A good friend of mine passed along an editorial from the Star-Telegram. The premise is that, for this year’s election, political lines can be drawn on which movie reflects your beliefs, Fahrenheit 9/11 or The Lord of the Rings.

The full article is on the web, but requires you to register. Sorry, but it is free.

It got me thinking about my own views, as a “Bush/Tolkien” voter. Tollers was a terrible writer who worked most of his life on the true masterpiece that is LOTR. He was inspired by his experiences as a soldier in WWI and a father and community leader during WWII. It’s fairly easy to see the Nazi war machine between the lines, though he flatly denied a direct link. But, in view of our current struggle, LOTR seems to be very prophetic. The links between the fantastic world of Middle Earth and the reality of our Earth are hard to ignore.

We have Sauruman the White, who became drunk with power and built a proud and mighty army only to be crushed by the powers of good and left powerless and bitter, all bark and no bite. Did you happen to see Saddam’s court appearance? Talk about bitter and powerless.

The Ents are the main component in the battle against Sauruman, the “boots on the ground” if you will. Ents are slow and methodical, but have tremendous power. They did their best not to get involved in the war, but when their own land and people were attacked by the forces of Isengard, their wrath exploded against their enemy. The battle itself was short and very one-sided.

Sauruman’s realm of Isengard is torn apart during the battle. The remnants are left to be rebuilt by the Ents. These lumbering giants occupy the land to return its former beauty. They are the perfect candidates for reconstruction since their work ethic and stubborn resolve will keep them at the job until it’s finished. If you will recall, the Kerry camp has used the word “stubborn” quite a bit lately.

We mustn’t forget, though, that Sauruman was not enemy number one. No, he was just a tool being used by the real foe, Sauron. Funny thing about Sauron, he’s not so much a person as a force. He has no physical body. Instead he is embodied by his evil emissaries. We hear so much about the hunt for Osama, but experts say that capturing Osama will not be the end of Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda has no single body that can be killed, no head that can be removed.

Instead, the militant Islamic movement has thousands, maybe millions, of tireless terrorists. They toil away, living in the most rudimentary conditions, training with antiquated equipment and make shift weapons. And most importantly, they have no respect for life, not even their own. They would gladly throw their body at the enemy, even if they accomplish nothing more than building a ramp of death up the side of the walls of freedom. This picture is not as evident in the movie, but in the book, at the battle of Helms Deep, there was a real concern that the dead orcs would pile up high enough that the survivors could clamber up the pile of corpses and over the wall.

If nothing else, this is a thought provoking analysis that some high schooler can steal from my blog to use in a term paper.

Update:
See!! Check out this “expose” video. (Link via Apropos of Something)

There is a blog that I read daily, but it’s not on my list of “Daily Reads”. That is because I only read this blog to keep up on the tripe and lunatic propaganda that extreme liberal media mouths vomit onto the web.

Here is just such a pool of bile. It’s a video detailing the conspiracy of war by the aptly named “Right Wing” and the defense industry. Priceless.

Now honestly. If people are mentally malleable (a.k.a play-dough-brained) enough to believe a word of this, I’d prefer they didn’t vote. They are the manifestation of the argument AGAINST democracy that was popular in the 17th and 18th centuries (a la Thomas Hobbes).

“The most part are too busy in getting food, and the rest too negligent to understand.”

In other words, the general public is too stupid to elect it’s own government. Hmmm.

John Kerry presented well in the first debate last night. He was articulate, clear, and stayed on message. The message was not bad either. The only problem is the message was inconsistent with the last seven years of his own rhetoric.

If you’ve got sound on your computer and you have about 13 minutes to listen to several speech and interview clips, I STRONGLY encourage you to watch this video that chronicles the inconsistency of this candidate. This is not “spin”. This is not misrepresentation. This is 13 minutes of Mr. Kerry’s own words and in the end, it just doesn’t add up.

Windows Media Player (or compatible) required:

http://media1.stream2you.com/rnc/RNC091604.wmv

This is not a political blog, I swear. But the stuff in the media is just too funny to pass up lately.

I found a handbook for Senator Kerry to study before the debates so he can be straight on what his stance is on the the issues. (This stance is often “foragaints”.)

According to CNN, “Bush apparently leads Kerry in pre-debate poll.” … Apparently? As in 53 is apparently greater than 42?! Golly, with such well founded mathematic principals, it’s no wonder they’re the leader in left-wing balanced news coverage.

The article also says:

“Headed into their first face-to-face debate, President Bush appears to be leading Democratic Sen. John Kerry among likely voters, with a clearer edge among registered voters.”

OH! So you’re saying that non-registered voters are not quite as fond of Bush. WHO CARES!! Non-registered voters DON’t COUNT!!

By the way, the difference in percentage between the two polls “likely voters” and “registered voters” is less than the margin of error in the poll. Yaaay math!

Okay, quick. Look at the time and date on this post. I want it to be very clear that I am psychic!!

It’s Tuesday, September 28th, and I’m saying this now, not later when it actually happens.

Utilizing my cosmic, mystical, ethereal powers of seeing into the future, I am about to give you glimpse into the “yet-to-be”. Ready?

In the next 30 days, major media outlets will “marvel” at John Kerry’s “resurgence” in the “polls”. They will credit his “debate skills” and the fact that he is “winning over” Americans with his “firm stand” on Iraq and the economy.

It will happen. Also, everything that appears in quotation marks above will be entirely false and misleading.

The great OZ has spoken!

It’s a well established fact that John Kerry isn’t very good at making up his mind on an issue. But it turns out it’s not his fault.

I ran across a great article that chronicles John Kerry’s pattern of blaming others for his gaffes and mistakes. It also gives several examples of his wife doing the same thing. I recommend you read the whole article, but here’s a few clips.

A speechwriter was blamed for using the term “Benedict Arnold Companies” even though Kerry used the phrase 746 times.
A train conductor was blamed when the train failed to stop in Lawrence, Kansas for a scheduled rally.
A Secret Service agent was to blame (and called a “son of a bitch”) when John Kerry fell while skiing in Idaho.

When you think of China, I’ll be you think of The Great Wall, rich history, lush country sides, and lots of tea and rice. Right? I’m sure that’s what the International Olympic Committee was thinking of when they awarded the 2008 Summer Olympics to Beijing. I’m sure it will be an amazing specticle, especially concidering these facts:

China, the last “1st world” country still clinging to communism, has boomed economicly in the last few decades after opening it’s doors to western commerce and culture.

That is, except for religion. The Chinese government acknowledges imprisonling 3000 people for practicing religion. Most civil rights groups believe the true number is exponentially higher.

Oh, and don’t forget their “family” policy. In China, it is against the law to have more than one child. Because of this, most female children are aborted or killed after birth, since they can not carry on the family name. Women found carrying a second child are taken into government custody and given and abortion, whether they want it or not.

Okay, okay, so they’ve got some policy issues, but just look at their amazing technilogical progress!

China has nearly completed the biggest hydro-electric dam in the world, the mighty Three Gorges Dam. The project is to provide huge amounts of electricity and control flooding along the Yangtze river. The United States used a paltry 4.3 million cubic meters of concrete to create that silly little Panama Canal. The Three Gorges Dam contains 26.4 million!! An engineering master piece, right?

Well, maybe not. Since construction began, around 80 cracks have developed in the dam. Of course that’s only counting the cracks that are over 8 feet DEEP. Not all those silly surface cracks that are only 6 or 7 feet deep.

Almost two million chinese citizens will lose their homes and land when the dam and resevoir are complete. That’s roughly the population of the entire state of New Mexico. 40% of the people displaced by the dam will receive no compensation from the Chinese government.

Well, at least they’re got that flooding under control. Nope. The deforestation and massive earth moving project that rerouted the Yangtze River for the dam project has caused the flooding to get worse. Just a few days ago, the river and locks around the dam had to be closed because of flooding in the area. The concern now is that water will have to be released from the not quite finished dam. The deluge down stream is likely to devistate several villages.

Okay, well how about that Great Wall, huh? That’s a great piece of work. It must take a great country to build a wall like that! True. It took 1.8 million forced laborers back in 555 A.D., many of whom died in the process and some are actually entombed inside the wall. Funny. That’s the same number of people who homes are going to be under a lake. What a coincidence.

This web site didn’t render very well for me using Firefox, but you can still see the “Watch The Trailer” and “Buy The DVD” buttons, which are most important.

http://www.fahrenhype911.com/

By the way, Hollywood, do us all a favor and stay out of politics. You really don’t get it.

I’m not Rambo. I don’t think there’s a justifiable reason for a private American to own a fully-automatic machine gun or a grenade launcher. But I do own a hand gun. Now, with that said, let’s discuss the fire-arm-phobic media and some of the stupid things they say.

In the next week or so, a gun ban passed by President Clinton (under the shadiest of political circumstances) will expire, due to a congressional repeal of that ban. And the media is FREAKING OUT

The hype (this, from Reuters):
“The ban on such weapons as Uzis and AK-47s will expire at midnight next Monday unless Congress votes to renew it. …high-powered guns and large-capacity ammunition clips could flood America’s streets…”

The fact:
AK-47s and UZIs along with all other fully automatic weapons are covered by several other fire arm and crime laws. When the Clinton ban expires, AK-47s and UZIs will still be illegal. If fact, the Clinton ban is so poorly conceived that it does not cover many true assault rifles.

The hype (from Carolyn McCarthy, D-NY):
“The NRA is an extremely powerful group, there’s no two ways about it… [politicians] don’t want to tick them off two months before elections.”

The facts:
After the gun ban was passed in 1994, virtually every one of the legislators that voted for the ban was defeated in the biggest congressional land-slide election in history. If you think the NRA had the power to orchestrate the ’94 landslide, then you give them far too much credit. If that were true, McCarthy would surely not be in office to begin with. Sorry, Carolyn. It’s called democracy.

The hype (from Amy Sisley of Physicians for Social Responsibility):
“It is a health-care crisis… 90 percent of spinal cord injuries in the United States are caused by gunshot wounds.”

The facts:
Amy Sisley is either a complete idiot or she does not know how to read. What crack-smoking maroon would honestly believe that 90% of spinal injuries are caused by assault rifles?! Lady, have you been on a highway lately? Have you ever in your precious, sheltered life heard of a car accident?

The established facts are that a quarter of once percent of violent crimes in the US (that’s 1 in 400) involve weapons covered by the Clinton ban (and all of those weapons are already banned by other laws). Only 5% violent crimes (1 in 20) involve fire arms legal or otherwise. The vast majority of violent crimes are perpetrated with knives, blunt instruments, or bare hands.

Now, let’s consider that 95% of crimes that are committed without guns. What do you think would happen if victims of those violent crimes carried legal, licensed hand guns? Ever heard the phrase bringing a knife to a gun fight? Face it. Violent criminals are just not the smartest people. But even they are smart enough not to face down a gun when they’re holding a golf club.

How many crimes do you think are prevented every year by law abiding citizens who are willing and able to protect themselves from criminals by owning and being willing to use legal fire arms in their own defense? Unfortunately, that statistic is impossible to calculate, but pick up any gun magazine in any given month and you will read two or three letters to the editor by licensed gun owners telling of a crime that didn’t happen thanks to a legal, private fire arm. Seriously, try it!