Tom McMahon

The Movies Sounds Page

A Great Collection of audio clips from the movies.

Neil Sedaka

Neil Sedaka

In the 50's he had such hits as "The Diary," "Oh, Carol," " Stairway to Heaven," "Calendar Girl," "Little Devil," "Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen," "Next Door To An Angel," and "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do,". After the 60's British Invasion, Sedaka re-launched his solo career in England by releasing the album Emergence. A good friend, Elton John, offered to sign Sedaka to his Rocket Record label and re-introduce him to American audiences. The two albums he recorded for the Rocket label, Sedaka's Back in 1974 and The Hungry Years in 1975, both became top selling albums around the world. His comeback was further heralded by two of his songs co-written with Phil Cody, "Bad Blood" and the timeless "Laughter in the Rain," reaching the #1 position on the music charts. In Rolling Stone Magazine, Sedaka was hailed as "the new phenomenon." The song "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do" was re-released as a ballad in 1975, and made music history when it reached #1 on the charts, becoming the first song recorded in two different versions by the same artist to reach the Top Ten. During this time, Sedaka also helped to launch the career of the Captain and Tennille with their version of his "Love Will Keep Us Together," which won a Grammy Award for Record of the Year for this worldwide, number one hit.

The Mother-In-Law Welcome Mat

But only in Texas!

What If Mitt Romney Defied The Court?

From Human Events:

What would the Massachusetts high court do?

Declare Romney in contempt? Order Romney's arrest? Tell state employees to start accepting requests from homosexuals for marriage licenses? Romney could tell the employees to politely reject such requests.

How, then, would the court enforce its decision?

Answer: It would have to tell the legislature to impeach Romney. But by then, Romney would be a hero to traditionalists of all parties, and impeachment would only make him a martyr.

Should Romney take such a stand, it would be a blow for freedom in America. For we Americans today live under a judicial dictatorship that our Founding Fathers never intended and would never have tolerated. Yet, we need not resort to muskets to be rid of it. We only have to consult our Constitution.

In Article III, Congress is empowered to restrict the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. As University of South Carolina legal scholar William Quirk argues in a new paper, "The Fourth Choice," all Congress has to do is pass the Defense of Marriage Act again, and add a one-line amendment that denies to the Supreme Court any right to review cases brought under this act. That would send the issue of homosexual marriage back to the states where it belongs.

There, legislatures and governors should decide it. And they can do so by ignoring court orders to alter state law to conform to the prejudices of judges. Thus the people, through their elected representatives, can decide these social issues that so divide us all.

Putting Religion Aside For A Minute . . .

. . . it seems to me that Mel Gibson is a marketing genius. All the buzz around The Passion of the Christ is really Guerilla Marketing at its best, eh?

How To Draw Celtic Knots

How To Draw Celtic Knots

The English Lyrics to "Dominique"

Forty years and I never knew these! Here are the lyrics to Dominique from “The Singing Nun” (Movie lyrics) sung by Debbie Reynolds:

BreakTheChain.org

Gives you accurate info on all the chain letters circulating via e-mail on the internet.

Celebrity Math Tutoring

Danica McKellar

Q: Hi Danica, my advanced calculus prof asked us to prove that the square root of 2 is not a rational number. Any suggestions about where to start? Also, I really loved your Wonder Years show, and I’ve seen you on West Wing, too. Thanks a bunch.

Danica Answers: Thanks! Okay- as with most “disprove this” proofs, start by writing down the hypothesis (as if the thing you are trying to disprove were true) and then work with the equation until you get a contradiction. Here the hypothesis is that the square root of 2 is a rational number, and we’re going to show that it’s a faulty hypothesis. In “math language” this is equivalent to saying that you can write the square root of 2 as a fraction of whole numbers. We can assume that this fraction looks like p/q where p and q do not divide each other; that is, they share no common factors. In other words, we are assuming the fraction is written in reduced form. This is an important detail, which is used very often in “proofs by contradiction.” ALWAYS assume that your variable fractions are written in reduced form.

Now it’s time to work with the expression and hope for a contradiction to appear. So, let’s square both sides of the equation:

Sqrt(2) = p/q and we get: 2=p²/q².

But if q does not divide evenly into p, then q is not a factor of p. (the fraction was already reduced). Then q² cannot be a factor of p², either. Then p²/q² cannot be a whole number, so it can’t be equal to 2! There’s the contradiction we needed, which tells us that our original hypothesis was false. We proved it!

Make Your Own Hula Hoop

From Wham-O:

• Decorate it yourself!
• Place cool objects inside the Hula Hoop and decorate the outside to make it uniquely yours!
• Fillable clear pink plastic Hula Hoop in 5 sections!
• Includes connectors, pink and purple glitter, colored beads, stickers and metallic streamers!