Stop-Loss - Another Hollywood War Movie Disaster

Well, the Hollywood Elites continue not to understand why average Americans want to have nothing to do with the anti-war tripe that tinseltown continues to push on us. Fortunately, no one is forced to part with hard-earned money to watch this stuff.

MTV Films' "Stop-Loss" opened Friday with a box-office take of... drumroll... $1.6 million.

"Stop-Loss" DOA
I’m told #7 Stop-Loss opened to only $1.6 million Friday from just 1,291 plays and should eke out $4 M. Although the drama from MTV Films was the best-reviewed movie opening this weekend, Paramount wasn’t expecting much because no Iraq war-themed movie has yet to perform at the box office. “It’s not looking good,” a studio source told me before the weekend. “No one wants to see Iraq war movies. No matter what we put out there in terms of great cast or trailers, people were completely turned off. It’s a function of the marketplace not being ready to address this conflict in a dramatic way because the war itself is something that’s unresolved yet. It’s a shame because it’s a good movie that’s just ahead of its time.”

Dirty Harry at Libertas has this to say about the movie (among other things):

What is possibly left to say about a poorly produced, poorly acted, poorly directed, and very poorly written anti-war film that defames our troops…? What’s left to say that hasn’t been said about the dozen or so that came before? The only new angle here is that we’re told Stop-Loss is co-written by a conservative. Either this poor guy was steamrolled flat in story meetings or it’s true that Hollywood’s idea of a conservative is someone who only kinda hates President Bush.

and this...

Stop-Loss is just an unforgivably cruel and stupid movie. Would an Army deserter wear Army fatigues? Do Hispanic soldiers really hope to get killed so their family will receive green cards? Is that even true? Would a soldier discharged in 2007 be so caught off-guard by a stop-loss order after years of publicity about it?

Hollywood needs to make a movie about the film industry. They could name it "DOA," except that name's already taken.

This is way cool!!! I want one!!!

Politics, Politics, Politics

Why do I like this picture???
(click on pic to enlarge)

Observations on Birds

We've had a bird feeder on the side of the house since last year. It's one of those tube-type feeders that has 6 feeding stations with perches. They're designed to attract smaller birds, such as Finches. This year, word was out about our feeder, which has played host to large numbers of smallish birds. After some searching online, I've identified them as Oregon Juncos and House Finches. Both are gregarious birds, who seem to get along with each other quite well.

Six weeks ago, I bought a feeder designed for thistle seed. The package represented it is good for attracting finches (I thought I already had them - House Finches?). I hung it on the window of the room we call the "library," where I spend most of my time.

Well... after a week or so, the thistle seed was discovered by the biggest flock of American Goldfinches you'd ever want to see. They are very pretty birds, and a bit smaller than the Juncos and House Finches. The males are brightly colored with yellow plumage. "Great," I thought. More birds. Not so quick. Turns out these little guys are very aggressive. They fight each other, and they even fight the other birds, and were chasing them away. My solution has been to move the thistle feeder to a window farther away from the other feeder, and I plan to move it in stages until it is on the other side of the house.

Stevens Pass from 20,000 Feet

The flight from Detroit to Seattle's Seatac Airport was pleasant and uneventful. I checked in on-line the night before and discovered Northwest had me seated in a middle seat. I changed the seat selection to Seat 40A on the Northwest 757. That is the next to the last row and the window seat on the left side of the plane. Back in my days with DOJ, this area of the plane, which is separated from the main cabin by a bulkhead, was the smoking section. I recall Dave Monson used to like sitting back there to puff on cigarettes on the short flights back from Detroit to D.C. Those days are long gone, as are the days when I could leave home at 7:30 am for an 8:10 flight out of National Airport to Detroit and be seated well in time for my flight.

Back to the journey back to wine country. The women next to me, in 40B and 40C were excellent seatmates. I rarely enjoy talking a lot with strangers on airplanes and today was no different. Luckily, neither of my seatmates wanted to engage in any extensive conversation and we all slept off and on most of the way across the country.

The day was sunny and the Cascades were magnificent. I could see Mt. Rainier, Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Adams to the south. It was not clear enough to pick up a view of Mt. Hood. No doubt Glacier Peak and Mt. Baker were in view from the right side of the plane.

This truly is a wonderful, beautiful state with a lot of variety in the landscape. The approach to Seattle took us past Wenatchee, and I could pick out Rt. 2 below and to the south. I watched for the Stevens Pass summit and sure enough was able to pick it out. It's easily identifiable from the air with the parking areas on either side of Rt. 2. We followed Rte. 2 and I was able to pick out Gold Bar (I think. Might have been Sultan). We tracked in to the North of Redmond, likely right over your house and then turned south once we were over Bothell or Lake Forest Park and flew over Seattle.

I was on the left side of the plane, so did not get a view of downtown Seattle, but the view of Lake Washington was wonderful. I even got a little nostalgic that I don't live in the area anymore.

Had a burrito at Qdoba at Seatac and caught my flight to Pasco. Shortly before I left, I watched an exchange between a woman, probably in her mid-70's, who reminded me of my mother, and the Horizon staff. Apparently the woman had been sitting there at the gate for 2 hrs waiting for a flight (to Missoula, I believe). She want up to check on the flight status and the woman at the desk told her they'd paged her 30 mins. before and she didn't respond. Apparently, her gate was changed (a frequent occurrence with Horizon - they did it to me) and the flight had left 10 minutes before. My heart went out to this woman, and I hope the airline made it right and got her on a flight to her destination.

Unfortunately, I found my battery was stone dead when I got there, so had to call AAA for a jump. Got home around 6:45 pm.

The weather in Walla Walla is snowy, cold and damp, about the same as in Michigan. I'm ready for a Mexican vacation.

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