I went to see Pan’s Labyrinth a couple of weeks ago.  It was all right.  It meant to draw connections among fascism, machismo and orthodoxy, but did so with much less aplomb than Kiss of the Spider Woman, of which it was in some ways a magical realistic version.  Some of the imagery was effective, and some of the acting very affecting, but on the whole the thesis that it

At least, that’s what the implication is in this post at Simianbrain: I decided to do a little digging this morning to see how the conservative blogs were responding to Ann Coulter’s latest… I don’t even know how to phrase what it was. “Gaffe” makes it sound accidental, “transgression” gives it an air of authority well beyond what it was. Let’s just call it her latest moment of mouthing off

To Maggie and RTO for the “Kolchak:  Night Stalker” DVD set.  Darren McGavin at his best—and the inspiration for the “X-Files.” Thanks also to BMoe for the Jayhawks and Gram Parson’s CDs.  The music thread we had a while back—which turned into a California-rooted, “country”-flavored rock revival discussion (Parsons called the sound “Cosmic American”)—has really turned me on to some people I hadn’t listened to before, from Whiskeytown to The

chirp, 2 chirp, 2 chirp, 2 chirp, 2 chirp, 2

Sure, I planted a couple of trees in my backyard when I bought the new house in October.  But to be honest, I did it more for aesthetic and practical reasons than out of any fealty to the environmenal movement (the trees are fruit-bearing and will provide both extra shade and privacy once they’ve matured, and should likewise increase the long-term property value of the home), so I can’t help

Of course, by that same logic, were Maher to expire while eating a small mound of coke off the navel of some seventeen-year-old wannabe pop star, more people would probably watch HBO.  And that’s just A FACT! Related:  Howard Dean immediately calls on Republicans to condemn Ann Coulter for getting Maher so darn angry that he had no choice but to lash out at the HATERS—and “conservative libertarian” Glenn Greenwald(s),

Between Switzerland and Liechtenstein Washington Trembles: From her California home, Ms Palfrey is accused of running a service that offered, according to her company website, “legal sexual and erotic services across the spectrum of adult sexual behaviour”. It was a lucrative operation, earning Ms Palfrey $750,000 (£380,000) over the last six years, court documents said. When I want to get flogged by a lawyer, I’ll go to court. Coulter’s remark

Yesterday at CPAC right-wing rockstar Ann Coulter opened her stentorian piehole and “declined” to comment on John Edwards, saying: ““I’d say something about John Edwards, but if you say ‘faggot’ you have to go to rehab.” I guess she was out to prove that the idea of a faggot is a social construction. Now, all of the people who in the past have referred to Coulter as a tranny are

—I’m afraid it ain’t going to happen today, sorry.  The little fella came down with a nasty shell fungus that, not to put too fine a point on it, looks like what might happen were a goat to eat several square feet of gray shag carpet, then manage to vomit it up in three surprisingly precise diamond patterns. Not being an expert on the ailments common to Dasypus novemcinctus, I