Lou Dobbs for President

... at least as the Democratic nominee. Wouldn't you like to see a Thompson - Dobbs race? Beats the hell out of McCain - Clinton, eh?

Dobbs' candor on 60 Minutes was refreshing. He's a journalist who's honest enough to disclose his biases (anti-illegal immigration, anti-Iraq war, and anti-Bush). Other journalists (at the New York Times, CNN, etc.) differ not because they are unbiased, but because they are not honest about their biases.

Top of your Netflix queue -- Dogville

Wow. I just watched Dogville, and I'm still stunned.

I don't want to spoil it for you, because you should see this movie with no preconceptions. Any commentary I added would color your experience. Don't go reading other reviews on the web, either. One thing the critics do get right is that it's too long. So watch it as I did, in two or three sittings. You'll enjoy it more.

Go watch it and then let's talk about it.

STOP READING NOW UNTIL YOU'VE SEEN IT -- THEN HIGHLIGHT THE TEXT BELOW FOR MORE OF MY THOUGHTS.


The bare set is original and effective. The whole film is done on a black stage with buildings and streets marked by white chalk outlines, with very few props. It sounds lame, but it's not.

The story and the direction are brutal and misanthropic and feel anti-American, coming from an admitted Ameriphobic European director. Ebert & Roeper, in fact, savaged this movie for being pointlessly anti-American, even though as sophisticated (liberal) big-city critics, they should be comfortable with anti-Americanism. Ebert and Roeper, though, see the movie too narrowly. It's not about America. It's about human nature and the vicious pack instinct.

Nicole Kidman plays a fugitive persecuted by those who she hoped would protect her. The religious overtones are palpable, and the parallels between Kidman and Christ are obvious. The ending, which I won't spoil even for those who ignored the warning not to read ahead, is both appropriate and satisfying.

Springtime in San Francisco

On the Varones family estate, a mother red tail hawk feeds her newly hatched young.

MorOn.org's secret impeachment poll

Seems the folks at MorOn.org are having a little trouble deciding whether to call for the impeachment of the President. Yes, they are the extreme left, but perhaps the leaders recognize irony.

How awkward that a group formed to oppose the impeachment of one President because the country needed to "move on" past little things like perjury and obstruction of justice would end up calling for the impeachment of another because they disagreed with his foreign policy.

Here's their secret internal poll. Go vote. I'm voting yes. MorOn.org and the Kos kids drive the Democratic Congressional agenda. If we can get them focused on impeachment, it will distract them from passing bad laws.

"Democracy" to a leftist

Democracy is great for French leftists -- as long as it gives them the results they want:

Tony Essono, 32, an unemployed economist whose parents emigrated from Cameroon before he was born, said that despite years of anger and discrimination, people in La Courneuve were willing to put their faith in the ballot box "because they understand they can change something" by voting. But, he added, "if Sarkozy is elected, it means we haven't been heard, and we'll trash everything."

From Best of the Web.

A conversation between Alec Baldwin and Pat O'Brien

HT: Ace.

The brighter side of the mortgage bubble

Marijuana growers are having no trouble buying houses to set up growing operations:

Officials with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration say the number of indoor marijuana plants seized by federal, state and local authorities in California has quadrupled in just the last three years, from at least 54,000 plants to nearly 200,000 in 2006.

Many of those seizures have occurred in middle-class and upscale suburbs, where the pot growers took advantage of cheap home financing — and minimal credit checks — to purchase homes and remodel them into sophisticated farms, authorities said.

When I was a kid, indoor growers were fly-by-night operators who rented houses and lived in constant fear that their landlords would need to inspect the property for some reason. Now, thanks to easy credit and liar loans, you don't need a job to buy a house.

Truly the American Dream.