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Should they make a movie of the Mass Effect video games? 

No. As that pro-Mass Effect movie article says: “The relationships Shepard (and in turn, us) forms with his crew take on the audience-friendly tone that defines the best men-on-a-mission movies.”

The only thing I’d change with that assessment is that the tone is better  than the best such movies. We feel more involved in Mass Effect (especially ME 2) than in a movie because we’re doing things. We’re making the tough choices, and deciding which characters are friend or foe. And while you could boil a 20+ hour game down to a two-hour movie, the sidequests are part of what gives RPG’s their depth and richness.Mass Effect isn’t even the best video game when it comes to this, (Try Knights of the Old Republic I & especially II) but it’s better than the movies could be. 

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According to CNN, the Tea-Party-supported principles include:

  • Fiscal Responsibility.
  • Lower Taxes
  • States’ rights
  • National Security.

My opinion is that anyone who tries will find it very difficult to achieve principles #1 and #2 at the same time. The Laffer curve is not that powerful, if it even exists at all. And “National Security” is so far better under Obama than it was under either Clinton or George W. Bush after their first years. So I’m not sure what their movement would really do if given power. Even supposing that tax cut multipliers are much larger than economists think, they cannot balance the budget based solely on that.

As near as I can tell, the optimal strategy according to this movement would be “militaristic Keynesianism,” which would mean cutting taxes, and increasing government spending by vastly increasing expenditures on the military (to further National Security) while making cuts elsewhere. The resulting stimulus from these increased outlays would hopefully get the economy back to full employment, at which point the military spending would be curtailed as well, and the increased wealth produced by the hopefully-booming economy would allow for deficit reduction. (I can’t figure how states’ rights is involved. I suspect it’s a euphemism for overturning Roe v. Wade.)

 That’s the ideal scenario for the Tea-Party. Frankly, however, I really doubt whether the deficit can ever be eliminated altogether by this method.  I think that, at any time, they can have at most 3 of the 4 principles adhered to. 

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As you are all aware, Tim Tebow is in an anti-abortion ad that is set to air during the Super Bowl. This has sparked a vigorous debate over whether he has the right to be in this ad, or whether CBS should air ads with political messages at all, or if they should air other ones to be fair. Which debate you ought to have depends on who you talk to. 

It’s funny how people argue over things like “principles” and “rights”. I suspect both sides don’t give a damn about such abstract concepts except as they relate to helping them win the debate. Conservatives wouldn’t defend a pro-choice commercial on the grounds of “Free Speech”, and liberals wouldn’t oppose it on the grounds of “Bias”.

I don’t think the strategists for either side have principles–they just want to win. Framing the debate based on “principles” and “rights” is fine and dandy. But the important thing, to the people running the show, is who wins. 

 

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…and yet it’s the highest grossing film of all time. James Cameron is apparently some sort of genius at promoting stuff. I have to say it is a remarkably lame movie, yet somehow he has convinced everyone to go see the thing. He ought to be a marketer, not a filmmaker. 

As I write this, I see Avatar ranks #41 on the IMDb Top 250 movies list. This is insane. It’s one spot ahead of Lawrence of Arabia? Two spots ahead of Terminator 2, which Cameron made before he forgot everything he knew about movie making?

Madness. Madness. (It’s undeservedly ahead of that movie, too.) 

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Republicans are already saying that Coakley’s inevitable loss to Brown is a referendum on Obama’s policies. Democrats are saying that she was just a lousy candidate, and Obama’s and the DNC’s policies have nothing to with it.

Based on the charisma theory, I’d have to say the Democrats are right. But there is a problem here: if charisma is so important, how is it that Coakley got the nomination in the first place? As we have seen, she defeated an apparently more charismatic opponent. How can this be reconciled with the theory?

First of all, it must be made clear that Capuano isn’t much more charismatic than Coakley is. If he had Obama-level charisma, this would be a different story.  Second of all, I speculate that charisma becomes a bigger factor the more important an election is perceived to be. In primaries, for a seat that is considered won by X party candidate by default, it matters less, because people don’t even care enough to really investigate the candidates even enough to find out who has charisma. At that level, it’s the close–almost personal–supporters of Martha Coakley and Michael Capuano, not their party or really even any ideology.

Once a campaign takes on an aura of extreme importance, it changes things. Epic struggles and charismatic people complement each other beautifully. If Barack Obama had lent all his personal charisma to the cause of arguing eloquently for, say, fixing potholes in Chicago, it’d be comical. That’s why, as the book Game Change documents, so many Democrats wanted him to run for President. I speculate that charisma doesn’t just help a person get involved in great events, it almost demands them to.

Oddly, however, you can’t lend your charisma to someone else by means of an endorsement. Obama’s campaigning for Creigh Deeds is proof of this. Having someone charismatic testify on your behalf just… doesn’t seem to work. I don’t know why. All sending Obama to help Coakley does, I think, is demonstrate how important the election is.

And that plays right into Brown’s hands.

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No doubt everyone will be upset over this, (I am) but it ought to be remembered that the U.S. must get a huge number of warnings like this. And besides, who knows how many terrorists we arrest without anyone in the press ever finding out about their existence.

As someone once said: “In counter-terrorism, we rarely hear or remember the success stories, only their failures.”