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The Cross-Examination of President Obama

May 17, 2009 in Economics/Fiscal, Humor, Limited Government, Movies, Obama, Social/Domestic, Uncategorized by wwilberforce | 1 comment

For those in or out of the law, one of the best and most funny courtroom cross-examination scenes is in the movie My Cousin Vinny.  Linked here (the section begins at about 8:00 minutes), Vinny, played by Joe Pesci, is defending two young guys mistaken for suspects in an armed robbery at a convenience store.  He cross-examines a guy who identified the two boys as suspects based on the time it took him to cook grits on his stove.

Cross-examination is great, because it tests out a story and helps to uncover the truth.  When someone speaks, it can sound great; but it may be full of holes when another comes forward to question him. (Prov. 18:17).

In this cross-examination, Vinny suggests that maybe two other boys did the robbery, ones who came in the store afterward.  The witness, Mr. Tipton, says that Vinny’s idea is wrong.  Mr. Tipton says that he saw them enter when he began cooking his grits and heard the shots when he sat down to eat, a time of about 5 minutes.

Vinny then reminds Mr. Tipton that cooking grits from scratch, which follows the laws of physics, takes the rest of the world 20 minutes.  How could it only take 5 minutes for Mr. Tipton?  Vinny then goes into a series of questions.  “Can water can soak into a grit [a piece of ground corn] faster” in his kitchen “than in any other place on the face of the earth?”  Tipton responds very flustered, ‘I don’t know….I’m a fast cook, I guess.”  Vinny continues, asking whether the “laws of physics cease to exist on your stove?”  “Where these magic grits?”  “Did you buy them from the same guy that sold Jack his beanstalk beans?”, a reference to the Jack and the Beanstalk fairy tale.

In thinking of this it reminded me of one of my earlier posts and the need to emphasize the craziness of our President’s economic plans.  Our President really should be cross-examined on how he expects increasing debt to make us economically prosperous.  Here’s my cross-examination script, which because of the lunacy of our economic plan, ends up looking pretty close to the lines from My Cousin Vinny.

William (calmly):  Is it possible that there is another way to get us out of this recession other than by spending money we don’t have and redistributing money from businesses and people who have it to those who don’t?

President Obama (confidently):  No. I believe that buy printing money and giving people money, our economy will improve.

William: (calmly)  So you mean to tell me that not having money to spend affects you differently when the entire money spending world can’t spend what it doesn’t have? How can you make debt go away by spending more money?

President Obama (flustered):  I don’t know; I’m a great leader, I guess.

William (a bit more intense and louder) :  I’m sorry, I was all the way over here and I couldn’t hear you; did you say that you’re a great leader?  That’s it?!

Obama (nods sheepishly): <silent>

William (incredulously): Are we to believe that the money in your national checkbook multiplies to pay debts in a way different from any other place on the face of the earth?!

President Obama (flustered):  I don’t know.

William (incredulously):  Well perhaps the laws of economics cease to exist in your administration?!

President Obama: <silent>

William (incredulously): Are these magic dollars?! Did you get these bailout dollars from the same person who sold Jack his beanstalk beans?!

President Obama: <silent>

And as the judge attempts to protect Mr. Tipton, the media in reality swoop in and protect the President from any further criticism. But the answer he eventually must give is “I’m not sure.”

We can go beyond that, and give a resounding “No.”  The entire depository of world history can testify that money doesn’t spring from debt.  Debt must be paid away; it cannot be spent away.  And that’s the final analysis on the upside-down economic plan that this country has had pressed upon it.  The basics of economics are that you can’t spend yourself out of debt; printing money causes inflation because it devalues the dollar.   Rewarding companies for poor performance by bailing them out does not force them to change their ways.  Debt must be reconciled with the people who made it, not pushed off to another generation.  And when government interferes in the economy rather than being a referee, bad things result.

The laws of physics didn’t fail on Mr. Tipton’s stove; he was simply wrong.  And the laws of economics don’t change because Barack Obama is at the helm of our ship of state; he is simply wrong.  Let’s call it for what it is and begin to operate on truth.

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I’d Rather Watch Patton than the Oscars…What are your Five Favorite Movies?

February 24, 2009 in Conservatives, Education, Film, Humor, Movies by gpgs | 11 comments

Note that the starstruck  Bill O’Reilly, perhaps recovering from his interview with Obama,  listed his top five films of all time on the eve of the eve of the Academy Awards:

#5 Casablanca (time honored but who watches the dvd?)

#4 Platoon the ulimate liberal war movie introducing Charlie Sheen (forget Patton, The Longest Day, Full Metal Jacket or even 300 for the purist)

#3 Midnight Cowboy (New York unmasked? Just buy the soundtrack.)

#2 Schindler’s List (had to made but immediately forgotten by Hollywood liberals)

#1 Godfather, 2 (a family film, but I prefer current news from Chicago)

While watching Patton instead of the academy awards, I came up with my own list.

This is  my list of the five films, which as a father, I would take my sons to see if I could only choose five:

#5  It’s a Wonderful Life

#4 Glory

#3 Patton

#2 Life Is Beautiful

#1 The Passion

Do you have five?

gentleMEN are BACK (in Movies)

February 20, 2009 in Feminism, Film, Gentlemen, Humor, Men, Movies, Uncategorized by JeffG | 4 comments

Go see the movie Taken. Go see it twice. Then go see it again. Then go see it AGAIN. Seriously, it rocks. When some slummies steal Liam Neeson’s daughter, he doesn’t cry like an sissy boy. Oh no. He straps up his boots, takes names, and finishes the game. He’s not perfect. He tries his best. But he loves his daughter, and HE WON’T BE STOPPED.  In the 90’s Ben Affleck would have gone and seen a counselor to forget about her, and the daughter, played by Sandra Bullock would have unrealistically punched a drug czar in the face and saved herself (though she’d need to be a Delta Force to actually have that happen). Not now. Nope. THE HERO IS BACK. But he’s not alone. Think about it: the new Bond, The Dark Knight, Slumdog Millionaire, Mall Cop (yes even Mall Cop), and Gran Torino (which is the mother of all of them). 

I don’t know what happened in Hollywood, unless someone up there is conservative (or someone FINALLY wants to finally make money), but there are men again in movies.

Believe it or not, I am more picky about movies than I am politics (well, just as picky), and I boycott ruthlessly if there is a liberal stink within 100 miles of the movie theater. Not lately. All the movies above I saw, rocked. I truly think Christopher Nolan took Batman and made it what it never was, but always should be. I bought that movie and watched it twice in a day. He even made Heath Ledger play a straight character, and play it well (God rest his soul).

There’s something else as important coming out of Hollywood: an adequate description of men. I’ll explain. 

Ladies, you ever said this before: “well he’s really nice, but I see him as a friend.” Now, ever found yourself attracted to the masculine jerk, but you won’t date him because he is a jerk (or you made the unfortunate choice to date him)? Yes? Here’s why.

The nice waifish guy is “gentle.” The masculine jerk is  a “man.” What you want is a COMBINATION. A GENTLEMAN. 

The feminists destroyed the Gentleman. They destroyed him because they told all the potential gentlemen: be nice and waifish and girls will like you (no, they’ll just want to be your friends). The nice guys said “ok,” and the jerks said “whatever I’ll do my own thing” (and date everyone and use them). 

BUT HE’S BACK! You can’t hold him down forever, and when a movie speaks a truth, you often have a hit. Enter 2009 movies. The biggest hits happen to have a strong male lead that is self sacrificing. What a surprise! People like to see a good guy, not a waif who lets his girlfriend punch out the jerk (although I am still waiting for a guy to kiss the girl first, that ceased sometime in the mid-90’s altogether).

Once again, we are paralleling the late 70’s, as we saw a reemergence of freaking awesome good guys (think Star Wars, Dirty Harry, and Rocky). Now if we could just get a few in politics!  As for movies,

Welcome back HERO.