- You can shut down your transit system, San Francisco Bay Area Regional Transit authorities, but you cannot shut down the sheer rage of your city’s residents toward BART security personnel. Thus, it was fairly amusing to watch BART officials successively close and reopen all downtown subway stations Monday evening in an attempt to stem the threat of spreading protests. "All BART Stations are Now Open, Trains Running On Time," said a release from Bay Area Rapid Transit. The scene across the downtown area was amusing throughout the evening, as officials rushed to curtail demonstrations and their spread by closing and reopening the Civic Center and Montgomery stations, closing the Powell station, then at least partially reopening Powell to allow riders to disembark. BART officials also called in police officers to stand at the ready in “response gear” at the Civic Center station, with one officer on a megaphone yelling at people, "This is your final warning, the station is closed." The protests were in response to several shootings involving BART police officers -- the latest coming last month and resulting in the death of 45-year-old Charles Hill. Small protests could be spotted on the streets downtown and jamming up public transportation wasn’t the only step the powers that be took in their efforts to quell the unrest. Last week, BART also shut off cell phone service ahead of a protest, a decision officials continued to defend Tuesday as a choice to "temporarily interrupt ... service at select BART stations as one of many tactics to ensure the safety of everyone on the platform." The decision drew an unlikely party into the battle - well-known hacking group Anonymous. Anonymous threatened retaliation for the disruption of service. That apparently happened Sunday, when the group took credit for the apparent hacking of myBART.org, a link off BART's website that showed a page featuring, among other items, the hacking group's logo. Ironically, last week’s protest never materialized and it wasn’t until BART cut cell phone service that the situation flared up again. "All over the world people are using mobile devices to organize protests against repressive regimes, and we rightly criticize governments that respond by shutting down cell service, calling their actions anti-democratic and a violation of the rights to free expression and assembly," Rebecca Farmer from the ACLU's northern California office wrote on the advocacy group's website. "Are we really willing to tolerate the same silencing of protest here in the United States?" You tell ‘em, Becky. The Federal Communications Commission is investigating the matter, as per its bureaucratic protocol. Don’t expect much to come from that. It might be up to Anonymous to settle this score on behalf of the wronged…………
- The acting world has suffered a significant loss today and it could be a long, long time before the thespian community recovers. For on this day, legendary actress Taylor Momsen has decided that instead of appearing in crappy, soap-operatic CW teen dramas, she is going to take her subpar singing voice and mediocre musical ability and pursue a career with her band The Pretty Reckless. "I quit acting. I quit 'Gossip Girl' and now tour and am in a band," the 18-year-old said to Elle magazine's website. "That's pretty much all I want to do. Hopefully, I'll be able to only do that for the rest of my life." Lots of luck with that, T. If your band’s music thus far is any indication, you wont be doing your thing beyond the next year or two, maximum. Not that the acting world is going to miss the vitriolic, pretty-yet-untalented actress who wasn’t exactly conjuring up memories of any acting greats with her performance as Jenny Humphrey on the CW teen soap “Gossip Girl.” In speaking about her decision to abandon acting and pursue music full-time, Momsen actually gave a brilliant insight into the experience of listening to her music - although her mind, she was describing the process of making her music. She described writing songs as “a very tortuous process, but, you know, I would say one of the most rewarding at the end." Glad it’s rewarding for someone because it is definitely not rewarding for those subjected to what The Pretty Reckless flippantly call music. The only people who will be devastated by news of Momsen’s supposed retirement from acting will be the teeny bopper fans of “Gossip Girl,” who were too caught up in the Upper East Side drama of the show to realize how so-so of an actress Momsen is. But give her credit for being consistent and never publicly wavering from her decision to focus full-time on music after taking an indefinite hiatus from the CW series in November. She resurfaced in April and insisted, "[Music] is all I ever wanted to do with my life. I wanted to make records and tour, so it's very exciting that our first record is coming out and people can actually hear it." Unfortunately, that excitement never materialized on the other end of the artist-general public relationship…………
- Waiting patiently for the price of a given piece of technology to go down often proves a wise choice and has proven to be so once again for would-be buyers of Sony’s popular PlayStation 3 gaming system who were a few dollars short of being able to afford their desired purchase. The video game maker has confirmed that it has cut the price of the PlayStation 3 video game console from $299 to $249. The big announcement actually came in Deutschland, a.k.a. Germany, at the Gamescom game event in Cologne. Perhaps Sony simply had no choice but to respond to rumors about the price cut that had been swirling since June. A 16-percent reduction in price isn't immense by any stretch of the imagination, but it does at least reflect Sony’s willingness to get on board with the industry trend of lowering console prices in light of manufacturing efficiencies and higher volumes of systems available. Sony hasn’t cut the price of the PS3 since 2009, when it introduced the PS 3 Slim with cost-reduced components. Aside from jump-starting sales, Sony is obviously hoping to put pressure on competitors like Microsoft and Nintendo to keep pace. Microsoft hasn’t been keen on lowering the price of its systems because as the industry leader, life is good. But after Nintendo reduced the price of its Wii gaming system several months ago and slashed the price of its slow-selling, handheld 3DS from $249 to $169 in the past week, Microsoft just might re-think its gaming approach with its cash cow, the Xbox. Nintendo also has a new system in the works, the Wii U, coming in the near future. To make its own price cut official, Sony also had its “celebrity spokesman” from its current round of commercials, Kevin Butler, confirm the price drop in a tweet, “There are now 50 less excuses for not owning a PS3. #PS3now249.” And the race is on………….
- One of the most epic protests anywhere in the world in this or any other year took place Tuesday in Ukraine, where the controversial trial of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko continued amidst a vociferous outcry from many activist groups. No shots were fired, no stores were looted, no police cars were overturned and no tear gas was unleashed. Instead, two brave members of FEMEN, a Ukrainian women’s activist group that supports Tymoshenko and has condemned her trial, climbed on top of a prison van Tuesday outside the court in Kyiv and did something that would see them heavily rewarded……if they were at Mardi Gras in New Orleans. That’s right, these two ladies stripped to the waist to support their cause and (if anyone was looking anywhere other than their chests) denounce Ukraine's police and politicians, saying they were the ones who belong in custody. The demonstration – much to the delight of men in downtown Kyiv – went on for several minutes before police arrested the women and took them away. Somehow, FEMEN has been conducting this sort of protest regularly in the past few years to draw attention to issues ranging from the exploitation of women to corruption and they haven’t received nearly enough credit for this work. In case anyone was too distracted by the sight of two topless Ukrainian women gyrating and shouting atop a police van at the center of the capital and forgot what the hubbub was about in the first place, here is a refresher: Tymoshenko is charged with abuse of power stemming from a 2009 deal that ended Russia's cutoff of natural gas to Ukraine. She insists her prosecution is merely a vendetta against her by the man who vanquished her in the country’s most recent presidential election, President Viktor Yanukovych. Of course, all of that is irrelevant as long as Tymoshenko’s trial is inspiring the fine ladies of FEMEN to take off their clothes in protest…….just kidding, femi-Nazis…………
- Bubba Starling has stared down a decision anyone would love to have even though it had to be incredibly difficult for him to make. Starling, likely the most celebrated high school athlete in Kansas history, was a three-sport star growing up in Edgerton, Kan., and after graduating in the spring he was faced with the no-lose choice of playing football at Nebraska or playing play baseball for the Kansas City Royals. On the one hand, sign with one of the most storied programs in college football and the program that nearly every Midwestern kid who has ever stepped onto a football field has imagined playing for at some point. On the other hand, sign for millions of dollars and play baseball for the only Major League Baseball team with the word “Kansas” in its name. In the end, Starling went for the money and signed with the Royals for a team-record rookie signing bonus of $7.5 million spread over three years. He grew up about 30 minutes southwest of Kauffman Stadium, the Royals’ home park, and the team made him the fifth player taken in the June baseball draft. "Things really didn't heat up until probably the last 5 or 6 minutes," said general manager Dayton Moore. "It came down pretty quick. I've got a lot of adrenaline going through me right now. We had had some talks earlier today and just kind of left it at that. We just kind of reached out together." Starling’s negotiations with the Royals were even tougher because he is represented by the obnoxious, arrogant, greedy and widely despised Scott Boras, the agent known above all other for having players hold out and extort every last dollar out of teams. In this case, Boras and Starling could use the threat of him going to play football for the Cornhuskers to hold the Royals hostage. The deal was finally struck just moments before the 11 p.m. CDT deadline. "I sweat them all out," Moore said. "This was particularly tough. We knew on draft day and prior to draft day that this had a chance to work really, really good or had a chance to go wrong." Now that they have him in the fold, the Royals can think back on inviting Starling to watch games at Kauffman Stadium and hit in their underground batting range and know it was all worthwhile. As he starred in basketball, baseball and football at Gardner-Edgerton High School, the team had to sweat out his future and where it would lead. The sweating is over and now the Royals can sweat something new: wondering if the guy they just invested $7.5 million in will be worth it or not…………
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