Does Meathead Tip Hollywood's Hand?

Actor Rob Reiner said that Mel Gibson's apology to the Jewish community wasn't enough. He has to acknowledge that "his work reflects anti-Semitism," particularly the 2004 hit movie "The Passion of the Christ," Reiner told Associated Press Radio.

For more, read Meathead: Mel Gibson Reflects Anti-Semitism

The passion of Christ is anti-semitic? Would Mr. Reiner say that the Gospel of Matthew is anti-semitic? Or how about Mark, Luke, or John? Or how about the Acts of the Apostles where St. Peter, when speaking of Christ, said to the people, that it was they "with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross," or when speaking to the Jewish Sanhedrin, said to them of Christ, "whom you killed by hanging him on a tree." St. Peter was anti-semitic, right Rob? Was St. Peter also anti-Italian? How about St. Paul, when he said about the Jews, "Because of their transgression (the rejection of Christ) salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious." Was St. Paul anti-semitic because he said God brought salvation to another people rather than Israel? Or, how about Jesus himself, when he said to the Pharisees that they were "a brood of snakes, whitewashed tombs filled with dead mens' bones, and hypocrites? In Revelation Jesus called the place where the Jews of Smyrna meet as the "synagogue of Satan!"

Did Mel say anything close to that?

If you are to be consistent, Rob, you'll have to focus your rage on the founder of Christianity, Christ HIMSELF. I'll wait to see if you do that.

My opinion, since I don't know Mr. Reiner that well, is this: the rant against Mel Gibson's deplorable and drunken behavior may be more a back lash at his success with "The Passion of the Christ." Had Gibson not produced and directed such a high impact movie with such success, but perhaps had continued with banal projects, such as "Lethal Weapon V, VI & VII" or Conspiracy Theory II, or "Bird on a Clothesline" or another post-apocalyptic "Mad Max" movie, Mel's idiotic and evil behavior would have gone unnoticed. Many politicians, those on the left side of the aisle, have said anti-semitic remarks, with little media attention in comparison.

Let's hear it Rob, from your own lips, Christ is anti-semitic.

Hole in the Ground?

New Orleans Mayor Takes Swipe at NYC

Hmm. Mayor Nagin already paid for his "chocolate city" comment. Is he some sort of political self-masochist? I don't know. You read it and tell me.

"...when Pitts points to flood-damaged cars in the street and a house washed partially into the street, the mayor shoots back. "That’s alright. You guys in New York can’t get a hole in the ground fixed and it’s five years later. So let’s be fair."

From the "When You Have Too Much Time On Your Hands" Department

This just in! I'm not making this up! Farmers believe cows moo with accents!

It's one thing when farmers think this the case. Here at the cave, we understand. They have lots of time on their hands, well, to take time to "notice" things. We accept that! It becomes serious news stuff when the "experts" get involved.

John Wells, Professor of Phonetics at University College London,...said that a similar phenomenon had been found in birds.
"You find distinct chirping accents in the same species around the country. This could also be true of cows," Wells said on the group's Web site (www.farmhousecheesemakers.com).

Funny Dr. Wells would say this, 'cuz just the other day, I noticed this too. I thought that I was crazy. Birds in Milwaukee are quite different than in Oshkosh. Milwaukee birds have this distinct nasal quality that almost matches what I hear from the Polish community and they burp like some of the best beer drinkers I've met. Up here in Oshkosh, birds flatten their vowels and hold their O's longer with the Norwegian "Yooper" effect, "don't cha knoooooow." This is especially noticable near Lambeau Field, where the Paaaackersss play. Flat A's, long O's, yup. That's how I hear it!

Enjoy your day and see if you too, notice animals communicating in dialects. I hear my black lab (short for Labrador, which is located in Canada), Cassie, barking, eh? She wants to come in now, eh? She chased all the squirrels away, eh? She's ready for her rawhide snackie, eh?

Have a great day...eh? Oh, and if you have a pet that has an accent, or notice this phenomenon happening in your locale, let us know. Here at the cave, we are a highly "scientific" blogsite, doncha know!

The Leveling Factor of Bill Cosby

I have been watching Bill Cosby of late. "Dr. Huxtable" has been giving the black community some necessary anti-dotes that far outweigh and possibly outperform the placebos given by Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson: calls for personal responsibility. Here are a few links for your reading pleasure, one year after his "Pound Cake Speech" in light of the fiftieth anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education:

Bill Cosby is frustrated, but unafraid...

Pound Cake Speech

One particular part of the speech hit home:

"Five or six different children, same woman, eight, ten different husbands or whatever, pretty soon you’re going to have to have DNA cards so you can tell who you’re making love to. You don’t (know) who this is. It might be your grandmother. (laughter) I’m telling you, they’re young enough. Hey, you have a baby when you’re twelve. Your baby turns thirteen and has a baby, how old are you? Huh? Grandmother. By the time you’re twelve, you could have sex with your grandmother, you keep those numbers coming. I’m just predicting."

Strong medicine from a strong doctor? I think so. If you have other quotes from Dr. Cosby, feel free to bring them here. Love him or hate him, he is the one person that can level the playing field of entitlement. Kuddos to him!

From the "Scratch Your Head Department"

Church Ousts Woman Teacher

It is actions of this fundamentalist pastor and his church that give Christianity a black eye. As a Catholic, I understand and support the all male priesthood. Christ instituted it, and the Church maintains it. However, the position of no woman teaching any man is way over the top.

This "literal" interpretation is a massive distortion of Scripture and what is I think intended by the saintly apostle. Paul is making clear the necessity of men being in spiritual authority in the Church, mainly priests and bishops. However, if this extreme interpretation by the pastor above is legitimate, St. Paul must have dropped the ball regarding the teaching activities of a certain woman and her husband, Priscilla and her husband Aquila. Both she and he taught a dynamo apostle named Apollos, who misunderstood and taught a distorted view of Christ's gospel. Did Priscilla overstep her teaching boundaries? Did St. Paul condemn her actions, or get after Aquila for not keeping his wife on a leash? Nope. How about this--when St. Paul came to Europe for the very first time, in Macedonia, his first convert was a woman named Lydia, a local busnesswoman who had led prayers with people in her household and in her local community. Does he emphatically tell her to quit leading the prayer group? Nope. There are women in scripture who worked side by side with St. Paul in his gospel preaching. Did they just speak to women? Uh, the bible is silent on this. The Old Testament has dynamic women who were instrumental in saving and preserving Israel from destruction who led men into battle? Should be throw out the Old Testament, you modern Marcionites?

My point is this is an example of fundamentalist textualism that dehumanizes the Christian person, in this case women, and distorts the image of God into something ogre-ish. It makes no sense. Distortions like this occur because people make their piddly interpretations and opinions as The Truth. That is why I am all for a God directed Magesterium that guides and keeps the Church on track with the tradition of Christ and the Apostles. Newfangled opinions and practices are a menace and need to be identified as such.

To those who see the above article cited as typical of what you experience as Christian, my apologies and condolences to you. You have seen the ugly underbelly of Christianity gone awry in the hands of the misguided and heretical. Plus, you and I need to talk.

Implants a Good Idea?

Newsmax has a story about implanted chips in military troops.

I have always been wary of technology since it seems we moderns let it almost have a life of its own. The 'spirit' of technology is the new god of our age. It never sleeps, it's always improving things, always looking for faster, and more efficient means to doing things; it promises more time, less work, with greater results, and happiness, yes, always happiness. It seems benign with some things like television in the fifties, to color television in the sixties, to television with remotes, big screen T.V.s and now plasma T.V.'s. The same goes with computers. Technology has also allowed mankind to kill one another more quickly and efficiently as well. Atomic bombs graduated to hydrogen bombs, which gave way to neutron bombs where all life is extinguished but buildings and infrastructure remain intact, to now the famed EMP bombs (electromagnetic pulse). We can kill thousands of people while traveling at high altitudes with the flick of a switch. More speed, more accuracy, more efficiently, more deadly and less humane.

So now we have chips that store enormous amounts of information. And, by the way, receiving one is completely voluntary for our troops...until something bad happens. Then all soldiers will be required to have one. The risks of terrorism will require iinternational travelers to have them. Until finally, it will be acclaimed as so effective and life enhancing that everyone will be offered the chance to have one of these devices, all voluntarily of course! Until something terrible happens, where everyone then will be required to have one. Technology, touted as our liberator, becomes our master and we its slaves.

Oh no, technology, you are not the friend you claim to be.

More of why I am bummed...

I don't want to bore you, but I want to make some blunt observations.

Cardinal rules of engaging in logical argument call for avoiding the temptation of trying to win battles at the expense of losing the war. If you notice a different tenor in this blogsite, good! I have identified that I have been violating this precept, and the Common Master is not pleased with me and has voiced his disapproval with some of my past tactics. Frustration and anger, exercised with snide comments and snipes at those who visit are hardly appropriate for me, fellow cave dwellers, and it is an indignity to those offended. It turns me into a sour UL. Mrs. UL concurs!

If you have visited here in the past and have been insulted by me, you have my deepest apology. I will try to conduct myself more as a gentleman.

If you think I'm too hard on myself, well, allow me this. I know what rolls around inside me and believe me, I know what's inside.

So my bummed-ness is seeing the battles waged and won (in my own mind), and the war acutally lost, with the seeming lack of influence I think has come because of it. I am committed to change, friends. Let's stick to presenting our arguments with candor, even passion, without insult or personal attack. I, for one, hope to be an example of this. If I forget, PLEASE, refer me to this post as reparations for my behavior. Peace to you all!

I am Bummed

Yes, fellow cave-dwellers, the UL is bummed. Why? Well, I'm not quite sure. Allow me to include you in my flow of consciousness, a flow not out of a logical argument, but of observations...maybe we'll find out together.

It's not because of the idiotic NSA ruling--I knew somehow that it would be challenged; the ACLU needed the right judge, and lo! they found one. Big surprise. Not because the non-stop bleating of the "useful idiots" in the MSM sheep and the stench of their Marxist "scatologisms" that has poisoned the air and infected the thinking of the gullible public. No, I expect this to continue and the wafts of the marxist manure to increase over the landscape. It's not the apparent silence of the majority who are in favor of our efforts to fight "Islamic Fascism." It's not the hedonistic pursuits of our generation to success and accomplishment; every generation wants to make its mark.

The WWII generation, the oft labeled "Great Generation" is dying off. Great men and women who hunkered down, fought and defeated one of the greatest threats to mankind are dwindling due to attrition. Not that they accomplished this without mistakes; they accomplished this by pressing on through their mistakes. Now, they are silently fading away, leaving us without the ever present "silent strength" that we super-smart "Boomers" have assumed and have taken for granted. With civilization saved, the "Boomers" broke ground, experimented, pushed the envelope, built an ediface on the foundation the WWII'ers left us, and ushered in the ever lauded "post-modern" era. We valued the philosophical inventions of a Jacques Derrida's "Deconstructionism," advancing the idea (if you can make heads or tails of his philosophy...good luck) that language does not convey objective reality, but is a means of control by the very powerful. We question the objective nature and reality of reality itself now; we're so smart! And the last gasp warnings of our dying progenitors is lost because it doesn't sell or entertain; what does it have to do with "the information age?" Wisdom on the lips of the fading is nonetheless...wisdom.

As I see it, we "Boomers" are a lame generation that has been propped up by the WWII'ers; we have benefited from their blood and sacrifice--and we are silently losing our supports. With that in mind, I now question whether we have a similar "silent strenght" to give to our successors. Moreover, I also wonder what history will make of us after the gas of our inflated self-assessment deflates through time. Will our legacy be repudiated? Will we be as useful as a spent helium balloon? I'm afraid this may be the case. Like those who failed and are recorded in the Bible for our instruction, our legacy may be the means to illustrate for future generations "the guiding principles of how NOT to live."

Do we have the collective guts to rewrite our legacy with our actions? That too, will be known only in time.

A Question for All of Us to Consider...

If the United States suffers another major terrorist attack, say a suitcase nuke, where likely will the blame be placed, and by whom?

Ah! When Responsible Muslims Speak Out...

It is refreshing to see a Muslim address the Muslim community towards taking responsibility that is theirs to take. I refer you to a NYTimes editorial by Irshad Manji in her "Muslim Myopia." A professor at Yale, she articulates the fallacy that points to U.S. foreign policy as the cause of Islamic fundamentalism, ergo, Islamic terrorism:

"But violent jihadists have rarely needed foreign policy grievances to justify their hot heads. There was no equivalent to the Iraq debacle in 1993, when Islamists first tried to blow up the World Trade Center, or in 2000, when they attacked the American destroyer Cole. Indeed, that assault took place after United States-led military intervention saved thousands of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo. "

I'm not sure how her comments in this article will play in the MSM. However, I'm sure you will enjoy her fresh approach that needs to be the norm for moderate Muslims--people who I KNOW hate to see their religion being highjacked by terrorist thugs.

Three cheers for Irshad!

More Bad News For Anti-War Democrats

Since the MSLM is so GREAT at giving us the bad news, I have more to throw onto the festering discusting heap by Al-Reuters (hat tip: Drudge): Army Reaches Recruiting Goals Again.

There you have it. Doesn't that make you MSLM types want to cut and run?

You know, you media wonks work so hard to re-engineer our society with the latest photo enhancing techniques, the most effective use of rhetoric, and the hours--the hours of non-stop teeth clenching repetition to alter the thought processes of a gullible public, and look how they respond to you! Ungrateful wretches! The only answer to this is federal control of radio and the internet.

No doubt this is evidence of the power of George W. Bush.

A Time for a Breather?

The political situation has been volatile of late with ME tensions building and political points are fought for tooth and nail in preparation for the November mid-term elections. I want us all to take a breather and consider our next steps.

I've been cruising the internet and came across Asiantimes.org. and one of its main writers named "Spengler." For today, I want you to read his commentary When the devil dislikes the stink of brimstone. Please, let's read his thought provoking viewpoint regarding the direction we are taking as a country in light of the war on "terror" and the Middle East.

Then, when done, let's comment on topics his article addresses, such as:

1. The need for a mass invasion of the Baca Valley by Israel and end the Hezbollah threat.

2. An ultimatum to Tehran by the U.S. to dismantle nukes and if ignored, use strategic strikes to take out their nuclear installations.

3. Since regional destabilization works in favor of the terrorists, the U.S. should partition Iraq according to ethnic and religious lines and quit trying to stabilize a region already unstable. Go with what is natural to them regionally and historically.

4. Scrap the Bush doctrine of democratizing the Middle East which seriously crosses Just War principles.

5. Buckle up and create an oil embargo over Iran, enduring a 5% reduction in oil output but cutting off 100% of Iran's oil income.

Though Spengler's approach is pragmatic, I think he may give us "Western Goldfish" a chance to see things outside our fishbowl. Let's discuss it and learn what we can. No ranting or rhetorical bombs please. Though we have differences, we may learn that we all have some common objectives that we can build on.

As always, the "Common Master" prevails.

Beware of China

Chinese Secret Deals Fueling Mideast War

An interesting Timesonline article indeed! Sitting back and in the shadows are our Chinese "friends" who sport Elvis hairstyles. While the dust flies with Israel, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran, our next great future superpower patiently waits...and plans.

Creepy.

Bad News for Al Gore and the Enviro-mental cases

Get a grip, my friends. We are not going to have the record hurricane season as we did last year. Just read this ABC newsbrief, but try not to cry. It's hard...I'm devastated myself. Apparently, too many hybrids were purchased by rich Americans...

Thank God for Bloggers! (That's right, I said "God.")

Thanks to Drinking from Home Blogsite. You need to Check this out...the unluckiest homeowner in Lebanon!

Seriously...If the Hezbollah-Lebanese press are going to stage the damage reports of Israeli attacks, at least rotate your actors and actresses. Put facial scars on different parts of the face and body. Have them wear different clothing. Remember, Hez-Leb press, the MSM aren't the ones you need to deceive--they are on your side. You need to work to get past the bloggers. We're a clever bunch, we are!

There's more!

Check out Michelle Malkin's site and look at her collection of false pics.

Is there a conspiracy going on here?

Just a Few Observations of the ME War...

I'm glad that some of you carried on with my previous post while I was gone. I had to spend four days in a hospital for severe back pain. Though it was very difficult, I've had the pleasure of being a news junkie while being in agony in room 210.

Since I don't subscribe to cable, I had the pleasure of having non-stop coverage of the Mid-East turmoil, presented mainly by FOX and also MSNBC and CNN. Perhaps I am imagining things, but it seems that 24 hour news outlets lust for information, to the point that they try to determine ahead of time what will happen, and with that, the consequences of that which may happen...if it happens. I found this to be irritating.

Second, a question began rolling around in my mind as I watched the news coverage. Have you noticed that world opinion howls much louder and with greater vehemence at Israel (i.e. the actions of the Israeli's attack at Qana and the 40 (28?) children killed) when innocent people die in bombings than when Hezbollah kills innocents with their rocket launches? Do different rules apply? It seems that if you have a superior military, you must operate with a set of expectations that are next to impossible to fulfill; if you are an inferior force or an underdog, you are allowed to break some rules to make it even. So, Israel is stronger...therefore, they have no excuse for the deaths of innocents. Poor Hezbollah can only afford these stupid little rockets that they cannot aim...they can't help killing innocents when they send their rockets into Haifa to kill innocents.

My hope is that Israel completely dismantles Hezbollah, both militarily and diplomatically before the soft-skulled dupes of our media et al succumb to the propaganda of Hezbollah.