There's a new cockroach in town....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTYX1haXB98
Love that scene. Happy for an excuse to use it. It turns out there is a new cockroach in New York City. Seems that a cockroach that isn't bothered by cold weather has been carried into the High Line, a park area by tourists. Until now, it was only found in Asia.
Bad news is that it is a very hardy insect, a cockroach among cockroaches. The good news is that it probably won't be much of a problem because it will be competing with the cockroaches already residing in the area for food. Entomologists believe that the newcomer have little impact.
How long will it take before some government official, or worrywart group wants the TSA to strengthen screening processes to prevent future insect incursions?
* * *
We will never know if Dayna Morales is behind that nasty, homophobic note written on the restaurant credit card receipt that went viral and was subsequently called a hoax. We do know that the owners of the restaurant conducted their own "internal investigation" and now she doesn't work there.
The restaurant owners should have hired an outside agency (private detective, security consultant, etc) to conduct an independent investigation. The evidence that she perpetrated a hoax is strong, but she deserved the benefit of the doubt. An internal investigation left the owners no choice but to let her go, because of the perception that they were helping to cover-up the hoax.
Even with an independent investigation, no matter the conclusion it reached, the restaurant is going to experience a backlash if she were to remain as an employee. People suspect hoax, they believe hoax, then in their minds it was a hoax.
What I can't understand is why she would do such a thing, if it was a hoax? A desire for sympathy? Anyone have any guesses as to the why?
* * *
Five years ago today, the then-Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich was arrested on corruption charges. Among the allegations against him was that he attempted to "sell" the vacant U.S. Senate seat that would be vacated by the election of Barrack Obama to the presidency.
Can you buy a Senate seat? Some will say Meg tried to buy her way into being Governor of California. She used $144 million of her own money and another $34.5 million from donors. She lost to Jerry Brown who spent only $36.5 million in total. 24 years earlier, Michael Huffington spent $28 million of his own money trying to buy a seat in the Senate, but lost to Dianne Feinstein. Huffington did manage to buy one term in the House of Representatives though.
We can pass all of the attempts at political reform we want to. But as long as we have freedom of speech, people will find ways to use money to elect the candidate who will advance their own agenda. Overturning the decision in Citizens United v FEC will require an amendment to the Constitution or a major realignment of the U. S. Supreme Court (or maybe both).
But even that won't stop an individual from buying advertising time (even if they have to pay full price rather than the discounted prices that candidates get during campaigns) on television and radio, to extol the virtues of their chosen candidate.
I can't afford even a small advertisement in the Los Angeles Times to support a candidate. But someone like Rob Reiner (just an example, not picking on him) can afford to employ a full-time political consultant to help him plan his financial strategy in terms of who and what he is going to provide support to with his considerable resources.
The Presidential Election Campaign Fund doesn't work. The winner of the last three presidential elections was the candidate who opted not to observe the spending limits to qualify for matching funds.
There doesn't seem to be a good answer.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
They played an NFL game without any field goal or point after touchdown kicks? Yes, first in over 50 years.
Why is it North Korean President Kim Jong-un will meet with Dennis Rodman but not the U.S. government? Not even a back-channel, back-door meeting.
I just lost some of my respect for Jennifer Lawrence after hearing she enjoys watching "Keeping Up With the Kardashians."
Could Bob Barker kick Adam Sandler's ass in a real fight? Maybe. Adam will have a better chance after Bob turns 100.
The most recent firing of a teacher at a Catholic school because he made his homosexual relationship public (he emailed to let them know he'd be late because he was applying for a marriage license) is just more evidence of the hypocrisy of those who are in charge of the Catholic Church. It was fine for him to work for them with full knowledge of his homosexuality, as long as it was secret. Didn't they get the message from keeping the molesting of youngsters secret that secrecy doesn't work?
There are 8 movies opening on Christmas Day. Assuming the timing works, my preferred double-bill would be 47 Ronin and Labor Day. However, since the timing will almost certainly not work, it will probably wind up as Labor Day and August: Osage County.
You will find George Zimmer's commentary on his firing by Men's Wearhouse very interesting. I guarantee it.
Once again a world leader is doing something dumb. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is skipping the funeral of Nelson Mandela because of criticism about his spending habits with government money, and because he is not a facilitator of peace. Rather than get involved in this mess, he should have deferred to Israel's President, Shimon Peres, who is a Nobel Peace Prize winner like Mandela. Even if Peres was unable to go due to his age and health, announcing he would represent Israel was a better idea.
* * *
December 9th in History:
480 – Odoacer, first King of Italy, occupies Dalmatia. He later establishes his political power with the co-operation of the Roman Senate.
536 – Gothic War: The Byzantine general Belisarius enters Rome unopposed; the Gothic garrison flee the capital.
730 – Battle of Marj Ardabil: The Khazars annihilate an Umayyad army and kill its commander, al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah al-Hakami.
1425 – The Catholic University of Leuven is founded.
1531 – The Virgin of Guadalupe first appears to Juan Diego at Tepeyac, Mexico City.
1775 – American Revolutionary War: British troops lose the Battle of Great Bridge, and leave Virginia soon afterward.
1793 – New York City's first daily newspaper, the American Minerva, is established by Noah Webster.
1824 – Patriot forces led by General Antonio José de Sucre defeat a Royalist army in the Battle of Ayacucho, putting an end to the Peruvian War of Independence.
1835 – Texas Revolution: The Texian Army captures San Antonio, Texas.
1851 – The first YMCA in North America is established in Montreal, Quebec.
1856 – The Iranian city of Bushehr surrenders to occupying British forces.
1861 – American Civil War: The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War is established by the U.S. Congress.
1872 – In Louisiana, P. B. S. Pinchback becomes the first serving African-American governor of a U.S. state.
1875 – The Massachusetts Rifle Association, "America's Oldest Active Gun Club", is founded.
1888 – Statistician Herman Hollerith installs his computing device at the United States War Department.
1897 – Activist Marguerite Durand founds the feminist daily newspaper, La Fronde, in Paris.
1905 – In France, the law separating church and state is passed.
1911 – A mine explosion near Briceville, Tennessee, kills 84 miners despite rescue efforts led by the United States Bureau of Mines.
1917 – World War I: In Palestine, Field Marshal Edmund Allenby captures Jerusalem.
1922 – Gabriel Narutowicz is elected the first president of Poland.
1931 – The Constituent Cortes approves a constitution which establishes the Second Spanish Republic.
1935 – Walter Liggett, American newspaper editor and muckraker, is killed in a gangland murder.
1937 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Nanking – Japanese troops under the command of Lt. Gen. Asaka Yasuhiko launch an assault on the Chinese city of Nanjing (Nanking).
1940 – World War II: Operation Compass – British and Indian troops under the command of Major-General Richard O'Connor attack Italian forces near Sidi Barrani in Egypt.
1941 – World War II: The Republic of China, Cuba, Guatemala, and the Philippine Commonwealth, declare war on Germany and Japan.
1941 – World War II: The American 19th Bombardment Group attacks Japanese ships off the coast of Vigan, Luzon.
1946 – The "Subsequent Nuremberg Trials" begin with the "Doctors' Trial", prosecuting physicians and officers alleged to be involved in Nazi human experimentation and mass murder under the guise of euthanasia.
1946 – The Constituent Assembly of India meets for the first time to write the Constitution of India.
1950 – Cold War: Harry Gold is sentenced to 30 years in jail for helping Klaus Fuchs pass information about the Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union. His testimony is later instrumental in the prosecution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
1953 – Red Scare: General Electric announces that all communist employees will be discharged from the company.
1956 – Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 810, a Canadair North Star, crashes near Hope, British Columbia, Canada, killing all 62 people on board.
1958 – The John Birch Society is founded in the United States.
1960 – The first episode of Coronation Street, the world's longest-running television soap opera, is broadcast in the United Kingdom.
1961 – Tanganyika becomes independent from Britain.
1962 – The Petrified Forest National Park is established in Arizona.
1965 – Kecksburg UFO incident: A fireball is seen from Michigan to Pennsylvania; witnesses report something crashing in the woods near Pittsburgh. In 2005 NASA admits that it examined the object.
1966 – Barbados joins the United Nations.
1968 – Douglas Engelbart gave what became known as "The Mother of All Demos", publicly debuting the computer mouse, hypertext, and the bit-mapped graphical user interface using the oN-Line System (NLS).
1969 – U.S. Secretary of State William P. Rogers proposes his plan for a ceasefire in the War of Attrition; Egypt and Jordan accept it over the objections of the PLO, which leads to civil war in Jordan in September 1970.
1971 – The United Arab Emirates join the United Nations.
1971 – Indo-Pakistani War: The Indian Air Force executes an airdrop of Indian Army units, bypassing Pakistani defences.
1973 – British and Irish authorities sign the Sunningdale Agreement in an attempt to establish a power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive and a cross-border Council of Ireland.
1979 – The eradication of the smallpox virus is certified, making smallpox the first and to date only human disease driven to extinction.
1987 – Israeli-Palestinian conflict: The First Intifada begins in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
1988 – The Michael Hughes Bridge in Sligo, Ireland, is officially opened.
2003 – A blast in the center of Moscow kills six people and wounds several more.
2008 – The Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, is arrested by federal officials for crimes including attempting to sell the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama's election to the Presidency.
Famous Folk Born on December 9th:
John Milton (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeZqW6eqK2M)
William Whiston
Harry Miller
Clarence Birdseye
Emmett Kelly
Carol Dempster
Robert Livingston
Dalton Trumbo
Grace Hopper (incredible woman)
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Lee J. Cobb
Broderick Crawford (now this is irony: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5t-AKbX4Ks)
Tip O'Neill
Kirk Douglas
Redd Foxx
Dina Merrill
Dick Van Patten
Buck Henry (lucky guy got to be in "Samurai Delicatessen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQxHe2CT-ec)
Morton Downey, Jr.
Judi Dench
Deacon Jones
Beau Bridges
Dick Butkus
Michael Nouri
Tom Daschle
Joan Armatrading
Michael Dorn
World B. Free
John Malkovich
Donny Osmond
Felicity Huffman
Kirsten Gillibrand
Shane Scott
Kurt Angle
Jakob Dylan
Allison Smith
Jesse Metcalfe
Simon Helberg
Movie Quotes today come from 1993's "In The Line of Fire", for which John Malkovich received a well-deserved Oscar nomination:
Mitch Leary: I have a rendezvous with death, and so does the President, and so do you if you get too close.
Frank Horrigan: You have a rendezvous with my ass, motherfucker!
#2
Lilly Raines: What makes you think he'll call again?
Frank Horrigan: Oh, he'll call again. He's got, uh, "panache."
Lilly Raines: Panache?
Frank Horrigan: Yeah, it means flamboyance.
Lilly Raines: Mm, I know what it means.
Frank Horrigan: Really? I had to look it up.
#3
[Lilly's wearing an evening dress]
Lilly Raines: What are you looking at?
Frank Horrigan: I was just wondering where you hide your firearm. Don't tell me, let me guess.
#4
[Leary's final words on Frank's answering machine]
Mitch Leary: Hello, Frank. By the time you hear this, it'll be over. The President is most likely dead, and so am I. I wonder, Frank, did you kill me? Who won our game? Not that it really matters, for among friends like you and me, it's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game, and now the game is done and it's time to get on with your life. But I worry, Frank, that you have no life to get on with. You're a good man, and good men like you and me are destined to walk a lonely road. Goodbye, and good luck.
Love that scene. Happy for an excuse to use it. It turns out there is a new cockroach in New York City. Seems that a cockroach that isn't bothered by cold weather has been carried into the High Line, a park area by tourists. Until now, it was only found in Asia.
Bad news is that it is a very hardy insect, a cockroach among cockroaches. The good news is that it probably won't be much of a problem because it will be competing with the cockroaches already residing in the area for food. Entomologists believe that the newcomer have little impact.
How long will it take before some government official, or worrywart group wants the TSA to strengthen screening processes to prevent future insect incursions?
* * *
We will never know if Dayna Morales is behind that nasty, homophobic note written on the restaurant credit card receipt that went viral and was subsequently called a hoax. We do know that the owners of the restaurant conducted their own "internal investigation" and now she doesn't work there.
The restaurant owners should have hired an outside agency (private detective, security consultant, etc) to conduct an independent investigation. The evidence that she perpetrated a hoax is strong, but she deserved the benefit of the doubt. An internal investigation left the owners no choice but to let her go, because of the perception that they were helping to cover-up the hoax.
Even with an independent investigation, no matter the conclusion it reached, the restaurant is going to experience a backlash if she were to remain as an employee. People suspect hoax, they believe hoax, then in their minds it was a hoax.
What I can't understand is why she would do such a thing, if it was a hoax? A desire for sympathy? Anyone have any guesses as to the why?
* * *
Five years ago today, the then-Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich was arrested on corruption charges. Among the allegations against him was that he attempted to "sell" the vacant U.S. Senate seat that would be vacated by the election of Barrack Obama to the presidency.
Can you buy a Senate seat? Some will say Meg tried to buy her way into being Governor of California. She used $144 million of her own money and another $34.5 million from donors. She lost to Jerry Brown who spent only $36.5 million in total. 24 years earlier, Michael Huffington spent $28 million of his own money trying to buy a seat in the Senate, but lost to Dianne Feinstein. Huffington did manage to buy one term in the House of Representatives though.
We can pass all of the attempts at political reform we want to. But as long as we have freedom of speech, people will find ways to use money to elect the candidate who will advance their own agenda. Overturning the decision in Citizens United v FEC will require an amendment to the Constitution or a major realignment of the U. S. Supreme Court (or maybe both).
But even that won't stop an individual from buying advertising time (even if they have to pay full price rather than the discounted prices that candidates get during campaigns) on television and radio, to extol the virtues of their chosen candidate.
I can't afford even a small advertisement in the Los Angeles Times to support a candidate. But someone like Rob Reiner (just an example, not picking on him) can afford to employ a full-time political consultant to help him plan his financial strategy in terms of who and what he is going to provide support to with his considerable resources.
The Presidential Election Campaign Fund doesn't work. The winner of the last three presidential elections was the candidate who opted not to observe the spending limits to qualify for matching funds.
There doesn't seem to be a good answer.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
They played an NFL game without any field goal or point after touchdown kicks? Yes, first in over 50 years.
Why is it North Korean President Kim Jong-un will meet with Dennis Rodman but not the U.S. government? Not even a back-channel, back-door meeting.
I just lost some of my respect for Jennifer Lawrence after hearing she enjoys watching "Keeping Up With the Kardashians."
Could Bob Barker kick Adam Sandler's ass in a real fight? Maybe. Adam will have a better chance after Bob turns 100.
The most recent firing of a teacher at a Catholic school because he made his homosexual relationship public (he emailed to let them know he'd be late because he was applying for a marriage license) is just more evidence of the hypocrisy of those who are in charge of the Catholic Church. It was fine for him to work for them with full knowledge of his homosexuality, as long as it was secret. Didn't they get the message from keeping the molesting of youngsters secret that secrecy doesn't work?
There are 8 movies opening on Christmas Day. Assuming the timing works, my preferred double-bill would be 47 Ronin and Labor Day. However, since the timing will almost certainly not work, it will probably wind up as Labor Day and August: Osage County.
You will find George Zimmer's commentary on his firing by Men's Wearhouse very interesting. I guarantee it.
Once again a world leader is doing something dumb. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is skipping the funeral of Nelson Mandela because of criticism about his spending habits with government money, and because he is not a facilitator of peace. Rather than get involved in this mess, he should have deferred to Israel's President, Shimon Peres, who is a Nobel Peace Prize winner like Mandela. Even if Peres was unable to go due to his age and health, announcing he would represent Israel was a better idea.
* * *
December 9th in History:
480 – Odoacer, first King of Italy, occupies Dalmatia. He later establishes his political power with the co-operation of the Roman Senate.
536 – Gothic War: The Byzantine general Belisarius enters Rome unopposed; the Gothic garrison flee the capital.
730 – Battle of Marj Ardabil: The Khazars annihilate an Umayyad army and kill its commander, al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah al-Hakami.
1425 – The Catholic University of Leuven is founded.
1531 – The Virgin of Guadalupe first appears to Juan Diego at Tepeyac, Mexico City.
1775 – American Revolutionary War: British troops lose the Battle of Great Bridge, and leave Virginia soon afterward.
1793 – New York City's first daily newspaper, the American Minerva, is established by Noah Webster.
1824 – Patriot forces led by General Antonio José de Sucre defeat a Royalist army in the Battle of Ayacucho, putting an end to the Peruvian War of Independence.
1835 – Texas Revolution: The Texian Army captures San Antonio, Texas.
1851 – The first YMCA in North America is established in Montreal, Quebec.
1856 – The Iranian city of Bushehr surrenders to occupying British forces.
1861 – American Civil War: The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War is established by the U.S. Congress.
1872 – In Louisiana, P. B. S. Pinchback becomes the first serving African-American governor of a U.S. state.
1875 – The Massachusetts Rifle Association, "America's Oldest Active Gun Club", is founded.
1888 – Statistician Herman Hollerith installs his computing device at the United States War Department.
1897 – Activist Marguerite Durand founds the feminist daily newspaper, La Fronde, in Paris.
1905 – In France, the law separating church and state is passed.
1911 – A mine explosion near Briceville, Tennessee, kills 84 miners despite rescue efforts led by the United States Bureau of Mines.
1917 – World War I: In Palestine, Field Marshal Edmund Allenby captures Jerusalem.
1922 – Gabriel Narutowicz is elected the first president of Poland.
1931 – The Constituent Cortes approves a constitution which establishes the Second Spanish Republic.
1935 – Walter Liggett, American newspaper editor and muckraker, is killed in a gangland murder.
1937 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Nanking – Japanese troops under the command of Lt. Gen. Asaka Yasuhiko launch an assault on the Chinese city of Nanjing (Nanking).
1940 – World War II: Operation Compass – British and Indian troops under the command of Major-General Richard O'Connor attack Italian forces near Sidi Barrani in Egypt.
1941 – World War II: The Republic of China, Cuba, Guatemala, and the Philippine Commonwealth, declare war on Germany and Japan.
1941 – World War II: The American 19th Bombardment Group attacks Japanese ships off the coast of Vigan, Luzon.
1946 – The "Subsequent Nuremberg Trials" begin with the "Doctors' Trial", prosecuting physicians and officers alleged to be involved in Nazi human experimentation and mass murder under the guise of euthanasia.
1946 – The Constituent Assembly of India meets for the first time to write the Constitution of India.
1950 – Cold War: Harry Gold is sentenced to 30 years in jail for helping Klaus Fuchs pass information about the Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union. His testimony is later instrumental in the prosecution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
1953 – Red Scare: General Electric announces that all communist employees will be discharged from the company.
1956 – Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 810, a Canadair North Star, crashes near Hope, British Columbia, Canada, killing all 62 people on board.
1958 – The John Birch Society is founded in the United States.
1960 – The first episode of Coronation Street, the world's longest-running television soap opera, is broadcast in the United Kingdom.
1961 – Tanganyika becomes independent from Britain.
1962 – The Petrified Forest National Park is established in Arizona.
1965 – Kecksburg UFO incident: A fireball is seen from Michigan to Pennsylvania; witnesses report something crashing in the woods near Pittsburgh. In 2005 NASA admits that it examined the object.
1966 – Barbados joins the United Nations.
1968 – Douglas Engelbart gave what became known as "The Mother of All Demos", publicly debuting the computer mouse, hypertext, and the bit-mapped graphical user interface using the oN-Line System (NLS).
1969 – U.S. Secretary of State William P. Rogers proposes his plan for a ceasefire in the War of Attrition; Egypt and Jordan accept it over the objections of the PLO, which leads to civil war in Jordan in September 1970.
1971 – The United Arab Emirates join the United Nations.
1971 – Indo-Pakistani War: The Indian Air Force executes an airdrop of Indian Army units, bypassing Pakistani defences.
1973 – British and Irish authorities sign the Sunningdale Agreement in an attempt to establish a power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive and a cross-border Council of Ireland.
1979 – The eradication of the smallpox virus is certified, making smallpox the first and to date only human disease driven to extinction.
1987 – Israeli-Palestinian conflict: The First Intifada begins in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
1988 – The Michael Hughes Bridge in Sligo, Ireland, is officially opened.
2003 – A blast in the center of Moscow kills six people and wounds several more.
2008 – The Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, is arrested by federal officials for crimes including attempting to sell the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama's election to the Presidency.
Famous Folk Born on December 9th:
John Milton (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeZqW6eqK2M)
William Whiston
Harry Miller
Clarence Birdseye
Emmett Kelly
Carol Dempster
Robert Livingston
Dalton Trumbo
Grace Hopper (incredible woman)
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Lee J. Cobb
Broderick Crawford (now this is irony: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5t-AKbX4Ks)
Tip O'Neill
Kirk Douglas
Redd Foxx
Dina Merrill
Dick Van Patten
Buck Henry (lucky guy got to be in "Samurai Delicatessen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQxHe2CT-ec)
Morton Downey, Jr.
Judi Dench
Deacon Jones
Beau Bridges
Dick Butkus
Michael Nouri
Tom Daschle
Joan Armatrading
Michael Dorn
World B. Free
John Malkovich
Donny Osmond
Felicity Huffman
Kirsten Gillibrand
Shane Scott
Kurt Angle
Jakob Dylan
Allison Smith
Jesse Metcalfe
Simon Helberg
Movie Quotes today come from 1993's "In The Line of Fire", for which John Malkovich received a well-deserved Oscar nomination:
Mitch Leary: I have a rendezvous with death, and so does the President, and so do you if you get too close.
Frank Horrigan: You have a rendezvous with my ass, motherfucker!
#2
Lilly Raines: What makes you think he'll call again?
Frank Horrigan: Oh, he'll call again. He's got, uh, "panache."
Lilly Raines: Panache?
Frank Horrigan: Yeah, it means flamboyance.
Lilly Raines: Mm, I know what it means.
Frank Horrigan: Really? I had to look it up.
#3
[Lilly's wearing an evening dress]
Lilly Raines: What are you looking at?
Frank Horrigan: I was just wondering where you hide your firearm. Don't tell me, let me guess.
#4
[Leary's final words on Frank's answering machine]
Mitch Leary: Hello, Frank. By the time you hear this, it'll be over. The President is most likely dead, and so am I. I wonder, Frank, did you kill me? Who won our game? Not that it really matters, for among friends like you and me, it's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game, and now the game is done and it's time to get on with your life. But I worry, Frank, that you have no life to get on with. You're a good man, and good men like you and me are destined to walk a lonely road. Goodbye, and good luck.
posted by me at 7:34 PM
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