My Top 5 80’s Movies List

Here is a list of my five favorite 80s movies. Now, this is not a list of the “objectively” best 80s movies (though that list could be forthcoming), but only a list of my favorites. Now that I think of it, maybe it should be a list of what I think are the best, because in my view, the two lists are different. Actually, maybe it would be best to break it up and have this list be the best movies that signify “the 80s”, and not necessarily the best films of the 80s. For example, when you think of the 80s, do you think of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or Raging Bull? I would say the former, and both films came out in that decade. Raging Bull might be in the list for the best movies of the decade, but not the list of movies that makes you think “80s”.

Okay, so I am going with the Quintessential 80s Movie list. What qualifies a movie to be here, you ask? I think a film with the “cheesy” clothes and music, or a “slow clap”, or a bad guy you love to hate, or a high school setting, or a fanciful or impossible romance, or an inexplicable dance/song number, etc. …

Alas, here is my list:

Can’t Buy Me Love
St. Elmo’s Fire
Top Gun
The Breakfast Club
The Karate Kid

I inserted Can’t Buy Me Love over the aforementioned Ferris Bueller’s, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and The Goonies, not because I like it more than those films, but because in my view it better satisfies the “quintessential 80s” requirement and has one of the greatest slow clap scenes ever. Apologies also to Sixteen Candles, Lucas and Weird Science. Although, the latter could qualify under a different list: “Bad” Movies That We Love. Stay tuned, but for now, enjoy theses “iconic” scenes (apologies for all the ” “s).

Health Care Bill Fact Check

Factcheck.org has released their study of H.R. 3200, or more specifically, the claims being made about the bill. The article is worth a read, and most definitely worth passing along to EVERYONE.

Health Care Cont’d

John Harwood at the NYT lays out where we stand on health care, and towards the end of his piece lays out in very clear terms where legislators are in agreement, and where they still differ. When reading it I was struck by the fact that Obama and other democratic leaders have failed to lay out in such simple terms what a bill would do and how it would benefit both the insured and the uninsured. As a result, the Republicans have controlled the discourse and with the aid of the inept MSM, we are left talking about things that are NOT in the bill (death panels, coverage for undocumented aliens, etc.).

Obama needs to take control of this sinking ship now, lay out the vision in clear terms (the guy is a great orator; why is he struggling with this?), make reform a moral issue (“how can the world’s greatest democracy turn a blind eye to 47 million uninsured Americans”, or something like that), and use all his political resources to ensure that the best bill possible crosses his desk this fall.

The Mess in Afghanistan

We are nearing the eight-year anniversary of the start of the war in Afghanistan. What have we accomplished? The Taliban is arguably more influential, potent and organized in that country than they were in October of 2001. The country’s infrastructure, in terms of economics, civil services, and politics, still appear to be in disarray. Oh, and one other thing, Osama-Bin Laden is still at large.

Unfortunately, Obama seems intent to stay the course there, which will probably destroy his presidency the way Vietnam did Johnson’s. If the mighty Russian army could not emerge from that country victorious, why do we think we can build that state to our liking when after nearly eight years we have regressed in our efforts, and our military is stretched thin in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The new strategy to fight the war in Afghanistan is leading the news today, and the story in Time carries this statement from a former CIA expert:

“President Obama inherited a disaster, a war which had been under-resourced horribly for at least six of the last seven and a half years,” former CIA official Bruce Riedel, who was tapped by the White House to review Afghan policy, said last week. Even if McChrystal gets whatever forces he feels he needs, the best one can hope for is that the situation may be stabilized in 12 to 18 months. “Anyone who thinks that in 12 to 18 months we’re going to be anywhere near victory is living in a fantasyland,” Riedel said.

It is not going to matter to the people in Afghanistan or voters in this country that Obama inherited the mess; all that will matter is that he will be the one unable to clean it up or get is out of it.