Friday, April 29, 2011

Gov. Kasich lands a clean straight right

There's been a ton of vitriol and hate mongering by libs and Democrats as Republican governors try to fix the budget messes of various states. Wisconsin is the most blatant, but Gov. Kasich has taken his lumps in Ohio as well.

With over 600,000 private sector jobs lost while public sector employee numbers are not only increasing, these employees are getting pay raises, Gov. Kasich is taking radical steps to right the ship of Ohio and treat everyone fairly. That means public sector employees who make upwards of 26% more than private sector counterparts.

At a press conference recently, Gov. Kasich was told of the President's comments on Governors who are seeking to pass bills similar to the bill SB5 that was passed in Ohio:


Ow! That's gotta hurt. Gloves are off baby!

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Bolts win!

The Lightning won a huge game 7 in the first round of the playoffs, over the Penguins last night 1-0.

This was the series local hockey fans like myself envisioned when Jeff Vinik bought the team last year from bozos Len Barrie and Oren Koules.

Vinik made what I thought was the nab of the year getting Stevie Y (Steve Yzerman) as general manager. Yzerman doubled up on the goodness by bringing in highly regarded coach Guy Boucher from the minors. Boucher energized the team with his new methods and uptempo approach to coaching and the game.

The mid-season acquisition of money goalie Dwayne Roloson, who was laboring with the dreadful Islanders, was the final piece to the puzzle. My co-workers groaned at the prospect of a 41 year old goalie, but I told them to watch this guy. He's freekin' amazing in goal. And he stood on his head last night when they needed him.

Hockey is perhaps the only sport where one player can make or break a team. It doesn't matter how many Gretzky's you have on the ice, if you don't have a money guy in net, you're just gonna lose 10-9 game after game.

The Bolts match up well with the other teams in the playoffs. With a little luck, I'll get to see some more Stanley Cup games here in Tampa. Woo hoo!




I see where the irrelevant Megan Fox is getting her trailer park trash tattoo of Marilyn Monroe lasered off her arm. She mentioned one time how she got the tat as a warning not to let the movie industry wear her down like it did Marilyn.

Yeah, whatever.

She thought she was being all hip and edgy getting that tattoo at the time and now that she's scrambling for work, she's finding photographers and producers are tired of having to photoshop or slather make-up on her to cover up the foolishness.

You try to warn these kids about the permanent nature of ink. But no one listens to us old folks.

And 'cause I find Megan boring, here's a hot picture of Leighton Meister from some random photoshoot:


Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Atlas blinked

President Barack Obama today, amid much fan-fare, released his actual birth certificate:

obama birth certification


Now, I've never really cared about this nonsense. My gripe was the holier-than-thou attitude of the President who has spent bags of taxpayer money to stop citizens from seeing information that every other President has gladly made public.

The best part of this is that Donald Trump was able to force this out of the president. With his immense wealth, Trump could spit in the face of pundits, media talking heads, bloggers and the like and stand his ground.

Frankly, the only people that think Trump is a serious candidate for president are lib-talkers as they try to belittle and diminish Republicans in the run up to the election. But goofball fame-whore or not, Trump has done something no one else has managed to do -- force the sainted President to do something he didn't want to do.

Good for The Donald.



Oh look, Miley's on Twitter again:


And as if to show how edgy she is, she brags about being braless in the picture.

Poor Miley. Every time she tries to do something hip and grown up, she gets pwned by Taylor Momsen

Miley gets a tattoo -- Taylor shows her boobs on stage

Miley gets another tattoo -- Taylor shows up at Justin Beiber's movie premier dressed like a hooker

Taylor, who's been 17 years old for the last 3 years, has been milking the underage rocker thing like a pro. You know Miley's just been kicking herself over this whole thing. Girl's gonna have to up her game substantially to win one against this chick:

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Oh sure, now you come around

St. Pete Times B-section columnist/pundit Howard Troxler had a blurb in today's paper tsking at Dems over their recent tv ad claiming Republicans wanted to "end Medicare."

Of course, he's doing this because the Time's shamelessly biased PolitiFact recently gave the ad a "Pants on Fire" rating for untruthfulness. So Howard's jumping on the bandwagon to show that he, like the PolitiFact people, are totally, like, unbiased and only interested in the truth.

Stuff like this always cracks me up. PolitiFact never fact checks the President for anything ridiculous he says, but they'll go after psuedo-intellectual Rachel Maddow for some numbers gaffe on her show and then point and say "See, we go after everyone."

heh

whatever

Howard's all concerned about blatant political demagogery here. So where was he for the last eight years or so? Where was he for all the Bush = Hitler stuff? Or the Cheney is the Devil nonsense? How about all the Republicans are racist stuff? Or anything that came out of the mouth of ass-clown extrodinaire Alan Grayson?

Where was Howard for all the hateful editorial cartoons published by his own paper? Or when the Times tried to tie Sarah Palin to the Giffords shooting? Or the subsequent violent headline imagery about this or that group "...in the crosshairs" or the "targetting" of some other group?

Sorry Howard, but you lost your credibility a long time ago. Just stick with the sycophantic water carrying like the rest of the liberal media.




And now, here's the Olsen Twins on the cover of Newsweek.

yeah

When exactly did these two become goblins in a Harry Potter movie? Didn't these two used to be cute? I mean, I remember them as the little kids on the tv show. And then they looked kind of normal as teens:


What happened?

They are supposed to be these big fashion moguls now. You cannot tell me they look at these magazine covers or in the mirror and go "Oh yeah. We look totally hot like this!"

just don't get it

Monday, April 25, 2011

Why this conservative is against the balanced budget amendment

There's a lot of talk about horse trading and such between the White House and Congress over raising the debt limit. Most of it centers around fiscal conservatives wanting to trade raising the limit for a balanced budget amendment. I believe this is wrong. Let me tell you why.

The push for a bba (I hate all that typing) is mostly drawn from watching various states function under a similar amendment. Problem is, states are not the federal government. If a state gets into trouble, it can always appeal to the fed for help -- in the guise of bail outs or other fed funding.

The federal government has no one to turn to for such help. And having this amendment in place is dangerous. Understand, the bba will force the federal government to restrict spending to match what it brings in from taxes. So, let's look at a situation:

The Pacific tectonic plate is roughly diamond shaped. There have been major earthquakes at three of the four corners of this plate to date. The fourth corner is off the coast of Washington State. Suppose there is a major quake at that point, a 7.0 oto 9.0 quake. Suppose that quake sets off a series of sympathetic quakes on the fault lines that travel down the west coast of the U.S., including one off the coast of California that has never ruptured and therefore may have enormous energy to release.

We get massive tidal waves, destruction on a cataclysmic scale, millions dead, trillions in property damage. The masses turn their desperate eyes to Washington to hear: "Well this is a horrible tragedy, but golly, there's no money for clean up or disaster relief in the budget. Maybe next year we can do something, but jeepers, you're on your own right now."

Ridiculous, you say?

Remember, expenditures are limited to income derived from taxes. There may be a disaster relief fund, but it won't be big enough to handle something on this scale. And like any normal group, the politicians will spend every penny they get their hands on. Nothing will be banked for a rainy day, so to speak.

But they'll make exceptions for a crisis, you say?

Well, define a crisis.

Let's look back a year, shall we? Remember? What was the big crisis a year ago? Universal Health Care! Remember? The President, the Speaker of the House, the Leader of the Senate, the water carrying media all told us that universal health care was a crisis. The most serious crisis this country has ever faced. They were willing to eviscerate the Constitution to pass the Health Care Reform bill. 'Cause it was a crisis. Did it feel like a crisis to you? Yeah, me neither. But that didn't stop the Dems from ramming the disaster of a bill through. 'Cause it was a crisis, they said.

The party in power defines a crisis.

Yeah, but they'll have checks and balances to prevent something that petty or political, you say?

Okay. Let's say they put teeth in the bill, some sort of super majority vote for an override or something. There's always a couple of wackos in Congress that won't vote for anything. I'm looking at you Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, etc. So now we're back to square one -- no money for the disaster.

The other problem here is that Republicans are feeling their oats because they control the House right now. And they are assuming they'll take the Senate and possibly the White House in two years. And they're licking their chops at using this amendment to gut liberal/socialist programs they don't like.

Okay, to the victor goes the spoils. But everything is a pendulum. Eventually, the Dems will get back in power. Then it's payback time. And don't think they won't miss a chance to erase conservative programs to get their pet projects back online. If you think politics is a game of gotcha now, it'll be on steroids with a balanced budget amendment at their disposal.

The federal government needs to behave with restraint and common sense. But it also has to have the freedom to run a deficit when the needs of the country demand it. The solution is to vote in responsible legislators and ride them hard. Remind them that they are our employees, not our kings or our superiors. If they act up, vote their asses out. Eventually they'll get the message. But until then this budget amendment is not the way to go.




And since I suspended Rule 5 Sunday out of respect for the Easter holiday. I present Rule 5 Monday featuring the one of my favorite obsessions -- Rose McGowan

*click on the thumbnails for a full-sized image*


Rule 5 Sunday suggested by this.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Happy Easter



Happy Easter to everyone.

Today, no kvetching, no griping or snarkiness, no Rule 5 pretty girls. Just thoughts of peace and rebirth and hopes for a better world for us and our children and those yet unborn.

Friday, April 22, 2011

This is what constitutes bullying?

So in a story that is roundly being called bullsh*t by pretty much everyone, including the young lady in question, Emma Watson was rumored to have left Brown University because of bullying by other students.

It was said that whenever she answered a question correctly in class, some smartass would blurt out "Three points for Gryffindor!" in an incredibly lame mocking of her role in the Harry Potter films.

As I said, everyone agrees the story is a total load, and even Emma herself has gone public to say nothing of the sort happened while she was at Brown.

What got me stirred up were comments made on various celebrity blogs about the incident, including lots of "...you've never been bullied, so how would you know?" and "I've been bullied and it's not a laughing matter..." and so on.

Boy, would I like to get a time machine and take these pantiwaist lace dandies back in time to show them what bullying really is.

It's not snarky comments about your shoes, or your Facebook page, it is getting your ass kicked on a daily basis. It is getting your belongings stolen once a week. It's having the largest guy on the football team toss you around like a rag doll every day before gym class because not only are you the smallest kid in class, you are also the slowest and can't run away. And on and on.

Boy, have we raised the biggest bunch of pansy sissies this country has ever seen. No wonder these losers want a gigantic nanny state government to do everything for them. These p*ssies are afraid of their own shadows.

Pathetic!

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

I guess it's an anniversary...

...of sorts. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was one year ago. And the local media outlets are in full angst about the horrors of what happened. Bringing up pics of oil soaked birds and oily splotches on beaches, etc. Though none of that actually happened around here.

And the rallying cry is to not allow a few months of sun and nice weather to cause us to forget what happened a year ago.

Well, I haven't forgotten . . .

I haven't forgotten that for two months the President did nothing buy play golf and take his wife out on date nights on the public dime while oil gushed into the Gulf.

I haven't forgotten that for two months the President refused help from countries around the world who offered aid and technologies to contain the oil spill.

I haven't forgotten that for two months the President ignored the pleas for help from the Gulf state Governors while millions of gallons of oil gushed into the Gulf.

I haven't forgotten that for two months the President demagoged Republicans and oil companies and did nothing substantive to stop the oil gushing into the Gulf.

I haven't forgotten that the only reason BP was drilling way out in water deeper than anyone has ever drilled before, was because the President and the Democrats refused to allow them to drill in shallower water where drilling technologies are safer and more reliable.

Yeah, I haven't forgotten.



So I see where NASA is looking for other things to do since the whole "space exploration" thing is over now. They say that the Goddard Institute for Space Studies or GISS is going to work on climate data and associated stuff.

Yeah, that'll work out great. These are the same guys who never corrected their data for the Y2K bug, and have generally spent the last couple of years defaming the name "Goddard" with their slopsh*t studies and sloppy scientific methods.

What they really ought to be trying to figure out is how this Ke$ha chick can look like this one minute:



Then when she puts on a bikini, she looks like this:


'Cause that's some Jekyl and Hyde sh*t right there! I mean there has to be some sort of humanity saving device in there somewhere. That kind of transformation can't just happen, you know? If we could only harness that power for good . . .

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Claustrophobic

Just the other day, we had a tragic death hereabouts. A young woman, 22, died while cave diving in one of the northern counties. My thoughts and prayers go out to her parents.

That whole cave thing never clicked with me.

I've seen the pictures and have heard spelunkers and cave divers talk about the otherwordliness of going in caves. But I cannot get over the "trapped" sensation it brings up in me.

Ever see The Descent? Very good horror flick (the sequel kind of sucked), but that part where the chick gets wedged in a tight passage and can't go backward or forward and starts to freak out? Yeah, that's me, only multiply that by a million!

The pitch blackness...don't know what you're putting your hands on...bugs...creepy, crawlies...and once you get down to where you're going, you still have to crawl your way back out.

Nope. Not getting it.

And the funny part? When we were kids, we used to bury each other all the time. Grab a couple of shovels, go out to an empty field, dig a hole and one of us would jump in and we'd bury him up to his neck. And I'd do it to. Never had a problem with it.

Looking back, I'm like . . . "Wha...?!" Even typing this is making me wonder just how stupid/bored we must have been at the time.

jeez





Also, that rumble you felt was the world reacting to the news that Evan Rachel Wood has admitted she's bisexual.

Yeah, me too.

This is me yawning.

Can you find me an (airquote)actress(/airquote) who isn't bisexual these days?

Honestly, could you find an actress who wouldn't do a lesbian love scene anymore?

The only personal information I need about Ms. Wood is how she managed to date Marilyn Manson for all those years.

*shudder*


Here's my thing -- I don't really care about anyone's sexual orientation. I don't care what lifestyle you chosen for yourself. Just quit beating me over the head about it. Please.

If gays and lesbians really want so desperately to fit in and be accepted, quit going to such lengths to rub everyone's faces into your choices.

Just do your thing and act like it's no big deal . . . and it won't be.

Isn't that what you want?

Monday, April 18, 2011

So, explain ethanol to me again . . .



As gas prices have shot over $4 per gallon again, I and everyone else are looking at why gas costs so much. One of the things that vexes me is ethanol.

Isn't it supposed to be cheaper than gasoline made from crude oil?

I currently get my gas at SUNOCO mostly because the other stations on my way to work are like "Jeff's gas 'n go" and places like that. You know the ones that sell gas you can't light with a match?

Anyway, SUNOCO currently advertises that it is at most, 10% ethanol. So why is it the same price as other gasolines? Shouldn't it be cheaper? I thought that, along with the whole "home grown fuel" thing was supposed to make it desireable.

That E85 stuff is cheaper, at least according the the E85 website. But only 16% less than conventional gasoline.

So let me see if I've got this right -- it takes 85% ethanol to only reduce the price at the pump by 16%? And we're paying farmers subsidies to grow this stuff, which raises our taxes and increases the debt/deficit? And ethanol doesn't burn cleaner and is actually less efficient (less energy delivered per gallon burned). So why are we using it again?

We have enough coal shale/sands here and in Canada to create enough coal-to-liquid synthetic crude to dwarf what Saudi Arabia has. That would eliminate our dependence on foreign oil, create millions of jobs here and in Canada. The coal-to-liquid synthetic produces a barrel of oil for around $30. We're currently paying the terrorist-friendlies in the Middle East over $100 per barrel.

Gee, think what that would do to gas prices. Think what we could do with a minimal tax added to that cheap gasoline. You know, fund all those fabulous programs the libs are wetting their panties over.

So why aren't we doing this again?




And here we have Michael Bay's nose thumb to the troublesome Megan Fox -- Rosie Huntington Whiteley strolling around town in the sort of dress only a supermodel can get away with.

Actually, the whole outfit has a sort of WTF about it.

If she pulls off her role in the new Transformers movie, that plus the last couple of clunkers Megan's turned out should be about the end of Fox's movie career. Not that I'm rooting for that, but perhaps when she gets another chance, she'll be a tad less arrogant about herself and her chosen line of work.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Talladega today and stuff

Congrats to Jimmy Johnson for what is tied for the closest victory at 'Dega since the introduction of electronic timing. I'm not actually a Johnson fan, but it wasn't Carl Edwards, so I'm okay with it.

Yeah, I know, Edwards drives for Roush/Fenway, and I should be a fan 'cause of the Red Sox connection . . . sorry, not gonna happen. Dude just doesn't do it for me.

I sprung for NASCAR's TrackPass thingy. It's about $80 for the season and I suppose would have made more sense picking it up earlier on. But it is kind of a fun addition to watching the race on tv.

Listened to in-car audio of Tony Stewart, and picked a handful of guys to keep tabs on during the race with the tracking stats stuff. All pretty cool. Having the communication stuff going on at the same time as the tv announcers took some getting used to. But hey, it's the information age. Right?

My only complaint was the track position/driver telemetry crapped out about two thirds of the way through the race. If it happens next race, someone's gonna get a pointed e-mail.

======

Speaking of the Sox, nice to see them win two in a row. Kids were digging a bit of a hole to start the season. Still in last place. But as a life-long Sox fan, I can handle a few bumps in the road.

Rule 5 Sunday -- Tara Reid

My first Rule 5 posting at the new home is Tara Reid.

Tara got herself in the news a little while back for dropping the story that she would be starring in the upcoming remake to The Big Lebowski.

Of course, that came as quite a shock to the directors of the classic original, the Coen Brothers, since no such thing was in the works. They responded with a surprising amount of class and some humor by saying they couldn't wait to see the flick, and indeed, anything with Tara in it.

Tara herself, had some fun with the gaffe, doing a Funny or Die video of the original with her doing all the parts.

The images here are from an old FHM photoshoot, and remind that before she became the poster girl for botched liposuction and riding the crazy train, Tara Reid was pretty much a hotty.

*click on the images for full sized pictures*





Rule 5 Sunday suggested by http//rsmccain.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-get-million-hits-on-your-blog-in.html

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Movie review -- Devil


Watched this movie on pay-per-view late last night and thought I'd share my thoughts on it.

When I saw it was written by M. Night Shyamalan I was worried since he's turned out a string of clunkers since Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. *groan* Don't even get me started on The Village.

But he did not direct this one, and that may be saving grace here. The story is very simple -- five people are trapped in an elevator, one of them may be the Devil himself, there to collect souls he wants. The question is which one is he?

The temp security guard with a backround in violence? The smarmy salesman with a history of rip-off schemes? The old lady pick pocket? The young hotty who marries for money then divorces? The mysterious guy in the hoody? Or is Satan simply hiding out in the elevator waiting to claim their souls? It really isn't clear until close to the end, and I like that. With such a small group to pick from it is difficult to keep things going in such a way that you're not sure. Shyamalan did this well in Sixth Sense, and pulls it off here.


The action starts the first time the lights go out. There's a sound, is it a growl, then the lights go on, and the hotty has a bite mark on her back. From there, in the claustraphobic setting, the passengers turn on one another. One by one they die, horribly, until only two are left. Is it the obvious one or the other? I was guessing right up until it was disclosed. Nice.

Outside the elevator is more characters and drama. There's the detective seemingly picked to investigate what's happening by chance. He's investigating a suicide when the call comes in. We learn his wife and child were killed by a hit-and-run driver 5 years before, who left a note on the back of a car wash coupon saying "I'm so sorry" he subesquently tried to drink himself to death and is currrently recovering from that.

The detective is dating a hot little CSI chick, his partner is non-descript save his porn star mustache. There's two security guards at the building watching what happens in the elevator, one of whom is hispanic and turns out to be the narrator of the movie.

That bit turns out to be both important and leads to one of the things I liked about the movie. The hispanic guy tells the detective about how his mother told him a bedtime story about how the Devil would come to claim souls. He's dismissed as a kook by everyone until things continue to escalate to the point where the detective begins to think there might be something to it. The guy tells him that everyone, including the detective, is there, watching, for a reason. But what is the reason?

It's good stuff right to the end. Except the end. Which I would have done differently. The closing scene was too sappy, something I've noticed in other movies by Shyamalan, he just can't pull the trigger on hardcore. Pity.

But what I liked -- the opening montage was shot with a simple camera trick that set the tone. A trick so simple, I wonder why it hasn't been used before. The carnage in the elevator is shot using the Blair Witch tactic -- screen goes black, sound effects, screaming, and then the lights go on and you see what just happened. It's done to excellent effect.

Also, the idea of having the two security guys watching what happens on the elevator's camera was a nice touch of helplessness. And, I mentioned earlier, one bit I liked was at one point, as the guys are watching, the lights go out, and the hispanic guy thinks he sees an image of Satan in the monitor. The other guy thinks he's nuts, but when the video is rewound, there it is. They could have gone for the Mulder and Scully effect where only one partner sees the creepy stuff and the other thinks his partner is nuts. I hate that! The security guard even shows the image to the detective to make his point about what's happening. It's a little detail, but something that made the movie more enjoyable to me.

None of the current rage of rapid fire jump cuts, no shaky cam, just well done straight forward shooting, editing, and directing. Like I said, the answer here might be to keep Shyamalan out of the director's chair from now on. Let someone else interpret his vision. Cast with a few relatively familiar faces, mostly bit part actors, the only name I could call out was Bokeem Woodbine, who seems relegated to small parts after bursting on the scene some years ago. Pity. I love the guy's voice.

All in all, I was pleasantly surprised by this movie and would recommend it to anyone who likes horror/mystery type flicks. There's a bit at the bottom of the movie poster about The Night Chronicles beginning. Perhaps this is the first of more edgy stuff from Shyamalan. If he continues down this road, he may just restore his reputation a bit in the industry. And as a fan of horror movies, I'd be pleased to see some new ideas on the screen.


This is a reprint of a post on my old blog at Blogstream. I've a couple of others I'll be moving over here, just because I don't want to lose them.


Did you find this review helpful? Check out my other reviews for my thoughts on the flicks and the occasional gallery of hotness that accompanies them:



Friday, April 15, 2011

'Cause the Times never prints my letters - part 998

The St. Pete Times is a shamless liberal rag. And the only way to get a letter to the editor published is to be one of their chosen liberal toadies or to start with some Charles Johnson-esque b.s. about how you cannot be a conservative/republican in good conscience any longer, blah, blah, blah . . .

In today's B section, noted hand wringer Sue Carlton had her semi-weekly rant against proponents of the 2nd Amendment.

Today's shriekfest was about a state law proposed to prevent legal holders of a concealed weapons permit from being arrested if their carry weapon can be seen beneath their clothes.

Of course, to Ms. Carlton's mind, the law is intended to turn the state into some sort of wild west show, with citizens carrying sixguns on thier hips in holsters tied to their legs like in some movie. Which of course no one is actually proposing. But that doesn't stop her and fellow pantiwaist Daniel Ruth from assuming the worst case scenario.

Ms. Carlton has an excellent track record in such things. She filled pages with dire warnings about the streets running red with blood if the original concealed carry law was passed. And naturally nothing happened.

Despite her attempt to portray herself as no "enemy" of legal firearm owners -- she published the boilerplate nonsense about growing up in a household with guns . . . her father taught her how to shoot . . . etc., she's on repeated record with attempts to reduce the rights of law abiding citizens when it comes to their 2nd amendment rights.

She believes doctors have every right to ask patients about owning firearms prior to prescribing an aspirin . . . but is against giving personal identification info to the state when she uses a large bill to pay for a highway toll (the idea was to curb counterfeit bill passing).

She believes the paper should publish a list of concealed carry permit owners and firearm owners so that Floridians can feel safe in their homes knowing private information about their law abiding neighbors . . . but doesn't think a father should know if his 13 year old daughter is down at the free clinic getting an abortion because it's a privacy issue.

Just more of the Time's typical hysterical hyperbole on the issue of 2nd amendment issues.




And Miley Cyrus is doing her bit to burnish her reputation by stating that she's going to kick off her world tour in South America or Australia or some place where "she's getting love" from her fans. As apposed to the U.S. where she apparently doesn't feel loved . . . much.


Hmmm . . .


Guess we won't be getting much of these demure stage outfits here until she decides we like her again: