In a brief break from all the political shenanigans, I just have to share with you two of the funniest lines from movie reviews I've seen in a while - and they both apply to the same film - John Travolta's latest, Basic.

From Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post: "You know the old one about the infinite number of monkeys and the infinite number of typewriters eventually writing all of Shakespeare? Well, maybe, but I'll tell you who wrote Basic: Monkey No. 7,563,231,521. I think they would have been better off choosing Monkey No. 4,456,347's effort."

And my personal favourite:

From Kenneth Turan in the LA Times: "If any of your talkative friends get to Basic before you do, don't worry about them giving the plot away. They won't be able to."

Ouch!

There's a photo that has been published on several sites - first by Al-Jazeera - and it is an extremely disturbing picture.  As such, I'm not posting it to the blog proper, but am linking to it so that you have a choice of seeing it or not.  You probably already have, though - its' the picture of a child who has died as the result of massive head injuries (i.e. most of the child's upper skull is missing).

I've noticed two things about this picture - one, while the picture is horrifying - there seems to be something ... odd ... about it.  In general, when one has that serious of an injury, there is a fair amount of blood and other ... viscera .... visible, and it's not stuff that's easy to clean up.  In this image, though, there is none.  At all.  Or any indication that there was any.

The other is that no one else (that I'm aware of) has commented on it.

This leads me to think that I'm missing something here, and I don't want to make mountains out of molehills.  The first time I saw the image, I thought it was a picture of a doll or something like a manniquin.  So, I'm asking quite sincerely, can anyone tell me what I'm overlooking?  I've never been a terribly visual person, so it's not unheard of for me to not necessarily be able to tell what is in a picture or why a picture looks strange.  Any input would be most appreciated. 

Over at Eschaton, there's an interesting comment thread about why 9/11 attracts so many conspiracy theories.  One comment in particular, however, jumped out at me.  In it, Robbo points out how much the right has gained from 9/11, regardless of whether there was a conspiracy involved or not:

I don't believe in any 9/11 conspiracy theory, but every bit of evidence supports the notion that the radical right jumped on 9/11 to jump-start the drive to get America into precisely the jam we're in this very moment.

Deep breath. The entire nation, along with most of the disapproving world, is preoccupied with a dumbass war against a former client state of the U.S. -- a war that's looking dumber and more dangerous every day; the public is "rallying around the flag" right on cue, despite the well-publicized litany of lies repeatedly told by Administration officials to sell us this war; we have turned our back on the international court of law and several important international treaties; our steel tariff was just declared illegal by the WTO, meaning that another international institution may have to be relegated to the junk-heap already occupied by NATO and the UN; the nation is not having open debates on any of a number of other serious issues facing the country; Dick Cheney and a crew of reactionaries are holed up in a fortified bunker somewhere undoing the nation's regulatory framework (e.g., exempting military bases from the Endangered Species Act); the media have few correspondents left to follow up on a variety of massive corporate scandals that left Wall Street reeling (how's your 401K?); the military budget is pushing $400 billion/year even before massive war/reconstruction costs, which we will bear the brunt of this time because of widespread international horror at our actions; Bushco's major campaign contributors are receiving fat no-bid contracts to re-build the country our military is systematically dismantling; John Ashcroft is busy writing PATRIOT Act III in between busting head shops and outlawing abortions; the Republicans shoved through massive cut taxes (primarily for the wealthy) at a time when federal and state budgets are hemorrhaging, thereby ensuring that government services and regulatory structures will become ever weaker and less able to constrain amoral corporations; and the U.S. Freaking Congress has responded by issuing a resolution directly the President to designate a day "recognizing the public need for fasting and prayer in order to secure the blessings and protection of Providence for the people of the United States and our Armed Forces."

These are irrefutable facts. Who needs conspiracy theories? Wake up.

Bleak as it may be, sometimes its good to look at the whole ball of wax in one shot like that - an important reminder of what we're up against.