Bruno Review

I've been to see Bruno twice now and I'm still conflicted about the movie. Yes, it's funny. It is gross and offensive to the point of absurdity but it's funny. The problem is that the humour comes not from the acted parts (which are largely forgettable) but from Bruno's encounters with real individuals who are duped into making fools of themselves.

Take for example, the karate instructor who is asked to provide tips on how to avoid being attacked by a gay man. The instructor is a redneck. He probably never met a gay man in his life. He certainly doesn't seem to recognise the homosexual aspects of the Bruno character, remarking that like terrorists, they can look just like you or me. The man is asked questions he is not prepared for on camera and he makes a fool of himself. It's hilarious. You will laugh, but I certainly felt a little sorry for the instructor. He's weirdly innocent and can't seem to recognise that perhaps the flamboyant interviewer wielding dildos might not be on the level.

The strengths and weaknesses of the film are highlighted in the scenes starring Paula Abdul. Now I hate shows like American Idol. Abdul has made a career from a show that profits because deluded individuals are willing to make fools of themselves on television. People have a right to make bad decisions, but American Idol encourages them to do so, and in many cases the individuals the show mocks are borderline mentally deficient. Bruno fools Abdul into sitting on a half-naked Mexican in order to be interviewed about her humanitarian work.

The sight of a rich, plastic Paula protesting her humanitarian virtues while using a poor man as a prop is one that will stay with me forever. No image could say more about reality television show presenters. Yet, Sacha Baron Cohen is no less guilty of exploiting the deluded, the greedy and the poor than Paula Abdul.

Interestingly, a similar scene starring Latoya Jackson was cut from the movie because of the death of Michael Jackson. It seems that Cohen was willing to compromise his 'artistic' vision under those circumstances, yet you have to wonder whether he would have been so gracious had it not been a celebrity.

As ever, there's one rule for the rich and one for the poor.

Ever thought about paying for a college essay?

I wasn't the most organised of individuals during my college days. I'd often find myself scrambling to finish an essay the day before a deadline. In those situations, my first stop would usually be websites like Sparknotes or Wikipedia. I never failed to make make my deadlines, but when time was running short, one option that tempted me was to click on one of those flashing "Free College Essay" ads that tend to cover half the screen on websites offering notes on academic subjects. While I never caved to the temptation, I had remained curious about the quality of such essays until recently. Now that's changed. I got my hands on a collection of these essays. I think I made the right decision in keeping my credit card in my wallet, but I'll let readers judge for themselves.

The entire contents of an essay on S&M:

BDSM stands for Bondage Discipline Sadism and Masochism. Most regard this as a perverted form of sexuality limited only to gays who they also regard as perverted.
This is far from the case, as even the great marquis de Sade was into this sort of play, and was clearly straight.

Whereas there are more problems involved in BDSM than in Vanilla sex, the form of sexuality called BDSM is also much more a form requiring thrust.

In a typical scenario, one person in this case i will call the person he, is a dom. The other (she) is a sub. He will begin by telling she that she must kneel and present herself. He will then often collar she, tie she up, and then proceed to spank she torture she and even force sex on she.

She wants this however and is thrilled to be so treated. She also has a safeword which when said will stop all action. There is a lot of trust needed between he and she before this action even begins but once begun it is indeed the most erotic sexuality ever encountered.

Many will say that BDSM stems form a desire to abuse or to rape. Neithger of these are usually true. The need is for control or to be controlled and that is what is found in BDSM. Although the horror stories are the ones which are often shown in the news, in fact
the successes in BDSM are far greater. In short BDSM is normal, and is worthwhile as well. Try it you might like it.

Would I have got a good grade for telling my professor to try BDSM?

Probably not.

A breath-taking insight into the gun control debate in the US:

Gun lobbyists and anti-gun lobbyists have opposite opinions on gun control. Even though gun control is a touchy situation, many people believe there should be more restrictions while others oppose the idea. Many people do not understand why they have to suffer for the actions of others. Gun control is a two sided issue and the outcome will show one winner and one loser.

In case you're wondering, that was the concluding paragraph of the essay and was probably more informative than the previous three pages.


Somebody wrote the following:

Ninety-four percent of the religion in Ireland is of the Roman Catholic type. The rest of them are mainly Angelican with a few Methodists mixed in with the rest. In the southeast, Angeligans make up 10% of the population.

The government was self-achieved among the Anglo-Irish Protestant Ascendancy in the late 18th Century. In 1921, the independent state of Ireland was established after a long struggle that created the Irish Free State.

This has summed up most of the things about Ireland and hopefully you know a little more about the country. It is similar to the United States in the fact that it has four season, but it is different in ways such as the country is on an island in Europe and instead of being a nation built up a few states at a time, it once was bigger until a chunk of it, being Northern Ireland, broke free into its own country.

Nice to see that Ian-o is finding time to sort out the US education system now that he's semi-retired.

A patriotic individual explains why drugs should not be legalised:

Drugs lead to violence and crime that has been established , legalization will not stop this no matter what anybody argues drugs are dangerous, to those who use them as well as those who do not but are around users. Legalization will not prevent the chemicals and physiological responses of the body some of which take people totally out of reality and also sometimes kill. The issue on crime is split people say the crime would go down because the price of drugs would go down , maybe this is true but it is very unlikely. As people become addicted they need more and more, what happens when the money runs out? People are going to do whatever it takes to obtain their "fix" which includes stealing , robbing , and burglarization possibly even murder, anything to get their drugs.

My feeling on this subject is that of total disagreement with the legalization of drugs. People only want the legalization for the profit end of the industry , which is the only appealing side of the drug trade, but it is not appealing enough to sacrifice my children's future for money. The drug war can be won with the right policies, but legalization is not the answer. We need to save this country, it is the best country in the world, so why destroy it.

A black kid who listened to far too much talk radio writes on the subject of African-Americans' over-representation in the US prison system:

Blacks must prove that they are worth something to White society beyond the economic niche they help fill in prison. Blacks must prove that they are a benefit which Whites cannot do without. Once We have established ourselves as benefactors then We can begin to break down the walls of institutional racism, stop the digression of our communities, and truly advance.

The collection even includes a previously lost work of one Albert Einstein. It seems Al was feeling a little guilty when he wrote this:

Probably the most noticable invention to come from my work was born
from necessity. During World War II, it was believed here in the United
States that Nazi Germany was attempting to create an atomic bomb. As a
result of this believed, and startlingly real, threat the U.S. put forth a major effort at construction of an atomic bomb. Even though I myself had no part in the actual creation of the bomb, many of my theories where used.

This invention that came from my ideas does not help society in any
way, but it does hinder it considerably. Because of my invention we live in a world that may cease to exist at the touch of a button by a power hungry dictator. My invention is one of the most serious threats to existance of mankind in today's world.

As you can see, the quality is clearly astoundingly. The collection I received has over 12,000 papers, most of which are similar in terms of quality to the above. If I find any more amazing insights or long lost confessions of dead physicists, I'll share them straight away.

When is a secret ballot, not a secret ballot?

Sarah Carey has written a piece for the IT regarding the way the tally system works in many Irish constituencies. She writes:

No one minds a dozen or so votes going astray. People are entitled to vote for whomever they want of course, but 42 is not free will – it’s a conspiracy. Forty two acts of betrayal which allowed a running mate to get too far ahead and put the weaker candidate at risk. In rural constituencies, the questions start when the count ends.

This week, the electoral register from the personation agent will be pored over and armed with evidence of those who voted, known allegiances and the numbers from the tally, it won’t take long to identify the guilty parties who voted the wrong way.

This is the genius and the horror of a good tally. The secret ballot loses a considerable degree of secrecy. As always the innocent have nothing to fear. Only those who told barefaced lies need worry and justice comes in the form of mere intergenerational suspicion and mistrust.

While not exactly news, the system Carey describes is quite clearly a broken one. For local elections, votes are clearly not secret. Sarah comes from a political family so one can see why she describes the state of things in such a 'matter of fact' manner, but it is disturbing that anybody of any background could describe such a system without reacting with some degree of outrage.

Bye-Bye Chairman Ganley

I was saddened to see that Declan Ganley looks set to fail in his attempt to become an MEP for the North-West constituency. Ganley, the leader of the new European super-party Libertas, was said to be "quietly confident" as the counting began, but this confidence seems to have been misplaced, unlike a wheelie-bin that never was.

The next few days will be rather awkward for the honourable Chairman. He is sure to face questions regarding whether or not he plans to honour his promise to step down from the leadership of the anti-Lisbon campaign if he were to fail in his election attempt. He also now finds himself without a justification for opposing the second referendum. Ganley has publicly stated that the reason he supported a second running of the Nice treaty was because there was an election campaign between the two votes, and those parties that had promised a second vote had been given public backing. Seeing as Libertas seem to have failed to gain a single seat, and the largest parties are all in favour of the running of the vote, he cannot oppose a second referendum without contradicting himself.

Mind, it's not as though that'd be a first for Declan and his Libertas brethern.

Update: According to RTE, Ganley has announced that he is to quit politics and it remains to be seen if Libertas will be involved in the upcoming Lisbon II campaign. Was I too cynical after all?

RTE's exit poll & class

RTE have released their exit poll. The report I linked to includes an explanation of the poll's design. I found the following pretty interesting:

In the event of refusal at contact, the interviewer noted sex, approximate age and social class, and sought to replace that person at the first available opportunity with a person sharing similar demographic characteristics.

So age and sex are easily identifiable, but social class . . .

I'd love to know what instructions the interviewers were given regarding how they should identify individuals' social class. It pretty amusing that the good people at Lansdowne can include such a sentence in their report without any sense of embarrassment.

At Last! Libertas reveal a policy

Things could be looking better for Libertas. Thanks to their selection of anti-semetic candidates in Poland, they find themselves the target of Nazi-hunters and more and more people find themselves wondering just what exactly Libertas' vision of Europe entails.

While I can't speak as to whether or not Jew-hating is an official Libertas policy, I can tell you all that Libertas are in favour of the censorship of comments or questions that could lead to difficulties for the Chairman and his minions.

Last week, Fianna Fail attacked Ganley for giving three different answers to the same question on different occasions. Ganley claims to have created between zero and two hundred jobs through Libertas. This annoyed Libertas, who reacted with this blog entry attacking Fianna Fail for their poor management of the economy.

The Libertas response was all heat and no light. So I attempted to post a comment requesting a clarification in relation to the number of jobs Ganley had created and a link to somewhere I could read about a specific Libertas policy on any subject. A few days later, there was no sign of the comment to appear. Knowing that Declan is a fan of transparency and open debate, I was shocked that his moderator had prevented the questions from being raised, let alone answered. I began to think there was some mistake. Perhaps the moderator was simply too busy campaigning for Declan.

Putting on my spy cap and raincoat, I came up with an amazingly complicated and cunning plan to see if I could figure out Libertas' policy on moderation. Operating under the cleverly chosen pseudonym of 'Mark' I left a message using a false email address offering support to Chairman Ganley. It appeared on the blog within a couple of hours.

It seems that Libertas' vision for Europe is one in which you don't question the Chairman. When they can, his minions will censor you.

Viva la revolution de Libertas!

Denis Naughten and the prostitutes

The Irish Times are carrying an article about Fine Gael's Denis Naughten's warnings about prostitution. An interesting snipet:

The TD said there was a close connection between brothel-keeping and criminal activities, and claimed the Continuity IRA was involved in the prostitution industry.

Perhaps somebody should inform Denis that brothel-keeping is a criminal activity. Saying that there is a connection between brothel-keeping and criminal activity is a bit like saying there's a link between drug-dealing and criminal activity. What else would you expect when you criminalise brothel-keeping?