Live-blogging the 2010 Oscars

By Michael J.W. Stickings

UPDATED FREQUENTLY -- SEE BELOW. (Also, follow me on Twitter, where I'm providing additional snarky comments.)

I used to be a committed Oscarologist, seeing most of the nominated films in the theater and then really getting into the whole Oscar thing.

Then I grew up.

Well, sort of.

I had kids. And now I have to wait for the films to come out on video and to catch up as quickly as I can.

I've seen quite a few of this year's Oscar-nominated films, but by no means even most of them. I haven't even seen Avatar -- though that may actually be for the best.

No surprises yet: Christoph Waltz for Best Supporting Actor for Inglorious Basterds. Which I saw. And, yes, deserving, though his performance descended into parody at times. It was over-the-top, but, then, so was the movie.

I'm happy that Up! won. It's not Wall-E, which I considered one of the very best films of the last decade, but it was still remarkably good. But, then, I haven't seen Fantastic Mr. Fox yet.

Original screenplay for The Hurt Locker. Excellent film, one of my favourite of the year. To me, it was either that or Tarantino's for Basterds.

Just now, Adapted Screenplay for Precious. (I won't write the movie's full title, which is one of the stupidest (and most unnecessary) ever.) Oh, please, stop being so freakin' serious, guy who just won Oscar.

Okay, you know, I wasn't going to live-blog this tonight. Instead I was just going to tweet. (Which I've been doing, so go there if you so desire.

Example tweets:

-- "Nice John Hughes tribute. He wasn't a great filmmaker, but he was, in his own way, quintessentially American, especially to my generation." (Oh, yes, I wrote a Hughes obit last August.)

-- "Wait... is Ben Stiller actually being funny? That's even rarer than a Meryl Streep Oscar win -- just twice in, what, 16 nominations?" (Please, please, please, let her win for Julie & Julia. Please, please, please, don't let Sandra Bullock win. Streep was amazing in an otherwise somewhat enjoyable movie -- her part was great, the other part, with the usually lovely Amy Adams, er, wasn't.)

Why is Robin Williams giving out the Best Supporting Actress award? Odd. Maybe he really likes Mo'nique, who is as much of a shoe-in as Waltz. (Oh, right, because it was Heath Ledger last year. Oops.)

Before they give it to Mo'nique, can I just say that Penelope Cruz is unbelievably hot? I know, I know, that's hardly an original thought. But she is. Just awesome.

And I really like Maggie Gyllenhaal, too. Especially in Stranger Than Fiction (with Will Farrell). I'll admit it, I've got something for her. I really do.

And the winner is... Mo'nique in that movie with the stupid title. Great. This could be one of the most annoying acceptance speeches ever... And yet, it wasn't. Minor miracles.

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So far, my favourite movies of the year (in order):

-- Adventureland

-- District 9

-- The Hurt Locker

-- A Serious Man 
-- Star Trek
-- (500) Days of Summer
-- Funny People
-- Up!
-- Taking Woodstock
-- Sunshine Cleaning

I'm not sure about A Serious Man, though. I need to see it again. I think it's my Synecdoche, New York of 2009. Could be a masterpiece, could be self-indulgent overkill.

Okay, more in a few moments...

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Oooh, an award for Avatar. Here's what I tweeted a while ago:

-- "Just for the record, I don't consider James Cameron a Canadian. He's in my Celine Dion category of national embarrassments."

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By the way, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin are pretty good, with the former quite a bit better than the latter. But, then, the former is a hosting pro.

That opening number with Neil Patrick Harris? Not so good. Is that really the best they can do?

Otherwise, isn't it amazing how awkward so much of the ceremony is? I realize there probably isn't much, if any, rehearsal time for the presenters, but why do they almost always seem so awkward? Is it the ridiculously bad script, the unfunny or faux serious lines they have to read?

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I'm bored.

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Hold on, the Canadiens just scored two goals in the last two minutes to tie up the Ducks. It's in OT. At least that's a guaranteed point.

I'm excited.

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But there's Sandra Bullock. Ugh. It's not that I have anything against her, except her acting inability.

James Taylor. Nice. This is a pretty good way to do sad and sentimental.

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Habs-Ducks in a shootout. I hate the shootout. It's exciting, yes, but hardly a way to decide a game. It's just a breakaway contest.

Habs need to score... Brian Gionta... just trickled in. Wow. Really? They're reviewing it.

Flipping back... J-Lo looks good, as usual. She should stick to acting: The Cell, Out of Sight. She was really good, once upon a time.

The goal counts. Now we're in OT on the SO. Or whatever. Here's my favourite player, Tomas Plekanec, to win it... and... he wins it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a comeback for the greatest hockey team in the universe! Okay, not this year, but the greatest franchise ever.

Back to the Oscars... where there's dancing going on. I need to get a refill on this lovely '08 Malbec I've been drinking this evening... ah, it's interpretive dance. Good times.

Are we in the homestretch yet?

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Visual Effects for Avatar? No, really? Hey, is James Cameron a god or just a Nietzschean superman? Hard to tell. I haven't even seen the movie and yet I despise it.

George Clooney looks vaguely bemused.

And here's Matt Damon with Best Documentary. Too bad no one has actually seen any of these yet. I'm sure they're great, but shouldn't nominees be movies that actually came out in theaters, like the great Man on Wire last year? I have the same problem with the Best Foreign Film category. Why are the contenders only films nominated by their countries of origin (and only one per country)? Besides, what's a country of origin when so many movies are produced across borders? Shouldn't the foreign films under consideration only be films that were released in the U.S. during the year, as with the feature film categories? Why the different rules? Seriously, this is one of my biggest problems with the Academy Awards, and that's saying something.

Is Tyler Perry the unfunniest man in America? He's up there, that's for sure.

And here we are, with the overrated Tarantino and the wonderful Almodovar handing out Best Foreign Language Film, or whatever they're calling it this year. Look, maybe there's something as good as The Lives of Others here, but how would we know? I've heard of The White Ribbon, but not the others -- and I do pay attention to these things. And... it's some Argentine movie. (Did I mention I'm drinking a lovely Argentine wine this evening? How fitting.) Great. I'm sure it's wonderful. But change the freakin' rules! Foreign language films come out in American theaters just like English language films do. So what's the problem? (See above.)

Alright... the homestretch. 

Best Actor: It'll be Jeff Bridges, of course. But do we need this too-personal nonsense. Come on, are we awarding performances (and the performers for a single performance) or personalities (and the performers for their careers)? Well, Pacino's undeserving Oscar for the horrible Scent of a Woman was a career recognition award, so there you go. I know Clooney is a humanitarian and a "foxy fox," but I don't care right now. I only care about the performance. Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Why do we need to be told that these stars are such amazing people? Who cares? It's such typical up-with-Hollywood bullshit.

And here's the always-so-self-promotional Kate Winslet, whom I can't stand (and who shouldn't have won for the loathsome The Reader last year). And it's... Jeff Bridges. Fine. At least there's a good chance he'll give a good speech... And it's okay. I haven't seen the movie yet, but it certainly seems like a career recognition award of sorts. I mean, he's The Dude. And he seems to be well-liked in Hollywood. And he's a pretty good actor -- very good, for example, in The Contender, where he plays a fine POTUS.

Best Actress: Some drama here -- Bullock vs. Streep. I haven't seen The Blind Side yet, but I have a hard time believing that Bullock is anywhere near as good as Streep, who is simply amazing as Julia Child. But you know what? I've got to go with Bullock here. Which brings me no pleasure whatsoever. As I said above, it's not that I have anything against her. She seems like a very nice person and has given decent performances in a few movies -- I just can't think of any at the moment. But come on, she's hardly a great actor. Not that the Oscars are always about great acting, but doesn't Streep, probably the finest film actress of our time, deserve a third award after all these years? Besides, her Child is transcendent. (More of the "these-are-such-great-people" crap. Are we supposed to worship these people or just admire them as demi-gods? Stanley Tucci tells us that Streep is "kind." Great. And? Although, he and Streep were fantastic together in J&J.)

Sean Penn emerges... He was wonderful in Milk, wasn't he? And the Oscar goes to... Bullock? Yup. There you go. A Sign of the Apocalypse if there ever was one. Well, perhaps not. A Melanie Griffith win -- she's the Keanu Reeves of actresses, among the worst ever -- would be far worse. At least she's giving a laudable speech. She probably did wear everyone down with her ubiquitous Oscar PR campaign. Whatever. Let's move on... 

Best Director: Babs gives out the award... I'm going with Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker. She'll get this, then Cameron will get Best Picture. Make sense? And the winner is... Bigelow. Awesome. She's truly a deserving winner. The shameless and massive ego known as James Cameron seems genuinely happy for her, but who knows? Although, you know, I think the Coens did extemely well with A Serious Man, as did Neill Blomkamp with District 9. 

Best Picture: Tom Hanks? Really? Is his main job now to give out Oscars?

Wait... that was abrupt... It's The Hurt Locker? Really? Wow. I'm stunned. I thought it was Avatar for sure. Amazing. I read somewhere that THL has made something like one-fiftieth what Avatar has made. Hopefully it'll start getting some post-box-office recognition now on video.

But I really am surprised. Small movies rarely ever beat out huge box-office smashes (as TNR's Chris Orr explained the other day -- who also had the 1/50th stat, I remember). Bigelow looks shocked, shaking her head in disbelief. But it had emerged, in some circles, as the favourite, so there you go.

Well, that's it. Done. It always seems so anti-climactic, with the hosts emerging briefly at the end to wrap it up.

Which I will now do with this post.

Good night, everyone.

Jesus needs jets

By Capt. Fogg

Coming soon, to an in-box near you:

"The Department of Defense denied a request for a military flyover at the 2009 'God and Country' rally. Obama denied a military flyover at the annual "God and Country" rally in Idaho, where new military recruits were inducted and all military were honored. This is the first time in 42 years that there has not been a military flyover in formation, and organizers were stunned that Obama refused to allow this. . . . . it was because of the event's "Christian nature." This is beyond unbelievable action by the Commander in Chief and President, and Americans need to know about it!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Yes, stunning - they were stunned, I tell you -- stunningly unaware that in November of 2001 the Department of Defense under George W. Bush decided to prohibit the Military's support of events that

"provide a selective benefit to any individual, group or organization, including events with religious themes."

Yes, America's memory is short and in only a year, the deeds of Bush can be attributed to his successor with impunity - and with outrage. Whether or not the event "honors the military" or was in previous years primarily for that purpose, it's organizers stated purpose for 2009 was that

"Our mission is primarily about spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ."

According to Snopes.com, the Treasure Valley God & Country Festival; "unabashedly a Christian event" has four steps to witnessing about Jesus Christ (i.e., bless people, fellowship with them, meet their needs, present the Truth), and say of the rally's program of events: "At the end of the evening, we move to step four, presenting the Truth. Each year, we ensure that the message of the Gospel is presented, and information is provided for those who have heard and want to know more about Jesus Christ."

That's all well and good, but not when it's done with taxpayer money; not when it requires the US government to spend a great deal of money proselytizing for any religious group, using the prestige of the US military to raise money for churches and doubly so in times when the public wants to justify every unnecessary expenditure. In a nation of churchgoers, government financing of revival meetings is more than just unnecessary, it's illegal.

Of course lying to the public to make it seem like the President "disrespects the troops" because of a decision made in accordance with the US constitution, almost a decade ago and under the previous and Republican administration , is in fact necessary to people who write these electronic cruise missiles. Necessary because they have nothing to offer but lies and no hope of being relevant without stirring up anti-American hysteria. Necessary because they need power the way a vampire needs blood and they'll do or say anything to get it including ripping the throat out of America. They need hysterical people and what better way to get them into the fold but to insinuate that Obama hates their religion?

To a rational person the unprecedented tsunami of false witness from the radical right would wash away any pretense to being Christian or to be of any other reputable religion for that matter, but that's where the hysterical irrationality, the gullibility and yes, the intellectual laziness of America comes in and any chance for a free and prosperous future goes out.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Truth in Comics

By Creature


If it's Sunday, it's Truth in Comics.

Nice weather, global warming, and a cute little Szechuan bharal

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It was a beautiful, sunny, Spring-like day here in the Toronto area, and I spent much of it east of the city, past Oshawa, enjoying not being anywhere near the city, out in the lovely small towns along Lake Ontario.

(As an aside, albeit a relevant one, global warming deniers are quick to jump on freakish winter weather as proof, in their little minds, that there's no such thing as global warming, as they did during the recent massive snowstorms that slammed the northeastern U.S., but they tend to go silent when the reverse happens, namely, when the weather is uncommonly warm, as it was today. Indeed, it's been overall a relatively mild winter here in southern Ontario. Of course, weather is not climate, and global warming is actually consistent with freakish winter storms. I won't go so far as to suggest that the warmer weather is proof on its own that global warming is a reality -- we have more than enough evidence that it is, and that human activity is behind most of it -- but it is curious (is it not?) that generally warmer weather seems to parallel rising global temperatures. Arctic ice is melting, glaciers are receding, animal migratory patterns are shifting, and, on March 6, 2010, still winter, it's a lovely day, requiring only a sweater, in what is usually a rather chilly part of the world this time of the year. Make of that what you will.)

Well, I'm not in the mood to comment on anything political at the moment, that parenthetical aside aside, and so I will content myself now with posting a lovely photo of a 22-day old female Szechuan bharal, or Chinese blue sheep, at Kanazawa Zoo in Yokohama, Japan. I found it at The Globe and Mail, where it was one of the "Best from March 5" photos. Funny enough, as I later discovered, it was also featured in yesterday's "Day in pictures" at the BBC. And, from what I can tell, it's been making its way around the Web. It seems a lot of people like it. And understandably so. Here it is:

Stupidest Republican of the Day: Judd Gregg

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Sen. Gregg of New Hampshire, almost a member of Obama's Cabinet, has come out swinging against the use of reconciliation, but, speaking on the Senate floor on Thursday, he struck out. From his remarks:

Why did they choose that bill called reconciliation to do this? Or why will they? Because under the Senate rules, anything that comes across the floor of the Senate requires 60 votes to pass. It's called the filibuster. That's the way the Senate was structured. The Senate was structured to be the place where bills which rushed through the House because they have a lot of rules that limit debate and allow people to pass bills quickly, but they don't have any rule in the House called the filibuster which allows people to slow things down.

The Founding Fathers realized when they structured this they wanted checks and balances. They didn't want things rushed through. They saw the parliamentary system. They knew it didn't work. So they set up the place, as George Washington described it, where you take the hot coffee out of the cup and you pour it into the saucer and you let it cool a little bit and you let people look at it and make sure it's done correctly. That's why we have the 60-vote situation over here in the Senate to require that things get full consideration.

There's so much stupidity here, and, honestly, I'm just too tired -- at 12:21 am -- to do it justice. Thankfully, we can turn to Matthew Yglesias, who has ripped Gregg's "argument" apart and exposed it for the nonsense it is:

It's true that the Founding Fathers wanted checks and balances, but this is why we have bicameralism and presidential veto power. Those are the checks. The filibuster rule is not in the constitution. But since the Founding Fathers did specify supermajorities to override a Presidential veto and to ratify a treaty, presumably there would have written a supermajority rule into the ordinary legislative process if that’s what they'd wanted to do. I don't think "the Founders wanted it this way" should carry a ton of weight in our arguments, but it's very clear that the Founders didn't intend the Senate to vote by supermajority; if they'd wanted that, they would have written the constitution that way.

Meanwhile, just to point out that Gregg is an idiot, where on earth has he gotten the idea that the Founding Fathers "saw the parliamentary system" and "knew it didn't work?" There were no countries operating on a modern parliamentary system when the constitution was written. And why doesn't it work? It seems to work in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, India, Japan, Korea, etc.

Arguably what history has shown is that the "strong president" system used in the United States doesn't work. It's worked out okay for us (despite that Civil War business) so far, but the vast majority of enduring stable democracies go parliamentary or semi-presidential systems. 

Yglesias vs. Gregg just isn't a fair fight.

Gregg clearly has little to no understanding of the Consitution and the intent of the Founding Fathers, little to no understanding of comparative politics, and little to no understanding of how the Senate works -- after all, Republicans were happy to use reconciliation when they were in the majority (and when they wanted just a simple majority to get things done), including when Bush was president (and so not so very long ago -- how convenient that Gregg doesn't seem to remember).

Here are the facts:

-- Health-care reform bills have already passed both the House and Senate. In the Senate, the Democrats were able to break the Republican filibuster with 60 votes.

-- Democrats have no intention of passing the entire comprehensive package through reconciliation. There's no need to (see above). Reconciliation would only be used for so-called "patches," minor changes to the bill to appease the House (which, hopefully, will pass the Senate bill as is).

-- Reconciliation is in the Senate rules, just like the filibuster. It's not like Democrats are pulling a trick out of some magic hat. Republican talking points use the word "trick" to make it seem as if Democrats are behaving in some grossly un-democratic and even un-American manner (though what's so un-democratic about simple majority rule?), but Republicans have used reconciliation, too, and frequently. Gregg knows this. He was all for reconciliation as recently as 2005.

So just what is Gregg? An idiot? A hypocrite? A partisan hack? All of the above?

Yes. And pretty fucking stupid.

Quote of the Day

By Creature

"After all these years, the same cast of right wing lunatics can type something up in the morning and have it on CNN in the afternoon." -- Atrios, on yesterday's ugly CNN pander to our modern-day McCarthyites.

IEDs and oil prices: Iran and the terrorist threat to the U.S. military

By Michael J.W. Stickings

VoteVets.org, in conjunction with our good friends at Operation Free, has put together a hard-hitting new ad examining the connections between U.S. energy dependency and Iran's terrorist campaign against the U.S. in Iraq.

HuffPo's Sam Stein reports:

In a spot set to air in eight key states, the group, VoteVets.org (with assistance from the energy independence group Operation Free) splices footage of highly developed improvised explosive devices being used against U.S. soldiers alongside Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Narrated by Iraq War veteran Christopher Miller, who earned a Purple Heart as the result of an IED explosion six years ago, the ad makes the case that passing energy legislation is a national security imperative.

"That's the type of IED that earned me a purple heart in Iraq six years ago," Miller says, as footage of a U.S. convoy being blown off a dirt road runs in the backdrop.

"This is what our troops are up against today: EFPs [Explosively Formed Projectile] specially designed to pierce American military armor. It is a devastating weapon and it was created in oil-rich Iran. They are ending up in the hands of our enemies. And every time oil goes up a dollar, Iran gets another $1.5 billion to use against us."

"Connection between oil and the enemy couldn't be clearer," Miller adds. "We need to break that connection by breaking our addiction. And we can by passing a clean energy climate plan. It would cut our dependence on foreign oil in half."

"Some in Congress say it is a tough vote. Not as tough as what our troops are up against."

That's for sure. Yet, given the immense power of Big Oil and the Saudi lobby, Congress likely won't do nearly enough, if anything at all, to address energy dependency in any meaningful way.

This is an important video. Watch it:

It's the methane, stupid

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Uh-oh: "A section of the Arctic Ocean seafloor that holds vast stores of frozen methane is showing signs of instability and widespread venting of the powerful greenhouse gas." More:

The research results, published in the March 5 edition of the journal Science, show that the permafrost under the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, long thought to be an impermeable barrier sealing in methane, is perforated and is leaking large amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Release of even a fraction of the methane stored in the shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming.

*****

Methane is a greenhouse gas more than 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide. It is released from previously frozen soils in two ways. When the organic material -- which contains carbon -- stored in permafrost thaws, it begins to decompose and, under oxygen-free conditions, gradually release methane. Methane can also be stored in the seabed as methane gas or methane hydrates and then released as subsea permafrost thaws.

Apparently, "average methane concentrations in the Arctic average about 1.85 parts per million, the highest in 400,000 years."

And why is this happening? Thawing. And what is causing the thawing? Global warming.

It's a vicious cycle. As we release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, we warm up the earth, causing even more greenhouse gases to be released into the atmosphere, which in turn warm up the earth even more.

Given how slow we have been to respond to global warming, there may be no way out of the cycle. And that means, ultimately, acknowledging that climate predictions are necessarily inexact, the coming of environmental Armageddon.

Too dramatic? Just wait.

WH considering military trials for 9/11 suspects

By Creature

If this comes to pass, and that's a big if, AG Holder should resign in protest. Someone needs to take a stand. It's a shame that that someone doesn't seem to be Barack Obama.

Who, me?

By Capt. Fogg

O that ye would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom

Job 13:5

________________________

California state Senator Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield) is very concerned about the "gay agenda" and he's been a fierce opponent of same sex marriage and a "family values" blowhard for a long time. Although many don't agree with my feeling that such obsession is a cover up, examples keep emerging with regularity and it's hard even to list the most humorous ones. Senator Ashburn was recently arrested for drunk driving in downtown Sacramento early Wednesday morning. There's no particular surprise there and I imagine many other patrons leaving the gay bar "Faces" in the wee hours had had a bit too much to drink. He was given a field sobriety test and promptly taken off to jail. I don't know what happened to his "unidentified male companion."

Perhaps it will be less of a surprise to hear that Angelo Balducci, a "Gentleman of His Holiness," was caught on a police wiretap negotiating for the services of male prostitutes with a Vatican chorister. No official comments have yet been published.

The pattern emerged a long time ago, even before Wide Stance Larry tapped his toes in Minneapolis and whether you do or don't agree with me, I'm going to bet that more often than not, the biggest and most assertive opponents of gay rights and fantasy fabricators are dealing with difficult inner longings. Perhaps after all, if you'll forgive my radical libertarianism, the best way to hide them and to avoid suspicion is to simply leave gay people alone?

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Genocide is genocide: Exposing the truth about the Turkish massacre of Armenians

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It was a close vote, 23-22, but the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted yesterday, if I may quote the NYT, "to condemn as genocide the mass killings of Armenians early in the last century, defying a last-minute plea from the Obama administration to forgo a vote that seemed sure to offend Turkey and jeopardize delicate efforts at Turkish-Armenian reconciliation."

It's a vote I applaud enthusiastically. And not for the first time. Here's what I wrote back in October 2007:

What happened to Armenians in the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1917 was genocide -- an estimated 1.5 million killed, a brutal and systematic process of deportation and slaughter aimed at wiping out the Armenian population -- but you wouldn't know it if you got your history from the Turks, who committed the genocide (now known as the Armenian Genocide, or Holocaust), or from their present-day apologists in the Bush Administration, from Bush and Rice and Gates, the Holocaust deniers who sit at the top of the U.S. government. The House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a resolution last week, calling what happened to the Armenians what it was, genocide, but the deniers wanted none of it.

I wouldn't describe Obama and those in his administration as deniers, but they're certainly doing much the same thing the previous administration did, namely, refusing to acknowledge publicly that what happened in Armenia was genocide, and all because of those ever-so-delicate, ever-so-important American-Turkish relations, which apparently couldn't survive an admission of truth.

For its part, Turkey has been waging a decades-long campaign to deny the genocide, a shameful refusal not just to take responsibility for one of the most horrendous massacres in history but even to admit that it really happened. And its reaction when challenged, this time as always, suggests a level of collective national immaturity that is truly appalling. In response to the House vote -- which, again, was just yesterday -- the Turkish ambassador to Washington was recalled and the Turking prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, issued the following statement: "We condemn this bill that denounces the Turkish nation of a crime that it has not committed."

Well, it did, whether it wants to admit it or not.

And while I understand the desire to maintain close and friendly relations with Turkey, a valuable ally, there is simply no excuse for the U.S. government, whether it's Bush or Obama in the White House, to play along with, and to lend credence to, such a lie. It might as well deny that slavery ever happened.

Besides, the Turks are bluffing. Do they really want to cut off ties with America? Hardly. They need America, just like they need the West generally, and it's about time their denials were puncutured and they were held to account for one of the darkest events of the last century.

Thankfully, 23 members of the U.S. House of Representatives agree. Not thankfully, there are far too many, including at the highest levels of the government, who are in cahoots with the Turks.

BREAKING NEWS: Chief Justice Roberts will not be retiring

By Michael J.W. Stickings

That's right, contrary to earlier reports, John Roberts will not be stepping down as chief justice.

Alas.

Explanation here. It seems a Georgetown Univ. law professor told his class this morning that Roberts would be resigning. His students, as you might well imagine, spread the news via text, IM, etc., and it went sort of viral.

As it turns out, the "eccentric" professor was just trying to make a point about "the credibility and reliability of informants," as one student explained. Halfway through the class, the profesor "revealed that the Roberts rumor was made up to show how someone you ordinarily think is credible and reliable (ie a law professor) can disseminate inaccurate information."

(Indeed.)

By the time the truth was out, it was too late.

If nothing else, this story shows just how quickly information, correct or not, can spread in an age of almost universal interconnectedness and media accessibility, in an age of social networking and individual empowerment. (All of which is more bad than good, I would say, despite all the problems, which I won't delve into here.)

It's just too bad it was all a joke.

A race to the bottom

By Creature

CNN takes the lead. The level of stupid in this country astounds me.

Truly "Irked"

By Carl

Erik Erickson, or as I like to call him, Irked Irksome, is a doosh:

You know, I don't think it's a coincidence that the states that pay the least amount of unemployment benefits over time have the lowest unemployment and when we keep subsidizing the behavior, the behavior continues.

Irk needed to do more work.

For example, here's an analysis of unemployment by population density, most unemployment versus state ranking in density:

Michigan - $362 14.6% 16
Nevada - $362 13.0% 42
Rhode Island - $641 12.9% 2
South Carolina - $326 12.6% 21
California - $450 12.4% 11
Florida - $275 11.8% 8
North Carolina - $476 11.2% 15
Illinois - $511 11.1% 12
Alabama - $235 11.0% 27
Oregon - $463 11.0% 39

You'll note that of the top ten states in unemployment percentage (as of 2009) only two rank in the bottom half in population density (which also correlates to cost of living, which directly correlates with the amount in unemployment insurance.)

Of the last ten states in population density, only one has a rate over ten percent (roughly the national average):

Alaska - $320 8.8% 50
Wyoming - $387 7.5% 49
Montana - $386 6.7% 48
North Dakota - $385 4.4% 47
South Dakota - $285 4.7% 46
New Mexico - $455 8.3% 45
Idaho - $364 9.1% 44
Nebraska - $298 4.7% 43
Nevada - $362 13.0% 42
Utah - $427 6.7% 41

It gets better.

Of the top ten states in terms of unemployment benefits paid, only one ranks in the bottom half of population density:

Rhode Island - $641 2
Massachusetts - $628 3
Connecticut - $576 4
New Jersey - $560 1
Pennsylvania - $547 10
Minnesota - $538 31
Hawaii - $523 13
Washington - $515 25
Illinois - $511 12
Maine - $496 38

But here's the kicker, the ten states with the lowest unemployment benefits, and their ranking by unemployment percentage (10% being roughly the national average):

Michigan 1
Nevada 2
DC 6
Wisconsin 30
Delaware 25
South Carolina 4
Alaska 29
Georgia 16
Missouri 19
Nebraska 49
South Dakota 50
Florida 7

So Irk's little benefits = unemployment is absolute and utter bullshit.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Conservadem Blanche Lincoln's new campaign ad

By Creature

And this is the person establishment Dems (yes, White House, I'm talking to you) are supporting. Amazing. It's time to give Bill Halter some more cash.

Stoning the Orca

By Capt. Fogg

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."

-- Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813

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It was inevitable, since after all, this incomprehensibly huge and ancient universe exists only to provide a place in which God can test the mindless obedience to a farrago of meaningless and often contradictory rules of the sentient apes whose existence spans an infinitesimal part of the space time continuum -- anything that happens must be seen in the context of peremptory power and abject submission to the words of ancient men who went their whole, ignorant, bug-infested lives without soap. Or so saith the AFA.

A captive six-ton top predator, by following its possibly God given instincts to grab and kill any smaller animal at water's edge, was God's way of testing his demand that an ox who gores a man must be stoned. That's right, the sad death of Sea World trainer Dawn Brancheau was God's punishment to "the west" for the very concept of animal rights and her death a test to see if we'd follow the commands of ancient, flea bitten, psychotics. By not "stoning" the Orca, it's only going to get worse. God will have his oxen (and Orcas) stoned even if the hirsute brutes he chose to write down his words never heard of such an animal.

Have I been listening to too many paranoid schizophrenics at Nurse Ratched's cuckoo's nest? No, just the perennial font of psychotic idiocy called the American Family Association.

"Chalk another death up to animal rights insanity and to the ongoing failure of the West to take counsel on practical matters from the Scripture," wrote Bryan Fischer, at the AFA's official blog. "When an ox gores a man or woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner shall not be liable."

Do you think that if I stampeded some oxen through their offices and gored the living shit out of Fischer and his batshit crew of straight-jacket candidates, the AFA would find me liable and sue me? I think so too but I would truly love to try it. After all, I could easily cite the 613 Biblical Commandments, 600 of which they routinely ignore, such as the "abominations" of the cheeseburger or using cotton thread to sew your linen clothes or turning on the lights on Friday night. A good goring and stoning would only be God's work, dontcha think? The work of that smelly little sociopathic God who lives in some dank invisible basement in some invisible world and tortures animals for fun?

There is no place in a sane and decent society for these sick bastards and the curious selection of perverted bronze age superstitions they'd like to replace our laws with. The Bible, or whatever dubiously assembled antique political documents they'd like to tell us is the backbone of existence and the source of all goodness, is simply not compatible with decency, truth, freedom and the safety of humans beings or their families. Freedom from being ruled by its self appointed priesthood has been the long struggle of our kind and I will not have it snatched from us after two centuries of secular Democracy by these evil men.

For I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man,

said Jefferson.

Yes, me too.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Enthusiasm gap

By Creature

Yes, there's a huge enthusiasm gap on the left for HCR and I'm part if it. While I do want HCR to pass (even if it's the crappy Senate bill), I have no intention to cheer-lead for it. I've made my calls and donated my money when the public option was on the line, but that's it. The president has my support, but my enthusiasm has been deadened. This is the price the administration paid for leaving the left behind to appease conservadems and, sorry, but now it's up to conservadems to push HCR over the line.

Obama, Democrats ready to move forward on health-care reform

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It looks like the process has been worked out:

Sen. Tom Harkin told POLITICO that Senate Democratic leaders have decided to go the reconciliation route. The House, he said, will first pass the Senate bill after Senate leaders demonstrate to House leaders that they have the votes to pass reconciliation in the Senate.

It's not clear how Senate Democrats will "demonstrate" their commitment to use reconciliation to pass so-called patches to the Senate bill -- remember, reconciliation won't be used for the entire package, or even most of it, just for a few relatively minor changes -- but it could be something like a letter signed by at least 51 of them.

The bigger question, though, is whether House Democrats have the votes to pass the Senate bill, and that, for now, is where all the real drama is. Some who voted Yes the first time may vote No now, perhaps because of weakened anti-abortion provisions, perhaps because reform isn't popular back home (and they think they can only win by rushing to the center and embracing the Republicans), perhaps because they've bought into all the right-wing propaganda -- or perhaps because, if they're on the left, they object to fact that the public option is no longer in play. (There is indeed great concern that the Senate bill will lose progressives in the House, which could be a disaster. Seriously, while I admire and generally agree with these progressives, now is not the time to hold out. Doing so could hand a major victory to the Republicans, endanger the Democratic majority, and set back health-care reform for another generation. Better this bill, which is still significant, than nothing at all.)

What Pelosi needs is for the loss of those votes to be offset by members moving the other way, from No the first time to Yes now. And there should be some -- perhaps those who are not running for re-election and so don't need to pander to a frightened electorate, perhaps those who finally see that it is in the best interests of all Democrats that reform be passed, even if the reform bill itself is flawed and inadequate, perhaps those on the left who understand that this is it, that it's now or never, or at least not for a long, long time, and who, as I suggest above, agree that this bill is better than nothing, perhaps even those in the center who are persuaded by skeptical Senate centrists, like Bayh, Nelson, and Prior, who "recognize the political imperative of passing a bill and are endorsing it openly."

I don't want to be overly optimistic, let alone delusional, but this seems to be trending in the right direction.

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And it helps that President Obama is all in now, too, demanding an up-or-down vote, embracing a few Republican ideas but generally seeming prepared to move forward without any Republican support.

(Which, as we've known for a long time now, isn't coming. Which begs the question, why reach out to obstructionist Republicans and skeptical Democratic centrists instead of to enthusiastic liberals and progressives with, say, a robust public option and broad Medicare expansion? Well, because the votes wouldn't have been there in the Senate and perhaps wouldn't be there in either house now. But that was then, before initial passage, when 60 Senate votes were needed. Now that we've passed that point, and now that reconciliation is on the table, it's not clear how making the bill even less progressive makes it more likely to pass the House, unless there really are too many centrists to appease. Couldn't a union of 51+ reconciliation-bound Senate Democrats and 216+ House Democrats have been formed in support of a more progressive bill (including patches)? Well, I've said before that Obama's strategy seems to make a lot of sense, and I'll stick to that now. Let's just hope that Reid and Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic bean-counters on Capitol Hill know what they're doing.)

Anyway, as Jonathan Cohn notes:

[I]f Obama on Wednesday was implicitly giving up on his hopes for constructive, bipartisan governing, he wasn't giving up on his hopes for what governing would achieve. He ran for president on a promise to tackle the nation's most challenging problems -- and, since winning election, he's gleefully defied those who warned him he was trying to do too much. Nowhere has that been more true than on the issue of health care. At any point in the last few months but particularly in the wake of the Massachusetts election, it would have been easy to back away from comprehensive reform -- to cut a deal, be done with it, and move on. Instead, Obama on Wednesday committed himself more fully to comprehensive reform than he has at any time since this effort started. There's no backing off now.

Obama has made his mistakes and the plan he's put forward has its flaws. But I don't think he gets enough credit for the determination he's showing now. Americans always say they want leaders who lead rather than follow -- who do what they think is right rather than what they think is popular. And liberals, in particular, say they want politicians who will think big and pursue far-reaching reforms, rather than triangulate their way with incremental measures. Say what you will about Obama, but he's living up to both ideals--as much as any president in my lifetime.

The proof is in the pudding, as they say, and so I won't go quite that far. Yet. There has been far too much dithering and poor leadership on the part of Obama and the White House -- and I say that as one who has generally given the president the benefit of the doubt on this and other key issues and who considers himself nothing if not an enthusiastic supporter of the president -- to assume that his apparent determination and his "living up to both ideals" are truly genuine.

I suspect they are, and I am fairly confident that Obama has crossed the Rubicon, but I'll hold my applause. After all, there is still much that could go wrong.

We used to call it "trust busting"

By Carl

Finally, some rational thought from the Federal Reserve:

"I think the disagreeable but sound thing to do regarding institutions that are TBTF [ed. note. Too Big To Fail] is to dismantle them over time into institutions that can be prudently managed and regulated across borders," he said. "And this should be done before the next financial crisis, because it surely cannot be done in the middle of a crisis."

Adam Smith would roll over in his grave to understand how perverted his elegant economic system, for all its initial flaws, has become, corrupted by the aggregation of money, power, and influence. He intended for small businesses to compete against each other to provide goods and services to consumers.

Indeed, our Founding Fathers had a great and long debate about even opening up a national bank which would serve as a 800 lb gorilla in the banking system to provide leverage against large business combinations attempting to wrest control of the national money supply. Inevitably, businesses of all sizes fail. It's just a question of time.

If a major multinational bank fails, it doesn't just hurt its employees and shareholders as we've seen. It threatens the entire nation, from its financial security right down to its physical security.

And that's not good.

"Too Big To Fail" is, quite simply, too big. Full stop.

We've discussed on this blog the marvels of distributed power generation. Money is power. Banks should be hacked down to manageable sizes that service the communities they are located in, with no direct entanglements in regions where they have no business being in, and I don't just mean geographic. I mean economic sectors, business sectors, even political sectors.

Will this harm the banking system? I don't think so. I think the system will evolve, perhaps parent corporations that can hold smaller banks under an umbrella, with governmental oversight to make sure there isn't as much crossover as there is now will be established.

One thing is certain: the banking system we have now is on the road to yet another collapse. Businesses fail. Industries fail. Banking will fail again unless we address the inherent flaws immediately.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

The death of a blogger: Jon Swift passes away

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I don't have much to add to Carl's post below, nor to Tom Watson's and Skippy's lovely remembrances. As we learned from his mother, commenting at his blog, Al Weisel, known in the blogosphere as Jon Swift, died suddenly the other day.

I didn't know him well at all, but he was gracious with his links to this blog, and he was a blogger I admired a great deal, one who never failed both to amuse and to edify, often simultaneously. (With Skippy, he was also the co-organizer of Blogroll Amnesty Day, an invaluable uniting of non-A-list liberal and progressive blogs, like this one.)

You see, part of what makes the blogosphere -- including the liberal-progressive corner of it we inhabit -- so great is the plethora of different voices. And Al/Jon had one of the most distinct, a faux conservative who, like Stephen Colbert, used his chosen medium to unravel the absurdities of those who bore the brunt of his satire. In this, he was extremely effective. There are a lot of us out here. Some of us post a lot, others less. Some do reporting or op-ed-style commentating, some write more personally, more eccentrically. Some link a lot, and drive traffic, others don't. Some go long, some prefer short, snappy posts. Some are detached and analytical, some are snarky and direct. You get the point.

Well, there was no one quite like Jon Swift, and the blogosphere, and our corner of it, will be poorer without him.

Godspeed Jon Swift

By Carl

I'll miss you.

Story here.

Jon Swift, or as we now know, Al Weisel, was a writer to envy, and I often did. His talent and dedication to both entertain while informing was unparalleled in Blogtopia (© Skippy, The Bush Kangaroo). He was always willing to lend a hand to a C-List blogger like me, and would sometimes comment here or email me if he thought a piece I had up was particularly interesting.

I envy him his ability to remain in character while writing words that thoroughly skewer that character's outlook. I wondered sometimes if he cringed at some of the things he was forced to say in order to get to his point.

He was Stephen Colbert, only funny without being a cardboard cutout. Clearly, he thought his way through positions he abhorred and found the comedy inherent in the ignorance it took to hold ludicrous thoughts.

He was a humourist's humourist. His ability to mine irony and poignance did not end with him. He died on the way to his father's funeral of a broken heart, literally. Not only that, but the last post he left us, almost a year ago, was acknowledging a friend's terrible tragic loss.

Its title? "Sometimes There Are No Words." It was on that thread that his mother notified us of his loss. I like to think that he looked down, cringed at first, then got the joke.

Here's to you, Mr. Swift, Mr. Weisel! A scotch in your honor, with a glass turned upside down.

Unless, you know, you'd like to return and share it with me...

What the Vancouver Olympics meant to Canada

By Michael J.W. Stickings

MUST-WATCH VIDEO BELOW!

The Olympics are over, and many of us Canadians are experiencing a serious post-Olympic hangover -- it was such a high, after all, and it's hard now to adjust back to "normalcy" -- but there is no denying that the Vancouver Winter Games was a deeply meaningful event for this country. Whether there is a long-term effect remains to be seen, but I do think the Olympics tapped our deep reservoir of rarely seen national pride in a way that few events ever have, if any at all to this degree. It felt good to win, but it also felt good to display ourselves, and our wonderful country, to the world.

Here's what I wrote Sunday night, when it was all over:

It's been a wonderful two-plus weeks, with some wonderful moments. When we won the hockey gold today, I jumped off the couch and celebrated like I rarely do for anything. I can't remember ever being that excited for a sporting event. Maybe when the Steelers won the Super Bowl last year, but not even that matched today. That win was the highlight, along with the men's curling win, but I found myself cheering on my fellow Canadians -- and genuinely appreciating the athletes from all the countries -- frequently. Whatever it was -- short-track speedskating or skeleton, even figure staking -- I was there, and I was united with the rest of Canada, urging our men and women on.

It's hard to believe, actually, that the Olympics could mean this much to me, or to Canadians generally, but they did, and now they're over, and hopefully some of that togetherness will persist.

There's a reason this is the greatest country in the world. And it was on full display these past couple of weeks.

No one put it better, though, than Stephen Brunt, our finest sportswriter and commentator (writing for The Globe and Mail and appearing regularly on radio and TV). This is a video essay he put together on what the Olympics meant to Canada. (It's introduced by Brian Williams, the main studio host for CTV.) It's brilliant, it's magnificent, it's beautiful, it's moving, and, as far as I'm concerned, it's right on. And, amazingly, it was done before our historic gold-medal hockey win on Sunday, the singular triumph that really brought this country together.

Quote of the Day: Mark Pryor on reconciliation and health-care reform

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Hill quotes the Arkansas Democrat:

I haven't seen all the details of what the president's trying to do with reconciliation, and it's not my first choice. But under the circumstances, it may be the only way to pass legislation around here... It's not my preference. But we have reconciliation. It's in the rules. We can do it if we want to. My preference would be to have a big, bipartisan agreement, but in today's environment it's hard to do that.

I don't really have much to add.

Of course it's not anyone's "first choice."

Of course it's not anyone's "preference."

Of course it's "hard" to pass bipartisan legislation."

Of course it's "the only way," what with Republicans behaving like the obstructionist extremists they are.

But let us note again, just to be clear, that no one is talking about passing the entirety of the reform package through reconciliation. And why? Because both the House and Senate have already passed legislation.

Now it's just a matter of using reconciliation to pass improvements, or patches, to the Senate bill (assuming, that is, that the House passes the Senate bill).

At least Pryor, who's one of the more conservative Democrats in the Senate, seems to get what needs to be done.

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The same cannot be said of thankfully-soon-to-be-retiring Evan Bayh of Indiana, a fellow centrist Democrat, who said yesterday, presumably with a straight face, that reconciliation would take the Senate into "uncharted waters," as if it's never been used before. Is he really that stupid, and that ignorant? Does he not remember what Republicans did when Bush was president, not so very many years ago? Does he have absolutely no grasp of even recent Senate history? It's like he's intentionally trying to subvert Democratic efforts, that is, the efforts of the majority party, his party, to pass meaningful health-care reform.

But what else is new?

Your moment of Rachel

By Creature

Orrin Hatch is a lying McLiar (and the Washington Post is his shameless enabler).

Stuff to Read (3/3/10)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Here's the second entry in our ongoing series. The first is here. What I'm doing is linking to interesting articles, reviews, stories, etc., often with a sentence or two of commentary, that I've recently come across. And I'll be doing it on an irregular basis.

Not too much today, as I've been pretty busy, and tired, not to mention preoccupied with the Olympics and with preparing for my upcoming fantasy baseball draft. (I have the #2 overall pick in a deep 12-team league with a bunch of categories. Hello, Hanley. Welcome to the defending champs.)

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Slate: "The Chin Is In," by Troy Patterson -- Slate's TV critic takes look at Jay Leno's first Tonight Show after his return to the 11:35 slot: "What rankles is that, in his unwillingness to curb his uncontrolled greed for camera time, Leno was really, really uncool... Leno is serving something that, aimed to please as many palates as possible, is the same old pablum as before, the only difference being that it now leaves a bitter taste in the mouth." I didn't watch it, and I'm glad I didn't.

Actually, that's it. (I've also been reading through NFL mock drafts, complementing my frequent reading of the Steelers page at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, just to get a sense of what my beloved team might do in the real draft in April. But I'll spare you.)

Although, allow me again to recommend, highly, Jonathan Chait's new blog at The New Republic (in a way, the successor to The Plank, which I miss dearly.) Along with his colleague, Jonathan Cohn, he's been doing some fantastic commentary on health-care reform, though he touches on a wide variety of subjects. I check back frequently so as not to miss anything.