I’m seriously concerned about the long term financial health of our country. Still, I suspect that the movie this trailer is advertising is a bit one sided. (For one thing it looks like there hasn’t been a Republican president since Reagan. I seem to remember two with three terms between them.)
Like another movie I own, Planet Of The Vampires, The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue is a film that has been released under a bewildering array of titles. Released in 1974 this is a zombie movie that is post-Night of The Living Dead (1968) but preceded both films that ushered in the Zombie Apocalypse®, Zombie and Dawn of the Dead (1979.)
Placed in such a unique position in zombie movie chronology The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue is a film particular to its time and place in history. For quite a while it was wholly unavailable on home video and therefore rarely seen. I myself had not heard of this Italian/Spanish co-prpduction until it was mentioned during Zombie week at tor.com.
Today the Zombie Apocalypse® is a well established meme in the greater trans-world culture. Nearly everyone knows what is meant by the Zombie Apocalypse® and it is a common parlor game to thought-experiment your survivalist victory against the hordes of undead. In these thought-scenerios the undead are nearly always the ghouls envision by George A Romero in his film Night of The Living Dead. If one is a heretic, you propose an apocalypse of Zack Snyder’s fast zombie from the re-make of Dawn of The Dead, but most purist reject these zombies. (I do not, I own both versions the 1979 and the 2004 on home video.) If one is utterly desiring of death and failure, you might go with the Dan O’Bannon zombies of Return Of The Living Dead, but really who is interested in an apocalypse of indestructible zombies? Continue reading
I had done some research for a post about the candidate from Delaware for the U.S. Senate, Ms. Christine O’Donnell. Frankly I could not imagine supporting such a person for the U.S. Senate. It is not that I am against balancing a terribly out of whack budget. I’m for that. We cannot go on spending money we do not have. The fiddler always shows up for his pay. Always.
It’s that firstly I do not think she is all that serious about budget issues, but beyond that she is simply too irrational to be worthy of support.
I abandoned the post because I realized it would serve absolutely no purpose. If you were supporting her now, you would no matter what I said.
Either her irrationalities are your own, and they do no seem irrational to you. Or you do not see them and do not want to see them. The ‘win’ for your team is more important than the idea that creationism and evolution are simply too co-equal points of view. If this is a trade off you are willing to accept for a win, fine, it is not one I am willing to accept.
Here is where I think our current political system is in real danger. There is no room anymore for someone to be wrong and not be evil.
A clue people, Obama is not Hitler. Bush is not Hitler, hell Saddam Hussein was not Hitler. (He’s literally no body now.) Hitler was Hitler that is the sum total in the Hitler mathematical set. Obama is a liberal, but that does not mean he is evil. Bush was conservative. (Oh, don’t you people on the right scream. There hardly a firestorm of protest against the man when he was in power.) But Bush was not evil.
This insistence that the opposition MUST some despicable evil, akin to Hitler always, and that Fascism or Communism is right around the corner unless we stop them is asinine and idiotic. It will only get worse before it gets better as thanks to fragmentation of the media people are more and more often selecting there information sources so that their biases as confirmed and their villain properly mocked and attacked. This is not information, this is not becoming educated on a subject, it is adopting a religion. A set of guideposts that tell you who is in your tribe, who is out of your tribe and who are the bad guys responsible for the ills of the world.
It is hokum.
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Here in a single graphic is the best illustration of what has happened the American economy over the last two years.
It also to me speaks to the folly of the wise man. Bankers, Wall Street, and Government itself had this data and yet they all continued to play in the market expecting the prices to rise without end.
There are those who want to primarily blame the government. Both regulation and de-regualtion played a part.
There are those who want to primarily blame the banks. Certainly they sold mortgages to people who could not afford them and then offloaded the risk on to other.
There are those who want to primarily blame the debtors, for foolishly buying house they could not afford.
All are right and all share the blame, be we also have a cultural attitude that things can be had for free. That there is not a price to pay for things in life, and that is a culprit here as well. That is a problem we cannot fix with regulations or low taxes. I sometimes fear we will not fix it at all.
Of course everyone is familiar with the phrase , is that glass half-full or half-empty as a test for a person viewpoint. I think I have another chart that serves a similar function for the political viewpoint.
So here is a chart showing federal revenues and federal outlays for the US government. As you can see that is a terrible disconnect between what we take in as a government and what we spend as a government. The ultimate source of this disconnect is that people want more services than they are willing to pay for.
If you are a Partisan Republican you focus on the dark blue line and insist that it be bent down until it is under the light blue line. (At least in theory. As the graph clearly shows, the republican did nothing to change the curve of the dark blue line while they were in power.)
If you are a Partisan Democrat you Focus on the light blue line and insist that it be raised until it meets that Dark blue line. (Of course you ignore how sharply you turned that dark blue line up. That’s An Inconvenient truth.)
Aside from a brief period while the Government was split in the 90’s, we don’t live within our means regardless of the political party in power. It was very recently — election-wise — that Prominent Republicans informed us that ‘Deficits Don’t Matter’™ before they discovered the horror if deficit spending — if it is a democrat doing the spending. Of course in order to try to curry favor with the majority of the population the Democrats are currently pushing ‘Tax The Rich’™, which of course returns us to people want services but are unwilling to pay for them.
Persoanlly I say both side of the equation must be addresses. We are spending too much and revenues must be raised. We are not going to get our of this hole with wishful thinking. Sadly that is the only thing we have a surplus of.
Anyone who has been around lit SF for any amount of time is likely aware of the nearly instant debate that can be generated with a single name: Robert A Heinlein.
Depending on who you ask, Heinlein was….
A Communist
A Fascists
A Hippie
An Authoritarian
A Libertarian
The best Sf Writer of all time. (including future tense)
A Hack
A talented creator of female characters.
A sexist.
And he was all these things at the same time. Truly he is the Rorschach test of SF Fandom.
One of his most controversial works was the novel Starship Troopers. He wrote the book as a juvenile, it was rejected, new material was added and ti has not been out of print ever since. This is the book many point to when they call Heinlein a Fascist.
I have stumbled across — thanks to the comments and discussions at TOR SF — an archive of criticisms and defenses of Starship Troopers spanning a time from 1959 when it was being serialized in F&SF through its publication as a novel and ending in 1963.
Wow. The Heinlein flame wars are sort of like the 100 years war. This was a fascinating series of comments and essays to read. It has not moved my thoughts on the matter. (I’m a Heinlein Fan, but I worship no man. Something I think got from reading Heinlein; though — like Ayn rand — fantatical followers are upsetting and close-minded.) The essay comparing Starship Troopers with The Star Dwellers has made me want to find a copy of The Star Dwellers and give it a read.
If you have any interest at all this link is worth your time.
Continuing off from the recent court ruling on marriage I have a few questions for people who feel that the ruling was in error.
Do you feel that marriage is a fundamental albeit unenumerated right or is it a privilege of government?
If you feel it is a fundamental right, who sort of reasonable restrictions can the state place upon it before the government has overstepped its bounds and intrudes in the exercise of that fundamental right?
Can the State restrict marriage to only mixed-gender couples that are fertile? Force infertile people to substitute a civil union for their marriage?
Can the State restrict marriage to mixed-gender couples of only the same political party affiliation?
Can the State restrict marriage to mixed-gender couples of only the same race? (Yes, Loving vs West Virginia said no the state cannot, but you might feel that was another example of judicial tyranny.)
Can that State restrict marriage to mixed-gender couples of only the same religious preferences?
For my own opinion marriage IS a fundamental right, though it is unenumerated in the US Constitution. Any of the above restrictions are infringements on the exercise of that right, as is the restriction that it can only be practiced by mixed-gender couples.
Yesterday I got the news that award winning actress Patricia Neal has passed away and I resolved to make my Sunday Night Movie The Day The Earth Stood Still.
I have not seen very many films with Patricia Neal, but from what I have seen she was a talented actress of diverse skill and range. The films I know her best from are, of course, The Day The Earth Stood Still, and A Face In The Crowd.
The first film clearly SF and the second very nearly SF. If you have never seen A Face In The Crowd this is a must see movie. A great, absolutely stellar cast, a pitch-perfect scrip and just as relevant today as when it was made.
Back to last night’s movie.
The Day The Earth Stood Still is a classic of SF films, and is a classic of films in general. Made in 1951 it was ahead of the curve for SF films, leading, along with Destination Moon, the charge into SF films of the 50s. Sadly, most of the films that followed were heavy on ray guns, monsters, and adventure and light in the thought and ideas that science-fiction can explore so well.
Very loosely inspired by the Harry Bates short story, Farewell the Master, the movie is about the arrival of an alien, Klaatu, and his robot, Gort, to the planet Earth. Klaatu is greeted with gunfire and suspicion. The alien has a mission and message, but refuses to share it with any one nation or people, insisting that it must be heard by representatives of all the peoples and nations of the Earth.
This of course is impossible in a world divided between the United States and the USSR. Frustrated by terran stupidity, Klaatu eascape his captivity to learn more about humans and their fears firsthand.
What follows is in part a message film, in part a lovely look at the Earth through alien eyes, and in part a manhunt. (Or an alien-hunt if you prefer.)
I have problems with the specific message delivered in the film, but that’s okay. It’s a wonderful story, wonderfully told. I am not as allergic to ‘smug aliens’ as some of my friends are.
Of course if you have never seen this movie, I urge you to rent it. I own it on Blu-ray and the effects hold up very well for a film nearly 60 years old.
DO NOT see the remake. There is no remake. I refuse to acknowledge it.
So if you have been following the news then you know a Federal Court ruled that the recent change to the California State Constitution defining marriage as only being between a man and a woman is unconstitutional under the United States federal constitution.
I applaude this ruling.
I know that there are many many people who do not, and I will not speculate or denigrate their motives here. My position is that movement towards greater individual liberty is generally a good thing and that movement towards less individual liberty is generally a bad thing.
(Please take note of that word GENERALLY, in the sentence. It is there for a reason. There are exceptions and remember that before you start listing something like healthcare trying to imply I am inconsistent.)
There are and will be of course those who decry this an tyranny from the bench. That the will of the people were overruled by a black-robed jackbooted thug who committed the worst of all judicial crimes — activism. I would be more sympathetic to there arguments if they ever raised the specter of activist judge on a judge who had ruled in their favor. Activism is always found where the judge ruled against your side, not on your side itself.
(Wanna prove me wrong? List three cases that you think should be overturned because the judge was activist, but where what you personally liked — outcome-wise — had been the result.)
The will of the people? That always come second to the protections of the United States Constitution. If Californians passed a change to their constitution outlawing the private ownership of all firearms I hardly think these same objectors would be citing the ‘will of the people’ as a reason to not overturn the law. They would be right because the US Constitution enumerates the right to bear arms in the Bill of Rights.
Ahh, but people are fond of saying that any right they don’t agree with isn’t enumerated in the Bill of Rights and therefore is not a right at all.
Poppycock.
I give you the 9th amendment to the Constitution and part of the Big Ten Bill of rights.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Certainly I consider the right to marry as an unenumerated right. It is not a privilege, it is a right that the government can restrict only with good cause. Where the state has a compelling interest. (Such as incest which produces deformed and disabled offspring a burden on the state and society.)
Judge Walker — a G.H. Bush appointee — found that the state had no compelling interest in restricting marriage to only mixed gender couples and that such restrictions violated the 14th amendment.
I applaud him.