Day: July 27, 2008

SAG UpDate #7

When it comes to what SAG considers its fair share in new media, the actors union is standing firm.

The union’s national board on Saturday passed, 68-0, a resolution indicating jurisdiction over new media and residuals for all made-for new media productions are of the utmost importance during the current stalled contract negotiations. The resolution was voted on during an 11-hour marathon meeting.
SAG and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers have been locked in a de facto impasse ever since the production companies and studios made their final offer to the union on June 30.

SAG responded with a counter-proposal, which the AMPTP rejected. Since then, there has been one sidebar meeting between the two sides that failed to resolve the continued stalemate.
The resolution showed the first signs of solidarity among the fragmented national board since negotiations started in April. Board members from SAG’s Hollywood division, led by the faction MembershipFirst, have locked horns with board members in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and elsewhere regarding the current state of negotiations as well as its failed attempt to get members of both SAG and AFTRA to vote down AFTRA’s primetime/TV contract

With negotiations in limbo, Hollywood is at a virtual standstill. While TV productions continue, the major studios do not have many projects filming, in the event that SAG’s negotiating committee decides to take a strike vote and members vote to walk out.

Senate Approves Housing Bill

The US Senate has approved a rescue bill designed to prop up America’s battered housing market.

The new law creates a $300bn (£150bn) rescue fund to help thousands of homeowners get cheaper loans.

It may also be used to bail out the struggling mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, which own or guarantee around half the nation’s mortgage debt.

The bill has been approved in a very short time. President George Bush is expected to sign it into law next week.

Washington says the bill will help hundreds of thousands of Americans trapped by mortgages they can no longer afford.

They will be offered the chance to refinance with state-backed, fixed rate loans.

This is some relief for bewildered home owners, but in the same bill millions of taxpayer dollars will be used to bail out the corporations that lead the speculation in the housing markets.  I guess I would have to support the bill only because it will give the average home owner a chance to refinance at a lower rate.  Damned if I do and damned if I don’t.

A Spicy Sex Life

Want to make your bedroom life more adventurous? Well, in that case, turn to Thai green curry, which has been found to give a person’s libido that much needed boost.

The conclusion is based on a new research, which found that the ‘magical’ meal is full of aphrodisiacs.

The curry includes cardamom, ginseng, garlic, ginger, basil, lemon grass and asparagus – all considered by different cultures to get you feeling sexy.

The top-10 list of takeaway meals based on the number of aphrodisiac ingredients per meal was compiled by takeaway company Just-Eat.
The Top Ten are:

1 Thai green curry

2 Hot and spicy pizza

3 Chicken Korma

4 Seafood Laksa

5 Mole Poblano

6 Sushi

7 Chicken Tikka Masala

8 Spicy Balinese Curry

9 Spicy Meatballs and Pasta

10. King Prawns with ginger and spring onions

You are what you eat. Eat and enjoy! And see what comes up.

The Tale Of Two Bills

This is an email sent to me by the Progressive Democrtas Of America.  JUst wanted to try and inform everyone on what was happening in Washington, besides everyone getting wealthy.

Congress is considering two bills: one calls for provocation, the other seeks a diplomatic solution in the Middle East.

Our lobbying against the “Iran blockade bill” is working! House Concurrent Resolution 362 and its counterpart Senate Resolution 580–which call for a blockade of Iran–were steamrolling through Congress, but are stalled in committee…for now. If we keep up the pressure, Congress could vote to talk to–not attack–Iran.

Over the past weeks, we’ve staged an effective national call-in/email campaign. Help us defeat the blockade bill and promote the diplomatic alternative bill. Click here to take action.

HCR 362 now has 249 co-sponsors. S Res 580 has 43 co-sponsors. These dangerous bills would go beyond even Bush administration sanctions. Provocation would only strengthen the extremist regime in Iran and increase their resolve to convert their legal civilian nuclear power program into an illegal nuclear weapons program.

Join the “diplomatic surge.”

We support HCR 321, an effective alternative returning to diplomacy rather than war as our primary tool of foreign policy. HCR 321 calls for a serious, sustained diplomatic initiative with Iraq, Iran, and neighboring states: a responsible way out of Iraq while opening an avenue for dispute resolution with Iran and other nations.

I Will See Your Republican And Raise You Two Democrats—Info Ink Op-Ed

People…people…people…ALL elections are about the money, from local to federal. The truth is that all politicians, whether Republican or Democrat, are self-serving not the “servant of the people” they claim to be. The politics of Washinton is MONEY, why else would representatives be so much in a hurry to leave their posts as “servants of the people”?

The message that the voter should be looking for and asking is, who are the real bosses in Washington?

So, you think I am full of bull, eh? Look at the 2006 Congressional elections. Where has that been anything but lies to the voters while doing what was intended all along, serving the real boss…money. The Congress was given a mandate and have yet to accomplish anything they were sent to Washington to acomplish. They have, however, made sure the the funds keep flowing into the military-industrial complex. That was not part of the deal, as I recall.

It is obvious that money plays a major roll in our politics, look at the present election cycle, there will be at least a billion dollars spent to become president. Winning an election means that one must get the average Joe and Joan to vote for them and that would be impossible if politicians were honest about what they are really going to Washington for. So these insects continue to call themselves “servants of the people” and promise to give Americans a better life. I ask, how has that been working out if you are a normal working stiff?

The two parties are frauds, they are nothing short of tools used by the system to keep the money following to those who make the fortunes. Your politicians are nothing more than the public face of the private elite.

Nothing will change until the people want it to change and they are not ready for a change. They prefer to be played like a cheap flute.

No More Blank Checks For Iraq

Damn, this is the same thing that the Dems said after the 2006 election and seems that the President has had is way regardless of their feeling.

Sen. Jack Reed says America can’t afford the Republican strategy of continuing to write blank checks for the Iraq war.

“At a time when the war in Iraq costs $10 billion each month, Americans are paying $4 a gallon for gasoline, and our economy is struggling, we cannot continue down the path that President Bush and Senator McCain propose: writing blank check after blank check,” Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, said Saturday in his party’s weekly radio address.

Reed said Democrats have outlined a better plan to carefully redeploy combat troops out of Iraq and give them missions such as counterterrorism and training Iraq’s military.

“Make no mistake: This is a plan that seizes on the progress and sacrifices our troops have made in Iraq, and it recognizes the desire of the Iraqi people to take control of their own destiny,” he said.

Please, stop promising things that you cannot deliver, at least right now.