Friday, April 28, 2006

Let's get it on

Recent news is now coming out that a handful of our elected officials are involved in a possible prostitution scandal. Apparently, they were tired of just screwing over their constituents, and wanted to get some actual screwing done. And they sold their favors for votes.

Seriously? Trading votes for sex?

Hell, if I'd known that it was that easy to lobby for your views, I'd drive myself down to Capitol Hill now, with a bevy of ladies who aren't very discriminatory, and I would make a strong effort to get some societal change within the hallowed halls of government. If I thought it'd change the voting patterns, I'd even offer myself up to Hillary herself.

Check that. There are some levels that no man should step to.

See, now, prostitution in and of itself isn't really that bad of a thing. It's part of the free market, and it's capitalistic. After all, it's people (generally women) exchanging services for money. And what better service can someone give than providing orgasms to others? To quote George Carlin, "Selling is legal; fucking is legal. Why isn't selling fucking legal?"

Maybe that's the catch right there. Maybe these proprietors of the world's oldest profession were simply trying to garner enough votes to get laws against their job revoked.

Or maybe most of our elected officials can only get some by paying for it with whatever they used to call their dignity and their will.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

The Plame Game

The first time that a grand jury was assembled to look into the Valerie Plame leak, there was rumblings and curiousity as to exactly how far up the administration ladder this went. The top rung at the time was determined to be Scooter Libby, costing us one vice-presidential chief of staff.

Now it looks like information has surfaced in the ongoing investigation that points squarely at KRove. This may answer some of the questions that were raised in the previous search, and could possibly lead to charges against the man who orchestrated GDub's rise to power. One of the big questions that's coming out of this has got to be this: "If Rove was as involved as some people have suspected all along, isn't there a good chance that it went higher up, as well?"

The guess on that one is going to be no. After all, Cheney can't keep himelf awake for diplomatic talks, and GDub barely seems to understand the difference between talk and action. While even he has to start owning up to the fact that there have been some serious mistakes, I don't know if he has the mental fortitude or prowess to really piece together this particular tidbit of information. Besides, KRove will do everything in his power to keep it away from The Great Decider's ears, for fear that another "decision" may be looming.

The person who looks like they may take the biggest fall out of this whole mess? Bob Woodward, who some may remember from the Watergate scandal.

Wonder how it feels to be on the other side of the lens.

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Black gold, Texas tea

GDub has decided that it's time to launch an investigation to see if there's some sort of price gouging involved with current oil prices.

Gee, you think maybe there's something there?

After all, the oil companies keep talking about how much it's costing per barrel of crude oil, and yet, somehow, they keep posting record profits. Sure, there is an increase in overall usage, but the numbers still don't quite add up. Theoretically, given that cost per barrel is increasing, then yes, pass it along to the consumer, but don't pass it along at astronomical rates. Not to say that capitalism is a horrible evil, but there comes a point where, as a company, you need to worry about the consumer, or else you'll price yourself out of their already thin wallet.

This is also happening at the same time as GDub has decided to stop purchasing oil for the national reserve (potentially a good thing, but let's wait to see the long-term consequences before we make final decisions), and loosening environmental restrictions on the producers (sounds like a pretty bad thing, given the already shaky status of the environment in a few too many locations, i.e. Earth). No, humans are not going to destroy the planet (not without lots of nukes, anyway), but we are working on making it uninhabitable for ourselves, and letting companies out of the restrictions may just be speeding up the process.

Monday, April 24, 2006

State of Horror

Took the opportunity over the past weekend to take in "Silent Hill". Given how disappointing the majority of recent horror films have been as of late, and the concern over seeing a movie that wasn't slated for prescreening by critics, there was definitely a bit of apprehension going into it.

Thankfully, all that fear was for naught, because the movie does quite well exactly what it aims to do; recreate some of the more disturbing elements of one of the creepiest video game series yet to launch on American soil. The fact that CGI is sparsely used also helps round out the film, and made it much more enjoyable to watch. A very refreshing change of pace after the absolute garbage that "Stay Alive" was (come on, Malcom in the Middle survives a horror movie??), nevermind the disappointment of films like "Hostel" or "Wolf Creek". This also means that "Silent Hill" is one of the few decent video game adaptations.

Which brings me to my real point. Why the hell do people continue to let Uwe "Making Ed Wood look like Martin Scorcese" Boll direct? Or come within sniffing distance of a project? The man can single-handedly take something that was a relatively decent concept for a game, assemble a cast that should be at least enjoyable, and turn it into piles of flaming garbage. And, with a recent check on IMDB, the man is currently working on FOUR new pictures. Even Roger Corman shakes his head in disbelief at the crap Boll continues to churn out.

But rest easy. One of Boll's upcoming films, a translation of "Postal", appears to be in good hands. After all, of the two people attached to the film, one of them is Gary Coleman. Maybe Uwe Boll is what Willis was talking about.

Friday, April 21, 2006

Screaming from the press corps

Over the past couple of days, Hu Jintao and GDub have been having meetings, aimed at shoring up the relationship between the United States and China. By all accounts, these meetings have, for the most part, gone fairly well, and progress has been made to work better with the Chinese on multiple fronts, most noticeably, the economic front.

But still, a couple of glaring incidents jump right out of the stories to show that, just maybe, the White House wasn't being as careful as it could have been in a few of these exchanges.

Take first the incident with the member of the Falun Gong sect sitting amongst the press. The claim was that she was there to write on the meetings for an admittedly Falun Gong newspaper. Given China's actions towards the sect, it seems rather surprising that she be allowed relatively unchecked. This all came to a head when she began shouting to get the Chinese government to "stop persecuting the Falun Gong". This led to some ruffled feathers, and some uncomfortableness as the two leaders continued to meet.

Follow that up with a WH announcer calling China the "Republic of China". Oops... sorry to WH-staffers, but, as has been pointed out elsewhere, that's Taiwan. There's a little word that rhymes with "steeples" needed before republic if you're referring to China. Two fairly major gaffes in one relatively short visit.

Some have postulated that these weren't so much mistakes but rather intentional acts done to criticize the Chinese stance on things such as freedom of speech and individual's rights. I tend to think that this is yet another example of an administration that has proven itself to be lazy, and continues to showcase this through errors, both of judgement and of vocabulary.

A new frontier

Given how the world has been turning, and given that I have far too many opinions to keep inside of my head at most times, I've decided that the time has come for me to start up a much more official record of my thoughts and feelings regarding issues that are happening around us. This will be my outlet for my thoughts on such varied subjects as politics, films, news, music, and whatever else happens to pop into my head. I fully expect that some of the things posted on here will be somewhat inflammatory, but such is the way of the world when one has strong viewpoints.

I hope you enjoy what you find here. It's bound to be an interesting experience for all of us.