- Santa Monica, Calif. should be a warm, friendly city in SoCal where the holidays are peaceful and kind because the weather is awesome and there is no chance of snow and could on Christmas or New Year’s Day. It should be that kind of place…….but right now it isn’t. At present, a battle is raging between the Santa Monica Nativity Scene Committee and a group of atheists angling for their spot in the annual holiday scenery at Santa Monica's Palisades Park. For decades, a massive nativity scene has been set up in the park with a total of 14 life-size displays depicting traditional religious scenes. The display was so large that it consumed two blocks along Ocean Avenue. That changed drastically this year when the city received a record number of requests for space in the park. The so-called traditionalists won two spots in the lottery allowing them to erect three scenes out of the usual 14. Eighteen of the spots went to so-called "out-of-towners" and nine of them went to atheist Raymond McNealy of nearby Burbank. What is McNealy’s beef? He’s outraged that a church organization is demanding exclusive rights on public property and found some support from other SoCal atheists. "It's a movement to have equal representation, and to have our voices heard on an equal scale to the nativity scenes that have been in this property for so many years, violating the separation of church and state," atheist Damon Vix fumed. Aside from Vix misreading or simply being ignorant of what the Constitution actually says about religion and government, his anger does seem genuine. Those sentiments have angered many Santa Monica residents who have chided their atheistic invaders have in a sense stolen Christmas. "We were confined to three booths because, really, a group of out-of-town atheists from out of town manipulated the rules and tried to force us out of the park, and stop this nearly 60-year-old Santa Monica celebration of Christmas," Hunter Jameson, of the Nativity Scene Committee argued. "Christmas is still in our hearts. Christmas is still here. We're just praying and working that next year there will be the full 14 booths here as there have been in the past." While they suffer through their downsized holiday display for the year, members of the committee are collecting signatures to take to the city in an attempt to get the 14 booths restored for next year. The atheists promise to be there every step of the way to fight them……………
- Chasing a trade for All-NBA center Dwight Howard part of the day, plotting a campaign to oust one of the most oppressive despots in the world from power with the rest of your time. That just about sums up what life will be like in the near future for Mikhail Prokhorov, one of Russia's richest tycoons and the owner of the New Jersey Nets. Prokhorov announced Monday he will run against the despotic Vladimir Putin in the March presidential election despite widespread belief that Putin will rig the election no matter who runs against him. After Putin's party only won about 50 percent of last week’s parliamentary vote, compared to 64 percent four years ago, Prokhorov was apparently inspired to run. "The society is waking up," the freakishly tall owner announced at a news conference in Moscow to announce his candidacy. "Those authorities who will fail to establish a dialogue with the society will have to go." In response to the claims of fraud in last week’s vote, “President” Dmitry Medvedev promised Sunday on his Facebook page to investigate the allegations even as Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, predicted the probe will show that little vote fraud occurred. With massive riots gripping the country, Prokhorov said he hopes to win the support of Russia's growing middle class despite being a renowned billionaire playboy who enjoys hiring camera crews to film highlight videos of him doing water skiing stunts behind his massive yacht. He joins several candidates who have said they will oppose Putin in the presidential election, but he’s the only one with the street cred of owning an NBA franchise. Observers believe Prokhorov, whose wealth the Forbes magazine has estimated at $18 billion, could pose a serious challenge to Putin. While he launches his campaign in Russia, the Nets are preparing for a truncated NBA season following a five-month lockout and are thought to be one of the leading contenders if the Orlando Magic decide to trade Howard, the league’s reigning defensive player of the year. Balancing both could be challenging, but perhaps Nets minority owner Jay-Z can step up and help his pal Micky P. out……………
- Not that this advice is going to stop anyone who can’t help themselves when they see raw cookie dough in front of them, but the Centers for Disease control are adamant that you keep your hands off that dough until it comes out of the oven. A new report raises additional concerns about the dangerous germs lurking in ready-to-bake cookie dough. “What our report shows is that you shouldn’t eat cookie dough raw, no matter where it comes from,” said the report’s lead author Dr. Karen Neil, a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “It’s supposed to be baked.” Yes……but it’s so tasty when it’s uncooked. For the study, Neil and her colleagues examined the illnesses of 77 people in 30 states, 35 of whom became so sick that they needed to be hospitalized. Following the outbreak, researchers compared the eating habits of 36 healthy volunteers to 36 people sickened by a deadly strain of E coli bacteria in 2009 and found that raw cookie dough consumption was the thing all 36 had in common. They later visited manufacturing plants where the cookie batter was being made and found E coli in the samples they collected at the plants, according to their report, which was published in the always riveting journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. Determining why raw cookie dough is dangerous wasn’t all that complicated either: Neil explain that flour doesn’t go through the kind of special processing to kill off pathogens that ingredients like pasteurized eggs, molasses, sugar, baking soda, and margarine do and until it is cooked in an oven, it remains a hazard. Because of her investigation, 3.6 million packages of cookie dough were ultimately recalled even though the manufacturer of the dough isn’t named in the report. Cookie dough ice cream is different, according to Neil, because the preparation process for the dough in ice cream is different from the product that is sold as ready-to-bake. “The cookie dough in ice cream was meant to be consumed raw,” she said. “It’s formulated as a ready-to-eat product. The cookie dough that is labeled “ready-to-bake” in the refrigerator section of the grocery store – or even the dough that you make at home – should be cooked before you eat it.” A cynic might argue that despite she and her team’s careful work, this is a fight the good doctor will lose………….
- Not that the hype for next year’s The Dark Knight Rises could get much higher, but as director Christopher Nolan goes about promoting his film by debuting extender trailers for the project prior to select IMAX screenings of the new Mission Impossible movie, a poster for Dark Knight Rises is creating even more buzz because of what it seemingly implies. In the poster, Batman’s mask lies on the ground, broken, and in the background apparently unintelligible villain Bane is shown walking away. The tagline for the poster is simple: “The Legend Ends.” What sort of disaster the poster portends is unclear, but some cinematic conspiracy theorists are speculating that the poster hints at the Caped Crusader’s death. Nolan has somewhat fed into that idea by reinforcing that the film will be a genuine conclusion to his version of the Batman mythos. He and star Christian Bale plan to walk away from the franchise after Dark Knight Rises’ release. When it drops in July, the film will also have superhero competition for the summer from the equally hyped The Avengers. As for the question of whether “they” can really kill Batman…..what better way to put a capper on the franchise and discourage anyone else from trying to make a new version of the film any time soon? If nothing else, the poster is attracting the very attention Nolan and Warner Bros. are seeking and for that reason, it is a smart, savvy promotional ploy……….
- Could World War III really start over Christmas trees? Probably not, but when North Korea is involved in any situation the impossible/idiotic/asinine/illogical becomes possible. For weeks now, North Korea has warned South Korea of "unexpected consequences" if it goes through with plans to light three giant Christmas trees along the North Korean border. Putting up, decorating and lighting the trees is somehow supposed to be some act of war or defiance even though they will be on the South Korean side of the border. Pyongyang has accused its counterparts to the south of using the trees to spread the Christian message to people inside North Korea. Why North Korea can’t build a giant, temporary wall along the border to block the trees hasn’t been explained, but a South Korean official announced Monday that Seoul will light the steel Christmas structures on Dec. 23 and keep them on until Jan. 6. In a statement sure to infuriate dictator Kim Jong-Il and his crew, Seoul says it is acting on a request of Christian evangelical organizations. All three trees, located at Aegibong Peak and near two observatory platforms on the central and eastern frontlines, are visible from North Korea. The South Korean military lit the trees on Aegibong Peak in 2010 for the first time in seven years and the North was extremely angry about the gesture at that time. Repeating it would apparently be grounds for “unexpected consequences,” which could mean North Korea sinking a South Korean warship (again) and denying it (again) or something else entirely…………
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