I see that the actress Natasha Richardson has died due to a brain injury suffered in a skiing accident. She was just 45.

Among the tributes that are pouring in, there is but scant mention of Ms. Richardson's performance in The Handmaid's Tale (1990), a film adapted from the novel by the Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. I mention this fact only because The Handmaid's Tale is without doubt one of the worst movies ever made, right up there with Valley of the Dolls (1967) in the category of unintentional (and hilarious) self-parody.

The Handmaid's Tale is one of those cult classics that movie buffs love to hate. I suspect that they'll still be talking about it when most of Ms. Richardson's other films have been forgotten. As the career of Ed Wood demonstrated, there is a kind of immortality in that.

Posted by tmg110 at 8:37 AM EDT

Updated: Thursday, 19 March 2009 8:55 AM EDT

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Ah, Fidel! He is the beau ideal of progressives everywhere: a true revolutionary's revolutionary. Barack Obama was hardly settled behind his new desk in the Oval Office when he began relaxing US sanctions against the Cuban workers' paradise.

Incidentally, how has the Revolution worked out for its alleged chief beneficiary, the average Cuban? The Weekly Standard is on the case. As with most communist regimes, one of the Cuban economy's most glaring weak spots is agriculture. As a matter of fact, despite paeans from American and European progressives to the wonders of "sustainable farming" in Cuba, the country currently imports more than 80% of the food it consumes. The minor improvements that have occurred in the agricultural sector since the end of the Soviet alliance are mostly traceable to creeping market incentives, i.e. a halting, hesitant return to capitalism. Meanwhile, the official food ration covers only 50-70% of the average Cuban's daily nutritional requirements.

Few people remember that when Castro and his cabal seized power, Cuba was one of the three or four richest nations in Latin America. Today, after fifty years of Fidel, the country is an economic basket case. Ah, but they have "universal health care"! No wonder progressives love the guy.

Posted by tmg110 at 8:14 AM EDT

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You may recall that our new Attorney General, one Eric Holder, took the occasion of Black History Month to call America a "nation of cowards" on account of or alleged reluctance to talk about progressives' favorite subject, "race."

Now the AG has come up with another bright idea:

Attorney General Eric Holder said some detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may end up being released in the U.S. as the Obama administration works with foreign allies to resettle some of the prisoners.

No, I didn't make it up. Barack Obama's chief law enforcement officer really and truly said this. And I'll bet he wasn't joking, either. What a presidency! Never in this history of American politics have so many stupid ideas been proposed on so short a span of time.

Posted by tmg110 at 8:01 AM EDT

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Watching President Obama feign outrage over the AIG bonuses that his own legislation authorized, I am amazed afresh at the man's contempt for (1) the truth and (2) the American people. Quite obviously, our President believes that we, the citizens of this blessed land, are a bunch of mouth-breathing dumbasses who will unquestioningly swallow whatever he tells us, however transparently false. Now it's true of course that there are plenty of dumbasses in America…but it looks to me as though most of them are working for the Obama Administration.

Posted by tmg110 at 8:45 PM EDT

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Among his countless campaign promises, Barack Obama assured us that he would provide this country’s wounded and injured military veterans with better care than they ever got during the reign of the wicked Bush.

And here’s how the President plans to make good on that promise: “he intends to force private insurance companies to pay for the treatment of military veterans with service-connected disabilities.”

Not surprisingly, David Rehbein, the head of the American Legion, was outraged when he received this news from Barack Obama personally during a meeting on Monday. As he so aptly observes in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, “According to the U.S. Constitution, it is the president and Congress who send troops in harm's way, not the CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield.” The care of veterans with service-connected disabilities is a sacred national responsibilty that the American people are more than willing to accept. This attempt to bully private insurers into paying the bill is a cheap political stunt, unworthy of a great nation. But perhaps it accurately reflects the mind-set of the Obama Administration.

Incidentally, this proposal is also extremely bad politics. Did the President really not understand how the story would come across? When I first heard about it, I assumed that it was the brain-dead notion of some obscure bureaucrat. I was amazed—simply amazed—to discover that President Obama himself was pitching the idea to the head of the American Legion. What the hell is wrong with this guy?

Posted by tmg110 at 9:08 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, 18 March 2009 9:29 AM EDT

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Not only do the gods punish hubris, they do it with a snide sense of humor. How else to account for the Obama Administration’s latest pratfall?

There was President Obama, whipping himself into a fine populist fury over bonuses that were paid to executives of troubled insurance giant AIG, a recipient of many billions of bailout dollars, courtesy of the American taxpayer. Shock! Outrage! This will not stand! Except…except…the bonuses in question were perfectly legal and aboveboard—authorized, in fact, by an amendment to the President’s recently passed “stimulus” bill. This amendment was inserted at the instigation of the ever-helpful Sen. Chris Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut.

There is always the excuse that congressional Democrats (and a few foolish Republicans) didn’t know what they were voting for, and that the President didn’t know what he was signing. Somehow, though, I doubt that the American people would find an excuse along these lines to be particularly reassuring. So probably the President and his claque will continue to fulminate, counting on their pals in the mainstream media to throw sawdust on this pile of political manure.

Posted by tmg110 at 8:48 AM EDT

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The global warming mob now finds itself in the awkward position of believing in something that is contradicted by the latest scientific evidence, e.g. data showing that there has been no atmospheric warming for the past 15 years. It’ll be interesting to see how the mob reacts. I predict that the evidence will be totally ignored—even when a cold wind smacks it in the faces of the mob, as happened during the great global warming protest march in Washington, DC, on March 2. (The capital received six inches of snow.)

Posted by tmg110 at 9:01 AM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, 17 March 2009 9:10 AM EDT

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On Sunday morning in the parking lot of my parish church, you can usually find three or four vehicles sporting Obama ’08 bumper stickers. How faithful Catholics could possibly have supported the pro-abortion Democratic candidate was, and remains, a good question. People do have a remarkable ability to compartmentalize their thinking. And I suppose that Obama’s implied promise to federalize compassion possessed a certain appeal. We’re all very busy nowadays. Why take the time and trouble to suffer with the wretched of the earth when you can outsource your charitable obligations to some faceless bureaucracy? No one thinks that God is dead, exactly. In the Age of Obama, He’s merely awaiting Senate confirmation.

It’s one of the sad signs of our time that people—good, compassionate people especially—look to government for the fulfillment of Christ’s social teaching. Almost every Sunday, we pray during Mass that “political leaders” will show us the way to a “just society.” Talk about the triumph of faith over experience! Better we should pray simply that our "political leaders" do no harm.

Posted by tmg110 at 8:36 AM EDT

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Here’s something that doesn’t really surprise me. Despite the fact that not one single member has so much as a smidgen of auto industry experience, the White House auto task force feels that it now has its arms around Detroit’s problems. As the Detroit News puts it: “After a three-week crash course filled with meetings and presentations from executives, suppliers, consultants, dealers, analysts, prospective merger partners and politicians—sometimes at the rate of six or seven a day—task force members appear to have a solid grasp of the extent and complexity of the industry's difficulties.”

Well, I’m sure that they appear to have a “solid grasp” on the auto industry’s problems, but the probability that they actually possess a clue hovers somewhere around zero. But when this task force finally transforms the industry into a limping, taxpayer-supported ward of the state, there will no doubt be high fives all around.

Posted by tmg110 at 6:38 AM EDT

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This is becoming ridiculous:

Democratic sources say that H. Rodgin Cohen, a partner in the New York law firm Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, and the leading candidate for Deputy Treasury Secretary, has withdrawn from consideration.

It's the third withdrawal of a top Treasury Department staff pick in less than a week.

Seems that Mr. Cohen may have had a tax problem. So here we are, with the financial industry in a funk and the economy in the dumpster—and The Greatest President Who Absolutely Ever Was can't even manage to find qualified candidates to run the Treasury Department! The incompetence is stunning. It's simply stunning. Imagine what Democrats would be saying in response to such a bumbling, stumbling, absolutely embarrasing performance by a Republican administration. But when the Messiah messes up, all they can do is clear their throats and shuffle their feet…

Posted by tmg110 at 7:44 PM EDT

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