So. A travesty and abomination, yes. But is it a TOTALLY WICKED AWESOME travesty and abomination? - Because I have give it points for being single-minded in the way it strips down LotR into something we’ll politely call its ‘essentials.’
Month: August 2012
Umm, a younger Conan O’Brien did not TRY to steal Robin’s costume.
It’s pretty clear from the narration of events that he and his team (this story is from the 1980s, when O’Brien was a member of the infamous Harvard Lampoon) succeeded. I don’t think that they were planning to keep Burt Ward’s Robin costume; in fact, I’m getting the impression that Ward thought that this entire thing was both hysterical, and flattering (I’d say that it was both, myself).
I have no idea why I wanted to get this on the record, either. It’s just been kind of bugging me.
#rsrh German Chancellor Angela Merkel feels that Europe is… Nicht in Ordnung.
[T]he respected German weekly Der Spiegel reported in its latest edition that Merkel wants EU leaders to forge ahead with deeper political integration within the unwieldy 27-nation bloc.
Merkel has long advocated closer political integration as a means of preventing the European project from unraveling under the strain caused by the eurozone crisis.
…You know something, Germany? Fine. It’s just not worth it. Are the French on board? Good. You going to leave the Brits alone, when they tell you to sod off? Glad to hear it. No barbarism planned, this go-round? Very smart of you. OK. Yeah. Go ahead and have your Wholly German Empire, and don’t make us come over there again.
“Spin.”
I like to revisit this training video short movie every so often.
Let’s just say that it has a certain… resonance… for me.
“Down To The River To Pray.”
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#rsrh Camden, NJ mayor Dana Redd (D) attempts to solve her police union problem.
As in (to mangle Josef Stalin*) “No police union, no problem:”
Crime-ridden Camden, New Jersey – often referred to as the most dangerous city in the United States—is getting rid of its police department.
In the latest example of a cash-strapped municipality taking drastic measures to deal with swollen public sector liabilities and shrinking budgets, the city plans to disband its 460-member police department and replace it with a non-union “Metro Division” of the Camden County Police. Backers of the plan say it will save millions of dollars for taxpayers while ensuring public safety, but police unions say it is simply a way to get out of collective bargaining with the men and women in blue.
(H/T: Hot Air) Why can’t it be both?
Continue reading #rsrh Camden, NJ mayor Dana Redd (D) attempts to solve her police union problem.
Elizabeth Warren’s Occupiers to attack Tampa’s EMS during GOP convention?
“EMS” standing for “Emergency Medical Services,” of course. Anyway, that’s the claim – and let us not pretend that the Occupy Movement has not been fully converted into a front for the blackshirt anarchists, shall we? The following will be familiar to anyone who watched how the antiwar movement got hijacked by the exact same people:
So people have to remember, this isn’t a bunch of unorganized and disorganized kids. This is Lisa Fithian, she’s the one who led the unions and the anarchists to shut down Seattle at the ’99 World Trade Organization protest in Seattle. It’s not something to play around with because when this is all said and done the FBI informants will have stopped bomb plots just as they and I did last time. And when that happens conservatives need to rally around because the left media and the entire left establishment who claims they have nothing to do with these anarchists, they will defend them and dirty the name of anybody who exposes them just as they did to me and just as they did to Andrew. They will defend their darlings and attack the character of anyone who holds them accountable and calls them out. And that’s what’s going to happen this time. We need to stand up as a movement, recognize what the threats are, and we need to defend the people who are keeping us safe and hold accountable and demand accountability for the people who are trying to interfere with our rights to assemble.
The other thing that they’re trying to do is that they have a coms group—and this is breaking news you need to know this—they have a coms group that is trying to shut down the EMS communications structure for the city. That’s really happening. They’re trying to shut down the communications structure for the city for law enforcement and emergency medical personnel.
Continue reading Elizabeth Warren’s Occupiers to attack Tampa’s EMS during GOP convention?
“Monster of the Week.”
Webcartoonist Shaenon K Garritty (of Skin Horse and Narbonic fame) is now doing “Monster of the Week.” Essentially, she’s doing a twelve-panel recap of every X-Files episode, in order. It’s been years since I’ve seen an episode… but from what I remember, this is pretty accurate, and pretty sarcastic, and pretty funny stuff. Check it out.
#rsrh QotD, This Is One Thing That Drives The VRWC Nuts About Romney edition.
Andrew Ferguson, talking about a book (The Real Romney) that’s… well, let Andrew talk about it:
By my count the literature includes one good book, The Real Romney, by two reporters from the Boston Globe. That’s the same Globe with the leftward tilt to its axis and a legendary anti-Romney animus—which lends authority to their largely favorable portrait. The flattering details of Romney’s life were so numerous and unavoidable that the authors, dammit, had no choice but to include them.
Continue reading #rsrh QotD, This Is One Thing That Drives The VRWC Nuts About Romney edition.
I did not spend yesterday *reading* Bujold’s “Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance.”
I spent it reading Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance and laughing like a loon. If you’re unfamiliar with Lois McMaster Bujold and her Vorkosigan Saga series, shame on you: they’re very clever, very well written space operas with a strong flavor of drawing room comedy to them, and Bujold is a favorite read of mine. And because she publishes via Baen, her latest is available in electronic form months before it’s formally in print. Fifteen bucks now for an advance copy that I can read on multiple platforms, or fifteen bucks later for a hardcopy; I decided to go with the former. Honestly, I expect that I’m going to just use Baen for my default SF/Fantasy genre purchasing: aside from everything else, they don’t gouge you on their ‘hardcover’ titles. If it’s not published yet, $15; if it is, $6. If it’s now in paperback, $4. Boom. Done. Why should I subsidize other publishing companies’ poor business modeling decisions, anyway?
…Industry insiders, take note.