Warner puts Maccabees movie on hold; Mel Gibson still anti-semitic

I have to admit to having been completely skeptical about Mel Gibson making a movie about one of Judaism's most inspirational stories.  It just smelled like a PR move.

Now, the screenwriter working on the project - Joe Eszterhas, writer of Flashdance, Basic Instinct, Sliver, etc. - has written Gibson a 9-page letter denouncing him for never really intending to make the film.  "Instead, Eszterhas said, Gibson announced the project “in an attempt to deflect continuing charges of anti-Semitism which have dogged you, charges which have crippled your career.”"

This isn't terribly surprising to jews.  It is a little surprising that Eszterhas really felt that Gibson was coming into the project unbiased.  "After encountering Gibson’s conduct, Eszterhas writes that he felt trapped, but then decided to ignore the racist remarks and write the script based on his own research."  All of this after Eszterhas wrote this in his 2008 book: "No doubt now.  Mel was a raving anti-semite who ... shared the mindset of Adolf Hitler." 

What exactly was it that made Joe think Mel had had a change of heart? 

A nice quote from his letter:

"You continually called Jews 'Hebes' and 'oven-dodgers' and 'Jewboys.' It seemed that most times when we discussed someone, you asked 'He’s a Hebe, isn’t he?' You said most 'gatekeepers' of American companies were 'Hebes' who 'controlled their bosses.'"
[Oven-dodgers?  Nice, really nice.]


 The article and the letter itself.

Murderer is ACTUALLY a victim

"Shaken Baby Syndrome" used in defense of Trayvon Martin's killer

 

Police have not arrested Zimmerman because the use of lethal force in self defense is permitted under the Stand Your Ground law approved by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush in 2005.

 ...

"He didn't commit any crime," Unrig said on CBS. "He was attacked, broke his nose, hit his head into the ground and he defended himself. That's not against the law." 

America is such a better country with the Bush family protecting us.  Here's your link to the Reuters article.

Just be sure you take a shower and wear presentable underwear.

Supreme Court Ruling Allows Strip Searches for Any Arrest

 Really?  Really?  

"According to opinions in the lower courts, people may be strip-searched after arrests for violating a leash law, driving without a license and failing to pay child support. Citing examples from briefs submitted to the Supreme Court, Justice Breyer wrote that people have been subjected to “the humiliation of a visual strip search” after being arrested for driving with a noisy muffler, failing to use a turn signal and riding a bicycle without an audible bell.

A nun was strip-searched, he wrote, after an arrest for trespassing during an antiwar demonstration."

 Sigh.  Here is a NYTimes article on the ruling.

Study: Conservatives’ trust in science has fallen dramatically since mid-1970s

Well, this was already obvious from the direction that political discourse has taken in the last decade or so. 

A quote from the article:

“Today, conservatives perceive the scientific community as more focused on regulatory matters such as stopping industry from producing too much carbon dioxide. Conservatives often oppose government regulation, and they increasingly perceive science as on the side of regulation, especially as scientific evidence is used more frequently in the work of government agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and in public debates over issues such as climate change.”

Article link.

I'm not sure this is worthy of this blog, but I like the idea of a $26, 1 lb, two foot long hot dog:

See: ESPN News Story

In surprise news, oil isn't good for coral beds.

The first sentence of this article from AP says it all:

After months of laboratory work, scientists say they can definitively finger oil from BP's blown-out well as the culprit for the slow death of a once brightly colored deep-sea coral community in the Gulf of Mexico that is now brown and dull.

Well duh.  Proof that greater than 200 million gallons of spilled oil devastated the ecosystem?  Who.  Knew.

Report: Oil spill culprit for heavy toll on coral