American Idol 3/31
Performance Night. They got to pick the song of their choice. Surprisingly, three chose old songs. The rest chose current hits.
One thing’s for sure, a lot of people have called American Idol a lame show, but this season cannot be accused of that. They got rid of the flakes right away, kicked out the mediocre singers early. And the result is an amazing group.
It’s pretty obvious to me who the top 4 are now. Danny, Adam, Kris and Lil. Well, wait…damn I forgot Allison. And Scott and Matt could do it too. Geez.
Yeah, it’s a tough call this year. But I think the top 5 are the first 5 I listed. The others have had a few missteps.
I expect Megan and Matt to be in the bottom two tomorrow. Matt is extremely good, but for some reason he was almost cut last week even though the judges loved him. This week they were less kind even though I thought he was good. Megan is good, but compared to the others, she is just average. But she didn’t even end up in the bottom three last week after being panned, so who knows.
Anoop did an Usher song well, but the judges were not wowed. So he will probably be in the bottom three also. The rest were great to fantastic.
Scott did Billy Joel proud. Lil did Celine Dion proud. Kris did an amazing cover of Bill Withers Ain’t No Sunshine. Really fantastic.
That leaves Danny who blew away What Hurts the Most, Adam who did a rock screamer version of Play That Funky Music that was fresh and finally, Allison did a really nice No Doubt cover.
It’s good that they have the save option this season because they’re going to need it. A lot of really amazing talent.
Outrage Dujour
Another outrage (they seem to be a daily occurrence lately), the government is raising taxes on tobacco through the roof.
Now, you many not be a smoker. I’m not. Never was. But you have to watch how they’re penalizing smokers, because it’s just a dry run for what they’ll be doing to something you like in the near future. Watch as they do this with alcohol, sugar, gasoline, etc. Get ready.
On Wednesday, the federal tax will go from 39 cents per pack to $1.01. All the extra tax money is supposed to help fund the State Children’s Health Insurance Plan, or SCHIP. I’ve written about the new excise tax and SCHIP before and how it relates to cigars. On Wednesday the tax on individual cigars goes up as well, by 40 cents. It’s steep but not as bad as the original version of the SCHIP law, which called for an outrageous $10 tax per cigar. Now, that will be the tax on a box of cigars rather than an individual cigar. That hasn’t stopped the most popular cigar Web site from selling off inventory in what it’s calling “SCHIP Busters.”
The biggest losers in the new excise tax are the makers of roll-your-own tobacco.
Loose-leaf tobacco is a more fragmented industry with smaller producers than the monopolized cigarette industry. There are even a couple of family businesses still around, but most likely not for long. Wednesday happens to be April 1 and the new excise tax on roll-your-own tobacco looks an April Fool’s joke but it isn’t. The tax on RYO tobacco goes from $1.10 per pound to $24.78 per pound. That’s more than 2,100 percent! Tuesday, a sack of RYO tobacco will cost $15; Wednesday it will be $40.
Oh, “it’s for the children”. Gee, never heard that before.
If we don’t stand up to these clowns, they will continue to abuse us like a slap happy abusive boss. You going to stand for that?
Real Clear Politics Picked My Article!
Coolness! One of the top conservative news sites picked my latest Big Hollywood article. They usually list top writers in the fields, so it’s great to see my name there.
Fascism Watch
If you think the government has already gone too far lately, apparently, they disagree. This latest outrage show just how extreme the Dems are and why they need to be stopped.
It was nearly two weeks ago that the House of Representatives, acting in a near-frenzy after the disclosure of bonuses paid to executives of AIG, passed a bill that would impose a 90 percent retroactive tax on those bonuses. Despite the overwhelming 328-93 vote, support for the measure began to collapse almost immediately. Within days, the Obama White House backed away from it, as did the Senate Democratic leadership. The bill stalled, and the populist storm that spawned it seemed to pass.
But now, in a little-noticed move, the House Financial Services Committee, led by chairman Barney Frank, has approved a measure that would, in some key ways, go beyond the most draconian features of the original AIG bill. The new legislation, the “Pay for Performance Act of 2009,” would impose government controls on the pay of all employees — not just top executives — of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government. It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place. And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.
So they not only want to be able to take over any business at any time, fire its presidents on a whim, but decide what you will be paid. And this is from people who have no experience running a company or even working in the private sector.
This is by no means the end of what they’ll be proposing. This just shows how extreme they are and how willing they are to burn the constitution, which they were sworn to defend.
All those anti-Bush paranoid theories seems quaint compared to what these guys are really doing.
Japanese Vending Machines
They have vending machines for almost every purpose in Japan. A vending machine for every 23 people!
And most of them work!
Alias Interrogation
Some actors dramatize a scene from the Brian Michael Bendis comic Alias.
PETA kills Animals
No surprise, the animal rights group PETA are huge hypocrites, aside from being major nutjobs. They actually murder thousands of animals a year. They do this with pets they get their hands on and the research animals they “free” from labs. Here’s a great Penn and Teller Bullshit expose on the group. Follow the links at the end to continue it.
Resume DuJour
Very clever resume design from an artist, animator.
All the Wrong Moves
My latest Big Hollywood piece is up. It’s about our >koff< brilliant president. >koff<
Another Green Annoyance
In Spokane County, Washington (way north of me) they have another law banning something for green reasons. You won’t believe what it is. Soap!
The quest for squeaky-clean dishes has turned some law-abiding people in Spokane into dishwater-detergent smugglers. They are bringing Cascade or Electrasol in from out of state because the eco-friendly varieties required under Washington state law don’t work as well. Spokane County became the launch pad last July for the nation’s strictest ban on dishwasher detergent made with phosphates, a measure aimed at reducing water pollution. The ban will be expanded statewide in July 2010, the same time similar laws take effect in several other states.
But it’s not easy to get sparkling dishes when you go green.
Many people were shocked to find that products like Seventh Generation, Ecover and Trader Joe’s left their dishes encrusted with food, smeared with grease and too gross to use without rewashing them by hand. The culprit was hard water, which is mineral-rich and resistant to soap.
I plan to be back in Vegas before the law becomes statewide. Of course, I could always buy soap in Portland, but they are probably dumb enough to adopt the same law. Some of the laws they have up here are really annoying. Politicians seem determined to out stupid each other.
Did You Know
I ran this before on the old blog. This is how fast things are moving in society. What they used to call Future Shock. Some of it sounds disturbing, but the truth is, it means all kinds of possibilities. Not all of them bad. The world we know is changing around us by the second and it will not be the same 10 or 20 years from now. It’s hard to predict at this stage whether it will be better or worse.
I prefer to be optimistic even though times are bad now.
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