American Idol – The winner is???

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you will know that I do watch American Idol with my dear wife.  I watch the show as one way to spend time with my wife and to enjoy the theater of Simon Cowell. 

Any way, we are now down to the final five contestants, so I thought it would be a good time to weigh in on who I think will earn the crown of champion for Season Seven.  So here is how I have they are ranked: 

1. David Cook
2. David Archuleta
3. Syesha Mercado
4. Brooke White
5. Jason Castro

 The winner is David Cook.  David is the complete package.  With that said, Cook is one of the few contestants I look forward too seeing perform each week.  However as the last few weeks have demonstrated, nothing on this show is a given and the winner could very well be another David that is in the stable.  As Simon has said in the past which I paraphrase, “this is not a talent competition, but a popularity contest.”  How true this is…

Battlestar Galatica – The rise of the machines

Wow!  What an incredible start to the fourth and final season of Battlestar Galactica.  So far we have seen a Civil War erupt among the Cylons, a secret mission to find Earth, the death of a beloved crew member, a new representative on the Quorum of Twelve, the emergence of a Messiah, the foundations of totalitarian rule, and the ongoing question of who is the final Cylon.

Can you believe all this has occurred in the first three episodes?  What a ride this season has been so far and we haven’t even hit third gear yet!  One of the striking storylines that has gripped me is the maturation of the Cylon race.  Over the last few seasons we have watched as the cyborg Cylons mature into spiritual, sentient beings that recognize that there is a higher being who is directing the destiny of all living things…a la a single God.  What a remarkable evolution of a man-made species.

What is more striking is development of prejudice that the Cavil model has toward the Centurions and Raiders of the Cylon Empire.  To paraphrase, “They are not pets, but machines are made to be reprogrammed.”  Isn’t that the stance the humans took when they created the Cylons?  Look what happen when they were wrong – a revolution occurred.  Summitry is a wonderful thing. 

So what makes the Cylons better than their human creators?  What are the true reasons behind the war?  Could the real reason to destroy the humans have more to do with race and religion than anything else?  I think there is more truth here than meets the eye.  If Cavil is prejudice toward his own kind, what is stopping him or any other models from having the same feeling toward the humans? Throw in the difference in religious beliefs; you makings of old fashion religious war similar to wars that rage between the Christian Crusaders and Muslims of the Middle Ages on Earth.

 Since end of the third season, we have developed a better picture of majority of the Cylon modes:

1. Cavil
2. Leoben
3. D’anna (boxed)
4. Simon
5. Doral
6. Caprica (all destroyed?)
7. ???
8. Sharon (all destroyed minus Boomer & Athena?)
9. Chief Tyrol
10. Saul Tigh
11. Tory
12. Sam Anders

 The question that will not be satisfied quick enough this season is who is the twelfth model?  We know from interviews that Ronald Moore gave earlier this year that Bill and Apollo Adama, President, and possibly Starbuck were not the final Cylon.  So, who could it be?  I don’t have any proof only a gut feeling, but my money is on Tom Zarek the former revolutionary/terrorist and now Vice President of the Colonies.  What a great choose he would be.  A Cylon in place as a deep mole ready to grab the reins of power from the Humans when they are the cusps of finding Earth…how Shakespearian this would be. 

The rise in food prices – where will it end?

One of the themes from this year’s Earth Day is to continue encouragement of world governments to develop alternative fuels.  One of the avenues the United States government and several western nations have chosen for alternative fuels is biofuels.  Biofuels are “solid, liquid, or gas fuel consisting of, or derived from recently dead biological material, most commonly plants.”  Two of the most common ingredients of biofuels in this country are either sugar cane or corn/soybeans that produce ethanol.

With the acceleration of the demand for oil and price, Congress has mandated an increase in biofuels production.  This mandate has now turned our farmlands into instant gold mines for the struggling farmer.  However, every action has a reaction.  In this case, biofuels have taken a product from one market and moved it another, meaning corn that is normally grown for the world food market is now ending up in biofuels.  This change is causing worldwide food prices to increase due to limited supply and higher demand.  One particular food that is experiencing this rapid rise in price and demand is rice, which is a dietary stable in many of third world households.  Over the last few months the price for rise has increased 68% worldwide. 

Time to wake up America, the rapid rise in price of rice has now hit our beloved shelves.  Costco and Sam’s Club have announced a cap on the quantities of rice their customers can purchase at a given time.  For example, Sam’s Club is limited their customers to four 20-pound bags of rice per purchase.  This limitation is only targeted at imported jasmine, basmati and long-grain white rice. 

Rice is not the only food commodity that is under pressure.  There are other examples in last few months, for instance the shortage of hops which is causing the price of beer to increase, to bread shortages in Egypt to name a few.   So what does this mean? 

With our quest to protect the environment and move away for our dependence on oil/gas, I wonder as a society if we have thought through the ramifications of this decision?  Are we cutting off our nose to despite our face?  Is the environment more important than the human race?  All good questions… I guess our actions could be viewed as a form of Darwinism.  The more fortunate countries like the US, Canada, and the EU who can feed their people and absorb the increased food prices will prevail while financially challenged countries of the Third World will just stave to death and become shells of their former self. 

I guess that’s one way to help the environment and lower the human population all in one move.  I just didn’t think we would go to this extreme!  Let’s hope we wake up from this fog before it is too late.

 

 

 

 

Deadliest Catch – Season Four

Spring is in the air.  The trees are beginning to bud, the flowers are in bloom, and of course the men of men are busting their hump on the cold waters of the Barring Sea as they stake their claim on Alaskan Gold – King Crab!  If you haven’t heard, the fourth season of the Deadliest Catch is upon us.

The fourth season opens a bit more precarious than expected.  As the Wizard treks north from her home port of Seattle to Dutch Harbor, Alaska, she is ambushed by a rouge wave that cuts a small incision around one of the welds on the side of the ship.  You guessed it; she starts to take on water which is every fisherman’s worst nightmare at sea, especially in these cold waters.  Lucky for the crew, they made it safely into Dutch Harbor for temporary repairs.  So is this leak an omen of what will come for Wizard this crab season?  Let’s hope not.

If I had to label Season 4, I would say it is the season of family.  We start off with Capt. Sig Hansen hoisted his family’s crest on the bridge of the Northwestern to honor his brothers who work on the boat.  Then we have Capt. Phil Harris who has his two sons working the Cornelia Marie.  Now we have a new family member, Capt. Jonathan Hillstrand’s son Scott has now joined the crew.  Can Scott live up to the Hillstrand tradition and become a crab fisherman?  Time will only tell.

Like each season before this one, all the captains of the Fleet gather at the local water hole in Dutch Harbor, the Latitudes to discuss the upcoming crab season and the all important  “captain’s wager.”  This year’s wager is a bit of whopper – it is a weekly bet on who has the best string of pots.  The catch is that the captain must call the string before it hits the water.  The captain who has won the most strings at the end of the King Crab season is the winner.  So, which of the captains will win this year’s prize Sig, Jonathan, Phil, Keith, or Sten? 

So, what makes a crab season so interesting?  The rough work these men of men do, the danger that lurks around each crashing wave, the weather, or the captain’s wrath?  No, it’s the greenhorns.  This season has it plethora of greenhorns.  Here how it breaks down -the Northwestern has one, the Time Bandit has one, and the Wizard has two what about the fourth ship?.  Even before the boats shove off to the crab grounds, these greenhorns were already making their presence felt…and not in a good way.

So far we have seen the Wizard in distress, a new band of greenhorns, a family member following his destiny, the Northwestern starting several hours behind the fleet due to a propeller shaft replacement at Dutch Harbor, a new “captain’s wager” and of course Capt. Phil’s Jake pissing off his old man with another abuse of his father’s credit card.  Wow, what else will Season 4 have in store for us?  I am not sure, but I can’t wait!!!  See you all next week!

Adding up the Pork

One the items that have been preached by all the contenders during this Presidential race is the need for fiscal spending on the Federal level.  This fiscal responsibility is more important now than ever before since the United States will continue to fight two wars while dealing a waning economy.

So, which one of the Presidential contenders has a track record of being fiscal conservative?  The answer is Senator John McCain.

Per the latest Congressional Pig Book from the watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste (this group tracks “pork-barrel” spending by congressional members); found Senator John McCain as the winner.

Senator McCain did not sponsor any “pork-barrel” projects for Arizona over the last few years.  However Sen. Barrack Obama sponsored 53 “pork-barrel” projects totaling $97.4 million in spending.  Sen. Hillary Clinton was even worst.  She sponsored 281 projects totaling $296.2 million. 

So you tell me, who would you like holding writing the Federal Budget over the next four years?  The numbers speak for themselves.