Since I couldn’t post this yesterday from home, as my home internet connection is down, I’m posting this quick from work.

When any movie is released "straight to video", it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that the movie is garbage. I can’t think of a single movie that was released "straight to video" that I have ever watched. In fact, I can only name one such movie: the fourth American Pie movie. I’m sure it was absolute trash.

While on a recent trip, I was enjoying watching the television show "Arrested Development" on DVD. "Arrested Development" was a critically acclaimed show that for some reason was never able to find an audience on air. It’s a great show, and during it’s two and one half season run, it was probably the best comedy out there. Alas, it’s now off the air.

Is it financially possible for a television series to be released straight to DVD, say ten episodes, promote it like a movie, and make money? Could the show be picked up by a network later? How much does it cost to film ten episodes? Would this open comedies to be more creative? Could low budget homemade series be possible.

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, but I would like to know. I think if the economics were right, we could see a lot of good tv again.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

I know this is a week old story, but I was traveling last weekend to visit my family, specifically my grandmother who I had not seen in a while. All in all, the trip went well, as I was also able to see the rest of my immediate family. One of these days, I will put up a gallery page or open a flickr account, but for now, you’ll just have to imagine my trip.

While I was in my grandmother’s kitchen, I happen to catch Alberto Gonzales on the "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" show. I don’t normally watch the show, because it’s normally a train wreck, and probably the most biased of the soft Sunday news programs. It was luck that I happened to catch it.

On this show, the attorney general of this fine nation uttered the following words, "There are some statutes on the book which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility. We have an obligation to enforce those laws. We have an obligation to ensure that our national security is protected." He was referring to the possbility of the United States government going after journalists for using information gained from government leaks.

What bothered me most, was not that journalists could be prosecuted for breaking the law. I know how important the press is, and I do not think the government has any business regulating it. However, I think reasonable people can agree that journalists still need to follow the law. What did bother me, was the tone. Stephanopoulos repeatedly asked him if his statement meant he was going to go after journalists, but Alberto kept the same mantra. If Alberto has simply said, "Look George, we’re not going out of our way to nail journalists and put them in jail, but hey, if we come across something illegal, we have to deal with it." No, this was basically a threat to the press, a form of intimidation that I’m a little surprised was so brazen.

I’m not a big fan of the press. I find the American press to be lazy, incompetent, and biased. Intimidation like this, can only make the press even worse. As hard as that might sound, if Alberto gets his way, that might just happen.

The USA Today reported today that the United States NSA has been keeping a database of all phone calls made inside the country domestically. The contents of the calls have not been stored, just the phone numbers on either side of the connection. While Bush has "assured" us that the NSA has not been mining data to intrude on the private lives of Americans, that seems like little comfort to me when the NSA answers to just about no one.

I was able to go as far as the NSA wiretap program which professed to only deal with telephone calls where one end of the connection originated outside the country. If terrorists are making calls to anyone in this country, our intelligence agencies should know. However, this latest program, crosses a line that I cannot defend. Under no circumstances should our government be collecting phone logs and trying to determine patterns to "help fight the war on terrorism." It’s smacks too much of "1984", and to give it a more modern spin, "V for Vendetta - The Movie".

Of course, the program is a typical Washington politician program. Don’t think voting Democrat will suddenly give you back your privacy. Don’t forget the mass amounts of wiretaps the Clinton adminstration used to fight the "War on Drugs", or how the Clinton adminstration also used Echelon to spy on citizens. Even beyond the two parties, don’t forget that the United States and England routinely spy on each other and pass along the information to get around most spying laws. No, the solution to programs like this NSA phone database, requires new politicians, not just a new party in power.

Our government is so big and inefficient, all it can think to do, is collect more and more information, run it through Microsoft Excel and read the tea leaves to try and find Bin Laden. Intead of focusing on HUMINT, our government is now obesessed with information collection on the populace of 300 million, to root out a few hundred terrorists that may or may not be in this country.

We need a need new vision, new leadership, and a new generation of people to get involved in government. The current Congress is considering legislation to ban MySpace in libraries, restrict instant messaging, and eliminate "net nutrality. They have no clue how to do anything but form committee upon commitee, and get nothing done.

Why are our ports still not secured? Why are our borders not secured? Why have we spent over six months trying to figure out why Katrina went wrong without a single concrete plan? Why do we still not have adequate screening at airports?

The nasty truth is that our federal government doesn’t know how to do anything right anymore. Whose fault is this? Ours. We’re the ones who vote in these people, and we’re the ones not holding them accountable. Instread of voting for people who will conduct themselves responsibily and admirably in government, we vote for who panders to us the most, who promises the most dollars back in our pocket, and who sounds like, shucks, they really know us.

I’m just tired of being embarassed for this country every time I turn on the television and have to hear Bush fumble through his words, Schumer lie through his teeth, Kennedy speak, and any god bagger Republican from the South go on and on about the evils of gay marriage. I have never registered for a political party, and I never will as long as I live. I’m looking for a credible third party. The time is right, and the country is ready. All it will take is, as Stephen Colbert would say, some balls, America.