Peter Krupa

I’ve been wondering for ever so long why movie studios always manage to release odd films with roughly the same premise at basically the same time. Two volcano movies, two asteroid-destroys-the-Earth movies, two Victorian illusionist movies, and now – now! – two guy-wandering-through-desolate-post-apocalyptic-wasteland movies. First, The Road:

And now The Book of Eli:

I ask you, dear reader: What the dickens?

What really attracted me to Obama during the campaign was common sense. He said he wasn’t an ideologue. He said there was stuff to do, and by golly, he was going to do that stuff, and get it done, and he would do so bipartisanly. It didn’t work out so well.

For the first year, I thought he was crazy. Principled, but crazy. It looked like he’d brought the proverbial knife to a gun fight, like he was playing chess on a rugby pitch, like he was quoting Shakespeare when all anyone really wanted was fart jokes.

If I were him, I would have dropped the gloves a long time ago and started nut-punching. The Republicans have been so incredibly destructive over the last few years that it almost seemed like a moral imperative to destroy them back. But now there’s this hour-long video of Obama wading into a meeting of Republican lawmakers, taking their questions, and absolutely devastating them the way only a former law professor can:

After watching this video, I’m starting to think that I underestimated Obama, severely. He wasn’t just mouthing talking points when he boosted bipartisanship in the campaign. The man was stone-cold serious. Bipartisanship really is his philosophy of governance, and (like it or not) he’s demonstrated that repeatedly by including Republican proposals in legislation passed by Democrats.

By fielding their questions clearly and firmly, Obama managed to reveal the Republicans for the nincompoop, hypocrite obstructionists that they really are, while at the same time inviting them to join him in moving the country forward. This was a display of not only incredible political savvy, but profound intellect. After watching this, I really think there’s a chance that Obama will turn out to be one of the great, historically-important presidents of the United States of America.

I also think Republicans will never, ever again let themselves be filmed asking Obama questions.

It’s Saturday night, you shouldn’t be working anyway.

I posted this video earlier, but I think it’s worth posting again in light of the Masshole vote. It’s an interview with a Harvard health care economist on why we really, really need health care reform.

Recently, I thought I had spotted the worst campaign ad ever. Rarely am I proven so wrong so quickly:

A pregnant gospel choir teams up with a mentally handicapped piano player and a man dressed as a baby to inform us in song that “the least bad is the best,” and now my head has exploded.

UPDATE: Fishman deleted this video from his campaign’s YouTube account after an uncomfortable interview about it with La Nación. Nice try, bub. The Internet doesn’t allow take-backs.

“… and by recovered I mean, apparently re-dipping their balls in gold.”

Glee’s writers must have at some point mortgaged their souls to Satan. There is no other way to explain their ability to combine so many dark, cutting, truly funny jokes with the sweet earnestness of “Up With People.”

Seriously, how in the world, in this day and age, can you make a running joke about a deaf show choir (Ha! Get it? They’re deaf! And in a choir!) turn into a tearjerker of a lesson on tolerance that actually fucking works?

Thank goodness Fox has green-lighted season two. I hope that deal with Satan is still in effect.

I have this thing where I watch commercials on American television and I say to myself: There must be something wrong with Americans. This is one of those commercials.

It reminds me of the part in Idiocracy where, 500 years in the future, Luke Wilson learns that modern medicine is extinct because researchers wasted all their time and money finding cures for erectile disfunction and hair loss.

I guess add “inadequate eyelashes” to that list.