The Evil Eyebrow

Category: Opinion

  • Fuck that Shit! CNN and Misrepresentational Journalism

    I hate journalists sometimes.

    For example, something that caught my eye: “Gosh Darn! Cussing Banned in California Town”

    The headline purports that some sort of legal act was passed to assign punishment to swearing. That is the generally accepted definition of the word “ban” when it comes to governments. I read the article because I was curious how they were going to get around the first amendment.

    No worries:

    …Mayor Michael Cacciotti said of his city’s proclamation designating the first week of March as No Cussing Week.

    A proclamation equals a non-binding resolution. No mention of “ban” in there. Implying that there is one is irresponsible journalism, in my opinion.

    The story is interesting, other than the headline. I recommend reading it. I’m all for people voluntarily pushing for civility in their neighborhoods, as long as they don’t impinge on the first amendment. In certain circumstances, blue language is useful and appropriate. In others, it’s not. Knowing the difference depends on what you’re doing and where you live.

    And saying f**k is such a cop-out. Don’t do it. I’ve mentioned that before.

  • Barak vs. Hillary

    I confess that I was looking at the Texas primary from an extremely shallow point of view. My thought was, “Which would Texas Dems want least in the White House? A Black, or a Woman?” I figured that they would prefer a black man over a woman of any stripe, but obviously I was wrong.

    Or maybe, they actually looked at the issues and picked the candidate they thought would represent them best.

    Nah. That’s way too democratic.

  • Sunshine

    We finally got around to seeing the movie Sunshine”. In two words: It sucked. I wasted another two hours of my life on overblown trash.

    I’ve been looking forward to seeing this movie for 8 months and boy was I disappointed. The physics made no sense. The spaceship made no sense. The mission (even though it was a MacGuffin) made no sense. To top it off, it ended up being a monster movie. I’ll give you the last three, but why why why can’t they do the physics right? It’s not hard! Really! I haven’t been so disappointed in the physics of a movie since Mission to Mars.

    Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. I now feel better about watching The Fountain, because at least that movie was supposed to be weird.

  • Robo Cop in Atlanta

    Read this.

    Hmmmm…

    I question the legality of using a remote controlled robot to spray people with water who might be violating the law.

  • Children of Men: The Movie!

    This is such an old draft, I’m not sure why I never finished it. I watched this movie in October.

    Alert readers may recall that I read the P.D. James novel, Children of Men, last summer. I didn’t like it. See the link for why.

    Now, I’ve finally gotten around to watching the Movie that prompted me to read the book. I didn’t like it, but it was a good movie, I think.

    For one thing, it’s depressing as hell. I don’t really care for depressing movies, no matter how “quality” they are. Almost all of the major characters die (true to form from the book) but without the tragic majesty of Hamlet. Some of them die suddenly, some pointlessly, and some forseeably.

    For another thing, they flipped the bitch in the movie. In the book, it’s men who can’t father children. In the movie, it’s the women who are sterile. I’m not sure what that change was supposed to accomplish, except maybe the screenwriters agreed with my point from the earlier post that if a man was suddenly found to be fertile, go find him and get him to impregnate every single woman possible! Flipping that makes it much more about the pregnant woman, which lends to the drama.

    For a third thing…I’ve got no third thing. Did you read that note up above about how I sat on this draft for 4 months? Back in October I was all full of righteous fury; now, not so much.

    I wouldn’t watch this movie again, and I’d only recommend it to people who are interested in dystopian depressing movies. It’s not scifi in the sense that there’s any science fiction going on. The only SF bit is the assumption that every man is sterile, for some reason.

    But, that’s another movie off of my list of summer (2007) movies to watch. Maybe I’ll finish the list before 2009.

  • Religious Uncleanliness

    I’m all for religious tolerance, at least as long as the religion in question isn’t trying to impose it’s crazy beliefs on others, but there are limits. Say, the proscription from becoming sterile before operating on an open torso.

    Women training in several hospitals in England have raised objections to removing their arm coverings in theatre and to rolling up their sleeves when washing their hands, because it is regarded as immodest in Islam.

    I don’t want to have to start asking my doctor what her religious affiliations are before allowing them to touch me. That way lies bad things…

  • Georgia is Off its Rocker

    I must sincerely apologize to the rest of the nation. I live in a state that has just selected, as the republican candidate, a repeat of the last administration. We are one of three states so far that deigns to give Mike Huckabee a shot at screwing up our nation even more. The other contenders? West Virginia and Alabama.

    I’m embarrased.

    In our defence, I will point out that it was relatively close. Huckabee won with 34% with McCain at 32% and Romney at 30%. It was not a landslide by any means. But still. Come on people. Look at him. He’s a bible-thumping god-whalloper. Haven’t we shown what bible-thumping god-whallopers can do in the modern era? Jimmy Carter! George Bush! Two of our worst presidents ever.

    Georgia has a long time to think about this. Hopefully, come November, we’ll vote with a bit more intelligence.

  • One Step Closer to Success

    Republican Fred Thompson has dropped out of the race for the presidential nomination.

    Thank you, elvis!

    Oh, wait. He’s not one of the candidates who has seen a ufo.

    Nevertheless, it’s a good thing he’s gone. He represents the third least desirable president in the current mix (Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee being 2 and 1, respectively).

    So, the most hawkish candidate, with the second lowest respect for personal determination of morals is gone. Yay.

  • Harry Dresden News

    Other than the fact that the next book in the Harry Dresden series will be coming out in April which I’m very much looking forward to, there a novella being published that features Harry’s older brother Thomas. Here’s a quote that is entirely sweet:

    I’m not Harry Dresden.

    Harry’s a wizard. A genuine, honest-to-goodness wizard. He’s Gandalf on crack and an IV of Red Bull, with a big leather coat and a .44 revolver in his pocket.

    According to the link, the special edition with the leather cover is already sold out, but I’ll look forward to the trade paperback anyway. I’m not a hardback book snob; I like softback.

  • I [Hate] Huckabee

    South Carolina’s Republican primary was yesterday and I’m ecstatic that Huckabee lost. I’m less ecstatic that he came in second. Of all the viable Republican candidates, he’s the one I want to see nominated the least.

    Of all the front running candidates, I don’t really care who gets put up by the Democrats, and I can live with Romney or McCain from the Republicans, but we don’t need another term by a bible-thumping god-whalloper. Remember, this guy wants to change the constitution to make it more like the bible. His interpretation of the bible, that is. He said:

    I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that’s what we need to do, is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.

    Later on he clarified that this was having to do specifically with reproductive rights (abortion) and a ban-gay-marriage position (which puts the statemet right in line with the christian conservatie wing of the Republicans) but it’s the underlying assumption that deep-sixes him as a candidate in my mind. It is possible that I could vote for someone who is anti-gay-marriage and anti-reproductive-rights. Not likely, mind you, but possible, but that candidate would have to be coming at the issues from a direction other than, “’cause the bible tells us so.” I’m a skeptic, and a thinker, and I have significant problems with political people who demonstrate that they aren’t at least the second of those two.

    My opinions regarding the race as of today: Nominate either Obama or Clinton from the dems and either Romney or McCain from the repubs and I’ll vote for any of them. If the race were running today with all the top candidates on the ballot, I’d probaby vote for McCain.