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Jun. 4th, 2011 10:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwydion* I'm mostly through Pale Demon. I've noticed that my response to Kim Harrison books is pretty random. I can't tell if this is a personal problem or if the actual books are uneven. I don't particularly like this one, but I could randomly love the next one, so I plow on.
* The thing I thought was the biggest difference between the Watchmen book and movie besides the ending was them not having the speech in the vivarium in it's entirety. They took chunks of the speech out and spread them around throughout the movie, and I understand why they don't want a really long speech that late in the movie particularly. I want to make clear I think this was a perfectly valid choice given the differences in medium. However, it really softens Veidt's character. Again, this also is a valid choice for film. In the movie, Veidt is still a fanatic who does something horrific in the name of what he believes, possibly correctly, is the greater good. It is a horrific, unforgivable thing, but it still feels like logic, something Jon with his distance from humanity can bring himself to reluctantly accept once it is fait accompli. In Leverage they call things like the speech in the vivarium, the "evil speech of evil." This is where the villain (or Nate) explains at length why what ze did is completely justified. The idea being that everyone things they are the good guy, no matter how much damage they do. Rereading the graphic novel, Adrian's The Vivarium speech exposes Adrian's grandioseness not as astute self-branding based on childhood interests, but outright madness and wild hubris, that his intellect has long been the servant of his desire to dick measure with the greats of history. It gives the thing a very different feel than movie Adrian's sorrowful chess player's understanding of the inevitability of his logic in the face of the scale of global nuclear war. I am not sure which character design is ultimately better. I'm actually leaning toward the movie here, if you can believe it. Movie Adrian is more relatable, his hubris is on a more ordinary human scale, and therefore more chilling. Book Adrian is so over the top, it's a little too easy to blame it on bad brain chemistry. It lets humanity off the hook a little. I could argue that movie Adrian is more in keeping artistically with Jon, Dan, and Laurie's complicity. It means under the right (or wrong) conditions, any one of us could do what Adrian did. It is more like Jack's choice at the end of Children of Earth, something everyone hopes they wouldn't do, but is sort of secretly glad someone else did.
* I also started the Atom reboot during the cat walk. I'd never heard of the original Atom, until I read Young Avengers and still know nothing much about the old one, so my eyes are pretty fresh. I actually chuckled a little at a line, I like the main character, and I seem to be enjoying it.
* I got to see the second half of the Doctor Who "Flesh" two parter. I'm.... really underwhelmed. I couldn't engage emotionally at all. I keep wishing Gaiman was writing the whole season, because that one episode was like a jewel in a cow pat.
* I'm short of sleep again. Gah! I still haven't put away the non-perishables and there's a list of things I should do around the house should have done during business hours.
* Sarah Palin, who claimed Thursday that Paul Revere warned the British during his famous ride, among other historical lies, claims she knows way more about economics than economists and that economists are out right lying about the consequences of the US defaulting on all our international loans. After all, who's more trustworthy, educated people discussing likely outcomes based on facts and a knowledge of how the world works, or a woman who based on her own statements of made up facts, would fail average 5th grade civics tests on US history, let a lone the more challenging 8th grade ones.
To be fair, Alaska has had a chronic teacher shortage since before it became Alaska. Most people educated enough to teach effectively are educated enough to stick to the cities or leave the state entirely. The result is, small town and village teachers are mostly first and second year teachers, burn outs, or folks who couldn't find work anywhere better, all lured by large signing bonuses. Similarly, the gifted students tend to be sent off to boarding schools in the cities. As a result, there is a much higher concentration of kids with serious problems in the village schools, and hardly any leavening of gifted students to balance it out. A child like Ms. Palin clearly was with no intellectual gifts nor any intellectual curiosity or interest in acquiring even the most basic knowledge, can coast through as long as she keeps her head down and doesn't display serious behavioral problems. I'm guessing that's what happened.
* I suppose I should explain the point of law at stake in the Edwards indictment. To be clear, Edwards completely lost me well before the allegations that, like Newt Gingrich, he cheated on his wife while she was in the hospital for cancer. He lost me when he said something so intensely misogynistic about Hillary Clinton that I went from no strong opinion about him to wanting to throw rotten vegetables at him. (Fight Ms. Clinton on her record or policies? Totally fair. Go after all women as lesser and unfit to be in charge of anything because of hormones? Claim Ms. Clinton is inherently unfit to lead because of her gender? Fuck you, you misogynistic asshole.) Anyway, I'm not a fan, and I think the actions that lead to his indictment are sleazy and unethical. At the same time, I'm not sure if they are illegal, and neither are the campaign finance lawyers. There is no question that people who were also Mr. Edward's political donors spent large sums of money to cover up Mr. Edwards affair and love child. If those sums had been given to Mr. Edward's election fund or to him as a gift, he would be unquestionably guilty. The problem is, that didn't happen. The money never passed through the Re-election fund, nor through the hands or accounts of Mr. Edwards. It was given directly to the women, the man pretending to be the Father, and some forth parties for things like housing and travel. One assumes, he asked them to do it, but no one has found a record or other direct proof of that. There is no precedent at all of prosecuting a politician for third parties paying people money in excess of the amount they could legally give the campaign fund or the politician himself.
Now, imagine the can of worms they open if a politician can get a prison term of up to thirty years if someone randomly gives money to someone besides the politician in a way that helps the campaign, but can't be linked directly to that politician, and it's retroactively in effect to back when they passed the campaign financing law being stretched to cover this new interpretation. O.o Mr. Edwards is an adulterous, lying, misogynist, but he had every reason to think he hadn't broken the law. Who knows how many other people looked at the law and decided that this sort of thing wasn't covered? Chaos! Now imagine if in future, someone rich like the Koch brothers could target politicians they don't like by spending money in a way that benefits them and they don't know about, then inform the authorities of the payment. That politician could get thirty years for a bribe ze never consented to and didn't know a thing about and would have no power to prevent.
Yeah.
At the same time, if people can get donors to buy things that benefit the campaign as long as they are not direct payments or undeclared gifts, then that opens yet another campaign finance loophole to be exploited.
However, I think that when the same donor paid for things like Mr. Edwards' hair cuts would count as gifts to Mr. Edwards and should have been declared, which is illegal, and I think that the Aid sharing the travel and hotel accommodations with Mr. Edwards mistress moves things into a grey area, as it could me claimed his portion of those services could be counted as a campaign expense and therefore a gift to the campaign. I think he could reasonably get burned on those and not tumble the rest of the system into serious chaos, and I'm just fine with that.
* It is things like this and Citizens United make me wish we were an only public finance for election campaigns country, but we'll be watching flocks of pigs fly by before that happens.
* John Stewart on the Eric Cantor plan: http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/thu-june-2-2011-tim-tebow?xrs=share_copy
* from yesterday: That thing where skate boarders weave through moving traffic without looking where they are going and just trusting everyone is fast on the breaks? That can stop now, thanks. I was fast enough to stop with reasonable room, but the truck on the other side of me almost turned him into puree. he had the nerve to shake his fist at the truck as it it were somehow the truckers fault he almost got clipped. He looked over thirty and should have known to look where he was going.
* Rachel Maddow argues that just because you don't like how that thing you said sounds doesn't mean people are lying by quoting you or that you get to decide they aren't allowed to point out you said it: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#43275855
* Rorschach and Deadpool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G39GgvCjTZs
* The thing I thought was the biggest difference between the Watchmen book and movie besides the ending was them not having the speech in the vivarium in it's entirety. They took chunks of the speech out and spread them around throughout the movie, and I understand why they don't want a really long speech that late in the movie particularly. I want to make clear I think this was a perfectly valid choice given the differences in medium. However, it really softens Veidt's character. Again, this also is a valid choice for film. In the movie, Veidt is still a fanatic who does something horrific in the name of what he believes, possibly correctly, is the greater good. It is a horrific, unforgivable thing, but it still feels like logic, something Jon with his distance from humanity can bring himself to reluctantly accept once it is fait accompli. In Leverage they call things like the speech in the vivarium, the "evil speech of evil." This is where the villain (or Nate) explains at length why what ze did is completely justified. The idea being that everyone things they are the good guy, no matter how much damage they do. Rereading the graphic novel, Adrian's The Vivarium speech exposes Adrian's grandioseness not as astute self-branding based on childhood interests, but outright madness and wild hubris, that his intellect has long been the servant of his desire to dick measure with the greats of history. It gives the thing a very different feel than movie Adrian's sorrowful chess player's understanding of the inevitability of his logic in the face of the scale of global nuclear war. I am not sure which character design is ultimately better. I'm actually leaning toward the movie here, if you can believe it. Movie Adrian is more relatable, his hubris is on a more ordinary human scale, and therefore more chilling. Book Adrian is so over the top, it's a little too easy to blame it on bad brain chemistry. It lets humanity off the hook a little. I could argue that movie Adrian is more in keeping artistically with Jon, Dan, and Laurie's complicity. It means under the right (or wrong) conditions, any one of us could do what Adrian did. It is more like Jack's choice at the end of Children of Earth, something everyone hopes they wouldn't do, but is sort of secretly glad someone else did.
* I also started the Atom reboot during the cat walk. I'd never heard of the original Atom, until I read Young Avengers and still know nothing much about the old one, so my eyes are pretty fresh. I actually chuckled a little at a line, I like the main character, and I seem to be enjoying it.
* I got to see the second half of the Doctor Who "Flesh" two parter. I'm.... really underwhelmed. I couldn't engage emotionally at all. I keep wishing Gaiman was writing the whole season, because that one episode was like a jewel in a cow pat.
* I'm short of sleep again. Gah! I still haven't put away the non-perishables and there's a list of things I should do around the house should have done during business hours.
* Sarah Palin, who claimed Thursday that Paul Revere warned the British during his famous ride, among other historical lies, claims she knows way more about economics than economists and that economists are out right lying about the consequences of the US defaulting on all our international loans. After all, who's more trustworthy, educated people discussing likely outcomes based on facts and a knowledge of how the world works, or a woman who based on her own statements of made up facts, would fail average 5th grade civics tests on US history, let a lone the more challenging 8th grade ones.
To be fair, Alaska has had a chronic teacher shortage since before it became Alaska. Most people educated enough to teach effectively are educated enough to stick to the cities or leave the state entirely. The result is, small town and village teachers are mostly first and second year teachers, burn outs, or folks who couldn't find work anywhere better, all lured by large signing bonuses. Similarly, the gifted students tend to be sent off to boarding schools in the cities. As a result, there is a much higher concentration of kids with serious problems in the village schools, and hardly any leavening of gifted students to balance it out. A child like Ms. Palin clearly was with no intellectual gifts nor any intellectual curiosity or interest in acquiring even the most basic knowledge, can coast through as long as she keeps her head down and doesn't display serious behavioral problems. I'm guessing that's what happened.
* I suppose I should explain the point of law at stake in the Edwards indictment. To be clear, Edwards completely lost me well before the allegations that, like Newt Gingrich, he cheated on his wife while she was in the hospital for cancer. He lost me when he said something so intensely misogynistic about Hillary Clinton that I went from no strong opinion about him to wanting to throw rotten vegetables at him. (Fight Ms. Clinton on her record or policies? Totally fair. Go after all women as lesser and unfit to be in charge of anything because of hormones? Claim Ms. Clinton is inherently unfit to lead because of her gender? Fuck you, you misogynistic asshole.) Anyway, I'm not a fan, and I think the actions that lead to his indictment are sleazy and unethical. At the same time, I'm not sure if they are illegal, and neither are the campaign finance lawyers. There is no question that people who were also Mr. Edward's political donors spent large sums of money to cover up Mr. Edwards affair and love child. If those sums had been given to Mr. Edward's election fund or to him as a gift, he would be unquestionably guilty. The problem is, that didn't happen. The money never passed through the Re-election fund, nor through the hands or accounts of Mr. Edwards. It was given directly to the women, the man pretending to be the Father, and some forth parties for things like housing and travel. One assumes, he asked them to do it, but no one has found a record or other direct proof of that. There is no precedent at all of prosecuting a politician for third parties paying people money in excess of the amount they could legally give the campaign fund or the politician himself.
Now, imagine the can of worms they open if a politician can get a prison term of up to thirty years if someone randomly gives money to someone besides the politician in a way that helps the campaign, but can't be linked directly to that politician, and it's retroactively in effect to back when they passed the campaign financing law being stretched to cover this new interpretation. O.o Mr. Edwards is an adulterous, lying, misogynist, but he had every reason to think he hadn't broken the law. Who knows how many other people looked at the law and decided that this sort of thing wasn't covered? Chaos! Now imagine if in future, someone rich like the Koch brothers could target politicians they don't like by spending money in a way that benefits them and they don't know about, then inform the authorities of the payment. That politician could get thirty years for a bribe ze never consented to and didn't know a thing about and would have no power to prevent.
Yeah.
At the same time, if people can get donors to buy things that benefit the campaign as long as they are not direct payments or undeclared gifts, then that opens yet another campaign finance loophole to be exploited.
However, I think that when the same donor paid for things like Mr. Edwards' hair cuts would count as gifts to Mr. Edwards and should have been declared, which is illegal, and I think that the Aid sharing the travel and hotel accommodations with Mr. Edwards mistress moves things into a grey area, as it could me claimed his portion of those services could be counted as a campaign expense and therefore a gift to the campaign. I think he could reasonably get burned on those and not tumble the rest of the system into serious chaos, and I'm just fine with that.
* It is things like this and Citizens United make me wish we were an only public finance for election campaigns country, but we'll be watching flocks of pigs fly by before that happens.
* John Stewart on the Eric Cantor plan: http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/thu-june-2-2011-tim-tebow?xrs=share_copy
* from yesterday: That thing where skate boarders weave through moving traffic without looking where they are going and just trusting everyone is fast on the breaks? That can stop now, thanks. I was fast enough to stop with reasonable room, but the truck on the other side of me almost turned him into puree. he had the nerve to shake his fist at the truck as it it were somehow the truckers fault he almost got clipped. He looked over thirty and should have known to look where he was going.
* Rachel Maddow argues that just because you don't like how that thing you said sounds doesn't mean people are lying by quoting you or that you get to decide they aren't allowed to point out you said it: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#43275855
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
* Rorschach and Deadpool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G39GgvCjTZs