Game On

Full faith and credit anyone?

@Tommmcatt A Go-Go: Rush can tell you that “full faith and credit” appears nowhere in the Constitution Declaration of Independence.

“Eleven-year-old Altaff is a witness when police officers — who are hunting a rebel leader — execute his family. The orphaned Altaff is adopted by a cop and his wife, but runs away when he learns that very cop led the execution. He’s then adopted and educated by a militant leader who’s fighting for Kashmir’s independence. Ten years later, it’s Altaff’s turn to rebel against authorities.”

And Dance! Dance! Dance!

Yes, Benedick, Netflix has delivered Mission Kashmir.

@Tommmcatt A Go-Go: Red states don’t believe in full faith and credit, especially when it involves the non-white, the non-straight, or the already born.

@nojo: That’s hilarious. I’m reading Robert Young Pelton’s* chapter on India right now, and imagining it set to a proper Bollywood dance number is making me smile.

*RYP’sThe World’s Most Dangerous Places is where I go to when I’m really fucking sick of watching the wheels go round and round and I need to imagine myself in another place entirely.

@nojo: And this is important because?

Why is June 2010 important other than being five months before the midterm elections. Be interesting to see how Uni’s DOJ deals with the merits of this thing once they get past all the procedural stuff.

@Nabisco: I gots that book, too.

@blogenfreude: Because if I break out in Bollywood references for the next two weeks, you’ll want to know what to blame.

Its an immutable law of nature, for each election cycle, there must be at least two cause celebre court cases reaching the Supreme Court which involve gays or atheists. Its not that the causes are not right, its that it inflames the pigfuckers. Of course they hate teh gays and the atheists, but more than that, they hate the courts, them judges legislatin’ from the bench, ya know, forcin’ that liberal elite immorality “down our throats.”

Ever since the courts told them they have to sit with blacks on the bus and use the same drinking fountain, and “horrors” go to the same schools, they have hated the courts.

Is it not the elephant in the republican living room, from the minute they adopted the “southern stratgey,” they tied themselves completely to the racists of the south. Every major republican issue is a coded racism issue, school choice = choose white schools, tough on crime = tough on black criminals, legislatin’ judges = judges making us tolerate blacks (and gays and atheists), social programs in general = welfare for the blacks, taxes are slavery = taxes being used to support no-account blacks, affirmative action, enough said, almost everything on their plate is racist in origin and still secretly racist in their minds. Guns = we need guns to defend ourselves against rampaging blacks, it goes on and on. The only other issues they have are about subjugating women, too, with anti-abortion, anti-birth control, anti-ERA. Thats all it is, racism and sexism.

But you are not allowed to call them on it, then you are playing the race card.

@nojo: So what you’re saying is that the rest of us might have to fly out there, grab you off the street, take you to a Days Inn, and deprogram you. Game on.

@Promnight: Playing the race card, or you’re a bitter femi-nazi who doesn’t know her place in the world or has no sense of humor.

Okay, on an unrelated note, now I’m missing the bagpipes dude who used to torture me on a weekly basis by playing on the street outside my office. There’s a guy with one of those weird Chinese violins “playing” his instrument on the street. It sounds like cats mating. I need to go yell at him to stop. Or call the SFPD to arrest him for disturbing the peace.

Or go home and make a martini and try to work on my 9-year-old laptop while my newer one is in the shop (I dropped it and now the disc drive is out of alignment and it chewed up my Flight of the Conchords CD).

May our fight to destroy the fabric of American society, nay, civilization, continue, and I hope we all will contribute to the appropriate legal fund to do so.

@SanFranLefty: Would the SFPD seriously arrest him? Seriously?

@blogenfreude: Yes. But only if you include three songs, two explosions, a terrorist gunfight, and A Boy’s Tragic Death in the first reel. And don’t even bother trying unless your deprogramming’s in cinemascope.

@nojo: You are going to have such a good time. It has explosions, and terrorists and… singing and dancing!!! Yaaayyy!!! You will laugh, you will cry, you will dance around the room.

I have decided to believe the world is a happy place. I don’t care what Michael Steele or Rush Limbaugh or anyone on TV thinks about anything. Things are bad enough without having to listen to what would seem to be a limitless supply of morons yapping endlessly on and on. It’s like having to watch Ibsen or, god forbid, Strindberg. You just know if everyone would just have a nice gin and tonic and maybe listen to a little Mozart they’d all feel so much better. And Stop BOTHERING ME.

@rptrcub: The interesting thing is that the economic crisis seems to be seriously shaking people into re-prioritizing their issues. The republicans are making a lot of crazy, incoherent, hateful noise, but ya know, in the opinion polls Obama is trashing them on every issue. Trashing them, they are losing the public on every idiotic issue they try to raise.

And there are these issues that always seemed to be immutable, that are moving, for the first time since my political adulthood.

Criminal sentencing, jails, privatization of jails and generally, Obama has said he is going to go there, with regard to the issue of why we jail so many people, and disproportionately, black people.

In NJ, a medical marijuana bill seems to be viable. In California, there is this legalize and tax it bill, is it at all a possibility? Obama announced the feds are not going to go after medical marijuana dispenseries anymore.

The one positive about a real serious economic crisis, I guess, is people start to realize that freaking out over pot or gays marrying is just kinda stupid.

@Promnight: But clearly, pot and gayz combined are plotting an evil socialist plot… a coup de gras if you will, that will inevitably bring our nation of perfectionism to complete and utter ruin, rendering us useless in the world’s eyes and creating widespread panic. To summarize, if we allow pot and gayz to exist, our way of life is over.
Pot and Gayz=Immediate Destruction
*fart*

@nojo: I’m thinking we may need to upgrade this deprogramming to a Holiday Inn, or maybe even a Radisson. If it gets really ugly, we’ll take you to the nearest W Hotel and raid the minibar. Nothing’s too good for our founder (and seriously Bollywood-addled person).

@blogenfreude: We liked Bride and Prejudice. It was like HSM with elephants.

@Benedick: High-gloss melodrama. Another culture’s kitsch is charming at a distance. And where’s my badass balaclava?

@SanFranLefty: Speaking of Conchords, don’t know if you caught my offer on the other thread to burn you a copy of the second season so far…

Ooh! Ooh! Slo-mo wire fight!

I’m afraid it’ll take a suite at the Grant to drag me back from this one.

@nojo: Huh? Yeah? Plus the gorgeousness? Uh huh?

It’s a trap! Benedick’s secret message in the subtitles:

Instead of boring athletics, watch some song and dance.

I have been played.

@nojo: Are they all jumping up and down and doing those sideways diagonal body moves? Damn! I’m gonna have to rent it again. I might even have to watch a little something right now on Netflix.

@Benedick: First full production number — finally — at 52:07, when the Grown-Up Ripped Orphan Terrorist with 5,000-watt eye lights fantasizes about joining his childhood friend at MGM Bollywood.

And then it gets weird.

@nojo: Isn’t she a News Reporter? Wait. Night night. Have fun.

@Benedick:

Strindberg. Oh god make it stop.

@shortsshortsshorts:

Don’t you mean a coup d’ass ?

I am so tired of people wanting to treat me like a person instead of the easy piece of hot ass that I am.

@With a name like Tommmcatt…it has to be good: Another source that will surely kill us all. Yes. Yes of course.

@homofascist: WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA?

@homofascist:

You’re a person? WTF? When did that happen?

Well, just when you think the human race can’t sink any lower, you see something like this article, about a debt collection agency that contacts relatives of deceased debtors.
I need another drink.

@Mistress Cynica:

God, that’s like something out of a science fiction movie, isn’t it? Horrifying.

@With a name like Tommmcatt…it has to be good: I knew I could count on you.

@Mistress Cynica: That is frightening. After my grandfather died we discovered that he had a bunch of secret credit card debt, and my grandmother went through hell with the companies trying to collect. We eventually got her out of it, but it was a really horrible experience.

@homofascist: Two words:
Chapter Eleven.

That is the solution to America’s problems.

@shortsshortsshorts:
don’t you mean coup d’ GRASS?

lefty, mellbell,
I LERVE flight of the chonchords!!! must have someone fed ex me dvd.
so rare when something really original comes along and is so fun.

nojo, are you familiar? you would love this show, now that you’re appreciating musical weirdness.

@baked: Very familiar. But I’ll be proper and wait for the Season 2 DVD.

@Benedick: She works at a TV station that just happens to be broadcasting a production number at crucial point in the movie…

But popcorn fun aside, there’s a couple of interesting things going on. For one, I didn’t realize how much English had crept into the language — it keeps turning up at the oddest moments, not predictable things like brand names or a crew of Germans singing Tiperrary.

And then there are the politics — this may be a high-gloss melodrama, but it’s still about Muslim terrorists and Hindu-Muslim relations. The PM is about to land for a visit, and suddenly there are references to Indira Gandhi’s assassination, and an argument about whether a Muslim security chief can be trusted.

The movie sides with the chief.

I can’t imagine anything equivalent in a mainstream pop American movie. We really have been living in fear.

@Nabisco:
i’m reading a book about india right now.
looking for 108 beads. i’ll take all the help i can get.
speaking of which, i learned the hebrew word for psychopharmocologist, an important word in my vocabulary, and it’s tickling me: “sickyatta”
yup.

OMG I HAVE BEEN LOOKING AT A COMMIE WEBSITE.
@baked: @nojo: Just because it is awesome:
http://www.slate.com/id/2212662/
This article of clothing will post it tomorrow, but it will surely make the national scene in negative 5 hours.

@shortsshortsshorts:
it was only a matter of time:
THE THOUGHT POLICE!!!!!!

@baked: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
Also.

@shortsshortsshorts:
since chrissy wrote it, we’ll have to take it with a grain of…alcohol.

@shortsshortsshorts: @baked: Hitch has a stronger constitution than me, because I find the source document impenetrable. The platitudes fly like a blizzard, but I lost hope trying to identify the action items.

@nojo: I also find Hitch impenetrable, for that matter.

@nojo:
i’ve read his books. to navigate his thought process, it’s helpful to know, he circles around his thoughts. there are no conclusions, he ends up where he started. i find him not so much impenetrable, but drunk.

@baked: Well, I see his polemical point, and he’s showing us how some chess pieces are being cynically moved around, but he’s discussing a nonbinding U.N. resolution, and I’m finding it hard to get my panties in a bunch over that.

Especially when the biggest threat to America is not Muslims but Christians. Or, as a more practical matter, stockbrokers.

@baked: Oh, and isn’t Hitch on the Atheist Train these days? Professional atheists are charlatans. Real atheists don’t give a shit.

And now that I’m on that subject…

The problem with professional atheists is that they harbor some fantasy that by relieving the faithful of their misguided beliefs, human society will enter the Second Coming of the Enlightenment, and Voltaire will ascend to heaven. Only if they’re correct on the facts — which they are — we’re left with the same shit we have today. Religion doesn’t cause conflict, people do, and lord knows we’ll find some other excuse to kill each other if God goes on vacation.

@nojo:
professional atheists are the flip side of the fundie coin. and yeah, i read chrissy’s god sucks book. it wasn’t exactly impenetrable as it was redundant. a weighty tome that says everything he thinks in the first chapter, and then repeats himself with his verbal gymnastics.

you are correct. people suck, not god, or a lack there of.

@nojo: Can I get that last sentence engraved or at least on a T-shirt?

@Promnight: it’s good for capitalism to have workers hate each other on the basis of something that is totally stupid.

@nojo: Now you have to see the one about the village that takes on the wicked Limey overlords and beats them at the crickets. Singing, dancing (a certain amount of shirt-losing) and Sport! Who could ask for anything more?

“And this year’s Oscar for the most blissfully daft confection goes to…”

@nojo: but he’s discussing a nonbinding U.N. resolution, and I’m finding it hard to get my panties in a bunch over that.

Precisely. He’s doing the same kind of cherry picking for editorial effect that we hate from so many other bloviators. Non-binding resolutions in the UN are the plate du jour for member states; kind of like how backbenchers in Congress cook up “March 4th is Martha Cook Day!” just to look busy.

@Nabisco: A House memorial on tribal-state relations here got a bunch of Indian leaders all fired up after they bought the line that it was the most important piece of legislation to come of out of Santa Fe in years. Of course, it’s non-binding, lacks the force of law, and was really just a bone thrown to the tribes but people were traveling several hours from deep in Indian country to speak in favor of it. One of my clients quit going after I told them what the deal was and that the matter was covered in an existing executive order issued by Gov Bill Richardson (remember him? Big guy, was a TV for something last year . . . no?) six years ago.

@Nabisco: Professionals, and the best way to define whom we are talking about with this “professional” term would be to note that these are the people who can properly be referred to with a hyphen-tard, are the source of all the evil in the world. Libtards, fundietards, atheist-tards, Freeptards, Paultards, Rand-tards, libertards, commie-tards, and fucktards.

The libtards all have their panties in a bunch at Obama for refusing to take part in this nonbinding UN resolution against being against mooslims, it being more proof he is not enough of a progressive-tard to suit them.

These are the professionals that so many of us have been shit on by.

TJ, sorta: Please remind me why gays should dialogue and be all nice to Mormons. Please.

@nojo: @Benedick: I need to put this Mission Kashmir and any other Benedict-recommended confections in my queue. Tommorrow is my second class of a 6-week Bollywood dance class I’m taking for kicks, and it is too. fun. The participants are all white girls, natch, but the teacher is this tall, cute Indian guy who wears glasses–he makes it hard to focus on the dance moves rather than just stare.

@flippin eck: I’m a novice but Mission Kashmir, the afore mentioned crickets spectacular Mantan is it? It was quite a hit in the states when it came out. Om Shanti Om features a lot of soaked shirts that don’t seem able to be buttoned. The Krishh movies because you can never have too much Hrithik Roshan. Plus it’s a real trip to see a superhero who can sing and dance. Or at least lip-synch and dance. And he can really dance. Netflix has a fairly good assortment. I intend to work my way through it.

Personally I’m dying to see the soon-to-be released Chowdni Chok to China. It would seem to be an action-adventure martial-arts buddy-movie espectacular plus singing and dancing. Color me there!

@rptrcub: I don’t know. I’m just shocked to learn there are still Mormons in Illinois. I thought they’d all either been killed or run out of the state about a century ago.

@nojo:

Please stop talking about penetrating Christopher Hitchens.

@Benedick: I think the Cricket spectacular is Lagaan — there’s a preview on the Mission DVD —but Netflix doesn’t have it in stock.

@With a name like Tommmcatt…it has to be good: Hitch is my bitch, yo.

@nojo: That’s it! Almost the most interesting thing about it – apart from hero’s pecs – is the depiction of the Brits. Plus the singing and dancing and crickets presented as if it’s actually exciting instead of the snoozefest it really is.

@With a name like Tommmcatt…it has to be good: Hear hear! Damned grammar-school boy that he is.

@baked: Send me your address and I’ll send you the first half of the second season.

@mellbell:
Yo tambien, por favor?! As part of my household’s belt-tightening, we’re canceling Netflix as soon as we’re done catching up on all the episodes of Weeds and Conchords that are on DVD.

@SanFranLefty: Of course!