Thursday, June 19, 2008

Book report on a book I will never read.

Disclaimer. I have not, nor will I ever read Pat Buchanan's latest book: “Churchill, Hitler and ‘The Unnecessary War’: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World,”. I find the man irritating in the extreme, a humorless right wing pundit who seems to actually believe the things he says, despite the fact that the assertions he makes are extremely easy to refute. I heard him on the radio talking about his latest rewriting of history, and I've read several articles and reviews of the book which confirm what his central assertion is:

Winston Churchill was responsible for World War Two, because he pledged to Poland that if they were invaded, Britain would come to their aid. If he had not promised this, Hitler would have stopped after invading Poland, because all little Adolph wanted was to bring the city of Gdansk back to Germany.

Yes, in his view Hitler wasn't an aggressive madman with other agendas like the annihilation of the Jews, Gypsies, Catholics, Homosexuals and Artists. He was just a proud German leader who wanted his Gdansk back. The term delusional scarcely begins to cover this man. Then again, he still thinks Nixon was one of America's greatest presidents. Although he did work for the guy, you really should be able to tell when the tide of history is against you, and maybe get on board with reality. But then again, if someone like him has no problem performing the mental gymnastics required to think that all Hitler really wanted was one city in Poland, it's not a far stretch to think that most anything makes sense.

There are several great sites devoted to reading books, "So you don't have to.", but I've taken it one step further, and not read this book, and now maybe you won't have to either. Please don't put one more penny into this idiot's pockets.

Monday, June 02, 2008

A risky move by Netflix

When I checked in with my Netflix home page today, they had apparently closely monitored my movie choices and stuck their necks way out to recommend a movie to me.

Citizen Kane

And they assure me that "Critics liked" it. Well, on that ringing endorsement, I guess I'll have to see it.

Seriously, "Critics liked" Citizen Kane? I guess that falls into the Water is Wet, Ice is Cold, and Don't set your Ass on Fire category of recommendations.