Yet another conservative action groups, this one called “Citizens United,” yet again tried another tack in trying to stifle or stop Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 from being seen. This time, they’re trying to bend election law to their advantage.

They’re claiming that ads for F-9/11 which picture Bush would violate an FEC law that corporations cannot take out political ads 30 days before a convention and 60 days before an election. Fortunately, even if that tactic is successful, it would only limit 9/11 ads after July 31st, more than a month after its general release, and it would only mean that Bush’s image would have to be cut out. It might, however, hurt DVD sales of the film, due out in October.

However, this is yet another example of the right wing going to any and every length imaginable to stop people from seeing this film–and frankly, I believe it is doing not much else than giving the film even more PR and sending even more people to the theaters–not to mention bolstering the morale of liberals, who see all of these attacks as signs of desperation on the right wing. If so many conservative feel they have to work so hard at nearly hopeless attempts to stops a few people from seeing the film, then they are very likely very, very worried about the effect this film could have.

So, what’s next? They going to stand outside theaters like they do at abortion clinics and rant and scream at every patron going in?

F-9/11, as it is now often called, got off to a galloping start, breaking ticket sales records in two New York Theaters where it started showing prior to the main release on Friday to help generate good word of mouth.

In both theaters, it broke box office records, selling more tickets than the opening days for “Men in Black” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”

the film opens to wide release in 868 theaters in two days, and seems set to break a lot more records, the first of which would be the highest-grossing documentary film ever.

Fandango reports that advance ticket sales for F-9/11 outstripped not only the current No. 1 film, but also a big summer blockbuster. Moore’s film alone accounted for 48% of all advance ticket sales, followed distantly by Dodgeball (11%) and Spiderman 2 (9%).

Wow.

The Clinton Presidency has been characterized rather successfully by the right wing as being all about Monica Lewinsky. The purpose of this mischaracterization is to attempt to hide the fact that, despite his personal foibles, Clinton stands as perhaps the best and most effective president in the past half century.

British interviewer David Dimbleby started Clinton off by making Lewinsky the primary focus of the interview. And Clinton handled the response very well:

“Let me just say this. One of the reasons he got away with it is because people like you only ask people like me the questions. You gave him a complete free ride. They indicted all these little people from Arkansas. What did you care about them, they’re not famous, who cares that their lives were trampled.

“Who cares that their children are humiliated. Who cares if Starr sends FBI agents to their school, and rip them out of their school to humiliate them, and try to force their parents to lie about me. Nobody in your line of work cared a rip about that at the time.

“And that’s the difference in me and the people that were after me. I actually cared about what happened to those people, and I wanted to be president to help those people. And that’s what the fight was about. Now that doesn’t justify any mistake I made, but look how much time you spent asking me these questions.

“And that’s why people like you always help the far Right because you like to hurt people, and you like to talk about how bad people are and all their personal failings.

“Look – you made a decision to allocate your time in a certain way. You should take responsibility for that. You should say yes, I care much more about this than whether the Bosnian people were saved, than whether 27 million people had jobs at the end, and whether we moved a hundred times as many people out of poverty as Reagan and Bush. This is what I care about.”

It’s about time that this be said. Look past Lewinsky and the endless attacks by conservatives on trumped-up non-scandals, and you see a president who had a booming economy, a raising of all boats, a good record against terrorism, an improvement in civil liberties and social equality, a balanced budget, and the only wars being those to liberate people and deliver them from genocide–and so much more.

McDonalds just released a new burger over here, the “Mac Grand,” which is essentially a version of the Quarter Pounder, or perhaps more accurately, an attempt to copy the Whopper available at the few Burger Kings here in Japan. The new burger comes as a regular or a double. If you look closely at the picture, the patties look very thick, and the double looks ridiculous–but using the rule of thumb that you can expect half the meat/filling and twice the crust/gristle displayed in any food photograph for fast food, one can get a better image of what the burger really is.

Until now, we had to suffer with the “double burger” at McD’s if we wanted something like this–just a regular burger but with two patties. But now, o glorious day, we now have more meat, a smattering of lettuce, and two sauces. Lo, I can die happy. And obese. I would never go to the place if it were not pretty much the only restaurant near my work, save for a small lunch place across the street that sells an expensive classic-Japanese-style meal which is mostly stuff I don’t like, and a small gyoza place I would love except that the cook is always smoking over his cooking. When I can, I take the 20-minute walk to Subway and get a nice, slightly healthier sandwich.

But Mac is not alone in having a new product; Coke has a new version out as well. They usually have just regular Coke and Diet Coke (called “Coke Light” here).

The new Coke product here is a semi-diet Coke called “C2.” Aside from naming their new product after a plastic explosive, Coke is, I think, trying to fool people into thinking that it’s a diet drink. They make a big deal about having less calories, but they express the calories not by how many are in the bottle, but rather how many are in each 100 grams–and give no calorie amount for regular Coke to compare. As far as I can figure, though, C2 has more than half the calories of regular Coke, but is not as volatile as C4.

By the way, there is no caffeine-free Coke here (I have to order from Foreign Buyer’s Club). I think that removing caffeine from a drink is illegal here in Japan. They have “Vitamin” drinks here that come in little brown bottles which have heavy doses of caffeine and, I kid you not, nicotine. Pretty much a standard fix for the salaryman here. The commercials for these little drug-filled drinks are pretty lacking in subtlety. I recall one had a guy drink the tiny one-gulp, and the be immediately engulfed by a high-powered lightning-emitting aura. Another was accompanied by a now-famous song well-known in Japan, which declared, “Can You Fight 24 Hours a Day, Japanese Businessman?!” Well, after downing several charges of drug-laden vitamins, it would probably be surprising if he didn’t die of karoshi (overwork).

Considering new products like Mac Grand and C2, it should be no surprise that there is concern of kids in Japan being overweight. Of course, this is all relative. Japanese people are thin, endemically so. Yes, there are sumo wrestlers, but they grow with great effort and massive overeating. Here in Japan, at 190 lbs. and 5’11”, I am overweight (my doctor said “obese,” thank you very much). But when I would visit our home campus in Wisconsin, I felt downright slim.

A lot of Japanese slimness might be metabolism, but I think it also has to do with diet. There’s not really much sugar here. Donuts do not taste as much like donuts. Frosting is always whipped cream, not sugar-butter icing. There is less meat and much more fish and vegetables than you would see in the U.S. And there is very little diet food. At least McDonalds does not indulge in the massive irony that would be the inclusion of Diet Coke in their menu.

Oh, and by the way, I tried the new Coke. Too sweet–strange for Japan, where sweet foods are usually not popular. Diet Coke still tastes better to me, at least. And I love sweet foods.

It’s like something you would find in fiction or in tabloids, but apparently it’s legit. Republican Jack Ryan (no relation to the Tom Clancy character) is now running for a Senate seat to replace retiring Republican Senator Fitzgerald. But he might not win the close race. Why? Testimony from Ryan’s 2000 divorce from actress Jeri Ryan (of Star Trek: Voyager) has surfaced.

Apparently, this God-fearing, family value Republican is, well, to put it lightly, something of a deviant. Jeri Ryan’s testimony, as acquired by “several Chicago media organizations” under a lawsuit for the public interest, reads in part:

“It was a bizarre club with cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling,” she said in the court document, adding that her husband “wanted me to have sex with him there, with another couple watching. I refused.”

She said on arriving at the third club, in Paris, “people were having sex everywhere. I cried. I was physically ill. [He] became very upset with me and said it was not a ‘turn on’ for me to cry.”

Jeri Ryan is now releasing statements praising Jack Ryan, but does not in any way contradict or deny her court testimony. And Ryan, naturally, is denying everything.

Still, it does not look good for Ryan, and is quite a bit of fun for the rest of us. Not just for the titillating parts, but amusement at yet more hypocrisy from the right wing, preaching family values and yet being devoid of any values of their own.

Update: The irony thickens. Here’s a web site Ryan hosts which is all about the Defense of Marriage Act. In fact, it is titled “Jack Ryan on the Defense of Marriage Act.” In which, he claims, “As an elected leader, my interest will be in promoting laws and educating people about the fundamental importance of the traditional family unit as the nucleus of our society.” Forcing your wife to perform public sex acts at sex clubs and S&M orgies, I can only imagine, being an integral part of “the nucleus of our society.”

Here we go again.

When you see these boards, pictured at right, go up around the neighborhood, it can only mean one thing:

We’re about to get bombarded by day-and-night loudspeaker trucks.

That, and an election is coming. From looking at the sign, it seems that the election will be going on for the next three weeks or so.

When I started this blog about a year and two months ago, one of the first things I blogged about was the noise created by these damned trucks (it’s a miracle that we’ve been free of them since then). It’s like they have no concern about what people feel. They are supposed to avoid schools and hospitals, but there are two schools nearby and they don’t let up. They love to crawl through the neighborhood, blaring out at full blast, but unlike the other trucks that do the same (selling food or collecting secondhand junk), the political trucks keep coming by all day long, every day.

What’s more, they love to park in front of your building, where the politician steps out and gives a 15-minute political 4-loudspeaker harangue right in front of your building. They love big apartment buildings.

To listen to what I’m gonna be in for for the next three weeks, take a listen from the last election’s noise pollution.

I have to blog soon on the religious dimension of this presidential election, from the Catholic church displaying hypocrisy by denying communion to Democrats who are pro-choice, but not denying the same to Republicans who are pro-choice; of denying attendance or speaking rights at religious-themed events to people like Kerry because he is pro-choice, but letting Colin Powell speak, even though he also is pro-choice. Now, the church is even telling voters that, essentially, if they vote for Kerry they’ll go to hell. That, combined with Bush not only using religion as a campaign tactic and as a political weapon, but also actively seeking alliances with religious personages from ministers to the Pope, we see the church making specific choices about interfering with the political process–something dangerous for the church as much as it is for the people.

And Bush is now being told, not just by myself and other bloggers, but by senior intelligence officials, that he is not only playing right into al Qaeda’s hands, but he would, without a doubt, be the candidate of choice for terrorists, could they vote. Quite a charge there. The official seems very intelligent, for s/he only publishes under the name “Anonymous”–necessary these days, since Bush & Co. have shown time and time again that if they find someone has spoken against them, they will break any law and stop at nothing to vilify and destroy them.

Meanwhile, in less political news, Hotmail is now going to offer more hard disk space with its email, too. While Google allows 1 GB, Yahoo only went as far as to offer 100 MB, and Hotmail–which was the chintziest with 2MB before, is still chintziest, expanding their offer to only 25 MB. You wouldn’t think that Microsoft was one of the richest companies in the world, to see their policy.

I should add that the Hotmail 25 MB policy is only for selected users–others will have to keep putting up with the 2 MB limit on their accounts. It really comes down to not much more than a PR stunt for Microsoft, which apparently is completely unready for such an upgrade, but figures that it at least has to appear like it’s doing something.

Well it’s about freakin’ time.

Just got back from seeing the late show. Not only is it cheaper (only $11 instead of the usual $16, almost the cheapest you can get a ticket for in Japan), but the 10:15 pm showing of the latest Potter movie is the least likely to have busloads of unruly children. Sure enough, as I came to the theater, tons of kids were coming out–but the late show was adults-only. Actually, Potter 3 is not even supposed to come out for another week, but with the big releases they usually have sneak showings one and sometimes two weeks in advance. For those of you in the U.S. and Europe, it’s been out for a few weeks and you’ve likely seen it reviewed half to death. This is for the Japan crowd then, I guess.

The film is beautifully shot–just crammed full of almost baroque detail, and an emphasis on establishing shots done just right. A few motifs take us through the film, like the school’s clock with its massive pendulum by the main gate (representing the time theme expounded on near the end), and the Whomping Willow, doing everything from catching birds in a cloud of exploding feathers, to an amusingly abrupt seasonal change. Cuarón actually spent some effort emphasizing the seasons; one beautiful shot followed Hedwig the owl flying past scenery towards Hogwarts–scenery which beautifully and subtly segued from Autumn to Winter.

Radcliffe nailed the role of the pubescent Potter, moody and acerbic sometimes, playing well into the emotional transition Rowling has Harry going through at this time. Though Chris Columbus handled the first two films pretty well, Cuarón really shows us how it’s done extremely well. One small example: as Harry is in the Dursley’s kitchen, cleaning up, Harry turns away from his abusive family at the table to enjoy a private smile–until his Aunt Marge starts ripping into his parents, and you can see Harry’s expression change, perfectly. Very well acted, but you can see the director’s touch there as well–Columbus could not have pulled off things like that so well, and you see things like this throughout the film.

The Knight Bus is interestingly done–not great, but an amusing break from the plot. Sometimes the background magic is almost a but too much, too distracting, but it can be fun, and might even draw some viewers back to see what they missed the first time. And the background stuff is a lot darker here, and a bit more tongue-in-cheek than the last two films. However, when you look at the books, you see that they also read that way–Rowling doesn’t really start getting serious in her writing until this story, anyway.

The book is adapted well for the film–including enough of the story, you don’t really miss much–but parts have indeed been culled, like Harry’s long stay at the Leaky Cauldron and Hermione’s purchase of Crookshanks. A few things were rather noticeable, however, such as Lupin’s failure to tell Harry about the genesis of the Marauder’s Map, or the meaning of the four nicknames on it–and we are never told of the significance of the stag Patronus. Odd.

Rupert Grint does his usual good job of playing Ron as the comic relief without going overboard, and Emma Watson is better this time as Hermione, not being too much of the smarty-pants, and being a bit more human and understandable. There is even an interesting hand-holding scene between the two of them that I believe is not in the book–foreshadowing with the permission of Rowling, perhaps? Michael Gambon, however, is somewhat of a disappointment as Dumbledore. He has far less subtlety, and not nearly as good a voice or as gentle a face as Richard Harris gave the character. I think that, if they could have gotten him, Ian McKellan would have filled the role far better. Malfoy’s character was disappointingly written as too much of a cowardly bumbler, going a bit too much farther than I’d like–you can’t really take him seriously.

One thing you’ll note is that the film seems not just darker than the first two, but also much more cramped, and the action much more fervent and agitated. In some scenes, like the confrontation at the Shrieking Shack, you feel downright claustrophobic; but it works, it contains, condenses and magnifies the effect of the action, in keeping with the visual tone of the film. At other times, Cuarón brings us scenes with no dialog, out in the open, which set just the right emotional tone–like the scene where Hagrid is skipping stones on the lake, especially the ending shot. The shot I was least pleased with was the final shot of Harry on his new Firebolt–it freezes him as he flies past, with a stupid-looking open-mouthed smile on his face. But other shots in the film more than make up for the occasional poorly-done shots like that.

One thing you’ll also have to get used to is the altered geography. This film is very hilly, sometimes downright mountainous. Everything outside seems set in the side of a steep slope–and while it adds to the closed-in tone of the film, it directly contradicts what we’ve seen of Hogwarts before.

The special effects are very well done; Hagrid, for example, is made to seem even huger than before with even better FX sleight-of-hand that made Gandalf bigger and the hobbits smaller in The Lord of the Rings. The Marauder’s Map in particular is done well–when I heard it described, I had my doubts, but the multi-folding nature of the map and the footprint-and-banner identification worked well. Sit through the ending credits (be prepared, they’re very long) to the end, and you’ll see them beautifully executed as parts of the Map, with some visual gags thrown in. When each of the major credits are shown, footsteps representing them are shown. most are just normal footprints walking this way and that, but the footsteps for John Williams (who wrote the music, and did a great job again) are moving in a dance pattern–and Hagrid’s footsteps are appropriately represented as enormous. In other parts of the credits, you see what appear to be dog and owl footprints, and at one point, bare human feet changing into a dog’s–an obvious reference to Sirius Black.

All in all, quite worth seeing–too bad that Cuarón is not doing the next film, but then The Goblet of Fire is mostly less dark than Azkaban (with the exception of Goblet’s climax, of course). We’ll see how that goes.

Rob, an apparent Bushie commenting on a Michael Moore post on this blog, gave me a nice, big easy one right over the plate, and I wanted to share it at more than just the deep-comment level.

His question was, “WHO WOULD A TERRORIST VOTE FOR, BUSH OR KERRY?” The all-caps thing is his, by the way. And he obviously expected me to meekly admit that yes sirree George Bush has them terrorists on the run and they just tremble in their sandals when they hear his name, and would love nothing better than for Kerry to get elected, what was I thinking?

Yeah. Right.

Here’s my reply:

Boy, are you a Kerry supporter or something? Because that question so obviously works against Bush, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Let’s see….

Given that Bush’s actions have sent a tidal wave of eager applicants to the doors of al Qaeda (whose ranks swelled to 18,000), that Bush has overseen a dramatic record-breaking surge in terrorist acts around the world, has opened up an entire country for terrorists to swarm to and kill Americans (837 and counting) without having to go far from home, and has gotten terrorists incredibly effective media coverage all over the world…

And on the American front, they get a president who has horribly underfunded local and state efforts to prevent and fight terrorism domestically so that it has become a macabre, ugly joke; who has a history of dropping the ball and ignoring his top intelligence and counter-terrorism officials when they warn of terrorists planning to attack–and they get a president who kindly obliges their wishes to frighten the American people and deprive them of their liberties, whilst making America a pariah around the world, after the entire world had boundless sympathy and friendship for the U.S. after 9/11. A president who takes the greatest advantage of the terrorist attack and pisses it away to the outrage of the world and plays right into the terrorists’ hands.

Not to mention a president who approved of a policy of torture and humiliation which sent millions of Arabs ballistic, unspeakably furious that such a thing could happen even if the president had not known of it directly (as it now seems certain he did). Not to mention a president who is best buds with Saudi Arabia and is willing to cover for them while they remain one of the world’s leading supporters of terrorism–and has abjectly failed to catch the one man held most responsible for 9/11, Osama bin Forgotten-by-Bush.

Al Qaeda is far better off now than it was the day after 9/11. There is no question whatsoever that these guys are hoping, fervently praying with every fiber of their being that Bush gets re-elected. That would be their greatest victory.

And Bush is probably hoping that Osama helps him out by pulling off a terror attack on U.S. soil within a month of the election–that way he could stoke up the people’s fears even more, scare them into voting for him, but best of all for Bush, he could simply ignore Kerry and claim that it was an election between himself and al Qaeda–yes, if al Qaeda attacks, Bush will feel like giving Osama a big wet one right on the lips.

So, thanks Rob, good question.

Moore’s film was recently given an R-rating by the MPAA for “violent and disturbing images and for language.” Moore is fighting this in public, even hiring former New York governor Mario Cuomo to argue for a PG-13.

Frankly, I’m on the fence on this one. Sure, a PG-13 would be better, and as Moore pointed out, kids 16 and under will soon be of an age where these issues will be of great importance–but quite frankly, I do not think that many kids under 17 will be crowding the theaters. The vast majority of the film’s audience, I expect, will be adult viewers.

At least, this generates good coverage for the film, and if the MPAA rating story isn’t good enough, then the conservative organization Move America Forward (they must have liked the name “MoveOn.org” so decided to rip it off) will surely help out. Its head, a guy named Howard Kaloogian (no, I didn’t make that name up) has tried to stir things up.

How? By posting a list of email addresses for movie theaters that will soon be showing Moore’s film and urging right-wingers to “speak up loudly and tell the industry executives that we don’t want this misleading and grotesque movie being shown at our local cinema.”

This is stupid for two reasons: first, the campaign gives no specifics about what people should say, and will really just fall flat as an empty threat. I mean, what will people say? I’m not going to go to see movies at your theater any more? Please. Usually when a movie plays in an area, one theater chain only has it, meaning that no one can simply threaten to go to another theater chain to see the same movie. So are a large number of conservatives going to simply give up seeing movies because the theaters showed one movie they didn’t like? Not gonna happen.

The second reason their move was stupid was that when they listed all the email addresses and other contact information for the movie theaters and chains, they made it accessible to everyone–including liberals, who promptly took up the task of contacting the theaters on the list and cheering them for running the film–and from what it seems, vastly outnumbering the conservatives calling to complain.

Oops.

UPDATE: An alert reader provided a Disinfopedia link which explains a good deal about the true nature of “Move America Forward.” Just under the rather ludicrous claim that they are a “non-partisan” organization, they list their leadership as “Republicans” and “conservatives,” mentioning Republican positions several times, not to mention dropping Reagan’s name 13 times on the “About” page. Not a single liberal mentioned on the list. Big talk about how they attacked the Reagan miniseries and got it off broadcast TV. Yeah, that’s non-partisan.

There was also a bit of a flap about the registered owner of the domain being “Russo Marsh and Rogers,” a political PR firm that has strong ties with the GOP. Immediately after the WHOIS information was exposed by several web sites, the domain registration information was changed to remove any mention of Russo Marsh and Rogers.

I don’t think there’s any secret, though. These are obviously far-right foot-soldiers working for the GOP. So what’s new?

There’s a good rundown at Media Matters about exactly how wrong Rush Limbaugh was the other day when he said:

And remember, back then in the ’80s, one of the accompanying — there — there — there — there was a lot of fear-mongering going on around — about AIDS, as a lot of people were scared about it. And one of the things that — that the — the AIDS activists said regularly back then was, oh, this is only a matter of time before it spreads to the heterosexual community. It’s only a matter of time.

And they used that as — as one of the weapons to try to get people like Reagan to start talking about it from their standpoint. And of course it — it hasn’t. It — it didn’t, and it hasn’t, other than in Africa, and in Africa it is — it is being spread not just by — it — it — it’s promiscuity that — that — that spreads this, if you want to know the truth. It’s promiscuity.

But it — it hasn’t made that jump to the heterosexual community.

Brock points out how there are 135,628 heterosexual AIDS cases (as of December 2002), and possibly many more–one quarter of the 850,000 to 950,000 people infected are unaware they have the disease, and a majority of the unknowns are probably heterosexuals who have not been checked out because they believe the kind of things that Limbaugh says. But just going by the 2002 numbers alone, that’s a lot–and when you add people who caught the disease by using dirty needles in drug use–another 240,268–that makes about 375,000 heterosexual people with the disease.

It is pretty safe to say that AIDS has made the jump to the heterosexual community, seeing as how heterosexual infections add up to the equivalent of three-quarters of the state population of Wyoming.

I just got off the phone with the people at Gaga-Humax, the Japan distributor for Fahrenheit 9/11 (Japanese title: “華氏911”). They say that while they have not decided on an exact date, the film will be released in Japan sometime during August. Their office (03-3589-7416) says that a specific release date will be decided sometime in the next week or two. When I learn of it, and which theaters it will show at in Tokyo, I will let you know.

And mostly not Democrats, either; most were appointed during Republican administrations. They are coming out tomorrow to speak out and make Americans aware that despite the non-stop PR campaign to make Bush sound like a foreign policy genius, he is, in fact, the worst and most dangerous president in terms of foreign policy, perhaps the worst in American history. They will enunciate to the American people, whom they formed careers serving, that Bush’s foreign policy has been an abysmal, miserable failure. “What has caused us to speak out in what could be seen as a partisan or political way is simply our deep, deep concern about the future security of the United States,” one of the group already announced.

While most are not endorsing Kerry outright, the group, “Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change” are certainly telling people that they should absolutely not vote for someone with a record like Bush’s. One member said:

“Ever since Franklin Roosevelt, the U.S. has built up alliances in order to amplify its own power. But now we have alienated many of our closest allies, we have alienated their populations. We’ve all been increasingly appalled at how the relationships that we worked so hard to build up have simply been shattered by the current administration in the method it has gone about things.”

And this is coming from Reagan’s appointee to the ambassadorship to the Soviet Union, Jack F. Matlock, Jr. Finally, hopefully, there will be serious recognition of the massive blunders and trashing of foreign policy and America’s standing in the world committed by the Bush 43 administration.

This is not the first time for something like this–52 former British diplomats and government officials criticized Blair for supporting Bush, saying his policies in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were “doomed to failure.”

The list of American officials making their announcement tomorrow includes former ambassadors to the Soviet Union (two of them, both Reagan’s), Israel (again, two), Britain, France, Greece, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Mexico, Nigeria (two), Bangladesh, Zaire, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Republic of Congo, Czechoslovakia, Burundi, Pakistan, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Nations.

Former political, military or intelligence officials include those holding the rank of: director of the CIA, secretary of state, chairman of the joint chiefs, commander in chief of U.S. Central Command, deputy commander in chief of the U.S. European Command, chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, two former assistant secretaries of Defense, and the chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Committee. There are also 5 assistant secretaries of State, 2 deputy assistant secretaries of State, and an undersecretary-general of the United Nations.

Bush’s people are apparently waiting to see exactly what they say before the inevitable trashing of these guys, though some Republicans are already trying to dismiss this impressive arsenal of foreign policy expertise as not “sufficiently well-known.” Let’s see how well that plays.

Here is the list of signatories as provided by the L.A. Times:

Avis T. Bohlen — assistant secretary of State for arms control, 1999-2002; deputy assistant secretary of State for European affairs 1989-1991.

Retired Adm. William J. Crowe Jr. — chairman, President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Committee, 1993-94; ambassador to Britain, 1993-97; chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1985-89.

Jeffrey S. Davidow — ambassador to Mexico, 1998-2002; assistant secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, 1996

William A. DePree — ambassador to Bangladesh, 1987-1990.

Donald B. Easum — ambassador to Nigeria, 1975-79.

Charles W. Freeman Jr. — assistant secretary of Defense, International Security Affairs, 1993-94; ambassador to Saudi Arabia, 1989-1992.

William C. Harrop — ambassador to Israel, 1991-93; ambassador to Zaire, 1987-1991.

Arthur A. Hartman — ambassador to the Soviet Union, 1981-87; ambassador to France, 1977-1981.

Retired Marine Gen. Joseph P. Hoar — commander in chief of U.S. Central Command, overseeing forces in the Middle East, 1991-94; deputy chief of staff, Marine Corps, 1990-94.

H. Allen Holmes — assistant secretary of Defense for special operations, 1993-99; assistant secretary of State for politico-military affairs, 1986-89.

Robert V. Keeley — ambassador to Greece, 1985-89; ambassador to Zimbabwe, 1980-84.

Samuel W. Lewis — director of State Department policy and planning, 1993-94; ambassador to Israel, 1977-1985.

Princeton N. Lyman — assistant secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, 1995-98; ambassador to South Africa, 1992-95.

Jack F. Matlock Jr. — ambassador to the Soviet Union, 1987-1991; director for European and Soviet Affairs, National Security Council, 1983-86; ambassador to Czechoslovakia, 1981-83.

Donald F. McHenry — ambassador to the United Nations, 1979-1981.

Retired Air Force Gen. Merrill A. McPeak — chief of staff, U.S. Air Force, 1990-94.

George E. Moose — assistant secretary of State for African affairs, 1993-97; ambassador to Senegal, 1988-91.

David D. Newsom — acting secretary of State, 1980; undersecretary of State for political affairs, 1978-1981; ambassador to Indonesia, 1973-77

Phyllis E. Oakley — assistant secretary of State for intelligence and research, 1997-99.

James Daniel Phillips — ambassador to the Republic of Congo, 1990-93; ambassador to Burundi, 1986-1990.

John E. Reinhardt — professor of political science, University of Vermont, 1987-91; ambassador to Nigeria, 1971-75.

Retired Air Force Gen. William Y. Smith — deputy commander in chief, U.S. European Command, 1981-83.

Ronald I. Spiers — undersecretary-general of the United Nations for Political Affairs, 1989-1992; ambassador to Pakistan, 1981-83.

Michael Sterner — deputy assistant secretary of State for Near East affairs, 1977-1981; ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, 1974-76.

Retired Adm. Stansfield Turner — director of the Central Intelligence Agency, 1977-1981.

Alexander F. Watson — assistant secretary of State for Inter-American affairs, 1993-96; deputy permanent representative to the U.N., 1989-1993.

Either someone took over the Fox News editorial room at gunpoint and forced them to print this, or Fox News may have just run one of its only non-partisan stories on a political topic in God-knows-how-long–but either way, the Fox review of Moore’s film Fahrenheit 9/11 is positively glowing. An excerpt:

But once “F9/11” gets to audiences beyond screenings, it won’t be dependent on celebrities for approbation. It turns out to be a really brilliant piece of work, and a film that members of all political parties should see without fail.

Or there’s a third possibility, I suppose: that Moore’s film is really so fantastically good that even partisan Republicans can’t help but love it.

Except Bill O’Reilly, of course. But then O’Reilly is an idiot, even by Republican standards.

There’s an article you really should read, one printed in Salon about a year ago, in which Ron Reagan, Jr. absolutely tore into George Bush, Jr. A must-read for anyone who bought even a little into the fiction Bush and his people have been spinning about Bush Jr. carrying on Reagan’s legacy. Some excerpts:

“The Bush people have no right to speak for my father, particularly because of the position he’s in now,” he said during a recent interview with Salon. “Yes, some of the current policies are an extension of the ’80s. But the overall thrust of this administration is not my father’s — these people are overly reaching, overly aggressive, overly secretive, and just plain corrupt. I don’t trust these people.” …

Reagan took a swipe at Bush during the 2000 GOP convention in Philadelphia, which featured a tribute to his father, telling the Washington Post’s Lloyd Grove, “The big elephant sitting in the corner is that George W. Bush is simply unqualified for the job… What’s his accomplishment? That he’s no longer an obnoxious drunk?” Since then he’s been quiet about the current occupant of the White House — until now. …

“Sure, he wasn’t a technocrat like Clinton. But my father was a man — that’s the difference between him and Bush. To paraphrase Jack Palance, my father crapped bigger ones than George Bush.”

Ouch.

While there was a break in the news from the endless stream of scandals and misdeeds of the Bush administration, Bush has seen no bump from Reagan’s passing. Though they tried in every way to capitalize on the event, from Bush giving the eulogy to transforming their campaign web site to a Reagan shrine.

But three polls have come out and shown no gains for Bush; all three new polls show Bush treading water with the same positives as before, and his negatives rose in two of the polls.

Perhaps it was in part because people got tired of the incessant media coverage, for an entire week (right-leaning Larry King will likely keep on the Reagan topic for a whole month), and became disgusted with how Republicans were trying to politicize the event, rewrite Reagan’s record and rename everything after the former president.

Or maybe there was so much love and respect for Reagan, that people looked at Bush and said, “man, he is not even close!”

Post script–New drinking game: turn on the news and talk shows, and take a stiff belt every time you hear the name “Reagan.” You’ll be dead from alcohol poisoning within a few hours.

Just passed the threshold… Alas, it was pro-Bush, conservative criticism of Michael Moore–but the comment wasn’t nearly as rabid or quick-fire as most such comments often are.

If you are at all interested in the blogging news and culture, you’ll want to read this story in TIME Magazine about the history and influence of the newest media.

Bloggers are unconstrained by such journalistic conventions as good taste, accountability and objectivity — and that can be a good thing. Accusations of media bias are thick on the ground these days, and Americans are tired of it. Blogs don’t pretend to be neutral: they’re gleefully, unabashedly biased, and that makes them a lot more fun.

But what’s this about not giving Wil Wheaton a nod?

An update on my new web hosts–I’m impressed with what I’ve seen so far at Surpass Hosting. I’ve already mentioned the 7GB hard disk space and 75GB bandwidth, double that now that they’ve given me the second account free (from the June 5~7 2-for-1 promotion).

So far, only the typical startup kind of matter have come up–email had to be changed to allow for every-minute checking, and I asked for some account name and domain changes (not a problem, just a preference). Every time so far I have contacted the, response time has been excellent–always within the hour, but more likely within minutes. Had a whole conversation with them at the help desk that took half an hour, and my account name and assigned domain name were successfully changed as per my request. At Myacen, the same transaction would have taken days.

Add-on domains have gone very smoothly indeed. At Myacen, it never worked properly, and I always had to ask the tech support for help, and it took quite a while and some jiggling of the handle, so to speak, to get the add-ons to work–not to mention that whenever Myacen did a server change, which was often, the add-on got dislodged, and had to be re-attached, with the same difficulties every time. At Surpass, it worked like it should–the same control panel interface, but there were no problems there. I tested transferring a blog, with all the database setup stuff involved, and it was not a problem.

Also, I very much do like the ability to refresh stats whenever I want to, and am looking forward to playing with the much-expanded control panel options. My year-long account with Myacen means I’m paid until September, but I have the feeling that I will jump ship and switch the hosting to Surpass well before then.