The Last Ephor

I hate Alec Baldwin's politics. He's an awesome actor though. This story struck me. Mohave Daily News: Local "Baldwin offered the family three options, Canright said, and told them he could either send a check, come to Needles for a low-key meeting or come along with major networks and the media." Kudos. If he were insincere or grandstanding he wouldn't have offered any options save the last one. Good for him. SAY IT SAINT JOE - TUITION IS 25G The man is right. Closing a school and reopening it with a ten fold increase in tuition is completely unfair. His Emminence better have a very convincing argument as to why this should be to quell the furor among the faithful. Blackfive has Good News from Iraq Report . Read the whole thing. The bit about the HUMVEE upgrades is fascinating. Right-Thinking from the Left Coast has Quote of The Day #1: "The air is so dirty that I actually went outside with a knife, cut a cube out of the air, and took it home with ...

I have an opinion about everything. I have a comment about everything. This , however, literally left me speechless.

"Placing furniture without a license? Heaven forfend." Read the whole thing.

OHNOTHEYDIDNT has a two lists: 100 Most Underrated movies and 100 Worst Reviewed Films. My take (on the ones I've seen) follows: I take exception with the ones in italics. Emphatic agreement in bold Underrated 1. Miller's Crossing Brilliant film. Pitch perfect. 2. The Thin Red Line Contemplative and moving. Not your typical war movie. Borders on the existential nature of warfare. 4. Road To Perdition The best non-superhero adaptation of a comic book to date. 5. Casino 9. Fresh A little known film but very well done. Inner city noir thriller. 10. Bringing Out The Dead 15. Ronin 18. In The Company Of Men 20. Kundun Visually stunning. 24. True Romance 25. Requiem For A Dream Overdone. Not a bad film but veers off course and violate suspension of disbelief. 26. Strange Days 28. Any Given Sunday So many naked men in this movie it makes Top Gun look straight. 29. Leaving Las Vegas 30. Eyes Wide Shut 31. Men Of Honor Excellent film about one man fighting the odds and winning ...

See Moonbats in their native enviroment! Thrill to the adventures of beeswax candles and vegan stew! Imagine The Year Without Toilet Paper ! Seriously, get help. If you're going to do the Walden thing I can't imagine why you'd do it in NYC. Move to frickin' Northern Idaho or even somewhere tropical. Makes more sense to me.

Guilded Age indeed! This would make for a mighty nice corporate retreat. I've been to a few of those and the nicest one was at Hartfeld so this one is a bit beyond my frame of reference. I can only imagine who is spending the scratch to have a retreat at one of these places. Not too shabby. (h/t: Sully

Remembering Special Friend, Conservative Columnist Cathy Seipp A moving tribute to an unflinching observer of American politics. She quotes Cathy: “I’m beginning to feel a responsibility to point out that lung cancer, which kills more people annually (about 163,000) than the next four most common cancers (colon, breast, pancreatic and prostate) combined, is terribly underfunded compared to other diseases: $950 in research money per lung cancer death, compared to $8800 for breast cancer and $34,000 for AIDS. "That’s because the vast majority of lung cancer (about 85 percent) is still caused by smoking, even though the rate for lifelong nonsmoking women like me (and Christopher Reeve’s widow) has been going up for some mysterious reason, and the general attitude is that smokers deserve whatever they get." She was a great writer and commenter. I hope she's at peace.

Don't forget your phone (OK, so it's not technically YouTube but you get the idea.)

Tom Cruise is still insane: "I know reps lie all the time, but at least try to keep it believable. Tom Cruise has never encouraged anyone to adopt Scientology? He might as well have told us Tom Cruise captured a triceratops in his backyard and taught it to fly into outer space."

Hapless User: hi Duffy: Hi Hapless User: this outage that's planned for tomorrow - will it affect the processing servers/CMS? Duffy: tomorrow? That's today mate Duffy: and, yes, everything is down from 5:00 pm tonight until Sunday morning Duffy: (or whatever 5:00 is in your crazy metric time you guys use) Hapless User: whaaaaaaaaaaaaat Hapless User: total panic Duffy: I cleverly disguised the outage time in bold type in yesterday's email Hapless User: yeah I read the mail this morning - so "tomorrow" was Saturday ;) Duffy: Here in the US, Friday follows Thursday Duffy: Irrespective of when one reads their email Hapless User: so it's starting 5 pm this evening EST (that's 11 pm for us) and ending 7 am EST - that's 1 pm for us) Duffy: right

Brits Behaving Badly: As we kick back into the street, I notice a man in a kilt. For Chrissake, who moves to America and brings a kilt? Did his mother say, "Farewell, son. Make something of yourself in the New World. Have you packed your native costume, just in case?" Just in case of what? Just in case we decide to re-invade Canada? Just in case he finds a girl with a thing for men in frocks with no knickers? Just in case there's an England-versus-Scotland match on the satellite television in some fake pub? Other countries keep their quaint ethnic customs, their special days. But somehow Diwali, Panamanian Martyrs' Day, or Jewish Family Friday Dinner seem quaint and diverse, while a drunk Scots banker in a skirt in the early morning is actually pathetically annoying.

Ladder Theory is about women, men and what they want vs. what they say they want. It's rife with salty language but uproariously funny. An academic exercise by a darkly cynical and funny guy.

My wife's grandfather, "Poppy" died today at 5:30 AM. We went rather peacefully. He was having trouble breathing and his girlfriend told him it was OK to go and he didn't have to fight any more. With that, he drew his last breath. I was on my way in to work at Zero Dark Early this morning and my phone rang. I figured it was my wife, which would have been unusual but not unheard of. When I looked at the caller ID and saw it was my in-laws, I knew immediately. "He's gone." "I figured." We talked about arrangements and logistics and such and I drove to work in silence. Music seemed inappropriate and all sounded flat. My kids asked Mommy why she was crying and she explained that Poppy was with God now. They seemed to think this was good news as it meant that Poppy wasn't sick any more. My son said, "God came down to get Poppy to take him up to heaven but they're going to fly around for a while to look at some things first....

Global Warming Swindle . Read the whole thing as they say. The destruction of the Grand Monolith of Scientists Who Believe In Man Made Global Warming continues apace. I'll continue to point them out over and over until we get to some sort of rational place where we're debating this not polemically shouting each other down (buckle up, it's going to be a long ride. -Ed). We should be good stewards of the Earth and should absolutely make every effort to "go green". There are, however, trade-offs and we have to be reasonable about them. Technology is the only way we're going to get greener. To think that we're going to get their by conservation is lunacy. Likewise this is not going to be pain-free. There will be things that we may have to curb or even do without to get to where we need to be.

indeed it isn't. Foster parents get up to $1,400 a month. Natural parents get bupkis.

Wow. These guys are really really good. Naturally Seven "Feel it (in the air tonight)" Impromptu subway version here.

"Six world powers reached agreement Thursday on a package of new sanctions against Iran that include an embargo on arms exports and an asset freeze on more individuals and companies associated with Tehran's nuclear and missile programs." Meanwhile American Thinker thinks there are Three Hairline Cracks in the Iranian regime that could well prove fatal. He points to the sudden collapse of the USSR as a prior example. Only by picking up disparate sets of data was that (in retrospect) predictable. I do think the Iranian regime is unstable. Largely due to demographic and economic reasons. They have a very young population who has no taste for the repression offered by the Mullahs. Likewise most of them are unemployed and that makes them angry. Combine that with an energy sector so poorly managed they have to rely on foreign help and investment to keep it afloat and you have a creaking, groaning government. I just hope if it does fall, it does so bloodlessly. The las...

In response, America was quoted as saying, "YES!"

9/11 Mastermind Confesses in Guantanamo . He confessed to 29 separate plots both successful and unsuccessful. He also took responsibility for the Lusitania, Mt. Vesuvius, the Sack of Rome, bell bottoms, lite beer, American Idol and any other horrors visited upon Americans for the foreseeable future. NB: I think he's guilty of the 9/11 plot from start to finish but now he's just taking credit for everything as a means of self-aggrandizement.

Mideast snow shuts schools .