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In episode 3 of FlashForward: The Center for Disease Control requests money from the Department of Homeland Security. In 1991. Which is somewhat prior to the date the DHS was founded. The only person in the world who notices all the crows in the world dying during the flashforward blackout is a Nazi prisoner. After all the crows in the world die, the crow population magically recovers. Approximately every single cast member explains that the world has changed, and we are all prophets, and we know our future, and the world has changed as a result. In case you hadn’t heard. Jack Davenport does not appear. Dominic Monaghan does not appear. Sorry, semi-promising new SF show! Your time is up. Anyone still watching can let me know if it gets any better.

John Woo’s new movie, Red Cliff, will be hitting US soil on November 20th. If you are a die-hard John Woo fan, you’ll see it. If you’re a John Woo fan who’s been disappointed by such cinematic masterpieces as Paycheck, you should see it: all reports are that he’s back to form. If you’re not a John Woo fan but you like big historical epics, you should see it. Everyone else: also see it. ...

The Polanski petition doesn’t really cut it. I get the argument – that film festivals should be safe zones, because if you have a blanket policy of extradition then filmmakers from totalitarian regimes aren’t safe there. But no. This is not about free speech, this is about rape. It’s reasonable to make the distinction between types of crime; we do not need to protect rapists for the sake of protecting free speech.

The season two premier of Dollhouse got lousy ratings, which it deserved. The problem’s highlighted in the climatic scene, where Eliza Dushku is flipping through identities. You can’t really tell the difference between them. Which kick-ass identity is the meaningful one? Kind of sad, insofar as Fran Kranz and Amy Acker knocked their scenes out of the park. Whedon just isn’t all that great at casting female leads, I guess.

I woke up this morning thinking about FlashForward. (Jack Davenport, so big awesome potential. Susan notes concern that the show has absorbed all the British character actors, however, which could lead to a shortage over in the UK.) So I wanted to read some discussion on it, and I wound up missing Usenet. Back in the day you could just go read the television newsgroup or the alt.tv.flashforward newsgroup and you’d get your fix of cranky geeks expressing poorly-formed opinions about new shows. These days, where do I go? I guess TWoP (original). ...

A moment of silence, if you will, for Deval Patrick. Setting aside the rather imperfect bill passed by imperfect legislators to fill Teddy Kennedy’s Senate seat, Governor Patrick is taking a sizable political chance in order to maximize the chance that health care reform will pass. It’s not just that he’s associating himself with a bill that’s not all that popular in his home state. Yeah, Republicans are savoring the idea of hanging this sucker around his neck in 2010. The public glee is all about Patrick appointing Dukakis; make no mistake, however. If Paul Kirk is appointed, that’s going to be just as useful from a Republican standpoint. “Duval Patrick, doing the work of the Kennedys.” Raw meat for the Republican base. ...

It’s the week for rich businessmen to enter the political fray (original), huh? Of the two, I find Linda McMahon’s (original) decision more interesting. Stephen Pagliuca is a fairly bland guy with a fairly bland background. Linda McMahon is also fairly bland, and she’s going to face the same questions (original) about her loyalty to her party, but her background has somewhat more spice. Her Web site is funny. You can barely tell her last name is McMahon, which is probably for the best. It’s not about Linda McMahon, it’s about Linda, who is barely related to that guy who shows up on your TV on Monday nights yelling at wrestlers. The WWE is merely “a company,” not a sports entertainment juggernaut or anything like that. It’s a pretty tasteful chunk of the Web. ...

This post may trigger. On September 28th, 2008, my life changed. That was the day Wyatt killed himself; that was the evening Susan and I found Wyatt’s body on the third floor of our communal house. A year later, the grief has abated somewhat, although there are sharp moments of pain. The anger’s still pretty strong. So is the determination. In 2006, 33,000 people killed themselves in the United States. Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death for adults between the ages of 18 and 65 years in this country. (15 to 24 year olds? Third leading.) Last year the rate of military suicides increased for the fourth year running. More than half of all violent deaths are suicides. ...

Once upon a time, we had a handle on tuberculosis. We had good drugs to fight the disease, we knew how to use them, and when we used them right, the disease was cured. Not only did people stop dying of TB, we were maybe going to be able to stamp the disease out entirely. Good stuff. In the 80s, it turned out that we were probably never going to be able to get rid of TB, because we screwed up. To treat the disease properly, you have to keep treating it even after you feel like you’re all better. This means that if, say, most of the TB treatment centers in New York City close down because it’s a solved problem, the couple of hundred people who still get TB have to trek across two boroughs to get to the sole remaining center and they have to keep on doing this every week even after they feel like they’re not sick any more. ...

As always. Thank you, countries of the world.