Prime-ary Colours: Optimus is personal hero of Gordon Brown

In a radio interview about the effects of the global recession on Great Britain, that country's Prime Minister Gordon Brown has admitted that one of his heroes is Autobot leader Optimus Prime from the Transformers franchise...

Listeners to the show seemed to agree. One said that "Optimus Prime would be one hell of an advisor to the PM. He stands for honour and justice and I would vote for him as Prime Minister if he were real."

Personally I think that if Mr. Brown is heartfelt about his admiration for Optimus Prime, that the British people are generally in good hands. Not too many mythic figures from the past few decades that are as virtuous and upstanding as Optimus Prime.

Thanks to Phillip Arthur for passing along the story!

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Scott Hamilton on finding happiness

Good friend of this blog (and all around terrific lady :-) Crystal Stearns directed my attention over the weekend to this interview with Olympic gold medal figure skater Scott Hamilton. He has just come out with a new book titled The Great Eight and in it he talks about his battle with cancer, and the wisdom that he has gained from it. In the interview, Hamilton discusses at length how the times in life when we fall down, we should look at them as opportunities to rise again. Crystal told me that "It gave me great hope and inspiration," and it did me as well.

I might have to pick up a copy of Hamilton's book: to put some more uplift in my heart and to put some money in his pocket (a fair trade, aye? :-P)

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Odd gadgets abound at CES 2009

The E-Cigarettes are just one of the numerous strange gizmos that PC World spotted at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show. Other dubious products being rolled out this year: a portable Blu-ray player with a nine-inch screen (ummmm... why?!), numerous second-rate Wii clones, and MP3 players that have already become out of date because of Apple's decision to remove digital rights management from iTunes. But the thing that I keep chuckling about for some reason is the CarStars. As the article puts it: "Personally, I can't think of anything more terrifying than trying to drive while knowing that at any moment Elton John or Lil Wayne may pop up out of nowhere and start blurting out song recommendations."

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Robert Vaughn sez: I know who masterminded Bobby Kennedy murder

It would be intriguing enough no matter who wrote it. But the fact that it's penned by actor Robert Vaughn - The Man from U.N.C.L.E. himself - will no doubt ratchet up the "wanna read" factor.

Writing for The Daily Mail in the United Kingdom, Vaughn articulates his belief that Aristotle Onassis was behind the plan to have Robert Kennedy assassinated. Vaughn, a friend of Bobby Kennedy and his family, argues that it's likely that Sirhan Sirhan could not have been the one who fired the fatal shots, but that he was instead a "patsy" for the real gunman (or gunmen). And as for motivation, Vaughn contends that Onassis held a grudge against Robert Kennedy going all the way back to the early Fifties and the height of Joseph McCarthy's anti-Communist campaign.

I'm not gonna say that I completely agree right off the bat with Vaughn's thesis, but after reading it over twice already, I do have to concede that the man has done his research and has put together, in my mind anyway, a plausible theory. An interesting article, to say the least...

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CNN broadcasting I.O.U.S.A. this weekend

On Thursday I received the following from Elizabeth Wilner, Director of Public Affairs at the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, who asked if I could pass it along to this blog's readers...

It wasn't long ago that the idea of an American fiscal crisis was considered speculative at best. Most everyone - the government included - seemed to be living on credit with no end in sight. But recently, the debtors have come calling. Now we're living in an America where lending institutions have collapsed, more than 1 million homes have entered foreclosure, and the federal deficit has reached unprecedented numbers.

In response to public demand for information about the scope of the country's financial challenges, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation is proud to announce that CNN/U.S. will air the television premiere of our documentary I.O.U.S.A., together with an unscripted panel discussion with policy leaders about various economic solutions. I.O.U.S.A. uses candid interviews, archival footage, and economic data to tell the story of America's mounting debts, and offers suggestions for how best to recreate a fiscally sound nation for future generations.

This exclusive televised event will air on CNN/U.S. on Saturday, January 10 at 2:00 p.m. EST and on Sunday, January 11 at 3:00 p.m. EST, and will be hosted by Ali Velshi and Christine Romans, co-anchors of CNN's Your $$$$$, the network's weekend business roundtable program.

When you tune in to CNN, you'll get more than just the U.S. broadcast premiere of I.O.U.S.A. The two-hour program will also feature Velshi and Romans engaging a distinguished group of panelists, including the Peter G. Peterson Foundation's own Pete Peterson and Dave Walker; Alice Rivlin, noted economist and former Director of the Office of Management and Budget; and Bill Bradley, a managing director of Allen & Company and former U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate. Together, they'll discuss issues raised in the film and their ties to current economic events.

So please join us for this exclusive televised version of I.O.U.S.A., and feel free to let your readers know about it too. The Peter G. Peterson Foundation is thrilled that, through its U.S. premiere on CNN, the film will get the chance to inspire even more Americans to make fiscal responsibility a priority.

I.O.U.S.A. has been playing on the festival circuit, and has received rave reviews for its sobering message about fiscal irresponsibility in America. I shall certainly be tuning in to catch it and if you want more information here's the film's official website.

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TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN teaser poster (and the date for the trailer!)

About twenty-seven e-mails were waiting for me when I got home late Thursday night, all of 'em with the following tantalizing teaser poster for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen...

And according to Seibertron.com, the first glimpse of the trailer is gonna come during the Super Bowl on February 1st. Also confirmed movie spots that will run during the big game are Star Trek, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Angels and Demons, Monsters vs. Aliens, Land of the Lost, the fourth Fast and the Furious, Pixar's Up, and probably for X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

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Les Misérables: Pregnant women slug it out at Chuck E. Cheese

In Susquehanna Township, Pennsylvania...

Apparently this particular Chuck E. Cheese has a history of attracting trouble, but it's far from the only location in the chain that has witnessed violence among adults.

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2K boss sez: BIOSHOCK could spawn five sequels

Christoph Hartmann, worldwide president of 2K, has claimed in an interview with MCV that BioShock, which some have called the best video game ever created, might possibly lead to five sequels! In the interview Hartmann likens the BioShock brand to the Star Wars franchise... but also notes that 2K must be wary of milking BioShock with too much commercialism.

I finished BioShock for the third time the other night, and even knowing the story and the big plot twist, it has still lost none of its potency. I think that Rapture - the vast underwater city that is the setting of BioShock - is one of the greatest and most fully-realized environments created for a work of fiction. But I'm scratching my head at how Hartmann and 2K are already conceiving of five more games to offshoot from the original. Most fans of BioShock that I've spoken to have said that they'd like to see a prequel at some point: a game that shows us life in Rapture leading up to and taking place during the events of New Years Eve 1958, when the oceanic metropolis collapsed into the total chaos of civil war.

The first sequel, BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams, is due to be released this coming fall.

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Lest anyone believe this blog will be soft on Obama...

Ever since this blog began five years ago, I have very often broken bad on George W. Bush. Because he has consistently proven himself to have been the worst President of the modern era (and quite possibly the worst ever). There have been a few times when I have not hesitated to praise his actions, but those have been few and far between. It will be decades before the damage that he has done to America can be fully repaired, if at all.

But don't think that The Knight Shift is going to be a safe harbor for pro-Obama sentiment either...

This blog and the admittedly off-kilter guy behind it do not cotton to any ideology. If anyone enters my dojo with the sad notion that I should admire or fear them because they are a self-styled "conservative" or "liberal", then they are wrong... and I won't hesitate to land them square on their ass for their assumed bravura. People can have conservative or liberal opinions about a given issue, but to deride others as blanket "conservative" or "liberal" is to not give those people the respect that they deserve and to give such a label to one's entire identity is the acme of shallowness.

So Bush is finally going away, and it can't come a moment too soon. How much confidence do I have with incoming Barack Obama? If this next story is any indication: not much at all.

According to a video that Obama had posted on YouTube, as part of "economic stimulus" he wants to create three million new jobs, with 80% of those being in the private sector.

But that translates into 600,000 jobs that will be in government. In other words: more bureaucrats. What these new employees on the federal dole will be doing that government employees are not already busy with, I haven't a clue. And I would be remiss if I did not mention that no nation in history ever created prosperity for itself by increasing the size and scope of its own government. The George W. Bush years alone proved that.

What I'd love to know even more though, is how exactly does Obama believe he can create 2,400,000 employed positions in the private labor force? The most robust way that I can recall that ever being possibly done, is for there to be wartime conditions like World War II, when vast segments of the population went to work for defense contractors.

There is only one way that Barack Obama can help create economic growth and recovery for America's finances: cut taxes - especially slashing income taxes and corporate taxes so as to encourage more domestic industry - and cut spending. Not just one and not just the other, but both together.

If Barack Obama does that, he will truly go down in history as one of the greatest American Presidents of all time.

We'll see what happens, over the next four years or eight...

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California may use IOUs for tax rebates

Cash-strapped California - which in my opinion has already collapsed financially and at this point is merely putting lipstick on a pig - is seriously considering issuing IOUs for rebates to taxpayers.

Maybe the good people of California should consider reciprocating the favor by paying their taxes in IOUs.

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Bush wants gate on public street to limit access to new home

I defy anyone to tell me that these people don't think of themselves as elitist royalty who believe they are better than the rest of us...

George W. Bush wants taxpayer money to pay for a gate to be installed on the public street where he will soon be living in Dallas after he leaves office in a few weeks. The gate will be a hindrance to those who already live on the street.

So because George W. Bush as a private citizen has chosen to live in a certain place, the right to free movement of not just his neighbors but all other Americans will be limited by act of government, paid for by our money, if this goes through.

Even without having it actually declared, is this not tantamount to granting Bush a de facto "title of nobility"?

If Bush is that concerned about his safety - though God only knows what ever gave him such a notion - then he should retreat to a house located a remote distance from any public thoroughfare, where he can provide for a gate and guards paid for out of his own pocket.

And isn't it funny that Bush wants to secure himself away behind a fence... when he hasn't done a damned thing about building a real barrier against illegal invasion along the border with Mexico?

America will not long survive tolerating this brand of hypocrisy. Maybe it's time for another storming of the Tuileries.

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Star Wars Fan History Wiki needs YOU!

Most Star Wars fans by now have heard of Wookieepedia, the very content-rich wiki devoted to George Lucas's classic saga. But have you heard of the Star Wars Fan History Wiki yet? I hadn't either until editor Laura Hale passed along word of it earlier today. It has what promises to be a very entertaining scope: chronicling the history and development of the activities of Star Wars fans ever since the first film came out in 1977. It's a young wiki, but there's already lots of stuff to be learned that not even I knew before... such as how it was already rumored around 1979 that Darth Vader was Luke's father and the early rise of "adult" fan fiction.

Laura asked if I could let y'all know about this, and to feel free to contribute to this effort, especially about copyright issues (I'm thinking that right there a whole article is waiting to be written about Justin Ruspini's Star Wars website). So if you know of anything about Star Wars fandom that should be added to the database, hyperspace on over there and add your piece of saga fan lore!

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驚くばかりの新しい夜警のトレーラー

According to Yahoo! Babel Fish that means "Awesome Watchmen trailer" in Japanese. And that's exactly what this is. But don't worry all the character dialogue is in perfect English...

You know what's starting to impress me already about Watchmen? It's all the details that went into such a broad paintbrush for this, the 1985 of a world that is just slightly different from ours. Like the TV showing Nixon getting elected for a third term, and the American fighter jets doing that "eat me" flyover of Moscow as Fidel Castro and the Politburo members watch helplessly.

This could be the biggest movie of 2009. And it's already coming out on March 6th! And if I've got a clear schedule that day, I'm probably going to see it three times, 'cuz I've waited almost twenty years for this movie to be made :-)

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AGAIN?!? YouTube yanks my Star Wars fan film for "copyright" dispute

Oh geez...

Many of you remember a little over a year ago when YouTube yanked the clip I had posted of VH1's Web Junk 2.0 that made use of my my first school board commercial.

Well, this morning I got another "Video Disabled" e-mail from YouTube.

This time, it's about Forcery, the parody of Misery - about George Lucas being held captive by an overly-obsessed Star Wars fan - that we shot in 2004. Forcery was released in 2005 and I posted it on YouTube the following year, so it's already been on YouTube for about three years now.

If you've seen Forcery, then you know that when Lucas (played by lifelong friend Chad Austin) is driving back to California after writing the script for Star Wars Episode III, he turns on the radio and finds himself listening to the classic song "A Horse with No Name" by America. And the song plays on through when he loses control of his car and crashes in the blizzard, only to be later rescued by his "number one fan" Frannie (Melody Hallman Daniel).

Well, somebody has a problem with "A Horse with No Name" being in Forcery and this morning the following e-mail arrived from YouTube...

Dear kwerky,

Video Disabled

A copyright owner has claimed it owns some or all of the audio content in your video FORCERY - Part 1 of 7. The audio content identified in your video is A Horse with No Name by America. We regret to inform you that your video has been blocked from playback due to a music rights issue.

Replace Your Audio with AudioSwap

Don't worry, we have plenty of music available for your use. Please visit our AudioSwap library to learn how you can easily replace the audio in your video with any track from our growing library of fully licensed songs.

Other Options

If you think there's been a mistake, or you have other questions, please visit the Copyright Notice page in your account.

Sincerely,
The YouTube Content Identification Team

Here are some of the reasons why I find this removal to be particularly silly...

1. No one made any money from Forcery. I certainly have not. You have to be a little nuts to make a movie for the first time, not knowing what you are doing and "learning along the way", realizing fully well that you can not see a dime of profit from it. Forcery was a labor of love, and we all had a wonderful experience making it and if I had to go through it again knowing that it couldn't make money, I absolutely would. If anything I lost a few thousand dollars.

2. The complete song of "A Horse with No Name" isn't fully employed by the film, and the vast majority of the time that it's playing, George Lucas is speaking on his cellphone to his producer Rick McCallum. The song has faded into the background and then comes blaring back for dramatic effect when Lucas has his "I've got a very bad feeling about this!" moment. It's not like anyone can make any quality MP3 rip of the song from this clip.

3. As with every song and bit of music that is used in Forcery, I gave attribution for "A Horse with No Name" to musicians (they being the band America) in the end credits. That is something that I have done from the beginning and have always done. It is not at all like I used the song and pretended that I whipped it out of my hat.

4. Forcery could be categorized as a "Star Wars fan film". And the vast majority of fan films - from any milieu out there - use copyrighted elements of some form, be it music or something else. If Forcery has to get yanked because of this, then I would imagine that most other fan films on YouTube and elsewhere are likewise in jeopardy.

5. Come to think of it, the same can be said for most of the other stuff on YouTube as well. Including all of those cute video "mash-ups" using puppies, the Sesame Street Muppets, etc.

So is the rest of Forcery going to also be pulled from YouTube because I used a bunch of Slim Whitman songs?

I'm inclined to laugh about it though 'cuz there's some irony given the timing of this development. And just last night on the phone Chad and I were talking about Forcery and now, well... I guess he's going to have to put up with being in the limelight a little bit more for his terrific portrayal of George Lucas.

Right now I'm mulling it over about what should be done about this. But in the meantime, you can still watch Forcery if you like, in a variety of sizes of Quicktime video. I'll be the first to admit that it's a bit rough around the edges, but a lot of people have called it "hilarious", "whacked" and "like a Troma film but with less violence". So if you feel so led to watch it, enjoy! :-)

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Something that a dear friend passed along tonight...

...And I thought it was well worth sharing here also:

Psalm 56
(Of David; when the Philistines seized him in Gath)

Be gracious to me, O God, for people trample on me;
all day long foes oppress me;
my enemies trample on me all day long;
for many fight against me.
O Most High, when I am afraid,
I put my trust in you.
In God, whose word I praise,
in God I trust; I am not afraid;
what can flesh do to me?

...

You have kept count of my tossings;
put my tears in your bottle.
Are they not in your record?

...

My vows to you I must perform, O God;
I will render thank offerings to you.
For you have delivered my soul from death,
and my feet from falling,
so that I may walk before God
in the light of life.

Remember folks: this is just the waiting room. And we are not guaranteed any safe passage or easy victory, or a comfortable walk through life. If anything, it is much more difficult to strive to live the life of a follower of Christ, than it is to put trust in the means and institutions of this world.

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It is thundering right now in Reidsville, North Carolina

I make note of that because ever since I first heard about this in 1993, each time it has thundered in the winter there has been snow either exactly ten days later, or right close to it.

So will it snow later next week? Time will tell...

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This man is about to become a United States Senator

Al Franken has been declared the winner of the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota.

You know, I've been known for pulling a stunt or two for sake of politics. But that picture of Franken is just wrong...

Think about it: this man is about to be granted the same esteemed privileges that in more enlightened times were only granted to great orators such as Daniel Webster, John Calhoun, and Henry Clay.

And it looks like Caroline Kennedy is going to become Senator from New York, based on nothing but her "royalty".

Now do you people understand why I believe the Seventeenth Amendment was one of the most horrible things to ever happen to the United States Constitution, and should be repealed in favor of letting the individual state legislatures elect the senators?!?

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