Revenge of the Sithuation

So, I saw Revenge of the Sith tonight. Free ticket city. Friends gave them to me. Peggy wouldn’t go. I got my money’s worth.

Not all bad. Not all great. Here’s what’s up in my opinion:

Not so great:

• I’m confident there was an early brainstorming meeting with people who had to sit thru all the films and compiling a list of loose ends to be tied up. Then the script was written to that end. It was laborious going down the mental checklist of each and every loose end being tied up.
• 50% of the time being dedicated to light saber fights. Enough already. Action is nearly always an excuse for being plotless.
• I’ve been a dad. Anikin and his wife doesn’t work. Weak premise to explain the move to the dark side.
• Samuel L Jackson is a great actor except here. Wassup.
• We could have used just a little more Jar Jar Binks to irritate us. Just a little.
• Yoda, learn to speak English or whatever they are going to talk in the 25th century. Grammar 101. Verb before subject, Verb before subject. Got it?
• If you want to talk German where the verb is at the end fine, talk German.
• I see the Bush allusion. Security, peace, destruction. No wait, that’s in the Bible. In fact, Lucas is a student of Old Testament. That’s what the first Star Wars was.
• I guess if you’re a liberal any negative image looks like Bush. If a hammer is all you have everything looks like a nail.
• How do you fly around all that hardware (city scenes) and not run into each other? I don’t think that’s real.
• In 2525 you would think a prosthetic hand would be less obvious. I mean, remember Luke Skywalker’s. It looked just like a real hand. Come on.
• Do we really need bad PA systems in the senate hall in 2525. I’ll bet they figure out how to do this by then. Trust me.

ON THE GOOD SIDE:

• I liked ONE fight scene. Yoda and the Chancellor. Thought it was good.
• The buildings in the city were spectacular.
• I liked the Skywalker penthouse. I could move in there. Of course I didn’t see the kitchen.
• Strongest character was the chancellor. Bad guys are easier to play.
• The various rocket ships and flying devices were terrific. Very creative stuff. Of course they all make noise in outer space. How’s that work again?
• The sunset at the end on Tatooeen had to been filmed in North Dakota. Only in North Dakota are there sunsets like that.

I think they populated the characters with people from the Bar Scene from Star Wars original. Another loose end. It was good. I wish Worf was in this. He could kick some butt.

I hope that’s the end of the end. Now it’ll be the box set of DVD’s with extra minutes of all the episodes with cuts back in. That’ll make it even longer and potentially boringerrr.

Don’t buy me one for Christmas please.

Short Takes

Events that need review

Supreme Court Enables fascism
Why we need conservative Judges on the Supreme Court. This stinks. Drifting towards the USC (United State of Corporation) Of the corporation, for the corporation, by the corporation shall she ever be.

I'm sick of Senatorial Grandstanding
This kind of BS in a hearing is nothing but sound bite generation. Please, Senators, go back behind closed doors and get some work done. That's what we pay you for, not this idiocy. CSPAN, Please turn these DIVAS off.

Karl Rove tells the Truth
In North Dakota we used to say that if you throw a stone into a flock of chickens the only one that squawks is the one the stone hit. Karl told the truth about the Durbin comment and the chickens squawked.

$60 Oil Best thing that could happen
My old business partner Larry Ristvedt used to say, Trees have Tops. That means that what goes up will come down. Oil will come down. Short term pain, long term gain. Don't you think for a minute that there aren't people around the globe pulling bunnies out of their hat to capitalize on this. It's $15 soybeans. Every back yard in America would be planted with them if that happened. This will settle down. June 2006, gas at the pump,. $1.99
Book it.

This bothers me, The Chinese are not our friends (just friends with WalMart)
I don't know why people in Washington fear the Chinese so. We will face them sooner or later. Let's take them on (not militarily) while we can. They buy UNOCOL. Another brick in the wall. Revalue the YUAN. Level the playing field. Tell Wal-Mart to butt out. I'm convinced Bentonville has lobbyist in there somewhere.

LAST by no means least:

Catch Tucker Carlson on MSNBC.
If I did a TV news show (8pm Central weekdays) it would look like this. Plus, Tucker is my brand of Conservative Christian. I haven't disagreed with him on anything to date. This is really good. Catch It!

Thhhhats all folks.

TOO Darn Hot (and dry)

I’ve never seen anything like it. That’s what people say. Well, it’s true. This has been the hottest driest spring since 1895. Unless there are a few 110 year old folks hanging around in our area this is as hot and dry as it has ever been. The cracks in the ground remind me of the area we used to live north of Fargo. When late July set in the cracks in the ground were so wide that you could fall into them and twist your ankle. It was terrible.

We are nearly there now. Our lawn is golden brown. Weeds are not a problem. They all died. It’s among the driest times I’ve seen since we lived here.

Is there reprieve? Nope. No rain no where. And when it gets this dry for this long it’s hard for a rain shower to make the trip across the arid prairie.

So, pray for rain. If you are too wet don’t. We need rain desperately. Send it on down, send it on down, Lord let your mighty rain come on down.

In order of importance, Neidlinger - Hoven

Governor John Hoven
Elected, Politician, Policy Maker, Democrat - no Republican. Whatever works.

Julie Neidlinger
North Dakota thru and thru, Respected Journalist, Sociological Analyst, Emerging Opinion Maker, Republican Conservative with deep Christian Roots. Unshakable.

Governor John Hoven, you met Julie Neidlinger, TWICE. You are fortunate indeed.

Governor John Hoven, you will meet Julie Neidlinger again, don’t forget her.

Governor John Hoven, forget and ignore Julie Neidlinger at your own risk.

Rumor has it you might run for another office above Governor. You will NEED Julie Neidlinger’s support and endorsement if you do.

I’m sure hope dat dis little problem now that it’s identified will be corrected. Writing from Chicago wid all da boyz, Governor, I hope you don’t mess it up again, if ya know what I mean, Governor.

Grateful Dead Bloggers

I confess. I, a baby boomer, rock and roll band member, and all other 60s such things have never been to a grateful Dead concert. They didn't come to North Dakota much when I was in my heyday.

I know these things about JG's little troupe,

• They didn't make or sell records to speak of
• They encouraged or at least didn't discourage live taping
• They wanted word of mouth to build audience
• People came because they liked what they heard
• People told others and that became the buzz
• Very little of their music was rote. Mostly spontaneous
• It took a lot of courage to do this hoping people would come

Just like the Blogosphere. I have always used analogy to understand and measure things. It's a sound method. One of my analogies is the grateful Dead.

Bloggers do most of the same things in hope they'll be heard.
Many are. It's the excellence of the music and the buzz that gets the crowd.

That explains it; is anyone there, anyone, someone??

We Got You Covered Jack

Last Night on David Letterman he made a joke about Osama Bin Laden's whereabouts. This has become a parlor game since Porter Goss said he knows where UBL is.

So, I'm weighing in. 2 weeks ago I went on record as saying UBL was in Iran. That was based on a news story over a year ago that placed him there. But, the more I ponder my navel I have come to these conclusions:

Afghanistan
Nope. If he were we would have his sorry behind already. Big money yields big prizes.

Pakistan.
Nope. The junta there would love to further endear themselves to the USA with the $$ that follows.

Iran
Not any more. If he were there we would play the axis of evil card and demand his extradition particularly after the recent election.

Russia
nope. Putin hates the Chechyns. UBL is their pal. Harboring UBL would be stupid.

Other republics too small to name. See Pakistan.

India is our 53rd state, after Iraq and Mexico with governor V. Fox presiding. They wouldn't dare.

Sherlock Holmes said once you have eliminated all other possibilities, what remains is the answer.

CHINA.

China has nothing to lose. It would love to poke this in the USA's eye. They would love to dare us to rattle a saber or two. Taiwan is in the lurch. Wal-Mart would be the big loser. Their stores would stand empty. Porter Goss is afraid of moving on whoever has UBL harbored. China by telling the USA to take a short walk off a long pier would elevate it's already burgeoning world power position much higher by doing this. That's why foggy bottom (the state dept) is trying to get this done diplomatically.

I'm taking bets. If you've got the guts I got the cash.

A Clean Old Man

If you remember that line you are old old old. It's from "A Hard Days Night" movie by the Beatles.

I have railed against overprotection by parents so their kids don't get GERMS. . And, I just saw The Aviator (Howard Hughes). OCD at that level is a sickness no germ can ever equal.

So read this story by an Oncologist in Chicago and let your kids go get dirty.

I am a fuddy duddy

This last weekend we took care of a little guy (7) who we have cared for from birth. He brought his game cube and several games. Every one was shoot, jump, kill destroy bang bang. The Matrix would be placid next to any of these. Even a game based on the kids movie “Madagascar” was won by destroying property and kicking the police.

I had enough. I went to the video store and tried to rent a better game. I’m sad to tell you there was little of any value. One Japanese game like a sim game was not too bad. But, out of the 30 or so titles on the shelf only 2 were non violent.

This little guy has behavior problems in school.

I blame it on video games.

He won’t be bringing it to our home again. I hope he comes to stay. He needs deprogramming.

This is not a good thing in our society.