There’s something strange going on with Microsoft Zune mp3 players. If owners of the Microsoft iPod knockoff needed another reason to regret buying a Zune over an iPod, they just got one.
Owners of the 30 gigabyte version of the Zune started having problems early this morning. Zune players began booting on their own and then mysteriously locked up during the boot process. So far, Microsoft doesn’t have a clue why the players are doing this.
Imagine that.
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I stayed home from work yesterday with the the bird flu. That meant I was able to watch more than the first couple of minutes of Joe Scarborough’s Morning Joe. The show featured Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter and the father of Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski.
In the interview Zbigniew Brzezinski insulted Joe Scarborough’s knowledge of the failed 2000 Camp David Summit and the reason it failed by telling Scarborough that, “You know, you have such a stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on that it’s almost embarrassing to listen to you.” Jump ahead to the 06:45 mark to listen to the statement.
Some people are trying to form a boycott of 20th Century Fox over the studio’s insistence that they still own rights to any motion picture based on the Watchmen graphic novel. A federal judge recently agreed with 20th Century Fox. From the Facebook Free Watchmen group:
20th Century Fox is trying to prohibit the release of Warner Brothers’ upcoming film, Watchmen. Watchmen is one of the highest regarded pieces of work in the comic and literary world. It was on Times 100 best novels of the 20th century.
Scheduled to release next year, Fox is trying claim rights even after sitting back and allowing WB to pour time, money, and talent into. Now, after an abysmal summer for Fox, they are reaching out to try and stamp out another studio’s success.
I propose a boycott of all 20th Century Fox productions in protest of their detestable actions.
I actually think it’s kind of funny the Warner Brothers would make a movie based on a property they don’t have the rights to. With all the lawyers they have at their disposal, they couldn’t figure out that 20th Century Fox still owned the rights to a Watchmen movie?
It would appear that maybe they knew all along.
From
These three filings in particular provide detailed allegations as to how Warner Brothers got into this mess. In a nutshell, Fox claims that it has evidence that Warner Brothers initially relied on an inaccurate chain of title provided by Paramount. Once Warner Brothers was aware of Fox’s documented claims, it nonetheless decided to proceed in a deliberate “business calculation” that it would be more profitable to deal with a court case than clear the rights before making Watchmen.
Warner Brothers royally screwed up. They made the wrong business decision to make a movie they knew they didn’t have iron clad rights to. 20th Century Fox isn’t the villain here.
There seems to be quite a few people ripping into Frank Miller today over the fact that The Spirit did so poorly at the box office this weekend. Not only was the movie killed by the critics, but movie goers didn’t seem at all interested in seeing a grim and gritty comic book movie over the Christmas weekend.
Some are criticizing Frank Miller for making The Spirit look like Sin City. Frank Miller not only created the Sin City comic books, he co-directed the Sin City movie with director Robert Rodriguez. In defense of Frank Miller, producer Michael Uslan hired Miller specifically so that he could give The Spirit the grim and gritty Sin City look.
Isn’t that what Miller did?
Frank Miller is getting a lot of grief for basically making a movie the way he was asked to make it. If people have a problem with the way the movie looks, they need to direct their critisism at Michael Uslan, not at Frank Miller.
NHL darling Pittsburgh Penguins Sidney Crosby can be clearly seen in this video punching Atlanta Thrashers defenceman Boris Valabik:
Any one of these transgressions would be damaging to any player’s reputation. To commit all three at the same time is almost unthinkable, especially by one of the league’s biggest stars.
Here’s another piece of freeware that should have been created by Microsoft, but of course wasn’t. Stalled Printer Repair deletes a print request clogging up the printer spooler queue that cannot for whatever reason be deleted. Once something is stalled in the spooler queue, you cannot print anything until the first job is cleared from the spooler queue.
Even if you don’t try to print anything else, a stuck print job in the spooler queue can severely slow down your machine.
This problem has plagued Microsoft machines for as long as I can remember. Maybe instead of filming those stupid Mojave Experiment commercials where they trick retarded people into believing that Microsoft Vista is really some new Microsoft operating system called Mojave, though ought to just fix the operating system(s) that already really have.
A 36-year-old Phoenix man diagnosed with schizophrenia, Joe Sauceda Gallegos, murdered two boys with a baseball bat, 10-year-old Edwin Pellecier and his 7-year-old cousin, Jesse Ramirez. Phoenix police say that Gallegos followed the two boys to a nearby park with a baseball bat where he repeatedly bludgeoned them with the bat.
Video taken from a surveillance camera near the park shows the two boys walking towards the park followed a minute later by a man appearing to be Gallegos carrying a baseball bat. Police searched Gallegos’ home and found the bat along with bloody clothing.
The police say that they don’t have a motive. As if a homicidal crazy person needs a motive to do something crazy.
Contrary to what you might learn from watching a 30 second TV commercial, The Spirit is being ripped to shreds by movie critics. Over on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie review website, the overall consensus is quite bad. Out of 44 reviews counted, only 7 are positive. When only looking at the so-called “top critics”, the ratio is even worse. Out of 17 reviews, only one is positive.
I was looking forward to watching this movie. Its directed by comic book creator Frank Miller, the man that created Sin City and 300. He co-directed the movie version of Sin City with Robert Rodriguez. This is Miller’s first attempt at directing a movie by his lonesome. Its based on characters created by comic book legend writer-artist Will Eisner.
Roger Ebert, probably the country’s leading movie critic, was especially harsh with his criticism of the movie. He wrote, “There is not a trace of human emotion in it. To call the characters cardboard is to insult a useful packing material“. My guess is that he’s been sitting on the line for some time and was just waiting for the right clunker of a movie to whip it out.
I’m still going to watch this movie. I just wont be going to the movie theater to watch it.
A federal judge in Los Angeles has announced that he intends to rule that 20th Century Fox indeed owns a copyright interest in the Warner Brothers movie, Watchmen. The movie, directed by Zack Snyder, is based on the DC Comics epic graphic novel of the same name.
Watchmen was published in 12 issues from 1986 and 1987. It was written by acclaimed comic book writer Alan Moore and drawn by artist Dave Gibbons. Most comic book fans believe that it’s the greatest graphic novel ever published.
20th Century Fox’s claim to Watchmen stems from the fact that it purchased the rights to a Watchmen movie in the late 1980’s for producer Lawrence Gordon. 20th Century Fox ultimately declined to make the movie for themselves. Gordon then later shopped the movie around with different movie studios before coming to an agreement with Warner Brothers.
Warner Brothers also owns DC Comics.
The movie is scheduled to be released sometime in March. I’m guessing that Warner Brothers will end up having to pony up a bunch of money to secure the rights from 20th Century Fox.
Pope Benedict XVI delivered his annual Christmas sermon from a balcony of St Peter’s Basilica decked out in his finest golden clothing. He actually warned the world that it was headed toward ruin because of selfishness during these tough economic times.
Maybe his message would be a little easier to swallow if he wasn’t wearing so much bling.
Not only does the Pope have a golden thrown throne, but he keeps it out on his balcony. That makes me think he has even a nicer gold thrown throne inside. It’s kind of like somebody that keeps an old beat up sofa on the porch. You just know they have something much nicer inside.
Hagerstown Police Chief Arthur Smith reported that there were 47 traffic accidents in the city on Wednesday, December 24 from the hours of midnight to 8:00 a.m. The reason? Because the city failed to spread salt, that magical high-tech substance that lowers the temperature in which water freezes.
Only a partial salt spreading crew was scheduled to be on duty. Whatever that means.
The totally retarded aspect of this story is that everyone knew that the weather forecast was calling for freezing rain on Wednesday. If there are two words you don’t want put together its “freezing” and “rain”.
I’m guessing that there were even more accidents than the 47 that were reported. Most fender-bender type of accidents don’t get reported to the police. The city screwed up by not scheduling salt to be spread on a night where freezing rain was in the forecast and it’s going to cost people a lot of money.
The SciFi Channel is celebrating the Christmas holiday by showing Star Trek: The Next Generation from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. the next morning.
Looking at the lineup of episodes, it looks like they are only showing the best of the best. At least they are the episodes I remember being the best. Unfortunately, my personal favorite episode, The Inner Light, didn’t seem to make the list. That’s really strange, especially considering the fact that this episode won the Hugo award in 1993 for Best Dramatic Presentation. It was one out of only two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation to win the Hugo. The only other episode was All Good Things…, the show’s final episode.
At least they are being consistent. The SciFi Channel isn’t showing that one either.
Leave it to the SciFi Channel to show a Star Trek: The Next Generation marathon and leave out the two award winning episodes.
These times are eastern, so you live someplace other than the east coast, you are going to need to do some quick math.
I’ve always believed there is nothing creepier than David Bowie and Bing Crosby standing around a piano singing Christmas chorals. That is, other than Pat Boone putting out an album of heavy metal covers.
Still, if after listening to Bowie and Crosby engage in idle chit chat and then singing Little Drummer Boy, you don’t feel like rejecting Christmas and start celebrating Kwanzaa or Festivies, nothing will.
Merry Christmas!
Rick Warren, evangelical Baptist minister of the southern California megachurch Saddleback Church has been invited by Barack Obama to pray at his inauguration. Evidently this fact has raised the ire of some of my fellow liberals. They are ticked off that Obama would ask Warren to participate in his inauguration considering the fact that he supported the recent California Proposition 8 ballot measure banning same-sex marriage. Reverend Warren, like most evangelical Christians, is also against a woman’s right to choose.
So? Big deal. What part of Change did people not understand?
Like it or not, Barack Obama will not just be the president of the liberal wing of the Democratic party, he will be president of the entire country. Not just the Blue States, but the Red States too. Whoever is pretending to be upset by this needs to go and watch Obama’s speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.
Instead on focusing on the things that devide us, it’s time to start concentrating on the things that unite us.
Writer: Frank Marraffino
Pencils: Henry Flint
Colors: Lee Loughridge
Publisher: Vertigo
Release 4 December 2008
$2.99
A new spin on an old story, Haunted Tank #1 was fun to read. The concept is that the ghost of legendary Confederate cavalry general J.E.B. Stuart comes back to the world of the living periodically to assist his descendants wage war incorperating the modern cavalry horse, the tank. In the old DC analogy series, G.I. Combat, the ghost of J.E.B. Stuart would assist his descendants fighting in a World War Two era tank. In fact, it was an M3 “Stuart” light tank.
In this modern mini-series, he appears in the desert of Iraq in the year 2003 coming to the aid of his decedent, Jamal Stuart, crew commander of an M1 Abrams tank. Unlike the other decedents he has assisted over the years, Jamal is black. Have you ever wondered what the family dynamics would be between a 19th century Civil War general from Virginia and his African-American great, great, great grandson?
Now is your chance to find out.
I enjoyed this book. There were more than a few funny scenes, as well as a few horrifically violent scenes. After all, it’s a war comic. I particularly enjoyed the one Star Wars reference concerning “sand people”. Henry Flint’s artwork was especially good.
It would seem that the New York Yankees thought long and hard on why they haven’t won the World Series in eight years and have come to the conclusion that what they needed was a first baseman who can hit from both sides of the plate. It appears the Yankees have agreed on an eight-year deal worth $180 million to sign Maryland native Mark Teixeira.
If we weren’t in such rough economic times, I’m sure Teixeira could have gotten even more money.
I thought it was funny when the Orioles were pretending to be pursuing Teixeira. As if any quality free agent would ever want to come to Baltimore to play baseball. I guess they thought since Teixeira grew up in Maryland following the Orioles, he might want to come play for the Orioles.
Dwight Whorley, the first person convicted under the PROTECT Act of 2003 anti-child pornography law is still convicted. A three judge panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the conviction. They ruled that there did not need to be an actual child involved in the child pornography for a conviction under the law.
Whorley, a registered sex offender, had gone to a Virginia Employment Commission office to use one of the free public computers intended for out-of-work people to use to search for jobs. Instead of trying to find a job, he used it to download kiddie porn. He downloaded over 70 images in total, 20 of them being Japanese anime illustrations depicting prepubescent female children being forced to have sexual intercourse with adult males. The rest of the photos were photos of real children engaging in real sex acts.
He argued that the 20 Japanese anime illustrations were protected “free speech”. Two of the three judges rejected that argument.
To read the 45 page ruling in PDF format, lick here.
The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals reviews decisions reached in federal district courts in Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Some comic book fans think that the PROTECT Act of 2003 law will eventually be misused by overly ambitious prosecutors against comic book collectors. They also contend that illustrated child porn isn’t real child porn, it’s only “lines on a paper”. Maybe they should try explaining that to pedophiles like Dwight Whorley. He obviously thought the images were much more than “lines on a paper”. These images, like the photos of real children being sexually abused he also downloaded, obviously appealed to his prurient nature.
Imagine that.
The Detroit Lions lost again today making their record (so far) for the season 0-15. If they lose next week, they will be the first team to go without a win for the season since the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. At least the 1976 Bucs were a new expansion team. The Lions are one of the NFL’s oldest teams.
The Lions are just an awful team. They have been an awful team for a very long time and they will continue being an awful team for years to come.
Unfortunately there is nothing really that can be done to encourage the Lions to get better. Every year they get one of the highest draft picks and they continuously waste in on wide receivers.
Because of the magic of NFL revenue sharing, William Clay Ford, the owner of the Detroit Lions, makes as much money as any other NFL owner. All NFL teams share TV revenue. All NFL teams share stadium revenue. All NFL teams also share merchandising revenue. That means if you were to go into Finish Line or Champs and buy a Steelers jersey the Lions get the same percentage of the profits as the Steelers.
The only thing that can be done at this point is to kick the team out of the NFL. Let them try to join the Canadian Football League (CFL), but honestly, I don’t think they are good enough even for that. It would actually be an easy transition since part of the Detroit metro area is in Windsor, Ontario. They would have to change their name though because the CFL already has a team named the Lions.
In the English Premiere League (EPL), at the end of every season the three worst teams in the league are relegated down to the lower league, the Coca-Cola League while the three best teams in the Coca-Cola League are promoted up to the EPL. They do this to ensure a team like the Lions doesn’t just get to hang around and dilute the quality of play in the league.
All criminal charges have been dropped against 24-year old Hagerstown police officer Curtis W. Kelley. He had been charged with first-degree assault, second-degree assault and reckless endangerment after his live-in girlfriend told the police that he pointed his service weapon at her during an argument.
He allegedly said he wouldn’t shoot her because she wasn’t worth the bullet.
Officer Kelley’s lawyer was able to get the charges dismissed because Kelley’s girlfriend originally testified that she “did not believe he would shoot her,” but that she was concerned Kelley might harm her later. His lawyer argued that the assault charges required the victim to be in fear of bodily harm at the time of the incident. Being fearful of harm later on didn’t count.
Either pointing your weapon at your girlfriend during an argument is wrong or it’s not. I don’t quite understand exactly how her mental state at the time should be a factor. Frankly, it’s officer Kelley’s mental state at the time that should be a concern, not his girlfriend’s.
Last night the Baltimore Ravens played the Dallas Cowboys down in Texas and won the game, 34-24. I only know this because I was able to read about it on the Internet. Even though the NFL decided over a decade ago that the Baltimore Ravens were officially my local team, I could not watch the game last night. It was not shown on any of the channels I can get on TV. The game was televised exclusively by the NFL Network. My cable provider, Antietam Cable, like most cable providers, refuses to carry the NFL Network.
I would have liked to watch the game last night. Both teams are fighting for a spot in the playoffs. Last night’s game was the final game to be played in Texas Stadium. Starting next year, the Dallas Cowboys will be playing in a new stadium. The game had some real significance.
By only showing the game on the NFL Network, the NFL is attempting to ratchet up the pressure on cable companies like Antietam Cable to carry the NFL Network. They somehow think that if they irritate and enrage enough people like me by not allowing us to watch our local team, we will somehow force cable companies to buckle. It’s not going to happen. There is nothing I can do to make Antietam Cable carry the NFL Network. I’ve written emails. I’ve signed petitions. They still refuse to carry the NFL Network.
Continuing to withhold NFL football games from me is not going to do anything other than to piss me off.
Kalinara from the blog Pretty, Fizzy Paradise wrote a blog post responding to what I wrote about the Christopher Handley virtual child pornography case the CBLDF decided to take on and help defend. I got the impression from reading Kalinara’s post that she somehow inferred from my post that I thought people that collect child pornography don’t deserve to be defended.
She wrote :
A guilty person is still entitled to a legal defense. A guilty person is still entitled to have the government prove every element of the charge against him. And he also has the right to make damn sure that his and anyone else’s rights weren’t trampled on in the process of proving the case.
This guy bought something that may or may not be considered child pornography. But he still has the right to a legal defense.
I totally agree with this sentiment. Everyone, I don’t care who it is or what they have been accused of doing, deserves to be defended in a court of law. Even pedophiles or those that objectify young children as sexual objects deserve to be defended in our legal system. I just don’t understand why people that like to read comics need to be the ones doing it.
Sure, technically, the material involved in this case is in the medium of a comic, but I read the 18-page indictment the Grand Jury returned against Handley. Reading the description of the images Handley is being accused of mailing, I feel as though his interests and my interests are not the same. I see no commonality between the comics he reads and the comics I read.
I guess I feel the same way a movie buff would feel about coming to the defense of someone who imported a snuff film from the Philippines. Just because the two share an interest in works created through the medium of film doesn’t mean the two are alike.
I’m a big believer in free speech and the First Amendment, I just don’t think images showing young children being sodomized is something comic book fans should feel an obligation to defend. I don’t have anything against pornography, or a person’s right to make it, own it, view it, or sell it. I really don’t. I just draw the line when it comes to pornography that objectifies children as sexual objects. Do I think that the First Amendment gives pedophiles the right to procure images of children being anally penetrated by adults? No, I sure don’t.
That doesn’t make me a bad person. Really.
What I really don’t understand are those that argue that drawn child porn isn’t really child porn because it doesn’t involve real children. Its only “lines on a paper”. For a long time now, we have been trying to convince people that graphic novels can be just as substantial or as important as works created in other mediums. This “lines on paper” argument seems to negate that.
Do you know how some people just hate most Christmas music? Well, I’m one of those people. Maybe that’s why I loved the La La Christmas Song so much. It’s so different than most Christmas music. Speaking of Christmas music that is different, you’ve got to give this video a listen. It’s called 12 Days and it’s performed by a men’s cappella group from Indiana University called Straight No Chaser.
Sheri tried to get me to listen to this the other day and I wanted no part of it. I hate the 12 Days of Christmas more than any other Christmas song. I finally relented and gave it a listen. I’m glad I did. This version is not the normal version that you’ve heard your entire life. I don’t want to give anything away, but it taps into the magic of the 1983 Toto classic Africa.
Enjoy!
If you despise those annoying commercials at Christmas time where the dopey looking man presents his wife or mistress a big fancy piece of shinny jewelry to keep her from jumping into his best friend’s bed when he’s not around, than this video is for you. Sarah Haskins from Current TV does a fantastic job at demonstrating just how stupid those commercials really are.
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF), the non-profit group dedicated to fighting for the comic book industry’s First Amendment rights has signed on to be a special consultant in a legal case involving Japanese “virtual” child pornography. Christopher Handley (or “Chistopher” Handley as the CBLDF incorrectly refers to him in their press release) ordered some Japanese manga (comics) over the Internet from his home in Iowa.
His local post office was suspicious of the package and obtained a search warrant to inspect it’s contents. Inside they found seven books featuring illustrated images (not photographs) of children engaged in various sex acts with adults. His post office then contacted law enforcement officials and Handley was arrested after taking possession of the box and returning with it to his home.
On October 17, 2007, a Grand Jury returned an indictment charging Handley with receipt of obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children and possession of obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children, both counts in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1466A. The same Grand Jury also returned an indictment charging Handley with mailing obscene matter in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1461.
The indictment described the images with the following:
one or more drawings or cartoons, that depict a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct, and is obscene, and depicts an image that is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in graphic bestiality, sadistic or masochistic abuse, or sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between person of the same or opposite sex, which lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
A PDF copy of the 18-page response from the prosecution to a motion from the defense can be download here.
As any high school student should be able to you, the First Amendment does not protect obscenity.
In the 1973 Supreme Court decision Miller v. California, the high court established what constitutes obscene material. The so called “Miller Test” is as follows:
I find it hard to believe that images — created with a pencil or a camera — depicting children being brutally sodomized by adults wouldn’t meet the burden set forth in all three parts of the Miller test.
What I find the strangest thing about this is how most in the comic book blogosphere are reacting to it. People are actually arguing that illustrated child porn should not only be legal, but that banning it is an attack on Free Speech and the First Amendment. They will quickly point out that child porn created with a camera should be illegal because the creation of it requires the abuse of a real child. Illustrated child porn does not require an actual real child in the creation process, so it should be allowed allowed.
I just do not understand that line of thinking.
The wife of the late great Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, has passed away due to complications from leukemia. She was 76 years old.
She played many roles on Star Trek. She played the part of Number One in the original Star Trek pilot “The Cage”. She then went on to play the part of Nurse Chapel in the original Star Trek TV series. On Star Trek: The Next Generation, she played the part of Ambassador Lwaxana Troi, mother of ship counselor Deanna Troi. She also provided the voice of all onboard computers in the Star Trek universe.
I saw her at a Star Trek convention in Los Angeles in the early 90’s and thought she was a warm and gracious person. I think I have an autographed 8×10 in a box somewhere. She was a lot of fun to listen to.
[Photo: Tor.com]
Bernard Madoff, the man accused of defrauding investors of nearly $70 billion through a Ponzi scheme, will be allowed to remain in his $7 million Park Avenue luxury apartment instead of going to jail while awaiting trial. Prosecutors agreed to a deal with his lawyers that would give him home detention with electronic monitoring.
He will also be facing a curfew between 7 p.m. through 9 a.m.
The man ripped off so many people that you would think he would want to go to jail just for protection. He didn’t just rip off regular folks, he ripped off millionaires. Most millionaires are used to ripping off others, they are not accustomed to being the one getting taken. Millionaires also have the resources to hire good, professional contract killers from abroad. The kind that get in and get out before anyone realizes there’s been a hit.
I would not want to mess with millionaires.
Dressed in a re-creation of the stylish green skirt-suit worn by the film’s ill-fated heroine in an iconic scene, Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” Barbie® Doll celebrates the 45th anniversary of the acclaimed film. From the doll’s classic ensemble to the perfectly painted expression to the accompanying black birds, every aspect captures the film’s infamous appeal.
Link (Geekologie)
In 1981, 6-year old Adam Walsh was abducted from a Sears store in a mall in Hollywood, Florida. His decapitated head was found two weeks later. They never did find his body. His father, John Walsh, went on to host of the television program America’s Most Wanted.
The murder of Adam Walsh had remained an open case until today. The Hollywood police department held a press conference today with the Walshes to announce that the case has finally been closed. Ottis Toole, a convicted serial killer who died in prison twelve years ago, has been conclusively tied to the murder.
What that exactly means the Hollywood police aren’t saying. They botched this case from the very beginning. The police “lost” a piece of blood stained carpeting from Toole’s car before a DNA test could never been done on it.
Evidently Muntadar al-Zaidi, the reporter that threw his shoes at President George W. Bush, is being looked upon as a hero in Iraq. Thousands of Iraqis are calling for his immediate release from Iraqi custody. His employer, Iraqi-owned TV station al-Baghdadiya, is calling for his release saying he was merely exercising his freedom of expression. By throwing his shoes at someone’s head.
I am so surprised.
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you probably know that I don’t have much love for George W. Bush. I honestly think he will go down as one of the worst presidents in American history. That doesn’t mean I like the idea of a foreign reporter throwing his shoes at Bush’s head. I think this might be the very first time that I’ve ever felt defensive for George W. Bush and for that I am quite perturbed at Mr. al-Zaidi.
How dare he do something that makes me feel for George W. Bush.
Yesterday’s Steelers-Ravens game was decided not by the play on the field, but by the whims of the officiating. With the Steelers driving towards the Ravens’ end zone, Santonio Holmes caught a pass and was immediately tackled by Ravens’ safety Ed Reed just short of the end zone.
Head linesman Paul Weidner correctly ruled that the ball didn’t break the plane. This meant the Steelers would have faced a fourth down from the Ravens’ 1-yard line. Because there was less than two minutes left in the game, the replay assistant in the press booth called for a video review. Referee Walt Coleman then reviewed the play on video and overruled the call by saying that Holmes’ feet were both down in the end zone when he caught the pass so it was a touchdown.
Except the ball never broke the plane. Opps.
It would be easy to just chalk this up to poor officiating. That referees are only human and humans make mistakes. That’s not it. This was not bad officiating. The initial call on the field was the correct one. To overrule the call on the field, the official must see “incontrovertible visual evidence” for a call to be overturned. At no time in the video is the ball ever shown to cross the goal line.
This was a blatant misuse of power of the officiating crew to alter the outcome of a game. A game that gave Pittsburgh not only the win, but the AFC North championship.
President George W. Bush made a surprise visit to Iraq and he got not one, but two shoes checked at his head for his trouble. He was on stage with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki when an Iraqi reporter, Muntadar al-Zeidi, working for Al-Baghdadia television, an Iraqi-owned station based in Egypt took off his shoes and threw them at Bush.
I’m guessing this is not just another way of being greeted as liberators.
Johnnie Miles, a 42-year-old Florida woman was on trial for defrauding a store out of $7,500 over three months in 2007. The six member jury for her to be innocent of all charges. The Judge then turned around and sentenced Miles to 11 five-year state jail terms, all to be served consecutively, adding up to 55 years.
Circuit Court Judge Dan Vaughn was able to do this because of some goofy Florida law that allows judges to look further at the facts involving a criminal case of defendants that are already on probation. It doesn’t matter if they were convicted or not. Vaughn was able to go back to the original 11 offenses that Miles was on probation for and sentence her to the maximum for each of those original 11 offenses.
A part of me doesn’t really care that this woman will spend the rest of her life behind bars. She has an extensive criminal record for witting bad checks and other acts of fraud going back to when she was only 14 years old. Another part of me can’t help but think that she will be spending more time in prison than anyone connected in the Enron scandal combined. The same applies to the recent melt down on Wall Street. I highly doubt anyone involved will spend anything close to 55 years behind bars.
People commit murder and don’t get 55 years.
Sheri and I were out and about today doing some Christmas shopping and we stopped by her mother’s house for a visit. My mother-in-law was watching a movie on the Sci-Fi Channel. I knew this because the Sci-Fi Channel logo was proudly displayed in the bottom right of the TV screen.
If it wasn”t for that logo, I never would have known I was watching the Sci-Fi Channel.
The scene on the screen featured a young woman being accosted by two men who proceeded to wrap her legs in duct tape. They then placed a metal pipe under her feet. Then one of them took a hand axe and cut off her feet. At least that’s what I thought was done to the poor woman. The camera cut to her face and from the look she was giving the camera, she looked to be in severe pain. As though she just has her feet chopped off.
Why exactly was this movie on the Sci-Fi Channel at 3:30 in the afternoon on a Saturday?
Heidi at The Beat posted about the new blogging crew over at Blog@Newsarama and she made the analogy that they were like the characters in the movie The Dirty Dozen, the 1960’s World War Two movie staring Lee Marvin. In the movie, Lee Marvin is an Army officer that takes a bunch of condemned soldiers off death row and turns them into commandos to take part in a deadly suicide mission behind enemy lines that nobody else wants to do. The movie always struck me as being kind of goofy because I think history shows that the Allies in World War Two didn’t seem to care an awful lot about risking the lives of it’s soldiers.
Watch the first hour of Saving Private Ryan to see what I mean.
Heidi made the The Dirty Dozen comparison because like the condemned soldiers in the movie, the new Blog@Newsarama crew have been, in her words, “made sport of by the Nazis soon after landing in Brittany“.
In her analogy, the Nazis were other bloggers weighing in on the new Blog@Newsarama team. If you guessed that someone claimed to take great offense to this Nazi comparison you would be correct. If you guessed that it was the people actually being compared to the Nazis in The Dirty Dozen, you would be wrong.
Two of the people from Blog@Newsarama commented on Heidi’s post.
Lucas Siegel wrote:
The only other thing I’d like to put here is that, honestly, a killed-in-action metaphor in relation to myself is, well, offensive. You may or may not have read in our introduction post or in the comments section of the blog in question that I served in the Army for six years. I’ve served overseas, in a warzone, and seen people actually get killed-in-action. I assure you, it’s not something to be used as a joke under any circumstance. Thanks.
So let me get this straight. Getting killed in action in a war zone is not something to joke about or to make reference to lightly, but it’s OK to bring it up to score points in a silly Internet discussion? The Dirty Dozen was not real. There was no actually commando unit in World War Two comprised of death row inmates. Heidi made a comparison to a movie of fiction.
Lucas Siegel wasn’t the only Blog@Newsarama blogger to claim to take offense. Sarah Jaffe quickly chimed in.
She wrote:
Gee, thanks. I love not even being slagged off properly and compared to victims of Nazis since my family actually was killed by Nazis. Wow, classy.
Once again, they were movie Nazis. They were not real Nazis. They were actors playing roles in a movie.
I don’t really understand how people become so easily offended. The moral indignation some choose to display when they are exposed to something they claim to be offended by always seems so fake to me. I just don’t get it.
PC Decrapifier is a nice piece of free software that removes the “crap” from your Windows XP or Vista PC. The crap in this case being the free junk software that comes bundled on your PC when you buy it. Software companies pay PC makers to instill all sorts of trial software on new machines. Most if not all of it is not worth having. If it was software that people actually wanted, companies wouldn’t have to pay to have in installed on new machines.
I usually just manually uninstall all the free trial crap software, but PC Decrapifier does all the work for you.
The $14 billion government bailout for the Detroit auto makers died in the Senate because all but ten Republican Senators refused to vote for it unless the union representing the autoworkers agree to massive pay cuts.
Congressional Republicans have been in open revolt against Bush over the auto bailout. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky joined other GOP lawmakers Thursday in announcing his opposition to the White House-backed bill, which passed the House on Wednesday. He and other Republicans insisted that the carmakers restructure their debt and bring wages and benefits in line with those paid by Toyota, Honda and Nissan in the United States.
I think I actually agree with the Republicans on this one. I think it would be great to get the pay and benefits that the average UEW worker gets. The problem is, the money just isn’t there. Because of the high cost of labor, Detroit automakers have to resort to not making cars, but expensive trucks, vans, and SUVs to absorb the high cost of UAW labor. When you are paying someone $69 in wages and benefits to turn bolts on an assembly line, it makes more sense economically for the big three automakers to make autos they can charge more for. Paying someone to turn bolts on a $9,000 car costs the same as paying someone to turn bolts on a $45,000 truck or SUV.
The automakers then have to spend millions on advertising to convince Americans that they need a truck or a sports utility vehicle to drive to work or to run errands. Unless you regularly haul around a full sheet of plywood, you don’t need a truck. You definitely don’t need a Ford F-150 truck, Ford’s best selling vehicle. It’s a vehicle that gets only 15 miles to the gallon in the city, 20 miles to the gallon on the highway. The fuel efficiency is even worse if the vehicle is hauling something heavy in the bed.
Not that this would ever happen.
If the big three automakers file for bankruptcy protection, UAW wages and benefits will be almost certainly be cut, but instead of the UAW leadership having any kind of say in the matter, it will be decided by a federal bankruptcy judge.
Colorado Avalanche and future Hockey Hall of Fame player Joe Sakic, already on the Injured Reserve with a herniated disc in his back, has further injured himself by operating a snowblower and will miss the rest of the season. Basically, he hurt himself like most people hurt themselves with a snowblower. He stuck a hand someplace a hand is not supposed to go on a snowblower.
How does a guy with a herniated disc operate a snowblower? I realize I have nothing in common with a professional hockey player, but I once had a herniated disc in my lower back. It was L3 to be exact. There was no way in the world I would have been able to operate a snowblower.
I’ve used snowblowers. I realize that they are self-propelled, but the person operating a snowblower still has to push and physically manipulate the machine.
On March 24, 1998, 11-year old Andrew Golden and 13-year old Mitchell Johnson pulled the fire alarm at Westside Middle School near Jonesboro, Arkansas and opened fire with high-powered rifles at teachers and students exiting the school building.
Four girls and a teacher were killed.
Both children were charged as juveniles in Arkansas state court for murder and then later transferred to federal custody for the crime of bringing a firearm to school. Golden and Johnson were each released from prison on their 21st birthday with a clean record and evidently, new names.
Who know juvie was kind of like the French Foreign Legion?
Andrew Golden changed his name to Drew Douglas Grant and recently applied for a permit to carry a semi-automatic handgun. The request was denied not because he murdered a teacher and four children, but because he lied on the application as to where he lived two years ago.
He might even be charged with lying on his application. Instead of going back to juvie, he would be facing the prospect of going to Big Boy prison.
The Yankees, a team that hasn’t won a World Series in eight years, has signed CC Sabathia to a 7-year, $161 million dollar contract. As if he wouldn’t have taken the job if they only offered him $160 million. As if they had to kick in another million bucks just to make the deal work.
How do they come up with these contracts? $161 million is such a weird number to settle on.
The funny thing about this is that New York taxpayers are forking over $200 million to the Yankees organization so that they can build the new $1 billion Yankees Stadium. If they have $161 to spend on a fat pitcher, why can’t they build their own statium without getting a handout from the taxpayer?
A new trailer for the latest installment to the Terminator franchise has been leaked on the Interweb and since it hasn’t been taken down by a gaggle of lawyers, I’m guessing that it was released with the studio’s approval. The fact that it has Japanese subtitles only makes it look better on the geek scale.
It looks fantastic, but when has a trailer ever looked bad? I might have to actually go the the theater and see this like a ham and egger instead of waiting for it to be released on home video three months later.
An F-18D Hornet on a routine training mission went out of control and crashed into a San Diego housing area yesterday. The pilot was able to eject from the aircraft and parachute safely to the ground at a nearby high school before the jet crashed.
So far two people are dead, though that number may go up. Two homes were completely engulfed in flames. If more people were in ether on of those homes, the death count will go up.
If the pilot hadn’t ejected and instead stayed in the aircraft, could they have avoided crashing into a residential area? When I was in the Air Force and in Korea, an RF-4C crashed into a hardened hanger, killing both crew members. The plane had run out of gas. The could have ejected, but they chose not to. They chose to remain in the aircraft. The reason? They wanted to do what they could to avoid the aircraft crashing into people. I happened to be one of those people. I was sound asleep in Tent City, an area adjacent to the flightline comprised of hundreds of tents. I was working the nightshift and like everyone else in Tent City, I awoke to the sound of an out-of-gas RF-4C plowing into a hardened, reinforced hanger.
Witnesses said that before crashing, the plane traveled directly over Tent City.
[Reuters]
Former second baseman Joe Gordon has been selected for enshrinement to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee. If you think the Veterans Committee is comprised of soldiers back from Iraq or Afghanistan, you would be wrong. They’d probably do a better job.
It’s made up of old ballplayers.
I just don’t get it. Joe Gordon hasn’t played baseball since 1950. He died in 1978. He evidently wasn’t good enough to make the Hall of Fame the regular way, by being voted in by the Baseball Writers Association of America. How did a man who has been dead for 30 years suddenly get good enough at playing baseball to be enshrined in Cooperstown?
I looked at his statistics over at Baseball Reference. Guess what? He doesn’t deserve to be in the Hall of Fame.
His numbers are marginal at best.
He had one great season. In 1942 he won the American League Most Valuable Player. Even then he didn’t deserve it. Ted Williams had a much better season in 1942. Williams had better numbers than Gordon in every offensive category. Don’t take my word for it. Look for yourself.
Joe Gordon didn’t serve to be the AL MVP in 1942 and he doesn’t deserve to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2008.
Summit Entertainment has fired director Catherine Hardwicke from any of the upcoming sequels in the Twilight movie franchise. Though the first movie under Hardwicke’s direction made a boat load of money ($165 million), it pretty much got skewered by the critics. If people went to the movies to see it — and a lot of people did — it was because they were fans of the Stephenie Meyer novels the move was based on, not because they like the way Catherine Hardwicke made the movie.
Supposedly Hardwicke “was ‘difficult’ and ‘irrational’ during the making of Twilight. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that she probably wasn’t the first director that was difficult or irrational while making a movie. I’m guessing those other directors made movies that the critics didn’t hate.
It make me wonder though what Summit Entertainment wants from a director. Hardwicke made Twilight for $37 million and it’s already raked in $160 million. No matter what goofy Hollywood accounting they use, Twilight made a ton of money.
Boxing legend Oscar De La Hoya called it quits last night in the 9th round with Filipino south-paw Manny Pacquiao. As the bell rang to begin the ninth round, De La Hoya refused to stand and resume the fight. In almost every other sport, an athlete will face immediate ejection from the game if they leave their seat to throw a punch. In boxing, it’s the complete opposite. When the bell rings and the boxer fails to stand up and a fight, they are ejected.
It’s like bizzaro world.
What surprises me the most about this story is not that De La Hoya would most likely end his career by quitting a fight, but that a Filipino guy was actually fighting someone one-on-one. It’s been my personal experience that Filipino guys only fight someone when they have at least four of their friends to help them. Even then, they usually only fight with sticks, rocks, or tire irons. From what I read, Manny Pacquiao was fighting Oscar De La Hoya by himself and he was only using his fists.
Once again, it’s bizzaro world.
If you’ve ever listened to The Ron and Fez Show on satellite radio (XM channel 202 and Sirius 197) you are probably familiar with the artist known as Sleeves. His real name is Sean Hurley. Actually, Sean Hurley is the writer-performer that plays the part of Sleeves. He makes the most fantastic and incredible music, much of it based on things that have transpired on the Ron and Fez Show.
I can’t adequately describe the stuff he creates. You’ve got to listen to it.
He recently submitted a Christmas song, The La La Christmas Song, to Ron and Fez for consideration to a contest they are running. As soon as they played Sleeves’ submission, it stopped being a contest. The rest of the contestants can now only hope for second place.
I was feeling pretty good fa la la la la
Taking my time on the la la la la
Snow falling down in the la la la la
Everybody singing like la la la la
Decking all the halls with the la la la la
Making my way to the la la la la la la la
I like to drink a little beer
At the ending of the day
And go walking into town
Feels like a million miles away
The snow is like a sea
Like the sand above the beach
The lights walking in the trees
The people shining in the street
And the people in the light
All the children in the light
Singing holy holy night
I was feeling pretty good fa la la la la
Taking my time on the la la la la
Snow falling down in the la la la la
Everybody singing like la la la la
Decking all the halls with the la la la la
Making my way to the la la la la la la la
I like to sit out on the pier
And look across the bay
I don’t think about a thing
And feel a million miles away
Like I’m floating from the sky
Like a storm of falling snow
Then I’m spinning through the trees
Then I’m shining in the road
For the people in the light
And all the children in the light
Singing holy holy night
For a few years now it’s been somewhat popular for football players to grow their hair really long and to fashion said hair into dreadlocks. The hair then protrudes out the back of the helmet. Sometimes it’s so long that it even covers up the player’s name.
I’ve always wondered what would happen if one of these hippie players got tackled by a defender pulling their hair. It looks like I got my answer.
Here we see Louisville’s Travis Norton tackle Rutgers’ Jourdan Brooks by yanking down on the dreadlocks. Take that hippie!
I don’t think this tackle would be legal in the NFL. Unfortunately it would most likely be considered a horse collar tackle. They’ve been banned in the NFL for a few years now. I don’t think they’re banned in the NCAA. Maybe the NFL could make an exception for hippies.
I don’t like hippies.
Dead Snow, a Norwegian movie about Nazi zombies, makes it’s American premiere at next month’s Sundance Film Festival. I didn’t know family movies got much attention at Sundance.
I’ve got to admit that this seems like a winner of a concept. Nazis are creepy. Zombies are creepy. Why didn’t anyone think of this before?
Looks like I’ll have to come up with a different personal motto. The phrase, “The only good Nazi is a dead Nazi” just doesn’t seem to quite cut it anymore.
[io9]
It looks as though OJ Simpson will be spending the rest of his life behind bars. It wont be for murdering his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her male friend Ron Goldman back in 1994. No, it will be for taking back some of his old football junk from two sports memorabilia dealers in a Las Vegas hotel room in September of 2007.
Evidently there were guns involved. Whoops.
What an idiot. He got away murder. Twice. All he had to do was keep his nose clean. All he had to do is not give anyone a reason to put him in prison where the entire world knows he belongs.
It’s not like the old sports memorabilia was even his. Because of the civil trial resulting from the murder of Ron Goldman, the Goldman family technically owns everything that OJ thinks is his. That certainly includes old football jerseys and similar junk from his football playing days.
I’m not even sure pointing a gun at a sports memorabilia dealer should be illegal. Talk about a victimless crime. Other than a military recruiter or a used car salesman, I can’t think of anyone more dishonest than a sports memorabilia dealer.
I guess OJ can get out after only 6 years if he keeps in nose clean and stays out of trouble in prison. Since that’s all he had to do after getting away with double-murder, I’d guess there’s zero chance of that happening. Staying out of trouble seems to be something OJ Simpson just can’t do.
Cayusa:
A shame that it happened, but I kind of wish it was the other way around. I've had my own run-ins with people who feel the need to chat on a cell phone ...
Rick:
No, I wasn't going to, but they sent me an email informing me they credited my account $25....
collectededitions:
You going the complain-and-get-$25 route?...
Ryan:
Atleast now they don't have to hustle across the border, they can just jump in her tour bus that has her face plastered on the side and cruise across in ...
Rick:
Yes, it's already my favorite movie of all time....
