High Noon

High Tech Noon

Last night I watched the South Park episode where the boys try to stop Steven Spielberg and George lucas from remaking films  like Saving Private Ryan (guns are replaced with walkie-talkies) . How very prescient.  Look what they've done with High Noon!

Quoth the Raven

The Shmavens (apologies to Edgar Allan Poe)

When the air about him thickens, a sweet sensation rises, quickens-- Heart a-quiver, Chris feels words Obamunist deliver legthrills he’s not able to ignore. It’s all New Testamenty, really, churchy Super-Tuesday zealy, He teeters on the edge of torpor, can’t remember Hill’ry any more, Then tears of joy, sprung all unbidden, glisten on his cheeks, And flow full-bore, And he leaves the final vestige of his fitness in a puddle on the studio floor.   Ah, the meretricious speeches Thomas Lauren Friedman preaches  (What felicitous ability to bore!): The Chinese are our betters (no useless democratic fetters); We are morons; we are greed-afflicted gorgons; oh and by the way, we’re racist to the core. And still we overpay his bloviating by a thousand score-- And foot the heating bill for his great bastion ever more! (Rachel Abrams continued)

Guesswho lowered the toilet seat 3 times today?

Blame the Brits

Profile This

“ Profile This   [Mark Steyn] Andy [McCarthy], you're right to call out the President for taking refuge in discredited cliches about "crushing poverty" as a "root cause" of terrorism: Young Mr Abdulmuttalab lived in a London flat worth £2.5 million - ie, four million bucks. Still, it's good to know the President has abandoned his laughable assurances that the Pantybomber was an "isolated extremist". After all, when the leader of the global hyperpower says things that any reasonably informed person at home and abroad knows are complete twaddle, he makes his country look stupid to the world. But I think we're still missing the larger point here. So the President's conceded Mr Abdulmuttalab was in Yemen. Good. But, by the time a guy gets on the plane to Sana'a, he's already on board for jihad. All they do in Yemen is the training. So where was he radicalized and recruited and when did he decide to embrace a life of terror? Well, look at it this way while you're standing in line at Atlanta or LAX. After 9/11, our pen-knives and other sharp implements were confiscated. After the Shoebomber, we began the shoeless shuffle. After the 2006 Heathrow plots, we had to restrict our liquids and gels and place them in small bags for separate scanning. And now, after the Pantybomber, we can't use the toilet for the last hour or put a paperback on our lap or whatever the TSA's idiocy du jour is. Whom should the traveling public thank for these impositions? The 9/11 killers were mostly Saudi. But the Shoebomber was a British subject. So were the Heathrow plotters. And the Pantybomber was educated in British schools - first in Togo; then at University College, London - and there is plenty of evidence he was radicalized while in the UK. So three of the four circles of homeland security hell with which the public are tortured are British in origin. [Continued] ”

Movie Review

Julia and Julie

Today's seasoned and shriveled movie revue.

I have sitting in front of the DVD player a NetFlix mailer that holds Cranford: Disc 1.  It's been sitting there since June 6th, 2008, which means the last movie MoSup and I watched together predated that.  We tried Cranford, which by all appearance is a movie I would probably love, but just cannot get into it.  Last night we watched Julie and Julia on Pay-Per-View..  Here's what I thought.  Meryl Streep comes as close as anyone could  I suppose, with the exception of Dan Aykroyd, to capturing Julia Childs.  "Julie," played by Amy Adams,  is Julie Powell, who parlayed her Blog,  The Julie/Julia Project into a book and this movie.   Despite director Nora Ephron indulging herself by making the left's favorite bogeyman, Sen. Joe McCarthy, a sub plot, I liked the movie a lot.  I can't put my finger on what it was lacking, but something keeps it from getting 5 stars.  I 'll go with 3½.  At the film's conclusion, MoSup, who last tasted wine at a Sunday Mass before the flu fright, suggested that a bottle of wine and some French bread- with butter (not a margarine substitute!) would be appropriate.  So we did that.  The movie has that kind of effect on you.  As an aside, Curmudgeonly & Skeptical would make a wonderful movie, don't you think?  Ahem. I would be played by ... I can't think of his name.  Crap.

Broder WTF

Your Two Choices: David Broder is banging Janet Napolitano? David Broder is insane?

Obama the Movie

Critical Thinking

Father: I took the baby to my mother's house Mom: Oh, how nice

The most disturbing thing about today's political culture is the absence of critical thinking.  Like Obama's qualifications for the presidency.  My eldest son nailed it. He told friends during the campaign, "I know you like Obama, but any qualification you can give me will be something you made up!"  They couldn't meet the challenge, but that made no difference to them.  Take Obama's birth certificate. For me, it is the signature example of a lack of critical thinking today, because both sides of the political debate are guilty.  Here are five  historical facts. “ Obama has, since 1990, claimed two different Hawaiian hospitals as his port of entry?  Two! His grandmother and sister claim he was born in Kenya. Pressure to produce a birth certificate in 2008 was addressed, not by Obama, but  by the leftist Daily Kos web site. Voila!  a "Certification of Live Birth." was produced.  There have been at least two revised versions.  All it took to get a Hawaiian "Certification of Live Birth" in 1961 was to fill out a form, giving the birth date, and parental names.   A "certification" would be issued, recorded, and local papers routinely published the birth record. Obama has spent to date $1,000,000 in lawyer fees to avoid producing a Birth Certificate - with hospital, name of attending physician, et. al. ” It is fair to say, then, that Obama does not want to, or cannot, show proof of his U.S. birth. Any disagreement? As we speak, Obama has used the Alinsky defense gambit of ridiculing anyone who questions it.  The Republican establishment, Ann Coulter included, waved the surrender flag . Where was the critical thinking?  Well, probably,  it was deemed critical to not get mired in an issue that had been co-opted by the Democrat Media Complex, and be labeled  "birther."  Not very principled, perhaps, but expedient.  Many of these same people surrendered to AGW too.  You can see the problem.  For the record, here's an outline of what I think actually happened. Sort of a docudrama. OBAMA- The Movie Ann Dunham arrives in Hawaii with her new son Barry on on August 8th, 1961.  She is met, and taken home by her parents Madelyn and Stanley Dunham. After a few weeks she announces she's registered to begin classes at the University of Washington, and takes off.  The Dunhams know their daughter to be somewhat flighty; she has had several sexual affairs with Black men.  Worried about Barry's future well being, they file for a Certification of Live Birth, using Barack Obama as the father, although they suspect he is not. He has made no appearance. The document is issued, and later Hawaiian news papers announce the birth.  Skip to c. 2000.   Obama calls Granny Dunham in Hawaii, and announces he will be running for a United States Senate seat. After the call, granny realizes that his birth details, ahem, could be a problem, but decides to say nothing. Skip to c. 2006.  In preparation for running for the presidency in 2008, he enlists the aid of friend Bill Ayers to ghost write his biography [Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance].  During succeeding interviews, Obama mentions that he found his birth certificate in a trunk.  Ayers asks to see it, and Barry produces the Certification of Live Birth. Ayers asks where the birth certificate is?  Obama answers, "this is the birth certificate." Ayers, sensing a problem, nevertheless lets it pass. During filings for the 2008 election, Ayers mentions to Team Obama that there may be a problem with Obama's natural born birth bona fides.  A brief panic ensues. "JFC, all this preparation and the guy isn't even eligible?" Claims by Obama's Kenyan family that he was born in Kenya cause even greater concern.  The campaign discovers that US law in 1961 would prevent Obama's underage mother from passing her citizenship to Barry.  Furthermore, the certification has no provenance, and can be easily challenged. Yikes! Someone mentions that McCain was born in Panama, and the order goes forth to hold Senate hearings on his eligibility. Team Obama wants a  reciprocal issue in the event Barry's status goes  public. Which it does after a tip from the Clintons. Team Obama leaks a facsimile of Obama's COLB, sans serial number, via The  Daily Kos.  Why?  Because nobody in the campaign wants their fingerprints on it, since it would constitute a felony, and possibly  charges of treason if it blows up. The Democrat Media Complex takes it from there.

Obamacide