ABC's V next season featuring the return of Jane Badler!

Yeah you read it right. And not only that but Badler will again be playing evil Visitor baddie Diana: the role that she is still notorious for nearly thirty years later. In the relaunched series however Diana will be the mother of Anna (Morena Baccarin's character), the Visitor who's been leading the invasion of Earth. So it's two different characters, but each named Diana and each played by Jane Badler. Got it?

Ain't It Cool News has more info, including the official press release heralding Badler's return to the V saga.

I'll admit that I've only seen a bit of ABC's V. It's shown some great potential, but thus far hasn't quite lived up to it. Here's hoping that the second season will have this series finally coming into its own. That Jane Badler is being brought back makes me cautiously optimistic.

But that's gonna be dashed to piece if the second season premiere (the first episode that Badler will appear in) doesn't have a scene like this one, from Part 1 of the original NBC miniseries V in 1983...

I was ten years old when I first saw that. And I still get wigged out just thinking about it.

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THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH: Epic television we haven't seen in DECADES

Who'da thought that the story about the building of a church would make for the grandest use of the television medium since Lonesome Dove and War and Remembrance more than twenty years ago?

The best thing on the tube this summer in this blogger's opinion is without a doubt The Pillars of the Earth, currently running on the Starz channels. Based on Ken Follett's bestselling 1989 novel and with production from Ridley Scott's company, The Pillars of the Earth is an eight-hour historical epic set during the Anarchy: the period between the sinking of the White Ship and the assassination of Thomas Becket in the England of the twelfth century. Amid the political and religious intrigues of the fight between Stephen and Matilda for the throne of England, the virtuous Prior Philip dreams of helping the people of his parish improve their lot. When Kingsbridge's original church burns to the ground, master mason Tom Builder presents Philip with plans for a majestic new cathedral. Set against their plot are Sir Percy Hamleigh and his wife Lady Regan (who is as cunning as she is hideous), their sadistic son William (who fears Hell above all else) and the wicked Bishop Waleran Bigod. These allies of King Stephen also must contend with Aliena and Richard: children of the Earl Bartholomew who seek to avenge the honor of their father and regain their title. And then there is Jack: the step-son of Tom Builder, who hides a secret history that is set to clash the secular and the spiritual against each other in an already tumultuous era.

Starring Ian McShane as Waleran, Donald Sutherland as Bartholomew, Rufus Sewell as Tom Builder, Matthew Macfadyen as Prior Philip, and with Eddie Redmayne in what should be a breakout role and contender for Emmy with his portrayal of Jack, The Pillars of the Earth is sumptuous in its acting, its production values and its attempt at storytelling in the television medium. The result is a work of art more of the caliber of Oscar-nominated film. It also single-handedly resurrects the miniseries - narcoleptic for far too long - as a potent narrative tool.

The first two hours aired two weeks ago and the second part was broadcast last week. Part 3 airs tonight on Starz, and throughout the next week. I've already got The Pillars of the Earth Blu-ray set pre-ordered. But don't wait for that: check it out now if you've got Starz, and prepare for a treat. Highly, highly recommended.

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The 367 miles per hour school bus

Sporting a jet engine from a Phantom fighter plane, this school bus that Paul Stender and his team at Indy Boys Inc. out of Indianapolis hacked together can reach speeds up to 367 miles per hour!!

The downside is that top speed is sustainable only for a half-mile. And it takes 150 gallons of fuel to reach it. But that's gotta be a hella scary ride for any kiddies that might be aboard this beast. Stender and his crew used an actual school bus to build their creation but admit having to reinforce it quite a bit because "There's no way the original bus could have withstood the speeds that I take it to." Still, he estimates that about 5 percent, including the door, are original parts.

Why a 367-MPH school bus? The self-taught Stender quipped that "I grew up on a farm and to tell you the truth I always wanted to learn things myself and didn't like school much... I guess this is my revenge for all those days riding on the slow journey to school, now it goes at my kind of pace."

But there are other reasons as well. From the story at the Telegraph...

Mr Stender's creation, which he has dubbed 'The School Time Jet-Powered School Bus', also fires out 80 foot flames from the back creating massive clouds of smoke.

Mr Stender, 43, said: "I built the bus for two reasons. The first is to entertain people because, come on, it's a jet bus.

"The second, is to keep kids off drugs. Jets are hot, drugs are not...

"We do a lot of displays at schools and we are trying to show them there's more to life than sitting in front of computers.

Click on the above link for more, including video of the School Time Jet-Powered School Bus in seriously hot action!

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Happy 80th Birthday to Neil Armstrong

The Knight Shift and its eclectic proprietor would like to join the very many other admirers of Dr. Neil Armstrong in wishing him all the best on his 80th birthday today!

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Proposition 8, states rights, and the end of jury nullification

Two things that trouble me about California's Proposition 8 - the "gay marriage" ban - being struck down yesterday by Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker...

The first is that a single member of the federal judiciary is empowered to render null and void the vote of more than 7 million voters in a matter pertaining to their own state of residence.

The other thing is that even as this is being cheered in some quarters as a "victory" for certain individuals, in truth it is a dire setback for all individuals. I speak of the now decades-long erosion of jury nullification: the tradition that common people empaneled on a jury can acquit defendants and even overturn legislation in spite of legal and prosecutorial weight, if sincere conscience should so dictate. And even though jury nullification is generally a matter strictly relegated to affairs at trial, its principle extends throughout the whole of the law of our democratically-elected republic.

Jury nullification is something that I have long appreciated. It is - and should always be - the citizenry's last, best bulwark for peaceable resistance against any and all agents of government overstepping the rightful bounds. The moment that government refuses to honor this, then it begins to be questioned whether government is obligated to acknowledge and respect the rights of the people... or whether the people are obligated to acknowledge the government in kind.

The people of California voted overwhelmingly for Proposition 8, and whether the rest of us agree with it or not we should respect the people of California to manage their own affairs as a state.

And one judge, sitting on the federal bench and regardless of agenda, should never be enabled with the power to negate the legislative will of citizens in good conscience. For that way, lies tyranny.

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Don't pretend it isn't true

Politics is the pursuit of power by those who rarely deserve it.

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Huh?!? So the plot for INCEPTION was already done in a Scrooge McDuck comic book?!?

Yesterday the Internets were lit up about how Christopher Nolan's new film Inception shared some common elements with one of Bill Waterson's Calvin and Hobbes comic strips.

If you thought that was a honkin' big coincidence, wait'll you get a load of this 'un...

Those same sharp lads at GeekTyrant have scored another find. The whole plot of Inception is eerily similar to Dream of a Lifetime: a 2004 Disney-published comic book about... Scrooge McDuck!

Here's a page from the comic. Click on it to drastically embiggenize...

According to the guys at GeekTyrant, Dream of a Lifetime "... tells the story of how the Beagle Boys used a device to enter Scrooge McDuck's dreams to extract the secret combination to Scrooge McDuck's vault! I dead freakin' serious! Did Nolan get his idea from a Uncle Scrooge comic book!?"

Mash down here for the link to GeekTyrant's page, which has a link to where you can read the comic in full.

Yah, that's a great find. However the more I think about it, the more examples of this same "invading a person's dreams" thing I'm able to think back upon. There was an episode of Batman: The Animated Series involving Mad Hatter that was kinda like this. And I even remember one of the episodes of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero years ago that had Cobra's Dr. Mindbender messin' with the Joes' dreams (one of the Joes, I think it was Low-Light, turned the tables on Cobra 'cuz he didn't sleep normally, or something...). However nothing that comes to mind bears anything as close a resemblance to how dream-stealing worked in Inception than does this Scrooge McDuck comic.

Now all we need for the world to be perfect is to wait for Muppet Inception.

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