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...and it's a pretty good movie. My favorite of the summer thus far is still Batman Begins though, even moreso than Star Wars Episode III. But for a Spielberg movie, War of the Worlds had a lot more depth for its characters than he usually gives them.
Being a Spielberg movie, it also has plot holes big enough to drive a Mack truck through. Like, the "lightning storm" that Ray and the other folks in New Jersey are watching is supposed to have knocked out ALL electrical power. So why does the camera focus-in on this one guy who's using a camcorder to videotape the tripod after it rises from the ground?
Not trying to be nit-picky, but that's something that really did stick out like a sore thumb.
If you've ever read the original novel by H.G. Wells, you'll find that this movie is a pretty faithful adaptation of the book, with a lot of nods back to the source material: Tim Robbins' character is named Ogilvy, f'rinstance.
I wish they would have given the aliens a flying machine though, like they had in the book.
There's been two main stories that I've posted about on this blog in the past few days.
One was about a Supreme Court ruling. The other was a more personal subject.
One was an affirmation that the United States now has the same driving philosophy behind it that once guided German Nazism and Italian Fascism. The other was a simple statement about a subject in my life that several people had inquired about already: after someone else had done a few things in order to attach a stigma to my being, I felt led to respond.
One of these subjects deals with the destruction of the foundation of every liberty that America is supposed to stand for: without recognizing the right to do what you wish with your own property, there can be no rights, period. The other subject is infinitesimally smaller in comparison.
One subject involves the future of hundreds of millions of Americans... and indeed, the very fate of our nation. The other involves, probably at most, a few dozen individuals.
Take a guess at which one has been making my blog's counter spin like mad during the past 48 hours.
If only some of these people could get this honked-off at the things that do matter.
Or is that too difficult for them? Do they really feel that helpless and weak to take on things that SERIOUSLY jeopardize their lives?
Are they so damned selfish that they don't CARE what kind of world it is that they are leaving their children?
If you are among these people, I really feel sorry for you. Because you are the real "loser" in all of this.
If ever worse comes to worst, some of us, at least, will have the comfort of knowing that - in whatever way we had - we did try to stop "the showers" from turning on.
The lines have become blurred in the Court as the idol for city governments has become economic development and its purposes are deemed much more important than the right of citizens to simply own land without threat. The community – or at least the greedy interests of politicians – is now much more important than the individual, and any business or home that has found itself on the wrong end of favor by the powers that be is now under threat to be replaced by a beachfront hotel or resort.
The implications of this decision are simply staggering, because the essence of America was founded upon the right of the individual to own and keep private property. The Supreme Court of the United States has thrown all original intent to the wind and endorsed not a constitutional republic, but a lawless form of government reminiscent of fascism. Justice Stevens may as well have had a copy of Karl Marx's "Communist Manifesto" on his desk while writing his opinion, because his redefinition of the term "public use" has superseded the rights of the private individual...
Personally I think this article is especially noteworthy because it features a new photo of Kyle and I'm torn between which does he look more like: George Harrison or Paul McCartney?
Some said it couldn't be done. Others said it shouldn't have been done. But... we did it! A parody of Misery, the Rob Reiner film based on the Stephen King novel. Only in this version it's George Lucas, creator of the Star Wars saga, who crashes in a blizzard just after finishing the script for Episode III, then gets "rescued" by his "number-one fan". "Nice job!" is what "Weird Al" Yankovic told us after he watched it. Plenty of sly in-jokes and references for keen-eyed fans of both George Lucas and Stephen King to find. Actually there's a little something in this for everyone. And don't worry, we made this to be a good, clean movie that anyone in the family can enjoy. If you like comedy in the vein of "Weird Al" Yankovic and the Airplane! and Naked Gun movies, we think you might like this one too.
From this page you can download Forcery in Quicktime video format. Five sizes are available, including one specially encoded for the newer Apple iPod models with video capability.
And VERY special thanks to Chad Austin, Melody Hallman Daniel, Ed Woody, Darla Gritton, David Choate, Nate Daniel, Mom and Dad Knight (especially Mom for catering), Marc Solomon, David Atlas, my sister Anita (who operated the clapboard for one scene), Kenneth and Laurie Wright and family, David and Carla Woody, David Wilson and Short Sugar's Drive-In, Lisa McBrayer, Deborah Wilson and Brian Hodges and Kyle Williams, Roland Shepley and Scott Baxley, and everyone else who helped in one way or another to make this dream (obsession?) become a reality :-)
It's already started: Freeport, Texas is using yesterday's Supreme Court decision to wreck an established business and giving the land to a wealthier developer. From HoustonChronicle.com:
Freeport moves to seize 3 properties
Court's decision empowers the city to acquire the site for a new marina By THAYER EVANS Chronicle Correspondent
FREEPORT - With Thursday's Supreme Court decision, Freeport officials instructed attorneys to begin preparing legal documents to seize three pieces of waterfront property along the Old Brazos River from two seafood companies for construction of an $8 million private boat marina.
The court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that cities may bulldoze people's homes or businesses to make way for shopping malls or other private development. The decision gives local governments broad power to seize private property to generate tax revenue.
"This is the last little piece of the puzzle to put the project together," Freeport Mayor Jim Phillips said of the project designed to inject new life in the Brazoria County city's depressed downtown area.
Over the years, Freeport's lack of commercial and retail businesses has meant many of its 13,500 residents travel to neighboring Lake Jackson, which started as a planned community in 1943, to spend money. But the city is hopeful the marina will spawn new economic growth.
"This will be the engine that will drive redevelopment in the city," City Manager Ron Bottoms said...
Ummmm... Mr. Bottoms: where did the Founding Fathers ever intend for it to be that economic development supersedes the right to personal property?
They didn't. But this was a central tenet of "national socialism" in Germany and Mussolini's fascism back in the day.
I've turned off comments for the time being. Regarding the post I made yesterday: what's done is done. I spent a long time praying and considering what was on my heart to share regarding some things and in the end, I had no choice but to follow it.
It's out there, now. The truth of some things, and some longstanding issues laid bare. Perhaps it is for the best: when you've been maneuvered into that place where you must burn the bridges behind you, there is nowhere else to go but forward.
And I'm back to where I was in the beginning: just a man, with a little love for a story that I only now want to share with my children someday.
What's to stop a group of citizens from petitioning that the local Wal-Mart be seized by force, and turned into two mom-and-pop stores and a coin-operated laundromat?
What if someone has ten million shares of some busted Internet startup. In reality he's broke but on paper he's a large corporation: what's keeping him from walking out of city hall with half the town's real estate in his pocket?
This may be, potentially, a worse Supreme Court decision than Roe v. Wade. Mother Teresa of Calcutta often argued that if it's legal for a mother to kill her unborn child, "then what is to prevent me from killing you or you from killing me? There is nothing in between." So what is there left, then, when it has been decided that there is nothing between your personal property and someone who wants to take it from you with government's blessing? There is nothing, not even a semblance of respect for individual rights, at all. Together with rulings stating that derivative products of your personal being can be patented, today's ruling makes us little more than serfs at best, resources to be exploited at worst.
Bionic Man Moves Artificial Arm With Brain Breakthrough Could Change Lives Of Amputees, Patients With Spinal Cord Injuries
CHICAGO -- Researchers have developed artificial arms that can be moved as it if they were real limbs, simply by thinking about making them move, according to Local 6 News.
The world's first bionic man, Jesse Sullivan, 54, accidentally touched live wires while working as a utility lineman in Tennessee. He suffered severe burns, causing him to lose his arms.
Now, Sullivan is the first to try out the most sophisticated artificial arms ever designed.
Surgeons attached his arm nerves to healthy muscles in his chest.
"So now when Jess thinks, close hand, the impulse is picked up by a transmitter, and goes to his hand," doctor Todd Kuiken said. "He thinks, closes hand and it does."
Sullivan's hand rotates 360 degrees, according to the report. When Sullivan's brain tells his arm to do something, it's done in seconds and he has feeling in the bionic arm.
"This gives me a lot of hope," Sullivan said. "I was an independent kind of guy. I didn't ask anybody for anything. If I could do it, I did it."
Eventually tiny sensors in the fingertips will allow Sullivan to feel texture and temperature.
Doctors at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago said the breakthrough could change the lives of amputees, patients with spinal cord injuries and stroke victims, according to the report.
By the time it's perfected, the cost of manufacturing the bionic arm is expected to be about $6 million, according to the report...
In recent years there's been some work done on developing an "artificial eye" that can send visual information into the brain's optical area. Last I heard, it's meeting with some success. Now we got this.
Excellent news! But did you notice how much the story said that this rig is going to cost after it's fully developed? There can be no doubt: Jesse Sullivan is...
Jeri Rowe writes a really swell piece about our lil' movie in this week's edition of goTriad. Click here to check it out and take a looksee at goTriad.com's main page right this moment: our movie is sharing the page with Fantasia! Who'da thunk it? :-)
The headline story on his page right now is about the press embargo on Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds. The Supreme Court decision taking away private property rights has a tiny red link just above that, but it's not screaming as much importance as whining German movie critics merits.
The WORST Supreme Court decision ever, bar none, and a summer blockbuster movie is what's considered the more vital of the two.
There's a lesson here but this is the sort of thing that's better for others to connect the dots on.
The notion of liberty - and this has especially been true with the notion of liberty in America - is based on the concept of personal property. That you and you alone know what is the best use of the land and possessions that you own, so long as you do not interfere with the right of others to do the same with their own.
Meaning that if you have a small business, and there's an even BIGGER business (like Wal-Mart) that wants to build a store where YOUR business is, the town you live in can side with Wal-Mart and destroy everything you've done with your own business, just so they can build their store.
This is the kind of thing that makes it seem pretty damn sensible to run out and burn a flag in protest. Why not? There is no more America.
Let this country crumble into ruin. I don't care anymore. Not when IDIOTS like the five justices that voted in favor of this are so damned blind that... THIS JUST SUCKS DONKEYS BALLS TO NO END, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN??!?!!
This may finally be what drives too many people up against the wall for the last time. That's the only silver lining I'm seeing to this. It is finally "that time", if you've ever read Claire Wolfe's stuff. Because if government can side with big business to take away everything you have, what is there that's really left to lose? What might that drive some people to do?
When property rights are dead, America is dead.
'Nuff said.
"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist."
Dear God in Heaven, this is so scary a step, I've no idea where to begin.
Since it's so fashionable to put things in the context of the Nazis lately, I'll go ahead and say it: after reading this article, and the power and veneration that some want to ascribe to our flag, it sounds too much like die Blutfahne. See what Google will come up with for that term, and tell me that this isn't the same. It's a government imbuing a piece of cloth with mystical power, making it an object of worship instead of a symbol for something.
Maybe it's just as well: what the American flag symbolizes went away and died a long time ago already anyway.
Growing up as a Boy Scout I learned how to respect the flag, how to fold it properly, everything about its history and the things better men than I'll ever be did to keep that flag - and what it stands for - proudly waving for the sake of those yet to come. I'm damned ashamed that we've let them down. And I never thought the day would come when my own cherished American flag would start to become a symbol of fascism.
No, I'm not gonna take that back.
Ironic, that the American flag is now being "defended" by the same people that raped it of everything it used to stand for.
The biggest post (I think) that I've ever done to this blog will be up sometime either today or tomorrow. Have been working on it for the past week or two. Wish I didn't have to do this, but some things need to be said, and I've got to be thorough. Going to set some things straight and call the bluff on some people.
On the HAPPIER side of things, within the next hour or so I'll be doing my very first "pod-cast" thingy, talking with an entertainment editor about Forcery. The link to that will be on this page as soon as possible.
The "blooper reel" for Forcery should be online tomorrow morning sometime. It's a real scream!
This is just so wrong. Totally, completely wrong. This misses the mark bigtime on what we're supposed to be doing as Christians. From the Associated Press via Yahoo!...
Baptists Aim to Baptize 1 Million Members
By LUCAS L. JOHNSON II, Associated Press Writer Mon Jun 20, 5:06 PM ET
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - The annual meeting of Southern Baptist Convention will help kick off what may be the denomination's most ambitious outreach effort ever — baptizing 1 million new members in a year.
Headquartered in Nashville, the 16.3 million-member faith is the second-largest denomination in the United States, behind the Roman Catholic Church. Yet the number of new member baptisms has declined in each of the past five years.
"We have been playing it too close to the church," said President Bobby Welch, who will speak at the opening of the two-day convention Tuesday following a satellite address by President Bush. "Southern Baptists have to reconnect themselves with the communities and the needs of the people in the communities."
Welch said complacency among Southern Baptists is a big part of the reason for the slide, and it's an issue he plans to address in his speech to an expected crowd of about 9,000.
After he was elected president last year, the 62-year-old Welch began preparing for the baptism initiative with a bus tour of the United States and Canada to show "the convention is concerned about being involved in everybody's life."
Out of that tour came the baptismal theme for this year's convention, "Everyone Can."...
This right here is the biggest failure of modern Christianity. Okay, I'll even say of the modern world. Of human nature since the dawn of time even. But that doesn't mean the body of Christ has to emulate it. I'm talking about this whole fixation on "strength in numbers". See, the Southern Baptist Convention is making the mistake of equating prominence in this world with spiritual success. Maybe even with righteousness before God. In all brutal honesty it's pretty disquieting that they're even considering doing such a thing from this kind of motivation. Baptists - of whatever flavor - have traditionally been ardent believers in the individual's place before God, not how that individual contributes to a carnal collective. It's partly the reason why (believe it or not) Baptists have also usually been the ones most in favor of separating church and state. But now the Southern Baptist Convention is taking the position that individuals do not matter, only how much strength that individual gives to the churches as a corporate body... for the convention's sake, not the individual.
If this isn't the sin of pride on a grand scale, I don't know what is.
