My Name is Khan

This movie was recommended to me by Netflix which usually has a 50/50 chance of getting it right with me. I caught the word "Bollywood" and almost marked "not interested," because I usually run screaming from the room from Bollywood films. It is subtitled in English, most of the dialogue is in Hindi, but there are no dance scenes and even the songs in Hindi do not have that high pitched female wailing that drives me straight up the wall.

If you hate tearjerkers don't try this one, because it is achingly sweet and joyous and also painful if you are a fair-minded person at all. I am really glad I took a chance on it because it was one of the most beautiful films I have seen in many years.

In brig, WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning ordered to sleep without clothing

n brig, WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning ordered to sleep without clothing

Ahh, just the latest in a long string of examples of an out of control US military doing the bidding of some of the most spoiled asshats on the planet. Excuse the disgust, I just watched a 1992 documentary called "Panama Deception" about pulling Noriega out of commission in 1989 and killing somewhere between 1 and 4 thousand Panamanians in the process.

Wisconsin Governor Defies Court Order to Open Capitol

LOCAL SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT REFUSES TO BE PART OF THE "PALACE GUARD"

Heh.

Hmmmm?

Roger Ailes might be indicted?

"If it's true we'll find out. If it's not, no big deal," he says. "We'll see where this goes."

Ahhh, a girl can dream, can't she? Ever since I saw "Outfoxed" I've hated Roger Ailes.

English speaking foreign actresses

I dunno why some of them get on my last nerve and I adore others. These two I adore.

Maybe because they let it slip that they are Aussies? Little spur of the moment script changes? They use euphemisms that their characters wouldn't use, like nobody native to Southern California uses "early days." Maybe because the cadence in Aussie's speech is not that different from Americans? I don't know.

Unfortunately, these four drive me nuts, and I can't quite put my finger on why? Three Canadians and a woman from Ireland.

Oops, totally forgot to watch the Oscars. I was surprised at how many of the winners I had seen, or was interested in seeing.

Pepe, Matt, Pepe, Matt, aw screw it, both here, 'cause I love 'em both!

Middle East
Feb 25, 2011

THE ROVING EYE
The Gulf's terror of democracy
By Pepe Escobar


Matt Taibbi: "Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail?" (Complete Interview)

The Kids Are All Right

Whhooo eeee four Oscar nods Two Golden Globes and yadda yadda yadda. Don't waste your time. Besides jerking exactly two tears out of me when they dropped the kid off at college, it pretty much left me wondering why Hollywood thinks it's so fucking progressive? I spent 2 years living with a lesbian couple who were trying to raise kids 15 freaking years ago in this very conservative county, and nobody got that weird or awkward. The whole damn movie felt forced. Or maybe it just felt like Los Angeles. Blech, I hate LA. Everyone seems so fucking full of themselves. When is Hollywood going to stop congratulating itself on it's own brilliance? If I watch the Oscars it will be because I adore Anne Hathaway and I want to get over the heebie jeebies that James Franco gives me, not because I give a crap who wins. I've seen perhaps 5 of the movies that got nods, so there you go.

Anyway, I have decided that 24 is much more fun to watch on Netflix withouth the ads than it ever was before, so I'm off to get lost in something besides the real political news which is kind of nauseating me these days.

update march 2, '11, ok I give, I keep watching the show thinking that Jack Bauer will develop at least a tiny brain to go with those big balls, but no. And his ditzy daughter the hostage queen doesn't learn either. *sigh* I give up, I'm tired of having my intelligence insulted.

Restrepo

Restrepo

2010R 93 minutes

Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm, teamed with photographer Tim Hetherington and spent a year embedded with the Second Platoon in Afghanistan, chronicling the hard work, fear and brotherhood that come with repelling a deadly enemy. Hunkered down with the soldiers in one of the region's most strategic valleys, the filmmakers uncover the dark humor, sleepless surreality and constant anxiety of war in this Oscar-nominated documentary.

NYT movie review.
"...Hanging out with the members of Battle Company in their hilltop outposts in the Korangal Valley between May 2007 and July 2008, Mr. Junger and Mr. Hetherington recorded firefights, reconnaissance missions, sessions of rowdy horseplay and hours of grinding boredom..."

IMDB page.

Streaming on Netflix. I was startled to the point of being breathless a couple of times when the firefights started, but my PTSD is a cakewalk compared to what some of these kids are dealing with. I wonder if the meds I take might help some of these kids. It doesn't turn me into a zombie, it just pushes the emotions back so that they don't completely overwhelm me, run my life and keep me from sleeping, so it might. As I was watching I had to force myself to stop asking the question that some of the soldiers asked on camera at the beginning: "What the fuck are we doing here?"

The only other Oscar nominated documentary I have seen this year is "Exit Through the Gift Shop" which is about a nutjob who follows Banksy around with a camera. Way different, and frankly, this documentary is better. Way better. As hard as it was to watch, it was worth it.

I just wish I could stop thinking about whether or not the guys who made it out of there in good shape have been sent back in.

Columbia Journalism Review - Economic Crisis

Good for your sanity.

Economic crisis, The Audit -- Feb 17, 2011
Audit Notes: Goldman's Marks, Taibbi, Dakota Tea, etc.
By Dean Starkman

"...And lest you think this is all a hot-aired rant from the left, it’s worth reading his treatment of the strange, and strangely under-covered, case of SEC investigator Gary Aguirre, who lost his job when he tried to interview Wall Street stud John Mack in an insider-trading probe:..."

Blue Girl finds Photo of the Day

visit Blue Girl (in a Red State) for her and YD's NightOwl Newsraps, they're fabulous. Here are some other pictures that I have fallen in love with in the last coupe of days.

Looping in my brain this AM

I'm too old for this shit, lol

Madison Protests

largest numbers on Saturday

Hello? Hellloooo? Helllllooooooooooo!?

Fuckingaskippychristonapogostick, are the French the only ones connecting the protests and revolutions to the soaring costs of FOOD? Well whataya know, the head of the World Bank gets it. Read the wiki page linked, of course he gets it!

Rising food prices nearing danger point: World Bank
By Agence France-Presse
Saturday, February 19th, 2011 -- 6:19 pm

"...Soaring food, fuel and other basic costs have been one of the key factors driving political unrest across the Middle East and North Africa which has forced the ouster of long-standing autocratic rulers in Egypt and Tunisia..."

Thousands protest in Bolivia over food prices
(AFP) – 1 day ago

Price protests erupt across Algeria
Unrest spreads from capital to several towns as youths protest over rising costs and increasing unemployment.
Last Modified: 07 Jan 2011 10:15 GMT

"Static state salaries and inflation, particularly with respect to prices for food and key staples, have hit ordinary Libyans hard in the last two years,"
Fourteen people were killed this weekend in the deadliest incidents yet in an unprecedented wave of protests in Tunisia sparked by high food prices and unemployment,


Arab and Middle East revolt - an interactive map
Trace the current spate of protests from Morocco to Iran ...

Global wheat production will probably drop 4.3 percent to 653 million metric tons in 2010-2011 from the previous year, while demand may expand 1.2 percent to 667 million tons,...

<>Wheat reached $9.1675 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade on Feb. 14, the highest price since August 2008 for a most-active contract, and has surged 76 percent the past year. That compares with an 88 percent gain for corn and a 47 percent increase for soybeansI hope you bitches who are dating speculators and traders got diamonds for Valentines day because your hos made bank that day.

How the fuck do you figure an effective 8% loss in production merits a 76% increase in price?

Why is Glenn Beck so full of shit?

In Hour-Long Attack On Planned Parenthood, Beck Inexcusably Ignores Key Fact
February 18, 2011 11:25 pm ET

And Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?
By Matt Taibbi
FEBRUARY 16, 2011 9:00 AM ET

"...To understand the significance of this, one has to think carefully about the efficacy of fines as a punishment for a defendant pool that includes the richest people on earth — people who simply get their companies to pay their fines for them. Conversely, one has to consider the powerful deterrent to further wrongdoing that the state is missing by not introducing this particular class of people to the experience of incarceration. "You put Lloyd Blankfein in pound-me-in-the-ass prison for one six-month term, and all this bullshit would stop, all over Wall Street," says a former congressional aide. "That's all it would take. Just once."...

Gawd I love Matt Taibbi.

Fuck you in your lying ass Mike Pence you rethug liar piece of shit

Just moments ago, the U.S. House voted to bar all federal aid to Planned Parenthood clinics across the country.

The 240-185 vote occurred on an amendment to H.R.1 offered by Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) that prohibits any assistance to every Planned Parenthood agency in the United States. The amendment, in fact, lists all of those agencies by name.

"...And once again, I must think that it would deliver no end of displeasure to them were they to find out that thousands of contributions were being sent to Planned Parenthood in their names -- that they, in fact, had become fundraisers for an organization they evidently despise..."

In the Middle East

Just visit Al Jazeera. It's fabulous to me, all those protests.

Progress, but not here

Tomgram: Engelhardt, Waist Deep in the Washington Quagmire
Posted by Tom Engelhardt at 10:02am, February 17, 2011.

"...There's no way that thinking so old and stale, so out-of-date, can begin to take in or react adventurously to a fast-changing world. Look at Egypt, or China, or Brazil, or India, or Turkey. There, new thinking and new developments are blooming, but you wouldn’t know it in Washington...."

Had enough in the Middle East

16 February 2011 Last updated at 10:00 ET
Middle East protests: Country by country

Arab leaders warned of 'revolution'
Arab League chief warns regional leaders that recent political upheaval is linked to deteriorating economic conditions.
Last Modified: 19 Jan 2011 20:28 GMT

and um, other places also:

Food Riots Threaten Latin America on Surging Commodities in UN Assessment
By Nicholas Larkin - Feb 16, 2011 12:26 AM PT
Countries in Latin America and Africa, including Bolivia and Mozambique, are most at risk of food riots as prices advance, the United Nations reported.

"....Goldman View

Food prices are going higher because there is competition for limited arable land to boost supplies, said Jeff Currie, global head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in London..."

(derivsive snort)

Goldman Sachs Commodity Index and the 2005–2008 Food Bubble

Regulating Commodity Speculation Back In EU Spotlight

Yeah, What BadTux said

The revolution starts... err.... not.

Yup, I'm feelin' pretty lazy these days too, probably because I feel hopeless regarding the Idiocracy that is my country.

Maybe it's because I just finished watching another documentary on illegal immigration, this one about kids. I felt nothing when I watched it, probably because I was born and raised in a Mexican border town. That could change a person's perspective and make them see things that others might not see while watching that particular documentary.

Maybe it's just the hopeless feeling I get when I think about the Idiocracy that is my country.

Grammys tonight

Eh Feh, I think I have heard one of these songs, unless this is the old McCartney version of Helter Skelter. I don't much care for rap, and most R & B sounds the same to me. I kind of wrote off the Grammys as just one more sad commentary on life in America when I happened to catch part of that Gawdawful song one year about it being "hard out here for a pimp." I think back to what my kid listened to and I can see that some of her favorites from 5 or 6 years back are up for Grammys, but the dinosaur rockers are surprising to me, um, unless I don't know any better and their namesake kids are up for awards. If I could figure out when the kid who went to my high school a gazillion years after I went, I might watch part of it, but since the kid didn't even write the one song I like, again let me reiterate... eh feh.

Tired of the news

No, I don't know it all, but since I've been reading non-stop since September 12, 2001 I'm finding the blowback stories from the Middle East tedious. I just don't see current events the way I used to. With 7 billion people on the planet, how long did the Captains of Industry and the Banksters think they could shit all over a majority of the world population?

Do nothing Republicans

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I'm assuming my congresswhore Bilbray is fundraising. A LOT. Since the asshole never represented me or did anything that I care about, I try not to pay attention to the bills that he votes in diametric opposition to my values.

Time to head back to Netflix viewing. Romantic comedies were never so interesting to me, hey I am a woman, and action flicks get really tedious to me. I just don't like car chases, explosions, gunfights, damsel in distress rescues and all the bullshit regarding national security and war. I did enjoy a movie and a documentary about The Runaways, and I loved a Norwegian film that translated as "Buddy."

DC "blindsided?"

Tomgram: Engelhardt, Goodbye to All That

Posted by Tom Engelhardt at 9:50am, February 7, 2011.

Pox Americana
Driving Through the Gates of Hell and Other American Pastimes in the Greater Middle East
By Tom Engelhardt

"As we've watched the dramatic events in the Middle East, you would hardly know that we had a thing to do with them....

Still, make no mistake, there’s a story in a Washington stunned and "blindsided," in an administration visibly toothless and in disarray as well as dismayed over the potential loss of its Egyptian ally, “the keystone of its Middle Eastern policy,” that’s so big it should knock your socks off..."

As I was reading this I was reminded of an article that I read a couple of weeks ago:

Maddow Shows How the "National" Media Isn't National At All by: David Sirota Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 13:30

"Last night, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow rightly asked a taboo question of our "national" media: Why has it largely ignored what the FBI says is a major terrorist bombing attempt on Spokane, Washington? In the segment, you can see she cites examples of the "national" media hyperventilating about bomb scares that ended up being false alarms. She cites these examples to wonder why, in the face of a bomb scare that's actually real, the same "national" media has ignored the Spokane story? ..."

If the NY-DC media bubble cannot inform the people of the United States about danger, how can we expect them to stop tripping over their dicks internationally? They may understand campaign contributions, election cycles and the coming quarter's earnings but the effin megalomaniacs are so myopically focused on those things that they can't even see how dangerous they are to the world.

And, Oh, yeah, I'm getting better at spotting CIA planted stories, especially with the Egypt thing going on. Some of the absolute nonsense I have read in the last couple of weeks is fucking hiliarous.

Asia Times / By Pepe Escobar 16 COMMENTS
Why the US Fears Arab Democracy
As much as Mubarak is a slave to US foreign policy, Obama is boxed in by geopolitical imperatives and enormous corporate interests he cannot even dream of upsetting.

Natural Gas and New Mexico

Friday, Feb. 4, 2011
Thousands in NM without natural gas service
By SUE MAJOR HOLMES Associated Press

Stocks Posted Best Weekly Gain In 2-Months (AAPL, BAC, BIDU, BP, ERTS, FCX, FSLR, MEE, PFE, SLW, V, XOM)
Written by TradersHuddle Staff
Friday, 04 February 2011 21:33
"...Energy, materials, and financials were the bets performing sectors. The energy sector rallied 2.6% lifted by higher crude oil prices and by M&A activity in the coal space. Crude oil extended its gains, climbing to a two-year high of $92.84 per barrel, before settling with a 3.2% gain at $92.19 per barrel. Traders continued to press the possibility of crude oil flow being interrupted at the Suez Canal and of possible Egypt unrest spillover to other oil producing countries in the Middle East..."


New Mexico Board Votes to Adopt Greenhouse Gas Cap-and-Trade Rules
Published Nov. 2, 2010
"...PNM Resources, the Albuquerque-based parent firm of the utility Public Service Co. of New Mexico, has opposed the regional greenhouse gas regulations and issued a statement indicating that it may consider legal action. The company is among many that would prefer a national approach to energy and emissions regulations of this type..."

Speculation On A Monster Rebound, Higher Oil
Andrew Wilkinson, Interactive Brokers, 01.28.11, 02:58 PM EST
Monster Worldwide has been a horror show, dropping about 20%. Some options players wager on a snap back rally.

Patterson-UTI Energy: Shares of the provider of contract services to the North American oil and natural gas industry were up 2.25% this afternoon to stand at $22.90 just before 2:30 p.m. in New York.

Thursday 3 Feb 2011 UK Guardian
Terry McAllister
Shell's search for profits widens even as the oil price climbs
• Shell now 'world's largest trader' as well as oil major
• Plans to explore in Arctic, Iraq, Russia and deep sea
"...Shell is also busy building up its positions in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico and off Brazil, despite the safety concerns triggered by BP's Deepwater Horizon spill..."

Natural gas leak reported at offshore platform in the Gulf of Mexico
Published: Tuesday, January 18, 2011, 9:20 PM Updated: Tuesday, January 18, 2011, 9:21 PM AP

Saboteurs attack Egypt gas pipeline to Jordan
By Agence France-Presse
Saturday, February 5th, 2011 -- 8:12 am
"..."The pipeline to Jordan has been attacked and the supply to Israel has been cut off," the official said..."

It's (Partly) the Food, Stupid!

Why isn't this on the front page!?

"rapacious speculator­s have produced the current dramatic spike in food prices, rapacious speculator­s have produced the current dramatic spike in food prices, rapacious speculator­s have produced the current dramatic spike in food prices, rapacious speculator­s have produced the current dramatic spike in food prices, rapacious speculator­s have produced the current dramatic spike in food prices, rapacious speculator­s have produced the current dramatic spike in food prices"
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Food Speculation Behind Food Riots N Tunisia, Algeria, Sudan, Jordan, Egypt, Yemen, Morocco

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Danny is closely following Egypt

Is Friday “The Day Of Departure?” If Hosni Is Going, Who Is Coming?

Democracy in San Diego?

Bwaaaahahahahahahahahaha!

Wal-Mart Buys San Diego

Dude, this shit is par for the course here in my lovely home town.

Walmart PAC donated to vote-flippers’ favored charities
FEBRUARY 4, 2011 - 1:13 PM
by Dave Maass

Councilmember Marti Emerald on Supercenters
Posted on February 4, 2011 by admin

Congratulations commodities speculators and traders

You are responsible for the unrest in developing countries.

Get your greedy asses out of the commodities markets.

Bankers and Speculators Helped Create Egyptian Crisis
By Danny Schechter
Last Updated: Feb 1, 2011


Get out.

Fuck off and die please.

I dunno what I'll blog about today, but it WON'T be Egypt

So, the whole GOP trying to redefine rape pisses me off. And I'm not the only liberal blogger to be ticked about it.

Republicans Redefine Rape, Outraging Liberals
<> By CAITLIN DICKSON | January 28, 2011 5:07pm

On Rape, War Crimes, and Republicans

Exclusive: Dem calls GOP rape-redefining bill ‘a violent act against women’
By Sahil Kapur
Tuesday, February 1st, 2011 -- 8:23 am

THE ODIOUS GOP PLAN TO REDEFINE RAPE.

Thirteen Days

Thirteen Days (2000)

145 min - Drama | History | Thriller - 12 January 2001 (USA)

7.3/10

Users: (24,062 votes) 302 reviews | Critics: 150 reviews Metascore: 67/100 (based on 31 reviews from Metacritic.com)

The film is set during the two-week Cuban missile crisis in October of 1962, and it centers on how President John F. Kennedy, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and others handled the explosive situation.

The Pentagonistas were doing a circle jerk that could have led to nuclear war instead of letting the Presidents of the US and USSR actually communicate directly. Fucking warmongering idiots.

Men just irritate the living shit right out of me. I wonder how many pairs of villages that shared the same water well avoided wars because the women talked to each other instead of letting their testosterone fueled men loose on each other.

I read, then escape, and then rinse and repeat.

Still slogging through Russ Baker's Family of Secrets. *sigh* In light of the financial crashes, bubbles, and phoenixes that soon will come crashing back to earth in a flurry of feathers, blood, guts and bits of broken bones again, I found this particular bit interesting:

P. 292
"...In the two years leading up to the oil embargo....

The point man for weaving together the complex economic relationship with the Saudis was a little-known fellow by the name of Gerald Parsky. His grasp of U.S. tax laws enable him to advise Arab countries how to benefit from IRS tax exemptions for foreign investment in real estate..."

Oh. Shit. If we are dealing with foreign capital that started that giant sucking sound in the 70's, how bad is it now?

At which point my head hurts enough to hit the escape button and find out what is on Netflix? Oh, so glad you asked! I recently discovered that the first four years of "Brothers and Sisters" is streaming on Netflix. Either I'm getting senile, or I missed the first half of the first year.