Fool’s News

According to International Media Films Inc., the good name and dignity of the classic 1960s film “La Dolce Vita,” directed by Federico Fellini, is being stripped away by two pornographic movies using the same name. So it says in its lawsuit against Michael Lucas (née Andrei Treivas Bregman). It claims that Lucas’ films “Michael Lucas’ La Dolce Vita: Parts 1 & 2″ infringes the trademarks in the 1960s classic “La Dolce Vita”.

Bregman, who moved to the United States from Moscow in 1997, called the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan a joke.

“Nobody can be confused and think they’re buying Fellini’s movie by buying mine,” said Bregman, noting the name Michael Lucas was part of his title, which otherwise means “The Sweet Life.”

New York-based International Media Films said it believed the gay pornographic films, released last month, will “infringe, tarnish and dilute” its trademark rights to the highly decorated “La Dolce Vita,” which won the 1961 Academy Award for costume design and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for best foreign film of that year.

Some time ago I wrote about the new and improved plan for Iraq:

What’s worse, in my opinion, is when he makes statements like this one: “I’ve picked the plan that I think is most likely to succeed.” If that’s the case, what the hell have we been doing in Iraq for the past 4 years? The worst plan? The second best plan? No plan? After 4 years and lots of GWB’s insistence that we “stay the course,” one has to wonder what we’ve been doing. There have been calls from all sorts of fronts for increased troops for at least the last 2 years – military commanders, congressmen, pundits and the public. Now, the president thinks that he’s come up with some original new plan.

It appears that this administration can’t predict anything correctly. Military officials before the 2003 invasion of Iraq envisioned that as few as 5,000 U.S. troops would remain in Iraq by December 2006, according to documents obtained by a private research organization.

Slides obtained by the National Security Archive under the Freedom of Information Act contain a PowerPoint presentation of what planners projected to be a stable, pro-American and democratic Iraq after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

“First, they assumed that a provisional government would be in place by ‘D-Day’, then that the Iraqis would stay in their garrisons and be reliable partners, and finally that the post-hostilities phase would be a matter of mere ‘months’. All of these were delusions.”

You can access the NSA documents here.

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…waiting for the cease and desist letter….

Just a week before New Jersey is set to begin acknowledging civil unions between same-sex couples, the New Jersey Coalition to Preserve and Protect Marriage is trying to secure 20,000 signatures on its petition. Although New Jersey law has not procedure whereby its citizens can force an issue through a referendum, the group hopes that its petition will persuade legislative leaders to allow a vote on a proposal to allow marriage for same-sex couples. Obviously, the group anticipates that the measure would not pass, claiming that legislative leaders have refused to allow lawmakers to vote on a proposal to amend the state constitution to include the traditional definition of marriage.

While investigating consumer complaints about a Toronto optician, Dr. Plimmer, CityNews reporter Peter Silverman and his cameraman were attacked by the *good* doctor. He’s a lunatic. Customers of Dr. Plimmer also complained about being yelled at and intimidated by him

Here’s a link to the video.

If you want to read the background, it’s here.

Whack job.

I stumbled across this while surfing. It’s an online “airport security” game which purports to make fun of the every-changing security rules.

For the first time in polls, a majority of Americans supports allowing gays to serve openly in the U.S. military, the Wall Street Journal reported.The Harris Interactive survey reveals that 55 percent of those polled say openly gay people should be allowed to serve in the military, and 57 percent agreed with former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman John Shalikashvili’s assertion last month that openly gay people will “not undermine the efficacy of the armed forces,” the newspaper reported.

Only 19 percent of those polled said that gays could serve if they kept their sexual orientation secret, and 18 percent said they shouldn’t be allowed to serve at all.

In 2000, 48 percent said that gays should be allowed to serve openly.

Cool.

I missed this one earlier.  My bad.

Apparently, in November,  South Africa became only the fifth country in the world – and the first in Africa – to recognize same-sex marriage.

Where the hell have I been?  Really.

If you say so.

A leading evangelist who admitted to “sexual immorality” following allegations of sex with a male prostitute is convinced he is “completely heterosexual,” said one of four ministers who oversaw three weeks of intensive counseling with the disgraced minister.

The Rev. Ted Haggard, a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage, also said his sexual contact with men was limited to the former male prostitute who came forward with sexual allegations, the Rev. Tim Ralph of Larkspur told the Denver Post for a story in Tuesday’s edition.

“He is completely heterosexual,” Ralph said. “That is something he discovered. It was the acting-out situations where things took place. It wasn’t a constant thing.”

It’s a miracle.  Praise be.  Or is it just an act?  You decide.  I have.

So, apparently there’s a controversy growing over the Snickers ad that aired during the SuperBowl. You know, the one where two men kiss over the Snickers bar like Lady and Tramp kiss over the spaghetti in Lady & The Tramp. At this point, I don’t know much about the controversy; however, I did see the version of the ad which aired during the SuperBowl.

Apparently Mars, Inc., the maker of Snickers, had produced and put alternate versions of the ad on the internet. Apparently, you can access the alternate endings here. [I've not viewed them yet.]

Mars also apparently uploaded player reactions to the adds (both from the Bears and the Colts).

Several organizations have already criticized Mars for the campaign including HRC and GLAAD & the Matthew Shepard Foundation (joint release). GLAAD & the Matthew Shepard Foundation said the overall campaign “includes a Web site featuring video of NFL athletes reacting with prejudice and disgust to depictions of two men kissing.”

You can also read the article from the New York Blade.

To this guy I say I’m sure Mars will survive without you.  [Though I bet he'll eat something that is produced by Mars, one of its affiliates or its subsidiaries...just a hunch.]

More to come as I think about this a little more…