So I’m a little slow finding out about this, but Disney, given the success of the Lord of the Rings, is making a live action version of The Lion the Witch and the Wardbrobe. Here are some details and here are some of the art concepts of the movie.
I’m a bit excited about this movie. The Chronicles of Narnia is one of the best fantasy series and hopefully the movies will do the book justice, just as the movie version of the Lord of the Rings did the books justice.
I love Wal-Mart. For many items they provide quality products at inexpensive prices, but Professor Bainbridge wonders is Wal-Mart’s lackluster performance on Black Friday has something to do with it’s lack of upscale products. For example, he cites an article that says, “For example, Wal-Mart’s challenge to the Sony plasma screen TV is a slightly lower-priced alternative priced at $4,935 from Tatung. ‘Wal-Mart doesn’t have the type of brands that generate consumer excitement.’” If I were dropping $5000 on a TV, I surely wouldn’t buy a Tatung brand TV. What is Wal-Mart thinking?
The best political magazine written by people on the left of the political spectrum is the New Republic. This article is a perfect example of good, logical thought from the left. In the article, Jeffrey Friedman show why the left should be so up in arms about supposed hypocracy by red state voters. He writes:
But there’s another, more troubling, logical problem here. Pointing out instances of conservative hypocrisy has become something of a post-election pastime for liberals, and in this case, it might have some basis in fact, no matter how exaggerated the Times story made it seem–after all, there is surely at least some overlap between Bush values voters and “Desperate Housewives” fans. Liberals have become fond of noting such contradictions: We’ve heard a lot recently about how red-state residents favor smaller government while benefiting disproportionately from federal largesse; and how they value the sanctity of heterosexual marriage while divorcing more often than the residents of blue states. To be sure, these arguments also suffer from the fallacy of composition: Red-state divorcees may not be Bush voters; and those areas of the red states that consume the largest portions of federal tax money may in fact be liberal enclaves in otherwise conservative regions. But put aside those details and assume that red-state voters really are hypocrites. Even if true, it is still a lousy line of argument for liberals to indulge.Rather than attacking the specific policies promoted by values voters–policies that can, and should, be fought on their merits–the charge of hypocrisy attacks the voters themselves. But it’s an elementary point of logic that a claim’s validity is independent of the character of those who advocate it. A truth is a truth, no more or less true because of who believes it. The whole issue of hypocrisy, then, for all the importance it routinely assumes in political discourse, is a red herring.
At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings in Chile, the Chilean security forces tried to stop the Secret Service from staying with President Bush. Realizing what was happening, President Bush went back and grabbed his bodyguard. I read about this at LGF and wanted to see the video, but the video is pretty uneventful (I can’t find a video of the scene, but here are some photos).
Strangely, according to the Washington Post:
Chilean journalists were critical of Bush’s actions. Marcelo Romero, a reporter Santiago’s newspaper La Cuarta, said: “All of us journalists agree that President Bush looked like a cowboy. It was total breach of protocol. I’ve seen a lot of John Wayne movies, and President Bush was definitely acting like a cowboy.”
These Chilean journalists are insane. Bush didn’t act like a cowboy, a cowboy would have justifiably pistol whipped the Chilean security guards for not allowing his bodyguard to stay with him. All Bush did was grab his security guard. I had hoped the incident would be interesting, but honestly, I was disappointed with how boring it was.
From this article on AlterNet has a very interesting implied argument in it. I can’t escape the conclusion that the author wants us to think that heaven is in a clearcut. Here’s part of the article:
As I tried to encourage women and the African people in general to understand the need to conserve the environment, I discovered how crucial it is to return constantly to our cultural heritage. Mount Kenya used to be a holy mountain for my people, the Kikuyus. They believed that their God dwelled on the mountain and that everything good
You can always find racism if you go looking for it, especially if can have a fertile imagination. Tony Dungy, the Indianapolis Colts has a fertile imagination. Here’s what the AP says:
If ABC hoped to generate a little bit more buzz for “Monday Night Football” and “Desperate Housewives,” its steamy intro to the Dallas-Philadelphia game sure did the trick.Two days after the network aired the segment featuring Eagles star receiver Terrell Owens and actress Nicollette Sheridan, coaches and players were still talking about it.
Reaction ranged from amusement to anger. Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy found it racially offensive.
“To me that’s the first thing I thought of as an African-American,” Dungy said Wednesday.
“I think it’s stereotypical in looking at the players, and on the heels of the Kobe Bryant incident I think it’s very insensitive. I don’t think that they would have had Bill Parcells or Andy Reid or one of the owners involved in that,” he added, a reference to the coaches in the game.
ABC’s intro showed Sheridan wearing only a towel and provocatively asking Owens to skip the game for her as the two stood alone in a locker room. She drops the towel and jumps into Owens’ arms. Owens is black and Sheridan is white.
As an unathletic white man, I feel discriminated against. As much as I have tried not once, NOT ONE TIME, has a woman ripped off her towel while I was in the locker room. Oh the racism!!!
PETA has a new campaign called the Fish Empathy Project. They are trying to get people to stop eating fish. According to an AP article:
“No one would ever put a hook through a dog’s or cat’s mouth,” said Bruce Friedrich, PETA’s director of vegan outreach. “Once people start to understand that fish, although they come in different packaging, are just as intelligent, they’ll stop eating them.”
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The Empathy Project is a departure in two respects
I saw a news article on this recently, but today I noticed that they have updated my Gmail account to provides free POP3 access. This means that I will be able to access Gmail with Outlook or any other email client. I wonder how long until Yahoo or Hotmail will offer free POP3 access. A few years ago Yahoo allowed free POP3 access, but they quit at about the time of the bursting of the Internet bubble.
By the way, if you want a Gmail invite, let me know and I’ll send you one.
Glenn Reynolds writes:
I’VE WRITTEN BEFORE that U.S. Immigration seems to give us the worst of both worlds — it’s porous to criminals and terrorists, but it seems to excel at alienating people who ought to get in. The other day I was talking to an acquaintance, an Albanian Kosovar refugee who will be taking her U.S. citizenship exam next month. She said that absolutely everyone she has dealt with in the process has been rude, and most of them have been inept. That was my sister-in-law’s experience, too, except that the person who administered the citizenship test was nice. My brother said he was relieved that she had some positive experience in the process. . . .