I’m experimenting with format here, taking baby steps in CSS and PHP. Please don’t hesitate to comment on legibility.

I saw The Incredibles again today, this time from the front row as the show was rather crowded. Not a bit stale; kudos to Brad Bird, writer and director. The second time, of course, I noticed what is not quite right: wood looks like plastic; stone is always strangely lit; and while most of the characters’ movements are spot on, ordinary walking is subtly but distinctly off. (I seem to be especially sensitive to variations of rhythm.) Still there are many moments, notably in the jungle scenes, when it’s hard to believe I’m not looking at something solid.

Meanwhile, my housemate was at Bridget Jones: Still Neurotic elsewhere in the ’plex. She reports that I did well to skip it.

Ron Paul, last of the small-government conservatives (in public office), warns of a scheme for mandatory mental “health” screening of children. Astraea hosts a longer similar piece.

My friend Mike Linksvayer links to some good info about voting methods. See in particular why the problem of “tactical” voting does not go away with Automatic Runoff (Australian ballot).

隠し砦の三悪人 (Hidden Fortress) (1958, dir. Kurosawa). Good fun. — I don’t understand Japanese, but noticed that the princess seemed to use her title hime as pronoun.

Rio Bravo (1959, dir. Hawks). Drags some. — When I saw this years ago on AMC(?), the presenter told the story that, when Howard Hawks started to pitch the plot, John Wayne quickly recognized it as one they had made before (which I think I had also seen, though its title now escapes me) and asked, “Do I get to be the drunk this time?”

Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows) (1958, dir. Truffaut). My One True Ex warned me that it’s quite boring. I watched some of the beginning, and a bit near the end, and concluded that she was likely right. — The translation of the title is unfortunate: coups here is better rendered as strokes, and anyway the phrase really means, roughly, every trick in the book. — Most movies on DVD have twenty or thirty scene-markers; this has only six.

Ohayô (Good Morning) (1959, dir. Ozu). Amusing slice of suburban life. — Someone says “sayonara” and I think, is this the first time I’ve ever heard a Japanese use that word?

Orfeu Negro (1959, dir. M.Camus). Pretty but unsatisfying: the drivers of the plot – Eurydice’s nemesis, and Orfeu’s love for her – are never motivated. — I was surprised to understand so few words of a Romance language; and more surprised at the frequency of the pronoun você. Is tu as dead in Brazil as thou in the Anglosphere?

The Immaculate Collection, Madonna videos of the Eighties. It turned out to include only two that I hadn’t seen a hundred times (“Borderline” and “La Isla Bonita”), plus a staging of “Vogue” that’s even sillier than the familiar one. I was hoping it would have “Justify My Love” which was deemed too racy for MTV. No luck. — When she wore that sheer top in “Vogue”, where did her nips go?

An Ideal Husband (1999, dir. O.Parker). Not all of Oscar Wilde’s plays, I find, are as fluffy as Earnest. Excellent performances, too.

I forgot to mention last week that my One True Ex dragged me to see Stage Beauty (2003, dir. R.Eyre), a comedy about gender issues during the Stuart Restoration. It’s a treat.

Greg Perry, born with one leg and three fingers, passionately denounces the Americans with Disabilities Act in the December issue of Liberty.

In 1990, I thought about going to Washington to campaign against this farce when Congress was discussing it because I knew it would be horribly misused, cost America far more than estimated, and end up causing more problems for those who were truly handicapped. I decided not to go. I had severely underestimated the ADA; I still kick myself. (And believe me, kicking myself is a challenge!)

I guess you’ve all seen the secession map by now, in one form or another. I’m not keen on being governed from Ottawa or México, myself, but how much worse can it be than a “Jesusland” relieved of its inhibitions?

Assuming for the sake of argument that the “Blue States” do withdraw from one federation and seek to join another, would they have us? The population of New York is equal to that of Ontario and Quebec (Canada’s biggest provinces) combined. California is about equal to all of Canada, or one-third of Mexico. Once they’ve got the gloating out of their system, the legislators to north and south will find plenty of reasons not to welcome all of the putative applicants.

So: if a realignment of boundaries does occur, I reckon it’s sure to increase the number of sovereignties in North America. Though most of them may be more distateful than the present selection, I only need one libertarian country.

Furthermore, if movement between the new states and federations is not seriously impaired (as should be politically difficult), competition is likely to drive most of them in a vaguely libertarian direction.