More ROTK
Fresh from NRO, another commentary on the cultural relevance of ROTK and the other members of the Lord of the Rings.
Fresh from NRO, another commentary on the cultural relevance of ROTK and the other members of the Lord of the Rings.
I may have to reevaluate my opinion of FDR. According to David Frum of NR, a new book by Conrad Black highlights how many of his policies were in fact forward looking and conservative in nature. In an interview, Mr Frum goes over how a prominent conservative can write a lauditory book about one of the architects of the current welfare system. The main point is that the New Deal wasa not meant to continue, but was rather a temporary stopgap, “first class catastrophe avoidance.” I need to pick up Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom from Amazon and give it a read.
When I was on my way to see ROTK, I blogged on Aragorn’s (Viggo Mortensen) pop-Hollywood political views. Forutunately, Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) is a lot smarter. In an interview with Steve Beard, he highlights his childhood as being one of the guiding forces for his thoughts about Western values. He points out that even in ‘55, the UN was an ineffectual force in preventing slavery in colonial Africa. His father was also prescient about the rise of Islamofacism and the future conflict between it and the West. Read the article, it’s good, and Gimli’s a good guy.
It look like once all the details come out for the capture of Saddam, Bruce will be following through on his promised rewards. Somehow, I don’t think he’ll get his four seconds though, especially since there are a lot of guys how would like to help him out in “saying hi” to the Butcher of Baghdad.
I was looking at the run through of Howard Dean’s political team, and one of the guys is former AFCoS McPeak. Not only was he so brilliant as to support the gutting of our armed forces during the Dark Years (who’s fighting two wars now?), he forced that travesty of a servce dress on us. The only thing I remember from his time in service was that he changed the service dress into something that an airline pilot would wear. In contrast his successor will always be remembered for being an excellent leader who was willing to go the distance for his subordinates.
Well, I get to see ROTK in an hour and a half, and boy am I looking forward to it. Unfortunately, I lost a lot of respect for Vigo Mortensen (Aragorn) based on his comments about President Bush in an article I read this morning. From the article:
A frequent critic of the Bush administration, Mortensen said part of what appealed to him about “The Lord of the Rings” was its positive message about integrity in leadership.“Everyone thinks (Aragorn) is the man for the job, because he has humility, a concern with the consequences of his actions and words on others and an interest in finding common ground with other people. All are qualities which I wish there were more of in real life in our modern-day leaders. There’s an unfortunate lack of humility and overabundance of arrogance.”
Typical Looney pronouncement. What I think is funny is that all of the positive qualities that he cites about Aragorn are equally applicable to President Bush. That was the one thing I got out of the interview last night, our President is very humble man. The examples of leaders lacking humility in the world today are Chirac, Schroder, and the entire Democratic party (less Zell Miller). And how about arrogance? I think the people who think that they can tell the US what to do are pretty arrogant and f’n stupid.
Dangit, now I am pissed. I hope I feel better when I get to the theater.
HS!! I am going to be getting broadband while Otter is gone, solely to play World of Warcraft. From Slashdot: Games, I read some of the reviews from the GenCon crowd in LA. Read this and this. If it is this good, and Blizzard won’t even start the beta for it, the final product will be more addictive than the other version of electronic crack I currently play. Thanks to those who went to GenCon and wrote down all that information and pushed it out to us!
Check out this editorial. Orson Scott Card calls out those members of the Democratic party who are so incensed over the success of the current administration and have so much vitriol for what we are currently doing. Unfortunately Mr Card, the Democratic party has been steadily leaving those who were their constituents behind. Now, (D) is symbolized by Michael Moore, Howard Dean, and the rest of the socialists who make a living critisizing all that is good about America. While we aren’t perfect, for a long time we were always working to become better, even though we did break a few eggs along the way.
I will be reading some more of his books now, as part of my contribution to a free market and as an expression of my First Amendment. It’s not only the Left who gets to use it you know.
I was (am?) taking a break from studying for my STATS final tomorrow, and ended up reading some of the analysis from NRO. In an article on why it sucks to be Gore right now (endorse a side right before big news for your opponent comes out), Mackubin Thomas Owens has some words on We(a)sley Clark. After addressing Clark’s asinine comments on the International Court and Bin-Laden, Mr Owens highlights where I’d felt I’d seen the guy before. Sometime ago, I borrowed and read Once an Eagle, by Anton Myrer. Clark is Courtney Massengale, and as Mr Owens says, “most American officers adhere more closely to the Sam Damon school of leadership,” which is why no one in the military trusts him.
I’m checking out my normal blog reading, and I’m first (on Hussein)! That’s pretty cool, at least for me. Me so happy!!!