"Taxi Driver"

As I watched “Taxi Driver” for the first time I found myself following the plot and finding it somewhat meandering, like it wasn’t going anywhere. I understood Travis (DeNiro), this man whom seemed at odds with society who is not quite sure how to fit in or what norms he was to follow, and I understood most of the characters. The characters weren’t two dimensional, they possessed a depth of their own and they fit in the story and their stories broke open for me to see upon the rock of Travis. I enjoyed every part of the movie but I couldn’t figure out what they were doing with the plot. Suddenly Travis had a Mohawk and in the remaining time the whole movie came together for me. The parts of Travis that I didn’t see clearly came into vision like the world at the beams of light in the morning and all the loose strings in the plot pulled tighter than rigging on a sailing ship. This was cinematography like I had never seen. If you’re like me and had never seen this movie, you should see it, I felt it was worth my time and I plan on buying it at the next opportunity I have.

“Taxi Driver” premiered on February eighth of 1976; happy 35^th anniversary they don’t make ‘em like they used to.

Would you like to learn more?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075314/

Firefly

Normally I am opposed to commercialism in any of its forms, however, this is different. Instead of hype being generated by a commercial entity this is hype being generated by fans; a demand by the people, not a manipulation of the people.

http://helpnathanbuyfirefly.com/

"... inconsistent, foolish and selfish people."

More and more I find I am confronted by people with these values in the news and in day-to-day life:

Value 1: “I want the United States to get the budget in line with what it can afford”
Value 2: “Don’t cut this program because that would negatively impact me!”
Value 3: “Don’t cut that program because that would negatively impact people I don’t know!”

I spit on these people; these inconsistent, foolish and selfish people.

Value 1 requires sacrifice; budgets need to shrink so that the majority may survive. People act ready to accept that until it actually means that the budget cut impacts them. Suddenly some cherished program must be given up. At this point peoples true colors appear and they begin screaming about values 2 and 3. These people need to grow up, understand the times require sacrifice, and get out of the way.

Trip to Mexico? Not interested

Today I am thinking about Mexico. It’s a frequent topic for me. I frequently wonder when it will finally be a failed state. This year United States Officials were attacked by a Mexican drug cartel in an ambush (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/16/us-mexico-usa-agents-idUSTRE71E7PY20110216). This is after last year’s killing of an American citizen and the beheading of the Mexican official that was looking for him (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1320874/American-tourist-shot-dead-Mexican-drug-cartel-case-mistaken-identity.html) and last year’s drug tunnel (http://abcnews.go.com/News/secret-tunnels-mexico-us-smuggling-drugs-guns-people/story?id=12057362).

The Mexican War on Drugs has claimed over 35 thousand lives from December 2006 through January 2011 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War).

Yet, people wonder why I always say “not interested” whenever a trip to Mexico is brought up.

Now that Mubarak is gone …

Now that Mubarak has stepped down you should continue to watch Egypt as it renovates itself because of the potential pitfalls in the early Democratic process. In particular keep an eye on the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and the actions they take.

The MB is anti-West, pro-Islam and claims to be pro-Democracy. If that’s what they are they’ll be the Egyptian version of the American Tea Party with exception to the MBs history of extremism and producing terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden. Since the 70’s the MB renounced violence but still produced terrorists for other organizations; kind of like a Muslim Extremist elementary school, the MB teaches what you fight for and then the next organization teaches you how to fight. Additionally, the MB may have renounced violence but it has not given up trying the actively subvert non-Islamic forces:

“The process of settlement [of Islam in the United States] is a "Civilization-Jihadist" process with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that all their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" their miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who choose to slack.”  (Originally provided as evidence by the FBI against “The Holy Land Foundation” and cited in an article by Rod Dreher for the Dallas Morning News which has since removed the article, the article was resubmitted here: http://www.fulfilledprophecy.com/discussion/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=30922&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a)

The Muslim Brotherhood is not as dangerous as the West tries to make it seem to be, however, the MB is still dangerous

RoboEarth

I’m usually not one to talk about robots rising up and taking the earth from humanity and their never ending quest to render themselves obsolete. I, without any doubt or shame, have invested more time into thinking about a zombie outbreak or the super volcano in Wyoming than I have on robots. I generally think artificial intelligence is a bad idea and I think robots that can even emulate emotion are a bad idea. I also acknowledge that at this point robots are of little threat to me. Too few in number and too controlled of environments for them to escape and start murdering people like some cheap sci-fi horror film if someone somehow made the jump into actual artificial intelligence.

However, “RoboEarth”( http://www.roboearth.org/) sounded straight out of “Mass Effect” (http://masseffect.bioware.com/). I reflected on the Quarians and how the race of robots they created that linked into a neural network accidently created artificial intelligence which led to the robots rising up and the Quarians fleeing their home world en masse.  Okay, still not likely to happen anytime soon. Even though it isn’t likely doesn’t mean we shouldn’t invest some thought into it. Not something to get in an uproar about but something to continue thinking about.

Where's Putin?