Middle

So beginith the rant:

My friend Brett hit on a subject today on his blog that put my wheels a spinning. Our president has scrapped the manned space mission. I remember reading this in a headline a few weeks back, and thinking nothing of it. The focus of my political ire has been environmental policies based on lies and a health care "reform" based on statistics that no single group can agree on.
Now that the killing of the NASA manned space program has been brought to the forefront of my mind I can't help but start drawing conclusions about how this decision will negatively affect our societies future.
For starters my sarcasm will take a big hit. When someone is struggling with some simple task my goading, "Come on, it's not rocket science." will not hold the same weight. Sure there will still be rockets and therefore rocket scientists, but without the idea that mistakes in rocket science resulting in charred spacemen this comment loses intensity... For me anyway.
Next is when a preschool student is asked what he/she wants to be when they grow up the response of spaceman or astronaut will no longer be acceptable. It will be lumped in there with the princesses and wolfman categories possibly pigeonholing potentially intelligent children with unfocused dreamers and mouth-breathers. (by the way I wanted to be wolfman when I grew up)
Finally the cost to the public school systems as a whole will be staggering. You see every single poster that reads, "reach for the stars" or some variation of this must be removed and replaces with "look at the stars" or "shoot stuff at the stars" which I find slightly less motivating.
But really are we shocked at all that our government has found yet another way to "nerf" the childhood dreams and potential of the children of our great nation. I'm sure everyone will get a trophy.
"If you set the bar low, when you miss you have short to fall."
YEAH middle of the road!!

Thus endith the rant:

Good times

So beginith the rant:

Some folks asked me when I moved to Florida 4 years ago if it was better than living in Oklahoma. Today the answer to this question is still the same. I will smile and say, "I can't say living in Florida is better than Oklahoma, but it sure isn't a step down."
Most will laugh it off as me being polite. but today I wish to offer you a comparison about where I live. I live in Santa Rosa Beach FL, my house is on a canal that leads strait to the bay. I am never more than one mile from white sand beaches.
But, living hear I miss out on mingling with the down home folks of Oklahoma. Such as this man trying to barter with law enforcement using a stick as payment... http://www.newson6.com/global/story.asp?s=12108733
Makes me miss home a little, just a little bit.

So endith the rant:

zobies

So beginith the rant:

Went and saw the movie the Crazies last night. As most of you will know I am a bit of a zombie movie fanatic. I'm also a avid reader of THE WALKING DEAD an awesome comic book, which A&E will be making into a series or mini-series in the fall. All in all I would consider myself a subject matter expert in the field of zombies.
So, the Crazies started out the way any film should with a Johnny Cash song, this alone unfairly tilted my opinion of the film toward awesome. But past that it was a pretty mild plot of people becoming crazed killing machines via some type of biological weapon.

Now, I know zombies will probably never overtake the world, but as any red blooded man I have my plans for the zombie apocalypse worked out. Always be prepared, says the Eagle Scout.
Anyway. I find the most frustrating plot device in all zombie films the person who refuses to kill the infected person for some reason, that reason being some emotional attachment. You know they will become a zombie, and therefor a walking biting bio-weapon, but you can't kill them you "wove them". This plot device is supposed to make you struggle with the idea of killing zombie mom or soon to be zombie mom. How many times can you hit that horse?

In this movie the people of the town were rounded up by the military and separated using a simple test into two groups, soon to be crazies and not infected. The soon to be crazies were then put into two groups the already showing symptoms and the not showing symptoms. Those that weren't spitting screaming zombies were then tied down and administered a blood test to make sure they were actually infected.

Now, the movie had an underling theme that became very obvious here. The enemy was not really the Crazies killing people but the military who made the bio-weapon that was spilled and then tried to clean it up by wiping out a majority of a town to avoid the whole world being destroyed, or at best millions of lives being lost.
My question is this... If it were to happen. If a mistake of biblical proportions was made, and the government actually came and cleaned up a mess, with force, would it be right? Is it right for a town of 1,200 be nearly wiped out to save a world of people? Should we demonize the military for making the hard choice?
Had that been the moral of the story I would have left the movie thinking that was a slightly new spin on the could you kill a sick loved one to save the group. But it wasn't.
At the end you find that the military actually exterminated everyone. Even the ones who were not sick... SO, as per usual Hollywood had a pretty good movie idea and a decent plot until the last 10min. At that point they let their hippie friends or a third grader with emotional issues wrap up the story...

Now the movie that started with Johnny Cash ended with the idea that the US military would be willing to separate, test, and quarantine people only to turn around and kill them all. Because that's what our evil military does. Goes through the motions of logic to end up with mindless slaughter.

Because, GOD knows, our military is never actually up to any good. (that was sarcasm)
Stupid hippies (that was a fact).

So endith the rant: