First Amendment Perversions

Snyder versus Phelps is being heard today in the Supreme Court, and who knows how long the arguments will go on, but Margie Phelps, father of Fred Phelps, pastor of Westboro Baptist Church, will be arguing on the side of the Church, and its supposed right to protest at military funerals, even those that are ostensibly and technically private affairs.

The issue to me is privacy, and I'm hoping Snyder prevails. No one should have to endure the likes of Fred Phelps and his ilk of in-bred donuts even for the sake of the First Amendment, at least not at a private family funeral.

I'm thinking ScotusBlog will be on top of this, so they might be the best choice to check for updates.

The Cincinnati Pinkos

Here's just another example of why hatred of Democrats and RINOs is never misplaced, and why in fact hatred of such people is something one should nurture in ones bosom

The Cincinnati Health Department is investigating the Cincinnati Reds for potentially violating the state’s smoking ban during the club’s National League Central-clinching celebration Tuesday night, Cincinnati.com reported Thursday.

Reds owner Bob Castellini passed out cigars to players and coaches amongst the champagne showers inside the clubhouse at the Great American Ballpark after seeing his team earn its first postseason berth in 15 years.

Five people watching the celebration on television reportedly called the statewide smoking ban complaint hotline.

Got that? If not, let me interpret it for you. Five leftist stooges had the good fortune to be invited into the Red's locker room for a post-season celebration. You know automatically that their presence means they were VIPs of one stripe or another, possibly county or city officials, or maybe well-connected business people, or possibly they were connected to some non-profit scam or another.

Just like the Russian kid in the communist era USSR who was honored by the state for informing on his parents by having a statue erected in his memory, these liberal bleeding hearts took exception to the private violation of a public smoking ban that had been imposed on the people of Cincinnati by decree of a bought and sold city council.

So what do they do? They call the Health Department, and now there will be an investigation, possibly fines, and at some point a public statement in the way of an apology to the "people of Cincinnati", who in reality would have never approved such a ban in the first place had it been left up to them. The Reds owner will be expected to make public service announcements denouncing the evils of smoking and might be threatened with a boycott if he will not play along. He probably will, not because such a boycott could be any kind of a threat, but because he will cave into the pressure from his peers to set an example "for the good of the public and the kids", yada, yada, yada.

People talk about tea parties, but in reality, tobacco is the modern equivalent of tea, speaking in American Revolutionary terms. One of my most hopeful fantasies is that one day I will wake up to the news that every leftist politician and bureaucrat in the country has been found dead with a pouch of tobacco crammed down their throats.

Hat Tip-The Fat Guy

The Exorcist-The Infamous Spider Walk

When The Exorcist was originally released, the Spider-Walk scene was cut from the film, not because it was considered too graphic, or sick, but simply because at the time they couldn't hide the wires they had to attach to Linda Blair in order to achieve the proper effect.

Now, more than three decades later, with releases on VHS and DVD, film editing techniques have sufficiently advanced to the point where the wires used are no longer visible. Now we have the current, just released version of The Exorcist on Blue Ray.

I don't know though, something still doesn't seem quite right.

When All Else Fails

Charlie Crist is now running in the Florida Senate election as an independent candidate against a weak Democratic candidate, and against Republican Marco Rubio, who beat Crist in the earlier GOP primary, and who now enjoys a solid lead in most polls.

However, there might be one small, slim opportunity for Crist to pull off an upset. As Crist is the current Florida Governor, he is the target of a drive to posthumously pardon Jim Morrison, the deceased lead singer of the sixties rock group The Doors. Sometime in 1969 Morrison was charged, tried, and convicted of an obscenity charge-specifically, indecent exposure. Morrison was also accused of trying to foment a riot at the same concert where the obscenity charge originated, at a Dade County auditorium.

Although Crist has expressed some sympathy for the effort on the part of some obscure memorabilia vendors and sixties-era music buffs, who insist Morrison did not get a fair trial, he has thus far avoided involving himself in the effort, lately avoiding the subject.

If his poll numbers don't improve significantly, I expect this to change. In fact, I expect him to issue a posthumous pardon for the late rock singer anywhere from one to two weeks prior to the election, while simultaneously making a last ditch effort to appeal to younger Florida voters, including college/university students. In doing so, he will lurch significantly to the left, as he would be unlikely to draw much support from politically active college students-to say nothing of drug-addled nineteen sixties era stoners-by keeping to the center, even the center left. Look for him to become a staunch advocate of Cap And Trade, of improving the current ObamaCare fiasco by inclusion of a public option, ostensibly to bring down costs, and by advocating yet another version of the McCain-Kennedy Immigration Reform Bill.

In doing so, he will insist that, to paraphrase Reagan, he has not left the Republican Party, the Republican Party has left him, has abandoned its core moderate principles and has been hi-jacked by right-wing extremists (for example, Rubio, whom the vast majority of mainstream GOP voters chose over Crist).

Crist is likely to do all this in the face of certain and overwhelming defeat, as an act of desperation, and because he has no shame. Sadly, under the right combination of circumstances, it could work.

Mr. Opportunity Rocks

One of my favorite commercials. It makes me want to run out and steal a new Honda.

Project Veritas

James O'Keefe has his own blog at Project Veritas. Worth checking out.

The Crying Game-Pt. 1

A great film, which I hope to post in segments in its entirety. If you are over fifty and not much of a movie buff, you might not be aware of this film, or if you are under forty and lived in a cave during the nineties when it first came out. If you know the reveal, kindly refrain from saying anything in the post comments. I will say this much, as Halloween is up-coming, it fits the holiday in one obvious way.

It's controversial, to say the least, but it is certainly original, compelling, and definitely worth a view. I didn't realize until I uploaded these first two segments that the part of Jody is played by Forrest Whittaker in what was probably his first, or one of his first roles.

Dastardly British Racist Toddlers Require Special Attention

If you live in Britain you can be reported for suspicion of racist inclinations, even if you are as young as three years old. It could be for things as dastardly as expressing a dislike for ethnic foods, or for displaying a preference to not play with children from certain minority groups-at any given time. This seems to be a new function of teachers in Britain. If a young child shows the slightest hint of racism-report them.

Can we close down our British military bases now? Or should we keep them there and maybe even increase them? Are the British really our allies?

Do we really want to be more like these people?

I think I'm growing to despise the Brits more with each passing day. Must be that Irish blood.

Twin Peaks

This year is the twentieth anniversary of the premiere of the David Lynch series Twin Peaks. Although its quality went down some in its second and last season, in its first year it was one of the most compelling and original series on television. Like all Lynch projects, there was a heavy emphasis on the surreal, as seen in the following clip, perhaps the most well-known segment of the entire series-the infamous Red Room dream sequence. In the scene, a dreaming Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLaughlin) meets the ghost of Laura Palmer (whose murder he has been investigating, played by Sheryl Lee)and The Man From Another Place (Michael J. Anderson), who is actually the evil spirit of Mike's arm, which took the form of a dwarf once Mike, having seen "the face of God", removed his arm in order to remove the power of evil with which he was infested and which for a time tied him to, and made him the partner in crime of "BOB", a malevolent, lower level demon, who possessed the mortal form of Laura's murderer.

As California Prepares To Slide Into The Ocean

I'm on the verge of making my first Democratic endorsement of the year.

Ah, to hell with it, I'll come right out and do it.

The Pagan Temple herewith endorses Jerry Brown for Governor of California.

No, I'm not mad at Meg Whitman for hiring an illegal immigrant and/or mistreating her in the process. I'm even somewhat ambivalent about the Democrats shady campaign tactics involving Gloria AllRed

But let's face it, Meg Whitman has spent an obscene amount of her considerable fortune on this election, and a large portion of that has been toward outreach to the Latino community.

It's a safe bet she's not campaigning on a promise to militarize the border and send all illegals back to Mexico. It's also no accident that hers was one of the names John McCain floated as a potential running mate in his doomed to fail from the start presidential bid, before he realized he needed an actual conservative and chose Palin instead.

Meg Whitman, to be perfectly blunt, is Arnold Schwarzenegger in drag. Like him, and McCain, she is the only kind of Republican that can be elected in California-a RINO. If elected, she will surely take the lion's share of the blame for any future and likely calamity that would befall the sunshine state due to the continuing malfeasance of the Democratic Legislature.

Governor Moonbeam, on the other hand, might do one of two things. He might actually improve conditions in California, or he might help send the state hurtling off the precipice with the speed of a nuclear projectile. My guess is the latter, but the point is, let the Democrats take the full blame for the disaster that is more than likely to ensue. They deserve it. And, like it or not, they own the mess.

With this in mind, The Pagan Temple herewith heartily endorses Jerry Brown for Governor of California.

Hollywood-Kentucky awaits. Just kindly leave your more insane political leanings where they belong-in the state you helped in no small measure to destroy.

Screaming Night Hog

Sanchez Sacked Somewhere Just Off The Road To Damascus

Who does Ricky Sanchez think he is? A better question-what does he think liberals are?

CNN anchor Rick Sanchez was fired Friday by the news network after he went on a tirade during a radio interview calling Jon Stewart a “bigot” and accusing the "elite, Northeast establishment liberals” of labeling him as “second-tier” because of his Cuban-American background, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

“Rick Sanchez is no longer with the company," the statement from CNN said. "We thank Rick for his years of service and we wish him well," it added.

The TV host, who was born in Cuba and raised outside Miami, said that racism in the media comes "not just [from] the right," but also at the hands of the "elite, Northeast establishment liberals," during a Thursday interview on the "Stand Up! with Pete Dominick" SiriusXM radio show.

"Deep down, when they look at a guy like me, they see a guy automatically who belongs in the second tier, and not the top tier," the 52-year-old said.

That pretty much says it all. Too bad he had to become a victim of leftist hypocrisy before he grew the balls to call it like it is. But let's enjoy it for what it is-the poster boy for the left's ideal Cuban American pretty much performed the equivalent of walking into the boss's office and calling him a stupid fucking price in front of the secretary, the visiting family, and a potential client. He had to have known there was a chance he would be sacked. After all, he's not black. Or Jewish. Speaking of which, he also stated without much equivocation that the northeastern liberal establishment is pretty much dominated by Jews.

I learned quite a long time ago, anytime anyone on the left screams racism or any similar type ism at conservatives, Republicans, or the Tea Party, its nothing more or less than a simple case of projection.

Hat Tip to Babalu

A Hiccup From Ecuador

Ecuador has just recently gone through what appears to have been a coup attempt, its president temporarily a guest of the nation's police force. The coup seems to have been swiftly contained and defeated, however, which is not really such a surprise, seeing as how the attempt seems not to have had any wide-spread popular support to speak of.

The whole attempt was the result of austerity measures aimed primarily at the police force, who naturally rebelled at the prospect of benefits cuts, doubly resenting the idea that the budget of the nation should be balanced on the backs of those charged primarily with keeping the peace. Social services were not cut, apparently, nor was the military budget, nor it is safe to assume was the bureaucracy.

As such, the coup was destined to fail-the military put it down quickly. Nor is there is any need in looking towards the United States for a scapegoat here. If anything, the US State Department and the CIA were probably, at most, disinterested observers. If they were involved at all, it would be just as likely on the side of the leftist junta as against it, but I repeat, as of now, there is no credible evidence of US involvement one way or another.

Of course, the day is still young. What is most certain is that, after the coup plotters have had their day in kangaroo court and are sent packing to Ecuadoran Club Med (Gitmo without the bells and whistles) things will probably settle back to "normal", and the Ecuadoran leftist regime, which has ties to Hugo's Venezuela and Morales's Bolivia, can get back to the business of planning and building a new socialist state, manned at some indeterminate date in the future by the new Socialist Man.

Of course, this will take a couple of centuries at the very least, during which time, as is almost always the case, this artificially planned offshoot of homo sapiens will be superseded by the more natural evolutionary offspring of almost all such experiments-

Bureaucratic Man.

A Great Man Helps A Great Cause

I've had my problems in the past with Bengals Wide Receiver Chad Ochocinco. He's a great receiver and all around player, but he comes across as full of himself. He seems to be one of these guys who is obviously out for himself, a master of self-promotion. He has appeared on Dancing With The Stars, is a showboat on and off the field, and not too long ago introduced his own line of condoms.



Although he was born Chad Johnson, he had his name legally changed to Chad Ochocinco, which is the Spanish language spelling of his team number-85. Lately, he has publicly mused about changing his name yet again, to reflect the number on his team jersey in Japanese.

These are the kinds of antics, in addition to his gregarious nature on the field, that lends many to view him as-well, a show-off. It leads you to wonder how he could possibly get along with such a person as Terrell Owens, who recently joined the Bengals. Talk about a clash of personalities.

But now I have come to think I might have misjudged the man. He has lately come out with his own brand of breakfast cereal, named, of course, Ochocinco's. My initial reaction was, "there he goes again". But come to find out, a portion of the proceeds from sales of the cereal will go to benefit the Feed The Children Foundation.

Now I have to admit, I am impressed. And, having taken the time to call the toll-free number of the foundation, I am also quite touched.

And believe it or not, if you take the time to call the number of this fine organization, I promise you that, unless you have a heart of stone and ice-water coursing through your veins, you will also be touched and impressed.

1-800-HELP-FTC

You will be under no obligation whatsoever. But I promise, you will be moved.

Clean Air And Poverty

Moonbattery has a report that is so hard to believe, I can't really vouch for it at face value. But it wouldn't really surprise me to learn that the EPA is poised to initiate a series of regulations that might well result in the elimination of potentially 800,000 American manufacturing jobs. There could never be a good time for something like this to happen, and as of right now, there could not be a worse time. I really hope they don't go through with this, that somebody somewhere sees reason and reins them in.

But if they don't, and if they do go through with this insanity, I damn sure hope it happens now, so people can feel the effects long enough before the election to make a new GOP congressional majority not merely a probability, but a foregone conclusion, and in the meantime swell those Republican numbers far more than what they might ordinarily be.

After all, the best thing Democrats can do to help Republicans is simply be Democrats, proudly and openly.

The proposed rule has to do with emission standards. Old furnaces and boilers will have to be retrofitted, retooled in order to meet the new standards and guidelines. What this means is there will be layoffs in some cases, a near freeze on new hiring in others, and in some instances, no more nor less than a complete halt in production.

Way to lead us into the Third World, EPA. Nixon must be spinning in his grave.

I Don't Ask For Much

The newest Lamborghini will do nicely.

Outlaw

Outlaw is one of those television series that will tell you exactly what the liberal media thinks about conservatives. Or, perhaps more succinctly, it will tell you what they want you to think about them.

It's really simple. Not all conservatives are bad people. Sometimes, they are just deluded, and always wrong, about everything. Many if not most of them, however, are pure evil incarnate. In the world of Outlaw, you can't become a conservative leader without being evil. If you are not outright evil, then you are at least amoral, or at the very best, ambivalent.

Then there is Cyrus Garza who, as portrayed by Jimmy Smits, is a George W. Bush appointee to the Supreme Court. When he is not spending his time upholding conservative legal precedent-for no other reason than the curious belief that no former Supreme Court decision should ever be overturned (how this squares with the many established liberal legal precedents is fairly unclear)-he spends his days and nights drinking, gambling (while getting kicked out of casinos for cheating, and running up massive debts), and womanizing. This will in all likelihood eventually be revealed as a means of attracting lonely, fantasy-craving, sex starved middle-aged female viewers numbing his raging conscience, which has been nagging and torturing his innermost soul. Despite all his best efforts, of course, his conscience is winning. Which means, by definition, there is no way he can possibly remain a conservative.

The turning point comes when he decides to chuck his Supreme Court position and re-enter the legal profession to fight for the little guy. In doing so, he has earned the ire of his highly placed former conservative supporters and backers, who are already thoroughly pissed at him for, in the series premiere episode, his vote to allow a retrial of a Black Criminal who has been convicted of murder and sentenced to death

Why does this piss them off so much? Apparently, conservatives are so ideologically attached to the death penalty, they don't care if a condemned man is or is not innocent. He has been found guilty, and so must die. Period, end of story. Smits character is a turncoat, and now, the conservative movement is out to destroy him. After all, if Cyrus Garza has the temerity to rule that a Black Man should be granted a retrial, who's to say he might not one day vote to overturn the death penalty all together? They should be glad that he left the Court, but remember-in addition to evil, conservatives are fairly stupid.

But you would think even they would not be so stupid as to miss the disturbing signs of Garza's nascent liberal leanings. His late father was a liberal attorney, who loved him and nurtured him, while reminding him daily what a schumck he was. It even turns out that Garza has a Black Friend, also a liberal attorney, who was responsible for involving him in the case of the condemned felon previously mentioned. The Black Friend also has a Black Teenage Daughter who hates conservatives and openly calls Garza a Fascist-to his face. He has a vaguely Gothish, somewhat whorish assistant who makes life difficult for his squeaky clean conservative assistant. He even has a younger, liberal admirer who blurts out her feelings of love to him.

The only thing that has kept Garza hanging on to his conservative credentials by the skin of his teeth is his amoral lifestyle. But even here, the handwriting is on the wall. After all, if he were really a conservative, he would be an accomplished hypocrite and expert at hiding his personal flaws, like all true conservatives.

Of course, the entire premise of the series is nonsense. For just one example, even the most ardent supporters of the death penalty would be loathe to see an innocent man sentenced to die, as this gives the anti-death penalty movement their most legitimate complaint. They should be at the forefront in demanding fairness for all defendants, and in demanding not only fair trials, but in seeing unjust verdicts overturned whenever one turns up.

This series unfortunately was not intended as a thoughtful exposition of competing American political philosophies, it was meant pure and simply as liberal propaganda.

Jimmy Smits probably has a year or two left on his NBC contract. What better way to burn it out than to give him a vehicle on a Friday night at ten pm, a night and time when the television viewer demographic is dominated by those middle aged and elderly voters, many of whom might be on the fence politically and who might well be swayed by a popular television actor portraying a character in the midst of finding his soul by turning from his past indiscretions and fighting for what is right.

Which is, to be sure, all that is left. I watched this show hoping for the best, but fearing the worse. My fears were well founded. The only surprise this show might offer is if, at some point, Garza's father does not turn out to have been murdered by his, and now his son's, conservative enemies.

There are some things in life you just can't make up. Then there are things like this you just shouldn't bother to watch.

The Archetype Nikita

Last night I watched the series Nikita on the CW, and while I can't say it was a complete waste of time, I wasn't unduly surprised. It was actually good in some respects, as far as the acting and the production values. The overall story line and plot was good, and even the dialogue, while not grade A, was not that bad either.

But-sorry, it just wasn't Nikita. Neither was the older version that aired once upon a time on FX. Both seem to owe more to Alias than to the original French film version which became an overnight cult classic.

Yet, it was by no means universally lauded. It received mixed reviews, and while it did respectably good box office, it was not Star Wars, or Iron Man.

So the question is, why do they keep remaking Nikita? There have been three film remakes alone. The current series is the second television version. There must be something seemingly magical about the concept.

Long time readers are of course familiar with the avatar at the top of the blog. It is the goddess Artemis aiming her bow. I have had other pics at the top. Once I had Aphrodite, another time Odin. These are all archtypes. Although I haven't gone out of my way to advertise it, I tend to view all deities from a Jungian perspective. They are archetypes. They represent universal forces that permeate nature, and by extension, all mankind. They speak to the human experience. That is why they are so powerful, and have, in one sense of the word, ALWAYS been worshiped, albeit in differing forms, from one culture and time to the next. Through the heyday of the Christian era, they have been with us. Sometimes they work to our benefit. There have also been times when they have manifested to our detriment. Whether they manifest of good or for bane to a large degree this depends on us.

But whatever the case, they are always with us.

Nikita, in my opinion, represents one of these archetypes, albeit in fictional entertainment form. That explains why she is so powerful, why she exerts such a pull on the popular imagination to such an extent Hollywood keeps trying to recreate the magic of the original, and so far, without exception (including the current incarnation) has always come up somewhat short, in some cases woefully short.

Nikita was a feral child, a girl of the streets, a heroin addicted youth incarcerated for the murder of a policeman, who was taken out of prison, her death faked, and then trained to be an assassin. She was trained in all the ways a culturally astute woman would be trained. She was instructed in the ways of seduction, and all the different ways to please a man. And, of course, she was trained in the ways of espionage, and murder.

But at heart, she was Nikita, the wild, feral child of the streets. She only wanted to live, to survive, and did what she had to do. But when she got the chance, she exerted her need to live free.

Before she did so, she moved in with a young man who worked as a store clerk. He was an unassuming sort, with little to no ambition of which to speak. She was comfortable with him, not so much because he was easy to control, but because she was not threatened by him.

Although she loved him in a sense, it seemed to have been more in the way one might love an adoring pet than a lover one might see as an equal. But she loved him nevertheless, and was forced to leave him, and her new/old life, when it became obvious her former handlers and controllers would not, or could not, let her just walk away from what they saw as her "contractual" obligations.

We were left at the end to wonder, how would she ever make it. She was a survivor, but could she thrive living on the run, always trying to stay one step ahead of the French Intelligence service that saved, then created, and then manipulated her. But of course, we knew the answer to that. She would survive because she was Nakita. That was, after all, what she was, a survivor, a fighter, and when necessary, a killer, a destroyer of lives and souls. If anything, a better question might be, how can they survive without her.

The new series takes it a step further. They have her now on the offensive against the company (in this series, now a secret American agency), whom she is determined to destroy, even as they are in the process of training new "recruits" to carry on the cause, which they describe to them in patriotic terms (though of course there are shady, sinister overtones to the agency).

Yet, as good as Maggie Q is in the role, we see little of the original Nakita. Just another trained assassin. Admittedly, the show could evolve over time and we might see more of the wild, feral child Nikita. We do see some hints of it in the younger recruits of the agency. But so far, the magic is contained inside the allure of sophistication and CW production values. One would expect as much, since the CW is primarily geared to a youth market. As such, Maggie Q as Nikita, while suitably vengeful and violent, is yet much too restrained, much too lacking in blood lust, and far too merciful.

Toward the end of the debut episode, she stopped short of killing the man who was in charge of the mission to capture and kill her, electing to just wound him to make it look good. He himself had stopped short of killing her when he had her in his sights, admitting that he had a thing for her. He let her go with the warning that the next time they met, it would end differently.

That promise would have been the only inducement the old Nikita would have needed to blow him away on the spot. Granted, one can make the argument that this is an older and ostensibly wiser version of Nikita, one that might see him as a potential ally.

Even so, its still not Nikita.

Still Waiting, In A Haze Of Smoke

When everything goes to hell in a handbasket, all you can do is bitch. People will tell you it doesn't do you any good, but it does help you to vent. Right now, I do need to vent. I got my car fixed, then came a plumbing problem. I'm still waiting for the bill on that one. On top of that, now that my car has had new valves put in, it still runs hot, so I'm still not out of the woods. I have a family medical drama on-going that I'd rather not go into right now. And, since my computer broke down and I have too much of this other crap going on to get it fixed, I have been smoking like the proverbial freight train. Seriously, I had cut down to a half pack a day, with little problem. Now, since I have all this other crap going on, and nothing to occupy my time with in a constructive way, other than a few minutes at the local library computer every once in a while (yes, Sonia Belle, they do have libraries in Kentucky, I've been smoking worse than Obama in the White House men's room.

What I need is some good fucking drugs, but who can afford that?

Cordoba

Computer still down, still posting from the library, just stopped by to check things out. Should have things squared aqay in another two or three weeks, hopefully.

In the meantime, here's some thoughts about the so-called Cordoba Mosque project slated for Manhatten near the site of 9/11.

1. The Muslims who own the land certainly have the right to build the Islamic Center and Mosque at the site.

2. It's still a pretty shitty idea.

3. That being said, I think well over half the controversy would be put to rest if they named it something other than after the area of an Islamic conquest.

Any thoughts?