picturefurniturekickit

Earl (Martin Lawrence) and Hank (Steve Zahn) can't seem to escape each other. They met on opposite sides of the law during a routine traffic stop but now they've been thrown together to bust a million dollar smuggling operation. As hare-brained as their plan may be, these unlikely partners might just solve a crime... if they don't kill each other first.

Although it's enjoyable as a brainless diversion, National Security is one of those forgettable entertainments that denies its own considerable potential. It's a police action comedy in the mold of Beverly Hills Cop, tailored to the buddy-flick formula and laced with racial tensions of the post-Rodney King era. It's set in Los Angeles, where dedicated cop Hank (Steve Zahn) does jail time for allegedly beating Earl (Martin Lawrence), whose only real assailant was an overzealous bumblebee. As fate and lazy screenwriting would have it, the two adversaries reunite as security guards, teaming up to crack a team of violent smugglers led by bleached-blonde Eric Roberts (further proof that this movie's got nothing new to offer). Routine stunts distract from the comedy's mostly untapped resource: Lawrence pointedly riffs on racial profiling, and his prolific ad-libs play well against Zahn's by-the-book straight man. If their partnership had been allowed to develop more believably, National Security might have been more than a blip on the box-office radar. --Jeff Shannon

For those who have given, and paid with the ultimate sacrifice...in hopes that someday all nations can live as one. As one, without the need to argue and fight over such trivial things as skin color, or whose land is whose (the lands are no mans') or whose God is the right one...and especially not for the purpose of lining one's friends pockets with trillions of dollars, in the name of freedom. Mr_johnnya.

While I don't buy into any one religion I do see common threads that run through most all relgious based belief systems. The following is excerpts from a response to the question "What is the religion of Rastafaria core beliefs based on." on Answerbag. (credit to author is given at end) :
Animals , the Trees, Plants, Fish and Birds are all of great meaning to I.
I am not an educated man but I know what I know, I hear what I hear and I see what I see and when the time is the time I say what I say.
The flesh is weak its limitations are many for years the battle rages , the flesh ignorant of the knowledge held within. Confusion reigns. Isms and schisms assault the good , flawed wisdoms from flawed sources creep insidiously into the conciousness testing and resting then testing again , a battle so fierce at times that I doubt and I question I own self. The flesh is weak its limitations are many
Truth, Peace, and Love is the answer , you must KNOW WHAT YOU KNOW, its when you THINK you know that life messes you up.
Iman is a simple man with few needs easy to please keen to give a hand to those who need it and keen observes of man and his ways. The search for Truth goes on unabated through the Life of I
The road is long the trials and tribulations vast in number. The skeptics and septics , the systems and shitstems will hide where ever they can and when I guard is down leap out of the dark and try to tempt I back to the regementation of the systemic normality that a man I have never met, from a place I have never been, with a Truth I have never reasoned
It is not for I to dictate to others the Truth that they must accept, to live they lives in accordance with the ideology or expectations of another man.
PEACE is the sense I feel from the Know. I know the parts of I. The faults that prove I am flawed the lapses of overstanding that lure me into understanding, the vanity that causes me to pass judgement the confusion when the battle is hottest. YA UNDERSTAND? This is I Truth.
Iman is at peace because I recognize these parts that make the whole. If I can see so clearly as to see I self then no man can put asunder. No Baldhead can use his Politricks to fool, no thief or conman can offer you gold and deliver you coal no man can smile at your face then stab in your back and I friends will be I friends. LOVE is given unconditionally to all. From the man to the beast to the plants . Give freely and without fear be at peace and know that the Truth will reveal itself. ACCEPT THIS TRUTH good or bad
I ask nothing of society other than the right to think for Iself and to tread the path in I own way.
The Media will tell us the World is in a terrible way. Famine and War, Death and Destruction, Greed and Poverty , these dominant the stories of the dire state of the World.
If Jah come down tomorrow and take away all mankind to another place what would be left? The majestic wonder of the Himalayas? The sparse barren enormity of the Sahara Desert? The dense life filled Rain forests of South America and Gabon? The Great Plains and resurgent Buffalo of North America? The serene beauty and colour filled wonder of the coral reefs? YES all would still be. All Jah creations left in place as they have been for millenia. Standing as testament to the power of creation and the limitations of man. Man had no part in the creation of these wonders he has no need to concern himself with there survival. It is vanity that allows a man to think himself capable of Knowing better than Mother Nature what is best for Herself.
Mankind are visitors to this place his only concern is how not to defile it.
I and I know this to be a fundamental Truth.
It is not the World, it is not the Technology it is not the Famine, War, Disease, Poverty that is the problem... it is the animal Man he just does not Know what to do with it. Vanity, greed, ignorance and arrogance have blinded him to the simple pleasure of life and the Region he is domiciled to.
I man is a simple man.
Where is it written and who is the man that says you must aspire to 2 cars a million dollar house a pool a Jacuzzi a Rolex a wife a mistress and a lawyer. These are material things and if these things make you happy then I say go for it , but I warn you better KNOW they going to make you happy because the road is long and the heavier the load the tougher the journey.
Be still and know that Life is great, not easy all of the time not kind all of the time, not pretty all of the time and only as long as Jah , Allah, Buddha, Jesus, God ,Shiva and Vishnu, or what ever Universal power t

Fresh from college with dreams of photojournalism adventures and part-time gigs as a stringer for the Associated Press and the Spokesman-Review, I gulped hard and bought an EOS-1, grip, and two L-series lenses, the 20-35/2.8 and 80-200/2.8. I worked that camera and those lenses hard for years. From Spokane, up to Ruby Ridge, all around Alaska, down the Oregon Coast, and then up and down the U.S. West Coast on a sailing ship; I shot hundreds of thousands of images with this camera. I froze the LCD screen during a -75? blizzard in Prudhoe Bay and melted the lens hood during a house fire in Coos Bay. I escaped a calving glacier by clawing my way up a muddy riverbank with the camera in my hand, (it still bears the scars). It's been up in helicopters, and down in submarines.

For the past few years it's been collecting dust in its old tattered Domke bag down in my basement, a relic of the film age. I moved on from professional shooting years ago and I've been playing around with digital point-and-shoots, (Canon G1, G2, G5 and G9), and I hate to admit that I got used to looking at a little screen instead of peering through a viewfinder. I settled for limited lens range, poor low-light performance, and noisy images shot through glass the size of coins. Over the past year or two I've started to long for longer glass, wider fields of view, and bigger apertures. My love of wide-angle shooting kept me from the cropped-sensor cameras and my bank account kept me from the full-frame bodies. When the 5D Mark II came out I grimaced at the price, but lusted for the resolution, low-light prowess, and full-frame goodness. I eyed my savings account and took the plunge.

Now I have another camera that should give me many years of happy shooting. I'll never part with the old EOS-1, its grip polished smooth by my hands. The 20-35/2.8 lens, always my go-to lens, is missing both rubber grip rings long since torn free. The AF/MF switch is busted and the MF ring grinds. There's dust and who-knows-what between all of the elements, and it just doesn't focus like it used to. The old combo is going to hang in my office as a testament to the adventures of my youth.