- I could sit here and tell you how great "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is……but I would be lying. Fact is, as bloated and overrated as the first “Transformers” movie was, this one is even more so. Back in 2007, everyone was pumped about the idea of director Michael Bay bringing one of the most legendary cartoons and toy lines to life on the big screen - right up to the point that the movie hit screens around the country. Once everyone saw the reality of the project and what it turned out to be, the excitement gave way to horror and disappointment. In spite of that, its initial blockbuster status earned enough that the suits at the studio felt like giving Bay the green light for a sequel was a good idea. Big ups to Mike Bay for proving those suits wrong with one of the worst sequels in recent memory, possibly worse than “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” and “Spiderman 3” combined. This monstrosity lumbers on for freaking 149 minutes, meaning anyone unfortunate enough to see it will suffer for more than two hours. The plot isn’t complicated or sophisticated: the Decepticons are back to destroy Sam (Shia LaBeouf), Optimus Prime and the Earth. It’s filled with explosions galore and is basically one non-stop kaboom, to be honest. There’s no flow or rhythm to the movie at any point and often things are so chaotic that figuring out who the good Transformers (Autobots) are and who the bad ones (Decepticons) are is often tough. Bay also seems to be overly reliant on slow-motion shots of the ubar-hot Megan Fox running to or from danger, which isn’t a bad thing but shouldn’t be the chief draw of a movie. Aside from having Fox as eye candy, the special effects are the best part of the movie. They’re great throughout, which definitely can't be said of the script or the acting.
Even in the action movie genre, where the focus is less on quality acting and well-scripted exchanges, this movie falls incredibly short of the mark. It’s as bad a “blockbuster” as you’ll ever see and hopefully for your sake, you never have the misfortune of seeing it at all……..
- The Cleveland Browns haven’t dominated much of anything in the National Football League since they returned to the league in 1999 - unless you count occupying last place more than anyone else as dominance. However, there has been one area where the Browns have consistently gone above and beyond what any other team has been able to do: staph infections. An NFL physicians survey of the 32 teams determined there were 33 MRSA staph infections leaguewide from 2006-08. Of those 32, the Browns had six. For the math-challenged among you, that’s just a shade under 19 percent of the league’s staph infections for one team. With that many staph infections hitting key players, the jokes about the cleanliness and sterility of the team’s training facilities came fast and frequently. But jokes are one thing; lawsuits are another. The rash of staph infections for the Browns has finally led to its first lawsuit, filed by former receiver Joe Jurevicius. Jurevicius sued the team and the Cleveland Clinic on Friday, saying the team misrepresented the cleanliness of its training facility and blaming doctors with negligence over a staph infection in his right knee that kept him from playing last year. In the suit, Jurevicius alleges that physicians Anthony Miniaci and Richard Figler failed to warn Jurevicius that therapy equipment was not always sanitized at the team's training facility in Berea, located just outside of Cleveland. Jurevicius contracted his staph infection following arthroscopic surgery at the Cleveland Clinic in January 2008. His case includes an affidavit by Dr. Bonnie Bock, an infectious diseases specialist from Newport Beach, Calif., who said her examination of the case showed that the player's staph infection was due to circumstances outlined in the suit. "Sterile techniques were not at all times used at the Browns training facility," she said. Surprisingly, Jurevicius is only asking for damages in the range of $25,000, plus unspecified punitive damages, attorney and expert fees and related costs. I’d think he would sue for a lot more, but then again, this is a guy who grew up in the Northeast Ohio area as a Browns fan and attended plenty of games at the old Cleveland Stadium. Now, his NFL career could be over and Jurevicius seems to believe that his favorite team is responsible. For their part, the Browns deny the claims in the suit and maintain that their facilities are compliant with all NFL requirements. Jurevicius is no longer with the team and the career totals - 323 receptions for 4,119 yards and 29 TDs - that he has posted in 11 seasons with the New York Giants, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Seattle Seahawks and Browns could be his final tallies unless something changes drastically in terms of his health. But who knows, maybe his legacy will grow to include inspiring the other five Browns who suffered staph infections to file suits of their own or perhaps band together for a class-action suit…….
- In the race to see who is the most reprehensible human being alive in 2009, a new leader has emerged. His name is Frank Lombard and this certified piece of crap has been charged in federal court with offering his 5-year-old adopted son up for sex. Lombard, associate director at Duke University's Global Health Institute, was arrested Wednesday in Raleigh. He was ratted out by an unidentified informant who faces child porn charges in a different child sex case. The informant pointed investigators to Lombard, whom he met on the Internet four years ago. That Lombard was looking to pimp out his own adopted son becomes less surprising when you hear what sort of freakery he was allegedly involved in leading up to it. According to this informant, he observed Lombard molesting an African-American child on four occasions over an Internet video chat service called ICUii. In court documents, Lombard is alleged to have told the informant that the African-American child was one of two adopted kids in his custody. Lombard, who is white, later made the offer for sex with the child he was shown abusing in the video. He has been charged with attempting to induce someone to cross state lines to engage in sex with a child, punishable by a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Personally, I’d give him 20 years behind bars just based on the fact that on his profile posted on the Internet service used to conduct his video chats, he "stated he was interested in "perv fam fun," and referred to "incestuous child molestation." When a customer service complaint tipped the video chat site off to his perversion, a police detective investigating the initial case decided to set up chats with the user who turned out to be Lombard. Posing as another video chat user looking to score sex with a child, the detective says he was invited to fly to Raleigh to have sex with the person's 5- year-old adopted child. Det. Timothy Palchak wrote in his affidavit that he chatted with someone using the screen name "FL" who provided nude pictures of himself. The person with the unenviable task of examining the photos found that they were a match to Lombard's North Carolina driver's license photo. While talking to the undercover detective, the freak known as "FL" stated that he had himself molested his child, whom he adopted as an infant, and that he had allowed others to molest his child. This piece of crap went on to hang himself by declaring that “the abuse of the child was easier when the child was too young to talk or know what was happening, but that he had drugged the child with Benadryl during the molestation.” And yes, I’m throwing up in my mouth right now, just as you are. That is some of the most vile, revolting stuff I have ever heard. If Lombard is convicted, he should feel fortunate that he’s not shot on the spot. I’m sure that the Duke University Global Health Institute will reeeeeally miss this guy, being the quality human being that he is……..
- Wow, this is quite a change. From an administration that couldn’t care less about the environment and seemed as devoted as anyone in world history to denying the existence of global warming, we’ve moved into an administration that is looking to take real, tangible steps toward combating global warming and changing U.S. energy policy. The process is currently underway in Congress, where the House of Representatives has passed a major climate change bill. "Today the House of Representatives took historic action with the passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act," President Obama said of the bill's passage. "It's a bold and necessary step that holds the promise of creating new industries and millions of new jobs, decreasing our dangerous dependence on foreign oil.” The bill now moves on to the Senate, where it could be tweaked a bit but will no doubt be subjected to intense scrutiny. The Obama administration claims that the bill would combat global warming and give a much needed overhaul to U.S. energy policy, but critics are claiming everything from bad timing to the fact that the bill could cause job losses in the U.S. It’s a hotly contested issue, having passed the House by a very close 219 to 212 vote. The vote was so close that Democrats called Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-Mass., out of rehab so that he could vote. I don’t know if there are any senators currently in rehab, but Democrats will need to pull out all of the stops to push the bill through over objections that it will drastically raise the nation’s energy costs. President Obama has been burning up the phone lines trying to rally support for the bill in the Senate. The so-called “cap-and-trade" bill would mandate a nationwide system to curb greenhouse gas emissions, which is in and of itself a great goal. “I'm the first one to acknowledge that the United States over the last several years has not been where we need to be," Obama admitted. "We're not going to get there all in one fell swoop. But I'm very proud of the progress that's being made.” Under the law that this bill would create, companies like power plants would be permitted to emit only a certain amount of the gases. A company’s allotted emissions amount could be traded, bought and sold with other companies like any other commodity, just as long as the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions go down. The ultimate goal would be to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. Something to appreciate about the bill, whether it passes or not, is that it inspired the always-fun filibuster attempt by House Republican Leader John Boehner. He called the bill "a bureaucratic nightmare" and tried the House-version of a filibuster. In a “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” moment, he attempted to slow down the process by reading the entire bill - all 1,400 pages of it. That’s technically his right and it’s actually pretty funny, but it’s also total bullsh*t. Vote for the bill or against it, but allow it to make its way through the system and either pass or fail on its merit. Don’t try to hijack the process, dude. No matter how this bill ends, it is nice to see a shift from the W. administration’s “f**k the environment” policy………
- I get that Bernard Madoff ripped off a lot of people for a lot of money and he needs to be severely punished for his crimes, but I have a question for acting U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin, the lead prosecutor in the case. What exactly is the point of attempting to have a 71-year-old man sentenced to 150 years in prison? That’s what Dassin is looking for, along with having Madoff’s wife Ruth forfeit more than $170 billion in assets. You’ve got a 71-year-old guy who, at best, might live another 30 years, although I dobut he’d last that long behind bars. But under the sentence Dassin is asking for, Madoff would be in prison until he is 221 years old. Now I wonder wheter that means that he has to remain in prison for the next 150 years, even if he’s dead. That’s the only way this sentence makes any sense at all. As for the financial side of the deal, a U.S. District Court judge Friday did enter a preliminary order calling on Ruth Madoff to forfeit $170 billion in assets. She will be allowed to keep $2.5 million in funds "in settlement of the claims she would have otherwise brought against the property," according to Dassin. To refresh your memory, Madoff, who pleaded guilty to 11 counts, including fraud, money laundering and perjury, is to be sentenced Monday. He will be forfeiting all of his remaining assets, which include millions of dollars in loans made to family members, employees and friends, all personal property, including paintings, jewelry and furniture, millions of dollars in investment and banking accounts and several pieces of property. Under the direction of the humorously named U.S. District Judge Denny Chin, the U.S. Marshals Service will be selling off a $7.5 million co-op apartment in New York, a $7 million property in Montauk, New York, and a $7.45 million property in Palm Beach, Florida, along with several cars and boats. Dassin argued before Judge Chin that hitting Madoff with a 150-year sentence would help "promote general deterrence." What, for all of the other billionaire investors out there looking to run a ginormous Ponzi scheme and defraud investors of hundreds of billions of dollars? Madoff’s attorney is taking the opposite extreme, arguing that his client should serve only 12 years in prison. I’ll land somewhere in the middle, say 50 years. A safe compromise, plus I’m factoring in the fact that any idiot dumb enough to believe the promises of a person who says they can deliver incredibly high returns with very low risk almost deserves to be ripped off. If you are the victim of a Ponzi scheme, you too deserve a little punishment. Perhaps that punishment is best delivered in the loss of whatever money you invest, which is fitting. Now it’s up to Judge Chin to find a punishment that fits Bernie Madoff……..
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