Saturday, September 6, 2008

Saturday Evening

Senator James Inhofe from Oklahoma said some things the other day that were interpreted as questioning Barack Obama's patriotism. He basically said Obama would lose because Americans would decide he didn't love his country enough. This morning, Inhofe's office issued a statement that included the following...

[I am not] questioning Sen. Obama's patriotism, but you have to question why at times he seems so obviously opposed to public displays of patriotism and national pride, like wearing an American flag lapel pin.

I don't think wearing a flag pin or not says anything about a person's patriotism or lack thereof. But I can't help pointing out that in their respective acceptance speeches, Obama wore a flag pin and McCain did not.

I am not questioning Sen. Inhofe's sanity, but you have to question why at times he seems so obviously opposed to public displays of sanity.

• Posted at 10:50 PM · LINK

Happy Sergio Day! (What's Left Of It)

Did I mention today is Sergio's birthday? Today is Sergio's birthday. That's Sergio at left in the above photo, posing with master comic book editor-artist Dick Giordano.

I took this picture right outside the Dealers Room at the 2002 Mid-Ohio Con in Columbus, Ohio. About three minutes after it was snapped, the sounds of a fire alarm began to ring out. Security guards swept through the area and herded us all outside...which might not have been too bad except that everyone was in t-shirts and other lightweight wear and it was snowing outside. Sergio and Dick stood out there in the Winter Wonderland in their shirt sleeves, signing autographs for their fans until the alarm ended.

Anyway, happy birthday to Sergio Aragonés, my friend and collaborator for more years than either of us would like to admit. May he have just as many more and may they be even better.

• Posted at 8:47 PM · LINK

Saturday Morning

Several people have e-mailed me lists of books that Sarah Palin supposedly tried to ban as governor of Alaska. I'm pretty sure this list is bogus; that it's just a list of the books that are most often suppressed and that it doesn't relate to any specific actions by Ms. Palin.

Several other people have e-mailed me their own explanations of The Monty Hall Problem, including a few who profess to be mathematicians and think I'm wrong. Most correspondents, including others who profess to be mathematicians and two I know are, understand and know I'm right.

One person who professes to be a mathematician wrote to argue my solution and to send me that list of books Sarah Palin allegedly wanted to ban. He's wrong both times.

I may not post a lot more about Governor Palin because so many other websites are doing a fine job of shredding the fibs that she opposed earmarks, that she opposed The Bridge to Nowhere, that she sold the state's private jet on eBay for a profit, that there's nothing to the ethics investigations, etc. Even a few members of this Liberal Media we hear so much about are starting to expose this stuff.

But I know I've reached the outer regions of my interest in The Monty Hall Problem. Thank you all for writing but if I don't stop discussing it now, I never will.

• Posted at 11:33 AM · LINK

Hollywood Labor News

The Screen Actors Guild has sent out a mailing to all its members updating them on the negotiations (or lack thereof) and including a response postcard. SAG is not taking a formal vote for a strike authorization. Instead, the postcard is a non-binding, informal poll to see how the membership feels about their union continuing to try and negotiate the kind of contract it seeks.

There seem to be a couple of small controversies over this postcard. Some are arguing that it's a bad idea to do this instead of a formal, binding acceptance or rejection of the studios' last offer. Others are complaining about the fact that the postcards contain a bar code which could enable the tabulators to identify voters by name, thereby eliminating the expected "secret ballot" provisions of union voting. SAG leaders insist the accounting firm won't link names to votes; that the bar code is just there to validate that the card came from a real, eligible voting member. They also want to compile some sort of demographic breakdown to determine how different kinds of actors are voting.

You can download a copy of this mailing as a PDF from this link. There's a good chart in there which explains what the studios are offering and what the union is proposing.

In other news, the Writers Guild is complaining that the studios are not living up to some terms of its most recent contract with the union. This is about as surprising as John McCain mentioning he was a P.O.W.

In way too many deals — labor contracts or otherwise — there are three stages of negotiation. In the First Negotiation, the one that ostensibly settles things, one party agrees to pay an extra dollar. After things are allegedly settled, you have the Second Negotiation, which is where the terms are committed more formally to paper. This is when they try to argue that they didn't really agree to just pay an extra dollar; that it was understood that they'd only pay the extra dollar whenever Halley's Comet was passing the Earth.

The other party says, "That's not what we agreed to" and there are fights and threats and pretty soon everyone gets on the same page with what was agreed upon and airtight paperwork is signed. That's when they segue to the Third Negotiation. In this one, they don't pay the extra dollar because they're figured out a way to argue the meaning of the airtight paperwork; to say, "Yes, well, it doesn't say in there that we can't pay the extra dollar in Monopoly® money." We are now into the Third Negotiation.

One of the reasons the recent Writers Strike lasted as long as it did was because WGA leaders were especially insistent on nailing down the terms of the First Negotiation. They demanded an unprecedented level of detail committed to paper before they'd put the offer to the membership and the members could vote to end the strike. Still, no matter how specific you make an agreement, there seems to always be some attorney who thinks, "Hey, I can get around that." It's one of the reasons that so many people rank lawyers way down the genetic chart, down with primordial ooze, various forms of fungus, and telephone solicitors.

• Posted at 10:25 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Here's a little less than four minutes of Henny Youngman being Henny Youngman. I said everything I had to say about Henny Youngman in this article so if you want to hear of my occasional encounters with The King of the One-Liners, read that.

• Posted at 1:30 AM · LINK

September 5, 2008 • Current • September 7, 2008