Which presumes he ever had one.

A day after an effigy of the Grim Reaper stalked his speech in Edmonton, Canada, former President George W. Bush was on the defensive over his personal salvation.

Speaking to a $400-a-seat crowd in Montreal, Bush told the roughly 1,000 attendees that his presidential decisionmaking was principled and moral.

“I am confident that I made decisions based on principle, that I made calls as best I could, and I did not sell my soul,” Bush said.

Outside his speech, the scene was anything but calm. A throng of protesters burned a flaming effigy of the former president, who’s taken his stump speech on the road across Canada. He’ll speak in three Canadian cities over a period of as many days.

Did he have regrets? an audience member asked.

“I spend a lot of time thinking about Katrina, and whether I could have sent in the federal troops right away, even though it was against the law,” Bush replied. He added he regretted the “Mission Accomplished” banner that accompanied him during a speech on an aircraft carrier after the early stages of his invasion of Iraq.

(Raw Story: Shoes fly as Bush tells audience ‘I did not sell my soul’)

This (tall?) tale about why Harvey Keitel was allegedly booted from Eyes Wide Shut scorches the brain. See below:

Keitel and Kidman just did a scene in which Keitel’s character is supposed to stand behind Kidman’s character and masturbate.

Keitel is not only a fine actor, he is a method actor.

You probably see what is coming ?

Via Defamer, Bourne Identity director Doug Liman spills the tricks of the trade:

In the elite all-guy fraternity of big time directors it’s a rare thing for one of their own to speak out against the excesses of the brotherhood. But notoriously difficult auteur Doug Liman seems to have forgotten his loyalties.

In an entry in a blog devoted to chronicling the development of his new film that apparently involves the moon, the Bourne Identity helmer let slip that that old “process” thing that has been used by generations of Hollywood enablers to excuse all sorts of psychotic behavior might just be, you know, creativity aside, a bunch of excuses used by megalomaniac directors and actors excuses to get away with shoving their hands down the crew’s pants.

You don’t say? Liman goes on to reveal:

A hilarious thing about the movie business is that you can get away with anything as long as you call it “process.” Literally, anything. I mean, he’s sound asleep! The director is literally sound asleep on set - what the hell’s going on here? Well, he’s slept through his last three movies, and they were huge hits. It’s how he works; that’s his “process.” He’ll wake up at some point and give notes, but for now, let him catch a few Zs. I haven’t been in the business that long, but at this point I can’t think of a single outrageous behavior that I haven’t seen occur on set and then heard excused as someone’s process.

I have a friend who was directing his first feature film, and the actor who’s starring in it came up to the director, my friend, and said: “Just to let you know from the beginning, I’m going to be stoned in my trailer every morning and all day long. But before anyone panics, I’ve been stoned in every movie I’ve been in, and I was stoned when I auditioned for you. You’ve basically never seen me when I’m not stoned. The guy that you’ve cast is basically stoned, so don’t be alarmed that I’m in my trailer getting stoned.”

Then there’s the director who was known for fondling P.A.‘s in the video village. Explicitly fondling them - putting his hands down the pants of P.A.s in the video village in front of everybody. And what did the studio do? They built a tent so no one could see. They created a private little video village for him so they wouldn’t get sued for sexual harassment by the rest of the crew.

Oh, Hollywood. No wonder the rest of the world can’t stand you!

(Defamer: Doug Liman)

 
My Japanese ranging from non-existent to the merely serviceable when faced with the ordering of raw fish, I’ll defer my summation of this to PinkTentacle:

According to this NTV news report, the life-sized humanoid robot was developed as a realistic training aid for medical workers.  In addition to sporting a suit of human-like skin, the robot sweats, convulses, moans, cries tears, and exhibits symptoms not unlike a real human patient infected with the H1N1 virus.  If the robot does not receive the proper treatment, the symptoms gradually worsen until it stops breathing.

Reuters video is carrying the English version of the story.  To watch its unembeddable footage, click here.

 
(via Pink Tentacle)

 
Etsy seller lovedtodeath:

This is a OOAK piece of anthropomorphic taxidermy art. It is made with genuine taxidermy squirrel parts that have been professionally preserved. She is in a custom made wooden box with beautifully gold and red flocked Victorian decorated walls. She is clutching her golden heart (genuine preserved squirrel heart in 24K gold gilding), “Her Hearts Best Treasure”. Her dress is trimmed in fur and she is wearing a ruby heart pendant on a gold chain necklace. Atop her head is her rhinestone crown. On the wall hangs a framed painting of her beloved family. The floor is rich black velvet and the ceiling is painted gold with black Victorian accents.

 
Squirrel Queen Victoria can be yours for $495.00.

 
“Let law enforcement determine if it’s a threat…and let the experts decide.”  Earlier this week, I made note of the security cameras popping up all over Kabul.  Today, though, brings news that suggests the surveillance impulse is just as alive and well here in Los Angeles.  The below clip is from iWATCH, the LAPD’s:

community awareness program created to educate the public about behaviors and activities that may have a connection to terrorism.  This program is a community program to help your neighborhood stay safe from terrorist activities.  It is a partnership between your community and the Los Angeles Police Department.  We can and must work together to prevent terrorist attacks.

A noble aim, true, but must the campaign come off sounding—and looking—so creepy?  I’m not sure what’s more desperately transparent here: the pandering to youth culture with that lowercase “i,” or the PSA’s carefully calibrated casting?

I mean, do people not watch these things and realize that each and every one of these “LA voices” is an actor who, to land the gig, underwent a rigorous audition process?  A process that, at some point, probably hinged on how “threatening” their own ethnicity might be perceived?  And not to read too much into one PSA, but isn’t it odd that the more gratuitous close-ups belong most frequently to those of the white guys?

 
I know the LED false eyelash craze is sorta old news. However, I’ve never seen the video of the eyelashes in action.

LED Eyelash is a clever product that speaks to many Asian women?

 

 

 

 
Korean artist and photographer Gwon Osang builds his lightweight sculptures by taking hundreds of photographs of his subjects. Gwon Osang discusses his sculptures:

I began with photographs to make lightweight sculpture. I first made a chisel for wood and then stone. Following that I finished a work titled An Obsessive Report on Power (p. ), which consisted of an arm to symbolize material and the power to control it. I had created these because they were elements that I felt I lacked. Though I linked sculpture to photography, I think I was more interested in photography at the time.

In fact, it was people in photography who first responded to my work and at the time photography was more influential. I took full advantage of photography’s merits, not least of which was the ease of changing the object’s size. And I was fascinated by the commonality between film negatives and the plaster mold. This has helped me make the human body in all its different and often distorted forms.

Gwon Osang
 
(via accidental mysteries)

Executive Koala is a Japanese movie from 2006 which stars a typical salaryman… typical in every way except that he is actually a giant koala. After a girlfriend is murdered, he descends into a world of psychosis marked by increasingly violent fantasies where his koala-rage is given full expression, and in which his only hope are a giant frog and a giant rabbit.

It’s well twisted. See trailer below:

 
Trailer for Swedish “battle of the bands” zaniness from 1967. Looks like a wacky low budget hybrid of A Hard Day’s Night and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.