So, I took the lovely A-Heldin to see a movie on Monday. Since it was Date Night, and her birthday to boot, I figured we'd go see a chick-flick. Eschewing the standard date fare of Mission Impossible and Hostel, I suggested we go see The Constant Gardener. A-Heldin is also fond of plants, so I thought it was money in the bank.

Despite the name, there's precious little actual gardening in the film. Just a few token bits here and there, but hardly anything that would earn the description "constant". As it turns out, it's a movie with a grave Social Message. I figured that part out when Rachel Weisz broke down crying over Britain's decision to forego U.N. parliamentary procedure vis à vis the Iraq War. This is what we've come to, I sighed. Distilling morality down to whether or not that 15th Security Council resolution got passed to support the preceding 14. A break with bureaucratic procedure actually provided the moral impetus for the film. Yawn. But moonbat chicks are notoriously easy, and 80 frames later Weisz is legs up with Ralph Fiennes in her posh London flat.

The film had as little to do with the Iraq War as it did with gardening. In other words, five minutes into the film, I found myself emotionally alienated from the characters, due to the horribly one-sided presentation of a serious topic which was completely unconnected with the story. Iraq wasn't mentioned again.

Weisz won an Oscar for her role. I don't know if she really acted all that well (the movie was dubbed in German), but I have a sneaking suspicion that her transformation into Tessa was largely responsible for the Academy's decision.

Here she is normally:

And here's how she appeared in the film:

Astounding.

The movie Itself was about mean, ruthless pharmaceutical companies furthering its agenda in Africa by strong-arming the poor and executing dissenters. The rubber stamp-worshipping Tessa (Weisz) falls victim to these heartless and, for the most part, faceless scoundrels. The irony of it all was that she actually wanted to name her kid in the movie "Che". Che Guevara, who ran the torture dens for Castro during the Revolution, is the heroine's inspiration?

The difference between Castro's goon and the pharma boys: Profit motive. What makes people really evil isn't oppression, torture, or murder. That's alright, apparently, as long it's all done in the name of Social Justice. Cutting in line at the U.N. and making a buck while curing diseases, however, is beyond the pale. The morality of good and evil in this film doesn't boil down to the tactics used by the drug companies, since these tactics have been used by Socialist regimes like Castro's for nearly 100 years, with nodding approval from people like Gardener's main characters.

Well well, the little girl is all grown up! Y'all run on over now to Anna's Place and make sure to wish her a happy birthday!

As Apple ramps up its advertising presence with this year's version of the old Switch campaign, the tech press is all over the Mac's perceived "security problems":

Among its key findings, which McAfee clearly hopes will scare you enough to consider buying its anti-virus software for the Mac:

From 2003 to 2005, the annual rate of vulnerability discovery on on Apple's Mac OS platform has increased by 228% compared to Microsoft’s products which only saw a 73% increase.
As demonstrated by its March 2006 patch, which corrected 20 vulnerabilities, Apple’s Mac OS platform is just as vulnerable to targeted malware attacks as
other operating systems
Security researchers and hackers will increasingly target the Mac OS and other Apple products, such as iTunes and iPods.

I think everybody agrees that the Macintosh is in no way "immune" to viruses; it's a great example of a straw man argument, fighting claims of immunity that have never been made. Macs can definitely get viruses, just like any computer. But they don't.

The big mistake with the current anti-Mac blitz isn't just that it's factually inaccurate; it's that contesting Apple's (valid) claims of a more secure computing experience only draws attention to Windows' depressing track record of hideous vulnerabilities. It's an arena in which the Windows crowd is doomed to defeat.

McAfee, an antivirus vendor, is making an ass out of itself. They should know better than to compare an operating system with no known malware to one that's so insecure, an entire industry (which, coincidentally, includes McAfee itself) has grown around getting people to pay extra to patch the holes in an already expensive operating system.

If McAfee wants to get Mac people to buy their software, they need to stop spreading FUD, and make a spreadsheet! At least that would fill an actual need on the platform.

BTW, Ellen Feiss, the infamous "stoned Switcher", has a fan-site.

From skippystalin.

Seasoned skippystalinists will note that this may well be the first post he's ever written that doesn't mention genital masturbation. Moral masturbation, yes, but not genital.