Baron Dave Romm
By Baron Dave Romm
Baron Dave is on vacation.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
TSA screenings lead to first arrest
roger ebert's journal: Where I draw the line
It appears that not a single TSA agent has declined to perform a full-body pat down of airline passengers. That includes patting down small children. They're not patted down on a routine basis, but on some occasions they can be and they are. A child under 12, sometimes way under 12, may be required to remove outer clothing and be touched on such areas as the genitals. Would you take this job? I don't believe I would. But it's worth reflecting that employment as a TSA agent is a good job in these hard times of high unemployment.
Marc Dion: You Get What You Deserve If You Pat Me (Creators Syndicate)
I've been giving the inappropriate pat-down, body-scan thing a bit of thought lately, and the first thing I thought was that I'm a 53-year-old man with a beer gut, a few scars and a lot of hair. Anyone who leers at my body deserves anything he or she sees.
Lucy Mangan: What is it with Tories and royalty? (Guardian)
Toryboy and I never discuss the important news topics of the day for fear of damaging our relationship. With one exception: the royal family.
Michele Hanson: I blame the banks (Guardian)
The Daughter is stuck in Phnom Penh because her credit cards have been stopped. And I have had to deal with her stinking banks.
Peter Walker, Paul Lewis, Matthew Taylor and Patrick Wintour: Student protests: school's out across the UK as children take to the streets (Guardian)
Tens of thousands of students protest around country. Only significant violence occurs in central London. Capital's police 'kettle' children late into evening.
Jonathan Jones: "Student protests: the riot girls" (Guardian)
The picture of schoolgirls peacefully stopping attacks on a police van during this week's student demonstrations sends out a powerful message of hope and defiance.
Bob Herbert: Winning the Class War (New York Times)
Wall Street may be smiling, but extreme inequality is a recipe for social instability.
Scott Burns: Expanding the Triumph of Sloth (assetbuilder.com)
It pays to be a lazy investor.
John Cassidy : "The Economy: Why They Failed" (New York Review of Books)
… firms like Citigroup and Goldman Sachs could borrow money from one arm of the government (the Fed) or from investors (by issuing short-term commercial paper) for next to nothing and, by purchasing US bonds, lend it to another arm of government (the Treasury) at an interest rate of 3 or 4 percent. By playing "the spread," any moderately competent Wall Street trader could generate large returns for his desk and a big bonus for himself …
Dave Simpson: The Vaccines: 'We're doing everything right' (Guardian)
Touted as the future of rock, the Vaccines are playing pub backrooms and ignoring the hype. Will they survive when reality bites?
George Varga: Christina Aguilera & Cher Discuss Burlesque, Their Revealing New Film Musical (Creators Syndicate)
When it came to casting the high-heeled, high-powered lead roles in the big-budget, big-spectacle film musical "Burlesque," only two thumbs were needed to count the candidates. "It was a short list," said first-time director and writer Steven Antin. "It was Cher and Christina (Aguilera)."
David Bruce has 39 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $39 you can buy 9,750 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," and "Maximum Cool."
The Weekly Poll
Current Question
And now, in keeping with the Holiday Season theme, I submit fer yer approval...
The 'Scope or Grope' Edition
"Resistance is Futile"
If you don't want to pass through an airport scanner that allows security agents to see an image of your naked body or to undergo the alternative, a thorough manual search, you may have to find another way to travel this holiday season. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is warning that any would-be commercial airline passenger who enters an airport checkpoint and then refuses to undergo the method of inspection designated by TSA will not be allowed to fly and also will not be permitted to simply leave the airport. That person will have to remain on the premises to be questioned by the TSA and possibly by local law enforcement. Anyone refusing faces fines up to $11,000 and possible arrest... $11,000 fine, arrest possible for some who refuse airport scans and pat downs - South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
If you were (or are) planning to travel this Holiday Season, what's it gonna be?
1.) Scope
2.) Grope
3.) Car, train, bus...
4.) I'm stayin' home, Dagnabbit!
Send your response to
wrote:
answered:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Resder Suggestions
Michelle in AZ
PURPLE GENE'S MINI REVIEW
"GUZAARISH"
PURPLE GENE'S MINI REVIEW
OF THE BOLLYWOOD FLICK…."GUZAARISH"
DIRECTED: BY SANJAY LEELA BHANSALI
STARRING: HRITNIK ROSHAN AS THE CRIPPLED WIZARD "ETHAN"
AND AISHWARYA RAI AS THE LOVELY AND LOYAL " SOFIA "
THIS IS THE BOLLYWOOD VERSION OF THE SPANISH MASTERPIECE "THE SEA INSIDE"
ETHAN WAS THE GREATEST MAGICIAN IN THE WORLD UNTIL HE TRAGICALLY BROKE HIS NECK IN A FATEFUL FALL AND BECAME CONFINED TO A WHEELCHAIR FOR THE NEXT 14 YEARS…. PARALYZED FROM THE NECK DOWN (HE LOOKS QUITE LIKE JESUS CHRIST IN HIS SUFFERING). AFTER ALL THIS TIME OF SUFFERING HE HAS FINALLY DECIDED THAT HE WANTS TO END HIS LIFE …BUT IT IS ILLEGAL IN INDIA .
SOPHIA (LOOKS LIKE A YOUNG PRISCILLA PRESLEY) HAS MINISTERED TO ETHAN FOR ALL THOSE 14 YEARS AS HIS PERSONAL MAID AND.SECRET ADMIRER….SHE INITIALLY WAS VERY AGAINST ETHAN'S COMMITTING SUICIDE…..
BUT AFTER SO MUCH PAIN AND LONILINESS…AND A TRIAL THAT ETHAN LOSES… SOFIA COME AROUND AS ETHANS SAVIOR OR MORE EXACTLY…HIS ASSISTANT IN SUICIDE….
THE END OF THIS MOVIE (AND SOFIA 'S DANCE NUMBER) ARE BEAUTIFULLY FILMED BUT A BIT PREDICTABLE AND OVER THE TOP…AFTER 2 HOURS AND 15 MINUTES WE ARE READY FOR THE FINALE!
PURPLE GENE GIVES "GUZAARISH" 7.5 SHINY BOLLYWOOD DIAMONDS OUT OF 10 FOR BEING BEAUTIFUL TO BEHOLD BUT A BIT TOO GLITZY)
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Clear, cold, and windy.
Signing Off For Charity
Twitter
Alicia Keys and Lady Gaga take charity work seriously, and they're going offline to prove it.
Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Usher and other celebrities have joined a new campaign called Digital Life Sacrifice on behalf of Keys' charity, Keep a Child Alive. The entertainers plan to sign off of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter on Wednesday, which is World AIDS Day. The participants will sign back on when the charity raises $1 million.
"It's really important and super-cool to use mediums that we naturally are on," Keys said in a phone interview from New York last week.
For the campaign - which also includes Jennifer Hudson, Ryan Seacrest, Kim and Khloe Kardashian, Elijah Wood, Serena Williams, Janelle Monae and Keys' husband, Swizz Beatz - celebrities have filmed "last tweet and testament" videos and will appear in ads showing them lying in coffins to represent what the campaign calls their digital deaths.
Twitter
Republicans A Dying Breed
California
Republicans are relishing the coming of a new day on Capitol Hill. But across the country in California, the party of Nixon and Reagan is drifting toward obscurity.
The latest sign of imperiled health: In a year Republicans notched big victories in Congress, governor's offices and statehouses around the nation, California Democrats made a clean sweep of eight statewide contests on Nov. 2. Democrats padded their majority in the Legislature, where the party controls both chambers and no congressional seats changed parties.
California counted more registered Republicans in 1988 than it does today, even though the state population has since grown by about 10 million. Setting aside the politically ambidextrous Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose celebrity eclipsed his Republican registration, the California GOP counts only a single victory in 21 statewide contests since 2002 - that of insurance commissioner in 2006.
You'd have to go back more than two decades to find a Republican, George H.W. Bush, who carried the state in a presidential election.
"They know who we are and they don't like us," former state Republican Party Chairman Duf Sundheim says bluntly. "The brand of the Republican Party in California is tarnished."
California
Lifetime Award
Michael Gambon
Sir Michael Gambon has been honoured for a lifetime of dramatic endeavour at the annual London Evening Standard Theatre Awards.
Having recently won rave reviews for his performance in Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, the 70-year-old thespian took home the Lebedev Special Award for a lifetime contribution to British theatre.
Elsewhere, After the Dance's Nancy Carroll walked away with the best actress gong, while Rory Kinear won the male category for his role in Measure for Measure.
The 56th London Evening Standards Awards also recognised the contribution of Sir Peter Hall. The Golden Seagull award was handed to founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company for his lifelong work in world theatre.
Michael Gambon
Baking Machine A Hit In Japan
Rice Bread
A home breadmaking machine that grinds rice and bakes a loaf of fresh bread at the push of a button has proved such a hit in Japan that its maker, overwhelmed by demand, will temporarily stop taking orders less than three weeks after putting the machine on sale.
Despite a hefty price of around 50,000 yen ($600), Sanyo Electric Co said on Thursday that orders for its Gopan breadmaker were likely to hit 58,000 by the end of the month, its original sales target for the end of March next year.
Though a Sanyo spokeswoman said she thought novelty was behind the machine's popularity, food analyst Hisao Nagayama attributed it to changing eating habits -- a trend toward more Western food and busy lives that make it harder to find the time to cook rice, consumption of which has gone down.
Users place ordinary washed rice and other ingredients in the Gopan, whose name is a combination of the Japanese for "rice" and "bread," and press the start button. The machine does the rest, from milling the rice to the kneading, rising and baking that other home breadmaking machines also do. Concerns about food safety and allergies are also part of is popularity, Nagayama added.
Rice Bread
More Problems
'The Hobbit'
Peter Jackson's troubled "Hobbit" project has become embroiled in a race row after a would-be extra was told she was too dark to play a one of the pint-sized Tolkien creatures, reports said Monday.
Briton Naz Humphreys, who has Pakistani heritage, attended a casting session in the New Zealand city of Hamilton last week, queueing for three hours only to be told her skin tone was not suitable, the Waikato Times reported.
"The casting manager basically said they weren't having anybody who wasn't pale-skinned," Humphreys told the newspaper.
The newspaper said video footage showed the casting manager telling people at the audition: "We are looking for light-skinned people. I'm not trying to be -- whatever. It's just the brief. You've got to look like a hobbit."
'The Hobbit'
Producer Brings 3D Video-On-Demand Porn
Marc Dorcel
French porn producer Marc Dorcel, maker of such hardcore classics as "Citizen Shane" and "Casino -- No Limit," is bringing Europe a new dimension in erotic entertainment with the launch of a 3D video-on-demand service for porn videos.
Dorcel claims the service will be Europe's first on-demand 3D outlet for porn. The initial offering, available via French provider FREE, features more than 60 videos shot in 3D and full HD, according to Dorcel.
More videos will be added weekly, grouped into categories such as "nurses," "fetish," "girls only" and "porno chic."
The videos are produced together with French tech group 3DLIZED. Dorcel plans to offer the new porn service to operators across France and Europe.
Marc Dorcel
Caught Up In Spanish Curse Debate
NYC Teacher
It can be tossed off almost harmlessly like "damn" or dropped like an F-bomb.
On the streets of New York's diverse Spanish-speaking neighborhoods, it can be heard expressing joy, frustration and outrage.
Perhaps most notoriously in pop culture, it punctuated the film dialogue of "Scarface" in 1983.
Now a public high school teacher is suing the city after he was suspended and fined $15,000 for what school officials say was misconduct for using it in his Manhattan classroom.
The word, "coño," (COHN'-yoh) can be offensive. But that sometimes depends on how it's used and which ethnic group is using it.
NYC Teacher
Found Dead
Sumatran Elephants
Five endangered Sumatran elephants have been found dead in Indonesia, and conservationists said Sunday that they suspect farmers poisoned the animals to stop them from damaging crops.
The elephants - four females and one male all under the age of 5 - were found dead late Friday in Riau province on Sumatra island, said Edi Susanto, a government conservationist.
Susanto suspects that owners of nearby palm oil plantations used cyanide to poison the animals, which are known for damaging crops. He said an investigation is under way and samples from the dead elephants have been sent for analysis.
Only 3,000 Sumatran elephants are believed to remain in the wild, a number that dwindles each year with poaching and killing by farmers angry over crop losses. The animals are prized by poachers for their ivory tusks.
Sumatran Elephants
Weekend Box Office
'Harry Potter'
A fairy-tale princess gave young wizard Harry Potter a run for his money at the weekend box office.
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1" remained the No. 1 movie with $50.3 million over Thanksgiving weekend, closely followed by the animated musical "Tangled" with $49.1 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
While "Deathly Hallows" continued to work box-office magic, Disney's "Tangled" far exceeded industry expectations, delivering the second-biggest Thanksgiving debut ever behind "Toy Story 2," which had a $57.4 million opening.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1," $50.3 million.
2. "Tangled," $49.1 million.
3. "Megamind," $12.9 million.
4. "Burlesque," $11.8 million.
5. "Unstoppable," $11.75 million.
6. "Love & Other Drugs," $9.9 million.
7. "Faster," $8.7 million.
8. "Due Date," $7.3 million.
9. "The Next Three Days," $4.8 million.
10. "Morning Glory," $4 million.
'Harry Potter'
In Memory
Leslie Nielsen
Leslie Nielsen, who traded in his dramatic persona for inspired bumbling as a hapless doctor in "Airplane!" and the accident-prone detective Frank Drebin in "The Naked Gun" comedies, died on Sunday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was 84.
The Canadian-born actor died from complications from pneumonia at a hospital near his home at 5:34 p.m., surrounded by his wife, Barbaree, and friends, his agent John S. Kelly said in a statement.
Nielsen came to Hollywood in the mid-1950s after performing in 150 live television dramas in New York. With a craggily handsome face, blond hair and 6-foot-2 height, he seemed ideal for a movie leading man.
Nielsen first performed as the king of France in the Paramount operetta "The Vagabond King" with Kathryn Grayson.
The film - he called it "The Vagabond Turkey" - flopped, but MGM signed him to a seven-year contract.
His first film for that studio was auspicious - as the space ship commander in the science fiction classic "Forbidden Planet." He found his best dramatic role as the captain of an overturned ocean liner in the 1972 disaster movie, "The Poseidon Adventure."
He became known as a serious actor, although behind the camera he was a prankster. That was an aspect of his personality never exploited, however, until "Airplane!" was released in 1980 and became a huge hit.
Critics argued he was being cast against type, but Nielsen disagreed.
"I've always been cast against type before," he said, adding comedy was what he'd really always wanted to do.
It was what he would do for most of the rest of his career, appearing in such comedies as "Repossessed" (a takeoff on the demonic possession movies like "The Exorcist") and "Mr. Magoo," in which he played the title role of the good-natured bumbler.
Nielsen did play Debbie Reynolds' sweetheart in the popular "Tammy and the Bachelor," a loanout to Universal, and he became well known to baby boomers for his role as the Revolutionary War fighter Francis Marion in the Disney TV adventure series "The Swamp Fox."
Unhappy with his roles at MGM, he asked to be released from his contract. As a freelancer, he appeared in a series of undistinguished movies.
Meanwhile, he remained active in television in guest roles. He also starred in his own series, "The New Breed," "The Protectors" and "Bracken's World," but all were short-lived.
Then "Airplane!" captivated audiences and changed everything.
Producers-directors-writers Jim Abrahams, David and Jerry Zucker had hired Robert Stack, Peter Graves, Lloyd Bridges and Nielsen to spoof their heroic TV images in a satire of flight-in-jeopardy movies.
After the movie's success, the filmmaking trio cast their newfound comic star as Detective Drebin in a TV series, "Police Squad," which trashed the cliches of "Dragnet" and other cop shows. Despite good reviews, NBC canceled it after only four episodes.
The Zuckers and Abraham converted the series into a feature film, "The Naked Gun," with George Kennedy, O.J. Simpson and Priscilla Presley as Nielsen's co-stars. Its huge success led to sequels "The Naked Gun 2 1/2" and "The Naked Gun 33 1/3."
His later movies included "All I Want for Christmas," "Dracula: Dead and Loving It" and "Spy Hard."
Between films he often turned serious, touring with his one-man show on the life of the great defense lawyer, Clarence Darrow.
Nielsen was born Feb. 11, 1926 in Regina, Saskatchewan.
He grew up 200 miles south of the Arctic Circle at Fort Norman, where his father was an officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The parents had three sons, and Nielsen once recalled, "There were 15 people in the village, including five of us. If my father arrested somebody in the winter, he'd have to wait until the thaw to turn him in."
The elder Nielsen was a troubled man who beat his wife and sons, and Leslie longed to escape. As soon as he graduated from high school at 17, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, even though he was legally deaf (he wore hearing aids most of his life.)
After the war, Nielsen worked as a disc jockey at a Calgary radio station, then studied at a Toronto radio school operated by Lorne Greene, who would go on to star on the hit TV series "Bonanza." A scholarship to the Neighborhood Playhouse brought him to New York, where he immersed himself in live television.
Nielsen also was married to: Monica Boyer, 1950-1955; Sandy Ullman, 1958-74; and Brooks Oliver, 1981-85.
Nielsen and his second wife had two daughters, Thea and Maura.
Leslie Nielsen
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