Sunday, February 07, 2010
Saints 31, Colts 17
This Super Bowl commercial is outstanding.
Is Audi the official sponsor of the Tea Parties or something?
Labels: Sports
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Lost - Season 6 Premiere
Jack's plan to change history has unexpected results. Two contradictory timelines have emerged - the "real" timeline, in which nothing has changed, and one in which Oceanic 815 never crashed in 2004, landing at LAX on schedule.
The 2004 timeline has some historic anomalies, as the Wikipedia article (first link) explains:
Boone Carlyle (Ian Somerhalder) is returning to Los Angeles without his step-sister; Hugo "Hurley" Reyes (Jorge Garcia) claims to be the luckiest man alive; Locke claims to have participated in his walkabout; Desmond Hume (Henry Ian Cusick) is a passenger and Rose Henderson (L. Scott Caldwell) reassures Jack while experiencing turbulence.
One more difference: after the plane passes through the turbulence with little incident, we see that the entire island has completely submerged.
Afterward, a stewardess calls Jack to the restroom where Charlie Pace has been for an unusually long time. Sayid comes by and kicks the door open. They find Charlie on the floor, choking on something, which happens to be a bag of cocaine in his windpipe. Charlie tells Jack he was supposed to die. Was this something Charlie would have attempted in the original 2004 timeline, or is this connected to Jacob's plans?
After landing, Kate manages to escape from her federal marshal escort and hijacks a cab, which Claire Littleton happens to be in. Meanwhile, Sun and Jin have to go through some red tape as the customs agent finds an undeclared wad of cash in one suitcase.
Segue to 2007, the "present" timeline. All the Losties that had been sent back to the old DHARMA days are now back in the present. They find the familiar Swan hatch wreckage - and Juliet is in the middle of it. Sawyer digs her out while Jack forgets to tell Sawyer about the part of his medical training that says not to move someone who fell from a considerable height without a stretcher. Juliet dies from her injuries.
Hurley is met by Jacob's ghost; Jacob tells him to bring Sayid to the temple so his bullet wound can be healed. Sawyer and Miles stay behind while the others proceed. From the grave Miles learns from Juliet that Jack's plan actually worked - how and why it was successful is not disclosed.
Both groups eventually get captured. Hurley has a guitar case given him by Jacob. He gives it to the Japanese leader Dogen, who finda a giant ankh in the case and a note in the ankh. The note warns of dire consequences if Sayid is not healed. Sayid is taken to a pool; the attempt to heal him fails - but at the end of the episode Sayid comes to. Miles appears to sense some disturbance in the force - maybe that Sayid's spirit isn't around when it should be.
Prior to that, Hurley blurts out that Jacob is dead. They surround the grounds with a powder identical to that surrounding Jacob's cabin - a defense against The Monster. The Others launch fireworks - perhaps a call for all Others to return to the temple for safety?
A third plot thread takes place at the statue. Jacob has been killed, and "Locke" tells Ben to bring in Richard Alpert. Ben obeys, but the armed gang from the Ajira flight object. Bram leads a few men and Ben into the base of the statue. We discover that Jacob's nemesis, the man posing as Locke, is really the Smoke Monster! Smokey kills Bram and his men.
In Locke form he later tells Ben that he wants to go home. He emerges with Ben, and pummels Richard into unconsciousness and begins to take him into the statue base - but not before seeing the fireworks...
Predictions: In the 2004 timeline Jack will be recruited by Mrs. Hawking to fix a timeline that's not supposed to exist, and Locke will somehow become an obstacle to this plan.
Labels: Lost, Television
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
The Latest Endorsement For Canadian Health Care
Labels: Politics
Heroes - Demolition Man
Peter enters Sylar's nightmare - the two are in an abandoned New York City. Peter explains the dreams about Emma. As the two walk down one street, they turn around and find a wall identical to the one Matt built, blocking off the entire street. Peter surmises that busting the wall is the way out. The wall doesn't give to their sledgehammer blows until Peter reaches a degree of forgiveness for Nathan's murder. But as they leave Matt's basement they find Eli, who's been sent by Samuel to eliminate them.
Lauren sneaks into the carnival for medical supplies for her gunshot wound and is discovered by Emma, and later by Samuel. He expresses to Lauren his desires for revenge. Before his mission to Matt's, Eli was supposed to take care of Lauren, but she somehow got away.
In the hall of mirrors, Damien uses his power to reveal Bennett's memories to Claire. He was married once before, but a telekinetic Special robbed them one day and killed his expectant wife. While seeking the killer he discovered another mutant. Bennett drew a gun on the guy and demanded information about people with abilities. The guy didn't know about others like him. He panicked and used his force projection power on Bennett, who also panicked and shot the guy.
Company operative Thompson soon recruited Bennett, and pressured him into getting a wife (pointing out the waitress who just served them) to give him stability. Bennett soon started working with "Claude Rains," whose invisibility power stokes in Bennett a chronic sense of paranoia.
Another memory shows Bennett visiting Gretchen, using the implied threat of Hatianized memory erasure to coerce her into urging Claire to stay away from the carnival.
Claire is upset with these revelations, but she knows Samuel is the real villain. Samuel directs her to one of the trailers, where Bennett is located. She goes in, and he sends the trailer tens of feet underground, burying them alive.
How will Claire and Bennett get out of their prison? Will Angela have a dream about them (Claire's her granddaughter, after all) and warn somebody? What makes Eli think he can take on Peter and Sylar? Where's Matt? Where's Hiro and Ando? Where's Tracy? How did Lauren get away? Stay tuned.
Labels: Heroes, Television
Monday, February 01, 2010
Heroes - Samuel Declares War
After a visit to her stepdad's apartment, finding only his investigation papers and Lauren there, Claire c=goes to the carnival with a radical proposal: Samuel will give himself up if Bennett promises to leave the rest of the carnies alone. Samuel consents to giving it a try.
At the time Claire makes the proposal, Bennett and Lauren are already outside the carnival. Bennett has a sniper rifle, planning to assassinate Samuel. Claire calls his cell phone. He sends Lauren down to meet with Samuel and stays at his position. Suddenly, shots fire on the carnival - but it's Eli shooting, not Bennett.
Eli is apparently an expert marksman; the very first shot hits Samuel his boss in the shoulder, Lydia is shot fatally, and intentionally shoots wildly hitting scarcely anyone after that. Eli finds Bennett in the woods, knocks him out, and brings him to the carnival. Claire is with Bennett long enough to hear him say that he didn't do the shooting.
Samuel has ridden himself of a disloyal empath, and has chosen to build carnival unity around a manufactured enemy. He announces to the carnival that the outside world will never accept them, and he will lead them to "show the world who we really are."
Lauren was wounded by a shot from Eli's rifle. She saw him take Bennett to the carnival. She calls Tracy near the end of the show.
Meanwhile, Sylar brings his own scheme to Matt Parkman: he wants Parkman to bury his memory of his own powers so they won't control him anymore. Parkman tries a few times and runs into some sort mysterious roadblock. Sylar tries threatening Mrs. Parkman to get Matt's cooperation. Parkman gives it one more try - but double-crosses Sylar.
Recall that Parkman is not only a telepath, but can also trap people in their worst nightmares. Sylar is trapped in a nightmare in which he is totally cut off from human contact. Victims of this ability are comatose during the nightmare. Taking a cue from The Cask of Amontillado, Parkman starts laying bricks in a corner of his basements where he plans to entomb Sylar "for eternity."
But there's a hitch in the plan - Peter shows up. He's been dreaming of Sylar's role in rescuing Emma from playing a role in Samuel's murderous plans. He got Angela to tell him where Sylar is; evidently she dreamed he was at Parkman's. He sees the situation in the basement, takes Matt's power and tries to break up the nightmare on his own. As he enters Sylar's mind, we see Peter standing on a deserted street.
Will Peter break Parkman's curse? Will he have the smarts to tell Parkman to psychically access the memories of his dreams so he'll know what they're dealing with? What will Lauren and Tracy do? What's Claire's next move? What will Samuel do to Bennett? Edgar showed up at Lydia's deathbed - how did he find the carnival without a compass? Did he follow Bennett? Will he buy Samuel's story? Stay tuned.
Labels: Heroes, Television
Lost Recap
Labels: Humor, Lost, Television
Just In Time For Valentine's Day
Yeah, it's really a sub shaped like a plane, but I still want one.
Labels: Cool stuff
What I Did On My Winter Vacation
Virtual Globetrotting has a nice aerial view of the pavilion where Barrancas holds its services and the surrounding columbaria.
A columbarium is a mausoleum where ashes are interred. At national cemeteries, it's a wall with nooks where the urns are stored, and marble faceplates covering the nooks. Here's one at Arlington National Cemetery.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
The State Of The Union Address Is Today
Neon lights
Nobel Prize
When a mirror speaks
The reflection lies...
Monday, January 25, 2010
Look Out Below
Labels: Curiosities
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
I'm not arguing that corporations themselves are "persons" with constitutional rights. Rather, I'm asserting that their owners and employees are such persons and that that status enables them to use corporations to exercise their constitutional rights. Similarly, partnerships, universities, schools, and sole proprietorships aren't people either. But people can use them to exercise their constitutional rights, and the government can't forbid it on the sole ground that they are using assets assets assigned to "state-created entities."
Somin points out that media corporations - and just about everything else - is a "state-created entity." He also identifies this slippery slope:
If people using state-created entities don’t have free speech rights, they don’t have any other constitutional rights either...Thus, government would not be bound by the Fourth Amendment in searching corporate property (including employee offices). It could take corporate property for private use without paying compensation because the Fifth Amendment would no longer apply. It could forbid religious services on corporate property (including that owned by churches, most of which are after all nonprofit corporations). If the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment doesn’t apply to corporate property, neither does the Free Exercise Clause. And so on.
Labels: Law
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Memo To Martha Coakley's Voting Base
Labels: Politics
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Quote Of The Day
I so wish that the Democrats will learn a lesson from this Coakley travesty. I'm an unrepentant liberal and Obama supporter, but this woman is not a liberal. There is nothing in her record that says anything but police state and nanny state. You've written about her most well known cases - why in the world would a progressive want this woman in this position? She is John Kerry squared. I voted for her, but my gut wanted her to lose.
If "nanny state" isn't at the very core of liberalism, I don't know what is. It's not the political right that wants to nationalize health care and micromanage our dietary intake.
Or ban playground games. But the kids are burning too few calories! But dodgeball is too dangerous! Oh, what is a nanny-stater to do?
The image in the Sullivan post is priceless.
Just In Time For Valentine's Day
Let's hope the robots don't watch any old James Cagney flicks.
Labels: Cool stuff
Heroes - Hiro On Trial
Dr. Suresh builds Bennett a mutant locator, with the same technology behind the compasses that he discovered independently. Shortly after he leaves the apartment, Hiro passes out.
While he's being rushed to the hospital and into the operating room, Hiro experiences a vision of some sort. He's in the Burnt Toast diner, on trial for disrupting the time-space continuum for selfish purposes. His father presides, Ando as counsel, Adam Monroe as prosecutor. Hiro pleads not guilty. Witnesses include child versions of Keiko and Ando (recalling the slushy incident), Sylar's cheerleader victim, and Sylar himself.
In the operating room Hiro flatlines, and sees himself entering a hallway where the people in the diner/courtroom vision await. Hiro changes his plea to guilty, but upholds that he has never violated his hero code. He finds a katana in his hand, the crowd backs away, and Adam faces him, also wielding a sword. The two fight, and Hiro wins.
All are gone, but a new person enters the hallway: his mother. At first he thinks she's there to receive him into death. In truth, she's there to heal him. On the operating table his pulse returns; presumably the tumor is fully healed.
Claire encounters Sylar in an empty lecture hall. He shows her the tattoo, says it's an omen that she's supposed to somehow help him find his way. His hunch is that he and Claire essentially have the same problem - they build walls to keep others out -and confirms his hypothesis with Lydia's power.
Sylar hints that Gretchen has been kidnapped. Claire gets away by stabbing him in the eye with a pencil, and from certain remarks guesses where Gretchen is. She's in a room tied to a chair. The electricity flickers, and a strange explosion blows out the windows in the room.
They hide in a janitorial closet, where Claire confides that she and Sylar really are alike in some ways, including a deep desire to rid themselves of their powers so they can be normal. Gretchen turns out to be Sylar in shapeshifting disguise. He leaves. Claire finds the real Gretchen, who she's been holding at emotional arm's length; Claire wants to change that. Meanwhile, Sylar shows up on Matt Parkman's doorstep and finds his unsuspecting wife.
Samuel tries to woo Vanessa. The carnival is currently in the once-desolate valley. They talk over a milkshake at a diner in a nearby town. They talk about an old dream of living in a cabin in the countryside. Vanessa had even made a drawing of the cabin - which Samuel had kept (or recreated). In the valley he's built the cabin for real. Vanessa appreciates the gesture but feels that she really belongs in the city, that the cabin is just a romantic fantasy.
Samuel goes back to the diner and broods over his milkshake. The waitress asks if he's okay. He loses his temper, exclaims that the world will now play by his rules, and while in the diner he uses his power to engulf the entire town - as the carnival family watches the holocaust from several miles away.
Where will Samuel take his vengeance? What does Sylar want with Parkman? What kind of relationship with Claire seek with Gretchen? What will Hiro do after he's recovered? What will Suresh find waiting for him at home in India? Stay tuned.
Labels: Heroes, Television
Scott Brown Wins In Massachusetts
The Malkinator has an election map.
Vodkapundit reports Coakley's concession.
Instapundit is swarming with bloggage on the story. Just keep scrolling.
Labels: Politics
Monday, January 18, 2010
Don't Even THINK About It, Guys
As far as shopping for husbands goes, unless cooking is one of his big hobbies I'd stay away from kitchen gadgets
Labels: Curiosities
Happy Civil Rights Day!
Labels: Holidays
Friday, January 15, 2010
This Woman Is Insane
Life Imitates Elton John
NASA Discovers Cocaine Near Space Shuttle - NBC Miami
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Heroes - Can't Find My Way Home
Hiro and Ando go to rescue "Dr. Watson" from a Florida sanitarium. As virtually all fans guessed, "Watson" is Mohinder Suresh, who Hiro had placed in Riverdale Psychiatric Hospital for his safety. As part of the plan, Hiro is admitted. Switching Mohinder's daily sedative allows him to use super-strength to break out.
As the three are running from searchers in the Everglades, Suresh gets the inspiration for Ando to use his ability to administer a dose of electro-shock therapy to unscramble Hiro's brain. In his current state he can't teleport, having lost his direction sense. The scheme works, and at the end of the show they pop into Bennett's apartment, where he and Lauren admit and express their affections for each other.
Bennett had a bad day. He got a lead on Samuel's childhood friend Vanessa. He contacted her, she refused to talk, or to even admit that she knows Samuel. Bennett decides to see her in person, and enlists and unwitting Matt Parkman to use his ability to make her cooperative.
She tells Bennett that Samuel had been stalking her. Her parents were the rich family in whose home Samuel's dad was one of the domestic servants - the house that Samuel destroyed in a sinkhole.
They try to set a trap, but Samuel uses his self-replicating friend to distract Bennett and Matt so he can get to her. The duo use some kind of GPS gizmo to track her (presumably by using her phone's transponder). The chase leads to an empty field; Samuel has used his power's rough equivalent of a teleport to move the teleport, just as he's been able to travel to places like California and, several weeks ago, that little Georgia town.
Lydia has the bright idea that Peter Petrelli can lead the carnival. She telepathically sends Peter a dream that reactivates his compass tattoo.
Emma uses her ability to draw Peter to her apartment with her music. He sees the compass design on the cello. He shows the moving compass tattoo, and the two go to his place, where he shows a photo of Samuel. Angela drops in for a visit, and recognizes Emma from a dream.
Angela privately tells Peter that she will be used to kill "thousands" with her cello playing, and that someone other than Peter can rescue her from that fate. She won't reveal the dream, so Peter absorbs her ability. His dream offers no details except the identity of that other: Sylar.
Having learned nothing about scheming from his parents, Peter impulsively goes to Emma's and smashes her cello. She naturally tells him to get lost.
Where will Emma get her next cello? Will Parkman play hero more often, or listen to his wife and stay out of the saving-the-world business? When will we ever find out what Lauren's power is? Does Hiro have any more righting-wrongs missions? What is the "beautiful thing" Samuel is about to show Vannessa - that once-desolate valley, or something else? Will Peter have any dreams about how to conduct a proper conspiracy? Stay tuned.
Labels: Heroes, Television
Monday, January 11, 2010
Which Is The Dumber Racial Gaffe?
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) apologized today for referring to President Barack Obama as "light skinned" and "with no Negro dialect" in private conversations during the 2008 presidential campaign.
It's a safe bet that "negro dialect" was not an allusion to Thomas Sowell's verbal style.
Then again, maybe Reid was right - that Obama doesn't talk like any black people we know of, highbrow or lowbrow. How many blacks use the term "wee-weed up"?
But seriously folks...I wish that the reportage had cited entire sentences and surrounding statements and not just those six words. I'd like to know how the lightness of Obama's skin (which is kinda what you expect from someone who's half black and half white) managed to get brought into the conversation.
Recall what Bill Clinton said (emphasis in original):
The day after Iowa, he phoned Kennedy and pressed for an endorsement, making the case for his wife. But Bill then went on, belittling Obama in a manner that deeply offended Kennedy. Recounting the conversation later to a friend, Teddy fumed that Clinton had said, A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.
What kind of person looks at a law school graduate and thinks of him as a menial?
Perhaps Clinton will offer the excuse that he was alluding not to Obama's race but the fact that he was a lobbyist a lot longer than he was an elected politician.
(I'll find out reeeeeal quick if any lobbyists read my blog.)
Labels: Politics
NOBODY Gets Out Of Jury Duty
I don't know about Massachusetts, but here in Texas you can't serve on a jury if you don't speak English.
Labels: Law
Friday, January 08, 2010
Heroes - Can't Find My Way Home
At the wake for Nathan, Claire is upset with Angela and even more so with her stepdad for the Nathan/Sylar scheme. At Claire's request, Noah is not at the wake. Angela tips her off that Peter is running away from his own grief, and he needs family he can trust to lean on.
Claire goes up to the roof where Peter is listening to his police radio, but only the radio is there. The radio says a disgruntled office working going on a shooting rampage. Claire instinctively he's gone off to play hero, and follows him to the scene. She finds him, is enlisted to put pressure on an office worker's wound.
Peter follows the sound of gunshots, returns to that seen, and the three are met by the shooter. Peter tries to talk the guy into surrendering, but winds up getting shot. Outside, he takes Claire's ability and regenerates.
Later they talk, and he brings up her old friend West, who can fly. Evidently Claire arranges an off-camera meeting so that Peter can grab West's flight ability, as he goes off flying in the final minutes of the show.
Edgar goes to Bennett's apartment to kill him. Bennett stands in the empty apartment, back to the opened window. Edgar goes in, Gurkha knives blazing, and Bennett (feeling the gust of wind caused by Edgar's entry?) spins around and shoots him with his stun gun.
Bennett borrows a restaurant from an old friend, no questions asked, for his interrogation session. Edgar's in the freezer; the cold tightens the muscles and thus disables his power. Lauren is present. Bennett tries the bad-cop approach at first, and gets nowhere.
Lauren points out that something's out of place - Edgar has no compass, the means to find the carnival. She counsels a more diplomatic approach, which Bennett heeds, and which produces results - at first. Edgar wants to stop Samuel. He tells of how Samuel covered up his own complicity in Joseph's death by framing Edgar.
They initially agree to isolate Samuel in a back area so Bennett can nab him, but Edgar backs out when Bennett talks about breaking up the carnival and reintegrating the members into regular society. Edgar secretly produces a long picklock from one sleeve, frees himself from the cuffs, and leaves. Lauren notes that cult psychology of the carnival.
At the carnival, Samuel telekinetically draws long-lost love Vanessa with his earth-based ink, as Sylar interrupts him. After exchanging words, Sylar is about to cut Samuel's skull but either can't or won't. Samuel stirs a sort of dirt cyclone that cuts into Sylar's skin and rendere him unconscious.
Sylar is placed in Lydia's trailer. She meets with him, and seductively uses her empathy to learn about Sylar. He in turn employs his rarely-used empathic mimicry to absorb her power without killing. He understands that she wants to manipulate Sylar to kill Samuel. The two part disgusted with each other.
He goes to Samuel and requests something to complete his new power - a tattoo. Initially I thought that her ability to manipulate the tattoos worked in conjunction with Samuel's power, that her "empathy" ability was similar to Sylar's empathic mimicry. But that's inconsistent with her inability to off Samuel herself. The ink is made of soil simply so Samuel can "inject" her skin with it; the ink could probably be made of anything to work.
Anyway, Samuel whips up some ink, transfers it to Sylar's skin, and eventually a tattoo shows up on his forearm. The image convinces him he doesn't belong at the carnival. He flies off, and at the end of the show he hovers outside the window of the person whose image still forms the tattoo: Claire.
What does Sylar want with Claire? Why does her image convince him he doesn't belong at the carnival? What will Edgar do next? Will the cops get suspicious about Peter's disappearance from the crime scene? Will Bennett assault the carnival when it's tour takes it to Waco, Texas? Stay tuned.
Update: Hyperlink is fixed. Originally, this and the previous episode were in the same Wikipedia article; they aired on the same date.
Labels: Heroes, Television
Thursday, January 07, 2010
Ground Beef
Labels: Sports
Obama Works Toward Earning His Nobel Peace Prize
Of course, the Nobel was never handed out to those who win peace militarily. Which is another reason for its irrelevance.
Labels: War on Terror
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Fire Napolitano
On the other hand, not firing her sends a terrible message - failure doesn’t matter. It’s better to fire her than not.
In the same thread I made two observations about Napolitano's "the system worked" speech (bear with my typos):
There;s something about Napolitano’s remarks that stanbd out in my mind. Recall the famous quote:
“And one thing I’d like to point out is that the system worked. Everybody played an important role here. The passengers and crew of the flight took appropriate action. Within literally an hour to 90 minutes of the incident occurring, all 128 flights in the air had been notified to take some special measures in light of what had occurred on the Northwest Airlines flight. We instituted new measures on the ground and at screening areas, both here in the United States and in Europe, where this flight originated.”
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/12/27/clown-alert-janet-napolitano-says-the-system-worked/
She’s identifying random citizens as part of the system. Random citizens roughing up perps. This has to be some kind of leftist heresy.
Of course, the only part of the system she addressed was the response - not prevention, which is DHS’s nominal reason to exist.
When guys with known terrorist connections can get on a plane and Cat Stevens can’t, something is not working.
To refresh memories, Cat Stevens's 2004 encounter with no-fly lists is reported here.
Labels: Politics
Heroes - Welcome Back My Friends, To The Show That Never Ends
Earlier this season Emma received the gift of a cello from an unknown source. The mysterious donor pays a visit - Samuel. He tells her that her power can attract people to her when she plays music, including a specific person she concentrates on. They go to Central Park and he shows a photo to her. The man in the photo shows up during her playing - an emotionally disturbed man living in the park. He has an ability to make new plant life generate or existing plant life to regenerate; during her playing he leans against a winter-denuded tree and its leaves start growing back.
Claire spots a Primatech box in Samuel's trailer. Eli thwarts her first attempt to snoop when Samuel's away. Later she makes a run for the hall of mirrors. Eli follows, with his illusory replicants on guard. Inside there's one of him and a bunch of Claires; Eli lunges for one of the images, and is knocked unconscious by the Claire holding a stool.
In the trailer she finds her dad's files and a map of a valley. She is interrupted by Doyle, who doesn't want her to ruin what seems to be the first place that ever felt like a home. He eventually lets her go from his telekinetic hold, and tells her to talk to Lydia. She tells Claire that the carnival was a good place until Samuel took over, that he needs to be stopped.
She tells about Joseph's murder. Claire confronts Samuel with this information, and about the valley. Samuel says he killed out of rage, and deeply regrets the incident. He shows her the valley in the map, a barren place. His recruit from Central Park is present. Samuel uses his ability to tap into a water source, and the recruit makes grass, trees and flowers grow in the immediate area.
In the episode are references to a lost (perhaps unrequited?) love of Samuel's, someone named Vanessa.
Hiro appears in present-day Tokyo. He witnesses an attempted purse-snatching and drive off the perp with a food vender's cleaver. Cops take him in, find his business card and reach Ando. Hiro is speaking gibberish, with various comic book, sci-fi and Sherlock Holmes references. Hiro tells the cops he has a tumor and it seems to be getting worse.
(That may be a partial explanation; at least some of the scrambling must have resulted from the "mind meld" with that memory manipulator guy Damien at the carnival.)
At the Yamagato offices, Keiko wants to call a neurologist, but Ando has a hunch that Hiro's brain is only partly scrambled, that he's trying to communicate something specific. Hiro mentions a "Danger room" - which is his personal nickname for his comic book collection.
The clues involve one of the past wrongs that Hiro has made it his mission to right - a sanitarium located on an Arkham Street somewhere in Florida...
Nathan is now officially dead; his remains are found in a small crashed plane that he was allegedly piloting. No doubt Angela set this up.
Will Claire be told the real story? Who will run for Nathan's open Senate seat? Is there a yet-disclosed reason that desolate valley so special to Samuel? Stay tuned
Two episodes aired Monday. I will get to the other later this week.
Labels: Heroes, Television
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
The Envelope, Please II
I have a good news to report; Glen Beck appears closer to suicide - I'm hoping that he does it on camera; suicide is rampant in his family, and given his alcoholism and his tendencies towards self-destruction, I am only hoping that when Glen Beck does put a gun to his head and pulls the trigger, that it will be on television, because somebody will capture it on YouTube and it will be the most popular video for months. -- Mike Malloy
The Education Intelligence Agency has its Public Education Quotes of the Decade. The top quote is "an unmatched combination of hyperbole, metaphor and faulty history."
“The struggle in which we are engaged is as vital to our future today as was the outcome of the Civil War to our nation in 1860 (sic). The goal of these locusts is to impose their will on state after state until they have completely demolished government as we know it. There is a time for every generation to rise to the call - when the very existence of our nation, our state, our values, our culture and our public schools are threatened with extinction.” - Nebraska State Education Association Executive Director Jim Griess on Initiative 423, a ballot measure that would have limited state government spending to previous years’ amounts, with allowed increases for inflation and population growth. (October 2006 The NSEA Voice)
Monday, January 04, 2010
Caption This
Labels: Politics
Saturday, January 02, 2010
The Envelope, Please
"Mary Jo wasn't a right-wing talking point or a negative campaign slogan....We don't know how much Kennedy was affected by her death, or what she'd have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history....[One wonders what] Mary Jo Kopechne would have had to say about Ted's death, and what she'd have thought of the life and career that are being (rightfully) heralded. Who knows — maybe she'd feel it was worth it."
— Discover magazine deputy web editor Melissa Lafsky, who formerly worked on the New York Times’s Freakonomics blog, writing at the Huffington Post, August 27.
The same quote earned the Long Live Camelot Award for Lionizing Ted Kennedy.
There's lots more categories. Check 'em out.
Labels: Media
It's A Bit Early, But I'm Making My 2012 Presidential Endorsement Now
Posted by Alan at 12:45 AM | |
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Predictions For 2010
The X Prize Foundation will announce a prize for makeshift ballooncraft. It will pay $2 million to the first person to build a lighter-than-air craft from common retail goods and safely fly the vehicle 1,500 miles, roughly half the distance across the lower 48 states.
A band of Somali pirates will relocate from the Indian Ocean to the Caribbean, in a plot to hijack the cruise ship Oasis of the Seas. In a case of bad timing, Chuck Norris and Steven Segal will be among the passengers when the strike occurs. Tiger Woods and his wife Elin Nordegren will also be on board; she will incapacitate one of the pirates with a sand wedge.
During the Daytona 500 trials, Michaele and Tareq Salahi will mysteriously emerge from Mark Martin's car.
Dan Brown of will release yet another Da Vinci Code sequel, in which symbologist Robert Langdon discovers clues in the CRU climate data that ultimately lead to the Bavarian Illuminati.
Rush Limbaugh will be invited to make a guest appearance on Lost. The offer will be withdrawn when an anonymous source alleges that the popular talk show host joked that the DHARMA Initiative is hiding Obama's birth certificate.
In a rare collaboration between MSNBC and Fox News, the two networks will host a debate between Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann. British bookmakers will place 200-1 odds that during the exchange one or both men's foreheads will spontaneously spurt blood.
Controversy will rock the the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit once again, with the discovery that climate data got mixed in with the researchers' fantasy rugby notes.
Pharmaceutical companies will report strong second-quarter profits, owing to a surge in headache remedy sales during the final season of Lost.
An apparent victor in the race for the Makeshift Balloon X-Prize will be disqualified when the pilot is identified as Bernie Madoff. Chuck Norris and Steve Segal will personally escort him back to the federal prison in Butner, North Carolina.
SEIU members will threaten a Tea Party protester waving a "Don't Tread On Me (Or Kenny)" banner in Des Moines, Iowa, but will back off then they notice that the protester is using a sand wedge as a flagstaff.
Hackers will post on a Cyprus-based FTP server a file revealing that the entire cast and crew of Lost is invested in McNeil Laboratories, the maker of Tylenol. The SEC will launch an insider trading investigation. Sporting a bandaid on his forehead, Keith Olberman will remark, "Are you kidding me? Have you seen the previous seasons? Who DIDN'T see this coming? The Girl Scout troop down the street from me made three grand off Bristol-Myers Squibb."
Rush Limbaugh will be invited to join the X Prize Foundation. The offer will be withdrawn when an anonymous source alleges that the popular talk show host once said that the Hindenberg disaster "had its merits."
The Nobel Peace Prize committee will win the 2010 IgNobel Prize for Representative Democracy, for awarding Barack Hussein Obama the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize despite the fact that only two of the five committee members supported the decision.
Tareq Salahi will win a write-in candidacy in a nonexistent Congressional district.
During the Thanksgiving game at Cowboys Stadium, a punt will collide with the Jerrytron. The force of the kick will force a 33-pound mass of pigeon guano to fall, injuring one of the referees.
Sporting a bandaid on his forehead, Glenn Beck will arrive at the Capitol Building on Christmas Eve with a gigantic stocking filled with coal. Congressman Henry Waxman will react by issuing a promise to introduce a retrograde fossil fuels tax after the holiday recess.
Labels: Humor
Monday, December 28, 2009
News Bits
I'd trust the Redskins over the Transportation Security Administration, though. They let a guy with known terrorist connections get on a plane. Fortunately we had alert citizens foil Umar Abdulmutallab's alleged attempt to set off explosives. It's time to start firing the TSA and Homeland Security folks responsible for this. Don't just kick them out of their jobs - kick them out of the District of Columbia. Abdulmutallab got past security in Lagos and Amsterdam, too - there needs to be some firings there, too.
Uh oh, Obama gets dissed by Ahmadinejad, Chavez, and the Cuban foreign minister. His unpopularity is no longer limited to America's allies.
Labels: Curiosities
Friday, December 25, 2009
The Reasons For The Season
While Christmas is officially a celebration of the birth of Jesus, for much of the Western world December 25 has come to be a celebration of family and community. No other time of the year is so thoroughly saturated with images pointing to our highest hopes for such relationships - and no other time of the year so effectively highlights the difference between our ideals and the world as it really is. Jesus came to Earth to bridge not only the chasm between humanity and God, but also that rift that separates people from each other. Christmas reminds us that we live in a broken world, and it seeks to encourage us by showing us through religious and even many secular trappings how that brokenness can be fixed.
Best of holiday wishes to all my readers.
Labels: Blog traditions, Holidays
Monday, December 21, 2009
More Holiday Music
Posted by Alan at 6:00 AM | |
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Just In Time For Christmas
Posted by Alan at 10:20 PM | |
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Holiday Music
Labels: Music
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
A Political Analogy
The second kid gets along with the other two, but the first and the third really don't like each other. Sometimes the third kid can get the second kid to refrain from picking fights, and thus trump the first kid - but that isn't often. Teh team racks up scores and scores of fights; the seriousness of each one depends on whether the first or second kid prevails at the time.
School administrators address the problem by sending the latter two to detention and by making the first kid hall monitor.
The first kid is the Democratic rank-and-file fiscal liberals. The second kid is fiscally liberal-moderate Republicans. The third is fiscally conservative Republicans. The school administrators are those voters who want to put an end to government overspending but insist on having the Democrats in charge.
Labels: Politics
Monday, December 14, 2009
Ted Kennedy's Seat
Democrat candidate Martha Coakley should be a Republican campaign manager's dream. As Middlesex district attorney, in 2002 she lobbied then-governor Jane Swift to block clemency for Gerald Amirault, one of the victims of the day care sex abuse witch hunts of the 1980s. He and several others were convicted of sexual abuse charges at the Fells Acres Day Care Center.
Katha Pollitt of The Nation wrote this in 2002. The WSJ wrote this following Amirault's 2004 release. Ann Coulter wrote this last week.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Holiday Cheer
Labels: Music
Monday, December 07, 2009
Heroes - Carnival Visit
The title refers to the Kubler-Ross five stages of grief. Angela wants Peter to skip straight from the first stage (denial) to the fifth (acceptance) - Nathan Petrelli is really dead.
Peter's not ready, and he has a plan. He leaves the hospital with a bag full of tranquilizers - and the Haitian's power. He's off to find Sylar, but he doesn't have to do any looking. Using his changeling power to disguise himself as a black woman, Sylar finds him in the elevator.
They fight on the third floor, an abandoned part of the building under construction. Sylar quickly discovers that the tranquilizers were a ruse - the real weapon is the Haitian's power. They duke it out, and Peter eventually finds a nail gun. He thinks he can force Sylar to cede control to the Nathan mind. He eventually does.
Peter and "Nathan" go to a rooftop where they spoke in the first season's second episode. "Nathan" says he can't fight the Sylar mind any more, and jumps off the roof. Peter catches his wrist, but "Nathan" convinces him to let go. He falls, crashing into the top of a parked vehicle, and regenerates; Sylar stolls away, giving Peter a casual salute.
Bennett invites Lauren over. He discovers the compass is still missing, and figures out who has it. Bennett leaves a message on Claire's cell phone. Lauren whips out a laptop and uses CIA resources to track her cell phone's location - she and the carnival are in Ohio.
Bennett tells her about their close brush with starting an affair. Lauren doesn't remember, because she had the Haitian wipe her memories of the events.
They are interrupted by Samuel's new right-hand man, who has the ability to project illusory images of himself. One of the images vamishes when Bennett shoots it. When Bennett and Lauren go into the bathroom to recover more pistols, the guy makes off with his prize - Bennett's old Primatech bios on various mutants.
Claire and Gretchen tour the carnival. They visit Lydia; she uses her unique "fortune telling" to generate a tattoo of Claire and the caption "Indestructible girl." In the tattoo Claire appears to be wearing a cheerleader uniform. Lydia tells people about their desires, not their futures; my guess is that Claire's desire is to be emotionally "indestructible."
The two watch a ball toss carny. From their vantage they can see him making hand gestures as customers toss the ball - he is obviously using soem sort of telekinesis. A paunchy guy misses several tosses and walks away in a huff, while a little girl wins on the first try.
Samuel invites Claire and Gretchen to the backstage area. She briefly sees Eric Doyle, the puppet-master guy who had kidnapped Claire and her mom. He wants to have a chat with her later.Claire is coaxed into telling the carnies' children a story, after Samuel finishes telling one himself. Paunchy guy shows up and confronts Samuel for ripping him off, and throws a few punches. Claire exchanges some words with the irate customer. He breaks a bottle and takes a swipe at Claire's cheek. He watches the wound regenerate, and runs off in fear.
Claire decides to stay at the carnival a few days. As Gretchen drives away, viewers see paunchy guy lying in the bed of a pickup, probably dead. Samuel remarks to Lydia that it's not Claire he's after - he must be referring to Bennett, unless this subplot is more convoluted than we think.
The carnival's current location is a plot of land they've visited before, and where Samuel wants to build a permanent settlement for "his people" - including others with abilities who haven't discovered the carnival yet.
What is on Doyle's mind? What will Sylar do next? Will he continue to pose as Nathan and live the life of a US Senator? Will he still go after the Petrellis? Will Peter go after him? Stay tuned.
Labels: Heroes, Television
Day Of Infamy, Day Of Hope
Labels: Blog traditions, History
Friday, December 04, 2009
In Hell, The City Planners Are British
See the other 17 world's strangest roads. Dallas has one of 'em - the High Five interchange.
Labels: Curiosities
Obama Vindicates The Decision To Invade Iraq
There weren't a lot of surprises in President Obama's Afghanistan speech last night, but here's one: The president quietly repudiated the myth that Iraq has nothing to do with al Qaeda. The acknowledgment came in this passage:
We must keep the pressure on al Qaeda, and to do that, we must increase the stability and capacity of our partners in the region. Of course, this burden is not ours alone to bear. This is not just America's war. Since 9/11, al Qaeda's safe havens have been the source of attacks against London and Amman and Bali.
Amman? Do you remember the attack on Jordan's capital? It happened Nov. 9, 2005, as the New York Times reported:
Terrorist bombs ripped through three hotels in the Jordanian capital, Amman, tonight, killing dozens of people and wounding hundreds more in what appeared to be a coordinated suicide attack, Jordanian officials said.
At least 57 people were killed and more than 300 injured when bombs exploded at a wedding party at the Radisson SAS, the lobby of the Grand Hyatt and outside a Days Inn, Jordanian officials said.
Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher gave varying casualty estimates to CNN, saying at least 53 initially, then as high as 67. Early casualty tolls in such chaotic situations often fluctuate wildly, and it was impossible to know with any confidence just how many people had been killed and injured.
Mr. Muasher also said that while there was no initial claim of responsibility, he regarded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, as a "prime suspect."
When a U.S. air strike killed Zarqawi in June 2006, the Times noted that he was indeed behind the 2005 attack in Amman, as well as two earlier operations:
The only attacks outside Iraq known to be directed by Mr. Zarqawi were in Jordan, said an American counterterrorism official who spoke on condition of anonymity because his agency does not permit him to discuss such matters on the record. Those attacks include the 2002 murder of Laurence Foley, an American diplomat; a foiled plot in 2004 to attack the United States Embassy and Jordanian intelligence headquarters; and bombings of three Amman hotels in November that killed 60 people.
Little wonder Obama also said in his speech that "the wrenching debate over the Iraq war is well-known and need not be repeated here." That's easier than admitting that he has changed his mind and now regards Iraq as having been an al Qaeda safe haven and source of international terrorism.
Labels: Politics, War on Terror
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Good News For The Population Control Folks
But the cat population is a different story...you think Alf might have something to do with global warming?
Labels: Science
Heroes - Family Time
Bennett hosts his first thanksgiving. The guests are Claire, his old Company co-worker Lauren (who he meets at the grocery store), his ex-wife and her youngish boyfriend. Claire wants to drop out of college. During the argument Claire impulsively takes a knife to her arm in front of Doug. He faints. Later Sandra says she has an explanation to convince Doug he didn't see what he saw.
Bennett has a surprise for Claire - ex-roomie Gretchen shows up after the incident. Seems she's still at the college after all, just in a different dorm room. She's not so scared about Claire's adventures now, and wants to move back in.
After almost everyone leaves, Bennett shows Claire the compass from the safe deposit box that Edgar Sullivan tried to seize. Claire secretly steals it. She drives off with Gretchen, intending to follow the compass to the carnival. Gretchen bravely consents.
Angela brings Thanksgiving dinner to Peter's. The guys confront her about the truth about Nathan/Sylar. She eventually fesses up. Sylar's personality returns, but only for a time; as he begins to cut Angela's head the Nathan personality fights back, using Sylar's own electrical power to shock him. Nathan reemerges, and flies out a window.
At the carnival, Hiro confronts Samuel about their agreement as the latter watches the Chandra Suresh film. Samuel won't budge. Edgar overhears, and asks Lydia why Hiro didn't save Joseph when he fixed the past for Samuel.
Lydia and Hiro talk. She wants him to take her to the night of Joseph's murder. They discover that Samuel killed him out of rage for withholding the film reel that explains his earth powers. They return to the present. Samuel sees a twig in Lydia's hair and silently surmises that she and Hiro saw the murder.
At the dinner table Samuel announces that a traitor killed Joseph - Edgar. Hiro freezes time without freezing Edgar before a small rock can do a Lee Harvey Oswald on the back of Edgar's head. Hiro convinces Edgar that Samuel must be stopped, but they need time, and Edgar must hide. He flees with super speed.
But Samuel knows the speed alone didn't save Edgar. He confronts Hiro later, and Damien uses on Hiro his memory manipulation power. Hiro sees a few memories flash; he exclaims, in Japanese, "Must rescue Watson... Beam me up, Scotty" - and vanishes.
When and where is Hiro? Who is Watson? Where is Sylar/Nathan? Where will Edgar go? What will Claire and Gretchen find at the carnival? Will she see Tracy there? Does Angela know a good doctor who doesn't ask nosy questions about frontal skull lacerations? Stay tuned.
Labels: Heroes, Television
Monday, November 30, 2009
Just In Time For Christmas
Posted by Alan at 12:20 PM | |
