Yeah, the birth of Rogaine.
baby Australopithecus afarensis
and
Moviemaking wundergramps Brian Grazer
Monthly Archives: September 2006
Sesame Street fires “Audit Me Elmo”
Sesame Street lets go of its ‘top gun’
Newsflash from the Pittsburgh Tribune By Eric Heyl
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, September 22, 2006Weary of his increasingly erratic behavior, Sesame
Street producers will not extend the contract of the program’s most popular muppet.Gary Knell, CEO of Sesame Workshop, the parent company of the popular PBS program, told The Wall Street Journal yesterday that he is severing ties with Elmo.
“As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his deal,” Knell said. “His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Sesame Street.”
Knell would not elaborate. But those close to the show indicated PBS had grown increasingly irritated over Elmo’s public embrace of Scientology.
Nor was the network happy when Elmo, in an interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer, launched a blistering attack on the use of antidepressants to combat postpartum depression.
The final straw, industry sources said, was Elmo signing off on his spastic new likeness, TMX Elmo, which was unveiled Tuesday.
Parodying the panic-stricken movements of a typical choking victim, the latest Elmo doll doubles over, falls on its back and kicks its legs before finally rising — cackling hysterically all the while.
“It completely undignified. It unbecoming of muppet who supposedly has intellectual acuity of 3-year-old,” said a source close to Sesame Street who is not the Cookie Monster.
To Sesame Street and PBS executives, the doll also rekindled disturbing memories of Elmo‘s controversial appearance last year on “Oprah.” The doll behaves much as Elmo did on the talk show when he passionately and clumsily declared his love for his onscreen romantic interest, the furry orange creature Zoe.The couple since have spawned a young daughter, Silli, while denying persistent rumors that the child’s father actually is the lovable blue muppet Grover.
The powerful Creative Artists Agency, which represents Elmo and many of Hollywood‘s other A-list stars, termed the firing “graceless and uncouth.”
“This is no way to treat an artist,” a CAA release stated. “This unconscionable action will cause brightly colored and highly marketable children’s puppets everywhere to question whether they would want to work for an outfit that does this to its greatest asset.”
Producers reportedly are involved in serious negotiations with Brad Pitt to replace Elmo in the upcoming sequel to the hit film “Elmo in Grouchland.” The anticipated action blockbuster’s working title is “Return to Grouchland: Oscar’s Days of Rage.”
Major James Loden’s emails: The RAF have been utterly, utterly useless
From Sky News, with additional reporting from The Guardian here, for background. Not much here that hadn’t been vaguely feared before, but it’s about time we heard from the fighters on the front lines exactly what is going on. To that end, I’ll paste in the entire emails (or everything Sky posted, anyway) to avoid editorializing; my thoughts are not the story this time.
British troops in Helmand province
The Leaked Emails
Saturday September 23, 2006A series of leaked emails has revealed more of the concerns within the armed forces about the continuing fighting against Taliban guerrillas in Afghanistan.
The middle-ranking officer with 3 Para who wrote them is serving in the dangerous southern Helmand province.
His three emails – excerts of which are printed below – give a vivid description of the fierce fighting UK troops are involved in, the bravery of those involved – and his concerns about numbers of personnel and equipment.
KEY POINTS:
:: We are lacking manpower
:: Desperately in need of more helicopters
:: Shooting by some Harrier pilots supporting ground troops is inaccurate
:: Some soldiers look very frightened and slow to react
:: All arms and services must be fit and capable of basic weapon skills and fieldcraft.This is what the officer wrote:
THE EMAILS:
First email:
I have a Coy Gp here although we are lacking manpower. Desperately in need of more helicopters.
Attacks consist of regular rocket, mortar, RPG and small arms on the fire base, plus fairly heavy fire fights out on the ground.
The Toms are getting to grips with their core business of mouse hole charges, barmines and grenades for buildings, and all direct fire weapons for the assault.
The RAF have been utterly utterly useless. In contrast USAF have been fantastic.
I have a couple of soldiers who I have concerns about after some heavy contact … Even now with our own artillery firing they look very frightened and slow to react.
There is a fine line between giving them time to accept what has happened and adjust, and gripping them hard and forcing them to focus.
Second email:
(In this email, the officer praises the bravery of Corporal Bryan Budd, who was killed in action on August 20 and describes the battle in which he died.)
Budd saw the enemy 25 metres in front behind a bush line, and using hand signals organised his section to attack.
As he went forward the landrover on the left was ambushed, despite this he led his section forward with heavy fire personally accounting for at least 2 enemy.
Sadly he and 3 of his section were hit although one was only in the body armour. As the section pulled back in the face of heavy fire, no-one saw Budd was down.
Taliban fighters increasing their resistance The other 2 casualties were pulled back, and shortly afterwards Budd was declared MIA. The pl comd and 3rd section had made their way forward, and tried to advance forward to find Budd but they were driven back under heavy fire.The platoon radio op took a round in the chest but was saved by the body armour. The platoon commander received some shrapnel in his backside but continued.
The CSM made another trip out and back on the Quad bike to collect the third casualty, this time coming under fire himself but continuing nonetheless.
By now they could see the Taliban were rushing weapons out of a mosque hidden in depth. We began to engage them with mortars.
At about the same time the enemy engaged us with mortars, and were clearly getting the base plate bedded in as their rounds began to creep closer.
It was around an hour since he (Cpl Budd) had been hit, and initially had no pulse. He was given CPR and moved as quickly as possible.
The CSM raced out on the Quad bike and retrieved him, but the doctor was unable to save him.
The 2 platoons were trickling towards us now clearly exhausted, and if there ever needed to be a justification for the 2 miler this was it.
Those of us on the fire support tower were shouting at them to keep running and spread out because of the enemy mortar fire. They were all exhausted and scared, but I think the physicality of it was a real eye opener.
The contact on 20 Aug proves once again the old lesson, that all arms and services must be fit and capable of basic weapon skills and fieldcraft.
There were many people on that day who will go unrecognised, but simply volunteered immediately to go out as part of the reinforcements regardless of rank or experience.
Third email:
Ref emotion there has been plenty of tears which as you know is all rather humbling.
I have followed the same line as far as keeping them together, and injecting humour where possible.
As for facts I have been in the field since July 27th and have only had 3 days with no contact so fairly constant.
(Referring to attack helicopters) The bottom line is
that there are not enough of them.
(Then, referring to air support during a fight with the Taliban) Harrier couldn’t identify and fired rockets that just missed Coy HQ compound.
Pl Comd decided to continue to move, but as the enemy closed up he put in a snap ambush and slowed them up with a heavy rate of fire.
Thankfully no casualties, lots of ammo expended!
new ‘out of office’ replies
from Raj:
New Out of Office Replies:
1. I am currently away from my desk, beating my head against the wall. Your message will be replied to once I have reached a level of numbness
sufficient to cloud my vision to the point I am able to formulate an appropriate response to your request.2. I am currently out at a job interview and will reply to you if I fail to get the position. Be prepared for my mood.
3. You are receiving this automatic notification because I am out of the office. If I was in, chances are you wouldn’t have received anything at all.
4. I will be unable to delete all the unread, worthless emails you send me until I return. Please be patient and your mail will be deleted in the
order it was received.5. Thank you for your email. Your credit card has been charged $5.99 for the first ten words and $1.99 for each additional word in your message.
6. The e-mail server is unable to verify your server connection and is unable to deliver this message. Please restart your computer and try sending again. (The beauty of this one is that when you return, you can see how many in-duh-viduals did this over and over).
7. Thank you for your message, which has been added to a queuing system. You are currently in 352nd place, and can expect to receive a reply in approximately 19 weeks.
8. I’ve run away to join a different circus.
9. I will be out of the office for the next two weeks for medical reasons. When I return, please refer to me as ‘Martha’ instead of ‘Marvin’.
argyleteuthis luxe
It seems that the common or garden Giant Squid has mutated into this woolly, tree-climbing subspecies. Readers in forested, coastal areas are strongly cautioned to carry an umbrella at all times! As well as the Elder Sign.
From Laura via Squid.us, and sure you can substitute cashmere if you’re really literal-minded.
raincoaster 