I don't think this has been posted, worth a look and a chuckle in my humble opinion:

http://www.bigad.com.au/movie.html

might as well start with woodward. another turgid display of fourth estatemanship.

digbys take:

Woodward, like Broder and Sally and Richard Cohen and Cokie and the rest of the moribund DC establishment, are obsessed with the social and personal activities of their King (and their own relationships to him) and have absolutely no interest or insight into the corrupt, depraved, malevolent political force the Republican Washington establishment has become. (It's hardball politics!) As long as they are getting their due deference and nobody's slip is showing, they are more than happy to keep any behavior that the unwashed masses might find unpalatable under wraps --- things like war or institutionalized character assassination. The only scandals worth reporting are "too many marts" and "trashing the place" --- behaviors that imply the courtier's social mores are unimportant. Tsk tsk tsk.

it happened here first

the sport of politics

Notes from NOLA

17 years ago I had this tribute album. Now it’s hagiography, which is to say a Hollywood movie. Network tonight.

Prince Achmed was on Turner Classic Movies. Worth keeping an eye peeled for. Beautiful stuff.

74 degrees. im an outdoorsman. which is to say yes the windows are open.

Holy shit. Charlie Rose and Chalabi on PBS. It's a battle of the titans. They both believe themselves so much.

i thought directv should carry one of the satellite radio systems. and now it does.

This is a president who even in the best of times is insular, out of touch, and completely unwilling to have alternative points of view brought to him. Now, according to administration sources he's kicked out everyone else in his Oval Treehouse except for his mom, and three people who remind him of his mom? Shudder.

harold lloyd box

the jewish brain (it was a cover story in new york magazine not the new yorker you idiot!)

The grassroots response to the new Wal-Mart documentary has been incredible. Thanks to you and our many partners, "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price" will debut next week in over 7,000 living rooms and community centers across the country—a true groundswell.

Superballs. Quicktime required. 18 MB.

Probably want to right click and save as..., or, on Mac, ctrl-click and save as...

whats kansas's fucking problem

Super sped up satellite feed of the entire hurricane season, with each storm named and its' path traced. Wow.

just watched an aol pre-view of tonights gilmore girls. Jess confronts Rory about "not being you" and that her rich boyfriend Logan is a dick. looks like a good one. 8pm on the WB. oh yeah.

spent a large part of my weekend watching the two-DVD deluxe set for the superb documentary "The Corporation." It includes the 144-minute feature, plus tons of extras, including extended interviews with both critics and defenders of corporations (Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Naomi Klein, but also Miton Friedman, and the CEOs of Shell Oil and Goodyear).

The film explores the history of the corporation in the modern world, from the creation of the fictional "legal person" in Roman law to the current situation in which many experts agree that the corporation has become the dominant institution in our lives, supassing the Church, the empire, and the nation-state in power, wealth, and influence.

check out poor George.

uovo in the newyorker

D. and I saw Network last night. I haven't seen it, other than short clips, since its original theatrical release in 1976. We just saw Good Night, and Good Luck this afternoon.

Murrow gave us a vision of what television could become.

This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.

RTNDA Convention, October 15, 1958

Network gave us a warning of what it would become. Murrow worried that television would simply "entertain, amuse and insulate". But he missed one trick. As Diane Christensen (Faye Dunaway) says, "The American people want somebody to articulate their rage for them." The public's hunger isn't simply to have their boredom amused, but to have their biases confirmed, their xenophobia stoked, their blood-lust sated.

Murrow knew how good television could be, but never imagined how bad it has become. One can only hope that this flick reminds the current generation of reporters of the history of their profession, and inspires them to speak truth to power.

rollerball on espnc

eating out in portlands

"Mr. WILKERSON: I'm privy to the paperwork, both classified and unclassified, that the secretary of State asked me to assemble on how this all got started, what the audit trail was, and when I began to assemble this paperwork, which I no longer have access to, it was clear to me that there was a visible audit trail from the vice president's office through the secretary of Defense down to the commanders in the field that in carefully couched terms -- I'll give you that -- that to a soldier in the field meant two things: We're not getting enough good intelligence and you need to get that evidence, and, oh, by the way, here's some ways you probably can get it. And even some of the ways that they detailed were not in accordance with the spirit of the Geneva Conventions and the law of war.