Hazards of Metro Toronto

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Movies

The normal schedule precludes much movie-going, but now HOLIDAYS, so it is time to be properly gouged.

First was Life of Pi, which I am told is pretty faithful to the book. So the book must have a framing device in which an author has a writing block and wants a story. In the film, that frame can be dropped. It must be the whole point of the book, but when the rest of the movie has carnivorous islands and the shipwreck of a zoo ship and leaping phosphorescent whales I want nothing to do with two guys in a suburban environment talking. What they are eventually talking about is a ridiculous theological proposition that is pretty much this: "It was all just a crazy dream...OR WAS IT? And you know what? The crazy dream is PROOF OF GOD." It's like Pascal's Wager for hippies and it undermines everything. Had the movie simply been a guy and a tiger on a boat it would have been a better film. It is, however, very very pretty.

The Hobbit was like Lord of the Rings but it starts with the boring part instead of ending with the boring part. I was honestly considering sleeping about a third of the way through and I was much amused when I heard someone doing so, but it turned out it was an on-screen event. It eventually picks up and becomes what you expect it to be, minus a main character. The guy who plays Bilbo does a convincing job of being a nonentity thrust into adventure, and remains the least interesting thing on the screen for the length of the film. Oh and NO YOU DO NOT NEED THAT MUCH 120 PIECE ORCHESTRA IN EVERY GODDAMNED SCENE.

Searching for Sugar Man is a documentary about South Africans trying to figure out the fate of an American singer you've never heard of who is unaccountably the biggest thing in music there, bigger than Elvis and The Rolling Stones. I don't want to add spoilers here because remarkable things happen, but it's a good story I am glad I saw, bad film. Questions you have will not be pursued, scenes you want to see were either not filmed or not included. It would have been much better to see a film about the singer than a film about the nostalgia of the people who liked him. And yet, worth the money.

Here is a recreation of my favourite part of Django Unchained:

Django Unchained is a relatively linear enterprise, tight by Tarantino standards, and it's fun fun fun. Christoph Waltz talking is tremendously entertaining all the time, and Tarantino is playing as much as directing. Where long bouts of talk happen, potential payoffs for the scene - emotional and technical - are in view and there is tension. There are laffs not far removed from Blazing Saddles, there is furious violence and vengeance fit for spaghetti westerns, and it rides an excellent line between HEY LOOK IT'S ME QUENTIN TARANTINO MAKING A MOVIE (which to my mind already has benefits (except for him being on-screen again)) and an involving story that hangs together well. There's a degree of manipulation that must be helping: people have strong emotions about slavery so maybe that revulsion (and attendant approval of revenge fantasies) helps draw you back into the proceedings after a bout of Tarantino's fiddling about with image theft and abrupt zooms. That's not to slight most of the cast doing a great job. Go see it if you can handle violence.

I Summon the Demons of the North

Food and Drink

In the morning, before movies, a grilled cheese sandwich from Canteen. The pickled grapes are good on their own, but the recipe for those and the sandwich is here. Added slice of margherita pizza and pumpkin soup.



After movies a couple of undistinguished pints and then off to Miskatonic University Barchef for drinks.

From the sweet and sour portion of the menu two girlie drinks, Strawberries and Lavender on the left, Currant on the right:



Then, from the Molecular portion of the menu, a sort of bubbling half-liquid enchambered in mournful mists from the summit of Hatheg-Kla:



No wait, it's the most insane Manhattan ever:



A pre-human Hyperborean worshipper of Tsathoggua dares you to pluck from the nauseating effluence of miasmal gases...a SAILOR'S MOJITO.

Even in Death, a Painter of Light

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all.

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Thomas Kinkade's widow and girlfriend have reached a settlement after a dispute over the late artist's $66 million estate, their attorneys said Wednesday.

[...]

In a statement, they said the women kept Kinkade's message of "love, spirituality and optimism" in their amicable resolution.

Aww, so sweet.

Pinto, who began dating Kinkade six months after his marriage of 28 years imploded, claimed Kinkade wrote two notes bequeathing her his mansion and $10 million to establish a museum of his paintings. Her lawyers filed court papers stating that she and Kinkade had planned to marry as soon as his divorce went through.

Nanette Kinkade disputed those claims and sought full control of the estate. She portrayed Pinto in court papers as a gold-digger who is trying to cheat the artist's rightful heirs.

Title

Big Heads

Of the Gehry addition to Art Gallery of Ontario the zombie has written much, but he did not have the advantage of the technology that allows one to put the camera on the floor and tilt it up with a spare coin and set the timer:



It looks quite nice at day's end in the soul-crushing winter darkness that demands suicide.

Other "nice" things were supplied by Evan Penny, who can make figures of people that are frighteningly realistic. Even scarier are recent projects that skew and squeeze those faces:



This series starts off fairly normal, right?



Camera error? Posterizing? Crazy Hipstamatic filter?



No, it was born that way:

The Apocalypse Approaches

Won't somebody PLEASE think of the truffles?

PARIS — Just about everything in Eduardo Manzanares’s shop, Truffes Folies, is made with truffles. Sausage, cheese, spaghetti — even popcorn.

But during the year-end holidays, the main order of business is fresh truffles, especially the black or Périgord truffle, Tuber melanosporum. The prized mushrooms are used to stuff Christmas turkeys, chickens or capons, Mr. Manzanares said, making Dec. 24 typically the biggest truffle-eating night of the year in France.

But it is also becoming an increasingly expensive tradition. Black truffles and other types of truffles are becoming scarcer, and some scientists say it is because of the effects of global climate change on the fungus’s Mediterranean habitat. One wholesaler says prices have risen tenfold over the last dozen years.

Mind you it is only right and fitting that the best billionaires have truffles.

Responsibilities

The problem with a terrarium is that you really do have to keep an eye on it or the baby Jesus dies. Of course SOME people just chuck them out in the snow with the trash.

I Trust This Guy!

What an odd press release:

What I want you to know is that Zero Dark Thirty is a dramatization, not a realistic portrayal of the facts. CIA interacted with the filmmakers through our Office of Public Affairs but, as is true with any entertainment project with which we interact, we do not control the final product.

One of the complaints:

Second, the film creates the strong impression that the enhanced interrogation techniques that were part of our former detention and interrogation program were the key to finding Bin Ladin. That impression is false. As we have said before, the truth is that multiple streams of intelligence led CIA analysts to conclude that Bin Ladin was hiding in Abbottabad. Some came from detainees subjected to enhanced techniques, but there were many other sources as well. And, importantly, whether enhanced interrogation techniques were the only timely and effective way to obtain information from those detainees, as the film suggests, is a matter of debate that cannot and never will be definitively resolved.

Torture: maybe helpful.

Why release this at all?

Rob Ford is a JOKE

When will the city of Toronto address the severe undersupply of Pepsi Max?

Last night, blizzard:



Today I helped a gentleman push a snowbound car from an alley into oncoming traffic. Anything to help out insurance companies!

Why YES I will sing Positively 4th Street at your karaoke bar. What could go wrong?



Sweet Daddy Siki's career outlined here.

Dummies

The loving kindness of self-identified smart people:

The BBC and Mensa have both apologised after a leading member of the society called anyone with an IQ below 60 a “carrot” live on air.

Peter Baimbridge, a Mensa member, made the comments during an interview with BBC Breakfast.

He was being asked about the effectiveness of IQ tests at judging intelligence.

"So most IQ tests will have Mr and Mrs Average scoring 100 and the higher you get, the brighter you are. And if your IQ is somewhere around 60 then you are probably a carrot," Mr Baimbridge said.

A number of viewers contacted the programme to voice concerns over the remarks, which they said insulted people with learning difficulties.

It's a TEST for Christ's sake. I can do a crossword pretty quick, but other people can organize a budget.

Merry Christmas!

Here, have some horrible noises.

What would Christmas be without the enslavement of inferior life forms?



Also see The Godot Machine from the same guy. Via Artists in Laboratories.

Have a short list of research databases. I've never played with the Microsoft Academic Search and I should.

Oh Orly, when will you ever win?

Merry Christmas to All, and to All a Good Night

From On High

Precisely What You Need

Inconsistency

Holidays are apparently here...which likely means a lotta robot posting ahead.

I don't remember this from my youth at all, but we didn't even have NOVELTY soul where I grew up. In fact we had to make our soul music from leftover banjos and jugs and Kraft Dinner and we couldn't afford quarter notes and had to make do with dime notes and this sentence ends now.



Good part sampled/imitated to make this:



I dunno if "I am not illiterate, no, not even a little bit/Nothing like an idiot, get it?" achieves its purpose.

Evergreen

Sure, But Can My Prof Gun Down an Assailant?

Where should I go to school? I am WORRIED.

Traditionally PFUR is a recognized leader among Russian HEIs in ensuring complex security.

Good to know!

PFUR has a multilevel system of complex security services. So, physical security of the university territory and objects is realized by the Moscow Southwest District police department in charge of PFUR, by its own access control regulation system, as well as by private security companies. The coordination of department activities is realized by PFUR control center working 24/7.

More than 2 thousand video cameras set in all the facilities help the security staff to control efficiently the current situation. The control and access system which is set in all the pass-through posts of the University and also the automatic bars in the transport control posts make it possible for the security officers to realize a security of high quality within all the facility. They prevent from the unauthorized access to the territories, buildings and the residence of the University.

Okay, but what if something awful happens right now? How will you tell how the security was breached?

The information recorded by surveillance cameras and automatic fire alarm system sensors goes to the point of unified live observation - PFUR control center.

In addition, the information from surveillance cameras is received by monitors installed in PFUR police Emergency Control Centre. It allows the policemen to respond to violation of public order on campus immediately.

It must be emphasized that archiving of video information during a long period (up to several months) makes it possible to reproduce the past events recorded by surveillance cameras and thus helps investigation of potential crimes.

Okay, so what if I find a strange object?

How to behave if you find strange objects looking like explosive devices:

Be careful when you find strange objects. Do not touch them! If you find such an object in the University building or on campus immediately call 544 43 01.

What you should do:

- Do not touch, open or move the object!

- If you see any wires, do not touch or pull them!

- Make sure you remember the time you found the object.

- Keep people as far away as possible from the object.

- Wait for the police and security who will watch the object and call special services.

Remember that terrorists put explosives into different ordinary looking objects like bags, boxes, toys etc.

If you hear the evacuation announcement keep calm and follow the instructions. Don’t panic and rush.

Remember that lives of many people depend on how reasonable and disciplined you are.

Okay, but what if it's MY life people have to be reasonable and disciplined about? What if the terrorists have taken ME?

How to behave if you are taken hostage

Each hostage case is unique. Nevertheless there are some general rules that could help you save your life.

What you should do if you are taken hostage:

- Pull yourself together, keep calm, don’t panic!

- If you are tied up or have your eyes covered, try to relax and breathe!

- Be ready for a serious physical, moral and emotional challenge. Remember that most hostages are freed within 4-5 hours and 95% hostages stay alive. Do not doubt that the police and authorities are already taking all the necessary measures to save you.

- Do not try to escape if you are not fully sure you will succeed!

- Remember as much information about the terrorists as you can. It will be good to know how many they are, what arms and weapons they carry. Be ready to describe their special features, looks, accent, and behavior.

Try to define location.

Try to keep away from windows, doors and kidnappers themselves. Stay in safe places in case the police start the rescue operation.

How to behave with kidnappers:

- Do not be aggressive, do not make any sudden threatening movements, do not provoke kidnappers to act recklessly.

- Try to avoid eye contact.

- From the very beginning do all the kidnappers tell you to do.

- Be passively cooperating. Keep your voice calm. Avoid arrogant and insulting expressions, tone and behavior.

- If you have any health problems that can demonstrate in this situation, calmly tell the kidnappers about it.

Don’t let panic and confusion overwhelm you. Put up with possible hardships. Work with your mind.

In case of assault lie on the floor face down, fold your arms on the back of your head. Never run towards riot police- they may misinterpret your actions.

It may happen that at the beginning of the assault before you are identified you may be treated as a potential terrorist. You might be searched and interrogated and as a result you might experience emotional trauma. Try to understand that in such cases these actions are justified by the seriousness of the situation.

Gee, it looks like you folks have this all figured out. If I venture out from under the bed, perhaps I will attend Peoples' Friendship University.

MORE FRIENDSHIP UPDATE:

Ladies and gentlemen, Мисс РУДН 2012.

It's Preposterous!

Gary Graham interviews the once-famous Ken Wahl:

Graham: Tip your kids! (they laugh) A related story – a while back I was recently in a café. The waitress was neglectful, you had to flag her down, then she’d forget about you … and I left a very small tip. An insult really, but … it reflected the service. I sent in the other day … and she was on her game, she was very attentive, gave excellent service. And I tipped her triple what I was going to leave. Performance-related.
Wahl: There you go, she remembered you because you tipped her poorly, but it was due to her own performance.
Graham: It should never be a "given."
Wahl: It’s not to be taken for granted.
Graham: If it’s a "given" then it’s welfare.
Wahl: This is the philosophy of the liberals – getting something for nothing.
Graham: Are people deserving of an income just because they draw breath?
Wahl: Just because they exist. It’s preposterous. And furthermore … Why would you even want that anyway? I mean, Where’s the personal pride? Not only should you not get it, but you shouldn’t even want it. Now of course, if you’re disabled that’s another thing. I’m on disability now. But I paid into it my whole life. And I hated getting it – I waited seven years before I got it because it disgusted me so much. I didn’t want it. After I got hurt, I went back to work twice, and both times it put me back in the hospital. So then I knew I had to hang it up – and I finally did, after seven years, I applied and got the disability. The disability that I get, which I’m grateful for the rest of America helping me get – but it’s such a small percentage compared to what I was able to make when I was working, so, not just on a moral level but also on a financial level – I didn’t want it.

Oh the shame he must feel taking that stuff that he doesn't want on a moral or financial level. Mind you he paid into it and therefore it is HIS BY RIGHT so I guess if I wrote him and asked him to pass on the cash to me that would constitute the terrible crime of mooching off that stuff he doesn't want or need and feels ashamed to take. Maybe he could ask for payment in hairshirts instead.

UPDATE:

It seem that we know some folks on disability here in the bloggy neighbourhood. Spare a thought for the fish clan.

Cultural Hegemony

Once again the influence of cultural behemoths hits home here in a formerly safe and isolated little hamlet. What will it take for some countries to understand that the world is not their own, that battles can be won through mutual exchange of ideas instead of brutal conflict, that weaponry is not an aid but is in fact a hindrance to freedom?



Where Canadians could once rely on a friendly game of hockey to resolve grievances, today the little ones think nothing of the fate of the crowd around them as they seek redress for imagined slights by swinging a +1 halberd. When will it end? How long before a sick society finally quaffs its healing potion?

Kitsch

Things found today in the iTunes library:





This probably requires the full title for context. Does she succeed?

Invocation for Judgement Against and Destruction of Rock Music:



This one was improperly tagged and required the assistance of furries:

Aspirational Gun Use

Adam Gopnik wrote a thing:

And now it has happened again, bang, like clockwork, one might say: Twenty dead children—babies, really—in a kindergarten in a prosperous town in Connecticut. And a mother screaming. And twenty families told that their grade-schooler had died. After the Aurora killings, I did a few debates with advocates for the child-killing lobby—sorry, the gun lobby—and, without exception and with a mad vehemence, they told the same old lies: it doesn’t happen here more often than elsewhere (yes, it does); more people are protected by guns than killed by them (no, they aren’t—that’s a flat-out fabrication); guns don’t kill people, people do; and all the other perverted lies that people who can only be called knowing accessories to murder continue to repeat, people who are in their own way every bit as twisted and crazy as the killers whom they defend. (That they are often the same people who pretend outrage at the loss of a single embryo only makes the craziness still crazier.)

David French musters the rebutts of the True Scotsmen:

While there is much to be said about this string of slanders, let’s be crystal clear about one thing. Every law-abiding gun-owner I’ve ever met in my entire life is not only utterly opposed to the taking of innocent life, they aspire to defend innocent life at the risk of their own (of course, no one knows how they’ll respond to a crisis until the crisis actually comes).

Thank you for the crystal clarity regarding the gun-owners you know, the law-abiding ones that is, who you can't vouch for in a crisis, said crisis possibly having some bearing on their gun use.

Despite his obvious and overwhelming sense of outrage, Mr. Gopnik can’t say the same.

Adam Gopnik could say exactly the same thing if he wanted, but I assume French thinks his sentence hinges on the "defend innocent life" bit.

If he is “pro-choice,” he in fact believes that some innocent life not only shouldn’t be defended, but that fellow citizens should have a constitutional right to take that life on a whim.

Gotcha! I believe black is white and you have said something about white therefore you have said it about BLACK!

There may be more to Gopnik's depravity than definitional differences; he might be a monster on the order of a Canadian. Nevertheless I'm pretty sure that someone who is utterly opposed to the taking of innocent life shouldn't involve himself in wars of aggression. I know, I know, definitions.

Long Reads and Other Things

Best of 2012 long reads on the web, as chosen by various people I've never heard of.

Here is a not-so-long read containing this paragraph:

That isn’t to say, thought, that things weren’t weird. Because they definitely were. Like the time Neil Patrick Harris, old Doogie Howser himself, called our house to talk to Larry (character motivation, I guess). Or the fact that we all sat together as a family and watched that made for TV movie -- I’m pretty sure the dictionary definition for meta-surreal is something like "Watch the scene where Doogie Howser, playing your adopted brother, brutally kills his parents on TV, as the real killer, your actual brother, eats popcorn in your living room."

Here is a database for doctors of Things Not To Do.

Interview:

Why does the rise of digital technology have to result in the death of print technology?

Because Mr. Ford ate the last working horse, thus making room for the racing horse. Technologically, the horse is a skeuomorph, but symbolically its power is increased tenfold by its selectively bred descendent. What we call "book" now will also likely be a magical thing that was once common. They symbolic book of the future will be a deluxe object related only slightly to its current Random House ancestor. Current print technology is dying as a mass-tool and will be reborn as art. Art is the last stage of capitalism.

Crime hype!

Russian cybercriminals are proceeding with an ambitious assault on U.S. banks. A new McAfee Labs report claims that Project Blitzkrieg, a multiplatform mass theft scheme that has its own promotional YouTube videos, has been slowed down but is still underway.
Unlike most Internet-based, white-collar crime schemes, Project Blitzkrieg has embraced publicity and hype. The brains behind the assault are advertising their scheme on Russian Underweb forums and using social media to recruit accomplices. According to McAfee, a variant of the Prinimalka Trojan is being used to primarily target investment banks and national banks.

Cancelling the apocalypse?

Ladies Love Cool Jonah

Via Roy we discover Jonah Goldberg backing the Glenn-Reynolds-proposed invasion of women's media by conservatives:

More Thinking Like This Please
By Jonah Goldberg
December 14, 2012 9:04 A.M.

I know super rich people like to launch PACs and brag to their friends that they’ve got “ads up in Milwaukee.” But, as the last election showed, such expenditures — while no doubt important — are of diminishing utility. Glenn Reynolds suggests that some of that money could be better spent elsewhere, like women’s magazines for instance.

Previously:

Worst Movie Girlfriends
By Jonah Goldberg
December 12, 2012 12:56 P.M.

Over on Twitter I started a conversation about bad girlfriends in movies, by noting that Bruce Willis’s gal pal in Pulp Fiction is simply awful and deserves to be on any top-ten list of worst movie girlfriends. She forgets his watch. Cries at the drop of a hat. Goes off to a lavish breakfast while Willis is risking his life. Etc. This sparked other suggestions and a short-lived hashtag game #WorstMovieGirlfriends. Among the nominees [...]

Hits (Also the New iTunes Sucks)

Statistics prove that the new iTunes sucks:



Just put the goddamn DJ back. It was fun. You can still find old versions over here.

Have a video.

Today's True Facts

Now there's a headline:



Nevertheless the important news at World Nut Daily is THIS:

Frightened residents in western Sweden reported seeing a bright, blue light racing across the night sky on Tuesday before an orange-coloured orb smashed into the ground in a mysterious phenomenon that has yet to be explained.

You'll figure it out when the Christmas presents don't arrive.

The State of the Entertainment Industry

The Lovely Daughter is not amused.

There Will Be Soup

Crybabies:

BILL O'REILLY: All right, fair share. You're a rich guy now -- fair share in taxes. Now, I think, your state is up to about 14 percent state income tax.

President Obama wants to raise it up to about 40 percent Federal. That's 54 percent. If he knocks out the deduction for state income taxes which he wants to do, you'd be paying 54. What's fair.

ADAM CAROLLA: Well, first off, we should stop saying, "tax the rich," and say, "tax the successful." Because I'm not rich, I'm successful. And rich is easy to tax because that's just the guy who inherited daddy's money, whose dad was the Monopoly man and he lives up on the hill.

I'm successful, you're successful because we worked our tails off. And it's harder to take money away from people that work very hard for it.

And it's very easy to say, "Tax the rich." But, really, it should be "Tax the successful." But I've done the math.

O'REILLY: Yes, Miller says that, too. And Miller is mad. I mean, he's angry about it because he's saying, "Look, I'm getting targeted, me, Dennis Miller, because I have achieved something."

So, it's really, it is taxing the successful. But it's also taxing achievement. And, to some extent, rewarding non-achievement is what it is.

Below is an artist's rendering of a composite of Bill O'Reilly and Adam Carolla and Dennis Miller as they might look should they have to pay taxes.

Fortunately, there will be soup.

Bye Ravi!

It takes genius to make Philip Glass all sexy and shit.

The Republican Race

Daniel Foster is amused:

David Sirota at Salon thinks this Crossroads GPS ad is racist:

Specifically, Sirota thinks Karl Rove is, with a genius as evil as it is subtle, “present[ing] the image of an African-American man as an evildoer, referring to him as the tax-raising “he,” and pitting him against the “we” in classic demagogic “us versus them” terms.”

Once you’re done laughing, you’ll probably feel a little guilty, clear your throat, and in your least-condescending-sounding voice tell Sirota that maybe it’s a bit hasty to read racial code into a set of signifiers when Bill Ockham would say plain-old politics explains them just fine.

Bill Ockham might point out that plain-old politics could pretty easily include racism: it did before, it does now. Watch the video, it's pretty obvious what's going on with the colour tones. The item's entitled "Also Racist Now: Pronouns" so I worry that there's blood all over Foster's desk from razor-mishandling.

Jay Nordlinger follows up, somehow managing to type whole paragraphs without fainting:

I was just thinking: I’ve had many years to get used to the Left, but, still, I found it hard to read Dan Foster’s post. I guess I’m still not used to them.

As Dan informed us, we have a Salonista railing against Republicans for expressing an “us versus them” mentality. We’re racists, we’re evil, we’re KKK, blah, blah, blah. In the recent campaign — it ended only a few weeks ago — Barack Obama ran an ad saying, “Mitt Romney. Not one of us.”

That was not the implication. That was not what Obama was hinting at. That’s exactly, explicitly what he said in his ad.

I can only ask the Joseph Welch question — the answer to which, I’m afraid, is no.

Who's Joseph Welch? Oh, him, the guy who humiliated the Republican blowhard. In this case the analogy is absolutely perfect because Obama was attempting to destroy Mitt Romney's career as a serial loser of elections and similarly David Sirota's outsized influence as a writer for Salon puts a worried and sweating Rove in the same position as Fred Fisher. How dare anyone cast aspersions on the noble race of Republicans.

The Free Market

Zachary Leeman presents the top 5 conservative films of the year! Hooray!

The last 12 months may have been disappointing overall for conservatives. However, film-wise, it was actually a pretty good year.

First let us investigate the year's big films:

1. Marvel's The Avengers - $623,357,910
2. The Dark Knight Rises - $448,106,311
3. The Hunger Games - $408,010,692
4. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 - $262,355,000
5. The Amazing Spider-Man - $262,030,663 - $62,004,688
6. Skyfall - $253,720,000
7. Brave - $237,093,265
8. Ted - $218,665,740
9. Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted - $216,391,482
10. Dr. Seuss' The Lorax - $214,030,500

Leeman's list:

1. "The Dark Knight Rises" - $448,106,311
2. "Atlas Shrugged: Part II" - $3,336,053
3. "The Expendables 2" - $85,028,192
4. "Red Dawn" - $34,305,000
5. "Lockout" - $14,326,864

It is safe to conclude that America is a communist nation and patriots should fear for their lives.

240 Layers, Weaklings

Four planes occupy the same space in Quartz Composer, but a little tilt on the X and Y axes makes them poke through each other.

And with that idea comes this additional horrification:



Now 50% more layers! Looks much "nicer" as a screensaver I must say.

Where the Elite Meet for a Neat-to-Eat DECEIT, SHEEPLE!

Maggie Gallagher:

Have you noticed how much of Hollywood is preoccupied with thoughts of God?

"Life of Pi" is the latest example of a movie with essentially religious themes.

Artists in a postmodern culture are thinking about the relationship between story and truth. Even the movie "Lincoln" is organized around the idea that false narratives can serve the greater good in politics. When the people are bad, the politician must lie or mislead to serve the good.

It's rather discomfiting to see so many liberal elites embrace this movie, isn't it?

That is about as blindingly stupid an opening as you can hope for, but Maggie has hit upon a chilling thought: just how many of these awful liberal elites are out there?

Let us ask Professor JanusNode:

The aqueous humour-drinking elite
The chai-sipping elite
The chicken-hugging elite
The childhood-loving elite
The desert-half-orc-hugging elite
The garbage-dumps-going elite
The happy-affairs-loving elite
The hardware-loving elite
The how-to-manuals-loving elite
The lymph-sipping elite
The marketing-loving elite
The mix-sipping elite
The monster-hugging elite
The parable-loving elite
The plasma-sipping elite
The plastic-surgery-loving elite
The political-ranting-loving elite
The post-general-insurrection-loving elite
The primal-elemental-hugging elite
The pseudo-landscape-loving elite
The pseudo-nog-sipping elite
The psycho-capuchin-monkey-hugging elite
The quasi-AM-radio-loving elite
The quasi-Italian-design-loving elite
The quasi-truth-loving elite
The quasi-views-of-a-naked-body-going elite
The religious-lies-loving elite
The religious-sermonizing-loving elite
The saliva-sipping elite
The science-going elite
The sermonizing-loving elite
The southern-hairy-nosed-wombat-hugging elite
The space/time-loving elite
The structuralism-loving elite
The super-little-penguin-hugging elite
The tea-sipping elite
The über-semen-drinking elite
The ultra-top-40-music-going elite
The urban-waste-loving elite
The water-drinking elite

If you have the heart to go on, you may also explore what follows this:

"Cloud Atlas" is one of an increasing number of films I would call "religious porn."

Think for a moment about the relationship between that little god Eros and standard porn.

Addendum

...to post no bills.

Smientific Malfeasance

The results looked good initially, but Riddled Research Laboratories tipped their hand; we at Substance Labs™ thoroughly condemn them for cheating on doggie driving tests by using zoanthropes.



And so pointless. The technology has existed in the enlightened portions of the world for decades.



BREAD AND JAM FOR FRANCIS UPDATE:

You've Buttered Your Bread, Now You Have to Lie In It

David Welch:

In the 1960s, Buckley, largely through his position at the helm of National Review, displayed political courage and sanity by taking on the John Birch Society, an influential anti-Communist group whose members saw conspiracies everywhere they looked.

Fast forward half a century. The modern-day Birchers are the Tea Party. By loudly espousing extreme rhetoric, yet holding untenable beliefs, they have run virtually unchallenged by the Republican leadership, aided by irresponsible radio talk-show hosts and right-wing pundits. While the Tea Party grew, respected moderate voices in the party were further pushed toward extinction. Republicans need a Buckley to bring us back.

Who could that Buckley be?

David Welch is a former research director for the Republican National Committee.

I gather it's not you.

Here is where Soul Asylum doing "It's Not My Fault" would go.

Oh wait:



Oh dear, crazy conspiracy types are the base.

Quality Education

Via The Corner, AN OUTRAGE:



No, the outrage is not eye-strain. It seems a "political science professor" at a "university" wants you to write and speak as if your "audience" in a might be someone other than White and Male and Middle-Class!

Someone whose name recalls the most famous blowjob artist of the 20th century is NOT HAVING IT:

My name is Ryan Lovelace, and I dropped that politically correct political science class.

Clearly, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University believes its students were raised as racist and misogynist homophobes who have grown to harbor many prejudices, a stance that is both offensive and hostile to any student’s ability to learn.

Leftists demand redistribution of the middle, but middles should remain UNDISTRIBUTED. Where there is a rule against being an asshole, that rule specifically describes YOU, the potential rule follower, as an asshole! See also laws against pedophilia and kill yourself.

Clearly the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University's requirement to consider a broad audience in your communications is a stricture nobody taking...what was that again? Oh yes, the requirement to consider a broad audience in your communications is a stricture nobody taking political science should have to appreciate. It's been proven by not-political science!

What is Ryan's solution?

As a journalism major, I will now strive to avoid the liberal arts college as much as possible, not because the college fails to provide its students with any practical knowledge, but because the college seeks to indoctrinate its students with a hostile paradigm that views people like me—an American, white, heterosexual male from a middle-class background—as evil; whitey-righty need not attend.

I agree. The best option for a journalism major in your unfortunate position is avoid actuarial science and anthropology and biology and chemistry and classical studies and computer science and criminology and engineering and English and exploratory studies and French and gender/women/sexuality studies and German and history and international studies and mathematics and natural science and philosophy and physics and political science and psychology and religion and science, technology and society and social work and psychology and sociology and software engineering and Spanish.

Then and only then, after all these subjects have been avoided, will you feel confident and assured that you can leave the hallowed halls of academia with the best journalism education possible.

Gold

Lookit:



Elsewhere, animals made of words:



Mint Sprite.

Re-Education Camps Revisited

Michael Walsh, November 5th:

Romney by an electoral college landslide — more than 300 votes. The swing states will all swing the same way; Romney stuns Obama early in Pennsylvania, then cruises through Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida.

Romney’s upper Midwest strategy pays off when bellwether Wisconsin pays back the Democrats for their recall treachery and delivers the state to the GOP.

The Republicans keep the House and narrowly retake the Senate, even without Todd Akin, who’s this year’s Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell rolled into one.
There are minor civil disturbances, quickly quelled. On Wednesday, the stock market goes up 300 points. Hiring booms. Flowers bloom. Pretty girls smile again. The sun comes out.

And we do it again four years later.

– Michael Walsh is  weekly op-ed columnist for the New York Post and a regular contributor to National Review Online.

The Free Market requires that Michael Walsh never be hustled out the door.

Michael Walsh today:

But hey — why let a little thing like two devastating losses in the most important election since 1860 get you down? November 6 was just another day in the lives of the GOP’s krack kadre of kampaign konsultants who — as Pat Caddell points out here — have now lost four of the last six presidential elections, essentially by running the same candidate (wealthy scion of the Republican establishment with zero personal downside to a loss) over and over again, and expecting a different result.

What a totally obvious problem that nobody saw that isn't a political problem in itself that will never get fixed if Republicans have their dream slate of policies enacted!

I like, though, this idea of the Candidate With Something To Lose being in the race. Free Market principles of reward and punishment that won't result in the firing of Michael Walsh should be brought to bear on Republican candidates. Grover Norquist should come up with another pledge: all Republican candidates who lose must take jobs as Wal-Mart greeters for the length of the term they run for, and they must forego all other income for that period.

A Mouth Full of Ship

The thing is you have to hide the ships because someone's always producing another big fat steamer.



What the hell's she up to anyway? Oh. I feel pretty good about the crap I produce.

J. NEO MARVIN UPDATE:

The New iTunes Sucks

Feature removal, specifically, iTunes DJ (the shuffle play I so love) is kind of a sucky way to go about "upgrades".

Lotsa confused folks in the forums at Apple about iTunes 11.  I'm not downloading.

Hey, Blogger is putting double-spaces in sentences in the "Compose" screen. Gotta watch that.

Have a video.

Adventures in Scrabble

The Lovely Daughter, despite her insane proficiency in languages (currently watching this) needs a little help with creation and causation as opposed to memorization and so we've been, among other things, putting letters on the Scrabble board.

The Lovely Daughter: D E P. Is dep a word?
Me: No but you're pretty close to a word. Look at your other letters.
TLD: E T G A. (She puts the E on the board.) DEPE. Is that a word?
M: No, but you're really close to a word if you just rearrange the letters.
TLD: (Moves the final E away. Puts it back.)
M: You're really really close. There's a word there with a little rearranging.
TLD: (Lost.) DEPE.
M: Okay, think of a pool.
TLD: Peed?