Jeff Ellis: It's Impossible To Start A Fire If You Have No Desire To Burn

Turn out the lights and shut off your mind.

Earth Hour 2009 is rapidly approaching.

What is Earth Hour?

If you really want to know, click here.

If you really think that switching off the lights for an hour is going to help save the world, more power to you.

Don't get me wrong.

If you sincerely believe that this is an important idea, you're still an idiot.

But at least you're a self-satisfied idiot.

The People Panic Once Again

I'm watching a news story right now about the American people's reaction to the current economic situation.

According to this story, everyone appears to be having a nervous breakdown.

Stress levels are supposedly at their highest since the days immediately after 9-11.  I have to say that I'm actually not stressed out about the economy at all.  I'm not happy with the situation and I think that it's probably going to lead a lot of people to vote for Barack Obama despite their better instincts but none of this really concerns me.  Life will go on regardless.  Strangely enough, 9-11 didn't stress me out either.

At times, it's as if people still can't bring themselves to believe that we actually made it to the 21st Century.  In those years leading up to 2000, all we heard about was how all the computer would fail because of the Y2K bug or that nuclear apocalypse was inevitable or that the universe would suddenly stop expanding or that the Earth would get hit by a comet or whatever the popular scare theory was at that time.  The prophet Nostradamus was famous for never predicting any events taking place after the year 2000.  We heard about that a lot, didn't we?

And yet somehow, it is now 2008.  The world has not ended and it's as if the American people are feeling guilty that it didn't.  Every year has brought us a new apocalypse.  What do 9-11, Katrina, An Inconvenient Truth, campaign finance reform, Gustav, and the war in Iraq have in common?  They've all inspired people to run out into the streets and scream "We're doomed!  We're doomed!"

Whether these people want to admit it or not, life will go on and the world will survive.

You may find yourself broke in the new economy.  That might be the end of your world but it's not the end of the world.

It's certainly not the end of my world.

Seriously, people, get a grip.

Does the LP have a death wish?

Is it possible that the Libertarian Party is transforming itself from being the Party of Principle to being the Party of Extraterrestrial Conspiracy?

To paraphrase Mark Twain: The only thing that keeps me from being a Libertarian is other Libertarians.

(Of course, Twain was talking about Christians but it's the same general idea...)

20 Random Thoughts -- 1/23/08

1) I've recently started posting reviews on amazon again.  I first started reviewing stuff shortly after September 11th, 2001.  As silly as this is going to sound, the whole reviewing process brought some stability to my life at a time when everything seemed extremely unstable.  It gave me a reason to keep reading and going to movies as opposed to just retreating into my own reclusive shell.  For about seven months, I was posting at least one review a day.  Eventually, I started doing stupid things like paying attention to my ranking amongst all the other people writing reviews on amazon.  Eventually, I reached a point where I was declared a Top 1000 reviewer.  What does that mean?  It means you get a little tag reading "Top 1000 Reviewer" posted next to your name.  About a month later, I was declared a Top 500 Reviewer.  And, about that time, I got burned out on the whole thing.  I stopped writing regular reviews.  Instead, I was soon posting a review every couple of months and usually just so I wouldn't lose my Top 500 ranking.  Well, last year, I did not review a single thing.  And, once I had some time away from the whole "ranking" thing, I discovered that I missed writing reviews.  So, I am now writing reviews once again.  Over the past two weeks, I have reviewed two movies (3:10 To Yuma, The Last Hunter) and three books (Satan's Silence, The Book of the Dead, A Scandalous History of the Roman Empire).  And I can proudly say that I am writing these reviews simply for my own pleasure.

2) Well, I can say that but is it true?  It's pathetic really.  I've posted 210 reviews and 84% of the response to those reviews has been positive (or "helpful" as amazon puts it).  Despite this, those two unhelpful votes that my review of 3:10 To Yuma got this morning are really gnawing away at me.

3) My reviews can be read here.

4) There's been a lot of news over this past week about a UFO that several people claimed to have spotted in Stephenville, Texas.  Today, the Air Force announced that the UFOs were actually a bunch of military aircraft.  However, the Air Force previously denied being anywhere near Stephenville so you know that this is a story that's going to be making its way across the Internet for the next decade or so.  I've been Stephenville.  It's actually a pretty nice little town.

5) Ex-girlfriend of mine is from Stephenville.  If we had the type of relationship that actually allowed us to have a friendly conversation, I'd give her a call and she what she thinks about this.  Then again, I can guess -- based on previous experience -- that she's not at all amused and annoyed by the people in her hometown.  This, I might add, explains a lot about why she's my ex-girlfriend.

6) Oh, that's not as mean as it sounds!  I guarantee you that right now she's telling someone "That asshole I used to live with probably thinks this is hilarious!  That's one reason why I don't live with him anymore."

7) TK and Rachel won The Amazing Race this season.  It was nice to see them win.  They weren't always the strongest team but they were definitely the most likable.

8) For those of you who saw the Amazing Race finale, is it just me or did Don really turn out to kinda be a jerk there at the end?  Seriously, I was hoping Nick would just kick him off that glacier.

9) Hate to say it but Aldous Huxley was right.

10) The Oscar Nominations!  Yes, the Oscar nominations.  I promised I'd say some more about the actual nominations yesterday.  Why did I say that?  The thing with Oscar nominations is that there always more fun to discuss before they're announced.  Once they're announced, the actual nominations usually turn out to be a huge anti-climax.  No matter what group of films and performers are nominated, it's never as impressive or interesting a group as the one you had previously pictured in your mind.  This year, the Academy pretty much nominated all the films and actors that everyone thought would get nominated.  I was hoping for at least one out-of-nowhere, what-the-Hell nomination.  I didn't get it.

11) Best Picture, for instance.  Usually, there's always one big shock in the Best Picture nominations.  Not this time.  The nominees were Atonement (good but not great), Michael Clayton (amazingly overrated), Juno (the epitome of a film that -- good as it indeed is -- thinks it's better than it actually is), No Country For Old Men (Brilliant), and There Will Be Blood (also brilliant but so very uneven at times).  Don't get me wrong.  Michael Clayton and Atonement are both good films and perhaps, in a lesser year, they wouldn't be out of place in the top five.  But 2007 was the year of Into The Wild, Once, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, 3:10 To Yuma, and Grindhouse, FOR GOD'S SAKE!

12) Really, the only thing that bugged me about Juno was the fact that Jason Bateman's character would even have the gall to suggest that Herschel Gordon Lewis was a better director than Dario Argento.  And then Juno ended up agreeing with him!  GOOD LORD, PEOPLE -- SUSPIRIA VS. BLOOD FEAST!  INFERNO VS. THE WIZARD OF GORE!  DEEP RED VS. COLOR ME BLOOD RED!  You do the freaking math!

12) Best Director.  Atonement's Joe Wright is the odd man out as all the other best picture nominees were also nominated for best director.  That translated to nominations for Jason Rietman (Juno), Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton), Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood), the Coen Brothers (No Country for Old Man), and Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.  This category provided a kind of cruel joke yesterday morning.  When I heard Schnabel's name announced, I assumed that Diving Bell would be nominated for best picture.  When it's name wasn't then announced along with Atonement and Michael Clayton, it really threw me off.

13) Best Actor.  Viggo Mortensen was nominated for Eastern Promises.  He really deserves to win.  Try to imagine watching that movie without him.  Amongst the other nominees, George Clooney was nominated for doing his Clooney thing in Michael Clayton.  Daniel Day-Lewis was nominated for There Will Be Blood and will probably win even though he actually nearly ruined the film by going overboard in the final few scenes.  Tommy Lee Jones was nominated for In The Valley of Ellah.  I haven't seen that film as I simply couldn't work up the enthusiasm to sit through another sermon from Paul "Heavy Handed?  Who?  Me?" Haggis.  But hey, Tommy's always good.  Check out Love Story.  He's only in the film for 2 minutes and he still manages to completely blow Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw off the screen.  The other nominee was Johnny Depp for Sweeney Todd.  It's amazing that Depp has now gotten three nominations in four years and each nomination has been for playing a character totally and completely different from the last.  It's funny.  When I was much younger, it was generally assumed that Depp was just another teen pin-up pretty boy.  You have to remember that at this time, he was only known for 21 Jump Street.  Who would have guessed that he would have turned out to be the type of actor that we always mistakenly believed Jack Nicholson to be?   

14) Best Actress.  Cate Blanchett was nominated here for playing Queen Elizabeth again.  Elizabeth: The Golden Age was an awful movie but Blanchett was good in it.  Who else was nominated?  Julie Christie was nominated for a movie I haven't seen.  The Edith Piaf lady (I'm tired and I'm not going to risk misspelling her actual name) was nominated for a movie I have no desire to see.  Laura Linney was quite rightly nominated for The Savages.  Ellen Page was nominated for Juno.  Ellen Page should win because, after all, she got her movie nominated for best picture.  Would anyone have gone to see Juno if not for the hype surrounding Page's performance?  And Page did do an excellent job.  I almost believed that she actually did prefer Lewis over Argento.  Almost.

15) Best Supporting Actor.  This is usually the most exciting race.  WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED!?  The nominees were -- as expected -- Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jimmy James By The Coward Gerald Ford or whatever the Hell the title of that film was), Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men), Hal Holbrook (Into the Wild), Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton), and Philip Seymour Hoffman (Charlie Wilson's War).  Bardem was the year's greatest villain and Holbrook is one of our most unappreciated great actors.  Otherwise, this category leaves me bored.  Well, I'll take that back.  Affleck's finally come out of his brother's shadow.  Still, his leading performance in Gone, Baby, Gone was a hundred times better than his nominated work.  As for Wilkinson -- he should have won for In The Bedroom.  He should not have been nominated this year.  Hoffman, I can't judge until I see the film.  I doubt I shall ever see the film.  So, Hoffman gets a pass from criticism just because he's so damn cool.

16) Best Supporting Actress -- Your nominees are Ruby Dee (American Gangster), Amy Ryan (Gone, Baby, Gone), Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton), Saoirse Ronan (Atonement), and Cate Blanchett (I'm Not There).  At some point in the future, people will finally work up the guts to admit that Blanchett really wasn't all the convincing playing a man in I'm Not There and that her performance was more of a gimmick than anything else.  There is a backlash growing.  Since yesterday, at least three people have come to this site as a result of a Google search for the term "Cate Blanchett Overrated I'm Not There."  Still, I'm sure Blanchett will win just because everyone decided that she would be nominated and that she would win before even seeing her performance.  If Dee had had more than five minutes of screentime in American Gangster, I'd probably say "Give her the Oscar."  But Rudy didn't and, regardless, Amy Ryan deserves to win.

17) Want to see a full list of the nominees without having to listen to any more editorial comment from me.  Check out Awardsdaily.  It holds all the answers.

18) I just got Starcrash on DVD.  Anyone remember that movie?  It's an Italian film from 1979 that features Caroline Munro in a bikini, people fighting with light sabers, a somber cameo from Christopher Plummer (he had to do something to pay the bills in the years after Sound of Music yet before The Insider), a young David Hasselhoff doing his Hasselhoff thing, and a bunch of model spaceships being moved about with highly visible piano wire.  Joe Spinell (Depending on your taste in film, you'll recognize him either as Willy Chicci from The Godfather, the loan shark from Rocky, or the killer from Maniac) is some sort of alien overlord.  Oh, and there's this stop motion robot and whenever a spaceship fires a laser, the vastness of space is filled with "Fweep!  Fweep!" noises.  Oh, and the vastness of space is represented by a bunch of colored light bulbs on a black board.  And -- get this -- the entire film was directed by Luigi Cozzi, the arguably the most inherently tacky of the great Italian exploitation directors.  He's like Bruno Mattei without the sadism.  I saw Starcrash once or twice when I was a child and from my memories, it's like Star Wars for stoners.  I just got my copy of it yesterday.  I plan to watch it tomorrow.

19) I recently realized that I actually have no idea what it feels like to be truly happy.  Hence, I'm not really sure if I ever have been truly happy.

20) Is it just me or is American Idol less mean-spirited this season?  It kinda defeats the whole purpose the show, doesn't it?

Take that, George Bailey!

I just took a survey to find out how much money could be made from selling my dead body to science.

The end result?

$3305.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth.

Houston Dating

That's right! $3305!

Hmm...I was kinda hoping for a higher number. But, apparently, the fact that I am not a diabetic, obese, dwarf reflected negatively on my overall worth.

Oh well, at least I now know that I actually am worth more alive than dead.

My superneat, fictional cabinet versus John Edwards' superlame, equally fictional cabinet

Apparently, John Edwards has already selected his cabinet should he be elected President in 2008.

Well, good for him.

After all, I used to fantasize about winning an Academy Award.  I even wrote out an acceptance speech.  It's good to embrace fantasies regardless of whether or not they have a chance in Hell of ever coming true.*

Still, this story made me think.

Who would I put in my cabinet if I were elected President in 2008?

Not that I'm planning on even running for President in 2008.  Well, I was at one point.  Yes indeed, I was nearly a declared candidate for the Libertarian Presidential nod.  However, for various reasons, I chose to end my campaign before it began.  However, should the Libertarian convention become deadlocked, I'm always available for a draft.

But, let's just say hypothetically, what if I was elected President in 2008?

Like Bill Clinton, I'd quickly declare that my cabinet would look like America.

Also like Bill Clinton, my eventual cabinet would then turn out to be a bunch of rich white guys, unemployed politicians, and people soon destined for indictment.

(Well, let's be fair to Clinton here.  The above is a pretty good description of just about every President's cabinet...)

So, here we go:

Secretary of State -- P.J. O'Rourke.  As he proved during his days at Rolling Stone's Foreign Affairs Desk Chief, O'Rourke knows how to handle himself with confronted with tedious, international customs and concerns.  Plus, you just know he'd manage to really annoy everyone at the United Nations.

Secretary of Treasury -- In the interest of remaining bipartisan, we'll give this post to a Democrat.  How about Marc Rich?  After all, he can safely enter this country again if he so chooses.

Secretary of Defense -- My first thought was General Zod but then I remembered that this post is traditionally given to a civilian.  Indeed, there would probably be a great uproar in both D.C. and nationwide if this post was ever given to a military man.  Then I remembered that I'm not running for President and that General Zod is 1) not actually a man but a Kryptonian and 2) fictional.  Therefore, I decided why not give him the job?  Hence, say hello to your new Secretary of Defense -- Dru-Zod!

Attorney General -- Los Angeles District Attorney Hamilton Burger.  Sure, he was always losing to Perry Mason.  But then again, his history of persecuting the wrong person makes him a natural fit for today's modern Justice Department.

Secretary of the Interior -- Billy Jack.  Imagine the fun and games that will ensue whenever Attorney General Burger and Interior Secretary Jack are seated next to each other at state dinners!

Secretary of Agriculture -- Jesse Duke.  As the traditional family farm continues to struggle and die out in America, a top priority of the Ellis administration will be to keep people in rural areas so drunk on moonshine that they won't notice.  Secretary Duke is just the man to head up this operation.

Secretary of Commerce -- George Jefferson.  Commerce, after all, is what keeps this country movin' on up.

Secretary of Labor -- Jimmy Hoffa.  Yeah, yeah, I know that some people claim he's dead.  Well, they haven't ever found a body, have they!?  In case Hoffa actually is dead, then we'll give the job to John Gotti, Jr.  Everyone knows the best labor is mob labor!

Secretary of Health and Human Services -- If he hadn't been crushed by that helicopter, I'd say give it to Robert Romano.  But, seeing as Romano's dead, how about giving it to Dr. John Gideon?  You may remember the success he found when faceless corporation Ecumenna put him in charge of St. Elsewhere.  Add to that, he was played by Ronny Cox and I'm sure he could tell all sorts of Burt-Reynolds-Was-So-Drunk stories from the filming of Deliverance.

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development -- How about Baltimore Mayor Tommy Carcetti?  As anyone who watches television crime shows is aware, it's not easy being mayor of Baltimore.

Secretary of Transportation -- What the Hell does this person do anyway?  Well, since it has something to do with transportation and I assume, vehicles and roads and such, let's give this job to the mysterious Racer X, assuming, of course, that he's an American citizen.

Secretary of Energy -- This one is pretty obvious.  Charles Montgomery Burns is the only man for the job.  An Ellis nation will be an atomic nation, fall-out be damned!  If we can't get Burns, then we'll get the Rich Texan.

Secretary of Education -- James Earl Jones.  A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Secretary of Veteran's Affairs -- No, not John Rambo!  Too unstable.  How about Benson DuBois?  He served in Viet Nam, after all.  Plus, he has government experience and may even be a former Governor.  (Though I still think Gatling ended up winning that race...)

Secretary of Homeland Security -- I bet you're expecting me to say Jack Bauer here, aren't you?  I nearly did but, like Rambo, he's just killed far too many people to win confirmation.  So, we'll do the next best thing and go with Bill Buchanan.  He's a good guy and he's somehow managed to get through three seasons of 24 without getting killed.  That takes skill!

So, there you are.  For those of you who lost track, here's a final summation of the Ellis cabinet:

Secretary of State -- P.J. O'Rourke

Secretary of Treasury -- Marc Rich

Secretary of Defense -- General Zod

Attorney General -- Hamilton Burger

Secretary of the Interior -- Billy Jack

Secretary of Agriculture -- Jesse "Uncle Jesse" Duke

Secretary of Commerce -- George Jefferson

Secretary of Labor -- James R. Hoffa, Sr. or John Gotti, Jr.

Secretary of Health and Human Services -- Dr. John Gideon

Secretary of HUD -- Tommy Carcetti

Secretary of Transportation -- Racer X

Secretary of Energy -- Charles Montgomery Burns or Rich Texan

Secretary of Education -- James Earl Jones

Secretary of Veteran's Affairs -- Benson DuBois

Secretary of Homeland Security -- Bill Buchanan

Let's see John Edwards top that!

----

* How did that speech go?  Well, there are several different versions but the gist of it boiled down to: "Thanks for seeing beyond the pornographic nature of my film and giving me this award.  You blew it, ex-girlfriend!"

Why did Tunguska blow up?

Ever since I was a little kid, the Tunguska Fireball has been one of the my favorite mysterious events. 

What is the Tunguska Fireball?

In 1908, Tunguska, a large area of Siberia,  suddenly burst into flame.  Trees were leveled, bystanders suffered from very serious burns, and the area remained devastated for decades afterward.  While details have always been somewhat sketchy, most witnesses reported that the sky just seemed to explode into fire.  Many people have compared the destruction in Tunguska to the aftermath of an atomic explosion.

When I first read about this at the age of 10, I quickly convinced myself that a UFO must have crashed.

(I was not alone in this assumption either though, interestingly enough, a lot of the most passionate members of the whole Tunguska UFO set are quite a bit older than ten.)

I held firm to the UFO theory for a good couple of years until, finally, I came to realize that since man is alone in the universe, the Tunguska Fireball could not have been a UFO.

So what was it?

Some people will tell you that it actually was an atomic bomb and that, in the decades since, there has been a massive cover-up.

Well, there was a cover-up but it had little to do with the possibility that an atomic bomb exploded in 1908 and a lot to do with the fact that Tunguska was in the Soviet Union and the Soviets tended to cover everything up.

It was not an atomic bomb.  Nor was it an early example of MK-Ultra or the Montauk Project or Satanic Ritual Abuse.  I also don't think that it was engineered by the Rothschilds or the Rockefellers or by anyone else regularly condemned by Lyndon LaRouche.

The most probable solution, at least as far as I'm concerned, is that the Tunguska Fireball was the result of the Earth colliding with either an asteroid or a comet.

Well, it now appears that there's a slim chance that we might finally be on the verge of discovering just what exactly happened over the skies of Tunguska 89 years ago,

Scientists believe that they may have discovered a crater at the bottom of nearby Lake Cheko.

In other words, it is possible that Lake Cheko was created by whatever caused Tunguska to burst into flames.

As of right now, this is just a theory and the lake and it's theorized crater are still being investigated.

Still, it's an intriguing theory and, speaking for myself, I can't help but hope that a future expedition does find proof at the bottom of that lake, whether that proof is in the form of chunks of meteorite, fragments of warhead, or even a little green man petulantly saying, "It's about time you guys came and got me!  I've been waiting forever!"

In the uncertain world that we live in, it's nice to see that occasionally mysteries can still be solved.

The Virgin With the Golden Stem Cell

Richard Branson has a new business venture and it involves stem cells!

I don't know what it is about that story.  On the one hand, it's not as if there's anything inherently wrong with the idea of the Virgin Health Bank storing stem cells for people.  (Well, I really should amend that to say for people who can afford it.)  But, at the same time, there's just something kinda creepy about the story.

Maybe it's the fact that it involves Richard Branson.  Don't get me wrong.  I've got nothing against Branson or Virgin.  And, just from what I've read, Branson seems to be a pretty cool guy for a ruthless business mogul.

But there's always been something about Richard Branson that leaves me slightly suspicious.  The whole long-haired, New Age hippie thing just never quite gels with the idea that this guy is responsible for the thousands of pricey Virgin mega-stores that seem to pop up all over the world.  It's a bit as if Gandhi were CEO of Starbucks.  Yes, you want to like and admire him because, after all, he's Gandhi!  But how can you separate his role in popularizing the idea of passive resistance with his role in putting a Starbucks on every corner of every street in the world?  You just can't.

There's just something about the idea of Richard Branson having access to the world's stem cells that just doesn't feel quite kosher.  Add to that his oft-stated desire for a Virgin Space Station and you've got the makings of a late '70s "Roger-Moore-Is-007!" James Bond film.

(Imagine the fun Roger Moore could have battling the evil minions of Virgin.  I'm imagining more arched eyebrows and sly smirks and camera winks than mere mortals like us can even begin to comprehend!  "Your mission, 007, is to get inside Virgin."  Up go the eyebrows.  "And, for God's sake 007, don't make a bloody mess of this!"  Sly smirk.  "I'll be gentle, minister."  Wink to the camera.  And the fun just goes on and on...)