Slate's worst feature ever

When Slate unveiled its "Miers-o-Meter" three days ago, I knew it needed to be recalibrated -- it gave Miers a 75% chance of becoming a Supreme Court justice, even though by then her only supporter was pretty much Bush.

The next day she dropped 5%, then another 10 points to 60 the following day, and of course today she dropped to a final score of zero.

Come on, Slate. Yesterday, out of 100 possible universes, Harriet Miers became a Supreme in 60 of them? (Including the one where killer bees have taken over the Americas.) Any jerk could see she wasn't going to be confirmed.

My theory: Slate thought she'd last at least another week, and needed a high starting point from which to gradually drop her score. She probably really had an 8% chance this whole time! That's what I would have given her anyway. I don't know, 8 just feels right.

It's official: You need to be watching Prison Break

I started watching this show around the fourth episode, and I thought it was pretty cool. Then I watched the first three episodes and found out it was OH MY GOD SO AWESOME.

You may or may not already know the premise: Michael, a structural engineer who's clearly smarter than you (and better looking, says Julia), gets an extremely intricate full-body tattoo and then robs a bank very poorly. (That's the only part I'm not completely happy with -- I know he wanted to get caught, but couldn't he have come up with a more awesome near-miss plan, just to prove he could've pulled it off? Well, I'm not thinking practically.)

Michael pleads no contest and gets put in maximum security prison -- the same one, it turns out, that houses his brother, on death row for killing the Vice President's brother. (And in this week's shocking finale, we learned that the VP is -- wait for it -- a chick! And not Geena Davis! What's that about?) He swears he's innocent, but honestly, who cares? Michael's tats are actually a complicated puzzle filled with mneumonic devices and mathematical formulae that translate into the prison's blueprints and an escape method.

You had me at "prison break."

If you're not yet convinced that this show is awesome, here's three components of Michael's plan that I didn't know about until I saw the first few episodes. Remember, if any of these fails, he's stuck in prison for a long time and his brother will die.

1. Michael needs frequent access to the infirmary. No problem -- he has type 1 diabetes and needs insulin shots. Except that he does not, in fact, have diabetes at all. When he starts to get the shakes, he has to buy insulin blockers from the guy in prison who can get you things (you know...Morgan Freeman), which is unfortunately complicated by a race riot and a menacing guy named T-Bag. (I won't explain that on this site, which is read by my parents.)
2. When they escape, they'll need new identities, and an airplane. Luckily, before he robbed the bank, Michael sought out and photographed a guy in the FBI's witness protection program (for some reason the guy's name is Fibonacci, like the sequence -- presumably a reference to the naming convention in Cannonball Run II). An imprisoned mob boss, played by the crazy guy from Fargo, will join in the escape in exchange for Fibonacci's whereabouts.
3. This is my favorite part. Michael realizes that they'll need a lot of money when they get out. So his plan depends on one inmate actually being D.B. Cooper. Wow.

For some reason, the story keeps getting sidetracked by some other peoples' attempts to get the brothers out of jail legitimately. The writers try to spice these scenes up by exploding people, but it just isn't working. We need more prison! MORE!!! And more of the breaking out thereof.

A warning to you, TV people: if Michael's tattoos also contain the secret for creating zombies and/or time travel, I will jump through my 9th story window knowing that I have seen humanity at its very best, and that there's simply no point in going on.

Just so you don't think all I do is watch awesome TV all day, last night Julia and I went to a play, "The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial" starring Ed Asner and The Guy Who Played Q in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and it was completely terrible. It was like listening to a reading of an encyclopedia article. I know what the writer was going for -- they saw Inherit the Wind, realized it was very inaccurate, and decided to set the record straight. But can't a story be both accurate and dramatically compelling? Does it have to be a bunch of guys reading from transcripts? Ugh.

Look out, Baron Zemo

Body found in glacier believed to be WWII airman

Thanks to RM.

The True(r) Story of Casey Nethercott

A couple of months ago, on a drive from Atlanta to Eugene, I did what I always do on long drives: I listened to conservative talk radio. It keeps me awake with rage. Dr. Laura is best -- she amazes me with the consistently wrong advice she gives out, even about things that aren't politically charged.

Anyway. one of the more hilarious commentators is Michael Savage, author of Liberalism is a Mental Disorder and professional loud, obnoxious racist.

(Aside: I swear to god I heard this on his show one time -- "In fact, it is the people who call me a racist that are the racists. All I'm doing is trying to save our country from stupid spics who don't even speak English!")

Anyway, it was then that I first heard the oft-repeated-by-conservatives sob story of Casey Nethercott. Casey, defenseless puppy-loving Arizona rancher, who bleeds apple pie and picnics, "caught two illegal aliens sneaking onto his ranch," where he apparently held them for an hour.

Though the pair admitted Nethercott's ranch hands provided them with cookies, water and a blanket and let them go after an hour, the illegal invaders enlisted the legal help of Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center to represent them in a suit charging they were abused by Nethercott.

Long story short, Nethercott's ranch is awarded to the illegals. That above quote is from an online account; on the radio, they don't even tell you about the allegation of abuse. Basically they don't give you any details. So I knew something was up. I figured it was something creepy and sexual.

It turns out the whole story is, well, an entirely different story.

First if all, the El Salvadorans did not, in fact, trespass on Nethercott's ranch. In fact they trespassed on some other guy's ranch; Nethercott was involved because he's part of an organization called Ranch Rescue, a group of nutty vigilantes akin to the Minutemen. Ranch Rescue was hired by the ranch owner to do, ahem, rescue his ranch from the overwhelming threat of illegal aliens.

Nethercott, who has prior convictions for assault and false imprisonment, and who is apparently a neo-Nazi -- Savage totally glossed over that -- evidently pistol-whipped one of the El Salvadorans in between plying him with cookies and blankets.

Crazy version: "And since he was in jail and unable to defend himself against Dees' civil lawsuit, Nethercott's ranch was seized and handed over to the illegal aliens."

Sane version: "Sutton, who'd invited the border watch group to his land because he was fed up with drug-traffickers and immigrants passing through on their way north, settled for $100,000. But Nethercott and Foote didn't respond to the suit, resulting in a combined $1.35 million default judgment against them. Nethercott's ranch, which he bought in cash for $120,000, was signed over to the immigrants Aug. 11. "

So there you have it, Nethercott-googlers. Furdell.com -- doing the web-research so you don't have to.

An open letter to my brother about Cannonball Run II

Dear James,

Or disagreements on the Cannonball Run franchise are well documented. Well, today I saw Cannonball Run II at long last, and I can say with great accuracy and certainty that you are completely wrong, in every way, about everything ever.

Yes, it's true -- I watched this movie sober, which is a mistake of high magnitude. And sure, I didn't have the benefit of Celebrity Movie-Watching Pal Matt Bernstein ("He'll make it funny -- guaranteed"), but I suspect neither did you when you first liveblogged this film. And yes, the fact that the DVD was pan-and-scan did hurt some of the more peripheral sight gags, but again, I believe your TiVo'd version, no doubt addled with commercial interruptions, was much the same. Therefore, more or less, I think we were watching the same movie.

So how could you say that this pale imitation is better than the original? The only conclusion I can reach is that you were adopted and that we are in fact not blood relatives.

Allow me to elaborate. First of all, the interplay between Burt and Dom is much less slappy in this sequel, and as a result, the outtakes suffer. That Merilu Henner is somehow attracted to Dom, and that aging Burt is attracted to aging Shirley MacLaine, is highly upsetting. Frank Sinatra's appearance is entirely Frank-indulgent and annoying. Richard Kiel proves once agani that he is much better in non-speaking roles.

(A note: I met Richard Kiel at a comic book convention. This is true. He was asking $10 for one glossy photo, or $20 for 3. I asked for one photo from The Spy Who Loved Me. Richard Kiel, who was huge and ugly as you'd expect but less intimidating because he didn't look like he could stand up on his own, said "You know, for $10 more, you can have three pictures." Less thinking than usual, I blurted out, "Sure, but what would I do with three pictures of Richard Kiel?" He didn't talk to me after that.)

Even the crazy proctologist from the first movie manages to not be funny in the sequel. Perhaps this movie's only saving grace is the return of Molly Picon as Mrs. Goldfarb -- a cameo that you must not have noticed, James, as you failed to mention it in your liveblog. Just further proof that you simply don't know what you're talking about!

The only genuine laugh I got out of this film, was that chimpanzee. Yes, dear reader, the chimp joke is played out -- I'm not one to laugh at just a chimp. But this chimp is accompanied by some hilarious music. "Doo Doo doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo, CRASH! SPLAT!"

I give this film my lowest rating ever: twelve stars. Take that! James, I'm having your Film Studies degree from prestigious Emory University revoked. Remember: It's not what you do, it's how you do it. Cannonball.

Your brother?
Andrew