Confirmed

Roger Ebert is a gigantic tool, but at least he’s a reliable water-mark. His endorsement of “Avatar” (both in fact and in verbage) confirms that I am NOT interested in seeing it, big budget or no. The blatant politics of this movie are going to prevent it from doing as well as a film with this level of commitment really should, but either way it’s a loss for conservative movie-goers: if it does well, Hollywood will consider it an endorsement that their pro-green, anti-war message is finally marketable. If it tanks, Hollywood will retreat to smaller-budget versions of what it considers “safe” movies–all of which have liberal sensibilities.

The Best of Intentions

Recently, on Facebook, I was asked why I couldn't just believe that Barack Obama was acting with good intentions.  This was my reply:

Let us imagine that I invited you to be the guest of honor at a dinner held at my house. You enter my house to find the members of my family rushing to put out a greasefire with boxes of baking soda. You immediately step in their way to dump a bucket of water into the grease fire, spreading it all over the kitchen.

As my house burns down around me, I am unlikely to be impressed with the idea that you took this course of action based on "the best of intentions": not only has putting water on grease fires been proven to be a bad course of action with disastrous consequences, but stepping in the way of a family attempting to save their own home is unconscionably arrogant.

If I also happened to know that your every acquaintance believed that all houses should be torn down and everyone forced to live together in caves–some of them having gone so far as to bomb contractors' offices–and that you had attended services for 20 years in the Church of Houses are Evil… then I might begin to wonder what it was that you considered "the best of intentions."

Happy Halloween

Hey, everybody! Nothing big happened today, except for a holiday (that I didn’t get off). It’s been a while since I really blogged anything, so I wanted to stop in and say “hey!”

I’m back in school (pursuing a BA in Multidisciplinary Studies from Grantham University)–got a 4.0 in my first session. Unfortunately, I screwed up the paperwork for my next session, so I’m getting an extra two-week break.

I also got certified as a NRA Instructor, specifically for Firearms Safety. This won’t do me much good by itself, but its a “foot in the door” for firearms training to be done in conjunction with martial arts classes (someday, I hope).

I’m going to try to start blogging more often. I’m busy, but I have opinion to share that I think are important. If anyone wants to see more about what I’m doing personally, I’m on Facebook (but I generally only friend people I know personally). I don’t go to MySpace much anymore.

Anyway, happy Halloween. Be safe, and have fun!

Socialized Medicine is Coming

Senate Majority Leader Harry “Surrender Monkey” Reid announced today that the healthcare bill headed to the Senate floor for a vote includes a public option, with an opt-out for individual states. Note that,if the opt-out is being done at the state level, that means that the un-Constitutional barrier which prevents insurance companies from competing in different states is being left in place. Since no private insurance company will be able to compete with the public option, it won’t be long before the “public option” is all that’s left–and it won’t be optional for long after that.

Movie Day

So, on the recommendation of my friend Kevin, I went to see the movie “District 9.” I have to agree with his assessment: it was a really good movie, and certainly not what I expected. I was expecting another Hollywood pro-illegal immigration referendum, but that wasn’t what it was at all. I won’t go into anymore detail than that, because I don’t like to spoil movies that I enjoy.
My one gripe was the line “Where there are weapons, there is crime,” in reference to civilians having guns. In defense of the movie, it doesn’t take place in America, and I don’t know what the South African gun-culture is like. A little later, the same commentator makes the comment, “Where there are slums, there is crime,” which Kevin accepts as an explanation of the earlier statement worthy of absolution–I don’t. But that’s a pretty minor gripe in a really good movie.

Unfortunately, I didn’t leave the cinema after watching it. I stayed to watch the new Tim Burton movie, “9.” Sigh. It’s yet another “God is dead, and that’s a good thing” movie. I could tell as soon as it started that it was some sort of allegory, but I admit that it took me until almost the end of the movie to figure out what the message actually was. At least it wasn’t as blatantly literal as the “His Dark Materials” series. Even if it weren’t for the ridiculous theme, this movie sucked. I find it a bit difficult to any level of suspense or sympathy when there’s not a single living character in the movie. That’s right, the “good guys” (more or less) are all animated rag-dolls (technically, they’re a Hollywood stupid-magic version of homunculi, but we don’t find that out until very late in the movie) and the villains are all completely unbelievable machines. And I have quite a high threshold for suspension of disbelief.

All in all, “District 9” is highly recommended; “9” is to be avoided.