The Red Monkey

Tron: Legacy Team to Remake Disney’s The Black Hole

Posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 by Peter Sciretta

Disney is developing a reinvention of the 1979 sci-fi film The Black Hole, with Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski and producer Sean Bailey on board, along with Clash of the Titans scribe Travis Beacham working on the screenplay. Kosinski might direct if he can find time in his schedule, with his planned sci-fi epic Oblivion and further possible Tron sequels.

The details of the update are being kept tightly under wraps, though HeatVision reports that the new take grounds the story in “the science of a black hole, much more so than in the original,” and will see the return of the red robot Maximilian. Knowing Disney’s history, I’m sure this project is being developed for a 3D release.

The original film was Disney’s first PG-rated film, at the time, the most expensive movie ever produced by the company, with a price tag of $20 million plus another $6 million in advertising. Te movie’s opening credits sequence featured the longest computer graphics shot at that point in film history. The movie, which earned $36 million at the US box office, making it the 13th highest grossing film of the year, went on to be nominated for cinematography and visual effects Academy Awards.

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Attorney General Jerry Brown has decided that an independent state pay commission can reduce the salaries of California elected officials during the middle of their terms in office.

His decision, issued Thursday, reverses a legal opinion his office issued last June in response to an inquiry from the California Citizens Compensation Commission.

It allows the Department of Personnel Administration to cut legislators’ base salaries from $116,000 a year to $95,000 starting Dec. 7. Salaries for the eight statewide constitutional officers and four members of Board of Equalization also will be cut.

Brown’s office previously said the cuts could not take effect until after elections in 2010 and 2012. A spokeswoman says the office switched direction after further review of the June decision.

 

The Associated Press

But do they have the brassies to actually cut their pay?

It’s the day after Thanksgiving, and you’ve got a pile of leftovers. It’s time to take a look at how you can maximize the meals you can make from your leftovers, preferably with the least amount of effort.

Photo by Roland.

Last year we shared a few leftover recipes and now we’re back to share a few more. The absolute easiest method of course is to simply throw servings of your leftovers on the plate and heat them back up. If you love a good Thanksgiving meal you can’t go wrong with a basic reheat. That said, we’ve gathered up a few basic recipes here for you to mix up your left overs.

Open-Face Turkey Sandwiches: The open-face turkey sandwich is a staple in the leftover playbook. Take a thick slice of bread—some people put a light layer of mayonnaise with a sprinkling of salt and pepper here—mound it up with turkey, pour some gravy over it, and heat the whole thing up in a microwave or toaster oven. You can always go easy on the gravy to minimize the mess and slap another piece on top if you’ve got a deep seated distrust of an open-face sandwich.

Turkey Dumplings: Dumplings are filling and the recipe is about as simple as it gets. You’ll need cooked turkey, all purpose flour, and a package of biscuit dough. Cook the turkey in water until a broth forms, drop in some hunks of biscuit dough, and you’re done. You can check out the recipe here.

Pilgrim Pie: Rene Lynch, experimenting with her leftovers, saw that she had almost all the ingredients for a shepherd pie. All the ingredients save for the crust, that is. With a little kitchen ingenuity and some sautéd onions and flour she made a simple dish out of leftover cooked vegetables, diced turkey, and mashed potatoes. You can read more about it here.

Turkey Soup: Turkey soup has a moderate number of ingredients but if you already prepared a Thanksgiving meal the chances of you having all of them on hand is pretty high. Prep for the soup is a bunch of chopping and dicing and then tossing it all in a pot. With enough leftover turkey and a big enough pot you can make quite a batch. You can check out the recipe here.

Turkey, Chestnut, and Barley Soup: If you’re in the mood for a heartier soup than a simple turkey broth and turkey mix can provide, this turkey and barley soup is plenty hearty. You can make it using a can of broth or use the carcass leftover from yesterday’s festivities. You can check out the recipe here.

Grilled Turkey and Apple Sandwiches: The recipe is actually for chicken sandwiches but turkey is a great stand in. You can grill it in a skillet but it cooks great in a grill press. Flavorful and easy to make, it’s a nice way to make leftovers seem less like leftovers. See the recipe here.

Our suggestions should get you started on mixing up your leftovers, but it’s certainly not a conclusive list of ways to turn your turkey day leftovers into something fresh and tasty. Let’s hear about your favorite leftover recipes in the comments below.

Send an email to Jason Fitzpatrick, the author of this post, at jason@lifehacker.com.

VIDEO: 2010 Dodge Viper ACR makes the rounds at Laguna Seca, sets track record

by Jonny Lieberman (RSS feed) on Nov 24th 2009 at 4:26PM

2010 Dodge Viper ACR – Click above to watch the video

The Dodge Viper is many things to many people. An object of unparalleled lust to some, a big-mouthed, truck-engined Corvette ripoff to others. And an ankle burner to still others. But no one ever thought of Dodge’s V10 quarter-mile thug as a serious track car. Until the Viper ACR showed up.

Lighter (especially in Hardcore Package guise) and producing ten times as much downforce as the “regular” SRT10 Viper, the ACR model set off some pretty big waves when the big-winged snake debuted (especially in the Nurburgring record community), even though most of the rippling came from the street-legal slicks. But never mind all that, the new 2010 Dodge Viper ACR is here, and it’s even better than the 2009 version.

Why? Well, it’s faster (top speed is now 202 mph) and quicker (it can reach said top speed a whole 14 seconds sooner than the 2009 model). How? Gearing, specifically 5th gear, which has been revised from 0.741 to 0.796. Also, the end caps on the giant wing have been revised, resulting in that higher top end. Some new colors, too. We have tons of videos of it rumbling/blasting around Laguna Seca for your perusal, after the jump. Hat tip to Ryan!

UPDATE: Looks like Dodge, the Viper ACR and driver Chris Winkler just broke the Laguna Seca single-lap record with a time of 1:33.944. Those of you with longish memories will remember that a Devon GTX (powered by a Viper motor) recently set the (now) old record at Laguna — 1.35.075. In other words, the new Viper ACR just beat the previous record by more than a second. Impressive. And yet another video, after the jump.

UPDATE 2: Gallery of images from the 2010 Dodge Viper ACR’s day at the track added.

Gallery: 2010 Dodge Viper ACR at Laguna Seca

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[Source: Red Letter Dodge]

Filed under: Coupe, Performance, Videos, Dodge

Tags: 2010 dodge viper, 2010 Dodge Viper ACR, 2010DodgeViper, 2010DodgeViperAcr, Dodge, dodge viper, Dodge Viper ACR, DodgeViper, DodgeViperAcr, Laguna Seca, LagunaSeca, Viper, Viper ACR, ViperAcr

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In all of the chatter surrounding the Demi Moore W cover controversy, many people have insisted that her vanished hip is part of a perfectly natural pose. They were correct. The photo shows the natural standing pose… of a runway model in her mid-twenties. It appears that Moore’s head, legs, and arms were superimposed on the hips and torso of model Anja Rubik.

Fashion Thunderdome: two models enter, one magazine cover leaves. Thunderdome fashion is in this season. (side note? Tina Turner is 46 in that picture.)

Notice that while the Frankenphoto uses the contours of Rubik’s torso, but her hip and collar bones have been airbrushed out.

What have we learned from this debacle? Let’s review.

• The ideal woman is both fatless and boneless, like a chicken breast. Plastic wrap and styrofoam tray are optional.
• 47-year-old women, even slender and physically fit ones, are too old and horrible to appear on the cover of a magazine.
• The images in fashion magazines are altered so heavily that they can make any woman, even a model, feel bad about herself. Wait, we already knew that.

Demi Moore’s Body Replaced By W Magazine [Pop Culture Madness]

PREVIOUSLY:
Somewhere, Out There, A Piece Of Demi Moore’s Hip Is Looking For Its Home
Fashion Photographer Offers $5,000 Reward For Demi Moore’s Hip

More About:

• photoshop,
• this looks shopped,
• models,
• fashion,
• w magazine,
• demi moore,
• thunderdome,
• MY HED IZ PASTEDE ON YAY

Before the economy went bust, California voters authorized multibillion-dollar charges on the state’s infrastructure credit card.

They approved generational investments in roads, schools and levees, as well as hospitals and stem-cell research. At the time, fiscal experts projected that California at most would have to spend roughly 6 percent of its annual budget on payments.

But after an economic collapse, estimates now show that debt service could consume as much as 10 percent of the annual general fund budget by 2014-15 – an “unprecedented” ratio, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

The latest debt warning comes weeks after lawmakers and Schwarzenegger placed a new $11.1 billion water bond on next November’s ballot. Backers of the measure say the state desperately needs a water system overhaul.

Until this year, the state had not spent more than 5.7 percent of its general fund on debt, according to Department of Finance records dating back to 1976. The ratio now stands at 6.7 percent.

Treasurer Bill Lockyer warned in a report last month that a 10 percent debt ratio “would require cutting even deeper into crucial services already reeling from billions of dollars in reductions.” Fiscal conservatives warn that it also increases pressure on lawmakers to raise taxes.

“It’s a zero-sum game,” added Lockyer spokesman Tom Dresslar. “Every additional dollar you spend on debt service is a dollar you cannot spend to educate your kids, provide health care, protect the environment or fight fires.”

A combination of voter bond approvals and plummeting state revenues have led to the situation.

Voters approved a flurry of bonds in recent years, none greater than the $37.3 billion package for roads, schools and levees in 2006 that was championed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. In 2004, they authorized $3 billion in stem-cell research bonds and $15 billion in deficit bonds.

Even as the state sank into recession last year, voters approved $10 billion in bonds for high-speed rail in California. Most bonds originated in the Legislature.

“I think ultimately you can blame the voters for approving them and electing people who put these on the ballot,” said Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

When voters approved the public works bond package in 2006, the Department of Finance projected that California’s debt ratio in 2014-15 would be 6.35 percent. Finance now projects that ratio to be 9.54 percent in 2014-15. Lockyer has pegged it at 10.16 percent, using different assumptions.

While the projected dollar amount of annual debt service has stayed roughly the same, the 2006 projection optimistically showed California would take in $151 billion in general fund revenues in 2014-15.

The Finance Department now projects the state will instead receive only $104.8 billion that year.

Jason Dickerson, director of state administration with the Legislative Analyst’s Office, said there is no rule of thumb for how much the state should devote to debt payments.

“If the Legislature and voters believe 9 to 10 percent is the right amount to devote to the water bond and other debt service, that’s fine,” Dickerson said. “But it will mean they will have somewhat less to spend on other general fund programs.”

Debt as a percentage of general fund revenues is only one measurement of a state’s debt load. Others are debt as a percentage of total personal income in California and debt per capita. In both cases, California has a higher debt ratio than the median for the 10 most populous states, but not as high as New York or New Jersey, according to Lockyer’s Debt Affordability Report.

Proponents of infrastructure bonds say California would suffer greater consequences without such investments.

Schwarzenegger’s chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, called it a “false argument” to suggest the state has to choose between pursuing a water bond and preserving core state services. She said California must do both and should view water infrastructure as a necessity. Without it, she said, residents and businesses would suffer economically as water deliveries shrink.

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Call Kevin Yamamura, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 326-5548.

The ‘Real’ Jobless Rate: 17.5% Of Workers Are Unemployed

Published: Thursday, 19 Nov 2009 | 4:55 PM ET

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By: Jeff Cox
CNBC.com

As experts debate the potential speed of the US recovery, one figure looms large but is often overlooked: nearly 1 in 5 Americans is either out of work or under-employed.

According to the government’s broadest measure of unemployment, some 17.5 percent are either without a job entirely or underemployed. The so-called U-6 number is at the highest rate since becoming an official labor statistic in 1994.

The number dwarfs the statistic most people pay attention to—the U-3 rate—which most recently showed unemployment at 10.2 percent for October, the highest it has been since June 1983.

The difference is that what is traditionally referred to as the “unemployment rate” only measures those out of work who are still looking for jobs. Discouraged workers who have quit trying to find a job, as well as those working part-time but looking for full-time work or who are otherwise underemployed, count in the U-6 rate.

With such a large portion of Americans experiencing employment struggles, economists worry that an extended period of slow or flat growth lies ahead.

“To me there’s no easy solution here,” says Michael Pento, chief economist at Delta Global Advisors. “Unless you create another bubble in which the economy can create jobs, then you’re not going to have growth. That’s the sad truth.”

Jeff Cox
Staff Writer
CNBC.com

Pento warns that forecasts of a double-dip (“W”) or a straight up (“V”) recovery both could be too optimistic given the jobs situation.

Instead, he believes the economy could flatline (or “L”) for an extended period as small businesses struggle to grow and consequently rehire the workers that have been furloughed as the U-3 unemployment rate has doubled since March 2008.

As that trend has happened, the U-6 rate has expanded at an even more dramatic pace. Economists cite several reasons for the phenomenon.

For one, more workers are becoming discouraged as real estate—the focal point for the expansion in the earlier part of the decade—has collapsed and taken millions of directly related and ancillary jobs with it.

Many workers believe those jobs aren’t coming back, and have thus quit looking and added themselves to the broader unemployment count.

“In the earlier part of this decade, 40 percent of all new jobs created were in real estate. Attorneys, mortgage brokers, agents, construction—they were all circled around housing,” Pento says. “We’ve had a jobless recovery in the last two recessions. This is going to be the third jobless recovery in a row.”

Another factor that may be leading people onto the rolls of those no longer looking for jobs is the government’s accommodative extensions of jobless benefits.

“Workers are unemployed for a much longer span than we’ve seen historically,” says David Resler, chief economist at Nomura Securities International in New York. “Part of that may be affected by the longer availability of benefits. It reduces the incentives for an urgent job search.”

The U-6 rate debuted in January of 1994 at 11.8 percent, while the U-3 was at 6.6 percent. The measure hit a low of 6.9 percent in April 2000 while U-3 sat at 3.8 percent.

While the current methodology only dates back 15 years, a former U-6 gauge was in existence previously and peaked at 14.3 percent in 1982. Economists predict the current measure would fall just below that number using the same methodology.

“We’re in the process of discovering how severe this recession and the long-run impact on certain industries will be and what that will do to overall employment,” Resler says. The U-6 rate “portends a very slow, sluggish recovery.”

If that holds and the US economy stays weak, that presents challenges for investors.

“People focus too much on that 10 percent number and not on the larger number,” says Kevin Mahn, chief investment officer at Hennion & Walsh in Parsippany, N.J. “There’s a humongous inventory of people out there looking for work and have been looking for work for a long time. Where are those jobs going to come from?”

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Current DateTime: 09:19:18 23 Nov 2009
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• The Worst Jobs in America
• Recovery or Not? Pros Disagree
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• Jobless Recovery Game Plan

High unemployment and the resulting pressure on consumers is driving many investors to look for opportunities overseas and in other assets.

Walsh says that trend is going to continue, with clients going to foreign markets, real estate investment trusts, certain bonds—anywhere that can offer profits above the slow-growth mire of US-based investments.

“If full employment is 4 percent, people are wondering how we’re going to get from 10 (percent) to 4. Well, try getting from 17 to 4. We may not get back to full employment for a decade,” Mahn says. “As an investor, that causes me to look for different places now. Maybe you can’t just put money in US large caps and ride out this recovery.”

• Slideshow: Where the Jobs Are

© 2009 CNBC.com

Topics:Economic Data | Interest Rates | Inflation | Ben Bernanke | Employment | Consumers | Federal Reserve | Federal Budget (U.S.) | Economy (Global) | Economy (U.S.)

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The economy will begin to recover but the jobless rate is going to be high for quite a while during recovery as businesses will be gun shy about hiring.

The videos just never get old.