What Do You Mean My Premiums Are Going Up?

As I’ve pointed out before, the Democrats are going to have a hard time selling ObamaCare to the masses. Nothing about ObamaCare makes any sense, and each of the promises they made to entice people was false. Our vaunted media is now figuring this out. As usual, they are fifty days late and two trillion dollars short.

I previously discussed (HERE) how almost immediately after Obama signed the ObamaCare bill, companies began recording losses on their balance sheets, laying off their workers, and cutting their benefits, despite Obama’s assurances this would never happen.

A few days later, the first articles appeared talking about the shock received by ObamaCare supporters when they called private insurance companies and asked how to sign up for their free ObamaCare. According to various insurers, they’ve been fielding thousands of these calls, and none of Obama’s supporters are hearing what they expected. Indeed, rather than being enrolled in their new free care, they are finding out that there is no such thing, and that there won’t be. And they are learning that no matter what David Axelrod may be telling people in interviews, none of the benefits kick in until 2014 or later. People with pre-existing conditions also are finding themselves dismayed to learn that they don’t get covered until 2014, and even then, there are no price controls on what they can be charged.

But then, how could anyone have know this. . . it's not like it was in a bill for the world to see. Interestingly, these articles actually blame the Republicans for this problem because evil Republicans apparently lied. . . spreading lies like ObamaCare providing “universal coverage” and that the benefits kick in immediately. That’s right, the evil Republicans unfairly raised expectations by trying to make the bill sound better than it really is. Yeah, you read that right.

Now the L.A. Times has learned, much to its chagrin, that there are no mechanisms in ObamaCare that allow the government to set the rates that insurers can charge! Sacre bleu! Dianne Feinstein even calls this: “a very big loophole in health reform” and she wants to pass new legislation to give the government such powers. Good luck.

Seriously, how stupid do you have to be not to have noticed that the bill doesn’t allow the government to impose price controls? The bill was right there, ready to be read. And on this issue in particular, Obama himself proposed adding it to the bill, but the Democrats couldn’t do it without having to get the Senate to vote on it again, so they didn't. This was big news. There is no way Feinstein and the Times missed it.

In reality, I don’t think Feinstein is that stupid. She knew full well that there was nothing in the bill that allowed the government to control premiums, she’s just playing along now that the cat is out of the bag. To borrow from Casablanca, she’s “shocked! Shocked! That this isn’t in the bill.”

The L.A. Times, though, is being stupid. They genuinely didn’t have a clue that ObamaCare didn’t give the government this power. They took the word of the Democrats at face value and never assigned anyone to read the bill. Heck, it’s likely they don’t even have anyone on staff would could read the bill. And now they’re weeping into their printers ink that evil health insurance providers could impose massive premium hikes. They’re particularly terrified that such hikes could drive people to oppose ObamaCare. . . . hmmm, maybe they aren’t so stupid after all?

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Hillary Re-Sets Canada

Advancing the Obama agenda of irritating our allies and smooching-up to our enemies, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has just returned from hectoring our former strongest ally, Canada. If there's one thing we can count on with this bull-in-a-china-shop administration is that given enough time, they will alienate every ally we have left.

Arriving in Canada at the beginning of a formal meeting on the Arctic, the Obama viceroy chastised the Canadian government for failing to include "indigenous peoples" in the discussion. Now mind you, they didn't exclude indigenous peoples. They just hadn't done enough outreach to satisfy the Obama-Clinton quota standards and mea culpas for Canada's long history of white oppression of persons of color. After slapping the Canadians in the face, ole Hillary didn't miss a beat and tried to browbeat the government into making a hard commitment to keeping Canadian troops in Afghanistan, and perhaps even increasing their presence.

The audacity of the woman and the arrogant fool she represents was staggering. Still, Canadians outside Quebec manage to maintain some of the British tradition of reserve. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's response was: "Whether it comes to our role in Afghanistan, our sovereignty over our Arctic, or ultimately our foreign policy, it is Canada and Canadians who will make Canadian decisions." That's diplomatese for "mind your own business, you shrill harpy."

Not satisfied with bringing in an Arctic chill to the first day of the two days of meetings, Hillary came back the next day to drop another busybody bombshell. The government in Ottawa has been working for some time on delicate negotiations with multiple interest groups to improve maternal health among Canadian women. There is a large, traditional Catholic segment of Canadian society that the government has been trying to bring into the fold. Hillary thinks that they're not moving fast enough, nor are the Canadians taking maternal health care seriously enough.

Deaf, dumb and blind about the rancorous recent passage of Obamacare, Hillary felt it was part of her mission to inform the Canadian government that "You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health and reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortions (emphasis added)." Maybe the beating up and bribing of "anti-abortion Democrats" to get the health care Obamanation bill passed misled Hillary into thinking she could do the same thing to the legislators of foreign nations.

Now this doesn't all come down from the diktats of her narcissistic personality disorder president. Hillary's a bit off-kilter herself. Her deep discussion of prominent women in her own biography includes such pithy comments as "she's an elegant, striking woman" when discussing France's Bernadette Chirac, "she a brilliant and striking woman" about Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto, and "she's intelligent, sharply observant and elegant" about Canada's own Aline Chretien. Yes, Hillary, but can they type?

Nevertheless, Obama is certainly a guiding light for Hillary. She shares his acutely sharp understanding of protocol and good manners while a guest in another country. Obama refused to dine with the Sarkozys while in France. In Norway, he refused to dine with the king at a banquet specifically put together in his honor. He put off a long-scheduled meeting with the Prime Minister of Australia in order to stay home to take bows for passage of American socialized medicine. Even at home when he's the host, Obama leads the way in showing disrespect for our allies. As when he just had Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a guest in the White House, but couldn't bring himself to have a formal dinner for Netanyahu.

From re-set buttons, to demanding that England submit to an international resolution on the Falklands, to demanding proper Eskimo representation at Canadian governmental affairs, Hillary is the cow in the china shop to Obama's bull. They are the equivalent of the neighbor who comes into your house, criticizes your decorating, comments on the odor from your bad cooking, and tells you you're raising your children wrong--then asks to borrow a cup of sugar.
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How Not To Win Over The Electorate

The Democrats are in trouble and they know it. Systematic corruption, legislative failures and dirty-tricks, overspending, misplaced spending, and now the health care bill have doomed them. They hoped the stimulus package or ObamaCare would have saved their sorry rear ends, but it’s only made things worse. Now they have a new plan. Unfortunately for them, they picked two things the public just doesn’t care about: financial regulation and nuclear weapons.

1. Financial Regulation (yawn)

The Democrats actually think that “regulation” of Wall Street will resonate with the voters. Talk about delusional.

The first, most obvious, problem with using this as a sales pitch is that the public just doesn’t care about the issue. The reality is that most voters assume that whatever regulations are needed for things like banks are already in place. If a change needs to be made, then make it and shut the heck up about it. . . stop bothering us. Does it matter to you if hedge funds must obey “the tick rule” when engaging in trades or that banks need to account for mortgages as tier two or tier three assets? I didn’t think so. No one cares about this. Even the people who know what Basil Two means don’t really care. These are arcane rules that voters don't want to know about -- one mention of derivatives and securitization and people’s eyes begin to glaze over.

For the Democrats to think that they will be rewarded for passing such regulations is laughable. When Congressman Dirtbag walks into a townhall meeting in his district in flyover country and says, “we regulated those evil financial institutions!” all he’s going to hear is a big yawn, followed by angry questions about why everyone in the room is losing their health care -- no one's going to rush to shake his hand for slaying the evil banks.

Moreover, the Democrats have a credibility problem on this issue. Despite their talk about being the anti-Wall Street party, it’s now well known that the Democrats get most of their money from Wall Street and that they are nothing more than Wall Street’s crack whores, ready to do anything for another hit. Consider. . .

Everyone knows that the TARP, the TALP, the bailouts, and everything else were nothing more than an orgy of bankers sucking down public money and unloading failed bets on overburdened taxpayers. And all of that was made possible by Pelosi and Frank and Dodd and the Democratic Party.

Everyone knows the Democrats could have passed financial regulation at any time during the past two years, but didn’t because the money kept pouring in from Wall Street.

Everyone knows that the Democrats have stripped everything that should be in “financial regulation” out of their bill, and that they’ve left only the promise of future taxpayer bailouts. . . “too big to fail” means “taxpayer protected.”

And everyone knows that taxpayers are going to get screwed again by these regulations.

So when the Democrats rail against Wall Street, no one cares except to the extent that we all know we’re about to be bent over by the Democrats to help their rich, banker friends. That’s not going to bring anyone to the polls on their behalf.

So let’s sum up this policy. The Democrats will trumpet an issue that should have been fixed a long time ago and that people don't want to hear about. Moreover, in so doing, they are raising suspicions that all they are doing is lining up taxpayers to be raped by bankers again in the near future. Yeah, run on that.

2. Nuclear Weapons

The second issue the Democrats intend to trumpet is Obama’s treaty to cut nuclear weapons. Really? Let’s do a simple test. Before Obama raised this issue, were you afraid of a Russian nuclear strike? Didn’t think so. No one else was either. What about now that he’s worked his magic, do you suddenly feel safer? No huh? So they’re relying on an issue that no one cared about before they raised it, and they’re selling a plan that hasn’t made anyone feel any safer? I can’t wait to see the ads on this one.

Moreover, this issue will backfire in several ways. First, raising this issue when no one is thinking about it only upsets people -- never a good idea for the party in power. Secondly, real or imagined, this plan raises fears that the Democrats are weakening our country. That will bring people out to oppose this plan, not support it. Third, this plan sounds like a smoke and mirrors diversion from the real nuclear issue, which is Iran. That will make people feel like they’re being tricked, which is again not a great message to send to voters.

So let’s sum up this policy. The Democrats have poked an issue that wasn’t an issue and in the process, they’ve raised suspicions that they’ve weakened our defense and they are causing people to wonder if this isn’t a smoke screen for their pending failure in Iran. Yeah, run on that too. Idiots.


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Regulating Animal Cruelty

Animal rights people are crazy. Not only do they value animals more than people, but they seem to truly disdain human beings. Moreover, they are ignorant and foolish, they know little about the things they advocate, and the rules they propose typically make little sense and are usually more destructive than they are helpful. But before we dismiss them entirely, let’s recognize that sometimes they have a point. And if we dismiss those points out of hand, it will hurt our side. What I’m thinking of today, in particular, are puppy mills.

I think we can all agree that there is simply no justification for cruelty or allowing cruelty. Where the problem arises in this debate is defining what constitutes cruelty. Indeed, that is where the animal rights people lose most everyone. Many of them argue that eating meat is cruelty, or that pet ownership is cruelty. Do I buy that? No, not in the least, and few others do either.

But we make a mistake if we dismiss this entire cause just because of the extreme position taken by the few. In fact, most people care a great deal about animals, and I'm seeing more and more people who want to stop "animal cruelty." But can we define cruelty? I think so, but only if we talk about it rationally and we ignore the people on either extreme of this issue.

I would say, for example, the needless infliction of pain is cruel. Torture and maiming are cruel as well. But does this actually happen? Well, that's a trick question. If it doesn't, then there's no reason not to ban it. If it does, then it should be stopped. So does it actually happen or am I just talking about theory here? It does. Let's talk about puppy mills.

What is a puppy mill? A puppy mill is a place where dogs are bred en masse. There are about 4000 puppy mills in the US, turning out half a million dogs a year. Here are some common features of these puppy mills:

• The dogs tend to live their entire lives in cages that are not much larger than the dog. They literally stand, sit and sleep on wire their entire lives.

• They receive no medical care or any sort.

• They are forcibly bred to have as many litters as possible, beginning from puppihood until they simply can’t produce any more pups. Usually, they are impregnated every time they go into heat.

• When they can no longer breed, they are killed, usually by shooting or downing.

• What’s more, many of these dogs are tortured or abused in the extreme. Some have their vocal chords cut. Some lose eyes. Their teeth rot out of their mouths. They are beaten. Most are malnourished, as they are fed sawdust along with their dog food. Some are found with metal collars that have grown into their necks because they were put on as puppies and were never removed as the dog grew.

And these are common occurrences, not random occurrences that are being exploited for political reasons. In fact, I have seen dozens of these dogs, many missing eyes or with other untreated wounds. Our family recently bought a dog from a puppy mill rescue. The dog we got has yet to make a noise, we think she can’t. Her rear legs were broken at some point and no treatment was provided. She will not take food from a human, indeed most won’t, as that is how they were tricked out of their cages originally. She fears humans more than any creature I have ever seen in the wild.

But these puppy mills continue in numerous states. Our dog came from Arkansas, which is one of the big five states where these mills are concentrated. The others are Pennsylvania, Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri, though they are in other states as well. The Amish, apparently, are heavily into this.

Since 2008, thirteen states have passed laws limiting some of the worst abuses.

This is the sort of thing that requires regulation; there is no free market solution to this. From a producer perspective, there is no reason for them not to be cruel, i.e. it doesn't hurt the value they get out of the dog. To the producers, the only value these dogs have is turning out puppies, anything they do for the dogs beyond simple ownership merely reduces their profit. The "employees" can't change this industry either. Most of these operations are family run, and the dogs can't strike. Nor can better competitors drive the bad guys out of business because no one can produce dogs cheaper. Consumers are no help either. People don’t like these practices once they learn about them, but there are too many consumers who know nothing about this. Indeed, every year, millions of people buy their first dogs, completely unaware of what is going on. And while reputable pet stores will no longer sell such animals, some stores will, and most of these dogs get sold through the newspaper or the internet -- where they are indistinguishable from private sellers.

Unfortunately, too many on the right dismiss the idea of regulation because they don’t like what the animal rights people are saying. But this is a huge mistake.

If our side can’t see that regulation is needed in this instance, then why should anyone trust us when it’s a closer call? And if we don’t gain the public’s trust on these issues, then the public will turn to the only people who are fighting these problems -- the whackos. That’s what’s happening in placed like California and Colorado, where the right refuses to talk about regulating animal sellers and the livestock industry and has, thereby, abandoned the field to the left. . . which has gone way overboard.

This is one of those issue where we should think about taking the lead, because regulation is coming and it should be done right.

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Question: Sell Your Town!

Tell us the five best things about your home town. And if there aren't any, then tell us the five best things about some other town. Or make something up. We're not particular. . . [+] Read More...

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Chicago Clergy Sacrifice Unity At The Altar

Shown in the picture is the subject of the post, Father Michael Pfleger, and his good pal, Calypso Louis Farrakhan, noted race-baiter, Jew-hater, and White-basher. Farrakhan comes from a cultish version of Islam, but what about Pfleger? Well, according to the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese, he's an admirable Roman Catholic.

To date, the Chicago Archdiocese has gone all wobbly on abortion, guns, socialism, illegal immigration, and thug voting. That pretty much only left racial harmony, and the Archdiocese didn't disappoint. Chicago Cardinal Francis George recently celebrated with other religious cuckoos the lifetime achievements of Father Michael Pfleger. And George isn't just any cardinal. He's the president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. And Pfleger isn't just any priest, either. He's the close pal of two other great theologians--Louis Farrakhan and Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

The award praised Pfleger for his "service in pursuit of dismantling racism, injustice and inequalities on behalf of African Americans and all people of color." Well, I suppose that's one way of putting it. I would have given him the award for worst minstrel-show white man attempting to turn black right in front of the audience (or congregation). Or perhaps the Pope Lawhawk Award for pretending that liberation theology isn't really communism in disguise. Or maybe even the Black Panther community-organizing, vote-protecting, elimination of those rotten white people in the name of Christ award.

This Unholy Trinity has somehow passed under the radar of the Chicago Archdiocese. Perhaps cardinals aren't allowed to watch television, or read newspapers, or hop onto the internet. Or maybe they're just deaf and blind. Even my cat has managed to notice the shenanigans of the rhyming, race-baiting, Christian-hating terrible triad. But somehow Cardinal George must have missed them. Or maybe he just doesn't recognize white priests acting like caricatures of minstrel-show whites-as-African-Americans, only without the humor.

He might have missed Father Pfleger's sermon at Rev. Jeremiah Wright's United Church of Christ [sic] in which he channeled that white harridan, Hillary Clinton. "I really believe that Hillary just always thought 'This is mine. I'm Bill's wife. I'm white. And I jes gotta get up and step into the plate. Oh, damn! Where did you come from (referring to Barack Obama, beloved messiah of the triad)? I'm white! I'm entitled! There's a black man stealin' my show (feigns sobbing).'" As the congregation roared, hooted and clapped its approval, Pfleger concluded with "She wasn't the only one cryin'! There was a whole lotta white people cryin'!"

Now I know it's not up to the high-standards of Steve Martin sobbing that "I was born a poor, black child." But it's close, and at least Martin was kidding. What the hell is this crazy priest thinking? What does his sermon have to do with Christianity? What is this Catholic priest doing in an un-Christian church preaching the same thing you could hear at any black supremacist gathering? Why is a Catholic priest roaring from the pulpit of a church that preaches hatred of America and hatred for white people? Does Pfleger's edition of the New Testament include the words "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel (except to white devils)?" And the biggest question of all is "is this what Cardinal George thinks is 'dismantling racism?'"

Of course, maybe Cardinal George thinks Pfleger's sermon proclaiming "America is the greatest sin against God" is a statement right out of St. Paul's letter to the Romans. It appeared at one time that Cardinal George might have realized that this guy is nuts when he suspended him from Catholic pulpits for a whole two weeks after the Wright church sermon. But this award is a strange way of saying that the Catholic Church disdains race-baiting, and an even stranger way of saying the Church doesn't know that the suspension was because Pfleger is not a racial healer. It also appears that the cardinal doesn't remember that the Catholic Church's official stand against abortion doesn't include Father Pfleger having crazed former singer Harry Belafonte show up at Pfleger's parish, St. Sabina, to denounce president George Bush for his pro-life stance.

For the sake of full disclosure (and for those of you who don't already know this), I am an old-school Lutheran. But I've said on a few occasions that I would trust the Bishop of Rome over the Lutheran Bishop of the Sierra-Pacific Synod any day in the week. Even as a mainline Protestant, I can spot a heretical priest. Maybe it's because I am a Lutheran, now that I think about it. And if a Catholic cardinal can't, it's time for the Pope to instruct him.

Wayward pastors in the Protestant denominations are not precluded from being Protestants. But one of our objections to the Church of Rome was the concentration of theological power in the hands of one man. From my outsider's point of view, a priest who defies the Pope on the issue of abortion is a priest who is in need of serious pastoral guidance from above. Instead, a prince of the Church lauds a priest who defies Papal authority, flaunts his racial self-hatred, and demeans himself and his religious denomination by appearing with black liberation theology pastors and Nation of Islam leaders.

It simply seems to me that it's time for the Catholic Church to instruct Father Pfleger on Catholic theology and Papal authority, or defrock him. Awards from Catholic cardinals for such doctrinally lawless behavior are the antithesis of what Pfleger should be facing.
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Repeal and Replace, Not Just Repeal

By and large, the Republicans and conservatives are being smart about ObamaCare. ObamaCare is a disaster that needs to be undone. The public remains angry and, if anything, likes ObamaCare even less now than when it passed. This is because companies are already announcing benefits cuts and layoffs, premiums are going up, and ObamaCare supporters keep calling insurance carriers trying to get their free coverage, only to discover that they were lied to. But in the middle of this perfect storm, are a handful of conservatives who are advocating a huge mistake. I am speaking of the “repeal only” crowd.

1. Going From Angry To Unhappy.

The people hate ObamaCare. There is no doubt about that. But the public wasn’t too thrilled with the health care system either before ObamaCare was passed. So what does simple repeal get us? It takes us from a system that everyone fears to a system that no one really liked. How smart is that? Do we really want to be the side that is responsible for imposing a health care system that costs too much, delivers too little, covers too few, and is slowly collapsing under its own weight?

No, we don’t. And that bring us to point two: a blown opportunity.

2. A Blown Opportunity.

Right now, we have a golden opportunity. People are terrified of ObamaCare and they appear willing to accept a repeal. . . but they would be even happier if it was replaced with something that solves the problems of the pre-ObamaCare system.

Rather than just return to a system that no one likes, the Republicans should put together a plan that lifts senseless regulations, uses free market solutions, and provides the limited protections that most everyone agrees should exist. For example, we should:

• Allow national medical licenses to let physicians to move around the country to satisfy consumer demands.

• Allow doctors the freedom to organize in new business arrangements.

• Allow insurers to issue policies across state lines.

• Open the insurance market to new players.

• Prohibit denials based on pre-existing conditions and prohibit cancellation of policies after medical conditions arise.

• Divorce coverage from employment. The link between employment and health care is truly distorting to our economy. ObamaCare is unintentionally breaking that link. We should let Obama take the blame for that, but simultaneously encourage it by cutting all deductions for employer plans. In place of this system, we should (1) allow people to deduct the costs of catastrophic health insurance plans that they buy themselves, (2) expand HSA’s so that people can use pretax money for all of their health care costs, and (3) let consumers group together into buying clubs. Wouldn’t it make sense, for example, to let Wal-Mart start selling insurance policies? They have 300 million consumers. Your current “buyers club,” i.e. your employer, has how many consumers? Who has more power to get good deals?

• To encourage people to get catastrophic coverage, we should make medical debts non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. To encourage them to save for medical expenses, we should let HSA grow tax free like an IRA.

Each of these steps goes a long way toward letting free market mechanisms do their thing, which they can’t right now because of the web of regulations that strangle the industry. And right now, the public would accept this because the alternative is ObamaCare’s corporatist/socialist nightmare.

Repealing only misses this chance.

3. No Risk For The Left.

Repealing only also plays right into the hands of the left. For years, the left has pushed us further and further left. In response, “intellectuals” on the right argued that we need to undo what the left does whenever we get the chance. . . and that’s it. Do you see a problem with this? Well, let me provide an analogy.

You are standing on a football field. The other team keeps pushing the ball toward your endzone. You get the ball back. Suddenly, your brainiac coach tells you, “we’re only going to push the ball back to where the other team started their drive. Then we stop.” Is the problem getting clearer?

The left has nothing to lose under this strategy. They can push all they want in any area they want, and they know that the worst that will happen to them is some dumbass conservative will advocate “undoing” what they did. If we manage to achieve that goal entirely, then the left is right back where it started from -- no harm, no foul, and they get to try again. If we don’t succeed, then the left wins and soon starts pushing again. Either way, we lose.

If there isn’t a chance that the left will actually lose ground when they try these things, they will keep doing them because they have nothing to lose. And we will slowly find ourselves drifting left over time. That is a stupid strategy.

What we need to do is push back and impose free market reforms in place of this socialist crap. Push the ball toward their end of the field. Not only will this raise the risk for the left, but it actually pushes the ball in the right direction. The areas of our economy where the free market has the most influence are the areas that work the best -- and health care isn't one of those free areas.

Conservatives should take this opportunity Obama has given them to push health care into the free market category, not just to return it to its over-regulated, distorted pre-ObamaCare status.

Repeal and replace, not just repeal.


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Film School Follies: Part 19 – Dancing into the Fire II

By ScottDS
I asked Mike if he recalled the very first meeting with Debbie and everyone in attendance. He remembered: "That's where I stood up and said I was excited to work with everyone and that's where I told everybody that the script… that I was open to any additional ideas that anyone had for improving it. I wasn't guaranteeing that any of those ideas would make it in but I wanted to hear them. Of course, at the time I think I said 'we,' speaking for Ryan #2 and myself. 'You're all talented. If you have anything, just let us know.'" If only my experience on Canadians had been that easy!

The following consists of iChat conversations Mike and I had over the span of three days in February. And yes, I transcribed all of this!

Let's Start the Insanity: Pre-Production Begins

Scott: "Before going to work on Canadians, I think you and I did one quick polish of the script. The prologue in the student union [at UCF]... that was added later."

Mike: "That was Nick's suggestion. I think he wanted an exterior shot. (Everything else at UCF was shot inside the Visual Arts Building.) The wheels started turning [and] I came up with the 360 shot and I though it'd be cool if it was this thing where [Scooter] is daydreaming [about Anna] and [Matt and Ronnie] aren't there, then we realize they're there [and Anna is not]. The idea is he's sitting by himself at the table [and] we go all the way around the table and we see there's no one else at the table. Then she comes and sits down. He says something to her and you hear a voice from off-camera: 'Dude, did you say something?' And the camera pans [over] and they're sitting there when they weren't there before. And when it pans back to where she was sitting, she's no longer there. And [the camera] goes all the way around them and we see she's walking towards the table from far away, implying that [Scooter] was daydreaming about it. In the end, the shot did what I wanted it to do but I just don't know if people got it."

Scott: "Do you recall anything Ryan #2 wanted to do with the script?"

Mike: "Like we've talked about, Ryan #2's a huge Kevin Smith fan [and] he knew what he liked to watch but I don't think he knew why he liked it or why it worked. There were certain things he wanted to try [but] there were no major disagreements."

Scott: "If I recall, when Scooter's going through the pile of photos, Ryan #2 wanted one of the photos to have [the c-word] printed on it for some reason."

Mike: "Yeah, he though it would be kind of jarring and a non sequitur. We ended up not showing that but we did film it, not the [c-word] thing but him going through the photographs. There was an idea for a line where she took a photo of her p---- and we later see it's a photo of her cat. That was something [Ryan #2] wanted to do. Debbie was not down with that. She was pretty polite about it [but] it wasn't gonna happen."

Scott: "In terms of actually planning the shots, do you recall how that all worked, in terms of storyboarding, number of shots, what each shot would look like, etc.?"

Mike: "It was exhausting [and] I hated it. Lots of nights of me, Ryan #2… Steve came a couple of times… we spent the whole time from when [the crew] was put together... from that moment right up until production, except for that two week break we got... [we spent that time] together, non-stop, just doing that work. Sometimes we'd wake up in the same place. Mostly it was at Paul's apartment; a lot of it was at Mike #2's apartment, too. We had some shot meetings in the offices at FS3. We spent a lot of time in there with Chris and Justin and I think Steve was a part of all that and we broke down all the shots."

Scott: "Did you have to cut shots or was the general consensus, 'Yeah, we can do this'?"

Mike: "From what I recall, no. I had a lot of ideas of how I wanted it to look and we pretty much went with most of them. I know we cut a couple of shots on location because of time. Debbie came to me and I looked at the shot list and said, 'Okay, we'll cut this one and this one.' I remember later she was praising me for doing that and I was like, 'What else was I gonna do?'"

Scott: "You didn't even remember there were storyboards until I showed them to you!"

Mike: "It was Seth that did them and we only did them for the wrap book because we had to. I love storyboards but I had it all in my head. I think [Seth] said he just sat by his pool and did them. I found out he could draw at some point and I asked, 'Can you just do these because we need them?' But we didn't follow them. If I were directing a feature film, I'd want storyboards but in this case I didn't feel like I needed them."

Genius at Work: Production Design

The main sets for In the Nude consisted of a long air duct (you've seen them before), a wall with a vent (designed and constructed to match a wall at UCF), and the dark tank which had to be built with a staircase behind it so the actors could actually get up to the top, climb in through another vent, and drop down to the floor. Amazingly, the wall at UCF didn't have a vent so Chris had to bring one with him!

Scott: "Did Chris know what he was getting in to, in terms of ducts and figuring out how to reverse engineer this stuff?"

Mike: "He knew what he was getting into when he read the script but we didn't know how we were going to do [the sets] for a while. There were a lot of discussions, like any other film. We talked about sheet metal [for the ducts]. We talked about spraying this metallic substance on those laminate flats – we had seen some Full Sail movie that did that – they used this metallic spray and that would've been our only manageable option but obviously, we didn't want to do that. In the end, we got lucky. He [actually] found ducts that were being thrown out and anytime he found something, he'd call. I realized the best thing would be to build the dark tank (the dark room which connects to the photo lab). We knew we needed a wall to match the wall at UCF. (One scene intercuts footage shot at UCF by Mike with footage shot on the stage by Ryan #2.) In hindsight, I wish Ryan #2 hadn't shot that day because it looked very bland, even though it worked. Hindsight is 20/20 but I think the whole set thing worked very well. Chris and I didn't just work on the set – he was our in at UCF because he had done work there [for Campus Crusade]."

Scott: "But in terms of something like the dark tank where not only did you guys have to design and construct it, but also figure out how the guys are going to get into it in the first place and working backwards from that."

Mike: "They were just gonna drop right into the photo lab. When we went to see [Full Sail's photo lab], there was no place where we could feasibly put a fake duct of that size so in the end, that was kind of a cheat that I came up with. We'll just build the dark tank and we'll have this shot where you see [Scooter] coming out of there and we establish the whole photo lab after that and the [spatial] relationship of where he's coming from to where he's [standing] now. Once we decided that, it was easy. The dark tank we built was the exact dimensions of the real one, down to how high and wide the table was, although we didn't have to [do that] because we never shot in the [real one]."

Scott: "Did Ryan #2 have any say into the sets and locations or was that mostly you?"

Mike: "It was mostly me, I guess. [He] was on board with everything. We weren't sure where we were going to shoot at first [on location]. There was talk of shooting the college scenes at Full Sail and that was our backup – the problem was Full Sail didn't look like a college! There's an old high school that looked very [much like a college] – that was an option. And Rollins [College] was an option, too. UCF was our first choice because it was easy: it was big, it was easy to get in and out of, there wasn't any traffic getting there… a lot of factors in UCF's favor and they totally gave us permission. They just said we couldn't block any hallways and we never did."

For the location shoot which took place on day 1, the crew utilized two areas at UCF: the Visual Arts Building which had a nice, long corridor for the fire drill evacuation scene; and the patio at the student union. Unfortunately, the building featured both fluorescent lighting fixtures and a skylight.

Mike: "We were very concerned because we had these fluorescent lights on and we had sunlight coming in from the top. They're two totally different color temperatures. Remember, there are two types of film: film you use for tungsten lights and film you use for daylight and we were actually using daylight film so we were concerned how the fluorescents would look [but] we took some still photos using a similar type of film and they looked just fine. The vent we used on the set, we took to the location, and we had to hang it up which was a little daunting because we couldn't just stick it on the wall – it had to hang for support. We actually had to go into a maintenance room and Chris had to crawl up into the dropped ceiling, which was probably not something we were allowed to do! But luckily, since we were shooting everything there first, it allowed us to match it the next day [on stage]. It was the same vent every time; we kept reusing it."

Scott: "For the scene when they're opening the vent, the shots of Scooter were done on location but the shots of Matt and Ronnie were done at Full Sail. You can talk about your duplicate wall on the stage."

Mike: "We took reference photos and Chris was able to match the color. We measured the height and width of each brick and I [decided] the best thing to do was to carve it out of medium-density fiberboard (MDF). It was a very pliable material so it was going to be easy to rout and then we sprayed it with a mixture of joint compound and water to give it a texture, like cement that had been painted over. We put the wall up, and then we carved it with a jig that we built. It came out pretty good [but] somehow a seam ended up being visible, which I was not happy about. For the most part, it looked perfect. That was all me and Tony. I didn't trust anyone else to do it. Jacob [set design lab assistant] wanted me to do something completely different and I said no. There was no way to do that with paint or flats. It had to be carved. We needed shadows that were caused by the light hitting the grooves. Chris took router bits to UCF to make sure that the depth was going to be okay so the grooves weren't any deeper than they should've been. I wanted it to be perfect and I was working with someone who had the same desire."

The Man in the Hawaiian Shirt: Casting

Kit, our classmate, played Scooter. He also acted in our DC short film (Panic) months earlier and was working on Canadians in the camera department.

Mike: "Scooter was our first big drama because we weren't happy with anyone that we saw. The only person we responded to [at all] was this Asian guy named Duke. Phil called him to see if he was free on [the shoot] dates. He was only supposed to tell him, 'We're not a hundred percent yet. We just wanted to make sure you were free.' He kinda told him we wanted him as a backup for another guy and I think Duke got offended so we lost him. The thing with Kit started when the scripts were announced. Kit came up to me at the end of Windy's class and said, 'Hey, if you don't find anybody, I want to do it.' We ran through the audition tapes for Canadians and Moon and we found this one guy and he was perfect and I was like, 'Oh, this guy's great!' We ran him through, loved him, and then he's like, 'I can't do it.' Then we saw the guy on Canadians [who played the lone American employee] and there was something about him I didn't like. At that point, I thought I still had other options [and] in the end, we settled on Kit. The sad part is when we were having all these issues, I kept thinking in my head [that] the person who really looked like how I wanted Scooter to look was Tyler [another classmate]. I don't know if it was just from not being familiar with him at the time. I felt maybe it was too much to throw at him. I didn't but I should have. So we settled on Kit because we already picked the other two guys and were already rehearsing with them. Kit only rehearsed with them once because he was brought in so late."

Thankfully, the other casting choices did not present this much drama.

Mike: "Phil put all the casting sessions on a DVD and we got together and watched them at Paul's. Arnie [who played Matt] was right away. The second we saw him, I said, 'That's our guy.' For the part of Ronnie that we gave to Daryn, we watched [the tapes] a couple times and it was like, 'I think he's the best guy for this.' He didn't match physically what I wanted for the role."

Scott: "He's supposed to be fat and there are references to Jabba the Hutt and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. It totally doesn't work [with Daryn]."

Mike: "He had a little bit of a gut which I kept telling him to show: 'Don't suck it in!' Arnie was driving from pretty far away so it's not like we could've rehearsed a dozen times but he came every time we asked him to. It was just a lot of fun and they were very willing. I said, 'Are you willing to get in your underwear? Are you willing to do this and that?' and Arnie was game to do whatever. With Daryn, I asked if he had any crazy clothes and he's like, 'I have these socks with cartoon sperm on them' and I said, 'That's perfect.' I asked if he had any crazy shoes and he's like, 'Yeah, I have these green and purple shoes.' 'Perfect!' I wanted to be as weird and kooky as possible."

Arnie's baseball cap and t-shirt were custom-made. As I mentioned elsewhere, the hat was emblazoned with a non sequitur phrase: "kaboontang." The shirt was emblazoned with another phrase: "Girl You BUSTED" featuring an illustration of a shopping cart with flames coming from the rear wheels. I don't get it but I never asked.

Mike: "Ryan #2 and Paul – mainly Paul – would get into these kooky ideas… non sequitur things they'd like to see on t-shirts. We'd always talk about that jokingly and they were like, 'Well, we should put one of these t-shirts on a character. We should make one.' With the hat, we wanted a hat that had a saying on it that didn't mean anything and that was literally, 'Paul, give me one! Quick!' and he said, 'Kaboontang.' And that was it. I asked Diane to make it. The shirt… those came from Paul, and Ryan #2 made the shirt with that special thermal paper. He made three or four of them."

Scott: "And Kit's Hawaiian shirt [was inspired by] me." (I was going through a phase.)

Mike: "Laz and Diane went to a flea market. I wanted camouflage [for the scene when they break into the photo lab]. The camouflage was supposed to [be for] Daryn's character because he was supposed to be the funny one, all decked out in camouflage. But Laz bought a shirt that just didn't fit him and I thought about putting it on him really tight because that would've been funny. Then I thought, 'Wouldn't it be funnier if Arnie was wearing the camouflage shirt and Daryn was wearing the camouflage shorts?' Laz and Diane [called me from the flea market about the Hawaiian shirt] and said, 'It's got fish on it, but it looks Hawaiian.' I told them, 'If I hate it, we'll get another one.' Then I saw it and was like, 'It works.' I like that it was made of completely synthetic materials. I don't even think water stuck to that shirt!"

Scott: "And the girls: Michelle, Alyse, and Rachael. I forget which one had the nice [accessories]. And [classmate] Debbie as the other friend."

Mike: "It was Rachael [who had the nice accessories]. With the girls, it was a little more challenging. With Michelle, we wanted a girl next door, sweet, like 'Who wouldn't have a crush on her?' The other two girls just had to be... whatever.. I know we wrote up bios for each one of them but in the end, it wouldn't matter. We went with Michelle because she had the sweetest, most innocent kind of look, even though when she came in for the first rehearsal, she looked like she'd been doing crack. (She wasn't.) I don't know if she was sleep-deprived but she looked terrible. I was like, 'Oh my God. How's she gonna look when we shoot?' The other girls were fine. The one girl [Alyse] was fifteen but she looked great and had a good attitude. And then there was Rachael... she did not look that hot in any of the rehearsals. She was supposed to be the schlubby one. She shows up on the [first] day of shooting looking super hot and I was like, 'What the f---?!' We had to cast a couple of supplementary parts and I really regretted casting Tom [our directing teacher] as the photography teacher even though it was just a two-second part. I'd worked with this ex-police officer guy on Revenge Again [in 16mm] who I should've cast because Tom didn't seem like he wanted to be there at all. [And] we needed another girl and I said, 'Why am I going to cast another girl?' We had a cute girl on our crew. I asked her if she'd do it and she said, 'Yeah.' [But Ryan #2 failed to shoot her close-up on the day.]

Scott: "We all got to be extras and if you watch the credits you'd think it was Lawrence of Arabia or something!" (I actually helped Mike type up the end credits for Nude in between editing labs for Canadians.)

Mike: "That was done to be funny. I figured people watching the thing would be like... I did it for a laugh!"

Next week: principal photography, a complicated dolly shot, a bitchy UCF faculty member, Kit performs a stunt, and conflict between the directors.

To Be Continued...

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New York State of Mind

Now that the March flood waters have receded, the sun is shining, and the Cherry Blossoms are blooming at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens [see photo]. Spring has sprung in New York City.  It’s been a few weeks since my last report so let’s just dive right in…

Sports – Okay, baseball season started again. The Yankees first home game is Tuesday.  They've played three games and are well on their way of winning the World Series, Just remember you heard it here first!

Local – Our transit system is the best in the world and also the most expensive to run. The MTA Board of Trustees (which includes former Beatles Paul McCartney’s millionairess girlfriend Nancy Shevell) cross-our-hearts-and-hope-to-die-promised in early 2009 that if we let them raised the transit fares with no fuss just this one more time, that all of the budget shortfalls will be met for years to come or at least until 2011. Well, they must have had their fingers crossed behind their backs because in March, the Board announced that they would have to make major cuts in bus/subway routes and service and raise fares again to close a $378 million budget deficit.  The deficit has just been exacerbated by a 4% raise in wages that our Transit workers negotiated after their last strike in 2005 and state funds the Board was counting on that haven't materialized because of major state budget deficits.

Of course, the Board can’t possibly rescind the pay raises nor is the Transit Workers’ Union willing to make any concessions to  the wage increases or the nearly $500 million worth of ridiculous overtime rules. For example, if a transit worker is assigned a duty outside their normal paid function they get paid overtime. So, if a bus driver is assigned to shovel snow or put snow chains on tires for an hour, they get paid time and half for the whole day plus their regular time for driving the bus that day!

So what’s new? The bottom line is that, once again, the tax payers are caught in the middle. We have not choice, but to submit to whatever the Board and the Unions decide.  Though personally, I say let the Board cut wages and let the Union strike.  Neither will get any sympathy from the rest of us.

State - The State of New York just blew a chance to bring in $700 million from Obama’s contest for Race to the Top funds. Applications for these education funds needed to be submitted with a detailed proposal of how each dollar would be spent by the end of February. Each application was evaluated by a group of judges and awarded points for Obama friendly policies and achievements. There were a few qualifications that had to be met to win those some of the highest points awarded.

As only our famously dysfunctional Legislature could do, they failed to vote in legislation to meet some of the major qualifications - raise the cap on the number of charter school allowed in the state and tying teacher evaluations to student performance - and missed the deadline. The very influential Teacher’s Union was dead set against either of the changes, so no changes.

As a result, when the list of recipients was published at the end of March, New York was embarrassingly second to last. Fortunately, the state has a second chance to reapply by June 1, but the Legislature is noncommittal. Though the cap and the merit evaluations are just one of many points of evaluation that lost the bid, we, the tax paying public, later learned that we had points deducted for  fund allocations to buy administrators new fancy $500 desk chairs and $3000 desks –Oops! The State Education Commissioner David Steiner has promised to fix the "office furniture blunder the next time around”.

Federal – I can’t have an update without some reference to Charlie Rangel. Our esteemed former House Way and Means chairman had the ways and the means to make a pretty penny off of the healthcare bill. For his efforts to bring ObamaCare to a doctor near you, Mr. Rangel was allegedly awarded almost $4 million from the healthcare industry for which to enrich his already bloated coffers. No wonder, San Fran Nan has been dragging her heels on those “alleged” ethics violation investigations against Charlie!

New York Politicians Under Investigation – Remember in my installment in early March , I reported on a host of New York politicians in crisis. Well, it just keeps getting worse for them. As I reported, Rep. Gregory Meeks (D/Queens), former Rep Rev. Flloyd Flake, and State Senate Malcolm Smith (D a/Queens) along with Governor Patterson were under investigation for a shady state contract deal which included a lucrative slot machine contract at Aqueduct Raceway.

Well, now two of the cast members are under investigation for another alleged misdeed. Meeks and Smith unselfishly raised almost $31,000 for victims of Hurricane Katrina and pledged every dime would go for those poor unfortunate victims. After a recent internal audit, it seems they can only account for only $1,391 of those dollars being disbursed to any Katrina victims. Quoted in the NY Post, Meeks was “shocked, just shocked” and stated that “I, like you, want a full accounting of those funds.”  I, on the otherhand, am not “shocked” at all. I’ve said this before, but at the rate our elected officials are going to prison, we’ll have to open up a new branch of government at Sing Sing prison. Here’s more if your interested ...

New York Tax Payers Who Are Not Under Investigation – A sweet, elderly Brooklyn couple has been raided by the police 50 times since 2002. Because of a “computer glitch” that flagged their address as a hotbed of criminal activity when in reality, their address was used as a random address the IT department used to test a new program when they set up the computers. So for the last eight years, this poor octogenarian couple has been rousted out of their bed in the middle of the night to armed police officers screaming at them. The couple had been guaranteed that the problem had been solved in 2007, but they were soon raided again. Police Commissioner Ray Kelley went personally to apologize to the couple and swears it won't happen again. Let’s hope so.

For those interested - The New York City Tax Day Tea Party will be held  on 4/15/10 at 31st Street and 8th Avenue.  For more information go to http://www.teaparty365.org/  [+] Read More...

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Virginia Republican Governors And Verbal Disconnect

Is there something in the water in Richmond, or is it just come kind of casual disregard for thinking before talking? One word, "macaca," probably did in the previous Republican governor of Virginia, and nobody really even knows what the heck it means. But if it can be taken as a racial slur, it will. Now newly-installed governor Bob McDonnell seems to have joined the parade.

Fortunately, it's not election time, and Virginia chief executive, Republican Bob McDonnell, has plenty of time to get this flap behind him. It's completely possible for a Southern governor to celebrate Confederate history honorably and fairly. But to ignore the issue of slavery in such a celebration is naive, foolish, and as could be expected, offensive to the descendants of former slaves. An Obama-style apology doesn't have to be included. And the issue is a fine way of bringing up how far we've come since the Civil War and Jim Crow. After all, it was the Republican Party that ended slavery, and Southern Democrats who fought tooth and nail to preserve Jim Crow.

America is now in the throes of a titanic battle between the forces of big government and those who oppose the extension of the power of the central government to control all aspects of our lives. In a more faraway time, that battle centered around states' rights, a rallying cry of slaveholders, and later of segregationists. Today, the rights of the states are at the heart of the great debate, and leaving slavery out of a celebration of the Confederacy only stirs up the left's conflation of states' rights with racism.

Nobody needs to work very hard to convince me that this was not Governor McDonnell's intention. But why hand the liberals the ammunition to shoot us with? How could a smart politician not realize that slavery is such an inherent part of the story of America, the Civil War, and the ongoing striving for the perfection embodied in the Declaration and the Constitution as to be impossible to ignore or sweep under the rug? We know very well that any rhetorical excess or omission by the liberals will be ignored or underplayed by the MSM. But we know equally well that one unintentional, but major slip on the part of a Republican will be pounced on immediately as a sign of hatred and racism. And if McDonnell didn't know that from his reading of history, he should certainly have been able to see it as it has been used very recently against the Tea Party movement.

Patrick Buchanan defends McDonnell by pointing out that General Sherman was the big bad boy of the Civil War. Now how is that helpful? The tu quoque argument accomplishes nothing, and rehashing the excesses of any Union Civil War general does nothing to fend off the argument that most of them did what they did, at least partially, to end slavery. Pointing out Lincoln's statement that he would not free a single slave if it meant the Union could be saved serves no purpose either. It certainly doesn't say anything about Lincoln's alternative plans to end slavery by some means other than a bloody war among brothers.

McDonnell's tribute to the Confederacy has much to recommend it. Certainly, the argument remains that if the federal government becomes tyrannical, there is nothing in the Constitution specifically prohibiting the states from seceding from the union. Certainly, the Confederates had a strong argument that the rights of the states to determine their own future within Constitutional bounds and without interference from the central government, and that argument is alive and well today (as it should be, I might add).

Many--perhaps most--Southerners fought for their sovereign states and their concept of freedom during the Civil War. Few were actually slave-holders. Many actually opposed slavery on moral and religious grounds. But to deny (or simply ignore) that slavery was a major element of the War is to deny simple reality. Even economic analyses of the Civil War that pit the industrial north against the agricultural south cannot ignore the simple economics of slavery, let alone its moral and religious implications. To praise the Confederacy without reference to slavery is to deny the struggle to restore the Union where slavery was prohibited. West Virginia would still be part of Virginia if it were not for this dichotomy (Sen. Robert Byrd and the KKK notwithstanding).

Good men can fight in the name of a bad cause. And so it was for many Southerners. But expecting people to believe that slavery was not part of the Southern cause is just plain nonsensical. Ignoring slavery in a speech about the Confederacy while failing to praise the progress that has been made, particularly over the past forty years, was a stupid omission and a failure of vision. McDonnell could have used the opportunity to both praise the South for its embrace of racial equality, while pointing out that one of his predecessors as governor of Virginia was the descendant of former slaves.

What you and I may say to each other, or even to a limited audience about the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow and current race relations has little national effect. Most of our fellows discussing the topic are of like mind, or at least recognize that we are discussing a fairly narrow aspect of a particular issue. This is not true for a major elected official who has just come off a surprise victory running on the issues of smaller government, independence of the states, and unity. In any major address, such a person must think carefully about what he is saying, and whether there is something in (or missing from) his address that would offend a major portion of the electorate. McDonnell's praise of the Confederacy without any mention of slavery was offensive to blacks, and frankly quite mystifying to people like me.

McDonnell has, shall we say, revised and extended his remarks. It will be used against him in the future, but probably won't have much effect if he turns Virginia's economy around ahead of that of the national economy. I hope that McDonnell has learned something about speaking entirely benignly about the Confederacy as if anyone else might not have the same warm feelings. I don't believe for one minute that McDonnell is a racist. But for God's sake, governor, please don't make any more obvious mistakes in a major address. It's one thing to use the word "macaca" and have it used against you as a racist statement. But it's quite another to open up a highway of criticism (some of it deserved, most of it not) by ignoring an issue as big as slavery.

I can think highly of Robert E. Lee for his loyalty to Virginia and the independence of the states without pretending that slavery was such a minor issue in the Civil War as to deserve being left out of the dialogue about the Confederacy. I can deeply admire the Founding Fathers without ignoring the fact that slavery was already risking the existence of the new republic at the very time of its founding. But if I make the mistake of omission that McDonnell made--so what? I'm not a governor of a state that is only now recovering from the after-effects of the Civil War, Jim Crow, and the civil rights movement of the 60s.
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Have You Been Reminded Enough Yet?

First I got the notice that the census was coming. Then I got the reminder that the census was coming. Then I got the census. Then I got the reminder to fill out the census. Then I got the reminder of the reminder. Finally (I hope) on Saturday, I got the notice that there are still job opportunities available working for the completion of the census.

I'm sure each state also had its multiple versions of the ad I've pictured from California. I don't know about other states, but California's ads were reproduced in seven different languages, but mostly English and Spanish. Few of them said "don't forget to count all those illegals in your household, we need the votes." By being ultra-careful to count the illegals, California hopes not to lose any Congressional seats resulting from the flight of taxpaying citizens to other states who have fled in droves to get out of the state with increasing crime rates and huge deficits.

The idea of a census goes back a long way. You can probably finger Moses for sticking us with this decennial count. The Book of Numbers isn't called that by accident. Moses was told by God "Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, after their families, by the houses of their fathers, with the number of their names, every male by their polls." In order to decide where his subjects lived and what they were worth, Augustus Caesar ordered a tax ("tax" = "count" = "census"). The Jews insisted on being counted as they had counted themselves, so each family returned to its ancestral home and tribe to be counted, causing a monumental shift in populations throughout Rome's newly-acquired territories in the Holy Land. We recently celebrated the resurrection of the most famous of those displaced persons.

It seems that the federal government has spent about $14 billion dollars on the current census. That's more than twice what was spent on the 2000 census (the Constitution mandates a census every ten years). That's about $13.9 billion more than the Founders could conceive of, and about eight questions (out of ten) more than the Constitution required.

There is much at stake in this census. For one thing, the government hopes to have a really good count of the racial and ethnic groups that should be irrelevant to a simple count of the people. Barack Obama himself is alleged to have declared himself African-American, though he is half-white. Are you starting to get the picture? In the big cities where criminals evade justice and illegals hide from the authorities, this administration has fought to replace actual counting with statistical "sampling."

The distribution of at least $400 billion in federal funds for schools, hospitals, bridges, and other services will largely be determined based on the counts. Democrats are particularly concerned with grabbing those funds. Governor David Paterson has estimated that New York City alone may have lost as much as $850 million dollars because of alleged "undercounting" since the previous census. A mere 857 heads cost North Carolina a seat in the House from the 2000 census.

Although the 2000 census made great strides in counting those who were regularly missed in prior censuses, this time the bar has been lowered. The count in 2000 successfully reached 67% of households in the first mail-in round. It is estimated that only 64% will respond this time, leaving a substantial number to be counted by the followup census-takers. That may not sound like a big difference, but each percentage point drop is expected to cost an additional $85 million. And in need of showing increased job numbers, the Obama administration is likely to increase that cost exponentially by hiring multiple redundant census-takers. All of this is occurring after the Obama-guided Census Bureau has already spent $300 million on "outreach and marketing."

Private research groups estimate that the actual number of mail-in forms during the first round are less than that estimated by the Bureau. Many are predicting between 61% and 62%. And it isn't just us right-wing nutcases who have a problem with the census. Many poor, uneducated, and government-hostile types at both ends of the political spectrum are conflicted over this census. Many have taken a "leave me and my family alone" attitude. Sources around the capital, including Pew Research Center for the People and the Press say that even at this late stage, nearly one in five residents has still not decided whether or not to participate voluntarily with the census, including a substantial number who have said they are unlikely to or definitely will not partcipate.

Considering this a disaster for all Americans, Roderick J. Harrison, former chief of the US Census Bureau's Racial Statistics Branch has concluded, like Pew, more than half of those polled are too busy, not interested, or don't know what the census is. For a smaller minority, there is a serious concern over personal privacy, safety, and governmental intrusion. Census experts are particularly concerned with this latter group.

Republican Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann, has been a leading voice in the growing anti-census movement. She told the Washington Times that her family will protest the count, leaving most of its form blank except for the question that asks directly how many people reside in her home. "We won't be answering any information beyond that. The remaining nine questions are very intricate, very personal, and the Constitution doesn't mandate any other information beyond those we will be answering." That's a strong political statement and a brave moral one, but the Constitution doesn't forbid answering those questions either.

The ante on refusing to answer census questions has been raised substantially this year. In fact, the maximum penalty is $5,000. But unless someone actually makes some sort of public declaration of refusal, it's hard to prove that he didn't merely miss the form, or forgot to mail it in. And census-takers can't break down doors of those who are on the list of not having mailed in the form. But the Bureau has soft-pedaled the possible fine in fear of scaring off even more people who are already reluctant to comply.

Activists on the left have also entered the fray. Though 71 percent of Democrats and 56% of Republicans say the census is "very important," groups like The National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders representing 22,000 pastors in 34 states is calling on millions of illegal immigrants and their sympathizers to boycott the census to protest government inaction on comprehensive immigration reform. Illegal immigrants themselves fear the census will be used against them, even though the census asks nothing about legal status. Says Reverend Miguel Rivera, head of the Coalition: "They [the Census Bureau] are liars. They have been lying for years. People in our churches are being hunted like animals. Undocumented immigrants (illegals) should not take more chances."

Although that may sound paranoid, there is a small grain of truth to it. The Census Bureau has in the past turned over confidential information to the Department of Homeland Security, most recently the location of prominent Arab populations. Allegedly, Homeland Security gathered the information only to determine which languages to use on signs at international airports.

Would sampling have allayed Rivera's objections? Maybe yes, maybe no. Statisticians continue to argue how accurate any number can be which is really nothing more than an intelligent guess. Because illegal immigrants are future Democrat voters, the Democratic Party favors the use of sampling. That would allow the Bureau to use that small percentage of cooperating urban groups to answer the questions and then statisticians could make estimates from there. This method is favored among those who believe that undercounting has resulted in unfair maldistribution of votes and federal funds to ghetto and barrio areas. However, the whole argument is probably moot, since the US Supreme Court declared in 1999 that "sampling" violates the Constitution's mandate of "an actual enumeration" (Dept. of Commerce v US House of Representatives).

The Bureau can't win for losing. In the 2000 census, more than 50,000 African-Americans wrote in "Negro" for the question about race. Thinking that this was a popular thing, the 2010 census incudes "Negro" as a classification. Black leaders such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, already perpetually-outraged, were furious. "Racist" and "outdated" were among the nicer epithets tossed around.

The ever-increasing cost of this census is becoming an issue in and of itself. Employment numbers were enhanced by the large number of census workers hired at the early stages, and last fall an additional 150.000 temporary workers were added to the rolls. At $88 additional million, the "better than ever" census is already 25% over budget. The expenditures for the now-defunct ACORN brought cries of foul nationwide. A recent audit by the Commerce Department inspector-general Todd Zinser shows that $3 million alone has been spent on temporary workers who never showed up for work and reimbursing them for millions of miles they never drove.

Perhaps in 2020, the Census Bureau will simply go back to asking "how many people are there in your household?" then mail the forms to known addresses, and do diligent followup on forms not returned. After that, tough. If you don't want to answer that question, for whatever reason, don't expect to have your proportional representation in the House of Representatives. And then again, wombats might write sonnets, but I'm not holding my breath for that either.
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Comic Book Movies: Nerd Porn. . . Literally

Over the past decade, Hollywood has increasingly come to rely on comic books as a source of inspiration for their films. Indeed, many more recent films than you may realize come from the pages of comic books, especially in the action film genre. And I am finding myself increasingly turned off by these movies. It’s not that I’m opposed to the genre, but I find the experience getting creepier and creepier, as these movies are turning into nerd porn.

Now I am not a comic book aficionado, nor am I a reader of comic books, but I am well informed. I’ve spoken with collectors at length over the years, and I’ve seen the evolution of comic books and the movies made from them.

In the Golden Age of comic books, comic book heroes were created with the idea of inspiring children. Television shows like Superman and the Adam West Batman epitomized this generation. They were wholesome, patriotic, and not-controversial. They were written at a level that was both simplistic and accessible for idealistic youth.

But by the 1960s, this was changing. Like everyone else in the counter culture, comic book creators wanted to expand the “social conscience” of their readers by introducing social justice themes. This meant different moral questions and some “edgy” issues that dealt with things like racism, feminism, drugs, and poverty.

In the 1980s, comic books changed again, this time becoming darker and edgier. The most famous of these was the conversion of Batman into the Dark Knight. This was also the time the nerds started calling these comic books “graphic novels.” Yeah, sure. This change happened for two reasons primarily. First, the animators wanted to tell “more grown up stories” and they found the requirement that their heroes be wholesome to be too restricting. So they had to free them from their wholesome images and belief systems. Secondly, they wanted to reach an older (read “more affluent”) audience: angst-ridden teenagers. The world sucks man. Shut up kid.

By the 1990s, most comic book heroes had been killed off and resurrected as evil versions of themselves. . . dressed like whiny little emos. . . oh sorry, dressed in really cool, joy-resistant black body armor!

Then it started to go wrong(er). I don’t know which one was the first, but soon goofy capes and costumes were giving way to fetish gear. Tight black leather body suits, anatomically correct body armor (a Batsuit with nipples? are you serious? Holy codpiece, Batman!), whips, chains, and erotic tortures that reeked of fetish clubs all became normal.

And it wasn’t just the costumes that were changing. The role of women in comic books was changing. Gone were the supposedly docile women of the 1950s, the feminists of the 1960-1970s, and the working women of the 1980s. In their place came a whole generation of dominatrixes, women presented as strange creatures to be feared and ogled (interestingly, Hollywood actresses mistake these for “strong roles”). At the same time, comic book “love” was redefined as violence with sexual overtones and an unhealthy dose of bondage tossed in. And everything became sexual. . . everything. That’s right Dr. Freud, in comic book land, cigars are never just cigars.

Basically, comic books and the comic book movies that love them became monuments to the sexual dysfunction of their creators. It’s become like watching your Psyche 101 class on the big screen.

Comic book movies today seem to have become pervert theater. They’ve become fetish movies, combined with snuff films. Watching one with your brain in the “on” position is like listening to some creepy dude tell you about his obsession with the woman he saw in the Sears catalog as he rubs his crotch. Yuck!

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m no prude. I don’t want to regulate anybody’s sex life. I’m not opposed to naked art or even films about sex. Heck, I’m not even opposed to porn -- I honestly couldn’t care less. BUT, I don’t want to know about your problems. If you can’t relate to the female of the species, that’s your problem, not mine. You are to blame. You are doing it wrong. Get help. Don’t try to pass your twisted fantasies off on me as a movie.

And that’s what’s bothering me.

You can disagree with me on this. . . but you’re wrong.


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False Analogy Coming Up

On May 6th, the British will hold an election. The prevailing wisdom says the Conservatives are going to win. I think that’s wrong. If I’m right, and the Conservatives lose, expect our media to go insane trying to equate that upset with what they hope will happen here in November. In fact, expect to find yourself awash in a tidal wave of “bad omen for Republicans” stories. Don’t believe it.

Let’s start by explaining why everyone thinks the Conservatives will win. Labour’s been in power since 1997 and they are worn out. All of their mistakes have caught up to them, and the people are sick of them. They spent too much, reformed too little and let bureaucracy spin out of control. Add in that Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, is neither telegenic, nor politically savvy, and he’s prone to nasty streaks and gloom, and you have a serious recipe for failure. And polls have confirmed this, with Labour trailing the Conservatives by as much as 21%. Hence, it’s inevitable.

Thus, should Labour win the election, the media will call it a miracle. They will frame this as an “utter rejection of Conservative ideas”, and will tell us that this represents “an end to the shift to the right” that the world has undertaken during the past two years, and a “rebirth” of the left. Then our media will pick this up and will start trying to draw an analogy here: unpopular government, makes hard decisions, but people are “really” upset about the economy, which is getting better. . . = surprise Democratic victory!!!

But don’t be fooled because there is more to this story than is being currently told. Indeed, I wouldn’t be suggesting that the Conservatives are likely to lose if there weren’t.

First, the Conservatives are not exactly all that great of a party. The British haven’t liked them since Margaret Thatcher was forced out of office. Since that time, they’ve had a succession of bland leaders who stood for nothing, except the disowning of Thatcherism. That’s left them with little real support. Moreover, their new leader, David Cameron, is hardly inspirational. He’s milquetoast defined. He stands for nothing. He’s the ultimate “me too only not as much” type leader. Indeed, he proposes to do everything Labour is doing, only not as fast. That makes them very different than the Republicans. Indeed, whereas we face left versus right in November, the British May elections will be a battle royale between left and further left.

Secondly, in the past twelve years, the British people have slunk into dependence. Many more of them than ever rely on the government for their survival. Their entrepreneurial class is gone. Foreigners run their companies, those that are left, and industry has all but vanished. In the place of the once industrious British people, a whole class of angry white trash has sprung up that demands the government support its binge-drinking, knife-wielding, non-working habits. Thus, the English electorate is more like that of New Jersey than that of the United States, and elections there have little meaning for elections here.

Third, that 21% number isn’t what it appears to be. That number occurred at the height of the financial crisis. Since that time, it’s fallen to around a 9% lead for the Conservatives. This is partially the result of the financial crisis lessening, but also partially fatigue. Voters have been told for two years now that the Conservatives would win the election. People tire of what they assume to be a sure thing and they move on, which hurts the Conservatives and gives Labour a second chance -- basically, they peaked too soon.

But no doubt, you’re still thinking that 9% should be a pretty huge victory right? Actually, no. There is a quirk in the English electoral system that favors Labour because of the way their districts are established and the utter lack of competitiveness by the Conservatives in Scotland. What this translates into is that the Conservatives need to poll about 11% higher than Labour nationally to guarantee a Conservative victory. If the election were held today, it is estimated that their 9% lead would translate only into a draw in Parliament.

Talking all of this into account, there is a very good chance that the Conservatives will win the popular vote, but still not win the government. Or, perhaps, they will win the government but just barely. But in either event, the result tells us nothing about our own elections in November.

So don’t be fooled, when you start seeing articles asking what Labour’s resurgence means for the Democrats.

It doesn't mean squat.

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Discussion: Favorite Day of the Week

I hear that people have favorite days of the week. Why would someone like Saturday better than Monday? I'm puzzled. Indeed, I'm not sure I believe this. So let's put this to the test. What's your favorite day of the week and why? [+] Read More...

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San Francisco Diary--Journal Of An Exile

One of the interesting sights for tourists in San Francisco is the regular Muni bus crash. The Golden Gate Bridge, the Transamerica Tower, Golden Gate Park, Fisherman's Wharf and other myriad tourist spots are always in place. But Muni collisions are a movable feast. It often seems they're more reliable than Muni buses showing up on schedule.

The picture was a recent incident in which a Muni bus rammed into the back of a utility truck (ignore the graffiti, that's not regulation City decoration). This week, the excitement level was raised on San Francisco's most traveled thoroughfare--Market Street. It was a triple-bagger. First a Muni street car rammed into a Muni bus, which then rammed into a civilian vehicle. Only twelve people were injured this time, but it was quite a show. Traffic was snarled for hours, and the streetcar and bus passengers who weren't hauled off to the hospital were taken to their destinations by shuttle buses (which were rather slow in arriving).

It is important to note that nothing in life is free. Providing more exciting crashes of public transportation than any city of comparable size is not cheap. So as the buses and streetcars deteriorate and accidents become more spectacular, Muni has fare increases and service cuts hanging over the heads of locals and tourists alike. You pays your money, you takes your chances.

NOTE: The Calfornia gubernatorial race has gotten a bit more interesting. It had appeared since the withdrawal of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom that Democratic Attorney General Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown was going to run unopposed on the Democratic primary ticket. But this is California, after all, and there is a substantial minority of Democrats who, unbelievably, think that Brown isn't far enough to the left. Enter the moveon.org candidate, Peter Schurman.

The Republicans have Meg Whitman (the apparent opposition leader) who has already spent $46 million of her own money in her campaign for the Republican nomination (and just pledged another $20 million). That's a lot of money, even for Brown to overcome. Schurman has a modestly wealthy supporter of his own--one George Soros, a co-founder of moveon.org. I first heard about this new developing circus from Andrew Price, but I just figured he had been drinking or maybe just working too hard. But about six hours later, the San Francisco Chronicle (SF Gate) confirmed it. Nice scoop, Andrew, and I apologize for my doubts about your sanity.

Until now, Whitman has been largely indistinguishable from Brown on many issues (particularly illegal immigration and gay rights), except for her relatively conservative budget proposals and union-bashing. This could change everything. Until this announcement, leftists in the Democratic Party had no viable alternative to Brown. Now, Brown is likely to have to tack to the left to avoid losing his "moonbeam" base. So far, Brown had done little campaigning, and needs his leftist base to punch up his estimated $14 million campaign war chest. This can't be a good thing for Brown.

Schurman, who lives in San Francisco (where else?), advocates all the usual left-wing nostrums. Says Schurman: "The Democratic nominee must take bold stands, such as forcing corporations and the rich to pay their fair share." He supports raising taxes and ending the two-thirds vote requirement to pass budgets. "Hiding in the back room and working the insider party connections is not the path to victory. It might've worked 20 years ago, but the landscape has changed," says Schurman. He seems to be unsure of just how ancient he wants to paint Brown as being, since he also said: "He is working from a playbook that's 30 years out of date."

Whitman has not even begun to attack Brown, and now she will have a target-rich environment. Her "take-no-prisoners" attacks on her closest Republican rival, Steve Poizner, are now just practice for her. A lefty and a far lefty Democratic opposition is like manna from heaven. If she doesn't turn her Republican base off by continuing to pile on Poizner much longer, she has a real chance of taking the big prize. Most polls show Whitman tied or slightly ahead of Brown. Without this big bump in the road, Brown could concentrate on his base of support--big unions and big corporations without having to fret too much about his left flank. This could very well change everything.

Ominously, Schurman says where his support will come from. "With the arrival of the Internet, the path is to take bold stands." Moveon.org has a wide following on the left, and it would be a very large surprise if the DailyKos and HuffPo didn't chime right in with their support for Schurman. Brown has been very lackadaisical in his pursuit of the state house, unlike his energetic pursuit of the governorship in his youth. Now that Brown is reaching age 72, some in the Democratic Party are questioning just how good a fight he might put up. Brown worried the party stalwarts by waiting until the last minute to announce that he would not run again for Attorney General. Brown's "in your face" debating style, which served him so well in the past, might not be nearly as effective against an internet blogging expert with huge support on the blogging left and an almost bottomless source of campaign funds.

NOTE: Bicycling Magazine recently ranked San Francisco the number six best cycling city in the nation. Number six is not exactly number one, but I can't even figure out how we got that high. On the last Friday of each month, the somewhat belligerent group "Critical Mass" terrorizes citizens and tourists alike then they all hop on their bikes, and form a wall of bicycles that stretches over many city blocks. It's not as innocent as it might sound. The group brooks no opposition, and there have been near-riots as the militant cyclists kick automobiles, block major intersections, and generally run amok.

Currently, there is an injunction against The City preventing it from imposing any additional bike lanes in an already automobile-congested town. But neither of these factoids is enough to dampen the enthusiasm for the two-wheeled horse-riders. Now I like bicycles as much as the next guy. But come on, this is San Francisco. You have to be slightly nuts to use a bike as your sole means of transportation. First, there's the weather. We don't have 360 days of sun every year like some of our competitors. In fact it rains a lot, and showing up for most jobs dripping-wet and mud-splattered tends to be frowned on even here. We have hills that would strain the hearts of the best-trained athletes. Our streets are mostly narrow, barely allowing automobiles to pass easily. If one automobile runs into another, you usually get a couple of bent bumpers and fenders. If an automobile runs into a cyclist, the results are usually quite different. And as for the sunny days, just how good does a cyclist smell after riding up and down multiple steep hills on the way to work? Are those sweat-stains, or are you just happy to see me?

San Francisco is bike-friendly, but is also becoming increasingly automobile-hostile. What started out as a good idea for occasional movement around town without adding to air pollution and gasoline consumption has become a near-religion for the eco-freaks. The automobile and the bicycle simply can't exist peacefully side-by-side in the eyes of the bicycle zealots. And it's not as if you have the clear and easy choice of your bike or public transportation (see "Muni," above). Isn't this why God invented the hybrid automobile?

NOTE: Well, the Board of Supervisors continues to keep its priorities straight. As the crime rate continues, the infrastructure collapses, and Muni continues to play bumper cars, the Board was once again busy passing resolutions about much more important matters. On Tuesday, the Board unanimously passed a resolution offered by Supe Sophie Maxwell declaring meatless Mondays. Not to be confused with that obsolete religious observance of meatless Fridays, the resolution "encourages" restaurants to offer more vegetarian fare each Monday. Like most of these invaluable and seemingly-endless resolutions, this one has no legal force and accomplishes nothing. But damn, they feel good down there at City Hall. Naturally, the Board based its resolution on the dubious relationship between diet and climate-change. They cite one "scientific study" which purports to prove that 51% of all greenhouse gases are produced by farm animals and their byproducts.

Also on the agenda: Punishing scofflaws who defy the plastic bag ban at grocery stores by calling their bags reusable. The Supes left a loophole for "thick" plastic bags which can be re-used by the customers for future shopping trips without defining exactly what "thick" means. Since taking a grocery bag to the grocery store seems like carrying coals to Newcastle to me, I use the bags for their intended purpose--dumping the contents of the cat's litter box. Maxwell also introduced a resolution commending grocery stores and restaurants that sell only cage-free eggs (they put eggs in cages?).

And then there's the proposed ordinance to ban advertising on Muni bus windows. The ads are done so that there is the illusion of a solid sign visible from outside the bus, but acts largely as a shade for the riders. Supervisor Eric Mar says the ads are "a real health hazard because they make some riders feel claustrophobic and nauseous." I'm guessing Mar meant "nauseated," but nobody ever claimed the Supes were literate. Still, if that is the test of a health hazard, the Board itself must be one since it makes a great many of us San Franciscans nauseated. For one thing, those ads bring in a lot of much-needed revenue to the cash-strapped Muni. Of course they could make up for that shortfall by raising fares for the eleventy-eleventh time while cutting service even more drastically. Or maybe they could just start charging admission to anyone who wants to view one of the Muni's many wrecks.
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Discussion: Last Five...

Have you ever seen these "name the last..." type questions that are all over the web? Let's try one. What are the last five songs you listened to. Not the ones you wanted us to think you listen to, but the ones you actually listened to. . . uh huh, those. Britney Spears and what else? [+] Read More...

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Captioning: Congressional Metaphor

A picture is worth a thousand words, or so they say. The picture below works as an excellent metaphor for the interaction between Congress and the American people. In the first vehicle, Congress goes for a reckless ride -- that's Congress in the back of the truck. Being Congress, they try to do the impossible, the stupid. . . and they do it at full speed with no thought to what they are about the unleash. In the second vehicle, that's us. Wonderful.




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