Amusing Archives - Page 26 of 84 - Common Sense Evaluation

Emeril Lagasse Taken Off The Menu At The Food Network

Amusing Comments Off

Nov 272007

Love him or hate him, one thing is clear, the Food Network did not make Emeril Lagasse, Emeril made the Food Network.

The Food Network is taking Emeril Lagasse off its menu.

The bam!-tastic chef, whose Emeril Live! has served as the cornerstone of the cable net’s prime-time lineup for the past decade, will cease production on his long-running nightly cooking show on Dec. 11.

Unlike fellow celebrity chef Mario Batali’s tie-severing split from the network earlier this year, leftovers—er, reruns—of Lagasse’s show will continue to air. And despite ceasing production on the live show, the New Orleans native will continue to film new episodes of Essence of Emeril, his audience-free afternoon affair, “for the foreseeable future.”

“I am deeply appreciative to all the unbelievable staff—many who have been with the show since the beginning—and all the loyal viewers, and the many talented guests who have appeared on the show through the years,” the chef said in a statement.

“I look forward to continuing my association with the Food Network with The Essence of Emeril and I have lots of new ideas cooking.”

The Food Network made clear that Lagasse was abandoning the show only, not the network as a whole, and said they would continue to “pursue specials and other opportunities in the future.”

“Emeril Live! has been an incredible journey and a great collaboration between Emeril Lagasse and Food Network for over 10 years,” the cable net said in a statement. “Emeril has been the cornerstone of Food Network’s success and helped pave the way for chefs on TV.”

“Food Network and Emeril look forward to continuing our long partnership and Emeril remains an integral part of the Food Network family.”

While for the time being Lagasse is remaining on board with the cable net, despite the abrupt end of his long-running series, his five-year contract with Food Network is due to expire in May 2008.

While no reason has been given by either the network or the chef for the show’s sudden expiration—aside from network publicist Carrie Welch telling the Associated Press that “all good things come to an end”—failed contract negotiations between Lagasse and parent company E.W. Scripps are reportedly behind the series’ demise. Lagasse has been a part of the Food Network’s lineup since the channel debuted in 1993.

The network, however, first showed signs of wavering confidence in Emeril Live! back in July, when it bumped the program from it’s longtime 8 p.m. time slot to the less prestigious 7 p.m. slot. The show which replaced it, Good Eats with Alton Brown, regularly trounced Lagasse’s numbers, averaging 13 percent more viewers than the live series.

New Bill Could Make Puerto Rico The 51st State

Amusing Comments Off

Nov 272007

A bill introduced in Congress could make Puerto Rico the 51st state. Will this make Canada jealous?

Bill Could Lead To Statehood For Puerto Rico

A bill has been introduced to the U.S. Congress that could make Puerto Rico the 51st state.

For almost 50 years, the U.S. has been made up of 50 states. In 1959, Hawaii was the last state added to the Union, but that could change.

Puerto Rico has been a territory of the United States for more than a century, and some people think it’s time for the commonwealth to become a state. The topic has sparked a heated debate.

“Statehood would go against that sense of uniqueness, culture, identity that we do have under commonwealth,” Puerto Rican Gov. Anibal Acevedo-Vila said.

“As a U.S. citizen, if you live in Puerto Rico, you are stripped of your rights,” Luis Fortuno, Puerto Rico’s only non-voting congressman, said.
Acevedo-Vila believes his people are better off the way they are now.

“We are U.S. citizens, we are a commonwealth of the U.S., but we are a nation sociologically. We call ourselves Puerto Ricans. We don’t call ourselves Puerto Rican-Americans,” Acevedo-Vila said.

Puerto Ricans do not currently pay taxes and do not vote for U.S. president, but they do receive welfare and unemployment benefits and pay Social Security. Puerto Ricans also serve in the U.S. military.

Fortuno said Puerto Ricans in the U.S. military are why Puerto Rico should become a state.

“We have fought in every single war since the first world war,” Fortuno said. “We are proud to be Americans, and we are bound by the same values that actually make us the greatest nation in the world.”

“As a senator who represents a lot of Puerto Rican people in this state, I should give them a voice, and I know it’s a big deal to the people of Puerto Rico,” Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., said.

Martinez said the people of Puerto Rico should decide their own fate.

In August, Martinez introduced a bill to Congress that would set a date for a federally sanctioned vote on the island, which would allow Puerto Ricans to choose between commonwealth status, independence, free association or statehood.

Commonwealth status would mean no change, but independence would make the island a sovereign nation and free association would mean independence with a special relationship to the U.S.

“Since 1898, Puerto Rico has been essentially in a limbo colonial status, and it’s just not right. There’s not too many places in the world where a complete lack of definity exists for a people,” Martinez said.

Puerto Ricans have voted on their status before. In those non-binding referendums, known as plebiscites, Puerto Ricans have rejected statehood.

“I think that Puerto Rico in the future should get a better deal with the U.S. Congress in order for the island to get more power, more autonomy,” Acevedo-Vila said.

“We’re not asking for any special treatment,” Fortuno said. “We just want to participate fully in this experiment. We want to carry our own weight.”

Martinez said, ultimately, Congress has the last word on the status of Puerto Rico, no matter what the voters on the island choose.

If Puerto Rico becomes a state, it would be represented by six members of Congress and two U.S. senators.

Martinez’s bill is now in the hands of a Senate committee. Lawmakers are expected to act on the bill early next year.

British Schoolteacher Arrested In Sudan After She Allowed Her Pupils To Name A Teddy Bear Muhammad

Amusing Comments Off

Nov 262007

Here is more evidence that The Religion of ~~Stupidity~~ Peace needs an enema.

‘Muhammad’ teddy teacher arrested

A British schoolteacher has been arrested in Sudan accused of insulting Islam’s Prophet, after she allowed her pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad.

Colleagues of Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, said she made an “innocent mistake” by letting the six and seven-year-olds choose the name.

Ms Gibbons was arrested after several parents made complaints.

The BBC has learned the charge could lead to six months in jail, 40 lashes or a fine.

Officials from the British embassy in Khartoum are expected to visit Ms Gibbons in custody later.

“We are in contact with the authorities here and they have visited the teacher and she is in a good condition,” an embassy spokesman said.

The spokesman said the naming of the teddy happened months ago and was chosen by the children because it is a common name in the country.

“This happened in September and the parents did not have a problem with it,” he said.

‘Very sensitive’

The school has been closed until January for fear of reprisals.

Fellow teachers at Khartoum’s Unity High School told Reuters news agency they feared for Ms Gibbons’ safety after receiving reports that men had started gathering outside the police station where she was being held.

The school’s director, Robert Boulos, said: “This is a very sensitive issue. We are very worried about her safety.

“This was a completely innocent mistake. Miss Gibbons would have never wanted to insult Islam.”

Mr Boulos said Ms Gibbons was following a British national curriculum course designed to teach young pupils about animals and this year’s topic was the bear.

Ms Gibbons, who joined the school in August, asked a seven-year-old girl to bring in her teddy bear and asked the class to pick names for it, he said.

“They came up with eight names including Abdullah, Hassan and Muhammad,” Mr Boulos said, adding that she then had the children vote on a name.

Twenty out of the 23 children chose Muhammad as their favourite name.

Mr Boulos said each child was then allowed to take the bear home at weekends and told to write a diary about what they did with it.

He said the children’s entries were collected in a book with a picture of the bear on the cover and a message which read, “My name is Muhammad.”

Book seized

The bear itself was not marked or labelled with the name in any way, he added.

It is seen as an insult to Islam to attempt to make an image of the Prophet Muhammad.

Mr Boulos said Ms Gibbons was arrested on Sunday at her home inside the school premises after a number of parents complained to Sudan’s Ministry of Education.

He said police had seized the book and asked to interview the girl who owned the bear.

The country’s state-controlled Sudanese Media Centre reported that charges were being prepared “under article 125 of the criminal law” which covers insults against faith and religion.

No-one at the ministries of education or justice was available for comment.

Mr Boulos told the BBC he was confident she would not face a jail sentence.

One Muslim teacher at the independent school for Christian and Muslim children, who has a child in Ms Gibbons’ class, said she had not found the project offensive.

“I know Gillian and she would never have meant it as an insult. I was just impressed that she got them to vote,” the teacher said.

In Liverpool, a family spokeswoman said Ms Gibbons’ grown children, John and Jessica – both believed to be in their 20s – were not commenting on her arrest.

“I have spoken with her children and they do not want to say anything and aggravate the situation over there,” she said.

Rick Widdowson the headteacher of Garston Church of England Primary School, where Gillian worked for ten years, added: “We are an Anglican school and I know for a fact that Gillian would not do anything to offend followers of any faith.

“Certainly she is also very worldly wise and she is obviously aware of the sensitivities around Islam.”

Cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad printed in several European newspapers sparked violent protests around the world in 2006.

With All The Encouraging News Coming From Iraq, How Long Will It Be Before The Democrats Take Credit For The Surge?

Amusing Comments Off

Nov 262007

The News from Iraq has been so encouraging recently that even the mainstream media is starting to notice. Lets see how long it takes the Democratic Party to take credit for the surge.

Let’s hear it for good news from Iraq

THE NEWS from Iraq has been so encouraging in recent months that last week even the mainstream media finally sat up and took notice. Can the Democratic Party be far behind?

“Returning to Baghdad after an absence of four months,” he writes, “I can actually say that things do seem to have gotten better, and in ways that may even be durable . . . There hasn’t been a successful suicide car bombing in Baghdad in five weeks . . . Al Qaeda in Iraq is starting to look like a spent force, especially in Baghdad.”

The signs of life, Nordland acknowledges “grudgingly” – his word – are undeniable.

“Emerging from our bunkers into the Red Zone, I see the results everywhere. Throughout Baghdad, shops and street markets are open late again, taking advantage of the fine November weather. Parks are crowded with strollers, and kids play soccer on the streets. Traffic has resumed its customary epic snarl. . . . The Shorja bazaar in old Baghdad, hit by at least six different car bombs killing hundreds in the last year, is again crowded with people among the narrow tented stalls. On nearby Al-Rasheed Street, the famous booksellers are back in business . . . People are buying alcohol again – as they always had in Baghdad, until religious extremists forced many neighborhood liquor shops to close.”

Newsweek’s isn’t the only big media voice bringing tidings of comfort and joy from the Iraqi theatre.

On Tuesday, The New York Times led its front page with a good-news headline – “Baghdad Starts to Exhale as Security Improves” – and a large photo of an Iraqi bride and groom, bedecked in wedding finery and accompanied by a band. Below that: a picture of smiling diners at Al Faris, a restaurant on the Tigris riverbank that is booming once again. Inside, across four columns, another photo showed an outdoor foosball game in Baghdad’s Haifa Street, once dubbed the “Street of Fear” because it was the scene of so many lethal sectarian attacks.

In another Page 1 story the day before (“U.S. Says Attacks in Iraq Fell to the Level of Early Last Year”), the Times recounted some of the auspicious data: civilian fatalities down 75 percent in recent months, Iraqi security-force casualties down 40 percent, total weekly attacks nationwide down nearly two-thirds since June. The Los Angeles Times, too, fronted a story on the promising developments, reporting on an “unexpected flowering of sectarian cooperation” in which “Sunnis and Shi’ites are joining hands at the local level to protect their communities from militants.” The results, reported the paper from the rural community of Qarghulia on Monday, “are palpable. Killings are down dramatically and public confidence is reviving.”

Of course things could still change for the worse. In the Middle East there are few guarantees. Neither the US military nor the Bush administration plans to dust off that “Mission Accomplished” banner anytime soon.

Still: “By every metric used to measure the war,” as The Washington Post editorialized on Nov. 18, “there has been an enormous improvement since January.” The Post credits this achievement to American soldiers in Iraq, to General David Petraeus, “and to President Bush, for making the decision to launch the surge against the advice of most of Congress and the country’s foreign policy elite.”

With the media at last paying attention to the progress in Iraq, shouldn’t leading Democrats think about doing the same? Perhaps this would be a good time for Hillary Clinton to express regret for telling Petraeus that his recent progress report on Iraq required “a willing suspension of disbelief” – in effect, calling him a liar. Perhaps Senate majority leader Harry Reid should admit that he may have been wrong to declare so emphatically: “This war is lost, and the surge is not accomplishing anything.”

All of the Democratic presidential candidates have been running on a platform of abandoning Iraq. At the recent debate in Las Vegas, they refused to relax their embrace of defeat even when asked about the striking evidence of improvement. They continued to insist that “the surge is not working” (Bill Richardson), that “the occupation is fueling the insurgency” (Dennis Kucinich), and that the “strategy is failed” and we must “get our troops out” (Barack Obama).

Blind opposition to war that seems lost is understandable. But can Democrats be so invested in defeat that they would abandon even a war that may be winnable? With developments in Iraq looking so hopeful, this is no time to cling to a counsel of despair.