gdp's Comments

Big Hollywood : Hollywood's Rendezvous with Government Censorship and why Michael Moore Should be Worried

Wed, 1 Apr 2009 14:09:29 +0000

They've been busy ignoring so many other Amendments and Clauses, why not specifically-protected free speech as well? And while they're at it, that "Neither House shall adjourn for more than Three Days during Session" clause has strutted about for far too long!

Big Hollywood : The Ghost of George Washington

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 18:37:21 +0000

Today, I confront enslavers who dwarf your agricultural age. Men who manipulate markets for their benefit, who control all the productive capacity, who leverage world currencies and gamble on usury, and refuse to recognize the right of the average man to the return of his own labor, honestly determined. That is true, except for the "confront" part. Obama EMPLOYS them, not CONFRONTS them. Everything on your list is his described domestic policy. But otherwise, yeah, excellent post.

Big Hollywood : The Ghost of George Washington

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 18:34:13 +0000

Wars for slavery - why, whom do we own? Mingling Church and State - the churchiest Statists among us are all on the hard Left, including the two nitwits who wanted to legislate the composition of Roman Catholic church boards to exclude their pastors and bishops. Wars of aggression in foreign lands - Jefferson firing up the Navy and the Marines against the Barbary Pirates? Or maybe invading Nazi Europe, which hadn't done a little ol' thing to us? Corporatist government policies - again, that is the Left. It is Dear Leader Obama who is dictating by fiat the policies and leadership of GM and Chrysler, and his pet Congress deliberating a Bill of Attainder (in defiance of the Constitution) against AIG. Of course, that's what happens when the State takes over the ownership of formerly-private companies. If they pass the mandatory volunteerism and the paramilitary domestic force, then your dire predictions will have been made true entirely by the incoming administration in the past 75 days.

Big Hollywood : Jack Bauer & the Pope

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:55:27 +0000

My big problem with this isn't season so much the PSAs. They're annoying but they 're also avoidable. They're probably also part of the contract for the actors; like it or not they have got to read the stupid things. The real annoyance here is having the Big Bad as a rogue military contractor. We started with actual terrorists doing actual evil in the world and ended up with them merely as puppets for the evil conservatives. Blackwater is such an obvious stand-in for Halliburton that I'm surprised there aren't pictures of Dick Cheney in every office.

Big Hollywood : Jack Bauer & the Pope

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:55:06 +0000

[spoiler alert!] They tracked him via a helicopter. It would have been really tough to make his rendesvouz anyway, even with the two minutes that he stopped. He would have also exposed thousands to a biological weapon en route had he not stopped.

Big Hollywood : Hollywood is Burning, Part III: Gauntlet

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:20:55 +0000

Amazing story. I am grateful that your family survived unhurt.

Big Hollywood : Crime Shows Ignore Real Crime

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:56:13 +0000

Part of the reason you rarely see this sort of thing on television is that it usually isn't "entertainment" material. This goes all the way back to Sherlock Holmes: it is the unusual crimes with strange details that fascinate, not the mundane ones. Holmes often would hassle Watson, in fact, for turning his brilliant deductions into a "series of tales" meant to entertain rather than treatises on the science of deduction. Another part of the reason is that it's a little close to home to protray the kind of horror some people face everyday from gangs and drug violence. Parents see enough of the things that destroy their neighborhood and cripple or kill their children, they hardly need a dramatization of them.

Big Hollywood : My Weekly Date with a Liberal - Date #2

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:10:30 +0000

Or, the overgrown child Stuart from MadTV... which is sadly how the kid may wind up.

Big Hollywood : Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid...Schoolhouse Rock: Earth!

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:40:43 +0000

Well, "Verb: That's What's Happening" and "Sufferin' 'til Sufferage" were fairly rocking in a dated 70's funk style.

Big Hollywood : Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid...Schoolhouse Rock: Earth!

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:39:06 +0000

Respectfully disagree. If it was fun who cared? Give me Schoolhouse Rock over Scrappy Doo any day of the week, and twice on Saturday.

Big Hollywood : Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid...Schoolhouse Rock: Earth!

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:37:04 +0000

Poor guy. What the predicate says, he does - even if the predicate is "goes spacebug crazy." But this is not an unheard-of move for the venerable Schoolhouse Rock franchise. I remember the terrible "Tax Man Max," trying to weasel the kiddies into enjoying that onerous burden; and Jack Sheldon singing the Energy Blues. (At least that one was somewhat charming, and gave a positive mention to nuclear power.) I'm going to put on "The Shot Heard 'Round the World" and remember the good old days, when patriotism was still the highest form of patriotism.

Big Hollywood : Will Hollywood Allow Us Heroes Again?

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:13:01 +0000

The mini-versions were the only ones I'm old enough to know, actually, and I had a good collection that I wish I'd held on to, for the nostalgia. (Same with my original Kenner SW stuff and Battlestar Galactica geegaws. My Cylons actually fired torpedoes, before they sold future editions with the torps glued into the launchers so nobody could rig them to shoot twigs or rocks at each other.) Funny true story - I usually used them to play football, rather than war, and that was BEFORE William "the Fridge" Perry got his own mini-Joe figure. Destro's helmet was the football. Snake Eyes could shed tacklers in a way to make Lombardi himself shed a manly tear.

Big Hollywood : South Park Goes Where SNL Refuses

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:00:14 +0000

Actually, they're probably using the ideas leftover from the manatees - sea cow rejects. It's terribly sad that the funniest thing on NBC right now isn't its flagship comedy sketch show, but the "we're aliens" Hulu adverts.

Big Hollywood : Will Hollywood Allow Us Heroes Again?

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:55:33 +0000

Thomas - back then Hollywood appreciated that those folks kept them safe and free - and they repaid them by bringing happiness and a taste of home to boost their spirits. Nowadays Hollywood (like much else around us) is the product of people who have spent their entire lives dodging responsibility, encouraging professional victimhood, and declaring everything to be Someone Else's Fault. The military operates on a bedrock of everything alien to this mindset: accountability, and truly shouldering other people's burdens. That's also why their rejection is so puerile and emotional - these poor overgrown middle-schoolers have never learned how to stake a position and argue it from evidence and reasoning. Bellyfeel is all they've got. And THANK YOU for your service, Sir. We must never forget, no matter what our self-styled "cultural elite" tell us.

Big Hollywood : TV Classics: "Chutch"

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:05:39 +0000

Who's the white tenured d--- that's a sex machine to all the chicks? CHUTCH! D'm right... Who has a plan to sue the pants off of The Man? CHUTCH! Canyoudigit? Who's the cat who won't be fired Unrepentant tenured liar? CHUTCH! Right on.... They say that cat plagiarized his entire CV... SHUT CHO MOUTH! I'm just talking 'bout Chutch! (We can dig it!) He's a complicated man And no-one understands how he's an Indian! [wockachocka wockachocka wockachocka]

Big Hollywood : 'Last House On The Left': A Remake To Anticipate

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:48:54 +0000

The original didn't take itself too seriously, true - but there was something of an innocence about the idealism that has been largely absent from many of the other iterations. And truth be told, Nimoy and Kelley were underrated as actors and were wonderful in nearly everything they did on that show. ("Spock's Brain," like the Halloween remake, NEVER HAPPENED.) In any case, I always liked Deep Sleep Nine the best of them, especially when they finally gave Avery Brooks permission to shave his head and something to do on a regular basis.

Big Hollywood : Tax Dollars Fund Human Experimentation

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:26:36 +0000

Nothing new. The Left mocks the idea of an actual Messiah by claiming that even the most logical restrictions on abortion is "cramming your viewpoint down my throat." Then they cook up a faux Messiah and cram his viewpoint down our throat.

Big Hollywood : Lion Meat: Coulter vs. Maher

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:06:06 +0000

Bill must have known he was doing badly when he tried to go to his "bread and butter." Figured he could rally behind his go-to strawman and Ann picked it up and beat him around the ears with it.

Big Hollywood : Clooney’s Urgent Message to Obama

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:08:21 +0000

Is this a takeoff on that Laurel and Hardy bit where they both try to fit through the doorway at the same time? "Well, Obama, this is ANOTHER fine mess you've gotten us into!"

Big Hollywood : Deconstructing 'The New York Times'

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:48:55 +0000

I know how you feel. I was talking with some friends the other night... my wife and I bought less than a year ago, did everything we could to erase all our other debt, found a home we loved and could afford - so we're the ones who are chumps in Obama's hopenchange world. Which led us to an interesting ethical discussion... if things do continue to worsen, and we wind up (through no fault of our own) with a house worth LESS than the remaining mortgage (because of course we've barely paid any principal in the first year) - and one or the other of us lost our jobs - do we take one of these cockamamie bailouts?