Watch this video, especially from 8:25 to about 10:15. That’s all I’m going to say.

These recut trailers work the best when the new version is so drastically different from the actual film. This one’s still one of the best.

Time to lighten things up a bit around here. You thought Mary Poppins was a sweet, charming lady? Think again.

Frightening, dangerous, and unconscionable: GOP presidential candidates advocate torture—or rather “enhanced interrogation techniques.” From the transcript:

All were posed this hypothetical in the debate on Tuesday:

Three shopping centers near major U.S. cities have been hit by suicide bombers. Hundreds are dead, thousands injured. A fourth attack has been averted when the attackers were captured off the Florida coast and taken to Guantanamo Bay, where they are being questioned. U.S. intelligence believes that another larger attack is planned and could come at any time.

How aggressively would you interrogate those being held at Guantanamo Bay for information about where the next attack might be?

Mayor Giuliani:

I would tell the people who had to do the interrogation to use every method they could think of. It shouldn’t be torture, but every method they can think of… I’d say every method they could think of, and I would support them in doing that because I’ve seen what—(interrupted by applause)—I’ve seen what can happen when you make a mistake about this, and I don’t want to see another 3,000 people dead in New York or any place else.

What exactly is “every method they can think of” that sets it apart from torture?

Governor Romney:

Yeah, first of all, let’s make sure that we understand that the key in electing the next president is to find somebody who will make sure that that scenario doesn’t ever happen, and the key to that is prevention….

Some people have said, we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is, we ought to double Guantanamo. We ought to make sure that the terrorists—(applause)—and there’s no question but that in a setting like that where you have a ticking bomb that the president of the United States—not the CIA interrogator, the president of the United States—has to make the call. And enhanced interrogation techniques have to be used—not torture but enhanced interrogation techniques, yes.

Again, what’s the difference?

A sane view, however, from Senator McCain:

The use of torture—we could never gain as much we would gain from that torture as we lose in world opinion. We do not torture people….

One of the reasons is, is because if we do it, what happens to our military people when they’re captured? And also, they realize there’s more to war than the battlefield.

Clarification on yesterday’s post: I didn’t mean to suggest that Congressman Paul said we invited 9/11. We live in a world of consequences, good ones and bad ones. To pretend we don’t or to pretend we are immune from any consequences goes beyond any level-headed mentality. This, I think, was what Congressman Paul was saying. We have to realize we cannot do anything in the world that won’t have ramifications. Does that “justify” 9/11? Surely not. But to assume we can do anything in the world we want without anyone else caring or trying to do something to stop us is dangerous.

In last night’s GOP presidential debate, Texas Congressman Ron Paul said this:

Have you ever read the reasons [Al Qaeda] attacked us? They attack us because we’ve been over there; we’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We’ve been in the Middle East.

After Paul was finished with his comments, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said this:

That’s really an extraordinary statement. That’s an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don’t think I’ve heard that before, and I’ve heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th. (applause) And I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn’t really mean that. (applause)

I find Giuliani’s comments baffling. Let me remind Mr. Giuliani of Osama bin Laden’s fatwa, released in 1998:

…for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples…. On that basis, and in compliance with God’s order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims: The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies—civilians and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it….

Bin Laden says Americans should be attacked because we have troops stationed in Saudi Arabia. Sorry, Mr. Giuliani, but is that not exactly what Mr. Paul mentioned? But that’s ok, you got the applause and the sound bite, so that’s all that matters.

On another note, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said this:

My fear is that McCain-Kennedy [immigration bill] would do to immigration what McCain-Feingold has done to campaign finance and money in politics, and that’s bad.

Mr. Romney, let me remind you that in the first fundraising quarter, you raised $20 million dollars. Was that “bad”?

U.S. Representatives James McGovern (D-MA), Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), and Tim Ryan (D-OH) have pledged to live on an average food stamp budget—just $3 a day—from May 15-21, 2007 and have invited other Members of Congress to join them in the Food Stamp Challenge.

More details here.

My blog needs a title. Have any suggestions?

Well, the news stories have been hinting at this for a while now, but apparently a Mike Bloomberg, current mayor of New York City, is seriously considering a third-party run for the White House next year. Quote:

The mayor has told close associates he will make a third-party run if he thinks he can influence the national debate and has said he will spend up to $1 billion.

$1 billion dollars? There isn’t enough money in politics already? Aside from that, though, his candidacy could be a huge deal. The main problem with third-party presidential candidates is that they never have enough money to really make a difference. I think he’s got that covered.

I tend to believe having more options on the table is usually a good thing, whether in politics or not. So many voters and non-voters are so disconnected with politics because they don’t like either of the two “only” choices. Perhaps his candidacy would awaken a sleeping electorate.

On the other hand, though, a serious third-party candidate raises the possibility of creating an Electoral College nightmare if no candidate gets a majority. If we thought the 2000 election was bad, an election in modern times decided by the House of Representatives would be off the charts. (It would be fun, though, because we’ll probably never see that again in our lifetimes.)

Oh, and I forgot to mention this: Bloomberg’s potential running mate.

Refreshing spin on vote-for-me ads from Democratic presidential hopeful and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson:

Ever wonder how the numbering for U.S. zip codes works? Ben Fry shows us how it’s done.

Red Interactive Agency is taking online communication to the next level.

The Canadians are coming! The Canadians are coming! Or so it would seem. Hmmm, maybe it could really happen….

In how many ways can success in Iraq be defined as “in progress”? Oil, perhaps the cornerstone of getting Iraq’s economy functioning, is going missing. What a mess of a situation. Quote:

Between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels a day of Iraq’s declared oil production over the past four years is unaccounted for and could have been siphoned off through corruption or smuggling, according to a draft American government report.Using an average of $50 a barrel, the report said the discrepancy was valued at $5 million to $15 million daily.

Finally a high-ranking official speaks out against torture: a letter [PDF] from General David Petraeus, commanding general in Iraq, to American troops in Iraq. I sincerely hope a copy was hand-delivered to the president, vice president, and attorney general.  Quote:

Our values and the laws governing warfare teach us to respect human dignity, maintain our integrity, and do what is right. Adherence to our values distinguishes us from our enemy. This fight depends on securing the population, which must understand that we—not our enemies—occupy the moral high ground.

I heard this story on NPR on the drive home today: the Bush Administration is manipulating science. While I was listening to the story, I thought to myself that I’ve heard this before about the administration. So when I got home, I decided to do some digging. Well, a quick search on The Internets came up with these stories:

• Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming
• How Bush and Co. Obscure the Science
• Rewriting the Science

Quote from the last article:

In my more than three decades in the government I’ve never witnessed such restrictions on the ability of scientists to communicate with the public.

—James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 2006

Why is the Bush Administration seemingly at war with science? Simply because they don’t believe in science? This not only is shockingly irresponsible but it’s alarmingly dangerous. We’re talking about the future of our planet and life on it.

This reminds me of other service professionals refusing to do their job because they have a moral objection to something: pharmacists who deny customers birth control. I understand that not everyone can agree with everything and everyone else’s opinions, but if you refuse to do your job, that’s stepping way over the line, as that Slate article rightfully illustrates. Quote:

But if a pharmacist doesn’t have to dispense birth control, or an EMT can refuse to drive someone to an abortion clinic, or a nurse can refuse a rape victim emergency contraception, none of us can really trust in the professionals around us at those moments when we need them the most.

So let me put this in perspective with myself. I abhor Internet Explorer because of its developers’ refusal to follow web standards. You might say I’m morally opposed to it. So as a web designer/developer, does that mean I can refuse to cater to viewers of my sites who are using IE? Does that mean I can embed some script that detects if my users are browsing with IE and instead of showing them my site show them some heinous personal message lecturing them on why they shouldn’t be using IE? Absolutely not.

Do I hate that people use IE? Yes. Do I still serve them with a begrudging smile? Of course. Do I wish they were using something other than IE? You bet. My job, like pharmacists and government officials, is to serve my customers. I may not like what they like or even believe in what they believe in, but that’s not what I’m here for, and it’s certainly not what service professionals and government officials are there for.

So the GOP pays to dine with the Queen? Not only that, but apparently you can buy your way to becoming ambassador to Great Britain. How much do I have to pay for Tahiti?

While we learn that the FDA says there is very low risk to humans from food containing melamine (the chemical found in dog and cat food recently that was responsible for thousands of illnesses and deaths in pets) and specifically from farm animals, such as chickens and hogs, that consumed the tainted feed, we learn today that farmed fish were also fed the contaminated food. This should be a warning sign to us, no? Should we not be worried that the human food supply might be tainted at some point?

Don’t worry, though, because the federal government is doing something about it. Oh wait, who am I kidding. The federal government is doing what amounts to absolutely nothing on this issue. Imagine that. The quote:

Last year, inspectors sampled just 20,662 shipments out of more than 8.9 million that arrived at American ports. China, which in one decade has become the third-largest exporter of food, by value, to the United States, sent 199,000 shipments, of which less than 2 percent were sampled, former officials with the [Food and Drug Administration] said.

That statistic is egregiously appalling.

What is even more appalling, though, is this administration’s insistence that it is tough on national security. Tell me that a virtually unprotected food supply is not a national security concern. Tell me that finding drug smuggling (and who knows what else was being smuggled—humans? terrorists?) tunnels under the Canadian and Mexican borders is not a national security concern. And tell me that our dependence on foreign oil is not a national security nightmare waiting to happen (what global implications, for instance, does Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez seizing foreign-controlled oil fields have?).

If the president wants to discuss his national security credentials, then let’s discuss them, because if those news stories say anything, they say our national security is NOT secure.

I’m not really a Will Ferrell fan, but this is absolutely brilliant.

Liberals and God-less tax-raisers are trying to make me look bad by using such things as “facts”…. Think back to Biblical times…it was hot back then. Why do you think Adam and Eve were naked?

Well it’s still too early to tell whether or not the 2008 election will be a landslide, but things sure are looking interesting. Apparently, Senator Obama is attracting some big-name Republicans and neocons.

On another note, what can any Democratic presidential candidate do to increase chances of winning in the South? The answer is to call on a Southern governor or senator to be the VP candidate. So let’s think here, what Southern Democrat is popular these days? John Edwards is already running for president, Mark Warner (former gov of Virginia) bowed out of the presidential race already and is looking to take on current VA senator John Warner next year, Bill Clinton can’t Constitutionally be VP. I’m thinking of one certain senator from Virginia who is both popular, Southern, and has military credentials to back him up: Senator Jim Webb.

At a lecture last month, he was asked if he was being considered as a running mate. “He said he had no comment and was quickly rushed away.” Hmmm, Senator Webb is one of the last people who doesn’t have a comment on something and in fact is far more likely to look for an outlet to discuss his comments.

Interesting, very interesting. I talked with a former professor of mine, and he mentioned that as things stand now, an Obama/Webb ticket would be virtually unbeatable. I agree.

When does a comic book movie become too comic-book-y? When does the incessant cheese in a film start attracting rats? Both good questions, but not better than this one: what happened to Spider-Man 3?

The first film set the stage and introduced us to the world of Peter Parker, although this film had plenty of cheese as well. The second film gave us a serious character drama wrapped up into an exciting comic book movie. The third film gives us a series of blockbuster special effects sequences and one dance number strung together by a lackluster, trying-too-hard story in the effort of passing all this off as a “film.” Sorry, Mr. Raimi, it just didn’t work.

I was turned off from the film right from the opening title sequences. They were cool, but uninspiring and all-too-familiar—like we’ve seen them before in the previous two films. In fact, the beginning portion of the credits listing the main stars was, more or less, a fusion of the titles for the first two films. Nifty effects, but dripping of been-there-done-that. About half-way into the sequence, we shift pace, and we see a bunch of black ooze, the stuff that we know will turn Spidey into evil Spidey. It just kind of crawls around—not inspiring at all.

These visuals are backed up by the only sound on the screen—the music. Danny Elfman, the composer for the first two Spider-Man films, wrote fantastic music for the title sequence and the rest of the films. He and director Sam Raimi had a fued over music in Spider-Man 2, so Elfman left the series after that film. Enter Christopher Young, someone who is NO Danny Elfman. Young trying to work with Elfman’s music is like a a hot dog trying to taste like a lobster. It just doesn’t work. Elfman’s title sequence music channeled through Young sounds as uninspired as the black ooze sequence looks. The instrumentation is lacking, and the excitement and driving percussion apparently left with Elfman. The first and third portions of the music in the title sequence are interpolated Elfman themes; the second portion is Young’s work. Fine on its own, but it holds no water compared to Elfman’s original music. Young’s themes are too simplistic in comparison to Elfman’s more complex musical endeavors. Furthermore, the music in linear form is at best a holed, beat-up patchwork of mush—painfully obvious where Elfman ends and where Young begins.

So enough about the music, yes? Well for a film music fan, this is what we listen for. Music, for me, makes or breaks a film. The music in the rest of the film didn’t necessarily break the film, but it sure didn’t save it from the numerous faults (although there was a really cool rendition of the Spider-Man theme done with a dark male choir during the church scene). As mentioned earlier, the story was not much of a story. I fear that Raimi is going the way of George Lucas and concentrating too much effort on special effects rather than fleshing out the meat of the film in storytelling and character development. The new characters we’re introduced to in this film were far too underdeveloped, and Peter and M.J. seemed out of character and, frankly, unlikable in several scenes.

The special effects were ok in some places, and obviously fake in others. The fake-ness was most obvious at the end when we see the Sandman dissolve one last time (don’t worry, I’m not giving anything away). The effects were off in this film, too easy to tell real from computer-generated.

Two final thoughts: apparently no one on the writing staff could think of anything better to do in fight sequences than drop people off buildings. One or two people don’t fall; try four or five. Think of something else to do! And finally, a dance number should never EVER be in a Spider-Man film. Period.

Yes, this film was a comic book movie. But looking at films such as Spider-Man 2 and Batman Begins, there are comic book movies that are serious enough to make a great film. This film just took itself too seriously and ended up being seriously bad.

It seems that the madness of the ever-creeping-forward primary and caucus schedule for 2008 keeps growing and growing. Iowa is likely to move their caucus forward from 14 January to 7 January, with this move coming after California, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, Nevada, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Hampshire, and many other states have all moved their primaries or caucuses forward.

The pushing forward of these elections is a serious and dangerous trend facing American politics. Gone are the days of the so-called “retail” politics, where candidates literally meet as many voters as possible in the early primary states. This system was allowed to flourish because the primaries were spread-out over several months.

Today, though, candidates must engage in “wholesale” politics, where instead of having face-to-face meetings in voters’ living rooms, candidates must spend their resources on tv, radio, and internet ads, both positive and negative, in order to reach as many voters as possible in the shortened primary season. More ads means the candidates have to raise more money; more money needed means candidates have to start campaigning earlier and earlier, hence the absurdly early presidential race we currently are trudging through.

Not only does the shortened, front-loaded system of today increase the money necessary to mount a presidential campaign, it discourages and almost inhibits anyone who is not either financially well-connected or personally well-off. Are these the people we necessarily want running the government?

In addition, the front-loaded system perpetuates a never-ending, vicious, distracting, and otherwise excruciatingly-too-long general campaign that is far more likely to turn-off voters than it is to engage them. Next year, by the end of February, over 30 states will have held their primary or caucus. That means that in both parties, the presidential nominee will have been unofficially chosen. That means that the 2008 general election campaign will last from March to November. That means that if one or both of the major parties’ candidates falter during the general election campaign or the party has second thoughts on their choice, it will be too late to choose someone else.

If American voters are already apathetic towards politics, next year will only serve to drive them further away from caring who is elected. Can America afford this? Can the future of our democracy afford this? Can the rest of the world afford this?

Something needs to be done, and it needed to be done yesterday. An astronomical 84% of eligible voters in France voted last month in the French presidential primary. In the United States, 60% voted for president in 2004, 54% in 2000. If we worry about voter turnout, a front-loaded, national primary-esque system is not the answer. The political system has gone for a long walk off a short pier, and it has taken the rest of us with it.

Commenting on posts is now enabled, but you have to be a registered member of the site. Don’t abuse your privileges, or I’ll get angry, and you won’t like me when I get angry.

There still may be some bugs in the commenting process, but it’s functional. If you find anything wrong, please let me know!

Outsourcing jobs wasn’t enough, so now we’re outsourcing the construction of national memorials to historically important American icons? Amazing. An interesting debate, though, nonetheless. Dr. King’s words certainly do speak beyond race.

What’s with Ohio parents caging their children? A Toledo couple “locked their 10-year-old son in a small dog cage while his father used drugs, and at times they forced him to wear a shock collar meant for training animals, authorities said.”

This coming after another couple in the same region of the state being sentenced to two years in prison for keeping their adopted children in cages.

Great to be from the state of Ohio!