Very Unhappy With My Bracket

No confidence whatsoever. I have never been more disconnected from the Tournament.

So I stopped by Natalia's office the other day just to see how she was doing and she gave me a strange look. I asked her what was wrong. She said, "Nothing. I'm just working on a new character."

Working in an office is fun.

Except for the working part.

In Which I Ponder getting a New Photo

So Kelly comes by the other day to remind me that my birthday also results in my official photo being on the firm website all week. Then she remarks that I look like someone sought in connection with an Amber Alert.

Pre-Tourney Thoughts.

I am tired.

Obligatory Worthington Post

Yeah, right.

The final four will be Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia and f
Florida.

In other news, Will Akers is really a fan of the BSB.

Meanwhile, Back at Tax Season

Daniel Kittrell was at Arby's today for lunch, and suddenly he said to himself, "&$;/! I should be taking someone's order."

Random Thought

At what age do you tell a highway it was adopted?

I think seven, because that's about the time he starts to think, "I don't look like Kiwanis club."

Two Words.

Oakland.

Belmont.

Also good names for dogs.

It's Time!

Tourney time, Baby!

You do not get the same intense response at an
Amber Alert.

Which is sad.

Then again, who bets on an Amber Alert?

Priorities.

Earthquakes? Real.

Tsunamis? Real.

Hurricanes? Real.

Global warming? Might be real. Might not be real. But we sure have spent a lot of money on something that might not be real (or if it is real, that we cannot do much or anything about).

Wouldn't that money have better spent on known, undebatable phenomenon that imperil the future of mankind?

Like Charlie Sheen or Justin Beiber.

He Was in the Shower?

From CNN:

A man who broke into a house in Portland, Oregon, called police -- afraid the homeowner may have a gun.

The suspect, Timothy James Chapek, was in the bathroom taking a shower when the homeowner returned to the house Monday night, Portland police said in a statement.

Accompanied by two German shepherds, the homeowner asked Chapek what he was doing in the house.
Chapek locked himself in the bathroom and made an emergency call, police said. He said he had broken into the house, the owner had come home, and that he was concerned the owner might have a gun.

The homeowner also called the police to report that he had found a man in the house.
Police with dogs took Chapek, 24, into custody "without incident," they said. He was booked for criminal trespass.

They did not say if the homeowner did in fact have a gun.

Oh No! The Zune is Dead!

Microsoft's answer to the iPod. I think the only person I know who owned one is President Obama.

Which figures.

Do's and Don'ts of Bracketology

Courtesy of CBS Sports- which obviously thinks you might be retarded:

DON'T: Be afraid to pick teams from the same conference to go to the Final Four. In the past 26 seasons since the field expanded to 64 teams, 18 of those years have featured two teams from the same conference in the Final Four. Since 2000, it has happened eight times, but only once since 2006.

Duh.

DO: Look for one of last year's Final Four teams to return to the Final Four again. Since 1985, 17 teams have been to Final Fours in back-to-back years, including each of the last four years -- Michigan State in 2010, '09; North Carolina in 2009, '08; UCLA 2008, '07, '06; Florida 2007, '06.

DO: Pay attention to the two above trends. Since the field expanded, at least one of those two trends has happened all but one year. Picking one of the two to occur -- or both -- is a pretty safe bet.

Duh.

DON'T: Pick a team because you think the town in which it resides would be a nice place to live. Santa Barbara and Colorado might be fine and beautiful places, but UCSB and Northern Colorado are two of the weakest teams in the field.

Duh.

DO: Listen to your significant other that doesn't know anything about basketball. Sure, their picks might sound crazy and they might like Wofford over BYU because it has a cooler mascot or prettier uniforms, but never underestimate the power of beginner's luck.

As if.

DON'T: Listen to your significant other who is a competitive basketball aficionado. They're not trying to help you, they're trying to sabotage you and your bracket so they can get all the glory and make fun of you later. And no, this isn't from a bitter, bitter personal experience.


DO: Find a German zoo animal to help you decide the 8/9 game and the 7/10 game. Paul the octopus and Heidi the cross-eyed possum didn't let the Germans down during the World Cup or the Oscars. Or you can do what last year's bracket champion Jake Johnson did -- have your guinea pig make your picks. Seriously.

Time honored decision making is based on coin flips. Everyone knows that.

DON'T: Sacrifice your entire bracket because a team played tough in its conference tournament. There are some teams that take the conference tournament seriously and some that would rather rest players in anticipation of the NCAA tournament. Just because UConn won five games in five days doesn't mean it will be able to cruise through the NCAA tournament the same way.

Finally, some decent advice.

DO: Ignore the 16 seeds. Yeah, yeah you hear this every year, but this year won't be any different. No. 16 seeds are 0 for 104 in the tournament, and while some have made valiant efforts, there's very little reason to believe that UT-San Antonio, Alabama State, Boston University, Hampton, UNC-Asheville or Arkansas-Little Rock are going to start a new trend.

Duh.

DON'T: Be tempted by the No. 15 seeds. Similar to 16 seeds, 15 seeds might be fun to look at, but they rarely pay off. No. 15's have only won four times since the conference field expanded to 64 in 1985.

Which means there is a 16% chance in any year that a 15 could win. Not likely, but not zero, either.

DO: Look at the No. 12 seeds over the No. 5 this year because there are some pretty favorable matchups and the 12 seeds tend to make worthwhile runs. With the new play-in system, the winner of the Alabama-Birmingham-Clemson game could present a challenge to West Virginia. And you can't discount Memphis, Utah State and Richmond, all winners of their conference tournaments.

I always go by this rule. Vandy v. Richmond. Uggh.

DON'T: Fall in love with AP-ranked teams. Since 1985, 41 teams started the season unranked and then went into the tournament ranked in the AP Top 10. Those teams, which were often seeded either No. 1 or No. 2, are 0-41 in Final Four appearances.

Valuable intel. If only I had the time to do the research.

DO: Tell all your friends after you've finished your bracket how you think Akron could be the next Butler and how Villanova has just been misunderstood this season. Keep them on their toes, don't show them your hand and be sure to throw in something about "feeling really good about Belmont winning it all."

Yeah, that will work.

DON'T: Hesitate to give that Kansas-Boston University game a second look. I know this is contrary to the "never pick a No. 16" rule, but Kansas has a tumultuous history playing teams that start with the letter "B" in the first round. Kansas lost to Bradley and Bucknell in back-to-back seasons.

Yeah, that's a trend. Kansas has lost two first round games in 25 years, so you better pick against them.

If You Care About America At All You Will Read This

3 Essential Facts About the Current Moment: We're Out of Money, The Public Sector is Overpaid, & We Can't Tax Our Way Out of This.

read the whole thing, but here are the key parts. Facts are stubborn things.

1.

We are in fact broke. We can quibble about semantics - it's not exactly clear what it would mean for the federal or a state govenment to declare bankruptcy - but there's no question that the cash flows at every level of government are more screwed than Moll Flanders ever was. Under President Barack Obama's rosy-till-it-hurts-and-completely-unbelievable scenarios in his 2012 budget proposal, the feds will be running deficits larger than any incurred between 2002-2008 forever and ever amen. And that's best-case, Hail-Mary accounting. And on top of $14 trillion total federal debt, which will double over the next decade under the best-case scenario.

2.

Public-sector workers are compensated better than similar private-sector workers. Nobody contests this claim anymore when it comes to federal workers and similar private-sector employees. They used to, of course, or made sideways explanations for the (nonexistent!) differentials by claiming that federal workers were smarter or did tougher work or had fresher-smelling breath or were congregated in high-cost areas, you name it. The single-largest category of public-sector workers are K-12 teachers (there's more than 3 million). Nationally, they make on average $14,000 a year more than private-school K-12 teachers, a gap that gets even bigger when benefits are added to the total. Studies such as "The Grand Bargain is Dead," by Ohio's Buckeye Institute extensively document "state workers today are paid much more than their private-sector neighbors in 85 out of 88 counties" and The New York Times' recent writeup on the issue make it clear that public-sector employees are doing well by any measure:

Surveys by the Bureau of Economic Analysis show that public workers’ annual compensation — salary plus benefits — is higher on average than private sector workers, and they suggest that the gap is growing....Public workers also put in significantly fewer hours per week. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, their compensation per hour is much higher....Most of the advantage is in benefits. They cost state and local governments $14 an hour on average, about 70 percent more than private employers pay for their workers.

That's The New York Times, mind you. Not the Heritage Foundation, or the John Birch Society, or anybody liberals and progressives want to dismiss out of hand. And what the Times is doing is verifying analyses that came out of the Cato Institute and the American Enterprise Institute and Heritage (I don't surf the JBS site, so I've got no idea what they think on the topic).

You don't need to introduce the related but distinct (and, to my mind, largely irrelevant) issue of collective-bargaining rights for public-sector workers to understand why state and local governments are trying hard as hell to reduce employment costs (and why public-sector workers are calling in sick or taking personal days to rally against cuts). There's big money at stake. The Buckeye Institute estimates that bringing state-worker compensation packages into line with the private sector could erase almost 30 percent of Ohio's projected $8 billion shortfall over the next two years. State expenditures ballooned by 80 percent in inflation-adjused dollars over the last decade and the cutting is going to have be big and ubiquitous. It's going to happen in states with collective bargaining, states without, and in states where the governors are not questioning that sort of activity. That public-sector jobs have been largely shielded from the broad layoffs that took place in the private sector only makes the imbalance greater. Between January 2008 and May 2010, the private sector lost almost 8 million jobs. Over the same time frame, public-sector employment actually increased by a net 590,000 jobs.

3.

We can't tax our way out of this. Commentators ranging from Michael Moore to CNN host (and former New York governor) Eliot Spitzer point to any sort of tax cut in the past 60 years as the real reason why governments are cash-strapped today: If we had just kept the top marginal rate at 92 percent like it was in 1953 we could still pay for cowboy poetry readings! Why did Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.) cut business tax rates if he says his state is broke? How can Barack Obama extend the Bush tax "cuts," which overwhelmingly go to the rich and richer? Why not just tax the Koch Bros. and be done with this talk of deficits and shortfalls (leave aside for the moment that expropriating all the wealth of all the billionaires in the U.S. would not cover the federal deficit for a single year)?

Such ideas rest upon any manner of empirically shaky assumptions, including the idea that there's an correlation between tax revenues and financial solvency. Between 2002 and 2007, for instance, state governments increased revenues by about 81 percent, or about four times faster than price inflation and population growth. Had the states kept their outlays constant while allowing for inflation and population growth, they would have been sitting on $2 trillion in reserves when the recession hit. Instead, they were broke heading into the recession and are in even worse position now. When governments get more money coming in, they don't pay off debt - they start new programs, increase existing ones, and kick fiscal responsibility down the road a bit more. It's an exceptionally rare case when governments actually balance this year's - and especially the coming years' - budgets because of new revenue. Indeed, if that were the case, states should never have needed bailouts since the 1970s, when most of them started taxing income for the first time. Governments are like compulsive gamblers who never pay off the loan shark with a windfall. Instead, they keep doubling down and find themselves ever-more on the hook. That's one of the reasons federal revenues could grow year-over-year for most of the Reagan presidency while annual deficits continued and national debt grew.

Leaving aside the still-sluggish economy, the notion that tax revenue can be jacked up (or reduced!) with ease is simply wrong. Since 1950, the federal government has passed through periods where Congress raised and lowered all manner of income, excise, and other taxes. Yet whether FICA taxes were relatively low and top marginal income taxes high or vice versa, federal revenue has clustered tightly around 18 percent of GDP. Some years, it's been higher (as high as 20.9 percent for one year under Bill Clinton) and lower (just around 14.4 percent currently), but it has never strayed far from the 18 percent mark for any length of time. When collections get much higher than that, pressure builds for reductions. In the late 1990s, the too-rare combination at the federal level of relatively restrained spending increases, tax increases (in 1993) and tax cuts (in 1997), and broad economic growth produced at-least-on-paper surpluses. Federal revenue came to a record-high of 20.9 percent of GDP in 2000 while spending came in at just 18.4 percent (see table 1.2). Surplus cash explains why both Al Gore and George W. Bush in 2000 ran on substantial tax cuts, differing on the size and targets (go here for a summary of the budget plans of both candidates; yes, Gore projected smaller spending). What remains most stunning about the Clinton years is not the increases in revenue as a percentage of GDP (though they are notable) but the willingness to substantially reduce spending as a percentage of GDP despite growing piles of cash on hand.

president Obama is black, and by popular convention that makes him a minority. I disagree. Not that he is black - of course he is - but rather that he is a minority.

You see, President Obama is reality challenged (as was President Bush to some degree), and the reality challenged are clearly in the majority in this country.

Maybe it's just human nature.

Tsunamis Tsuck

This is unimaginable.

This Is a Real Headline.

Glossy 'Jihad Cosmo' combines beauty tips with suicide bombing advice

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1365806/Glossy-Jihad-Cosmo-combines-beauty-tips-suicide-bombing-advice.html#ixzz1GaMc9jQu

Makes you wonder.

Behold The Awesome Power of Obama!

The last few weeks President Obama has demonstrated the awesome power of wishful thinking, and as a result of his brilliant tactical thinking and crack leadership team that fool - Colonel Gaddafi - is left with only two options.

In one he crushes the rebels quickly.

In the other he crushes them slowly and painfully.

Here Is A Story You Do Not Hear Every Day. At Least I Hope Not.

Un-freaking-believable.

From the Delaware Supreme Court's ruling in Boggerty v. Stewart (Del. Sup. Ct. Feb. 17, 2011) - AND I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP:

[Appellants claim] that [theater manager] Stewart “insulted, humiliated, and demeaned” them by making a public announcement asking a movie theater audience to turn off their cell phones, remain quiet, and stay in their seats before a movie showing at the Carmike Cinemas Dover location. After conducting a hearing, the Delaware State Human Relations Commission (“Commission”) found that Stewart’s conduct violated Section 4504(a) of the DEAL, and awarded [the 23 separate] Appellants $1,500 each in damages, and attorneys’ fees [$21,510 –EV] and costs [$194 –EV]; and also ordered Carmike Cinemas to pay $5,000 to the Special Administration Fund .... On appeal, the Superior Court reversed the Commission’s decisions, and the Appellants appealed to this Court. For the reasons next discussed, we affirm....

On October 12, 2007, the Appellants, all of whom are African-American, went to Carmike Cinemas in Dover, Delaware, to see a new Tyler Perry movie, “Why Did I Get Married?.” Anticipating a large turnout based on the number of advance ticket sales, Stewart, who was a Caucasian male and the theater manager, scheduled the movie to be shown simultaneously in three auditoriums. The largest auditorium seated 130 people; the other two each seated 50 persons. When Appellants arrived at the theater, they handed their tickets to the ticket agent and received a ticket stub in return. Approaching the auditorium, they saw two security guards. The security guard standing outside the door to the largest auditorium asked to see Appellants’ ticket stubs. Appellants displayed their ticket stubs and were admitted into the largest auditorium. That auditorium was full. Of those attending, 90–95% were African-American.

Before the show, the theater screen displayed messages reminding patrons to turn off their cell phones and to refrain from talking during the movie. Before the movie began, Stewart also made a live announcement to the same effect. He asked the patrons to turn off their cell phones, to stay quiet, and to remain seated throughout the movie. After that announcement, Stewart left the auditorium. After Stewart left, Appellant Larry Bryant followed him outside and told Stewart that his remarks were not well-taken. Stewart immediately returned to the auditorium and apologized to the audience, explaining that he did not mean to offend anyone and that he was required to make the announcement under Carmike Cinemas’ current policy.

At some point during this episode a woman, who later was identified as Juana Fuentes-Bowles, the Director of the State Human Relations Division, stood up and told everyone that she felt that Stewart’s announcement was racist. After identifying herself — not by her official title but as an attorney or someone who worked for an attorney — Fuentes-Bowles circulated a sign-up sheet and asked all audience members who were offended by Stewart’s announcement to write down their contact information. The Appellants all did that, after which the audience then proceeded to watch the movie in its entirety without further incident. After the movie ended, Stewart waited at the auditorium exit door to say “good night” and thank the audience members for attending the show....

[Some of the Appellantes testified] that they were offended by the tone and manner in which Stewart made his announcement (but not by his actual words), and that Stewart’s tone was offensive and condescending, as if he were speaking to children. Those three testifying Appellants also believed that Stewart made the announcement because the audience was primarily African-American and who, therefore, would not know how to behave properly in a theater. None of the Appellants had ever heard such an announcement ever made before. Nor was the presence of a security guard checking their ticket stubs anything that they had ever experienced in previous Carmike Cinemas showings....


[T]he Commission found that although all Appellants were permitted to watch the movie, the circumstances under which they did that were “hostile, humiliating, and demeaning,” and thereby constituted “receiv[ing] services in a markedly hostile manner and in a manner which a reasonable person would find objectively unreasonable.”

The Commission also concluded that nonmembers of the protected class [blacks –EV] had been treated more favorably. The Commission arrived at that conclusion first, by finding Stewart’s and Bridgman’s testimony concerning the announcement policy (and its non-racial purpose) to be “not credible,” and second, by then inferring that the announcement must have been racially motivated....

Government employees are not all bad, of course. But an awful lot of them are.

And those who were offended by this announcement should be publicly humiliated in some way.

Must Read

if you only read one thing today, read this.

It mentions Charlie Sheen, so on that basis alone you have to read it.

Why are we in Afghanistan?

Why do we worry so much about collateral damage during war time? We sure as hell didn't worry about at Hiroshima or Nagasaki. What's really changed?

How Is It That THIS Did Not Make the News? Liberal Bias, I Tell Ya!

This is Bad in So Many Ways

A total marketing nightmare. Mr Brain? Whose mouth wouldn't start to water with a name like that?

Oh, and FYI - “Faggots are traditionally made from pig's heart, liver and belly fat meat as well as other meat cut offs.”

Two words: Mmmmm. Mmmmm. Good.

Katie Couric Has a New Job. Finally.

More Great Dancing. Tiger Mother - Take That!

Best Dance Video. Ever.

Not a bad cover of a Whitney Houston, either - which I understand is hard to do without the drugs.

Go ahead and watch.  You know you want to. Focus on the older, balding gentleman (with the semi-comb over).  The next John Travolta, perhaps?

Those Nuts at Google Are At It Again

Investment Club Names

My friend Debbie has started an investment club.  She asked me today to see if the name "WIN Investment Group" was available with the Tennessee Secretary of State.  I guess this was because the copyright value of that name will be HUGE someday.

Then again, maybe Debbie is a little too detail oriented.  (Debbie is so focused I think they should inject her blood in people with ADHD).

Anyway, it's an all-female investment club, so I suggested these as alternative names:

Stocks R Us

Victoria’s Financial Secrets

Stocks…or Shoes?

Babes Beating Buffett

Soon Parted

Berkshire Debbie J

Somewhat sexist, I know, but still better than WIN Investment Group, no?

For My female Readers

Okay, reader.

For Besty

Advertising Gone Wrong

Glenn Beck & Frances Fox Piven - WTF?

This is an interesting story, though confined mainly to the blogosphere (so I can't talk to my wife about it).

On his daily radio and television shows, Glenn Beck has elevated once-obscure conservative thinkers onto best-seller lists. Recently, he has elevated a 78-year-old liberal academic to celebrity of a different sort, in a way that some say is endangering her life.

On Jan. 5, 2010, Glenn Beck delivered one of several attacks on Richard Cloward, now deceased, and his wife and collaborator, Frances Fox Piven, who wrote about ending poverty.
Frances Fox Piven, a City University of New York professor, has been a primary character in Mr. Beck’s warnings about a progressive take-down of America. Ms. Piven, Mr. Beck says, is responsible for a plan to “intentionally collapse our economic system.”

Her name has become a kind of shorthand for “enemy” on Mr. Beck’s Fox News Channel program, which is watched by more than 2 million people, and on one of his Web sites, The Blaze. This week, Mr. Beck suggested on television that she was an enemy of the Constitution.

Never mind that Ms. Piven’s radical plan to help poor people was published 45 years ago, when Mr. Beck was a toddler. Anonymous visitors to his Web site have called for her death, and some, she said, have contacted her directly via e-mail.

In response, a liberal nonprofit group, the Center for Constitutional Rights, wrote to the chairman of Fox News, Roger Ailes, on Thursday to ask him to put a stop to Mr. Beck’s “false accusations” about Ms. Piven.

Glenn Beck rails against the ideas of an avowed, lifelong, far left liberal college professor by ACCURATELY QUOTING HER? This is retarded.

Death threats are bad, although if I had a quarter for every death threat or unpleasant comment posted on the internet I would also have a Lear Jet on 24 hour standby. And I am not a big Glenn Beck fan in general. But all the guy did was to QUOTE HER ACCURATELY. If that generates a bad reaction, isn't that, uh, HER OWN DAMN FAULT?

I had never heard of this Frances Fox Piven until recently, and if I had heard of her, it didn't register. But I have been doing some reading about her. She's a socialist, and I do not like socialists. She is well intentioned, I think, but in that uniquely Orwellian way that socialists tend to be - that is, we need to do X, and if you disgare with that you need to be censored and/or shipped off to the gulag.

I am most disturbed by her connection to President Obama. If this is someone who influenced him, he needs to be out of the White House.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words, But the Caption Completes the Picture

The Oscars

This year I am going to have Oscar commentary. I have no idea why. I hate the Oscars. And all I saw was Inception and Harry Potter, so my analysis will be more succint than the acceptance sppech for best costume.

Here are the Nominees:

BEST PICTURE
127 HOURS (Fox Searchlight)
An Hours Production Christian Colson, Danny Boyle and John Smithson, Producers
BLACK SWAN (Fox Searchlight)
A Protozoa and Phoenix Pictures Production Mike Medavoy, Brian Oliver and Scott Franklin, Producers
INCEPTION (Warner Bros)
A Warner Bros. UK Services Production Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan, Producers
THE FIGHTER (Paramount)
A Relativity Media Production David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman and Mark Wahlberg, Producers
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (Focus Features)
An Antidote Films, Mandalay Vision and Gilbert Films Production Gary Gilbert, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte and Celine Rattray, Producers
THE KING'S SPEECH (The Weinstein Co)
A See-Saw Films and Bedlam Production Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin, Producers
THE SOCIAL NETWORK (Sony Pictures)
A Columbia Pictures Production Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca and Ceán Chaffin, Producers
TOY STORY 3 (Walt Disney)
A Pixar Production Darla K. Anderson, Producer
TRUE GRIT (Paramount)
A Paramount Pictures Production Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Producers
WINTER'S BONE (Roadside Attractions)
A Winter's Bone Production Anne Rosellini and Alix Madigan-Yorkin, Producers

I only saw Inception. It was okay but not great. The Black Swan has lesbians. It should win.

BEST ACTOR
JEFF BRIDGES - TRUE GRIT (Paramount)
JAVIER BARDEM - BIUTIFUL (Roadside Attractions)
JESSE EISENBERG - THE SOCIAL NETWORK (Sony Pictures)
COLIN FIRTH - THE KING’S SPEECH (The Weinstein Company)
JAMES FRANCO - 127 HOURS (Fox Searchlight)

Jeff Bridges won last year. While I think he should win every year, he's out. Javier Bardem? Give me a break. Jesse Eisenberg? Should have been nominated for Zombieland. I can't believe the Social network is better than Zombieland. James Franco? I heard he was good, but he loses points for being in those Spiderman movies, which sucked. So the Oscar goes to Colin Firth. I heard he was good, so I can accept this.

BEST ACTRESS
ANNETTE BENING - THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (Focus Features)
NICOLE KIDMAN - RABBIT HOLE (Lionsgate)
JENNIFER LAWRENCE - WINTER’S BONE (Roadside Attractions)
NATALIE PORTMAN - BLACK SWAN (Fox Searchlight)
MICHELLE WILLIAMS - BLUE VALENTINE (The Weinstein Co)

Two lesbians. Hmmm...that makes this tough. I'll go with Natalie Portman.

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
CHRISTIAN BALE - THE FIGHTER (Paramount)
JOHN HAWKES - WINTER’S BONE (Roadside Attractions)
JEREMY RENNER - THE TOWN (Warner Bros)
MARK RUFFALO - THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (Focus Features)
GEOFFREY RUSH - THE KING’S SPEECH (The Weinstein Company)

The Oscar goes to Jeremy Renner here because he was so good in The Hurt Locker and because if you can get nominated in a movie that has Ben Affleck in it you have to be good.

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
AMY ADAMS - THE FIGHTER (Paramount)
HELENA BONHAM CARTER - THE KING’S SPEECH (The Weinstein Company)
MELISSA LEO - THE FIGHTER (Paramount)
HAILEE STEINFELD - TRUE GRIT (Paramount)
JACKI WEAVER - ANIMAL KINGDOM (Sony Pictures Classics)

The Fighter must be good. We need more boxing pictures. I'll take Helena Bonham Carter for her work as Bellatrix LeStrange.

BEST ANIMATED PICTURE
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (DreamWorks Animation)
TOY STORY 3 (Walt Disney)
THE ILLUSIONIST (Sony Pictures Classics)

Toy Story 3. Buzz and Woody rule.

BEST DIRECTOR
DARREN ARONOFSKY - BLACK SWAN (Fox Searchlight)
DAVID FINCHER - THE SOCIAL NETWORK (Sony Pictures)
TOM HOOPER - THE KING'S SPEECH (The Weinstein Co.)
JOEL AND ETHAN COEN - TRUE GRIT (Paramount)
DAVID O. RUSSELL - THE FIGHTER (Paramount)

Got to go with the Coen Brothers.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
ANOTHER YEAR, Mike Leigh (Sony Pictures Classics)
THE FIGHTER, Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson, Story by Keith Dorrington & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson (Paramount)
INCEPTION, Christopher Nolan (Warner Bros)
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT, Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg (Focus Features)
THE KING'S SPEECH, David Seidler (The Weinstein Co)

I'm sure Inception will win because no one understood it, which in Hollywood means it's original and edgy.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
127 HOURS, Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy (Fox Searchlight)
TOY STORY 3, Michael Arndt, Story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, and Lee Unkrich (Walt Disney)
THE SOCIAL NETWORK, Aaron Sorkin (Sony Pictures)
WINTER'S BONE, Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini (Roadside Attractions)
TRUE GRIT, Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (Paramount)

Please, not Aaron Sorkin. Other than that I don't care.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Algeria, Hors la Loi (“Outside the Law”) (Cohen Media Group) - A Tassili Films Production
Canada, Incendies (Sony Pictures Classics) - A Micro-Scope Production
Denmark, In a Better World (Sony Pictures Classics) - A Zentropa Production
Greece, Dogtooth (Kino International) - A Boo Production
Mexico, Biutiful (Roadside Attractions) - A Menage Atroz, Mod Producciones and Ikiru Films Production

Who cares?

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY
Black Swan (Fox Searchlight) - Matthew Libatique
Inception (Warner Bros.) - Wally Pfister
The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company) - Danny Cohen
The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing) - Jeff Cronenweth
True Grit (Paramount) - Roger Deakins

Again, steamy pictures of lesbians making out always win. Duh!

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Exit Through The Gift Shop (Producers Distribution Agency) A Paranoid Pictures Production Banksy and Jaimie D'Cruz
Gasland - A Gasland Production Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic
Inside Job (Sony Pictures Classics) - A Representational Pictures Production Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
Restrepo (National Geographic Entertainment) - An Outpost Films Production Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger
Waste Land (Arthouse Films) - An Almega Projects Production Lucy Walker and Angus Aynsley

Bor-ring.

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Killing In The Name - A Moxie Firecracker Films Production Nominees to be determined
Poster Girl - A Portrayal Films Production Nominees to be determined
Strangers No More - A Simon & Goodman Picture Company Production Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon
Sun Come Up - A Sun Come Up Production Jennifer Redfearn and Tim Metzger
The Warriors Of Qiugang - A Thomas Lennon Films Production Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon

Warriors of Qiugang. I think it might be based on the original Warriors film from 1979, which makes it AWESOME.

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN FILM EDITING
Black Swan (Fox Searchlight) Andrew Weisblum
The Fighter (Paramount) Pamela Martin
The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company) Tariq Anwar
127 Hours (Fox Searchlight) Jon Harris
The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing) Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter

Probably should go to Apple.


BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN ART DIRECTION
Alice in Wonderland (Walt Disney) - Production Design: Robert Stromberg, Set Decoration: Karen O'Hara
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1 (Warner Bros.) - Production Design: Stuart Craig, Set Decoration: Stephenie McMillan
Inception (Warner Bros) - Production Design: Guy Hendrix Dyas, Set Decoration: Larry Dias and Doug Mowat
The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company) - Production Design: Eve Stewart, Set Decoration: Judy Farr
True Grit (Paramount) - Production Design: Jess Gonchor, Set Decoration: Nancy Haigh

Don't care.

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN COSTUME DESIGN
Alice in Wonderland (Walt Disney) - Colleen Atwood
I Am Love (Magnolia Pictures) - Antonella Cannarozzi
The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company) - Jenny Beavan
The Tempest (Miramax) - Sandy Powell
True Grit (Paramount) - Mary Zophres

Don't care.

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN MAKEUP
Barney's Version (Sony Pictures Classics) Adrien Morot
The Way Back (Newmarket Films with Wrekin Hill Entertainment and Image Entertainment) Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng
The Wolfman (Universal) Rick Baker and Dave Elsey

Care even less. Clint Eastwood movies have the least amount of makeup and they are always good. So this is a stupid category.

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC WRITTEN FOR MOTION PICTURES (ORIGINAL SCORE)
How to Train Your Dragon (Paramount) - John Powell
Inception (Warner Bros.) - Hans Zimmer
The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company) - Alexandre Desplat
127 Hours (Fox Searchlight) - A.R. Rahman
The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing) - Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

Do you own any of these soundtracks? Do you want to? I didn't think so. Enough said.

ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC WRITTEN FOR MOTION PICTURES (ORIGINAL SONG)
“Coming Home” from Country Strong (Sony Pictures/Screen Gems) - Music and Lyric by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey
“I See the Light” from Tangled (Walt Disney) - Music by Alan Menken, Lyric by Glenn Slater
“If I Rise” from 127 Hours (Fox Searchlight) - Music by A.R. Rahman, Lyric by Dido and Rollo Armstrong
“We Belong Together” from Toy Story 3 (Walt Disney) - Music and Lyric by Randy Newman

I think it is a rule that Randy Newman has to win avery few years. You know why? Because Hollywood is run by short people.

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Day & Night (Walt Disney) - A Pixar Animation Studios Production Teddy Newton
The Gruffalo - A Magic Light Pictures Production Jakob Schuh and Max Lang
Let's Pollute - A Geefwee Boedoe Production Geefwee Boedoe
The Lost Thing (Nick Batzias for Madman Entertainment) - A Passion Pictures Australia Production Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann
Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary) - A Sacrebleu Production Bastien Dubois

No one ever sees these anyway.

Best live action short film
“The Confession” (National Film and Television School) A National Film and Television School Production Tanel Toom
“The Crush” (Network Ireland Television) A Purdy Pictures Production Michael Creagh
“God of Love”
A Luke Matheny Production Luke Matheny
“Na Wewe” (Premium Films) A CUT! Production Ivan Goldschmidt
“Wish 143” A Swing and Shift Films/Union Pictures Production Ian Barnes and Samantha Waite

Again, why have this category?

Achievement in sound editing
“Inception” (Warner Bros.) Richard King
“Toy Story 3” (Walt Disney) Tom Myers and Michael Silvers
“Tron: Legacy” (Walt Disney) Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague
“True Grit” (Paramount) Skip Lievsay and Craig Berkey
“Unstoppable” (20th Century Fox) Mark P. Stoeckinger

Seriously. I'll bet you have to adjust the sound when you get the DVD, so no one should win.

Achievement in sound mixing
“Inception” (Warner Bros.) Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo and Ed Novick
“The King's Speech” (The Weinstein Company) Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen and John Midgley
“Salt” (Sony Pictures Releasing) Jeffrey J. Haboush, Greg P. Russell, Scott Millan and William Sarokin
“The Social Network” (Sony Pictures Releasing) Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick and Mark Weingarten
“True Grit” (Paramount) Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter F. Kurland

How about "Achievement in making fart noises"? Now that would be funny. Can't you just picture the guy coming up to get his award and they play his work in the background?

Achievement in visual effects
“Alice in Wonderland” (Walt Disney) Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1” (Warner Bros.) Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian Manz and Nicolas Aithadi
“Hereafter” (Warner Bros.)
Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojanski and Joe Farrell
“Inception” (Warner Bros.) Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb
“Iron Man 2” (Paramount and Marvel Entertainment, Distributed by Paramount) Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright and Daniel Sudick

Okay, I'll go with Inception here because the collapsing city stuff was pretty cool.

Now you don't even have to watch. I won't.

I Fell in the Fountain While Texting and It Got on YouTube and That Hurt My Feelings

Gee, I'm sorry and all that, BUT GET A SENSE OF HUMOR! It was funny. Laugh at yourself.

And if you can't then I am happy to do it for you.

Keith Olbermann, RIP

To be fair, I cannot stand Keith Olbermann. I find him to be so loathsome and fundamentally dishonest that it is beyond my descriptive powers to convey the depth of my contempt for him both intellectually and personally.

But this was funny.

Education in America

A Washington Post commentary I think is spot on.

I have, however, become increasingly concerned in recent years - not about the talent of the applicants but about the education American universities are providing. Even from America's great liberal arts colleges, transcripts reflect an undergraduate specialization that would have been unthinkably narrow just a generation ago.

As a result, high-achieving students seem less able to grapple with issues that require them to think across disciplines or reflect on difficult questions about what matters and why.

Unlike many graduate fellowships, the Rhodes seeks leaders who will "fight the world's fight." They must be more than mere bookworms. We are looking for students who wonder, students who are reading widely, students of passion who are driven to make a difference in the lives of those around them and in the broader world through enlightened and effective leadership. The undergraduate education they are receiving seems less and less suited to that purpose.

An outstanding biochemistry major wants to be a doctor and supports the president's health-care bill but doesn't really know why. A student who started a chapter of Global Zero at his university hasn't really thought about whether a world in which great powers have divested themselves of nuclear weapons would be more stable or less so, or whether nuclear deterrence can ever be moral. A young service academy cadet who is likely to be serving in a war zone within the year believes there are things worth dying for but doesn't seem to have thought much about what is worth killing for. A student who wants to study comparative government doesn't seem to know much about the important features and limitations of America's Constitution.


When asked what are the important things for a leader to be able to do, one young applicant described some techniques and personal characteristics to manage a group and get a job done. Nowhere in her answer did she give any hint of understanding that leaders decide what job should be done. Leaders set agendas.

I wish I could say that this is a single, anomalous group of students, but the trend is unmistakable. Our great universities seem to have redefined what it means to be an exceptional student. They are producing top students who have given very little thought to matters beyond their impressive grasp of an intense area of study.

This narrowing has resulted in a curiously unprepared and superficial pre-professionalism.

Perhaps our universities have yielded to the pressure of parents who pay high tuition and expect students, above all else, to be prepared for the jobs they will try to secure after graduation. As a parent of two teenagers I can understand that expectation.

Perhaps faculty members are themselves more narrowly specialized because of pressure to publish original work in ever more obscure journals.

I detect no lack of seriousness or ambition in these students. They believe they are exceptionally well-educated. They have jumped expertly through every hoop put in front of them to be the top of their classes in our country's best universities, and they have been lavishly praised for doing so. They seem so surprised when asked simple direct questions that they have never considered

.

It's not that kids today are dumber or college professors are failing us (although many probably are), it's that they don't learn the way they used to. I could care less about who might be to blame, and I am sure that's a complicated issue anyway.

All I care about is fixing the problem. A discussion like this is a start.

A Thoughtful Person

An interview worth reading

Seasteading was thought up by acolytes of Milton Friedman. The idea is that we need to create competition between governments. If it’s very hard to reform existing ones, we need to create new sovereign states — in the oceans or elsewhere. There’s a technological question about how far away we are from these kinds of things. It’s probably not around the corner. But these technological projects are worth pursuing.

It’s one of the ways in which I see things in the U.S. as having declined from the 1950s, when people had a real sense of the future, and the future was an important subject for public discussion. We thought about being on the moon, or living underwater, and what we were going to do about farmlands and forests and so on. Different ideas about how technology would change in the future played an important role in our society. That sort of collapsed with everything else in the late ’60s and into the ’70s. I want to go back to the future and back to a time when people were thinking about how to use technology to make the world a dramatically better place — not like the present, where technology is largely seen as irrelevant and specifically as bad.

Now, the broader issue with seasteading is that a lot of people are quite sympathetic to the idea that we need more competition in government, though you can debate whether seasteading is the best way — or a possible way — to bring it about. If there weren’t some competition between governments, the overreach would be dramatically worse than what we’ve seen. A lot of state governments would like to dramatically increase taxes and increase regulations on businesses, rather than reform their bad ways. But they’re under extraordinary pressure because people may just choose to leave.

The U.S. government is under somewhat less pressure, because it is a lot more difficult to leave the U.S. But it’s under more constraints today, because the U.S. is now living in a much more competitive world than it was in the 1970s. It’s hard to simply devalue the dollar, or simply inflate, or tax in a confiscatory way. So competition among governments is an extremely valuable and very good thing. The seasteading netroots are best seen against that larger background.

Read the whole thing.

Kill Bill

I had never seen Kill Bill Volume 1 or Volume 2. Now I have.

While I have a fondness for Quentin Tarantino in general, and these were not bad movies, I'd not rank them among his best work. Entertaining, but I am not quite sure why.

Other observations:

It's hard to eat after seeing a closeup of Uma Thurman's feet.

Uma Thurman is strangely more appealing when her face is covered with dirt.

I owe it to my Dad not to hate on an homage to Kung Fu, the classic 1970s TV show.

Michael Madsen gives me the creeps, though I do think he is a good actor.

So that's what happened to Daryl Hannah.

Regarding Loughner

He was a nut job.

Period.

Anyone who suggests that he was in any way motivated or influenced by political rhetoric is a moron. Which proves, rather conclusively, that most of the national media is comprised of morons.

Which I think most of us already suspected anyway. It's just nice to have some hard evidence.

Cats

Random thought: you know that saying-"who let the cat out of the bag?"

Doesn't that imply that they used to did they used to keep cats in bags?

Wonder why they started letting them out?

Because Bathroom Humor is Always Funny...Especially When It's British

iPAD

Yep.

Got an iPAD for Christmas.

Freaking awesome.

I wish that Apple ran the government. Then it would work.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

More Movie Trivia

Clint Eastwood, Warren Beatty, Robert Redford, Mel Gibson, Richard Attenborough and Kevin Costner are the only directors best known as actors who have won an Academy Award as Best Director.

Actors with One Hit Wonder Songs

So at lunch a week or so I ask the young kids I am eating with if they can name any actors who have had a hit song. Blank looks followed.

Kids today.

Anyway, this list contains many names that only those over 45 will know. It omits John Travolta "Let her In" & several from Grease), Shelley Fabares (Johnny Angel"), Clint Eastwood ("Bar Room Buddies"), Sondra Locke, John Belushi and Dan Akroyd (as the Blues Brothers), Robert Mitchum ("Thunder Road").

I took the liberty of omitting David Hasselhoff from this list on general principles.





Artist Andy Griffith Year 1955
Song Make Yourself Comfortable Chart 26

Artist Jerry Lewis Year 1956
Song Rock-A-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody Chart 10


Artist The Tarriers (Alan Arkin) Year 1957
Song The Banana Boat Song Chart 24



Artist Anthony Perkins Year 1955
Song Moon-Light Swim Chart 26


Artist Jim Backus & Friends Year 1958
Song Delicious! Chart 40

Artist Sheb Wooley Year 1958
Song The Purple People Eater Chart 1


Artist Connie Stevens Year 1960
Song Sixteen Reasons Chart 3

Artist Bill Dana (as José Jiménez) Year 1961
Song The Astronaut Chart 19

Artist George Maharis Year 1962
Song Teach Me Tonight Chart 25

Artist Lorne Greene Year 1964
Song Ringo Chart 1

Artist Bill Cosby Year 1967
Song Little Ole Man (Uptight, Everything's Alright) Chart 4

Artist Richard Harris Year 1968
Song MacArthur Park Chart 2


Artist Ernie (from Sesame Street) Year 1970
Song Rubber Duckie Chart 16

Artist Benny Hill Year 1971
Song Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West) Chart 1 UK

Artist Joey Heatherton Year 1972
Song Gone Chart 24

Artist Vicki Lawrence Year 1973
Song The Night the Lights Went Out In Georgia Chart 1


Artist Telly Savalas Year 1975
Song If Chart 1 UK

Artist Keith Carradine Year 1976
Song I'm Easy Chart 17


Artist David Soul Year 1977
Song Don't Give Up On Us Chart 1

Artist Steve Martin & the Toot Uncommons Year 1978
Song King Tut Chart 17

Artist Cheryl Ladd Year 1978
Song Think It Over Chart 34

Artist David Naughton Year 1979
Song Makin' it Chart 5

Artist Kermit the Frog Year 1979
Song Rainbow Connection Chart 25


Artist Bernadette Peters Year 1980
Song Gee Whiz Chart 13

Artist John Schneider Year 1981
Song It's Now or Never Chart 14

Artist Bob & Doug McKenzie Year 1980
Song Take Off Chart 13

Artist Frank Stallone Year 1983
Song Far From Over Chart 10

Artist Jack Wagner Year 1984
Song All I Need Chart 2

Artist Tracey Ullman Year 1984
Song They Don't Know Chart 8

Artist Eddie Murphy Year 1985
Song Party All The Time Chart 2


Artist Don Johnson Year 1986
Song Heartbeat Chart 5

Artist Art of Noise featuring Max Headroom Year 1986
Song Paranoimia Chart 34

Artist Billy Crystal Year 1986
Song You Look Marvelous! Chart 58



Artist Bruce Willis Year 1987
Song Respect Yourself Chart 5



Artist Patrick Swayze Year 1988
Song She's Like The Wind Chart 3


Artist The Simpsons Year 1990
Song Do The Bartman Chart


Artist Jasmine Guy Year 1991
Song Just Want to Hold You Chart 34

Artist Joey Lawrence Year 1993
Song Nothin' My Love Can't Fix Chart 19

Artist Jamie Walters Year 1995
Song Hold On Chart 16


Artist Chef (from South Park) Year 1998
Song Chocolate Salty Balls (PS I Love You) Chart 1 UK

Artist Tatyana Ali Year 1998
Song Daydreamin' Chart 6

Comedians and the Oscars

Comedians, if you didn't know it, have the highest IQs of any profession. Amazingly, they tend to make better dramatic actors than dramatic actors. here is a list of comics who have won Oscars or Oscar nominations for dramatic roles.

Best Actor - 1949 - Charlie Chaplin, The Great Dictator (Nominated; lost to Jimmy Stewart, The Philadelphia Story)

Best Supporting Actor - 1957 - Red Buttons, Sayonara (Won)

Best Supporting Actor - 1975 - George Burns, The Sunshine Boys (Won)

Best Actor - 1977 - Woody Allen, Annie Hall (Nominated; lost to Richard Dreyfuss, The Goodbye Girl)

Best Actor - 1981 - Dudley Moore, Arthur (Nominated; lost to Henry Fonda, On Golden Pond)

Best Actress - 1985 - Whoopi Goldberg, The Color Purple (Nominated; lost to Geraldine Page, A Trip to the Bountiful)

Best Actor - 1987 - Robin Williams, Good Morning, Vietnam (Nominated; lost to Michael Douglas, Wall Street)

Best Supporting Actor - 1987 - Albert Brooks, Broadcast News (Nominated; lost to Sean Connery, The Untouchables)

Best Actor - 1989 - Robin Williams, Dead Poet's Society (Nominated; lost to Daniel Day-Lewis, My Left Foot)

Best Supporting Actor - 1989 - Dan Aykroyd, Driving Miss Daisy (Nominated; lost to Denzel Washington, Glory)

Best Supporting Actress - 1990 - Whoopi Goldberg, Ghost (Won)

Best Actor - 1991 - Robin Williams, The Fisher King (Nominated; lost to Anthony Hopkins, The Silence of the Lambs)

Best Supporting Actor - 1997 - Robin Williams, Good Will Hunting (Won)

Best Actor - 2003 - Bill Murray, Lost in Translation (Nominated; lost to Sean Penn, Mystic River)

Best Actor - 2004 - Jamie Foxx, Ray (Won)

Best Supporting Actor - 2004 - Jamie Foxx, Collateral (Nominated; lost to Morgan Freeman, Million Dollar Baby)

Best Supporting Actor - 2006 - Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls (Nominated; lost to Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine)

Best Supporting Actress - 2009 - Mo'Nique, Precious (Won)

Amazingly, they omit Tom Hanks, Emma Thompson, Jim Carrey and Dan Akyroyd from this list.

Merry Christmas

Truly Entertaining

Inspirational Video

Not really. It's 3:51 of your life you'll never get back.

But for some strange reason it will make you start laughing. And you do have to admire the perseverance.

The Pressure Gets to Her

(h/t: Videogum)

Probably a Fashion No-No

(h/t: 15 Minute Lunch)

Humorous Nazi Allusion

There really are not a lot of humorous Nazi allusions, but believe it or not (and I know you will believe it because, after all, everything you read on this blog is true) there is a website called CATS THAT LOOK LIKE HITLER.



With creativity like this there is no way we are going down to China.