NEW RULE: YOU CAN’T BE PRESIDENT IF YR DAD’S A MEXICAN

As you may know, a certain percentage of Americans are convinced that Barack HUSSEIN! Obama is from Kenya or Indonesia or some other foreign country where lots of Islams live. As you may also know, the GOP has enjoyed this a great deal and milked it for all its worth.

Which isn’t to say most Republicans are birther conspiracy theorists. But they do like to pander to them, because hey, birthers vote. As such, they’ve had to strike that fine line between vague support and kook-by-association – “I’m not saying I think Obama isn’t an American, I’m just saying I can’t say one way or another, and if other people want more proof, well, who am I to be critical?”

The problem with associating yrself with the batshit wing, of course, is that they’ll turn on you when yr not looking if yr not careful.

Which is why we now have the Mitt Romney Birther Conspiracy Theory.

That theory goes like this:

Mitt Romney’s father is a Mexican. Therefore Mitt Romney cannot legally be President.

The end.

The reasoning – such as it is – is that “natural-born citizen” means being born to two natural-born citizens. If one of yr parents is a foreigner, yr disqualified. Otherwise, Vladimir Putin could knock up an American woman, and if she gave birth to a son in the US, and if that son ran for the White House and won, THE SON OF VLAD PUTIN WOULD BE POTUS AND THAT’S THE BALL GAME, AMERICA! RUSSIA WINS!

Or in Mitt’s case, Mexico wins. Or something.

That’s the more reasonable Mitt Is Mexican theory, incidentally. Others suggest his birth cert is a forgery (because everyone knows how easy they are to fake) and he was actually born in Mexico and/or raised by Mormon polygamists in a deliberate plan to raise him as a Mexican Mormon agent to infiltrate the Presidency.

Yes.

Given that many all of these people are part of the Anyone-But-Mitt conservative bloc (which, as you may remember, has been trying out everyone from Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain to Ron Paul and Rick Santorum), none of this is terribly surprising. For them, Romney is almost as bad a choice as Obama. Or, as one MexiMitt believer (and Ron Paul supporter) put it: “Let me ask you this: Is it better to go off a 10,000 foot cliff at 100 mph, or 50 mph?"

Will Mitt’s Mexican heritage ultimately hurt his campaign? Probably not. Democrats may be tempted to use it in the same way that Republicans have used the Obama Birther issue – i.e. if it puts yr opponent on the defensive, use it, no matter how trivial it is, just in case it works. To quote Ryan Gosling in The Ides Of March: “I don't care if it’s true, I just want to hear him deny it.”

But it’s not going to be a deciding factor at the polls any more than Obama’s birth cert will be, even when you factor in the point that Obama birthers and Mitt birthers are essentially the same group of kooks. It’s a small group, and one that’s more likely to vote third-party if it's going to vote at all.

Still, I like the idea that the GOP won’t be able to play the birther card without having to defend Romney’s Mexican heritage – especially given their general tendency to pander to voters who are afeared of Teh Mexicanz in places like (and I’m just pulling a name out of the air here) Arizona, where Mexican-American studies in schools are illegal on the grounds that they encourage students to hate white people and overthrow the govt.

I wish I was kidding.

Muy loco,

This is dF

CAT vs SQUIRREL

Recently on my mom’s back porch:

Squirrel: “Im on ur porch, eatin ur birdseed.”

Cat: “Do I look like a f***ing bird?”

Squirrel: "K d00d."



Cat wins.

This bird you cannot change,

This is dF

I WATCH MOVIES ON AIRPLANES

Or at least I watch them when the flight is 12+ hours, because I don’t have one of those fancy iPad doodads or an iTunes account, I can only spend so much time reading, and sleeping is not an option.

Unfortunately for me, I flew United Airlines for my US trip, and UA has yet to upgrade to the 21st Century for things like, say, personal backseat entertainment screens with 30 channels and/or a VOD library. On the bright side, they’ve stopped using those old three-color TV projectors invented in the 80s.

Still.

Anyway, here’s what I watched.

One For The Money

Based on the first novel of the Stephanie Plum mystery series by Janet Evanovich, in which Plum finds herself unemployed and, out of desperation, gets a job from cousin Vinnie as a bail bondswoman. Her first target: Joe Morelli, Plum’s former high-school boyfriend who is a cop accused of shooting an unarmed man.

I couldn't tell you what the book itself is like, but in terms of visuals, pace and dialogue, the movie is a throwback to any number of late-80s films featuring wisecracking sleuths adapted from books (Fletch, V.I. Warshawski and Burglar come to mind). Which is to say, it’s basic and functional, but not essential.

Hugo

Martin Scorsese’s “kids” film in which title character Hugo lives inside the clockroom of a train station in Paris as he tries to complete his dead father’s task of rebuilding an automaton capable of writing messages – and discovers an unexpected secret.

I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it’s Scorsese, so it’s brilliantly made. On the other hand, the slapstick chase scenes didn’t really work for me, and Scorsese gets distracted fleshing out some of the minor characters in the station (that are meant to be famous people, but you’d never know it unless you read the end credits).

Still, points for highlighting the life and work of Georges Melies, which is the best part of the film, and probably might have made a for a better film idea in itself.

Man On A Ledge

In which Sam Worthington plays the title role – a man threatening to jump off the ledge of a NYC hotel – only what he has in mind isn’t suicide.

The basic idea – using a jumper scenario as a distraction for a much bigger plan – is okay, but the plan itself gets more preposterous as the story builds up to what is (for me) a very unconvincing climax. Between that and a movie populated mostly with cardboard stereotypes, it’s not nearly the clever heist film it thinks it is.

Go ahead and jump,

This is dF