been unthinkable for bankable, heterosexual stars like Ledger and Gyllenhaal to have embraced such a venture. But they are of the generation that is mercifully over the bigotries of old Hollywood. Think of the greatest actor of his generation, Philip Seymour Hoffman. Three of his most powerful, accomplished, career-making performances - in "Boogie Nights," "Flawless," and "Capote," - are of gay men, each very different, each very human, each poignantly and brilliantly brought to life. In his case, taking on homosexual roles has helped Hoffman reach the career heights he now commands. Ledger and Gyllenhal take this to a new level, because, unlike Hoffman, they are handsome beyond measure, and have played macho heterosexuals for years.

Let's start at the top and work our way down this mountain of blather:

(1) Yes, Jake Gyllenhaal is a hot property; has been for a couple years.

Heath Ledger, on the other hand, missed his shot at the big time in 2001 and has been on a downward career spiral ever since. Ledger was a Bright Young Thing in 1999 when he appeared in the very fine teen comedy 10 Things I Hate About You; in 2000 he got second billing in Mel Gibson's Revolutionary War movie The Patriot, which underperformed. Still, Hollywood executives thought Ledger might become a bankable leading man, so they gave him starring roles in a summer action movie (A Knight's Tale) and a bit of Oscar bait (The Four Feathers); both flopped. Since then, Ledger has struggled to get leading-man work and has dipped into such fare as Ned Kelly, The Order, Lords of Dogtown, and The Brothers Grimm. For Ledger, Brokeback Mountain isn't a risk--it's a last, desperate grasp at the brass ring before he disappears into the abyss with Josh Hartnett and Wes Bentley. Remember them?

And what to say of Ang Lee? Lee directed one of my Top 40 movies, Sense and Sensibility. He then directed the cold and clinical Ice Storm. Both films had critical acclaim, but no serious commercial performance. Since then, he's directed two colossal flops: Ride with the Devil and The Hulk, both of which lost money and stunk. He isn't exactly riding a tidal wave of success into this project.

(2) Are Gyllenhaal and Ledger "bankable"? Is Sullivan kidding? Does he even know what the word means? Here's Ledger's résumé:

Release Date	Movie	Total Gross	Opening Weekend
6/3/05	The Brothers Grimm	$37,916,267	$15,092,079
8/26/05	Lords of Dogtown	$11,008,432	$5,623,373
3/26/04	Ned Kelly	$86,959	$43,704
9/5/03	The Order	$7,660,806	$4,438,899
9/20/02	The Four Feathers	$18,306,166	$6,857,879
12/26/01	Monster's Ball	$31,273,922	$110,552
5/11/01	A Knight's Tale	$56,569,702	$16,511,391
6/28/00	The Patriot	$113,330,342	$22,413,710
3/31/99	10 Things I Hate…	$38,178,166	$8,330,681

Despite having ridden shotgun with Gibson and Matt Damon--two actors who really are bankable--Ledger has never opened a movie with any real success. In fact, a studio executive might reach the opposite conclusion: that Ledger is box office poison. Look at those grosses for Ned Kelly, The Four Feathers, and Lords of Dogtown. These pictures should have gone direct-to-video.

And how about that Jake Gyllenhaal? Here's his track record:

Release Date	Movie	Total Gross	Opening Weekend
11/4/05	Jarhead	[still in release]	$28,751,000
9/16/05	Proof	$7,155,544	$193,840
5/28/04	The Day After Tomorrow	$186,740,799	$68,743,584
9/27/02	Moonlight Mile	$6,835,856	$329,771
8/7/02	The Good Girl	$14,018,296	$151,642
6/28/02	Lovely and Amazing	$4,222,923	$91,910
10/26/01	Donnie Darko	$1,270,522	$110,494
8/24/01	Bubble Boy	$5,007,898	$2,038,349
2/19/99	October Sky	$32,547,800	$5,905,250

Take out The Day After Tomorrow--which was a Roland Emmerich disaster extravaganza headlined by Dennis Quaid and starring everyone from Sela Ward to Ian Holm--and Gyllenhaal has never topped $35 million in total gross and never opened a picture above $6 million--$6 million! If you go by the numbers, and not what you read in Us Weekly, you see the portrait of an untested art-house darling, not a "bankable" leading man. You see, in fact, the type of career that was built for roles like "gay cowboy." Brokeback Mountain isn't a risk for Gyllenhaal, it's his wheelhouse. (Yes, Jarhead opened nicely this past weekend, but the executives at Universal didn't know that when they cast Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain many moons ago.)

(3) Was Philip Seymour Hoffman's career made by his "powerful, accomplished, career-making performances" in Boogie Nights, Flawless, and Capote? After all, he's been gay on-screen three times--that must make a trend!

Except that anyone who has followed Hoffman's career knows that to the extent any select performances "made" it, it was made by his work in The Talented Mr. Ripley, Almost Famous, and--more than anything else--Love Liza. If anything, Flawless, Hoffman's turn as a drag queen opposite Robert De Niro, is regarded as one of his few missteps.

(Note also how Sullivan uses Capote as both cause and effect: Playing a gay man in Capote has somehow helped Hoffman reach the heights he now commands where he can get the lead in movies such as Capote.)

(4) Have Ledger and Gyllenhaal "played macho heterosexuals for years"? Hardly. Ledger has yet to play a character older than his early twenties and his career only stretches back to 1999. As for Gyllenhaal, this fall marked the first time he's appeared in a movie as a character older than high school age and if Sullivan were familiar with the Gyllenhaal oeuvre he would know that his prototypical character is that of the sensitive, thoughtful, semi-nerd.

If only Sullivan would leave the movie industry alone. He can probably keep his gig as the resident hep cat on The Chris Matthews Show without having to pretend to be a Hollywood trend spotter.

Jon Stewart Is Hurting America

I wish he'd just stop.

But really, can't we all quit pretending he's still funny? He hasn't gotten an honest laugh since the mid-'90s. I'd rather watch Rip Taylor.

Of all the regions to undergo deer overpopulation, Washington, D.C., has got to be the unlikeliest. And yet, particularly because it's the rut, deer have been seen roaming throughout the city. Just yesterday, a young buck entered a shopping plaza in nearby Germantown, Maryland, smashing windows and causing havoc at the Giant supermarket. It was eventually put down.

Two nights ago I was driving down a sidestreet in Georgetown when suddenly a deer crossed my path some 20 feet ahead of me. It had somehow managed to cross Wisconsin Avenue near the Holiday Inn.

And last week one buck made his way deep into Georgetown and ended up inside a Diesel store and later Ralph Lauren, before getting tranquilized.

You may recall, a few years ago, some deer actually made their way onto the White House South Lawn.

These deer must really need to get laid.

Jarhead

I just won a bet with a friend over what David Denby's review of Jarhead would look like. I suspected Denby wouldn't like it much because it isn't antimilitary or anti-Bush. Here's his thoroughly predictable conclusion:

“Jarhead” has an oddly amorphous and inconclusive feeling to it. We never do find out who Tony is, and his best friend, Troy (Peter Sarsgaard), who shifts back and forth between sanity and hysteria, is a mystery, too. The old war-story narrative may have run aground in the Gulf War, but since questions of courage and character are left up in the air, you wonder why the material wasn’t played differently—with a greater sense of irony, say, or as absurdist comedy, in something like the style of David O. Russell’s Gulf War movie, “Three Kings.” What’s left instead of laughter is a rather sour implication. Underneath all the roughhousing, there’s a persistent sexual menace—towel-snapping in the shower and mock rapes and insults that depend on feminizing the victim of the joke. Broyles and Mendes are saying, I think, that men who are this casually abusive of one another’s bodies could slip, without much provocation, into sexually humiliating detained prisoners. “Jarhead” is an inglorious portrait of military life which points to the next Gulf War and the degrading japes of Abu Ghraib and other prisons.

If you see Jarhead this weekend, you'll understand how silly this is.

That Thing You Douthat

Ross Douthat has a sensational piece on Maureen Dowd and the victory of feminism. Crackerjack stuff.

Hollywood, etc.

I'm not sold on King Kong either, but the new trailer is pretty interesting--particularly in HD.

(If only Peter Jackson hadn't continued his turn of going-Hollywood by casting hot actors in the lead roles. Should Kong somehow beat out Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture, I fully expect Jackson to get liposuction.)

Also of interest is this great Edward Jay Epstein piece on the German film financing loophole. EJE is the most important chronicler of the movie industry today, don't miss it.

Germany continues muddling its way into a new government. Edmund Stoiber of the Christian Social Union has backed out as economics minister. Franz Müntefering will no longer be vice chancellor. In fact he is stepping down as chairman of the Social Democrats. So now there are a few vacancies to fill for Chancellor-elect Angela Merkel, who is expected to enter office on November 18.

On the good news front, an acquaintance of mine, Hubertus Heil, has been tapped to become the next SPD general secretary. I met Hubertus at an American Council on Germany trip in 2003. He's a nice enough fellow who did a pretty good rendition of "Sweet Home Chicago" on the karaoke.

This does, however, bring up a more serious question. If Hubertus Heil runs for higher office and wins, would the headline read:

Sieg ... Heil?

Buying Bad News: Now is the time for TWX?

Unfazed by CNN's ouster of Aaron Brown, the Wershovenist Pig is hot for Time-Warner stock.

In Case There Were Any Doubts . . .

. . . we're now into the hard-alcohol portion of the Eagles' season.

I predict they go 1-2 over the next three-week stretch where they have the Redskins, Giants, and Cowboys. After that they'll be 5-5 and the calls will come out to put McNabb in for surgery now and scrap the season.

Jon Klein's Wave of Terror Continues

Aaron Brown is out. I know he's a popular whipping boy, but I've always liked Brown's presence a ton--he was the last anchor at CNN worth watching. And now they've kicked him to the curb, too. Genius!

In fairness to Jon Klein, we don't know for certain that he forced Brown out. It's possible that Brown left of his own accord. But in Klein's memo to the staff he writes, "Aaron will be leaving CNN and is very much looking forward to some well-deserved time off with his family."

Which is Washington-speak for shit-canned. Isn't someone at Time-Warner paying attention to what's happening to their cable network?

Ross Douthat shows us his O-face. Fantastic and hysterical post. If only Reihan Salam was still around to kick out a rhyme or two.

Hack Work at--the New Yorker!

Pity David Denby. Being the #2 movie critic at the New Yorker behind Anthony Lane is like being Michael Jordan's back-up during the Bulls' glory years. Sure, you get 7 or 8 minutes a game, but really, warming the seat of a god must be sort of maddening. So perhaps Denby should be forgiven passages such as this one, in his review of Good Night, and Good Luck:

There's little gravy in attacking Joe McCarth in 2005, and that's only a small part of what Clooney is up to. His real intention appears to be to deliver a blow to the patella of a conglomerate-controlled press corps that, until recently, has indulged the Bush Administration's most extravagant smears and lies. He has completely succeeded.

Which boot-licking, Bush-loving, conglomerate-controlled press corps would that be, David? The one that ran the forged memos attacking the president's National Guard service? The one that endlessly repeats the charges of Joe Wilson, even though they've been thoroughly debunked? The one that ran 21 straight days of editorial endorsements for John Kerry before the 2004 election?

For someone so ignorant of politics to be injecting the political into a movie review is unfortunate. Being Tony Lane's back-up might not be much fun, but surely Denby should try to make the most of his garbage time.

On Halloween night, Washington area residents reported seeing a ball of fire streak across the sky between 6:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Witnesses described a flash of light leaving their surroundings in either an orange or bluish hue before returning to darkness. One driver told a local meteorologist he could clearly see the inside of a passing car as if it were daytime. Experts agree the phenomenon was most likely a meteor, probably the size of a grapefruit, that had managed to survive entry.

In unrelated news, the "Golden Record" aboard Voyager 1 was recovered last night from a crater in the woods of Northern Virginia. The record offers greetings from Earth in 55 languages.

In other unrelated news, a woman living near the crater was reportedly abducted by a man resembling her dead husband. Authorities are investigating.

Oh, the Gore!

Via Mickey Kaus, we have a link to this amazing exchange between an LA Times blogger and Gore Vidal:

At the "Jarhead" post-party, I approached the respected author/playwright and all-round éminence grise, who publicists said would be amenable to speak with me for the awards site, The Envelope, about the film he'd just seen.

"It's an honor to meet you, Mr. Vidal. May I ask what you thought of 'Jarhead'?"

"What are you paying?"

"Excuse me?"

"You work for the L.A. Times and they have a lot of money. And I get paid for criticism."

"I'm sorry. I really can't pay you. Does that mean you don't want to talk about the film?"

Long pause.

"Well, do you have a dollar?"

A Court That Looks Like America?

John Hinderaker has an excellent post on the latest bit of anti-Alito nonsense.

Superman IV: The Quest For Suck

Galley Friend B.W. sends us this link to a very long, very geeky, very excellent exegesis on Superman 4. Oh come on, it's not like you have anything better to do.

Here's a taste:

here comes Superman, who comes flying through space with the greatest of ease. (His introduction, I might add, provides the film with its first really appalling f/x shot.) Admittedly, during Superman’s long existence as a character he’s often been given the ability to fly through space without suffering any ill effect, including from lack of air. Of course, they also once showed him pushing the Earth out of orbit by shoving on it with his two hands. However, in recent decades I think they started realizing how silly this was, and now Superman generally is given at least the fig leaf of an air helmet or something. Not so here. In fact, Supes is quite visibly breathing here. Plus his cape is waving up a storm. Oops.

Superman grabs hold of the station and stops it from spinning. This is a neat trick since he doesn’t have any leverage. Actually, he’s presumably using whatever force he employs to propel himself in flight to counter the momentum of the craft, so I’m just being snide. It’s not like I won’t have a bunch of fatter targets coming down the pike. . . .

Via another horrible matte shot, Superman flies out to grab the floating cosmonaut. He then deposits the fellow into an open airlock hatch. Finally, he gives they guy a friendly little farewell speech. This is in Russian, which I could buy, and in space, which I definitely couldn’t. And even if Superman could ‘talk’ in space, how the hell could the cosmonaut hear him? Plus, doesn’t Superman usually ‘hear’ cries for help? Makes you wonder how he managed to just stumble across the space station seconds after it was hit.

Let me get back to the political leanings thing. I know with some readers I’m undoubtedly considered a paranoid kook who sees a Red under every bed. (This habit being scary and nutty, unlike, say, seeing an overt anti-Communist message in every sci-fi film made in the ‘50s.) Even so, it’s pretty clear that Reeve & Co., are taking a bit of a shot at then-President Reagan here. First, of course, Reeve takes Superman out of the "fighting for the American Way" box by having him not only saving Soviets, but speaking to them in their native tongues. None of that jingoistic nationalistic parochialism for this Man of Steel! Also, how could the USSR be an "evil empire" when their cosmonauts were singing Sinatra songs, for cripe’s sake? The fact that this event opens the film only strengthens one’s suspicions.

RealClearPolitics Blogs

I've been remiss in not noting that Real Clear Politics has expanded by adding both a RealClearPolitics on Blogs section and the RCP Blog--a blog of their own.

Good for them.

Oh, the Irony

Just in time to take my mind off the crumbling of the Eagles dynasty, the shipwreck that is the Philadelphia '76ers has set sail once again. How bad will it be this year? Who knows. I'm just hoping that this season doesn't ruin Maurice Cheeks. I'd like to have him around in a few years to coach the trio of Dalembert / Korver / Igoudala as they mature.

A realistic projection is that, if everything goes just right, the Sixers could slip into the playoffs and maybe steal a game in the first round from the Pacers. If things don't go just right, well, the 9-73 record is probably safe. Right?

Right?

But to numb the pain of the new NBA season, there's this hysterical scouting report on the Sixers, where a bunch of experts give their predictions for the team. My favorite is this harping about the team's coaching situation:

Iverson and Webber must share the burden of leading the team as Maurice Cheeks becomes the fourth coach in less than two years. Both veterans need the ball, so striking the right balance will get them back in the playoffs.

That penetrating insight comes from Jim O'Brien, the Sixers coach who was fired last year.

Be Not Afraid

Soxblog gives some bucking-up to Red Sox Nation. His verdict on the departure of Theo Epstein: Don't worry; John Henry is the critical man.

Cheap Shot, Inky Style

Yesterday I posted a heart-sick item linking to a post by the Philadelphia Inquirer's blogger-in-residence, Daniel Rubin in which I echoed Rubin's lament for the troubled waters that my favorite newspaper finds itself in.

Today Rubin posts a sad example of the provincialism on which the blogosphere so enjoys harping. Noting a study which ranks states by "smartness" using a number of measures which may or may not have any relevance, Rubin notes that fair New Jersey ranked 4th, Pennsylvania ranked 11th, and Delaware clocks in at 25th. He then gives us the top five and bottom five states:

1) Vermont
2) Connecticut
3) Massachusetts
4) New Jersey
5) Maine

And the bottom five:

46) California
47) Nevada
48) New Mexico
49) Mississippi
50) Arizona

Rubin then closes by quoting a lefty blogger saying "i won't mention that most of the red states are on the bottom half of the list. but you know i'm thinking it."

"Anybody else?" asks Rubin.

Get it? Republicans are stoo-pid!

But wait, you might ask, what about the most liberal and Democratic (and populous) state in America, which sits at 46th on the Smart Index? Surely California's many, many stupid Democrats make up for the stupid Republicans in Mississippi.

What to do with Maine, which is very smart, and which voted against George W. Bush, but has two Republican senators?

What to do about Number 7, Virginia, which, as the list shows, if very smart, and which went for Bush, but which has a Democratic governor?

Surely science can help us divine the truth to these great mysteries. But while the teams of researchers at CalTech are working out a solution, perhaps Daniel Rubin could try raising his blog to the standards of the Inquirer instead of taking cheap shots at those with whom he doesn't agree.

(Mind you, people from the Philadelphia area should be acutely aware of the idiocy of rankings.)

Ghostbusters 3: Ghostbusters Go To Hell

There are lots of reasons for you to read this excellent interview iwth Harold Ramis, but here's the big hook: He talks about the probably-never-to-be-filmed idea for Ghostbusters 3:

Ramis Yes. “Ghostbusters go to Hell” was Danny Aykroyd’s concept for it.

What was your favorite scene from that script that we'll likely never see?
Well, we never really got down to an actual scenario. We had a story. Part of the fun of “Ghostbusters” was developing some kind of lamebrained scientific explanation for what was going on, and I take credit for this:

What Danny had originally conceived was sending us to a special-effects Hell — a netherworld full of phenomenal visual environments and boiling pits and all that stuff.

Interviewer: He does tend to think big when he’s writing these, doesn’t he?

Ramis: Oh, he’s amazing. [laughs] But my thought was that what works so well about the first two is the mundane-ness of it all. So my notion was that Hell exists simultaneously, and in the same place as our consensus reality. But it’s like a film shutter — it’s the darkness between the 24 frames. When we’re blinking on, they’re off — so we blink alternately with this other reality, which is Hell.

So all the Ghostbusters would need to do [to go to Hell] is take themselves “out of phase” one beat. And we create a device to do it, and it’s in a warehouse in Brooklyn. And when we step out of the chamber, it looks just like New York — but it’s Hell. Everything’s gridlocked — no cars are moving, no vehicles are moving, and all the drivers are swearing at each other in different foreign languages. No two people speak the same language. It’s all the worst things about modern urban life, just magnified.

And Heaven was across the George Washington Bridge in New Jersey — which was irony. The Ghostbusters had to make this journey from lower Manhattan to the George Washington Bridge.

Ramis goes on to name the actors who would have been the next-gen Ghostbusters. Don't miss it.

Stay Away from Big Water

The Wershovenist Pig explains why, despite what the New York Times is telling you, investing in Big Water is a losing proposition.

Not to be lost in the shuffle of judicial nominations and indictments is Washington Post columnist Michael Wilbon's take on the earlier controversy over remarks by Air Force football coach Fisher DeBerry, who expressed a need for more black players since he considers them to be faster than his white players. Critics summarily called for his head but Wilbon believes "DeBerry has nothing to apologize for." He goes on:

Since Jason Sehorn retired from the NFL a season or so ago, how many white starting cornerbacks are there in the NFL? The answer, as far as I can find, is zero. And even if I missed one or two, fact is that a position based largely on speed is 99 percent black in the NFL. That's not the same as making a presumption about the intelligence or character of cornerbacks, black or white. It's fact, jack. DeBerry didn't offer any cultural or empirical evidence about cornerbacks; he just said he would like faster ones, and as the NFL demonstrates, the fastest ones are black. That isn't even debatable.

I've heard some black dissent, but mostly I hear objection being raised by white administrators and media colleagues, a sort of misplaced white liberal guilt, if you ask me....

Wilbon also addresses Hank Aaron's "very disturbing" feelings about the Houston Astros not having any black players on the team:

That's because we, black American men, have turned away from baseball. Overwhelmingly, we've cast our lot with basketball and football, and that's it. Only 9 percent of the players on Major League rosters on Opening Day were black and American.... But nobody's keeping black folks from playing baseball now, except mostly ourselves. The peer pressure is to give up everything in life for basketball. The percentage of blacks in the minor leagues, reportedly, is smaller than the percentage in the big leagues. But this isn't 1944.... But what should never be suggested, not by Aaron or anybody else, is that baseball resort to some quota to have more black major leaguers.... How would it go down if somebody suggested two or three spots on every NBA team be reserved for a white player?

Brokeback Jedi

Many thanks to the commenter who gives us this link to the real story of Revenge of the Sith: The fragile, beautiful love affair between Ani and Obi.

Enjoy.

America's Greatest Star Wars Apologist

That's not totally true, but Alexandra DuPont's review of the Revenge of the Sith DVD is almost enough to convince you that the movie's pretty good. A sample:

But in Sith, McDiarmid also gets to lay out a coherent philosophy to Anakin during one of their many confrontations. "Anakin, if one is to understand the great mystery, one must study all its aspects, not just the dogmatic, narrow view of the Jedi," he says, quite sensibly (in a line that may well have been script-doctored by Tom Stoppard, if the rumors are true). "If you wish to become a complete and wise leader, you must embrace a larger view of the Force. "

You know, who wouldn't get behind that?

Please notice that I keep bringing up the non-action bits as fine moments in the film. Given what's come before, do please note how incredible that is. One of my favorite scenes is the one where Palps begins working his seductive magic on Anakin in an opera house. It's like something out of The Godfather — and McDiarmid (who was suffering from some sort of laryngeal infection when they shot this scene, and used it) knows precisely how much fun to have with every melodramatic syllable.

(Nor is this the only blatant Coppola reference in the film; there's a moment where a grim-faced Yoda is talking to Anakin in front of some closed shades, with sunlight slatting the wee Jedi Master's face in chiaroscuro, and I half-expected Yoda to mutter "Fuckin' Saigon.")

I also love that Anakin is caught by both pride and a lie. He wants to learn the Dark Side of the Force to give Padme eternal life, but he's also fooled by Palpatine into believing there's a genuine Jedi conspiracy against the Chancellor. When Anakin bursts into the room at one crucial moment, all he sees is Mace Windu holding a lightsaber to an unarmed Palpatine's throat — and after what follows, no one really gets a chance to dissuade him from the notion that Mace was about to assassinate the man who runs the galaxy. For all I know, when he meets Obi-Wan again on the Death Star a couple of decades later, Anakin still thinks the Jedi hatched a plot to kill his boss. The overall sense is of a set of tumblers clicking into place, locking Anakin into his destiny. It's surprisingly tidy, and kind of merciless.

If only Sith had been a good as this review.

SOS

Like other great papers, the Philadelphia Inquirer is in troubled times. Daniel Rubin, at blinq has a heartbreaking post on the massive layoffs looming at the Inky and is asking for ideas on what the future should look like. If you have smart thoughts, send them his way.

Alito's Way

To get started on Alito, you should go first to Patterico, who has a long post on what will be, by noon, the famous Casey dissent. This is the definitive post so far.

Elitism at the White House?

Judge Samuel Alito seems like a good choice for the Supreme Court. But in the bio being circulated by the White House for him, the very second line reads:

Alito received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and attended Yale Law School, where he served as an editor on the Yale Law Journal.

Why, oh why, has the White House bowed to the yalping of the elitists? Surely it doesn't matter that Alito went to America's third-best undergraduate college and top law school? Surely that doesn't tell us that he's very, very smart? Only elitist prigs would believe that, right?

A Game Made for Radio

Watching the Eagles' season implode on television doesn't really do it justice--to really appreciate the debacle, you need to hear the game on the radio. So in that spirit, the Wershovenist Pig looks at Sirius and XM and asks which stock is the better bet.

A Religion of Peace (and a Culture of Wife-Beating)

Little Green Footballs carries this horrifying item on how Australian police are being told to be mindful of cultural differences when it comes to domestic abuse. Australia's Herald-Sun reports:

POLICE are being advised to treat Muslim domestic violence cases differently out of respect for Islamic traditions and habits.

Officers are also being urged to work with Muslim leaders, who will try to keep the families together.

Women’s groups are concerned the politically correct policing could give comfort to wife bashers and keep their victims in a cycle of violence.

The instructions come in a religious diversity handbook given to Victorian police officers that also recommends special treatment for suspects of Aboriginal, Hindu and Buddhist background.

Some police officers have claimed the directives hinder enforcing the law equally.

Police are told: “In incidents such as domestic violence, police need to have an understanding of the traditions, ways of life and habits of Muslims.”

They are told it would be appreciated in cases of domestic violence if police consult the local Muslim religious leader who will work against “fragmenting the family unit”.

This is, of course, where the fusion of Western political correctness and the Islamic demand for special consideration is headed.

Shout Outs

A big congrats to Galley Friends T.S. and M.H., who just finished the Marine Corps Marathon in 5:47 and 5:21, respectively. It was the first marathon for each of them.

Wear your medals proudly, ladies. Fine work.

Ponderous Moments in Baseball Analogies

If you saw a baseball game and you saw a pitcher wind up and throw a fastball and hit a batter right smack in the head, and it really, really hurt him, you'd want to know why the pitcher did that. And you'd wonder whether or not the person just reared back and decided, "I've got bad blood with this batter. He hit two home runs off me. I'm just going to hit him in the head as hard as I can."

You also might wonder whether or not the pitcher just let go of the ball or his foot slipped, and he had no idea to throw the ball anywhere near the batter's head. And there's lots of shades of gray in between.

You might learn that you wanted to hit the batter in the back and it hit him in the head because he moved. You might want to throw it under his chin, but it ended up hitting him on the head.

And what you'd want to do is have as much information as you could. You'd want to know: What happened in the dugout? Was this guy complaining about the person he threw at? Did he talk to anyone else? What was he thinking? How does he react? All those things you'd want to know.

And then you'd make a decision as to whether this person should be banned from baseball, whether they should be suspended, whether you should do nothing at all and just say, "Hey, the person threw a bad pitch. Get over it."

In this case, it's a lot more serious than baseball. And the damage wasn't to one person. It wasn't just Valerie Wilson. It was done to all of us.

--Patrick Fitzgerald, special prosecutor, October 28, 2005


A man stands alone at the plate. This is the time for what? For individual achievement: There he stands alone. But in the field, what? Part of a team--looks, throws, catches, hustles. Part of one big team. Bats himself the live-long day, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and so on.

If his team don't field ... what is he? You follow me? No one.

Sunny day, the stands are full of fans. What does he have to say? I'm goin' out there for myself.

But I get nowhere unless the team wins.

--Alfonse Capone, The Untouchables

Al Roker Is So Butch

Here's his blog fightin' words for print journalist sissies:

Okay, I have held my tongue long enough, but enough is enough.

I’ve been Googling news stories about my now infamous fall on live television during my coverage of Hurricane Wilma. I’ve read all these print journalists knocking their broadcast brethren about how we are trivializing hurricane coverage.

How we are setting bad examples. How this is just grandstanding.

I’ve got your grandstand right here.

Stop whining. Just because your medium is irrelevant when it comes to a breaking story like a hurricane doesn’t mean you have to trash others who are out there covering it.

I can't tell if this is really Al Roker's site, or just a very, very, very elaborate version of Harriet Miers's blog.

Much like everyone else at the moment, I can only express shock and astonishment at this late-breaking news. Who would have guessed Mr. Sulu is gay?

In the current issue of Frontiers, a bi-weekly (so to speak) gay and lesbian magazine, actor George Takei talks about his decision to come out. "The world has changed from when I was a young teen feeling ashamed for being gay," the 68-year-old Japanese-American was quoted as saying. "The issue of gay marriage is now a political issue. That would have been unthinkable when I was young."

Inspired by Mr. Sulu, Lieutenant Commander Worf, ambassador to Qo'NoS, also announced that he too is gay. Sadly, Commander Worf's announcement was interrupted when a mob of his fellow Klingons stormed the stage and proceeded to shred him limb from limb.

What Would Jesus Rap?

The Washington Examiner ran a very important headline yesterday. “What Would Jesus Rap?” they inquired. The popular answer, I am guessing, is that He would rap about nice Christian themes, acts of selflessness and piety. That kind of thing. But there’s another possibility, that Jesus the rapper would have gone gangsta. Dropping dope rhymes and dissing his enemies, the Good Lord might have put things very differently. The Beatitudes, for example, might have come out like this:

Blessed are the meek
Lyin at my feet
In a pool of blood
You can take a peek

Blessed are the Poor
Who continue to whore
Wondering what
Heaven is for

You too will mourn
The day you were born
When you feel the edge
Of my terrible scorn

Just cause you’re hungry
Don’t mean it right
To grab my sandwich
And take a bite

Forget about Marvin
Don’t mercy me
No mercy you
Just ferocity

Blessed are the peacemakers
And my other guns
Cause you run around, gangster,
You gotta carry one

Fuck the weirdos
and their saintly acts
You want my prayers?
Don’t even ax.

Europe's Ticking Time Bomb

This anecdote from the Brussels Journal is terrifying:

My landlady in Strasbourg and I were watching French news this morning. The story about the Iranian President’s oh so predictable comments about Israel was being shown. She turned to me and said,

You know I was taking my daughter to school the other day and I noticed the driver was North African, to pass the time of day I asked him if he was observing Ramadan.

“Yes” he said,

“How long does it go on for?”, I asked

“About 40 days.”

“That must be tough. I guess you might wish you were Jewish at least their fast is only for one day?”

“Jews are not human, he replied.

“You know”, she said to me, “he was a young man, born here in Strasbourg, the home of France’s oldest settled Jewish community, I worry for my children.”

Then there's this case of jihad against a Danish newspaper, for daring to draw cartoons depicting Muhammad:

The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten is being protected by security guards and several cartoonists have gone into hiding after the newspaper published a series of twelve cartoons (view them here) about the prophet Muhammad. According to the Islam it is blasphemous to make images of the prophet. Muslim fundamentalists have threatened to bomb the paper’s offices and kill the cartoonists. . . .

The publication led to outrage among the Muslim immigrants living in Denmark. 5,000 of them took to the streets to protest. Muslim organisations have demanded an apology, but Juste rejects this idea: “We live in a democracy. That’s why we can use all the journalistic methods we want to. Satire is accepted in this country, and you can make caricatures,” he said. The Danish imam Raed Hlayhel reacted with the statement: “This type of democracy is worthless for Muslims. Muslims will never accept this kind of humiliation. The article has insulted every Muslim in the world.” . . .

The affair, however, has also led to a diplomatic incident. On Thursday the ambassadors of eleven Muslim countries, including Indonesia, a number of Arab states, Pakistan, Iran, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, complained about the cartoons in a letter to Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. They say the publication of the cartoons is a “provocation” and demand apologies from the newspaper.

Jyllands-Posten was also included on an al-Qaeda website listing possible terrorist targets. An organisation which calls itself “The Glorious Brigades in Northern Europe” is circulating pictures on the internet which show bombs exploding over pictures of the newspaper and blood flowing over the national flag of Denmark. “The Mujahedeen have numerous targets in Denmark – very soon you all will regret this,” the website says.

Ah yes, the Religion of Peace.

Ed Morrissey responds to the bitter-enders. His (correct) conclusion: "This failure didn't start with David Frum putting together an ad-hoc committee to pay for television advertising, and it didn't start with the blogosphere opining on Harriet Miers' birthday-card greetings. It started in the White House, where another poor job of vetting a candidate came back to bite the Bush administration . . ."

"I always wanted to see Montana . . ."

One of my favorite gonzo essayists, Reihan Salam, has a good, depressing piece up about the closing of the crabgrass frontier. I suspect he's right: Demographics and economics are conspiring to ensure that my generation will be the first American generation in a long time (maybe ever) to be worse off than our parents.

The dream of middle-class life--a single-family home where parents can raise a couple children and maybe even scrape by on one income--is slipping over the horizon as the real estate boom (bubble?) has created another landed aristocracy. As Salam notes:

. . . those lucky enough to have been in the right time and at the right place have become a new landed aristocracy, enjoying a vast increase in unearned wealth. Meanwhile, the cost of living has become prohibitively high for young families. One might call this "the closing of the crabgrass frontier," a historical development of epochal significance. The more enterprising and ambitious are moving to low-cost metropolitan areas and small towns, where the cycle begins anew.

This migration, in turn, has vastly diminished our quality of life by turning the commute into a process which can now easily absorb a sixth of our working days. Don't believe me? In Washington, it's now not uncommon to meet people who commute to town every day from Fredericksburg. But up until a few years ago, Fredericksburg was thought of as a suburb of Richmond, not Washington.

And in a few more years, I suspect that Richmond itself will become a D.C. suburb. If what has happened in Washington, New York, Boston, San Francisco--even in Las Vegas--keeps spreading, then Americans will either have to stop having families and become a nation of DINKs, or radically reduce the standards of what we assumed was a comfortable middle-class situation commensurate with child-rearing.

Stop the ride, I want to get off.

Competence, Not Ideology

The Hotline has a good tick-tock of the withdrawal and Kos--Kos!--of all people has a good analysis of the situation:

It seems to me that Miers wasn't done in from a lack of conservative cred as the wingers want to believe. Bush was convinced she was like him and would've fought for her all the way through. She was done in from simple incompetence. Her responses to committee questions betrayed a complete lack of understanding of constitutional law. Her meager writings were incoherent. She was unable to articulate competence in meetings with senators.

Give Miers the same set of facts but with Judge Roberts' obvious competence on legal issues, and she gets confirmed. She wasn't done in because the crazies flipped. She was done in because she simply wasn't competent to sit on the High Court and it was so painfully obvious.

I point this out not to gloat or throw my lot in with Kos (clearly, I'm already there), but to mark this post for the future, since I suspect three weeks from now we'll be hearing left-wing charges about how the new nominee is just red-meat tribute being paid to the Right-Wing Extremists. Which just isn't true.

This was always about competence.

A big, bright, shining Star

In response to the amazing Star Jones eating-contest item from yesterday, Galley Friend B.W. sends in the following:

You know, I thought her PR guy did pretty well. He didn't admit to lipo, and he didn't 'fess up to hubby Al weekending on Fire Island.

But eventually, a Star Jones sex tape will be released, and the prediction here is it kills the genre.

Why Bush Picked Bernanke

Fred Barnes has an outstanding piece of reporting on how the new Fed chairman was chosen; worth reading in full. Ben Bernanke seems, by all accounts, to a be a solid choice. But there are lots of telling, and unflattering, details about why the other candidates were rejected:

Kohn was appointed to the Fed board by President Bush at Greenspan's urging. He had spent his entire career as a Fed economist and was the candidate of the Fed bureaucracy. Since the White House views the Fed staff as unfriendly to President Bush's fiscal policy, that ruled out Kohn. He also is an environmentalist who rides a bike to work, thus not a Bush type of guy.

Bernanke's chief rival was Martin Feldstein, 66, a Harvard professor and CEO of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Far more than Bernanke, he's an economic star. . . .

But he had many critics, notably James A. Baker II, who was White House chief of staff in the early 1980s when Feldstein was CEA chairman. They clashed when Feldstein spoke negatively, on and off the record, about Reagan's tax cuts. Baker thought Feldstein was disloyal and warned the current White House not to nominate him.

The other two candidates, Glenn Hubbard, 47, and Larry Lindsey, 51, worked for President Bush in his first term. Hubbard, now dean of Columbia Business School, was CEA chief. He favored the Bush policies of tax cuts and partial privatization of Social Security, but the president felt Hubbard sometimes talked down to him. . . .

Interesting, if not surprising.

Strauss Guides Sox From Grave

Oberlin professor and comic genius Abe Socher has up this inspired bit of parody on how Leo Strauss guided the White Sox to their current glory. Not to be missed.

Just Asking . . .

For the bitter-enders who now insist that pulling the Miers nomination is terrible, a bad precedent, etc., etc., etc., weren't they just telling us all to "trust" the president's judgment in nominating Miers, no matter the contrary evidence?

If Bush thinks it's a good idea to withdraw Miers's nomination, why, to those who have defended his judgment and wisdom ad nauseam, would that be any less good an idea than nominating her in the first place?

This president knows what he's doing! Hasn't he earned your trust?

Congratulations to President Bush

For doing the right thing and withdrawing the Miers nomination.

Let this be a stern rebuke in the future to all those who insist that opposition is wrong because it has no chance of changing an outcome. Standing up for principle is always its own reward and besides which, one of the immutable laws of life is that Things Change.

Conservatives who opposed Miers--some at real personal and professional cost to themselves--have kept an unqualified person off the Supreme Court, defended the intellectual honesty of conservatism from rank partisan politics, and, ironically enough, protected President Bush from a mistake of his own making. If the president defers to quality for his next nomination, then memory of Miers will fade quickly and the president and his party will find themselves in much better political fortunes, to boot.

Bonus speculation: Does this suggest that Rove isn't going to be indicted?

The End?

Ed Morrissey notes two important developments in the Miers confirmation. First, the New York Sun is reporting that two Republican senators will soon announce their opposition to Miers if the White House does not withdraw her. The second is that Leonard Leo has jumped ship and left the Miers confirmation team. Who's next? Judge Hecht?

Three weeks ago it seemed highly unlikely that Miers wouldn't reach the Supreme Court, today it seems almost inevitable. The reason for the shift is obvious: Substance. As people have gotten to see what kind of mind Harriet Miers possesses, they've seen that she was even worse than advertised, even dimmer and less accomplished than her initial critics claimed. It turns out that she doesn't even have the constancy President Bush promised that she would exhibit from here on out to the next 20 years.

When the history of the Miers fight is written, October 26 will be seen as the turning-point, the moment when the tide turned against the nominee. Only the bitter-enders are left now.

Another One Jumps Off the Fence

Ed Morrissey has discovered why SMU matters (a little).

More Wrestling History

Colm Kearnes has also written a massive, five-part history of the WWE title (Part 5 is here and has links back to parts one through four). Great stuff.

Whoa

My friend Paul Mirengoff, who has been the most persuasive of Harriet Miers's small band of defenders, seems to have changed his mind. He now says that Miers should either withdraw or be rejected by the Senate.

Lefty Humor

It normally isn't very funny, and most this Fox News Through History page isn't that inspired. Except for the one below which is, as the kids say, lol.

Too. Many. Jokes.

The most excellen Radar carries this story on Star Jones:

Okay, I lied. I'm not going to excerpt this because it's really long and a small clip can't do it justice. But trust me: Follow the link and read the best prank-call since the Jerkies hung up their tape.

House of Tang

I still don't get the Neil Pollack thing, but Galley Friend M.L. sends this link to the Rick Tang's sports column, and it's pretty okay:

So I'm watching old NBA games on the Tang-Vo last night in preperation for my fantasy draft, and I'm thinking, is there any basketball player better than LeBron James right now? In this hooood, LeBron, we got mad love for you. That's what 50 Cent might say if he wrote this column. But 50 Cent can't hang...in the House Of Tang. Did you see that posterizer LeBron pulled on Richard Jefferson last season? So much chrome on my Benz, ya see your face in my rims! Jefferson was like, "Where's Weezie? Where's Weezie?" You're movin' on down, R.J.!

And another thing, Dirk Nowitski. Zieg fucking heil! Why don't you go back to doing what you're good at: putting little girls into ovens. Do me a favor, be German. Do everything that German people like to do, like eating sauerkraut and killing gypsies. But don't go strutting your ugly ass on TNT every week. Even so, if I were a girl, I'd do Manu Ginobili eight times a day.

Yeah, baby.

The Butterfly Effect

Anyone watching the World Series these days (and nights) will no doubt have the same concerns as I have about a certain oft-aired advertisement. No, not one for erectile dysfunction. And not one about toe nail fungus or incontinence. This is serious.

I'm talking about Lunesta.

They say if you have trouble falling asleep, if you are up constantly because your mind is too active, then Lunesta might be right for you. But ask your doctor, for side effects may include "unpleasant taste, headache, drowsiness, and dizziness." Also, "Be sure you have at least eight hours to devote to sleep before becoming active. You should not engage in any activity after taking Lunesta that requires complete alertness, such as driving a car or operating machinery. You should use extreme care when engaging in these activities the morning after taking Lunesta. Do not use alcohol while taking any sleep medicine. Most sleep medicines carry some risk of dependency."

But they don't mention how Lunesta works. Unlike some sleeping pills, Lunesta comes in the form of a luminescent green butterfly that appears in the night, flies through your window, and with the slightest touch, puts you "to sleep."

According to the commercials, the Lunesta butterfly goes around the city, patrolling the skies, ready to bring darkness to your world at a moment's notice. Who shall I touch? Whose window is open?

It's no coincidence that Lunesta is glowing and green, much like a Banshee, Dracula, and the Angel of Death. Lunesta is one and the same. And it's coming for you if you don't close that window.

Miers, Gonzales, Tonto

Patterico has excellent post on Miers, this time examining some of the nominee's views on the rights to choice and the nature of judicial activism. Damning stuff.

For the record, what do you think the conservative reaction would have been had President Bush nominated Alberto Gonzales, instead of Miers? Conservatives would have been upset, they would have felt betrayed, they probably would have even carped bitterly about Bush's unhealthy obsession with "loyalty" and perhaps would have gone all the way to "cronyism." But do you think they would have actually mounted a wide-spread campaign of opposition to the nomination? I don't.

Because while Gonzales would have been an ideological disappointment, he wouldn't have been fundamentally unqualified for the SCOTUS the way Miers obviously is. I believe that for conservatives their ultimate objection to the Miers nomination is really is about quality. Even if you could provide incontrovertible proof that Miers would spend the next 20 years voting with Scalia and Thomas on every case, they would still object.

This is a good thing. It means that conservatives have been serious as they argued against the naked politicization of the judiciary.

Anyway, it seems this morning that the administration line has moved from Don't oppose Miers, because her confirmation is inevitable to the slightly more skittish, If any Senators oppose Miers, We the Republican People, will make that Senator pay at the ballot box.

To which the obvious reply is: What you mean "we," kemosabe?

Not a Parody

Check out this news item:

Halifax and NatWest banks have led the move to scrap the time-honoured symbol of saving from being given to children or used in their advertising, the Daily Express/Daily Star group reported today.

Muslims do not eat pork, as Islamic culture deems the pig to be an impure animal.

Salim Mulla, secretary of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, backed the bank move.

"This is a sensitive issue and I think the banks are simply being courteous to their customers," he said.

So, will the banks also stop advertising loans? Or charging interest?

Fine. Sometimes blogs can be a force for good. For example, without blogs, you'd never get thoughts such as this from Richard John Neuhaus:

At Immaculate Conception down on First Avenue and 14th Street, where I say Mass regularly, I was this morning required to adjudicate a near-violent dispute between a young black man and an elderly Irish regular at daily Mass. Did or did not George Steinbrenner betray the Yankees by trading Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, and Jose Contreras, all of whom now loom large in the series between the Astros and White Sox? I was tempted to quote Our Lord, “Who made me a judge between you?” But they would not be satisfied with that. Taking the side of Steinbrenner on anything is a losing proposition in New York. So I opined that 20/20 hindsight is too easy. At the time it may have seemed a smart decision to let them go, but, after what they’ve done this season, it looks stupid. “The Church is always standing up for the bad guys,” responded the young man. I assured him the Church had no official position on George Steinbrenner, but he did not even try to disguise his skepticism. It’s not easy being a parish priest. Nor did either of these gentlemen take any consolation from the prospect of the White Sox winning on Tuesday evening, although the elderly regular said he had been to Chicago once and it was “a nice enough town.”

It Hurts to Watch

The Baseball Crank does a survey of pitchers who have blown big post-season games to see what the odds are that Brad Lidge will be able to survive his recent troubles. Impressive, amazing list that's fun to read (unless you're the guy who gave up the game-winning run).

It's On.

Be honest, you're not getting any work done while waiting for the indictments. So what better way to pass the time than to check out this review of Civilization IV?

Get Your Fresh Scalia!

The other day I mentioned the Scalia piece in the new issue of First Things; here's the whole thing.

P.S.: It's a dynamite issue--check out this murderers' row (so to speak). If you're not subscribing to First Things, you're missing out.

I'm Just Along for the Ride

Thanks to GS commenter who points us to this awesome illusion page (cue Journey's "Final Countdown). My favorite is this one.

Trippy.

It's Not a Trick, It's an Illusion

Via Patterico comes this outstanding optical illusion. Don't miss it.

Someone's Wearing Crankypants. . .

I've long admired the Baseball Crank, but this post put him over the top with me.

A perfect, tiny meditation on baseball and fatherhood, done in two paragraphs, with nothing maudlin or off-the-shelf.

Hey, Yo

Patterico has another of his excellent Postcards from the Ledge, this time about Harriet Miers's support of racial set-asides. It's getting harder for the anti-anti-Miers camp to stay coherent.

Getting Over

Do you miss Saturday mornings with George "The Animal" Steel and Jake "The Snake" Roberts? If so, this lovingly written history of the WWF's Intercontinental Title (with part two here) will make your day.

Where's White Power Bill?

This Drudged story on Lamb and Lynx Gaede is funnier than it is disturbing because (1) the power of KKK-style neo-Nazism has waned to such a degree that its proponents have resorted to trying to sell it through Britney-inspired pedophilia; and (2) because the girls have appropriated the language of New Age relativism in service of their racism. Example:

"We're proud of being white, we want to keep being white," said Lynx. "We want our people to stay white . . ."

As if there were a chance that young Lynx might actually become, say, Korean, if she isn't careful.

If this is state of white supremacy in America, then it's a happy day for all of us.

Eagles Talk

While waiting for a two weeks to watch Andy Reid lose his first back-to-back games in recent memory, Galley Brother B.J. sends in this depressing thought experiment:

I'm thinking about Andy Reid Eagles teams vs. the Larry Brown 76ers teams:

Both teams were built around MVP players (McNabb and Iverson).

Both teams played strong D.

Both teams had to center the offense almost entirely around their MVP to mask offensive deficiencies (No post players & no perimeter shooting vs. no running game and no wide receivers).

Both teams enjoyed playoff success but could never get over the hump/make it to the championship until they pulled the trigger on big moves (Dikembe and TO).

Both big move players had good first years with the team and got the team to the championship game (Note: both post championship runs were defined by injuries).

Both teams lost in the championship.

Both teams then had trouble with their big moves (Dikembe was old & broken down and TO hired Drew Rosenhaus).

But both teams were stuck with their big move players because the big move players had enormous salaries that killed the team cap wise (both salaries were negotiated by the Philadelphia team with the player after the trade). That last similarity isn't exactly the same because the Eagles are still in good shape salary-cap wise but TO's contract is big to the point that the Eagles can't trade or cut him because of the cap hit.

Dikembe turned out to be the Picket's charge of the AI '76er teams (high point that led to eventual downfall/dooming AI to never win a championship).

I can't help starting to think that TO might be the same for the Eagles.

Convince me he's not right.

Where There's a Will

It's okay to admit that George F'in Will makes you hot. This, by the way, is why some of us like elitism.

The Worldwide Standard

If you're not reading the Worldwide Standard, you should be because of posts such as this one. Dan McKivergan gives the full rundown on Hans Blix and Saddam's WMD's.

Put it In the File

This Washington Times story with all sorts of White House denials.

Tales From the Champagne Room

The New York Daily News is reporting on a credit card dispute between one Robert McCormick, CEO of Savvis Communications (pictured left), and American Express. AMEX is suing McCormick for refusing to pay a $241,000 bill from Scores, New York's famous gentlemen's club.

McCormick, married with three daughters, doesn't deny having gone to Scores on the night in question. He does, however, dispute the grand total. He says at most he spent $20,000.

Still, that's an awful lot of lap dances.

Now I know what some of our readers are thinking: Don't forget to take into account the bottles of champagne, the tips to dancers and bouncers, the cost of reserving the champagne room all to yourself, more tips to make the bouncers turn a blind eye, bonuses for the lap dancers to offer those Oriental massages, and on and on...

Or, um, is that just me?

(Just kidding, honey!)

More %*#%!@ Elitism

From the Baseball Crank:

. . . so far, everything we've seen of Miers' writings suggests that the woman simply is not the kind of writer I would consider a good summer associate at my law firm, let alone a Supreme Court Justice.

Just what you'd expect from a Hah-vahd Law grad who practices in one of those Big Time firms in New York City.

Typical.

The Real Sarah Silverman

Because she's the bestest, the Cake Editrix has provided an actual copy of the GQ profile on Sarah Silverman that is sure to delight and entertain you all weekend long. (With a title like "Sarah Silverman has the Cleanest Breasts in America," how can you go wrong?)

Many thanks, Kathy; you've done a great service for America.

The Wershovenist Pig pours one for Matus:

What does a tourist do in the Highlands, apart from gawk at the ubiquitous sheep and bison-like brown cows? Visit Scotch whisky distilleries.

Walking by huge copper pot stills and oak vats, I felt as though I was in an oversized chem lab, but instead of precipitating out para-dichloro-benzene, the workers here were making spirits, sweet spirits.

There follows boozy analysis of liquor stocks.

Danielle Crittenden hints at something which I've been waiting for someone to notice:

We are asked to stand by her because, simply, she is a woman — a “pioneer,” a “glass-ceiling breaker” — even while other more qualified women were rejected for the position (and interestingly, rejected by Harriet herself, who headed the “search” committee).

We've been told by Miers only that she didn't want to be considered for the first vacancy, but it's not clear that she wasn't angling for the second slot. Certainly, what Crittenden notes here is interesting: Miers was in charge of the search committee and somehow none of the qualified women made the cut. I wonder why that was.

Wait for it . . .

Yes! JusticeMiers.com has arrived.

Friday Funny

Just so you know I'm not completely in the tank for the Best Magazine on the Planet, their profile of Sarah Silverman, "Quiet Depravity," is something of a dud.

Silverman makes great copy, and anyone profiling her should get out of the way and let her make the funny. The New Yorker's Dana Goodyear lets us have little tastes of Silverman:

“I wear this St. Christopher medal sometimes because—I’m Jewish, but my boyfriend is Catholic—it was cute the way he gave it to me. He said if it doesn’t burn through my skin it will protect me.”

And even better:

I got in trouble for saying the word “Chink” on a talk show, a network talk show. It was in the context of a joke. Obviously. That’d be weird. That’d be a really bad career choice if it wasn’t. But, nevertheless, the president of an Asian-American watchdog group out here in Los Angeles, his name is Guy Aoki, and he was up in arms about it and he put my name in the papers calling me a racist, and it hurt. As a Jew—as a member of the Jewish community—I was really concerned that we were losing control of the media. Right? What kind of a world do we live in where a totally cute white girl can’t say “Chink” on network television? It’s like the fifties. It’s scary.
There are only two Asian people that I know that I have any problem with, at all. One is, uh, Guy Aoki. The other is my friend Steve, who actually went pee-pee in my Coke. He’s all, ‘Me Chinese, me play joke.’ Uh, if you have to explain it, Steve, it’s not funny.

But neither of these bits is vintage Silverman and Goodyear gets waylaid by extended riffs about feminism and outrageousness in comedy.

For the definitive Silverman piece, got back to the March 1999 issue of GQ and read Michael MacCambridge's "Sarah Silverman has the Cleanest Breasts in America." (I can't find it online.) It's a great read and features lots of classic Silverman, including this very blue, and hence invisotexted, bit:

A couple nights ago, I was licking jelly off my boyfriend's penis [pause]

And I thought, Oh, my God--[beat]--I'm turning into my mother!

The Irresponsible Media

Byron York has a grim piece about the terrible toll the White House is paying because of the assault from elitist Beltway conservatives. Some of the highlights:

"It's been a gradual descent into almost silence," says a second source of the calls. "The meetings with the senators are going terribly. On a scale of one to 100, they are in negative territory. The thought now is that they have to end....Obviously the smart thing to do would be to withdraw the nomination and have a do-over as soon as possible. But the White House is so irrational that who knows? As of this morning, there is a sort of pig-headed resolve to press forward, cancel the meetings with senators if necessary, and bone up for the hearings."

Of course, all of York's sources are anonymous, so you shouldn't trust these disloyal leakers. No, you should be reading Marvin Olasky, who has real standards and thinks that things are going just fine. Mr. Olasky hasn't received a single negative view on Miers^*.

^{*That is, a single negative view that meets his superior standards of publication. He's not some shoot-from-the-hip cub reporter like that rascally Byron York.}

Racial Slurs Ain't What They Used to Be

An Arab-American police officer in Milwaukee is suing for racial harassment after hearing another officer refer to him and an Indian-American officer as the "corner convenience store squad." Meanwhile he's become fodder for CAIR's oniong offensive to prove post-9/11 America is a cauldron of anti-Islamic bigotry.

The Future of Russia

If you're not depressed yet today, this Mark Steyn piece on The Death of Mother Russia should do the trick:

Russia is literally dying. From a population peak in 1992 of 148 million, it will be down to below 130 million by 2015 and thereafter dropping to perhaps 50 or 60 million by the end of the century, a third of what it was at the fall of the Soviet Union. It needn’t decline at a consistent rate, of course. But I’d say it’s more likely to be even lower than 50 million than it is to be over 100 million. The longer Russia goes without arresting the death spiral, the harder it is to pull out of it, and when it comes to the future most Russian women are voting with their foetus: 70 per cent of pregnancies are aborted. . . .

Russia is the sick man of Europe, and would still look pretty sick if you moved him to Africa. It has the fastest-growing rate of HIV infection in the world. From virtually no official Aids cases at the time Putin took office, in the last five years more Russians have tested positive than in the previous 20 for America. The virus is said to have infected at least 1 per cent of the population, the figure the World Health Organisation considers the tipping point for a sub-Saharan-sized epidemic. So at a time when Russian men already have a life expectancy in the mid-50s — lower than in Bangladesh — they’re about to see Aids cut them down from the other end, killing young men and women of childbearing age, and with them any hope of societal regeneration. By 2010, Aids will be killing between a quarter and three-quarters of a million Russians every year. It will become a nation of babushkas, unable to muster enough young soldiers to secure its borders, enough young businessmen to secure its economy or enough young families to secure its future. True, there are regions that are exceptions to these malign trends, parts of Russia that have healthy fertility rates and low HIV infection. Can you guess which regions they are? They start with a ‘Mu-’ and end with a ‘-slim’. . . .

Most of the big international problems operate within certain geographic constraints: Africa has Aids, the Middle East has Islamists, North Korea has nukes. But Russia’s got the lot: an African-level Aids crisis and an Islamist separatist movement sitting on top of the biggest pile of nukes on the planet. . . .

What would you do if you were Putin? What have you got to keep your rotting corpse of a country as some kind of player? You’ve got nuclear know-how — which a lot of ayatollahs and dictators are interested in. You’ve got an empty resource-rich eastern hinterland — which the Chinese are going to wind up with one way or the other. That was the logic, incidentally, behind the sale of Alaska: in the 1850s, Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, the brother of Alexander II, argued that the Russian empire couldn’t hold its North American territory and that one day either Britain or the United States would simply take it, so why not sell it to them first? The same argument applies today to the 2,000 miles of the Russo–Chinese border. Given that even alcoholic Slavs with a life expectancy of 56 will live to see Vladivostok return to its old name of Haishenwei, Moscow might as well flog it to Beijing instead of just having it snaffled out from under.

That’s the danger for America — that most of what Russia has to trade is likely to be damaging to US interests. In its death throes, it could bequeath the world several new Muslim nations, a nuclear Middle East and a stronger China.

A great--and terrible--piece from Steyn.

Will the Real "Cabal" Please Stand Up?

Over at the Worldwide Standard, Dan McKivergan has a great post up on Col. Wilkerson's "cabal" theory.

Great Do-Overs in History

From the Harriet Miers's Blog:

Well by now you probably know that I have to "take a mulligan" on my questionnaire. Well my answer is bring it on!! Its like I've always said. There's no shame in getting something wrong the first time, the only shame is giving up!!! . . .

With that in mind, I made this list of great do-overs from history to cheer me up. Maybe it will cheer you up too!! . . .

* Here's one thats particularly relevant to me: Dred Scott Decision. Alot of people dont realize but sometimes the Supreme Court makes a mistake, I've been reading about it, and then they can go back and overturn it. Just like my questionnaire!!

I'll Say It Again

Richard Cohen is my favorite liberal columnist, because he throws the off-speed stuff so well. This column on abortion is vintage Cohen.

Harriet Miers: Grammar Maven?

Of course this has nothing to do with anything, because once she's on the Court, Harriet Miers will hire totally smart law clerks from really hot schools like Yale and SMU to do her writing for her--but still, this Stephen Bainbridge post debunking the idea that Miers is a detail-oriented grammar maven is pretty fun.

I've always been a little suspicious of the stories about what a nit-picker Miers was in the White House. On October 4, the Washington Post reported that, "as Bush's staff secretary, she was known to correct spelling, grammar and even punctuation errors in memos to the president." If Miers really had a Rain Man knack for grammar the way some people do, then that would be one thing. Sure, it would make her look like a bit of a micromanager, but that's not the worst thing in the world.

However, now that we can see for ourselves that she's not really a grammar maven, it suggests that perhaps she was more of a passive-aggressive, petty bureaucrat who was always trying to impose her will, even in small ways, on materials other people were sending through her to her boss. If you've ever been in government, you know that this is exactly the type of appointee who succeeds at the special assistant and staff-secretary level. It is not, perhaps, the type of temperament you'd want for the SCOTUS.

Shut It, Slick

Jenny weighs in on the Paris Hilton angle of the Tom Sizemore story.

You know you're going to read it, so just go ahead and click the link already.

That Thing You Douthat

Ross hits one out of the park. For reals.

In Defense of Maverick

The LA Times reports on the latest Scientology attack on free speech as they seek to shut down the site scienTOMogy.info.

A Drink and Drive

The Washington Post reports that the District's "zero tolerance" in issuing DUI's to drivers under the legal limit has been adjusted by order of the city council (it still has to be approved by the mayor). As mentioned earlier, one woman spent the night in jail after being pulled over at night for driving with her headlights off (she blames it on the valet) and, because she admitted to having one glass of wine, was charged with a DUI. Her BAL was 0.03, well below the 0.08 limit. Nevertheless, because of the said "zero tolerance," in the slammer she went. But after this story was publicized and calls flooded the city council, a law was passed 9-3 that will now presume drivers under 0.05 are not intoxicated and, as the Post's Eric Weiss explains, "The changes would place alcohol levels from .05 to .079 in a 'neutral zone' that would require other factors, such as sobriety field tests, to establish a driver's impairment."

Mayor Anthony Williams expressed concerns that the law was "hastily written" and pointed out that last year six drunk-driving fatalities involved drivers who had less than 0.08 alcohol in their systems. Fair enough. If the mayor approves the legislation, it will last 90 days and the council can then further amend the law where needed.

In the meantime, DC residents can now safely have a glass of wine or a beer and know they won't be spending a night in jail if they get pulled over because of a broken tail signal.

Special props go to the sponsor of this legislation, lone Republican Carol Schwartz, and her cosponsor--our beloved former mayor Marion Barry.

On the Square

Speaking of First Things, they've done some spiffy things to their website. The first is the addition of ROFTERS--Reader of First Things--which is a set of online discussion groups. There's an email discussion group run out of Yahoo (send a blank email to ROFTERS-Subscribe@yahoogroups.com) as well as a ROFTERS blog, being edited by Sam Cable. There are also a number of off-line groups both in the U.S. and across the globe (for a list, click here.

But perhaps the most interesting development is the new blog On the Square, run by Father Neuhaus. Pop it in your RSS aggregator; getting Neuhaus every day instead of having to wait for the magazine once a month is like getting Christmas all year long.

Best Headline Ever.

In case you missed it yesterday, go back to Vic's Tom Sizemore item, which has the best headline this site will ever muster: "The Action Is the Juice."

On a related note, GS Commenter Chris points us to this review of the tape:

At one point Sizemore, dressed in bicyclist's gear with a toque on his head, wields a two foot long rubber dildo and literally whines that the two prostitutes (who are cleaning up a hotel lamp and bottle of wine he knocked over) are not paying attention to his antics.

Does that get you hot?