been an interesting end/beginning of the year ....

Ivory Coast president refuses phone call from Barack Obama.

and

Without ambassadors, US-Venezuela tensions grow
Jan 1, 2:32 PM (ET)

By IAN JAMES

(AP) In this May 9, 2007 file photo, Venezuelan Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez Herrera speaks about... Full Image

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If we had a right to health care, then we would also have a right to a proper shelter, three healthy meals a day, a treadmill, and a private weight room.  While every citizen can strive to attain these privileges, it is not the obligation of someone else to provide them.

Was gonna put the Joe E Brown clip of him shouting HAP-py New Year in Showboat but couldn't find the clip.

But Happy New Year anyway

Unfortuately the good folks at Flickchart don't know how to count properly so the decase begins with 2000. 

THEIR top 5?  It's Fanboy central.  Dark Knight.  Inglorious Basterds.  LOTR (third then first) and The Departed.

Mine?  Let's call it The Trilogy for starters.  Signs (remember when M Knight Shamalamadingdong was good?)  Cars (be STILL my heart!)  Stardust (have you SEEN it?)  and Gladiator.

Next five ain't bad either:  Pan's Labrynth, Chicago, The Hangover, The Brothers Bloom (another fun movie nobody saw) and The Aviator.

Pretty good decade IMHO.  

per Flickchart.com then per me...

1.  Inception.  I hated it.  #1,567!

2.  Scott Pilgrim vs the World.  Didn't see t.

3.  The Social Network.  Ditto

4.  Toy Story Three.  Loved it.  Edge of my seat.  Maes my top 100 of all time.

5.  Black Swan.  Haven't seen it but it's on my list.

MY list.

1.  Toy Story Three

2.  Unthinkable.  Might make my "use in the classroom" list.  Nothing earthshattering but reasonably well done.

3.  Never Let Me Go.  ALREADY made my classroom list.  A decent if superficial adaptation of a deep 300+ page novel.

4.  Alice In Wonderland.  2010 was a crappy year but it gets points fortrying.

5.  The Experiment.  Adrien Brody and  Forest Whitaker.  What's not to like?

Dishonorable mention to  Takers - my stinker of 2010.  Joins 2009's attempt at cute "A Town Caled Panic" and 2008's double feature of Eco-trash Wall-E and The Happening.

and move into 2011, let's recall these Golden Oldies

1.  From our friend at UAE: Within a few years "children just aren't going to know what snow is." Snowfall will be "a very rare and exciting event." Dr. David Viner, senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, interviewed by the UK Independent, March 20, 2000.

Ten years later, in December 2009, London was hit by the heaviest snowfall seen in 20 years. And just last week, a snowstorm forced Heathrow airport to shut down, stranding thousands of Christmas travelers.

2.  "By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half." Life magazine, January 1970.

Life Magazine also noted that some people disagree, "but scientists have solid experimental and historical evidence to support each of the following predictions."

Air quality has actually improved since 1970. Studies find that sunlight reaching the Earth fell by somewhere between 3 and 5 percent over the period in question.

3.  "If present trends continue, the world will be ... eleven degrees colder by the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age." Kenneth E.F. Watt, in "Earth Day," 1970.

According to NASA, global temperature has increased by about 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1970.

4. "By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people ... If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000." Ehrlich, Speech at British Institute For Biology, September 1971.

Ehrlich's prediction was taken seriously when he made it, and New Scientist magazine underscored his speech in an editorial titled "In Praise of Prophets."

5.  "In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish." Ehrlich, speech during Earth Day, 1970

"Certainly the first part of that was very largely true -- only off in time," Ehrlich told FoxNews.com. "The second part is, well -- the fish haven't washed up, but there are very large dead zones around the world, and they frequently produce considerable stench."

New York Times Editorial Board Concerned That Some People Might View Federal Government as “An Intrusive Parent”

from Reason Magazine:

The New York Times editorial board is not happy with a proposed constitutional amendment giving state legislatures the power to overturn any act of Congress with the approval of two-thirds of state legislatures. That’s hardly a surprise. But the most telling passage comes toward the end, when the editorial argues that the primary problem with the proposed amendment is the federalist spirit in which it was offered:  

These flaws make the proposed amendment self-defeating, but they are far less significant than the mistaken vision of federalism on which it rests. Its foundation is that the United States defined in the Constitution are a set of decentralized sovereignties where personal responsibility, private property and a laissez-faire economy should reign. In this vision, the federal government is an intrusive parent.

What a truly bizarre notion. I cannot imagine how anyone could think such a thing.

Every bowl game is just a random matchup of two losers. Usually one team is prepared to win and one team is there enjoying themselves. There is no meaning behind them or any purpose. — Phillip Wilson

paraphrased from American.com

A Russian visiting a U.S. Senate aide shortly after the fall of Communism in the old USSR: “Please explain two-party system,” the Russian asked, having no experience with multi-party democracy. “It’s simple,” explained the Senate staff veteran. “We have two parties in America—the stupid party and the evil party. I’m in the stupid party, and we stupidly battle against the evil of the evil party.”

“But sometimes the two parties get together and do something really stupid and evil. We call that ‘bipartisanship.’”

Here's the top five media scandals of 2010 according to them:

1. Tribune tales: The award for bombshell media expose of the year goes to The New York Times’ David Carr, who wrote “Tales of a Bankrupt Culture,”  an explosive Oct. 5 piece exposing the fratty, sexist and profanity-filled behavior of top executives at the financially bankrupt Tribune Co., which owns The Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and a handful of other newspapers and TV and radio properties

[...]

2. Smear campaign?: One of the biggest media stories of the year, without a doubt, has been WikiLeaks’ series of classified document dumps.

[...]

3. Phone hackers of the world: In September, the New York Times Magazine ran a cover story investigating phone hacking charges at Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World.

[...]

4. Exchanging Vows: They thought it would be a run-of-the-mill New York Times wedding announcement. But it may very well go down as one of the most lambasted Sunday Styles features in the paper’s history.

[...]

5. Caught red handed: In the early days of February, it came to light that The Daily Beast’s investigative reporter, Gerald Posner, had lifted five unattributed sentences from the Miami Herald in a piece about a Florida murder mystery.

Here's what DIDN'T make their list:

No mention of the biggest media scandal of the past thirty years: Journolist, wherein progressive denizens of mainstream media plotted in email on how to throw coverage to present the progressive agenda in a favorable light. Yahoo must be a non-player in the world of media and critique to have left out this.

No mention of how Marxist and George Soros-funded outfits went fascist in their bid to dictate newsroom procedure and prevent the free speech of a private citizen on the airwaves.

No coverage of how there’s no coverage of Pigford?

No mention of how Keith Olbermann’s brief dismissal brought to the forefront the truth: objective journalism is a myth. He at least had the brass to admit it.

No mention of how the anti-Fox campaign is spearheaded by a Soros-funded activist group masquerading as a journalism review.