Bull Moose Strikes Back

Hey, Tom Hanks: Shh….

I was all excited to watch “The Pacific,”  HBO’s new mini-series produced by Hanks and Steven Spielberg, which starts to air on Sunday. I was just about to temporarily subscribe to HBO in order to watch it. After all, they are marketing it as a companion piece to HBO’s previous WWII mini-series “Band of Brothers,”  which Hanks and Spielberg also produced and which I thought was fabulous.

And then, Tom Hanks started talking.  I like Tom Hanks. And in the context of Hollywood, I thought what I thought was his “soft-left” politics (which Spielberg seems to share) were almost courageous. But when he is apparently trying to make the Pacific Theater or WWII a stand in for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and in the process getting the motivation for all of them wrong (see also video here), I have to wonder if I care what his new mini-series says about anything.

Now I note that “Band of Brothers” was produced at the end of the Clinton era and aired just before full-scale BDS really kicked in.  In fact, the first episode or so aired before 9/11.  I also note that “Band of Brothers” was based on a book by Stephen Ambrose, with Ambrose’s involvement. Say what you will about Ambrose’s overblown alleged plagiarism scandal, but I doubt he’d have let the war in Pacific theater be portrayed as “a war of racism…”

Was there plenty of race hatred that sprung up in the thick of the fighting and in propaganda? I doubt anyone would deny that. War is dehumanizing. But Hanks, especially in that video clip, seems to suggest it was a cause rather than an effect of the war.

Hmm… Now do I want to shell out to watch this thing?

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…articles about guns in the National Parks:

The Seattle Times runs a hand-wringing AP article, including quotes like:

“It really is sad that we’ve become such a paranoid society that people want to take guns pretty much everywhere – including national parks;” “When you are at a campfire and people are getting loud and boisterous next to you, you used to have to worry about them quieting down. Now you have to worry about when they will start shooting;” and “the new law [is] a sad chapter in the history of the park system.”

Meanwhile, the paper from my (red) neck of the woods – an area which includes one of America’s greatest National Parks -  runs a story which advises backpackers to find a light gun to carry.

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After looking at the list of CPAC straw poll winners (PDF), should I be worried? Or should I just chill out? It is only early 2010, after all. And the poll only caught about 25% of the attendees, 31% of which were professional Ron Paul supporters.

Ron Paul won. No doubt after his supporters did what they are best at – making themselves look like a big presence in polls but no where else. Paul is the Ralph Nader of the libertarian sector: It’s hard to know what to really think of him because some of his supporters are so nutty they overshadow the man, but it doesn’t really matter, since he’s unelectable.

Romney came in second. Pass. (Though I would be interested to see how many anti-Mormon exposes just happen to run in the media during that cycle.)

Palin was third.  She lost me when she quit. She keeps re-losing me every time she plays the victim.

Fourth was Pawlenty. I could see getting behind him, but I don’t imagine it’d be very enthusiastically.

Mike Pence was fifth. OK, we finally get to a high quality person… who no one knows.

Sixth – Gingrich. He’s a great thinker, but too much dirty laundry to be a viable candidate.

Huckleberry Hound was seventh. No thanks.

And it goes on.  The next person I consider to be high quality – but again low profile – is Senator Thune in 10th place.

It will be interesting to see if a leader emerges this fall. Someone has to be out there. Hello? Anyone?

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I think you’ll all be happy to know that my probing was apparently acceptable to the life insurance company.  My life is now insured for a fair amount of money.

Now, to avoid using it…

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I spotted this Prius in the parking lot of the Silverdale McDonald’s where my daughter was having her birthday party:

I present this to you not so much for the fact that it is a Prius with a vanity plate that says “Chaotic,” which seems absolutely prescient at this point, nor for the “If you’re going to ride my ass, at least pull my hair,” classy piece of store-bought drollery that surrounds the license plate. But rather, I snapped the picture because on my way into the McDonald’s there was another car in the same spot with a bumper sticker that said, yes, “If you’re going to ride my ass, at least pull my hair.”

Apparently there are so many people in Kitsap County who want to tell the public about their desire to have their hair pulled as they have their ass ridden that any particular parking spot in the county may not have to wait more than 3 minutes between cars bearing such declarations.

And since I’m posting pictures of the back of eco-friendly cars, here’s one I found near the Kitsap County courthouse the other day:

That is the rare Smart Car that has an actual NRA sticker on it. When I saw it, I stopped to take a closer look, since I assumed it was going to be a piece of satire. Maybe the National Waffle Association, for instance. But it is a genuine NRA sticker. Which leaves me wondering whether the one person in the world who owns a Smart Car and is a member of the NRA lives around here, or whether it is a joke in itself.

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Pfew. I just finished a marathon 5 week session of trials. I had a two week trial and a three week trial back-to-back. It is amazing how tired I got just sitting there and paying close attention to every word uttered day after day and then spending an hour organizing my notes every night. I know, poor me, right?

The first case was a messy business divorce, and the second was a contractor and homeowner suing each other, with my client the electrical subcontractor intervening because he didn’t get paid. I think those cases keep me out of the “evil trial lawyer” division. For now…

Now it’s just waiting around for the decisions. That’s the problem with bench trials – no drama of the jury decision.

If you read my other blog (at least the other one I do under this moniker) you know I have a big day today.

Here is one question I wanted to comment on, but haven’t gotten there yet: What’s the point of having a law requiring 2/3 approval of both houses of the state legislature to raise taxes when a simple majority can suspend the law? Discuss.

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First off, I don’t know what was more lame, the Tebow ad or that anyone got upset over it. There was supposed to be a stance on abortion in there? OK. (I couldn’t find a video to embed, but it is available at the Focus on the Family website.
(UPDATE: Found it on YouTube.)

Was this ad a funny tweaking of environmental political correctness or a chilling vision of the future? You decide:

I think it’s the latter. At least Cheap Trick got a check out of it.

I like how Coke paid to use Simpsons IP, but not for Harry Shearer or Hank Azaria or any of the more expensive voice actors to voice the IP:

This ad was just obnoxious:

My daughter saw this ad and responded by trying to tear off her shirt. We had to have a little talk.

The only ad I laughed out loud at was this one:

That ad of course was a call back to this ad from the last time CBS had (and the Colts were in) the Super Bowl:

That one is kind of creepy in light of recent news about Letterman and women who get invited to his in-studio apartment…

This was my least favorite ad. Probably because it falsely implies that a French woman who would marry an infidel American would have a baby. Come on, let’s keep it realistic.

And I’m throwing this one in, because I’m pretty sure it would be my wife’s favorite. (She only got to watch half the game.)

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I am ready to enjoy a Super Bowl where I am fine with whatever team wins. It sure was nice of the Saints to put away the Vikings last week. I would have been awfully tense today if they hadn’t.

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Oscar nods this morning. I really dislike the new system of nominating ten movies for Best Picture. It’s not like any of the extra five actually have a chance of winning, if they want to get more eyeballs on the ceremony they need to find a better way than the equivalent of giving everyone a trophy.

On the other hand, I smashed my dry streak of not having seen any of the nominated Best Picture nominees at the time of nomination.  This year I have seen of five of the ten nominees, including the front runners, Avatar, and The Hurt Locker. The others being Inglorious Basterds, Up, and District 9.

I told you what I thought of Avatar here. Truthfully, I think that District 9, Up, Inglorious Basterds,and The Hurt Locker are all much better than Avatar. The Hurt Locker especially.

The Hurt Locker is the best Iraq War movie ever made. Not that there was any competition for that title. But it is also one of the best handful of war movies I’ve ever seen. There is no politics in the movie, but it is an intense study of how different men react to the pressure of war. Check it out all four of the ones I’ve mentioned.

I also have to register an official complaint about the lack of eye candy included in the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress category.  Personally, I think Amy Adams’ turn as Amelia Earhart in Night at the Museum 2 was worth a nod.

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I wasn’t going to say anything about Obama’s shot at the SCOTUS, because, who cares? SCOTUS had the binding word.

But it has slowly been dawning on me how politically stupid it was: Almost all politically hot decisions are going to be 5-4 votes one way or another for the foreseeable future. So what does Obama do? He scolds the swing vote to his face in the State of the Union for the most recent majority opinion he authored.

Good luck to the next attorney trying to move Kennedy over to the administration’s point of view next term.

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I mentioned the Tim Tebow pro-life commercial in the Moose Droppings below, but I may have shortchanged the subject based on the hand wringing that is going on over it.

First of all, it is amusing to me to see these feminist groups pretend that they have some kind of reverence for the Super Bowl. “It’s inappropriate for the Super Bowl.” Like the ad was scheduled to run during Ted Kennedy’s funeral or something.

Second, I expect the ad to have the same message as this powerful ad that was rejected last Super Bowl Sunday, but ran at other times:

There’s noting in there about “outlaw abortion.” The message is, “think about what you are doing before you have an abortion because the going is going to get tough; you’re aborting a person.”

That’s why people who take the position like this Jehmu Greene person took on the O’Reilly factor are being disingenuous:

“It’s that very choice that Pam Tebow had about her reproductive health decisions that this ad is trying to take away.” (Or something close to that. I’m not watching it again.)

Really? Assuming I’m right and the ad has the same message as the Obama ad how is trying to take away anyone’s right to make a decision? Are we not allowed to try to influence people’s decisions anymore? That’s probably news to the First Amendment. But, no, I believe every ad being run during the Super Bowl will be trying to influence someone’s decision: which beer to drink; which car to drive; which shaving cream to use. It’s just that people like Jemhu Greene think that free speech ends when at the point where we disagree with her.

Then there’s Joy Behar with the “Tim Tebow could have been a rapist pedophile” line:

Personally, I would love to see Behar – or anyone else – pony up the dough to run an ad with that message during the Super Bowl. “This ad brought to you by the Coalition of Nasty, Dried-Up, New York Liberal Women.”

And here’s something that maybe the creators of the Tebow ad didn’t think about: The ad could cause a spike in abortions amongst students and alumni of Florida State and the University of Georgia.

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Hola Amigos. It’s been a long time since I wrapped at you, but here comes the round-up:

• A lot of fellow conservatives are overexcited about Scott Brown winning.  To be sure, I’m glad he beat that Marcia/Martha person, and I’m glad it will kill Obamacare for now, but let’s see what happens in November, and more importantly, what results from November.
• What’s the deal with Glenn Beck getting on Scott Brown for the remark about his daughters? Hasn’t every dad since the beginning of time tried to get his daughters married off? (Especially Mormon dads?) What a weirdo Beck is.
• How has it only been a year since Octomom gave birth? I can’t even remember a time I didn’t know the term “octomom”.
• There is no God.
• “I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.”  Might I suggest declaring himself a “really-good” president and not seeking re-election, then?
• “Several women’s groups have argued that the spot, which is believed to be a pro-life ad featuring Tebow and his mother, is an advocacy ad and is inappropriate for Super Sunday.” Well, I guess when those “women’s advocacy groups” buy the rights to broadcast the Super Bowl, they can decide not to air the ad.
• Am I the only one that thought watching Favre in the NFC Championship Game was like watching “Lost?” No matter what he does, no matter what he changes or where he plays, his last play in the NFL is to be an interception in the NFC Championship Game which results in an OT loss for his team. The Island (Super Dome) even healed his leg after the high-low so it could be so.

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Sometimes I get blue after the Christmas season. The lights come down, and it is dark and cold and wet. The fact that my birthday is in January used to cheer me up, now it just drags me further down.

However, tonight Jack Bauer arrives for twenty-four “24″ episodes. Those twenty-four “24″ episodes will lead me through this dark time of year and right into May when my favorite time of year begins.

Huzzah Jack Bauer! Who needs a Happy Light when we have you?

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More global warming “science.”

“I heard from a guy, who heard from a guy, who read it in a popular magazine, who got it from some guy speculating that…” is good enough to end up in the IPCC report. Brilliant. Makes the doctored data look downright legitimate.

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Oh, George Will, you’re so quaint.  Like Congress even pretends to care about what the Constitution says anymore. Though he does nicely sum up the way things ought to be:

More truly conservative conservatives take their bearings from the proposition that government’s primary purpose is not to organize the fulfillment of majority preferences but to protect preexisting rights of the individual — basically, liberty. These conservatives favor judicial activism understood as unflinching performance of the courts’ role in that protection.

That role includes disapproving congressional encroachments on liberty that are not exercises of enumerated powers. This obligatory engagement with the Constitution’s text and logic supersedes any obligation to be deferential toward the actions of government merely because they reflect popular sovereignty.

There isn’t anyone, including the President, who has seriously studied the Constitution that can say this health care bill would ever be considered constitutional without the tortured interpretations of the New Deal Supreme Court cases and the Warren Court.  The problem is that a lot of people have talked themselves into the proposition that the Constitution actually was meant to be changed in that manner and not through the provided amendment process.

I wonder if this will be the point where enough is enough. Who knows. I’ve talked a lot about the 4-4-1 tie in the court. It’s another coin flip.

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If all Christians are held responsible for this bag of crazy:

Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it… They [Haitians] were under the heel of the French … and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French.’ True story… And the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’ Ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after another.

then all global warming alarmists should be held responsible for this nutty statement:

When we see what we did at the climate summit in Copenhagen, this [the earthquake] is the response, this is what happens, you know what I’m sayin’?

At least Pat Robertson’s statement makes some sense in the nutty context it is in. (Deal with devil = earthquake as God’s punishment.) I’m not sure why Gaia – or whatever – would be punishing Haiti for pumping out carbon dioxide, since I’m pretty sure the average Haitian’s carbon footprint is tiny compared to Americans, Europeans, or Japanese. Maybe Glover should have saved that for when an earthquake hits Tokyo or Los Angeles.

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I don’t care about this story, but I found this paragraph funny:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada described in private then Sen. Barack Obama as “light skinned” and “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” Obama is the nation’s first African-American president. [Emphasis added.]

I suppose it conforms to some rule of journalism to include the italicized sentence, but I wonder if we can just assume that everyone knows that at this point.

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This story from The Namby Pamby, Attorney-at-Law made me remember a story I was going to post about one of my recent trips to court. On one hand it isn’t as funny since what I said wasn’t as funny. On the other hand it might be a little funnier since I actually said it.

I was defending a summary judgment motion in oral arguments against a lawyer I have nicknamed “Spirit of Crazy Horse.”  Not because I’m a racist or because he’s Indian, since neither is the case, but because he actually released a freaking album of folk songs entitled “In the Spirit of Crazy Horse.” (This is the guy I wrote about here when I moved for SJ against his client a few weeks later.)

After the judge denied the plaintiff’s motion, we went back to the table to negotiate and order while other people with civil litigants took their turn in front of the judge. When it became obvious I was going to have to go back to my office to write one up Spirit of Crazy Horse took off and I stuck around to tell the judge we’d return the next week with the order.

When the two pro se litigants were done with their interminable argument, I walked up to the bar and said, “Your honor, Mr. Crazy Horse and I have to work out an order. We’ll present it next week.” Then I realized I had actually called the guy “Mr. Crazy Horse” on the record in open court.

The judge looked at me for a second and said, “Uhh… OK.” I turned on my heel and got out of the court room while the getting was good without having to explain anything. Fortunately, the judges (and other lawyers in the county) don’t have much use for Spirit of Crazy Horse, so I got away with that one. I do have nicknames for other lawyers (and some of the judges) which probably wouldn’t fly, though.  I’ll have to be more careful…

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