10 Best Dan Aykroyd Movies?

Last weekend, a friend and former student declared that "The Blues Brothers" was one of the ten greatest movies of all time. As I'm not a huge fan of the film and am something of a smart ass, I flippantly countered by saying that "Blues Brothers" wasn't even one of the ten best Dan Aykroyd movies.

Thanks to IMDB and web access, I'm finally trying to compile a list to test my assertion. Here's what I found:

"Ghost Busters" (1984)
"Driving Miss Daisy" (1989)
"Trading Places" (1983)
"The Rutles: All You Need is Cash" (1978)
"Chaplin" (1992)
"Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" (1984)
"Sneakers" (1992)
"Grosse Point Blank" (1997)

That's only eight films. Worse, IMBD users rate "Blues Brothers" 7.9, admittedly higher than the ratings for most of these films. However, I still don't think "Blues Brothers" is all that great. It certainly wouldn't make my top 100 movies.

It would have been much easier to compile a list of 10 alternatives if Bill Murray had been in "Blues Brothers." Aykroyd has been in a lot of dreck

Indeed, look at some of Aykroyd's dubious comedic choices:

"1941"
"My Stepmother is an Alien"
"Spies Like Us"
"Dragnet"
"Coneheads"

And those are some of the better ones (I saw three of those films at the theater!).


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Derby weekend

This Saturday, Louisville's Churchill Downs will host the 136th Kentucky Derby, typically called the most exciting two minutes in sports.

I've never been to the track for the Derby, but I usually watch the race on TV and experience some of the other related events. "Thunder Over Louisville" ("the largest annual pyrotechnics display in North America") is visible from my house and today I saw a bit of the Pegasus Parade.

This year, some locals are already buzzing about the forthcoming film "Secretariat," which will tell the story of the greatest racing horse of them all -- the 1973 Triple Crown Winner. The film is slated to debut in October.

The 1973 Belmont Stakes was perhaps the greatest sporting achievement I've witnessed in my life:



View the film's trailer.

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More upside of the downturn

A few times since the recession began, I've noted some good news associated with the slowed economy. Reduced economic activity means fewer greenhouse gas emissions and reduced traffic deaths. It might also put pressure on authoritarian regimes that have staked their legitimacy on growth -- such as China.

Of course, difficult economic times also have horrific human consequences, bringing unemployment to millions of people, worsening poverty, etc. On balance, even most radical anti-growth greens would prefer steady (sustainable) economic activity to painful contraction.

In any case, I saw another news item (NYT link) last week that served as another data point for the upside of the downturn. Motorcycle deaths are plunging:

Motorcycle deaths in the United States fell steeply last year, according to a new study.

After 11 straight years of increase, motorcycle traffic fatalities are projected to decline by at least 10 percent nationally in 2009, the Governors Highway Safety Association announced in a report [PDF] released on Thursday.

I realize this reduction in motorcycle deaths is merely a subset of traffic mortality rates, but the new data does appear to indicate a second year of reduced driving and death.

Indeed, it appears 2009 will have the lowest motorcycle fatality rate on record, and much of this is attributed to the decline in leisure travel related to the economy. In all, the GHSA press release noted that about 500 fewer people died in 2009 compared to 2008.

According to GHSA Chairman Vernon Betkey, “Clearly the economy played a large role in motorcycle deaths declining in 2009. Less disposable income translates into fewer leisure riders

Some of the reduced deaths were attributed to poor weather, which makes for undesirable motorbiking.

Moreover, the report also noted that some areas of the country experienced increased riding, partly because some people use motorcycles for transportation rather than cars or SUVs to avoid high fuel costs.


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Read this before you flush

April 22 was Earth Day, and I let the occasion pass without a blog post. Let's see if I can make up for it.

One huge problem environmentalists face is that everyday taken-for-granted consumption habits can have an enormous cumulative effect on the planet's ecology.

Consider the use of toilet paper, for example. The May/June 2010 issue of World Watch Magazine* included an informative piece by Noelle Robbins on the destructive environmental impact of toilet paper.

Global demand is, um, overflowing, thanks to population growth and adoption of western habits throughout the developing world:

In 2005, according to the marketing analysis firm RISI, world per-capita consumption of toilet paper was 3.8 kilograms. But the range is wide-North American per-capita consumption was highest at 23 kilograms; the lowest reported was Africa, at 0.4 kilograms-and consumption growth could be closing the gap. In 2008, China and Western Europe saw toilet tissue growth rates of 5 percent, followed by Eastern Europe at 4 percent growth and Japan and Africa at 3 percent. North American consumption remained stable.

It takes a lot of trees to make toilet paper for the entire planet, which puts tremendous pressure on forests and habitats around the world -- and destroys a valuable carbon sink as well:

Worldwide, the equivalent of almost 270,000 trees is either flushed or dumped in landfills every day, according to Claude Martin of WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature). Roughly 10 percent of that total is attributable to toilet paper.

The Natural Resources Defense Council estimates that toilet paper accounts for about 15% of deforestation worldwide.

The solution would appear to be more recycling -- of office paper and newspaper, of course. The US alone will throw away and bury nearly 15 million tons of reusable paper this decade, which is about 60 percent of what it uses. Only 40% is recycled, despite the obvious advantages:

according to the [University of Colorado's Environmental] Center, one ton of recycled paper (909 kilograms) saves 3,700 pounds (1,682 kilograms) of lumber and 24,000 gallons (90,849 liters) of water; uses 64 percent less energy and 50 percent less water to produce; creates 74 percent less air pollution; saves 17 trees; and creates five times more jobs than one ton of paper products from virgin wood pulp.

TP made of recycled paper is typically not as white or comfortable as the non-recycled kind, but that reflects manufacturing decisions and is not necessarily inherent to the enterprise. Obviously, however, consumer demand plays a large role in these consumption decisions. Advertising may well play a significant role in shaping consumer desires.

Offices, stadiums, and other public facilities already rely upon recycled paper, so this is really an individual consumer choice for their homes. Put simply, more of us need to demand higher quality recycled TP -- and buy it.

Happy Earth Day.


*World Watch magazine is another casualty of the current recession, which has been hitting journalism particularly hard. The May/June 2010 issue is the next-to-last to be published.

The Chemical & Engineering News piece I linked at the end of this post suggests that the recession is reducing the supply of recycled paper too...


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Blog upkeep.

I discovered yesterday that my archives do not seem to include my earliest posts from September 2003. A handful or so are missing.

In trying to figure out what went wrong, I've been applying titles to those posts -- inserting them on a title line that Blogger was not providing at that time. I figure as I save the new title, Blogger will now tell me if there's a technical problem with an individual post. Nothing so far, however.

In any case, I linked yesterday to a deficit piece I wrote in my first week of blogging that wasn't showing up. I had to find it through the "edit posts" section of Blogger. Hmmmm.

I wonder if other posts are missing from the archives for different months?


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Tea Party vs. The Facts

For weeks, I've meant to link to Bruce Bartlett's Forbes piece on the beliefs of the tea party participants. Bartlett was last seen on this blog more than 4 years ago as a conservative critic of Bush's policies. Bartlett was a domestic policy aide to Ronald Reagan and is something of a deficit hawk.

However, despite apparent shared ideals, Bartlett cannot abide the tea party movement. He reports the results of a survey of tea party members revealing their poor grasp of basic tax and spend issues:

Tea Partyers were asked how much the federal government gets in taxes as a percentage of the gross domestic product. According to Congressional Budget Office data, acceptable answers would be 6.4%, which is the percentage for federal income taxes; 12.7%, which would be for both income taxes and Social Security payroll taxes; or 14.8%, which would represent all federal taxes as a share of GDP in 2009...

Tuesday's Tea Party crowd, however, thought that federal taxes were almost three times as high as they actually are. The average response was 42% of GDP and the median 40%. The highest figure recorded in all of American history was half those figures: 20.9% at the peak of World War II in 1944.

There's a lot more like that. In fact, the group members being off by a factor of 3 was actually low compared to another data point:

To follow up, Tea Partyers were asked how much they think a typical family making $50,000 per year pays in federal income taxes. The average response was $12,710, the median $10,000. In percentage terms this means a tax burden of between 20% and 25% of income...

According to calculations by the Joint Committee on Taxation, a congressional committee, tax filers with adjusted gross incomes between $40,000 and $50,000 have an average federal income tax burden of just 1.7%. Those with adjusted gross incomes between $50,000 and $75,000 have an average burden of 4.2%.

Even if the respondent was assuming no exemptions, itemized deductions, or other reductions in tax burden, the Tea Party respondents were still significantly off the mark.

a single person with $50,000 in taxable income last year would owe $8,694 in federal income taxes, and a married couple filing jointly would owe $6,669.

Read the entire piece as Bartlett provides a lot of specific detail to debunk the mythical views held by the tea party members.

This is a pretty important fact they seem to have missed: "federal taxes are very considerably lower by every measure since Obama became president." About 40% of the stimulus package was just tax cuts, mostly for 2010.

And this: "No taxpayer anywhere in the country had his or her taxes increased as a consequence of Obama's policies."

Bartlett speculates that anger about the deficit gets mistranslated to anger about taxes. Frankly, I suspect the tea party concerns about the deficit reflect a complete failure to understand basic Keynesian economics. Government deficits are necessary during economic contraction to stimulate demand not provided in the private sector.


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End of Term Film Festival

Believe it or not, today is the last day of classes at University of Louisville. Tomorrow is reading day and exams begin Friday. I actually gave an exam yesterday and will receive take home exams from my graduate students early next week. So, I have plenty of grading to finish before the semester is really concluded.

As this term comes to its end, I've been screening some films on DVD for potential use in a special undergraduate section of my film course. This fall, I'll be teaching it as one of the Department's capstone course offerings (POLS 495).

Sunday night, I watched Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds." In the final scene of the film, Brad Pitt's character does something remarkable and violent that he's done previously in the movie -- and then says, "I think this just might be my masterpiece." It's easy to think that the director was signaling how he positions this film in the context of his own career. This is Tarantino's best work in more than a decade and a fitting entry into the war film genre. Tarantino adds his typically audacious mix of violence, spark, and wit.

That said, I'm not sure precisely how I'd use it in my "Global Politics Through Film" course. This will take some thought.

Monday night, I finally saw Clint Eastwood's "Gran Torino" (2008). The film is not the actor/director's masterpiece, but it is a solid piece of work well worth watching. Though some of the lines and scenes are clichéd, the movie nonetheless works as an examination of how globalization has local and unexpected consequences. Eastwood's elderly character is disaffected from his own family and his deceased-wife's Catholic faith, but finds renewed life in the Hmong family now living next door to the house he's occupied for decades. The man recognizes that Hmong values are basically his values and his (arguably bigoted) character is sufficiently tolerant to integrate them into his life.

I could see using this film in my course, but I probably will not given the specific narratives I like to cover during the term.

Both films will be eligible for a student review project.

Last night, I viewed "Moon," which is a thoughtful work of science fiction starring Sam Rockwell as an astronaut working for a corporation on the moon. The talking computer, GERTY, provides a nice contrasting character to comparable machines you've seen in other sci-fi flicks. This is not a serious candidate for my film class, but it was entertaining and provocative. Check it out.


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Duck days

April 9 at Duck of Minerva, I blogged "Nuclear Arms Control," about Hillary Clinton's visit to Louisville to sell the latest nuclear START agreement to Senator Mitch McConnell -- and the rest of us.

April 7, I posted "New Nuclear Posture," about that Obama administration's Nuclear Posture Review. The U.S. announced that it (mostly) would not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states. Believe it or not, that is actually news.


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Trita Parsi campus talk Monday night

The 2010 winner of the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, Trita Parsi, will give a talk on April 12 at 7 p.m. in the Chao Auditorium, Ekstrom Library.

Title: "Iran and Israel - the Conflict Defining the Middle East and America's Options."


Update: Parsi will also be speaking Tuesday, April 13, 2010, from Noon to 1:30 pm at the Jewish Community Center, 3600 Dutchmans Lane. It is sponsored by Interfaith Paths to Peace.


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2010 Louisville Sluggers

Do you live vicariously through my fantasy baseball teams and didn't get enough information from my recent post on the Bolts from the Blue of the Hardy House League? If you are among those readers, then let me tell you now about the Louisville Sluggers of the Original Bitnet Fantasy Baseball League.

The OBFLB crowns champions for both the "A" first half and "B" second half of the baseball season, divided by the All Star game. For obvious reason, I can only report results of the draft in preparation for the first half season. As I describe the team, keep in mind that the OBFLB is a 24 team head-to-head fantasy baseball league using 10 categories: HR, SB, batting average, runs produced average, plate appearances, innings pitched, wins, saves, ERA and "ratio."

Here are the 2010 Sluggers (players in red were retained from 2009). Since I retained 14 players, I started the draft in round 15:

Starters
C: Taylor Teagarden (TEX) (21st round)
1B: Joey Votto (CIN)
2B: Aaron Hill (TOR)
3B: Gordon Beckham (CHX)
SS: Troy Tulowitzki (COL)
OF: Carlos Beltran (NYM)
OF: Adam Jones (BAL)
OF: Lastings Milledge (PIT) (15th round)
DH: Billy Butler (KC)

SP: Tim Lincecum (SF)
SP: Josh Beckett (BOS)
SP: Rich Harden (TEX)
SP: Ricky Nolasco (FLA)
SP: Jonathan Sanchez (SF)
RP: Rafael Soriano (TB)
RP: Brandon League (SEA) (20th round)
RP: David Robertson (NYY) (23rd round)

Bench
C: Ronny Paulino (FLO) (26th round)
C: Derek Norris (WAS) (27th round) (class A)
3B: Alex Gordon (KC) (16th round)
IF: Ty Wiggington (BAL) (19th round)
IF: Willy Aybar (TB) (24th round)
OF: David Murphy (TEX) (17th round)
OF: Justin Maxwell (WAS) (18th round) (AAA)
OF: Felix Pie (BAL) (22nd round)
OF: Ben Francisco (CLE) (28th round)

SP: Wade Davis (TB)
RP: Todd Coffey (MIL) (25th round)

I took so many outfielders because Beltran is injured and I need to find some young five category OFers for the long-term of my team. Milledge, Maxwell, and Pie are all candidates for that role. Because I took so many OFers, I picked Wigginton and Aybar for their ability to cover so many infield positions.

The Norris pick indicates the premium my league puts on talented young prospects, especially at skill positions (C in this case). In other words, I was drafting for the even longer-term future -- or perhaps for a mid-year trade in case I have an injury. Last year, I picked Beckham in the spring and he's now my starting third baseman even though he barely had any time in the minors. Since he's being shifted to second base, however, I picked former hot prospect Gordon as a potential long-term solution for third base.

You may wonder why I have 6 starting pitchings retained in a league that uses only 5 per week. Last season, I made a disastrous pre-season trade, dealing talented SP Josh Johnson (FLA) for RP Chris Perez. When I made the deal, most analysts thought Perez was going to be the closer in St. Louis. Instead, he pitched in AAA Memphis before being traded to Cleveland. Despite that deal, I had a good second half draft in 2009 and thus still had lot of depth at starting pitcher; yet, I couldn't get any value in trade talks for Wade Davis or Rich Harden.

This season, of course, Perez has been named the closer in Cleveland in light of Kerry Wood's latest injury. Sigh.

I'll probably be looking to move one of my starting pitchers, Aaron Hill, and perhaps Carlos Beltran before the second half season begins. My greatest needs are at catcher, outfielder, and potentially relief ace since Soriano's career has been riddled with injury.


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2010 Bolts from the Blue

For some years, I've been posting the roster of my entry in the Hardy House fantasy baseball league. On Saturday, April 3, on Singer Island in West Palm Beach, FL, I attended my 22nd consecutive auction draft. Three owners had to participate by phone, but the rest of us enjoyed the weather, scenery, seafood, and camaraderie.

My 2009 squad finished fifth in the league, though it spent the second half of the season in steady decline from a June peak when the team was in second for about a month. I was not especially hopeful going into the draft because my retained players seemed somewhat overpriced. Unfortunately, I had few good alternative choices, so I kept mostly star-level players who promise to produce a lot of value.

As a reminder: the league has 12 teams and uses American League players exclusively to accumulate statistics in the traditional 8 categories (HR, RBI, SBs, BA, Wins, Saves, ERA and WHIP). One roster quirk now in its third year: we added a 10th pitcher and subtracted an outfielder. We thought this better reflected a change that real baseball teams made over the past 20 years.

The 2010 Bolts from the Blue (6 retained players in blue)

C Mike Redmond (CLE) $1
C Jarrod Saltalamacchia (TEX) $7
1B Billy Butler (KC) $27
2B Orlando Hudson (MIN) $12
3B Evan Longoria (TB) $37
SS Derek Jeter (NYY) $25
MI Alex Gonzalez (TB) $3
CR Alex Gordon (KC) $10
OF Vernon Wells (Tor) $16
OF J.D. Drew (BOS) $10
OF Jeremy Hermida (BOS) $3
OF Travis Snider (TOR) $12
DH Hideki Matsui (KC) $11
Hitting $174

P Felix Hernandez (SEA) $29
P Jered Weaver (LAA) $17
P Kerry Wood (CLE) $14 (DL)
P Brian Matusz (BAL) $9
P Joel Piniero (LAA) $3
P Brandon League (SEA) $3
P David Robertson (NYY) $3
P Shane Kelley (SEA) $3
P Joey Devine (OAK) $3 (DL)
P Grant Balfour (TB) $1
Pitching $85

I left $1 on the table, but I had some extra cash in the endgame and spent some of it trying to find a relief pitcher with an outside shot at saves. Oakland's bullpen has been riddled with injuries, Tampa's Rafael Soriano has been a poor health risk throughout his career, and David Aardsma of Seattle has long-time control problems. Thus, I targeted those bullpens.

Balfour was on my 2009 team and I bought him again for a lower salary.

To replace Gordon, Devine, and Wood on my active roster, I am seeking various free agents. Hopefully, all of those guys will get healthy soon and contribute to their teams.

Clearly, I believe in drafting players John Hunt used to call "post-hype." Those are guys who are still young, but their disappointing performance to-date has caused their value to decline. Gordon, Snider, and Saltalamacchia are my main post-hype picks, though Devine may belong in this category too.

As usual, I didn't pay full cost for a "proven closer" at the draft. I last paid big bucks for a closer in 2007. Hours later, $34 Blue Jay B.J. Ryan pitched his last game of the season. Closers at this year's draft again went for $30 and up.

Here are my reserve picks this year:

1. DH Randy Ruiz (TOR) $3
2. P Jeremy Accardo (Tor) $2
3. SS Jed Lowrie (Bos) $1

If Ruiz plays a few games at firstbase, he could take Gordon's spot in my lineup and hit a few homers. He's also insurance against a Matsui (or Wells or Snider) injury. Accardo paid big dividends as a reserve pick for me in 2007 when he saved 30 games. Toronto's bullpen is again somewhat uncertain. Lowrie is another post-hype player, currently sidelined with mono after losing virtually all of 2009 to other injuries.

You can find posts about the 2005, 2007 , 2008, and 2009 drafts elsewhere on this blog.


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"Drill, baby, drill"?

The title of this post is a line most closely associated with former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

Despite her repetition of this phrase over the past two years, the United States has maintained a moratorium it established nearly 30 years, which precluded offshore oil exploration. Candidate Barack Obama pledged to maintain that moratorium, especially in the summer of 2008 when presidential opponent John McCain flip-flopped his position on the issue and began opposing a moratorium he previously supported.

Well, President Obama, on March 31, 2010, announced that the U.S. would soon begin new offshore drilling for fossil fuels:

So today we’re announcing the expansion of offshore oil and gas exploration, but in ways that balance the need to harness domestic energy resources and the need to protect America’s natural resources. Under the leadership of Secretary Salazar, we’ll employ new technologies that reduce the impact of oil exploration. We’ll protect areas that are vital to tourism, the environment, and our national security. And we’ll be guided not by political ideology, but by scientific evidence.

That's why my administration will consider potential areas for development in the mid and south Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, while studying and protecting sensitive areas in the Arctic. That’s why we’ll continue to support development of leased areas off the North Slope of Alaska...

In summer 2008, then-candidate Obama denigrated Senator John McCain's plans for offshore drilling. From CNN:

“When I hear McCain say that he is now in favor of the same oil drilling off the coast that he was opposed to just a week ago, what he doesn't tell you is that George Bush's own energy department has said that this would have no impact on consumers until 2030," he said, "no appreciable impact for the next 22 years. Something they're not telling consumers.”

He continued:

"John McCain's proposal, George Bush's proposal, to drill offshore here in Florida and other places would not provide families any relief this year, next year, five years from now," he said with Florida coastal waters behind him. "We can't drill our way out of the problems we're facing," he said tapping the podium for emphasis.

Clearly, Obama's remarks in 2010 signal his understanding of the problem with this flip-flop. He says this will be part of a broader energy strategy, with care given to preserve the environment. Strategically, this may be aimed at obtaining congressional support for the energy policy (which is also linked to the climate policy, for obvious reasons).

In any case, regardless of a potential strategic political rationale, will people living in coastal areas and environmentalists attack this new policy? After all, the moratorium has long been popular with those constituencies. I do not think that the Sierra Club will give in on this issue just because Obama's EPA is planning to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.


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Read these posts...

Today, on the Duck of Minerva group IR blog, I posted "The Latest on U.S. Militarism," concerning the high profile positions attained by many former generals and admirals within the civilian foreign policy bureaucracy.

March 10, I posted "The Hurt Locker, again," which is my interpretation (and review) of the Oscar-winning film.

On March 8, I blogged "Foreign Policy Charade" about the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine and the indirect U.S. support of that policy.

February 27, you can find "Biological Weapons," which is a bit of shameless self-promotion concerning my latest coauthored journal article, "The Illogic of the Biological Weapons Taboo." I wrote the piece for Strategic Studies Quarterly with former student (and biochemist) Phil McCauley. It considers whether the Bush Doctrine is still alive and well and ready to take the U.S. to war over bioweapons.

Finally, on March 12, I posted about "Comic book sensibility" at the Climate Change blog I write for e-IR. You know, "one for all and all for one." The phrase was used in an important climate speech by chief U.S. negotiator Todd Stern.


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2010 NCAA Hoops

I entered several NCAA pools this year, though none of them appear to involve gambling. This is one of my typical brackets. I picked a few extra upsets in a pool weighted towards rewarding them and made a few different tactical choices in a pool involving some local players. In my other pools, Kansas beats Duke in the final. In those, I typically have West Virginia beating Kentucky in the Elite Eight.




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Spring Break Film Festival

Next fall, I'm teaching "Global Politics Through Film" as a section of our Department capstone course. Thus, in search of possible replacement movies for the films I've been using for several years, I've been trying to watch a number of important films on my list of unseen films.

In addition to "In the Loop," not long ago I finally saw "Lord of the Flies" (1990). The story is familiar to most high school English students, but I wanted to see how the film version might work in a contemporary college classroom. Cynthia Weber recommends using the film to illustrate a Hobbesian "state of nature" (anarchy), though she prefers the 1963 British version. Since I didn't find the 1990 version all that compelling, I hope to see the 1963 print before fall.

Monday, I viewed "Paradise Now" (2005), which is about two would-be Palestinian suicide bombers. The film addresses the Israeli occupation from the Palestinian perspective, but various characters make the argument for non-violent means to pursue their legitimate ends. Unfortunately, the version I saved from Encore was dubbed and the voice talent was not appropriate to the film. It seemed to be a fine film for student papers on various subjects, but I will likely not use it for class narrative purposes.

Though it's not really pertinent to my class, on Sunday I watched the politically-themed film "A Face in the Crowd" (1957). Andy Griffith is terrific as a rising media force -- kind of a 1950s Glenn Beck. This comparison to Lonesome Rhodes is common in the blogosphere.


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DVD Pick of the Week

This past week, I watched and very much enjoyed "In the Loop." The film is a political satire of the first rank. This quote is from the film's webpage:

With razor-sharp, truly laugh-out-loud dialogue the film pokes fun at the absurdity and ineptitude of our highest leaders. With everyone looking out for number one, and the fate of the free world at stake (but apparently incidental), the hilarious ensemble cast of characters bumbles its way through Machiavellian political dealings, across continents, and toward comic resolutions that are unforeseeable.

James Gandolfini is terrific in a significant post-Sopranos role as a dove in the Pentagon, but Scottish actor Peter Capaldi owns the film as a political flack for her Majesty's government.

If you don't know about the story, suffice to say that the U.S. and U.K. are headed to a war that seems to be favored by a crafty spin-doctor and a well-positioned neoconservative (plus his young followers), but is opposed by almost everyone else. The intelligence evidence for war is based on weak foreign sources or is simply fabricated whole-cloth. The "insider" war opponents are revealed to be weak-willed ineffective careerists.

Warning: if you remember former child actor Anna Chlumsky from "Uncle Buck" and "My Girl," then the movie may make you feel old. She's nearly 30 now...


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Film note: Red Dawn in Afghanistan

I've decided to start collecting instances of foreign policymakers comparing the real-world to film.

My most recent example comes from Matthew Hoh, the former U.S. Foreign Service officer who resigned his post in protest of American strategy in Afghanistan:

"We're not getting at the root issues," says Hoh, the former Foreign Service officer. "We don't like to admit that, in the case of Afghanistan, maybe our presence is making the situation worse. That maybe these people are fighting because they don't want to be occupied. ... Remember the film Red Dawn? All of us, we talked about it a lot, all of us always thought we'd be on the other side of Red Dawn -- we didn't think we'd be the ones with the attack helicopters. ... So it's a very humbling experience to realize, you know, we're the occupying power."

As the American Prospect article from March 2010 points out, the Obama "administration admits that fewer than 100 al-Qaeda terrorists remain in Afghanistan."

And whatever happened to that civilian surge?


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Is Yum! destroying Kentucky forests?

According to the Dogwood Alliance, an NGO devoted to saving Southern U.S. forests and promoting sustainable forestry practices, Louisville-based Yum! Brands does not practice responsible corporate citizenship:

When it comes to their paper packaging decisions they are contributing to large scale clearcutting and conversion of natural forests to sterile pine plantations which has disastrous impacts on the biodiversity of Southern forests and communities.

While countless other companies like Staples, Office Depot, Random House, Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, Starbucks and others have developed sustainable paper purchasing policies and taken action to help protect forests, to date, Yum! Brands lags seriously behind.

When it comes to paper packaging choices, Yum! Brands has no clear plans for increasing its use of purchases of post consumer recycled paper or ensuring that its paper is certified by FSC standards –the only independent global certification system in the world accepted by the conservation, aboriginal and business communities.

Yum! is a major sponsor of University athletics. The basketball/volleyball practice facility is named after the corporation.

In the world of corporate social responsibility, it's never good to be compared unfavorably to Wal-mart, McDonald's or Starbucks. Each of those companies has previously been targeted in specific NGO campaigns.



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