Stop Frame

I was thinking up some choice words, but I found that someone else beat me to 'em: Capitol Hill Democrats have once again proved their inability to make Washington work in the right manner. The Democrat Congress' maneuver to micromanage our military efforts from their offices on Capitol Hill, along with the fiscally deplorable action of loading up a wartime spending bill with pork barrel earmarks unrelated to our military's fight against terrorism has provided the American people with yet another example of the Washington mindset run amok. Democrats in Washington have established a dangerous policy that essentially provides the enemy a planning calendar with a date certain surrender. By voting for such a policy, they have jeopardized our chances for success and endangered the mission of establishing democracy and defeating the terrorists in Iraq. All Americans want our troops out of Iraq, but we should never do so in a way that would jeopardize American security. Setti...

James S. Robbins writes about those other defenders at Thermopylae: The Spartans used the rallying cry of “Hellas for the Greeks” when it was convenient for them, but they were well known for only fighting when the interests of their city were at stake. Even Leonidas’s self sacrifice at Thermopylae was conditioned by an oracle’s vision that Sparta would either lose one of its kings or be destroyed. As well, Herodotus observes that Leonidas was motivated by “the wish to secure the whole glory for the Spartans.” If you can’t quite get behind rooting for the Spartans, there were other heroes on the scene at Thermopylae, people the movie ignores. Herodotus tells us that when it became clear that the Greek defensive position had been flanked, Leonidas ordered the men from the other Greek states to leave, to prepare for the confrontation yet to come. But the 700 men of Thespiae, led by Demophilus, refused. They chose to stand with the three hundred Spartans, to fight beside them. “So t...

Once upon a time, a king declared himself a god, assembled an enormous army, gathered a mighty armada, and set out to conquer the known world. Standing in his way was a collection of independent city-states that one day would become known as the cradle of western civilization. It was able to become that cradle because when the Persian god-king Xerxes came a-conquering, the Greek city-states singly and collectively told him to go to hell. They then aided him in that journey. That, in a really tight nutshell, is the history leading up to and following the Battle of Thermopylae . Thermopylae is where Spartan King Leonidas lead a force of Greek warriors from Sparta , Thespiae , and other Greek city-states. They stood in Xerxes's way, stalled the Persian advance for several days, and died to a man. The film 300 is about that battle. It is not a completely accurate historical account (the naval portion of the campaign, waged by Athens, is missing, as is the contribution of the Thespi...

At least, that was supposed to be what he said this last Sunday night on his non-peer reviewed pupportedly serious desertation presented on the Discovery Channel about finding the tomb of Jesus & Family. And actually, I shouldn't give him all credit as he was only one of the producers and not the director, finder, etc. I didn't see it, having better things to do, matters involving OTC cures for a head cold and finishing John Frankenheimer 's underappreciated Black Sunday . So, for problems with the "documentary" itself, see here , which begins... Apparently moviemaker James Cameron wishes he had obtained the film rights to The Da Vinci Code . What else could explain his association with The Lost Tomb of Jesus ? This much-hyped show makes a series of provocative claims about the Christian messiah and his kin: Jesus was betrothed to Mary Magdalene, they had a son named Judah, DNA testing of their remains proves it, and so on. Yawn. Haven’t we read this novel...

The Goracle, Hypocrite at Large. The Economist pretty much says all I have to say on that, except to comment on "large". Al, wow, what the hell happened? Seriously. Moonbats used to moonwalk all over Rush Limbaugh about his size, but now he's skinny and Al is, well, not. In a way I think he looks pretty good, a bit of heft being preferable to a stick figure. Oh, and here's a bit about his profiteering off his scare-mongering. Nice guy! Now that I'm done with the politics of personal destruction, on to the show. In the current climate of climate debate, I find it laughable that the doomsayers insist on framing the argument in ways that stifle debate. These are people who support free speech in every area of life except two: abortion and climate change. In those areas if you are an opponent or skeptic, you are told in no uncertain terms to STFD and STFU. There is, for instance, the global warming doomsayer who compares skeptics to Holocaust deniers. Yeah, there...