SARAH PALIN: Everything you need to know

SHE IS CURRENTLY UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR ABUSE OF POWER

CREATIONISM: Palin wants schools to teach your kids about space aliens and talking snakes

Moose Burgers

Palin uses bullets to regulate the numbers of wolves, bears, moose, caribou, sheep, and deer in

Palin: Wildlife? Kill!

Palin: Wildlife? Drill!

Palin: Polar Bears? WHATEVER! DRILL!

Palin: Global Warming NOT man-made

Palin OPPOSES Birth Control and Condoms

Palin OPPOSES abortion, even if the woman is raped

Palin: I'd oppose abortion even if my own DAUGHTER was raped

Palin: Against Stem-Cell research

Palin's first lie of the campaign

Palin: "What does a VP do?"

Palin, on radio, calls her opponent a "bitch", makes fun of her cancer, weight

Another report on Palin's flabbergasting radio interview

PALIN HUSBAND WORKS FOR OIL COMPANY

Palin tried to ban books

Palin thinks "Pledge of Allegiance" written by founding fathers

Corrupt and Clueless Ted Stevens Appears in Palin AD

Andrew Sullivan's Three Words About Palin

Palin: Hillary Clinton is a "Whiner"

Dallas Morning News Op-Ed on Palin

Palin Quickly Juiced Up Her Wiki Page

Palin in Pennslyvania, happy to "see other part of the country"

McCain has said, "Maybe we'll be in Iraq for 100 years", Palin thinks it's an opportune time to send her 19 year old son to Iraq while admitting she doesn't know the GOP's plan to end the war.

The Repubs wanted to make Obama's church a big deal. So, I introduce to you Sarah Palin's Church of "Holy Shit You Gotta Be Kidding Me".

Palin's Pastor

Palin is a Dominionist and, yes, that should scare the shit out of you.

Palin was mayor of town. Palin left town $20 Million in debt.

John McCain's politiicization of tragedy

I just read that McCain might make his acceptance speech via satellite from the "devastation zone".

This is a political move that I know he thinks will help him but will just make it easier for critics to take aim against him. Seriously, Republicans (aside from those who have active parts to play in Hurricane relief efforts) should stay as far away from Hurricanes as possible.

It'll be too easy for everyone to draw Katrina comparisons.

For McCain, it'll be worse than that picture of John Kerry in that weird costume.

Sarah Palin = Harriet Miers

I wrote this for the Huffington Post. I'll let you know when it appears there, in the meantime, check it out here:



It seems as though John McCain has once again followed in George W. Bush's footsteps, this time with a gaffe that will go down in history as one of the biggest election blunders our generation has seen.

As you all probably remember, in 2005, George W. Bush nominated his White House Counsel, Harriet Miers to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court despite the fact that she had no judicial experience whatsoever and seemed completely wrong for the part in every other way but her gender. After both sides of the aisle finished scratching their heads, outcry turned to panic and Miers was forced to withdraw the nomination.

On his 72nd birthday, John McCain announced Sarah Palin for his running mate in a half-assed attempt to put a female on the ballot to fill the void left by Hillary Rodham Clinton. Despite the fact that she has no federal experience whatsoever and seems completely wrong for the part in every other way but her gender. Add to that her scandal at home which has her under investigation for the abuse of Gubernatorial power of which she's only held for 18 months and you've got everyone on both sides of the aisle really scratching their heads. I imagine outcry will soon turn to panic and Palin might have to consider withdrawing her nomination, leaving McCain to choose a new running mate halfway through the race.

I think that McCain is going to have a much harder time with Palin than Bush did with Miers, though. Most people I talk to don't even remember who Miers is (granted, three years from now, I doubt anyone will remember the name Sarah Palin, too), but Bush didn't have anywhere near as much at stake as McCain does. In 2005, Bush still had three years left of his second term and his approval ratings had been circling the drain for years. He really didn't have much to lose by screwing up with nominating Miers.

McCain has everything to lose by choosing Palin.

I've been one of those scratching my head as well, trying to figure out what McCain is doing. I'm sure everyone reading this has read over and over again that this kills his experience argument with Obama. Palin stands against everything Clinton stood for as far as women's rights are concerned, so she won't fill in that vote. She'll be torn to shreds by Joe Biden on the foreign policy front. Any talk of family values will be negated by the fact that she's willing to leave home and become Vice-President with a 5-month old Down Syndrome baby to be cared for. With her abuse-of-power investigation in full swing, it'll be hard to convince voters that she's part of the change both candidates agree that Washington needs.

The best I can come up with is that McCain is hoping that some horrible tragedy will befall her, enabling him to pick Joe Lieberman as his running-mate. Maybe he's pulling a fast one on everyone and she'll get to the convention and not accept the nomination. Maybe Lieberman, Pawlenty and Romney still have a shot.

I know it's a terrible thing to say, but maybe McCain really has picked her in hopes that something happens to her, something to make her unable to continue the race. At that point, maybe he's thinking that he might be able to swing into office on a sympathy vote.

But even that's a stretch.

Perhaps, as the days go by, we'll figure out if there's rhyme and reason to picking Sarah Palin or if McCain simply set up a dart board with pictures of all of the office-holding Republican women and let loose with a dart, blind-folded.

DNC WRAP UP (pt 1)

Ok, so I watched every night of the DNC and then spent at least an hour afterwards geeking out on Daily Kos. Hence, the neglect here. But, I've got my thoughts still, so, here we go:

Before talking about Hillary, here are some of my favorite quotes from the DNC:

"John McCain calls himself a maverick, but he votes with George Bush over 90 percent of the time. That's not a maverick that's a sidekick." –Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA)

"He as taken more than a million from the oil and gas industries ... he wants to give those oil companies another $4 billion in tax breaks ... Four billion in tax breaks? That's a lot change, but not the change we need." –Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer

"Wake up, America! Wake up, America!" - Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich

"That campaign generated so much heat, it increased global warming." - President Bill Clinton on the race for delegates between Hillary and Barack

"We can't simply drill our way to energy independence if you drilled everywhere, if you drilled in all of John McCain's backyards, even the ones he doesn't know he has." –Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer

I have to say, there was a tangible air of tension all day Tuesday. The media hacks spent most of the day asking Hillary supporters why they were protesting Obama and why some of them were going as far as throwing their vote to John McCain. These people were called "PUMA"s (Party Unity My Ass), which meant if you took that literally, "Party Unity's" ass was fat and ugly with gigantic ounces of estrogen and misplaced daddy issues. I mean, these women (cuz everyone I saw was a woman) seriously hated themselves. One person said, "These women voting for John McCain is like a chicken voting for Col. Sanders". As some of you may know, I am a serious Freudian, and thus my opinion on all this is very cut and dry. I won't expound on it right now, but suffice to say, these women weren't protesting politics, they were protesting a penis.

Everyone, I introduce the craziest bitches ever:



Ok, so, leading up to Hillary's speech that night was nail biting for a few folks. Would she say something to blow the whole convention out of the water? Would she strongly support Barack Obama? Would she convince her batshit crazy supporters to wake the fuck up?

Chelsea Clinton took the stage and introduced her mom with this video:



Then it was Hillary. On Daily Kos, everyone was writing comments like "OMG, so nervous" or "WTF is she going to say?!"

Right off the top, Hillary shouted:

"I am here tonight as a proud mother, a proud Democrat, a proud senator from New York, a proud American, and a proud supporter of Barack Obama!"

Daily Kos comments: "Whew!" and "Wow! She just dove right in!", etc, etc.

"It makes perfect sense that George Bush and John McCain will be together next week in the Twin Cities, because these days they're awfully hard to tell apart." - Hilary Clinton

"To my supporters, to my champions -- to my sisterhood of the traveling pant suits -- from the bottom of my heart, thank you." - Hilary Clinton

The quote from Hillary that actually got tears in my eyes was when she talked about the advice Harriett Tubman gave to the slaves she was rescuing through the Underground Railroad:

"If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If they're shouting after you, keep going. Don't ever stop! Keep going! If you want a taste of freedom, keep going!"

Hillary Clinton gave, what many are calling, "the speech of her career". I couldn't agree more. She nailed it. A huge sigh of relief all around at the end of the night.

VIDEO OF HER ENTIRE SPEECH

New, extremely short, short story

http://shortstorycorner.blogspot.com/2008/08/bitter-sweet-dreams.html

Check it out.

THE PUMAS

I'm going to write up my opinion on the PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) group later. If you don't know, these lunatics supported Hillary, got pissed when Obama won, and now they're going to vote for McCain.

Below, enjoy watching wacked-out uglies with daddy issues try to justify their ridiculous "Hillary Supporters for McCain" hogwash. If you want to skip past their "Obama is a Muslim" bullshit, go to the end: a young black girl totally owns the PUMAS with dignity and intelligence. It's great stuff.

"BLOW IT" PREMIERE

So, my short film is finally premiering this Wednesday night at the Tower Theatre during the "Open Mic Shorts Fest".

The plot goes like this: A young man's entire life is ruined after an elaborate attempt to "make love" to "Scarlett Johansson".

It stars Patrick Waldrop, Becky Gulla, Richard Newman and Me.

"BLOW IT"
Wed, Aug 27th
Shorts start at 9pm
Tower Theatre
9th East 9th South
SLC, UT

MEET THE FAMILY

The "First" Family, I mean:

DNC NIGHT ONE

I spent the evening putting finishing touches on my short film and watching close to 4 hours of coverage of the Democratic National Convention. Here are some of my thoughts:

Nancy Pelosi is a stooge and I hope Cindy Sheehan kicks her ass.

Jesse Jackson, Jr lit up the night pretty darn good.


Ted Kennedy is called the "lion" for very good reasons. Dude was bed ridden yesterday and he just tromps up there like he's storming Normandy beach. He gave an electric speech and delivered it in seasoned, classic Kennedy style. "I'll be back there on the floor come January...!" He had brain surgery and he's already rolling his sleeves up and getting back to work. God love him.


Michelle Obama finished the night off with a deep and emotional speech that had many in the audience in tears. She spoke of the humble beginnings of both her and Barack's life, how they met (hint: it wasn't adultery like McCain), and then talked about wanting to change America for her daughters and for all the children of America. Her two little girls came on stage and Barack appeared via satellite. Little Sasha grabbed the mic from her mom, "Hi, Daddy!" The talked briefly back and forth and then Barack: "I'll see you Thursday".


Post-Show Bobblehead Highlights:

FOX NEWS' Juan Williams actually gets choked up and teary while talking about the importance of Michelle Obama's speech. Williams, a black man, thought it sent the perfect message to not only the entire country, but specifically to black families. He said, "There they were, a happy family on stage, who had pulled through trials, and were sticking together in love. That's an important message".

Right after Williams' impassioned comments, Fred Barnes, a white FOX NEWS panelist said, "Meh, her speech was lackluster..."

On MSNBC, Pat Buchanan was adamant that the night was a failure. "Michelle didn't even address Christianity," he said bullheadedly. Chris Matthews snapped back, "This wasn't the Democratic Christian Convention, Patttttttt...." Rachel Maddow, who I would love to bear children with if she swung that way, told Buchanan, "Michelle's speech was actually the opposite of the hateful speech you gave at the 1992 RNC..." Snap.

I watched also watched a bit of the CSPAN post-game coverage which featured a score of callers. It blew my mind. Out of the 20 or so call-ins, about 12 or so were ANTI-OBAMA. Not only were they anti-Obama, but they kept saying things like "Hi, I'm in Kansas and I refuse to vote for a Muslim" or "Hi, I'm in Alabama and that new book says Obama forged his birth certificate and he's not even American." CSPAN actually let these knuckleheads go on the air. Then there were the Hillary freaks who called to say, "I'm voting for McCain cuz I have serious daddy issues" or "Michelle Obama is so fake, Hillary is the real deal" blah, blah, blah. WTF.

All in all, a successful introduction of the Obama family to America. But, as we all know, it doesn't matter what WE think. It matters what the JUDGES think. Who are the judges? CNN, FOX, NBC, CBS, ABC, and every single newspaper in the country. They're the ones who will decide if it was a successful night for the Demos or not.

WTF LINKS, Monday Aug 25

I swear this is another example of how we're one step closer to a New World Order

Swift Boaters claim that Obama's birth certificate is a forgery; they offer no proof to support this claim, which is why many people believe them.

Polar Bears are just swimming around in the ocean cuz all the ice is gone.

Religion poisons everything: Evangelist School Director says "Dinosaurs helped build the pyramids", uses Bible to prove it.

Hello, everyone, meet Big Brother. Big Brother, meet everyone else.

This is another reason why I'm going to have a problem flying out of country.

Bush Surrenders

Something about this is kick-ass awesome and fascist at the same time.

Just when I thought Joe Biden was a stud...

America thinks like the tube, eats like the tube, raises kids like the tube:

Meet Your New Vice President

Watch his speech in its entirety. This guy's gonna kick ass and take names.

Frost/Nixon

This is probably the only Ron Howard movie I've looked forward to... Ever....

Frost/Nixon looks really good.

Watch the trailer here before it gets yanked.

Huffington Post

I wrote something up for those guys...

Check it out here.

Ashley Sanders and Why She's Voting For Nader

Elias and I shot this for the Nader '08 campaign.

Review: Clone Wars

A lot of people will instantly discard my review of this film, knowing that I have what some might call a blinding love for all things Star Wars. That's not exactly the case. I can nitpick Star Wars, there's a few things I'd have done differently, there's some "corrections" to the Special Editions that piss me the fuck off. But overall, I love it all.

I've been on and off about this cartoon for a while. I've been excited for it for a long time, but the reviews have been pouring in and people have been taking big, smelly shits on this movie. It had my expectations down a little bit. I went into this film wondering what it might be like to not enjoy a Star Wars theatrical experience.

Thankfully, that didn't happen.

This film sets a tone right at the beginning that let's you know that it's a kids movie. The opening crawl is replaced with a war-film-like narrator, bringing the not-yet-able-to-read-that-quickly-audience like my son up to speed on where this occurs in the timeline and doesn't really let up from there. It seems as though a lot of reviewers of this movie were expecting an animated Empire Strikes Back and wrote reviews based more on their dissapointment of what the film wasn't instead of their joy at what it was. This is a kids movie, through and through. And it's done in some very smart ways.

I thought that I would be annoyed by the idea of giving Anakin a sassy young padawan (who will by the end of the TV series no doubt meet a sad and horrible fate) but this is a stroke of brilliance to rein in an age demographic that hasn't been specifically served by a theatrical Star Wars movie since Phantom Menace. Ahsoka is what every young Star Wars fan wants to be, a padawan learner, and she's every bit the reckless padawan Anakin deserves. And it's insinuated in the film that Obi-Wan and Yoda planned this padawan purposely in order to temper Anakin into the Jedi he should have been. I can't imagine him losing her before the end of the Clone Wars will help his descent to the Dark Side...

But this film is a really, really accessible kids movie for all ages. It's not as good as a Brad Bird kids movie, but it's certainly ahead of the curve on childrens entertainment and made me thirsty for more. I'm quite pleased with the idea that I'll be able to tune in to new installments on Friday's.

This set the tone for how I imagine the series will run and the Clone Wars is an almost endless well of short stories to cover in a 20+ minute format.

Also, Jabba the Hutt's son didn't bother me. There's not much to argue with there. I heard a lot of people were pissed off about it, but seriously, people who'd be pissed off about something that trivial is obviously a douche-bag.

The animation took a little getting used to, but by the time a third of the film had gone by, the animation seemed great. The stylizations of the characters were really cool, the action sequences well coreographed and the Clones were absolute bad-asses. I can already hear a lot of people groaning about how they turned the Battle Droids into clowns, but the audience I saw it with (admittedly, the median age was 11) ate it up. The movie as a whole really entertained the kids and Star Wars fans like me and even drew applause from the harder-core Star Wars fans dressed as Boba Fett, Plo Koon and others.

It was pretty good. Will I see it again? Definitely. Will I see it again this weekend? Most Definitely.

Should you see it? If you're the type of nerd who can appreciate kids entertainment, yes. Bring a kid, yours, a niece or a nephew or something if you want to see it but you're the jaded prick sort of nerd. I guarantee you'll like it a lot better and enjoy it a lot more watching it with and through them.

But don't expect the animated version of Empire Strikes Back. It doesn't even try to move in that direction, though I would bet there will be episodes of the show that might be able to pull of that sort of mood and timbre.

Ernest Borgnine's Secret to Old Age

WTF LINKS, Tuesday Aug 12

VIDEO: Bush Smacks a Bikini Clad Girl's Ass

Nancy Pelosi is the most clueless politician ever and she should just kill herself.

If you're an Islamic Chick who pisses off crazy Islamic fuckheads, prepare to be "honorably" set ablaze, strangled, shot at, clubbed, stabbed, tortured, axed, or stoned to death.

CNN, scared shitless, refuses to use the word "Islamic" or "Muslim" in its reporting of above story on crazy Islamic Muslim fuckheads.

Bush weakens Endangered Species list, gets an erection.

Bush seems to be enjoying getting away with murder; smuggly dismisses any problems with America.

Oh, and here's a reason why Bush might get away with war crimes.

No, you cannot fucking do that. Towing companies posts "No Parking" signs AFTER people had parked there.

Now, I know everything above is doom and gloom, but I end with a good story:

I was watching this swimming match live Sunday night and it seriously had me on the edge of my seat. Before the race, the favored French team had said, "We're going to smash the Americans" and, for most of the race, it looked like France would win... Until the last 25 yards... Wow. If you can, watch the whole video.

REVIEW: Salvador

About two years ago I purchased the box-set of Oliver Stone's complete works. It's been gathering dust on a shelf since then. There's always another movie I seem to want to watch. What with the recent trailer from "W" making it's rounds on the internet, I thought it was time to break out the set and start chronologically through Stone's career.

I've only seen a few of his movies, you know, the one's everybody's seen (Platoon, JFK, U-Turn...) Ok, maybe not everybody, but those are it. So, I didn't know what to expect on his first outing as a major film director with a budget and I had no idea what Salvador was about.

Salvador is a biographical film about photo-journalist Richard Boyle (who helped Stone write the script) during the failed revolution in 1980 and 1981. (It's widely emphasized that Reagan's policies had a lot to do with this, in fact, the Fascist leaders in the country praise Reagan's election.) But the film plunges you into 1980 El Salvador and really gives you a taste of how shitty things were (and in some cases, probably still are) in Central America at the time. It's sad, really.

And James Woods delivers the performance of his life as our lens for the politics of the film. Yeah, he's a liberal guy, but he's got a soul and a conscience and when he lets loose with his moral outrage against the military and CIA stooges, you can feel it. You get pissed. And the stuff that the American's turn a blind eye to is enough to make you sick. When the fascists order a group of American nuns to be raped and killed for...whatever reason... It's just disgusting. The American Ambassador (played competently by Michael Murphy, whom I've enjoyed in a couple of Woody Allen movies, particularly Manhattan) tries to cut off military aid to the fascists, but the military and the CIA and the Reagan-ites back him into a corner and force him to relent, thus shattering the peasant uprising, for fear that communism might spread.

At the end of the day, this film really just pissed me off in all the wrong ways for absolutely the right reasons.

I also found it startling how much that period in US foreign policy seemed like today. The US was perpetrating terror. And when they weren't perpetrating it personally, they were enabling the perpetrators.

It really makes me sad that America hasn't wised up.

For anyone that has a moral compass I would recommend this movie. It puts fire in your belly.

(For related reading (only in subject matter, not geography or time) I would recommend Kurt Vonnegut's essay's about the long-since passed country of Biafra.)

FOR BRYAN

CLICK EACH TO ENLARGE

Morgan Spurlock's 30 DAYS

If you read this blog around the time of Sundance, you know that a few of us here shit all over Morgan Spurlock for creating the worst documentary ever made, "Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden?"

But today, I came across a link to his FX tv show, "30 DAYS". I quickly saw one of the latest episodes was about a strict Mormon housewife having to live with 2 gay adoptive parents for 30 days. I thought, "Huh, ok, I'll watch the first 5 minutes and as soon as Morgan Spurlock inserts his shitty animation montages or goofy schtick jokes, I'll stop."

During the first 60 seconds, Morgan is talking about (with shitty animation) the many ways babies can be made in the modern world. He opines, "Maybe one day, even men will give birth". Then is cuts to Morgan with a balloon stuffed under his shirt while he eats pickles and ice cream. I was about to stop right then and there. But...

I watched the whole episode.

Not only was it good, it was extremely balanced and disciplined (as much as a TV show can be I guess). Morgan kept himself out of the camera for the most part and I felt this episode was one of the most fascinating short documentaries I've ever seen.

I didn't feel like Spurlock or the show's producers were taking things out of context or juicing the subjects for emotion. The outbursts and tears in the episode felt expected and normal rather than exploitative.

On top of this, the section where Spurlock actually goes on camera to visit a sperm bank, I was actually laughing out loud at his quips. Did I just laugh at a Morgan Spurlock shenanigan?

Seeing this made me realize how much better a guy like Spurlock is when he has 2-3 really good producers tweaking and polishing his creation. I know for a fact that my last film wouldn't have been as good if Bryan and Elias weren't breathing down my neck about some of the crazy ideas I came up with. Maybe Spurlock should keep this in mind when he does his next documentary.

Anyways, I think I might pick up the DVD seasons of "30 DAYS" now.

Watch the Mormon Wife vs. Gay Couple episode here.

DAILY LINKS Sat, Aug 2nd

Murder Trail: The "He turned my cat gay" defense.

Kurt Vonnegut: How to write with style

Johnny Depp as THE RIDDLER?

How People Die

GhostBusters with Steve Irwin

Jesus Freaks Trying to Control the Vagina

This is mass madness.

It's an uncontrollable diety-like urge to control how and when a female can get impregnated.

In the name of religion, George Bush has proposed a new act to take away more reproductive rights of women and to protect crazy loon doctors who refuse birth control in the name of Jesus Christ.

Here's a sum up:

"Under the guise of rules to protect antiabortion nurses and doctors from discrimination in hiring, a proposed new regulation would expand the definition of abortion to include any form of contraception that can work by stopping implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus. This can include common birth-control pills, emergency contraception, and the intra-uterine device, or IUD. Doctors who refuse to perform abortions for reasons of personal conscience already are protected by law."

Mormon Mike Leavitt (the head of the fucking U.S. Health and Human Services) has thrown in his support of this paleolithic proposal.

More from the madness:

"At some point in their lives, 98 percent of US women use birth control. The proposed rule, while claiming to protect the rights of nurses and doctors, would interfere with patients' rights. A woman seeking treatment could be denied birth control and not even be aware that the service was available - only denied to her because of the unexpressed personal beliefs of the practitioner."

It is my opinion that any doctor, ANY doctor who refuses a woman birth control because of his belief in space aliens should lose his license ON THE SPOT. If I were a woman, I would make it a point to bait known Dr. Jesus Freaks, have them deny me birth control, and then sue the pants off them.

Hitting them in wallet is what will work. Hitting them in the balls definitely won't work. These men apparently don't have any.

TAD WALCH UPDATE

I forgot to update you guys on whether Tad Walch (Mr. I know and write about things that I haven't done any god damn research on) did NOT come to our Utah County screening of "Killer at Large".

He told the entire public that our film was not worth seeing, having never seen it himself.

I hope he dies a sad and lonely death.

Just kidding! I actually hope he keeps writing meaningless and wasteful bullshit about yours truly.

New Huffington Post Article

Go over there to read my exclusive....