Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Monday, November 20, 2006

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada




I cant believe I havent seen this movie before - absolutely fantastic!!! This might be one of the greatest postmodern political films ever made. Its about the accidental murder of Melquiades (Mel-key-aid-us) Estrada, a Vaquero, or cowboy. It is told in flashbacks. Pete Perkins (Tommy Lee Jones) is a Texas rancher, struggling to run his ranch. Estrada rides up on horseback, an absolutely beautiful horse, and asks if he can have some water. Pete asks him where he is from, why he is here. Estrada waits, answers, he is from Mexico, he is looking for work. What kind of work Pete asks him. I am a cowboy, he answers, a Vaquero. Pete smiles. He recognizes something about Estrada - something traditional, proud - cowboy values. they become friends and Estrada tells Pete about his hometown in Mexico, where the air is fresh, the water clean, he shows Pete a picture of his wife and children. Pete asks how long it has been since Estrada has seen them : five years he replies. Pete almost cries. Estrada asks Pete to "take me home" if anything happens to him. So when Estrada is killed, Pete digs him up, kidnaps a border patrol agent named Mike Norton who shot Estrada (Barry Pepper, the sniper from Saving Private Ryan) and they ride to Mexico. I wont spoil the ending. It is an incredible movie. There is one scene in a diner with Rachel the waitress whore and Lou Ann (Mike Norton's wife), and the diner interior is so sterile, so plain, so empty, and the song in the background is an old Roger Miller song, "You cant roller skate in a buffalo herd..." a song that is meaningless, and you get the feeling the director wanted: these people are empty, their lives have no meaning. Watch for appearances from Levon Helm (drummer from The Band)who plays an old, blind cowboy, and the Sheriff who has erectile dysfunction played by singer Dwight Yoakam. It is a movie about paradise lost, how our world is crazy, and how one man retains his sense of loyalty, friendship and Justice. A must see rental!

Dr. Strangelove Kissinger on Iraq


Henry Kissinger, (the real Dr. Strangelove who brought us the Christmas bombing of North Vietnam and the invasion of Cambodia which resulted in the Khmer Rouge dictatorship and 1/3 of the population dead), has advised Pres Bush to stay the course in Iraq, at least according to Bob Woodward in State of Denial

However, he has now changed his mind, 650,000 dead Iraqis later. Military victory is no longer possible in Iraq, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said in a television interview broadcast Sunday.

Kissinger presented a bleak vision of Iraq, saying the U.S. government must enter into dialogue with Iraq's regional neighbors — including Iran — if progress is to be made in the region.

"If you mean by 'military victory' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible," he told the British Broadcasting Corp.

Thanks for the advice Henry. BTW, don't leave the country, you are wanted for war crimes.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Head Butt now part of French Culture


Yes the head butt is now expected of every French citizen, including beauty queens. Here is Ms. France head butting one of her opponents!

"Bond, James Bond."




English sculptor Chris Gilmour's take on the myth of 007 is—to put it politely—ambivalent. Working exclusively with corrugated cardboard harvested from dumpsters near his home base in Udine, Italy, the artist has created Pussy Galore, an exhibit that contains an exact replica of 007's famous Aston Martin DB5, right down to the (faux) tire-slashers, machine guns, and rocket launchers. "I wanted to take the idea of James Bond as this glamorous, invincible superhero and contrast it with an object made of total rubbish," explains Gilmour, who's asking $30,000 for his cardboard creation and takes care to note that the project wasn't intended as yet another crass product tie-in. "I started working on it long before I knew the film was even coming out, so it's a very happy coincidence."

The DB5 is one of the most beautiful cars ever made.

free viagra in Brazil: mucho gracias!


BRASILIA, Brazil - The mayor of a small Brazilian town has begun handing out free Viagra, spicing up the sex lives of dozens of elderly men and their partners.

“Since we started the free distribution of sexual stimulants, our elderly population changed. They’re much happier,” said Joao de Souza Luz, the mayor of Novo Santo Antonio, a small town in the central state of Mato Grosso.

Souza Luz said 68 men over the age of 60 had already signed up for the program, which was approved by the town’s legislature and has been dubbed “Happy Penis,” or “Pinto Alegre” in Portuguese.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Bush in Vietnam

George W. Bush finally made it to Vietnam - only as a civilian. He is there for trade talks, read that sweat shops. He said that we won't make the mistake in Iraq that we did in Vietnam, "quitting before the job is done." He gets that from henry kissinger, the war crimes guy from the 1970's. Kissinger has told bush that the reason we lost Vietnam was because the public lost support for the war, but we were in fact winning the war when we started to withdraw. The problem is that Bush really believes that - there is no way the Vietnamese would ever stop fighting for independence. Kissinger must have drank the coolaid and served some to Bush - There was no way we could have won that war, except killing all the vietnamese and you know the expression, "let god sort them out." The Pentagon Papers revealed that the CIA knew the war was unwinable - the strength of the Vietcong in the south was overwhelming. Bush gets poor advice from his advisors - he surrounds himself with advisors who have hidden agendas, who revise history and spin history for their own ideological goals. What happened to Kissinger the Realpolitik guy? You know, we have no permanent interests other than what advances our interests? Kissinger is an egomaniac who cannot accept that he was wrong, so he spins the history of the Vietnam war to make himself look like the rejected genius who was right all along.

Cool paper airplane - The Manta

Watch this physics professor show you how to make a great flying paper airplane! He tests it out in a classroom....

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

What the Democrats will do now that they control Congress!

1. Mandatory homosexuality
2. Drug-filled condoms in schools
3. Introduce the new Destruction of Marriage Act
4. Border fence replaced with free shuttle buses
5. Withdraw from Iraq, apologize, reinstate Hussein
6. English language banned from all Federal buildings
7. All taxes to be tripled
8. Tofurkey to be named official Thanksgiving dish
9. Freeways to be removed, replaced with light rail systems (wait - this is a good idea -this doesn't count)
9. Texas returned to Mexico
10. Carter added to Mount Rushmore

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Santorum's son flashes the bird


here is Rick Santorum, giving his concession speech with his family, but his son sums up the real feelings! Back in 1994, when Santorum was elected, someone told John Kerry that the new Senator from Pennsylvania is Rick Santorum. Kerry thought for a moment, then said "Santorum means anal sex in Latin." He is right, and everyone laughed at the irony.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Muslims-Jews Peace House at Rutgers Univ.


Eleven female students, including five Jewish, three Muslim, one Hindu, one Christian and a student who is agnostic, will live and study together this year at Jameson Residence Hall at Douglass College, a female college within Rutgers University. Their goal: to learn about the Middle East and ultimately to improve Jewish-Muslim relations at Rutgers and beyond.

The new Middle East Coexistence House, which opened this month, is part of the Global Village of living-learning communities at Douglass. Designed to train ambassadors of peacemaking and conflict resolution, the house is built on the conviction that women bring special skills to the work of intercultural understanding – that, in fact, peace efforts in the Middle East will fail until women are at the table.

Danielle Josephs, a Douglass College senior, envisioned the house and proposed the idea to Carmen Twillie Ambar, dean of Douglass College.

Prior to this, there were demonstrations both pro Israel and Pro Arab on campus, some of which turned ugly: chants of "death to the Jews." The Univ even cancelled some conferences on the middle east because of tensions among jewish and muslim students. Danielle Josephs, head of the Hillel Center (Jewish student center) on campus came up with this idea her sophomore year. She had to talk to conservative muslim students' families (parents, siblings etc) because devout muslims are very family centered: would this be safe? Would religious rituals be respected?

This is so beautiful - one young woman can transform a campus, maybe even more. Fantastic!

Sunday, November 05, 2006

U Penn President Amy Gutmann

President Gutmann of the Univ of Pennsylvania poses with one of her students at her annual Halloween Ball. Needless to say, apologies were made afterward. Can this be any worse? yes, Pres. Gutmann is jewish.

Story of Job: Animated

Here is an outstanding presentation of the story of Job, from the Bible. Funny, accurate, good message.

Friday, November 03, 2006

Ted Haggard comes out of the closet


Here is the link for Ted Haggard, the evangelical christian leader who has close ties to George W. Bush, and who has admitted paying for sex with an male prostitute (who is African American)who also provided him with drugs. He is the head of the National Association of Evangelicals, and pastor of the 14,000 member New Life Church in Colorado Springs. He graduated from Oral Roberts University (an oxymoron - "Oral Roberts University) and has two"honorary" doctor of divinity degrees. Heck, I have a divinity degree too, from the Universal Life Church! So this comes out one week before the elections. I almost (almost) feel sorry for the republicans.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Laura Bush: "Careful what you say..."


Laura Bush has said we should be careful what we say about Iraq, because the enemy is listening. What nerve! If only her incompetent husband would listen to alternatives. The mess in Iraq is clearly his fault, and the fault of Donald Rumsfeld. In the planning of the war, there was no post war planning. As an afterthought, a few weeks before the invasion, Rumsfeld and Bush brought Gen. Ray Garner out of retirement to head up post war Iraq. He only had weeks, but did a good job of finding administrators and coming up with a strategic list (1. Provide clean water, handle sewage 2) resume pumping oil....and so forth). But Rumsfeld didnt like his list of people - too many from State Dept, some were linked with the Clinton administration. So Garner had to go over there with only a minimal staff. Then the looting began: no one had a plan to stop looting, and the Army didnt want to act as police (they shouldnt, they are warriors not police officers). The ministries were looted so bad, Garner had to repair them with tarp and tape. Then he negotiated with the Iraqi army generals and the top Baathist administrators: they would return to work for a one time payment of $20, and promises that within 3 weeks their paychecks would be restored. Thats about $3-5 million for an Iraqi army and bureaucracy - a bargain! Garner wanted to use the Iraqi military to rebuild the country: kinda a military core of construction workers. But Bush picked Paul Bremer and replaced Garner, without first telling Garner. Bremer told Garner the Iraqi army would be disbanded, and no member of the Baathist party could work for the government: overnight Garner figured we made about 300,000 enemies. Garner told Bremer that it would take at least 3 years to build a new army and get the country working again, and during that time, he said "we will be sending teenagers home in body bags." So we should be careful about what we say Ms. Librarian? This is the worst case of "Groupthink" since the Bay of Pigs invasion - the problem with Iraq is the poor planning and execution of post war conditions, something almost completely overlooked by a group of ideological, cool aid drinking incompetents, headed by the Incompetent in Chief, George W. Bush.