Comparisons between Ron Paul and 300

So Saturday night I saw 300 again, this time in Raleigh with my friend Chad. And I think that of all the movies that I have seen so far this year, 300 is easily my favorite, and the best overall in my opinion. I just found out that it's coming out on DVD next month, too!

If you haven't seen 300 yet, remember how riled-up a lot of us got when Braveheart came out? 300 is that kind of blood-stirring good. This is exactly the kind of story we need for the time we live in. And YouTube user BoruJudasDedrich feels the same way, too...

Here's the video that he put together, comparing what's going on regarding presidential candidate Ron Paul with Leonidas and the Spartans in 300. I found myself thinking much the same on Saturday night when we were watching this... but I really doubt that I could have done anything as beautiful and passionate as what BoruJudasDedrich has done here. Just one thing I want to know: where did he get all that 300 footage?!? :-)

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Crazy good weekend! Report from Pixelodeon and the Ron Paul video becomes a YouTube hit!

Most of this weekend was spent in Raleigh. I left Reidsville at about 4 p.m. on Friday afternoon and reached my friend Chad's place a little after 6. For the past five weeks I've been studying my brains out for the Praxis exam: that's the big series of tests given to prospective teachers. It was actually two exams that I took on Saturday: one that morning for content knowledge, and the second later that afternoon on teaching methods. And, I think that I did pretty well on them! The first was over a hundred multiple-choice questions that you had to use a number-2 pencil to fill in those little bubbles for your answers, but the second was stuff you had to think about and write out. Basically that exam provided two knowledge areas that you had to make lesson plans out of. Even though that was the harder of the two, I had more fun doing that one. I left the testing center at St. Augustine's College feeling pretty upbeat about it. I should find out in a few weeks how well I did.

And later that evening, Chad and I went out for pizza and then drove to a theater to watch 300: his first time seeing it and my second (here's my review from when Dad and I saw it in April). I drove back home later on Sunday afternoon.

Meanwhile, other stuff had been going on all weekend...

This was the weekend that the first annual Pixelodeon Independent Video Festival was going on at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. Three-hundred-some selected videos were screened at this thing... including that first commercial from my school board campaign! Wish I could have flown out for this thing, but I had to stay and take the Praxis exam. But I did receive some great news about the kind of reception that my commercial got at the event: one of the curators told me that "It was fantastic!" He said that people loved it and that they were "disappointed" when told that I hadn't won the election. I told him that if people enjoyed it that much, then I'd have rather had that than have won the election (not that I wasn't trying my best to win, 'course :-) So hearing about the feedback from Pixelodeon has definitely already made my week...

...as has the reaction to my first pro-Ron Paul for President video: it made it all the way to #10 on the "Top Rated News & Politics" videos on YouTube for this past Saturday! At one point it was the third highest-ranked Ron Paul video for that day. A lot of people have left some awfully nice comments about it on the video's page. And quite a few of them have one burning question above all others: "Did those photos clog-up your toilet?!?" Miraculously, they did not... but it was definitely a concern that I'd had. And there've been a few more ideas for Ron Paul videos that I've had in the past couple of days. Might make another real soon.

And, that was my weekend. Between the serious task to overcome and the groovy response to those videos, and the great fellowship that I had with a lifelong friend, and the conscious choice to completely abstain from blogging or any other routine activity that I usually involve myself in and what a refreshing respite it was, this weekend pretty much had it all.

If only it could last... 'cuz tonight is going to be one insane school board meeting, if the last two were any indication :-P Will report on that later tonight.

And there's something else I'll be posting about later on today: my own lil' way of celebrating the weekend's success :-)

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My first commercial will be shown at Pixelodeon at American Film Institute this weekend!

Just one more post before I really absolutely do take a self-imposed sabbatical from blogging for the next few days: it was first mentioned last week that the first commercial from my school board campaign - the "zany" Star Wars-inspired ad - will be screened this weekend at the first-ever Pixelodeon Independent Video Festival at the American Film Institute... in Hollywood! So if you're in Los Angeles for the next few days, I guess you can stop by and watch the Death Star blow up a schoolhouse.

Hey, it helped get me almost forty-seven hundred votes, didn't it?? :-)

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My first video for the Ron Paul cause

It's late. I've been working on this video since yesterday afternoon. Had some weird encoding problems. But the first "political advertisement" I've made in support of Ron Paul for President is all finished now, and uploaded to YouTube for your viewing pleasure. I call it "Sick and Tired and Needing a Doctor" ...

This is like the third or fourth production I've done lately that involves me being shown with a toilet: parse that as you will. But all the same, I think this turned out rather nice. What do you think? :-)

Okay, this is a good enough post to close out the week with. I'm going to take a break from blogging for the next few days. Have a great weekend y'all!

EDIT 11:47 a.m. EST: The video has been posted on Daily Paul! After this update I really am stepping away from the 'puter for a few days. The video seems to be spreading around. Wonder how many views it'll have when I get back...?

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First trailer for I AM LEGEND

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson is one of the most haunting novels that I've ever read. The project to make a modern-day film adaptation of it (it's been turned into a movie twice already, the last one being The Omega Man with Charlton Heston) is something that's been simmering for over ten years now: yeah I still remember the days when Ridley Scott was going to make this with Arnold Schwarzenegger. It finally comes out this December, with Will Smith as Robert Neville.

And, I've no sense this early on about how faithful this movie will be to the spirit of the book... but I think it might have some promise. The first trailer certainly impresses. There is one shot that is one of the flat-out coolest that I've ever seen in a movie... or at least the trailer for one.

Mash down here for the Quicktime video of the I Am Legend trailer

EDIT 4:38 a.m. EST: Pray for the last man on Earth... because he's not alone. Here's the first 10 minutes of The Omega Man, with Charlton Heston as Neville (the role Smith will have in I Am Legend). By the way, this movie's awesome soundtrack was composed by Ron Grainer: the man who also created the immortal theme music for Doctor Who.

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Illegals amnesty dead in Senate (but could still come back)

It's down for now, but it sounds like the bastitches trying to push this through are gonna come back around for another pass.

This bill is just one more indication why Ted Kennedy is about 40 years past any real usefulness in the Senate (if that much).

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"Autobots are watching you!"

After starting to feel so much good vibe the past few weeks about Transformers coming out next month, only to find this... thing.

It's a 2007 update to the "Transformers" theme song (MP3 file in .zip format) on the Sector Seven promo website for Transformers.

This doesn't raise my hopes any about the movie, y'all...

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Live free or DIE HARD!

voteronpaul08 at Ron Paul Forums asked if I could do a Ron Paul thing with the Live Free or Die Hard poster. Here's what I came up with...

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Now they're re-making THE THING and making a movie out of EMPIRE?!

Some days it just doesn't pay to take a look on the cultural front...

Ronald D. Moore, the guy who re-created Battlestar Galactica for the Sci-Fi Channel (and did an amazing job of it from the looks of things), is now working on a remake of The Thing...

...which might not be an altogether bad thing. John Carpenter's 1982 The Thing was already a remake, and Moore is a pretty capable guy. But it's going to be darn awful hard to top what we saw in the 1982 movie. 25 yeas later (what was it about 1982 that made it a great year for this kind of movie genre?) and it's still holding up very strong.

Then comes word that Warner Bros. is making a movie of Orson Scott Card's Empire. Which will probably be as big a box office smash as Battlefield Earth was. As I said in my review back in December, Empire is a bad, bad book! Usually I devour an Orson Scott Card novel. With Empire I had to struggle to overcome it like a man constipated. And I really do like Card a lot! I think he's one of the few legitimately leading intellectual lights of our age. He just struck out with Empire, the same way that Steven Spielberg struck out with 1941: they can't all be winners, right? Just the same, this is one project that should be quietly shelved.

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Shirley Phelps-Roper arrested for letting son stomp on American flag

Remember this lady? It's Shirley Phelps-Roper. It will be a year ago next week that she and her family - the infamous Westboro Baptist Church - visited the TV station that I worked at. This is that "God hates fags church" that does those rabid anti-homosexual protests... most of them quite bizarre and all of them crossing the boundary of good taste. If you missed that report when it was filed last year, mash that link down for some truly disturbing photos along with my account of what happened that night during my close encounter with "the Phelps family".

Well, Shirley Phelps-Roper has been arrested in Bellevue, Nebraska: charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor after her 8-year old son stomped on an American flag during a soldier's funeral.

Here's the story from WMUR:

Boy Stomps Flag At Funeral, Mom Arrested

Pair Are Part Of Anti-Gay Church That Protests Funerals

POSTED: 1:44 pm EDT June 6, 2007

OMAHA, Neb. -- A woman was arrested in Bellevue, Neb., on Tuesday during the funeral for a fallen soldier.

Shirley Phelps-Roper was arrested on suspicion of contributing to the delinquency of a minor for allegedly allowing her 8-year-old son to stomp on an American flag.

Phelps-Roper is a member of a Topeka, Kan., church that conducts anti-homosexual picketing at funeral services for U.S. soldiers.

Hundreds of people packed Bellevue streets Tuesday morning to pay tribute to a firefighter and soldier. Spc. Bill Bailey was serving in the National Guard in Iraq when he was killed by a roadside bomb.

Police said the group to which Phelps-Roper belongs had a permit to protest 300 feet from Bailey's funeral.

Bellevue Officer Joe Gray, who made the arrest, said that at first the group brought out a couple of members' own American flags.

"The arrestee, Ms. Phelps-Roper, put one around her waist. The second one was given to a 10-year-old, who put it on the ground and started kicking it in the area they were protesting," Gray said.

Nebraska law states that it is a Class 3 misdemeanor when a person "intentionally casts contempt or ridicule upon a flag by mutilating, defacing, defiling, burning or trampling upon such flag." The law was passed in 1977.

"It appears the adults weren't stepping on the flag because they knew it was a violation of the law. But they allowed the children to go ahead and do that," Gray said.

Phelps-Roper said she believes she has the right to use the flag as a symbol, and said Nebraska's law is outdated.

"We're going to challenge that statute," she said. "That statue should have been repealed."

Gray said the arrest wasn't personal and has nothing to do with his beliefs. He said he's simply doing his job.

"It's state law, so we were enforcing the laws of Nebraska," the officer said.

Sarpy County Attorney Lee Polikov said the words from the group are fighting words, which are not protected speech.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: someday, the Phelps family is going to go way too far in front of the way wrong people... and some of them are going to be hurt or worse because of their antics. They won't have anyone to blame but themselves.

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He's got as good a chance as anyone else ...

One can only wonder about what kind of America we would have today if he had been elected in 1992.

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WARNING: The following blog post may trigger seizures and nausea

They unveiled the logo for the 2012 London Olympics earlier this week and it's so magnificently malformed that some are claiming that it could trigger seizures in people with epilepsy...

It reminded me of something that happened almost ten years ago. On December 17th 1997, Japanese television broadcast an episode of the popular Pokemon show. During the episode there is one scene that has intense rapid red/blue blinking. In the minutes and hours following that scene, hundreds of Japanese children were rushed to hospitals because that sequence caused those kids to suffer seizures, convulsions, fainting, extreme headaches and nausea! The flashing was taken out of subsequent airings of the episode.

So... wanna see it? Here it is, with the original video unedited. If this link goes bad just do a search on YouTube for "pokemon" and "seizures" or "epilepsy". But I'm seriously warning you: I watched this thing, and it did give me a headache. I'm just posting this as an example that the fears about the new Olympics symbol aren't necessarily frivolous.

Here it is: the banned Pokemon "seizures" sequence. Remember, you watch this at your own risk...

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They are re-making CONAN THE BARBARIAN

That's it. Hollywood is officially a depleted sow. The field has been plowed and planted so many times that nothing fresh is growing in it. It's dead, Jim.

Find out about it here, in a story primarily about another remake (of Brian De Palma's Dressed to Kill).

Incidentally, I watched last year's remake of The Omen a few days ago on HBO. That was another classic movie that never warranted a remake, at all. The same is true for Conan the Barbarian (can you believe a few weeks ago was the 25th anniversary of it's premiere?).

In my opinion, Conan the Barbarian is about as perfect a movie as you can find. So many great elements all working together in that film... The soundtrack by Basil Poledouris is easily one of the most listened-to things on my MP3 player whenever I'm driving (I love all the tracks but I'm especially fond of "Anvil of Crom" and "Atlantean Sword"). Poledouris is now gone from us. As is Mako: it would not be a Conan movie without Mako, I hate to say. Look, this was the movie that brought Oliver Stone and John Milius to work together: if that doesn't speak volumes about this film's power, I don't know what will.

Conan the Barbarian had something going for it, that can never be replicated. And this remake will suck donkeys balls to no end for trying (yes I actually said that, which is the worst insult I ever give to anything or anyone). Don't do this, Hollywood: you're skating on thin ice as it is...

"And if you do not listen, then to HELL with you!"

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VIDEO: Giuliani staff uses police to arrest independent journalist

If only YouTube had existed in 2000...

In October of 2000 I was a reporter with an independent newspaper. And - through legitimate channels mind ya - I had been given an invitation to attend a rally for George W. Bush during the presidential debate at Wake Forest University. I was hoping to get a chance to ask Bush a few questions: nothing rude mind ya, but I was gonna try to make the most of the opportunity.

Bush staff found out that some "non-corporate" journalists were there and sent Winston-Salem police to track us down. One of them demanded to see my driver's license and I asked why. About then a Bush staffer with a bullhorn came over and told me that I should do what she says "because whenever someone in a uniform tells you something you're supposed to obey."

This guy demanded to see my invitation. He snatched it out of my hands and said that I wasn't going to be attending this function. When I demanded to know why he threatened me with physical violence.

The cops escorted another reporter and myself to "the protest area" (this was the first time I'd ever heard of this little Bush concept) and told us if we tried to return to our vehicles through the fair grounds that we would be arrested.

A few years later I heard - and I've not found any reason to doubt this - that we were rounded up and sent packing on Bush's orders, after he heard that there were non-corporate media present and he told his staff to "haul those assholes out of here".

That night I saw the true side of the George W. Bush mindset. I'm not bitter about it now though: I'm just thankful that God showed me what a loser Bush really is, before I ever had a chance to vote for him (never have).

Almost the exact same thing happened last night to journalist Matt Lepacek following the Republican debate in New Hampshire, except Lepacek actually got ask Rudolph Guiliani some questions. Or tried to anyway. Giuliani's staff had police arrest Lepacek. Here's the video:

Y'know, the only thing that kept me from standing up to those goons that night any more than I did was the fact that my best friend was coming in from way out of town to spend a few days at my apartment, and if I was in jail then I couldn't be there when he arrived. If that hadn't already been on my schedule, I think years later that it would be with a lot of pride that I could look back at being arrested on orders from Bush.

I hope that Matt Lepacek will feel proud about what he did tonight too: he stood his ground against an evil man. And he didn't back down.

That's something that nobody will ever be able to take away from him.

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Need an extra-large version of the Ron Paul/Matrix graphic?

Since last night I have received numerous requests for a much larger version of the Ron Paul graphic that apes the poster for The Matrix (which also features some not-so-subtle commentary). Seems that some folks are wanting to make full-size posters of this...

If you need (or just plain lust for) a far larger version of this graphic, e-mail me at theknightshift@gmail.com with "Ron Paul Matrix poster" in the subject line and I will get this to you!

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Giuiliani said WHAT...?!

I missed this the first time but it's been confirmed: during tonight's debate (actually last night's debate since it's now way early Wednesday morning) Rudolph Giuliani said that we need to use the American military for more "nation building".

Seven years ago George W. Bush said that we shouldn't engage in "nation-building". He went ahead and did it anyway. It didn't work. And now tonight Giuliani said he wants to do more of it.

If this guy does get nominated and then winds up actually elected President, then... I don't know what else to say, except that we will be screwed as a nation and we will probably have deserved it.

Like I said last month: 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 the world.

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Why isn't Matt Drudge running a poll for THIS debate?

Tonight's debate in New Hampshire among the Republican candidates has been over for almost an hour and a half. For every other debate in the past month or so Matt Drudge has posted on his Drudge Report site a readers' poll on who they thought won the debate.

So far, one for tonight's hasn't appeared.

Could it be that Drudge is afraid that his poll will show what a lot of others (heck, most others) are showing: intense support for Ron Paul?

I'm going to wait for awhile tonight, and see if he does run one. If he doesn't, I'll have some more thoughts about what this means Drudge has become.

EDIT 11:04 p.m. EST: Okay, here's what I think...

For all the hooplah ever since Drudge burst on the scene about ten years about being "alternative media", Matt Drudge has... well, become too much like mainstream media.

Let me put it another way: the "new media" that Drudge represents has turned out to be old media with slicker tactics.

"Alternative media" was supposed (we were told so anyway) to be an empowering of ideas that had never been given their fair share of exposure, because of a near-monopoly on the airwaves, the press etc. that the "liberal media" enjoyed for so long. Rush Limbaugh declared himself a spokesman for the unrepresented (Limbaugh would say mis-represented) "conservative" Americans. Fox News Channel boldly proclaimed that it would be "fair and balanced".

It's ten years and more later. And "alternative media" stands as corrupted and of foul purpose as the "liberal mainstream media" it's supplanting. Because it has the very same goal as old media: the pursuit of power over people... especially their minds.

Matt Drudge is trying to control people's perception of things as much as CBS or CNN or any other "mainstream" press outlet, by refusing to be consistent and running a post-debate poll that he knows would most likely have Ron Paul winning handily.

And this being the Internet, I and anyone else get to call him out on it.

EDIT 11:32 p.m. EST: Want another example? Here's Fox News' story about the debate. It doesn't mention Paul or a few other candidates that were on stage tonight.

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