I rerank these movies after I watch them and this one dropped a bit upon my re-watching, but not enough to take it out of the top 50.  IMDB has L.A. Confidential (1997) #70, Flickchart puts it #99 and it's now my #39.

GREAT cast led by Kevin Spacey and Russell Crowe.  The thoroughly dispicable James Cromwell plays a dispicable character well.  And Kim Basinger looks hot.  Throw in such luminaries as Danny DeVito, David Strathairn and Ron Rifkin and you got yourself a show.  For fans of  The Mentalist Simon Baker  has a small part as a bisexual "escort."

To quote "Medicineman" from IMDB: The complex story line seemed to burst at the seams with intelligence. I found the complexity of several different sub-plots working together challenged the intellectual part of my brain while the intense action through out the entire movie satisfied the craving of the not-so-intellectual part of my brain that enjoys seeing a good brawl followed by a good shoot-out. Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson did and excellent job of combining many elements of several different kinds of films into one. They seem to have made this movie with several different audiences in mind. I for one, as I have mentioned, enjoyed the intellectual aspect as well as the action, while my wife enjoyed the combination of a love story with drama. It really has something for everyone. Bringing together all of these elements into one film sets it apart from many others. Of course the best aspect of L.A. Confidential is the way that not everything is as it seems, and then, in an instant, all of the plots are sprung like a trap and come together for a grand finale. Overall L.A. Confidential is an exceptional film that contains something for everyone.

OK ... ALL of the things I mentioned a few weeks back that make running in the Midwest from Halloween through about V Day an iffy/difficult proposition have happened, with R's accident thrown on top.  So this week I started over.  1 rep per 3 minute song for 3 miles.  Actually went pretty well all thigngs considered.  Wind chill has been <20 and the fingers have been cold (fingerless gloves?  Not now - gotta switch to mittens) but everything else is fine.  Some Achilles tendon issues.  Wind (mine) seems ok.  Back to 36 minutes.  Figure I should be down to 30 by V Day and 27 by my birthday.  Up to 1x6 for my next run, then will kick it to 2x3.

Note:  remember all my fatasyzing about a "return to racing" last summer/fall?  It's a LOT easier to see that happening in the spring/summer/fall than it is in the winter.   A 2013 return is looking a lot more reasonable.  And expect this to go out the window about mid-April when the weather gets nice again.

A coupla year ago the Obama Regime declared that by 2012 certain companies MUST use unicorn sweat as their main ingrediant or face hefty fines.  Needless to say the unicorn sweat is STILL not forthcoming but the fines are being assessed apace.

The right should have a field day with this.  We start with a mandate, in the interest of "equality" and "equal opportunity" and all those other touchy feely words, that all broadcast new outlest have Hobbits read the news at least 10% of the boradcast day.  Oh - and Hollywood will be required to use genetically pure Trolls and Orcs in production.

of the U.S. Constitution provides that “Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days …” To prevent any recess appointment, the Republican-controlled House has refused to consent to Senate adjournment, resulting in the Senate coming into pro forma session every three days.

Pro forma?  Remember the all-important payroll tax holiday extension? 

Most senators left D.C. on Dec. 17 after scheduling pro forma sessions for December and January.  The CR for Dec. 17 shows that Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) received unanimous consent to schedule Dec. 23 as a pro forma session.

The CR for Dec. 23 shows that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid specifically asked for unanimous consent for H.R. 3765 so “that if the House passes and sends to the Senate a bill which is identical to the text extension of the reduced payroll tax, unemployment insurance, TANF, and the Medicare payment fix, the bill be considered read three times and passed.”

In that pro forma session, Reid received unanimous consent and the two-month extension of the payroll tax break that had caused such a political commotion in Washington was considered read and passed in the Senate after the House acted. That’s not a “gimmick.” That’s legislating.

That same CR for the Dec. 23 pro forma session records a series of other business actions taken by the Senate.  The president pro tempore signed several enrolled bills.  Other senators were designated as members of a conference committee to negotiate with the House over disagreements to H.R. 3630.   The minority leader even made appointments  to the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission, pursuant to 22 U.S.C. § 7002.

Contrary to White House assertions, the Senate unquestionably conducted actual business during at least one of its supposedly pro forma sessions.  This simple fact makes President Obama’s actions even more indefensible.

So it seems we have two extremes here as one of my favorite Donks, Mickey Kaus, points out. 

a) President Obama claims that he gets to decide when Congress is in “recess,” which seems to mean that anytime Congress breaks for the weekend a President could staff the entire executive branch without the Senate approval the Constitution seemingly contemplates (“advise and consent”). **

b) The GOP position (formerly known as the Harry Reid Position) is that the President can’t make “recess appointments” unless the Senate says it’s in recess, and if the Senate never recesses the President can never make recess appointments. Simple!  But what if, thanks to the extraconstitutional filibuster rule, this setup gives a Senate minority the power to prevent the president from staffing the government at all?

1.  The proposed review of my own personal "Top 100" is too big.  Cutting it down to my top 50 which i one per week and much more do-able.

2.  Nursing The Boy has put quite a crimp in my telly viewing ANYWAY so I'm already behind.

3.  He's agreed to watch some of my top twenty that he hasn't seen, so I'll be reviewing those as we watch them.

Which brings us to my #3, Lawrence of Arabia (1962) Played by Peter O'Toole.  #60 at IMDB.  and #275 at flickchart.  Won SEVEN Oscars (set decor, cinamatography, Director (David Lean), editing, score (that sweeping desert theme is mournful and triumphant and foreboding all at once), sound and the biggie Best Picture.  O'Toole and Omar Sharif were both nominated.  GREAT supporting cast (Alec Guinness wearing pre-Obi Wan robes, Anthony Quinn wearing a comical fake chocolate nose, Jack Hawkins who was in every Brit adventure movies for a decade either side of this, José Ferrer, off his T Loutrec knees and playing a gay Turkish commander, Anthony Quayle who almost always has the sam expression Renée Zellweger, and Morrocco standing in as the Arabia Peninsula.  No love story to crap up the proceedings.  Just the story of a man who accomplishes great things, then starts believing his own press.

Lengthy at 3:36 ... get the popcorn and take a break after he meets with Allenby and Dryden the second time.

I've never been a big fan of the curret interpretation of Article II section 2, being discussed today as the recess appointmet clause. The language is pretty straightforward:

The simple English interpretation would be that IF a vacancy happens during the recess of the Senate, POTUS can appoint whoever he wants. Picture 1815. The Senate recesses and goes home. It'll take weeks for some Senators to GET home, weeks for them to get back and the recesses lasted for months. Obviously a vacancy which occurred during that time needed to be filed in a timely fashion. But that's where my agreement with current interpretaton ends. As was argued in this paper, this strongly suggests that the vacancy must arise during the recess and the recess appointment must occur during that same recess.  The first Attorney General opinion on the subject, written by Edmund Randolph in 1792, adopted this interpretation.  When the Congress was in recess for long periods – as long as nine months at a time – this recess appointment power worked quite well.  If a vacancy occurred in a needed position, the President filled it quickly. 

The first error that was introduced into the law occurred when Attorney General Wirt in 1823 reversed this opinion and concluded that the President “had the power to fill up all Vacancies” during any recess, irrespective of when the vacancy first occurred.  And that's when the trouble begins.And it gets worse. In 1901, Attorney General Knox wrote an opinion adopting that interpretation.  But in 1921, Attorney General Daugherty wrote an opinion, concluding that recesses referred not merely to intersession recesses but also to intrasession recesses, and we were off to the races.  Over time, the executive branch has shortened the length of the recess that would allow a recess appointment from 10 - 30 days down to 3. This seems to be going backwards. As recesses got shorter (due to the overinvolvement of government as well as decreased travel times) the President's NEED for this authority was reduced and yet AG's saught to actually expand it.

That brings us to some more recent antics. Waaay back in the Naught Aughties (aka the Bush Administration) the Democrat led Senate (Harry Reid. Sound familiar?) instituted pro forma sessions in order to prevent recess appointments. What did the Donks have to say on the subject at the time?

Nancy Pelosi said that recess appointments “subvert the confirmation process” and “will harm The United States’ reputation in the eyes of the international community.

"The President’s decision to circumvent the Senate and use a recess appointment naming John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations is a mistake….For President Bush to use a recess appointment for such a controversial nominee – not because there was a compelling case that Mr. Bolton was the best person for the job, but merely because the President had the power to do it – subverts the confirmation process in ways that will further harm the United States’ reputation in the eyes of the international community. The American people deserve better.” (Rep. Nancy Pelosi, “President’s Recess Appointment Of John Bolton Is A ‘Mistake,’” Press Release, 08/01/05)

Harry Reid called recess appointments “an end run around the Senate and the Constitution.”

“I will keep the Senate in pro forma session to block the President from doing an end run around the Senate and the Constitution with his controversial nominations.” (Sen. Harry Reid, Congressional Record, S.15980, 12/19/07)

More soon