2008 Summer Movie Preview - Part One

From comic book superheroes and children’s literature to the return of Indiana Jones and Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda, this summers batch of popcorn sequels, comedies, family films, and superhero movies are sure to get us Mustangs talking over the summer. Here’s the guide to what’s great, what’s godawful, and what’s on the fence this summer at the movies.

May Movies:

Iron Man (May 2) - Critics and audiences are in love with Robert Downey Jr.’s performance as the iron-clad Marvel superhero. As well they should -- he gives Iron Man and his alter ego, multi-billionaire defense contractor Tony Stark, a soul. Not to mention that the movie jump-stars a sluggish movie season so far with guns a-blazing. This adaptation of a Marvel Comic book raked in over $100 million + in it’s opening weekend, meaning this has to be entertaining as hell.

Speed Racer (May 9) - The Wachowski Brothers are back behind the director’s chair, and this time, they’re doing….a family film!? The same duo that gave us The Matrix trilogy and V For Vendetta are going family friendly on us? Only Andy and Larry could take the popular 60’s Japanese anime hit and take us on a trippy ride into a new vision of filmmaking. Problem is that the critics can’t stomach this neon-colored, CG spectacle. That, and we’ve seen this done before (hello there Sin City, hi there 300), but what’s that to stop us from watching the same technique again?

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (May 16) -The Pensive kids are back in this second adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ epic seven-part saga , only to learn that 1300 years have passed in Narnia time, and the magical land has fallen under the hands of the evil King Miraz. Newcomer Ben Barnes playing Prince Caspian will definitely have teenage girls watching, but here’s the six million-dollar question: will Andrew Adamson provide us with a darker, scarier adventure in the land of Narnia, or will it be the same candy-assed approach audiences watched the first time with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe?

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (May 22) - The most talked-about movie coming out this summer has the most to gain and the most to lose. Can director Steven Speilberg and executive producer George Lucas craft an Indy flick that matches with Raiders of the Lost Ark? Does Harrison Ford have what it takes, at age 66, to play the famous professor/archeologist and kick some ass? Will it be the biggest hit of the summer, or will it be a huge bust? All I have to say on the matter is: in Speilbeg, I trust.

Sex and the City (May 30) - Probably the one movie every man in America will fight tooth-and-nail not to see with their wives and/or girlfriends. And who can blame them? The end of this popular HBO series should have been dealt with when Carrie fell in love with Mr. Big in Paris, but no, they had to show what happens after happily ever after…..but I digress. No matter what I, nor your boyfriends, nor the critics say, women will still see this movie and become juicy gossip the next day.

June Movies:

You Don’t Mess With the Zohan (June 6) - Like I said before, the summer movie season trots out the god-awful, steaming piles of crap, and Adam Sandler’s new slapstick comedy about a top Israeli assassin moving to the Big Apple to carry out his dream as a male hair stylist, is no exception. Don’t get me wrong, Sandler’s done great comedic work in the past (Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, Big Daddy) , but now it’s getting tiresome watching him almost virtually playing the same character he’s done for the past decade, and it’s even more painful to know that the newly-appointed comedy czar Judd Apatow had a hand in writing part of this fiasco.

The Incredible Hulk (June 13) - On one hand, Oscar-winning director Ang Lee isn’t anywhere near this sequel to the first flop continuing the saga of Bruce Banner and his alter ego, the green giant, Hulk: Loius Letterman (The Transporter) takes over the director’s chair. And Edward Norton has replaced Eric Bana as the title character. So why do I still feel this movie is going to disappoint me? I hope I’m wrong.

The Happening (June 13) - You can quote me on this one: M. Night Shyamalan is back. You remember, the guy who creeped us out with his tales of the supernatural (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs) as a pathway to the soul, before he trotted out The Village and Lady in the Water? And by the looks of the trailers he’s learned his lessons from those two stinkers. His new thriller deals with a high school science teacher (Mark Walberg) running away from a environmental disaster that has human beings going mad and committing mass suicide. Strange, I know, but it’s what he does best.

The Love Guru (June 20) - You know that this movie has ‘shit’ written all over it when the fillmakers have Justin Timberlake talking and eerily looking like Borat. The pop star, along with another comedic genius, Mike Myers, and hottie Jessica Alba, are also dragged down in this mess of a movie about an American raised by gurus in India who comes home to spread his wisdom on love and relationships. Sorry, but there’s already a guru filling the position: Dr. Phil.

Get Smart (June 20) - The only thing that worries me about this remake of the 1960’s spoof TV show, is that Hollywood has a notorious record of making bad movies from television shows (Bewitched, Charlie’s Angels). Luckily, Steve Carell is playing the wannabe James Bond, Maxwell Smart. Even if this movie tanks, expect Carell to still crank out the laughs, as he did in the awful Evan Almighty. No worries here.

Wanted (June 27) - Let’s see: a fraternity of assassins killing to save the world + shitloads of gunfights + amazing action sequences + Angelina Jolie back in kinky, sexy, kick-ass and take names mode after her career-best performance as the wife of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl in A Mighty Heart = the male antidote to Sex and the City. June 27 can’t come faster enough.

WALL-E (June 27) - You can take this animated tale of a robot cleaning up after Earth becomes unlivable for humans, as the wizards at Pixar Animation Studios going political, the same way George Miller did with Happy Feet, or as the ultra-liberal Hollywood machine indoctrinating children into a far-left ideology that global warming exists, as would the Sean Hannitys and the Glenn Becks of the right-wing world will spoon-feed it‘s brain-dead listeners. Or you could accept WALL-E for what it is: another home-run hit in the making for the geniuses behind Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille. Call it, friend-o.

Americans & Perfect Figure Syndome

Toward the end of Little Miss Sunshine, Richard Hoover; his son, Dwayne; and their brother-in-law, Frank; are sitting in the back row of the pageant, watching and waiting for their daughter, Olive, to compete. The other contestants are being called up one by one, and each contestant looks the same: they’re really pretty, really skinny, and really airbrushed to the point that the contestants may as well be applying for America‘s Next Top Model. Richard and Dwayne head backstage and plead with Sheryl, the mother, to take Olive out of the competition, for fear that the other parents will laugh and criticize her because she does not look like the other girls.

In this moment, the film’s biting satire emerges: our country’s obsession with image and the drive to become something we clearly are not. From the latest beauty product (s) being marketed in media ads, to watching slim and slender fashion models appear in billboards, magazines, television reality shows, etc, Americans are being fed a perception that if you look or dress a certain way, you’ll be considered beautiful.

So what do we do to try and obtain the perfect figure syndrome?

We ditch the clothes we wear for a trip to Abercrombie & Fitch and buy trendier outfits so we can fit in with the beltway crowd and maybe we won’t be considered a ‘loser’ or ‘un-cool’ for not looking like every other wannabe cast member from Laguna Beach.

Girls buy endless amounts of cosmetics and begin to do excruciating exercise activities just so they can keep their shallow boyfriends from cheating on them.

Regular looking teenage girls eat mother’s special short stack buttermilk pancakes with fresh berries, then up-chuck the meal in the girls bathroom before first period, sacrificing their health in order to resemble their idols, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.

We either eat limited meals or no meals at all, and then force ourselves to run five miles, just so we can fit into that cute size three dress for prom, or to drop a few pant sizes.

We buy diet pills that promise us that we’ll lose 40 pounds in 4 weeks because getting up, starting the car, and driving to a gym takes too much work. Plus, Days of our Lives is on and I, for one, won’t want to miss if Cassandra and Miguel get back together or not!

The sad part in our elusive quest for looking slimmer and younger is that some of us change not because we want to, but because we feel pressured to take extreme and drastic measures to please others. We are completely blinded to the simple fact that at the end of the day, we may look like some model or movie star on the outside, but we hate ourselves and we look and feel ugly inside.

Eastern Promises

In an interview with Toronto’s Eye Weekly, Canadian-born director David Cronenberg explains why he could care less for a crime story just as itself. “I was watching Miami Vice last night, and I realize that I’m not interested in the mechanics of the mob, but criminality and people who live in a state of perpetual transgression -- that is interesting to me.”

His new thriller, Eastern Promises, does not go into detail on how the Russian Mafia does its business, or how a London midwife hospital worker named Anna Khitrova (Naomi Watts) uses the diary of the dead 14 year-old girl to find the baby’s relatives. Cronenberg, instead shows us why members of the Vory V Zakone syndicate such as Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen) could continue to be apart of this crime ring, or why would a nurse risk her life to save the child of a baby, she does not know about?

The young girl’s diary leads Anna into the heart of the Russian Mafia, and to its crime boss, Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl) who runs a popular restaurant in London, his degenerate, drunken son, Kirill (Vincent Cassel) and the loyal, yet violent driver, Nikolai. Now what does the young girl’s diary and her baby have to do with the violent criminal underworld of the Russian Mob? I'll never tell, and don't you dare let anyone else squeal.

Many directors today can film a bloody, violent scene, and it becomes the watercooler topic for a few days with friends. Cronenberg dosen't take that route. He instead makes it quick and uncomfortable to sit through, such as the case when we watch the young girl expel her bloody fetus from her uterus at the London hospital. The scene itself leaves a etch into your memory that you wont be able to shake for days.

The acting in Eastern Promises is first rate. Naomi Watts is extraordinary. Vincent Cassel digs deep to show us the vile nature of Kirill, and a glimpse of his nagging conscious towards the end of the film. As the leader of the Vory V Zakone crime family, Semyon, Armin Mueller-Stahl gives a performance that should put him on the front list for Best Supporting Actor come Oscar time. However, it is Viggo Mortensen who gives the knockout performance this year as Nikolai, a man who has been to hell, and has the tattoos all over his body to tell us where he has been. The scene with Mortensen naked, fighting off two knife-wielding thugs in a bathhouse is something that will be talked about, and more-than-likely manipulated, for years to come. Eastern Promises is not just one of-if not-the best film of 2007, it is a film that grabs you and doesn't let go. Don’t miss it.
**** stars out of ****

Ramdon Notes: Part Two

As I promised, here's part two of Random Notes. Enjoy!

Making front page news: For the first time in my three years of writing articles for the school newspaper, The Ranch Review, a story of mine has graced the front page! Well, I should say that I did have a partner who helped co-write the story; Katy Carranza, and it it just as much her story as it is mine and it wouldn't be right to not give her credit, so let me say thank you to Katy for working with me on this news piece and for your hard work. I couldn't ask for a better partner. What was the news piece on, you say? It was on Otay Ranch High School's first musical, West Side Story.

MC Rove has left the building: probably the biggest story of the week: Bush's chief political strategist Karl Rove has announced that he will resign at the end of the month.

WASHINGTON - Karl Rove, the political mastermind behind President Bush’s races for the White House and an adviser with unparalleled influence over the past 6½ turbulent years, announced his resignation Monday, ending a partnership stretching back more than three decades.

It was a major loss for Bush as he heads into the twilight of his presidency, battered in the polls, facing a hostile Democratic Congress and waging an unpopular war. A half dozen other senior advisers have left in recent months, forcing the White House to rebuild its staff at the same time the president is running out of influence.

“I’ll be on the road behind you here in a little bit,” said a rueful Bush, announcing the departure alongside Rove on the White House South Lawn. Bush leaves office Jan. 20, 2009.

Is this the last we shall ever hear of ol MC Rove? Doubt it. More than likely he will leech onto another Republican Presidential Candidate (say Mitt Romney?) as a means to further his political agenda of having a permanent majority in Washington.

For the meantime though, I say good riddance to bad rubbish.

24 goes green, right wingers loose their minds: To quote Stephanie Miller of the Stephanie Miller Show, "Let's dive into the right-wing world, shall we?" Jack Bauer, the right-wing's current fixation, has now done the unthinkable: he's fallen into the sinister liberal agenda of conserving the environment.

July 22, 2007, Hollywood, CA – “24,” the Emmy Award-winning series from Imagine and Twentieth Century Fox Television, will strive to become the first television production ever to save enough energy and reduce enough carbon emissions over the course of a season to render its entire season finale “carbon neutral,” it was announced today. In addition to making significant changes to its own production practices, the series aims to educate and inspire its millions of viewers to take climate change and the fight against global warming seriously and personally, before it’s too late, said executive producer/show-runner Howard Gordon and Twentieth Century Fox Television Chairmen Dana Walden and Gary Newman.

“We care deeply about this issue at ‘24,’ and we wanted to do our own small part to be part of the solution,” commented Howard Gordon. “We looked at how we produce the show, and realized that there were some substantive changes we could implement which would make a real difference. But even more importantly, we hope to inspire our audience to look at what they can do in their own lives to help stem global warming. We think this will be the beginning of a conversation with our millions of viewers that will hopefully inspire them to take action around the world.”

The fringes of the right-wing took this loss to the MSN liberal agenda very hard indeed. The bloggers at the conservative watchdog site, Newsbusters.org were torn over the news.

"Rush is almost always right
July 21, 2007 - 18:58 ET — bulbasaur

You got it bigtimer, Rush is gotta be torn over this.

He thinks hollywood types should shut up and act, but the stars themselves think they aren't respected for their depth of thought. So they pick up brochures and whackpot magazines which give them a way to look intelligent.

You have to sympathize somewhat with them, what are they gonna do, study math?

Going gaga over global warming is a shortcut, but I don't think celebrities realize how transparently phony it is. That's why I feel sorry for them."

"So this nut didn't drop too
July 21, 2007 - 18:03 ET — Rackie

I see this nut didn't drop too far from the idiot tree."

"Lefty Acorn
July 21, 2007 - 18:14 ET — stratman

It is not hard to believe that Keifer is a Liberal who buys into fantastical schemes like Gorebal Warming.

His father is Donald Sutherland, a wonderful actor but a Lefty of repute in the old days.

Should we have thought Keif would turn out any other way?

Side Note: Keifer was fired as Road Manager for a band he hired to his own record label. I guess he's not as bright as his 24 personna would suggest."

One 24 die-hard right-winger, was so distraught, that he even created his own script for how the new season would look like when it goes green.

SIX DAYS LATER

Jack arrives in the Valley in his covered wagon pulled by a team of oxen.

Jack: (to uniformed agent who meets him armed with bow and arrow) Drop your weapon! Now! Do it!

Agent: Uh, I’m a CTU agent. I’m your contact.

Jack: Oh. What’s up?

Agent. Me, about five times a night. (pause) That was a joke, sir.

Jack: (blank stare)

Agent: We intercepted a carrier pigeon from the Kyoto Liberation Army. If President Backofthehander doesn’t sign the treaty within two hours, they will allow this glacier to wipe out the entire valley.

Jack: And the downside is…?

Agent: Uh, think of all the children’s art projects made from recycled paper that will be lost, sir.

Jack: Oh, good point. Ok, here’s the plan. We allow Mother Gaia to use her wind and rain to erode the Santa Monica Mountains down to the point where the glacier can flow over them and into the sea.

Agent: Brilliant!

It makes one wonder, since the fringes of the conservative base are for conserving energy, the environment, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Rule of Law, The Geneva Conventions, smaller government, moral values, etc, just what are they trying to conserve?

A brief sample of the Ranch Review

As most of you know, I work for the school newspaper, called The Ranch Review. It is one of my greatest joys working working with other students and put out information that the student body can use. So as a treat, I have videotaped, through my digital camera, what we, the staff do when we have finished all of our assigned stories and we have some downtime for ourselves. Whether or not I do more of these 'diaries', is still up in the air.

This video segment is about a member of the staff, Corey. He talks about his birth defect, the pain of growing up with it, and how he is living with the defect.

The Shins - Wincing the Night Away

Die-hard fans of The Shins, the New Mexico indie rock gods who hit it big with their 2001 debut, Oh, Inverted World, and followed up with, Chutes Too Narrow two years later, but best known for their musical appearances in Zack Braff’s independent hit, Garden State, have said that their new album, Wincing the Night Away, is a disappointment. Fair point, to an extent. Wincing is nowhere near the genius of Chutes or the freshness of Inverted World. To that end, I say to all the disappointed Shins fans, what were you expecting, another Chutes II? Get over yourselves.

What band members James Mercer (lead singer, songwriter, guitarist) , Martin Crandall (bassist) , Dave Hernandez (bassist/guitarist) , and Jesse Sandoval (drummer) have lost in the first two albums, they have gained in developing a new sound that pays off in the long run. Take the opening song in the album, Sleeping Lessons, a triumph of originality, where the band experiments with psychedelic Hawaiian tones, a minute of keyboard tones, and Mercer’s vocals. All the combining elements work like a hypnotic dream. Another example is Sea Legs, where hip-hop is fused with the indie pop/rock melodies. Again, the boldness in melodies works like a charm.

Each of the songs on Wincing are catchy and easy to listen to, but it’s Phantom Limb and A Comet Appears that are the gems of this rich album. In a interview with Billboard.com, Mercer described Phantom as “a hypothetical, fictional account of a young, lesbian couple in high school dealing with the shitty small town they live in,”. Mercer feels for the two girl’s problem of dealing with a town that doesn’t understand, let alone, accept them, and we do as well. The second gem is the last song on the album, A Comet Appears, where you can imagine Mercer picking up a guitar in the middle of the night, singing about all the sins he’s committed that still eat at him. It’s a haunting song that rivals New Slang, Caring is Creepy, and Know Your Onion as one of their best songs.

As I said earlier, Shins fans are pissed that they opted to experiment with a new sound, instead of returning with their lo-fi harmonies that made them a hit. To hell them, I say. In a summer music season that has it’s teeny-bopper crap anthem in Avril Lavigne’s Girlfriend, bound to have it’s overly played on the radio R&B hit, and equally nauseating emo rock bullshit, I’ll gladly take The Shins new sound over the sea of mediocrity any day of the week.



**** stars out of *****

Of Patriotism and Blind Loyalty

"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it". -Mark Twain

There have always been patriots who have stood up against those who who'd use power in office to take advantage of the American people and scare them into a false sense of what being a patriot really is. Fortunately, there have always been people who would stand against this type of abuse of power, people with enough courage to say to the power-hungry fear-enabler, that they're full of shit.

Edward R. Murrow is an example of what it means to be a patriot. You see, back in the 1950's, Republican Junior Senator Joseph McCarthy found his way to political power by making false accusations of people and their ties to the big scare of yesteryear, Communism. Whenever some jumped on McCarthy's bullshit, he would fire back with another accusation of having connections or ties to Communist influences. When McCarthy's witch hunts reached to the point of American citizens fearing their neighbors, friends, even their own family members of having ties with Communists, Murrow and his team at See It Now on CBS had the courage and the strength to expose the bully-boy tactics of McCarty. His most memorable quote was his scathing attack against the Junior Senator and asking all Americans who disagree with McCarty's tactics, to not keep silent.

His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between the internal and the external threats of Communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men

Unfortunately, during that time, you also had enablers, people who allowed McCarthy to carry on with his reckless assaults on others.

During the 1952 Presidential election, the Eisenhower campaign toured Wisconsin with McCarthy. In a speech delivered in Green Bay, Eisenhower declared that while he agreed with McCarthy's goals, he disagreed with his methods. In draft versions of his speech, Eisenhower had also included a strong defense of his mentor George Marshall, a direct rebuke of McCarthy's frequent attacks. However, under the advice of conservative colleagues who were fearful that Eisenhower could lose Wisconsin if he alienated McCarthy supporters, he cut these parts from later versions of his speech.[33][34] The deletion was discovered by a reporter for the New York Times and featured on their front page the next day. Eisenhower was widely criticized for giving up his personal convictions, and the incident became the low point of his campaign.[35]

With his victory in the 1952 presidential race, Dwight Eisenhower became the first Republican president in 20 years. The Republican party also held a majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. After being elected president, Eisenhower made it clear to those close to him that he did not approve of McCarthy and he worked actively to squelch his power and influence. But he never directly confronted McCarthy or criticized him by name in any speech, thus perhaps prolonging McCarthy's power by showing that even the President was afraid to criticize him directly.

Unfortunately, the Republicans played only a third of the part. The Catholic community, even the Kennedys themselves helped support McCarthy.

One of the strongest bases of anti-Communist sentiment in the United States was the Catholic community, which composed over 20% of the national vote. Although the great majority of Catholics were Democrats, as McCarthy's fame as a leading anti-Communist grew he became popular in Catholic communities across the country, with strong support from many leading Catholics, diocesan newspapers and Catholic journals.[27] At the same time, some Catholics opposed McCarthy, notably the anti-Communist author Father John Francis Cronin and the influential journal Commonweal.[28]

McCarthy established a bond with the powerful Kennedy family, which had high visibility among Catholics. McCarthy became a close friend of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., himself a fervent anti-Communist, and was a frequent guest at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport. He dated two of Kennedy's daughters, Patricia and Eunice,[29][30] and was godfather to Robert F. Kennedy's first child, Kathleen Kennedy. Joseph Kennedy had a national network of contacts and became a vocal supporter, building McCarthy's popularity among Catholics and making sizable contributions to McCarthy's campaigns.[31]

Unlike many Democrats, John F. Kennedy, who served in the Senate with McCarthy from 1953 until the latter's death in 1957, never attacked McCarthy. Asked once by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. why he avoided criticism of McCarthy, Kennedy said, "Hell, half my voters in Massachusetts look on McCarthy as a hero."[32]

Today's power-hungry fearmongers are the same person as McCarthy was 55 years ago. Take Rudy Guiliani's comments on how Democrats would bring about another 9/11 if he or the GOP isn't elected as President as an example.

Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001.

But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped. “If any Republican is elected president —- and I think obviously I would be the best at this —- we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it,” Giuliani said.

The former New York City mayor, currently leading in all national polls for the Republican nomination for president, said Tuesday night that America would ultimately defeat terrorism no matter which party gains the White House.

“But the question is how long will it take and how many casualties will we have?” Giuliani said. “If we are on defense [with a Democratic president], we will have more losses and it will go on longer.”

“I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense,” Giuliani continued. “We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense.”

He added: “The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us.” After his speech to the Rockingham County Lincoln Day Dinner, I asked him about his statements and Giuliani said flatly: “America will be safer with a Republican president.”

Like last time there is a patriot who stands up against the politics of fear: Keith Olberamann.

Insisting that the election of any Democrat would mean the country was "back… on defense," Mr. Giuliani continued:
"But the question is how long will it take and how many casualties will we have. If we are on defense, we will have more losses and it will go on longer."

He said this with no sense of irony, no sense of any personal shortcomings, no sense whatsoever.

And if you somehow missed what he was really saying, somehow didn't hear the none-too-subtle subtext of 'vote Democratic and die,' Mr. Giuliani then stripped away any barrier of courtesy, telling Roger Simon of Politico.Com, quote…

"America will be safer with a Republican president."

At least that Republican President under which we have not been safer… has, even at his worst, maintained some microscopic distance between himself, and a campaign platform that blithely threatened the American people with "casualties" if they, next year, elect a Democratic president - or, inferring from Mr. Giuliani's flights of grandeur in New Hampshire - even if they elect a different Republican.

How dare you, sir?


"How many casualties will we have?" - this is the language of Bin Laden.

Yours, Mr. Giuliani, is the same chilling nonchalance of the madman, of the proselytizer who has moved even from some crude framework of politics and society, into a virtual Roman Colosseum of carnage, and a conceit over your own ability — and worthiness — to decide, who lives and who dies.

And like last time, there are the enablers, people who neither have the courage, nor the backbone, to stand up and speak truth to power..........this time, they're Bush apologists, the last of a shrinking minority that still are lock-step behind this man's destructive policies, and the scaremongering from other candidates.

Democrats can complain all they want about the "politics of fear," and blah-blah-blah, but Democrats (and liberal pundits) have made a habit of accusing President Bush of making us less safe. Hillary's response to Rudy's comments also give the same implication, and Obama's response is equally pathetic. Now, what's interesting about their responses is that both of them apparently don't have the courage to appear at a debate put on by FOX News, yet they take offense to criticisms of their abilities to handle the threat of terrorism. Well, like it or not, if they can't handle FOX, they can't handle terrorists.

So, the Democrats need to stop whining and playing the victim, and start addresses the facts of the criticism. The reason why they don't is because they can't. Remember what John Kerry said during his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention? "Any attack will be met with a swift response." Well, that may sound good in liberal circles, but I believe in the conservative strategy of getting the terrorists before they attack us.To put it differently, Republicans believe in going on the offense, and Democrats believe in playing defense.

Cheers to Rudy for telling it like it is.

Even though this nation has had it's fair share of scaremongers and enablers, we should always remember that we have always had patriots, people with courage to speak the truth, have always guided us from dark places in our history, back into the light.

And the next time some Bush apologist calls you unpatriotic for not following Bush's leadership over a fucking cliff, tell them this: who is more unpatriotic - the man who speaks truth to power, or the man who enables the president to keep ruling like a king, doing nothing?