Eevaa?

We went to see Pixar's Wall-E last night. This is one time that the critics are absolutely right. Wall-E is an absolutely wonderful movie that is not only beautiful to look at, but left me trying not to get choked up at several points. It's just that good.

One of the things that amazes me about Pixar films is idea that their films cost over a million dollars a minute to make and yet they never allow that cost to limit the story. One of the more jaw-dropping scenes in Wall-E was a robot ballet in space that must of covered five minutes of screen time. You can just hear some Disney corporate executive upon seeing that seem complaining that it doesn't move quickly enough or advance the narrative.

Tough luck . It was one of the most beautiful things I've seen on screen. Ever. Kudos to the Pixar engineers and artists that choreographed and rendered that sequence.

Reviewers are bringing up the obvious cinematic influences on this movie from Star Wars to 2001: A Space Odyssey. For my part the film evoked comparisons to one of my favorite science fiction films; Silent Running. From it's strong pro-environmental message to it's smart, cute robots it has a lot in common to that earlier film.

While Wall-E's environmental message is timely it's the theme of the film; that we shouldn't lose our sense of connectedness to others or the world we live in, that will really resonate with audiences. Wall-E is the darnright sweetest film I've seen since E.T. How else would you describe a film in which the driving goal of it's hero is just to hold hands with another living creature?

At it's heart is a love for humanity that practically bleeds through the screen. Which is an odd thing for a film in which the protagonist is a robot.

If you have some time this weekend then brave the lines and see the remarkable Wall-E. It doesn't disappoint.

And one more thing, what you choose to call hell, he calls home.

Watching the news this week I found out that Americans love the Second Amendment but could care less for the Fourth.

The New York Times calls this "pragmatism."

I think the Founders might of had a different word for it.

Trust me, Wilbur. People are very gullible. They'll believe anything they see in print.

Oregon (pronounced Ore-gun, btw) has a proud tradition of independent-minded politicians who won't allow party identification to sway their votes on the issues.

From Democratic Senator Wayne Morse who was only one of two votes against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution to Republican Governor Tom McCall who was instrumental in pushing Oregon's innovative land-use policies, public beach access and other environmental measures, this state's most revered politicians are those they strike out on their own and follow their own conscience.

So it's not surprising that Republican Senator Gordon Smith has decided to pose as an independent for his re-election. Even in a year in which the tide wasn't pushing so strongly towards Democrats, Gordo would still be trying to pretend he was some sort of maverick that regularly worked across the aisle rather than the Bush-toady that he is.

Smith took to heart the most important lesson of the Bush presidency that in this era of postmodern politics words speak louder than actions. Thus a fiercely partisan Senator like himself could portray himself as a moderate though he voted with his party and the President on practically every issue, supported every one of that president's nominations to the court and even for the impeachment of president Clinton. One's man's moderate is another man's political hack.

Smith's made national news for a couple of campaign ads he's run recently. In the first former Democratic congresswoman Elizabeth Furse claims Smith was "one of the first in congress to stand up to George Bush on the Iraq war." A claim belied by the fact that it took the Republican hammering in the 2006 election for Smith to "See the light" on Iraq. Up to that point he was a reliable pro-war vote in the Senate.

His most recent ad which just began airing is almost more audacious in a sense in that it implies that Smith, the campaign chair in Oregon for John McCain's campaign, is endorsed for his re-election by none other than Barack Obama. Here's the ad--



Congressman Earl Blumenauer (my favorite bow tie wearing pol at the moment) released this response to Smith's silliness--



Personally, I'm enjoying all of the national attention this is getting. Smith may have tried painting the pig that is his voting record one to many times. Oregon voters aren't buying it this time around. We can hear the oinking.

Now they got the whole country sectioned off, you can't make a move without a form.

It hit me last night that the problem with our political leaders is that they haven't spent enough time watching and reading works of science fiction.

With regards to literature they should be reading the imagined worlds of Aldous Huxley, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Ray Bradbury, Robert A. Heinlein, Margaret Atwood, Neal Stephenson, H.G. Wells ("When the Sleeper Wakes",) Alan Moore and George Orwell. *

Then they should turn their attention to the depiction of future dystopian societies in film by watching Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, Terry Gilliam's Brazil, Ridley Scott's Bladerunner, Kurt Wimmer's Equilibrium, Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men, Michael Anderson's Logan's Run, John Carpenter's Escape from New York, Jose Whedon's Serenity and even Mike Judge's Idiocracy just to get themselves started.

At that point our political leaders should have enough information to consider all these horrible imagined futures where the individual is supplicant to the corporation or the government, and then figure out a way to keep these dystopias from fucking happening.

I'm talking to you, you bunch of FISA bill supporting monkeys.

(*This list could be much, much longer but I'm specifically excluding author Ayn Rand from the list of authors because I believe her ultimate fear wasn't so much an oppressive state but a state employed in the service of equity under the control of common men. She wasn't as much concerned in the suppression of the individual as she was the suppression of "superior" individuals, herself included.)

To make a living people do many things God doesn't do.

I'm just going to do post covering all the stuff that's been on my mind and "clear the decks" in in a sense.

WEASELS - We were never going to win on FISA. If you think about it it's been Democrats that have allowed this to come close to passage each time until the netroots screamed bloody murder. I don't have a shadow of a doubt that party leaders decided after the last go round to spike it until the presidential primaries were over in order to give whomever our nominee was cover. Disgusting.

ET TU, BARACK? - A professor of constitutional law that doesn't understand the constitutionality of ex post facto law. It feels so great to see him trying to hide behind the skirts of the Dodd amendment to pull retroactive immunity. The chances of that passing are about as good as me flapping my wings and flying. Filibuster or die Mr. Obama.

DEVIL'S BARGAIN - With FISA in mind we get to vote for the President that will appall us regularly in the tradition of George W. Bush or the President that will disappoint us regularly in the tradition of Bill Clinton. Yay democracy!

THIS LITTLE PIGGY - Swinebread has outed himself as a looming papa. I know Mr. and Mrs. Swinebread in real life and I can tell you that little boy (they know) is going to have GREAT parents. Can't wait to meet the little bugger.

PALACE COUP AT FABER - Overdroid took advantage of the fact I was on vacation to utilize his long forgotten administrative rights to throw a wild Tom Tommorrow party at my blog. Lucky for me the damage was minimized when Overdroid got a spur of the moment job teaching improv to trial lawyers at Pepperdine at an event hosted by the infamous Ken Starr. I am not making that up.

LIKE A PACK OF WILD DINGOS - Ever watched one of those nature programs where a pack of dogs take down a gazelle? That's sort of what Franiam does with James Dobson. She doesn't even leave enough meat on the bones for the jackals.

SEVEN DIRTY WORDS - I have little to add to all the great eulogies of George Carlin but I admired the guy for the simple fact that he lived by nobodies rules but his own. He didn't broker bullshit and he didn't suffer fools. He'll be missed greatly.

TOLD YOU SO - Don Imus is a racist. Anybody with half a brain that listened to his show could tell you that. People with half a brain don't listen to his show so there you are.

IS HE PLUGGED IN? - I'm surprised John McCain is offering a prize for car battery. If anything I see him hoping they develop a better battery for pacemakers.

GOOD NORTHWEST POL - Oregon Representative Peter DeFazio has reintroduced his windfall profits tax on the oil industry bill. Among other things his bill would allow oil companies to avoid the tax if they spent some of any windfall profit on researching alternative energy sources or increasing refining capacity. It would also ban the export of any oil obtained on U.S. soil. Naturally the oil companies are against his bill.

BAD NORTHWEST POL - Washington state congressman Brian Baird who I listened to in an interview this morning. Among other acts of wankery he completely ignored a caller's point on FISA that the domestic spying had begun before 9/11 and argued that the surge was a success. Vancouver dems do us a favor and get rid of that asshole.

WORSTEST NORTHWEST POL- Senator Gordon Smith is a lying asshole. Smith says he's "one of the first to stand up to George Bush and other Republicans to end this war." Yeah, four years after the fact when he grew a spine. Shame on you Elizabeth Furse for going along with this crap.

I DID NOT KNOW THAT - Liberality hates flooding and rap music. If you rap about flooding she'll probably punch you in the face.

HELTER SKELTER- Joe the Troll wonders if Charles Manson associate Susan Adkins deserves freedom because she has six months to live. Only if she carves a little peace sign into her forehead.

COOL! - If I use a list of links to link to a dr. zaius list of links will it collapse the universe? I hope so.

I told you I had a lot on my mind.

Continue with the operation; you may fire when ready.

>I got about fifty things I want to post about right now but very little time so instead I give you this cool link with which you can generate your own Star Wars intro.

I'm sure you guys can come up with something funny. Especially Dr. Zaius. Underpants Wars?

Here's one of mine...

UPDATE- In the time it took me to write this post, find a quote and a picture Lucasfilm sent a cease and desist and shut the website down.

They want to keep the crap content exclusive to themselves and the Bearded One himself.

Jerks

Daylight's precious when your a youngen'.

Back.

We had a wonderful time in and about Sparta, North Carolina for the past week or so. We were visiting my father in law who built a beautiful house pretty much by himself just outside Sparta.

Although there were no Civil War sites nearby :( we did get a chance to take in some of the local culture and cuisine. Here's a few pics---

View from the deck of my FILs house. The kids spent a ton of time swimming in that river.

We were surprised when a huge thunderstorm come through out of nowhere.

My FILs cat loves to catch critters. He eats everything but the tail. I think this is what remains of a squirrel.

We spent a day at old Salem in Winston Salem. The juxtaposition of modern buildings with 200+ year old gunsmith shops and bakeries was a bit odd.

This coke machine was behind a stall door in an original barn. Obviously the settlers were way ahead of their time.

George Washington slept in this tavern...

...in this room.

Downtown Winston Salem was hosting their annual ribfest. It was a pigacaust of biblical proportions.

These guys made the best ribs IMHO. Their name was "Sgt. Oink." Were it up to me he would be promoted to Colonel Oink.

Note all the trophies with little pigs on top of them. They take their ribs VERY seriously.

Mount Airy was a quaint little town that plays up the fact that Andy Griffith was born there and based many of the characters in his show on the people and places there. For example you can take a guided tour in one of these show-themed police cruisers.

The famous statue of Andy and Opie which stands in front of the Andy Griffith museum.

My favorite part of the whole day. In the middle of the South at the birthplace of Andy Griffith and the apex of hometown values the first thing we saw when we parked in the visitor lot was this Obama headquarters sign. Did my heart proud seeing this.

Tweetsie's Railroad was a themepark built around an actual coal locomotive ride that gets attacked by bandits.

Some of the wicked desperados.

Fighting off "Red Devil." Sigh.

All in all it was a wonderful trip and we were sad to have to come home. North Carolina was absolutely beautiful and the people were about as hospitable as they could get.

Are you telling me that you built a time machine... out of a DeLorean?

POSTED BY OVERDROID - Not the Dean.

He he. While the Dean is out he gave me the keys to his blog, and boy will he be sorry. I have a proclivity for shooting my mouth off, being ignorant, and making blanket statements that piss people off. Actually I guess it will be like the Dean is still here.

Anyway, I'll try to stay on the topic of politics and not wander all over the place, but I promise nothing! Set expectations to minimum amplitude.

This post is about my favorite political cartoonist, Tom Tomorrow. His comic has moved around alot and tracking it down again has been difficult. Click on the link to read his hilarious observations and laugh and possibly cry. This week was a special treat, because one of my favorite geek heroes Doctor Who (David Tennant Style) showed up in the comic.

"Hey, you got liberal comedy in my Sci-Fi!"
"I think it was you that got Sci-Fi in my liberal comedy!"
"Wait, this tastes good. . ."

It's like having Reese's for the first time.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'll be brief. The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules, or took a few liberties with our female party guests.. we did

I'll be in North Carolina at a Dean's conference for about a week and doubt I'll be anywhere near a computer. No blog updates until I get back.

I'll be giving a speech on Saturday night entitled "Double Secret Probation: Discipline as the Key to Maintaining Order on Campus."

While I'm gone Greg Marmalard will in charge even though he's a sneaky little shit. You twerps behave yourselves or you'll be out of here like shit through a goose.

If fizzies are dropped on the swim meet or medical school cadavers delivered to the alumni dinner I'll know who to blame.

Oh, and keep Neidermeyer's horse out of my office. That thing has a bad heart.

Dean Vernon Wormer

Read what my medal says: "Courage". Ain't it the truth? Ain't it the truth?

Thank you Senator Clinton.

I thought the speech yesterday was wonderful.

Not because you conceded. But because you insisted we're all in this together.

At times watching that speech I was moved to the point of tears, but I do have small confession- there were a couple of occasions when my mind wandered and I focused on the enthusiastic crowd of your supporters and thought of John McCain of all people.

I don't think he and his Republican party, George Bush's Republican party, have a clue what's coming at them.

There is a tsunami of change sweeping over this country.

It will be a hell of a lot of work and a tough fight to win the presidency. It's for means certain. I'm realistic about that.

But I still hold out hope that together as Democrats Americans we can end this horrible period in our country's history.

Do you remember the sorry everybody photo pages where we left our apoligies to the world at the results of the 2004 elections?

We -Hillary Clinton and all of her loyal supporters and everybody else who wants to undo the Bush presidency - have a chance to make it up to the world.

Thank you for that Hillary.