Why zombies?

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The current wave of zombie entertainment began with 28 Days Later, moved on to Zack Snyder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead, which spawned a remake of Day of the Dead, and, from George Romero, Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was a hit novelty book, and suddenly zombies were everywhere, culminating in The Walking Dead and now World War Z, which became a smash hit in spite of a wave of negative buzz.

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President-elect Badass

I still can’t quite believe we elected a guy this awesome.free stats

What did you do on election night?

I took my family over to a friends house, where there was a small gathering of white-wine-sipping, arugula-eating Hollywood Liberals gathered to watch the election results. The adults watched MSNBC and talked shop (movies and real estate) while the kids watched Anchors Aweigh in the other room.free stats

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Yes! Er, No!

For my fellow Californians, zodmicrobe reminds me that there is an important proposition on the ballot tomorrow, Proposition 8, which seeks to amend the California constitution to make gay people second-class citizens. This proposition was rammed into the ballot by the Mormon church, which has spent tens millions of dollars in misleading advertising to get people to vote for it. It’s a might confusing in this season of "Yes We Can" to vote "No" on something, but there you have it, NO ON 8.free stats

Non-Californians, disregard, and feel free to marry someone of your own sex (should it be legal in your state).

Hey, the election is tomorrow


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To the undecided voter:

If Colin Powell’s endorsement didn’t sway you, if Obama’s economic policies don’t convince you, if his sure and steady demeanor in the face of crisis doesn’t assure you, if his dedication to repairing our country’s reputation doesn’t inspire you, if his plan for combating global warming and reducing our dependence on foreign oil doesn’t make you proud, if his soaring rhetoric doesn’t thrill you, if his good looks and charisma don’t attract you —

— won’t you at least please heed the call of the good people of Obama, Japan?

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Suppress the Vote

The Republicans aren’t waiting for November to steal the election this time around — they’re attempting to do it right now, as you read this. For decades, the Republican philosophy has been: we will run as populists but rule as aristocrats. If people understand who we are, they will never vote for us, so we must lie to them about who we are. If they still don’t vote for us, we will steal the election. If we can’t steal enough votes to win the election, we will challenge the vote-counters to throw out all the Democratic votes we can. If it looks like even that won’t be enough, we will, on no legal ground whatsoever, force the issue to a court we are confident will support us — especially if the judges on that court were appointed by a Republican. If it looks like even that won’t be enough, we will brazenly attempt to disenfranchise millions of Democratic voters, using the most underhanded, dishonest, illegal tactics imaginable, all the while pretending that it is, in fact, we who are being wronged.  Finally, if all that fails and a Democrat actually wins an election by an overwhelming majority, we will immediately seek to remove that Democrat from office by any means necessary.  

(This is, of course, why Republicans hate Clinton — after years of concentrated effort to remove him from office, he stubbornly refused to go.)
 
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For those looking for a concise overview of the Republicans’ latest attempt to subvert democracy, Rachel Maddow — who else? — delivers. Why not go ahead and put her show in your favorites folder right now? It would save us all a lot of time.

(I cannot account for the crazy digital-zoom in the beginning seconds of this piece — either someone at MSNBC was drunk, or else the person who posted this on Youtube was messing around.)


I’m on a deadline at the moment, so it will be a few days before regular screenplay-analysis blogging resumes. I thank you for your patience.

 

Why I’m voting for Obama: part 3

In 2000, I supported Gore, although he, like Dukakis, like Mondale, was a better man than he was a candidate. It was painful to watch the debates between him and Bush, with Bush stumbling over simple sentences and Gore tetchy and schoolmarmish. I didn’t hold my nose when I voted for Gore, but I wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about it. Bush horrified me from the very beginning. And hey, does anybody remember the John McCain of 2000? That guy might have had a shot. I remember seeing him on SNL in 2002 and thinking "Hey, this guy isn’t so bad, if he had run against Gore that would have been a real contest."free stats

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From tiny ACORNs…

…great big piles of bullshit one day grow.free stats

I don’t want to make this an all-Rachel-Maddow-all-the-time blog (although I can think of many worse things for a blog to be), but the GOP is using the ACORN thing to try to steal the election before it even takes place.  It’s an important story you will hear more of as the election moves forward, and you will find no better summary of the issues involved than this segment of Maddow’s show where she discusses the whole thing with Jonathan Alter.

I heart Rachel Maddow

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Seriously, as long as Rachel Maddow is on television, I may have a reason to turn it on now and again. I love this encounter with National Review guy David Frum, who decides, for some reason, to try to ambush Maddow on her own show. Maddow, obviously not one to be cowed, performs some admirable televisual ju-jitsu on Frum, easily deflecting his attack, turning it back on him and making him look like a complete idiot. Frum, after eight years of ramming his obscene neo-conservative agenda without the slightest question from the media, now warns that the media must clean up its act and stop all this bad feeling — now that he’s losing, he means.


This clip also, coincidentally, segues nicely into the next (hopefully last) part of my thing about why I’m voting for Obama, specifically regarding the national media’s part in distorting our political picture.

UPDATE:
For those interested in pursuing a more ongoing love affair with Ms. Maddow (televisually, anyway) MSNBC posts the best bits from her show every night right here.

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