Very rentable and ownable

Ok, so I saw a great movie last night. "Man on Fire" with Denzel Washington.
If you have kids this movie will stir your primal protective insticts, some of the most powerful we as humans posses. It will also scare the crap out of you. Washington plays a wounded soul of an ex-spec ops and counter terrorist operator who has turned to alcohol and an old friend, played by Christopher Walken for solace and understanding, who also gets him a gig as a bodyguard for a family in Mexico City. Mr. Walken does his usual fantastic job, just didn't see enough of him. He delivers the most memorable dialog of the entire film.
Rayburn: A man can be an artist... in anything, food, whatever. It depends on how good he is at it. Creasey's art is death. He's about to paint his masterpiece."

When Creasey (Washington) tells the girl's mother he intends to kill them for kidnapping and killing the girl, you are cheering him on and asking if he needs any back-up!

Lisa: "What are you gonna do? "
Creasy: "What I do best. I'm gonna kill 'em. Anyone that was involved. Anybody who profited from it. Anybody who opens their eyes at me."
Lisa: [Whispering] "You kill 'em all."

Every parent I know would say the same thing. As an aside, the most dangerous individual I have ever seen is a mother defending her child. She would cut you open and feed on your entrails if need be, no matter who you are. This is shown at a very good twist in the film.

I won't tell you any more, just that his powers of persuasion are pretty good.

Quick thought

Remember when the Rebublicans wanted to make members of the Secret Service team that protected President Clinton with their lives, testify and be subjected to that whole circus. These are people (Secret Service agents) of noble intent and are expected to catch bullets or any other device that may be sent to harm our leader. I feel that we must afford them a great degree of respect and protection. Yes, I said protection. By that I mean shield them from the manure that is the adolescent slap-fights that occur in our nation's capital. In my opinion, their calling is above that.
Which brings me smoothly to my point. Valerie Plame is a CIA employee. She is not an operator, shooter, or spy. She is, to the best of my understanding, an intelligence analyst. Now, though she may not be shot at in the very near future, there is a little LAW we have for the protection of our sensitive government employees. Simply put, you can't divulge their freakin' names! That kinda puts them in danger. Democrats are now calling for Rove to be walked out to the city gates and stoned. Ok, I see that. Just remember when it comes back around again guys, you know it will.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is this, leave the people that actually do some work in our nation's capital out of all your schoolyard bullshit. It's hard enough for them to do their jobs even without you candy asses using them as pawns.

RTG

(Random Thought Generator)

Humans should have tails.

You can't tell me that this wouldn't be a big plus. Just think, what mom wouldn't kill for a prehensile tail? Got a kid in your arms and one making an ass of themselves? Grab the offensive crumb snatcher with your tail, or a quick smack up-side the head will solve the problem. Doing work around the house? While you're vacuuming you can hold the cord with your tail instead of your off hand. Need to snag that glass before in falls to the floor? You get a third shot at it after you miss it with your two hands. Fixing the drain under the sink and need to get that pipe wrench without cracking your head on the underside of the cabinet? You get the idea.

Tails would also give us even more insight into non-verbal communication. You're gonna know when that other person is hot for you. The tail don't lie! If they're pissed at you, there will be no doubt in your mind. If you're tired, draggin' tail will take on a whole new meaning. But then we would have to come up with a way to mask our tail communication. Maybe special training for CIA operatives in counter-tail interrogation techniques.

Now on to fashion, yeah you knew it was coming. Would the tail be exposed, or would we have to cover it? Tail socks? Holes in pants and skirts? Would we have to shave our tails? Tail jewlery, and piercing, and tatooing? I'm sure there would be very different tail morals in Europe versus the US. They'd have their tails hanging out without any problem or bible-thumping Victorian conservative judgements.

Sex. Yeah you knew THAT was coming too. Noone can tell me that sex wouldn't be insane with a prehensile tail... ... go ahead, come on!! --------- Told ya!
When you're in the clinch, wrapped around eachother, tell me that adding two tails entwined in that bunch of sweaty, glued together flesh wouldn't be the cat's ass.

Ok, I've only gotten through half my coffee so far this morning. Cut me some slack.

Back to the grind.

House Hunting...

I have posed this question to friends:

When will it enter the main-stream conscienceness of us humans that we will, at some point, need to look elsewhere for a place to call home?

I know that each of us has bigger things to worry about right now. However, I have given this some thought. I think that it will become a priority only if certain conditions are satisfied. They are:

1.) Self preservation.
It becomes blindingly clear, almost to the point of our imminent extinction, that we need to get the hell out of Dodge. This may come in the form of invasion from another civilization, meteor, or our own trashing of the planet. The latter being the most probable in my book.

2.) Money/prestige/power. This one is my personal fav, running an extremely close second to #1;
The colonization of another planet shows itself to be a very lucrative venture to some country, corporation, or religious order. Ok, maybe not a religion, but it sounded good.

I could be altruistic and say that we could get our collective shit together and do it for the pure value of the challenge, exploration, and raising ourselves to the next level as a species, but hey, who am I kidding?

So, do you think that we could do a little "Plan ahead" and maybe get something going on that idea? If you would like to get laughed out of the clubhouse because you're a cheeseball geek that watches too much Star Trek, go ahead. There are way too many more pressing foreign and domestic, business and policy problems weighing on the greatest minds of this tiny blue marble spinning through this tiny little galaxy squatting in this miniscule parsect of this insignificant little parking space of the universe.

Just take a few minutes and think about what is out there...

Ok, that's enough. Go back to your half caff, double, no foam latte and try to figure out how you can get through the week in one piece and what the hell you want to do with the weekend.




Just a short end note; hopefully it is coming through my posts that I use sarcasm a lot (sic) and I am really an optimist. I believe that we will make it. But I think it will get worse before it gets better. We as a people need a few more burning crucibles to show us what is irrelevant, and what truly matters. Hang on, it's going to be a hell of a ride!

BTW the Mars project is gaining interest and funding from the private sector. I won't say that our government has some big secret plan to colonize Mars in the next few years, but I'm sure they're talking about something out there. Let's keep an eye on this shall we.

Yes, I'm a big Star Trek fan.