Caveat Emptor…

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Well I was fortunate enough to be one of those who made it to the second round of the contest to star in a superbowl commercial.

FuelmyBlog and MyBowlAd.com are holding a contest to find a star of a Superbowl commercial early next year. As part of it I have been asked to write 300 words on why it should be me who flies to LA and makes a prat of himself stars in a Superbowl commercial with a potential viewership of millions and millions of people worldwide.

I think my reasons are two fold. First of all it would be cool to see myself on worldwide watched telly as so far all I get to see is my wife Kim and her brother Perry in various British comedies and films. Why shouldnt I get a crack at having fans and the kudos like those two? Free drinks and admiration would be quite nice it has to said. As far as stalkers go, this blog has provided a few so I have no need of any of them. I want to get in on the family act(ing) thing and am too old to go through the whole acting school thing.

The other reason I would love to get this gig is it might be the highest level of exposure, me the singer of Growing Old Disgracefully, will ever get. I owe it to the lads and Kim to see if I can do the best for the band as possible. After all they have worked really hard on all our music and deserve some recognition for their toil. And you have to admit that doing a Superbowl commercial at my age is a supreme act of growing old disgracefully.

I think I got the quirky looks, the charisma (or so I am told) and the ability to get it right while filming. And after all I am one of those types who is willing to try anything once. Oh yes and unlike most people, even proper actors and musicians, I dont get stage fright at all. I get post-stage fright. It happens once I have done whatever I am doing, so it does not affect the performance.

Oh and as this is a blog post one last thing can you imagine the blog hits if I win?

Please vote for this post here every day for the next seven days!

It is often said that resistance to jihadism only increases the recruitment to it. But, if so, it must cut both ways. The enemies of intolerance cannot be tolerant, or neutral, without inviting their own suicide. And the advocates and apologists of bigotry and censorship cannot be permitted to take shelter under the umbrella of a pluralism

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K T Dodge opines on the latest PC proposal. “It seems that the law commission is making recommendations for co-habitees to get the same financial rights as married couples if they ‘split’ (if they meet their criteria). and therefore, be able to claim financial support from eachother…”

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Judging from the previous thread, a lot of LGF readers would like to discuss Bill O
’Reilly’s show, in which he came out in favor of charging Stanislav Shmulevich with felony hate crimes for putting a Koran in a toilet. So…

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People who read this blog that I am not of any organised religion merely refering to myself as deist. However, there is a certain hypocrisy in this charge. After all Jewish and Christians symbols including for Christians Christ himself are mocked, defamed and abused on a routine basis by artists of all ilks from the visual to the audio. There are no prosecutions even for something as vile as “Piss Christ” or any of the myriad of black metal albums covers.

Why should the Koran be any different? Free of speech means the freedom to offend. No where in the Constitution does it say that you have a right not to be offended.

This is a complete abuse of the hate crime legislation.

Needless to say Christopher Hitchens agrees with me on this one.

In my perusing of the internet and important Google, on certain subjects, I sometimes stumble on new sites of interest. Not necessarily to my viewpoint but ones that have some interesting takes on various subjects of the day. One such site that I have come across is Global Affairs. Its a site that says what it does on the tin…ie it covers global affairs. There are various contributors to this group blog. Its a fast loading and easy to read site with lots of posts.

Unsurprisingly, the post that caught my eye the most was the one on the new dollop of cash being given to Israel over the next few years. The author of the piece on the report questions the need for this much money going to Israel. Althought he rightly realises that its to help Israel combat the meddling of Iran in its neighbours affairs the author does not necessarily seem to be supportive.

I am afraid the author does not recognise the benefits of this investment in Israel. There are several good things about it whether its the ability to keep track of those who hate the US as much as Israel or the fact the Israelis test a lot of cutting edge equipment in real life military situation.

I understand the questioning of all foreign aide, but it does sometimes bother me when the only target for questioning is Israel. Yes, its a lot of money, but I believe its the best foreign aide investment the US makes with its budget.

can the CBC be far behind?

After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated – many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work.

Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.

I keed, I keed. The CBC will report positive news from Iraq about the day after Peter Mansbridge’s hair grows back.

the blog québécois

Now, I was a batchelor for quite a while with my own flat. I left much of the decorating to my mother as I could not be bothered. As I am now in a new flat with my wife we have made some changes. One of the things we have done is get some new curtains to liven up the back bedroom which is now also an office. I never thought it was as hard to hang curtains as it is, we still have some tweaking to do. Another thing that suprised me was how much of a difference some good (in this case red) curtains make to a room.

Renaissance

Having discovered Renaissance via my goth/noir aware blogger mate Ghost, I was rather pleased to find it on download on iTunes. It is the first film I have bought and downloaded from iTunes; the experience was pretty pleasant. Alas, the film was not the French Blade Runner but merely an animated French film.

The movie takes a long time to get going, so long in fact, that my beloved Kim, a fan of movies was sound asleep by the time things got interesting. This is less a cyberpunk movie than an art-house piece that is animated. There is far too much faffing about and little in the way of action. If you are thinking Sin City; look elsewhere.

The storyline is a fairly predictable to anyone who is a fan of anime and the cybepunk genre. In a future Paris, a woman scientist has re-discovered a medical secret discarded by an older scientist who lost his nerve. The main character is the typical edgy detective, that shockingly is in constant strife with his boss, and gets suspended during the film. Nope didn’t see that coming.

The tech in the movies is nothing new and innovative for the genre. All the vehicles seem to be Citroens which is most amusing.

The whole movie seems terribly forced and not the slightest bit original baring that it takes place in Paris instead of say Tokyo.

Yes, the animation is edgy and very noir, but it does not salvage the predictable and weak plot. Ghost in the Shell it ain’t that is for damn sure.

Welcome to the July 30, 2007 edition of best of me symphony.

Indigo Warrior presents Welcome to my Blogspot posted at Warrior Words.

nickel presents Roth IRA Conversion Limits Going Away posted at fivecentnickel.com.

mom & dad presents » The Number One Reason Boys are Better Than Girls @ raising4boys.com posted at raising4boys.com.

nickel presents Save Money on Life Insurance by Paying Annually posted at fivecentnickel.com.

Riversider presents How the Ribble Works posted at Save The Ribble.

Tam Hanna presents TamsPPC-The PocketPC blog – The PocketPC news and oppinion source » SPB Full Screen Keyboard review – a full screen keyboard for PocketPC posted at TamsPPC-The PocketPC blog, saying, “Hi, today, I bring a best of piece from my new web site, TamsPPC. The program outlined here is such a timesaver that it should come presinstalled on each and every PocketPC…

Jack Yoest presents The Modern Working Woman in Business, at Home posted at Yoest.com, saying, “So heres the typical mom in America today: baby on knee, small business down the street, with rifle in Pakistan.”

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
best of me symphony using our carnival submission form.

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our
blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: best of me symphony, blog carnival.

While you are at it head over and check out the Britblog round-up. There is collection of short stories at Storyblogging and there is finally another SNN/

John Bambenek has written a great article over at Blog Critics indicating that he has filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission against Kos Media LLC (the Daily Kos folks). Bambenek was compelled to do so after Kos admitted a number of times that his blog exists to get Democrats elected.

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I’ve received an email from Stanislav Shmulevich, who has been arrested in New York for putting a Koran in a toilet at Pace University. And his case is even more outrageous than we first reported. First, Shmulevich was arrested and jailed…

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K T Dodge examines the dearth of good comedy, drama and other sorts of TV on British TV screens. All the good stuff seems to be sourced in the US and not home grown. KT Dodge should know, her acting name is Kim Benson, she was part of the cast of the incredibly successful 2 Point 4 Children (12 mil viewers at its peak).

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Iain Dale is requesting his readers and our top 20 British political blogs for a new publication he is working on. To sweeten the pot he is offering £100 of political DVDs for one lucky contributor to the list. You don’t even need to send 20, but more than 10 are required. I sent in 13 because I am just that way.

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Lots of you out there have sites and blogs you want promoted. Well there is a new idea out there and right now its free. You write a short piece about the site, submit your piece and they feature your blog on their page for 24 hours for nothing. Its a fairly simple concept of mutual back-scratching that should work to pull in a few more hits for you and is set to grow exponentially. Why not head over and take a look at their About Page? How hard is it to write a short piece and submit it right?

My dear wife has written a farewell message to the David Beckham Academy after she left the place on Thursday. I have also discovered that her MySpace page has gotten quite a few hits and her music is getting listened quite a bit…three times as much as GoD’s stuff at this point. There might be something in this music lark for K T Dodge time will tell.

Theo seems impressed with some of her friends on MySpace as well. I wonder why?

The Conservative Party really is in a very grave crisis indeed, and that crisis is about much more than the temporary difficulties facing David Cameron and the small group of modernisers who advise him. It concerns the future of the Conservative Party itself.

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City Journal:

My work has caused me to become perhaps unhealthily preoccupied with the problem of evil. Why do people commit evil? What conditions allow it to flourish? How is it best prevented and, when necessary, suppressed? Each time I listen to a patient recounting the cruelty to which he or she has been subjected, or has committed (and I have listened to several such patients every day for 14 years), these questions revolve endlessly in my mind.

Theodore Dalrymple, the Orwell of our times (sorry, Christopher Hitchens) announces his retirement. From psychiatry, that is. I assume he’ll now devote his full time to writing.

It’s odd. Psychiatrists are notorious for muddle-headed jargon; but two of the best, most lucid political writers around come from that profession. (The other being Charles Krauthammer.)

the blog québécois

With all the annoying problems travelling these days ones mind does turn to private jets. I have sat admiringly on the tarmac looking at some lucky sod getting into his Gulfstream and heading off into the skys. Well there is a company that specialises in such thing called Prudential Aviation. This is jet charter and there can be big discounts if you are able to use an empty flight flying back to your destination. If you have considered hiring a private jet why not contact Gordon Gerstein?

Considering how many different groups there are on Facebook both anti and even pro Michael “Dog fighting” Vick it is no surprise that someone has made a site campaigning for sacking. Its has a round-up of petitions and other information in the campaign to get this guy kicked out of pro-football. What is involved with, which he claims to know nothing about, is a federal crime and considering how many dogs they found on his estate he should go away for a long time.

Pakistani imam Israr Ahmad, who appeared twice on VisionTV this month, “clarifies” his position about the Holocaust and the Jews…His official statement starts off by asserting that there’s no way he could possibly be anti-semitic, since “our Prophet Muhammad, the last of the Prophets himself, was a Semitic.” But of course.

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The report, The Use, Misuse and Abuse of Science in support of the Hunting Act 2004, argues that government, the media and the public have all been “duped by fake and twisted science.” There seems to be a lot of that going round the corridors of power, especially in the UK. That is what happens when you get science dolts making policy.

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Superman, Batman, Captain American and a slew of other superheroes have something in common besides funny-looking tights. They were all created by Jews, many from Eastern European backgrounds.

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I happened upon this by accident the other day. It was written in 2003 but I think it applies equally now:

1. The discoverer pitches the claim directly to the media. The integrity of science rests on the willingness of scientists to expose new ideas and findings to the scrutiny of other scientists. Thus, scientists expect their colleagues to reveal new findings to them initially. An attempt to bypass peer review by taking a new result directly to the media, and thence to the public, suggests that the work is unlikely to stand up to close examination by other scientists.

He wasn’t speaking about climate change but these are all salient points when considering it.

the blog québécois

The oft repeated, by the left and the ignorant, meme that NAZISM is extreme capitalism is fully skwered in this excellent piece on the Volokh Conspiracy. Its a rather useful curt and simple explanation to have at hand. Worth a read even if you know the score, which I assume is almost all the readers of Dodgeblogium.

Before he was elected as a tough-on-crime U.S. senator from Tennessee or played a New York prosecutor on TV’s ‘Law and Order,’ Fred Dalton Thompson worked as a lawyer who argued against the government’s authority to regulate drug paraphernalia or to search a boat packed with 14 tons of marijuana.

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DailyKos contributor A. Whitney Brown on US troops:
“So to sum up, I don’t like our troops, I don’t like what they’re doing, I don’t like their fat, whining families, and yet, I support them.”

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Some of the British bloggers have banded together to create Referendum List so as to fact check who supports a referendum on the latest EU treaty. They will be quizzing elected representatives to see who believes its right to give the British public a say in their fate in the EU.

Its an exercise of monumental importance and their efforts are to be applauded. If the federasts are so convinced that the UK is so pro-EU its about time they put that theory to the test.

I rather wish I didn’t read the press bumf that accompanied the movie screening I saw last night (reviewed below) as it contained something that was either bad or hilariously lame. It seems one of the main characters is voice by uber moron Jeneane Garofalo, you know the one who is convinced that Bush perpetrated 9/11 and other conspirazoid lunacies. She was also a host on the lead balloon that was Air America on a show Majority Report (obviously it wasn’t or more people who have listened).

The amusing bit of her bio is that she lists her time with Air America despite the fact it was a complete failure and hosts like her drove it to bankruptcy. She also lists her talent as a comediane…hrm does that require you to be funny? Has anyone actually laughed at heir caustic bill-filled ranting?

That said she voices a stereotypical young French woman in the movie. I am sure her French fans who loved her anti-American bile on Air America, might be a bit purturbed by the fun at the expense of the French.

I guess her career took precedence over her left-wing lunacy.

As you may or may not already be aware, members of the Watcher’s Council hold a vote every week on what they consider to be the most link-worthy pieces of writing around… per the Watcher’s instructions, I am submitting one of my own posts for consideration in the upcoming nominations process.

Here is the most recent winning council post, here is the most recent winning non-council post, here is the list of results for the latest vote, and here is the initial posting of all the nominees that were voted on.

Last night Kim and I saw a great film in the form of Pixar’s latest animated feature. While not as amazing as The Incredibles, it was quite a good romp that had some fun bits. There were lots of bits aimed at the parents whether its the snide jabs about Disney to the overt piss-take of Paris and all that is French.

Its incredibly impressive to see, using every inch of the digital animation to its fullest affects. The city scenes of Paris from the roof tops are nothing short of stunning. They rendered the Eiffel Tower in amazing detail , that makes you want to wait for the DVD to examine it.

The story is amusing with a rat that is a talented cook who helps a culinary dork finds his cooking vibe and get what he rightly is owed and then girl (although she is voiced by someone odious see above). I would have to say that anyone who has a phobia of rats might want to skip this one as there are some scenes of lots of them running towards the viewer.

The animated short beforehand was most amusing about an alien in kidnap training. While the concept does not sound that funny, in practice its quite amusing. While not on the scale of the pain inducing ‘Bounce” it does cause a bit of a chuckle.

Overall this is yet another Pixar release that works for both children and the adults that accompany them. Its a visual tour de force with oodles of humour and lots of wry observation.

If you want a peak; check out the preview here.

Kim and I would like to thank the PR company for a pleasant evening watching a rather good film.

For Kim’s take on it check out her post.

Update: Those of you who are keen on how they did it might be interested in this here.

Jamie Oliver said: I probably got the most miserable character in the whole of the film, which is obviously different from me in real life. Hes totally bored with life. Its the first time I have been asked to do anything which is totally not me.
My motivation for doing this film was my kids. When this film comes out, they are going to love it.

I can see myself in Remy the rat a little bit, I think the message to the world out there is have a go, get amongst it, give it a bash and actually you might surprise yourself and be brilliant. You dont have to be born a cook, just get involved and have a go.