And Matt Taibbi has been kicking Wall St.’s ass around the block for at least a year or two now.
An uncle about my age and I had a good laugh at Thanksgiving about being ready to die just as the country was completely going into meltdown down the drain, 20-30 years or so.
I have a great family.
Update: I cannot for the life of me understand how even deep-South or Appalachian hard-core Republicans can’t see that they’re getting ripped off by people they don’t seem to be able to blame.
“Let’s distribute wealth UP,” says the poor, health care and toothless average GOP voter, “because one day my jr. high-educated ass could be rich like them! And I don’t want no gubmint takin’ ma money!”
Surprisingly, I had only seen it once. Way back when it came out.
There’s a lot of very sophisticated (such as it can be in a comic-book movie) good vs. evil stuff going on in it, at several levels of humanity. It’s a fine movie because of that. My favorite part of it is that I relate to the late Heath Ledger’s brilliantly conceived and executed Joker so creepily well. Except for the violence part. A smarter character could bring things down without it.
The thing about the movie in general I just don’t get is the voice of the lead, in the Batman character. Dude (Christian!), it wasn’t all that different from your Bruce Wayne voice, in fact, it was a silly caricature. There had to be a better idea.
Sure, the voice needed to be altered a bit for cinematic and disconnect-from-reality P’sOV, but IMHO it didn’t need to be taken as far as it was.
IMHO, a grossly underrated movie. Funny, smart, and comically dark in a way I really enjoy.
The Cusacks have some hometown sensibilities I can relate to, and Minnie Driver is fabulously appealing as an actress and sexy thang, and as little as I’ve seen her in “real life,” an equally decent human being.
For a niece named Stella (it’s fun to yell at her in Elaine’s voice) who is a bit more like Marley of book fame (not movie fame) than any dog I’ve ever been around. Large yellow lab with a bit of a…rambunctious nature. Most dogs submit to me pretty easily. This one is going to take some work.
Her tail has the effective kill and clearing radius of a crashing helicopter. My cats are quite used to dogs, but this one, though she lives with cats and wouldn’t hurt them, is just too physically demonstrative for things to settle and the whole process will take longer than usual.
Slush will come out first, and stake his claim. A good shot of why.
And Stella, making sure no one gets within 100 yards of us without a “we have to visit” suggestion from the young (1 1/2?) thing.
Update: I’ve worked in a large corporation for 25 years, and most people close to me have worked in large bureaucracies of one kind or another. It’s awfully strange to be hearing about how the government can’t do anything right in the context of your corporation laying off 30% of its employees, and losing a lot of money and (of course, never failing, good times and bad, inevitably) paying the “leadership” bonuses, which I am on record as telling bonus-level folks that if they just changed the word from “bonus” to, “entitlement” I’d be fine with the whole deal.
So, the point about Matt’s post is that a PhD in Organizational Behavior is not required.
…own abortions! That’s gotta cost him on Judgement Day.
We are in one weird place in history. I suppose any serious crackpot can succeed, Beck is hardly the first, but I’m 50 and I just don’t recall stranger times.
Update: Major confession: These things wouldn’t be a bad idea, just in case the right-left thing gets too out of hand. I would just point it like I golf:
If you’re worried about hitting the tree, aim at it.
Beware The Man 