Sterling Ambivalence

FYI: I'm on Google Wave.

2009-11-25T11:42:45Z

What do I do now?

One way to ban gay marriage. . .

2009-11-19T20:59:15Z

...ban all marriages, like Texas may have done.

Good job, Texas.

No We Can't!

2009-11-16T05:09:10Z

"I look at the GOP saying 'we can't' insure more because it's 'too hard' & 'we can't' try [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] et al in NYC because it's 'too dangerous' and I think: 'When did the US become the home of the timid and the weak? When did we become a nation of trembling scared old men?'

Not to get too jinogisitic, but this is the fucking USA! We do the fucking impossible. WE WALKED ON THE FUCKING MOON! There is nothing we can't do, from being brave enough and confident enough in the Constitution to put KSM et al on trial in the same city he tried to destroy, to making sure everyone in this country has access to affordable health care.

The GOP says we can't? Hey GOP! FUCK YOU! THIS IS THE US! WE CAN FUCKING DO IT AND NOT MISS LUNCH! Goddamned buncha fucking wussies crying for mommy. Go back home if you can't cowboy or cowgirl up and get the job done. I did not freeze my ass off in North-Fucking-Dakota because we can't.

That's why "Yes, We Can" resonates with me. That's what this country is about. Even when we've fucked it all up, it was "Yes, We Can". Whether it's Obama, or anyone else...the first time you say "Oh no, it's too big, too hard, too expensive", I say "Fuck off wussy". If we can't, then let's give it back to the indians, and go back to Britain, Ireland and all the rest and admit that the US didn't fail because of ebul terrorist, or teh gayz. It failed because its citizens were too fucking scared to succeed.

-- John Welch on Twitter.

Cartoon Network's latest apology advert.

2009-11-15T05:49:26Z

So you tell me people who watch Cartoon Network don't want to see reality shows?!

2009-11-08T02:08:37Z

At 9:30 eastern tonight (in about 20 minutes), Cartoon Network will air the opening episode to the final season of Justice League Unlimited, itself the final series in the DC Animated Universe franchise developed by the team headed by Bruce W. Timm. Remarkably, this would be only the second time the episode aired on Cartoon Network, the first being its premiere in January of 2006. Also premiering this month are a new Garfield show, and returning to the network are shows with the Pink Panther, and the Looney Tunes characters. Tomorrow, CN premieres the Ed Edd n Eddy movie it produced over a year ago.

What has lead CN to rediscover its roots? The spectacular failure of its experiment in reality programming, also known as CN Real -- formerly known as CN Real. If you watch CN for any length of time, you will notice that sometime during last few weeks, they stopped referring to any show as airing on CN Real. In fact, the the reality shows are no longer shown together, limited each to one or two timeslots a week with no repeats. Given that the shows were responsible for a giving CN its new record low in rating this summer, knocking the network out of the the top 10 -- out of the top 20 of cable networks, this excommunication should be of no surprise. That they thought that 30% off versions of Cash Cab, Mythbusters, Ghost Hunters ~~and Cash Cab would be received well should have been the surprise.~~ -- man, just look at the list of shame as composed by TV Tropes -- the network was as lazy as it was contemptuous of its audience!

But that doesn't mean Cartoon Network hasn't given up its teenaged rebellion. It has picked up two more live-actioners, because isn't animation a juvenile pursuit anyway?

Oh How Wrong I Was: Or How Did They Pass Her Over for A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips?

2009-10-19T02:56:20Z

Well, I guess I am wrong. Debbie Schlussel is a movie critic. And low and behold the rating system she has devised. Since thumbs are trademarked by Siskel and Ebert, and every old hack uses stars she set out to find something befitting her unique perspective as a critic. And she presents, Reagans and Marxes. I kid you not! A movie can range from four Ronald Reagans (equivalent to four or five stars or two thumbs up) to "four [Karl] Marxes and a [Yasser] Arafat" (equivalent to perhaps having to pull in a third critic as to give a movie three thumbs down, or maybe awarding the film negative stars). (But then again, that film was like "seeing Mein Kampf on video". With this and with Disney turning girls into butch porn-star Muslims, Hollywood must really hate the America!)

Debbie Schlussel just wants to be offended.

2009-10-18T09:12:47Z

Tinker Bell

There's just something about the abject foolishness in this Tinker Bell complaint from Debbie Schlussel that irks me. It has irked me enough to even write a post here on LiveJournal. (All the peeps who have me on their LJ friends lists know how hard it is to get me to post something here.)

The stupidity gets a running start with the very first sentence:

Either Disney is trying to appease “modest” Muslims or they’ve gone the way of the rest of Hollywood and are trying to make their feminine characters more masculine.

Somehow, she has it in her head that Hollywood is making its female characters more male. I really want to see what is leading her to this bizarre conclusion. The very manly shorty-short jeans worn by Megan Fox in Transformers II? Miley Cyrus playing dress-up as Miss Rock Star Hanna Montana? Did the Gossip Girls start wearing Camo? Was there less cleavage on MTV this summer? Hollywood must be sending different movies to her town.

And maybe the Evil Radical Muslims have her in their misinformation campaign as well, unless she thinks a hat and a short skirt is an acceptable substitute for a hijab and a burka.

But you know what, she has not watched Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure. I'm pretty sure Disney does not send her screener DVDs. She is in a snit about one picture of the character -- it's not even a shot from the movie. Amazon.com has several stills posted from the movie posted on its product page. There are five pictures of Tinker Bell available on Amazon, four of which where you can see her outfit. Only one of those four show Tink in her Robin Hood adventurer outfit. It's less of a redesign than of a woman getting dressed up in mission appropriate clothes. Maybe Tink wears the outfit for a significant portion of the film, but unless Schlussel can go on an archeology mission in a cocktail dress, she has no standing to complain.

And it's a funny argument Debbie Schlussel has made: a woman with more than one outfit is unfeminine.

Happy 60th Wile E. You haven't caught that Road Runner yet?!

2009-09-17T23:44:20Z

The cartoon may as well be CSI: Acme, but that's why it was so popular. Everybody knew the formula, but they wanted to see what twists you could turn with it. We know the coyote will get flattened, sure, but the fun is seeing how he will be flattened.

The family of Chuck Jones has been posting letters he wrote to his daughter. Here's one where he explains why he could produce a Road Runner cartoon so quickly.

The caucus of grievance. . .

2009-09-15T01:12:17Z

Ayn Rand has convinced many corporate titans and fat-cat wannabes that not only is their ultra-wealth a function of their genius and virtue, but that the government is conspiring to take it all away from them and give it to the poor and the common man, who are by definition ignorant and slothful.

The folks at the protests believe that they are victims of the government who are conspiring to take their materials, well-being and freedoms away from them and give it all away to illegal immigrants and poor people and minorities and Wall-Street.

They are united by a common disdain for people beneath them, but I keep wondering how this caucus is held together since the members of each side does show disdain to the other. All of the protesters rallied by Glenn Beck can't possibly believe themselves to be titans, but thwarted by the evil government.

We're number 37!

2009-09-14T06:22:45Z

If an online psychic warned you not to leave home, would you cancel plans to attend a party? Would you refuse to date someone with a clashing astrological sign? In short, do you believe?

View 1041 Answers

No.

Also:

Indoctrinate Your Children Well!

2009-09-11T03:23:54Z

Back to Texas...

If two wingnuts had their way, children in Texas, and throughout the country would not learn about Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall because they were not important enough to learn about. Well, they seem to have relented on Chavez, but I can't find anything on their opinion of Marshall. No, they want to make room for people like Newt Gingrich, Jerry Falwell, Phyllis Schlafly and Charlton Heston.

Fortunately, folks at the Univ. of Texas, El Paso is tracking all of this stupid, so folks can hopefully stop it.

"You Lie!"

2009-09-10T05:13:53Z

...is what South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson shouted to Obama when he promised illegal immigrants will not get coverage through any health care reform bill. This is apparently so important an entire section of this legislation was drafted just to make sure anybody seeking coverage in a goverment provided plan is legally in America.

Can I ask why it is so terrible to offer them coverage? If an illegal immigrant gets injured or deathly ill, they will be taken to an emergency room and treated at taxpayer expense anyway. There are many diseases that can be spread through a sneeze or a cough. Viruses and bacteria do not ask you for papers before infecting you. Heaven forbid an epidemic occurs in America. Don't you think having an underground population with no access to medical care would be disastrous should -- say a Swine Flu outbreak occur? Again, remember that viruses don't ask for immigration documents.

Given that even the public plan is intended to be self-sufficient, paid for by the premiums the users pay into the system, why not let undocumented immigrants pay into the public plan to get coverage, too?

Don't tell me. I already have an idea as to why.

Time Warner buys DC Comics.... wait, what?

2009-09-10T03:52:52Z

Looks like having over five years of rival Marvel make a mockery of you by producing numerous films, without owning a studio will embarrass you. Warner Bros has reorganized DC Comics to... well, I'm still trying to figure out what the story is. Nikki Finke is reporting it here (and here and here), and Chud is analyzing it.

Obviously, this is not a reaction to the Disney purchase of Marvel, but much more likely a reaction to (I like to repeat myself) the humiliation of Marvel making much bank on its characters though movies, while actresses actually age into and out of consideration for the Wonder Woman movie.

Why not? Mark Evanier is smarter than me.

Princesses in Spandex. . .

2009-09-09T04:09:00Z

Here is a semi-contrarian view of the Disney purchase of Marvel which kind of expands on criticisms I have of Disney as well. Disney is buying entry into a market it has been dead to for about a decade. Surprisingly, I didn't make a snide joke about it in my brief post noting it, I've been telling people who would here me that Disney has hit a brick wall; the people they seem able to relate to are tween and teen girls. I would not be surprised to learn that they have a last ditch project in the Imagineering Labs to make young boys look and behave more like young girls. That would explain the Jonas Brothers.

As recently as the 90s, Disney could themselves release films that were broad, critically acclaimed hits. Today's Disney can be described as selling fairy tale princesses to girls. What is remarkable is how much its other properties (with the obvious exception of ESPN) has femmed up. ABC TV is essentially the WB Network for grown ups (h/t Jaime Weinman). The Disney Channel, which used to be home to shows like Jet Jackson, The Jersey and Even Stevens (starring a pre-Transformers Shia LeBeouf) is now almost entirely devoted to shows starring future female Disney pop stars. Miley Cyrus. Selena Gomez (summary). Again, the Jonas. And for all of the work Disney spent relaunching little watched Toon Disney into Disney XD as a male counterpart to The Disney Channel, XD is still far more popular with girls. (Curiously, it may be because they write the boys in XD shows as having doubts and insecurities, which would make them more appealing to girls than boys. Quote the article: "Amid their tomfoolery, the lead characters sometimes turn to the camera to agonize over decisions, expressing self-doubt in a way that is reassuring to girl audiences,")

For this entire decade, Disney could not pay a boy to partake in entertainment from the castle branded company. Now the House of Mouse pins its hopes on the House of Ideas, though critics will note the ideas are still 30 plus years old. They will still need good people to execute those ideas. Whether or not Marvel has those people remain to be seen,

Originally posted on sterlingnorth.vox.com

Indoctrinate Your Children Well!

2009-09-05T01:51:35Z

It seems as though since January 2008, politics has been subject to an endless parade of stupid. I think Hitler would be shocked to learn that his closest modern analog is a mixed-race man whose father comes from Africa, and that his most offensive act was to provide national health insurance. It is quite apparent that we have not been teaching our children well. Which leads us to today's parade float -- did you hear, Obama is going to give an address to our nation's schoolchildren? He's going to brainwash our children, Clockwork Orange-style into good little Maos! Of course, reasonably intelligent people may wonder how much indoctrination one can possibly pull off in an half hour or less, but reasonably intelligent left the land months ago.

Good indoctrination takes lots of time, effort and dedication. At the least, you need to rewrite textbooks to slant history, and rewrite curricula to fit the ideology you want to pursue -- and make sure you do it when the students are too young to question teacher. Better yet, don't teach them critical thinking. They might start to question you. In other words, do what the Texas Board of Education is planning on doing. And as Texas goes, so goes the nation. Given that Texas is probably the second largest purchaser of textbooks, it's easiest for textbook producers to write to the standards of Texas (and California) first, and sell those books to the nation.

Thanks, Disney. . .

2009-09-02T19:44:22Z

This one's my fault, really. I said I liked this show at one point. Much like I said I liked Chowder, or Gargoyles. As soon as I said that, I knew Disney would have to find a way to kill the show.

I never would have thought it'd be worth $4 billion to annoy me.

The Disney Marvelverse. . .

2009-08-31T17:00:13Z

Deep down, I knew this day would come. Time Warner has owned DC Comics long before there was even a Time Warner. But it still surprised me nonetheless. Disney has bought Marvel for $4 Billion. What will this mean? Sez an io9 commenter:

"Now every hero's mother will die"

The Entertainment Industry is Annoying Me. . .

2009-08-30T02:36:21Z

From Nikki Finke, Deadline Hollywood Daily:

As the summer winds down, studio execs needing a vacation are getting punchier (and their quotes to me snarkier). But even Hollywood is embarrassed by the fact that this weekend's Top 4 competing films [Final Destination 3D, Halloween II, Inglourious Basterds, District 9] featuring horror, death, gore, mayhem, war, Nazis, aliens, and sci-fi all did so well at the box office Friday. "What a sad statement on movie-going humanity," a top studio exec emailed me tonight.

Yes, because science fiction is such a blight on humanity. Also, I myself don't care much for horror, but Mr. Studio Executive sounds like the type of idiot who thinks violent video games are creating an army of prepubescent psychopaths.

The L.A. Times on Cartoon Network

Since launching several live-action reality shows in June and moving away from its animation roots, Cartoon Network, which is owned by Time Warner Inc.'s Turner Broadcasting, has been playing a game of hide-and-seek with its audience. Few of its new shows -- which include "Survive This," a knockoff for kids of CBS' "Survivor"; "The Othersiders," about a bunch of paranormal-obsessed ghost-hunting teens; and "Brain Rush," a quiz show with contestants on roller coasters -- are catching on with viewers, and none are among the network's top 10 series. Only one -- "Destroy Build Destroy," whose title is self-explanatory -- is gaining any traction.

The move toward live-action and reality shows with a tilt toward preteen and teenage boys is not happening on a whim. [Stuart] Snyder said the network's research told him that kids want a diverse slate of content. "Our network was 100% cartoons, and our audience is saying we also want to see ourselves," he said.

"We have seen the trends," Snyder said. "We believe that by diversifying and providing more live-action or even sports content, we will have the ability to deliver new advertisers to the network." In particular, he wants to target electronics and technology companies because children have become big consumers of cellphones and video games and often are texting, gaming and watching TV at the same time.

Leading the makeover is Rob Sorcher, a veteran cable programming executive who joined Cartoon Network last year after a stint at AMC, where he spearheaded that network's push toward original dramas and was involved in the development of "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad." Sorcher knows there is a lot of ill will inside and outside Cartoon Network for what he and Snyder are doing.

"All these changes are painful," Sorcher said. "The people who are deep fans don't want it." He recalled that when running AMC, he "took a very bad beating" from viewers who were upset that he changed the channel's old movie format. Now, Sorcher added, "no one would question it."

I'd question it. Other than Mad Men, AMC is a useless network. It what appears to be a grand total of seven movies. Almost every time I flip to the network, it is airing Wolf! If you ask somebody to name a show on AMC that's not Mad Men, you'd get silence. The network is batting one out of a hundred sixty-eight hour week.

But the team is well on its way to AMCizing CN.

TV.com: Chowder is officially canceled:

it's like being the hot girl who just got out a bad relationship; your phone starts ringing from everyone else who's been wanting to date you. It's nice to hear from other networks how much they enjoy the show, especially when you don't really hear it from your own. Chowder has opened up a lot of awesome possibilities for me, and creatively I'm feeling more inspired than ever. There are some new ideas I'm working on that will hopefully find a good home somewhere in the next year.

We wish you the best, C. H. Greenblatt

Although they are committed to their approach, they disagree on the fate of Cartoon Network's name. Snyder said he didn't believe the name has to be changed. Sorcher said he expects "we will have to deal with this down the line."

Yes, AMCize the network.

Rick Perlstein on the blossoming of the crazy tree. . .

2009-08-16T22:49:42Z

In Pennsylvania last week, a citizen, burly, crew-cut and trembling with rage, went nose to nose with his baffled senator: "One day God's going to stand before you, and he's going to judge you and the rest of your damned cronies up on the Hill. And then you will get your just deserts." He was accusing Arlen Specter of being too kind to President Obama's proposals to make it easier for people to get health insurance. . . .

It was interesting to hear a BBC reporter on the radio trying to make sense of it all. He quoted a spokesman for the conservative Americans for Tax Reform: "Either this is a genuine grass-roots response, or there's some secret evil conspirator living in a mountain somewhere orchestrating all this that I've never met." The spokesman was arguing, of course, that it was spontaneous, yet he also proudly owned up to how his group has helped the orchestration, through sample letters to the editor and "a little bit of an ability to put one-pagers together.". . .

So the birthers, the anti-tax tea-partiers, the town hall hecklers -- these are "either" the genuine grass roots or evil conspirators staging scenes for YouTube? The quiver on the lips of the man pushing the wheelchair, the crazed risk of carrying a pistol around a president -- too heartfelt to be an act. The lockstep strangeness of the mad lies on the protesters' signs -- too uniform to be spontaneous. They are both. If you don't understand that any moment of genuine political change always produces both, you can't understand America, where the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and where elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests.

Rick Perlstein, "In America, Crazy Is a Preexisting Condition"

Tort Retort. . .

2009-08-13T05:11:18Z

One thing I have found interesting with the Healthcare Town Hall Shoutdowns and Riots is that whenever one asks a critic of healthcare reform how he would lower costs and expand coverage, they always point to tort reform and deregulation.

Really? John already pointed out what happened with credit cards and deregulation (most opened shop in Delaware or another state with no usury laws) but the credit card industry is also a case study for the things that can happen when you can't sue them -- and binding arbitration hasn't seemed to slow down the increase in fees and interest in that industry. I can't think of any place where tort reform has cut cost for the consumer.

Someone snitched!

2009-08-12T03:37:46Z

Oh snap! Someone told them that Stephen Hawking is alive and well over in the United Kingdom. Excised from the piece was the beauty of the paragraph: "People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless."

RIP Stephen Hawking. I bet you didn't know you were dead, either.

2009-08-11T04:08:29Z

Stephen Hawking is dead. He was killed by England's government healthcare system. He was old, he was crippled. He was not worth keeping alive. So they just killed him.

His death came as a surprise to me. But it must have come as a huge surprise to Stephen Hawking. On this very day, he is over in England behaving as though he is amongst the living. Doing things like writing letters to prime ministers, lobbying for educational funding. Does he not know he was murdered by NHS?

A few days ago, I thought this would go down in history as the greatest piece ever written against reform in health care in America ("Don't believe those stories about insurers dropping coverage for people. In Nazi Germany, insurers loved the Jewish."), but I was wrong. Investors Business Daily stole the crown. Until today, I would have thought you had to be dead to not know who Stephen Hawking is, and that he is not dead. And it must be doubly embarrassing if you wrote for a newspaper and didn't realize this, since most of the better newspapers would publish this thing called an obituary when a famous person has died.

How House Bill Runs Over Grandma

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, July 31, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Rationing: In the recesses of the House health care "reform" bill is a provision for end-of-life counseling for seniors. Don't worry, granny, they're from the government and they're here to help.At a town hall meeting at AARP headquarters in Washington, D.C., President Obama was asked by a woman from North Carolina if it was true "that everyone that's Medicare age will be visited and told they have to decide how they wish to die."
At first, the president joked that not enough government workers existed to ask the elderly how they wanted to die. The idea, he said, was to encourage the use of living wills and that critics were misrepresenting the intent of the "end of life" counseling provided for in the House bill. He did not say, "No, they wouldn't be contacted."
This administration, pledging to cut medical costs and for which "cost-effectiveness" is a new mantra, knows that a quarter of Medicare spending is made in a patient's final year of life. Certainly the British were aware when they nationalized their medical system.
The controlling of medical costs in countries such as Britain through rationing, and the health consequences thereof are legendary. The stories of people dying on a waiting list or being denied altogether read like a horror movie script.
The U.K.'s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) basically figures out who deserves treatment by using a cost-utility analysis based on the "quality adjusted life year."
One year in perfect health gets you one point. Deductions are taken for blindness, for being in a wheelchair and so on.
The more points you have, the more your life is considered worth saving, and the likelier you are to get care.
People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.
The British are praised for spending half as much per capita on medical care. How they do it is another matter. The NICE people say that Britain cannot afford to spend $20,000 to extend a life by six months. So if care will cost $1 more, you get to curl up in a corner and die.
In March, NICE ruled against the use of two drugs, Lapatinib and Sutent, that prolong the life of those with certain forms of breast and stomach cancer.
The British have succeeded in putting a price tag on human life, as we are about to.
Can't happen here, you say? "One troubling provision of the House bill," writes Betsy McCaughey in the New York Post, "compels seniors to submit to a counseling session every five years (and more often if they become sick or go into a nursing home) about alternatives for end-of-life care (House bill, Pages 425-430)."
One of the Obama administration's top medical care advisers is Oxford- and Harvard-educated bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel. Yes, he's the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and has the ear of his brother and the president.
"Calls for changing physician training and culture are perennial and usually ignored," he wrote last June in the Journal of the American Medical Association. "However, the progression in end-of-life care mentality from 'do everything' to more palliative care shows that change in physician norms and practices is possible."
Emanuel sees a problem in the Hippocratic Oath doctors take to first do no harm, compelling them "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of cost or effect on others," thereby avoiding the inevitable move toward "socially sustainable, cost-effective care."
During the June 24 ABC infomercial on health care broadcast from the White House, Obama confessed that if "it's my family member, if it's my wife, if it's my children, if it's my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care."
Not, apparently, if it's your grandmother.

Conned Into a Life of Magic

2009-07-30T10:56:54Z

On Vox: What a way to start the summer. . .

2009-07-04T08:33:49Z

Wow, the past two weeks were nothing short of remarkable.

A subway train smashes into another on a line I ride regularly.

Not unexpectedly, Ed McMahon and Farrah Fawcett dies.

However, Michael Jackson and Billy Mays die rather suddenly.

California literally goes broke and resorts to paying its bills with IOUs!

The Washington Post figuratively goes broke and considers resorting to selling its reporters (and what little respect and credibility it has left) for up to a quarter million dollars.

Mark Sanford, while supposedly on the Appalachian Trail, hiked his way into a multi-year affair down Argentine Way.

Sarah Palin finally has her breakdown and resigns from the Alaskan governorship. She gives a speech that is nonsensical, even by Palin standards. Nobody has a clue what to make of it. Except Bill Kristol, who is always wrong.

And some guy shoots an employee at electronics store where I frequently go to not buy products.

Originally posted on sterlingnorth.vox.com

Don't you steal the Associated Press's content!

2009-06-03T14:55:38Z

According to Ars Technica, the Associated Press is creating a program to let it track where people are infringing its content. Ars asked would a single paragraph be theft.

"Not at all," [AP news editor Ted] Bridis replied. "I don't think AP would have any problem with that."

What if the entirety of the story is a single paragraph such as this one?

How far the Dow Jones industrial average has fallen or advanced each trading day since Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sept. 15. Since Lehman's fall, which touched off a paralysis of the credit markets and deepened the recession, the stock market has gone through an extended period of volatility that subsided during December but that has returned in 2009.

Followed by a table of historical DJIA closes. That is the entire story.

Note, that on the few occasions I linked to an AP story, I don't post the whole thing, despite the fact that AP stories disappear off the internet rapidly. They generally expire after two weeks. Which is reason why I don't typically link to them. Though that is probably why others quote them in its entirety.