Clue: sheen said "where can u find a lot of clue maybe (htidry inne)"" i hate puzzles" " im drunk"
CHARLIE SHEEN
Charlie Sheen Sues Studio, Show Creator for $100 MillionUs Magazine - March 10, 2011 6:48 Charlie Sheen is still aiming to win...$100 million.
The unemployed actor, 45, is suing Warner Bros. Television and Two and a Half Men creator Chuck Lorre for a whopping $100 million plus punitive damages, TMZ reports.
PHOTOS: Hollywood's biggest bad boys
Sheen, who made $1.2 million per episode of the CBS show, is demanding he be compensated for the 8 cancelled episodes from the current season -- and is also suing on behalf of the sitcom's crew.
PHOTOS: Charlie's craziest controversies
His attorney Marty Singer slams Lorre for making Sheen "the scapegoat" in the ongoing war over the seriest. "[Lorre] believes himself to be so wealthy and powerful that he can unilaterally decide to take money away from the dedicated cast and crew ...in order to serve his own ego and self-interest," reads Singer's introduction to the filing.
PHOTOS: Biggest Hollywood meltdowns
Singer alleges that Lorre decided to cancel this season's remaining episodes prior to Sheen's very public criticism of him. The suit also says that Warner Bros. fired Sheen when he was "sick," which violates State and federal law.
~ Eliminating $1 Bills Could Save Billions by Seth Fiegerman
Wednesday, March 9, 2011 provided by
Washington has come down with a case of fiscal fever as the Obama administration proposes everything from spending freezes on domestic programs to selling off unused government property to bring the budget back in line. Now, one study argues that the government can save billions of dollars simply by making a change to the currency itself.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Government Accountability Office issued a formal proposal to the Treasury and Federal Reserve noting that if it eliminated the $1 bill and replaced it with the $1 coin, the country could save roughly $5.5 billion during the next 30 years. The reason, according to the agency's report, is that dollar bills have a shorter lifespan than dollar coins because they wear much faster, which in turn requires the government to spend more to print new bills.
The GAO estimates that phasing out dollar bills in favor of coins would require a four-year transition period, during which the government invests in the new currency, but following that, the government would save an expected $522 million each year from the change.
Unfortunately, as the GAO notes, there is one problem with the plan: When given a choice between dollar coins and dollar bills, Americans always choose bills.
"GAO has noted in past reports that efforts to increase the circulation and public acceptance of the $1 coin have not succeeded, in part, because the $1 note has remained in circulation," the agency wrote in its report. So if we are ever going to make the switch to dollar coins, as other countries like Canada have done, the GAO suggests the only way to do so is to phase dollar bills out of circulation altogether.
Before you start hoarding your dollar bills though, keep in mind that the GAO has made similar proposals four times during the past two decades, and obviously dollar bills are still in circulation. The only difference this time is that the overall climate in Washington is more geared toward budget cutbacks now, but given that it would take several years for the savings to kick in, this seems unlikely as well.
~ the moon is going to kill us
On March 19, the moon will swing around Earth more closely than it has in the past 18 years, lighting up the night sky from just 221,567 miles (356,577 kilometers) away. On top of that, it will be full. And one astrologer believes it could inflict massive damage on the planet.
Richard Nolle, a noted astrologer who runs the website astropro.com, has famously termed the upcoming full moon at lunar perigee (the closest approach during its orbit) an "extreme supermoon."
When the moon goes super-extreme, Nolle says, chaos will ensue: Huge storms, earthquakes, volcanoes and other natural disasters can be expected to wreak havoc on Earth. (It should be noted that astrology is not a real science, but merely makes connections between astronomical and mystical events.)
But do we really need to start stocking survival shelters in preparation for the supermoon? [Photos: Our Changing Moon]
The question is not actually so crazy. In fact scientists have studied related scenarios for decades. Even under normal conditions, the moon is close enough to Earth to make its weighty presence felt: It causes the ebb and flow of the ocean tides.
The moon's gravity can even cause small but measureable ebbs and flows in the continents, called "land tides" or "solid Earth tides," too. The tides are greatest during full and new moons, when the sun and moon are aligned either on the same or opposite sides of the Earth.
According to John Vidale, a seismologist at the University of Washington in Seattle and director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, particularly dramatic land and ocean tides do trigger earthquakes. "Both the moon and sun do stress the Earth a tiny bit, and when we look hard we can see a very small increase in tectonic activity when they're aligned," Vidale told Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to SPACE.com.
At times of full and new moons, "you see a less-than-1-percent increase in earthquake activity, and a slightly higher response in volcanoes."
The effect of tides on seismic activity is greatest in subduction zones such as the Pacific Northwest, where one tectonic plate is sliding under another. William Wilcock, another seismologist at the University of Washington, explained: "When you have a low tide, there's less water, so the pressure on the seafloor is smaller. That pressure is clamping the fault together, so when it's not there, it makes it easier for the fault to slip."
According to Wilcock, earthquake activity in subduction zones at low tides is 10 percent higher than at other times of the day, but he hasn't observed any correlations between earthquake activity and especially low tides at new and full moons. Vidale has observed only a very small correlation.
What about during a lunar perigee? Can we expect more earthquakes and volcanic eruptions on March 19, when the full moon will be so close?
The moon's gravitational pull at lunarperigee, the scientists say, is not different enough from its pull at other times to significantly change the height of the tides and thus the likelihood of natural disasters. [Infographic: Phases of the Moon Explained]
"A lot of studies have been done on this kind of thing by USGS scientists and others," John Bellini, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey, told Life's Little Mysteries. "They haven't found anything significant at all."
Vidale concurred. "Practically speaking, you'll never see any effect of lunar perigee," he said. "It's somewhere between 'It has no effect' and 'It's so small you don't see any effect.'"
The bottom line is, the upcoming supermoon won't cause a preponderance of earthquakes, although the idea isn't a crazy one.
"Earthquakes don't respond as much to the tides as you'd think they would. There should actually be more of an effect," said Vidale.
Most natural disasters have nothing to do with the moon at all. The Earth has a lot of pent up energy, and it releases it anytime the buildup gets too great. The supermoon probably won't push it past the tipping point, but we'll know for sure, one way or the other, by March 20.
This story was provided by Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site of SPACE.com.
Will smith
new movie
Will Smith’s Beef With MIB III
Shooting on the big threequel has been delayed because its lead star wants to see some changes, according to the new issue of The Hollywood Reporter (now on newsstands).
Though the script’s original draft (penned by Tropic Thunder writer Etan Cohen) found favor with the studio, Sony Pictures, director Barry Sonnenfeld and producer Walter Parkes, Smith wasn't wild. "He's become very enamored with aspects of screenwriting," says a source involved with the production.
Nevertheless, in an unprecedented move, Sony started shooting in November — with only one act of the script completed.
PHOTOS: New Generation of Superheroes
Sony spokesman Steve Elzer tells THR the studio came up with the unusual shooting plan because it feared the New York incentive program would expire at the end of December. (Instead, it was extended for five years.) The studio also has said the hiatus would allow outdoor scenes to be shot in New York in spring.
But several observers suspect the studio moved ahead with production largely because all of the key players -- including Smith, Tommy Lee Jones and director Barry Sonnenfeld -- were finally ready to go, and a delay might have jeopardized that.
It had built in a break in production that was scheduled to last from late December through mid-February, during which the remainder of the script was to be finished.
The problem still hasn’t been resolved – and now the hiatus has been extended until March 28 as a new writer David Koepp (who did uncredited work on the first MIB) is brought in for revisions.
PHOTOS: THR Party Pics
Koepp has hit work cut out for him.
MIB III calls for Smith's character, Agent J, to go back in time - 1969, to be exact – where he encounters famous figures of the day, like Yoko Ono, as well as a younger version of Jones' Agent K (played by Josh Brolin).
The nature of the project has made it difficult to get the screenplay right, a key player on the film tells THR: "Any movie involving time travel seems to be difficult if you want to make it work and have no b-s loopholes, which has taken longer than we thought it would.”
But shooting that first act without the remainder of the script in place has only compounded the issues. "It's hard because you're locked into the beginning of the movie," a production source acknowledges. "It creates problems that are just kind of crazy."
PHOTOS: Hollywood About Town
One former studio chief is not surprised that Sony did not come up with a script that passed muster with Smith in the time allotted. "If he wasn't satisfied after it's been years in development, how are you going to fix that at Christmas?" this person asks.
And though the prolonged pause in production is costing Sony millions, Smith is under no pressure to approve a script that is not 100 percent to his liking. (The sequel was released in 2002 and, despite a drubbing from critics, grossed more than $440 million worldwide.)
According to a source with firsthand knowledge of the situation, Sony expected to save more than $35 million thanks to the New York tax program. But that will be reduced because the hiatus has gone on longer than anticipated. (MIB has a budget that will easily pass $200 million.)
PHOTOS: Hollywood’s New Young Guns
Sony maintains that the extra costs are not substantial. "Because we extended the hiatus from the holidays, few people were on the payroll, so this was a relatively inexpensive decision that has had an insignificant impact on the budget," Elzer told THR in an e-mail.
Elzer says Koepp has already delivered a revision of the script.
Assuming Koepp can solve the script issues, and the film makes its March 28 re-start deadline, MIB III will hit theaters in 3-D on May 25, 2012.
CHARLIE SHEEN
Charlie Sheen Sues Studio, Show Creator for $100 MillionUs Magazine - March 10, 2011 6:48 Charlie Sheen is still aiming to win...$100 million.
The unemployed actor, 45, is suing Warner Bros. Television and Two and a Half Men creator Chuck Lorre for a whopping $100 million plus punitive damages, TMZ reports.
PHOTOS: Hollywood's biggest bad boys
Sheen, who made $1.2 million per episode of the CBS show, is demanding he be compensated for the 8 cancelled episodes from the current season -- and is also suing on behalf of the sitcom's crew.
PHOTOS: Charlie's craziest controversies
His attorney Marty Singer slams Lorre for making Sheen "the scapegoat" in the ongoing war over the seriest. "[Lorre] believes himself to be so wealthy and powerful that he can unilaterally decide to take money away from the dedicated cast and crew ...in order to serve his own ego and self-interest," reads Singer's introduction to the filing.
PHOTOS: Biggest Hollywood meltdowns
Singer alleges that Lorre decided to cancel this season's remaining episodes prior to Sheen's very public criticism of him. The suit also says that Warner Bros. fired Sheen when he was "sick," which violates State and federal law.
~ Eliminating $1 Bills Could Save Billions by Seth Fiegerman
Wednesday, March 9, 2011 provided by
Washington has come down with a case of fiscal fever as the Obama administration proposes everything from spending freezes on domestic programs to selling off unused government property to bring the budget back in line. Now, one study argues that the government can save billions of dollars simply by making a change to the currency itself.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Government Accountability Office issued a formal proposal to the Treasury and Federal Reserve noting that if it eliminated the $1 bill and replaced it with the $1 coin, the country could save roughly $5.5 billion during the next 30 years. The reason, according to the agency's report, is that dollar bills have a shorter lifespan than dollar coins because they wear much faster, which in turn requires the government to spend more to print new bills.
The GAO estimates that phasing out dollar bills in favor of coins would require a four-year transition period, during which the government invests in the new currency, but following that, the government would save an expected $522 million each year from the change.
Unfortunately, as the GAO notes, there is one problem with the plan: When given a choice between dollar coins and dollar bills, Americans always choose bills.
"GAO has noted in past reports that efforts to increase the circulation and public acceptance of the $1 coin have not succeeded, in part, because the $1 note has remained in circulation," the agency wrote in its report. So if we are ever going to make the switch to dollar coins, as other countries like Canada have done, the GAO suggests the only way to do so is to phase dollar bills out of circulation altogether.
Before you start hoarding your dollar bills though, keep in mind that the GAO has made similar proposals four times during the past two decades, and obviously dollar bills are still in circulation. The only difference this time is that the overall climate in Washington is more geared toward budget cutbacks now, but given that it would take several years for the savings to kick in, this seems unlikely as well.
~ the moon is going to kill us
On March 19, the moon will swing around Earth more closely than it has in the past 18 years, lighting up the night sky from just 221,567 miles (356,577 kilometers) away. On top of that, it will be full. And one astrologer believes it could inflict massive damage on the planet.
Richard Nolle, a noted astrologer who runs the website astropro.com, has famously termed the upcoming full moon at lunar perigee (the closest approach during its orbit) an "extreme supermoon."
When the moon goes super-extreme, Nolle says, chaos will ensue: Huge storms, earthquakes, volcanoes and other natural disasters can be expected to wreak havoc on Earth. (It should be noted that astrology is not a real science, but merely makes connections between astronomical and mystical events.)
But do we really need to start stocking survival shelters in preparation for the supermoon? [Photos: Our Changing Moon]
The question is not actually so crazy. In fact scientists have studied related scenarios for decades. Even under normal conditions, the moon is close enough to Earth to make its weighty presence felt: It causes the ebb and flow of the ocean tides.
The moon's gravity can even cause small but measureable ebbs and flows in the continents, called "land tides" or "solid Earth tides," too. The tides are greatest during full and new moons, when the sun and moon are aligned either on the same or opposite sides of the Earth.
According to John Vidale, a seismologist at the University of Washington in Seattle and director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, particularly dramatic land and ocean tides do trigger earthquakes. "Both the moon and sun do stress the Earth a tiny bit, and when we look hard we can see a very small increase in tectonic activity when they're aligned," Vidale told Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to SPACE.com.
At times of full and new moons, "you see a less-than-1-percent increase in earthquake activity, and a slightly higher response in volcanoes."
The effect of tides on seismic activity is greatest in subduction zones such as the Pacific Northwest, where one tectonic plate is sliding under another. William Wilcock, another seismologist at the University of Washington, explained: "When you have a low tide, there's less water, so the pressure on the seafloor is smaller. That pressure is clamping the fault together, so when it's not there, it makes it easier for the fault to slip."
According to Wilcock, earthquake activity in subduction zones at low tides is 10 percent higher than at other times of the day, but he hasn't observed any correlations between earthquake activity and especially low tides at new and full moons. Vidale has observed only a very small correlation.
What about during a lunar perigee? Can we expect more earthquakes and volcanic eruptions on March 19, when the full moon will be so close?
The moon's gravitational pull at lunarperigee, the scientists say, is not different enough from its pull at other times to significantly change the height of the tides and thus the likelihood of natural disasters. [Infographic: Phases of the Moon Explained]
"A lot of studies have been done on this kind of thing by USGS scientists and others," John Bellini, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey, told Life's Little Mysteries. "They haven't found anything significant at all."
Vidale concurred. "Practically speaking, you'll never see any effect of lunar perigee," he said. "It's somewhere between 'It has no effect' and 'It's so small you don't see any effect.'"
The bottom line is, the upcoming supermoon won't cause a preponderance of earthquakes, although the idea isn't a crazy one.
"Earthquakes don't respond as much to the tides as you'd think they would. There should actually be more of an effect," said Vidale.
Most natural disasters have nothing to do with the moon at all. The Earth has a lot of pent up energy, and it releases it anytime the buildup gets too great. The supermoon probably won't push it past the tipping point, but we'll know for sure, one way or the other, by March 20.
This story was provided by Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site of SPACE.com.
Will smith
new movie
Will Smith’s Beef With MIB III
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Shooting on the big threequel has been delayed because its lead star wants to see some changes, according to the new issue of The Hollywood Reporter (now on newsstands).
Though the script’s original draft (penned by Tropic Thunder writer Etan Cohen) found favor with the studio, Sony Pictures, director Barry Sonnenfeld and producer Walter Parkes, Smith wasn't wild. "He's become very enamored with aspects of screenwriting," says a source involved with the production.
Nevertheless, in an unprecedented move, Sony started shooting in November — with only one act of the script completed.
PHOTOS: New Generation of Superheroes
Sony spokesman Steve Elzer tells THR the studio came up with the unusual shooting plan because it feared the New York incentive program would expire at the end of December. (Instead, it was extended for five years.) The studio also has said the hiatus would allow outdoor scenes to be shot in New York in spring.
But several observers suspect the studio moved ahead with production largely because all of the key players -- including Smith, Tommy Lee Jones and director Barry Sonnenfeld -- were finally ready to go, and a delay might have jeopardized that.
It had built in a break in production that was scheduled to last from late December through mid-February, during which the remainder of the script was to be finished.
The problem still hasn’t been resolved – and now the hiatus has been extended until March 28 as a new writer David Koepp (who did uncredited work on the first MIB) is brought in for revisions.
PHOTOS: THR Party Pics
Koepp has hit work cut out for him.
MIB III calls for Smith's character, Agent J, to go back in time - 1969, to be exact – where he encounters famous figures of the day, like Yoko Ono, as well as a younger version of Jones' Agent K (played by Josh Brolin).
The nature of the project has made it difficult to get the screenplay right, a key player on the film tells THR: "Any movie involving time travel seems to be difficult if you want to make it work and have no b-s loopholes, which has taken longer than we thought it would.”
But shooting that first act without the remainder of the script in place has only compounded the issues. "It's hard because you're locked into the beginning of the movie," a production source acknowledges. "It creates problems that are just kind of crazy."
PHOTOS: Hollywood About Town
One former studio chief is not surprised that Sony did not come up with a script that passed muster with Smith in the time allotted. "If he wasn't satisfied after it's been years in development, how are you going to fix that at Christmas?" this person asks.
And though the prolonged pause in production is costing Sony millions, Smith is under no pressure to approve a script that is not 100 percent to his liking. (The sequel was released in 2002 and, despite a drubbing from critics, grossed more than $440 million worldwide.)
According to a source with firsthand knowledge of the situation, Sony expected to save more than $35 million thanks to the New York tax program. But that will be reduced because the hiatus has gone on longer than anticipated. (MIB has a budget that will easily pass $200 million.)
PHOTOS: Hollywood’s New Young Guns
Sony maintains that the extra costs are not substantial. "Because we extended the hiatus from the holidays, few people were on the payroll, so this was a relatively inexpensive decision that has had an insignificant impact on the budget," Elzer told THR in an e-mail.
Elzer says Koepp has already delivered a revision of the script.
Assuming Koepp can solve the script issues, and the film makes its March 28 re-start deadline, MIB III will hit theaters in 3-D on May 25, 2012.
