Category: Uncategorized

Delta slashed their fares in half today, more or less setting the ground for fare reduction across the entire air commuter industry. They call their new program “Simplifares”.

I couldn’t get through to Delta’s reservations phone line. Their website was timing out all day. I’m figuring that everyone is calling, trying to get on board at the new low fares.

A shame that I don’t live anywhere near a Delta hub.

Check this out..

Its a brand new picture of the entire cast of all 6 Star Wars films from Vanity Fair. Amazing to see all these people in the same room at the same time.. (Even included people from Episode 3 We Aren’t too familiar with yet.)

Click “Read More” to see the glory..

Here it is..` On order from left to right..

Young Adult Anakin, Young Obi Wan, George Lucas, Padme Amidala, Yoda, Darth Vader, R2D2, C3PO, Mace Windu, Jar Jar Binks, Bail Organa (EP 3), Count Dooku (Darth Tyrannus), Qui Gon Jinn, Childhood Anakin, Shmi Skywalker, Palpatine (Emporor or Senator or Chancellor, or whatever), General Grevious, Lando Calrissian, Princess Leia Organa, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Luke Skywalker

(Click the image to enlarge to full-size)

AWESOME!!

EDIT by matthew: Changed image scaling to fit in page, made image a link to full-size.

DNA doesn’t lie.

Back in the late 1990’s, I watched the impeachment of President Bill Clinton due to the Monica Lewinsky Scandal with some incredulity. Ultimately, the impeachment was due to perjury and obstruction of justice.

The DNA evidence on Monica Lewinsky’s dress proved to be the key to those charges; were it not for definitive, absolute DNA evidence that the President had behaved improperly, it is unlikely the case could have been proven. It would have been a “he said, she said” situation. But DNA markers were proof positive that, at the very least, Clinton had been in a compromising position with Ms. Lewinsky.

In talking about this subject with relatives later, I submitted that “Bill Clinton was just following in the footsteps of many of the Founding Fathers. Thomas Jefferson had children by his slave, Benjamin Franklin was a well-known philanderer, and there are reasons to suspect other signers of the Declaration of Independence did not adhere to modern-day ‘traditional values’.”

In response, one of my relatives grew very upset at my allegation of infidelity on the part of the Founding Fathers, claiming those men were righteous, God-fearing individuals who did not deserve such horrible allegations levelled against them. He demanded a retraction, which I refused to provide, saying “I’ll look into it later”.

Well, “later” finally arrived. I was researching the origins of the terms “left-wing” and “right-wing” politics. Originally, these terms referred to where people sat in chambers after the French Revolution: members of the ruling aristocracy who favored the monarchy and traditional authority sat on the right, while those who favored democracy and individual liberty sat on the left. They were united in the fact they were wealthy landowners who would probably all today be labelled “right-wingers”.

Sorry for that tangent. Anyway, while researching, I came across a name I know: Fawn Brodie. Brodie is well-known in the LDS Apologist and Post-Mormon communities due to her 1946 biography of Joseph Smith, Jr., entitled “No Man Knows My History”. The book gained wide acceptance amongst many scholars as being the definitive work on Smith, while simultaneously being repudiated by church leadership. Though I’ve not read the book, it’s generally regarded as moderately authoritative, but a somewhat sloppy and unreliable work prone to selective source choice. However, there are several controversial aspects of the book, notably Joseph’s polyamory with several other men’s wives while those men were still living and/or on missions for the church, that have been thoroughly confirmed in the intervening fifty years of research.

Brodie was further known for biographies of other obscure historical figures; due to her choice of little-known individuals, like Smith, her books gained little scholarly inquiry or publicity. No other work of hers caused as much furor as NMKMH until her 1974 publication of Thomas Jefferson: an Intimate History. Her most controversial allegation was that he had carried on an extended affair with Sally Hemings, his slave. Ultimately, it is probably due to Brodie’s work that I had ever heard the rumor I stated as fact before my relatives that forgotten day.

Well, anyway, I finally found it: strong DNA evidence that Jefferson fathered at least one child by Sally Hemings. DNA doesn’t lie, and there is now no doubt that at least one of Hemings’ children was closely related to Jefferson — vindicating Brodie’s work on Jefferson, and her publishing of it despite extreme opposition to sullying the name of a Founder.

As always, there are those who oppose the conclusion. Jefferson traveled extensively and was rarely home for more than a few weeks at a time. Combining DNA evidence with the fact that he was home exactly nine months before the birth of several of Hemings’ children, unless his brother chose those particular times to sneak in some romance with Jefferson’s slave, seems to make it self-evident that he was the father. The 2000 Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation report makes this very clear. On the other hand, the Monticello Organization (descendants of Thomas Jefferson) voted in 2002 not to allow Hemings’ descendants into their club, and persuaded the Memorial Foundation to change their statement.

Yeah, I know, I’m six years late on the research, which was performed in 1998 and widely published in 2000. At the time I made the statement, six years ago, it was probably still recent news.

I’m the kid that always thought up the perfect retort for an insult several weeks later.

Just wanted to ring in the New Year by imploring both Uncle DOW and Aunt NASDAQ to make a nice run in 2005.

In the last couple of years, I’ve gotten very into listening to commentaries by cast and crew available on DVD movies.

For the unititiated, commentaries are alternate audio tracks you can select on many DVDs, with the cast or sometimes the director talking during the movie as he/she/they watch it.. talking about what how they did what they did.

So, I thought I might list my top 10 all time favorite commentaries.

10) Braveheart – Realy only because Gibson gets caught up in making the film and sits and watches it in silence soemtimes.. its really lamost like you’re watching it with him.

9) JFK – Mostly because Oliver Stone doesn’t talk about the film at all. He instead tells the inside scoop on info he didn’t put in the film, further enhancing his conspiracy theory.

8) Bubba Ho Tep – There are a number of commentaries here.. but my favorite is Bruce Campbell playing Elvis watching the film.. which stars Bruce Campbell as Elvis. Whats fun is when “Elvis” comments on how Bruce Campbell does as an actor impersonating him.

7) Fight Club – Without breaking the first rule, I can say that the rapport between Ed Norton and Brad Pitt is obvious here, and it makes for an interesting listen. Its been a while, but I think that there is also snippets from Helena Carter sitting by herself that seem a bit out of place.

6) Freddy Got Fingered – The commentary is as funny as the movie, Tom Green fans. Of course, if you thought the movie was abysmal (as many – not me – did), then you will think the commentary is too.

5) Kung Pow: Enter the Fist – The only commentary I know where someone takes a cellphone call during the film and has a conversation. This is just like hanging out with a buddy (Oedekerk, whom I LOVE) and its a good, easy listen.

4) The Evil Dead Trilogy: Sam Raimi (now of Spider Man fame) and the aforementioned Bruce Campbell, soemtimes together, sometimes on seperate tracks, Narrate Evil Dead 1, 2, and Army of Darkness.. and its really very good. They’re charming, and also honest about their feelings on the movie.

NOW.. before my top 3.. others that could have made it into the top 10.. Nightmare on Elm Street 1, Star Trek Generations, The Lion King, Good Will Hunting, The Matrix, The Blair Witch Project, XMEN 1 and 2, and the commentaries on the Buffy and Highlander TV shows.

NOW: THE TOP 3

3) The Star Wars Movies. All 5 have commentary by a number of people. The original trilogy especially has good commentary by Lucas, but also honest and sometimes scathing commentary by Carrie Fisher. If you really want to know these movies, listen to these.. they’re great.

2) The View Askew Films. Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, and Jay and Silent Bob strike back all have loads of cast members recounting, joking, Jason mewes sleeps through two of them, they;re honest, funny, and almost as good as the movies themselves. The rerelease of Clerks and the Clerks Cartoon also include new, additional Commentaries.

1) Is there any Question? THE LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY – Extended editions. In terms of sheer numbers, each 4 hour movie has 4 commentaries.. but the only really good ones are the Cast and Writers/Director. Still, thats 2 per film.. and that makes 24 hours of excellent, honest, insightful, often funny commentary. Special notice has to be given to Merry And Pippin for being hilarious throughout, and to andy Serkis for participating not only as himself, but as Gollum and Smeagol as well.

THE NEXT COMMENTARIES I WANT TO HEAR… I may have to get the Matrix Trilogy rerelease if only to hear this.. Maybe its a rumor, but I hear they actually got a pair of critics that hated the films and just let them rip them apart as the movies play. Its brave, and, as I was not a Reloaded fan, I want to hear them.

Happy listening!!

Hey, Humbugs. Happy New Year. May you love the stars too fondly to fear the dark, deal with very few jerks, and enjoy prosperity throughout 2005.

I ran across a wonderful article outlining Albert Einstein’s contributions to science. If you’ve ever wondered what a Bose-Einstein condensate is, or why light is a “wavicle”, but you don’t have the grounding in math to fully appreciate Einstein’s use of C (the speed of light) as a constant (rather than the use of Time) in calculations, this is the article for you. In addition, courtesy of Slashdot, I found this little tidbit: the 10 most important scientific advances of 2004.

Hello all,

Been awhile since I have posted. So much has happened, its hard to know where to begin. First of all we had a great Christmas, Angelina got some dolls and clothes and some leap frog learning stuff. I got a much needed pair of shoes and some shirts. Angelina is a full fledged walker now, walks everywhere, even take her on walks with daddy now, mind you they are slow walks, but none the less we go. She has gone outside and played, got really muddy, but it was cute. She has developed an attachment to one of her dolls, she holds it like a baby and pats its back, its really sweet. I have been on the holiday break from school, so nothing going on there, except to say that I have about 6 months left and I will hold a full fledged degree.

My brother and his wife had there first ultra sound today, and it looks like there is going to be another boy joining the clan, I was kinda hoping they would get a girl to, just so my daughter would not be lonely, but anyway, they are all excited about that.

Not much else going on. Curt

Last week Time Magazine awarded their Blog Of The Year. These are the three guys responsible for unveiling CBS News as frauds. Their coverage led to show how the Bush National Guard documents were fakes.

Anyway, what’s been interesting is that two of the three live here in Minneapolis. They’ve been keeping busy posting to their blog on a daily basis. The legacy, mainstream media has been hounding them because it’s sort of obvious that these guys don’t work hard for a living (lawyer in a big downtown firm, VP of a bank) but instead use their time to blog during the day, sort of demonstrating that their presence has become an online beacon for right-wing agenda advancement.

I actually read their blog. I think it’s neat because these guys don’t have to answer to journalistic standards. Instead, they have to write knowing that it’s their professional reputation on the line (pun intended). Interesting distinction.

But…what’s heated up is that the Star Tribune responded.

It’s sad that my notion of fun-juicy-gossip is now watching journalists and bloggers go back and forth in a saucy tiff.

EDIT by matthew: Tag ends, formatting adjusted.

That thing was awful. I feel so terrible for those people.

I subscribe to “Cruising World” magazine, which is part technical-sailing and part fantasy. A lot of stories from people who sail to exotic and remote locations around the world. Something, these stories involve excursions to the Indian Ocean.

Lots of small islands with small populations. People living in stilt houses. People eating what they catch during the day.