Day: January 26, 2013

  • Snowy box office weekend

    Snowy box office weekend

    Cold and snow is being blamed for lousy box office numbers.. Friday night figures trickling in.. HANSEL AND GRETAL was able to top the box office with a lower-than-expected $6 million opening night .. It’s projected to make around for $17 million the weekend–but that is decidedly lower than the predicted $50 mil…

    Could snow really have that large of an impact? Major metro areas in the Northeast hardly got an inch..

    But it’s a good excuse when a much anticipated film flops during the cold weeks of late January…

  • The audacity of words

    The audacity of words

    The President’s weekly radio address featured hints that he will crack down soon on ‘irresponsible behavior’.. Actually he more than hinted it instead Obama flat out said it..

    But we also know the free market works best for everyone when we have smart, commonsense rules in place to prevent irresponsible behavior

  • Just when you thought death panels weren’t going to happen

    Just when you thought death panels weren’t going to happen

    ..maybe you should think again.
    In Japan, a government official said the elderly should just hurry up and die.
    In the UK, doctors feverishly work to not work feverishly on patients who are going to pass away–letting it just happen faster. Some countries in Europe are on the verge of allowing a 21st century medical eugenics tyrannical system to take over.
    Perhaps the Georgia Guidestones are an inspiration around the planet.

    And now this: The Associated Press, unbiased right?, allowed its medical writer, Mike Stobbe, to question aloud whether we should just let fat smokers die and be done with it. I mean, they are just in the way, right? With their large obese stomachs protruding from their bodies.. and the disgusting smelly cigarettes destroying their lives.. They a product of human waste. They are meaningless. They should just be permitted to go into a hole, take a bullet in the head, and rid themselves from us, so we can have more space, better air, and less money going to their medical needs. While Stobbe from the AP didn’t quite say it that way, what he did say just sounded more professional:

    Faced with the high cost of caring for smokers and overeaters, experts say society must grapple with a blunt question: Instead of trying to penalize them and change their ways, why not just let these health sinners die?

    He went on to write,

    It’s tricky to play the insurance game with overweight people, because science is still sorting things out. While obesity is clearly linked with serious health problems and early death, the evidence is not as clear about people who are just overweight.
    That said, public health officials shouldn’t shy away from tough anti-obesity efforts, said Callahan, the bioethicist. Callahan caused a public stir this week with a paper that called for a more aggressive public health campaign that tries to shame and stigmatize overeaters the way past public health campaigns have shamed and stigmatized smokers.
    National obesity rates are essentially static, and public health campaigns that gently try to educate people about the benefits of exercise and healthy eating just aren’t working, Callahan argued. We need to get obese people to change their behavior. If they are angry or hurt by it, so be it, he said.

    Perhaps we should just stop and think long and hard before we even attempt going down this road. The slope into hell.. We start with overweight smokers.. do we end with skinny mocha drinkers?
    We hate the elderly.. rid us of them! and the kids too! why do we need them?
    Who picks who dies? Who decides? I guess those death panels … that don’t exist.

  • Anonymous strikes: Online hacktivists gain control of US Sentencing Commission website

    Anonymous strikes: Online hacktivists gain control of US Sentencing Commission website

    The news broke very late Friday night.. Anonymous, the group blamed for historic hackings in the past, struck again. This time it was in response to the suicide of Aaron Swartz. REDDIT’s Swartz’s suicide was blamed by some on the government’s overzealous crackdown on his operations. Today, USSC.GOV was taken down and replaced by this message:

    Citizens of the world,Anonymous has observed for some time now the trajectory of justice in the United States with growing concern. We have marked the departure of this system from the noble ideals in which it was born and enshrined. We have seen the erosion of due process, the dilution of constitutional rights, the usurpation of the rightful authority of courts by the “discretion” or prosecutors. We have seen how the law is wielded less and less to uphold justice, and more and more to exercise control, authority and power in the interests of oppression or personal gain.”

    Family of Swartz and friends alike said he killed himself after the government hounded him for posting documents free online–documents the government accused him of downloading illegally..

    The line has been crossed, said Anonymous..
    Also included with the hack is a threat from the group: They intend on releasing ‘sensitive information’ about the Justice Department.. The FBI said it was aware of the threat and handling it as a ‘criminal investigation’..  CNN also reported this in its dispatch today:

    A YouTube video accompanied the message, and made use of images from Cold War nuclear scenarios and games of strategy. The letter contained nuclear metaphors to refer to chunks of embarrassing information.
    The hackers said they have obtained “enough fissile material for multiple warheads,” which it would launch against the justice department and “its associated executive branches.”
    It gave the “warheads” the names of U.S. Supreme Court justices, such as Thomas.Warhead1 after Justice Clarence Thomas or Ginsburg.Warhead1 after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

    And at this time, 12:12 pm on the East Coast Saturday afternoon, USSC.GOV is still down for the count.

  • Into the fray: Stephen King speaks

    Into the fray: Stephen King speaks


    He wrote an opinion piece on guns and violence .. And in part, he is critical of the media, the NRA, and the United States… MORE..

    STEPHEN KING WRITES, IN PART: “21. Any bills to change existing gun laws, including those that make it possible for almost anyone in America to purchase a high-capacity assault weapon, quietly disappear into the legislative swamp. “22. It happens again and the whole thing starts over.”

  • There he goes again

    There he goes again

    The gun control debate rages.. But in the midst of policy fights VP Joe Biden is at it again.. He said he was golfing within ‘earshot’ of the horrible Nickel Mines shooting in Pennsylvania in 2006.. But reporters wondered where exactly the course was.. No sure answers found but interesting questions abound…

  • The flu puts Burt Reynolds in ICU

    The flu puts Burt Reynolds in ICU

    CNN is reporting that Burt Reynolds is in intensive care in a Florida hospital, where he went for treatment of flu symptoms, one of his representatives said Friday…

    Developing story..