Simmering Hope

The presentation of “The 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards” is going to take place on January 17, 2010.
Until then, you have the time to watch- if you wish it- the nominees and start rooting for your favorites.

Following is the list, as compiled by Daily Mail:

BEST MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basters
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
Up in the Air

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
Emily Blunt -The Young Victoria
Sandra Bullock - The Blind Side
Helen Mirren - The Last Station
Carey Mulligan - An Education
Gabourey Sidibe - Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
Jeff Bridges - Crazy Heart
George Clooney - Up in the Air
Colin Firth - A Single Man
Morgan Freeman - Invictus
Tobey Maguire - Brothers

BEST MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
(500) Days of Summer
The Hangover
It’s Complicated
Julie & Julia
Nine

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR
MUSICAL
Sandra Bullock - The Proposal
Marion Cotillard - Nine
Julia Roberts - Duplicity
Meryl Streep - It’s Complicated
Meryl Streep - Julie & Julia

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY
OR MUSICAL
Matt Damon - The Informant!
Daniel Day-Lewis - Nine
Robert Downey Jr. - Sherlock Holmes
Joseph Gordon-Levitt - (500) Days of Summer
Michael Stuhlbarg - A Serious Man

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A
MOTION PICTURE
Penélope Cruz - Nine
Vera Farmiga - Up in the Air
Anna Kendrick - Up in the Air
Mo’Nique - Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
Julianne Moore - A Single Man

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A
MOTION PICTURE
Matt Damon - Invictus
Woody Harrselson - The Messenger
Christopher Plummer - The Last Station
Stanley Tucci - The Lovely Bones
Christop Waltz - Inglourious Basterds

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Princess and the Frog
Up

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Baaria (Italy)
Broken Embraces (Spain)
The Maid (Chile)
A Prophet (France)

BEST DIRECTOR – MOTION PICTURE
Kathryn Bigelow - The Hurt Locker
James Cameron - Avatar
Clint Eastwood - Invictus
Jason Reitman - Up in the Air
Quentin Tarantino - Inglourious Basterds

BEST SCREENPLAY – MOTION PICTURE
Neill Blomkamp - District 9
Terri Tatchell and Mark Boal - The Hurt Locker
Nancy Meyers - It’s Complicated
Jason Reitman - Up in the Air
Sheldon Turner and Quentin Tarantino - Inglourious Basterds

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE – MOTION PICTURE
Michael Giacchino - Up
Marvin Hamlisch - The Informant!
James Horner - Avatar
Abel Korzeniowski - A Single Man
Karen O and Carter Burwell - Where the Wild Things Are

BEST ORIGINAL SONG – MOTION PICTURE
Cinema Italiano - Nine. Music & Lyrics by Maury Yeston
I Want to Come Home - Everybody’s Fine. Music & Lyrics by Paul McCartney
I Will See You - Avatar. Music by James Horner, Simon Franglen. Lyrics by James Horner, Simon Franglen, Kuk Harrell
The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart) - Crazy Heart. Music & Lyrics by Ryan Bingham, T Bone Burnett
Winter - Brothers. Music by U2, Lyrics by Bono

BEST TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA
Big Love
Dexter
House
Mad Men
True Blood

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA
Glenn Close - Damages
January Jones - Mad Men
Julianna Margulies - The Good Wife
Anna Paquin - True Blood
Kyra Sedgwick - The Closer

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA
Simon Baker - The Mentalist
Michael C. Hall - Dexter
Jon Hamm - Mad Men
Hugh Laurie - House
Bill Paxton - Big Love

BEST TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
30 Rock
Entourage
Glee
Modern Family
The Office

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
Toni Collette - United States of Tara
Courteney Cox - Cougar Town
Edie Falco - Nurse Jackie
Tina Fey - 30 Rock
Lea Michele - Glee

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
Alec Baldwin - 30 Rock
Steve Carell - The Office
David Duchovny - Californication
Thomas Jane - Hung
Matthew Morrison - Glee

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Jane Adams - Hung
Rose Byrne - Damages
Jane Lynch - Glee
Janet McTeer - Into The Storm
Chloë Sevigny - Big Love

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Michael Emerson - Lost
Neil Patrick Harris - How I Met Your Mother
William Hurt - Damages
John Lithgow - Dexter
Jeremy Piven - Entourage

BEST MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Georgia O’Keeffe
Grey Gardens
Into the Storm
Little Dorrit
Taking Chance

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Joan Allen - Georgia O’Keeffe
Drew Barrymore - Grey Gardens
Jessica Lange - Grey Gardens
Anna Paquin - The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler
Sigourney Weaver - Prayers for Bobby

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Kevin Bacon - Taking Chance
Kenneth Branagh - Wallander: One Step Behind
Chiwetel Ejiofor - Endgame
Brendan Gleeson - Into the Storm
Jeremy Irons - Georgia O’Keeffe

Well, by now everybody knows what the smart minds (mine included) suspected from the very beginning, and that is that the car smashing incident was the continuation of a domestic dispute.
Tiger Woods said ‘I am sorry’ and according to some sources forked in an immediate $5 million present to his wife as a token of his appreciation for her continuous efforts to save the face of the family, along with a shortening of the length of the pre-nuptial agreement from 10 years to a more manageable 7 years.
In danger are the huge endorsements which are the major source of Tiger’s wealth. To keep them who knows how far is he ready to go? I guess a public apology won’t suffice, especially after the paparazzi started digging for more.
Until more dirty details of his extra marital affairs are ready to surface, let’s enjoy the jokes.

“Crouching Tiger, hidden hydrant”

What does Tiger Woods have in common with baby seals? They both get clubbed by Norwegians.

Thats the first time Tiger Woods has failed to drive 300 yards.

Tiger Woods crashed into a fire hydrant and a tree … he couldn’t decide between a wood and an iron.

Perhaps Tiger should have used a driver.

I find it’s a nightmare driving at 2.05am: sometimes you can’t see the Woods for the trees.

Tiger’s wife went for him over a birdie.

What was the second worst part of Tiger’s car accident? The police found the driver in the trunk.

What were Tiger Woods and his wife doing out at 2.30 in the morning? They went clubbing.

Whats the difference between a car and a golf ball? Tiger can drive a ball 400 yards.

Finally, the holier than thou Tiger Woods is being thrown to the wolfs. I bet that the guys who built his 155 ft yacht and got sued for using Tiger Woods’s name to promote their business, are having a ‘hooray’ moment.
Karma is a bitch.

Is Dubai the beginning of a new economic crash?

By now everybody knows that the latest piece in the global economic recovery card castle about to start a fall down, is Dubai, which is billions of dollars in debt. On Wednesday, Dubai requested that Dubai World be allowed to skip six months of interest payments on its debt.
According to the latest information, Dubai World, the state-owned largest corporate entity of Dubai, has $59bn of liabilities, which represents a large proportion of the Gulf emirate’s total debt estimated at $80bn. What does it mean? It means that most European banks, admitted or not, are going to be more or less affected by the potential loss.

Dubai accumulated its debt as it expanded in banking and real estate projects before the global financial crisis dried up available financing. With the economic collapse of 2008, the glamorous man-made islands and the fancy, extravagant real-estate lost a big chunk of their original value, leaving Dubai with the huge debt. People are not coming to buy or rent what has been built with a huge profit in mind.

Dubai’s skyline

Dubai has little oil wealth of its own. It acts as the trading, tourist and financial hub of the emirates. It was assumed that the U.A.E.’s richest oil state, Abu-Dhabi, would always bail out its neighbor, and that assumption seemed to have been proven wrong with Wednesday’s announcement.
Is Dubai’s situation shedding some light over what is to come? Meaning another economic collapse? Probably a Dubai default may not provoke a banking crisis, but it could spur a crisis of investor confidence in an economic recovery.

Tiger Woods in a car crash

At 2:25 AM Tiger Woods crashed his car into a fire hydrant and then into a tree. His wife rushed to the scene and smashed the back window of the Cadillac Escalade to help him get out. Or so the story goes.
One may ask: What was he doing at 2 AM driving the car out of the $ 24 million mansion? One possible answer: domestic issue.
Next question: Has his wife smashed the window before or after the crash? Was her smashing actualy caused the crush?
Put the pieces together and the next question pops in mind: Who is the other woman?
Or how the French would say: Cherchez la femme.

According to various tabloids (National Enquire being one), Tiger Woods has been having an affair with a Rachel Uchitel (nightclub hostess), who allegedly exchanged sexually-charged text messages with him and travelled to Melbourne, Australia, to meet him on November 12. A photograph showed her checking into the hotel where he was allegedly staying.

This is the scenario: The tabloids story made Tiger’s wife angry, confronted him, then they got into a fight, she scratched his face (as per TMZ), he left the mansion, jumped in the car, she (Elin) followed and smashed the rear window using two golf clubs.

Rachel Uchitel

Photo courtesy of Daily Mail

Take a look at the picture and be the judge.

Some article I have read some months ago, mentioned the possibility that the defect (should we use the word sabotage?) to the Large Hadron Collider’s system was not a random event, but caused by advanced civilizations from the future to stop us from playing God.
Of course respected scientists dismissed the idea as an utter non sense and accused the two guys who wrote the article of media manipulation.

So, what is to be dismissed? That we try to play God? Or that there are civilizations more advanced than ours?
Just because we can’t prove their existence, it does not mean they are not there. Actually maybe they are keeping a close tab on what we do here on Earth, considering that the ‘Butterfly Effect’ initiated here, by us, may affect their future as well. According to Matthew, extraterrestrials are about to make their grandiose entrance.

Following are abstracts from the latest message
from The Matthew Book.
Read, think, approve, dismiss, whatever suits you the best. But at least try to take into account that maybe, just maybe, there is something more around us than what we see.

“This is an international action and it’s important that there is agreement among the governments involved. Major decisions have been made, but some details are still being discussed. Some of your representatives favor keeping the initial program brief and releasing information in increments so people won’t feel overwhelmed. They propose a brief statement that many spacecraft seen during the past several years are from other civilizations, there’s no reason to think any harm is intended, and more information will follow as it’s compiled. Others want the program to answer all logical questions and some of our representatives tell how they’ve been to helping the planet through what you call the shift or cleansing. Some think it would be frightening to see us as we appear in our native lands—not all of us look like you. Others say it’s necessary to show ourselves as we are to prove that we aren’t from your civilization. Some think including live coverage of a mother ship decloaking is a good idea; others think it could be more threatening than reassuring. “

[..]

What kinds of information to present on the program and how much can be covered without overload is being debated. Would it be helpful or overkill to explain that Earth is moving out of her regular orbit by intention and needs our help off and on the planet? Would that involve explaining that Earth is a soul? How much can be said about our technologies without alarming folks about how we might use it? Would it be foolish or comforting to say that our presence has prevented other civilizations from trying to invade Earth? To what extent should the cover-up be disclosed? What about admitting that your governments refused our offers of technology in exchange for ending weaponry development and wars that could annihilate you all? How would it affect your population to know that both dark and light beings from other civilizations have been living among you and influencing your way of life? Should the program include personal accounts of both positive and negative abduction experiences? What to say about the “little grays” that have been living for many years in underground cities? What mixture of scientific, political and religious spokespersons should be in the program?

[..]

Hatonn spoke of the formidable opposition to acknowledging the existence of extraterrestrial life. This includes creating fear about the motives of other civilizations, and the dark ones have been doing that through entertainment venues. While it may appear that the television show “V” was strategically planned after initial discussions a year or so back about officially recognizing other civilizations, producing that kind of viewing is just another means whereby seeds of fear have been planted throughout the ages. The same is true of the movie “2012,” designed to evoke fearful thoughts that the world really may come to the kind of end that some fundamentalist religions are expecting. With “entertainment” catering to that belief and refreshing the fear about aliens, not to mention the many other popular entertainment forms based in violence, you can see why all aspects of the announcement program must be so carefully considered.

Fear is the dark ones’ most powerful weapon against the light because the energy of fear not only forms a barrier between the consciousness and the soul; it refuels the darkness to keep it thriving. Another means of achieving that two-way objective as well as reducing the world’s population was developing various strains of “flu” viruses. An important part of this diabolical scheme to create plagues, which during your history have caused massive fear and death tolls, was the conditioning of Earth’s peoples to regard death as the ultimate in fear.

[..]

In your galaxy, Earth is one of the best schoolhouses for learning to deal with duality—that’s why you are there. Graduation, so to speak, is mastering duality’s many challenges and evolving into fourth density, where duality doesn’t exist. It may require only a few lifetimes or many hundreds for a soul’s personages to have thoughts, emotions, motives and activities with positive, or light, vibrations rather than those with negative, or dark, vibrations.

[..]

Evolving from third density into fourth does not happen simply because you’re on the planet and the planet is ascending. Your evolution comes with heeding conscience and intuition and the other wisdom your soul is giving to guide you in alignment with your contract. It comes with self-introspection, acting with honor, respecting all of Nature’s life forms, discerning truth from falsity, emulating but not copying persons whom you greatly respect, and not judging others. It comes with recognizing and feeling grateful for the blessings in your life, with forgiving yourself and others for perceived injustices. It comes with living from your heart, the seat of your soul.

[..]

Yet not everyone will choose to embrace this energy because it entails opening minds to many truths, and paramount among them is the Oneness of All, the inseparability of all souls with God and Creator. Please do not be saddened if persons very dear to you cannot “see the light,” and please do not feel it is your responsibility to urge them. Everyone will awaken in his or her own timing—if not in this lifetime, then in another with the same opportunities to grow spiritually. At whatever station you and souls you love may be, eternal love bonds forever unite you—life is eternal, the soul is immortal!”

Finally!
Let’s hope that the agreement between the Canadian automakers and small independent auto repair shops would put a dent into auto dealers’ monopoly of information practice.
Nowadays, a car has lots of computerized equipment, that makes very often the diagnosis a pretty elaborate process. It’s not sufficient to have a diagnosis tool - very expensive by the way- you have to have access to information. This vital information has been,until now, the ‘privilege’ of dealerships.

The agreement will give customers the chance to have the repairs done by shops charging $60/hour vs $130/hour charged by auto dealers. More business for small shops and more money into our pocket.

Following is the article, courtesy of The Star.
“Canadian automakers and repair shops say they have reached an agreement that will give consumers more choice on where to fix their vehicles and lower bills.

The deal, which will avoid federal legislation, includes a standard that will give repair shops access auto manufacturers’ service and repair information plus tooling and training information before next May.

“This agreement ensures that all auto manufacturers will provide access to service and repair information which will increase competition in Canada’s service and repair industry for the benefit of Canadian consumers,” said Dale Finch, executive vice-president of the National Automotive Trades Association (NATA) which represents more than 5,000 repair shops across the country.

“This agreement will provide the flexibility needed to address concerns of local repair facilities and our customers, given the increasingly complex nature of motor vehicles and rapidly changing vehicle technology.”

However the deal did not include support from the Automotive Industries Association of Canada, a bigger trade group which represents parts makers, distributors, wholesalers and repair outlets.

Repair shops have complained for years that manufacturers were withholding information, which made it difficult for them to repair some models and forced consumers to fix their vehicles at new auto dealerships.

Industry Minister Tony Clement had urged the automakers and repair shops earlier this year to find a voluntary solution, adding that existing practices “were no longer an option.”

In supporting today’s voluntary agreement, Clement said it will improve competition and lower bills for consumers.

“The agreement will make information and tools available to independent repair shops . . . for the repair of all vehicles,” he said.

“Often, fixing vehicles today is more about the car’s computer system than it’s about nuts and bolts and so, in order to repair and service newer vehicles, there are highly specialized and specific tools that require technical training and diagnostic information.”

The industries association had supported a private member’s bill to address the issue last spring. The House of Commons voted to send the bill from Brain Masse of the NDP to the federal industry committee for review.”