URLs du Jour

2009-05-04

  • Last week I mentioned a central tenet of the Statist faith: spending (or "investing") taxpayer money is an effective method to achieve worthy goals. The natural corollary: if you're not getting the goals you want quickly enough, the only possible problem is that you're not "investing" enough taxpayer money.

    Adherents to the faith have no problem with taking a turn to the ghoulish, as a recent interview with ex-Republican Arlen Specter demonstrates, in talking about government funding of medical research:

    Mr. Specter continued: "If we had pursued what President Nixon declared in 1970 as the war on cancer, we would have cured many strains. I think Jack Kemp would be alive today. And that research has saved or prolonged many lives, including mine."
    Specter is a true, childlike believer in the magical abilities of the State. Push more money in this end, cancer cures come out the other! Also ponies!

  • Mickey Kaus has a short post about how teachers' unions make it near-impossible to get lousy teachers out of the classroom. Via Mickey, the LA Times has a great pictorial of the maze of procedures that must be invoked to dismiss teachers accused of misconduct. It's jaw-dropping.

  • As one of his throwaway pearls of wisdom, Lileks remarks:
    […] the three most confusing words in the English language are "previously, on Lost."
    So true.

Bolt

[3.5 stars] [IMDB Link]

[Amazon Link]
(paid link)

A non-Pixar animation offering from Disney, although Pixar's John Lasseter is the executive producer; it's pretty good!

Bolt is a cute little doggie, adopted from the shelter by cute little girl Penny. Penny's father is a good-guy scientist, abducted by sinister villains; but before he's taken away, he uses his scientific hocus-pocus to give Bolt superpowers: super-strength, super-speed, heat vision, etc. And Bolt pledges to protect Penny as she sets off on her quest to rescue her father.

Well, all except for the first sentence, none of that's actually true, but that's what Bolt believes. Because he's actually just a doggie method actor, starring with child actress Penny in his own dog-superhero TV series.

But one day, he's lost and accidentally shipped across country. Naturally, he has to figure out how to reunite with "his person," Penny. Will he meet up with a couple of ragtag companions to accompany him on his quest? (Yes, that's them over there on the DVD box.) Will he undergo amazing and amusing adventures, complicated by his superhero delusion? Will he eventually learn his true non-super nature? Will he be re-united with Penny? Will he do so while saving her from actual peril? (Have you ever seen any of these movies before?)

Anyhow: it's cute and clever, and you don't need kids around to have a good time watching it.


Last Modified 2024-01-31 5:28 AM EDT