Hillary Clinton is smart, hard-working, and politically savvy.  There are two main reasons I cannot support her.

First is censorship.  She introduced the “Family Entertainment Protection Act,” an unconstitutional bill designed censor videogames. I’m opposed to censorship in general, and her constant tirades about the evils done by the gaming industry are offensive to me.  It’s fine to criticize some games as being overviolent, but putting laws in place to make it even harder for small game companies to get their products to market is a huge mistake.  Under her law, anyone who sold (unrated) Eric’s Ultimate Solitaire to a minor could face a fine of up to $5000 and 500 hours of community service.

Second is divisiveness.  Through little fault of her own, she has been a lightning rod for hatred for a large portion of the country for a long time.  The disgusting partisan politics our country has been enmeshed in for the past decade seem certain to continue, and further tear the fabric of our country.  I think we’re all tired of the bitter politics of the past.

I do not fault her (much) for supporting our entry into the Iraq War.  Everybody was doing it, and going against the flow is not one of her strengths.

Barack Obama opposed the war from the beginning, and for all the right reasons.  He can stand against the flow to do what’s right, but more importantly, he can turn the flow.  Instead of dividing America with Us Against Them politics, he brings us together.  Instead of limiting politics to degrading his opponents, he brings a sense of hope and unity. I have not been inspired by a politician since Robert Kennedy, but I am inspired by Barack Obama.

Hillary Clinton has massive name recognition, and that can get you a long way in the primaries, especially with older voters.  But the more you learn about Barack Obama, the more there is to like. He elevates the discourse, and he can make an America we can all be proud of again.

Right now Hillary has what appears to be an insurmountable lead in most of the Super Tuesday states, but I believe that the more people know about Barack Obama, the more that can change.  I’ve never supported a candidate before, but I encourage you all to not only vote for Barack Obama, but to join the grassroots movement that’s the core of his campaign.

Check out his South Carolina victory speech.

Then sign up to help.

We stand at an exciting crossroads for America, and you can help us change for the better.

Some electronics product I got the other day had amusing warnings printed on the plastic bag:

No Johnny Space Commander, no autoerotic asphyxiation.

I tend to make fun of Californians when they start complaining about winter “storms,” because the weather is so mild in CA that pretty much anytime it drizzles with a breeze it qualifies as a major event.

That said, a couple of weeks ago we had some weather. Mostly it blew over fences and knocked branches out of trees, but we did have one major tree give out on us.

It’s creating a bit of a dam in our creek. We haven’t yet figured out how old the tree was, but it’s got to be relatively ancient.

Shoo wrote a post recently suggesting that talk of a “shrinking middle class” is misleading, since it’s only shrinking because more of us are becoming wealthy.

Obviously defining “middle class” is critical. Let’s pretend it’s the middle three quintiles — that is, you throw out the bottom 20% (poor) and the top 20% (rich). Obviously that’s 60% of the population, no matter what.

If the population goes down, the middle class shrinks — but the population is growing, so the middle class is growing.

If we’re talking about wealth, instead of just people, it’s possible for the middle class to “shrink” if their income or wealth goes down.

The real thing folks are talking about is portion of the income pie.

In 2000, the top 20% of the country made 49.8% of the income, while the middle 20% made 14.8%. In 2006 The top 20% made 50.5%, while the middle 20% only brought in 14.5%. In short, the top 20% got more of the pie, while the other 80% each got smaller slices. This is nothing new since 2000, though — the top 20% have been consistently getting more of the pie since the 1960s.

Most of that time we don’t mind, because the pie gets bigger. Since 2000, though, real median household income has decreased (slightly), so getting a smaller slice of a smaller pie seems especially harsh.

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/h02ar.html

By the way, the cutoff for the top 20% is about $85,000. Since I suspect Shoo’s making considerably more than that, his suggestion that the middle class is doing great may not be from first-hand experience. (I’m not in the middle class either, but on the other end.)

I’ve only seen 80 movies from 2007 so far, so my list excludes potential winners like There Will Be Blood, Lars and the Real Girl, and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Overall I found it to be a pretty good year for movies, despite the seeming prevalence of sequels.

But here we go:

Sicko (****): Michael Moore’s critique of the shortcomings of the American health care system is deeply moving and personal and less exaggerated than many of his films. Well worth watching.

No Country for Old Men (****): The Coen brothers haven’t had a great film since O Brother Where Art Thou, with messes like The Ladykillers and Intolerable Cruelty starting to make me suspect they’d lost it. No Country reminds me of Blood Simple, or perhaps the fantastic A Simple Plan (****). Oddly, the anticlimax ending was more than a little disappointing, but the rest of the movie was so good that a non-finish wasn’t enough to keep it off this list.

Ratatouille (****): Typically perfect Pixar film. I was skeptical about the subject (a rat chef?), but Brad Bird (The Iron Giant (****)) did a beautiful job with it. One of my favorite scenes is when you peek through a restaurant window to catch sight of a thousand rats swarming the kitchen. Big laughs.

Shoot ‘Em Up (****): How did a movie that’s complete and utter nonsense make this list? By being so brazen and fresh and over the top that one can’t help being swept along by its frenetic energy. I laughed more and harder at this movie than any other this year. It might not work on the small screen, but in a theatre… Wow. Not for everyone.

And the winner:

Juno (****): This tiny film about a teenage girl who unintentionally gets pregnant is charming and witty and emotional in all the right ways. It rings true, too. Ellen Page, who was fantastic in Hard Candy (***1/2) is the most watchable young actress I’ve seen since Natalie Portman in, say, The Professional (****).

I’m always interested in which movies make a ton of money, because they tend to tell us a lot about what movies studios are going to be making more of in the future.

The top movies from last year included more than the usual number of sequels.  The top 10 included Spider Man 3, Shrek 3, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Harry Potter 4, Bourne 3, and National Treasure 2.  Dip into the second 10 and you’ll find Rush Hour 3, Die Hard 4, and Fantastic Four 2.  

Any time the #3s vastly outnumber the #1s I think it’s fair to say Hollywood’s in a rut.

The non-sequel biggies were Transformers (not a sequel, but come on — it’s based on a toy), I Am Legend (not a sequel, but a remake), 300 (based on a comic book), and Ratatouille (genuinely original). 

The Chief of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice is under fire for some comments he made earlier this week about why requiring Photo ID to vote isn’t a problem. While he admitted that this may be a problem for elderly voters who often don’t have driver’s licenses, this shouldn’t be a problem for minorities, because “minorities don’t become elderly the way white people do. They die first.” Ouch! 

Now he’s taking a lot of crap for saying such an insensitive thing. 

But how much crap should one really take for saying the truth?  It’s a fact that blacks in America don’t live as long as other races, so things that hurt old folks don’t hurt blacks as much as it might.  Conversely, things that help old folks don’t help blacks as much as it might.  (You could make a good case that African Americans shouldn’t have to pay as much in Medicare and Social Security taxes as caucasians.) 

It’s good to try to be polite, but reality makes no such effort.  Sometimes efforts to be politically correct can keep us from seeing basic truths and dealing with them.  

Reality is an asshole.

I remember when the year changed to 1984, and it freaked me out because 1984 just sounded like the future to me. I guess 2008 is the future.

We watched Back to the Future II last night, and its crazy predicted year 2015 pretty much is way off mark.Their future had payphones and hoverboards and flying cars, but no internet or mobile phones. The magic sneakers weren’t far off.