- Arrrrghhhhh! Shiver me timbers, ye U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in
the fair port of Seattle. How dare ye seize two shipments of children's Halloween
pirate costumes from China bound for a Seattle-area distributor just because
they were found to contain 11 times the maximum legal lead level. Hundreds of
children will have to find their pirate costumes elsewhere after the shipments
were seized by agents Monday. A total of 1,371 costumes valued at more than
$10,000 were taken after tests by the Consumer Product Safety Commission
revealed that buttons on the pirate costumes contained 1,109 parts per million
of lead. Why that should be a problem is unclear especially because lead paint
lollipops are obviously going to be the choice item trick-or-treaters will want
in their candy bag this Halloween. The lead-laden costumes were initially
identified by compliance investigators checking pallet after pallet of products
shipped into the United States. Investigator Craig “Call Me” Mabie explained
that amongst the many items moving through the port on a daily basis, goods geared
toward children are a major concern. “All this plastic that occurs on the garment
is very high in lead content," he said of the costumes. “The ear (of the
costume) pops off. The ear fits in this small parts cylinder, which mimics the
child's airway and, if it fits in there completely, it's a choking
hazard." Hmm….choking hazard, heavy in lead content….sounds like a great
Halloween costume for that special 6-year-old boy or girl in your life….who you
want to see suffer potential asphyxiation or brain damage.………
- Zombies eat human flesh, they are the walking undead and
they also kick network television shows’ asses. AMC's season premiere of "The Walking
Dead" picked up right where Season 2 left off, dominating the ratings and
showcasing the growing programming power of cable TV. The premiere of the
show’s third season Sunday night obliterated basic-cable ratings records and
also became the highest-rated entertainment premiere among young adults this
fall. It bested mindless entertainment like "Modern Family" and
"The Voice Karaoke," along with a slew of highly publicized new shows
like "Revolution" and "Vegas." The success of “Walking
Dead” and USA Network scoring high ratings with original shows like “Burn
Notice” and “Suits” suggests that cable networks are a force to be deal with for
over-the-air networks. Mix in Showtime's terrorism thriller
"Homeland" winning the top drama prize at the Emmy Awards last month
and the 9 p.m. premiere of "Walking Dead" drawing 10.9 million total
viewers and cable is flexing its broadcast muscle. The ratings represent a
50-percent increase for “Walking Dead” over last season’s premiere, although it
wasn’t enough to set the record for all cable networks: the 2002 Season 4
premiere of HBO's "The Sopranos," which drew more than 13 million.
Better still for AMC, "Walking Dead" also scored 7.3 million viewers
in the key category of adults ages 18 to 49, which is big for advertisers. "We are honored and humbled that
television's largest adult audience resides on AMC," AMC President Charlie
Collier said. Making the ratings all the more impressive, a contractual dispute
between the network and satellite provider Dish Network means Dish subscribers
don’t get AMC. Mix in Dish viewers, who lost the channel at the end of June,
and the ratings would have pushed even higher. When viewers from a repeat
airing of the premiere were factors in, the final number for the night stood at
15.2 million viewers………
- Someone find Mel Gibson, give him some war paint, a
sword and a kilt because come 2014, the country he fictionally led in its fight
to freedom in the iconic film “Braveheart” will need his help once more. That’s
when Scottish voters will decide whether to stay yoked to England and Wales or become an
independent nation after more than 300 years of contentious union. The
referendum became official Monday after British Prime Minister David Cameron
and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond sealed a deal that could pave the way
for the biggest political shake-up in the British Isles since Ireland threw off
British rule nearly a century ago. The agreement will allow Scottish voters to
say yes or no to remaining part of the United Kingdom in a ballot most likely
to be held in the autumn of 2014. A vote in favor of secession would end
Britain as it has been known since the union of England, Wales and Scotland
came to be in 1707. While not Earth-shaking news the way it was back then, the
decision would dissolve a union that once ruled a global empire. Merely signing
the deal to hold the vote is a major victory for Salmond and his Scottish
National Party, which won a shocking in the Scottish Parliament two years ago
and immediately pressed ahead with its promise to put independence to a popular
vote. On Monday, Salmond hailed the referendum deal as "a major step
forward in Scotland's home-rule journey" and dismissed accusations that
the campaign is tantamount to casting aside three centuries of tradition for
the sake of change. "We're not in the business of ripping things up. We're
in the business of developing a new relationship between the people of these
islands — I think a more beneficial, an independent, equal relationship,"
Salmond said. "I believe we can build an economically prosperous and more
just society here in Scotland." Securing the right to hold the vote is one
step, but winning will mean overcoming the strong opposition of union-minded
politicians and the skepticism of many of the country’s 5.2 million residents.
Scots rightly worry about how independent Scotland would hold its own in an
increasingly competitive and volatile world. Cameron played to those fears by
visiting a Scottish shipyard where an aircraft carrier is being built and
stressed a message of unity. "We are better together, we are stronger
together, we are safer together," Cameron said after signing the referendum
agreement. “This United Kingdom can never hold a country within it without its
consent. We're better off together, but now people will have the choice."
Both sides made significant concessions to reach the accord, but Cameron
clearly does not want to be remembered as the prime minister who presided over
the breakup of Britain. Whenever it happens, the vote will be a simple
thumbs-up or thumbs-down referendum and thanks to Salmond's insistence that 16-
and 17-year-olds be allowed to vote, the voter base will be slightly larger
than it otherwise would have been………
- With a growing number of options for watching, recording
and skipping commercials across cable and satellite providers and Internet
television and the parallel rise of cloud technology for computers, merging the
two ideas was bound to happen sooner or later. Boxee wants to get out ahead of the pack
and introduced a new device dubbed Boxee TV Tuesday that combines over-the-air
broadcast content with a cloud DVR and streaming services like Netflix and
Vudu. It’s a sort of smorgasbord of TV options and will allow consumers to
record two shows at a time, and upload each and every recording to the cloud, where
it will offer unlimited storage for recorded shows. Boxee is hoping that its
new idea will fare much better than the original Boxee Box device, which never
managed to attract an audience beyond early adopters. “This is no longer for
geeks by geeks,” Boxee CEO Avner Ronen said. Boxee TV will go on sale for $99
on Nov. 1 and the cloud DVR service will cost additional $15. That is not a big
discount from a month-to-month TiVo subscription, but Boxee is banking on its
additional features are a major selling point. The new service will allow users
to stream content from the cloud on Boxee TV as well as on any device with a
web browser, including iPads and mobile phones. For the first phase of
its release, Boxee TV’s DVR service will be available in New York City,
Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
Its initial apps will be limited, but are expected to include Netflix, Vudu,
YouTube, Vimeo and Pandora. Ronen said the company will be careful about making
too many apps available for fear of user overload. Where Boxee TV may succeed
and where the Boxee Box failed is visually, because Boxee TV is sleeker and
less futuristic than its predecessor. The focus is entirely on shows and the
company is hoping that simplicity sells………
- Sorry, Texas Longhorns fans. Mack Brown will not be
building boxes and packing up his belongings from his office any time soon. The
cries for Brown to step down at UT have grown louder and louder in the past 24
months after the Longhorns submitted a 5-7 season and did not qualify for a
bowl game in 2010 and were only slightly better (8-5) in 2011. That chorus
kicked its volume up another notch after a 63-21 annihilation at the hands of
archrival Oklahoma at the Red River Rivalry game Saturday afternoon in Dallas.
Brown’s troops were non-competitive and fell behind 36-2 before halftime, so he
had to know the fan base would be calling for his head before the game even
ended. He knew it and yet, he isn’t backing down from the challenge in front of
him. "I'm
way too competitive and have way too much pride to leave something bad,"
Brown said. "I'm going to get this fixed." He embraced the same
philosophy after the 2010 season and came back with a revamped coaching staff
featuring two young coordinators (Bryan Harsin on offense and Manny Diaz on
defense) and new coaches on both sides of the line (Bo Davis on defense and
Stacy Searels on offfense). He added a new wide receivers coach and a new strength
and conditioning coach and despite an uneven campaign the following year, 2012
was supposed to be a big step up. Instead, the Longhorns surrendered 48 points
in a loss to West Virginia and 63 the following game to the Sooners. Brown
received a contract extension through 2020 after 2011 and had suggested that his
program would return to national prominence in 2013 and 2014. "There will
be some people that say he thought about retiring before and he may quit,"
Brown said. "I told them that if somebody is telling you to quit, don't.
In your life if you start quitting, then you're a quitter. You need to compete.
You don't sign up for just the good days.” His tenacity should be
admired, even if UT fans would gladly swap out his 15-year run for a coach who
would win a national title next season……….
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