A funny thing happened on the way to a global conspiracy. Reality killed it. Funny how that happens.

Not long ago people like Al Gore were jetting around the globe taking in vast speaking fees, winning awards, telling everyone that they must give up the things they enjoy to save the planet. These doomsayers all told us we were stupid if we doubted them. They knew better, you see. These people claimed all “real” scientists agreed that mankind was destroying the planet with global warming. That we humans were at fault and the only way to save ourselves is bow down to a world government, pay lots of taxes and give up our cars, our electricity, air travel, light bulbs, blah blah blah.

There was a vast left wing conspiracy in other words. One designed to scare people into giving more power and wealth to statist bureaucrats who were employing the oldest trick in the book. Using fear and guilt to manufacture consent.

They began by locking down major institutions like NASA and Britain’s Climate Research Unit (CRU). Then they got the media on board, the science magazines, the cable networks. They started churning out articles and documentaries supporting the global warming meme. Millions were spent selling the idea, because many of these groups knew that fear, like sex, sells. There are two main motivations that human beings have. The desire to have something and the fear of losing something. They used both to pitch the notion that we could create a “green utopia” by changing the way we did things, and in doing so we would prevent the end of the world. Who doesn’t want to be a hero? Who doesn’t love the environment? How can you argue with that? (more…)

Tonight!

Kimberly Guilfoyle!
GOP analyst Mary Smith!
John Devore!
and Michael Waltrip!

Christmas Day is upon us, a day of celebration for Christians AND Hollywood: Christmas Day is the day when many blockbuster and Academy Award wannabes are released. If you’re a screenwriter jonesing for an Oscar, how do you prove you’re part of the “cool clique” in Hollywood deserving of recognition by your Hollywoodite peers? Why, by trashing the very schlubs who may be thinking of shelling out 10 bucks plus to see your new movie as a bunch of zombies, vampires and werewolves.

Were you thinking of seeing “Nine”? Well, sucks to be you, doesn’t it?

“Nine” Screenwriter Michael Tolkin

Ah yes, the Academy Awards – specifically, Best Picture. And maybe in this case, Best Screenplay. (Only the actual winners get excited about categories like Best Makeup and Best Editing.) Best Picture winners don’t necessarily reflect a movie’s popularity with the public, but often the political statement the movie makes – or, perhaps, statements made by those closest to it – like the screenwriter.

Yep, Michael Tolkin may have written a movie about an “arrogant, self-absorbed movie director” looking for meaning in his art (is this based on a true story???), but he’s positive that the bitter clingers who populate Middle America don’t have a clue either, and he’s prepared to educate the masses. (more…)

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Spoilers Coming….

AMC’s The Prisoner was awful. The headache inducing flashbacks, incomprehensible sudden and rapid scene changes, incessant and interminable runs through the desert to find the sea, the ever present morose gay son, “11-12,” of “2,” and the lack of any plot tension made the show almost unwatchable. But watch it I did, because I wanted to know both 2’s reasons and the technology that helped create “the Village.” The answer was preposterous. I should have read a “spoiler” review instead.

I never watched the original 1960’s television show, so had no particular expectations. The Prisoner is about a technology company, “Summaker,” which identifies people it presumes need help. It kidnaps them and places them in an induced hallucinogenic state. The hallucination is the “Village,” which looks like a human-sized toy town. The kidnapped live out their lives in a dreary hallucinogenic sameness with identical small pink houses, ambition free jobs, and some sense that all is ok. Villagers are unaware, mostly, they live in a hallucination, although many have odd “dreams” about their past. Dreamers are hunted down and sent down bottomless holes that appear in the ground. We are led to believe they are gone and dead. (Do they go back to the real world?). (more…)

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