good & evil vs. chance & chaos in "Dark Knight"

Good column here by a Catholic priest, Father De Souza, on the philosophical underpinnings of the struggle between Batman and the Joker in "Dark Knight". I liked that he quoted some of the dialog from the movie which I liked at the time, but couldn't have quoted verbatim. The line from Harvey Dent/Two Face was really powerful in the movie:

"You thought we could be decent men in an indecent world," summarizes the hero-cum-villain Two-Face. "But you were wrong; the world is cruel, and the only morality in a cruel world is chance."

As Father De Souza points out:

"If reality has no order to it, if there is only chaos and chance producing what we experience, then against what criterion of reality will good and evil be measured? Everything retreats into relativism and meaninglessness."

Something to thing about!

Batman the "Dark Knight" as a parable for the war on Islamic Terror

Great, great, great opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal by Hollywood screenwriter Andrew Klavan outlining how the storyline in the new Batman movie, "Dark Knight" is a parable for the war on Islamic Terror. Some key bits from the piece:

" Like W (G.W. Bush), Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.

And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society -- in which people sometimes make the wrong choices -- and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell."

and another:

"When heroes arise who take those difficult duties on themselves, it is tempting for the rest of us to turn our backs on them, to vilify them in order to protect our own appearance of righteousness. We prosecute and execrate the violent soldier or the cruel interrogator in order to parade ourselves as paragons of the peaceful values they preserve. As Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon says of the hated and hunted Batman, "He has to run away -- because we have to chase him."

Klavan also goes into some detail about why the Left leaning movies such as "In the Valley of Elah" and "Rendition" have tanked at the box office and movies with a conservative message such as "Dark Knight" and "300" have done so well.

Wow... what a great opinion piece.

The Moon orbiting the Earth... viewed from the outside

There's a neat video, available through this link of a set of time sequence images, put into movie form, that show the Moon orbiting and passing in front of the Earth as taken from the Deep Impact comet probe (it's still going!). Pretty neat!

possible new European/Russian manned spacecraft

I just saw an article here about a design for a potential European/Russian joint venture for a Soyuz replacement vehicle. It is another capsule type design like the U.S. Orion design, but would have thrusters and landing legs for a soft landing... sounds better than what they have planned for Orion.

The NY Times sinks to a new low

Can there really be anybody with a brain who doesn't believe that that NY Times (along with 90% of the rest of the media) is in the tank for Obama? I just can't believe the brazenness of the NY Times to not publish John McCain's OpEd piece on Iraq (the NY Post published it here). I guess it really just depends on where people are getting their news these days. I think fewer people are getting it from the "mainstream" media, but there still might be enough for their Obama advocacy to make an influence.

Great take on Obama in Germany

Rand Simberg in his transterrestrial.com blog has a great take on Obama's upcoming speech in Germany. He wanted to give it at the Brandenburg Gate, but the Germans weren't too happy about that so now he's giving at the Victory Column- a monument to German 19th century military superiority. Simberg has a hilarious line in there: "Too bad Leni Riefenstahl isn't around any more to film the event for him (Obama). Then later, he could reenact his grandfather's liberation of Auschwitz."

We need to get some more nukes built ASAP!

Hugh Hewitt has a brief note here about reports of potential shortages in electricity. As Hugh notes, this could be easily remedied by building more nuclear power plants. It is time to get off the pot and do it!!!

Can we have a 10 year plan to get a good idea out of Al Gore?

Al Gore had his big speech yesterday with a 10 year challenge for getting America 100 % on carbon-free energy sources. Yeah... right. Strangely (OK, not so strangely... the guy is as wacky as The Joker) he didn't include nuclear energy among the "green" energy sources that America should turn to. Oh, I know why... maybe because it is actually a viable energy source? There is a good analysis of Gore's speech (an analysis that points out how disconnected with reality Gore is) is right here (not even a right wing web site and the writer claims to be sympathetic to Gore's goals, but he is at least honest enough to point out where Gore has got it wrong). Al Gore... please get a clue.

no jokes about Obama

Here is a ridiculous story about how TV comics, principally on the late night talk shows, are not telling many jokes about Obama. The line that really made me shake my head was the following though:

""The thing is, he's not buffoonish in any way," said Mike Barry, who started writing political jokes for Johnny Carson's monologues in the waning days of the Johnson administration and has lambasted every presidential candidate since, most recently for Letterman. "He's not a comical figure," Barry said."

Are you kidding me? The guy is nothing but a buffoon. How about making fun of his pomposity and arrogance? The truth is that the TV comics are writers are 1) all Libs so they don't want to diss their guy, and 2) they're scared to death of doing anything that might even vaguely smell of racism so they won't lay a hand on the guy. Really, really sad.

Obama just can't get it right on Iraq

Great opinion piece here by Peter Wehner in which he deconstructs Obama's July 14 N.Y. Times Op-Ed piece on Iraq along with his other wrong-headed views on the war. Wehner also makes a powerful case that justifies the invasion of Iraq in this paragraph:

"In fact, it is far from clear that Iraq will be judged a strategic blunder at all, let alone the “greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy.” It is now plausible to argue that the Iraq war will lead to a defeat of historic proportions for al Qaeda. It has already triggered a massive Sunni Muslim uprising against al Qaeda, a repudiation of violent jihadism from some of its original architects, and a significant shift within the Muslim world against the brutal tactics of jihadists. Iraq is also, right now, the only authentic democracy in the Arab world. And Saddam Hussein, the most aggressive and destabilizing force in the Middle East for the last several decades, is dead, and his genocidal regime is now but an awful, infamous memory."

R.I.P. Tony Snow

It was really sad to hear about Tony Snow's passing over the weekend. I remember reading his columns before he ever got on TV or on the radio. I enjoyed listening to him guest host for Rush Limbaugh and thought he was great as the host of Fox News Sunday. It was also great to see him stand up to the nutty White House press corps when he became White House Press Secretary. Watching some of the tributes to him on Fox News over the weekend, it is almost hard to believe that someone could be as multi-talented and upbeat and optimistic as Tony Snow was. It is really sad for the country to lose such a person. You'd think that when such a universally acclaimed man passes that the execrable psychotics on the Left might at least hold their tongues. Watching the O'Reilly Factor tonight, it was sad to see how the A.P. distorted his record and even worse what some of the loon jobs were saying about him on the leftist blogs. On his show tonight, O'Reilly played a clip of Tony Snow on Bill Maher's show. Some bozo was going off on the Iraq war and Snow put him in his place by citing the facts, the leftie who was spouting off looked like a scolded child. It wasn't even like Snow was scolding him... he was just citing the facts in a very convincing fashion and that is something he was very good at. He will be sorely missed.

improving solar cells

I've thought for some time that, when it comes to renewable energy sources, wind power is pretty much of a joke, but that solar energy from photovoltaics or even solar power towers in the Southwest has some real promise. It would be especially promising with improved efficiency solar cells and there's a brief article here about a new improvement in solar cell efficiency. Good stuff!

Egomania, thy name is Obama

You know I thought that John Kerry was pretty vain and arrogant, but he is downright humble in comparison to Barack Obama. Obama must really be thinking that he is "the Messiah". Just giving his acceptance speech in the Denver Pepsi Center isn't good enough for "the Messiah". Oh no! Certainly not! The most glorious Barack Obama must have the Mile High football stadium for his acceptance speech. I think Obama should pick Senator James Webb as his V.P. Webb has a huge head physically and Obama has a huge head figuratively... they'd be perfect together.