Archive for April, 2007

Imitation is the Sincerest Form XVII

Thursday, April 5th, 2007

From time to time, the odious burden of measuring lunacy falls to the pages of this blog. Measurement can be an epic ambition where mere illustration is, for a number of reasons, inadequate. When lunacy runs deep, illustration is a pointless exercise. And so we use measurement. Of course X is silly, but how silly is it?

And so we’ve been deploying the hypothetical of the dispassionate but reasonable space alien, which in turn is something we rather shamelessly purloined from such fine shows as My Favorite Martian, Mork and Mindy, and a bunch of other stuff that came between those two. Assume a stranger, well-versed in reason and logic but wholly unacquainted with our customs. The visitor has missed out on newsworthy events both recent and distant…he can consume our talking points only by viewing recordings of them, and considering them on their merits.

What would he say? When he asks questions, can you predict what they would be? And how, oh Lordy how, would you go about answering them?

We did it here, and we did it again here. And a few other places too.

I don’t know if Charles Krauthammer reads my blog. I would expect hardly anybody does. But how then do you explain this gem which was brought to my attention while perusing the page of blogger friend Buck out in Portales, NM.

Thought experiment: Bring in a completely neutral observer — a Martian — and point out to him that the United States is involved in two hot wars against radical Islamic insurgents. One is in Afghanistan, a geographically marginal backwater with no resources and no industrial or technological infrastructure. The other is in Iraq, one of the three principal Arab states, with untold oil wealth, an educated population, an advanced military and technological infrastructure that, though suffering decay in the later years of Saddam Hussein’s rule, could easily be revived if it falls into the right (i.e., wrong) hands. Add to that the fact that its strategic location would give its rulers inordinate influence over the entire Persian Gulf region, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Gulf states. Then ask your Martian: Which is the more important battle? He would not even understand why you are asking the question.

I’ve been robbed, but I’m not calling the police. I’m quite flattered.

As far as the point Krauthammer is making: I’m afraid he’s put the hypothetical space alien to better use than I ever did. Some of the talking points coming from our donkey friends have been emboldened by a few too many move-on-dot-org rallies, it seems, and have now become so dizzy and disoriented that they make sense only to earthlings. Coming out of a genie’s lamp after a couple thousand years, trying to make sense of it all using reason and common sense — you’d achieve confusion and very little else. The oil and other resources in Iraq make it materially valuable to the United States…and to nobody else? How do you figure such assets can be used only to slime the current administration, and do nothing to advance the strategic value of the theater? How can the “real war” be fought somewhere else, after this patch of ground has been surrendered?

Bellingham Roller Betties

Thursday, April 5th, 2007

This is from the town from whence I came. The town up in which I grew.

I know there’s something wrong with the place. I can tell by the way this “Chaos Theory” lady uses the word “womyn.” It’s weird. It’s almost like one syllable. I haven’t heard the word “womyn” pronounced that way since…well, since the last time I lived in Bellingham. Twenty years ago. “Womyn.” You just know this doesn’t have anything to do with persons of the female variant who have reached majority age…”women.” Nothing to do with that. It’s a cultural thing. Womyn, womyn, womyn…I wanna spend all my waking hours up to my hairy armpits in things that have to do with womyn.

Perhaps I’d be more tolerant of what we call “feminism” if I didn’t come from Bellingham. I understand feminism is supposed to have something to do with equal rights for female people, and you know, it seems to me there ought not be anything hostile about that. And I’m sure there ought not be. But trust me on this, I’ve seen my share of hostility cloaked by that word. Most of it in good ol’ Bellingham.

But hey, if they get fun out of this and they’re not hurting anyone, more power to ’em. Can’t help but think they’d like to hurt someone though. They do have that look.

Bond, According to Freud

Wednesday, April 4th, 2007

What would Sigmund Freud have to say about James Bond? More than you might think, it turns out.

Dave Chappelle on Superheroes

Wednesday, April 4th, 2007

It’s clean. And funny, too.

No Crime Too Small

Wednesday, April 4th, 2007

Interesting reading from blogger friend James Bostwick.

…the guy who stole my bike from outside a Tokyo train station one recent Saturday night wasn’t looking for anything flashy. He was drunk — it was payday and he had over-celebrated. He had slept well past his stop and was kicked off the last train of the night at the last station on the line. It was a crime of necessity: Steal the wheels or walk.

My bicycle was available because I never lock it. Not even when I’m leaving it outside a busy train station overnight.

This is Japan. Nobody steals your stuff here. Safest place in the developed world. You can look it up in the guidebooks.

What happens to you when you steal stuff in a land where nobody ever steals anything? Find out.

Next Year’s Classic?

Wednesday, April 4th, 2007

Great idea. Lots of ways to possibly screw it up, but still a great idea.

They want to remake Logan’s Run.

If memory serves, Logan’s Run had two hawttie guys and one hawttie gal. I hope the hawttie guys look freakin’ different so I can tell what’s going on. You’ll recall that according to the story, nobody over thirty has any business…being. So we have better-than-even odds the producers will see this as an opportunity to get work for the tender puppy-faced set of 23-year-olds, which of course are hurting for it. Yeah, I mean that sarcastically.

CreekA rational ponderance of the evidence says this will suck. They’re going to find three people with big names, no more than 25 years good, and they’re going to try to pull in the ten-to-fourteen year old little girls with some non-threatening-looking men. Super-duper short haircuts. Eyebrow tweazing. No talking in deep voices or low tones. Jessica VI, similarly, will be played by a girl with a hot bod but otherwise non-threatening. Horrible acting. Something like Jessica Alba minus ten years.

And one of my favorite peeves, the two fellas will be groomed the same and costumed the same and have the same facial structure and physique, so that during a nighttime scene you can’t tell who’s who or what’s going on.

Logan’s Run is all about the classic dystopian society — so throw in a few George Bush references, all the better to make sure you’re invited to the next Hollywood wine-and-cheese party, and you’ve got a crappy movie.

Now here’s what I’d do.

Logan is played by a 40-year-old guy. Because I’m 40. I know, the story says he can’t be older than thirty…but hell’s bells, Hollywood shaves ten years off an actor’s age all the time. And our faces have the lines that rugged adventurous men are supposed to have. We can glower with our eyebrows. We got crinkles by our eyes that make us look like we know something you don’t…which is generally the case. Look at Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Forty-year-old guy. There ya go.

Francis is completely different. From half a mile away, you can tell him apart from Logan. Too much to ask? If Logan has short hair, Francis has long hair.

And they both have facial hair and a real pair of eyebrows. When either one of them glower at you, you get scared. The twelve-year-old girls will just have to find a way to cope.

Jessica VI? Easy. Scaaarrrrlllleeetttttt………

Easy on the eyes, and she knows how to act. Look no further.

Supreme Court Ruling on Global Warming

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007

One of the reasons we’re all supposed to want to get rid of President Bush, is that supposedly his Supreme Court appointments are spectacles of something hideous and dreadful. Except…Justice Alito seems to be doing okay…Chief Justice Roberts seems to be doing okay…and these four or five bozos who represent the antithesis of a Bush’s nominee, the “liberal wing,” they call ’em? Some homeless guy plucked off the street could do a better job.

“EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change,” quoth Associate Justice John Paul Stevens. Goooooooood. Just what we need, a judicial branch bullying and intimidating our federal agencies into pushing us around some more.

Agencies say “we’re just not sure,” and — hey you know what, scientifically, that’s the correct answer. But anyway. Supreme Court writes up an opinion that says gosh, we just don’t like your answer. Go re-think it.

That’s the way government works, huh?

We’ve got about twenty years before all this global warming hocus-pocus looks like the pet-rock newspaper-horoscope mood-ring junk science that it is. Then you can haul out all these stories and shake your head with a melancholy smile about how badly we were fooled. Without a doubt, this needs to go in the file.

Update: More & better info here.

Brains of Men and Women

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007

Ten key differences.