Those who have seen The Matrix Revolutions might want to check out Nefarious Neddie’s take on the ending. Or they might not. One can never tell. (I read it, even though I haven’t even seen Reloaded yet. Not that this means anything.)

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As long as I’m catching up on all things Mickey, he directs my attention to a BBC list of the worst films ever. I confess that I find it curiously refreshing to see such a list that does not include either The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones — maybe the tide is turning on those two films! — but still, I just don’t get the continual backlash against Titanic.

The film’s overall story arc is masterfully done; I love the way the mechanics of the sinking are explained right at the beginning of the movie, so that when we get to that point in the flashback, two hours later, we know exactly what’s happening the whole way. The effects are wonderful, the pacing is good, and really, the love story isn’t that bad — unoriginal and clunky at times, yes, but it’s not bad. Plus, given that Titanic is the most wildly successful film ever, doesn’t its placement on a list like this imply that the masses who propelled it to that status (and let’s not pretend it attained that status solely on the backs of preteen girls in need of a Leonardo DiCaprio fix) are a bunch of dolts?

I don’t have any comment on the other films on the list, the ones of which I have seen I readily admit really are bad. I do note, however, that to this day I find Highlander actually worse than its sequel, merely because I saw the first one expecting a good movie, a state of affairs that did not exist when I saw the second one.

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Every so often I’ll spontaneously realize that I’ve completely forgotten about someone on my blogroll, and I’ll immediately visit and catch up on all the good stuff there. Case in point: the Short Fat Guy. Anyway, check him out — especially his spoiling of the very last shot of The Matrix Revolutions. I guess the small number of people in the theaters who scratch their heads and say, “I don’t get it”, are Mac users.

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A short while ago, some intrepid person named “Joy” left the one-thousandth comment on this blog. For this high honor, Joy receives…well, nothing. I just thought it was cool. (No, I’m not the one counting. The YACCS control panel has a counter on it.)

The lucky comment was an addition to — what else? — the “Luddite” thread, occasioned by this post, and can be read directly here. Incidentally, that comment thread is without question the most substantive comment thread ever achieved here; usually when my comment threads go beyond six or seven comments, it’s because Nefarious Neddie and I have fallen headlong into banter.

BTW, Sheila, I now count two people who (a) disagreed with your position, but (b) were sufficiently impressed with you that they plan to buy your books! How cool is that?

(Oh, and I’m sure that Darth Swank will be thrilled to know that he would have left the one-thousandth comment, as opposed to the 1001st, had he been just a bit quicker on the draw. Better luck next time!)

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The Voyager One spacecraft.

As Darth Swank notes, the spacecraft Voyager One is either leaving the Solar System or is about to do so. The border of the Solar System is generally defined as where the outgoing particles emitted by the Sun are no longer detectable and particles emitted by other stars take over. This border, called the “Heliopause”, is roughly where Voyager One is now, although there is scientific disagreement as to whether the ship is actually at the heliopause or is merely approaching it. Anyway, Voyager will soon be in true interstellar space. The trajectories of both Voyager ships can be seen at this site

(And we don’t need to worry about Voyager returning after being found by some aliens who can’t be bothered to scrub off the name plate all the way. That fate is reserved for Voyager Six, not Voyager One. Also, rumors that Voyager Two discovered Iraqi WMDs stashed in solar orbit high above the plane of the ecliptic are completely unfounded.)

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The other day I found a really good classical music review site: ClassicsToday.com. Check it out. It has an immense selection of reviews, and the search function is terrific: drop down menus that let you search not just by composer but also by genre and record label, so that if you wanted to, you could search for every review they’ve done of a Mozart opera recorded on the Deutsche Gramophon label. Very cool.

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Canada rules!

Why, you ask? Well, a bummer of late hereabouts is that since my family doesn’t bother getting cable — and we don’t really miss it — I can’t watch The Daily Show, which is on Comedy Central. Oh well, we thought: the few things we would want to watch on cable, Jon Stewart’s show being one of them, aren’t enough to justify that expense.

BUT, living in Buffalo has as one of its perks the fact that we can receive a few Canadian broadcast stations. (We couldn’t get these stations where we used to live in Buffalo, because our current apartment complex has wall-jacks that are connected to nice, big antennas somewhere, whereas in our previous Buffalo residence we used a set of rabbit-ear antennae.) And, one of those stations carries The Daily Show at midnight!

So, when I destroy the world, I may just spare Canada. Maybe. I’m undecided about Saskatchewan.

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Kevin Drum has a pretty interesting example today of the press’s increasing desire to avoid controversy not just by ignoring one side of an issue, but also by pretending that more division exists on a given issue than actually does. The issue at question is evolution, which is again in the news as the Texas School Board gets ready to pick textbooks or whatever it is they do. (This is an issue of national import because textbook publishers don’t want to spend extra money to have one set of books for Texas and another for the rest of the country, so whatever Texas wants in its books, the rest of us get.)

The article Kevin links presents a profile of a “scientist by trade” who works in academia and, being an Evangelical Christian, disbelieves evolution — the result being to create the impression that there is considerable controversy over evolution in scientific circles to this day. But then, Kevin points out the things the article’s profile leaves out: that none of the guy’s professional credentials involve biology, he doesn’t actually have a degree in science at all, he’s worked for Creationist organizations, and so forth.

The press likes to do this kind of thing: insist on covering both sides of issues that are actually pretty-close to one-sided. In this case, the scientific community is very much not divided on evolution, as this study (which I saw the other day via Pharyngula) demonstrates: In the United States, where Creationism is strongest by far, less than five percent of scientists in all disciplines disbelieve evolution. And when you actually look at the specific sciences relevant to evolutionary theory, that percentage drops to less than .15 %.

Say what you want about evolution versus Creationism, the simple fact is that a vanishingly tiny minority of scientists believe in it. It would be nice if the media would stop acting like this is a controversy in scientific circles, because it isn’t.

(Dominion has more on the whole Texas textbook business.)

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For reasons passing understanding, I spent some time noodling about right-wing and militant libertarian sites today (beyond the couple that I normally follow), and man, if the things I’ve read pan out, the Democrats are screwed. I mean, we have no chance in 2004 anyway, but now in the course of fighting the good fight we’re likely to be just plain bad Americans. The end result of all this, of course, is that Democrats will go the way of the Whig party, resulting in apparently a big Republican party and a few other smaller parties (this from a guy who, although unenthused at the prospect of emboldened Republicans, thinks that the key to salvation for the Democrats is to sound like Republicans).

But maybe it’ll all turn out good for the Democrats after all, since we all know women tend to vote Democratic and we’re all turning into women. Or something like that. Boo-yeah!

(Now, I’ve just read the released transcript of the memo, and maybe I’m either dense or naive or just plain dumb here, but the memo specifically says this, about a third of the way through:

In that regard we may have already compiled all the public statements on Iraq made by senior administration officials. We will identify the most exaggerated claims. We will contrast them with the intelligence estimates that have since been declassified.

Perhaps I’m misreading the stuff in the memo that comes afterward, where it refers to “intelligence issues” and whatnot, but the memo seems to imply that any inquiry along these lines will be based on intelligence that is already declassified. So, what’s the big deal here?)

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Michael Lopez put up his list of twenty movies since 1980. He’s got a lot of good picks on there, a couple of which (The Shawshank Redemption, particularly) I’m now kicking myself for forgetting. He also has a few that baffle me (The Usual Suspects, The Thirteenth Warrior), but you can’t have agreement in all things.

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