Resolution and closure for those of you who are dying of suspense after my “find the typo” post.

…politicians have gone ape-shit.

First it was the Republicans with a monstrosity which it pains me to display. You can read about it here, on Abu Aardvark’s site. (I often don’t agree with him, but I agreed with him about the bizarre “These Are the Stakes” ad. And he is very informative about the Arab-language media.)

And now the Dems have pushed back hard with a viciously effective ad:

Attempts to puncture its effectiveness, such as Michele Malkin’s, will be to no avail. You’re wasting your energy when you try to refute effective advertising, which hits people in the gut: where they live. That’s why it’s effective.

As Edward Bernays, the father of PR, explained: effective advertising from the other guy (bad PR for your side) can’t be refuted; it can, however, be topped. Again and again, ad infinitum. Until you’ve reached critical mass, that is. Until you reach the tipping point. Until you’ve changed the narrative. Until you’ve scored a paradigm shift.

Then you’ve got something like, say, the Republicans’ brilliant (and devastating for the Democrats) Southern Strategy.

Expect an orgy of nastiness in the next couple of years. It will be awful, disgusting, infuriating, and appalling: in other words, entertaining. Even though the stakes are so very high.

No, I’m not falling for the Republicans’ crap. The stakes are high. But human beings are weak. They tend to choose the path of least resistance. They don’t heed warnings.

(1934) Nazism: An Assault on Civilization

(1936) The Yellow Spot

So it goes.

I wish I’d posted this prediction yesterday, but I forgot.

I was pretty sure Borat would do well, because I have a secret weapon: my daughter. Since she was a very young teenager, she’s had a nose for hits. Every movie she’s gone to see on opening weekend has been a hit—for seven or eight years!

She called it right this time too.

‘Borat’ Goes Wild — #1 on Friday Night

Forget the predictions that people somewhere wouldn’t “get ‘Borat’”, Sacha Baron Cohen’s raucous comedy.

The movie literally swamped the box office on Friday night. According to figures from showbizdata.com, “Borat” took in a whopping $8.925 million on just 800 screens, with a per screen average of $10,663.

“Santa Clause 3,” starring Tim Allen, took in only $5.4 million — yet it played on 3,458 screens.

Werckmeister Harmonies—a wreck of a Werk: long, pretentious, and muddled.
Some arresting images, though:

Andrew Sullivan is very fond of the hairshirt, particularly on the subject of torture.

AllahPundit rubs it in when he describes how journalist Steve Harrigan from Fox News reacted after he asked to be waterboarded (to see how it felt):

He could barely get through his report, so shattered was he by the experience. By the end of the segment he’s reduced to sobbing and pointing to a copy of “The Conservative Soul” that he’s held up to the camera.

No, he was fine.

You can view the waterboarding video at the link.