Month: August 2008

Olympus — and Ares — in Asia.

“‘This is the worst nightmare one can encounter,’ he said. Asked whether Georgia and Russia were now at war, he said, ‘My country is in self-defense against Russian aggression. Russian troops invaded Georgia.‘” Well, so much for that whole settling-differences-through-sports shebang. On the day of the Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing, Russia has apparently invaded nearby South Ossetia, next to Georgia, on reports (or is it simply the pretext?) of a Georgian incursion and ethnic cleansing in the region.

It’s still unclear (to me, at least) exactly what is going on over there. According to Georgia president Mikhail Saakashvili (and the current CNN reports), Russian troops have “been amassing at the border for the last few months. They claimed they were staging exercises there and as soon as a suitable pretext was found, they moved in.” According to Russian president Dmitry Medvedev (and some witnesses in the AP story), Russia is going in to protect Russian citizens in South Ossetia from both ethnic cleansing and a Georgian attempt to retake the breakaway region, which apparently Saakashvili has been promising to do for awhile. “Russia ‘will not allow the deaths of our compatriots to go unpunished’ and ‘those guilty will receive due punishment…My duty as Russian president is to safeguard the lives and dignity of Russian citizens, wherever they are. This is what is behind the logic of the steps we are undertaking now.‘” So, somebody‘s up to no good here on Opening Day, and, with competing claims to the region at hand, matters could soon get much worse.

In any case, at the moment we’re calling for an immediate cease-fire in the region, and have reasserted that “the U.S. supports Georgia’s territorial integrity.” More to come, I’m sure.

Road to Nowhere.

“‘It’s tangible, the misery and hopelessness and the bleakness,’ Mortensen says. ‘It gives you much more to work with if you’re filming in that world instead of a green screen.‘ Well, they know where they’re going, but they don’t know where they’ve been…USA Today scores the first official still from John Hillcoat’s take on The Road, with Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Robert Duvall, Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce, Michael K. Williams, and Garret Dillahunt. I found McCarthy’s book decent enough but considerably overpraised — As with mainstream critics’ overheated embrace of Pan’s Labyrinth, I thought The Road was post-apocalyptic sci-fi for people who normally condescend to the genre, and thus haven’t read/seen very much of it. And, more than most McCarthy, I found the style seriously grating after while: “The Man, ashen-faced, sifted through the ash-gray ash. The Child whimpered. His mouth tasted like ash.“

All that being said, I really like the cast they’ve put together here, and, given The Proposition, John Hillcoat sounds like an intriguing choice for this. So, count me in.

The Once and Future King?

“It is the most challenging film I’ve ever made.” The Hollywood Reporter checks in with James Cameron on the status of Avatar, and the future of 3D. “‘The real question is ‘where does all this go?’ Cameron said. ‘Are we looking at a situation maybe 10-15 years out where most laptops are sold with 3-D stereoscopic screens, most montors are stereo compatible, most DVD players can run stereo content?…I can see this becoming much more pervasive that we are thinking now.’“

Grace Under Pressure.

“It’s like these guys take pride in being ignorant! They think it’s funny that they’re making fun of something that’s true.” I’ll be honest: If it seems like political news has taken something of a backseat around here of late, it’s mainly because the recent developments on the campaign trail — tire gauges, Paris Hilton, and the like — just seem so inordinately stupid to me, not to mention so woefully desperate by the McCain campaign, that I’ve had trouble mustering up the level of outrage to even post about them. That being said, Sen. Obama’s still on his game, and — in a few arch sentences — he’s made the mythical maverick and his bewildered GOP shock-troops look as ridiculous as they should.

Really, this election shouldn’t even be close. McCain’s shrill, doddering, and nonsensical campaign notwithstanding, I just can’t believe that the good people of this country will turn to the GOP again, after barely scraping through the Dubya years. And, summer polls aside, I’m still feeling very confident that November will witness an Obama-headed Dem deluge. (By way of colleagues at Peasants Under Glass and The Late Adopter.)

This ain’t Aruba either.

Detectives Bunk and Freamon, y’all’s transfer has come in: The Wire‘s Wendell Pierce and Clarke Peters will rejoin David Simon for his new NOLA show, Treme. “Pierce will play Antoine Batiste, an accomplished jazz trombonist who is now scratching for gigs, trying to support a live-in girlfriend and a new baby, while still carrying a torch for a failed marriage…Peters will play Albert Lambreaux, a big chief of the White Feather Nation trying to bring the tribe’s members home.“

We’ll Always Have Orgrimmar.

I have no pride, I have no shame…and I’m not above pimping for Blizzard Entertainment every so often if the price is right. So, as my MMORPG of choice is trying to build out its network prior to the coming expansion, and are now offering various goodies to veteran and signee to do so, send me a note if anyone’s thinking of taking the World of Warcraft plunge. On the upside, it’s relatively cheap and addictive entertainment. On the downside, did I mention it was addictive? Don’t say I didn’t warn you if your life takes an Aqua Vita turn.

Brettie and the Jets?

In a move that will likely rival MJ’s ho-hum final years in Washington, the New York Jets sign quarterback Brett Favre from Greenbay. I’d say this was a panic move that’ll clearly backfire, but, then again, the Jets were rolling with Vinny Testaverde for a few years there, and he was older than dirt too. At any rate, NYJ are as close to a NFL team as I have in my fan arsenal, so here’s hoping it pans out.

Habbush%*t.

“That it was a forgery can no longer be doubted; that it originated with the White House may be harder to prove. Two former CIA officials — Rob Richer and John Maguire — have gone on record as saying they were personally charged with carrying out the forgery, but their marching orders, if they existed, came directly from Tenet (who has fiercely denied the story). The closest thing Suskind has to a smoking gun is Richer’s memory, five years later, of ‘looking down at the creamy White House stationery on which the assignment was written.'”

In his review of Ron Suskind’s The Way of the World, Salon‘s Louis Bayard tells the tale of the Habbush letter, a forgery fabricated by the CIA to tie Iraq to Al Qaeda (and, thus manufacture a casus belli for the War in Iraq.) In other words, George Tenet — perhaps on higher authority — signed off on an illegal black op aimed against the American people. If this goes up the food chain — and, at this point, who’d be surprised if it didn’t — this is definitely an impeachable offense. Where’s the outrage?

Update: Politico has more.