For Smart People, You’re Awfully Damn Dumb

Filed under:Jerks,Politics,Priorities,Sad — posted by Anwyn on March 31, 2009 @ 9:12 pm

Auto execs who flew their corporate jets to DC to shill for taxpayer money for stockholder corporations? Dumb. Bankers and financial gurus who insisted certain businesses were too big to be allowed to fail? Dumb.

You shilled for all that taxpayer money and honestly didn’t believe it would have government filaments unbreakably attached to every single dollar? Really? You didn’t consider the possibility of Obama handing you your marching orders every day from now on? Really?

God, are you dumb.

I’d rather be the one to be telling you what to do, since it’s my money, but hey, it’s some untraceably small percentage, so my elected representatives whom I didn’t vote for get to tell you what to do instead. Isn’t it fun to get barrels of money from an apparently limitless well?

God, are you dumb. Our country’s economy may die, and if it does, your hands were on the stake through its heart.

Buy Honda. And Toyota and Nissan. And Hyundai. And Mercedes and BMW and Volvo and Volkswagen. Drive the government out of the car business. And hoard your cash and drive them out of the banking and financial services business, too. Out.

He Did It All for Charity?

Filed under:Priorities,Toys, Adults' — posted by Anwyn on March 30, 2009 @ 8:09 pm

Am I the only one who finds this a bit self-indulgent?

A guy rowed across the Atlantic–successfully–to support cancer research. He hoped to raise $500,000. He’s raised $100,000. But:

He and his sister spent $60,000 of their own savings to have his boat custom built, and he took a leave of absence from his financial services job.

Seems to me if he’d donated the $60,000 plus a percentage of the salary lost during his leave of absence, he could have done as much good as he’s done so far without all the soreness, exposure, and freeze-dried food. But then he wouldn’t have a custom-built boat and the honor of being the third American to row the Atlantic.

Or maybe I’m just a grinch. I guess he could’ve just bought the boat.

Via Instapundit.

Also, maybe I didn’t emphasize this enough–he’s raised $100,000, or only 20 percent of his goal. Which makes him utterly unlike the Canadian mentioned by Janie in the comments, who ran across Canada–a place known to contain people to ask for $1, unlike the Atlantic Ocean–and raised over $24 million even though he was ultimately unsuccessful at running coast to coast due to his own cancer, which took his life soon after. Raise your hand if you believe CNN would have covered this had something happened to prevent Paul Ridley from rowing the whole way across the Atlantic. So, yes, his success at completing the journey has drawn attention and will probably draw funds, but two points: 1) He clearly focused more on buying the boat and getting it and himself ready than on raising funds, and 2) If he had been unsuccessful, he’d still have the boat and the attempt, but probably not nearly as many funds. He took a rather large risk of blowing the whole venture and completely stalling out at $100,000.

I’ll wait and see where his funds totals end up, but I think the comparison with Terry Fox is strained at best.

No Veronica Mars Movie for Now

Filed under:Movies,Television — posted by Anwyn on March 27, 2009 @ 8:44 am

I can’t really say I’m crying much about this. Veronica was always a merry-go-round between in-love-and-kinda-tortured and on-the-outs-and-kinda-tortured but always utterly self-possessed, and that’s how the series ended: Veronica standing alone and us waiting to see what round she would take on the chin next. A movie would do …. what? Serenity cleared up one large Firefly plot device (Reavers) with aplomb, but also, oh yeah, killed not one but two major characters while it was at it, because Joss is something of a sadistic mofo when he wants to be and hey! life never changes on a dime and if actors say they’re not going to do any more Firefly movies, well then, by gad, kill their characters quick because they’ll never change their minds.

Okay, maybe I have a small issue with movies meant to wrap up TV shows. But in the case of Veronica Mars, what is there left to wrap up? There will be a mystery, and there will be the side-issue of Veronica’s love story. Will they bring back Duncan in yet another improbable twist–reconciliation, with his kidnapping of his daughter and his commissioning of the murder of Aaron Echolls hanging over him? They lose all the Logan-Veronica shippers that way. Will it be a happy ending for Logan and Veronica instead? Unlikely, given Rob Thomas’s preference for keeping them on-again, off-again. So what’s left? The mystery. Rob Thomas had one awesome idea, the solution to question of Lily’s murderer in season one, and he played it out masterfully over the course of the full season. The other two seasons, not so much with the awesome ideas. What’s left to do? Veronica ended on a noir-ish note of standing alone with things going wrong, but with the idea that Veronica would pull through as she always does.

At this point I just don’t think there’s much more to say of her than that.

H/t: J.

Made of WHAT?

Filed under:Cool,Movies,Toys, Adults' — posted by Anwyn on March 26, 2009 @ 5:33 pm

Paper. Can you believe these Star Wars models are made of paper? You can download the instructions and make your own. In my next life, maybe, where there will be twin suns and more hours in the day and more days in the year. Wow.

Beware, some these models are somewhat difficult to build.

You don’t say!

H/t: J.

“Of Course I Am”

Filed under:Cool,Hot,Television — posted by Anwyn @ 9:55 am

Is there anything cuter than David Boreanaz, except of course for Nathan Fillion?

(Aside: Joss kind of has a type, doesn’t he?)

(Aside: I feel so sorry for Rachael with her voice problem. I hope her doctors and therapists are able to sort her out. Judging by the sound of her voice on the above video, they are still postponing surgery.)

(Via Whedonesque.)

Republican Party, Democrat Party … Tea Party

Filed under:Politics,Priorities — posted by Anwyn on March 19, 2009 @ 9:22 am

Term limits, flat taxes, strong national and border defense, strong Second Amendment, and the vote only to people who pay taxes (though, contra Neal Boortz’s position quoted at that link, it should still be one person, one vote). And then if you want to let the government buy your vote (literally: pay you taxpayers’ money so that you then lose your vote), that’s your own funeral.

I used to be against that last, but if we’re really headed into a situation where ever-larger numbers of people will be on the government dole, let them choose between the taxpayers’ money and their ability to vote more of it to themselves. That’s fine.

And as for the name, it’s not much sillier than “whig.”

On second thought, if we allowed only taxpayers to vote, would we need term limits quite so much? If legislators had to run for re-election but didn’t have to bother promising taxpayer handouts to people who couldn’t vote, would we need to limit terms? Feel free to discuss, if anybody’s still reading here.

Castle

Filed under:Reviews,Television — posted by Anwyn on March 9, 2009 @ 11:15 pm

Pretty straightforward (both the show, and this review): He’s good, although so far the writers aren’t allowing him to show much real feeling, and she’s pretty bad. They’re both playing a bit over the top, but with him it seems like that’s the only way he thinks the character would go over, while with her it feels like it’s just the only way she knows how to play it. What her character needs: More Dani Reese. Stat. Play it down and actually have a hard shell, not just pretend to.

And while this article (via Whedonesque) goes on at length about their chemistry, so far I see no evidence of it. She’s about as attractive as a cast-iron icicle. He’s doing a little better, more like James Woods as Shark, but you can’t make a fire without friction.

Verdict: Will last longer than Drive, but that’s a pretty low bar. Put up something real pretty soon, guys.



image: detail of installation by Bronwyn Lace