Empire of the Iguanadons

Guess what folks! There was another oh so exciting set of primaries today. North Carolina and Indiana both put one in the books. Nothing terribly surprising, or really even worth getting excited about at this point. A lot of people I know didn't even realize this stuff is still going on. But it is, and here we are. Obama is inching himself closer to total victory. They split the "win" tonight, but overall Obama has more delegates and is just piling them all on now.

North Carolina Primary - 100% reporting

Barack Obama: 56% +58 delegates
Hillary Clinton: 42% +42 delegates

Indiana Primary - 100% reporting

Barack Obama: 49% +33 delegates
Hillary Clinton: 51% +37 delegates

Delegate Totals to Date

Barack Obama: 1,836
Hillary Clinton: 1,681

2,025 delegates is the magic number to win. Obama looks like he's going to have that before the end of May. Also of note, all of the other Democratic candidates are out. That Mike Gravel bozo finally threw in the towel at some point, so officially the Dems are between Obama and Clinton. Edwards still has 19 delegates, but who cares!

On the Republican side, that stubborn old geezer Ron Paul is still hanging in there clinging to his 21 delegates even though John McCain long ago locked this all up.

May 13th is next up, West Virginia primaries. I could have sworn they did this already, but I guess that was only the Republicans. :)
.........................
"It is pointless to resist, my son." -- Darth Vader
"Resistance is futile." -- The Borg
"Mother's coming for me in the dragon ships. I don't like these itchy clothes, but I have to wear them or it frightens the fish." -- Thurindil

Well. I guess that's that then.

Well the summer blockbuster season kicked off early this year. No doubt they're still stinging from the lack of anything good since February when Jumper was out.

Iron Man is based on the Marvel comics character of the same name, so anyone who has read those will probably already have a pretty good idea of what's going on here. Tony Stark is the CEO of a powerful weapons corporation that contracts with the defense department. He's arrogant, egotistical, and doesn't care what kind of publicity he manages to generate for his company, Stark Industries. All the makings of a truly great action hero, flaws and all.

As the movie progresses, Stark gets himself involved in a situation that will alter his perception about what his company does for a living, who they deal with, and why. Along the way we get to see some of the engineering genius that made Stark what he is today, thanks in large part to his father before him. There's combat action, character development, hot babes, the works. Oh yes, and lets not forget the dark side who's out to destroy the hero. What action movie would be complete without it?

The special affects are nothing short of awesome, especially the computers. Those of you obsessed with them like me should get a real kick out of seeing the various not so far fetched user interfaces Stark has in his lab. There's also the neat little glowy reactor thing they've used in most of the promo shots. Interesting ideas all around, and as I've said before, if Hollywood dreamed it up for the movie, someone has either developed it already or is working on it. So I'd say we all have some cool new toys not too far down the road to play with. Minus the neat flying suit of course :)

Though the cast is excellent, the story great, the special affects stunning, and the action well worth it, the movie is marred by some very noticeable political undertones that will be obvious to all but the most unaware people in the audience. It's a shame Hollywood's anti-war bias can't be set aside long enough to film an otherwise great movie without trying to shove their malignancy on the rest of us. Especially those of us who support our military, and our mission in the world. Guys, tell stories and entertain. Stop being political tools for your left wing buddies.

Over all, Iron Man does look like it's the start of another good run for movies. At least in May anyway. We'll see about later.

Coming in May

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - May 16, a must see.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - May 22, come on. It's Indiana Jones. How do you pass this up?

Coming in June

The Incredible Hulk - June 13, this one seems a bit iffy. Haven't we done enough Hulk? Less cheesy looking at least.
The Happening - June 13, M. Night Shyamalan. Do I need to say more? His stuff is nothing short of awesomeness on screen.
.........................
"It is pointless to resist, my son." -- Darth Vader
"Resistance is futile." -- The Borg
"Mother's coming for me in the dragon ships. I don't like these itchy clothes, but I have to wear them or it frightens the fish." -- Thurindil

Well. I guess that's that then.

Child Protective Services (CPS). The name invokes a certain sense of safety, calm, protection. The last place you'd expect to find thugs, liars, deceivers, and just plain evil people, right? Wrong. CPS, or whatever your state happens to call them, is a government sponsored terror group who has been given license to kidnap children from their parents, place them into foster care "for their own good" and deny all access to the parents for abuse, neglect, or whatever else they cook up. Supposedly this is all done for the good of the child. This is nothing but a steaming pile of bull though.

On Fox News today, I saw a story about a man who had taken is 7 year old son to a Detroit Tigers game. A day that was supposed to be fun for both of them. A father and son enjoying a day at the ball park. As part of the day, the father bought some lemonade. He had no idea the lemonade he'd bought turned out to be alcoholic. As they were drinking it, an overzealous security guard called the police. How the guard knew the drink was alcoholic is beyond anyone's guess right now, but somehow he did.

The child was taken to the hospital, checked out, and no trace of alcohol was found in his system. I guess the lemonade wasn't as "hard" as advertised? Who knows. It didn't end there though. CPS showed up and took the son away from the family. The child spent two days in state custody, and the father was barred from his own home for a whole week. No charges were ever filed by the police, and the hospital said the kid was just fine. So why did CPS overreact so badly?

I'm not sure one could say they overreacted at all. This is their normal operating mode. CPS is federally funded and they get continuing funding based on their case loads. If they have no cases, they have no funding, and everyone they employ loses their jobs. Sounds like a pretty good motivation to run a racket to me. It's lucrative, the feds approve of it, and the public pays little to no attention to the agency because they assume it's only doing good things for the children. All one needs to do to find out the real truth is Google for "child protective services" and read the many stories about the system gone haywire nationwide. Children stolen from their homes based on lies, false reporting, deceit, you name it. Some of these children get adopted out without the parents ever knowing. Lawyers, therapists, doctors, nurses, judges, and state employees make mountains of money doing all of this. Most of the lawyers are court appointed because the parents can't afford good ones. Even when they can, finding a good one who knows the system is next to impossible.

There have been documented cases of children with medical problems getting severely ill. Sometimes even dying while in state custody. Reports of abuse by foster parents who help game the system are rampant. Usually more so that the legitimate cases of child abuse by the real parents. There are cases out there built entirely on the word of a nosy neighbor who saw a kid outside for 30 seconds without the mother around. Cases where one social worker inspects the home, finds no fault, leaves, and then the state turns right back around with another worker who accuses the parents of running drug labs because they have air conditioners in their windows. There are cases where the state has tricked a parent into confessing to something, such as neglecting a child because they were alone for 7 minutes in another room of the house. There are even documented and verifiable cases of parents who's only "crime" was that they home schooled their children.

Folks, this agency is dangerous. If ever there was a fascist organization loose in the United States, this is it. It's not the neo-Nazi thugs on the streets with their shaved heads and Aryan ideology you need to fear. It's the federally funded agencies that operate silently, without oversight, who steal your children in the night on the jealous whims of an old ex-lover from 10 years ago. It's time we put a stop to these people once and for all.

Fox News story: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,353186,00.html
.........................
"It is pointless to resist, my son." -- Darth Vader
"Resistance is futile." -- The Borg
"Mother's coming for me in the dragon ships. I don't like these itchy clothes, but I have to wear them or it frightens the fish." -- Thurindil

Well. I guess that's that then.

So tonight's results are in, and Obama fans are going to have to rethink their presumed victory. Clinton pulled one out of the fires tonight, though not by a large margin. At least, *I* don't consider 55% a large margin. It seems the liberal press does though. Regardless, as the old saying goes, it's not over until it's over. The delegate counts are what ultimately matter, and Obama still has more.

Here are the results:

Hillary Clinton: 55% +52 delegates
Barack Obama: 45% +46 delegates

Delegate Totals to Date

Barack Obama: 1,694
Hillary Clinton: 1,556

I'm betting a lot of people actually forgot this was even going on tonight. I almost did too until I clicked on the news site. It's reached a point where pretty much nobody cares anymore because the eventual nominees are already lock-ins. Yes, I include Obama as a lock-in. Clinton would still need a miracle to win, even if she cleaned up at all the remaining primaries. But, stranger things have happened in American politics, so we'll just have to wait and see.

May 6 has Indiana and North Carolina coming up. Plus four other contests after that. We're in the home stretch now.
.........................
"It is pointless to resist, my son." -- Darth Vader
"Resistance is futile." -- The Borg
"Mother's coming for me in the dragon ships. I don't like these itchy clothes, but I have to wear them or it frightens the fish." -- Thurindil

Well. I guess that's that then.

Last year's clips of people spending ungodly amounts of time in the Oblivion CS to produce domino videos was great. Now, here are four more of them to amuse and entertain!








.........................
"It is pointless to resist, my son." -- Darth Vader
"Resistance is futile." -- The Borg
"Mother's coming for me in the dragon ships. I don't like these itchy clothes, but I have to wear them or it frightens the fish." -- Thurindil

Well. I guess that's that then.