Monday, November 30, 2009
Crystal Reports stinks
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Marc Bulger has a fractured Tibia
Toward the end of my session the announcement comes: Marc Bulger has a fractured Tibia. He is out for at least 3 weeks; maybe the season. Boomer cracked a wicked funny: "Well if Bulger is out, there goes the Rams' playoff spot." Of course, he is speaking of a 1-9 football team. I have never seen a 7-9 football team make the playoffs, so I am close to saying that is a mathematical impossibility.
I immediately asked Jeff, the owner/manager senior therapist, if he believed a man could come back from a fractured tibia in just 3 weeks. "Absolutely not", said Jeff, "I wouldn't let a guy run around or take a hit for at least 2 months after such an injury." You best believe Bulger is done for the season. I can do one better than that: Maybe Marc has thrown his last pass in a Ram uniform.
So why do I think Bulger is done? After about 26 injuries in 6 seasons, you have to say that the man simply does not have a body constructed for NFL football. It would have helped him a lot of he had an offensive line once upon a time, but he still does not have a body constructed for pro football. Bulger may have a nice throwing arm, but it never stays well for very long. Like Mr. Glass, he shatters at the slightest contact. At the end of the day, the Marc Bulger story makes us appreciate the importance of durability in assessing a QB prospect, or any NFL prospect. A similar story is currently unfolding with the Colts' own Bob Sanders. Hush your mouth, Dave, but something similar may also be unfolding with Troy Polamalu.
It should be noted that the 49er faithful are already scheming to acquire Bulger. He may have another job lined up soon. I wish him well, but I don't think it will work out. The Ram line has improved. The 49er line hasn't much improved. The prospects don't look good. He will have better weapons, but not better protection.
So here we go. The time has arrived. We now at the point where most Ram faithful expected us to be a little bit earlier. Bulger is out for the season. It is now Kyle Boller's watch. Show us what you've got kid. Do us proud. Let's win some games. Don't obsess about your performance. Just win baby. Remember what Al Davis told Jim Plunkett in 1980: It is not important whether you play well. It is important that we win games.
I know you don't have many weapons to work with, but we are going to fix that in the 2010 draft. Do your best, and we'll take it from there. Just be oportunistic. Look for chances to steal the game.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
What is so messy about the NFC playoff picture?
In the South, New Orleans now holds a 5 game lead over their next closest competitor. The Saints get week 12 off. They will have 2 weeks to prep for the New England Patriots, who have to come down to the Super Dome. Boy is that Dome going to be rockin'! The Saints could mathematically clinch their division with a huge victory over the Patriots. This game would show they are more than worthy to take on the Colts in the Super Bowl.
In the North, the #2 seed Vikings continue to hold a 3 game lead with just 6 games remaining. It will take them longer than the Saints to clinch, but not much longer.
In the West, the Cardinals just improved their lead to 3 games over the 4-6 49ers. Don't sweat the injury to Kurt Warner. He looked fine. They just didn't want to risk him. The Cards could be clinching the West pretty soon. Maybe as soon as 3 weeks.
This leaves us with the Cowboys, who maintain the shortest lead in the bunch: Just 1 game. They also have the Giants and the Eagles to contend with. Expect both the G-Men and Eagles to win those wildcard births. Green Bay continues to sputter.
There's nothing messy about the NFC Playoff picture
Saturday, November 21, 2009
I am becoming comfortable with the notion of Jevan Snead as our new Quarterback
For those of you who didn't see it today, Jevan engineered an upset over the #8 ranked LSU Tigers. Ole Miss prevailed 25-23. They were lucky. The clock ran out on LSU. Jevan hit 14 of 21 for 206 yards. He had no Ints and no TDs, but he was instrumental. His QB rating in this game was 149.07, and they wouldn't won it without him. His QB rating this year is 122.9, and that is pretty good. Better still, he is a big play-maker.
He looks a hell of a lot like the Charger's Philip Rivers, but he is much more athletic, and he has better looking mechanics. As effective as he is, I have always felt that Rivers has ackward mechanics. Jevan is 6'3" and 215 pounds. He could put on a few more pounds, but he looks very solid. Rivers is bigger at 6'5" and 228, but he has far less mobility. Who has the bigger arm? I think that might be Snead. He's got a sniper rifle. He throws 95 mph heaters.
If you could get a bit more compact Philip Rivers with better speed, more arm, and similar gamesmanship, would you do it? If all that is true, you would be stupid not too.
Jevan shares a birthday with me, Terry Bradshaw, Salma Hayek, and Keanu Reeves. Yes, we were all born on September 2nd.
In my last blog entry on the Draft 2010, I was not pleased by the selection of QBs we have this year. At that point, I was unwilling to part with our customary #2 pick overall for any of these QBs. I can tell you now that this is begining to change. I am getting very comfortable with the notion that Jevan Snead will be the next Ram QB. I am begining to worry about who his big-play maker recievers will be.
The joy of development renewed
The group is a non-denominational 501C3 that provides housing, medical care, financial support, foster care, and education for homeless children. The organization has been in business for 24 years, and the turbines are begining to flip on. Partially due to my father's grand writing skills, this organization has obtained several million dollars in new funding over the past year and half. They have expanded their services to 5 group homes, a medical clinic, and educational facility.
With all this growth comes all of the problems of growth. The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. Control and communication are poor. There is a constant background terror that the costs are escalating and out of control, just because there is no easy way to run a balance sheet report. Doing a balance sheet manually, from paper and Quickbooks, is very difficult and labor intensive. You can do about one a month with 5 accountants working on it.
The founder and president of this mission is a very forward thinking lady. She has been pondering how much scalability would be possible if she had a fancy web-based database application that could coordinate all of the organization's activities, and give her an immediate balance sheet of assets and liabilities.
Imagine a system in which all of the intake paperwork you have to do when you recieve a new child happens on the web. It immediately goes into the central 501C3 database. All the medical services you provide that child go in the same database. Meal costs go into the same database. Housing assignments and resource costs go into that same database. School materials are recorded in that same database. If you have such a database, and your workers are dilligent about keeping up, you can draw a real-time, fully automated balance sheet for your entire 501C3.
Enter Dave. That is what I am working on right now. I was given the contract to do this project for her. I have been working on this off and on for several weeks now. With electro stim and an icepack on my knee, I sat here for many long hours today trying to button up a beta copy to show the boss during Thanks Giving week, when I will return home. The prospects look good. The database is finished and splendid. The Web app is a state-of-the-art Microsoft C# 4.0, .NET 4.0, MVC 2.0 app using the Entity Framework for data access. I even tossed in some JQuery 1.3.2, and boy was that an eye-opener! It isn't finished, but it is very nice. I have written a lot of test code, and my business classes are passing under much punishing stress. I am confident the pluming is very good.
Folks, I cannot tell you the joy I have experianced here at my workstation, calling all the shots, creating the entire system from Green Fields, with no legacy bullshit, no jack-ass managers, and no weak-ass co-workers to constrain me. I am using my ultra-badass Core i7 and my 30 inch Dell 3008WFP to do the work. This is not an out-dated weak-ass machine like my unit at work. I am working with SQL Server 2008, not the outdated 2005. As implied by the statements above, I am using Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2, not VS2008. All the reports are in Microsoft SQL Reporting Services 2008. The tablix absolutely rocks. There is no reporting technology on the planet that can compete with this; except maybe Excel 2007 if you know how to use it well. The tablix was born to pivot financial data, and it makes an A&L balance sheet pretty damn trivial. I could do it with the SQL Pivot, but this is better and more dynamic.
In short, this is the way it aught to be done if you are a Microsoft developer. No compromise. My one and only regret is that I am not using the Unity IoC in this project, but that is only because it is unclear how or whether Unity should fit into the scheme.
Best of all is the pay. I am not quite at twice the base-hourly pay I get from informa, but it is pretty damn close. I cut this 501C3 a big break because they do have a few cash-flow issues due to poor control. I am here to provide that control.
Now for the problem: This is spoiling me for nearly every other approach. I am remembering the glory days of 1998-2001 when I was a lone-gunman consultant who went into a fresh development situation, kicked ass for 6 months at a high rate of pay, and walked out with my pockets full of cash. I have weaped endless bitter tears over the end of those days that came with the Internet Buble bust and the 9/11 recession. I almost feel as if happy days are here again.
There is a serious problem with being a permanent-party employee developer. Often, you have no job to do at all. You are still chastized for not showing up at 9:00 anyhow. To say that I am unchalleged and under-utlized would be an understatement for the ages. Further, if you are not the lead dog...
There is an old funny saying that was quoted recently in The Taking of Pelham 123. Imagine you are a dog in an Alaskan Dog Sled race. If you are not the lead dog, the view never changes. Why? Because you are always staring directly into the asshole of the dog in front of you.
This is life as a permanent-party programmer developer. You are always given trivial, penny-ante assignments. You work on some piece of shit software that was originally developed by an incompetent 24 or 25 year old some 8 years ago. It is now a mazework of undocumented patches. The problems you are given to solve should never have existed in the first place. If the original developer had known anything about patterns and practices, entire categories of these problems would never have existed in the first place. This is legacy code, and by that, I mean code which is not under a suite of automatic tests. Ergo, you are terrified to change it. You know this piece of crap will break with even slight changes.
Folks, I have been gazing into the assholes of the dogs in front of me for far too long. I think one of my New Years Resolutions is going to be to drum up as much external moonlight as I possibly can in 2010. Let us hope that this will lead to a full independent consultant status once again. I can hardly bear the thought of continuing an unchallanged life of fixing someone else's giant errors.
Another word on California's HDTV law
- Why is black the only color you care about?
- If black level is important, it stands to reason that white point would be equally important. Why do you never discuss the luminosity of the white point?
- Why do you never speak of Red level?
- Why do you never speak of Green level?
- Why do you never speak of Blue level?
- Why do you fetishize black
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
So California just banned power hungry HDTVs?
- If you want to make a smaller HDTV (smaller than 58 inches) you better make sure that it is based on the very latest efficient technology.
- This will raise the price.
- You better make sure it is not bloated with stupid features, such as an integrated DVD player.
- This will lower the price, and produce more focused products.
- Both facts will enhance the quality of the HDTV, not reduce it.
- Old stock will have to liquidated at any price necessary to clear it.
- This would put smaller and worse quality technology in the hands of precisely the people who can least afford to foot the power bill: The poor!
- The poor will gladly buy these liquidation units anyway, completely oblivious of the cost of ownership
- You can make the case that this is rational policy, as it has several coherent effects. It forces bad stock off the market. It makes future stock better. This helps both the poor and the middle class. It prevents Cali from needing to build more power infrastructure. It will allow the rich to continue doing anything they like.
- That is how you define a rational policy in governmental terms.
- LCD vendors will have to complete the transition to LED back lighting, and limit stupid features. Old stock will have to be purged soon. Expect fire sales soon.
- DLP & Laser vendors can keep on doing whatever the hell they want, as long as it is bigger than 58 inches. Since both are pretty power efficient, I would not expect 56 inch models to be harmed by this move.
- Plasma is going to get hammered. Expect small plasmas to disappear from the market. Expect plasma to get larger than 58 inches.
Dynasty Pilots vs. Great Quarterbacks
Monday, November 16, 2009
A few last thoughts about week 10 of the NFL season
- How deep is a disaster in progress in Cleveland?
- Why are the Ravens, a supposedly good team, under performing so badly?
- Man this game is terrible!!!!
- Man wasn't that Patriots @ Colts game incredible last night?!?!?
A few words about last night's classic meeting between the Colts and Patriots
- The Patriots dominated the first three quarters of play
- Belichick dialed up a defense that gave Peyton Manning fits in the first three quarters. He cut off Dallas Clark. He disrupted communications between Manning and Wayne. He really messed the Colt machinery.
- By the 4th quarter Manning figured out just exactly what Belichick was doing to him. The Manning computer came up with a solution set, and Peyton got red-hot.
- Still, with about 7 minutes to go, the Patriots had a 13 point lead. That would disintegrate quickly.
- With 2:23 showing on the clock, and Patriots clinging to a 6 point lead, the Patriots could not make a single first down. They did not attempt to run much in that series. They tried to throw the ball. Their passing attempts were crushed by the Colts. Several incomplete passes resulted in very few seconds running off the clock. Worse still, Brady burned precious time outs because he hated what the Colts were showing him defensively.
- It came down to 4th & 2 on the 28 yard line. Belichick decided to go for it. Most of us thought he was bluffing. We though he would line up, try to jerk the Colts into an off-sides penalty, then punt from the 23. Nope, he wasn't Bluffing. Brady took the snap, threw a quick outlet pass to Faulk, and Faulk got power-slammed by the Colt's Melvin Bullitt. He looked like Dan Bunz knocking down David Verser in Super Bowl 16.
- Some die-hard Patriot fans think Faulk got it, but this clearly not the case. As the ref said, Faulk was juggling the ball and did not establish possession until Bullitt had nearly slammed him on his back. The play could not be challenged or reviewed because Brady had burned all of the Patriots' timeouts. WOW!
- The clock stopped for change of possession, and the ball went to the Colts on the 28 yard line with 2:08 showing on the clock. It was almost too easy for Peyton. He had to take it easy and kill the clock on the final drive. The Colts ran several times (in the center of the field) during this final drive, forcing the clock to run down. The Pats couldn't do anything about it because Brady had already killed their timeouts.
- Reggie Wayne made one of the greatest catches I've ever seen to win the game. The coverage on him was unbelievably tight, and Manning had to lead Wayne way too much, but Wayne hulked up and made one hell of a catch. I guarantee you he is going to remember that as one of his greatest career plays.
- Immediately after the game, former Patriot Strong Safety Rodney Harrison poured gasoline on his former coach and ignited it. He busted Belichick for the entire play selection, use of timeouts, and the 4th & 2 call. He felt the entire end sequence was miss-managed.
- Trent Dilford followed, igniting Belichick some more. Teddi Bruschi didn't like the call either. One of the Boston newspapers led with the hadline "Braincramp", describing Belichick's manuevers at the end of the game. Most people are second-guessing Belichick this morning.
- Tom Brady defended his coach, saying "It's a game of inches. 7 more inches, and we kneel down with the ball three times, and the game is over. You would all be praising the coach's decision then."
- If Belichick had slammed Kevin Faulk into the middle of the line 3 times, and forced the Colts to burn their timeouts, what Brady said might make sense. This is not the case.
- Belichick called 3 passing plays on 4 downs. That is wacky.
- At the same time Bellichick allowed Brady to burn the Patriots' timeouts.
- By the time we arrived at 4th and 2, I can almost go along with Belichick's decision making process.
- Belichick is smart enough to know that Manning had computed a firing solution for his defense. He knew Manning was red-hot, and Bill did not want to give the ball back to Peyton. He knew he had had it.
- 28 yards or 68 yards would have made little difference in my estimation. With 2:08 on the clock and all his timeouts, Peyton would have carved up the Patriot defense. I think Belichick knew this. I believe he had more confidence in his offense's ability to stop Colts than his defense's ability to stop the Colts. I concur with that conclusion. The only way to stop Manning at that point was to keep him off the field.
- The Pats were crushed on the rocks of the Colt defense. That defense is a clutch defense. They have the ability to rise up in crucial moments and destroy you. We have to give a hell of a lot of credit to the Colts' defense for thumping the Patriots in the clutch.
- Belichick remains a hell of defensive thinker.
- Belichick could not stop Manning all game long.
- Manning is now better than ever at recognizing patterns in defenses, finding difficult solutions, and making real-time adjustments.
- Tom Terrific and the Patriot offense choked in the clutch.
- The Colt defense has the capacity to rise in crucial situations
Sunday, November 15, 2009
2010 may not be the bumper-crop of quarterbacks we originally suspected
Our greatest suspicion is that the Rams will draft a QB 2010. The reasoning is simple:
- Bulger is a China Doll
- Bulger doesn't comprehend the West Coast Offense.
- Bulger was the NFL's 26th ranked passer with a rating of about 68. We'll have to see how today's better performance against New Orleans helped him.
- Even when Bulger faces an empty, injury depleted secondary like New Orleans, he still doesn't light up the board with TDs. Any one of your good franchise QBs would have had a turkey shoot today against New Orleans.
- There are supposed to be a bumper crop of QBs in the 2010 draft
- If not now, when? If not here, where? If not one of these guys, then who?
- Jimmy Clauson Notre Dame
- Jake Locker University of Washington
- Sam Bradford Oklahoma
- Jevan Sneed Ole Miss
- Colt McCoy, Texas
- Tim Tebow, Florida
So what do I think? I think you can take the top two ranked QBs on that list and flush them. He who busts... er... drafts Clauson or Locker will loose a first round pick. I have seen almost nothing out of either prospect that would or could creat the kind of confidence necessary to burn a #2 or #3 overall pick on either of them. If Clauson is going to be the next Joe Montana, then let me have him in the 3rd round. Locker was instrumental in Washington's upset of USC, but this upset is looking less and less compelling every day. I do not know what manner of voodoo logic draft scouts use for ordering prospects, but any possible logic behind the top two rankings eludes me. If I put you in front of the 9 U.S. Federal Supreme Court justices, how would you make a case for these two guys? Would those justices cut your logic & evidence to pieces, or would it stand up?
I loved Sam Bradford until he double-injured his throwing shoulder. He had two bad raps on him going into this season (1) he is way to light/needs to put on muscle, (2) at his weight he will be injury prone in the NFL. Well folks, he put on no muscle weight, and he suffered the atomic bomb of QB injuries: Aggravated damage to passing shoulder shoulder. Now his shoulder must be surgically repaired. This is bad folks, real bad. I would still be inclined to take a risk on him, because I believe Bradford is one hell of a kid, but I would need to drop way down the board to do so. Probably all the way to the 2nd round. At the same time, I would need to use that top pick on a lineman so Sam would enjoy better protection, and have a chance in life.
Jevan Snead just caught my eye yesterday. For those who did not watch it, Ole Miss put on an offensive show yesterday. It brought back memories of the Greatest Show on Turf. Ole Miss was playing Checkers all by themselves yesterday. Ole Miss did anything they wanted to do against the Volunteer defense. Stop me if I am wrong, but is not the famous Monte Kiffen in charge of the Tennessee defense? Yes, Snead caught my eye. He did look very good, but I am much more interested in his partner Dexter McCluster. McCluster was the game breaker yesterday. It seemed that Snead's primary task was to get the ball to McCluster who took nothing passes and turned them into 45 yard explosions. He looked like Marshall Faulk, Barry Sanders and Thurman Thomas in the process.
I want McCluster on the Rams roster. Do it by any means necessary. This guy is a game-changer and an explosive play-maker.
Snead's worst knock is that he is a red-shirt junior, due to the fact that he transferred from Texas. He couldn't beat out Colt McCoy. Now Pete Prisco of CBS sports declares him to be the best QB in the draft. We need to remind everyone that since underclassmen have been allowed into the draft, 90% of all under-age QBs have gone bust. Even Marc Sanchez is struggling right now, and his final fate is undetermined. Jevan Snead might do well to stay in college, but this is unlikely. Bradford's fate will prod most good QBs to come out early, despite the bust percentages. I am keeping my eye on Snead, but I am non-committal right now.
Now we have Colt McCoy. What can I say about McCoy. I love the kid. He has great leadership ability. He is smarter than hell. He has good character. He is accurate as bloody hell. His completion percentage has frequently been around 80%. They say his arm is weak. I want to know why they say that. This is the kid most likely to transform into the next Joe Montana. He is a cerebral leader who does nothing but complete all his passes. I feel much better about drafting him than any of the others on this list. It should be noted that he will meet the Big Tuna's formula for a draftable QB. I am confident that Parcells would select him if he didn't already have 2 good young quarterbacks. The prospects on this list--except Tebow--will not qualify under the Tuna's formula.
Now we come to Tim Tebow. By now all of you know how I feel about Tim. I love Tebow to death. Like Tony Dungy, I would draft Tebow ahead of all the other QBs on this list. Like the owner of Jacksonville Jaguars, I was strongly inclined to spend a top 5 pick to get him. I have never seen a kid with better character. I have never seen a stronger will to win. I have never seen more drive to compete. I have never seen less quit. I have rarely seen this much leadership. I see rare athletic ability, and the southpaw advantage.
With that said, the Draftnics hate Tebow. They say his foot work is non-existent, his mechanics are woeful, he has never lined up under center, running the way he does will get him killed in the NFL. Worse, his experience in the wacky spreadbone attack has poorly prepared him for a career in the NFL. Many project him to Tight End or Linebacker. Although I hate all of these comments, I do see some reason in most of them. This has caused me to doubt my absolute favorite choice.
There are a number of conclusions we have to come to:
- Reports of a QB bonanza may be greatly exaggerated.
- Although there are a lot of them, every prospect has serious negatives.
- At this point, I would feel comfortable spending a top-5 pick on no one.
- If it were my call, I would move down the board, maybe out of the first round entirely, and go after Colt McCoy.
- If Tebow should happen to fall out of the first round, I would not hesitate to take him.
What American's really, really want in Football
- Take every last swinging SD camera you have in stock. Place them in a Star Wars style trash compacter. Destroy the living fuck out of them. Never, ever consider shooting any angle at any event in 720x480 NTSC standard def ever again.
- Purchase a bunch of Redcams from Red.com. Shoot all of your games from every angle at 1080p 60fps. When you slow to half speed, we will still get 'full speed' 30fps frame rates. When you slow down to 1/4 speed, we will get15 fps, as good or better than half-speed replays of the classic NTSC era.
- No replay on any analysis show should ever be presented in SD.
- All replays must be presented in glorious 1080p.
- No more mixed-resolution shows.
- No more mixed sources video.
- 1080p all the time.
- Red Cam all the time.
- No 720i
- No 720p
- No 1080i
- 1080p all the fucking time. That means 100% of the time. Always 1080p. Never anything else.
- When considering Chad Johnson, the entire focus of the CBS crew revolved around how to crush the man. Do we suspend him? Do fine him for $200,000 instead of $20,000? How do we grind his bones to make our bread? Chad Johnson must be stopped! Wrong! Memo to CBS: Chad is Mr. Personality. He is one of the few fun guys in the NFL. If you can't tell this is good natured humor, you are a fucked up collection indeed. Lighten up. Pull the 10 foot bamboo polls out of your arses. Your pretty stiff necked right now.
- CBS ran a totally egregious Star Trek cross-marketing campaign during the NFL morning show. Now I am a huge fan of Star Trek and the NFL, but I hate Corporate-Corporate whoredom. Your corporate masters obviously stuck a butt plug up your arses and told you to market their biggest Blu-Ray of the season. You whored out, as any good sex slaves would do, for your financial masters. While I intend to be the first in line to buy Star Trek on Tuesday morning, your whoredom offends me. It is detestable.
- The CBS crew used their whorish moments this morning as a segue into a evil segment where they considered how best to rob the weak teams of the NFL of their few good players in order to enrich the teams that are on the verge of a Super Bowl. Great! Let's rob from the have-nots. Fuck all you people who root for the underdogs. Fuck all you NFL fans who live in the poor markets.
- Then a PC spin-doctor political consultant comes on the program to tell NFL players and coaches how best to present themselves. Remember that PC is about out-right intellectual dishonesty. It is about not dropping the card that can be used against you later. It is about being ambiguous so that you can become all things to all people, rather than who you really are. This spin doctor gave us a short course in how present yourself in a lying and dishonest way. Great television there bud. Now, if your smart-guy spin doctor had known anything at all about NFL fans, he would have known we would detest this segment and resent this absolute waste of time.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
The post-surgery rehab experience
- Demerol works like hell. Kills pain dead
- Toradol works when injected, but only to reduce inflammation. I don't think it kills pain well at all.
- Ketorolac sucks shit. It did nothing but upset my stomach. I have most of the prescription left. I won't use it. It is good for nothing.
- Acetaminophen by itself is for the birds. It is better than Toradol insofar as it has fewer side effects, but it still sucks. I get very little relief from Acetaminophen.
- When combined with Hydrocode, Acetaminophen works fairly well. However, I did not find this combo to be particularly powerful. It took the pain down about 50%, but that still left me with 50% of the pain. I still suffered a lot of pain, despite this stuff. I gutted it out because I have balls. Call me Emmit jr.
Friday, November 13, 2009
So that was Tony Alamo, eh?
Of course, as a former Evangelical Fundamentalist Pentecostal guy, I can tell you is that the first rule of the religion game is that you never respond to these sorts of approaches. These approaches are the exclusive purview of cults. Only cults use these tactics. Of course, every religious group will, at some point in its history, fulfill the several criteria we use to define cults. We ultimately fall back on how absolute, capricious, and arbitrary the power of the cult leader's command and commands are when we decide whether a group is a cult or not. If the leaders have the absolute right to issue an absolutely direct order--even to the point of transgression of the law--to a follower and make it stick with punishments, you are dealing with a cult.
Well folks, I have some other things to tell you about cults:
- Cults are run by bad men. I mean obvious miscreants and sociopaths, who have criminal records, have flagrantly used slimy immoral tactics in broad daylight. All of their followers absolutely deny all these 'alegations' but these transgressions are a matter of public record. Charles Manson, Tony Alamo, Jim Jones, L. Ron Hubbard all had this in common. Alamo ran around with L.A. hoods, did time for tax evasion, changed his name several times to evade connections to his past, etc.
- Cult leaders frequently lie like hell about their backgrounds, constructing a fanciful life-story which they turn to profit. Benny Hinn claimed to be a former Jew from Israel. I think he still does. It turns out that he and his family lived in Lebanon & Syria and never lived in Israel. He is of Persian stock. His family spoke standard Arabic. The family religion was Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Benny chose his false background because Israel is extremely popular in Evangelical Pentecostal circles, and he scored major political points for 'being a converted Jew'.
- Cult leaders enrich themselves greatly by running their own little private kingdom of religion. When you see TV evangelists with Patek Philippe wrist watches, Gucci shoes, and $10,000 custom tailored suits on, you know what you are dealing with. Most of these guys are ultra-nouveau riche. Benny Hinn and Ken Copland were certainly these kind of guys.
- Cult leaders have really bad sexual habits. They say Charles Manson demanded absolute freedom of sexual access to all the women in his cult. Jim Jones screwed everybody, man woman, child, stuck in the middle. He was an omni pan sexual. Tony married a woman who was already married to a small time L.A. hood. Tony Alamo decided he liked very young girls; At least 5 of them we know of.
- Cult leaders issue flagrantly false prophecies and get away with it. Manson claimed he was going to lead the Black uprising against the White man. It didn't work out like that. Jim Jones claimed he was going to build the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. It didn't work out like that. Benny Hinn claimed that Jesus was visibly, physically materialize on stage with him in Kenya during his 2000 campaign. It didn't happen. Tony Alamo kept the body of his dead wife on display for 16 years, claiming she would be resurrected soon. It didn't work out that way.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
In defense of Carrie Prejean
At this moment in time, we are in vice grips of a Fascist Left-wing orthodoxy setup by the Gay political forces of this nation. You are not allowed to disagree with the Gay Agenda, for any reason. Fuck free speech, fuck freedom of though, and fuck free political association. That does not apply to the Gay agenda. Their political desires trump your actual and real constitutional rights. Any deviation from the Gay Political Orthodoxy is punishable by any means in which the Gays can work out a punishment. Make one noise in the wrong direction, and the Gay forces of this nation will try to ruin you.
Such is the fate of Carrie Prejean, a girl who stated forthrightly and politely that she did not support Gay Marriage because of her religious beliefs. She has been under non-stop withering assault since that time. She found some shelter with the Religious Right, but now the Gay Fascists of this nation have found a way to destroy that as well.
I call them Gay Fascists because they are clearly using vicious bully-boy tactics to intimidate and silence their opposition. The Gay Fascists can no longer claim any sort of 'moral authority' from victim status. They are now the victimizers.
Specifically, they found a pornographic solo video she did for a boyfriend when she was 17 years old. Now, riddle me this one Batman: Last time I checked, be in possession of a sex video containing a 17 year old girl constituted felony possession of child pornography. A number of pornographers went to jail for possession and distribution of Traci Lords videos made when she was 17. It did not matter that Traci Lords participated lustily in the procedures and was rewarded handsomely with cash.
Memo to Carrie Prejean: Charge your ex-boyfriend with possession and distribution of child pornography. Grill every last one of the Gay fascists who have distributed this video with Child Pornography charges. They started the war, now you can win it. They over played their hand. Now they are vulnerable. Their flanks are unguarded. Destroy them. Take the kill shot.
I want to rebuke all of you in the silent majority who are horrified by what has happens to this girl: It is time for you to stop sitting on the fence. Come out of the closet and defend this girl.
Push is pretty damn good
Push is a movie about about mutants or metahumans who have special mental abilities. There are several classes of these metahumans in this movie:
- Movers: Individuals with telekinetic power; the ability to move objects with your mind.
- Bleeders: Banshee like criters who can scream until your skin splits and you organs pop
- Stitches: Psychic healers who can restore your from near-death like states to full health... or reverse the process.
- Shaders: Individuals who can hide you from Sniffers and maybe even Watchers
- Sniffers: Individuals who can see visions of the past and present of an object by sniffing it. They are also good bloodhounds, able to locate people by sniffing personal articles belonging to them.
- Watchers: Individuals who have the ability to see and draw the future based on the events currently taking place. You might call them prophets with the gift of prophecy. The problem is that the future is only a set of probabilistic outcomes, and it is always changing based on things that happen in the present.
- Pushers: The most dangerous class of metahumans. These individuals have the power of suggestion. The most powerful members of this class can implant entire memories of events, peoples, relatives, orders, and professional activities in your mind. If the Pusher is good, you can't tell the difference between these implanted memories and the real thing. This gives Pushers an incredible ability to control and manipulate people.
It seems that the nations of our world began experimenting with these mutants back in WWII. Nazi Germany was the first. Many other nations continue to our present day. Each of these nations have set up organizations called "Divisions" which run their programs. The objective is to harness the power of these mutants and use them as operatives. The premise may be similar to that you find in the new comedy "The Men who Stare at Goats". Many of these metahumans do not like the notion of being drafted into black-ops, and they especially dislike the medical experiments designed to amplify their abilities. Ergo, there is an underground resistance among these people, combating the Divisions of the world.
Herein lies the tale of Push.
The whole movie takes place in Hong Kong, and Hong Kong is the major star of the movie. The spectacular digital film of Hong Kong (done with the marvelous Redcam) fascinated me throughout the entire movie. I watched this movie no less than 3 times just to see more of Hong Kong.
The movie features a nice ensemble of actors. It is difficult to say who the lead is. We have a quartet of extremely important actors in the form of Chris Evans (top hero), Djimon Hounsou (top bad guy), Dokata Fanning (important heroine), and Camilla Belle (chief instigator and love interest of Chris Evans). All of them do very well, although Camilla turns in the weakest of these several performances. [She is one of the leading contenders for hot-dish de jour though.] The other three flex some serious acting muscle, turning in rock-solid performances. There are also several very important character actors.
I should mention in passing that it is a little shocking to see the way they dress and pose Dokota Fanning. She postures a little like a piece of Lolita jailbate. 13-14 year old girls do dress this way, and they do sometimes act sexually precocious. This is around the time they go boy-crazy. Still, I find it shocking to see little Dokota Fanning already 14 years of age in this movie, and acting in this fashion.
Chris Evans deserves to be singled out for accolades. This guy is not a pretty-boy. He is a very good actor, and he is starting to accumulate some pretty nice action & scifi titles in his resume. It is regrettable that The Fantastic Four turned out as badly as it did, but this is not Chris Evans' fault. I personally believe he should become the next great action hero. He should become the American answer for Jason Statham (who I think is terrific, incidentally). Those two starred together in a very demented and very interesting 2005 movie called London. It would be good to see them work together again.
While on the one hand, you may say that this is a fairly garden variety and cliche little action scifi movie with quasi-super heroes, I found it stylish enough, X-Fileish enough to be a bit refreshing. I give it 4.5 stars. I will be buying the Blu-Ray soon. I liked it very much. Not perfect, but damn good.
Monday, November 9, 2009
So VanRam wants to know if Jason Campbell is an option in 2010
Trying to rain on Windows-7's victory parade
- TechWorld reports that Windows continues to loose market share world-wide. Their figures show that Microsoft 0.23% of the market during October. Apple picked up 0.15% during that same period. Wow... My heart is racing.
- Sophos claims the Microsoft left Windows 7 open to hackers. They neutered UAC too much, says Chester Wisniewski. They were actually able to install 7 out of 10 Trojans... as long as there was no anti-virus software installed on the system. Jeeze... I shit myself when I read that.
- Stranger still is Preston Gralla's weird claim that Windows 7's unexpected success is a bad thing for Microsoft. They are now doomed to turn into General Motors. Err.... WTF? Yeah, a smart guy named Jay R. Galbraith says its a bad thing. You see, Microsoft is going to stick with the desktop instead of going to smart phones now. You see if Microsoft wants to remain relevant, they have to fire all their managers and become Google.Apple with web services and a smart phone.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Quick answer for the most detestable feature of Windows 7
- Open the control panel
- Select the "Ease of Access Center"
- Click on "Change how your mouse works"
- Find the header "Make it easier to manage windows"
- Check the box labeled "Prevent windows from being automatically arranged when moved to the edge of the screen"
- Click the "Apply" button at the bottom of this window
- Close the control panel.