You are a lawyer! Full of %#&%^

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Yes, I admit it, I spent tonight watching Jennifer Aniston in Rumour Has It the "sequel" to 1967's The Graduate. If you've seen the movie, you'll understand the use of ditto marks around 'sequel'. If you haven't seen the movie, I think its best not to watch The Graduate first. I've never watched it, so I'm safe I think. Anyways, since this is my blog I'll torture you with a slight movie review. I say I watched Jennifer Aniston in Rumor Has It rather than actually watched the movie because watching Jennifer is what I did. When she walked to the bathroom in the airplane I was watching her ass. When she got in and out of her seat I was watching her legs. When she put on a shirt in the morning I was watching her side boob. When she climbed into bed with Mena Suvari (!) I watched her lower back. When she hugged Mena Suvari in bed, I ran to the bathroom. Anyways, the movie was all right, had some funny bits, a few too many sad bits, and some weird 1997 references. (Why was the movie in '97 anyways? Why not put it in 2004 or 2005 to coincide with its production and save the trouble of insuring old cars and cell phones were in each shot? Was it because the events in the movie were intended to be "real", and therefore we're seeing the right year to show the proper events? Is it just that 30 years after the movie was supposed to be an important number, when the event happened in '63 and therefore the movie is 34 years later? Is the 8 year gap between event and film doubling the 4 years the first time important?) The Time Warner-American Online Merger took place in January of 2000, over 2 1/2 years following the events in the film, yet its gossiped about at a charity event. Likewise, Google was founded in September of 1998, and perhaps wouldn't have been the big investment opportunity implied in a conversation taking place in the summer of '97.

Roger Ebert weighs in on the film here. No way that fat tub of lard is stealing Aniston away from me!

Over at Plato's Stepchild I found an old post comparing the physical similarity between overhyped Liberal toady Michael Ignatieff and a Romulan from "The Enterprise Incident" episode of Star Trek. Jack Donner is the actor, I believe, though I may have that one wrong. Explains his duplicity. [Er, doesn't his membership in the Liberal Party of Canada already explain that relatively well? -ed] Sadly I hadn't even gotten to the post and was clicking the link already thinking about the Trek episode the blog is named after.

It turns out that French people get their own hospital. No anglos allowed, as it were. In Ontario.

Speaking of Ontario, there's an Ontario separation movement unrelated to the hidden movement discussed in John Ibbitson's "Loyal No More". Turns out northwestern Ontario wants to be free of its southern cancerous growth. (Er, Thunder Bay is in the northwestern part, isn't it? I sort of regard Ontario as this blob preventing Winnipeggers from having a clearer view of the Atlantic Ocean, and my geography is limited to knowing that according to the travel agencies London Ontario is farther from Edmonton than London England.)

The same guy also weighs in on Klein's "Third Way" health reforms. Not being an Albertan I suppose he is immune from some of the criticism for failing to be aware that we're heard this "the Third Way is coming" talk for ages, and it has yet to ever develop into anything actually important and/or useful. Not that this is a bad thing: it might seem odd for 'Third Edge of the Sword' opposing 'Third Way' healthcare, but in Klein's case the name is misleading. It's really "first way" healthcare (the status quo) mixed in with "second way" healthcare (some changes to how the public system's status quo operates) combined with a "third way" (some private companies are allowed to be promised entry into healthcare in such a highly regulated way that it will be the exact same as the public system, only to have their entry barred at the last second). It in no way relates to American "two-tiered healthcare", which is as I believe a set of private companies so tightly regulated to be essentially government-owned not competing against each other but merely dealing with whichever insurance company (private or government) their patient has paid money to. In short, the only way Klein is guaranteed to follow is the model of totally private healthcare under absolutely no governmental interference or regulation...that is to say, the exact system that Alberta needs, the exact system we'll never get, and the exact system that the healthcare loonies are going to claim has just been set up. Let's also keep our fingers crossed that Riccio's dream of Harper intervention won't happen just for the fun of making sure he stays pissed off for no actual reason.

"Herding cats is hard work", "Democratic blogs, all though far more community based, spend the bulk of their time debating the direction of the Party and dissecting the headlines", and other misconceptions about Liberal blogging that are going to hold them back until they get some actual intelligent ideas (and therefore stop being Liberals in the first place). That being said, my post on SDA rings true: I want more socialist (ie. Liberal) blogs out there to dissect into small easily digestable and distasteful pieces!

As someone who owns Das Boot and The Hunt for Red October on DVD, has both "Crimson Tide" and "Attack on the Queen", "The Hunt for Red October", and "Red Storm Rising" in novel form, and also somebody who watched The Hunt for Red October three times this past week, I do get a kick out of this bit comparing Canada's submarine fleet to a used car and analyzing what to do with the vessels based on that analogy.

A totally unrelated website, Edge: The Third Culture, looks at which companies "won" the Superbowl ad campaign.

British kids are hurting their thumbs because they are text messaging too much. And you thought the Brit's biggest trouble was their teeth!

Remember my posting about unoriginal movies? Well, if I didn't link to it over the "sequel" to The Graduate then I'm not linking to it over the slashdot article that the gaming industry just isn't doing the gangbusters its accustomed to doing.

The southern hemisphere has its first artificial star. And just 2 hours ago I was showing somebody a globe demonstrating what a waste the southern hemisphere is (too much water, not enough land). It is, however, a great place to do astronomy (which is what the artificial star is for) because it is oriented towards the galactic centre. So why is the southern half of the planet devoid of land? Blame Antarctica

"You are a brand. You have more net wealth than South America. Your ears are precisely the right size for your head." A-Rod is raked over the coals for some newfound reasons. His suggestion? "Tip off Page Six wags that you'll be exiting Scores at approximately 2:35 a.m. on the night before a day game. Emerge from said institution with a $20 bill dangling from your fly as the flashbulbs pop. Go 3-for-5 a few hours later and then leave the locker room without comment. Never, ever apologize."

Somewhere in Minnesota, a hardcore objectivist libertarian is in tears. What the hell did you put Ventura in charge for a few years back if you were going to turn around and fine a gas station for not charging enough for gas???

Boston Pizza eat your heart out! Actually, I shouldn't have looked at that: I'm hungry, but I've spent $35 on McDonalds over an 18 hour period yesterday, and can't afford to eat out again even if I did pass Queen Donair on Whyte Ave at 2:02am this morning.

Garfield is better when Garfields thoughts are kept private. In other news, Get Fuzzy and Foxtrot improve when you travel backwards in time!

Final bit of news for today (hey, do you know I still haven't finished that Tampa/Yankees game? It was 11-7 when I left it on Tuesday evening) is that Pedro Martinez might be a bad choice for pitcher this season and The Red Sox can't be bothered to care about Manny Ramirez possibly leaving the team with possible good reason.

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