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Monday, August 30, 2004 |
The Bush retreat?...
The Bush retreat?
"We have a clear vision on how to win the war on terror and bring peace to the world."
-- George W. Bush
July 30th 2004.
"I don’t think you can win [the war on terror]. But I think you can create conditions so that the — those who use terror as a tool are — less acceptable in parts of the world.”
-- George W. Bush
Aug. 29th, 2004.
[Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall]
A retreat, or just a flip-flop? Does this guy even remember what he says from one day to the next?
4:41:50 PM Permalink
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Two Movies
I saw two movies in the theatre recently.
Garden State was foisted on me by my 15 year-old daughter. She has good taste. It's a nicely written (with an eye to the quirky) little movie about a young man, a less-than-successful actor in Hollywood, returning home for his mother's funeral. He meets Natalie Portman, who in a scene that must be right out both actor's lives, recognizes him from a TV movie he was in ("you're not really retarded?"). Sometimes it's a bit clumsy at times -- a big scene begins with the Portman character asking the main character "what are you thinking?" -- but works.
Collateral is an energetic, very nicely photographed action movie where Tom Cruise plays the bad guy. It works because it takes time to develop the characters (we don't meet Cruise for a bit, but instead get what seems to be a digression about the Jamie Foxx character), and stay with character development even amidst the action. Of the big action movies I saw this year, it's not quite as good as Spiderman 2, and a bit better than The Bourne Supremacy (which has the travelogue appeal going for it), and much much better than Troy.
10:46:28 AM Permalink
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What Happened To The Orange Alert?
Christopher Hayes writes: Let me see if I have this right. Two days after the end of the DNC, Tom Ridge, citing specific threats, announces an Orange Alert that manages to knock Kerry’s post-convention campaign swing off the front page. We then learn that the “threats” that prompted the alert were, in fact, four years old. Now it’s three weeks later, and shockingly, the DHS hasn’t followed up with any further updates, or done anything at all to draw attention to itself. Considering the fact that only a few weeks ago they were darkly intimating that the terrorists had a RNC-attack in their sites, it seems odd that there hasn’t been any follow-up press conferences on the Orange Alert, or security plans for the convention.
Well, I’m sure they’re just busy doing their jobs and their complete press absence has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the Swift Boat Libel has been dominating the news cycle for the last week.
[The Ground Up]
Interesting. Going to the DHS site now shows a yellow threat advisory. Looking at the site, I can't find a press release that announces this lower threat. There is, of course, an August 1 press release announcing the orange threat, but none taking us back down to yellow.
10:04:33 AM Permalink
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WTF???: The Supreme Court Hates Us For Our Freedoms
Citing national security as a reason, the government censored a
quotation from a Supreme Court ruling, used in a court brief
challenging government policies, that warns against using
national security as an excuse to silence dissent...
There are times when the government redacts sections of
documents for legitimate reasons, when the words hidden under
black marker are actually harmful to national security.
This is not one of those times.
[morons.org headlines]
Here's the text that the Bush/Ashcroft Justice Department thought was too dangerous for us to read:
"The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts
to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect 'domestic security.'
Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger
of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent."
Maybe they were right. That is pretty dangerous stuff. (From http://www.thememoryhole.org/feds/justice_redaction.htm.)
8:48:25 AM Permalink
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TiVo's top Olympic moments
The most-watched moment by TiVo users was Paul Hamm's gold medal performance on the high bar. Second place goes to Japan's Kosuke Kitajima "questionable" dolphin kick in the 100m breaststroke. TiVo's live viewership spiked approximately 20% during the games. Mediapost:... [Lost Remote]
I still have hours of Olympics on the Tivo, which I will skim through over the next week. Last night after the closing ceremonies, I watched the men's and women's mountain biking, which was really fun. NBC's prime time coverage was really awful, and only Tivo made the thing worthwhile.
8:34:22 AM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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