Maggie's Farm

I thought it appropriate to group these three movies together since they all have that same warm, fuzzy feel to them.  Not to mention a hot chick!  Or, at least in the case of True Grit, hot under the collar!

True Grit

Doc's List Of The Toughest-Talkin' Hombres In All Of Western Moviedom:

     5.  John Wayne in The Alamo

     4.  Clint Eastwood in Hang 'Em High

     3.  Kurt Russell in Tombstone

     2.  Gene Hackman in The Quick and the Dead

And #1 on Doc's List Of The Toughest-Talkin' Hombres In All Of Western Moviedom:

     1.  Little 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit

I mean, wow.  Write some tough lines for any of the above heavyweight dudes, then stick a dainty 14-year-old girl wearing her daddy's big floppy hat in front of the camera speaking them, and watch the sparks fly.  Poor old Rooster never knew what hit him.

Neither did this poor slob:

Nor did Jeff Bridges, who said in an interview that he was full of trepidation at the thought of giving the lead to an unproven 14-year-old, but the first scene they filmed was when she walked in while he was sleeping and proceeded to verbally kick his ass all over the room, at which point he never had another doubt.

What was particularly impressive about the movie was that it had a nice unhurried feel to it, as befitted the times, yet it never dragged.  I had complained in my Jonah Hex post a few weeks ago how slow and boring Westerns had become, and while there wasn't a lot of gunplay in Grit, it sure never felt boring.  Even the 'quiet' scenes, like around the campfire and saddling up the horses, had a sharp edge to them because of the ever-present tension between Marshall Cogburn and Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, played to perfection by Matt Damon.

Another nicety is the way they stick to the language of the day and don't use contractions — a purely modern convention.  I'm sure it felt a little awkward and unnatural for the actors at times, and it's a little jarring to hear, but its authenticity made up for any disjointedness.  They also use 'full' sentences, unlike the clipped way we speak today.

Old way:

"I do not know of that which you speak!"

Modern way:

"Huh??"

A truly enjoyable movie.  Notes on Toy Story 3 and Shrek 4 are below the fold.

I snatched this clip of 'Family Feud' from Neal Boortz's site this morning.  It's wonderfully entertaining on a number of levels, not least of which is the great job the host does with what could have been a rather awkward situation for a family show.

I love it when he actually leaves the podium to 'walk off the shock'.

   

As you probably know, we're losing our wonderful, dim-able, natural-warm-light-able incandescent bulbs over the next few years.  Some states are jumping the federal gun and are already planning on banning 100-watters by the end of the year, and we'll presume 75- and 60-watters will soon follow.

Now, you could write an angry, passionate letter to your Congresscritter and that might, indeed, have a small impact.  But I have a better idea.  A tried and true idea used by many of the greatest thinkers and persuaders in history:

Exploitation.

One of the reasons the word hideous applies to the Environmental Protection Agency is the way they go so overboard in their 'toxic level' figures.  The problem is manyfold.

First, there's the same built-in bias from the scientists testing these things that we see in the global warming industry.  Their job isn't to determine if something is safe; they've been instructed to find out how safe it isn't.

And they're certainly not going to risk being wrong and facing legal repercussions, so they're going to multiply any 'fudge factor' by 10 — just to be on the safe side.

Likewise, the administrative arm of the EPA isn't going to put its legal ass on the line, so they're going to reduce the acceptable level by another factor of 10 — just to be on the safe side.  After all, as they'll hurriedly tell you, children's lives are at stake.

As a result, whereas 300 parts per million of Ingredient X is perfectly safe for the human body, the official EPA number ends up being something completely ridiculous like 20 parts per million.

One chemical that's been in the news recently is the mercury dust found in fluorescent light bulbs.  Numerous experts agree that the minuscule 5 milligrams of mercury dust in a curly bulb poses no danger, whatsoever, to human beings should the bulb break.  Haul out the vacuum cleaner, sweep things up, get on with your life.

EPA, meet the petard:

If you would be so kind, please hoist thineself upon one.

Though the amount is tiny, 5 milligrams of mercury is enough to contaminate 6,000 gallons of drinking water, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

That's right.  The wise, careful scientists at the EPA have determined that mercury dust is right up there with plutonium on the toxicity chart and what amounts to five grains of pollen is enough to (here's that word) contaminate a body of water the size of a small swimming pool.  By this logic, if a crate of curly bulbs ever fell off a cargo ship in Boston, they'd have to close down the Atlantic Ocean.

The article I'm quoting from goes on at length:

Low level mercury exposure can cause tremors, mood shifts, sleeplessness, muscle fatigue, and headaches. High level or extended length exposure can lead to learning disabilities, altered personality, deafness, loss of memory, chromosomal damage, and nerve, brain, and kidney damage, as stated by the EPA. There is a particular risk to the nervous systems of unborn babies and young children.

It then rambles on about the environmental dangers of mercury, the danger to animals, and every word of it 100% true when it comes to real contamination — and thus not one word of it has anything to do with curly light bulbs.

But, because of the EPA's excessive guidelines on what the toxicity level is for mercury dust, they're literally forced to write such articles.  As a result, more people — who are clueless about the subject otherwise — have it drilled into them what a danger curly bulbs pose, and they'll pay a little more attention when that Republican candidate on the 2012 ticket starts talking about repealing the ban on incandescents.

In other words, articles like this should be encouraged.

After all, children's lives are at stake.  Just ask anyone.

An exploitative idea on saving the aforementioned children's lives — not to mention our own sanity — is below the fold.  If you want to make a stand for incandescent light bulbs, here's an effective way.

When it comes to movies, I have to confess that I've been seriously disappointed with most of the Westerns I've watched in recent years.  To pick on a few:

Unforgiven — Wow, a Clint Eastwood western.  That means it's got to be good, right?  Yeah, except there was one gun fight in the whole dang thing, and probably the most unrealistic gun fight in cinematic history, at that.  Yawn.

Appaloosa — Just can't go wrong with Ed Harris, Renée Zellweger and Viggo Mortensen, right?  Yeah, except the writers spent 90% of the movie dealing with the intricate, puzzling, lurid, soap-opera relationship between Ed Harris, Renée Zellweger and Viggo Mortensen!  As an additional plus, Hollywood was so afraid that someone in the audience might be shocked by actual gun play on the screen that they toned down the gun sounds to just below that of cap gun level.

3:10 To Yuma — Hey, Christian Bale and Russell Crowe, just can't go wrong with that duo, right?  Okay, picture the following:

The movie opens with twenty bad guys chasing a stage, greed in their eyes.  The guy on the stage riding shotgun (hence the term) is firing back with a big shotgun, picking them off here and there.  This goes on for endless minutes.  Then the camera is a quarter mile ahead of the stage as Russell Crowe drives a herd of cattle across the road, blocking it.  The stage comes wheeling to a stop.  All in all, a very effective, efficient way to stop a stage — EXCEPT THAT TEN OF YOUR BUDDIES ARE LYING DEAD ON THE ROAD BACK THERE!!

The rest of the movie was just some big 'war of wills' between Crowe and Bale — which was really the point of the movie in the first place; to display the writers' brilliant virtuosity — and the fact that it took place in western times was more or less irrelevant.

The Assassination of Jesse James — Hey, Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck, just can't go wrong with that combo, right?  Actually, I have no idea.  I was too busy heaving my guts into the toilet because of Affleck's acting performance — or lack thereof.  Let me know how it turned out.  Did Jesse live?

Silverado, Open Range, Wyatt Earp — For the love of God, won't someone PLEASE tell Kevin Costner to stop playing cowboys?  I'm sorry — I honestly love the guy and think he's brilliant as a sports hero (Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, Tin Cup, For Love of the Game) — but with those boyish cheekbones, weak chin and soft voice, he simply doesn't look or sound the part of the tough Westerner.  By means of comparison, check out Kurt Russell's performance as Earp in the link below.  That's what a Westerner looks and sounds like.

Tombstone — I'd give this thing an 'A' if it hadn't spent endless, interminable minutes bogged down in his wife's endless, interminable opium problem.

Wild Wild West — Both the critics and every decent movie lover in the world hated this thing, so naturally I loved it.  The superb 'anti-chemistry' between Will Smith and Kevin Kline hasn't been seen since the unlikely pairing of Eddie Murphy and Robert De Niro in Showtime.  While not an outright 'Western' by genre (it would more properly fit in the category of 'Western Sci-Fi'), at least there were loud guns and galloping horses.

The Quick and the Dead — I actually thought this was a pretty good flick, but it wasn't a Western, as such, in the sense that it all took place in the middle of a street and, as a dueling event, could have taken place in Al Capone's Chicago or even today.  Gene Hackman is such a badass that I made him #2 on my cinematic Tough Guys page.

So, all in all, I've been quite disappointed with Westerns in recent years.

Then up rode Jonah Hex:

"Cut muhself shavin'.  What happened to yours?"

That pretty much says it all.  Without giving anything away, it's a straight-up Western with one additional element of... (gropes for proper word)... spirituality that really makes it something special.  Josh Brolin stars, John Malkovich is the merciless bad guy, and Megan Fox turns in a spectacular role as dragon bait.

Below the fold we'll take a peek at the new BBC presentation of the (ongoing) Sherlock Holmes story.

Well, that was easy.

The one big question after yesterday's horrific shooting was whether the mainstream media was going to blame Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, the Tea Party, Bible-thumpin' gun clingers everywhere, or simply Republicans in general.

Question asked, question answered.

Critics of Sarah Palin have already drawn a link between the shooting and the fact that the former Alaska governor put Giffords on a "target list" of lawmakers Palin wanted to see unseated in the midterm elections. - CBS News

“We’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list,” Ms. Giffords said last March. “But the thing is the way that she has it depicted has the cross hairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they’ve got to realize there’s consequences to that.” - New York Times

Ms. Giffords was also among a group of Democratic House candidates featured on the Web site of Sarah Palin’s political action committee with cross hairs over their districts, a fact that disturbed Ms. Giffords at the time. - MSNBC

Afterward, she referred to the animosity against her by conservatives, including former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's decision to list Giffords' seat as one of the top "targets" in the November midterm elections. - USA Today

As of Saturday, Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' name appeared on a website titled "take back the 20" as part of a list originally issued by Sarah Palin of vulnerable House Democrats. A map on the site showed crosshairs over the contested Democratic districts. - CNN

Linking to a map of U.S. House districts that Sarah Palin's PAC wanted to "target" during the 2010 mid-term elections -- which sadly included crosshairs over Rep. Giffords' district (among others).  DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas Tweeted, "Mission accomplished, Sarah Palin." - ABC News

What went unmentioned during this rampant outbreak of PDS was:

— According to the shooter's YouTube profile, two of his favorite books were Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto.  Now, maybe I'm just naive, but I doubt Sarah Palin has read either of those.

— And did you see the quote from Markos "Kos" Moulitsas up above?  What also went unmentioned in the above articles is that Kos had a post up — now removed — referring to Giffords titled "My CongressWOMAN voted against Nancy Pelosi! And is now DEAD to me!"  Giffords, a centrist, voted against Pelosi in the recent Minority Leader race and is hated far more by the hard left for that indiscretion than by Palin & Company simply because she's not a Republican.

So, let a Lefty use the word "DEAD" — in all caps, no less — in an article about Giffords and that's perfectly okay, but let a Righty put (gasp!) crosshairs over her congressional district, and you're one step removed from being the next Beltway Sniper.

In related news:

Bristol Palin Pregnancy: Is Sarah Palin’s 5th Child Really Her Daughter's?

Who is Trig Palin's Mother?

Kathy Griffin's Next Target: Willow Palin

Bird Dog did a pic dump yesterday, before the shooting, including this gem.  Have you ever seen anything more timely?

I discovered something pretty neat at Office Depot a while back.  .3 millimeter doesn't sound like much, maybe the width of a hair, but, in my case, it actually made a real, tangible difference when it comes to the ease of shopping trips.

First off, if you aren't hip to gel pens yet, you are just squaresville, baby.  The main reason 'razor point' pens came into popularity years ago is because, unlike cheap ballpoints, the ink starts flowing immediately.  Gel pens do likewise, but they don't have that scratchy feel that razor points have.

To note is that almost every pen out there, regardless of type, lays down a line .7 millimeters wide.  Somebody once decided that's the standard and there she be.  Then the other day I was looking over gel pens at Office Depot and way over to one side I noticed a package that said "1.0" for the line width.  A star was born.

What's interesting is that the line doesn't necessarily look 'fatter' as much as 'darker'.  I'm speaking of black ink in this case, and that .3 millimeter made all the difference as to whether or not I had to haul out my stoopit reading glasses every time I wanted to glance at my shopping list.  That .3 millimeter crossed some delicate boundary in my eyes' field of focus.

The pen I grabbed is here.  Most of the larger pen companies have a 1.0 gel stashed somewhere.

Coincidentally, the next day I was giving some info to my mom over the phone and got the old "Darn, hold on a sec — this pen doesn't work."  Naturally, I immediately made a beeline for the Office Depot site and sent her a box of 12 just in time for Christmas.

I'd like to report that it was her favorite present, but that would be the elephant Chia Pet I gave her.  The pens came in second.  She was, however, so thrilled at having discovered (1) gel pens to begin with, and (2) 1.0 gels pens at that, that she promptly doubled the amount of the Xmas check she sent me.

A victory for .3 millimeters, everywhere.

*for a whole two hours!

I think I'll be a sociologist in my next lifetime.  I've always been intrigued by cultural conditioning and changing perspectives.  Even more so when I'm the subject of the aforementioned changing perspectives.

Following are two posts on the subject.  The first was made a few years ago, when I bought my 40' liveaboard boat.  And, as if that wasn't enough of a perspective change, what happened the other day actually put me in the greenie class.

The topic is wind power.  Like you, I've mocked, scorned and belittled it for years.  What a fraud!  Without fat government subsidies, it'd be as dead as geothermal energy and ocean wave power.  Just another greenie notion without a lick of sense.

Until.

Impressive:
    

This is an iPhone app, soon to be available for other smart phones.  Home site is here.  The app is free, languages cost five bucks apiece.  They only have Spanish-English at the moment, but converting other languages should be a snap at this point.

What's particularly impressive about this is that it's the quintessential case of the entrepreneur's axiom, find a need and fill it.  Check out the second video on the site for the background story.

A truly marvelous invention, and sure beats the hell out of having to look up "ADVERTENCIA! GRAVES DE DERRAMES DE RADIACIÓN! DOS PASOS MÁS Y SE MUERE!" ("WARNING! SEVERE RADIATION LEAK! TWO MORE STEPS AND YOU'RE DEAD!") in the translation book.

"Ad-ver-ten-see-a?  Why would there be an advertisement way out here?  Should we look it up in the translation book?"

"Look up an advertisement?  Why bother?  Let's go!"
 

I hesitate to file this under 'Politics', but since we don't have a 'Goofy Road Trip Adventures' category, into 'Politics' I suppose it must go.

I hadn't seen an old friend who lives in D.C. for a fair while, and since Jon Stewart's highly-anticipated "Let's Save America From The Racist Homophobic Teabaggers" rally and the election were just a few days apart, I decided to throw the ol' snow tires on my hot Firebird Formula...

...and hoof it up to D.C. for the festivities.  Ever the impulsive one, I.

Below the fold I'll detail the highlights of my adventure, including my take on the rally, how I ended up scaring the hell out of scores of innocent passers-by at an energy expo, and how I got abducted by a busload of Tea Party revelers on election eve.

So, guess where I spent Election Eve?

In the Tea Party Ballroom in Washington, D.C.

That's ol' Doc, the party hound.

A few days before I was giving 5-minute lectures at an energy expo on the perils of Cap & Trade and scaring the holy bajeepers out of everybody.

A few days before that I attended Jon Stewart's inspiring "Let's Save America From The Racist Homophobic Teabaggers" rally.  Luckily, I still had my love beads from the 60's so I fit right in.

More on all that later.

---

Bird Dog raised the question of transferring vinyl record albums to CD a while back, and an excellent question it is.  While most old albums have been put on disc, certainly not all have.  And the impracticality of keeping a record player hanging around is obvious — and that's assuming that slick new 'home entertainment center' you just bought even has a 'Phono In' jack to begin with.

Why would it?

And there are 'custom' albums that were never commercially pressed, like the old 'pirated' releases of the Dead, Dylan, et al, as well as albums cut in private studios.

And yes, those old vinyl albums of yours are disintegrating as we speak.  From a modern, digital perspective, they simply couldn't have picked a worse, more fragile medium for long-term data storage.  In all fairness, though, I suppose it beats using tin foil cylinders.

Below the fold I'll elaborate on the two common methods to transfer albums to CD, as well as the pitfalls of each, including one interesting problem using the 'automatic' method that people usually don't think about until it's too late.

I have to admit, I'm a little upset.

A witch ruined my Maggie's post.

Well, okay, part-time witch and newly-elected Delaware Republican candidate Christine O'Donnell ruined my Maggie's post.  It really hurt.

A few days before the Delaware election, I was reading various articles in both the MSM and MSB and, in regards to the Tea Party spirit, was planning on writing an interesting piece on "who gets it" and who doesn't.

From the Left:

David Brooks: Tea partiers are narcissistic, egomaniacal, self-righteous people who distort the truth!

I think it's safe to say that ol' Dave doesn't get it.

Jacob Weisberg: The Tea Party movement has two defining traits: status anxiety and anarchism

Or ol' Jacob.

First off, Wendy and I would like to offer our sincere thanks for the positive comments the original ProCon post received.  You can certainly sense that people are itching for a change.

These ProCon posts will be a small series until the election.  Future posts will deal with various aspects and related articles, but today I wanted to cover some of the points raised in the comments.  There being 27,000 words on the site, most of the raised issues were covered there, but rather than just tossing out links to answer the commenters, I thought I'd expound on them here.  Rather than quote anyone, I'll just generalize.

1.  "There isn't enough time between now and November to be effective."

That's just plain ol' wrong.  Anyone who believes that has no idea how truly flaky American voters are and how many of them still don't know for sure who they're voting for when they wake up on Election Day.  That flyer you hand them at the grocery store that morning might make all the difference.

Yes, it's embarrassing to admit the average American voter is so fickle, often picking a candidate for the flimsiest of reasons, but that matters not.  We don't care any more about 'embarrassing' than the fact that it's 'tacky' to go after people's wallets, rather than intelligently discussing the issues as we did during the last two elections.  And I needn't remind you what happened using that respectful little tactic.

This is war, and convention be damned.

2.  "Web sites don't do any good."

No argument there.  The 'home base' we want you to set up isn't for blogging and collecting readers and, in fact, the subject is never raised.  You certainly can blog on it if you want, but it's two main functions are to act as a backdrop for the inspiring, hopefully-vote-changing 'motivational' posts and as a base of operations for your own endeavors, be it organizing a neighborhood Tea Party or collecting carpool riders for a Tea Party in the big city.  It also gives you a sense of involvement and is demonstrative proof that you're actually doing something � as referred to fawning over your fave blogger's latest words.

Amid much fanfare, the Democratic National Committee unveiled its inspiring new logo the other day:

Whoops!  My mistake.  That was the prototype.  Here's what the above was eventually reduced to by the DNC graphics department:

Naturally, a number of right-wing bloggers immediately asked the obvious question.

And the answer is...

Not long, not long at all!

Available here.  A very interesting blog site, and kudos on a great design and a masterful response.

My thanks to JLW III in the comments for suggesting I take another look at the Thunderbird multiple identities email program.  They'd tweaked something since I'd looked at it a year before and it's now my email program of choice.  If you're looking for an email program that handles individual identities, this little honey is the way to go.

It's a freebie, put out by Mozilla, the same folks who brought us Netscape and Firefox.  I'm using Firefox right now to edit this page, and ten minutes ago I was using Netscape Composer, their web editor, so just call me 'Exhibit A'.  I'd looked at T-Bird a few times before, of course, but it was just never in the big leagues like it is now.  Thanks again, JLW.

Additional info and setup tips are below the fold.

Well, I've been busy.  27,000 words, 55 pages and counting.

A couple of months ago I hooked up online with a very sharp lady named Wendy Calloway.  We had both mentioned in blog comments what a dismal failure the right-wing blogs turned out to be after the '06 (historic Democratic sweep) and '08 (Obama) elections, so I contacted her and asked her if she'd like to dissect the entire mess, piece by piece, and reevaluate everything; what worked, what didn't, and what to do about the latter.  Therein followed about a thousand emails, a bunch of phone calls, and a big 'master file' of the future web site that we passed back and forth.

As for the '06 and '08 elections:

We immediately came to a few conclusions:

� That the pundits are correct.  From Ace of Spades to James Taranto, everyone agrees that it's the independents who win or lose elections.  Occasionally, as in 2008, national fervor will sweep someone into office, but for normal, average elections it's the independents, centrists and moderate Democrats who make the real difference in the voting booth.

� That the blogs on both sides of the fence weren't very effective.  Just ask Ned Lamont.  It was simply more 'preaching to the choir' and obviously didn't make any difference with the aforementioned independents, centrists and moderate Dems.  For every few we picked off, DailyKos and MyDD got theirs.

� Most money used in campaigns is ill-spent.  Bluntly put, lawn signs haven't won an election yet.  There, in the privacy of the voting booth, it's almost always something deeper than that.  While we heartily endorse getting our candidates' names into the public eye, we leave that to the large organizations.

So we decided to focus on that "something deeper", which usually translates to matters of the heart (patriotism), the mind (common sense), and matters of the wallet, such as "Will I be able to pay the rent next month?"

The reference to Ned Lamont is quite apt.  He was the Connecticut senatorial candidate that DailyKos, MyDD, et al, got behind.  His election was supposed to be their 'crowning moment' as they showed the world what blogpower was all about.

The point the above quote makes is that he got crushed in the election.  Fat lot of good all that blogpower did.

 

Bird Dog mentioned in the morning links that songwriter George Weiss has passed away.  Here are two of his better-known songs.

 

And I had this gem on my own site:

 

Check out this nice affable ticket seller in the 1989 movie �Let It Ride�.  Doesn�t he seem kind of familiar?  I can almost guarantee you�ve seen a very popular movie he was in later on, and I can definitely guarantee you�ve seen pictures and posters of him in the role he plays in the aforementioned famous movie.

Answer below the fold.

No (real) links today.  Here are a few from my own site that might be of interest:

� My tribute to the TV show House MD

� If you were a big, big fan of the original 'Shrek' movie, you might like this

� If you play a musical instrument, or want to hear your MP3s as you've never heard them before, check this out

� Three very cool remote-controlled airplanes here

� For a perfect example of the typical rude, coarse, base, vile, mentally-degenerative claptrap that I wouldn't dare port over to Maggie's, try this

� Ditto

� If you ever had any interest in the Flowbee haircutting device (the one that attaches to the vacuum cleaner), check this out

� Someone in the comments mentioned that great comeback from GM to Bill Gates a few years ago.  It's here.  Another cruel Bill Gates story here.

Well, I'd like to continue, but I have a tough HTML coding problem I need to sink my teeth into.

The story behind this: There's this nutball who digs things up in his back yard and sends the stuff he finds to the Smithsonian Institute, labeling them with scientific names and insisting that they're actual archeological finds.

So, here's how his latest submission was received.

Paleoanthropology Division
Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078

Dear Sir:

Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled "211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post.  Hominid skull." We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents "conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago." Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be the "Malibu Barbie".  It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings.

However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to its modern origin:

1.  The material is molded plastic.  Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilized bone.

2.  The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-hominids.

3.  The dentition pattern evident on the "skull" is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the "ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams" you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time.  This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it.  Without going into too much detail, let us simply say that:

A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on.  

B. Clams don't have teeth.

It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon-dated.  This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in its normal operation, and partly due to carbon dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record.  To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results.

Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science Foundation's Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen the scientific name "Australopithecus spiff-arino." Speaking personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn't really sound like it might be Latin.

However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum.  While it is undoubtedly not a hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly.  You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your back yard.

We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation's capital that you proposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it.  We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the "trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix" that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus Rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman automotive wrench.

Yours in Science,
Harvey Rowe, Curator, Antiquities

Weighing in at a bruising 11 minutes, this is the longest movie clip in my online collection, but also one of my favorites.  It's from the movie The Pentagon Wars, a great story of bureaucratic corruption, ineptitude and inertia.

It's based on a true story.

One cringes to think how much.

Grab a munchie, pop this puppy open to full-screen size, kick back and enjoy.

Regular News

Well, it's been a couple of days since we had any of that good old-fashioned Maggie's Farm-style California bashin', so let's git right to it!

Pictured: average California highway after the daily earthquake

How bad is it in California?

How bad are the budget problems in California?

Besides foreclosures, California faces bad mosquito season

California's bad chemistry

California's bad karma

California's 'bad girls' now have triple the nation's fat rate

Wow, this schadenfreude stuff is great!  And let me give you folks a little search engine tip: You type in the words "california bad", you hit the jackpot!

Turning our attention to Dr. Mercury's prestigious "Most Insipid Article of the Week" award, it wasn't even close:

Star Wars fans ask NASA to build a hyperdrive

Seriously.

Uh, that's why it's filed under 'Science Fiction', fellas.

Because even a...

Trip to Mars Would Turn Astronauts Into Weaklings

This does raise one, probably naive, question, however.  What about that big "rotating drum" idea, as portrayed in '2010' and other space flicks, where centrifugal force creates an artificial gravity.  Does centrifugal force not work in space?  Sorry for my ignorance, but we didn't do any space projects in shop class and my parents couldn't afford to send me to space camp.

Unbelievable!  A murder takes place on live camera, everyone knows who the likely suspect is, and the police do... nothing?

Eagle Gang Allegedly Kills Sibling on Web Cam

Officials have not said conclusively what happened, but all signs point to murder. Based on their notes, the likely suspect is the biggest and most aggressive of the Eagles, although there are no plans at this time to press charges.

What a disgrace!

So, time to flip on my headline time machine.  I'll set it to grab a New York Times article ten years in the future.  Let's hope it's some good news this time!

BRZZATZHTKTZZT!!

Breaking: Radioactive Boars on the rise in Germany, climate change to blame

Just Rewards Dept.

A week ago I linked to an article about a news corporation called Stephens Media that had hired a hit man to go after bloggers quoting articles from their newspapers and sue them for copyright infringement.  Hey, anything to make a buck, right?

Under the heading "turnabout's fair play", here's a site that offers a Firefox "boycott" add-on that bars the browser from going to any Stephens Media site.  There's also info for Chrome in the comments, and IE can do it, although (as I recall) it's a painful site-by-site process, whereas the other two can use the pasted list of sites.  Kudos to you guys.

Political News

Obama battles dark lord, terrorists, Dick Cheney

One small problem when producing a movie and dealing with foreign languages is whether or not to have the foreign characters actually speak in their native tongue.  If you do, it has that �air of authenticity�, but you have to deal with distracting subtitles.  If you don�t, it just seems kind of fake.

How they crossed that bridge in �The Hunt For Red October� was nicely done.

Along similar lines, the way they showed Antonio Banderas in 'The 13th Warrior' as an Arab traveling with a band of Norsemen and slowly learning their language was also well crafted.

This was my assignment to the class:

"Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story.  The process is simple.  Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right.  One of you will then write the first paragraph of a short story.  The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story.  The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back and forth.  Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent.  There is to be absolutely NO talking and anything you wish to say must be written on the paper.  The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached."

The following was actually turned in by two of my English students: Rebecca - last name deleted, and Gary - last name deleted.

I'm going to place these two videos below the fold because they contain language, violence and themes which might be upsetting to innocent young girls, liberals, and small children.