Bagger's Bane

This week's Smile Politely column is up, called The Bagger's Bane. It's about how grocery baggers always seem confused about my cloth grocery bags, and how my decision to be slighty more environmental creates more work for other people.

Cheese on Chinese Food

The Daily Show, revealing an uncomfortable truth, and demonstrating why they will continue to be relevant for the next four years:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Changefest '09 - Obama's Inaugural Speech

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

It's true: Bush and Obama can use essentially the same phrases in their speeches, and one makes me want to cheer, while the other makes me want to throw shoes. Cheese does taste good on Italian food, and it is disgusting on Chinese food.

Jason Jones makes the crack that he doesn't think Obama really means it, and that gives him hope.

For me, it's the opposite. When Obama talks about Freedom, I hear the voices of 400 years of oppressed African Americans. When Bush talks about it, I think of invading other countries for oil and the freedom to consume everything we want.

When Obama talks about ushering in a new era of peace, I think of mutual respect among nations. When Bush talks about it, I think of the peace of domination and hegemony.

I'm not saying this is right. I'm just saying that's what I hear. It's not the words that matter as much as the actions that back them.

King is the Prophet, Obama is the King

My Smile Politely column went up yesterday: Prophet vs. Kings. I argue that Obama, as a king, is designed to disappoint us, because he can't be a prophet, like Rev. King.

Happy Inauguration Day

So, confession time. As into politics as I've been over the years, I’ve never actually watched an inauguration. I guess it's because my choices as an adult have been either Republicans or Clintons. Seeing the crowd at this one, though, I’m actually glad I watched it on TV. Yes, it would have been nice to tell my grandchildren that I was there. But if I were there, I would not have experienced the actual inauguration.

[Update: Adam reports that I could not be more wrong about this. That's a good thing, actually.]

Nonetheless, those pictures of the inauguration crowd are inspiring. Having been to the national mall many times, the pictures don’t do justice as to how big it is, and how many people are actually needed to fill it.

Rick Warren actually did OK. He said that God loves everybody (apparently even those Rick would deny basic civil liberties to), and he personalized his references to Jesus, which is the only appropriate way to do it in this setting. However, Rev. Lowery smoked him, and should have done the Invocation rather than the Benediction. He even slipped in my favorite verse at the end: "Let all those who do justice and love mercy, say Amen." Amen!

Aretha looks like a Church Mom now. Now that's a proper way to age. Good for her.

Malia and Sasha are just so dang cute. It would be easy to get cynical about their cuteness, but they remind my too much of my daughters, so they now have lifetime protection from my cynicism.

Quick Triva quiz: What is the only text in the Constitution in quotes? Answer: Here

So what does it mean that Chief Justice Roberts and Obama both flubbed the oath? Easy: Conservatives will now claim he’s not really president. Plus, it clears the way for the institution of Sharia law in about 2 weeks.

Actually, Obama did say it correctly, just not in one sentence. Here are the actual words he uttered:

"I Barack…I Barack Hussein Obama do solemnly swear…that I will execute…the Office of President of United States faithfully…and will to the best of my ability…preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States…so help me God."

They got the faithfully out of order, but it’s in there. And Roberts was the one who put it out of order. Geez. Chief Justices… What are you gonna do? I suppose it doesn't matter if he says the words. After all, Bush said them. Twice. (Man, kicking this Bush bashing is going to harder than I thought).

Obama already looks much older than he did on election night. He must be feeling the weight of our problems already.

But, boy did he slap Bush around in the foreign policy section of the speech.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

My favorite line was this:

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear.

Amen, America.

Ode to the Chicks

So, I've been double posting my weekly Smile Politely column to my Open Salon blog. This week's entry is: The Pop Icons of the Bush II Era, where I give some love to the Dixie Chicks.

And, it made "Editor's Pick" over at Salon. Woo hoo! I'm now batting .500, which means it might be time to retire.

Bad Timing for the Squirrels

I was listening to NPR this morning and heard a report on this year’s big auto show, which contained this weird comment:

“In an unfortunate bit of bad timing for automakers, this year's show will feature a number of fuel-efficient vehicles -- at a time when gas prices are less than half what they were just six months ago.”

Say what?

Let’s hear that again, but with squirrels:

“In an unfortunate bit of bad timing for squirrels, they just began to gather nuts for the winter today on December 15th, at a time when the temperature is twice what it was just two weeks ago!”

More Troubling Robot Evidence

My friend Perry is the handiest guy I know. He’s a carpenter who completely rebuilt our kitchen and one of our bathrooms, installed our new driveway, and built a new porch on the side of our house.

Yesterday we were helping a friend move and in between moving boxes and furniture, Perry completely disassembled a wobbly desk and put it all back together again, solid enough to be used as a foundation block, should the need ever arise.

He’s also apparently pretty smart. He once beat a poet, a playwright, a librarian, and my wife (the eventual owner of 3 graduate degrees) at a word game called Anagram. This prompted my wife to say “Gee, you are the last person I would have thought would win this game.” Thus, in just one comment, Perry received a lifetime of ammunition with which to embarrass my wife, which he does with glee every time we decide on a game to play. He's also the one with the brains not to let me use a backhoe.

Despite Perry’s obvious mechanical skill, comic wit, and raw brain power, we discovered something Perry can’t do: Get out of a van with a mechanical door handle.

Most vans these days come with that automatic door handle thingy, where you press a button and it automatically opens or closes the door. My ancient 2003 Dodge Caravan does not have one of these, prompting small children and old people to look helplessly around for where to open the door. In their defense, it is a big press-button thing, rather than a proper door handle, and is hard to press in. It’s not quite like turning the crank under the hood to get the car started, but it’s the modern day equivalent.

Anyway, Perry was unable to figure it out by himself. We had to show him the button, which he pressed as if it would open automatically. When it didn’t, he seemed at a loss for how to get out of the van. We had to tell him it was manual rather than automatic but he was still unable to press it in far enough to open the door. I was reminded of Scotty in Star Trek IV, who was told to use the mouse to tell the computer what to do, so he spoke into it.

The purpose of this is not to embarrass Perry because he was unable to exit my van without assistance (or at least it is not primarily about that). No, my purpose here is to sound the alarm bells once again: Robots are conditioning us to become helpless. It will be easy to wrest control from us when the time comes if even Perry can’t use a mechanical device without automation support. That, or Perry has already joined their side, which would be very bad news for us all.

Tharl Be No Butter in Hell

My all time favorite sermon:



If you don't quite catch all the words, see the IMDB quotes page for Cold Comfort Farm here (scroll down a bit). I'm not pasting it, because you have to actually hear Ian McKellen to get the full effect.

Also, the sermon is only about two minutes of the ten or so in the clip.

Flying Fools

A man was just awarded $240K for being harassed by JetBlue. His transgression? He wore a shirt with Arabic on it:

Jarrar, a US resident, was apprehended as he waited to board a JetBlue flight from New York to Oakland, California, and told to remove his shirt, which had written on it in Arabic: "We will not be silent."

He was told other passengers felt uncomfortable because an Arabic-inscribed T-shirt in an airport was like "wearing a T-shirt at a bank stating, I am a robber,'" the ACLU said.

Are people really this dumb? The shirt could have said anything -- "I love America" or "I'm With Stupid," but since it was written in Arabic, it means the same thing as "I am a terrorist!" Really? That it actually said "We will not be silent" is deliciously ironic. I guess we can chalk this up to one more reason Arabs hate us so much.

This of course comes on the heels of 8 American Muslims being kicked off an AirTran flight over the holidays because one of them wondered aloud where he would be sitting in the plane. Concerned citizens reported them as threats and they were not allowed to fly, even after the FBI cleared them.

I have an idea how to solve these problems. Anyone who is uncomfortable sitting next to a Muslim or someone with Arabic on their shirt should immediately rebook themselves on a different flight. Airlines should not be in the business of making bigots feel comfortable.

2008 Movie List

Inspired by various friends who have been doing this for years, I am starting out the new blog year by listing all the movies I watched last year. Or most of them. I don't always remember to write them down.

After looking them over, I am a little ashamed of all the crap that I apparently watch. However, my time-honored defense is this: It is the fault of other people. Starting with my lovely wife.

She's in grad school, and by the end of a long, hard day studying academic papers on child abuse and women in prison, she's not terribly in the mood to watch a documentary about how George Bush has screwed us all, or some fictionalized recounting of some atrocity or genocide. All she wants to do is watch romantic comedies.

The problem, of course, is that there are only about two good romantic comedies a year, so we end up watching a lot of bad movies, even though we both know ahead of time that they are likely going to suck. She doesn't even like period pieces, which at least provide some window dressing and (often) a glimpse into history.

Not content to merely blame my wife, I'll also add my kids to the heap. We do family movie nights pretty regularly, and by the time we settle on one that everyone will actually sit through, the quality of the movie is secondary. I actually don't mind this as much, since it's something the whole family can do together, even if the movie is not objectively good.

The good news is that my son has become a major Will Smith fan. I like Will Smith, so sitting through every PG-13 movie he has ever made is not too bad.

Alright, I know, too many words already. Here they are:

Ratatouille (merely OK)
28 Days Later (Very good)
Amazing Grace (Disappointed - wanted it to be great)
Fog of War (fascinating)
National Treasure Book of Secrets (retread)
28 Weeks Later (both better and worse than original)
Waitress (Nice movie about adultery)
Tristram Shandy: A cock and bull story (Certainly original)
We don’t live here anymore (more adultery, not as nice)
Pan’s Labyrinth (good for a fairy tale)
Atonement (good, but not great)
SuperBad (saved by McLovin)
Vanity Fair (good, but not the Victorian romance I was expecting)
Juno (Excellent)
Gone Baby Gone (Superb)
Michael Clayton (Excellent)
3:10 To Yuma (Excellent – Haven’t seen a good western in a long time)
The Simpsons (Lived just up to expectations)
Fever Pitch (British version – better than American one)
The Band’s Visit (fun characters. Kind of boring)
Horton Hears a Who (OK)
Dan in Real Life (fun, but dumb message to tell teenagers)
I am Legend (Best zombie movie I’ve seen)
Pursuit of Happyness (slow, ok)
Coupling, Seasons 2-4 (Excellent)
The Darjeeling Limited (very Wes Anderson-y)
The Yes Men (Hurray for WTO impersonators)
The Bee Movie (terrible plot, funny in parts)
The Bourne Ultimatum (go, Jason, go)
Death at a Funeral (funny, but probably overrated)
Hamlet (long)
Delirious (good)
Canvas (good)
Shotgun Stories (My favorite small movie of the year)
The Real Dirt on Farmer John (second favorite)
Hulk (as boring as the first time around)
Housekeeping (fine)
The Cell (Rube Goldberg machine of a movie)
Romance and Cigarettes (very good)
Alvin and the Chipmunks (bad even by kid movie standards)
Rendition (Excellent)
Across the Universe (Great if you were ever a Beatles fan)
Arrested Development, Seasons 1-4 (Best sitcom of my year)
The Savages (overrated)
The Lives of Others (Excellent)
In the Valley of Elah (Excellent – man, why didn’t these good Iraq war movies do better?)
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (fun & dumb)
Good Luck Chuck (Icky, Soulless)
27 Dresses (succeeded in washing the stink of Good Luck Chuck away)
Memento (exactly as good on 2nd viewing, but I thought it would be better)
IronMan (Best comic book movie I had seen)
La Vie En Rose (gave up after 45 minutes)
Independence Day (Much worse the 2nd time through, which is saying something)
Brewster’s Millions (the kid’s liked it)
In the Heat of Night (pretty good, but reminded me of too many 70's TV dramas)
The Graduate (still excellent)
Raising Arizona (still a great movie)
Get Smart (Terrible, very bad movie)
Bonnie and Clyde (not as good as I was expecting)
The Happening (someone needs to take the car keys away from M. Night Shyamalan).
Vacation (nostalgic value only – don’t watch with children)
The Nanny Diaries (crapola)
Batman – The Dark Knight (New best comic book movie ever)
Tully (best EbertFest movie I’ve seen outside Ebertfest)
Harold and Kumar escape from Gitmo (OK, disappointed)
The Office, seasons 1-3 (excellent)
Various episodes of The Cosby Show and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (better than I thought, and excellent family viewing choices)
Reel Paradise (Somewhat ugly Americans in Fiji)
My Best Friend (A good version of one of these kinds of movies)
History of the World Part 1 (does not hold up well)
Cashback (OK – probably should have stayed a short)
No Reservations (decent as family movie)
Lars and the Real Girl (Excellent. Nice themes about community and mental illness)
Raiders of the Last Ark (Still fun, but I now think National Treasure is better)
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (too clever by half)
Leatherheads (disappointing)
Run Fatboy Run (disappointing)
Religulous (funny but one-sided)
Millions (still my favorite small movie)
W (OK, but too sympathetic)
Dial M for Murder (excellent)
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (forget this movie)
Harry Potter The Goblet of Fire (still fun)
The Chocolate War (still very good, but dated)
Ms.Pettigrew Lives for a Day (fine)
God Grew Tired of Us (very good, and not as depressing as you’d think).
Forgiving the Franklins (terrible - only made it 20 minutes in)
Flight of the Conchords season 1 (I wanted it to be better)
Sunshine (very good Sci-Fi)
Monster House (quite good for a family movie)
The Spiderwick Chronicles (OK)
30 Rock, Seasons 1-2 (Alec Baldwin’s acting is a treasure)
Annie Hall (Holds up very well – many iconic lines still resonate)
Christmas with the Kranks (decent by family Christmas movie standards)
The Holiday (blech)
Jumper (would have been good if it had made sense)
Hancock (enjoyed it)
Wall-E (Both excellent and important, for both adults and kids)
Little Women (a good way to end the year)

Happy Holidays

As per tradition, this blog will shut down over the holidays, so I can shop, overeat, yell at children (who continue to poke each other in the eye with sticks), and otherwise enjoy the true meaning and spirit of the season.

My parting shot this year will be the classic "The Physics of Santa" said to be originally published in Spy Magazine in 1990 (according to Snopes, which never lies).

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone.


No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.

There are two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't appear to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total — 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.

Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second.

This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75½ million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.

This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second — a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

If every one of the 91.8 million homes with good children were to put out a single chocolate chip cookie and an 8 ounce glass of 2% milk, the total calories (needless to say other vitamins and minerals) would be approximately 225 calories (100 for the cookie, give or take, and 125 for the milk, give or take). Multiplying the number of calories per house by the number of homes (225 x 91.8 x 1000000), we get the total number of calories Santa consumes that night, which is 20,655,000,000 calories. To break it down further, 1 pound is equal to 3500 calories. Dividing our total number of calories by the number of calories in a pound (20655000000/3500) and we get the number of pounds Santa gains, 5901428.6, which is 2950.7 tons.

The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see above) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload (not even counting the weight of the sleigh) to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison, this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth. 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance — this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraftre-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each.

In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

In conclusion: If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.

Santa the Refugee

This week's Smile Politely column is about what happens when Santa's Secret Village sinks into the ocean after the icecaps melt: Santa the Refugee.

Update: I also posted this article to my Open Salon blog, and it made Editor's Pick for today! You'll need to scurry on over there if you want to see it before it rolls off the front page, but all in all, it makes for a rather nice Christmas present.

Dodging Shoes and Other Things

I actually felt bad for W when I saw that Iraqi journalist throw his shoes at him. It’s embarrassing not just for him, but for all of us.

Then I was impressed with W’s reaction time. He ducked those loafers like a stunt man. All that jogging and biking seems to have paid off.

Then I was impressed with his nonchalance about it. But, unfortunately, he continued talking, which caused my sympathy to wane:

"It is one way to gain attention. It’s like going to a political rally and having people yell at you. It’s like driving down the street and having people not gesture with all five fingers. It’s a way for people to draw attention, you know, I don’t know what the guy’s cause is. But one thing is certain — it caused you to ask me a question about it (smirk). I didn’t feel the least bit threatened by it. These journalists here were very apologetic; they said this doesn’t represent the Iraqi people. That’s what happens in free societies. People try to draw attention to themselves. "

It's all about someone else trying to get attention. He develops this theme in a later interview:



Here’s the reality: When the journalist threw the shoe, he yelled “This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq." He is someone who was kidnapped last year as part of the general out-of-control lawlessness and violence in Iraq. He was not trying to draw attention to himself. He was trying to draw attention to the consequences of the policies of George Bush, albeit in the most disrespectful way he could think of.

I don’t understand W’s comment about free societies either. The guy is in jail. You are not free to throw anything you want at other people. That’s not part of being a free society. On the other hand, there are now reports of him being beaten in custody, with broken arms and ribs and eye injuries. I guess torture really is an integral part of freedom now.

So, is it asking too much that, despite the embarrassing nature of the event, that W actually learn something from it? Wouldn’t it be great if W had said something like this instead:

“Yea, the guy was unhappy that I invaded his country and subsequently killed hundreds of thousands of people. I get it. I am sorry. I screwed up on a Biblical scale. I will commit the rest of my life to atoning for this sin.”

That’s all he needs to do — take responsibility for his actions, express regret for the general devastation he has caused, and give some indication that he will be working to correct what he can for the rest of this life.

Of course, maybe the first thing he could do is make sure this one guy is safe from any further physical abuse.

More Holiday Kitsch

Despite truly heroic efforts, Christians have not been able to corner the market on kitsch during the holiday shopping season. In fact, the term itself is Yiddish, so it shouldn't be surprising that this gem is available only at jewishsource.com:



WOODEN HANDPAINTED 10 PLAGUES BOWLING SET

Wooden Handpainted Plagues Bowling Set. Dick Weber never envisioned this. Have some special Passover fun when you bowl using this adoraable bowling set in which each pin represents one of the 10 plagues. Just try to pick up the Hail – Death of the Firstborn split. Fun for the whole family! Includes 2 colorful wooden balls. Suitable for ages 5 and up. (Each pin is 4½" - 5" tall)

Although it's a Passover thing rather than Chanukah thing, I must say I've never seen such adorable plagues.

Rick Warren, We Hardly Knew Ye

My Smile Politely column is up: Rick Warren Wants Dick Cheney Dead.

It expresses my disappointment with Rick Warren, mega-pastor and former reasonable voice of conservative Christianity.