Real Time With Bill Maher: New Rules on Religion Collection

Posted on April 10, 2014 by Derik Schneider

The New Democrat

Atheism is a belief, or even a faith, that there is no God, there is no religious higher power at all. George Carlin didn’t call himself and atheist because atheism is a belief or a faith that God doesn’t exist. Technically, that would qualify George as an agnostic which is my religious affiliation.  I know so little about religion that my knowledge wouldn’t fill a shot glass. But I do know that agnostics don’t know if there’s a God or not.  That is different from believing one way or the other.

I don’t give a damn about people’s religion, including Atheists. (Sorry Bill Maher.)  Just keep your religion out of my face, especially, if you believe your religion tells you to make the lives of other people miserable if they commit certain acts of which your fundamentalist tight ass doesn’t approve.
As for you fundamentalist Atheists,  people who are not only not religious but put down people for being religious even if they are good decent people, learn something about the First Amendment. 

People have the right to be religious or not and to say whatever the hell they want to about it.  Live and let live and your life will be hell of a lot better even if you’re going to hell for not believing in God.  If you believe you should get on fundamentalist Christians because you don’t like their politics,  keep in mind that fundamentalists Muslims are just as far to the Right on cultural issues.  Maybe you should spread your hate to them as well.

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Marijuana Policy Project: Morgan Fox: Maryland House Votes to Decriminalize Marijuana in Surprise Turnaround

Posted on April 10, 2014 by Rik Schneider

Source:The New Democrat 

This is a good first step. I would’ve voted for it, if I were a member of the Maryland Assembly, House or Senate.  Both chambers of the Assembly have passed decriminalization of marijuana and, surprisingly, Governor Martin O’Malley announced late this Monday afternoon that he will sign the bill when it comes to his desk. Surprisingly, because previously in this Assembly session he had said that he was against decriminalization of marijuana.

I twice voted for O’Malley for governor and I’m proud I did so.  I’m not implying that he doesn’t support this bill but, politically, if he wants to run a credible presidential campaign in 2016, he’s going to need to get to the Left of Hillary Clinton and appeal to young voters.  Then, he can portray her as someone without a strong political core who is running on her name and just wants  to be the first female President of the United States.

Favoring decriminalization of marijuana at the state level gives him that opening.  He could say to young liberals (hopefully I still count as one, age wise) that the War on Drugs has failed and we need a new approach to dealing with narcotics.   For starters, we stop arresting people for simple marijuana possession or use. I believe in this and Secretary Clinton is either a drug warrior she or won’t take a strong stance on the issue.

The bill, itself, is a strong first step but the country needs to go further and so does Maryland.  Use and possession of small amounts of  marijuana should be legal for everyone in the state who’s 21 and over and not currently incarcerated.  This drug should be regulated like alcohol because they have similar side-effects and, if anything, marijuana is less dangerous.  We should save our precious prison spaces for real-life criminals who are a threat to Marylanders and other Americans. 

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Professor Milton Friedman: Limits To Freedom

Posted on April 9, 2014 by Ederik Schneider

TAKE IT TO THE LIMITS_ Milton Friedman on Libertarianism

Source:Hoover Institution– Professor Milton Friedman in 1999.

Source:The New Democrat

“What are the elements of the libertarian movement and how does one of its most illustrious proponents, Milton Friedman, apply its tenets to issues facing the United States today? Milton Friedman, recipient of the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize for economic science, was a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution from 1977 to 2006, discusses, on February 10, 1999, how he balances the libertarians’ desire for a small, less intrusive government with environmental, public safety, food and drug administration, and other issues.”

From the Hoover Institution 

“This interview was filmed February 10, 1999.
What are the elements of the libertarian movement and how does one of its most illustrious proponents, Milton Friedman, apply its tenets to issues facing the United States today? Milton Friedman, Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences discusses how he balances the libertarians’ desire for a small, less intrusive government with environmental, public safety, food and drug administration, and other issues.”

From the Hoover Institution

Ethical limits on freedom of personal action prohibit the hurting  of innocent people, intentionally or unintentionally.  I can’t beat up an innocent person and vice-versa.  I can’t get drunk and drive and hit someone on the road because I didn’t see them or was too drunk to pay attention to what I was doing.  We also can’t pass the costs of our own actions onto others.

That is liberalism, not libertarianism but real liberalism.  Our property rights give us the freedom to do as we wish with our own property, as long as we aren’t hurting innocent people.  We are responsible for any actions we take involving our property.

The state is there to regulate how we, as individuals, interact with each other.  Joe can get drunk,  high on marijuana, eat too much, or not exercise.  He can’t beat up on innocent people or hit someone with his car or steal their money, bomb their house or commit any other activity that hurts innocent people. Joe is also responsible for what happens to Joe, meaning what he did to himself. This is how freedom works.  We are responsible for our own lives and what we do to ourselves.  Our freedom does not include hurting innocent people.

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Dean Matin Show: ‘Rodney Dangerfield Cracks Up Dean Martin With Back-To-Back One-Liners (1972)’

Posted on April 9, 2014 by Rik Schneider
Rodney Dangerfield Cracks up Dean Martin with Back-to-Back One-Liners (1972)

Source:Rodney Dangerfield– on The Dean Martin Show in 1972.

“My agent made a deal with The Dean Martin Show for me to appear on twenty-eight shows. I signed on to do some short skits—just me and Dean—and I would write all the material.

“Dean only came in once a week to tape his show—no rehearsal. (The set for our bits was always the same—me, Dean, a table, and two chairs.) For our first show together, it took Dean and me just three or four minutes to film our routine and we were done. “Okay, great, see ya next week, right?” Wrong. That was the last time I saw Dean. For the next seven Sundays, I flew from New York to California, went into an empty studio, sat down at that table by myself, and did four skits while talking to an empty chair. Later, the crew filled in shots of the audience laughing, and they filled in Dean Martin, too.”

0:08 “This afternoon my wife cracked up the car again. I was out driving with her, she told me she was gonna make a u-turn. I’ll tell ya, the letter she made… you’ll never find in the alphabet.”
1:56 “The day I was born, the doctor… he picked me up and smacked. I found out the nurse… she got a few in too.”

From Rodney Dangerfield

I never really got the Rodney Dangerfield no respect routine, I mean, I get it, but I guess I don’t agree with it. Rod is seen as a working class hero’s comedian with a very quick wit, a great sense of humor and a talent for  one-liners.  That is his background.  He is not Dean Martin,  Sammy Davis,  George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Johnny Carson or any of the other great comedians who have both great wit and  quick intelligence.  They kept up with current affairs and were always able to find the funny side in them.

Rod is sort of the king of the one-liners.  They are mostly about his own life.  A central theme is his perceived lack of respect from others.  He used that routine to make a hell of a career for himself but he’s not in the same league as Johnny Carson and the others I listed above.  He’s simply step or two below them.  I would compare him to someone like Andrew Dice Clay or maybe a Nick DiPaulo.  Dice, I believe, was inspired by Rodney.  They have similar routines. 

Bill Cosby is a perfect example of a superstar comedian who’s at the top of heap, a so-called A-List  comedian.  At that next level, are comedians who are very funny and can always make you laugh but  the topics they cover, like everyday life or their own lives, put them a step or two behind the comedians who can make fun of entertainers, politicians, athletes, and or other celebrities because they keep up with those people and are very knowledgable about those subjects. 

Rodney Dangerfield is at the second level, perhaps not B comedians but B+ or A-.  You can be a Hall of Fame athlete without being one of the top five players, or even in the top five percent of players, who ever played your sport, as long as you were one of the best of your era.  Rodney Dangerfield was a great comedian but not one of of the best all time.  He’s not quite in that elite group.


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Drew Carey: Whose Line Weird Newscasters

Posted on April 9, 2014 by Erik Schneider

Source:The New Democrat 

“Whose Line is it Anyway?” for anyone who’s interested in the full title of the show and, if you are,  you probably keep score at home when you are watching bowling on TV.  This is a show that is almost completely off the cuff.  Four comedians or comedic actors on stage are given scenes to act out. Sounds simple enough, right?  The trick is that they have to act out these scenes as strange characters.

Weird Newscasters is a perfect example.  Two comedians are pretending to be news anchors but they have to play these anchors as weird characters.  One is an alcoholic who won’t let the bar close down before he gets at least one more drink. One is a weatherman who’s doing the weather as a construction worker who gets turned on every time he sees a woman walk by.  Another is a sportscaster who lets out big belches every time he talks about sports.

That’s what you see in this scene.  This is a show that I would love to do myself or, at least, play the game.  I could give myself my own character to play or take what is given to me.  I would love to play the anchor of the 3 am news and call it the Insomniac News Hour, or something like that.  There would be breaking news about Lindsay Lohan being pulled over for speeding and then a cut to “The Insomniac Classic Movie, “Attack of the Killer Lettuce,” or something stupid like that.

This is my favorite game on Whose Line because it doesn’t look a lot different from what actually passes as news today.  They go on for days about things that should be one day stories or only be given brief mentions.  Instead, they’re still being covered a week later by the same people and shows.  News about Justin Bieber replaces really important issues like government spying on Americans and privacy. Today if you watch The Onion or Whose Line you might get the same amount of real information as you get from CNN, MSNBC or FNC.

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Classic Movie Trailers: Video: The Naked Gun 1988 Trailer: How a Klutzy Cop Saves The Day

Posted on April 8, 2014 by Ederik Schneider

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This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on Blogger

To get The Naked Gun and the two or three sequels that came after, you have to first get the humor of the Zucker brothers.  They produced these movies, the Police Squad series and the Airplane movies from the early 1980s.  I don’t have a single word for their humor.  Perhaps, “Accidental humor,” would do.  These movies tend to feature klutzes, who are accident prone, in major roles.  They save the day, often, by making an unintended mistake.

I was looking for this word yesterday when I wrote a blog about Airplane and the best I came up with was “literal.” Practically everything that is said in these movies is taken literally by all of the characters. They are very funny people and yet they take everything that is said completely literally.  There’s a scene in Ricardo Montalban’s office with Lieutenant Drebin (Leslie Nielson).  Montalbano holds a box of cigars up in front of the lieutenant and says, “Cuban”, offering a Cuban cigar.  Drebin replies, “No, Scotch-Irish my father was from Wales,” apparently thinking that Montalban was asking him about his ancestry and not noticing the Cuban cigars that are right in front of his nose.

The Zucker brothers humor is also accidentally sarcastic, which is tough to explain.  Sargent Nordberg (O.J. Simpson) gets shot early in the movie during an undercover operation and the Captain (George Kennedy) tells Drebin that Nordberg has a ninety percent chance of recovering from the gun shot wounds. Then he says there’s only a fifty percent shot at that.  They are talking about boxers and one of the guys says “I know Kid Cleveland, he fights out of Minneapolis, and the Texas Tornado fights out of Chicago.”

The Naked Gun is about a corrupt Los Angeles businessman (Ricardo Montalban) who uses his legitimate business as a  cover for his criminal organization.  He has a big drug shipment coming into Los Angeles.  Police Squad, a big shot division of LAPD is all over it.  Sargent Nordberg is shot during their investigation.  Drebin and his team  are investigating the drug shipment while the Queen of England is visiting Los Angeles.

Montalban and his crew want the drug shipments to go through and to assassinate the Queen of England.  Police Squad has inside information that someone is trying to kill her.  Drebin and company have to investigate and stop that from happening.  All of these accident prone people taking everything that is said literally make for an hysterical action comedy.

 

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Drew Carey: Video: Whose Line SuperHeros: Made Up Don’t Exist

Posted on April 7, 2014 by Erik Schneider

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This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on Blogger

Who’s Line is it Anyway had a segment called Superheros in which several comedian contestants played made up, non-existent (even in Hollywood), SuperHeros.  To begin, one contestant would be given the beginning of a scenario about some made up crisis.  For example, “Oh no, we are all out of Starbucks coffee,” or ketchup, “What am I going to do?  I’d better call my SuperHero friends to help me out!”

The first actor would make up a SuperHero name and play a role that the host, Drew Carey, would pick from many suggestions given by the audience.  An additional actor would join the ensemble every thirty seconds or so. The first actor would give the second actor a made up SuperHero name and the second actor would give the third actor a made up SuperHero name.  The plot would be improvised in real time until all of the actors were involved.

So you would see four actors with these crazy SuperHero names and lets say the crisis is no more Starbucks coffee in the entire world. The first SuperHero would be Caffeine Addict Boy or something like that and he would bring in Latte Girl and she would bring in Alcoholic Man telling them that the situation is okay because he has a ten year supply of scotch and bourbon so no one will go thirsty. And somehow all of these clowns would save the day and things would go back to normal for them.

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A Few Good Men (1992) Jack Nicholson: ‘You Can’t Handle The Truth!’

Posted on April 7, 2014 by kireschneider

You Can't Handle the Truth! - A Few Good Men (7_8) Movie CLIP (1992) HD

Source:Movie Clips– Jack Nicholson with one of his greatest lines and roles.

You can also see this post at The Daily Times, on Blogger.

“Lt. Kaffee’s (Tom Cruise) search for the truth hits a roadblock in Col. Jessep (Jack Nicholson).

Warning: this piece contains strong language and other language that may offend some really over-sensitive tight asses.”

From Movie Clips

“Some people play name that tune, but today’s topic is name that movie. So, what is the name of the movie that highlights the statement, “You can’t handle the truth”?

Most military personnel and first responders have seen the movie A Few Good Men with Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise. If you are like me, there are lines in movies that are synonymous and, quite literally, unforgettable. In this particular movie, Colonel Jessup says to Lieutenant Junior Grade Daniel Kaffee, “You want me on that wall, you need me on that wall.”

Jack Nicholson - You Can't Handle The Truth - Google Search

Source:Project Healing Heroes– one of Jack Nicholson’s greatest lines and roles.

From Project Healing Heroes

There’s a great line, one of a few great lines, in a pretty good but not great movie called, A Few Good Men, from 1992 with Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, Kevin Pollack, Kevin Bacon, JT Walsh and many others. A Marine Corps General (Nicholson) is on the witness stand at a Marine trial of officers who were charged with going too far with one of their fellow Marines, abusing him in some way, I guess. Their defense lawyer (Cruise) has the General on the witness stand and is trying to get the him to say something that he doesn’t want to say.

The General responds by saying something to the effect of, “Son you can’t handle the truth! We deal with all sorts of horrible situations that average Americans have no idea about and we do these things to serve the country we love and why don’t you just shut up and thank us for what we do!” You can’t handle the truth is sort of the point of this post.

To some people, let’s call them tight asses, who live in a politically correct universe, some language is simply unacceptable even if it is the truth because it may offend people whom they care about.

I’m not saying that people should be mean or be assholes but that people shouldn’t hold back simply because what they have to say may offend others especially, if they believe that it’s the truth. When I say truth, I’m not talking about bigotry or hateful speech. Language like that tends to be bullshit. I’m talking about language that is truthful, that conveys facts and information.

I’m not saying that people should make fun of and be pricks to fat people who don’t balance their diet and wouldn’t know what exercise was to save their life. But you shouldn’t be afraid to get on someone for being obese or stupid or a man who refuses to do physical work because of his sexuality. I’ve had personal experience with guys like that.

We all get to make these decisions for ourselves but we shouldn’t hold back because things we may have to say may offend over-sensitive tight asses who see a polite world that simply doesn’t exist. At the end of the day we all live on the same planet and without having the best available facts and information we sort of live in a cloud or a room without any light. At times we need to know what it is not positive about us so we can do better and correct our negative behaviors.

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TYT Sports: Video: Rick Strom and Brett Erlich: Top 5 Lakers of All-Time

Posted on April 7, 2014 by Derik Schneider

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This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on Blogger

You could make a very good case that both Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Earvin Johnson are among the best basketball players of all time.  Kareem played most of his career for the Lakers and Magic, his whole career.  That, alone, puts them in a tie for greatest Los Angeles Laker of all time.  Then, for 3, 4 and five there are plenty of other great Lakers to choose from.

For the rest of the list, I would start with Big Game James Worthy who was a franchise caliber player in the prime of his career.  He would have been the best player on almost every other team in the NBA.  He played with the Lakers for nine seasons with Magic and seven seasons with Kareem.  He almost won games 6 and 7 against the Detroit Pistons in the 1988 NBA Finals on his own and was the MVP of that Finals.

So I would go with Kareem and Magic at one without being sure who’s one and who’s two and then I go to Big Game James at three. Then I’m looking at Jerry West at four and then Kobe Bryant, Jerry West or Elgin Baylor at five. Shaquille O’Neal is not on my list because after he played half of his career with the Lakers, it went  almost completely downhill.  He wasn’t even the best Laker of his era.  He dominated, the 2000s, a very weak era for NBA big men.  Shaq has some big strikes against him.

Jerry West and Kobe Bryant finish off my list.  Jerry’s not only in the top five or ten players of all time but perhaps the best NBA general manager of all time.   He built the Showtime Lakers of the 1980s. So I would put him at four and then go to Kobe Bryant, the best all around NBA player post Michael Jordan.  He was the best player since Michael retired up until Lebron James arrived in Miami to play for the Heat. Oh, by the way, Kobe’s won five NBA Finals as well and, without the injuries late in his career, he’s perhaps still the best player in the NBA right now.

 

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Movie Clips: Airplane! (1980)

Posted on April 6, 2014 by Ederik Schneider

Source:The New Democrat 

When I think of the 1970s,  I think of a depressing decade that got better as the culture, entertainment and fashion improved. We went from hippy culture and bellbottoms to flares in the early and mid 1970s  to tight, designer, dark wash denim jeans and disco by the late 1970s, with all sorts of horrible things in between.

Airplane 1980 shows you a lot of this in a ninety minute film.  It is a satire about a very strange decade and captures many of the cultural details.  The movie itself has to do with food poisoning on an airliner that affects all three of the flight crew leaving no one to fly the plane except for a passenger who was a combat pilot in some made up war.  It suggests never eating airplane food and thanking God (unless you’re and atheist) for food courts at airports.

The movie has references to  Richard Nixon and Nelson Rockefeller, early on.  There’s a disco scene involving Robert Hayes and Julie Hagerty.  Leisure suits, flare pants and bellbottoms are in evidence.  A women suffering from food poisoning says that she’s hasn’t felt this bad since she saw that Ronald Reagan movie. A women in her seventies serves as a translator for two African-American men who apparently only speak jive (which would be called Ebonics today).

Of course there is the great Cohen brothers humor of people doing really dumb things because someone gets the wrong idea about something.  Someone asks a ground crew member signaling the pilot of a plane to to its gate with his light wands where the fork lift is.  Without thinking, the crew says, “Over there,” and points to the side with his wands.  The pilot of the taxiing plane follows the direction of the wands and crashes the plane into the gate.

The humor of the Cohen brothers, expressed in Airplane is spontaneous which is my style of humor.  Part of it is based on taking everything that people say absolutely literally.   Dr. Womack (Leslie Nielson) says to Ted Striker (Robert Hayes) that if they don’t land this plane soon several passengers will die from food poisoning.  Striker says, “Surely, you can’t be serious.”  Womack replies, “I am serious and don’t call me Shirley.”

Airplane 1980 is a, sort of, spinoff of more serious airplane disaster movies of the 1970s, starting in 1970 with Airport.  Parts of each of these movies appear in Airplane 1980.  The end result is hysterical.

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