Deus X Makina

1. John S.D. Eisenhower recently wrote an editorial outlining his belief that children of presidential and vice presidential candidates should not be deployed to combat roles in Iraq, due to increased exposure from the tactical nature of the Iraq engagement and extremely elevated risk to nearby personnel. He suggested Secretary Gates, who holds an appointed position and whose decisions are not reviewable, arbitrarily reassign James McCain, Track Palin, and Beau Biden to non-combat duties. If you were Secretary of Defense, would you honor Mr. Eisenhower's request?
   
2. A recently-passed law in Nebraska assigns amnesty to any parent wishing to abandon a child if they deliver that child to a local hospital. Meant to prevent so-called "dumpster babies", the law has been used by many parents of unmanageable children much older than infancy. One high-profile case saw a single father abandon nine out of ten of his children, ages one to seventeen, citing financial hardship and personal despair after the death of his wife. Would you rewrite the law in its current form, and, if so, how?
   
3. The current situation in Iraq presents one major paradox: Coalition forces must provide security during the effort to rebuild infrastructure and train new personnel. For an Iraqi to take part in that effort, however, he or she must enter into mortal danger on a daily basis. The solution to set an arbitrary timeline for withdrawal, irrelevant of the Iraqi level of readiness, or the solution of publicly declaring that Coalition forces will remain present until the Iraqis are ready, fail to acknowledge the dichotomy of that paradox. Is there a way to balance our presence and eventual withdrawal with incentives to Iraqis to provide their own stability, without partitioning the nation to avoid religious violence?
   
4. Who bears the primary responsibility to preventing future economic collapses like the one we saw this week: home purchasers for either not knowing or not caring about the risks of an adjustable-rate mortgage and the possibility of foreclosures, mortgage lenders for their alleged predatory lending practices and lack of underwriting standards, investors who purchased mortgage-backed securities but did not investigate their purchases to ascertain actual risk, the executive branch of the government (most notably, the Securities and Exchange Commission) for failing to accurately gauge the extent of the crisis and expanding the ability of investment firms to leverage their assets recklessly, or the legislative branch of the government for not imposing more regulation and oversight on the industry as a whole?
   
5. Would you continue with the directive of the George Bush Administration to denote foreign nationals captured abroad as "enemy combatants" and hold them outside the traditional bounds of United States Judicial criminal court jurisdiction, such as the facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in order to avoid the restrictions of due process outlined in the United States Constitution? Would you agree that a United States citizen can be classified and held (potentially indefinitely) in the same fashion?

Senator Barack Obama is going to win the general election. And I can tell you why with one picture:

Let's say the Galactic Empire is a democratically elected government. Who are you going to pick, Darth Vader or Emperor Palpatine? Come on, no contest. Vader's been in the trenches, killing Jedi, conjuring up stolen data tapes, cutting through bureaucratic red tape by actually cutting through bureaucrats with a kick-ass energy sword. That is how you get stuff done! "Oh, Senator, were you thinking about attaching a land-use rider to my omnibus bill? Well, perhaps you'll reconsider after I cut off your air supply with my mind."

The Emperor has no chance. Sure, he's been around awhile, seen Sith Lords come and go, got a proven track record of being tough on local insurgents. But the dude can barely stand up! You voting for a guy who sits around napping all day? I mean, did you see any workstations in the throne room in VI? Any papers on his desk? Any secretaries taking dictation? No, of course not, because Ol' Crusty only wakes up for status reports from Vader and the occasional lightning show on unarmed whiny kids.

No way is that guy carrying the swing states, not without those guys from Extreme Makeover giving him some serious Botox. America is the same way.

1. Pepsi Stuff: Justin Timberlake, the best of a seriously sad stock of commercials.
2. E*Trade: My E*Trade, exceptional special effects and a good script, plus no vomit!
3. T-Mobile: Anytime, excellent idea and execution, but gets old after 30 seconds.
4. Doritos: Mouse Trap, classical music makes this commercial happen.
5. Cars.com: Plan B, Circle of Death, the commentary in the second half is much more funny than the rest.
6. Tide: My Talking Stain, very good, but the product slogan seemed unrelated to the commercial.
7. NFL: You Should Play Football, great storytelling with an excellent joke at the end.
8. Bud Light: Breath of Fire, predictable, but still decent.
9. Fed Ex: Carrier Pigeons, another weak entry, but that's the kind of year it was.
10. Diet Pepsi Max: Nod, it would be a pointless montage of cameos if not for Joe Buck and Chris Kattan.

My predictions...

Best Picture

• Atonement
• The Diving Bell & the Butterfly
• Into the Wild
• No Country for Old Men
• There Will Be Blood

Best Director

• Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell & the Butterfly
• Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
• Coen Brothers, No Country for Old Men
• Tim Burton, Sweeney Todd
• Paul Anderson, There Will Be Blood

Best Actor

• James McAvoy, Atonement
• Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises
• George Clooney, Michael Clayton
• Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd
• Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood

Best Actress

• Keira Knightley, Atonement
• Julie Chrstie, Away from Her
• Ellen Page, Juno
• Angelina Jolie, A Mighty Heart
• Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose

Best Supporting Actor

• Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
• Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson's War
• Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
• Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton
• Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men

Best Supporting Actress

• Ruby Dee, American Gangster
• Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
• Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
• Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There
• Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton