This is just weird and creepy and kind of gross

I've decided that I'm not going to see "The Social Network" despite the fact that it was written by Aaron Sorkin. This is because it's a film about Mark Zuckerberg, who A) is still quite alive and running the company featured in "The Social Network" and B) had nothing to do with the making of the movie. Making a film adaptation of a still-living guy's autobiography, with his blessing? Sure, go for it ("Catch Me If You Can" is kind of awesome, actually). A historical film in which still-living people are portrayed, but aren't really about the people so much as what they were doing? Sure. Making a movie about someone who's dead, without the blessing of their surviving family? A little weird, but at least the dude's not going to be seeing someone else disguised as him on movie posters. Maybe it's because I'm kind of a crazy privacy person, but the idea of it just skeeves me out.

So there's that - creepy, in my opinion, so I won't see the movie. I'm not outraged over it or anything.

Then there's this:

"Channel 4 is to show a drama-documentary based on what would happen if Prince Harry were taken prisoner while serving in Afghanistan.

The 90-minute film, called The Taking of Prince Harry, features contributions from former hostages and intelligence experts.

It includes scenes showing the prince, played by actor Sebastian Reid, being held behind enemy lines while negotiations are carried out to free him."

...

So, uh, some people sat around in a conference room somewhere in London and said, "Hey, let's make a movie depicting some guy who's grandmother is famous getting captured and tortured by terrorists," and...other people agreed that that was a good idea? This is like Saw franchise style torture porn meets mindless celebrity nonsense meets pure, astonishingly poor taste.

I mean, it's one part just bizarre ("What would happen if the youngest son of a man who's mother holds a position of ceremonial importance gets kidnapped?" is not, as far as I'm aware, one of the burning questions of the day), one part just weirdly invasive (again, the "Hey, uh, we're gonna make a movie about you, just fyi" thing), and two parts grossly insensitive ("Hey, let's depict our soldiers getting taken as hostages, just for kicks!" is kind of morally dubious, IMO, and "Hey, marginally-famous-guy! Look at what could have happened when you were in Afghanistan!" is just...creepy).

I mean, for god's sake: have some dignity. Hire some hack to whip up a script in which a prince goes off and serves in the Overseas Conflict du Jour and gets captured and there can be a heroic rescue or escape or tragic death or whatever. Do not give said character the same name as an actual living prince who has served in the Overseas Conflict du Jour, and do not hire an actor who looks like said actual living prince. Ta-Da! You've got your cheaply-made generic made-for-TV movie, and now you're only vaguely tasteless, not Incredibly Fucking Creepy.

Seriously. There are people who get paid significant amounts of money who think this is a good idea. At least creepy, invasive movies aren't just American!

Well, okay then.

I have absolutely no way to describe this, so I'm just going to put a link that you should click right here: http://www.denverpost.com/election2010/ci_15673894

Really?

Since my job-hunting process can now be summed up as "Is there some possibility I meet the requirements for this job regardless of whether or not I want it? Yes? Apply!", I've encountered a couple varieties of applications.

1. Most common for retail and customer service positions: those obnoxious online "personality" screens where they ask you fifteen different ways if you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree that it's acceptable to steal from your employer.

1a. A subset of these includes drug questions, where they specifically ask you if you think it's okay to use marijuana on the job. And cocaine. And heroin. And PCP. And so on.

2. Real jobs, where they want you to write a letter saying why they should hire you, and send them your resume. These are good.

3. Federal government jobs, where they would like to you to jump through six hoops (two of them flaming), submit a copy of your birth certificate in triplicate, swear an oath of loyalty to USAJobs.gov's resume builder, put your left foot in, put your left foot out, put your left foot in, submit your resume and sixteen pieces of paper via the postal service, shake your left foot all about, and then contact an undercover operative with a copy of your third-grade report card. Then you wait six months to hear anything. These are somewhat annoying.

3a. Jobs with the TSA (shut up, I'm in dire need of a paycheck), where they want you to answer 35 individual yes-or-no questions as to whether or not you have been convicted of a given offense. Included on said list are offenses such as murder, aircraft piracy, kidnapping, treason (really), sedition (no, really), and my favorite: "Lighting violation involving transporting controlled substances. Essentially, this means that if you have been convicted of transporting illegal drugs in a plane without activating the navigation or anti-collision lights you are disqualified."

I'm baffled by the specificity in that last one - "interference with navigation" is already covered, as are any number of felony convictions (involving drugs? burglary? cats? conspiracy? etc), so it's not like, "Well, you smuggled drugs by air into the country, but you had the proper lighting, so that's cool".

New Mexico

NM woman dies. Family has her body shipped back to NM, along with her personal effects. The brain is included amongst the personal effects.

Land of Enchantment indeed.

WTF of the day

Both Dusty Springfield and Petula Clark were British, not American.

Did you know...

If Jupiter were to gain a significant amount of mass (ie, pull in more stuff), it would in fact decrease in size? Because science is *weird*.

White (black?) collar crime, NJ style

Oh boy:

Two New Jersey assemblymen, three mayors, and rabbis hailing from Brooklyn to the Shore were among dozens of people arrested yesterday as part of a federal investigation into international money laundering and homegrown political corruption.

Yeah. Man is this rich. Forty-four arrests in total.

The investigation began with the FBI's looking into an alleged money-laundering operation led by a number of rabbis that reached from the Shore town of Deal to Brooklyn, N.Y., Switzerland, and Israel.

A Brooklyn man, Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, allegedly tried to entice people to give up a kidney for $10,000 so he could sell the organs for $160,000 each, according to acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra.

I don't actually have the slightest clue what these two paragraphs have to do with each other, but...a kidney? Really? That's fantastic. I can't express how much I hope it turns out to be true that there were rabbis - preferably orthodox* - that were trying to start some insane international organ-selling ring based in Hoboken.

Attack dog

Today in the cafeteria I saw a Santa Fe police officer, with a police dog.

The dog was a Golden Retriever.

The Santa Fe Police Department has a Golden Retriever. If you were to ask me to pick one breed of full-size dog that is probably most useless in any conceivable police situation, it could well be a Golden.

And no, I have no idea why the cops were in the college cafeteria with their fierce attack Golden.

Huh

Looks like something kind of questionable is going on at Amazon.

As if it wasn't hellacious enough working customer support for Amazon.com on Easter, the online book store's reps must now explain why gay romances (and other books) are too "adult" to rank.

Straight romance like Jackie Collins and straight porn like this book of Playboy centerfolds is still ranked on Amazon.

But not the homosexul stuff: Gay romance publisher Mark Probst noticed hundreds of such books lost their rankings over the past two days, including Transgressions, about a 17th century liaison between a cavalry trooper and a farmer's son, and False Colors, about a 19th century naval lieutenant attracted to his commanding officer.

Hmm.

What?

Someone likes JC Penney, I guess.

Dear Mr. Marx: WTF?

"The sum of values in circulation can clearly not be augmented by any change in their distribution, any more than a Jew can increase the quantity of the precious metals ina country by selling a farthing from the time of Queen Anne for a guinea."

What about a gentile?

Summum

This ongoing case simply reinforces my deeply-held belief that religion - any and all religion - is freakin' weird.

Also, just keep your religious symbols to yourself, no one else gives a damn about your stone tablets or your pyramids or your crosses or your menorahs or whateverthehells you worship or feel represented by or live your life by or whatever. Seriously: no one cares. You keep your religiosity within your home and church and mind - and stop bogging down the courts with your stupid lawsuits - and I'll keep my atheism to myself and we can all be friends.

Though I'll still think you're weird, all of you.

Dear Netflix

I'm sure you have some terribly complicated program that comes up the list of "movies most like ____" that pops up when you add something to your queue.

But can we talk? I added Iron Man to my queue. You suggested X-Men, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and Superman: The Movie, which are all extremely logical picks. You also suggested The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Italian Job and Kung Fu Hustle, which...I guess kind of work to certain degrees.

And then you suggested Oklahoma and Cat Ballou, which I must admit I find a bit strange. And by a bit strange I mean staggeringly incomprehensible.

A baffling theft

Someone, sometime between about 1:15 pm and 5:30 pm today came into my room and took my desk lamp away. They left the lightbulb sitting on my desk.

I'm assuming it was B&G, since my door was locked, that's a terribly odd thing to steal, and I said on my room inventory that my desk lamp did not work. You would think that they maybe could have called and left a message, or left a note, or something. Right?

There is no such thing as money.

Excerpt from a letter to the editor of the Santa Fe Reporter:

It all started several thousands of years ago with the “Goldsmiths” and “Money
Changers” It’s all a 1,000 percent FRAUD, deceit, mis-representation, scam,
sham, stealing, plunder and trickery, etc., i.e., modern and sophisticated
“Voluntary Slavery” on their “Prison Planet/Plantation” established and
maintained by the self-appointed “Masters of the Universe.” Simply ask any Bank
President point blank: Does your bank have and thus loan any (real) “MONEY”?

Okay. I'll get right on that, chief.

Ten (apparently fake) bucks says that this guy is a Paultard.

Amazing free offer!

Hey everyone! Do you live in the New York area? Do you love to travel? Man, does JetBlue have a fantastic offer!

New York-based JetBlue is looking for 1,000 of its frequent flyers to show up at JFK on August 23 to check bags given to them by the airline, go through security and wait at the assigned gate for their imaginary "flight".

In return, the airline is promising unspecified "giveaways", free parking and lunch.

Hahahahahahaha. Ahahahaha. Good luck with that, guys. Seriously, what they're saying is, "we'll give you lunch if you go through all the miserable parts of travel without the actual, you know, travel."

I wonder if they'll give you a food voucher when your non-existent flight is "delayed"? Will they load people onto planes and have them sit on the tarmac for three hours - to simulate sitting on the tarmac for three hours - and then another five with the engines running to simulate actually flying somewhere? Will there be screaming babies? Will they have CNN playing and aurally competing with boarding announcements from the nearest sixty-five gates and reminders not to leave your fake baggage unattended? Will they change the gate your fake flight is not leaving from three times and not tell you? Gosh, I'll be back in Jersey on the 23rd, maybe I should go!

Seriously: I would not under any circumstance do that for a "free giveaway" and a free lunch. If they actually paid for me to go somewhere like, say, London, sure. But "please come go through all the hellishness of getting to a flight without actually going anywhere and we'll give you a free sandwich" is just not a compelling offer.

Newark: Not *totally* worthless

Reading this made my blood run cold:

Philippe Quint is giving a private 30-minute performance on Tuesday in the cab waiting area at Newark Liberty International Airport.

He left his violin, a 1723 Kiesewetter Stradivarius, in a taxi on the way back from the airport last month.

Gah!  What?!  He left a Stradivarius in a cab?  Good god.  I A) am not a professional musician and B) have a decent-but-sure-as-hell-not-a-Stradivarius violin, and I can't stand to take my eyes off it when I travel.  If I know I'm going to be flying with it I will try to get a seat towards the back of the plane, so I'm sure I'll be able to put it in an overhead compartment I can see when we land.  Once while walking through an airport, the shoulder strap on my case spontaneously broke - the clip on one end just stopped clipping, and I nearly dropped it, which caused me to freak out.  

Kudos to Mr. Kahlil for returning the instrument.  I'm willing to bet that he didn't know what exactly it was that he was carrying in has cab, but even still, the honesty is refreshing.  

How in the hell do you get so distracted that you leave your four million dollar Stradivarius in a cab?  Or anywhere?

Indiana, may I have a word?

About those political candidates, Indiana. You've got some fine ones, I'm sure, but you've also got, uh, this guy.

Who just spoke in front of a gathering of Neo-Nazis. And when asked about it by the press, compared it...well, here:

"I'll speak before any group that invites me," Zirkle said Monday. "I've spoken on an African-American radio station in Atlanta."

Yeeaaah. So black people and the Bumblefuck, IN branch of the Hitler Fan Club are the same? Good to know. What else does this guy have to say, from his campaign website?

Full Name: Frederick Anthony "Tony" Hvfvgpd Zirkle
...
1. What’s the best solution to the conflict in Iraq?

The best solution? Stop glorifying adultery by enshrining neo-Baal porn worship in the heart of the 1st Amendment. Porn-adultery appoints "terror" to us. Lev. 26:16. Remember, slave-raping extended the Civil War.
...
3. Explain your position on the rising price of oil.

We need a LaPorte Co. U.S. Civil Service Academy where the masters and doctorate students and researchers will have an unobstructed key to the patent office for energy technological development.
...
Is it possible that a nation's embracing of porn-prostitution is one of the root causes of modern-day terrorism? For instance,
...

All taken from various places on his campaign site.

Alrighty then. This isn't the type of guy you vote for; this is the type of guy you encounter sitting on a subway platform muttering to himself, the guy you slooowly back away from without making any sudden movements.

How to have a good country

Recently I was reading something about Bhutan.  Bhutan is a very, very isolated place, wedged between India and China.  It's small, landlocked, and up until quite recently, was pretty well cut off from the world.  They have no formal diplomatic relationships with most Western countries, including the US and the UK.  They'd had a ban on television which was finally lifted in 1999.  In short, partly due to governmental planning but also due to the harsh geography of the region, Bhutan is probably one of the most 'intact' cultures in the world.  They've only had a couple years during which they could Westernize at any appreciable rate.  

What's interesting about Bhutan is, perhaps as a product of the increasing westernization, they are in the process of electing a democratic government for the first time, changing from a totalitarian monarchy.  

Now, from what I've read, it seems like a fairly benevolent monarchy.  The current king, worried about the effect that westernization was having on the country, introduced something called "gross national happiness", an idea that I personally find to be wonderful.  In addition to looking at how our economy is doing, we'll also take a look at how happy people are.  Good idea, right?  A little bit inexact and if it's anything more than just a soundbite, it's a bit problematic, but a nice idea.  The Bhutanese people seem to by and large like their king, which I suppose is a good thing.

So here's the really interesting thing about the transition Bhutan is going through.  It was mentioned in the National Geographic article I read about the country.  Here's a quote from it:

Rural peasants aren’t the only ones harboring doubts. At a trendy Thimphu nightclub called P. Wang, a trio of power brokers relaxes after a round of golf, singing karaoke and toasting the monarchy. “I don’t want democracy, because it can lead to chaos, like in Nepal or India,” says Tshering Tobgay, a businessman. “But whatever the king says, we must eat—whether sweet or sour, poisonous or delicious.” Even Bhutan’s chief election commissioner concedes that he would prefer not to have elections. “Given the choice, of course, we’d want to continue to be guided by the monarchy,” Dasho Kunzang Wangdi says. So why change? “It’s a simple thing: The king wants it.”

I don't get it.  I really, really don't get this.  The only way I can possibly get this to make sense is that because their contact with other nations has been so limited, they just don't really understand what democracy means.  Democracy means you're in charge.  It means that you, the voters, get the ultimate say in how your country is run.  Don't like what the government is doing?  Tell them, and in theory they're obligated to listen.  They don't listen when you tell them?  Vote them out of office.  Still not happy?  Run for office yourself.  Democracy means you have the absolute power, not some dude who's sole qualification is he inherited Daddy's job. 

Try to parse this: The people of Bhutan don't necessarily want a democratic government.  The king does.  So the king is forcing the people into the change of needing to think for themselves.  It's like some insane inverted form of a dictatorship: "Instead of telling you what to do, I'll make you tell me what to do!"  It's really incredibly strange.  

How not to be remembered after death

Philly.com: "Camden cop shot, nude man dead."  

Bummer, dude.