Daily Archives: February 13, 2010

Top 20 Films Since 1992

According to Quentin Tarantino:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz4K-Rxx2Bk[/youtube]

This is an interesting list — most of his picks (that I’ve seen) are fairly kinetic and/or atmospheric movies that seem to be reflective of a man whose own movies don’t flinch from much. And it is an interesting mix of both film geeky and populist picks. What I think I like most about this list (even as I don’t like some of the movies on it) is that it is quite utterly his list — he doesn’t seem to care about categories of “art” vs. “popular” films and proceeds to tell us exactly what moves him. Nicely done.

1992 is the year that Tarantino became a director himself.

So what about you? Maybe you don’t have a Top 20 over the last 20 years, but what would be some of your favorites from that period?

Weekend Open Thread

I hope you’re enjoying a weather-event free weekend. We can leave the house this time! I am in Philadelphia, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, previewing the Picasso exhibit. Let’s get rolling. I declare this thread open.

The birth of a political dynasty?

Dan Quayle’s son is running for Congress.

Ben Quayle announced Friday that he will seek the Arizona House seat being vacated by retiring Rep. John Shadegg.

“My generation is going to have to clean up the mess made by the politicians in Washington,” Quayle said in a statement. “The reckless spending and crushing debt burden must be stopped.”

Of course, Dan Quayle is still a moran:

Former Vice President Dan Quayle appeared on Fox News this afternoon to chip in his two cents on the health care debate. Namely, he warned that using the reconciliation process would set a “very bad precedent” because a simple majority is just unconstitutional.

“They’re gonna go to budget reconciliation, which I believe would set a very bad precedent, because essentially — if they could do it, and I don’t know if they can do it, but if they could do it — what you have done, effectively, is to take away the filibuster in the United States Senate,” Quayle said. “So, therefore, you have 51 votes in the House and 51 votes in the Senate. That is not what our Founding Fathers had in mind. That is not the constitutional process.”

There are, of course, no rules in the Constitution about super-majority requirements in the Senate. There is also no provision for direct election of Senators, either.

There’s an app for that:

Coincidentally, Skeptical Science has just become available today as an iPhone or iPod app. The app lets you use an iPhone or iPod to view the entire list of skeptic arguments as well as (more importantly) what the science says on each argument. To download the app, go to http://itunes.com/apps/skepticalscience

How it happened was a few months ago, I was contacted by Shine Technologies, a software development company from Melbourne, Australia. The owners of the company are passionate about climate change and were interested in getting the science from Skeptical Science onto mobile phones. This is a good idea for two reasons. Firstly, because now more than ever it’s imperative that the climate debate focuses on science so the more readily available the science, the better. Secondly, well, an iPhone app is pretty cool.

So for the last few months, the boffins at Shine have been developing the app with Apple approving it today. How does it work? You browse arguments via the Top 10 most used arguments as well as 3 main categories (“It’s not happening”, “It’s not us”, “It’s not bad”):

Best of all: it’s free! I’ve already downloaded it to my iTouch.

The Daily Show Deploys More Republican Pwnage

It strikes me that sooner or later someone is going to create The Daily Show Party — filled with people who not only know their stuff, but who are quick on their feet at countering Republican bullshit. And who won’t be cringing behind polling or what the pundits say about them:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
The Apparent Trap
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes		 Political Humor Health Care Crisis

h/t to Jason330 who posted this in the Friday Open Thread. Take his advice and be sure to watch all the way to the end.

Polling: In Which We Find Republicans Still Have a Problem

It is fair to note that this poll shows a pretty toxic environment for both parties, but it seems clear that if you are a Congressional Dem, you have abit of an edge to build from. And if you are a Congressional repub, the massive media spin (and media lock) isn’t exactly getting you alot of traction. Not yet, at least.

The poll is a new NYT/CBS News Poll that was released this week. Some highlights:

  • The top issues facing America ranked by responders include: Jobs – 27%, Economy – 25%, Health Care 13%. The only other issue in the double digit range is Other;
  • 8% say members of Congress deserve re-election;
  • 31% say BushCo was responsible for the current state of the economy, 23% say Wall Street is, 13% say Congress is and only 7% say the Obama administration is responsible;
  • 41% blame the Bush admin for the current deficit problem; 24% blame Congress for it; only 7% blame the Obama administration for it;
  • To reduce the deficit:
    • 62% would not be willing to reduce spending on health care or education
    • 45% would be willing to reduce military spending, while 51% would not be willing
  • 56% say that Mr. Obama does not have a plan to create jobs;
  • 55% approve of the way that Mr. Obama is handling terrorism;
  • 56% want smaller government; 59% thought it was doing too much;
  • 62% support an end to tax cuts for the wealthy;
  • 78% say government is run by a few big special interests;
  • 80% thought Congress was more interested in serving special interests than the people they represent;
  • 60% said the President understood their problems, 42% thought the same about Congressional Democrats and 35% for Congressional Republicans;
  • 62% said Mr. Obama was trying to work with Congressional Republicans, while 62% said that Republicans were not trying to work with Mr. Obama;
  • 74% said Republicans should compromise more;
  • 50% said the Senate should change the filibuster rules to require a simple majority to pass legislation;
  • Clear majorities of Americans favor allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military but the way the question is worded makes a very big difference in the level of support: 75% Support Gays Openly Serving In Military; 66% Think It’s Discrimination To Not Allow It;
  • Only 18% of responders are supporters of the Tea Party movement.

I don’t think you can overstate how toxic this environment is to anybody in the Federal government right now.  But there is a pretty clear hierarchy of approval/good will here and President Obama is at the top of that hierarchy for now.  Why congressional Democrats don’t take advantage of that — and help themselves and Obama — is a real mystery to me.

The Death Of Irony

According to Paul Krugman, irony is dead and Republicans killed it:

“Don’t cut Medicare. The reform bills passed by the House and Senate cut Medicare by approximately $500 billion. This is wrong.” So declared Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, in a recent op-ed article written with John Goodman, the president of the National Center for Policy Analysis.

And irony died.

…

No, what’s truly mind-boggling is this: Even as Republicans denounce modest proposals to rein in Medicare’s rising costs, they are, themselves, seeking to dismantle the whole program. And the process of dismantling would begin with spending cuts of about $650 billion over the next decade. Math is hard, but I do believe that’s more than the roughly $400 billion (not $500 billion) in Medicare savings projected for the Democratic health bills.

What I’m talking about here is the “Roadmap for America’s Future,” the budget plan recently released by Representative Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican member of the House Budget Committee. Other leading Republicans have been bobbing and weaving on the official status of this proposal, but it’s pretty clear that Mr. Ryan’s vision does, in fact, represent what the G.O.P. would try to do if it returns to power.

The broad picture that emerges from the “roadmap” is of an economic agenda that hasn’t changed one iota in response to the economic failures of the Bush years. In particular, Mr. Ryan offers a plan for Social Security privatization that is basically identical to the Bush proposals of five years ago.

I thought no government takeover of healthcare/hands off my Medicare was incoherent. I guess I don’t doubt that Republicans will see gains in 2010 but it’s certainly not because of offering ideas or even being a partner in governing. This is the flaw of the the two-party system – you have to vote for one party or the other.