I’m way behind on my movies (although I made some headway today — more soon) and still haven’t caught United 93 yet…Nevertheless, the trailer for Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center is now online. Hm. This looks exploitative as all-git-out, and, while Conan and Nixon will always get him points, Stone has lost major cred with me after Any Given Sunday and the atrocious Alexander. I’ll probably miss it.
Month: May 2006
MySql Mishaps.
My apologies if you’ve tried to come by here lately and found the site derelict. There’ve been issues on the server side (perhaps akin to this) that look to have resolved themselves.
Why Hath Thou Forsaken Us?
“‘There is a growing feeling among conservatives that the only way to cure the problem is for Republicans to lose the Congressional elections this fall,’ said Richard Viguerie, a conservative direct-mail pioneer.” More trouble for the GOP: The Christian Right looks ready to desert the party in 2006 unless “Congress does more to oppose same-sex marriage, obscenity and abortion.” “‘I can’t tell you how much anger there is at the Republican leadership,’ Mr. Viguerie said. ‘I have never seen anything like it.’” And November’s perfect storm blows stronger…
Chinese Phone Tag.
Even more Snoopgate fallout: As last week’s bombshell story in USA Today makes the covers of the major newsweekies, two ABC reporters say their calls to sources are being monitored. “A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources. ‘It’s time for you to get some new cell phones, quick,’ the source told us in an in-person conversation.”
Ayes for Ney / Straight Pork Express.
How deep runs the culture of corruption among the GOP? While House Republicans have been sniping at their Senate colleagues of late, most of them have nothing but praise for “dead man walking” Bob Ney. When Ney — despite having four big-name witnesses arrayed against him — recently vowed not to resign his seat, “an overwhelming majority of the members present, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), gave Ney a standing ovation.” And, in related news, The Hill finds that the anti-earmark provision of the recent phantom reform bill is riddled with loopholes big enough to drive a pork-truck through.
McCarthy McCarthy’ed.
“‘When the president nominated Porter Goss [as CIA director in September 2004], he sent Goss over to get a rogue agency under control,’ Steven Simon, a colleague of McCarthy’s at the National Security Council from 1994 to 1999, said Goss’s aides told him. Simon said McCarthy’s unusually public firing appeared intended not only to block leaks but also to suppress the dissent that has ‘led to these leaks. The aim was to have a chilling effect, and it will probably work for a while.‘” The WP delves deeper into the firing of CIA officer Mary McCarthy last month, and discovers it may well have been due to both her opposition to secret gulags and her anger over CIA lies on the subject.
Leisure Suits Larry.
What can Brown do for you? If you’re the Knicks, not much more, it appears. As the playoffs continue apace, owner Jim Dolan appears to be on the verge of firing Larry Brown (and thus eating his $40 million contract.) True, Larry hasn’t worked out at all…but don’t get too excited, fellow Knicks fans: Dolan is apparently thinking of replacing Brown with the fearsome vortex of egregious decision-making that is GM Isaiah Thomas.
Dick’s Last Resort?
“Have they done this sort of thing before? Send an amb to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?” A new court filing by Patrick Fitzgerald finds Dick Cheney fretting over Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame in his handwritten notes on Wilson’s article, further substantiating that the felonious leak likely emanated from the veep’s office…if not ordered by the vice-president himself. “Fitzgerald’s filing states that Libby learned of Plame’s name from Cheney, in the course of discussions by the vice president’s office about how to respond to a June 2003 inquiry from Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus about Wilson’s trip to Niger. Fitzgerald asserts that those conversations — and earlier ones sparked by a May 2003 column about the trip in the Times — help demonstrate that Libby’s ‘disclosures to the press concerning Mr. Wilson’s wife were not casual disclosures.‘”
Flash and the Pan.
It’s not the best quality — Still, the Spanish trailer for Guillermo del Toro’s fantastical Pan’s Labyrinth, seemingly a companion of sorts to The Devil’s Backbone, is now online.
Yankton’s [expletive deleted] Revenge.
Will Deadwood be dead wood after three