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Neither of us had any idea what to expect going into this film, and I think that helped.  Normally, this is a movie that I would pass on in the theaters, since on th surface it’s a collection of cliches.  First, it’s another exorcism horror movie, which has probably not been done better than The Exorcist back in 1973.  Second, it’s another fake documentary horror movie ala The Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity. And to a certain extent it doesn’t rise above these cliches.  Much of what you see are things you would expect to see, such as the possessed girl vomiting (although non-projectile) and running around in the dark with a camera.  But I think that the filmmakers took their audience’s familiarity with the tropes of these genres into account, and it is here that this film becomes interesting.

The central character of the movie is Cotton Marcus, an evangelical preacher well known for rousing (if superficial) sermons, a theatrical flair, and performing exorcisms.  He began preaching as a kid under the tutelage of his preacher father, and performed his first exorcism at ten.  He no longer believes in God, however, and has just been going through the motions for years.  Even though the exorcisms he performs are elaborate hoaxes, the news story of the death of an autistic boy during a botched exorcism has convinced him to give up exorcisms and expose them as  hoaxes with the hope of dissuading others.  To this end he hires a documentary crew to film his last exorcism.

The suspension of disbelief is a necessity for the audience in any movie, and when The Last Exorcism keeps its main theme (belief) in the foreground, it’s at its best.  Throughout most of the movie, Marcus, his film crew and the audience struggle with what they believe is happening.  Is the girl actually possessed?  Is her father somehow involved or responsible?  These questions are raised constantly during the movie, and I thought this was a good way to play with the cliches and include the audience in the movie.

Unfortunately it is just in that suspension of disbelief that the movie falls flat.  After raising so many questions about the existence of the supernatural, something that is done very slowly and deliberately, the ending felt like it came out of nowhere.  For just that reason, I just didn’t believe it at the time.  I do think that some of the plot holes can be filled in after thinking about them for a bit, and both Jen and I found it interesting enough to talk about all through lunch and later.  But I also think that the movie still didn’t do enough to convince me that the ending is what should have (or even could have) happened.

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@rigby_eleanor Yeah… It'll be something to show my kids. in reply to rigby_eleanor #

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Originally posted at DeTocqueville.US: http://www.detocqueville.us/2010/08/why-the-electoral-college-works/

I suppose it should come as no surprise given their love of centralized control, that many liberals have been recently calling for a national, popular election for president rather than the current Electoral College system.  But this recent trend is a great example of how little people understand the Constitution as well as how little respect for it the Left really has.

Six states have already passed measures that would bypass the constitutionally-mandated Electoral College system.  Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick had this to say when he signed the measure into law earlier this week:

“I am proud to join other states in this effort to bring more voters and more states into the presidential campaign process,” the Democratic governor said in a statement. “Voter participation in all 50 states is critical to the strength of our democracy and the national popular vote movement will bring more voters into the fold and ensure that every vote counts.”

from http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/08/mass_governor_p.html

There are several fallacies in Gov. Patrick’s statement, but let’s first examine why the Electoral College exists before we get into those problems.

One of the key issues at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was how to maintain the balance between the big-population states and the small-population states.  The Great Compromise was the solution to this in the Legislative branch.  This created a bicameral legislature composed of a House of Representatives that would be based on population (thus pleasing large states like Virginia and New York) and a Senate with two members appointed from each state regardless of size (thus pleasing small states like Georgia and Rhode Island).  It should be clear why such a compromise was necessary (as well as why the debate prior to this was so heated and took so long).  The large states didn’t want their citizens deprived of influence by being lumped together with the same representatives as a small state, but the small states didn’t want to join into a union that would roll over all of their concerns by majority rule.

This illustrates two of the foundation principles of the Constitution: majority rule with minority rights and federalism.  What many people may not understand is that the Electoral College also protects these very same principles by ensuring that the president was not chosen by a popular vote but by an Electoral College.  The members of the Electoral College are chosen by the state legislatures, and the numbers correspond to the number of Senators and Representatives each state has in Congress.

It should be pointed out that according to the Constitution:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

This means that technically, these states are well within their rights to decide to throw their electors to the national popular vote winner, but constitutionality does not mean this is a good thing to do.  So to illustrate that let’s look at the problems with Gov. Patrick’s statement.

First, he says that “this [is an] effort to bring more voters and more states into the presidential campaign process.”  This statement is historically inaccurate; the Electoral College system, in fact, ensures that presidential candidates cannot ignore small states.  I know some of us in large states (I’m in Texas) lament the amount of attention lavished on Iowa and New Hampshire during the presidential primary season.  However, a popular vote model (even with the facade of the Electoral College) would encourage candidates to ignore low-population states in favor of area of high-population density.  The effect of this would be the opposite of what Gov. Patrick states.

Second, he says “the national popular vote movement will bring more voters into the fold and ensure that every vote counts.”  Again, this is fallacious on several levels.  As stated above, the Electoral College system avoids marginalizing the concerns of small states (there’s that protection of minority rights), but still gives each state representation based on population with the number of electoral votes per state (there’s majority rule).  Thus, each vote still counts and areas of the country that aren’t California and New York are still considered, are still important.  The Electoral College system already does what Gov. Patrick claims a national system would do.

Finally, let’s look at the method by which these six states are trying to “bring more voters into the fold and ensure that every vote counts,” because it is here that the great lie to this national popular vote “movement” can be found.  These states have decided that they will pledge their electors to support the winner of the popular vote.  The effect of this is not to give each vote equal measure, but to actually disenfranchise voters in those states.  For example, if Candidate A receives more of the popular vote nationally, but Candidate B receives more of the popular vote in the state, Massachusetts’s electors would go not to the candidate that her voters chose (Candidate B) but to Candidate A.

How does disregarding the voters in your state “ensure that every vote counts”?!  This is ridiculous sophistry, and Gov. Patrick (as well as the other governors who signed similar measures) has done his fellow citizens a great disservice: he has taken their voice and shackled it to the national sentiment, regardless of how they vote.

If these states and others really wanted a popular-vote system that actually represented their voters, they would pledge their electors in a proportional model, not this sham.  Instead they show their true intentions by disenfranchising voters while claiming to do the opposite.  We already have a model that does what they claim to do; let’s let it work for us.

First, I had already been using Netflix streaming on the Xbox 360 for a lot of my TV and movies. The experience is so good that Netflix is my primary source; if it’s on Netflix, that’s where I watch it. Because of the way Netflix works (these are generally things available on DVD), these shows are older.  So, here are the things I’m watching on Netflix.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is a great example of what animation can do.  The show takes place in the near future, as people begin to become more and more “plugged in.”  Some are more artificial than others: cybernetics range from implants that allow a person to be constantly connected to the Internet to fully cybernetic bodies, such as that of the main character, Major Kusanagi.  Ghost in the Shell also represents on of the great failings of anime companies in North America.  This is a show that should have been on TV in the same time slot as 24 or Law and Order, not late night on Cartoon Network.  It’s a perfect example of truly adult animation.

Robotech: The Macross Saga is a beast of a different nature.  This is one of those shows that I have a great deal of nostalgia for as it was one of the first Japanese cartoons I remember watching.  Fortunately, unlike some of my other childhood favorites (G.I. Joe and Thundercats, for example), this one is still watchable after twenty-five years.

Although I didn’t watch all of it, Jen also watch most of season one of Arrested Development, which, despite personal recommendations from my brother David and a lot of positive reviews we never got around to watching.  The show is definitely great, and I will probably go back and watch the episodes I missed as I was doing other things while Jen marathoned them.

The second piece of hardware instrumental in getting rid of cable is a five-year-old laptop coupled with an IR remote sensor.  I’ve had a computer in the living room for years, but we primarily used it as a DVR with Windows Media Center (still my favorite DVR software).  I don’t use Media Center on this computer (I don’t currently have a USB tuner capable of receiving ATSC over-the-air content), but I do have two great pieces of software installed on it: Boxee and the Hulu Desktop app.  Through Boxee I primarily watch internet television such as that from Revision 3 (Film Riot, Tekzilla, and Hak5 are some of shows I watch from them).  Certainly for me Boxee goes a long way to replacing mainstream television almost entirely, but its compatibility with Hulu has been iffy, and that’s where the Hulu Desktop app comes in.

On Hulu’s website, the Desktop app is touted as being a lean-back experience for the PC.  We, however, are using it as a lean-back experience in the living room.  Running it with a remote is really easy (although I’m still looking for a way to start it from within Boxee or Media Center), and they have a lot of mainstream content right there.

On Hulu, I’ve been watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.  I watched a bit of the original version of this show when it aired on Cartoon Network.  I haven’t seen the original in a while so I can’t compare the two.  What I can say is that I really like the show; it’s got a good mix of comedy, action, and drama as the Elric brothers search for the elusive Philosopher’s Stone.  While not as smart as Ghost in the Shell, this show is no slouch when it comes to ideas either, whether it be faith and science, or a soldier’s responsibility in war time.

On the lighter side, I’ve also been watching Sgt. Frog.  I’ve read up to volume six of the comic for this, and it’s really funny.  The title character is Sgt. Keroro, an diminutive frog-like alien leading an advance reconnaissance mission to prepare Earth for invasion.  However, his crew ends up scattered in Tokyo, and Sgt. Keroro becomes the prisoner (or rather housekeeper) of the Hinata family.  The show is goofy and fun, as Sgt. Keroro struggles between his desire to conquer humanity, and his love of Gundam models.

Outside of Netflix, Hulu, and Boxee, I’ve also been watching some shows on Crunchyroll, an anime and Asian drama streaming site.  One in particular I’ve enjoyed is The Book of Bantorra. The show takes place in a world where people become “books” (actually, stone tablets) when they die.  These books contain the life of the person and are stored in Bantorra Library.  Because of the immense knowledge contained in these books, they are defended by the Armed Librarians.  The show has a great deal of action in it while still maintaining some good human drama.  Like Ghost in the Shell, one of it’s core issues is what it means to be human.  The primary antagonists of the show is a religious cult, the Shindeki Church, divide people into “true” men and meats (people used as slaves).  The first story arc focuses on a young man brainwashed by the Shindeki Church into acting as a bomb, and his struggle to accept that he is, in fact, human.

Well, there you have it: my summer watch list for 2010.  The jury’s still out whether or not we can totally go without cable, but we’re well one our way.

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To allow for the changes in costumes between songs (and there were many), a three projector screens showed various Al-related clips; many were from “Al TV,” with fake interviews featuring Eminem, Madonna, Celine Dion, and others.  These breaks between the music just added to the whole show, and many times the video on the screens was used to lead into live songs.  For example, the opening to the “Fat” music video was played before Al came out in the fat suit to do the song.

One of my favorite moments of the show was the encore.  The keybordist came out in a robe and played Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, followed by a chorus line of Storm Troopers and a Boba Fett.  Naturally, we expected Al to go into one of his Star Wars-related songs, but instead he did a song about cell phones (which we had previously heard in a mock interview with Snoop Dogg).  Then he did both “The Saga Begins” (to the tune of “American Pie” by Don McLean) and “Yoda” (“Lola” by the Kinks).

My only issue with this concert had nothing to do with the band.  I haven’t been to many concerts with actual seating, so I don’t know if this is normal, but throughout the concert no one stood up, except for a period at the end.  As a matter of fact, when Jen and I, plus a couple of big Al fans next to us, didn’t sit down in between “The Saga Begins” and “Yoda,” a woman from the behind us actually yelled, “Sit down!”  Now, I spent most of this concert sitting down precisely because I didn’t want to block the view of those behind me, given that no one else was standing, but I felt that this was unnatural concert behavior. Jen also felt the same way.  So, I have a quick note for people in San Antonio and elsewhere that go to concerts with seating: sitting down in a concert should be a choice you make, and if you can’t see, stand up or move.  If you can’t move, stand up.  Music concerts like this are not meant to be “sit back and listen” affairs.  I kinda felt bad for Al and his band, because if you just looked at the audience, it didn’t look like the show was going that well even though it was awesome.

Regardless of that, Jen and I had a great time, and we definitely want to see “Weird Al” Yankovic and his band again.  By the way, here’s a quick video I took of the “Cell Phone” encore, which was taken on my cell phone.  Remember, “Everyone has a cell phone…”