Critics slam faith elements in 'Knowing'

The Da Vinci Cage. (He said knowingly!)

I'm no Nicholas Cage hater by any means, but Knowing wasn't exactly on my radar. Looked a little too close to Next for comfort. But after all the brouhaha I'm more than a little intrigued.

"Knowing's" minimal discussion of faith and spirituality has made the critical corps apoplectic; the movie has been relegated to the land of hokey Christian cinema inhabited by clunkers like "Left Behind" and "Fireproof." Their revulsion is practically palpable. Instead of engaging with the text and discussing its contents in a reasonable way with an eye toward deeper understanding of the source material, critics have lashed out en masse and rejected a stylish thriller because they can't handle a mainstream film that deals with faith in a reasonable manner.

Movieguide confirms the faith-affirming element.

"...Very strong Christian worldview with some intentionally obtuse elements and characters that all conform to biblical hermeneutics, and controversial eschatology, but including a strong renunciation of a random universe (evolution) and an excellent example of reconciliation with overt message that “Jesus is the way, the truth and the life…”

Roger Ebert of course appears to have turned a blind eye to the religion in play but says it's the rare four-star shizzle nonetheless.

The one notable exception to this trend is Roger Ebert. In a four-star review, the critic wrote that the movie "is among the best science-fiction films I've seen — frightening, suspenseful, intelligent and, when it needs to be, rather awesome."

(Hat tip, Big Hollywood.)

'True Grit' rides again

Duking it out Coen Bros style

In the hands of anyone but Joel and Ethan Coen, I'd cringe at the notion of a True Grit remake. After what they did to The Ladykillers, I should still probably be cringing. But obviously these guys are brilliant most days. If anyone can deliver a picture to get the world excited about westerns again -- look what they did for archaic mountain music -- it's probably them.

NBC's Goliath fells David?

King me, NBC

So what's the deal with NBC's new show 'Kings'?

I saw a commercial or two, thought it looked interesting, but refrained from force-marching my already overburdened DVR into another full-season gig. I didn't realize it was based on the life of King David, set in the present (or is it future?), or I would have given it a spin.

From what I gather though, 'Kings' is just another kick in the nads for those of us crazy enough to take Scripture at face value. Turns out Israel is run by the Bush administration and Halliburton, David is a reluctant warrior, and Jonathan is (what else?) queerer than a three-shekel bill.

But here's the guy behind this abomination to explain his enlightened approach to Scripture and why you, good Christian, will support him if you're a good Christian.

World Magazine reviews the show here, calling David a "postmodern poster-child."

Even when he defeats Goliath, he doesn't do it for the Lord's honor and he doesn't do it with a sense of conviction; rather, like Forrest Gump, he stumbles into victory accidentally. A postmodern poster-child, there is no assuredness in David of his God or anything else. Of only one thing he is sure—that while he is a "good" person, as a hero he is a fraud. But this, of course, is what makes him the ultimate hero in a relativist worldview. Only because he knows he doesn't know anything for sure are we supposed to admire him. It is a sad, pale imitation of the heroism of the actual David: a man who knew his cause to be just because he fought on the side of the true God and, for the same reason, knew his victory was assured.

True, I'm prejudging based on a couple reviews and, y'know, the man's own words and all, but as a conservative Christian, prejudice is what I'm all about.

Three strikes you're out at the old ball game

Betrayed

Sheesh. Sorry for recommending the World Baseball Classic. (Outlaw 13 was right.)

I take that back. It had its moments. Thrills even, at least early on. Player patriotism -- those who chose the red, white and blue over team colors -- was inspiring and infectious. And Team USA played a heck of a lot better than last time even if the results were the same.

But the loss to Japan last night was disgusting. Inexcusable.

Jon Miller and company calling the game on ESPN used the words "handcuffed" and "betrayal" to describe what American fans might be feeling.

Totally.

And it's Davey Johnson's fault. Davey Johnson and his masters, the bulk of baseball's general managers who refused us key players: pitchers. Davey Johnson, the bulk of baseball's general managers, and players who dissed their country for the silk sheets of spring training.

I'd blame American fans, too, but they were burned by the WBC once before, so failure to show this time is at least understandable.

Still, was I the only one -- along with Evan Longoria -- who got goosebumps hearing "USA! USA!" last night? I understand we didn't even get that in Florida last week. Thank God we weren't playing Mexico yesterday. (Having lived in L.A., I can assure you USA Baseball is the permanent visiting team vs. any team south of the border. Immigration is a beautiful thing. But I digress.)

Check out Steve Buckley on all this, though I think he blames Davey J more than the equally culpable GMs. Johnson is nothing but a toady, a willing, sacrificial scapegoat for ownership.

No wonder Chipper Jones said he wouldn't be back unless fundamental changes were made to this whole thing. Listen up, baseball. Chipper speaks for the rest of us.

...Oh, who am I kidding? I just got a month of baseball in 30-degree weather, and I'll always be a sucker for the underdogs. I'll be back.

"Sweden rocked by radical Muslims"

Just another day in paradise

I lived in Sweden for two fantastic years in the '80s. Even then our own tiny little town was letting in some strange new neighbors, from Iran and elsewhere. The latest news breaks my heart:

A few years ago, the left-wing London Guardian newspaper called Sweden the most successful society the world has ever known. But Sweden today is being rocked by a large influx of Muslim immigrants and the growth of radical Islam.

Malmo is Sweden 's 3rd largest city and a major epicenter of the Islamization of Europe. Wide-open immigration policies have changed Sweden and have made Malmo, which is now one-quarter Muslim, one of the most racially divided cities in Europe.

Most Muslim immigrants are concentrated in one district, where the male unemployment rate is 82 percent. Crime affects one of three families in the city and rape has tripled in 20 years, according to the Christian Broadcasting Network.

In one housing project in the district, fire and emergency workers will no longer enter without police protection.

Malmo has been so accommodating toward immigrant Muslims that a local Muslim politician and imam has even declared, "The best Islamic state is Sweden !"

But Malmo's Jews won’t give the city the same glowing assessment. Jews who dare to walk the streets wearing yarmulkes on their heads risk being beaten up.

When Israel recently played Sweden in a Davis Cup tennis match in Malmo, protesters demonstrated against the Israeli presence in the city, and hundreds attacked police.

Journalist Lars Hedegaard, who is based across a bridge-tunnel from Malmo in Copenhagen, Denmark , told CBN News that pro-Israeli demonstrators in Malmo were met with rocks, bottles and pipe bombs from Palestinians and other Arabs.

Right-wing Swedish Democrats, who support limits on immigration, have been stigmatized by the left-wing Swedish media as fascist and bigoted.

But there is a growing acceptance that "the Swedish model" - generous welfare benefits combined with liberal immigration policies — is now unsustainable, according to CBN News.

Hedegaard said: “I think the best prediction is that Sweden will have a Muslim majority by 2049, so we know where that country’s going.”

Check out video here of an incident in Malmo in January, where peaceful Israeli demonstrators were disbanded by cowardly Swedish police too afraid to confront the larger, violent contingent of Muslims.

More video and news here from Tundra Tabloids on the topic.

Top 10 Obama/Biden gaffes

Toby Harnden has compiled a top 10 list of video goofs by President Obama and Joe Biden perpetrated since the election. (My take on personal favorite No. 3 here.)

Note, too, the link at the bottom of Harnden's post to memorable banana peels from the campaign trail.

Goes well with this list of Obamaisms.

And remember, George W. Bush was the dumb one.

CBO: Obama Plan deficit far worse than White House said

Whoa, Nelly! Apparently the President wasn't the only player overlooked in the Special Olympics draft. His entire economic team missed the cut, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

President Barack Obama's budget would generate unsustainably large deficits averaging almost $1 trillion a year over the next decade, according to new estimates released Friday. The new Congressional Budget Office figures predict Obama's budget will produce $9.3 trillion worth of red ink over 2010-2019. That's $2.3 trillion worse than the administration predicted in its budget just last month.

They're pretty much just throwing darts at this point, aren't they?

Worst of all, CBO says the deficit under Obama's policies would never go below 4 percent of the size of the economy, figures that economists agree are unsustainable. By the end of the decade, the deficit would exceed 5 percent of gross domestic product, a dangerously high level.

When questioned about the independently arrived-at reality check, Obama replied, "Uh...I guess it's true you can't spend your way to prosperity. Uh... My bad. We'll get you, ah, something that works in a jiffy."

Psych!

The latest figures throw a major monkey wrench into efforts to enact Obama's budget, which promises universal health care for all and higher spending for domestic programs like education and research into renewable energy.

"A major monkey wrench." Ya think?

At least now we know Nancy Pelosi wasn't losing it when she, not once but twice, talked about 500 million Americans a month losing their jobs in future.

I'd file this one under "Bwahahahaaa!" if I and my children to the biblical third and fourth generation of those that hate him weren't footing the bill.

No wonder the stock market gave up a week's worth of gains today.

I'll give you a stock tip... Load up on makers of dry dog food, because that's what we'll be eating for he next 50 years when Obama still rams this through.

Transgender humanoid exercises aged husband to death

Only in Slovenia... I mean America.

"A teachable moment"

My fellow special Americans...

Barack Obama is liberal self-parody. A walking, talking PC robot.

Witness this sorry spectacle from Obie's appearance on Leno last night, of which you've no doubt heard alllll about by now.

It began with the president joking about how bad a bowler he is.

Toward the end of his approximately 40-minute taping on the "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," Obama talked about how he'd gotten better at bowling and had been practicing in the White House bowling alley.

"I bowled a 129," he told Leno.

"That's very good, Mr. President," Leno said sarcastically.

But then came the foot-in-mouth moment: "It's like the Special Olympics or something," the president said.

Sorry, but that was funny. The first evidence I've seen that Obama is a regular guy when not pontificating from a mahogany podium at Harvard or remaking the fabric of the Republic by fiat from the Oval Office. (Or mounting his even earlier mob-boss rise to power da Chicago way.)

We've seen him shoot hoops and talk football, but until that joke, I never took the bait. His basketball was serviceable but 1) he was wearing a Marines t-shirt and 2) he had it tucked in a pair of geeky sweatpants.

So for a few brief moments I'm thinking maybe, away from his teleprompter crutch, he is a regular guy, capable of misguided retard jokes like George W. Bush, Joe Biden and the rest of us.

But he was back in that wavering ivory tower the instant he stepped off stage and into the waiting arms of his pollster-handlers, phoning the offended parties in full hand-wringing panic mode from Air Force One.

"He was very sincere, expressed an interest and an openness in being more engaged in the movement and said he was a fan of the movement and I think importantly he said he was ready to have some of our athletes over to the White House to bowl or play basketball or help him improve his score."

This guy is going to get us all killed.

Arf? Arf?

I support Israel unequivocally. Unlike many Christians, it's not because I believe in any end times significance of the political state of Israel. I support them as the lone outpost of democracy and freedom in a part of the world that desperately needs an outpost of democracy and freedom.

Israel is a friend of America who shares a common enemy with her, and that's enough for me to sign off on as many things-that-go-boom as Israel wants from our glorious military-industrial complex.

At the same time I react negatively to my country being anyone's female lapdog. And the more I read Pat Buchanan on the subject in recent years, the harder I find it to refute his contention that we are in fact wearing a tiny little sweater with our name embroidered in Hebrew.

Christians riding high on 'American Idol'

I'll admit it. We watch this show, and have since the second season. Freak Week draws me in, and Simon's politically incorrect spade calling usually keeps me watching.

Some years I care, others I don't. But the talent has been deep this year, so I'm watching with more interest than usual...with the help of the DVR fast-forward button of course.

We all knew about Danny Gokey's church background, but MTV reports a faith-connection is the rule rather than the exception among the top crop this season, with Michael Sarver, Kris Allen, Scott MacIntyre and Matt Giraud reportedly among the faithful. (Look for it to come down to Gokey and Giraud in the end, IMHO.)

This of course makes me not only watch but vote, because the entertainment industry could use a few more good souls for salt and light.

As a side note, though, I'd say Joanne Brokaw (quoted by MTV) is wrong on one point. Contemporary Christian music has been viable for a long time now, with many a crossover act over the past 20 years, including disparate acts like Creed, Sixpence, Jars of Clay, Nickleback, and Mercy Me.

Pop music is a cheese-based product by definition of course -- another reason to keep it out of church -- but who doesn't enjoy a few slices as part of a balanced diet every now and then?

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Islamic MTV - spinning the dopest, freshest hits in the Muslim universe

Michael Jackson, bringing sexy back!

This is fantastic news. Looks like the worm of pop culture is about to spoil Islam, too.

DJ Jazzy Habib, the new Ayatollah of Rock'nRolla, has had a revelation of Mohammedan proportions:

4Shbab TV is Abu Haiba's attempt to put young people back on the right path, he says, in a way that is fun and entertaining. Music videos from around the world – not just "Islamic videos," but anything that's positive, he says – air alongside call-in shows and contests like "Who wants to be an Islamic pop star?"...

The videos on 4Shbab don't have the backup dancers and beach side sets of their mainstream counterparts. In one, singer Sami Yusuf sits by a baby grand piano. Something of a Cairo heartthrob, Mr. Yusuf's song, "He is there," celebrates the omnipresence of God without being religiously specific.

So he's the Amy Grant of the Islamic world? That's musical bling to my infidel ears.

And it's already bearing Western-style fruit:

Drinking orange juice at a cafe along the Nile, Ismail Mohamed, a local university student, says he's open to the idea of watching an Islamic video channel. But for him, it would just be another network on the dial.

"Sure I would watch 4Shbab, I like to watch a lot of different things," he says. "Music videos, American movies, I watch whatever looks cool."

Couldn't happen to a nicer religion. Though it already is happening to a nicer religion.

Now if we can only get them to start singing praise songs that repeat every bland verse a minimum of six times per outing, we could see a 90-percent drop in suicide bombings worldwide!

"The Coming Evangelical Collapse"

A shell of its former self

Continuing our theological theme of late, here's a thought-provoking piece I stumbled upon over at the Christian Science Monitor the other day.

Thought-provoking and, in light of last week's ARIS survey, timely.

"This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good."

The first of his bullet points had me assuming this was coming from the Left, but after reading the rest (and allusions to Francis Schaeffer, Gene Edward Veith and Doug Wilson on the man's blog) clearly it's not.

The author is Michael Spencer, a.k.a. iMonk. I sense a subtle "too spiritual for politics" vibe, which always drives me nuts, it looks like a worthy blog, chuck-full solid logic and genuine faith.

"The Faithful go to Church, the Rest go to Therapy"

On this fine Sabbath day, allow me to submit a simple, well-stated defense of the faith, courtesy of Big Hollywood, for your reading pleasure.

And now for something completely different

Only in America... I mean, Slovenia.

Pixar's 'Up' theatrical trailer

Up, up and away!

After a dozen or so movies, Pixar has yet to disappoint. From concept to classic story sense to writing to flawless, inspired execution, they're simply the best filmmakers around, period.

Cars remains a daily play in the Splash household, with mom and dad sucked in every time along with the kids. The screenwriter in Splash remains awed by the economy of character development, creativity and, yes, emotional impact in a movie starring animated vehicles. (Lightning McQueen at the finish line with The King? Gets me every time.)

Next up for Pixar/Disney is Up, and the theatrical trailer has just been posted.

Looks like another winner.

Enjoy.

Thousands 'party' against taxation in LA

Tea Party, So Cal style

That would be some 8,000, to be vaguely precise.

I'm so happy I could cry.

Apparently this thing was organized by John and Ken from KFI radio in L.A. I used to love these guys when I lived down there. But the remarkable thing about this is that they aren't "Rush Limbaugh conservatives." They're centrists. Right of center to be sure, but hardly right wing fanatics, particularly Ken.

Also remarkable is the fact that these people were old and young, black, white, Latino and every over color of the rainbow. I think my favorite photo from the Orange County Register is a tattooed, brown arm with a Terminator action figure impaled in effigy -- though there was gorier imagery that also brought a tear to my eye.

Sure it was the O.C., but these folks came from all over Southern California.

YouTube footage below of the Fullerton event. (Because CNN sure isn't going to show you what's been going on all over the country since Rick Santelli fired the soundbite heard 'round the world.)

Keep slugging, America... We'll bring these pretenders down yet.

Study: Uncle Sam losing his religion fast

What, this isn't working??

I read about a pastor recently commenting that American youth groups were essentially "holding tanks with pizza" for a generation of youth shrugging off the faith in droves as soon as they leave home.

Now the latest American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) has confirmed the trend in a disturbing, comprehensive look at the loss of faith across the spectrum of American life.

Church has become increasingly irrelevant to people the more it's bent over backward to become relevant.

Mark Silk, director of the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College, sees in the numbers "an emergence of a soft evangelicalism — E-lite — that owes a lot to evangelical styles of worship and basic approach to church.

"But E-lite is more a matter of aesthetic and style and a considerable softening of the edges in doctrine, politics and social values," Silk says.

The next time someone tries to tell me how important Rick Warren is, I'm replying "scoreboard."

And don't forget, ladies and gentiles, as goes the Church, so goes society:

The piety gap defines the primary sides in the culture wars, Kosmin says.

"It's about gay marriage and abortion and stem cells and the family. If a personal God says, 'Thou shalt not' or 'Thou shalt' see these a certain way, you'd take it very seriously. Meanwhile, three in 10 people aren't listening to that God," he says.

"There's more clarity at the two extremes and the mishmash is in the middle," Keysar adds.

That "mishmash in the middle" is growing, with Wiccans, pagans and spiritualists rising in numbers.

"More than ever before, people are just making up their own stories of who they are. They say, 'I'm everything. I'm nothing. I believe in myself,' " says Barry Kosmin, survey co-author.

So much for the last 15 years of seeker-sensitive spiritual foot massages.

Maybe booting the Apostles Creed to make room for that double-bass kit wasn't such a hot idea after all.

Unsurprisingly, Islam, the only faith with tradition, conviction and real teeth has doubled its numbers, small though they remain. Protestants have also dropped off faster than "boring old" Catholicism with its uncool hierarchy and resistance to change.

We're in trouble, folks. And it's going to take more than another disco ball in the sanctuary main auditorium to fix things.

It's the gift that keeps on givin', Clark

"With warmest regards to Her Majesty"

My heart goes out to Michelle Obama. I hear she's ashamed of her country again. And who can blame her?

Sweet mother of Pamela Anderson in 'Baywatch' Season One... Way to make Dubya look like David Niven, Mr. President.

He does realize this is the kind of thing to fuel another hundred years of "dumb American" jokes, right? No...?

We're in for a long four years, in every possible way.

Loving the WBC

If you're a baseball fan not watching the the 2009 World Baseball Classic right now, you're missing out.

I didn't care either when it launched in 2006. I assumed it was a gimmick as lame as Olympic baseball. As in, the best wouldn't suit up, so it would mean even less than the meaningless MLB All Star game.

Well forget Olympic baseball, turns out the WBC is better than the Olympics.

Turns out, it's a full league of all stars slugging it out like they care, playing for something not welcome at the Olympics anymore -- love of country.

The US squad has been vocal about it: pride of wearing the uniform, a drive to show the world this was our game first, and a special mission to avenge the embarrassment of 2006, when the Americans -- described by returning player Derek Jeter as a group of overconfident egos out for individual glory -- got spanked by Canada, Japan and Mexico.

Nothing like shame to light a fire under a man, right?

This year, the team is tight. And if the sight of Yankees, Red Sox and Mets on the same bench with fire in their eyes against a common enemy isn't enough to wake the flag-waving fervor in you, dear reader, nothing is.

And remember, these guys are missing out on spring training by choice. No time to work the rust off easy-like. This is full-speed playoff mode right out of hibernation. Risking injury all the while.

"These are the guys who really want to be here," one commentator said during Saturday's game.

The other teams are the same way, many chuck-full of pros rich on American cash but now showing their true colors. Hint: they ain't red, white and blue. (Actually...I guess they are in some cases...but not configured into the glory that is Old Glory, brother.)

All the long way of saying, these games have been good.

As Adam Dunn said in the multi-homer, back-and-forth, down-to-the-wire win against Canada in round one, this is better than the playoffs. (Class clown Dunn was seen checking his pulse during the nail-biter of a ninth inning in that game.)

Then there's the underdog appeal of the whole thing.

Big leaguers are scattered throughout most teams, but a few aren't so lucky. How the Netherlands, South Africa and Italy have enough guys to stock one team, let alone three, is a mystery to me.

Yet the Netherlands pulled out a huge 3-2 win Saturday over the likes of David Ortiz, Pedro Martinez and the powerhouse Dominican Republic. The Netherlands.

How can you not love Cinderella action of that magnitude? The Dutch -- mainly islander bats and European pitchers (who knew?) -- celebrated for all the world like they'd just won the World Series.

As well they should. As you should. For that, my fellow Americans, is good baseball.

Textbooks filled with bias, errors

Ever wonder why people are yanking their kids out of public schools at a record pace for private or home schools?

Authors Gary Tobin and Dennis Ybarra of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research found some 500 imperfections and distortions concerning religion in 28 of the most widely used social studies and history textbooks in the United States.

Like the one teaching "Christianity was started by a young Palestinian named Jesus."

Ybarra says part of the problem is that publishers employ or contract with writers who are not experts in the subject, or they may use out of date information. Or they may bow to special interest groups.

Not surprisingly (since Christians don't issue fatwas or blow up publishing houses) Islam alone gets all the respect in the world and then some.

One example is in the glossary of "World History: Continuity and Change." It calls the Ten Commandments "moral laws Moses claimed to have received from the Hebrew God" while the entry for the Koran contains no qualifier in saying it is the "Holy Book of Islam containing revelations received by Muhammad from God."

Partly, the study says, it comes down to money. Forget the smoke-and-mirrors talk of education being a higher calling and sacred purpose. Like the dirty little secret of the "woman's right to choose," education is an industry, at least to those without a moral compass. From publishers down to local teachers unions.

For those with a moral compass, it still likely won't resemble the traditional, let alone biblical variety.

But Ybarra said it goes deeper than pure economics. He thinks textbooks are being used as tools for propaganda, particularly in negative attitudes towards Christianity and Israel and pro-Palestinian views concerning the Middle East.

"We fear that this is creating a generation of biased school children," he said. "Some of our projects in the higher education realm with some of these same subject matters, we find that students do show up at universities with these prejudices."

Puts a fresh perspective on the Intelligent Design embargo enforced by the same crowd, doesn't it?

Full story here.

Obama admits he's a socialist

He's just a temporary socialist is all. Wink, wink.

Check it out here.

Pruden on the ebb and flow of politics

I'm not sure "eh... don't worry about it" is the wisest approach to Obama's economic kamikaze run, but the premise of Wesley Pruden's column has merit.

Unless, maybe, you look at the pendulum swing of American politics instead as a NASDAQ stock "trading in a range" -- which will always break out to the upside or downside with a vengeance eventually. And more powerfully so the longer it's been bouncing around inside the lines.

Notice Pruden has calibrated his pendulum with FDR, making the cycle a phenomenon of the modern era of U.S. history. Yet philosophies, Republic-shattering debates, and, yes, political parties(!) now extinct once roamed the American political landscape prior to that.

Is it unreasonable then to assume our present troubles might end in something other than just another standard-issue swing to the Right? That they might mean something bigger and uglier, up to and including one major party not getting up off the mat? Or another shattered Republic?

I'm not calling it for the apocalypse. I actually take comfort in Pruden's logic, which I've used on friends recently myself. The Constitutional bedrock of the Founders is still the firmest in world history, and we have relatively little history under our belt yet.

I'm just saying Pruden is technically flawed in suggesting things never change, and if there was ever a time ripe for a seismic paradigm shift (for good or ill) the Obama Era would certainly fit the bill.

Then again, we've already established how my brain works.

New boss same as the old boss

Say hello to President Obama's "outsider" Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

Bulldozer attack injurs two in Jerusalem

Hard hats do not stop bullets

Yep, they're evil bastards.

And none too bright. Seems to me, the only thing slower and easier to avoid/catch than a bulldozer was George Costanza in his electric chariot.

The best part? Abu Dumbass gets capped by a passing taxi driver. Score one for the Hebrew National Rifle Association! (And remind me never to stiff a cabbie in Israel.)

Olbermann's college credentials less than impressive?

I'm Keith Olbermann!!!

Speaking of boobs... This is fun and informative.

It seems Keith Olbermann's much-touted "Ivy League" credentials aren't as in order as he'd like you to believe.

"...Keith didn't go to the Ivy League Cornell; he went to the Old MacDonald Cornell.

The real Cornell, the School of Arts and Sciences (average SAT: 1,325; acceptance rate: 1 in 6 applicants), is the only Ivy League school at Cornell and the only one that grants a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Keith went to an affiliated state college at Cornell, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (average SAT: about that of pulling guards at the University of South Carolina; acceptance rate: 1 of every 1.01 applicants).

Olbermann's incessant lying about having an "Ivy League education" when he went to the non-Ivy League ag school at Cornell would be like a graduate of the Yale locksmithing school boasting about being a "Yale man."

Most satisfying petard hoisting since Ben Affleck savaged Olbermann on 'Saturday Night Live.'

I'm also wondering now how much of MSNBC's wannabe elitist went into Ed Helms' portrayal of Andy Bernard on 'The Office.' ("I went to a little place called Cornelllll... Ever heard of it?")

Oh heck, let's roll that SNL clip again while we're at it.

Yes, we do want him to fail

The "outrage" over this "controversy" is so ridiculous it warrants no comment. But Jonah Goldberg of the L.A. Times has quite nicely. If you're a liberal wishing to gum this one further, I refer you thither.

"...Pretty much every major news outlet in the country has said as a matter of objective analysis that Obama wants to repeal the legacy of Ronald Reagan and remake the country as a European welfare state. And yet people are shocked that conservatives, Limbaugh included, want Obama to fail in this effort?

What movie have they been watching? Because I could swear that conservatives opposing the expansion of big government is what conservatives do. It's Aesopian. The scorpion must sting the frog."

"The scorpion must sting the frog." I say if we ever get a third party off the ground, we adopt the scorpion as mascot. I understand they can put the fear of God in both jackass and elephant alike.

The reason for the Second Amendment

I just found another woman I'd vote for in a heartbeat. Suzanna Gratia-Hupp.

Based on how old this clip is and how big it is on the Web, I'm probably one of the last to see this, but it's brilliant. This is the same argument I always go to immediately whenever the Left tries to define our right to keep and bear arms as something akin to the Founders' "Field & Stream" clause. No, ladies and gentlemen, the Second Amendment is there to guarantee the First.

I just wish the clip ran a half second longer to include Chuck Schumer's reaction to her last statement. The girl's got guts.

Her bio here.

(Thanks to brother Brook for the link!)

Fun at the French Oscars

Apparently the Cesars are the French equivalent of the Oscars. In the clip below, watch for a "life's most embarrassing moment" wardrobe malfunction, the unparalleled classiness of Emma Thompson (despite the Liberace outfit), the funny sight of Sean Penn pretending he understands what everyone is talking about, and proof the Franks are even more insufferably long-winded at awards shows than we are.

(Warning: nudity. With apologies to Traffic Cop Timmy for the double standard.)

Césars 2009 : 34° Cérémonie / Julie Ferrier
Uploaded by websilone

McCain: "So much for change, Mr. President"

As the Associated Press reminds us, Barack Obama campaigned on the promise to go "line by line" to remove earmarks from porkified legislation.

McCain's attempt to strip out an estimated 8,500 earmarks failed on a vote of 63-32. The Arizona senator's proposal also would have cut roughly $32 billion from the measure and kept spending at last year's levels in several federal agencies.

Last year's Republican presidential candidate said both he and Obama pledged during the campaign to "stop business as usual in Washington," and he quoted the president as having said he would go line by line to make sure money was spent wisely.

The White House has said that Obama intends to sign the legislation, casting it as leftover business from 2008.

Proving Barack Obama is a liar.

Oh, and he wants to effectively limit how much "the rich" will be able to deduct in contributing to charity. Even Charlie Rangel is balking at the dangerous implications of this one.

What is wrong with this man's soul?

'Terminator Salvation' pics up

Man vs. Machine

With Robin Hood suddenly turning all emo and angsty and feminist on us, Terminator Salvation moves to the head of the queue.

Because these new stills make the original look like a cheesy Van Damme flick.

Which is impossible, but I'm just saying. Very cool.