Author: VD

Why the Wachowskis suck

There is a simple explanation for why the second and third Matrix movies were so bad, and why the Wachowskis haven’t been able to produce a movie that is one-tenth as intriguing as the original The Matrix. They aren’t genuine storytellers and The Matrix wasn’t their story, they were ripping off a comic book that served as the graphic storyboard for the first movie.

In 1999, The Matrix came out and blew everyone away with its insane action sequences, revolutionary cinematic techniques and, most of all, a mind-fucking plot that left the head of every viewer filled with intense philosophical questions.

What It’s Suspiciously Like:

The Invisibles, a cult comic book series created by Grant Morrison, is basically about a group of individuals who fight the establishment because the establishment is secretly keeping people dumb and hiding the fact that reality is an illusion. Turns out that the “real world” is ruled by horrifying insect-like demons. One more thing: The Invisibles debuted in 1994….

The Wachowskis have never acknowledged The Invisibles as an influence, even though they had invited the comic’s creator Grant Morrison to contribute a story for their website. Morrison — who actually liked The Matrix — says he “was told by people on the set that Invisibles books were passed around for visual reference.” His reaction to the second and third movies? “They should have kept on stealing from me.”

The real problem with Hollywood isn’t the lack of creativity among those responsible for making movies. The real problem is the ridiculous pretensions of those who are technically skilled movie makers to be something that they are not, which is storytellers. At its root, the inability of the Wachowskis to give proper credit and continue to utilize Grant Morrison’s storytelling abilities is no different than James Cameron stealing from Harlan Ellison or Peter Jackson and Philippa Boyens crapping all over Tolkien with their idiotic dialogue additions and “feminine energy”. Their pride, narcissism, and incapacity for understanding their limits causes them to produce movies that are much worse than they would be if they would simply focus on their cinematic craft and leave the story construction to the storytellers.

The issue here isn’t IP legalities, but the intrinsic stupidity of trying to claim an idea that wasn’t yours as your own. It’s foolish, because everyone is going to realize that the first idea wasn’t yours just as soon as you’re forced to come up with a second idea and it becomes obvious that you’re completely incapable of doing so.

Republican VP pick

It’s supposedly down to three:

We can say with a high degree of confidence that Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential pick has largely come down to three men: former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. And it’s more than possible that Romney has already made up his mind. All three VP finalists bring something different to the table. Pawlenty is the loyal outsider, who would enable a Romney-Pawlenty ticket to run as former governors vowing to take on Washington; Pawlenty also potentially would add some blue-collar appeal to the ticket. Portman would be the insider, someone who knows the ways of Washington and who could help govern starting on Day 1. And Ryan would be the crusader, who wants to substantially transform America’s entitlement programs and who would excite a good portion of the GOP’s conservative base. Indeed, Ryan has emerged a VERY REAL possibility, but he also brings the most risk. If Romney selects him, it’s more than conceivable that the dominant campaign discussion in the fall won’t be the economy — but rather the deficit and Medicare. Of course, there was already a good chance the Ryan plan will get plenty attention regardless of Romney’s VP pick.

I don’t think it will be any of the three. I think it will be Rubio, despite his repeated denials of interest in leaving the Senate. Being a Republican and therefore fearful of raciss, Romney will want something to circumvent Obama’s inevitable portrayal of the Republican pair as two rich white guys. If it’s Pawlenty, he’s a joke and we’ll know Romney intends to tank the election. Ryan would be a more serious choice, but wouldn’t really buy Romney anything since people already assume Captain Underoos knows what he’s doing when it comes to financial rapine. Portman is a Bushnik and doesn’t bring Romney anything he doesn’t already have, so unless he’s got some sort of deal with the Houston Mafia, I can’t see him getting any real benefit out of that option.

So, I expect Rubio.

Immigrants and the economy

It is becoming increasingly clear that immigrants are not good for the economy, except in the pure Keynesian sense of requiring an increase in G:

Immigrants lag behind native-born Americans on most measures of economic well-being — even those who have been in the U.S. the longest, according to a report from the Center for Immigration Studies, which argues that full assimilation is a more complex task than overcoming language or cultural differences.

The study, which covers all immigrants, legal and illegal, and their U.S.-born children younger than 18, found that immigrants tend to make economic progress by most measures the longer they live in the U.S. but lag well behind native-born Americans on factors such as poverty, health insurance coverage and homeownership.

The study, based on 2010 and 2011 census data, found that 43 percent of immigrants who have been in the U.S. at least 20 years were using welfare benefits, a rate that is nearly twice as high as native-born Americans and nearly 50 percent higher than recent immigrants.

The report was released at a time when both major presidential candidates have backed policies that would make it easier to immigrate legally and would boost the numbers of people coming to the U.S.

The same pattern has been seen in Europe. Second generation immigrants are actually less inclined to work and more inclined to be radical about their home countries and cultures than the first-generation ones. While there is nothing about it in the linked article, they are also much more likely to commit criminal acts. Notice that the conclusion is something I have been pointing out for some time now: “full assimilation is a more complex task than overcoming language or cultural differences”.

It is, in fact, close to impossible even over three or four generations. As I have also previously noted, it takes hundreds of years to civilize an uncivilized people; this is why blacks are still behaving in social patterns that are clearly distinct from both native whites and immigrant whites, and if history is a reliable guide, they will for at least another 800 years even if there are no absolute genetic bars to it.

Most non-Anglo Americans have a very retarded and romantic attitude about immigration because their grandparents or great-grandparents were immigrants. First, they don’t understand how those nineteenth and early twentieth waves of immigration harmed the USA for the obvious reason that they don’t understand the Constitution or the English Common Law any better than their immigrant forebears from Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Scandinavia did. They may have the emotional attachment to the flag and the pledge of allegiance – the latter only created in 1892 – but they are not genuine Americans in the sense of having been born in a tradition of sovereign rebellion.

Second, they fail to understand the qualitative differences between the various waves of immigration. Immigrants from civilized European cultures were always going to be fundamentally different than those from semi-civilized and uncivilized societies.

Spanking is child abuse

But apparently chemical lobotomies are nothing more than good parenting:

The researchers found that doctor visits between 1993-1998 and 2005-2009 that involved a prescription of antipsychotic medication for children jumped sevenfold — from 0.24 to 1.83 per 100 people. For teens, 14 to 20 years old, the rate rose from 0.78 to 3.76 per 100 people, and for adults, it just about doubled, from 3.25 to 6.18 per 100 people….

Dr. Peter Breggin, a psychiatrist from Ithaca, N.Y., and an outspoken critic of widespread antipsychotic use in children, said these drugs damage developing brains

“We have a national catastrophe,” said Breggin. “This is a situation where we have ruined the brains of millions of children.” In controlling behavior, antipsychotics act on the frontal lobes of the brain — the same area of the brain targeted by a lobotomy, Breggin said. “These are lobotomizing drugs,” he added. “Of course, they will reduce all behavior, including irritability,” he said….

Between 2005 and 2009, controlling “disruptive behavior” accounted for 63 percent of the reason antipsychotics were given to children and almost 34 percent for adolescents, the researchers found.

To say nothing of what they do to long-term cognitive capacity. Between widespread chemical lobotomies and ubiquitous vaccines, I’m amazed that anyone still believes that medical “science” is genuinely focused on attempting to help children grow up to live healthy and productive lives.

It would be informative to know how these children on antipsychotics do on IQ tests before and after their brains are bathed in chemicals for years.

South African science

Lightning is raciss!

Following a spate of deaths from lightning in the province of Natal, Nomsa Dube of the Provincial Executive Council promptly called on the National Department of Science and Technology to investigate what causes lightning:

We will do an investigation and talk to the department of science and technology on what is the cause of the lightning, and if it only happened to the previously disadvantaged, as I have never seen any white people being struck by lightning.

At least Americans and Europeans will have the benefit of a nice object lesson in what happens when a civilized nation hands over the keys of government to the previously disadvantaged in South Africa. Certainly no one appears to have learned anything from the fate of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.

Send the Sikhs to safety

It seems that the Onion’s parody of Michele Bachmann’s fake response to the Wisconsin shootings wasn’t actually all that far off. Two-thirds of those killed weren’t Americans, which is why the savages are now attempting to attack the U.S. Constitution.

Top State Department officials including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been working behind the scenes to assuage Indian anger following the attack on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin over the weekend by an Army veteran and alleged former white supremacist.

Indian government officials and Sikh leaders across India were outraged by the attack that left 6 dead, including 4 Indian nationals, at a Sikh temple near Milwaukee and called on the U.S. to do more to protect Sikhs living in the United Sates. Clinton called Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna from her stop in South Africa Monday after Krishna criticized the U.S. for failed policies and a growing trend of violent incidents against religious minorities….

Protests broke out in several Indian cities in response to the news of the attack, some calling for stricter U.S. gun laws. Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal wrote to India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to urge the Indian government to press the Obama administration to do more to protect Sikhs living in the U.S.

First of all, the Secretary of State’s message to the Indians should be a very short and succinct one. “Fuck you, fuck your emigrants, and if they don’t like our gun rights, then they can go home to live in unarmed filth and fear among your rabid, feral dogs.”

No country has as many stray dogs as India, and no country suffers as much from them. Free-roaming dogs number in the tens of millions and bite millions of people annually, including vast numbers of children. An estimated 20,000 people die every year from rabies infections — more than a third of the global rabies toll.

If the Indians were willing to fight for their own freedom to carry guns, they could save tens of thousand of lives by simply shooting the feral dogs that attack them. But they’d rather run their mouths trying to interfere with how Americans live in the USA than do anything about the squalor, filth, and tyranny of their own country. The Obama administration should agree to protect the Sikhs by putting them on a plane back to India.

Mailvox: why Romney is better

MM explains why Romney would be preferable as president to Obama:

Romney must have some principals because despite theological differences Mormons tend to be law abiding and dedicated to their theology. Whereas Obama is a Muslim, Black Supremacy, Progressive. Liberal Buffoon. Romney has had success with Capitalism, Obama has never had a success with anything except politics. And unfortunately we have to defeat Obama so a “fifteenth choice” candidate like Romney is the only option. You have the right to prognosticate what evils Romney may bring into office with him. No doubt being human he will screw a few things up. Yet he will:

Not apologize to the haters of America that we deserve their hatred

Not admire the most virulent of Jihadists while angering our most important allies

Not block our chances of energy independence as drastically

Not allow amnesty for voter menacing or voter fraud

This is just a short list of some of the most obvious ways Romney will be so much less harmful than Obama.

Yes, because it is all the apologizing that is the real crisis facing America today. This isn’t damning with faint praise, this is underlining my case against Romney by defending with the very faintest of attempted justifications. As I said, if you’re still buying the “we must defeat Evil X with Evil Y” after the debacle of the George W. Bush years, you’re not merely wrong, you’re observably stupid.

The final survey:

Romney: 174 comments, 125 Likes
Obama: 106 comments, 82 Likes
Keen: 10 comments, 11 Likes

Conclusion: WND readers vastly prefer reading about politics to economics. Which is probably true of most readers on the nominal right side of the political spectrum, as their propensity for producing endless permutations of Team Red good! Team Blue bad! explains why Coulter, Breitbart, Me So Michelle, and the Mommyblogger are so popular.

Guess the title of next week’s column….

A pattern emerges

The Sikh temple shooter is nominally identified:

Authorities tell CBS News that the shooter behind the deadly massacre at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin Sunday has been identified as 40-year-old Wade Michael Page. Page previously served in the U.S. military, but was no longer on active duty, sources tell CBS News.

CBS News reports that Page enlisted in the Army in April 1992 and was given a less-than-honorable discharge in October 1998. He was last stationed in Fort Bragg, N.C., serving in the psychological operations unit.

Another shooting, another link to military psychology. Pure coincidence, I’m sure. I wonder how many more it will take before the Obama administration realizes that it doesn’t matter how many shootings take place, the American public isn’t going to accept gun control.

WND column

Willard is Even Worse

There is no question that Barack Obama, assuming that is his real name, is a bad president, a bad American and a bad man. Unfortunately, there are a number of reasons to believe that as bad as Obama has been, the Republican alternative being offered in November, Mitt Romney, will actually be a good deal worse.

It’s a mystery!

Massachusetts can’t figure out why its health care costs are growing:

Give Massachusetts credit for setting audacious health care goals. It took the lead in guaranteeing near-universal health insurance coverage for its residents, providing a template for the federal reforms to follow…. But when it comes to controlling health care costs, Massachusetts has no advantage, and in fact is starting behind most other states. Its costs are among the highest in the nation, and they have been growing in recent years at 6 percent to 7 percent while the economy has been growing at less than 4 percent.

The amusing thing about America’s left-liberals is that they are so “thoughtful” and “nuanced” and “complex” that they can’t see blatant causation when it is right in front of them. These are the sort of people who stare at a light, wonder what is meant by the red color, and then conclude that it must mean they are supposed to drive ahead. The subsequent car accident, of course, is nothing more than sheer happenstance and bad fortune.

Can you imagine if these jokers tried to run a restaurant?

“Bill, I’m confused. We’re serving more people, but for some inexplicable reason, we suddenly don’t seem to have enough food anymore.”