(Language warning!) It’s anti-Obama – it must be racist!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_veRCThylI0?rel=0&w=640&h=480]
What a fine rant!
Movie Review: The Killer Elite
Typical action film. Lots of stunts, some explosions, lots of gunplay.
Major film stars: Jason Statham, Clive Owen, Robert De Niro.
Overall, not bad. I’d give it three out of five stars, but I have one teensy little gripe:
Why oh why does Hollywood worship the three-day beard? Especially when it comes to Jason Statham? It’s his signature characteristic. “Now performing, Jason Statham’s beard!” This film takes place over literally weeks, yet his beard never gets longer, nor is he ever clean-shaven, even when the situation he’s in suggests he ought to be (impersonating a doctor, for instance). It’s one of those “suspension of disbelief” things. Beat the hell out of a guy while you’re zip-tied to a chair with your hands behind your back? OK! Wear a three-day beard for weeks on end? Don’t think so. He shaves his head but not his face? WTFF?
That is all. My “profound” gland seems to be all tapped out at the moment.
The Two Americas
Quote of the Day from a comment by The Geek with a .45 to the last piece by Bill Whittle I posted.
Whittle absolutely resonates if you have woven into your mindspace the right strings and sounding cavities that were once baseline American libertarian concepts. In other words, if you’ve got certain ideas and mental referents knocking around your noggin, you’re going to be totally lit up by Whittle.
We have to remember that as illuminating as Bill is for us, there is a very large segment of the population that lack these key bits of mental infrastructure.
I’ve seen them, and it’s really disturbing. They react to Whittle as if he were speaking Mandarin while wearing a belt of pelts and skulls and painted in woad. That which he speaks is so foreign to them that it is literally incomprehensible, they have no handle with which to grasp the concepts. Without such traction, such mental anchorpoints that make association with anything else in their lives, the whole thing passes through like undigested corn, leaving behind no impact or effect in its wake.
And I contend that this division is the intentional result of a century of “public education.” As the “Father of Modern Education” John Dewey stated:
Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming, where everyone is interdependent.
Can’t have baseline American libertarian concepts interfering with the coming utopia.
Operating System Humor
My brother gave me this one. I hadn’t seen it before:
He has a desktop unit he “upgraded” to Vista back when it first came out. It became an instant doorstop. His new machine runs Windows 7.
My new work laptop is running Windows 7. So far, meh. My home machine is running XP Pro.
Arizona Gun Politics
Well, I went to the annual meeting of the Arizona Citizen’s Defense League and ran into Capitalist Pig and his lovely wife. I stayed until after AZ Representative Frank Antenori spoke, but my a$$ was dragging, so I called it a day at about 2:00 PM.
While I was there, however, the President of the AZCDL told of how, six years ago, the first annual meeting was held consisting of about five guys and one extra-long submarine sandwich. This year there were about 400 people eating catered barbecue. Not bad in that short a period of time.
If you’re an Arizona resident, you should look into membership. These guys fight the good fight.
OK, So the First Week at the New Job is Over
Man, it’s nice to be back on the retail side of the electrical equipment business. Know anybody who needs a 35′ diameter 26,000Hp Semi-autogenous grinding mill or two? I’ve got a lead on a pair of new ones, never installed, with full warranty! A mere $24 million each! No 58-week lead time, they’re ready to go (well, except for the drive systems – those would need to be built, and they’re extra.)
I’ve got to spend another week up in Phoenix, but the new office should be ready a week from Wednesday. One nice fringe benefit is I will have an office again instead of a cubicle beige fabric-covered box. I missed that. Another will be that I can walk to work – it’s 1.0 miles from my front door to the new office. The exercise will do me good. I may need to put together a 40lb. rucksack to carry.
Let’s hope that economic Armageddon remains at bay for the foreseeable future.
Age Res Proprias Tuas
Bill Whittle hits another one out of the park:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCBbosq9-RI?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0&w=560&h=315]
Quote of the Day – Chicks With Guns Edition
Reader Larry B. sent me a link this morning to an PMSNBC piece on the new book Chicks with Guns by Linday McCrum with the following note:
When you see a front page article on the MSNBC website about women carrying guns you know that we are finally beginning to make headway in the battle about gun rights.
Well, we’ve known we’ve been making progress for some time, but point taken.
That’s not the QotD though. This from Ms. McCrum’s interview is:
“I learned two main lessons while working on this book,” said McCrum, who divides her time between New York City and California when she isn’t traveling for work. “One is that on the subject of guns, nobody is neutral. And the other is that when you get outside of the blue-state cities, everybody has a gun.”
Gee, ya THINK? “40% of households” my aching buttocks. Forty percent will admit to it.
Looks like there’ll be another book to go on the shelf beside Kyle Cassidy’s 2007 portrait book Armed America, which I wrote about here.
Lots to Say, No Time to Say It
I’ve got the urge to write another Überpost, but no time to do it. There are a lot of things I want to comment on, and again, very little time. The new job is going OK, but I’ll be happier when I don’t have to work in Phoenix. It’s a bit far from home.
Just a quick post, then.
I caught the new movie Moneyball last weekend. I’m not a baseball fan, but for some reason I like baseball movies: The Natural, Field of Dreams, Bull Durham, Major League, Mr. Baseball, I liked ’em all. Moneyball is based on fact, and per the blurb, it is:
The story of Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane’s successful attempt to put together a baseball club on a budget by employing computer-generated analysis to draft his players.
The theme of the film is that, while it’s possible to buy a championship team if you have bottomless pockets, it’s also possible to build a winning team on a budget if you can select players who can get on base and otherwise don’t cost that much.
For a movie based on statistics, it was pretty good. I especially enjoyed the fact that this team of mutts and rejects managed to win a record-setting 20 games in a row – fact.
But throughout the entire movie, I kept having the same thought: The movie would have been just as good and cost a lot less if they’d passed over Brad Pitt and instead drafted Greg Kinnear for the lead role.
The Earth Abides
Haven’t been blogging much, so here’s something to tide you over ’till I get back to it.
Amazing Sights (Can’t embed it.)
The song is “Night Ride Across the Caucasus” sung by Loreena McKennitt, and the lyrics are:
Ride on through the night, ride on
Ride on through the night, ride onThere are visions; there are memories
There are echoes of thundering hooves
There are fires; there is laughter
There’s the sound of a thousand dovesIn the velvet of the darkness
By the silhouette of silent trees
They are watching, waiting
They are witnessing life’s mysteriesCascading stars on the slumbering hills
They are dancing as far as the sea
Riding o’er the land, you can feel its gentle hand
Leading on to its destinyTake me with you on this journey
Where the boundaries of time are now tossed
In cathedrals of the forest
In the words of the time is now lostFind the answers; ask the questions
Find the boles of the clear ancient tree
Take me dancing; take me singing
I ride on too waits the sea
I ride onIn cathedrals of the forest
In the words of the tongues now lostFind the answers, ask the questions
Find the roots of an ancient tree
Take me dancing, take me singing
I’ll ride on till the moon meets the seaRide on through the night, ride on
Ride on through the night, ride on
Ride on through the night, ride on
Ride on through the night, ride on
I suggest full screen, and crank it. It’s worth your eight minutes.