Have you seen all of Stanley Kubrick's films?

I haven't. Here's somebody's ranking of all of them. There are 13.

Up until last night, I'd seen "Dr. Strangelove," "Lolita," "The Shining," "Clockwork Orange," "Barry Lyndon," "Paths of Glory," "2001," "Full Metal Jacket," and "Eyes Wide Shut." (Named in the order that I like them.)

Yeah, I'd never seen "Spartacus," and I still haven't. Unsurprisingly, I'd never seen "Killer's Kiss" or "Fear and Desire."

The one I finally got around to watching — it's featured in the Criterion Channel's Sterling Hayden collection — is "The Killing." Highly amusing. The women were hilarious. It had Vince Edwards. It had a poodle and a parrot. Plus the great Sterling Hayden (last seen by me in "The Asphalt Jungle"). And at one point a character explains everything (quoted at my son's 101 Years of Movies blog):

"It’s an exceptional bridge, and they should keep it like this. Beauty must save the world"/"We can’t always do poetry. We must give security"/"A Venetian would have never built such nonsense"/"That is not a bridge."

Quotes from "Venice Gets a Grip on a Star Architect’s Slippery Bridge/The city will replace the glass on Santiago Calatrava’s footbridge across the Grand Canal with stone after too many pedestrians fell" (NYT). 

Calatrava is not a Venetian. He was born in Spain. Apparently, there's a notion that Venetians do not design impractical — dangerous? — things.

According to one person who fell — "like a bag of potatoes" — Calatrava "ruined the most beautiful years of my old age."

Yesterday, I crossed the line where I decided to get the booster.

I'd been thinking why should I get the booster, and it didn't seem as though there's been much push toward getting it. I didn't get emailed prompts from my doctor or anything like that. But I heard about a situation where one person got covid after getting the 2 shots only and not the booster and 3 people — who were boosted and who spent a lot of indoors with him when he was probably contagious — did not get it. And the day after I heard about that, I found out that 2 people I know just got the disease.

How about you? Are you a hold out? If so, why and what would change your mind?

Are you getting the booster?

No. No covid vaccine shots at all for me so far.

No. I got the vaccine, and if that's not enough, I don't think one more shot matters.

No. I'm waiting to see if something pushes me over the line.

Not yet, but now Althouse has pushed me over the line!

Yes, I got it as soon as I could.

Yes. I'm like Althouse: something pushed me over the line.

 

pollcode.com free polls

UPDATE: Boosted! Just finishing waiting the 15 minutes. A man in shorts just walked into the clinic. Well, the temperature is spiking this afternoon. Up to 30 degrees last I looked.

Aaron Rodgers explains everything.

Aaron Rodgers brags he has Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” on his bookshelf.

Explains everything. pic.twitter.com/fYHmGeY7FX

— Marcus Hayes (@inkstainedretch) January 4, 2022

"I struggle as a philosopher to reconcile my image of my body with its task in the world of being the emissary of my mind...."

"Often, I cannot bear the idea of sending out my 'soft animal' of a body, in the words of the poet Mary Oliver, to fight for feminist views that are edgy and controversial and to represent a discipline that prides itself on sharpness, clarity and precision. I feel betrayed by my soft borders. This false binary exists partly in my own head, yes, but also very much in others’: I was recently apprised of a caption on a portrait of David Hume, the 18th-century philosopher, in an introductory philosophy textbook: 'The lightness and quickness of his mind was entirely hidden by the lumpishness of his appearance.' Thus have other fat philosophers been warned that our bodies may similarly mask our intellects. The cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker isn’t a philosopher, but his latest book, 'Rationality,' handily demonstrates the worldview that equates thinness with reason.... [H]e chides the irrational doofus who prefers the 'small pleasur' of chowing down on lasagna now over the supposedly 'large pleasure of a slim body' in perpetuity. They 'succumb' to 'myopic discounting' of future rewards — an (ableist) term for short-term thinking, illustrated with a fatphobic example."

From "Diet Culture Is Unhealthy. It’s Also Immoral" by philosophy professor Kate Manne (NYT).

A question for Trump supporters: Would you prefer for Trump to stand down or would you rather see DeSantis go head-to-head with Trump in the debates?

Rhetorically, DeSantis rules:

DESANTIS ON AOC: "If I had a dollar for every lockdown politician who decided to escape to Florida over the last two years, I'd be a pretty doggone wealthy man."

pic.twitter.com/kyMX2pkVHY

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) January 3, 2022

Please watch that first, then take this poll — but only if you are a Trump supporter:

A question ONLY for Trump fans:

Trump should stand down and let DeSantis sail into the nomination.

Let's see DeSantis trounce Trump in the debates — if he can.

There's only one Trump, and he's my guy. DeSantis is only a back up, a substitute.

I'm not buying the DeSantis hype.

 

pollcode.com free polls

Virginia Giuffre — for $500,000 — agreed not to sue Jeffrey Epstein or "any other person or entity who could have been included as a potential defendant" — and Prince Andrew wants in on that "potential defendant" protection.

I'm reading "Prince Andrew hearing: Duke has ‘mountain to climb’ to get Virginia Giuffre case dismissed" (London Times).

Andrew B Brettler, who represents Andrew, 61, will argue that by including a reference to “royalty” in [the lawsuit that was settled, Giuffre] made the duke a potential co-conspirator, and that therefore he is covered by the terms of the release.

To use the legal term: Is Andrew a "third party beneficiary" of the release? 

I'm sorry, but I don't really know who Patton Oswalt is — I've never needed to know (the name looks familiar) — but I care about Dave Chappelle, so I'm reading...

... "Patton Oswalt explains himself after ‘nice’ Dave Chappelle post goes sideways" in the L.A. Times. I haven't even read the article yet — I'm going to "live blog" my reading of it — but I should disclose that I'm already in my What-a-weasel! mode.

... Both comics were performing at Seattle Center venues Friday night — Oswalt at 3,000-seat McCaw Hall and Chappelle at 17,500-seat Climate Pledge Arena. Chappelle invited his longtime buddy over to do a guest set, after which Oswalt posted.... “Finished me set at @mccawhall and got a text from @davechappelle... Come over to the arena he’s performing in next door and do a guest set. Why not? I waved good-bye to this hell-year with a genius I started comedy with 34 years ago. He works an arena like he’s talking to one person and charming their skin off. Anyway, I ended the year with a real friend and a deep laugh. Can’t ask for much more.”

This was supposedly Oswalt being "nice." No, it wasn't! It was Oswalt bragging about his connection to the much greater star. It was enthusiastic self-promotion. He had to already know Chappelle's difficulties with a certain sector of Wokedom and must be deemed to have consciously decided to take the risk. He had to have done a cost-benefit analysis. Do not tell me this weasel did a turnaround when he heard the actual — as opposed to the predictable — outcry. 

Yeah, I'm saying don't tell me. That's because I think I already know. The next day on Instagram, Oswalt is all:

"Well, that game's over! 74 years is enough of that!"

Announces Meade, channeling the mindset of Gallup, after reading "Did Gallup End 'Most Admired' 74-Year Polling Tradition to Avoid Trump Placing First?"

Yes, the admiration of human beings is a dangerous business. Why not back off? I remember when The Ladies Home Journal used to produce lists of the 10 "favorite heroes and heroines" of boys and girls, something I blogged about back in 2005, with a photograph from my copy of the 1977 best-seller "The Book of Lists":

Henry Kissinger! And yet:

The first page of "The Book of Lists" is a set of seven lists of "The Most Hated and Feared Persons in History" for the years 1970-1976. Hitler comes in Number 1 for all the years except 1972 and 1973, when Nixon comes in first! In fact, 1972 was a good year for Hitler, when he made it all the way down to fourth place. Idi Amin and Mao Tse-tung were, along with Nixon, more hated and feared. Satan was in fifth place that year. Amusingly, by 1976, Nixon is off the five-person list altogether, and Jimmy Carter is on, tied for fourth place with Count Dracula.

How could Nixon be worse than Hitler? And yet he was. Things near in time seem more important. How will Trump look as he fades into the distance? But I'm getting ahead of myself, because I don't know if he's in the process of fading right now or the process of bouncing back. He is very bouncy.

"I think people kind of appreciate that there’s this thing online that’s just fun. It’s not trying to do anything shady with your data or your eyeballs. It’s just a game that’s fun."

Said Josh Wardle, the inventor of Wordle, quoted in "Wordle Is a Love Story/The word game has gone from dozens of players to hundreds of thousands in a few months. It was created by a software engineer in Brooklyn for his partner" (NYT).

I played for the first time and got the word on the fifth line, without being strategic in choosing the first word, just using the kind of logic you use in Mastermind. It's more interesting than Mastermind, because the answer will be a real word, not just any combination of letters/colors.

The popularity of the game — not the game itself — had something to do with the very popular NYT game Spelling Bee:

Mr. Wardle said he first created a similar prototype in 2013, but his friends were unimpressed and he scrapped the idea.... The breakthrough, he said, was limiting players to one game per day. That enforced a sense of scarcity, which he said was partially inspired by the Spelling Bee, which leaves people wanting more, he said.

At the Still Too Cold Café...

 ... it's the third day in a row without a sunrise photograph, but you can talk all night. 

I have high hopes for tomorrow morning, when it should be 19° at sunrise, and I'll be willing to venture out.

"If sentenced to prison, Ms. Holmes would be the most notable female executive to serve time since Martha Stewart did in 2004 after lying to investigators about a stock sale."

"And Theranos, which dissolved in 2018, is likely to stand as a warning to other Silicon Valley start-ups that stretch the truth to score funding and business deals. The mixed verdict suggested that jurors believed the evidence presented by prosecutors that showed Ms. Holmes lied to investors about Theranos’s technology in the pursuit of money and fame. They were not swayed by her defense of blaming others for Theranos’s problems and accusing her co-conspirator, Ramesh Balwani, the company’s chief operating officer and her former boyfriend, of abusing her. They were also not swayed by the prosecutor’s case that she had defrauded patients. Ms. Holmes was acquitted on four counts related to patients who took Theranos’s blood tests and one related to advertisements that the patients saw."

 From "Elizabeth Holmes is found guilty of four counts of fraud" (NYT).

"What is aquamation, the burial practice Desmond Tutu requested instead of greenhouse gas-emitting cremation?"

A WaPo headline asks the question we were not asking. I'm not sure you'll want to know this, so look away while there is still a chance for you. It's surprising how far you need to read into the article before you find out what is actually involved:

In aquamation, a machine uses “a heated (sometimes pressurized) solution of water and strong alkali to dissolve tissues, yielding an effluent that can be disposed through municipal sewer systems, and brittle bone matter that can be dried, crushed, and returned to the decedent’s family,” Philip Olson, a technology ethicist at Virginia Tech, wrote in a 2014 paper.

The process takes three to four hours at a temperature of around 300 degrees Fahrenheit, though it can be longer if lower temperatures are used, according to Olson. By comparison, fire-based cremation takes around two hours at a temperature of 1,400 to 1,800 degrees.

In the United States, aquamation was first adopted in the 1990s by researchers looking for an inexpensive and safe way to discard the remains of animals used in experiments....

So most of him went into the sewer system?! 

"A Chinese court has suggested that infidelity is insufficient reason for divorce, prompting heated debate across the country...."

"'The latest attitude on divorce by the law is to prevent frivolous dissolutions,' read the article, which was later removed after public backlash. China is fighting a rising divorce rate through state counselling and forcing couples who want to split into a one-month 'cooling off' period.... The topic drew 980 million views in 48 hours on Weibo, China’s leading social media platform...."

The London Times reports.

Joe Rogan fighting censorship.

At The Post Millennial: "BREAKING: Joe Rogan joins GETTR as Twitter censorship intensifies/As Twitter continues to ban users from its platform, podcast superstar Joe Rogan announced on Sunday that he has set up a GETTR account." 

Go here to follow Rogan on Gettr, where he already has 8.7 million followers. 

Over at Instagram, Joe Rogan put this up at 22 hours ago — a clip from an old podcast, with Jordan Peterson, who says what Rogan, I presume, means to say now:

 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Joe Rogan (@joerogan)

"34% of voters say the Republican Party is headed in the right direction, up 10 points from immediately after Jan. 6 and slightly higher than before the attack on the Capitol."

"68% percent of Democrats say Jan. 6 had a 'major impact' on their worldview, but only 35% of independents and 24% of Republicans agree. 59% of voters said Trump is at least somewhat responsible for the events that led to a group of people attacking the Capitol, and 47% say the same of Republicans in Congress. Both figures are down slightly from immediately after the attack.... Since July, the share of voters who say they approve of the select committee has fallen 7 points to 46 percent, fueled by declining support among Democrats, independents and Republicans, all of whom have become more likely to express uncertainty about an investigation that has often failed to capture their attention on a large scale... Overall, the trends signal a weariness verging on disinterest in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack one year later...."

From "A Year From Jan. 6, More Voters See the GOP Headed in the Right Direction/Share of voters who said the Republican Party is going in the right direction" (Morning Consult).