Cuppacafe

So you might have heard about this 50-car pile up in Shelton, CT today, due to “black ice” but considering that the info came from Fox News that has consistently made mistakes in their recent reporting.

SHELTON, Conn. — Police say at least 50 cars crashed in a chain-reaction collision on a wet Connecticut road that was turning icy, and 46 people reported minor injuries.

Shelton police Detective Sgt. Kevin Ahern says six people were taken to hospitals from the wreck that happened shortly after noon Sunday on state route 110. None of the injuries were life-threatening.

WFSB says the southwestern Connecticut road has been closed for more than five hours so authorities can continue investigating the accident. Police expected it to reopen early Sunday evening.

However, I have it on good authority that the scene looked more like this...

What? Too soon?

The Perfessor

At last, a blog site that we hear at CuppaCafe can stand behind (way behind):

Check out their blog, see which (republican) Senators currently serving in office support gang rape, learn why these 30 Republican Senators support gang rape.

Yeah yeah, it all has to do with that liberal, Democrat Senator, Al Franken and his 2010 Franken Senate Defense Appropriations Amendment that overreaches into the business of private enterprise. Defense contractors are a part of the functioning free market; not the Federal Government. A handful of isolated assaults is no reason to summon the interference of the Federal Government and Congress. This amendment interferes with the privacy of companies and the ability of our defense contractors to effectively conduct the business of protecting America from terrorism.

The Perfessor

OK, a couple of days ago, we talked about the six-year-old Cub Scout who was suspended for bringing a camping utensil to school. Well, as isolated an incident you may have thought that was, it has happened again. Only this time to a 17-year-old Eagle Scout who had a 2" pocket knife in a survival kit locked in the trunk of his car...

A 17-year-old Eagle Scout in upstate New York has been barred from stepping foot on school grounds for 20 days — for keeping a 2-inch pocketknife locked in a survival kit in his car.

However, things didn't end with his 20-day suspension. According to Whalen “They brought a cop in, who told them ‘he’s not breaking any laws, so I can't charge him with anything.’” Whalen then asked asked 2" pocketknife would be considered more dangerous than any other everyday items that could be found around the school. Whalen asked “What about a person who has a bat, on a baseball team? That could be a weapon.” to which he was told that was simply not the same thing.

The school district rigid policy lists “Possessing a weapon” under “examples of violent conduct,” which ”may be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including suspension from school,” and will allow no deviation from it. Still I go back to my comment in the Zachary Christie incident. I’ll just bet that I could beat the crap out of someone with a math book. Plus, what about that Baseball bat? Oh yeah, and how about the kid who has taken up Karate and can break a board with his hand, aren't they considered weapons.

We are so in love with making “one law fit all” rules in this country that it truly makes me sick.

The Perfessor

So, by now I’m sure that you have all heard about this Cub Scout that was suspended from school because he brought a camping utensil to school. Yep. that’s right, suspended. You see, apparently the utensil can be used as a fork, spoon, or a knife, and the school has a zero-tolerance weapon policy, so the kid gets suspended.

(CBS) A 6-year-old boy's excitement over joining the Cub Scouts may just land him in reform school for 45 days.

Zachary Christie was suspended from his 1st grade class in Delaware's Christina School District after bringing a camping utensil - a combination knife/fork/spoon - to use at lunch, prompting calls to reexamine schools' zero-tolerance policy for bringing weapons to school, according to a New York Times report Monday.

Zero tolerance policies were instituted in many school districts across the country, at least in part due to violence at Columbine and Virginia Tech, the report notes. Their rigid enforcement is designed to eliminate the appearance of bias or discrimination on the part of school officials.

The school district's policy is enforced "regardless of intent" and "does not take into consideration a child's age," reports CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod.

But residents, and some lawmakers, are now wondering why schools can't apply a more common-sense discretion to such instances.

"It just seems unfair," said Zachary, who is being home-schooled while his mother, Debbie Christie, tries to fight the suspension. That involved Zachary appearing before a district disciplinary committee with his karate instructor and mother's fiancé vouching for him as character witnesses.

"Zachary wears a suit and tie some days to school by his own choice because he takes school so seriously," his mother said. "He is not some sort of threat to his classmates."

Christie started a Web site, helpzachary.com, to drum up support for her son.

State Representative Teresa L. Schooley wrote the disciplinary committee, asking each member to "consider the situation, get all the facts, find out about Zach and his family and then act with common sense for the well-being of this child."

But the strict enforcement of the policy has its supporters.

"There is no parent who wants to get a phone call where they hear that their child no longer has two good seeing eyes because there was a scuffle and someone pulled out a knife," said George Evans, the school district board's president.

There has been a move to give school officials more flexibility in "weapon"-related incidents. After a third-grade girl was expelled for a year after bringing in a knife to cut the birthday cake her grandmother sent in to the class, a new law was passed allowing officials to modify punishments on a case-by-case basis. But that was for expulsions, not suspensions as Zachary is faced with. Another revision to the law is being drafted to address suspensions, according to the report.

Wanna bet that I could beat the crap out someone with a math book, eh?

The Perfessor

YouTube Link

So Disney spent some four billion with a capital “B” Billion dollars on Marvel, who cares? Well, for one, I care. I work in comics (if you can call what I do “work”), and well, some other folks do as well. According to one observer:

Take a look at Disney’s biggest hits over the last few years. Hannah Montana, High School Musical, Disney Princesses. Notice a trend. There’s not one property that boys want to watch. On top of Disney’s failure to attract boys, everybody else seems to excel at serving that market. Nickelodeon, Universal, Cartoon Network, and others have all been beating Disney like a drum when it comes to the male demographic. Marvel bring a lot to the table. Where Disney has nothing that appeals to males, Marvel has nothing that appeals to females.

...and, of course, the (Marvel) stockholders are a tad happy:

Under the agreement, Marvel holders will receive $30 a share in cash plus about 0.745 Disney share for each Marvel share. Based on Friday's closing prices, the deal is valued at $50 per Marvel share, about a 29% premium.

So, yeah, there is a little something to this deal.

Actually, the Wall Street Journal seems to agree with Mr. Lopkin (the fellow quoted above):

By bringing in macho types such as Iron Man, Thor and Captain America, the Marvel deal would expand Disney's audience, adding properties that appeal to boys from their preteen years into young adulthood. That demographic group hasn't been swept up by Disney's recent hot properties, such as "High School Musical" and the Jonas Brothers.

Further, The Journal goes on to report that the deal is the biggest deal that Disney’s has brokered since its landed Pixar, (the folks who developed "Toy Story") for $7.4 billion in stock (another acquisition that was considered to be a bit pricey). Still, while its acquisition Marvel is far less, the deal itself comes with some additional baggage. Apparently, Marvel is tied up with almost every movie studio in town, and unraveling those ties for Disney, is going to become something of a long-term commitment.

Still, with the sales of DVD dropping Marvel does bring along the possibility for new revenue streams with toys, and the possibility of the addittion of Marvel’s characters to Disney’s various theme parks.

About 7% of Marvel's $676 million of revenue last year came from toys, down from more than 70% in 2000. The company's business model has shifted rapidly in recent years. Last year was the first year the company financed its own movies, which brought in $255 million during 2008 alone -- more than the company's entire revenue in 2000, which was about $232 million. Licensing has grown for Marvel, from 8% of revenue in 2000 to 43% last year.

Even though the Broadway Spider-Man musical has shuttered its dors (before even opening) licensing fees for Spider-Man alone has generated around $188 million in revenue. To be sure, the company does shares that with Sony, but analysts have estimated Sony’s share of those agreements is only around 25% of the total take, leaving a nice piece of the pie for Marvel (now Disney).

Still, when Disney starts cross-pollinating the two sets of characters (Hulk on Ice! Iron Duck! The Bugle being bought by Scrooge McDuck! Brrrr! the truly terrible permutations are limitless), That’s when I go back to drinking heavy, and blowing stuff up (and no, Walt, I still drink heavy, I just cut down on the blowing stuff up).

The Perfessor

This just in. Disney buys Marvel...

More as it develops!

The Perfessor

So either the world is going to end in 2012 as the Mayans predicted (don’t believe it, their calender was cyclic and doesn’t so much end on 12/21/2012, but simply reboots — the way the Gregorian calender does every December 31)

Or it is going to end in 2030?

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The world's population is growing, food supplies are diminishing, water supplies are becoming more scarce, the ice caps are melting, prices are rising. Things one could argue, are looking bleak - and it looks like they'll be looking bleaker.

The rest of which can be found here.

The Perfessor (drinking ‘til we all drop)

Unless you were living in a cave yesterday you missed the prelude to the end of all things.

I kid you not.

Twitter went down for several hours (and no, that isn’t code for some sexually-deviant thing) Settle down, Walt. What I mean to say is that the self-serving, ego-centric electronic posting service Twitter was unavailable to its subscribers for several hours yesterday.

According to The Financial Times, what might have been no more than a teenage prank completely knocked Twitter offline for over two hours yesterday.

The micro-blogging firm, whose service allows text and web posting of messages of 140 characters or less, said it was hit by a denial-of-service attack, in which thousands of personal computers attempt simultaneous connections, slowing the target site’s response to a virtual standstill.

According to The Wall Street Journal it was more than just Twitter that was hit, but Facebook as well (which jives with this blogger experienced, as I was having some difficulty posting, which ticked me off to no end).

Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. were working together with Google Inc. to investigate what happened, according to a person familiar with the matter. Another person familiar with the attack said it may have been targeted at a single Russian activist blogger with accounts across the impacted services.

The New York Times indicated that Google was also targeted:

Many of Twitter’s 45 million legitimate visitors were unable to use the service for hours. Analysts characterized the disruption as a denial-of-service attack, in which hackers overwhelm a Web site by sending it a deluge of junk requests, and one suggested the attack might have originated in Russia or Georgia.

While it is still not clear where the attack originated, or who was behind the digital assault, it is clear that someone out there was looking to jam the rest of us up.

Oh, and that isn’t even the the worst news; apparently stats confirm that teens don’t tweet:

If you’re under 25 and use Twitter, you’re not the source of the site’s tremendous growth. While we recently questioned the findings of a largely anecdotal report from Morgan Stanley written by a 15 year old, Nielsen has now produced figures that confirm the trend: young people don’t Tweet.

So stay wary my friends.

The Perfessor

A couple of days ago Walt told us all about the black spot on the surface of Jupiter. Well, today, we have more info on the topic, this time from The New York Times Blog.

NASA has confirmed the discovery of a new hole the size of the Earth in Jupiter’s atmosphere, apparently showing that the planet was hit by something large in recent days. The impact mark was first spotted on Monday morning by an amateur astronomer in Australia, who then drew the attention of scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to the dark mark on Jupiter’s south polar region.

NASA even posted some of the pictures on their web site. The Times went on to say:

Glenn Orton, a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said “It could be the impact of a comet, but we don’t know for sure yet.”

Mr. Orton told New Scientist magazine that the planet could have been hit by a block of ice or a comet that was too faint for astronomers to detect before the impact. Leigh Fletcher, an astronomer at the Jet Propulsion Lab told the magazine the impact scar “is about the size of the Earth.”

In Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the amateur astronomer, Anthony Wesley, a 44-year-old computer programmer from a village north of Canberra, made the discovery “using his backyard 14.5-inch reflecting telescope.” The Herald explained: “Wesley, who has been keen on astronomy since he was a child, said telescopes and other astronomy equipment were so inexpensive now that the hobby had become a viable pastime for just about anybody. His own equipment cost about $10,000.”

Sure we’ve been joking about the resulting cataclysmic disaster here on Cuppa, but it’s all fun and games until a planet-sized comet hits the Earth. Still, the good news is, that if we have even a 30-day warning, then not only will you be able to not worry about paying your bills ever again, but you are going to witness the biggest Bacchus Festival the world has ever seen.

The Perfessor

Hey, I didn’t do it, but when I saw it I though that it was hysterical. and by the way, so will you.

The Perfessor

If you ever wondered how to kill a zombie, it would be best for you to watch this compelling video.

The Perfessor

Well, no, not really, but you can’t blame us for freaking out. Yesterday, in New York, the populace apparently totally freaked out when they spotted a low-flying 747 being trailed by an F-16 Fighter jet in the sky over not only the Statue of Liberty, but Ground Zero as well.

Well, as it turns out, it was something of a misguided “photo op” by the White House (mostly because they somehow “forgot” to inform the Mayor’s office that they were barnstorming Midtown just to take some really cool pics.

Fun guys, eh?

Well, just because — over here at Cuppacafe East, we’ve been drinking heavily since just before dawn, we thought that we’d present to you this story, from a slightly more — shall we say — askew viewpoint, Take it away, Jon...

Now all I need to make this day complet is news of a pandemic virus...

Would someone please remind me not to ask for stuff any more.

The Perfessor

I’ll be honest here, Walt turned me onto this comic (XKCD). While I don’t read it every day (and probably should), he does, and never fails to link me to the “really good” ones. Here is a recent posting that caught his attention, and subsequently made me laugh out loud.

The Perfessor

As you are probably aware by now, roughly grabbing and violently shaking your tiny infant is probably not going to be the best idea you have on that particular day, for (so we are told) this tends to crash their tiny brains into the insides of their little craniums. Resulting in, well their immanent demise.

However, in the virtual world of digital violence, we know that all sorts of splatter-punk destruction is acceptable, so everything from shooting brain-eating zombies, to running over jaywalkers and pedestrians in your Gran Torino, or whatever (anyone got a cuppa Joe?).

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that in recent days iPhone users were (briefly) able to download a virtual baby shaking app that allowed said users to take their frustrations out on those selfish, self-centered babies by, well, shaking them to death.

No, I’m not kidding.

(No babies were shaken in the taking of this photo.)

There may be plenty of seemingly useless iPhone apps for sale (iBeer, anyone?), but Apple’s vetting process for approving new applications from developers came under scrutiny in the case of a 99-cent app called Baby Shaker that simulated the shaking of an infant.

The game was developed by a company called Sikalosoft, and featured illustrations of a baby whose eyes would become covered in red Xs when the iPhone is shaken vigorously, and featured the tag line: “On a plane, on the bus, in a theater. Babies are everywhere you don’t want them to be! They’re always distracting you from preparing for that big presentation at work with their incessant crying. Before Baby Shaker there was nothing you could do about it. See how long you can endure his or her adorable cries before you just have to find a way to quiet the baby down!”

As you can expect, there were some bleeding heart liberals that objected to this frivolity so, Apple was forced to issue an apology. On Thursday, the company issued a statement saying that the application, “Should not have been approved for distribution.” The spokesperson then went on to say, "We sincerely apologize for this mistake."

Not sure what is going on in the head of some of these app designers, but perhaps someone will develop an app for that.

The Perfessor