Saturday, June 09, 2007

Re: The Nest Egg

"Twenty-two, twenty-two, come on back to me, come on back to me..."

Michael and I have had many discussions about Lost in America. My contention is that up to the scene at Hoover Dam, LIA is one of the funniest movies ever made. It is greatness. But it all goes WAY downhill after that and loses much of it's steam and humor, at least for me. Michael was all into Albert Brooks and I never "got it" until LIA.

As an aside, Monty Python and the Holy Grail is the funniest movie ever made.

"It's just a flesh wound..."
"Help...help..I'm being repressed..."
"Listen, strange women in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government..."

I'm laughing just thinking about HG...I may have to pop in the DVD this weekend.

Friday, June 08, 2007

The Nest Egg...

made the HH show tonight in the Emmett of the Unblinking Eye segment about the 10 best casino movies. Julie Haggerty.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Monday, June 04, 2007

More on GF's position

Just her voice [2/3rds of the way down] is enough to convince this single guy but Peggy Noonan, and I admit again my infatuation, is sounding increasingly convincing.

Obama = Thompson

I'm thinking that both of these guys look great but have no real experience. Granted that FT has more life experience but I'm not sure he has the admin. experience. I'm hating this early political season.

GF clearly suffering from BFS

I've known it for some time but this makes it clear.

Political Party "Card"

There is a lady here cutting up her Republican "card" because of the immigration bill. Do party cards really exist? If so, why have I never gotten one?

Re: "He looked healthy to me"

It certainly inspires no confidence though it is difficult for me to ascribe the act of one border agent to GWB...just as it was difficult for me to credit the last administration for stopping the Millennium Bomber. How long has this guy been at his post?

Having said that, I may be suffering BFS (Bush Fatigue Syndrome) but the incompetence of this administration during the second term is really wearing on me. Is this how Clinton supporters felt circa 1998?

"He looked healthy to me"

Yep, this makes me sleep better at night, knowing that a diligent professional like this is guarding the border. What an idiot. This what my tax $$ are going towards????

And speaking of Homeland Security, has anyone seen or heard from Mr. Chertoff recently? Is he still head of this department? I'm waiting for a ''...you're doing a great job Chertie..." moment any day now.

Then again, perhaps it will take another "professional" border agent to let some al-Qaeda terrorists in, even though their passports are flagged and when questioned, say "well, they didn't look like terrorists to me" before we get a public GWB endorsement of "Chertie".

Buenos Aires Story #2

One night we meet some of our friends for happy hour. To give some background on them, they are in their mid to late 20’s, college educated, speak at LEAST 2 languages and have traveled to the USA multiple times, as well as to Europe and to various South American countries. While they may not follow US politics as closely as we do, they are aware of what goes on (when they are in the States, it is usually for extended periods). Since BA is having local elections, we were asking about the candidates and the differences between them. The consensus among them was that it didn’t matter who won, nothing would change. It was also interesting to hear them talk about “left and right” – they told us that there isn’t really a “right” in Argentina – a politician in Argentina who is “right” is really just not as far left as everyone else. This subject, of course, led us into US politics.

I asked them why do most Argentine’s dislike GWB. The answer, from more than one, was the war in Iraq. They do not view it as a war on terror – they view it as a big, strong country fighting a small, weak one – and doing it for the oil. And it’s not that they condone terrorists or 9/11, but they see it as us wanting something that Iraq has (oil), and coming up with some pre-text to start a conflict. And more than one of them expressed the concern that we might do the same to Argentina. I was incredulous and asked why, for what? The answer was – water. Their concern is that water will be the next resource that we (the USA) will run out of; Argentina has a large reserve/supply and therefore, we’ll come down and take it. C and I just looked at each other and could not believe what we were hearing. We said, even if the US needed water, Canada was much closer and/or we would come up with some technology to convert salt water to fresh. Their response was that Canada was our neighbor, our friend and we wouldn’t “take’ from them. We told them that our government had nothing against Argentina, so why would we “take” from them? The reply - you don’t treat us like friends. You don’t make us feel welcomed when we come to the States. You treat us like an enemy. We are small country and if the US wants water from us, they will come up with a reason to start a conflict and Argentina could not fight us.

Now, this “treating us like a friend/enemy” is a sentiment that we had heard before, not only from Argentines, but from Brazilians as well. And not only on this trip, but on our last one as well. 2 years ago, we were having breakfast at our hotel and at our table were an older (50-60) couple from Brazil. They were talking to us about 9/11 and the aftermath. They kept asking us – why didn’t you just kick out all the Arabs after 9/11? That is what Brazil would have done, that is what almost any country would have done. Why at airports do you treat everyone as an enemy, when most of them are your friends? If you treat a friend like an enemy, then why are you surprised that you have no friends?

Our friends said almost the same thing. They did not understand why they get searched ( people from non-Arab countries, non-Muslims). If a certain people are your enemy, those are the ones you search or detain or not let in or kick out. We tried to explain that internal US politics and political correctness dictated that we treat EVERYONE the same, thus we treat EVERYONE like an enemy. That was a concept that they, and others we talked to, didn’t get.
They also told us that when they travel, especially to the US, they don’t use their Argentina passport. That most Argentines have 2 passports – since Argentina was settled mostly by Europeans (Germans, Spanish, and Italians), most have passports from Argentina and from the country of a grand-parent (if that grand-parent was a citizen of say, Italy, then you could have an Italian passport as well). This surprised me. We were told that it was because eve though the security rules were the same, that US officials treated them “differently” if they used a non-Argentina passport (that being said, I also think that the rules/restrictions on what you can bring into/out of Argentina using an Argentina passport has something to do with it)

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Dem. Debate

GWB may be incompetent or a dope but this is just painful. Mitt or Rudy...I've got to start donating.