...after a pretty interesting week. Among other things I was involved in some filmmaking in a really unusual environment.
Will have photos up from it soon.
Sunday, July 03, 2005
Sunday, June 26, 2005
One of these is not like the others...
It's normal to bring into question the over-use of prescription anti-depressants. It's very responsible to study the subject first-hand. And it's pretty bold to raise the issue before an audience of millions.
It's NOT normal to offer, as an alternative, the belief that the dread alien warlord Xenu fought over-population in his space empire by hoodwinking his excess citizenry into coming in for tax audits, then drugging them, then cramming them into DC-8 passenger planes and flying them to Earth ("which was then known as Teegeeack"), then putting their immobile bodies around volcanoes, that were then exploded with hydrogen bombs, then sucking up the disembodied souls, then forcing said souls to watch a "three-D, super colossal motion picture" about God and Satan and Jesus etc., which then disoriented them, but then they started to cling to the minds of humans as we started to evolve on Earth, which now requires an investment of several thousands of dollars to become "clear" of.
That is probably all I could say on the subject, before $cientology's army of attorneys come scrambling after my butt.
Saturday, June 25, 2005
A wry observation about recent events on this blog
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.
Kyle Williams impersonates Paul McCartney while writing good piece on property ruling
Philosophical/theological wunderkind Kyle Williams this week is brilliant as usual with a great essay on Thursday's ruling by the Supreme Court allowing cities to seize personal property for commercial development. Here's an excerpt from the WorldNetDaily website:
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.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?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...
FORCERY - Quicktime Video Download Page
presents
A CHRISTOPHER KNIGHT FILM
Chad Austin
and
Melody Hallman Daniel
starring in
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.
To watch these you will need the latest version of Apple Quicktime installed on your computer.
If you would like to download any of these, right-click on the video's link and select "Save as" (or whatever the heck it is that you Mac folks do :-)
SUPER SIZE (467 MB, 480x270 resolution)
LARGE SIZE (358 MB, 448x252 resolution)
MEDIUM SIZE (193 MB, 384x216 resolution)
You can also watch Forcery - serialized into seven installments - on YouTube. Here is Part 1:
Forcery Part 1
Forcery Part 2
Forcery Part 3
Forcery Part 4
Forcery Part 5
Forcery Part 6
Forcery Part 7
Special thanks to Ourmedia for hosting the movie!
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 :-)
Friday, June 24, 2005
That didn't take long: Texas city moves on businesses in wake of Supremes ruling
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:
Ummmm... Mr. Bottoms: where did the Founding Fathers ever intend for it to be that economic development supersedes the right to personal property?
Freeport moves to seize 3 propertiesCourt's decision empowers the city to acquire the site for a new marina
By THAYER EVANS
Chronicle CorrespondentFREEPORT - 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...
They didn't. But this was a central tenet of "national socialism" in Germany and Mussolini's fascism back in the day.
Time to move on
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.
That is all. That will be enough.
Just had some thoughts about today's Supreme Court decision...
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.
Bad karma goin' come from this, to be sure.
"Gentlemen, we can rebuild him..."
Amazing news from the medical front:
(sorry, couldn't resist :-)
Click here for more from Local6.com, including video of Mr. Sullivan moving his new arms around.Bionic Man Moves Artificial Arm With Brain
Breakthrough Could Change Lives Of Amputees, Patients With Spinal Cord InjuriesCHICAGO -- 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...
(sorry, couldn't resist :-)
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Forcery covered at goTriad!
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? :-)
...and Matt Drudge is acting like an idiot!
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.
America is DEAD! Supremes rule cities can destroy your home to make room for shopping mall
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.
No more.
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."-- John Adams, Founding Father, 2nd US President
Sauron has an Eye in the sky...
That's actually the star Fomalhaut at the center of the picture, 25 light-years from our solar system, as seen through the Hubble telescope. NewScientistSpace.com has more about this cosmic "Lord of the Ring".
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Anti-flag desecration law takes huge goose-step forward
Well, the House of Representatives voted 286-130 to give itself the constitutional power to ban flag-burning and other acts against the American flag.
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.
Few quick notes...
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!
Ummmm... that's all I can think of at the moment.
Monday, June 20, 2005
They're coming to dunk YOU! Southern Baptists want 1 million baptisms in 1 year
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 MembersThis 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.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."...
If this isn't the sin of pride on a grand scale, I don't know what is.
$60 oil but altering refineries still too sour for petrol industry
Crude oil is at a record high of $60 per barrel right now. I've seen serious speculation that $70 may not be that far away. When that happens it might not be that bad an idea to start studying those wonderful "Mad Max" movies for important tips like how to wage war for a tank of juice and how to go out into the wasteland to learn to live again...
Here's what I can't figure out: some credible analysts are saying that we are fast approaching (if not already reached) the point of "Peak Oil", when demand will vastly outstrip supply. But Peak Oil is a position based on current production, with what is available now to keep supplies constant. For the most part that's dealing only with "sweet" crude oil: meaning the oil has a low (less than 5%) sulfur content. That's what most of the refineries operated by oil companies are set up to crack. In contrast, so-called "sour" crude - which has a much higher percentage of sulfur - isn't being refined that much at all, and by most indications there's plenty of the stuff that can be readily tapped and pumped.
The problem is, refineries that process sweet crude can't handle the sour crude. At least not without a lot of upgrading and modifications. It can be done, but it's a step that major oil companies have been loath to take as yet. And when you think about it they've got a vested interest NOT to upgrade the sweet refineries: increasing the supply means cheaper oil. Which means they stand to make less profit than they are now. It would also be expensive in the short term to make the modifications.
But with the price of oil skyrocketing, what choice do they have but to start tapping and processing the sour crude, if they are going to still make a profit at all?
There is still oil to be pumped, although sooner or later (and better it be sooner) we're gonna have to switch over to something more plentiful, like corn oil or propane or hydrogen cells. Such energy alternatives would be a lot cleaner too. Not to mention more energy-efficient. The only reason petroleum-based products are still used now is because crude oil has bragging rights on being the fuel that was first most abundantly available. Now we know there are other options to choose from. Between here and there we're looking at a transitional period that, if we are approaching Peak Oil, we've got no choice but to start refining the sour crude, regardless of immediate cost concerns.
