To preserve what remains of our free society, videotaping those in power when they operate in public (or in our homes) must be legal.

Read the full column here at WorldNetDaily.

Spoilers follow, so don’t keep reading if you don’t want to learn things ahead of time. Kaufman writes, in his introduction to the novella appended to Dead Beyond The Fence, that many readers wondered what came after his hanging ending. Mr. Kaufman seems to think that the ending — murder-suicide by the protagonists — is the obvious conclusion to a story that ends with the hapless pair looking out over an uncertain (or certainly doomed) future. The problem with Kaufman’s conclusion is that it’s an author’s conceit; he didn’t write it well enough for the book to imply such an ending, nor would such an act be consistent with the character to whom he’d like to attribute it.

The book itself is fairly unremarkable but entertaining enough. I dislike Kaufman’s repeated use of the word “shambler” to replace “zombie.” He apparently finds the latter term trite or silly, but seeing “shambler” over and over again just proves distracting to a reader who’s accustomed to the zombie genre. Substituting the term is another conceit on Kaufman’s part — or an attempt to innovate that simply doesn’t work.

The relationship (and the complexity of that relationship) between Kaufman’s protagonists is well done, and he does explore some of the psychological effects of coping with a zombie — excuse me, “shambler,” ugh — outbreak. I liked that much of the book, and the opening sequences of the first chapter took and held my interest. The characters our protagonists meet later in the book aren’t as well drawn and come across like impossibly foolish caricatures. I hate to think a group of left-leaning academic twits would be among the only survivors of a living dead holocaust, but stranger things have happened. When our gaggle of liberal morons manage to destroy themselves, it’s not a surprise — although there’s a nice call-back to this in the novella, Dread Appetites, that is appended to Dead Beyond the Fence.

This brings us to the novella. If the story’s original ending was disappointing (or at least unresolved), Dread Appetites leaves a lingering sense of resentment in the back of the reader’s brain. It’s as if Kaufman sat down and asked himself what the most awful, tasteless act or acts he just might include in a horror novel could truly be, then wrote to contrive such an ending.

There’s an art to writing apocalyptic fiction well. If the scenario is no-win, there should at least be a compelling reason why the protagonists cannot succeed. If they fail through no fault of their own or because there was never any point in trying to survive, the reader is cheated and made to feel his or her time has been wasted. That is the real tragedy of Dread Appetites, which ruins Dead Beyond the Fence more thoroughly than the novel’s competent but unfulfilling mediocrity ever could. There is little point to Dead Beyond the Fence, but it is at least entertaining; there is less point to the novella that follows, and it is offensively, stupidly forced for shock value.

In a free society, public service announcements encourage that society’s citizens to act for the common good by appealing to their better natures. …These heavy-handed recycling mandates are part of a greater problem. They are a few hundred of the thousands of cuts that will eventually bleed us all dry.

Read the full column here at WorldNetDaily.

When liberals attempt to silence political dissent on talk radio through re-enacting the euphemistically termed “Fairness Doctrine,” I think I see the coiled and merciless mechanical hound of Bradbury’s story, waiting to inject its poison into dissidents.

Read the full column here at WorldNetDaily.

What Pandorum is, instead, is an intriguing survival-horror drama set in a post-fall techological environment. Characters must cope with a world that has collapsed, in this case the interior of a very large ship bearing all that is left of humanity. The ship is also populated by mutated creatures who are the result of the passage of time applied to generations of passengers bearing an enzyme in their blood (intended to “jump start evolution” when they reach their destination). 

In the decay around the characters, we see the shadow of the world they’ve left behind. This helps increase the sense of hopelessness these characters must fight, and encourages us to root for them – even as we understand how high are the stakes for which they play.

Fine perfomances are turned in all around, although I found Dennis Quaid less than compelling.  (He’s been “phoning it in” for a few years now as his career winds down.)  The star of this picture is, without doubt, the superb Ben Foster, who is excellent in every role he plays.  He has a depth of emotion to him that is at once resilient and vulnerable; these are the perfect notes for the protagonist of a survival-horror film.

German-born Antje Traue is exotic and captivating despite the layers of grime under which she must perform.  Cung Le is convincing and heroic in a role that is really a glorified stunt man’s part, but then, Cung Le is a competitive mixed martial artist and kickboxer, not really an actor.  (The script, wisely, grants him no English lines.)  Eddie Rouse (who played a thug in Pineapple Express) is creepy, while Cam Gigandet and misplaced Boondock Saint Norman Reedus are barely present (and not missed when absent).

The movie is visually striking and, I have to admit, has an ending that took me by surprise.  The “is it real or is it a mental delusion” angle is there but not overused (always a danger with material of this type; if it gets too confusing the audience stops caring if the movie’s events are an illusion).  It’s also reasonably well paced, and the film’s creature-villains are real enough to be truly scary. 

If I have any quibbles it is that there is no explanation given for why Cung Le and Antje Traue are such accomplished fighters.  Yes, they have awakened in a world that requires them to fight for survival… but are kung fu skills spontaneously visited on you under this kind of stress? There would seem to be plenty of training opportunities… but no margin for error when to lose means to be killed and eaten, not necessarily in that order.

A movie I did not expect to enjoy as much as I did is therefore a better film than it has any reason for being.  I enjoyed Pandorum; fans of science fiction and of survival horror will enjoy it too.

Speak out against anyone or anything online and it is only a matter of time before someone at least threatens to sue you.

Read the full column here at WorldNetDaily.

To assess the purpose and place of technology in your life requires reasoned, rational thought.

As I wrote in the article, Those who propagate fluoride conspiracy theories repeat incessantly the myth that fluoride’s long-term effects have not been studied and that it has been shown to cause cancer. Both the ADA and the CDC have cited more than 50 human epidemiology studies conducted since 1945 that show no credible evidence of cancer caused by naturally occurring fluoride or by drinking-water fluoridation programs. The ADA’s fact sheet on fluoride points out that two cancer studies in the early 1990s used much higher than optimal sodium fluoride levels on rats and mice. Even taken together, the “equivocal” results of two animal studies failed to produce an association between fluoride and cancer – nor have subsequent studies done so, no matter how many times A.K. Susheela grimly repeats the accented mantra, “Fluoride is poison, fluoride is poison!”

Read the full column here at WorldNetDaily, and watch me read excerpts from the hate mail on the original fluoride column on my YouTube channel:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbkcFdZYYkU

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEuCQRDPhmE

“After reading an article entitled Is flouride part of globalist plot? …I was motivated to correct Mr. Elmore’s misconceptions.”

The irony is that of all the very important topics I have covered in Technocracy, involving very real threats to your freedom as a citizen of the United States, the subject that has gotten the most attention to date is… fucking fluoride.

You’ve got to conduct yourself responsibly as an informed, reasonably – dare I say it – paranoid consumer, at least in regard to your personal data.

Read the full column here at WorldNetDaily.

Try this experiment at home. Rip a few sheets of paper into strips. On the strips, write these words, and divide the strips into columns as shown:

Now draw a slip of paper at random from each of the three columns, and plug the results into the following sentence, drawing a new slip each time a column number appears again:

“A group of [1] [2] (or perhaps a single representative of same) does something incredibly stupid and runs afoul of a(n) [1] [2] in a relatively isolated area in [3], and deaths result ([4] the Apocalypse).”

Congratulations: You are now Stephen King.

Don’t believe me? Try it. Some results will be ludicrous, but most of them will sound familiar:

“A group of innocent New Englanders (or perhaps a single representative of same) does something incredibly stupid and runs afoul of a Mysterious Representative of Satan (before the Apocalypse).” Now come up with a catchy and unprofound slogan — something like, “Give me what I want and I’ll go away,” and you’ve got Storm of the Century.

Or how about:

“A group of young adults (or perhaps a single representative of same) does something incredibly stupid and runs afoul of an evil random object in a relatively isolated area in Somewhere Else, and deaths result (before the Apocalypse).”

Now glance out the window and notice your own car in the driveway, supplying the random object. Congratulations: today you’ll write Christine.

Or perhaps:

“A group of noble adults (or perhaps a single representative of same) does something incredibly stupid and runs afoul of a mysterious representative of Satan in a relatively isolated area in somewhere else, and deaths result (after the Apocalypse).”

Hey, settle in for the weekend — you’re going to write The Stand. Step it up, because the editor needs it Monday.

Keep going; you’ll be amazed at the number of plausible hits you get, when you apply a little imagination.  There’s one critical piece still missing, however: You need to know how your new book is going to end.  You need a real twist here, something that will blow the reader away. You must do something different — something that sets your latest story apart from your other three hundred billion stories.

Go back to our chart and pick an ending at random from Columns 1 and 2.  It must fit the sentence,  ”It was all done by a [1][2] or many of the same.”

 Thus, when you ask yourself, for example, ”How should my new miniseries Rose Red end?” the answer is, “It was all done by a Creepy Zombie or many of the same.”  The same formula fits absolutely every Stephen King ending.  I’m not kidding.

Finished! Now call your Agent, and tell him to give you what you want or you’ll go away. He’ll chuckle politely, he’ll cut you a check, and you’ll laugh all the way to bank.