A Thirst For Inglorious Basterds

This weekend was another double-movie weekend in my sure-to-fail quest to get back into the swing of seeing nearly as many movies as I have the last two years.

First up was Inglorious Basterds. It's the latest movie from scatter-shot director Quentin Tarantino. I've enjoyed a few of his past efforts--most notably Kill Bill Vol. 1 which I think is a bit of a masterpiece of filmmaking. I also enjoyed Pulp Fiction but not as much as most of my friends.

Inglorious Basterds looked a bit strange to me from the previews but I gave it a shot anyway and, sadly, I think my first instincts were right. The movie seems completely disjointed. Much of it starts down a path only to abandon it almost immediately. You get one narration from Samuel L. Jackson that seems forced and out of place. It was as if Tarantino wanted to just see if people knew it was Jackson. We get another scene where one of the main cast is highlighted. The action stops. The screen zooms in and we get a graphic textual overlay highlighting that we're about to get detail on one Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz. It sets the stage for us to meet the other members of the Basterds team this way but then we never see that treatment again. What's the point?

The strangest thing about the movie is that it actually has very little what-so-ever to do with the Basterds at all. The movie tells us about them in 1941 and then jumps to 1944 assuming we'll just fill in all the blanks while it goes off and tells a different story.

The script is also filled with many huge plot holes. There's a bit about a shoe and another about speaking Italian that just don't wash. Our brilliant main protagonist, played by Brad Pitt, goes dumb at the drop of a hat in one key late scene for example.

Annoyingly the movie goes through the entire story not once explaining the odd spelling of "basterds". There's a hint at it regarding the name being given to them by the enemy but that still doesn't explain the spelling. Did the enemy write it down in broken English?

I also had a bit of trouble with the entirely unexpected huge revisionism of history that didn't seem at all necessary.

Some scenes highlight "key" characters by using on-screen arrows to point them out. For example, at the start of the final sequence of scenes we get a brief glimpse of a man highlighted as Martin Bormann. That's great except for two things. First, you never see him again. Second, unless you're a World War II buff you probably have no idea who Martin Bormann was. Maybe he was Adolf Hitler's assistant or maybe he was a local well-hung gigolo there to entice the ladies (or men). You'll never find out here.

These types of things aren't the only details left out. There's virtually no decent character development what-so-ever. None of the characters really ever get fleshed out with the possible exception of the main Nazi officer. This is doubly annoying as virtually every scene in the movie is overly long by at least 100%. Scenes just drag along for no benefit.

Lastly there's the gore. Tarantino often includes a heft of gore in his movies. When it's done right it comes off as amazing art. Here it comes off as a child's daydream tantrum being realized.

There are some goodies to be had. The movie is, at times, funny. It also boasts some great visuals including a very eerie and unforgettable final sequence.

Chief among the positives are a fantastic opening scene (still too long though) and the unforgettable character portrayal of the main antagonist--a Nazi officer played by foreign actor Christoph Waltz.

Later in the weekend I decided to check out the Korean vampire film that, in English, is called Thirst.

The movie is a frustrating one that grabs your attention and then bores you once it has you. It tests your willpower by giving you a stunning visual and following it with another that's entirely inconceivable or incomprehensible.

Here too we have a lack of adequate character development to help the story along. You find yourself often confused by what the relationships between characters are. One character you believe to be the brother of one of the main characters turns out to be her husband! It could be that I missed this key piece earlier as it's possible I might have dozed once or twice but I don't think I missed anything.

As a vampire movie it's pretty flat. There are some scenes that seem contrived to invoke similarities to other horror films but maybe I was just being too kind and trying to give credit where it isn't due.

The look of the film goes from artistic to "what the hell are they trying to do?"

On the plus side the main actors do a commendable job. The secondary ones, sadly, don't fare so well.

Overall it wasn't a complete waste of time. It's moderately entertaining for what it is but it's nothing special.

Will Bill O'Reilly Chime In On Jaycee Lee Dugard?

It'll be very interesting to see what Bill O'Reilly says about the whole Jaycee Lee Dugard case. For those that aren't aware, back in early 2007 O'Reilly made some incredibly insensitive comments about another abduction case involving a child named Shawn Hornbeck.

On his show he had this to say about the Hornbeck case:

I'm not buying this. If you're 11 years old or 12 years old, 13, and you have a strong bond with your family, OK, even if the guy threatens you, this and that, you're riding your bike around, you got friends. The kid didn't go to school. There's all kinds of stuff. If you can get away, you get away. All right? If you're 11.

This is what I believe happened in the Hearst case and in this case. The situation that Hearst found herself in was exciting. She had a boring life. She was a child of privilege. All of a sudden, she's in with a bunch of charismatic thugs, and she enjoyed it. The situation here for this kid looks to me to be a lot more fun than what he had under his old parents. He didn't have to go to school. He could run around and do whatever he wanted.

Bill clearly doesn't believe in Stockholm Syndrome. When it came out that Shawn had been brutally violated and dominated O'Reilly seemingly forgot everything he said to the contrary, including his promise to apologize should he be shown to be wrong, and suddenly talked about how sick all of this was. He also said he'd never mention Hornbeck by name again even though Shawn himself wanted his name mentioned in a bid to raise awareness of his situation so that others might learn from it.

Now we have the case of Miss Dugard. I have to wonder if, deep down, Bill actually believes she enjoyed herself these last 18 years as it seems evident that she could have found a way to escape in all that time.

Something tells me that he may have finally learned his lesson on this one.

When The Rhetoric Paints You Into A Corner

Conservatives are up in arms over the spending going on in Washington. They're not alone either. Many of us have concerns about the government spending our money like drunken sailors or, dare I say, like the past Republican Congress. The phrase, "you can't spend yourself into prosperity" keeps getting tossed around.

The problem with this, at least for Republicans, is that it paints them into a corner with regard to blatant hypocrisy. Anyone in business knows the oldest saying, "It takes money to make money." Countless businesses apply deficit spending to reach their goals. It's the way major (and many minor) businesses are run.

You raise your investment capital and you lay out an aggressive plan to get the right talent on board. You invest in a wide marketing campaign across various types of media and go to various industry events. You spend this investment with the clear understanding that your revenue will not carry you through and that you're going to need to go back to the trough to raise a second, third or fourth round of financing to get to the promised land.

This is common practice in the business world. Why is it then that this same approach supported by capitalistic Republicans suddenly becomes a recipe for disaster when the government takes the same approach? It all strikes me as a huge contradiction. You can argue that the government can't run itself like a business but we hear conservatives calling for running it exactly like that in every election. Perhaps you believe that the government doesn't have the talent that Amazon or Google has. That may (or may not) be the case but certainly Washington is filled with some of our very brightest. Much of the Congress is filled with members who've been successful in their previous lives and, frankly, by their existence in Congress show that they continue to be in their current vocation. Running for Congress follows the above approach rather similarly. Spend "investor" money like it's never going to run out and keep raising new capital along the way. No one gets into office by only spending what they've earned from the job.

Do I believe all this deficit spending is good? I'm mixed on it. President Reagan thought it was a grand idea. If it was good enough for him why isn't it good enough for President Obama? Then again I voted for Ross Perot in a bid to get someone in there with real corporate success who would apply bottom-line thinking to the job.

No one advocates to a business that they take money out of their own pocket and spend only what they can afford from the revenues of the business. Well, okay, that approach works if the idea is to run your own local water ice stand but the government, like any large company, isn't a water ice stand so acting like it should be run the same is just nuts. Conservatives who suggest this speak against their own beliefs and end up looking naive in the process.

O'Reilly Responds... If You Can Call It That

The other day I put up a note concerning Jon Stewart running a piece on The Daily Show about Fox News that really spoke to why I have issues with its network, its message and that of many of its chief pundits.

Well, it seems it hit the appropriate nerve and Fox's Bill O'Reilly decided to respond to it on The Factor. The most incredible part to it is that, with a smug face thoughout, Bill appears to believe that what he's saying in the rebuttal actually rebuts any of the charges Stewart made.

(Link to video)




As always, the guy can't go 10 seconds without insulting someone he disagrees with. He starts right off suggesting that Stewart has "gone off the rails". He then proclaims that he feels it's his duty to set the record straight.

His first major gaffe is to miss the entire joke of The Daily Show piece suggesting Fox is now liberal due to their stance on recent issues and how they're generally viewed as the domain of liberals. O'Reilly rolls on the word liberal, not as an indication of awareness but to drive home to his viewers how wrong Stewart can be by suggesting Fox is liberal.

The next mistake comes when O'Reilly goes after Stewart's deft use of video to show Bill's hypocrisy--in this case over the use of the word "loons". O'Reilly had pointed out that Fox doesn't refer to protesters as loons only to have Stewart present video of him saying exactly that--"....surveys show many protesters are simply loons." O'Reilly jumps on the fact that this was just a snippet of the overall piece and tries to claim that the full clip clearly shows how out-of-context the quote is.

The problem is that the full segment (from 2004) doesn't do that. In it O'Reilly says, "There are the anti-Bush protesters here in New York City. While most of these people have been peaceful more than a thousand have been arrested and survey's show many protesters are simply loons calling for destruction of the American system. Calling for retreat in the face of terrorism. Here's a bulletin for you Bush-haters. The protesters are not helping John Kerry."

He returns from showing the full clip and loudly claiming, "No, we were talking about the arrested protesters." Really? Read the above quote. He does mention arrested protesters but that comment isn't tied to the one after it. If he meant for these to be connected he would have likely said "....and surveys show they're simply loons." Except that he wasn't claiming that. He was trying for the bigger hit--that many protesters, arrested or not, are "simply loons." If he really was referring to just the arrested protesters then then rest of the quote makes no sense. Just the arrested protesters call for the destruction of the American system and retreat in the face of terrorism? Give me a break.

The next problem with the rebuttal is when O'Reilly claims that 45% of The Daily Show audience is liberal according to a Pew Research study. He says that makes it the biggest liberal percentage on TV.

Again, the problem here is that the study doesn't say that. It says 45% of viewers of The Daily Show identify themselves as liberal. Nothing in this study suggests that this is the biggest liberal audience on TV. The study shows nightly network news and MSNBC viewers are 45% liberal. NewsHour is shown as having 46% liberal viewship while CNN gets 51% liberal viewership. Me makes this claim by mis-reading (or not) a single break-out box in the study that compares a select grouping of shows for comparison.

Furthermore, he tries to play this off as suggesting that The Daily Show isn't very balanced. His own show is covered in this same study and it shows that 66% of his viewers are conservative with only 3% being liberal. So much for balance.

Next up he goes on a ridiculous rant about how Stewart has to play to these viewers to retain them as if he's immune to such things or suggesting to us that all TV personalities don't do this.

Lastly he plays a clip of when he was on Stewart's show and presents it as proof that Stewart admits that it's his job to cheap-shot people. The sarcasm of Stewart's playing along is totally missed on O'Reilly--or, as I believe, isn't missed at all by him but that he realizes his audience won't see it. The hilarious part of this is the little snippet of it that he totally missed where, in response to O'Reilly saying he hasn't taken cheap shots at President Obama, Stewart "admits" that he has. This is hilarious because O'Reilly ends the piece talking about how Stewart isn't worried about President Obama. "We now do know how Barrack is governing and some of us are very worried about that. But not Jon Stewart. Nooooooo! He continues to dance down the liberal yellow brick road." So I guess now the liberal yellow brick road includes taking cheap-shots at liberals. Interesting.

Everything about this "rebuttal" is weak. The segments he plays in it don't support either rebutting the original accusations or what he claims they are saying. Bill O'Reilly exists purely on the ignorance of a willing viewership that ignore common sense and the simplest of deductive reasoning. He lies to his audience time and again knowing they will never bother to check the facts of what he says. The sooner this guy retires the sooner America can be the better for it.

Note that the Pew Research study O'Reilly works from was done in August of 2008. In October of last year Pew found that Fox News' audience was 39% liberal. Maybe Stewart is right about them being liberal after all.

Here's What's Wrong With Fox News

Last night I was watching The Daily Show when Jon Stewart dissected exactly what I find wrong with Fox News and have tried to articulate to those who support it.

Watch the clip below or click here if you're seeing this on Facebook as Notes doesn't support multimedia embedding.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Fox News: The New Liberals
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

How anyone supporting this network can watch that piece and still support the hypocrisy that goes on at Fox News says everything about what is wrong with this country today. I am an Independent. I do lean left but I often vote Republican and lean right on fiscal issues. I refuse to be lead by a network that can be so easily shown to be wearing no clothes. If you support Fox News you do so blindly. There is no other answer. Fox will tell you the sun is great on Monday and then that it's the great enemy on Friday all depending on what their viewers want to hear.

Please take a moment to watch the clip and then, if you're a Fox News fan, tell me how you explain this contradiction.

I Knew Someone In Ripley's Believe It Or Not

Back in high school it dawned on me that every adult I knew was playing golf at every opportunity and that it was one hugely expensive sport. I thought of this when a friend and fellow classmate, John Clark, mentioned joining the golf team my freshman year. My first thought was, "The GOLF team?" That's when it hit me that if I gave it a shot I'd get to play golf for free every day. In fact, once I did join we found out that we could show up almost anywhere, even on weekends, and claim to be there for the high school and get in a free round. We got to play on some of the best courses in the state, public or private, for nothing.

It was then that I met a fellow schoolmate many of you may not remember by the name of Doug Beechler. I realized almost at once that Doug wasn't like the rest of the team. One trip to the first tee was all you needed to see that much. He'd hit these drives that were just pure magic. These were the kind of flawless drives that start out low and then cruise effortlesslessy on an upward arc into the air before landing 300 yards away in the dead-center of the fairway.

While the rest of us practiced at the high school before heading to the course Doug was nowhere to be seen. He didn't need that sort of practice. He'd be off to a course somewhere and we'd see him mainly at the start of our next match at the first tee. Doug was, without question, Williamstown's #1 golfer (of six starters).

How good was Doug's game? Well I knew it was good because of first-hand experience with him. Every so often he and the #2 guy, whose name I now forget, would play the younger guys head-to-head. To even out things a bit Doug would play the entire nine holes (high school golfers mainly play just nine) with only his 9-iron. That included putting with it. We never stood a chance. He'd hit 200 yard drives with that thing, sink 20' putts and almost never end up in any trouble.

I then heard that to that point in all his matches for the school Doug was undefeated. My recollection is that each year we played something like 15 matches against various schools so that's quite an achievement. I believe he went all four years without a loss. I'd love to hear from Doug if this was accurate or not but he doesn't seem to be on Facebook to ask.

I then really found out just how magical his game was. We decided to go over to Pitman Country Club (a course I am forever fond of because it's home to my one and only hole-in-one) for a new challenge. At the time Pitman had a scorecard that had an illustration on the back of it. The illustration was a copy of an original Ripley's Believe It Or Not panel. Those were pretty famous for many decades and included unbelievable or bizarre facts from around the world. On it was this fact: Believe it or not, in 1976, Doug Beechler, a thirteen year-old boy shot a record 13-under par 58 at Pitman Country Club.

This feat also put Doug into the Guiness Book of World Records.

Obviously those of us on the golf team were all pretty proud of Doug. We were all certain Doug would go on to join the pro tour and wipe up the field with the competition. Sadly, it wasn't to be. Doug used to talk a lot about Jack Nicklaus and in his first event, if my memory serves, he was paired up with his legendary hero at an event at Whitemarsh County Club. Doug couldn't handle the pressure and played poorly. It was the last time I recall seeing him in a pro event and later I heard he went to Florida to become a teaching pro.

Over the years I've mentioned this story and rarely does anyone believe any of it. I often wondered what became of him and would look for his name online, or that of his sister Tracy, who we also went to school with. I always came up empty. Then, just last night, while looking for other friends I tripped over a story in a South Jersey Life column on nj.com. The story is from 2006 and mentions a wunderkind child by the name of A.J. Beechler with the hint that he may just be the next Tiger Woods. Down at the bottom of the story it mentions that A.J.'s dad is none other than Doug Beechler and it points out Doug's incredible story.

It's great to see things going well for them and here's hoping A.J. benefits from all his dad's great talent and ability. Doug, I also want to thank you for the great memories. I only wish I got to play with you for a longer period of time.

Don't Fall For The Car Insurance Ads

I've been catching commercials from two major companies that offer supplemental car repair insurance for your car and wondered if they'd be of any value.

I called the one I see most often--US Fidelis. Their ads are pitched to us by NASCAR star Rusty Wallace.

As soon as I landed in the voicemail system I knew I was in for trouble. It explains that you're about to receive a quote for insurance on your vehicle and that the quote is only good for the duration of the call. Any subsequent calls will require some sort of authentication/verification process that will drive the cost and time up. Nothing I hate more than the hard sell.

The rep comes on the line. She starts by getting all the particulars for my vehicle. She then mentions a price I find a bit high. For me it was $88 and they mentioned five years. So I do the math. $5,280 to cover me for possible repair? Then the fun part came. The quote was for $220. Why $220? Because they want their money in two years. So now I should add another car payment to the mix?

It gets worse. She then starts to talk about coverage and I say, "Well, tell me what it doesn't cover." Her response was classic, "Um, this will go a lot faster if I tell you what it does cover." Oh boy. She starts reading off the list and literally seconds after starting she's finished. The things on the list are so obscure and unlikely to break that it's all a joke. Nothing you'd want covered is covered. Sign me up! Not....

Fair And Balanced My Foot 2

As many of you know, I watch Fox News and listen to 1210am (conservative talk radio). As an Independent I think it's best to listen to all sides and do my own homework on comments and claims that they make. This causes me a bit of stress as I have a really hard time with the approach Fox has taken to things. Conservative pundits play the fear game better than their opponents and it's a "take no prisoners" approach.

However, something that just happened concerns me even more as it almost borders on blatant censorship.

I signed up on Fox Nation--an extremely conservative site, to be able to post comments in response to other entries. I belong to a long list of sites all over the political spectrum and have never had a problem.

I signed up using my real name and tried to post various comments. They never appeared. I'd be told my posts were accepted and would appear shortly. No such luck. I then found that I had trouble logging into the site. I'd constantly have to get them to send me a new password to get in. Mine wouldn't work from one session to the next.

Then I noticed that when I tried to post, not only wouldn't most posts appear but the "Submit Comment" button flat out wouldn't work.

I thought this was just coincidental but then I started wondering if it might not be something else. So I created a new account and named it something conservative in nature and pointed it to another e-mail address I have. I used the same exact password that fails time and again under the other account.

I then posted a conservative comment and it worked without any trouble. I also have had no problem with my password.

This morning I posted a comment on a fairly unread posting. The one posted under the conservative alias showed up instantly on the story. Much to my surprise the one posted under my real name did show up though it showed up more than 30 minutes after I posted it even though both posts were sent up at virtually the same time. It was also a completely non-partisan comment. I get the feeling that every post is being read here and if you post anything with a non-conservative bent that your account gets flagged as a non-supporter sending your posts into a moderation queue. It wouldn't surprise me at all to find that Fox wants to give the impression that most people are overtly conservative.

Hmmm.....

Illegal Aliens: The Hard Truth

Before I get too deep into this let me state right now that I do not support illegal aliens being in our country. I believe that if you're here that you should be here legally. I also believe that we should do everything in our power to go after corporate America for giving jobs to such workers.

That said, it's a commonly held belief that illegal aliens are a drain on our resources. The current health care debate has raised this issue again suggesting that such people get all kinds of benefits that they don't pay for.

The only problem with that stance is that it really isn't accurate. In 1996 the Welfare Reform Bill disqualified illegal aliens from nearly every government program including Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps and housing assistance. They can still get limited care in some emergency rooms (though not in any I've been to) and schooling for their kids.

In reality each year 8-9 million of the estimated 12 million illegal aliens file tax returns to the IRS. The general feeling is that they believe this will one day help them gain legal status. The bottom line is that these millions are paying Social Security, Medicare and other local taxes taken out of their paychecks using fake Social Security numbers. These are tax dollars they'll never see the benefit of. You might think that their kids getting schooling offsets this but not really. At their income level they can't afford to buy a house so, like millions of other legal Americans, they rent. The owners of the properties they rent then pay the taxes that pay for the schooling they receive. Thus, they're not able to avoid paying for schooling anymore than a legal citizen that pays rent.

It turns out that Social Security has a fund called the Earnings Suspense File where these collected taxes go. The fund grows by more than $50 billion every year and the amount itself is growing.

Obviously any purchases made by illegal aliens includes any local sales taxes so they're paying as much as we do for such services and, again, are unable to get access to many of them. A study done by the independent National Research Council found that immigrants, on average pay $80,000 more in their lifetime than they use.

The hard truth is that the idea that illegal immigrants are bleeding us dry is just another case of carefully crafted racism. The people driving these theories have concocted them against a people they never wanted anything to do with in the first place. If we expelled every illegal alien in our country tomorrow the impact would cripple our system in ways few imagine. So the next time you consider the costs as an argument against illegal aliens, think again. I'm against illegal aliens because it's wrong to break our laws. It's that simple.

By the way, if you really still feel like this is a problem then you should also be all for a single-payer health care system. Why? How many illegal aliens are on Medicare? The answer is none because they cannot provide the necessary documentation to collect on it. If we were all on Medicare then we'd all have documentation that guarantees our access and locks out those who don't have it.

Eight More Drop Glenn Beck

I mentioned on August 12th that several companies have dropped their advertising dollars from the show of Fox News host Glenn Beck. Today comes news of eight more including some whoppers.

The list today adds Wal-Mart, Best Buy, CVS, Travelocity, Allergan, Ally Bank, Broadview Security, and Re-Bath.

The first four most all of us are familiar with and the first two are huge. That brings the total of companies that have now dropped their advertising on his show to 28.

I suspect the Righties will see this as some liberal plan to take over the airwaves and try to cast stalwart Republican players like Wal-Mart as part of the liberal agenda.

How much more of this will it take before people start getting it?

I Felt Trapped In District 9

This weekend I saw the new Peter Jackson movie, District 9. Be aware that while this is being called a Peter Jackson movie that he produced it and didn't direct it. This is another movie that received nearly-universal praise from reviewers and had a 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Given my past troubles with movies rating over 90% I went into this one not expecting a whole lot.

It turns out that my expectations were still too high. The movie felt like a paper-thin morality movie about the horrible ills of rampant racism (taken right out of the mid-1900's) with a sci-fi alien action movie pasted on top. Essential it's a fantasy story about aliens that show up above our planet and end up being placed in internment camps, stripped of any rights and forced to live in squalor.

The plot is silly right from the start and doesn't improve much as it progresses. The ending is entirely a sell-out. There are some funny moments but this isn't supposed to be a comedy. Mainly the movie is just too long and flat throughout. I don't expect everyone to see it this way as some people applauded at its conclusion. I'd have applauded just it reaching its conclusion except for my concern that people might actually think I liked this thing.

Losing Me Fast

Word this weekend is that President Obama is ready to drop the demand for a public health care option. In other words, once again, the spineless Democrats have failed in the face of a much-weakened Republican party effort to stifle it.

If this administration cannot get us a public option it will be the first nail in the coffin of my vote for him in 2012. I am not interested in some sort of crippled legislation that will do virtually nothing to force major change in our broken system. I experienced it first-hand. I'm watching my mother, who was recently diagnosed with cancer, suffer through the very things we're told only happen in Canada and other "socialist" medical systems. She's waiting weeks to get any sort of treatment what-so-ever.

Enough. It's time for Democrats to lead us given the mandate they were given in both 2006 and then again in 2008. Instead they've done nothing but give in to the special interests and some polling showing that these ridiculous town hall meeting lynchings are working.

We're going to be told that this will be a great step forward. We'll be told that, for example, pre-existing conditions will be a thing of the past. However, that won't matter even one bit. As mentioned in a previous post, for Cigna head of Corporate Communications, Wendell Potter, has already made it clear that the industry already has a solution for this. You won't get turned down by your insurance for a pre-existing condition but when it comes time for your employer to renew their plan the provider, knowing of the costs still to come, will price renewal for the entire organization beyond what the company can pay driving them to another company.

What do you think that company's first question will be? It'll be to ask what the current state of all employees are. If anyone has anything costly they'll get turned down or, again, get a rate that will simply keep driving prices up for all.

No sir. I am not interested in sugar-coated PR efforts that will do nothing to change the status quo. If this is the best this guy can do then he's not the leader I voted for and I will have a hard to pulling the lever for him again in 2012.

Why The Hate?

I noticed that Senator Ted Kennedy was noted as being too ill from brain cancer to attend the funeral of his amazing sister Eunice Shriver. My first thought when I saw this was that his being that ill probably means that he's not doing at all well and may be on his own deathbed at this point.

My next thought was that if this is at all right then it's a sad situation for the Kennedy family. It would also represent a final closing chapter of one of the most heralded and complex families in American history.

Unfortunately my next thought was that I knew, without any doubt, that news posts mentioning this absence would be rife with user comments of complete vitriol against Senator Kennedy for his past transgressions in life.

Just as I thought, the messages were there, with people openly calling for his death and saying totally disgusting things about their wishes for his demise. What is wrong with us as a people that it has come to this?

I have never been a Ted Kennedy hater or lover. I have viewed his life of one of total complexity that I can't even begin to fathom. First of all, the man lives under a complete microscope the likes of which none of us can imagine. The expectations placed on him none of us would want to have on our shoulders. In his circles he was expected to become President and anything short of that would represent failure. I suspect that he probably carries this feeling as well. Nothing he can do or has done would be good enough for his harshest critic--himself.

Do not get me wrong. His actions in the Mary Jo Kopechne incident allow for much questioning as to his integrity. Much is made of this being a huge mistake by a young man. He was 37 at the time so I never accepted the youth argument.

However questionable his actions, Miss Kopechne has been turned into a saint in this affair. She was 29 at the time of her death. If Ted Kennedy was intoxicated shouldn't Miss Kopechne have seen this? Wasn't she obligated in some way to take this into account? They were both at the same party together. What I'm saying is that it was, in the end, an accident. Accidents will happen and in this case she made a choice to get into a car with someone that may not have been able to properly handle the vehicle. We don't know for sure.

Faced with the same exact result who among us can say, for certain, that they know how they would have reacted? Unless you have reacted differently to something similar then I doubt your veracity on the subject. It is with much ease that people can cast blame and suggest courses of proper action when they were not in any way involved. Ted Kennedy made bad choices that evening and he has paid for them every day since including in his own soul. That does not mean he should be wished dead.

We, as a people, have lost much of our ability to empathize. This political rift in our society has cost us something dear that we should be fighting to get back. It doesn't matter that Senator Kennedy came from a family best described as one of royalty. It doesn't matter that he had every golden opportunity in life. It doesn't matter that he made some bad mistakes. When he passes on he's still one of us. He still has children who love him, family that love him and many people who will feel genuine pain when he dies. Many constituents in his state and around this country are better off as a direct result of the effort he has put forth in his life.

His death will, in no way, be a good thing or a positive thing. If you feel it is then I feel most sorry for you. You are the one of little moral fiber in this situation--not Mr. Kennedy.

Oops. No You Didn't!

Popular conservative publication Investor's Business Daily ran a piece against health care reform saying that the much talked about end of life counseling piece would have terrible repercussions and stated that people like noted professor Steven Hawking "wouldn't have a chance" in such a system.

"People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless."

The great part about this is that in their rush to tell a compelling fairy tale they neglected to realize that Professor Hawking lives in England. When he was informed of the story he told a UK paper, "I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS. I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."

That reference has now been removed with a correction that says nothing about the implication but just mentions that they failed to point out that he lives in the UK. Brilliant!

Democracy Working The Capitalistic Way

In case you haven't heard the really questionable rhetoric being put forth by Glenn Beck on Fox News is finally being addressed in a way that hits this sort of show where it hurts most--in it's wallet.

News came on Tuesday that insurance giant GEICO has pulled its advertising from the program. Last week Beck lost support from four other advertisers--Proctor & Gamble, SC Johnson, Progressive Insurance and Lawyers.com. I'm not sure about the last one but the first three of those are huge and would have to amount to some pretty significant losses.

I used to like Glenn Beck. He seemed like a genuine person with some smarts but then every so often the guy would say something so off-the-wall that I started wondering about this guy's sanity. I'm totally serious. I'm not saying that just in passing. I seriously think this guy has a screw loose.

Just recently he started telling viewers (and listeners to his radio show) that Obama "has a deep-seated hatred for white people" and has called him a racist. More recently he told the same people that his agenda is driven by reparations for slavery.

I'm waiting for him next to tell us all that Obama is actually the anti-Christ.

(500) Days Of Summer Bliss

This past week found me catching the well-received (500) Days Of Summer starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (of Third Rock From The Sun) and the quirky Zooey Deschanel.

From the moment the movie started I had a feeling it would be my kind of film. It had a narration that just hooked me from the first word. What's more is that this is one of those "real" films where the characters just seem so absolutely normal and out of every day life. That's not to say the whole film is that way. It's isn't. In fact there's quite a bit of strangeness but it's also all perfectly welcome here.

Essentially we get a chance to look into the relationship of the two main players from start to finish and it's done in a mainly fresh way that reminded me a bit of Memento. The narrative doesn't run in reverse but, instead, we are bounced around from say, Day 1 to Day 200 in an instant and then back to perhaps Day 42 soon thereafter. These approaches always make me wonder how the story would work (or not) if it were played sequentially through. It works here so I'm just fine with it.

The script is just fantastic. Everything about this relationship and their lives rings true and anyone with any decent dating experience will feel a connection to it. The acting is also first-rate. I really can't think of anything in this movie that I can complain about.

If you don't like this movie perhaps you just should stick with action films.

Thought Provoking Interview On Healthcare

Bill Moyers conducted an interview with a man by the name of Wendell Potter who, for 15 years rose to be the head of corporate communications for Cigna--one of the nations largest and most successful health insurance companies.

Mr. Potter recently left Cigna after a distinguished career there after having had a crisis of conscience. He no longer felt that what he was doing was the right thing and set out to let Americans know about how the industry really works.

The interview is eye-opening and, frankly, jarring in its frankness. You can find it here but note that it's over 30 minutes long:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07312009/watch.html

Much of what he said didn't come as a surprise to me as I'd been experience some of what he mentioned. For example, he finds the argument that government-run healthcare would come between you and your doctor to be a questionable one. Why? Because, as he clearly points out, that your employer or insurance provider are the ones that are far more likely to make changes in your current plan or provider that will force you to see a new doctor. I've had this happen several times in my career as my employer shuffled from one plan to the next trying to stay ahead of costs on their end.

Do watch it if you get the opporunity.

The Face Of A Mob

Another telling event happened yesterday that I almost forgot to mention. On an early morning Fox News show they were discussing all the town hall meetings that are being "attended" and the talk turned to the debate over them turning into a mob atmosphere.

The main host showed some selected footage from a few of them and asked, "Does this look like a mob to you?" Then another of the hosts said, "You want to see what a mob looks like?" She then ran more selected footage of an ACORN event.

What struck me most about this was what the hosts couldn't see or wouldn't admit. Here, several very white people showed us footage of town hall disruptions and from corner-to-corner not a hint of color to be seen anywhere. It might as well have been footage of an Alaskan Iditarod race. The example of what they saw as a true definition of a "mob" scene was nothing but color.

It seems we still have quite a way to go yet before we can declare racism over in this country. I think the racists here just liked the idea of being able to hide in the shadows a bit longer by declaring it over with the election of a man of color that they now hate six months into an administration with an invective that is out of all proportion of any rational thought process. The only logical cause of this is, sadly, racism.

Obama Told Manson To Kill

So I'm switching through channels last night and I noticed that on Fox News there's a one hour show on the 40th anniversary of the Helter Skelter murders ordered by Charlie Manson of Sharon Tate and six others over two nights back in 1969.

The show is hosted by Fox's Greta Van Susteren but it seems like a straight, balanced show with no political bent at all. That is, until it got to one of the final segments. Van Susteren is talking about the impact of the events and, out of nowhere, we get told that Bernardine Dohrn, a Weathermen founder, once mentioned being in support of Manson's actions. Dohrn is the wife of noted radical activist Bill Ayers who had a minor connection to President Obama some time back (a fact that Sean Hannity won't ever let anyone forget).

Why this mention of Dohrn was needed is a mystery to me. I've watched countless documentaries on this incident, read several books about it and scanned many websites that mentioned it and not once have I ever encountered any mention of what Bernadine Dohrn had to say about it.

The only obvious conclusion is that Fox wanted to find some way to get its viewers to link Obama with the Manson murders. No one had heard of Bernadine Dohrn before this past election. So what if she said something stupid about it. It has no relevance and there was no reason to mention it except to try and make this connection. Shame on you Greta.

Nothing Is Ever Good Enough

The news this morning should be joyous with regard to the release of the two U.S. journalists from North Korea. Instead, in an on-going example of just how screwed up our country has become, the Right is contorting itself to find any way to cast a negative hue over this positive event.

I knew what they'd try from the moment this event happened. However, one such foray is noteworthy. Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton is hitting the media circle to tell people why this is such a bad result and how it just helps North Korea.

One of the comments he's made is as follows:

"While the United States is properly concerned whenever its citizens are abused or held hostage, efforts to protect them should not create potentially greater risks for other Americans in the future."

Efforts to protect them should not create potentially greater risks for other Americans in the future??? Is this guy smoking crack? Has he forgotten the very actions he supported during the George W. Bush administration? How can he say this while, on the other hand, support our "enhanced torture techniques", our occupation of foreign countries and so forth? This is lunacy.

I think what we're seeing now is the disintegration of the Republican party up close and personal. I also think we're seeing a fracturing of both parties. The Democrats have grown to the point of no longer being cohesive (Blue Dog Democrats, for example) and that's probably a good thing. Maybe we can finally end up with a third national party here. I'm perfectly fine with that and with the Republicans being the home of the nutcases. Frankly, if I were a competent, sane Republican at this point I'd be looking for a new party. What the intellectuals of that side are having to support now is just way over the top. If we cannot get together on something as simple as bringing home two American citizens from a backward nation then we're in real trouble and real need of change.

Why Are Numbskulls Invited Back On TV?

A couple weeks ago I was watching a segment on Hardball (with Chris Matthews) about the bizarre birther "controversy" and it included a woman by the name of Orly Taitz who listed her background as being a lawyer, a dentist and a real estate broker. Jon Stewart had a blast with the segment.

The woman struck me, almost immediately, as nuts. Her comments were just all over the place and seemed culled from pure imagination. Then I noticed her making the rounds on every other network and being quoted time and again in various media coverage of the whole birther story.

Now the latest example is while she's being interviewed on MSNBC by two hosts there. Watch it below.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Why is this woman on TV? She belongs in a mental institution. 85% of all Americans think President Obama wasn't properly vetted? He has multiple Social Security numbers? To be President not only do you need to be a citizen but both of your parents need to be too? Obama's "brownshirts" in the media?

The Social Security one is a real hoot. People did a search on the name Barack Obama and came up with 39 different numbers across the US which just goes to show how ignorant some people are to believe that only one person in the last 100 years could be named "Barack Obama". While the name isn't as popular here as John Smith, that there are 39 out of hundreds of millions of people doesn't seem like a stretch to me.

The brownshirts reference is also telling. It exposes this woman as, in addition to her other problems, a racist. Browshirts, or Sturmabteilung in German, is the name given to Adolf Hitler's SA troops. They were heavily responsible for his rise to power and were replaced by the SS after he gained power. To use this reference in relation to the media pretty much spells our her motivations here.

I blame the media for this one. This woman has no right being the voice of anything except for making the case for involuntary commitment.

The Art Of Technology Translation

I had a recent experience (as in this past weekend) that I thought I'd put a note up about as I doubt I'm alone. It involves my mother who reads this blog so if this comes off as insulting in any manner it's not intended and you have my apology in advance (though I should probably already know better that if you have to apologize in advance then perhaps I should stop here but.....)

I always enjoy technology even when it doesn't behave the way it's supposed to. When this happens it makes me feel like a modern day Sherlock Holmes. The game is afoot!

When trouble strikes people like my mother the problem is made doubly complex. Why? Well, not only do you have to try and resolve the problem but you have to start by decoding the language she uses to describe it. Many non-techies share this trait. My father used to (and may still) refer to any storage medium as a "tape". Floppies were tapes. USB drives are tapes, etc. The irony there is that I don't think he's every actually put any computer data on a real tape.

So this past week my mother ran into another PC problem. She's a real trooper about it. For someone who couldn't program her VCR of past she really gives the whole PC thing a run for its money. She'll buy or borrow books on all kinds of subjects and reads up on others online. I really thought I'd never see her on a PC and now she's got the PC and a laptop. Amazing. However, there is the language barrier. For example, she still thinks of Google as an application and not a site. She thinks Google's search input box is the Address Bar, etc. I can't tell you how many times I've tried to resolve her problems over the phone by sending her to a website only to remember that when she fails to get there that it's because she typed the address I gave her directly into Google's search box and not the address bar.

Anyway, this problem started on July 27th when she noticed that her weather wouldn't update. This refers to the Firefox add-on Forecastbar that provides weather info inside Firefox. So she tells me that her PC is having trouble. "Firefox is broken but the Google program works". Translation: There's nothing wrong with Firefox but she can only get to Google. In another reference she states, "If Google isn't working couldn't I remove it and then reinstall it?" Maybe, if you have a big enough wrecking ball, lots of time and a way to hold off the SWAT team as you try and knock down their headquarters you just might be able to pull that off.

While I'm on this and I know Mom is reading: Mother dear. Google is a website. It is no different than any other website you visit as far as the browser is concerned. Just because it's your default site, meaning your home page, doesn't make it any different. If your home page were some other page it probably wouldn't have worked. The only reason Google worked is that Verizon does a little technical trickery that makes a few highly popular websites work as if they were part of Verizon's internal network.

I use UltraVNC to get onto her PC remotely from mine. No problem there. Clearly something is working. I look around and find some minor crap loaded so I use Hijack This to blow it out and reboot the PC. It still won't get outside Google. I then got a bit busy and decided to look at it the next day. I tell her that I think the problem is with Verizon and that she should call their support for guidance. I should have known better (again).

She writes back this morning that she called support and the rep, that she could hardly understand (how ironic is that?), has told her the problem is with her anti-virus program (Eset's NOD32) and her spyware program (Sunbelt Software's CounterSpy). She tells her that these should be removed and that she should hire a professional service to wipe her machine and start over getting new security programs in the process. Oh, she also has a virus she's told.

In a later message she starts to believe the rep as her laptop is behaving the same way. It connects to Google but nothing else and it too has NOD32 and CounterSpy. She thinks this has merit because she almost never uses the laptop. The laptop doesn't work because, of course, it's on the same compromised connection that the desktop is on. It's like expecting the upstairs faucet to work when the water main is turned off.

I then see there's another e-mail from Mom. The subject is "Yea. Success". My first thought is one of dread. Has she, in the intervening hours, actually gone out and taken her PC to some repair shop and had it wiped?

I jump to her latest message and get the answer. In her own thinking she's come to the conclusion that with all the recent rain maybe her cables have gotten wet. "I unplugged the internet phone jack and replaced it." hehehehe I would just love to see her actually perform this as stated. The translation is that she disconnected the cables from the VoIP phone adapter and plugged them back in. This, of course, didn't fix anything but it shows progress as this is how you can resolve many phone problems when you have VoIP phones. If only she were having phone trouble this would have been noteworthy.

She goes on to say, "Then I unplugged the large plugs for the connection and replaced those. Rebooted and viola." Translation? She unplugged the power cords for her network and rebooted. In other words she power cycled the router which was the problem all along.

To me this is a classic story. It's like a thirsty blind man finding a river by smelling elephant urine in the air and mistaking it for the smell of water only to trip over the river on the way. It's actually better than that as it shows good deductive reasoning and, frankly, she got to the answer before I did and for that I'm sorry.

What really irks me is Verizon's support. Had she gone ahead and followed their advice she'd have spent several hundred dollars, gotten a completely wiped PC back including new, unwanted anti-virus and spyware utilities, wasted her remaining subscriptions to the current apps. Additionally she'd have gotten the impression that this was the solution because in all likelihood she'd have turned off the power strip the router is plugged into as part of her shut-down process before transporting the PC to the shop. The fix would be like dealing with a pesky rodent with nuclear missiles. Worse, Verizon is rife with this problem so you'd think their own reps would be quick to jump to this simple fix. Unplug the router, count to five and plug it back in. Doh!

I can only imagine what my language sounds like to her coming in the other direction. Regardless, I wouldn't trade these exchanges for anything. They're always interesting while only sometimes being truly frustrating. It's well worth the trade-off.