January 2010

The Grounding of Tess: Is it Fair?


Facebook has been used by possibly nefarious parties to secretly find out the color of your underwear, to take sides in the disputed Iranian election, and is now being used by a 15-year-old to protest being grounded by her parents.

Her crime was simple: she went to a party with alcohol present and was late for her curfew by one hour. Her parents responded quickly to their daughter’s crimes with a swift and possibly harsh judgment: they grounded her for five weeks.

Anti-Smoking Groups Complaining about Avatar

We are clearly getting too uptight about a few things. And, by “we”, I don’t necessarily mean “we” as in “you” or “I”.

I just read an article in the NYT which quoted some idiot from some anti-tobacco association who was upset about Sigourney Weaver (who played a research scientist and is somehow always associated with any film involving aliens)  smoking a cigarette in a scene in the movie “Avatar.”

In case you are wondering what he said, it is definitely worse than you could ever guess. Here’s a hint: it involves an ingredient for a nuclear weapon.

This is like someone just put a bunch of plutonium in the water supply.