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Tag Archives | Thank You Please May I Have Another

The New Rankin-Bass Hobbit DVD Is a Fraud

By on July 23, 2014 2

Famously, when the DVD version of the 1977 Rankin-Bass Hobbit was released, the soundtrack was missing lots of sound effects that had been included in both the original broadcast version and the VHS release. You can probably still find a correct version (with video from the DVD and audio from the VHS) downloadable online under the title “Hi-Fi Hobbit.” The sounds make a surprisingly large amount of difference to the ambience of the film; it’s especially noticeable in the Erebor flashback.

When a “remastered deluxe” edition of the DVD was announced this year, I naturally assumed that the soundtrack screw-up that fans have been complaining about for years would be fixed. I mean, isn’t that what “remastered deluxe edition” suggests?

Guess what? Not so much. The new edition has not restored the missing sounds. Remastering, my ass. They’ve just given us the same old crappy screwed-up soundtrack as on the previous DVD release. Just with uglier cover art.

Boiling the Jaywalkers

By on October 15, 2013 4

So this guy made £35,000 selling forged celebrity autographs, and they caught him. Good. But they’ve also charged him with copyright violations, which is crap; and they’ve decided to lock him in a cage for 21 months, which is absurd. He should be forced to pay back the people he ripped off, to be sure; but he poses no serious danger to anybody. And even if I believed in retributive punishment, which I don’t, how could anyone think nearly two years’ imprisonment was a proportionate response to selling fake autographs?

Of course there is nothing unusual about this case.

De Spectaculis

By on September 18, 2013 3

In a debate with George Smith over the merits of pagan Rome versus the Christian period that followed, Ralph Raico writes: “Men openly carried amulets of the male genitals around their necks and touched them often, for luck.”

Thank goodness that dreadful practice was replaced with amulets of a half naked man being tortured to death.

He's not the Vicar of Christ, he's a very naugthy boy!

He’s not the Vicar of Christ, he’s a very naugthy boy!

Ralph also writes: “One may be excused for sympathizing with G.K. Chesterton when he wrote that, given the moral standards prevalent in the Roman Empire, a period of cleansing of society was called for.”

It would have been nice if the ‘cleansing’ had targeted only the perpetrators, and not also the victims, of Roman oppression.

Ralph further writes: “The major Christian denominations were also oppressors, with the notable and noble exception of the Baptists ….”

As a resident of North Carolina for eight years and of Alabama for fifteen, I have the sad duty to report that the Baptists have managed to find their way into the oppression business.

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