Movie Mondays!

While it’s billed as the final installment, another film has been planned and it’s easy to see why. The third chapter of the Pirates of the Caribbean series harkens back to classics like Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood. A period piece with enough fun, adventure and thrills to appeal to all ages, these films only seem to get better with each new entry into the series. On the run from the Dutch East India Company, the Pirates must band together or risk being driven from the seas forever. The challenge can’t be faced though without Captain Jack Sparrow first being rescued from Davy Jones’ Locker, a quest in itself! Lots of fun for all ages!


I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

You better buy your burka holy crap!!!!!!!!

I got an email the other day containing the line above. I thought I would share it. From now on, whenever I get one of these over the top emails, I’m going to post it here. It’s really important to show the kind of fear mongering that goes on nowadays.

I’m not raising myself above the fray or saying I’m not susceptible to the petty prejudices others succumb to from time to time. If anything, I’m an equal opportunity offender in the sense I often find myself at odds with the people who identify themselves as being on the right or on the left. As such, more often than not I’m putting people into a snit because I am not agreeing with their nonsense.

Of course, I again readily admit I do not have the market cornered on rational discourse, political or otherwise.

Anyway, this is what passes for dialog nowadays and it’s not that I don’t believe people have a right to oppose someone’s nomination because they have views that differ from the nominee – people have every right to do so and voice their opinion. People have every right to contact their representatives to voice their views. It’s not a matter of the message but the tone of the message that bothers me. There may be some points I might even agree with but it has such a disagreeable tone and frames the argument in such a vile way I can’t in good conscious give it the slightest bit of credence because it comes across as the ravings of the lunatic fringe:

Subject: ACTION ALERT - Oppose Kagan to Supreme Court - she is pro Shariah law  Islamic law, comes to the Supreme Court

Shariah comes to the Supreme Court
BREAKING: Just as the Senate moves to a final vote on the nomination of Elena Kagan to the US Supreme Court, the Center for Security Policy's Christine Brim makes the definitive case against her at Big Peace.
you better buy your burka holy crap!!!!!!!!

The Senate should not confirm Elena Kagan, because her views render her the first Supreme Court Justice who actively favors the introduction of Shariah law into national Constitutions and legal systems. To excuse themselves for voting for her confirmation, Senators of both parties have told themselves this vote for Kagan’s confirmation will result in a harmless swap: the substitution of one liberal justice for another.

The reality is far more threatening and unprecedented in American history. A vote to confirm Elena Kagan’s nomination will bring a liberal, pro-Shariah justice to our highest Court. And if she is confirmed, her behavior as Obama’s Solicitor General indicates she will refuse to recuse herself on any Shariah-related decision but instead will lead the charge to legitimate Shariah law in America.

Senators have told themselves they have little evidence on which to evaluate Kagan, because other than her work as Obama’s Solicitor General, she has no judicial experience.

But Kagan has made repeated and very public decisions about a judicial system – Shariah – and Senators should be obligated to take into account those decisions when they vote for her. Her 2003-2009 career as Dean of Harvard Law School is a history of those decisions, and every one of them shows her “deep appreciation” of Shariah law.

Every vote for Kagan is a vote to bring a pro-Shariah view to the Supreme Court. Here are five reasons to vote against Kagan’s nomination:

1. PRO-SHARIAH MISSION: With Kagan’s direction, Harvard’s Islamic Legal Studies Program developed a mission statement (here on 9/2008, also 6/2009) dedicated “to promote a deep appreciation of Islamic law as one of the world’s major legal systems.” That mission statement guided her actions and those whom she directed as Dean.

Under Kagan’s direction, her chief staff at the Islamic Legal Studies Program aggressively expanded non-critical studies of Shariah law – fulfilling her mission “to promote a deep appreciation of Islamic law.” In 2003, the year Kagan became Harvard Law School Dean, Islamic Legal Studies Program Founding Director Frank Vogel and Associate Director Peri Bearman founded the Massachusetts-based International Society for Islamic Legal Studies. In 2007, Bearman and Vogel founded the Islamic Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools (inaugural panel audio here).

2. PRO-SHARIAH MONEY: When Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal offered $10 million to New York City’s Rudy Guiliani on October 11, 2001, Guiliani refused to accept it, because the prince insisted that U.S. policies in the middle east were responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attack. Guiliani stated flatly, “There is no moral equivalent for this act.” But – when Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal offered $20 million to the Islamic Legal Studies Program in December 2005 – Kagan accepted it; after all, the Saudi royal family had funded the program since its inception, to establish the moral and legal equivalency between Shariah law and U.S. Constitutional law. As Newt Gingrich has noted, Harvard Law School currently has three chairs endowed by Saudi Arabia, including one dedicated to the study of Islamic sharia law.
In 2001 Guiliani made a decision not to accept Talal’s blood money; In 2005, Kagan made a decision not just to accept it, but to implement Talal’s policies at Harvard.

And not just at Harvard. As reported earlier this year, “Kagan is the main reason why the Supreme Court ruled against the 9/11 families” in a suit filed by thousands of 9/11 family members that traced funding for the 19 hijackers to certain Saudi royals, along with banks, corporations and Islamic charities. Kagan, as Obama’s Solicitor General, said in her brief “that the princes are immune from petitioners’ claims” and that the families’ claims that the Saudis helped to finance the plots fell “outside the scope” of the legal parameters for suing foreign governments or leaders.

Let’s review Kagan’s decisions so far: she actively solicits Saudi financing to promote Shariah law in the U.S.; she actively protects Saudi financial backers for terrorism against the U.S., as being immune from claims by 9/11 families.

3.  PROMOTING THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD AND SHARIAH CONSTITUTIONS: In December, 2006, Kagan hired Noah Feldman, architect of Iraq’s Constitution requiring Shariah, as a star faculty member at Harvard Law School.  On March 16, 2008, Feldman published his controversial article “Why Shariah” in the New York Times Magazine, which promoted “Islamists” -  the Muslim Brotherhood – as a progressive democratic party, and promoted Shariah as a model not just for Muslim-majority countries but for all: “In fact, for most of its history, Islamic law offered the most liberal and humane legal principles available anywhere in the world…”  The article was adapted from his book The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State, which was published in late March, 2008.

On September 16, 2008, Kagan whole-heartedly endorsed Feldman’s promotion of the Muslim Brotherhood and Shariah by honoring him with the endowed Bemis Chair in International Law.  Feldman’s speech on receiving the award was revealing: he advocated for an international, “outward interpretation” of the Constitution that could “require the U.S. to confer rights on citizens of other nations,” and allow for an “experimental Constitution.”

As to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist worldwide political organization that Feldman and Kagan support? Their motto is as revealing as Feldman’s speech:

“Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”

Given that slogan, you could well ask if Feldman really meant the Muslim Brotherhood when he wrote about “Islamists” in the book Kagan so admired that she gave him an endowed chair.  And he anticipated that question; in the second footnote in his book he states, “Throughout this book, when I refer to Islamists or Islamism, I have in mind mainstream Sunni Muslim activists loosely aligned with the ideology of the transnational Muslim Brotherhood (MB)…the Brotherhood broadly embraces electoral politics, but without eschewing the use of violence in some circumstances, notably against those whom it defines as invaders in Iraq and Palestine.”

So let’s review.  Kagan made the decision to honor Feldman, author of “big-lie” forms of pro-Shariah propaganda, supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood,  with an endowed chair.  Feldman states flatly that the Muslim Brotherhood, whom he admires, does not “eschew the use of violence….against those whom it defines as invaders in Iraq and Palestine.”  Kagan’s financial backer, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, insisted that the U.S. policies in the Middle East, specifically in Israel and Palestine were a cause of the 9/11 attacks .  Like the Muslim Brotherhood, the Prince did not “eschew the use of violence” against the U.S.   And when 9/11 families sued the Saudi royals who funded the September 11, 2001 “use of violence” against the U.S., Kagan used her power as Solicitor General to protect the group that had been her financial backers at Harvard.

But wait.  There’s more.

4. PROMOTING SHARIAH IN CONSTITUTIONS WORLDWIDE: On May 1, 2007, Kagan initiated a lecture series on Shariah Law, named for Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri, a legal scholar who had drafted constitutions throughout the Middle East between the 1930s and 1960s.  There are literally dozens of legal reformers throughout the Muslim world that she could have chosen; but she chose al-Sanhuri.

Sanhuri’s entire career was dedicated to making sure that the civil and criminal legal codes throughout the Middle East were Shariah-compliant.  He drafted the laws that ensured Shariah law took precedence over secular laws.  As much as any single individual, he was responsible for the legal drafting for the “Constitutionalization” of Shariah in previously secular Muslim-majority nations in the 20th century, in concert with the political pressure for Shariah by the Muslim Brotherhood, and the financial pressure for Shariah by the Saudi Royal Family.

As legal scholar Enid Hill wrote in her biography of al-Sanhuri, “The outlines of the future dialectic are thus able to be detected if al-Sanhuri’s specifications are followed: Islamic legal theory versus Western legal rules, and when the Western rules reflect a different underlying theory they are to be eliminated and new rules put in their place, rules that are reflective of Islamic legal theory.”  (h/t Andy Bostom)  Or as al-Sanhuri states himself in his book The Arab Civil Code, “The goal towards which I am striving is that there will be an Arab civil code derived primarily from the Islamic Shari’a.”

Kagan presided over four of the al-Sanhuri lectures before her departure to become Obama’s Solicitor General

5.  PROMOTING SHARIAH IN THE JUDICIAL COUP IN PAKISTAN

Kagan consistently used her position at Harvard to promote and legitimate the introduction of Shariah provisions into national constitutions, and indeed into Supreme Courts of other nations.  In Pakistan, her influence is having dire consequences.

On November 19, 2008, Elena Kagan presented the Harvard Law School Medal of Freedom to  Iftikhar Chaudhry, the controversial Chief Justice of Pakistan. Chaudry had been deposed from his post in 2007 by President General Pervez Musharraf in a complex dispute that included the issue of independence of the judiciary.  Musharraf later resigned, and on March 16, 2009, the Prime Minister Gilani  re-appointed Chaudhry as Chief Justice.

As noted by Department of Defense attorneys from the Clinton and Reagan eras, Kagan’s honoree has mounted a Shariah judicial coup:

“Contrary to the constitution of Pakistan, Chaudhry usurped the right of appointment of vacancies in the court from the elected prime minister and president…In a previous ruling, Chaudhry reaffirmed the right of the court to disqualify members of Parliament, the president and all ministers of the cabinet from serving if they violate “Islamic injunctions,” or do not engage in ‘teaching and practices, obligatory duties prescribed by Islam. “

The U.S. Senate has the evidence it needs to vote NOT to confirm Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court.  A vote for Kagan is a vote to bring Shariah to the highest court of the land.

Elena Kagan is fifty years old.  She could easily serve to the age of eighty or longer.  Her confirmation to the Supreme Court will begin a thirty-years legal war to protect the Constitution against Shariah.

Please vote no on her nomination to keep Shariah out of the Supreme Court, and to vote against confirming Kagan.

If you like your freedoms take 5 seconds to fill out this petition.Click here or below at the bottom of this email
go to actforamerica.com

http://actforamerica.org/index.php/contact-congress

http://bigpeace.com/cbrim/2010/08/04/shariah-comes-to-the-supreme-court-elena-kagans-decisions/

Coronal mass ejection!

Sounds like something you’d see in a porno movie? Sounds like it might be the money shot? Whatever, even though it has delightfully raunchy implications, it’s nothing of the sort:

You’ve heard of the northern lights? The next few days you may be able to see lights even if you aren’t that far north.The sun erupted on Sunday, spewing plasma, “a highly ionized gas containing an approximately equal number of positive ions and electrons” right in our direction. There’s no reason to freak out; solar storms are relatively common, and the most significant impact they have on our big blue marble is to possibly disrupt electronics and satellite communications.

They’re also... extremely firm.

What!?!?

Well that’s The Master talking about his Dalek bumps – they’re not breasts!

Here is part 2 of The Curse of The Fatal Death!

Prepare for 500 miles of fear and feces!

Doctor Who lovers know the show was recently handed off by the man who revived the franchise, Russell T Davies to Steven Moffat’s capable hands. Moffat had written several great episodes of the latest series himself but a lot of fans may not have seen or remember Moffat’s first stab at the Doctor.

Picture if you will Rowan Atkinson (known better as Mr. Bean)  as The Doctor and Jonathan Pryce as his nemesis The Master.

Sounds like something I’ve made up. no?

Well I haven’t!

I give you The Curse of The Fatal Death!

News about the economy.

Each piece of news that issues forth from the White House about the economy sounds very familiar, as if I’ve heard it before and then I realized the memory it was triggering:

Bet you didn’t know!

I was doing some looking around the other day looking for the relationship between the spread of cane sugar as part of the diet of Western cultures and the expansion of the practice of Dentistry when I came across this previously unknown (by me) piece of info:

The origin of the red and white barber pole is associated with the service of bloodletting and was historically a representation of bloody bandages wrapped around a pole. During medieval times, barbers performed surgery on customers, as well as tooth extractions. The original pole had a brass basin at the top (representing the vessel in which leeches were kept) and bottom (representing the basin that received the blood). The pole itself represents the staff that the patient gripped during the procedure to encourage blood flow.

Movie Mondays!

Hard to watch at times, it’s not a movie for the squeamish. People into body mods are no doubt going to find it fascinating as Modify covers a wide spectrum of the subject of body modification not only elaborating on piercing and tattooing but also on things like weight-lifting and plastic surgery. It’s not a bad film rather it’s something you have to already have an interest in to truly enjoy.

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

Funny how things work.

Heading into SDCC this year there was a lot of press given to the prospect of scantily clad women in skin tight costumes appearing at the convention. Generally, I could give a rat’s ass about this. Comics is a very insular world and the rabid and vocal fandom usually display the same behavior any fringe group does. In the scheme of things I just don’t find it all that important.

What is funny though is how the prospect of nearly naked women becomes an excuse for male bashing and by this I am talking about the people who take the opportunity to paint my gender with a very broad brush and to single out the imbeciles with poor impulse control or a lack of manners using them as emblematic of the behavior of men everywhere.

That’s not to say I don’t like looking at nude women, I find my appreciation for a nubile body that is well taken care of has not diminished with age, if anything it has increased – more than likely propelling me towards lecherous old guy status but then I’ve never been big on meeting other’s expectations of how I should or shouldn’t behave.

I just really am getting tired of this disingenuous rant under the guise of feminism about sexuality, gender relations and the odd dance between men and women that grows ever more complicated it seems.

We are men and yes we are looking at your tits.

In some instances looking at your tits can be better than looking at your face especially if you’ve got some kind of an ungodly mug that would crack marble at fifty paces. And I say this secure in the knowledge I am no women’s adonis nor do I pretend to be but I do have an understanding that there is a difference in how people are treated and how the world approaches them if they are becoming to the eye.

In the word of one of the ladies I spent a considerable amount of my life with, “Suck it up.”

Now, that’s not to say if some idiot invades a person’s personal space it’s okay and that’s not something I’m condoning but if a person chooses to look at someone, to ogle them or to stare an uncomfortably long time you’ll just have to get over it. Of course you could start a fight about it if you want and it seems in some instances that is exactly what happens but it happens (the fight) not because that there is staring going on but because the guy (or guys) in question doing the staring are deemed unworthy by the object of their visual celebration.

Herein lies the basic flaw in the argument – people are dressing a certain way to garner attention. If it’s Brad Pitt doing the staring chances are the complaints will be few but if it’s the embodiment of the comic shop guy from the Simpsons more than likely you’re going to be hearing a lot of griping.

Again, I’m not talking about touching, I’m not talking about following someone around all day, I’m not talking about treating someone to a verbal barrage of inane pickup lines which when they garner a negative or no response become insults – I’m not talking about any of the things that would constitute threatening or abusive behavior – these are obviously the things which could and should get your ass kicked by a male relative of the female who is on the receiving end of your crap.

But looking?

Get over yourself.

And let’s go a step beyond that... sex sells. If that’s something you personally find frustrating, while I can understand it, it’s one of those biological hard wired things nature does to make sure the species perpetuates. As much as people like to dress up things, we are after all still animals, not soulless, sexless creatures and I would argue that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

I’ve just seen too much bullshit in the last few years about what is and isn’t proper behavior for men in this country and it is really quite sickening. Ladies the simple solution is to just cut the balls off of every man round about the age of fifteen and a lot of this goes away but I have to tell you it’s not going to happen without a fight because we are men and those balls... well they hold a bit of a special place in our hearts.

Movie Mondays!

Daniel Day Lewis does his best John Huston impersonation in this Paul Thomas Anderson film that bears little in common with the director’s earlier works. Beautiful to look at with an astounding score, the film may be a bit obtuse for the average viewer. Mainly a study of a misanthropic oilman, Day-Lewis’ performance is what makes the film. As a character piece though, the pacing is somewhat slow and ponderous. This film reminded me of Stanley Kubrick’s work and while Kubrick is widely acknowledged as one of cinema’s great directors, here too is a piece not readily accessible to a wide audience. Don’t be lured in by the title, as malevolent as Day Lewis looks in the previews there are only a few moments of real action in the movie. Unless you are a lover of film as an art form, you will most likely come away disappointed.

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

 BE AFRAID!



Be very afraid!

The ride I took.

You know, when you look at this photo you might think I was looking up at the sky but then again, I could be far up looking down at the Earth below.

Fuck George Steinbrenner.

Over the last week,  you would think someone deserving of sainthood had passed away instead of a petty, despotic, megalomaniac but that seems to be what has happened in the case of the late Yankee owner. If there was one man who did his level best to destroy the game of baseball it was George Steinbrenner and what is hilariously funny is watching the media bend over backwards to rewrite history in regard to George.

Over the weekend, I was out at a friend’s and they asked me what I thought about George...

I stopped being a Yankee fan because of George Steinbrenner and if you don’t believe me, I can point you in the direction of several people of long acquaintance who will verify it.

George was everything bad about baseball and it took a second banishment from the game for the Yankees to return to greatness because knowledgeable people finally got a chance to run the Yankees as a baseball team instead of the circus it had become.

Steinbrenner was like the bratty, overweight, silver spoon kid from one of those old Little Rascals shorts. A man born into privilege he would’ve liked you to believe he was a self made man who rose up to his lofty station through his own efforts but the facts show that was not at all the case. As much as they try to clean up things to make it look otherwise, here’s the truth: “The elder (George’s father) Steinbrenner later became a wealthy shipping  magnate who ran the family firm operating freight ships hauling ore and grain on the Great Lakes.” and “George was an average student who led an active extracurricular life.”

George talked about playing by the rules but the rules never applied to him as evidences by his two suspensions from the game - it took a PRESIDENTIAL PARDON and a pal GETTING INSTALLED AS THE COMMISSIONER OF BASEBALL to clean up George’s name. Does that sound like the champion of fair play?

But aside from Phil Mushnick, who seems to get a lot of things right:

Steinbrenner paid Spira $40,000 in exchange for all the dirt he could dig on Dave Winfield. Then, after Steinbrenner was caught, he relied on his milk-fed friendly forces in media and law enforcement (need tickets?) to get the word out that he, George Steinbrenner, had been the victim of a shake-down artist.

To this day, history identifies Spira as a “a gambler,” as if he was a hood, a sharp, tough street guy. An online archived Sports Illustrated story from October 1990 identifies Spira as “a gambler with mob connections.”

If he’d been connected to “the mob,” there would be no mob — a school crossing guard would have busted it up. He was a profoundly delusional and childlike misfit with folders of clinical diagnoses to prove it. Spira was no more a criminal threat to Steinbrenner than he was to steal home.

The best thing I read about Steinbrenner was by a writer from outside of the country who covered the Yankees as a wire service reporter back in the eighties:

George Steinbrenner was a loser. While insisting that nothing less than wining was acceptable, Steinbrenner owned the New York Yankees during the team’s longest World Series drought since its first appearance in 1921, a dry spell directly attributable to Steinbrenner’s insistent mismanagement.

Believe me, if Dante had written The Inferno today – George Steinbrenner would’ve had a starring role. The only question is which circle he would’ve landed in: the third, the fourth, the fifth, the eighth or the ninth. It wouldn’t have been surprising to see him in all of them.

Movie Mondays!

I really enjoyed this movie! It’s a character study with a great cast and a story that is alternately serious and comedic. ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! I think it might make it into the category of “chick flick” since the focus is on the dynamic of the relationship between two sisters but, I still found it highly enjoyable. If a talky movie isn’t your thing you’ll be best off staying away but, if you enjoy good performances and quiet drama you will walk away feeling very satiated.

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

Talk to the hand.

Just some fooling around:

The computer has a built in camera. This is something I was aware of but hadn’t really used until last night when I found that you can take all kinds of special effect pics with it among other things. So I indulged myself, took a thermal shot of my hand and silhouetted it.

I forget!

Sometimes, I just forget about the things I can do on the computer. I wind up only using the damn thing to surf the web and fail to do anything productive but, every once in a while I get the bug to fool around again. Just to play the way I did when the computer was still a new thing to me and I rediscover the fun things I can do with it when left to my own devices.


Tonight it was playing around with a photo of a friend just to see if I could make it into something decent:

Movie Mondays!

This is the movie that should have been on the Grindhouse double feature with Planet Terror. It’s not high-art - just tawdry, trashy fun. Christina Ricci’s nymphomania goes up against recently abandoned husband Samuel Jackson's faith and the battle that results is a film that harkens back to the days of the drive in. There is no denying the nubile Ricci, who spends a great majority of the film scantily clad and in compromising positions, found inspiration for her performance from Carroll Baker (Baby Doll). It’s got a great bluesy soundtrack and the heat and steaminess of the south will just leap off the screen at you. Not at all PC but great fun still.

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

I hate dating.

But this has to be the best personal ad ever:



To see the 20  funniest personal ads of all time click through on the ad above.

Isn’t it time?

They made the movie - The Syd Barrett story:

Starring this guy:

I’d go see that.

(The first photo is Syd Barrett - the second photo is Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day)

A day at the musuem!

Seeing Cowboys and Indians (well not so much Cowboys):

Plus there’s an Andy Warhol show up too, Brooklyn Museum is a really cool place and a wonderful place to spend an afternoon! Click through on the image above for some neat shots of the Warhol exhibit and some other beautiful art!

Movie Mondays!

Painful to watch. Charles Carner, who previously worked only in TV, delivers his first feature film. Hopefully, it will be his last. If Carner truly had any sense he would have given over the credit to Alan Smithee if only to distance himself from this tripe. Unfortunately, a good cast is wasted on the flimsiest of material. If you are a Larry the Cable Guy fan you would be better served watching Health Inspector which is actually a funny comedy movie. Avoid at all costs.

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

Old favorites.

Sometimes in life you get a double treat – such was the case when one of my favorite bands wrote the theme music for what would become a favorite television series. I never saw the ‘official’ video for the song until tonight but it’s really great, the song has always been one of my favorites but the video turns out to be just as good:

THE TIME TO VOTE IS NOW!

In just 48 hours voting will end for the All-Star team and as I write this, David Wright is a mere 23,000 votes behind Placido Polanco of the Phillies to be the starting third baseman for the National League squad. If David wins he will be the lone Met on the squad (unless a Mike Pelfrey is picked), a team that currently is the wold card leader in the National League. So, do your part and vote early and often.

Oh, by the way.

There have been a few times over the last few weeks where I’ve heard the following or something along the same lines, “Yeah, well you know it ain’t Obama’s fault... Bush fucked up the country!”

See,  I find this more than a little ironic.

The reason I think it’s ironic is because the people who are saying this are the very same people who laid the entire blame for the events of 9/11 at the feet of Bush too. I didn’t vote for Bush and I was never crazy about the guy but I was always amazed how a segment of the population wanted to pardon Slick Willy for being asleep at the switch.

Total bullshit but, people really did their level best to try and believe it.

And here we are, what? Two months in now on one of the worst environmental catastrophes ever to happen to our country and the very same people who pilloried Bush for his lackluster response to Katrina are making excuses for the Obama administration.


You know, as bad as the Exxon Valdez disaster was, this makes it look like small potatoes and just wait until we get a little deeper in the summer and hurricanes start making appearances in the gulf. This administration simply can’t get it right.


You would think I’m one of the tea-baggers (my slight against the Tea Party folks) but I have little patience for them too. They’re just a different face of the same problem.

This administration brings the good old days to mind... and I write that with the utmost of sarcasm. I haven’t seen this level of incompetence since the Carter administration. There too, the nation was lead by a Chief Executive who, while well-meaning, was ill-equipped to deal with the problems of the day. Two months now, oil has been leaking out into the Gulf - destroying fisheries, impacting the environment, demolishing tourism and throughout the entire debacle this administration has played some bizarre form of catchup, using double speak and hoping for the best.

Katrina was bad but this has the capacity to be longer lasting and more devastating as to make Katrina seem like a minor blip. And more than anything, the administration’s handling of this is emblematic of the incompetence that has been a hallmark of many of the actions they’ve taken.

The funny thing is, there are people who were the most ardent supporters of this administration in the months leading up to the election in 2008, who are now expressing their doubts and unhappiness. The reason they’re doing this is because this administration has been a disappointment. This is an administration that took office on the premise there would be less partisanship and more cooperation in government but time and time again when confronted by a problem of their own making, the current administration tries to foist blame on its predecessors.

The thing is there are some policies while fine on paper, really are unworkable when it comes to dealing with the problems of the real world. The brand of internationalism this administration has practiced has been an utter failure. In foreign policy time and again, the lofty ideals of the Obama administration where the United States builds a consensus and conducts its foreign policy based on the desires and goals of other nations has proven to be unworkable.

Look at North Korea, look at Afghanistan, look at Iran.

And when it does come time to get help from other nations, we turn it away:

The Dutch fall into the first group. Three days after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20, the Netherlands offered the U.S. government ships equipped to handle a major spill, one much larger than the BP spill that then appeared to be underway. “Our system can handle 400 cubic metres per hour,” Weird Koops, the chairman of Spill Response Group Holland, told Radio Netherlands Worldwide, giving each Dutch ship more cleanup capacity than all the ships that the U.S. was then employing in the Gulf to combat the spill.

But remember, at the end of the day it’s all Bush’s fault. The one asset of this administration is the amazing sense of entitlement and lack of responsibility for their missteps. If there is one retrain that echoes in my mind at the moment, it is: ‘Lord save of from the well-meaning.’

Movie Mondays!

Watching this, I was reminded of LA Confidential. Only later after digging did I realize both stories are by the same author, James Ellroy. It's standard Hollywood fare, a bit of a throwback to the days of Sunset Boulevard and Double Indemnity. If you liked those movies, you’ll appreciate Black Dahlia otherwise you'll be better off steering clear. I enjoyed it. DePalma is a tremendous student of film and this movie reestablishes his love of the medium. Actors are shot in the diffuse glow popular during the period. Dialog is taut (almost clichéd) but entertaining. It’s film noir for the current Hollywood generation. A seedy story where even the heroes have flaws.

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

Hey, England!

Guess it wasn’t the ball now was it?  The Germans trounced your asses!

An anniversary.

Today’s a big deal in some quarters - it’s the one year anniversary of the death of Michael Jackson and people were commemorating his passing by dressing up as him and playing his music. This I find somewhat strange (and a bit stupid) – people gathering and pretending they’re Michael Jackson is just plain weird. Then again, a lot surrounding Michael Jackson has proven to be weird.

I like the picture above – I like it because this is how I remember Michael Jackson. This is Michael Jackson who sang all those great songs back when I was a teenager (and even before I was a teenager), Michael Jackson who sang the song on the first 45 I ever owned (I Want You Back), the Michael Jackson who had a slew of terrific poppy hits over a few year period.

Anyway, while some people are out there mourning, the collective sphincters of a generation of young boys can finally unclench – as much as people may have loved Michael, there were far too many unanswered questions surrounding him and some of his proclivities to start awarding him sainthood.

Movie Mondays!

Simply amazing. It’s David Lean’s highest grossing movie and outgrossed all his other movies put together - amazing when you realize the two previous Lean films are Lawrence of Arabia and The Bridge Over the River Kwai. It is ranked at #39 on AFI’s 100 Years... 100 Movies list and at #7 on AFI’s 100 Years... 100 Passions (a list of the top 100 love stories in American Cinema). Omar Sharif is Doctor Zhivago an idealistic GP caught up in the tide of history as Russia transforms into the Soviet Union. This performance could be considered the apex of Sharif’s career. Geraldine Chaplin is his loving beautiful wife Tonya and Julie Christie is the mystical Lara - a woman who captures Zhivago’s poetic soul. The score is unforgettable and the scope of the film is something we will most probably never see again as this film is such a sweeping epic. If you are a lover of cinema this is an absolute must see and it remains one of the greatest love stories bought to film over the last century. BEAR IN MIND - the running time for Doctor Zhivago is 197 minutes! (that’s a bit over 3 hours). However, it’s all up there on screen and will hold your interest. Certainly it’s the kind of movie that’s perfect for a rainy or cold weekend afternoon when you don’t feel like going out. It is amazing though and you won’t be disappointed. WARNING - THIS IS A TWO SIDED DVD. MIDWAY THROUGH THE FILM YOU WILL BE REQUIRED TO FLIP THE DVD TO CONTINUE WATCHING! Don’t let that stop you from enjoying one of cinema’s best though.

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

Late to the party.

I have little good to say about Twitter but this is one of its rare jewels:

“I hate paying bills... Son, don’t say “me too.” I didn’t say that looking to relate to you. I said it instead of “go away.”

The feed that a William Shatner TV series will be based on, “Shit my dad says.”

Movie Mondays!

David Fincher at his best, directing a solid cast in a story that spans over a decade. This is the tale of San Francisco’s infamous Zodiac killer, who Scorpio (the villain of Clint Eastwood’s first Dirty Harry movie) was loosely based on. Good performances, a great script and excellent direction make this an entertaining thriller you must catch!

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.