The Remake Of Pelham 1-2-3: Why So Many Movies Today Are So Lousy

TakingOfPelham

I just saw The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 remake at a cut rate, neighbourhood theatre so I could better understand the inevitable sequel, The Putting Back of Pelham 1-2-3 Right Where It Belongs, and to compare it with the 1974 original, which spelled out the numbers in the title because audiences had longer attention spans back then.The original, done in the pit of New-York-as-Hell era of … [Read more...]

Reviewing Goofy Sarah’s Goofy Book

sarah's-wink

Thanks to a friend at an on-line book seller, on Friday morning a courier delivered a preview copy of Going Rogue, Sarah Palin’s latest gyration in her bizarre, ongoing odyssey into fringe folk-lore, self-promotion, and an increasingly pathological need to keep yelling “Look at me! Look at me!” like a whiny eight-year-old trying to get attention in a room full of grown-ups.“If anyone … [Read more...]

RedState.com’s Erick Erickson’s Head Officially Explodes

Khalid Sheik Mohammad

It was bound to happen sooner or later to poor Erick Erickson.He runs the fringe, right-wing website RedState.com and, after 10 months of increasingly pulsating throbs like a character in an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon at every move the Obama Administration has made, Friday morning Erickson's head absolutely exploded.Why?Because the Obama Administration has the audacity to return … [Read more...]

To Hell and Beck

Glenn Beck Clown

We’ll take as a given that Glenn Beck is crazy, in the same league as Michelle Bachman and people who show up at police stations wearing aluminium foil hats demanding the cops make Martians stop beaming radio signals into their head.Who besides Beck would invite PETA’s Ingrid Newkirk on television to join him in criticising Nobel Prize winning former Vice President Al Gore for only cutting … [Read more...]

Another Great Swindle: Doctors, Hospitals, Pharma as Much to Blame as Insurers

Physician-Fee-Chart

Six months ago, in a long-forgotten article, I quoted a Cleveland physician complaining that health care reform will cut his income so sharply he will be forced to curb his lush standard of living. … a physician acquaintance in Ohio who is a highly regarded specialist with a seven figure income … complains to me that any of the current health reform proposals will cut his income in half, at … [Read more...]

Humana Trolls College Campuses for Whores

Internet-crime

Here’s good news for college and university students desperate for a part-time job that won’t even require leaving a dorm room.Humana, Inc., the fine and good corporate citizen that spends millions of its customer’s premium dollars to fight health care reform and a public option rather than using them to pay claims, now wants to use even more premium bucks to pay students willing to … [Read more...]

Plamegate Rides Again: Early Peek At New Film

Plame

Thanks to the movie website Corona Coming Attractions, there’s an advance review of the new film Fair Game, based on the book by Valerie Plame, the CIA case officer who was “outed” by the Bush Administration when her husband called the president a liar in The New York Times in July 2003 for claiming Iraq was acquiring nuclear weapons material.Wilson’s Op-Ed piece led to a firestorm in … [Read more...]

Confessions of a Techno-Luddite

Technology

As the weekend arrived, The New York Times carried a semi-sneering piece on the tiny and ever-dwindling number of people who still refuse to have a cell phone. It cites a study done by the Pew Internet and American Life Project that finds more than 85% of all Americans now have a mobile; the Federal Communications Commission says cell phones caught on faster than either cable TV or home … [Read more...]

Yet Again, The Army Fails Its Troops

Afghanistan-war

Like politicians, institutional bureaucracies know the best way to bury bad news is to release it late on a Friday afternoon.This is exactly what the Pentagon did in the waning twilight last Friday when investigators publicly unleashed a searing, 325-page report on the string of shootings last May in a combat stress and mental health clinic in Baghdad’s Camp Liberty that left four soldiers … [Read more...]

Everyone but Fox and the Taliban Applaud Obama’s Peace Prize

Barack Obama Cartoon Nobel Peace Prize

No sooner was it announced that Barack Obama won the 2009 Peace Prize, than I heard from Ann Aurelius. An old friend from high school back in Minneapolis, Ann is as Norwegian as Lutefisk and pancake suppers in a Lutheran church basement during a cold Minnesota winter. When Garrison Keillor talks about the people of Lake Woebegon, he’s talking about Ann.“Cheeky Norwegians! Good for them!” … [Read more...]

Was Jesus a Socialist?

Outside a Traverse City, Michigan, theatre. Photo courtesy MichaelMoore.com.

According to Variety’s weekend tally of boffo box office receipts, Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story took in nearly $4.9-million in its first weekend of national release. While far more people went to see Zombieland than screened what Time magazine’s Mary Corbliss called Moore’s “magnum opus”, enough tickets were sold to land his frequently biting, often hilarious and totally … [Read more...]

Not the Belly of the Beast

locked-out

This week, I re-enter the Canadian national health system for tests to see if my cancer returned since the last round of treatment ended six months ago.For those of you in the States who might be starting to believe the Republican noise machine, be assured that I’ve not been on a waiting list or pleading my case before a death panel and, regardless of the outcome, I won’t be handed a … [Read more...]

Glenn Beck Can’t Take Glenn Beck’s Heat

Glenn-Beck

The website is clearly labeled satire and parody; in fact, it says so in very strong language on the home page for anyone who can’t figure it out for themselves. But Glenn Beck, never known for possessing a sense of wit – although some may call him a half-wit – is livid that Isaac Eiland-Hall launched glenn beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990.com.Essentially, Eiland-Hall turns … [Read more...]

Medical Journal Health Affairs Bends Over and Coughs for Aetna

Uncle-Sam

For several years, professional medical journals have been drawing heavy artillery fire for not disclosing any conflicts of interest its authors have with the subject they’re covering, hyping faulty studies and publishing too many glowing articles about new pharmaceuticals that have questionable value.This is why the latest issue of Health Affairs leaves me deeply troubled because the … [Read more...]

Health Insurance Inaction More Likely to Kill You Than a Drunk Driver or Psychotic Murderer

Waiting-room

Here’s a special note to the Republican Party, its Congressional leadership, fellow-travellers like Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin, and Rush Limbaugh, Big Pharma, and the insurance industry as the Senate Finance Committee prepares to debate the public option on Tuesday: Every 12 minutes, you kill a fellow American who doesn’t have access to health care due to a lack of coverage.While totally … [Read more...]