Jaded Times

According to a CTV report, the ban on “sex clubs” was lifted today, allowing for businesses to essentially hold consentual orgies, provided the partakers are not paid to join in:

… in their ruling Wednesday, the Supreme Court judges said the test for indecency should not simply be whether an activity violates a “social consensus” of community standards, but the actual harm it causes.

“Consensual conduct behind code-locked doors can hardly be supposed to jeopardize a society as vigorous and tolerant as Canadian society,” Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote in the majority decision.

Group sex is back, and just in time for the holidays!

Portland local paper The Mercury is holding several auctions as a benefit for JOIN, an organization that helps the homeless transition into permanent housing and employment. Among them is an amazing collection of records from local labels (including ours). Click the links below to learn more and bid.

Music auction
List of auctions.

(also check out the “under new management” feature for a good laugh)

I grew up believing in the importance of newsmen to inform the public and to hold the people in power responsible . . . I hope we serve the brave journalists well with this piece. They were true patriots and should be remembered as such.

George Clooney

A few assorted observations from the post-screening panel I attended last evening which featured Clooney (director, co-writer and actor), Grant Heslov (co-writer) and Ray Wise (actor):

Clooney, whose father was a newscaster in Cincinnati, Ohio (and even cooler “At the time of George’s birth, worked as air personality on Lexington, Kentucky station WKYT, hosting Saturday afternoon dance party and Saturday night horror movie.” souce: IMDB), said that his father told him that the most important thing to do in the film was to get their facts straight. This way you leave people little ammunition with which to easily discredit you and your project.

When Clooney and Heslov were initially marketing the film no one wanted to touch it. They were getting beat up. As Clooney said at the time it wasn’t even “with us or against us” it was “with us or with the enemy”. Clooney was traitorboy on a magazine cover and featured in the Traitor Deck of Cards as the Queen of Hearts. Queen of Hearts! – he feels that if he had to be a card he should have at least been an ace perhaps.

A black and white film was more terrifying (*horror scream*) to studio execs than any sort of political climate. One of those “automatic shut off valves”. As a result of this the funds were raised independently, then Warner Independent came on board because they believed in the movie.

My research led me to this Daily Show clip for y’all – a taste of what I got last night.

A girl who was in “From Dusk Till Dawn” with Clooney was selected for the the last question. Well, she wasn’t the only one in the audience who had acted alongside one of the film’s actors.

Dusk Till Dawn - what about Speech 101
Special Mention: Helen Slayton-Hughes as Paley’s secretary a collegue of mine from Speech 101. We were suppose to be listed in IMDB but alas no entry – there is, however, an official looking movie poster. Anyway, she’s an excellent character and it was great to see her.

Having lived in the United States over the past four year for me this quote alone is a testament as to why the movie is worth seeing:

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another.

Edward R. Murrow

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a man now notorious for not only saying the wrong thing but calling a press conference to do it, today announced that Israel should move to Europe:

“If European countries claim that they have killed Jews in World War II… why don’t they provide the Zionist regime with a piece of Europe,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Iranian television. “Germany and Austria can provide the… regime with two or three provinces for this regime to establish itself, and the issue will be resolved.”

This may seem drastic, but keep in mind that Ahmadinejad had called for Israel to be whiped off the face of the earth in October, so in retrospect it’s actually rather progressive. Ahmadinejad does win the “irony award” this week, as statements like these come amidst his demands that the UN show some compassion and understanding towards Iran’s nuclear power program…

The build-up of Congressional Republican scandals and the decrease in Bush’s polling numbers have left many wondering what might happen in the 2006 midterm elections. Will Democrats be able to take back the Senate? More incredibly, could they take back the House? Some have speculated that there are definite parallels between the current political situation and the situation in 1994 when Republicans took control from Democrats. Then, as now, there was scandal and wide dissatisfaction with Congress.

Thankfully, I don’t need to stretch my brain too much to figure out the possibilities of major Democratic victories because Charlie Cook of the Cook Political Report can do my thinking for me. Cook keeps a constant eye on all the Congressional races, determining which ones are competitive, tracking who is leaving their seats, and calculating precisely how the balance of power can change in the Congress.

Charlie’s most recent column of December 3rd speculates that there won’t be many significant changes in Congress in ‘06 (a safe speculation, considering that about 95% of incumbents get re-elected). Interestingly, though, he says that Democrats could take back the House, but that their margin of victory will probably not be enough to give them a lot of safe votes. Likewise, the Republicans will probably not increase their margins. So it seems that even after ‘06, we’ll be seeing the same gridlock and bickering (did we expect anything different?)

Of course, it’s still early, and you can bet Charlie will have a lot to say as more campaigns heat up.

Don’t be a naysayer!
Ok be one . . . I don’t really know how I feel about about this either. I mean hell yeah, sure I remember when only assholes had cellphones. But I think we’ve really turned the corner on that concept, cuz now puppies can have them too. And they’re awesome! (even if companies finding yet another way to push a material products on us isn’t)

Some components of the dog cell phone are big brotherish:

The PetCell will also have an option called GeoFence that will alert owners whenever their dog wanders beyond preset parameters, and built-in temperature sensors to indicate if the dog is too hot or cold.

Now of course I don’t want Fido to get lost either, but I sure wouldn’t want someone monitoring my parameters; I need to freely roam a wide quadrilateral area so let’s hope that this option is not misused.

The phones are not quite ready for Garfield’ use.

One obvious user is left out of this calling plan. At 3 inches long, the PetCell is too unwieldy for your average feline.

But I’m sure it will be soon. My cat is very vocal and gifted with a wide vocabulary so I’m surprised he hasn’t designed one yet; though he’s pretty much a homebody so he finds landlines fulfill his needs.

David Cross posted an open letter to Larry the Cable Guy on the Mr. Show site. The letter, apparently a response to an attack “Larry” made in his recent book, was intended to clear up a few misconceptions that he was apparently operating under:

I mean you, Dan Whitney, the guy who’s name the bank account is under. You were born and raised in Nebraska (hardly The South), went to private school and moved to Florida when you were 16…on page 89 you say in reference to the “gee-shucks” millionaire comment, “…see, to his (David’s) mind, bein’ well paid means I’m no longer real and I can’t be a country boy anymore. It’s just an act.” Hey, it’s always been an act! That’s my fucking point! You admit it yourself so cut the indignation shit.