Modernizing Movies

TRON debuted back in 1982 with a bit of a lackluster ad campaign. The movie ended up doing poorly but became a significant nerd cult hit with the VHS release (enough to spawn a sequal nearly 30 years later).

However, I would imagine that if you took someone who had never seen or heard of TRON but was interested in action movies and showed them this modern style trailer of it, you could probably get them interested enough to see it.



Now, contrast that with the original trailer from 1982:



Ah, how fickle the viewing public is.

150 Years Ago Today...

Confederate General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard ordered his batteries in Charleston, SC to open fire on Ft. Sumter, formally initiating the Civil War. Major Robert Anderson surrendered the fort the next day.

One of the greatest ironies is that the opening battle of the Civil War ended with the only casulty being a Confederate horse. The first official casualties of the war, Union Privates Daniel Hough and Edward Gallway, were killed when an ammunition dump blew up from a stray spark during a gun salute of the American flag just prior to the Union men leaving the fort.

Go Ahead. Make My Day.

The Arab league, acting at the request of Hamas, is petitioning the UN to impose a "No-Fly" zone over Gaza. Hamas is requesting this as they are currently getting the crap kicked out of them by Israeli air-strikes after they tried to murder children by launching an anti-tank missle at a school bus.

The resolution would almost certainly get vetoed by the US, but there is a part of me that wishes it would pass and then the UN would task the Arab League withe enforcing the "No-Fly" Zone. That would give the Israelis a nice excuse to reduce the Arab air-force to scrap metal, which they would do easily. The Arabs still haven't recovered from the destruction of their air forces in the 1967 Six Day War.

This should generate a proper Magnum Force moment:

Oops... Did I Do That?

A minor political error was noted yesterday in Wisconsin. On Wednesday, liberal candidate for supreme court justice Joanne Kloppenburg declared victory with a 204 vote margin over conservative sitting justice David Prosser. Yesterday, Waukesha County sheepishly announced that a computer error failed to send election results from the city of Brookfield (~14,000 votes). The net effect of this is that Mr. Prosser will pick up over 7,000 votes, vaulting him into the lead.

Naturally, there will be allegations of voter fraud (bags of votes found in the trunks of cars?) but apparently, the paper trail seems legitimate. The primary culprit seems to be an antiquated computer and the head of elections' refusal to update a system she was comfortable with. Bet she updates now.

More Fun in Wisconsin

Yesterday, an election was held for a position on the state Supreme Court. Current Justice David Prosser (conservative) was being challenged by JoAnne Kloppenburg (liberal). As of this writing, Kloppenburg was leading by 336 votes out of 1.5 million cast with all but one precincts reporting. That precinct is in Jefferson County (won by Mr. Prosser) so Ms. Kloppenburg's lead will be reduced by some margin, although it is unlikely to be overcome. Needless to say, this will go to a recount as there are accusations of fraud on both sides. Fortunately, Mr. Prosser's term does not end until the end of July so they will have four full months to play sue and counter sue before this whole thing comes to an end.

Of course, the reason this has grabbed attention is that the Wisconsin Supreme Court is currently split 4-3 conservative-liberal. Nearly everyone expects the justices to vote on party lines regarding the recent law about union dues and bargining. So this is seen as either a way to maintain the law as passed by the legislature and governor or as a means to strike down the law and return to the status quo.