Rising filmmaker and good friend of this blog Marco van Bergen wants y'all to know that the second trailer for his upcoming movie Normalsville is online. And he surprised me a bit by officially making me a real film critic! :-P
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Middle Ages crisis: The rise of Neomedievalism
Parag Khanna writes an intriguing essay at the Foreign Policy site in which he makes the case that the concept of traditional nation states as we have come to understand it is breaking down. In its place is what he calls a "neomedieval" paradigm that hearkens back to the Dark Ages...Many see the global economic crisis as proof that we live in one world. But as countries stumble to right the wrongs of the corporate masters of the universe, they are driving us right back to a future that looks like nothing more than a new Middle Ages, that centuries-long period of amorphous conflict from the fifth to the 15th century when city-states mattered as much as countries.I'm inclined to believe there's a lot of merit to what Khanna is saying. We are even seeing such fracturing here in America, where individuals and cities and states are beginning to question the hold that distant Washington D.C. has long had on their lives: much like how the Roman Empire could not keep the provinces under its thumb when its decline was going full tilt.The state isn’t a universally representative phenomenon today, if it ever was. Already, billions of people live in imperial conglomerates such as the European Union, the Greater Chinese Co-Prosperity Sphere, and the emerging North American Union, where state capitalism has become the norm. But at least half the United Nations’ membership, about 100 countries, can hardly be considered responsible sovereigns. Billions live unsure of who their true rulers are, whether local feudal lords or distant corporate executives. In Egypt and India, democratic elections have devolved into auctions. Delivering security and providing welfare aren’t just campaign promises; they are the campaign. The fragmentation of societies from within is clear: From Bogotá to Bangalore, gated communities with private security are on the rise...
It's not a long piece, but quite fascinating in regards to what it portends. Click here for the rest.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Sixty-five years ago today...
On June 6th 1944, Allied forces commenced on the largest amphibious invasion and assault in recorded history as more than 160,000 personnel landed on five beaches of the Normandy coast in the opening assault on Hitler's supposedly impregnable Festung Europa.The liberation of western Europe had begun.
Here's the link to the Wikipedia entry, even though there's no way that an encyclopedic article could possibly convey the full scope of Operation Overlord: something that had never been done before and Lord willing, will never be needed again.
But to those who did, who waded ashore on Normandy so that others might be free - and especially to those among them who never came back home - this blogger can only give the most reverent of respects.
LEGO model of the Yamato
Nearly six and a half years in the making. 22 feet from bow to stern. Measuring a meter across at its widest point. 1/40th the scale of the real thing. Nearly a quarter-million individual LEGO pieces. And the whole thing weighs 330 pounds.
Behold the achievement of Jumpei Mitsui, who has faithfully rendered the World War II Japanese battleship Yamato in LEGO...
If this is not the biggest LEGO model of all time, it is certainly the largest one that I know of.
Mash here for more about this incredible model. And thanks to Shane Thacker for the great find!
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Pastor tells congregation: Bring your guns to church!
A Kentucky minister plans to celebrate the Fourth of July next month along with the Second Amendment... by inviting church members to bring their guns to Sunday service.
New Bethel Church is welcoming "responsible handgun owners" to wear their firearms inside the church June 27, a Saturday. An ad says there will be a handgun raffle, patriotic music and information on gun safety.I love it! This pastor has the right idea: freedom never came without the price of vigilance. Good to see that being acknowledged, 'cuz there's nothing wrong with it in the first place."We're just going to celebrate the upcoming theme of the birth of our nation," said pastor Ken Pagano. "And we're not ashamed to say that there was a strong belief in God and firearms — without that this country wouldn't be here."
The guns must be unloaded and private security will check visitors at the door, Pagano said.
He said recent church shootings, including the killing Sunday of a late-term abortion provider in Kansas, which he condemned, highlight the need to promote safe gun ownership. The New Bethel Church event was planned months before Dr. George Tiller was shot to death in a Wichita church...
Funeral home loses license after chopping off legs to fit corpse in casket
Cave Funeral Services in Allendale, South Carolina is out of business after that state's funeral board revoked its license following the discovery that the mortuary had cut off a tall man's legs in order to fit in inside a casket...
The body of James Hines was exhumed earlier this year because of rumors that circulated after he died in 2004. His widow said investigators told her his legs had been cut off between the ankle and calf to fit the coffin.If you're a fan of H.P. Lovecraft, you probably are already shaking your head in disbelief since this is something straight out of his short story "In The Vault".
David Carradine dead at 72
The sad news is coming out of Bangkok that actor David Carradine is dead at the age of 72, having apparently took his own life.Carradine's most iconic role was no doubt as Kwai Chang Caine in the 1970s television show Kung Fu (and as Caine's descendant of the same name in the Nineties series Kung Fu: The Legend Continues). More recently Carradine found new acclaim when he portrayed sadistic assassin Bill in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill. Carradine's resume was profound but if you really want to see him shine across his spectrum of acting abilities, I'd suggest watching him as Frankenstein in Roger Corman's Death Race 2000: one of the most fun guilty pleasures of a movie you'll ever find.
Thoughts and prayers going out to his family.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
TETRIS turns 25
About the same time in 1984 when the video game industry was crashing in the west, a computer scientist named Alexey Pajitnov was busy playing with his first computer at the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow... and wound up creating one of the most classic - and addictive - games ever.The Guardian has a great story about Tetris on the occasion of its twenty-fifth anniversary. Among the highlights: how Pajitnov came up with the concept, the tale of how this communist-era game became a capitalist's dream product, and how Tetris has inspired everything from architecture to conspiracy theories.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
DJ & THE FRO will mock my commercial on MTV!
Earlier this evening the good folks at MTV sent along word that their new show DJ & The Fro will be premiering on June 15th (just less than two weeks from tonight). It's a new animated show that in the words of its creators...Deep in the soul-crushing cubicle maze of Oppercon Industries sit DJ & The Fro, two 20-something slackers who spend their days blowing off work while they find and mock the sickest and most hilarious videos ever to grace the Internet.And what will be among the first of the videos that DJ and Fro will be wasting their time watching?What Beavis & Butthead were to the music video generation, DJ & The Fro are to the YouTube generation. They find the best web videos and make jokes about them so you don't have to.
When they're not watching videos, DJ & Fro kill time by doing things like blackmailing pedophiles into doing their work for them, drinking the breast milk of a co-worker, stalking alpacas and sexually harassing one another. Work at Oppercon Industries is a mere distraction from their true passion: being idiots.
None other than my "Star Wars"-ish campaign commercial from when I ran for Rockingham County Board of Education in 2006.
If this is gonna be anything like Beavis and Butthead, then I was already gonna be tuning in. Can't wait to see what they do with my ad :-)
Coolest convenience store commercial ever!
This commercial for Sheetz has been running like crazy on television in this area. Everything about it is made of epic win. Who'da thought that going to a convenience store would be such an enthralling experience? :-)
Monday, June 01, 2009
Does this guy even know how to change a tire?
Meet Brian Deese.This is who President Obama has put in charge of disassembling General Motors.
He's 31 years old.
He's "a not-quite graduate of Yale Law School".
He had never visited an automobile plant until he got tapped by the Obama Administration.
Again, this is the guy that President Barack Obama has put in charge of the GM bankruptcy.
Does Mr. Deese know anything about the automotive industry? I mean, if he's gonna be overhauling one of the largest manufacturing companies in American history, he should have some real-world experience in management or engineering or something... right?
(Let me put it another way: What the HELL does Obama think he's doing?!?)
Mash down here for the rest of the story of Mr. Deese, that in a saner age would have never happened...
Bigtime payoff in penultimate chapter of WOLVERINE: OLD MAN LOGAN
See if this makes any sense: in April readers of Marvel Comics got Wolverine #73, which had nothing to do with the current "Old Man Logan" arc and was mostly a promotional issue for the X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie. But last week Marvel delivered Wolverine #72...I must ask aloud: was X-Men Origins: Wolverine really worth mucking up the publishing of what many are already calling the greatest comics story ever told about Wolverine?
Probably not. But be of good cheer: Wolverine #72 gets us back on track with "Old Man Logan".
To recap: it's been fifty years since "the night the heroes fell" and Wolverine hasn't popped his claws once since. He has relegated himself to being simply "Logan": a pacifist farmer scratching out a meager existence alongside his wife and children in the wastes of California. When the now-blind ex-Avenger Hawkeye approaches Logan with an offer he can't refuse ('cuz Logan is behind on his rent to the inbred offspring of Bruce Banner) the two former heroes take off across a carved-up America plagued with Moloids, Venom-possessed dinosaurs and worse. And then in Part 5 of "Old Man Logan" we found out why it is that Logan renounced violence and threw down the proverbial sword (read my reaction to that issue here). In the last chapter of "Old Man Logan", Hawkeye and Logan finally arrived at New Babylon with their mysterious package, and at last we find out who is calling the shots of this dystopian vision of America: the Red Skull, now the President of the United States.
If you've been reading "Old Man Logan" already and have been frustrated by the publishing schedule, rest assured that Wolverine #72 will profoundly reward your patience! The initial scenes in the White House with an even more macabre Red Skull and how he's still gloating over his victory a half-century earlier might be some of the most nightmarish images in Marvel history. I dare not say anything else about this issue folks, because if you've been keeping up this far then you really owe it to yourself to go into it cold. But it's a wallop of a read and the final pages will make you forget everything that delayed this issue from coming out.
Oh yeah, you might wanna try reading it a little slower and indulge your senses all the more, because "Old Man Logan" won't be wrapping up until a double-sized issue coming out in September at the earliest. But don't let that stop you from discovering the best Wolverine tale in many a moon and maybe ever: "Old Man Logan" is a must-read whether you're a rabid comics fan or a casual reader.
General Motors files for bankruptcy, taxpayers having to bail it out
Read about it here.
So... who's gonna be the first to buy a car manufactured by the U.S. federal government?
(crickets chirping...)
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Millvina Dean, last survivor of the Titanic, has passed away
Millvina Dean was a two month old baby when her family set out from England for America, where her father had dreams of opening a tobacco shop in Kansas. But because of a coal strike they weren't able to board the ship they had originally intended to take to the New World.Instead, they found passage as third-class passengers aboard the R.M.S. Titanic. Little Millvina Dean would be the youngest passenger on the ship's maiden voyage.
Her father felt the impact when the great ship collided with her destiny on April 14th, 1912. Mr. Dean quickly sought to put his wife and two children on one of the lifeboats. They survived, while he remained onboard and drowned with more than fifteen hundred others.
Millvina Dean was the last living survivor of the Titanic.
Dude surfs the web... with a modem made in 1964!
K.C. Budd - aka "phreakmonkey" - is a guy who loves to play around with gadgets. So when he came into possession of a Livermore Data Systems "Model A" he decided to put it to good use.
So what's a Livermore Data Systems "Model A"? It's a way old-fashioned modem that was first made in 1964!
Here's the video that phreakmonkey made of himself using Wikipedia with a laptop and a 45-year old modem...
Saturday, May 30, 2009
"Weird Al" Yankovic releasing INTERNET LEAKS!
Per the man himself on his weirdal.com website, "Internet Leaks" isn't the name of his forthcoming new album (which Al claims he doesn't know when it's coming out). Instead...
Al will be “leaking” new tracks to the Internet over the summer, and for bookkeeping reasons we had to call them SOMETHING, so “Internet Leaks” it is! Al’s T.I. parody “Whatever You Like” retroactively becomes the first song in the collection, and there will be 4 new original songs released digitally over the next few months. The first new song (and video!) will be out on June 16, and will be available wherever mp3s are sold or stolen.Just one more reason why I believe that "Weird Al" Yankovic is not only one of the most successful musical entertainers in modern history, but also among the most innovative. Yeah sure, selling songs over the Internet isn't a new thing, but Al is the only artist that I know of who is actively releasing new music between album releases. That's not just dedication to one's art, it's also excellent marketing!
Can't wait to see what Al has up his sleeve this time :-)
Russian media observes America embracing Marxism
You know what I find most ironic about this essay?
It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.This is an op-ed piece from Pravda (that's the Russian word for "truth"). Anyone old enough to remember the Cold War will recollect that during the days of the Soviet Union, Pravda was the official publishing propaganda mouthpiece of the Communist Party running that country. Those of us in the U.S. used to joke back in the day about how you couldn't believe anything if it was printed in Pravda.(snip)
First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish.
Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.
These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?
But my oh my, how the times have changed...
