Meanwhile, Back At Video Clearance Center's Going-Out-Of-Business Sale....

A vigorous internal dialogue:

Me: What's this? Jennifer Lopez in "Gigli" AND Madonna in "Swept Away"? Two movies that consistently rank among the worst movies ever made? Together on just this one shelf of videos? Should I buy them both at the severe discount being offered?

Devil on Left Shoulder: Buy them! They are conversation pieces!

Angel on Right Shoulder: NO! DON'T BUY THEM! These movies have no redeeming value. They aren't campy, or sad: they're just bad. They don't even have the conversational and historical value of "Plan Nine From Outer Space". People should pay YOU to watch them!

Devil on Left Shoulder: Buy them! These movies are landmarks of popular culture!

Angel on Right Shoulder: NO! DON'T BUY THEM! Paris Hilton is a better actress than either of these two dimwits! Watching these movies will plunge you into a time-sucking black hole of monstrous proportions! Highly-successful people wouldn't waste a nanosecond on either movie! And you do want to be highly-successful, don't you?

Me: Madonna was a pretty good actress in 'Evita'....

Angel on Right Shoulder: But remember, Madonna doesn't have to act to play a strident, vengeful megalomaniac. "Swept Away" shows Madonna's true range!

Devil on Left Shoulder: But how will you know unless you watch the movie?

Angel on Right Shoulder: ......

Me: I'll buy them both!

Interestingly enough, I didn't see "Heaven's Gate" on the shelves anywhere. Bargain hunters must have picked the store clean of this work of art!

Which leads me to reprint a large portion Joe Queenan's wonderful discussion regarding bad movies (I've posted it before, but I return to it again and again, for the nice warm feeling I get when I read it):

Though it is a natural impulse to believe that the excruciating film one is watching today is on a par with the excruciating films of yesterday, this is a slight to those who have worked long and hard to make movies so moronic that the public will still be talking about them decades later. Anyone can make a bad movie; Kate Hudson and Adam Sandler make them by the fistful. Anyone can make a sickening movie; we are already up to Saw IV. Anyone can make an unwatchable movie; Jack Black and Martin Lawrence do it every week. And anyone can make a comedy that is not funny; Jack Black and Martin Lawrence do it every week. But to make a movie that destroys a studio, wrecks careers, bankrupts investors, and turns everyone connected with it into a laughing stock requires a level of moxie, self-involvement, lack of taste, obliviousness to reality and general contempt for mankind that the average director, producer and movie star can only dream of attaining.

A generically appalling film like The Hottie and the Nottie is a scab that looks revolting while it is freshly coagulated; but once it festers, hardens and falls off the skin, it leaves no scar. By contrast, a truly bad movie, a bad movie for the ages, a bad movie made on an epic, lavish scale, is the cultural equivalent of leprosy: you can't stand looking at it, but at the same time you can't take your eyes off it. You are horrified by it, repelled by it, yet you are simultaneously mesmerised by its enticing hideousness. A monstrously bad movie is like the Medusa: those who gaze on its hideous countenance are doomed, but who can resist taking a gander?

The worst film I have ever seen is a low-budget 1969 production called Futz. It was about a man who fell in love with a pig, and even by the dismal standards of the era, it was dismal. There is also a special place in my heart for La Grande Bouffe, the 1973 film about four men who eat themselves to death, and for Anjelica Huston's 1969 debut in her father's A Walk With Love and Death, which also starred Assaf Dayan, the son of the Israeli general with the flashy eyepatch. Pasolini's 120 Days of Sodom is as vile as any film I have ever seen, The Way We Were as treacly and flatulent as any movie I know of, and the lighthearted Holocaust-era comedy Life Is Beautiful as morally repugnant - precisely because of its apparent innocence - as any film I can name. But these are personal tastes; I would never be so bold as to argue that a 39-year-old film about an arrant porcophile is the worst movie ever made, not only because so few people have seen it but because there may be several other movies about men who rapturously lie down with comely sows that are actually worse than Futz. Though I kind of doubt it.

This brings me to my major point. To qualify as one of the worst films of all time, several strict requirements must be met. For starters, a truly awful movie must have started out with some expectation of not being awful. That is why making a horrific, cheapo motion picture that stars Hilton or Jessica Simpson is not really much of an accomplishment. Did anyone seriously expect a film called The Hottie and The Nottie not to suck? Two, an authentically bad movie has to be famous; it can't simply be an obscure student film about a boy who eats live rodents to impress dead girls. Three, the film cannot be a deliberate attempt to make the worst movie ever, as this is cheating. Four, the film must feature real movie stars, not jocks, bozos, has-beens or fleetingly famous media fabrications like Hilton. Five, the film must generate a negative buzz long before it reaches cinemas; like the Black Plague or the Mongol invasions, it must be an impending disaster of which there has been abundant advance warning; it cannot simply appear out of nowhere. And it must, upon release, answer the question: could it possibly be as bad as everyone says it is? This is what separates Waterworld, a financial disaster but not an uncompromisingly dreadful film, and Ishtar, which has one or two amusing moments, from The Postman, Gigli and Heaven's Gate, all of which are bona fide nightmares.

Six, to qualify as one of the worst movies ever made, a motion picture must induce a sense of dread in those who have seen it, a fear that they may one day be forced to watch the film again - and again - and again. To pass muster as one of the all-time celluloid disasters, a film must be so bad that when a person is asked, "Which will it be? Waterboarding, invasive cattle prods or Jersey Girl?", the answer needs no further reflection. This phenomenon resembles Stockholm Syndrome, where a victim ends up befriending his tormentors, so long as they promise not to make him watch any more Kevin Smith movies. The condition is sometimes referred to as Blunted Affleck.

Several years ago, I read that a movie about a blind dental technician and a paraplegic athlete who enter a white-water rafting competition was playing at a cinema near me. I immediately bought a ticket for Good Luck, enthralled at the idea of seeing what figured to be one of the worst movies ever made. To be honest, that is the reason I became a critic in the first place; criticism seemed to be a way to channel my unwholesome fascination with train wrecks and fires into a socially acceptable framework. The truth is, every time I go to the pictures, I get goose bumps all over, anticipating that this, after all these years, could be the worst movie ever made.

Sadly, it never is. Yes, Good Luck was bad. It was an inane premise, poorly executed, and the results were not pretty. But it was not so bad that I spent the rest of my life thinking about it. I didn't even spend the rest of the afternoon thinking about it. What's more, because there was no one else in the cinema at the time, and because I have never met anyone else who has seen the film, its imbecilic charms were not something I could share with others.

There is one other requirement for a movie to be considered one of the worst ever: it must keep getting worse. By this, I mean that it not only must keep getting worse while you are watching it, but it must, upon subsequent viewings, seem even worse than the last time you saw it. That is what distinguishes Ishthar from Gigli and Showgirls from Swept Away. Widely viewed as one of the worst movies ever when it was released in 1987, Ishtar actually has several comic moments. Gigli doesn't. Similarly, Showgirls has a certain campy allure that grows a bit each time I see it. Madonna's Swept Away doesn't; it seems more amateurish on each viewing, like a morass that starts out as a quagmire, then morphs into a cesspool and finally turns into a slime pit on the road to its ultimate destination in the bowels of Hell.

All that said, none of these very, very, very bad movies automatically qualify as the worst film ever made. While it may disappoint those who welcome my occasionally unconventional opinions, I am firmly in the camp that believes that Heaven's Gate is the worst movie ever made. For my money, none of these other films can hold a candle to Michael Cimino's 1980 apocalyptic disaster. This is a movie that destroyed the director's career. This is a movie that lost so much money it literally drove a major American studio out of business. This is a movie about Harvard-educated gunslingers who face off against eastern European sodbusters in an epic struggle for the soul of America. This is a movie that stars Isabelle Huppert as a shotgun-toting cowgirl. This is a movie in which Jeff Bridges pukes while mounted on roller skates. This is a movie that has five minutes of uninterrupted fiddle-playing by a fiddler who is also mounted on roller skates. This is a movie that defies belief.

A friend of mine, now deceased, was working for the public relations company handling Heaven's Gate when it was released. He told me that when the 220-minute extravaganza debuted at the Toronto film festival, the reaction was so thermonuclear that the stars and the film-maker had to immediately be flown back to Hollywood, perhaps out of fear for their lives. No one at the studio wanted to go out and greet them upon their return; no one wanted to be seen in that particular hearse. My friend eventually agreed to man the limo that would meet the children of the damned on the airport tarmac and whisk them to safety, but only provided he was given free use of the vehicle for the next three days. After he dropped off the halt and the lame at suitable safe houses and hiding places, he went to Mexico for the weekend. Nothing like this ever happened when Showgirls or Gigli or Ishtar or Xanadu or Glitter or Cleopatra were released. Nothing like this happened when The Hottie and the Nottie dropped dead the day it was released. Heaven's Gate was so bad that people literally had to be bribed to go meet the survivors. Proving that, in living memory, giants of bad taste once ruled the earth. Giants. By comparison with the titans who brought you Heaven's Gate, Paris Hilton is a rank amateur.

Sacramento Convenience Store Clerk Is Sure Something Is Up

After waiting in line for a minute, or so, a person idling in the store suddenly sprang forward to ring up my purchase....

Me: Oh, you're a clerk! I wasn't sure. I thought maybe you might have been a customer, or maybe a security guard.

Clerk: Security would be good - they make a good wage. And speaking about security, have you seen the National Security folks out on the street in their little cars?

Me: No, what's that? Little cars? Like golf carts? Or meter maid vehicles?

Clerk: No, like a fleet of recently-painted 10-year-old Geo Metros. I've been seeing them everywhere today.

Me: I heard about some folks in Montana who faked being National Security folks.

Clerk: Maybe these folks are fake too. I don't know. But they're in uniform and they are present today on the streets, in force....

Weird Urban Cacophony

Saturday evening, about 10 p.m., I walked past the intersection of 11th & I Streets in Sacramento, and listened.....

First, there was the familiar sound of the solo jazz trumpeter, who likes to practice in the parking structure there. Bright and peppy and jazzy!

Then, somewhere high above the street to the north, an eerie chorus of wailing and screeching birds perched on parapets echoed through the downtown street canyons. I don't know what birds those are, but it sounded a lot like a Tarzan movie soundtrack.

The combination was really peculiar to listen to!

The Vatican Hearts 'The Simpsons'

And why not?:

L'Osservatore Romano on Tuesday congratulated the show on its 20th anniversary, praising its philosophical leanings as well as its stinging and often irreverent take on religion.

Without Homer Simpson and the other yellow-skinned characters "many today wouldn't know how to laugh," said the article titled "Aristotle's Virtues and Homer's Doughnut."

The paper credited "The Simpsons" - the longest-running American animated program - with opening up cartoons to an adult audience.

The Fox show is based on "realistic and intelligent writing," it said, though it added there was some reason to criticize its "excessively crude language, the violence of certain episodes or some extreme choices by the scriptwriters."

Religion, from the snore-evoking sermons of the Rev. Lovejoy to Homer's face-to-face talks with God, appears so frequently on the show that it could be possible to come up with a "Simpsonian theology," it said.

Homer's religious confusion and ignorance are "a mirror of the indifference and the need that modern man feels toward faith," the paper said.

It commented on several religion-themed episodes, including one in which Homer calls for divine intervention by crying: "I'm not normally a religious man, but if you're up there, save me, Superman!"

"Homer finds in God his last refuge, even though he sometimes gets His name sensationally wrong," L'Osservatore said. "But these are just minor mistakes, after all, the two know each other well."

La Danse - Le Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris

I went and saw this tonight at the Crest. Wonderful, wonderful documentary! The imdb summary says just about all that anyone need know when going:

The film follows the production of seven ballets by the Paris Opera Ballet.

The film should be around for the next week at the Crest Theatre.

Ballet is nothing if not academically exacting, and the film shows that well. Much of the film is preoccupied with classes and small studio rehearsals, where the dancers learn the craft they do so well.

Towards the end of the film, the focus shifts to performances, where the lessons we have been privileged to watch are executed, sometimes nearly-unrecognizably so, once the elements of costume, music, and lighting are added.

I missed about 5 minutes of the film (a projector bulb apparently burned out and I took a break). Bizarre stuff on a Spanish theme greeted me on my return (Mats Ek’s The House of Bernarda Alba, in performance). Just the way I like it! Absolutely jarring!

Here is a portion of the San Francisco Chronicle review (by John Killacky):

"La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet," Frederick Wiseman's astoundingly beautiful documentary, has sumptuous delights to satisfy every balletomane. Clocking in at more than 2 1/2 hours, though, it is clearly a film for the committed dance lover.

...Underground labyrinths, backstage corridors, dressing rooms, rehearsal studios, sewing rooms, cafeterias, administrative offices and the personalities that inhabit them embody the film and are in stark contrast to the public's experience of the opulence of the gilded proscenium, scarlet velvet seats, Chagall ceilings, chandeliers and grand marble staircases.

Intimate rehearsal shots detail contemporary choreographers Wayne McGregor and Angelin Preljocaj developing and refining movement phrases step by step. Viewers also witness repertory classics such as "Nutcracker" and "Paquita" being remounted and taught to a new generation. What a pleasure to be brought into the creative process as dancers go about their work unself-consciously.

Juxtaposing scenes of extraordinary dancer-athletes refining their craft are those of administrators in labor negotiations, designing benefactor events and discussing repertory. Occasionally, a snippy remark is captured: "Suzanne Farrell's errors become everyone else's standards." However, we also see the machinations of a huge bureaucracy at work.

Another review (by Pamela Cohn):

But the evolution of story, of structure, of narrative, is clear. It is clear in the way [Wiseman] captures the language of the choreographer to the principal dancer, of the ballet masters and mistresses to the corps de ballet, tasking them, individually and as a group, to embody the unrelenting drive to achieve a perfection that transcends the human form. Over the course of two-and-a-half hours, we watch pieces move from rehearsal studio to luxurious theater, replete with 2,200 scarlet velvet seats and Marc Chagall ceiling, all lovingly and meticulously vacuumed, scrubbed, and kept in pristine condition by a silent army of maintenance workers.

Interstitially, Wiseman inserts static portraits of the institution of the Palais Garnier, the 19th-century building that houses the company—cold, opulent, and solid like an ancient netherworld, almost ominous in its stillness and emptiness—and the city of Paris, shot aerially for the most part—staid, stony and gray—a bustling place seemingly oblivious to the microcosmic realm where the dancers, the choreographers, the administrative staff, the seamstresses, the food service workers, the cleaners and painters and musicians, live out their days working hard to keep a cultural institution alive and flourishing. These stills flesh out geography and story, and act as counterpoint to the sweating bodies, stretched tendons, pounding feet and corporeal sensuality of dancers entwined in impossible positions to illustrate the lust, vengeance and celestial love of these choreographed dramas. They all make it look “indecently easy,” as one ballet master describes the leaps and pirouettes of one male dancer who can suspend himself in mid-air with powerful lift and grace. Wiseman subtly, slyly, interjects snippets of a larger drama that is, at once, astonishing and exhilarating, routine and mundane, a hallmark of his and something that makes watching his films such a full and satisfying experience. This technique enables a viewer to, as Wiseman says, “think through their own relationship to what they are seeing and hearing.” As one fellow film lover put it to me after watching La Danse, “For the first time, I finally got ballet.”

The seven dances featured in the film, both in rehearsal and in performance, by a slate of the most exciting international choreographers, are: Pierre Lacotte’s Paquita, Rudolf Nureyev’s Casse-Noisette (The Nutcracker), Wayne McGregor’s Genus, Angelin Preljocaj’s powerful and bloody Medea, Mats Ek’s The House of Bernarda Alba, Sasha Waltz’ Romeo and Juliet, and Pina Bausch’s exquisite Orpheus and Eurydyce.

It is a joy and a rare privilege—and not just for balletomanes—to watch these artists perform at the highest level of their craft, all captured in sound and motion by an artist working at the highest level of his.

"Nine"

Went with the DMTC folks Christmas night to see Rob Marshall's new movie "Nine".

Very Fosse-esque! More Fosse than Fosse! Indeed, now I'm left wondering if "All That Jazz" is just a rehash of Fellini's "8 1/2" (which I haven't seen, but if I can find it on VHS, I will). Given the subject material, it's no surprise that Rob Marshall ("Chicago") directed this film.

The quality was variable, but I certainly enjoyed myself.

The best number, in my view, was Kate Hudson singing “Cinema Italiano”, which, interestingly enough, does not appear to have been in the stage musical, but was apparently added for the movie, maybe just for Hudson. The musical numbers are so self-referential that having this musical number about something else than Guido Contini is all it takes to kick up the energy a notch. And switching black-and-white with color is awesome! As mentioned in reviews, Marshall's cutting back-and-forth is a problem for those trying to appreciate the choreography of the various musical numbers, but the linear structure of "Cinema Italiano", imposed by the fashion runway, defeats Marshall's attention-deficit-disorder.

Yeah, for me, the songs are the problems. Kind of forgettable tunes. If Rob Marshall improved the film by dropping in new songs, good for him!

I was a bit disappointed in Fergie – playing a sexy and now-easily-recognizable stock-Fellini character (but inarticulate: I’d hope she could do better than that). Nicole Kidman was fine – regal, sensitive. Penelope Cruz is very needy, but very sexy (won't kick her out of bed for eating crackers). Judi Dench is OK - cinema's answer to Jean Henderson. Sophia Loren is a bit creaky (but then she's 75). Marion Cotillard outshone everyone, as various reviews mention.

Who else? Oh yes, Daniel Day Lewis. He needed greater range of expression.

Like I say, variable quality, but not a wasted evening by any stretch.

Bruce sends the Washington Post review. It's supposed to be a scathing thumbs-down review, and I largely agree with it, except that I give the film a thumbs-up. As a movie, it's certainly better than lots of others out there:

"Nine" bounces into theaters as a bright, shiny bauble of cinematic self-reference and mythologizing, begging so insistently to be loved that it winds up pushing the audience away. Rob Marshall's frantic, fussy adaptation of the Broadway musical -- which itself was an adaptation of a classic film -- suffers all the distortion that its hall-of-mirrors provenance suggests. It's a film within a film about a film within a film, and seems to lose layers of authenticity with each iteration, finally becoming a profoundly alienating experience.

"Nine" is about Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis), a legendary Italian filmmaker who in 1965, on the eve of directing his latest picture, finds himself creatively blocked and preoccupied with the women in his life, madonnas and whores alike. An insurmountable flaw of "Nine" is that it asks viewers so blithely to identify with a protagonist whose overwhelming ego, insecurity and selfishness they're meant to confuse with artistic genius.

Guido, of course, was invented by Federico Fellini in his 1963 movie "8 1/2 ," a semi-autobiographical reverie on art, sex, obsession and forgiveness. But the characters and material that in Fellini's hands made for such a delicate, funny and self-aware meditation become in "Nine" a meaningless exercise in style for its own sake, whipped by Marshall into a nearly incomprehensible froth. It's a measure of how disjointed the movie is that, when a reel was shown out of order at a recent screening, no one appeared to notice.

The grabber about "Nine" is that it stars Nicole Kidman, Penlope Cruz, Marion Cotillard and Kate Hudson, some of the screen's hottest actresses in both meanings of that word. Judi Dench and Sophia Loren are also on hand to lend gravitas, as well as Fergie, the pop-star outlier who delivers one of many brassy, bawdy set pieces, as a prostitute from Guido's past. Where that number goes out of its way to be sexually aggressive, by far the most crassly erotic performance goes to Cruz, who as Guido's mistress sings an ode to carnality using two ropes as the rough analogue to a stripper's pole.

Every actress gets her moment, each with a song that is more instantly forgettable than the last. In "Chicago" and "Dreamgirls," Marshall proved that he doesn't know how to film dancers, compulsively cutting away from movement rather than letting it play. Oddly, Marshall's edit-happy style matters less with "Nine," which doesn't feature dancing so much as metrically timed writhing, stomping, sashaying and posing. (The "Glee" kids would call it "hairography.")

Day-Lewis's singing voice is undistinguished, but his spoken voice, with its silken lower registers, is seductively musical; still, he can't imbue much interest in a portrait of the artist as a raging -- and aging -- narcissist. Of all his gorgeous co-stars, Cotillard alone delivers something that resembles a true performance, in a smoldering, heartbreaking turn as Guido's long-suffering wife.

Cotillard's moments slow the proceedings a bit, inviting viewers to contemplate a fleeting view of genuine human vulnerability. As for the rest of "Nine," it's crammed and crazy and ultimately kind of craven, baiting filmgoers with star power and showstoppers and delivering little more than pastiche.

Here's an idea: To experience all the joys of "Nine," do yourself a favor and rent "8 1/2 " and "All That Jazz." Pop some popcorn, plump up the couch cushions and settle in for a delicious, dazzling night at the movies.

Cruisin' For Videos

As I mentioned once before, Video Clearance Center on Howe Avenue is sort of a museum of VHS tapes. Circa 1990, it was the biggest show in town when it came to video sales, but when DVDs arrived they were stuck with a huge backlog of supply. They've been struggling ever since - gamely adding DVDs to their collection, but still having trouble moving the old VHS stuff.

Lately, they've been having an extended going-out-of-business sale (supposedly ending january 10, but may last longer, depending on sales). Some genres of tapes are as much as 90% off original price! Thus, cutting-edge technology aside, I've been stocking up on VHS videos.

Yesterday I watched Woody Allen's 1994 movie "Bullets Over Broadway". Very nice, amusing film!:

Woody Allen sends up the world of Broadway and the gangsters who love it in this Runyonesque comedy, one of his very best.

John Cusack is the Allen surrogate, a nebbish playwright who's struggling to remain true to his artistic vision amongst countless obstacles. Those obstacles include: a gangster's girlfriend (Jennifer Tilly) who Cusack is forced to cast in a lead role; her bodyguard (Chazz Palmienteri), who reveals quite a few dramatic instincts; a high-maintenance diva (Dianne Wiest, uproarious); a leading man who eats too much (Jim Broadbent); and a dithery actress very much in love with her dog (Tracy Ullman).

Because Allen sets his movie in a world he knows well (NY theatre), this feels like one of his strongest and most realized screenplays. The whole thing is a riot. Between Wiest, Tilly and Ullman, I still can't decide who's funniest.

And part of the fun of watching this tape was watching trailers for upcoming 1995 movies that I don't remember ever hearing of, featuring cutting-edge actors that have left no trace....

Beaned

At dinner, discussion turned to hitting birds with baseball pitches. Seems unlikely, but apparently it has happened fairly recently:

In a freak accident on March 24, 2001, during the 7th inning of a spring training game against the San Francisco Giants, [Randy] Johnson threw a fastball that struck and killed a dove. The unlucky bird swooped across the infield just as Johnson was releasing the ball. After being struck by the pitch, the bird landed dead amid a "sea of feathers." The official call was "no pitch."

Decade's Best Movies

Slate has their list of the decade's best movies, made by putting together a consensus of other lists. So many lists to track!

Here at Marc Valdez Weblog, where ignorance is the rule rather than the exception, I have to report that I didn't even see most of the movies on this list. Nevertheless, if I had to rank the movies that I did see on Slate's list in order of quality, this is how I'd rank them:

No Country For Old Men (2007)
Billy Elliot (2000)
Lord of the Rings: The Return Of The King (2003)
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring (2001)
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
There Will Be Blood (2007)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
Moulin Rouge! (2001)
WALL-E (2008)
The Dark Knight (2008)
Hotel Rwanda (2004)
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
Being John Malkovitch (2000)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
Pirates Of The Caribbean (2003)
Mamma Mia! (2008)

And, of course, there were all the other movies that didn't make this list. Certain movies, like "Australia" and "Coraline" should be on this list too, and near the top!

Back To The Future

The article is short on specifics, allowing the mind to digress:

'I have no idea why they have a gun like this,' watchdog investigator says

Researchers at the Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory in New Mexico accidentally blew up a building with a "Civil-war-like" cannon earlier this month, raising further fears about the safety of the facility that has seen more than its share of security breaches in recent years.

According to an "occurrence report" filed by the lab and obtained by the Project on Government Oversight, the accident took place on December 16 as researchers tested a gun that "acts like a Civil War cannon," according to a POGO press release. Though no one was injured in the incident, it did cause $3 million in damage.

The watchdog group reported:

The explosion blew the doors off the building -- which is described in the report as, "two doors were propelled off the facility."

The Facility Operations Director "declared a management concern due to the significant facility structural damage incurred resultant of the shot." Parts of the cannon were found outside the building.

"I must say that this is a new twist in the long history of screw-ups by Los Alamos," said POGO’s Senior Investigator, Peter Stockton, in a statement. “I have no idea in the world why they have a gun like this, let alone [are] testing it.”

As Rachel Morris notes at Mother Jones, "This is not the first time that Los Alamos has fallen short when it comes to safety and security matter." POGO's "long history of screw-ups" at Los Alamos is documented here. One recent case of note involved the theft of three computers from the laboratory where nuclear technologies are developed and tested.

A recent Inspector-General's report says that the Department of Energy's Office of Science, which oversees Los Alamos, has been delinquent in enhancing its cyber-security.

Despite the various security concerns, the private contracting team managing the facility recently had its contract extended by the government for another year. Among the companies managing Los Alamos is Bechtel, the engineering firm that landed lucrative contracts in Iraq following the US invasion.

Weird Christmas Season

Because I went to NM early and saw the family two weeks ago, as far as I'm concerned, Christmas is over - long over. So, this extended Christmas week feels like lonely tumbleweeds blowing through a silent ghost town of the Old West. Not even a lizard to distract from the emptiness!

So, as often happens when this sort of thing happens, my mind has turned to genealogy.

This week's finds include the surprising discovery that grandfather Felipe Valdez had a sister, named Felipa. Since she is absent from family lore, she must have disappeared early, but why that might have happened, I don't know.

Another surprising discovery is that father-and-son forebears on my mother's side participated in the Siege of Louisbourg, during the French-and-Indian War. The ethnic cleansing of the French from Acadia was a particularly horrible event in American history, and I've mixed feelings about family members getting all mixed up in that.

So far, those are the two most interesting Christmas presents. That, plus the logorrheic "The Clinton Tapes", which will take a while to read....

So, thankfully, Pam is teaching ballet this afternoon, and tomorrow afternoon. That's the real soothing balm.....

Meanwhile, Back In The Bermuda Triangle....

(toink, toink, toink....)

E.: MMMAAAARRRCCCC! There is a magnet in the game that is dragging the ball in-between the green brackets and making me lose! It's like a Bermuda Triangle! MMMAAAARRRRCCCC!

(toink, toink, toink....)

Running The Improv Workshop

Because I seem to be a dependable sort of fellow, I'm Michael Rowe's stunt Improv Workshop host when he can't make it. This week, and next, he's out-of-town, so I'm in charge.

Last night, just 2.5 people showed up (one was very late) and I ran them through the paces. Hard, but fun at the same time! We played simple exercises (Yes, and...; ABC, What are you doing?; Buzzers & Bells, Just questions, etc.) But we need more people....

(Tuesday evenings, basement of the Geery Theatre, 22nd & L, 7:00-9:00 p.m., $5.00, $2.50 for kids)

REM Sleep, And Dogs

Crazy Amy

Sounds like Amy Winehouse would make a good SARTA judge:

Amy Winehouse could be facing another police investigation for assault.

The British singer allegedly attacked a theater staffer at a holiday pantomime show in Buckinghamshire, England, on Saturday night, according to a report in the Sun newspaper.

The British newspaper says Winehouse, 26, became boisterous and shouted obscenities at the cast of a production of Cinderella, which included Hollywood actor Mickey Rourke.

Staff tried to usher her into a private box, but the singer allegedly kicked and punched front-of-house manager Richard Pound before being dragged out by her own security staff.

A Winehouse pal tells PEOPLE: "Amy was invited by a friend of hers starring in the show," adding that no charges were brought against her. "She wasn't arrested, and she hasn't been questioned by the police yet."

Learning To Love Health Reform Without The Public Option

Jonathan Chait, 2009:

Does the Republican Party have any ideas? The query may have a familiar ring. Five years ago, the question of substance was demanded incessantly of the Democrats. Indeed, in one of those intellectual fads that periodically sweep through Washington, the political class became obsessed with the notion that conservatives had unambiguously won what everybody was calling “the war of ideas.”

Al Jazeera Report On Arturo Leyva's Death

Macabre and humiliating photos of Leyva's posed body have set the stage for revenge killings (that have already started).

Americans Continue To Restrain The Urge To Drive

Good....

Rat Jumps On Sinking Ship

Parker Griffith (D-AL) becomes a Republican, taking with him oodles of DCCC cash in the process. But the GOP's been waging a scorched earth campaign against him and the trouble is, the voters remember....

AZ I-10 Pileup

Winds in southern Arizona mean trouble:

Video

At least four people have died in a multiple-vehicle crash caused by a heavy dust storm that has closed Interstate 10 just north of Casa Grande, the Arizona Department of Public Safety said.

The crash occurred just before 11 a.m. on westbound I-10 near milepost 190, where emergency crews found at least 20 vehicles involved in the wreck, said Officer Robert Lee Bailey, a DPS spokesman.

A commercial vehicle exploded and the DPS has dispatched a HAZ MAT unit to the scene, Bailey said.

Several vehicles have caught fire and become engulfed in flames, Bailey said. An unknown number of people were injured ranging from severe burns to traumatic injuries, he said.

"The Producers" - DMTC Rehearsal

While everyone else is thronging the malls and crowding the highways, the cast of DMTC's "The Producers" is learning how to use walkers....

And THAT'S Why They Are The German Skeptics Society!

Proven right again:

The German Skeptics Society has admitted all its members' predictions for 2009 were wrong.

The society said it checked out 140 forecasts for 2009 and every one turned out wrong.

Its members predicted the assassination of President Barack Obama and terrorist attacks in the German cities of Frankfurt and Berlin.

One of the few predictions which came true was the death of Michael Jackson.

But the society said this had been a "permanent prediction" by its members.

Little Boots - New In Town (Bimbo Jones Remix)

No Quarter

The loss of Senate collegiality, due mostly to simple cruelty.

Republicans give no quarter; no longer can they request it:

Another example came last night, when the ailing Robert Byrd was wheeled in at 1 a.m. to break a filibuster on the manager's amendment. Byrd's presence was not required, especially considering that he'd clearly telegraphed his intention to vote to break the filibuster. But Republicans forced him to travel to the chamber. Indeed, shortly before he arrived, Sen. Tom Coburn headed to the floor to propose a prayer. "What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can't make the vote tonight," he said. "That's what they ought to pray."

The Senate hasn't just lost a bit of its collegiality. It's become heartlessly ferocious -- a place where the death of an honored friend presents an opportunity to kill his legislation, and in which the infirmity of an ailing colleague is seen as a potential path to procedural victory.

It is, of course, a tough world out there. There are greater injustices than senators being mean to one another. But the Senate's rules are predicted on courtesy and cooperation. The body cannot function without unanimous consent, and procedures like the filibuster were included because the expectation was that the body could routinely discover consensus. At this point in its history, however, consensus is a laughable goal. Basic decency doesn't even seem achievable. And if the behavior of the Senate has changed, then so too must its rules.

Lost And Found

I was worried about this:

WARSAW, Poland – Polish police have recovered the infamous Nazi sign stolen from the former Auschwitz death camp cut into three pieces, and said Monday it appeared to have been taken by common criminals seeking profit.

Five men were arrested late Sunday after the damaged "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Work Sets You Free") sign was found near one of their homes in a snowy forest outside Czernikowo, a village near the northern Polish city of Torun, on the other side of the country from the memorial site.

...Security guards patrol the 940-acre (200-hectare) site around the clock, but due to its vast size they only pass by any one area at intervals.

After occupying Poland in 1939, the Nazis established the Auschwitz I camp, which initially housed German political prisoners and non-Jewish Polish prisoners. The sign was made in 1940. Two years later, hundreds of thousands of Jews began arriving by cattle trains to the wooden barracks of nearby Birkenau, also called Auschwitz II.

...The grim slogan "Arbeit Macht Frei" was so counter to the actual function of the camp that it has been etched into history. The phrase appeared at the entrances of other Nazi camps, including Dachau and Sachsenhausen, but the long curving sign at Auschwitz was the best known.

Domestication Of The Common Woman

Harder than herding cats:

Once burdened with physically demanding chores, exhausting farm work, and other unpleasant duties, man's quality of life dramatically improved after his successful domestication of the common woman.

Though for years women had roamed free throughout most of Asia, Europe, and Africa, experts estimate that by around 3,000 BCE men had begun putting them to work.

"A valuable commodity with seemingly endless uses, the woman has played a crucial role throughout human history," noted historian Alan Helbling said. "Not only could she be trained to perform a variety of tasks, but once her spirit was broken and her energies reined in, she could be taught to come whenever she was called."

"They're really quite magnificent creatures," Helbling added.

...For most of the 18th and 19th centuries, women continued their work in the field and at home, often showing little sign of their once liberated nature. However, by the mid-20th century, a number of strange occurrences were reported: Spooked by the growing civil rights movement and loud protests taking place across the country, hundreds of women suddenly broke free from their restraints and, for the first time in millennia, ran wild, joining four-year colleges and professional workplaces along the way.

The majority have yet to return.

"They'll come back—you'll see," cried Kentucky resident Dale Berring, who saw his woman leave for greener pastures almost 10 years ago. "And when they do, there'll be hell to pay."

Shrinking, But Still On The Move

The big iceberg that came so far north:

Icebergs frequently calve off Antarctica’s ice shelves, and they often get swept up in strong circumpolar currents that carry them around the icy continent. Occasionally icebergs drift northward, out of the continent’s orbit. Only rarely, however, do icebergs drift as far north as Australia without melting, which is why scientists were surprised to spot a city-sized iceberg, desginated B17-B, drifting toward Australia in December 2009.

...The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse reported that the iceberg shrank from roughly 54 square miles (140 square kilometers) to 44 square miles (115 square kilometers) over the course of one week and then broke into hundreds of pieces, many several kilometers long. B17-B was spotted some 1,054 miles (1,700 kilometers) off the south-southwestern Australian coast in mid-December 2009. In November 2009, New Zealand issued a shipping alert about iceberg B17-B.

Cops Overreacting

Arrogant D.C. cops acting inappropriately over a snowball fight.

Bruce Otis' Annual Christmas Letter

There is no greater joy at Christmas time than reading friend Bruce Otis' annual Christmas letter!

A number of years ago, Bruce hit upon a multiple-choice-answer format for his letter that is wry and whimsical and very enjoyable to read. I think we should all abandon simple Christmas cards for this improved format! (I tried it once, but I'm not as wry or whimsical a writer as Bruce.)

In a portion of this year's letter, Bruce discusses his and his daughter's (ultimately successful) efforts to launch a balloon into the Minnesota sky:

Dear Reader,

Oh No! The year of pain apparently is not yet over. Once again it's that time when you must endure those glowing Christmas letters that make you want to

(_) convert to Islam
(_) get off my Christmas letter list.
(_) get ripped then convert to Islam.

This letter provides relief as you decide how depressing or uplifting this letter will be.

2009
Merry Christmas

The economic storm clouds that were gathering on the horizon as noted in last year's letter certainly came to fruition. Nowhere was this more evident than where I work. The first week of the New Year brought the first of many weeklong furloughs and devastating layoffs. To date we have lost about 60% of our folks. A furlough is

(_) an excuse to stay plowed all day.
(_) better than getting laid off.
(_) time off without pay.
(_) a great opportunity to perform volunteer work for the community.

Our economic struggles did not go un-noticed. Deep in the dark halls of the Capitol building in DC, our fine public servants were diligently putting together a stimulus plan that would surely

(_) fail.
(_) get votes.
(_) drive us further into financial ruin.
(_) come in handy.

While Congress was debating the bill, Danika and I made a 5-foot tall tissue paper hot air balloon and christened it "Stimulus 2009". We waited patiently for a quiet cold winter evening. Then on Jan 24th all systems were a go. The 150,000 BTU Nipco kerosene heater was fired up and in short order was glowing red. Danika and her buddy Anna grabbed the bottom corners of the balloon and directed it over the 90 degree elbow attached to the outlet of the heater. This quickly inflated the balloon an created so much buoyancy that the tissue paper started to tear. Subsequently I had to skip my big speech and the balloon was launched. With an outside temperature of -5 degrees F, it took off amazingly fast. The winds of change, however, immediately took the balloon into the neighbor's maple tree where it was destroyed in short order.

Not to be discouraged (or bored for that matter), I went to work on a second balloon - naturally christened "Stimulus II 2009". To avoid the errors of the last launch, we positioned the balloon much further away from the feared maple. With the balloon inflated, we waited for a breeze that would push the balloon north of the tree. When the conditions were right I gave a very short but upbeat speech and had Danika and Anna release the balloon. It took off with breath taking speed and flew right into the maple, and about 20 feet from the tattered remains of the first one. I was stunned and felt

(_) like chopping down the damn maple.
(_) I was littering big time.
(_) like Charlie Brown.
(_) that this was indeed an omen.

I spent the rest of the afternoon looking for chores to offer a distraction to my disappointment. At one point, by chance, I looked out the dining room window and was shocked to see Stimulus II 2009 rolling across the yard. Apparently the wind had changed direction and allowed the balloon to fall free from the grip of the dreaded maple. I ran outside to find, to my surprise, the balloon generally intact. The balloon was repaired and on the next day launched again. This time it

(_) caught on fire.
(_) flew pretty good.
(_) was sabotaged by right wind extremists.

....

Underwater Eruption Of West Mata Volcano

And some description:

Scientists funded by NOAA and the National Science Foundation recorded the deepest erupting volcano yet discovered, describing high-definition video of the undersea eruption as “spectacular.” Eruption of the West Mata volcano, discovered in May, occurred nearly 4,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, in an area bounded by Fiji, Tonga and Samoa.

Imagery includes large molten lava bubbles approximately three feet across bursting into cold seawater, glowing red vents explosively ejecting lava into the sea, and the first-observed advance of lava flows across the deep-ocean seafloor. Sounds of the explosive eruption were recorded by a hydrophone and later matched to the video footage.

“We found a type of lava never before seen erupting from an active volcano, and for the first time observed molten lava flowing across the deep-ocean seafloor,” said the mission’s Chief Scientist Joseph Resing, a chemical oceanographer at the University of Washington who collaborates with NOAA through the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean. “Though NOAA and partners discovered a much shallower eruption in 2004 in the Mariana Arc, the deeper we get, the closer the eruption is to those that formed most of the oceanic crust.”

“It was an underwater Fourth of July – a spectacular display of fireworks nearly 4,000 feet deep,” said Co-Chief Scientist Bob Embley, a marine geologist based in the Newport, Ore., office of NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. “Since the water pressure at that depth suppresses the violence of the volcano’s explosions, we could get the underwater robot within feet of the active eruption. On land, or even in shallow water, you could never hope to get this close and see such great detail,” he said.

Mission scientists released the video and discussed their scientific observations at a Dec. 17 news conference at the American Geophysical Union’s annual fall meeting in San Francisco.

“For the first time we have been able to examine, up close, the way ocean islands and submarine volcanoes are born,” says Barbara Ransom, program director in NSF’s Division of Ocean Sciences. “The unusual primitive compositions of the West Mata eruption lavas have much to tell us.”

The West Mata volcano is producing Boninite lavas, believed to be among the hottest erupting on Earth in modern times, and a type only seen before on extinct volcanoes older than a million years. University of Hawaii geochemist Ken Rubin believes this active Boninite eruption provides a unique opportunity to study magma formation at volcanoes and how the Earth recycles material where one tectonic plate is subducted under another – a long-term goal of many Earth scientists.

Water from the volcano is very acidic, with some samples collected directly above the eruption measuring somewhere between battery acid and stomach acid. Julie Huber, a microbiologist at the Marine Biological Laboratory, found diverse microbes even in such extreme conditions.

Tim Shank, a biologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), found shrimp were the only animals thriving in the acidic vent water near the eruption. Shank is analyzing shrimp DNA to determine if they are the same species as those found at eruptive seamounts more than 3,000 miles away.

Mission scientists believe 80 percent of eruptive activity on Earth takes place in the ocean, and most volcanoes are in the deep ocean. Until this discovery, NOAA and NSF had sponsored research on submarine volcanoes for 25 years without observing a deep-ocean eruption. Scientists believe further study of active deep-ocean eruptions will provide a better understanding of oceanic cycles of carbon dioxide and sulfur gases, how heat and matter are transferred from the interior of the Earth to its surface, and how life adapts to some of the harshest conditions on Earth.

The science team operated from the University of Washington’s research vessel Thomas Thompson, and deployed Jason, a remotely-operated underwater robot operated by WHOI that is recognized as one of the most capable in the world. Jason collected samples using its manipulator arms and obtained imagery using a prototype still and HD imaging system developed and operated by the Advanced Imaging and Visualization Lab at WHOI.

The Compromised Health Care Reform Slouches On

Is there one liberal constituency that hasn't been thoroughly betrayed?

Nevertheless, the bill inches forward:

WASHINGTON – Jubilant Democrats locked in Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson as the 60th and decisive vote for historic health care legislation Saturday, putting President Barack Obama's signature issue firmly on a path for Christmas Eve passage.

At the White House, Obama swiftly welcomed the breakthrough, saying, "After a nearly century-long struggle, we are on the cusp of making health care reform a reality in the United States of America."

In the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid smiled broadly when asked if Nelson's decision gave him the 60-vote majority necessary to overcome solid Republican opposition. "Seems that way," he said. The Nevada Democrat agreed to a series of concessions on abortion and other issues demanded by Nelson in daylong talks on Friday, then informed Obama of the agreement in a late night phone call as the president flew home from climate talks in Copenhagen.

The Congressional Budget Office said the Senate bill would extend coverage to more than 30 million Americans who lack it. It also imposes new regulations to curb abuses of the insurance industry, and the president noted one last-minute addition would impose penalties on companies that "arbitrarily jack up prices" in advance of the legislation taking effect.

CBO analysts also said the legislation would cut federal deficits by $132 billion over 10 years and possibly much more in the subsequent decade.

The developments unfolded on a day of improbables — a snowstorm enveloped the Capitol, creating whiteout conditions outside; while inside senators staged dueling news conferences as if their presence on the Saturday before Christmas was the rule rather than the rarest of exceptions.

Addict Needs Her Fix

E.: MMMMAAAAAARRRCCC! Where is your phone? Last night, I was dreaming about that - what's it called? - PapiJump!

The Lazy Party

My nephew Aaron Christopher Browning (in the white jacket) and his friends put this together.....

Plus, a blooper reel too.



I'm trying to summon the energy to be incensed about this political satire, but .... I'm TOO lazy!

Santa's Bailout

Didn't Even Realize This Was Possible

The theoretical made manifest:

Welcome to the world of small-town high school basketball: Where a few twists can turn a school that advanced to the state tournament just two years ago to one that figures to struggle for even a single victory this season.

Or, in the case of Wrenshall, score a single basket.

"I've never heard of 65-0 loss in the years I've been playing," Blanchard said. "But it happens."

More than some realize.

While most people know that blowouts are common in high school basketball, shutouts, on the other hand, are far more infrequent. A 100-0 game in Texas last year - a lopsided affair where the final score was no coincidence - drew national attention and raised questions about sportsmanship (and cost the coach his job).

If Morgan Stanley Can Walk Away, You Can Too

"Strategic default" - such a nice term!:

Morgan Stanley ... plans to relinquish five San Francisco office buildings to its lender two years after purchasing them from Blackstone Group LP near the top of the market.“This isn’t a default or foreclosure situation,” [Alyson Barnes, a Morgan Stanley spokeswoman] said. “We are going to give them the properties to get out of the loan obligation.” ...The Morgan Stanley buildings may have lost as much as 50 percent since the purchase ...

Note that Morgan Stanley is current on the loan and is not in foreclosure. They are simply "walking away" because the buildings are worth less than the amount owed.

...From a research paper earlier this year on homeowners with negative equity walking away: Moral and Social Constraints to Strategic Default on Mortgages by Guiso, Sapienza and Zingales.

It is difficult to study the strategic default decision, because it is de facto an unobservable event. While we do observe defaults, we cannot observe whether a default is strategic. Strategic defaulters have all the incentives to disguise themselves as people who cannot afford to pay and so they will appear as non strategic defaulters in all the data.

The researchers argued that the pace of strategic defaults is increasing - and that is terrifying for lenders.

This is what I wrote in 2007:

One of the greatest fears for lenders (and investors in mortgage backed securities) is that it will become socially acceptable for upside down middle class Americans to walk away from their homes.

And that remains the greatest fear - and it probably doesn't help that companies like Morgan Stanley are walking away from commercial buildings.

The Biggest Problem With The Proposed Health Care "Reform"

Oligopoly on steroids!

Usury Starts With "You"

I've carried a large balance for years, but methinks it's time to just back out of the whole game:

NEW YORK — It's no mistake. This credit card's interest rate is 79.9%.

The bloated APR is how First Premier Bank, a subprime credit card issuer, is skirting new regulations intended to curb abusive practices in the industry. It's a strategy other subprime card issuers could start adopting to get around the new rules.

Typically, the First Premier card comes with a minimum of $256 in fees in the first year for a credit line of $250. Starting in February, however, a new law will cap such fees at 25% of a card's credit line.

In a recent mailing for a preapproved card, First Premier lowers fees to just that limit — $75 in the first year for a credit line of $300. But the new law doesn't set a cap on interest rates. Hence the 79.9% APR, up from the previous 9.9%.

"It's the highest on the market. It's the highest we've ever seen," said Anuj Shahani, an analyst with Synovate, a research firm that tracks credit card mailings.

The Sounds Of Silence

When we all ate at Steve Zaintz' Thai Restaurant in Albuquerque last week, I spent most of of my time regaling the New Mexico relatives with California stories.

My nephew took advantage of my distraction by taking my i-Phone and installing a clever little video game called PapiJump, which is apparently popular with him and his friends.

And it is a fun game!

So, I brought it back to California.....

...

E.: MMMMMMAAAAARRRCCC! They aren't nice to me at work! They keep interfering with what I'm doing! They won't leave me alone! I don't have enough time to do my job! yada, yada, yada, yada....

M.: Here, play this game. It's called PapiJump...

(ten minutes later...)

E.: (silent, except for the game's signature squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak....)

(one hour later...)

E.: (squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak....)

(two hours later...)

E.: (squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak....)

...and the only thing that brought the session to an end, about 4:00 a.m., was the exhaustion of the i-Phone's battery....

Kit Carson's Last Campfire - the Musical

I've been reading Hampton Side's biography of Kit Carson, "Blood and Thunder", and I saw this Kit Carson musical posted on YouTube.

Yup, to fully appreciate this musical, it helps to chaw on Sacred Datura salad first, sprinkled with bits of jimson weed and peyote....

LEDs & Sheepherding

And speaking of LEDS, Karen recommends this:

A Drawback Of LED Traffic Lights

[h/t Jerry]

Cool technology! As a matter of fact, too cool!:

Installing traffic lights with LED energy-efficient bulbs saves municipalities money but may also create a hazard for drivers because the lights sometimes cannot melt the snow and ice that accumulate on them during inclement weather.

LED bulbs use 90% less energy than incandescent bulbs, and states such as Wisconsin have seen savings of $750,000 per year. While incandescent bulbs must be replaced every 12 to 18 months, LEDs installed seven years ago are still going strong, according to Wisconsin’s Department of Transportation.

Then you have situations in Illinois last April, when 34-year-old Lisa Richter made a left turn and was killed by a driver coming the other direction because ice and snow obscured the traffic signal. Winter storms covering LED traffic lights have been blamed for dozens of accidents as they have become more common in the past 10 years.

Teaching Monkeys Taekwondo

You know this had to be a bad idea:

Hu Luang, 32, a bystander who photographed the incident, said: "I saw one punch him in the eye - he grabbed another by the ear and it responded by grabbing his nose. They were leaping and jumping all over the place. It was better than a Bruce Lee film."

At one point the monkey trainer grabbed a staff to hit the monkeys, only to find himself facing a stick-brandishing monkey that cracked him over the head

Machines That Just Won't Communicate

It's hard, I know. I demand written reports from my toaster all the time, but never get a response:

MELBOURNE University's vice chancellor, Glyn Davis, has demanded a full written report from the Australian Synchrotron on its unexpected removal of chemistry professor Rob Lamb as founding director of the facility.

...The university had first asked for a report on November 16. "Despite the clear requirements of the secondment agreement, the report has not yet been provided," Professor Davis says.

Watching The Folks Assemble A Manikin At Arden Fair Mall

Putting a clothing ensemble on a manikin is different than I thought. FIRST, you put the coat on the dummy, and THEN you put the arms on the dummy....

Pitbull ft. Lil' Jon - "Krazy"

And since I'm thinking about the tune anyway....

Trust, But Verify

Tonight in the lobby at Pepper Von's studio, a mother was trying to keep her 3-year-old daughter doing a peculiar lunge and thus getting in everyone's way.

The mother said: "Honey, if you do that again, your brains are going to fall out!"

The daughter immediately lunged again, and then asked: "Mommy, did my brains fall out?"

OMG! - Pepper Von's Hip Hop Workout #4

Oh, I knew this would happen eventually - I'm on YouTube!

This is Pepper Von's Thursday night Cardio Funk fitness class at Step One health and fitness club. I'm there in the back; Sadie (in pink) and Nancy (in green) are at the front; awesome dancer Hannah Collins is on the far left; Nani and Denise and Flora are all there too!

All of Pepper's classes are great!

Conan O'Brien On "Between Two Ferns"

Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis from Between Two Ferns

What English Sounds Like to Foreigners

Caption:

An Italian singer wrote this song with gibberish to sound like English. If you've ever wondered what other people think Americans sound like, this is it.

The nice thing about this video is that it allows English-speakers to drop their linguistic baggage and really experience the culture shock other folks, like the Italians, must have felt in the 50's and 60's when American rhythm-and blues and rock-and-roll came blasting into the Meditteranean.

Restoring The Glass-Steagall Wall

The Glass-Steagall Act saved the world from Depression for nearly 80 years. It's celebrated elimination nevertheless created opaque markets, where all kinds of septic practices could flourish without restraint, as we have recently discovered, to our sorrow. Restoring Glass-Steagall would help clarify markets and thus leads to market trust and stability. Otherwise, it's caveat emptor: the law of the jungle for everyone!:

John McCain lost the 2008 presidential election because of the financial crisis—at least that's what his chief strategist, Steve Schmidt, suggested. "We were three points ahead on Sept. 15 when the stock market crashed. And then the election was over," Schmidt said in a postmortem earlier this year. McCain was tarred with the regulatory failures of the Bush years, and it didn't help that he had been a longtime acolyte of the Senate's dean of deregulation, Phil Gramm, who once derided Americans as "a nation of whiners." McCain also seemed to have few new ideas of his own about how to address the financial panic.

More than a year after the election, the Arizona Republican is looking to repair that reputation by joining up with Democratic firebrand Maria Cantwell to propose something that will be anathema to both Wall Street and the Obama administration. According to two congressional sources, the two maverick senators want to reinstate Glass-Steagall Act, the Depression-era law that forced the separation of regular commercial banking from Wall Street investment banking. The senators' proposal echoes a failed amendment introduced in the House last week by Rep. Maurice Hinchey of New York.

...Bankers and regulators, Volcker said earlier this month, "have not come anywhere close to responding with necessary vigor" to the crisis. He wants to ban federally guaranteed commercial banks from risky trading in derivatives and other arcane instruments that could precipitate another huge bailout some day. That too is a proposal no one who currently controls the levers of power in Washington is considering. But among those who now support Volcker is Arthur Levitt Jr., the former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. "I tend to be in the Volcker camp in saying banks should either be investment banks or take deposits and make loans," Levitt told me in an interview this week.

Obama administration officials have dismissed the idea that the financial sector should or can be changed in more fundamental ways than they are now proposing. You can't turn back the clock, they say, and the new requirements they plan to impose on big banks to hold more capital in reserve, put up $150 billion for a rainy-day rescue fund, and disclose more of their risky trades should be enough to keep the financial sector from imploding again. Many of these requirements, among others, are contained in two giant bills making their way through Congress—one that passed the House last week and another that will be debated in the Senate in the new year. "I think going back to Glass-Steagall would be like going back to the Walkman," says one senior Treasury official.

But Obama and his economic team are also coming under increasing attack from their own liberal, reformist base for paying more attention to health care and other issues than to the causes of the biggest crisis since the Great Depression. Among the harshest critics has been Cantwell, who has pressed Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to take a firmer stand in preventing loopholes in derivatives legislation. "I think they've [the Obama team] said the right things, but they've left it entirely up to a Congress which is seduced by lobbying pressures," says Levitt. "Health care has become such a compelling initiative that everything else has taken a back burner."

...Indeed, after last year's crash some experts concluded that the repeal of Glass-Steagall had little to do with it. After all, everybody—investment banks, nonbanks, insurance companies—had gotten into trouble: firms, in other words, that were not ostensibly changed by the repeal. Some even argued that the absence of Glass-Steagall made the cleanup easier: it allowed Bank of America to buy Merrill Lynch, for example.

But that critique missed a larger point that McCain, Cantwell, and other critics are now trying to address. The blinding complexity and interconnections created by modern capital markets—especially because of the way nearly half a trillion dollars in derivatives trades linked the firms to each other—demanded that there be strong firewalls and capital buffers between Wall Street institutions and their affiliates, and between banks and nonbanks and insurance companies. Otherwise there would be no islands of safety—no healthy institutions left to come and rescue the day, as commercial banks traditionally had done since the days of J. P. Morgan's famous bailout in 1907. The repeal of Glass-Steagall took things in precisely the opposite direction, eliminating most of the firewalls and inviting staid commercial banks into the buccaneering world of Wall Street trading. Representative Hinchey says it "was a recipe for disaster because these banks were empowered to make large bets with depositors' money, and money they didn't really have. When many of those bets, particularly in the housing sector, didn't pan out, the whole deck of cards came crumbling down and U.S. taxpayers had to come to the rescue."

Today the walls between firms still seem low indeed, and trading in derivatives that are "over the counter" (that is, out of public sight) continues at an astonishing pace, having risen back up to nearly $600 trillion worth. One big danger sign ahead is that the biggest banks have gotten even bigger in the aftermath of the catastrophe, and under the new rules requiring swap dealers to post capital for margin requirements, the big banks are likely to monopolize even more of this derivatives market and become that much richer and more powerful. That won't necessarily be a problem—unless the next crash proves once again that they cannot be allowed to fail, and the government must step in. Until McCain and Cantwell decided to speak out, very little that is currently under consideration by Congress or the executive branch would have changed that.

Efimov Trimers

Craig sent this story. VERY interesting!

When I first heard of quarks, I could not picture how such things could interact, or be put together.

It looks like quarks bothered other people too - people like Dr. Efimov.

This is the first reasonable thing regarding trimers I've ever heard. Probably the most significant physics story of the year!

When physicist Vitaly Efimov heard his theory had finally been proven, he ran up to the younger scientist who had verified it and gave him a high five.

Efimov had predicted a quantum-mechanical version of Borromean rings, a symbol that first showed up in Afghan Buddhist art from around the second century. The symbol depicts three rings linked together; if any ring were removed, they would all come apart.

Efimov theorized an analog to the rings using particles: Three particles (such as atoms or protons or even quarks) could be bound together in a stable state, even though any two of them could not bind without the third. The physicist first proposed the idea, based on a mathematical proof, in 1970. Since then, no one has been able to demonstrate the phenomenon in the lab - until recently.

A team of physicists led by Randy Hulet of Rice University in Houston finally achieved the trio of particles, and published their findings in the online journal Science Express.

"It was very exciting, because after 40 years of this prediction being out there, it was finally verified," Hulet told LiveScience.

Hulet presented his work at a meeting in Rome in October that Efimov also attended.

"He gave me a high five after my talk," Hulet recounted. "He was so enthusiastic and so excited to see this prediction become true."

Efimov had calculated that the triplet of bound particles was possible, and that it was repeating: New bound states could be achieved at higher and higher energy levels in an infinite progression. All of the bound states would occur at energy levels that were multiples of 515.

To prove that they had really created the trios, called Efimov trimers, the researchers produced one set of three lithium atoms bound together, and then reproduced it with a binding energy 515 times the first one. (Essentially, binding energy indicates how tightly the particles hold onto one another and how much energy it would take to pull them apart.)

The researchers used a setup called a Feshbach resonance that allowed them to tweak the energy levels of their atoms. They found that when they hit multiples of 515, the particles would bind, but at other energies they wouldn't, proving that the trios really were Efimov trimers.

"It's an amazing effect, really," Hulet said. "A lot of people didn't believe [Efimov] at first. It was a very strange prediction."

The theory is unique because it's a solution to a special case of what's called the "three-body" problem. Scientists have solved the "two-body" problem - that is, they have calculated exactly how two objects should move based on their starting positions, masses and velocities. Scientists can also calculate this scenario for many masses, but a pure solution to the general three-body problem has been elusive.

"Physicists can handle two-body problems quite well, and many-body problems fairly well, but when there are just a few objects, like the three bodies in these Efimov trimers, there are just too many variables," Hulet said.

The Efimov calculation isn't the solution to the general case, but rather a solution to a specific case of three bodies. Thus, discovering a real-life example of three particles fulfilling his prediction is an important step to learning more about few-body physics.

Someone In Arizona Needs To Go To Jail For Awhile

Database trouble:

PHOENIX, AZ -- More misconduct has been alleged against Arizona Republican Party executive director Brett Mecum, who is now the subject of a criminal complaint alleging he used the Republican's voter database to stalk a young female graduate student.

The affidavit, filed last month with the local sheriff's office, alleges that Mecum "is using Voter Vault to stalk." Voter Vault is used by the Republican Party to micro-target the party's message and to canvas specific demographics. The complainant was celebrating her acceptance into an East Coast graduate school on August 29 at her home when Mecum showed up uninvited. She reveals details about Voter Volt in her sworn affidavit:

I did not invite Brett Mecum. He is rather creepy and intimidating around women. I did not want to expose my guests to that kind of individual. I was shocked to see him show up at my party. He had never been to my house, and I had never told him where I lived. I asked him how he found my address, and he responded "I looked it up on Voter Vault, I called a staffer to look it up for me there."

Other local women are alleging that Mecum's behavior from the night described above fits an ugly pattern. According to the sworn affidavit, the young woman whose doorstep Mecum showed up on felt threatened:

[Mecum] alluded to power, connections, and authority as a result of his position as Executive Director of the Arizona Republican Party. I have also seen what malicious things he has done to others and do not want to be subjected to similar retaliatory actions.

According to the affidavit, the complainant only came forward because she "would be helping other women by stopping this behavior." She went on to say, "I am concerned for my safety and the safety of other women who have either been or might be stalked by him using Voter Vault. Like me, they were likely threatened by him if they report his harassment and are afraid to come forward"

...Pullen said later in his statement,

"He used Voter Vault. The Republican National Committee owns Voter Vault....It's a private list. We own the list. We can do what we want with the list, quite frankly.

Mecum has been treated favorably by the court system in the past. He was arrested in May at the Arizona Republican Party headquarters for criminal speeding after his photo was snapped as he drove 109 miles per hour on a local freeway in the wee hours. The case was later thrown out when Mecum was lucky enough to have his case assigned to a judge who just happens to believe that freeway cameras are unconstitutional. Ironically, Mecum had been on a radio talk show in February and told the host that speeding tickets are just "another Democrat tax" and went on to say

"If you're rich, you can afford to speed because you can go as fast as you want, pay the fine, and there is no actual penalty." (In Mecum's case, the penalty was a few hours in jail.)

It's About The Leadership

Or lack thereof:

So what's the difference? Why with 60 votes are Democrats so ineffective, but with 50 votes Republicans excel?

What the GOP lacked in numbers, they made up for in backbone, cunning and leadership. Say what you will about George Bush, he wasn't afraid of a fight. If anything, the Bush administration, and the Republicans in Congress, seemed to relish taking on Democrats, and seeing just how far they could get Democratic members of Congress to cave on their promises and their principles. Hell, even Senator Barack Obama, who once famously promised to lead a filibuster against the FISA domestic eavesdropping bill, suddenly changed his mind and actually voted for the legislation. Such is the power of a president and a congressional leadership with balls and smarts.

How did they do it? Bush was willing to use his bully pulpit to create an environment in which the opposition party feared taking him on, feared challenging his agenda, lest they be seen as unpatriotic and extreme. By going public, early and often, with his beliefs, Bush was able to fracture the Democratic opposition (and any potential dissent in his own party) and forestall any effort to mount a filibuster against the most important items in his agenda.

It's not about the votes, people. It's about leadership. The current occupant of the White House doesn't like to fight, and the leadership in Congress has never been as good at their jobs, at marshaling their own party, as the Republicans were when they were in the majority. The President is supposed to rally the country, effectively putting pressure on opposition members of Congress to sit down and shut up. And the congressional leadership is supposed to rally its members to hold the line, and get the 51 votes necessary for passing legislation in a climate where the minority is too afraid to use the filibuster. When you have a President who is constitutionally, or intellectually, unable to stand for anything, and a congressional leadership that, rather than disciplining its own members and forging ahead with its own agenda, cedes legislative authority to a president who refuses to lead, you have a recipe for exactly what happened last night. Weakness, chaos, and failure.

Howard Dean Leads A Charge

Kill it!:

In a blow to the bill grinding through the Senate, Howard Dean bluntly called for the bill to be killed in a pre-recorded interview set to air later this afternoon, denouncing it as “the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate,” the reporter who conducted the interview tells me.

Dean said the removal of the Medicare buy-in made the bill not worth supporting, and urged Dem leaders to start over with the process of reconciliation in the interview, which is set to air at 5:50 PM today on Vermont Public Radio, political reporter Bob Kinzel confirms to me.

The gauntlet from Dean — whose voice on health care is well respsected among liberals — will energize those on the left who are mobilizing against the bill, and make it tougher for liberals to embrace the emerging proposal. In an excerpt Kinzel gave me, Dean says:

“This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate. Honestly the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill, go back to the House, start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill.”

A Dark Day For Liberals, But....

At least one good thing is happening:

A third of The New Republic's staff will be let go, FishbowlDC sources have confirmed.

"I'm still rooting for information myself," said a TNR writer on background."A third of the staff, that's correct."

It is uncertain at this point whether it is a third of the editorial staff or a third of total staff. The writer added, "I guess this was bound to happen at some point. Everyone's downsizing. Whatever."

Just Call Me A Health Care Reform Pollyanna!

Terribly bad, dark day in liberal precincts. Through gross incompetence, the inability to fully-comprehend Joe Lieberman's dark malice, Harry Reid managed to hand all power to that same Dark Prince:

Worse yet, the months of dithering on the bill accomplished the worst possible scenario: the whiplash effect of raising, and then subsequently lowering, expectations. The neverending litany of mixed messages coming from both the Senate and the White House left the left-of-center Democratic base with false hopes that emanated from the false starts of those entities, who vacillated between bold and contemptibly timid.

The GOP, for what it is worth, was always through with you, despite your numerous attempts to find ways to please them and appeal to them. This will still get scant, if any, Republican votes, no matter how much the bill was neutered in response to their criticism. And they will still, after all this, find ways to call you dangerous socialists about 23,000 times between now and November of 2010.

The "independent voter", meanwhile, has seen the spectacle of the past several months. They have seen Senate Democrats, "led" by their Majority Leader, adopt six different bargaining positions a day, where reports of negotiation (and/or capitulation) were met with an immediate forceful denial from some spokesperson, only to be confirmed within hours.

They have concluded that Democrats cannot govern worth a damn. They may well be right.

So, congratulations, guys. It takes a tremendous amount of skill to singlehandedly imperil a Congressional majority and return bargaining power to a political party that has been spending the last five years circling the drain. Perhaps John Boehner and Mitch McConnell will send you a "thank you" card.

Terribly bad stuff, but, oddly enough, I lean towards optimism on all this. I think I’m optimistic because I’m still in relatively-good health and so have less to lose than less-fortunate folks (like almost everyone around me).

This health-care reform legislation will be clearly and immediately seen to be an unworkable fiasco, and so round two will start, ASAP. Serious progress, if it ever comes, will have to await even larger LIBERAL-Democratic majorities (no more Blue Dogs). And those large majorities could well come, because health care is in a state of chronic and advancing crisis. The health-care crisis is just going to get worse, unless the core issues are addressed (and they haven’t been, although the reform, such as it is, is a step in the right direction). People will continue to die from neglectful and expensive health care.

If I’m lucky, I’ll continue to evade trouble long enough to see some serious legislation get passed.

I like Ed Kilgore’s Option 2, at this link:

(1) Forget about Lieberman and go after Snowe and/or Collins. It would obviously be satisfying to most Democrats to deny Joe Lieberman the opportunity to be King of the Senate and Arbiter of Health Reform, or more to the point, the chance to screw up or kill the legislation down the road....

(2) Give Lieberman what he wants and then fix the legislation later. The key argument here is that the very items Lieberman is objecting to--an option for some younger Americans to buy into Medicare, and any sort of public option--are budget savers which could without question be added later (say, next year) via the budget reconciliation route, which only requires 50 votes....

(3) Threaten Lieberman with loss of his seniority unless he votes for cloture. Without question, it was a major mistake for the Democratic Caucus to allow Lieberman to maintain his seniority after the 2008 elections without an ironclad pledge that he would support the Caucus on all procedural votes, including cloture votes....

(4) Reframe the bill to use reconciliation. This is the strategy many progressives have been urging all along, for the obvious reason that it gets rid of the need for more than 50 Senate votes and also would make it vastly easier to craft a Senate bill that's close enough to the House bill to avoid friction in a House-Senate conference....

(5) Go back to the drawing board. Before resorting to any of the above unsavory options, health reform supporters will undoubtedly make some effort to devise yet another compromise that can obtain that 60th vote without losing existing supporters....

To You, And Yours!

From Deborah McMillion-Nering.

Can't Sleep - Memento ft. Anita Kelsey

Tropical Cyclone Laurence

The forecasts are showing Tropical Cyclone Laurence is unusually potent and will bring lots of rain as it blunders into Australia's interior over the next week.