The Second Seven

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Started off with Plague of Zombies from 1966. Hammer Films but none of the Hammer notables. Not a distinguishing face in the bunch. But NOT a bad effort. Costumer. Zombies. The evils of colonialism. Anti-fox hunting. All MANNER of things. But I gave it a 4.9.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife. A cute film. A tribute film to Harold Ramis and a fitting one at that. Lot’s of Easter eggs. Hits all the right notes. 6.7. Not necissarily a great “Halloween” movie, but fun if you have kids of the right age who have seen the original.

The Exorcist. Timeless. And solid. GF doesn’t like it so I watch it alone, which is how I FIRST saw it, in a mobile home outside of Ada Ohio in the middle of a thunderstorm on a tiny maybe 14″ portable tv half a dozen years after it came out. Was a 9.8 but I reranked it this year. Held solid, right between The Green Mile and The Alamo!

Ju-on: The Curse. Nope. Still not a fan of Asian horror (with a few exceptions.) Not gonna tell you what I ranked it. Just don’t waste your time.

1999’s The Haunting. Will watch the ’63 version next week. ’99 works better on a big screen but it’s still solid with a GREAT cast playing interesting rolls – even Luke Willson who I don’t normally appreciate. 9.2

Stardust. Because … witches. Claire Danes has fun. Sienna Miller is unlikable. Kate McGowan is solid. And “Michelle Pfieffer that white gold.” Throw in appearances by David Kelly, Ben Barnes, Henry Cavill, Peter O’toole, Rupert Everett, Ricky Gervais and Robert DiNiro’s best part since Taxi Driver! Not really “seasonal” but at 9.6 why say no?

Peter O’Toole makes another appearance in our final movie of the week which is also our last “previously unseen.” High Spirits. Another solid cast. A fun movie. 5.0. Ends like it should. But next year – no comedy movies made after 1958!

In the “also watched” department I’d recommend “No One Will Save You.” Brings together SO many good elements from SO many good movies. And does it well. 9.6

HS football in Ohio winding down

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At least the regular season is. The Roughriders have clinched a home game and will beat the Fairbanks Panthers this week by as much as they want to. The Rangers again have not beaten a team with a winning record and have beaten two 0-fers. The last two weeks of the season will tell. They play Bloom Carrol tomorrow night. They have four opponents in common to date: AC (BC +1), LU (HT +1), FU (BC +18) and TV (BC +1). BC by 5.

Buckeyes 33, Boilers 13. Top 4: tsun, tOSU, Oklahoma, Penn State. Bama has a loss and Georgia’s schedule is STILL week and Vandy won’t make it any better. Big ? East is da bomb. Let’s just hope they don’t form a circular firing squad.

NFL is still Chiefs, Bills, Niners, Eagles. Saints are middle of the pack with the easiest schedule in the league so far. Much as I’m cheering for CJ Stroud though I’m gonna hafta go 20-18, Saints this week

Ghosts and witches and haunted houses

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Week 1 of the Halloween movies list. We opened with Season of the With from 1972, an early George Romero feature. Filmed in Pittsburgh of course. Neglected middle-class wives turn to witchcraft for satisfaction. AKA Jack’s Wife and Hungry Wives. We’ll give it a 5.5 but can’t recommend it for Halloween vieweing.

Next up was the Polish effort Mother Joan of the Angels. 1961. Dealing with a 16th Century possession of a nun. Good but not great. gave it a 3.3. Again, cannot recommend for Halloween viewing. And that’s what happens with so many of my “not previously seen” movies.

Next up was the more traditional Dracula AD 1972. Cushing and Lee on Carnaby Street. And anything with Caroline Munro is watchable. Surprises with a 6.4 rating. Watchable in the background but nobody was proud of this.

2016 brought us Under the Shadow, set amidst the Iran/Iraq war. Good but not great. 3.2

1973 gives us Don’t be Afraid of the Dark with Kim (True Grit) Darby, Jim (Nero Wolfe) Hutton and William (My Three Sons) Demorest. 6.5 Watchable but formulaic. Nothing special to recommend it.

A Taste of Fear aka Scream of Fear also from 1961. More thriller than horror with a very satisfying twist at the end. Susan Strasberg give it her all. 8.5 and recommended.

Jumped ahead a little bit to 1979 with Ridley Scott’s Alien. I’ve strenuously omitted most sci-fi from this list for years but decided to bend a little. Kim loves it and it IS good. Nice to revisit after a while. DID rerank it and moved it from a 9.3 to a 9.8

For giggles we watched the lat of the Francis the Talking Mule movies- Haunted House. Paul Fries spells Chill Wills and Mickey Rooney replaces Donald O’Connor but it’s still a fun romp. 6.6

The best time of year for football!

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Who am I kidding? ANY time of year is the best time for football.

Roughriders outlasted the Tigers last week 62-47. The SHORTEST TD was 25 yards. WJ is averaging 400+ yards a game and 300 of it is passing. I’m a little concerned about our defense though. The next two opponents have won 3 games total. We’ve clinched a playoff spot and will likely clinch a home game this weekend. If it started today we’d be playing the hapless 3-4 Shanendoah Zeps, followed by the more respectable 4-2 Trimble Tomcats. We’ve never played EITHER of those two! Trimble had a quality win over Nelsonvile-York in the season opener so they deserve the slot but I don’t think they’re a match. If form hols it’d be 5-2 Galion Northmor next. Quality win last week over East Knox but sporadic defense. Also undefeated Garaway will present a STRONG challenge with a SOLID defense.

HTHS’ current likely opponent would be Beechcroft. They’ve won 4 games against teams who have combined for 5 wins. Next round would be on the road against the Jackson Ironmen. Might be the end of the road. And THOSE prediction don’t take into account week 9 vs BC and week 10 vs Logan Elm (currently combined 12-2!)

Buckeyes get Maryland this week but most eyes will be on Texas v Oklahoma. Buckeyes 27-10. And I’m thinking Texas by a point at the Fairgrounds. My top 4? Buckeyes. Michigan (barely.) Penn State. And Texas. PSU won’t last. ‘Bama will get another shot at the Longhorns and OSU/tsun will get a rematch.

My Saints are in the bottom third right now but if the can eke out a win over the stumbling Pats it’ll brighten my day.

Film at 11!

Still following the science

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A SMALL STUDY, BUT TROUBLING: mRNA vaccines weaken immune response in children. Given that kids almost never get very sick from Covid, though, this seems another reason not to vaccinate them.

JOHN TIERNEY: No Masks, Please, We’re Rational.

WHY, WHOEVER SUSPECTED? (NEWS YOU WON’T SEE IN THE MSM):  FDA, CDC Hid Data on Spike in COVID Cases

WHY IS U.S. DEATH RATE DUE TO ALL CAUSES WAY UP? While the advance precincts of the Progressive Elite are pushing for new Coronavirus vaccines and renewed mask mandates, Edward Ring points to a datapoint that ought to get all of us asking what the devil is going on

AND THERE IS MY SHOCKED FACE, AGAIN:  Boosted People More Likely Than Unvaccinated to Be Infected:

Concerning Covid: If the question is whether I should get vaccinated in order to protect myself, the main issue is effectiveness against hospitalization or death. If the issue is whether I should get vaccinated to protect other people, the main issue is by how much getting vaccinated reduces the chance I will get infected and infect others.

WELL: Whistleblower: The CIA’s Initial Determination of the Origins of Covid Was That It Had Escaped from a Chinese Lab, But They Offered Their Experts a Big Cash Reward to Change Their Report.

STUDY: The Harm Caused by Masks.

THE UNVACCINATED WERE FOUND TO HAVE SLIGHTLY LOWER RISK:  Vaccination Offers ‘No Meaningful Protection’ Against Long COVID: Study.

House select subcommittee says Dr. Fauci secretly visited the CIA to “influence” the agency’s report on the “origins of COVID-19″

OH REALLY? The risks of getting “long COVID” have been “exaggerated by flawed research,” study finds

CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY. LITERALLY:  Scientists ‘shocked’ and ‘alarmed’ at what’s in the mRNA shots.

WHAT LOST CREDIBILITY LOOKS LIKE: Fewer than half of U.S. adults say they’re likely to get new COVID-19 vaccine.

WATCH: Elon woke up today and chose violence, this time targeted at Big Pharma

The continuing climate of fear

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OLD AND BUSTED: The 1619 Project.

‘The new hotness? The 1609 Project! Why 1609 Scientists Declared “There Is No Climate Crisis.” Follow the science!! …

AND TAKE NOTES WHERE IT GOES: The Band of Debunkers Busting Bad Scientists.

lengthy but appropriate:

To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, “General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century,” first published in French 1851; translated by John Beverly Robinson (1923), pp. 293-294.

I’ve found my candidate for ’24: My Presidential Platform

Goodhart’s law is an adage often stated as, “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”. Application in the real world? LEARNING ISN’T WHAT REALLY MATTERS: How districts are gaming graduation rates by letting students cheat

Journolism:

in other news: The Death of Late Night as We Once Knew It Seems Imminent.

Finally Fall

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and I’ve post NOTHING about football. But now that the Saints have lost we can get underway.

Roughriders are off to a 6-0 start. First two opponents are 5-1. Next week’s is 6-0. It’ll be for the league title and go a long way to determining playoff seeding. We’re currently #1 and likely to stay there but the WLS Tigers are ALWAYS tough. We have three common opponents to day. We matched the margin of victory over one, beat another by 7 more and the third we beat in OT while WLS beat them by over 3 TDs. We were without about a third of our team due to “COVID-like symtoms,” so there’s that. The game’s at Kile Field and I’m thinking whoever wins it it’ll be ❤ points.

The Polar Bears are 1-3 and the less said about that the better.

The Big Boys? Alabama is VERY good but has a blemish. Buckeyes are next. Georgia is good but hasn’t really played anybody yet. Oklahoma, Penn State and Texas join OSU in my top 4. Sooners go to Texas 10/7 and PSU comes to Columbus 10/21. Home teams both win. Not sure who moves up. Too much football to be played.

NFL? Niners and Eagles. Chiefs and Dolphins.

What’s the Climate Frequency Kenneth?

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“Climate emergency” in one chart

‘Climate Change’ High Priest John Kerry Declares Virtual War on ‘Deniers,’ Calls Them ‘Inexorable Threat.’ Inexorable means “impossible to persuade.” So maybe he should quit.

Climate scientist: Yes, I cooked my Nature article on global warming — and here’s why.

Then people wonder why the public doesn’t trust the institutions whose members brag about manipulating things.

The Elites Directing The Energy Transition Really Have No Idea What They Are Doing

Short but sweet.

Just Business as Usual

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  1. JEFFREY CARTER: “I think to this day the card-carrying elites and the Deep State along with Democrats who aren’t card-carrying elites have nary a clue why Trump came to power.” “Watch the actions of people around the actions of January 6th compared to the riots in 2020. Watch the way you are treated under the law compared to Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul, or Hunter Biden, or Hillary Clinton. When Congresspeople make millions in stock trading and you can’t, how do you think people feel? When Eric Sawell can sleep with a Chinese spy and still command respect and his positions of power within the Democratic Party, what do you think people feel? When people like Mitt Romney are elected using one platform and then act on another, how do you think voters feel?”
  2. VICTOR SHOKIN DEMANDED BIDEN PROBE IN 2020: You didn’t hear about it because the Mainstream Media was busy protecting and promoting the Biden presidential campaign. But, as The Lid reports, “the former Ukrainian Prosecutor General filed a complaint with Ukraine’s National Bureau of Investigation demanding an investigation of then VP Joe Biden for ‘illegal influence on him as the prosecutor general of Ukraine.’” According to an English translation of the Shokin complaint, he attributed his dismissal to Biden’s demand
  3. Trump was not only allowed to dispute an election he felt was fraudulent, but as president was constitutionally obligated to do so; that is the opposite of criminal – In fact, he is one of the only public officials willing to uphold the oath he swore
  4. THIS OUGHT BE PAID FROM THE COUNTY ELECTION OFFICIALS’ POCKETS, NOT THE TAXPAYERS, POCKETS:  Judge Orders Michigan County to Pay $10,000 to Election Integrity Group Over FOIA Practices.