Ed Stelmach: The EU can afford to chase more aggressive targets because many countries have been building up to this for years by taking such measures as phasing out energy-inefficient manufacturing plants. Am I wrong?
The Dude: No you're not wrong.
Ed Stelmach: Am I wrong?
The Dude: You're not wrong Ed. You're just an asshole.
Ed Stelmach: Okay then.

With the recent release of her book, Sarah Palin has been all over every form of news media of late. Helped by a tour that looks to be significantly less ‘book’ then ‘political campaign’, and the powerful Republican-friendly voices in the American media, she has seen her rather tepid political career and lacklustre accomplishments burnished to a blinding shine. Which is not to say the coverage has been completely uncritical, of course. Those who aren’t praising her book as the best thing since the Bible generally try to paint it as the worst thing since Mein Kampf. I doubt this particularly upsets either Palin or those who back her, since any negative responses can then become fodder for another round of reporting, allowing them another chance to talk her up.

One of the favoured tactics, at least from what I’ve seen, involves a seemingly-impressive statistic. I have repeatedly heard that sixty-five percent of Americans support Sarah Palin for President. Some news organisations have the good grace to note that sixty-five percent of registered American Republicans support Palin, but almost nobody goes beyond that. Which is frustrating, because that’s just the tip of the disingenuous iceberg.

You see, Palin’s ‘soaring support’ is often contrasted with President Obama’s ‘declining popularity.’ Obama recently dipped below fifty percent approval ratings, and the Palin numbers have been dragged out, time and again, to beat the president about the face with. There are, of course, myriad numbers of problems with this. First, even if registered Republicans made up a full fifty percent of the two-party American populace (a ludicrous idea, given the extremely close victories of George Bush and the shockingly large victory by Barack Obama), sixty-five percent of fifty percent only gives you thirty-two and a half percent. Even worse, the Globe and Mail recently reported on a poll showing just three in ten Americans support Palin for president, a number which includes not just registered Republicans but unregistered ‘swing voters’ and even that strangest of creature, the ‘Blue Dog’ Democrat, amongst whom it seems safe to assume Palin has at least some statistically noteworthy support. So, on the one hand we have Barack Obama, who has to deal with Wall Street executives seemingly eager to start a class war, an actual shooting war in Afghanistan, an economic recovery that’s looking to be as jobless as the last few have been and sections of the media so firmly opposed to him that they view pro-education addresses as nefarious attempts at indoctrination. And on the other hand we have Sarah Palin, whose woes have all been of her own creation, from the disastrous interview with Katy Couric to the various scandals and investigations into her behaviour as Alaska’s governor to her utterly inscrutable resignation to her swinging a by-election in favour of the Democrats, being interviewed favourably by everyone from Fox News to Oprah. And somehow Palin, who has the support of about three in ten Americans, is an unstoppable political dynamo, while Obama, who still has just under fifty percent approval ratings, is yesterday’s man, doomed to lame duck oblivion in the face of this populist Republican groundswell.

Oh, and there’s one last little quibble. That sixty-five percent? It’s not an exclusive show of support. You see, unlike Obama’s approval ratings, which are binary, the ranking of potential Republican candidates is universally inclusive. So while sixty-five percent of Republicans may support Sarah Palin, seventy-one percent support the front-runner, Mike Huckabee. I imagine if people could say that Obama is doing a good job, but that someone else could do an even better job, as opposed to having to choose one or the other, his numbers might be just a little over-inflated, too.

Afghanada is a CBC production, a radio drama centred on a three-person squad of soldiers in the Canadian Forces, serving in Afghanistan. The use of the media in presenting fictionalised depictions of current military operations isn’t new, of course. But there’s something unique about Afghanada, something that represents both Canada’s conflicted views on Afghanistan and the changes in the relationship between the government and the media, especially on the issue of war.

The thing about Afghanada, you see, is that it’s always a gods damned tragedy.

That’s a slight exaggeration, of course. Still, Afghanada is one of the most relentlessly downbeat series I’ve ever experienced, and that’s coming from someone who stuck it out for all four seasons of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. 3-1 Bravo, a three-person squad made up of Sgt. Pat ‘Coach’ Kinsella, Charles ‘Chucky’ Manson and Dean ‘Deaner’ Donaldson, has gone through so many fourths over the sixty-plus episodes of this series that I’m starting to suspect their immediate losses are a significant percentage of the overall losses the Canadian Forces have suffered in that country. And it’s not even so much that people die as how they die; soldiers, interpreters and Afghan villagers alike, they all die tragically, their deaths wallowed in and the aftermath dragged on, sometimes for several episodes afterwards. The Canadian mission in Afghanistan is portrayed as a noble failure, a good but ultimately fruitless effort.

It was Vietnam that tipped the balance, I suspect. Yes, the original film version of MASH was set during the Korean War, a delightfully savage black satire, but it was something of an exception to the rule. Before Vietnam, when a country went to war the film industry went with it. If someone had tried to mount the equivalent of Afghanada during WWI or WWII, or even any of the smaller skirmishes the European powers seemed institutionally incapable of avoiding, the best they could’ve hoped for would’ve been getting laughed out of the production meeting. But between this and Over There, an Iraq War drama put on by HBO that was, at best, grimly pessimistic, it seems as though the pendulum has swung far in the other direction.

Which is not to say that the studios should be mindlessly turning out propaganda pieces, of course. War is always the most serious of endeavours, and questions and concerns and scepticism should all be brought forwards, to be dealt with openly and honestly and as fully as is possible. And it’s not even as if Afhganada, and Over There, were bad; Afghanada is somewhat farcical in its never-ending stream of tragedies, but when it bothers to do something other than kill off another brave Afghani schoolteacher or idealistic young CF soldier it can be quite entertaining. It’s just that it’s such a bleak series, and so unrelentingly negative about Canada’s mission in Afghanistan, that it seems odd enough to remark on.

I finally got around to watching something I'd always meant to check out in theatres, the 2009 film Push. For those who missed it, Push is an action/caper film, set in a world in which there are people with various special abilities, and requisite shadowy government agencies and criminal organisations out to control and profit from them. Our protagonist is Nick, a dissolute and shiftless telekinetic 'mover', just trying to keep a low enough profile to avoid the attentions of everyone. Nick gets dragged into the adventure by the worryingly loli-esque precognitive 'watcher', Cassie, who shows up with the promise of riches, and a new toothbrush. Arrayed against these two, and the ensemble of allies such films inevitably produce, are the memory-altering 'pusher' Carver and his dragon, the 'mover' Victor from Division, and the Pop family, an organised crime group composed of three banshee-like 'bleeders', a father and two sons, and the Pop's own 'watcher'. With Division on one side and the Pops on the other, Nick and Cassie have to figure out how to stay alive long enough to find a girl and a syringe that everyone's interested in, then work even harder to survive once they do.

I wasn't expecting much, I must admit, going into this thing. The studios have managed to stuff up established superhero movies as often as not; the two Fantastic Four flicks, Superman Returns, both Punisher movies, X3, Wolverine: Origins, and so on, and so forth. So, what were the odds that they'd take a completely new property, filled with mutants and psychics and a wisecracking thirteen year old, and actually produce something good?

As it turns out, they were pretty good odds indeed.

This movie is excellent. The plot is extremely clever, to the point where I wanted to start it over again as soon as it finished, just to watch for telling details I didn't know to look for earlier. This is no simple 'good vs. evil' slamfest, the writers of Push clearly sat down and pondered the real implications of all these powers. What could you do with a 'shifter', a man who could make one thing become another, if only for a little while? How dangerous would a 'pusher', with their need to make eye contact, really be? Just how hard would it be to take down a telekinetic? And if you don't see the future so much as what people intend to do in the future, how many ways could you get around that? The characters are also largely well-written, though Ming Na has so little screen time she's really more of a plot device than a person, and for the life of me I still can't understand why Carver stopped Nick from essentially walking off a cliff. These are small quibbles, though; Nick, Cassie, Carver and 'Pop girl' (the Pop's first names are never identified) are all clearly defined characters with realistic flaws and interests, and the second-tier characters are varyingly well-done. Except Victor, I suppose, though he basically exists to show just how incredibly dangerous someone like Nick could be, if they took their abililties seriously. And given that Victor at one point withstands a barrage of automatic weapons fire from a small army of Chinese gunmen, while also protecting Carver and the girl, all without breaking a sweat, the answer is powerful indeed.

There are some plotholes, of course, but surprisingly enough most of them can be reasoned through without much trouble. There are always enough pieces to make a theory fit, though you may have to watch closely to catch some of the more minor ones. Of course, the presence of precognitive Cassie certainly helps with some of the convenient 'coincidences' in the second half of the film. And given that the big-budget, franchise-relaunching Star Trek was riddled with holes large enough to fly the Enterprise D through, a few blips in Push's logic are hard indeed to fault it for.

One thing that did surprise me, though; there isn't nearly as much action in Push as the trailers would lead you to believe. Not that there aren't fight scenes, and very well done fight scenes at that, but the movie is as much chase and caper as it is action. Not that that's a complaint, mind. If Push were mindless action it would've been a significantly less interesting movie.

Have become addicted to Disgaea DS.

Cannot stop grinding and running the item worlds.

Fear for sanity, social life.

Send help, or spare DS battery pack. Either way.

Peter Van Loan thinks something is interesting, and he's not about to let a little thing like not actually answering the questions he's been asked get in his way!

So, a while back XKCD ran a series of strips about what was possibly the main character (it's tricky to tell them apart) challenging Nathan Fillion to a skateboard race. The series was painfully unfunny, with Fillion, Glau and Staite basically becoming Mal, Summer and Kaylee. That was the extent of the joke; 'these actors are just like their characters, hur hur.'

Now, along comes Nathan Fillion's new show, Castle, and its Halloween episode. The episode starts with Fillion wearing his old Firefly/Serenity costume, claiming to be a 'space cowboy'. Of course, as any good browncoat knows, while Mal was raised on a farm on Shadow, by the time he puts on that outfit he's an ex-soldier, starship captain and would-be revolutionary. The actress playing Castle's daughter proceeds to mock the idea of space-cows, then asks if he didn't wear that same outfit, like, five years ago. Yes, Fillion replies, but he likes it. The actress gives him a look, and tells him that maybe it's time to let go. After that he spends most of the rest of the episode in street clothes, and dresses up like Poe for the party at the end.

Now, that's how you do a Firefly/Serenity reference in an unrelated media property. Short, sweet, and subtle enough that you don't feel like it's being jammed down your throat.

So, I'm working my way through Final Fantasy III, the actual one, not the renamed VI we got over here back in the day. For the most part, the enemies are entirely reasonable; the only time I really ran into trouble, it turned out I'd accidentally skipped several intermediate areas, and was trying to blunder up to the final dungeon. Needless to say the creatures there killed me more often than not at first, but man, once you get a couple of those under your belt your levels just start shooting up.

But now I'm in the final dungeon, properly this time, and while my levels are mostly high enough (in the low 50's) there's one enemy that's just absurd. It's called the Green Dragon, and apparently there are also yellow and red versions, though I've yet to encounter them. This thing takes a good four to six rounds of combat to kill, depending on how often I need to divert my magic user and which of my damage-dealers it kills, and yeah, it kills a lot. It's rate of critical hits is way up there, meaning every time it attacks there's a good chance someone's about to lose two-thirds of their hit points, and it attacks twice a round. So, it's actually possible for this thing to kill a character every round. It's worth a fair amount of gil, which has absolutely no value to me any longer, and experience, which does, and apparently it can drop the gear for the best warrior class in the game, the Onion Knight.

Oh, and this Green Dragon? I did a little looking around; turns out this thing is harder to defeat than the actual boss of this section of the final dungeon.

FUBAR, indeed.

A followup to the recent Carl Sagan opus, 'Symphony of Science' is a team effort. Not just the good doctor, this time the glorious madness features Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Bill Nye. And Bill Nye is frickin hilarious.

This is most amusing. Now, it may not seem like it at first; indeed, it may seem that I've completely lost it to be mentioning a picture like this on my journal. But just take a minute. Maybe mouse around the picture about. See what you can see...