The fact is, one can like or love District 9 for a host of different reasons.  It’s very politically charged, it does action extremely well, has superb special effects that blend in with the world, and has a great performance by the lead actor.  I want to say that this movie becomes more than the sum of its parts, but I don’t think it does.  Frankly, it doesn’t need to be, considering the sum of its parts is a politically charged, brilliantly staged, shot and acted action movie.  With super cool aliens.  Can one reasonably ask for anything more?

But I’ve heard people call it the best sci-fi movie of the decade.  First of all, no.  It’s not even the best sci-fi movie of the year – I would give that to little-seen Moon, which basically is Sam Rockwell taking acting behind the high school bleachers and making dear, sweet love to it.  In fact, I would probably put Star Trek ahead of District 9 as far as sci-fi, though I think that the latter is a better movie.  To crown a movie the king of the genre should probably require that movie to fulfill the ideals of the genre – in this case, I would say a film that immerses the viewer in another universe that differs from our own through some technological, spatial or temporal means.  District 9 is filled with possibility and is absolutely refreshing in the way it tweaks the present day.  But it really isn’t that immersing, and it shouldn’t be – the film is at its best when it is disorienting the viewer with its difference from how the world is, with that difference still being a believable world.  I do think that District 9 is the best action movie this year.

Because this is a fairly late review for this movie, as I am but a lowly blogger with no media credentials for an early screening (and a mild case of writer’s block), I’ll go easy on the plot summary.  By now, either you’ve seen the movie and are reading this review out of the goodness of your heart (bless you) or you’re going to be late seeing the movie and are tired of everyone spoiling it for you.  It’s a chase movie – a total dickhead screws something up with the aliens he’s working with, and it makes him the most valuable thing on the planet.  He becomes the key for the future of the conflict between humans and aliens (whose only name beyond “aliens” is the quasi-racist term “prawn”), except he’s still a little jerkface.  When he sees what he is and what it means for him, he freaks out and just tries to find a way out of his problem.  And if it means dicking over random people and aliens, then so be it.

And I have to applaud the filmmakers on that point.  So many movies subscribe to the cliché of an unlikable hero or an antihero becoming a good guy when the action ramps up, ostensibly because the world around him has effected a change in his personality.  Life doesn’t really work like that.  Unless it’s an enormous revelation, an asshole’s going to be an asshole.  In District 9, the dickhead, named Wikus van der Merwe and played by Sharlto Copley, even has a couple huge potential revelations like that, but for almost 100% of the movie, when he’s faced with a choice between playing for himself and being a team guy, he chooses the former.  I think that’s a credit to the movie.

Sharlto Copley had no professional acting credits before this movie except for a bit part in a movie in 2005.  He has some experience behind the camera in South Africa, but that’s it.  He’s a left-field type of guy in a movie that needed it.  A big name actor could handle the part of van der Merwe and run with it pretty well, but the character’s a faceless, regular guy and the film starts out in a documentary style.  To keep that element of realism consistent, a no-name actor does the job better, as long as he can act.  And Copley hits this role out of the park.

And I won’t say much about the ending, because it really is a great ending if you don’t know what’s going to happen.  Action movies always benefit from a possible conclusion that could go either way, and they do that by setting up a world in which the bad guys can win.  And since the bad guys are a multinational corporation, they have the odds in their favor.  Couple that with the tone of this movie, which parallels South African real-life apartheid with the way the aliens are treated here (except that every human seems to at least be offput by the aliens, if they aren’t filled with hate towards them), and stories like that rarely have a happy ending.  All I’ll say is that I want sequels, and the movie allows for that possibility.

District 9 doesn’t quite deserve the acclaims of “revolutionary” and “rebirth of sci-fi” that I’ve seen thrown around so far by some geek critics, and it certainly doesn’t deserve a ranking of 35 on the IMDb Top 250, but it could well be the best movie you’ll see this summer, and considering the other movies in theaters right now (ahem, G-Force, Shorts, Aliens in the Attic, G.I. Joe, Post Grad, The Time Traveler’s Wife, The Ugly Truth), this shouldn’t have much problem staying in the theater to give you a chance to see it.

—Senator Ted Kennedy, Democratic National Convention, August, 1980.

Senator Ted Kennedy, champion of a liberal movement that has perpetually struggled to find a powerful leader, accomplished legislator, and the last surviving brother of a political dynasty that once seemed destined to lead America to a brighter future, passed away last night at the age of 77 after battling a brain tumor for months.

His legacy remains one defined by both tragedy and triumph, grief and hope.  The youngest of nine siblings, “Uncle Teddy” watched as his brother Joseph was killed during a risky combat mission during World War II; as his brother John ascended to a presidency of limitless potential cut short by assassination; as his brother Robert became a U.S. Senator and undertook a presidential campaign to end the Vietnam War, only to fall before his time.

Politico:  “The youngest member of his generation did not have the cool grace of John F. Kennedy, the dazzling wit, or the easy command of language. He did not have Robert F. Kennedy’s lean, ascetic features or electric sense of purpose. He spent decades in Washington as a contemporary and sometimes painfully mortal figure, rather than one shrouded in history and myth. At the end, his death did not come in a horrible jolt of violence—the only one of patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy’s four sons of which this can be said.”

Senator Kennedy carried the burden of grief for his entire life, outliving his brothers and expected to carry their torch.  He did so admirably, and the United States is a land of opportunity for more people thanks to his efforts.

America turned to Ted Kennedy to fulfill the dreams that his brothers offered America.  Such expectations, to forever chase the shadows of his fallen siblings, would be impossible to fulfill, even for a Kennedy.  Though he never rose to the Oval Office, a post that all but seemed his birthright, Kennedy helped shape every piece of legislation that came through Washington during his forty-year tenure in the Senate.  His contributions to Civil Rights, Health Care, Education, and Immigration are far too many to list, but he was indisputably the most prolific legislator of his generation.

His passing has touched everyone in Washington’s corridors of power, from President Obama to Vice President Biden to Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) to Democratic congressional leadership to millions of Americans who spent their lives looking to a Kennedy to show them the way.

Of course, Senator Kennedy was taken before his time, as well.  The battle of his life, to provide every American citizen with the right to health care coverage, remains tragically incomplete.  The debate will, no doubt, continue to rage, and the Kennedy legacy will certainly be invoked for political gain.  Massachusetts will witness a battle between generations of state politicians who have waited for decades for a chance at a Senate seat.  Democratic leaders will wonder how they can pass health care reform at all without their lion standing beside them.  But these questions should wait for now.  All of us should focus our attention today on the flickering memory of the Kennedy Dynasty, the titanic accomplishments of a true public servant, and better future that he and his brothers showed us is possible.

“We are told that Barack Obama believes too much in an America of high principle and bold endeavor, but when John Kennedy called of going to the moon, he didn’t say it’s too far to get there. We shouldn’t even try.  Our people answered his call and rose to the challenge, and today an American flag still marks the surface of the moon.

Yes, we are all Americans. This is what we do. We reach the moon. We scale the heights. I know it. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it. And we can do it again.  There is a new wave of change all around us, and if we set our compass true, we will reach our destination — not merely victory for our Party, but renewal for our nation.

And this November the torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans, so with Barack Obama and for you and for me, our country will be committed to his cause. The work begins anew. The hope rises again. And the dream lives on.”

—Senator Ted Kennedy, Democratic National Convention, August, 2008

Many mourning admirers today have said that there will never be another public servant like Ted Kennedy.  They are probably right -- a truly inspiring voice of progressive ideals comes around once in a lifetime.  However, for the sake of our nation, I hope they are wrong.  America has relied on the Kennedy family for forty years, and I pray that we can carry on fighting for the causes of justice, equality, and opportunity to which they devoted their lives.

From Deadline Hollywood Daily: The Halcyon Company, producers of Terminator:  Salvation, accused Santa Barbara-based hedge fund Pacificor, LLC and former Pacificor employee Kurt Benjamin of extortion, bribery, and fraud.  Halcyon filed two lawsuits, each of which seek over $30 million in damages.  From this, we can conclude that the Halcyon Company “can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead…” or, at the very least, seriously strapped for cash.

From the New York Times: Under the direction of Maria Aitken, Hitchcock’s 1935 thriller, The 39 Steps, becomes the underdog success story on Broadway as it outlasts every other straight play by combating the recession and numerous cast changes with a healthy dose of nostalgia for minimalist theater.

From Ain’t It Cool News: James Vanderbilt has been hired to write the screenplays for Spiderman 5 and Spiderman 6.  He is set to begin work on these films after he completes the final draft of Spiderman 4:  Where Have All the Villains Gone?

From Variety: Pulitzer-prize winning playwright David Mamet will write, direct, and co-produce Disney’s upcoming film rendition of The Diary of Anne Frank.  Mamet plans to contextualize Frank’s story as a “young girl’s rite of passage.”  We at BOTO are confident that even Disney would be hard-pressed to fabricate a happy ending to this tale.

From the Boston Globe: Harry Potter wins over religious critics, some of whom are looking to make such chronicles as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings “jibe” with religious beliefs in scholarly studies.  We are all for such academic conventions, so long as Dobby, Jar Jar Binks, and Gollum aren’t deified.

From the Los Angeles Times: Reality TV shows do not find a welcoming home at Cartoon Network.  This is surprising, as we remember that “Tom & Jerry” had a successful stint at Fox Reality a while ago.

From Slate: Fahrenheit 451 becomes a comic book.  BOTO endorses burnings of this graphic novel.

Actually, that’s a bit unfair. Hawaii’s been connected to the World Wide Web just as long as the rest of the country—Break Out The Oreos would certainly be considerably barer if yours truly wasn’t able to post anything during during his visits back home. It just seems that the 50th State hasn’t really registered a significant footprint within Internet culture; as far as I know, there hasn’t been a notably popular web page or video or image that people would immediately identify with Hawaii—that is, until now.

Nā Lei Hulu I Ka Wēkiu is a San Francisco-based hula hālau that’s been making waves by staging a series of guerrilla performances called “Hit and Run Hula.” Perhaps taking inspiration from the viral videos of Improv Everywhere, Hit and Run Hula spent this past Saturday converging upon various locations around downtown San Francisco, running through impressively synchronized (and brief) displays of choreography, and then quickly scattering into the surrounding crowds and streets.

Pretty cool, huh? We certainly think so, and we’re appreciative of the increased profile that this will no doubt lend to hula itself, which for a few decades now has been both overcoming popular charicatures of itself and experiencing a revival as an art form. And while it’s a bit disconcerting that the folks behind this virally-geared breakthrough had to come from somewhere other than Hawaii itself, perhaps this is the sort of outside influence that will eventually lead to hula—and perhaps Hawaii’s own distinctive cultural personality as a whole—being better appreciated within the mainstream.

The reasons behind CollegeHumor’s success lie in its ability to play to its market: pandering to teenage and twenty-something males is a no-brainer when it comes to tailoring a product (just ask Michael Bay), but CH takes things to an entirely new level by capitalizing on its own in-depth knowledge of the target demographic. CH’s original videos and articles pound away at every imaginable aspect of college life: sex, alcohol, parties, academics, relationships, video games, Internet culture, pranks, and so on.

CH knows its audience, and it knows what its audience is thinking about—and you can bet that, among all the things that college males think about, politics and social change are not all that high up on the list. Which makes one of their recent comedy sketches—titled “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”—an interesting addition to their catalog of videos.

Sure, the video features a lot of the same comedy stylings that CollegeHumor has used in its other videos (political incorrectness, funny accents, gay sex jokes). And while I might like to tell myself that the sketch’s writers (the consistently witty Streeter Seidell and Patrick Cassels) were intentionally making a pointed statement with this bit, the reality is that they probably thought up the funny scenario without much concerning themselves with sending a socially-conscious message.

Which brings us to the larger point: if a decidedly non-political pair of comedy writers found hilarity in the concept of a hyper-homophobic Army sergeant, what does that say about the ludicrousness of the military’s actual “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy?

From the Wall Street Journal: AMC’s Mad Men is politically-incorrect, sarcastic, misogynistic, and… written by women?

From the New York Times: “It’s not a history of the guitar or a how-to,” quoth the Times regarding the music documentary “It Might Get Loud.”  We say it’s every rock aficionado’s most far-fetched fantasy, although it may rank second after the one about Anita Pallenberg.

From Pitchfork: In the vein of rock fantasies, indie kids swoon as Sufjan Stevens plans an “intimate” fall tour.

From Yahoo! Movies: Check out the new trailer for Where the Wild Things Are.  Now imagine how impressive The Grinch Who Stole Christmas with Jim Carrey would have looked had the trailer been set to music by the Arcade Fire.

From the New York Times: It is remarkable that, with a title like “The Top 10!  Cover Tunes!  Flying Bras!” none of us at BOTO is remotely interested in the subject of this article (which, incidentally, is the “American Idols Live!” tour).

From the Hollywood Reporter: Fox has an Arrested Development reunion in the works in the form of a new comedy project.  White people everywhere rejoice.

Venture a guess as to who wrote that couplet.  You guessed Bowerbirds (or more specifically, lead singer and lyricist Phil Moore)? Well, had it not been the lead of a music review, I’m pretty sure you would have guessed Walt Whitman.  But you would have been wrong! It would have indeed been written by Phil Moore of Bowerbirds, as, um, you probably guessed.  It comes from the song “Teeth” off of Bowerbirds’ second album to date, Upper Air.  The rest of the album is not as self-celebratory as the great American bard was, but it in other ways evokes his spirit strongly – namely its pastoral, earthy quality and its ethereal genius.

Despite how pretentious it sounds when I bandy about such SAT words (I swear, I’ve got the little pamphlet right on my desk, I could go all day with it), it’s unfair to smack a label on music like Bowerbirds and move on.  There are probably thousands of pairs or triplets who strum a guitar softly and slide a brush stick across a snare drum and hum into a microphone, and think it’s enough for a MySpace page.  Which it is.  But God help the band who thinks that’s enough to get noticed at all.  Though Bowerbirds doesn’t break new ground in genre or ambition, they stand out chiefly on the strength of their lyrics and subtle touches to their sound that do, in fact, separate them from the masses.

Phil Moore, with this album, has immediately jumped near the top of my favorite songwriters working today, and with his boo Beth Tacular on backing vocals and accordion (yes, it works wonderfully) and Matt Damron playing minimalist-yet-key drums, Bowerbirds has carved out an indie-folk niche just this side of Bon Iver.  In fact, you can see exactly where Bowerbirds depart from Bon Iver in the very beginning of the album.  Much like the beginning of the latter’s indie darling album For Emma, Forever Ago, the former’s first song “House of Diamonds” starts of with some ragged guitar strumming.  But when Bon Iver opener “Flume” continued and added instruments, the effect was a deepening of the isolated feel of the music, like an envelope sealing around the listener.  But as the piano plinks in and the drums add a simple cymbal beat, “House of Diamonds” opens up and brightens, and while the pace is never too quick, it has a decidedly upbeat quality.  It’s the perfect counterpoint to more conventional summer music – big, bright, ostentatious and meant for pool parties.  Upper Air is for sitting on a dock overlooking a lake at sunset, arm curled around someone special.

Even though the following song, the aforementioned “Teeth,” starts off in a minor key with an accordion chord that sounds downright menacing – who knew? – the whole song is hardly that simple, often switching from major to minor and back in the course of one verse.  The result is a song that is slightly dizzying, but extremely satisfying, thanks to great lines like the one that opened this review and to close vocal harmonies between the lovebirds Moore and Beth Tacular (God I wish that was her real name).  That’s followed by “Silver Clouds,” an incredibly lovely and delicate song powered by Moore’s winding vocals and a guitar line that’s striking just because it’s so simple and conveys so much.

But the indubitable highlight of the album for me is “Northern Lights”.  If John Madden was a music critic (hey, you never know what he’ll do with his time, though I imagine he has a home telestrator on which he can draw circles and arrows all day), he’d say, “Now, here’s a song that knows how to take its time.  It doesn’t seem like anything special, but Moore really sells it when you see, right here (draws circle), he pauses just enough on each line to really maximize its impact.  It’s a veteran move, and he really plays beyond his experience.”  Moore’s voice really does make this song, especially when he layers it for the climax as he sings, “And I do need the wind across my pale face/And I do need the fern to unfurl in the spring/And I do need the grass to sway/Yes I do need to know my place.”

The only thing that prevents Upper Air from being a stone masterpiece is that Bowerbirds can’t really seem to find a way to follow “Northern Lights”.  “Chimes” and “Bright Future” are both decent tracks, but they both seem a little less confident and serene than the rest of the album, which is precisely what makes the other songs so brilliant.  They regain their footing with “Crooked Lust,” but “This Day” is a somewhat ho-hum closer.  Still, that’s a total of less than 12 minutes of music after “Northern Lights,” which seem to coast along without any impact because I’m still so dazed with the beauty of that song that I barely notice until it’s over.  That song caps a run of six tracks, starting with the opener, that would probably be my favorite album of the year to date if they stood alone.  That’s why it’s hard for me to fault Bowerbirds for not keeping up at that level.  It’s also hard to argue with lines like these, taken from the chorus of “Northern Lights,” which are incidentally my favorite lyrics of any song released this year:

And all I want is your eyes
in the morning as we wake
for a short while.

From the New York Times: Former President Clinton reenacts the final half hour of Team America: World Police, and rescues two imprisoned journalists.  The saga reunites all of the core leaders of the Democratic Party over the past 15 years, and Al Gore demonstrates his newly-discovered ability to genuinely display emotion in public.

From Politico/Ben Smith: Bill O’Reilly pens a glowing tribute to the inspiration that Barack Obama should be to America’s youth.  Really.  Coming next week, Ayatollah Khamenei’s treatise on the joys of Western liberal democracy.

From CNN: RNC Chairman Michael Steele deflects critics of his party’s mob tactics at town halls by rerouting angry callers to the Democratic National Committee.  When callers reached the Republican switchboard, they were apparently told to “press 1 to voice their concern about the charges made by the DNC,” which then sent them straight to the other party’s phone lines.  Though some figured out the ploy, Steele had another trick up his sleeves: those who persisted on the Republican line were told to press 2 to hear from the RNC spokesman on the party’s vision for America, leading them, of course, to this.

From CNN: Another day, another health care town hall meeting disrupted by loud conservative hecklers. Except this one in Tampa suddenly turned violent. We would be shocked, but considering that this comes from the same type of people who think that the President is a secret Islamic terrorist, it’s honestly hard to be surprised anymore. It’s probably best for you to just witness the crazy for yourself.

Check out some past editions of Around the Hill, or broaden your tastes with some other roundups.

I completely understand the plight of Ms. Thomson. My first year at Barnard College (at Columbia University) was one wrought with stresses, both localized and long distance.  My dorm room was two sizes too small, the girls around me were straight out of the land of Gossip Girl, and on top of that, I had to listen to my dad’s continual bitching about the bill he was paying for this wonderful experience.  I explained all my stresses away by saying, “It’s an investment!  Think of what a great future is in store.”  But what if that’s just not true?

Graduate Trina Thompson is the poster child for my father’s begrudging case.   At 27, she graduated with a bachelors of business administration degree in information technology, which has since done nothing for her.  She has not acquired a job despite her searching and degree.  As a result, she’s suing for $70,000 (the complete cost of her tuition), plus a $2,000 sum to compensate her for the stress of turning up empty handed in her job search.

It’s basically Exhibit A in my father’s lengthy argument.  Well, sort of.

Okay, so Ms. Thompson graduated from Monroe College.  Yes, that College.  If your college has to promote itself on subway trains… well, let’s just say that it’s joined the ranks of a notoriously sketchy dermatologist, an island full of “90,000 friends you haven’t met yet,” and a law firm that apparently can’t keep its alcoholism under control long enough to competently order its own toll-free number.   I wouldn’t let my retarded meth baby attend any school that shares the likes of that advertising, even if it was free.  Plus, there are so many of these freakin’ ads that it tends to make me think the school operates out of the MTA transit system.

She also claims her subway-riding school’s Office of Career Advancement was full of favoritists who blocked her path to employment out of spite.  Like any New Yorker, I immediately smelled racism or sexism, but no: it turns out that the Office’s services are just more helpful to students with GPAs higher than Thompson’s lousy 2.7.

The last detail in Thompson’s case is really what makes her lose all credibility in my eyes: she’s only been on the job hunt for two months before going to the nearest courtroom sans lawyer.  Evidently, after $70,000 thrown down the tubes, she has no more money to hire a lawyer.  Oh yeah, and then there’s that small detail.  At current tuition rates, it would cost less than $50,000 to complete a four year bachelors at Monroe, so unless she expects the college to pay for her 7-year long career or the cocaine she was snorting during it, she’s making something up.

So, at the end of the day, I’m left with a confidence boost—only the seriously challenged can’t find a job after graduating.  Someone like me with a solid above 3.0 GPA graduating from a real school should be absolutely okay.  Especially after Obama fixes the economy. Right?

From The Hollywood Reporter: Hollywood hits Havana to enjoy the current political climate as Cuban writers and artists present Che actor Benecio del Toro with an award.

From The Hollywood Reporter: The good news for those involved with Funny People?  The film topped the box office last weekend.  The bad news?  It grossed an unremarkable $23.4.

From Ain’t It Cool News: Massawrym calls Funny People “Judd Apatow’s masterpiece.”  We’re not sure if that’s saying much, but we’re intrigued nonetheless.

From the New York Times: Ruth La Ferla takes on Vampire Vogue, also critiqued at Double X.  For our part, we here at BOTO must insist that this is the only acceptable article of vampire-inspired clothing.

From Rope of Silicon: “Are General Audiences Too Stupid to Enjoy Smart Movies?”  Find out from this discussion of “social subtext,” “testicle jokes,” and which of the two people tend to prefer.

From the New York Times: This week’s interdisciplinary link quantifies the negativity of song lyrics and blog posts and teaches us that there are people at the University of Vermont who listen to Staind.

From the Los Angeles Times: Oh, look!  Another creature for Buffy to stake!  I wonder whether the characters in “The Vampire Diaries” glitter, too…

Content

Our content is now divided into four (actually five) distinct sections, each of which either has or will soon have its own editor and dedicated writers: Arts & Entertainment, News & Politics, Business & Tech(nology), and Culture & Lifestyle. The mysterious fifth category is the Videos section, which will feature our original comedy sketches (and other such multimedia content). As of this writing, we currently have both the Arts & Entertainment and News & Politics sections running at full steam, while the others are currently in various stages of development.

Each section will contain a weekly roundup of things happening in that area; for instance, our already-established “Around the Hill” roundup will serve this purpose for the News & Politics section. Also publishing on a weekly basis will be our already-recurring “Odds and Ends” roundup, which doesn’t neatly fit into any category exactly because of its miscellany-oriented purpose.

We’re also planning on developing recurring columns in each of the sections, but we’ll address those when they’ve transitioned out of the developmental stage.

Community

We’ve taken great strides toward creating a more immersive community experience here at BOTO. The first big change is that you now must be a registered user in order to comment on posts. Registering is a pretty painless process (username, password, email, and done), and we feel that this is a step we needed to take in order to improve the site’s dialogue.

The perks of registering, though, go way deeper than just the ability to comment. Users can now customize their profiles, which can be accessed by clicking their username wherever it’s found on the website (such as comments on articles).

Sharing

We’re on Twitter. We’re on Facebook. This you know by now. We’ve made sharing our content with your friends even easier with our “share tower” in the upper-left corner of each article (including this one). Not only does the share tower allow you to see the article’s performance on Digg (our preferred social bookmarking site) and Twitter—by clicking or hovering over the “share” button, you can easily share our content over dozens of websites and methods, including Facebook, email, and Tumblr.

Break Out The Oreos is essentially in a grassroots stage as far as marketing goes, and we’ve benefited mightily from our users sharing our content on websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Digg. We thank you for doing so, and appreciate your help in growing our website and audience from the ground up.

Advertising

It was going to happen eventually; while we do have the luxury of being able to develop BOTO without expecting to rake in huge (or even small) amounts of cash, we are beginning to look for ways to monetize our content. Yes, there are going to be ads around the site. No, they will not be big, obnoxious, spammy, distasteful, or harmful to your browser/computer. We’re currently working on securing advertisers whose ads will fit with the content and purpose of the website; until then the “ad slots” will remain empty. We value our users and their time, and the last thing we want to do is turn our website into an irritation rather than a destination.

Conclusion

In an effort to get the site back up as soon as possible, we’ve relaunched without fully flushing out all of the features and sections of the site; BOTO should be working fine, but may not be as polished or complete as it should be. We’ll be working on fixing these things, and hope to have the new-look BOTO fully functional over the next couple of days.

If you find problems or bugs with the site, feel free to leave a note of them in the comments section of this post. We’ll fix and/or explain them as we go.

From the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien: We all know that Tina Fey did a great Palin impression during the election.  However, I think Mr. O’Brien succeeded in finding someone better.  If SNL wants to start running sketches that actually contain humor, it should use this next season to re-shoot every single Palin sketch they did last year, only replacing Tina Fey with William Shatner.

From Politico/Glenn Thrush: Liberal Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY), seen here looking very angry, plans to introduce a resolution to destroy Medicare.  He plans to vote no, but hopes to force conservatives to shut up about how no government health programs work, or instead to go home to their districts and explain to thousands of angry seniors why they don’t like Medicare.

From CNN: Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL), the GOP candidate to replace Roland Burris in the U.S. Senate, tweets during his time on-duty at the National Military Command Center.  We’ve said it before, tweeting leads to nothing but trouble.  Except sometimes.  At the very least, all that twittering can lead to is embarrassment.  So go tweet this post and tell all your friends about it!

From Political Wire: If you walk up a random Republican on the street, they are likely to not be convinced that President Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen.  Remember when everyone referred to birthers are a fringe movement?  Yeah, turns out that by fringe we meant “half of the two-party system.”  I suppose this is only fair, though.  After all, less than 42% of Democrats actually thought that George W. Bush was president.  In that case, he didn’t actually win an election.  In this case, people are just ignorant of the fact that the president has provided his birth certificate publicly.  It’s the same thing…

From the Daily Show: John Oliver reports on the financial problems of U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who can’t sell his own house.  Like all Daily Show reports, no punchline is required.

From Politico: Democrats spent the last 8 years complaining about Americans using an awful metric for electing their president – who they would want to have a beer with.  Thus, when we finally elect an intellectual president, it makes perfect sense that he would attempt to heal the wounds of racial strife by sharing a beer with Professor Gates and Officer Crowley.

From Politico: Oh yeah, and we’re gonna sit through many more stories like this before the health care debate is all over.

Like this article? Check out some past editions of Around the Hill, or broaden your tastes with some other round-ups.

BrooksJarosz.com: We’re still hoping that this is actually some college career center’s example of what not to do after graduating. Tip to CollegeHumor.

From CollegeHumor.com: The sad thing is that this really isn’t that much of an exaggeration of the “logic” behind “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

From the New York Times: Have you been nostalgic for Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys, and “Clarissa Explains it All” recently? Yeah, neither have we. What the hell is this article talking about?

NoLOLinHIV.org: This public service campaign has been running television spots with the slogan “there’s no LOL in HIV,” which is true, but were there really that many people LOL-ing at HIV in the first place? We also like how they equate being young and hip with not being able to spell.

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters: The “sequel” to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Why couldn’t they just have stopped while they were ahead?

The Wikipedia Vandalism Blog: They keep track of humorous vandalizations of Wikipedia articles. Pretty straightforwardly awesome.

From the Wall Street Journal: Democrats are statistically more likely to support the designated hitter.

On Facebook: Forget Dick Cheney and Nancy Pelosi; this is the best party ever!

From Mashable: Carrier pigeons for Twitter—carrier Twigeons?

The Manhattan Bridge Sways: Time-lapse video of the Manhattan Bridge wobbling as subway trains move through it. Tip to Gothamist.

Like this article? Check out some past Odds and Ends, or broaden your tastes with some other round-ups.

Previews, why must you
not make sense? Oh, wait, I know…
Roland Emmerich.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Wizards have problems
with their constant erections;
that’s why robes are nice.

Typecasting at work:
first a witch in Sweeney Todd,
now a witch in this.

Ginny Weasley rules
simply because she proves that
redheads have more fun.

I counted two hours
before the scriptwriters’ pens
caught up with the plot.

Chuck Taylor sneakers?
Harry is such a hipster!
Drunk on Felix, too.

Ron and Hermione
co-opted half of the plot
and still never snogged.

McGonagall’s suit
is horrifying. I’m scarred.
Quick—go get Tim Gunn!

Ginny loves to kneel
in front of Harry Potter;
“tying his shoes.” Riiiiiight…

Hermione’s smart,
yet she chose to go to Brown.
Now we can’t stalk her.

If Albus returns
in the next film as a ghost
I’ll want a refund.

Dear Alan Rickman,
Feel free to mix me a love
potion any day.

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

Michael Bay tries hard
to make each movie worse, but
that’s fine—Megan Fox.

By the movie’s end
I was rooting earnestly
for the Fallen. Fuck.

Up

I cried when the dog
said he was hiding under
the porch due to love.

Pixar is ruled by
men.  Why else would the main girl
die ten minutes in?

The Pixar villains
that die are the ones that fly.
Be smart: stay grounded.

There’re talking dogs and
annoying fat kids?  Am I
watching Dreamworks now?

From Time Magazine: A look at the final days of the Bush Administration.  It’s basically like an insider account of the final days of the Beatles.  Turns out that Scooter Libby was Yoko.  Wait, does that make President Bush the cute one?

From New York Times Magazine:  An examination of one of the most powerful voices inside the Obama White House.

From YouTube: Deranged people yelling ignorant comments about Barack Obama in the midst of events with Republican politicians.  Anyone else having deja vu?

From MSNBC: Chris Matthews has a thrill go up his leg as he pummels a United States congressman for promoting an incredibly stupid idea.

From the Daily Show: Jon Stewart pummels the crazy people that said congressman is encouraging.

From MSNBC: Analysts note that it’s been SIXTEEN YEARS since the last time the government imposed a tax increase on the American people.  But the GOP is absolutely right, the American people are drowning under the weight of President Obama’s socialist policies.

From CNN: The spokesman for the North Korean foreign ministry mercilessly mocks Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but gets few laughs.  He should have opened with “and what’s the deal with nuclear non-proliferation?”

From Politico/Michael Calderone:  FOX airs “So You Think You Can Dance” while the major networks air President Obama’s press conference to discuss health care reform.  FOX wins the ratings battle.

From Politico/Glenn Thrush: Senator John Thune (R-SD) suggests that the best way to make Central Park safe is to fill it with lots of South Dakotans carrying concealed firearms.  Umm, come again?

From Politico/Anne Schroeder Mullins:  This is why you should be careful what you post on Facebook.