Frustrating

Obama's justice department is trying to get a stay on the injubction against DADT. Why? Because, "changing the policy immediately as ordered by a federal court in California 'risks causing significant immediate harm to the military and its efforts to be prepared to implement an orderly repeal of the statute.'" How is an injunction less orderly than a repeal? If the military can handle a repeal, they can handle an injunction overturning the policy.

The Social Network

I mainly went to see this movie for the score. I had read that David Fincher told Trent Reznor to "make it cheesy sounding" and I love cheesy music, so I was curious. I was especially curious what "cheesy music" made by Trent Reznor would sound like. I'd also read that he recorded a version of In the Hall of the Mountain King, which I correctly predicted would be awesome.

Here it is:


I had been reading through the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and it seems like the 3% of reviews that are negative aren't really reviews of the movie per se. They read like they were written by people who are close personal friends of Mark Zuckerberg who got all butt hurt that the movie wasn't very flattering. This is not only lame because it has nothing to do with the quality of the movie (although I must say, I've never seen Mark Zuckerberg make the pouty faces that Jesse Eisenberg makes), it is also lame because it is actually not all that unflattering. This movie made me really like Mark Zuckerberg. Sure, he may not be pleasant company, but I like people who ditch the warm, fuzzy routine in the name of efficiency.

Also it's nice to see that Jesse Eisenberg has proven than he can be more than just a poor man's Michael Cera.

To Appeal, or Not...

While a legislative repeal of DADT would be preferable for a few reasons, appealing Judge Phillipsè ruling seems rather silly now that that avenue has proven futile. Obama seems more afraid of being accused of slipping a repeal in through the legislative back door.

Given that the logic of the decision hinged largely on whether keeping gay troops in the closet harmed troop cohesion, the Justice department will now have to argue the opposite. This puts them in the very odd position of having to argue the opposite of what they argued when campaigning for repeal.

DADT Overturned by Republicans!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log_Cabin_Republicans_v._United_States_of_America

Israel's Settlement Offer

The Palestinian Authority just offered to freeze the expansion of settlements in exchange for recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. This is a convenient way to paint the PA as not willing to bargain, but given what accepting the offer entails, it's hard to blame them for turning it down. Recognition of Israel as a Jewish state would basically be conceding that Jews deserve more rights in Israel than non-Jews. Granted, one would not expect Palestinians or any other Muslim community to grant equal rights to non-Muslims, but either way, ethno-states are ugly, ugly arrangements.

Take THAT WLC

I was kinda disappointed when I saw this video, I was going to do one making roughly the same criticisms.