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America's first family of horror is back! According to announcements made by NBC execs and Deadline Hollywood, The Munsters are coming back to primetime TV.
45-years later, NBC and writer Bryan Fuller are ready to overhaul the characters and concept by envisioning the half-hour, black and white sitcom as an hour-long drama
As is the trend, Fuller’s version is said to be a darker, edgier take on more lighthearted nature of the original series. This new vision for The Munsters will work within the confines of the same premise, despite an apparent shift in tone and with some tweaks to the characters and their origins.
Illumination Entertainment, the Universal-based animation house behind Despicable Me and next year’s Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, is working on a feature project centering on the crimson-coifed cartoon character. John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky, who co-wrote the Will Ferrell comedy Blades of Glory, are in talks to develop a story.
Illumination and the writers will seek to create a story that modernizes the character, hopefully launching a franchise in the process.
The sex abuse scandal at Penn State University, which this month led to the firing of storied football coach Joe Paterno and other prominent university officials who did not report the alleged crimes to law enforcement, raises fresh questions about the legal and moral responsibilities of K-12 personnel who are more likely to be in a position to detect physical or sexual abuse of a child.
Experts say most states have clear laws requiring K-12 teachers and other school employees to swiftly and directly report suspicions of abuse to police or child-protection authorities, but there are complex reasons why these so-called “mandatory reporters” may fail to take action.
“I think one of the major impediments to people reporting their suspicions is that they think they have to have more evidence that abuse is occurring,”
Traditional British and American law does not require citizens to report crimes that they witness. We are not a nation of snitches. If your neighbor is illegally smoking dope, you do not have to say a word.
Penn State officials have been charged with a crime for not reporting a similar allegation against Sandusky in 2002. The entire case hinges on the memory and credibility of McQueary, but now he has changed his story and says that he reported it to the police. There is no physical or other hard evidence of abuse. According to Sandusky, the child involved will testify that McQueary is lying about what he claimed to have seen.
The mandatory reporting law is a direct attack on the autonomy of the American family. Many parents have practices that provoke the disapproval of others. All it takes is one anonymous call to CPS, and a govt social worker will knock on the door and threaten to put the kids in foster care. There is no due process. The upshot is that know-nothing social workers are redefining how American children are to be reared, and this is a change for the worse.
I would not be surprised if this Penn State witch-hunt concludes by the state paying millions of dollars in bogus lawsuits, and no one found guilty of anything. Plus a horrible new anti-family law.
Admit it. You miss Sarah Palin just a little: The wink, the red shoes, the pointing finger, the heck-with-ya attitude and, given the performance of some of her Republican colleagues, her Taser-like intelligence.
It helped — a lot — that Palin was an attractive woman. A man winks during a debate for the highest or second-highest office in the land, and he’s not cute or flirty — or sending sparks ricocheting around the living rooms of conservative magazine editors. He’s an idiot.
Even a presidential candidate suffers no dishonor by sometimes admitting he doesn’t know an answer. Giving Cain credit to the limited extent due, he has made clear that he doesn’t know every little thing but has promised to hire smart people who do.
The Second Coming of Gingrich
By ROSS DOUTHAT
When Newt Gingrich kicked off his presidential campaign in May by criticizing Congressman Paul Ryan’s Medicare reforms as “right-wing social engineering,” thus incurring the wrath of the very conservatives that he presumably needed to win over, there was a rush to write the former House speaker’s political obituary. . .
. . . We all laughed at this here in Washington, swirling our martinis and nibbling our canapés at our fancy cocktail parties. But who’s laughing now?
True, Gingrich’s rise in the polls may be temporary. There’s still time for Rick Santorum or even Jon Huntsman to surge, or for Ron Paul to expand his support beyond his small, fierce circle of admirers.
Who lost Iraq?
Barack Obama was a principled opponent of the Iraq war from its beginning. But when he became president in January 2009, he was handed a war that was won.
The surge had succeeded. Al-Qaeda in Iraq had been routed, driven to humiliating defeat by an Anbar Awakening of Sunnis fighting side-by-side with the infidel Americans. Even more remarkably, the Shiite militias had been taken down, with U.S. backing, by the forces of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. They crushed the Sadr militias from Basra to Sadr City. Al-Qaeda decimated. A Shiite prime minister taking a decisively nationalist line. Iraqi Sunnis ready to integrate into a new national government.
Obama was left with but a single task: Negotiate a new status-of-forces agreement (SOFA) to reinforce these gains and create a strategic partnership with the Arab world’s only democracy.He blew it.
He blew it. Negotiations, such as they were, finally collapsed last month. There is no agreement, no partnership. As of Dec. 31, the U.S. military presence in Iraq will be liquidated.
And it’s not as if that deadline snuck up on Obama. He had three years to prepare for it. Everyone involved, Iraqi and American, knew that the 2008 SOFA calling for full U.S. withdrawal was meant to be renegotiated.
Update: 'Occupy' crackdowns coordinated with federal law enforcement officials
Over the past ten days, more than a dozen cities have moved to evict "Occupy" protesters from city parks and other public spaces. As was the case in last night's move in New York City, each of the police actions shares a number of characteristics. And according to one Justice official, each of those actions was coordinated with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies.
According to this official, in several recent conference calls and briefings, local police agencies were advised to seek a legal reason to evict residents of tent cities, focusing on zoning laws and existing curfew rules. Agencies were also advised to demonstrate a massive show of police force, including large numbers in riot gear. In particular, the FBI reportedly advised on press relations, with one presentation suggesting that any moves to evict protesters be coordinated for a time when the press was the least likely to be present.
(During coverage of the eviction of the Occupy Wall Street protesters early this morning, a NPR reporter, a New York Times reporter, and a city councilmember were arrested. Airspace in Lower Manhattan was closed to CBS and NBC news choppers by the NYPD, a New York Post reporter was allegedly put in a “choke hold” by the police, a NBC reporter’s press pass was confiscated and a large group of reporters and protesters were hit with pepper spray.)
Barton: Look at Jesus. I mean, Jesus in the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25 and the Minas in Luke 19, you know he lines the guys all up and says "I gave you an investment, what did you do with it? 'I did nothing with it.' 'I gave you, what you'd do?' "I turned five-fold.' 'I gave you, what you'd do?' 'I turned ten-fold.'" He says "Okay, take away from the guy who didn't do anything with the investment and give it to the guy who had ten."
Whoa, that's not fair! Jesus said "to him who has will more be given, to him who has not will be taken away even that which he has."
Green: I think the message version of that says to the one that's picketing down on Wall Street and not working, we're taking from you now and we're going to give it to the Wall Street guy.
Barton: You're not productive. We're ain't giving [to] you if you're not productive and that's the message. The way it's supposed to work is if you're productive, it's going to trickle down to you. But if you think the guy who had ten is going to trickle down to the guy who didn't do anything with his one, Jesus says it's not going to happen that way.
It does not trickle down. As as matter of fact, it will trickle up. If you are not productive, I'm going to give it to someone who is and he's going to get more.
Bachmann: The ACLU Is Running The CIA Under Obama
"[Obama] is allowing the ACLU to run the CIA" Bachmann asserted. "We have decided we are going to lose the war on terror under Obama."
MR. GREGORY: No, no, let me just make the point. Your view that waterboarding should be reinstituted, you understand that puts you at odds with most of the generals, OK, the former Republican nominee of your party John McCain, General Colin Powell. You realize you're on the opposite end of what they believe? Do you not trust them and their views?
REP. BACHMANN: Well, but what, but I, but I'm on the same side as Vice President Cheney on this issue, and others as well. Because, I, again, what we're looking at is what will save American lives. And that's what the most important thing is. We've got, we've got to decide that we want to defeat the terrorists.
I believe that Iraq should pay us back for the money that we spent. And I believe that Iraq should pay the families that lost a loved one several million dollars per life...
MR. GREGORY: All right.
REP. BACHMANN: ...I think, at minimum.
Bachmann added: "If you look at China, they don't have food stamps. If you look at China, they're in a very different situation. They save for their own retirement security... They don't have the modern welfare state and China's growing. And so what I would do is look at the programs that LBJ gave us with the Great Society and they'd be gone."