What is cuter than funny animal videos? Animals playing dead videos! I’m still wondering how they got the cat to do this. Here kitty kitty kitty…
Webtastic Wednesday Brings You Animals Playing Dead
Carl Sagan’s Cosmos Hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson
A show I am really looking forward to, Cosmos, hosted by the great Neil deGrasse Tyson Premiers on Sunday, March 9th on FOX. Watch the trailer below and let us know in the comments if you will be watching!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb5tdqplTqQ
According to Fox:
More than three decades after the debut of “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage,” Carl Sagan’s stunning and iconic exploration of the universe as revealed by science, COSMOS: A SPACETIME ODYSSEY sets off on a new voyage for the stars. Seth MacFarlane (FAMILY GUY, AMERICAN DAD) and Sagan’s original creative collaborators – writer/executive producer Ann Druyan and astronomer Steven Soter – have teamed to conceive a 13-part docu-series that will serve as a successor to the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning original series.
Hosted by renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, the series will explore how we discovered the laws of nature and found our coordinates in space and time. It will bring to life never-before-told stories of the heroic quest for knowledge and transport viewers to new worlds and across the universe for a vision of the cosmos on the grandest scale. COSMOS: A SPACETIME ODYSSEY will invent new modes of scientific storytelling to reveal the grandeur of the universe and re-invent celebrated elements of the legendary original series, including the Cosmic Calendar and the Ship of the Imagination. The most profound scientific concepts will be presented with stunning clarity, uniting skepticism and wonder, and weaving rigorous science with the emotional and spiritual into a transcendent experience.
Carl Sagan’s original series “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage” was first broadcast in 1980, and has been enjoyed by more than 750 million people worldwide.
CVS and Tobacco, Do they Really Care?
So, CVS is going to stop selling Tobacco Products! CVS Cares, the “Health Care Company”, or so they tout.
I’m not going to defend tobacco products in general since of course there is health risk. I would think everyone on this planet, and maybe a few other planets know this by now.
I’m also not going to dictate what a store can, or can’t… should, or shouldn’t sell in their store.
However, I just love when big companies make health choices for people, especially ones that are just so… marketable. They claim they are trying to market themselves as a health care company… However they aren’t doing away with their Liquor section, the junk food section, the soda. We won’t even delve into all the crap that comes out of the pharmacy in the name of health. Have you watched those pill commercials? Everyone in them are the pictures of health after they take that golden little pill while the small print voice over guy, in as fast a speak he can do, talks about coma, death, heart attack, cancer and and all the other just mere side effects one may experience. But hey… talk to your Dr. about taking it cause a zit on your chin may just be worth the cancery side effect yes? Then of course there is the couple that sits in separate bathtubs, in the woods, after her man has supposedly had the erection of his life. (I still don’t get the bathtub reference. Is it because he was hard as porcelain? Is it because after all that sex they needed a bath, outside, in the woods? Get it, the woods?)
Smokers, eventually, have health problems. We all know that. Emphysema, Heart trouble, Lung Cancer… They are all out there for you to enjoy later in life if you choose to partake in the smoke. Health Insurance companies make you pay more if you are a smoker. I have even heard the argument that the reason health care costs are so high for everyone is because of smokers. However, what about the other non-related smoking health risks that seem to get ignored by the majority of the population? Let’s talk obesity for a second. Obesity, the number one cause of Diabetes Type II related illness. Aside from all the health problems diabetes brings, there are knee problems, back problems, breathing problems, injuries. These are problems that can start in mere childhood, prompting an influx of Doctor visits, Hospital visits etc. Yet, if you are a smoker, check this box. YOU are the problem with health care costs, because we know, at the end of your life 30, 40, 50 years down the road, you will need more care than you do now. Plus, smoking smells and a lot of people just don’t like it. Course I don’t appreciate the smell of day old alcohol pouring out of people’s pores, but I guess that’s just me.
I could go on the theory that what CVS is doing is a step in the right direction, and really, it is a good thing I guess, but it is the only step they will take. They will never do away with the liquor, the junk food. It makes them way too much money. It’s real easy to get rid of one product and call yourself a “Health Care Company”, it’s a whole other thing to actually be one.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers Super Bowl Uproar
So apparently, the RHCP went “unplugged” for their Superbowl performance. The Internets noticed all their guitars unplugged and went mad! Mad I tell you! How is it NOT ok for a singer to lip sync but ok for a guitarist to “air guitar” they say! They have photo evidence and all! Bring out the pitch forks!
Anthony Kiedis, the RHCP lead, still sang live however, so no pitch forks on him.
Well, the great Flea (RHCP bassist) has responded. According to the official Red Hot Chili Peppers site:
[quote cite=”Flea” url=”http://redhotchilipeppers.com/news/454-a-message-from-flea”]Dear everybody,
When we were asked by the NFL and Bruno to play our song Give It Away at the Super Bowl, it was made clear to us that the vocals would be live, but the bass, drums, and guitar would be pre-recorded. I understand the NFL’s stance on this, given they only have a few minutes to set up the stage, there a zillion things that could go wrong and ruin the sound for the folks watching in the stadium and the t.v. viewers. There was not any room for argument on this, the NFL does not want to risk their show being botched by bad sound, period.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers stance on any sort of miming has been that we will absolutely not do it. The last time we did it (or tried to) was in the late 80’s, we were thrown off of ‘The Top Of the Pops’ television program in the U.K. during rehearsals because we refused to mime properly, I played bass with my shoe, John played guitar atop Anthony’s shoulders, and we basically had a wrestling match onstage, making a mockery of the idea that it was a real live performance.
We mimed on one or two weird MTV shows before that and it always was a drag. We take our music playing seriously, it is a sacred thing for us, and anyone who has ever seen us in concert (like the night before the Super Bowl at the Barclays Center), knows that we play from our heart, we improvise spontaneously, take musical risks, and sweat blood at every show. We have been on the road for 31 years doing it.
So, when this Super Bowl gig concept came up, there was a lot of confusion amongst us as whether or not we should do it, but we eventually decided, it was a surreal-like, once in a life time crazy thing to do and we would just have fun and do it. We had given this a lot of thought before agreeing to do it, and besides many a long conversation amongst ourselves, I spoke with many musician friends for whom I have the utmost respect, and they all said they would do it if asked, that it was a wild trippy thing to do, what the hell. Plus, we the RHCP all love football too and that played a big part in our decision. We decided that, with Anthony singing live, that we could still bring the spirit and freedom of what we do into the performance, and of course we played every note in the recording specially for the gig. I met and spoke with Bruno, who was a beautiful dude, a real talented musician, and we worked out something that seemed like it would be fun.
We recorded a track for the day, just banged one out from our hearts that was very like in spirit to the versions we have been playing live the last few years with our beloved Josh on guitar.
For the actual performance, Josh, Chad, and I were playing along with the pre recorded track so there was no need to plug in our guitars, so we did not. Could we have plugged them in and avoided bumming people out who have expressed disappointment that the instrumental track was pre recorded? Of course easily we could have and this would be a non-issue. We thought it better to not pretend. It seemed like the realest thing to do in the circumstance. It was like making a music video in front of a gazillion people, except with live vocals, and only one chance to rock it. Our only thought was to bring the spirit of who we are to the people.
I am grateful to the NFL for having us. And I am grateful to Bruno, who is a super talented young man for inviting us to be a part of his gig. I would do it all the same way again.
We, as a band, aspire to grow as musicians and songwriters, and to continue to play our guts out live onstage for anyone who wants to get their brains blown out. Sincerely, Flea [/quote]
What do you think? Should there be an uproar or are haters gonna hate? Let us know in the comments below.
How TV Ruined Your Life: Aspiration
Making my rounds on the internet this morning and came across a video I haven’t seen before that made me chuckle. Mind you, it’s about a year old, but it’s fun and dare I say it, has a lot of truth to it. If you have the time, grab yourself a drink and cozy in for about 13 minutes. Then let us know your thoughts in the comments.
How TV Ruined Your Life is a six-episode BBC Two television series written and presented by English satirist and broadcaster Charlie Brooker. According to IMDB, How TV Ruined Your Life is a comedic documentary series in which Charlie Brooker uses a mix of sketches and jaw-dropping archive footage to explore the gulf between real life and television.
CVS Caremark to Stop Selling Tobacco Products
CVS Caremark pharmacies will phase out tobacco in U.S. retail stores by Oct. 1, officials announced Wednesday, saying that selling cigarettes side-by-side with medicine undermines the mission of promoting good health.
The chain will lose about $2 billion in revenues annually from sales of tobacco in its 7,600 stores, but CVS Pharmacy president Helena Foulkes said it just makes sense for a firm now positioning itself as a health care company.
“It was very important to us that, as we’re working with doctors and hospital systems and health plans, that they see us as an extension of their services,” Foulkes said. “It’s virtually impossible to be in the tobacco business when you want to be a health care partner to the health care system.”
President Barack Obama immediately praised CVS. “As one of the largest retailers and pharmacies in America, CVS Caremark sets a powerful example, and today’s decision will help advance my Administration’s efforts to reduce tobacco-related deaths, cancer, and heart disease, as well as bring down health care costs – ultimately saving lives and protecting untold numbers of families from pain and heartbreak for years to come,” he said in a statement.
The move is also an effort to help curb tobacco-related illness and the 480,000 deaths caused by smoking each year in the U.S. Despite huge reductions over the past 50 years, about 18 percent of Americans — 42 million people — still smoke, health officials say. Smoking costs the nation about $289 billion annually in direct medical costs and lost productivity, according to federal figures.
Health experts and groups like the American Pharmacists Association and the American Medical Association have urged stores that house pharmacies to stop selling tobacco for years. Many small, independent pharmacies and small private chains already ban tobacco, said John Norton, spokesman for the National Community Pharmacists Association.Target stores stopped selling tobacco products in 1996.
But CVS is the first large retail pharmacy chain to do so.
“This action may not lead many people to stop smoking; smokers will probably simply go elsewhere to buy cigarettes,” CVS medical officer Dr. Troyen Brennan wrote in an editorial published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. “But if other retailers follow this lead, tobacco products will become much more difficult to obtain.”
Pharmacy retailer Walgreens released a statment on Wednesday in which it said it has been “evaluating” the place tobacco products hold on its shelves. Representatives for Rite-Aid Corp. and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. wouldn’t comment on the pending announcement late Tuesday, calling it “speculation.”
“We will continue to evaluate the choice of products our customers want, while also helping to educate them and providing smoking cessation products and alternatives that help to reduce the demand for tobacco products,” Walgreens said in the statement.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.
Shaun White Bows Out of Slopestyle event, Too Much Risk
Snowboarding star Shaun White announced Wednesday he will not compete in the slopestyle event debuting in the Sochi games, citing the risk of injury associated with the course.
“After much deliberation with my team, I have made the decision to focus solely on trying to bring home the third straight gold medal in halfpipe for Team USA,” White told TODAY in a statement. “The difficult decision to forego slopestyle is not one I take lightly as I know how much effort everyone has put into holding the slopestyle event for the first time in Olympic history, a history I had planned on being a part of. “
White’s announcement comes after he took a fall Tuesday and jammed his left wrist while on a practice run on the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park course. It’s the latest in a slew of small injuries the snowboarder has experienced.
“With the practice runs I have taken, even after course modifications and watching fellow athletes get hurt, the potential risk of injury is a bit too much for me to gamble my other Olympics goals on,” White said.
While there is inherent dangers in a sport like slopestyle, in which competitors are judged on a variety of tricks they do on rails, boxes and jumps, White is among several snowboarders who’ve expressed concerns about Rosa Khutor Extreme Park. Criticism increased after Torstein Horgmo of Norway, considered a medal contender, fell off of a rail Monday and broke his collarbone — knocking him out of the Games.
Canada’s Sebastian Toutant said the course felt like “jumping out of a building,” and Finland’s Roope Tonteri told reporters that it was “pretty sketchy,” adding, “I just don’t want to get injured. It’s not a really fun course to ride.”
Changes were made to the course after feedback from riders on Monday — the combined height of all three of its jumps were reduced by about six feet. Snowboarders said the changes were an improvement.
“They put some wax on the rails, so it’s not as slick,” Toutant told the Globe and Mail. “And the jumps are still really high, but they made the transition to the jumps way smoother. I still think they could cut the jumps down a little bit, so it makes a smoother transition.”
But White and others still took falls. Tuesday, Finnish snowboarder Marika Enne crashed on the course’s final jump and was taken out on a stretcher after hitting her head.
White is now focusing all of his energy on the men’s halfpipe, and if he succeeds, he’ll make history as the first American man to win three Olympic gold medals in a single event.
Considering his friendship with snowboarder Kevin Pearce and what he watched him go through, we here think he made the right decision.