Patrick’s Rants

Last week Cat Stevens, or rather Yusuf Islam, was detained and not allowed to ‘enter’ the country due to his name showing up on a terrorist watch list. Of course his plane was diverted to Bangor, Maine, causing Jay Leno to ask when Maine ceded from the Union- but I digress. Mr. Islam is speaking out about how he was treated and has been described as being amused while also calling himself a victim.

According to an article published in the Arizona Republic, two girls were suspended from school for inhaling the controlled substance known as helium.

The world’s best dvd player, at least for kids.
Sometime last year, we got the Go Jr DVD Player for our kids. The player does karaoke, plays a large number of disc formats, has nice big buttons is upgradable, and (drum roll please) has the best feature I can think of in a DVD player- it skips the commercials. When the DVD format first came out, there weren’t any commercials at the beginning of a movie, unlike movies on tape. Now however there are many new releases with commercials at the beginning of the disc. Enter the Go Jr. The parental code that has to be entered for anything above a PG-13 movie is a feature that your kids will soon by-pass (after watching you enter it everytime they want to watch The Cat in The Hat) but that does not diminish the value of starting right in on the movie. The kids ask for fewer movies (they don’t see the commercials for the movies), and they no longer believe the FBI makes the most videos. The last part was interesting to me to hear. Based on the fact that every- or nearly every - studio places the FBI warning on copyright at the beginning of every video my kids thought the FBI was producing the films.
I’m thinking that one of these might be a great investment for even my room, just to skip the commercials- hey I know which movies I want to see and if I wanted to watch commercials, I would just turn on the TV.

My mom lives in Miami Lakes, FL.
As yet another hurricane took aim at the state we discussed preparations, the home stores open last minute for hurricane supplies, lines at the grocery stores and gas stations. I mentioned that CNN was reporting that some of the home centers would be closing at noon on Saturday. While that was technically correct- from where the reporter was- stores had apparently taken a ‘bulls eye’ approach. The further the store was expected to be from landfall of the eyewall (which is the only way landfall is counted based upon what I have seen) the later the store was expected to be open, some as late as 4 PM. Local coverage in Miami had restaurants open where people could get away, grab a bite while they were out doing their running around, and presumably to help reduce food spoilage should the power go out. Restaurant owners were on air saying they were treating it like any other rainy day but if the winds got too high, they would close and go home.
Malls were just closed, or mostly. At one mall, an open air shopping center with an extremely large multi-level fish pond that cascades from the ends of the mall to the center called, appropriately, The Falls, the movie theater was open. According to mom, this was fine, since as she put it, some people didn’t have that much to do based upon where they live, or whether or not they have pulled down the window coverings from the last three storms. There is also the sense of exhaustion from nature’s abuse of the state and even as far back as the Great Depression people have used movies as their escape.
But when the ‘ticker’ scrolled across the bottom of the tv screen showing that Bloomingdale’s at the Falls was also open mom got upset. If you aren’t familiar with Bloomingdale’s, suffice it to say they have nothing to do with hurricane preparedness, food, or the escapism of movies- unless you count the potential high one could get by walking through the cosmetic department and its sometimes overwhelming perfume counter. Her point? They were uneccesarily putting their employees at risk for a few retail dollars. Well, Bloomingdale’s, mom isn’t going to shop there anymore. She may go as far as to cut up her card, including it in a letter of explaination telling you why she’s not going to be in your stores any more. I know she will be telling everyone she comes into contact with that she won’t be shopping there any more and why.
I hope you’re happy.

Time to take a break from the political postings for a moment. When the kids are all away sometimes my wife and I get a chance to go out. That happened just yesterday, and as part of our routine we picked up several videos at the local branch of a large video store ;).
The first movie that we managed to watch, since it is on the new release list and has to be back sooner, is The Lady Killers starring Tom Hanks. While I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from this movie, based on the 1955 The Lady Killers, looked like it could be an interestingly different role for Tom Hanks.
Interesting is definately a word to describe Hanks in this movie. His character seemed quite different from any other role that I have seen him in. He plays a highly educated criminal mastermind who recruits disparate individuals who only share the desire for ill gotten cash. The plan is brilliant and flawless. The criminals only have to tunnel to the offices of a gambling river boat, take the money collapse the tunnel and repair the wall to make it look like the money just simply disappeared. The hardest part is keeping Hanks’ snooping landlady, played by Tzi Ma, from discovering that they are not practicing music down in her basement. Ma, who is known to the local sheriff as a bit of a complainer who talks to the painting of her dead husband hanging over the fireplace, is a kindly church going widow. Upon discovering the crime that began in her basement she gives the thieves an ultimatum, take the money back and go to church or else. Hanks and crew determine that they must do away with the old lady and that’s when the real fun begins. If you haven’t seen the movie I won’t give away the ending which is somewhat predictable while also being funnily surprising.
Hanks fulfilled my expectations of playing a completely different character in this movie, a move away from his somewhat sameness of movies like You’ve Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle.
All in all a pretty good movie. Since this is my first review, I haven’t come up with a rating system yet, but I may develop one.

Cat Stevens’ name is on a terrorist watch list. According to CNN , the singer former known as Cat Stevens who changed his name to Yusuf Islam after to becoming a Muslim, was recently placed on the TSA watch list and not allowed to enter the US. He joins the ranks of such distinguished terrorists as Senator Ted Kennedy, members of the ACLU and others. Prevented from flying by an infallible system of terrorism prevention. Mr Islam should arrive back in the UK sometime later today and may have some interesting things to say.
In other news the no fly list is continuing to expand

On September 7th, 2004, primary elections were held in Arizona. Since I put up the web site for one of the candidates, I followed as the meager guest book went from nearly no posts at all to a fairly heated board. Part of the reason for the growth in posts was the opponent’s complaints (whining) about the unfettered manner in which supporters could voice their opinions. This was all carried in the local paper and each article written fired up the guestbook even more. The most interesting part of all of this was that the opponent didn’t have a web site nor any literature or even a position on anything that I could determine. Meanwhile, what I might call “my” candidate has his positions clearly listed on his site as downloadable pdf files as well as posted on the site. Clearly the employees wanted him as their boss. It was not to be, Terry lost with a 275 vote margin.
Al Gore lost with less than 600 votes in Florida… I really hope this isn’t to be the trend.

Well…. I got the rss feeds working like I want them now… it’s a convoluted collection of three different scripts called from the main page. Now I can select the number of headlines from the sites I want to pull in… and select more sites to list headlines from.

In the ongoing struggle another American has apparently been beheaded. The United States is safer? Not her citizens. I don’t agree with the US unilaterally invading/attacking/declaring war on a country that was not an eminent threat, but it’s high time to do this right. We cannot negotiate with these people nor can we give in to their demands- I completely understand that, I have kids. Mr Bush, you asked for $87B from congress, spend some of it now. Get all of our citizens out of the country, turn the soldiers loose to do their job. You sent them there to do a job. I don’t support the original lie, nor do I believe that Iraq will have elections in January. You must still be drunk/high from the 70s if you believe that there can be democracy on our timetable. We cannot let our troops be shot at from hospitals, Mosques, etc without returning fire and wiping out those endangering the lives of our troops. We have to stop pretending that those who bastardize religion to declare war on non-military citizens should be protected by their religion. It is time to begin a military ‘bulldozing’ of Iraq. Now that we are there, we either have to do a real job of completely wiping out the opposition or get the hell out.

I have been opposed to cell phones that do much more than send and receive calls. My wife has almost convinced me that the camera phone has a valid use by sending me this picture