At Positive Liberty, Jason Kuznicki asks:

Where, oh where, is the party for pluralist, capitalist, small-government, secular, civil libertarian voters? Why is it that these positions, which to my mind seem so naturally dependent upon one another, are set against one another so implacably by the political powers that be?

[continue reading Cain and Abel in the Mainstream, a neatly analytical look at some party-points made at the DNC]

Where, indeed? And here, for your weekend pleasure (and antidote for a nasty politics hangover), via LDMA's Life in the Wor Zone, the Tolkien Sarcasm Pages presents...{drumroll}...the long lost first - pre-Jackson - Lord of the Rings film, from 1956 [18Mb QuickTime .mov], starring:

Humphrey Bogart as Frodo
Sydney Greenstreet as Gandalf the Grey/White
Dooley Wilson as Sam
Bob Steele as the Nazgul
Charles Waldron as Elrond
Godzilla as the Balrog
Marlene Dietrich as Galadriel
Orson Welles as Saruman
Peter Lorre as Gollum

Finally, I have plans to see either The Manchurian Candidate or The Village this weekend, but unfortunately critics are saying the latter is something of a disappointment. UDaily says,

"The Village" follows a group of people who live in relative bucolic bliss in an isolated, 19th-century-looking settlement that borders the woods. There is one problem. The forest is apparently inhabited by some fearsome, carnivorous creatures who possess large claws, howl at the moon and have an affinity for the color red. The elders have conditioned the villagers to live in mortal fear of these beasts, so much so that the creatures are always referred to as "Those We Don't Speak Of."

OK, so nobody has told these people not to end a sentence in a prepositional phrase.

Sorry, but that won't wash in Chicago, where you're legally required to end sentences with prepositions. Otherwise, where would the fun be at?

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