Good call, Christopher Nolan

Christopher Nolan is a very talented director. His short resume includes three movies I love: Batman Begins, Memento, and The Prestige. He'll also be directing The Dark Knight, sequel to Batman Begins that comes out this summer.

I was flipping channels tonight and came across Batman, which is probably the first of the modern-day comic book superhero movies. It struck me how silly Batman can be. At his most basic level, the character is a guy in a cape who knows all sorts of fighting moves and drives a weird-looking car.

It was a genius decision by Nolan to focus on the "why"'s of the hero. Batman in Batman Begins is far more understandable and less mockable than he is in Batman because you know where he's coming from and what his motivations are.

The main villain in The Dark Knight is the Joker, same as in Batman. It will be interesting to compare Nicholson's interpretation of the bad guy with Heath Ledger's. The Joker is scary because he's almost entirely irrational. He's all about violence and mayhem, but there's no goal in any of it, so it's impossible to bargain with him, and it's almost impossible to understand him.

He's a good foil to Batman, who is all about rational thinking and action. He tries to outsmart his opponents as well as be able to outmuscle them when he needs to.

Needless to say, I'm excited for Dark Knight. They got rid of the lightweight of Batman Begins, Katie Holmes and replaced her with a more solid actress in Maggie Gyllenhaall. Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman are all back, so it will be difficult for this movie to be too bad.

Chris Bosh is awesome

Love this video Chris Bosh made to persuade fans to vote for him in the 2008 NBA All-Star Ballot.




Fantastic. "Ain't that right, Bubba?"

Huckabee, Obama winners in Iowa

Mike Huckabee was the big winner in the Iowa caucus tonight, gaining 37 percent of the vote compared to 25 percent for Romney.

Ugh.

Someone please tell me what Huckabee has going for him, other than the fact that Romney is a Mormon, because as far as I can tell, that's been the Huckster's entire campaign.

Someone please tell me the evangelicals in Iowa didn't come out in force for Huckabee because it would stop a Mormon from winning.

Because I've gone through a lot of effort to choose my candidate based on important things like, oh I don't know, issues and stuff. If there are thousands of people going to the polls and picking a guy because he talks like they do and fights against the demon-man with good hair, I've lost a lot of faith in humanity.

A survey taken in Iowa reports the following:

More than one-third of Republican caucus-goers said it matters a great deal to them that a candidate share their religious beliefs, and 56 percent of that section of the electorate backed Huckabee versus only 11 percent for Romney.

Given a choice among four personal attributes, 45 percent of Republican caucus-goers said it was most important that a candidate "shares my values," and nearly half of those supported Huckabee. One-third said it was most important that a candidate "says what he believes"; Huckabee won among 33 percent of them, 21 percent supported Fred Thompson, and Sen. John McCain, Romney and Rep. Ron Paul each won about 15 percent.

McCain and Romney each won a little more than one-third of voters who said the top priority was that a candidate "has the right experience." Only 7 percent said the most important attribute was a candidate's electability, and half of those backed Romney.

There are people who don't care about a candidate's electability? Do these people realize that this means they're choosing a candidate they think would lose to Clinton or Edwards or Obama?

Apparently not. Morons.

I also can't help notice how the media has been giving Huckabee favorable coverage as of late. I was listening to an ABC news update on the radio last week; they covered a slam he made on Mitt. They had the audio, and it went something like this:

Huck: "I'm not a flip-flopper like Romney, (something funny)."

Media members: (hearty laughter)

END OF CLIP

Good grief. It's as if certain left-leaning individuals in the news reporting business know Huckabee is unelectable, and that if he is chosen as the Republican nominee, that leaves it wide open for whoever comes from the Democratic side.

Speaking of the Democratic side, Obama beat out the rest of the field, including Mrs. Clinton. I'm fine with this outcome. Hillary makes me squirm... the thought of her as president is not a good one. I'd much rather have Obama win this thing than anyone else from the left. He's inexperienced, but there's worse things.

But seriously, someone challenge me on this Huckabee thing. I'm being irrational and need to come out of it.

This is why the Jazz traded for Korver

The Jazz beat Kyle Korver's old team, the Sixers, tonight 110-107. While that's not exactly an impressive margin of victory over a 14-18 Eastern Conference team, it's another step in the right direction. After beating a hot Trailblazers team on Monday, the Jazz look to be back on track.

Deron Williams dished out 20 assists. Andrei swatted three shots. Boozer went for 22 and nine. But what was really important was the play of Korver. He scored 14 points on 3-4 shooting from the field, including 2-2 from the 3-point line and 6-7 from the free throw line. This is exactly what Utah needs from him. What is even more important is that five of those makes came in the last 27 seconds of the game. In a three-point victory, that's huge.

No one for the Jazz has been hitting late-game free throws so far this season. Derek Fisher, as much as I dislike his play, was that guy for Utah last season. But after he left for L.A., there hasn't been that go-t0 guy in late-game situations. Looks like Korver fills that need nicely.

As a career 88% free-throw shooter, his late-game clutchness isn't a fluke.

I'm excited. The Korver trade has paid off already.

Tuesday Morning Quarterback continues vendetta against Patriots

I'm not a big fan of Greg Easterbrook. For those of you who don't know, Easterbrook writes a column named Tuesday Morning Quarterback for ESPN every week during the NFL season. It's a rambling, ranting series of thoughts about the past weekend's football games; his writing style is disjointed and sometimes difficult to read.

This seasons he's taken to attacking the Patriots every chance he gets. It's difficult to tell if he's being facetious or not, but either way, it gets annoying. He tagged the Pats/Colts game in October as "Good vs. Evil." He wrote

Argument for the New England Patriots as scoundrels in the service of that which is baleful: Dishonesty, cheating, arrogance, hubris, endless complaining even in success. The Patriots have three Super Bowl rings, but that jewelry is tarnished by their cheating scandal. They run up the score to humiliate opponents -- more on that below -- thus mocking sportsmanship.

Give me a break. I haven't been a fan of the Patriots' running up the score, but in the NFL, you're getting paid millions to play the game. I suppose it's kinda mean to run up the score, but I'm sure the linebackers on the wrong end of a blowout can cry himself to sleep on his giant pile of money.

And regarding the scandal... it happened. New England was punished. Get over it.

For all I don't like about Easterbrook, he's good with numbers. He makes a list of Interesting Stats of the Week that are insightful and, at the risk of being redundant, interesting.

This week he brings up the fact that quarterbacks who led the NFL in passing yards during the regular season are 0-42 in the Superbowl.

Wow. I'm guessing this stat is closely related to the "if you can't run or play defense, you can't win in the playoffs," idea. Easterbrook attributes it to how defensive backs are more willing to play all-out when there's no tomorrow, and it's easier to blow a coverage in the regular season.

Easterbrook is so desperate to see the Pats lose he's clinging to this like it's the last slice of pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving.

Anyway, we'll have to see. I don't know that the Patriots have passed so much because they can't run, but more because they haven't wanted to. I think Brady set out to break the passing touchdown record from the beginning, and ending with 4800 passing yards, 50 touchdowns and only eight picks would indicate he reached his goal.

Of course, if the Patriots don't win the Superbowl, the season will be ultimately meaningless, in my opinion. Beating most everyone down in the regular season is nice and all, but it's all about the rings.

Kenya church burned, 50 reported killed

The Associated Press reports over 50 people, including women and children, were killed in Kenya earlier today as part of wider riots and protests against recent presidential election results.

We didn't cover Kenya much in my African History class last semester, but the situation reminds me a lot of the Congo in the 90's. The dominant tribe in the country is resented for having the political power. The minority resorts to violence to resolve things. In both cases women and children are killed along with the men.

It's a horrible, horrible situation and it seems all too common in Africa. In the Congo's case, the ethnic tensions were artificially bred through Belgian interference. Belgian colonizers sorted the Africans by skin color, nose shape, and other factors. The ones with lighter skin and a certain nose type were declared genetically superior and given high positions in society and government.

I don't know if the ethnic hatreds here are directly the result of European colonization, but everywhere in Africa, state lines were drawn with no regard to ethnicity. In countries like Chad, hundreds of different tribes were had a square drawn around them and were declared a nation. To expect everyone to get along is naive at best.

But then when the colonial powers established a regime of corruption, exploitation and manipulation, they only helped make sure things stayed that way when they finally left.

Not all of these atrocities can be blamed on colonialism. African countries have full autonomy, and some of them have truly evil men leading them.

Every time I start to think the continent is progressing and moving beyond this type of thing, we see another outbreak of violence. On one hand, it's hard to understand why these Kenyans are resorting to such actions in the face of what they view as a rigged election. Liberals were sure angry at the results of the 2000 presidential election, but they didn't kill any conservatives. On the other hand, I imagine it must be frustrating to see corruption in your government and feel like there's nothing you can do.

Hopefully after the Rwandan genocide of 1994, we've learned learned what happens when other nations ignore situations like this, and intervene in Kenya before the situation gets completely out of hand.

Today's bowl games

Some interesting matchups in college football today, at least from my perspective.

First there's Florida and Michigan in the Citrus Bowl. These are two teams I normally root against. I hate teams that earn respect merely for having great programs in the past, like Michigan. There's no reason they should have been ranked #5 in preseason polls, other than they had been great in the past. Their loss to Appalachian State was sheer awesomeness.

Then there's Florida. I'm definitely not a fan of Urban Meyer. Even though I dislike the Utah Utes, it was low how Meyer constantly said he'd stay at their school for a long time and then bailed the first chance he got.

After weighing my options, I decided I'd root for Michigan. And in what turned out to be a very good game, the Wolverines came out on top. Watch for another top-ten preseason ranking for them in 2008. Florida finished with four losses on the year... I have to wonder if Meyer will start getting heat from the administration. They've got a pretty high standard for their coaches down there.

The other game I've watched some of so far was Texas Tech vs. Virginia. Virginia started out the season by getting punked at Wyoming. They went on to go 9-3 in the regular season, so it seems they didn't suffer too much from such an embarrassment.

After jumping to a 21-7 lead, it looked like the Red Raiders were done. Down 28-14 in the fourth quarter, Texas Tech scored 17 in that quarter to win the game. Lesson learned? Never count Texas Tech out. Their offense is always good and always good for a quick score or two.

Texas Tech quarterback Graham Harrell, the latest in the line of proficient QB's to come from the school, threw for 400 yards and three touchdowns. On the season, Harrell has passed for 5200 yards and 45 touchdowns. And that's pretty average down in Lubbock.

Since USC is creaming Illinois, the next game of interest will be Hawaii and Georgia. I think the Bulldogs will win pretty handily, but Hawaii's offense can't be counted out.