Tonight's Awful Bedtime Movie: The Incredible Melting Man (1977)

Movies about astronauts exposed to radiation and becoming monsters don't have a good track record.

"The Crawling Hand."

"Monster A Go-Go."

And now "The Incredible Melting Man."

This 1977 turkey, one of IMDB's "Bottom 100," is the tale of the lone survivor of a three-man mission to Saturn that turns him into a murderous monster. He only kills a few people, all in brief shots, over the span of 84 minutes so strap in for 82 minutes of meandering, pointless filler.

While orbiting the planet, Steven West and two other astronauts are attacked by stock footage. The movie fails miserably to explain what happens, much less how he managed to make the seven-year trip back to Earth from Saturn all by himself while unconscious and in what appears to be just a few hours. The unconscious West awakens in a military hospital. There he finds he's been exposed to radiation and his flesh is melting away.

That's all he needs to know to go on a murderous rampage. His first victim is the nurse who finds him, who he chases in slow motion for no reason. West is followed by groovy doctors who try to stop his poorly-directed campaign of bloodshed and plot holes.

There's one scene where West tears off the head of a fisherman who looks like Eddie Deezen. He tosses it into a river and it bursts open like a cantaloupe when it hits rocks.

There's also a scene where he kills an elderly couple after what has to be ten excruciating, pointless minutes of the two talking about nothing. It's not a good idea to make your audience want the victims to die.

There's also an inexplicable scene in which a man is thrown into power lines and several pointless minutes where you're forced to watch a woman knit.

The film ends with a janitor calmly scooping up what's left of West and tossing him into a trash can.

The movie stinks. It's five pounds of movie in an eighty pound sack. At least the makeup effects are pretty good for a low budget 1970s film, of which I seem be to watching a lot of.

Fun Facts:

One of the victims is a young Jonathan Demme. One can only imagine the horrors of appearing in this film led him to direct "Silence of the Lambs."

"The Incredible Melting Man" was originally meant to be a parody of 1950s horror films but the studio changed directions in the middle of filming and decided to make it a serious film. Unsurprisingly the studio was American International Pictures, which churned out hundreds of exploitation and cheap drive-in films between the 1950s and 1970s. They figured out the secret to profitable film making was it could be as cheap and poorly-made as possible, but if you produce something a 19-year old boy will like it will make money.

Questions That Need Answers And Other Observations:

Saturn looks a lot like public domain footage of the Earth and solar flares.

So, the explosion or whatever it is kills his crew and knocks him unconscious, but he manages to fly back to Earth from Saturn? (The trip would take seven years in real life.)

Why are they using time-lapse photography in a real-time scene?

Why did they mike the grocery bag?

They shot a couch, skinned it and made curtains out of it.

Half of the dialogue in this movie has nothing to do with the movie.

Was there any editing?

Bold move casting Anton LaVey as the crime scene photographer.

Why do you have random gawkers at a crime scene in the middle of the wilderness?

Wait, his hospital pajamas were dark blue, and now they're white? Apparently the monster killed the continuity guy.

Another scene shot in slow motion for no reason. I'm not kidding when I say I think they're using slow motion to pad out the length of the film.

And another pointless scene that doesn't advance the plot to pad out the film.

Another pointless flashback to the space accident scene? That's the third time. How badly did they come up short in the pre-release run time?

Okay, I'm halfway through the movie and they still haven't explained what happened or what's going on. I'm beginning to think the director made a really cool movie, lost the film, and replaced it with surveillance footage of his life.

Was anything cut from the film? This thing is 2% plot and 98% people just standing around doing nothing.

And we flash back to the space flight for a fourth time. Still nothing happening in this movie.

Plot hole: The problem is his muscle tissue is melting away, yet the problem is he's freakishly strong.

I think the monster killed the movie's editor.

Yet another scene of pointless, rambling, inane conversation and nothing happening?

The movie is three-fourths done and they're finally getting around to actual plot points?

Was this an anthology of ten short, plotless films?

Did everyone look like Gabe Kaplan in the 70s?

Finally, something happens! She chops his arm off and he runs away. Unfortunately the scene just runs on as she falls against a wall and cries for a long time. You can cut away now. Anytime. Next scene? GET ON WITH IT!

His pistol turned into a shotgun?

This thing got 3.2 out of 10 stars on IMDB. That's 2.2 stars too many.

Wait. He gets STRONGER as he melts? Then why did his arm fall off when it was fanned at with a kitchen knife?

Apparently the human body is 70% fireworks and flash paper.

WAIT!!!! The entire point of the movie was he had to be stopped because he got stronger and stronger as he melted (which makes no sense) but he's finally stopped because he melted?

So, the janitor find a pile of blood, tissue and organs and just scoops it up and tosses it in the trash like its perfectly normal? What kind of power plant is this?

Two lies that need to be countered.

The Wisconsin budget reforms DO NOT take away someone's right to join a union. They simply require a union to use a method other than collective bargaining to negotiate benefits for government workers. Government employees can still collectively bargain wages.

Also, unions are not required by law to provide the same benefits to non-union members they do union members. They actually reject the option to negotiate only for members and fight to put non-members into their agreements so they can use the "we have to take care of freeloaders" argument in future negotiations.

If a union boss' lips are moving, he's lying.

The real numbers about campaign cash and the Wisconsin governor's race

Koch PAC to Walker: $43,000.
Union bosses to Tom Barrett: $334,556.

Unions bosses spent 778% more than Koch.

Three different unions gave more than Koch.

Government employee union bosses gave $67,750 in the race, 58% more than Koch.

Koch provided Walker with less than 0.5% of his funds.
Union bosses provided his Democrat opponent with a little more than 6% of his funds.

Those figures are direct contributions only. They do not include the in-kind contributions of volunteers, staff, facilities and equipment unions provide in amounts that often top their cash contributions.

The Reality: Fat Cat Government Unions vs. Underfunded Kochs

Keep these figures in mind next time a union stooge tells you Wisconsin's budget reforms are a battle between poor, destitute unions and the comic book supervillian Kochs who are buying elections.

Twelve of the twenty-one biggest campaign bankrollers in the United States are unions, funneling close to a half-billion dollars into the bank accounts of Democrats. The Kochs, whom Democrats claim fund everything, clock in at #83.

The Kochs have spent a little less than three percent of what unions did, $11 million from the Kochs to nearly $350 million from the unions. And ten percent of that Koch money went to Democrats, so in reality the Kochs are an even greater disadvantage.

The AFSCME, the nation's biggest government union, alone blows the Kochs out of the water. They've pumped over $43 million into the pockets of candidates, four times what the Kochs gave, making just one government union the nation's third-biggest campaign bankroller.

Only two groups are bigger, #2 AT&T (which split its contributions almost evenly between Republicans and Democrats) and #1 ActBlue. The single biggest campaign bankrolling special interest in the nation gave 99% of its $51 million-plus bankwad to Democrats. In fact, of the top 21 campaign contributing groups in the country, only four gave a majority of their contributions to Republicans.

So keep that in mind a well-funded union stooge tells you they're fighting "big money" in Wisconsin.

Limbaugh picks up on how government unions work

Limbaugh gets around to making the point I made last week -- government employee unions exists solely because they are an easy way to route millions of taxpayer dollars into the bank accounts of Democrat campaigns.

That's why Democrats are stopping at nothing, including faked polls, outright lies, occupying state capitols and punching out young women, to preserve their power to organize against taxpayers.

Here's how government unions work, and why Democrats have declared war on citizens to preserve them.

1) Tax money goes into a government paycheck.
2) A portion of those tax dollars are skimmed off the top by a union boss as "dues" -- totaling millions.
3) The union boss redirects much of those tax dollars into the bank accounts of Democrat politicians as "contributions."

This it ends there? Wrong. Government employee unions are a self-replicating tax hike machine in which insatiable consumers of tax dollars organize against taxpayers for the sole purpose of making them pay higher taxes.

1) Government employee union bosses spend redistributed your tax dollars electing politicians who vote to hire more government employees.
2) More government employees means more taxpayer dollars pumped into the bank accounts of government employee union bosses.
3) Goverment union bosses spend their now-larger ban accounts to elect even more liberal politicians, who vote to create even more government employees.
4) Repeat ad nauseum until you run out of other people's money and drive the state into virtual bankruptcy.

Travis' Letter from The Alamo, February 24, 1836

Commandancy of the Alamo
Bexar, Fby. 24th, 1836

To the People of Texas & all Americans in the world
Fellow Citizens & Compatriots

I am besieged by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna. I have sustained a continual bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man. The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise the garrison are to be put to the sword if the fort is taken. I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender nor retreat.

Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism, & of everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid with all dispatch. The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country.

Victory or Death
William Barret Travis
Lt. Col. Comdt.

P. S. The Lord is on our side. When the enemy appeared in sight we had not three bushels of corn. We have since found in deserted houses 80 or 90 bushels & got into the walls 20 or 30 head of Beeves.
Travis

Media coverage at CPAC

I got to speak last Thursday with POLITICO about American Tradition Partnership’s mission, our participation in CPAC 2011 and our efforts to secure a recorded vote on the REINS Act. POLITICO is one of the nation’s most respected political newspapers.

A short snippet from the interview begins at the 0:47 mark.



The Soros-funded outlet, The Independent, covers my work at CPAC in both its Colorado and D.C. editions in the story, "Anti-green group crows about squashing ‘radical environmentalist’ Newt Gingrich in CPAC straw poll," claiming I "derail(ed) the presidential aspirations of former Republic Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich at last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington."

They also whine I "got credit for one of the nastiest campaign pieces in Colorado last November, sending out a mailer with the face of state Sen. Gail Schwartz superimposed over the body of Donald Trump with the tagline “You’re Fired!” It was a reference to Schwartz’s strong advocacy for renewable energy legislation that the groups view as job-killing attacks on the oil and gas and coal industries."

They weren't campaign pieces.

The New American also covers the "Power-Grabbing Newt" information campaign in "Newt Gingrich's Environmentalism Hurts Him at CPAC." The quotes attributed to me aren't verbatim what I said (I didn't found ATP, and we only oppose Gingrich's agenda. As a 501(c)4 we only oppose legislation and proposals, not candidacies.) but he gets the gist of it well.

I also had great conversations with Tea Party Radio, The Washington Examiner and The Washington Times, where we should be getting placement soon.

ATP sinks Gingrich in CPAC Straw Poll

ATP sinks Gingrich in CPAC Straw Poll

Speaker’s long record of radical environmentalism bombs with CPAC voters after ATP’s ‘Power-Grabbing Newt’ campaign

WASHINGTON — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich finished a disappointing fifth with just five percent of the vote in the annual CPAC Presidential Straw Poll after American Tradition Partnership distributed “Power-Grabbing Newts” documenting his vocal advocacy of radical environmentalism. Gingrich finished 26 points out of first place.

“American Tradition Partnership delivered a message to Newt Gingrich. Your record of radical environmentalism should stay on that love seat with Nancy Pelosi. ATP members urge Speaker Gingrich to renounce radical environmentalism and adopt a conservative message of less government and more freedom,” said ATP Executive Director Donald Ferguson, referencing an ad Gingrich filmed with Pelosi to promote former vice-president “Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection.”

“No one can side with the radical greens against people, property and prosperity without being held accountable, even if you cover up your green agenda with conservative rhetoric,” said Ferguson. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Democrat running for a small town city council or the Republican former Speaker of the House seeking a presidential bid, American Tradition Partnership will hold you accountable. Big Green’s political puppets cannot hide from accountability, whether they are in Georgia, Iowa or New Hampshire.”

“Whether it’s fighting to protect the EPA, opposing conservative efforts to repeal job-killing green laws, calling for wealth redistribution to enforce ‘environmental compliance’ or demanding the U.S. give up national sovereignty to please global greens, Newt Gingrich may try to paint himself Republican red, but his record is radical green. No wonder he was roundly rejected after ATP informed conservatives of his real agenda,” said Ferguson.

With a coveted speaking slot, exhibiting organization and book signing, hosting three panels and a reception and screening two films, Gingrich’s presence dominated that of other presumptive presidential candidates. CPAC looked to be a launching pad for a Gingrich presidential bid. Instead, the Republican powerhouse cratered after ATP informed voters of Gingrich’s long record of supporting massive tax hikes, increased government power and international regulatory regimes to enforce what he calls “environmental compliance.”

The twenty-five quotes were pulled from Gingrich’s books, “A Contract With The Earth,” “Winning The Future” and “Real Change.” Along with the flyer of quotes, CPAC attendees were given a sticky lizard toy, dubbed a “Power-Grabbing Newt” to promote the information campaign.

Supported by grassroots activists, American Tradition Partnership is a fast-growing national conservative organization fighting the liberal agenda of environmentalism and its calls for increased government power and taxation.

The text of the flyer follows:

BIG GREEN GOVERNMENT 101
WHO SAID IT? NEWT GINGRICH OR AL GORE?

A POP QUIZ FROM AMERICAN TRADITION PARTNERSHIP (AmericanTradition.org)
Hint: These are all recent Newt Gingrich statements.

I WAS A GREEN PUPPET WHEN IT WASN’T COOL: “When I first ran for Congress I was the natural candidate of most environmental groups…” Newt Gingrich, “Winning The Future,” Page 168

CREATE GLOBAL SPENDING REGIMES: “If the United States challenged Europe and Japan to join it in financing a world biodiversity refuge system and tied foreign aid into the process of maintaining biodiversity, we could probably save a very high percentage of the earth’s biological richness…” Newt Gingrich, “Winning The Future,” Pages 170-171

SPREAD THE WEALTH, TO GREENS: “The United States should support substantial research into climate change, managing the response to climate change, and in developing new non-carbon energy systems.” Newt Gingrich, “Winning The Future,” Page 171

PUT DC IN CONTROL: “The federal government should establish measurable standards for a healthy environment…” Newt Gingrich, “Winning The Future,” Page 172

CASH FOR CLUNKERS? MORE, PLEASE: “A tax credit to subsidize energy efficient cars (including a tax credit for turning in old and heavily polluting cars) is another idea we should support.” Newt Gingrich, “Winning The Future,” Page 174

INDOCTRINATE THEM YOUNG: “As a young professor at West Georgia College, I taught in the second Earth Day in 1971 and coordinated an interdisciplinary environmental studies program.” Newt Gingrich, “Real Change,” Page 196

NEWT ENDORSES ‘CASH FOR CLUNKERS,’ AGAIN: “There ought to be a tax break for trading in old cars that use a lot of petroleum and emit a lot of pollution.” Newt Gingrich, “Real Change,” Page 204

WE MUST PROTECT THE ESA “That is why I worked so diligently as Speaker of the House to protect the Endangered Species Act, historic legislation that has been mired in controversy…The Endangered Species Act is an excellent example of the value of civility, consultation and collaboration.” Newt Gingrich, “A Contract With The Earth,” Pages XII & 51

THE EARTH NEEDS A GOVERNMENT TAKEOVER “Government, at all levels, should be a facilitator for entrepreneurial, private-sector innovations and the formation of private-public environmental partnerships.” Newt Gingrich, “A Contract With The Earth,” Page 13

STOP THE CONSERVATIVES FROM LIMITING GOVERNMENT POWER “For that reason, we have supported its (the Endangered Species Act’s) continuation against all challenges by private citizens, interest groups, and congressional opponents.” Newt Gingrich, “A Contract With The Earth,” Page 53

CREATE NEW GOVERNMENT SPENDING PROGRAMS “The U.S. government operates endowments for the humanities and the arts…Perhaps, it is time we consider a new endowment for conservation and the environment.” “Newt Gingrich, “A Contract With The Earth,” Pages 115-116 [NOTE: As Speaker, Gingrich told conservatives he wanted to eliminate the wasteful National Endowment for the Arts. Now he cites it as an example of a government spending spree that needs to be duplicated.]

SPEND ‘SIGNIFICANT’ TAX MONEY IN THE U.S., AND AROUND THE WORLD “Significant resources should be set aside to protect hallowed sites such as the Galapagos Islands, the Virguna Volcanoes in Central Africa, and Georgia’s Okenfenokee Swamp, to name a few.” Newt Gingrich, “A Contract With The Earth,” Page 117

MILITANT ENVIRONMENTALISM…LITERALLY? “John Muir, for most of his adult life, experienced nature in spiritual overtones…He even favored using the armed forces to enforce environmental law…However, with the inexorable advance of the urban realm, the defense of forested land assumes a greater urgency as we strive to sustain the highest-quality standards for our nation’s air, water, and land.” Newt Gingrich, “A Contract With The Earth,” Page 127

HOORAY FOR RECORD-BREAKING SPENDING HIKES! “Our national parks and wildlife reserves require more vigorous protection. With an eye toward strengthening his environmental legacy in the 2007 federal budget, President Bush requested the largest increase for national park funding in our nation’s history. We should expect nothing less than excellence from our national park system.” Newt Gingrich, “A Contract With The Earth,” Pages 130-131

ENVIRONMENTALISM, OUR GLOBAL RELIGION OF PEACE “Far from becoming a new source of global discord, environmentalism, which binds nations to a common concern, will be the best thing that’s ever happened to international relations.” Newt Gingrich, “A Contract With The Earth,” Pages 149-150

GLOBAL GOVERNANCE IS THE SOLUTION “We will need to organize a series of high-level global conferences that focus on specific [environmental] problems…” Newt Gingrich, “A Contract With The Earth,” Page 158

GOVERNMENT IS THE ONLY SOURCE OF INNOVATION “…the type of arduous research that produces real breakthroughs can only be funded by astute governments.” Newt Gingrich, “A Contract With The Earth,” Page 167

NEWT WANTS TO BRING BACK CARTER ENERGY POLICIES “America used to be that kind of government [that spent millions of tax dollars on “energy research” welfare programs,] but our commitments have wavered in recent years so government incentives for energy research will be issues in future political campaigns.” Newt Gingrich, “A Contract With The Earth,” Page 1
+667

NEWT LOVES THE UN’S KYOTO TREATY GLOBAL APPROACH “Mobilizing other countries to join us will not be as easy as it may appear. Many of the countries that signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol are lagging behind on their commitments.” Newt Gingrich, “A Contract With The Earth,” Page 168

STOP CONSERVATIVE OPPOSITION TO THE ESA “The act [Endangered Species Act] has been, by any measure, a very successful guardian of wildlife and habitat and any attempt to weaken it should be resisted.” Newt Gingrich, “A Contract With The Earth,” Page 170

NEWT INVENTS A NEW DISEASE ONLY ENVIRONMENTALISM CAN CURE “…our children, according to Louv, run the risk of acquiring ‘nature deficit disorder,’ a malady that he describes as a contributing factor to a recognized mental health construct, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. Nature deficit disorder, not yet acknowledged by scientists or clinicians, is a working hypothesis that Louv believes helps to explain the onset of ADHD, and he proposes that exposure to nature should be offered as a therapy for children who have difficulty attending to stimuli and learning in conventional classrooms. His call for research in this domain is compelling.” Newt Gingrich, “A Contract With The Earth,” Page 182

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS SHOULD REDISTRIBUTE INCOME TO ‘STIMULATE’ GREEN COMPLIANCE “Local governments operate much closer to the origin of environmental problems, and they have begun to provide tax incentives and large cash rewards for environmental compliance…While the motivation is driven by the application of tax dollars, the effect is rewarding rather than punitive…” Newt Gingrich, “A Contract With The Earth,” Page 194

DON’T CUT GOVERNMENT, JUST MAKE IT NICER “…our government, at all levels, must be modernized to successfully partner, let alone compete, with the private sector.” Newt Gingrich, “A Contract With The Earth,” Page 196

MAN-MADE CLIMATE CHANGE IS A FACT “We agree that there is plenty of evidence that global climate change is occurring…While humanity is certainly causing its fair share of the change, scientists are still not able to precisely pinpoint the extent of the change, or the margin of error in their estimates.” Newt Gingrich, “A Contract With The Earth,” Page 200

GIVING TAX DOLLARS TO LIBERALS IS OUR ONLY HOPE “In spite of the demonstrated liberal leanings in academia, we have nothing but respect for the nation’s scientists. They represent America’s best hope to protect the environment. We support a dramatic increase in science and technology research and development because we desperately need to understand global climate change and other environmental phenomena.” Newt Gingrich, “A Contract With The Earth,” Page 201

MOTHER EARTH NEEDS ALL YOUR INCOME “Needless to say, an appropriate and significant investment of public and private funding to renew the earth will pay dividends.” Newt Gingrich, “A Contract With The Earth,” Page 202

Massive tax hikes? Massive new government spending? Federal and global regulation?
Real conservatives, like American Tradition Partnership, disagree.
Tell “Power-Grabbing Newt” what you think of his radical liberal agenda.

Get your own “Power-Grabbing Newt.” Visit ATP, Table 802, in the Exhibit Hall.

# # #

No Party For Old Moderates

The next time you hear a Democrat bleating there's no room for moderates in the Republican Party, remind them of this -- the Democrat Leadership Council, the centrist Democrat organization that launched Bill Clinton into the White House, has been killed off by Democrats for not being sufficiently leftist.

"The Democratic Leadership Council, the iconic centrist organization of the Clinton years, is out of money and could close its doors as soon as next week, a person familiar with the plans said Monday," Ben Smith of POLITICO reports this morning.

"The DLC, a network of Democratic elected officials and policy intellectuals had long been fading from its mid-'90s political relevance, tarred by the left as a symbol of 'triangulation' at a moment when there's little appetite for intra-party warfare on the center-right," Smith reports.

Not only are moderates not welcome in the Democrat Party, they can't even get together without being pursued with pitchforks and torches.

http://DonnyFerguson.blogspot.com

Imprisoning citizens for fun and profit

"Do you think that we want those laws to be observed? We want them broken. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power the government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."

That was Dr. Ferris, of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged," describing to industrialist Hank Reardon why they were persecuting him, and how government criminalizes innocent citizens.

Sadly, it's no longer fiction. Salt Lake City's KSL reports:

It was a shocking experience for Dena Long-Christensen, sitting in a cell in the Salt Lake County Jail for nearly two weeks among people charged with serious crimes.

Her cellmate, for example, was spending time on charges of aggravated assault. Long-Christensen's crime? Selling flower baskets from her home...

...A four-month investigation by KSL-TV discovered Long-Christensen's case is but one of several examples of questionable activities inside city-run justice courts, which operate outside the purview of the state's judiciary. Critics of the justice courts cite examples of judges issuing random rulings, sidestepping normal rules of jurisprudence and sometimes doling out harsh punishment for relatively minor infractions...

...The courts operate with virtually no oversight beyond that of the sponsoring cities, which rely on the courts as municipal cash cows, generating millions of dollars in fines and fees every year.

Kimberly Beazer's case is one example. She believes the court tried to coerce her into pleading guilty and paying a $200 fine instead of getting her day in court...

...The money generated by these courts runs into the millions of dollars, according to the most recent report on justice court revenue for fiscal year 2010. Last year, justice courts collected nearly $60 million from fines. The top five cities and counties with the most money raised through justice court include Salt Lake City, West Valley City, Sandy, Davis County and Utah County respectively. The five combined totaled more than $16.5 million.

According to Utah statute, if a city or county does not have an established justice court, the money collected from misdemeanor offenses are split with half going to the city or county and half going to the state. But if a city or county establishes its own justice court, all revenue collected stays within the municipality.

"The justice courts are extremely profitable. There is a financial motive for keeping these courts," Hart said...

Tonight's Awful Bedtime Movie: The Atomic Brain/Monstrosity (1964)

I had planned on watching "Teenagers From Outer Space," but LP Florida Director Karl Dickey reminded me there's another movie with an even more inane plot and wooden acting, 1964's "Monstrosity," best known for its use on "Mystery Science Theater 3000" under its alternate title "The Atomic Brain."

Long story short, it's another one of the thousands of movies in which pretty young women are threatened by an evil scientist and his subhuman assistant in a rural mansion that is eventually destroyed in a laboratory fire.

I'm not kidding. I've seen about six of them in just the last month (VooDoo Man, Frankenstein's Daughter, etc.) But this one has an entertainingly creepy old lady.

The creepy old lady places as ad looking for domestic help, strangely specific in her demand for young female applicants only. No, she's not played by Eleanor Roosevelt.

Creepy old lady's creepy gigolo picks up the trio of responders: a sweet Mexican girl, a voluptuous blonde with what is supposed to be an English accent but instead sounds like she's eating peanut butter and the smart, cute, good girl you know will be the last one alive. There they are inspected by the creepy couple's creepy doctor.

Creepy Inc.'s plan is simple. Lop off the top of one young girl's skull, plop old lady's brain inside and viola, old lady lives on as a stunningly attractive young girl. Well, a stunningly attractive young girl with the top of her head stitched on. They probably should have thought that one out.

Creepy doctor decides to test his experiment by putting the brain of creepy old lady's cat into the cute Mexican girl's head. No explanation of how you keep the cat's brain from rolling around in there, or what they did with a perfectly good human brain.

The complications of putting a cat's brain into a human body come to light when Mexican girl/cat claws out the eye of horrible English accent girl, falls off the roof and doesn't land on her feet. They're going to need a bigger shoe box.

Oh, and there's a cute zombie girl who was another successful test run wanders around, and there's some kind of man-dog or werewolf from an unrelated and unexplained experiment. That doesn't go well either.

And I'm not sure what the deal is with movies about unethical scientists made between then 1940s and 1960s, but the movie ends with, yes, a laboratory fire.

But there's a twist. Instead of putting old lady's brain into the cute, good girl, the doctor put it into the cat, which survives the fire. No explanation of how you cram a human brain into a cat's skull without it looking like a broken tube of biscuits.

The movie makes it seem like the old lady will seek her revenge, but she's now a stray cat. I mean, she can't talk, she doesn't have thumbs and she'll be dead in ten years anyway.

So if you're scoring at home, that's one dead zombie girl, one dead man-dog, one dead Mexican cat-girl, a dead girl missing both an eye and a comprehensible English accent, a dead gigolo, a dead old lady with no brain and a Mexican girl's brain with no body. Sounds like inventory at the Neverland Ranch.

The movie stinks, but at least the old lady is a pretty cool movie villain.

WHAT I LEARNED TODAY: Filmed under the title "Monstrosity" and later promoted with the title "The Atomic Brain," it should be re-released today under the new title "Escape From Cher's House."

Oops: DNC's 2012 convention theme is Communist party slogan

From this morning's Washington Post:

"President Barack Obama's selection of this Southern city [Charlotte, N.C.] for the 2012 Democratic convention signals he will try to reassemble his diverse coalition of 2008 supporters and fight for the conservative-leaning states that helped him win the White House...The convention's apparent theme - The People's Convention - indicates that the president will try to rekindle the grass-roots flavor of his groundbreaking 2008 bid."

I thought the term "The People's Convention" sounded vaguely familiar. There's good reason why:

* "The People's Convention" Party is a socialist former political party in Ghana, that merged with others to become the Convention People's Party, which advocates socialist revolution.

* "The People's Convention" was also a revolutionary government proposed by U.K. socialists in the 1940s to overthrow Parliament. The idea of "The People's Convention" was so radical even the Communist Party of Great Britain refused to support it.

* Today "The People's Convention" is a radical protest group promoted by The Socialist Worker, which bills itself "A Revolutionary Anti-Capitalist Paper In Britain."

* And, ironically, "The People's Convention" was the name of a mass protest organized by a coalition of 70 communist and socialist community organizations to picket the 2000 Democrat National Convention for not being liberal enough.

http://DonnyFerguson.blogspot.com

Tonights's Awful Bedtime Movie: Mad Monster (1942)

If any movie obeys Bad Monster Movie Law to the letter, it's "Mad Monster."

Dr. Lorenzo Cameron's colleagues consider him crazy, so he decides to prove them wrong -- by turning his gardener into a werewolf that kills them. Monster Movie Law is obeyed as 1) an unwilling assistant in turned into the monster, and 2) through the use of a "serum."

In compliance with Bad Monster Movie Law, the villain develops the monster to 3) exact revenge against colleagues who consider him crazy.

Well, technically they didn't call him crazy.

At some point in the film Cameron has an imaginary conversation with his colleagues where he tells them he developed a serum that turns America's soldiers into wolfmen so they can fight the Communist menace. The imaginary versions of his colleagues laugh at him, so logically he decides to instead use the serum to kill his real-life colleagues.

Finally, in compliance with Bad Monster Movie Law, the case is cracked by 4) a reporter the female lead has fallen in love with, and 5) the mad scientist and monster die in a laboratory fire.

From what I've seen on film, in the 1940s and 50s laboratory fires killed more people than heart disease and cancer combined.

What I Learned Today: When applying for a job as a low-level employee of a scientist who lives in a rural mansion always ask A) for a no-injection-of-serums clause, and B) where the fire extinguisher is.

Rapist/killer on the ANC? We owe Marion Barry an apology.

Think D.C. residents are silly for having a mayor who smoked crack?

Try having a Advisory Neighborhood Commission Chairman who could only attend meetings after getting a pass from the mental institution where he has been locked up since 1967 after he savagely raped and killed a Senate aide.

So I'm reading a story in this morning's Washington Post about a woman doing a documentary on the people confined to the city's mental hospital for the criminally insane. I was stunned by this sentence.

"[Lewis] Ecker, for instance, [institutionalized since 1967 after he raped and killed a Senate aide] was an elected neighborhood advisory commissioner in the 1990s in Ward 8, where St. Elizabeths is."

Yes, D.C. residents elected to the ANC a man who was confined to a mental institution for three decades after he brutally raped, sodomized and strangled a 24-year-old girl, leaving numerous bite marks on her body.

But that's all the article said. So I looked into it further.

Not only was he elected to the ANC, the ANC elected him chairman even though the hospital isn't sure whether he'll rape and kill again. Despite that, hospital officials let him out to attend ANC meetings.

Ecker lost his community privileges after "hospital officials found more than 20 sexually sadistic stories in his ANC office on the hospital grounds. He eventually admitted that he wrote the stories, casting himself as the protagonist who dominated and humiliated women. One of the female characters has the same first name as the prosecutor who is opposing Ecker's bid for more freedom."

And it's not like he was a model prisoner. According to the earlier Post article there have been "at least four occasions since the late 1970s when Ecker has been caught with sexually sadistic materials, ranging from the short stories to a card catalogue of women -- including his murder victim -- with sexual comments about them.

"He also has been caught with hospital keys, pictures of himself dressed in a hospital guard's uniform, as well as snapshots of him and his girlfriend and some patients in sexually provocative poses. And he has disappeared at least twice, once on a hospital field trip to the zoo, and another time for several hours when he was in an apartment with his former wife.

"Each time, (prosecutor Colleen) Kennedy said, Ecker initially denied wrongdoing, then changed his story several times before finally admitting culpability -- examples of what she says is his manipulative personality."

Who's stupider? Hospital officials for letting him out to run for office and attend ANC meetings? ANC members for naming him chairman? Or Ward 8 residents for electing him?

The Unnatural Nature of Conservationists

From this morning's Virginia Beach Virginian-Pilot:

A juvenile harbor seal was stranded Dec. 28, 2010, south of Little Island Fishing Pier in Sandbridge...The small seal was found with shark bites on the left side of its body. The next day, Puddy was taken to the aquarium's Marine Animal Care Center, where staff administered fluids, antibiotics, topical treatment for his wounds and nutritional support.

He was released back into the water yesterday amid much cheering, media coverage for the humans and photo opportunities.

I don't get supposed animal/nature advocates. Without treatment, the wounded seal likely would have been eaten by sharks. By interjecting themselves into nature, throwing the seal into an artificial human environment and treating it, they deprived sharks of needed food.

Between harbor seals and sharks, guess which one is in more need of saving. Many sharks species are near extinction because folks like these "rescuers" make them out to be threats.

One example is the dusky shark, which lives in the waters off Virginia Beach. Because of their slow reproduction rate they are nearing endangered status. Taking away potential food sources does more the limit biodiversity than help it.

These people don't care about nature. They just care about the few species that are cute enough to make them feel good about themselves, at the expense of nature itself.

Hail...Suspenseful Loss

Maybe Snyder and Shanahan are on to something.

According to analysis by The Wall Street Journal the NFL's second most exciting team this season was the Redskins.

Statistics company Thuuz created a metric measuring factors such as pace, parity and strange or rare plays like flea-flickers and fake punts, and processed it through an algorithm.

"The season-long prizefight between head coach Mike Shanahan and defensive lineman Albert Haynesworth—coupled with Mr. Shanahan's conflict with quarterback Donovan McNabb—certainly made the team exciting off the field. Turns out they provided plenty of fireworks on it, too. The 6-10 'Skins played in 12 games decided by six points or less and went to overtime four times, including a 30-27 loss to the Texans," the Journal reports.

All excitement aside, I'd rather suffer through a boring Redskins Super Bowl run.

Why I have a begrudging love for that teasip liberal LBJ

This story, from then-White House Special Assistant Joseph A. Califano, Jr.

"In the early afternoon, the President, with me next to him in the front seat, took his white Lincoln convertible, top down, for a drive around the ranch. It was incredibly hot; the dust clouds made it hard to breathe. But there was relief.

"As we drove around we were followed by a car and a station wagon with Secret Service agents. The President drank Cutty Sark scotch and soda out of a large white plastic foam cup. Periodically, Johnson would slow down and hold his left arm outside the car, shaking the cup and ice.

"A Secret Service agent would run up to the car, take the cup and go back to the station wagon. There another agent would refill it with ice, scotch, and soda as the first agent trotted behind the wagon. Then the first agent would run the refilled cup up to LBJ’s outstretched and waiting hand, as the President’s car moved slowly along."

Tonight's Awful Bedtime Movie: The Day The Earth Froze (1958)

Based on the title, and the movie poster, you'd think it was a sci-fi movie about aliens or a mad scientist, maybe even with Russell Johnson.

Aim lower.

It's a joint Russo-Finnish movie based on a Finnish myth about a witch and magical harps.

Prepare for sweater-wearing, fish-breathed disappointment.

See if you can follow this.

Lemminkainen isn't a topical ointment, but a legendary Finnish mythological hero. He loves the fair Annikki, who is kidnapped by the evil witch Louhi, not to be confused with the bitter "Family Feud" host.

Louhi wants Annikki's father to build her a "Sampo," which is some fictional Finnish contraption that creates salt, grain and gold. When Lemminkainen tries to stop her, Louhi steals the sun/an extra light from the set, plunging the Earth into frozen darkness.

That's when the villagers get off their collective Finnish duff and create magical harps that turn Louhi into a pillar of salt. Kind of makes you wonder how Lemminkainen got to be such a national hero when he accomplished jack squat and a bunch of illiterate peasants had to do his job for him.

Louhi looks like she's made of clay and a road talks to people. I didn't know peyote grew in Finland. The original title was "Sampo," but was dubbed into English and released in the United States by American International Pictures in 1964, probably as some Soviet plot to destroy our morale.

This movie stinks. And it stinks of cabbage and pickled herring.

What I Learned Today: "The Day The Earth Froze" isn't a cinematic retelling of a popular Finnish myth so much as it's documented evidence of Soviet atrocities.

Tonight's Awful Bedtime Movie: High School Big Shot (1959)

Marv is a total loser who looks like he was put together by a committee, and lives with an alcoholic dad. He also loves the very pretty Betty.

Betty pretends to love Marv, but she really loves bad guy Vince and his just using Marv to get out of writing an English paper. Betty dupes Marv into writing the paper for her. When the teacher finds out, Marv loses his college scholarship.

Wow. Lesson learned about trust. And...what? The movie's not over yet?

Oh, yeah. It gets more depressing.

Marv overhears a drug transaction at the docks. He's supposed to be a really smart kid, but for some reason this dope, still in love with Betty, tells her about his plans to steal the drug money hoping it will win her back.

The cold, manipulative Betty, of course, tells Vince, who plans to rob Marv.

Marv is a moron.

And you'll need Xanax to get through the rest of this.

Marv successfully steals the drug money, at which point Vince successfully robs Marv. Vince shoots Marv's friend. Marv shoots Betty. Marv drops the money into the water. Everyone else flees. Marv gets arrested.

Marv is a moron.

This movie isn't just awful, between everyone dying or going to prison, and its central message of never-trust-a-woman, it's bone-crushingly depressing. This thing makes "Precious" look like "Rocky 4."

Oh, before the movie was released the actor who played Marv died in a car wreck and wasn't found for three weeks. He was considered to be a future star.

Still haven't given up?

The movie stunk even though it was a total rip-off of Stanley Kubrick's "The Killing," released just three years earlier.

What I Learned Today: Most armed robbers started out in plagarism.

State of the Union: American Tradition Partnership debunks Obama’s green claims

State of the Union: American Tradition Partnership debunks Obama’s green claims
“Americans want Congress to deliver a ‘shellacking’ to Obama’s job-killing green agenda”

WASHINGTON -- American Tradition Partnership Executive Director Donald Ferguson released the following statement and fact sheet Tuesday night debunking false claims made by President Barack Obama about his environmentalist policies in his annual “State of the Union” address.

“Americans sent Obama a message in November – stop spending and get government out of the way. He did not hear you. His address Tuesday night was a tone deaf performance orchestrated by Big Green.

“Families are struggling with joblessness and rising prices, but Barack Obama chose to side with the radical green activists who are driving up costs and driving out jobs. Obama coldly ignored families and instead warmly embraced the radical green activists responsible for fewer jobs and higher prices. In November they demanded Washington cut off the special interest cash spigot. Instead Obama demanded Congress shower his Big Green allies with billions in new spending. Obama’s green agenda is a red light stopping economic growth.

“Obama’s demand that 80 percent of the nation’s power come from expensive, inefficient experimental sources is a prescription for disaster. Time and time again, Expensive Energy Mandates have always proven to jack up utility bills and kill jobs.

“Americans want Congress to deliver a ‘shellacking’ to Obama’s job-killing green agenda. His proposal for billions in new spending is just a rehash of his failed ‘stimulus’ boondoggle that poured mountains of cash into failed ‘green’ experiment. Defending federal bureaucrats like the EPA and wasting billions on green experiments are precisely what Americans rejected in November.

“Obama openly admitted his ‘green energy’ spending plan will cause your utility bill to, in his own words ‘skyrocket.’ His ‘green jobs’ spending spree proposal has been proven time and time again to be a jobs-destroying black hole. His plan to supposedly cut red tape includes massive loopholes allowing bureaucrats to exempt virtually every expensive regulation and he continues to defend the EPA’s plans to chase jobs overseas. People wanted to hear what he would do to get government out of the way of economic recovery. They were instead pounded with repeated calls for the same government waste, meddling and explosive spending that got us into this mess.”

Obama’s quotes are taken from an advance copy of the speech released by the White House.

Founded in 2007 as Western Tradition Partnership and launched nationwide in 2011 as ATP, the group is supported by grassroots members from across the nation. ATP is a fast-growing non-profit organization dedicated to fighting environmental extremism and promoting private property and responsible development and management of land, water, and natural resources.

For more information on ATP, go to http://www.americantradition.org. For more information on this issue, or to schedule an interview, contact Executive Director Donald Ferguson at 703-200-3669 or at donald.f@americantradition.org.

STATE OF THE UNION: SEPARATING FACT FROM GREEN FICTION

OBAMA’S GREEN FICTION: “We’ll invest in…clean energy technology – an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people… I challenge you to join me in setting a new goal: by 2035, 80% of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources.”

ATP’S FACTS: So-called “renewable power” is inefficient, hideously expensive and destroys jobs.

RENEWABLE ENERGY KILLS 2.2 JOBS FOR EVERY JOB IT CREATES

(George Will, The Washington Post, ‘Tilting at green windmills,’ June 25, 2009)
“(Gabriel) Calzada, 36, an economics professor at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, has produced a report that, if true, is inconvenient for the Obama administration's green agenda, and for some budget assumptions that are dependent upon it.
“Calzada says Spain's torrential spending -- no other nation has so aggressively supported production of electricity from renewable sources -- on wind farms and other forms of alternative energy has indeed created jobs. But Calzada's report concludes that they often are temporary and have received $752,000 to $800,000 each in subsidies -- wind industry jobs cost even more, $1.4 million each. And each new job entails the loss of 2.2 other jobs that are either lost or not created in other industries because of the political allocation -- sub-optimum in terms of economic efficiency -- of capital. (European media regularly report "eco-corruption" leaving a "footprint of sleaze" -- gaming the subsidy systems, profiteering from land sales for wind farms, etc.) Calzada says the creation of jobs in alternative energy has subtracted about 110,000 jobs elsewhere in Spain's economy.”
Source: George Will, The Washington Post, ‘Tilting at green windmills,’ June 25, 2009

WIND POWER’S PROMISE BLOWS AWAY

A deal for a $900 million “wind farm” in Iberdrola, California was struck down by an administrative law judge who ruled “the Manzana Wind Project is not cost-competitive and poses unacceptable risks to ratepayers” and “it will subject the ratepayers to unacceptable risks due to potential cost increases resulting from project under-performance, less than forecasted project life, and any delays which might occur concerning transmission upgrades and commercial online date.”

The Manzana debacle is just one of many that plague the expensive, inefficient “wind energy” lobby.

Source: American Tradition Institute, http://atinstitute.org/blog_post/show/68

SOLAR POWER PROVES TO BE A DIM DEAL

A solar power company went belly-up even after Massachusetts taxpayers showered it in $58 million in subsidies, and officials gave it a sweetheart $1 a year lease.

“Evergreen Solar Inc., once a poster-company for Gov. Deval Patrick's green-jobs agenda, announced plans on Tuesday to shutter its Devens manufacturing plant and move more than 800 jobs elsewhere after accepting $58 million in state subsidies to expand in Massachusetts…

“…The company accepted $58.6 million in grants, loans, land, and tax incentives over the last few years as incentive to expand in Massachusetts and add at least 350 new jobs to the economy.”

Massachusetts is just the latest state to discover “solar” power is expensive, inefficient and a jobs killer.

Source: American Tradition Institute, http://atinstitute.org/blog_post/show/62

EXPENSIVE ENERGY MANDATES FUEL UNEMPLOYMENT, HIGH COSTS

American Tradition Institute, a sister organization of American Tradition Partnership, recently completed an economic study of the costs of Montana’s Expensive Energy Mandate, forcing utilities to buy power from the politically-connected wind and solar lobby. ATI finds:

Between 2010 to 2015, the Expensive Energy Mandate will cost Montanans an additional $1.865 billion over conventional power, within a range of $1.102 billion and $2.886 billion.

By 2015 Montana will lose an average of 1,874 jobs, within a range of between 1,172 jobs under the low cost scenario and 2,893 jobs under the high cost scenario.

In 2015, the RPS mandate will reduce annual wages by an average of $520 per worker, within a range of between $325 per worker $803 per worker.

Due to higher home energy costs, in 2015, annual real disposable income will fall by $175 million, within a range of $109 million and $270 million.

Source: American Tradition Institute, http://atinstitute.org/blog_post/show/66

OBAMA’S GREEN FICTION: “To reduce barriers to growth and investment, I’ve ordered a review of government regulations. When we find rules that put an unnecessary burden on businesses, we will fix them.”

ATP’S FACTS: Obama’s regulatory review includes loopholes allowing bureaucrats to exempt even the costliest regulations, and is nothing more than a do-nothing attempt to fool employers.

OBAMA’S REGULATORY REVIEW EXEMPTS THE WORST REGULATIONS:

(The Wall Street Journal, ‘Obama’s Rule-Making Loophole,” Jan. 24, 2010)

“Among many others, the Environmental Protection Agency said in a statement that it was ‘confident’ it wouldn't need to alter a single current or pending rule…

“Perhaps the EPA's confidence owes to a little-noticed proviso in Mr. Obama's order. When the agencies weigh costs and benefits, the order says, they should always consider ‘values that are difficult or impossible to quantify, including equity, human dignity, fairness, and distributive impacts.’

“Talk about economic elasticities. Equity and fairness can be defined to include more or less anything as a benefit. Under this calculus, a rule might pass Mr. Obama's cost-benefit test if it imposes $999 billion in hard costs but supposedly results in a $1 trillion increase in human dignity, whatever that means in bureaucratic practice. Another rule could pass muster even if it reduces work and investment, as long as it also lessens income inequality…

“… The current EPA is a perfect case study. One of Administrator Lisa Jackson's top priorities is ‘explicitly integrating environmental justice considerations into the fabric of the EPA's process,’ as a July 2010 memo to all senior regulators put it.

“‘Environmental justice’ is the left-wing grievance movement that claims pollution has a disproportionate effect on minorities and the poor. Ms. Jackson's memo introduced new regulatory guidance—that is, rules about how to make rules—so every EPA action has ‘a particular focus on disadvantaged or vulnerable groups.’

“Ms. Jackson wrote that a new goal for rulemaking, enforcement and permitting is to have ‘a measurable effect on environmental justice challenges.’ But these amorphous concepts are not measurable at all. According to this guidance, EPA must nonetheless consider them when estimating the ‘economic impacts of regulations,’ and even its scientific analysis should "encompass topics beyond just biology and chemistry." So put on your lab coat and complete a randomized controlled experiment in politics.”

Source: The Wall Street Journal, ‘Obama’s Rule-Making Loophole,” Jan. 24, 2010

# # #

'We, The Spiteful': Dems turns their hate on Middle America

You know how I like to point out liberalism is a philosophy founded on a dim view and blazing hatred of your fellow American, a belief system that preaches the liberal is morally and intellectually superior to the moronic cattle?

Well, hear it directly from a liberal.

"If the left wants to understand American voters, it needs to once and for all stop sentimentalizing them as inherently decent, well-meaning people being duped by a tiny cabal of evil oligarchs--because the awful truth is that they're mean, spiteful jerks being duped by a tiny cabal of evil oligarchs. The left's naive, sentimental, middle-class view of "the people" blinds them to all of the malice and spite that is a major premise of Middle American life."

That quote appears directly underneath a photograph mocking a mentally retarded child.

Malice? Spite? Mean, spiteful jerks? If there's anything liberals do better than condescension, it's projection.

http://DonnyFerguson.blogspot.com

Taiwan's take on the Olbermann ouster

My favorite part is their depiction of the typical MSNBC viewer as a literal pot-smoking hippie.

The problem, summed up.

"The American people say: don't touch Social Security, don't touch Medicare, don't cut defense. That's 84 percent of the federal budget. If you can't touch 84 percent of the federal budget – and, by the way, they also don't want to touch revenue. You're down to 16 percent of the budget, at a time where we're borrowing forty cents of every dollar they spend." Retiring Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND)

http://DonnyFerguson.blogspot.com

Phila. abortionist racks up more adult victims

Karnamaya Mongar survived 18 years in a Nepalese refugee camp, only to be butchered alive in an American abortion mill referred to her by a D.C. clinic (most likely Planned Parenthood.)

According to prosecutors, Dr. Kermit Gosnell even kept human body parts lying around the mill in garbage bags.

Along with the thousands of children killed by Dr. Gosnell, some of whom he delivered alive and killed by cutting their spinal cords with scissors, 19-year-old Semika Shirelle Shaw died of severe internal infections after his abortion equipment punctured her uterus and colon.

Before she died, Shaw reported she likely wasn't the only adult female victim, as other abortion "patients" were dumped, bleeding, on recliners in the office. "I kind of wondered what he was up to there. He told me he did abortions up to the eighth month."

Abortion advocates claim the repeated adult deaths over a period of years occured because Dr. Gosnell's clinic hadn't been inspected in 17 months.

But who blocks attempts to inspect abortion mills, as well as any attempts to pass legislation requiring abortion mills to meet minimal health and safety standards?

Abortion advocates.

Tonight's Awful Bedtime Movie: Voodoo Man (1944)

What appears to be rural gas station is really a trap for lone young women driving the back woods. Kidnapped by the gas station manager, they end up in a dungeon beneath Bela Lugosi's mansion.

Lugosi uses voodoo and black magic to steal their life essence so he can bring his wife back from the dead. He's assisted by John Carradine, who rather than play his usual role of a highly intelligent doctor or scientist, plays Lugosi's dazed, dimwitted, creepy assistant.

The movie is pretty silly, but it has the always-awesome Carradine, and Lugosi turns in a good performance. But, the movie is still pretty silly. At one point the gas station owner supposedly chants "Bomboona Never Fails" while Lugosi and Carradine voodoofy some girl.

The police are apparently too dimwitted to bother checking out the gas station where all these girls keep disappearing, but the whole voodoo life stealing operation falls apart when a reporter happens to break down at the station and stumbles upon Bela's love dungeon.

What I Learned Today: Avoid gas stations that offer regular, unleaded and chloroform.