Weekend Wrap-Up

• I couldn't figure out how to put the "Support Denmark" banner I wanted to add a couple of weeks ago into my template, so, Plan B: Check out the "Buy Danish" logo in the sidebar.
• I'm watching my hero Brian Lamb interview Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds right now, on the C-Span Q&A show. Transcript and video here.
• Cleaning out some more junk from the junk room this weekend, I found this article from a few weeks ago. Excerpt: In Washington, Baltimore, Atlanta and elsewhere in the country, union organizers are scouring shelters and recruiting homeless people to maintain their picket lines, paying just above minimum wage and failing to provide health benefits. The national carpenters’ union, which broke from the AFL-CIO four years ago in a bitter dispute over organizing strategies and other issues, is hiring homeless people to stage noisy protests at non-union construction sites... ...With homes and offices being built or renovated and real estate still booming in many urban areas, he said, the union carpenters are too busy to join the picket lines. Sorry, that was my head just exploding. I won't go to the extent today of saying that unions suck, just that they often suck.
• Here's a great interview with one of my favorite directors of the 90s, Whit Stillman. He only made three movies, all of which are subtle, quirky, and excellent: Metropolitan, Barcelona, and The Last Days of Disco. More articles about Mr. Stillman here, here, and here. Fansites here and here. It's been too long since I have viewed these films; I have copies of all three on taped-from-cable VHS around here somewhere, but I want to catch the new Metropolitan DVD release. Barcelona is also available on DVD, but as far as I know, TLDOD is not. (It was, but it seems to have gone out of print and is now selling used for $70.00 plus on Amazon!) I'm Netflixing the first two and going to see what I can find out about the third.
• The ♥GF♥ and I watched the documentary series Guns, Germs, and Steel (based on the book of the same name by Jared Diamond) yesterday while we played Scrabble. (Two games!) I like these "big explanation" theories; I hesitate to embrace or reject most things like that out of hand (here is a criticism of his book, from shortly after it came out) but I certainly want to read Prof. Diamond's book sometime. An interesting fact Diamond pointed out: South Africa is about the same distance from the Equator as Northern Europe, so weather, seasons, length of days, potential for growth of crops, etc. ended up being similar for both areas. In all this time of reading history books and stuff, that simple fact had never occurred to me. GG&S Wikipedia entry here.
• Did I post this before? Hidden gags in Looney Tunes cartoons. If I did, then I guess it deserves to be posted twice.

Tired now... fortunately bed is right next to puter.