How did I miss this anniversary yesterday given the fact that I saw the first Back to the Future movie 20 times …. in the theatre… in 1985?

It was on Saturday, November 5, 1955, Dr. Emmett Brown fell off of his toilet, struck his head, and had a vision of the flux capacitor — the invention that made time travel possible.

He would then incorporate that technology into a DeLorean and create a time machine that had its first trip on October 26, 1985.

While checking out various links on this important movie date, I was shocked to learn something I never knew before. President Ronald Reagan was offered, and declined, to play the mayor of fictional Hill Valley, California (circa 1885) in Back to the Future, Part III. I so wish he would have said yes! That would have been fantastic.

Some great lines from the first Back to the Future movie that I love:
“When this baby hits 88 miles per hour…. you’re gonna see some serious shit.”
“Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”
“You are my density….I mean my destiny.”
“Now make like a tree, and get out of here.”

Marty: “This is heavy, Doc.”
Doc: “Gravity has nothing to do with it!”

”Last night, Darth Vader came down from planet Vulcan and he told me that if I didn’t take Lorraine out, that he’d melt my brain.”

Marty: “Bullet proof vest, how did you know? I never got a chance to tell you. What about all that talk about screwing up future events, the space time continuum?”
Doc: “Well, I figured, what the hell.”

Happy 50th Anniversary to Doc Brown’s invention! November 5, 1955 — “a red letter day in the history of science!”

-Bruce (GayPatriot…. and major BTTF fan)

PS – I’m soooo pissed I didn’t know about this event. I probably would have figured out a way to go!

Oh l’horreur!

So far more than 800 people have been arrested and 3,500 vehicles torched, mainly in the working-class, high-immigration [GP translation – Muslim-populated] outer suburbs of Paris where unemployment is as high as 20 percent.

And just in case you didn’t think this was a planned tactic by Al-Qaeda…a bomb factory was found.

Meanwhile six youths, all aged under 18, were last night arrested in a raid on a building in Evry, south of Paris, during which more than 100 bottles, gallons of fuel and hoods for hiding rioters’ faces were also found.

Yet President “Neville” Chirac says “respect for all, justice and equal opportunity,” were needed to end the unrest, despite stating that it was an “absolute priority” to re-establish order. That rings as hollow as John Kerry saying if elected, he would “hunt down the terrorists,” in a tone of voice as if they were some abstract piece of art Teresa had purchased for him.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

I have tried to lift France out of the mud. But she will return to her errors and vomitings. I cannot prevent the French from being French. — Charles de Gaulle

Or prevent Muslim extremists from being Muslim extremists.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

If you said the main road to Baghdad Airport… you used to be correct. I’d like to see this report on the CBSNBCABC Evening News!

The Road To Victory – Mudville Gazette

For 2 1/2 years, the road was, in many ways, a symbol of the U.S. failure to secure Iraq. Military convoys roared past in a frantic attempt to escape the looming dangers of suicide bombers, grenades, rockets and booby-trapped litter. But insurgents’ relentless attacks claimed a steady toll.

Then, two months ago, the killings stopped. In October, one person was wounded on the road and no one was killed, according to the U.S. Army, which also calculated the April deaths. The turnaround was owed to simple, boots-on-the-ground military tactics, Army officials said.

And this is how. Many factors contributed to that success – but the one that can’t be overemphasized is the presence of trained Iraqi troops on the street.

The Iraqi soldiers, with a handful of U.S. troops by their side, walked the dusty dirt roads of the neighborhood. Weapons drawn, they searched alleys and courtyards. But mostly, they just walked, calling out greetings to Iraqis gathered outside their homes before the breaking of the fast during the holy month of Ramadan. The sweet scent of spice-infused meat and vegetables filled the night air, as women in black cloaks scurried home with stacks of piping-hot flat bread.

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Ali said the Iraqi soldiers had been influential in helping control the neighborhood, keeping the potential attackers from using side streets to reach the airport road. “We are Iraqis, and we know strangers from their faces,” Ali said. “We can stop them, and we know if they lie to us. The Americans don’t know.”

Bruce (GayPatriot)

Busy leveling overheated charges against the elected president of the United States, Jimmy Carter, proves (once again) that he lacks what columnist George Will called the “grace and restraint” required of an ex-president. His recent public remarks are laced with “venom.” And now this man claims that President Bush “has radically departed from (the policies) of all previous presidents.”

No, Jimmy, you got that wrong. It is you who have radically departed from the policies of all previous presidents. They showed enough respect for the office not to lash out at their successors. And not to use their position to meddle in foreign policy.

Although he left the White House in disgrace, Richard Nixon at least had the courtesy to clear his foreign travel with his successors whenever he left the country. When he met with foreign leaders, he made clear he was not doing so in an official capacity.

Despite the failure of his own foreign policy, Carter, however, thinks it’s his business to meddle in world affairs, even if (or perhaps especially if) his policies differ from those of the elected president. In 1990, he lobbied members of the United Nations Security Council to vote against the First Gulf War, that is, Carter urged nations to vote against using force to liberate a sovereign nation which had been invaded. And it wasn’t just Republican presidents he undermined. In 1994, against the wishes of the Clinton Administration, he went to North Korea to negotiate a deal on nuclear arms.

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