I just watched about 8 hours worth of the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting - because I'm a masochist. There are many Hillary supporters who feel that Barack Obama is a weak candidate for the general election, to which I can only respond; Hillary Clinton is obviously a weaker candidate than Barack Obama, because she is losing to him. There's a sense that somehow, Barack Obama needs to do more than simply beat Hillary Clinton, as though Hillary Clinton were the default candidate - she's not. At this point, there is simply no way she could be the nominee. If she was made the nominee, it will have been through artificial means.
There was a 3 hour "break" in the meeting that was originally supposed to be a lunch break, but apparently ended up being a meeting amongst the committee members on how to finish the event - who would propose what motions that were going to be put to a vote. When they returned from the break, the first thing they did was put forth a motion on seating Florida's delegates at 100%. It was plainly obvious that a large group of Hillary supporters thought that they were announcing the motion had passed, because they flipped the fuck out with cheering and applause. They didn't realize that they were merely doing a sort of "theater" where they were putting the motion up for vote, knowing full well it would be voted down, before introducing a second motion to seat the Florida delegates at half a vote each, which passed unanimously. At that point the Hillary supporters had completely turned on the committee.
Those Hillary supporters are likely gone - done with Barack Obama, done with the Democractic Party. Why? Because Hillary and Harold Ickes and her inside supporters want to cause disruption. Because Hillary Clinton's campaign sucked and she lost what could have been a sure thing - the old "Casey at the Bat" story - classic hubris. Because they feel that even though they majorly flubbed the campaign, they're still entitled to the nomination. Damage has been done and it may yet haunt the Democratic Party in the general election.
However - if the Democratic Party were to somehow swoop in and hand the nomination to Hillary Clinton, the loss to the Democratic Party in the long run would be much greater. Barack Obama represents a new infrastructure for the entire party to win on for generations to come. The old DLC - that's Democratic Leadership Committee, an independent entity separate from the Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee - their infrastructure only ever got Bill Clinton elected, and one must keep in mind, both times there was Ross Perot on the ballot. But down-ticket Democratic candidates suffered during their reign, and in the end, it led to total Republican domination of all three branches of government for a few years. There are those who say that the 2006 election year gains were inevitable for the Democratic Party, however I do believe that had the DNC chair been another DLC person, like Terry McAuliffe or Ed Rendell, both of whom are now Hillary supporters this election, they would not have competed in all 50 states like Howard Dean did - and therefore would not have made the extraordinary gains that the Democratic Party made under his leadership. The DLC style Democratic Party was a top down thing that conceded way too many congressional districts to the Republicans. Howard Dean and Barack Obama both represent a ground-up style of funding and organization and their successes in fundraising are unprecedented.
It is really unfortunate, seeing those Hillary supporters led out of the meeting by security screaming their heads off. They're completely ignorant of the issues before the committee, why Florida and Michigan were stripped of delegates, who voted to strip them (Harold Ickes for one, despite his rhetoric today), Hillary Clinton's support of those delegates being stripped, and how inappropriate it really was to even restore any of these delegates when voters in those states were told the election results would not count. Yet they have their opinions, and their assured self-righteousness - somehow if Hillary's not winning, well, someone screwing them. They are completely oblvious to the fact that they are pawns of a failed political campaign grasping at straws.
And, likely, in the general election this fall, they will not be voting. They'll be convinced that Barack Obama somehow stole the nomination from Hillary Clinton - never mind that Hillary Clinton was the one who had all the connections to party insiders and Barack Obama was the outsider. Hillary would practically have to hold a concession speech where she admitted to every dirty trick and tactic she pulled and told her most ardent supporters "I was playing you all like a fiddle during the primary - I wasn't really screwed out of this nomination, I was just acting like a dick so you'd fight harder on my behalf! Now I support Barack Obama and you should too, and I fully apologize for all the shit I pulled on him!" I guarantee her concession speech will have no such self-criticism and no such admission of the propagandist wordplay she used during her campaign - after all, she'll be thinking of 2012.
But even if Barack Obama loses this fall, come 2012 there will be another candidate supported by the grassroots, who will raise more money from small donors than the richest DLC donors could ever match - and Hillary Clinton will find herself losing by even bigger margins in that primary, because she is part of an old-style of Democratic politics that has been discredited and is on its way out. Howard Dean and Barack Obama have created the blueprint for the future of this party - the Clintons are the past. As time passes, those who support the Clintons will be fewer, while the next generation flocks to the next successor.
If the DNC were to give in to Hillary and her supporters and artificially hand her the nomination this year - all that will die for a generation. And she will lose the general election against John McCain as I predicted on this blog way back in February. The party will be completely discredited as an organization able of governing, and she will be irreversibly tainted as the "selected-not-elected" nominee. Scores of would-be Democratic voters will flock to third party candidates or not vote at all - better to tune out than to be complicit. Trust me, I know. In 2000 I was 19 years old and voted for Ralph Nader rather than a Gore/Lieberman ticket. Al Gore ended up being an alright guy in the end, but you wouldn't have known it back then, but Lieberman is now endorsing John McCain. (There you go, DLC fuckers, I was right, you were wrong, unless the purpose of your organization is to get Republicans with D's next their name elected.)
My point, I guess, is that we may be on our way to losing the 2008 election - assuming that those two dozen Hillary supporters/protesters are representative of some larger movement - but it's too late for Hillary to win this and her candidacy will do nothing for the future of the Democratic Party. Win or lose, Barack Obama gives this party a way to win future elections for the rest of my life - something the DLC/Clinton machine never was and never will be capable of.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Mike's Memorial Day Movie Weekend (now with 33% gratuitous rape!)
Memorial Day weekend gave me an opportunity to watch a bunch of shit I had on my DVR for the past year.
Citizen Kane - caught this on TV a few years back, never watched it "properly" from the beginning to the end. It is considered one of the best movies of all time and for good reason. I can't wait until Michael Bay remakes it - WITH EXPLOSIONS.
Shivers - David Cronenberg's take on the zombie movie genre, but instead of eating you, these zombies want to rape you! It's all the result of a synthetic parasite that looks like the offspring of a turd and a penis that was overcooked in the microwave. This movie does not flinch from its subject matter, instead exploring the full perverted range of its implications. Add in some gross out moments involving an insurance agent who essentially plays mother hen to a brood of newborn parasites and you got something that can only be described as Cronentastic!!!
Calvaire - Weird French movie I taped off of Sundance, the description went something along the lines of "A cabaret singer breaks down in rural Belgium and comes across the town's deranged peasants. A mix of gory violence and black humor." For some reason, I thought cannibals. I was wrong. One - the cabaret singer is a guy who sings for old folks homes - not cabarets. Okay. Two, the peasants are Deliverance-inspired man-rapists. Oh noes! This movie has a dreadful atmosphere and great cinematography/photography and might have been okay except it has a really shitty, half-assed ending.
The Gate - Two 10-year-old boys somehow manage to accidentally perform an elaborate ritual that creates a gate between their world and that of ancient demons that predate light itself. I saw this movie in theaters back in 1987 - meaning I was only 6 years old!!! Two things in it scared the shit out of me back then - a demonic apparition of one of the main characters dad's face melting off and a phone melting on the wall. Apparently as a kid I was bothered by melting, but not by little claymation dudes running around. Or big gigantic anti-climatic claymation dudes. This movie is a bit too day-glo and 80's to really hold up these days, and it has a super sappy sugary sweet happy ending. They should've gone with an ending more akin to Time Bandits - sorry kid, your house is gone, everyone you love is dead and you're all alone in the world. Oh, and it's your fault. Now THAT'S an ending!!!
The House on Haunted Hill (1999 remake) - Some remakes I refuse to watch, some remakes I can't help myself. I love the original House on Haunted Hill, starring Vincent Price, and this movie seemed to have the right look that I was willing to at least give it a chance. It's actually pretty decent up until the final 20 minutes. Enough things are changed in this movie so that it's not an outright regurgitation - in this version the "house" was a 1930's era asylum where the evil doctor, played by Jeffrey Combs, was performing grisly experiments and vivisections on his patients. One day they broke free, so the doctor put the place in a (technologically unlikely) lock down mode and 135 people burned to death with no way to escape. The set up provides a great atmosphere for the movie to work with, and Geoffrey Rush plays the part analogous to Vincent Price's - not a bad choice of casting. Unfortunately, they have Chris Kattan playing the wienie comic relief, but it doesn't ruin the movie - the ending does. Gemma called me about 20 minutes before this movie ended and I told her, "the movie's been pretty good up until this point, but I think it's about to take a huge shit on me." And shit it did. They ruin a pretty decent movie with a horrible CGI anti-climax that is about as goofy as the giant claymation dude from The Gate.
Touch of Evil - So I began and ended the weekend with an Orson Welles movie. Touch of Evil is a film noir with Charlton Heston as prominent Mexican law enforcement officer Mike Vargas, and Orson Wells as the racist American police captain Hank Quinlan who uses questionable methods to get arrests and convictions. Vargas is the idealist do-gooder, and when he and Quinlan cross paths, Quinlan decides the only course of action is to make Vargas and his wife out to be drug addicts themselves so that Vargas's accusations hold no weight - with the side effect of possibly letting a prominent drug cartel leader, whose conviction depends upon Vargas's testimony, go free. It's great stuff with some truly tense atmosphere as Quinlan teams up with local crime lord Uncle Joe Grandi and his thugs to go after Vargas's innocent wife - there's some serious knot-in-your-stomach moments to be had there.
Citizen Kane - caught this on TV a few years back, never watched it "properly" from the beginning to the end. It is considered one of the best movies of all time and for good reason. I can't wait until Michael Bay remakes it - WITH EXPLOSIONS.
Shivers - David Cronenberg's take on the zombie movie genre, but instead of eating you, these zombies want to rape you! It's all the result of a synthetic parasite that looks like the offspring of a turd and a penis that was overcooked in the microwave. This movie does not flinch from its subject matter, instead exploring the full perverted range of its implications. Add in some gross out moments involving an insurance agent who essentially plays mother hen to a brood of newborn parasites and you got something that can only be described as Cronentastic!!!
Calvaire - Weird French movie I taped off of Sundance, the description went something along the lines of "A cabaret singer breaks down in rural Belgium and comes across the town's deranged peasants. A mix of gory violence and black humor." For some reason, I thought cannibals. I was wrong. One - the cabaret singer is a guy who sings for old folks homes - not cabarets. Okay. Two, the peasants are Deliverance-inspired man-rapists. Oh noes! This movie has a dreadful atmosphere and great cinematography/photography and might have been okay except it has a really shitty, half-assed ending.
The Gate - Two 10-year-old boys somehow manage to accidentally perform an elaborate ritual that creates a gate between their world and that of ancient demons that predate light itself. I saw this movie in theaters back in 1987 - meaning I was only 6 years old!!! Two things in it scared the shit out of me back then - a demonic apparition of one of the main characters dad's face melting off and a phone melting on the wall. Apparently as a kid I was bothered by melting, but not by little claymation dudes running around. Or big gigantic anti-climatic claymation dudes. This movie is a bit too day-glo and 80's to really hold up these days, and it has a super sappy sugary sweet happy ending. They should've gone with an ending more akin to Time Bandits - sorry kid, your house is gone, everyone you love is dead and you're all alone in the world. Oh, and it's your fault. Now THAT'S an ending!!!
The House on Haunted Hill (1999 remake) - Some remakes I refuse to watch, some remakes I can't help myself. I love the original House on Haunted Hill, starring Vincent Price, and this movie seemed to have the right look that I was willing to at least give it a chance. It's actually pretty decent up until the final 20 minutes. Enough things are changed in this movie so that it's not an outright regurgitation - in this version the "house" was a 1930's era asylum where the evil doctor, played by Jeffrey Combs, was performing grisly experiments and vivisections on his patients. One day they broke free, so the doctor put the place in a (technologically unlikely) lock down mode and 135 people burned to death with no way to escape. The set up provides a great atmosphere for the movie to work with, and Geoffrey Rush plays the part analogous to Vincent Price's - not a bad choice of casting. Unfortunately, they have Chris Kattan playing the wienie comic relief, but it doesn't ruin the movie - the ending does. Gemma called me about 20 minutes before this movie ended and I told her, "the movie's been pretty good up until this point, but I think it's about to take a huge shit on me." And shit it did. They ruin a pretty decent movie with a horrible CGI anti-climax that is about as goofy as the giant claymation dude from The Gate.
Touch of Evil - So I began and ended the weekend with an Orson Welles movie. Touch of Evil is a film noir with Charlton Heston as prominent Mexican law enforcement officer Mike Vargas, and Orson Wells as the racist American police captain Hank Quinlan who uses questionable methods to get arrests and convictions. Vargas is the idealist do-gooder, and when he and Quinlan cross paths, Quinlan decides the only course of action is to make Vargas and his wife out to be drug addicts themselves so that Vargas's accusations hold no weight - with the side effect of possibly letting a prominent drug cartel leader, whose conviction depends upon Vargas's testimony, go free. It's great stuff with some truly tense atmosphere as Quinlan teams up with local crime lord Uncle Joe Grandi and his thugs to go after Vargas's innocent wife - there's some serious knot-in-your-stomach moments to be had there.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Painkiller
I watch this guy's reviews every week:
I've had my eye on Painkiller for a while now... what's not to like? It's an FPS, it takes place in Hell, and... well that's pretty much it. It used to be $20 on Steam, and I was kind of ambivalent about it. Yeah, I love shooting things and satanic imagery, but really, $20 is a bit much for a cheap thrill. Then I watched Yahtzee's review and thought, "Over 50 distinct varieties of dudes to murder?! OKAY!!!" and sure enough it was only $9.99. Well, shit, I can't say "no" for that price. And apparently neither can a lot of people, because since this review came out on Wednesday, Painkiller has gone from nowhere to the #5 best seller on Steam. Valve even uses a line from Yahtzee's review in the ad banner for Painkiller: "All you really need to know is there is a gun that shoots shurikens and lightning."
There is an old game called Serious Sam that I have never played, but from what I understand, it's simply an FPS whose claim to fame is obscene amounts of monsters in a small amount of space and you have to kill all of them. Painkiller is a lot like that in that each level is essentially made up of several "rooms" and you enter a room, it locks you in, and a shitload of monsters spawn for you to murder. Once you've killed everything in a room, everything unlocks and an arrow helpfully points you to the next area you need to get to - rinse and repeat. As repetitive as it sounds, it actually gets your adrenaline pumping as it essentially throws so many monsters at you at once that you have to constantly keep moving and firing just to stay alive. Furthermore each level seems to have it's own types of monsters with their own special abilities so that it doesn't get old, or hasn't for me yet anyways.
One of my favorite things about video games like this is a wide variety of baddies. One of the weakest points of Bioshock, in my opinion, is that there's so few types of enemies - Thuggish Splicers, Leadhead Splicers, Nitro Splicers, Spider Splicers and Big Daddies. That's really five enemies spread out over a 10 to 20 hour game. Meanwhile, in Painkiller, each level is 15 minutes long and you get two to three different distinct types of enemies.
And that brings up another thing I love about this, it's easy to sit down, play for a few minutes and then quit. I'm getting to the age where I like that kind of thing. Don't get me wrong, I love long, engaging story arcs that make you just want to put a bucket under your desk and play through to the end, but it doesn't jive with real life right now, so it's nice when I can boot up the game, clear a room, save and get on with my day.
So overall, for $10, definitely worth it. $20? Maybe, maybe not, but definitely not worth more than $20.
I've had my eye on Painkiller for a while now... what's not to like? It's an FPS, it takes place in Hell, and... well that's pretty much it. It used to be $20 on Steam, and I was kind of ambivalent about it. Yeah, I love shooting things and satanic imagery, but really, $20 is a bit much for a cheap thrill. Then I watched Yahtzee's review and thought, "Over 50 distinct varieties of dudes to murder?! OKAY!!!" and sure enough it was only $9.99. Well, shit, I can't say "no" for that price. And apparently neither can a lot of people, because since this review came out on Wednesday, Painkiller has gone from nowhere to the #5 best seller on Steam. Valve even uses a line from Yahtzee's review in the ad banner for Painkiller: "All you really need to know is there is a gun that shoots shurikens and lightning."
There is an old game called Serious Sam that I have never played, but from what I understand, it's simply an FPS whose claim to fame is obscene amounts of monsters in a small amount of space and you have to kill all of them. Painkiller is a lot like that in that each level is essentially made up of several "rooms" and you enter a room, it locks you in, and a shitload of monsters spawn for you to murder. Once you've killed everything in a room, everything unlocks and an arrow helpfully points you to the next area you need to get to - rinse and repeat. As repetitive as it sounds, it actually gets your adrenaline pumping as it essentially throws so many monsters at you at once that you have to constantly keep moving and firing just to stay alive. Furthermore each level seems to have it's own types of monsters with their own special abilities so that it doesn't get old, or hasn't for me yet anyways.
One of my favorite things about video games like this is a wide variety of baddies. One of the weakest points of Bioshock, in my opinion, is that there's so few types of enemies - Thuggish Splicers, Leadhead Splicers, Nitro Splicers, Spider Splicers and Big Daddies. That's really five enemies spread out over a 10 to 20 hour game. Meanwhile, in Painkiller, each level is 15 minutes long and you get two to three different distinct types of enemies.
And that brings up another thing I love about this, it's easy to sit down, play for a few minutes and then quit. I'm getting to the age where I like that kind of thing. Don't get me wrong, I love long, engaging story arcs that make you just want to put a bucket under your desk and play through to the end, but it doesn't jive with real life right now, so it's nice when I can boot up the game, clear a room, save and get on with my day.
So overall, for $10, definitely worth it. $20? Maybe, maybe not, but definitely not worth more than $20.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Woo Hoo!!!
I doubt she had been using the whole, "Even SNL thinks Obama's getting a free ride from the media line!" since Texas/Ohio, but I'd just love to see her use it now. PWNAGE.
Edit: This is the kind of person Hillary Clinton is.
Speaking of Wes Craven...
I also recently watched the sequel to the remake of The Hills Have Eyes - The Hills Have Eyes II, not to be confused as a remake of the original The Hills Have Eyes Part II, the sequel to the original The Hills Have Eyes.
I didn't like the original The Hills Have Eyes, but the remake directed by Alexandre Aja was actually pretty good. When the sequel of the remake was in theaters, The Movie Channel, Showtime's retarded little brother network, was playing the original The Hills Have Eyes Part II, so I watched it. It is, quite simply, one of the worst movies ever made.
Consider this: after the success of the original A Nightmare on Elm Street, Wes Craven opted to make a sequel for The Hills Have Eyes instead of the sequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street. That's like finding a gold mine and deciding to go farm pig shit for a living. Lucky for him, he got plenty of second (and third and fourth) chances - for example, he wrote A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3 (which was really the only good Nightmare sequel until he made New Nightmare.)
The original Hills Have Eyes Part II is about a bunch of dirt bike racers in the desert getting attacked by the left over "mutants" from the first movie - of which there were, I think, two. One was Michael Berryman, the other was "The Reaper," who was not in the original movie and was really kind of a stand in for Papa Jupiter, the father of the mutants from the first movie, who was done blowed up so good that there was no way they could really bring the character back. In addition to that, since the original was made in 1977 and home video was still pretty new in 1985, they had to show the audience some of the things that happened in the original via flashback. Every character that was in the original has flashbacks, including the dog. I'm not joking. I am 110% serious. This movie does indeed include a dog having flashbacks to the previous movie. Wow. Just. Wow.
Now, in the original Hills Have Eyes movies, the "mutants," aren't really mutants, they're more like cannibalistic hillbillies. Michael Berryman looks a little weird, but not mutant weird, and the rest of them were just dirty bearded people. So think of the original Hills Have Eyes as Deliverance in the desert without any real message aside from "non-violent liberal nerdy guys will totally go apeshit on your ass if you kill their wife, half their family and kidnap their infant."
The remake of The Hills Have Eyes started out right by having the mutants be honest-to-god mutants. Overall it was a decent horror movie, and at the end implied that there was an entire underground village of mutants living in the desert. It also played up the idea that the area was a nuclear test site by having a giant crater as well as a fake town that the mutants lived in. Overall better mutants, better gore, better cinematography, better direction = better movie. Wes Craven produced the remake, but did not direct or write the new script.
So of course, when that did well, they had to make a cash in sequel. This time the script was written by Wes Craven and his son Jonathan. Instead of dirt bike racers, we get National Guard soldiers. Now, I'm no expert on the military or the National Guard, but right off the bat, I got the sneaking suspicion that the writers had no idea what the National Guard was really like and didn't bother to ask anybody.
The movie opens in what appears to be a firefight in the streets of some middle eastern country, but it turns out to be a training exercise - complete with live grenades. Oooohkay! The recruits fail the test, apparently being the 12 or so worst recruits in the entire national guard (maybe they were hoping they'd blow themselves up with those live grenades?) so they're being sent back to base, but first it turns out they have to get some equipment to some scientists in a part of the desert that used to be a nuclear blast zone. Hooray!
So the group, through a series of mishaps mostly due to their own incompetence, gets whittled down to about 3 survivors, and they're battling against a measly four mutants - Rocky, Blindy, Nicey the Helpful Retard, and Rapey McRaperton. Four mutants is a huge letdown after the last movie set up the idea that their could possibly be an entire town of underground mutants. Furthermore, in the remake, Alexandre Aja and his crew used subtle CGI to enhance the latex prosthetics on his mutants, this movie just sticks to latex and it looks like crap.
So yeah, Hills Have Eyes movies, I don't really like them, but I watched them all anyway.
I watched this on purpose.
I didn't like the original The Hills Have Eyes, but the remake directed by Alexandre Aja was actually pretty good. When the sequel of the remake was in theaters, The Movie Channel, Showtime's retarded little brother network, was playing the original The Hills Have Eyes Part II, so I watched it. It is, quite simply, one of the worst movies ever made.
Consider this: after the success of the original A Nightmare on Elm Street, Wes Craven opted to make a sequel for The Hills Have Eyes instead of the sequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street. That's like finding a gold mine and deciding to go farm pig shit for a living. Lucky for him, he got plenty of second (and third and fourth) chances - for example, he wrote A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3 (which was really the only good Nightmare sequel until he made New Nightmare.)
The original Hills Have Eyes Part II is about a bunch of dirt bike racers in the desert getting attacked by the left over "mutants" from the first movie - of which there were, I think, two. One was Michael Berryman, the other was "The Reaper," who was not in the original movie and was really kind of a stand in for Papa Jupiter, the father of the mutants from the first movie, who was done blowed up so good that there was no way they could really bring the character back. In addition to that, since the original was made in 1977 and home video was still pretty new in 1985, they had to show the audience some of the things that happened in the original via flashback. Every character that was in the original has flashbacks, including the dog. I'm not joking. I am 110% serious. This movie does indeed include a dog having flashbacks to the previous movie. Wow. Just. Wow.
Now, in the original Hills Have Eyes movies, the "mutants," aren't really mutants, they're more like cannibalistic hillbillies. Michael Berryman looks a little weird, but not mutant weird, and the rest of them were just dirty bearded people. So think of the original Hills Have Eyes as Deliverance in the desert without any real message aside from "non-violent liberal nerdy guys will totally go apeshit on your ass if you kill their wife, half their family and kidnap their infant."
The remake of The Hills Have Eyes started out right by having the mutants be honest-to-god mutants. Overall it was a decent horror movie, and at the end implied that there was an entire underground village of mutants living in the desert. It also played up the idea that the area was a nuclear test site by having a giant crater as well as a fake town that the mutants lived in. Overall better mutants, better gore, better cinematography, better direction = better movie. Wes Craven produced the remake, but did not direct or write the new script.
So of course, when that did well, they had to make a cash in sequel. This time the script was written by Wes Craven and his son Jonathan. Instead of dirt bike racers, we get National Guard soldiers. Now, I'm no expert on the military or the National Guard, but right off the bat, I got the sneaking suspicion that the writers had no idea what the National Guard was really like and didn't bother to ask anybody.
The movie opens in what appears to be a firefight in the streets of some middle eastern country, but it turns out to be a training exercise - complete with live grenades. Oooohkay! The recruits fail the test, apparently being the 12 or so worst recruits in the entire national guard (maybe they were hoping they'd blow themselves up with those live grenades?) so they're being sent back to base, but first it turns out they have to get some equipment to some scientists in a part of the desert that used to be a nuclear blast zone. Hooray!
So the group, through a series of mishaps mostly due to their own incompetence, gets whittled down to about 3 survivors, and they're battling against a measly four mutants - Rocky, Blindy, Nicey the Helpful Retard, and Rapey McRaperton. Four mutants is a huge letdown after the last movie set up the idea that their could possibly be an entire town of underground mutants. Furthermore, in the remake, Alexandre Aja and his crew used subtle CGI to enhance the latex prosthetics on his mutants, this movie just sticks to latex and it looks like crap.
So yeah, Hills Have Eyes movies, I don't really like them, but I watched them all anyway.
I watched this on purpose.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Wes Craven's "Shocker"
Oops, I mean
There's a new feature on The Onion's A.V. Club called, "I Watched This on Purpose," where reviewers essentially dig up not-new crappy movies that no one would really watch except on accident, or on cable during a bout of insomnia or else just to be masochistic. I had never seen Shocker before, but I knew it was crappy, yet I recorded it and watched it (six months later) anyway. In other words, I watched this on purpose.
What I didn't know, is that the movie actually starts off pretty decent. An unknown serial killer is breaking into houses and murdering entire families. A young college football star suffers a concussion and has a vision of his mother and siblings being murdered - a bit schlocky, but it works. Of course, it turns out his vision was real and he's the only one who can identify the serial killer. Lucky for him, his dad is a police detective, he wins him over, they eventually catch the bad guy, bad guy goes to the electric chair - hooray, movie over!!!
Oh wait, we're not even halfway through it.
So the premise of the movie is actually that the serial killer is into black magic and electricity, because he's a TV repair man and he uses a soldering iron. So he combines his two interests to come back from the dead as a disembodied spirit who can possess people and manifest himself through electricity.
At first it appears the serial killer (named fucking Horace Pinker of all things) can possess people simply by touching them. That's a pretty powerful ability right there - in fact they made an entire movie off that premise alone, 1998's Fallen starring Denzel Washington; which, while not a great movie, was way better than Shocker. But as the movie goes on, they keep adding to Pinker's repertoire. First he goes from only being able possess people via touch to being able to travel via electrical lines, then he is able to manifest himself physically by absorbing enough electricity, then he's able to transmit himself via television broadcast, then he's able to possess electrical devices... It all ends with a shit-tastic climatic battle wherein the college football hero guy, who might really be Pinker's biological son or some shit, and Pinker battling each other inside a TV across different television shows. First it's a World War 2 documentary, then it's I Love Lucy and it goes on and on until they start showing up in live broadcasts, and they're physically there at the live broadcast, but they're really still in the TV... blergh!
I love horror and I like a fair amount of sci-fi, so I'm not one of those, "that could never happen!" douchebags, but a work needs to at least adhere to its own internal logic - which Shocker does not. It's the equivalent of two kids playing on a playground going, "I shoot fireballs!," "I'm immune to fireballs and I shoot lightening back at you!" "Oh yeah, well I'm immune to lightning!"
After it's revealed that Pinker is pretty much godlike via electricity, including broadcast signals and everything, the hero wins the day by fucking him up with a... VCR remote control? Ooooookay. So he hits the pause button, and the bad guy just pauses. That's a bit of a stretch, I don't see what VCR pause has to do with electricity necessarily but I've gone with you up until this point, Wes, so I might has well wait and see what happens... wait, what? And now, using the fast forward and rewind buttons the hero is... making the bad guy hit himself with things and slam his head against the wall repeatedly? But that doesn't even make any sense, not even based on the fake pseudo-rules that you really didn't even set up all that well...
It's kind of like Wes Craven needed a climax for the movie, so instead of thinking up anything good, he just kind of jacked off all over the script and then filmed it. It makes no sense, it's way too overblown, it looks like crap and it's just stupid. It sucks, because the beginning part, where Horace is just a killer with knife, would've actually made a good slasher movie. But once it goes from "Slasher" to "Shocker," it just becomes more and more crappy, until it ends choking in a pool of its own shit.
Oh, and apparently they're remaking it.
CNN Eats My Balls
I don't know why, but I constantly check CNN.com. It's the news junkie in me, and for better or worse, CNN has become synonymous with "news." I quit watching the TV channel a decade ago, because it seemed like nothing but celebrity gossip and touchy-feely feel-good bullshit fluff. Polls actually show that whether CNN the channel's rating are up or down, they're always the most visited news website. It's a habit I should break myself of, and yet it's hard to totally divorce myself from checking in for the sake of seeing how the news of the day is being framed in most people's minds.
From Wednesday through Friday morning they had a headline on the main page of CNN.com, "Limbaugh says he wants "weak" Obama." Considering most headlines tend to come and go within hours, giving this headline a prominent spot on the front page for over two days shows that someone decided it was worth emphasizing. The gist of it is that now Limbaugh is saying he thinks Obama is more beatable than Hillary Clinton, because he's been weakened by Jeremiah Wright, bowling, the "bitter" comments, etc. Keep in mind, Limbaugh up until Tuesday had been telling his Republican listeners to vote for Hillary because she was "more beatable" than Obama and for the sake of dragging out the Democratic Party's nomination process.
The fact that he's changing gears after Obama has all but been declared the nominee is simple playground-mentality bullshit. He's pretend he's pulling the strings of millions of Democratic voters, tricking us into making choices that play right into the Republicans' hands. I've always thought that Karl Rove got waaay too much credit for being a Machiavellian "mastermind," simply because a semi-paranoid media and Democratic base saw every decision and circumstance as somehow playing into his schemes. Sometimes shit just happens.
In the case of Limbaugh declaring Obama somehow "weaker" than Hillary after conventional wisdom has declared her candidacy dead, well - bullshit. Money, organization, message - Obama is the stronger candidate. Limbaugh's just playing a part for his audience, making them feel good, he likely doesn't even believe what he's saying.
AND YET CNN LEGITIMIZES IT. Not even some kind of analysis like "before Obama was considered by many pundits to be the presumptive Democratic nominee after Tuesday's election, Limbaugh had been encouraging his listeners to vote for Hillary Clinton in order to give an advantage to the Republican Party in the general election." Whatever, I really don't think it matters that much, it just bothers me.
Anyway, the reason I bring this up, is because there's been a headline all day reading, "Clinton holds huge lead in next state." If you read the article, it says there's a poll showing she leads Obama 66 to 23 in West Virginia. No analysis to point out the fact that this isn't going to give her the lead in delegates. Instead they treat it like it could be a turning point in the campaign - it won't be.
Time to bust out the handy dandy Slate calculator.
Okay, so let's take this poll from American Research Group at face value and go ahead and give Clinton 66%. Hell let's give her 66% for Kentucky too, even though I've got a couple of polls that say she wins it by 59% or 62%. Oregon's going to Obama, let's say worst case scenario he squeeks out of that one with 51% of the vote. I don't know what-the-fuck about Puerto Rico, so I left it 50-50 even though it could go 86% for Clinton and still not change a damn thing. As for Montana and South Dakota, there's been no polling that I know of, although conventional wisdom points to those being Obama wins, but I'm leaving it 50-50.
No change.
In fact, let's go into Happy Handjob-land for Hillary after Oregon and say she wins all the delegates in Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota.
Oh hey, Hillary's still behind by 58 delegates!
It's not just this that sets me off about mainstream news and CNN in particular, it's the overall implication that THESE PEOPLE DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK THEIR TALKING ABOUT HALF THE TIME. Are they biased? Lazy? Ignorant? Sensationalist? Who the fuck can tell anymore?
It's like intelligence has been sent to die a painful death in this country, and there are those who intend to take full advantage of that by spinning and confusing things until the loser of an election becomes the winner.
Oh wait...
From Wednesday through Friday morning they had a headline on the main page of CNN.com, "Limbaugh says he wants "weak" Obama." Considering most headlines tend to come and go within hours, giving this headline a prominent spot on the front page for over two days shows that someone decided it was worth emphasizing. The gist of it is that now Limbaugh is saying he thinks Obama is more beatable than Hillary Clinton, because he's been weakened by Jeremiah Wright, bowling, the "bitter" comments, etc. Keep in mind, Limbaugh up until Tuesday had been telling his Republican listeners to vote for Hillary because she was "more beatable" than Obama and for the sake of dragging out the Democratic Party's nomination process.
The fact that he's changing gears after Obama has all but been declared the nominee is simple playground-mentality bullshit. He's pretend he's pulling the strings of millions of Democratic voters, tricking us into making choices that play right into the Republicans' hands. I've always thought that Karl Rove got waaay too much credit for being a Machiavellian "mastermind," simply because a semi-paranoid media and Democratic base saw every decision and circumstance as somehow playing into his schemes. Sometimes shit just happens.
In the case of Limbaugh declaring Obama somehow "weaker" than Hillary after conventional wisdom has declared her candidacy dead, well - bullshit. Money, organization, message - Obama is the stronger candidate. Limbaugh's just playing a part for his audience, making them feel good, he likely doesn't even believe what he's saying.
AND YET CNN LEGITIMIZES IT. Not even some kind of analysis like "before Obama was considered by many pundits to be the presumptive Democratic nominee after Tuesday's election, Limbaugh had been encouraging his listeners to vote for Hillary Clinton in order to give an advantage to the Republican Party in the general election." Whatever, I really don't think it matters that much, it just bothers me.
Anyway, the reason I bring this up, is because there's been a headline all day reading, "Clinton holds huge lead in next state." If you read the article, it says there's a poll showing she leads Obama 66 to 23 in West Virginia. No analysis to point out the fact that this isn't going to give her the lead in delegates. Instead they treat it like it could be a turning point in the campaign - it won't be.
Time to bust out the handy dandy Slate calculator.
Okay, so let's take this poll from American Research Group at face value and go ahead and give Clinton 66%. Hell let's give her 66% for Kentucky too, even though I've got a couple of polls that say she wins it by 59% or 62%. Oregon's going to Obama, let's say worst case scenario he squeeks out of that one with 51% of the vote. I don't know what-the-fuck about Puerto Rico, so I left it 50-50 even though it could go 86% for Clinton and still not change a damn thing. As for Montana and South Dakota, there's been no polling that I know of, although conventional wisdom points to those being Obama wins, but I'm leaving it 50-50.
No change.
In fact, let's go into Happy Handjob-land for Hillary after Oregon and say she wins all the delegates in Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota.
Oh hey, Hillary's still behind by 58 delegates!
It's not just this that sets me off about mainstream news and CNN in particular, it's the overall implication that THESE PEOPLE DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK THEIR TALKING ABOUT HALF THE TIME. Are they biased? Lazy? Ignorant? Sensationalist? Who the fuck can tell anymore?
It's like intelligence has been sent to die a painful death in this country, and there are those who intend to take full advantage of that by spinning and confusing things until the loser of an election becomes the winner.
Oh wait...
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Dicks for Jesus
Happy fun chart No. 1 in this post shows that even if Hillary Clinton wins 85% of the vote in the remaining contests, she still loses in pledged delegates.
The second chart shows that if she breaks 86% in West Virginia and Kentucky, she gets all of those states' delegates and Obama gets none. If she attains 86% then continues on to sweep the rest of states by 85% or better, a winner is she.
This threshold is, of course, impossible.
*****
Word on the internets is that Democratic Party insiders want Clinton to stay in until Oregon, because it is believed she would win West Virginia and Kentucky even without campaigning there - and that being defeated by a candidate who had already conceded would be embarrassing for the nominee.
Whatever.
I wouldn't care if she stayed in until August if she stopped the horseshit. Today she was offered a deal on Michigan, 69 delegates for her, 59 for Obama. Seems generous, I think they should split Florida and Michigan 50-50 each. Clinton turned it down, she wants 72 delegates (55%) and she wants the remaining 45% of the delegates split in half, 39 for Obama, the rest stay Uncommitted.
Horseshit.
I truly don't understand the minds of her supporters. It's like they want a Democratic version of George W. Bush - stubborn, duplicitous, vindictive, arrogant and corrupt. I remember early on, Obama supporters were considered "cult-like." I'm sorry, but at this point, it's the die-hard, dead-ender Hillary supporters who strike me as the cult here. At least the ones who still think she should be the nominee no matter what the pledged delegate count and popular vote say.
Don't get me wrong, my girlfriend preferred Hillary over Obama, but she's sick of it now and doesn't seem to mind Obama being the nominee. My mother ended up voting for Hillary, but said she really had no preference. She had brought up voting early a week or two before the election, so the Sunday before the election here, I said, "Hey, do you want to go early vote?" So we went, but afterwards she had said that if I hadn't said anything she probably would've not voted at all. Oops. Now she thinks that Hillary should just drop out.
It's the people with the glazed over eyes that want to see her win the nomination no matter what - and no matter what means tearing the party in half and bombing the general election. Hillary Clinton, her supporters and the DLC-types have been making a calculation since 1992 that if Democrats run as Republican-Lites, they can just take the Democratic base for granted and bring enough Republicans over to win. In hindsight, I say that this strategy works great when you have a conservative-leaning third party candidate like Ross Perot on the ballot, but otherwise you're fucked. Republican voters vote for Republicans - period.
What hurt Al Gore more in 2000, Ralph Nader on the Green Party ticket, or Joe Lieberman (who is now endorsing John McCain) on his own? Hindsight, hindsight, but as a 2000 Nader voter, I think if Al Gore had been Al Gore, y'know the one he's been since after 2000, and had he chosen any Democrat besides Joe Lieberman and Zell Miller as his VP, maybe he would've won that election - as in won it big enough that no amount of fuckery could've changed the results.
The whole thing's a joke at this point anyway... almost 50% of polled Hillary supporters in the Indiana and North Carolina exit polls said they'd support McCain in the general over Obama. McCain who wants to keep American health care as-is. McCain who wants to keep fighting in Iraq until we don't suffer any more troop casualties, and then stay there 100 more years after that magical goal has been met. McCain who wants to appoint more Supreme Court Justices in the style of Roberts and Alito, who both voted to make it harder for employees to sue their employers for GENDER DISCRIMINATION and who would, despite what they said in their Senate confirmation hearings, overturn Roe Vs. Wade in a heartbeat. Yeah - I can really see that happening.
*****
DVD's I own but haven't watched:
Opera - Dario Argento movie. I want to watch it with the girlfriend, but we never seem to get around to it.
Eraserhead - I need to see this, but for some reason never get around to it.
No Country for Old Men - Gemma just got me this for my birthday. I meant to see it in theaters, even before it won the Oscar. I really, really did.
X-Men 3 - I won this at work. I'd never seen the first two X-Men movies, and I don't like seeing sequels without seeing the originals... and I'm just not that interested in the X-Men.
DVD's I've watched instead:
Superbad - The last time Gemma visited was for my birthday, and we were making birthday cupcakes in the kitchen while my mom and her boyfriend watched this movie. I thought the part where the fat kid talks about how he compulsively drew dicks as a kid was hilarious, so after Gemma left for the weekend, I watched it. The little kid drawing dicks scene is the only worthwhile thing about this movie. I didn't like The 40-Year-Old Virgin either, so I'm pretty much done with these movies.
Batman Begins - Saw this in theaters, caught it on HBO, caught it again on regular TV, bought it on impulse standing in the check out line at Best Buy. Rotwang's right, I'm gay for Batman.
Invader Zim Vols. 1, 2 and 3 - A few years back, my roommate's girlfriend borrowed Vols. 1 and 2 from a friend of hers, and, without realizing it, I had watched all of them. Flash forward to last Valentine's Day and Gemma gave me the box set and I watched all of 1 and 2 again, followed by volume 3. Some day, I'm going to talk like GIR all fucking day at work. I MADE IT MAH-SELF!!!
Day Watch - This movie premiered in Russian theaters on Jan 1st, 2006. April 2006, my girlfriend bought a DVD of it off ebay, not realizing it was a bootleg. (I have a theory at this point that every-fucking-DVD on ebay is a bootleg.) We sat down and watched it and ruined it for ourselves because we loved Night Watch so much. The last 20 minutes of the disc skipped horribly. It was legitimately released in October 2007, so I told Gemma she needed to buy it for me for Xmas. It was exactly the same movie, and, honestly, it's no where near as good as Night Watch. Sorry!
The Stuff - Back in 2005, I got my first DVD player (I had resisted the format for years) and decided I would collect low budget horror movies. I thought I found the jackpot on eBay, all kinds of movies that I couldn't find in stores at really cheap prices. Bootlegs. Every-fucking-DVD on ebay is a bootleg. Every. Fucking. DVD. I bought The Stuff, and it had screens on the back of the case that weren't in the movie!!! I thought my DVD was missing content. So, last fall, I bought a legit copy from Amazon.com (that's where I buy most of my DVDs now - you can find anything and it's reasonably priced). Nope, the movie's just horribly edited. The screens on the back of the bootleg cover must've been outtakes or some shit - I don't know. Oops.
Maybe some other time, I'll post about all the shit I've recorded to my DVR and haven't watched in over a year.
The second chart shows that if she breaks 86% in West Virginia and Kentucky, she gets all of those states' delegates and Obama gets none. If she attains 86% then continues on to sweep the rest of states by 85% or better, a winner is she.
This threshold is, of course, impossible.
*****
Word on the internets is that Democratic Party insiders want Clinton to stay in until Oregon, because it is believed she would win West Virginia and Kentucky even without campaigning there - and that being defeated by a candidate who had already conceded would be embarrassing for the nominee.
Whatever.
I wouldn't care if she stayed in until August if she stopped the horseshit. Today she was offered a deal on Michigan, 69 delegates for her, 59 for Obama. Seems generous, I think they should split Florida and Michigan 50-50 each. Clinton turned it down, she wants 72 delegates (55%) and she wants the remaining 45% of the delegates split in half, 39 for Obama, the rest stay Uncommitted.
Horseshit.
I truly don't understand the minds of her supporters. It's like they want a Democratic version of George W. Bush - stubborn, duplicitous, vindictive, arrogant and corrupt. I remember early on, Obama supporters were considered "cult-like." I'm sorry, but at this point, it's the die-hard, dead-ender Hillary supporters who strike me as the cult here. At least the ones who still think she should be the nominee no matter what the pledged delegate count and popular vote say.
Don't get me wrong, my girlfriend preferred Hillary over Obama, but she's sick of it now and doesn't seem to mind Obama being the nominee. My mother ended up voting for Hillary, but said she really had no preference. She had brought up voting early a week or two before the election, so the Sunday before the election here, I said, "Hey, do you want to go early vote?" So we went, but afterwards she had said that if I hadn't said anything she probably would've not voted at all. Oops. Now she thinks that Hillary should just drop out.
It's the people with the glazed over eyes that want to see her win the nomination no matter what - and no matter what means tearing the party in half and bombing the general election. Hillary Clinton, her supporters and the DLC-types have been making a calculation since 1992 that if Democrats run as Republican-Lites, they can just take the Democratic base for granted and bring enough Republicans over to win. In hindsight, I say that this strategy works great when you have a conservative-leaning third party candidate like Ross Perot on the ballot, but otherwise you're fucked. Republican voters vote for Republicans - period.
What hurt Al Gore more in 2000, Ralph Nader on the Green Party ticket, or Joe Lieberman (who is now endorsing John McCain) on his own? Hindsight, hindsight, but as a 2000 Nader voter, I think if Al Gore had been Al Gore, y'know the one he's been since after 2000, and had he chosen any Democrat besides Joe Lieberman and Zell Miller as his VP, maybe he would've won that election - as in won it big enough that no amount of fuckery could've changed the results.
The whole thing's a joke at this point anyway... almost 50% of polled Hillary supporters in the Indiana and North Carolina exit polls said they'd support McCain in the general over Obama. McCain who wants to keep American health care as-is. McCain who wants to keep fighting in Iraq until we don't suffer any more troop casualties, and then stay there 100 more years after that magical goal has been met. McCain who wants to appoint more Supreme Court Justices in the style of Roberts and Alito, who both voted to make it harder for employees to sue their employers for GENDER DISCRIMINATION and who would, despite what they said in their Senate confirmation hearings, overturn Roe Vs. Wade in a heartbeat. Yeah - I can really see that happening.
*****
DVD's I own but haven't watched:
Opera - Dario Argento movie. I want to watch it with the girlfriend, but we never seem to get around to it.
Eraserhead - I need to see this, but for some reason never get around to it.
No Country for Old Men - Gemma just got me this for my birthday. I meant to see it in theaters, even before it won the Oscar. I really, really did.
X-Men 3 - I won this at work. I'd never seen the first two X-Men movies, and I don't like seeing sequels without seeing the originals... and I'm just not that interested in the X-Men.
DVD's I've watched instead:
Superbad - The last time Gemma visited was for my birthday, and we were making birthday cupcakes in the kitchen while my mom and her boyfriend watched this movie. I thought the part where the fat kid talks about how he compulsively drew dicks as a kid was hilarious, so after Gemma left for the weekend, I watched it. The little kid drawing dicks scene is the only worthwhile thing about this movie. I didn't like The 40-Year-Old Virgin either, so I'm pretty much done with these movies.
Batman Begins - Saw this in theaters, caught it on HBO, caught it again on regular TV, bought it on impulse standing in the check out line at Best Buy. Rotwang's right, I'm gay for Batman.
Invader Zim Vols. 1, 2 and 3 - A few years back, my roommate's girlfriend borrowed Vols. 1 and 2 from a friend of hers, and, without realizing it, I had watched all of them. Flash forward to last Valentine's Day and Gemma gave me the box set and I watched all of 1 and 2 again, followed by volume 3. Some day, I'm going to talk like GIR all fucking day at work. I MADE IT MAH-SELF!!!
Day Watch - This movie premiered in Russian theaters on Jan 1st, 2006. April 2006, my girlfriend bought a DVD of it off ebay, not realizing it was a bootleg. (I have a theory at this point that every-fucking-DVD on ebay is a bootleg.) We sat down and watched it and ruined it for ourselves because we loved Night Watch so much. The last 20 minutes of the disc skipped horribly. It was legitimately released in October 2007, so I told Gemma she needed to buy it for me for Xmas. It was exactly the same movie, and, honestly, it's no where near as good as Night Watch. Sorry!
The Stuff - Back in 2005, I got my first DVD player (I had resisted the format for years) and decided I would collect low budget horror movies. I thought I found the jackpot on eBay, all kinds of movies that I couldn't find in stores at really cheap prices. Bootlegs. Every-fucking-DVD on ebay is a bootleg. Every. Fucking. DVD. I bought The Stuff, and it had screens on the back of the case that weren't in the movie!!! I thought my DVD was missing content. So, last fall, I bought a legit copy from Amazon.com (that's where I buy most of my DVDs now - you can find anything and it's reasonably priced). Nope, the movie's just horribly edited. The screens on the back of the bootleg cover must've been outtakes or some shit - I don't know. Oops.
Maybe some other time, I'll post about all the shit I've recorded to my DVR and haven't watched in over a year.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Politics
Gemma said she had trouble loading the slate.com page I linked in my last post with the delegate calculator, so here are some screen shots.
Guam happened yesterday and broke down to 50-50; but with only four delegates, one candidate would've had to have won 75% over the other to eke out an extra delegate.
The above screen shot shows that even if Clinton wins 69% of the vote in each remaining state, Obama still wins by 5 delegates.
This screen shot shows that if Clinton wins each remaining state by 70% of the vote, only then does she win by 4 delegates. The fact of the matter, however, is that she is NOT GOING TO WIN by anything even approaching 69% of the vote, let alone 70%. She might win West Virginia and Kentucky by close to 60%, however, every time she wins a state by less than 70%, each remaining state needs to be won by something higher than 70%.
Even if she wins every single remaining contest, she needs to win by 70% or more to end up with more pledged delegates than Obama. Add the fact that Obama is favored to win North Carolina and Oregon, add the fact that Indiana is probably going to be closer to 50-50 than 70-30, add the fact that the only state Clinton has won in this entire election by 70% was Arkansas and it becomes apparent that this scenario just isn't going to happen - yet the MEDIA is still acting like this is a close race. It's not.
The only "if" in this race are the Democratic Party's super-delegates, and as time goes on, it is becoming less and less likely that they are interested in propping up a candidate who couldn't even win the primary for the general election.
The problem is, in the meantime Bill and Hillary Clinton are out there stumping and pandering, and essentially labeling the inevitable Democratic presidential nominee as an "out-of-touch," "liberal eltist," etc. etc. etc. These attacks serve no purpose at this point but to encourage the so-called "white working class voters" to vote Republican in the fall, because these attacks ARE NOT going to win the nomination for Hillary Clinton in the short term.
She can't win. The primary race is over. She lost. If she wants to stay in the race until the very end, that's hypothetically fine, but all she is doing at this point is tearing down the Democratic presidential candidate, the Democratic Party-lead congress and, therefore, the Democratic Party itself. If that is going to be what she and Bill do, then the Democratic Party super-delegates should have no qualms about moving en masse towards Obama until he has the 2025 total delegates needed to shut her out of the race.
Guam happened yesterday and broke down to 50-50; but with only four delegates, one candidate would've had to have won 75% over the other to eke out an extra delegate.
The above screen shot shows that even if Clinton wins 69% of the vote in each remaining state, Obama still wins by 5 delegates.
This screen shot shows that if Clinton wins each remaining state by 70% of the vote, only then does she win by 4 delegates. The fact of the matter, however, is that she is NOT GOING TO WIN by anything even approaching 69% of the vote, let alone 70%. She might win West Virginia and Kentucky by close to 60%, however, every time she wins a state by less than 70%, each remaining state needs to be won by something higher than 70%.
Even if she wins every single remaining contest, she needs to win by 70% or more to end up with more pledged delegates than Obama. Add the fact that Obama is favored to win North Carolina and Oregon, add the fact that Indiana is probably going to be closer to 50-50 than 70-30, add the fact that the only state Clinton has won in this entire election by 70% was Arkansas and it becomes apparent that this scenario just isn't going to happen - yet the MEDIA is still acting like this is a close race. It's not.
The only "if" in this race are the Democratic Party's super-delegates, and as time goes on, it is becoming less and less likely that they are interested in propping up a candidate who couldn't even win the primary for the general election.
The problem is, in the meantime Bill and Hillary Clinton are out there stumping and pandering, and essentially labeling the inevitable Democratic presidential nominee as an "out-of-touch," "liberal eltist," etc. etc. etc. These attacks serve no purpose at this point but to encourage the so-called "white working class voters" to vote Republican in the fall, because these attacks ARE NOT going to win the nomination for Hillary Clinton in the short term.
She can't win. The primary race is over. She lost. If she wants to stay in the race until the very end, that's hypothetically fine, but all she is doing at this point is tearing down the Democratic presidential candidate, the Democratic Party-lead congress and, therefore, the Democratic Party itself. If that is going to be what she and Bill do, then the Democratic Party super-delegates should have no qualms about moving en masse towards Obama until he has the 2025 total delegates needed to shut her out of the race.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Iron Man and shit
Right now, at this moment, Rotten Tomatoes has Iron Man at 94% with 151 reviews.
Ummm... that's Schindler's List territory. Iron Man may kick ass, but come on!!!
I haven't seen Iron Man yet, and I probably won't see it for at least a few weeks, but last year's Oscar winner, No Country for Old Men is at 94% with 196 reviews. (I have that on DVD sitting here, but I haven't watched it yet, 'cuz I'm lame.)
Seriously, there is no way that Iron Man is that good.
***
I live in Hoosierville and we get to weigh in on the Democratic primary in a few days. I've been pro-Obama since about last summer, but I was never a fan of the Clintons' policies, hence why I voted Nader in 2000 (the first election I could vote in). Seven years of Bush is enough to make even a radical lefty like me look back on the Clinton years with nostalgia, but ever since Hillary celebrated "winning" Florida and Michigan, I've just come to despise her more and more. It's more than simple "personality politics" as some bobble heads who get paid way too much to spout bullshit would say - Hillary Clinton's brand of politics is poison for the Democratic Party.
Look at her campaign - they had the money advantage for a long time, they had name recognition, and they had the support of the "Democratic Party Establishment." Remember when Hillary Clinton was the "inevitable" nominee? What happened to that? Why can't she "close the deal" against Obama?
She blew it, pure and simple.
She believed her own hype, surrounded herself with lackeys and spent all her campaign money on "Super Tuesday." She did not have any real organization in the states after the February 5th elections. Her campaign assumed she would have wrapped up the nomination by then and essentially forfeited the entire month of February, which is when Obama made his biggest gains. That series of ~20% victories in a row essentially won him the pledged delegate race.
If that's how Hillary Clinton's primary campaign went, why would anyone expect her to do better in the general election? Isn't conventional wisdom that this election is an "inevitable" win for the Democratic party?
My mother has said she doesn't really care if it's Hillary or Obama, but she's thinking about voting for Hillary. I told her that voting for Hillary is essentially voting for the Democratic Party to split in August, that every time Hillary wins a state, she uses it to question the legitimacy of Obama's nomination and risks splitting the party in half at the convention by usurping the pledged delegate count via coup by superdelegates.
If the superdelegates go for Hillary when Barack has the pledged delegate lead, the Democratic Party will be sundered for at least a generation. Why would the African-American community, the Democratic Party's most reliable voting bloc, continue to support a party that screwed an African-American candidate out of the nomination in favor of a white candidate who performed worse in the primary elections? They may not start voting Republican, but if they just stopped voting at all or moved towards a third party, that would be devastating for non-right wing politics and policy - essentially handing the Republican Party another 20 years of free reign to then destroy our country through bad policy. Furthermore, the under 40 crowd, such as myself, who have so fervently donated to and worked on behalf of the Obama campaign are *not* going to simply shrug their shoulders and do the same for Hillary in that scenario - they may not vote for McCain, but instead they may not vote at all, and may not be there for the next election, either.
The Obama campaign signifies a transformational moment for the Democratic Party. These Obama voters, donors and volunteers can be the foundation for the Democratic Party and for liberal and progressive politics for a lifetime. All my life, it's been playing to the right wing Republican tune, from Reagan to Bush, to Newt Gringrich to Tom Delay, to George W. Bush. Obama can be the first of many election cycles where *we* have the money advantage, the grassroots organizational advantage and the issues advantage.
Not only do I believe that Obama is a better candidate against McCain than Clinton, I think that *even if* Obama were to lose to McCain, this infrastructure would last and carry us to victory in future elections. I've always felt it was better to stay true and lose an election than to win by triangulating and pandering, because when you do that, you end up passing and enacting horrible, horrible shit, and then what's really the point of having won in the first place? Ronald Reagan lost the 1976 primary to Gerald Ford before coming back in 1980 and redefining American politcs for the next 20 years - to the detriment of the majority of Americans today.
If the Democratic Party superdelegates hand the nomination to Clinton when she did worse, that foundation may not be there ever again. If it goes to Obama, whether he wins or loses, it will be established and ready to go for years to come.
My mother's response was, "what if Clinton wins the pledged delegate count?" I told her I, and the majority of Obama supporters would be there for her in the fall and beyond, BUT in order to do that, she's have to win by 70% of the vote in EVERY SINGLE PRIMARY REMAINING. My mother thought I was exaggerating, so I dug up this:
http://www.slate.com/id/2185278/
If you scroll down a bit, there's a pledged delegate calculator for the remaining states in the primary elections. If you set every remaining contest to 69% for Clinton, *still loses the pledged delegate count by 1!*
If you set every remaining contest to 70% for Clinton, only then does she beat Obama by 8 delegates.
EVERY CONTEST THAT SHE DOES NOT WIN WITH 70% OF THE VOTE, SHE ONLY NEEDS A LARGER PERCENT OF THE VOTE IN EACH REMAINING CONTEST.
And that is why, in this point in the game, each vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote to undermine the Democratic Party.
Ummm... that's Schindler's List territory. Iron Man may kick ass, but come on!!!
I haven't seen Iron Man yet, and I probably won't see it for at least a few weeks, but last year's Oscar winner, No Country for Old Men is at 94% with 196 reviews. (I have that on DVD sitting here, but I haven't watched it yet, 'cuz I'm lame.)
Seriously, there is no way that Iron Man is that good.
***
I live in Hoosierville and we get to weigh in on the Democratic primary in a few days. I've been pro-Obama since about last summer, but I was never a fan of the Clintons' policies, hence why I voted Nader in 2000 (the first election I could vote in). Seven years of Bush is enough to make even a radical lefty like me look back on the Clinton years with nostalgia, but ever since Hillary celebrated "winning" Florida and Michigan, I've just come to despise her more and more. It's more than simple "personality politics" as some bobble heads who get paid way too much to spout bullshit would say - Hillary Clinton's brand of politics is poison for the Democratic Party.
Look at her campaign - they had the money advantage for a long time, they had name recognition, and they had the support of the "Democratic Party Establishment." Remember when Hillary Clinton was the "inevitable" nominee? What happened to that? Why can't she "close the deal" against Obama?
She blew it, pure and simple.
She believed her own hype, surrounded herself with lackeys and spent all her campaign money on "Super Tuesday." She did not have any real organization in the states after the February 5th elections. Her campaign assumed she would have wrapped up the nomination by then and essentially forfeited the entire month of February, which is when Obama made his biggest gains. That series of ~20% victories in a row essentially won him the pledged delegate race.
If that's how Hillary Clinton's primary campaign went, why would anyone expect her to do better in the general election? Isn't conventional wisdom that this election is an "inevitable" win for the Democratic party?
My mother has said she doesn't really care if it's Hillary or Obama, but she's thinking about voting for Hillary. I told her that voting for Hillary is essentially voting for the Democratic Party to split in August, that every time Hillary wins a state, she uses it to question the legitimacy of Obama's nomination and risks splitting the party in half at the convention by usurping the pledged delegate count via coup by superdelegates.
If the superdelegates go for Hillary when Barack has the pledged delegate lead, the Democratic Party will be sundered for at least a generation. Why would the African-American community, the Democratic Party's most reliable voting bloc, continue to support a party that screwed an African-American candidate out of the nomination in favor of a white candidate who performed worse in the primary elections? They may not start voting Republican, but if they just stopped voting at all or moved towards a third party, that would be devastating for non-right wing politics and policy - essentially handing the Republican Party another 20 years of free reign to then destroy our country through bad policy. Furthermore, the under 40 crowd, such as myself, who have so fervently donated to and worked on behalf of the Obama campaign are *not* going to simply shrug their shoulders and do the same for Hillary in that scenario - they may not vote for McCain, but instead they may not vote at all, and may not be there for the next election, either.
The Obama campaign signifies a transformational moment for the Democratic Party. These Obama voters, donors and volunteers can be the foundation for the Democratic Party and for liberal and progressive politics for a lifetime. All my life, it's been playing to the right wing Republican tune, from Reagan to Bush, to Newt Gringrich to Tom Delay, to George W. Bush. Obama can be the first of many election cycles where *we* have the money advantage, the grassroots organizational advantage and the issues advantage.
Not only do I believe that Obama is a better candidate against McCain than Clinton, I think that *even if* Obama were to lose to McCain, this infrastructure would last and carry us to victory in future elections. I've always felt it was better to stay true and lose an election than to win by triangulating and pandering, because when you do that, you end up passing and enacting horrible, horrible shit, and then what's really the point of having won in the first place? Ronald Reagan lost the 1976 primary to Gerald Ford before coming back in 1980 and redefining American politcs for the next 20 years - to the detriment of the majority of Americans today.
If the Democratic Party superdelegates hand the nomination to Clinton when she did worse, that foundation may not be there ever again. If it goes to Obama, whether he wins or loses, it will be established and ready to go for years to come.
My mother's response was, "what if Clinton wins the pledged delegate count?" I told her I, and the majority of Obama supporters would be there for her in the fall and beyond, BUT in order to do that, she's have to win by 70% of the vote in EVERY SINGLE PRIMARY REMAINING. My mother thought I was exaggerating, so I dug up this:
http://www.slate.com/id/2185278/
If you scroll down a bit, there's a pledged delegate calculator for the remaining states in the primary elections. If you set every remaining contest to 69% for Clinton, *still loses the pledged delegate count by 1!*
If you set every remaining contest to 70% for Clinton, only then does she beat Obama by 8 delegates.
EVERY CONTEST THAT SHE DOES NOT WIN WITH 70% OF THE VOTE, SHE ONLY NEEDS A LARGER PERCENT OF THE VOTE IN EACH REMAINING CONTEST.
And that is why, in this point in the game, each vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote to undermine the Democratic Party.
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