Mike Huckabee introduces them: “We got a couple of guys who don’t fit the mold. They don’t look like rap stars. And their conservative views don’t really mix with those of most of their peers at their North Eastern Ivy League school.

As a sidenote, from the front Mike Huckabee looks just a little above normal weight. But from the side in this video, he still looks a bit hefty. A couple of years ago I covered the New Hampshire Primaries as press. At one Hillary Clinton event I noticed a new reporter and asked whom he had been covering. He said he had been covering Mike Huckabee but couldn’t take crazy world any longer and asked to be changed to a different campaign, any campaign.

If you have a cable internet connection, you can help. It is very easy to set up an anonymous proxy server on your computer (PC or MAC) for their use. It should take you less than five minutes, even if you know nothing about computers or proxy servers. Don’t worry, you won’t get into trouble by doing this.

Here’s a link to step-by-step instructions. http://bit.ly/CTpRh

This link also tells you exactly what to do after you’ve set it up so it can be used. None of the information on your computer is at risk. People are just using your link in the background.

There are courageous twitterers in Iran getting the story out. And for that we’re grateful. But, don’t let being grateful interfer with their story. People are wellmeaning in their support of the Iranian twitterers. But, that can also be harmful. Here are some suggestions on how to react.

• Don’t respond to the Iranian tweets, no matter how much support you want to give them. The twitterers in Iran are taking huge risks to get the story out. The Iranian government wants to shut them down. Don’t inadvertently help that government. Don’t respond to the tweets. When you respond your tweet has to go through it’s circuitous route to get back to the Iranian twitterer’s account. This can be tracked. I’m sure the Iranian government is trying to track the whereabouts of the Iranian twitterers.
• Don’t clog the Iranian twitterers’ channels. Thank the Iranian twitterers after this is all over. If you must twitter your support do so to your own followers, or to support groups in this country that have already been set up.
• If you are creating a proxy IP for the Iranian twitterers, don’t publicize it with hashtags. Again, the Iranian government is watching and tracking. If you don’t know what proxy IP means, good. Means you’re not doing it.
• If you want to know how to set up a Proxy Server to help Iranians go to http://bit.ly/CTpRh (MAC or PC).
• If you are twittering make it difficult for the Iranian government. Go to your settings and change your location to Tehran, and to that time zone. The Iranian government can immediately tell foreign twitterers by their country of origin/timezone settings. These they can ignor in their quest to find out the heroic Iranian twitterers. Harder for them to track the Iranian twitterers if we’re all Spartacus/Iranians.
• Be on the lookout for false Iranian government twitter accounts masquerading as anti-government accounts. This is a perfect way for the Iranian government to spread false rumors.
• At the moment the best twitter source for Iranian information is @persiankiwi. Just follow, but don’t respond. This person(s) is in great danger and you don’t want to accidentally help the Iranian government find the people using this twitter account.
• Don’t use the #iranelection hashtag in your tweets. Leave this one to the Iranians to use. Again, we don’t want to clog up their message.
• Everyone is welcome to copy this and resend it if they think it can help others. Just, please, leave this copyright and url back to the original post. (c) 2009 by Heilan Yvette Grimes, Worldsofwonder.wordpress.com I will be updating this as I receive more information, so people can then trackback for updated versions.

If you have any other suggestions, please post them in the comments section. I’ll incorporate them into this post.

And good luck to the courageous people of Iran.

All around the cobbler’s bench
The monkey chased the weasel;
That’s the way the money goes
Pop goes the weasel

Now, what does that mean? I was told this explanation by an historian at a textile museum who was showing me a spinning wheel.

There’s a part of some spinning wheels called the weasel. It is a sort of counter so you can set it for a length and then measure out how much you’ve spun. When it reaches the designated length the weasel pops out to tell you you’re at the measurement you wanted.

The historian also explained that monkey was frequently a term used for indentured children. Another variation would be the powder monkeys who ran around carrying necessaries for the cannons on a ship. These were usually indentured children, too.

The cobbler’s bench was just another name for a workbench. So, the song might possibly be a reference to an amusement of the children running around the workbench until the weasel pops. Might even be a children’s game of sorts, similar to musical chairs with children running around the bench and one being left out when the weasel pops. Money might reference a prize for the winner.

Today is also Race Unity Day and World Juggling Day.

She is a Christian deeply devoted to her faith and suffers from Fibromyalgia (as do I) and has had a tough time of it lately. Her latest song shows the depth of that suffering. She writes/composes/does all the arrangements (playing all the digital instruments)/shoots the video/and performs her compositions. The results are extraordinary. If after listening to the following, you feel like making a donation to help her, here’s her paypal link: http://tinyurl.com/3yrlwa.

Beautiful by Ysabellabrave

This movie has a lot going for it. Of course, Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds are the main attraction. And, they have chemistry. So often in films we are asked to believe two people are madly attracted to each other and then watch their body language and know they can’t really stand each other in real life. But Reynolds and Bullock have real chemistry.

This is a standard they hate each other but we know they really love each other movie. That can work against a movie. But, it can also work for a movie. We’re rooting for them because we know they’re meant for each other before they know it. We know they’re going to get together in the end. After all it is a Sandra Bullock movie and she’s an expert at presenting this scenario.

Reynolds is Bullock’s assistant at a publishing company where she is Editor-in-Chief. The beginning of the movie is Devil Wears Prada meets book publishing with Reynolds as Anne Hathaway and Bullock as Meryl Streep, including him braving enormous obstacles to get her her morning cup of coffee. And she is oblivious to his life telling him he has to stay in town over the weekend, though he had planned on going to Sitka, Alaska for his grandmother’s 90th birthday party. She doesn’t care, he has to stay in town if he wants to keep his job.

But, as it turns out he’s a would be writer/editor and hopes for a promotion, so he’ll stay. She’s overlooked all of that in favor of his abilities to get her coffee and arrange her schedule.

But, the snake in all this is an immigration lawyer. Turns out she’s from Canada (though there’s not an “aboot” anywhere in her accent). Due to her ignoring a few things she is now an illegal immigrant and about to be deported. Unless, of course, she gets married immediately. Enter her assistant and the surprise announcement of their nuptials to the immigration lawyer. The immigration lawyer is disbelieving, but by way of proof Bullock says in fact they are going to meet his parents that weekend to make the announcement of their engagement. During this entire scene Reynolds says few words, just reacts and reacts and reacts and is hilarious.

Off to Alaska and to meet the family. Turns out his family pretty much owns Sitka, Alaska. She had no idea he was rich. Oh, and Sitka isn’t really Sitka. You might be confused seeing all those old New Englandy-looking houses and east coast shoreline as they approach Sitka on their boat. That’s because the movie was actually filmed in Rockport and Gloucester, Massachusetts. Of course, that’s evident because the first thing we see of Sitka is Motif #1, one of the most photographed and painted images in the world. This red fisherman’s shack with all the buoys hanging on the side even has it’s own Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motif_Number_1). It’s obvious they’re in a New England fishing village, and not Sitka. That’s about the only jarring  thing in the movie.

Additionally, there’s so much more to this movie. There’s a superb supporting cast. Mary Steenburgen (Academy Award Winner) plays Reynolds’ mother with firmness and humor. Craig T. Nelson plays Reynolds’ father in his usual grumpily endearing way. These two also have chemistry so that their bickering seems to be the bickering of a couple that has a lot of passion for each other.

But, best of all is the magnificent Betty White playing 90-year-old Grandma Annie. Although at 87 she’s much too young to be playing a 90-year-old, she’s terrific. She gives the movie heart. And she and Bullock have an hilarious scene together dancing around a fire. You don’t even mind that you know that Reynolds’ is going to come up on them and see Bullock sloughing off New York, dancing in a frenzy, and it will be the turning point in his feelings for her. Hokey, but it works.

There’s a lot of slapstick. The two are sharing a room because his family can’t imagine that they wouldn’t be. The family is accepting and very progressive about their relationship. This is usually the point where Craig T. Nelson would have said, “Not in my house, until you’re married.” But this is the realistic 21st Century. They don’t have to sneak around. The families force them into sharing a room. This leads to one of the funniest scenes in the film: the nude scene.

Of course, while Reynolds is out for a bit, Bullock decides to take a shower and has forgotten to get a towel beforehand. The linen closet is conveniently located outside the bathroom. In the meantime Reynolds’ returns and shucks off his clothes to take a shower not realizing Bullock is in the shower. And there’s Kevin, the family’s Spitz dog (an adorable white fluffball of fun and plot device) who adds to the situation. The result is a completely nude Bullock (she’s been working out) discretely covering various body parts while going to get a towel, and Reynolds’ (also been working out) entering their room also nude.  The dog is barking, there’s a thing with the rug, and Bullock and Reynolds ultimate fall with Bullock on top of him (you’ve seen it in the promo) with both of them embarrassed, yet pleased by the situation. BTW why didn’t she put the rug around her to cover up? Obviously, because then there wouldn’t have been that much humor in it. But, more than one person in the audience yelled out for her to put the rug around her. It’s a good sign when people are so involved they’re yelling advice to fictional characters on the screen. The scene works. Also, both of them look terrific. Neither Bullock, Reynolds, nor the dog have an ounce of body fat between them.

There are other mixups, but you get the idea.

The movie is funny, pleasant, enjoyable, and a nice diversion. It’ll probably be the date movie of the summer. Anne Fletcher (27 Dresses, Step Up) directed the film with a sure, comedic hand. Definitely not a waste of money. I recommend it.

I went into this film with low expectations and was not disappointed. I’ve taken the bullet for you, so that you don’t have to.

“Land of the Lost” is a terrible movie. Don’t waste your money on it. It isn’t funny. There were about five other people in the auditorium when I saw it. Not one person laughed during the entire film. Not one laugh. Even during the supposedly funny sequence in which Dr. Rick Marshall (Will Ferrell) pours dinosaur urine all over himself, and even chugs some of it down. Then, for even more comic effect, he pours even more dinosaur urine on himself. In what world does someone think this would be funny?

At the beginning of the movie Dr. Marshall is appearing on the Today Show, being interviewed by Matt Lauer. They come to blows. We could only have hoped that Matt Lauer was stronger and could have messed up Dr. Marshall enough so he would never have been able to go on an expedition. Matt Lauer would have won our undying gratitude.

The special effects were substandard and unimpressive. Though, they seemed to like to make Grumpy the endearing Tyrannosaurus Rex open it’s slobbery mouth and roar. Seems they did this when the story lagged. So, Grumpy slobbered a lot. And, it’s a telling point about  a movie when the best acting is being done by a slobbering CGI dinosaur.

The story is silly. I kept trying to check my email during the film, but the cinema was blocking signals. So, I had to watch it.

At one point Dr. Marshall catapults into the T-Rex’s mouth. A few scenes later he comes to the rescue of his friends riding on the back of the T-Rex having made friends with it having worked his way through the T-Rex’s entire digestive system and cured it of something that was making it Grumpy. And, he doesn’t seem to have suffered any from digestive acids, bile, or lack of oxygen in the digestive system.

Oh, and there’s a major plot goof. An impression of Dr. Rick Marshall’s (Will Ferrell) zippo lighter is found in an old fossil of a dinosaur footprint. His lighter conveniently has the words “Big Cat”  on it which get embossed in the fossil. That means the lighter had to be face down when Grumpy the T-Rex stomps on it. However, in the scene where Grumpy stomps on the lighter it is face up, which meant the words wouldn’t be embossed on the eventual fossil. It’s through the words “Big Cat” that Dr. Holly Cantrell (Anna Friel – let’s see the only woman in the film, so she’s going to be the love interest, and somehow falls for a doofus) traces the lighter to Dr. Marshall.

Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned the prehistoric lizard aliens who are running around all over the place creating havoc. If you do see it (please don’t), and can’t seem to place The Zarn’s (one of the battling lizard warlords) voice, it’s Leonard Nimoy.

Don’t even waste your money on the video, because that’ll be 93 minutes of your life you’ll never get back. Not worth it.

How come movies like this get made wasting a budget of $100 million? Just think of the really good story-driven films that could be made for this.

The West Philadelphia High School Hybrid X Team took a Ford Focus chassis, off the shelf parts, and modified it to get 100 miles per gallon. If kids in a high school class can do that without spending millions of dollars on R&D, why can’t Detroit? And if Detroit still has trouble, why not hire the kids and their teacher, Simon Hauger, to do it for them.

The latest news seems to be that they are entering the $10 million Progressive Automotive X Prize competition. Good luck to them.

Read more here: http://tinyurl.com/mas3ob. And maybe someone with a bit of money might want to give them some support (venture capital anyone?). There is a paypal button for donations.

What those criticizing him fail to mention is that GM has apparently been headed for many years by people who did claim to know about cars. And those people ran the company into the ground.

Could Whitacre possibly do any worse?

What Whitacre seems to know about is how to run a business successfully. And I would think that would be far more important then knowing about cars. He did rescue AT&T when he was the Chairman of the Board and CEO of AT&T.

I don’t know much about him other than what I can find in a google search. The only troubling thing was his severance package from AT&T. It seems bloated with the kind of perks that have caused anger from citizens. The 3-year million dollar/year consulting contract; 10 hours of use of AT&T’s corporate jet per month; club membership payments; home security; an automobile. Considering his 2006 compensation from AT&T was about $61 million, you’d think that those extras given to him were a might excessive.

Yet, I do wish him well in trying to rescue GM.

My suggestions for the rescue:

• Small efficient cars that look cool. Give people something decent that looks good and they’ll buy it.
• Cars that don’t change that much from year to year
• Stop fighting safety standards
• Build cars that get great gas mileage (see my post about the kids of the West Philadelphia High School Hybrid X Team.