North Korea Claims Kim Jong Un Mastered Automobiles At Age 3

In an absurd effort to make the new leader of North Korea into a god-like entity, the state is beginning a wave of absurdist propaganda to brainwash the population from cradle to grave about the great powers of their new leader. A new claim is that Kim Jong Un was able to master driving a car by the age of 3, and was able to speed along with rally type driving skills by the age of just 8! Whew, that's quite an accomplishment! Who knew that a three year old could see over a windshield, let alone feet reach the pedals at that tender toddler age.

Kim Jong Un just celebrated his birthday Sunday, and a new propaganda film was shown on state TV featuring him driving a tank and being praised as "a genius among geniuses". He was also elevated to a four star general by the military, although he personally has highly questionable military experience. The state also claimed that Kim Jong Un wrote his first thesis on military strategy when he was just 16, taking little time to eat or sleep, probably to make him appear somewhat like a figure like Moses. North Korea has the fourth largest military in the world.

In the future, Kim Jong Un's birthday will no doubt be elevated into a national holiday as the strict Stalinist Communist regime seeks to consolidate the hearts and minds of the population to overlook starvation and poverty and to believe in the all-powerful state and leader.

Mariska Hargitay Will Continue Her Det. Benson Role On SVU

Mariska Hargitay was widely expected to be leaving LAW & ORDER:SVU at the end of this season by many TV observers. But, she pulled off a big surprise of sorts. She announced that she'll not only complete season 13, but be back for season 14 as well. She claims that she's just having too much "fun" to quit now. Fans of the show have to be breathing a huge collective sigh of relief right about now. Her TV character, Det. Olivia Benson, is one of the best acted characters on the small screen. Mariska Hargitay has also grown immensely as an actress since her days playing a small role on ER, and other small roles. In ER, her minor role was as a staffer love interest of one of the lead doctors. It wasn't too much of a role at all. But, Det. Olivia Benson has allowed Haritay to prove that she's one of TV's finest actresses, bar none.

When her longtime SVU co-star, Christopher Meloni suddenly announced his intent to leave after season 12 wrapped up, speculation began that Hargitay was also preparing to exit. She only fueled that speculation with statements such as she wanted to keep her future acting "options open". But, in the end, Hargitay looks ready to stay at SVU for the future.

SVU also gets some new star power this January when singer Harry Connick Jr. also joins the cast for some episodes as the new love interest of Det. Olivia Benson. Connick has not only proven himself in the world of music, but his stints at acting have always been well received by audiences as well. He seems equally at home playing roles in period piece dramas such as MEMPHIS BELLE, his first acting role in 1990, as well as in modern roles in INDEPENDENCE DAY and other top box office films. He should be a fine fit in SVU, giving the show additional star power.

It's so good to see that SVU still has plenty of life in the series. It remains as one of TV's best police dramas ever, with gritty story lines, fine writing and acting. One real gem of a drama show that NBC still has left.

Elvis Would Have Been 77. His Legacy Lives On

Elvis, The King Of Rock 'N Roll, would have turned 77 on Sunday. Back in 1977, after a series of declining health issues, he collapsed in his bathroom of his Graceland mansion at the age of 42, and died. Some reports claim that his young daughter, Lisa Marie, was the first to find her father collapsed and alerted the other family members and staff.

First signed to Sun Records in 1953, record producer Sam Phillips claims that he never for one minute regretted selling the contract of Elvis to RCA Records because it gave him a cash windfall that allowed him to produce many other acts such as Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash, that he made a lot of money on. But, RCA sure made a huge windfall off of Elvis who had far more hit singles than The Beatles by far. Elvis was a huge success on early TV such as THE MILTON BERLE SHOW and ED SULLIVAN as well, where censors only would film him from the waist up because they thought that his dancing was far too sexually suggestive. But, nonetheless, Elvis quickly became a huge sensation.

His good looks and ability to act, quickly loaned himself to a number of films as well TV specials, including his great special from Hawaii and his 1968 comeback special when he appeared in black leather, singing many of his old hard rock hits. In 1972, his single "Burning Love" was also a return to his hard rock days, and was a #2 hit on the charts. One of his last bigger hits from 1976, "Way Down," hearkened back to his old pioneeering 50's hard rock sound as well. Elvis was both a master of the ballad as well as the old 50's version of hard rock. He was also one of the most soulful white singers of all time. At times, songs like "In The Ghetto" were able to a hit on the Soul, Pop and Country music charts all at the same time, an unprecedented achievement for any white performer. Elvis was that special.

Elvis had a total of 102 singles, 30 EPs and 70 albums on the RCA label alone along with a few more singles on Sun and several albums on the economy label Pickwick during his lifetime, as well as many more releases of additional material after his death.

What made Elvis such a musical revolution was how he would change music forever. Bill Haley was generally considered to be the first rock music act, however Elvis invented a new style that borrowed heavily from both his Southern background, combining country music with black R&B sounds. It created a new hard driving sound that many others such as Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard soon adopted as a style as well. For all intents and purposes, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard all helped to found the new hard rock sound and laid down the foundation blocks of the new sound basis for newer generations of future hard rockers. The British blues rock group, Ten Years After, took their name from Elvis, meaning ten years after Elvis. Elvis made it cool for the new white rockers to use a heavy black R&B influenced sound in their music. While The Beatles did a little Chuck Berry in the early days, as did many other early British rockers, The Rolling Stones were always much more of a R&B influenced sound act. And some early acts such as The Animals had a very soulful sound thanks to the excellent talents of Eric Burden on vocals. Dusty Springfield was often called a white soul singer because of her style. One early song by Steppenwolf, "Sookie, Sookie" was played on some black radio stations for a few days until the programmers realized that this white blues influenced hard rock act was't black after all. Some white acts sounded just that soulful, mainly because of the influence of Elvis.

Elvis probably also greatly helped to advance the civil rights movement as well. He helped to break down the walls between white and black music. And he helped to make it cool to play black acts on stations that formerly played only white music. He broke down race barriers, along with musical ones. He might have had a lot of problems with declining health and heavy use of prescription drugs in his final years, but he was a religious and decent man much of his life. He even took time away from his career in music to serve in the military as well when Uncle Sam called. He was a true Southern gentleman much of his life. But sadly, both Elvis and Michael Jackson's health declines and ultimate deaths were similar in many ways. Both had doctors who heavily prescribed drugs. It was once said that Elvis needed drugs to get to bed, and to get out of bed. It was so tragic.

Elvis does leave us with his this great musical legacy. A true gift.

1001 Ways To Get Fired: Giving Out Racist Sales Receipts To Customers

You have to really hand it to guys who constantly find some new creative ways to lose their jobs, but an employee of an uptown New York City, Papa John's pizza restaurant, decided to give an Asian woman by the name of Minhee Cho a racist receipt with the name "Lady Chinky Eyes" written on the receipt. As expected she complained to the parent company which was certainly very angry at both the location manager and employee both. The employee was certainly fired.

Papa John's certainly doesn't condone outrageous behavior like this. This is the work of one lone idiot employee, who strangely must have evolved from burning crosses to burning pizzas instead.

Charles Addams Turns 100

The creative genius behind THE ADDAMS FAMILY, Charles Addams turns 100 today. He might have actually died in 1988 at the age of 76 from a sudden heart while parking his car, but his legacy of his bizarre characters seems to live on generations and seems timeless. He was a distant relative of two American presidents, John Adams and John Quincy Adams, although it's not really known where the second "d" in his name spelling comes from.

He was both artistically inclined and a little troubled as an youth, where the mansion that inspired THE ADDAMS FAMILY's own mansion was taken from a memory that he had of a burglary of a large and strange old home that he was arrested by police at. He seemed to always have some interest in crime, and by 1933 earned himself a job at TRUE DETECTIVE Magazine where his job was to artistically retouch murder victim's photos to remove gruesome wounds or blood for censorship reasons.

He also served stints as an animated filmmaker for military cartoons during WWII, but it was his long running series of ADDAMS FAMILY cartoons in THE NEW YORK TIMES that gave him a cult appeal among fans. By the 1960's he was approached by television producer David Levy for an idea for a weekly series based on the ADDAMS FAMILY characters. ABC added the series to their schedule in 1964, but the series only lasted for just two seasons. Incidentally, CBS TV's answer to THE ADDAMS FAMILY, THE MUNSTERS lasted, just two years as well. Neither show was a hit, but both shows developed a cult following during many years of syndication. THE ADDAMS FAMILY also inspired two really great feature length film as well, but the death of actor Raul Julia who played Gomez in the movies seemed to end hopes of a third film. But, in the television series, John Astin may have been the greatest incarnation of Gomez Addams ever. John Astin was great in this role.

Wherever you are Charles Addams, we love you. You brought us great characters and humor and made our lives wonderful with your dark and macabre sense of humor. You constructed a wild and wacky world of strangeness.

Exorcism & Washington Revolving Door Politics: Rick Santorum's Wacky 15 Minutes Of Fame

Some stories cross the lines of celebrity, business, scandal and politics. And since his spectacular rise in Iowa, former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum has earned new media attention. However, after his 2006 landslide loss by more than 700,000 votes for re-election failed in his native Pennsylvania, Santorum took on a job paying $400,000 helping to consult and manage a major HMO, Universal Health Services,where he did very little constructive to stop serious financial fraud, rape, patient neglect, suicide or even murder at this HMO under his watch according to the long list of problems at this employer that government regulators noted. Santorum worked there between 1997 and 2011 . There was even one outrageous incident where some hospital staffers performed an unwanted exorcism on a severely autistic boy, attempting to explain his problems on demon possession of all things. The problems were so bad at Universal that government regulators even banned children from the HMO for their own safety. Yet Santorum would have you believe that he's somehow a common sense competent manager, rather than just some incompetent religious screwball nut.

Using his pull as a former senator who knew how to milk the system, Universal Health Care hired Santorum who helped to pull in millions of dollars in federal grants and money for the troubled hospital giant. During the early months of his presidential campaign, his former employer, Universal, also became his second largest campaign contributor as well. All of this only illustrates the cesspool of revolving door politics that exist in Washington. Santorum was voted out of office once by voters, disgusted with him. Now he thinks he should return as president.

Rather than being a breath of fresh air, Rick Santorum's politics is just more of the same old rotten Washington revolving door stuff. A disgraced senator who was voted out of office by a landslide because he couldn't even keep his own job, let alone jobs in his home state of Pennsylvania, where steel mills and manufacturing closed down in droves, now claims to be the new economic Messiah that America needs. Not hardly.

The reality is that all he did since leaving office was to shovel millions of tax dollars to his HMO employer because he knows how to milk the system for all it's worth. And now that employer would like to put him in the White House because there are so many more millions of tax dollars he could yet shovel to them as president. All of this outrageous Washington revolving door politics he poorly conceals with a paper thin-veneer of Holy Joe religion to boot.

The only positive thing in all of this is that Rick Santorum is never, ever, ever, going to win the Republican nomination or even for that matter be elected president. When you're the worst like Rick Santorum the only direction is straight down. He had his 15 minutes of fame last week in Iowa. Why he surged there, when far better and more serious candidates didn't do better could probably best be blamed on Iowa's strong core of social conservative voters who are willing to support even the worst possible candidates only if they are opposed to gay marriage or abortion. Screw the other issues such as basic ethics or integrity. But, now it's time to move on to more serious candidates in other states where many voters take voting far more seriously than the type of jerks who would vote for someone like a Santorum..

Santorum is spelled much like Sanatorium for good reason.

DVD Review: COWBOYS & ALIENS

COWBOYS & ALIENS only finally recently made back it's huge $163 million in production costs after quickly becoming a Summer box office flop due to some lukewarm critical reviews. But, I can tell you this, this Steven Spielberg, Brian Grazer and Ron Howard production is much better than some critics have claimed. On one hand, you'd expect a little bit better from the likes of Steven Spielberg, Brian Glazer and Ron Howard. This film doesn't belong on the same shelf with excellent films like SCHINDLER'S LIST,SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, COCOON or APOLLO 13 by any means, but compared to most other films by other filmmakers, this is a very good movie.

Opening with a great theme song that strongly reminds you of a generic version of THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY, I was very excited. A great Western theme has me hooked every time. And tough guy actor Daniel Craig quickly picks up the ball as a typical Western tough guy who stole an alien weapon and becomes mankind's best shot at fighting off the alien invasion during the 1800's Western days.

Harrison Ford's role may be a little bit smaller here than expected here. He's far from INDIANA JONES here, but still this aging actor is a reasonable presence here. Harrison Ford plays a bad guy type here, but seems to gradually redeem himself. At one point he manages to create an alliance with a tribe of Indians to wage war on their common enemy, the aliens. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, they often say.

If I have any complaint, it's that the alien spaceships appear to vary in size, sometimes looking like small drones not even big enough for a pilot, let alone abducting humans, other times the alien space craft appear much larger. There appears to be a little continuity issues here. But, if you can overlook this flaw, and not laugh too hard, there is still more than enough of good story here to carry this odd mix of an alien-Western to enjoyable levels.

COWBOYS & ALIENS does combine some of the best of a good Western shtick, such as a great theme song, a mysterious stranger, a bad guy rancher type and other common elements along with the alien invasion theme. True, it creates an odd mix. Yet, the end result is good enough film that's more entertaining than some critics would have you believe.

The Bottom Line: Perhaps far away from the very best film ever to masthead the names of greats like Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard or Brian Grazer. Yet, these guys sure know how to spend enough money to make some good movies. ***(Three Stars, Good. But, just barely. But, good enough to be good entertainment. Buy it or rent it. You can't really go wrong with anything with Steven Spielberg's name written on it).