Not sure why Eva Mendes is not listed by Amazon in the credits. This movie is already very hot in the Latin American bootleg circuit and I watched it this quiet Sunday. As another reviewer observes, this movie has not gotten the publicity it merits, and that surprises me. On balance, a four at the cinema and a solid five for home viewing.
Movie has Eva Mendez (super-star in Hitch (Widescreen Edition), and I cannot see why Amazon lists Cameron Diaz in the credits.
I found it engrossing in part because it does a super job of showing a number of ways in which cops, sometimes in league with other cops, prostitutes, and often on their own, can shake down everyone from the careless suburban types in the big city for a night, to high rollers with connections, to major regional drug pushers.
Great Medley–Bete Noire Meets Good Bad and Ugly, The Mexican
March 28, 2010
Isaach De Bankolé
Strongly recommended for those that have my tastes in DVDs and have enjoyed my recommendations in the past. This movie was fun to watch, relaxing, intriguing, and totally enjoyable.
For me, this movie is NOT over-played, its a great combination of some good and bad clandestine tradecraft, some sparkling lines (am re-learning French and appreciate anything with French actually spoken), some artful nudity, some real art, and over-all, a smooth panorama.
What an interesting search, thank you. Here are some links that came up in a broader search that we import to Phi Beta Iota with a tip of the hat to the anonymous searcher.
Phi Beta Iota: We don't make this stuff up. The Pentagon has no strategy because the U.S. Government has no strategy. The National Security Council is managed by a General who emphasized getting along with the Chief of Naval Operation, never-mind leaving Marines wounded on the battlefield for lack of Naval Gunfire Support (NFS).
Join us in savoring what passes for a strategist and nominal policy making savant with the below headlines.
Below item is full text to avoid inconvenience. It is followed by several linked headlines that make quite clear the shallowness of the Pentagon strategy-policy pool.
Executive Summary: The gentle lady has no idea what the ten high-level threats to humanity are, nor does she care. She's a place-holder for the disappointed John Hamre, and a token female at the top who goes with the flow. She has neither any grasp nor any conceptual framework for actually creating grand strategy, harmonizing Whole of Government policies nor even–this really did surprise us–how many failed states there are in the world.
PBS March 27, 2010
Interview With Michele Flournoy, Under Secretary Of Defense For Policy
Charlie Rose (PBS), 1:00 A.M.
CHARLIE ROSE: The United States military is engaged around the world. It is withdrawing combat troops from Iraq as it builds up troops in Afghanistan. It is partnering with Pakistan in an aggressive counterterrorism campaign including drone attacks in the tribal areas. It’s working with the Yemeni government to counter a resurgent al Qaeda there. And U.S. troops are still in Haiti for the humanitarian relief efforts.
But the military has to do more than respond to the conflicts of the day. It must prepare for future wars, adoptive enemies and a shifting security environment.
The person at the Pentagon who spends the most time working on these issues is Michèle Flournoy. She is under secretary of defense for policy and the highest ranking female official in the Defense Department. I am very pleased to have her with me in the night studio at the Newseum in Washington.
Tell me what it is that you do at the Pentagon, how do you define this responsibility?
ANDREW J. BACEVICH, America Magazine: The National Catholic Weekly, 29 March 2010
In American politics, deficits have suddenly become all the rage. Throughout the presidency of George W. Bush, the federal government hemorrhaged red ink, with no one paying much attention. Upon the election of Barack Obama, however, the rules abruptly changed. As if overnight, Republicans in Congress discovered that theirs is the party of fiscal conservatism. From out of nowhere came the Tea Party movement, providing at least a pretty good imitation of people who are “mad as hell” about a government unable to manage its own affairs and careening toward bankruptcy. Although the administration’s spending plans add more than a trillion dollars each year to the national debt, President Obama himself has allowed that this might not be such a good thing—for long. In Washington the sky grows dark with deficit hawks.
But the deficits that plague the United States extend well beyond the realm of fiscal policy. At least as important is a deficit in self-awareness that makes it difficult for policymakers to learn from and avoid repeating past mistakes. Continue reading…
Bojan Pancevski in Skopje, Sunday Times [UK], 28 Mar 2010
SAUDI ARABIA is pouring hundreds of millions of pounds into Islamist groups in the Balkans, some of which spread hatred of the West and recruit fighters for jihad in Afghanistan.
According to officials in Macedonia, Islamic fundamentalism threatens to destabilise the Balkans. Strict Wahhabi and Salafi factions funded by Saudi organisations are clashing with traditionally moderate local Muslim communities.
Fundamentalists have financed the construction of scores of mosques and community centres as well as handing some followers up to £225 a month. They are expected not only to grow beards but also to persuade their wives to wear the niqab, or face veil, a custom virtually unknown in the liberal Islamic tradition of the Balkans.
Obama has said that the Council on Foreign Relations is just a forum where people talk about foreign issues. He has actually said that he didn't even know if he was a member (video of that here).
Earlier this year (according to Intelligence Online issue #609), Jami Miscik, president and vice chairman of Kissinger Associates was appointed a member of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board. She has been with the CIA and Lehman Brothers bank.
Robert Eringer, former spymaster for Prince Albert II of Monaco (who, in January 26 won a court case against the gov of Monaco after the prince declared immunity due to his head of state status), wrote briefly about the presidential history in relation to the Trilateral Commission and Obama's list of Trilateral Commission appointees:
• Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner;
• National Security Adviser James Jones;
• Deputy National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon;
• Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair;
• State Department special envoys Richard Holbrooke. Dennis Ross, and Richard Haas;
• Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice;
• Lawrence Summers, Director of the National Economic Council;
• Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg;
• Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell;
• Paul Volcker, chairman of the Economic Recovery Committee.
The article I wrote on Google was killed by Rolling Stone, but I’m now publishing it at CounterPunch.org, with help from the Nation Institute Investigative Fund.
Still on the secession book. About halfway done. Concentrating on the Vermonter secessionists, whose credo is Food-Fuel-Finance Sovereignty.
Orion Magazine “The Curse of Bigness,” is about human scale in government and business and social groups…the kind of human scale that corporatist America is doing everything to eradicate.
For those who missed the investigation in GQ about how cell phone radiation is burning out our brains and bodies – and how the telecom industry and the US military have together covered up the science showing a risk – see this op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, which gives the short answer to the question: Should I smash my cell phone with a hammer today, or should I wait a day?
Three pieces in CounterPunch touching on similar themes:
— an article about the disease of technophilia and our mind-destroying obsession with digital gadgetry.
— an article about Joe Stack, the Texas suicide-terrorist pilot who last month crashed his plane into the IRS building in Austin. He left behind a manifesto of sorts that makes wonderful sense…except for the part where he goes crazy and flies his plane into the IRS building.
— a piece titled “Freedom of Speech for a Fiction,” about the curse of corporate personhood and the recent Supreme Court decision freeing up these sociopathic “persons” to pollute electoral politics with ever more money.
Finally, for those readers/fans of Harper’s, keep an eye out for a piece of mine coming out in the May issue. It’s about how New York State government perfects what political scientist Sheldon Wolin calls “inverted totalitarianism,” where the forms of democracy are preserved with none of the substance. Leave it to the “progressive” Empire State to show the way to ruin…
Original, Totally Absorbing, and a Great Cast
