They’ve got 3,600 hours of Olympics on tap. And, as you say, maybe they’ll bother showing the shooting sports rather than thinking, in some bizarro leap of logic, “If people see shooters using $10,000 target pistols to punch holes in paper, they’ll be driven into a murderous frenzy, run out, buy guns, and start a-killin’.” Either that—and I’d never suspect this of them—that somehow the lawful, fun use of guns might make people think they’re less eeeeeeeeeevil, and we can’t have that.
Olympics Pre-watch
I’m a big fan of the Olympics, I watch just about any Olympic event, yes, any…try me. Plus, it’s a great excuse to enjoy HiDef channels. Hopefully, NBC won’t disappoint by showing Law & Order:ReRun while there are plenty of Olympic events (they are already ruining it by the stupid and almost offensive interviews after the gymnastic and swimming trials (see, I watch ANYTHING Olympic)). Pictured, are the mascots for the Beijing Olympics…don’t stare directly at them…really. I’m sure they’ll try to avoid the Beijing Shooting Range CTF….”Aaaaahhhhh, GAI-JIN!!!”. As a shameless plug, tune into Dan Steinberg’s Blog (or Bog) to get updates (both real and humorous).
A dearth of…
…good leadership? You mean just because the two major parties have nominated since 1996 a priapic narcissist, a cynical dealmaker, a political tyro of a governor with a familiar last name and a very loose handle on the rudiments of syntax, a messianic egomaniac feeling entitled to political power, a empty-suit empty-headed war hero most famous for libeling his comrades in arms as war criminals (and who pronounced Genghis or Chingiz [pictured] “Junjus”), an honorable but eccentric old coot who’s never thought about political philosophy for five minutes in his life, and a callow product of the Ivy League and the Daley Machine with no résumé but an attractive skin tone? How dare you, sir! It’s not like we’d nominate someone just because she’d been married to a previous president!
Oh, and I’d forgotten GorT’s fascination with, essentially, generational birth-order theory. I’m cool with being a Nomad, though. Apache, Crow, Mongol, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Akkoyunlu, Karakoyunlu, Saami, Pechenegs, Tibetans, Alans, Qashqa’is, Dzungars, Navajo, Maasai, it’s all good.
First, I think we’re in a dearth of good leadership (maybe it’s the cycle we’re in) in general and I’m not a big fan of how the American political system has created “politician” as a career. Second, maybe the execution by the GOP in this instance is a bit on the childish side. However, it’s about time that they get off their asses and start working for the public. If you screw up with bills like ones previously discussed here…at least you can keep working past 11:23am, you know, maybe until 5pm-ish ?? Read the details here.
We’re thinking of you, too, ‘Puter!
From his vacation, Ghettoputer sent this lovely family picture. Apparently they’re enjoying the fall up there, visiting the relatives on Prince Edward Island!
Picture lifted from Kissing Suzy Kolber.
St. Ignatius, ora pro nobis
I forgot to mention it, but yesterday was the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola (né Íñigo Oñez López de Loyola), a patron of the Gormogons and arguably the most influential Basque in the history of the world.
We hope the great soldier-saint will inspire our attempts at pointing out today’s follies “without hard words or contempt for people’s errors.” Though we’re pretty sure we fall short most of the time. Which is why you probably won’t see St. Ghettoputer on your calendar of saints any time soon.
If he did it, he got off easy.
Hey, hey, kids, anyone remember the anthrax murders after 9/11? And how the FBI has pretty much spun its wheels for years, concentrating on the wrong guy?
Well, lookee here. Seems they moved on to another suspect who promptly offed himself. Now, while that’s hardly a conclusive admission of guilt, it’s pretty darn suggestive. Did they finally break the case? If so, κυδος!
Stay tuned…
Anthropogenic global warming…
…seems pretty dubious to me, or at least a small factor in a much larger picture (since history records, e.g., Greenland’s being green). But the story GorT cites just reminds me of the old joke about the nuclear-launch error that was going to immanentize the eschaton* the next day.
USA Today headlines WE’RE DONE!
The Wall Street Journal: Markets to Close at Noon: World at Three
The Washington Post: World to End Today: Blacks & Hispanics Hardest Hit
All groan together.
*In the Illuminatus!, not the Vögelin-Buckleyan, sense.
Thrice-bad Mummy?
Ok, the Œcumenical Volgi is among the world’s biggest fans of the The Mummy, Stephen Sommers’ excellently pitched action-horror-comedy. It’s feather light, immensely likable, and perfect popcorn-wolfing fun. The Volgi liked The Mummy so much that he was in the middle of drafting a screenplay for a sequel when he found out that not only had one been written, but it was already in production. And haste makes…crappy movies apparently, because The Mummy Returns was fairly lame. The Volgi’s script was really good, I tells ya.
Consequently, the ŒV has had some mixed feelings about the third installment. I want to like it, and if they do Shanghai in the ’30s or ’40s right, I’m a sucker for that—but I’m assuming the worst. The absence of the adorable Rachel Weisz’s (pictured, because duh) boded ill, methought. Alas, courtesy of Flava Last over at Galley Slaves, here’s the legendary Miss A. DuPont’s demolition of Mummy 3: Electric Boogalee, or whatever they’re calling it. Quoth La DuPont, in re problems with it:
There are Abominable Snowmen in this movie — three of them. At one point, one of them kicks an evil Chinese soldier over a goalpost-shaped piece of architecture. The Yeti behind the placekicker Yeti raises his arms straight in the air like a referee signaling “touchdown.”
Now I like yetis. I like ’em a whole lot. I can tell you that they’re called མི་རྒོད་—mekö—in Tibetan. But I can tell you this: they don’t watch the NFL. (They’re more cricket fans. Really.) So M3: Mummy Impossible is almost assuredly a special-effects-laden attack on the senses with a moronic script. I’ll probably go see it anyway, but…[sigh]
Call the Volgi*, Mr. Sommers, if you ever want a literate, funny script in the spirit of the original. I’ve done it before; I’ll do it again.
*At thenotoriousoev [at] me [dot] com.
Maybe I’m naïve…
…but I just don’t see how climate change (and I believe man has little impact on it – see here and here and here) is a racial issue but some people are trying to make it one. Isn’t this just pandering? Racism is a horrible thing, but inserting race into an issue (or maybe a non-issue) only prolongs or creates a division that isn’t needed in the first place.