Archive for April, 2007
Hot Fuzz (Movie)
Apr 30th
Really quickly…
I just got back from seeing the new movie, HOT FUZZ. The British film is from the makers of the TV series, SPACED as well as the wonderful film SHAWN OF THE DEAD. It stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost- they appeared together in the mentioned series and film. Frost is also in the hilarious series, HYPERDRIVE.
Anyway- it was really good. It was comical, full of gore (comical over the top gore- there wasn’t any true violence really). It ended with lots of action as well. Pegg plays a top cop in London- so dedicated to the job, so good at what he does, the brass send him off to a small village with no crime…because he’s making them all look so bad. A guy who loves his job, loves the action, loves busting the bad guy- well, he’s not going to much care for a tiny village with no crime. Well- maybe there IS crime in this village, and maybe he can work to be the only cop on the job to get to the bottom of it.
The movie was really well shot…lots of quick cut scenes- really unique transitions, MTV-styled, over the top stuff to add to the overall over the top nature of it all.
The two leads are great together. Totally hilarious. Crazy lines popping up all over the place.
Great film, totally recommend it.
Updated Story: SCOTUS Rules Police Not Responsible for Car Chase Accidents
Apr 30th
I previously wrote about the case of Victor Harris, a man in Georgia who fleed police after police tried to pull him over. One officer used a PIT move to disable his car…Harris’ car left the road due to this and crashed into a ditch. Harris was paralyzed in the process.
Harris sued Officer Tim Scott for damages, claiming Scott violated his 4th Amendment right protecting him against unreasonable searches and seizures. Today SCOTUS ruled 8-1 that police cannot be sued if someone is involved in an accident like this. Police don’t have to stop a chase even if there’s a chance someone could get hurt. I haven’t read the ruling, and I probably won’t, as the legal jargon probably won’t make much sense, but it’s being reported by various news agencies. I heard the story just now on Fox News.
Glad to hear that the justices used common sense in this case. Or so it seems. It’s just completely unreasonable, in my view, to force police into corners- making it impossible for them to stop fleeing suspects, due to fear that they might get sued if the suspect gets hurt. Harris got what he deserves. No one will convince me he doesn’t deserve to be in a wheel chair, because he does. We all must deal with the results of our actions…and Harris selfishly put lives in risk. The result from his own choices was a wheelchair. Good for Officer Scott as well. He was being threatened with a major financial blow from this lawsuit possibly going forward. As far as I can tell from what’s been reported and testified to- he did absolutely nothing wrong, and he shouldn’t have to pay any price for simply doing his job to protect the people in Georgia.
Now if someone can tell me why on earth Justice John Paul Stevens was thinking as the lone dissenter.
George Carlin’s New Act
Apr 29th
So, we went to see George Carlin tonight at Butler University (Indianapolis, Indiana).
I’ve never seen him perform live before, but I think I’ve seen pretty much all of the HBO specials. He was always pretty funny in my book, even though some of the stuff is somewhat offensive.
The show at Butler was odd. First, it was very hot, and that made for a poor night overall. The guy that opened for Carlin, some singer named Vance Gilbert was actually very funny himself. He was funny in between his songs. Cracking jokes here and there, and even making jokes out of parts of his songs. He went on at 7PM, and finished around 7:20- oddly enough, they decided they’d have an intermission there for 15 mins.
Carlin came out, and I was excited. The first 10 mins or so of the stuff was hilarious. I was laughing out loud nonstop for a lot of it. Unfortunately, he’s taken a route where every new routine is brand new, not the usual practice of getting rid of one joke every month or so, and filling it with a new one, finally resulting in an entirely new show after 2 years which culminates in another HBO special.
He decided to write all his material out, and told us how he hasn’t memorized it, so he’d be working with the printed material on a table next to him. This was just odd. It felt like he was basically telling us- ‘you paid $40 to see me practice. if you want the real stuff, watch the HBO special!’ Worse than just the fact that he referred to his written material the whole time- he actually screwed up two jokes. He admitted it, and said he could probably still pull them off. Unfortunately, after the first 10 mins, I was bored the rest of the time. Well- I chuckled a couple of times, but the stuff just started off with a bang then went downhill. Very unfunny stuff for the most part.
He seems to be getting too old for this stuff. He’s 69, has to refer to his written material, screws up jokes, then bombs 80% of the jokes he did do correctly. Needless to say, it was a giant disappointment.
I have a recording of part of the show which I might try to upload, just so you can get a feel for some of the material. I will work on that later. I drove over 400 miles today and have been awake nearly 24 hours, so I need to sleep…
This Weekend and More
Apr 27th
For those of you who care, I will be going out of town this weekend. Not too far away- about 3 and a half hours north to Indianapolis to see George Carlin Saturday night at Butler University.
I have no idea where Butler is, and it’s been years since I’ve even been to Indianapolis, so this is going to be fun trying to find the place. That, and from what I can see on the google satellite pictures of Clowes Memorial Hall, there’s not tons of parking, so we will need to get there somewhat early. We’re renting a car, yet we’re not sure about what we need to show in regards to proof of insurance. Sigh.
I went to see MEET THE ROBINSONS in 3D tonight. Got home about a half hour ago. A decent movie. Definitely the best 3D in theatres. The Disney Digital 3D system has zero ghosting, crisp images, everything is clear…problems? Because of the glasses, everything is fairly darkened. Also- it seems the glasses SOOO easily fog up. Sorry, but anything that sits an inch from your eyeballs is going to fog up easily. Unlike regular glasses, you just can’t clean these things off. That got annoying, because the light made streaks all over.
The movie itself was okay. Not great, but it was a kids’ film, so I didn’t expect too much. I was actually going to go see VACANCY, but I missed the first night showing, and the next one was going to be too late. Oh well.
I forget if I mentioned- I saw DISTURBIA the weekend before last, and last week we went to see AQUA TEEN HUNGERFORCE. Disturbia was VERY good. Shia whatever his name is- he’s great. I’ve always liked that kid. Always thought he was very funny with great comedic timing. Aqua Teen was terrible. I love the show actually, and I have the first 2 seasons on DVD. But- wow. This was terrible stuff. TERRIBLE. Dinner at OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE was nice though. Even tho I decided on baby back ribs for some reason, when I really should have gotten a burger. I usually feel like a burger is a bad idea when eating at places like this, because you can get a burger anywhere. But, I guess a burger at a steakhouse is a bit different. Anyhow…
I guess the whole thing isn’t going so well. Well, it wasn’t a diet at all. It was a change of lifestyle, as everyone knows diets don’t work. We had a 2 week auction at work, so it was rather hard with all the food around nonstop. Eating dinner at work everynight, brownies, cookies, and cakes left over during the day from the night before. It was terrible stuff, let me tell ya. That, and the free coffee machine didn’t help much. I actually had some high blood pressure there. When I went to the doctor about a month ago to see about this dizziness I’ve been having, the nurse took my blood pressure and said it was a bit high. I asked the doctor, and he said it was fine- it was a bit high, but not in any range that would cause any issues, any symptoms, etc.
So, I took the blood pressure at wal mart in their pharmacy area, and it was high there. I mentioned this at work, and one of the ladies there brought in her monitor and took it- it was extremely high, so they told me to go to the hospital to get it taken by a nurse just to make sure. I went to the hospital, but apparently they only do that in the ER and they charge an arm and a leg. So, I drove all the way to my doctor and she took it- the top number was high, but it wasn’t too high and she told me to watch it. Asked if I drank a lot of caffeine, and I mentioned the nonstop coffee at work from the free machine. That was probably the issue, she said, and told me if I was concerned to come back in a week. I’m not, so I didn’t. I think I should live! Good news and all.
Not much else to report, I don’t think. Just the same old boring stuff.
If anything exciting happens, I will be sure to make note of it here.
I’m off for now. I think we’re going to Steak and Shake (I didn’t eat dinner, so…)
Clinton Says Phony Accent a Plus, Not Disgusting Pandering
Apr 27th
The AP reports:
GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) – Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday she sees her sometimes Southern accent as a virtue.
“I think America is ready for a multilingual president,” Clinton said during a campaign stop at a charter school in Greenville, S.C.
…Clinton is a linguistic polyglotâa Chicago native turned New York resident who works in Washington and spent two decades living in Arkansas when her husband, Bill Clinton, was governor.
But observers have long noted her tendency to speak Southern primarily in front of black audiences, as she did with Sharpton last week and at a civil rights commemoration in Selma in March.
One big question is- what on earth is this woman talking about? “Multilingual”? Try, racist pandering to black audiences!
She will try to claim she has a southern accent that sometimes comes out when around others with an accent, but she’s full of it. She brought out her phone accent to pander to Al Sharpton’s racist conference recently, and she went totally crazy with that rude and downright offensive accent, imitating a black slave a few weeks ago.
This woman, like her husband, hasn’t a core at all. She’s merely the woman she needs to be to fit the crowd she’s pandering to. I find it odd that people constantly say she’s some political genius, when in fact, I have a feeling it’s more of an issue of her being quite foolish, and unfortunately too many American voters are just completely out of their mind.
The women in the US who could support a woman who sent her goons after the women her husband victimized constantly boggle the mind. I’m not sure how any woman in the country could support her after knowing the facts about her private goons and how she was the one responsible for sending them out to threaten her husband’s lady friends, doing anything she wanted to stop the ‘bimbo eruptions’ as they were known by insiders.
Let’s face facts- Hillary Clinton is as phony as a person can get. She will simply do anything to win a bit of power for herself and her stained husband. Those who deny that are denying reality.
Is Harry Reid the Dumbest Man in Congress?
Apr 26th
Wow. I’ve been following traitor Harry Reid’s comments about the war being lost, but I didn’t see the full transcript of his appearance on CNN.
Watch this and try to NOT scream the word “scumbag” at the monitor. This guy is either the biggest idiot in Congress or the biggest scumbag there. He literally claims that the war IS lost, and not only that but that General Petraeus himself has said the war is lost. He claims that Petraeus has told all the soldiers that the war is lost!
When the CNN reporter calls him on the carpet for his obvious distortion of what Petraeus actually said, he plays stupid. I have a feeling he’s not this stupid, but rather he’s playing to the lunatic crowd of the Democratic party (aka the base of the party, unfortunately.)
Reid needs to step down, and he needs to do it now. He has no business speaking for us, let alone occupying the majority seat he does that speaking from.
It’s time we demand our so-called leaders actually lead and stop pandering to the fringe of the country. It’s time we demand that they concentrate on making us safer not assuring they get elected. Reid’s time as Senate leader is done with- he needs to, for once, act honorably and step aside to allow a sensible Democrat take his place.
MORE:
If you notice, in the video from CNN, Reid states that the war is lost. He tries to back up this bogus statement by looking to statements from Petraeus. Statements that he took out of context, to be sure, but he’s still trying to use Petraeus to back him up. Oddly tho- when the reporter asks if Reid will sit down and listen to Petraeus when he comes to Capitol Hill to brief members of Congress on how the surge IS working, what does Reid say? He says he won’t believe a word Petraeus says.
So- Reid claims that Petraeus says the war is lost (to back up his own foolish statements) when Petraeus never said any such thing…but when asked if he will listen to Petraeus, he declares he won’t believe what the general on the ground says! Worse- when asked if his ‘this war is lost’ declaration hurts the troops- he claims that the boots on the ground (namely Petraeus) are saying the war is lost! So, he looks to the boots on the ground one second, because he’s not there in person…then he suddenly says he won’t trust those who are actually in Iraq.
This man is mindboggling stupid in one way- he can’t stop putting his foot in his mouth.
Sanctuary City Excuses
Apr 26th
I love American cities that blatantly say “we will ignore US law. We will NOT follow your law, and we will not assist you in enforcing these laws. Well- we still want state and federal tax revenue, but screw you outside of that!”
These so-called ‘santuary cities’ are run by idiots who have no legitimate reason for violating federal law. The leaders in these cities put the entire nation at risk. Take San Francisco- one of the most radical cities in the country where current Mayor, Gavin Newsome, has vowed to make sure that no city employee helps the federal government in regards to immigration law. He will assure that immigration law is not followed in his city. This is the same mayor that started issuing illegal gay marriage licenses a couple of years ago- licenses that were worth just as much as the paper they were printed on.
The most commonly used excuse for these variious cities refusal to abide by and enforce federal immigration law boils down to this snippet from a story on the city of Oakland’s refusal to follow federal law:
[Oakland police chief] Tucker said the federal government currently does not seek police assistance on immigration raids and that local cops are not “in the business” of enforcing federal immigration law and are “too busy” fighting crime. But he added that police would still cooperate with the federal government on any “investigation of criminal conduct within the city limits of Oakland.”
Now, this comes from a story on the city of Oakland passing new laws trying to block federal alien raids. They want to make sure that the federal government cannot do its job and enforce immigration law. They will do their utomost to ensure that illegal aliens can stay in their city without fear of being arrested or deported.
Now, let’s take the chief of police’s comments above and analyze them. He says that his officers are not in the business of enforcing immigration law, and that they’re too busy fighting crime. That is, of course, a load of nonsense. Immigration law is, hence the word LAW, a legal issue that is to be dealt with by law ENFORCEMENT officials (read: police officers, FBI, etc.) The chief doesn’t think that immigration law is really law that should be enforced. It’s not his job to enforce federal laws. But it is. Why are these agenda-driven officers, mayors, city council members, etc. refusing only to enforce ONE federal law? They use the excuse that they’re not trained to enforce federal law, yet immigration law is the only law they claim they’e not trained to deal with.
If someone robs a federally insured bank in their city- do they refuse to send officers to the bank? Bank robbery is federal crime. When will Oakland, San Francisco, and other cities that refuse to enforce immigration law refuse to enforce bank robbery laws?
Here’s a list of other crimes that local officials, if they want to be consistent and refuse to enforce federal law, will need to stop responding to. Better hope your city isn’t actually consistent in it’s supposed moral stand against enforcing immigration law simply because it’s a federal crime they claim they’re not equipped to deal with:
human trafficking
terrorism
so-called “hate crimes”
child porn
internet fraud
identity theft
election fraud
genocide
murder of US government official
violent gangs
murder for hire
child rape
These are all laws that are federal in nature or have a federal component, in which federal law enforcement agencies would get involved.
Let’s hope that cities that refuse, in principle and practice, not to enforce immigration laws by using the excuse “it’s not our job to enforce federal law” continue to be hypocrites. These people will refuse to deal with this particular crime, but for some reason when someone robs a bank- they show up! Amazing how that works. I guess when a bank is robbed, these police chiefs suddenly learn how to enforce federal law, and they’re able to do so. Hopefully the federal government will step in soon and tell all of these cities that their flagrant violation of federal law will no longer stand.
F.C.C. Nonsense: Trying to Tame TV Violence
Apr 26th
TV is often violent. Broadcast TV in prime time is often violent. It’s the nature of TV. The F.C.C. wants to limit violence on broadcast TV while kids are awake. This idea is always full of problems in my view. Who says what is too violent? Is the news out of bounds when they show scenes of true life violence? Are scenes of real violence worse than scenes of phony violence within a fictional program? Shouldn’t the government find better things to do with OUR money than spend over $300 million on a campaign to inform parents about the V-chip? Will any amount of money cause the government to take over the role of the parent?
I do not support censorship. I support the marketplace. Clearly adults want this stuff, or else they wouldn’t watch the shows, advertisers would put their money out, and the networks would soon cancel the programs. I don’t think it’s right to infringe on the choices of adults to “protect” children, when I’m not even sure they’re being protected.
Parents need to make sure their kids aren’t watching programs they don’t want them to watch. It’s not the government’s role to play nanny. The founders would be having heart attacks if they had any idea how much of our lives are controlled by seemingly neverending rules and regulations set up by our government.
I also oppose the moves to create cable systems that are wholly ala carte. This, in my mind, would no doubt lead to higher prices. You’d have to pay for each channel or packages of channels individually. That would mean you wouldn’t necessarily pay for certain channels you don’t watch often enough to pay more for but get now as part of your cable package. I sense it would also mean fewer choices- fewer channels would stay on the air when so few people pay for them via ala carte. Some of these cable nets just wouldn’t make it in ala carte land. I’m also not sure how it would protect children. Are we to believe that adults are going to suddenly watch only kid friendly programming because those are the only channels they added ala carte? Hardly. Adults will keep watching the same networks, which means they will have to pay for them, which means the kids will still have access to them.
Best idea in all of this- parent your own kids. Don’t expect government to do your job. Politicians need to stop trying to create an even bigger nanny state, and parents need to sit down and take the time to learn how to use cable filters, blocks/locks, etc.
SETI Fanboys Desparate: Planet Might Be Warm= “Earth-Like”
Apr 25th
Have you heard the news? Some astronomers have located a planet outside of our solar system that- get this, MIGHT be warm enough (based on the fact that it’s close enough to its mother star to be sort of warm) to harbor life.
Well- that doesn’t make much sense in itself. They found a planet, and they think it might be warm. That’s almost all they know. I watched 3 experts speak on the subject and all 3 of them stated ‘it might be warm’ and nothing else…they just made it sound better than that by using different terms to make it sound as if they were giving more information.
Seems like the SETI lovers are desparate for anything. It’s been 40+ years (I believe?) and SETI has found absolutely nothing. Not a single thing. It’s been one abject failure. There have been no aliens, and there probably are no aliens. SETI won’t give up though. The fantasy of finding life outside of earth gives them happy dreams (their comic book collections do the same thing.)
A few points here. 1- they don’t even know if this planet is rocky. If it’s not, then there’s no chance of life, unless it’s floating around in hot gas! 2- They don’t have any evidence to suggest that the planet even has ANY water, let alone the vital LIQUID water that it would take for life as we know it. Yes- it’s a fact, they have no evidence this planet has any water in any form whatsoever- they just think it COULD MAYBE POSSIBLY have water in some form because the planet’s distance from its parent star is such that this might mean warm enough temps to melt any possible water that might there.
Even IF there was water and it was all liquid- this in no way suggest that there might be life on this planet. We know there are literally hundreds of points that need to be in place and in near perfect unison for life to exist.
This isn’t really a new story. It’s desperate alien lovers hoping for their wet dreams to come true. A quick google search shows you they made the same “earth-like planet” claim in 1999, 2002, and 2006. And that was one single page of a google search. I wouldn’t doubt they’ve made the claim even more than that, I just didn’t see the page results.
Don’t worry tho. A lack of evidence of anything at all won’t stop the media from reporting ‘earth-like planet found based on…well, based on the fact that it MIGHT MAYBE POSSIBLY be “warm”‘. Ugh.
Turistas (Film)
Apr 24th
I haven’t seen Turistas, and I really didn’t plan on seeing it. I still don’t. I have the DVD from a friend, and not having the time to watch it earlier tonight (I was thinking I might watch it)…I went thru and scanned a bit of it. I saw the kidney removal scene, and I watched all of that, and I was just severely disturbed. I actually think the filmmakers went over the line with the scene. It was just pornographic in nature- the only reason they put that in there was to simply horrify. At least that’s how I see it, and the fact is- I think it was probably unnecessary. Then again, as I said, I haven’t seen the film in its entirety, so maybe it would seem different in the context of the whole thing.
Not likely tho, as the reviews are almost all negative.
I wouldn’t argue that we should ban the film or censor it. You can watch whatever you want, I say. Just as long as you keep it away from young viewers, because this stuff can mess a kid up. I’m not one that believes you’ll scar a child for life, but even a temporary scare for a kid isn’t right.
What other films contain graphic scenes that cross the line?
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