Walt Jocketty's Folly?

For some reason, the Reds must think they are still in it. Because today they traded two power arms in Josh Roenicke and Zach Stewart along with Edwin Encarnacion for Scott Rolen. If baseball is about pitching this could be an error, especially when you are a small payroll team and depend on developing from within. Make no mistake, Scott Rolen is a quality player. He's a five time All Star. But he has endured two shoulder surgeries. He is 34. Like our old friend and GM Jim Bowden, it seems that Walt Jocketty has his favorites since he traded for him when he was GM for St. Louis. The upside? Rolen is obviously a better third baseman than Encarnacion. He is a lifetime .284 batting average. Currently he's batting .320. He will provide leadership to a young team. The question is whether he can stay on the field for the next three to four years.

Shatner reads Palin, part 2

On last night's Tonight Show, Conan O'Brien concludes that Sarah Palin's Tweets are poetry! He again asks William Shatner to read her words. If you haven't checked out his prior reading, click here for that and Shatner's hilarious rendition of "Rocketman." Check out his expression as he tries to make sense of her Twitter posts.

Those crazy Birthers, part 3

Here's more Republican congressmen refusing to say they believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States. Watch Congresswoman Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio, Eastern Cincinnati) run from the question. Remember she was the one who was lampooned by Saturday Night Live years ago. Could you Republican enablers please stop this insanity?

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Shatner reads Palin's speech as a poem!

It is simply amazing the last speeches that former Governor Sarah Palin has given. Unlike her Republican Convention speech, these speeches have been rambling, English challenged and illogical. Sunday's farewell speech linked her alleged media abuse to the sacrifice of our troops! She then talked about Hollywood stars criticizing hunting. What is she talking about? If it is about that Ashley Judd PSA, what does this have to do with how her quitting is going to help Alaska and what the future holds for the state? Anyway Conan O'Brien thought this rambling speech was a poem. So verbatim, he has Star Trek's William Shatner to read it as a poem. Of course, this is a take on Shatner's hilarious dramatic reading of "Rocketman" at the Science Fiction Film Awards ceremony, which is added below. Enjoy!



William Shatner reading John-Taupin's "Rocketman" at the 1978 Science Fiction Film Awards.

Oh, Those Crazy Birthers, part 2

Last night on MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann", they had a reporter ask Republican Congressmen whether they believed Obama was a natural born citizen. Not surprisingly, most of them had doubts. Here's the video.

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Let's see you crazy Birthers and Republicans. This myth was debunked by FactCheck.Org. There are newspaper stories at the time of Obama's birth in Hawaii announcing his birth. Oh and now the Hawaii Director of Public Health has reported he has seen the original birth certificate and states that Obama was born in his state. Here's the news story. Okay, you crazy Birthers, how else is Kenya trying to destroy the United States?

New "Lost" video

To wet your apetite for "Lost", ABC on the official website has posted the first of five parts of a faux documentary on the Dharma Initiative, the mysterious organization that was running the island before our heroes crashed on it. This fake documentary is reminiscent of Leonard Nimoy's "In Search Of." It's called "Mysteries of the Universe" and is about the paranormal. In this episode the tease is that the Dharma Initiative is a secret society like the Masons. Here's part one, the teaser.



Remember the Dharma Institute's goals on the island were to study meteorolgy, psychology, parasychology, zoology, electromagnetism, and some type of utopian social study. (Check out the Wikipedia article on Dharma.) Maybe that explains polar bears, and the smoke monster. Maybe it doesn't. Here's the first orientation video that the television audience was exposed to. It's from the second season episode called, "Orientation."

"Moon" Film Review

"Moon" is a new science fiction film starring Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell and Kevin Spacey as the voice of the moon base's robot, Gerty. The story is about how Sam prepares for his return to earth after mining Helium 3 for three years. He has two weeks left on his contract when he starts to hallucinate and see mysterious figures. During one of Sam's visits to a Harvester, a giant mining vehicle, he crashes his moon buggy into it due to seeing a hallucination of a girl. To give any more details would spoil the movie.

Director and writer Duncan Jones (Rocker David Bowie's son) has crafted a thoughtful and suspenseful movie. He guides Rockwell without special tricks, which is refreshing given the solitary nature of the movie. Rockwell responds and gives a riveting performance. The special effects are more reliant on models than CGI which gives the movie a more realistic feel. There are clear nods to "2001", "Silent Running" and "Outland."

This is an intelligent science fiction movie. We haven't seen this in years. It's only limitations is the lack of more dialogue to help explain the characters motivations. For example, it could do a better job explaining why Gerty does what he does, etc. These are minor complaints. For this is an excellent science fiction movie which explores the nature of humanity and man's relation to technology.

Here's the trailer for the movie. The grade for "Moon" is B+.