They Saying That Love Is Going To Change Me

… but don't be fooled by everything you see:

  • [Aguilera and Doofus] Sad news on the celebrity front, as Christina Aguilera is splitting up with her husband of five years. When they wed, Pun Salad predicted the young man pictured at right (who has a name, but I've always thought of him as "Hapless Bastard") was in for an estimated six months "all-expense-paid tour of Hell." So I was off by a factor of ten or so.

  • Let me say something nice about Paul Hodes, Democrat candidate for the US Senate, current Congressman from NH.

    No, I'm not kidding.

    Hodes is one of only nine co-sponsors of H. R. 682, the "STOCK Act"; it would ban stock trading by House members and their aides on the basis of "insider" information unavailable to the public.

    Prof Bainbridge has a couple of articles on the STOCK Act. He outlines why the legislation is a good idea, and blames its failure to get anywhere on Speaker Pelosi.

    So: good for you, Paul Hodes. I still hope you lose, though. Sorry. (Update: he did.)

  • Your quote du jour is from David Brooks:
    As I was saying, my general rule is that if the president and his advisers are going to accuse somebody of committing a crime, they should have some scintilla of evidence behind the charge. Yet Obama seems to have precisely none behind his accusation that the Chamber of Commerce is using foreign money to influence the elections.
    This is in an exchange with Gail Collins, editor of the New York Times editorial page, who doesn't seem bothered by Obama's behavior at all.


Last Modified 2011-10-14 3:49 PM EDT

Tension

[3.0
stars] [IMDb Link]

[Amazon Link]
(paid link)

Part deux of a film noir double feature from Netflix.

Richard Basehart plays meek pharmacist Warren Quimby; his only goal in life is to put himself and his wife Claire in a nice Southern California tract house and start makin' babies. Unfortunately (and inexplicably) he's unaware that Claire is all kinds of bad news: selfish, promiscuous, vulgar, you name it. She runs off with a rich salesman with a Malibu beach house. Warren tries to get her back, but is utterly humiliated.

Warren resolves to solve the problem by committing what he thinks is the perfect crime: he sets up an alternate identity under which he plans to murder his rival. Problems: (a) his alter ego meets and falls in love with Cyd Charisse; (b) although the salesman winds up dead, the cops (Barry Sullivan and William Conrad) see through the "perfect crime" in about seventeen seconds. (It doesn't help that Walter's alternate identity mainly involves him calling himself "Paul Southern", and wearing contacts instead of glasses. Criminal mastermind!)

Not too bad, although the plot is more ludicrous than lurid. Audrey Totter plays Claire, and you'll rarely see anyone play a hard-boiled sociopath quite so convincingly.


Last Modified 2024-01-30 10:34 AM EDT