Archive for January, 2012

Dodd: SOPA protest a “dangerous gimmick”

Wednesday, January 18, 2012 by:Christopher Duray
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Former Connecticut sen. Chris Dodd, now an executive for the MPAA

Connecticut’s own former senator Chris Dodd spoke out against the SOPA internet protest, Tuesday, telling the Los Angeles Times it was a “dangerous gimmick.”

The internet strike involves prominent websites shutting down or altering content to protest a bill they say will facilitate unchecked censorship.

Dodd, now Chief Executive for the Motion Picture Association of America said the movement is unfair to readers.

“It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on [the sites involved in the protest] for information and who use their services,” said Dodd, according to the Los Angeles Times. “It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today.”

Dodd and the MPAA have long defended the bills’ as effective legislation against people who illegally obtain or distribute films online. Dodd was quoted by Variety in December saying that the same sites protesting Wednesday are complicit in piracy.

“How do you justify a search engine providing for someone to go and steal something…A guy that drives the getaway car didn’t rob the bank necessarily, but they got you to the bank and they got you out of it, so they are accessories in my view,” he said, according to Variety.

SOPA and PIPA — the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect Intellectual Property Act respectively — allow the government to shut down websites suspected of copyright infringement with little process. A controversial bill, the White House has already gone on record as saying that the legislation goes too far in its current form, without stating any intent regarding a veto.

Oops: Airline crew mistakenly plays message saying plane’s gonna crash

Tuesday, January 17, 2012 by:Laura Weisman
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A British Airways plane moves along the tarmac at Heathrow Airport in this March 20, 2010 file photo. (AP/Matt Dunham)

Passengers aboard a British Airways flight between Miami and London’s Heathrow Airport got the scare of their lives when a recorded message told them they were about to crash, The Daily Telegraph is reporting:

Many of those who were awake and heard the announcement began screaming. The plane was cruising at about 35,000 ft at the time.

Cabin staff quickly reassured passengers that the message had been played by accident.

The crew aboard the jetliner informed passengers that the warning was a mistake, but many were still upset. A BA spokesman apologized for causing the passengers “undue concern,” the newspaper reports.

–Robert Stanton

Hear cruise ship captain argue with authorities as ship listed

Tuesday, January 17, 2012 by:Laura Weisman
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The captain of the Costa Concordia, which capsized Friday in Italy, made his terrible situation sound like a small problem to the authorities and later argued about reboarding the listing ship, according to recorded conversations obtained by Italian newspapers, the New York Times is reporting.

Prosecutors have accused Capt. Francesco Schettino of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning his ship before all passengers were evacuated during the grounding of the Costa Concordia cruise ship Friday night.

The Associated Press reports that Schettino has insisted that he stayed aboard until the ship was evacuated. However, a recording of his conversation with Italian Coast Guard Capt. Gregorio De Falco that emerged Tuesday indicates he fled before all passengers were off — and then resisted De Falco’s repeated orders to return.

“You go on board and then you will tell me how many people there are. Is that clear?” De Falco shouted in the audio tape.

Schettino resisted, saying the ship was tipping and that it was dark. At the time, he was in a lifeboat and said he was coordinating the rescue from there.

De Falco shouted back: “And so what? You want to go home, Schettino? It is dark and you want to go home? Get on that prow of the boat using the pilot ladder and tell me what can be done, how many people there are and what their needs are. Now!”

“You go aboard. It is an order. Don’t make any more excuses. You have declared ‘Abandon ship,’ now I am in charge,” De Falco shouted.

Schettino was finally heard agreeing to reboard on the tape. But the coast guard has said he never went back, and had police arrest him on land.

High school basketball players brutally beaten for Tebowing

Tuesday, January 17, 2012 by:nick.mathews@chron.com (Nick Mathews)
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Two South Carolina boys basketball players were slammed to the ground, punched and kicked “to the point of vomiting” for Tebowing during the game.

Following a 20-point win, the Wando (S.C.) students were beaten by fans of West Ashley (S.C).

The students celebrated during the game by getting down on one knee in Tebow’s signature pose.

The incident was first reported by the Charleston Post and Courier.

The newspaper reported that a 17-year-old Wando fan told police that as he and a friend left the gym and began walking through a breezeway, some West Ashley fans jumped the players.

“They were scared for their lives,” said Lara Isaac, the 17-year-old’s mother. “No one was manning the exits to make sure this wouldn’t happen. The kids who did this apparently knew that.”

Diabetes is sweet, y’all!

Tuesday, January 17, 2012 by:Laura Weisman
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Celebrity chef Paula Deen has been preaching the gospel of butter since I’ve heard of her. People (my mother) used to extol the virtues of Deen’s cuisine but I always said that wasn’t great cooking; anything tastes good with a half a pound of butter in it.

Now Paula Deen has Type 2 diabetes, a very serious, life-threatening disease. And butter isn’t the sole reason she has diabetes. There’s all that sugar and flour and frying from all her recipes, and subsequent weight gain, and maybe a family history.

And it is not funny.

However.

She’s known this for awhile (three years). And apparently she’s been huddling with her people to come up with a way to make diabetes, well, marketable. Y’all.

She’s now the spokeswoman for … no, not the American Diabetes Association. She’s shilling for Norvo Nordisk, probably a fine pharmaceutical company. But, you know, talk about the cherry on top. She’s making a buck off this now? Have you no shame, darlin’?

Today she unveiled her new direction on the Today Show (I’ll translate since I’m fluent in cloying Southern BS):

  • “I’ve always encouraged moderation” (There were a few episodes where I actually cackled with shame over plating up a triple-sized piece of pie for myself)
  • “Diabetes is not a death sentence” (It’s not like you’re gonna die, hon! Unless you don’t have insurance. You can live very well with diabetes, and in style, too, with money from the diabetes drug company)
  • “Go to our website. I’m gonna be there for you” (Come on down, y’all, I’m on a video at this drug company website where I try to convince you medications are the answer)

Anyway, this explains her son Bobby Deen’s new show Not My Mama’s Meals on the Cooking Channel, in which he lightens up his mama’s recipes.

So here’s my favorite quote from this interview with Al Roker:

“I wanted to bring something to the table when I came forward. I’ve always been one to think that I bring hope.”

(Smothered in gravy, to be sure.)

John F. Kennedy’s white hearse to be sold at auction

Monday, January 16, 2012 by:Kate Shellnutt
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The hearse that carried President John F. Kennedy will go on auction Saturday. (AP file)

A car auction company says it will put President John F. Kennedy’s white hearse on the block during an event in Scottsdale, Arizona, this week, Consumer Reports wrote.

According to auctioneers Barrett-Jackson, the 1964 Cadillac Hearse transported the assassinated president from Parkland Memorial Hospital to Love Field Airport in Dallas. Its authenticity has been verified by members of the Professional Car Society and its owners at Dallas’ O’Neal Funeral Home.

From the story:

Don McElroy was a new employee at O’Neal Funeral Home that fateful Friday, November 22, 1963, when the call came in to bring a casket and hearse to the hospital. Just 24 years old, McElroy helped move President Kennedy’s body to the vehicle and pulled down a rear seat for Jacqueline Kennedy so she could sit near her husband.

“The Secret Service drove the president to Love Field,” McElroy said, explaining that the O’Neal staff was not allowed to be in the hearse en route to Air Force One. “After they got the president and first lady onto the plane, they just left the hearse at Love Field. It took Vernon O’Neal four hours to find the Cadillac at the airport.”

The hearse was the first 1964 model built by Miller-Meteor Company of Ohio, body number 64001. It was the show car of the National Funeral Directors Association convention, where funeral home director Vernon O’Neal purchased it in October, 1963, just one month before the assassination.

Steve Lichtman of the Professional Car Society (PCS) says that he and other members of PCS are almost 100 percent convinced that the hearse is authentic.

This is a strong endorsement from the participants of the international club dedicated to car preservation and restoration. Last year, Lichtman and others in PCS debunked the Barrett-Jackson auction claim that the company had the ambulance that carried President Kennedy from Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base to Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. As counter evidence, they presented a 1986 photograph of the ambulance in a Boston junkyard crusher, provided by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum.

Tens of thousands of dollars of historic JFK pieces were sold over the last few months, including the rocking chair he sat in at Houston’s Rice Hotel, family photographs, boxer shorts and a cigarette case.

Diamond-studded business cards for the rich

Monday, January 16, 2012 by:Dan McGraw
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(Photo: Black Astrum)

If those paper business cards just aren’t good enough for you, you might want to think about something a little more fancy – like diamond-studded cards.

Black Astrum is making business cards adorned with diamonds to make that lasting impression. But before you run out and buy some, there is a catch.

The company invites people to purchase the cards. So you can’t be some average joe and have these cards.

Congrats to whoever gets invited.

Missed the Globes? Here’s a recap

Sunday, January 15, 2012 by:dana.thompson@chron.com (Dana Thompson)
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Bring on the brimstone … (NBC)

“Having guaranteed he will not be receiving an invitation to return as host next year, Ricky Gervais announces the first presenter …”

That was from last year’s Golden Globe entry. You’d think that after writing about the television business after all these years, I’d have learned my lesson by now. That lesson? In Hollywood, particularly in television, money trumps ego.

Last year, in his second turn as host of the Golden Globes, comedian Ricky Gervais managed to insult not only some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, but the president of the group that throws the Golden Globes, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA). It was widely assumed Gervais would not be back as host this year … assumed perhaps most of all by Gervais himself. But NBC isn’t stupid (Whitney not withstanding), and they knew that if they brought Gervais back as host, it would be the biggest thing that happened to the Golden Globes since the ceremony’s free bar. So, after smoothing over some ruffled feathers at the HFPA, NBC signed Gervais back on as host of this year’s Golden Globes. And Gervais? He’s promising to not hold back.

SO. Treat yourself like a big Hollywood celebrity: sit back, have several drinks, and prepare to be offended. I’ll be live-blogging the ceremony (to the best of my ability) tonight, so check in every once in a while and see who Gervais has most recently insulted.

7:00 Ricky Gervais comes out, and threatens the crowd a little. Everyone is clearly VERY NERVOUS. And yet, trying to be GOOD SPORTS! Fortunately, that’s what Botox is for. In the first five minutes, Ricky Gervais insults the Golden Globes, NBC, the HFPA, Kim Kardashian, Helen Mirren, Mel Gibson, and essentially calls Eddie Murphy a cross-dresser, talks about Jodie Foster’s “beaver” that “no man has ever seen,” and connects Justin Beiber to Martha Stewart’s turkey baster. So, he’s off to a good start! Ricky then introduces one of his targets last year, Johnny Depp, and asks him point blank if he has yet, to this day, seen The Tourist.

The answer? NOPE. Good for you, Ricky Gervais, Johnny Depp!

7:07 Johnny Depp introduces the first of the Best Picture nominees: Hugo, which is a Very Important Movie.

7:08 Gerard Butler and Mila Kunis present Christopher Plummer with the award for Best Supporting Actor in the film Beginners. He thanks Rin Tin Tin? Sure. Rin Tin Tin. And then he goes on and on and on and So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, already, Captain von Trapp.

7:13 Elle McPherson and a freshly shorn Ashton Kutcher are here to give the Best Actress in a Television Comedy. And props to Tina Fey for photo bombing (video bombing?) Amy Poehler’s moment in the sun. The award goes to Laura Dern for Enlightened, which is a show no one has watched. NO ONE. I mean, I watched one episode and was like, 1. Why isn’t this on Showtime? and 2. Comedy? Really? Because I am not laughing. NOT. LAUGHING. Also, quit crying Diane Ladd. It’s just a Golden Globe.

7:20 Here are Rob Lowe and Julianne Margulies to not read the teleprompter because it has broken! (Insert Obama joke here.) Long and short of it, Andie MacDowell’s (remember her? “Is it raining?” HER.) daughter is the girl who is wandering onto the stage and handing everyone their tiny little soccer participation trophies all night. And then Downtown Abbey wins Best Miniseries/TV Movie because of course it does. “Piffle twaffle teacakes piffle.” — acceptance speech.

7:23 Kate Winslet wins Best Actress in a Miniseries or TV Movie because that’s what she do. However, this is much too long a speech for winning something for a miniseries, get off the stage already, thank you.

7:27 Friedo Pinto introduces Midnight in Paris which is another Very Important Movie starring Owen Wilson.

7:32 Jeremy Irons comes out with his ventriloquist dummy, President of the HFPA, Dr. Aida Takla-O’Reilly. They do a hilarious routine where he drinks water and she explains that the HFPA gives money to charities, and then she talks about how he’s the dumb one. OH VENTRILOQUISM. YOU’RE HILARIOUS.

7:34 Jake Gyllenhaaaaaaaal introduces My Week With Marilyn which is a Very Important Movie about Marilyn Monroe and some dude she hung out with for a few days.

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