THE US REPORT

Should consumers boycott Viacom brands? Tech blogs are analyzing the ruling in the Google/Viacom battle after federal judge Lewis Stanton ruled in favor of protecting Google’s intellectual property but ignored privacy rights of users. User info will be turned over to Viacom, one of the largest media conglomerates in the world. Michael Arrington, writing for Tech Crunch, says the data “includes every YouTube username, the associated IP address and the videos that user has watched on YouTube. Google will also be required to hand over copies of every video removed from YouTube for any reason (DMCA notices or user-initiated deletions). Stanton dismissed Google’s argument that the order will violate user privacy, saying such privacy concerns are merely ‘speculative.’ " So how will this not only affect YouTube users but us lowly bloggers?

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Soon I’m sure you’ll be seeing news clips of Joan Rivers appearing on the British show Loose Women,  a near cousin to The View in the US, calling Russell Crowe some pretty bad names, including dropping the f-bomb,  resulting in her being censored (commonly known as bleeped.) After the break Rivers didn’t return to the show. She seemed surprised. Well, it just so happens I’ve met Russell Crowe, via an event arranged by Jacksonville Axemen coach Spinner Howland (photo below) and Rivers' description of the actor is so far off I can’t help but wonder what she did wrong when she met him. And I didn't exactly make a great impression on him myself. At first.

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Get into a discussion about global warming and the congregation rises up as dramatically as animations of the sea level shooting 20 feet into the sky once west Antarctica or Greenland melts. Both are gonna blow soon according to Al Gore’s movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth.’ Gore measures time a bit more radically than most because the general consensus is that it will take those icy lands thousands of years to melt. But try to question someone who is convinced last week’s unusually warm temperatures are the result of human beings and you will more than likely be called an idiot. After all, Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio and Barbara Streisand thump the global warming holy book every chance they get. Problem is these GW theologians cannot possibly practice what they preach. Otherwise their celebrity brand, dependent on all sorts of environmentally unfriendly practices, will blow as well. Then who’ll listen to them or worse, who’ll pay them hefty speaker and performance fees?

Celebs and global warming
The Daily Mail (UK) has a great article about who is practicing vs. who is preaching, and it’s worth a read if for no other reason than to make you ponder how on earth Streisand might cope without those thirteen 53-foot semi-tractor trailers, 4 rental vans, 14 buses and limo she needed while on tour last year.

Al Gore’s 10,000 sq. ft. home in Tennessee blew through approximately 191,000 kilowatt hours in a single year. A typical home in Nashville uses about 15,600 kwh per year. We know these facts because CBS News cited the Associated Press who published them originally. But wait! Gore purchases green power too, so all is not lost since he’s offsetting his impact. But wait! Does that keep the carbon monoxide from the 191,000 kwh from shooting into the atmosphere, possibly melting a sizable percentage of Greenland as we speak? But wait! Gore is pumping bucks into green technology. That ought to count for something and it probably will, namely, fattening up Gore’s wallet.

Here’s the rub from an admittedly cantankerous environmentalist, one who preached a long time before I first learned the earth was gonna freeze followed by news the earth is gonna fry. Live long enough and I reckon someone will decide the earth is gonna flip itself upside down. But the fact is you cannot be a true environmentalist and engage private jets, semi-tractor trailers, limousines, and 10,000 square foot mansions. For one thing, how many species of flora and fauna do you think that 10,000 square feet displaced (not to mention the pool which I somehow doubt is a peanut or above ground type)? What happened to all those Tennessee rabbits and possums and other critters who probably liked having a little foliage to forage in? What about the lichens and the native plants, the snakes and tortoises?

What's the real problem?
In my experience, the single greatest harm to our environment is deforestation. Trees =oxygen. Forests=wildlife habitat.

The next greatest harm is our dependence on hundreds of items that can neither be recycled nor disposed of in an eco-friendly way—cell phones, computers, certain plastics, the plastic rings that hold your beer bottles in place, those tiny little contaminating containers your dog’s anti-flea treatment comes in. What, I wonder, do you do with a container Botox comes in?  We’ve got pharmaceuticals in our public water supply. You’d think people would be concerned, but after a brief newsbreak, no one’s saying a word about it.

What is completely lacking in the scientific battle that will cost the American consumer a far larger percentage of income than a millionaire like Al Gore? Common sense. The lack of common sense has already cost your average homeowner—check out the increase in your home heating and cooling system replacement costs, and this cost will continue to climb.

You can buy all the carbon credits you want but part of the big solution requires doing something about deforestation. You can observe this on a local level. The green space that’s there today will not be there tomorrow. Someone will pop up a strip mall or a restaurant or maybe some of those cookie cutter houses on property completely scalped down to the last twig.

Missing: common sense
The UN Commission on Sustainable Development predicts Africa and South Asia could have an additional 1.8 billion people to feed by 2050.  Considering the desertification in those regions, you’d think we’d be looking at that population projection and the cultural factors that produce more children than a culture can possibly feed. We could also do something about agricultural practices. We could also take a hard look at how the United Nations spends our American money because this American would really like to see that money go to the people who need it instead of into the pockets of certain high-ranking officials. But wait!

Common sense has run out the door and melted into the fictional runoff from Antarctica. The human impact on global warming may be real or not and the cause may still be debated, but real solutions for healing the environment are getting nowhere other than a high profile bio note on some celeb’s press release and maybe an increase in their net worth. (filed by Kay B. Day)

(Ocala, Fla.)-Actor Wesley Snipes faces 3 years in prison, sentenced by a federal judge in Florida for failure to file his income taxes. Admittedly, there’s a lot of money involved and admittedly, the actor did what most of the rest of us would love to do but are afraid to—decided to eliminate his own tax burden by trying to get around various regulations. Channel 2 in Orlando said the judge gave Snipes the maximum on a conviction of 3 misdemeanor charges “to deter others from trying something similar.” The IRS has no better friend than this judge, wouldn’t you say?

What I want to know is what’s the benefit to society from sending a productive citizen to prison for 3 years?  Now I know this is Florida (I live here so I know the place pretty good). And I know defying the feds is a no-no. That’s why I am meticulous with my records. I do not want to have audit nightmares. But somebody tell me how locking Wesley Snipes, or anybody else up, over screwing up with taxes, is going to protect society. Why not let him make restitution and go on about his life making movies and doing whatever celebs do? The federal coffers would actually get more money by taking that route. As far as I know, Snipes’ attitude about taxes hasn’t harmed a single person. In the scheme of things, I doubt it harmed the government either, considering all the waste we see going on (bridges to nowhere, thousands of bucks in a congressman’s freezer, building highways for buddies, etc.)

Why lock the guy up? Why lock anybody up over an issue like this? He didn’t take from me or you or even the state. It makes absolutely no sense to me. Other bloggers feel the same way.

Consider this. Less than 2 years ago, a young mother was killed right here in Jacksonville in a case widely viewed as road rage. The other driver, a doctor, was convicted of two counts of reckless driving.

He pled guilty at trial. He got probation and community service. But Wesley Snipes will do 3 years in the slammer on misdemeanor charges? Where’s the logic in sentencing? Federal and state courts need a new handbook, one that has logical sentences for crimes committed. No matter how hard you look, you won't find logic in this sentence.

(Jacksonville, Fla.)-With US writers back at work, you’d think there’d be lots of choices for viewers, but one sliver of good news is there’ll be a 2-hour  ‘24’ movie this fall, sort of a prequel filling the gap between seasons 6 and 7.  TV Buddy has a column about the movie. I like ‘24’ because it’s all about action, there’s a super hero and there’s never a dull moment. I don’t like reality TV. I’m tired of fat people, brothers, celebs who want to share their dysfunctional families and people who survive eating things that crawl on the ground. I never did like reality TV.  About the most exciting thing you'll find discussed right now on top TV blogs is whether last night's Democratic  debate was biased. Yawn.

When I turn on the tube, I either want to be mindlessly entertained or intrigued. By the time we’ve come inside and had dinner, it’s usually 9 p.m.  For comedy, ‘Two and a Half Men’ suffices. For intrigue, History Channel shows like a recent feature on the Mayan calendar does the trick.  I am a picky watcher. I’m tired of crime shows too. How many different ways can you kill somebody? And with these CSI type shows, they sometimes show the body parts, innards and outards, in graphic color. Yuck. Why would I want to watch that? Every now and then there’ll be a great guest on Letterman or Leno; the Borat video below is one of my favorites. The guy is just funny and the character he created is a classic.

I know everybody has different ideas about what to watch. My husband will watch just about any kind of sports. My daughter likes to watch repeats of ‘Friends.’ You’d think with all the technology and resources available to networks, there’d be some mind bending content coming our way. Instead, we get the cheapie reality shows and umpteen different ways to dig a crime scene with repeats of cops and robbers who do the runaround before the robbers pay their dues. The networks are also bad about repeating certain movies ad infinitum. I figure one of the ‘Diehard’ franchises is on at least one channel 24/7.  It makes you glad to see an entertaining commercial. The GEICO gecko is my favorite for those. Am I too demanding? What do you think of TV?(Filed by Kay B. Day)