Danielmedley.com

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Loglines From The Headlines

Reading this:

Dr Venter, who has been chasing his goal for a decade, is already working on projects to use synthetic biology to create bacteria that transform coal into cleaner natural gas, and algae that soak up carbon dioxide and turn it into hydrocarbon fuels.

made me go, hmmmm.

I can see it now: The global ecosystem overrun by artificially created carbon dioxide consuming algae, humans must now produce massive amounts of Co2 to save earth.

I posted it on a screenwriting BB. Have at it!

Friday, August 21, 2009

Hollywood’s Self Imposed Bleed Out

One of my favorite web sites points to some articles concerning some of the problems concerning Hollywood. Part 1 is here, and part 2 is here.

Most telling is;

Exacerbating this issue (and with apologies to friends in the industry) is that most development staff historically possesses neither writing nor storytelling experience. What they have, and what they are mandated to exercise, is an ability to anticipate what their superiors desire. The Hollywood hierarchy is thus reactionary, and not driven to just tell a good story.

Mathematics Of Zombies

Proves that we’re all screwed.

A ZOMBIE attack would need to be countered hard and early to give civilisation any hope of surviving, according to a mathematical study.

A Canadian team - which includes an Australian researcher - has done the maths on what would happen should zombies really appear on the streets.

The first thing that comes to my mind is, I hope they didn’t get grant money for this?

Monday, August 17, 2009

Finally!

President Obama does something I can agree with.

President Obama made clear Monday that he favors the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, and intends to ask Congress to repeal the 13-year-old law that denies benefits to domestic partners of federal employees and allows states to reject same-sex marriages performed in other states.

Friday, August 14, 2009

AstroTurf Not

I must say that I do agree with this.

Deep concern about the government’s healthcare activity is nothing new, and politicians who believe that the opposition to the Democrats’ plan is a put-up job are deceiving themselves and imperiling their own careers.

Bonnie And Clyde Then And Now

Stephen Hunter writes this concerning depression era bandits Bonnie and Clyde; both the historic and film versions.

That point is that the legendary Penn movie that invented the New Bonnie and Clyde was such a ideological crock that it deserves placement in that list of other leftist crocks mistaken by gullible critics and film lovers as somehow great: Beatty’s own Reds, the appalling JFK, and the toxic oeuvre of Michael Moore and his tribe of screwball clones in the documentary field, as well as the recent spate of angry, misguided Iraq war films.

This really is not news; when Bonnie and Clyde was released and soared, following an initial few weeks of failure, the Chicago Daily News columnist Mike Royko launched a mini-crusade to restore Clyde and Bonnie to their actual dimensions, as vicious murderers, no matter that (as the ad copy said) they were young, they were in love, and they robbed banks. The only thing that mattered about them, Royko said, was that they killed, and killed a lot of people. The critic of the New York Times, Bosley Crowther, then the oldest, whitest guy in New York, also dared to denounce the film; he not only felt the lash of social ostracism and contempt, he may have even lost his job as a consequence.

I thought they were both idiots. I know better now.

Heh.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Every Body Loves A Good Spat

Christina Hoff Sommers and Nancy K.D. Lemon step in to the ring and battle facts in feminist scholarship.

Lemon:

In regard to the rule of thumb, for example, she asserted that Romulus of Rome, who is credited in my book with being involved with the first antidomestic-violence legislation, could not have done this as he was merely a legendary, fictional character, who along with his brother Remus was suckled by a wolf.

In fact, Plutarch and Livy each state that Romulus was the first king of Rome. He reigned from 753-717 BC, and created both the Roman Legions and the Roman Senate. He is also credited with adding large amounts of territory and people to the dominion of Rome, including the Sabine women. The modern scholar Andrea Carandini has written about the historic reign of Romulus, based in part on the 1988 discovery of the Murus Romuli on the north slope of the Palatine Hill in Rome.

Hoff Sommers:

She (Lemon) confidently informs us that Romulus actually existed and ruled Rome from 753-717 BC. That is preposterous. She cites Livy and Plutarch as sources. These first-century writers did not claim to be offering historically accurate accounts of events that took place some 700 years before their time, but openly professed to be summarizing beliefs, myths, and legends that had come down through the ages. She also cites the contemporary Roman archaeologist Andrea Carandini—a maverick figure who discovered what he claims might have been a wall of a palace that could have belonged to Romulus. As the July/August 2007 issue of Archaeology politely notes, his suggestion “represents a sharp break with two millennia of scholarship.”

Ouch.

Thursday, August 06, 2009

Epitome Of Arrogance

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Putin Goes Gay

Is it me, or does this look like it's right out of a Gay Pride Parade?