2007 June 22 | Hanlon's Razor

Guess who doesn’t like SiCKO?

By Hanlon, on June 22nd, 2007 at 03:44 PM

I was just poking around on Rotten Tomatoes, curious about how Evan Almighty was faring in the ratings (poorly, apparently). I happened to notice that Michael Moore’s Sicko has a whopping 93% rating. I also noticed that there’s basically one guy who disliked the film (I don’t think the bad review at the bottom is bad, just mildly critical), saying the following:

“The silliness of Moore’s oeuvre is so self-evident that being able to spot it is not liberal or conservative; it’s a basic intelligence test, like the ability to match square peg with square hole.”

Who wrote that? Why, unsurprisingly, a writer from the New York Post. The full review is up to the brim with piss-in-your-pants hilarious vitriol, obviously fueled by rage from a reviewer working for a paper that hates Moore with every fiber of their being. Calling him “Crazy” in the title, we’re treated to numerous gems that prove this guy was set on a bad review before even walking in.

His documentaries are political slapstick that could have been made by a third Farrelly brother or a fourth Stooge. I will pay him the honor of treating him with his own meds. (How else to deal with a film that calls Hillary Clinton “sexy”?)

What about stats? Moore emphasizes life-expectancy figures in which the U.S. slightly lags some other countries. But life expectancy involves many factors; two that Moore is especially knowledgeable about, obesity and firearms homicide, are special American plagues.

Let’s not give too much credit to Moore for his gift to the guy running an anti-Moore Web site who was going to be forced to shut it down – because of a health crisis he couldn’t afford. When Moore found out, he anonymously sent a $12,000 check, or .0005 percent of the money he was paid to make this movie. An anonymous check is not actually anonymous if you announce it in a movie; then, it becomes simply a bargain method for buying press accounts of you as a nice guy.

A lot of his review basically calls Moore fat and a communist. But hey, what could you expect from the NYP?

$32bil tax on oil shot down in Senate, fuel economy improvements passed

By Hanlon, on June 22nd, 2007 at 03:26 PM

Yes, yes, it’s all well and good that fuel efficiency standards will rise, but as far as I’m concerned that’s putting a piece of gum in the dam instead of building a new one. By blocking the tax breaks for alternative fuels, what we’re basically saying is that America is addicted to oil, and we have no interest in fixing that. In fact, we’re making it easier on ourselves.

But Senate Democrats also fell short of their own goals. In a victory for the oil industry, Republican lawmakers successfully blocked a crucial component of the Democratic plan that would have raised taxes on oil companies by about $32 billion and used the money on tax breaks for wind power, solar power, ethanol and other renewable fuels.

Republicans also blocked a provision of the legislation that would have required electric utilities to greatly increase the share of power they get from renewable sources of energy.

As a result, Senate Democrats had to settle for a bill that calls for a vast expansion of renewable fuels over the next decade — to 36 billion gallons a year of alternatives to gasoline — but does little to actually promote those fuels through tax breaks or other subsidies.

Sure, we’ll have 36 billion gallons of those fuels, but we’ll have no incentive to push America towards them. Harry Reid calls it a step forward, but it’s a baby step that’s quickly being outrun by the oncoming cataclysm when we either run out of fuel or the Earth’s climate suddenly shifts. Even if you don’t believe in global warming somehow, that former point must still ring true, as Charles Grassley (R-IO) noted:

“We’re taxing the oil industry to get a renewable energy industry started,” Mr. Grassley said on the Senate floor. “I hope you’ll understand that God only made so much fossil fuel and that there’s got to be a follow-on if we’re going to have growth in our economy.”

Guantanamo Bay to close, possibly?

By Hanlon, on June 22nd, 2007 at 11:44 AM

There seems to be some disagreement on the details of the situation, but if any of this article is accurate, then it looks like Guantanamo Bay is going to shut down sometime soon.

A senior State Department official told CNN that the administration was not changing its course on Guantanamo and that regular, “high-level” discussions on the facility take place.

“We are working hard on this,” the official said, adding that the administration was “in the process of negotiating agreements” on those at Guantanamo Bay both to transfer them to other facilities and to put them on trial. “We all want to see it [Guantanamo Bay] closed as soon as possible.”

Of course, even if Gitmo does shut down, that doesn’t mean things are going to improve. After all, Abu Ghraib and Bagram still exist, and let’s not forget Bush’s admission of dozens of secret CIA prisons littered about the globe. It’s entirely possible that all that will happen is that the publicly known prison will go down and be replaced by secret ones. Not exactly an encouraging thought.