Friday, February 25, 2005

If Ann Coulter had Al Franken's Baby, It Might Be Smart

I recently signed up on the NJ Bloggers site, mostly thanks to the link on CRAIG’s page. This blog may be a bit off my usual blogging style, but I feel I have to vent a little. I have decided that I hate political activism and extremism. I also hate political blogs. I browsed some of the NJ blogs and found them so whiny and boring.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa – Bush won. Get over it.

The thing that cracks me us so much about this stuff is that these people really think John Kerry would have made a big difference. Kerry is a stooge too. Albeit, he is a different kind of stooge, but he is a stooge nevertheless. I understand there are flaws to Bush’s doctrine and that perhaps the war was not necessary. On the other hand, I don’t think that Sadaam being out of power is bad for anyone either.

The bottom line is, the truth does not lie with Michael Moore or Al Franken, and the truth does not lie in the head of Ann Coulter (though I do appreciate her wit) or Rush Limbaugh. As with everything, the truth is somewhere in the middle, and the situation in the Middle East is bad, and it always has been bad, and it will be bad in the foreseeable future. It drives me crazy that these people are so sure they are right when they have so little of the real information. They see such a small piece of the puzzle and think they have it all figured out.

The crisis in the Middle East can be blamed on many things and not just W. Sure I think W is inarticulate, and stubborn, and I am troubled by the fact that he believes he is speaking with God. However, I do not believe he is evil or has some ulterior motive to inflate the pockets of Dick Cheney at the expense of soldiers’ lives. Maybe I am naïve.

I think it boils down to the fact that people are stupid, shortsighted, and can never see the other side of an argument. The refuse to consider the possibility that they are wrong, or have a distorted view of the facts.

To put it anecdotally, I remember I was camping with my two brothers in law last fall. It was a clear night and we were looking at the stars commenting on how far away they are. One of the guys said, how do they know that, I mean how can they tell that a star is 10 light years away or twenty. He claimed he was reasonably intelligent, yet could not comprehend stellar distances. The other brother-in-law then said something that has resonated with me ever since then. He said:

“There are so many people out there so much smarter than you, don’t even try to understand.”

So to all the bloggers, both left wing and right, I say - “There are so many people out there, so much smarter than you.”

Thursday, February 24, 2005

I Am Staking My Claim

So, the Delta Pavonis idea was growing wings. A friend of mine who read the blog suggested we collaborate on the story. At first I thought it was a silly idea, but after brainstorming a couple of times, we started to come up with something unique and creative.

The premise would be that a civilization from the Delta Pavonis system is dying because their sun is evolving off the main sequence. Our basic idea was that the Delta Pavonis system is similar to the Solar System in that the inner planets are rocky. The premise was that their “Earth” had become unstable due to the evolution of Delta Pavonis. As a result, this civilization had terraformed their fourth planet, which coincidently would be similar to our Mars.

Some centuries later, their Mars would also become uninhabitable due to the further evolution of Delta Pavonis, and they would need to find a new star system in which to live. Since Delta Pavonis is within 20 light years of the Sun, it is reasonable to assume that the Solar System could be their system of choice, since many of the other systems within 20 light years of Delta Pavonis are in some way flawed (some of this we know, some would be speculation).

Now, here is where some further speculation of advanced technology comes in. We assume that through a more powerful type of telescope, this civilization is able to determine that Earth is inhabited, but that Mars is available and can be terraformed. So they send out ships at a speed faster than our technology is capable of producing (but slower than light because I would like some credibility to the premise) and start to terraform Mars.

The above is all pretty much background, as the story would begin with our scientists detecting changes to the Martian landscape and atmosphere, and then discovering the aliens. From here the story would develop. We had not decided on how to structure a meeting between us and our new neighbors, or what the aliens would look like, but those details would eventually have been written by my co-author. By the way – if you want to take a stab at it from here go ahead.

Now my concern is this. The stupid Spielberg Cruise movie involving Mars has pissed me off a bit. I am really afraid that they will incorporate some of our idea of a civilization for another system living on Mars when they attack. So, I am putting my cards on the table now to prove to all 4 of you that this was my idea first. If the dumb movie actually has the dumb premise that the invaders are indigenous life forms of Mars, then perhaps we will write the story, but until then I am not going to waste my time.

Also, I am not a writer.

Monday, February 21, 2005

The Good, The Bad, and The Stupid

I finally saw Kill Bill this weekend. What took me so long? This was probably the best movie I have seen since Pulp Fiction. I am upset that I did not see it in the theater. Quentin Tarantino may be the best director of all time. I can’t tell you how many times I was amazed at the camera angles and other aspects of this movie. The fight scene in the snow between Lucy Liu and Uma was fantastic, as was every other scene in this brilliant movie. Tarantino is way underrated, and it’s pretty obvious to me that the reason he isn’t more commercially successful is that most people are too stupid to appreciate his brilliance.

Speaking of stupid. Hollywood stooges Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg are re-making War of the Worlds. Are we to believe that invaders from Mars are coming to fight us? What is this, Attack of the Microbes? Can we really accept a movie in this day and age that has invaders from Mars? Can they really not change this foolish premise? I know it is fiction, but really doesn’t the story need a shred of credibility? I am curious to see how this develops and how this stupid movie will be any different than Independence Day, which was stupid enough.