Shots Across The Bow

Election Predictions

McCain/Lieberman defeat Obama/Edwards

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

And forget all the talk of Thompson as VP. Not one of the remaining GOP hopefuls can stand next to Fred and not look small and weak. And no man with the ego required to run for president could tolerate that. By the way, when I made my little joke about how Fred "wasn't really running," I didn't think I was starting a rumor that he really wasn't really running, just angling for a slot as Veep.

As ridiculous as the theory sounds, it does fit with Fred's lazy image. Get elected Veep, then let the figurehead at the top of the ticket take all the heat while he runs the show from behind the stage.

Wow, did I have Kool Aid for lunch?

Caution: Foul Language to Follow

Stacey Campfield is niggardly in his application of the rules of grammar, which results in the asinine statements he makes on his blog.

Ok, that's the end of the foul language.

What? You didn't see any foul language there? Ahhh, you just aren't as smart as Rep Campfield, who purged a comment that contained the word "asinine" in it, saying, "I will not post your comments with bad language in them. If you can clean it up you can try again. If not you will be banned."

You can read the whole story at Lissa's place.

You know, a politician reacting negatively to criticism is no big deal; we all do that. But when they reveal such a cavernous depth of ignorance of their own native language while doing so, it really makes them look silly.

Not that Campfield really needs much help in that regard.

But it gets worse. Either Rep. Campfield is really as dumb as his legislative agenda sometimes makes him appear, or he figured that since Lissa's blog is lightly read, he could get away with saying foolish things, and nobody would notice. After Lissa posted her bit on Campfield, he responded.

A nice bit about banning trolls also. I guess those are people who don't always agree with you.
censorship!,
censorship!,censorship!, censorship!,censorship!,censorship!,censorship!,censorship!,censorship!,censorship!,censorship!,censorship!,censorship!,censorship!.

Gotcha!

Gotcha? Folks, this is a State representative boasting like a middle school kid in a playground dispute over who's up next in a kickball match. Is this the type of rhetoric he uses during debates in our legislature?

"Oh my! Stacey cried 'Gotcha!' I am now utterly convinced that he is right and I was horribly wrong. Let me change my vote!"

Somehow, I doubt that.

Just for fun, I looked up Rep. Campfield's official House Bio page.

Wow.

A few highlights:

Organizations

* West Know Republican Club (What did the West know, and when did they know it?)
* Concora Faragut Republican Club (Where is Concora? I can't find it on my Google Earth. And did the Town of Farragut run out of funds and delete an "R" from their name?)
* Ceretoma Center (Are they related to the Sertoma Center, or is this something else entirely unknown to anyone on the planet other than Representative Campfield?)
* Read With Me Program (Oh dear. Well, those that can't do...)
* Westhills Homeowners Association (And I always thought that West Hills was two words. Oh, wait...)
* Knoxville Education Summit (Oh dear...part 2)

Honors and Awards

* Assistant Chairman Knox County Deligation of Legislators (Okay, ligation refers to the tying off of a blood vessel to cut off blood flow, sort of like putting elastic bands around a bull's testicles so they will shrivel up and fall off. So Stacey was the assistant for the guy who does that to legislators? Pretty cool job. I wonder how much it pays?)

Yeah, I know, making fun of Campfield is too easy, but really folks, this guy was elected to represent part of Knox County, and he can't even take the time to spell check his official bio? I can understand his blog having typos and errors, but his official bio?

I'll say it again, the more I learn about Knoxville politics, the happier I am to live in Sevier County.

PS: Asinine is not a bad word. according to Merriam Webster Online, it has two meanings.
1 : extremely or utterly foolish
2 : of, relating to, or resembling an ass

Now "ass" can be considered vulgar, if you use it anatomically, for example "Stacey Campfield is a horse's ass," or "The representative from District 18 has his head jammed up his ass." Those uses of the word "ass" would be considered vulgar. However, ass can be used in polite speech when referring to a Democrat, or other jackasses, such as donkeys, for example, "And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith." Judges 15:15.

So, now we have to determine which type of ass asinine refers to. Is it the animal, or the anatomy.

Apparently, Stacey feels it refers to him anatomically, which gives us an idea of his self image.

Now, to be fair to Stacey, we have to point out that there are many words in the English language that can be fair or foul, depending on the context.

• Cock
  
• Ball
  
• Prick
  
• Pussy
  
• Booby
  
• Knockers
  
• Major league Yabos

Ok, that last one might not be so ambiguous, but the others are certainly context sensitive. All this ambiguity must be very confusing to a guy like Campfield, who sees the world through binary goggles. So we do need to cut him a little slack on the whole asinine thing. After all, if it looks like an ass, and sounds like an ass, it just might be an ass.

Or a representative.

I'll Bet You Never Expected to Read This Here!

No, I'm not voting for Hillary.

But I'm looking for advice and recommendations on a topic so far from my own personal areas of expertise that I can't even begin to pretend to have an informed opinion.

I'm looking for a breast pump.

Now the last time I went looking for a specific feminine related product was when I bought my then wife an EpiLady. For the guys out there who don't know what an EpiLady is, do you remember those old strength training kits with the steel springs attached to two plastic handles? The idea was that you stretched out the springs and that would build up your muscles. The reality was when you let the springs snap back from a full extension, they grabbed all the hairs on your chest and ripped them off by squeezing them between the coils of the springs. A couple of guys I know lost nipples to that barbaric contraption.

The EpiLady was invented by the guy who invented those spring things, except this time, he added electricity to the fun and games. Instead of stretching the spring, he turned it into a coil and attached it to a motor, so the coil would spin rapidly. The idea was that the spinning coil would capture the hairs on a woman's leg and rip them painlessly out of her flesh, resulting in a silky smooth shave that lasted for weeks. This time, the reality matched the ideal, except for the "painlessly" part.

When my wife opened this "gift" she was very excited and wanted to try it out immediately. She plugged it in, flipped the switch and brought it carefully towards her leg, aiming for a spot on her calf just below the knee. This woman, who gave birth to 5 babies without any medication screamed in pain as this torture device came into contact with her skin. She threw it across the room, and began to speak to me in words my children had never heard before. Heck, I was a sailor, and I hadn't heard some of them before!

Then she asked me to try it.

I politely declined, and reminded her that the only reason I had bought her that particular gift was that she had asked for it specifically, and by name.

Have you ever noticed that facts and logic rarely win arguments, particularly when a spouse is involved?

Anyway, I tell you that story so you'll understand my dilemma. My daughter wants to breastfeed my newest grandson, and I told her I'd get her a pump for when she returns to work. I've done some basic research, and since she plans on breastfeeding exclusively, I figure she'll need an electric pump, probably a double. But which one?

That's where you readers come in. The beauty of the blogosphere is that I don't have to know everything; I just have to be able to ask a question and let it percolate through the pixels until it reaches the people who do know the answer. So let me know about your experiences with different models of mammarian machinery. Which ones worked best for you, and which ones were flops (so to speak)? Just as importantly, which ones were a pain to use, physically, or mechanically, and which ones were easy and comfortable? And what accessories and supplies will she need? I believe very strongly in the advantages of breastfeeding, and I'd really like for my daughter to succeed.

So thanks in advance for your input.

One day old and sleeping like a baby

Here's Joaquin!

In full 1.3 megapixel glory, as captured by my camera phone. Better pictures to follow.

Joaquin Gustavo Jiminez
Born 1-24 at 1:25PM CST
7lbs 9oz
21" long.

More shots after the fold, but don't expect to see me in them. I'm sick as a dog, and staying far away from baby and mother until I'm not sick as a dog anymore.

Maybe till I'm just sick as a hamster or something.

A Shots Across the Bow Exclusive!

These don't happen for me very often folks, so let me just savor the glory for just a moment....

OK, that's enough.

Through a very weird concatenation of events, mischances, and pure dumb luck, I got the chance to talk with Senator Fred Thompson today, and not being a professional reporter, I asked him exactly what was on my mind.

"Sen. Thompson, what do you have to say to all your supporters who backed you, now that you've ended your run for the Presidency?

His response

More on Cloverfield

SEMI-SPOILERS BELOW!!!!

In my review, written in the wee hours of the morning, I mentioned almost in passing that Cloverfield was the first attempt by Hollywood to deal with the reality of terrorism in America. And that it happened in just the same way that Hollywood dealt with American worries over nuclear war, with a monster movie.

This makes Cloverfield, albeit totally inadvertently, kind of important.

Let's go back a couple of decades to the Cold War era, to 1956 and Invasion of the Body Snatchers . Directed by Don Seigel from a story by Jack Finney, (a heck of a writer by the way. Check out "I'm Scared" if you can find it.) Body Snatchers is all about paranoia. People are being replaced with aliens from pods and the aliens are identical to the original, except that it's just a masquerade. The pod people are taking over hiding under the cover of our own friends and neighbors. While Seigel and Finney both denied any deliberate subtext to the story or the film, the obvious parallels with both creeping communism and raging McCarthyism are too strong to ignore. For a story to be effective, it must touch people, and the only way to do that is to play up the things that move them emotionally, the things they love,and the things they fear. The Cold War was a time of deep paranoia and uncertainty, and Body Snatchers played right into that pre-existing feeling.

While Don Seigel set out just to make a good scary movie, he managed to touch on the worries and fears that preoccupied Americans in the 50s, so it's no wonder the movie was so popular.

Now let's look at J.J.Abrams, and Cloverfield. Like Seigel, Abrams claims to have nothing more on his mind than making a good old fashioned monster movie. Well, like we just saw with Body Snatchers, that doesn't mean that there isn't anything more going on under the surface. When you look at the sheer randomness of Cloverfield, combined with the physical devastation, and the utter helplessness of the military, you can't help but see a comparison to the events of 9/11. In fact, the one shot of the Empire State building collapsing, sending a thick cloud of dust roiling towards the camera, could have come from the shots captured on 9/11.

The threat of future terrorist attacks is too real and too big for our minds to deal with. We either reject the possibility out of hand, (read Democrat), or we downplay it, gloss over it by indulging in meaningless actions to try and prevent it from ever happening again (read Republican). The nasty fact that there are people out there who want to hurt us and destroy us, and that those people may have access to nuclear weaponry is our new national nightmare. Nobody wants to talk about it.

So here comes Abrams who taps into that underlying fear with a movie about a random, inexplicable attack on New York City. Whether it was deliberate or not,he tapped into the underlying fear of our time. The cool thing is that by transferring that fear from the real to the unreal, he makes it easier to deal with. We've seen New York utterly destroyed now. We've seen our worst fears realized, even if only in the movies. By experiencing the worst, even vicariously, we remove some of the fear it causes.

I still don't like the movie,and won't bother seeing it again, despite all the little bits hidden here and there in the film, but I can understand how and why it works for so many people.

Agenda for the Republican National Convention

Straight Talk posted an Agenda for the Democratic National Convention. Katie linked it,and asked for somebody to create a Republican version. Since most liberals/progressives are bereft of a sense of humor,and consider themselves to be "above" satire and parody, I figured I would take a swing at it.

I'm not above anything if it gets a laugh. So, without further ado, I present

The 2008 Republican National Convention

0800	Opening invocation for racial tolerance given by Ron Paul
0830	Alan Keyes speaks on "The Second Amendment: The Cornerstone of Compassionate Conservatism."
0835	Paul supporters, including Paul campaign manager Kent Snyder, are forcibly removed from the convention floor for heckling Alan Keyes. Paul insists he never met any of them.
0930	Rush Limbaugh address "Media Dominance by the Left Wing Whackos (8 hour seminar broken into two 4 hour segments, aired continuously on convention radio station for the duration of the convention.)
1000	Fred Thompson arrives for the opening invocation.
1100	Tom Selleck signs autographs in the lobby. Nobody recognizes him.
1200	Ann Coulter speaks on "Winning Progressive Hearts and Minds through Shrieking Bombast and Little Black Dresses."
1230	Tom Tancredo speaks on "Strong Fences Make for Better Neighbors" then proposes that we use pre-deportation illegal aliens to build the fence.
1300	Fred Thompson arrives to hear Ann Coulter speak.
1330	Lunch. Fred gets there on time, but only because he thought it was a fundraiser.
1430	Naptime for McCain, Paul, Thompson, et al.
1530	Announcement that all delegates have been replaced by Diebold voting machines, ensuring a fair and accurate nomination process.
1630	Polling of the Diebold delegates begins.
1635	Diebold delegates suffer mysterious failure. Bush wins nomination for unconstitutional 3rd term.
1640	Al Gore invades the convention with Jimmy Carter to restore order to the electoral process. A freak snow storm breaks out inside the convention hall. AL Gore screams about global warming. Jimmy mutters something about consulting with Amy.
1645	The US Supreme Court upholds the Bush win.
1650	Al Gore has nervous breakdown and eats Jimmy Carter. And there was much rejoicing.
1655	Bush declines to run,saying "Working for you vultures for 8 years is enough! Come February, I'm getting hammered!"
1700	Fred Thompson decides it's time to kick the campaign into high gear and drives a red pickup truck up onto the stage, running over Duncan Hunter and Mike Huckabee. Nobody notices.
1800	John McCain accepts the recounted nomination, saying "Yippee Kai Yay Mother F.......!"
1820	Mitt Romney proclaims God's Kingdom on Earth and claims the nomination for himself through divine right as head of the planet.
1825	The Angel Maroney appears and claims Mitt for himself,taking him off to his planet as his love slave.
1830	Chuck Norris removes Fred Thompson from his pickup truck by dragging him through the side vent and explains to him that he doesn't appreciate Fred stealing all the Chuck Norris facts and passing them off as his own. Chuck finishes Fred off with two spinning backfists and a roundhouse kick to the side of the head.
1900	John McCain's bedtime.
2000	Fred Thompson falls down.
2100	With no other contenders left standing, Alan Keyes becomes the party nominee and names J C Watts as his Veep,and leader of his krew.
2105	With Hillary winning the Democratic nominee, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson become Republicans.

You Asked For It

Some folks didn't get the word about the BlogFest, which shows you just how effective TV advertisiing is,so, in response to a request, I've built a mailing list for announcing future gatherings. You can sign up here.

Also, due to Knoxville's new smoking policy, Baileys is no longer family friendly so we're looking for a new location. Suggestions include Calhoun's in Bearden and Mandarin House on Gleason.

Lissa has an excellent roundup of the BlogFest attendees, and some incriminating pictures here.

Cloverfield: The Longest Short Movie Ever

Think Godzilla meets the Blair Witch. Now toss in the motion sickness inducing first 15 minutes of Saving Private Ryan.

That's Cloverfield, all 85 minutes of it. Counting the credits.

Nothing new; nothing original, nothing we care about.

The only thing I want to know is what kind of camera the guy was using. Not only did it have an awesome battery life, but it was the most rugged camcorder I've ever heard of.

Spoilers below.

The thing was dropped several times, sprayed with blood, eaten by a monster,and crashed in a helicopter,and it still kept on working. My first camcorder died when a drop of water from Shamu's tank at Sea World landed on the guy sitting next to me.

Look, half the fun of a Godzilla movie is watching the monster tear up the town. Abrams sets the story at night, so we don't get to see it. Abrams missed the point almost as badly as Kubrick missed the point in The Shining.

From the opening of the movie, we know that nobody survives because the camera is found in "what used to be known as Central Park," so I couldn't get invested in the characters. I knew they were going to die. And if you don't care about the characters, then you don't care when they get eaten.

Let's talk plot holes for a minute. I've been in the military. There's no way they would decide to level Manhattan after only 8 hours. They wouldn't even have time to set up a meeting to discuss the options that quickly.

Let's talk about the monster. Basically invulnerable to all modern weaponry, as well as the laws of physics and biology, the monster looked like an enlarged version of the Rancor beast from Return of the Jedi, accompanied by the spiders from Lost in Space.

Again, nothing new or original.

OK,so it's clear I didn't enjoy the movie. However it did work for me on one level. As a first attempt to deal with the reality of terrorism, it worked. Just as Godzilla was a response to fears about atomic testing, Cloverfield is a response to the randomness of terror attacks. The main difference is that in the 50s and 60s, we were optimistic, and the monster was defeated. Now, the monster wins.

Sevierville Plague Spreads to West Knoxville

In addition to unclean toilet seats, we must add the lobbies of West Knoxville movie theaters to the list of places where the unwary can pick up the particularly virulent strain of STD known as the Sevier County Sidewalk Timeshare Disease. I went to the movies with Lissa, Doug, Cathy and Tommy, about which more in a moment, and when I entered the lobby of the Regal Pinnacle, the hair on the back of my neck began to curl up, and I knew something was wrong. As I moved towards the snack counters, the hair on the back of my knees began to curl up, and I knew it was time to shave my legs again. I looked warily around the lobby, looking for the source of my unease, and out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of familiar looking pamphlets.

I was caught off guard and unaware, ladies and gentlemen. I wasn't expecting to be exposed to an STD in a West Knoxville movie theater, and I relaxed my guard for a split second. I glanced at the pamphlets and to my horror saw Dixie Stampede, Dollywood, and the Black Bear Brothers Breakfast Show leering up at me in four color separations and a million exclamation points. I flinched back in terror, knowing what was coming next, and tried to make myself invisible, but it was too late. The predatory gleam in the eyes of the harridans behind the folding table told me I was about to be sullied in mind and soul.

"We have lots of wonderful package deals for you and your wife. Stop and look at our wonderful discounts!"

What could I do? What could I say? "I'm a local" wouldn't work, because here, I wasn't a local. My mind raced. My heart pounded. My blood curdled. My popcorn went stale.

I snapped.

"I live in Sevier county and I drove 45 minutes to see a movie here just so I could get away from you blood sucking vampires! Leave me alone!"

Mothers snatched up their small children. Girlfriends cowered behind their boyfriends. Boyfriends cowered behind their boyfriends. The popcorn girl was giving me the hairy eyeball. That or she got salt in her eye. It was hard to tell. I backed away from the table slowly, making sure I didn't make eye contact with Typhoid Terry behind the table. That's the only was to avoid infection. "I came here to see a movie about a monster that eats New York City, not to make a real estate transaction that will change my life forever. Besides, with the price of popcorn these days, I can't afford a dog house for my dog, much less a vacation home. So just back off, and nobody will get hurt!"

When I looked around, Cathy, Doug, Lissa, and Tommy were all already in the theater, having made their escape while I held the monsters at bay. I felt like a knight that had just slain his first dragon until I got a text from Doug.

"Don't come into the theater until the lights go down. The ladies don't want to be seen with you."

Women can be so shy!

On the List of the Top Ten Signs You've Hosted a Successful Blogfest...

Number One: You get the following Twitters:

Lissa: Blogfest!

Cathy McCaughan: Stripping naked and boiling my clothes.

As Seen On TV

Blogfest.

This Friday.
6:30PM
Baileys in West Knoxville.

Pass it on to anyone and everyone.

The Horrible Choking Sound you hear is Courtesy of the Indianapolis Dolts

Alternate post title: Are the Colts the Atlanta Braves of the NFL?

How many people would have thought that the only Manning still alive in the playoffs would be playing for the Giants?

Here's the thing. Manning is one of the greatest drop back passers in the history of the NFL, without question. Make him scramble, however, and he drops from phenomenal to merely excellent. At that point, the rest of the team must step up and play like champions, and usually, they fail to do so. Until the Colts realize that there has to be 11 players on offense playing their hearts out every down, Indianapolis will maintain their rep for choking on the big game. They'll continue to win 12 or13 games in the regular season, and underperform in the post season.

I'm not even going to talk about the Colt's defense. If they aren't going to play, then why should I talk about them?

My dream now is for the Patriots and Packers to meet in the Superbowl, where Brett Favre will retire after winning his second Superbowl ring.

Thoughts on Appearing on Television

I'm in need of immediate plastic surgery. I hope my girlfriend wasn't watching; I don't want her to find out how bad I look.

There's a guy in the studio letting you know which camera to look at. There's another guy in the control booth who doesn't like the guy in the studio, so he will immediately switch to the camera you aren't looking at.

I have a face made for radio, and a voice made for blogging.

I'm not ready for my closeup Mr. DeMille.

Time flies while the camera is rolling.

Hubert Smith is just as easy going and affable off camera as he is on camera...except for the 45 seconds or so before the show starts. Then he's like a general marshaling his troops before a major offensive.

It is nearly impossible to have a substantive discussion on anything when you're limited to 30 minutes. Or maybe that's just me.

TV is fun!

Maybe we should put together a Weekly Blogger's Roundtable and air it weekly on CTV. We have some bloggers with performance experience.

The more I learn about Knoxville politics, the happier I am to live in Sevier County.

The Handwriting is On the Wall

Fred is toast. He's done. Just ask any of the pundits. He'll drop out next week after South Carolina.

Let's take a look at the numbers. as the numbers stand, Fred Trails front runner Mitt by, wait for it, 13 delegates, 8 to 21, Now then, just how many delegates does it take to capture the nomination? A piddly 1259. Looked at another way, Romney still needs 1228 delegates while Fred needs 1251.

Yeah, that's a landslide alright.

Shameless Self Promotion

I'll be on Hubert Smith's new local access TV show Friday night at 9PM on community TV channel 12. I believe Brian Hornback will be there as well, although I'm not sure. We'll be discussing blogs, and how they fit into the media, and anything else that might come up. We'll be doing it live and I'm pretty sure Hubert will be taking calls, so it should be interesting.

When you see me, just remember that the camera adds a few pounds to everybody.

Like 100 or so.

The Logic Fallacy of a Progressive Candidate.

Sorry,I know I'm exceeding my recommended daily posting allowance, but I have to link to this post from Mushy.

Brilliant!

Why Are Democrats Obssessed With Controlling Free Speech?

Uncle tells us that Sen. Harry Reid has a bill in the Senate that will in effect require any blog that reaches more than 500 people and discusses politics must register with the FEC as a lobbyist.

I thought that liberals supported free speech and dissent and all that first amendment stuff. What's going on? Anybody who would like to argue in support of registering blogs is welcome to argue their case in the comments section. Better yet, come up with a good argument, and I'll put it on the front page.

As for Harry Reid, I will register as a lobbyist when I am paid to contact congresscritters and other vile scoundrels in order to influence their vote. But as long as I am talking to the people of the United States, whether I seek to influence their vote or not, you have absolutely no right under the Constitution to interfere with or restrict that speech in anyway. Let me refresh your memory, sir:

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

If this is what the progressives call progress, they need a new dictionary. Theirs is broken.

STD's in Sevier County and How to Avoid Them

It's become an epidemic.

The infected ones are everywhere you go, everywhere you look; there's no escaping them, and they have no shame. They prey mostly on out of towners, folks who don't know better. They look good and their come on is insidiously attractive but once you fall into their clutches, you may be burdened with an albatross for the rest of your life.

I'm talking of course about Sidewalk Timeshare Disease.

You're no longer safe anywhere, especially if you're out with your wife or girlfriend. You might think the presence of a significant other might shame them into silence but no, it emboldens them. It's like the scent of blood to a great white shark.

"Are you on your honeymoon?" they might ask, coyly. As if a newlywed couple would answer, "Why yes, we are on our honeymoon. You know, my new wife and I have dreamed of this day for years. We spent months planning every detail of this week, and the only thing we didn't think of was to make a major real estate purchase between bouts of wild monkey love. How fortunate we are to have come across you!"

I first came across this insidious infection in Hawaii. I flew into Honolulu every two months on my way to work on Johnston Atoll. During my day and a half layover, I would wander the streets of Honolulu, taking in the sights and enjoying the scenery. Unfortunately, every block or so, there would be a timeshare pitchman, hustling the tourist couples looking for suckers. They generally left me alone since I was single at the time, but there was one evening when I was walking a sweet young thing to her apartment, because that's the kind of guy I am, and we were accosted multiple times by the touts, until they seemed to recognize her, and then they just pointed at me and smirked. I have to admit I was surprised how well she was known on the street, and you can imagine my shock when I discovered that she...but that's another story for another time.

We're here to talk about STDs and how to avoid them.

It's tough to do. Some of these vultures are more persistant than a thigh rash on a fat man running a marathon.

In July.

They're also not real bright. Just to show my kind heartedness,here's a tip for all you touts who have trouble pitching to appropriate candidates. If a single man is in an East Tennessee WalMart at 5:30PM on a Wednesday during the off season, and he's wearing overalls and a UT ball cap, and has a shopping cart loaded with about $300 worth of groceries, he's most likely a local and not here on vacation. Do not bother him.

Now for those of you who aren't from around here,and don't know how to blend in with the local crowd, I'm about to share a secret with you second only to the 30 min route from I 40 to downtown Gatlinburg that's never backed up.

If you want these annoying predatory real estate vultures off your back simply master the following phrase:

"I'm a local."

A Conundrum

Social Isolation.
Sensory Deprivation.
Loss of physical freedom.
Provoking emotional stress and humiliation.

When we apply these things in the interrogation of a terrorist, we call them torture. So why is it that these are the favored tools of parents who claim to abhor violence towards children?

Anybody?

In case the parallels aren't clear:

Time out=Social isolation
Loss of TV/Radio=Sensory deprivation
Grounding /Sending to their room=Loss of physical freedom
"You're disappointing me." or "You're hurting my feelings." or "You're making me sad."=Emotional stress.

I'm serious about this. I can remember when I was a kid, and I would rather take a spanking from my dad than to hear him tell me I'd disappointed him. A spanking hurts for 5 minutes; feeling like you've failed the most important people in your life lasts a lot longer.

Hailey's Non-Reciprocal Law of Sexism

If men vote for a candidate simply because he's a man, it's because men are sexist pigs.
If women vote for a candidate simply because she's a woman, it's because men are sexist pigs.

Drop Dead Fred; It Isn't Just a Bad Movie Anymore

Does Fred Thompson even know that New Hampshire is a state? Because New Hampshire sure didn't know that Fred was a candidate.

Don't Want to Take Your Kids to the Doctor? Call Out the SWAT Team!

Uncle may be speechless, but I'm not.

First read this.

Nearly a dozen members of a police SWAT team in western Colorado punched a hole in the front door and invaded a family's home with guns drawn, demanding that an 11-year-old boy who had had an accidental fall accompany them to the hospital, on the order of Garfield County Magistrate Lain Leoniak.

Obviously, Uncle wasn't speechless for long, and there's a good discussion going on in the comments over there.

I remember one of the first dustups I got into when I started blogging involved a similar issue. A young girl with cancer was removed from her home because her mother believed in faith healing. (I can't provide a link to it because it was on R. Neal's former site.) My point at the time was that once we allow the State to trump the rights of the parent, regardless of the justification used, the State would work to enlarge upon that power.

I was right. We've seen adults 'allowed' to die despite their stated wishes, children pulled from their homes to receive treatment their parents disapprove of, children refused treatment and allowed to die despite their parent's wishes, and now we have a SWAT team pulling a boy out of his home so a doctor can give him aspirin.

It's gotten to the point now where parents will either comply with the whims of the state or they will have their door kicked open and their kids taken away at gunpoint, and if you don't think it is every bit as bad as I just stated then you haven't been paying attention.

How did we get to this place where a local sheriff feels he has the right to send a SWAT team after a kid falls down and bumps his head?

I ran into a similar situation living in Navy housing in Virginia. My daughter was 7 or 8 and went with a friend to find the ice cream truck. They got about 150 yards from the apartment, basically still in her friend's back yard, when a Police officer pulled over and asked them where they lived. They told him and he put them in his car, drove around the corner and up our driveway. He then proceeded to tell me that I was neglecting my daughter and he was going to have to file a report. Fortunately for me, nothing came of it;I guess he decided that he'd put a scare into me and my neighbor and never filed a report. He accomplished more than he thought.

I'll just say this. I know my kids better than any government flunky ever could and that includes their teachers. I know who they are, and what they need, and I will be the one who decides what is best for them. If that makes me a threat to the state, a man worthy of drawing a visit from the local SWAT team if my kid falls from a tree, then America is no longer the land of the free, and we are no longer citizens, but subjects.

Is that what we want? Is that what you want?

Sweeney Todd

After watching this movie, I'm thinking that the folks in Sweeney's chair were grateful when he slit their throats so they wouldn't have to listen to anymore of Depp's singing.

OK, cheap shot, I admit it. Besides, as one of the folks I went to see the movie with remarked, do you really want a maniacal barber to have a lovely singing voice?

A few things you need to understand before going to see Sweeney:

First,he's not a nice man. In fact, there's not really a nice man in the movie. For some reason, it's become popular to write plays, musicals,and movies without a protagonist. As a simple minded sort, I like to have somebody in the movie I care about; otherwise I don't care about what happens to them at all. I'm not engaged.

Second, it's more an operetta than a musical. When you think of a musical,you think of a story moved along by the occasional song. Sweeney Todd is the opposite, a long musical number interrupted by bits of dialog. This isn't a bad thing, just something to be aware of.

Third, it's dark, which fits a movie about obsession and revenge. The colors are all washed out, with the exception of blood, and the yellow hair of Johanna. It reminded me of an earlier Johnny Depp, movie,From Hell in it's relentlessly accurate portrayal of the quality of life in London at the turn of the century. Most folks take clean modern cities for granted; it would be nice if they realized the level of technology it takes to support hundreds of thousands of people in a few square miles and not have them wallowing in their own filth. Unfortunately, that light takes a long time to dawn.

Fourth, for those of you unhappy with the fate of the dog in I am Legend I just want to point out that the shepherd in Mrs. Lovett's shepherd pies is purely of the human variety, so rest easy on that score.

With the above out of the way, Sweeney Todd is an excellently crafted, well presented tale of revenge leading to madness and tragedy. I hesitate to call it entertaining, just as I would hesitate to call a public execution entertaining, but both hold that same squeamish fascination. However, unlike Saw and Hostel where the exploitation of our own sick voyeurism is it's only reward, Sweeney Todd uses it to force us to look at ourselves. While none of us, I hope, has resorted to the measures Mr. Todd chose, we have all harbored a grudge far longer and with more intensity than the offense actually warranted. In that way,we can all identify to a certain extent with Mr. Todd. While we never like or admire him, we might just recognize a bit of him in our own hearts.

Johnny Depp does a wonderful job with Sweeney, including singing the part. I do admit that there were times I expected to see him drop into Captain Jack Sparrow a few times, he never did, maintaining the malevolent madness of Sweeney throughout. I was bothered by his hairdo, however. Would you let a guy who looked like that anywhere near your hair? Sasha Baron Cohen was a jarring note in an otherwise well cast movie. Yes, he's talented. He's also annoying. Helena Bonham Carter was effective as Mrs. Lovett, baker of the worst meat pies in London, and would be lover of Sweeney Todd. It was interesting to see her, Alan Rickman and Timothy Spall all together again. I kept waiting for Ron Weasley to sit down in Sweeney's chair or for Harry to stop by for a meat pie.

The main reason I liked this movie is it stayed faithful to the source material. There was no happy ending grafted on to make Hollywood happy. Sweeney didn't go off into the sunset with Mrs. Lovett to raise the little boy as their own son. He dies, she dies, everybody dies.

Which fits this story to a T.

Was There Ever Any Doubt?

They couldn't beat the Vols.

They couldn't beat Florida.

And now,they couldn't beat LSU.

Ohio State remains 0 for lifetime against the SEC in bowl games,once again being upset by a stronger, faster, better coached team from the SEC.

You know, it was music to my ears to hear the Tiger fans chanting SEC during the game,and even better to hear the players chanting it after the game. So often the SEC is disrespected by sportswriters and talking heads who don't know squat about football,and the Big Ten generally has some pf the worst offenders. Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany wrote an open letter on the Big Ten website saying that players in the SEC lacked the intelligence and the character to attend and play for Big Ten schools.

I'll tell you what, Jimbo. When you folks up there learn how to count, and realize that the Big Ten actually has eleven teams, then you can come talk to us about academics, OK? Take your shoes off to count 'em up if it helps you any. While you're at it, here's a few more numbers for you to wrap your head around, Jimbo.

• 10. The number of SEC teams that were bowl eligible.
• 9. The number of SEC teams that got bowl bids.
• 8. The number of Big 10 teams bowl eligible.
• 7. The number of SEC bowl wins.
• 6. Giving up 5 sacks plus 1 fumble in a National Title game. It's called playing defense. You might want to look into it.
• 5. The number of Big Ten teams that lost their bowl game.
• 4. The number of times the SEC has won the BCS.
• 3. The number of SEC teams that won the BCS.
• 2. The number of times LSU has won the BCS.
• 1. The number of times the Big Ten has won the BCS.
• 0. The number of victories Ohio State has notched against all SEC teams in the post season.

'Nuff said.

Geaux Tiger! Go Vols! and Roll Tide Roll! The SEC is the toughest conference in college football.

Period.

I am Legend: IMAX; Regal Pinnacle

First the movie. It would have been nice if director Francis Lawrence and screenwriters Mark Protosevich and Akiva Goldsman had paid more attention to Richard Matheson's novel. Then I wouldn't feel like I just wasted an hour and a half and $25.00.

I Am Legend the novel is a study of what is normal and abnormal in society; I am Legend the movie is about Will Smith proving he can handle extended monologues just as well as Tom Hanks.

He can't.

But that may not be entirely fair, since Hanks was given better material to work with. Protosevich and Goldsman thoroughly scrubbed the story of all intelligence, grafted on a happy ending,and totally missed the point of the novel.

The CGI special effects weren't all that special either. The zombies were unbelievable, and I mean that literally. I've seen more convincing CGI animation in a video game.

And what was with the dog? 6 billion human beings are wiped off the face of the planet, and we're supposed to get choked up over a dog? Please.

Other than that, the movie was ok.

Now,about the IMAX. In order to see the movie in IMAX, you have to pay an extra $4. I remember seeing my first IMAX movie in Gatlinburg. The screen wrapped around us almost 180 degrees, and curved over our heads as well, immersing us in the experience. That's the IMAX I remember.

This IMAX is just a bigger screen. I knew I was going to be let down when, shortly before the movie started, an audio recording came on, telling us how wonderful the IMAX experience was going to be.

Yeah, an audio recording.

Listen, if you want to impress me with a video medium, don't just talk about it over a darkened screen; light that baby up! If you want to show me something, don't talk me to death before hand, show me!

Adding to my disappointment was the lack of care shown by the Regal Pinnacle staff. The upper left corner of the screen showed obvious staining. It looks like maybe some water damage or something. As the movie started, you could clearly see that insects were caught either on the projector lens, or the window in front of the lens. Watching them crawl over Will Smith's face did sort of give the whole thing a drive-in kind of feel, but at $12.50 per ticket, I'm not looking for a drive-in atmosphere.

Clean it up, Regal.

If you haven't read the novel, and don't mind a tacked on happy ending, the movie is worth seeing at a matinee, or when it comes out on cable. But skip the IMAX Experience. It's not worth the $12.50.

Vince Young Lacks Heart

A few years back, I watched Chad Pennington play a full quarter in the MAC championship game with a badly pulled groin. He could barely move,and anytime he was off the field, a trainer had his arm elbow deep in Chad's pants, keeping him loose enough to be able to play. Last weekend, during the "must win" game against the Colts, Vince Young took himself out of the game for...ummm, did he really hurt something? He sure didn't look like it as he strolled to the locker room before half time. It looked more like he was pouting over his medicre performance upto that point in the game.

If he doesn't develop a little maturity, and really soon, the Titans won't last a quarter against the Chargers.

And They're Off! (But We Knew That Already)

The primary/caucus/ordination process kicked off today, and Obama and Huckabee surged to an early one state lead over their rivals, a lead their supporters are quick to claim is insurmountable. Hillary would beg to differ on that, and sportscaster-turned-moron Kieth Olbermann actually seems to think Hillary won by coming in third.

No wonder he had to leave sports; when a team loses a game 37-12, they lost!

Obama supporters said it really helped their cause that Barack was both clean and articulate.

Fred seems happy with his 13% of the vote. Maybe he's sharing a glass of Kool-Aid with Olbermann.

Chris Dodd (who?) and some other guy have dropped out of contention for the Democratic nomination, but Dennis Kucinich is still in the running with statistically 0 percent of the Iowa vote, but he's hoping his midterm grades will really bring up the house average.

Ron Paul got 10% of the vote in Iowa, more than doubling Rudy's 4%. Apparently Iowa likes America's nutcase better than America's mayor.

Ain't politics fun?

Now That's What I Call a Win-Win!

The Vols beat Wisconsin despite being shut out in the second half yet again, and the Gators lose to unranked Michigan. Tim Tebow is the most overrated and over-hyped quarterback since Ryan Leaf. Once again, the darling of the Heisman voters proves the irrelevance of the award by choking during the big game.

Tennessee showed flashes of excellence today, but those flashes were overcome by torrents of mediocrity, interrupted by episodes of total incoherency. Who came up with that play where they all stood around while Ainge casually picked up the ball and stuck it between the running back's legs? What was up with that? I could understand it if the offense had been struggling, but Ainge had just led them 60+ yards down the field to get them into scoring position. And who was responsible for replacing Ainge with Gerald Jones at the tail end of what should have been another scoring drive? And why is Tennessee the only team in the NCAA that doesn't make offensive adjustments in the second half?

For Coach Cutcliffe's sake, I hope Duke wasn't watching.

Ah well, a win is a win, and other than getting blown out by Florida (again) and Bama and Cal, it was a pretty successful season. The Vols avoided the nasty upset that trapped so many other teams, and managed to play well for three quarters in the SEC championship game.

For the first time in several years, the SEC is living up to its billing as the toughest conference in the nation. As I'm writing this, the SEC is 5-2 and Georgia is walloping Hawaii 24-3. All that remains is for LSU to pull off an upset and send Ohio State home crying to cap off a very successful post season. The Buckeyes haven't fared well against the SEC in bowl games going 0-8 including back to back losses to South Carolina and last years 10 point loss to number 2 Florida.

You can't spell Ohio without an "0", so I figure they're gonna be 0 for 9 against the SEC after the title game.

New Beginnings

Somewhere during the last 5+ years of doing this, I started to think it was important. I began to take it very seriously, working hard to research posts, trying to build solid arguments to make a strong case for my point of view.

And it stopped being fun.

I want to bring the fun back.

So there will be some changes here, starting with a site redesign overseen by my lovely lady friend. (That means you, Lissa!) You can expect more short posts, more snark, and hopefully a few more laughs, along with the occasional rant as the mood strikes me. I also plan to expand my mastery (hah!) of media into audio and video as the occasion warrants.

But mostly, I plan on having fun.