Tilikum the Killer Whale turned killer again yesterday. He dragged 40-year old trainer Dawn Brancheau into the water and killed her in front of horrified spectators. Yesterday’s incident was not the first time this killer whale has killed. There have been 2 other incidents, one in British Columbia in 1991.
Witnesses told the Orlando Sentinel that the animal suddenly grabbed Brancheau by the upper arm, tossed her around in his mouth and pulled her beneath the water as dozens of tourists looked on in horror.
Trainer Dawn Brandheau was an experienced trainer and had worked with this animal many times before.
Sea World says it has no plans to put this animal down. Animal training experts were somewhat shocked by this news. Other animals who kill in captivity are usually euthanized as a matter of public safety. Lions and tigers, elephants, and other animals often kept in captivity are nearly always put down. Dogs are put down. Apparently Tilikum will not be.
Should any animal who has killed humans 3 times be euthanized? What should happen in this case? Frankly, I am shocked. I would think at the very least this animal would be returned to the wild. It is unclear if this animal was born in captivity or not.
No one has taken a good swipe at Fox News in about a week. Everyone has been too consumed with the weather. So is SNL fair and balanced or has FN been unfairly treated in spoof?
Jon Stewart discusses the past weekend as only Jon can. He discusses Ronald Reagan’s birthday, the Superbowl, the Tea Party Convention and its guest speakers, Sarah Palin and Tom Tancredo.
A really wonderful interview with Jenny Sanford who is actually quite the wit herself: You might have overlooked the interview because it isn’t high comedy.
Tancredo’s speech was over the top. I would hope the audience was offended. I thought that Amerigasm is one of the funniest skits I have seen Jon Stewart do. Have a mavericky watch as Stewart analyzes Palin as a pop culture phenomena.
Some houses fair a lot better than others. Serendipity, the house in the movie Nights in Rodanthe, was being reclaimed by the sea. A storm in October 2008 just about finished it off. Dare County served notice that the house was a public nuisance and had to be moved or torn down. The Pennsylvania couple who owned it decided to level it.
Along came a couple from Western North Carolina who fell in love with the house. They purchased it and moved it to a less precarious spot in Rodanthe. Just amazing!
Each locality seems to have its own set of problems, doesn’t it. Neighorhood Services in Dare County probably operates a little different there than it does here. I had no idea how houses were moved. You can see Serendipity move right off its pilings and onto the truck. It looks impossible, but they did it!
You might want to turn the sound down. The music got annoying real fast.
The TV show 24 starts tonight, Sunday, January 17 at 9 pm on DC Fox 5. The season premiere will be a 2 night 4 hour show. 24 star Kiefer Sutherland will again spend a season going through 24 hours of incredible espionage, terrorism attack, counter terrorism, an arsenal of weapons and probably torture. This season’s 24 will take place in New York City.
Jack Bauer, the hero of the show, has seen more lives than a cat. A grandfather, he is beaten, shot, tortured, kidnapped, drowned, imprisoned, poisoned, drug injected, and just about anything else you can lay on the human soul, and he lives to fight another day. He continues to be fired and brought back in to government service. 24 has had both a black president and a woman president. In that respect, it is quite futuristic.
It is also that time of year when Elena and I have to square off over the reality of 24. I say art imitates life. She feels 24 is pure fiction. I justify some torture using the TV show 24. Elena rejects torture under any circumstances. So, there’s the trailer for the Moon-howler/Elena segment of 24 also. Hopefully, our readers know that while we disagree on some issues, we can agree to disagree. We just wanted to include you all in our annual tiff over the show.
(P.S. We also disagree on PETA. We will do that one in the spring, in time for the Kentucky Derby.)
The late Elvis Presley turned 75. He was born on January 8, 1935 and died very prematurely August 16, 1977 at age 42. Elvis probably has done more for ushering in rock n roll than any other person. He brought gospel music, country and blues into a genre called rockabilly and from there into actual rock n roll. He was controversial and frowned upon by the ‘parent’ generation. When he first appeared on Ed Sullivan, his hips were not allowed to be filmed. Shock and awe.
Elvis was drafted, married a teenager named Pricilla, and returned to not only make recordings but also films and perform at concerts. His home, Gracelands, is now a museum to the King. Even though divorced before his death, Pricilla Presley keeps the memory of Elvis alive. Millions of fans tour Graceland each year.
Presley is regarded as one of the most important figures of twentieth-century popular culture. He is the best-selling solo artist in the history of popular music, with sales of approximately 1 billion units worldwide.[2][3][4] Among many honors, he was nominated for 14 competitive Grammys (winning 3 times) and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36. He has been inducted into four music halls of fame.
It is very hard to believe that Elvis would be 75 had he lived and that he has been gone for 32 years. Prescriptions drug abuse and poor health habits caused Presley’s untimely death. How much American talent has ended prematurely because of sustance abuse and alcohol? Janice Joplin, Kurt Cobain, Heath Ledger, Jimi Hendrix, John Belushi, Jim Morrison, Chris Farley, Marilyn Monroe, Jerry Garcia, Judy Garland…the list seems endless. Our supposed war on drugs has not been particularly successful.
Mr. Howler just came out with the news that there is going to be no more Nissan Pavillion. The concert venue out in Gainesville that backs up traffic for miles and miles will soon have a new name. The stock holders voted to rename the pavillion after its new naming rights sponsor, Jiffy Lube.
We have Fed Ex Field, the Verizon Center, the Capital One Field at Byrd Stadium, Wolftrap, the Merriweather Post Pavillion, and ….the Jiffy Lube Pavillion near Manassas. Arrggggghhhh. If only we weren’t already known for the Bobbitt incident, perhaps the Jiffy Lube Pavillion wouldn’t be quite as bad. but what does one say, I am going out to the Jiffy Lube for a concert? Maybe it can just be known as the JLP.
I doubt if many locals will be bragging about this new name. It just sort of adds insult to injury.
Multiple sources have reported that the Virginia Civil War Events, Inc has withdrawn its request to partner with Prince William County as an events planner for the Sesquicentennial in 2011. ‘Withdrawn’ can be a temporary situation. It can simply mean ‘for now.’
The BOCS had decided to revisit the plans for the proposed Memorandum of Understanding with this group in January.
No explanation was provided via our sources. It could very well be that the harsh reality of the extremely austere budget cuts Virginia is facing signalled that there simply is no money. Or…The organization’s chair could be revising his plans. Stay tuned.
Hard to believe, isn’t it? Bill O’Reilly attended the White House Christmas party and had some rather nice things to say about the first lady, Michelle Obama. Ingraham accused O’Reilly of gushing over her. O’Reilly has that Irish temper and we got to see a bit of it. In short, he calls Ingraham out and tells her she is an idealogue and is hooked up to an IV kool aid drip. The moral of this story is not to piss off O’Reilly.
Isn’t art supposed to imitate life? I watched that episode of Law and Order. The rhetoric sounded to me an ordinary day on at least one local blog. On the other hand, as you saw in the video, O’Reilly was named as one of the haters who stir up people on the right about illegal immigration. I am not so sure O’Reilly is all that vitriolic on this subject. He is actually rather tempered from what I have witnessed. However, his outrage and tantrum over Dick Wolf weakened his case.
The plot can be seen at this site. And to set the record straight, Law and Order SVU has only been on the air for 11 years. The show often incorporates current issues into the plot as the detectives try to solve crimes committed against special victims.
Tonight, if the skies are clear, those who are hearty enough to brave cold weather might have a real treat in store. Tonight is an annual meteor shower that is only increasing in intensity.
Before the Civil War, the meteor shower was sort of a dud. For starters, who wants to go out in the cold to watch the night skies? Over time, however, this meteor shower has oncy increased in intensity. According to nasa.gov:
The Geminids are not typical meteors, also known as shooting stars. Most meteors are created when tiny particles from comets slam into the Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrate. Meteors fly through the sky every night, and when there are a lot, they are called meteor showers.
The Geminids are among the few meteors created from an asteroid, Cooke said. Several hundred or perhaps a few thousand years ago — scientists aren’t sure when — something caused what is now known as the 3200 Phaethon asteroid to start spewing debris. Perhaps something hit it. No one knows.
“The Geminids are kind of mysterious in that regard,” Cooke said.
What isn’t a mystery is the arrival of the Geminids each December. They are in different places in the sky, depending on the time and location. From about 9 p.m. until after midnight Sunday, look to the northeast.
The Geminids radiate near the constellation Gemini. At around 10 pm, locate the constellation Orion. Then look above Orion and to the left. Hopefully you will see at least 2-3 ’shooting stars’ per minute. We could be getting a real light show tonight, or, if skies remain cloudy like they are Sunday morning, we could see nothing. It is all a crap shoot at this point.
You should know it will be here, at least once a week. Elena and I are big Jon Stewart fans so he will appear. This week he tries to rescue Gretchen Carlson’s IQ from an Offshore Account. Stewart accuses Carlson of playing the troubled mom and says she has dumbed herself down. She sure doesn’t come across as a valedictorian, a Stanford graduate nor someone who has studied at Oxford. So why is she always playing like she doesn’t know which side is up?
PepsiCo has dropped the Tiger Gatorade drink. One can only assume it has to do with the 11 women who have come forward as paramours of Tiger ‘Cheetah’ Woods. Today Fox News’s Neil Cavuto explored why so many people have reckless affairs. Cavuto usually reports financial news. Today he digressed.
Cavuto’s guest, Dr. Victoria Someone, suggestsed that the reason rich and powerful men have reckless affairs is because of narcissism and need for instant gratification. The rich and powerful have every need attended to and it becomes habit. She said that men who are extremely successful have a high testosterone count.
Soon to be no more
That leads to the next question. Why do women play along with this behavior? What did those 11 women who were ‘mistresses’ of Tiger Woods get from their relationship? I refuse to believe all rich and famous men are fabulous lovers. So what is it?
The people on Anti surely will know the answer. What makes so many rich and powerful men fall into these brazen affairs when the price is so costly if they get caught? Often they lose both the power and lots and lots of money. The sensation seeking and risk taking seem to go hand in hand. Start with a list of louses. What do they all have in common?
It’s that special time of year again, for the Manassas Christmas Parade.
In fact, the parade will be 64 years old tomorrow. Santa arrived via VRE and the Manassas Christmas tree has been lit. Time to roll!
It begins at 10 o’clock am and travels the regular route, along Center Street, going the opposite way of normal traffic.
There are dignitaries, cars, clowns, motorcycles, Shriners, floats, horses, bands, twirlers, ROTC groups, angels, carolers, dancers, and just about anything a person would like to see in a parade. (no elephants)
Manassas folks love their parade! Doing the math, it appears that the first Manassas Christmas Parade began in 1945, right after WWII ended. Was the first Christmas parade to celebrate the end of the war? How did the parade evolve into an annual event? Where are the historians?
Some houses fair a lot better than others. Serendipity, the house in the movie Nights in Rodanthe, was being reclaimed by the sea. A storm in October 2008 just about finished it off. Dare County served notice that the house was a public nuisance and had to be moved or torn down. The Pennsylvania couple who owned it decided to level it.
The late Elvis Presley turned 75. He was born on January 8, 1935 and died very prematurely August 16, 1977 at age 42. Elvis probably has done more for ushering in rock n roll than any other person. He brought gospel music, country and blues into a genre called rockabilly and from there into actual rock n roll. He was controversial and frowned upon by the ‘parent’ generation. When he first appeared on Ed Sullivan, his hips were not allowed to be filmed. Shock and awe.
