Last night was an important turning point for the Celtics; they started Brandon Hunter, the second round draft pick, and he responded very well. (6-12 from the floor, 9 rebounds). Up until last night, John Connor had been giving people more or less the same minutes as O’Brien. It looks like that’ll change now. However, he did have 15+ games with the team before then, which means we can compare apples and apples as far as his coaching and O’Brien’s. And boy, the result is illuminating. ...

Moriarty reviewed The Passion over on AICN; unlike most of the Passion reviews on AICN, his was fairly negative. I note his review not because of that directly, but because of some of the replies to the review: “Most movies that are made in Hollywood are anti-white? Hollywood is controlled by jews. Most Hollywood movies have British and German villains. Blacks are overrepresented on TV. They’re either seen as the “victim” or superior to Whites. Blacks are NEVER portrayed negatviely, whereas whites are always the villains. Clearly this is anti-white racism at the hands of Hollywood jews.” ...

Aw yeah. You know what’s good? Nocturnals is good. You know what’s really cool? The Nocturnals RPG supplement preview (PDF).

This (original) is in no way going to be good for me. I can tell.

One tough cop. One tough killer. Ten thousand mashups. Hard Boiled. Gotta be one of the best action movies of all time. Tequila is the cop who accidentally killed an undercover cop and is wracked with guilt. Tony is another undercover cop who is torn between honor and duty. They team up to take down a gunrunner. Action sequences of rare and surpassing excitement, many of them set in a hospital, ensue. Before I get into my concoction, a free offer (sounds better than a request): if you have subjects you’d like to see mashed up, by all means email me or post ‘em here. My choices are always shaped by my preferences and prejudices, which hardly seems fair. Confound and delight me.

William Cork is keeping a very good blog on The Passion. I pretty much concur with his thoughts on the movie, which are summarized here (original). I still think Mel Gibson is a well-meaning individual, but until he takes a deep breath and acknowledges that his father is a lunatic and that his movie is going to inspire hatred, it really doesn’t matter what his motivations are. Take a look at some Hutton Gibson quotes from the link above (via Orcinus): ...

Roy Moore is thinking about running for President. That makes Bush’s decision to hold tight on a marriage amendment all the more risky. There’s no guarantee that the radical right will vote for Bush if there’s a more attractive fringe candidate out there. (Via Oliver Willis.)

Wednesday Weird #3 (original) asks us to weirdify the classic bar scenario. It’s 6 AM and I’ve been up since like 4 AM, so I think I’m good to go on this one. OK, so there’s a bar. I guess it’s a fantasy world, but it doesn’t really matter that much. Maybe it’s Shadowrun. It’s better if there’s not a lot of magical healing, though. The point is, there’s this bar, and you can’t die as long as you’re inside it. You also can’t get any better. It’s like you’re stuck at whatever age you were or with whatever wounds you had when you walked in. ...

George Bush, of course, got an honorable discharge from the National Guard, which should erase any question of wrongdoing while he was in the Guard. Sorta like John Muhammad (original), who was court-martialed twice (once for hitting a non-com), and later got an honorable discharge (original). The Fox News story says the honorable discharge can’t be confirmed, but the AP story and the ABC News story linked above both claim to have a source for that portion of the tale. ...

Saith Rex Hammock, upon meeting the President (original): He is definitely not a wonk, but he knows clearly what he believes needs to happen for the country and its eocnomy to prosper. I don’t think the circular arguments regarding “what ifs” and “what abouts” interest him. Rexblog (original) is kind of neat, actually — he’s a small business owner in the magazine industry. I like the focused special interest blogs that never get any attention most of the time. And I like publishing. ...