Such Detail and Such Care

Wow.

From Tigerhawk:

[...]

[...]Eric Sevareid would do these editorials at the end of the CBS evening news. [...] Sevareid said that if fascism ever comes to the United States, it will come disguised as liberalism. [...]

Anyone know where to find 'em?

I recommend sending a carrier pigeon to Telemundo.

Terrible Homages Dept.

It's a good thing this guy apologizes to Chris Ware.

I Don't Condemn That Obviously Illegal Thing

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. intelligence chief Mike McConnell said in a magazine interview that waterboarding would be torture if it was used against him personally, but stopped short of condemning the controversial interrogation technique.

McConnell, Director of National Intelligence, was quoted in the New Yorker edition released on Sunday as defining torture as "something that would cause excruciating pain."

Asked if waterboarding -- the practice of covering a person's face with a cloth and then dripping water on it to bring on a feeling of drowning -- fit that definition, McConnell said that for him personally, it would.

"If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can't imagine how painful!" McConnell said in the article. "Whether it's torture by anybody else's definition, for me it would be torture."

But he rejected a suggestion that he personally condemned the practice.

Really?

George MacDonald Fraser, RIP

I saw this over at Crooked Timber. Henry got creeped out by the Flashman books and a few commenters jump all over him. I really love those books, but it sure isn't wrong to find a thoroughly horrible lead character repulsive enough to want to avoid.

RIP Mr. Fraser and thanks.

Movies

It seems I am allowed by the gods to see movies.

I agree with Roy about No Country for Old Men. It's apparently faithful to the novel, but the speechifying is baffling. Money well spent anyway because the bulk of the movie is the stuff I'm interested in. I also really enjoyed seeing a film without music.

Juno was too yappy yet sweet and has Kimya Dawson songs that make me all weepy. Have I mentioned that I'm a big sap? Anyway, also money well spent although Diablo Cody is not the second coming of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. I made an excellent decision to move away from some determined yappers/loud laughers early on: right after "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Gob." my moviegoing experience was saved.

Just came back from a freebie of There Will Be Blood, which was good, but reached neither the highs nor the lows of No Country despite having irritatingly similar landscapes for a while. I spent the movie doing comparisons unfortunately, and was disappointed that there was obtrusive music, and that I "felt" an expensive camera watching things in a way that didn't happen in the aforementioned not exactly better movie. Nevertheless that Daniel Day-Lewis guy is really marvelous. Since no money was spent, it was money well spent.

The Only Show That Matters

The Shrek Star

Yessir, he's the best at annoying donkey voices. Dunno what else he does.

Rejiggerations

You know what's creepy about reconfigured Star Wars IV-VI? The last movie's director was dead when George Lucas decided he wanted to erase my unaccountably charitable memory of it.

Good Choice of Role, Bad Director

No more jokes as Borat turns war protester

THE creator of Ali G and Borat has been persuaded by Steven Spielberg to move from comedy to serious politics by playing a hippie opponent of the Vietnam war.

In The Trial of the Chicago Seven, Sacha Baron Cohen will portray Abbie Hoffman, a figure from the 1960s counterculture who used a series of pranks to campaign against the war. Baron Cohen is expected to be paid about £3m for the film.

Pinhead Size You Say?

Review of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism

He who smelled it dealt it.

The Season to be Jolly

Quoth the five-year-old girl:

I'm crying Christmas lights instead of tears.

Things Were Different Then

I really liked Busby Berkeley's stuff until I understood the depth of his commitment to waterboarding.

Attention Conservatives!

Case in point.

Gee whiz, I gotta mention Frank Burns here so I can Google this again.

The View from Below

The View from Above

Billions of New Money!

Here's hoping the currency they choose is Yapese.

The Rudy Thing

Saw this at Atrios. Poor Rudy. It can't be easy being a fucking nut and knowing that whoever's going to take your place is another fucking nut.

Evel Knievel is Dead

Bye Evel.

Below, a small human dressed as a pig ushers Evel across the dread threshold.