Oscar Night: Will Martin Scorsese Finally Win?

Time to take a moment away from the serious and chat a bit about this years Oscars.

I am wondering if this is the year Martin Scorsese finally wins a best director's award? While The Departed is far from my favorite film of his, I get the feeling that the timing is right and this year will be it. If so, expect it to be the highlight of the night.

The only other award that means anything to me this year is best actor and I really hope and feel Forrest Whitaker deserves it.

Let's see.

Oh yeah, it's about 1000 to 1 that anyone but Al Gore wins for best doc. Talk about a lock. Unfortunately he'll blow it with a Goring speech.

Obama Rips Cheney: Barack is Dangerously Close to Believing His Own P.R. Agents

Playback Editor on 02/24/07

In banner headlines all over the United States, political novice and far left poster boy (reference/not slur) Barack Obama took aim and fired at Vice President Dick Cheney. It is almost funny when you think about it. Fresh off his spit swapping love fest with the Hollywood elite, Obama must be feeling pretty empowered if he wants a piece of Cheney. It is a bad move.

Like him or not, Dick Cheney is without question one of the smartest and most experienced men in Washington. This is a fact acknowledged by almost every Washington insider. He has been in or close to the eye of the political storm in Washington since 1971. For a complete novice like Obama to take swipes at Cheny at this point in his campaign is stupid and short sighted. If he is being advised that the unpopular Cheney is an easy target, he is being misinformed. Ask John Edwards (undistinguished, remember?) who Cheney exposed in their presidential debate as nothing more than an ambulance chasing attorney.

I like the talents Obama brings to the table. I don't even care that he is a novice. In today's world the biggest skill a president needs is to seduce his audience, George Bush's largest weakness. If he manages to seduce enough people to become president, he will be able to insulate himself with experienced talent. However, if Obama keeps putting his foot in his mouth, he will blow the opportunity.

My advise to Barack is to stay away from Cheney. He can and will rip his head off without blinking. Cheney is way out of Obama's league. Barack should stick to the four rounders for the next six months and leave the heavyweights alone.

449 Quentin on Modern Day Poltroonery

POLTROONERY
By 449 QUENTIN - 02/24/07

Poltroon is an archaic word. It is rarely used anymore in modern America. It evokes long gone images of maidens in distress and duels fought over principles. By definition a poltroon is a craven coward.

Basically a poltroon might talk the talk but not walk the walk. The word was used in the pre civil war south where men would die for their beliefs and even more importantly for their honor. One of the reasons that it fell into disuse was that honor itself has little or no currency in modern America and has long since been usurped by expediency. As a prime example of poltroonery today we only need look at people who like to criticize things that they lack the courage to even try or help with. Examples abound today in all area’s of Western Culture.

One of the foremost examples is the reaction of the political left in the Western World to the depredations of the Islamo Fascists. The Spaniards in their zeal to blame America for all that is wrong in the world groveled after the train bombing in Madrid. Then they elected a new leader that gave in to the demands of those whose hands were dripping with the blood of the victims. George Bush and his policies that were forged as an answer to previous Islamo Fascists acts in the African embassies, on the blood soaked deck of the U.S.S. Cole, and the streets of Manhattan was morphed into the new Hitler.

The Spaniards abandoned their commitment to the coalition in Iraq in a display of poltroonery. Ferdinand and Isabella who drove the Moslems from Spain and saved the glory of Western culture would have spun in their graves. The Conquistadors who created the greatest empire of their age would have looked on in disbelief at the poltroons who descended from them. To surrender all pretense of honor and to acquiesce to the demands
of an enemy with the blood of your citizens still wet on it’s hands is to behave in a poltroons manner.

Then we have the example of the poltroons that populate the Democratic party in the United States. These are people that while the guns are still roaring put short term political gain ahead of duty, honor and country. People that do not understand that the books written about military history do not list the great retreats.

It is more than permissible to criticize your political opponents during a war. That is what living in a democracy is all about. However to behave as if the other party and it’s leader are war criminals is beyond the pale. George Bush responded to a string of attacks that culminated in the destruction of The World Trade Center. No matter how long he continued his predecessors tactics of doing nothing the enemy riding the tides of history would have kept coming.

We cannot live in the same world as suicide bombers. It is ordained that we struggle until we or they are defeated. The world is not big enough to hold both ideologies. The fact that Bush’s policies seem to be failing is no reason to pillory him so ruthlessly. State clearly what you would have done and what you want to do in the future. Explain how you would have sent all the terrorists captured in Afghanistan to Disney World rather than Guanaco if that is your position. Pretend that you would not use torture if terrorists took over your house and threatened to kill your family but do not condemn the Bush Chaney team for mulling it over because the whole country is their family. Forget about the Anthrax attack if that is what you want but do not crucify a noble but flawed leader who you do not like because he comes from a red state, speaks with a drawl and is not as comfortable in an art gallery as you are because that would make you a poltroon.

How many attacks have to come and how much blood has to be spilled before you stop whining that Islam is a religion of peace? It took two thousand years for Western Culture to evolve into the system that we live under today. Does it have flaws? Yes it does but there is very little immigration into the third world. Nobody is riding on a flimsy raft through Shark infested waters to sneak into Cuba. In addition nobody is freezing to death at forty thousand feet clinging to the wheels of a jet headed for Kenya.

With all of our flaws we do not condemn homosexuals and petty thieves to death. We are not the ones who wish that women remain illiterate slaves and we are not committing genocide in Defer. We stand for religious and political freedom and the enemy does not. In addition Shakespeare, Plato, Rembrandt, Mozart and Einstein are worth fighting for despite what the faculty at Harvard says. The wave that is heading towards the West has been building in intensity for over a thousand years. The only difference is the suicide bombers will soon have weapons of unspeakable power for the first time.

Awake Ye poltroons lefties and pick up a sword while there is still time. We cannot stand against the fury that is descending on us if we are a house divided. Face the reality that this struggle is about much more than George W. Bush. You may not like his Texas drawl and his garbled syntax but you will not enjoy lugging around a prayer rug. In addition it’s important that you grasp that you have to walk to Mecca when you do the pilgrimage thing, they won’t let you drive there in your Mercedes.