I had the chance to interview the great Horror and Sci-Fi director Joe Dante a little while back. His latest work is called "Homecoming," which was shown on Showtime. Dante talked about his influences in horror, what motivated him to direct this piece for the "Masters of Horror" series and the way he feels about many political issues of our day.

Update from Sinbaud: "Masters of Horror" marathon on New Year's Eve. "Homecoming" will be rebroadcast at the stroke of midnight, just as the champagne corks are popping.

Download | play -MP3 (25 min)

The King of Zembla interviewed Joe also.

You can read the Village Voice article on the film here.

(I edited out portions of myself speaking to Joe to make the file smaller)

--posted by John Amato

John Dean on Olbermann

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Dean joins Keith to discuss the latest on the "warrantless wiretapping."

(Transcript)-updated the post

DEAN: Well, I don't think there's any question he's violated the law. He's admitted to violating the law. What he is saying, I have a good defense, and that is national security. I have this power to do this, or this very vague resolution that the Congress granted for my using force in dealing with Afghanistan and terrorists. I can read into that that it also includes collecting signal intelligence.

It's a stretch. So what does this all mean? Is it an impeachable offense? Keith, that is a purely political question, and only the House of Representatives can decide it in the first instance. And I don't think they're going to decide it against the president at this point.

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The NY Times is being investigated now. "The Justice Department has opened an investigation of the unauthorized disclosure of classified information related to the NSA," a Justice Department official tells CNN."
I'm sure the bad people around the world had no idea we wanted to listen in.

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: Mel Gibson on Evolution

Looking for Someone to Lie to Me: Yoo can't be serious.

The Revealer: Reporters and activists should take note of Concerned Women for America, one of the most effective Christian conservative lobbying organizations around.

Tristram Shandy: Pinning the BS meter, Hewitt interviews Reynolds...and over at alicublog, Roy notes that the perfesser don't rightly know why poor folks accept bad terms on loans.

MediaCitizen: Charlie's Pundit Angels

Empire Burlesque: Clowntime is over - The last stand of the American Republicalicublog, Roy notes that the perfesser don't rightly know why poor folks accept bad terms on loans.

MediaCitizen: Charlie's Pundit Angels

Empire Burlesque: Clowntime is over - The last stand of the American Republic

We all make mistakes, it happens. I've had to correct a headline, many a typo and pasted in the wrong "url" for you to link to from time to time. After all, with editors like these- I'm surprised by the small amount of mistakes I've actually made. What was Ace thinking? The Rasmussen poll was quite clear in it's wording of their NSA poll which did not include the word "warrantless," as Ace's headline indicated. Jane pointed this out the other day. Ace's own commenters also requested the correction too.

Why should I care you ask? Ace of Spades HQ is a recent winner of the weblog award for best conservative blog and represents the best the right has to offer. Is this any way for an award winner to behave? Being a winner myself, I'm glad to see that the post is now changed and we can get back to the business at hand. One quick question. Why all the fuss about open threads? Please feel free to use this as an Open Thread.

Ace has offered up an apology.

Here, here, and here

The Washington Post pays this lady a salary to print articles like this and yet I'm the one that gets nasty emails from journalists telling me I'm making powerful enemies by criticising them.

Kathleen Parker wasn't one of them.

Wesley Clark: No case for war

Wesley Clark examines the President's case for the Iraq war on FOX. The phony debate that without the WMD hype, there still was a cause for war is nonsense.

Download | play -WMP Download | play -QT (the vid is a little dark)

Wanker

I'm starting a new thread. Check out the old one here- so you can see what's been discussed so far.

Picking up where John Yoo left off:

"Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray is defying a gag-order and publishing torture memos on his blog relating to the coordination between the Uzbek, British, and American governments...read on"

Blair Watch has posted them. Craig talks about them here. Bob calls on all bloggers.

In her interview yesterday with Gary Berntsen, the author of “Jawbreaker," Nora was grilling him about his book and the facts he presented which she should do-when O'Donnell entered into the realm of the bizzare.

O'DONNELL: So, Gary, you say that you knew where Osama bin Laden was and the president says he was in a cave with a door on it.

BERNTSEN: Well, let me say this. We tracked bin Laden with our reporting from Kabul, down to Nangarhar Province, into Jalalbad, down into the mountains. We had a steady stream. But, you know, every once in a while you get a report that says he's off, you know, in left field.

Here at this place or that place, but when you get a line of reporting, a stream of it, and we're marking it on a map, we can see consistently, you know, which way he's moving and from multiple sources. And then, of course, we were listening to his voice on an unencrypted radio.

O'DONNELL: Can I ask you, Gary, are you a Democrat?

BERNTSEN: No, I'm a Republican. And I'm a loyal supporter of the president and I think the president is doing a good job in the fight on terrorism.

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I know she's the guest host and I've received emails from readers who say they like the job she has been doing, but the question, "are you a Democrat," frames the issue that if a Democrat questions anything about this administration-you can't trust it. I'm not saying she is a liberal or a republican, or a terrible reporter either, I'm just responding to this particular segment.

AmericaBlog has the same take as well...

Maybe Kathleen Parker is right. They should ignore us.