The Dark Knight

"The Dark Knight" is definitely on the dark side of Harvey Dent's lucky coin to Will Smith's "Hancock".

While both movies are ostensibly about the same thing, namely what it means to be a superhero and how do such people fit into the societies in which they operate, "The Dark Knight" is the movie without the "Aw shucks Pa! It'll all work out." optimism of Smith's effort.

And is a way better movie for it.

In "Hancock" Will Smith can comes to terms with his place in life and he is embraced by the wider culture around him. The film is essentially a happy one. And once Hancock adjusts to fit in, all his inner conflicts are resolved and he can live with that. He can even be contented by the lonliness and separation from true love. He sucks it up and goes on.

In "The Dark Knight" Christian Bale is a tormented man. Tormented to be Gotham's hero and tormented by his need to be that hero. He doesn't in any sense "live with that" - he cannot - he struggles with that conflict throughout the film. And he is ultimately a character flawed forever by these warring forces within him. He is a man who can never have what Bruce Wayne has.

This movie is out-and-out fantastic. Some of the actors, not Ms.Gyllenhaal, ( whose performance is phoned in ), give almost career defining performances. Heath Ledger WILL win a posthumous Oscar. I have never seen Gary Oldman more subtle, nor more sympathetic.

The big question has to be, "why didn't Katie Holmes do this movie?" Surely she knows what it means to be held captive by a loon?

See this movie. See it on an IMAX screen if you can. This and WALL-E are the best movies of the summer.

My take on that whole Radio Hall Of Fame thing

The following is a quote from Wikipedia about the "radio priest" of the 1930s, Father Coughlin - also know as the Father of Hate Radio....

At its peak in the early 1930s, Coughlin's radio show was phenomenally popular. His office received up to 80,000 letters per week from listeners, and his listening audience was estimated to rise at times to as much as one-third of the nation. Coughlin is often credited as one of the major demagogues of the 20th century for being able to influence politics through broadcasting, without actually holding a political office himself.

Does that sound like anyone we know?

Now what happens if we substitute some names and dates......?


At its peak in the early 1990s, Dobson's radio show was phenomenally popular. His office received up to 80,000 letters per week from listeners, and his listening audience was estimated to rise at times to as much as 0.05% of the nation. Dobson is often credited as one of the major demagogues of the 20th century for being able to influence politics through broadcasting, without actually holding a political office himself. "And also to influence events through a so called "ministry", while all the time not being a pastor either". ( my last sentence added )

James Dobson is the natural successor to Father Coughlin, though thank goodness, he reaches into far less housholds than Coughlin did. Lets just call him and FoF, the Bastard Sons Of Hate Radio. He does love to tell us how many letters he gets a week doesn't he? I guess he feels a tad insecure if he doesn't blow his own trumpet and then tell us how expensive it is to run his propaganda operation - so he can then try to sucker us for "contributions".

So Dobson and the Focus on the Family broadcast is to be inducted into the National Radio Hall Of Fame? Well, looking at our history, Father Coughlin shows us that being popular and doing right are not synonymous.

What a mistake this whole fiasco has become. I voted for Howard Stern and I don't even like him - just to try stop this very sad day from happening.

Next inductee? Tokyo Rose? Josef Goebbels?

Tell me I'm wrong

It seems to me that the President should not have the power to assert executive privilege to block investigations into possible criminal matters. If he does, then the whole concept of co-equal branches of the government is out the window.

The President is top tog. He can do what he wants. He is in effect, a dictator.

And you know the Right is always so quick to back curbs on civil liberties with that mantra, "If you have nothing to hide, why are you objecting? I have nothing to hide, so pass the Patriot Act and FISA why don't ya?"

But methinks they do protest a tad too much when laws tread close too 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Sauce of the goose anyone?

Now, what was that saying about "Sunlight being the best disinfectant"?

And on Day 2...just more of the same lunatic statements

And on day two of the Dobbie and Tom show, Tom Delay issued yet another fatuous statement.

He said "When I left Congress, the Lord had two things for me to do. (1) Support the state of Israel and (2) to stand for Him. And I took that to mean PUSH THE CONSERVATIVE CAUSE."

Really Tom? Really. That's odd because I'm sure the baby Jesus told me that he wants you to be a Liberal. How could you have been so wrong? You misheard the voices in your own head? How bizarre.

Being a Conservative means "standing for God"? Boy what an idiot this man is. We have to be so grateful he is not in a position of power anymore. Tom Delay is as scary as Rick "with a silent P" Santorum.

July 9th 2008 a new nadir for Doctor Dobson

Today Doctor Dobson had the first part of an interview with "Hot Tub" Tom Delay and his wife Christine. At the end of the interview Dobson realized he had just completely trashed FoF's 501(c)(3) status when he said the following :-

"Will you stay with us another day and let's talk about non-political things? erm.. we haven't been talking about politics anyway, we've been talking about values and historic events".

Really? Not been talking about politics? So why would he say that tomorrow would be "non-political" if today was too? Surely he would say ( if they were the same ), "Please come back tomorrow so we can continue our interesting discussion?" His statement ONLY makes sense in the context of him, (Dobbo), understanding that today's stuff was "talking politics". And if he realizes that, he knows his 501(c)(3) status just went out the window.

And what did the Hammer have to say? Well he made some predictions of what will happen "if people like us stay home" [for the upcoming election].

In answer to Dobson asking him "what is this country going to be like in 5 or 10 years?" ( if we continue on the track we are on ).

1. There will be cloning of human beings.
2. There will be euthanasia - with the age "ratcheting down" from 99 today to 90 tomorrow to 80...
3. There will be destruction of churches - "to limit speech".
4. There will be a new religious system - "Humanism, if you will".
5. There will be a "rampant judiciary" who will be "creating all kinds of problems to undermine 'our' culture".
6. You will be paying 80-90% in taxes. "Because you are going to have a socialist society".

So let's set ourselves a promise to look at these predictions again on July 9th 2013.

We'll ignore item (5) because let's face it, Dobson, Minnery and Delay et al think that is happening now. Tom did not say how we might measure if this judicial rampancy has increased in 2013. The best issue we will be able to call him out on will be item (6). How foolish of him to give us a number we can actually measure.

And some other doozy miscelleaneous points from the broadcast....

Guess what? It doesn't matter if Tom does not agree with the admonishments of Congress because of his murky ethics. They admonished him. That is on the record. The only reason that they didn't find him guilty of ethics violations was because his party was in the majority at that time - so it was never going to happen. Therefore his trumpeting of "I was never found guilty of anything" has kind of a hollow ring to it. But Congress did recognize his activities were nefarious enough to warrant admonishment. However much he squirms, he can't remove that. And isn't the Ethics Committee bipartisan?

During the interview when talking about getting his mugshot he said the following ( and I'm not making this up ), "I prayed right before that mugshot [that the Lord..], that people would see Jesus in my eyes. If you look at my mugshot you can see great joy and happiness in my eyes. And I truly believe that."

Yes, he is clearly insane. Barking. Just look at the picture. Tell me I'm wrong.

And what the heck was this little exchange.....??

Dobson: "I would really like to talk about children which, Christine, you have given your life to, haven't you?"
Christine Delay: "Just about".
Dobson: "Err, well..and it is not over yet".
Christine Delay: "No".

Was James Dobson praising Christine Delay there for not being dead?

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Best Quote Ever

Best quote ever from full time "Focus On the Family" Weasel Tom Minnery came in the FoF radio program where Doctor Dobson uttered his stupid "Barack Obama is distorting the Bible" nonsense.

Tom Minnery attempted to explain the relationship between "Focus On The Family" and "Focus On The Family Action" and he said the following.....

"Focus On The Family money works in tandem with Focus On The Family Action money to allow us to move in and out of issues as we need to. It is very complicated but we have very good lawyers advising us at every step of the way"

And that dear reader is called "muddying the waters between your 501(c)(3) and your 501(c)(4) organizations" - really bending if not the law itself, then its intent.

"Render unto Caesar" Tommy Boy? Oh, only when you can get a tax exemption, I get it.

And speaking of Dobson's fatuous comments as we always have to do, Jon Stewert nailed the old hypocrite on "The Daily Show" with what can only be described as a perfect satirical hit.