Time for a quarterly check-in with the land of Indie.
Through the last weekend of September 2009, we’re seeing some pretty interesting results for the year to date.
308 specialty films were released into the domestic market. That is, 308 films opened at 1,000 theatrical venues or fewer during their first weekend in the U.S. and Canada.
Only […]

read more from this topic.....

The real question to ask about Shell’s unbelievably crass decision not to allow the sale of poppies at their petrol stations this year is at what level the call as made. Ignore the statement from Shirley Cinco, at Shell’s “Customer Service Centre” in Manchester, that: “Rather than simply giving to worthy causes, Shell prefers to […]

read more from this topic.....

One of the major causes of death in the world is malaria, but the World Health Organization estimates that 20 percent of the one million deaths from malaria are dying because the medicines that they are taking are substandard or outright counterfeits. If you include fake antibiotics and fake drugs used to treat tuberculosis, the […]

read more from this topic.....

In science, there are all sorts of gossip that tweak the infallibility of scientists.
For example, the discovery of the “big bang” was postponed until they cleaned the antennae of Pigeon poop, and found it was the sky, not the poop, causing the hum of  the big bang.
And Penicillin may have been discovered because of carelessness […]

read more from this topic.....

Two governorships have fallen to Republicans, if the headlines have it right.
Yet most of the pundits are saying this is not a sign of disenchantment with the Congress and the President, but only local politics.
I’m not sure I agree. I think it is a sign that the “ordinary” folks are worried, and that they trust […]

read more from this topic.....

“The culture in this country has become so overwhelmingly conformist that any alternative to capitalism is considered outlandish.”
Tariq Ali October 2009
 
Winston Churchill once famously said that “democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” He might have said the same about the primacy […]

read more from this topic.....

The recession has ended.  Or so the administration would have us believe with the announcement that gross domestic product rose 3.5% in the third quarter.  GDP is defined as the sum of consumption, investment, government spending and net exports (exports less imports).  The figures released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) of the Department […]

read more from this topic.....

Would Jesus pack heat?
An easy question you say, since Jesus told his followers to “turn the other cheek”, and this quote is often quoted by those opposing all war or violence of any sort…mainly by those living in safe suburbs and working in tenured academic jobs.
Yet this article states that some pastors in the Detroit […]

read more from this topic.....

You may or may not know that the largest film industry in the world is not Hollywood, but Bollywood: the film industry of India. But do you know which country has the second largest film industry in the world?
Nollywood.
The Nigerian film industry.
According to Wikipedia the industry is a $250 million dollar industry which produces […]

read more from this topic.....

Ah, how quickly the grandchildren grow up. The grandsons have changed from computer game freaks to college geeks, and the granddaughters are now budding teenagers, on the threshold of being a woman.
In the past, the “Themes” for birthday parties were various Disney princesses; now little girls are starting to grow up, so the Theme of […]

read more from this topic.....

When last Zimbabwe was in the news, people were dying of cholera, there was a huge inflation rate that made the local dollar worthless, and the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC party, along with an MDC offshoot, had agreed to make a unity government with the President Mugabe.
But although the verbal agreement was that Tsvangirai’s […]

read more from this topic.....

Ah, a British paper just pooh poohed the British victory at the Battle of Agincourt, saying that Prince Hal was not outnumbered 4 to 1, merely outnumbered 2 to 1.
Actually, the author misses the point, which is that the elite knights of France got slowed down by the mud and were massacred by ordinary British […]

read more from this topic.....

The headline reads: Save the Planet: Eat a Dog.
No, it’s not an anti Filipino satire about poor rural people in the provinces who eat dogs. It’s actually a post in a New Zealand paper that reports on the “carbon footprint” of Fido, Kitty and other meat eating pets.
Victoria University professors Brenda and Robert Vale, architects […]

read more from this topic.....

President Obama was brought up in Asia, yet he seems clueless about Afghanistan, and of the geopolitical problems in this area.
The press is even worse, preferring the simplistic out of date explanations of the “Afghanistan is Viet Nam” meme, or the “Stop the war” meme, or stressing civilian casualties “reported” by Taliban linked sources without […]

read more from this topic.....

In this recession, lots of specific problems crop up that we moan and groan about.  But habitual whiners and complainers want us to wallow in their negativity even in the best of times.  In her article in the Financial Times, “Office moaners are something to groan about,” Emma Jacobs points out that habitual complainers can […]

read more from this topic.....

Juxtaposed on the front page of The Wall Street Journal on Saturday were two stories that tell opposite sides of the lingering economic crises.  One article discussed the slight uptick in global trade as an indicator of the economic recovery to come.  The total interchange of good and services between countries fell more sharply in […]

read more from this topic.....

One of the more bizarre headlines in the news is a report that two people died in a “sweat lodge” and quite a few more people who were there required hospital treatment.
Any physician hearing of this will suspect the deaths were from one of two causes: One carbon monoxide (which reportedly has been ruled out) […]

read more from this topic.....

With all of the political haggling over the payday lending industry and whether or not the payday loan is a legitimate credit option, it is certainly an interesting twist to find that some of the top banks in the nation are entering the fray by offering similar loan products to their checking account holding customers. […]

read more from this topic.....

Vancouver Police have decided not to fund raise for United Way this year.
Canadians Opposing Political Psychiatry learned of this decision after writing to the Vancouver Police Board on Sept. 22/09 requesting that they put an end to Vancouver Police fundraising for United Way.  Initially, COPP received an email from Rachelle Radiuk, Executive Director of the […]

read more from this topic.....

I was delighted to hear that Mother Angelica and Deacon Bill Steltemeier have been awarded a medal by the Vatican. She deserves it. Mother Angelica is the founder of EWTN, a Catholic network that is found on many cable systems all over the world.
On the surface it sounds like a proper award.

But her story […]

read more from this topic.....

Hippocrates (or the Pythagoran writer of the oath) was well aware that patients or their caretakers frequently “fall in love” with their physicians  and openly express the desire for an affair. But experience shows that often patients/caretakers are psychologically vulnerable, and later regret their actions. That is why the Hippocratic oath expressly forbids physicians from […]

read more from this topic.....

Vancouver Police Board members Gregor Robertson, Vancouver’s mayor, and Terry La Liberte, a criminal lawyer, have been asked to put a stop to the Vancouver Police Department’s in-house fundraising for United Way.  
Canadians Opposing Political Psychiatry made the request in writing on Sept. 22, based on documented evidence supporting allegations that United Way benefited from […]

read more from this topic.....

Using a slight of hand and having his propaganda mill obscure what has been done, the Democrats and the Obama administration are planning to fund abortion in their health care bill.
The original “compromise” on abortion was a slight of hand that would force people to pay for abortion coverage themselves, similar to the way you […]

read more from this topic.....

Rep. Dexter, I had a high school math teacher who would occasionally tell a student he was being “stupid”, but he was always quick to remind us that the word actually means ‘intellectually lazy” and merely represented a temporary state of being.
I really hope your position on payday loans is just because you are stupid, […]

read more from this topic.....

The over-hyped story of a new “HIV Vaccine” cause a lot of people working in public health to worry.
Every time these stories come out, there are laypeople who think: well, there will be a vaccine so I don’t have to change my behavior”, and voila, case numbers spike.
That is why the Department of Health here […]

read more from this topic.....

 
When in 2002 the Benetton Formula One team morphed into Renault it was clear that what the French car giant was seeking to do was to secure brand value from the move, in return, of course, for funding. Constructors’ and Drivers’ championships in 2005 and 2006 will undoubtedly have given the brand a major boost […]

read more from this topic.....

When will Andrew Left of Citron Research get it? If he wants to criticize a company, then he should do so legitimately. His latest screed, packed with even more manure than his previous 3-part smear on World Acceptance Corp, has proven to this writer that he is deliberately spreading false information with […]

read more from this topic.....

Ah, the yearly collection for the Catholic campaign for human development is going on, and Catholics are once again asked to put their money into a fund that is essentially run by the left of center ideologues at the Catholic Bishop’s Conference.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Well,  for one thing, few people know where the money […]

read more from this topic.....

So President Obama is scrapping the Bush “Missile Defense program” that was planned to protect Europe from Iran.
Yes, I know. There is some question if the missile defense was any good against the actual threat, and all it seemed to do is irritate Russia. And it’s not like the program would merely be scrapped: there […]

read more from this topic.....

Vancouver: I stopped by the Farmers Market on the lawn of Pacific Central Station, a magnet for people making an effort to follow the Hundred Mile Diet. I bought an organic Macintosh apple to snack on as I walked home.  It was $1.09, an expensive apple it seemed to me.  I bit into it, expecting […]

read more from this topic.....