Ladies and Gentlemen, I present the Greatest Food in Human History.
Kyle Smith will tell you why.
Seriously, it's what I usually get for lunch when I didn't bring
leftovers from home. It's a quick
turnaround at the Lee Traffic Circle. And I am your typical miserly
New Englander.
But you should read Kyle's column for a more serious point: people
who want to deny other people access to McDonald's are not doing
them any favors. Using the government strongarm to drive up
McDonald's costs also has negative impact on the poor.
(More commentary from Molly Hemingway at Ricochet;
the March Freakonomicspost
that got the story started.)
And as long as I have the privilege of holding this office, I will spend
every minute of every day doing everything in my power to make this
economy work for working Americans again; …
President Obama is playing his usual round of Saturday golf with his
usual roundup of junior aides.
How big a rube do you have to be in order to believe anything this guy
says?
Potential Presidential candidates are known for bland pronouncements,
not wishing to write off any potential supporters. To his credit,
Chris Christie is not that kinda guy:
'As a former prosecutor who was appointed by President George W. Bush on
Sept. 10, 2001,' Christie told his audience on Thursday, 'I just want us
to be really cautious, because this strain of libertarianism that’s
going through both parties right now and making big headlines, I think,
is a very dangerous thought.'
On the other hand, he made it a lot more likely that he'll
inherit the Mike Huckabee role in the upcoming campaign,
another fat guy (well, used to be fat) who dissed people
concerned about eroding liberty.
Amazon helpfully informs me that I bought this with a Christmas gift
card
on December 26, 2008. So I'm slightly less than 4.5 years behind
in reading James Lee Burke novels. Got to pick up the pace!
Burke's hero, Dave Robicheaux, has taken a long overdue break from
his beloved Louisiana, which is struggling to recover from Katrina.
He, his wife Molly, and good friend Clete Purcel are up in
Montana, determined to be uninvolved with their usual assortment
of bad guys, moral degenerates, and folks down on their luck.
It's nice to wish for things like that, but trouble follows Dave
and Clete like a too-loyal dog. They are beset by a strange conflation
of circumstances: first, their vacation spot is near the dwellings
of the very rich Wellstone brothers. One of whom is married to the
former Jamie Sue Stapleton, ex-country singer. Whose former beau,
Jimmy Dale Greenwood, has made his own share of mistakes, one of
which was defending a hooker from her pimp, who just happened to
be the nephew of the meanest judge in Texas. Jimmy Dale escapes
from his intolerable imprisonment, but not without making an
implacable enemy of guard Troyce Nix, who pursues with bloody
vengeance on his mind. But while on the quest, runs into
ex-Roller Derby skater, ex-junkie, bosom-tatted, Candace Sweeney.
And they develop a complex relationship.
Complicated enough? But then a couple of bodies turn up, murdered
in a fashion most gruesome. Local law asks Dave and (reluctantly)
Clete to help out. Which sets everyone on a collision course.
The course of the plot is somewhat surprising, hearkening back
to the first couple of books in the series. Did not see that coming,
although I should have: if there's a theme to Burke's work, it's
that the past is always returning to haunt everyone.
I can't say enough about the evocative beauty of Burke's writing.
And (I've said this before), some TV genius should turn his books
into a Justified-style series, where the overall plot plays
out over the course of the season.
In my long association with the University Near Here, I had never
before used its Interlibrary Loan service to get a book. Guess what?
It's easily accomplished online in these days of modern times, and
(although it took longer than promised) I was able to check out
The Food Police by Jayson Lusk, magically transported from
the B. Thomas Golisano Library of Roberts Wesleyan University, Rochester
NY. Win!
Lusk is a professor in agricultural economics at Oklahoma State. And he,
like many of us of a libertarian bent, is dismayed and outraged by
the nannies, blue-noses, and noodges that have taken it upon themselves
to alter the diets of the tubby American people. In his sights are
NYT food writer Mark Bittman; journalist/activist/Berkeley prof
Michael Pollan; NYU prof Marion Nestle; NYC's Mayor Bloomberg; and their
ilk.
Lusk is unsparing, showing how his opponents' elitist values
are backed up with nothing more than shaky science, bad economics, and
(above all) an overweening craving for reshaping the diets
of the little (or, considering their waistlines, not-so-little) people.
Among the topics considered: locavorism (eating food produced
within N miles of your table), organics, "Frankenfood"
(genetically modified eats), farm regulations and subsidies,
and efforts to impose taxes and onerous regulations on "bad" food.
Lusk's heart is in the right place, and I'm in total agreement with
his general thesis. If I had to quibble, it would be with his tone:
it's very much preaching to the choir,
not likely to persuade anyone who isn't already
likely to agree with him.
It's a short book, and you might get some ammunition for your next
debate with a "food activist", should you get into that sort of
thing.
It's kind of a slack time at Netflix, not a lot of new good movies
coming out on DVD. We zipped through 13 episodes of Kevin Spacey's
series House of Cards pretty quickly, and otherwise have been
dipping down pretty far into the queue, a lot of older movies that
slipped through the cracks, a lot of arty stuff, a lot of
low-budget stuff.
Like this movie, It's A Disaster: a low-budget comedy.
There are a few actors you may have seen in something else:
David Cross, Julia Stiles, America Ferrera. But otherwise,
the biggest budget expense might have been the hazmat suit
someone shows up in.
Eight folks get together for a periodic brunch in Los Angeles;
Tracy (Ms Stiles)
is bringing along new boyfriend Glen (Mr. Cross). What ensues
is the usual: behind-the-back sniping, warnings not to bring
up certain topics with certain people, hidden romantic strife,
conversational cul-de-sacs,
etc. This is occasionally amusing, because the writers are
clever.
But then (see the movie title, folks), it becomes apparent that
all is not well in the outside world. First the Internet goes
out, then phone service, then electricity. Then the guy in
the hazmat suit mentioned above.
And the eight
sorta-friends have to deal with the fact that their lives
are in mortal danger, and there's not a lot they can do
about it. Things get a little crazy, and much funnier.
Another useful guide, in case you ever find yourself in
a remote cabin in the dark forest with a bunch of your
20-something friends, gathered to wean one of your buddies
off of a nasty substance-abuse habit: if you find an ancient
book, bound in human skin, written in human blood, amidst
a bunch of sacrificial animals,
do not
start reading it out loud. In fact, maybe you should
just get in your car and drive until you find a Holiday
Inn or something.
Needless to say, the young folks in this movie do not follow
this advice. Instead, they (and their dog)
find themselves visited with
all sorts of horrors. (MPAA sez: "strong bloody violence and gore"
and that's kind of an understatement.)
Jane Levy, who I like as Tessa in the TV show Suburgatory,
plays the primary character here, saying and doing things
that will not appear on primetime broadcast TV anytime soon.
(The rest of the cast are generically pretty actors and actresses
who aren't asked to do much besides scream and die.)
It's actually a remake of Sam Raimi's cheapie made in 1981 with Bruce
Campbell. I dimly remember seeing it, but the IMDB raters have it
a full point better than this effort.
Readers of National Review will know Jay Nordlinger
as one of their Senior Editors; he's also a prolific
contributor
to their website. (I've long suspected he also has a major hand in the
unsigned "The Week" snippets at the front of each dead-tree issue.)
This book (published by "National Review Books" in 2007) is a selection
of some of Mr. Nordlinger's essays and articles from the late 1990's
and early 2000's. Confession: it was a freebie, in return for
some past renewal or contribution, and I probably wouldn't
have it otherwise. But it's an interesting and enjoyable read. I suggest
small doses: I read it in 20-page chunks over the span of slightly
over three weeks. Too much of even a good writer's style can get
tedious after a while.
The entries are arranged into broad sections: there is, of course, the
meat-and-potatoes political stuff, which, given the timeframe,
is more than slightly dated.
(There is, for example, no entry for "Obama, Barack" in the index,
but dozens for Dubya, the Clintons, Gore, etc.) But it's worth
remembering the issues from back then,
who were the heroes, and who were the weasels. More often than not,
I was reminded of that "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"
thing.
In addition to Mr. Nordlinger's take on politics generally,
he has also taken on more special fields as his own. One is
the continuing horror of Communist tyranny in Cuba and China;
he knows, and keeps track of, the major opponents of the regimes and
the abuse that's visited upon them. (He also keeps score on the
outrageous American apologists for Castro.) This is important
stuff, and nobody covers it as well.
Other topics: golf (with much appreciation for Tiger Woods, which
is probably the most dated thing in the book); classical music
of all sorts; some personal anecdotes.
All in all, good stuff. I can't recommend you run out and plunk down the
$24.95 cover price, but if NR offers it in exchange for
renewing your subscription, go for it.
This movie must have seemed like a great idea to someone: hey,
let's make a movie that looks like a low-budget Mexican
western. Including everybody speaking Spanish. Cheap special
effects. Amateurish cinematography. Ludicrous dialog and a boilerplate plot.
Oh, and we'll get Will Ferrell to play the hero.
The problem being: stretching that idea out to a movie
length. And it's just not that great an idea.
Ferrell plays
Armando, the cowardly, dim-witted, less-favored son of a local
rancher. He hangs out with his buddies, and the only blips
in his mostly-happy existence is the occasional drug lord
using their land to kill a squealer.
But Armando's brother Raul shows up with his gorgeous
fiancé
Sonia; he seems to have some sort of relationship
with the aforementioned drug lord. I predict bullets
will be a-flyin'.
There's a lot of Saturday Night Live DNA at work
here. In addition to Ferrell, Both the writer (Andrew Steele)
and director (Matt Piedmont) used to work for the show.
Unfortunately, some of the show's flaws tag along with them.
The movie is not without laughs, but some gags just lie there,
others go on way after the laughs have died down.
Netflix has this as Abduction of Eden; it's also known as
just plain Eden. Warning: it deals with a very scummy, nasty
activity, the kidnapping and forced prostitution of girls.
It is the fictionalized account of
Chong Kim (she has a story credit on the movie), who claims to have been a victim of that
game in the 1990s. As with any "fictionalized" account,
we're left guessing at how much of what we're watching
actually happened, how much is self-serving slant,
and how much is made up movie magic.
So it's probably best to just judge it as a movie. On that
basis, it's not bad.
"Eden" is the assigned pseudonym of the movie's
heroine, a young Korean-American
girl growing up in the southwest. She is chafing a bit against
her strict mother, helping out at the family store. One
fateful night, armed with a fake ID, she decides to kick
up her heels a bit at a local bar. She's temporarily smitten
by a cute guy … who turns out to be no darn good at
all.
Before you know it, she's cooped up with a bunch of other
girls who are regularly pimped out to perverts in nearby
Vegas. The people running the show are ruthless, led
by a local lawman (played by Beau Bridges) who (we're
shown) will casually murder anyone who might obstruct
the smooth function of
his lucrative side occupation.
Worse, the operation depends on young girls. Once
they're no longer convincing jailbait, their usefulness
goes to zero, and they can't just be set free, so…
Eden
figures this out, and (in an interesting plot twist) works
to make herself into a more valued employee in the
organization. Not exactly
a Horatio Alger story.
The movie is pretty well made, the actress playing Eden, Jamie Chung, is
quite good. Still, you might want to wash your soul out
with soap after watching the movie.
A recent
article in my local paper, Foster's Daily Democrat, once
again
stoked my frustration with newspaper journalism. It's a sob story about the
recent closing of a Head Start program in Newmarket, NH. Lead paragraph:
The closing of Newmarket’s nearly 20-year-old Head Start Program in June
— caused by the federal sequestration — has forced the parents of more
than a dozen children to either drive to a nearby community for the
program or to just stay home.
So: eek, that's awful. Those mean and nasty Republicans.
But wait a minute: just a few paragraphs down:
According to the national Head Start website, funding was cut nationally
by about 5 percent for the nearly 50-year-old program.
So, let me get this straight: a 5% cut at the national level
translates into a 100% cut at the Newmarket program? How
does that work, exactly?
You don't need to be a math whiz to smell some untold story here.
And I mean that literally: the Foster's story doesn't even
attempt to explain the discrepancy.
Could this, for example, be "the so-called Washington
Monument maneuver"? (Also known as the "gold watch" tactic, or the
"firemen first" principle.) The idea is that "cuts" are taken
primarily from highly visible, easily publicized services. Like, um, your
local Head Start program. The easier to get people riled up and demand
the "cuts" be undone.
Not that I have any brief to hold for Head Start. It's expensive,
even after a minuscule cut to its funding, and even after decades
of research, nobody's established
that the program has any lasting benefits
to the kids it is
supposed to serve.
A brief ad: this Kindle Edition of this book is available for $2.99 as I type,
which is an insanely good deal. You know how it works, just
click over there … (Unless you're blocking Pun Salad ads. Don't
do that, they're unobtrusive and attractive Amazon links.)
Anyway, this book is from prolific writer Michael Connelly, who's been
a Pun Salad fave for years. It is the second entry in his "Lincoln Lawyer"
series, featuring flawed hero Mickey Haller, criminal defense lawyer.
After getting gut-shot in the previous book, Mickey is only just now
crawling back from a sad addiction to painkillers. Things happen
quickly when his shady colleague Jerry Vincent is murdered
by an unknown assailant: due to a previous contractual agreement,
Vincent's open cases are awarded to Mickey by default. Among
these is the well-publicized case of movie tycoon Walter Elliot,
who is alleged to have caught his wife in flagrante delicto
with a younger man, shooting and killing them both.
There might be interesting stories to tell about
lawyers whose primary purpose in life is to defend hapless, hopeless
little folk
being railroaded by an implacable legal juggernaut. Mickey
is not one of those guys.
He is interested, most of all, by the income the Elliot case
will bring in. The case against Elliot is pretty good, but
not airtight; Mickey must find a way to establish reasonable
doubt, all while dodging his personal demons and skating
on the edge of conduct that might get him disbarred.
And there's the annoying fact—remember—that Elliot's previous lawyer,
Vincent,
was murdered. Is Mickey travelling down the same path? Fortunately,
the primary detective on the Vincent case is none other than Harry
Bosch, the dour, dogged police detective from thirteen previous
Connelly books. In this book we see him through Haller's eyes,
which could have been corny, but Michael Connelly makes this
work well. Neither Bosch nor Mickey is entirely honest with
the other, they both know it, and their relationship alternates
between contentious bickering and mutual, grudging, respect.
Mickey is a pretty good detective too, and things eventually
get figured out. But the very end contains a twisty shock
that I did not see coming.
Why did I get this? Let me give you a hint: one of my favorite
episodes of "The Big Bang Theory" is "The Thespian Catalyst",
where the surprise finale features a fantasy sequence
with Raj and Bernadette …
Wait, I don't want to spoil that if you haven't seen it. If
you haven't seen it, watch for it to roll around on one of
the channels that syndicate "Big Bang". You won't be sorry.
Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, this movie. It's a 2008 Indian movie
that Netflix (correctly) predicted I'd like a lot. The hero
is Suri, a 40something schlub working in a cubicle for Punjab
Power. He is infatuated with beautiful young Taani. Which is
fine, but her father's
untimely demise somehow results in the marriage of Suri and
Taani.
"Be careful what you wish for" is as true in India as it
is anywhere else. Both Suri and Taani are painfully aware
of the age gap between them, and neither knows how to bridge
it. But fate intervenes in the form of the dance show
"Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi", for which Taani auditions. Suri gets
a bright idea from his hairdresser friend, Bobby: he will
audition as well, but as the flamboyantly made-over "Raj". Like Clark Kent
and Superman, nobody, including Taani, can tell that
Raj and Suri are the same person.
There are a lot of lavishly-produced song-n-dance numbers, which
had me convinced that Anushka Sharma, the actress playing Taani,
is the most beautiful and talented woman in the world. (Excepting, of
course, Mrs. Salad.)
Cynics may quibble: the plot is preposterous, the acting is
over-the-top, and the singing is screechy with repetitive, stupid
lyrics. But (on the other hand), it's a lot of fun.
The movie is nearly 3 hours long, and it could easily have been trimmed by
about an hour, but that's OK.
Pixar can do sequels incredibly well (Toy Story 2 & 3),
or very badly (Cars 2). This is pretty good; I would have
had a good time even if I hadn't been
escaping from the oppressive heat this past weekend.
It's
actually a prequel to Monsters, Inc.; we get to
see Mike's backstory as an earnest kid with a desperate
wish to become a "scarer". (Which, since we've
seen Monsters, Inc., we know he does.) Surprisingly,
this career path requires higher education, and the best to be had
in the Monsters universe is … well, see the title.
Somebody pointed out that the plot is a shameless
ripoff of Revenge of the Nerds. (And probably
a few dozen other college movies contribute their
DNA as well.)
So lot of the plot is foreseeable: for example, Mike will meet his
soon-to-be lifelong friend Sully at MU, but (of course)
they don't initially get along well at all, but
amusing slapstick incidents keep forcing them together.
So: it's not as insanely wonderful as some Pixar
flicks, but kept me chuckling and marvelling at
the creativity and imagination of the moviemakers.
I may not splurge for the DVD, but (on the other hand)
I enjoyed it more than I did Man of Steel.
A very guilty pleasure, written and directed by
Robert Rodriguez. As IMDB
will tell you, its unusual origin was as a fake trailer in
Grindhouse,
a (tribute to|parody of) gory low-budget thrillers of past decades.
The hero, Machete, is played by the spectacularly ugly
Danny Trejo; if you saw any of the Spy Kids movies,
he played the same guy, as "Uncle Machete". But nobody
calls him Uncle here.
A brief opening scene establishes both Machete's bad-assery
and his ultimate nemesis, the ruthless Mexican crimelord
Torrez (Steven Seagal!) who deprives Machete of his
friends, family, and nearly his life.
A few years later, up in the US, Machete is living an
odd-job
life as an illegal immigrant. But soon enough he
gets (completely coincidentally) roped into a
complex (completely unbelievable) conspiracy.
A host of bad guys wants him dead. Fortunately,
he has his eponymous weapon close at hand.
The plot, such as it is, is cartoonish and tendentiously
hung on the issue of illegal immigration: the opponents
are uniformly murderous, venal, sadistic, perverted,
and all under the control of aforementioned criminal
Torrez. (In addition to Seagal, there's Don Johnson,
Jeff Fahey, and Robert De-frickin'-Niro, along with
dozens of machete-fodder minions.) Fortunately,
there are some good guys too: Cheech Marin, Jessica Alba,
Michelle Rodriguez.
Also appearing: Lindsay Lohan's boobies. Probably the
rest of her too, although I didn't notice.
A big book: the main text (in my paperback edition) is nearly 700 pages,
unwide margins, and unsmall type. (There are occasional graphs, tables
and illustrations, but still: it's a project.) But it's written by
Steven Pinker, a guy I've enjoyed reading in the past. And it got
rave reviews when it came out a few years ago. And cover blurbs
most authors would kill for, for example: “One of the most
important books I’ve read—not just this year, but ever.”—Bill Gates.
[Of course, Steven Pinker wouldn't kill for a blurb like that. As the
book makes clear, he's a pretty peaceful guy.]
So yes, it's pretty good. If you're willing to invest the time on
something a little denser than the latest Lee Child novel, I can
recommend it.
The subtitle is: Why Violence Has Declined. Pinker first
attempts to show that it has declined, and he is pretty
close to irrefutable here. First, there is the trend of centuries
and millennia: he debunks the hazy-hippie myth of ancient tribes living
gently in sustainable communities. Instead, it was amazingly likely
back then that you'd be violently killed by warriors of a neighboring
tribe; if you were male, and lucky, you might take out a few of your
antagonists first.
Pinker argues, to the discomfiture of anarchists,
that the development of the modern "leviathan" state
moderated tribal violence to a fraction of the historical
rate.
The modern state, of course, has its own nasty record of murderous
violence, both against other nations and (in many cases) against
its own citizenry. But (again) Pinker shows that this trend is
also downward over the past centuries. There's the notable exception
of what's called the "hemoclysm" ("blood flood") of the first
half of the 20th century;
Pinker argues that this really was an exception to the overall
historical trend: states have gotten significantly better-behaved
since then. (Yes, when you look at, say, Syria, things can seem
bad; but they were much worse before, with much larger levels
of violence going unremarked because they were so common.)
Pinker also considers interpersonal violence of all kinds: homicide,
rape, assault, infanticide etc. To the extent that reliable
statistics can be had, the trends are downward over the long term.
(I was wondering if Pinker was going to look at abortion; yes he does.
Although his discussion probably wouldn't satisfy the National Right to
Life Committee, it's remarkably even-handed for a Harvard prof.)
After thoroughly documenting violence's decline over the years,
Pinker gets to the topic promised by his subtitle: why has it
happened? Pinker is a psychologist, and goes into great detail
on brain physiology and function. ("The orbital cortex is strongly
connected to the amygdala, hypothalamus, another parts of the
brain involved with emotion.") How do violent thoughts get
generated, and how do they get translated into action? There
might be evolution at play, with selection over the
past centuries operating
in relative favor of brains that are better at controlling
impulses, for example. (But, Pinker cautions, maybe not.)
Instead, Pinker argues that the decline is more likely
due to actual old-fashioned
progress: the spread and interconnectedness of
rational thought, the easy availability of information,
the victory of positive-sum free-market mechanisms over
negative-sum command-and-control diktat. (And there's
also the Flynn Effect: we really are just getting smarter
as the years go on.)
Pinker is one of the best popularizers of science today.
His style is, as always, accessible, occasionally funny, and
very wide-ranging, with lots of pop culture references.
One can imagine how the chapters developed from lectures
provided to easily-bored Harvard students. Pinker is occasionally
glib and simplistic, especially when wandering too close
to current American politics. (He engages in some regrettable
Dubya-bashing, which he supports by quoting dubious research.)
But it's a big book, and you can hit the fast-forward during these
parts and not miss much.
Our third see-in-theatre summer blockbuster this year. A Superman movie
is
a must, of course. Even better when Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder
are involved. Michael Shannon as General "Kneel Before" Zod!
I was prepared to be blown away by its wonderfulness.
And I came away a bit let down. It was fine. Maybe even good. But …
Every sentient being knows the story here: it's a reboot, so
the origin story is told again: Russell Crowe instead of Brando
as Jor-El; Kevin Costner instead of Glenn Ford as Pa Kent;
Diane Lane instead of Phyllis Thaxter as Ma Kent;
Amy Adams in for Margot Kidder at the "Lois Lane" position;
no Lex Luthor, although some sharp eyeballs
spotted "Lexcorp" on a gasoline truck just before it blows up.
What's not to like?
Well, it's significantly more pretentious than previous Superman
flicks. You heard rumors of Christ analogies? They are there, and
they are heavy-handed.
The epic battles between Superman and Zod's forces
are special-effects heavy,
and they wreak massive destruction to both Metropolis and Smallville.
(This PG-13 flick, I guess, couldn't even hint at the massive
death toll of innocent bystanders. It makes the New York battle
in Avengers look like kids playing with cap guns.)
I was somewhat disappointed in the final fight scene. Without spoilers,
I found myself thinking: That was it? Why didn't he do that
before? Oh well.
And (again without spoilers): at a key confrontation, the Kryptonian
bad guys
make an unexplained, arbitrary demand that their human opponents
must go along with; as it turns
out, that becomes the eventual key to their undoing.
I'm griping a lot, but: the acting is fine, the effects are
awe-inspiring, and the plot is mostly gripping and moving.
So: four stars.
If you are some sort of hippie living in Austin, Texas, your first
association to the acronym
“WWVB“ might be “WorldWide Vegan Bakesale”. But for us geeks
with geeky watches, it’s the radio station in Fort
Collins, Colorado that
keeps us synchronized down to the second with Actual Time
according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
It is WWVB’s 50th anniversary on July 5, and there’s a nice
article on the Wired website about it and the folks
that keep it running. The article notes that the NIST’s time
service is available on the Internet, and any GPS device
can sync that way too. But:
Despite these challenges, Congress thinks NIST’s time radio broadcasts
are still essential to national infrastructure and recently granted $16
million for signal enhancements ([NIST honcho John] Lowe says they only used $100,000 and
were proud to return the rest).
Um, wow. “$16 Mil? Thanks, but we only need 0.625% of that.”
Ruben Bolling draws the comic strip Tom the Dancing Bug.
It’s sometimes left-wing, but always funny, so it’s a must read.
However, a couple of his recent strips caught my attention:
On June
27, Bolling’s point seems to be:
using a far-fetched scenario to justify
a favored policy is ludicrous.
But on June 28.
Bolling’s point seems to be:
far-fetched scenarios are just fine.
Gosh, it’s almost as if we shouldn’t rely on cartoonists, even funny
ones, for principled and sophisticated political commentary.
I was occasionally disappointed by Dubya when he was President.
But check out this
photo essay about his trip to Zambia, and try to tell me
that he isn’t a heck of a good person.
So, <voice
imitation="professor_farnsworth">Good news,
everyone!</voice> The Obama Administration has
decided to give businesses a one-year
delay in the Obamacare mandate requiring many businesses
to provide health insurance to many of their employees. Even
news sources usually in the President's back pocket point out the
obvious: it won't happen until after the 2014 elections.
The slimy political calculation is to be expected from Obama, of course.
Also expected: the Administration's complete contempt for the rule of
law. Some choice quotes:
[…] the IRS’s unilateral decision to delay the employer mandate is the
latest indication that we do not live under a Rule of Law, but under a
Rule of Rulers who write and rewrite laws at whim, without legitimate
authority, and otherwise compel behavior to suit their ends. Congress
gave neither the IRS nor the president any authority to delay the
imposition of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s employer
mandate.
Once again President Obama demonstrates a stunning disregard for a
duly enacted statute. Using what he apparently views as his executive
authority to pick and choose which statutes to enforce and which to
ignore, he grants a blanket exemption to businesses from compliance
with a central feature of his own signature health-care statute. His
action is not too dissimilar from his announcement
last year that he would unilaterally implement the DREAM Act, which
had hitherto languished in Congress, by declining to deport any and
all deportation-eligible illegals who met the requirements of the
never-enacted statute.
I could make a case that Congress should insist that the President
enforce the law, or else face impeachment. The fact that this suggestion
seems absurd says something about the state of the health care law.
However, it says even more about the state of our Republic.
We live in a country where the law has not only become unintelligible,
written in thousand-page chunks, but has morphed into a giant mass of
silly putty that can be reshaped as our rulers find convenient.
Thoughts to occupy your mind on Independence Day, 2013. We're
commemorating a document that scornfully looked down upon this
sort of hanky-panky tyranny, after all.
According to the BBC, Germans (including Prime Minister Anglela
Merkel) have taken to using the word "shitstorm".
Apparently it's more acceptable in polite company than
"scheißsturm" or "Obamacare".
A 2011 movie that wormed its way up the Netflix queue. It has a mediocre
IMDB user rating, but got a decent reception from critics (67% on the Tomatometer).
I was pleasantly surprised: I found it sweet and charming, in a low-key
way.
Paul Rudd plays Ned, the Idiot Brother of the title. Although his habits
are not made explicit, he has the mellow demeanor of someone whose THC
levels are well up there, all the time. This has made him friendly,
outgoing, generous, trusting, and (most importantly) dysfunctionally
naïve. So much so that he sells weed to a uniformed cop who
tells him a semi-plausible sob story. This lands him in the clink,
and when he gets out, his previous old lady has taken up with a new
hippie and doesn’t want him back on the farm. Also, she keeps his dog,
“Willie Nelson.” Dude, that’s mean!
So Ned falls back on family, primarily his three respectable sisters:
there’s Miranda (Elizabeth Banks) a wannabe journalist who is letting
her career overpower her life; Natalie (Zooey Deschanel), a wobbly lesbian
in a relationship with a no-nonsense lawyer (Rashida Jones); and Liz
(Emily Mortimer), married to a twit Brit filmmaker (Steve Coogan). Ned’s
traits (eventually) drive them all to distraction. But in an amusing way.
It’s rated R, but the raunch is not at the usual level of
R-rated comedies (Ted, Pineapple Express, et. al.)
Disclaimers:
Unquoted opinions expressed herein are solely those of the
blogger.
Pun Salad is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates
Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a
means for the blogger to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.