Trust Wikipedians to Remember the Heroes

Today, I read about the importance of morale versus experience or expertise on the Wikipedia internal mailing list.

It was a memorial that nobody wants a historian that's spent 20 years studying history and archeaology digs, or a doctor that's spent 6 years studying chemistry and biology and 4 in practice. We'd much prefer a kid tell us what 4 out of 5 unnamed dentists recommend on a commercial site for a large corporation selling pharmaceuticals and spending money on motivational speakers to keep employee morale high.

As Stephen Colbert said in an interview with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales:
"What I love about it is that it brings democracy to information. For too long, the elites that study things got to say what is or isn't real." - The Colbert Report, 2007.05.24

That's why it's far better to keep guys like Wolfie happy and doing a heckuva job than like cut-and-run Japanese government officials hanging themselves over a little $236,000 bookkeeping "fraud". Just ask Paul Wolfowitz. He'll tell you the $400,000 he received to step down as the World Bank president kept his morale and terrorist fighting productivity high.

Halliburton featured in Doonesbury

Finally, this Garry Trudeau guy of Doonesbury is coming around. Halliburton just doesn't receive enough recognition for it's support of the troops. The Sunday Doonesbury from May 13 features Halliburton's excellent food service, keeping the troops sharp.

Movie of the year Update

I changed my mind, and my nose. Perfume - Story of a Murderer was easily the best film of at least the last 2 years, not just 2006. How the Academy can ignore a film that features the fine art of sniffing is beyond me.

Movie Pig

On this Oscar night when Little Miss Sunshine should be the obvious pick since Blood Diamonds, Idiocracy, and Clerks 2 didn't get nominated, I will be ranking a couple sites that claim to know your tastes as as well or better than you.

Despite the the pretty piggy interface, MoviePig.com is not quite as smart as a pig. You'll probably need to rank over 100 films before it has a clue. Despite it's claims to be able to accurately judge your taste, it is consistently way off even after entering more than 50 films, even after I entered 90 picks.

I decided to give it a try after reading a couple glowing reviews in shill-trusted resources, like news columnists of large, corporate-owned newspapers and TV that show teens the best sites on the Internets. Teens always get shown the best stuff.

I logged on as PigTester http://www.moviepig.com/pwp/PIGTESTER.html (you can see what I ranked) and started ranking.

After a while, I started testing it, dropping films I'd actually already seen to see if its software actually predicts how I'd rank it. It was consistently wrong, even after ranking films it requested I rank so it could make a better prediction (it does this after every rank request even after 90 picks, so I think it's actually part of some target marketing scam).

One of the biggest and most obvious failures came after I ranked about 50. I ranked the Illusionist, then a couple more. Then dropped in Prestige. Except for the film studio shills who would argue over which is the best simply to get you to see both, they are in fact very similar films, and both worth watching (and I say this despite not receiving an upfront shill fee). Yet the little piggy failed to go to town, even asking me for to rank some more before predicting, and then still failing.

Equally horrendous is it's incompleteness, lacking greats like The Truman Show, Blade Runner, Alien, A Clockwork Orange, Misery, Deliverance, Midnight Express, or Fight Club. They appear to be limited to the last five years. Unacceptable when the Internet, cable, and film rentals give anyone a far more expansive personal history to better judge their own tastes.

I'm predicting the moviepig is in fact just a nice front site to get people to watch recent films they wouldn't bother watching otherwise and to advertise more stuff to them.

It's hard to criticize a site like that. Even after 90 picks, the 91st was pretty much recommending raw hindquarters (mmmm, yummy) to a vegetarian.

I tried out criticker afterwards. While it lacks the pretty piggy interface, it guesses better, provides nearly as many films as IMDB, and the ability to easily see what actual critics tend to have a similar taste as you. You also get to read summaries of their reviews. The major drawback is the speed. The site even freezes at times. But you don't have to enter 100 films before it starts making useful predictions. You do need to enter in hated and OK films along with your favorites in order for it to work. Unfortunately, if you've seen a lot like me, its predictions get worse as your number and complexity increases.

Which brings us to this years Oscars. Its users actually like departed the best of the list. Apparently having Scorsese and Nicholson on the same film get you lots of brownie points, because it really doesn't deserve an Oscar nomination. Of those picked, Babel, Letters from Iwo Jima, and Queen all are solid films that deserve their nomination. Little Miss Sunshine is easily the best, but I'd be surprised if it gets the pick.

Why We Need Corporations

This is why we need corporations. While free people are out wasting money, hard working corporations like Exxon are making money.

• 2006 personal savings drop to 74-yr. low
• Exxon Mobil posts record annual profit

Death to the Polar Bears

If a polar ice shelf breaks off then melts and nobody notices, will it still cause global warming?
Ancient Ice Shelf Breaks Free from Canadian Arctic

More Troops, More Deaths, More Money

I could say I told you so (see below) but instead I'll use Stephen Colbert's elegant phrase:
I called it!

• Bush adding 21,500 trOOPS to Iraq force
• Troop boost wILL mean longer tours
• December deadLiest mOnTh of year for U.S. troops
• Iraq admits 23,000 civilians DIED in 2006

On top of that, the troop addition article says it is "to quell its near-anarchy." If that's the case, we liberated Iraq as promised and have already won the war. What are people complaining about? Saddam Hussein is dead and we're nice enough to stick around and help them police the country, rebuild, and bury the dead.

Still on Course

Plenty of digging work to do still:

• 75 more bodies found in Iraq
  

No need to worry about the election results. Still business as usual. I wouldn't consider selling Halliburton stock until January when the Democrats actually control congress. Even then, Bush is still President, Cheney is still Vice President, and they can still veto. The Democrats don't have enough control to override a veto.

Senator George Allen is a Shill too

Let's take a moment to welcome Senator Allen of Virginia to the shill world.

He still has to work on some of his shill skills. The best shills get paid up front or under the table instead of in options. Granted, in options, the better job you do shilling, the more money you make. It's also still difficult legally to call it a bribe. It takes advantage of general ignorance of stock options. It worked for Cheney.

You can read about it in:

• Washington Post
• Forbes
• Virginian-Pilot
• Search results via Google news

Fox News, the Washington Times, and other Republican PR tools are doing their best to keep it quiet and the news focused on other distractions, like Foley. Good job!

He's been promoting corporations he worked for to the military and for other government contracts for the last five years. Like the great Dick Cheney, he accepted options as payment. He'll also probably end up having to "donate" the money to his favorite "charities". Charities pay too. Great way to lock in a job if your political career stalls.

Iraq Contracts - Get'm while they're HOT

• Iraq police find 65 tortured bodies - 9/13/06>
• 50 more tortured bodies found in Baghdad streets - 9/15/06>
• Iraq to Dig Trenches Around Baghdad - 9/15/06>

I think the message is obvious to most, but just in case. That's easy money for our Halliburton divisions. Don't let the Iraqis get the easy contracts. Just because we're not digging oil wells doesn't mean we can't put our digging equipment to use. They'll have to cement those off soon, too, and we have cementing services (ElastiCem™) to offer.

Primary Election Voting Guide

Normally, you can just ignore these elections. I received a letter from one unfortunate mom, however, who lives in Massachusetts. She has to chose between a woman and a macaca for her governor.

According to studies performed by researchers at The Colbert Report, when you live in an east coast, ivy-league state like Massachusetts, you can't behave like a real American. You have to vote in Democratic party primaries.

The easiest way is usually to vote for whoever has the simplest name to pronounce. The harder it is to pronounce, the more likely that it's actually a covert terrorist. If you have extra time, you can also follow the money. The best method is to select the candidate who has received the most money from oil, gun, alcohol, and tobacco companies. The corporations know best.

If all that still results in a tie, go with whoever talks about babies and family the most. The Godless ones try to avoid the subject by talking about health and education.

America Remembers 5.0

Or Never Forget 5.0.

Or as a film, America Remembers 5 - The Zombies Return.

Either way, you'll enjoy this more than listening to President Bush and Republican politicians trying to cash in on terrorism and sadness again. Much, much, much more than listening to yet another coworker's story about what he/she/it was doing on 9/11.

Funny, shocking, and you won't cry unless you think about taxes or gas.

If you find it too small, this is the large screen version. Just use the above link if you want to check out more of his flash animations (complete with sound effects, so office workers adjust your volume).

It includes all our fearless leaders: Vice President Cheney, Iraq War Secretary Rumsfeld, and even the very hot Condi Rice. But for some reason Halliburton is left out. I guarantee you that Halliburton would have a high-rise oil well built on the World Trade Center ground by the end of the month. Just sign the contract.

Today's Word: Front Organization

Brought to you by my friends at Vets for Freedom. You can help fund them through the Vets for Freedom Action Fund.

They are in no way connected with my friends at The Donatelli Group. They may not be an emmy winner, but they'll make sure you don't slip to a nip.