By fnord12 | March 14, 2011, 9:04 AM | Liberal Outrage| Link

March 12, 2011

SuperMegaSpeed Reviews

The triumphant return of this site's most favorite feature...

Heroes For Hire #4 - I want this series to be good, because it's by Abnett & Lanning, but it's been a struggle, in part because it features Paladin so heavily and he's such a lame character. But i was intrigued by the Puppet Master twist on the Bird of Prey style set-up. That said, what i really didn't need was about 3 pages of pure exposition from the Puppet Master explaining what he was up to in a contrived one-way phone conversation, which also reveals that the Puppet Master isn't working alone. It's a little unclear if he's working for someone or with someone, but i'm not too excited about either (unless it's his longtime partner the Mad Thinker but then why would he be explaining his powers in such detail?). Anyway, we'll see where it goes but it's not the series i was hoping for.

Avengers Academy #10 - Yay, Leech! I like this series, and i really like Sean Chen on art. But my god Veil is just stupid, huh?

Thunderbolts #154 - Ok, let's get my geeky complaint out of the way. As far as i know, Jennifer Kale never knew Man-Thing as Ted Sallis, and there's no reason for her to be calling him Ted. It seems to just be a cheap and quick way of establishing that she has a deeper relationship with the Man-Thing than any of the Thunderbolts, but it doesn't work for me. Now my story-telling complaint: the scene where the lizard thing was chasing the people on the fishing boat... you knew that the Man-Thing was going to show up to save them, but my god, it felt like it took forever to get there. We're looking at about 6 pages, and that's after the initial scene establishing the lizard people threat. I kinda get the idea that it's like this horror-movie stalkerish scene, but i don't think it worked very well in comic form. Ok, both of those minor complaints out of the way, i thought this was a great issue. Love the idea of the Thunderbolts learning about the Man-Thing, and the Man-Thing, on some primitive level, enjoying hanging around with a group. Cool stuff, and well written. Also wondering who the Thunderbolts will bring in to bolster their mystical gap. They show Dr. Strange in the end panel, but surely it won't be him, right? Or this book really does become Luke Cage's Avengers part 2. Keeping with the theme of the book, it should be some evil mystic looking to reform, or at least someone not necessarily evil but looking for redemption, right? I can't think of anyone like that. I mean, Brother Voodoo might be looking for redemption at this point but they need to give him a rest. Hopefully not Son of Satan, either.

New Avengers #10 - Ok, all of the flashback art was terrible. I never liked Chaykin's art, but at least it used to be stylish. This is just rough stuff. The scenes from the present with Deodato's art are great though. Now on to the real problems.... I've no problem with Nick Fury recruiting a super-team in the late 1950s. But the idea that they would be called The Avengers is just impossible to reconcile, unless we're going to retcon the idea that the Wasp didn't come up with the name of the real Avengers team on her own. Which would be incredibly lame. As to the team membership... Ulysses i'm fine with. The original Silver Sable: i actually think that's a cool idea. Dominic Fortune: i see no need to bring into 'real' Marvel continuity, but if you're going to do that, fine. Namora: ok, i guess it's after the original Agents of Atlas breaks up but before she gets frozen. Kraven the Hunter.... well, he certainly was already an established and renown game hunter in his first appearance, but the idea that he was really some sort of super secret agent doesn't really work for me. And putting him in a relationship with Namora seems wrong. But i can live with him being on the team; it's actually kind of innovative. Finally, Sabertooth. My immediate reaction was WTF? And yet, and yet... i'm willing to give it a go. Luckily i've studiously avoided all of the backstories involving Wolverine and Sabertooth and (god help us) Maverick, and Silver Fox, and god knows who else, so i don't have to worry about whether it makes sense for him to be active and part of a team at this time. But yeah, his healing factor seems way overpowered. Wolverine could possibly survive a shot to the head because he's got an adamantium skull. There's no way Sabertooth can just take a bullet right through his brain and be back up and walking around a few minutes later. That aside, though, my big problem so far is with the team's name, not the make-up of its members.

Annihilators #1 - Terrible art. Really bad facial expressions. And really boring interpretation of the Space Knights. They all look the same. Beyond that, i really liked the appearance of Ikon and her analysis of the team's weakness. It was kinda marred by the fact that during that whole cool scene, the narration boxes from Quasar were full of angsty self-doubt. But i can ignore that if you're bringing me Doctor Dredd (terrible Bill Mantlo name) and the Dire Wraiths. So on balance, this was a win. As for the back-up story, the art style is not for me, and i don't like the idea of Groot not really being Groot. At all. NOT AT ALL!

By fnord12 | March 12, 2011, 12:15 PM | Comics | Comments (3) | Link

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March 10, 2011

The difference

Ofc, last night the Republican State Senators pushed through the union-busting measure that everyone's been protesting about. Originally it was part of the budget bill, and you need a quorum to vote on a financial bill in Wisconsin, so the Democrats hiding out-of-state was working. By stripping it out and putting in a stand-alone bill, the Republicans felt that they could vote on it without a quorum.

Remember that previously Republicans were saying they needed to strip unions of their rights in order to balance the budget, which would in theory mean that this separate bill should also require a quorum. But whatever.

About all this Steve Bennen at Washington Monthly writes:

The road ahead is uncertain. The measure will become state law fairly soon, but there's likely to be a court challenge -- last night's stunt, among other things, may have violated Wisconsin's open meetings requirements -- and there's been a fair amount of talk of a general strike.

But while those plans are considered, it's worth appreciating the larger context. The political environment in and around Madison was already noxious as the debate over the governor's plan intensified. Last night's gambit only served to make the air significantly more toxic, enraging working families and their Democratic allies. Indeed, if the GOP were sweating over Democratic recall efforts before, Republicans have to realize they just put their majority in serious jeopardy.

If pushing the union-busting bill was the equivalent of poking the hornets' nest, ramming it through this way was the equivalent of beating the hornets' nest with a tire-iron and then daring the hornets to do something about it.

That may all be so, but please take note that Republicans did it anyway. No compromises. No hemming and hawing. No talk of bipartisanship. They had the votes, they figured out how to jump any procedural hurdles, and they did what their base wanted them to do. And now they'll suffer the consequences, betting that they'll be far less than pundits warn and that at least some portion of their ploy will remain in place when all the dust settles.

Imagine the national Democrats doing that when they had a majority in both houses of Congress plus the White House. Imagine all the progress they could have made.

By fnord12 | March 10, 2011, 2:44 PM | Liberal Outrage| Link

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So obvious

It's always said that racism is a way to keep the masses at each other's throats instead of wondering why the top 1% of the population has 90% of the wealth. So here we are with 9% unemployment and Congress is... holding "Muslim: Threat or Menace?" hearings.

By fnord12 | March 10, 2011, 2:32 PM | Liberal Outrage| Link

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Marvel Sales

January.

By fnord12 | March 10, 2011, 12:41 PM | Comics| Link

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Tom Vilsack: Farm subsidies because farmers are "good and decent people". Not like you.

Ezra Klein interviews Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, and i'm just stunned at how tone-deaf his comments are and how fact free his reasoning seems to be.

EK: You keep saying that rural Americans are good and decent people, that they work hard and participate in their communities. But no one is questioning that. The issue is that people who live in cities are also good people. People who live in exurbs work hard and mow their lawns. So what does the character of rural America have to do with subsidies for rural America?

TV: It is an argument. There is a value system that's important to support. If there's not economic opportunity, we can't utilize the resources of rural America. I think it's a complicated discussion and it does start with the fact that these are good, hardworking people who feel underappreciated. When you spend 6 or 7 percent of your paycheck for groceries and people in other countries spend 20 percent, that's partly because of these farmers.

EK: My understanding of why I pay 6 or 7 percent of my paycheck for food and people in other countries pay more is that I'm richer than people in other countries, my paycheck is bigger. Further, my understanding is that a lot of these subsidies don't make my food cheaper so much as they increase the amount of it that comes from America. If we didn't have a tariff on Brazilian sugar cane, for instance, my food would be less expensive. If we didn't subsidize our corn, we'd import it from somewhere else.

TV: Corn and ethanol subsidies are one small piece of this. I admit and acknowledge that over a period of time, those subsidies need to be phased out. But it doesn't make sense for us to have a continued reliance on a supply of oil where whenever there is unrest in another part of the world, gasoline prices jump up. We need a renewable fuel industry that's more than corn-based, of course, and there are a whole series of great opportunities here. But as soon as we reduced subsidizes for biodiesel, we lost 12,000 jobs there. So if you create a cliff, you're going to create significant disruption and end, for a while, our ability to move beyond oil. And keep in mind that the Department of Agriculture has moved, for years, to reduce our spending. We cut $4 billion in crop insurance and put that to deficit reduction. So we are making proposals to get these things in line. But a lot of our money goes to conservation, and goes to some of those 600,000 farmers who are barely making it.

EK: Let me go back to this question of character. You said again that this is a value system that's important to support, that this conversation begins with the fact that these people are good and hardworking. But I come from a suburb. The people I knew had good values. My mother and father are good and hardworking people. But they don't get subsidized because they're good and hardworking people.

TV: I think the military service piece of this is important. It's a value system that instilled in them. But look: I grew up in a city. My parents would think there was something wrong with America if they knew I was secretary of agriculture. So I've seen both sides of this. And small-town folks in rural America don't feel appreciated. They feel they do a great service for America. They send their children to the military not just because it's an opportunity, but because they have a value system from the farm: They have to give something back to the land that sustains them.

EK: But the way we show various professions respect in this country is to increase pay. It sounds to me like the policy you're suggesting here is to subsidize the military by subsidizing rural America. Why not just increase military pay? Do you believe that if there was a substantial shift in geography over the next 15 years, that we wouldn't be able to furnish a military?

TV: I think we would have fewer people. There's a value system there. Service is important for rural folks. Country is important, patriotism is important. And people grow up with that. I wish I could give you all the examples over the last two years as secretary of agriculture, where I hear people in rural America constantly being criticized, without any expression of appreciation for what they do do. When's the last time we thanked a farmer for the fact that only 6 or 7 percent of our paycheck goes to food? We talk about innovation and these guys have been extraordinarily innovative. We talk about trade deficits and agriculture has a surplus.

Ethanol as a fuel source is a pipe dream. Costs more energy to grow and process the stuff than you get from it. I don't know why Vilsack doesn't know that. The rest of it just sounds like we have to subsidize people so they feel appreciated. The thing about military service is just bizarre.

By fnord12 | March 10, 2011, 11:08 AM | Liberal Outrage| Link

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March 9, 2011

Muppet Alignment Chart

From MightyGodKing:

Agree/Disagree? Not so sure about Sweetums. I'd say he started off NE but eventually softened up. Also, Honeydew never struck me as evil but i can see the point.

By fnord12 | March 9, 2011, 12:46 PM | D&D & TeeVee| Link

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March 7, 2011

Starving the beast

Media Matters digs up an old Washington Post article:

The first thing Christine Todd Whitman did upon taking office as governor of New Jersey in January was to cut the state's income tax. Then in July, as she signed into law her first state budget, the Republican cut taxes again while simultaneously closing the huge deficit left by her predecessor.

This is what her supporters call the Whitman miracle, the fiscal accomplishment that has sent her stock soaring among New Jersey's voters and transformed her on the national scene from a political unknown into one of the Republican Party's newest stars.

...

But the key to the Whitman miracle lies neither in her political philosophy nor in her spending cuts, but rather in the fine print of her budget. Contained there is a series of arcane fiscal changes that some experts say amount to this: Christine Todd Whitman has balanced New Jersey's books and paid for her tax cut by quietly diverting more than $1 billion from the state's pension fund.

Whitman calls what she did a "reform" of the pension system that puts it on a more "sound actuarial footing." Others are less charitable. The one thing that even the actuarial consultants hired by the Whitman administration agree on, however, is that the chief effect of the changes will be to shift billions of dollars in pension obligations onto New Jersey taxpayers 15 to 20 years from now.

...

At best, this represents a gamble that the state's economy in the early part of the next century will be stronger than it is today and better able to shoulder pension responsibilities. At worst, according to fiscal experts, Whitman's move represents politics at its most cynical.

By fnord12 | March 7, 2011, 6:34 PM | Liberal Outrage| Link

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Firefly Re-Aired

The Science Channel has acquired the rights to the cult-hit and will air the series in its short-lived entirety, plus some new extras. Science Channel will wrap each episode with interstitial segments starring renowned physicist Dr. Michio Kaku, who will discuss the theoretical science behind the show's sci-fi concepts.

Link

(Incidentally, 'interstitial' is a good word.)

During an interview, Nathan Fillion said if "I got $300 million from the California Lottery, the first thing I would do is buy the rights to "Firefly", make it on my own, and distribute it on the Internet." Too bad Joss Whedon killed off Wash and Shepard Book in that crappy movie that I refuse to accept as canon. Goddamn Joss Whedon.

In response to Fillion's comments, a bunch of fans have set up a website and a Facebook page to gauge fan interest and see if it would be possible to "crowdfund" enough money to buy those rights for him.

I loved Firefly. I would love more Firefly. But so much time has passed that i dunno if anyone could ever make more Firefly and have it still be the same. Plus, what are the chances you could get all the cast members to agree to come back to that? They've all moved on at this point. The backstories that were only ever hinted at are prolly forever lost.

Damn you Fox for canceling the show and damn you Whedon for putting the show on a station like Fox. Double damn you for Serenity.

By min | March 7, 2011, 11:21 AM | Movies & TeeVee| Link

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March 4, 2011

Shoulda Used Crickets

Link

Nickolas Galiatsatos, owner of Nina's Bella Pizzeria in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, is accused of putting bags of mice at nearby competitors on Monday afternoon, according to Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood.

The owner of Verona Pizza watched Galiatsatos go into his restroom carrying a bag but emerge empty-handed, and alerted two patrol officers who were in the restaurant, Chitwood said.

The officers found a bag of mice and footprints on a toilet seat, suggesting someone had been trying to reach the ceiling tiles, he said.

The officers then found Galiatsatos near another pizza place, Uncle Nick's, where he was seen putting something in a trash can. There, police found a bag containing five mice, Chitwood said.

People get some strange ideas in their heads.

By min | March 4, 2011, 12:11 PM | Ummm... Other?| Link

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March 3, 2011

Not sure if it would be a good thing or a bad thing

Doing my best to assume the above toy is in no way indicative of how the upcoming Thor movie will be.

Found on Mike Sterling's latest End of Civilization post, wherein each month he takes a look at all of the wonderful comics-related junk coming out.

By fnord12 | March 3, 2011, 10:28 AM | Comics & Movies | Comments (3) | Link

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March 2, 2011

The New Normal

The Obama administration notoriously predicted an 8% unemployment rate if we did nothing (despite cries from lefty economists that it would be higher). And of course, we now have 9% unemployment with the stimulus. Ezra Klein interviews one of the economists that the Obama administration based their predictions on, and asked why he got it wrong:

"In late 2008," he told me, "the economy was falling apart, but no one knew to what degree. We didn't yet know we were losing three-quarters of a million jobs a month. We just didn't have that data yet." So far, you'll recognize his response as fairly standard: Good forecasting requires good data, and good data about the economy was hard to come by in November of 2008. But what Zandi said next chilled me a little, as it's a stark reminder of not only how far we've fallen, but how complacent we've become.

"Nowadays," he continued, "nine or 10 percent unemployment sounds normal. But we'd had so many years of around five percent unemployment that we just couldn't believe it would go that high." In other words, the unemployment we're experiencing now was so hard to imagine in 2008 that most forecasters didn't even consider it as a serious possibility until they actually saw it happening to the economy. But three years later, we don't like nine percent unemployment, but fairly few people have their hair on fire about it. The Obama administration is talking about winning the future; John Boehner is saying that if his policies cause further job loss, then "so be it." We've acclimated. We're moving onto other issues. And that's a bad thing.

By fnord12 | March 2, 2011, 2:59 PM | Liberal Outrage | Comments (2) | Link

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March 1, 2011

That's our Rep!

Rush Holt beats Watson at Jeopardy.

By fnord12 | March 1, 2011, 6:22 PM | Liberal Outrage & Ummm... Other?| Link

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