A second straight day or Riot Watch! goodness, another punch to the junk for Cleveland Browns fans and weekend movie news

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Everyone’s favorite overview of social dissidence is here for back-to-back action after making a triumphant appearance yesterday in Togo. Today, we’re trekking to Thailand, where thousands of angry Thai from across the country converged on Bangkok for a rally aimed at toppling the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajhiva.
A rally looking to oust the current ruler from power……ah, it’s a time-honored protest tradition and goes directly to the heart of what social dissidence is all about. The person who is currently in power is a detestable despot who is oppressing you and you want him or her gone. Bam, it’s that simple. The Man won't listen to you, so you take it to the streets to make him listen. In Thailand, many of the disenfranchised souls who gathered to protest are supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 military coup. 
These great Thai citizens donned red shirts, waved flags and shouted angry, anti-government slogans (the best kind of slogans) in opposition to Vejjajhiva’s regime. Thaskin wasn’t able to be there because he currently lives in the world’s epicenter for opulence - Dubai - which is ironic because he is still very popular among Thailand's poor and rural population. The protestors are seeking new elections, which they hope will return him to power. In preparation for the rally, security forces having been playing their requisite role, act like oppressive ass hats and stopping trucks carrying protesters to search for weapons. Organizers expected between 600,000 and 700,000 supporters of the opposition United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) to march in Bangkok and by most accounts, the number of attendees met or exceeded those estimates. Unfortunately, the organizers were also able to live up to their vows that the protest would be peaceful, relatively speaking. At least I could get a few laughs out of the typical overreaction by The Man, with the government deploying thousands of police and troops to “maintain order.” Whatever you say, Thai authorities. You may not want a repeat of the last opposition protest in April 2009, which awesomely morphed into a riot which left two people dead and many others injured, with considerable damage to enjoy as well. The government should have expected this after it flushed Thaksin from the country to avoid a 2-year prison sentence on bogus corruption charges. Oh, and I should mention that
Prime Minister Abhisit is backed by Thailand's upper class, so this is indeed the classic struggle of the detestable upper class against the scrappy lower class and of course, I am nothing if not a friend of the average man on the street. So riot on, Thai opposition, riot on…………

- Ready for another kick in the nuts, Cleveland Browns fans? Well, ready or not, you’ve got it. Last season, your team’s quarterback play was primarily provided by the crap-tastic duo of Brady Quinn and Derek Anderson. You had the underachieving, nutrition supplement-pimping pretty boy on the one hand and the tall, lanky strong-armed loose cannon on the other and both proved equally adept at turning the ball over and leading a lackluster offense that only moved the ball when the running game did the job for them. After the season, owner Randy Lerner cleaned house, bringing in respected football mind Mike Holmgren to oversee football operations and in turn, Holmgren hired executive Tim Heckert away from the Philadelphia Eagles to be the Browns’ new general manager. Cleveland fans were excited to have two guys who (theoretically) knew what they were doing in charge for once and there was a palpable vibe of hope in the air - for a few months. Now that the new regime has begun making definitive moves and gutting the roster, I would say that hope is waning a bit. First, the Browns jettisoned Anderson (a good move) and filled his spot in the quarterback derby by trading for career backup Seneca Wallace from Seattle. Wallace’s addition wasn’t exactly the sort of move that energizes a fan base or wins games, so it didn’t really pump up Browns backers. So it would be Quinn v. Wallace for the starting spot……or would it? Rumors persisted that Quinn was on the trading block and sure enough, those rumors came to fruition today. Quinn was dealt to Denver for burly fullback Peyton Hillis, a sixth-round pick in the 2011 draft and a conditional pick in the 2010 draft. This is not nearly as clear-cut a move as waiving Anderson, as Quinn is younger and has more upside and a better pedigree. Sure, he’s been erratic thus far, but if asked to keep one of the two, I’m certain that an overwhelming majority of teams would have picked Quinn. Having said that, if the Browns had someone great to bring in, a talented free agent signee perhaps, then trading Quinn for a pu-pu platter might not be so bad. As you would expect, that wasn’t the move the Browns made. Just over a week after releasing Anderson, they signed what amounts to Derek Anderson seven or eight years from now: former Carolina Panthers quarterback Jake Delhomme. Delhomme, released last week by the Carolina Panthers, agreed to terms on a two-year deal with the Browns on Saturday. He will ostensibly compete for the starting job and based on their recent moves, the Browns will look to select a quarterback some time in the first few rounds of next month’s NFL draft. You have an erratic, declining veteran turnover machine with a year or two left in his career (even though Delhomme is scheduled to make $7 million this season, including just under $900,000 in base salary) and you back him up with a career bench player with not nearly enough game to start for an NFL team and you basically throw up a huge neon sign declaring your intentions to draft a new signal caller and develop him. How bad was Delhomme last season in Carolina? Well, he threw 18 interceptions and the Panthers decided to cut him despite still owing him more than $12 million. So there is your starting quarterback situation for the 2010 season, Browns fans: an unreliable, has-been turnover machine veteran, a career backup and a to-be-named draft pick. Like I said, prepare yourself for another blast to the package, Browns fans, because that is precisely what this season is going to be…………

- Alice in Wonderland has staked its claim to the box office throne and losing the luster of being a new release has done nothing to endanger than perch - so far. The Tim Burton-Johnny Depp duo kept audiences under their spell for another week, dropping off a relatively low 47 percent its second weekend in theaters for an additional $62 million take. That brings the film’s 10-day total to $208 million — enough to top 2005’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to become Burton’s highest grossing film. As with the film’s opening weekend, a significant chunk - 13 percent this time around - came from its IMAX 3-D screens. Coming in a distant second was Matt Damon’s Green Zone. The war thriller from Bourne Ultimatum director Paul Greengrass cost $100 million to make but only opened to $14.5 million, well below expectations and a bit of a surprise given Damon’s normal drawing power. The third place finisher, She’s Out of My League, couldn’t even crack eight figures. The R-rated comedy opened with a $9.6 million tally. In fourth place was everyone’s favorite hunky vampire, Robert Pattinson, in his new film Remember Me. In its opening weekend, the movie made $8.2 million, which isn’t quite as bad a result when you consider that it was a pretty cheap film to make. Rounding out the top five was Paramount’s Shutter Island, with Leonardo DiCaprio pointing the way to an $8 million haul that put the film’s total take at $109 million. Rounding out the top 10 were: Fox Searchlight’s Our Family Wedding (debuting with $7.6 million, good enough for sixth place), Avatar (adding another $6.6 million to its cumulative total for a gross domestic take of $730 million and counting), the R-rated cop drama Brooklyn’s Finest (dropping fast in its second weekend despite the name value of Don Cheadle, Richard Gere and Ethan Hawke) which fell a whopping 68 percent and grossed a paltry $4.2 million, Cop Out (just a few dollars back and also in the $4.2-million range) and The Crazies (tenth with $3.6 million). Overall, total box office revenues rose for the third straight weekend. More 3-D films lurk on the horizon, with How to Train Your Dragon and Clash of the Titans on the way in the weeks ahead. Should be interesting to see if Alice can hold off these two films and maintain its grip on 3-D/IMAX screens or if they will elbow it out of the way in the fight for the top spot at the box office…………

- Oh, how I love a television or radio station inciting panic via a phony news broadcast that gullible people believe. It happened back in 1933 with H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, when a bunch of naïve radio listeners mistook a fictional tale of aliens invading the planet and flew into a panic. That hilarious tale now has a modern companion after a television station in the nation of Georgia triggered a panic when it broadcast a mock half-hour report about a Russian invasion of the country. On Saturday night, the pro-government Imedi TV in Georgia broadcast footage it termed a "simulation" of what an invasion would look like. The images hit home for Georgians because in August 2008, Russian tanks, troops and armored vehicles advanced into the former Soviet Republic. Georgians are still sensitive to the issue because of that attack, which occurred after Georgian troops attacked pro-Russian separatists in the breakaway republic of South Ossetia. The two sides bickered and offered conflicting stories about what happened and how many people died. What cracks me up about this “simulation” and the outrage it caused is the fact that the freaking broadcast ended with a note that the events in it were not real. Sure, there were no similar warnings during the course of the half-hour broadcast, so anyone who tuned in mid-broadcast may have been a tad alarmed. And sure, the broadcast did include sound bites from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and footage of Georgians fleeing the 2008 conflict, but just because viewers weren’t smart enough to recognize old footage doesn’t mean the TV station did anything wrong. It’s not like Imedi TV had a live news anchor reading supposedly real updates during the……wait, they did? Oh. Umm, that was probably a bad idea. Yes, having an anchor provide "updates" that Russian forces had bombed the airport in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, and a military base in the country, that was somewhat poor judgment. And yes, reporting that four Georgians had been killed and six wounded near South Ossetia may have been traumatizing for certain viewers. But hey, Imedi TV did manage to put up scrolling text apologizing for spreading panic among viewers within a couple of hours. It only took two hours for them to figure out how to use the crawler at the bottom of the screen. It’s not like they’re a professional TV station that uses that sort of application all the time and would know how to……never mind. The stunt was also enough to bring Manana Manjgaladze, the spokeswoman for Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, to the station for an unexpected live appearance to apologize to viewers for the false alarm. Panic following the broadcast was especially high among residents of Akhali Tserovani, a recently constructed colony of cottages for thousands of Georgians who fled their homes during the 2008 war. The requisite apologies were issued from the station and government itself, but how’s about we try not to repeat this little mistake ever again, just for the heck of it……….

- Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the U.S.-Mexico border the one we’re supposed to be more concerned with people crossing illegally? I know, I know, terrorists could attempt to enter the country from any direction, but I’m thinking more of non-terrorists, i.e. border crashers without aspirations of world domination. My man Buzz Roy (gotta love any guy named Buzz - Buzz Lightyear, Buzz Aldrin, etc.) of Derby Line, Vt. knows what I’m referring to and he knows it all too well. Roy was walking down a rural road in Derby Line that he has walked down for years when all of a sudden, The Man came swooping down on him. "I walked over to Canada on a Saturday night around quarter to nine to get a pizza," Roy explained. See, Derby line is right across the border from Canada and Roy, who lives and works in Derby Line, walked down Church Street to the nearest pizza shop, which happens to be in Canada. On his way there, he was stopped by police, who informed him hat crossing on Church Street is illegal. "Steam was coming out of my ears from the treatment by the state cop. I felt that he had been misinformed about my ability to enter the country on Church Street. I've done it my entire life many, many, many times," Roy fumed. Stanstead, Canada is the town where the pizza shop is officially located and due to a recent increase in border patrol along side streets dividing the two towns, crossing Church Street for a slice of pepperoni is now a crime. What I like most about the situation is Roy’s response. He didn’t tuck tail, meekly accept his fate and slink away. No, when he decided that he didn’t like the cut of the officer’s jib, he walked down the street, and crossed the border a second time…..and then a third. "I went back and did it again, and this time I was met by the border patrol and he frisked me and handcuffed me, put me in the back of his cruiser, took me to border patrol headquarters, put me in a cell, held me for three hours, then let me out and told me I was going to be fined $500 dollars," Roy said. My man Buzz plans to fight the fine, but sees his plight as a signal of a larger issue with the law. "I firmly believe that to this day ... they just make up rules from day to day," Roy snapped. I’ve been trying to tell people that for a long time now, Buzz, but no one wants to hear it. Derby Line residents are lining up behind Roy to offer their support, wearing "Free Buzz Roy" campaign pins and spreading their message to anyone who visits Derby Line. Count me in on your fight, guys, because no one enjoys sticking it to The Man more than me…………