This weekend I saw two new movies. They were about as divergent as you can get. Big bloated action movie vs. quirky, snarky video game movie. Aging mega stars vs. indy kids. Jokes about therapy & cauliflower ear vs. jokes about Vegans and gay promiscuity. Sadly, it's clear that the bloated and forgetable The Expendables was the victor over the imaginative and resonant (at least with me) Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

Scott Pilgrim has a very easy story – he has to beat her 7 evil exes to get with his dream girl. It really doesn't get much more streamlined than that. Each ex is like a boss fight in a game (including one that comes back in a tougher form when you beat them the first time..) and the fights are all cleverly done. Not everyone is straight fisticuffs. One is a very cool battle of the bands, another a Bollywood musical.

The look of the film is amazing. Both the art direction and the effects. It's saying something that Michael Cera looks like he could kick ass in this film.

The film made me think of Amelie or Pan's Labyrinth. A small indie movie with modern graphics and effects. The movie is beautiful, often times looking like the graphic novel come to life. It is also a treasure trove of pop culture and video game references. It is a movie of it's time. In one strange choice, a short section of the movie is literally a Seinfeld reference (complete with trademark music and camera angles) that will be super confusing to viewers in about 20 years.

In contrast, The Expendables is cookie cutter film-making. The screenplay has every beat you would expect from an 80s action movie (except the black sidekick dying, shockingly) and just about nothing surprising (except for Stallone's face. Yikes!)  It really fell flat with me, especially when compared to the energy and attitude of Scott Pilgrim.

Sadly, it also made $25 million more than Scott Pilgrim. In fact, people are already writing "what went wrong" pieces about Scott Pilgrim. That's too bad. In my opinion, the biggest issue was our expectations. If the film were treated like an indy, it's modest $10.5 million would be seen as a success. It shouldn't be compared to The Expendables (although that is inevitable) but to something like Kick Ass (which, alas, also tanked).

I know that if you went back in time and showed both films to a kid in the 80s, he would immediately connect with Expendables and be really confused by Scott Pilgrim. Same with someone 20 years from now probably. But I also know that they would immediately recognize the wacky inventiveness of Scott Pilgrim, and the energy and love that reside in the film. The Expendables just can't match that.

On a strange side note, the best acting in either film was (shockingly) from The Expendables, where Mickey Rourke once again proved himself an amazing actor. The few minutes he is on screen are magic, and he brings an inner life and pain to his character that makes you wish he were around longer. Especially compared to the other clowns in the film who think acting is making faces as they punch someone.

Thus spake Peter Krämer:

"…donors are taking the place of the state. That's unacceptable…. [I]t's not the state that determines what is good for the people, but rather the rich want to decide. That's a development that I find really bad. What legitimacy do these people have to decide where massive sums of money will flow? …superwealthy people want to decide what their money will be used for. That runs counter to the democratically legitimate state. …the US has a desolate social system and that alone is reason enough that donations are already a part of everyday life there."

Businesses in Dayton have created a Tea Party Exchange and are offering a "TPX Great American" discount card to Tea Party supporters.

The chance that some retailer will issue a discount card directed to people sharing my odd and eclectic mix of social and political beliefs is effectively zero. But even if a store did so, I wouldn't accept the card, and probably wouldn't shop there. May the stores do it? Yes. Just like that urologist in Florida can refuse patients based on politics. But it's creepy. The impulse to classify all of our fellow humans based on political views, and then interact with them based on where they fall within that taxonomy, is regrettable. I believe it leads to isolation from different ideas, promotes unreflective dogmatism, and increases tendencies towards fanaticism. Some of my most rewarding interactions are with people who disagree with me, not people who agree with me.

Whether these stores are offering the discount because it's a good promotional scheme, or from ideology, or both, it's unpleasant tribalism — and would be even if it catered to me.

A friend of mine on Facebook just had the following message:

"Bob Sample likes Burning Man (Products)"

Yes, whatever ersatz hippy free peace and love might have once been the driving force behind Burning Man (and I know more about that than most, as my Mom was one of the original Burnies (as they used to call themselves..)) it is now a product.

How many years away are we from "Burning Man, brought to you by Duraflame."

Today's timewaster is a screenshot quiz of video game history. I've played a few times now, and I have typed names from my past. Heck, Moon Patrol and Marathon came up for me! Enjoy Geek Mind.

Sure, I have my quibbles with their choices – for instance, I have no idea how I am supposed to know the difference between Super Mario Bros 2 and Mario World, but that might just be my early Sega bias showing. Plus, I have an annoying habit of typing Marion when I mean Mario, which hurts my time.

Definitely take advantage of the hints when you need them. They aren't too obvious in most cases, but are helpful.

OK, I'm off to try to get that elusive gold medal. My best score so far is 3000.

The City of San Francisco — no stranger to knowing what's best for you — doesn't think your kids should get toys in their Happy Meal unless they eat their veggies.

The City of San Francisco could take a didactic approach, putting up posters encouraging kids to eat their veggies and encouraging parents to require it. But there's a very real danger that you and your kids just won't grasp that the wise, concerned leaders of San Francisco know what is best for you and your kids. So rather than teach, they compel:

In San Francisco, newly proposed legislation would ban toys from most kids meals sold at McDonald's, Burger King and other chains unless the meals meet more stringent calorie and sodium limits. The legislation also would require fruit or veggies in each meal.

. . .

"There's no fundamental conflict between a healthy meal and a happy meal," says Rajiv Bhatia, environmental health director for San Francisco.

He says chains could easily conform by making relatively small changes in ingredients or portion size, reducing the number of french fries, or replacing fries with veggies, fruit or salad.

People like Rajiv Bhatia have thought about the Platonic ideal meal, and you haven't. The Platonic ideal of a meal is not a happy one ; rather, it is a meal of which informed people like Rajiv Bhatia approve. A meal of which Rajiv Bhatia does not approve is not a meal at all, and therefore your uninformed belief that you should be able to choose your kids' meals by yourself is simply untutored. Rajiv Bhatia understands that The People make bad choices and it is the role of The State to make correct choices for them for the ultimate good of The People.

It would be easy to react to this just with irritation and the increasing prevalence, and power, of people who think they know better than you what you should eat and drink, and what you should give your kids to eat and drink. But I have to agree with Brad on this: it's a teaching moment. If your kids want their favorite Happy Meal with a toy they've seen advertised, and can't buy it at your local McDonald's, you could explain why. "You can't have that toy in that Happy Meal because some people in the government think that you shouldn't be able to choose what you eat, and mommy and daddy shouldn't be able to choose what you eat. They think that they should be able to choose what you eat, because they think they are smarter and better than all of us. Do you think that's fair? Do you think that people in the government should be able to tell you what you can eat, and what you can play with? Did you know that some people in the government think that there's a whole bunch of other things they should be able to tell you what to do? What do you think of that? Would you like to learn more about it? Would you like to learn about how you can stop people like that, now and later when you're a grown-up?"

Plant the seed early, and maybe the next generation will be a little less tolerant of the San Franciscos and Rajiv Bhatias of the world. Maybe at least they'll be aware of the issue that there are people who want to tell them how to live their lives, and that paying attention is the only way to fight it.

A search engine for Calvin & Hobbes strips. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Apparently Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and Texas State Representative Debbie Riddle (N-uts) have discovered a new and exciting way to spice up the debate over "anchor babies": pointing out that some of them are incipient terrorists, given American citizenship and an identity through anchor-babying, then shipped off for intensive training in being all terroristic and hating America and stuff. This sounds suspiciously like a riff on the plot of "Salt." Maybe we can exclude all the babies with beestung lips and a tendency to get regrettable tattoos.

The quantum of proof is perhaps not yet overwhelming:

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I like monks, particularly creative monks.

They make Chimay. That ought to be enough right there. They cut hit records. They live a life of asceticism, which I like both because it's an impressive spiritual discipline and because it leaves more Big Macs, iPads, and women for me. They are often self-supporting through crafts. Yes, that means that they live a life of spiritual and intellectual inquiry, but don't expect anyone else to pay for it.

Unfortunately for monks, the Nanny State is no respecter of asceticism or small-scale, self-sustaining craftsmanship.

Through the Institute for Justice, whose free speech blog I mentioned before, I learned about the dilemma of the monks of the Saint Joseph Abbey of St. Benedict, Louisiana. As part of their effort to be self-sustaining (which means not only no government handouts, but no financial support from the Catholic church), the monks of Saint Joseph make beautiful, simple, traditional caskets. I'd like to be buried in something like that, rather than in something that makes it look like I'm being buried in a grand piano or the desk of the senior partner at Skadden. The caskets are significantly cheaper than most, and you can buy one in advance and only pick it up — well, technically, have someone else pick it up — when you need it.

Of course that's a problem. The Institute for Justice explains:

Louisiana law purports to require that anyone who is going to sell a casket has to jump through all same regulatory hoops as a full-fledged mortuary operation that embalms bodies. See, selling "funeral merchandise" (including caskets) means you are a "funeral director." And to be a "funeral director," you must be approved for "good moral character and temperate habits" by a funeral-related government entity [of course, that's in Louisiana, but still], complete 30 semester hours at college, apprentice with a funeral director for a year, pay an application fee, and pass an exam. But that's not all. If you want your facility to sell caskets, it's got to qualify as a facility for funeral directing, including a showroom and "embalming facilities for the sanitation, disinfection, and preparation of a human body."

So, to sum up: Louisiana would like the monks of Saint Joseph to take college classes, intern with a funeral director for a year, pass an exam, pay a fee, be approved by a board, and convert part of their monastery into a professional mortuary in order to sell hand-crafted wooden caskets. If they don't, they are guilty of a crime. The Institute for Justice has sued in federal court on behalf of the monks, seeking an injunction against the relevant Louisiana codes. They assert that they violate the monks' due process, equal protection, and privileges and immunities rights. (That last represents the Institute for Justice's hope over its experience, I think — it's a seed oft planted by libertarian litigators in the fond hope it will someday yield fruit.)

Defenders of the regulatory state assert that such regulations are reasonably designed to protect the health and safety of the populace and defend them from fraud and mistreatment by bad apples within an industry. Certainly regulations can have that effect, to a limited extent. But it's credulous to think that's the only purpose, or even the primary purpose. High regulatory barriers to entry to crafts, professions, and marketplaces is merely a form of rent-seeking by the people — and conglomerates — who want to keep those crafts, professions, and marketplaces themselves. Established "funeral directors" want the law to require anyone who wants to sell a hand-crafted casket to intern for a year embalming bodies, because the established funeral directors already did that internship, and correctly perceive that the barriers to entry will deter most of the competition, both by craftsmen like the monks and by big national retailers like Costco. Either the monks or Costco can provide consumers with a cheaper product (though frankly, it's damned inconvenient to buy your caskets in those giant five-packs.) Costco or the monks may well provide more variety. Certainly you will not find anything like the beautiful, simple caskets made by the monks of Saint Joseph at your local chain funeral home. But the funeral homes — which are increasingly run by conglomerates that approach monopolies — don't want you to have any more price or selection choices than they want to give you, because that's bad for their business. So they rent-seek. Using connections, influence, and campaign donations, they get government to create high barriers to entry. They are modern guilds.

The popular perception is that big business is against regulation. That's only true to a certain extent. Big business doesn't like regulation that makes it difficult to operate. But big business is not adverse to regulation that makes it difficult to enter the market in the first place and compete. Hence, big established toy manufacturers are not the ones protesting vigorously against the ruinous CPSIA we've blogged about, which makes it prohibitively expensive for small producers of kids' toys, clothes, and books to enter the market.

So should we abandon regulation entirely? No. But we need to keep in mind that all regulation has costs, and we need to be more skeptical about, and critical of, the need for particular regulations and their connection to their putative purpose. We need to stop doing industry's leg-breaking for it. After all, in a country where you hear about a story a month about funeral homes mistreating or abandoning bodies, it doesn't really seem that funereal regulation does a great job of protecting the public from abuse — even if it does a pretty good job of protecting them from craftsman monks.

I love a mystery.

Today's mystery: what is the operating principle — the strategy — behind White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs' multi-day freak-out?

“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.”

The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”

Of those who complain that Obama caved to centrists on issues such as healthcare reform, Gibbs said: “They wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.”

It's a question that's important for Gibbs' resume, if nothing else. He's done an adequate job so far. But a pilot who has a perfect safety record until he flies a jumbo jet into a mountain in a fit of pique will not be remembered as a good pilot.

Perhaps Gibbs has some elaborate cunning plan that will unfold over the next few news cycles. But he seems to be ignoring some fairly significant points:

First, you dance with the one what brung you, even if the one what brung you is a goddam dirty hippie.

Second, to the extent Gibbs believes he is shoring up support from moderates and the Right by executing a sort of Sister Souljah moment, he fails to grasp that (a) the Right scorns weakness and never responds helpfully to concessions, and (b) hardly anyone genuinely gave a shit about what Sister Soulah thought, but nobody — least of all moderates — gives a shit about what the "Professional Left" thinks.

Third, to the extent you're going to get all indignant about being compared to Bush, you might want to evaluate whether you have, in fact, abandoned or reneged upon most of the ways you said you would do things differently than Bush.

The best case scenario is that Gibbs is amusing and emboldening the Right, offending the Left, and mystifying and concerning the middle, who will think "why is the White House getting all spittle-flecked about criticism from people I haven't heard of and don't care about?" The worst case scenario is that too many voters perceive, correctly, that the White House is saying that it is completely crazy to expect Barack Obama to abide by the principles he articulated as grounds to choose him. All politicians think that. But most are smart enough not to send their Mouth of Sauron out to say it.

Dateline: New York. The city sells advertising on its buses. Blogger Pamela Geller wants to buy space to run what, in the context of her, is a subtle and balanced advertisement in opposition to building the "Cordoba House" project a few blocks from Ground Zero:

Your coy point eludes me, Pamela.

According to Geller, the city's advertising entity refused. According to the city, they just hadn't gotten around to approving it yet. At any rate, Geller's organization sued, and the City caved and allowed the advertisement. It is equally easy for me to imagine (1) that the city resisted an advertisement because it didn't like the message, or (2) Geller filed the lawsuit for publicity before the ad was actually rejected.

Dateline: San Francisco. In a heroic and mostly successful attempt to one-up its prior insipid Nanny-Statery, the City of San Francisco creates a policy saying that the ads it sells on its buses and in its bus stations cannot "promote" weapons, by which it apparently means "depict" them. Hence, despite the fact that its stance is obviously unconstitutional, San Francisco requires horrible posters for horrible movies to be rendered even more horrible by replacing guns with pepper spray, at least in some bus-related venues. No word on whether Steven Spielberg was involved in the decision.

Dateline: Des Moines. The Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers buy advertising on the local transit authority's buses to run the terrifying message "Don't believe in God? You're not alone." Some people who are easily offended by the expression of views differing from theirs object to the message. The transit authority caves and pulls it, resorting to the standard bullshit excuse "it was never authorized in the first place." Later, the transit authority caves again, restoring the ads, explaining that it realized that its ad policy was "outdated," by which it perhaps meant "predating the incorporation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the passage of statutes entitling successful civil rights plaintiffs to payment of attorney fees."

Dateline: Detroit. The city's transit authority sells advertising on its buses. It accepts the "Don't believe in God?" advertisement described above. However, when a buyer attempts to place an advertisement aimed at Muslims leaving their faith ("Fatwa on your head? Is your family or community threatening you? Leaving Islam? Got Questions? Get Answers!") Detroit's transit agency refuses to run the ad. The Thomas More Law Center sues.

Look: it's simple. Don't operate a business if you don't know its fundamentals. If your business is throwing open a public forum for paid advertisement, then don't get into it without knowing, and being committed to following, the relevant First Amendment jurisprudence guiding the legitimate grounds for taking or not taking an advertisement. Don't hire people who are too stupid, or biased, or incompetent, to apply the rules.

By the way: in a perfect world, everyone would have the same stance on the right to run ALL of these advertisements, whatever their individual stance on atheism or Islam or guns. But it's not a perfect world.

Dan Quayle's son, Ben Quayle is running for Congress in Arizona. He is every bit the man his father was, as this awesome campaign commercial demonstrates. I love every wacky second. From the strong opening to the not at all stiff weird ducking move (was there a fly? Did they only have one take?)

My only question is where are his fake kids? Has he fake abandoned them?

I wrote last week about a fun little quiz the site RPGgeek was running. Since the quiz is now past, I thought I would post the questions (full credit to RPGgeek for coming up with these cool questions and giving me a fun bout of nostalgia.) It was actually pretty difficult. So, have at:

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What happens when the surveillance/informant state clashes with the speech-regulating state?

Well, at least in the United Kingdom, it looks as if the speech-regulating state wins.

Via Thatcher, I saw this decision by the U.K.'s Advertising Standards Authority, the U.K.'s advertising watchdog. The decision reviewed an advertisement with the following text:

A radio ad for the Anti-Terrorist Hotline stated "The following message is brought to you by Talk Sport and the Anti-Terrorist Hotline. The man at the end of the street doesn't talk to his neighbours much, because he likes to keep himself to himself. He pays with cash because he doesn't have a bank card, and he keeps his curtains closed because his house is on a bus route. This may mean nothing, but together it could all add up to you having suspicions. We all have a role to play in combating terrorism. If you see anything suspicious, call the confidential, Anti-Terrorist Hotline on 0800 XXXXXX. If you suspect it, report it".

The Metropolitan Police and the Association of Chief Police Officers defended the ad as "raising awareness" and informing the public that a combination of factors might lead them to conclude that someone is up to something nefarious. The ASA ruled that the ad should not be broadcast again. The ASA did not so rule on the basis that the advertisement represents part of the U.K.'s abandonment of its remarkable common law heritage of liberty, and its steady march towards a freakishly regulated surveillance state that is obsessed with getting citizens, including children, to inform on each other for wildly speculative reasons.

No, the ASA found the ad violated the ultimate speech-regulating sin — it's not that it promotes an authoritarian state that treads on all that makes England great, it's far, far worse than that. Someone's feelings might be hurt.

However, we considered that the ad could also describe the behaviour of a number of law-abiding people within a community and we considered that some listeners, who might identify with the behaviours referred to in the ad, could find the implication that their behaviour was suspicious, offensive. We also considered that some listeners might be offended by the suggestion that they report members of their community for acting in the way described. We therefore concluded that the ad could cause serious offence.

Now, the ASA is dead right that the advertisement is offensive. It's horrifically offensive to suggest that if you mind your own damn business and keep your blinds closed and avoid getting into debt by eschewing credit cards, there's any remotely rational basis to think you're up to no good. It promotes governance according to the socially totalitarian fantasies of the Gladys Kravitzes of the world, and indulges our base tendencies to suspect and scorn the odd man out. But focusing on it being offensive is missing the point, like asking whether or not police officers said "please" and "thank you" when they conducted an illegal search on your house. It's awful because it promotes the informant state and tightens the grasp of law enforcement over society, and encourages the view that everything, however mundane, is potentially deadly, so obey your local police officer! Only he can protect you!

If you're going to give a quasi-government, quasi-private entity the authority to regulate advertising expression based on "offense", why not give it authority to reject government advertising on the basis that it takes a shit on your cultural heritage and promotes totalitarian thinking?

Dear Unnamed Insurance Company:

I appreciate the two subrogation referrals you sent to me this month, in which you asked me to recover blood money from teens who had attempted suicide in other people's homes.  Unfortunately, I must decline to represent you in these matters.  I shall return the files under separate cover.

My concerns are twofold, and fact-specific.  In claim #1, Tommy Tortfeasor came into possession of a pistol owned by your insured, from an unlocked cabinet.  While playing with the pistol, Tommy shot himself in the chest.  Fortunately Tommy's shot did not strike the heart, but it appears he lost about five pints of blood before EMTs arrived.  Miraculously, Tommy is alive.

In claim #2, Bill Badboyfriend got into an argument with your insured's daughter, his girlfriend, on prom night.  Bill (who carried a knife) slashed his wrists in the home, and while he didn't lose as much blood as Tommy, he was hospitalized for several days and then transferred to what I'll call, in my callousness, a mental institution.

In each of these claims, you wish me to recover moneys spent on replacement of carpets, drywall, and subflooring, as each of these young men managed, somehow, to turn himself into a geyser of blood.

I appreciate that times are tight, that your policyholders are counting on you to recover funds needlessly spent, and believe me I could use the money too.  Both kids have insured parents, and their insurance companies would be liable to pay for any negligently caused property damage, such as blood fountains.  Both boys were probably old enough to know that suicide is not reasonable, yet they attempted it anyway.

And yet, my first concern remains a strong one:  ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND?  You want to sue a kid who tried to kill himself, and it wasn't of the "cry for help – give me attention!" variety, but the OCEANS OF BLOOD SPRAYED ALL OVER THE HOUSE variety.  Don't you think he might try to kill himself again, when he gets sued for spewing blood all over your policyholder's house?  I know your policyholder doesn't want you to sue him.  It says so in the file.

My second concern is less strong, but still pertinent:  What do you think is going to happen when this gets out on the web, or a newspaper picks it up?  Do you think the damage to your company's good name, and its slogan [NOT REVEALED HERE BUT IT IMPLIES RELIABILITY AND KINDNESS] is worth five grand spent on a floor scrubber?  Sure, there's probably only a 10% chance of that happening, as the defense attorney won't want to publicize his young client's attempted suicide, but you never know.

On a personal note, I won't be the lawyer who has "no comment" when asked about this suit.

Please feel free to call me should you have questions or wish to discuss these matters further.  Again, I appreciate your referral, and regret that I will be unable to assist you with these claims.

Sincerely,

Me