300 is an adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel 300. It is a story (loosely based) on Sparta’s war with the Persian Empire. I say loosely because Frank Miller was obviously not trying to be historically accurate. He was using the idea of a free, rational nation versus a tyrannical, mystical nation to relay his view on reality.

I went into this movie with the understanding that there was not going to be an extreme amount of depth to the plot and it was more of a visually stimulating movie. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that although the movie was more action driven than dialogue driven, I cared about the characters and the story. The reason I cared was that every character embodied good or evil, and their actions defined what good and evil were.

Frank Miller portrayed the heroes (Spartans) as rational, strong, heroic and willing to die for an idea. He portrayed the enemies (Persian Empire) as irrational, mystic and totalitarian, willing to sacrifice as many people as possible in order to spread their rule over all lands. Below are some quotes from the movie that show the ideas of rationality and freedom on the side of the Spartans and mysticism and tyrany on the side of the Persian Empire.

Leonidas: A new age has come: an age of freedom. And all will know that 300 Spartans gave their last breath to defend it.

Leonidas: The world will know that free men stood against a tyrant, that few stood against many, and before this battle was over, that even a god-king can bleed.

Leonidas: Before you speak, know that in Sparta everyone, even a king’s messenger, is responsible for their voice. Now…what message do you bring?
Persian Messenger: Earth and water.
Leonidas: [Laugh] You rode all the way from Persia for earth and water?
Gorgo: Do not be coy or stupid, Persian. You cannot afford either in Sparta.
Persian Messenger: What makes this woman think she can speak among men?
Gorgo: Because only Spartan women give birth to real men.

Leonidas: You bring the crowns and heads of conquered kings to my city’s steps. You insult my queen. You threaten my people with slavery and death! Oh, I’ve chosen my words carefully, Persian. Perhaps you should have done the same.
Persian messenger: This is blasphemy! This is madness!
Leonidas: Madness? [He looks at Gorgo, who nods to him] THIS IS SPARTA. [kicks the messenger down the well]

Xerxes (Persian): It would be nothing short of madness for you, brave King, and your valiant troops to…perish…all because of a simple misunderstanding. There is much our cultures could share.
Leonidas: Haven’t we been sharing our culture with you all morning? (Leonidas referring to the fight that the Spartans have put up that day to keep the Spartans free)

Stelios: It is an honor to die by your side
Leonidas: It is an honor to have lived at yours.

Xerxes (Persian): Imagine what horrible fate awaits my enemies when I would gladly kill any of my own men for victory.
Leonidas: And I would die for any one of mine.

…and there is much more dialogue than that in the movie that conveys the central idea of men having the right to their own lives, free from mysticism and tyranny.

If you want to see a movie that clearly serves justice, defines good and evil through every action and has stunning and unique visuals, 300 is the movie for you. The only reason to not see it is if you can not stand extreme amounts of computer generated gore and violence. I give 300 an A- for a simple, yet great story, characters that represent objective good and evil, and amazing visual aesthetics. 300 lacks in dialogue, but not enough to damage the message of the story.

Other interesting articles:

• 300 is Not American Propaganda
• Frank Miller on NPR talking about 300
  
• Frank Miller on NPR’s “This I Believe”

I was thinking about the evidence that scientists are using to “prove” that global warming is caused by man.  Their main piece of evidence is the CO2 levels in the different layers of ice at the polar ice caps.  The measurements show that there are higher concentrations of CO2 in our air today than there were centuries ago.  It also shows an almost exponential trend of rising CO2 levels in our atmosphere.

I thought about the nature of CO2 and the nature of ice and started to wonder about something.  CO2 is usually a gas and water is a unique solid when frozen.  When frozen, ice is actually less dense than it is when it is a liquid and it takes immense amounts of pressure to turn CO2 from a gas into a solid.

Now here is my question to the science community:  Is it possible for CO2 to rise through the ice (over a long period of time) creating higher readings of CO2 towards the top of the ice and lower CO2 readings towards the bottom?  Has this been tested before?  If CO2 can rise through ice, have global warming advocates compensated for this?

…and you assume a “determined” being could ever deduct that it was “determined” or not? How can you trust your conclusions if you were “determined” to come up with them? A determined being can only be amoral, because no choice is your own, so there is no right or wrong choice. Morality implies volition, otherwise we are nothing but robots controlled by a collection of random events before this point in time. So, if you assume determinism to be true, we can not even argue this because there would be no way to determine a right or wrong answer. See the mess you have gone and gotten yourself into? In other words, volition is axiomatic. There is no way around it.

I just listened to the last Penn Jillette radio show on CBS. Penn said his goodbyes and thank-yous and hinted that “[he] may very well be popping up somewhere else”.

We can only hope he does, because the time in-between the Bulls *clap* hit Showtime series is too long of a wait for me.