Latest Iraq War Film Bombs at Box Office: More Proof That Hollywood Needs to Shift Gears

The latest Iraq War film, "Redacted", utterly bombed at the box office, taking in a paltry $25,628 across the country in it's opening weekend. It's a portent of things to come when (IF at this point) it goes into wide release.

It's more proof that Iraq War films are not appealing the the American viewing public, and that Hollywood needs to get out of Iraq War films until after the war is over. It joins "Lions for Lambs", "Rendition" and "In the Valley of Elah" in the trash can for box office performances.

Anti-war films at this juncture are boring, depressing and a waste of money for the studios.

Are the Hollywood elites getting it yet?

Democrats Are Using Back Door to De-Fund Iraq War: $50 Billion Funding Bill Stalls in Senate Until January

It appears that the anticipated de-funding of the Iraq War by the Democrats is currently underway. But they're not taking the direct approach as was predicted by analysts.

Instead, they're guaranteeing that their legislation on war funding either doesn't make it to the President's desk, or if it does that he is certain to veto it. All the Democrats have to do is insert a clause that calls for withdrawal from Iraq to doom the legislation.

They have effectively de-funded the war, without drawing attention to the fact that this is/was their goal. They can publicly claim that they won't de-fund the Iraq War and will continue to put forth bills with terms and conditions that the Republicans find indigestible and will move to block.

The other tactic being employed is that the Democrats are ignoring the President's war funding requests for months at a time. Congress has already passed the Pentagon's $471 billion budget but stripped war funding from that bill. President Bush asked for $192 billion more in supplemental spending for the wars since mid-February; Congress is getting around to that request now, in mid-November.

The war bill passed by the House and rejected by the Senate would have provided $50 billion for the wars, and set the end of 2008 as a withdrawal date of troops from Iraq.

There's a time-crunch in play here; the current war funding will run out in February, and the military will have to divert money out of it's new $471 billion budget--money needed for repairing battle-damaged equipment or replacing it, beefing up V.A. hospitals, building mine-resistant vehicles, providing care for our wounded warriors, and purchasing new weapons platforms--to pay for the wars.

They've already signaled that they're diverting $4 billion immediately.

And the military is planning to make deep cuts when the designated war-fighting funding runs out in February. And it probably will; the only war funding bill on the table and on the horizon has been KO'ed.

Another mess.

Columnist Novak Says Clinton Campaign Has Dirt on Obama But Has Chosen Not to Use It: What's Really Going On Here?

Columnist Robert Novak is claiming that Hillary Clinton's campaign has dirt on rival Barak Obama, but is not using it as it makes her look like she's taking the high road.

Does Clinton have dirt on Obama? Possibly. It's in her nature to utterly destroy her opponents, regardless of what she says.

Since she's gone through the trouble of having her people dig up dirt on Obama, why is she holding back their findings now? Friendship? A friend doesn't look for scandalous information on a friend in the first place. Especially if that dirt is meant to be publicly released to publicly harm that friend.

It should be noted that Hillary's and Bill's friends end up in jail. Remember the Whitewater fiasco?

That's what Hillary does to people she calls friends. Her reputation on this point is pretty solid, so any claims of friendship that Hillary makes to Obama with regards to the current situation should be taken by Obama as a stark warning of what she'll pull on him if he starts winning Democratic primaries left and right.

If she does have information, someone in her campaign will leak it to prevent Obama from gaining the nomination.

Michael Savage Clashes With Council on American-Islamic Relations and Media Matters: Savage Nation Targeted in Advertisement Boycott

Michael Savage is well-known as a far-right winger with very strong ideas on immigration, Islam, the Democrats, the degradation of American culture and other conservative topics that he talks about on his nationally syndicated radio program, the Savage Nation.

There are times that he's a rabid wolverine, going after a subject and not letting it go until his target is destroyed.

On his October 29th show, he lit up and went after Islam, which caused the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to began a campaign to get advertisers to stop supporting the Savage Nation. One company has pulled it's advertising so far; others are considering their courses of action. NOTE: the link above goes to his rant. You have to hit the play button; adjust your volume accordingly. He's quite an expert at screaming at the top of his lungs.

His Wikipedia entry is quite interesting too. I hadn't realized that he founded the Paul Revere Society. I do think that Savage goes too far sometimes. His criticisms are at times unfair, while other valid points that he makes are lost by how he presents it. He's his own worst enemy.

I think he needs to breathe a little bit.

But I'm also concerned about the line between free speech and bigotry/hatred, which sometimes gets blurred. Savage hasn't helped matters in this regard. In exercising his Constitutionally-guaranteed free speech in this particular way, he's helped to make it possible for groups like CAIN and Media Matters to target those with a right-wing bend in their views, with free speech suffering major collateral damage in the process. This is not good.

Here's an example of Savage's using a sledgehammer to kill a mosquito: during his brief tenure with MSNBC in 2003, someone called Savage's program (a prank caller) and commented on Savage's teeth. The conversation went thus (this is also in Savage's Wikipedia entry):

Savage then asked if the caller was a sodomite, to which the caller answered, "Yes."

Savage then said to the caller, "Oh, so you're one of those sodomites. You should only get AIDS and die, you pig; how's that? Why don't you see if you can sue me, you pig? You got nothing better to do than to put me down, you piece of garbage? You got nothing to do today? Go eat a sausage, and choke on it. Get trichinosis. Now do we have another nice caller here who's busy because he didn't have a nice night in the bathhouse who's angry at me today? Put another, put another sodomite on....no more calls?...I don't care about these bums; they mean nothing to me. They're all sausages."

Savage can say what he wants on his radio program; but I think his delivery of his content can be greatly improved and polished. And he can keep anti-conservative groups like CAIN and Media Matters at bay.

I'm not going to comment on his rant against Islam. I think he did raise some valid points, but his points were lost at about 120 decimals.

Hollywood is Learning a Lesson on Anti-Iraq War Films: Movie After Movie Flops at the Box Office

The latest and the not-so-greatest thing coming out of Hollywood has been a slew of anti-Iraq War films. And every one of them has been a box office failure. People don't want to go to a negative movie when events in reality are already so negative.

Here's the latest takes:

"Rendition" with Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal---$10 million domestically--a "disastrous" performance. It's been in theaters since October 19th.

"The Kingdom" with Jamie Lee Fox--$47 million domestically--budget was $70 million, so this one didn't fare as well as expected either. It's been in theaters since September 28th.

"In the Valley of Elah"--an independent film with Tommy Lee Jones, made $7 million. It was said to be a good film, but the subject--a father investigating the death of his son in Iraq--was too much for a war-weary U.S. public to stomach.

"Home of the Brave" with Samuel L. Jackson made a paltry $43,753 domestically. This was released in December of 2006, then widely released in May of 2007 before being pulled. Somehow "disaster" doesn't even begin to cover it.

And most recently, Robert Redford's film "Lions for Lambs" with Tom Cruise made $2 million on opening. This is much weaker than anticipated and may be a sign of things to come for this film.

Hollywood ought to be reluctant to put out multi-million dollar films based on the Iraq War right now. They should be waiting for a few years after the war ends to start producing this stuff; it might attract more people.

All they have to do is look to the past: Vietnam-era films produced in the 1980s did well: "Full Metal Jacket" made $46 million on a $30 million budget; "Platoon" made $138 million on a $6 million budget. "Good Morning, Vietnam" made close to $124 million. "Apocalypse Now", made in 1979, just six years after American troops were pulled from Vietnam, made $83 million. "Rambo: First Blood" made $47 million on a $15 million budget.

With a war in progress, Hollywood needs to pay closer attention to the mood of the viewing public when they produce Iraq War-era films.

Spanish King Tells Loudmouth Venezuelan President Chavez to Shut Up

There's been a conference going on in Chile the last couple of days, which is supposed to bring together Spanish and Portugese-speaking nations to promote unity and goodwill. Spain and Venezuela are two of the nations that are there.

Venezuelan President Chavez turned his wrath on a former Spanish prime minister, accusing him of being a fascist and a snake before the King of Spain angrily told him to shut up.

The BBC was there to record it all.

Leave it to the "Mouth of the South" to offend the King of Spain.

Retailers Are in for a Disastrous Holiday Season: Recalls Due to Lead Paint Will Be the Reason

Retailers are going to have a very bad holiday season this year. With the economy already in bad shape, the list of recalled toy products from China is growing longer and longer. The #1 reason for the recalls is lead paint.

There's a good bet that there will be a huge recall just before the holiday shopping season really starts, which will put the retailers into a tailspin.

The retail sector is in big trouble. This is what happens when manufacturing is shipped overseas in the name of more profits when the finished product hits the market. Eventually it comes around and bites everybody HARD.

Welcome to the dark side of globalization.

The Place Where the "Save the Planet" People Won't Go: Take the Emotionalism Out of the Global Warming Debate, and Then Look at What's Left

One of the most infuriating things about the global warming debate is all the emotionalism that the "Save the Planet" side uses to get people to buy in to the global warming debate. It's getting in the way of an examination of the pure, unblemished facts that have been suppressed.

There's a place that the global warning panic-mongers refuse to acknowledge or go to, because it turns their arguments into pure folly that is similar to the "global cooling" debate of the 1970s.

This place is located at the very heart of the global warming debate. Here's how you find it:

Strip away all the emotionalism and the hype involved in the debate. Once it's gone, ask yourself: what is left? That answer is where the "Save the Planet" people utterly refuse to look or acknowledge, because it's inconvenient to their side.

Here's what's left:

• A science that is deeply conflicted about global warming. There is no mainstream science community on global warming; mainstream science remains conflicted, despite the claims of the alarmists in the scientific community that they are the mainstream.
  

• Four billion years worth of cycles between global warming and global cooling, not just 500,000 or 500 million years that some are focusing all their attention on. And the long view shows global warming in the distant past, when the surface of Earth is much warmer than it is today; and it shows global cooling as well. And we're not talking about once or twice either; there's evidence of this happening over and over.
  

• Scientific evidence that shows a continuing trend of rising sea levels over the last 120,000 years and projections that show more of the same far into the future, whether we were here or not. And sea levels may have been over a hundred meters higher in the distant past than they are today, according to the same story linked above.

• The misconception that melting sea ice will raise sea levels. You want proof of this nonsense? Here's a quote from the link above: "Place some ice in a cup of water, and make a mark at the waterline. Wait for the ice to melt. Check the new water level. It won't change!" Ice melting over land and then running into the water WILL affect the sea level as it's new water being added to the mix.

• The true contribution of the sun to the global warming process as well as global cooling, and that these processes also take place on other planets as well as on Earth.

• The true contribution of forest fires and volcanoes to global warming. It's definitely understated, due to the difficulty in figuring how much carbon that burned plants and trees had in them before they were burned by fire, or how many plants actually went up. And they don't exactly put a meter on top of an erupting volcano to get an exact figure on how much greenhouse gas is being released. So if a data report doesn't openly say that the figures are estimates, that they're exact, they're not being truthful. It's rare to find statements like this, but they have been known to try to slip in the back door.

• The real estimate of man's contribution to what is primarily a naturally occurring phenomenon. There's no doubt that we've made the situation worse, but global warming is NOT man-made---a fact that seems to be denied by the "Save the Planet" folks. The simple fact is that we don't really know how much damage has been done. But global warming has been around a lot longer than we have.
  

• Mother Nature also doesn't punch a clock. For people to say that we only have ten years left to save the planet is utter nonsense. It's political rhetoric and emotionalism.
  

• What needs to be saved? The planet? NOT!! Our civilization is what needs to be saved. The planet will continue long after we've killed ourselves off, or left the cradle permanently.
  

• Global warming has happened; it will happen again, no matter what steps we take. As sure as the sun will rise and set this day, global warming will happen. We should try to take steps to reduce our impact on this naturally occurring phenomenon.

• Remember, this group of people was wrong about global cooling in the 1970s.
  

• Reducing pollution is a good goal, but the use of carbon "credits", a man-made folly, won't do it. That system is another way of putting money into someone else's pocket, in the name of reducing one's "carbon footprint," another money-grabbing invention. And whose pockets are the proceeds going into, might I ask? Those that are into this really need to follow the money trail and see which major polluters they're supporting with their green efforts.
  

I do think we need to reverse some patterns that we've gotten into.

The way we use fossil fuels should be altered, and then discontinued as it definitely affects the quality of the air that we breathe. And on a practical note, there's not enough supply to match the worldwide demand. This fact alone should demand that we develop technology and alternative fuels.

I also think we need to look at the global warming issue in a sane manner, not in this reckless fashion that politicians and some scientists are pushing us into. What if they're wrong again? How many trillions of dollars will have been wasted in combating a problem that either doesn't happen, or does happen--regardless of the steps that we take to "save the planet?"

This debate is much more complex than saving polar bears; the environment does need help. No one wants to live in a world where the air we breathe is poisoned, our water supplies are contaminated, and our food supply is threatened to the point where millions of people starve to death.

We ARE stewards of our world, and it's our responsibility to leave it cleaner than we found it. Each generation must make it better for the generation that follows it.

But let's do it without the fear-mongering that is present in today's debate.

NBC Unable to Strike a Deal With Rosie: This is Not a Bad Thing

Liberal network NBC/MSNBC/NBC Universal was unable to strike a deal with super-liberal Rosie O'Donnell on a new talk show that would have gone head-to-head with CNN's Larry King Live and the higher-rated Fox News shows. Some are sad; I am not.

Though I would have enjoyed Rosie vs. Trump III, I don't think that those back-and-forth insults between the two egomaniacs are worth giving her a platform to spew her venom again. Her tenure at The View (which I don't watch) required a "suspension of belief" (to quote a friend of hers) in some of the things that she said. The recaps of her outrageous statements and outright lies were bad enough, and I'm glad that she got out of the news.

The management team at NBC would be smart to keep Rosie out of the mix; NBC is screwed up enough as it is, without her help.

We Should Break Diplomatic Relations With Pakistan; Musharraf is No Friend of Democracy

It's time for the U.S. to break diplomatic relations with Pakistan until President/dictator Pervez Musharraf leaves office entirely.

His emergency rule decree is getting far worse: not only has he suspended Pakistan's constitution, and jailed lawyers and judges who oppose his unconstitutional moves, but now he's arrested former Prime Minister and opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and about 5,000 of her supporters to prevent a massive march scheduled for today.

President Bush needs to stop defending Musharraf; this guy is running the risk of turning Pakistan into another Iran, which we don't need. Today's situation inside Pakistan looks a lot like Iran in 1979, just before the Shah was thrown out. We have an unpopular dictator who is supported by the United States, and our President is supporting this dictator because he does what we want him to do.

It's going to backfire on us, big time, if we don't support the quest of Pakistan's people to restore democratic rule to the country.

State Requires Photo ID for Voting Now: This is a Good System, Despite Initial Problems

Michigan now requires voters to produce photo ID before voting in elections. It's a wonder that this step wasn't taken years ago. It's so common sense that it's ridiculous.

With all the reports of election irregularities over the last eight years, producing photo ID is a minor inconvenience. The election officials don't know who everyone is on sight and where they live, and for anyone to expect that is ridiculous.

And there are government issued IDs that the poor can acquire that are acceptable forms of identification as well. And if they don't want to obtain identification, they simply sign the form that says they are eligible to vote and they are who they say they are. So the argument that it's a discriminatory practice designed to suppress the economically downtrodden doesn't hold water.

The biggest problem lies with the training of poll workers, who did different things in the various precincts. There was some variance in the types of ballots that were issued: regular ballots should have been used for voters who signed the forms, but some provisional ballots were issued instead, which are treated differently and require further validation. Other poll workers rejected acceptable forms of ID, such as military-issued ID cards and Michigan driver's licenses, which is unfathomable.

Uniformity was present yesterday, but not in all the precincts.

There are definitely glitches to work out of the new system, but when they are worked out, it will make Michigan's voting system much stronger and more secure.

Marvel Comics Unveils New Captain America: New Superhero Carries a GUN??!

After Marvel Comics killed off Captain America in their Civil War series, it was thought that they might somehow bring the star-spangled hero back to life.

They did so, but the original Captain America will remain buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Marvel has decided to introduce a new Captain America, with a new uniform, new attitude, and new armaments. This version of Captain America will carry a knife, guns, as well as the customary indestructible shield that was a staple item of the Captain America series since March of 1941, when the series began.

The original Captain America rarely had weapons other than his shield; this is not a welcome change.

The new series is a direct spin-off of the events of Civil War, and the new Captain America may be a clone of his original superhero sidekick, Bucky, who was reported killed fighting the Red Skull during World War II.

We'll see what happens.

Justice Prevails: Court Denies Convicted Murderer's Request to Receive His Slain Wife's Life Insurance Money

Scott Peterson, the man convicted of killing his wife and unborn child, was denied the proceeds from his wife's life insurance policy by a court in California.

The policy, which is worth a quarter million dollars, will go to Laci Peterson's mom.

Who wanted the money more--Scott Peterson, or his attorneys? If he had won the case, it would have been a HUGE miscarriage of justice.

Justice and victim's rights have taken a few steps forward in California.

"Dog" is IN the Doghouse: Racial Tirade Leads to Network Suspending Production of His "Dog the Bounty Hunter" Show

This has not been a very good couple of years for Duane "Dog" Chapman, the TV bounty hunter who has a popular TV show on the A&E network ("Dog the Bounty Hunter").

Mexico arranged for Dog to be arrested due to his hunting down a wanted criminal on Mexican soil in 2003, in violation of Mexican law. With days to go before a statute of limitations expired in the case, U.S. federal marshals arrested Dog in Hawaii in 2006, and a court battle ensued for the extradition of Dog to Mexico.

The Mexican government eventually changed it's mind about prosecuting Dog in 2007, and settled for an assurance that Dog wouldn't engage in bounty hunting on Mexican territory ever again.

Dog had numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News and other media outlets over the last year, following his arrest. Life seemed to be back on track.

Then, a couple of days ago, the National Enquirer posted an audio of a racially charged tirade (WARNING: OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE) by Dog against the African-American girlfriend of his son. Dog has started the apology "process" while A&E has stopped production of Dog's bounty hunting reality show, pending an investigation.

What is it with these celebrities self-destructing like this??!