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A Tom Cruise fan wrote to defend his man in the most current edition of Entertainment Weekly.
Phillip Ramos of Westfield, New York, says
So what if he has differing views - this is America, and last I checked we are allowed to have those.
Yes, Mr. Ramos, we are. But no one is saying Tom should be put in jail becuase he's an idiot. We are only saying we don't like him because he's an idiot.
There is nothing more American than that.
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's little girl, Shiloh, was born in Namibia.
According the Associated Press, a Namibian government official said that
Namibian law allowed for the newborn to automatically become a Namibian citizen by birth. The [official] said the citizenship issue will be discussed with the couple later.
Hmmmm......If it has to be discussed, I do not suppose it is automatic, is it?
Carl Raschke, chair of the Religious Studies Department at the University of Denver, weighs in on Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code in today's Denver Post.
He says the book "is, in short, a ruse based on a hoax based on an historical fraud."
Hmmm. Sounds like great inspiration for a work of fiction.
Raschke is concerned that "[a] British poll recently found that after reading The Da Vinci Code, twice as many people were likely to believe Jesus fathered children."
Twice as many? Did the number increase from 2 to 4? That's twice as many and completely insignificant. Raschke does not give us the actual numbers, so one can only assume they do not support his premise.
Raschke writes that "[t]he poll is alarming only because it discloses how gullible the public really can be." He needed a poll to disclose this? Raschke is easily alarmed. He needn't be.
Like the poor, the gullible will always be with us. Dan Brown didn't make them gullible. They were gullible before The Da Vinci Code was written, they will be gullible after the movie closes.
Relax. Christianity has survived 2000 years. A novel is not a threat.
With apologies to one of Bill Simmon's emailers....
The next time someone pours you a beer with way too much foam, say 90% head, you can say you got a "Barry Bonds Pour."
The now completely legal Napster is a great music service.
Just about every song ever recorded is available. And once you find the song you want, Napster even makes recommendations for other songs you might like.
Sometimes, the recommendations are suspect.
I was cruising Napster, looking for James Brown songs, and came across the soundtrack to Rocky IV. The Godfather of Soul peformed "Living in America" in the movie.
Among the recommendations for those that like the Rocky IV soundtrack is an album called "Como? Fun, New Songs for Learning Spanish and Loving God."
I am hard pressed to find the connection.
Sure, a foreign language was featured in Rocky IV, but it was Russian, not Spanish. And, yes, there have been many famous Spanish speaking boxers, but hardly any in the heavyweight division. (Why is that? I see lots of fat people eating burritos. In fact, I am one of them. And I took three years of high school Spanish.)
Another recommendation for those that like the Rocky IV soundtrack is "Animal Dance and Other Silly Songs."
Again, I don't see the connection.
Sure, Rocky chases a chicken during training, but that was in Rocky II, not IV.
In the Associated Press’ article on the Academy of Country Music Awards Tuesday night, writer Tom Gardner wrote that Gretchen Wilson sang her song “Politically Incorrect.” He must have been confused with failed comic Bill Maher’s old show.
As incorrect as the English may be, Gretchen’s song is “Politically Uncorrect.”
Don't trust that spell checker.
Alias' five year run is over.
How’d it last that long? Jennifer Garner is not that good looking. Sure, she’s cute, but there are only so many hair colors before you have to start over again.
Garner’s character, super-double-secret-agent Sydney Bristow, was more clothes-horse than cold-warrior.
I did not watch the show during its first run, but thanks to DVD and NetFlix, I have seen the first season and most of the second.
Spies are supposed to be cold, calculating and emotionless. Bristow was warm, guileless and more emotional than Dick Vermeil at a retirement press conference.
It would not have been out of character for Sydney Bristow to stop in the middle of an assignment to help a stray kitten in an alley. If somebody said something mean to her, she’d cry. Hell, if somebody looked at her cross-wise, her eyes would well up and she’d start sniffling. These are not the qualities of an international secret agent.
Sydney Bristow made Austin Powers look tough.
Bristow, of course, looks better in a short skirt and platinum wig.
There has not been a Triple Crown winner in 28 years. It is the longest such drought ever.
I was eleven years old when Affirmed won it last. He did it the year after Seattle Slew did it.
I remember thinking that the Triple Crown had lost its luster with back-to-back winners. It was supposed to be an exceptional occurrence.
Well, now I’m 39, and it hasn’t happened since.
It is, once again, an exceptional occurrence.
Sportsradio 950 The Fan has outsourced its local morning and weekend “20/20 Updates” to Fox Radio.
What’s the next logical step? All local shows will be outsourced to India.
“Good Morning, and welcome to the Sports Guys. I’m Kumar Patel along with my partner Super Sanjeev from Littleton. No one covers Denver like us. Thank you and come again.”
On May 16, Rocky Mountain News columnist Paul Campos wrote a hilarious spoof of the Democratic Party.
He praised Bill Clinton as if he were Solomon and suggested a way around the Constitution’s presidential term limits: Have Hillary run for President with Bill as her running mate. Then, immediately after being sworn in, she would resign, thus making Bill President again!
It was high comedy, and very well done.
Apparently, not everyone has such a fine-tuned sense of humor. The News published two letters today criticizing Campos as if he were serious.
C’mon, people! Lighten up.
But, alas, such is the fate of the satirist. Jonathan Swift was criticized for his “Modest Proposal.” Now, Campos is criticized for his.
I was listening to a recap of the Preakness on the radio, and the nationally syndicated weekend yakker was trying to impress on his listener the seriousness of Barbaro's injury. For those unaware, Barbaro won the Kentucky Derby and was the favorite to win the Preakness. He broke his leg during the Preakness and the fractures may be life-threatening.
The yakker said that the winner of the race, Bernardini, was almost completely ignored on the television coverage because of the concern for Barbaro. He said "they barely interviewed the winnning horse at all."
I think that they interviewed the winning horse AT ALL is the big story. That is one talented animal.
The producers of the ABC hit television show "Lost" have created several websites that give additional information about the show.
Last night, the website http://letyourcompassguideyou.com was introduced during a fake commercial for The Hanso Foundation, a mysterious corporation behind some of the unusual circumstances on the Lost island.
The website isn't very good and neither is the advice. If you "let your compass guide you" you'll end up at the North Pole. Every time.
Well, the ball isn't, but the game is.
I am playing in a co-ed World Adult Kickball Association league. (The acronym is WAKA, as in "WAKA, WAKA, WAKA." I think it is a tribute to Fozzy Bear.)
My initial thought was that I would be kicking the ball all over the place. Not so.
The official WAKA kickball is large, soft and round. (A lot like my belly.)
It is difficult to kick a soft object very far. It is easy, however, to pop it straight up into the waiting arms of a 5-foot-2 100 pound woman. I know from first hand experience, it is not manly to pop up to an Olsen twin.
Bill Bagwell of Littleton, in a letter published in the Rocky Mountain News today, expressed the view held by many Americans.
Bagwell says that the NSA spying on Americans isn't that big a deal. He says, "this is not a privacy issue, it's a matter of survival."
I won't argue with him on that point.
I'll only point out that many of us would rather die free than live a long life under the thumb of the government.
Patrick Henry did not say "give me liberty ... as long as the government doesn't need it for some reason."
A University of Colorado panel has found faux-Indian and faux-Academic Ward Churchill guilty of plagiarism and fabrication.
Sitting Cracker says the findings are a "travesty, ridiculous, laughable." Much like Churchill himself.
He has become the crazy old man on the corner, yelling out gibberish to no one in particular.
Even his defenders are of no help. Tom Mayer, a CU sociology professor, wonders "what would have happened to anyone who had been subjected to the same kind of detailed investigation that Ward Churchill has been."
Mayer does not bother to deny Chuchill has plagiarized and lied. He just says that other people do it, too. Apparently, Mayer believes the "everybody does it" defense absolves Churchill.
It doesn't.
But who am I to disagree with Mayer's assertion that the University of Colorado is full of academics that make stuff up and plagiarize? He works there, I do not.
USAToday says that David Spade is "currently ... starring in The Bench-warmers."
First, can one be starring currently in a movie that is no longer in theatres? That dog didn't have time to mark a tree before it got euthanized.
Second, did The Benchwarmers star anyone?
Third, is it possible for David Spade to star in anything?
As one comentator noted, it doesn't say much for a movie when Rob Schneider plays the cool guy.
ABC has announced that the comedy "Sons & Daughters" will not be back next year. However, a new show called "Brothers & Sisters" will debut.
Since sons and daughters are also brothers and sisters, could the new show feature the same people?
The most recent edition of USA Weekend magazine has an article on Dan Brown's book "The Da Vinci Code." As a sidebar, there is information on Da Vinci himself.
In describing his painting "Mona Lisa," the article says that the model was "the young wife of a rich Florentine textile merchant, but that fact is disputed."
If it's disputed, I don't think it we can call it a "fact." If a legitimate dispute exists, there is no "fact." There is only "assertion."
Yes, someone can dispute what is believed to be "fact," but if the dispute is legitimate, the "fact" has been misnamed.
Rocky Mountain News columnist Tina Griego wrote "the 1965 law literally transformed the face of immigration."
No, it didn't.
Immigration does not literally have a face. Therefore, it's face was not literally changed.
The movie version of Dan Brown's book "The Da Vinci Code" opens this weekend.
Apparently many well-meaning Christians don't realize the book has been on the list of best selling fiction books, not the list of non-fiction books.
In her column "How Coloradans Worship," Jean Torkelson highlights some of these misguided individuals.
She writes "Christian leaders want people to know that truth was the first casualty in author Dan Brown's plot, in which Jesus is purported to having married Mary Magdalene, had kids, and by and large hogged the limelight, unfairly, for the past 2,000 years."
It is impossible for "truth" to be a casualty in a work of fiction. By definition, it's fiction. Fiction, by definition, is made up. To claim that a work of fiction somehow assaults the "truth" is absurd on its face.
Torkelson quotes Arvada Pastor George Morrison: "Dan Brown is entitled to his own opinions, but he's not entitled to his own facts." True, but entirely inapposite. Brown does not espouse any facts, his own or otherwise, in "The Da Vinci Code."
It's fiction.
Sue Ellen Naegle said, "I keep thinking of authors like (James Frey) who've been caught recently making things up, and I keep thinking, how can this guy, Brown, get away with this?"
Frey wrote an autobiography. Autobiographies are non-fiction. When one is caught putting fiction in a non-fiction book, one is appropriately criticized.
Brown's work is fiction. It is not only appropriate to make things up in a fiction book, it is encouraged.
The Denver Post has a nice feature on Title IX and how it has forced colleges to spend less money on men's sports and more on women's. This is the natural result of a law that required institutions that spent far more on men's sports than women's sports to equal the expenditure on each.
This makes perfect sense. Except to people like NCAA vice president Judy Sweet. Sweet says that to blame Title IX for the decrease in spending on men's sports is not right: "Don't blame Title IX, it's an institutional decision how you're going to utilize resources. That's a cop-out."
Yes, colleges are institutions. Yes, they have to make decisions. If they decide to comply with the law, they have to cut men's sports and move that money over to women's sports.
That was the point. To deny it is disingenuous.
Pretend a pair of siblings share a bag of M&M's every day. The boy always gets 90% of them. The girl gets 10%. That's not fair. One day, their parents tell them they have to split the M&M's 50/50. No one would say the new arrangement is unfair. But if someone said the intent of the new arrangement was not to take away the extra M&M's from the boy, that person would be selling a load of crap. The only way to make a fair arrangement was to take away from the boy and give it to the girl.
Instead of denying the obvious and looking like idiots, supporters of Title IX should point to the incredible advances women have made in athletic opportunities since the legislation passed.
And if Sweet thinks that a bigger bag of M&M's is possible so that the boy still gets the same number and the girl gets just as many, her college cafeteria dispenses free Bubble Up and Rainbow Stew.
* For my money, the Kiss Cam alone is worth the price of admission.
* Ricky Williams was flipping channels and became a hockey fan for a few minutes. He thought the Avs had a goal disallowed because of a "Thai stick."
* You know who is really hurt by liberal immigration laws? The American hockey player. These poor guys from Eastern Europe come over here and take our jobs!
You dont have to pay them anything. They are happy to have electricity and indoor plumbing, much less pocket money and cable TV.
And when the Olympics come around, what do these ungrateful Sons of Bulgaria do? They return to their backassward backwaters of the former Soviet Union and play for their home country!
If they love their Motherland so much, maybe they should just play hockey there all the time.
KEEP HOCKEY AMERICAN.
Rocky Mountain News' reporter Sara Burnett says that the report on University of Colorado professor Ward Chruchill has been finished. She says that "[a]mong the accusations [against Chuchill] was that he allegedly fabricated material, plagiarized and misused others' work."
No one accused him of allegedly fabricating material. He was accused of fabricating material.
Space Research That's Cool - Global Warming on Mars?
Al Gore is out pimping his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." He blames Earth's growing population and reliance on fossil fuels for global warming.
According to Gore, humans are responsible for a "crushing impact" on our planet.
How to explain the warming on Mars, then?
As the Museum of Science in Boston explains,
If both Mars and Earth are experiencing global warming, then perhaps there is a larger phenomenon going on in the Solar System that is causing their global climates to change.
Perhaps.
Gore and others ignore this truth so they can continue their scare-mongering and advance their anti-progress, anti-business agenda.
Well, we don't, but today's edition of the Rocky Mountain News does.
R. Kiefer of Arvada complains about the television towers on Lookout Mountain in Golden. Among Kiefer's complaints are that "residents believe that the towers emit radiation that is dangerous to nearby residents."
They "believe" that, do they? Tom Cruise believes an evil alien is trying to take over the universe.
"Belief" doesn't make it so. Come at me with some science, or don't come at all.
Richard T. Fell of Englewood is against illegal immigration. He believes "the key ... is a forgery-proof ID. Can't our high-tech economy invent one?
No, Mr. Fell, it can't. If a human can invent it, another human can forge it.
Charlotte Observer | 05/07/2006 | Albemarle cheers its 'American Idol'
Kellie PIcker, recently booted off American Idol after a nice run into the Top Ten, had a homecoming in her town of Albemarle, North Carolina.
The Charlotte Observer noted that Pickler sang "'The Star-Spangled Banner' [for her fans in Albemarle] so powerfully, it was audible for blocks."
That would be more impressive if she had not had the help of a Public Address system.
In today's Denver Post, Jim Armstrong says that some of the blame for the Nuggets' implosion must fall on head coach George karl and not recently dismissed General Manager Kiki Vandeweghe. No argument there.
But Armstrong goes a little too far. He says that the team
... didn't come to play every night. Not only that, the turmoil in the locker room was palpable for much of the season. Sorry, but that's on the coach, not the GM. ...
Gotta disagree.
If the bank manager hires Jesse James, don't blame the head teller when money goes missing.
If the chemistry professor tells the class they have to mix bleach and ammonia, don't blame the students for the chlorine gas.
Kiki gave Chief Nugget Malcontent Kenyon Martin the big money and a long-term deal and insisted K-Mart was a good guy and a good teammate.
He's not. And Karl could not change K-Mart's disposition.
Phil Jackson, Red Auerbach and Chuck Daly combined could not turn that sow's ass into silk.
“We have concluded that FEMA is in shambles and beyond repair and that it should be abolished.” -- Republican Senator Susan Collins.
Is there a government agency to which this does NOT apply?
