New Superman's Not Super Or A Man

DC Comics is producing a storyline for the seventy two year old hero called "Earth One". But this is not the Superman you grew up with, this superman is a emo, hooded sweatshirt wearing boy with disheveled hair and a brooding look complete with glowing eyes. It's being said he's the superman for "Twilight" fans. Brought to us by artist Shane Davis and writer J. Michael Straczynski

The stories Straczynski says, were never intended to become stagnant. "They are interpreted and reinterpreted for every generation. I guess DC wanted more young girls reading Superman, next you'll see him sparkling in moonlight or something. Let me be clear, this is only one storyline, stuck in one hardback graphic novel. The cape wearing "Superman" is till out there in other story lines. 


"We wanted to tell a story that's hip, sexy and moody," said DC Comics' co-publisher Dan DiDio. Of course sexier means less imposing. He's shorter, skinnier and obviously less muscular. Basically taking all his manliness away. This superman identifies with America because he was raised here, but he doesn't stand for the "American Way" that would give an unfair advantage that could lead to war! The low-rise, skinny jean wearing "hero" is more of a worldly type. In a world were Michael Cera's "Scott Pilgrim" is some kind of nerd hero, I guess this version of superman fits right in. But think about movies that won big in the last year or so, "Gran Torino" saw Clint Eastwood even in his golden years acting the tough guy role. Not to mention the actionfest that is Sylvester Stallone's "Expendables", it seems America wants more from it's heroes not less.  

The Day After Tomorrow

Yeah I know this is hitting late, I am very good at procrastinating...


The midterms have passed, the outcome was favorable, mostly. I watched the coverage all day, not to mention twitter which kept my phone beeping for hours. I split my time time between the three major news outlets Foxnews, CNN and MSNBC. I am not a fan of the latter two, but I have to do something while fox is in commercial. The outcomes were pretty much what was expected, my prediction was 59 house and 9 senate and I was close. Though being from California I have some serious disappointment to deal with.


Fox's coverage was exemplary, they stayed very close to their "Fair and Balanced" motto. They featured a litany of contributors from both sides of the aisle and did it without showing much for bias. CNN tries, but the overall dislike of the GOP still shines through in their delivery. The coverage was solid overall and they served their purpose of filling time while fox was on commercial. MSNBC was despicable, the openly hateful and bitter Matthews and Maddow cringed at every GOP gain and used the losses to make fun of and poke at the opposition. Which makes it no surprise FOX dominated the rating of the night with CNN in a far second and MSNBC behind them. 


The pick up in the Congress was nothing short of a slaughter, rebuking Obama and all the outrageous spend him and Congress has been doing for the past six years, yes six. Nancy Pelosi took over six years ago, and while Bush had made some bad call before that, things went really down hill in his second term. The GOP pick up is definitely a referendum, but not a open door for the republicans to go back to the pre-Obama ways. The tea party intervened on behalf of the people, people who wanted the GOP remember its roots and what used to make them different form the democrats. Small govt, low taxes, stern control of our borders, our common language and culture (hat tip to Michael Savage). If the GOP doesn't remember and return from it's senility it just might have to be tied to a tree and well you know the rest.


My biggest disappointment lies with California who somehow let Barbara Boxer keep her senate seat and re-install Jerry Brown, yes Moonbeam himself to the seat of Governor. Not too mention ninety percent of the props that went wrong. California is stuck on stupid. Arnold was the worst kind of RINO and he did the same amount of damage or maybe even more the Gray Davis. Boxer is known throughout the Nation as the dumbest person in the senate, I knew she would be terrible for California from the first time I met her, that would be when she came to visit my high school many moons ago. I love California, I have lived in New York, Jerusalem, and have spent shorter amounts of time in other places and none stack up to California, her beaches, mountains, deserts and forest are amazing and the weather is awesome. But the govt intrusion into peoples lives is through the roof and everyday I want to be here less and less. Why should I be driven from the place I love by socialist?


The next two years will be crucial to this country and the direction it goes. Times will be hard, we have to break our addiction to unlimited spending, the withdrawals will be painful but if we don't go through it that crazy future commercial depicting the Chinese ruling over us might just come to fruition.

Is It Tomorrow Yet?

The first of November on an election year has gotta be the most stressful day, throw onto that it's Monday (monday's suck every time), add to that last night's Halloween party (tequila & chocolate don't mix) and you have a recipe for a long day! Here in California especially...


We've got the Governor's race in full swing and the two major candidates are neck and neck. Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown are in a battle royale for the future of California, Brown is on the Obama diet of tax and spend and Whitman of course wants to slash taxes and bring some business back to what  used to be the fifth largest economy in the world. Looking at track records Brown has a long one, of failure. he was governor before, I believe his nickname was Governor Moonbeam (a nickname he received from his then girlfriend and left wing activist Linda Ronstadt) and he was referred to as a hippie fascist, because he installed hippie causes in a fascist manner. 
Whitman on the other hand has almost no political track record (she did work for Mitt Romney and then John McCain's presidential campaigns), she's a corporate titan, Whitman served as an executive in The Walt Disney Company where she was vice president of strategic planning throughout the 1980s. In the 1990s she served as an executive for DreamWorks, Procter & Gamble, and Hasbro. Whitman served as President and Chief Executive Officer of eBay from 1998 to 2008 in that ten years with the company she oversaw expansion from thirty employees and four million dollars in annual revenue to more than fifteen thousand employees and eight billion dollars in annual revenue when she stepped down. Being California is billions in the hole she would have her work cut out for her and while I do not agree with all of her ideas, she absolutely out shines governor moonbeam.


I'm not going into detail on the Boxer/Fiorina race, if Barbara Boxer is allowed to continue on her path of destroying California we deserve it, I would vote for a cinder block over Boxer.


Lastly I am going to run down the props on the ballot with just a simple yes or no, it is strictly my opinion, though I have read each in detail and I can tell you on some I gave it a lot of thought before I decided.

• 19: No, sorry stoners
• 20: Yes, redistricting is good
• 21: No, the parks get enough
• 22: Yes, the roads suck enough
• 23: Yes, global warming is a hoax
• 24: No, businesses are hurting enough
• 25: No, trying to fool us on this one
• 26: Yes, less fees is good
• 27: No, political power grab

Read up before you vote, don't wait till you are standing the booth to decide. I am not on the everyone needs to vote train, if you are stupid, stay home.

Things That Make You Go BOOM!

Woke up this morning to a string of bomb threats around the planet. It seems there is some kind of semi dry run of bombs in the mail happening out of Yemen. From now only one actually explosive device has been confirmed with one other possibility and at least one dummy device found in Dubai on a plane from Yemen. One flight headed to NY's JFK airport was actually escorted by fighter jets to it's destination. That must be fun to see out the plane window... Look mommy jets! Thank God nothing actually exploded... Today.


This was a good reminder that we can't let our guard down. The President spoke today and said  "We must remain vigilant against terror", of course it's his Administration that has taken the word "terrorist" out of official use. But he is right, by leaving Iraq unstable, giving a timeline for leaving Afghanistan, and declaring Al Qaeda is "no longer a threat to the US",  they are going to work extra hard to show us that we are still a target. Today's events might just be the beginning. 




As the 9/11 anniversary rapidly comes to the ten year mark, we have to remember they started this fight and we have to be one to finish it!

...And The New Batman Movie Title Is?

"The Dark Night Rises"... OK so not mind blowing, but it's growing on me already and I just learned it ten minutes ago, from the LA Times. I do appreciate putting some thought into the titles, it's better than Batman 3 or "Batman Forever". Chris Nolan has done great things for the Batman franchise, and I have high hopes for what will no doubtingly be Christian Bale's last time dawning the cape and cowl. Other news in the article was Nolan putting the squash on "The Riddler" being the big bad for the movie. Last week Nolan was started the search for a female lead, obviously Bats is gonna need a new love interest and the rumor is she'll have claws.

In Supernews Zack Snyder has been talking about not having a centralized villain at all in the new "Man of Steel" movie. I'm not sure how that will play out with the fanboys, but that would mean you would get some good Supes does in some good old fashioned bad guys. While you could probably go that route with Batman as well, coming off of the late Heath Ledger's "Joker", Batman is gonna need one hell of a fight to have the third measure up to the Second.

One last thing, because you didn't feel sick enough hearing the news that George Lucas is going to re-release all 6 "Star Wars" movies in 3D, he has also announced the next "Indiana Jones" flick will also require the stupid glasses. Sorry to wreck your day...

I Can't See The Light

By now most of you are probably sick of being bombarded with tree huggers telling you to switch out the evil incandescent light bulbs in your house for compact florescent (cfl) ones. This is just part of the "Climate Change" scam being perpetrated on the American people. CFL's have been touted as a cheap efficient replacement for incandescents, but how do they really stack up? Not so good.

Now CFL's do use less power than the old fashioned bulbs, but the power saved doesn't cover the other cost. One being lifespan. Now the CFL;s will tell you they have a lifespan of 3 years or better, but I have never seen a CFL last more than six months, while the old fashioned bulbs last for around a year or in one case of a bulb in a fire station in Livermore CA. that has been on for 110 years, go see it for yourself at Fire Station #6, 4550 East Ave. Livermore, CA.

Then there are the dangers, yes there are dangers to both types of bulbs. The old fashioned bulbs are made of fragile thin glass that can break fairly easy. Broken glass is sharp and there is a chance of being cut. The CFL's have the same issue, with one added issue, mercury. Yep CFL's have a small but still dangerous amount of the liquid metal mercury which is poisonous. The EPA has special guidelines to clean the CFL's when they break. It is time consuming and labor intensive. One woman was quoted over two thousand dollars in profession clean up of a CFL.

Last you are supposed to go through your house and throw away all the existing bulbs in your house and replace them. Isn't that kind of absurd? Then there's the talk about the Govt banning the old bulbs, forcing you to put the mercury bulbs in your house. Oh and you can't just toss those quick to die CFL's in your home trash. Most states have strict rules on disposing of mercury and if they catch you tossing the poisonous bulbs you are looking at a stiff fine. I'll stick with Thomas A. Edison, thank you very much.

Iron Man 2 & America

When Iron Man 2  hit theaters I was in Israel and though there was a theater in Jerusalem I didn't have the money to waste on movies. Shortly after I got back the cheap "$1" theater near my house got Iron Man 2 and finally saw it. Jump to a few weeks ago when I was visiting with friends for another friend's wedding and we popped Iron Man 2 into his BluRay player.

Overall it was a good movie, almost as good as the first and that's a tough thing for sequels. Like the first there were many scenes that went from science to science fiction and that I don't mind. It's a movie after all and if you can't let the mind wander into fantasy at the movies then it's probably not a great movie. The acting was good, RDJr. has really made an amazing comeback from the drug addled days of his youth and emerged as a captivating and enjoyable presence at the movies. The surrounding cast also does well, I am not a fan of Gwenneth Paltrow, I usually don't see movies she's in and when I do I'm not happy, this is the exception that proves the rule. Don Cheadle was a good replacement for Terrance Howard, Rourke makes for a good villain even with the dumb accent though Sam Rockwell was mediocre at best. He hasn't done a good movie since HGTTG.

There is one part that got me thinking and here comes the tie into politics. Early in the movie Tony Stark is brought before a congressional committee and is told to turn over his property to the government, and in today's America that doesn't seem to far off. A couple of post back I touched on scandal during hurricane katrina where police and military were going door to door and collecting legally owned firearms from the good people of Louisiana. Then there is the Obama Administration which continually brings up mandatory govt service.

Much like Tony Stark said no and one of my post a couple back, we to have to say no! No to the suspension of the 2nd Amendment when the wind blows and no to the Obama Admin's call for mandatory service. Most of all we need to say NO to the govt takeover of all the different private industries in our great nation. The lesson we can take away from Iron Man is that the answers to our biggest problems lie in the people, not the government. To borrow a line from the Iron Man movie; That's how dad did it and that's how America does it!