No Country For Ralph Nader

• What I'm Watching/Listening To/Reading:
• I'm happy about what Oscars were given out. Other than Best Actress (of which performances I had seen only Ellen Page's), I nailed the Screenplay, Acting, Directing, and Best Picture winners. I thought they were all blatantly obvious, having filled out those picks by seeing Tilda Swinton's performance in Michael Clayton on Saturday night. She is very, very good and the movie is edge-of-your-seat fare. I really enjoyed it, though I may have preferred to see Sweeney Todd get nominated in its place.
• Jon Stewart was not all that good. He had a couple of lines here or there, but he came off as way too sycophantic for the most part. I really missed Chris Rock's edge. I don't expect them to allow that kind of edge, but it would make for one heck of an entertaining show.
• Here's his joke that I hated the most: "Not all films did as well as Juno obviously. The films that were made about the Iraq war, let's face it, did not do as well. But I'm telling you, if we stay the course and keep these movies in the theatres we can turn this around. I don't care if it takes 100 years. Withdrawing the Iraq movies would only embolden the audience. We cannot let the audience win."
  
• I can't say I'm in favor of making jokes comparing movies to the war. Last I checked, more Americans (not to mention the Iraqis) have died in the war than died on 9/11, and you sure as hell wouldn't hear him making a 9/11 joke about a movie.
• I lived the quintessential "SNL" skit on Saturday morning. We were waiting in line for the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and there was this guy who kept singing dumb songs about where everyone came from. He would stick in a few city names and every so often, he'd throw in a line like, "You should talk to black people if you desire to go to heaven." It was really funny for a few minutes, but then got annoying with no endgame in sight. Just like every "SNL" skit!
  
• Random Thoughts/Links:
• Here's a cool take on the will.i.am "Yes, We Can" video. Just mouse over the pictures.
• If you haven't seen it yet, Jimmy Kimmel is f***ing Ben Affleck. How did he get Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford to do this, not to mention the tons of other stars?
• I found this post on Andrew Sullivan's blog rather amusing in a really sad sort of way.
  

• Daily Rant:
• I'm quite disappointed that Tim Russert gave 18 minutes to some crazed old guy on Sunday. Does anyone even know that Nader ran in 2004? He's a total non-factor and giving him mainstream media time just gives him the soapbox to spout his junk. He can run for President all he wants, but let's not pretend that he has any kind of chance at getting 3% of the popular vote. Many of his views are already espoused by Obama. The two main exceptions are single-payer health care and one other small, crazy thing. He discussed Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine. Ralph, it's been over 40 years at this point. I'm pretty sure he'd be for the U.S. taking strategic land positions around its border if we were under attack on a constant basis. Give it a freaking rest. And continuously spelling out "org" in your web address? You sound 74, dude.