BestBlogPosts

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 14:38:27 GMT

Angelina doesn't like George Cloone

Angelina Jolie reportedly dislikes George Clooney - a close friend of her lover Brad Pitt - so much she refused to attend the New York premiere of his movie Michael Clayton last month.

A source told Life and Style Weekly magazine: "Angie is not particularly close to George, so she didn't see why she had to be there."

"She asked Brad if he minded going alone, but Brad says it wasn't really a question. And it was fine with him."

Angelina, 32, allegedly fears lothario George will lead Brad astray, and distract him from his duties as a father.

The source added: "Angie doesn't get along with any of Brad's friends. When they are back in Los Angeles she discourages him from going on boys' nights out."

Brad, 43, and Angelina are parents to adopted children Maddox, six, Pax, three and Zahara, two, as well as 16-month-old biological daughter Shiloh.

It appears George is no fan of Angelina either.

He recently slammed female stars who adopt children from foreign countries, claiming they are doing it to fill a "gap" in their careers.

George, 46, said: "There is nothing more cruel than Hollywood. In a period of years, a woman's career is over. After they have been beating down your door with work, they toss you out from one day to the next. The first thing a lot of women do to fill the gap is adopt kids. That's a bit weird isn't it?" Posted by: Melissa      Read more     Source

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 10:08:03 GMT

Nobel. Al Gore.

"The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded today to Al Gore, the former vice president, and to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for its work to alert the world to the threat of global warming." In the New York Times, Walter Gibbs has the story, while Jim Rutenberg has the immediate commentary, calling the Prize "the latest twist in a remarkable decade of soaring highs and painful lows.... Even before Mr Gore won an Emmy for his so-called 'user generated' cable television network, Current, or an Oscar for his film on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, he was growing in stature for another reason: his early opposition to the Iraq war."

Updated through 10/13. Posted by: dwhudson      Read more     Source

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 00:35:04 GMT

Close-Up Blog-a-Thon.

With nearly a dozen entries already, the Close-Up Blog-a-Thon is off and running at the House Next Door. It's on through October 21, so there's time to join in even if you're only hearing about it now.

As Matt Zoller Seitz outlined in his announcement last month, the parameters here are pretty loose and all-embracing. Posted by: dwhudson      Read more     Source

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 03:15:11 GMT

The Kite Runner.

"The studio distributing The Kite Runner, a tale of childhood betrayal, sexual predation and ethnic tension in Afghanistan, is delaying the film's release to get its three schoolboy stars out of Kabul - perhaps permanently - in response to fears that they could be attacked for their enactment of a culturally inflammatory rape scene." David M Halbfinger reports for the New York Times.

Robert Cashill's seen the film, though: "Marc Forster, a flashy faux arthouse style director I have rarely liked (Finding Neverland and Stay being prime offenders on his resume), who raised red flags on this blog as the director of the next Bond picture, reigns himself in at the helm. This is the kind of cross-worlds, time-spanning saga that Mira Nair (The Namesake) does better than anyone, and Forster offers a suitable approximation..... I assume some of the creaky contrivances that reduce much of the second half of The Kite Runner to melodrama come straight from the source."

Updated through 10/6. Posted by: dwhudson      Read more     Source

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 11:25:39 GMT

King of the Hill

"A sly, deceptive gut punch of a picture Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego's King of the Hill is a brilliant, vicious little piece of work," writes Todd Brown at Twitch. "It is a fierce piece of social commentary, the sort of picture that could never be made in North America but, by god, does it need to be." And an online listening tip: Todd talks with Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego (and warns: spoilers!). Posted by: dwhudson      Read more     Source

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 02:20:57 GMT

What Would Jesus Buy?

Via Youtube - Quoted - What Would Jesus Buy? is the title of an upcoming documentary film produced by Morgan Spurlock and directed by Rob Van Alkemade. The film focuses on the issues of the commercialization of Christmas, materialism, the alleged over-consumption in American culture, globalization, and the business practices of large corporations, as well as their economic and cultural effects on American society, as seen through the prism of activist/performance artist Bill Talen, who goes by the alias of "Reverend Billy", Posted by: Zinzi      Read more     Source

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 02:10:42 GMT

Gloriosa superba

Botany Photo of the Day will have brief written entries on weekends, holidays and my vacations from April through September. – Daniel

Another thank you to Dinesh (aka dinesh_valke@Flickr) for sharing images from India with us (original via BPotD Flickr Group Pool). Appreciated once again!

Flame-lily or climbing-lily is native to tropical areas of the Old World (particularly Africa and south Asia), but has since been widely cultivated and naturalized. Read more about Gloriosa superba via the South African National Biodiversity Institute's Plantzafrica or Pacific Island Ecosystems at Risk. Posted by: Daniel Mosquin      Read more     Source

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 01:54:04 GMT

The Press's Inherent Bias

BuzzMachine has a very interesting viewpoint on the so-called impartiality of journalists. Albeit technical and rather thickly written, it definitely poses a very good point. "There I think we see the corner into which the impartial journalist paints himself. He is looking for cover for the judgments he makes. He says there is interest in the story and so that's why they cover it. But there are plenty of stories for which there is little interest - such as suffering in various poor corners of the world - yet journalists cover them because they believe these events and issues are important. They made a judgment and that is itself not impartial. Indeed, what I want is more information about what goes into that judgment - more transparency." In short, we wouldn't be writing about it if it didn't interest us. Well of course. I can't very well write about something and keep you interested if I'm not passionate about it myself. Then again, I don't claim to be impartial in this blog.

Nevertheless, no matter what media outlet you prefer, there is going to be a bias. Do you talk about something of which you have no opinion? And if you do, how long do you think you will hold another person's interest?

I believe these terms, impartial and objective, to be misleading, and agree with Jeff of BuzzMachine that they are absolutely obsolete. There is an inherent bias in every single story presented to you - the question you should ask is whether that bias benefits you or not.

On advertiser supported media outlets where the advertisers could literally stop the presses if they pulled their ads, the presses are obviously running only for the advertisers. Not you. Media is definitely one of those industries where bigger certainly is not better. Rather, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Posted by: Miche      Read more     Source

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 01:35:38 GMT

Google To 'Out Open' Facebook

What's the next controversial step Google will be making? Any idea?

Michael Arrington has this hot revelation....

Yesterday a select group of fifteen or so industry luminaries attended a highly confidential meeting at Google's headquarters in Mountain View to discuss the company's upcoming plans to address the "Facebook issue."

The meeting was so secret that all attendees had to sign confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements strictly forbidding them from discussing what was shown to them at the meeting. Notwithstanding that NDA, I've now spoken with three of the attendees off record to get an understanding of what Google is planning. Google's goal - to fight Facebook by being even more open than the Facebook Platform. If Facebook is 98% open, Google wants to be 100%.

The short version: Google will announce a new set of APIs on November 5 that will allow developers to leverage Google's social graph data. They'll start with Orkut and iGoogle (Google's personalized home page), and expand from there to include Gmail, Google Talk and other Google services over time.

Do you find the upcoming venture a killer strategy? Do you think a 100% open application could upstage Facebook? Posted by: noel      Read more     Source

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 03:48:06 GMT

Cyberspace is coming home

For most of us the concept of "smart homes" is a theory rather than a practical delivery of services to our homes. In theory we understand that a network backbone can be installed in our homes and from that network we can control everything in our homes from lighting, temperature, control of blinds, video on demand, Internet TV, home theaters, and so on.


But in practice how much is being applied in homes other than the real high-end home?

In "Cyberspace is coming home" Southern Housing suggest that the delivery of "smart homes" to the majority of homes is a concept rather than a reality.


According to this article, the reason why more homes are not being "smartened" is the fact that people do not understand the possibility of very cheaply networking a home right through at the time of building a home, then over time, controllers and systems can be hooked up to the network and delivered when the home owner has the necessary funds or is ready for the next step in home automation.

Really, a lot can be effected once a home is networked. And if you have not networked a home prior to building there are alternatives to a "wired" network. Networks can be established using the power outlets in each room, or "wi-fi" networks can connect devices.

Smartening your home is really a lot simpler than at first you can imagine. Maybe technicians need to communicate with home builders, and impending new home owners, so that the simplicity of smartening homes can be more understood. Posted by: Elwyn Jenkins      Read more     Source