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Elvis Costello Wins Nobel Peace Prize For Writing The Song “What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace, Love, And Understanding”!

Hey, if we apply the same standards used to justify the Obama award, Costello was a visionary –  they might as well!

While trying to find out exactly why Obama deserves this recognition, I came across Andrew Sullivan’s joyous, nonsensical rational to justify Obama receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize:

If any person has done more to advance some measure of calm, reason and peace in this troubled word lately, it’s president Obama. I think the Cairo speech and the Wright speech alone merited this both bridging ancient rifts even while they remain, of course, deep and intractable. He has already done more to heal the open wound between the West and Islam than anyone else on the planet.

He’s kidding, right? (or should that be “Wright”). Good speeches are fine and all, but doesn’t the actual accomplishment of… you know… something, count anymore. This reminds me of one of the prevailing educational philosophies floating around the halls of academia, that goes something like this – if the student does some work, shows an effort, you can not fail him. OK. But what if the work is very sub par, and doesn’t merit  a passing grade, well, I’m supposed to award the student a passing grade. Not only do you create a false sense of accomplishment in the student, but you create massive problems for the student and teacher in the next school year. And by the new, even more absurd Nobel standards, a student who tells me his grand, sweeping idea for a term paper would automatically get an A+ on the whole thing, before, or whether or not any work gets done.

I know I’ll probably get labeled an Obama hater, racists, or some other invective (if anyone even reads this post), but come on! Obama hasn’t actually accomplished anything yet. As much as people use Carter as the metric by which all horrible presidents are measured, he was a major player in the Camp David Accord negociations, and in my mind, deserves the N.P.P. for that. I’m not an Obama fan, but I am perfectly happy to give credit where credit is due. Problem is, besides his clever machinations that prevented the Olympics from being hosted in a crime ridden city like Chicago, he hasn’t done anything meritorious to deserve this prize. If he actually does help bring an end to the cycle of violence between Israel and the Palestinians, then give him all the awards in the world. Rename the award to the Obama Peace Prize. Hell, appoint him to be the permanent Santa Claus. He would have earned it. But don’t give  a peace prize to someone who hasn’t accomplished it yet!

And how bad does this tarnish the Nobel Prize committee? Well, I keep thinking of a line uttered by wanna-be Super Villain Syndrome in “The Incredibles”, paraphrased:

“I’ll give them awards. I’ll give them the most spectacular awards the world has ever seen! And when I’m old and I’ve had my fun, I’ll give out my prizes so that *everyone* can have awards. *Everyone* can be super! And when everyone’s super– –no one will be.”

Fresno In The News – The Best Defense EVER! A Band Of Gypsys Set Me Up To Feel Up Their Daughter.

Yep! This may be one of the most bizarre stories that I’ve written about on Sonicfrog.net. It’s complicated. The printed news report is, as usual,  short on details. Here is a summary as I understand it.

Rick Berman, Harry Baker’s lawyer, says Baker was acquainted with the family. He says the defendant was lured to a hotel to meet the girls. One of the girls, who was 13 at the time, told him she had a lump on her breast, and the parents, being gypsies, would not take her to a doctor, so she wanted him to check. He did. She also said she had a funny smell coming from the nether region, and the defendant took a Kleenex dabbed down there, and smelled it for foul odors. He found nothing unusual. What he didn’t know was that the family had rigged a hidden camera in the room to video the event, and the gypsy family then proceeded to extort him for money. They even gave him a DVD copy of the video (I told you this was perhaps the most bizarre stories I’ve written about).

After  making a couple of payments to the family, the defendant realized the extortion would not stop and went to the FBI. Berman says it is clear on the video that Baker was not touching the girl in a sexual manner, and notes that he was not charged when he brought this to the attention of the authorities. As the case evolved, the minor girl, who was staying with an uncle or something – the parents had disappeared – was taken from the family by CPS and placed in foster care. She is now suing the denedant, and he just got arrested for molestation.

This guy was an idiot for touching her in any way. But do note, the defendant was indeed blackmailed, and he is the one that went to the FBI in the first place.  If his defense lawyer is truthful about the family plotting this, setting up a camera, and the nature of the touching being visible on the video as clearly not sexual in nature (if you’re a “Chester Molester”, do you grab a tissue to sample a girls naughty bits), should this guy be charged since this was clearly a set-up? Think DeLorean.  On the other hand, there seems to be reports that there is a second case that is about to be brought in Las Vegas.

I’m not judging this one, it’s just too weird at this point. Guess we’ll have to wait and see how this all plays out.

Gypsy Testicle-Snatching Ring Exposed As Fraud.

When you think of the words “Testicle” and “Snatch” in the same sentence, this is not what you would expect. Well, there goes my planned trip to China.  Even though it’s fake, still, why take chances. Maybe the Gypsy’s only want us to believe it’s fake! Mama always told me to keep my testicles safe and don’t date gypsy’s.

This Crash Is Not Over…

Not by a long shot.

This is a test post

to restore my catagories.

Sonicfrog.Net – The Content Is Back!!!

I managed to get my old posts back. After the Great Blog Crash of 09, I was determined to get as much back as I could. Here’s how I did it (Note, I did set up a fake blog and tried the procedure there first to make sure it worked).

• I have kept the old hosting service active.
• I transferred the domain DNS of Sonicfrog to the old hosting service.
• Used the Tools / Export function to pull the data off my old blog.
• Transferred the DNS back to the new hosting service.
• Tools / Import added the old stuff to the new stuff.

I lost the Yosemite header pic, and all my links. But I still have the panorama picture on file (somewhere) and the links? Those can be rebuilt. Even though I didn’t get everything back, I’m happy I managed to get what I did.

Sound Fiscal Policy Rules Hollywood.

Yes, that’s a joke. H-wood has had a horrible year. Picture are too expensive to make. The audience isn’t plucking down the moolah to see the stinky films. So how does H-wood handle the situation? Fire studio heads. OK. Fine. But what about cutting costs? Well….

In an industry rife with bloated salaries, talent pay is the most obvious area to cut. Some stars receive astronomical fees for their work and the “20 and 20” pay day – referring to a $20m upfront payment plus 20 per cent of the film’s gross before the studio earns a penny – is not uncommon.

Universal’s new management team refuses to be drawn on star salaries, with Donna Langley, the new co-chairman, insisting there are other areas to consider, such as the rising cost of energy and materials.

“Greenlighting any film is becoming more and more difficult [because] the cost of making movies has risen,” she says.

Top talent will continue to command a premium price, according to Barry Katz, president of New Wave Entertainment, which represents stars such as Dane Cook.

“I can guarantee you that the big stars aren’t going to take a pay cut,” he says. “Studios need them to bring in the audiences.”

So they have several flops Land of the Lost, Gamer, Surrogates, Funny People, Love Happens, The Taking of Pelham . . . all with big names like Farrel, Travola, Jackson, Aniston, Willis, etc, and they flop. Yet the studios still think these “big stars” bring in the audiences????? Some one should probably tell these studio guys that its not the 1940’s anymore. Stars don’t attract audiences like they once did, especially not in a recession. Eh, then again, don’t tell them. I like to watch Hollywood squirm.

PS. Surrogates was not a bad film. Rent it when it comes out on DVD.

PPS. Don’t know if you noticed, but many films are being released in 3-D. Earlier this year, Speilberg, Lucas, and everyone else was touting this as the miracle technology that would save Hollywood. I wonder if the big wigs are rethinking this expensive strategy. Note it’s not mentioned in the article, so probably not.

The Sad State Of California – A Glimpse Into The Future

So, the end of the agriculture in the San Joaquin Valley has begun. As most know, due to both lousy Federal environmental regulation, incredibly idiotic and short sighted California water management, a state legislative body who is completely mesmerized by their own self importance and are completely incapable of making any hard decisions, and a nice, but not uncommon three year drought, farms on the west side of the valley are one by one going out of business because they can’t get enough water to sustain their crops. Now, due to more environmental regulations, the east side of the valley will face the same situation next year. As of yesterday, the flood gate of the Friant Dam have been opened permanently in order to restore permanent water flow to the San Joaquin River, which will in theory in turn restore the salmon back to the region. Of course, this will mean farms and cities in this area, including my hometown of Fresno, will almost certainly face severe water shortages in the next growing year. If we have a wetter than usual winter, we might not see the effects of this action right away. But anyone who live in the valley knows that droughts are a naturally occurring phenomenon in this region.

If you want to see how this sad situation might end up, I turn your attention to the situation facing the Klamath region of Oregon and California. For those that don’t remember, in a nutshell, in 2001 the Feds shut off the water supply to farmers in the Klamath Valley in order to try and save the salmon run in the Klamath river. Farmers lost their crops that year. The next year, the water was turned back on, but the seeds were sown for further action. Now both governors of the states of California and Oregon and the power company that owns the dams that divert the rivers, have signed an agreement that require the removal of water storing dams in the region by 2020. No word on how this will effect agriculture. Since California is completely apoplectic when it comes to building electricity producing facilities of its own. it buys energy from other states to supplement its energy needs. Since the state requires X amount of energy to be “green”, some of that energy comes from the “green” hydro-electric dams that will be torn down. Expect energy prices to continue to rise dramatically in the state.

If dam removal in another state, in order to restore salmon, does not seem to concern you – wake up! There are already calls for the removal of the Hetch Hetchy Dam in order to restore the salmon of the Tuolome River. For those who don’t know, Hetch Hetch water system provides water to San Francisco. Environmental leaning Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer are huge supporters of the environmental movement, and have supported the removal of dams in other parts of the country, but steadfastly refuse to consider the same solution when it affects their own constituents. I suspect this will in time become a story of the dogs biting the hands that fed it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-fish, nor am I a blind Hannity follower. I recognize the complex twists and turns to this story. I want the rivers to flow freely again, and have salmon once again running up our streams and rivers. I would be absolutely thrilled to see my local river flowing again, eradicating forever the dry gulch that I drive over every day, and it would be a joy to see those fish swimming upstream to do their business. The problem is that this is being done in such a hap hazard manner, with little in the way of planning as to mitigate the effect on our economies and our lives.

Anyway, I hope this all turns out well in the end, but given the paralyzed nature of California government, I doubt it.