Red Line Is Redrum For The Administration’s Street Cred With Neocons

Foreign Policy, Russia

Is drawing another red line in the sand a smart thing for Secretary of State John Kerry to do? Via The Examiner:

Kerry warned of serious repercussions for Russia on Monday if last-ditch talks over the weekend to resolve the crisis in Ukraine failed to persuade Moscow to soften its stance. … The U.S. and Europe on Monday would then unite to impose sanctions on Russia, Kerry told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee Thursday during a hearing on the State Department’s budget.

Then again, Refuters has already noted that “Obama’s Syria ‘red line’ has echoes in his warning to Ukraine.”

This red line habit is redrum for the Administration’s street cred with neoconservative.

Yawn.

UPDATE IV: Latest Anti-Man Moaning From Menstruation Lobby (‘The Americans’)

Capitalism, Celebrity, Feminism, Film, Gender, Government, Hollywood, Political Correctness

Just for a change, the menstruation lobby is moaning about the movies and its members’ representation therein: “The latest study on women in front of the camera finds that female characters are still significantly under-represented on the big screen. … The numbers for minority females are even lower. African-American female representation on screen climbed to 14%, from 8% in 2011, but down from 15% in 2012.”

Despite the same lobby’s attempt to ban the word, we women are “bossy.”

I control the remote in the house. My husband, however, is happy to allow it, because we like viewing the same things—except that he is more patient and prone to watch foolish female heroes strut their stuff in stilettos and plunging cleavages while chasing the bad guys. He’s been softened. He believes the schtick.

Other than “Olivia” in “Law and Order”—she’s the only believable woman in a tough-cop routine—I can’t watch females as action heroes because it doesn’t make sense. I’m way too wedded to reality to find women believable in these roles.

As for the presence of minorities in movies: it usually signals a two-hour long, oppressive racial lecture. And “I’m no more inclined to turn to ’12 Years A Slave’ for entertainment, than I am to subject myself to Oprah Winfrey and her M.O.P.E. (Most Oppressed Person Ever) ‘Butler.'”

Maybe other viewers are on to this and agree, because it is quite clear that Hollywood is giving viewers what they want to see: men in lead roles. If film executives listened to loathsome Lena Dunham, instead of to the demands of consumers—the industry would go bankrupt.

In any event, Sean and I both like the Metal and Military Channels, “Investigation Discovery” for the gory real-life murder cases, “Law and Order” (Olivia’s awesome), “The Following,” “Criminal Minds” (the horror compensates for the hens), “Justified,” and, I know the category is wrong, but the Oscars belongs to ….

The Americans.

It is simply superb; TV at its best: no politics, surprisingly, no mega movie stars (who usually can’t act); real foreigners playing foreigners (no fake foreign accent, courtesy of Angelina Jolie), and a great script.

Enjoy tonight’s episode.

UPDATE I (3/13): The Following” is ad hoc, make-it-up-as-you-go garbage. But it’s done well-enough to entertain.

UPDATE II: “THE AMERICANS.” The script and story are so good in The Americans, that you don’t root for a political side—the story is remarkably apolitical, given how political is should be, the halmark of good storytelling—you simply get absorbed in the plot. It’s a great spook story. That’s the experience the movies should deliver. Good narrative, good acting, no wagging finger. However, it is pro-American in the subtle, good, non-rah-rah way, as it shows how the couple is living the life while going through the spook motions. It is wonderful TV.

UPDATE III: The script and story are so good in “The Americans,” that you don’t root for a political side—the story is remarkably apolitical, given how political is should be, the hallmark of good storytelling—you simply get absorbed in the plot. It’s a great spook story. That’s the experience the movies should deliver. Good narrative, good acting, no wagging finger. However, it is pro-American in the subtle, good, non rah-rah way, as it shows how the couple is living The Life while going through the spook motions. It is wonderful TV.

House of Cards: I do not like a lecture: not from the Right, the Left, or from the libertarians (my crowd). And I do not watch any program about politicians, CIA, FBI, NSA. I want to excise these cancers from my life.

UPDATE IV: Some seek an ideology in a story, I seek a good narrative. Not sure what it is about my explanation on Facebook that Friends have failed to get about excising all gov. from my life. CIA, FBI, NSA, D.C.: “Good” or bad, it’s all bad, because it should be abolished. I don’t watch it for “fun.” I write about it.

UPDATED: A Shrub Between Two Ferns (Galifianakis: A Good Kind Of Goofy)

Barack Obama, Bush, Healthcare, Pop-Culture

The Shrub, aka George Bush, stood apart. Plant life, however, frames Barack Obama just as well. Zach Galifianakis is host of “Funny Or Die” and “Between Two Ferns.” Here Galifianakis lets Barack Obama drone on, “Between Two Ferns,” about “that thing that doesn’t work.”

UPDATE (3/11/014): Galifianakis: A Good Kind Of Goofy.

Wasn’t it obvious that the star in the clip is Galifianakis, not Obama? Seriously, did someone not get that? Facebook Friends didn’t. They do not appreciate off-beat, “awkward humor.”

Surveillance For Thee But Not For Me

Constitution, Founding Fathers, Homeland Security, Intelligence, Politics, The State

Remember when the The Transportation Security Administrator dared to manhandle Sen. Rand Paul in the same way these goons grab our privates daily? Rand responded by telling CNN’s Erin Burnett, essentially, that the TSA folks were good people bogged down by inflexible rules. He followed up with special pleading, suggesting a system of sectional privileges and rights, based on professional need and proximity to power.

But that’s the way the system was destined to work. I know: This nerd’s lasting infatuation is with the unsung heroes of the American founding: the Anti-Federalists. And one of the Anti-Federalist essayists said that the Constitution creates a city or district in which power is concentrated. Once the elected representative (too few to represent anyone meaningfully) reached Rome on The Potomac—they would act as a cloistered, privileged ruling class, impervious to the people’s pleas.

And this has come to pass.

That phony, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), is furious that the CIA “has secretly removed documents from computers used by her panel to investigate a controversial interrogation program.” Lo and behold this bitch has “discovered” the Fourth Amendment and is bemoaning its violation. “The Fourth … bars unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as various federal laws and a presidential executive order that prevents the agency from conducting domestic searches and surveillance,” Feinstein preached.

Man of the people whistleblower Edward Snowden said all there is to say. He “accused the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee of double standards on Tuesday, pointing out that her outrage at evidence her staff were spied on by the CIA was not matched by concern about widespread surveillance of ordinary citizens.”

Snowden said almost all there is to say about the premise of surveillance for thee but not for me under which Americans labor.

It is eminently reasonable to surveil politicians. Because of the special privileges and powers they are able to arrogate to themselves, they ought to be exempt from many of the so-called protections afforded to ordinary citizens.

And of course, they should be denied the vote.