It was a private conversation

It was a private conversation:



H. R. Haldeman was among a very few people in the Nixon Administration who knew that the President had ordered the installation of microphones and recording equipment.  So both men in this particular conversation knew it was being recorded.  What neither of them knew was that decades later, those tapes would be transcribed and made available to the world.  The internet was still yet to reach the pipe-dream phase at that time.

I received my first modem in 1989.  I'm guessing most of you who were alive and capable of using the web back then also have histories going back that far.  So, think fast...what would people see if your quarter-century of internet history were to be captured and published in an archive?

Somewhere out there are Geocities sites I made when I was trying to learn the art of web-design.  There was a site I developed with the help of a friend that was a movie review site.  I had a bunch of reviews and one of my favorite pieces of writing, the 100 Worst American Movies that were never made.  There are email exchanges with two women who came to California to meet me, two relationships that did not end well.  I'm sure we all have things in our internet history that we would not want others to be sifting through.

Those who defended Donald Sterling when he made his less than polite remarks that were recorded and released by V. Stiviano almost universally said that it was a "private conversation" and there was no right for her to release it.  Would one of you who defended Mr. Sterling please explain to me how his conversation is any different than any of the email exchanges between Amy Pascal and Scott Rudin in terms of being a private conversation?  Please?

The truth is that we have no expectation of privacy in our internet dealings, save for the hope and prayer of secure transactions involving commerce.  As we've seen in recent months, those hopes and prayers are nothing more than a fantasy.  Nothing online is completely secure.  The moment a computer can surf the web, or contact other computers, it is vulnerable.  You want a completely secure computer, just unplug it from the network and the web.  Otherwise, forget privacy.

I don't know Amy Pascal personally but I don't believe her to be a bigot or a racist.  I do know people who do know her and they all speak very highly of her.  I trust their judgment a lot more than some leaked emails.  But the larger issue is that we shouldn't be in the position to be passing judgment over her private communications and conversations.  How is this different than what transpired between Donald Sterling and V. Stiviano?  Sterling may or may not have been aware that she was recording their conversations.  But at least one of them took place with another person within earshot.  As it does with attorney-client and doctor-patient privilege, the presence of another party defeats any expectation of privacy.  Ms Pascal did not expect anyone to be reading her emails.

We must all remember that every email we compose from this moment forward can become a matter of public record.  Rule of thumb for me from now on is, if I wouldn't say it in a crowded room, I'm not going to write it in an email.

Sony Pictures Entertainment is threatening the media to try to get them to stop reporting leaked emails and other information released by the folks who hacked the studio.  They are barking up the wrong tree.  The material is already in the public domain.  The damage is done.  Their only recourse would be civil action against media outlets and if the courts weren't going to stop the New York Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers, they aren't going to step in here.

Further, what monetary damages could they prove from the further dissemination of information that is already easily available on the internet?  The answer is none.

But the threats are instructive.  They tell us just how much trouble SPE is in. 

* * *

I have nothing but sympathy for the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting.  But their lawsuit against the manufacturer of the gun used is just wrong.  There is no logic behind their position that the gun shouldn't have been sold to civilians because of its potential for violence and murder.  Congress banned assault weapons and then let the ban expire.

We are a nation of laws.  There is no law that precludes this type of weapon from being manufactured and sold.  If we don't like that, we can work to pass laws to change this.  But just because there were a heinous act is no reason to allow a company acting within the law to be sued over the event.

Common sense gun control is a good thing.  Attempting to keep guns of any type out of the hands of criminals is also a good thing.  So far, as a nation, we are failing at both.

* * *

I watched "Undercover Boss" this past Sunday evening.  My favorite new drama "Madame Secretary" is on hiatus until next Sunday.  Tonight's episode focused on Doug Guller, Founder and CEO of Bikini Sports Bar & Grill.  Since his company, ATX Brands owns a number of differently branded bar/restaurants, clearly he's had some success in business; but tonight's program was basically an exercise on how NOT to be an effective CEO.  I suspect he's an okay guy in his non-work life, but the moves he made on tonight's show were...outright stupidity.  To illustrate this more clearly, a quick recap of what happened while he was undercover, and afterward, will be helpful.

The first stop was at their location in Richardson, TX.  He worked with Jessica, the bartender there.  Doug was upset when they met, because she was not wearing a bikini top.  She chose to wear a t-shirt because she was going to be on television.  He has a point in that the "Bikini Babes" need to be wearing the proper uniform, but I wonder if she'd cleared her choice with her manager before he arrived.  We weren't given this information.  She also did a very poor job in serving a customer who was clearly over-served.  Doug suggested cutting him off, but Jessica overruled him.  She also made it clear that she wasn't interested in pursuing a career with Bikini Sports Bar & Grill.

Next up was the San Antonio location and Kitchen Supervisor Henry.  This spot had been suffering real problems in the kitchen until Henry was promoted into the position.  He apparently fixed all the problems and Doug was very pleased with this experience.

From there it was on to another pretty good experience for Doug at the chain's location in Arlington, TX.  He worked with Grace to learn how to be a server.  Fortunately for those watching, he did not don the required uniform.  He was very impressed with most of her performance, although he did find a few areas where he felt she needed additional training.

Last stop on Doug's undercover journey was to train for a management position with Meagan at the Dallas location.  She did an awesome job and Doug was extremely impressed.

Then came the final segment, where the four employees traveled to the town that the chain bought, to learn that "Jake" was really the company CEO.  Henry was awarded a 30% raise, retroactive to the day he was promoted, and given $10,000 so he could take his wife on a vacation.  Meagan got a consulting gig in addition to her management duties, along with an 8% raise.  Better still, Doug promised to cover all of the expenses Meagan would incur in getting some needed dental surgery for her daughter, and help her get into a house with a yard.  These two encounters worked out well.

Jessica's vignette was first in this segment and Doug took her to task for over-serving the one customer, not wearing the bikini top and lacking a passion for her work as a Bikini Babe.  So, he fired her on television.  Bad move.  Maybe she lacked passion for the job but she had the right skill sets.  Counseling and more training would have been a far better move.  It would have demonstrated a concern on Doug's parts for his employees.  Yes, Texas is an at-will employment state and none of the exceptions to this legal doctrine apply there.  He can hire and fire at will.  But it was the wrong move, particularly in light of what happened when it was Grace's turn.

He was mostly pleased with Grace but took her to task for being on her phone at work.  He also asked her to work with the soon to be hired Director of Marketing.  She had mentioned wanting to get breast implants during the time Doug was working with her, and at this encounter he offered to pay for this. But only if she could go for six months without using her phone on the job, and being a "rock star" during that time.  She was ecstatic.

The dichotomy of how these two Bikini Babes were treated by their CEO ignited a firestorm of criticism.  Breastaurants get lots of criticisms to begin with and this was just asking for trouble.  Most of those who complain about such establishments claim they exploit women.  Ask the women working there if they are being exploited and the vast majority will say no.  I actually got a chance to pose this question to Holly Madison when she was still wearing orange shorts and tank-tops to work at the Santa Monica location of Hooters.  She responded with a resounding "no."  Kat Cole, currently President of Cinnabon, worked for Hooters for 15 years, rising from being a Hooters Girl to becoming the company's Vice President of Training and Development.  Being a server at a breastaurant is a choice.  Unless violations of the law are involved, it's very difficult to be exploited because of your gender without your consent.

It is clear that Mr. Guller's decisions giving one woman the boot and the other boobs was a really, really dumb move.

* * *

Before I comment on the following statement by the big windbag, Rush Limbaugh, listen to it for yourselves.  You don't have to torture yourself by hearing the entire thing.  The point of the sound-bite is that Mr. Blowhard is saying Idris Elba can't be James Bond.

It is interesting to note that this paragon of cognitive dissonance is spewing this rhetoric at a moment when Hollywood should be struggling with a much more important issue regarding race, ethnicity and casting.  Ridley Scott's "Exodus: Gods and Kings" is not a commercial success, although it isn't a big flop either, but it has some serious issues with which actors are playing particular roles. 
All of the major roles in this film are being played by Caucasian actors.

I know that the founder of the nebulous EIB Network (EIB = Extremely Irritating Blowhard) won't be reading my blog anytime soon, but even he should be able to understand a simple concept.  When it comes to characters out of history, casting actors who at least remotely resemble the real-life person they are portraying is damn important.  Joel Edgerton is a fine actor but he is hopelessly miscast as Ramesses II (the Pharaoh that most believe was ruling Egypt during the time of the Exodus).  While we can't state with absolute certainty that Ramesses II was not a Caucasian, it is extremely unlikely that he was.  Why not cast an actor of "color" to portray him?

On the other hand when it comes to fictional characters, race just isn't that important in most cases. Now if you're casting an actor to portray a slave in the South during the pre-Civil War period, you probably don't want to cast a Caucasian as that slave. 

When Marvel Comics created "Nick Fury" they chose to make him Caucasian.  But in 2001, seven years before the first "Iron Man" film (which is where Nick Fury made his big screen debut), Marvel published Ultimate X-Men, and the character was reimagined as an African-American character.  So casting Samuel L. Jackson in the role in the movie wasn't all that far off the mark.

"The Equalizer" was a TV series for four seasons with a Caucasian actor in the title role in the mid/late 1980s.  When Sony decided to go ahead with a big screen version, Denzel Washington got that role.  He was good in it, and the film did well at the box office.

No one in their right mind would cast Daniel Day-Lewis to portray Nelson Mandela.  As talented an actor as he is, there's just no way for portray President Mandela.  Can't happen.  We also won't see Meryl Streep as Maya Angelou in a biopic.  Makes no sense.

Ian Fleming wrote his Bond novels mostly in the 1950s (some in the early 1960s, prior to his death in 1964).  Like it or not, Mr. Limbaugh, times have changed.  Eon Productions owns the rights to the entire James Bond franchise.  If they want to cast Idris Elba as James Bond, they can certainly do so.  I'd prefer that over one bad Bond idea that was put forward when Sean Connery was reluctant to reprise the role.  George Lazenby refused to do another Bond film (a wise move on his part).  After Burt Reynolds was unavailable, the role was offered to Adam West.  West turned it down, saying James Bond should be played by a Brit.  I'm not sure if that's true, but it definitely is a British role and would require an actor who can do a convincing turn as a Brit.  That isn't Adam West.

To put this into simple terms for Mr. Limbaugh, changing the race or ethnicity of a fictional character is fine, provided you have the right to do so.  No one has the right to reimagine historical characters in serious film.  You can certainly do a film about fictional things in the life of a real person.  I'm pretty sure Abraham Lincoln wasn't out hunting vampires in his copious free time, and FDR was not a monster slayer ("FDR: American Badass" is a terrifically funny, way over the top spoof and I own the DVD if you want to borrow it).   The bottom line is, I wouldn't go to see a movie starring Anne Hathaway as Tokyo Rose.  Zhang Ziyi maybe, but not a Caucasian actress.

* * *

Once again, the golfing of President Obama is in the news and he is taking some heat for the planning of one round of golf that disrupted the wedding plans of a pair of military officers.  Natalie Heimel and her fiancé Edward Mallue, Jr. are both captains in the U. S. Army were scheduled to be married on Sunday near the 16th hole of a golf course located on the grounds of Marine Corps Base, Hawaii. 

They had even invited President Obama to their wedding, knowing he would be in Hawaii on that date, but one of his minions sent his regrets.  Then on Saturday, less than 24 hours from the wedding itself, the couple was told they would have to move their wedding elsewhere because President Obama was playing that course, at that time.

President Obama doesn't schedule his own golf games.  Others failed to prevent a scheduling conflict and they are the ones who screwed up, not the President.  He made a personal call to the bride, to apologize for the inconvenience.  The people who are claiming this proves he doesn't support the military are clueless.

* * *

Random Ponderings::

The Disney employee portraying Mickey Mouse could have postponed his break long enough to do a photo with Christina Aguilera and her group.  Or with any other patron who asked.  I'd have called him an asshole, as she did...although I'd have done it mentally.

I can't believe that Dustin Diamond, the actor who portrayed the milquetoast "Screech" on "Saved by the Bell" was arrested for allegedly stabbing someone.  It's further alleged that he was carrying the switchblade that is supposedly the weapon used in the incident.  He is claiming self-defense.

The decision by Ireland's High Court to remove the life-support for a clinically dead woman who was 18 weeks pregnant is the right one, even in the face of the rights of the unborn in that nation set forth in their constitution.  A fetus only 18 weeks along has no "reasonable prospect" of surviving.

The app developer who is behind iPhone video editor Videoshop gave his parents a Christmas gift none of us are going to be able to top.  He paid off their mortgage.  Well played, sir.

After viewing a gallery of 50 people who turned 50 in 2014, my thoughts were:
1.  Sandra Bullock looks amazing for a 50 year old woman
2.  I still have a thing for at least two other women on this list.
3.  Why in the world would someone name a child Hoda?

What is the point of a halftime contest at a basketball game where if you sink a half-court shot, the entire crowd gets free pizza?  You make a tough shot and you don't win anything for yourself other than a pizza??  I remember when my father went onto the ice at the Fabulous Forum during a hockey game, between the 2nd and 3rd period to try to score a goal from the blue line.  He got cheered for making the easy shot and winning a trip to any city in California, and then was roundly booed for missing the tough shot and blowing his chance to win a trip for two to Hawaii.  Now those are prizes worth trying to win.

* * *

December 31st in History:

406 – Vandals, Alans and Suebians cross the Rhine, beginning an invasion of Gaul.
535 – Byzantine general Belisarius completes the conquest of Sicily, defeating the Gothic garrison of Palermo (Panormos), and ending his consulship for the year.
1225 – The Lý dynasty of Vietnam ends after 216 years by the enthronement of the boy emperor Trần Thái Tông, husband of the last Lý monarch, Lý Chiêu Hoàng, starting the Trần dynasty.
1229 – James I of Aragon the Conqueror enters Medina Mayurqa (now known as Palma, Spain) thus consummating the Christian reconquest of the island of Majorca.
1501 – The First Battle of Cannanore commences.
1600 – The British East India Company is chartered.
1660 – James II of England is named Duke of Normandy by Louis XIV of France.
1687 – The first Huguenots set sail from France to the Cape of Good Hope.
1695 – A window tax is imposed in England, causing many householders to brick up windows to avoid the tax.
1757 – Empress Elizabeth I of Russia issues her ukase incorporating Königsberg into Russia.
1759 – Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum and starts brewing Guinness.
1775 – American Revolutionary War: Battle of Quebec: British forces repulse an attack by Continental Army General Richard Montgomery.
1790 – Efimeris, the oldest Greek newspaper of which issues have survived till today, is published for the first time.
1796 – The incorporation of Baltimore as a city.
1831 – Gramercy Park is deeded to New York City.
1853 – A dinner party is held inside a life-size model of an iguanodon created by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and Sir Richard Owen in south London, England.
1857 – Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa, then a small logging town, as the capital of Canada.
1862 – American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln signs an act that admits West Virginia to the Union, thus dividing Virginia in two.
1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of Stones River begins near Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
1878 – Karl Benz, working in Mannheim, Germany, filed for a patent on his first reliable two-stroke gas engine, and he was granted the patent in 1879.
1879 – Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time, in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
1906 – Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar signs the Persian Constitution of 1906.
1907 – The first New Year's Eve celebration is held in Times Square (then known as Longacre Square) in New York, New York.
1909 – Manhattan Bridge opens.
1923 – The chimes of Big Ben are broadcast on radio for the first time by the BBC.
1944 – World War II: Hungary declares war on Nazi Germany.
1944 – World War II: Operation Nordwind, the last major German offensive on the Western Front begins.
1946 – President Harry S. Truman officially proclaims the end of hostilities in World War II.
1951 – The Marshall Plan expires after distributing more than US$13.3 billion in foreign aid to rebuild Europe.
1955 – General Motors becomes the first U.S. corporation to make over US$1 billion in a year.
1960 – The farthing coin ceases to be legal tender in the United Kingdom.
1961 – RTÉ, Ireland's state broadcaster, launches its first national television service.
1963 – The Central African Federation officially collapses, subsequently becoming Zambia, Malawi and Rhodesia.
1965 – Jean-Bédel Bokassa, leader of the Central African Republic army, and his military officers begins a coup d'état against the government of President David Dacko.
1967 – The Youth International Party, popularly known as the "Yippies", is founded.
1981 – A coup d'état in Ghana removes President Hilla Limann's PNP government and replaces it with the Provisional National Defence Council led by Flight lieutenant Jerry Rawlings.
1983 – The AT&T Bell System is broken up by the United States Government.
1983 – In Nigeria a coup d'état led by Major General Muhammadu Buhari ends the Second Nigerian Republic.
1986 – A fire at the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, kills 97 and injures 140.
1988 – Pittsburgh Penguins' Mario Lemieux becomes the only National Hockey League player to score goals in five different ways: even strength, shorthanded, power play, penalty shot, and empty net, during an 8–6 win over the New Jersey Devils.
1988 – First Winter Ascent of Lhotse (8,516m) by Krzysztof Wielicki (solo).
1991 – All official Soviet Union institutions have ceased operations by this date and the Soviet Union is officially dissolved.
1992 – Czechoslovakia is peacefully dissolved in what is dubbed by media as the Velvet Divorce, resulting in the creation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
1994 – This date is skipped altogether in Kiribati as the Phoenix Islands and Line Islands change time zones from UTC−11:00 to UTC+13:00 and UTC−10:00 to UTC+14:00, respectively.
1994 – The First Chechen War: Russian army began a New Year's storming of Grozny.
1998 – The European Exchange Rate Mechanism freezes the values of the legacy currencies in the Eurozone, and establishes the value of the euro currency.
1999 – First President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, resigns from office, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President and successor.
1999 – The United States Government hands control of the Panama Canal (as well all the adjacent land to the canal known as the Panama Canal Zone) to Panama. This act complied with the signing of the 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties.
1999 – Indian Airlines Flight 814 hijacking ended after seven days with the release of 190 survivors at Kandahar Airport, Afghanistan.
2004 – The official opening of Taipei 101, the tallest skyscraper at that time in the world, standing at a height of 509 metres (1,670 ft).
2009 – Both a blue moon and a lunar eclipse occur.
2010 – Tornadoes touch down in midwestern and southern United States, including Washington County, Arkansas; Greater St. Louis, Sunset Hills, Missouri, Illinois, and Oklahoma, with a few tornadoes in the early hours. A total 36 tornadoes touched down, resulting in the deaths of nine people and $113 million in damages.
2011 – NASA succeeds in putting the first of two Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory satellites in orbit around the Moon.

Famous Folk Born in 2010:

Pope Callixtus III
Emperor Go-Yozei of Japan
Henri Matisse
Elizabeth Arden
General George Marshall
Jules Styne
Simon Wiesenthal
Anthony Hopkins

Rosalind Cash

Sarah Miles
Andy Summers
John Denver
Taylor Hackford

Diane von Furstenberg
Burton Cummings
Tim Matheson

Donna Summer

James Remar
Bebe Neuwirth
Val Kilmer (his performance in the film below was worth of Oscar consideration)

Paul Westerberg
Nina Li (Jet Li's wife)
Don Diamont
Gong Li ("To Live" is one of my all-time favorite foreign films)
Nicholas Sparks
Lisa Joyner
Crystal Knight
Psy (I refuse to put a clip from Gangnam Style here)
Gabby Douglas

We need an attitude adjustment

No, not this attitude adjustment:

We need an attitude adjustment in how we perceive and deal with the police officers who protect us.  That's their job.  Protecting everyone from criminal acts.  The problem is that so many people distrust and have an adversarial relationship toward law enforcement.  They are the "pigs" or "the fuzz" or the "popo" or whatever other pejorative label you wish to apply to them.

Sometimes part of the solution to a problem can be found in a television theme song.

"Don't do the crime if you can't do the time."  We'll get to the pervasive nature of crime in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods and its root cause (the growing gap in income equality) in a moment.  Eric Garner should be alive today.  Michael Brown, Jr., should be alive today.  But we cannot ignore the fact that they refused to comply with the lawful order of a police officer.  Both men apparently committed a criminal violation.

Selling "loosies" on the street doesn't warrant an arrest.  Write the man a citation and move on.  I agree.  But once the police officer decides to make an arrest, what point is there in resisting?  If someone is guilty of a crime and wants to attempt to flee, go for it.  When the moment comes that flight is no longer possible, then survive.  Do what the officer says to do.  You can't win a struggle with the cops, more of them just keep coming until you're restrained, or worse.  Did Michael Brown, Jr., steal a box of cigars?  That seems to be what the video showed us.  Had he not resisted arrest, he would be alive today.

Yes, we need to address the issues that cause so many people to engage in what are unlawful activities, often in an attempt to merely eke out an existence.  That doesn't change the equation that having an adversarial attitude toward police officers creates.  Any time I deal with a police officer, it's "yes, sir" or "yes, ma'am" and I keep any bad attitude I might feel to myself.  If I am being mistreated, I can always file a complaint later on. 

Police officers don't like to talk about this, but it is a fact of life.  Most of the people who wind up on their way to jail for a minor infraction aren't being cuffed and stuffed because of the infraction.  They're put in the back of a patrol car because the officer found them guilty of COC.  That's Contempt of Cop and while it isn't a criminal offense, it will push a cop to enforce the law as strongly as possible.

It's a verbal argument you can't win, while on the street.  It's a physical battle you can't win even if you do manage to escape.  They will hunt you down and take you in.  Don't waste the energy.  If anyone is ever tempted to resist arrest, remember another cop aphorism.  "Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six."

I support #BlackLivesMatter.  Let's try to keep anyone from being killed, cops and civilians alike.

* * *

The calls for the protests on the streets of New York City by politicians and pundits are well-intended, but incorrect.  This is exactly the moment where the peaceful protestors who are interested in being agents of change should be marching.  Not those who call for more cops to die, they should just STFU.  But continuing to point out that all lives matter, and reminding our leaders that the tremendous uptick in the deaths of people of color at the hands of the police in the past few years is more than alarming, must continue.

Cops die protecting the public.  People of color die at the hands of the cops.  Both things happen far too often.  But the failure to hold officers fully accountable for errors in judgment that result in a life being taken must be addressed.

* * *

The Los Angeles Times has run an editorial calling for the right to vote being given to non-citizens.  While it is true that non-citizens who are here legally are paying taxes, that doesn't necessarily mean they should have the right to vote. 

The five permanent member nations of the United Nations Security Council all currently limit the right to vote to citizens.  There are ten non-permanent members of the Security Council and their positions on non-citizen voting is as follows:

Argentina - Non-citizens can vote in provincial elections, but not in national elections.
Australia - Repealed the right of non-citizens to vote in elections in 1984.  Those who had the right at that time continue to be grandfathered in.
Chad - Non-citizens cannot vote.
Chile - Non-citizens who have lived in the nation for five years have the right to vote.
Jordan - Non-citizens cannot vote.
Lithuania - Non-citizens may vote.
Luxembourg - As a member of the EU, non-citizens may vote in local elections only.
Nigeria - Non-citizens cannot vote.
Republic of Korea - Non-citizens who have lived there five years and are 19 or older may vote in local elections only.
Rwanda - Non-citizens cannot vote.

If individual states, counties and/or cities want to give voting rights to legal non-citizens that is fine by me.  Federal elections should remain limited to citizens only.

* * *

Random Ponderings:

The idiot P.I. who sang a parody version of Jim Croce's "Leroy Brown" that mocked the death of Michael Brown, Jr., is an insensitive cretin, but the cops present at the party didn't know this was coming; and therefore shouldn't be disciplined.  But the minute the intent of Mr. Fishell was clear, they should have walked out.

I could have lived my entire life without seeing the video and stills from whatever it was Kris Jenner and her daughter Kendall did for some calendar.  Then again, it may prove useful in my pursuit of weight loss.  It killed any appetite I had at the time I watched it.

Nice to see Val Kilmer has been successful in his own quest to reduce girth.

I have yet to see "Selma" but from what I've heard and other works I've seen from its brilliant director, Ava DuVarney, I expect to see her clutching Oscar gold someday.

Andrei Kirilenko, who was traded by the Nets to the 76ers is refusing to report and wants to be released to sign elsewhere as a free agent.  Oh, and he wants the 76ers to pay him the more than $3 million he's owed for this season.  Dude, you signed a contract.  You want to get paid, live up to your end.

Allen Gross spent five years in a Cuban prison.  He was a contractor working for a U. S. government contractor, so naturally he sued.  The settlement resulted in his being paid $3.2 million.  Wonder if Larry H. Parker represented him?

Making a word worth more than 100 points in Words With Friends always improves my mood.

If a crow got crow's feet around its eyes as it aged, would they be labeled as crow's feet?

* * *

December 27th in History:

537 – The Hagia Sophia is completed.
1512 – The Spanish Crown issues the Laws of Burgos, governing the conduct of settlers with regard to native Indians in the New World.
1655 – Second Northern War/the Deluge: Monks at the Jasna Góra Monastery in Częstochowa are successful in fending off a month-long siege.
1657 – The Flushing Remonstrance is signed.
1703 – Portugal and England sign the Methuen Treaty which gives preference to Portuguese imported wines into England.
1814 – War of 1812: The American schooner USS Carolina is destroyed. It was the last of Commodore Daniel Patterson's makeshift fleet that fought a series of delaying actions that contributed to Andrew Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans.
1831 – Charles Darwin embarks on his journey aboard the HMS Beagle, during which he will begin to formulate the theory of evolution.
1836 – The worst ever avalanche in England occurs at Lewes, Sussex, killing eight people.
1845 – Ether anesthetic is used for childbirth for the first time by Dr. Crawford Long in Jefferson, Georgia.
1845 – Journalist John L. O'Sullivan, writing in his newspaper the New York Morning News, argues that the United States had the right to claim the entire Oregon Country "by the right of our manifest destiny".
1911 – "Jana Gana Mana", the national anthem of India, is first sung in the Calcutta Session of the Indian National Congress.
1918 – The Great Poland Uprising against the Germans begins.
1922 – Japanese aircraft carrier Hōshō becomes the first purpose built aircraft carrier to be commissioned in the world.
1923 – Daisuke Namba, a Japanese student, tries to assassinate the Prince Regent Hirohito.
1927 – Show Boat, considered to be the first true American musical play, opens at the Ziegfeld Theatre on Broadway.
1929 – Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin orders the "liquidation of the kulaks as a class", ostensibly as an effort to spread socialism to the countryside.
1932 – Radio City Music Hall, "Showplace of the Nation", opens in New York City.
1939 – Erzincan, Turkey, is hit by an earthquake, killing 30,000.
1939 – Winter War: Finland holds off a Soviet attack in the Battle of Kelja.
1942 – The Union of Pioneers of Yugoslavia is founded.
1945 – The World Bank and International Monetary Fund are created with the signing of an agreement by 29 nations.
1949 – Indonesian National Revolution: The Netherlands officially recognizes Indonesian independence. End of the Dutch East Indies.
1966 – The Cave of Swallows, the largest known cave shaft in the world, is discovered in Aquismón, San Luis Potosí, Mexico.
1968 – Apollo program: Apollo 8 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, ending the first orbital manned mission to the Moon.
1978 – Spain becomes a democracy after 40 years of dictatorship.
1979 – The Soviet Union invades the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
1983 – Pope John Paul II visits Mehmet Ali Ağca in Rebibbia's prison and personally forgives him for the 1981 attack on him in St. Peter's Square.
1985 – Palestinian guerrillas kill eighteen people inside the airports of Rome, Italy, and Vienna, Austria.
1989 – The Romanian Revolution concludes, as the last minor street confrontations and stray shootings abruptly end in the country's capital, Bucharest.
1996 – Taliban forces retake the strategic Bagram Airfield which solidifies their buffer zone around Kabul, Afghanistan.
1997 – Protestant paramilitary leader Billy Wright is assassinated in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.
2001 – China is granted permanent normal trade relations with the United States.
2002 – Two truck bombs kill 72 and wound 200 at the pro-Moscow headquarters of the Chechen government in Grozny, Chechnya, Russia.
2004 – Radiation from an explosion on the magnetar SGR 1806-20 reaches Earth. It is the brightest extrasolar event known to have been witnessed on the planet.
2007 – Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto is assassinated in a shooting incident.
2007 – Riots erupt in Mombasa, Kenya, after Mwai Kibaki is declared the winner of the presidential election, triggering a political, economic, and humanitarian crisis.
2008 – Operation Cast Lead: Israel launches 3-week operation on Gaza.
2009 – Iranian election protests: On the Day of Ashura in Tehran, Iran, government security forces fire upon demonstrators

Famous Folk Born on December 27th:

Johannes Kepler
Count Nikolay Kamensky (a Russian general with a familial tie to Helen Mirren)
Louis Pasteur (got milk?)
Sydney Greenstreet

Marlene Dietrich

William Masters
Mary Kornman
Werner Baumbach (a German pilot during WWII who was highly decorated)
Major General Charles Sweeney (the pilot who flew the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki)
Audrey Wagner (original member of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League who became an OB/Gyn after leaving baseball)
John Amos
Cokie Roberts
Mick Jones
Gerard Depardieu

Karla Bonoff
Tovah Feldshuh
David Knopfler
Maryam D'Abo

Theresa Randle
Bill Goldberg

Heather O'Rourke (taken from us too soon)
Carson Palmer
Chloe Bridges

Cowards

"The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission." - President John Fitzgerald Kennedy

"I will not leave South Africa, nor will I surrender. Only through hardship, sacrifice and militant action can freedom be won. The struggle is my life. I will continue fighting for freedom until the end of my days." - Nelson Mandela

"We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." - Winston Churchill

"All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take." - Mahatma Ghandi

The decision by Sony Pictures Entertainment is the ultimate act of cowardice.  It flies in the face of artistic freedom.  It tells the world that the entertainment industry will submit to emotional blackmail by anyone who is able to penetrate their cyber-security.  It is reprehensible.  I am disgusted.

The Obama Administration was subjected to intense criticism when it negotiated with the captors holding Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, to effect his release.  That was life and death.  This is all about artistic freedom.  A despotic dictator doesn't want to be portrayed as a buffoon in a comedic movie.  Kim Jong-un is almost certainly involved in some way in the hack attack on Sony, whether or not there are disgruntled ex-Sony employees involved  He won.  We all lost because of the lack of courage in the executive suites at Sony.

Even in their effort to lay this off on the theater owners, Sony is being disingenuous.  They claim the decision by the major movie theater chains to cancel showings of "The Interview" that drove their decision to shelve the film.  They conveniently forget that it was Sony who informed those theater owners earlier in the week that it was okay to cancel the film.

I'm glad Amy Pascal isn't leaving Sony, even after her big meeting with the Reverend Al Sharpton.  I just wish she really did have a big pair of balls like Seth Rogen said she did.  If he'd been right, I'd have been going to see "The Interview" on Christmas Day.

* * *

The people of the Philippines are upset that the United States has invoked its rights under the Visiting Forces Agreement in the case of U. S. Marine Corps PFC Joseph Pemberton.  He has been charged with the murder of a transgendered Philippine citizen. 

So what right did the U. S. invoke that has the local citizenry and some Philippine government officials upset?  The right to keep him in military custody rather than let him await trial in a local jail.

I don't understand what they are upset about.  The U. S. Ambassador to the Philippines is guaranteeing that Pemberton will remain within the sovereign borders of their country and that he will make all required appearances as the legal process continues.  If and when he is found guilty, he will be sentenced under Philippine law and serve his time in one of their prisons.

* * *

President Obama's decision to restore diplomatic relations on some level with Cuba took me back to 1980.  I was stationed at what is now Homestead Air Reserve Base to the South of Miami.  Because my primary "job" was administration and personnel, I'd been selected for a program known as WARSKILs.  We admin weenies were cross-trained in other skills so that when the people who did that kind of work had to deploy, we could step in and take over their responsibilities.  I was cross-trained in law enforcement and security.

When the Marielitos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariel_boatlift) began arriving, I was asked (you can read that as ordered) to volunteer for law enforcement duty.  I wound up guarding some of the refugees who were being kept confined until their "status" could be determined.  Because Fidel Castro had used the boatlift as an opportunity to send some of the residents of his prisons to the U. S., the government had to make sure it didn't release criminals into the population.

I felt bad after doing this, but I made up for it by volunteering to aid refugees in their getting settled in the Miami area.  I was one of a number of volunteers who spent time driving those refugees who were without transportation around to run various errands.

Later on, I received the Humanitarian Service Medal for my efforts.  The paperwork cited both my guard-duty and my volunteer work.  Was guarding people truly humanitarian work?  I guess I'll never know.

* * *

Random Ponderings:

Fox News and other conservative-leaning people/organizations are angry that the University of Michigan is not taking action against a professor of communications who is a department chair there; over a column she wrote.  It begins "I hate Republicans" and the website she wrote it for changed the title of the piece (without her permission) to "It's Okay to Hate Republicans."  Are these folks too busy defending the Second Amendment that they've forgotten about the First Amendment?

If the thaw in U. S. - Cuba diplomatic relations results in the extradition of Assata Shakur to the U. S., her conviction needs to be reexamined.  She may or may not be guilty of being an accessory to murder, but the fact the cop who testified against her has recanted calls for a new investigation.

$300,000 is a lot to pay for a baseball cap, but when it once belonged to Babe Ruth...I guess that's got some value.

Nicole Richie needs to not be borrowing clothes from her six year old.

A tabloid is reporting that Kanye West and Kim Kardashian do nothing but fight all of the time.  The same source claims that Kris Jenner has told Kim a split at this point could ruin her career.  What career is my question.

Holy Sheep Shit Batman, can it be that Mitt Romney has expressed a good idea?  He's suggested that Sony should distribute "The Interview" for free online and ask viewers to donate $5 to fight Ebola.

Duck Dynasty's Willie Robertson is trying to figure out whether or not being gay is a choice.  I'll make it easy for him.  Hey Willie, ask yourself if you ever had a choice about being attracted to women and then ask yourself why it would be any different for gay folk..

As if I didn't have enough health issues to worry about, now they're saying Sleep Apnea may lead to increased risk of dementia.  Guess it's a good thing I don't skip even a single night of sleeping with my CPAP.

I admit to loving the pastrami sandwich from Katz's Deli in New York City above any other pastrami sandwich I've ever had.  But it ain't worth $79 for pastrami sandwiches for two, shipped to you wherever you are, by this Saturday.

Eric Sondheimer of the L. A. Times has an item in today's paper about international students playing basketball at private schools.  While the CIF has rules prohibiting the recruiting of athletes, anyone who believes that SoCal private schools don't recruit and give "scholarship" to athletes is either naïve or being deliberately ignorant of what goes on.

IIRC, the owners of the Los Angeles Airport Marriott own all of the land and buildings on the property from the North side of the hotel to the South side of El Dorado Bowl.  Wonder what new ownership means for the future of the other businesses on the property, other than the hotel of course.

When tax revenues fall in the face of an improving economy, Congress need only look in the mirror to find the culprit.  They've cut another $346 million from the IRS' budget.  The budget for the fiscal year that ends next September is over $1.2 billion less than it was in 2010.  When the IRS Commissioner John Koskinen says this budget cut is a tax cut for tax cheats.  As Yoda might have said, "lunacy this is."

Would someone at King (makers of Candy Crush Saga among other time-wasters) please tie the damn owl to his perch?

Every single time I listen to a song by Carl Anderson, I'm reminded of what an amazing talent he was.  A good friend, and we are all poorer for his having been taken far too soon.  I once took my girlfriend and her mother to see him perform live At My Place and when we went backstage after the show, I thought they'd both faint.

* * *

December 20th in History:

69 – Vespasian, formerly a general under Nero, enters Rome to claim the title of Emperor.
217 – The papacy of Zephyrinus ends. Callixtus I is elected as the sixteenth pope, but is opposed by the theologian Hippolytus who accuses him of laxity and of being a Modalist, one who denies any distinction between the three persons of the Trinity.
1192 – Richard I of England is captured and imprisoned by Leopold V of Austria on his way home to England after signing a treaty with Saladin ending the Third Crusade.
1522 – Siege of Rhodes: Suleiman the Magnificent accepts the surrender of the surviving Knights of Rhodes, who are allowed to evacuate. They eventually settle on Malta and become known as the Knights of Malta.
1606 – The Virginia Company loads three ships with settlers and sets sail to establish Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas.
1803 – The Louisiana Purchase is completed at a ceremony in New Orleans.
1808 – Peninsular War: The Siege of Zaragoza begins.
1832 – HMS Clio under the command of Captain Onslow arrives at Port Egmont under orders to take possession of the Falkland Islands
1860 – South Carolina becomes the first state to attempt to secede from the United States.
1915 – World War I: The last Australian troops are evacuated from Gallipoli.
1917 – Cheka, the first Soviet secret police force, is founded.
1924 – Adolf Hitler is released from Landsberg Prison
1941 – World War II: First battle of the American Volunteer Group, better known as the "Flying Tigers" in Kunming, China.
1942 – World War II: Japanese air forces bomb Calcutta, India.
1946 – The popular Christmas film It's a Wonderful Life is first released in New York City.
1951 – The EBR-1 in Arco, Idaho becomes the first nuclear power plant to generate electricity. The electricity powered four light bulbs.
1952 – A United States Air Force C-124 crashes and burns in Moses Lake, Washington killing 87.
1955 – Cardiff is proclaimed the capital city of Wales, United Kingdom.
1957 – The initial production version of the Boeing 707 makes its first flight.
1959 – Unknown attackers murder the Walker family in Osprey, Florida.
1960 – The National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam is formed.
1967 – A Pennsylvania Railroad Budd Metroliner exceeds 155 mph on their New York Division, also present day Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.
1968 – The Zodiac Killer kills Betty Lou Jenson and David Faraday in Vallejo, California.
1971 – Zulfikar Ali Bhutto takes over as the fourth President of Pakistan.
1973 – The Prime Minister of Spain, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, is assassinated by a car bomb attack in Madrid.
1977 – Djibouti and Vietnam join the United Nations.
1984 – The Summit Tunnel fire is the largest underground fire in history, as a freight train carrying over 1 million liters of gasoline derails near the town of Todmorden, England, in the Pennines.
1985 – Pope John Paul II announces the institution of World Youth Day.
1987 – In the worst peacetime sea disaster, the passenger ferry Doña Paz sinks after colliding with the oil tanker Vector in the Tablas Strait in the Philippines, killing an estimated 4,000 people (1,749 official).
1988 – The United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances is signed in Vienna, Austria.
1989 – United States invasion of Panama: The United States sends troops into Panama to overthrow government of Manuel Noriega. This is also the first combat use of purpose-designed stealth aircraft.
1991 – A Missouri court sentences the Palestinian militant Zein Isa and his wife Maria to death for the honor killing of their daughter Palestina.
1991 – Paul Keating sworn in as the 24th Prime Minister of Australia after defeating Bob Hawke in a leadership ballot of the Australian Labor Party.
1995 – NATO begins peacekeeping in Bosnia.
1995 – American Airlines Flight 965, a Boeing 757, crashes into a mountain 50 km north of Cali, Colombia killing 159.
1996 – NeXT merges with Apple Computer, starting the path to Mac OS X.
1999 – Macau is handed over to China by Portugal.
2004 – A gang of thieves steal £26.5 million worth of currency from the Donegall Square West headquarters of Northern Bank in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, one of the largest bank robberies in British history.
2005 – Aleksandër Moisiu University was founded in Durrës, Albania.
2007 – Elizabeth II becomes the oldest monarch of the United Kingdom, surpassing Queen Victoria, who lived for 81 years, 7 months and 29 days.
2007 – The Portrait of Suzanne Bloch (1904), by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, and O Lavrador de Café by Brazilian modernist painter Cândido Portinari, are stolen from the São Paulo Museum of Art.
2013 – China successfully launches the Bolivian Túpac Katari 1 from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center.

Famous Folk Born on December 20th:

Samuel Mudd
Harvey Samuel Firestone (the founder of the tire company)
Branch Rickey
Konstantinos Dovas
Dennis Morgan
George Roy Hill (gotta love him just for the film shown below, never mind the high-quality films he did like "The Sting")

Kim Young-sam
John Hillerman
Bob Hayes

Bobby Colomby

Dick Wolf
Alan Parsons (yes, there was a project named after him)
Michael Badalucco
Rory Markas (a nice guy and a hell of a broadcaster)
Joyce Hyser

Joel Gretsch
Jonah Hill (who still has a pic of "Fonzie" as his image on Facebook)

Eyecatching headlines and ponderings on them

Now here's a picture where feelings are quite clear:

You probably recognize Angelina Jolie on the left, giving the Lara Croft stare of ice to the woman she's sort of embracing.  The woman on the right is Sony Pictures Entertainment Co-Chair Amy Pascal and she was involved in an email exchange with A-list producer Scott Rudin that was leaked by the people who hacked Sony.  Mr. Rudin referred to Ms Jolie as "a minimally talented spoiled brat" along with other less than flattering descriptions.  Reporter's note:  I'm guessing that Ms Pascal may have been crossed off of Ms Jolie's Christmas card list.  Pascal is also under fire for other emails where she asked very insensitive questions in reference to President Obama.  Her days in her job may be numbered.  If you want to look at another disturbing email leaked from Sony, check out http://gawker.com/leaked-email-alleges-racism-and-sexual-harassment-horro-1670318085

That's Steve Cohen, a Democrat who represents Tennessee in Congress saying that Eli and Peyton Manning don't do sexual assault against other people...except their wives.  Reporter's note:  The moron didn't even catch his incredibly stupid blunder of a statement, he kept right on blathering.

Bold.  That's how some are describing the brazen theft of a fur coat valued in excess of $180,000.  Reporter's note:  Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

Another piece of fallout from the leak of emails involving Sony executives is that the fact they tried to pay billionaire Mark Cuban what he considered an "insulting" $30,000 per episode of "Shark Tank."  Reporter's note:  The investors on Shark Tank should be appearing for free, given the investment opportunities being served up to them on a plate.

In South Carolina, a woman's military husband is being told he can only stay in her apartment for seven days, or else the landlord will file charges and double her rent.  Reporter's note:  The landlord may be doing the right thing legally, but it sucks morally.

Members of Disneyland's exclusive Club 33 are up in arms about new limits placed on the number of extra VIP cards they get for their platinum level membership fee of $11,000 per year.  On top of the reduced number for 2014, starting next year membership rises to $12,000 annually and only the member and their spouse/domestic partner will get cards (dependents under the age of 21 will continue to receive some of the benefits).  Reporter's note:  More and more, the Mouse is all about the bottom line.  Will they remove all of the park's water fountains next to increase drink sales?

The $1.1 trillion dollar Omnibus spending bill will be voted on next week after some procedural maneuvering and the passage of yet another stop-gap spending measure in the Senate.  Democrats in general and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren in particular are concerned about a provision in the bill that weakens the Dodd-Frank regulations, allowing banks to once again deal in derivatives.  There is also opposition to a provision raising campaign contribution limits, giving the wealthy more of an ability to shape elections.  Reporter's note:  Weakening any portion of Dodd-Frank is an act of lunacy, this particular provision being the worst possible one to mess with.  I'm more than willing to allow larger limits on campaign donations, provided they are accompanied by a removal of the secrecy in election funding.

ISIS is demanding a ransom of $1 million for the return of the body of slain journalist James Foley.  Reporter's note:  Let's give them more.  How about $28 million, in the form of 20 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles targeted at their leadership.

Reporter's note:  It isn't a headline, but I'm watching a very eclectic double-feature on the Sundance Channel.  They've paired up "Revenge of the Nerds" with "Revenge of the Ninja."  Two cheesy films that are definitely guilty-pleasure viewing.

While continuing to avoid solving the major problems facing it, Congress snuck an amendment into their continuing resolution that would allow multi-employer pension plans to slash benefits to current and future retirees.  Reporter's note:  Bet they won't allow their own pensions to be cut.

A 7th grade special needs girl in the Dallas-Forth Worth area was not just bullied at her middle school, but had to go to the hospital with a concussion.  Reporter's note:  Where are the freaking parents who allow their kids to do this kind of thing to the weakest children?

In case you missed the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, here is the absolutely final performance of the Fred Hill Briefcase Drill Team

And here is where they probably drew their inspiration:

CNN.com is running a story about a collection of very valuable cars.  The cars were found on the property of a man in France who had dreamt of establishing a museum but ran out of money.  One of them, a 1961 Ferrari is expected to bring more than $11 million at an upcoming auction.  Reporter's note:  One of the graphics contained in this video piece reads "The auctioneer says Jane Fonda once road in the rare Ferrari."  Maybe it was someone French who did the graphics and they struggle with English?  I'm sure if the editor saw that gaffe, their response would be "merde." 

Mark Wahlberg wants a pardon

In April of 1988, Mark Wahlberg was a sixteen year old youth when he assaulted two Vietnamese-Americans.  He knocked one of the men unconscious with a stick and hit the other with a punch to the head with so much force, the man was blinded in one eye.  Now, more than a quarter-century later, he is seeking a pardon from the state of Massachusetts. 

He has carried the burden of a felony conviction for assault on his record ever since he was found guilty of the above crime.  He spent only 45 days in jail.  Is his age at the time a mitigating factor?  Perhaps.  But there's a little-known fact buried in all of the rhetoric about his convictions that warrants a closer look at his request.

Mr. Wahlberg was also convicted of contempt of court.  Why?  He used racial epithets without provocation, referring to his victims as "slant-eyed g**ks" and worse.  It turns out that a couple of years earlier he committed a series of attacks on African-American children.  He threw rocks at them.  He chased them.  He hurled racial epithets at them.  As a result he was ordered not to assault, intimidate or threaten anyone because of their national origin and/or their race.  While he denies that race was involved in the 1988 incident, apparently the court didn't agree.  The contempt conviction demonstrates that.

In 2006 while promoting the film "The Departed" Mr. Wahlberg was asked by ABC News if finding his victims, apologizing and making amends would be the right thing to do, he admitted it would but made it clear he hadn't done so.  He said, "I did a lot of things that I regretted and I certainly paid for my mistakes.  You have to go and ask for forgiveness and it wasn't until I really started doing good and doing right, by other people as well as myself, that I really started to feel that guilt go away. So I don't have a problem going to sleep at night. I feel good when I wake up in the morning."

Well, unless and until he takes the time to locate his victims and personally apologize, as well as properly compensating them for their injuries, he is NOT deserving of a pardon.  It isn't enough to do good works.  We all need to do good works.  To earn a pardon for a violent crime, the first step must be an act of contrition.  The fact that Mr. Wahlberg wants to work with at-risk youth doesn't absolve him of the need to first seek forgiveness.

Apologize to your victims, Mr. Wahlberg.  We might not just give you a pardon, but forgive you for the Funky Bunch as well.

* * *

The idea of a civilian oversight committee to monitor the actions of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is a good one.  It can't be like the group that oversees the Los Angeles Police Department for one simple reason.  That body formally evaluates the performance of the Chief of Police while the County Sheriff's position is an elective office.  The voters of the county are the people charged with evaluating the job the sheriff does.

Perhaps the problems that occurred during the tenure of former Sheriff Lee Baca could have been avoided or lessened had civilian oversight been in place during his tenure in office.  Considering that the LASD is the fourth largest law enforcement agency in the U. S., one man who is responsible only to the voters is not a good thing.  An oversight committee can't fire the new sheriff, who has an excellent record.  But they could work with him to ensure that LASD carries out its duties without showing celebrity favoritism or violating the civil rights of inmates in the county's jails.

* * *

The United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) correctly interpreted existing law in the case of Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v Busk, but it's a bad decision because the law is in dire need of changing.

The case involves employees of Amazon.com warehouses where orders are fulfilled by workers walking miles and miles each day.  These employees must pass through a security screening, to prevent theft of products.  Considering the turnover among the employees, this is a wise precaution being taken by Amazon and the staffing agency they use to get these tasks done.  The issue is that these employees cannot leave without being screened and are sometimes forced to stand in line for nearly half-an-hour before being able to leave their workplace.

The Portal-to-Portal Act was passed by Congress to stop lawsuits under the Fair Labor Standards Act involving employees not being paid for walking to and from their workplace.  That's fair.  The workday begins and ends when you leave the place where you work, and you don't get paid to walk from the warehouse to the parking lot.  However, when you're not able to leave because of something benefiting the employer rather than the employee, the employee should be compensated for being unable to depart.

Congress needs to change this law.

* * *

Random Ponderings:

I'm going to have to set some time aside to read the Senate's report on CIA torture.  It's over six thousand pages.  Seems fair, they reviewed six million CIA documents, give or take.

On a related note, torture usually yields nothing but unreliable information.  People will start to say anything to relieve the pain.  The Gestapo tortured prisoners in the basement of Prinz-Albrecht-Palais and some say that the wall behind where they were subjected to certain horrific torture methods looked unfinished because of the damage done by their fingers.

On another related note, former Vice-President Cheney says the Senate report is "full of shit" and considering that he's an expert on being full of shit, perhaps we should take his opinion with a gross of toilet paper rolls.

I wonder if Taylor Swift is disappointed she isn't in the Forbes list of Top Ten Paid Musicians for the most recent year.  She finished #11 with "only" $64 million in earnings.

The video below defies description.  Enjoy it.

Now that the date for David Letterman's finale on "The Late Show" has been announced, I wonder who will be the guests for that last episode.

Harvard Business School Associate Professor Ben Edelman may have trashed any chance he ever had of becoming a full professor, over a four dollar discrepancy on a restaurant bill.  Will he admit in retrospect, this was a bad choice from a business standpoint?

I am in total agreement with Magic Johnson's sentiment that he hopes the Lakers don't win another game this season.  Let's get the best chance at a lottery pick.

Why isn't there a single nomination for "Selma" from the SAG awards?

Sony screwed the pooch by not requiring stars in their films to promote them on social media in the contract with the actors.  Kevin Hart's agent tried to exploit this and earn his client some extra money.  Now that the emails calling Mr. Hart a whore have been leaked, he should pimp the film in social media.  It's a win-win for him.  He proves the studio execs to be assholes and if the film is more successful, it will only increase his asking price.

It is idiotic for Congress to allow derivative trading by banks, essentially gutting Dodd-Frank.  It's asinine for them to cut funding for the IRS by over $300 million because Lois Lerner is a moron. 

Being hit in the head by a dumbwaiter is a horrible way to die, but why was her head in the shaft of the thing to begin with?

Some things mix well.  The film franchises "21 Jump Street" and "Men in Black" will probably not mix well.

I'm guessing Angelina Jolie doesn't give a damn about Scott Rudin's opinion of her.

There is something really wrong with the New Jersey law that doesn't require parents still married to foot the bill for their children to attend college, but mandates divorced parents must do so.

Why has the Associated Press been waiting for more than four years for data from the State Department about Hillary Clinton that it requested and is entitled to under the Freedom of Information Act?

* * *

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.
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: Field Marshal Allenby captures Jerusalem, Palestine.
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.
1935 – The Downtown Athletic Club Trophy, later renamed the Heisman Trophy, is awarded for the first time. The winner is halfback Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago.
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.
1965 – A Charlie Brown Christmas, first in a series of Peanuts television specials, debuts on CBS.
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.
2013 – At least seven are dead and 63 are injured following a train accident near Bintaro, Indonesia.

Famous Folk Born on December 9th:

John Milton

Fritz Haber
Harry Miller
Clarence Birdseye
Joseph Pilates
Hermoine Gingold
Emmett Kelly
Dalton Trumbo
Admiral Grace Hopper
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Broderick Crawford

Tip O'Neill
Kirk Douglas
William Lipscomb
Redd Foxx
Dina Merrill
Lorenzo C. Wright
Dick Van Patten
John Cassavettes
Buck Henry

Morton Downey, Jr.
Judi Dench
Deacon Jones
Beau Bridges
Dick Butkus
Neil Innes
Michael Nouri

Tom Daschle
Joan Armatrading
Michael Dorn
World B. Free
John Malkovich

Otis Birdsong
Donny Osmond
Juan Samuel
Felicity Huffman
Shane Scott
Kurt Angle
Allison Smith
Kara DioGuardi
Jesse Metcalfe
Simon Helberg