Dan O'Bannon was a great geek creator. He provided the screenplay and served as the Special Effects Supervisor on John Carpenter's first masterpiece, DARK STAR. And it is a science fiction masterpiece.
I love DARK STAR and its sentient bomb and bean bag monster like very few things in this world. Dan worked on the computer animation and displays on a tiny film called STAR WARS after that. Remember that animation blueprint on how to blow up the Death Star... ie, the rebel plans? O'Bannon had a hand in that!
Then... he was the lead screenwriter on Ridley Scott's little film called ALIEN. Before Dan, there was a blank page. Afterwards we had Ellen Ripley, the Nostromo and the entire legend of the ALIEN.
He was responsible for the B-17 sequence of HEAVY METAL, the awesome Helicopter film BLUE THUNDER, the wonderful satire of Romero's Zombie series called THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, my third fave film from Tobe Hooper - LIFE FORCE, the pretty damn fine remake of INVADERS FROM MARS, he got our ass to Mars with TOTAL RECALL.
#4
"Now it's time to go sleepy-bye you worthless piece of garbage. "
It's a very short distance from Dark Star's beach ball with claws to the Alien.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
12/18/2009 19:20 Comments ||
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#5
...It's a shame that the rights to Dark Star are still tied up by the moron who took them from O'Bannon years ago - it would still make one helluva good movie.
"Benson, Arizona..."
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/18/2009 20:58 Comments ||
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Posted by: Dave UK ||
12/18/2009 15:16 Comments ||
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#3
The administration must surely know that Iran will use this event as a propaganda tool and convenient cover for action. Oh sorry, that was precisely the administration's purpose regarding the deal? Ok, I get it.
Stripped naked to the waist, she begs for mercy as she is savagely beaten by a lynch mob in the middle of the street. Alejandra Maria Torres was part of an armed gang that tried to rob bus passengers in Guatemala City.
But as she tried to escape the passengers stripped and beat her before dousing her in petrol and setting her alight. Police put out the flames and arrested her. Her three companions escaped.
Lynchings are common in Guatemala. In the last year, mobs have attacked more than 250 people, leaving at least 40 of them dead.
Criminals are a frequent target but officials are sometimes attacked, including a judge who issued a rape verdict thought by the public to be too lenient. The practice stems from the civil war of 1960 to 1996 when civil defence patrols carried out many of the murders in the state-sponsored genocide of Left-wing rebels, many of them peasants. About 200,000 people died. She is definitely not Guatemalan.
The head of one of Mexico's top drug cartels has been killed by Mexican soldiers as drug-related violence has taken its toll on the Central American country.
Arturo Beltran Leyva was killed Wednesday along with four other members of his gang in a battle with Mexican soldiers, the country's justice ministry said in a statement. The so-called "godfather" of the "Beltran Leyva brothers" cartel was killed "during an intense battle between presumed members of his organization and military personnel from the Marine infantry in Cuernavaca, close to Mexico City, the statement said.
Three soldiers were injured by grenade fragments during the violence, it added.
Earlier Wednesday, police in north Mexico discovered the bodies of at least six decapitated law enforcement officers killed in a suspected revenge attack by drug gangs. The severed heads of the agents were found in plastic bags in the town of Cuencame in the northern state of Durango, officials said.
Despite a lack of evidence on the actual motive behind the killings, local authorities blame the country's infamous international drug cartels as the beheadings bear the signature of the criminal traffickers active in their northern strongholds.
Officials maintain that Mexico's Gulf cartel carried out the carnage in revenge for the killing of 10 gang members last week.
Meanwhile, another 12 people in the city of Tijuana were murdered earlier, four of whom were beheaded.
The latest violence comes despite the government's deployment of thousands of Mexican soldiers in the area, which has prompted public anger over the troops' inability to contain the bloodshed.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/18/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Anarchists who ignore the law of the sea, disrupting the activities of ships flying colors under a sovereign nation, crying about hot pursuit and getting what they dish out. You are not the victim, but just another perp.
#2
One wonders what they were doing to cause the Japanese crew to defend themselves. (And I do think they were defending themselves against aggression).
Hoping the Japanese crew had video running - this could be interesting.....
#4
I'm curious where the law of the sea falls on this, because in a lot of ways the anti-whalers are acting like pirates. Are the anti-whaling laws legally enforceable in international waters?
#5
Ahh, NIPPON, great at building cars + producing weird anime-manga, among other, but yet AFAIK NOT good at WHALE, FISH MASS PRODUCTION = AQUACULTURE. One would think that a Nation that hrvests WHales would be Globo Numero Uno in SAFE WHALE MASS-BREEDING + OCEAN STOCKS RECOVERY.
Iff techs-savvy Nippon can kill the original GODZILLA with an Underwater "OXYGEN DESTROYER" device, SAVING WHALES BY AND FOR THE BENEFIT OF WHALES, etc AND JAPAN-WORLD SHOULDN'T BE AN PROB!
Ya can't eat so-called "snake porn/anime", or can you???
#1
Nancy Pelosi comandeered two military 737s to take a delegation of 21 members of Congress to Copenhagen. I expect donks in the group will all lock arms and sing Kumbaya. So much for preaching green but living a hypocrisy. She will probably be a candidate for the Nobel Prize next year unless Obama gets it again.
#2
One 737 to haul the congresscritters. The other 737 to haul back their expensive Euro booze and Christmas winter festival shopping. Something definately 'rotten in Denmark' now.
#3
My daughter was giving her anti-AGW presentation at a NWS site and was asked about Al Gore. She replied, quite diplomatically, that he's a flaming hypocrite for his lifestyle-vs-his words. One of the audience (a well-meaning but befuddled true believer) defended Gore's lifestyle as "an investment" necessary to educate people to the dangers. I had to bite my tongue to avoid laughing in his face and calling him a useful idiot.
#5
title should be "Environmentalists" not "Environmentalist's"
second line in yellow should be "Environmentalists", not "Environmentalist"
Posted by: lord garth ||
12/18/2009 15:33 Comments ||
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#6
Yeah, well, to liberals, it's perfectly OK to engage in the same sort of behavior that you condemn. You see, it's OK when we do it! Only you are supposed to follow what we say, what's the point of being the leader if you have to follow the rules just like everyone else?
Gaza City (CNN) -- Two Palestinian teenagers stroll amid the mounds of rubble left by last year's Israeli military offensive, listening to the tinny beat of a Turkish pop song playing on a cell phone. Nadir Mohammed Saleh and Ahmed Fayiz Abed Rabo are cousins and next-door neighbors. With their gelled hair, buttoned-down shirts and boom belts jeans, they look much like any other 16-year-old Palestinian boy. But looks, Ahmed says, can be deceiving.
"Only my appearance, my haircut and clothing, makes me look like a boy," Ahmed says, gesturing with his hands across his face. "Inside, I am like a female. I am a girl."
Until last summer, both Nadir and Ahmed were -- for all intents and purposes -- girls. They wore female headscarves, attended girls' school and even answered to the female first names Navin and Ola.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/18/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Is it just me, or does anyone else here think that they're not gonna stop trying to pick up dates at family reunions in spite of the fact that there are four people (at least) in the clan with this genetic problem?
If your family tree resembles a telephone pole....you are gonna have problems.
#2
Ultimately, this is very sad. And infuriating, that such a result has been visited on these hapless kids by their elders' mind-numbing stupidity and brutishness.
#4
Until the sex-change operation is completed, Palestinian officials won't change the gender on their identity cards to "male," thus restricting their access to higher education.
#5
"There are an unusually high number of male pseudohermaphrodite births in the Gaza neighborhood of Jabalya, where Nadir and Ahmed live.
yeah?
I knew there was something about Hamas that was swishy. Maybe it was the way they thrust their crotch at the camera during gun sex...but never seem to do too well in a fight.
cant win a War that way, honey. Oh, and the appeal to send money.
Yeah, Palestinians.
Sirhan Sirhan in the slammer for life, pushing that Library cart from cell to cell. And his new name in the cell block ( he's had it for twenty years at least) is "Goodpussy". We have so much to be thankful for from the Palestinians. They give new meaning to the word. "ASSet."
#13
Stanley Kurtz addressed the question of cousin marriage (and its connection to the veil) in this excellent article and why any form of democracy is not likely to happen in any Muslim Middle East country (or Afghanistan)anytime soon. Veil of Fears
I assume it's recessive, which means at least twenty percent more Gazans are silent carriers of a single copy of the defective gene, concentrated in certain family lines. Then there are all the other ugly little genetic issues, both physical and mental, not mentioned in the article.
[Straits Times] MUSLIM scholars in Malaysia want laws to ban witchcraft in this South-east Asian country to help stem a tide of robberies, the New Straits Times newspaper reported on Thursday.
Witchcraft is forbidden in Islam, but there are currently no civil, or Islamic syariah laws, that clearly prohibit it.
Reports of the use of so-called black magic are widespread in in this majority Muslim country, with robbers said to use spells to ensure a successful heist.
'Criminals were said to have tapped a victim's back or blow cigarette smoke on a victim's face to cast spells, making them unaware they are being robbed,' respected Muslim scholar Haron Din was quoted as saying at a seminar on 'Love Magic and Diagnosis Methodology.'
Mr Haron said one way to catch black magic practitioners was to find evidence of animal skulls, rosary beads, incense and old daggers that he said were used in performing witchcraft.
Influential cleric Mohamed Tamyes Abdul Wahid, who organised seminar, said laws on black magic should be applied to Muslims as well as the sizable Buddhist, Christian and Hindu minorities in the country. The punishment for black magic under Muslim laws could include whipping and banishment from the district where the offender resided, the scholars said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/18/2009 00:00 ||
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You'd think there would be proper anti-pickpocketing statutes which would cover these sorts of practices...
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
12/18/2009 8:39 Comments ||
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On first reading I thought is said:
Ban Black Bean Magic: Clerics
[Iran Press TV Latest] A cargo ship carrying 83 crew members and a load of cattle has sunk off the Lebanese coast while rescuers have so far rescued 12 of the crew.
The sunken ship is believed to have been sailing from Uruguay to the Syrian port of Tartous.
The Lebanese navy and the UN peacekeeping force in the country are searching for others, AP reported.
Andrea Tenenti, a spokesman for the UNIFIL peacekeeping force has declared that the Panamanian-flagged ship, Danny F II, sank 11 miles (17 kilometers) from the city of Tripoli while encountering a heavy rainstorm on Thursday.
A senior Lebanese army officer said the vessel sent a distress call on Thursday afternoon but had sunk before a Lebanese navy ship reached the area.
The crew members were reportedly from Britain, Australia, Russia, Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Uruguay.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/18/2009 00:00 ||
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That sounds like an awfully big crew, at least for a ship not powered by wind.
#2
According to wikipedia, livestock carriers require much larger crews due to the need to take care of live cargo - waste removal, hygiene, feeding, vet matters, I guess.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
12/18/2009 8:37 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
