I'm sure Kramer's (normal) heart is in the right place but it's a terrible idea, because you either don't have solid historical evidence or it's simply beside the point -- Gay Lincoln sounds funny but then serious historians have already dumped the old hagiographies so you don't really need a revisionist take. And Lincoln scholars don't think the evidence is there (and anyway it's Bi Lincoln, if at all, since Herndon says Honest Abe caught syphills from a young woman).... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 12:27 PM on December 28, 2009

Bigelow is a technically proficient action movie director who loves to blow shit up; she is no political mind, she is not interested in human behavior beyond very superficial macho stuff (or, like Blue Steel, in really tough women who behave like guys) -- she made The Hurt Locker as the story of an adrenaline junkie, and it works as such. It's not a war movie, it's not a movie about Iraq, it's not a movie about many things. Within its limited scope, it works. The subplot about the kid -- and the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 4:15 AM on December 2, 2009

Tactically, yes it’s terrain. Strategically it’s culture yeah. But politically it’s finding a solution that nearby countries can live with. That’s not going to happen any time soon, and not with just more guys. At best this is a holding action.

On the other hand, I’m hard pressed to come up with something better.

what he said.
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 7:41 PM on December 1, 2009

"The future is chaos"
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 10:18 AM on November 13, 2009

I find Beck immensely entertaining. I'm a fan. The usual thuggish right-wing TV and Internet personalities are deeply unimaginative -- Hannity, O'Reilly, Coulter, Malkin are just grim, obnoxious, predictable bullies. They bore me. I once listened to quite a bit of Limbaugh back in the early Clinton years, back when he was relevant, and he was, again, just a cheap bully, on autopilot, I just could predict what he was going to say on any given topic, more or less (I admit I was later surprised... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 5:06 PM on November 7, 2009

GOOGLE LOUIS PASTEUR
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 10:14 AM on November 2, 2009

Chances of something like this being made and aired today? Not just the content (the white racist Southerner?) but the slow pace and the genuine creepiness of the entire piece?
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 12:03 PM on October 25, 2009

If this stuff really surprises you, you're unaware that the books from the "Left Behind" series sold 65 million copies. Let me repeat: 65,000,000
And they're every bit as insane and bloodthirsty as this game. There's a huge market for extreme right wing paranoia in the US; the "Left Behind" books give you the Jesus flavor, this game gives you the militia flavor.
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 11:41 AM on October 18, 2009

It's a genius choice, I didn't think they had the balls to do it, but it's genius. It gives him political capital, it gives him a lot of leeway and yes, it forces him to think twice about bombing people from now on. It's not even about sending a big fuck you to the Republicans -- they're beyond reason now, chasing birth certificates, death panels, their leader is Glenn Beck and they can not be engaged, simple as that -- it's about giving a hand to a guy who really needs it.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 5:46 AM on October 9, 2009

I'll take the "The Nobel hates the US" whiners more seriously when the same people start complaining that too many Americans are getting the science prize. American universities and Amercian scientists do in fact produce a shitload of research, and they get awarded more. Period. It's only fair. Western countries as a whole publish a lot of books, read a lot of books, most of said are books are written -- and translated -- in the West. Which sucks, and if you have a dozen names of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 1:02 PM on October 8, 2009

and to the guy who quoted the -- admittedly awesome -- Bellow Lecture: if you're into trivia, did you know that Bellow is the only writer who ever used the word "Nigger" in his Nobel speech?
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 1:16 PM on October 8, 2009

America isn't America, it's something we're working towards.

this can't be favorited enough: it's an experiment, it's the whole point. one only needs to read the Adams-Jefferson letters -- a book that, by the way, should be mandatory reading in all American schools and for all the foreigners who like to comment, usually with no idea what they're talking about, on US affairs. the two old men -- they first met one year before the Declaration of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 2:11 PM on September 11, 2009

if you cheer for the Germans avoid any Germany-Italy matches then
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 12:49 PM on September 10, 2009

I find it extremely gimmicky -- not the design, but the whole "omg they're SO not-PC but WAIT! WAIT! they're just like US!, only they're not diplomatic or sneaky about their racism/misogyny/antisemitism/etc the way WE are now!". I really dislike the -- obviously deliberate -- stilted delivery of the not-so-great-to-begin-with dialogue, and the slow pacing wouldn't bother me if the show weren't simply so utterly banal in its insights. The writing is very average -- there's better stuff... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 1:00 PM on September 2, 2009

He murdered hundreds (three to five hundred, nobody was really counting and there was too much bllod around anyway) of civlians -- women, children, elderly people killed in ways that are not acceptable in slaughterhouses for cows -- did less time than a lot of people caught with a bag of weed, it took him more than forty years, and we are fucking supposed to be impressed?
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 8:55 AM on August 22, 2009

PR masking as genuine grassroots are par for the course -- these people have been raking in 400% increases in profits in the last 15 years -- since Hillary's plan was sunk by various fraudulent and/or dishonestpractices. You can't expect them to take reform with a smile -- would you be happy to see a 75% cut in your paycheck or would you try to fight it?

The real problem here is that a sizable chunk of the assholes who rant against government-run health care are on... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 2:16 AM on August 22, 2009

2020 with a lame duck republican 2 term president and a republican congress and probably senate too?

I do think that it's realistic to imagine, in that worst-case scenario I mentioned, that health care would eventually be passed by a Republican administration as a pro-business measure, and not as a poverty program by a Democratic President

yes, I'd support public healthcare, or any move in that direction, even if I... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 4:06 AM on August 22, 2009

My Xbox died and it made me sad.
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 7:35 PM on August 18, 2009

I think Steve McQueen is as cool as the next guy and all, but it's a bit much at this point.

I agree, nowadays we have Ben Affleck -- can't complain!
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 10:03 AM on August 18, 2009

You forgot Diablo Cody.

Hers is a very interesting list, she's all about the edgy, kickass films (well, except Wes Anderson's and The Blob). One then wonders why she choose to write a very commercial, very successful feelgood movie that amounted to little more than a pilot for a pro-life sitcom -- the bumbling but nice dad, the sarcastic but supportive mom... really, the only bad people in her movie could be found at the abortion clinic -- you know, the ones that want... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 7:35 AM on August 17, 2009

When Bush won* in 2000, my Republican neighbor made a point of taunting everyone

well, now your neighbor's stuck with a black President for at least four years: sweet sweet revenge
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 6:40 AM on August 11, 2009

rename the school after Ilse Bing then -- she was greater than O'Keeffe as an artist and I'm sure the Germans will be thrilled
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 5:32 PM on July 28, 2009

You try and do that with a Kindle now
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 9:46 AM on July 26, 2009

I bet the guy who invented Outlook went to the bathroom all over the code.
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 2:12 PM on July 18, 2009

Mayor Curley regrets nothing!

Well, I am sure he does regret that Grady didn't take Pedro out, that one time. We all do regret that.

This link, instead, is the best thing ever seen on the Internet.
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 8:28 AM on June 22, 2009

On the other hand, Minnesota already cut in half its US Senate delegation, what's a billion dollars here and there when you compare it to that.
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 6:30 PM on June 16, 2009

This Solmonese guy is doing his job, and gay marriage -- just like gay adoption, etc -- is awesome. I'm 100% for it. But still, let's not pretend we all suffer from amnesia. Because I for one don't.

O.K., back to 1993: Bill Clinton gets 100% behind the gays-in-the-military thing (the gay rights issue of the day, back then, it was what gay marriage is today). He gets his head chopped off and loses Congress the following year, badly. Newt Gingrich -- a famous ally of all... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 10:31 AM on June 16, 2009

Another thing: the debate is open between historians if FDR could have really deployed military airpower to destroy the tracks and stop the trains that were taking Jews over to the death camps (cue George W Bush's famous gaffe about "bombing Auschwitz" -- to take those poor souls out of their misery, one fears). But whether or not it was militarily feasibile for FDR to slow down the Holocaust once the camps were doing their obscene work (and it very possibly was feasible), a sad,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 11:23 AM on June 16, 2009

"Hadley makes sugar and flour holders?"

"Oh, they make waterboards, too"

(silence)
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 1:23 PM on June 15, 2009

This is reminiscent of the Goetz case only if you don't remember what happened back then -- Goetz didn't kill anybody (he made one guy a paraplegic and injured two or three others, I don't remember exactly, which is of course all kinds of horrible but it's not murder in the first degree, neither legally nor morally), it wasn't even a robbery, not in the sense that they pointed a gun on Goetz's face asking for his wallet (they asked if he had five dollars, he pulled out a gun he owned illegally... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 3:33 AM on May 30, 2009

Speaking of extremist judges, in a Democratic Congress eleven Democrats voted to confirm Clarence Thomas
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 9:42 AM on May 26, 2009

Tiny mummies! Tiny paragraphs!
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 8:54 PM on May 11, 2009

Your world is crumbling, old world news guy, and it's in part because of horseshit like this.

You seem to be under the impression that this story was actually discovered by some guy on livejournal or, God forbid, by The Huffington Post (you know, the ones who copy and paste the New York Times's stuff and a hundred other newspapers and magazines for a living -- until they get sued, I suppose). The New York... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 12:16 PM on April 23, 2009

Now a new generation of entitled young men and women have found a cause for their own glib, impotent posturing.

To be fair, the Republican Congressional delegation is not that young, and women are very few among them.
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 3:48 PM on February 17, 2009

If the Obama administration were to declassify aspects of the program so that they could be used as evidence in the Mohamed et. al. v. Jeppesen case, there would probably be no way to avoid trying senior members of the Bush administration, maybe even Bush himself, for war crimes. And Obama clearly doesn't want that.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

There's not much else to add. The ACLU is doing its job, more power to them. But Obama has... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 5:00 PM on February 9, 2009

(Dresden was of course destroyed by the Brits, still the argument is the same)
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 5:02 PM on February 9, 2009

I'M RICK JAMES BARACK OBAMA, BITCH!
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 2:13 AM on February 6, 2009

if it's so easy, why didn't the AP photographer take his own photo and turned it into a red white and blue poster with the Obama logo on the lapel, the HOPE sign and the little Andre the Giant in the background? he could have ended in a museum and made a bunch of cash in the process. instead nobody knows who he is.

if that press conference photo alone was so damned fucking iconic by itself, why didn't even the AP photographer recognize it on the Fairey poster for months?... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 9:10 AM on February 5, 2009

What a mess of a post, seriously. Don't take it personally. The misspelled "Mussolini" is the most factually correct part of it all.

Of the many rational, documented arguments to be made against a Berlusconi government, I really can't see any here, between the wikipedia links, the expired wire reports, the general bullshit and a tabloidy British newspaper story that has no first-person reporting but cherry-picks and recycles quotes from Italian media.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 12:50 PM on February 3, 2009

Anyone here remembers the heartbreaking opening montage of "Milk"? The black and white footage of police rounding up and arresting harmless people who were minding their own business in gay bars?

Looks so dated, does it?
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 11:58 AM on February 2, 2009

Schiller is a hustler, from the Gary Gilmore to OJ -- a classic Hollywood hustler, purchasing rights to tabloid-worthy material, that kind of stuff. The peeping tom images of Marilyn Monroe ("Look! Marilyn's tits! OMFG!") in her last days are no exception -- a class act as always. I seem to remember a story in a magazine like The New Yorker in the 1990s where his hustling re: the OJ thing was explained quite thoroughly, the way he shoehorned himself in the middle of the story -- he... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 4:26 AM on February 2, 2009

(oh, and I can't really be bothered to google that up, but if you're interested do some research re: the Strasbergs and Marilyn's will, and you'll see this is not the family brightest moment)
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 4:28 AM on February 2, 2009

What, no bailout?
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 10:48 AM on January 31, 2009

This is Letterman's class act, period. And I say this as someone who hasn't found Letterman funny since, I guess, back when Hicks was still alive. Letterman didn't really need to do this, and his repeated apologies sound sincere. Bill's mom seemed happy, and that accounts for something. We cannot go back in time, but we can make small amends, and that's what Letterman tried to do here. I respect him a lot more for this.

Re: Bill Hicks, well, a lot of us still miss him a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 7:21 AM on January 31, 2009

And by the way, did you see how Bill's mom doesn't try to pretend Letterman'd decision didn't hurt them, but she is not bitter or rude or passive aggressive about it? She just tells like it is. She's a lady who had to bury her son after having to watch him die -- the kind of crushing, unimaginable sorrow the Greeks used to write about; and she kept her grace about all this. I hug her.
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 7:29 AM on January 31, 2009

Maybe I go to the wrong digital printer (pro), but I still have to see an image pop out as beautifully as my old prints from Plus-X and Tri-X on Oriental paper do -- deep blacks, sooty grays... Film grain looked better, too, but I blame the digital source for that.

.
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 10:29 AM on January 28, 2009

I think that even those of us who have never been fans of Updike's in the least (in my case this is an understatement) cannot deny that, with his passing, American letters lose one of the few remaining serious authors from a generation that by now has basically disappeared -- the generation of writers who came of age in an era where novels were supposed to be -- not just supposed, but were -- an important part of culture, and daily life. I doubt I'll read him in the future... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 11:33 AM on January 27, 2009

It's heartwarming, hypocritical middlebrow pap for the petit bourgeoisie in search of an exotic night out -- the movie equivalent of ordering in Indian. A perfect recipe for an Oscar. I have high hopes that the awards will be the orgy of self-congratulation Hollywood excels at: Best Picture and Best Director for a crap film about brown people; Best Actor to Penn for the weakest performance in the career of America's greatest actor of his generation (he can do a gay saint with a slight lisp in a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 7:31 AM on January 27, 2009

Matteo hasn't seen Slumdog Millionaire.

I wish.
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 8:51 AM on January 27, 2009

good luck printing this out!
posted to MetaFilter by matteo at 3:56 PM on January 23, 2009