Has Operation Offset been enacted? “Beginning this week, the House GOP lawmakers will take steps to cut as much as $50 billion from the fiscal 2006 budget for health care for the poor, food stamps and farm supports, as well as considering across-the-board cuts in other programs.” There’s today’s GOP in a nutshell for you. When the going gets tough, their first instinct is to keep the Dubya tax breaks for millionaires and crack down instead on food stamps and Medicaid. Really, who put these assholes in charge of the public purse? You couldn’t find a more detestable gang of bandits and thugs if you tried.
MillerTimes.
“Greg Mitchell, who edits Editor & Publisher, writes, ‘Miller did far more damage to her newspaper than did Jayson Blair, and that’s not even counting her WMD reporting, which hurt and embarrassed the paper in other ways.’ Jay Rosen concurs. ‘There’s no question,’ he says, ‘this is bigger than Jayson Blair.'” Salon‘s Farhad Manjoo deconstructs the NY Times coverage of Judy Miller’s involvement in Plamegate (available here), and explains why Cheney chief Lewis Libby, in particular, may now be facing an obstruction of justice charge. If it’s any consolation, Scooter, Rove’s in hot water, too.
Googlarians unite.
“What’s going on? Google has become the new ground zero for the ‘other’ culture war. Not the one between Ralph Reed and Timothy Leary, but the war between Silicon Valley and Hollywood; California’s cultural civil war. At stake are two different visions of what might best promote authorship in this country. One side trumpets the culture of authorial exposure, the other urges the culture of authorial control.” University of Virginia Law professor Tim Wu surveys the controversy over Google Print, and makes a cautious plea for writers and academics to get behind the project.
Two Sides to Every Story.
Here’s some interesting news: Clint Eastwood is coming out with two films about the Battle of Iwo Jima simultaneously next year, Flags of our Fathers (the US perspective) and Lamps Before the Wind (from the Japanese viewpoint.) “Typically, Eastwood is not able to articulate fully his rationale for this ambitious enterprise: ‘I don’t know — sometimes you get a feeling about something. You have a premonition that you can get something decent out of it,’ he says. ‘You just have to trust your gut.’” Well, that and your sources.
Taking the Rocky Road.
“‘Rocky Balboa’ is about everybody who feels they want to participate in the race of life, rather than be a bystander…You’re never too old to climb a mountain, if that’s your desire.” Sylvester Stallone returns for Rocky Balboa, a.k.a. Rocky VI. I guess what he’s trying to say is, if he can come back, and you can come back, everybody can come back! (Cue Gorby-lookalike clapping.)
Shore Shipped?
In a strange turn of events this late in the game (particularly given this production diary), Howard Shore is off King Kong, to be replaced by James Newton Howard, late of the Batman Begins score. Says PJ: “During the last few weeks, Howard and I came to realize that we had differing creative aspirations…Rather than waste time arguing with a friend and trying to unify our points of view, we decided amicably to let another composer score the film.” Well, he was right about Stu Townsend, I suppose.
Pick your Poison.
“‘The one that people are most worried about is Abramoff because it seems to have such long tentacles…This seems to be something that could spread almost anywhere…and that has a lot of people worried.'” As Rove testifies for a fourth time before Patrick Fitzgerald’s inquiry into Plamegate and Boss DeLay’s phone records are subpoenaed by Texas DA Ronnie Earle, the WP surveys the political fallout from the many GOP corruption scandals currently in play.
Stacking Gotham’s Deck.
For what it’s worth, Dark Horizons publishes a highly speculative “insider report” on the next Nolan Batman. Among the tidbits offered here, Liev Schreiber is up for Harvey Dent, as are Paul Bettany, Ryan Reynolds, Michael Keaton (!), and Johnny Depp for the Joker. Schreiber would be a great pick-up as Gotham’s two-faced D.A., and any of the others — well, except Reynolds, I guess — would make a solid Crown Prince of Crime, although I’m still rooting for Adrien Brody.
Frist makes a killing.
The Frist SEC probe moves along, with a subpoena forcing the Senate Majority Leader to turn over documents related to his HCA holdings. In addition, it now appears Catkiller made tens of thousands of dollars from HCA stock outside of his “blind” trust, through a partnership controlled by his brother. So much for avoiding a conflict of interest.
The Once and Future Quake.
“Earth, that living, seething, often inhospitable and not altogether intelligently designed thing, has again shrugged, and tens of thousands of Pakistanis are dead…Americans reeling from Hurricane Katrina, and warned of scores of millions of potential deaths from avian flu, have a vague feeling — never mind the disturbing rest of the news — of pervasive menace from things out of control. Too vague, according to Simon Winchester.” In light of the horrifying calamity in Pakistan this past weekend (as well as Katrina and the tsunami), George Will peruses Simon Winchester’s new book on the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.