John Paget's Blog

A New World Record!

A new world record has been set.

We all need goals in life.  What is yours?

Hillary Clinton gets Elvis endorsement

Reuters News Service reports that "Belvis" the Black Elvis endorsed Hillary Clinton yesterday, complete with an impromptu serenade.  Need to see it to believe it? It is on my Blue Suede Films YouTube channel.

But who would the real Elvis Presley vote for in this election?  (post a comment and tell me what you think)

Screening Times & Dates for ALCATRAZ REUNION

Screening Dates/Times have been announced for two upcoming film festivals:

BUFFALO NIAGARA FILM FESTIVAL
5:00pm Tuesday, March 25, 2008
at the historic Riviera Theatre
67 Webster St - N. Tonawanda, NY 14120
ph. 716-692-2113

30th annual BIG MUDDY FILM FESTIVAL
5:00pm Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Student Center Auditorium
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
1100 Lincoln Drive
Carbondale, IL  62901-6610

Alcatraz to become Peace Center?

Among the Super Tuesday results - San Francisco voters rejected Proposition C, which called for transferring Alcatraz from federal to city hands, razing most of its prison buildings and building a global peace center.

The ballot measure was initially sponsored by The Global Peace Foundation: "By Converting Alcatraz Island, a place of pain and suffering, into a "Jewel of Light".  We will activate Powerful Forces for Cooperation, Reconciliation & Healing." (sic)

With 100 percent of precincts reporting, 72 percent opposed the measure, while 28 percent supported it.  However the ballot measure did win a higher percentage of votes than Hillary Clinton did in Alaska (25%), Idaho (17%), and Kansas (26%).

According to the Global Peace Foundation's director, Da Vid (yes, first name DA, last name VID), the measure fell victim to a disinformation campaign: the Republican Party in The Voters Guide accused Da Vid of being an "AIDS Denier" whereas the truth is that he does not deny the existence of AIDS, but only has "serious questions regarding the etiology" of AIDS.

Da Vid's explains it all in his YouTube video, which actually becomes quite compelling at about the 1:20 mark. 

Mrs. Clinton obviously needs a video like this.
 

Super Tuesday Reaction

I will get to the motive later, but here are the facts behind a curious yet obvious media bias in favor of Mitt Romney:

-Going into Super Tuesday, Romney and Huckabee were nearly equal in delegate count, yet the media constantly set it up as a 2-way race between McCain and Romney, referring to Huckabee as a 'factor' or a 'spoiler'.

-Romney has spent more on TV ads than all other GOP candidates combined.  $8 million more.  Combined.  (That includes Giuliani, Thompson, Paul, McCain, Huckabee, etc.).  He's spent $87.6 million on his campaign, outspending Huckabee more than 10 to 1, yet for all of that, heading into Super Tuesday he had 77 delegates to McCain's 93 and Huckabee's 40.  That is an absolutely scandalous ROI (return on investment) - but the media never mentions the disparity.  Is the presidency for sale?

-For Romney's entire political career, including as governor of Massachusetts, he was pro-choice and pro civil unions - two positions absolutely anathema to religious right voters in the last election - yet now he is cast as the "conservative" alternative to McCain.  This is the most puzzling thing to me.  How on earth can Romney be the conservative alternative?  I guess if the media (and Romney press aides) repeat something enough, it becomes true.

-Tonight, it looks like Romney will carry Massachusetts, his home state where he governed, and Utah (thanks to the Mormon vote).  These impressive wins go alongside his narrow victory in Michigan where his father George was a beloved governor.  Congratulations.

-Huckabee, on a shoestring, is kicking Romney's goldbrickin' @$$ and racking up delegates.  Yet the media still refers to him as a 'factor' instead of a legitimate candidate.

So why?  I think the underlying bias is a class thing.  Huckabee is a populist pastor from Arkansas, a graduate of Quachita Baptist University.  Romney is a Wall Street elite educated at Stanford and Harvard, born into a wealthy family, and racking up billions more while CEO of "Bain Capital" (a firm which specialized in leveraged buyouts as opposed to actually producing something of value).

All that aside, I predicted back in May in this very blog that the nominees would be Romney and Clinton, and I might as well stick by that as long as elitist northeastern media and Rush Limbaugh (not strange bedfellows but elements of the establishment) are inexplicably carrying Romney.

(I also predicted that Rudy would be drummed out VERY early and would then mount an independent run - however, he skipped most of the early contests, thereby lasting way longer than he should have, saving his instant crash for Florida, by which time his national support had also eroded and the viability of a third-party run for him had vanished - however I still think there is potential for a strong independent candidacy - perhaps Bloomberg).

"Alcatraz Reunion" official selection to Buffalo-Niagara Film Festival

Just announced today: Alcatraz Reunion is an official selection for 2nd Annual Buffalo Niagara Film Festival, March 24-29, 2008.   Screening times and festival schedule TBA.

Alcatraz Reunion is a feature documentary and one of twelve films selected as Western New York film nominees for the prize of Best WNY Filmmaker ( winner receives $1,000 cash prize from The Buffalo News).

It looks like a fantastic line-up - features, shorts, docs, foreign entries - over 75.   Buy a festival pass and see some films!  March 24-29, 2008.  Here is link to schedule (coming soon).  See you there.