For the last few days, Earth has been bombarded with radiation as the strongest solar storm since 2005 raged. This geomagnetic storm has resulted in a wealth in stunning videos of the northern lights. The lights were most vibrant in northern Europe, but did reach into Canada and Alaska. Watch this extremely vibrant footage from Sweden by photographer Chad Blakley: Check out the footage compiled by… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : The Blaze Discovery Date : 25/01/2012 14:31 Number of articles : 2
Chris Cillizza at The Washington Post wrote today that President Obama’s State of the Union had all of the hallmarks of a ” bipartisan, let’s-do-the-right-thing-for-America tone that characterized his 2008 presidential campaign” –albeit with a sharper edge. Long Island Congressman Peter King doesn’t think however that any exhortations from the president are necessary to cure the gridlock–indeed,… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : The Politicker Discovery Date : 25/01/2012 21:33 Number of articles : 2
It’s always a thrill to read about some upstart, young first-time screenwriter catching a lucrative break in Hollywood with a spec script, so let’s hear it for Cormac McCarthy! The New Mexico-based writer has reportedly sold a thriller called The Counselor , about a successful, respected lawyer who gets in over his head during a dalliance in the drug underworld. Steve Schwartz, one of the producers who made the acquisition as part of a “sizable deal,” told Deadline’s Mike Fleming : “Since McCarthy himself wrote the script, we get his own muscular prose directly, with its sexual obsessions. It’s a masculine world into which, unusually, two women intrude to play leading roles. McCarthy’s wit and humor in the dialogue make the nightmare even scarier. This may be one of McCarthy’s most disturbing and powerful works.” Fleming adds that the script is “contemporary, and set in the Southwest” — also unusual for McCarthy, who is previously best known for a slightly obscure oeuvre of novels including Blood Meridian , All the Pretty Horses , The Road and No Country For Old Men (the latter of which sparked a brief but ultimately fruitless flirtation with the film industry in 2007). The writer has even entered a representation agreement with ICM. When it rains it pours! Nice work, kid. [ Deadline ]
The conservative “watchdog” group Judicial Watch has sued the CIA and the Defense Department, alleging a failure to comply with requests to know what was discussed in consultations with Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal about the Hurt Locker duo’s follow-up charting the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Great. In a nutshell: JW sent a Freedom of Information Act request about the meetings — themselves merely alleged at this point — to determine what classified details (if any) about the bin Laden mission were shared with the Oscar winners. Both organizations failed to respond in the 20-business-day window required by FOIA, and so… yeah. Now there is a lawsuit. I can’t even deal. Here, from TheWrap : As of January 12, the DoD and the CIA “have failed to produce any records responsive to plaintiff’s requests or demonstrate that responsive records are exempt from production,” the suit says. “Nor have they indicated whether or when they will produce any responsive records.” In addition to information regarding the alleged meetings and communications, Judicial Watch is also seeking compensation for attorneys’ fees and other legal costs related to the lawsuit. The filing of the suit comes less than two weeks after Congressman Peter King, senior Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, said the Office of the Inspector General at Defense was launching an investigation over the alleged meetings. Washington! Getting Things Done Since Never.™ Anyway, Bigelow and Boal have specifically responded to King’s pseudo-pissed hotdogging before, and this is all just another compulsion of the “small-government” elite to control everything, up to and including the Stop Online Privacy Act, in the name of national security and jobs jobs jobs that 10 percent of you don’t even have and won’t even have as long as the Dept. of Defense is shuffling FOIA requests about Kathryn Bigelow movies in with all that private contracting it still has yet to do abroad (think of the hundreds of personnel who’ll be hired to install much-needed porta-potties in hot spots in and around Afghanistan) and the House of Representatives has some jowly wraith from Long Island stomping all over D.C. inveighing against God only knows what irrelevant bullshit while the culture at large seethes with resentment and while today’s sprawling Web blackouts remind you how helpless you are to see, create and share anything without some mega-institution first authorizing it, whether it’s Wikipedia or the CIA or Congress or some bozo-cabal calling itself “Judicial Watch” pinning its legitimacy to whether or not a Defense Dept. intern bothers to make a few photocopies before his shift ends and he runs off to get high and play video games or whatever it is kids do these days when they’re not shamelessly conscripted into war or debt or The Devil Inside or the next new hopelessness of 21st-century American life. Seriously — just feel safer already! Someone’s looking out for you! And by “someone,” I mean “not a fucking soul.” [ TheWrap ]
Kathryn Bigelow ‘s upcoming movie about the team of Navy SEAL s who killed Osama bin Laden was originally set to debut right before election day 2012, prompting U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) to call for an investigation of the extent of the Obama administration’s assistance to the project. Now, that point seems moot; Sony has rejiggered its release schedule so that the Mark Boal-penned picture will debut after the Presidential election, and possibly not until 2013. Then again, with today’s news of Muammar Gaddafi’s death , Obama might not need as much help raising the victory flag, pre-election. [ NYT ]
Kathryn Bigelow ‘s upcoming movie about the team of Navy SEAL s who killed Osama bin Laden was originally set to debut right before election day 2012, prompting U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) to call for an investigation of the extent of the Obama administration’s assistance to the project. Now, that point seems moot; Sony has rejiggered its release schedule so that the Mark Boal-penned picture will debut after the Presidential election, and possibly not until 2013. Then again, with today’s news of Muammar Gaddafi’s death , Obama might not need as much help raising the victory flag, pre-election. [ NYT ]
Denied the opportunity by all 32 NFL teams to make a comeback, Tiki Barber is “flabbergasted” but apparently content to move on with his life. “This is the last time I am speaking on this subject in any way, shape or form,” said Barber’s agent, Mark Lepselter, to the New York Post . “You can’t worry about the things in life you can’t control and Tiki has moved forward accordingly.” Sports Illustrated ‘s Peter King reported Monday that Barber didn’t get a single call over the weekend as teams began finalizing their rosters. “I hear he’s devastated,” wrote King, who also talked to Lepselter, who told him: “We are flabbergasted that Tiki has not had an opportunity with any NFL team, especially when rosters were at 90 players this year (during training camp).” “I certainly thought some team would be intrigued to see what he had left.” Barber’s professional life imploded a few years ago when he divorced his pregnant wife and began seeing 23-year-old intern Traci Lynn Johnson (above). The Today personality then likened himself to Anne Frank , which was lame. [Photo: WENN.com]
Now, now, Nightmare on Elm Street and Mortal Kombat both hold precious spots in our nostalgia-addicted hearts, so let’s not argue about whether Freddy Krueger or Liu Kang would win in a bloodbath. Let’s just acknowledge the facts: Freddy is a downloadable player in the new Mortal Kombat game, and you can watch him claw the daylights out of his opponent in the following video. No, this is not a dream.
If you’re already sick of seeing the same cheery holiday movie previews (and that would be unfortunate since it’s only August), behold: a yuletide trailer that will get your cynical juices flowing. How am I so sure? Because Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas offers the only preview clip in the history of man (and movie trailers) to begin with the words, “I shot Santa Claus in the face. He’s real and I shot him in the face.” Jump ahead to watch the stoner-on-Santa violence and to see what happens when Neil Patrick Harris runs into Jesus Christ at a bar. (It’s hilarious, I assure you).
Also in this Thursday edition of The Broadsheet: Mark Wahlberg could pick up Two Guns … there’s actually a congressman who thinks Kathryn Bigelow got classified information for her Osama bin Laden film… Morgan Freeman, outcast magician… and more ahead.
