- And the hit keep on coming…..and coming……and coming in China, where the Communist Party is showing its oppression prowess once again by directing the country’s Internet providers tighten control over material online as the government attempts to further stamp out dissent and prevent the occurrence of Middle East-style protests. Communist Party official Liu Qi issued the directive following a visit this week to Sina Corp., which operates a popular microblogging site. He cloaked his warning under the guise of protecting the state’s image, saying Internet companies should "strengthen management and firmly prevent the spread of fake and harmful information." In other words, quash any ideas that don’t fully agree and comply with the established line of acceptable though as put forth by the Communist Party. Liu spun it as “resisting fake and negative information." In a show of their true hypocrisy, party officials regularly encourage Internet use for education and business while opposing any use that could educate citizens about what a bunch of tyrannical tools its leaders are. Seeing uprising after uprising sweep across the Middle East and Africa earlier this year, Chinese officials have unquestionably launched one of the country’s most violent and widespread crackdowns on dissent in years and detained or questioned hundreds of activists, lawyers and others. Foreign websites with even remotely critical stories about China are typically blocked and Chinese operators of sites where the public can post comments are required to watch the material and remove any that violates censorship rules. Google finally ran out of patience with the government's absurd censorship rules and closed its China search engine last year. No details were provided as to how Internet companies were expected to change their management to comply with Liu’s warning. His remarks came several days after the Beijing Internet Media Association, a government-sanctioned industry group, called on its 104 member companies to police Internet content. "Propaganda guidance to the public should be led toward a correct direction," the appeal explained. "Online news should be trustworthy and should not spread rumors or vulgar contents." Feel free to view this as an open challenge to find ways to circumvent or defy this asinine new standard, Chinese dissidents, although odds are you can't actually read these words because they are censored in China…………
- With no worthwhile challengers and on a down weekend at the box office, reigning earnings champion The Help held the top spot once again for this frame. With a modest first-place take of $14.3 million, Help held off weak challenges from newcomers Colombiana and Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark to reign once more. For three weekends of work, Help has garnered $96.6 million domestically. Opening in underwhelming fashion was second-place finisher Colombiana, starring Zoe Saldana in the title role. A mere $10.3 million in domestic earnings was not the big debut TriStar had to be hoping for, but it was better than the opening effort for Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. Dark dropped in third place with a scant $8.7 million and that is not the type of opening weekend a film wants to post if it has aspirations of a long stay in the top 10. Rise of the Planet of the Apes kept the summer of the stupid monkey movie alive and well a bit longer by finishing in fourth place with $6.6 million, enough to raise its cumulative total to $148.5 million for four weeks in release. Capping off the top half of the top 10 was another newbie, Our Idiot Brother, starring Paul Rudd. Ironically, what was the most watchable new movie of the weekend was its third most-successful, scoring $6.5 million and looking infinitely better when measured against its small, $5 million budget. The rest of the top 10 was populated by: Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (No. 6 and not doing well in its second weekend with just $5.7 million for a two-week total of $21.7 million), The Smurfs (hanging tough at No. 7 in its fifth week with $4.8 million and $125.9 million domestically in five weeks), Conan the Barbarian (No. 8 and continuing its bomb-tastic start with $3.1 million in its second weekend and $16.6 million through its first two weeks), Fright Night (also failing through two weeks with $3 million after a 61-percent decline from its debut) and Crazy, Stupid, Love. (No. 10 with $2.9 million and $69.5 million after five weeks in theaters). Films dropping out of the top 10 from last week were 30 Minutes or Less (No. 11), Final Destination 5 (No. 12) and One Day (No. 13)…………
- Why so serious (and agitated), Usain Bolt, why so serious? The world’s fastest man still has no rivals quick enough to beat him in a race, but at the world championships in Daegu, South Korea on Sunday, he found an opponent he couldn’t outrun: the computer system monitoring the start of the 100 meter dash to prevent false starts. The system measures pressure on the starting blocks for each runner in order to figure out if a runner has gained a competitive edge by leaving before the starting gun. Bolt, after his typical pre-race theatrics and preening, was clearly guilty of a false start. After posing for the cameras, pointing to the runners on either side of him and shaking his head in mock disgust, he blew his chance to set a new world record and maintain his dominance as the fastest man in the world. Because of an idiotic rule that disqualifies any runner who false starts once, he was out of the race. The previous rule charged the first false start to the entire field and disqualified any runner who false-started after that. An audible gasp went up from the crowd once Bolt was shown the red card signifying disqualification, ripped off his uniform top and was escorted off the track. With hands clasped behind his head, Bolt had no one to blame but himself and certainly wasn’t doing any showboating or flossing when asked by reporters about his gaffe. "Looking for tears?" Bolt snapped. "Not going to happen." He refused to answer any questions about the disqualification and tried to menace anyone who dared ask about it. With the real world’s fastest man out of the race, his Jamaican teammate Yohan Blake won gold ahead of American rival Walter Dix. Blake who won his first 100 title with a slow time of 9.92 and was the only racer to break 10 seconds in the final. Dix mused after the race about the shocking sight of Bolt being kicked out of the race and ushered off the track. "I didn't really think they were going to kick him out," Dix said. "How can you kick Usain out of the race?" Olympic officials are undoubtedly hoping they don’t face the same quandary at next summer’s Games in London, where Bolt will likely be aiming for a repeat of his 2008 Olympic performance in Beijing, where he won three sprint golds and set three world records. In the interim, expect plenty of debate about the controversial false start rule and the possibility of revising it to ensure that a struggling sport doesn’t have its biggest stars sidelined in its biggest races…………
- That was quick. Facebook is out of the daily deals business after a fourth-month experiment. Seeing the success of fast risers like Groupon and Living Social, the social networking site decided to try its hand and add another tool to its arsenal in the battle against new competitor Google+. That experiment ended Friday when Facebook issued a statement declaring its daily deals gimmick to be dead and buried. "After testing Deals for four months, we've decided to end our Deals product in the coming weeks," the company said in its statement. "We think there is a lot of power in a social approach to driving people into local businesses We've learned a lot from our test and we'll continue to evaluate how to best serve local businesses." Well, at least Mark Zuckerberg and Co. gave it a good run. Facebook launched Deals in April by making offers in five cities and creating a small sales team to arrange deals with local merchants. There were also offers set up by 11 other daily deal companies, including ReachLocal, Gilt City and Zozi. Many analysts have expressed surprise that Facebook ended the venture so soon, although the sigh of relief coming from Groupon and Living Social is certainly immense. Groupon is currently preparing for a $750 million initial public offering later this year and now has one less rival to fend off. In wrapping up Facebook deals, the site seems to be casting aspersions on a trend that has proven resoundingly successful for others. In spite of ending Deals, Facebook was adamant on Friday that it is committed to developing other products, such as Ads, Pages and Sponsored Stories, which connect local businesses with potential customers and is sticking with its Check-in Deals offering, which lets Facebook users check in at local businesses and see offers from those merchants. But for those killer deals on a lobster dinner or surfing lessons at the local surf shop, look elsewhere…………
- Dude, this is seriously not cool. State police hassling surfers in Hull, Mass. is totally bogus, bro. Yes, Hurricane Irene was barging up the East Coast at the time with 85 mph winds, dumping massive quantities of water and stirring up huge waves, but that doesn’t mean the cops needed to get all up in the business of a few fun-loving surfer dudes (and dudettes) who were hanging ten on Nantasket Beach in Hull on Sunday. Officers went to the beach early in the day to clear it for safety purposes and found a handful of surfers riding what were likely the best waves Nantasket Beach had seen in a long, long time. All of the surfers folded immediately when The Man told them to leave - except one brave dude who told police he had no intention of going quietly. When officers insisted he vacate the beach, he refused once more and was finally arrested. State police spokesman David Procopio confirmed that the man, whose identity was not released, was taken into custody on a disorderly conduct charge and is being held at a state police barracks. Ultimately, the evacuation of the beach was probably an overreaction as the hurricane was downgraded to a tropical storm and brought little more than heavy rain and strong winds to southeastern Massachusetts. Here’s hoping the charges against this defiant surfer are dismissed and he receives a sincere apology from the state police for ruining his Sunday surfing session…………
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