(1) MTV is going to do a remake of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". Possibly with new songs added.
(2) John Waters is doing the treatment for a sequel to "Hairspray", but not his "Hairspray". Rather, it will be a movie musical sequel to the movie musical version of the Broadway musical adaptation. Water’s original non-musical movie version.
Last year, Carnegie Mellon University ran a series of lectures entitled "The Last Lecture", where professors were asked to think about what matters to them most and give a hypothetical final talk to students.
One of the professors who spoke was Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist. Unlike the other lecturers in the series, Randy knew it was to be his actual last lecture, because he was facing terminal cancer.
In his moving presentation, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals. The entire presentation (1:16:27 in length) became an inspiring Internet phenomenon.
From his sudden fame fron the above lecture, Randy became a mini-celebrity. He lobbied Congress for more federal funding for pancreatic cancer research and appeared on "Oprah" and other TV shows. In what he called "a truly magical experience," he was even invited to appear as an extra in the new "Star Trek" movie.
He also published a book last April, which is still on the bestseller list (#8 last week)
He died today at age 47.
On July 1, California and Washington joined the list of states (including New York) which ban talking on cell phones while driving.
North Carolina, for local readers of this blog, has no such ban in place unless you are a teenagers under the age of 18 or a school bus driver. But a unviersal ban is probably likely, in every state nationwide.
There’s a lot of talking-while-driving out there. In 2007, a survey of 1,200 drivers by Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. found that 73 admitted to having talked on the phone while driving. Last year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported about 6 percent of drivers were using hand-held cellphones at any moment, based on observational data.
To date, these bans allow you to talk handsfree on your cell phone while driving, and so there is a rush to get handsfree Bluetooth headphones, or Bluetooth systems that integrate with your car radio.
For years, psychologists who study driving and attention have argued that switching to "hands free" is not a real solution to the hazards caused by yakking on the mobile in the car. "The impairments aren’t because your hands aren’t on the wheel. It’s because your mind isn’t the road," says David Strayer, professor of psychology at the University of Utah, whose research has found driving while talking on a cellphone to be as dangerous as driving drunk.
Now neuroscience is showing your mind literally isn’t on the road. The overtaxed driver’s poor brain doesn’t distinguish between a conversation that takes place on an iPhone or a Bluetooth headset. In both cases, the chatting driver is distracted, putting herself, her passengers, other drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians at risk.
Fair enough, but then wouldn’t this apply to drivers who chat away with people in the car with them?
I bring this up because I recently went handfree with my mobile phone. I don’t even have a headset; it’s all through the radio. I really haven’t tried it out, but it certainly seems a great deal safer than holding a phone, or even having a headset (which necessarily will block hearing in one ear).
Thoughts?
Really, Bill? Not a stretch?
Let’s see.
THE KLAN, ON POWER:
MOVEON.ORG, ON POWER:
THE KLAN, ON HEALTH CARE:
MOVEON.ORG, ON HEALTH CARE:
Yeah, I can see where one might confuse them….
Not that I was ever a fan, but at least it was somewhat respectable.
Until, of course, today’s op-ed entitled — I’m not making this up — What Bush and Batman Have in Common
Apparently, this is what Bush and Batman (at least, the latest incarnation of Batman) have in common:
1) They are both "vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand".
I haven’t seen the new Batman movie, so I can’t speak to that. However, of the many reasons I villify and despise Bush, one of them is not because he confronts terrorists on terms they understand.
First of all, I don’t what that means – "only terms they understand". Sounds machismo bullshit.
But more importantly, he doesn’t confront terrorists. He left the pursuit for bin Laden to go into Iraq, where there weren’t terrorists to begin with!!!
2) They both hav to "push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past".
Well, that’s a wishy-washy sentence if I ever heard one. How does one define "emergency"? What does "pushing the boundaries" actually mean?
***
In any event, Bush is not Batman. Not even close. For starters, when his nation calls, Batman shows up. He didn’t pull daddy’s strings and spend four year avoiding service by (barely) attending the National Air Guard to avoid combat.
Need I say more?
UPDATE: The rightwing blogosphere is all over the WSJ op-ed, praising it to high heaven, accompanied by the digital equivalent of fist-pounding-the-air.
These are the very serious people who take the GWOT very seriously. By comparing it to comic books and their cinematic offspring.
When I first saw this ad, I thought it was a hoax. I thought it was an ad someone pro-Obama put together, and deceptively issued under the name of an "official" John McCain ad.
Let’s watch the ad together (it’s a 3:00 internet ad) and I’ll go through the litany of what is terrible about it as a piece of campaign propaganda.
Now, for those who didn’t watch, here’s the ten-second summary. It is 100% clips from the media talking about Obama and just how INCREDIBLE Obama is. All set to the song "Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You" by Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons. Occasionally, words appear in the ad — words like "You’re just too good to be true" imposed above an I-Love-Lucy type heart.
And that goes on for three minutes.
Now some rough stats:
You see where I’m going with this?
The obvious point of the ad is that the media is having a love affair with Barack Obama. This point is made clear within the first 20 seconds.
Now here’s some of the problems:
(1) Some of the clips clearly show media personalities being impressed with Obama (a speech he just gave, or just him).
BUT some of the clips show media personalities complaining about the media love affair with Obama.
Doesn’t this second kind of clip undercut the entire point of the ad? Even the most obtuse viewer is going to walk away with the impression that certain segments of the media are biased (no news there), and — yes, some in the media WILL be in favor of Obama. But — as the ad itself shows in places — some of that bias will also be against Obama.
So in the end, what has the ad taught us about media bias and Obama? It exists! Both positive AND negative!
(2) In the course of trying to make its point about media bias in favor of Obama, the ad seems to rely on the same people (Chris Matthews weighs heavily) and even the same show from the same air date. This is going to leave the impression, directly or not, that the supposed "bias" can’t be that bad, if all they could find was isolated incidents of it from the same cast of characters.
(3) The biggest error of them all.
The gestalt of the ad, once you get past the media-bias message, is that something really big is happening in politics today. For the average, not politically-in-tune, viewer, the effect of this ad will enhance — dramatically enchance — Obama’s mystique and image.
I mean, imagine the person not terribly interested in politics. They happen across the above ad. They see glowing images of Obama, and see him being compared to a "rock star" and "a gift from above". What is such a person likely to think?
My guess? "About time! I think I’ll check out what all the fuss is about this Obama guy!"
You know who the last presidential candidate was who invoked the whole "rock star" mystique? John F. Kennedy. Who is still well-liked.
Plus, the song underscoring it "Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You" is catchy.
(4) Needless to say at this point, the ad says nothing — NOTHING — about McCain, good or bad. (It says nothing BAD about Obama either, except that the media likes him, which isn’t necessarily a reflection of Obama or any of his policies).
But the ad is so heavy-handed, it actually backfires and leaves one to ask: "Well, why doesn’t McCain generate this kind of excitement?"
Well, John? Why don’t you?
This is a very bad ad, and I think it will go down in history as one of the worst. How DUMB to mention your opponent’s name IN A POSITIVE LIGHT . . . . AS MANY TIMES AS YOU CAN . . . and FAIL TO MENTION YOUR OWN. Isn’t that Political Campaigning 101?
It really leads me to ask: "What were the makers of this ad thinking? Who was their target audience (people who hate the media, who probably aren’t in the Obama camp anyway?) Seriously, did they focus group this? Were they thinking at all?!?
For those who missed Cloverfield… or those who caught it…
Yes, they can go together.
But I draw the line at "clothing optional" restaurants. Just not for me:
The au naturel look is catching on at city restaurants, a Midtown yoga club and even a stand-up comedy joint.
"We’re just more comfortable nude," said John Ordover, who rents city eateries for dinner parties with a strict dress code – no clothes allowed
"We’re not out to shock or put on a public spectacle. We want only to do things that other people do in the way that we are most comfortable doing them. That, for us, is without clothes," he said.
About 50 diners – whose motto is "no hot soup" – regularly turn up for Ordover’s monthly meals held at venues including the Mercantile Grill on Pearl Street and Pete’s Downtown in Brooklyn.
They’re served by regular restaurant staff – forced by city laws to keep their clothes on.
"We’ve never had a restaurant say no to us, and the waiters think nothing of it," said Ordover, 46, who works as a Web marketer when he has his clothes on.
"If you work in a restaurant in New York City, the chances are you’ve seen a lot more shocking things than a room full of naked diners," he added.
Cake Wrecks: an entire blog devoted to badly decorated cakes.
They tend to be either bad in execution, i.e., spelling errors like "Congraniation Nicole and Mark"
… or cakes which really just never should have been made in the first place.
Coming from the National Enquirer, one might be attempted to dismiss this out-of-hand.
But they seem to have detailed facts, all of which boil down to this: JOHN EDWARDS WAS CAUGHT LAST NIGHT MEETING WITH A WOMAN NOT HIS WIFE AND THEIR LOVE CHILD!!!
The National Enquirer has pushed this story before, and Edwards has denied it. The problem with the most recent incarnation is that Edwards was caught (almost) red-handed with the woman in question.
At 9:45 p.m. (PST) Monday, Edwards appeared at the hotel, and was dropped off at a side entrance. NATIONAL ENQUIRER reporter Alan Butterfield witnessed the ex-senator get out of a BMW driven by a male companion and stroll into the hotel.
Said Butterfield: "Edwards was not carrying anything. He walked in alone. He was wearing a blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He was looking around nervously before he entered the hotel."Once inside, he interestingly bypassed the lobby and ducked down a side stairs to go to the bottom floor to catch the elevator up – rather than taking the elevator in the main lobby. He went out of his way not to be seen."
Meanwhile, Rielle had reserved rooms 246 and 252 under the name of the friend who had accompanied her from Santa Barbara, Bob McGovern. Rielle was in one room and McGovern was in another with her baby. This allowed her and Edwards to spend time alone, a source revealed.Edwards went out of the hotel briefly with Rielle, they were observed by the NATIONAL ENQUIRER and then went back to her room, where he stayed until attempting to sneak out of the hotel unseen at 2:40 a.m. (PST). But when he emerged alone from an elevator into the hotel basement he was greeted by several reporters from the NATIONAL ENQUIRER.
Senior NATIONAL ENQUIRER Reporter Alexander Hitchen asked Edwards why he was visiting Rielle and whether he was ready to confirm that he was the father of her baby.
Shocked to see a reporter, and without saying anything, Edwards ran up the stairs leading from the hotel basement to the lobby. But, spotting a photographer, he doubled back into the basement. As he emerged from the stairwell, reporter Butterfield questioned him about his hookup with Rielle.
Edwards did not answer and then ran into a nearby restroom. He stayed inside for about 15 minutes, refusing to answer questions from the NATIONAL ENQUIRER about what he was doing in the hotel. A group of hotel security men eventually escorted him from the men’s room, while preventing the NATIONAL ENQUIRER reporters from following him out of the hotel.
Said reporter Hitchen: "After we confronted him about seeing Rielle, Edwards looked like a deer caught in headlights!
"He was clearly surprised that we had caught him at this very late hour inside the hotel.
"Some guests up at this late hour watched the spectacle in amusement from a staircase nearby."Meanwhile, Rielle’s friend McGovern also refused to answer any questions from the NATIONAL ENQUIRER or offer any explanation for her meeting with Edwards.
The Edwards "love child" scandal drew international press attention after the NATIONAL ENQUIRER published a blockbuster investigation about the politician in our Dec. 31, 2007 print edition.
We reported that Rielle, a woman linked to Edwards in a cheating scandal earlier last year, was more than six months pregnant – and we reported that she told a close confidante that Edwards was the father of her baby!
Edwards denied the affair and that he was the father, and in a bizarre twist, a close friend of his, Andrew Young, said he was the father. Young, 41, was married at the time with three children. The NATIONAL ENQUIRER has learned he still is married.
Sources told the NATIONAL ENQUIRER exclusively that Edwards had engineered a massive cover up of the affair and love child scandal and that Young was taking the blame for his good friend. At the time Rielle had been relocated from the New York area to Chapel Hill in Edwards’ home state of North Carolina, where she was living in an upscale gated community down the street from Young. Strangely, Young even had Rielle to his house for dinner with his wife and kids, the NATIONAL ENQUIRER has learned.Young has been extremely close to Edwards for years and was a key official in his presidential campaign.
Rielle is a self-described filmmaker whose company was hired by a pro-Edwards group called One America Committee. She was paid $114,000 to produce videos for Edwards’ campaign and worked with him on those videos.
After our story last December, reporters from other media outlets asked Edwards about the report during a campaign stop in Columbia, S.C.
Edwards responded: "The story is false. It’s completely untrue, ridiculous," adding: "Anyone who knows me knows that I have been in love with the same woman for 30-plus years."
Rielle issued her own statement, saying in part: "The innuendos and lies that have appeared on the Internet and in the NATIONAL ENQUIRER concerning John Edwards are not true, completely unfounded and ridiculous."
But a source told the NATIONAL ENQUIRER: "Now that it seems to have blown wide open, Rielle may get her wish – all she wants is for John to marry her and for them to live happily ever after with their baby. She’s tired of running and living a lie."
That’s pretty detailed information. Sounds like there’s something there.
If this story has legs, I think we can kiss Edward’s political career goodbye. Forget about him as VP.
This is getting to be a daily thing. And these aren’t silly slip-of-the-tongues. These are things which should give one serious pause.
(1) LAST NIGHT IN ROCHERSTER NH
Listen closely, here’s what McCain says:
My friends, we have to drill off shore. We have to do it. It’s out there and we can do it. And we can do that. The oil executives say within a couple of years we could be seeing results from it. So why not do it?
Emphasis mine.
Oh, I see. The OIL EXECUTIVES say it’s going to work (not that they have any, you know, vested interest), so therefore, IT WILL WORK.
Are these the same OIL EXECUTIVES who deny global warming, using the same brand of unbiased independent judgment?
Just like the energy task force in 2001 hiding away in Fourthbranch Cheney’s office, McCain appeals to oil executives to set his energy policy. We know how that movie played out, right?
Gas prices in July 2000: $1.47/gal.
Gas prices today: $4.055/gal.
Yup.
(2) McCAIN WITH KATIE COURIC LAST NIGHT:
Katie Couric: Senator McCain, Senator Obama says, while the increased number of US troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias. And says that there might have been improved security even without the surge. What’s your response to that?
McCain: I don’t know how you respond to something that is as– such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel McFarlane [phonetic] was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that’s just a matter of history. Thanks to General Petraeus, our leadership, and the sacrifice of brave young Americans. I mean, to deny that their sacrifice didn’t make possible the success of the surge in Iraq, I think, does a great disservice to young men and women who are serving and have sacrificed.
Emphasis mine, again.
The surge "began the Anbar awakening"? As a matter of "history"?
Let’s check the timeline. Hmmmm– nope. Sean McFarland, in fact, was contacted by Sunni sheikhs in September 2006, months before the surge troops arrived, months before the President even DECIDED on the surge.
As Ilan Goldenberg puts it, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of Iraq from the candidate who presumes to be a national security expert.
This is not controversial history. It is history that anyone trying out for Commander and Chief must understand when there are 150,000 American troops stationed in Iraq. It is an absolutely essential element to the story of the past two years. YOU CANNOT GET THIS WRONG. Moreover, what is most disturbing is that according to McCain’s inaccurate version of history, military force came first and solved all of our problems. If that is the lesson he takes from the Anbar Awakening, I am afraid it is the lesson he will apply to every other crisis he faces including, for example, Iran.
(There’s a media angle here, too, as CBS apparently deleted this part of the interview from their broadcast. Looks like all that whining about how the media loves Obama is working.)
RELATED: Even then, conservative idiot Jonah Goldberg thinks that McCain’s strategy of "I was right about the surge; Obama was wrong" is a loser stance:
The tragic Catch-22 for the Arizona senator is that the more the surge succeeds, the more politically advantageous it is for Obama.
Voters don’t care about the surge; they care about the war. Americans want it to be over — and in a way they can be proud of.
Probably so.
First, the video:
Bush was speaking at a July 18 fundraiser for Pete Olsen.
The first moments form the event find him speaking almost incoherently in admitting, for once, that his friends in big business had screwed up:
"There’s no question about it. Wall Street got drunk —that’s one of the reasons I asked you to turn off the TV cameras — it got drunk and now it’s got a hangover. The question is how long will it sober up and not try to do all these fancy financial instruments."
Now, this is getting a little play on the blogosphere, and of course what is controversial is not what Bush said, but the fact that he said it.
He’s basically placing blame for the mortgage crisis on those on Wall Street who create "fancy financial instruments" which hide the value (or lack thereof) of investments.
And he’s right!
What’s telling is that he wanted the cameras OFF when he said that. Apparently, he didn’t want to piss off his fatcat buddies. But what does that say about presidential leadership???
Judy Pike, a dear old friend from from Tufts, turns — and I’m estimating here, based on the fact that she was a senior when I was a freshman — 49 years old today.
Suzanne Evon, an ex-girlfriend and even more endearing current friend, turns 50 this coming weekend.
What happened? When did we get old?
I mean, I can deal with me getting older, slowing down, having sciatic pains, etc. My whole life, I’ve been aware that that stuff was going to happen… eventually. I mean, I can read a play and see a great part for a mid-twenty year old, and say "Oh, wait. I’m not the right age". I can do that now. I used to not be able to.
But my contemporaries getting older? Turning a half frickin’ century?
Shit, I didn’t see that coming…
I guess, in my mind, 50 is about how old my mom is now. Which she isn’t but… that’s my mind. And then everyone else’s age is supposed to fall in accordingly. It probably doesn’t help that I have teenagers and twenty-somethings in my life who I can relate to (i.e., talk the lingo, or whatever — although realistically I’m probably just a poser to them).
So when I contemplate Que Evon turning 50, something in my head short circuits.
Saving grace is that it doesn’t show in either Que or Judy. But still… that number… five-zero. Yikes.
Seems to work best if you have 2 or more bags:
With airlines charging ever higher fees for the right to lose your luggage, you might find it cheaper — if not safer — to ship your bag than check it.
Airfarewatchdog put together a handy chart showing how much airlines are charging to check your bag. Most U.S. airlines want you to fork over $15 for your first bag and $25 for the second. If you’re one of those people doesn’t know the meaning of the phrase "travel light," you’re going to pay through the nose if you’ve got more than two bags or a suitcase that weighs more than 50 pounds.
With that in mind, we did a little research to see if a trip to the post office beats a trip to the airport bag drop.
Let’s say you’re headed from Boston to New York with a bag that weighs 35 pounds. If it’s too big to carry on the plane — and at 35 pounds it probably will be — you’ll shell out $15 for the privilege of checking it in. Box up your stuff and haul it to your local post office and you’ll pay $18.98 to ship it via two-day Priority Mail. UPS will charge you $20 to get it there in seven days — so plan ahead — and FedEx two-day will run you $20.88.
So far, snail mailing your luggage doesn’t seem like a bargain.
But the math changes when you throw a second suitcase into the mix. Check two bags and you’re out $40. That’s what you’ll pay to have FedEx throw your luggage around, but you’ll pay $35 using UPS and $34 to let the post office deal with it. The savings really kick in if you’re a clothes’ horse or you bought every souvenir you laid eyes on. Airlines will nail you for up to $140 if you’ve got three pieces of luggage, but the post office will charge you $55. FedEx will get it there (or back) for $60.
U.S. mail is an even bigger bargain if your bags weigh a ton — a 65-pounder costs $24 to ship parcel post, but the airlines will charge $50 and $100 to throw it in the cargo hold. The bottom line? The more stuff you’re packing, the more it makes sense to consider shipping it.
McCain’s new TV ad, "Pump", blames Obama for rising gas prices.
On its face, it is silly. Obama has been a one-term senator. How can one man be responsible for rising gas prices?
Here are some very worthwhile critisicms of the ad:
Lack of honesty aside, the ad simply doesn’t work
Open Left‘s Matt Stoller: "I don’t think McCain’s attack will work on Obama, since it is saying something that Americans fundamentally don’t believe. The ad suggests that prices are rising because of insufficient drilling, and that more drilling will lower prices. That isn’t true, and polling suggests people know it isn’t true. An ad that says something along the lines of ‘this isn’t a total solution, but it’s a start’ would be much more credible as an attack on Obama. […] If you drilled everything there is in the US tomorrow and oil started coming out of the ground tomorrow, gas prices would drop by about three cents."