Daily news

Will Smith and Jada Reportedly SEPARATE

2011-08-23T11:01:00.000-07:00

Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith have separated ... this according to In Touch Weekly.

Will and Jada have been married for 13 years and have two extremely famous children together -- Jaden and Willow.

Will has another son, Trey, from a previous marriage.

TMZ placed a call to Jada's rep, Karynne Tencer, who told us ... "What? In Touch said that? I know nothing about this ... Lord. I'm going back to bed."

Curious reaction.

Terrelle Pryor Talks About Being an Oakland Raider

2011-08-23T00:44:00.000-07:00

Watch Terrelle Pryor talk publicly for the first time as a member of the Oakland Raiders. Pryor says all the right things. He doesn't say them with a lot of energy though. But I can say, compared to the last QB the Raiders he talks like a 12-year-old at a sleepover sponsored by Rockstar.

I like his attitude when asked about rather or not he is going in as a QB or not. "I am a QB." He makes it known that he will do what he can to help the team win, but I love the fact that he knows what he wants to do.

This whole time I have been down on Pryor. I have said plenty of times that I didn't want the Raiders to draft him. But I have to admit, now that he is here, it is hard not to get excited about him. He looks so much better in the highlights now. That release; his fluid movements. Everything looks better now that he is a Raider.

I find myself having to remind myself of all the deficiencies I saw before, so I don't get carried away with expectations. Whatever. I do know I am excited to watch him try to figure it all out.

Can someone please tell him it is Silver and Black though—not black and silver.

7 Wonders Of The Ancient World Lists

2011-08-23T00:28:00.000-07:00

7 Wonders Of The Ancient World – Various lists of the Wonders of the World have been compiled from antiquity to the present day, to catalogue the world’s most spectacular natural wonders and manmade structures.

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is the first known list of the most remarkable creations of classical antiquity, and was based on guide-books popular among Hellenic sight-seers and only includes works located around the Mediterranean rim. The number seven was chosen because the Greeks believed it to be the representation of perfection and plenty. Many similar lists have been made.

Read more: BRJ News | All latest Happening Around You | 7 Wonders Of The Ancient World Lists | BRJ News
Arun

The Daily Show Takes On Fox, Again – Update

2011-08-19T23:39:00.001-07:00

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart remains the best place to get Fox News distilled down to essential streams of propaganda. Last night’s episode began with a combination of Fox’s reactions to Warren Buffett’s call for increasing taxes on the rich and the overarching theme of Fox, that the “poor” are a “moocher class” of “parasites,” “racoons” and “irresponsible animals.” The best part of the segment was a piece that Stuart Varney did explaining how the “poor” have a very high standard of living.
The technical definition of being poor is a family of four with an income of $22,350 a year. That’s $429.81 per week, less $18.05 in payroll taxes. Now, even though an income that small will result in a refund of Federal and State income taxes, they are nonetheless deducted from paychecks, so figure an additional loss of around $13.00 a week. That brings the take home income to $398.76 per week.
First of all, in his little rant about the standard of living enjoyed by the “poor” Varney didn’t define them. The chant on the right is all about how 51% of Americans don’t pay any income tax, ignoring the other taxes they pay. It’s a fair bet that when Varney talks about the “poor” he’s talking about anyone with an income below median, which has slipped to around $51,000 a year.
Varney and a guest ran down a list of luxuries that the “poor” enjoy – starting with how 99.6% of the “poor” have refrigerators. The impression they gave was that everything on their list was purchased by the “poor” and not included in a rental property. Unless I’m deeply mistaken, every state has a requirement that a rental property include a refrigerator, even if they don’t include a stove. A fair number of apartments also include dishwashers, which a whopping 25% of the “poor” have. How old these appliances are is not discussed, but from personal experience I can tell you that low rent apartment refrigerators are so old they need to be defrosted manually. In some parts of the country, air conditioning, which 78.3% of the “poor” enjoy is also included in the rental, though it might not be used very often since the electricity is not included and the :”poor” have to pay for that themselves.
Among the other “luxuries” of the lifestyle of the “poor” are microwaves, 81.4% (available for around $15 in a thrift store), cell phones, 54.5% (trac phones and prepaid cells are cheaper than landlines which require deposits), and coffee makers, 48.6% (Really? A coffee maker is a luxury? How about $9 at Walmart.). And about those cell phones…..the town I lived in in Georgia had a pre-World War II phone system that was constantly breaking down. It got so bad that when the Bell South repairman came, they would simply say “dead squirrel” as short hand for the latest failure of my phones. We went all cellular because we needed reliable telephone service. You will find, if you care to look, that a lot of the inner city and small city low-income neighborhoods have similar infrastructure failures.
The only thing on Varney’s luxury lifestyle list that might be arguable is the 63.7% of the “poor” who have cable or satellite television. He should be grateful they do, because without it, he wouldn’t have an audience would he? As I look around my neighborhood, there are several converted old houses with two to four apartments in them that have satellite dishes. The dishes were installed by the owner of the building. The tenant pays to hook them up. Varney’s luxury list didn’t stipulate if the cable was basic or a higher level. He didn’t point out that 99+% of American homes have televisions. He didn’t point out that in some communities, basic cable costs less per month than taking a family of four to one movie. Comcast basic cable costs around $30 a month in Vermont. Without it, you don’t get television at all because our broadcast channels have gone digital. You need some kind of box to receive broadcast and then you need to be on the right side of the mountain to get any reception at all. People who live in big cities have no idea what the hassles are in getting television reception in the rest of the country.
I’m really, really, sorry, Mr. Varney, but even the poor deserve some kind of entertainment from time to time. With all the cutbacks in local government fundings, it’s getting harder to even go to the library and take out books, that is if one was lucky enough to go to a school system that didn’t let people “graduate” who were functionally illiterate.
Surprisingly, Varney’s list also didn’t include cars. Apparently, in his mind, owning a 20-year-old clunker isn’t a luxury.
Aside from the obvious as listed above, Varney’s little list ignored a simple reality. Not everyone who is poor today was poor four years ago. With between 14 and 20 million Americans unemployed, it’s a fair assumption that some of them actually had decent incomes before being laid off. It’s also a fair assumption that the elderly, who are now the elderly poor, had a lifetime of decent income to acquire possessions. The didn’t necessarily acquire estate-level possessions, just the ordinary possessions of an ordinary life – things like televisions, coffeemakers, microwaves, window air conditioners, cars, and for the younger, newly impoverished, gaming systems and computers. This computer is five years old. I can’t afford to upgrade or replace it.
Fox News and right wing radio keep accusing the Democrats of conducting “class warfare.” They are right. That’s what is building. As the Republicans insist on blaming the unemployed for being unemployed, as they block the things that would restore our economy and try to take our nation back into the late 19^th century instead of into the 21^st, as they classify the newly impoverished as moochers and leeches, as they defend the right of one man to make $3 billion on a single financial transaction that cost a million people their homes, they are building up the anger, frustration and hatred that fuels revolutions. The American Revolution was the only one in the history of mankind that was mostly political, and slightly economic. All the others have been driven by economics, by the gap between rich and poor. And as Jon Stewart pointed out, America is pushing itself into dangerous territory with that income gap.
A healthy nation needs a strong middle class, not a coddled, pampered upper class. In the last thirty years, since the rise of conservativism under Ronald Reagan, we have seen the middle class dwindle to a ghost of what it was in the days of Eisenhower, when we had high union membership and a 90% top tax rate. If the right wing can’t figure that out pretty soon, the class warfare they are whining about will turn into a real revolution. A little socialism saves a whole lot of capitalist ass. So does a fair economy.

Ooma VOIP service is down nationwide

2011-08-17T09:53:00.001-07:00

Reports are trickling into to our tipline that Ooma, a popular VOIP service, is currently experiencing major network issues. Currently, Ooma’s phone service seems offline nationwide, and their website and support forums are working sporadically if at all.
Some users (mostly in California) are reporting that their service is returning, but right now, it would appear that a majority of subscribers are unable to make or receive phone calls. Another outage similar in scale to this one occurred in 2009, with service remaining offline for nearly 6 hours.

Concerned customers who attempted to reach out to Ooma’s main office were treated to a canned message stating that the office was closed, and the voice mailbox was soon filled. Rumors have begun to swirl that Ooma is in the process of shutting down, but we can confirm that this is not that case.
A few calls to the Ooma customer service line yielded a brief conversation with a rep, who states that they are aware of the problem, and that service would we be restored within two hours. Apparently, once service is restored, the Ooma hub in customers’ homes will begin to work again without any input from the user. Affected customers should keep their eyes peeled for the tell-tale blue light on their hubs. This timetable will likely be little comfort to those affected, some of whom use Ooma as their business phone service. Updates are coming at a blistering pace, so all you Ooma users should stay tuned.

Capybara sighting in California: Huge rodent called harmless

2011-08-17T07:38:00.000-07:00

A wastewater treatment plant has gained some notoriety after workers spotted a capybara three weeks ago.

The animal came out of a wastewater pond at the plant in Paso Robles in San Luis Obispo County and paddled around in the water before reaching the Salinas River.

Capybaras are the world’s largest rodents -– they can reach the size of a small dog -– and are often described as a mix between a rat and a guinea pig. They’re nocturnal and semi-aquatic, and prefer habits with dense vegetation and access to water. They are illegal to own as a pet in California.

The rodents aren’t dangerous, “just weird looking,” said Department of Fish and Game spokesman Andrew Hughan.

“Somebody probably brought it in as a pet and they either got away or people couldn’t deal with it anymore,” Hughan said. “It’s no harm. It’s just going to root around.”

It's not the first time a capybara has been spotted in Paso Robles, said Lt. Todd Tognazzini of the Department of Fish and Game. Game wardens received a report about three years ago of a capybara in a pond near Hunter Ranch Golf Course, but because there were no other sightings and beavers live in the area, they thought it was a mistaken report.

Eight months later, a man who was feeding his horses said a large rodent-like creature came up, scared his horses away, ate some hay and then chased after a dog. The man fired a shotgun at the animal to protect his dog, and called wildlife officials after it left the property. Wardens confirmed footprints at the scene were that of a capybara, but traps they set caught nothing, and no other sightings were reported.

Until a few weeks ago. Wardens looked at photographs taken by workers at the wastewater plant and confirmed the animal in the pictures was an adult capybara weighing 100 to 120 pounds. Tognazzini thinks the same animal was responsible for the previous sightings.
Workers at the wastewater plant are still talking about the discovery.

"He'd come up and look at us and go back down," employee Nick Kamp told KSBY-TV. "At times, it would swim with its head just out of the water, and other times, it would swim totally submerged.

Watch: Awesome Trailer for 'Shaolin' Starring Andy Lau & Jackie Chan

2011-08-17T04:18:00.000-07:00

Protect the Temple! Well Go USA & Variance Films have debuted the official US trailer for Shaolin, a kung fu action drama from director Benny Chan (New Police Story, Robin-B-Hood) starring quite a kick ass cast: Andy Lau, Nicholas Tse, Fan Bingbing and even Jackie Chan. The rather expansive story follows a ruthless General Hou (Lau) who must take shelter at a Shaolin temple, then begins to learn their ways, but of course the past inevitably always catches up. I honestly hadn't heard of this before, but it kicks ass and I really want to see it! Just looks like an awesome film with some great action, I need to see it! Check this out.

Watch the official US trailer for Benny Chan's Shaolin, also available in HD over on Apple:

In a land torn by strife, the righteous Shaolin monks stand as a beacon of hope for the oppressed masses.
Shaolin, originally known as Xin Shao Lin Si in Mandarin, is directed by Hong Kong filmmaker Benny Chan, of films like Big Bullet, Jackie Chan's Who Am I?, Gen-X Cops, New Police Story, Divergence, Robin-B-Hood and City Under Siege previously. The screenplay was written by Chi Kwong Cheung, Zhang Tan & Alan Yuen. This was already released in Hong Kong in January this year, but Well Go USA & Variance Films will be releasing it in the US in limited theaters starting September 9th this fall. Visit the official website.

Updates on Mike Patterson, Jeremy Maclin

2011-08-17T01:06:00.001-07:00

Injuries are typically common at Eagles training camp at Lehigh, but this summer squad has been blindsided additionally by a pair of unusual medical conditions for two of its starters. While nothing has been confirmed yet for either Mike Patterson or Jeremy Maclin, we are hearing some possible good news for both.

First, Mike Patterson's agent spoke to certain members of the media on Friday, and while he did not got into great detail, he did allow that it is "very likely" Patt will play this season. Per the Inquirer's Jonathan Tamari:

"All the medical reports that we both looked at have been very favorable and positive. We're just waiting for the doctors to make their final diagnosis and their final treatment plan." Asked whether Patterson could play this year, [his agent] said, "it's very likely that that will happen," but added "again, I'm not a doctor."

Patterson's agent also added they will have more information on Monday, and will make an announcement at that time. The seventh-year defensive tackle has something known as an AVM, which while a serious brain condition that can require surgery, is also very treatable. The Eagles have been hesitant to provide any kind of timetable for his return.
Meanwhile, as fans continue to speculate on Jeremy Maclin's mysterious illness, and concern grows that he could miss a ton of action in 2011, Andy Reid is trying is hardest to put those fires out.
The wide receiver entering his third season left the team last week to visit doctors in his home town St. Louis, but the head coach remains positive about having the second half of his one-two punch, telling reporters after Thursday night's preseason game:

“I think he’s going to be ready [for Week 1],” Reid said. “I guess I’m optimistic. I’m waiting to hear the results, but I’m optimistic.”

Maclin hasn't been practicing at all during training camp, and the Eagles adding Steve Smith didn't help to alleviate the wild rumors floating around. However, it should be noted Smith was moved to the Physically Unable to Perform list today. If he begins the regular season on the PUP, he will not be available until Week 6.
The fact that they don't know is certainly discouraging, but neither the team or Maclin seem to believe it will impact his career, much less this season. The opener is now only one month away though, so we will find out soon enough.