URLs du Jour

2007-10-02

  • We've discussed geoengineering approaches to global warming mitigation before; today, John Tierney brings us up to date, pointing out a new proposal from a surprising source.

  • You might also want to check out Stuart Taylor's tie-it-all-together column in National Journal, where he finds the common threads between academia's treatment of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Erwin Chemerinsky, Lawrence Summers, and Jim Gilchrist. If you haven't been paying attention over the past few weeks, it's a good review. Concluding paragraph:
    In the words of George Mason's [Professor David] Bernstein, "The Chemerinsky episode, disturbing though it was, should not distract us from the primary challenge facing academic freedom in American universities: the rise of an academic far-left establishment that seeks to use universities as a base for political activism and is perfectly willing to violate accepted standards of academic freedom to achieve that goal."
    Well, yeah. The Bernstein quote is from this LATimes op-ed, also well worth reading.

  • Fred Thompson fans should find this article by J. Peter Mulhern cheering:
    Conventional wisdom is hardening around the proposition that Fred Dalton Thompson is too lazy, ill-prepared, tired, old, lackluster, inexperienced, inconsistent and bald to make a successful run for President.

    Of course, conventional wisdom rarely gets anything right. When it does, it's only by accident.

    In this case conventional wisdom is not just wrong but comically so. Thompson will win the Republican nomination for two reasons. First, he's a very impressive candidate. Second, there's no realistic alternative. He will win the general election for the same two reasons.

    (Via Instapundit.)

  • Do you find you're using too many old clichés? Well, then get on over to the Cliché Rotation Project, and find out the new clichés you can use instead. Or you can suggest your own. For example, instead of:
    A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
    … replace with:
    A website is only as good as its …
    No, wait, that doesn't work at all. Darn, this is harder than it looks!

  • Speaking of which: are they Iraq War Clichés … or something else?

Knocked Up

[Amazon Link]
(paid link)
[4.0 stars] [IMDb Link]

This is the culmination of the Wife Out of Town Film Festival. This movie is pretty good, but probably too irredeemably filthy to appeal to Mrs. Salad.

But, in addition to being irredeemably filthy, it's also very funny, and (as many reviewers noted) sends out strong pro-life, pro-family values, and pro-personal responsibility themes. Kids these days!

The premise is that Ben, an affable dope-smoking loser, falls into a one-night stand with the lovely, upwardly-mobile Alison. (She works for E!) And—you may have guessed it from the title—through a drunken misunderstanding about the need for precaution, she winds up pregnant.

Both Ben and Alison get introduced to each others' worlds. Alison lives with her sister and brother-in-law, who have a strained marriage; Ben lives with four male pot-soaked no-visible-means-of-support zero-prospect buddies, barely above savagery. Much amusement results.

Alison is played by Katherine Heigl, who—honest—I hadn't seen in a movie since she played Steven Seagal's niece in Under Siege 2: Dark Territory. I think it would have been kind of cool for Steven Seagal to show up and kick Ben's ass for getting his niece pregnant, but this brilliant idea didn't make it into this movie.

Harold Ramis has a small role as Ben's father; Joanna Kerns has an even smaller one as Alison's mom. It was nice to see both of them again, but Joanna Kerns has aged much, much better than Ramis.


Last Modified 2024-02-02 4:18 AM EDT