Reality TV Has Gone Too Far (again)

This is just plain gross.

Boo Hoo Bill

Well, yet again Bill O'Reilly is freaking out because someone had the audacity to criticize him. A man who lies pathologically on a nightly basis and takes pleasure from bullying and screaming at his guests sure doesn't like being judged himself.

I saw the Fifth Estate episode that he's all bent out of shape over, it was great. You would never see anything like it on the castrated U.S. Networks. It pointed out what anyone with a brain already knows. That the conservative media in the U.S. can pretty much say and do anything it wants without being held accountable for anything it says and does. There are no checks and balances. Journalistic integrity and full disclosure just do not exist.

My favourite parts had to be watching Vancouver's Rachel Marsden sexual harasser/stalker extrordinaire, now a conservative radio talk show host telling the CBC how Suddam Hussein really was behind 9/11. And how there really were WMD in Iraq but they must of disposed of them. Of course she wasn't too keen on talking about her 2 arrests for Sexual harassment and stalking.

And my other favourite part was listening to Ann Coulter ~ the woman who thinks "Canada should be careful that we (the U.S.) don't roll over on them in our sleep" tell the CBC how Canada should send troops to Iraq because we had sent troops to Vietnam! Of course it was pointed out to her promptly that Canada had never sent any troops to Vietnam, where she answered "I think you are mistaken". No Ann, I think you are mistaken but when aren't you?

I urge everyone to check out The Fifth Estate this weekend and see for yourselves. That is, if there still is a CBC and a Canada. Looks like we pissed off a real psycho, he just might boycott us all into oblivion.

Here is the article where Bill is fuming over our free press.

The 10 Worst Corporations of 2004

Click here for the link.

Where Are The Ethics?

Second Conservative Pundit Found to be On Gov't Payroll
The Washington Post is reporting that it has found another conservative pundit was on the government payroll without ever disclosing the contract to the public. The White House paid syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher $21,500 for consulting and ghostwriting related to the Bush administration's efforts to promote the sanctity of marriage. Gallagher is president of the Washington-based Institute for Marriage and Public Policy and a frequent television guest. Her writings on marriage have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Weekly Standard. After being outted by the Post, Gallagher wrote QUOTE "I should have disclosed a government contract when I later wrote about the Bush marriage initiative. I would have, if I had remembered it." Earlier this month is was disclosed prominent conservative commentator Armstrong Williams was paid $240,000 to promote the controversial No Child Left Behind legislation on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other African-American journalists to do the same.

Oh No Bolo ~ Amazing Race

Oh no!
Poor Lori and Bolo. I really feel for them because their mistake is totally something I could see myself doing. Did you see the look on Bolo's face when he realized he didn't give Lori the clue? He was so sad and frightened at the same time. You just had to feel for him. I'm going to miss their mispronunciations, Bolo's addition, their spontaneous wrestling, the sight of Bolo running and I really wanted them to prove the "model alliance" wrong. Well, it wasn't meant to be. Bolo highlight from this episode was definitely "Sirika Lanka".

Karma found it's way into Kendra's stomach. Way to go Africa and all of its people. Unfortunately the ailment wasn't bad enough to keep them out of the race.

Rebecca and Adam were bickering again and Adam even threatened to quit the race! Don't hold you breath, it was all for the drama. Anyone who threatens to quit the race (even one time) does not deserve to win as far as I'm concerned. And Rebecca's comment about "if I have to pretend to be Adam's girlfriend to stay in the race then I will". EW! When will Adam admit that a girlfriend is not what he really needs and wants if you know what I mean.

Hayden was annoying as usual but Aaron just seems to be getting funnier and funnier. So if I have to sit through Hayden's whiny "baby baby" to have Aaron make me laugh then so be it.

Kris and Jon ran another great leg. They looked really tired at the start but still managed to come in first, comfort another team, respect and support each other and they even marveled at how beautiful Sri Lanka was. It was quite eerie watching them in Sri Lanka. To know that nearly everything is now gone. Very sad.

Weekly Playlist

1. Moonage Daydream ~ David Bowie
2. Best Friend ~ The English Beat
3. Hateful ~ The Clash
4. World On A String ~ Neil Young
5. Little Bitch ~ The Speacials
6. Plants & Rags ~ PJ Harvey
7. Angel From Montgomery ~ John Prine
8. Girl Inform Me ~ The Shins
9. Free ~ Cat Power
10. Fin ~ Pavement
    

I Can See Forgetting A Cell Phone But A Baby?!?

Baby and harp among items left in cabs

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - An estimated 11,300 laptop computers, 31,400 handheld computers and 200,000 mobile telephones have been left in taxis around the world during the last six months, according to a survey.

Taxi drivers in nine cities also said they had found a range of other items left by passengers, including a harp, 37 milk bottles, dentures and artificial limbs. One driver said he even found a baby in his taxi.

The survey of some 1,000 taxi drivers said that passengers had lost three times more handheld computers in the second half of 2004 than in 2001, when the research by security software company Pointsec was first carried out.

Most of the items were returned to their owners, cab drivers said. Four out of five mobile phones and 19 out of every 20 computers found their way back, they said.

Londoners appear more careless than others with their laptops, while Danes are most likely to forget their mobile phones, the survey found. In Chicago in the United States, passengers often left behind handheld computers on the back seat.

The survey's findings were extrapolated to reflect the total number of taxis in each city.

One customer, who later turned out to be the girlfriend of actor Hugh Grant, left her iPod music player, mobile phone and purse. When the lady taxi driver was asked to deliver the items to Grant, she received an autograph as a thank-you.

Bye Johnny

Weekend Videos

I have absolutely no idea what to rent this weekend.
Any suggestions?

Now That's Classy

Black Thursday

In support of our friends to the South.

Tsunami Provided "Wonderful Opportunity" for the U.S.

WASHINGTON - Asia's tsunami disaster provided a "wonderful opportunity" for the United States to show compassion with relief efforts that reaped "great dividends" on the diplomatic front, Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice said.

Rice's remarks, made at her Senate confirmation hearing, drew a sharp rebuke from Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer who accused her of insensitivity to last month's catastrophe that claimed some 168,000 lives across the Indian Ocean.

Rice, the outgoing national security adviser, made clear in her opening statement Washington's hope of consolidating its influence in the region, following up on the goodwill generated by US military help and financial aid for tsunami victims.

"Our Asian alliances have never been stronger, and we will use that strength to help secure the peace and prosperity of the region," she told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that was expected to clear her nomination with little trouble.

US officials have trumpeted the massive military relief effort mounted by the Pentagon as a humanitarian gesture that could score points in a part of the world where anger still lingers from the Iraq war. In response to a question, Rice agreed readily.

"I do agree that the tsunami was a wonderful opportunity to show not just the US government, but the heart of the American people, and I think it has paid great dividends for us," she said.

Boxer, a sharp critic of Rice's work as national security adviser, quickly took the nominee to task over the characterization of the tsunami as a "wonderful opportunity."

"The tsunami was one of the worst tragedies of our lifetime," Boxer said. "And it's going to have a 10-year impact on rebuilding that area. I was very disappointed in your statement. I think you blew the opportunity."

Woo Hoo! ~ Amazing Race

Well, it finally happened. The screeching, hollering, pushing, shoving, threatening, screaming, whining, crying, bragging and tantruming Team Botox were eliminated! Woo Hoo!

It was a very exciting and stressful episode of The Amazing Race.
Where, contrary to the promos, Victoria did not cut her finger off, she was screaming bloody murder because she got a splinter (my ears are still ringing)
And Kendra was not hyperventilating because there was a "third world" black child near her. Okay, maybe she was. But Kendra warmed up to the third worldeons in Ethiopia because the poverty didn't seem so offensive to her. It was greener there and they "seemed to have chosen to live this way". And not to mention because they carried her bags and helped her get around. Now she wants to bring them all back to Texas with her. Sorry Kendra slavery has been abolished, even in Texas.

Yes, the teams were back in Africa. And I guess the producers didn't mention to Jonathan & Victoria that kidnapping was illegal because that's exactly what they did. That poor boy. Do you speak English? Get in the van! Get in the van! We're going to drive you far away and scream at you and near you and you're going to wish you never laid eyes on us. He looked so scared.

Lori & Bolo ran another good leg. Lori seems to have mellowed some, hopefully she can keep that up.

Rebecca & Adam are still ridiculous. Adam is so.. so.. useless. I've just never seen someone his age act so incompetent and sheltered. That little freakout he did after he screwed up in the Cathedral to what? try and redeem himself? I don't get it. I did love Rebecca's "Too many questions" to Kendra's "Why did you yield us?" though.

I could go on and on but I've got to get some sleep.
Oh, and please stop teasing us with Kendra dying. It's just cruel.

Playlist of the Week

1. New Age ~ The Velvet Underground
2. Rain City ~ Turin Brakes
3. Wicked Little Town ~ Hedwig and the Angry Inch
   
4. Moonlight Mile ~ The Rolling Stones
   
5. Under Control ~ The Strokes
   
6. Your Cover's Blown ~ Belle & Sebastian
   
7. Take Me Out ~ Franz Ferdinand
   
8. Pink Moon ~ Nick Drake
   
9. Slow Hands ~ Interpol
   
10. Jolene ~ Dolly Parton
    

Martin Luther King

I couldn't let today go by without acknowledging
Martin Luther King Day.
So here are a few of my favourite quotes from this remarkable man.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Our nettlesome task is to discover how to organize our strength into compelling power.

A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.

There is nothing more dangerous than to build a society, with a large segment of people in that society, who feel that they have no stake in it; who feel that they have nothing to lose. People who have a stake in their society, protect that society, but when they don't have it, they unconsciously want to destroy it.

Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love.

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

Stomach Flu

I got hit with a terrible something early Sunday morning.
I'm still not feeling well, there is nothing I hate more than being this kind of sick.
Yuck.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

You guys have to check out the trailer for Tim Burton's remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and tell me what you think.

Nice, Really Nice

Well, you can tell what a loser England's Prince Harry is.

Help Me Mommy ~ Amazing Race

I don't really have a whole lot to say about this episode. I don't know if it was because I had a supremely shitty day yesterday and I just wasn't into anything, but I found that this episode was beyond boring.

Adam is still a major pussy. Jonathan is still a major A- hole, Victoria is still screeching. Kris and Jon are still cuter then cute. Hayden is still driving Aaron mental and now me too. Lori & Bolo are still doing their thing. Freddy is still wearing the ugliest glasses known to man and Kendra still looks really bizarre. Like she's had a weird facelift or something.

I can't do any better on this recap. It was just blah.

In Case Anyone Was Still Wondering

White House Says Iraq Weapons Search Over

WASHINGTON - The search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has quietly concluded without any evidence of the banned weapons that President Bush cited as justification for going to war, the White House said Wednesday.

The Iraq Survey Group, made up of some 1,200 military and intelligence specialists and support staff, spent nearly two years searching military installations, factories and laboratories whose equipment and products might be converted quickly to making weapons.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said there no longer is an active search for weapons. "There may be a couple, a few people, that are focused on that" but that it has largely concluded, he said.

"If they have any reports of (weapons of mass destruction) obviously they'll continue to follow up on those reports," McClellan said. "A lot of their mission is focused elsewhere now."

Chief U.S. weapons hunter Charles Duelfer is to deliver his final report on the search next month. "It's not going to fundamentally alter the findings of his earlier report," McClellan said, referring to preliminary findings from last September. Duelfer reported then that Saddam Hussein not only had no weapons of mass destruction and had not made any since 1991, but that he had no capability of making any either. Bush unapologetically defended his decision to invade Iraq.

Bush has appointed a panel to investigate why the intelligence about Iraq's weapons was wrong.

( I guess the panel won't be allowed to say "because you told us to lie, Mr. President..Sir" )

California Mudslides ~ That Is A Huge Rock!

A boulder some 25 feet high blocks both lanes of the Topanga Caynon Road, Monday, Jan. 10, 2005.

Yahoo News

Let's Hear It For The Pindoff's!

Toronto couple donates $5 million to tsunami relief

Also in April 2004: Kroum and Eva Pindoff, the founders of Music World Limited, announced a $20 million pledge over the next ten years to aid children in the developing world. An initial $2 million cheque will go to War Child Canada to assist their efforts to help children in war torn countries. Now that's generosity.

How Gross!

Somehow this just seems so disgusting to me.
That's what celebrities need: More Free/Stuff.
Can you imagine how many people could be helped with this amount of money.

Golden Globe Gift Bags

Presenters at the Golden Globes will receive a wicker ottoman stuffed with gifts that total out at $38,390. That is if you count the full $16,000 value for the wine tasting trip to Australia. Complete list is below.

Rosemont Estates and Quantas Airlines
Wine Adventure Package $16,000
Judy Host Photography Package $5,000
Ehrlooms Diamond Pendant $2,700
Sorts Club LA 6 Month Bi-Coastal Membership $2,250
Brite Smile Whitening Treatment and Products $1,100
Missoni Shawl $900
Chopard Watch $865
Gianfranco Ferre Travel Bag $650
P7 cell phone by Haier America $600
Kiehl's Gift box of Men's and Women's Products $540
Elisa Ilana Signature Bracelet $430
Janet Lee Luxury Pet Carrier $400
Yomo Handbag $400
Taryn Rose Men's Shoes Gift Certificate $400
Michael Aram Decorative Bowl $400
Persol Men's and Women's Sunglasses $350
Keurig At Home Coffee Brewer $300
Aviva Stanoff Journals $275
Swarovski Crystal Ring $255
Red Envelope Travel Cashmere Set $250
2 Rounds of Golf on PGA Tour Course $250
Nine West Hot Nine Gift Card $250
Swank Martini Glasses and Shaker $250
Kinara Spa Gift Certificate $250
Babystyle Gift Certificate $250
Mont Blanc Resin Fineline pen $250
GUCCI men's and women's fragrances $250
Custom Wicker Ottoman $250
Dell Pocket DJ MP3 Player $200
Godiva G Collection Box of Chocolates $125

Total: $38,390

Source: Hollywood Foreign Press Association

Spicy Hungarian Soup ~ Amazing Race

Got off to a slow start but all in all a great episode.

I was so happy to see Lori and Bolo catch up! I wasn't ready to stop watching the always entertaining Bolo. Even if he doesn't know what an "optimist" is and can't count.

Freddy's meltdown was ridiculous. Notice Hera didn't threaten to "break someone in half" when she got hit by the gate. What a tool. And the look on Kendra's face when Phil said they were in 6th place was priceless. You can tell she's not used to not getting what she wants. Even more reason for me wanting them off the show, now!

I was disgusted yet again with Jonathan harassing, insulting and berating his wife. There is something about watching a woman being told to "shut up" that makes my blood boil. I really wish they'd edit his screen time right down.

I have to say that the Hungarian National Water Polo Team isn't very good. It's too bad Gus couldn't get into a bathing suit because that's what lost it for them. I liked Hera. She was calm, mature and didn't whine. If she had a better partner she would of made it a lot farther. And just think, we wouldn't of had to listen to "come on Daddy" a million times.

The Spicy Hungarian Soup challenge was hilarious and unexpectedly gross. I was gagging myself, after watching that mess. The poor musicians. Between having to watch the gagging and vomiting and being told to shut up by Jonathan more than once. Let's just say I hope they got some sort of compensation.

I'm glad we didn't get shown too much during the preview for the next show. Lately I've felt like I've seen the show before it aired.

Tsunami Adds to Belief in Animals "Sixth Sense"

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Wild animals seem to have escaped the Indian Ocean tsunami, adding weight to notions they possess a "sixth sense" for disasters, experts said Thursday.

Sri Lankan wildlife officials have said the giant waves that killed over 24,000 people along the Indian Ocean island's coast seemingly missed wild beasts, with no dead animals found.

"No elephants are dead, not even a dead hare or rabbit. I think animals can sense disaster. They have a sixth sense. They know when things are happening," H.D. Ratnayake, deputy director of Sri Lanka's Wildlife Department, said Wednesday.

The waves washed floodwaters up to 2 miles inland at Yala National Park in the ravaged southeast, Sri Lanka's biggest wildlife reserve and home to hundreds of wild elephants and several leopards. "There has been a lot of anecdotal evidence about dogs barking or birds migrating before volcanic eruptions or earthquakes. But it has not been proven," said Matthew van Lierop, an animal behavior specialist at Johannesburg Zoo.

"There have been no specific studies because you can't really test it in a lab or field setting," he told Reuters.

Other authorities concurred with this assessment.

"Wildlife seem to be able to pick up certain phenomenon, especially birds ... there are many reports of birds detecting impending disasters," said Clive Walker, who has written several books on African wildlife.

Animals certainly rely on the known senses such as smell or hearing to avoid danger such as predators.

The notion of an animal "sixth sense" -- or some other mythical power -- is an enduring one which the evidence on Sri Lanka's battered coast is likely to add to.

The Romans saw owls as omens of impending disaster and many ancient cultures viewed elephants as sacred animals endowed with special powers or attributes.

By Ed Stoddard

Happy New Year!