I saw it Friday night.  Didn't read the book but I hear the movie's better.  Two attractive leads who can't act for $#!t.  Supporting cast doing a surprisingly good job.  Some very pretty pictures.  Some very hot almost-sex.

But mind-numbingly bad dialogue.

Question:  If I have a room full of brushes and canvases and paints, but I never actually PAINT anything, am I an artist?

And beware the peacock feather of bliss.

I DARE you to see this and not chuckle occasionally or perhaps giggle throughout.

So instead we go back to our old favorites, the tree huggers.

UNEXPLAINED TEMPERATURE “ADJUSTMENTS,” and what John Hinderaker calls, via email, “the best animated GIFs since Rathergate.” Inside The Latest Global Warming Scandal.  The animated gif's are AWESOME!

And a new site that'll make my daily reading list - unless it gets to be too long, which it might: Failed climate predictions gets a website

My left-wing friends have resorted to defending our current POTUS by simply claiming "they all lie."  And that, of course, makes it all ok.

[David Bernstein] Did the Obama Administration lie about Netanyahu? (Updated and revised)

Obama: That Kosher Deli Massacre In Paris Was Purely Random.

DAVID AXELROD: Obama Misled On Gay Marriage For Political Reasons.

They Lied: Obamacare’s 12 false premises and broken promises.

Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast last week, President Obama made a startling claim:

But part of humility is also recognizing in modern, complicated, diverse societies, the functioning of these rights, the concern for the protection of these rights calls for each of us to exercise civility and restraint and judgment. And if, in fact, we defend the legal right of a person to insult another’s religion, we’re equally obligated to use our free speech to condemn such insults and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with religious communities, particularly religious minorities who are the targets of such attacks. Just because you have the right to say something doesn’t mean the rest of us shouldnt question those who would insult others in the name of free speech. Because we know that our nations are stronger when people of all faiths feel that they are welcome, that they, too, are full and equal members of our countries.

No.  No we don't.  It’s appalling that Obama used the “equally obligated” language, because he has an actual legal obligation to defend the “legal right of a person to insult another’s religion.” It’s called the First Amendment of the Constitution, part of the law the president must “faithfully execute.” On the other hand, not only does the POTUS have no obligation to condemn attacks on religious belief, the First Amendment, both in its speech and religion clauses, suggests that it’s inappropriate, albeit not actually illegal, for the head of the U.S. government to get involved in religious disputations.

Just sayin'.

a reminder from Volokh

Some of what we’ve been hearing recently about the Islamic State reminds me of this TV review, from squid314 (Scott Alexander, now at Slate Star Codex):

As I mentioned in my last entry, I’ve been watching Babylon 5 lately. It’s not a perfect show, but it has one big advantage: it’s consistent and believable.

Contrast this with Doctor Who. Doctor Who is fun to watch, but if you think about it for more than two seconds you notice it’s full of plot holes and contradictions….

But then there are some shows that go completely beyond the pale of enjoyability, until they become nothing more than overwritten collections of tropes impossible to watch without groaning.

I think the worst offender here is the History Channel and all their programs on the so-called “World War II”.

Let’s start with the bad guys. Battalions of stormtroopers dressed in all black, check. Secret police, check. Determination to brutally kill everyone who doesn’t look like them, check. Leader with a tiny villain mustache and a tendency to go into apopleptic rage when he doesn’t get his way, check. All this from a country that was ordinary, believable, and dare I say it sometimes even sympathetic in previous seasons.

I wouldn’t even mind the lack of originality if they weren’t so heavy-handed about it. Apparently we’re supposed to believe that in the middle of the war the Germans attacked their allies the Russians, starting an unwinnable conflict on two fronts, just to show how sneaky and untrustworthy they could be? And that they diverted all their resources to use in making ever bigger and scarier death camps, even in the middle of a huge war? Real people just aren’t that evil. And that’s not even counting the part where as soon as the plot requires it, they instantly forget about all the racism nonsense and become best buddies with the definitely non-Aryan Japanese….

I’m not even going to get into the whole subplot about breaking a secret code (cleverly named “Enigma”, because the writers couldn’t spend more than two seconds thinking up a name for an enigmatic code), the giant superintelligent computer called Colossus (despite this being years before the transistor was even invented), the Soviet strongman whose name means “Man of Steel” in Russian (seriously, between calling the strongman “Man of Steel” and the Frenchman “de Gaulle”, whoever came up with the names for this thing ought to be shot)….

Read the rest. Thanks to Arvin Tseng for the pointer.

The New York Times claims that the vaccine controversy we're all talking about raises important questions about "how to approach matters that have largely been settled among scientists but are not widely accepted by conservatives." Well, here's another question: How do we deal with the false perception that liberals are more inclined to trust science than conservatives? 

HOW THE GOP would repeal and replace ObamaCare.

and this is unrelated but I just HAD to post if because I love this headline: SORRY, PREEZY, BUT YOU CAN’T GET ON YOUR HIGH HORSE ABOUT THIS AFTER THE WAY THE ALBIGENSIAN HERESY WAS HANDLED BACK IN 1229: In Grammy video, Obama says of rape, ‘It’s not okay – and it has to stop.’ Nice move using that discredited 1-in-5 statistic again, though, when even the NYT now knows better. Rather lame of WaPo’s Juliet Eilperin to repeat that stat uncritically, something she never would have done for a GOP president.

Vaccine debate presents a political minefield — as Hillary Clinton can attest. The article is written with as much of a pro-Hillary slant as they can manage, but it nonetheless illustrates her shifting positions, and doesn’t make her look especially good. And that the Post thought they had to do this at all says a lot.

Plus, one reason why it’s awkward for Hillary: Trial Lawyers and Dem Donors Support Anti-Vaccination Movement: Top left-wing financiers found and finance leading ‘anti-vax’ groups.

Jon Stewart’s Anti-Vaccine Pandering With Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

UPDATE: Remember When Liberal Comedian Bill Maher Was Anti-Vaccine?

Longer read: Keep Vaccine Choice—So Long as Families Pay Their Own Way

 

If you want the taxpayers to pick up the tab, you follow standards of care. Access to public services like government schools (where other tots might be exposed to your unvaccinated darlings) could work the same way (this is generally the rule now, though many states allow a variety of exemptions on non-medical grounds).

And if you want to pay your own way, educate your kids among like-minded people, and make your own choices, good for you. Stay over there, please. A little farther, if you don't mind.

---

But simply requiring that people vaccinate their kids if they want taxpayers paying their bills should boost immunization rates without making the treatment worse than the disease.

 

Obama: You know, Christians were just as bad as ISIS a few centuries ago.

and to make matters worse:  Obama’s Drones Have Killed More People Than the Spanish Inquisition Did.

Ed Morrissey: High horses and bull puckey: Professor Obama’s history lesson a dud.