By Debbie Schlussel
My weekend movie reviews: the strange but interesting arthouse thriller beats the much-hyped big box office release for kids, this time.
* “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince“: Just one word for this–boooooooooring. A giant two-and-a-half-hour YAAAWN. This movie went on and on and on and on and on.
It was beautifully shot, had cool sets and special effects, but the story was lackluster and not even resolved. In fact, if you want to see the conclusion to the story, you have to wait until next year for the sequel.

I struggled to stay awake during this far too long flick that had everything in it but the kitchen sink. And actually, I think the sink was thrown in, too. I know the movie is aimed at kids and other Harry Potter fans, but did I really need to see endless scenes of kids with crushes making out or talking about making out or immaturely fighting about who is “snogging” who? Juvenile even for kids. And dumb. The much-maligned 1950s called and they want Harry Potter to stop making them look bad.
Not sure I can really describe the “plot” since there really isn’t one and what there is is kind of confusing and not exciting. Harry Potter is summoned back to the academy by Dumbledore, who asks him to befriend a certain professor to find out info on the evil Valdemort, who was once his student there. Harry and his friends fight over each other in the romance department. Meanwhile an evil student and professor (played by the anti-Israel Alan Rickman) are secretly plotting. Who cares? I sure didn’t. Yes, it was about good versus evil, but never have I seen that portrayed in such a dull way.
Nothing offensive or objectionable in this movie. It was just a bore and a waste of time. It completely lacked the charm, excitement, wonder, and suspense of the last Potter film, “Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix,” which I liked (read my review).
Fine for your kids, but bring a book or something to do while you wait for credits to finally roll on this endless cinema.
ONE REAGAN

* “The Merry Gentleman“: This offbeat, arthouse thriller was directed by Michael Keaton, who also stars as a hitman. One winter night a Chicago secretary with a Scottish accent sees a man on the edge of a building. She thinks he’s about to commit suicide. But, in reality, he’s a hitman who has just assassinated someone in her building from the building across the way. Two cops are on the case, and while one is trying to date the woman, she’s already started dating the man she doesn’t know is the hitman and the one she saw atop the building.
This movie was interesting and different and, while it was slow at times, it was entertaining and suspenseful. I enjoyed it.
But there was a mistake in the movie that distracted me. It was a tiny, little, trifling detail that most wouldn’t notice and which had nothing to do with the plot. But it was glaring to me. Several scenes into the movie, we start seeing one of the cops wearing a yarmulke, a thick yarmulke made of velvet or leather, the kind you generally see on Orthodox Jews. Later, we see the two cops–the one is still wearing his yarmulke–at a burger joint. The restaurant sign says it also serves milkshakes, a sign the place isn’t kosher because Orthodox Jews keep kosher and don’t consume dairy and meat/poultry together. The guy with the yarmulke is just drinking a milkshake. But then, he orders a hot dog and cheese fries. It just didn’t jibe and distracted me during the movie. A guy wearing a yarmulke on the job isn’t going to be eating this stuff. Someone writing a script didn’t do their homework.
Another thing I found weird is how all the guys in the movie are trying to pick up the woman (Kelly McDaniel) who saw the man on the rooftop. They all keep commenting on how cute she is and how sexy her accent is. But she isn’t cute, and her accent becomes extremely annoying. Maybe that’s part of the kitsch of the movie. I suspect it is.
Still, I liked the movie anyway. And it’s enjoyable and worth seeing.
THREE REAGANS

By Debbie Schlussel
Since it’s Friday, it’s Free Chocolate Friday. As regular readers know, every Friday through the end of September is Free Chocolate Friday, meaning that under Mars’ “Real Chocolate Relief Act” promotion, you can get a coupon for a free Mars chocolate candy bar.
Go here for the details and link to free chocolate.

By Debbie Schlussel
Oy. I never thought I’d long for the days of Bill Clinton’s “I feel your pain.” At least he stopped there. Barack Obama tells the NAACP, “I feel the Muslims’ pain [perhaps because he is one], and so should you.”
At his speech yesterday to the NAACP, here’s just a tiny gem:

But Obama said “the pain of discrimination is still felt in America” among African-Americans, Latinos and Muslim-Americans.

Translation: Muslims and Latinos are “down with the struggle.” And discrimination against Jews and others (including Whites) no longer exists.

Reader MP says that, with this, Obama threw Jews under the bus. But he did that long ago. Why wouldn’t he? Three quarters of my blind fellow co-religionists voted for him and support him no matter what. MP continues:

This just made me sick to my stomach.
Never mind the fact that anti-Semitism is on the rise worldwide, in large part due to unrestrained Muslim immigration policies. But, according to Obama, I guess Jews no longer feel “the pain of discrimination”, nor do Asians, or any other minority which managed elevate themselves in terms of America’s socio-economic status, despite all of the discrimination they have faced, and continue to face today.
Just sickening.

Yup. I warned of this during the campaign and so did many others. But I got roundly attacked, including from dummies on the right.
Here’s the whole speech, for your vomiting, er . . . viewing, pleasure:

Hmmm . . . maybe they should change the name to “NAAMLCPASYEE”–the National Association for the Advancement of Muslim, Latino, and Colored People, And Screw You, Everyone Else.

By Debbie Schlussel
Meet Frank Turner, this week’s poster boy for everything that’s wrong with the continuing mortgage bailout. He’s kind of like the “kinder, gentler” version of Jeremiah Wright.
Longtime Detroiters knows Turner as the two-time former Detroit news anchor, unfunny former comedian, and openly anti-Semitic radio talk show host who became a televangelist. Turner was given chance after chance, and now he’s getting a grand chance to rebuy his mansion, courtesy of American taxpayers.
Turner, a rising star in the 1990s and 2000s as a news anchor for Detroit’s ABC affiliate, the Scripps-owned WXYZ-TV and its “Channel 7 Action News,” is a great example of how many boys raised by single mothers are destined to turn out . . . even when they “succeed.”

Turner, born to a single mother drug addict on welfare in the projects, was raised by a relative. He became a drug addict, but overcame it. Soon, he was anchoring the news down South and eventually in Detroit. But while an anchor for Channel 7, he charged over $200,000 for phone sex on his girlfriend’s credit card.
The girlfriend sued, he stopped showing up for work and blamed it all on a mental breakdown. Then, Turner was fired from Channel Seven and filed for bankruptcy to avoid the default lawsuit judgment handed down against him. At the time, he was making over $300,000 and driving a Mercedes 500SL. To fill his time during unemployment, Turner tried his hand at being a stand-up comedian. He wasn’t funny.
Turner also frequently subbed for trial lawyer Geoffrey Fieger on his talk radio show on WXYT-AM, which, at the time, was running the Rush Limbaugh Show and was Detroit’s sole talk radio station that wasn’t sports-centric. It was during this show that Frank Turner frequently told us his views on “THE JOOOOOS.” “The Jews are cheap,” Turner said. “The Jews own everything, and what they don’t own, they steal,” was another of his favorite comments. Turner also frequently told lies about Israel and championed the P.L.O.
It got so bad that I and my father implored the do-nothing Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to write a letter. That’s all the ADL did and when I contacted The Detroit News to cover the story, then-ADL chief Don Cohen (who now heads the dying Bnai Brith International in Michigan and whose wife is an editor at the Detroit Jewish News) called me and screamed at me and convinced then-Detroit News religion reporter George Bullard to ignore the story. This is how anti-Semites rise and thrive . . . when cowardly left-wing Jews cover up their antics.
Soon, though, Turner was back at Channel Seven, ultimately returning to a salary of $250,000 per year. But Turner, who began chanting his opinions and religious beliefs during newscasts, became a Christian Minister and began a lucrative Christian radio show (and continued his anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel). WXYZ-TV forced Turner to choose a career, and he left the station. Times were good for him as a radio and TV evangelist, as Turner and his new wife bought a million dollar home, drove fancy cars, and expensive tailored suits.
But apparently, they weren’t “good enough.” Now, you are bailing Frank Turner out so that he can allow his home to go into foreclosure and rebuy it at a pittance . . . all with the bank (and you) paying for his, um, “move.”

A former Emmy-winning news anchor from Detroit’s ABC affiliate WXYZ-TV Channel 7 was evicted this week from his nearly $1 million home, which was in foreclosure.
Frank Turner, who left Channel 7 in October 2006 to found his ministry, “God’s Amazing Grace,” said the eviction is actually “a blessing.”
“The net result for us is we are actually going to profit,” Turner said. “What they meant for evil is turning out for my good. In an extraordinary move, the bank is paying thousands of dollars to move and store my furniture and as soon as the house gets listed, if we’re interested, we’re going to be able to buy it back for less than what we’ve been offering them. . . .
Turner and his wife, Annick, purchased their home on Mystic Lake Drive in the Mystic Creek subdivision in Genoa Township in February 2007, for $960,000, according to their loan agreement filed with the Livingston County Register of Deeds.
They owed $954,970 on the principal balance in April 2008 when they were notified by Trott & Trott that Bank of America wanted to begin foreclosure proceedings. Unpaid interest, late fees, inspection fees and escrow advance bumped the amount due to $999,627, according to a letter from Trott & Trott.
The couple said they have tried for more than a year to work with Bank of America and Trott & Trott to redeem their 8,000-square-foot home . . .
Frank Turner said he wrote to Trott & Trott in February indicating that his ministry would buy the home for $500,000, but the company did not respond until June 24, when it wrote a letter saying the Turners could get their house back but the price, with interest and fees, came to $1.1 million. Otherwise, they would have to vacate the premises by July 31.
Frank Turner said he had the cash to pay for the home when he made the offer. He said he didn’t have the cash at the time foreclosure proceedings began because his family ran into a rough financial time. . . .
“We were forced to default on the mortgage,” Frank Turner said.

Hey, maybe Channel 7 will hire this anti-Semite and phony back for a third time. You know what they say: “The Third Time is the charm.”

By Debbie Schlussel
Earlier this week, I told you about masteratrix bureaucrat and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s appointment of a tax-wasting committee to review the color terror alert system and come up with a new tax-wasting and equally silly system.
Well, my friends at “The Jimmy Kimmel Show” didn’t need the 60 days J-No’s people are using or a gazillion dollars in tax money. They came up with a GREAT new terror alert system so quickly and spent zero tax dollars in doing so. (Would have been even better if they also used Nancy Kerrigan “WHYYYYY?!” video.)

By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATES ****
On Twitter, I frequently get vile, anti-Semitic Tweets sent my way, but usually they come from Muslims, Black Muslims, and (in my e-mail inbox) Sarah Palin supporters. (You can follow me on Twitter here.)
Today, an apparently Japanese man *** CORRECTION: he now says he’s Italian *** who goes by the names “Fatmanippo” and “Samuraifat,” weighed in:

Fatmanippo
@DebbieSchlussel you wicked f-cking bagel fiending, bloodsucking, golden chocolate coin eating whore of a jew
about 9 hours ago from web

(By the way, he didn’t use a dash in the f-word. I put that in to try to minimize this site being blocked by certain software programs at the workplaces of my readers.)

Samuraifat a/k/a Fatmanippo: Jew Hater of the Day
For the record, I don’t eat bagels. I don’t like them. This would be my t-shirt on the subject. Not sure what “bagel fiending” means, but I’ve never used a stale bagel as a weapon. Good suggestion, though, and perhaps I’ll try it some day.
To those who don’t get the “golden chocolate coin” part, that’s apparently a reference to the treats kids traditionally get on Channukah, which are chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil and made to look like the gold coins or “Channukah Gelt” that was customarily given instead of gifts on Channukah in Europe. For the record, I don’t eat those coins either, but looks like the fat Japanese guy has had his fill of them.
For those inclined to send future anti-Semitic Tweets like this and in the interest of accuracy, please note the other foods stereotypically associated with the Jews, which I don’t like and don’t consume: lox, cream cheese, herring, smoked salmon, gefilte fish, lutefisk (oh, wait, wrong ethnic group for that one). I think that covers it.
Yup, I should stop “whining” about the rise in anti-Semitism because, clearly, the problem has been eradicated.
File Under: Does the Second Amendment Cover the Right to Bear Bagels?
**** UPDATE: Sadly, some very prominent conservative commentators and organizations are embracing and/or looking the other way on anti-Semitism like this, and far worse. I’ll be writing about this in the near future, but here are some names: Thomas More Law Center, Sam Adams Alliance, Hot Air/Ed Morrissey, Michelle Malkin, Hanan Tudor (who goes by the porn name, “Brigitte Gabriel”), ACT for America, American Congress for Truth.
All of them chose to look the other way on Holocaust-denying Muslim death, rape, and torture threats on my life and that of my family members, and to continue to promote individuals and organizations which praised and/or condoned it.
*** UPDATE #2: Apparently this twitterer is the person behind, JewsKilledMichaelJackson.com, and he’s Italian, according to tweets he just sent me.

By Debbie Schlussel
What happens when an openly pro-Hezbollah Shi’ite Muslim (who was named by a Kuwaiti newspaper as a Hezbollah agent in the U.S.) is the chief prosecutor for public corruption in the American county with the highest concentration of Muslims? The same thing that happens when the same area of Michigan is overseen by Justice Department prosecutors eager to engage in politically correct pandering to Muslims.
They go after non-Muslims involved in crimes, but not their many Muslim co-conspirators.
Such is the case with incidents like the case of Abed Hammoud–the Shi’ite Muslim Wayne County, Michigan Prosecutor, who compared Israel to the Nazis–and the guilty plea of Leticia Bosemon.

You see, on Tuesday, Bosemon, a Black non-Muslim woman pleaded guilty in Federal court to taking more than $63,000 in bribes from mostly Muslim residents of Dearborn who got her to issue fraudulent performance bonds and temporary certificates of occupancy in their purchase of foreclosed homes and, in many cases, their engagement in mortgage fraud. She also took bribes to allow many Muslims to build homes in violation of building codes and requirements in Dearborn which have been strictly enforced against the city’s non-Muslim residents.

Those who paid Bosemon for the fraudulent documents paid less than they would have been charged by private surety companies for the legitimate performance bonds.

While Bosemon’s plea was made in U.S. District Court, Hammoud–as public integrity prosecutor in Wayne County–was apparently very involved in the investigation, and he headed the Wayne County portion of the investigation.
And that would explain–along with the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan’s uber-PC pandering to Muslims–why the Muslims who gave Ms. Bosemon the bribes were not charged, and got away with it.
Read Bosemon’s Plea Agreement. She acknowledges taking over $63,000 from over 50 individuals and issuing them fraudulent documents for over 100 properties. Yet not one of these over 50 people will face justice. Yet, Bosemon faces up to 37 months in prison and a $250,000 fine. Those who bribed her face . . . nothing. Yup, they go after the Black chick. But her Islamic partners in crime, they’re laughing all the way to the bank.
That’s just a tiny taste of what “justice” in America is like when Muslims and their enablers are running the show.

By Debbie Schlussel
In raising your young kids, don’t worry about the tons of sex and violence they are exposed to on TV. Those aren’t problems. You know what the real problem is?
Sand on the beach. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Instill a fear of sand in your kid.
Oh, and did I mention that $65K in your tax money paid for the study that issues the alarm and says you shouldn’t handle food with dirty hands?

Add playing in the sand to the long list of fun things that may be bad for your health.

Marked for Death

A new study says you risk getting an upset stomach and diarrhea if you dig into the granular stuff to fill toy pails, build sand castles or bury yourself. You’re better off walking along the shore or swimming in the surf.
Is the federal government, which paid $63,500 for the research, throwing a major bummer into the beach-going season? . . .
The report’s authors said they don’t mean to put a damper on summer fun. They just think it’s important to caution people about the bird droppings, urban runoff, sewage and other contaminants that pollute sand.
“Take care to use a hand sanitizer or wash hands after playing in the sand,” said Tim Wade, an epidemiologist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency who helped write the study. . . .
As part of a larger assessment of water quality at beaches, EPA researchers interviewed more than 27,000 beach-goers in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2007. There were four sites on the Great Lakes and one each in Mississippi, Alabama and Rhode Island.
Beach-goers were asked about their contact with sand on the day of their visit. Ten to 12 days later, they were contacted by phone to discuss health problems that surfaced since then.
The EPA and the University of North Carolina analyzed the information, and their results appear in the latest edition of the American Journal of Epidemiology. It’s being touted as the most comprehensive look at how specific activities involving beach sand might cause sickness.
Less than 10 percent of people who played with sand came down with diarrhea and/or gastrointestinal illness.
But that number is still up to 24 percent higher than for folks who didn’t. Researchers said the risk of illness was highest for those who were buried in the sand and that children are more likely than adults to fall sick. . . .
“We are hypothesizing . . . that people are coming into contact with fecal contamination in the sand and then transferring that to their hands and then to their mouth,” he said.
Heaney said beach-goers should be careful when handling food.
“The beach . . . is not a sterile environment,” he said.

So, they’re hypothesizing, but they have no actual proof that playing in the sand causes any of these illnesses.
But, wow, $65,000 spent to give us some real genius advice, which is essentially, “Wash your hands before eating.”
Einstein stuff.

By Debbie Schlussel
As you may know, today is the 40th anniversary of the launch of the Apollo 11 mission to land men on the moon. (It’s also the 64th anniversary of the detonation of the first atomic bomb in the new Mexico desert.)
It was the first manned landing on the moon and was commanded by Neil Armstrong and also manned by Buzz Aldrin, both of whom rightly continue to be American heroes to this day. They set foot from the Eagle onto the moon on July 20, 1969. I highly recommend the excellent, funny, entertaining documentary, “In the Shadow of the Moon” (read my review) documenting that and the other manned landings.
Unfortunately, while we put men on the moon several times, the American space program has failed in many ways. We haven’t done much since first landing on the moon.

Man on the Moon: Neil Armstrong on July 20, 1969
Yes, American men landed on the moon another five times since. And we’ve sent many space shuttles out into the great beyond (with two of them, sadly, exploding).
But what else have we done? The many space shuttle launches are wastes of money. They don’t achieve much except garner results for a few experiments. That’s about it.
Forty years ago today, people envisioned a future with residential colonies on the moon, or at the very least somehow harvesting the moon for energy or some other resource. None of that has happened. And in fact, very little has happened in the 40 years since Apollo 11 or the five other manned landings. In fact, in terms of outer space exploration and colonization, we haven’t done much since Neil Armstrong set foot on that rock.
Sadly, in 40 years, the most creative “visions” regarding moon and space exploration are the stories concocted by loony conspiracy theorists who claim we never landed there and that it’s all a fiction perpetrated on a Hollywood set.
As someone who is fascinated by the universe and its planets and loves American history and sci-fi, our failure to advance further in space is a huge disappointment. But it should be a disappointment for all Americans. What held such great promise 40 years ago is now a broken promise.
Imagine the possibilities. Perhaps we could mine the moon’s surface for energy and tell our Saudi and other OPEC overlords to shove it. The recent sci-fi movie release, “Moon” (read my review), takes place in such a world (though the results are that of a contemporary “Twilight Zone” script, not a look into our likely or even possible future).
Perhaps we could discover ways to humanly set foot on Mars and harvest or colonize that planet. It’s not impossible. But the uncreative minds at NASA feel comfort in just doing the same old meaningless space shuttle missions. NASA has become just another government bureaucracy–another failed, bloated government bureaucracy. The pencil pushers and plain Janes and Joes who run the place lack imagination.
But it is not just the fault of the bureaucrats. It’s the fault of the American population, as well. Through our own fault, through the undying devotion to pop culture and lackluster education, we’ve become ignorant. And in this dumbing down, we’ve given up our fascination with the endless possibilities and freedom of real science–space exploration, for the a dangerous obsession and endless slavery to the neuroses of fake science–“global warming,” “climate change,” the “green movement,” etc.
Without a limitless vision and imagination on our own part and that of our government, there will come a day–and in many ways, we are at that day–in which Americans will no longer stand for funding a program whose modern achievements are nebulous. More and more of our support will, unfortunately, go to junk science.
And that’s why something new, something great, is needed in the U.S. Space Program. Something beyond eating packaged freeze dried ice cream for sale at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.
Perhaps even something first done 40 years ago. It’s been a while since we’ve sent Americans to set foot on the moon. Maybe now is the time to repeat that, instead of more space shuttle repetitions.
Regardless of what we do, we have to do something. Just because no country has advanced its pursuits in vast universe, doesn’t mean no country will.
And we should be first. Our national security, our energy resources and other things we have yet to fathom and know may depend on it. As the astronauts who landed on the moon in 1969 and beyond noted in “In the Shadow of the Moon,” when we landed there, the whole world–even our worst enemies–were in awe and even felt a proud kinship with America.
Those were the days.
Also in “Shadow of the Moon,” astronauts who landed there noted that most of thousands of our greatest technological achievements and computerized inventions got their impetus from technological creations and advancements made expressly for the space program’s focus on a manned lunar landing.
Imagine the advancements we can have in our own lives–to make our own lives even easier. But that will only happen if America–specifically the bureaucrats who run NASA–have the guts, the courage to do something big, something that sounds nuts and unimaginable. Sadly, no such hero–no such creative visionary–has arrived.
If only the U.S. Space Program had a real, intense focus and focused on the next “small step for man,” the next “giant leap for mankind.”
Will that ever happen? When?

By Debbie Schlussel
Man Up, Barack O’Mama–Just Say No to Mom Jeans: