Loki

What would be really scary would be if the one country to actually have used nuclear weapons in anger were to have the largest stockpile of them on earth, and to also be involved in the largest currently ongoing ground war.

If I was a middle Eastern power explicitly targeted by that country in that scenario, and the aforementioned country announced it was setting up missile bases in Poland, I'd be even more worried.

Well, you and I move in different circles _harry, as everyone I know is looking forward to Question Time in the way Romans looked forward to seeing Christians fed to the lions. It's a bloodsport spectacle, or at least I sincerely hope it will be.

To paraphrase Will Bill in Deadwood, Griffin's eye reminds me of a cunt, and when he talks all I see is his cunt mouth flapping.

He's fast becoming a national figure of fun, and really laughter is the best way to defuse and dismiss any real danger that he and his party represent.

Isn't Sanctuary unbelievably cheesy though? I watched quite a few episodes of the first series, and it's one of those scifi/fantasy series that makes you wonder if you should just grow up and stop watching such rubbish. Plus it had the Shermanator in it.

I absolutely would tap Amanda Tapping though, as a brunette she's even more fit.

That black hearted, fat-kidneyed hedge-pig Griffin wilt surely shewe himself a fool this eve. Verily, a pig bladder upon a stick would not a more mirthful sight make than will this mountain of mad flesh. I say to him, when a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again: I would have none but knaves follow it, since a fool gives it.

It's been a bumper year for mongs, but I am personally heartened that Mab's been upping his game in recent weeks and really going for this award again. Mac Classic for the win!

Ignoring all of the smaller/fringe parties I reckon if you had an election under PR in the UK you'd end up with something like 40% Labour, 40% Tory, 20% Liberal. In those circumstances the party with the fewest votes has the most power which can't possibly be considered to be democratic, something that successive Liberal Democrat leaders have been all too aware of.

 

The thing with electoral systems is you have to consider the make-up of the electorate when choosing your system. PR might well work well in some countries but I don't think it would in the UK on a national level, the first past the post system may seem unfair in some ways and could do with some tweaking but it also has a pretty good record when it comes to delivering viable governing parties which reflect the wishes of the majority of the electorate at that time.

 

I know people argue that PR gives a better chance for the views of those who didn't support the winning party to be heard but if you have five people and three vote for option A while two vote for option B is it really sensible to introduce an option C just because the vote was close? To my mind rather than being fairer to the views of the minotiry you are just ensuring that nobody gets what they want.

I don't get what you mean by "the party with the fewest votes has the most power ". When a government if formed under a system of PR, such as in Germany, the largest party holds the most cabinet positions and obviously still has the most seats in Parliament, and Bills are prepared by an amazing thing called negotiation where the parties in the coalition actually discuss the content until everyone is on board.

PR works perfectly well in many countries around the world - in fact, the British and American system of democracy is quite unusual and archaic. I fundamentally disagree with the suggestion that First Past The Post has a good track record of refelecting the majority of the electorate - in my lifetime practically every government has repesented less than 50% of the voters (let alone the overall voting population). The reason there is so much resistance to PR is that the 2 main parties have a good thing going here - one in and one out, and they don't feel particularly like letting anyone in on power.

Even given FPTP's propensity for creating landslide victories, there is a slim chance that the upcoming election will still result in a coalition government. In that scenario, it's much more likely in fact that the Tories and Lib Dems will create a government than the old Lib Lab pact (which is why the Tories haven't rolled out that line again, and also why Cameron wants to debate both leaders). The two parties have already had behind-closed-doors discussions and a rough plan beaten out. So basically Labour have to get a majority or they are out, and I can't see them getting a majority.

What with Tru Blood having vampires and werewolves and shit, I think maybe HBO felt that if they added Zombies to the line up they'd have turned into ECW on SciFi. And nobody wants that.

Street Fighter is the ultimate sprite-based fighter (i.e 2-D side scrolling pixel perfect type of old school game) but Tekken feels like a proper fighting game, with counters and realistic throws, and sideways movement and shit. Obviously none of these games is really realistic, but Tekken feels more like actual martial arts sparring than SF. So I prefer it.

I saw Explorers the other night, which I recorded at random a few weeks ago.

I had this vague memory of a film when I was young where some kids made a spacecraft that went in a bubble into space, and everyone always says "Oh, it was The Last Starfighter". But I've definitely never seen that. And indeed, the film I was thinking of is Explorers!

The film is pretty good, in the same-ish vein as Goonies, Weird Science etc. You know, those great kids films that they used to make in the 80s that are clearly never going to get made again. The sad thing is, the cast has these 3 main kids in it - River Phoenix, Ethan Hawke, and this third guy, Jason Presson, who was totally the coolest:

There he is, on the right, wearing a walkman.

He's the cool kid with a motorbike who plays be his own rules etc. And it's far and away the best performance in the film, miles better than the other, more famous kids. And what happened to Jason Pressman? Nothing, nada. Zilch. Not even a Wikipedia page. It's strange who "makes it" and who doesn't.

I actually did some really minor freelance work on that Sega Superstars Racing game, and I still have one question - if Tails has a fucking plane, why follow the course along with the rest of them?

Incidentally, re: the MK v SF discussion above. All your bases are belong to Tekken.

Michelle Pfeiffer looks amazing still. And no surgery!

Cillian Murphy.

 

Red Eye also has the gorgeous Rachel McAdams and the godlike Brian Cox so I can forgive its tv movie tendencies.

 

Well gents, I was supposed to hit the town this weekend with my mate who was home from uni but he got sick which scuppered my going out and getting hammered plans. So we reacted in the only way we could to such a situation. We watched a bunch of dumb action movies.

 

First up was a trip to the cinema to take in Gamer, starring the rather bland Ger-ard Butler. It was between this and Surrogates. Frankly I knew both would probably suck, but I didn't care, I wanted the big screen and salty popcorn experience. Gamer is made by the directing team behind Crank, so I had mildly high expectations, at least from a frenetic action point of view. Sadly it's dull dull dull, Butler makes for the most charismaless lead I've seen in some time and it's just grey on top of grey.

 

It's not a total loss though, as Michael C Hall is a lot of fun, with his dancing/miming sequence to "I've Got You Under My Skin" being the highlight of his wacky performance. Alison Lohman is also in it and she's purty and the dickhead from Heroes cameos with a character with the greatest name of all time, that being "Rick Rape". Of course they do nothing with this character rendering said moniker a waste. Overall Gamer is like watching someone else play video games.

 

The popcorn was lovely though.

 

Saturday night and repeated attempts to get my mate out failed, so we hit the video store and kept the streak going. Inspired by Gamer we decided on Crank 2. I'd seen the first one and kinda loved it. For those who haven't seen either, it's basically Grand Theft Auto The Movie with everyone's favourite geezah Jason Statham running around doing mental shit for an hour and a half. Crank 2 is essentially more of the same and that's fine with me. Amy Smart is also in it which is always a plus. Bring on Crank 3 I say.

 

How do you follow such carnage? Easy. Make it a JASON STATHAM DOUBLE BILL. Death Race was up next, and it's gotten some pretty horrible reviews but it's really not all that bad. It's by the numbers sure, but the kills are fun and I wasn't bored. It also has what may be the hottest woman in the world, that being Natalie Martinez. For those who drool over Megan Fox and think she's amazing, forget that shit, rent Death Race and fall in love. Anyways, these two films made me realise something, that being Jason Statham, while he will never tread the stage on Oscars night, has more charisma than many of his pretenders, Ger-ard Butler included, and without him these films would likely be half as fun.

 

Take note Mark Wahlberg, as last night I rounded off my action experience with Max Payne. Not much to say here apart from when Chris O'Donnell is the best actor in the movie, it's worrying. It's pretty fucking dull, all things considered.

 

 

Next on my list? Waltz With Bashir. What? I needed something arty to wash down all the explosions.

Thank God it's not just me. I keep watching critically panned Statham movies like Transporter or Crank and really enjoying them. He's probably the best action hero we've got right now, but the genre isn't built around big names like it was back in Arnie/Sly/Bruce's day.

On your recommendation Nev I will now watch Death Race. Isn't Paul Heyman in it?

Someone in QA is going to get shitcanned.

He's quite mesmerising in Deadwood, where he's surrounded by other career-best performances, so it's no mean feat.

I also vividly remember his performance in Dune.

Whilst I'd love that to be true, isn't that clearly Cage's face photoshopped onto another photo? The facial proportions are all wrong.

I think Cage is capable of both great heights and stinking depths. Whereas Brad Dourif is always great. Let's hear some love for Dourif.

Great cast. Cage can be good, Kilmer is great, then you've got Brad fucking Dourif (an old Herzog hand), and the lovely Eva Mendes, Jennifer Coolidge, and Xzibit who's actually not bad.

Yes, Brad Dourif. An actor's actor. I've never seen him less than brilliant.

Yup! But, and this'll conflict you, it's Werner Herzog directing.

Remake. Booo.

Herzog in Hollywood. Yay!

Nic Cage. Booo.

Val Kilmer! Yaaay!

Wowsers. Makes you wonder if a lot of his original MI5 leaks were bollocks too.

Has anyone else seen The Libertine?

It's about the life of The Earl of Rochester, with Johnny Depp in the starring role. The previews sell it as a raunchy period romp, but really it wasn't in the least bit raunchy or erotic, in fact Rochester came across as a really sad bastard. The whole film felt surprisingly flat for such volatile material, though Depp was good and Samantha Morton was fantastic in the lead female role.

It was also host to some really intrusive music and a very bad sound treatment. It really pisses me off as it's just the sort of British production that gives British sound designers a bad name.

Yeah. Conspiracies are a great way of avoiding full connection with the real world. By taking things out of your own hands and even the hands of the government, and putting all the power into the hands of shadowy forces, you're effectively absolving yourself of the pressure of taking your part in the collective responsibility for society. It's easier to feel superior to those who get on with life, get involved in politics, etc than it is to actually learn how the world really/i] works. When you're faced with the sorts of shades-of-grey policital parties we have in this country, it's far simpler to just sit back and say knowingly "of course, it's all a front for the lizards".

All this conspiracy bollocks takes emphasis from the really cool Fortean stuff. Cryptozoology, UFOs, paranormal powers. I love that stuff because it's right on the borders of science, and the borders of science (where things move in and out of accepted scientific canon) is where the really interesting stuff happens.

God doesn't work Sundays.

There's an obsessiveness to conspiracy theories that is bordering on mental illness. The intense focus on minor details, the exclusion of alternative viewpoints, the paranoia - it's quite bipolar. The logical leaps that conspiracy theorists seem capable of making are often weirdly unlogical.

 

Amateur psychologist hat on for a second. A lot of the intensity comes from people simply not wanting to be proven wrong on something they've spent much of their lives obsessing over. For those nuts, it has to be true, or they've wasted a decade or two on something very silly indeed, and at best, everything they've told all their friends is definitely true is embarassingly not, so any little crumb of "evidence" is hoovered right up and clutched to their chest in desperation-cum-relief. Evidence to the contrary will just get swatted aside as misinformation or whatever, in the fear that everything's going to come crashing down. See also, Creationists, and the sheer level of rage they'll display in the face of actual facts.

 

With religion you also get the unassailable viewpoint, where both sides can be as smug as they like about how right they are, because it's not like you could to go on Wikipedia and say "Actually, he's right, God doesn't exist. Have a look," like you could if you were arguing about who won the FA Cup in 1982. There's a lot of this in conspiracy circles too, because the believers know there's no evidence that they couldn't just brush off as misinformation. "Yeah, but if the Queen really isn't a lizard from space, how comes she hasn't sued David Icke in court or given a DNA sample? Eh? Eh?"

 

If conspiracy folks weren't mentally ill to begin with, any serious amount of time trying to convince yourself there's something in those wacky theories will probably put you down that path eventually.

I may have mentioned this to you before Woyzeck, but that exact thing happened to a friend of mine, hence my pop psychology. He started getting really obsessed with 9-11, even going so far as to organise a conference on it. He forced me to watch that shitty documentary on it, and when I pointed out a lot of the logical flaws in it he got quite angry.

6 months later he had a massive mental breakdown and was committed. He's been in and out ever since, unable to hold down a job or a relationship, and is really not the same person any more.

Which came first, the conspiracy nutdom or the mental illness I don't know, but they definitely fed off each other. This is why I'm quite anti-conspiracy theories - they are quite dangerous and life-altering if you're not clear-headed enough to understand them as the urban mythology they really are.

There's an obsessiveness to conspiracy theories that is bordering on mental illness. The intense focus on minor details, the exclusion of alternative viewpoints, the paranoia - it's quite bipolar. The logical leaps that conspiracy theorists seem capable of making are often weirdly unlogical.

It always infuriated me, so I'm glad you've fixed it now.

EDIT: that Outlaw commentary is unbelievable. I take it the film is shit, right?