Boil ’em, mash ’em, stick ’em in a stew…the bizarre LotR-themed “Taters Song” now has its own Flash-y video. Well, I guess it helps pass the time ’til the Extended Edition trailer (which is currently rumored to drop on Friday.) Update: Ok, well, clearly Friday was wrong. The new buzz is at Dragon*Con over Labor Day weekend.
Month: August 2004
It’s Super, Thanks for Asking.
In something of a breakthrough, astronomers discover a “Super-Earth” that’s smaller, rockier, and closer — a mere 50 light years away — than the many gas giants previously discovered. Alas, with a surface temperature of approximately 1160 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s probably not the best spot for finding any kind of life. Still, baby steps.
Pilot Needs a Hug.
No need to break the Sci-Fi boycott until the main event, ’cause the trailer for Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars is now online. It doesn’t look like they’ll be attracting any new fans with this miniseries, what with all the various unresolved subplots alluded to in the trailer alone (I’d forgotten about Wormhole Business-Suit Guy, for example), but at least we ‘Scapers will finally get some closure.
’68 Reasons to Play it Cool.
“When a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? If resistance against Bush actually plays into Bush’s hands, is it really resistance?” In the Voice, Rick Perlstein joins the many lefty voices urging caution to protesters during next week’s convention.
A Moment of Clarity.
In a surprising (yet very likely vetted and scripted) exchange, Dick Cheney distances himself from Dubya’s hard line against gay marriage. What a compassionately conservative way to make news the week before the convention, no? Sure, Cheney probably does harbor some reservations about the religious right’s goofy stance on gay marriage, given his family relationship to the issue, and I suppose I should give him credit for mentioning them aloud. But, it’s hard to buy his second-thoughts now, when he’s been so silent on the topic these past few months…it’s too convenient by half.
SDI, Schmesh-D-I.
Say what you will about the Dem ticket, but at least they understand the importance of protecting our precious bodily fluids from terrorist and Communist impurifications. This October, John Edwards will introduce Dr. Strangelove for Turner Classic Movies. (By way of Quiddity.) For the rest of the “Party Politics and the Movies” series, John McCain chose Paths of Glory, Joe Biden picked Dead Poets Society, and Orrin Hatch took To Kill a Mockingbird.
Busted.
“[O]n close examination, the accounts of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth prove to be riddled with inconsistencies. In many cases, material offered as proof by these veterans is undercut by official Navy records and the men’s own statements. Several of those now declaring Mr. Kerry ‘unfit’ had lavished praise on him, some as recently as last year.” The Times ably dissects the Swift Veterans smear-job, complete with a spiffy graphic linking its moneymen to Dubya. “Records show that the group received the bulk of its initial financing from two men with ties to the president and his family – one a longtime political associate of Mr. Rove’s, the other a trustee of the foundation for Mr. Bush’s father’s presidential library.“
Landslide?
“The president — highly intelligent, personally flawed, detested by many, a man who was first elected in a narrow three-way race and then reelected easily — had faced impeachment. In the following election, his vice president, a decent man with decades on Capitol Hill, was beaten by an inexperienced governor from the South. Four years passed. The economy weakened and oil prices soared. Crises in the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan eroded our national confidence. Clearly the president was in trouble. Yet many were not comfortable with his opponent. Yes, he was effective on television. But was he a steady hand? Was he trustworthy? Would the country be safe in his hands? The year was, of course, 1980.” James K. Galbraith makes the case for a decisive Kerry-Edwards victory in November.
Offsides.
Iraq’s Olympic soccer team ask to be removed from Bush re-election ads. “‘My problems are not with the American people,’ says Iraqi soccer coach Adnan Hamad. ‘They are with what America has done in Iraq: destroy everything.'” Sorry, y’all…it’s just that Dubya has very little to fall back on these days. It’s not like he can campaign on his domestic record.
The Stepford Voters.
“Each session is like a 90-minute support group dedicated to him…For most of the question-and-answer sessions, the president is endlessly being thanked, for ‘serving our country,’ for ‘everything you did after September 11th.’” Hannah Rosin of the Post attends an “Ask President Bush” pep rally, in which Everyday Americans Just Like You are carefully weeded out in favor of pliant conservatives and Dubya-friendly evangelicals. In Salon, Sidney Blumenthal contextualizes this strategy: “‘Ask President Bush’ has crystallized the essential underlying question, framed succinctly by the greatest American poet of democracy, Walt Whitman, who wrote, ‘The President is there in the White House for you, it is not you who are here for him.’“