Category: Uncategorized

I was actually surprised by this. Sure, it’s no secret that the Vikings offense can explode from time to time, but I expected the defense to wilt under the pressure of the hammer that is Priest Holmes. Skoal Vikings! This season has been a pleasant surprise, regardless of how it turns out, and I hope that our insane owner will not go off the deep end and fire Mike Tice. The guy may not be a rocket scientist, but considering how the geniuses of the league have fared of late, he increasingly appears to be a solid coach. Anything short of one more year would not be a fair shake.

It will be interesting to see if he can further strengthen the defense without the benefit of George Leary. Strange season this year, setting up for a playoffs that could be one of the most difficult to predict in years. Right now, Rams and Eagles look tops in the NFC – both look better than the other at home – and I like the way the Colts are playing, but I don’t like them at New England in December.

I love THIS game.

I received an email from a Democrat who’s running for the Arizona Senate. I can’t believe I’m going to write this, but if I lived there, I honestly think I’d vote for her. AZ Republicans and Libertarians, check out this out:

“I am a stanch gun rights defender who scores 100% regularly with the GOA. I believe in the right of freedom of speech, even speech which is unpopular. I believe in withdrawing from NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO, and believe American sovereignty should remain sacrosanct against the flood of international bodies. And I pledge to uncover the truth about all POW’s no matter how many military brass and politicians are embarrassed by the facts. I will be a legitimate maverick to the Washington establishment, instead of being bosom buddies with them. I believe the authority of Washington must be severely curtailed. Additionally, I support the elimination of both the wage tax and the IRS. You might find it difficult to believe that I am a Democrat. But I am. My name is Liz Michael.”

Sure, she’s probably lying, but considering that the alternative is John McCain, I’d sure take a flyer on her.

AG writes: Hey, I’m trying to use OpenOffice to make the alphabet and phonics slides like you suggest. Actually, it’s something that I have been wanting to do for a long time but have been spurred on by your article. Also, the fact that I was reading at age 3, and my daughter will soon be 4 and is not reading yet…well, this shames me into finally working with her more diligently and with more purpose. I also have a two year old son that I can start with, and another infant daughter that can be taught before too long. Anyway, are you aware of a way to randomize an OpenOffice presentation? Being such a proponent of open source, I would hope that you could provide a link to such a method.

I’m working on learning about this now, but unfortunately the list of OO macros did not include an Impress random slideshow. If anyone knows about one, let me know. In the meantime, I’ve been cheating – one of my old machines is booted to Windows specifically to use Powerpoint with the random macro added. But I’ll get there with OO Impress, it just might take a little work first. To be honest, it hasn’t been a real priority.

Ramesh Ponnuru of NRO writes: In several recent debates, various conservatives have been accused of betraying their professed commitment to federalism. The accusations have sometimes come from liberals, but more often from libertarians and other conservatives. It’s no use replying to the liberals that they are no respecters of federalism themselves; since federalism is not part of their political creed, violations of it are not betrayals of principle. But many libertarians say they believe in federalism too. So it has been possible for the conservatives in the dock to accuse the libertarians of hypocrisy right back. If the accusers were right in each of these instances, one would have to conclude that a true federalist would oppose each of the following:

All right, let’s see just how big a hypocrite this Christian Libertarian happens to be….

federal tort reform

I don’t know enough about this to have an opinion. Certainly, the current court system is a disaster. But I don’t understand how it could be hypocritical to reform the federal courts. Those are the courts with which I’m primarily concerned.

federal legislation to restrict state taxes on the Internet

I’m for anything that restricts taxes of any kind. Also, a detailed perusal of Federal and state tax regulations shows that many states have signed over their income taxing authority to the Federal government, as well as a number of other taxes. This is why the amount of your state income tax is derived from your Federal income tax. It is also why you probably do not owe state income tax, if you are not liable for the Federal tax. I think Ramesh needs to do more homework on this one before listing it here.

a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage

For it. But the Supreme Court has already federalized the question. I don’t understand how, once the issue has been made federal by the Left, the Right is supposed to throw its hands up and surrender. Rolling it back to the states is preferable, to be sure.

federal laws against medical marijuana

against it

federal legislation to combat rape in state prisons

No opinion.

federal bans on partial-birth abortion and cloning

If there is a federal ban on murder, then it seems easy enough to justify the abortion ban by simple definition. I’d rather leave cloning up to the states.

Roe v. Wade

against it

a federal ban on some kinds of state broadband regulation

against it

a federal ban on state laws criminalizing sodomy

against it

Interesting, to see how the Libyan colonel has been quick to ditch his WMDs subsequent to Hussein’s capture, in a manner that ensures he’ll find favor with the West. You’d think this would have some impact on a certain former student of dentistry in Syria, although I can’t imagine it will make any difference at all to the mullahs in Iran. They are already tottering, and giving way on this sort of thing would almost certainly finish them off as the only thing they have going for them is that their people are still afraid.

People ruled by dictators are like sharks. Once they scent weakness, it isn’t long before someone is strung up by their feet. Sic semper tyrannis.

What I don’t understand is this dreadful urge to rule over other people. It seems that if you study the life of almost any dictator, you learn that it is only a matter of time before they begin retreating into seclusion, driven their by their fear of those to whom they know they are doing wrong. Castro appears to be an exception to this, but any man who wants to give speeches lasting nine hours is clearly already off his gourd.

I’ve been going on and on about McNabb being overrated ever since the initial ESPN blow-up. I have not changed my mind in the least, nor will I, even if the Eagles win the Super Bowl. Want to go there? Fine, now use that argument on behalf of Trent Dilfer. In light of these ludicrous surveys, I’d like to point out a salient fact. THERE ARE AT LEAST 23 OTHER PLAYERS INVOLVED IN THE RESULTS OF AN NFL GAME!

ESPN asks: Who should be the NFC Pro Bowl QB?

62.6% – Donovan McNabb

15.5% – Matt Hasselbeck

12.4% – Brett Favre

09.6% – Daunte Culpepper

Unbelievable. Obviously, the secret to being considered an NFL great is to a) play in the NFC East; b) play for a top playoff team; c) have a great defense. This isn’t a race deal – the massively underrated Culpepper is black and Favre, a white media favorite, has been overrated for the last two years. At least Steve McNair is finally getting his due – although Manning will rightly win this year’s MVP.

Culpepper: 257/397 64.7% 3022 yds 7.6 avg 21 TD 9 INT

D. McNabb 235/419 56.1% 2736 yds 6.5 avg 12 TD 9 INT

Daunte also has twice as many rushing TDs (4) as McNabb (2), and racked up his superior statistics while playing in two fewer games. So what could possibly account for the Eagles being three games up on the Vikings other than the greatness of McNabb? Perhaps the fact that the Eagles are sixth in scoring defense and give up 4.7 fewer points per game than the 24th-ranked Vikes might have a little something to do with it.

You know that Monday’s column is written on The Return of the King, right? Anyhow, it’s done and turned in.

A little Christmas humor from The Physics Geek.

Mulder: It’s judging them, Scully. It’s making a list.

Scully: Who? What are you talking about?

Mulder: Ancient mythology tells of an obese humanoid entity who could travel at great speed in a craft powered by antlered servants. Once each year, near the winter solstice, this creature is said to descend from the heavens to reward its followers and punish its disbelievers with jagged chunks of anthracite.

The X-Files. Gone, but not forgotten.

BC wonders: Why do you and so many others claim that we need to tie currency to some metal for value? Your argument seems to be that fiat currency has no basis in fact and has its value assigned arbitrarily. How is the value of the dollar any more arbitrary than the value of gold? Gold has value because people desire it. What happens if some day nobody wants gold? Also, there is a finite amount of gold in and on the earth. By enforcing some kind of precious metal currency standard, you would then be setting an upper limit on value, which capitalism doesn’t recognize. Basically, a gold standard system is no more contrived than fiat currency backed up by nothing more than the promise of a government to not go out of business.

I don’t see any time where people will take a mass of gold in payment for anything, so we would still have some form of paper currency, with some massive pile of metal somewhere in a secured building, where it isn’t doing anything terribly productive at all. And that paper currency would have a value based upon the amount of this metal that the government owns, and if the government goes belly up (one of the arguments that seems to be used against fiat currency) they have all the gold, and the guns to defend it, so you’re technically in the same place anyhow.

Unless you use the other argument against fiat currency, which is that tied to a standard, a government can’t just print more money for some purpose, nefarious or otherwise. Of course, since the value of everything will then be a fixed quantity, there would no longer be any such thing as an upwardly mobile middle class either. I just don’t see or understand any benefit to tying currency (which in itself is not an indicator of value, so much as an indicator of desire) to some metal that some people cherish and others just don’t give a damn about.

The reason that I and many others champion a gold-based currency is that we value human freedom and oppose government tyranny. BC’s first point is irrelevant, because there is no such thing as objective value. Value is subjective, and is independently determined, which is why the first thing a government does in establishing a paper currency is to ban all competitors. An objective value is forced upon many who would otherwise value it at zero. Here, we must accept the the worthless paper debt instruments as valid – you cannot refuse to accept a Federal Reserve Note for any debt, public or private. As to the mass of gold argument, that is silly, as there are already numerous private technological solutions such as e-gold; a government’s refusal to pay its gold debts would likely destroy it as well as its economy. That’s one reason why governments hated the gold standard in the first place.

However, BC does glimpse the real issue. The amount of gold increases very slowly, as opposed to the massive inflationary increases in the money supply which are revealed in the national debt and the M3 money supply – not the fraudulent CPI – and are inevitable in any paper money system. Paper money always fails and becomes worthless in the end, the only question is when the end will arrive. The important thing about gold – or an alternative metal – is that it prevents the steady increase in central government power created by this inevitable inflation. The notion that there would be no middle class without inflation is bizarre – the value point is irrelevant, as above – and the middle class itself developed prior to the establishment of the current fiat regime. In fact, the position of the middle class has been greatly weakened, as only the addition of a second income has allowed most middle class households to remain where they were fifty years ago. (There’s a good study on this somewhere, I’ll try to find it. Basically, the increase in taxes which stem from inflation eat up the entire second income so the disposable income has remained approximately the same. Of course, easy debt has allowed many to live beyond their means, but at a price.)

In short, gold is the ultimate weapon of financial freedom and an important foundation of economic and political freedom as well. The USA has profited greatly by suckering billions of dollars daily out of the poor fools buying our debt, but eventually foreigners will wake up to the fact that they’ve been robbed by the unconscionable counterfeiting. Some factors indicate that this is already beginning to happen. I suspect that we’ll all own million-dollar homes before this comes to pass, though.

I would love to hear your official review of “Return of the King”. I am headed to the theaters this evening and though I’ve heard some hype,… I would love to hear the opinion of an avid Tolkien reader. Insights? Favorite parts? True to the story?

First, it bears repeating again that no one but Peter Jackson could/would have made these films properly. It is tremendously difficult to successfully port a story from one medium to another, and even JRR Tolkien considered his books to be unfilmable. In the hands of a less-skilled or less-devoted director – such as the joker who infamously declared that he didn’t need to bother reading Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers before directing the lousy film version – these movies could have been terrible. But they weren’t, instead they are without a doubt the greatest movie trilogy ever made.

SERIOUSLY, IF YOU WANT TO DISCOVER THESE THINGS FOR YOURSELF, SKIP THE REST OF THIS POST

The Return of the King is absolutely faithful to the spirit of the story. It is reasonably close to the letter, although even 3 hours and 20 minutes did not allow for many details, most small, some large. I found it interesting to learn that Peter Jackson disliked the anticlimactic Scouring of the Shire; I always hated that myself and believed that it should have been a separate, more detailed book. So, the fact that it is left out does not bother me in the least. Nor does the much-discussed omission of Saruman bother me, as subsequent to his defeat at Helms Deep and Isengard, he is largely extraneous to the story. But Jackson does not forget him; he’s not ignored and it’s quite clear why we’re not seeing him in this edit.

There are fewer moments that jar one out of the movie in this third episode. The too-modern bits of dialogue are more restrained, Gimli is less laughable – although he has a mordant line that is quite amusing – and Aragorn rightly assumes his royal persona with believable angst and reluctance. He is strangely weaker in this third film, and yet it is somehow fitting that he is not so much the Man on the White Horse as the man who humbly, but with determination, does what his duty requires of him. Only a true king can comport himself as he does in one of the film’s most beautiful scenes, when like an angel who knows his authority comes from God, he refuses the adulation of the hobbits and honors the Ringbearer and his companions by kneeling to them instead.

As a movie, the great triumph of The Return of the King is that it is a better action movie than most action movies, and yet has more emotional depth and power than any drama or chick flick. Even its horror, though less frightening than a good horror movie, is palpable. This list of likes and dislikes is trivial in comparison with the success of The Return of the King as a fully satisfying conclusion to the epic three-part movie.

WHAT I DID NOT LIKE

1. Faramir was one of my favorite characters in the books. He is markedly less noble here, although most of the damage was already done in The Two Towers. His heroism, as well as his admiration for his older brother, does not come across well.

2. Denethor was an epic tragic figure in the books. Here, he comes off as petty and vindictive; a crazy man, not a great man crazed by the loss of his beloved son. The handling of the Denethor-Faramir relationship was probably the biggest disappointment to me, aside from Liv Tyler’s unaccountably tepid Arwen. She’s beautiful, but bland, bland, bland.

3. Horses don’t charge for over a mile. They also don’t charge walled positions. Silly. This happened several times.

4. The Great Sleepless Eye as spotlight. Sauron can see across Middle Earth, but not through a rock right in front of it? What was that? Minor, but very weird.

5. The tiny size of the Army of the West, and the way it gets surrounded. Ever heard of a defensive square, gentlemen? Or better yet, a fighting withdrawal using the seven hills of the book? It didn’t make sense and it wasn’t dramatic. Again, minor, but a strangely inept touch. The same sort of thing happened when Eomer’s riders surrounded Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli. If you crowd too much, no one can do anything. What was the point? Yes, they’re surrounded. We get it. Oh, they’re really, really, really surrounded? Come on.

6. Elrond’s reduction in stature. I’d prefer to have seen him remain aloof, even bitter.

7. The siege of Gondor seemed rushed. I thought the siege of Helms Deep came off more powerfully.

8. Aragorn seemed rather lacking in authority when he confronted the dead. He was such a stud taking on the Nazgul and the orcs; I found this a little surprising and disappointing.

THINGS I REALLY, REALLY LIKED

1. The Riders of Rohan were perfect. Theoden’s transformation from deceived victim to triumphant victor was great. His line about being able to enter the Hall of his Fathers without sorrow or shame brought tears to my eyes. I loved Theoden in the books, loved him even more in the movies.

2. I had my doubts about Eowyn. While the actress didn’t quite fit my mental picture of her, she gradually grew on me. In The Return of the King, she comes into her own. I hope we’ll see more of her and Faramir in the extended DVD.

3. The charge of the Rohirrim. Yes, they didn’t fight the Oliphaunts in the books. No, it made little tactical sense considering their superior speed. But holy cats, it was so freaking cool!

4. Legolas rules, again.

5. The devotion to the close relationships of the hobbits. Some may have felt that the ending(s) was too drawn out, but I say no. These four had been through Hell and back, been irreparably changed – even maimed – and a quick Hollywood wave-and-ride-into-the-sunset would have been wrong, wrong, wrong. I never found Frodo terribly interesting in the books, but Elijah Woods did an outstanding job of bringing him to life. By the end, I wanted to weep with Sam.

6. The last fight with Gollum was much better than I imagined it could be.

7. The horrors of war and its effects on the women and children was tremendously powerful in each movie. The grief of the women and children as their men rode out on Faramir’s hopeless charge on Osgiliath was overpowering. Also great was the constant reminders that the men were fighting to protect those they loved. They rode willingly to die, that their loved ones might live.

8. The power of the Nazgul ripping apart the retreating cavalry of Gondor.

9. Grond. It WAS Grond, nightmarish and terrifying.

10. The crotchety old hobbit glaring at the returning heroes, as he did at Gandalf before. There is the unconquerable strength of The Shire. He who refuses to be impressed by the glamour of the great will never lick the boots of a tyrant.

11. The final scene. Sheer perfection. In a hole in the ground….

I hope Peter Jackson does make the Hobbit. For that matter, I hope he tackles Silmarillion one day, that chaotic concoction of invented history. If my books were ever to be made into movies, I wouldn’t want anyone else directing them. He has set the platinum standard for turning literature into cinema. What a tremendous accomplishment. More than anything, I feel a deep and personal gratitude for his tremendous, unprecedented commitment to the epic vision of JRR Tolkien.

I think John Rhys Davies said it best, a dwarf speaking with the wisdom of the Valar. “I think that Tolkien says that some generations will be challenged. And if they do not rise to meet that challenge, they will lose their civilization.”

The Lord of the Rings is truly a saga for its time. 11 out of 10.