Some Knowledge

President Bush suggested drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve at his Tuesday morning news conference.  It is believed that a peak production of a million barrels a day might be available from this north Alaskan coastal region, after development peaks in about 2025.  Predicted effects of the tapping of this reserve are a decrease in the price of oil by 30 to 50 cents a barrel.  It is predicted that the use of this resource will reduce American dependence on foreign oil from 70% to 66%.

The idea of drilling for oil and gas in this region has been around for a long time.  It has been known that this area has oil reserves since oil seeps and sands were found there by the first explorers in the region.  While any increase in domestic production of oil will help reduce our reliance on foreign sources, it is debatable if opening this region to exploration will do much to reduce the price of petroleum.

The supply of oil in the earth’s depths is limited.  People have been using petroleum at an increasing rate.  More and more regions of the world are becoming developed, with automobiles and high energy consumption rates.  It is certain that the price of oil will increase in the future as supplies run out.  We need to come up with alternatives to petroleum and start to conserve the amount of energy we use.  This will take a lot of planning and research.  We will need to invest in alternative sources of energy.  The resources of the earth are finite.  We should preserve what we have and not squander resources on ridiculous lifestyles.

Alright, this is a late breaking news story.  Apparently, for the last month, Britney has been working out every day at Bally’s.  It seems there may be some deal where Bally’s hires her to promote the gym.  I guess from what I read her manager is friends with one of the high officials at Bally’s.  Maybe they will hire her to promote the gym on TV commercials.

After going bankrupt last August, I’m surprised Bally’s has the kind of money they would need to hire a high-priced celebrity to advertise for them.   Still, they got a lot of free publicity just by letting Britney work out for free.  Maybe that’s their plan.  Geurilla publicity.   Still, I have yet to see much of this in the press or on TV.  News of this supposed deal has been floating around the net since early April.

From what I read in the online Daily Mail from the UK today, it seems a month of exercise is paying off for Britney.  They report she has lost 20 pounds and is now exercising up to six hours a day.  This has got to be better for her than drinking every night at the clubs.  From what I hear, she still smokes.  Maybe she could use some help quitting that unhealthy habit.

I have not been able to find out if any deal between Britney and Bally’s has been struck.  I don’t know how well off Bally’s is to be hiring expensive spokespersons.  It was just interesting to read about someone trying to get their life together.  Who knows, maybe next time I go to the gym they will be playing Britney Spears on the PA system.

Here’s an interesting Youtube video from this person.  Apparently, Tricia Walsh Smith, actress and playwrite, married Phil Smith, rich old man.  Now Phil wants to divorce Tricia and Tricia is upset.  So, instead of going by the terms of her pre-nuptual agreement or getting a lawyer and fighting it out in court, Tricia makes a 6-minute video and posts it on Youtube for 287,776 people so far to view.

I don’t understand how it helps your divorce case to slander your husband in public.  I don’t see the point of asking his secretary what he wants her to do with his personal items.  I watched the video, but I don’t see the point of it.  Does she think people on the Internet are going to save her from being sued for divorce?  She claims Phil has no grounds for divorce.  Well, she just gave him grounds by circulating this video.

Maybe what these people need is a marriage counselor.  With all their money they can certainly afford to get some help.  I know it’s probably wrong to laugh at other people’s problems, but this whole video is just silly.  Complaining on Youtube to a crowd of people who are probably laughing at you is not going to get you a better deal.  Tricia needs to get a lawyer and see how much she can get from the old man.  After making this video, she’s probably in for a lot less than if she had just kept quiet and cried for the judge.

I’ve been following this story all afternoon.  J. K. Rowling was in a Manhattan court today testifying about the damage that the publication of Steven Vander Ark’s book “The Harry Potter Lexicon.” will do to her own works.  There is the whole question of copyright infringement and plagiarism and all the damage this book will do to the reputation of the author.

I can see the point of not wanting a big encyclopedia published of all the things that happen in her books.  I can see that this author has totally based his work on the imagination of Rowling.  Still, a person has the right to write their own book, even if it is nothing but quotes from another author, right?  I’m not sure.  There’s a whole huge website that is the basis for the lexicon.  Why didn’t she object to that?  Isn’t it copyright infringement to publish somebody else’s work on the Internet?

I think the whole point of this lawsuit has to be money.  Rowling must think that sales of the lexicon will cut into sales of her book.  Why bother to read a whole series of books if you can read one long condensed version of everything that happens and fill in the blanks?  It’s sort of like the Reader’s Digest of Harry Potter.

I’ve never read any of these books myself.  They do not appeal to me.  I saw one of the movies and fell asleep in it.  I fled in terror from the lexicon website.  Who would want to know all these nitpicky little things about somebody’s fantasy creation?  My only interest in this story is that it is about copyright infringement, which affects anybody who writes anything.  I think the bottom line here is that J. K. Rowling must think sales of the lexicon will hurt her own future sales of her books.  This is a perfectly legitimate concern.   I can’t understand the motivation for anybody who would go to all the trouble to analyze such a large volume of work at such a detailed level.  It will be interesting to see the outcome of this trial.

This is the name of a new reality TV series that was being filmed in Apopka, Florida.  The premise for the show was to take some poor young ladies and school them into being prim and proper princesses.  Part of this schooling was to have them relinquish their cell phones.  Part of the premise of the show was to have the women never leave the house, except on weekends, when they were good.

A news report on what happened to this show can be seen here.  A neighbor called the police to report that the women were being kept prisoner in the house.  The police seemed to agree and arrested Marc Brilleman for false imprisonment of the young women.  While there are denials that there was anything else going on in the house besides filming a family show, there is conflicting evidence that other things were happening.

Apparently, the producers of this show were operating a porn site using the contestants as actresses.  Apparently, the women were not paid for their work.  Apparently, they were not allowed to communicate with anybody or to leave the premises.  How true any of this is I do not know.  All I know is that the police found enough evidence to arrest somebody.

I am not a fan of reality shows.  In this instance it looks like the reality was not what it appeared to be.  I feel sorry for anybody who gives up their freedom for a chance to be on television.  It’s bad enough to let people boss you around on your job, but to have this kind of nonsense 24/7 would be ridiculous.

It took me a while to dig up this information.  I finally found a site called Celebrity Popularity that had a list of the top ten celebrities.  Just in case you don’t want to flip over to that site to see for yourself, I will list them all here.

1. Eminem
2. Mariah Carey
3. 50 Cent
4. Green Day
5. Britney Spears
6. Jessica Simpson
7. Chris Brown
8. Black Eyed Peas
9. Kelley Clarkson
10. Paris Hilton

Of course, these would be the most popular American celebrities.  If you are looking for the most popular Chinese celebrities, or any other country, I suggest you go to Ask.com and look for them there.  Google is clueless on who the most popular celebrities are.

Are you an angry journalist?  There’s a website where you can post what it is that’s got you ticked.  Apparently there are a lot of angry writers in the world.  This site already had 2927 complaints.

It’s mildly interesting to read other people’s complaints about the news industry.  Mostly they are just complaining about things that affect their jobs or their business, like the Internet.  It’s pretty funny reading some of the stuff posted here.  This seems to be a popular site.  I guess if you haven’t got any news to report you may as well post your complaints to a forum.

The Forbidden Kingdom is a new kung fu movie starring Jet Li and Jackie Chan.  It is set for release on April 18, 2008.

The plot of this movie seems to revolve around a teenage boy who is transported back through time by the workings of a magic sword.  The boy finds himself in ancient China in the middle of a war for control of the kingdom.  He is taught kung fu by The Drunken Immortal, Chan, and The Silent Monk, Li.  He must defeat the Jade Warlord and the White Witch to save the kingdom.

You can watch trailers for the movie at the above link.  There is a lot of atmosphere and special effects in this movie from what they show in the trailer.  It’s been a while since I’ve gone to the movies and seen a flick on the big screen.  I may check this one out when it is released next month.

I’m not totally sure why I like kung fu movies.  Most of these flicks have absurd plots.  Most of the action you see in these movies is ridiculous and impossible.  A kung fu movie is about the most violent thing you can imagine.  There is no way one person can defeat an army of hundreds, except in a martial arts movie.  Why do I like watching these movies so much?

I guess it’s the fantasy element to kung fu that draws my interest.  Plus it’s the absurdity of the things.  There is no way your iron monkey fist technique can defeat a man with a sword, unless that man is a complete idiot.  Yet, iron monkey fist wins every time.  There is no way you can be punched in the face twenty times and not even have a slight bruise.  You can not have a person kick you in the chest until you cough up blood, then turn around and drop kick them through a wall.  That whole scene is just comical.

I guess what I like about kung fu flicks is that they are so absurd.  The whole genre is surreal.  I like the exotic locations, the forests of bamboo, the mountains, and the ornate costumes.   Most martial arts movies have some sort of a plot you can follow.  They go from a wayward student learning how to fight to a hero who saves the village from the evil hordes of gangsters.  I know it shows me as a simpleton, but I like movies with interesting plots.  I watched the entire “Laughing in the Wind”  Hong Kong TV series on DVD because it was so interesting.

You might think a person could get disturbed by all the violence in a kung fu movie.  For me, the violence in these films is more like some kind of stylized dance.  There is no way a person can leap thirty feet into the air and land on his feet on a clay tile roof.  Yet, through the magic of wires, you see this a lot in such movies.  There is no way you are going to beat somebody to death in the streets in front of all kinds of witnesses and not have the law asking you questions.  These things happen in martial arts movies all the time.  It’s the ridiculous nature of the action in these movies that makes them entertaining to me.  Perhaps it’s warped to laugh at violence, but when the action is so absurd, how else can a person react?

I can hardly stand to watch the TV any more.  Even just surfing channels I am confronted with so many scenes of violence it almost makes me ill.  I know bad things happen to people every day.  Still, what is the point of showing me all these problems?  Am I supposed to feel bad all the time because there is violence and war in the world?  I’m not a law enforcement person who would go around catching killers.  Show your violent pictures to somebody else.

It goes right through from the news to entertainment.  You can hardly watch a movie without somebody getting killed in the show.  Is violence entertaining?  Do you like to watch people bleed?  I think even the Romans with their gladiators and arenas would get sick from watching American TV.  How can people stand to see such horrible things all the time?

I can flip through a hundred channels on the tube and get 90 of them where something bad is happening to somebody.  You’ve got news channels where there is nothing but crime 24/7.  They have fight shows where men beat the crap out of each other while people cheer them on.  Has the world gone insane?  You watch even the science programs and half of them are about either dead people or they are about some disaster where people are getting hurt.  It is the constant theme of mass media: violence.   What kind of a twisted person would be entertained by a show about murderers?  Yet there are dozens of these programs.

It’s not just television.  It’s the whole entertainment industry.  Movies, video games, books, magazines, most seem to have some kind of violent element to them.  Is it some kind of conspiracy by our leaders to make humans desensitized to violence so we won’t object when they tell us to go out and kill Iraqis?   I wonder sometimes.  Why does every program that is supposed to be about science always end up using explosives to wreck something?  It’s idiotic.  Nobody wants a life full of violence, hate and death, yet we entertain ourselves by watching this nonsense?  I just don’t know about people.

Maybe people are just naturally attracted to violence.  Humans used to have to perpetrate violence on animals in order to get food.  Still, if you want people to live peacefully you do not constantly bombard them with violent imagery.  Is the entertainment industry trying to make me happy by showing me people getting hurt?  That’s just idiotic.  Anyone with a shred of empathy would feel lousy if they saw people suffering.  Are they trying to make me depressed?  I wonder sometimes.  What is the point of a society that focuses so much on the bad things that happen and totally ignores the good that is done every day?