Moe Lane

Sure, this is sort of satirical: Art World Relieved As Thieves Steal Pretty Terrible Late Period Renoir Work

CHICAGO—The art world let out a collective sigh of relief Tuesday when it was announced that thieves had made off with one of Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s more god-awful late-period paintings, 1919′s The Great Bathers (The Nymphs). “The palette was too rosy, the brushstrokes were something out of a college art class, and Renoir’s gift for capturing his subject’s inner mystery seemed to have completely abandoned him—in short, it was garbage and I’m glad it’s gone,” said Malcolm Stewart, a curator at the Art Institute of Chicago, which has done little to assist the police in their investigation.

…but as I understand it a lot of museums have artworks that they sort of can’t stand, but have to display for a variety of reasons, usually involving a bequest. One museum in Paris – I forget which one – bit the bullet and put all of their really bad art in a room, on the principle that they had the finest collection of really bad art in Europe, by God, and they were going to show it off.

I have to say, the French are very good at museums. For that matter, when I went to Paris in the Nineties everyone was quite nice to the American.

Moe Lane

(Via The Other McCain) This has been one of the more contentious film projects of recent memory – $400 million dollar projects tend to be – but it looks like that they’re running out of excuses to not put The Hobbit up on the big screen:

“The Hobbit” is now greenlit and will begin principal photography in February 2011, MGM, Warner Brothers, and New Line, have confirmed.

As TheWrap reported exclusively earlier Friday (below), Peter Jackson will direct the two-part film.

But don’t worry!  The unions are whining.  So there’s still a chance that the golden goose will still get killed.

Moe Lane

PS: As I understand it, The Lord of the Rings trilogy generated 6 billion in revenue.  That’s why this project has been so contentious: because the odds that The Hobbit series won’t make its money back on the first movie alone are, to rip off David Brin, somewhere between ‘fat’ and ‘slim.’

Executive summary: the Democrats are handing out people’s phone numbers to anybody who feels like phone banking for them.  Specifically, they’re handing out people’s full names, city and state, gender, age, political affiliation, and phone number.  Presumably, these would be people who contributed to either OfA or the Democrats generally – which means that these are people with credit cards.  In other words, this is identity-theft softcore pr0n.

Safeguards?  Ha!

This is NOT standard practice for political parties.  When a party has a volunteer work their phone bank, they typically have the phone bank worker sign documentation (paper or digitally), usually stating that they won’t misuse the information to which they are being granted access.  The phone bank typically controls access either with a password account if the system is online, or by physically limiting access to where they have the phone bank if it’s an office style set-up.  You don’t just let any person wander in off the street, rifle through your voter files and make calls on your behalf.

But that’s just what the DNC and OfA are doing here.

True, it’s a cherished tradition in American cultural life that actions should have consequences, but throwing 25 bucks to a plausible-sounding flim-flam man in 2008 probably shouldn’t put you at risk at having your identity stolen in 2010.  Or even having your name and relevant info put in a robocall spammer database.  Although the Democrats clearly disagree; and I bet that nobody involved with this program is in the database…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: If you’re a Democrat who doesn’t see why this is a big deal, then you need to stop and think.  Seriously. This is one time where thinking like a paranoid and a conspiracy theorist would actually be helpful for a change…

…he’s made me regret a couple of rude things that I’ve said about a Democrat.  Take a gander at this:

Kendrick Meek will never be on my Christmas card list; but he’s a better man than Charlie Crist. And I don’t want that assessment weakened by the fact that Crist is a duplicitous, two-faced mother[expletive deleted].

Moe Lane

PS: RUBIO.

Authority Song, John Mellencamp

Moral of the story: don’t be this guy.  Be the guy who fights Authority – and who wins.

Seventeen days.

(Via AoSHQ) Rep. James Clyburn went out there today to promise that, if only Democratic voters come out and keep their feckless legislators in control of Congress, said feckless legislators will maybe get a public option going next year. Although one suspects that if Democratic voters just elect Clyburn he’ll hold up under the strain somehow.

“Reelect me, keep Democrats on the field. And when we come back next year, maybe we will get to the public option,” Majority Whip James Clyburn (S.C.) said during an appearance on the Tom Joyner Morning Show.

“Maybe.” Some thoughts on this: (more…)

He mocks me with these, he truly does. Not least because they’re impossible to excerpt.

I’m glad to see that I didn’t actually type out “not feeling so good right now” and go all silent for most of the afternoon; that might have freaked out some people.

Sorry: it was that kind of afternoon.  With occasional bouts of unwellness.  Yes, yes…

…ladies are unwell, Lane: gentlemen vomit.

That movie never gets old.

Tycho of Penny Arcade:

Having sons means (among other things) that we can buy things “for” those sons that we might not purchase for ourselves.

This is, of course, self-evident nonsens…  oops, just remembered: I need to check the batteries for the Nerf VMG.  And see whether there’s any new Matchbox sets when I hit the Target tonight.

The DCCC confirmed to Politico that WI-08′s Steve Kagen had his ad buys canceled; the usual face-saving excuses were made, but the two-term Congressman is a dead man walking (with some help from Reid Ribble).  Also, it looks like AR-02′s Joyce Elliott has been likewise abandoned: I don’t think that that one’s really hit the radar yet, probably because it was an open seat and heavily favoring Republican Tim Griffin anyway.

(more…)

…about the events in this Girl Genius comic if it weren’t for the fact that it almost certainly happened before the events in this Girl Genius comic.

And, yes, if I am ignorant of any way that this potential temporal paradox can be reconciled with the loss of one of my favorite Girl Genius characters… well, I treasure that ignorance, thanks.

…for finding this funny?

SPRINGFIELD — The last name of Green Party gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney is misspelled as “Whitey” on electronic-voting machines in nearly two dozen wards — about half in predominantly African-American areas — and election officials said Wednesday the problem cannot be corrected by Election Day.

If you read the article, it indicates that the misspelling doesn’t show up on the main screen (just the review), doesn’t show up on every touch-screen ballot machine, and that 90% of the ballots will be paper anyway and the guy’s name is spelled right on those.  So, probably not organized shenanigans – the Illinois Democratic party would have done an infinitely better job if they were really trying to muck up Mr. Whitey* – which means that I can default back to my standard position of ‘the Greens can kiss my whitey**, Irish tuchis,’ which means that I’m probably a bad person.

That being said, obviously the new Governor should put in place a full investigation of the situation next year anyway.  It might have been a lone wolf who did this.  Or, heck, maybe the Illinois Democratic party is slipping.  Have you seen the idiots that they’ve been running for higher office lately?

Via Glenn Reynolds and Ann Althouse.

*Excuse me: “Whitney.”

**Excuse me: “whitney.”