Before I begin, thank you for the feedback on my recent Twilight post, both here and on Facebook. I haven't responded yet, but there are some interesting comments that might warrant a (hopefully brief) follow-up. I don't want to post about the same thing so soon, though, and there's so much I want to say about politics but am too frustrated to write about, so it's time for an intermission. Also, I have some crazy insomnia going on , so I'd like to share with you some awesome things I have found on the internets. Let's go!
Let's kick things off with a trailer for probably the best movie ever that I haven't seen yet but really want to because it looks like it is full of all things that are awesome except bears and flame-throwers and laser beams. You are not prepared for Sharktopus! It's part shark, part octopus, and it apparently feeds exclusively on girls at the beach, and I want one for a pet.
What a catchy tune! "Sharktopus won't be kept at bay, and you can never never never get away!" Did I mention this is a documentary? Yes, better even than Planet Earth. "Greatness comes at a price, it always has." So true. My birthday is soon; please get me a sharktopus. Also, please get me one of these chainsaw rocket launchers:
Thank you in advance.
Shifting gears, Firefly gets a retro facelift!
It seems that someone got overlooked... but that's because Dr. Simon Tam is starring in his own new spin-off!
I would watch it. I would even buy it on the VHS.
And now some puppets that would make the coolest Halloween costumes ever:
And I thought they smelled bad... on the outside! (I'm tired, give me a break.)
One more. Abbott and Costello, probably the greatest comic duo of all time, debate math:
"Did you ever go to school, stupid?" "Yeah, and I come out the same way!"
...I would not use it for the good of mankind. That's for losers.
First, I'd use it to get lots of money. That's pretty much a given. There's no point going back in time if you don't have any money, so get that thought out of your head right now.
By the way, my time machine would of course be made from a DeLorean (duh):
So, now I have a (hypothetical) time machine and unlimited wealth. Next I conquer the world, right? Wrong! Really, I'm disappointed in you. You should know me better than that; I don't want that headache! I'll stick to complaining about the people who do run it, thank you very much.
No, once I've used my time machine to obtain untold riches, I'd leak the text of the first several chapters of Twilight onto the internet while Stephenie Meyer was still trying to sell the manuscript. Apparently that's enough to stop her from publishing a book. (I guess I lied, I would use my time machine for the good of mankind, but only for selfish reasons.)
That's not what I'd need the money for, though. The money is so I can go back to really good concerts that I wish I'd had the time/money for. Like Metallica's concert with the San Fransisco Symphony in 1999 (before I was even a fan of this amazing band):
If you skipped those videos because you're not interested in metal music, you might give them a try anyway as they could serve to broaden your horizons. These recordings helped open my mind to the idea that metal really is music and not just noise. In particular, this next song is a good door to ease your way into appreciation of metal, and was my first favorite Metallica song:
After enjoying that concert several dozen times (and saying hello to the other dozen me's there, and saying "man, this concert was awesome, you're really going to enjoy it!" and "I've seen this concert three times already, is it still as good the tenth time?" (the answer is yes)), I'd go back two more years, to the east coast this time, and see this one a few times:
Beth Gibbons' voice gives me the shivers, it's so perfect... I've tried to see if I'm in the audience several times while watching these, but I'm not sure. If you see me in the audience, let me know! That would mean that someday I will have a time machine.
There are many concert's I'd selfishly go to (I'd follow an entire tour of Pink Floyd, for examle), too many to post here; but I can't leave this out:
There, did you see me? Right there around 5:04, I'm totally waving at the camera! Go back, see? Right.... there! I knew I'd get a time machine some day!
In between concerts, I'd go back to pivotal points in history to watch how they really unfolded. Also, I'd go way, way back and watch as the Earth formed. I don't have footage or photos to post yet, but I'll blog it when I do, I promise! I also might get cameos in classic films as an extra, and play pranks on famous scientists (go back and read or re-read Darwin's Origin of Species and watch for mentions of pizza). I'd also stop Fox from canceling Firefly and Dollhouse, using Marty's strategy for getting his dad to ask out his mom in the first Back to the Future movie.
Meanwhile, I'll have to make do with YouTube and my DVD of that Portishead concert. That's the closest I have to a time machine at the moment.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
If there is a single sentence that embodies the essence of the United States of America, it is this one, near the beginning of the Declaration of Independence more than 200 years ago. It is the statement on which our nation was founded. The Declaration goes on to say that the sole purpose of government is to protect these rights. These rights are given to us not by any man or group of man, not by any government or institution; it is made quite clear in our founding document that these unalienable rights are given to us by God. It is made clearer in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution that the government's role is not to grant rights, but to protect them; and that the purpose of our founding documents were to protect the people against abuses of power by government:
The Ninth Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
The Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
It cannot be made clearer that government is to be limited. A bloody war was fought to throw off the chains of an oppressive government, and it would all be a waste if we were to become as oppressive ourselves as that government so many sacrificed their lives to free ourselves from.
Sadly, we are doing just that. As we prepare to celebrate our independence from the British Empire, our Congress is preparing to confirm to the Supreme Court Barack Hussein Obama's nominee, Elena Kagan. When asked her opinion of "natural rights" not specifically stated in the Constitution, Elena Kagan responded, "To be honest with you, I don't have a view of what are natural rights independent of the Constitution." In other words, if it's not stated in the Constitution, it's not a right of the people.
But this is the opposite of what the Constitution actually says! Many states refused to ratify the Constitution without the inclusion of a Bill of Rights to specifically limit the government from taking powers, concerned that if the Constitution didn't say the people had a certain right, the government may someday assume it wasn't a right at all. Others countered that if the Constitution did contain mentions of specific rights, that the government might someday assume that those not specifically mentioned were up for grabs. We'll never know what course our history would have taken without the Bill of Rights, but it is clear now that those who argued against the inclusion of a Bill of Rights were justified in their fears.
The one and only purpose of the Supreme Court is to be sure that the Constitution is upheld. Yet we have a Supreme Court who recently only upheld the Second Amendment (right to bear arms) by a margin of a single vote when called on to judge the Constitutionality of an illegal ban on guns in Chicago; and now we are about to confirm a Justice who refuses to acknowledge the specific wording of the Declaration of Independence and the Ninth and Tenth amendments.
This Independence Day, it is time to look back not just to the Constitution, but to the Declaration of Independence. I'd like to quote Abraham Lincoln in a speech given in Peoria, Illinois on October 16, 1854:
"Nearly eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men are created equal; but now from that beginning we have run down to the other declaration, that for some men to enslave others is a "sacred right of self-government." [...] Our republican robe is soiled and trailed in the dust. Let us repurify it. [...] Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with it. [...] If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union: but we shall have saved it, as to make, and keep it, forever worthy of the saving."
Read it again. Lincoln's thoughts at the time were in regards to abolishing slavery, but it is every bit as relevant today. In exchange for government benefits we have bit by bit surrendered freedoms to those whose purpose is to protect those freedoms, and have come to a tipping point at which we may soon lose them all or fight to save them. To quote Tom Waits, "There's always free cheddar in a mousetrap; it's a deal, it's a deal!"
Read Lincoln's words again:
"Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with it. [...] If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union: but we shall have saved it, as to make, and keep it, forever worthy of the saving."
In short, my point is this: Nathan's makes delicious hot dogs, but I don't like sauerkraut.
Yeah, more Twilight. If I despise Twilight so much, why do I spend so much time on it? A couple of reasons. First of all, you can't avoid it! Eclipse came out a couple days ago. Everyone is talking about it. It's all over Facebook. I hear about it several times a day. Multiple theaters in Boise have huge signs advertising a Twilight/New Moon double feature preceding the midnight showing of the new movie. Speaking of Boise theaters...
Wow! I can't remember the last time I've been to a real movie theater. There's probably a good one in Denver, but back then there was no way my family could afford that; and most movies aren't worth a first-run showing anyway, especially with passable "cheap" theaters and, even better, waiting for the DVD for a dollar at RedBox to watch in the comfort of your own home with your own snacks and good friends. Sometimes it's good to get out, though, mostly just so you got out. I know this makes me sound like a small-town hick, but Boise has a theater as big as some of the "malls" I've been to!
Back to my point about the futility of avoiding Twilight, I went on a date to see Prince of Persia at a first-run theater last Wednesday. The movie was excellent, but I'll talk about that another time. What I'm trying to say is, the theater was packed with Twilight fans waiting all day for the midnight showing. Long story short, it was 100% worth the elbow to the ribs I received from Cassie to, as we walked past a pack of girls wearing Team Edward shirts, manage to be overheard saying "Man, who knew Edward would actually come out of the closet in the third movie?" Hehehe, I'm evil...
But there's another reason. Had Twilight fandom quickly evaporated as it should have, it would have escaped my attention; but it escalates and escalates, demanding investigation. I read the first book, have seen the first two movies, and am well versed in the details of all but the last book. I have done my research, and if I am to be as objective and intellectually honest as I can be, Twilight fandom is not healthy. It is so unhealthy, in fact, that I genuinely believe it is a favor to society to speak against it. Not with "Oh, it's so dumb, if you like Twilight you're stupid!" but with reasoned, thought-out arguments against the elements of the story.
What are those elements? Twilight revolves around the most bland, empty-headed, your-face-here central character I have ever encountered. I'll get back to this soon. This main character falls in lust (Meyer calls it "love") with a vampire who is over 100 years old and has accomplished nothing in his life, has no personality, likes her for no compelling reason, and is emotionally abusive and controlling (not to mention a creepy stalker). He's a boyfriend who likes her because she smells like steak cooked just how he likes it. But she also likes a warm, fun-loving, easy-going, potentially healthy relationship but also has a dangerous side werewolf. The characters don't learn. They don't develop. The books are 90% fluff (not an exaggeration).
The poor lessons girls (I wish I could say teenage girls, but it spans all ages) learn from these books could be the subject of volumes, and maybe I'll go more into that another time. So many people have already done so.
But this post is about feeling pity for Stephenie Meyer. So back to my point about Bella's lack of personality. It is painfully obvious that Stephenie Meyer is Bella. Meyer looks like her description of Bella. The books were "inspired" by a dream of Meyer's. Meyer spends so much time on Edward's and Jacob's physical descriptions, that the books read as a play-by-play daydream of Meyer's (which they are).
This is my point: Meyer is not well. Stephenie Meyer needs serious help. Before you get all offended, I am not disparaging Mrs. Meyer. We all have our problems. I am saying this out of genuine concern. The abusive relationship between Edward and Bella is Meyer's actual ideal of "true love". This is her fantasy relationship. If she views all the things Edward does to control Bella as okay "because he loves her" and because Bella understands that he loves her, I wonder how healthy Stephenie Meyer's real-life relationships are. Especially her marriage. It's not my business to pry into her marriage; but having been in and seen many unhealthy relationships, I can't help but wonder and have genuine concern.
That's the more serious reason I feel sorry for Stephenie Meyer, but there's also a second reason:
Twilight fandom has stunted Stephenie Meyer's growth as a writer. Twilight was the first thing Meyer ever wrote. Considering this (Twilight fans who think I am closed-minded, listen closely!), Twilight is amazing. Yes, I said it. Twilight is very good. For a rough draft of a first attempt at any form of creative writing, it is excellent. (Keep track: I used "amazing", "very good", and "excellent" in conjunction with Twilight.)
Here's what should have happened: Twilight gets picked up by someone at a publishing agency, who reads it and thinks "This has potential. The Harry Potter phenomenon will soon come to a close, leaving a vacuum for young adult literature, and this could fill it; but it needs work." The publishing agent should have written back to Meyer and said "You have the workings of a really good book, but it needs more character development, better internal logic, a more present and driving conflict, and more believable motivations for the characters. Also, you need an editor." Meyer and an editor should have gone back and forth through several drafts, finally resulting in a very good teen romance novel with a fantasy twist. The end product would be a well-written book worth reading that I am simply not in the target audience for.
Instead, crap is rewarded with high praise and rabid fanaticism. Yes, I just went from calling it "excellent" to calling it "crap". What changed? The context. Twilight is a horrible final product. I hear Host is much better, and will someday read it out of curiosity; but my expectations are very low. Stephenie Meyer could have been, not the next J.K. Rowling, but the next best thing; but because of the high reward for minimal effort, she has been elevated to a status she has not earned. I consider this to be a genuine tragedy. All you Twilight fans, and especially Little, Brown and Company, are responsible for destroying (or at the very least delaying) the potential of what could be a talented writer. I hold you all responsible for depriving the literary world of what could have been good, and seriously annoying those of us who respect art.
Stephen King has famously said that Stephenie Meyer "can't write worth a darn". I disagree. Meyer probably can write, but she has been encouraged not to.
Twilight fanatics, you should be ashamed of yourselves. To those of you who simply enjoy the books (do you really? Do you own a Team Insert-Flat-Character-Here shirt? Be honest with yourself!): you're not really the problem. But there are millions of you who are. I don't mean to offend. I only hope to inspire critical thinking. Let me have it in the comments if you'd like.
It's time to name this disaster for what it is. Calling it the BP Oil Spill is not entirely accurate. From now on I am calling it the BP-Obama Oil Spill; BP because that's whose rig it was, and Obama because that's who has assumed responsibility for control of the aftermath and is profiting most from this crisis. Wait, profiting? How dare I make such a claim! Oh, but it's not just me; listen to the man who is the brains behind the Obama Regime in his own words (the relevant quote is in the first twelve seconds of video, but the whole clip is interesting):
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that, it's an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before." - Rahm Emanuel
These words were spoken long before the current situation in the Gulf of Mexico, but they are revealing of the mindset of not just the Obama regime, but of liberals in general. Crisis = Opportunity. To Barack Hussein Obama, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is not a crisis, but an opportunity to do something he was not able to do before, which is to cut "Big Oil" down to size, and grab power far ahead of schedule. This follows a pattern with this regime: Housing Crisis = opportunity to seize and control banks and loan agencies; GM Bankruptcy = opportunity to gain control over a major car company; Health Care Crisis = opportunity to seize massive, near complete control over private sector insurance, hospitals, and many aspects of the way we live our personal lives right down to what we eat and whether our children are breast-fed, as well as an opportunity for massive tax increases.
The pattern boils down to this: Any crisis is an opportunity to increase the dependence of the people on the government. It is a self-sustaining pattern, as well. The more people depend on their government for help, the more often they will look to their government to bail them out. This is what I meant a year and a half ago when I wrote, as it was announced that Barack Hussein Obama had won the election, that we had officially voted ourselves a totalitarian socialist government. What frightens me is how quickly Obama is dismantling our economy and subverting the rule of law. In fact, it is amazing that I am frightened at all! I have never before had to say that I am afraid of my government, but now I am.
Back to the BP-Obama Oil Spill. How do I justify my statement that Obama is profiting from this? Just look at his (in)action. It was more than a month before he actually began to do anything. Meanwhile, though the CEO of BP gets raked over the coals for daring to participate in a yacht race during this crisis, Obama gets a pass for spending so much of his time golfing or bowling. He was already working on pushing through cap and trade legislation aimed at seizing control of the energy sector when this oil spill gave him the golden opportunity to paint Big Oil as a very visible villain and put this power grab on the fast track. Ever tar ball, every picture of an oil-soaked pelican, every minute of live coverage of oil gushing from the sea floor is another victory for Obama at the expense of the American people.
But it hasn't been complete inaction. To his credit, Obama has acted on this spill. What has he done? First off, he refused aid from other countries, offered as pure good will, to clean up the spill. It is estimated that cleanup using US ships alone will take nine months, as opposed to four months if aid from thirteen countries that offered it had been accepted. Why did he do this? Because the paperwork from the countries offering aid wasn't in compliance with the Jones Act, which was passed in 1920 to protect union jobs from being outsourced to other countries. If Obama cared about the solution, rather than the bad PR for Big Oil the longer this thing lasts, the Jones Act would never have come up.
The rest of Obama's time has been largely spent propping up BP as a villain. Yes, rather than solve the problem, the Obama regime prefers to point fingers. It's bad enough when the president of our country can fire a CEO of an American company, but now Obama has brought his Chicago mobster political tactics against a foreign company. Joe Barton was absolutely right to call Obama's treatment of BP as a "shakedown". Let's hear more of Rahm Emanuel's words:
"BP originally was going to do one relief well. We forced them to do a second relief well. They weren't going to do that. BP originally had a plan on -- on capturing, uh, a certain amount of oil. We forced that, as you know, today's reports they're up to 25,000. They originally weren't thinking about $20 billion and they originally weren't thinking about an escrow account and forcing them to do that. There are certain things that they had to be pushed -- not certain things, a lot of things that they had to be pushed -- to do."
That's right, our government "forced" BP to do what they have done. BP is an oil company. They know about oil. Rahm Emanuel and Barack Hussein Obama are politicians. They know nothing about oil. It's hard to understand, but some people actually believe that Big Oil is evil, that they care for nothing but profits. Even if that were true, it is in the best interest of BP's financial bottom line to have this crisis over and done with as soon as possible. They were already above the obligatory amount paid to victims of the disaster, with more money to come, and were already working to drill the single necessary relief well. No one knows exactly what words were said in their meeting with Mobster Obama, but it was enough to extort an unprecedented $20 billion. Make no mistake, this money was not needed for any relief effort; this money was needed to punish BP. This was not due process of law, this was extortion. Meanwhile, I don't see any fuel tax money going to pay for this, and I don't see Obama offering the one million in campaign donations from BP to clean this up. Thank goodness for "obscene" oil profits, or there would be no money to clean up the spill!
More recently Obama's regime has taken action to stop Louisiana from building berms to protect their coasts from oil, because of a dispute over where they were dredging for sand! So, you can't clean up the environment, because that's... bad for the environment.
Obama's Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, has pulled a page from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's playbook, by requesting a comprehensive report from scientists, and adding at the last minute a recommendation that drilling be halted for six months in the Gulf. This is after the scientists had signed the report! Naturally, these scientists are quite upset, and have spoken out against the moratorium on drilling as short-sighted, and a bad idea.
But if drilling caused this disaster in the first place, how can a moratorium be bad? First, it will completely destroy the Gulf Coast economy, which is dependent on petroleum. Hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost. Second, the equipment will go somewhere else to drill. It won't just sit there or in a dock, wasted! These rigs will go to South America or elsewhere, and drill wells for Hugo Chavez. Meanwhile, Americans will still need oil, so we'll have to import it! Remember Exxon-Valdez? Tankers are a spill threat, too, and we'll see more of them if we don't drill our own oil. In six months, the moratorium would be lifted, but the equipment would already be engaged elsewhere. Fortunately, we have a hero, U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman, who is willing to declare the moratorium beyond the scope of the executive branch, and a bad idea. Thank you, Judge Feldman! Don't back down!
There is so much more to say, but this post is already running long, so one more thing to close. We need to put this spill in perspective. Yes, it is bad. It is a disaster. There is nothing good about millions of gallons of crude oil spewing into the gulf, and causing damage to the environment, not to mention the economic loss even before Obama capitalizes on this crisis. But we need the proper perspective so we don't panic and handle this poorly. As bad as this spill is, it isn't that bad. It's easy to show pictures of oil-soaked birds and real-time feed of the spill at its source, but it isn't that bad. Here's what I mean:
The Ixtoc I oil spill, about the same size as the BP-Obama spill and also in the Gulf of Mexico, occurred in 1979, and almost no-one remembers it today. This spill is bad, but it will be little more than a sentence or two in our children's history books. Even with the higher estimates of about 130 million gallons of leaked oil, the Mississippi River pours that much new water into the Gulf every 38 seconds. The Gulf is huge. Even without drilling, millions of gallons of oil naturally seep into the ocean daily, and the seawater destroys it. This is far more concentrated, but even with no action whatsoever on our part, in a couple decades it would be cleaned up naturally. The surface of the Gulf is 615,000 square miles, and the volume is 660,000,000,000,000,000 gallons. That's 660 quadrillion gallons, more than any mind can conceive. This spill is tiny, and the Earth isn't even noticing it.
Bottom line, this is nothing to panic over. It is bad, but it's not that bad. Not worth hasty actions that will have a lasting impact on the U.S. economy without any measurable environmental benefit. Many people are calling Obama incompetent. I wish that were the case. Obama is successfully carrying out his real agenda, the strategic dismantling of the United States so it can be rebuilt in His Image. Obama's actions (and inactions) are purely evil. BP is not the villain. Our own government is.
Meanwhile, this man's idea to stop the leak by meditating the well closed is a far more realistic and effective idea than any action taken by our government.
Remember the Obama Regime's philosophy: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."
Well, it was a whole week ago, but this year's anniversary of D-Day, when Allied forces invaded franceland because franceland decided it was a good idea to avoid war by not fighting Adolf Hitler, was a fun one. The highlight was having the opportunity to watch a reenactment of Allied forces attacking and capturing a German gun emplacement at the local military base/museum. It took a bit on account of slow internets, but here are photos!
"German" forces march in front of the audience before the battle.
All their equipment was authentic from World War II.
It's a BMW! This reminds me of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
This really makes me want to get to work restoring my Jeep, which is 1943, like this one.
The German 75mm anti-tank gun fires at Allied troops.
Allied troops fire back, and destroy the gun.
The main gun down, Allied forces advance on the "German" forces taking cover behind these fortifications.
Allied soldiers flank the German position, and bring out shotguns for close-quarters combat.
Pistols are also good for close-quarters.
Take no prisoners! I mean, totally take prisoners. They might... know stuff. (They did the re-enactment twice that day, and after the second one the Allies shot all their prisoners just for fun.)
This guy is cleaning and maintaining the German MG34 machine gun, the predecessor to my favorite machine gun, the MG42. These are very finely machined, making them not the most reliable in the field. The MG42 was almost the same gun, but much less precisely machined, making them less likely to jam in the heat of battle.
They were firing blanks, of course.
Yeah, I totally got to heft the MG34! Sadly, I didn't get to fire it.
The soldier/actors after the battle, posing for a photo.
They gave rides in the BMW. I didn't go on one, but couldn't resist this photo. They really made this guy's day!
It's the fat cigar that really makes this photo.
During the second reenactment, there was a flyover by authentic WWII era A-10 "Warthogs".*
There were quite a few old vehicles at the museum, but of course the 1943 Jeep is my favorite.
*Haha, had you going. "Warthogs" aren't from WWII; they're quite modern, and the flyover was unrelated to the reenactment.
So, thanks to Netflix, I can finally do something I've wanted to do for a very long time: Find out what's the deal with Battlestar Galactica. I remember it being on TV a few times when I was very little, but I never watched. Of course it's mentioned on The Office all the time, but also I have several friends who are very in to the re-imagined version of the show. I've read some very interesting bits online comparing the shows, and am curious to see how they really compare, and I'll blog my opinion when I've watched both series. As always, my opinion is correct and definitive, and so all others must comply.
Speaking of comparisons, whenever I see Lieutenant Starbuck (I'm currently halfway through the original 1978 version; I hear he gets a sex change sometime between then and now), I can't help but think of Lone Starr from Spaceballs.
"I'm Starbuck. I'm so cool."
"So, Lone Starr, now you see that Evil will always triumph, because Good is dumb."
Of course, then I think of Starbucks.
I'll leave you with this. I can't get enough of the theme music. It's classic! Such a great fanfare and anthem, so inspirational. I've liked this music ever since one of the first CDs my family ever bought over fifteen years ago was a collection of sci-fi themes (yes, nerdy, I know, but good music anyway). It's odd that it's taken me so long to start watching a show I've loved the music for so long.
