ULTRA-gory first footage of JOHN RAMBO hit online

Ain't It Cool News has over three minutes of footage - the first footage released anywhere - from John Rambo. Three things to keep in mind:

1. The plot of this movie centers on Christian missionaries.

2. The footage (in Quicktime format) will only be up for about two days or so. If you want to watch it, do so now.

3. This is EXTREMELY violent! In fact I think it's safe to say that there is more bloodshed in this one 3-minute clip from John Rambo than there was in the previous Rambo movies... all put together! Not kidding folks: if you want to watch this, be prepared for some unholy nasty things to enter your gray matter through your forward peepers.

Violent as it is though, it does seem like it's going to be a good entry in the Rambo series. I'd had doubts for the last several months about whether this was going to work or not. Now, I'm more optimistic. Looks almost like it's a throwback to how the character originally was in First Blood, and that's a good thing.

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THE DARK KNIGHT already starting to look good

The 2007 summer movie season "officially" kicks off next weekend, but I'm already looking forward to next year... and no movie more so than The Dark Knight, the follow-up to 2005's Batman Begins. That has become one of the very rare movies that the more times I've watched it, it just keeps getting better and better. Christopher Nolan's vision was the best on-screen portrayal of Batman and his world by far: this guy gets Batman. Nolan's Batman is realistic and not comic-booky or "superheroic"... which ironically helped make Batman Begins the finest superhero movie ever, in my opinion. I just hope that nobody drops the ball with future installments of this series, 'cuz the first really was the best way to kick off a potential movie franchise that I've ever seen.

Well, this past week saw quite a few good bits of material coming out of The Dark Knight's production, and I'm already feeling positive that this movie is going to work, too. The first to make note of is that Eric Roberts and Nestor Carbonell have joined the cast. Roberts - lately seen on NBC's Heroes and the brother of Julia Roberts (although he will always first and foremost in my mind be known as playing the Master in the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie... am I a geek or what?) will be playing Gotham crime lord Boss Maroni. If you know much about DC's Batman comics, then you already know how this is significant. Carbonell is going to be the mayor of Gotham City... which is good. But Carbonell is already going to be in a new series on CBS this coming fall and more important in my mind, he's the guy playing the mysterious and seemingly forever-young Richard Alpert on Lost. Hope he'll have no problem doing all of those things, especially Lost: the last few weeks have catapulted Richard to the forefront of the mythology. But this is terrific casting for The Dark Knight and I think he'll be great in it.

Then there's this graphic that appeared on The Dark Knight's official website yesterday...

That's Aaron Eckhart playing Harvey Dent. I'm already liking this Dent over how he's previously been portrayed (by Billy Dee Williams in 1989's Batman and Tommy Lee Jones in Batman Forever). This Harvey Dent exudes confidence and a lust for justice. He's also handsome in the way that Dent needs to be handsome... which he should be, 'cuz it'll make his eventual transformation into Two-Face that much more tragic to behold.

So far, so good. Now if only a really good picture of Heath Ledger as the Joker could turn up somewhere...

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Britain to allow human-animal hybrids

Ever heard of the Book of Enoch? It's not widely accepted as Christian "canon" (although some Coptic Christians consider it to be inspired scripture) but it was mentioned in the Book of Jude (that's the next-to-last one in the Bible just before Revelation). I've read it a couple of times since first hearing about it several years ago. And it's quite an interesting read. Among other things according to the Book of Enoch, the Flood was sent by God to cleanse the Earth because fallen angels - who had originally been charged with taking care of creation - started having sex with human females. The result was a monstrous race of human/angel half-breeds and it got so bad, that the only people left who it could only be said were pure genetically human were Noah and his family: whole new meaning to Noah being "perfect in his generation". So God protected the one pure human remnant left and wiped out the genetic abominations that were befouling the Earth. So according to the Book of Enoch, that is what the great sin was that demanded the Flood.

Even if you don't hold to that story, I think it can be universally accepted that there are some lines that aren't meant to be crossed.

Except now comes word that Great Britain is now going to allow human-animal cross-breeding.

I don't know where to even begin to talk about how this is an insanely bad idea.

Moral issues aside, this just opens up the Pandora's Box of Lord only knows what kind of diseases that could come to afflict man. You know, things that are supposed to be restricted to species not our own. There is serious speculation that some of the prion-form contagions were unintended consequences of genetic experimentation. Is playing with this kind of "science" really worth that risk?

I have to wonder if there is going to be anything left on this Earth that's purely natural in another hundred years, what with how mega-corporations are playing with biology. They're already well on the way to making sure that farmers can only plant the corn and other crops that they have engineered.

Bad stuff coming from this, no doubt about it. It's just a question of who is going to be most responsible for sending the fire next time: God, or man's own folly.

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My commercial got mentioned on National Public Radio!

Y'know, the school board election was in November and it's now been more than 7 months since my first campaign commercial - the "lightsaber" one - first aired. And I only ran that one for about a week and a half before replacing it with the next in the series. But months later, and I'm still getting e-mails and phone calls out the wazoo about it.

I totally missed the opportunity to talk with them on the air about it, but it looks like National Public Radio did a segment about funny political ads and mine was discussed.

So let's see, the current tally is that my commercial has been reported on by: The New York Times, the News & Record in Greensboro, the News and Observer in Raleigh, The Charlotte Observer, quite a few television stations including some on cable, and now National Public Radio.

Not too bad :-)

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TRANSFORMERS trailer... Flash style!

Don't have Quicktime handily installed on whatever 'puter you're on? Here's the new Transformers trailer (found on Michael Bay's website):

And here's the original link to the Quicktime version on Yahoo!

The more I watch this trailer, the more stoked I'm getting to see this movie. I keep thinking about how much I started looking forward to Independence Day after that now-legendary commercial during the 1996 Super Bowl. Transformers is going to be that kind of outrageous good fun too, I hope.

Something also that I first realized with the movie's teaser, and this trailer reinforces the notion for me, that I hadn't thought of ever since the Transformers hit the scene in 1984: the Transformers are not "robots". They are living alien organisms from a world far removed from Earth. They just happen to be living organisms that are composed of metal and not carbon molecules. And that gives them some mechanical attributes and abilities, but otherwise these are things with a spark of conscience. The Transformers, at their best, are characters with souls. And it looks like this movie is going to tap into that (I hope so anyway).

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America is f***ed

And I don't know how to say it any plainer than that.

There is going to be amnesty for millions of illegals, as of tonight. That deranged man-child known as the President of the United States has seen to that and is practically laughing about it.

(And the Democrats in Congress were all too willing to help... with a little aid from too many Republicans.)

I have said it before, and I will say it again: if we cannot maintain strong borders and enforce them, then we are no longer a sovereign nation.

The two-party system is absolutely bankrupt of principle or any other value. I already knew that to be true of the Democrat party. And as of this week, it's glaringly obvious to all but those who choose to be most blind that it is true of the Republican party also.

Let's face it: when the "front runner" of the Republican party is a pro-abortion, anti-Second Amendment, pro-amnesty for illegals, pro-"nation building", pro-big government in every way, drag queen...

...there is something very, very wrong with things.

Oh, by the way, Republican party officials are trying to have Ron Paul BANNED from all future Republican presidential debates. Because Ron Paul (gasp!) had the audacity to tell the American people that our foreign policy is not working and perhaps, just perhaps, that is why bad things sometimes happens to America out there in the world.

Is "isolationist" really a bad thing to be? Is it too much to be expected of us that we kindly stay out of other countries' problems? Is it even meant for us to intervene in everything, anyway?

Speaking of the 2008 presidential race, James Dobson has said that he will not vote for Rudolph Guiliani. But it doesn't look like he's found anyone else to endorse, either. Which just indicates to me that much more that all this time, Dobson has been more interested in power than principle. There are at least two candidates just on the Republican side of things alone that should strongly merit his consideration, and quite a few other independents and "third party" candidates...

...except those are all "too fringe" to take seriously. Yes, a respected "Christian leader" has to greet the rich man and ignore those who are too poor: the ones who he has nothing to gain from by associating with them.

I can't believe that I almost went to work for that guy.

Hell I'll say it for all the world to see: I thank God every day now that He didn't let me go to Colorado to work for that hypocrite James Dobson. For one thing, because if I had moved out there then I would never have met my sweet and beautiful wife Lisa... who challenges me every day to live that much more for God. But for another thing, because I doubt if I would ever have been able to wash off the stink of Focus on the Family.

Don't think that my rancor at the Republicans exonerates the Democrats, bub. If "the drag queen" is supposed to be the GOP's cream of the crop, then I shudder far more so that it's Hillary Clinton who is expected to be on the Dems' side of the ticket come 2008.

I swear, if Hillary is elected President, I will expatriate my family out of the country and I will blast to Hell anyone who gets in my way.

Iraq is the biggest mistake this country has made of the past fifty years, and quite possibly more than that. We will be paying for that mistake for decades to come. The Iraqi parliament is about to take a two-month vacation. How many other people are inclined to believe that this is going to turn into an indefinite "leave of absence"?

There's more... oh yes there is much more... that I could rant about tonight. I mostly started this because I heard about the deal to give amnesty to the illegals. That was just in the last little while that news reached me about that. Before then I had spent a wonderful lil' evening with Lisa: talking about stuff, watching last night's episode of Lost again, having dinner. Seems like the bad stuff happens most when I'm not paying attention.

It's about time we all started paying some attention... what ya think of that?

Maybe more important than that, now that we know how totally screwed-up America is, and having come to realize that our political and even our religious "leaders" have utterly failed us...

...what exactly are we going to do about it?

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TRANSFORMERS trailer hits Yahoo!

In spite of the problems that I've heard this movie has had/will have, I must say that this trailer rocks the house. 'Course, I've seen plenty of awesome trailers for movies that when they finally arrived in theaters, were total letdowns (I would even say that the "teaser" a year ago for Spider-Man 3 promised a lot more than what that movie actually yielded). So this could go either way... but for what it's worth, I really am hoping to be more than pleasantly surprised with Transformers. Watching this tidbit of it does give me a feeling of some optimism (or should that be "Optimus"? :-).

Mash down here for the exclusive trailer at Yahoo!

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Last World War I veteran living in Canada has died

Dwight Wilson, 106 years old, passed away this week. He was the last veteran of World War I still living in Canada.

John Babcock, the last known Canadian vet of the Great War, is living in the state of Washington.

There are but 3 American soldiers who fought in World War I that are still with us, ranging in age from 106 to 108.

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Immediate reaction to tonight's LOST "Greatest Hits"

This ain't television. This is high art.

"Greatest Hits" didn't have the shock value that "The Man from Tallahassee" or some of the other more recent episodes did, but it was definitely one of the saddest episodes of Lost ever. I will admit to feeling more than a little choked-up at how Charlie was preparing for the inevitable...

...and then the last few seconds happen, and not for the first time this season an ep leaves us thinking "Okay NOW what?!? We didn't see THIS coming!"

Good to see Bernard and Rose again. And lo and behold, the dentist is pretty handy with a rifle! 'Bout time he saw some real action.

How many DHARMA hatches are there? I'd thought that the "underwater" one would have been the Hydra. This raises the count of known DHARMA stations to 7 (when the orientation film said there were 6). And didja notice that as Charlie was diving down, that the DHARMA logo for the Looking Glass station is a white rabbit?

Ben is now, at last, officially the Jim Jones of Lost Island. The thing I can't figure out is, what exactly is driving him? There's some obsession at work in the guy. Richard looked worried.

I wouldn't want to be caught in between Rousseau and whatever the heck it is she's giving that hard stare at.

Gonna have to watch this again tomorrow and let it sink in more. But if tonight was any indication, after next week's finale I think we're all gonna need that eight-month hiatus!

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Cop uses confiscated weed in brownies, then calls 911: "I think we're dead"

Thanks to Mark Childrey for sending this along...

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Limbaugh: "I alone have the power" to pick nominee, accuses Paul supporters of spamming

Once upon a time, I was a "dittohead". I discovered Rush Limbaugh not long out of high school: first from his syndicated TV show and then his radio show (which I listened to religiously). I read his books, I phoned and faxed my reps whenever he said we needed to make our voices heard... heck I was even a caller on his show one day in December 1993.

Thank the Lord that I came to my senses.

I still have my copies of The Way Things Ought To Be and See, I Told You So, along with other relics from the strange days of my youth. Back when I couldn't see past the two-party fraud. By the time The Matrix came out in '99 I had already taken the proverbial Red Pill and started seeing the way things really are in this world. Like, how people like Limbaugh aren't so much interested in pursuing a righteous cause as they are with feeding their inflated egos. And I've come to realize something else: that the ones who insist on perpetrating this Democrat/Republican "either/or" sham do so for the primary reason of exploiting America instead of serving her.

Limbaugh has said some things over the years that have confirmed my later beliefs about him, but this one tops them all: Rush Limbaugh has declared that he will be the one who decides who the Republican nominee is... and that it definitely won't be Ron Paul. Then he accused Paul's supporters with "spamming" the post-debate polls so as to inflate their candidate's popularity figures...

Limbaugh's remarks came today during his analysis of last night's GOP presidential debate in South Carolina, as a caller urged Rush to throw his support behind Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, as the caller claimed Paul was the most conservative of the field of candidates.

"I don't think Congressman Paul has a snowball's chance," Limbaugh said.

"You have the power yourself to make him the Republican nominee," the caller responded.

"That is very true, and that is why I must exercise this power responsibly, not as a cheerleader," said Limbaugh, "which is why I'm not picking a name right now. I alone have the power to move the [Republican] base."

But we all know that he would never pick Ron Paul, or any other candidate who believes in adherence to the Constitution. Rush Limbaugh is now nothing more than a mouthpiece for the status quo. For all his long-standing boasting of being "the new media", he has only proven that he is not much different than "the old media" and just as corrupt. And like the old media, he knows that his stature would be direly threatened as never before if someone as serious-minded as Ron Paul came into the Oval Office and began rocking the boat.

Once again, it's a case of the press wanting to be lazy.

Somebody please 'splain to me how it is that Limbaugh is now supposed to be better than "the liberal media".

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Is this the title of the next Indiana Jones movie?

Indiana Jones and the Staff of Moses?

I doubt it (but hey, I've been wrong before). It's a title that's been bandied about at least once in the past decade (click here for an EXCELLENT synopsis of the long, strange trip to the fourth Indy film, including Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men from Mars).

Personally - and I'm probably one of the darned few who will ever admit to saying this - I've always thought that Indiana Jones and the Sons of Darkness would have been a great movie. Too bad that script turned out to be totally fake :-(

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Tonight's LOST: Will "Greatest Hits" be Charlie's swan song?

Last week's episode of Lost is still freaking me out. The part where Ben takes Locke to Jacob's cabin might be the hands-down creepiest scene from a television show I've ever watched. No kidding: when Locke heard that voice I jumped from the shock. Then the whole cabin went nuts. And then there was that final scene where Ben showed Locke what happened to the DHARMA Initiative... again, creepy.

There are two episodes left for Lost this season, and of all the episodes so far these are the two that I know the least about. Tonight's is titled "Greatest Hits" and all I know is that it's centered on Charlie. And that for quite awhile now it's been rumored that Charlie is going to die soon. Will it be tonight? I hope not: Charlie has been one of the most fun characters to watch. He deserves to get back home and have his music career take off and become the man that Claire needs and the father that Aaron deserves to have.

But this is Lost, and the best things aren't guaranteed to happen to the characters we like most. Any one of them is ripe for killing-off.

Then next week is the 2-hour season finale, "Through the Looking Glass". And I am hearing that details about this episode have become very widespread in the past few days. I don't know what those are and don't want to know until the episode ends next Wednesday night. Just wanted to give plenty of warning to anyone else so they'll know that the spoilers are being disseminated out there, so if you want to go into the season finale as pure as possible, there are some places on the 'net you might not wanna visit for the next week or so.

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About what Ron Paul said last night ...

He's right.

The biggest attacks against Dr. Paul for his comments on terrorism and 9/11 are coming mostly from those who proudly call themselves "neoconservatives": the ones who can't get enough of American intervention in the rest of the world. And that's what has invited so much hatred against America to begin with. I defy anyone to tell me that there hasn't been a correlation between our trying to be the world's policeman, and anti-American sentiment.

As for Rudy Giuliani's tantrum: to me it seemed more like an act of desperation than something of solid principle. So he took what Paul said out of context and tried to spin it to make Paul look like a "kook".

But I've no problem with what Ron Paul said last night. It was an honest and intelligent answer. What else are we supposed to want out of a potential future President?

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Larry Flynt makes a statement about Jerry Falwell

Say what you will of Larry Flynt, but this was high class. And I can't help but think he's sincere in saying all of this, in spite of the legal turmoil that went on between him and Jerry Falwell. Here's the statement he released today after news came out that Falwell had died:

"The Reverend Jerry Falwell and I were arch enemies for fifteen years. We became involved in a lawsuit concerning First Amendment rights and Hustler magazine. Without question, this was my most important battle – the l988 Hustler Magazine, Inc., v. Jerry Falwell case, where after millions of dollars and much deliberation, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in my favor.

My mother always told me that no matter how much you dislike a person, when you meet them face to face you will find characteristics about them that you like. Jerry Falwell was a perfect example of that. I hated everything he stood for, but after meeting him in person, years after the trial, Jerry Falwell and I became good friends. He would visit me in California and we would debate together on college campuses. I always appreciated his sincerity even though I knew what he was selling and he knew what I was selling.

The most important result of our relationship was the landmark decision from the Supreme Court that made parody protected speech, and the fact that much of what we see on television and hear on the radio today is a direct result of my having won that now famous case which Falwell played such an important role in."

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Bush's most glaring leadership failure yet

President George W. Bush has tapped Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute to be his "war czar".

For the first time in American history, the President of the United States has outsourced his job as Commander-in-Chief.

Bush started this insane war in Iraq. Now he doesn't want to devote any more of his own time toward finishing it. So he's letting someone else handle it.

Pathetic!

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Gonzales, "attempted" software piracy, and Inslaw/PROMIS

Let me get this straight...

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wants to make "attempted" copyright infringement a crime.

Among other things, Gonzales is calling for life imprisonment for software piracy.

It logically follows, then, that the entire frickin' U.S. Justice Department - and a damn huge chunk of the rest of the federal government - should be sentenced to life in prison for its continued piracy of the PROMIS software.

To this day, the Justice Department has not paid Inslaw a dime for what was proven in court to be a clear case of software piracy by the federal government.

If this isn't a grandiose case of "chutzpah", I don't know what is.

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