- Never before has there been such intense media scrutiny and attention for someone’s summer family vacation. But airheaded possible presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family are no ordinary family. After all, how many normal families have a matriarch who has quit mid-term on her job as governor of a state, ran in a miserably failed vice presidential effort and starred in one of the worst and most unwatchable reality shows to hit the airwaves in years? Now that she’s planning on running for president and trying to hijack the news cycle by pretending she’s not for as long as possible while visiting important national landmarks to show what a great patriot she is, Palin is getting exactly the sort of coverage she wants. Over the weekend, she rolled up on the Rolling Thunder gathering in Washington, D.C., a Washington event to honor veterans. She jumped in amongst 250,000 drinking and tattooed bikers wearing leather vests and kicked off her East Coast bus tour by riding from the Pentagon to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the back of a Harley Davidson. Along the way, she ignored questions about her intentions to run for president and instead talked about how great the day an event were. Her tour has also taken her to the national archives, where she oh, so wisely called the U.S. Constitution an important document, to Boston to tour important historical sites there, to New York City for visits to Ellis Island and the very historical chain pizza parlor where she and Donald Trump shared a few slices of pie. The tour/unofficial campaign/glorified family vacation even has a name - the "One Nation" tour. Media members have followed the tour with rapt attention even though none of them have been allowed on Palin’s bus to film or conduct interviews - except her Fox News colleague Greta Van Susteren. Media members have taken to breathlessly speculating where Palin will go next because she won't tell them (much like whiny kids in the back seat of the car on a real family vacation not serving as a cover for launching a presidential bid). No one saw her trip to Gettysburg coming, but speculation has her arriving in New Hampshire, which holds the first presidential primary, by week's end. Hmm…….sounds suspicious. When she does announce her candidacy, it will be both the least surprising and least meaningful announcement of the campaign because a) everyone knows it’s coming and b) this dingbat has no chance in hell of actually being elected president. Go back and watch the behind-the-scenes footage of her staff and lackeys trying to prepare her for debates during the 2008 campaign and ask yourself if someone with that much empty space inside her head and that much unused grey matter occupying the rest of its acreage running this or any other country. Were she smart, Palin would take her $1-million annual contract with Fox News and crappy reality television show and be happy. Oh, and according to Van Susteren, the reason Palin isn't allowing any non-Fox News cameras on her bus during her unofficial official campaign launch is because her Fox contract prohibits her from conducting formal interviews with other television outlets. For her part, Palin has intimated that she refuses to expound on future stops on the trip because she wants the media to have to dig and work to find out such key information like which important national monument she will be reading the tiny metal plaque on and making inane comments on next. That would be awesome……if she had a snowball’s chance in hell of actually being elected president of anything other than the local PTA……………
- Gamers, it has taken a month but Sony has finally gotten the PlayStation Store back online and your digital existence is once again complete. The company announced the development Wednesday night and also promised a "huge lineup" of new downloadable games, demos, add-on content, themes, avatars and videos. An official Sony blog post also teased new full game trials, free games and DLC, free avatars and more discounts, ostensibly as a mea culpa for the store and Sony’s online gaming system being down for such a long time following a massive hacking operation that compromised a significant amount of user data. “The PlayStation Store is back online and thank you everyone for your patience," Sony said in the post. All of the above additions to the store should score well with users, but there is still an official welcome-back/apology package to entice users who were without service following the hack of the PlayStation Network. Last month, the company promised free games, movie rentals and virtual items in an attempt to convince those users to stay. The package "is currently in the final stages of testing and will be available to download soon; we'll be sure to let you know when," Sony confirmed Wednesday. An update for the PlayStation Store and PlayStation Plus is coming tomorrow, June 3, so things are about to get even better for those who have decided not to ditch their PlayStation for a different gaming system. Sony is also expected to roll out some special releases in time for next week's E3 gaming conference in Los Angeles. PlayStation Plus subscribers can now take advantage of full game trials of "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2" and "Dante's Inferno," so life is getting better for them as well. While all of this feel-good news goes on in the virtual world, Sony will be in the real-world setting (stifle your laughs) of Capitol Hill Thursday to discuss the hack of its system. Tim Schaaff, president of Sony Network Entertainment International, stated in prepared testimony released Wednesday by the House Energy and Commerce Committee that Sony supports federal data breach legislation that would require companies to inform customers about any breaches in a timely and consistent manner, regardless of the state in which they reside. The committee has vowed to conduct a "thorough review" of data security and electronic privacy issues and a detailed analysis of "the security of personal information collected and maintained online." Members of Congress have been very vocal about Sony’s slowness in notifying customers of the hack and its consequences, so Thursday’s was bound to be at least mildly combative. Schaff has insisted the company acted prudently and responsibly in the matter, which I’m sure has totally placated all members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and all the users whose personal data was compromised………….
- Really? The NFL and NFLPA (or the artists formerly known as the NFLPA) are resorting to secret meetings to help resolve their labor dispute and end what has now become the longest work stoppage in NFL history? But given the lack of progress the two sides have made - other than in courtrooms - over the first 80 days of the lockout, maybe having NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, NFLPA leader DeMaurice Smith and assorted owners and players association officials meet covertly Wednesday in Chicago was a wise move. The meeting, one day prior to the next hearing in the two sides’ ongoing case before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis, was designed to mediate some of the significant differences that remain on the major issues responsible for the lockout. According to multiple league sources, the two sides worked into the night and made at least some minor progress. Meeting in Chicago was a logical choice with the hearing set for Friday in nearby St. Louis. Some analysts have speculated that the meeting was a sign of both sides’ desire not to waste the month of June not attempting to resolve their differences as their multiple legal issues play out in court. At present, the negotiating efforts are directed at the simple - and yet complex - notion of determining whether it is possible to work out a settlement that eventually leads to football and a collective bargaining agreement. More optimistic sources have expressed hope that a deal could be reached as soon as the end of June, but that seems a bit too sunny given the lack of progress thus far. Wednesday’s meeting was so secretive that even with several NFL owners, including Dallas' Jerry Jones, New England's Robert Kraft and Carolina's Jerry Richardson, on hand, there were several other owners who didn’t have any idea the meeting was taking place. The NFLPA was tight-lipped as well, refusing comment on questions about the meeting or about its leaders' whereabouts. If the two sides continue talking, perhaps they can avoid having to stick to their schedule of court-mediated sessions in the Brady vs. NFL antitrust case, which are scheduled to resume next Tuesday in Minneapolis before U.S. Magistrate Judge Arthur Boylan. Who knows, maybe the coming NFL season really can be saved………….
- With so many superhero movies out this summer (Thor, Green Lantern, Captain America, X-Men), it seems like a great time to ask what it takes to pull of a great superhero movie, one that separates itself from the pack. If you ask “X-Men: First Class” stars James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender the secret to superhero success, they have a definite idea and it has much to do with getting inside the mind of those with other-worldly powers. “I think that the X-Men, X-People, mutants . . . They use their powers for good just like a superhero does but they don’t feel like superheroes," McAvoy said . "They feel like real people more, I think.” So being a superhero doesn’t feel superhero-ish at all? Letdown. Maybe Fassbender has a better explanation? “I think the philosophy of it as well, you know, the whole idea of alienation, misfits in society,” Fassbender added. “And how they struggle to be accepted and to find a place for them in society. I think that’s a universal theme. That’s why people across the world find them intriguing.” A little better, but still not the answer to fire people up to go see a movie about mutants kicking some human ass. The two actors admitted that director Matthew Vaughn did reference the James Bond movies as a sort of template for the portrayal of Magneto, one of the most prominent characters in the X-Men franchise. However, Fassbender insisted his template for his character in the movie was the comic books that inspired it. “I just really concentrated on what was in the comic books,” he explained. “The biography available in the comic books, it was so dense that I was spoiled for choice really to go away and really just create this sort of Machiavellian character.” Comic book dorks everywhere will be overjoyed to hear that because they typically spend the weeks after seeing a comic book movie on the screen telling anyone and everyone who will listen (along with those who won't) how the movie was different from the comic books and how many key details the director missed. Whether all of this research and superhero philosophizing actually pays off for McAvoy, Fassbender and the rest of the X-Men remains to be seen…………
- YES! Finally, a major panel, committee or organization not comprised of major stoners has reached the conclusion the pothead community (in its chemically medicated state) arrived at years ago: It is high time (pun intended) to legalize the hippie lettuce. Big ups to the Global Commission on Drug Policy, which includes former heads of state, a former U.N. secretary-general and a business mogul, for hopping on the bandwagon. This distinguished group has concluded that the global war on drugs has failed with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world and as such, it is time for governments to end the criminalization of marijuana and other controlled substances. "Political leaders and public figures should have the courage to articulate publicly what many of them acknowledge privately: that the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that repressive strategies will not solve the drug problem, and that the war on drugs has not, and cannot, be won," the report said. Before the haters attempt to dismiss the report as the work of a bunch of bong-hitting, fattie-rolling hippies who are too high to realize what they heck they’re saying, take a closer look at some of the members of the panel. Among its 19 members are former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, former U.S. official George P. Schultz, former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, former presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia and U.K. business mogul Richard Branson. These 19 men and women have brilliantly embraced what yours truly has been saying for years, that stoners are mellow people who "do no harm to others." Punishing them makes no sense and thus, governments should end criminalization of drug use, experiment with legal models that would undermine organized crime syndicates and offer health and treatment services for drug-users in need. Brilliant thinking, for sure, even though the panel clearly stole it from me. They went on to call for drug policies based on methods empirically proven to reduce crime, lead to better health and promote economic and social development. Shock of all shocks, the report is also heavily critical of the United States, with commission members insisting the U.S. lead in this area by changing its anti-drug policies from being guided by anti-crime approaches to ones rooted in health care and human rights. "We hope this country (the U.S.) at least starts to think there are alternatives," former Colombian president Cesar Gaviria stated. "We don't see the U.S. evolving in a way that is compatible with our (countries') long-term interests." Predictably, White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske maintained the “head stuck firmly up ass” posture of the Obama administration on the issue, insisting the report was completely off-base. Keep telling yourself that, G., while the rest of the world chills, enjoys some Funjuns and Planet Earth DVDs and does a few bong rips…………
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