Buy The Fog of War on DVD

OK, you should get the DVD for this, not only to support Errol Morris on DVD, but also because it has two great supplements (among many other fine ones):

1 - It has, as an extra scene, LBJ's Daisy ad, the greatest political ad in tv history. Sure, you could download and watch it on the net in any one of a million places, but don't you want the glory of being able to pop in a DVD at a moment's notice? Impress those polisci people.

2 - McNamara tells the story of meeting a World Bank protestor. He tells her that she's fucking retarded, that the World Bank is a Good Thing, and why the hell isn't she protesting the fact that the United States ranks behind Cuba in infant mortality. Which is great, because it's so fucking true. Health Care should be liberal issue number one.

2.5 - OK, bonus coolness. McNamara talks about reviewing the war plans for nuke war with the USSR. As depressing as this usually is, it actually brightened my mood quite a bit by putting things into perspective. Sure, W sucks. Sure, Osama sucks. Sure, there are a bunch of crazy religious wackos who want to fly planes into buildings. But the Cold War's over. A full-on nuclear war with the USSR would have completely destroyed us. I mean, you'd either die, die painfully, or get to live in a post-atomic wasteland in which society had been completely destroyed. A few thousand people and a coupla skyscrapers don't mean shit in comparison. And I don't care how fucking weird things get in the Middle East, those crazy fucks don't have a massive nuclear arsenal pointed at us. Which is a Very Good Thing. Cold War. Fucking sucked. Thanks, Harry S Truman, the last American president not to have gone to college. You fuck.

In other news, I'm cheesed that I already sent one of my gmail invites to a certain beflippered Indian fellow who won't actually use the account. I've got one left and I've got to find a good deal on gmailswap. Basically, I'm hoping somebody puts up an offer for Fear and Desire or some shit like that.

I'd also like to note that CNN's archive of political clips has the Daisy ad, and it also has Reagan's Bear in the Woods ad, which is pretty good, too. They describe it, though, by saying:

In another of his famous political ads, Ronald Reagan uses a bear to portray himself as a strong leader.

Which sounds an awful lot like they're saying that RR's using a bear as a symbol for himself, which he's not. It's red scare stuff. Funny, though, because the ad says something along the lines of "if there's a bear in the woods, isn't it a good idea to be as strong as the bear?" This is amusing because we were always like eight million times bigger than the bear. But hey, it's all a part of the legacy of Give em Hell, Harry.