Blargh!

Tue, 11 Jan 2005 14:05:17 GMT

And more good news!

Fri, 07 Jan 2005 19:20:26 GMT

2004 Job Creation Is Best in Five Years

By LEIGH STROPE, AP Labor Writer

WASHINGTON - U.S. employers added 157,000 workers overall to their payrolls in December, bringing the year-end total of new jobs to 2.2 million, the best showing in five years. The unemployment rate held steady at 5.4 percent.

The Labor Department reported Friday that the 2.2 million new jobs created in 2004 were the most in any year since 1999, when employers added 3.2 million positions, based on a government survey of businesses.

In 2003, there was a net 61,000 reduction in payroll jobs.

President Bush called it "a very positive set of numbers" that are proof the economy is growing. "That's positive news," he said at the end of a meeting with the leaders of a bipartisan panel he's tasked with recommending reforms to the tax code.

But he misstated the actual number, saying in the Oval Office that 159,000 new jobs were added. "I stand corrected — it was 157,000," he said later at a speech in Michigan on asbestos lawsuit reform.

The report didn't sour economists, but it didn't wow them either.

"2004 didn't go out like a lion, but it didn't go out like a lamb," said Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics. "It went out like a cow: beefy but docile. These aren't great results, but they're not tepid either. They're kind of in between."

The figures capped a presidential election year in which job creation was a big concern to many voters, and a potential liability to Bush. Job growth had been slow since the 2001 recession, puzzling economists and policy-makers expecting the labor market to bounce back more quickly. Democrats seized on the weak performance, claiming the president's economic policies were not working.

But ultimately, the economy wasn't enough of a concern to deny Bush a second term.

With Friday's report, Bush is close to closing the gap in job creation that has plagued him since taking office in 2001. There are now just 122,000 fewer jobs.

Looking ahead, the Bush administration predicts the economy will create another 2.1 million jobs in 2005 — a figure that private economists say is respectable and beatable. In the game of managing expectations, it's a much lower estimate than a previous administration forecast of 3.6 million new jobs this year.

The Federal Reserve boosted short-term interest rates last month for a fifth time, saying that "labor market conditions continue to improve gradually."

On Wall Street, investors were pleased with the jobs numbers, with stocks rising in morning trading.

In the report, the 157,000 net increase in jobs in December was close to the 175,000 that economists were predicting. It came on top of the 137,000 added the previous month, which was revised 25,000 higher than the government initially reported.

The service sector continued to spark overall hiring in December. But the job growth was concentrated in the health care industry, which added a net 36,000 positions, and business and professional services, which hired a net 41,000 workers.

As the holiday shopping season got in full swing, retailers ended up shedding almost 20,000 jobs overall. Analysts note that the figures are seasonally adjusted and subject to big fluctuations during that time of the year.

"Because of retailers' trepidations about this holiday selling season, they didn't do the usual amount of seasonal hiring," Mayland said.

The good news is the seasonal layoffs that occur in January and February should be moderate this time, he said.

The housing market last year continued to trigger job growth, with the financial service industry adding a net 14,000 jobs last month and 140,000 net jobs for the year as mortgage interest rates remained at low levels. Real estate employment was flat in December, but up 42,000 over the year.

Construction companies continued to hire new workers for the 10th straight month, increasing their payrolls by 13,000.

While government employment didn't change much in December, payrolls rose by 172,000 in 2004. Most of the growth occurred at the state and local levels, especially in education. At the federal level, the U.S. Postal Service continued to shed jobs while employment in the rest of the government didn't change much.

The nation's civilian unemployment rate has hovered at 5.4 percent and 5.5 percent since July, slightly below levels earlier in the year.

Separately, labor force participation is trending down, reflecting "long-term structural and demographic shifts, as well as more short-term business cycle fluctuations," said Kathleen P. Utgoff, commissioner of the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The participation rate has declined sharply in the past several years among younger workers, with economists speculating that a weak labor market is causing those people to stay in school, including seeking higher degrees. But the number of people age 55 and older working or looking for employment has risen in the past four years.

Some good economic news

Fri, 07 Jan 2005 19:17:34 GMT

Dollar Surges Against Euro in Reversal

By Kevin Plumberg

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The dollar quickly reversed course to rise against the euro on Friday, shrugging off losses sparked by lower-than-expected U.S. jobs growth, as traders continued to unwind bets against the U.S. currency.

By late morning, the euro slipped to a six-week low at $1.3044, down 0.9 percent compared with prices late Thursday in New York and well off the record high hit last week of $1.3667. Against the yen, the euro fell over 1 percent to a session low of 136.58 yen .

"There's been a meaningful shift in sentiment on the dollar. ... A few months ago it seemed like the dollar could do no right and it traded lower on everything whether the data was positive or negative," said Sophia Drossos, currency strategist at Morgan Stanley.

Drossos said comments from U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow on the dollar helped to accelerate the currency's gains.

"We want to do things to sustain the strength of the dollar; among them is going to the Congress to work on the deficit, to bring the deficit down," Snow told CNBC TV.

Drossos said "(Snow's) comments along with the more hawkish tone we've heard from the Fed really call into question whether there's unequivocal preference for a weak dollar by U.S. authorities."

Dealers also indicated important chart levels around $1.3140 were broken, which might have driven the euro even lower.

"The market couldn't get the euro any higher on the overall positive employment number when taken with the revisions ... and couldn't get through $1.3250, so people bailed out of their long euro positions," said Robert Houck, a euro trader with Wells Fargo in Minneapolis.

Even though December U.S. non-farm payrolls growth was slightly below expectations, the market still figured the Federal Reserve is on track to raise interest rates further.

The U.S. economy generated 157,000 jobs in December according to a government report, short of economists' prediction of 175,000. Payrolls growth in November and October was revised higher to 137,000 and 312,000, respectively.

"The headline figure, at the margin, was disappointing and that's why you saw the dollar and yields fall. But the revisions bring December's number up to where expectations were, so that's not that bad," said Bob Lynch, senior currency strategist with BNP Paribas in New York.

Price action was relatively steady after the employment report's release especially since any monthly job creation around 150,000 or higher is viewed by the market as a green light for the Fed to maintain its pace of quarter percentage point rate hikes in the near future.

Higher U.S. rates tend to burnish the appeal of the dollar since they attract foreign investors to invest in U.S. assets.

"The December Fed minutes made clear that so-so payroll growth is enough to support continued tightening," said Chris Low, chief economist at FTN Financial.

Against the yen , the dollar fell 0.3 percent to 104.76 yen.

The dollar was up 1 percent at 1.1870 Swiss francs , and dropped 0.3 percent to C$1.2232 .

The jobs report extinguished any suppositions in the market that the Fed could speed up or increase the size of its hikes.

"One thing (the jobs report) does argue against is any notion of accelerated Fed tightening," said Alan Ruskin, research director with 4Cast Inc in New York.

"The earnings data was again soft and that element should give confidence that we're not going to see any major acceleration on the inflation front and that should be bond-friendly and dollar-negative."

The dollar had started 2005 on a stronger note largely because analysts focused on expectations that the U.S. economy would outperform those of Europe and Japan, leading to more attractive interest rates for the U.S. currency.

This outlook was reinforced by the release this week of minutes from the Fed's latest meeting which showed U.S. central bankers believed rates were too low to forestall inflation.

The Fed is expected to raise interest rates again as soon as the start of February, bringing them up to 2.5 percent. (Additional reporting by Justyna Pawlak in London and Jamie McGeever in New York)

Oh dear, more Republican bashing!

Fri, 07 Jan 2005 17:07:03 GMT

Mr. Gonzales's Testimony

Friday, January 7, 2005; Page A18

ALBERTO R. GONZALES missed an important opportunity yesterday to rectify his position, and that of President Bush, on the imprisonment and interrogation of foreign detainees. At the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on his nomination to be attorney general, Mr. Gonzales repeatedly was offered the chance to repudiate a legal judgment that the president is empowered to order torture in violation of U.S. law and immunize torturers from punishment. He declined to do so. He was invited to reject a 2002 ruling made under his direction that the infliction of pain short of serious physical injury, organ failure or death did not constitute torture. He answered: "I don't have a disagreement with the conclusions then reached." Nor did he condemn torture techniques, such as simulated drowning, that were discussed and approved during meetings in his office. "It is not my job," he said, to decide if they were proper. He was prompted to reflect on whether departing from the Geneva Conventions had been a mistake, in light of the shocking human rights abuses that have since been reported in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Guantanamo Bay prison and that continue even now. Mr. Gonzales demurred. The error, he answered, was not of administration policy but of "a failure of training and oversight."

The message Mr. Gonzales left with senators was unmistakable: As attorney general, he will seek no change in practices that have led to the torture and killing of scores of detainees and to the blackening of U.S. moral authority around the world. Instead, the Bush administration will continue to issue public declarations such as those Mr. Gonzales repeated yesterday -- "that torture and abuse will not be tolerated by this administration" -- while in practice sanctioning procedures that the International Red Cross and many lawyers inside the government consider to be illegal and improper.

Mr. Gonzales doesn't have the manner of a stonewaller; in his appearance yesterday he frequently demonstrated the modesty and good nature for which he is known. Senators from both parties rightly celebrated his rise from a childhood in poverty to high national office. The priorities he listed for himself as attorney general sounded like the right ones: "the protection of civil rights, the protection of our voting rights, the protection of our civil liberties." Mr. Gonzales said he is concerned about the spread of pornography and violent crime, as well as "the use of certain kinds of weapons in connection with those crimes." In significant respects, he probably would be a less ideological, less confrontational and less polarizing figure than the outgoing attorney general, John D. Ashcroft.

Yet Mr. Gonzales appeared willfully obtuse about the consequences of his most important judgments as White House counsel. He repeatedly misrepresented the war crimes that have occurred, suggesting they were limited to those shown in the photographs taken by the "night shift" at Abu Ghraib, when it is now documented that abuses occurred throughout Iraq, in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo and that they continued even after the photos became public. He again derided and mischaracterized the Geneva Conventions, claiming that they "limit our ability to solicit information from detainees" and prevent their prosecution for war crimes -- an interpretation at odds with that of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the military's legal corps, the Red Cross, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and decades of U.S. experience in war.

He was asked if he believed that other world leaders could legitimately torture U.S. citizens. He replied, "I don't know what laws other world leaders would be bound by." (The Geneva Conventions would be among them.) He was asked whether "U.S. personnel [can] legally engage in torture under any circumstances." He answered, "I don't believe so, but I'd want to get back to you on that." He was asked whether he agreed, at least, with Mr. Ashcroft, who said he didn't believe in torture because it produced nothing of value. "I don't have a way of reaching a conclusion on that," he said. Those senators who are able to reach clear conclusions about torture and whether the United States should engage in it have reason for grave reservations about Mr. Gonzales.

Duh

Fri, 07 Jan 2005 13:32:11 GMT

On one wall of my office I have framed film posters (not full size) for The Searchers, Singin' in the Rain, Bullitt, and The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer. I also have film postcards (lobby cards?) for several other movies, like The Son and The Battle of Algiers.

Almost daily it seems someone will come into my office, and the subject of movies will come up, at which time the person will say, "Oh, I didn't know you liked movies." I'll motion to the wall of posters and they'll say, "Oh yeah, I guess you do. I hadn't noticed." Maybe I shouldn't expect such powers of deduction from a group of Ph.Ds and Ph.D candidates.

Fri, 07 Jan 2005 01:35:55 GMT

Vijay Singh is a fucking machine.

People continue to piss me off

Thu, 06 Jan 2005 20:00:44 GMT

"Guy Maddin continues to bowdlerize silent cinema for a sham cognoscenti. Antique pop culture still has more mystery and surprise than Maddin's drab campiness. In all, he distorts pop history" - Armond White

So long, and thanks for all the fish

Thu, 06 Jan 2005 16:28:45 GMT

Looks like chaptal has deleted his account. He was one of my first LJ friends, and I'll miss him.

Get a clue, Oliver

Thu, 06 Jan 2005 16:26:27 GMT

Apparently, Oliver Stone is convinced that the reason Alexander didn't have good box office numbers in the States is because Americans are a bunch of religious homophobes. That, or it sounds good in the British press. It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that he makes long, boring, preachy movies, could it? Nah, I didn't think so.

Wed, 05 Jan 2005 22:00:31 GMT

Wed, 05 Jan 2005 17:19:06 GMT

Bush Eyes Plan Using Bulk of Payroll Taxes

Wed, 05 Jan 2005 17:12:41 GMT

Bush Eyes Plan Using Bulk of Payroll Taxes
By LEIGH STROPE, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - President Bush is expected to unveil his plan for a Social Security overhaul in late February, with administration officials eyeing investment accounts that would hold two-thirds of workers' annual payroll taxes.

An administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the size of the private accounts could be similar to those in a proposal by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and the main plan from Bush's 2001 Social Security commission.

The White House cautioned Tuesday that Bush had not decided on a specific plan.

But the administration is leaning toward letting workers divert 4 percentage points of their 6.2 percent in payroll taxes — almost two-thirds — into investment accounts, up to $1,000-$1,300 a year, the official said. The remainder of the workers' payroll taxes would continue going into the system.

Graham's plan calls for annual contributions to be capped at $1,300, while the commission proposed a $1,000 cap.

Bush "has not endorsed any specific proposal," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "We are looking at a number of ideas for strengthening Social Security and will continue working closely with congressional leaders to move forward in a bipartisan way to get it done this year."

Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, scoffed at the White House claim of bipartisanship.

"If he's going to create Democratic friends, he hasn't started it yet," Rangel said in an interview.

Bush also faces a formidable challenge from AARP. The group, whose 35 million members are age 50 and older, has launched a $5 million advertising campaign to oppose Bush's plan to divert money from the retirement system into personal accounts. The group contends the accounts amount to gambling with retirement savings.

"Taking money from Social Security taxes for private investment accounts would worsen the solvency outlook rather than improve it," AARP chief executive officer Bill Novelli said Wednesday. "This approach is risky, hugely expensive and unnecessary."

AARP supports other measures to improve the retirement system's finances, including raising the cap on income subject to the payroll tax from $90,000 a year to $140,000 a year, phased over a decade or so. Novelli would not rule out support for cuts in benefits, though the group opposes big reductions that could come with investment accounts.

To sell the idea of a Social Security overhaul — and private investment accounts — the administration is trying to duplicate its successful effort garnering support for tax cuts.

At an event planned for next Monday, Bush will meet with White House-approved people of varying ages to illustrate how changes to Social Security would affect different generations. To gain support for its tax-cut packages, the administration featured "tax families" and their financial situations.

"That's the model," said Michael Tanner, director of the Cato Institute's Project on Social Security Choice. The libertarian think tank has been a longtime proponent of investment accounts, and it's pressing for larger accounts that would let workers invest all of their payroll taxes.

"This is the way the president tends to campaign on these issues," Tanner said. "He hasn't lost one he wanted to win yet."

Cabinet officials are stepping up their roles in the effort. Treasury Secretary John Snow, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and others can be expected to visit communities across the country to bolster the administration's desire for change.

Selling the overhaul "is more of a challenge than they expected," said David John, Social Security senior analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation. The administration needs to spend time making the case for urgent reform, countering Democrats' claims that the severity of the future shortfall is being exaggerated, John said.

Social Security is projected to start paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2018, though it can cover full benefits until 2042. Then, the system will be able to pay about 73 percent of promised benefits.

The administration so far has refused to discuss the difficult financial tradeoffs required to remake the system.

For example, any proposal offered is likely to cut traditional benefits for younger workers to help fund the future shortfall, with returns from their private accounts expected to cover, but not guarantee, the difference. Also, the administration must identify $800 billion to $2 trillion over 10 years to continue funding retiree benefits once the payroll taxes are diverted into accounts.

In the main plan offered by Bush's commission, promised benefits would be cut for many workers, with reductions ranging from 0.9 percent to 45.9 percent. Investments in the personal accounts are counted on to make up the income loss.

Growth in benefits would be slowed dramatically by tying them to inflation rates instead of wages. The rate of inflation grows more slowly than wages over a person's lifetime.

For example, a person retiring in 2012 with an annual income of $35,277 is promised $1,194 in monthly benefits, in 2001 dollars. If the formula is changed, the monthly benefit would be reduced by 0.9 percent to about $1,183 per month.

The younger the worker, the more dramatic the cuts. For a person retiring in 2075, the monthly promised benefit of $2,032 would be cut by 45.9 percent to $1,099 a month.

In each case, income from the worker's private account, funded with a portion of their Social Security tax, would be expected to at least make up the difference.

Britney quits pop music to become a forensic scientist

Wed, 05 Jan 2005 16:55:57 GMT

Britney quits pop music to become a forensic scientist
January 4, 2005, 12:55:25

Britney Spears is reportedly set to quit pop music - to become a forensic scientist.

The sexy star has allegedly told friends she is considering swapping her singing career for student life and enrolling at university to study for a degree after being motivated by a TV series.

A source told Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper: "It sounds ridiculous but she's been inspired by TV's 'Crime Scene Investigation', which shows scientists solving crimes.

"Brit has been growing tired of all the media attention and is thinking about taking a break from it all. Insiders have revealed that the 23-year-old star, who launched her music career aged just 16, has even consulted 'Star Wars' beauty Natalie Portman - who graduated from prestigious Harvard University two years ago after studying psychology - about her plans to return to education.

And friends claim the pop babe's second husband, Kevin Federline, who she wed in a surprise ceremony last year, is also backing her decision.

The source added: "She's taking this university idea quite seriously." "She's happy with Kev and he'd support her in anything she wants to do. If she decides she wants to study then he'd be fine with that."

Hannigan 'Game' for ABC Sitcom

Wed, 05 Jan 2005 14:38:34 GMT

Hannigan 'Game' for ABC Sitcom
Wed Jan 5, 1:28 AM ET

By Nellie Andreeva

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - "American Pie" star Alyson Hannigan is set to join Jennifer Love Hewitt and Ed O'Neill on ABC's upcoming comedy series "In the Game."

Hewitt plays an up-and-coming producer who unwillingly becomes an on-camera reporter on a sports TV show. Hannigan will play the reporter's best friend. O'Neill co-stars as the show's executive producer.

Hannigan co-starred on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and most recently starred as Sally in the London stage version of Rob Reiner's 1989 film "When Harry Met Sally... ."

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

Budget cuts for Defense

Wed, 05 Jan 2005 13:26:11 GMT

Current Needs Outweigh Advances in Technology

By Jonathan Weisman and Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, January 5, 2005; Page A01

Rising war costs and a stubborn budget deficit have forced the Pentagon to propose billions of dollars in cuts to advanced weapons systems, as the military refocuses spending from its vision of a transformed fighting force to the more down-to-earth needs of its ground troops.

An internal defense budget document for fiscal 2006 shows a vivid shift of emphasis from procuring the weapons of the future to fighting the wars of the present, numerous defense analysts said yesterday. The Air Force and the Navy -- once favored by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld -- would have to sacrifice some of their high-tech weapons development for the humble needs of the Army, such as tank treads and armor.

The internal budget document was approved by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz.

"The Air Force and the Navy are paying the bills to fix the Army's shortfall in resources," said Loren B. Thompson, defense industry analyst with the Lexington Institute.

The internal budget document, approved by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz and leaked to reporters over the weekend, shows deep cuts to weapons programs once seen as the future of the military, including an Air Force advanced fighter plane, a stealthy Navy destroyer, a fleet of modernized transport aircraft and the next generation of nuclear submarines. Even President Bush's prized missile defense program would be trimmed by $5 billion. In all, cuts over six years would total $55 billion, mostly from the Navy and the Air Force.

In contrast, Army ground forces, which Rumsfeld had once hoped to reduce and de-emphasize, would receive an additional $25 billion through 2011. Those funds would be dedicated to an ongoing Army initiative to break down its large divisions into smaller, "modular" brigades that would be more mobile and flexible.

With the cutbacks and additions, the Pentagon would trim $30 billion over the next six years from its original $89 billion defense buildup, according to the budget document, which was first reported in InsideDefense.com. The total military budget is still likely to exceed the 2005 level. At the same time, the White House is preparing an emergency spending bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that could total between $80 billion and $100 billion, congressional defense aides say.

White House officials last year informed all federal agencies and departments, including the Defense Department, that they would have to contribute to the president's effort to cut the budget deficit in half, as Bush has pledged, according to Chad Kolton, a spokesman for the White House budget office. At the same time, emergency requests for the war in Iraq have steadily escalated in each of the past three years.

"No one had anticipated that the cost of Iraq would continue to grow like [this]," said Dov S. Zakheim, an original member of Rumsfeld's team who retired as Pentagon comptroller last year. Now, he said, "clearly they are concerned about the deficit on one hand and Iraq on the other."

"They've suddenly realized the war in Iraq and the deficit require them to make tough choices on the defense budget," said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a member of the Armed Services Committee.

The internal document presents the changes the Defense Department would like to see in its long-term budget, recommendations that will now be used to draft the actual defense request for 2006 through 2010. Kolton cautioned that final decisions on the president's 2006 budget request are still about two weeks away.

Some of the cuts would fall on programs long questioned by Rumsfeld. The F/A-22 Raptor fighter jet, which critics have labeled a Cold War relic, is slated for a $10.4 billion cut through 2011. The cut would cost the Air Force 96 advanced fighters.

The Air Force originally proposed scaling back the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter instead but was overruled by Pentagon insiders close to Rumsfeld, Thompson said. "The administration is using the budget pressures as a pretext to force its priorities on the military services," he said.

Submarines, also slated for cuts, have never been Rumsfeld favorites. Under the plan, the Navy would lose three advanced Virginia-class nuclear submarines, saving $5.3 billion.

But other programs on the chopping block have been defended by the military services as vital to Rumsfeld's vision of a lighter, more agile military. The Marine Corps would lose nearly $1.2 billion for its V-22 Osprey vertical-lift aircraft.

The Navy would lose two of its DD(X) destroyers, once billed by the Navy as its "pathway to transformation," saving $2.5 billion.

A restructured missile defense program, once the top defense priority of the administration, would be cut by $5 billion. And the Navy would lose 63 next-generation C-130 transport planes, at a savings of $4.9 billion.

The internal budget document was approved by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz.

Some of cuts appear to be a prudent acceptance of reality, said Robert Work, a senior defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. The Navy's fleet of surface ships and submarines is unchallenged, he said. Some defense experts have raised alarm bells about China's intention to ramp up its submarine fleet, but for now, China's four nuclear submarines and 53 conventional subs -- many of them decrepit -- are no match for the Navy's 58 nuclear submarines, he said.

Michael E. O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the proposed cuts reflect a more seasoned Pentagon leadership that is ready to tackle the political difficulty of canceling or reducing expensive, prized weapons programs.

"The Bush administration has ingratiated itself with parts of the defense community" and is publicly considered strong on defense, he said. "That makes it easier for [Bush] to argue that we have to do some things differently. They have created the sort of legitimacy necessary to make these arguments and have people take them seriously."

But other defense experts say the budget request appears to lack any coherent vision. An extensive defense buildup has pushed military spending from $291 billion in 2001 to $437 billion in 2004, but it has yet to fundamentally replace the aging weaponry of the military services, said Andrew F. Krepinevich, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments' executive director. Cutting future weapons purchases now would lock in what he called "a hollow buildup."

"If this is transformation, it's reactive transformation," he said. "What are these cuts saying beyond 'We've got a budget problem' ?"

Without doubt, Rumsfeld will face political challenges to his request. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.) has singled out a proposal to retire one of the Navy's aircraft carriers.

Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), whose district includes giant shipmaker Bath Iron Works, went further. "It's truly mystifying and disturbing," she said. "What is their vision of the future that would suggest that America could live with a much-reduced Navy? We couldn't even anticipate where we are today . . . let alone looking 10 or 20 years down the road."

But, ultimately, Congress may have little choice but to go along, said Gordon Adams, a George Washington University defense expert who helped craft defense budgets for the Clinton White House. The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks had produced a surge in spending for war and weapons, obscuring an earlier fight between Rumsfeld and the uniformed services over funding priorities.

But the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have dragged on far longer -- and proved far more expensive -- than anticipated. Likewise, the burgeoning budget deficit -- which totaled a record $413 billion in 2004 -- has put pressure on the entire federal government.

Now, Adams said, Rumsfeld will no longer be able to "have his budgetary cake and eat it, too."

Monumental blunder sparks call for video decisions

Wed, 05 Jan 2005 13:02:57 GMT

Monumental blunder sparks call for video decisions
Wed 05 Jan, 12:17 PM

MANCHESTER, England (AFP) - Three of the English Premiership's leading managers united in a call for the introduction of video technology to help referees after Tottenham were denied victory over Manchester United by an astonishing blunder by officials.

Spurs boss Martin Jol was left almost speechless after watching a speculative stoppage time shot from Pedro Mendes bounce out of United goalkeeper Roy Carroll's arms and cross the line by as much as a yard.
Advertisement

Carroll clawed the ball back into play but even the Northern Ireland international looked shocked when referee Mark Clattenburg waved play on to deny Tottenham what would have been a decisive goal in a match that finished 0-0.

Replays of the incident clearly showed that a goal should have been awarded and Jol reacted by saying the case for using video tape to review such decisions was now unanswerable.

"Before the game we would have taken this result because we had a few key players injured and this was our fourth match in nine days," Jol said after the match.

"But after the game you have to say that technology needs to be introduced because we feel robbed - and rightly so."

Even United boss Sir Alex Ferguson admitted Spurs had been dealt a harsh blow. "It just adds weight to the point about technology being brought in.

"I don't think you can blame the referee or the linesman because I wasn't sure myself that the ball had crossed the line."

Ferguson said he would back a system where video evidence could be consulted provided it allowed for a decision within 30 seconds of an incident taking place.

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger weighed into the debate. "When the whole world apart from the referee has seen there should be a goal at Old Trafford, that just reinforces what I feel - there should be video evidence," he said.

"It's a great example of where the referee could have asked to see a replay and would have seen in five seconds that it was a goal."

Jol refused to condemn the officials for their error. "It was hard for both the referee and linesman to see what had happened which makes it even more important for changes to be introduced," the Dutchman said.

"We talk about new technology all the time but nothing seems to happen yet it would be so easy to put something there on the line to help the game.

"But I'm pleased with the way we played. We made it difficult for United to score.

"The ball was definitely over the line. I thought it was from where I was standing and I suppose it has cost us the game.

"Looking at the incident now the ball was 2ft over the line. We are in the year 2005 and shouldn't have to be having these discussions. Where is the technology?

"I'm proud of my team. We got a point but should have had all three."

The result left United 11 points adrift of Premiership leaders Chelsea and Ferguson knows his side face an uphill battle to overhaul their London rivals, not least because Ryan Giggs will miss the next three weeks of the season with a damaged hamstring.

"I sometimes think this is when the season starts in earnest because there is an added pressure as you reach the point of no return," said Ferguson.

"I think we are better under pressure because there is a great sense of urgency in the team as they realise that they will have to grind out results now.

"It is consistency in terms of results that wins league championships and I've told the players this is the most relevant quality now."

More about the Republicans and "ethics"

Tue, 04 Jan 2005 14:24:17 GMT

GOP Abandons Ethics Changes
Dissent in Party Halts House Move

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 4, 2005; Page A01

House Republican leaders last night abandoned a proposal to loosen rules governing members' ethical conduct, as they yielded to pressure from rank-and-file lawmakers concerned that the party was sending the wrong message.

The proposal would have made it more difficult for lawmakers to discipline a colleague for unethical behavior and would have allowed Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) to keep his post if he is indicted by a Texas grand jury that is looking into his campaign finance practices.

The sudden reversal came amid growing indications of dissension within the GOP. Just before House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's office announced that the measures were being dropped, the chairman of the House ethics committee issued an unusual statement denouncing the leadership's plan.

Rep. Joel Hefley (Colo.), who appeared on the verge of being forced out as chairman after his committee voted three times last year to admonish DeLay, issued a statement criticizing the proposed rule changes as highly partisan and not in the best interests of the House. "Ethics reform must be bipartisan and this package is not bipartisan," Hefley said in the statement after sending Republican colleagues a letter outlining his objections.

Republicans voted to go ahead with another of their controversial ethics proposals and will ask the full House to approve a change that could curtail ethics committee investigations. Under the change, a Republican vote would be required before an inquiry can begin. The committee is evenly divided between the two parties, and under current rules a deadlock means an investigation begins automatically.

The actions came during a closed-door meeting of House Republicans, who had just returned to Washington for the start of the 109th Congress today. The decisions were made by Hastert and by DeLay, who asked his colleagues to reverse their decision in November to rewrite an 11-year-old party rule so that he could keep his leadership job even if indicted. A Texas grand jury has indicted three of his political associates in an investigation of campaign finances related to a House redistricting plan that DeLay helped push through in the state.

DeLay told the caucus last night that he is confident he will not face indictment, said a DeLay spokesman, Jonathan Grella. Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.) said during a break in the meeting that the "indictment rule" was restored in part because of complaints that members had heard back home.

"Constituents reacted," he said. "We're blessed with a leadership that listens."

Aides said DeLay made the decision quite a while ago that he would propose changing the rule on indictments back to the previous version, saying that he could see Democrats would continue using the change as a basis for personal attacks. The aides said DeLay did not want to put Republicans through it, and wanted to deny Democrats the opening.

At their own private meeting, Democrats added a rule requiring party leaders to step down if they are indicted. Democrats planned to try to embarrass Republicans by proposing such a rule in the full House today.

The other proposed rule change abandoned by the Republicans last night would have negated an ethics rule that was used last year as the basis for admonishing DeLay three times -- for hosting a golf fundraiser for energy lobbyists before House consideration of the energy bill, for offering to endorse the political campaign of a lawmaker's son in exchange for the lawmaker's vote on Medicare legislation, and for enlisting Federal Aviation Administration officials to help track down Democratic Texas lawmakers who were trying to foil the redistricting plan.

The 30-year-old rule allowed lawmakers to be rebuked for bringing discredit on the House even if their behavior did not violate a law or regulation. Under a plan the GOP circulated just before New Year's Eve, lawmakers could run afoul of the House only by breaking a specific rule.

Although supporters of the change said the current standard is vague and subject to partisan manipulation, watchdog groups and some Republicans said the change amounted to gutting standards that were already relatively weak. "It had become a distraction," said Hastert's spokesman, John Feehery. "It was in response to some of our members' requests."

Hefley's salvo aligned him with independent watchdog groups and some Democrats who contend that the Republicans, emboldened by President Bush's victory and their enlarged margins of control in both chambers, are using heavy-handed techniques to protect their interests. Republicans used the same charge successfully against entrenched Democrats in fighting for control of the chamber in 1994.

Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) called the planned ethics changes "a grave mistake."

"Those of us who were here in 1994 remember we gained our Republican majority in part because we argued that as public servants, we have a responsibility to the American people to maintain the highest standards of conduct," Shays said.

Brendan Daly, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), said: "Even for Republicans, this proposed change was unconscionable. The issue simply became too hot for them to handle, so they had to drop it."

Hefley, a conservative, has acted too independently to please the leaders. Republican aides have said repeatedly that Hastert is leaning toward removing him when committee assignments are made this week. Aides said Hefley has served four terms on the ethics committee -- which they said is all he is allowed under House rules. However, leaders can make exceptions.

Hefley did not attend the meeting of the House Republican Conference last night, and his staff said he was traveling. Eight watchdog groups, which banded together in 2003 as the Congressional Ethics Coalition, held a news conference yesterday to protest the proposed changes and retribution against Hefley. The organizations, which included Public Citizen, the Center for Responsive Politics, Democracy 21, the Campaign Legal Center and Common Cause, asserted that the changes would weaken the House's already lax ethical guidelines and that tougher rules -- not looser ones -- should be passed. The groups, which have heavily Democratic staffs, said in a statement that the House is "on the verge of the complete collapse of the system for holding members of Congress to a meaningful code of ethics."

On another matter that was at least as controversial among members as the ethics issues, the GOP voted to support a new Committee on Homeland Security, although it will not have as much power as some lawmakers wanted. House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.) said that taking jurisdiction away from existing committees "leaves one with scars" and joked that he may be "dining alone."

Staff writer Jeffrey Birnbaum contributed to this report.

Mmmm... Corruption

Tue, 04 Jan 2005 14:21:13 GMT

DeLay, Republicans Reverse Indictment Rule Change
Mon Jan 3,11:06 PM ET
By Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas got fellow Republicans on Monday to reverse a recent rule change that would have allowed him to keep his leadership post even if indicted.

They also moved to make it more difficult for the House ethics committee to investigate a complaint against any member.

Republicans applauded behind closed doors as they approved on a voice vote DeLay's motion to revert to their decade-old rule that requires a leader indicted of a felony to step aside, said spokesman Jonathan Grella.

Three of DeLay's associates were indicted by a Texas grand jury in September in connection with illegal fund raising. The prosecutor has said the investigation is not finished.

"Tom spoke from the heart," said Grella. "He said he wanted to put the focus on the Republican agenda (and such matters as education and health care) -- not him."

"He also expressed his long-standing confidence that he does not expect to be indicted," Grella said.

Democrats accused Republicans of lowering the ethical bar for leadership when House Republicans on Nov. 17 changed their rules to allow DeLay to keep his post if indicted.

Democrats earlier on Monday changed their rules to require any Democratic leader indicted of a felony that carries two or more years in prison to step down, and said Republicans should do the same.

Before Democrats could make an issue of it when the new 109th Congress convenes on Tuesday, DeLay got Republicans to change their rules.

"Once again, Tom DeLay outsmarts Democrats," Grella said.

The action came as House Republicans rejected objections by Democrats and public interest groups and approved another proposed rule change that would allow either party to stop the House ethics committee from investigating a complaint against a member.

The measure will come up for a vote before the full House on Tuesday, and Republican leaders said they expect to have the votes to adopt it.

Under the measure, a complaint before the ethics committee -- composed of five Democrats and five Republicans -- would die after 45 days if no action was taken on it. Currently, if no action is taken within 45 days, the complaint automatically goes to an investigative subcommittee.

While Republican proponents said the proposed change would "restore the presumption of innocence," critics said it would undermine the policing of members.

"We just weakened the ethics rules," said Rep. Christopher Shays, a moderate Connecticut Republican who opposed the proposed change.

"We just said, 'We aren't going to investigate a Democrat unless Democrats agree to it, and we aren't going to investigate a Republican unless Republicans agree to it,"' Shays said.

The ethics committee last year admonished DeLay on three matters: a 2002 fund-raiser that it said gave the appearance of donors getting special access; enlisting the help of a federal agency in a Texas political spat, and offering a political favor to a member in an effort to win passage of a bill.

House Republican leaders on Monday, after some members said publicly they opposed lowering ethics standards, withdraw another proposed change that would have required a violation of a specific rule for any finding of wrongdoing.

Mon, 03 Jan 2005 21:22:46 GMT

'I'm Going to Learn'
First, the blame. Then, the healing. In a new book, NEWSWEEK talks exclusively with John Kerry about why he lost—and looks at his plans for another run

By Evan Thomas

Jan. 10 issue - It was a little after 7 p.m. on election night 2004. The network exit polls showed John Kerry leading George Bush in both Florida and Ohio by three points. Kerry's aides were confident that the Democratic candidate would carry these key swings states; Bush had not broken 48 percent in Kerry's recent tracking polls. The aides were a little hesitant to interrupt Kerry as he was fielding satellite TV interviews in a last get-out-the-vote push. Still, the 7 o'clock exit polls were considered to be reasonably reliable. Time to tell the candidate the good news.

Kerry had slept only two hours the night before. He was sitting in a small hotel room at the Westin Copley (in a small irony of history, next door to the hotel where his grandfather, a boom-and-bust businessman, shot himself some 80 years ago). Bob Shrum, Kerry's friend and close adviser, couldn't resist the moment. "May I be the first to say 'Mr. President'?" said Shrum.

The others cringed. Kerry did not respond, at least in any memorable way. In the dark days after the election, he tried a joke: "Until about 7 p.m. that night, it felt great to be the 44th president of the United States." Ever since election night, John Kerry has been trying hard to learn from his mistakes, to cheer his disappointed followers, to avoid sinking into the inevitable depression—and to plot his own comeback.

Kerry has not given any formal interviews since his defeat. But on Nov. 11, nine days after the election, Kerry summoned a NEWSWEEK reporter to his house on Boston's fashionable Louisberg Square. He wanted to complain about NEWSWEEK's election issue, which he said was unduly harsh and gossipy about him, his staff and his wife. (The 45,000-word article, the product of a yearlong reporting project, is being published next week as a book, "Election 2004," by PublicAffairs.)

Despite, or because of, a somewhat stoical and severe New England upbringing, Kerry has a tendency to natter at his subordinates, to blame everyone but himself. ("Did he whine?" was the first question one senior Kerry aide asked of the NEWSWEEK reporter who had recently been to see Kerry.) On this damp November evening, he appeared alone in the house; he answered the door and showed his visitor into a cozy, book-lined drawing room. His face was deeply lined, his eyes drooped, he looked like he hadn't slept in about two years. But his manner was resolute, his mood seemed calm, even chipper.

Why did he lose? Kerry points to history and, in a somewhat inferential, roundabout way, to his own failure to connect to voters—a failure that kept him from erasing the Bush campaign's portrait of him as a flip-flopper. Kerry said that he was proud of his campaign, that he had nearly defeated a popular incumbent who had enjoyed a three-year head start on organizing and fund-raising. Sitting presidents are never defeated in wartime, he insisted (true, though two, LBJ and Harry Truman, chose not to run for another term during Vietnam and Korea). Kerry did not wish to be directly quoted touting himself, however; he did not wish to appear defensive or boastful.

He never quite came out and said it, but Kerry sounded very much like a man who was running for president again. He has a mailing list with 2.9 million names and an organization in every state. His moneymen have not backed away. By and large, Kerry has not been blamed for the defeat, at least not the way former vice president Al Gore was after the 2000 election. Some of Kerry's followers are already plotting how Kerry can defeat Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucuses in 2008. The conventional wisdom, already congealing before Bush's second Inaugural, pictures Kerry and Clinton as the early Democratic front runners.

Not all of Kerry's supporters are so sanguine. In the heady days before the election, Kerry's top aides sat around picking a cabinet (one plan was to ask Colin Powell to stay on as secretary of State, thereby avoiding a massive power struggle between Sen. Joe Biden and Democratic foreign-policy wise man Richard Holbrooke). Nowadays the foreign-policy team still meets on the assumption that it could be reconstituted for '08. But the reality is, "it's mostly sitting around some lawyer's office and asking each other if we've heard about jobs," says a member of the team. As for Kerry, says this adviser, "he thinks he's the front runner for '08 without recognizing that he needs to do some soul-searching. If he wants to come back, he'll have to come back as a different candidate, not the stiff who plays it safe and takes four sides of every issue."

Some of Kerry's brave talk may be therapy, an effort to stave off the emotional plunge that has to follow such public rejection. Kerry has moments of real sadness, say his advisers, hours when he disappears to play his guitar. But he wants to keep moving. That evening in November, he told NEWSWEEK, "I'm not going to go lick my wounds or hide under a rock or disappear. I'm going to learn. I've had disappointments and I've learned to cope. I've lost friends, a marriage; I've lost things in life." While he spoke, the phone occasionally rang with calls from family and aides. In his conversations, Kerry sounded like the consoling one. Kerry has tried to comfort and defend his wife, Teresa, who suffers from migraines and has taken personally widespread criticism (much of it by campaign staffers) of her role in the campaign.

Since Election Day, Kerry has made hundreds of calls to supporters and e-mailed them a two-minute video outlining his hopes for the future. "He learned a lesson from Gore in 2000," said an aide. "Gore just walked away and didn't thank people." (Untrue, says a Gore adviser.) Kerry is a realist about his prospects for running in 2008, says his spokesman, David Wade. "He realizes it's impossible to predict. In December of 2003 he was dead. In January of 2004 he was the nominee." In the meantime Kerry is going to play the role of opposition leader. Next week he will leave a family vacation in Idaho (he had planned to do some skiing, mountain climbing and skeet shooting) to travel to the Middle East and Iraq. When he returns, he will introduce two bills in the Senate: to provide for health insurance for every child in America and to increase the size of the U.S. military by 40,000 troops.

Kerry has become deeply fascinated by the task of rebuilding the Democratic Party from the grass roots up, say his advisers. He has hired a streetwise political organizer from Boston named John Giesser, the deputy to 2004 grass-roots organizer Michael Whouley, to run his political action committee. There is talk that Kerry is trying to make Giesser his Karl Rove, though Giesser is said to be too quiet and unassuming to play the role of master manipulator.

While he quarreled with descriptions of his speaking style as "soporific," Kerry tacitly acknowledged that he failed to connect with enough voters on a personal level. Jose Ferreira, Kerry's nephew, told his uncle, "Some people are saying that your candidacy was driven by ABB [Anything But Bush]." Kerry replied: "Do you think so?" Ferreira said that once people got to know Kerry, they were intensely loyal. "Those are the people I let down," Kerry said, falling silent. In conversation with NEWSWEEK, Kerry seemed particularly interested in trying to find a way to speak to ordinary voters that didn't sound too grandiose or "political." Though Kerry did not directly criticize his friend Shrum, it's clear he did not feel well served by his message makers and speechwriters.

The deeper problem may be Kerry's personality, which may be too distant or reserved to win mass affection. As this reporter left his house in November, Kerry called out and followed him down the street. He wanted to show a letter from a schoolgirl that had been left on his stoop. The letter read, in part, "John Kerry, you're the greatest!" Kerry looked into the reporter's eye. "The pundits have never liked me," he said. "Is it the way I look? The way I sound?" He seemed vulnerable for a moment, then caught himself, smiled and walked home to his empty house.

With Eleanor Clift, T. Trent Gegax and Susannah Meadows

I really really want this book

Thu, 30 Dec 2004 22:36:06 GMT

The Filmgoer's Guide to God is an elegant exploration of how film, the dominant art form of the 20th Century, has treated religious themes. Against the turbulent backdrop of a century of total war, of genocide, of utter cynicism, Tim Cawkwell outlines how the new medium of film mirrored and shaped these troubled narratives and offered fresh perspectives on the crisis of faith.

Tim Cawkwell's study takes in a wide range of European and American cinema and focuses in detail on the particular contributions of four film-makers: Bresson, Dreyer, Rossellini and Tarkovsky. Films discussed include 'Diary of a Country Priest'; 'Night of the Hunter'; 'Brighton Rock'; O Brother, Where Art Thou?'; 'Open City'; 'The Passion of Joan of Arc' and 'Babette's Feast', among others, and concludes with a chapter on the films of the gospel, calling for a radical engagement with this 'story of stories'.

Tim Cawkwell is Chapter Clerk of Norwich Cathedral and was a film-maker. He is co-author of 'The World Encyclopedia of Film'.

2046 arrived today!

Thu, 30 Dec 2004 16:36:00 GMT

Hell yeah.

More liberal hate speech

Thu, 30 Dec 2004 16:09:10 GMT

More liberal hate speech
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | December 30, 2004

AS IT DOES every year, the empty folder I labeled "Liberal Hate Speech" in January had grown to a thick sheaf of clippings by December. 2004 wasn't even a week old when two videos explicitly comparing George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler appeared on the website of the liberal group MoveOn. They were entries in a contest soliciting "really creative ads" that would help voters "understand the truth about George Bush."

So began another year in which liberals engaged in, and mostly got away with, grotesque slanders and slurs about conservatives -- the kind of poisonous rhetoric that should be beyond the pale in a decent society. Once again, too many on the left -- not crackpots from the fringe, but mainstream players and pundits -- chose to demonize conservatives as monsters rather than debate their ideas on the merits.

As in years past, Republicans were almost routinely associated with Nazi Germany. Former Vice President Al Gore referred to GOP activists as "brown shirts." Newsday columnist Hugh Pearson likened the Republican National Convention to the "Nazi rallies held in Germany during the reign of Adolf Hitler." Linda Ronstadt said that the Republican victory on Election Day meant "we've got a new bunch of Hitlers." Chuck Turner, a Boston city councilor, smeared National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice as "a tool of white leaders," like "a Jewish person working for Hitler."

Such Nazi labeling is no less disgusting when it comes from Republicans, of course. According to Bob Woodward, Secretary of State Colin Powell described Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith as running a separate government out of his "Gestapo office." Commentator Ralph Peters, writing in the New York Post, accused Democrat Howard Dean of using the tactics of Hitler and Goebbels to silence his competitors. Too many conservatives and libertarians refer to antismoking extremists as "tobacco Nazis," or to the humorless critics of fast food as "food Nazis." Whether it comes from the right or the left, language like that is vile.

Overwhelmingly, though, political hate speech today comes from the left. It has increasingly become a habit of leftist argumentation to simply dismiss conservative ideas as evil or noxious rather than rebut them with facts and evidence.

That is why there was no uproar when Cameron Diaz declared that rape might be legalized if women didn't turn out to vote for John Kerry. Or when Walter Cronkite told Larry King that the videotape of Osama bin Laden that surfaced just before the election was "probably set up" by Karl Rove. Or when Alfred A. Knopf published Nicholson Baker's "Checkpoint," a novel in which two Bush-haters talk about assassinating the president. "I'm going to kill that bastard," one character rages.

Bill Moyers warned a television audience on Election Day that if Kerry won narrowly, "I think there'd be an effort to mount a coup, quite frankly. . . . The right wing is not going to accept it." Chevy Chase, hosting a People for the American Way awards ceremony at the Kennedy Center in Washington, slammed Bush as "an uneducated, real, lying schmuck." A cartoon by the widely syndicated Ted Rall described Pat Tillman, who gave up his NFL career to enlist in the Army and was then killed in Afghanistan, as a "sap" and an "idiot."

So many examples, so little space. A political flier in Tennessee, depicting Bush as a mentally disabled sprinter, bore the message: "Voting for Bush is like running in the Special Olympics. Even if you win, you're still retarded."

The St. Petersburg, Fla., Democratic Club took out an ad calling for the death of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "Then there's Rumsfeld who said of Iraq, `We have our good days and our bad days,' " the ad read. "We should put this S.O.B. up against a wall and say, `This is one of our bad days,' and pull the trigger." Fantasies of murder likewise animated British pundit Charlie Brooker, who ended his Oct. 24 column in the Guardian with a plea for Bush's death: "John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr. -- where are you now that we need you?" Brooker later assured readers that he "deplores violence of any kind" and had meant his call for an assassin only as "an ironic joke."

But the "joke" of left-wing hate speech stopped being funny a long time ago. There is room in the marketplace of ideas for passionate, even angry, rhetoric, but there are also lines that, as a matter of decency and civic hygiene, should not be crossed. The violent invective so often hurled at conservatives pollutes the democratic stream from which all of us drink. Democrats no less than Republicans should want to shut those polluters down.

Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com.

10 best moviewatching experiences of 2004

Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:27:52 GMT

Since the year's not officially over yet, and there's still at least a couple of movies I plan to see in the next couple of days, but here's a list of a different sort - the ten best movies I saw in 2004 that I'd never seen before, regardless of what year they were made or released.

Au Hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966)

Late Spring (Yasujiro Ozu, 1949)

Tokyo Story

Dogville (Lars von Trier, 2003)

Drifting Clouds (Aki Kaurismäki, 1996)

Lifetime

Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967)

Modern Times

A Man Escaped (Robert Bresson, 1956)

The Return (Andrei Zvyagintsev, 2003)

Ocean's 12 (Steven Soderbergh, 2004)

The Five Obstructions (Jørgen Leth and Lars von Trier, 2003)

Elephant (Gus van Sant, 2003)

Palme d'Or

Lunch

Wed, 29 Dec 2004 19:34:58 GMT

chaptal and I luncheoned at glamorous Bento Go Go. We shared job hunting stories and talked about movie theaters, children, the lack of public funding for municipal libraries, and of course, Wilco. Fun fun fun.

Then I went to CD Warehouse and dropped $50 on used CDs.

The Swedish List

Wed, 29 Dec 2004 16:49:14 GMT

		RAM	Processor	Rating
1	Shredder 8.0 CB	256MB	Athlon 1200 MHz	2818
2	Shredder 7.04 UCI	256MB	Athlon 1200 MHz	2809
3	Deep Fritz 8.0	256MB	Athlon 1200 MHz	2790
4	Junior 8.0	256MB	Athlon 1200 MHz	2782
5	Shredder 7.0	256MB	Athlon 1200 MHz	2772
6	Deep Fritz 7.0	256MB	Athlon 1200 MHz	2769
7	Fritz 8.0	256MB	Athlon 1200 MHz	2759
8	Deep Junior 8.0	256MB	Athlon 1200 MHz	2749
9	Hiarcs 9.0	256MB	Athlon 1200 MHz	2747
10	Fritz 7.0	256MB	Athlon 1200 MHz	2744