The Atlanta Hawks are the only college or pro sports team in Atlanta that's providing any real excitement right now. Well, there is the Thrashers, but I don't care about hockey. Anyway, they've won 5 in a row and are in second place in the Eastern Division. It's a very young team with a lot of talent, and they finally seem to have come together.

Yes, I am a fair weather fan when it comes to pro basketball. I've tried to get in to it before, but it never caught on with me. When the city is this bereft of sports success, I'll watch the only team in town with a chance for a special season. Granted, I still have my fingers crossed that Georgia Tech basketball will turn it around, and I'm always a fan of that team, no matter how they fare.

I managed to see several movies recently, and some were pretty good. Here's some short reviews:

I Am Legend - I think Will Smith did a great job in this one. I don't know if anyone can understand what it would be like to be in such a situation, but Smith's interpretation of Richard Matheson's classic sci-fi protagonist was believable.

Enchanted - This is the one about a fairy tale princess come to real life where she falls in love with McDreamy. Yes, I did just make a Grey's Anatomy reference. Patrick Dempsey steals the princess' heart from Prince Edward/Charming, of the royal family of Andalasia, the cartoon fairyland the story begins in.

Walk Hard - This the parody inspired by Johnny Cash/Walk the Line, and it's a very, very funny movie brought to us by several of the folks involved in Superbad and Knocked Up, including comedy mastermind producer Judd Apatow. There are a lot of memorable one-liners, and some are going to make me laugh for days yet. I don't want to give any away, so you'll just have to trust me. You'll thank me later.

This is something I hope all of my readers will be interested in. Several universities have started to make a lot of classroom lectures available to anyone for free download. The linked article focuses on a Professor at MIT who has gained a worldwide following for his ability to make people both love and understand introductory college physics. The article has a link to where his lectures can be downloaded.

While researching for the election and looking for more substantive reasons why I've decided to go with Fred Thompson, I ran across this. The guy goes into excruciating detail on why he supports Fred, and I agree with most of his points. So read it and vote for the only truly fiscally conservative candidate, and the only one that seems to care more about getting the country run well than increasing his own power.

If you're looking for something to watch now that the writer's strike is in full swing, check out the first season DVD of Dexter, an awesome, wonderfully crafted show about a serial killer who maintains sympathy by only killing undeniably evil people.

In order to differentiate itself from the competition, search engine Ask.com is providing users tools to make their searches more private. This is the free market at work! Find an industry without too much government meddling, and someone will come up with a better way. Find an industry full of government regulations, and you will stifle innovation and competition, which, by the way, happens to be one of the best ways for a good or service's price to go down. Look at the medical industry to see this stifling effect.

Now that the movie is out and doing well, I wanted to share my opinion on "The Golden Compass" and the entire "His Dark Materials" trilogy by Phillip Pullman. There's a controversy over the books and whether they are anti-Christian. And, as far as I'm concerned, there's a controversy over reviews of the books. As some of my readers know, I love fantasy literature, and I've read pretty much every well known author in the genre, and several of the best books over and over again. "His Dark Materials" is no masterpiece. The writing was fairly standard, adequate for the job, but certainly nothing special. The story kept me interested enough to read through the trilogy, and there were a few genuinely clever moments, but overall it was nothing special. The reviews of the books from literary critics, however, are nothing short of fawning. Why is this?

I think it relates to the Christianity controversy. I suppose it's possible one could see the books as anti-Christian or anti-religion. And I also think it's possible that many reviewers (let's be honest here, there's going to be a lot more professional book reviewers who are liberal and/or athiest than otherwise, just like in most any liberal arts field) caught on to the alleged anti-religion theme and thought that made the books absolutely wonderful, and overlooked the weaknesses of the writing and storyline. But did I see the books as anti-religion? Maybe a little bit, but I think Pullman was really just trying to write a good story, and a large organization with opaque customs and lots of secrecy could easily make a good antagonist in a novel. And most religions are large organizations with opaque customs and secrecy- you did "DaVinci Code," right? :) I would be surprised if Pullman deliberately set out to vilify Christianity, as opposed to just trying to write a good story. I certainly didn't finish the series and think, "Wow, I should go kill God!" If I remember correctly, my first thought upon finishing was "Wow, that was disappointing," followed by "Harry Potter is way better," and probably followed after that by "I'm hungry."

I've been reading a bit about the latest NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) on Iran from the CIA. The NIE four months ago said Iran was trying to make nukes, today it says Iran stopped trying to make nukes in 2003. People are citing this as a blow to Bush's foreign policy. That's retarded. What happened in 2003 that could've made Iran stop making nukes? We invaded Iraq. Thus if Iran did in fact stop trying to make nukes in 2003, it was as a successful result of Bush's middle east strategy, and a blow to isolationists who claim our invasion of Iraq made everything worse and helped nothing.

Beyond that, can the NIE be trusted? Not really. It's written by the sort of CIA officials who are not spies, but simply academics who couldn't find anything else to do with their doctorates. Heck, put me in a public policy program at a major university, and I could be writing NIEs for the CIA in a few years. My understanding is that the estimate and operations sides of the CIA don't really talk, which means the NIE is based on analysis, and not on say a spy who was undercover in Iran and got the juicy news. Further suspicion is raised by the fact that the report completely contradicts one from four months ago, and that several of the analysts who wrote the report are well known anti-Bush bureaucrats, as much of the state department is, as well. And don't forget that Israel, who probably have a lot more spies actually inside Iran, says they don't put any credence in the NIE and think that Iran is still pursuing nukes.

Looking back at it now, I realize my previous post on why I wouldn't vote for certain presidential candidates was ridiculous and without substance. Sometimes I get a little sloppy or lazy in my content because I know I have a pretty limited audience, but that's no excuse for not doing the research. So I promise to myself that I will spend the time I need to spend this week to find substantive things to say about and every candidate that either has a shot, or that I find particularly interesting (Ron Paul).

Incidently, while writing the above paragraph, I discovered that I had always pronounced and spelled a particular word incorrectly. Substantive. I always thought it was substanSive, meaning something that has substance, but I was wrong. My definition is basically right as an adjective, but as a noun, substantive is a synonym for the word "noun." It's a part of speech term, which I don't think I ever knew. Nifty, huh? I wonder if I learned it and forgot it, or if it's just not really taught?

CNN had a story about a great-great-grandmother. I figured she must be pretty darn old, but no.... She's 67. As far as I can figure, that means she and her descendants had there children at an average age of of a bit over 16. The headline mentioned the woman, but it turns out the story was actually about home foreclosures. Sorry, but I don't really have a lot of sympathy for someone like that. Seems to me if she and her family were having kids that young, any financial problems they run in to are their own fault.

Be sure to read this, on Israel and the Palestinians. Click on the "read more" button to get the entire article. It covers issues the mainstream press likes to ignore, like the fact that 1/6th of the population is Arab and enjoys full rights of citizenship, and, in fact, Arab Israelis have more freedom than in most Arab countries. Also mentions the fact that while Israel was accepting Arabs into the country, near a million Jews that had been living in communities in Arab countries for centuries and centuries were expelled, and had no choice but to flee to Israel. No one ever seems to want to bring that point up, because it doesn't fit the typical narrative of Jews being evil to Palestinians, and Arabs being victimized by Jews.

There's this video called "Two Girls, One Cup" that's been making the rounds for a while on the internet that I only just heard of. An entire video genre has sprung up around it of people's reactions to watching it for the first time (and presumably only time). I warn you now, DO NOT CLICK ON THIS LINK, but if you just have to, set up a video camera so you can record your reaction. Two Girls, One Cup.

Remember, I warned you not to watch it. Look up "two girls one cup reactions" to find some funny responses.