- Arnold Schwarzenegger is taking this whole has-been action
star desperately grasping for continued relevance thing seriously. After
sharing screen time with his fellow has-been, geezer action stars in “Expendables
2,” the Gover-nator is seeking to grab the glory all for himself by reaching
back to 1984. He is officially set to play Conan The Barbarian for the first
time in nearly three decades and will reprise the role in “The Legend Of Conan,”
which is being lined up for a summer 2014 release. The Austrian-born
bodybuilder turned incompetent and philandering governor of California played
the hulking swordsman in 1982's “Conan The Barbarian” and 1984's “Conan The
Destroyer.” Fantasy writer Robert Howard originally created the character, but
it was Schwarzenegger’s lack of ability to fluidly deliver dialogue or
accurately portray and emotions other than rage that really brought Conan to
life. The new film will be produced by Fredrik Malmberg, whose company Parallox
owns the rights to the character. Screenwriter Chris Morgan, the creative mind
behind low-IQ, poorly executed films like “Wanted” and several of the “Fast
& Furious” movies, will pen the script after coming up with the general
concept for “Legend of Conan” last year. Maybe Morgan and Malmberg should take
a hint from the fact that a 2011 reboot of the franchise starring Jason Momoa,
called “Conan the Barbarian,” failed miserably, but this is Hollywood and those
lessons are always ignored. "This movie picks up Conan where Arnold is now
in his life, and we will be able to use the fact that he has aged in this
story. I love the property of Conan so much that I wouldn’t touch it unless we
came up with something worthy. We think this is a worthy successor to the
original film. Think of this as Conan's Unforgiven,” Morgan said. Uh-huh,
sure………
- Finally….. Franky the chocolate Labrador retriever and Aldo
the German shepherd will have their day in court – the U.S. Supreme Court, that
is. The two canines are police dogs as the heart of a case that has wound its
way through the legal system and arrived at the nation’s highest court. The
Supreme Court is scheduled on Wednesday to hear Florida's appeal of two
decisions by that state's highest court that found the detection of drugs by
trained police dogs had violated the constitutional ban on unreasonable
searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. At
the heart of the cases are two diverse issues: whether a dog can sniff outside
a home without a warrant, and how qualified a dog must be to do a legitimate
sniff. Both present the court with an opportunity to limit or extend prior
decisions giving police significant leeway to use dogs, including for suitcases
at airports and cars stopped at checkpoints. A decision in favor of law
enforcement in these cases could extend the right of police to use dogs in a
great capacity. Florida is arguing that dog "alerts" are not searches
because they uncover illegal activities that deserve no privacy protection. Retired
Justice David Souter belittled that idea in a dissent from a 2005 pro-sniff
decision, arguing it supposes that a trained canine becomes an "infallible
dog" that never errs. At least 23 states have joined in Florida’s appeals
in a show of support, claiming that drug-detecting dogs are "essential
weapons" in the fight against illegal drug production and sales. One of
the cases before the court, Florida v. Jardines, concerns a December 5, 2006,
search outside Joelis Jardines' home near Miami. A tip to police about
marijuana being grown inside led a detective and Franky the Labrador to
approach the home. The dog sniffed the base of the home and sat down,
indicating it has found the scent of drugs. Police obtained a search warrant
based on that result and found marijuana plants inside the home. Jardines was
arrested for possessing more than 25 pounds of marijuana, but Florida's
highest court voided the find and called Franky's sniff an "unreasonable
government intrusion into the sanctity of the home." The second case
involves the search of Clayton Harris' pickup truck near Bristol, Fla. on June
24, 2006 in which Aldo the German shepherd was led around the truck for a
"free air sniff.” Aldo barked near the driver's door handle and the
officer then searched the truck's interior, finding 200 pseudoephedrine pills
and 8,000 matches, both ingredients for methamphetamine. Now, both cases are
before the (no pun intended) high court and decisions are expected in about six
months………
- Arrrrggghhhh mateys, the news be bad when it comes to
piracy on the high seas. Shiver me timbers, sea piracy worldwide fell to its lowest
level since 2008 over the first nine months of this year as navies and shipping
companies continued their crackdown on attacks off the coast of Somalia. The
International Maritime Bureau, an international maritime watchdog, recorded 233
attacks in the first nine months of this year, down from 352 in the same period
last year. According to the IBM, 24 vessels were hijacked worldwide between
January and September 2012, with 458 crew members taken hostage and six killed.
Figuring out the reason behind the decline isn't difficult, as the number of
pirate attacks Somalia's coast plummeted from last year to this one, down from
199 to a measly 70. Worse still, the past three months have been anemic for
Somali pirate attacks, with just one reported in the entire third quarter of
2012. Piracy enjoyed a sort of golden age off the coast of Somalia in 2009 because
of a lawless atmosphere that spawned increasingly daring acts of pirate-y
goodness. However, the pushback from international navies has been severe and
these days, pirates are more likely to be camping out in unfurnished rooms,
hiding from creditors. The kooks at the IMB aren’t helping the cause by
labeling the pirates as heinous criminals who must be brought to justice. "We
welcome the successful robust targeting of pirate action groups by
international navies in the high-risk waters off Somalia, ensuring these
criminals are removed before they can threaten ships," said IMB director
Pottengal Mukundan. There is hope for piracy on the horizon in Africa's Gulf of
Guinea, ranging from Benin to Togo, where 34 attacks have been reported so far
this year. It’s a rare slice of good news in dark times for the terrors of the
high seas………
- To the cynic, it might appear that Brooklyn Nets All-Star Deron
Williams still has a chip on his shoulder after involuntarily serving as the
launch point for the phenomenon that was Linsanity. Williams was the opposing
point guard on Feb. 4 when then-Knicks backup point guard Jeremy Lin came off
the bench, torched the Nets, breathed life into his own moribund team and
incited a nationwide phenomenon that spawned bad puns, ridiculous headlines and
more than a few inappropriate Asian-centric remarks from those unable to handle
the topic responsibly. Lin cored 25 points in a 99-92 victory over the Nets at
Madison Square Garden and went on a scoring binge in the ensuing weeks that
vaulted him to celebrity status in Manhattan and beyond. He rode that wave of
hype to a $25.1 million deal with
Houston this offseason and has proceeded to stink up the joint so far in the
preseason. Williams still seems a little bitter about it all and went out of
his way to say Saturday that current Knicks point guard Raymond Felton is a
better playmaker than Lin. "I would say Raymond Felton is a better point
guard than Jeremy Lin, in my opinion," Williams said. Williams stopped
short of suggesting that the Knicks are a better team without Lin, but
rationalized his choice by pointing to Felton’s track record as a starter in
the NBA. "He is just proven,"
Williams said. "You'll have
to see Jeremy Lin. He had a heck of a run. The numbers he was putting up were
All-Star type numbers when he
was starting, so we'll see how he does this year. But going off of track
record, you know I'm going to go
with Raymond Felton and Ray probably had his best year that half season he was
there. I guess he likes the bright
lights." Felton may live up to Williams’ words of praise and it
would help if he showed up in shape, something he has admitted he didn’t do in
Portland last season after the lockout. Based on Lin’s sub-40 percent shooting
in the preseason, being better than him this season shouldn’t be hugely
challenging for anyone who is in shape……….
- Tsunamis and Switzerland usually aren't synonymous. Landlocked
nations in the middle of Europe that are covered almost entirely by mountains
usually skew that way, but environmental researchers at the University of
Geneva have suggested otherwise. According to their findings, an ancient
tsunami in a Swiss lake triggered by an Alpine landslide suggests that cities
now on the lake's shore may face dangers more commonly associated with large
oceans. To qualify as a tsunami, a wave must reach a height of 100 meters and
this typically occurs as a result of a major seismic event such as an
earthquake, or possibly a landslide. Geological researcher Guy Simpson and his
team believe that a landslide was the cause of the landlocked tsunami and
theorized that the lake may have been hit by a landslide. Such a wave could
also occur after a collapse on the flank of a volcano. "People think that,
to be affected by a tsunami, you have to live on seacoasts and in a region not
too far away from major seismic activity," Simpson said. “We think we have
a counterexample.” He and his team analyzed Lake Geneva in Switzerland, a body
of water with more than 1 million people living in its immediate vicinity,
including 200,000 of them in Geneva, the second-most populous city in
Switzerland. The event Simpson’s team studied was a rock fall that occurred in
563 A.D. more than 45 miles from Geneva, according to two historical accounts —
one from St. Gregory of Tours, the other from Marius, bishop of Avenches. The
rock fall was named the Tauredunum event after a nearby fort and brought
boulders crashing down near where the Rhone River enters Lake Geneva. Several
villages were destroyed and the disaster went on to generate a tsunami in Lake
Geneva that drenched everything on the lake's shore, wiped out more villages
and demolished the Geneva bridge and mills. Researchers surveyed the deepest
part of Lake Geneva seismically to see how this event might be relevant to
modern residents of the region and calculated that a wave about 25 feet high
could have reached Geneva approximately 70 minutes after the rock fall,
traveling at about 45 mph. Simpson believes a similar event is not only
possible, but likely in the future. "Tsunamis have happened in Lake Geneva
in the past, and in all likelihood, will probably happen at some stage in the
future," he theorized………
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