Press "Enter" to skip to content

Month: July 2004

Vote delay

Newsweek reports that the Department of Homeland Security is looking into ways to postpone the November Presidential election in the case of an Al Qaeda attack.

But the success of March’s Madrid railway bombings in influencing the Spanish elections—as well as intercepted “chatter” among Qaeda operatives—has led analysts to conclude “they want to interfere with the elections,” says one official.

Forcing a delay in elections is every bit as much interference, if not more so, as an attack which causes people to change their vote. This is so obvious that I have trouble believing that it’s escaped the Bush administration.

Soaries, a Bush appointee who two years ago was an unsuccessful GOP candidate for Congress, wants Ridge to seek emergency legislation from Congress empowering his agency to make such a call. Homeland officials say that as drastic as such proposals sound, they are taking them seriously—along with other possible contingency plans in the event of an election-eve or Election Day attack.

Contingency plans are good. Legislation that could delay the election is bad. Sure, if something happens to LA the day of the election, it would be good to hold the results until the voters of Los Angeles can vote — but it does not make sense to keep the entire country from voting in a situation where they could reasonably get to the polls.

Strawberry roan

Billy the Kid to Rio: “Will you keep your eyes open? Will you look right at me as I do it?”

I more or less randomly watched The Outlaw today; it was on this set of Western classics I picked up last weekend on Jack Gulick’s advice. Fifty movies for thirty bucks was too good a deal to pass up.

Billy the Kid

When I cracked open the box, I noticed The Outlaw. I like Howard Hughes, or at least his legend, so I popped it in. I only expected a cheesy Western with a lot of Jane Russell. Imagine my surprise when I got a Billy the Kid played by a guy who looks like a fey Johnny Depp and more subtext than you can shake Lucy Lawless at.

“Doc, if you’re not already fixed up, you can bunk with me tonight.”

“No thanks, Billy, I’ve got a girl. She and her aunt just moved in town. You got a girl, Billy?”

“No, I ain’t got nothing, except that horse.”

“You can’t fool me, a good looking boy like you… you must have a girl somewhere.”

“No, I don’t trust ‘em.”

So the first act of the movie is about how Doc Holliday decides to partner up with Billy the Kid, deserting his old friend Pat Garrett. The second act is Doc and Billy arguing over the beautiful Rio (this is where Jane Russell comes in) and Doc’s strawberry roan; it’s unclear which is more important. The third act resolves it all.

Pat Garrett: “You and me never had any trouble ‘till he came along.”

Besides being charged with tension, it’s actually a pretty decent movie. The final faceoff sequence is about as good as anyone could want. The gunslingers use their weapons like the words they can’t always find, to argue and to sting and to wound. I gasped a couple of times, but then again, I’m suggestible.

The coda doesn’t work quite, but I imagine that’s what you get when you fire Howard Hawks as director and try to finish a movie yourself. I could have done without the over-aggressive score, too. Regardless, none of that stopped me from enjoying the movie a lot.

Tasty. See it if you get a chance.

Orgiastic

So that’s settled, then; my pal Chris and I are venturing up to the Great White North (in the form of Montreal) the last weekend of this month to partake in movies. My schedule is basically the same one I outlined earlier, plus Saving Private Tootsie. I chose Hillside Strangler and Into the Mirror over my alternative choices in the end. I have tickets and I have a hotel reservation.

If anyone happens to be in Montreal that weekend, lemme know and we’ll have beer or coffee or something. My free time will be sparse for obvious reasons, but I imagine… maybe I should say “we’ll have popcorn.”

I’ll blog the whole thing, of course. I have already staked out wireless locations. Although if anyone knows anyone in the Concordia IT department who might be able to get me access to the campus wireless network over the weekend, that would be superawesome.

Foul chance

Gosh, that’s unfortunate. Some of Bush’s service records were destroyed in 1996 and 1997. By accident.

This should be easy enough to resolve; since Bush wasn’t the only guy whose records were lost, one assumes that there’d be an official record of the accident. Perhaps even a postmortem. Memos. That sort of thing.

Except that I can’t help noticing that Lt. Colonel Bill Burkett said, in February of this year, that members of George Bush’s staff purged the National Guard files in 1997. Damned confluence of dates. Now, the records that Burkett says were destroyed were not the records that the Defense Department just admitted to destroying accidentally, so this is not exactly a smoking gun. I think the time period is still suggestive, however. If you believe Burkett, it’s not a stretch to suspect that the Texas Air National Guard was not the only organization willing to clean up Bush’s records.

Anyhow, the next step is getting a look at the memos from 1997 which discuss the accident.

Tasty

The Good Eats kitchen is up for sale, sort of. You get the kitchen, but not the utensils or the pots or pans or anything. But, you know, the stove is nice. And the house seems nice. It’s completely wired for Ethernet.

You also get a meal cooked by Alton Brown. I think the best line in the listing is this: “For the ultimate birthday or holiday gift just buy the home for the dinner and resell afterward!”

What, No Weapons?

Then, in Rwanda. Now, in Sudan. This is pretty much for me so that I don’t forget to read these regularly.

On a semi-detached, attempting dispassionate note, the Rwanda blog is a new twist on the Pepys and Sei Shonagon blogs: historical events retold in the blog — dare I say it? — medium. I think it works.

Rebel rebel

On the Fourth of July, I choose to commemorate the holiday with the words of one of the very first Harvard intellectual leftists, a moonbat and a traitor if there ever was one; a man whose reputation among the ruling classes was far worse than any Moore or Chomsky. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you one of the most important men of the American Revolution, the loud-mouthed angry revolutionary, Samuel Adams.

“In short, it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.”

Thank you, and enjoy the fireworks.

I have to wait three years?

What Steven Spielberg movie? I’m all about the webs, baby. You’re either gonna see it or not so I’ll just skip the ooohs and ahhhs and cut right to the spoilers and commentary.

Oh, one thing. Step back with me to the halcyon days of 1994. Remember the guy who directed Dead Alive and Meet The Feebles, and the guy who directed the Evil Dead movies? They’re gonna be critically acclaimed directors who make billions of dollars at the box office. No, really.

Very funny old world.