Archive for August, 2007
August 29, 2007
So the plea is in, in record time, and Michael Vick has even more swiftly found Jesus. Even with his high-priced team of lawyers, Vick didn’t dare go to court, because his friends had his back—where they stabbed him with their testimony. Hopefully this will put an end to the ‘gangsters don’t snitch’ ethos.
Pit bulls and dogfighting are part of the same street mentality, and in the name of ‘keeping it real’, Vick has seen some real dough go up in smoke. Can you say the dogs ate my $144 million?
Posted in Michael-Vick, public-relations-disaster | 1 Comment »
Flo and Lucky: Movie Dogs Take PR Tour
August 29, 2007
Yes, it’s truly the dog days of summer.
Flo and Lucky, the adorable black Labs of the Motion Picture Association of America, are doing the perfect PR tour. A story about them ran on CBS Radio and they were featured sniffing out DVDs in luggage on the NBC morning show (Dan Glickman, head of the MPAA, has the sense to stand back and let the dogs upstage him). The dogs even made the New York Times with their anti-piracy pitch. (BTW, note the horrendous decline of copyediting in the so-called ‘newspaper of record’–the paper claims the dog’s handler, Neil Powell, is from “Newcastle, Northern Island.”) Perhaps it was the IRT terrorists who battled for control of Northern Island?
Yes, Flo and Lucky and the perfect spokesdogs for the MPAA. They’re adorable, and they don’t say anything (or drive drunk, flash their private parts or take drugs not prescribed by their veternarian.) So not only can their PR handlers put words in their mouths, they never have to retract the dumb things they’ve said.
Posted in Flo-and-Lucky, MPAA, NBC-news, New-York-Times, publicity-stunts | No Comments »
Diary of Reggie, Alligator at Large, Entry #2
August 15, 2007
OK, I ran for it. I admit it. I got freaked out. I mean, I was raised in a bathtub. That’s where I learned to climb walls. Pretty cool for an alligator, huh?
But look at these people. Wouldn’t you run too?
Posted in Hollywood-alligator, Reggie-the-alligator, alligators | 1 Comment »
Michael Vick: Kill a dog, go to jail?
August 14, 2007
We can only hope, although I’m no fan of Federal prosecutions; often, as in this case, they come close to entrapment, protect the privileged and crush the young, poorly-defended and weak.
But the dogfighting indictment against the NFL quarterback may have a couple of positive results. With Vick’s ‘friends’ rolling over like beer kegs heading down Pike’s Peak, Vick is faced with an unappetizing choice: taking a plea bargain or fighting their testimony (including the allegation he used his massive NFL salary to bankroll the dogfighting/killing operation) in open court.
What could be positive about all this? One, that the indictments, and hopefully, convictions, will dissuade at least some from raising dogs to tear each other to shreds. Another possibility is that the “don’t snitch” culture will spring a few leaks. If so-called friends can roll on Mike Vick, that message may very well get down to the gangster level.
Posted in Federal-entrapment, Michael-Vick, NFL, Sports, dogfighting | 2 Comments »
Diary of Reggie, Alligator at Large
August 12, 2007
OK, I was swimming in some lake, nostrils on top. I smelled chicken, so I crawled up on land and bang–they put me in a cage. Next thing I know, people are pushing my snout down, wrapping me in a towel like I’m a baby, and carrying me to some dirty swimming pool in the zoo.
What’s an alligator to do? Why are all these people watching me lying there like a log, waiting to see if I bite something? And why do they keep playing that song saying “You can check out any time you like but you can never leave”?
What is this–Hollywood?
Posted in Hollywood-alligator, Reggie-the-alligator, alligators | No Comments »
L.A. Icon Gone: Hal Fishman R.I.P.
August 7, 2007
Hal Fishman, long-time LA television anchor, has passed on at 75. Always working for independent television stations since beginning his career in 1965, he anchored his last KTLA broadcast on July 30, a week before he died on August 6 from colon and liver cancer.
What made him stand out from the blow-dry crop of talking heads and pneumatic blondes in local news was his erudite style. A former professor of political science, he actually understood the news he read and could explain and amplify it for his hundreds of thousands of viewers.
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Like all of us, he had his foibles, from his ‘gravitas’ to his toupee, that made him the model for the Simpson’s Kent Brockman. But ultimately he earned trust with his audience and became as much an icon of Los Angeles as the giant Randy’s Donuts sign.
Posted in Hal-Fishman, Kent-Brockman, Los-Angeles, Randy's-Donuts, The-Simpsons, television-news | No Comments »
Dateline NBC: Entrapment Again?
August 6, 2007
Why people hate reporters: a Dateline NBC producer “parachutes in” to the DEFCON hacker’s convention to attempt to entrap a hacker (any hacker) doing something (anything) illegal so the Feds in attendence can arrest them.
Why? So the “people in Kansas” as she so patronizingly describes her own audience can see what ‘illegal stuff’ goes down at DEFCON via the ol’ hidden camera trick.
The reporter (Michelle Madigan, to name the guilty) reportedly declined four requests to register as press, and actually told a DEFCON staffer that she was going to the bathroom to get her hidden camera ready!
Unfortunately, all the coverage I’ve seen of this horrendous example of “gotcha” journalism has been on technology blogs; Howie Kurtz , Editor and Publisher other media mavens don’t often venture into the technology ghetto.
She’s , (and apparently, according to this , Dateline didn’t even send any back-up to protect her, unlike their anti-predator campaign) but it won’t stop NBC’s Dateline, home of the “online predator” entrapment that led to a man’s suicide (without benefit of trial or conviction) and flaming faked truck explosions.
Posted in DEFCON, Dateline-NBC, investigative-journalism, news-entrapment, public-relations-disaster | No Comments »
Kevin Mitnick “Mission Impossible” Lockpicking Business Card
August 6, 2007
I wanted to go to DEFCON, the hacker’s convention, this year to soak up the spy-vs-spy atmosphere, but I couldn’t find a publication to pay me. Wish I’d gone: maybe I could have gotten one of these ‘get out of jail free’ business cards from hacker extraordinaire Kevin Mitnick, who I’ve interviewed previously.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Movie Piracy Dogs Strike Again!
August 4, 2007
Who calls August the ‘dog days’ of summer? Flo and Lucky, the black labs of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), have struck again!
Working undercover in Malaysia, “the world’s first dogs trained to sniff optical disks” snagged illegal copies of Pirates of the Caribbean, Spiderman-3, Transformers, The Simpsons Movie, and Hot Fuzz (apparently a much bigger hit in Southeast Asia than here.) They helped local law enforcement seize DVD replicators capable of cranking out 10 million pirated DVDs a year. Four pirates were also detained.
“They were able to mask the true nature of their operations by masquerading as a factory producing fertilizers. 300 sacks of fertilizer were piled outside the premises in an attempt to camouflage their illegal activities. They were however unable to fool the dogs.”
Yes, something smells here. But it’s not those gleaming black Labs.
Posted in DVD-piracy, Flo-and-Lucky, Hot-Fuzz, MPAA, Pirates-of-the-Caribbean, Simpsons, Transformers, dvd-pirates, piracy | No Comments »
Celebrity Drunk Driving School for Nicole Ritchie?
August 2, 2007
With celebrities like Nicole Ritchie, Parish Hilton and Lindsay Lohan confused by drugs, alcohol and our freeway system, it’s clear Los Angeles needs a Celebrity Drunk Driving School (CDDS) to help our region’s most precious assets learn to navigate the streets while loaded.
Perhaps could be the first instructor, due to his life-saving ability, rehab experience and driving K.I.T.T., the talking car.
Posted in Celebrity-Drunk-Driving-School, David-Hasselhoff, K.I.T.T., Nicole-Ritchie, Paris-Hilton, lindsay-lohan | No Comments »
