Burke's Joystick

I am not what you would call much of a "movie goer".  Never was, for that matter.  Rather, I am the type of person whom would much rather wait a few months so I can watch a movie in the comfort of my home instead of in a sticky-floored, teenager-chatting movie theater...and for top dollar, no less.  No thanks,  I can wait. This is why I have just gotten around to seeing the actioner, Act of Valor (AoV).  When I first heard the pitch for this movie, I was excited: When a covert mission to rescue a kidnapped CIA operative uncovers a chilling plot, elite, highly-trained U.S. SEAL teams speed to hotspots around the globe, racing against the clock to stop a deadly terrorist attack. Pulse-pounding combat sequences, cutting-edge battlefield technology and raw emotion fuel this unprecedented blend of real-world heroism and original filmmaking -- a thrilling tribute to the skills, courage and tenacity of the world's most revered warriors. ...

A tragedy and a travesty to report today: First, the tragedy:  Details are emerging about a 14-year old boy who had committed suicide last year in the UK.  As reported by The Telegraph , Callum Green hung himself with a school tie after claiming "he was being bullied at Audenshaw High School in Audenshaw, Manchester."  As I wrote in my piece on The Hunger Games , or as Pink Floyd satirized so long ago , the government-run school system, be it in America or the UK, is increasingly becoming a place of desperation, bullying, and lower and lower academic standards .  Tragic. Now the travesty: The results of the coroner's inquest have now been released and the results are...a joke?  Despite Green's girlfriend saying that "he wanted to run away from home and have a baby with her", and despite having a fight with his "mum" and being "grounded...for staying out late with his girlfriend the night before", and even de...

"This week Vice President Joe Biden spoke at a senior center in Iowa. Which explains why the seniors were like, 'Is this Hell?'" –Jimmy Fallon   Poor Joe Biden.  Personally, I think our VP is a rather nice fella.  Unfortunately, he just isn't the sharpest tool in the shed.  We knew this long before he was ever VP - I mean, he was caught plagiarizing time and again.  Then there are all those wonderful gaffes caught on film: And liberals like to make fun of Palin.  Wow.   Well, ol' Joe did it again with this incredibly racist statement a few days ago: Remember when Bill Clinton complained that Team Obama "played the race card" on him?   Well, it looks like they were planning on going back to that well in their desperation to talk about anything but Obama's abysmal record.  Unfortunately for them, this time they went too far and needed to put Joe back in the attic .  Now, what has this got to do...

"How many people had I already killed? There were those six that I knew about for sure. Close enough to blow their last breath in my face...." - Captain Willard, Apocalypse Now Yeah, you are probably already thinking that this is gonna being an Apocalypse Now -themed entry.  Not really (hint: it's actually gonna be a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3-themed entry!).  It's just that I spent the weekend watching that classic war movie and realized I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed it.  I mean, I used to watch a VHS copy of an ABC broadcast of it over and over again as a kid.  Couldn't get enough of it!  What fascinated me then, as now, is how Francis Ford Coppola took the Vietnam War as turned it into a moody, nightmarish and almost science fiction-y trip into metaphysical madness.  To this day, the opening sequence of that film gives me the chills: The foreboding jungle, the dream-like sound of the helos, the weird colored smoke, the D...

That's right, ladies and gentlemen!  Only 100 days to go before this nation gets a chance to correct a big mistake!  Boy, how the "hope and change" time flies.  Almost four complete years into President Obama's first (and last?) term, and he has yet to create anything.  Oh, I know how he likes to tout all those jobs he saved or created, but the truth is that America is suffering a net loss of about 1 million jobs (the link shows a net loss of 1.6 million, but as of June the figure is now closer to a 1 million net loss.  Just trying to be fair here.), making President Obama the worst job creator in American history (with a net loss of almost a million jobs, perhaps "job destroyer" would be a more accurate term for him?).  I guess that $800 billion Keynesian "shovel ready" jobs bill wasn't so "shovel ready" after all (even Obama has conceded that! ).   So what has Obama managed to create? Well, quite unexpectedly...mem...