By MARK SHERMAN
The Associated Press
Thursday, June 26, 2008; 10:30 AM
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, the justices' first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history.
The court's 5-4 ruling struck down the District of Columbia's 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision went further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms laws intact.
The court had not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791. The amendment reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
The basic issue for the justices was whether the amendment protects an individual's right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for four colleagues, said the Constitution does not permit "the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home."
In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority "would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons."
He said such evidence "is nowhere to be found."
Joining Scalia were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas. The other dissenters were Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter.
The capital's gun law was among the nation's strictest.
Dick Anthony Heller, 66, an armed security guard, sued the District after it rejected his application to keep a handgun at his home for protection in the same Capitol Hill neighborhood as the court.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in Heller's favor and struck down Washington's handgun ban, saying the Constitution guarantees Americans the right to own guns and that a total prohibition on handguns is not compatible with that right.
The issue caused a split within the Bush administration. Vice President Dick Cheney supported the appeals court ruling, but others in the administration feared it could lead to the undoing of other gun regulations, including a federal law restricting sales of machine guns. Other laws keep felons from buying guns and provide for an instant background check.
Scalia said nothing in Thursday's ruling should "cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons or the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings."
The law adopted by Washington's city council in 1976 bars residents from owning handguns unless they had one before the law took effect. Shotguns and rifles may be kept in homes, if they are registered, kept unloaded and either disassembled or equipped with trigger locks.
Opponents of the law have said it prevents residents from defending themselves. The Washington government says no one would be prosecuted for a gun law violation in cases of self-defense.
6.26.2008
Brief and rare pride in my Supreme Court
While there are other hurdles... Today we get to chalk one up for the Constitution of the Republic of the United States of America.
6.23.2008
George Carlin, dead at 71.
I don't know where to start with this one... Back in the 80's I was exposed to one of the coolest, funniest, most brutally honest individuals ever to walk upright. It was just common sense humor that no one had ever quite put a finger on. Within days of seeing his first HBO special, "Carlin at Carnegie", George Carlin was such a fixture in my life that he had become almost like family. I'm not really sure how many times I have seen him live, but it seemed that everywhere I went, there was George, crass as ever.
Rest in peace, George, I'll miss you.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — George Carlin, the dean of counterculture comedians whose biting insights on life and language were immortalized in his "Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV" routine, died of heart failure Sunday. He was 71.
Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, went into St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon complaining of chest pain and died later that evening, said his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He had performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas.
"He was a genius and I will miss him dearly," Jack Burns, who was the other half of a comedy duo with Carlin in the early 1960s, told The Associated Press.
Carlin's jokes constantly breached the accepted boundaries of comedy and language, particularly with his routine on the "Seven Words" — all of which are taboo on broadcast TV and radio to this day. When he uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested on charges of disturbing the peace, freed on $150 bail and exonerated when a Wisconsin judge dismissed the case, saying it was indecent but citing free speech and the lack of any disturbance.
When the words were later played on a New York radio station, they resulted in a 1978 Supreme Court ruling upholding the government's authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language during hours when children might be listening.
"So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," he told The Associated Press earlier this year.
Despite his reputation as unapologetically irreverent, Carlin was a television staple through the decades, serving as host of the "Saturday Night Live" debut in 1975 — noting on his Web site that he was "loaded on cocaine all week long" — and appearing some 130 times on "The Tonight Show."
He produced 23 comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, a couple of TV shows and appeared in several movies, from his own comedy specials to "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" in 1989 — a testament to his range from cerebral satire and cultural commentary to downright silliness (and sometimes hitting all points in one stroke).
"Why do they lock gas station bathrooms?" he once mused. "Are they afraid someone will clean them?"
He won four Grammy Awards, each for best spoken comedy album, and was nominated for five Emmy awards. On Tuesday, it was announced that Carlin was being awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, which will be presented Nov. 10 in Washington and broadcast on PBS.
Carlin started his career on the traditional nightclub circuit in a coat and tie, pairing with Burns to spoof TV game shows, news and movies. Perhaps in spite of the outlaw soul, "George was fairly conservative when I met him," said Burns, describing himself as the more left-leaning of the two. It was a degree of separation that would reverse when they came upon Lenny Bruce, the original shock comic, in the early '60s.
"We were working in Chicago, and we went to see Lenny, and we were both blown away," Burns said, recalling the moment as the beginning of the end for their collaboration if not their close friendship. "It was an epiphany for George. The comedy we were doing at the time wasn't exactly groundbreaking, and George knew then that he wanted to go in a different direction."
That direction would make Carlin as much a social commentator and philosopher as comedian, a position he would relish through the years.
"The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things — bad language and whatever — it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition," Carlin told the AP in a 2004 interview. "There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. ... It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have."
Carlin was born May 12, 1937, and grew up in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, raised by a single mother. After dropping out of high school in the ninth grade, he joined the Air Force in 1954. He received three court-martials and numerous disciplinary punishments, according to his official Web site.
While in the Air Force he started working as an off-base disc jockey at a radio station in Shreveport, La., and after receiving a general discharge in 1957, took an announcing job at WEZE in Boston.
"Fired after three months for driving mobile news van to New York to buy pot," his Web site says.
From there he went on to a job on the night shift as a deejay at a radio station in Forth Worth, Texas. Carlin also worked variety of temporary jobs including a carnival organist and a marketing director for a peanut brittle.
In 1960, he left with Burns, a Texas radio buddy, for Hollywood to pursue a nightclub career as comedy team Burns & Carlin. He left with $300, but his first break came just months later when the duo appeared on the Tonight Show with Jack Paar.
Carlin said he hoped to would emulate his childhood hero, Danny Kaye, the kindly, rubber-faced comedian who ruled over the decade that Carlin grew up in — the 1950s — with a clever but gentle humor reflective of its times.
Only problem was, it didn't work for him, and they broke up by 1962.
"I was doing superficial comedy entertaining people who didn't really care: Businessmen, people in nightclubs, conservative people. And I had been doing that for the better part of 10 years when it finally dawned on me that I was in the wrong place doing the wrong things for the wrong people," Carlin reflected recently as he prepared for his 14th HBO special, "It's Bad For Ya."
Eventually Carlin lost the buttoned-up look, favoring the beard, ponytail and all-black attire for which he came to be known.
But even with his decidedly adult-comedy bent, Carlin never lost his childlike sense of mischief, even voicing kid-friendly projects like episodes of the TV show "Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends" and the spacey Volkswagen bus Fillmore in the 2006 Pixar hit "Cars."
Carlin's first wife, Brenda, died in 1997. He is survived by wife Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law Bob McCall; brother Patrick Carlin; and sister-in-law Marlene Carlin.
Rest in peace, George, I'll miss you.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — George Carlin, the dean of counterculture comedians whose biting insights on life and language were immortalized in his "Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV" routine, died of heart failure Sunday. He was 71.
Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, went into St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon complaining of chest pain and died later that evening, said his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He had performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas.
"He was a genius and I will miss him dearly," Jack Burns, who was the other half of a comedy duo with Carlin in the early 1960s, told The Associated Press.
Carlin's jokes constantly breached the accepted boundaries of comedy and language, particularly with his routine on the "Seven Words" — all of which are taboo on broadcast TV and radio to this day. When he uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested on charges of disturbing the peace, freed on $150 bail and exonerated when a Wisconsin judge dismissed the case, saying it was indecent but citing free speech and the lack of any disturbance.
When the words were later played on a New York radio station, they resulted in a 1978 Supreme Court ruling upholding the government's authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language during hours when children might be listening.
"So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," he told The Associated Press earlier this year.
Despite his reputation as unapologetically irreverent, Carlin was a television staple through the decades, serving as host of the "Saturday Night Live" debut in 1975 — noting on his Web site that he was "loaded on cocaine all week long" — and appearing some 130 times on "The Tonight Show."
He produced 23 comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, a couple of TV shows and appeared in several movies, from his own comedy specials to "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" in 1989 — a testament to his range from cerebral satire and cultural commentary to downright silliness (and sometimes hitting all points in one stroke).
"Why do they lock gas station bathrooms?" he once mused. "Are they afraid someone will clean them?"
He won four Grammy Awards, each for best spoken comedy album, and was nominated for five Emmy awards. On Tuesday, it was announced that Carlin was being awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, which will be presented Nov. 10 in Washington and broadcast on PBS.
Carlin started his career on the traditional nightclub circuit in a coat and tie, pairing with Burns to spoof TV game shows, news and movies. Perhaps in spite of the outlaw soul, "George was fairly conservative when I met him," said Burns, describing himself as the more left-leaning of the two. It was a degree of separation that would reverse when they came upon Lenny Bruce, the original shock comic, in the early '60s.
"We were working in Chicago, and we went to see Lenny, and we were both blown away," Burns said, recalling the moment as the beginning of the end for their collaboration if not their close friendship. "It was an epiphany for George. The comedy we were doing at the time wasn't exactly groundbreaking, and George knew then that he wanted to go in a different direction."
That direction would make Carlin as much a social commentator and philosopher as comedian, a position he would relish through the years.
"The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things — bad language and whatever — it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition," Carlin told the AP in a 2004 interview. "There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. ... It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have."
Carlin was born May 12, 1937, and grew up in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, raised by a single mother. After dropping out of high school in the ninth grade, he joined the Air Force in 1954. He received three court-martials and numerous disciplinary punishments, according to his official Web site.
While in the Air Force he started working as an off-base disc jockey at a radio station in Shreveport, La., and after receiving a general discharge in 1957, took an announcing job at WEZE in Boston.
"Fired after three months for driving mobile news van to New York to buy pot," his Web site says.
From there he went on to a job on the night shift as a deejay at a radio station in Forth Worth, Texas. Carlin also worked variety of temporary jobs including a carnival organist and a marketing director for a peanut brittle.
In 1960, he left with Burns, a Texas radio buddy, for Hollywood to pursue a nightclub career as comedy team Burns & Carlin. He left with $300, but his first break came just months later when the duo appeared on the Tonight Show with Jack Paar.
Carlin said he hoped to would emulate his childhood hero, Danny Kaye, the kindly, rubber-faced comedian who ruled over the decade that Carlin grew up in — the 1950s — with a clever but gentle humor reflective of its times.
Only problem was, it didn't work for him, and they broke up by 1962.
"I was doing superficial comedy entertaining people who didn't really care: Businessmen, people in nightclubs, conservative people. And I had been doing that for the better part of 10 years when it finally dawned on me that I was in the wrong place doing the wrong things for the wrong people," Carlin reflected recently as he prepared for his 14th HBO special, "It's Bad For Ya."
Eventually Carlin lost the buttoned-up look, favoring the beard, ponytail and all-black attire for which he came to be known.
But even with his decidedly adult-comedy bent, Carlin never lost his childlike sense of mischief, even voicing kid-friendly projects like episodes of the TV show "Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends" and the spacey Volkswagen bus Fillmore in the 2006 Pixar hit "Cars."
Carlin's first wife, Brenda, died in 1997. He is survived by wife Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law Bob McCall; brother Patrick Carlin; and sister-in-law Marlene Carlin.
6.17.2008
Special-Effects Maestro - Stan Winston dead at 62.
Damn man, my blog is reading more like an obituary page more than anything else here recently. I met Stan in the mid-90's at a workshop. His work was/is a major influence in my decision to pursue Industrial Design Technology. Stan was awesome. The man and his genius will be terribly missed.
By DERRIK J. LANG – 20 hours ago
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Stan Winston, the Oscar-winning special-effects maestro responsible for bringing the dinosaurs of "Jurassic Park" and other iconic movie creatures to life, has died. He was 62.
Winston died at his home in Malibu surrounded by family on Sunday evening after a seven-year struggle with multiple myeloma, according to a representative from Stan Winston Studio.
Working with such directors as Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and Tim Burton in a career spanning four decades, Winston created some of the most memorable visual effects in cinematic history. He helped bring the dinosaurs from "Jurassic Park," the extraterrestrials from "Aliens, the robots from "Terminator" and even "Edward Scissorhands" to the big screen, and was a pioneer in merging real-world effects with computer imaging.
"The entertainment industry has lost a genius, and I lost one of my best friends with the death Sunday night of Stan Winston," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "Stan's work and four Oscars speak for themselves and will live on forever. What will live forever in my heart is the way that Stan loved everyone and treated each of his friends like they were family."
Winston won visual effects Oscars for 1986's "Aliens," 1992's "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" and 1993's "Jurassic Park." He also won a makeup Oscar for 1992's "Batman Returns."
Winston was nominated for his work on "Heartbeeps," "Predator," "Edward Scissorhands," "Batman Returns," "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" and "A.I."
He last worked with director Jon Favreau on "Iron Man."
"He was experienced and helped guide me while never losing his childlike enthusiasm," Favreau said in a statement. "He was the king of integrating practical effects with CGI, never losing his relevance in an ever changing industry. I am proud to have worked with him and we were looking forward to future collaborations. I knew that he was struggling, but I had no idea that he would be gone so soon. Hollywood has lost a shining star."
At the time of his death, Winston was in the process of transforming his physical makeup and effects studio into the new Winston Effects Group with a team of senior effects supervisors. Winton's most recent projects included "Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins," "G.I. Joe," "Shutter Island" and Cameron's "Avatar."
"He ran at full throttle, in both work and play, and was a man of kindness, wisdom and great humor," Cameron said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "He was a kid that never grew up, whose dreams were writ large on the screens of the world. I am proud to have been his friend, and I will miss him very deeply."
As a child growing up in Virginia, Winston enjoyed drawing, puppetry and classic horror films. After graduating from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville in 1968, Winston moved to Southern California to become an actor but instead worked behind the scenes and completed a three-year makeup apprenticeship program at Walt Disney Studios in 1972.
Winston is survived by his wife, Karen; a son, daughter, brother and four grandchildren.
By DERRIK J. LANG – 20 hours ago
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Stan Winston, the Oscar-winning special-effects maestro responsible for bringing the dinosaurs of "Jurassic Park" and other iconic movie creatures to life, has died. He was 62.
Winston died at his home in Malibu surrounded by family on Sunday evening after a seven-year struggle with multiple myeloma, according to a representative from Stan Winston Studio.
Working with such directors as Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and Tim Burton in a career spanning four decades, Winston created some of the most memorable visual effects in cinematic history. He helped bring the dinosaurs from "Jurassic Park," the extraterrestrials from "Aliens, the robots from "Terminator" and even "Edward Scissorhands" to the big screen, and was a pioneer in merging real-world effects with computer imaging.
"The entertainment industry has lost a genius, and I lost one of my best friends with the death Sunday night of Stan Winston," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "Stan's work and four Oscars speak for themselves and will live on forever. What will live forever in my heart is the way that Stan loved everyone and treated each of his friends like they were family."
Winston won visual effects Oscars for 1986's "Aliens," 1992's "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" and 1993's "Jurassic Park." He also won a makeup Oscar for 1992's "Batman Returns."
Winston was nominated for his work on "Heartbeeps," "Predator," "Edward Scissorhands," "Batman Returns," "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" and "A.I."
He last worked with director Jon Favreau on "Iron Man."
"He was experienced and helped guide me while never losing his childlike enthusiasm," Favreau said in a statement. "He was the king of integrating practical effects with CGI, never losing his relevance in an ever changing industry. I am proud to have worked with him and we were looking forward to future collaborations. I knew that he was struggling, but I had no idea that he would be gone so soon. Hollywood has lost a shining star."
At the time of his death, Winston was in the process of transforming his physical makeup and effects studio into the new Winston Effects Group with a team of senior effects supervisors. Winton's most recent projects included "Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins," "G.I. Joe," "Shutter Island" and Cameron's "Avatar."
"He ran at full throttle, in both work and play, and was a man of kindness, wisdom and great humor," Cameron said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "He was a kid that never grew up, whose dreams were writ large on the screens of the world. I am proud to have been his friend, and I will miss him very deeply."
As a child growing up in Virginia, Winston enjoyed drawing, puppetry and classic horror films. After graduating from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville in 1968, Winston moved to Southern California to become an actor but instead worked behind the scenes and completed a three-year makeup apprenticeship program at Walt Disney Studios in 1972.
Winston is survived by his wife, Karen; a son, daughter, brother and four grandchildren.
6.09.2008
Spain has the balls to do what Americans do not. Sad... really.
Link to the article
We get 4 pages of shit on Hillary's bullshit pseudo-concession speech and merely a blurb on an event on something that could, notice that I said could, inspire American truckers (like my brother), to take action.
We get 4 pages of shit on Hillary's bullshit pseudo-concession speech and merely a blurb on an event on something that could, notice that I said could, inspire American truckers (like my brother), to take action.
Spanish Truckers Begin Fuel Protest
It's a thing of beauty.
Trucks block the traffic on the Spanish border with France in Behobia, northern Spain, Monday, June 9, 2008. Tens of thousands of Spanish truckers began an indefinite strike over soaring fuel costs that could bring the country to a standstill.
Monday, June 9, 2008; 4:05 PM
MADRID, Spain -- Gas stations in Madrid and the northeastern Catalonia region began running out of fuel Monday as an indefinite strike by truckers began to bite.
The protest over soaring fuel costs began at midnight Sunday.
Antonio Onieva, president of Madrid's station owners organization, told reporters that by 5:30 p.m., 15 percent of the capital's outlets had run out of fuel. Manuel Amado, president of Catalonia's owners' federation, said 40 percent of Catalonia's 1,714 stations had sold out.
The stoppage led to lengthy lines at many gasoline stations across the country as drivers rushed to fill up.
Truckers also blocked a number of roads around the country, including some leading into the center of Barcelona and the international border with France.
"We are the ones who move the goods that this country needs to keep working. If we stop because we haven't got the money to buy fuel then the country will stop," Julio Villascusa, president of the transport association Fenadismer, told Cadena SER radio.
Fenadismer representatives and Development Ministry officials met Monday but failed to reach agreement, stretching the strike to a second day.
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Fenadismer said more than 90,000 drivers have been called to take part in the strike.
The strike was not expected to have a major effect on city food markets until later in the week.
There was almost no movement of trucks early Monday at Mercamadrid, the main wholesale food market for the Spanish capital.
Development Ministry transport chief Juan Miguel Sanchez said the government will guarantee market supplies.
Fenadismer representatives and Development Ministry officials met Monday but failed to reach agreement, stretching the strike to a second day.
A strike by fishermen across Spain also protesting fuel costs has entered a second week. News reports said smaller boats that fish closer to the coast had now joined the protest, which began May 30.
The stoppages are part of Europe-wide protests against rising prices.
6.07.2008
Spanning the globe... and the agony of defeat.
In my opinion, Jim McKay was THE voice of sports broadcasting. His voice is as clear in my head now as it was when I first began watching "Wide World of Sports" way back when.
He will be missed.
By DAVID BAUDER
The Associated Press
Saturday, June 7, 2008; 2:12 PM
NEW YORK -- Jim McKay, the venerable and eloquent sportscaster thrust into the role of telling Americans about the tragedy at the 1972 Munich Olympics, has died. He was 86.
McKay died Saturday of natural causes at his farm in Monkton, Md., said son Sean McManus, president of CBS News and Sports. The broadcaster who considered horse racing his favorite sport died only hours before Big Brown attempted to win a Triple Crown at the Belmont Stakes.
He was host of ABC's influential "Wide World of Sports" for more than 40 years, starting in 1961. The weekend series introduced viewers to all manner of strange, compelling and far-flung sports events. The show provided an international reach long before exotic backdrops became a staple of sports television.
McKay provided the famous voice-over that accompanied the opening in which viewers were reminded of the show's mission ("spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports") and what lay ahead ("the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat").
McKay _ understated, dignified and with a clear eye for detail _ covered 12 Olympics, but none more memorably than the Summer Games in Munich, Germany. He was the anchor when events turned grim with the news that Palestinian terrorists kidnapped 11 Israeli athletes. It was left to McKay to tell Americans when a commando raid to rescue the athletes ended in tragedy.
"They're all gone," McKay said.
The terse, haunting comment was replayed many times through the years when the events of Munich were chronicled.
"I had to control myself. I was full of emotion," McKay recalled. "But when you are a professional, it is important to communicate what it is like, to capture the moment."
Sports, McKay said, lost its innocence that day.
He won both a news and sports Emmy Award for his coverage of the Munich Olympics in addition to the prestigious George Polk award.
"In the long run, that's the most memorable single moment of my career," said McKay, an Emmy Award winning broadcaster who was also in the studio for the United States' "Miracle on Ice" victory over the Soviet Union. "I don't know what else would match that."
A veteran of the U.S. Navy in World War II, McKay was the first on-air television broadcaster seen in Baltimore. He worked at CBS Sports briefly, but did his most memorable work at ABC Sports when it dominated the business under leader Roone Arledge.
"He had a remarkable career and a remarkable life," McManus said. "Hardly a day goes by when someone doesn't come up to me and say how much they admired my father."
McKay was the first sportscaster to win an Emmy Award. He won 12, the last in 1988. ABC calculated that McKay traveled some 4 1/2 million miles to work events. He covered more than 100 different sports in 40 countries. In 2002, McKay received the International Olympic Committee's highest honor _ the Olympic Order.
"He was a founding father of sports television, one of the most respected commentators in the history of broadcasting and journalism," said George Bodenheimer, president of ESPN and ABC Sports. "
Added Bob Iger, president and chief executive of The Walt Disney Company: "He was a regular guy who wrote and spoke like a poet."
McKay's first television broadcast assignment was a horse race at Pimlico in 1947. It was the start of a love affair _ horse racing captivated him like nothing else.
"There are few things in sport as exciting or beautiful as two strong thoroughbreds, neck and neck, charging toward the finish," he once said.
Racecaller Dave Johnson worked with McKay during horse racing telecasts.
"How many Saturday afternoons did we spend with Jim McKay?" he said from Belmont Park. "Maybe more than with family members. Never a cross word out of him, such a decent human being."
Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports and Olympics, worked with McKay for six years at ABC Sports.
"He was truly the most respected and admired sportscaster of his generation and defined how the stories of sports can and should be covered," he said. "While we all know what an absolute titan he was in his chosen field, I will always remember him as an extraordinary human being guided by a strong moral compass."
U.S. Olympic Committee chairman Peter Ueberroth said McKay set a standard for sports journalism.
"Jim is synonymous with the Olympic Games." he said. "As host of ABC's Olympic coverage, he brought into our homes the triumphs and struggles of athletes from around the world."
The New York Yankees paused to remember McKay before the national anthem Saturday, and fans at a packed Yankee Stadium responded with applause.
McKay left his mark on countless colleagues. Bob Costas called McKay a "singular broadcaster."
"He brought a reporter's eye, a literate touch, and above all a personal humanity to every assignment," Costas said. "He had a combination of qualities seldom seen in the history of the medium, not just sports."
Al Michaels described McKay as the "personification of class and style."
"His enthusiasm permeated every event he covered and thus always made it far more interesting," he said. "I always thought of him as a favorite teacher."
Mike Tirico, covering the NBA finals in Boston for ABC and ESPN, worked four British Opens with McKay. He said McKay held a special place in his household while growing up in Queens in New York.
"Dinner wasn't served on Saturday night until 'Wide World of Sports' was over," Tirico said.
In addition to McManus, McKay's survivors include his wife, Margaret, and his daughter, Mary.
He will be missed.
By DAVID BAUDER
The Associated Press
Saturday, June 7, 2008; 2:12 PM
NEW YORK -- Jim McKay, the venerable and eloquent sportscaster thrust into the role of telling Americans about the tragedy at the 1972 Munich Olympics, has died. He was 86.
McKay died Saturday of natural causes at his farm in Monkton, Md., said son Sean McManus, president of CBS News and Sports. The broadcaster who considered horse racing his favorite sport died only hours before Big Brown attempted to win a Triple Crown at the Belmont Stakes.
He was host of ABC's influential "Wide World of Sports" for more than 40 years, starting in 1961. The weekend series introduced viewers to all manner of strange, compelling and far-flung sports events. The show provided an international reach long before exotic backdrops became a staple of sports television.
McKay provided the famous voice-over that accompanied the opening in which viewers were reminded of the show's mission ("spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports") and what lay ahead ("the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat").
McKay _ understated, dignified and with a clear eye for detail _ covered 12 Olympics, but none more memorably than the Summer Games in Munich, Germany. He was the anchor when events turned grim with the news that Palestinian terrorists kidnapped 11 Israeli athletes. It was left to McKay to tell Americans when a commando raid to rescue the athletes ended in tragedy.
"They're all gone," McKay said.
The terse, haunting comment was replayed many times through the years when the events of Munich were chronicled.
"I had to control myself. I was full of emotion," McKay recalled. "But when you are a professional, it is important to communicate what it is like, to capture the moment."
Sports, McKay said, lost its innocence that day.
He won both a news and sports Emmy Award for his coverage of the Munich Olympics in addition to the prestigious George Polk award.
"In the long run, that's the most memorable single moment of my career," said McKay, an Emmy Award winning broadcaster who was also in the studio for the United States' "Miracle on Ice" victory over the Soviet Union. "I don't know what else would match that."
A veteran of the U.S. Navy in World War II, McKay was the first on-air television broadcaster seen in Baltimore. He worked at CBS Sports briefly, but did his most memorable work at ABC Sports when it dominated the business under leader Roone Arledge.
"He had a remarkable career and a remarkable life," McManus said. "Hardly a day goes by when someone doesn't come up to me and say how much they admired my father."
McKay was the first sportscaster to win an Emmy Award. He won 12, the last in 1988. ABC calculated that McKay traveled some 4 1/2 million miles to work events. He covered more than 100 different sports in 40 countries. In 2002, McKay received the International Olympic Committee's highest honor _ the Olympic Order.
"He was a founding father of sports television, one of the most respected commentators in the history of broadcasting and journalism," said George Bodenheimer, president of ESPN and ABC Sports. "
Added Bob Iger, president and chief executive of The Walt Disney Company: "He was a regular guy who wrote and spoke like a poet."
McKay's first television broadcast assignment was a horse race at Pimlico in 1947. It was the start of a love affair _ horse racing captivated him like nothing else.
"There are few things in sport as exciting or beautiful as two strong thoroughbreds, neck and neck, charging toward the finish," he once said.
Racecaller Dave Johnson worked with McKay during horse racing telecasts.
"How many Saturday afternoons did we spend with Jim McKay?" he said from Belmont Park. "Maybe more than with family members. Never a cross word out of him, such a decent human being."
Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports and Olympics, worked with McKay for six years at ABC Sports.
"He was truly the most respected and admired sportscaster of his generation and defined how the stories of sports can and should be covered," he said. "While we all know what an absolute titan he was in his chosen field, I will always remember him as an extraordinary human being guided by a strong moral compass."
U.S. Olympic Committee chairman Peter Ueberroth said McKay set a standard for sports journalism.
"Jim is synonymous with the Olympic Games." he said. "As host of ABC's Olympic coverage, he brought into our homes the triumphs and struggles of athletes from around the world."
The New York Yankees paused to remember McKay before the national anthem Saturday, and fans at a packed Yankee Stadium responded with applause.
McKay left his mark on countless colleagues. Bob Costas called McKay a "singular broadcaster."
"He brought a reporter's eye, a literate touch, and above all a personal humanity to every assignment," Costas said. "He had a combination of qualities seldom seen in the history of the medium, not just sports."
Al Michaels described McKay as the "personification of class and style."
"His enthusiasm permeated every event he covered and thus always made it far more interesting," he said. "I always thought of him as a favorite teacher."
Mike Tirico, covering the NBA finals in Boston for ABC and ESPN, worked four British Opens with McKay. He said McKay held a special place in his household while growing up in Queens in New York.
"Dinner wasn't served on Saturday night until 'Wide World of Sports' was over," Tirico said.
In addition to McManus, McKay's survivors include his wife, Margaret, and his daughter, Mary.
5.29.2008
Harvey Korman, dead at 81... Damn.
The Associated Press
Thursday, May 29, 2008; 8:14 PM
LOS ANGELES -- Harvey Korman, the tall, versatile comedian who won four Emmys for his outrageously funny contributions to "The Carol Burnett Show" and played a conniving politician to hilarious effect in "Blazing Saddles," died Thursday. He was 81.
Korman died at UCLA Medical Center after suffering complications from the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm four months ago, his family said. He had undergone several major operations.
"He was a brilliant comedian and a brilliant father," daughter Kate Korman said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "He had a very good sense of humor in real life. "
A natural second banana, Korman gained attention on "The Danny Kaye Show," appearing in skits with the star. He joined the show in its second season in 1964 and continued until it was canceled in 1967. That same year he became a cast member in the first season of "The Carol Burnett Show."
Burnett and Korman developed into the perfect pair with their burlesques of classic movies such as "Gone With the Wind" and soap operas like "As the World Turns" (their version was called "As the Stomach Turns").
Another recurring skit featured them as "Ed and Eunice," a staid married couple who were constantly at odds with the wife's mother (a young Vickie Lawrence in a gray wig). In "Old Folks at Home," they were a combative married couple bedeviled by Lawrence as Burnett's troublesome young sister.
Korman revealed the secret to the long-running show's success in a 2005 interview: "We were an ensemble, and Carol had the most incredible attitude. I've never worked with a star of that magnitude who was willing to give so much away."
Burnett was devastated by Korman's death, said her assistant, Angie Horejsi.
"She loved Harvey very much," Horejsi said.
After 10 successful seasons, Korman left Burnett's show in 1977 for his own series. Dick Van Dyke took his place, but the chemistry was lacking and the Burnett show was canceled two years later. "The Harvey Korman Show" also failed, as did other series starring the actor.
"It takes a certain type of person to be a television star," he said in that 2005 interview. "I didn't have whatever that is. I come across as kind of snobbish and maybe a little too bright. ... Give me something bizarre to play or put me in a dress and I'm fine."
His most memorable film role was as the outlandish Hedley Lamarr (who was endlessly exasperated when people called him Hedy) in Mel Brooks' 1974 Western satire, "Blazing Saddles."
"A world without Harvey Korman _ it's a more serious world," Brooks told the AP on Thursday. "It was very dangerous for me to work with him because if our eyes met we'd crash to floor in comic ecstasy. It was comedy heaven to make Harvey Korman laugh."
He also appeared in the Brooks comedies "High Anxiety," "The History of the World Part I" and "Dracula: Dead and Loving It," as well as two "Pink Panther" moves, "Trail of the Pink Panther" in 1982 and "Curse of the Pink Panther" in 1983.
Korman's other films included "Gypsy," "Huckleberry Finn" (as the King), "Herbie Goes Bananas" and "Bud and Lou" (as legendary straightman Bud Abbott to Buddy Hackett's Lou Costello). He also provided the voice of Dictabird in the 1994 live-action feature "The Flintstones."
In television, Korman guest-starred in dozens of series including "The Donna Reed Show," "Dr. Kildare," "Perry Mason," "The Wild Wild West," "The Muppet Show," "The Love Boat," "The Roseanne Show" and "Burke's Law."
In their '70s, he and Tim Conway, one of his Burnett show co-stars, toured the country with their show "Tim Conway and Harvey Korman: Together Again." They did 120 shows a year, sometimes as many as six or eight in a weekend.
Korman had an operation in late January on a non-cancerous brain tumor and pulled through "with flying colors," Kate Korman said. Less than a day after coming home, he was re-admitted because of the ruptured aneurysm and was given a few hours to live. But he survived for another four months.
"He fought until the very end. He didn't want to die. He fought for months and months," said Kate Korman.
Harvey Herschel Korman was born Feb. 15, 1927, in Chicago. He left college for service in the U.S. Navy, resuming his studies afterward at the Goodman School of Drama at the Chicago Art Institute. After four years, he decided to try New York.
"For the next 13 years I tried to get on Broadway, on off-Broadway, under or beside Broadway," he told a reporter in 1971.
He had no luck and had to support himself as a restaurant cashier. Finally, in desperation, he and a friend formed a nightclub comedy act.
"We were fired our first night in a club, between the first and second shows," he recalled.
After returning to Chicago, Korman decided to try Hollywood, reasoning that "at least I'd feel warm and comfortable while I failed."
For three years he sold cars and worked as a doorman at a movie theater. Then he landed the job with Kaye.
In 1960 Korman married Donna Elhart and they had two children, Maria and Christopher. They divorced in 1977. Two more children, Katherine and Laura, were born of his 1982 marriage to Deborah Fritz.
In addition to his daughter Kate, he is survived by his wife and the three other children.
Thursday, May 29, 2008; 8:14 PM
LOS ANGELES -- Harvey Korman, the tall, versatile comedian who won four Emmys for his outrageously funny contributions to "The Carol Burnett Show" and played a conniving politician to hilarious effect in "Blazing Saddles," died Thursday. He was 81.
Korman died at UCLA Medical Center after suffering complications from the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm four months ago, his family said. He had undergone several major operations.
"He was a brilliant comedian and a brilliant father," daughter Kate Korman said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "He had a very good sense of humor in real life. "
A natural second banana, Korman gained attention on "The Danny Kaye Show," appearing in skits with the star. He joined the show in its second season in 1964 and continued until it was canceled in 1967. That same year he became a cast member in the first season of "The Carol Burnett Show."
Burnett and Korman developed into the perfect pair with their burlesques of classic movies such as "Gone With the Wind" and soap operas like "As the World Turns" (their version was called "As the Stomach Turns").
Another recurring skit featured them as "Ed and Eunice," a staid married couple who were constantly at odds with the wife's mother (a young Vickie Lawrence in a gray wig). In "Old Folks at Home," they were a combative married couple bedeviled by Lawrence as Burnett's troublesome young sister.
Korman revealed the secret to the long-running show's success in a 2005 interview: "We were an ensemble, and Carol had the most incredible attitude. I've never worked with a star of that magnitude who was willing to give so much away."
Burnett was devastated by Korman's death, said her assistant, Angie Horejsi.
"She loved Harvey very much," Horejsi said.
After 10 successful seasons, Korman left Burnett's show in 1977 for his own series. Dick Van Dyke took his place, but the chemistry was lacking and the Burnett show was canceled two years later. "The Harvey Korman Show" also failed, as did other series starring the actor.
"It takes a certain type of person to be a television star," he said in that 2005 interview. "I didn't have whatever that is. I come across as kind of snobbish and maybe a little too bright. ... Give me something bizarre to play or put me in a dress and I'm fine."
His most memorable film role was as the outlandish Hedley Lamarr (who was endlessly exasperated when people called him Hedy) in Mel Brooks' 1974 Western satire, "Blazing Saddles."
"A world without Harvey Korman _ it's a more serious world," Brooks told the AP on Thursday. "It was very dangerous for me to work with him because if our eyes met we'd crash to floor in comic ecstasy. It was comedy heaven to make Harvey Korman laugh."
He also appeared in the Brooks comedies "High Anxiety," "The History of the World Part I" and "Dracula: Dead and Loving It," as well as two "Pink Panther" moves, "Trail of the Pink Panther" in 1982 and "Curse of the Pink Panther" in 1983.
Korman's other films included "Gypsy," "Huckleberry Finn" (as the King), "Herbie Goes Bananas" and "Bud and Lou" (as legendary straightman Bud Abbott to Buddy Hackett's Lou Costello). He also provided the voice of Dictabird in the 1994 live-action feature "The Flintstones."
In television, Korman guest-starred in dozens of series including "The Donna Reed Show," "Dr. Kildare," "Perry Mason," "The Wild Wild West," "The Muppet Show," "The Love Boat," "The Roseanne Show" and "Burke's Law."
In their '70s, he and Tim Conway, one of his Burnett show co-stars, toured the country with their show "Tim Conway and Harvey Korman: Together Again." They did 120 shows a year, sometimes as many as six or eight in a weekend.
Korman had an operation in late January on a non-cancerous brain tumor and pulled through "with flying colors," Kate Korman said. Less than a day after coming home, he was re-admitted because of the ruptured aneurysm and was given a few hours to live. But he survived for another four months.
"He fought until the very end. He didn't want to die. He fought for months and months," said Kate Korman.
Harvey Herschel Korman was born Feb. 15, 1927, in Chicago. He left college for service in the U.S. Navy, resuming his studies afterward at the Goodman School of Drama at the Chicago Art Institute. After four years, he decided to try New York.
"For the next 13 years I tried to get on Broadway, on off-Broadway, under or beside Broadway," he told a reporter in 1971.
He had no luck and had to support himself as a restaurant cashier. Finally, in desperation, he and a friend formed a nightclub comedy act.
"We were fired our first night in a club, between the first and second shows," he recalled.
After returning to Chicago, Korman decided to try Hollywood, reasoning that "at least I'd feel warm and comfortable while I failed."
For three years he sold cars and worked as a doorman at a movie theater. Then he landed the job with Kaye.
In 1960 Korman married Donna Elhart and they had two children, Maria and Christopher. They divorced in 1977. Two more children, Katherine and Laura, were born of his 1982 marriage to Deborah Fritz.
In addition to his daughter Kate, he is survived by his wife and the three other children.
5.28.2008
Remember the Declaration of Independence? Apparently not.
The Bush administration has arrogated powers to itself that the British people even refused to grant King George III at the time of the Revolutionary War, an eminent political scientist says.
“No executive in the history of the Anglo-American world since the Civil War in England in the 17th century has laid claim to such broad power,” said David Adler, a prolific author of articles on the U.S. Constitution. “George Bush has exceeded the claims of Oliver Cromwell who anointed himself Lord Protector of England.”
Adler, a professor of political science at Idaho State University at Pocatello, is the author of “The Constitution and the Termination of Treaties”(Taylor & Francis), among other books, and some 100 scholarly articles in his field. Adler made his comments comparing the powers of President Bush and King George III at a conference on “Presidential Power in America” at the Massachusetts School of Law, Andover, April 26th.
Adler said, Bush has “claimed the authority to suspend the Geneva Convention, to terminate treaties, to seize American citizens from the streets to detain them indefinitely without benefit of legal counseling, without benefit of judicial review. He has ordered a domestic surveillance program which violates the statutory law of the United States as well as the Fourth Amendment.”
Adler said the authors of the U.S. Constitution wrote that the president “shall take care to faithfully execute the laws of the land” because “the king of England possessed a suspending power” to set aside laws with which he disagreed, “the very same kind of power that the Bush Administration has claimed.”
Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, Adler said, repeatedly referred to the President’s “override” authority, “which effectively meant that the Bush Administration was claiming on behalf of President Bush a power that the English people themselves had rejected by the time of the framing of the Constitution.”
Adler said the Framers sought an “Administrator in Chief” that would execute the will of Congress and the Framers understood that the President, as Commander-in-Chief “was subordinate to Congress.” The very C-in-C concept, the historian said, derived from the British, who conferred it on one of their battlefield commanders in a war on Scotland in 1639 and it “did not carry with it the power over war and peace” or “authority to conduct foreign policy or to formulate foreign policy.”
That the C-in-C was subordinate to the will of Congress was demonstrated in the Revolutionary War when George Washington, granted that title by Congress, “was ordered punctually to respond to instructions and directions by Congress and the dutiful Washington did that,” Adler said.
Adler said that John Yoo, formerly of the Office of Legal Counsel, wrote in 2003 that the President as C-in-C could authorize the CIA or other intelligence agencies to resort to torture to extract information from suspects based on his authority. However, Adler said, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1804 in Little vs. Barreme affirmed the President is duty-bound to obey statutory instructions and reaffirmed opinion two years later in United States vs. Smith.
“In these last eight years,” Adler said, “we have seen presidential powers soar beyond the confines of the Constitution. We have understood that his presidency bears no resemblance to the Office created by the Framers… This is the time for us to demand a return to the constitutional presidency. If we don’t, we will have only ourselves to blame as we go marching into the next war as we witness even greater claims of presidential power.”
“No executive in the history of the Anglo-American world since the Civil War in England in the 17th century has laid claim to such broad power,” said David Adler, a prolific author of articles on the U.S. Constitution. “George Bush has exceeded the claims of Oliver Cromwell who anointed himself Lord Protector of England.”
Adler, a professor of political science at Idaho State University at Pocatello, is the author of “The Constitution and the Termination of Treaties”(Taylor & Francis), among other books, and some 100 scholarly articles in his field. Adler made his comments comparing the powers of President Bush and King George III at a conference on “Presidential Power in America” at the Massachusetts School of Law, Andover, April 26th.
Adler said, Bush has “claimed the authority to suspend the Geneva Convention, to terminate treaties, to seize American citizens from the streets to detain them indefinitely without benefit of legal counseling, without benefit of judicial review. He has ordered a domestic surveillance program which violates the statutory law of the United States as well as the Fourth Amendment.”
Adler said the authors of the U.S. Constitution wrote that the president “shall take care to faithfully execute the laws of the land” because “the king of England possessed a suspending power” to set aside laws with which he disagreed, “the very same kind of power that the Bush Administration has claimed.”
Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, Adler said, repeatedly referred to the President’s “override” authority, “which effectively meant that the Bush Administration was claiming on behalf of President Bush a power that the English people themselves had rejected by the time of the framing of the Constitution.”
Adler said the Framers sought an “Administrator in Chief” that would execute the will of Congress and the Framers understood that the President, as Commander-in-Chief “was subordinate to Congress.” The very C-in-C concept, the historian said, derived from the British, who conferred it on one of their battlefield commanders in a war on Scotland in 1639 and it “did not carry with it the power over war and peace” or “authority to conduct foreign policy or to formulate foreign policy.”
That the C-in-C was subordinate to the will of Congress was demonstrated in the Revolutionary War when George Washington, granted that title by Congress, “was ordered punctually to respond to instructions and directions by Congress and the dutiful Washington did that,” Adler said.
Adler said that John Yoo, formerly of the Office of Legal Counsel, wrote in 2003 that the President as C-in-C could authorize the CIA or other intelligence agencies to resort to torture to extract information from suspects based on his authority. However, Adler said, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1804 in Little vs. Barreme affirmed the President is duty-bound to obey statutory instructions and reaffirmed opinion two years later in United States vs. Smith.
“In these last eight years,” Adler said, “we have seen presidential powers soar beyond the confines of the Constitution. We have understood that his presidency bears no resemblance to the Office created by the Framers… This is the time for us to demand a return to the constitutional presidency. If we don’t, we will have only ourselves to blame as we go marching into the next war as we witness even greater claims of presidential power.”
You know what? You didn't have to accept it. But you did.
We chose not to contribute to the recession at my house. We didn't accept the bullshit stimulus check that was created out of thin air by the Fed. Didn't you people even stop for a second and wonder where that money was going to come from? I can only hope that you stocked up on food.
5.27.2008
Rest easy, Sydney Pollack
Sydney Pollack, 73, a director and producer of popular Hollywood movies for nearly four decades, including the comedy "Tootsie," and who won Academy Awards for "Out of Africa," died May 26 at his home in Los Angeles. He had cancer.
Mr. Pollack, who called himself "Mr. Mainstream," was wildly successful at moviemaking with mass appeal but drew mixed reviews during a prolific career.
His best-remembered work could be provocative, timely and sensitively crafted: "Tootsie" (1982) was hilarious and underscored aspects of the feminist struggle; the taut spy story "Three Days of the Condor" (1975) captured Nixon-era paranoia; "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" (1969), though set at a Depression-era dance marathon, resonated with young ticket buyers who saw the rigged contest as a reflection of modern society.
Mr. Pollack's movies often emphasized the loner at conflict with society, whether a fur trapper in the wilderness in "Jeremiah Johnson" (1972) or a cowboy who tries to recover his soul after selling out in "The Electric Horseman" (1979) with Robert Redford and Jane Fonda.
He saw Redford as his ideal collaborator and cast him in seven movies, from "This Property Is Condemned" (1966) to "Havana" (1990), because of what he considered his "very internal, rather understated" acting style as well as a dark undercurrent he found appealing beneath Redford's "golden boy" exterior.
Redford returned the compliment, telling Film Comment magazine, "Sydney's the one director that seems to read me best. . . . Basically he's a romantic."
Audiences embraced two of Mr. Pollack's best-known romance stories: "The Way We Were" (1973) with Redford as a WASP writer and Barbra Streisand as a Jewish political activist during the Hollywood blacklist; and "Out of Africa" (1985), a $30 million production based on Danish author Isak Dinesen's years in Kenya and her complicated affair with a free-spirited and handsome pilot.
The latter film, which earned Oscars for Mr. Pollack for directing and producing, starred Meryl Streep and Redford against a backdrop likened by critics to a National Geographic spread.
Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader complimented Mr. Pollack's craftsmanship and taste, saying that "although the denouement is a bit overextended, he never yields to facile, insistent sentimentality -- his effects are honestly won."
Many others found both films saccharine and ponderous, and Mr. Pollack spoke of his own "tendency by nature to be heavy-handed," which he attributed to his early training as a television director "where you have to grab the audience in the first 10 minutes."
Few disputed that Mr. Pollack was a master of pulling terrific performances from actors. Those who won Oscars under his direction included Gig Young as a cynical dance-marathon announcer in "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" and Jessica Lange as an emotionally vulnerable actress in "Tootsie."
But even in his less-regarded works, many actors earned Oscar nominations, including Paul Newman and Melinda Dillon in the newspaper libel drama "Absence of Malice" (1981) and Holly Hunter in "The Firm" (1993), based on the John Grisham legal thriller.
Mr. Pollack's skill with performers has been credited to his start in show business as a theater and television actor in the 1950s. With his glasses and curly hair, he became a recognizable presence over the years, thanks to memorable cameo appearances in films and on television.
As a young man, he had been a student of Sanford Meisner, who taught the acting technique known as "the Method," which uses the performer's emotional memory to add realistic touches to a role.
"He was the most influential person in my life in terms of my thinking about drama, about life itself," Mr. Pollack said of Meisner in 1993.
"Everything I do is from the point of view of acting," he added. "I think of cinematography from an actor's point of view. My scripts are from an actor's point of view. Once you find the spine of a part, it becomes a wonderful mold for the whole movie. You measure every single thing against it."
In later years, Mr. Pollack had a significant impact as a producer by using his reputation for commercial success to support other directors, some of them untested. Last year, he backed screenwriter and first-time director Tony Gilroy on the critically praised "Michael Clayton," a thriller with George Clooney.
He also teamed with writer-producer-director Anthony Minghella to produce such films as "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (1999), "Iris" (2001), "The Quiet American" (2002) and "Cold Mountain" (2003).
Movie critic and historian David Sterritt said Mr. Pollack's "main importance was as a kind of hyphenate -- someone who produced, directed and sometimes acted."
"He was one of the consummate professionals of the last 40 years or so in Hollywood," Sterritt said. "On his own films, or those he supported as a producer or actor, he reached a high level of achievement, if not always a high level of art."
Sydney Pollack was born July 1, 1934, in Lafayette, Ind., and raised in South Bend.
He once described himself as an "unpopular and rather sad kid" while growing up in Indiana and made awkward attempts to fit in socially by playing sports. He once took up boxing but, with his poor vision, "didn't see the punches until they were too close."
Movies enchanted him, but he vividly recalled that his father, a boxer-turned-pharmacist, discouraged his ambitions as an actor as an unmanly trade. Sydney Pollack's two siblings went into entertainment: Bernie became a costume designer, and Sharon became a dance instructor.
After high school, Sydney Pollack went to New York in 1954 and studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse under Meisner, who was so impressed with Mr. Pollack that he made him his assistant. Mr. Pollack's students included Robert Duvall, Rip Torn, Brenda Vaccaro and Claire Griswold, whom he married in 1958.
In addition to his wife, of Los Angeles, survivors include two daughters, Rebecca Pollack and Rachel Pollack, both of Los Angeles; a brother; and six grandchildren. A son, Steven Pollack, died in a small-plane crash in 1993.
In the 1950s, Sydney Pollack began making regular appearances on TV anthology programs such as "Playhouse 90." Director John Frankenheimer brought Mr. Pollack to Hollywood in 1961 to work as a dialogue coach on the juvenile delinquency drama "The Young Savages."
Mr. Pollack said he bonded with the film's star, Burt Lancaster, over the fact that neither had been to college. Lancaster smoothed the way for Mr. Pollack's entry into Hollywood by urging powerful agent and mogul Lew Wasserman to hire him as a director.
He said Lancaster told Wasserman: "He can't be worse than some of those bums you got workin' for you now."
Mr. Pollack directed many TV series and won the 1966 best directing Emmy Award for an episode of "Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre." He also took occasional acting jobs and made his movie debut in the supporting role of a sergeant in "War Hunt" (1962), a drama set during the Korean War that featured the largely unknown Redford.
In 1965, Mr. Pollack won his first movie directing credit for "The Slender Thread," a suicide help-line drama with Sidney Poitier and Anne Bancroft. Mr. Pollock later dismissed the melodramatic film as "a dreadful picture," and he was not contradicted by reviewers.
He also bombed critically with his next three films, including "This Property is Condemned" (1966), based on a Tennessee Williams one-act play; the satiric western "The Scalphunters" (1968), starring Lancaster; and the anti-war drama "Castle Keep" (1969), based on a William Eastlake novel.
He began his first long run of hits with "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?," a grim film with Jane Fonda. The movie proved an unexpected commercial success and brought Pollack an Oscar nomination for directing and launched him to the front rank of directors.
Most reviewers found "Tootsie," with Dustin Hoffman as an out-of-work actor masquerading as a woman to get a job on a TV soap opera, probably his finest achievement.
Critic Pauline Kael wrote that Mr. Pollack seemed to direct with less self-consciousness, especially in opening scenes showing what she called "a crackling, rapid-fire presentation of the hopes versus the realities of out-of-work actors' lives."
Mr. Pollack's most notable acting role may have been as Hoffman's long-suffering agent in "Tootsie," a part he was said to have taken only reluctantly after Hoffman, in female character, hounded him with notes that read, "Please be my agent! Love, Dorothy."
He had key supporting roles in Woody Allen's "Husbands and Wives" (1992) as an adulterer, Robert Altman's "The Player" (1992) as a Hollywood lawyer and Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" (1999) as a creepy doctor, parts he took because he was curious about how other famous directors worked.
He also had a stint as a wife-killing oncologist on the HBO mob drama "The Sopranos."
Directing and production credits included "The Yakuza" (1974) with Robert Mitchum as an American private eye in Japan; "Bobby Deerfield (1977) with Al Pacino as a race car driver who falls for a woman with cancer, Marthe Keller; "Random Hearts" (1999), a romantic drama with Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas falling in love after their spouses die in a plane crash; and "The Interpreter" (2005), a thriller with Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn set at the United Nations.
In 2005, he made his first documentary, "Sketches of Frank Gehry," after meeting the celebrated architect at a Los Angeles party.
Mr. Pollack told the Christian Science Monitor that he hoped his own films, made for broad audiences, would follow the tradition of many movies of the 1930s and 1940s dismissed as "standard studio fare" but are now seen as great art.
He added that he was motivated by two factors: "First, I have to satisfy the needs of popular art. Second, I don't want to be intellectually insulting. I want to raise issues and questions that are sufficiently intriguing -- so people I care about will like them, too."
Mr. Pollack, who called himself "Mr. Mainstream," was wildly successful at moviemaking with mass appeal but drew mixed reviews during a prolific career.
His best-remembered work could be provocative, timely and sensitively crafted: "Tootsie" (1982) was hilarious and underscored aspects of the feminist struggle; the taut spy story "Three Days of the Condor" (1975) captured Nixon-era paranoia; "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" (1969), though set at a Depression-era dance marathon, resonated with young ticket buyers who saw the rigged contest as a reflection of modern society.
Mr. Pollack's movies often emphasized the loner at conflict with society, whether a fur trapper in the wilderness in "Jeremiah Johnson" (1972) or a cowboy who tries to recover his soul after selling out in "The Electric Horseman" (1979) with Robert Redford and Jane Fonda.
He saw Redford as his ideal collaborator and cast him in seven movies, from "This Property Is Condemned" (1966) to "Havana" (1990), because of what he considered his "very internal, rather understated" acting style as well as a dark undercurrent he found appealing beneath Redford's "golden boy" exterior.
Redford returned the compliment, telling Film Comment magazine, "Sydney's the one director that seems to read me best. . . . Basically he's a romantic."
Audiences embraced two of Mr. Pollack's best-known romance stories: "The Way We Were" (1973) with Redford as a WASP writer and Barbra Streisand as a Jewish political activist during the Hollywood blacklist; and "Out of Africa" (1985), a $30 million production based on Danish author Isak Dinesen's years in Kenya and her complicated affair with a free-spirited and handsome pilot.
The latter film, which earned Oscars for Mr. Pollack for directing and producing, starred Meryl Streep and Redford against a backdrop likened by critics to a National Geographic spread.
Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader complimented Mr. Pollack's craftsmanship and taste, saying that "although the denouement is a bit overextended, he never yields to facile, insistent sentimentality -- his effects are honestly won."
Many others found both films saccharine and ponderous, and Mr. Pollack spoke of his own "tendency by nature to be heavy-handed," which he attributed to his early training as a television director "where you have to grab the audience in the first 10 minutes."
Few disputed that Mr. Pollack was a master of pulling terrific performances from actors. Those who won Oscars under his direction included Gig Young as a cynical dance-marathon announcer in "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" and Jessica Lange as an emotionally vulnerable actress in "Tootsie."
But even in his less-regarded works, many actors earned Oscar nominations, including Paul Newman and Melinda Dillon in the newspaper libel drama "Absence of Malice" (1981) and Holly Hunter in "The Firm" (1993), based on the John Grisham legal thriller.
Mr. Pollack's skill with performers has been credited to his start in show business as a theater and television actor in the 1950s. With his glasses and curly hair, he became a recognizable presence over the years, thanks to memorable cameo appearances in films and on television.
As a young man, he had been a student of Sanford Meisner, who taught the acting technique known as "the Method," which uses the performer's emotional memory to add realistic touches to a role.
"He was the most influential person in my life in terms of my thinking about drama, about life itself," Mr. Pollack said of Meisner in 1993.
"Everything I do is from the point of view of acting," he added. "I think of cinematography from an actor's point of view. My scripts are from an actor's point of view. Once you find the spine of a part, it becomes a wonderful mold for the whole movie. You measure every single thing against it."
In later years, Mr. Pollack had a significant impact as a producer by using his reputation for commercial success to support other directors, some of them untested. Last year, he backed screenwriter and first-time director Tony Gilroy on the critically praised "Michael Clayton," a thriller with George Clooney.
He also teamed with writer-producer-director Anthony Minghella to produce such films as "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (1999), "Iris" (2001), "The Quiet American" (2002) and "Cold Mountain" (2003).
Movie critic and historian David Sterritt said Mr. Pollack's "main importance was as a kind of hyphenate -- someone who produced, directed and sometimes acted."
"He was one of the consummate professionals of the last 40 years or so in Hollywood," Sterritt said. "On his own films, or those he supported as a producer or actor, he reached a high level of achievement, if not always a high level of art."
Sydney Pollack was born July 1, 1934, in Lafayette, Ind., and raised in South Bend.
He once described himself as an "unpopular and rather sad kid" while growing up in Indiana and made awkward attempts to fit in socially by playing sports. He once took up boxing but, with his poor vision, "didn't see the punches until they were too close."
Movies enchanted him, but he vividly recalled that his father, a boxer-turned-pharmacist, discouraged his ambitions as an actor as an unmanly trade. Sydney Pollack's two siblings went into entertainment: Bernie became a costume designer, and Sharon became a dance instructor.
After high school, Sydney Pollack went to New York in 1954 and studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse under Meisner, who was so impressed with Mr. Pollack that he made him his assistant. Mr. Pollack's students included Robert Duvall, Rip Torn, Brenda Vaccaro and Claire Griswold, whom he married in 1958.
In addition to his wife, of Los Angeles, survivors include two daughters, Rebecca Pollack and Rachel Pollack, both of Los Angeles; a brother; and six grandchildren. A son, Steven Pollack, died in a small-plane crash in 1993.
In the 1950s, Sydney Pollack began making regular appearances on TV anthology programs such as "Playhouse 90." Director John Frankenheimer brought Mr. Pollack to Hollywood in 1961 to work as a dialogue coach on the juvenile delinquency drama "The Young Savages."
Mr. Pollack said he bonded with the film's star, Burt Lancaster, over the fact that neither had been to college. Lancaster smoothed the way for Mr. Pollack's entry into Hollywood by urging powerful agent and mogul Lew Wasserman to hire him as a director.
He said Lancaster told Wasserman: "He can't be worse than some of those bums you got workin' for you now."
Mr. Pollack directed many TV series and won the 1966 best directing Emmy Award for an episode of "Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre." He also took occasional acting jobs and made his movie debut in the supporting role of a sergeant in "War Hunt" (1962), a drama set during the Korean War that featured the largely unknown Redford.
In 1965, Mr. Pollack won his first movie directing credit for "The Slender Thread," a suicide help-line drama with Sidney Poitier and Anne Bancroft. Mr. Pollock later dismissed the melodramatic film as "a dreadful picture," and he was not contradicted by reviewers.
He also bombed critically with his next three films, including "This Property is Condemned" (1966), based on a Tennessee Williams one-act play; the satiric western "The Scalphunters" (1968), starring Lancaster; and the anti-war drama "Castle Keep" (1969), based on a William Eastlake novel.
He began his first long run of hits with "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?," a grim film with Jane Fonda. The movie proved an unexpected commercial success and brought Pollack an Oscar nomination for directing and launched him to the front rank of directors.
Most reviewers found "Tootsie," with Dustin Hoffman as an out-of-work actor masquerading as a woman to get a job on a TV soap opera, probably his finest achievement.
Critic Pauline Kael wrote that Mr. Pollack seemed to direct with less self-consciousness, especially in opening scenes showing what she called "a crackling, rapid-fire presentation of the hopes versus the realities of out-of-work actors' lives."
Mr. Pollack's most notable acting role may have been as Hoffman's long-suffering agent in "Tootsie," a part he was said to have taken only reluctantly after Hoffman, in female character, hounded him with notes that read, "Please be my agent! Love, Dorothy."
He had key supporting roles in Woody Allen's "Husbands and Wives" (1992) as an adulterer, Robert Altman's "The Player" (1992) as a Hollywood lawyer and Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" (1999) as a creepy doctor, parts he took because he was curious about how other famous directors worked.
He also had a stint as a wife-killing oncologist on the HBO mob drama "The Sopranos."
Directing and production credits included "The Yakuza" (1974) with Robert Mitchum as an American private eye in Japan; "Bobby Deerfield (1977) with Al Pacino as a race car driver who falls for a woman with cancer, Marthe Keller; "Random Hearts" (1999), a romantic drama with Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas falling in love after their spouses die in a plane crash; and "The Interpreter" (2005), a thriller with Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn set at the United Nations.
In 2005, he made his first documentary, "Sketches of Frank Gehry," after meeting the celebrated architect at a Los Angeles party.
Mr. Pollack told the Christian Science Monitor that he hoped his own films, made for broad audiences, would follow the tradition of many movies of the 1930s and 1940s dismissed as "standard studio fare" but are now seen as great art.
He added that he was motivated by two factors: "First, I have to satisfy the needs of popular art. Second, I don't want to be intellectually insulting. I want to raise issues and questions that are sufficiently intriguing -- so people I care about will like them, too."
5.26.2008
5.21.2008
An unending appreciation of dungarees.
135 years ago today, Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis received a patent for work pants reinforced with metal rivets.
Thanks guys.
Thanks guys.
5.20.2008
Hey Kentucky!
You're going to vote for Clinton because you're not smart enough to vote for Ron Paul and too fucking racist and bigoted to vote for Obama... Shades of WV. You deserve your fate when these fucking neo-socialist fucks gather a Democratic Congress and White House and completely repeal the 2nd Amendment among other issues.
I better never hear any of you fucks say anything derogatory or negative about WV again.
I better never hear any of you fucks say anything derogatory or negative about WV again.
5.18.2008
Tomorrow, or whenever you're failing yourself and you say you can't do "it"...
Keep in mind there's a fifteen year-old, blind kid, named - Tommy Carroll who is smoking your weak, "I can't do it", ass.
Of all the things that I've done in my life...
being a Philadelphia Flyers fan is one of the hardest.
Maybe next year.
Maybe next year.
5.17.2008
Can anyone tell me...
Why the POW/MIA organization and all the former POWs of the United States of America are not kicking John McCain in the balls on a daily basis? Anyone who has even the slightest education on the issue knows where he stands.
EXCEPT BY JOHN McCAIN
EXCEPT BY JOHN McCAIN
5.15.2008
I made a difference this week. What did you do?
just moments ago, by a near-unanimous vote, the Senate stood up to Big Media. They voted to throw out the FCC decision to let the largest media companies swallow up even more local media.
This is simply an astounding victory, and it would not have happened without the massive grassroots effort by you and thousands of others who called their senators, sent more than a quarter million letters, posted thousands of pictures and stories on StopBigMedia.com, and testified at public hearings held by the FCC.
It was your dedication that made today's Senate win possible.
Today was a huge step forward, but there is still much to do. The fight against the FCC now moves to the House, where our elected representatives need to hear from us.
President Bush has promised that he will try to veto this bill. But tonight the Senate and the American people have spoken with one voice. This historic vote sends a clear message that the only people who support more media consolidation are Big Media lobbyists and the White House.
We are in this struggle to bring more minority ownership, diverse perspectives and independent voices to the media. We need to make media consolidation an election-year issue. And we need to start talking about how to break up the giant conglomerates.
Corporate news today -- with its propaganda pundits, horse-race election coverage, and celebrity gossip -- undermines our democracy. We must continue to speak out and demand that the public airwaves be used to actually serve the public.
In just three weeks, thousands of people will be gathering together in Minnesota to build the movement for better media. You can join them at the National Conference for Media Reform, just visit www.freepress.net/conference.
For today, know that you played a key role in the fight for better media for all.
Thank you,
Josh Silver
Executive Director
Free Press Action Fund
This is simply an astounding victory, and it would not have happened without the massive grassroots effort by you and thousands of others who called their senators, sent more than a quarter million letters, posted thousands of pictures and stories on StopBigMedia.com, and testified at public hearings held by the FCC.
It was your dedication that made today's Senate win possible.
Today was a huge step forward, but there is still much to do. The fight against the FCC now moves to the House, where our elected representatives need to hear from us.
President Bush has promised that he will try to veto this bill. But tonight the Senate and the American people have spoken with one voice. This historic vote sends a clear message that the only people who support more media consolidation are Big Media lobbyists and the White House.
We are in this struggle to bring more minority ownership, diverse perspectives and independent voices to the media. We need to make media consolidation an election-year issue. And we need to start talking about how to break up the giant conglomerates.
Corporate news today -- with its propaganda pundits, horse-race election coverage, and celebrity gossip -- undermines our democracy. We must continue to speak out and demand that the public airwaves be used to actually serve the public.
In just three weeks, thousands of people will be gathering together in Minnesota to build the movement for better media. You can join them at the National Conference for Media Reform, just visit www.freepress.net/conference.
For today, know that you played a key role in the fight for better media for all.
Thank you,
Josh Silver
Executive Director
Free Press Action Fund
5.14.2008
5.12.2008
5.02.2008
4.26.2008
The Formation of Damnation
One of the greatest metal bands of all time is about unleash one of the strongest albums of their career. On Apr. 29, 2008 (USA) Testament's "The Formation of Damnation" will hit the streets and a new bar will be set for any band who claims the label "heavy metal". The following release from Nuclear Blast records says it all. I'm just proud to be a life-long fan.
TESTAMENT:
The Formation Of Damnation
April 29, 2008
Nuclear Blast Records
Testament is
Chuck Billy – vocals
Eric Peterson – guitars
Alex Skolnick – guitars
Greg Christian – bass
Paul Bostaph - drums
Prophecy is a territory explored only by brave men and warriors. The two are not necessarily mutual but the differences between them are certainly marginal. And truly, the best prophecies come from those who aren’t necessarily seeking to be prophetic, but who simply step forward into those dark, uncomfortable places because their need for honest expression is total, no pre-determination, no intent, just pure, raw gut delivery of truths as seen.
Testament have found themselves in the prophecy business before during their 25 year career, and with “The Formation Of Damnation” they have delivered their sharpest, leanest, heaviest and most prophetic set of songs for two decades. The quintessential modern heavy metal band, the undisputedly enormous influence over a whole nu generation of aural aggressors. With "The Formation Of Damnation" Testament have deliciously served up 'old school' without the old, a crushingly heavy album without the weight of oppression, all crisp and lively like a ball-pin hammer-wielding maniac intent on bashing your brains to a pulp. It crackles with the type of vibrant energy that comes from an umbilically connected creative core writing together for the first time in over ten years, their reserves of residual anger, aggro and raw visceral riffery greater than ever. Recorded at Driftwood Studios in Oakland, CA (except for the drums which were done at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley) and mixed at Backstage Studios in Derbyshire, UK, “The Formation Of Damnation” is a worthy sibling of previously lauded Test-efforts such as “The Gathering” whilst behaving very much like the older, wiser brother of 1988’s “The New Order.”
“We’re talking about things we’ve lived through,” says Eric Peterson, “we’re living through the politics, we’re living through the bullshit, we’ve lived through bad relationships and we’ve lived through tough times. It’s not even that we’re necessarily political, we’re just everyday people who have always been thinking about these things. Out of all our records “The Formation Of Damnation” could be “The New Order’s” big brother.”
“The New Order” had also been inspired by George Orwell’s ‘1984’,” continues Alex Skolnick, “that whole vision of complete government control and totalitarianism taking over the US, as well as disasters both man-made an natural. Here it is years later and we have the Patriot Act, Hurricane Katrina and 9/11. So when you compare the two albums, it’s kinda spooky. And this album is no going to get filed under ‘easy listening’, that’s for sure.”
“It’s also absolutely about being older and wiser,” confirms Chuck Billy, “And now we also have children, their world is being affected, and everyday life generally throws up some heavy stuff, both national and personal, so all these songs are very much of our time and experiences. For example, over the last couple of years Eric and I both lost our fathers, so “The After Life” is about when we might next see them. Then there’s “The Evil Has Landed” which is about the twin towers, and at first I didn’t know if I wanted to sing about that, but once I performed it became clear that deep down I had to, and ‘Killing Season’ is one for all the soldiers we get letters and e-mails from during this war, it’s for those troops who get fired up by heavy metal before they go into combat and it’s my little contribution to the cause. And with all the songs I wanted us to make the statement that we’re stronger, more powerful and more confident than ever before. We’ve got the game!” “I think it’s the best record I’ve ever had anything to do with,” chuckles Greg Christian, “and not to sound conceited but it’s also really the best heavy metal record I’ve heard in a long time.”
Reaching this lushest of creative fields has been quite a journey for Testament, the sort that tests, stretches and ultimately breaks most bands. Formed in the Bay Area of Northern California in 1983 under the moniker of Legacy (the change to Testament came when Billy arrived to take over from Steve Souza on vocals and Derrick Ramirez was replaced by Skolnick), they grew up at the same time as Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth, being one of the five bands forming the core of what would become the world famous thrash metal scene. But from the beginning Testament trod a unique path, making sure that their extraordinary musicianship, intuitive feel for harmonies amidst the savagery established itself as a stand alone sound.
“I was in the band Forbidden back then,” says Paul Bostaph, “and I remember that us and other bands at the time might stumble across a riff, think about it and scrap it simply because it was too close to the Testament sound. They really did have their own style and their own dimension, which gave them an edge from the very beginning and influenced so many bands on the scene.”
1987’s debut release “The Legacy” threw down a marker, and by the time Testament were about to release 1988’s “The New Order” their legend was already hitting enormous popularity. However, their extreme talent got muddied and compromised by the weight of expectation, and while albums like -1989’s “Practice What You Preach" and 1990’s “Souls Of Black” continued to open the same creative doors for a slew of bands which Testament have always done, their level of recognition was perhaps not commesurate with their influence over an entire genre. Talent+personalities can equal problems, and thus it was that after 1992’s “The Ritual”, Clemente left and Skolnick decided it was high-time to essentially find himself and reclaim a few of the teenage years he lost.
“I was in high school, 11th grade, when I joined this band,” laughs Skolnick, “so I really needed to go away and grow as a person, as a musician and get the necessary confidence to enjoy this and gather the strength to make things happen and fight for changes. When I left Testament I still felt like the shy, annoying brother in the room; when I came back, I felt like a respected, professional musician.”
And so it was that for many years, the core creators behind Testament’s music remained separate. Friendships were maintained and good times still had, but musically, matters remained separate as Skolnick explored jazzier rock climbs, Christian engaged in his own projects whilst Billy and Peterson kept Testament alive with a series of different musicians coming in and out. Bostaph had his first short stint with the band in 1992 (in the midst of joining Slayer), whilst White Zombie and Anthrax drummer John Tempesta came in with death metal guitarist James Murphy to play on 1994’s “Low” album, perhaps Testament’s most progressive in terms of material range.
Peterson and Billy continued to fly the Testament flag, releasing the decidedly deathier tones of “Demonic” in 1997, whilst 1999 saw Murphy again on guitar with Slayer’s Dave Lombardo on drums for “The Gathering.” Arguably the album which led Testament back onto their path after a little radical experimentation in the recent past, “The Gathering” became a meeting point for dozens of hungry young metal acts looking for a new metal God. But Murphy was diagnosed with a brain tumor from which he did eventually recover, and in 2001, Billy was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. It was to prove a life-affirming, as well as life-changing, event.
“I’m a big believer that things happen for a reason,” says Billy, “we never split on bad terms, we always kept in good contact, we saw them on the east coast, we always supported Alex when he came through town, and we never discussed getting back together, we’d just hang out. But when I got sick and there was Thrash Of The Titans concert, that was the first time a reunion of any sort happened. It broke the ice, Greg (Christian) put some stuff behind him with Eric and I to get up there, I performed a song with everyone and that was the start of it all coming together again.”
From that came the deeper realization that with a fair few years between them (not to mention oceans under bridges) it was time to jump to the next level and simply get creative with each other again.
No expectations.
No grandiose plans.
Just pure powerful playing, which is why 2005’s 10 date European reunion tour (featuring all the original members) ended up spurring studio work.
“We didn’t ever plan this,” affirms Skolnick, “the reunion show in 2002 at the Dynamo was the catalyst, we never made any plans, we just enjoyed that show and then ended up doing a few more, which proved to us that now we’re older and more mature we can all enjoy being in this band. And once we’d done some extra shows in 2005, once we’d seen the reactions, once we’d seen a new audience mixing with the old, we just took things to the next logical progression.”
It is the journey to “The Formation Of Damnation” and the affirmation of the quintet’s chemistry which is one of the album’s strongest elements.
“Sometimes you can have a lot of ideas but keep on clashing the people you work with,” says Peterson, “and that’s what’s happened to us in the past. But with this album, we really do just appreciate what we have.”
“There’s been such a growth in our maturity and comfort with each other,” furthers Billy. “Eric’s developed into such a great rhythm player and Alex really acknowledged that as well as his creativity. Those two really gelled, and Alex also had a lot of input with arrangements, he really did fine-tune a lot of the songs.
“In some sense I took a step back from the writing this time because through it all, whatever differences we may have had, Chuck and Eric have kept Testament going,” explains Skolnick, “I knew they had a way of working together, so a lot of my work was assisting with their writing process. In some ways it was like a production role, and I’d never say I was a producer here because the album was in it’s early stages, and for the most part I really enjoyed the role.”
“It felt quite natural, especially as I know Eric’s writing so well,” adds Christian. “I know he had this vision in is head for the songs so I just did my best to help pull them out, and because we understand what each other are saying we can work really quickly. The chemistry between Eric, Alex, Chuck and myself is amazing, and it’s amazing how well Paul Bostaph has fitted in, really, on every level it’s been such a positive experience.”
“This is like family,” says Bostaph. “I’ve known all these guys for over 20 years, we’ve played together, bands I’ve been in have toured with them and I am a huge Testament fan, so joining this time was a huge no-brainer. And again, as Greg said, for me it was a case of giving myself to what this Testament album needed, and that was my only focus, making sure that the band got exactly what it needed from it’s drummer.”
In closing, take a moment to consider the following…
In 1988, Testament spoke of a new order and here, in 2008, Testament speak of the formation of damnation.
“It’s of our time right now,” concludes Peterson, “the world we live in is rife with aggravation, politics is forever more about money rather than doing what’s right, we all keep taking from mother earth… human beings are basically done! We’re setting ourselves up big-time for damnation, and that’s what these songs talk about, from love to politics to holy wars, it’s all there, it's all written about.”
You probably don’t want to hazard a guess as to what Testament, the true societal prophets of rage, will be speaking of in 2028…
Thanks guys!!
The whole TFOD album is streaming through the TestAmenT MySpace.
4.24.2008
Phillip Bobbitt is an enemy of the Republic of the United States of America.
In a recent edition of the Austin-American Statesman a book review of Phillip Bobbitt’s new book Terror and Consent goes into how the book calls for the shredding of the Constitution. The article written by James E. McWilliams features an image of the Constitution being torn with a big bold headline that states “Everything must go.” The words “How to Fight Terrorism”, are put in place of where the Constitution is torn. The article is blatant propaganda to make people think that the answer to fight terrorism is to destroy the Constitution. As disgusting as this is, the contents of Bobbitt’s book advocates exactly what the picture depicts. Bobbitt endorses using nongovernmental organizations and multinational corporations to take over the roles and functions of nation states. He also endorses giving the United Nations the authority to wage war without approval from the Security Council and the use of non-lethal chemical weapons to fight terrorism. If he really wanted to end terrorism using non-lethal chemical weapons, he should be endorsing the use of non-lethal chemical weapons on the headquarters of the CIA, British Intelligence and Mossad because that’s where the majority of terrorism comes from. Of course, Bobbitt won't mention that fact.
Let’s look at a blurb from the Austin-American Statesman article that gets into some of the things that Bobbitt endorses in his book.
Bobbitt’s previous book, "The Shield of Achilles," explored the grand themes of warfare and state development, marking his penchant for the magnum opus. At nearly 700 pages (including more than 100 pages of notes), "Terror and Consent" follows suit, taking on a similarly big picture. If "we want to defeat state-shattering terror in the twenty-first century," Bobbitt writes, we will have to "transform the emerging constitutional order of the twenty-first century State."
Specifically, we must stop thinking like a nation state and start thinking like the "market state" that we are inevitably becoming. The nation state — a constitutional order dedicated to protecting and improving the material welfare of its citizens — served the United States well from the mid-19th century to the end of the Cold War. But Bobbitt contends it’s vulnerable to a new battery of threats. The accessibility of weapons of mass destruction, the globalization of international capital and the "universalization of culture" have eroded the conventional borders that once legitimated national security.
What’s needed is a constitutional order that takes its structural cues from multinational corporations and nongovernmental organizations, relying "less on law and regulation and more on market incentives" to expand people’s options. Such a market state keeps its finger on the pulse of consumer demand, advocates trade liberalization, is prone to the privatization of public works and "will outsource many functions." In the seminar rooms of political science departments this change is referred to as "neoliberalism" (on the streets, it is known as "globalization") — and Bobbitt, who is a geopolitical realist, believes we have no choice but to embrace it.
Simply put, Bobbitt is endorsing what the elites have long sought after and that’s a New World Order or a global government. Bobbitt advocates the destruction of the Constitution and the transfer of power to multinational corporations and nongovernmental organizations. This man is a traitor. In the New World Order that the elites envision, people will only have the illusion of choice via phony democratic rule. Real decisions will be made by multinational corporations and nongovernmental organizations behind the scenes. Unfortunately, what Bobbitt advocates is already happening considering initiatives such as the Security and Prosperity Partnership which seeks to dissolve the national borders between the Canada, United States and Mexico.
Bobbitt also endorses preemptive use of force by the United Nations without a Security Council authorization as well as the use of non-lethal chemical weapons to prevent terrorism. This is confirmed from a blurb in the Austin-American Statesman.
Bobbitt believes that the UN Charter should be amended to allow the preemptive use of force without a Security Council authorization, that the Geneva Conventions should be changed to forbid the indefinite containment of terrorist prisoners without trial and that we must, in cases in which the use of non-lethal chemical weapons could be used to prevent terror, be able to redefine such methods as "counterforce measures."
What is not mentioned in the article is what sort of non-lethal weapons he would advocate using. Considering that the public is having pharmaceutical drugs and fluoride dumped in their water, mercury put in their vaccines, pesticides sprayed over populated areas and all sorts of other horrors one has to ask if Bobbitt would endorse these methods to fight terrorism?
The war on terror is a proven fraud which makes Bobbitt’s book entirely irrelevant. He bases all of his conclusions off of something that is a lie. Bobbitt also refuses to acknowledge mainstream history which shows that anytime power is concentrated in the hands of a few it always turns out badly. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the New World Order is seeking to gain absolute power. If they are successful in achieving this, we will see a tyranny like no other. The New World Order will be a global enslavement system in which advanced technology is used to dominate the people of the world. It is disgusting that Bobbitt prefers a system that concentrates power in the hands of the unelected few over the freedom and inalienable rights guaranteed by the Constitution. It is insane to say that the Constitution is outdated and a new form of governance is required in the 21st century. Free speech, the right to bear arms, the right not to have your home searched and personal belongings seized without a warrant are concepts that are just as applicable in the 21st century as they were in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Bobbitt is an elitist hack and a traitor for the statements he is making in his book. While he has every right to say these things under the First Amendment, his statements undermines everything that has made this country special. What he doesn’t realize is that the New World Order will dispose of him like they will everyone else when they see that he is of no further use to their insanely corrupt and tyrannical system. Bobbitt is nothing more than another useful idiot for the New World Order enslavement system and he isn’t as smart as he thinks he is.
Below is Bobbitt’s contact information if you’d like to express your displeasure at his anti-American and pro-NWO statements.
Phone: (512) 232-1376
Fax: (512) 471-6988
E-mail: PBOBBITT@LAW.UTEXAS.EDU
If for some reason the AAS should stop posting the above linked article, I have archived it on my server, here.
Here's what I've been up to.
Ok, so I know that my posting has fallen off to almost nothing in the recent couple of months, not only am I getting ready to graduate, but things have been coming down the pipe faster than I can keep up. You know that I've discussed the recession that we are clearly in, and you know that I've blasted the MSM (main stream media) for not telling you what myself and others have been screaming to the tops of our lungs. We may have made a breakthrough, but you're not going to like it.
What follows is a WALL STREET JOURNAL article. Yep, the WALL STREET JOURNAL. Who's a conspiracy theorist now?
Load Up the Pantry
April 21, 2008 6:47 p.m.
I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food.
No, this is not a drill.
You've seen the TV footage of food riots in parts of the developing world. Yes, they're a long way away from the U.S. But most foodstuffs operate in a global market. When the cost of wheat soars in Asia, it will do the same here.
Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster.
"Load up the pantry," says Manu Daftary, one of Wall Street's top investors and the manager of the Quaker Strategic Growth mutual fund. "I think prices are going higher. People are too complacent. They think it isn't going to happen here. But I don't know how the food companies can absorb higher costs." (Full disclosure: I am an investor in Quaker Strategic)
Stocking up on food may not replace your long-term investments, but it may make a sensible home for some of your shorter-term cash. Do the math. If you keep your standby cash in a money-market fund you'll be lucky to get a 2.5% interest rate. Even the best one-year certificate of deposit you can find is only going to pay you about 4.1%, according to Bankrate.com. And those yields are before tax.
Meanwhile the most recent government data shows food inflation for the average American household is now running at 4.5% a year.
And some prices are rising even more quickly. The latest data show cereal prices rising by more than 8% a year. Both flour and rice are up more than 13%. Milk, cheese, bananas and even peanut butter: They're all up by more than 10%. Eggs have rocketed up 30% in a year. Ground beef prices are up 4.8% and chicken by 5.4%.
These are trends that have been in place for some time.
And if you are hoping they will pass, here's the bad news: They may actually accelerate.
The reason? The prices of many underlying raw materials have risen much more quickly still. Wheat prices, for example, have roughly tripled in the past three years.
Sooner or later, the food companies are going to have to pass those costs on. Kraft saw its raw material costs soar by about $1.25 billion last year, squeezing profit margins. The company recently warned that higher prices are here to stay. Last month the chief executive of General Mills, Kendall Powell, made a similar point.
The main reason for rising prices, of course, is the surge in demand from China and India. Hundreds of millions of people are joining the middle class each year, and that means they want to eat more and better food.
A secondary reason has been the growing demand for ethanol as a fuel additive. That's soaking up some of the corn supply.
You can't easily stock up on perishables like eggs or milk. But other products will keep. Among them: Dried pasta, rice, cereals, and cans of everything from tuna fish to fruit and vegetables. The kicker: You should also save money by buying them in bulk.
If this seems a stretch, ponder this: The emerging bull market in agricultural products is following in the footsteps of oil. A few years ago, many Americans hoped $2 gas was a temporary spike. Now it's the rosy memory of a bygone age.
The good news is that it's easier to store Cap'n Crunch or cans of Starkist in your home than it is to store lots of gasoline. Safer, too.
What follows is a WALL STREET JOURNAL article. Yep, the WALL STREET JOURNAL. Who's a conspiracy theorist now?
Load Up the Pantry
April 21, 2008 6:47 p.m.
I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food.
No, this is not a drill.
You've seen the TV footage of food riots in parts of the developing world. Yes, they're a long way away from the U.S. But most foodstuffs operate in a global market. When the cost of wheat soars in Asia, it will do the same here.
Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster.
"Load up the pantry," says Manu Daftary, one of Wall Street's top investors and the manager of the Quaker Strategic Growth mutual fund. "I think prices are going higher. People are too complacent. They think it isn't going to happen here. But I don't know how the food companies can absorb higher costs." (Full disclosure: I am an investor in Quaker Strategic)
Stocking up on food may not replace your long-term investments, but it may make a sensible home for some of your shorter-term cash. Do the math. If you keep your standby cash in a money-market fund you'll be lucky to get a 2.5% interest rate. Even the best one-year certificate of deposit you can find is only going to pay you about 4.1%, according to Bankrate.com. And those yields are before tax.
Meanwhile the most recent government data shows food inflation for the average American household is now running at 4.5% a year.
And some prices are rising even more quickly. The latest data show cereal prices rising by more than 8% a year. Both flour and rice are up more than 13%. Milk, cheese, bananas and even peanut butter: They're all up by more than 10%. Eggs have rocketed up 30% in a year. Ground beef prices are up 4.8% and chicken by 5.4%.
These are trends that have been in place for some time.
And if you are hoping they will pass, here's the bad news: They may actually accelerate.
The reason? The prices of many underlying raw materials have risen much more quickly still. Wheat prices, for example, have roughly tripled in the past three years.
Sooner or later, the food companies are going to have to pass those costs on. Kraft saw its raw material costs soar by about $1.25 billion last year, squeezing profit margins. The company recently warned that higher prices are here to stay. Last month the chief executive of General Mills, Kendall Powell, made a similar point.
The main reason for rising prices, of course, is the surge in demand from China and India. Hundreds of millions of people are joining the middle class each year, and that means they want to eat more and better food.
A secondary reason has been the growing demand for ethanol as a fuel additive. That's soaking up some of the corn supply.
You can't easily stock up on perishables like eggs or milk. But other products will keep. Among them: Dried pasta, rice, cereals, and cans of everything from tuna fish to fruit and vegetables. The kicker: You should also save money by buying them in bulk.
If this seems a stretch, ponder this: The emerging bull market in agricultural products is following in the footsteps of oil. A few years ago, many Americans hoped $2 gas was a temporary spike. Now it's the rosy memory of a bygone age.
The good news is that it's easier to store Cap'n Crunch or cans of Starkist in your home than it is to store lots of gasoline. Safer, too.
4.18.2008
EARTHQUAKE!!!
Ok, so I'm sitting here this morning, recovering from one helluva case of hay-fever/103 degree fever... You know the deal. Anywho, at around 0535 the house began rocking. As soon as it began I knew what it was. I looked around the room and sure enough, everything that was hanging free was swinging like a pendulum.
For the record it lasted for about 20 seconds and was apparently somewhere 5.4 at the epicenter. Where was the epicenter? In southern Illinois. I'm four and a half hours East of the epicenter... We don't do earthquakes here!
Proof it wasn't the fever.
For the record it lasted for about 20 seconds and was apparently somewhere 5.4 at the epicenter. Where was the epicenter? In southern Illinois. I'm four and a half hours East of the epicenter... We don't do earthquakes here!
Proof it wasn't the fever.
3.13.2008
You should have listened to Thomas Jefferson...
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
How's your dollar doing? How much did gas go up in your locality today? Five cents over night for me. How well is your Dollar standing?
I told you so.
2.26.2008
Back door gun control taking on a life of its own.
Can't take our guns outright, yet. So what are they doing? Attempting to tax, ban, encode, and pretty much any frigging thing possible in order for it to be impossible to own ammunition. Sneaky fuckers, eh?
Jerry the Geek is tracking this epidemic that is sweeping the nation.
I've pulled Jerry's article from his above linked site, in case you guys don't click the link. I would however urge you to click the link and see everything that he's got going on over there.
Oh, and just as an aside, the Supreme Court is about to start ruling on the wording of the 2nd Amendment and comparing every other state's legislation to D.C.'s. There's a serious problem with that however... D.C. is not a state of the union of the United States of America; it doesn't fall under the same laws as we do. Also, don't you find it funny that while we're in a war against terrorism, the largest supposed target would decrease the budget for emergency planning and security cost in the District of Columbia from $14 million in 2006 to $3 million in 2008?
Just remember... "We're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here."
I'd advise you to get ready to rally against your government and take our country back, but you'd just ignore me and go back to watching whateverthefuck it is that you watch.
Jerry the Geek is tracking this epidemic that is sweeping the nation.
I've pulled Jerry's article from his above linked site, in case you guys don't click the link. I would however urge you to click the link and see everything that he's got going on over there.
Given the plethora of "Encoded Ammunition" bills introduced into various State legislatures in January, 2008 (five so far; there may be more, I'm still researching), it occurred to me that it would be handy to have some kind of 'tracking document'.
Accordingly, I spent a couple of hours building an Excel Spreadsheet listing the salient characteristics of all the bills I have so far discovered. You can download the "2008 Geek Guide ..."( etc.) here.
Note that the file, 2008_Encoded_Ammunition.xls, will require that you have Microsoft EXCEL loaded on your computer. You can download it, but you can't read it without the software.
Here's a list of the states reported to date: Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Hawaii, Tennessee.
And here is a list of the data items found there, along with a short (?) description of the data points:
* State: The name of the state in which the bill is introduced.
* Bill #: The designation of the bill(s). Note that in at least one state (Tennessee), the identical bill was simultaneously introduced in both houses.
* Link to Text: A "Tiny URL" code. Copy and past it into your web browser, and the original URL will be generated to take you to the document which contains the full text of the bill. Note that I neglected to include this link in at least one of my original articles. I hope I've corrected those articles, but ALL are referenced here.
* Sponsor: The name of the state legislature(s) who sponsored and/or introduced the bill. This allows you, if you are a resident of that state, to follow him/her back to his/her personal website and send him/her emails appropriate to the amount of outrage you feel about his/her disenfranchisement of honest shooters.
* Justification for bill?: A simple YES/NO, if the text of the bill includes verbiage which attempts to justify the introduction of this disgusting piece of .... legislation. (Sorry, I can't help editorializing, even when I know I shouldn't. I'm just that irritated.)
* Date Bill Introduced: The date the bill was first read into the record in the state house, assembly or senate.
* Bill Status: The current status of the bill, usually, "referred to Committee" or similar verbiage. Bills so designated sometimes STAY in committee until the end of the legislative session (January 1 of the following year), after which they will die. At least one bill has a "bill expiration date" built into it, which I presume refers to the legislative guidelines for that state.
* Type of Ammo: The limitations on the kind of ammunition which is subject to these restrictions. ALWAYS "Handgun", but may also include "Assault Weapon" or "Assault Pistol". Some states include a list of "Designated Weapons" in the bill, which usually refer to what is essentially an "Assault Weapons" list established by existing state laws.
* Sell Only By Date: The date upon which vendors (retailers, etc.) may offer for sale 'only' ammunition ... or bullets (some states mention both) which has been "encoded".
* Own Only By Date: The date upon which all vendors and private citizens may not possess ammunition (or bullets? .. not always clear) which has not been "encoded". Possession may or may not involve specific penalties; see below.
* Per-Round Tax/Fee?: ALL states have, as far as I know and of this date, imposed some kind of tax or fee per bullet; this is most commonly five cents, although one state sets the fee at ".005 cents" which works out at five cents per thousand rounds or bullets. As noted, this last may be a typographical error. It's difficult to imagine politicians setting the fee so low, as long as the bill is obviously designed as an ipso facto impediment to free exercise of the second amendment. (There I go again!) Mississippi politicians aren't even honest enough to set the fee as part of the bill. They merely stipulate that a "End User Fee" will be established. Don't expect a "five cents per thousand rounds" fee from these boys. They ALL have to finance a database system, enforcement, and undefined other expenses needed to administer this bogus bill. (Oops! Sorry.)
* Fee Retained by Retailer: A couple of states provide that the vendor may retain a portion of the fees they collect, presumably to encourage the vendors to support the bill. Fat chance, ammunition sales will be so undercut by this oinker that the resulting market won't support any retail sales of ammunition or other firearms-related business in these states. (Dammit! Stop that, Geek!)
* Owner Penalties: This identifies the fines or penalties which may be imposed on 'anyone' who attempts to defile, obscure or obliterate the serial numbers on a bullet or round of ammunition. Usually a misdemeanor ... but we're usually talking about a year in the pokey and/or a fine of $1,000.
* Merchant Tax Penalty: One state (Illinois) imposes a penalty on a vendor who fails to accurately report tax revenues (the "per-round tax/fee"). This is a Class 4 Felony in Illinois. As may be presumed, the bureaucrats don't like it if you file the serial numbers off bullets but they take it seriously when you don't pay them their Dane Geld, hence the Felony vs the Misdemeanor. (That was okay, wasn't it? Not 'editorializing'?) The rest don't mention it ... to date. Apparently, that is covered in another section of the Code.
* Merchants Adherence Fine: I THINK this is the fine for selling non-encoded ammunition after the cutoff date. Your guess is as good as mine. Universally, it's $1,000.
* Buyer Data Collected: The information that the vendor is required to collect to define the retail buyer. Always Name, Date of Birth, Driver's License Number, and "any other information which the (governing agency) may define/require". More weasel words; they can ask for the serial number of the firearm in which you choose to shoot the ammunition, if they want to, and if there are not state laws forbidding this ... it's okay!
* Retailer Reporting: The vendor must report the information recorded on each ammunition sale periodically. This is either Monthly or Quarterly, if it is included in the Bill. Presumably, when you report the information, you must also remit the 'End User Fee' collected at the time of sale.
* Enforcement: For the Average Joe, this is one of the most important facets of the bills. In Illinois, the 'administrative authority' (usually the DOJ) can make it up as they go. Excuse, I mean the "any reasonable rules" may be imposed. That's an administrative decision, not subject to normal Congressional Oversight. Not encouraging. In Tennessee, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) is the administrative authority. Isn't it nice when the police get to make the rules?
* Exceptions: Who do these bills, if they become laws, NOT apply to? In those states in which the legislators actually spent more than ten minutes writing the bill, the "Federal, State and Local Law Enforcement Organizations" are exempt. No word yet on whether the National Guard and the U.S. Military are exempt; but since they are not LEOs, and they are not specifically exempt ... hey, they might grab a few bucks from the Feds! (Must ... Control ... The ... Fist ... Of ... Death!)
* Bill Expiration Date: As mentioned above, one state included and expiration date for the bill if it is not enacted into law. Probably an administrative requirement, but I include it just for ... well, actually, no reason at all.
* Notes: Miscellaneous notes included only to show that not all states just stuck to boilerplate. The general text is obviously taken from a template ... source not yet identified ... but some states legislatures seemed to feel that they needed to assert their individuality. Indiana declared an emergency; Hawaii and Mississippi granted an 'income tax credit' for in-state bullet/ammunition manufacturers to purchase, install and use bullet-encoding machinery; Tennessee included a really onerous records-keeping requirement for both vendors and manufacturers.
* Text for Justification of Bill, if present: For states which included a justification of this bill (a minority, only Hawaii and Tennessee), the full text of their 'justification' is included just so you don't have to read the actual bills. I found it interesting that (so far) the majority of states which accepted this bill-template didn't feel it necessary to explain WHY this bill was necessary. I interpret this to mean that they don't care enough about the citizens who have to live under these egregious rules; they just entered the bill because they can. I'm guessing that they're Liberal Democrats who are just looking for a real good rating from The Brady Campaign, and don't expect the bills to get out of committee, let alone actually pass, so why bother? This may be "a good sign" that the authors aren't serious about the bill(s).
I'll be updating this document, if and as more states are found to have proposed similar bills. (What am I saying? These are all the same bill, with minor variations.) If you find an error in the document .. and I do strongly encourage you to view this document critically with the goal of correcting errors and providing more information ... please let me know.
I'm tempted to dismiss these bills as bogus, not likely to pass; nothing to see here folks, move along. But since the Microstamping Bill (not the same thing) was passed in California last year, it is demonstrably NOT SAFE to expect that any gun-control bill, no matter how unreasonable or how irresponsibly enacted or how badly worded, cannot be passed by any given legislature. EVERY TIME a bogus gun-control bill is passed by a state, it sets a precedent for other states which are controlled by liberal gun-grabber politicians who just want to get their names on the roster of 'people who are trying to accomplish something about crime!'
No more editorializing. Every time I write one of these articles, it makes my guts ache for the rest of the night. I find it hard to believe that these weasels are stomping on the rights of their constituents for their own career advancement.
But then, if they weren't rats and weasels, they would find honest work.
Oh, and just as an aside, the Supreme Court is about to start ruling on the wording of the 2nd Amendment and comparing every other state's legislation to D.C.'s. There's a serious problem with that however... D.C. is not a state of the union of the United States of America; it doesn't fall under the same laws as we do. Also, don't you find it funny that while we're in a war against terrorism, the largest supposed target would decrease the budget for emergency planning and security cost in the District of Columbia from $14 million in 2006 to $3 million in 2008?
Just remember... "We're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here."
I'd advise you to get ready to rally against your government and take our country back, but you'd just ignore me and go back to watching whateverthefuck it is that you watch.
Greenspan urges the further collapse of the US economy.
First of all, you need to understand that dumping of the dollar will not help our inflation. If the oil producing nations drops the dollar peg(US dollar reserve), we will further spiral into a recession. No, I don't know more than Greenspan, but come on people, use your frigging heads here. Even Dick Cheney has liquidates his US holdings into something else.
Get ready for stagflation.
Arabianbusiness.com article link
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Monday near-record Gulf Arab inflation would fall "significantly" were the oil producers to drop their dollar pegs, in contradiction to Saudi policy.
"In the short term, free floating... will not fully dissipate inflationary pressure, although it would significantly do so," Greenspan told an investment conference in Jeddah.
But Saudi Central Bank Vice-Governor Muhammed Al Jasser and UAE Central Bank Governor Sultan Nasser Al-Suweidi both said dollar pegs have served their economies well by attracting foreign investment.
"They did very well for our economies because it has led to more capital flows," Al-Suweidi told an investment conference in Abu Dhabi on Monday.
Likewise Al Jasser, questioned by newswire Reuters about the riyal/dollar peg on Sunday, said: "It just happens to be serving our economic interests and continues to do so."
The pegs restrict the Gulf's ability to fight inflation by forcing them to shadow US monetary policy when the Fed is cutting rates to ward off recession and Gulf economies are surging on a near five-fold jump in oil prices since 2002.
Inflation in Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, hit a 27-year peak of 7% in January, while in the UAE, price rises in 2006 - the latest available figure - rose to 9.3%, at least a 19-year high.
Still, "Gulf governments should consider the implication of such a move in the long term," Greenspan said of the idea of floating their currencies.
Rifts in Gulf monetary policy widened last May when Kuwait broke ranks with its neighbours by severing its link to the dollar in favour of a basket of currencies, saying a weak dollar was driving imported inflation.
Oman has said it will not join a single currency at all, and Al-Suweidi said in November he was under mounting social and economic pressure to drop the peg.
He has since backtracked, mirroring the position of Saudi Arabia, which has in the last month introduced public sector wage increases, welfare payments and subsidies to offset the impact of inflation.
Qatar, contending with the region's highest inflation, is urging Gulf states to bridge differences over a single currency, saying monetary union could avert possible unilateral revaluations, its prime minister told Reuters on Saturday. (Reuters)
On a side note, here's an article where Greenspan says that the US economic recovery is going to take longer than previously thought. And most of you people didn't even know that you were in a recession.
Get ready for stagflation.
Arabianbusiness.com article link
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Monday near-record Gulf Arab inflation would fall "significantly" were the oil producers to drop their dollar pegs, in contradiction to Saudi policy.
"In the short term, free floating... will not fully dissipate inflationary pressure, although it would significantly do so," Greenspan told an investment conference in Jeddah.
But Saudi Central Bank Vice-Governor Muhammed Al Jasser and UAE Central Bank Governor Sultan Nasser Al-Suweidi both said dollar pegs have served their economies well by attracting foreign investment.
"They did very well for our economies because it has led to more capital flows," Al-Suweidi told an investment conference in Abu Dhabi on Monday.
Likewise Al Jasser, questioned by newswire Reuters about the riyal/dollar peg on Sunday, said: "It just happens to be serving our economic interests and continues to do so."
The pegs restrict the Gulf's ability to fight inflation by forcing them to shadow US monetary policy when the Fed is cutting rates to ward off recession and Gulf economies are surging on a near five-fold jump in oil prices since 2002.
Inflation in Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, hit a 27-year peak of 7% in January, while in the UAE, price rises in 2006 - the latest available figure - rose to 9.3%, at least a 19-year high.
Still, "Gulf governments should consider the implication of such a move in the long term," Greenspan said of the idea of floating their currencies.
Rifts in Gulf monetary policy widened last May when Kuwait broke ranks with its neighbours by severing its link to the dollar in favour of a basket of currencies, saying a weak dollar was driving imported inflation.
Oman has said it will not join a single currency at all, and Al-Suweidi said in November he was under mounting social and economic pressure to drop the peg.
He has since backtracked, mirroring the position of Saudi Arabia, which has in the last month introduced public sector wage increases, welfare payments and subsidies to offset the impact of inflation.
Qatar, contending with the region's highest inflation, is urging Gulf states to bridge differences over a single currency, saying monetary union could avert possible unilateral revaluations, its prime minister told Reuters on Saturday. (Reuters)
On a side note, here's an article where Greenspan says that the US economic recovery is going to take longer than previously thought. And most of you people didn't even know that you were in a recession.
2.07.2008
Hexy in the Hall of Fame.
It's an awesome thing to see one of your favorite individuals get the recognition that they deserve, in their lifetime, and even more so while they are young and able to truly appreciate it. Last night, Number 27, Ron Hextall, in my opinion, one of the greatest goalies to ever grace us with his abilities, was inducted into the Philadelphia Flyers' Hall of Fame.
Hexy made you want to watch hockey. Hexy made you want to play hockey. Hexy made you look at other goalies, past and present, and see where they were lacking. For his aggressive nature and raw ability, Philadelphia was the only place for Hextall. Truly, he was a Broad Street Brawler. When I was a teenager, Hexy, for me, was larger than life and the only validation needed for ESPN's "Hockey Night". Honestly, I could really go on, but I'll turn it over the the Flyers' site and Philly.com.
(Philadelphia, PA) – Ron Hextall became the 19th member of the organization to be inducted into the Flyers Hall of Fame in an on-ice ceremony at the Wachovia Center during Wednesday night's Flyers-Washington Capitals game.
Hextall, 43, appeared in 489 regular season games during his 11-year Flyers career (1986-87 through 1991-92 and 1994-95 through 1998-99 seasons), posting a 240-172-58 record and 2.91 goals-against average. His 489 games played and 240 wins as a Flyer rank him first all-time in Flyers history. In 84 playoff games for the Flyers, Hextall registered a 45-36 record and 2.95 GAA. His 45 playoff wins are the most in Flyers history.
As a rookie during the 1986-87 season, Hextall posted a 37-21-6 record, 2.52 GAA and one shutout in 66 regular season games. He led the NHL in games played (66), wins (37) and minutes played (3,799). He compiled a 15-11 record, 2.77 GAA and two shutouts in 26 playoff games as the Flyers advanced to the 1987 Stanley Cup Finals. He was named to the NHL All-Rookie Team and NHL First All-Star Team for the 1986-87 season. In addition, he won the Vezina Trophy as “the goaltender adjudged to be the best at his position” and the Conn Smythe Trophy as “the most valuable player for his team in the playoffs”.
The 1986-87 season was the first of five seasons that Hextall recorded 30 or more wins (only goaltender in Flyers history to post five 30-win seasons - 1986-87, 1987-88, 1988-89, 1995-96 and 1996-97). On December 8, 1987, Hextall became the first NHL goalie to score a goal by shooting the puck into the opposing net as the Flyers defeated the Boston Bruins at the Spectrum, 5-2. He repeated the feat when he became the first goalie to record a playoff goal as the Flyers defeated the Washington Capitals at the Capital Centre in Game Five of the Patrick Division Semifinals, 8-5, on April 11, 1989.
He was traded by Flyers, along with Steve Duchesne, Peter Forsberg, Kerry Huffman, Mike Ricci, a first round pick in the 1993 NHL Entry Draft, $15 million and future considerations (Chris Simon and a first round pick in 1994 NHL Entry Draft) to the Quebec Nordiques in exchange for Eric Lindros on June 30, 1992.
After two seasons with Quebec (1992-93) and the New York Islanders (1993-94), he was traded by the Islanders, along with a sixth round pick in the 1995 NHL Entry Draft, to the Flyers in exchange for Tommy Soderstrom on September 22, 1994.
Over the final five seasons of his career (1994-95 through 1998-99), Hextall posted two 30-win seasons (31 in 1995-96 and 31 in 1996-97), led the NHL in GAA (2.17 GAA in 1995-96) and helped the Flyers to the 1997 Stanley Cup Finals.
He still holds team records for most penalty minutes by a goaltender in one season (113 in 1988-89) and most points by a goaltender in one season (8 in 1988-89).
The Flyers Hall of Fame was established in 1988 to permanently honor those individuals who have contributed to the franchise’s success. The Hall of Fame induction is held, as needed, with candidates nominated and voted upon by a panel of media members and team officials.
The following people have been previously elected into the Flyers Hall of Fame:
1988 - Bob Clarke and Bernie Parent #1
1989 - Bill Barber, Ed Snider and Keith Allen
1990 - Rick MacLeish and Fred Shero
1991 - Barry Ashbee and Gary Dornhoefer
1992 - Reggie Leach and Gene Hart
1993 - Joe Scott and Ed Van Impe
1994 - Tim Kerr
1996 - Joe Watson
1999 - Brian Propp
2001 - Mark Howe
2004 - Dave Poulin
Hextall nets special Flyers honor
By Ray Parrillo
Inquirer Staff Writer
Even if you had your eyes closed, you knew Ron Hextall was guarding the net.
All you had to do was listen, and you'd hear the loud clang of Hextall's stick against the uprights and the crossbar, a ritual but also a sort of siren call that the goalie was daring any shooter to come his way.
Of course, when Hextall was playing goal for the Flyers 20 years ago, you wanted to keep your eyes open, focused on him, because you never knew what you might see.
He was unique. When Hextall came into the NHL as a 22-year-old rookie for the 1986-87 season, the league had never quite seen anything like him: a tall, rangy, athletic goalie who wandered far out of the net to deftly stickhandle the puck. He'd go on to become the first goalie to score a goal by actually shooting the puck into the net. He did it twice.
Hextall also used his stick in more violent ways, chopping down intruders around the crease as if they were so much timber. The league didn't always appreciate Hextall's stick-wielding, which is why it suspended him for eight games for slashing Kent Nilsson in the back of the leg during the 1987 Stanley Cup Finals against Edmonton. He still holds the record for most penalty minutes by a goalie, 113 in the 1988-89 season.
And Hextall was a goalie who played with an anger that seethed just below his engaging, mild-mannered surface, a goalie with a hair-trigger temper who was quick to drop the gloves and join the fray.
Who can forget Hextall's racing out of the net and throwing his blocker at Chris Chelios in Game 6 of the conference finals in 1989 to avenge a vicious hit Chelios made on Brian Propp earlier in the series?
Tonight at the Wachovia Center, Hextall, now assistant general manager with the Los Angeles Kings, will become the 19th member of the Flyers' organization to be inducted into the team's Hall of Fame, and the first since Dave Poulin in 2004.
Before the game, there will be a highlight video and a ceremonial puck drop. Between the first and second periods, Hextall will be joined on the ice by his family for a tribute video and the induction.
"It means a great deal," Hextall said yesterday by telephone from Los Angeles. "Everybody knows I have extremely strong ties to the Flyers and to the city of Philadelphia. To be honored means a lot to me, and to have my family and friends there, and obviously the fans, it's going to be great."
The Flyers' promotions department will have little trouble filling the jumbo video screen with highlights from Hextall's colorful past.
A year after Vezina Trophy winner Pelle Lindbergh was killed when he drove his turbocharged Porsche into a wall in front of Somerdale Elementary School in South Jersey, Flyers coach Mike Keenan made Hextall, just up from the minors, his No. 1 goalie.
In his first game, Hextall stopped Wayne Gretzky on a breakaway to preserve a 2-1 Flyers win over Edmonton.
According to Full Spectrum, a detailed history of the Flyers by Jay Greenberg, Gretzky said to Hextall, "Who the hell are you?" Hextall snapped back at The Great One, "Who the hell are you?"
The victory was the start of an unforgettable season by Hextall and a young Flyers team. With some of the most remarkable goaltending by any netminder from any era, Hextall strapped the Flyers onto his back and carried them into the seventh game of the Stanley Cup Finals against Edmonton, probably the greatest offensive power in NHL history.
Hextall was spectacular in Game 6 at the Spectrum, which shook from the crowd's roar after J.J. Daigneault scored to complete a come-from-behind 3-2 win over the Oilers. To this day, just about anyone who was inside the Spectrum that night of May 28, 1987, says they never heard a louder arena.
"Winning Game 6 at the Spectrum was absolutely insane," Hextall recalled. "One of the best moments of my career, if not the best."
The series shifted back to Edmonton for the ultimate game and, again, the 6-foot-3 Hextall was brilliant, holding off the Oilers until Glenn Anderson scored with three minutes remaining to seal a 3-1 Flyers loss.
Long after the game, a tearful Hextall sat in the corner of the locker room, too devastated to remove his uniform. The pain, he said, still lingers.
"I can't explain to people how difficult that was for not only myself but every guy in that room," he said. "To be so close and to have gone through what we went through for the two months leading up to Game 7 and to be sitting in that locker room after the game with a hollow feeling, that all that work kind of went for naught.
"I mean, I can say it took me two, three months that summer to kind of get over the real, real stinging part. But there's a pain there that will never go away for me."
Hextall won the Vezina Trophy and became only the fourth player from a losing team to win the Conn Smythe Trophy, awarded to the most valuable player in the playoffs.
At the time, it seemed impossible that Hextall could repeat such a stunning rookie season. For various reasons, including injuries that forced him to alter his style, he never did.
"That's a special team and special year for me," he said.
He never allowed a goal he didn't think he should have stopped, and he was always man enough to accept blame.
The goalie was included in the huge package the Flyers sent to Quebec for the rights to Eric Lindros in June 1992. Hextall returned to the Flyers in '94 for five more seasons and helped reenergize a team that had gone five straight years without making the playoffs.
Hextall, who had boldly predicted he would one day score a goal, did so early in his second season, against Boston on Dec. 8, 1987. (He repeated the feat against Washington in 1989.) Eight years earlier, the Islanders' Billy Smith had been credited with a goal because he was the last offensive player to touch the puck. But Hextall became the first to shoot it into the net.
"I remember [the media] bugging me every day: When are you going to score a goal? When are you going to score a goal?" Hextall recalled. "I remember the fans started to chant whenever the net was empty. I was like, just give me time. I was looking for the right opportunity, and it presented itself."
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