Yesterdays top keyword, that led internet users from google to us, was the word “fucking” (most likely because of midmulls review of “young people fucking”).

I’m very proud of that fact, but also a little sorry for the 4 poor bastards that did (unexpectedly) not find any bare boobs or butts on this respectable blog – just some occasional strong language (yes we are rated R !).

Good night everyone. (And yes, I am secretly hoping that this post will lead more people, searching for some fucking, astray. )

I never wanted to get this close to gay porn. I’ll be scarred for life.

So, how did I find this movie? The provocative title? Nope, that’s not it. Joe Mallozzi it is. Stargate writer – a show I like and a man whose blog I read daily – and so is Martin Gero, writer/director of ‘Young People Fucking’.

So, what’s the movie about? Well, on the outside it truly is about young people fucking. Even though I wouldn’t necessarily call all of them young (actually, none of them) the main (and only) plot is five couples having sex, being followed through the various stages of the act. Interesting, to be sure – and for once I’m not saying this because we get to see the actresses’ boobs (that isn’t even necessarily a plus figuring into this review – certainly not a minus but it’s just not that important).

Below that, though, lies a masterpiece. I have about three things that I’d criticise:

1. The word “fuck” and its variations are used too often at the beginning (not that it bothers me – it doesn’t – but is just doesn’t seem right).
2. The gay scenes! How dare you? It’s not that any homosexuals are involved (I wouldn’t care – I just probably wouldn’t watch (unless they were lesbians)) – but you’ll see what I’m talking about once you actually watch the movie for yourself…
3. It’s only about 80 minutes.

Now, none of that is terribly bad – 3. could even be considered a strength. Let’s get to the good stuff, then.

First off, the actors. Now, I think I’ve said this before but I truly am not expert. Sure, I’ll notice if it’s really bad but normally I just won’t notice. Here – they’re all terrific. I noticed. That’s a very good sign.

It’s terribly funny. At times I found myself laughing out loud – that’s a very rare thing. Usually I might smile a little – not laugh out loud. I did. More than once! It’s terribly sweet. Not in an unnecessarily cheesy way. It’s just right! The story’s being told are wonderful. The exes – it’s obvious they’re still in love and still they can’t be together. The story works out just that way – it has to because it obviously working out between the two of them before.

Jude Law (no, not really) – another rather amusing storyline. You’ll have to see for yourself. Kinda borderline cheesy though (reminds me of Wedding Crashers, kinda). The perverts – entertaining and cute. Especially when she explains why she loves him and doesn’t care that everyone else thinks they shouldn’t be together. It’s especially ironic considering what happened previously to that scene.

The married couple – those two are most in danger of being cheesy. I was worried for a moment there. Then I got scarred for life. You’ll see. I’m still weeping. (Yes, I know that deep down this is sexist – I don’t care)

Finally, my favourite storyline: the friends. It works out perfectly. Very romantic. And still, not too cheesy. Doesn’t tell us where this is going to go and that’s why it’s so strong.

So, let’s get to the bottom line: This reminds me of another favourite film of mine: Love Actually. Another brilliant movie about love. Awesome writing, awesome acting – what more could you ask for? And the only reason most people ever talked about it is the title. That’s worrying – we could’ve missed a real gem here.

5/5

DQ kinda mentioned it – there are “dangerous” drugs. Let’s begin with that, shall we?

First off, you’re mostly wrong. Drugs per se usually aren’t that dangerous. Let’s take heroin – it makes you addicted pretty quick but pure heroin isn’t that dangerous. You get somewhat impotent and you get haemorrhoids, if I recall correctly. That’s about it – get your required shot and you’re good to go, ready to partake in civilised society like any other productive member.

This usually goes even farther – there’s plenty of BS indoctrination in public schools as to the dangers of drugs. Cocaine, for example, probably just isn’t physically addictive (even though it might be slightly – they’re “not quite sure”), and even if it is a little – the major, major factor is purely psychological. Now, I don’t think I even need to get started on weed…

This indoctrination is rather counter-productive, too. You put all these horrible ideas into childrens’ brains and then they hit the real world and see that you exaggerated, grossly misrepresented and just plain lied to them. How serious do you think they’re gonna take you on those areas where you actually told the truth?

Anyway, the argument I’m trying to get to: drugs aren’t that dangerous. I currently lack the inclination and the time to go check out wikipedia for links to historical examples of how drugs were quite widely used without any kind of too terrible effects. It isn’t really necessary, either. The criminalisation of drugs is much more important.

It makes sure that the quality of drugs actually deteriorates – the drug gets stretched and additional substances are added. Substances that are actually dangerous. Now, if you’re gonna go the anarchist/minarchist route and call it a question of liability or the more classically liberal route and say the government ought to regulate it – either option is obviously much better.

There is really very little reasons I can come up with as to why established drugs companies (you know, those good old bluechips) would want to offer worse quality than what’s being offered right now. You really don’t hear about stretched coffee or fucked up bananas that often. If there’s a safe and legal way to import, say, cocaine from Columbia – that’d be a pretty awesome business. You can slash prices, increase quality (and thereby safety) and make quite the profit doing all of that.

That’s part one of the argument – drugs really aren’t that dangerous to start with (and propaganda to the contrary is rather counter-productive) and if they were legalised, they’d logically be even less dangerous. I’m sure the marketing whiz-kids would come up with plenty of ways to price-discriminate against different buyers of cocaine but all of them would ensure far purer, far safer drugs than we see now.

Part two of the argument runs quite contrary to part one. Even IF drugs were that dangerous – wouldn’t you want them out in the open? Wouldn’t you want to either know what you’re dealing with and, again, handle it through either liability and the courts or government regulation of the market to ensure proper standards?

I think this makes it quite clear that there’s little point in keeping drugs illegal from a safety point of view.

Coming up next: why legalising drugs would decrease crime by quite a bit.

Rather selfish, for now. I like to hear myself talk (even though I don’t especially like to re-read what I’ve written) and I think I could potentially profit from some thought-provoking counterarguments. Not that I think any of you might have a point (I’ll look to the Ayatollah Rand and – potentially – Mr Rothbard and Mr Mises for that) but you can still help me prepare for the fights coming up. Obviously, I’m so undeniably correct that I don’t expect much coming this way.

Anyway, I’ve done most of this in some other form multiple times already but this might turn into some kind of proper reference – and a guide to my views. Commenting on news articles is indeed rather pointless and I lack the time so I’ll concentrate on fundamentals.

First up: legalising drugs. All drugs. Yes.

To fellow libertarians this won’t sound very daring – so you’re allowed to skip this one. And any other post in this vein. Even though I’d appreciate it if you didn’t and helped me see where I’m missing something or forgetting about an important argument.

Off we go. I’ll split this into various parts so as to keep it readable (and to offer me the opportunity to write on an issue more than just once). I’ll beginn this one with the most fundamental point that I can come up with:

The state has no right to tell people what they can and can’t put into their bodies.

I’m not gonna start with discussing whether or not actually taking drugs is a terribly good idea (I’m leaning towards yes, currently) but this is at the very heart of the discussion. What justification is there to tell people what they can and can’t put into their own bodies, by their own free will?

The obvious answer to the question is: “someone else will be forced to pay the bill”. That just shows how horribly flawed the system is and says absolutely nothing about drug use. Sure, socialized health care, government handouts to drug addicts – all these costs might conceivably offer some kind of justification for state intervention. The problem though: all these state interventions shouldn’t be there in the first place. They directly contradict what a free society ought to be about – people making choices and living with the consequences.

Yes, you might become addicted to drugs and yes drugs might fuck up your body real bad (even though I’ll argue in another post that this would actually be less dangerous under a system where drugs are legal) – that’s a risk you take when choosing to use drugs. Do the necessary homework, take the necessary precautions and you should be fine. And even if you aren’t – isn’t that your own fault? Yes, it quite obviously is. You are the one that decided to take drugs so you are the one that needs to man up and live with the consequences. Obviously, you have no right to make society pay for the bills.

The more general argument, though, is nanny statism at its very worst. Someone, probably even a majority, thinks “it’s bad for you” and therefore you shouldn’t do it. And because you shouldn’t do it, there “oughta be a law” that prohibits it. Again, you could call this all kinds of dirty words – fascism, totalitarianism, collectivism. It’s the belief that your life belongs to someone else, that society has a claim to what you do with your own life. That you need to be told what to do because it’s for your own best. That someone else knows what’s better and that this someone gets to make that decision for everyone else.

I don’t think I need to point out where that kind of reasoning leads – the real world provides enough examples. Outlawing smoking in restaurants, pubs, clubs and pretty much everywhere else. Government money for convincing people “not to drink”. Outlawing real, proper light bulbs. Limiting the food choices people have (think PETA and their approach to eating meat). The list goes on and on.

I’m pretty sure you can tell where I’m going with this. It’s not that “it’s gone too far”, it’s not that the system needs some tweaking. It’s that the fundamental concept is wrong. It doesn’t matter how small the intrusion is – there’s no justification for it.

Let me say right off the bat: the reviews are right, this one sucks.

The movie follows three different storylines – a professor trying to convince a student that he should “do something” with his potential, an evil, evil Republican senator trying to sell a new strategy to a reporter and two soldiers in Afghanistan getting into a bad situation.

Those three stories, obviously, are linked together – and that’s where the trouble starts. The three storylines only exist so we can link the different characters together, there’s absolutely no point in having them all. There could be more, there could be just one – it plain doesn’t matter. The only thing remotely clever? They all happen within one hour or so.

Let’s start with the professor: his student is some frat boy and he missed class a couple times. How sad. This then results in a long tirade of “the world’s going to hell” and “people just don’t care anymore today” – yadda, yadda, yadda. Sure, most people occasionally feel that way (sometimes with decent quantities of alcohol involved) but then they get offer it and move the fuck on. It doesn’t exactly become clear what he expects his young, bright student to do – just “something”, I guess.

Also, this wonderful professor had two other boys with potential. They proposed reinstating the draft in class and then – and this is probably the only halfway decent scene in the film even though it’s terribly forced – respond to accusations of hypocrisy by putting their enlistment confirmations on the OHP (they always somehow have the exact right information on their slides to respond to any kind of criticism that comes up) – terribly leftist, fascist, statist – you name it, you can pretty much throw any kind of accusation their way, considering what they are proposing (and considering that this is a libertarian blog).

Those two boys, alas, are the soldiers that are getting killed – yes, they get killed (even though it could be considered semi-suicide). People get killed in wars, what a surprise. The only point to have them in the film, though, is to have them killed. Seriously, it’s that simplistic. They serve no other purpose – kinda like the professor not offering anything other than “do something!”. No background, no motivation – nothing, nada. No idea why they are where they are, why they need to die. All just a set-up to drive home the message that Bush really is evil.

Oh, I didn’t mention that yet, did I? Yeah, it’s a film against the neo-cons. Tom Cruise, finally, in the third storyline is an up-and-coming Republican senator who tries to sell his new strategy to Meryl Streep. The major problem? There is no strategy. It’s just bullshit. And while that gives the film makers a wonderful opportunity to illustrate how stupid the one-liners in defence of the war(s) really are, it just hurts the movie.

If there’d been some kind of plan, some kind of strategy that could reasonably have been expected to come from politicians rather than the military (because this new strategy is clearly a military decision) it could have worked. Use the surge, use some kind of major change – something that makes the movie work. Not some weak-ass bullshit like this.

So, in conclusion: there’s no proper message apart from “everything sucks” and “we all oughta do something about it”, there’s no asking useful questions, there’s no starting an interesting discussion. It’s just whining and bitching – and Michael Moore is just funnier when he does it.

Best thing about the movie is that it only lasted about 82 minutes.

Let’s start with the characters:

Michael Western: He’s a very cool, controlled and handsome guy (for the ones out there really interested in the looks of guys in tv-shows, this might be important – for your average heterosexual male, such as myself, not so much!). He can handle himself in a fight and is rather used to carrying a gun, never the less, he only fights when really necessary. He rather thinks of a nice plan, mostly involving building some kind of surveillance equipement or weapons out of stuff you can buy in your average supermarket, walmart, or hardware store. (He seems to especially like cell phones and uses at least 5 every episode. ) In short: He’s a MacGyver with a better haircut.
He also likes to dress up nicely, change his accent and persona and fool with some of these organized crime dudes.
And the best: He’s an ex-spy, he’s cynical, not very talkative, and has a lot of advice to offer any would-be spy watching the show. (He’s the narrator.)

Fiona: She’s the girl, trigger-happy, madly in love with Michael (and very determined) and hot.
It’s fun to have her, but it would not hurt if she had a little more depth. She basically just is the hot, trigger-happy ex-girlfriend of Michael’s. What makes me wonder sometimes, why she always walks around in these not very functional high-heels, plateau-shoes, or mini-skirts and -dresses, but who really cares.

Sam: An aged, easy-going ex-special forces guy, if I recall correctly. He’s Michaels ties to Miami, he knows people and can gather intelligence if necessary. He’s cool, funny and more importantly he’s Ash from “The Army of Darkness”. I don’t really know what to say about him, he doesn’t stand out that much, but he is really necessary. Without him the show would be too dry and serious. And I really like his character.

Michaels family: There’s his mum, which is, I have to agree with midmull there, a whiny old woman, but luckily doesn’t have that much apearances and then there is his brother, always having trouble with money and gambling. They both aren’t in the least as much fun as the main characters, but they never the leyy seem to be necessary, because Michael needs a weakness, and that’s what they are, because he has to worry about their safety and as opposed to Fiona and Sam, they can’t defend themselves that well.

The bad guys: It’s a little downside of the show: The bad guys are not that interesting, I mean they are bad and cool and all, and it’s enjoyable when Michael kicks their asses, but they all lack depth, but then again, the eposides are just around 43 minutes, it isn’t that important really.

The enemy: The evil force, the unknown enemy that issued the burn notice on Michael. This is a person (or collective) which is throughout the entire season present, but only represented by mostly neutral persons, FBI Agents, a CSS Agent, some assasins. The always seem out of reach, which in my opinion is a good thing, it’s not like the Goa’uld, Replicators, Wraith, Cylons, SD-6, The Covenant or any other enemy, which can just be located and destroyed. You don’t really know anyone to hate for Michael beeing burnt.

The setting: Miami works great for this show. Fiona can always walk around in her cute, short dresses, Sam can wear his Hawaiian shirts, the can drink cocktails all the time and it is perfectly natural the producers showing us hot girls walking on the beach every once in a while.

The style: What is there to say. Cool cars, weapons, hot women, Michael almost always wears a suit. Then there is the narrator which is pretty cool (I just can’t get enough of cynical comments), the little texts under each new person and the camera work, which I find supports the whol show very well and adds to a fantastic and comprehensive style.

The plot: The main plot is Michael trying to find out who burnt him and to get reinstated as a spy (independent contractor?) for the U.S. government. And there are the subplots, one each episode, which basically is, receiving a job and executing it. They’re all very nicely written and they work great, but I would have wanted the main plot to progress a little faster.

All in all its a fantastic show, and it’s refreshing to see that there still are some out there.

4/5

Another awesome episode. Let’s start right off with the wonderful stuff that went on here:

Sam – finally he’s having the FBI boys act they HE wants them to. He’s found his proper role and he feels comfortable. This, obviously, also offers much more potential for him to actually be serious occasionally (very rarely, of course) – if he isn’t almost all of the time, he seems all that much more convincing when he actually is. He’s now his fun self, drinking, with a couple of irons in the fire (if you know what I mean) – that’s the Sam we want to see, that’s the same that makes this show a wonderful joyride, a very pleasurable experience.

Fiona and Michael – we’re moving in pretty big steps right now. She’s got a key and their relationship’s almost back to where it’s supposed to be. Also, none of those weaknesses we saw in the last episode. She’s her usual strong self, forcing Michael to give it his best, show his true colours. Yeah, that’s what we’re paying for.

The Mom – still pisses me off. This episode also (kinda) announced the coming of Michael’s brother, Nate. Don’t particularly much like him either and it just goes to show that his family is less fun than the rest of the people Michael hangs out with.

Finally, the story. So much cool stuff going on here, I don’t even know where to start. The fake surveillance tape – brilliant and seems pretty plausible. The fucking up of the car tyres – twice, no less! – great fun. Especially the second time.

Oleg seems like a nice guy. Well, not exactly a nice guy but a cool person to have on the show. Throw in some links to some kind of criminal organisation in his background and you’ve got a wonderful B-story over a couple episodes or a pretty great A-plot for an episode.

We get some major progress in terms of overall arc as well. Nice to see Michael finally getting somewhere – it’s not much but it is a start. Something to follow up on. And unlike that pipe bomb which lead to a pretty useless call, this contact turns out to actually be useful.

This kind of episode is great to rewatch, too. You notice stuff that you had no idea was there the first time round. Take the sparks he steals in school – didn’t notice the first time round but it’s an amusing detail.

Bottom line: just an awesome episode. Progress on the main arc, a main story that works as a stand-alone episode, major development in terms of characters. What more could you ask for?

5/5

Agreed. It was a fun episode – hot chicks abound, Fiona loses the accent (even though it’s a bloody cute one!) and Michael gets one instead. A car gets blown up and the general story moves forward quite a bit even though not as much as it usually does.

Now, there’s not much to be said in terms of character development. It is, in fact, a rather weak episode in that area. Sure, the Michael-Mum relationship gets closer to where it’s supposed to be (but still not there yet) – unfortunately, she’s still just an annoying, whiny bitch. We already know that Michael’s a good guy at heart but seriously – he gets her back all her money and 500$’s too much to ask for?

The “I have some kind of illness” running gag doesn’t work (and I don’t really pay attention – IIRC they lose it somewhere, though). Fiona, OTOH, seems worse than she was in episode one. Totally not COOL, totally not RELAXED. Just like a teenager who’s madly in love with Michael (in the relevant scenes). It’s not what she’s supposed to do. When acting like this, she leaves Michael alone and there’s no partner to back him up.

Sam, finally, gets closer to where he’s supposed to be. The underpants joke is obviously cringeworthy and that’s why it works. He’s far closer to his joyful, overconfident self than he was in the Pilot.

Enough about character development though. Let’s talk about the narrative – and that’s what’s really in the foreground here. Michael’s a really cool guy and this episode drives home that point – in addition to showing that he really, really, really is capable of doing evil things, if necessary. Obviously, that old lady truly needs to check herself into some place that her kids approve of – buying into that whole scam business is just so 20th-century (I’d say even then there was no excuse for it).

Luckily though, it offers the opportunity of showing real cool stuff. I’ll just name a few of the things that really entertained me (and why they weren’t necessarily perfect):

• Fiona and Sam getting caught – that scene really worked, their infighting didn’t
• Michael figuring out that Paco didn’t drink – even though his retelling just a moment later kinda ruined the scene as it no longer seemed terribly witty
• Michael shooting the police car’s tyres – plain fun
• Michael ripping off blondie – it truly is the most fun we’ve had so far

As you can see from that list, it’s a Michael-centric episode. Not necessarily in terms of character development (which is why he doesn’t figure all that prominently above) but certainly in terms of showing the audience what he’s capable of, driving home the point of his vulnerability and the reach of his abilities. Plus, the beginning of the awesome team that Sam, Fiona and Michael form.

As you can see from the length of this post, it wasn’t a terribly deep episode. And I’m glad we’ll start moving ahead a little faster in future episodes – because just one tidbit of information at the end of each episode just isn’t going to cut it in the long run.

The bottom line: even though the review sounds quite negative, it’s a great episode again. Not as brilliant as the pilot but considering it’s the second episode (which usually appears to be quite a bit weaker) there’s nothing much to complain about. It’s fun watching stuff being blown up, it’s fun watching the good guys beating the bad guys at their own game. In short: I love it when a plan comes together.

4/5

Truly, welcome to Miami! It’s been quite some time since I watched this for the first time, so I wasn’t exactly sure about the narrative anymore (I thought the “suspect” might actually be an evil guy for a while – shows you just how good this show is!). As’ll become quite clear over the next few days (8 more until season two starts), I love this show. I’ll cover some basics tonight and the episode at hand (the pilot, aptly called: “Pilot”). It even got an award, according to Wikipedia.

First off, once again, characters. Michael Westen is plain brilliant. He’s hot (at least from a technical POV I think he is – still not gay but he’s what I’d consider hot), he’s terribly witty and he’s plain funny. AND he’s got a good heart. Now, I’m obviously not a terribly big fan of altruism but that’s not what I think he’s doing. He isn’t acting altruistically and I could go into that in more depth (but won’t as this isn’t about Objectivism but rather about a brilliant show). The scenes where he tells us about how the spy business supposedly works – plain brilliant, not because they’re necessarily true (they probably aren’t) but because they make sense, to some degree seem like you could actually learn something AND are told in damn entertaining way.

Fiona – well, she’s hot. All T&A AND brains. It shows and the character is very well written. She’s obviously necessary as a counter-point to Michael’s very confident self – he needs someone like her to keep him down to earth, to make him approachable. Once again, their relationship is very strong and very fun to watch. Very enjoyable and she offers plenty of opportunity. This episode doesn’t yet go all that much into depth as far as her character’s concerned (but then we’re busy setting up Michael!) but that’ll be helped over the next few episodes.

Finally, for the ones I like, Sam. He’s funny, he’s all Miami. He adds that certain something that turns a good show into a great show. Again, not really that visible just yet but the stuff that’s necessary to unfold what’s a brilliant season is already set up here. Sure, he seems like a whiny bitch in that last scene where he’s caught by Michael betraying him – not being his self-depreciating, funny self – but it’s a forgivable offence.

Michael’s mum – well, she truly did start weak. It got better towards the end of the season (IIRC) but right now she’s just annoying. Very shallow character and doesn’t yet fully live up to her purpose (being annoying) because, well, she is annoying but “being annoying” isn’t enough. There needs to be more for a character to be any good.

Finally, on to the narrative. It’s nice to see that a good story actually gets told next to the brilliant setting up of characters. Sure, it’s not overly deep or anything but the A-plot is a nice one. Not too dangerous, nothing to big – just a cute boy and his poor father and Michael saves the day. Not really anything that’s on his level but hey, what’re you gonna do on your first day on the job?

Behind all that, though, is the setting up of the real “mythology”, the background. Who’s fucking with Michael, who’s burned him and, above all, why’d they do it? Michael already offers plenty of reasons: they could want to hire him, for example. This one keeps developping throughout the episodes without hurting the storytelling going on. You can easily watch the show only every other episode or so and still get what’s going on. But, obviously, you miss out on a lot. The FBI agents are entertaining (for now) but the big, bad guy in the shadow is much more interesting. It’ll be fun to watch that unravel (again) throughout the next few days.

Finally, let me just say a few things about the setting: the choice is damn brilliant. People said this was kinda like Miami Vice and had a bit of a “The A-Team”-vibe going on. Now, I only ever saw the new Miami Vice movie (and, oddly enough, really liked it) but “The A-Team” OTOH I really loved. Sure, this is a one-man-A-Team but it’s similar in certain areas. Build stuff and beat the big guy. I guess it’s similar to Miami Vice in some ways, too. The setting, the coolness – I don’t really know, those are just things that come to mind.

The hot girls in the background obviously help but they aren’t the main reason. The show can only work in a place like Miami – where the sun is pretty much always shining, life’s going a bit more slowly and everything can be taken a little more lightly.

The bottom line: I think this show will become a classic insofar as it hasn’t already become one. It’s entertaining, it’s exciting and the characters are just plain fun to watch (and the actors are pretty damn good, too!). I’m really looking forward to rewatching the rest of season one over the next few days. Just eight more days!

5/5

Right, on to Stargate Atlantis. Didn’t really pay any attention to Atlantis during season three and then caught up near the end – really like some of the episodes. Same goes for season 4. Only started watching after about the first 16 episodes had aired. Really liked what I saw, most of the time. Todd, obviously, is the great addition that the show needed. Carter worked out okay, Ronon was rather so-so (I thought Ford offered more potential as the viewers’ link to a world that we don’t understand – but they didn’t use him that way and I guess they had a reason (turkey sandwich jokes do get old after a while), Keller, again, okay. The Genii – let’s be honest – aren’t the best addition ever either and the Wraith had plenty of weaknesses. Michael – in my opinion – didn’t work out and the Replicators, well, they just weren’t that great either (even though the new ones might be fascinating).

So, finally, they found what they needed. Their Ba’al, their Apophis, their Anubis – you name it. Todd works. Todd isn’t one-dimensional, Todd isn’t just a good guy either. Todd’s exciting, Todd makes you look forward to the next episode that he’s gonna be in. Oh, and that wasn’t all – Larrin’s a great addition as well. Sure, that’s mostly my love for cute faces and T&A talking but Sheppard really can use a female counterpart that makes him work a little harder (and the sexual tension obviously doesn’t hurt). So, I was rather disappointed to see Michael come back for the season finale.

I’ll start with random observations:

• McKay actually has quite the triceps. Considering how he’s supposed to be a semi-fat guy, that’s remarkable. Congrats, Mr Hewlett.
• Either there’s a terrible, terrible, terrible logic mistake or I missed something: how the hell did the jumper leave the ship without the shields being lowered? That would obviously have ruined the whole “they won’t see this coming” approach but from what I can tell a) the shields need to be lowered for a jumper to leave the ship, b) the jumper left before the fighters did and c) the shield wasn’t lowered when it did. What am I missing?
• Teyla totally sucks. She’s pussified. She doesn’t do any good anymore. The whole love anlge and her getting a baby didn’t really EVER work out but this episode made it abundantly clear: this isn’t going to work. No more tough Teyla.
• Picardo’s character – yeah, I’m not gonna like it. It’s occasionally good for an episode but I don’t want to be annoyed every single episode. It’s funny once or twice but then it just pisses me off. Get back to proper business already. Sure, we could theoretically do that – but that wouldn’t work with the way the character’s been set up right up until now.

Now, the random observations have already said most of what I wanted to get out. It’s, overall, a rather weak start into the season. Not terribly weak and accetapbly enjoyable. I understand the necessities of the TV business (actually, I don’t but I understand why Carter had to leave) and there are some exciting things going on as well. Vega could be a great addition (obviously the T&A already won me over – for now!) and the rest of that all-female team that Joe Mallozzi is occasionally talking about on his blog could be great as well.  Michael still doesn’t really work – and in addition to all that, he appeared rather weak in this episode (what with having his ship blown up and looking like a whining bitch) and I guess I’m rather sad that he isn’t dead (didn’t really see how he survived (puddlejumper?) and I consider this to be Stargate’s one worst flaw: the total lack of any kind of clear decision (“they’re not really gone, as soon as we run out of ideas we wanna be able to bring them back!), no finality whatsoever).

I’m looking forward to the rest of the season though. It’ll be good to see Larrin and Todd back, the female team will be a great addition and hey, it’s still Stargate! More excited about Stargate Universe when looking at the situation as a whole but I guess that’s life – and maybe, just maybe, they’ll once again really surprise me and come back with a couple of awesome episodes (probably in the back half of the season? who knows). I have every confidence in the writers that they’ll succeed.

Bottom line: Meh, but an optimistic meh.

3/5

I approached this one with mixed feelings (and didn’t get through it in one go – possibly a bad sign). I really like Abrams – at least I think I do – and think that Alias was great (still haven’t finished watching all five seasons though) and even enjoyed MI:III (only went to the cinema after it became clear that it’d be a commercial failure – not like I’m gonna support Scientology…). Lost, on the other hand, never caught my attention. Sure, gave it a shot once or twice (once, that I can remember – some season one episode and I left after about five minutes). I’m just not that into mystery. Never liked X-Files. More recently, I stopped watching Heroes after three episodes. That one’s quite undeniably a great show but I just don’t care to watch. I don’t like the “horror”-y episodes on shows that I do like (when I started re-watching Star Trek: Enterprise a couple of years ago, I stopped about ten minutes into season two’s “Dawn“. Last episode I ever watched – that’s how much I dislike the genre).

So, keep all that in mind when reading what I’m gonna say. Once again, let’s start with characters – and I’ll go right into the negative b

efore saying a few positive things. First one: Philip Broyles (Lance Reddick). I’ll be honest and give away a bit of cultural background: he reminds me of Bruce Darnell. Very first thing he does and I never got rid of that feeling throughout the entire pilot. Why is that a bad thing? Because, ladies and gentlemen, Bruce Darnell is a flaming homosexual (no idea whether he’s actually gay but it doesn’t matter) and a (former?) co-host of “Germany’s Next Top Model”. More to the point: very much NOT a tough, secretive guy. Lance Reddick just isn’t convincing enough to make me forget about that – at times, I actually feel he reinforces that image.

Anna Torv’s Olivia Dunham – I can’t remember why she wasn’t open to love, can’t remember what made her change and she isn’t that pretty (even though she’s prettier than I thought at first). See, this is a terribly sexist thing to say but I like my heroines to be all cute face and T&A. Having a great personality written for you sure as hell doesn’t hurt but the rest is a MUST (unless you’re Glenn Close or something). She seems too weak as a personality to be the lead.

John Scott (this one’s the last wholey negative, promise!) – well, you just fucking know he’s gonna be a bad guy as soon as she says “he’d do the same thing for me”, yadda, yadda – instead of a truly interesting, truly different dynamic at the core of the show (a, you know, functioning couple!), we get the same old, same old stuff. This isn’t all bad though as we’ll see later on. On the whole, this character’s just total bullshit – I guess he serves some purpose to set up the larger mythology (which, btw, sucks as well) but you could certainly have done that better.

Which leads us to the better characters. The man and the woman who appear to be friends/partners of Dunham’s – yeah, they’re okay. The male one even got one or two interesting lines.

Dr. Walter Bishop – I’m just gonna say one thing: I’m damn glad they stopped having him be fucking mental. That gets annoying, real fast. And not in a funny way. Good to give him a nice shave, proper hair and decent communicating skills. Don’t even dare to go back to the old one!

Finally, the one truly interesting character. Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson). Sure, having him be a gambler in debt is fucking bullshit (it’s so imaginative even Knight Rider did it!) but that’s not the point. He’s likable, he’s interesting, he’s driven. His background might actually be interesting, the whole romance angle between him and Dunham’s worth noting too (that’s why having Scott dead is good after all). Plenty of potential and Jackson does a good job.

Now, the story. You obviously can’t expect too much (even though it’s a two-hour pilot!) from a show introducing this many characters but it does fall rather flat. The plane-plot is rather boring filler material, the story about setting up the laboratory is okay. Overall, decent but not phenomenal. More problematic: The background mythology. Some guy stole stuff from Dr Bishop and probably made sure he went to jail for a crime he didn’t commit. Evil corporation, secret stuff going on no one knows about, yadda, yadda, yadda. Been there, done that.

Bottom line: a lot more positive than you might expect from what you’ve just read. If you’re into this kind of story, it’s probably a solid 4/5, if you aren’t (just like me!) it isn’t. I hope Abrams doesn’t fuck up Trek and I’ll probably watch another episode of this to see if it improves and moves in a direction more to my liking (it probably won’t) – a not-too-daring prediction though: if this show’s gonna be featured for a longer period of time, dq will have to do the writing.

3/5

Seeing how I’m now past 20, I felt it was about time I started rereading some old favourites. What to expect then? There’ll certainly be Tolkien, there’ll be Ludlum (beginning: here) and there’ll be Clancy. Obviously, I’ll write about Atlas Shrugged (but then I consider that an ongoing process rather than rereading) and there’ll be others (maybe even Harry Potter!). Let’s begin with The Icarus Agenda, though.

About three years ago (summer of ’05) I bought a couple of Ludlum’s novels. I had read the Bourne trilogy the summer before (2004) and liked it, so when it was time to do some reading in English for exam purposes, I decided to go with Ludlum. I’ll talk about some of the others later but The Icarus Agenda was my favourite.

About a week ago, I received my new copy of the book (the old one had fallen apart) and went through it rather quickly (finished Sunday morning at 1:40 a.m.). I still like it, I certainly got more out of it than I did last time and I also saw more of its flaws than I did last time.

Let’s begin with the good stuff. According to Wikipedia, it was written in 1988 (seems plausible) and is the sequel to The Chancellor Manuscript (obviously, considering how Inver Brass plays a major role). The plot is summed up rather quickly: American congressman goes to Oman to singlehandedly solve a hostage crisis, comes back successful, is secretly put into the spotlight of the political arena and hunted by enemies. In the end, he wins, gets the girl and loses some friends.

There, tons of spoilers but that’s not the point (it’ll get much worse, trust me!). I like the main character – Evan Kendrick – a lot. Not entirely sure whether he’s still appropriate today but I’m quite confident that he is. A bit more thoughtfulness towards the Middle East wouldn’t hurt and even though it mostly stays at the surface, the book’s rather refreshing insofar as it isn’t explicitly anti-Arab (it’s rather quite pro-Arab, in fact). I enjoy that. Obviously, there’s probably not too many Ahmats left (a pro-American, young sultan) but on the other hand Bin Laden isn’t so different from the religious nutjobs in the book.

Khalela is an acceptable character as well. Ignoring that she was raped as a student (seems to be a thing with Ludlum, having his main heroine raped, if I remember another one correctly (probably the next one I’ll reread – The Sigma Protocol)) and that comes across as a rather cheap ploy to make her character seem more complex, she still offers great insights. It’s probably mostly the hopeless romantic in me (usually plays a rather small role next to the cynic) but I find the relationship between her and Kendrick very exciting and extremely, well, pleasant. A strong woman and a strong man – eventually, I guess, it represents what I consider a proper relationship. It’s exothermic – I came up with another example when thinking about it (Tucker Max says there’s three kinds of people: those that take from the table, those that come out about even and those that add to the table – in a relationship you’d want the last kind of person as your partner) but this one’s better. They go out and come back exhausted and being together doesn’t take additional energy but rather gives back to both of them. A non-zero-sum game, a win-win situation. A fortress against an unpleasant world.

Manny, of course, is just plain delightful. Very interesting, very funny. There’s quite a few more interesting characters throughout the book (it’s actually filled with them) – MJ, the Inver Brass crew, Ahmat, Bobbie – the list goes on and even though the book has more than 800 pages (at least my version does), you know there’s much more that could’ve been said about them.

Now, after a lots of praise, let’s get to the parts that I didn’t like too much. Characters: The evil guys don’t get enough depth. Their motivation basically boils down to “money”. That’s about as unexciting and simplistic as you can get – I guess Ludlum used all his powder on the Arab terrorists (who, consequently, come out much more multi-layered). The worst offense in terms of character, though, is two-fold: first, Evan Kendrick’s conversion to willing pawn needs more work, and secondly – more importantly, for me personally, Gerald Bryce is an absolutely shitty character. He plays one of the major, albeit very silent, roles in the book and gets basically zero motivation. Nada. It hurts and it shows. Why would he do what he does? An additional offender in this regard is Milos – why not give us his background? Which country, what happened, how’d he get out? IIRC, there’s some link to The Chancellor Manuscript but I can’t exactly remember it and it wasn’t that deep (his father played the same role, I think). Not enough – the basic problem is lack of convincing motivation.

Finally, let’s get to the ugly stuff. It’s mostly in “Book Three”. Why the hell would there be a new Mahdi? There’s no point and it acts entirely counter to the other development – arms dealers being killed and less arms being delievered. One’s supposed to be hopeful, the other’s supposed to highlight how fucked up the situation still is. If you wanted to get that done, you’d have to do it the exact opposite way around – let the plan against the arms dealer not work out and show some “rational” Arab kill the new Mahdi.

The whole arms dealer part is extremely stupid anyway. It feels kinda like the air raid on Tokyo in Pearl Harbor – the story works fairly well without it (very well, actually) and there’re plenty of possibilities to bring the story to a satisfying end. Have Khalela and Kendrick get married, have a baby, Kendrick being elected Vice President and getting some hopeful deal with Ahmat and an Israeli. Something like that. This just doesn’t work and feels terribly forced. One more thing: the whole scene on the island – yeah, that could’ve used some work.

The bottom line: I still very much enjoyed this book. It makes for an exciting read and especially the first part feels very well thought out and finely executed. Leave the Inver Brass stuff out and it makes for a great book on its own. The second part isn’t quite as strong and rests mainly on the shoulders of the Evan-Khalela relationship (as far as I’m concerned, that is) plus some other good characters (Manny, MJ etc). The third part is just plain ugly (then again it’s only 40+ pages). All in all well worth the time (and you’d better be prepared to spend a couple of hours unable to put the book down once you’ve proceeded halfway through it).

4/5

Then I decided: fuck it. If some major corporation can do it, so can we.

So, instead of a spin-off and other major stuff, I’m just gonna change around some categories and stuff.

We’re back in business, baby.

What’s new, then?

A couple of entertainment categories, so far. And a “nonsense” category. That’s where all the stupid youtube vids are supposed to go.

Post 150 and probably the last one before it’s back to proper posting (a few more days, be patient and you shall be rewarded!).

A couple of notes on the above vid: actually, just one: I am old.

Chris Brown is more than a year younger than I am, Jordin Sparks more than a year and a half (almost 20 months!). These people are already making shitloads of money.

Sure, in the long run I have a fair shot at making more – it’s what education is all about. Pick the right one and you’ll make lots of money. But damn do I need to hurry up (don’t worry – I’m right on schedule;)).

Holy fuck. Via Club for Growth.

Via Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty.

Ah, the good old days of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. I fondly remember them.

I’m only gonna post the video for now. Longer post coming up, though. Not necessarily only about this but also about Bob Barr and why he needs to get your voice instead of John McCain. I’ve reached the conclusion that we can survive four years of Barack Obama. Coming up – end of June-ish. Needs some research to illustrate what I’m trying to say and I lack the time for that right now.

What’s my problem? I find it far easier to ignore shit in Firefox than in the feed reader. We’ll see how well RSSOwl does. The major problem probably would’ve been Empire Online – I only read about 10-15 percent of what they post (because I quite frankly don’t give a shit about the rest).

Of the ones I do have in RSSOwl now? Timothy Sykes might be dropped rather soon-ish. Again, only about 20% read. Cato-at-Liberty – maybe 40-50%. Reason’s Hit & Run – 70-80%. There’s a few more (Kristin at E!, Daily Paul) but this might just work out this time round.

Let’s start with the post. As may or may not have become clear I’m “pro-choice”. Why? Well, it basically boils down to the Randian argument. Valuing actual life more than potential life. On the other hand, we get something like this:

In other words, this essentially allowed doctors to treat women and human beings who can think for themselves and make their own decisions, especially when it came to their bodies and their reproductive rights. We were no longer viewed as animals incapable of free thought and I’d like it to remain this way, for my sake and for my future daughters-should I have one- sake.

Which so hilariously misses the point it’s not even funny anymore. The gist of the argument by opponents is that abortion is murder. Now, personally I don’t accept that – partly because there’s no science to back it up (Christian nutjobs burning to prove me wrong: fuck off already) and partly (more importantly) because the fetus is a “parasite” latching onto the woman. It’s incapable of surviving outside of the woman’s body, it’s basically still part of the woman. Or, in the words of the Ayatollah: it’s only a potential life, not an actual life. Obviously, there comes a point where the fetus is capable of surviving outside of the woman’s body but seeing how rare those cases of late-term abortions are, I’m not really bothered by them (and the lack of justification for them) – just have the abortion already if you’re going to have it. (Incidentally, I’d personally only consider an abortion in one case – and in that one case I’d push real hard for it (think: it’s me or the baby). What case? Well, I’ll let Tucker Max say it:

Her “NO! You’re mean! What would you do if you had a retarded child?”
Me “I’d bash it’s head against a rock, and have another kid.”

Yes, I’m a horrible person.)

Anyway, back to our warrior-feminist. There’s obviously no case of human beings “thinking for themselves” when we’re talking about murder – while I might consider someone dying a good idea, that’s not really a choice I can make. So, the major point really isn’t addressed at all – if it’s a person, then you can’t abort it. If it isn’t – then you can. Why does it bother me? Well, terms like “reproductive rights” are bound to make my head spin.

Which brings us to the more general problem. What the fuck is it with feminism in the 21st century? What’s the bloody point? I really don’t get it. It might be a case of confusing positive with negative freedom (more on that later) but basically this is about as silly as the Iranian delegate to the UN’s human rights council telling Switzerland they really ought to improve their human rights situation. It’s strangely entertaining in a sick way but it really misses the point.

Let’s look at what feminists might complain about in the west today – which is what they enjoy doing most, not making reasonable claims about some backwater shithole (read: Muslim countries, African countries) doing all kinds of horrible shit.

• Women get paid less than men.

First of all, I consider this to be freedom of contract. There’s obviously no real reason to do this – apart from the fact that women really want to have their cake and eat it too. Let’s be honest: you can’t have a career and be a really caring mother. Sure, you might muddle through (I expect to) but if you want to live up to the high standards you’ve set, you won’t be able to put in the kind of hours that’s necessary for a real career. Obviously, my vision of a real career might differ somewhat from your’s. Solution? The Japanese way. Offer a motherhood and a career track. Give women a real choice. You want to have children? Well, we’re not gonna pick up the tab. You want to play with the boys? Sure, be our guest but NO CHILDREN.

That’s about everything I can come up with, too. There’s probably some other stupid bullshit about religion keeping women down (leave the church already – I’m in the process of doing so myself (or as a friend put it last night: so you’re lazily thinking about it)), husbands being evil shits who don’t do any work around the house, general attitudes in society being bad towards women, and going in all kinds of whacko dircetions from there, complaints about everything from pornography to women being whores and getting called out while men can sleep around and be respected for it.

Anyway, let’s finish this one. I basically consider feminism evil for the same reason “black pride” is evil: it’s collectivist. It’s about a (made-up) group rather than the individual. You want something special qua being female. This is where positive freedom comes into play. The government “oughta do something”. This leads to such rich stories as there being more female graduates than male graduates and yet men get all the decent jobs – here’s a hint: Women’s Studies isn’t gonna land you any kind of decent job. It’s a dead end.

Here are another ten worthless majors. And here are some more.

Interesting to see how many engineering majors are on that list. Or economics. Biology. Chemistry. What, you don’t see them on there? NEITHER DO I!

Most of those majors listed are incredibly popular with women and emos. The same people who bitch about the world. See the fucking link?

While we’re at it…