A Few Good Movies

...and probably a lot of bad ones.

I recently acquired a subscription to Netflix; it was something I needed. I dread the moments when someone asks: "have you seen?" This usually prompts a response such as "I have seen parts" or "Nope"

So Netflix is now manna from heaven. I will sup on the greatest movies of our age. I will likely be able to cycle through a week. Without further ado.

Netflix Round 1 part 1: Traitor

Maybe I should have read the jacket or paid closer to the previews but I was not at all prepared for this movie. I assumed that I was in for an action thriller but instead Traitor proved to be drama considering the grays. Where does duty to country ones country, religion or self lead you to?

Don Cheadle showed his acting chops by playing this figure who lived between two worlds. Torn by duty and belief he was allowed to give both sides their just due. While I liked this struggle, I was a bit disappointed in the resolution. The bus driver did nothing to deserve such a violent and untimely death.

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Netflix Round 1 part 2: The Assassination of Jesse James by that Coward Robert Ford

The movie is twice as long as the title but doesn't feel like it. For me the movie was a study of a mythical being at the end of his life slowly descending into madness as all great figures do near the end. (See Biggie and Tupac) Definitely enjoyable but don't watch if you don't have time to devote to it or if you are feeling particularly paranoid.

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Netflix Round 1 part 3: Burn After Reading

Burn before seeing. This movie was like the Seinfeld of movies; it's a movie about nothing. It's great if you like that sort of thing but just "eh" if you don't. Things happened and I laughed; other things happened and I found them interesting. I did find myself focusing on Brad Pitt as I had just watched him as Jesse James for about 3 hours. It was a relief to see him up and about and having fun after the previous image of him laying on ice. I can't say "Burn After Reading" was a bad movie it just didn't go anywhere.

Aussie Day 2009

Pics from Aussie day 2009: Canal Room

I think this is some band that did '80s covers in a country and western style.


The Aussie Crowd


The Claw and HD, Aussies for the day.

It's a New Day

This should have been posted January 1, 2009 but is going up now.

This is not supposed to be a journal but I feel a need to get this out. The New Year has brought in many a fanciful sight and interesting happens around me.

On New Year ’s Day I continued the tradition that started three years ago. There is nothing like spending the New Year with close friends and family. We were fewer in number this time but it meant just as much to me.

The special times are made more so when love is made evident by deeds. It meant so much to be with those who braved the cold to be part of the get together.

I discovered the formula for drunkenness that night: (available alcohol * russian with vodka)/(people you invited/temperature outside). I suppose that is really just one way to derive drunkenness, the other could be defined as too much alcohol/person(s). The point is a few people got drunk; it happens.

Super Bowl of Crap

Super Bowl of Crap

Never before has a more useless quarterback gotten undeserved glory than Ben Worthlessberger. Eli Manning, Peyton's younger challenged brother, is the closest one to Pittsburgh's overly praised pride and joy.

Why so much contempt for a quarterback who goes out there and "wins" games? My anger is probably a bit misplaced, its really the two-faced announcers that I should save my name calling for. I am tired of hearing these guys called a one footed chuck a "great" pass because a quarterback is bailed out by a receiver.

I hope the Eagle player who got the really cheap hit on Kurt Warner after a play he essentially had no part of is heavily fined. I hate the rules set aside to baby quarterbacks but the hit was pointless. I've seen guys get fined for far less.

At times the nfl seems to require that guys exhibit superpowers just to avoid hitting a quarterback who released the ball seconds after the D's launch to the air. It is preposterous to tag these guys with fines and their teams with penalties when worse happens.

Conventional Wisdom: Government Sucks

The next bit that is accepted as matter of fact is government is inefficient and corrupt. Government run programs and agencies are seen as pariah in the eyes of most of the public. This is confirmed by the actions of people who are wrapped up in their own welfare rather than the public's: Blago that means you.


There is also another piece of conventional wisdom that goes hand in hand with the previous: business does things more efficiently and cheaper than governments. This is echoed in conversations about healthcare most of all but can be found elsewhere. When I was recently in Chicago I found out that they turned over their parking meters to private business.


Once again this conventional wisdom is bogus. Nowhere is more evident than our national security and armed forces. We have a glut of private contractors in Iraq tasked to protect convoys, rebuild and feed our troops.


Countless money is dropped on contractors over our enlisted. Billions are unaccounted for in no-bid and cost-plus contracts. There are far too many cases of troops hurt by faulty work: electrocutions, poisoned by non-potable water, Iraqi cities with limited or no running water and electricity. The worst part is that there is no accountability.


I am not a communist. I do not want the government making my kicks or my jeans. I do want the government supplying my healthcare. I do want a government bureaucrat appointed by an elected official to decide what options are available for my care. I do not want my healthcare decided in some boardroom that I have no access to petition and no vote on.


Government can do plenty of things better than industry. Sure there are corrupt officials but government does not have a monopoly on that. For every Blago you present I will supply you with a Maddoff. An informed populous with an intact fourth estate will keep officials in check.


Do you really want to think about whether you paid your fire dues when your smoke detector goes off?

Conventional Wisdom: Economics

As mentioned in my previous posting I’ve been hearing some clamoring about taxes of late. In terms of tax policy there seems to be one golden rule: lower taxes will lead to greater prosperity. That is the conventional wisdom and is usually the end of the conversation.


Back to convention one, taxes. The business cycle when run by the widely accepted model runs in booms and busts. This is the reality (expected state) and outcomes of unregulated capitalism.

Greed is good was the motto in the bad old eighties; this is no longer said, but the outcomes are the same. Low taxes on businesses and the rich increase the reward of hoarding.


Hoarding leads to a bubble as money floods the market to bet on performance of projections rather than actual increases in productivity or products.


One example would be "company A" who makes letter 'A' stamps. Rich guy 1 believes that he could see good returns since Barack Obama will soon be president. "Company A" stock gets purchased at a higher price from current investors. Rich guy 2 sees this bet on "Company A" and decides to get in on the ground floor. This could be repeated many times over.


We are now up to Rich Guy 20. Rich Guy 1 sees that the stock is at a point that his huge number of shares will post a big return and cashes out. He has nothing to deter him as his capital gains are negligible. His bet has paid off with no proof of business model (staff, supply, quality) by company 'A'. Rich guy 1’s profits are potentially divorced from actual performance of the company.


After one quarter Obama is impeached and Joe Biden is president, the need for the letter a sees a dramatic drop. Everyone (Rich guy 2 -20 as well as Mr 401k) who is still invested has lost their money.

Stimulate This...

Stimulus is being asked for by everyone: from the porn industry to the hoes on the street, wall street. It seems though that everyone is still missing the reason we are in this pickle. People are quick to point out that trickle-down principles have largely failed but still they refuse to take the next logical step; power to the people.

So called bad mortgages were targeted as the reason for the beginnings of Wall Street’s problems. They have been labeled as toxic and home owners as stupid. These all only true when you ignore the monetary policy touted by banks and championed by conservatives.

For the last 30+ year’s free money has been sold to the public in the form of credit cards, falling interest rates and pay day loans. At the same time incomes, liquid assets (real hard money), has been stagnant. In lieu of cash we have turned to various products to make ends meet.

Economies are driven by demand.

We need to drive up demand. Poor schmoes like me tend to spend all the cash we have as seen by the recent years of negative savings. Some claim it's not a big deal but they are wrong. In short, people need for: food, mortgages, leisure, gas and home bills to name a few. Perhaps we would all throw some more in our 401ks and Roth IRAs with some money left in our pockets.

The point is that disposable income in the hands of many will do the economy good. The Bush administration and the 110th Congress tried to do just that with stimulus checks. This has largely been seen as a failure as people squirreled away the one-time giveaway. It is human nature to pay off the most overdue bill first if given a bit of an extra cash injection but if we could expect an extra bit on a regular basis we would be better off.

This is not to say that there should be bi-weekly or monthly stimulus checks; that would be insanity. Americans need to be paid more and also weened off credit and overspending. How is that done?

Funny enough (At least in light of "conventional wisdom," but we see where conventional wisdom has brought us.), some say that the best way to go about it is raising taxes on big businesses and forcing them to keep the money in the company rather than cashing out. An incentive to take smaller quarterly bonuses but investing in the longevity and productivity of the company instead of the huge payoff. I am not so concerned with how it gets done but it needs to get done for us to truly get out of the mess we are in.

Pirates of Somalia

Pirates are misunderstood by most people. Sure everyone loves a good "argh", but, few understand the camaraderie and the honor of a pirate. See they had a very strong code of ethics and operated their ships as democracies. This model was very different from what was in use on the imperialist fleets that "owned" the waters.

In this new age the imperialists are corporatist and pirates are back again; what was old is new. Much like the pirates of old it is easy to assume the worst and send them to the gallows. I believe we should first ask: why have these men have chosen this path.

Most of the incidents of piracy can be seen as border protection, a coast guard stand-in. It seems that some see the broken Somali government as an opportunity to infringe on Somali waters.

Accusations of everything from illegal fishing to dumping have been made. These pirates are usually arm with small arms and fishing boats up against tankers. For the most part the worst that has come out these encounters is delayed ships and loss of money. Like any others ventures there are of course some bad apples who are not “nice guys” but such things are expected.

These pirates do not have the look and the lingo we are used to but they are nonetheless doing the good works for their countrymen. They are certainly upholding the spirit of the pirate code of ethics.