Saturday, April 5, 2008

Quick Read

Part 1
In just one year . Remember the election in 2006?
Thought you might like to read the following:
A little over one year ago:

1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;
2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;
3) The unemployment rate was 4.5%.

Since voting in a Democratically controlled Congress in 2006 we have seen:

1) Consumer confidence plummet;
2) The cost of regular gasoline soar to over $3.50 a gallon;
3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase);
4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity value evaporate (stock and mutual fund losses);
5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 trillion dollars;
6) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.

America voted for "change" in 2006, and we got it!

Remember it's Congress that makes the law, not the President. He has to work with what's handed to him.
Quote of the Day......."My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it." -- Barack Obama
Part 2:
Taxes...Whether Democrat or a Republican you will find these statistics enlightening and amazing.
www.taxfoundation.org/public ations/show/151.html
Taxes under Clinton 1999 Taxes under Bush 2008
Single making 30K - tax $8,400 Single making 30K - tax $4,500

Single making 50K - tax $14,000 Single making 50K - tax $12,500
Single making 75K - tax $23,250 Single making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 60K - tax $16,800 Married making 60K- tax $9,000
Married making 75K - tax $21,000 Married making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 125K - tax $38,750 Married making 125K - tax $31,250
Both democratic candidates will return to the higher tax rates
It is amazing how many people that fall into the categories above think Bush is screwing them and Bill Clinton was the greatest President ever. If Obama or Hillary are elected, they both say they will repeal the Bush tax cuts and a good portion of the people that fall into the categories above can't wait for it to happen. This is like the movie The Sting with Paul Newman; you scam somebody out of some money and they don't even know what happened.
PART 3:
You think the war in Iraq is costing us too much?
Read this:
Boy am I confused. I have been hammered with the propaganda that it
is the Iraq war and the war on terror that is bankrupting us.
I now find that to be RIDICULOUS.
I hope the following 14 reasons are forwarded over and over again
until they are read so many times that the reader gets sick of reading them. I
have included the URL's for verification of all the following facts.
1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens
each year by state governments. Verify at: http://tinyurl.com/zob77
2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs
such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.
3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://www.cis....org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school
education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.html
5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the
American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
Verify at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare &
social services by the American taxpayers. Verify at:
http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html
9. $200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused
by the illegal aliens. Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
10. The illegal aliens in the United State s have a crime rate
that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular,
their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html
11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens
that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens
from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin
and mariju ana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border.
Verify at: Homeland Security Report: http://tinyurl.com/t9sht
12. The National Policy Institute, "estimated that the total
cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average
cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period."
Verify at: http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf
13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances
back to their countries of origin.
Verify at: http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm
14. "The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million
Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United State s ."
Verify at: http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml

Thursday, April 3, 2008

When Will Hollywood Figure It Out?

Accusing Hollywood of being a filmic crap factory is nothing new. They’ve been churning out garbage for decades. But in most cases, their failures aren’t due to a complete ignorance of what the people want, they fail due to a lack of execution. Hollywood, for the most part, dictates what’s cool, or at the very least, has their finger on the pulse of America and make money by making movies that speak to it.

But it makes me wonder how an industry that has been so successful in knowing what America wants can be so blind when it comes to movies about the war on terror? Is it that they are stubborn? Is it that they are simply stupid? Is it that Hollywood’s ego has finally expanded beyond the smog in the LA basin and now they firmly believe that they can tell us what to watch, and are no longer held accountable by the wants of the movie-going community?

In the latest example of incomprehensible arrogance, Hollywood has brought us the newest stylized MTVish hackjob about the war in Iraq, and just as the previous 5 films of the same topic did, it too failed miserably.

Consider, if you will, the following names:

Robert Redford, Ryan Phillipe, Susan Sarandon, Jake Gyllenhall, Reese Witherspoon, Tommy Lee Jones, Brian DePalma, Charlize Theron, Josh Brolin, Samuel L Jackson, Jessica Biel, Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, Christina Ricci

Now, if I were to tell you that these people headlined a cast of 6 films, would you say that they were box office successes or failures?

These are the stars/directors behind the following six films that Hollywood has decided to try shoving down the throat of a greatly unappreciative audience; In the Valley of Elah, Home of the Brave, Redacted, Rendition, Lions for Lambs and the latest, Stop-Loss.

Now, not all of these films were complete, abysmal, horrendous, embarrassing failures. Rendition did open with a $4 million weekend, which while not the worst opening ever, was still bad enough to make a couple of movie execs not want to face their boss on Monday. Of course, it didn't get any better and limped out of theatres a few weeks later compiling a paltry $9 million. Ouch. People liked the big stars, Reese and Jake, and saw the movie. They then found out what it was about and told everyone else not to go see it.

Then, there was Lions For Lambs, a flick with a cast that would spell instant success had it not been about what it was about. It brought in $6.7 million in its first weekend. Not good. Then, it too suffered a few more really really bad weeks before giving the world a respite and just going home, taking in a whole $14.9 million. Now, sure, 14.9 million bucks ain’t bad for little old me, but considering the budget was over $35 million, that one hurt. And hurt bad.

Now let’s talk about the bad. And I mean, the really really bad. About a year ago, Samuel L Jackson, the uber-hot Jessica Biel, Christina Ricci and everyone’s homeboy 50 Cent got together for their “Iraq war vets come home damaged” film “Home Of The Brave.” With a cast like that, how could it fail?! Well, no surprise here, it did just that. After negative responses from test market crowds, it earned a tiny release and left theatres after two weeks, raking in a total of…drumroll…wait for it…drums still rolling…$40,830! With an estimated budget of $12 million, I’m thinking that wasn’t the wisest of choices, Hollywood.

Maybe that sort of thing should set off an alarm in the head of some of these people. Maybe a film with a great cast that should’ve carried it to even modest success that instead failed miserably should’ve made the people in charge think twice about making releasing more films in the same vein? Maybe not.

Redacted, Brian De Palma’s war film released later in the year raked in $65k! And then there was Valley of Elah, from Oscar winning writer/director Paul Haggis (Crash), starring Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron and (surprise) Susan Sarandon. It flopped its way in and out of theatres collecting a massive $6 million!

So what do we learn from all this? You and I, as sane and clear-thinking people, see this as an indication that the American people have NO interest in movies that shine a negative light on our soldiers or the war that they are fighting. But alas, we are not Hollywood. We are not so egotistic to assume that the people are too stupid to know what they want. We are not such assholes that we think our narrow views of the world are something that the rest of the country wants to spend money to see.

There are people out there who are still on board with the war, and there are quite a few who are tired of it. There are many people who never liked it, and there are a bunch who just hope we lose and come home. Hollywood, apparently, falls in to that last group. What Hollywood doesn’t understand is that AMERICA doesn’t agree. They simply can’t figure that out. They really aren’t stupid, they simply live in a bubble. When you live in this bubble, you realize that everyone around you says the same bullshit and everyone else simply agrees. So when everyone you work with all believes the same crap (and when those who don’t just shut up because they fear losing their jobs), you start to believe that everyone believes said crap. What they don’t realize in Hollywood is that there is a whole nation out there that continues on east of Silverlake, and that nation actually has a different opinion – as incomprehensible as that may seem.

Perhaps this latest crapbomb, Stop-Loss will help them realize that despite the actors, despite the directors, despite the marketing blitz, the people sign your paychecks and the people are sick of you badmouthing the effort and the sacrifice that our military makes. Sure, they’ll say “These are movies FOR the soldiers! We just hate their superiors!” Great, keep that idiotic argument going, keep green-lighting box office failures, and we’ll wave to you as we drive by Urth CaffĂ© in the middle of the day as your unemployed ass pretends to be busy on your iBook with all the other unemployed douchebags in town.

Here’s to you making more crap and America not seeing it…


**** I guess Hollywood isn’t completely filled with idiots; I did see today that they are hard at work adapting Atlas Shrugged for the big screen, starring Angelina Jolie as Dagny Taggart and Brad Pitt possibly as John Galt. Angelina's dad, Jon Voight is a staunch conservative...maybe he and his daughter have something in common, afterall?