Dead Mousies

The scandal over the bullshit propaganda and anti-Clinton hit piece Disney/ABC mockudrama The Path To 9/11 is getting more interesting by the hour. Lots of different blogs are covering it, but the most comprehensive and relatively-easy-to-follow coverage seems to be on ThinkProgress and AmericaBlog. (Thanks to cheshyre for the heads-up.)

The current short form seems to be:

• Disney/ABC admits it made up a bunch of stuff, with a strange reading of the 9/11 commission report and several other sources having nothing to do with it.
• The film was in fact made by several die-hard conservatives with an agenda. (Yes, just like Michael Moore... except Moore's work stands up quite nicely to fact-checking.)
• Several Congresscritters sent them a letter yesterday demanding an explanation of why they did this and calling for corrections of the misinformation.
• Bill Clinton, who is portrayed as being too involved with the Lewinsky scandal to do jack, is lawyering up.
• He, Madeline Albright, and Richard Clarke have all gone on record showing how specific incidents in the film were counter to reality... or never took place.
• Scholastic Books is getting ready to distribute a "teaching guide" to fill schools with this misinformation.

Fun.

It's A Good Day To Contact Your Senators

I already have, because Arlen Specter is trying to enable BushCo some more with a FISA Amendment that would basically let the Chimp decide whether or not he wants to conform to the law. Two guesses which way he'll swing. Fortunately, some senators are trying to hold it in committee with additional hearings, and they're apparently making noise like they're willing to make a big stink about it on the Senate floor. But they need support, on both sides of the aisle. This isn't partisan; this is obeying the law. This is not violating the Constitution. This is the right to privacy.

Give your senators a jingle.

Update: Russ Feingold won the day. It sounds as if Specter will try this again next week, but we're holding 'em off for now. As some commenters as dKos noted, the really interesting quote was this:

Forced to delay his committee's vote, Specter grumbled that without his legislation the White House would continue its domestic wiretapping program virtually unchecked by the courts.

So, without this legislation, the White House will continue to wiretap Americans illegally? Heckuva job, there, Arlen.

Rich Fantasy Lives

Rob Balder (partiallyclips) and I are honored and humbled to be nominated for a Pegasus Award in the category of Best Filk Song for "Rich Fantasy Lives". We thought it would be a boss idea to cut a new version of it, which we now happily give to you. Distribute it freely; don't use it in a commercial project; credit me and Rob ("Words by Rob Balder; Music by Tom Smith. © 2004 by Rob Balder and Tom Smith. Commercial use without express permission from the authors is prohibited").

AFI's 25 Greatest Movie Musicals

Here. I agree completely with the top three, although I start to lose it immediately at The Sound of Music (#4). Where it falls apart for me is ranking Grease at all, let alone (#20) above Beauty and the Beast (#22) and Guys and Dolls (#23). And I have a special love for Little Shop of Horrors and Rocky Horror Picture Show, but I knew they wouldn't make the cut....

... but what the fuck is The Music Man NOT doing in the Top 25!?

Discuss.