BMEWS
 
Sarah Palin's image already appears on the newer nickels.

calendar   Wednesday - April 02, 2014

A Week To Go:

Now That Spring Is Finally Here, “Winter Is Coming” Once Again

Best damn non-spoiler spoiler for HBO’s Game of Thrones ... this season’s endlessly longed for, LOUSY SHORT TEN EPISODE SEASON starts next week. Hey, they spend millions on the sets, boobs, film it in locations all over the world, costume up a cast of thousands, boobs, and build a plot that’s so involved and twisted it would make a Minotaur dizzy. Plus boobs. So is it any wonder they can only afford 10 episodes a year? Oh, and boobs.

This clip is pretty funny, but real fans of both show and book can name at least a third of those other extra characters. Mostly. Did I mention the boobs?

R + L = J ... perhaps. So will then J + D = the true Child of Light? Or would we be right back to an Ep 1 kind of incest? Because you know it’s coming ... even with what happened at the end of Book 5. And they’d be perfect together, Ice and Fire. Duh. After all, “What is dead may never die”, right?


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 04/02/2014 at 09:54 PM   
Filed Under: • Fun-StuffTelevision •  
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calendar   Tuesday - April 01, 2014

Really? I missed it all.

Golly gee, the final episode of How I Met Your Mother aired last night, after 9 seasons. Or was it 8? Or 13? And all the social networks are just abuzz with how the ending was just ... wrong.

Gee, not sorry, but I missed it. Actually, I never saw a single episode. Not one. Not even part of one. The commercials were on constantly, and they left me dead cold. Always. Kind of like the ads running now for this thing called The Millers. Are you effin’ kidding me? You couldn’t pay me to watch that crap.

I’m not sure how I’d define what interests me for a sitcom or other television show, but my wife and I keep missing out on all these “culturally relevant” programs. Never saw The Wire. Never saw The Sopranos. Never saw that other show that just ended a couple weeks ago after a many years run either. Hell, I’m so out of it I can’t even remember its name. No, I don’t mean 30 Rock or The Office, neither of which we ever saw either. Oh, right, Breaking Bad. That was it.

And it’s always been like that for me. As a small kid, I thought The Honeymooners sucked. There wasn’t a single thing in it that was in the least bit funny. Never could stand The Brady Bunch. Don’t watch Dancing With The Stars, or any of the America’s Next Top _____. Competitive cooking shows? Give me a friggin break. I can’t smell it, I can’t taste it. Don’t waste my time. I only managed to follow Survivor for 2 or 3 season, but not until after the first generation of watchers had abandoned the show. Which I rejected as complete BS when I first heard about it, because it wasn’t really about survival much at all; the show ought to have been called lying backstabbers. I don’t find that kind of thing entertaining. I can’t watch any of the reality programs; they’re all crap.

And the shows we do love? They get cancelled. All the time. Something that starts out with an awesome premise, like Lost or Fringe, gets dragged sideways and goes to Hell. Without fail; we are the anti-Nielsons here. So whoever the Powers That Be are in TV Land, their ideas don’t mesh with ours. Ok, almost all. She watched Burn Notice and Monk from the beginning almost to their ends. “BN” bored me after 2 seasons; too much Michael doing the McGyver shiz, and nowhere near enough Michael doing Fiona. And Monk? Half the time I found the show’s concept offensive, and half the rest of the other half of the time I found it boring, as Mr. Monk never learned, never healed, never made any forward motion, never made any progress on Trudy’s murder. And the ending was an even bigger slapped together crock of crap than that made for the American version of Life On Mars (aka “It was all a dream").

Politics is pretty much the same way. The candidates we like get creamed. The ones we hate get elected and reelected forever. The only party that has come anywhere near to lining up with the things I believe in has been the Tea Party, and they’ve been media raped nearly as much as Sarah Palin. I doubt if there has been a government program or action in the past 10 years that I’ve agreed with. I simply don’t fit in. I wish I did. I always wanted to. But I don’t. Never have. And I’ve long since stopped worrying about it. Mostly.

Maybe there will be something new this fall that we can get in on the ground floor of, that becomes a cultural reference / hinge pin that everyone revolves around. I hope so. CSI and NCIS are both worn out, and the new NOLA spin off with Scott Bakula is sure to bomb even worse than the Star Trek series he killed. I mean, how the heck do you do such a piss poor job that a Star Trek series gets cancelled??? It’s already bad enough that Game of Thrones runs only 10 episodes per year with just this year and next to churn through 3 1/2 books worth of story, and that Boardwalk Empire has killed off or eliminated nearly every interesting character other than Nucky at this point. And no more sweet, sweet naked Gretchen Moll. Crap. She was the best part of Life On Mars too. Hotness, yum.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 04/01/2014 at 12:41 PM   
Filed Under: • PoliticsTelevision •  
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calendar   Saturday - February 15, 2014

Pirate TV

The STARZ network has their new show out called Black Sails. Oh sure, it’s about pirates, mixing several historical pirates with half the cast of Treasure Island. So there is some pretty fancy CGI at times, and nearly a whole full sized wooden ship as a set. Problem is, 3 or 4 episodes into the series, and nearly all the action goes on in some dirty pirate town in the Bahamas. So it’s rather a costume drama so far, with lots of relationship drama and nefarious plotting going on. Ok, and some drinking, carousing, and wenching about. And the smallest bit of bad boy pirate sex. Let’s face it, all that Errol Flynn swinging about from ropes stuff would wear on you if you had to do it every day, so most of the time real pirates probably just hung about looking all dusty and flinty and saying “arrgh” from their cheap rum hangovers and rotting teeth.

The show has nowhere near the buckets of blood and chop ‘em up with cutlasses kind of action I was expecting. Of course, I was sort of expecting some kind of Caribbean Spartacus, only with less peen and more cannons and broadsides and “tray-zhure”. But there is hope ... the theme song is a happy little march straight from Hell, done on a scratchy, evil, and properly piratical hurdy-gurdy, the one instrument out there even worse than bagpipes (if you don’t like bagpipes). Think of it as a banjo mated to a seasick raccoon glued to a musical handsaw, then make it sound even worse by giving the drone string a sort of breathy, blowing in a bottle, sound.

On a scale of 1-5, rating it’s pirateness, I’d give Black Sails just 2 drawn cutlasses. So far. Maybe things will heat up in the next couple of episodes. I hope. Arrgh.

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A proper cutlass is smaller than a mid-19th century cavalry saber but much bigger than a machete.
It’s a short sword made for infighting, good for stabbing as well as slashing, and for cracking heads.
With a blade just 2 feet long, the above cutlass was just about perfect. So perfect that it was issued by the US Navy in 1917,
when cutlasses were almost never used any longer. It is a highly intimidating looking chopper though.
Kind of like George Patton’s new cavalry saber of 1913,
a lovely, lively toadsticker issued at just about the same time as tanks and machine guns replaced horses and cavalry on the battlefield. 


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 02/15/2014 at 11:44 PM   
Filed Under: • Pirates, aarrgh!Television •  
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calendar   Thursday - March 28, 2013

Spring Is Coming

No Drew, “Winter is coming”. It even says so, right on Sheldon’s wall by the door. Right over the House of Stark sword.



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Nasty little bastard king Joffry can’t die soon enough

somebody, anybody, please kill him



3 days left until Season 3 kicks off Sunday night for HBO’s Game of Thrones. Yes!!!


Hey, I just watch it for the wonderful soundtrack. And the buckets o’ blood swordy violence. And the boobies. And the hot man on man action. And wanna-be can’t-get-any Queen Margery’s general lack of undergarments. It’s like Spartacus, only with an intensely convoluted plot. And boobies of a generally slightly lower quality*. But with dragons! And the frozen evil un-dead. And green fire. And a ornately costumed cast of thousands. And that fantastic CGI clockwork opening on every episode. Plus a smokin’ hot, mega-evil, redheaded priestess. Hey, what’s not to love? 

Ok, the thing not to love is that each season is only ten episodes. Which is torture, waiting 9 1/2 months until the next season. But it’s worth it.

I. can’t. wait.

Here’s an hour’s worth of music from last season.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/28/2013 at 05:12 PM   
Filed Under: • Television •  
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calendar   Saturday - March 23, 2013

Saturday’s Red

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American Actress Lauren Ambrose (clicky)

Whovians can probably figure out what this implies: I’ve finally run out of patients waiting for the new season of the Doctor, and am trying to get my fix watching old Torchwood episodes. Problem is, my cable company thinks Season 4 is Season 1, and they aren’t even showing the 2006-2009 shows. But at least the 2011 season has Lauren Ambrose, and no matter how icky the plot lines get I just can’t help smiling every time she comes on screen. Which is quite often. So I’d call it a good Amy Pond replacement therapy. However Jack is being extremely gay. Spartacus gay.

See More Below The Fold

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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/23/2013 at 03:05 PM   
Filed Under: • Eye-CandyTelevision •  
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calendar   Friday - March 22, 2013

TV Is Tacky. Yeah, So?

Not sure how to respond to this one ...

‘Amazing Race’ episode set in Hanoi sparks outrage over use of B-52 as prop, communist song



The popular CBS reality show “The Amazing Race” is under fire for featuring an episode set in Hanoi, Vietnam, where contestants go to a B-52 Memorial, which is the wreckage of an American bomber plane shot down during the Vietnam War, to find the next clue in their televised round-the-world journey.

In the episode, the twisted metal of the downed plane is treated as any other prop, with a bright ‘Amazing Race’ ‘Double-U-Turn’ signed planted in front of it, signifying to contestants the next phase of their scavenger hunt.

The show also had contestants learn a song that was performed for them by children in front of a portrait of North Vietnam communist leader Ho Chi Minh, with subtitled lyrics that included “Vietnam Communist Party is glorious. The light is guiding us to victory.”

“It’s like One Direction,” one contestant said of the performance, referring to the popular boy band.

“How did it not cross the producers’ minds that this might offend the men who fought in Vietnam and the families of those who died there?” Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld said on his late night show “Red Eye.”

Fox News contributor Bob Beckel agreed later on the news program “The Five.”

“I’m so outraged by this I can’t believe it. CBS is idiotic; they’re stupid,” Beckel said. “To have people go to a memorial where Americans died, then you ought to get off the network.”

Well Bob, perhaps I disagree with you on this too, along with everything else you say. We once were at war with this country, the North part in those days, and we did bomb the daylights out of the place. And while we lost bombers, they lost probably a thousand times more people. So I’m not terribly surprised that such a memorial exists. Granted, a chunk of wreckage in the middle of the street is a tad tacky. A bit on the raw side as memorials go, even for cost-conscious commies. But in another way, it’s extremely real; here’s a chunk of enemy aircraft that maybe fell to earth right on this spot. 40 years after the war you try and see both sides. But yeah, using it as a waypoint for the racers may not have been the smartest idea, IF they didn’t pause for a few seconds to comment on what was in front of them. That war was long over by the time any of them were even born. I’m sure there was some other statue, park, or architecturally unique building that would have worked just as well.

And learning to sing a song in the difficult local language sounds like a decent little challenge. Too bad that the network allowed themselves to be played by the local political commissars. If we wanted to hear songs praising Uncle Ho, we’d listen to Jane Fonda.

So half up, half down IMO. Could’ve been done better, sure could’ve been done worse. But outrage? Not really. Or am I seeing this entirely wrong? Opine away; it’s what the comments are for!

Video at the above link.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/22/2013 at 11:19 AM   
Filed Under: • HistoryTelevisionTURD WORLDWar-Stories •  
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calendar   Sunday - March 17, 2013

Who is she?

This isn’t a trick like that last one I posted a few years ago. This is a legitimate 1930s movie starlet. Two questions:

A) Who is she?
B) What role is she best remembered for?

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I’ll leave this up for a day or two, unless someone gets the right answer!


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Posted by Christopher   United States  on 03/17/2013 at 06:03 PM   
Filed Under: • CelebritiesEye-CandyHollywoodMOVIESTelevision •  
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calendar   Wednesday - March 06, 2013

The Perils of On-Demand Cable TV

What the UK has felt since Christmas

What the rest of the US has felt for a month now

I just experienced tonight



You Suck, Dan Stevens

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UK Telegraph link from just after Christmas.  (if you haven’t watched the series yet, don’t click this link)

Why yes, my middle name really is “Late to the party again, eh?”. How did you know?

But seriously ... we watched the whole 3 seasons of Downton Abbey in the past 2 weeks. After this, I’m afraid future plot lines will be just as worn out as those for this entire season of Spartacus, which is pretty bad. It’s over, just let it go.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/06/2013 at 11:44 PM   
Filed Under: • Television •  
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calendar   Tuesday - February 05, 2013

Retinal TV?

Here is a link to a somewhat “insider” article on the coming UHDTV, aka “4K”. 4K is the next generation of flat screen TV, and features 4 times as many pixels as you currently get with you 1080p HDTV. Assuming you have one of those, of course. 1080p is the current HD digital broadcast resolution standard that gives you 1920 pixels across and 1080 pixels high. While several TVs are already on the market that can produce a 4K picture, no digital TV channel provider that I know of is currently able to send out a 4K signal. That means the 4K TVs out there have to map out 1 broadcast pixel to 4 flat screen pixels, for the time being. Right now those 4K sets are extremely expensive, with a price range between a decent mid-sized new car and mid-sized luxury car. Youch.

So what’s the big deal? It’s hard for some folks to tell 1080 from 720 when watching their shows from across the room. Well, that’s just it. When the 65lb CRT on my old PC finally died a year and a half ago, I replaced it with a 23” HP flat screen that cost me, I think, $200. It’s runs at 1080p resolution too: 1920x1080 pixels. And I’m sitting here at the PC using it, and the monitor is just more than arm’s length away. Call it 20”. I don’t have to sit 8 feet back from the monitor to use it. And even at an eye to screen distance of about 24” it is almost impossible to see any pixelation. With 4K, a 46” TV would have pixels the same size as those on my computer monitor; I could watch TV from 2 feet away if I wanted to. And that’s a really immersive experience. Almost like being in the front rows of one of those old time super wide screen Panavision movie theaters.

Perspective makes things look smaller when they are further away. One advantage of a large screen TV is that you get a bigger image, so things appear more life sized even if you are viewing from a further distance. But imagine a TV where the talking heads on the evening news are life size or larger, and you can walk right up to them - kissing or punching distance, depending on your feelings - and not be able to tell that they are digital images. Pretty darn awesome I’d say.

I don’t want to use the word “retinal” that a certain company loves to bandy about when pimping their little digital devices.  ("retinal" is buzzspeak for “you can’t see the pixels, even when you’re up close") True retinal varies with viewing distance and it varies with the age and visual acuity of the person viewing. And there is a big argument between the ad men, scientists, and eye care professionals about the resolution where true “retinal” really occurs.

4K is coming. The prices will drop, and drop fast, once the technology is a bit more polished. And the USA will probably lag a decade or so behind the rest of the world, just like it did with the switch from analog to digital broadcast signals. But the future will be bright. And amazingly detailed. Let’s just hope that by the time 4K gets here there will be better things to watch than Survivor, Idol, and Dr. Phil.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 02/05/2013 at 01:02 PM   
Filed Under: • Television •  
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calendar   Sunday - December 23, 2012

No va-nack-ya-la allowed here

Another flyweight post that has nothing to do with gun control ...



Enunciate [ih-nuhn-see-ate]: verb; to pronounce clearly and with distinction



Sloppy speaking costs Wheel of Fortune contestant nearly $4000 and the game. Good grief. All this time I thought it was just that sleazebag Canadian-born socialist Alex Trebek who was the pronunciation douche-king. Now Pat Sajak joins the party.

Double golly gee whiz, one reals in horror imagining the frooferah that would have ensued had the contestant been, um, ebonically inclined.

TV viewers tuning in to watch Wheel of Fortune this week couldn’t believe their ears when a contestant who correctly guessed a phrase was seemingly robbed of her victory, and all because of a missing G.

In the Wednesday episode, Renee Durette, a Navy Intel Specialist from Merritt Island, Florida, thought she had solved the puzzle correctly by answering ‘seven swans a-swimming’ - a line from the carol The 12 Days of Christmas - with seven missing letters.

However, Durette’s less than crisp enunciation did not satisfy the host, Pat Sajak, who disqualified the contestant’s answer because she had omitted the hard G from the word ‘swimming,’ turning it into ‘swimmin.’

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After a warning buzzer sounded, signalling an incorrect answer, the host said: ‘Yeah ... can’t accept that,’ The Wrap reported.

Sajak went on to clarify that Durette’s answer was ‘in the vernacular,’ or in other words, too folksy to be accepted as the correct response.

‘But that’s OK,’ Sajak added. ‘We still have some time.’

Durette accepted the ruling without a word of protest, even though Sajak’s judgement cost the woman her turn along with $3,850, according to Gawker.

The puzzle was then turned over to another contestant, Amy Vincenti, of Pennsylvania, who solved it without any trouble, making sure to properly enunciate each word.

Well, I don’t think that “G” is all that hard. Not like “grief” or “goof” or “gak”. I thought “ing” was more of a velar nasal trigraph. But this just goes to show it always pays to be able to speak properly. Ya neva no whooz listnin’ or judgin’.

Merrit Island Florida is right next to Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach, just northwest of Patrick AFB. I have no idea what kind of drawl is native to that area.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 12/23/2012 at 12:39 PM   
Filed Under: • Television •  
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calendar   Saturday - October 13, 2012

i-candy and downton abbey

gotta hand it to make up and costume ppl. talented folks.

I just happened across something I think it was last week. Had to do with an actress on Downton Abbey. We watched an early episode on BBC catch up.
That aside, never went back.  Not too comfortable trying to watch a TV show on the pc located in this room. So anyway, last week there was a story about an actress on that show. I think she got married. ??  Well, there were photos of her in character and as she actually is. WOW. Same lady?  I shouldn’t be surprised of course. 

Because I hardly ever know who these folks are, except for someone like Dame Maggie Smith, every day is like a new day for me discovering these ppl.
So here’s what I’m referring to.

JESSICA BROWN FINDLAY as Lady Sybil in Downton Abbey.

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VAVA VOOM ......

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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 10/13/2012 at 03:00 PM   
Filed Under: • Eye-CandyTelevision •  
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calendar   Monday - August 27, 2012

a brit on pat buchanan and msnbc

I guess I’ve been away from home news for way too long. Here I am with a computer and access to the world, and unless something hits me square in the face , I am unaware of much side news.
Drew posted the Newsweek cover which in turn led me to Nail Ferguson who I am quite familiar with.  I used to read his column in our papers here.
He’s a Brit, born in Scotland, and so I was surprised to learn he’d worked for one of our ppl running for the White House.
I rather liked his columns here. No surprise of course with my leanings.
And then I noticed someone else and this time someone I’d been totally unaware of. Timothy Stanley.  He is also a Brit, a historian, and he wrote about one of my favorite people, Pat Buchanan.  I may not not agree with everything Pat Buchanan holds to be true or right. And I’m not Catholic so don’t see things from that religious perspective as he does.  But I think he’s correct on more things then not.  I just wish he’d drop that laugh he uses even when something isn’t funny.

So here I am reading a book Buchanan wrote like ten years ago, and I never made time (and believe me it is quite difficult these days for personal reasons) to surf everywhere I should.  I have not kept up to TV in the USA.  I have not been as up to date on many side issues and things that might interest me if I were still home in America.  (oh if only. NJY will understand that very well)

So I had to read a Brit to inform me that one of my favorite Americans has been sacked by a TV network in the USA. A Brit btw, who has written a biography of, Pat Buchanan.

So that is how I came to discover that Buchanan got the sack from msnbc. Which led me to post this article written by, Timothy Stanley. Whose newsletter if he has one, I can see I’ll have to subscribe to.

From his bio.

I divide my time between London, Oxford and Los Angeles, with the occasional weekend in Washington DC. I’ll be blogging on the US elections for the Daily Telegraph. Like everyone of my generation, I’m a bit obsessed with Sarah Palin. I define my politics as Anarcho-Catholic – an eclectic kind of pacifistic, red meat eating, gun loving, tax hating, Buddha hugging voodoo. I’m temperamentally conservative, but neither a Tory nor a Republican. I love America deeply and I suspect she is the last hope for mankind (I really don’t want to have to learn Chinese).

Timothy Stanley

WASHINGTON TIMES

STANLEY: MSNBC blacklists Buchanan

Pat’s suspension completes liberal network’s divorce from reality

By Timothy Stanley

It’s official: Pat Buchanan has been fired from MSNBC. Mr. Buchanan broke the news with a blistering column that charged liberals with “blacklisting” him from the network. He wrote, “The modus operandi of these thought police … is to brand as racists and anti-Semites any writer who dares to venture outside the narrow corral in which they seek to confine debate. All the while prattling about their love of dissent and devotion to the First Amendment, they seek systematically to silence and censor dissent.” Pat Buchanan leaves MSNBC the same way he came in - in a firestorm of fighting talk.

The decision to dismiss Mr. Buchanan probably was more about money than politics. MSNBC is purposefully divorcing itself from popular opinion in order to corner the liberal market. The network wants to become the mirror opposite of Fox News: left-wing and unwatched. It’s a bad move for MSNBC and yet more bad news for American democracy.

Mr. Buchanan was suspended from the network in January at the request of the “progressive” group Color of Change, which also campaigned to have Glenn Beck thrown off Fox. Color of Change took issue with the pundit’s latest best-seller, “Suicide of a Superpower.” It’s a controversial text that contains such chapter titles as “The End of White America.” After Color of Change waged a heated campaign protesting Mr. Buchanan’s prime-time slot as an MSNBC contributor, network president Phil Griffin emailed the group to inform its members that he was giving in. The author was “suspended indefinitely.”

Mr. Griffin’s decision was peculiarly tardy, for he must have known what Mr. Buchanan’s reputation was when he hired him in 2002. Mr. Buchanan’s career spans three rabble-rousing presidential bids and nearly a dozen texts with very alarmist titles. Anyone who pens a book called “The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization” is hardly going to be Mr. Sensitive when it comes to discussing things like multiculturalism.

Nonetheless, MSNBC offered him a job because the network knew he’d be great for ratings. It helped that he combined extraordinary political experience (speechwriter for President Nixon, director of communications for President Reagan) with charm. In the course of writing a biography of Mr. Buchanan, I was struck by how many partisan liberals find him irresistible. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews told me: “With Pat, you’re arguing with a brilliant guy, not just a loudmouth celebrity. … He’s a funny, clever guy, and it’s hard for anyone to hate him.”

“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough said all his liberal interns would cringe when told they would be meeting Pat Buchanan. “They’d say, ‘Isn’t he an awful person? He’s so right-wing.’ But after a couple of days with him, they’d all want to adopt him as their father.” Mr. Buchanan also was instrumental in advancing Rachel Maddow’s television career. She was a guest on a show Mr. Buchanan hosted, and he liked her so much that he recommended her for more work. Nowadays, she calls him “Uncle Pat.” It’s no exaggeration to say Mr. Buchanan was part of the MSNBC “family.”

So why drop him now? Because MSNBC is trying to establish itself as 100 percent liberal in an effort to corner the left-wing market, and Color of Change’s campaign threatened to tarnish that new image. Ordinarily, Mr. Buchanan would lobby and smooth his way out of the trouble that a book such as “Suicide of a Superpower” brought him. But he fell ill over Christmas and was unable to mount a fight back.

Many commentators have expressed horror at MSNBC’s capitulation to extortion, but they miss the point that the capitulation came so easily because it suits the network’s effort to monopolize liberal viewership. This development is bad for American democracy, for it will create a bifurcated media within which left and right increasingly have no dialogue on the same TV station and, thus, no idea what each other is thinking. The refusal by liberal outlets to air conservative views leads inexorably to myopic journalism that is cut off from mainstream opinion. Pat Buchanan will survive his ouster, but the quality of MSNBC’s output will take a terrible hit. Extreme liberals may rejoice, but the rest of us will be changing the channel.

Timothy Stanley, a historian at the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University and a writer for the London Daily Telegraph, is author of the newly released, “Crusader: The Life and Tumultuous Times of Pat Buchanan”


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 08/27/2012 at 05:39 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat LeftistsTelevision •  
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calendar   Tuesday - May 22, 2012

Fire Kissed


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Rose Leslie, Scottish actress, formerly played housemaid Gwen on Downton Abbey, now playing Ygritte the Wildling on HBO’s Game of Thrones.

Bit of a debate in my house over this one.

We’re addicted to watching HBO’s Game of Thrones, the gritty and violent medieval sci-fi fantasy series closely based on the massive story written by George Martin. It’s an extremely complex and never ending tale of politics, religion, avarice, and war, with a slight bit of magic here and there, and a cast of hundreds. Thousands. A dozen families or city states vying for power all across their globe. At least 50 main characters, until they get killed. And almost all of them get killed, eventually. I’ve read the books several times, my wife has never turned a page of them. And while HBO pushes the series with the tag line “Winter is coming”, each season is only 10 episodes long and shown in the Spring. Mid-April to June, then wait another 10 months. Arrrggh!! But it works, and the episodes are incredibly well done and insanely detailed; viewership for season two is up 50% over season one.

The series is filmed all over the world. Ms. Leslie’s part of the story is filmed in Iceland. Her character is a Wildling, one of the Free People of the frozen north who live a harsh, semi-barbaric, nearly caveman-like life in the icy wastes. They somewhat co-exist with the remnants of several semi-human species, and are always under threat from the wights (re-animated dead people) and the even more fearful Others. They are cut off from the “civilization” of the Seven Kingdoms by the Wall, an ancient defensive construction of ice 700 feet tall that runs across the entire continent. But when the seasons change and the temperature drops even further, the evil Others become more active, so the Wildlings and all the northern folks must assault the Wall and get beyond it for their own protection. And that means war. Well, another war, since at least two others are currently ravaging the Seven Kingdoms.

Game of Thrones is filmed in a dark way. Not just the realistic levels of mud and gore, which are ever present. The insides of the castles are lit - barely - by torches. Much of the action takes place in dark forests, or at night. Film technology being what it is, the brilliant albedo of all that ice and snow in Iceland forces the cameras to be really stopped down, with the result that the scenes from the frozen lands are often a bit dim. And here comes Ygritte, swaddled head to foot in her skins and deep in her big hooded parka, reminding me a bit of Kenny from South Park, the boy you never see.
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And then the camera angle will change, her character pulls back that hood, and this face emerges. Pale and reddened by the cold, with a ton of red hair, and hypnotic ice blue eyes. Och, aye, and wit ain Scottish accent you couldn’t cut through with a chain saw. Striking. Love it. And Ygritte is such a huge flirt, sassy and fresh, even when it seems she’s about to get her head chopped off.

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I think she’s adorable. Ok, she isn’t the most drop dead gorgeous actress ever, and may not be in that special class of redheads who cause heart attacks wherever they go, but I think she bears a more than passing resemblance to a young Courtney Thorne-Smith, who certainly got my boat floating in Revenge of the Nerds and Melrose Place back in the day. To me she has a friendly approachable level of attractiveness. Not to my wife. Women are so cruel, and so critical of other women. After giving it two or three nanoseconds of thought, her opinion was “Bleh; yuk”. Oh well, that’s what you get from marrying an Italian. Different standards. She can’t see the appeal of northern girls hardly at all, from the Irish Sea to the North Sea to the Baltic. Reds and blondes light my fires but leave her cold. Actually it may be a guy thing, but I can find beauty in women from all over the world, and something attractive in almost any of them. But I also like many kinds of salad dressing, while she sticks with olive oil and red vinegar. And I like all sorts of different wines, while she sticks to oaky reds with lots of tannins.  At least we do agree that the best cars have properly manual transmissions and agile handling, though I do keep a secret yen for the gigantic early 70s land yacht Cadillacs.

I can’t even begin to comprehend her views on what makes guys attractive either. But Game of Thrones satisfies her in that regard. Underneath all the grit, grime, and gore - or perhaps because of it, what I call the Eomer Syndrome - there are a whole lot of really hot guys in the cast. Of all ages, young to old. I’d noticed the same thing about the ladies, but I’m smart enough to just watch and keep my mouth closed.  But I can’t spot the guys. She just about squeals over Kit Harington ("he’s so adoooorable!!!") who plays Jon Snow, Ygritte’s captor and soon to be lover, and I always hear these “yeah baby"s coming from her end of the couch whenever Iain Glenn has a scene. A Scotsman! But if anyone asked me, which they never do, I’d say the best looking guy in the cast, other than NJ’s own famous dwarf Peter Dinklage, would be the guy who plays Jaime Lannister, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. A Dane! Hey, he’s got the beard thing going, he’s in great shape, rugged but not cruel or dessicated, he doesn’t look like a sissy pretty boy, seems to me to have a bit of the David Beckham thing going on, and he even looks hot in armor, giving him at least an 80 on the Eomer Scale

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Nope. “Eww, gross” was her take. Then again, maybe she just hasn’t seen him yet in a good light. He’s spent most of the series covered in blood and pig shit, tied up in a cage in the dark. So we’ll see if her opinion changes if he ever gets cleaned up and out into the sunlight. Maybe I’m wrong. You make the call, just like for Rose Leslie.

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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 05/22/2012 at 08:42 AM   
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calendar   Wednesday - May 16, 2012

No Bad Puns, No More SOJ

image CBS Cancels “CSI: Miami”



Oh noes! No more Horatio Caine, no more of his not really witty puns, and no more of his neurotic constant removing of the famous SOJ (Sunglasses Of Justice) 30 times per episode. And after 10 solid years, no more episodes that feature the exact same plot line: At some fancy do for the young, rich, beautiful, and scantily clad, a gruesome murder occurs. With his god-like powers, the very first person Horatio talks to while removing the SOJ turns out to be the killer. But to get there, the CSI gang have to talk to 5 other suspects, all of whom lie to the police, then they have to suffer through 2 montages of them driving around the city and putting little bits into test tubes back at the lab. Then the key clue will arrive by an absolutely impossible manifestation of technology (see cartoon at left), the first witness will be brought back in for further questioning, and after being subjected to several awful Horatio quips will confess. Camera pans to scope the amazingly beautiful lady cops who come to work every day in 5” stilettos, skin tight pants, and well filled blouses open to their navels. End credits.

I won’t really miss it, though with it’s over-saturated colors and over-saturated bikinis, it was worth the occasional viewing with the sound off. And I do have a jones for Eva La Rue. Day-um. Drew like. Yum.
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And now I finally get a chance to use these CSI graphics, which I’ve had sitting around on the PC for years now.



The “C.S.I.” franchise, probably the most lucrative television concept ever produced, has begun its inevitable departure from the television landscape with the news Sunday that CBS has cancelled the original spinoff, “C.S.I.: Miami.”

The crime drama, which lasted 10 seasons, most likely became the victim in this case because it was more expensive than its newer, and lower-rated, sister show, “C.S.I.: New York.” That drama is expected to be back on CBS’s schedule, which the network will announce Wednesday.

The original “C.S.I.,” set in Las Vegas and still the highest-rated of the three shows, is sure to return after a season in which it bounced back with Ted Danson as its latest star.

CBS released a statement about the decision to end the Miami show:

“C.S.I.: Miami” leaves an amazing television legacy — a signature look and style, global popularity and as a key player in CBS’s rise to the top over the past decade. We thank all the producers — led by Jerry Bruckheimer, Jonathan Littman and Ann Donahue — and its talented cast, led by David Caruso, for 10 outstanding seasons. Viewers around the world will continue to enjoy rebroadcasts of “C.S.I.: Miami” in syndication and on key digital platforms for many years to come.

“C.S.I.: Miami” was a top-rated show for most of its run and was one of the biggest sellers to international broadcasters around the world, generating hundreds of millions in revenue for CBS.

It also created one of the most imitated (and mocked) signature moments of recent television seasons: the ritual removal of the sunglasses by Mr. Caruso as he delivered an especially portentous line of dialogue.





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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 05/16/2012 at 11:51 AM   
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