If you ever fantasized about Spider-Man fighting Mickey Mouse, today may be your lucky day
The Walt Disney Company announced today that they are buying Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion. From AP Business:
Under the deal, Disney will acquire ownership of 5,000 Marvel characters. Many of them, including the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, were co-created by the comic book legend Stan Lee.
Analyst David Joyce of Miller Tabak & Co. said the acquisition will help Disney appeal to young men who have flocked to theaters to see Marvel’s superhero fare in recent years. That contrasts with Disney’s recent successes among young women with such fare as “Hannah Montana” and the Jonas Brothers.
“It helps Disney add exposure to a young male demographic it had sort of lost some balance with,” Joyce said, noting the $4 billion offer was at “full price.”
Young male demographic? Has David Joyce stepped into a comic book shop lately? Though he’s right about the male part, there is nothing young about the comic book demographic. Middle-aged male demographic more like it.
Harry Reid is for the public option as long as it’s not owned by the public
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants the world to know that he’s in favor of the public option. It’s where the government would offer non-profit, government run health insurance to every American to give private insurance companies some real competition. The only problem is that what Reid is in favor of are health insurance co-ops, not a true public option.
From the Reno Gazette-Journal:
“I’ve told people, whoever will listen, that I am in favor of the public option,” Reid said, adding he thinks it’s essential in order to provide competition for private insurance companies that are exempt from anti-trust laws. “We’re working now to try to come up with a program that would allow that to take place.”
Reid went on to say that most people “misunderstand” a public option as “some government run program.”
“But there are many ways we can do it,” he said. “One would be to have an entity like Medicare. I really don’t favor that. I think what we should have is a private entity that has direction from the federal government.”
Reid did not elaborate further on what that would look like.
And what’s so wrong with Medicare? I hope that I live long enough to be able to enroll in Medicare. I wish that the age requirement for Medicare would be removed. That would be the easiest and the most efficient way to reform health care.
Harry Reid is an ass. He has to remember that as the Majority Leader in the Senate, he cannot just be a crackpot from Nevada. I realize that is all he really is, but as one of the leaders in the Democratic party, he has a responsibly to help reform health care. He cannot say or do things that work against the goal of ensuring all Americans have access to quality health care.
Having kids compete on live national TV is child abuse
ESPN is televising the Little League World Series and if televising underage children as they compete in athletic competition isn’t bad enough, they are evidently putting microphones on the coaches so that we, the viewers, can listen in as they talk to their kids. It’s because of this fact that we get to see and hear the following conversation:
COACH: “Hey, we’re going to come up again.”
PITCHER: “Is it okay if I just hit this batter?”
COACH: “What? No. No. Are you kidding me? … Let’s get this guy. Come on. We’re still in this game. One-run game. You wanna stay in?”
PITCHER: “No.”
COACH: “You wanna come out right now?”
PITCHER: “Yes, I do. Can I sit out?”
COACH: “No, you’re going to first base.”
I guess you could say that this kid is showing really bad sportsmanship, but he’s just a kid. He’s not done yet. He should be allowed to grow up first before subjected to the national spotlight.
It’s pretty obviously to see that this kid is having a bad day. Though having a bad day is part of life, having a bad day on national TV is not. That’s why people should think long and hard before agreeing to appear on live TV in either a so-called reality TV show or the ultimate type of reality TV, a sporting event.
It should be obvious to see that 12-year old kids are far too young to be making these decisions. I think it creates too much pressure for the kids involved. ESPN shouldn’t be showing these games and you shouldn’t be watching them.
‘World Soccer Daily’ to return
Only a week after announcing that World Daily Soccer was coming to an immediate end, show co-hosts Steven Cohen and Kenny Hassan announced in a 15-minute teaser show that the show is returning as World Football Daily.
The new show will not appear on Sirius XM radio as World Soccer Daily did. This new show will be a subscription-based show. To listen to the show, you will have to pay $9.95 a month and listen to it either live on Ustream or on a delayed basis through the podcast.
I don’t think they’ve thought this through.
They also have the same exact problem they had with the old show. Cohen made comments about the 1989 Hillsborough disaster that enraged Liverpool FC supporters which prompted them to organize boycotts against World Soccer Daily advertisers. Some Liverpool FC supporters also made threatening statements towards Steven Cohen and reportedly even towards his step-children on Facebook. It was latter that prompted Cohen to cancel the show last week.
What changed?
Not that I understand what motivates someone to threaten someone’s step-child on Facebook, but I don’t see how simply renaming the show and going over to the subscription-base format is going to stop these people. Canceling the show last week only encouraged them and others that would use similar tactics. Steven Cohen flinched. What’s to make these people thing he won’t do it again?
I also have a problem with the name. They’re audience is overwhelmingly American. In America, the beautiful game is referred to as soccer. Now I realize that the rest of the world refers to it as football, but when you say football in America, you are referring to a game where the players wear helmets and shoulder pads and the play is continuously interrupted with commercials. That’s just the way it is. Compounding this problem is that they are starting this new show with a different name at the same time the NFL is about to begin it’s regular season. The new name will only create confusion.
With the current economic crisis, I’m not sure this is the best time to switch over to a format where listeners will have to fork over $9.95 a month to download the show. With the old show, they could download it for free. I know that I wont be paying $9.95 a month to listen to the show and I’m sure most people wont either.
Once again, I don’t think they’ve thought this through. Then again, that seems to be a running theme with the show for the past six months. It’s one thing for Steven Cohen to have his opinions about the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, it’s quite another to voice those opinions knowing how Liverpool FC supporters would react to those opinions.
Only 83 year old Roscoe Bartlett would think the telephone was modern technology
U.S. Representative Roscoe Bartlett is getting out of having public town hall meetings on health care reform and is instead holding private invite-only “tele-town halls” with registered voters in the Maryland 6th District.
From WJZ TV:
Maryland congressman Roscoe Bartlett is using modern technology to open up his town hall meetings on health care reform to virtually every 6th District household.
Supposedly his office is calling every registered voter in district who has a telephone to invite them to one of these stupid things.
I’m not at all surprised that Roscoe Bartlett would do something like this. Not that he has anything to worry about when it comes to the typical person who attends these health care town hall meetings to yell at their elected officials.
The birther and the TEA bagger is what you would call his base. He is their kind of people.
Though I’m a registered voter, I’m registered as a Democrat and Bartlett does not like Democrats. In fact he once referred to Democrats as “the enemy.” I also don’t have an old style land-line phone. We went cellular years ago and never looked back.
I’m not even sure if Bartlett knows about cellular phones.
One of the biggest problems with Bartlett holding these stupid “tele-town halls” is that he doesn’t just represent registered voters. He represents all Americans living in the Maryland 6th District whether they are registered to vote or not.
Hooliganism rears it ugly and bloody head
Fights broke out last night at the Carling Cup game between London clubs West Ham and Millwall at West Ham’s Upton Park stadium. People were fighting before the game. People were fighting during the game. People were fighting at the end of the game. People were outside the stadium throwing bricks and whacking each other with sticks. Millwall fans stormed the pitch (field) in the final minutes to disrupt the game. Their team lost the match 3-1.
One fan of the beautiful game was even stabbed in the chest, but remarkably, he survived. Remarkable because everyone knows that England has that awful icky socialized health care where usually a bad case of the hiccups is usually a death sentence.
The fights were planned and organized on the Internet. Instructions were given before the game on message boards. One message read: ‘Make sure you bring your bats and don’t bring your kids.’
I happen to know for a fact that Al Gore cries every time his Internet is used not for good, but for evil. Do they even have bats in England? I thought bats were exclusive to baseball playing countries.
Ted Kennedy 1932 – 2009
Senator Ted Kennedy has died from brain cancer. He was 77 years old.
He served an astounding 46 years in the U.S. Senate. What I found to be the most impressive thing about Senator Ted Kennedy was that though he was born into one of the most richest and powerful families in America, he worked tirelessly in the U.S. Senate on the behalf of the less fortunate. He was an unashamed liberal to his very core.
He will be greatly missed.
Sometimes giving up is the best option
There was an article published in the Hibbing Daily Tribune about psoriasis and how it’s an autoimmune disease, not something that is “catchy”.
In the article, the reporter spoke to Catie Coman, director of communications for the National Psoriasis Foundation, a national patient advocacy organization. Something Coman said kind of bothered me. The article reads:
She stressed the importance of those with the disease seeking treatment.
“Giving up is not an option,” she said, adding that if a treatment doesn’t work, they should go back to the doctor.
“What works for one person may not work for someone else or may not work after time,” said Coman. She added that in the last several years there has been more research complete and new treatments on the market.
I guess it depends on how you define “giving up”. I’ve come to the realization that there is no cure for this disease and instead of wasting my time, money, and more importantly, my hope, chasing something that doesn’t exist, I had better just come to terms with it.
I have psoriasis and there is no cure. Many of the current treatments for psoriasis not only do not work, they carry the risk of very serious side effects up to and including death.
One of the problems with having psoriasis is that the medical community has decided that it is the dermatologist that should be treating psoriasis even though psoriasis is not a skin disease, but an autoimmune disease. From the same newspaper article:
Psoriasis, which varies in severity and how it responds to treatments, occurs when the immune system sends out faulty signals. The result is red, scaly patches on the skin that can bleed and itch.
Coman said being treated differently or being teased can affect people with the disease emotionally causing shame or embarrassment.
If we know that psoriasis is not a skin disease, but an immune system distorter, why do we insist that dermatologists treat it? I guess I’d feel differently if the treatments for psoriasis consisted of merely creams, lotions, or ointments. Substances that directly treat the skin. The problem I have is when the treatment involves biologic drugs that target the immune system. I don’t think dermatologists should be administering these types of drugs.
They specialize in the skin, not the immune system.
I’ve decided that I will no longer see dermatologists for my psoriasis. Does that mean I’m giving up? Maybe, but I don’t think I have much of a choice.
The unassisted triple play
It was the 15th unassisted triple play in major league baseball history and only the second time it’s happened to end a game. There were runners on first and second and both runners were attempting to steal when Jeff Francoeur of the New York Mets hit the ball directly to Philadelphia Phillies utility infielder Eric Bruntlett. Out #1 was when Bruntlett caught the line drive. Out #2 was when Bruntlett stepped on the bag for the force out of Luis Castillo who was on second base, but legally could not advance to third base because the hit ball had never touched the ground. Out #3 was when Bruntlett tagged Daniel Murphy before he could get back to first base.
One. Two. Three. An unassisted triple play by a utility infielder.
My Samsung Blu-ray player wont play Blu-ray movies
I was watching Watchmen on Blu-ray last night when the picture froze. If you’ve seen the move, it was the scene where Silk Spectre and Nite Owl take a stroll down a dark alley and they end up going Old Testament on a bunch of street thugs who were up to no good.
I tried taking the disc out and cleaning it. I had just bought it so I didn’t know how it got dirty, but that was all I had in my digital disc troubleshooting bag of tricks. After cleaning off the nonexistent gunk from the disc, I tried to watch it again, but now my Blu-ray player wouldn’t read the Blu-ray disc at all.
I tried it again today, but the result was the same. I then tried playing another Blu-ray disc. The player wouldn’t read that disc either. I tried a regular old DVD disc and it read that disc without any difficulties.
My Samsung BD-P1500 will play DVD discs, but not Blu-ray discs. I’ve probably only watched five, maybe six Blu-ray discs on it and it now wont work.
I went to the Samsung website to see what I could now do. After entering in all of the applicable information, it informed me that though the machine was still under warranty for parts, it was no longer under warranty for labor. The warranty for parts is 12 months, while the warranty for labor is a mere 3 months. I was then advised to call Samsung to arrange a repair.
How lame is that? It would probably cost me more to have the unit repaired than it would to just buy a new player. I paid $200 for this one last Black Friday. I haven’t priced them lately, but I doubt Blu-ray players have gone up in price since then.
Not that I will ever buy anything made by Samsung ever again.
My blog posts are dishonest?
I had a few people leave comments on yesterday’s post about World Soccer Daily going off the air that I felt the need to delete. To say that deleting comments here is a rare occurrence is a huge understatement.
I don’t employ comment moderation and I generally allow people to say what they want in the comment section, as long as they are the ones actually saying it. What I don’t appreciate is when someone simply pastes the words of someone else from another blog or website into my comment section.
I usually delete these comments as spam.
This morning I received an email from one of the people who left comments yesterday that I had to delete. In his message to me, he encouraged me to post his email. I’ve decided to do that as well as reply to it.
Horace Steenblatter wrote:
From: Horace Steenblatter (hsteenblatter@yahoo.co.uk)
To: rick@bentcorner.com
Date: Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 7:19 AM
Subject: Your blog posts are dishonestYou are not deleting “something negative someone on another blog wrote concerning Steven Cohen.” You have repeatedly deleted comments that I’ve left under my own name which consisted of nothing but Cohen’s own words and Chelsea FC’s response to Cohen’s words. If you were actually concerned with disseminating factual information, you would let Cohen’s words speak for themselves rather than posting dishonest information which only contain a partial account of his words. How in the world is a post about Steven Cohen’s words “not the place” for Steven Cohen’s words?
Horace, your comments were not the only ones I felt the need to delete yesterday. Not that what you were actually leaving comments. You were simply pasting statements from other blogs and websites dedicated to getting Steven Cohen “fired” from his own radio show because he shared an opinion.
That’s what radio talk show hosts do in this country. They share opinions. Nobody says that you have to agree with it. Nobody says that you have to listen to it. Nobody says you have to like it.
I’ve posted the actual quote that got Steven Cohen in trouble with Liverpool supporters. You or anyone else re-posting it in the comment section is at best, unnecessarily redundant. It’s also not even important. Cohen only voiced his opinion about an historical event. People shouldn’t be shut down or threatened with physical harm because of their opinion.
At least not in the United States of America.
Furthermore, the comment section of my blog is not for you or anyone else to treat as their own personal blog. If you want to re-post content from other blogs or other websites, get your own blog and do it there.
Do not do it here.
‘World Soccer Daily’ calls it quits
Steven Cohen, co-owner and host of World Soccer Daily, has decided to pull the plug on the popular satellite radio show dedicated to all things soccer. From the World Soccer Daily website:
Today’s show was the last World Soccer Daily show. After almost 7 years in one form or another, WSD is going off the air. Longtime listeners can probably imagine why, but the details are in the podcast.
We would be remiss if we didn’t offer a sincere thank you to our listeners for making the show such a fantastic ride. I know I speak for everyone when I say thank you for tuning in, thank you for supporting our sponsors, and thank you for helping grow the Beautiful Game.
I guess I should have realized something was going on yesterday when I noticed all the Steven Cohen related traffic coming in yesterday, not to mention the wonderful email I received last night.
So far I’ve only listened to about half of the episode, but it’s safe to say that the death threats and the antisemitic comments directed towards Cohen have taken their toll. All because he dared to share his opinion that there was more than enough blame to go around involving the 1989 Hillsborough Disaster including some (not all) of the Liverpool fans in attendance that sad day.
Angry Liverpool fans began a crusade against Cohen and the show, going after the sponsors of the show and threatening to boycott any product advertised on the show. A good many of the fans also threatened Cohen with bodily harm and even death. Some even threatened Cohen’s family, including his step-children.
All for voicing his opinion.
I originally defended Cohen’s right to voice his opinion. Mostly because I believe in free speech, but also because quotes attributed to Cohen were in fact factually wrong. He was being accused of saying things he never said. At first I thought it was a simple mistake on the part of the person making the claim. I then came to the sad realization that the person making the false claim knew exactly what they were doing.
I then later criticized Steven Cohen for asking listeners for donations. I thought it was crass to ask people who already pay Sirius XM for a monthly subscription to donate money if they enjoy listening to the show. In hindsight, maybe I should have coughed over a few bucks. Cohen has said the reason he’s canceling the show is because of the threats, but I imagine it’s hard to make money doing a radio show without any sponsors, though the show did have at least some sponsors. It’s not like they were running public service announcements during their breaks.
I get email
Occasionally people read something I’ve written and feel moved to email me about. Here’s an email someone just sent me:
from: Michael Elmore (elmoremj@googlemail.com)
to: rick@bentcorner.com
date: Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 9:15 PM
subject: Steve “Scum” CohenWhy do you have so many posts defending Steve Cohen, what he said was clearly out of order and yet you continue to try and justify his statements. You are just as much a scum bag as him and without being blasphemes I have to say you need to find new friends other than the wretched Cohen who spouts evil from his putrid mouth!!!
For the record, I haven’t written a blog post “defending” Steven Cohen since May 2. I’ve since blogged about the controversy, but not to defend Cohen. In fact, my last blog post mentioning Cohen was to criticize him for asking listeners for monetary donations.
And for that I get called a scum bag? Michael Elmore has a point. If you are going to spout evil, you really should do it from a putrid mouth.
I once heard the origin of the term “scum bag.” It was pretty disgusting.
The (serious) side effects of Enbrel
Since reading yesterday the first-hand account of someone who came down with multiple sclerosis after taking Enbrel for his psoriasis, I’ve been reading up on the drug and all of the hideous side effects associated with the drug. These include:
- Serious infections including TB.
- Nervous system problems, such as multiple sclerosis, seizures, or inflammation of the nerves of the eyes.
- Rare reports of serious blood problems (some fatal).
- Heart failure, including new heart failure or worsening of heart failure you already have.
- Allergic reactions.
- Immune reactions, including a lupus-like syndrome and lymphoma (a type of cancer).
When my dermatologist put me on Enbrel, she told me only about the increased chances of getting infections (including TB) and a higher chance of getting lymphoma. She said nothing about seizures or fatal blood problems. She didn’t say anything about heart failure or multiple sclerosis.
I guess it’s my own fault for not doing more research on Enbrel before taking it. Then again, I never went to medical school. I’m not a board certified dermatologist. I never even took high school chemistry. What do I know about drugs?
When I don’t know something, I defer to the people that do. That includes doctors. Well, not anymore. From now on I am not going to take a drug or a medication until I do my research. I am not going to simply trust a doctor.
Not anymore.
Enbrel can cause multiple sclerosis?
I read this on a psoriasis message board this morning:
I am a 39 year old male and I took Enbrel for two years for moderate psoriasis. I stopped taking it last November (2008). I stopped just because I was tired of injecting myself.
A few weeks ago the skin on my right leg went numb. Like pins and needles. Shortly after my left hand became week.
My general practitioner sent me immediately to the ER and a waiting neurologist. They gave me a barrage of tests (CT, 2 MRIs, a Spinal Tap). The results showed a plaque on my cervical spine. The doctor told me that there is evidence that Enbrel can cause demyelination. Demyelination is the when the immune system attacks the nervous system. This can be MS. I believe that this problem was caused by the Enbrel. To relieve the symptoms they gave me prednisone by iv for five days. That made me so incredibly ill I thought I might die from it. The only good that came from it was that it cleared 99% of my psoriasis temporarily.
I am not a doctor, but I urge anyone taking Embrel to consider the consequences. It clearer skin worth other health issues? Please be wary and weigh all your options.
Not once did my dermatologist speak to me about Enbrel leading to multiple sclerosis. She mentioned that it could lesson my ability to fight off infection. She didn’t say anything about it effecting my nervous system.
It’s all a big crap shoot. Though I’m willing to risk getting an infection, I am not willing to get MS. And it’s not even a sure thing that Enbrel will successfully treat my psoriasis. It very well may turn out to be as worthless as the other infective medications I’ve taken for psoriasis.
I just want to have normal hands that don’t hurt or bleed. Is that asking too much? I want to be able to tie my shoes without getting blood on my shoelaces. I want to be able to use tools at work without causing my hands to crack and bleed.
I took an Enbrel injection earlier this morning. I think it will be my last.
Maybe Brett Favre just hates living in Mississippi
Once again, Brett Favre has decided to come out of retirement and return to the NFL. This time the former Green Bay Packers star quarterback is returning to the NFC and will be playing for the Minnesota Vikings. Last year he came out of retirement to play for the New York Jets.
The Vikings reportedly signed Favre to a two-year contract, paying him $12 million this year and another $13 million next year if he remains with the team that long.
Will Favre ever stayed retired? He’s 39 years old. That’s 104 in professional football player years.
Maybe the reason Favre is constantly changing his mind about retirement is because he just doesn’t want to live in Mississippi. It seems like he retires, goes back home to Mississippi, and then decides that he wants to play some more football. Maybe he just hates living in Mississippi.
Can anyone really blame him?
Maybe next time he retires, he ought to pack up the family and move somewhere else. Someplace that’s not Mississippi. If I had his money and could live anywhere in the world, I’d move to Santa Barbara, California.
I certainly wouldn’t live in Mississippi.
Nationals sign top draft pick with minutes to spare
The Washington Nationals were able to reach a deal with 2009 Major League Baseball No. 1 draft pick Stephen Strasburg late last night only minutes before the midnight deadline. Strasburg signed a $15.1 million, four-year deal.
That’s a lot of money.
If the Nats had failed to sign Strasburg before then, they would have lost the rights to sign him and he would have to go back into next year’s draft. The Nats earned the right to take the first draft pick this year by losing 102 games last year.
Strasburg is a right-handed power pitcher. He stands 6-5 tall and weighs in at 216 pounds. His fast ball is clocked at 97 MPH.
There’s a slight chance he might be coming to the Hagerstown Suns for a few minutes, but I kind of doubt it. Then again, I didn’t think the Nats were going to even sign him, so what do I know? The Suns are the single A team for the Washington Nationals and play in Memorial Stadium. It’s the stadium baseball great Willie Mays made his professional debut.
Strasburg hasn’t pitched since May while playing for San Diego State as a sophomore.
Health care reform without the ‘public option’ is a waste of time
It looks like the Obama administration is ready to abandon the idea of the public option, the creation of government-run, non-profit health care insurance that would give all Americans access to quality health care. People wouldn’t have to rely on their employers to provide access to health care insurance.
We are the only country in the modern industrialized world that does not have some form of government health care. Every other modern country in the world guarantees essential health care to it’s people. The United States does not, but neither does Mongolia.
It’s not like we are alone.
Some people like to say that we have the best health care in the world. I think when most people say this, they actually believe what they are saying is true. The World Health Organization (WHO) ranked the world’s health care systems and the United States came in at 37th, right below Costa Rica.
The reality is that most Americans only have health care insurance if their employer offers it as a benefit. If you lose your job, even if it is of no fault of your own, you lose your health care insurance.
In no other modern industrialized country does this happen.
To reform health care without creating a public option is worse than no reform at all. It would be a complete waste of time.
The private health insurance companies don’t want a public option because it would eat away at their massive profits. They want things to remain essentially the way they are now. They don’t want to compete against something that puts the health of the insured above everything else. Creating government-run, non-profit health care insurance would force private insurance companies to put their patients first, not their profits. Not only is it the most efficient way to enact reform, it’s the only way.
President Obama couldn’t pick a worse thing to flip-flop on.
I forgot why I stopped watching ‘Meet The Press’
When I heard that MSNBC and Air America radio host Rachel Maddow was going to make an appearance on NBC’s Meet The Press, I decided to make a point to watch it.
I stopped watching Meet The Press shortly after Tim Russert died. It wasn’t because the host died. I just got tired of of how they allowed guests to go on the program and spew lies and half-truths without calling them on it.
I see nothing has changed.
Dick Armey repeated the old lie that MoveOn.org once ran ads that showed President George W. Bush as Adolf Hitler. It of course is not true, and Armey probably knew that. David Gregory, the show’s host, didn’t call Armey on the claim so Maddow had to.
Michael Vick speaks
Michael Vick was interviewed last night on 60 Minutes by James Brown of CBS Sports. It marks the first time Vick has been interviewed since getting out of federal prison after serving 18 months his involvement in an illegal dog fighting ring.
Not that there is such a thing as a “legal” dog fighting ring.
I thought before watching the interview that Brown might go easy on Vick, but he didn’t. He asked all the tough questions that needed to be asked. Not that I think it will make any difference. Say what you will about the Americans people, we aren’t too big on forgiveness, especially when we think the person in need of our forgiveness doesn’t really feel any real remorse.
It’s easy to look down on Michael Vick because he participated in a disgusting and brutal activity. Not only do most people love dogs, they love being able to look down on other people, especially people who are rich and successful.
Does Vick really feel sorry for what he did? I doubt it. I think he’s only sorry that he was caught and had to go to prison. If he enjoyed watching two dogs fight to the death before going to prison, I’m pretty sure he still enjoys it.
Ohio police dispatcher uses official email to forward a racist image
Anita Malachowski, a police dispatcher for the city of North Canton, Ohio used her official police email account to forward a racist email mocking President Obama. The email featured a photo of Air Force One where someone had photoshopped in the letters “N166ER” so that it looked like Air Force One now has a tail number that reads “NIGGER”.
The original email shows that it was first sent to Malachowski from someone named Holli Webb from a hotmail account. The Ohio Daily blog is reporting that Webb works as a police dispatcher for the town of Uniontown, Ohio.
Both women are on administrative leave while the two police departments try to figure out of the photo is offensively racist or not.
What’s to figure out?
Chima kicked of ‘Big Brother 11′ by the producers
Looks like there was quite the drama yesterday in the Big Brother 11 house. One of the contestants, Chima Simone, 32, was removed from the show by the producers for constantly breaking the reality show’s rules. Not only was she removed from the Big Brother house, she will not be allowed to participate in the jury or be involved in any other Big Brother events.
Supposedly the events that lead up to what transpired will be addressed in tonight’s episode. If not tonight, then probably Tuesday’s episode.
I can’t help but think this throws a monkey wrench into everything. According to the people that have been watching the live feeds (people can sign up to watch what happens in the house 24/7 over the Internet) Chima was one of the two house guests nominated for eviction this week. Because one of the two nominees is now gone, the producers were forced into having a new Head of House (HoH) competition so that the new HoH could nominate two new people. This meant that Michelle Noonan, the current HoH, really got cheated this week.
I’m not really surprised that Chima was kicked off the show. She always seemed like a total nutcase, more so than the other nutcases on the show. I think you have to be a nutcase just to want to be on Big Brother, but she always stood out from the rest when it came to mental stability.
As in, she didn’t have any.
Last week she got into a huge argument with one of her fellow house guests, Russell Kairouz, 24, supposedly a professional mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter. While arguing, Chima called Russell, who I guess is of middle-eastern decent, a “terrorist.” When Russell accused her of using a racial slur against him, she claimed that it had nothing to do with his race, but his actions in the Big Brother house.
It sounded a lot like a racial slur to me.
A tree from the land of my people
My brother Tim posted this photo of a Joshua tree on Facebook this morning. I grew up in the high desert of southern California where Joshua trees were quite plentiful. To be honest, I didn’t appreciate their beauty while growing up around them. It was only later after moving away and being away from them that I developed an appreciation for them.
When is a collection too much?
There is an ongoing series of blog posts over at Comic Book Resources entitled Shelf Porn. It’s where people send in photos of their bookshelves so that other people can look at them and admire the things that they own. It started out with people sending in photos of their books. It’s since evolved a bit to include not only books, but action figures too.
The latest entry is the action figure collection of Will Morelli. As the above photo shows, to say that he has a lot of action figures is an extreme understatement.
When does a collection become so big, so massive, that it becomes too much?
Will Morelli’s collection of plastic action figures is so massive in size that it’s almost impossible to take it all in. The human brain can only process so much visual input. I can’t help but wonder if it’s better to display fewer pieces. At least that way you can actually see and process each individual piece.
Sometimes less is better than more.
Hagerstown’s very own health care town hall
United States Senator Benjamin L. Cardin held a town hall on health care yesterday at the Hagerstown Community College and the 450 people that were allowed to attend spent most of the time with Cardin screaming at him about illegal aliens, abortion, and how government health care will result in the elderly being euthanized.
As the above photo shows, there was at least one man walking around the event displaying a photo of President Barack Obama depicted as Adolf Hitler.
Seriously? I just don’t get it.
I watched videos on the Herald-Mail website that showed people screaming at Cardin and reading pre-written statements they brought with them to the event. Their ignorance combined with their rude behavior actually made me feel embarrassed to live here.
A majority of the people attending the event appeared to be at least 65 years of age. To hear them yell at Cardin about the evils of government health care, knowing that as senior citizens, they already enjoy quality government health care in the form of Medicare, would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
The Herald-Mail reported that a man was standing outside the Hagerstown Community College entrance on Robinwood Drive with a sign that read, “Death to Obama” and another one that read, “Death to Obama, Michelle and his two stupid kids.”
Classy.
Rick Pitino is even creepier then I thought
I’ve never liked University of Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino. I don’t know why, but he’s already rubbed me the wrong way. It now appears that he is even creepier than I always thought he was. It’s been reported that he was the “victim” of an extortion attempt by Karen Sypher, a woman he had sex with in a Louisville, Kentucky restaurant called Porcini in August of 2003.
The sex happened in the restaurant after it had closed and everyone other than Pitino, Sypher, and Vinnie Tatum, Pitino’s former assistant, had left for the evening. Pitino and Sypher made love on top of a table and within earshot of Tatum.
If that doesn’t make you cringe, nothing will.
Two weeks after restaurant table-top tryst, Sypher told Pitino that she was pregnant with his love child and she needed $3,000 for an abortion.
Rick Pitino, married man and father of five children, paid for the abortion.
If all this is not weird enough, Karen Sypher married Rick Pitino’s former personal assistant, Tim Sypher. They are now currently in the process of getting a divorce.
So what does this mean for Rick Pitino, leader of men? The University of Louisville cannot be very happy about all this. Evidently Coach Pitino has a morality clause in his contract. I imagine having sex with a woman you just met on top of a table in a fancy restaurant while your assistant listens might be one of those things a morality clause would include.
Whatever happens, it should make for an interesting chapter in the next book Rick Pitino writes on leadership and how to be sucessful in life.
‘There Goes the Neighborhood’ is the greatest TV show of all time
Sunday night was the premiere of There Goes the Neighborhood, a CBS reality show that puts neighboring families in a metropolitan Atlanta neighborhood against each other in a competition where the winning family earns $250,000. A 20-foot wall was constructed around the eight families competing and they are cut off from the rest of the world. No TV, no electricity, no telephones, and no Internet. They cannot leave until they are kicked out by the other families in the form of a vote.
Families compete in a competition where the winning family becomes “King of the Neighborhood”. Not only do they get a prize for their win, they get to select two families for eviction. The other families then vote on which family to kick out of the game. The losing family then has to leave and go stay in a hotel until the show is over.
If it sounds like the greatest thing to ever appear on television, that’s because it is.
Unlike other reality TV shows that feature people stabbing strangers in the back for the possibility of winning some money, these people are stabbing their own neighbors in the back.
In the first episode, families competed in a contest that featured a fire house that had to be untangled so that it could be used to wash the mud off a loved one to reveal a set of three numbers printed on a t-shirt. Once the mud was off and the numbers exposed, the two family members raced to a box where they used the three numbers to unlock a combination lock. Though they had the three numbers, they did not know in what order they went. In other words, it was total luck who won and who lost.
The first family to be kicked off the show looked like they were devastated. Not only because they would now not be in contention to win the $250,000, but because they had been good friends with the other families, especially the “King of the Neighborhood” family that nominated them for eviction.
It’s one thing to stab complete strangers, people you will never see again, in the back for the sake of reality TV. It’s a whole different thing to screw over the people who live next door to you, people you’ve known for years.
It’s fascinating to watch.
The world loves G.I. Joe
Paramount’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra opened this weekend and raked in $100.5 million worldwide making it the largest grossing movie based on an action figure.
This movie wasn’t even reviewed by critics because the studio wouldn’t allow them to see it. If a reviewer wanted to see G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, he or she was going have to wait till Friday and pay their ten bucks like everyone else.
I’ve never quite understood this tactic. Normally the studios do this when they know the movie sucks and the critics are going to destroy it with their negative words. This makes no sense to me because people don’t care what critics say.
People don’t care what critics have to say about a movie, whether it’s negative or positive. The 2005 Joss Whedon movie Serenity, based on the short lived but totally excellent science fiction TV show Firefly was reviewed very positively by movie critics. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 81%. Anything above 50% is considered good. Even though the critics loved Serenity, it grossed only a little over $39K worldwide it’s entire theatrical run.
Critics just do not matter.
Billy Mays used cocaine in the days before his death
The toxicology reports are in for the late pitchman Billy Mays, and it turns out that Oxiclean wasn’t the only white powder he was into. Tests show that Mays used cocaine only days before his death. Medical examiner Dr. Leszek Chrostowski concluded that the cocaine use contributed to Mays’ death in that it made his heart disease worse.
I’ve heard that it will do that. Then again, everything I know about cocaine I learned from watching Miami Vice and Scarface.
Mays’ widow is disputing the claim that he used cocaine. According to her, he did not use cocaine or any other non-prescription drug. What’s she supposed to say? That her husband did mountains of coke?
I almost feel sorry for her.
I no longer want to go to the San Diego Comic-Con
I used to want to attend the San Diego Comic-Con, the world’s largest and most attended comic book convention, but not anymore. I’ve been reading reports online pertaining to this year’s convention which was held July 23- 26, and I can honestly say it’s not something I would have enjoyed.
In fact, I think I would have hated it.
To say that Hollywood has realized over the last few years that San Diego Comic-Con was a cheap and easy place to get publicity for their projects is nothing new. This has been going on at the SDCC for a few years now. At first the studios used the event to promote comic book or superhero type movies.
Now it seems anything goes.
A few years ago it was Snakes on a Plane. I never saw the movie, but I don’t see any connection to the medium of comic books.
This year the teen girl friendly vampire motion picture franchise Twilight was front and center at the SDCC. A good many of the fans in attendance at the con where there for Twilight and had no interest in the rest of the convention.
It wasn’t just Twilight. DC Comics presented a panel for Fables that unfortunately a good many Fables fans could not attend. The reason? Prior to the Fables panel was a panel for the movie Boondock Saints 2. Immediately following the Fables panel, the room was scheduled for a Venture Bros. panel. Evidently a good many of the people who attended the Boondock Saints panel decided to stay and not give up their seatd so that they could attend the Venture Bros. panel.
They had no interest in the Fables panel.
It’s even possible that they only attended the Boondock Saints panel so that they would get a good seat for the Venture Bros. panel. I’ve never heard of Venture Bros., but they evidently have a large fan base.
The result of all this was that a good many fans of Fables, some even dressed up as their favorite Fables characters, were not allowed into the Fables panel, A panel that featured Fables creator Bill Willingham, artist Mark Buckingham, editor Shelly Bond, and others associated with the book, because the room was already filled to capacity.
If I was at SDCC, the Fables panel would have been my number one event to attend. To think that I would have been denied entrance because fans of a cartoon I’ve never heard of were “camping out” would have infuriated me.
I would have probably done something stupid.
I’d say that the SDCC needs to decide what it wants to be, a comic book convention or a movie and TV convention, but I think they have already decided.
Michael George will stay in jail
Comic book retailer and Pittsburgh Comicon organizer Michael George will be remain in jail as he awaits his a new trial for the murder of his wife, Barbara George. From the Detroit Free Press:
Michael George, who awaits a second trial in the 1990 death of his wife after his conviction last year was set aside by a Macomb County judge, has been denied a request to have his bond lowered by the Michigan Court of Appeals.
George, 39, was convicted by a jury in March 2008 of first-degree murder. Circuit Judge James Biernat set aside the verdict six months later, saying prosecutors unfairly used George’s admitted philandering to paint him as a killer.
The appeals court is still weighing prosecutors’ requests to have the verdict reinstated. George remains in the Macomb County Jail on $2.5-million bond. His wife, 32-year-old Barbara George, was shot to death in the back of the comic book store she owned with her husband.
Michael George used to own and operate the comic book shop I shop at, Comics World located in the Chambersburgh Mall in beautiful Scotland, Pennsylvania.
The commerical CNN refused to show
Americans United for Change, a non-partisan group dedicated to various progressive issues, tried to book time on CNN for an ad critical of the health care industry, mainly Ed Hanway, CEO of the insurance company Cigna. CNN refused to run the ad. The reason? Not because the ad isn’t factually accurate, but because it “unnecessarily singles out an individual company and person”.
I guess it depends what CNN’s definition of “unnecessarily” is.
I’ve often wondered just how the mainstream news media was going to react when the pressure for health care reform intensified. They make a lot of money running commercials for big pharma. Watch the evening news on any of the three major networks and a majority of the commercials are for prescription drugs that we are all supposed to run out to our doctors for.
At least those of us with halfway decent health insurance.
Stay classy TEA baggers
TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Baggers in Connecticut held a rally to outside a healthcare town hall meeting held by Senator Chris Dodd in Hartford. The soft spoken gentleman in the white t-shirt and the red ball cap seems to be suggesting that Dodd, who was recently diagnosed with early prostate cancer, ought to forgo medical treatment and instead just kill himself.
What gets me the most about this video is not the knuckle head making the stupid comments about Dodd taking a lethal does of booze and pills, but how nobody around him is telling him to shut up. Nobody even steps away from him.
I think that says a lot about them.
Enbrel
I started taking Enbrel Sunday night for my psoriasis. Like Humira and Raptiva, it’s an injectable. Unlike Raptiva, I don’t have to play junior chemist mixing the medication and loading the syringe. Like Humira, it comes in preloaded, spring-loaded applicators. You press the business end against your leg and press the button. It’s as easy as that.
I think the applicators look sort of like Dr. McCoy’s hyposprays from Star Trek.
I will be taking them twice a week, Sunday night and Thursday morning.
The preloaded applicators have to refrigerated. We’re going out to California next month which means I will be needing to take two of the Enbrel applicators out with me. I don’t really know how to do this. I’m sure TSA will have a problem with me taking a small cooler with ice packs and two does of Enbrel.
People on unemployment are the new welfare queens
Michelle Malkin was on This Week with George Stephanopoulos and made the claim that people on unemployment wont go out and find a job until their unemployment benefits expire. She argued that any extension of unemployment benefits will ultimately only extend unemployment. From Crooks and Liars:
Malkin: If you put enough government cheese in front of people they are just going to keep eating it and you’re just kicking the can down the road and just to hammer this point about the unemployment benefits extension again it was Larry Katz, who’s a chief labor economist under the Clinton labor department who came out with a study and there are a lot of these economists who say this that if you keep extending these “temporary” unemployment benefits you’re just going to extend joblessness even more.
Stephanopoulos: I don’t know if I follow that though
Malkin: That was a Clinton economist who said it George…
Stephanopoulos: Choosing to take the unemployment benefits when a job is available?
Malkin: Seventy nine weeks already and then they’re going to extend it by another thirteen weeks and what happens is according to these economist who have seen it including this Clinton economist is that people will just delay getting a job until the three weeks before the benefits run out.
Tucker: Well, that might be true when there are jobs out there that are available, but there are very few jobs available at the moment so I don’t think people are using that unemployment benefit to be lazy instead of going out and searching for jobs…
Malkin: I’m not making a moral judgment, it’s an incentive problem.
So the high unemployment rate the country is currently experiencing is not because there aren’t enough jobs to go around, but because a lot of people have just decided to take a break and not work.
Got it.
Bank teller captures a robber and gets fired
A Seattle man was fired from his job at the bank because he chased down a would be bank robber. From the Associated Press:
Jim Nicholson, who worked at a Key Bank branch, says he understands the bank’s policy that employees comply with robbery demands and avoid dangerous confrontations. But he tells The Seattle Times that his instincts took over when the man demanded money during the Tuesday incident.
Nicholson says he tried to grab the man, then chased him several blocks before knocking him down with help from a passer-by. The man turned out to be unarmed.
The 30-year-old Nicholson was fired Thursday.
His instincts took over? What is he, a cocker spaniel? That’s not instinct that’s telling him to chase a bank robber, that’s just his stupidity talking.
I have zero sympathy for this guy losing his job. He’s a bank teller, not a member of the Justice League.
He should have just let the guy leave. He didn’t even get any money. Nicholson refused to fill the robber’s backpack until he produced a weapon. Imagine if you were in the bank waiting to do something and this whole mess was going on. The goal should be to keep any would-be robber from brandishing a weapon, not to get him to whip it out.
The bank did the right thing by firing this yahoo. Imagine the heat the bank would receive if they required their tellers to pursue would-be robbers. The idea is ridiculous.
This isn’t the first time he’s done something stupid like this. From the Seattle Times:
Nicholson said he has run after shoplifters while working at retail jobs in New York and California. On Tuesday, as well as in past cases, Nicholson said he felt confident he could catch the person.
“It’s something I almost look forward to. It’s a thrill and I’m an adrenaline-junkie person. It’s the pursuit,” he said, adding that when he told Seattle police officers this, one officer suggested he apply to become a cop.
This is something he looks forward to? That tells you everything you need to know.
Give that mommy blogger some clunky foam rubber shoes or else
George G. Smith, Social Media Specialist for Crocs, the company that makes those funny looking foam rubber shoes that some people like to wear, recently attended BlogHer ‘09, a blogging conference for woman bloggers, and he was threatened by a mommy blogger with negative coverage on her blog unless he gave her some free shoes.
From Smith’s blog, No Sense of Timing:
“Are you the Crocs guy?” she asks, timidly.
I look up and smile. After all, it’s nice to be recognize and it’s a sign that I’m doing my job right.
“Yes, I am.”
We continue with small talk. She says her name but, while I probably caught it at the time, it slipped out of my memory as the events of the next couple moments transpired. She asked how I was doing at BlogHer. If I was having fun. How it felt to be one of the only men there – all those typical questions that were being asked of me. Then her demeanor changed completely. She mentioned how she didn’t get any shoes at the SocialLuxe lounge. I apologized, saying that we provided what we could but it’s hard because we didn’t know everyone’s shoe size. She nodded but I could tell that wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear. Then she says something that I couldn’t believe.
“Ya know, if you don’t give me shoes – I could totally write something bad about you on my blog.”
“Excuse me?” I asked – hoping she would laugh or give me some indication that she was just joking around. Nope…
“It’s just a pair of shoes. It’s a lot easier to give them to me than deal with the negative press I could make.”
I envy Smith. I have a list of things I want to do or experience before I die. One of the things on my list is to be threatened by a mommy blogger. If I was Smith, I could now cross that off my list.
It’s a shame that Smith doesn’t name the mommy blogger that threatened him, but he didn’t know who she was, which I’m guessing is one of the many reasons his response to her was to laugh and to tell what she could do with her threats.
Football coach suspended 30 days for saying ‘little faggot dance’
University of Hawaii football coach Greg McMackin has been suspended by the school for 30 days and will take a cut in pay for repeatedly using a gay slur during a Western Athletic Conference media day Thursday in Salt Lake City.
McMackin was referring to last season’s Hawaii Bowl when he said Notre Dame University’s team did a “little faggot dance” for Hawaii during a banquet the night before the game. Players from the University of Hawaii performed a haka, a traditional Hawaiian dance.
This is the same homophobic school that changed it’s logo from a rainbow to a letter “H” in 2000 because of the rainbow’s connection to the gay and lesbian community. Hugh Yoshida, the school’s athletic director said concerning the change, “It’s part of the gay community, their flags and so forth. Some of the student athletes had some feelings in regard to that.”
I actually think the new logo looks better, but that’s beside the point. They didn’t change the logo because they thought their existing logo looked stupid. They did it because they were worried people would think they were associated with the gay community. It would be like if Florida State changed it’s logo because they didn’t want people thinking they supported the Seminole Tribe in Florida.
Suspending their football coach because he used the word faggot is hypocritical on their part. He sounds like the perfect coach for them.
Actos and weight gain
My doctor recently put me on a new diabetes medication called Actos. A recent A1C test was higher then is should have been, so he decided I needed to add yet another drug to the drugs I’m taking for diabetes.
My blood sugar levels have been substantially lower since going on the Actos. Every morning this week they’ve been in the 80’s. The problem is that I’m finding it increasing harder to lose weight. I’ve been eating very good all this week. I’ve gone to the gym four times this week, doing 2 miles in 30 minutes on the treadmill. It’s not quite jogging, but it’s not quite a leisurely walk either.
I weighed myself this morning and I’ve gained 2 pounds since last Saturday.
I talked to my doctor about this last week. I explained to him that even though I’m doing everything I should be doing, I’m finding it harder and harder to lose weight. I asked him if it could be a combination of the meds I’m now taking. He said that a few of the meds I’m on do make it harder to lose weight, but some of the others I’m on make it easier, so it shouldn’t be a factor.
He also said that I’m getting older and because of this, it’s getting harder to lose weight.
I did some reading on Actos this morning and I discovered that not only does it make some people gain weight, when it’s combined with other diabetes medications such as metformin, a drug I am also taking, the propensity to gain weight is even increased.
I don’t need anything to help me gain weight.
I also read that taking Actos can lead to congestive heart failure. Those are two words I don’t ever want used together, heart and failure.
So what should I do? My first inclination is to stop taking the Actos. Not only do I not want to taking something that might be making it harder for me to lose weight, I don’t want my blood sugar levels to be in the 80’s. The lower your blood sugars levels are, the stronger your appetite is. I don’t need an increased appetite.
I don’t see my doctor again until October. I think I might stop taking the Actos and see what happens in the next few weeks.
Man calls 911 because he has headaches in his leg
This has got to be the funniest 911 call ever, not that 911 calls are usually very funny. This one is.
The 62 year old man placing the call is getting frustrated with the 911 operator because she keeps on asking him questions to things he does not know the answers to such as his medical history or his phone number. Also, she keeps on asking him what his apartment number is even though he explains to her that he doesn’t live in an apartment.
He lives in a townhouse, or as he calls it, a “town… house“.
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