- The CW doesn’t have a litany of great shows, so when the
second-rate network finds a show that works it must hang onto the series for
dear life. In the spirit of keeping its few quality offerings alive, the
network has announced
early renewals for “The Vampire Diaries,” “Arrow,” “Supernatural” and freshman
dramas “Reign” and “The Originals.” The shows are currently on hiatus on
account of the Winter Olympics having every network fearful to air new shows
and have their ratings suffer, but that didn’t stop CW President Mark Pedowitz
from sounding a trumpet and announcing the renewals. "This season we've
had great success with our new hit series The Originals paired with
Supernatural, giving us our best Tuesday nights in years," Pedowitz said
in a statement. "The Vampire Diaries is No. 2 in its time period in the
young adult demos, and with Arrow continuing to gain among young men, and Reign
growing its time period, we now have strong nights on Tuesday, Wednesday and
Thursday. I'm very pleased to announce early pickups for all five series, and
let our fans know they'll have more great drama to look forward to next
season.” Both “The Originals” and “Reign” have performed well this fall, debuting
to 2.24 million and 1.98 million viewers, respectively. “Supernatural” has seen
impressive growth over the course of its nine seasons, rising 88 percent in
total viewers to 3.2 million viewers in its ninth season. Meanwhile, “Arrow” has
become the network's most-watched series, averaging 3.9 million viewers, while
“Vampire Diaries” is second in most key demographics……..
- Is there a way to predict if a FAT baby will become a FAT
adult? A British study suggests that the answer is yes and researchers believe
that an infant's hearty appetite could
signal a predisposition to obesity. Lead researcher Jane Wardle, a scientist
with the Health Behaviour Research Centre at University College
London, led a team that examined how the appetite of infants projected those
individuals’ likelihood of becoming overweight adults. She and her fellow
researchers discovered that babies who display two key aspects of appetite grow
unusually rapidly up to the age of 15 months. Satiety responsiveness was one of
the measurements taken to monitor appetite in infants and food responsiveness -
the urge to eat when seeing or smelling tempting food – was the second. The
research team studied data from non-identical same sex twins born in the UK in
2007 who had different levels of the two traits. They learned that in groups of
two, he baby that was more food responsive or less satiety responsive than its
twin grew faster. By the time twins reached the age of 15 months, both traits
separately caused one of them to be around two pounds heavier than his or her
sibling. "Obesity is a major issue in child health,” Wardle said. “Identifying
factors that promote or protect against weight gain could help identify targets
for obesity intervention and prevention in future. These findings are extremely
powerful because we were comparing children of the same age and same sex
growing up in the same family in order to reveal the role that appetite plays
in infant growth.” Thanks for proving that children who like food more than
other children are more likely to become fat. You’ve stunned us again, science………
- Let it go, communists. Russians should be happy because
the Olympics are halfway to the finish line and so far, there has been neither
a major terrorist attack nor a catastrophic condom shortage in the Olympic
village. Yet there they are, a group of riled-up Russians staging a lame-tastic
protest against an official's call
disallowing a goal by Russia late in regulation of a game ultimately won by the
U.S. in a penalty shootout. The angry mob refused to accept the official result
of a heated U.S.-Russia hockey match at the Sochi Olympics and thus you had an
angry mob in Russian jerseys chanting arguably the worst angry mob slogan ever,
“Make soap out of the ref.” With those terrifying words echoing across Sochi,
the International Olympic Committee will undoubtedly award the Russians a win
immediately. The protest was organized by a Kremlin party youth group and
featured a banner with a photograph of the American official, Brad Meier, with
protestors using cheese graters to grate soap into buckets. The disallowed goal
would have given Russia a 3-2 lead with less than five minutes left in the
third period, but it was waved off after officials ruled the net had come loose
from the ice before the goal was scored. Angry shouts filled the arena as the
call was announced, but the supervisor of officials for the International Ice
Hockey Federation, Konstantin Komissarov, confirmed the ruling made by the
on-ice officials was correct. In response, enraged Russians from across the
political spectrum have risen up to decry the call. With the points from the
win, the Americans won the qualifying group and left the Russians to battle for
second place and a spot in the elimination round that will force them to win an
extra game to reach the medal round. A state-owned channel proved how little
actual decent programming it has by airing an hour-long talk show dedicated to
the disallowed goal. Members of parliament railed against the call on Twitter,
but it was to no avail. Russia can earn a rematch with the U.S. only if both
teams reach the gold medal game, which doesn’t seem likely given that Russia
couldn’t even win its qualifying group……..
- Speaking of unnecessarily angry and repressive
communists….how ‘bout the Chinese government? The Communist Party is intolerant
of many things, but its current targets happen to be prostitution, gambling and drug use and
its resulting crackdown on these vices has now spread to major provinces across
the country, according to reports on Monday in state-run news organizations. At
the head of this anti-evil crusade is the always-imposing Ministry of Public
Security, which manages most police forces in China. It began on Feb. 10 in the
southern city of Dongguan, according to a statement on the ministry’s website,
with officials seeking to make an example out of a manufacturing town sometimes
known as China’s “sin city.” It’s also a city where prostitution there had long
been tolerated as a significant part of the local economy, but no more. The
carefully orchestrated campaign included a program broadcast on Feb. 9 that
purportedly exposed the prevalence of prostitution in Dongguan. The crackdown
has sparked an outcry from an unusual group: women’s right advocates, who argue
that the campaign is unfairly targeting women. Provinces across China have
reportedly been ordered provinces across China to follow the example of
Guangdong, the southern province next to Hong Kong that includes Dongguan. An
alleged 16 cities in nine provinces are now taking part in the “sweep yellow”
campaign, so dubbed because “yellow” in Chinese can refer to things of an erotic, lewd or
sexually illicit nature. It fits perfectly with a supposed anticorruption
campaign promoted by Xi Jinping, the Communist Party leader. Reports of massive
armies of thousands of police officers waging war against the sins of a sexual
nature are swirling through Chinese media and the government claims to have
arrested 335 people already in Dongguan on charges related to prostitution,
gambling and drugs. Prostitution remains common across China and is based in
hotels where hair salons and massage parlors often serve as fronts for
brothels. This is obviously terrible news for those anxiously awaiting their
sex tourism trip to Beijing, but maybe this will all blow over………
- One gets the impression that Charlotte, N.C. was not
well-equipped or well-educated to deal with the massive snowstorm that just
blew through town. For evidence of this fact, find a handicapped parking spot
anywhere in the city – literally, go out and find one because there are
handicapped people trying to park their cars and they are unable to do so.
That’ll happen when several inches of snow fall and plow trucks proceed to
clear the winter mess by dumping it into the blue-lined spaces reserved for
those (theoretically) unable to walk as far to reach stores, restaurants and
other businesses. Residents who ventured outside following the snow-pocalypse
soon noticed that handicapped spaces around the city were piled high with snow
and ice and reported the problem to a local television station. The station
went around and began filming the sight of snow-covered handicapped spaces,
where the wintry mix was pushed and left to melt. It’s a brilliant plan just as
long as most handicapped people decide to stay inside their homes for an extra
few days to make sure the storm has truly passed by. The plan also banks on the
well-known fact that there are a ridiculous number of handicapped spaces that
are always far more than any location ever needs to accommodate all of the
handicapped people on its property at any given time. Charlotte resident and
certified troublemaker Pat Cotham showed her obvious lack of friends and
abundance of free time by traveling around the city on Sunday, using her smartphone
to document what she calls danger
zones. She told tales of at least 25 different pictures of handicapped spots
being completely or partially blocked by snow in places such as hospitals,
stores and malls. Anyone who has happened by a handicapped parking space knows
fines for parking in them can range up to $250, but there doesn’t seem to be
any penalty for dumping snow in one……..
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