Dear Liberals

Dear liberals,

Please stop making sports analogies. It does not make you sound like regular folk, it makes you sound like the nerd you are.

-JD

PS: This is what I mean. Just listen to these nerds grasp at air hoping anyone else on the show knows what they're talking about. Just because March Madness is a thing doesn't mean everyone needs to pretend to care about it.

Double Standard

I just want to drop a quick note here, just for easy reference. If you encounter a conservative that claims that Barack Obama's actions would have been completely unacceptable under George W. Bush (here's an example), please tell them to shove it. As a personal favor to me.

This is a silly argument for two reasons:

1. They're complaining that nobody is complaining. Berra-esque.
2. Bush was a conservative.

This doesn't indicate a double standard in the media or the public, though, but with the people complaining. They're comparing apples and oranges. Obama is doing really conservative things, and getting a pass for that because he's a progressive.

Bush did the same thing. Big spending, big government? Not conservative ideals. And Bush got a pass because he ninja'd it through with a bunch of batshit conservative initiatives. So, again, the double standard only applies to the big dummies claiming there's a double standard.

The Insanity of Ron Paul

Like other people on the internet, I like Ron Paul. I'm with the majority of my generation in supporting his opposition to our wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, Terror and Drugs. I like the idea of personal liberty, and his staunch support for what is a fundamental right forgotten all too often. I find the way he talks to be, quite frankly, goddamn adorable - like he's about to give me a chocolate bar and a copy of The Fountainhead and pinch me on the cheek. I want to have Thanksgiving dinner with him and get into a long discussion about the role of government in a modern society.

The down side to Ron Paul, though, is that he's fucking crazy.

Pictured: Mel Gibson

You might be thinking that's just a biased opinion - and you might be right, ahdunno. But I have evidence to support my assertion, so hear me out. Imagine, just for a moment, he's nothing more than a doddering old fool with a hardly a legislative achievement to his name who, much like Mel Gibson's character in Conspiracy Theory,  happened to stumble on an actual impending crisis and that happenstance unleashed everything that followed. With that frame of mind, don't a few things make a little more sense?

His racist newsletters, for example. There are two possible versions of events here. Either he knew about the hateful language and was okay with it, or he published multiple newsletters with his name on them without a single care as to their actual contents. I tend to believe Paul's just a racist old guy, like nearly every other old guy I've ever met, but either way that's some crazy stuff. Note also that for his official explanation he picked the crazier of the two already-crazy options; His name and reputation were on the line and he was making millions of dollars off these newsletters, but he never had the wherewithal to actually read the darn things? How quirky.

Jackson contemplating
unilateral invasion of Canada

It should be noted, also, that his first response to the newsletters as campaign fodder wasn't to disavow his bigoted statements, but rather to defend them, as a campaign official told the Houston Chronicle the statements, "mirror pronouncements by black leaders such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson." (This respect for Jackson coming despite Paul's apparent disdain for the Civil Rights movement.) Also, there's video of him acknowledging the newsletters in 1996, and again not so much as distancing himself from the hateful language in them. Curioser and curioser.

But that's not all! Some people are starting to actually talk about some of Paul's batshit economic ideas as he rises to prominence. Like, switching to the gold standard - a move the entire world has been moving away from for a variety of reasons. Or abolishing the Federal Reserve, something not done since our last lunatic President, Andrew Jackson.

I like the fact that even when he's saying something loopy, Paul says it with practiced conviction. I like that he stands up for what he believes in despite political headwinds. But that is not a good thing in the face of an impending general election - Paul will be forced at some point, inevitably, to either defend a crazy belief until its absurdity is clear, or hedge and lose credibility as the tough-talk candidate. Can't you just imagine Barack Obama nonchalantly devastating Paul by pressing him on his belief that the Civil War shouldn't have been waged? Or, similarly, that equality is a state's rights issue?

Of the entire GOP field, Paul is one of maybe two guys I genuinely like. I would love to see him win his party's nomination. But part of that conviction has nothing to do with our similar beliefs, or my fascination with his Furby-esque speaking presence, but rather my abiding conviction that he would lose handily to Democratic opposition in a national election.

Moneyball Fever

I really wanted to review the film Moneyball before it was too late, to the point that I got excited enough to order my tickets in advance. Had the whole day planned out, friends were invited, clothes were clean. Relatively. And then I got sick. While I should warn you I fear for your safety, as the Black Plague has apparently somehow combined with HIV, I feel somehow compelled to fight through my sudden illness and soldier on. If Muhammed cannot go to the mountain, or whatever. I don't have the energy for tropes.

What the hell do they use to flavor NyQuil? Fermented DayQuil?

Anyway. With full intention of buying a ticket at a later date, and eventually the DVD, I decided to simply torrent a copy of the film via a reputable pirating agency. On the downside, I had to wait forever for the movie to download (nearly an hour - seed, people!), and the copy I got was clearly a cam bootleg, but the upswing is that I finished nearly my entire bottle of NyQuil beforehand. I found my experience to be thoroughly enhanced.

Everyone seems to rave about the script, and I can't disagree. Written by Steve Zaillan (also known as "Schindler," most famous for his listing prowess), Aaron "West Wing Social Network" Sorkin, and some other guy, the script is tight, adult, and has just the right mix of wit, humor, heartbreak and melancholy. Never pretentious, but always unique and enthralling, the script broods on impulse, analyzes instincts, and - most importantly - makes a king of the nerd in a land of jocks. Very satisfying.,

The cinematography is subdued but interesting, allowing the journey but never forcing it. The acting is impeccable - Brad Pitt turns out another chameleon performance, and co-star Jonah Hill reminds viewers how likable he was before he lost all that weight. I should have nothing but good things to say about this film. Sadly, though, that's not the case.

How the camera was pointed is fine - great cinematography, whatever - but the actual quality of the picture was awful. Blurry, often out of focus, I found it to be terribly distracting. Similarly, I noticed an incredible usage of what seemed to be a Cloverfield-esque motion blur, with the picture constantly shaking and occasionally disappearing from view entirely. It all had the feel of 90's-era TV footage.

Worse yet, several times during the film, a person can clearly be seen standing between the viewer and the scene - totally unrelated to the context of the film, appearing only as an indistinguishable humanoid shadow, seemign to do nothing more than stand up, shuffle slowly to one side of the screen, disappear for a few minutes, and then do the same things in reverse. I can't fathom what sort of creative desision making lead the filmmakers to okay an idea like that, but I found it utterly distracting.

The audio is muffled and often intelligible, as well. At one point, you can literally overhear a young couple arguing over the dialogue of a crucial scene. I assume it was noise from the set, but even that's disquieting as the disagreement seemed to be over whether an actor in the scene was or wasn't Philip Seymour Hoffman. (It totally was.)

Even that isn't the worst of it, though. At one pont - and I know this sounds strange but I recall it perfectly, as I'd just cracked open my second bottle of cough syrup - my grandmother appeared onscreen and recounted an embarrassing story from my youth. Why the director would include that, and how he got footage of the situation, is truly baffling.

From an artistic standpoint, I can find very few flaws with the film, but I'm afraid the technical problems, and the strange scene involving my grandmother, really limited the film and my immersion therein. 3/5

Healthcare 2010: From Death Panels to National Security

What do you do when you have no foreign policy credentials, and your aim is to take down a President who's won two wars and killed our most hated national enemy? Pull out the old standard bogeyman, of course!

Goes along quite well with a story in Politico about the complete lack of foreign policy in the debates -- due to the complete lack of experience among the current nominees. If they don't do something to neutralize this advantage for Obama, it could prove damaging down the line. Will they all stoop to such inane and pathetic tactics? Only time will tell.

But yeah, I mean, they probably will.