So far, I've just watched the first 30 minutes of the debate, and now I've got to go to bed.  But first, I had to blog about something that Kerry said.  When asked about some Catholic archbishops' opinions that it would be a sin to vote for Kerry because he supports abortion and embryonic stem cell research, Kerry responded with the following.

I believe that I can't legislate or transfer to another American citizen my article of faith. What is an article of faith for me is not something that I can legislate on somebody who doesn't share that article of faith....  My faith affects everything that I do, in truth. There's a great passage of the Bible that says, "What does it mean, my brother, to say you have faith if there are no deeds? Faith without works is dead."  And I think that everything you do in public life has to be guided by your faith, affected by your faith, but without transferring it in any official way to other people. That's why I fight against poverty. That's why I fight to clean up the environment and protect this earth. That's why I fight for equality and justice. All of those things come out of that fundamental teaching and belief of faith.

I'm a little surprised by this.  I think Kerry is trying to impress his religious viewers by quoting the Bible, but it seems to me that he sets himself up here.  I was really surprised by his mention that his faith is the inspiration that leads him to fight against poverty and for the environment.  This statement completely destroys his excuse for being pro-abortion.  The scripture alone points out that faith without deeds is dead.  Since Kerry feels he is prevented by the Constitution to support his “faith“ that tells him that abortion is wrong, he lacks the works that give life to that faith.  As a result, that faith might as well be dead.  But, in the biggest contradiction of all, Kerry admits that he has no problem legislating his “faith“ as it relates to poverty and the environment.  Why then can he not legislate his “faith“ on the fundamental issue of human life?

If you like this sort of topic, David Mobley has a separate, but related blog entry about legislation and right and wrong.

I'd like to note that for awhile there, I really didn't feel like blogging, and so I didn't.  Lately, I've been wanting to blog, but I've been quite busy working.  Today I got a little breather.  I even got to play a little Tiger Woods today and shot my best round ever, 28 under par.  I got 10 eagles in one round.  Granted, it was an easy course, but I was chipping in shots from 100 yards out.

I also finally got to see The Forgotten tonight.  I'd really been looking forward to this, because I love those can-you-trust-your-own-memory-type movies, like Memento.  We've been so busy and out of town so much that we just now made it to the ArcLight to see it, the first time to the ArcLight in months in fact.  I tell you this story not because I like to rant and rave about bad experiences, but because I always rave about all the good the ArcLight does, and I suppose I should be fair.  There were two big problems.  First, buying tickets took forever.  We didn't have to wait in line, but the guy was new and the system was not working like it was supposed to.  Their card reader couldn't read my ArcLight membership card (which I was using points from for a free ticket), and it wouldn't read my credit card.  I then had to help the employee through some of the screens to type in the card number manually.  He made some mistake, and I had to sign some error log, even though I had nothing to do with it.  Meanwhile, Clinton goes to the counter next to us and buys his ticket in about 0.23 seconds.

Next, we head into our theater and hit our seats (reserved of course), right smack dab in the middle of the first row up from the floor.  Sweet.  Everything looks like it's going to be awesome as the trailers begin.  The theater is practically empty.  I'm psyched.  But then a crazy man comes and sits right next to me.  This is the down side of reserved seats.  Some people think that they have to remain in their reserved seat even if the place is practically empty.  The guy reeks of smoke, and before the trailers are over, I can tell he's going to be trouble.  He's talking to himself in a very conversational way.  At first, I thought he was on a cell phone, but no, he was pointing out to himself how funny or scary or interesting or sad something was.  Throughout the trailers and the movie he had to respond in some way out loud to everything that happened on the screen.  The only times he wasn't talking were when he was opening his very loud bag of snacks, which were apparently very hard to open and required opening many many times during the movie.  His comments were also interrupted by throat-clearing and coughing.  Early on in the movie, I actually even shushed him.  I do not like to do this, but at this point I hadn't realized that he wasn't crazy.  Apparently he was too busy responding to something on the screen, because he did not acknowledge my shush one way or the other.  By the end of the movie, I realized that he was crazy and wished that I had gotten an employee to come in and handle the situation.  Instead, I just sat there and took it and used my extraordinary powers of focus to block him out.  I leave you with the funniest of his interactions with the screen.  At the climax of the movie, there's a chance that Julianne Moore has forgotten about her son, and all she has to do to let us know that she remembers him is to say his name.  There's tense music and a dramatic delay which is filled by my neighbor pleading with her, “Say it.  Say Sam.  That's all you have to do.  Say it!”

I figured I'd weigh in on the 1st Presidential debate before the 1st VP debate tonight.  On presentation, I give Kerry high marks.  His voice even sounded natural.  I think this format favored Kerry as far as presentation goes.  Specifically, the colored lights indicating time were not helpful to the President.  Bush is a straight-to-the-point kind of guy, and having to give a two minute answer to a question that he would prefer to answer in ten seconds forces him to stretch out what he's going to say, to speak slower, and to be more repetitive.  It was kind of like a football game, where you don't want to give up the time of possession stat.  Had we the public not been made so aware of the time factor, I think we would have preferred shorter answers from Bush and would have seen Kerry has long-winded in comparison.  The other factor in presentation was that some people didn't like the expression on Bush's face when not answering the question.  I'm not saying that for presentation sake, he doesn't need to be careful, but one should note that the rules clearly stated that there not be a camera on the candidate not answering the question.  Of course, as Mark pointed out, had the broadcasters gone along with this rule, they would never have been able to have the camera on Kerry, because he was always the candidate not answering the question.

On substance, I stand by Bush.  Kerry is consistent only in saying that Bush always makes the wrong decisions.  According to Kerry, in Iraq, Bush adopted too much of a go-it-alone policy.  However, in North Korea, Bush needs to go it alone.  The fact is that Bush went to the UN and asked other countries for help.  They didn't help.  That did not deter him.  Kerry complained that we aren't training Iraqi troops fast enough.  However, they are in the midst of training.  Unfortunately, we can't plug them into the Matrix and download military manuals directly into their brains.  I thought one of Bush's best points was to ask how Kerry was going to get other countries to help out in something that he calls a mistake.  And I agree.  I understand that Iraq is a rough situation.  Bush understands that Iraq is a rough situation.  Kerry seems to want us to believe that all of the problems in Iraq will go away if he is elected.  If he really does have solutions, I'd respect him a lot more if he would offer them now.  That's the end of my rant.

In the upcoming debate addressing domestic issues, we will undoubtedly hear from Kerry about jobs lost during Bush's first term.  As Kerry reminded Bush that it was Bin Laden that attacked us on 9/11, I hope that Bush will remind Kerry of the same fact, that it was Bin Laden that attacked us, including our economy.  Bush did not attack us with his policies.  In fact, his policies stemmed the tide of the enormous damage done on 9/11 and have brought us back from that horrible disaster. 

Man, I would hate to have to be President.

Clinton just emailed me this link: http://www.mgm.com/pinkpantherthemovie/home.html.  I had heard rumors that this was in the works, but I didn't realize they had made so much progress on it.  I have mixed feelings about this.  I'm a big fan of Steve Martin and an even bigger fan of The Pink Panther series.  Inspector Clouseau (er, Chief Inspector) was such a brilliant character created by Peter Sellers.  I'm worried that any attempts to revive the series by any actor, no matter how talented, are doomed to fall short.  They tried reviving the franchise with Roberto Benigni back in 1993, and it didn't work then.  Don't get me wrong; I want it to succeed, but I'm only 28 and I know all of the Pink Panther movies backwards and forwards.  Maybe in another 50 years...

In case you heard about an earthquake here in California today (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,133839,00.html), we didn't feel a thing here in Hollywood.  We did have a flat tire though.  Hmm, coincidence?

I forgot to tell this story last week.  Last week at church I was sitting on the edge of our group, and so to my left was sitting a stranger, a woman probably in her early 30's.  During the meet-n-greet portion of the service, I introduced myself and here's how the conversation went:

Me: Hi, I'm Pete.

Stranger: Heat?

Me: No, no, it's Pete.  But Heat would be such a great “L.A.” name (chuckle).

Stranger: I'm Keetiann (pronounced key-tee-awn).

--awkward silence--

I don't know if that translates in writing, but it was pretty funny to me at the time.  Today at church we ran into Wesley Carlin.  You remember her from UBC, right?  Anyway, we were sneaking out early, when she spotted Jamie.  We exchanged info, and we'll get together some time this week.  Perhaps Taco Tuesday Wednesday?  We were sneaking out, because we had to go pick up Martel and drop her off at Spago for the Fox Emmys party.  While she was in the car, she found out that Arrested Development had just won for best comedy series.  Needless, to say it was pretty exciting.  They also won for writing and directing.

OK, I'm a little late on this.  I'm going to go ahead and start at the beginning of September, because some of the movies are probably still out.

September 1 - Vanity Fair
I wasn't really planning on seeing this, but we caught it with the Siebers when we were down in Fallbrook.  It was pretty, I suppose, but there was no character that you wanted to win.  So, stuff happened, but I didn't really care about it.

September 3 - Paparazzi
This is another film that I wasn't planning on seeing, but again, in Fallbrook.  This movie was exactly the opposite of Vanity Fair.  Not pretty, but a pretty good story.  Also, it had some funny cameos, especially the one of Mel Gibson.  But, this could easily fall into the category of a renter.  The production values on the film were about what I would expect I could achieve if me and my friends ever got serious about making a movie.

September 10 - Criminal (limited)
Now we're getting into movies I haven't seen.  This may end up just being a renter for me.  It's really just a matter of whether or not Jamie and I want something to do.  The ArcLight is always fun.

September 17 - Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
When I first heard about this movie, I was pretty psyched.  However, the trailer that I keep seeing leaves something to be desired.  I'll probably see it at the theater though, because if it does anything, it's going to be in the world of visual effects, which should only be enjoyed on the big screen.  Jamie can't wait for Wimbledon, which also premieres this weekend.  Even though the main character does have an almost completely awesome name (Peter Colt), I think I'll sit that one out.

September 24 - The Forgotten
Now here's the first movie that I'm really pumped about seeing.  Jamie thinks this movie looks super-scary.  I don't think it really looks as scary as it does suspenseful.  I mean, there doesn't seem to be blood or gore involved.  It's just a matter of some people messing with other people's perception of reality, which is just my kind of movie.

October 1 - I Heart Huckabees (limited)/Ladder 49
I don't like watching John Travolta, but Joaquin Phoenix tends to make some good choices as far as roles he takes in movie.  I'm hoping that it will be good enough to get me over the John Travolta thing.  Plus, John Travolta's acting isn't obviously revolting in the trailer, so maybe he won't annoy me at all.  As for I Heart Huckabees, I like the cast.  And the idea of existential detectives is a funny one.  How seriously it's all taken will eventually decide how much I end up liking it.

October 8 - Primer (limited)
This is the film from some Baylor students that went to Sundance.  The trailer seems quite intriguing to me, so I'm there.  It had no trouble beating out Taxi in my book.

October 15 - Shall We Dance?
No, we shall not.  I make it a point to not see movies with question marks in the title.

October 22 - Alfie
I never saw the original with Michael Caine, and I like the Jude Law enough to accompany Jamie to this one.

October 29 - Ray
Every time I see the trailer for this, I get excited.  I don't know the story of Ray Charles' life, and it looks like an interesting one.  Jamie Foxx's performance looks like it is going to be outstanding, and the feel of the movie just really hits the spot for me.

I think I'll stop there and pick up with November movies as they come a little closer.