Lowering All Ships

Conditions: Scorching.


Kneecapping The Favourite.

In the afterglow of the American election, certain people are suddenly and unpreparedly on the back foot ...of fear. They believe in their hearts that Obama will bring to and end the America that they are a part of, the greedy, stupid and shortsighted America that has been such a glorious train wreck over the last eight years. But change is coming, and when there's change on the wind, apparently you buy a gun?

Fueled by strident criticism of the Democratic president-elect by the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups, firearm sales have seen a national surge since Election Day. In Belmont, Shooters Express is selling more guns to first-time buyers fearful of stricter gun control laws.

"People are very, very worried," said Dean White, general manager of the firearms academy, gun shop and indoor shooting range. "We're seeing a lot of people who have never even considered purchasing a handgun before coming in and saying that they want to buy one just because they think something's going to happen and they may not be able to get it in the future."

- gastongazette.com/

People seriously think Obama's going to take away the rights of Americans to buy guns? That one right that defines America more than anything else? The hell? That simply doesn't make any sense. I suspect we're dealing with a version of the Stockholm syndrome here, where people have been 'victimised' for so long they get to need it, and can't imagine anything else. And so they're scared. So what are they doing about it?

Intellectual violence. While not a new term, it perfectly defines what we're seeing now: accusations and smears that so severely confound logic they literally attack -- violate -- reality and the human intellect. It's like a berzerker dervish of argumentative elbows and fists indiscriminately flailing around, thwacking anything in its orbit, so much so that constructing a counterpoint is literally painful, "Why the hell am I trying to debunk this?! Ow! My head. Aw hell, I need a drink."

The "Impeach Obama" Facebook groups, for example. No, I'm not making that up. They're real and there's a constant variety of disgruntled far-right Republicans joining up every day. And, to our total lack of surprise, they're not ashamed in the slightest to post comments like this one:

"Damn dems stole the election like they always do. GOD wanted McCain and Palin in the White House. That's why it's called THE WHITE HOUSE."

But, idiots on the internet are one thing, what about people of influence?

Then on Monday, Michelle Malkin posted an item in which she referred to the president-elect as the "overlord-elect." And on Tuesday, Congressman Paul Broun told the AP, "You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I'm not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I'm saying is there is the potential."

- alternet.org/

Wow. You know, it strikes me that it's a terrible thing to see the establishment crumble and fall from close up. Far better to be further back, see it from afar and note the faint dust cloud on the horizon.



France Doesn't Want The Missiles, Either.

One of the key assumptions the U.S makes about it's European missile shield is that the countries who would theoretically shelter beneath it's imaginary shade are all for it. Well, French president Nicholas Sarkozy begs to differ

NICE, France (AP) — France's U.S.-friendly president sent a clear message Friday to the next American administration: Plans for a U.S. missile shield in Eastern Europe are misguided, and won't make the continent a safer place.

Nicolas Sarkozy also warned Russian President Dmitry Medvedev against upping tensions by deploying missiles on the borders of the European Union in response to the U.S. planned missile defense system. Medvedev urged all sides to refrain from "unilateral" moves.

Sarkozy's comments, at a summit with Medvedev, were the strongest to date by an American ally against the missile-defense plans — and undercut the rationale behind U.S. President George W. Bush's European security strategy.

The plans for using sites in Poland and the Czech Republic have infuriated Russia despite the Bush administration's insistence that they are aimed at protecting Europe from Iran.

"Deployment of a missile defense system would bring nothing to security ... it would complicate things, and would make them move backward," Sarkozy said at a news conference with Medvedev. Medvedev smiled and pointed his finger at Sarkozy in approval.

The remarks came at the end of a week in which the United States and Russia rejected each other's proposed solutions to the standoff over the missile plans, making it increasingly likely that it will not be resolved before U.S. President-elect Barack Obama takes office.

- google.com/

Of course it makes logical sense that Bush cannot now back down from this stupid idea of using missiles to promote peace, but hopefully Obama will see the sense of what even the American allies like the French president are saying. Common sense must prevail, eventually. Right?




Film Review: Death Race.

It's funny how many times over the last few years I've been reminded of that old classic Schwarzenegger film The Running Man. We seemingly see it mirrored in our society every day, and 'remade' as a film on at least a yearly basis. This year it's the turn of Paul W.S Anderson, in the guise of Death Race. It's a savage future, and America now has a TV show where convicts drive armoured cars around a race track while shooting at each other. First one to die, loses. The film stares Jason Statham, Tyrese Gibson and Joan 'what the hell am I doing here' Allen as the corrupt jailer who runs the show.

But none of that matters, the plot, the characters, the setting, it's totally irrelevant to this version of The Running Man. After all, it's 2008 and nobody cares about learning lessons anymore. So instead of anything meaningful we just have a simple movie about people in cars shooting at other people in cars. The people doing the shooting are the 'bad guys', and the people being shot at are the good guys, except when they're not. And that's really that.

And even if it was vapid, pointless and depressingly shallow, I figured that at least I could enjoy a film about cars racing and guns shooting and bullet flying, but somehow Paul can't even get that right. Firstly, the camera bucks and shakes around so much that even the chaos can't be fully appreciated, and one of the cars is a giant stupid pickup truck. It's certainly violent, but there's more, or rather, less, to it than that. Somehow the action of 50,000 rounds of machine gun fire, or of people getting minced, or of cars getting blown up is made trashy. We don't enjoy it, but we're not sickened by it either. It's all a vapid unrelenting lifeless canvas of grey. Grey characters, grey story, and grey action. And that's the final insult, to go to all this trouble of making a 'shocking future' film and not really get more than a meh or two out of the audience. Failure. Two mehs out of Five.


- Peace out.