Around the blogroll and elsewhere

Today is July 4, and here in NJ it's cloudy, with a threat of thunderstorms, repeat until Monday morning when we all go back to work.

There was a time when this meant that I could freely spend the better part of three afternoons in a darkened movie theater without feeling that I was missing out on Glorious Times in the Sunshine. But in the last three years, my moviegoing has dwindled down to almost nothing, save for the few times a year I meet up with ModFab to take in something over which we can snark over coffee afterwards, or if there's a new comic book movie that Mr. Brilliant wants to see. There was a time when I shlepped into the city to see a movie that would never make it out this way, but now I'm just as happy to miss it.

I don't know what happened. Perhaps I just got burnt out on movies after reviewing them for nearly a decade. Perhaps the movies just suck these days. Perhaps it's just easier to wait for them to show up on the premium channels, especially now that we have the 40" flatscreen. Perhaps I just can't get away from this notion that going to the movies is watching wealthy, impossibly attractive actors pretending to be ordinary people -- a breathtaking level of cynicism and inability to suspend disbelief that means perhaps I'm better off staying away.

But since not everyone is in this state of mind about the movies, let's start with a couple of movie-related links.

My old Cinemarati friend Nathaniel, whose cinematic obsessiveness could almost make me jump back into the Hell Plaza Octoplex, has unearthed an old episode of 21 Jump Street, of all things, to conclusively demonstrate that Josh Brolin is eminently qualified to play George W. Bush.

And Lance Mannion writes about Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.

If you, like me, are a Clean House addict, you are no doubt still whiffing the bottle of oil of peppermint, trying to wash the stench of this year's "Messiest House in the Country" winners, Phil and Mindy Wheeler, out of your nose. This show is supposed to be about helping packrats deal with their obsessive clutter, not about helping a pathologically immature couple that seems unable to so much as take out the trash clean up filth that should by all rights have caused their house to be condemned. There's a distinct aura of scam artist about these two losers, and the Four Musketeers of Mayhem and Foolishness seem about ready to quit the whole show during this two-hour trainwreck. If you missed it, you can catch it at 9 PM Eastern time tonight. And you can read about it in a preview that ran in the Washington Post last weekend.

And also on the small screen, ModFab handicaps the Lead Actress race for this year's Emmys.

On to politics and such:

John Cole hates you.

Libby Spencer doesn't care if he does. She says Obama's defense of his plans for the FISA vote just doesn't cut it.

Brad Jacobson on PBS and NBC's sins of omission.

Terrance on new evidence in a 60-year-old mass lynching case.

Doghouse Riley, one of the Four Great Curmudgeons of Lefter Blogtopia* (™ Skippy) agrees with me that it's getting mighty crowded under this bus.

The Minstrel Boy has some thoughts on torture -- and what should be done to those who both did the torturing and issued the orders.

DCap says we all had better make sure we have a good strong Posturepedic, because that's going to be the only safe place to put your worthless U.S. money.

And just to make things confusing, DCup on the loss of yet another blogger.


(*The other three being Ornery Bastard, PhysioProf, and Driftglass.)