waxing blogosophical
From Salon:
$54.7 million, $34.9 million and $1.3 million: The net worths of John and Elizabeth Edwards, Hillary and Bill Clinton and Michelle and Barack Obama, respectively. The three couples together are worth less than half as much as Mitt and Ann Romney, whose net worth comes to $202 million, according to a CNN/Money report.
Wow. Harvard makes it increasingly easy to afford tuition. I wonder if any of these rules are retroactive…? Probably not. Damned student loans!
This list is awesome. Here are a few of my personal faves:
Biodegradable Coffins
Smog Eating Cement
Wave Energy
Wireless Energy
From over at Towleroad:
Hollywood skincare guru Ole Henriksen’s comments about Ricky Martin have been receiving international attention.
In an interview with E’s Ted Casablanca, Henriksen perhaps broke the client confidentiality rule when asked who he’d take on a romantic getaway (aside from his partner).
Said Henriksen: “I’d go for Stig Tøfting [former Danish soccer player], but since he’s straight, I’d say my client Ricky Martin.”
I love this post over at WWJV4. Summer writes a great post covering the top 10 reasons not to vote for Ron Paul. Even more interesting, perhaps, is the lengthy debate and discussion that takes place in the comments section. The whole Libertarian thing works really well if you only care about yourself. (Oh, and if you happen to be a middle-class white person and above.) When you expand the scope of reference though (especially to discrimination and minority issues), the political philosophy seems to break down.
Of course, he’s not all bad. He seems to be in favor of gay marriage. Unfortunately, his political rationale for why he’d allow gay marriage doesn’t work when you extend it to other minority issues. Check it out:
I went to see The Golden Compass tonight with Matty, Migs, and Stephen. I don’t think any of us enjoyed the movie. I was prepared to not like it because I thought the book was pretty bad too. One thing can be said for the movie: it did hold incredibly true to the book. Unfortunately, the book is a collection of poorly connected action sequences. That shows through in the movie too.
Visually the movie was stunning. But, even the great visual effects weren’t enough to make up for the weak story. The most bizarre part was that the movie ended earlier in the story than the book. A whole major scene that leads up to the second book, was completely absent from the movie. Very odd and disappointing.
I’d suggest that you wait for this one on DVD. And definitely do not take kids under 10 to see this movie. It’s very scary. Lots of people die and the bears are extremely vicious. I guess it’s okay for your kid to watch if he/she is mature enough not to have nightmares after watching one bear rip another bear’s jaw off in battle.
Oh, and the Rotten Tomatoes rating suggests that most reviewers felt the same way.
I’ll just cut to the chase: I struggled with this book. When I saw that noted sci-fi spin-off author Kevin J. Anderson had written a prequel to Superman’s story, I rushed right out and bought a copy. As I started reading the novel, my excitement faded.
To be fair, I didn’t hate the book. But, it was incredibly slow to get into. The key difficulty I had was with the narrative style. Anderson does a lot more telling than showing; he narrates instead of using interesting dialogue to give us glimpses into the characters’ psyches. As a result, the characters are flat, seemingly stuck in a Phantom Zone of character development – never quite able attain a rich three dimensional quality.
I do admire the way Anderson weaves the various tales of Krypton into a nice cause-and-effect timeline. It starts with Jor-El creating the Phantom Zone, which leads to his meeting and falling in love with Lara. Then we see Zod’s ambitions grow as he adds Jor-El’s recently banned Phantom Zone to a secret stockpile of weapons. Next, an alien visits the xenophobic Krypton and makes fast friends with Jor-El. (It’s this alien’s ship that will eventually be Kal-El’s escape pod.)
Next we see Braniac scoop up and miniaturize Kandor, Krypton’s capital city. In the aftermath, Zod assumes control of a frightened and leaderless people. Thus begins the despotic reign of Zod. He uses one of Jor-El’s other inventions to squash dissent, leading Zor-El to create a force field to protect his home Argo City. (It’s this force field that protect Kandor for several years after Krypton explodes. This leads to the birth of Kara or Supergirl.)
The story depicts a Krypton that most of us would perhaps not envision. Kryptonians have attained a “perfect society” and their council of elders serves mostly to stifle scientific creativity. It’s this failure to adapt and accept science that is eventually their undoing. I enjoyed this element of the story, and found it easy to relate to our own global issues and acceptance of science.
Anderson deftly collects most of what we know about Krypton via comics through the ages — surely no small feat. While the story line is well-constructed, the character development and narrative style are somewhat tedious. I’d only recommend this book if you’re a huge Superman/Krypton fan.
I watched Heroes religiously last year. Unfortunately now that Heroes isn’t on iTunes, I haven’t kept up with the this season’s episodes. The only reason for this is that watching the episodes on NBC.com is a horrible experience.
Imagine my delight, then, in being able to dive into the world of Heroes in a completely different way. DC Comics recently released it’s first print collection of the web comics. Because I had never followed the web comics, I was looking forward to reading these new Heroes stories. I tried reading the first web comic online, but just didn’t find the online experience to be satisfying. There’s something altogether different and satisfying about reading them in a printed book, though!
The trade is a nice hard-bound book with stunning artwork on the jacket. All of the first season characters are depicted in a beautiful collage. The only unfortunate artistic renderings are Claire (Hayden Panetierre) and Peter (Milo Ventimiglia). Peter looks fat and Claire casts an out-of-character ominous look.
Keep reading more of this post »
This gem from my favorite snarky blogger:
Vanessa Hudgens reportedly wants her boyfriend Zac Efron to butch it up a little, but since he’s basically a dancing candy cane come to life, that may be tough.
BWAHAHAHA. A dancing candy cane come to life. Pure genius! I love you What Would Tyler Durden Do?
The Huffington Post has uncovered documents that show Governor Mike Huckabee lied. While governor, he released a man convicted on serious rape charges. Huckabee released the man 25 years before his full sentence had been served. The man then went on to rape and murder another woman.
Recently Huckabee said he couldn’t have known that the man would repeat his previous crimes. The uncovered documents show that Huckabee had been informed that the man was still a danger, and would in fact commit the exact same crime or worse. One of the previous victims even went so far as to personally contact Huckabee. She said that she had no doubt the rapist would no doubt rape again, and this time there would likely not be a witness to testify. She was right. Huckabee was wrong.
My friends over at Mitchieville pose an interesting question: Why is Captain America wearing the Puerto Rican flag on his chest?
This is brilliant. (Thanks to Zachary for sharing.)
(click the image to enlarge)
Ever wanted to see Apollo and Midnighter kiss? Ever wanted to see the panels from every time they’ve ever kissed? Then are you in luck! Check it out here. My only issue is the last image that the post author says is his/her favorite. I actually bought that issue and was annoyed. Why was it necessary to tarnish a romantic gay kiss by making a reference to the two guys being “queens”? (Note the “Queen” of Hearts in the pic.)
UPDATE: I know this link is dead. I wrote this post 2 years ago, and the LJ post is no longer up. Not surprising. Things on the internet are not always forever. If you find other pages with pics of the Midnighter/Apollo love affair, let me know.
