Freyburg

I’m watching Fahrenheit 9/11, thanks to the miracle known as “screwing that guy who paints movie sets.” Overall I think it’s not bad, though it’s more propagandic polemic than documentary. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, since it’ll at least serve to get people thinking about the issues of Iraq, the Patriot Act and Bush’s delusions of empire.

Parts of the film are blatantly unfair, like the whole thing at the beginning where Moore uses shots of Administration officials getting ready to go on air. Democrats look just as dorky going through that process, and really, it’s just a cheap shot. He also cuts stuff together for maximum comedic effect or to emphasive his point, which is fine if you look at this as his opinion, but doesn’t really jibe with “documenting.”

But where it’s effective, it shines. He does a good job of illustrating the Faustian pact between Saudi Arabia and the US, and Sept. 11 footage is handled with remarkable restraint. The whole sequence with a woman who has a son in Iraq (who later is killed in a helicopter crash) is heart-wrenching to watch, and handled with a fair bit of subtlety on Moore’s part.

The New York Times has a pretty good article about the Enron follies, and what Ken Lay is up to right now, which mostly consists of waiting to put on the shackles.

Sorry for the lack of updates…lack of time, workload, etc, etc…

It looks very much like the House of Saud is in dire straits. Anyone who looks vaguely Western is getting gunned down, but when they run out of blue-eyed devils to kill, you can be damn sure they’ll start gunning for the guys in charge.

So it turns out that Jack Ryan, a U.S. politico, was married to Borg saucepot Seven of Nine. They got divorced, and now she’s claiming he took her to sex clubs. WTF?

I don’t know about you, but if I was married to Jeri Ryan, the last thing I’d be doing is sharing the wealth. The only sex club we’d be visiting is the Holodeck (alright..my bedroom), with lovelies T’Pol, Valeris, and the Borg Queen.

You’ll have to go through the “Salon Premium beg-fo-mercial”, but check out this expose of Reverend Moon’s ties to Congress. This guy has been a five-star lunatic since I was a kid, but….yikes.

And here’s a “grassroots organization” (PR firm) with a crusade to crush Michael Moore. Much as Moore does go beyond the pale from time to time, it’s not like the guys he skewers are any better.

Man, I’ve been slack as hell with the updates. Oh well, here’s some grist for the mill…

First off, carry your own damn shoes, Timberlake.

On a more serious note, this is a great radio program from NPR about the life of private contractors in Iraq.

I’d post more, but I have to go cover a story about retired bikers on Honda Goldwings. 🙂

I question both the tongue-in-cheek factor and the bias of this screed against Bush, but that doesn’t make it any less funny, or scary.

And in the odd but true department, I ran into the first captain of the Crowsnest Pass Timberwolves here in Osoyoos tonight. That doesn’t beat the girl I met in Tokyo who grew up in my childhood neighbourhood in Edmonton, but it wasn’t something I expected to happen at the local Chamber of Commerce meeting, nosireebob.

I just updated (finally) the reading links on the left. I didn’t bother putting in “alt” field book reviews, so if you miss those, let me know and I’ll add them.

I’ve been reading “The Origins of the Crash” by Roger Lowenstein for the last little while, which details the sordid details behind the late 90’s bubble. I was aware (in a vague sense) of all the corruption Enron and others got up to, but this book spells out just how incestuous the accounting, consulting and executive camps got (and undoubtedly still are).

As for me, I’ve been screwing around with the Hollywood Stock Exchange, which lets you invest pretend money on Hollywood stars and movies. Rather than just pick a bunch of stuff at random, I decided I’d use my (up to this point) pointless movie knowledge and combine it with principles laid out in “The Intelligent Investor,” which basically says “grab something with a good future, and then sit on it while it goes up. Don’t get suckered by the flashy stuff.”

So I investeed in Alexander, Oliver Stone’s new saga coming in November, Ghost in the Shell, which was dirt cheap, and Star Wars Episode III, which didn’t come cheap but which will go through the sky come April 2005. I also made a pile of pretend money off of Resident Evil 2, which is sort of the equivalent of investing in a crappy chemical company you really don’t like but which you know will make you a bunch of money. Anyway, I’ve made about $80,000 in not-coin with this approach. Don’t think I’ll be trying this with real money any time soon, but it’s kinda fun.

Ok, I’m about the only guy who’ll think this is cool, but apparently 19th century British newspapers are coming online soon. FInally, I’ll be able to find out who won the Crimean war. 🙂