Where's the Outrage?

As usual, the Republicans cannot stop attacking. President Obama traveled to Las Vegas yesterday and was speaking at a UPS facility. The facility was stocked with specially made natural gas trucks. Republicans have stated that these are not practical. In fact, this is American ingenuity at work. I don’t think that natural gas cars are the answer for everyone. But, they simply makes sense in this is take your sector of business. UPS was big enough to be able to set up the infrastructure and then reap the cost savings.

From WP:

On Thursday, President Obama traveled to Las Vegas to pitch a few new energy policies — including tax breaks for firms that buy natural gas-powered trucks. T. Boone Pickens, for one, has argued that fueling vehicles with natural gas is the best way to curtail oil use. Is it?

President Barack Obama speaks at a United Parcel Service (UPS) freight facility about greater use of natural gas . (Ethan Miller – Getty Images)In small doses, perhaps, though it depends what the alternatives are. Fueling up cars and trucks directly with natural gas could help cut America’s reliance on crude oil. Yet some experts have cautioned that plug-in electric vehicles should play a much more pivotal role in weaning the country off oil. After all, it’s far more efficient to take natural gas, burn it to generate electricity, and power a bunch of plug-in vehicles, than it would be to fuel up cars and trucks with all that natural gas directly. (That’s because the combustion engines in cars and trucks lose waste more energy than the modern-day combined-cycle gas turbines that produce electricity.)

The counterargument is that electric vehicles are expensive and hard to scale up — and they typically require a vast new charging infrastructure. That’s true. But natural-gas vehicles could face similar hurdles. A 2002 analysis in the journal Energy Policy found that natural-gas fueling stations have historically had trouble getting built precisely because they turned out to be far more costly than anticipated.

For those reasons, a 2009 report from MIT on “The Future of Natural Gas” predicted that natural-gas vehicles would likely play a modest role in transportation — mostly confined to long-haul trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles like buses and delivery vans. Meanwhile, the MIT analysts expect natural gas to play a much more prominent role in the electric sector. That, in itself, could be an environmental boon: The report found that electric utilities could very rapidly cut their carbon emissions up to 22 percent by switching from coal to natural gas in key areas (and that’s without making major capital investments).

Tags: Elections, Energy, Obama administration // Add Comment »

After being prompted by commentor, I thought that we could take a stab at putting together some the greatest American songs of all-time. Please notice that I said we. I think that this could be a an absolutely fabulous project but I’m going to need some help. This is going to be an interactive project. Please post songs that you think should be included in the Great American Songbook. The criteria for Great American song is somewhat loose. It has to be more than simply a popular tune. It really has to transcend it’s time. I’m not going to restrict the genre to pop music or rock ‘n roll or symphonic, for that matter.

Let’s see what we can come up with. Tell your friends. I look forward to your input.

Tags: Great American Songbook // Add Comment »

A friend of mine has sent me a great article on Newt Gingrich. Personally, I think conservatives are extremely desperate. They’re looking for someone, anyone, who will be able to take on Obama. Remember way back in October of 2008, John McCain’s campaign was clearly flailing and he was at an event in Wisconsin. A man, a black man, stood up and begged John McCain to take the fight to Barack Obama. (James T Harris, the man who stood up, was a conservative talkshow host on a local radio station, but he didn’t identify himself.) It is the desperation in this man’s voice that I feel is reflected in all conservatives right now. They are desperate. Most conservatives don’t think that Mitt Romney will roll up his sleeves and seriously take on the president. They are, therefore, left with Newt Gingrich. They KNOW that Newt Gingrich will do whatever it takes. If it means bringing up Bill Ayres every single day three times a day for year, Newt Gingrich will do it. If it means bringing up Rev. Wright and Bill Ayres in the same sentence, Newt Gingrich will do it.

Anyway, here’s what my buddy sent me about Newt and morality:

Nor is the issue an unrealistic demand for perfection. No one has a perfect past, and few, if any have a perfect present. But it is a stunning impoverishment of standards to dismiss multiple lies, adulteries, and hypocrisies as mere foibles that fall just somewhere shy of perfection. While Newt was going hard after Clinton for his moral failures and campaigning on family values, he was engaged in an ongoing adulterous affair.

So again, am I suggesting we demand perfection of our candidates? Should we make an issue of every high school and college prank, indiscretion, drunken weekend, wild party, and so on? Of course not. But we are not talking here about adolescent behavior. We are talking about his behavior as a mature adult, while holding elected office.

The fact that Newt thinks his history of moral and ethical infidelity is irrelevant to his qualifications to be President, the fact that he can wax passionate with moral indignation against those who raise these issues, represents a wildly distorted sense of moral judgment and moral proportion. Ironically, he is the mirror image of the postmodern who rejects traditional morality, but knows exactly how to draw a huge ovation from an audience by attacking intolerance with passionate fervor.

King David fell into adultery and he repented and was forgiven. Notably, when confronted with his adultery, he did not turn on Nathan, and say, “Seriously, I am appalled you can be making an issue of the fact that I banged Bathsheba, given the enormous political and economic issues facing this country.” David was forgiven. But he never regained the moral credibility he previously had, and after this incident, his Kingdom began to unravel in various ways, as Nathan predicted. Indeed, it is surely no coincidence that we see this beginning to happen one chapter after Nathan’s confrontation with David, precisely in the form of his sons mimicking his worst behavior (2 Samuel 13). Amnon rapes his sister Tamar, and when David ignores the matter and does nothing about it, Tamar’s brother Absalom plots Amnon’s murder and successfully carries it out. Given David’s adultery and devious murder of Bathsheba’s husband Uriah, he was poorly situated to confront his sons with any sort of moral credibility or hold them accountable for doing the very same sort of things he had done. The King inevitably set a moral tone for the nation, whether for good or for ill. David eventually lost so much of his previous authority that his own son Absalom could successfully garner enough support to lead a rebellion and temporarily usurp the throne. (more…)

Tags: Elections, Ethics // Add Comment »

For those of you who missed the State of the Union address, I’ve got it for you.

A few facts about the SOTU:

• Since the last SOTU, the economy has created 1.9 million private sector jobs. [Source]

• The top one percent take home 24 percent of the nation’s income, up from about nine percent in 1976. [Source]

• Private sector job creation under Obama in 2011 was larger than seven out of the eight years Bush was president. [Source]

• The top one percent of Americans own 40 percent of our country’s wealth, while the bottom 80 percent owns only seven percent. [Source]

• Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, 2.5 million young adults gained health insurance. [Source]

• For every one job opening, there are four people looking for work. [Source]

• Last year, China spent nine percent of its GDP on infrastructure. The U.S. spent 2.5 percent. [Source]

• 2.65 million seniors saved an average of $569 on prescriptions last year thanks to the Affordable Care Act. [Source]

• “In 2011, the United States killed Al Qaeda’s most effective propagandist, Anwar al-Awlaki; its operating chief, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman; and of course its founder, chief executive and spiritual leader, Osama bin Laden.” [Source]

• Union membership is at a 70-year low. [Source]

• Unemployment benefits have lifted 3.2 million people out of poverty. [Source]

• The United States used to have the world’s largest percentage of college graduates. We’re now #14. [Source]

• One quarter of all contributions to federal campaigns come from 0.01 percent of Americans. [Source]

• 47.8 percent of households that receive food stamps are working, because having a job is not enough to keep them out of poverty. [Source] (A friend of mine asked me about how many of our military families are on food stamps. I don’t have that answer, but usage of food stamps is clearly up in the military.)

• In the last three years, 30 major corporations spent more on lobbying than they paid in taxes. [Source]

• 50 percent of U.S. workers make less than $26,364 per year. [Source]

• More than one in 70 homes faced foreclosure last year. [Source]

• Since 1985, the federal tax rate for the 400 wealthiest Americans dropped from 29 percent to 18 percent. [Source]

Tags: Congress, Domestic Issues, Obama administration // 2 Comments »

There are probably 25 or 50 Great American songs making up the American songbook. These songs are uniquely American and iconic in some way. Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” is one of those songs. Miles Davis’ “So What” is another. Etta James’ “At Last” also belongs in our songbook.

From RS:

Etta James, one of the great voices of the 20th century, who fused R&B with gospel and blues and scored landmark hits with “At Last,” “Tell Mama” and “All I Could Do Was Cry,” died today from complications related to leukemia. She was 73. James had been battling health problems for years.

James had an enormously turbulent personal life with numerous periods of drug addiction and poverty, but she channeled all of that heartache into her music. “There’s a lot going on Etta James’ voice,” Bonnie Raitt told Rolling Stone in 2008. “A lot of pain, a lot of life, and most of all, a lot of strength. She can be so raucous and down one song, and then break your heart with her subtlety and finesse the next. As raw as Etta is, there’s a great intelligence and wisdom in her singing.”

Born Jamesetta Hawkins in Los Angeles in 1938, James was largely abandoned by her teenage mother at a young age, and was raised by her grandparents and foster families. She formed the the doo-wop singing group the Creolettes with her friends in the early 1950s, and they scored a minor hit with “Roll Me Henry” in 1955.

Read more

Tags: Music // 2 Comments »

It is kind of funny to see Mitt Romney all red in the face and angry. He is fighting for his political life. He’s been running for president of the United States for six years straight and his dream is slipping away. Although he has all the facts correct, he still is very awkward in making his point. Newt Gingrich, on the other hand, is very good at the counter attack. He never seems that awkward at the podium. He always seems prepared for the attack or the “gotcha” question. Mitt Romney has his hands full.

Tags: Elections // 3 Comments »

From TP:

America’s television meteorologists are theprimary source of climate information for most Americans, and are second only to scientists — who have much less access to the general public — in the level of trust they are given. Yet more than half of TV weather reporters don’t believe in human-induced climate change, even as our poisoned weather grows more extreme.

Forecast the Facts, a new campaign of 350.org, the League of Conservation Voters, and the newCitizen Engagement Lab, aims to turn the tide. The first call to action challenges the American Meteorological Society to vote next week for a strong climate change statement that rejects science denial:

It’s a big problem: weather reporters reach millions of people every night, and right now they’re not telling their viewers the full story. We can change that. Meteorologists are meeting this month at the annual conference of the American Meteorological Society, where the AMS Council will vote on a new official statement on climate change. Denier meteorologists don’t want the statement to pass, and are doing everything they can to derail the process. We can’t let that happen.

In 2009, ThinkProgress Green exposed weathermen James Spann and Joe D’Aleo as Marc Morano’s go-to climate deniers. Forecast the Facts has identified dozens more zombie weathermen (yes, they’re all male) from around the country. These climate denier meteorologists are betraying the public’s trust and distorting America’s airwaves with ideological science denial: (more…)

Tags: Environment // Add Comment »

The Drop

Congratulations to the New England Patriots for outlasting the Baltimore Ravens. Prior to the game, there was a lot of discussion about Joe Flacco not delivering in the clutch. The fact that the Baltimore Ravens didn’t win this game will probably not dampen down any of the criticism, but he delivered a perfect pass to Lee Evans, who dropped the game-winning touchdown in the end zone. That drop will go down as one of the biggest mistakes in football history. It will go down with a drop that Jackie Smith had in the end zone for the Dallas Cowboys or Ernest Byner’s fumble for the Cleveland Browns. I won’t even talk about the missed field goal. Joe Flacco did everything he could to put his team in position to win. He threw for over 300 yards. He had a QB rating of 95.4. He outplayed Tom Brady. Joe Flacco outplayed Tom Brady. (Had I said before the game that Joe Flacco would outplay Tom Brady, I think that everyone would agree that the Raven should have and would have won.) I should add, too, that the Baltimore Ravens played outstanding defense. Tom Brady. Tom Terrific. He completed 22 of 36 passes for 239 yards. No touchdowns. (You read that right. No touchdowns.) And two interceptions. The Ravens defense was tremendous. They deserve to go to the Super Bowl if anybody does. If the football gods play fair, the Ravens will be in the Super Bowl.

Eli trying to escape the pressure

The second game was almost exactly a mirror image of the first game. The San Francisco 49ers played outstanding defense. Their offense just needs a little bit more juice. They ran the ball okay. They simply didn’t throw the ball well enough to win the game. Alex Smith was 16 for 26 and two touchdowns. He had no interceptions. He needed more completions, more completions down the field to help open up the running game. Eli Manning has been a story of perseverance. He simply battled all day. I think the San Francisco secondary played extremely well, but they were on the field too long. San Francisco developed a ferocious pass rush which helped keep them in the game. They frustrated Eli all day long, but when he had an opportunity he completed passes down the field. This was an excellent game. Both teams played hard and played well. Just as Baltimore lost because of a missed field goal (a special teams error) the San Francisco 49ers lost because of Kyle Williams. You simply cannot let the football hit you by mistake. Congratulations to Eli Manning and the New York football Giants.

Tags: NFL // Add Comment »

My predictions over the last several weeks have been simply awful. As a matter fact, had you taken my predictions and gone to Vegas simply to bet against me, you could have made some serious money. Anyway, in spite of my past failures, here we go again.

Aaron Hernandez

Baltimore Ravens versus New England Patriots: First, let me start by saying I really do not like Tom Brady. I never have. I don’t know why, but I just don’t. I acknowledge that he is one of the best quarterbacks in the history of the NFL. If he wins another Super Bowl, I might just fall into a state of depression. (I’m just joking, of course.) Currently, I’m having flashbacks to the Brady hysteria that we heard back in 2005, 2006 and 2007. The fact that the Patriots have not won a Super Bowl in the last five years has dampened that hysteria considerably. As I look at the remaining teams in the Super Bowl hunt, it is hard for me to see anybody who has a good opportunity to beat Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots. Tom Brady with this outstanding tight ends, Deion Branch and Wes Welker, will use the short and medium range passing game to move the ball relatively effectively against a good but not great Baltimore Ravens defense. I think it is quite possible that the Patriot offense can put up 25-30 points today. On the other side of the ball, I just don’t see how the Baltimore Ravens are going to be able to match that offensive output. I don’t see how they are going to be able to consistently move the ball and score points. New England wins and advances to the Super Bowl.

Eli Manning

San Francisco 49ers versus the New York Giants: Eli Manning is currently playing as well as any quarterback in the NFL. The Giants seem to have put together several solid team performances, landing them in the championship game. The multiple problems they had on defense seem to have been fixed. On offense, the running game is much better and Eli Manning is on fire. The dropped passes that we saw from all of his wide receivers seem to be a thing of the past. I’ve counted out the San Francisco 49ers multiple times this year. I have underestimated Alex Smith, time after time. In the last five minutes of the New Orleans Saints game, he played as well as any quarterback in the league. He threw the ball accurately and made outstanding decisions. I don’t think that you can underestimate how well the San Francisco 49ers are playing on defense. They are stopping the run and they are playing pass defense extremely well. I look for Alex Smith and the San Francisco 49ers to take advantage of turnovers and head back to the Super Bowl for the first time in more than a decade.

This should be a great day of football.

Tags: NFL // Add Comment »

There are several things that I truly hate about our political system. One of them is the intentional gerrymandering of voting districts which seems to occur in every state every 10 years. It doesn’t seem to matter who’s in power, the overall purpose of redistricting seems to be to openly suppress the vote of your opposition. I feel pretty confident this is what’s happening in North Carolina as well is Texas. The Supreme Court has rejected the redistricting map from Texas because it appears that it has violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. For this conservative court to unanimously reject a redistricting map is extraordinary. Texas now has to scramble to get a map approved before its April first primary. This is a daunting task.

We need to adopt a computer-generated nonpartisan redistricting process. (This is a very detailed map using a nonpartisan process.) In my opinion, this is a must in order to take back our democracy from special interests which includes both Democrats and Republicans.

Tags: Civil Rights, Elections // Add Comment »

The winningest head football coach in the history of Division I NCAA football has died. Joe Paterno, longtime Penn State head coach and icon, is dead at age 85. More here. More about the Penn State scandal here.

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I’m sure that everybody has heard at least 1000 times by now that South Carolina has chosen the Republican nominee every single time dating back to 1980. I haven’t checked the stats, but that’s what the smart people have told us. I don’t know, South Carolina may be the bellwether of the Republican Party again this year. Personally, I think it’s too early to tell. As I mentioned after the Iowa caucuses, this is one mixed-up field. I don’t think we know much more now than we knew after Iowa.

After Iowa we knew that Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum were still in the fray. Some pundits continue to believe that Ron Paul can seriously attract Republican voters, though I’ve never thought that Ron Paul could get over 15% of the GOP vote. He is not a true conservative. He is a Libertarian, an outsider. After Iowa, Herman Cain, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann were really no longer viable candidates. (Jon Huntsman never caught fire. He could possibly be labeled a moderate Republican, of the variety which has been rejected by the mainstream GOP for the last 20 years. Currently, the moderate Republican is a rare species which should be viewed in the zoo.)

Let’s start with Rick Santorum. From a political standpoint, Rick Santorum simply fumbled the ball. He had momentum out of New Hampshire and simply did nothing with it. It was an epic failure. It is in South Carolina that he should’ve hammered home his religious conservative credentials, but he didn’t seem to do that. South Carolina believes in limiting abortions, states’ rights, not limiting gunowners’ rights, etc. South Carolina is the poster child for these conservative social issues. Rick Santorum should’ve hammered home on these issues. Instead, he tried to appeal to South Carolina voters by hammering Obama on the economy. It’s really hard for Rick Santorum to sell himself as more qualified, on the economy, than Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney. Looking at exit polls, there seems to be no conservative demographic that Rick Santorum appealed to more than any other candidate. He was a total washout.

Mitt Romney. The problem with Mitt Romney is that he is milquetoast. He has the voter appeal of John Kerry or possibly Al Gore (he isn’t liberal, but voters are have the same reaction – they yawn). He is completely uncomfortable in front of crowds. He doesn’t seem to be all that comfortable in front of a microphone. Therefore, if you’re going to vote for Mitt Romney, you’re voting for him because you believe that he understands how to fix the economy. Unfortunately for Romney, he simply is not exciting and South Carolina voters wanted somebody who’s going to get them excited. His advisers should have told him to begin to hammer away at Newt Gingrich. Instead, he ignored Newt Gingrich and began to hammer away at Obama. The strategy didn’t work. (BTW, where was all of the support that Nikki Haley was throwing Mitt’s way? She campaigned hard for him and it didn’t seem to help at all.)

Newt Gingrich. In spite of all the baggage that comes with Newt Gingrich, South Carolina loved him. When you look at exit polls, Newt Gingrich won both males and females. He won with voters who are 30 and older. (Ron Paul won the younger voters 18- 24, but Newt Gingrich was second in that category.) Newt Gingrich won those who are college-educated and also won those with no college degree. He appealed to single conservatives those who are married (I found this interesting). The only category in which he lost significantly were those South Carolinians who made more than $200,000 or more (approximate 5% of the electorate). This is the Romney class.

For Mitt Romney, South Carolina was a complete and total failure. He placed a lot of resources and money into South Carolina and he came up second. He came up a distant second. His current strategy is failing miserably. He needs to come up with something else or the Republican nomination will slip through his fingers. I smell panic from the Romney camp.

I believe that this nomination process is far from over. I think for the first time in my adult life, the Republicans are going to have a knock-down, drag-out fight over several months. This is going to be fun.

Tags: Elections // Add Comment »

This is a must-see movie. It is simply fun and entertaining. It is as George Lucas mentioned in his interview with Jon Stewart. He was unable to tell the whole story of the Tuskegee airmen in two hours. When you think about it, he’s exactly correct. This movie goes into none of how the Tuskegee airmen were formed or the hardships they had before they got over to Europe. This movie starts when they are in Europe. It really focuses on the skill and the camaraderie that these World War II aces had. Racism is not the focus of this movie. Yes, the movie does touch on racism, somewhat. More importantly, the movie, in my opinion, captures what it must’ve been like to be a Tuskegee airman in the early 1940s. Because you were Black, race was a part of your daily life. It didn’t matter if you were an officer. This is captured extremely well in the movie.

Let me take just a second to talk about the special effects. This movie has the best flight and air to air combat sequences that I’ve seen since Top Gun. It is outstanding. It’s clearly a leap forward. You feel like you’re really in the cockpit flying with these guys.

I know that some people worried about a movie containing both Terrence Howard and Cuba Gooding, Jr. Don’t worry. The acting is fabulous. They are more than adequate in their roles. Nate Parker (Marty ‘Easy’ Julian) and David Oyeleowo (Joe ‘Lightning’ Little) are outstanding. Their friendship, their camaraderie, really makes the movie. Daniela Ruah (of NCIS – Los Angeles fame) was a pleasant surprise as an Italian civilian and romantic interest. This movie’s script and the cinematography are done with 1940s-type feel. If you made a war movie in the 1940s, there had to be a romantic interest. Someone of substance whom you, as the audience, became attached to, must die. That’s part of the 1940s formula for war movies. This movie follows the same pattern.

This movie is not Malcolm X. It is a war movie. It is about action. It is about the heroes who flew the P 51 fighter planes. If you’re looking for something more, you need to find a different movie. If you’re looking for a movie that is fun, full of action and truly honors the legacy that the Tuskegee airmen left, then this is clearly the movie you need to see. I give this very entertaining movie an A-.

Tags: Movies // Add Comment »

The insanity of a cruise ship slamming into well-charted rocks is hard to fathom in 2011/2012. The absurdity of this cruise ship crashing into rocks is only heightened by the behavior of the captain which has only come to light over the last 48 hours. Not only did he not stay on the ship and help passengers, but it appears that he waited until it was too late to deploy the life rafts. It also seems that he abandon ship long before all of the passengers were off.

To continue the tale of ineptitude, today the CEO of the corporation is clearly throwing the captain under the proverbial bus. The CEO, Pierluigi Foschi, has told the media that the company was misinformed about the exact nature of the crash. This poor captain, Francesco Schettino, is in a world of trouble.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Tags: General // Add Comment »

In politics, it’s important to understand the atmosphere that you’re in. Richard Nixon famously could not understand the antiwar movement and how the country had changed significantly since the mid-’50s. Mitt Romney seems to be one of these politicians who really doesn’t understand the environment in which he is working. He and his advisors need to sit down and come up with a strategy about handling the issue of his tax returns. The question is not going to go away. It doesn’t matter how mad he gets or how he tries to blow off reporters’ questions. The issue is only going to get bigger. Hell, one of his biggest surrogates (in political stature and size) is New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Even he has called for Mitt Romney to release his tax returns. The longer he waits, the more speculation grows. “There must be something nefarious in there.” “He must be hiding something.” Personally, I don’t think that there’s anything nefarious. Mitt Romney is simply a very rich man who wants to stay rich. He has parked money in the Cayman Islands. He’s used every tax loophole he can in order to keep as much money as he can. This is what he does not want the American people to see. It is my opinion that Mitt Romney has legally used every loophole there is and has paid less than 15% of his income in taxes – legally. This is what he is hiding. Releasing his taxes changes everything for Mitt. Now, the focus is not on his message but instead on how the rich can pay a smaller percentage of their income than the average American. Will it sink his campaign? Who’s to say? What is clear is that his advisors aren’t getting through to him. He needs to figure this out and fast. If his tax returns are as bad as I think they are the American people will be infuriated.

I wish Mitt Romney lots of luck in trying to hold out. It’s a little like Don Quixote. Cute, but futile.

Tags: Elections, Taxes // Add Comment »

Just because it looks as if the Keystone Pipeline is dead, don’t think that this fight is over. Some very powerful people stand to make tons of money for this project to simply die. It will be back, I promise.

From The Nation:

For the second time in as many months, the Obama administration has rejected the Keystone XL pipeline—a hugely controversial project that would traverse the length of the country from Nebraska to the Gulf of Mexico, carrying heavy and dirty tar sands oil from deep in Canada.

You’ll recall that, following a summer of protests and civil disobedience, the administration announced in November that it was delaying the project for at least a year, until a less disruptive route around a key aquifer in Nebraska could be studied and proposed. (Many believe this delay would kill the project entirely).

But Republicans successfully revived the project during the end-of-year negotiations on the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance. Democrats desperately wanted these measures, and the final bill included a provision that would force the State Department to issue a decision on Keystone within two months. (more…)

Oh, btw, I don’t buy the GOP argument that the pipeline would make 2500 or 100,000 jobs. Media Matters clearly shows how the media pumped up the jobs numbers.

Tags: Energy // Add Comment »

There was a time long, long ago when it was fun to go to movies. The movies weren’t that expensive. They were easily available. If you lived in a big city, like Atlanta or Dallas, as I did, there was a huge variety of movies. Now, with expensive movie tickets, even more expensive concessions, irritated and downright rude patrons, moviegoing just isn’t as fun as it used to be. Also, we now have high definition TV at home with the movies of DirecTV and Netflix. It is almost more comfortable stay at home. So, I don’t go to movies is much as I used to.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows was worth seeing. It was fun. Fast-paced. The script was well written. Robert Downey, Jr. has really found his stride and become the megastar we thought he would be over 20 years ago. The one thing that I will tell you is that in the many iterations of Sherlock Holmes, his chief nemesis Professor Moriarty is never seen. You’re always left wondering whether he is real or an intricate concoction of his imagination. In this movie, the professor is very much real. Because of my knowledge of previous movies, TV shows and books, I was wondering for most the movie whether the “good professor” was really as bad as Sherlock Holmes thought he was. By the end of the movie, it is clear that the professor is really, truly evil.

If you’d like to see a movie that is fun and that doesn’t have a bunch of cursing and nudity, then Sherlock Holmes is a great movie for you. You can take a date. I give the movie a solid A-. Enjoy.

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Congress is on the wrong path. Several major websites are standing up to tell congress NO.

From Wikipedia:

Imagine a World
Without Free Knowledge
For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia. Learn more.

Contact your representatives.

SOPA and PIPA represent two bills in the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate respectively. SOPA is short for the “Stop Online Piracy Act,” and PIPA is an acronym for the “Protect IP Act.” (“IP” stands for “intellectual property.”) In short, these bills are efforts to stop copyright infringement committed by foreign web sites, but, in our opinion, they do so in a way that actually infringes free expression while harming the Internet. Detailed information about these bills can be found in the Stop Online Piracy Act and PROTECT IP Act articles on Wikipedia, which are available during the blackout. GovTrack lets you follow both bills through the legislative process: SOPA on this page, and PIPA on this one. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to advocating for the public interest in the digital realm, has summarized why these bills are simply unacceptable in a world that values an open, secure, and free Internet.

From Google:

Millions of Americans oppose SOPA and PIPA because these bills would censor the Internet and slow economic growth in the U.S.
Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and PIPA.

The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Please let them know how you feel. Sign this petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late.

Tags: Congress, Media, Senate // Add Comment »

It must be nice to sit around and make money while doing nothing. $66,000 for a speech? I promise that I can give a more informative and interesting speech than he can, but… I ain’t rich. This isn’t Mitt’s IRS tax form. It is a financial record. It is hard to read, but it is clear that this guy makes money because he is already rich.

Mitt Romney, to quote Mel Brooks, must know that it is good to be the king!!!

Tags: Elections // Add Comment »

Why is it that some Republicans try to out-hate everybody? It’s not that they have cornered the market on hate. That would be an overstatement. Instead, there are some who seem to go out of their way to be nasty, testy and downright anti-American. Mike O’Neal, a Kansas legislator, sent out an e-mail that basically said that he hoped that Obama’s children and wife would be fatherless and husbandless. What the heck this this about???? (He sent Psalm 109, which states in verses 7-9, “When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin. Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.”)

Donald Ainsworth just appears to be an old curmudgeon who has knee-jerk reactions when he hears things. Unfortunately, he drives for Greyhound and kicked 13 people off the bus because they were “associated with” the Occupy movement. As far as I know, they weren’t being disruptive and didn’t violate any of the Greyhound rules. I don’t get it. I guess this is why he was labeled the WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD.

Tags: Countdown // Add Comment »