You’ve read the posts throughout the Blogosphere, seen the TV shows (even that horrible Fox News!), probably listened to the rational and reasonable NPR or, worse yet, dared to listen to those Right Wing bastions of chest-thumping screeching screwball screeds, radio shows on the order of the dangerous Rush Limbaugh, Hugh Hewitt, Sean Hannity, Michael Medved and, and, those types —

You know the kind — the ones that grab the sheepish, uneducated, unwashed masses by the glottis and brainwash the groundlings, likely by subversive, hypnotic machinations (how else would these NASCAR-watching, bloated-belly, trailer-trash, white, gun-toting, dentally-challenged, wife-beater-wearing, 12-pack-chugging dolts, their women, as chattel of course, kept barefoot on the hardpack dirt floors and oppressed by being forced to cook, clean and churn out little whelps like production lines despite womens’ Right to Choose – be duped!) — these are the people that are supporting (Can you possibly feature this?? Supporting!!) President Bush’s lame justification of domestic spying on American citizens.

This all came about, and rightly so, because the New York Times dared to print a story (on 12-16-2005) about the NSA spying on our own citizens, within the shores of the continental United States. Our citizens! What an abrogation of power! What an abuse of executive authority! And who is responsible, who ordered these abuses you ask? Why, none other than the Master Abuser himself, President George W. Bush!

Jonathan Alter, in Newsweek, wrote yesterday that George Bush is acting like a Dictator, though in his own mind, Bush is not thinking he’s a Dictator. In this case he was working in an extra-Constitutional, dictatorial fashion, a violation of the separation of powers. Alter said Bush is in fact acting dictatorially, as Bush insists his authority is coming from the Congressional resolution after 9-11 regarding the use of “all necessary force.” Alter was not making a 4th Amendment argument — he was saying that Bush was in violation of the 1978 FISA Act itself.

“It was the work of a patriot inside the government who leaked the NSA program,” Alter also wrote. Yes, the individual did break the law for that individual to leak. But he should not necessarily be prosecuted for doing this because of the overarching good. Doing so would have a chilling effect on future leakers or whistleblowers. In a larger historical sense, considering the good of the American people, FISA says you have to seek approval from the FISA court. Period. Read USC 1809.

Alter, on Hugh Hewitt’s program this date, said Gore was the actual winner in 2000. Bush should have conceded. Gore made a mistake in cherry-picking a certain county and should have insisted on a recount throughout the entire nation.

9-11 gave Bush license to act like a Dictator, Alter said. The original draft of the Patriot Act gave carte blanch to eliminate habeus corpus. Alter supported The Patriot Act, but wants it done according to the law. Bush cited the Constitution in giving him the right to tell the NSA to make its taps. In the larger view, Bush believes he has the ability to simply violate the law. And so Alter wrote.

The House, unfortunately, recently passed the re-crafting of The Patriot Act, which sunsets December 31st. If the Senate doesn’t re-authorize, then the House (currently adjourned) may find itself re-summoned to attack the Senate. How wrong is that?

What a ridiculously lame argument the Right makes, to say that technology is such that the FISA court cannot be sought after, within 72 hours as it should. It is not about technology, or the so-called safety and security of our country, but continuing national oppression by the Fascist Bush Regime.

So someone belonging to some innocent Islamic organization acquires a cell phone with a US area code and uses this phone internationally? Big hairy deal. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has a right to privacy; no, an expectation of privacy in the United States. The claim that those may have connections to so-called government designated terrorists factions is wrongly declarative and judgmental on its face — consider the source, people; consider the source!

• The Right brings up Craig Livingstone
• The Right brings up the United States vs. United States District Court
• The Right brings up Hillary’s 400 missing FBI files
• The Right argues that the Constitution is not a suicide pact

Even the occasionally-respected Wall Street Journal strays off the reservation with its newest editorial:

Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold wants to be President, and that’s fair enough. By all means go for it in 2008. The same applies to Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who’s always on the Sunday shows fretting about the latest criticism of the Bush Administration’s prosecution of the war on terror. But until you run nationwide and win, Senators, please stop stripping the Presidency of its Constitutional authority to defend America.

That is the real issue raised by the Beltway furor over last week’s leak of National Security Agency wiretaps on international phone calls involving al Qaeda suspects. The usual assortment of Senators and media potentates is howling that the wiretaps are “illegal,” done “in total secret,” and threaten to bring us a long, dark night of fascism. “I believe it does violate the law,” averred Mr. Feingold on CNN Sunday.

The truth is closer to the opposite. What we really have here is a perfect illustration of why America’s Founders gave the executive branch the largest measure of Constitutional authority on national security. They recognized that a committee of 535 talking heads couldn’t be trusted with such grave responsibility. There is no evidence that these wiretaps violate the law. But there is lots of evidence that the Senators are “illegally” usurping Presidential power–and endangering the country in the process.

Clearly, journalism at its unmitigated, Right-Winged worst.

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Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Children of All Ages: I will be away on vacation for the next few days with my honey, enjoying mud baths, massages and Irish music in an authentic Bay Area IRA pub where once rested a photo of Lord Mountbatten with a big X through it. I’ll clutch a Guiness for you!

Please, have a very Merry Christmas one and all!

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And thank you all, once again, all my Usual Suspects (and newcomers as well!) for visiting my blog, leaving your wonderful comments, supporting my existence in the Blogosphere and for conducting yourselves with aplomb and dignity.

2006 will be better still for each and every one of us!

Excelsior!

THIS is why I love the internet — and blogging in particular!

Two posts ago I wrote about how I’d just purchased the book Blogging In a Snap by Julie Meloni (gotta plug ya now!) because I wanted to find out how to make my blog a little nicer and find out why Blogger works as it does.

I got some comments from the post and then – boom – the author herself came to my blog and made a comment:

JM said…
Hey, for not being a shill, you shilled pretty well. Thanks! :)Now that I know people actually have it in their hands, I’ll step up my updating of things that changed in the month between finishing the book and the time the chapters were printed. So, please do check back to the book’s blog!
9:18 AM

Boys and girls, this is the NEW MARKETING that either some people get, or they don’t.

Our world has changed. It is changing still, even as we sleep at night. And each one of the Usual Suspects who read my blog is participating in a new force, a new movement, that is taking the place of standard communications, marketing, sales and promotions.

Here is what this author (who is one smart person because, when I “Yahoo’d” her for a photo to place in my post, I found tons of other computer books with multi-syllabic words and acronyms – like PHP – way, WAY above my head!) has done:

• Written a book
• Sold it to a publishing house
• Associated it with a teaching series

And then, more importantly due to the nature of the book, she produced an associated blog (for FREE!) which will provide updates to the book AND, decided (I’m guessing here) that she’d Google or Yahoo certain keywords to find out who had mentioned her book and, somehow, found my miniscule piece of the web.

So she came to my website, posted a comment herself, which impressed me, made me want to make a separate post about this event, and will end up garnering even more “advertising,” for free, about her book.

Yes, whatever “advertising” she gets from this post will be minimal because I’m certainly no force in the blogging world, but I’m only one point in likely a myriad of points she found about persons who mentioned her book. My political philosophy is likely 180-degrees opposite hers but it’s not about philosophy, it’s about making contacts and expanding one’s circle of contacts regarding the book.

And THAT is very SMART marketing on her part!

And THAT is one aspect of why I love this blogging thing!

I wrote about this in the comments section of another blog and thought: this warrants a post in and of itself. So. . .

Brokeback Mountain has already been given 7 Golden Globe nominations — it also garnered awards from Critics Choice and other areas. Any publicity it acquires helps its box office. Some kids in the Sacratomato Valley area have already been exposed to trailers for this movie. There is the given “hukk” factor from many males. These are two guys who are cheating on their wives, married to two beautiful women. They go hunting and fishing several times a year with each other — making, perhaps, women at home now wondering what’s happening when “their men” take off.

This is a movie about gay Wyoming cowboys with a Chinese director and two stars, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, who want greater “exposure” so to speak. Gyllenhaal already “tanked” in the deceptive Jarhead which went afar from the book.

But you know what? Nobody’s going to see Brokeback. The only alternative is to make the most of whatever publicity the movie generates.

But, of course, there’s more: soon coming is a movie about two gay baseball players, further expanding the “hukk” factor for most men.

“Hukk,” by the way, is the noise one makes, deep in the throat, before one blows chow.

Hollywood is experiencing the biggest drop in attendance in 20 years.

So is the major media.

But this post is primarily about Hollywood — so what factors are responsible for the diminishment of box office revenues — at the same time that motion picture producers are taking many of their companies and shoots away from Fornicalia and into areas NOT anchored to huge union costs and oppressive union rules?

Let’s look:

1. Quality of Films
Just hitting the high points of films I’ve watched in the past year or so (either in the theatre or rented on DVD), some positive examples come to mind:
– Criminal
– Serenity
– Crash
– Lord of the Rings trilogy
– Wedding Crashers (I kinda like Vince Vaughn)
– March of the Penguins (a French documentary fer Christ’s sake!)

The only movie I’ve walked out of for at least 25 years:
– The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (what a listless waste of celluloid!)

That’s about it.

Some positives from television (only on “cable”):
– Empire Falls
– Deadwood
– Rome

I’ve seen a buttload of movies this year and most were eminently forgettable.

Coming up as trailers as I anticipated seeing Walk the Line: remakes of The Poseidon Adventure and Miami Vice. As expressed by a young man, rather loudly after the trailer for Miami Vice: “Show of hands for those who think this is a bad idea?” Most everyone in the theatre raised their hand.

I usually see, on average, one new movie a week. Sometimes I’ll not see anything for a week or two — depends on circumstances. Cutting to the chase: I am a Hollywood-friendly person who wants to see movies. And even I’m hitting the alternatives.

The remakes suck. There is little originality. And the more you cater to the fringes in, for example, the homsexual community, the more I’ll see movies at home and more carefully pick and choose.

2. Ticket Prices
In Sacratomato, Fornicalia, most tickets cost $9.50. Make it an even ten bucks. In Auburn, where I go to see many of my films, ticket prices are $6.50 during the day — which is when I attend. I try not to see films in so-called “major cities” because $10 for a movie is a waste — particulary considering the tripe most movies turn out to be.

3. Concession Prices
Even in Auburn, a little (but expanding) foothills bedroom community: $6.00 for a large bucket of popcorn, $4.25 for a “medium” Coke. Total: $10.25.

So to see one movie away from a major theatre city, I’ve spent $16.75 for one person — the better part of a $20 bill.

In Sacratomato, a smaller bag of popcorn, still called “large” but not containing nearly as much popcorn as Auburn, costs $6.50. A drink, smaller (but still called medium) costs the same.

4. Advertisements
Get there early, so you can catch “The Twenty!” Wrong. I get to most Regal Theatres late so I don’t have to catch that crap. At least Century Theatres don’t have ads. Guess what folks? More ads are coming! Why? To make up for lost revenues!

5. Rude Assholes In the Audience
Plenty of them in major cities. Cell phone yakkers and loud talkers and kids talking and talking and parents bringing their stupid damned crying babies. Here’s a clue: parents, give us a break. I don’t pay to eat in a restaurant or sit in a movie to hear your piece of s*!t kid cry, talk, bawl or throw a tantrum. Take the damned kid out and pitch him or her into the nearest dumpster. One parent recently had enough class to actually say, in a loud voice to their child: “That’s enough!” and they were marched out of the theatre. There was actual applause. Myself included. That parent was the exception and not the rule.

6. DVD Pricing and Watching At Home
So here are my options:
– I can park in a packed lot with all the other groundlings
– I can hope my car doesn’t get broken into whilst I’m gone
– I can pay $10 per ticket
– I can pay $7 for popcorn that costs 20-cents to make
– I can get served by a listless tweener with nose piercing, bad nails, surly attitude, wearing pants barely containing her ass and roll of body fat with green teeth who can only produce change because the machine tells her what to give back
– I am subjected to ads prior to even the trailers
– I can hope I’ve chosen a spot furthest away from the pack of teenaged kids or bawling baby
– I can hope the movie doesn’t both suck and blow
– I can hope the bathroom, after the movie, has paper towels and warm water — or not

*OR:

– I can watch what I want, when I want, pause for breaks, on my new 36″ Toshiba flatscreen
– I can see how various movies were made in the “extra” section of each DVD
– I can lay on my leather couch, pull a fleece blankie over me, drink a Diet Pepsi instead of a stupid Diet Coke
– Or another Adult Beverage
– No one cries in my house, talks on the phone, or irritates me
– I just purchased two wonderful, classic movies on DVD for $9.95 each through Amazon.com: Three Days of the Condor and Marthon Man — for the price of a ticket for a bad movie
– And I get to keep the movies!
– And they play as well the 100th time as the first!

Hello?

Earth to Hollywood?

Are you listening?

First, I am not a shill for the author, the publisher or the series. I happened to come across the blog for the book when I logged into Blogger one day. I went to the blog associated with the book, which led me to Amazon.com.

From there I checked out the book, examined the contents page, and decided to purchase the book.

I received the book a few days ago and, as promised in another comment section, I am proffering my opinion about the book because, as a man rather unskilled in confusers and Blogger in particular, others had asked about the book and whether or not it contains valuable information.

I’ll cut to the chase:

Should you purchase the book? Yes, if you’re not really familiar with Blogger and find it difficult to interpret their help areas and, more importantly, find their help areas woefully inadequate, this book is for you. I’m still reading it (at 270 pages, I’m around half through) but, though not finished, I give the book very high marks.

Once I finish the book, I hope to garner the time to attack my blog and make some updates and/or more completely understand how Blogger functions.

Some bloggers have sites that are feasts for the eyes. They’ve broken down their side links and blogrolls exquisitely and enhanced their sites with wonderful graphics, moving gifs, photo links, surveys, hit monitors and the like.

Of course, in my opinion, it’s all about the writing. But it doesn’t hurt that, in addition, one’s blog is well organized, pleasing to the eye and customized to your wants and needs.

Also, there is a website concomitant with the book, maintained by author Julie Meloni, entitled Blogger In A Snap. Please remember: the book, though entitled BLOGGING In a Snap, is specifically about Blogger and no other blog provider.

Once I start to apply the various ideas and concepts I’ve gleaned from the book, I’ll provide another review regarding the ease of application.

KING KONG: The New Movie

I saw the new King Kong today. Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings trilogy) directed this second remake (1976’s King Kong starred Jeff Bridges, Jessica Lange, Charles Grodin) of the classic 1933 black and white thriller, starring Fay Wray. On the heels of Rings’ success, Jackson is gold and could, essentially, have made a movie about banana slugs and found it funded.

First: be prepared. This movie is 3 hours and 14 minutes long. I timed it. Better hit the bathroom and squeeze every little bit of pee from your bladder prior to finding a seat.

Was it another Lord of the Rings? No. Out of 5 stars, I’d give it 3.5.

It was just too long. Peter: learn to listen to your editors. But the Brontosaurus stampede scene was absolutely riveting and marvelous — what viewpoints, digital melding and drama!

A very good movie, not an exceptional movie, but there was just — I don’t know — something missing. So much of it was digitally contrived. Yes, it yielded some Eye Candy scenes. But the digital thing just lacks — for want of a better word — humanity.

If you’d been reading actual newspapers today instead of acquiring your news from blogs or the internet, you’d have thought the new movie “Brokeback Mountain” was the center from which the sun, moon and stars revolved.

Okay, so Iraq is holding elections in its country and ours as well. That clearly should be secondary to a movie featuring homo cowboys grabbing dicks in the hay.

You know what? I’m sorry, but here’s where I simply draw the line. Maybe 6 to 7% of our nation is homosexual — male and female. That’s nice for you. Congratulations. You have jobs. You pay taxes. You arrange flowers. Some males have prominent lisps. Some dykes wear flannel, guts overlapping your blue jeans, crop cuts, mullets and biker wallets. Fine. Become carpetmunchers. Or sodomists. But I simply don’t want to see that s!!t on the big screen. Give me a label. I’m a racist (because a certain percentile of homosexuals are ____, _____, or _____.). I’m a homophobe because I don’t actively promote the homosexual lifestyle or endorse mens’ penises penetrating other mens’ sphincters.

Okay, I’m all that and more. BABAGOI.

But I’m STILL NOT spending any money to see your stupid Ang Lee movie.

Hello? Did you copy that? MONEY.

Oh yeah. You’re motivated by money. Let’s just see how well this stupid perversion of the standard western does when it gets thrown into the mix in most Century Theatres, Regal Theatres, or any of the other national chains. Outside of Bunghole City, San Francisco.

Oh gosh, that would be judgmental, wouldn’t it?

Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch:

Everything we’ve said would come to fruition has: Iraq has held free elections. From the Associated Press news:

Iraqis voted Thursday in one of the largest and freest elections in the Arab world, with strong turnout reported in Sunni areas and even a shortage of ballots in some precincts. Several explosions rocked Baghdad throughout the day, but the level of violence was low.

The heavy participation in the parliamentary voting by the Sunnis, who had shunned balloting last January, bolstered U.S. hopes of calming the insurgency enough to begin withdrawing its troops next year.

Hello? Dems and DEMs: Are You Listening?

No, you’re not. Nancy Pelosi isn’t listening. John Murtha, that incontinent wonk, isn’t listening. Howard Dean isn’t listening. John Kerry isn’t listening. Teddy Kennedy doesn’t have the capacity to listen unless it involves an aged bourbon. Barbara Boxer isn’t listening. Hillary Clinton is listening a little but missing the mark (because she’s too Centrist — can you imagine?), Joe Biden isn’t listening. Harry Reid is barely above Stegosaurus level — you know, his brain makes his front limbs work and another ganglion of nerves barely make his back legs function.

We’re setting world records in Iraq.

And at home the media is writing about a movie involving cornholing cowboys.

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Welcome to America.