Newsflash! Forvm hit by coup! Film at 11!

Submitted by Bernard Guerrero on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 12:54pm

Ok folks, here are the facts:

1) Due to difficulties with our current web-host, Hank was not able to get our traditional voting system up and running in time for this week's election.

1a) Hank is out of action until perhaps next week

2) We have instead been running on an older retread, along with some unfortunate time-travel-like effects for the front page.

3) Several of the leading vote-getters have asked me to postpone finalizing the current election results until Hank can get the correct system going, once he's available.

4) One other mod is in agreement with this, and it wouldn't bother me, either.

5) I'd rather not set off a Honduras-like round of constitutional navel-gazing, however, so I'd like to hear from anybody who strongly objects to holding off for Hank and re-running the election.

6) Keep in mind that doing so will further, in a tiny way, my life-long dream to be an unelected, coup-mongering, dictatorial despot, just like my boyhood hero Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

What say you?

Jefe Maximo, Colonel Bernardo Guerrero

Paging MA

(#172194)

Submitted by hobbesist on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 3:24pm.

Could you send me an email? I tried to send one to you, but it got bounced back.

Thanks!

Bene vixit, bene qui latuit

Done

(#172238)

Submitted by M Aurelius on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 7:34pm.

My country, right or wrong is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying... It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.' -Chesterton

If this was a proper coup

(#172112)

Submitted by nyoos junkey on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 6:49am.

then we wouldn't be reading this.... we'd just get the national flag and the national anthem playing on loop.

Despair Number 2, July 1, 2009

(#172111)

Submitted by Traveller on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 5:41am.

Traveller

I see no good grounds here...

(#172073)

Submitted by vinteuil on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 7:29pm.

...for changing the rules in mid-stream.

*Prima facie*, it looks to me like Sulla, M.A., & Bernard were elected fair & square, and that should be the end of it.

Besides: I can hardly think of a better team.

And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day.

For the record...

(#172077)

Submitted by M Aurelius on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 8:30pm.

I am willing to be a mod, but I'm in no hurry.

The current triumvirate can do whatever it deems best. They have my full support regardless.

My country, right or wrong is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying... It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.' -Chesterton

Same here

(#172113)

Submitted by Sulla on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 7:10am.

I would prefer the election mirror the ones in the past where one vote equals one vote. If it takes a week or two to figure out how to accomplish that then no big deal.

"We should not tie the hands of law enforcement in the effort to bring these terrorists to justice"- Leon E. Panetta

I'm quite willing to support the current election results

(#172172)

Submitted by BlaiseP on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 1:07pm.

If the current and proposed mods are amenable. Work it out among yourselves, guys.

I would prefer you guys take over in a disputed election

(#172168)

Submitted by catchy on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 12:40pm.

It should happen to every democracy and now's our time to shine.

I'll be arranging a protest tea party shortly so we can fire

(#172189)

Submitted by tomsyl on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 3:09pm.

shots into the air like a proper ME wedding. Oops, someone just said they haven't called the local product "tea" since this place became a state. Never mind - meet me behind the hustings and we'll discuss who gets to fly that guy from Honduras in to take over.

Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx

Ahem, I Don't Want to Say I Predicted this in the Old Thread...

(#172067)

Submitted by Traveller on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 6:35pm.

....stolen elections, missing ballot boxes, one Candidate running and, about to be elected to a post I don't think they consented to.

This is beyond the Guardian Council's work, beyond that of the Mullah's....

I sense the hand of MacCellan the Magnificent and All Powerful....lol

Best Wishes, Traveller

The moderators need a press secretary

(#172190)

Submitted by tomsyl on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 3:10pm.

to provide them with cover in times like these. I can think of several cartoon characters besides Dilbert that would fit the bill. Let's have a separate election on just that issue.

Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx

Will there be interim PR changes?

(#172036)

Submitted by tomsyl on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 3:27pm.

My biannual suggestions from "Bananas" - feel free to load the whole thing verbatim into your teleprompter:

l am your new president.

From this day on,the official language of San Marcos will be Swedish.

[Silence.]

ln addition to that, all citizens will be required to change their underwear every half hour.

Underwear will be worn on the outside so we can check.

Furthermore, all children under 18 years old are now 18 years old.

[BYSTANDER 1: "What's the Spanish word for ''straitjacket''?']

[BYSTANDER 2: "The power has driven him mad."]

We must have a new leader.

Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx

Blaise, you first job is...

(#172037)

Submitted by Bernard Guerrero on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 3:35pm.

....to carry tomsyl away somewhere and have him beaten on the soles of his feet with over-priced Monster HDMI cables, preferably purchased for full retail at Best Buy on t.'s own credit card. We'll see how funny he thinks he is then.

-“It is unwise for the government to tell people how they can spend their money” - Barney Frank, Chairman House Financial Services Committee, on on-line gambling, 2009

You cannot beat the feet of an American citizen

(#172065)

Submitted by BlaiseP on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 6:16pm.

without written permission from the State Department.

Will Photoshop.....

(#172066)

Submitted by Bernard Guerrero on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 6:23pm.

....and an old doctor's note suffice? Or we can go with an Enron stock certificate, they have all kinds of fancy background.

-“It is unwise for the government to tell people how they can spend their money” - Barney Frank, Chairman House Financial Services Committee, on on-line gambling, 2009

Here's my permission slip:

(#172174)

Submitted by BlaiseP on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 1:29pm.

$h!t you not, that was his business card. He had sort of a crush on my girlfriend at the time.

There is unquestionably a story buried there.

(#172191)

Submitted by tomsyl on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 3:12pm.

Isn't the guy getting out soon? I've heard roumors of a wizened double of Herve Villachaize limping from one Miami niteclub to another with a black beeper fastened to his leg.

Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx

That story is in a shallow grave, Tomsyl.

(#172215)

Submitted by BlaiseP on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 6:43pm.

You seem to have heard the same scurrilous rumours I've been hearing. Pizza Face is on the loose.

A great movie for the long weekend, if you haven't seen it.

(#172220)

Submitted by tomsyl on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 6:49pm.

Shallow Grave, that is, not the coming Noriega biopic posthumously starring a bulked-up Edward James Olmos.

Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx

Agree. Even better than Trainspotting

(#172222)

Submitted by mmghosh on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 6:53pm.

or Danny Boy's more recent stuff.

What are a few murders between friends?

(#172224)

Submitted by BlaiseP on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 6:58pm.

You seem eminently suited to this post but I wonder if you could explain the gaps in your employment record?

RENTON: Yes, I can. The truth -- well, the truth is that I've had a long-standing problem with heroin addiction. I've been known to sniff it, smoke it, swallow it, stick it up my arse and inject it into my veins. I've been trying to combat this addiction, but unless you count social security scams and shoplifting, I haven't had a regular job in years. I feel it's important to mention this.

OK OK, I loved Trainspotting too.

(#172228)

Submitted by mmghosh on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 7:02pm.

The book, even more than the movie. But Shallow Grave is better. Its the difference between King Lear and...um...Tamburlaine.

Shallow Grave...

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Submitted by vinteuil on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 8:44pm.

...was a hopeless mess.

Trainspotting was a *really stylish* hopeless mess.

Neither the one nor the other particularly cries out for any comparisons to Marlowe or Shake-spear.

And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day.

Well, living the rest of my life above a suspended ceiling

(#172360)

Submitted by tomsyl on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 2:55pm.

was a practical aspect I took away from Shallow Graves so personally I disagree.

Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx

Much better version of the Shallow Grave story = A Simple Plan

(#172308)

Submitted by Jordan on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 9:15am.

with Bill Paxton, Bridget Fonda, Billy Bob Thornton, Brent Briscoe, dir. Sam Raimi. A decent married man hard up for cash, his mildly retarded brother and their absolutely worthless friend find a duffel bag full of cash in a downed airplane in the Minnesota snow. All they have to do is wait out the Spring, and they're in the clear. Simple, right? But the plan quickly and rivetingly devolves to the level of its human element a la The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. Which film both later films riff on, incidentally.

Thank you! Vote Republican!

I thought just the opposite.

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Submitted by tomsyl on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 2:54pm.

But maybe that's because I read A Simple Plan before seeing the movie. But of course it was Smith's first, and therefore bests effort. The Ruins was such a relentless downer that I regret reading it.

AFA TGTB&TU, nothing could possibly compare to his Once Upon A Time In The WestOnce Upon A Time In America

Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx

Agreed on the Once Upon A Time epics, but Vinteuil

(#172372)

Submitted by Jordan on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 3:59pm.

got me thinking of Macbeth & King Lear, and therefore simple, brutal fables about men, money & women sprang to mind. I can't imagine a novelist could do much better than the tight, nervewracking tragedy of manners Sam Raimi put together. The basic story is kind of trashy...much as with Macbeth. :)

Thank you! Vote Republican!

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly had a human element?

(#172340)

Submitted by mmghosh on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 12:47pm.

OK music, perhaps, but apart from that there wasn't much human element, maybe apart from the Ugly character, IIRC. The first one of the trilogy did, maybe, but then it was a spin off Kurosawa.

I meant human in Nietzsche's sense, of course.

(#172343)

Submitted by Jordan on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 1:13pm.

Better yet, G.B. Shaw's. :)

Thank you! Vote Republican!

I'll go with Manish here

(#172299)

Submitted by nyoos junkey on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 6:54am.

on the Marlowe. Why he is compared to The Bard is either burried in some play of his I've never seen or read or else is the work of academics looking for something to write about.

It's Faust's final speech:

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Submitted by vinteuil on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 4:41pm.

"Now hast thou but one bare hour to live, And then thou must be damn'd perpetually!

"Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven, That time may cease, and midnight never come; Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make Perpetual day; or let this hour be but a year, a month, a week, a natural day, That Faustus may repent and save his soul!

"O lente, lente currite, noctis equi!

"The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike, The devil will come, and Faustus must be damn'd.

"O, I'll leap up to heaven!

"--Who pulls me down?--

"See, where Christ's blood streams in the firmament! One drop of blood will save me: O my Christ!

"-- Rend not my heart for naming of my Christ; Yet will I call on him: O, spare me, Lucifer!--"

&c.

There's an old and mostly pretty awful movie that Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor made out of Marlowe's play, which is worth seeking out just to hear Richard Burton's rendition of these great lines.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be available on YouTube.

And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day.

Well yes,

(#172471)

Submitted by nyoos junkey on Fri, 07/03/2009 - 7:50am.

there is that. I wish I had read Faust first instead of Tamburlaine, I might be more charitable towards poor Marlowe whos midnight has long since passed. The Bard does just feel a little more human to me, or more in touch with the subtlty of humanity and its indignities. He can kick out what Ren and Stimpy would call The Big Angry Words with the best of thembut somehow he has me love his heros and his villains a little more.

Tamburlaine, I said.

(#172394)

Submitted by mmghosh on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 5:22pm.

That most hyperbolic of plays. And not far, stylistically, from the hyperbole of Trainspotting - (the toilet scene comes to mind). Whereas Lear's story - as fantastical in its way as Tamburlaine - is handled with so much more restraint. As is Kurosawa's interpretation, too.

Is This It?

(#172382)

Submitted by M Scott Eiland on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 4:54pm.

The relevant part starts about seven minutes in.

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.--from Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

A little hyperbole

(#172291)

Submitted by mmghosh on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 3:35am.

is very occasionally warranted.

vinteuil, you are pretty hopeless.

Anyway, Marlowe was a bit "Trainspotting"-ish, no?

Shallow Grave was a fine flick, no doubt.

(#172231)

Submitted by BlaiseP on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 7:11pm.

But Trainspotting is more quotable.

Anyhoo, I just pulled that Noriega card out of the scanner, put it back in its little glass holder on my desk. Pizza Face was quite the ladies' man, though he was short, disgusting and beyond redemption. I laughed until I cried when he was transported to the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. It was a fitting end to a grand adventure.

What has short and disgusting got to do with

(#172234)

Submitted by mmghosh on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 7:19pm.

not being a ladies man? The two are/were often linked, no? Exhibit A - Napoleon.

Every short dictator suffers from the same delusions.

(#172235)

Submitted by BlaiseP on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 7:23pm.

Me... and My Shadow....

Nah, average height in the 18th century was five feet five

(#172237)

Submitted by mmghosh on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 7:30pm.

or thereabouts, and the ladies were small, too.

the average height for a man in 18th century Europe was about 5.5 feet. In England this went up to 5.6 feet for men but only 5 feet for women. Interestingly, Scottish women averaged at about 5.3 feet at the time.

Anyway, in today's world, shorter men try harder - so get better, I'm thinking.

It's a coup! A moderator coup!

(#172033)

Submitted by Jordan on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 3:11pm.

Meh. As long as you guys keep picking up the trash, covering my medical/dental/vision expenses, providing for the public defense & law enforcement, and educating my kids for free so I can stay home watching brain-calcifying pablum on television, all without raising my taxes over 1978 levels, you're welcome to the job. Wait. Am I on the wrong thread?

Thank you! Vote Republican!

The CA Bankruptcy post is....

(#172035)

Submitted by Bernard Guerrero on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 3:22pm.

...one floor up. Also housewares and bedding.

-“It is unwise for the government to tell people how they can spend their money” - Barney Frank, Chairman House Financial Services Committee, on on-line gambling, 2009