Brad Pitt Coming to 'Sherlock Holmes 2'

Posted By: Rob Shuter

What could make 'Sherlock Holmes' and all of its bare-chested (and perhaps not-so-straight) detective work even sexier? How about the addition of Brad Pitt in the sequel? Yep, you heard it here first: Papa Pitt is set to reunite with Guy Ritchie once things get underway on the 'Holmes' sequel. Details after the jump, along with info on Martin Sheen's broken heart and Spencer Pratt's wounded ego.

'Sherlock' Sequel Starring Brad Pitt

After 'Sherlock Holmes' managed to uncover more than $65 million in its opening weekend, 'Sherlock Holmes 2' is being planned with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law already committed. But the big surprise will be the addition of Brad Pitt as Professor Moriarty.

"The director, Guy Ritchie, loves Brad," an industry source tells me. "He has worked with him before and thinks he is one of the most underrated actors working today. Guy knows that everyone thinks of as a Pitt as a pretty boy and can't wait to turn him into the world's greatest supervillain. It will definitely make the sequel a must-see."

Pitt and Ritchie worked together on 2000's 'Snatch,' in which Pitt played a mumbling, can't-understand-a-word-he-says Irish gypsy fighter. He definitely wasn't a 'pretty boy' in it, and hopefully that's exactly what Ritchie can pull out of him again.

As for Brad, an insider tells me he's "very interested in taking on the role and happy they aren't considering his kick-ass partner Angelina for the part."

Charlie Disapoints Dad Again

Poor Martin Sheen. Friends tell me the acting legend is devastated by the recent accusations and arrest of son Charlie on Christmas Day.

The distraught father who famously issued a public appeal for fans to pray for his son and reported him for a violation of his parole in 1998, resulting in his own child's arrest, is said to not only to be worried about his son but also his twin grandchildren, Bob and Max, who were born in March 2009.

"Martin wants his son to get help and be happy. He thought his son's long history of drug and violence were a thing of the past when he married Brooke. The wedding was one of the happiest days of Martin's life. What's going on now is breaking his heart," someone close to Martin tells me.

Here's hoping for a new, happier beginning for Charlie, Brooke, Bob, Max and Papa Martin in 2010.

Spencer Pratt vs 'The Situation'

Sources tell me the self-loving Spencer Pratt (one-time PopEater hater but now our BFF) from MTV reality show 'The Hills' is livid with MTV over the recent success of its new show, 'Jersey Shore.'

"Spencer can feel the press moving away from him and on to the cast members of 'Jersey Shore.' He is desperate to keep his 15 minutes going. It's all he has and blames MTV for paying more attention to the new show than to his old show," laughs a TV executive.

Spencer, darling, I have been wanting to say this to you for a long, long time: "Bye, bye" ... But I can't talk now -- Al Rocker is on the other line.

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Original Post here : http://www.popeater.com/2009/12/29/brad-pitt-coming-to-sherlock-holmes-2/

Trades In Haiku: Milton Bradley Is Gone!

Finally, Milton Bradley is flying away from Wrigley Field

A Chanukah gift?
Perhaps it's a miracle
Milton Bradley's gone

Last week I posted my request for some Chanukah miracles, and now one has actually happened! Sort of. It's not much of a miracle when we pick up a crappy pitcher with his own huge contract. But the good news is, Milton Bradley is gone.

Now we've got Silva
One of baseball's worst pitchers
Who's owed lots of dough

Carlos Silva stinks it up at the World Baseball Classic - this picture was taken after he gave up 5 runs in the first inning pitching for Venezuela against Korea.

Al Yellon at Bleed Cubbie Blue, while trying to be hopeful that the trade will work out for the Cubs, calls Silva "one of the worst pitchers in baseball the last two years ... the Cubs won't get any decent production out of him." Plus, Silva's contract is even richer than Bradley's. Bradley is owed about $23 million for the last two years of his contract. Silva is owed about $25 million for the last two years of his.

But wait - there's some cash
The Cubs will get nine million
To help ease the pain

It's reported that the Mariners will give the Cubs about $9 million to take Silva off their hands, so that means we're about $7 million ahead on the deal. Maybe Ricketts can use those funds to find an outfielder.

I was one of those
Who wanted Milt to leave town
But this could be worse

My initial reaction was that this had to be good - the alleged "cancer" gone from the clubhouse. But as Justin Bridgman at Talking Chicago Baseball suggests, "Every single game Silva pitches is more or less a loss, and if one more Cubs pitcher gets injured Silva, Tom Gorzelanny, and Jeff Samardzija will be the majority of our starting rotation. Bad, bad, bad."

So this much is clear
Even with Carlos Silva
We need more pitching

At this point, I'm going to remain optimistic. I'm going to hope that Jim Hendry makes some decent moves during the rest of the off-season. Of course, if we remember back to last winter there is no good reason for holding out such hope. But for Cubs fans, forgetting the past is necessary if we are to avoid going crazy.

A short memory
Is something all Cubs fans need
Just to remain sane

So let's stay patient
For no good reason at all
Except, we're Cubs fans

Posted By: Ed Nickow
Original Post : http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/chicago-sports-in-haiku/2009/12/trades-in-haiku-milton-bradley-is-gone.html

Quantum mechanical version of Borromean Rings finally proved Read more: http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/sci-tech/quantum-mechanical-version-of-bo

Houston, Dec 16 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Physicist Vitaly Efimov’s theory has finally been proved after almost 40 years. Efimov had predicted a quantum-mechanical version of Borromean rings, a symbol that first showed up in Afghan Buddhist art from around the second century. The symbol depicts three rings linked together and if any ring were removed, then they would all be undone.

Efimov had theorized an analog to the rings using particles: Three particles (such as atoms or protons or even quarks) could be bound together in a stable state, even though any two of them could not bind without the third. The physicist first proposed the idea, based on a mathematical proof, in 1970. Since then, people have tried their best to prove this theory but they didn’t succeed for almost 4 decades.

But now physicists at the Rice University have used atoms at temperatures colder than deep space. And they have delivered concrete proof for a once-ridiculed-at theory that’s become a hotbed for research some 40 years after it first appeared in 1970. In a paper available online in Science Express, Rice’s team offers experimental evidence for a universal quantum mechanism that allows trios of particles to appear and reappear at higher energy levels in an infinite progression. The triplets, often called trimers, form in special cases where pairs cannot.

“It’s such a remarkable phenomena,” said team leader Randy Hulet. “There are examples, like the Borromean rings, where having a third component is crucial. Any two of the rings will unbind if the third is removed, and these trimers are similar. The particles want to bind, but no two can do it. They need the third one to make it happen.”

Read more: http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/sci-tech/quantum-mechanical-version-of-borromean-rings-finally-proved_100290497.html#ixzz0Zr2iACTb

Posted by: Aishwarya Bhatt
Original post : http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/sci-tech/quantum-mechanical-version-of-borromean-rings-finally-proved_100290497.html

The Truth About Climate Change And East Anglia

The controversy surrounding the stolen emails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit continues to swirl, but it's important to see the issue within the context in which scientific discovery occurs. That process underscores the importance of collective knowledge, more than single discoveries, and the role of the Scientific Method in continually challenging orthodoxy.

Last week Professor Phil Jones, director of the Unit, stepped down from his position at the research facility pending the outcome of an independent investigation into charges that data about global warming had been manipulated. Earlier this week one of the world's leading authorities on climate change dismissed the controversial emails as simply colleagues "letting off steam" and re-affirmed his confidence in the Unit's research.

Rajendra Pachauri, the Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), went on to tell CNN that there was simply no way that any manipulated data from the Unit could have made it into the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, the most authoritative report on climate change. "There are so many checks and balances in the processes and procedures that we follow at the IPCC, there is not one iota of possibility that something like this would happen."

Despite the obvious embarrassment and turmoil caused by the emails, the scientific process is not dependent on any one set of research data. Even as Professor Jones stands by his data, the scientific process is structured to challenge new discoveries.

Articles are peer-reviewed before they're published in scientific journals. Checks and balances are commonplace, and a wide range of evidence and scholarly sources are relied upon. As Professor Jones told the Guardian:

"That the world is warming is based on a range of sources: not only temperature records but other indicators such as sea-level rise, glacier retreat and less Arctic sea ice. Our global temperature series tallies with those of other, completely independent, groups of scientists working for NASA and the National Climate Data Centre in the United States, among others. Even if you were to ignore our findings, theirs show the same results."

Moreover, the most convincing argument for anthropogenic influence in global climate change is based on hard physics, i.e. carbon dioxide does absorb long-wave radiation in the lab and in the atmosphere, and warmed air does allow evaporation of water to put more water vapor into the atmosphere, which is also a greenhouse gas that in turn substantially expands the initial warming that CO2 provides.

Global climate change is real. There's no getting around that fact. The earth's atmosphere today contains roughly three times the carbon dioxide (CO2) than it did at the start of the Industrial Revolution about 250 years ago. Here are some additional, irrefutable facts:

• The East Antarctic ice sheet was reasonably stable, but a satellite survey shows that it is losing around 57 billion tons of ice a year;
• Bristlecone pines have grown faster in the past 50 years than at any time in the last 3.7 millennia - an effect of climate change;
• The Greenland ice sheet is losing its mass faster than in previous years and making an increasing contribution to sea level rise;
• The last time CO2 levels in earth's atmosphere were this high was 15 million years ago.

Outside the realm of pure mathematics, all "facts" are approximations, but scientifically verified facts are painstakingly arrived at through the Scientific Method. At its most basic, this method involves: seeing and measuring things, developing ideas and drawing implications about those things, and then rigorously testing those ideas and implications.

Employing the Scientific Method to explain the natural world is a precise and demanding job, and there's no better way. It is becoming even more demanding every year, as the relatively "simple" problems of the past are solved, allowing us to face ever more complex challenges.

With climate research we now understand a lot about the mechanisms of everyday weather - high and low pressure zones, cold fronts, el niños and the like. But there is so much that we still don't understand about the exponentially more difficult problem of predicting how earth's entire climate will behave over time.

Complex science problems like this require teams of researchers. Mathematicians, computer scientists, physicists, climatologists, biologists, chemists and researchers from many other disciplines increasingly are drawn together and must learn to communicate, commiserate and debate across their traditional boundaries. This process was clearly going on with the East Anglia unit, as they attempted to reconcile various data sets, which is a very legitimate process.

In earlier times, these messy scientific conversations would have taken place down at the local pub, and the resulting cocktail-napkin doodles would have been tossed in the trash. Today we wrestle with the increasingly difficult task of getting an accurate intellectual fix on the most complex properties of nature, while electronic communications both increase the ease of interaction and intellectual dialogue and preserve a record for later release by hackers at politically expedient moments.

But in the end the Scientific Method wins out. Even if there had been actual intent to defraud in the East Anglia affair, it would have been uncovered quickly by rival scientists. Given the broad outlines of the climate problem we face, and the fact that our current understanding is formed from many independent and tested sources, using the East Anglia incident to indict all climate-change research amounts to little more than a propaganda ploy.

Original post here

James M. Gentile, Ph.D., is president and CEO of Research Corporation for Science Advancement, America's second-oldest foundation (www.rescorp.org.).

Health Care Reform on Life Support

Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Fox News

Dick Morris

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," December 7, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: President Barack Obama took a break from his normal weekend golf routine on Saturday to attend a rare meeting with Senate Democrats on Capitol Hill, but it appears the closed door pep rally was not enough to win over members of his own party on the issue of federal funding for abortion.

And that brings us to our headline tonight, "Life Support." Now in a move that has outraged his fellow Democrats, Ben Nelson has filed an amendment to the Senate health care bill that would prohibit taxpayer dollars from funding abortions.

Now Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey and eight Republicans co-sponsored the measure which was modeled after the Stupak Amendment in the House. Now a vote on this proposal could take place as early as tomorrow.

Democrats claim that they will be able to defeat the anti-abortion amendment but doing so could reportedly cost them Ben Nelson's vote on the final legislation. You talk about a meltdown.

Joining us now is the author of The New York Times bestseller "Catastrophe", a great Christmas gift, by the way, Fox News contributor, the one and only, Dick Morris.

Dick, good to see you. Could abortion be what kills this?

DICK MORRIS, "CATASTROPHE" AUTHOR: Well, eventually, yes. Not right now. The Democrats are going to somehow or other pass this in the Senate. The problem is, the goal is to make them pass a bill that can't pass the House. And then to get the constituency so inflamed over it the compromise becomes impossible.

• Video: Watch Sean's interview

HANNITY: Yes.

MORRIS: And that's the context of this vote tomorrow. Because if the anti-abortion constituencies go completely berserk over this bill because the Stupak Amendment fails in the Senate, then you really have a chance that some of these conservatives might have a hard time supporting it.
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Look, this bill will be defeated, in my judgment, if it is in the conference committee where the liberals will be unable to give up on things like public option, the conservatives will not give up on things like abortion.

HANNITY: Wait a second. Stop one second. Why do you think in conference? Blanche Lincoln is going to go for this. Ben Nelson is going to go for this. Mary Landrieu is going to go for this, you know, all the — Evan Bayh will go for this?

MORRIS: We have a good chance at each of those votes . What is most likely going to happen is that Reid will give them anything they want in the Senate bill, give them anything, because he knows he'll gut it in conference.

HANNITY: A few hundred million dollars?

MORRIS: Not money, that he 's already tried.

HANNITY: Yes.

MORRIS: I'm talking about changing the provisions, no public option, a trigger, all kinds of stuff to make it good for them. Knowing that he'll gut that stuff in the conference committee. But if Reid passes a bill in the Senate that can't pass the House, all that's happening is Obama is postponing the day of reckoning.

And while he's doing that, the sand is running out on this thing. We have an add-up on my site, DickMorris.com, where we have Katie talking to Obamacare and Katie is a kid in her 20s and she says, what's this about $1,000 fine if I can't — if I don't have health insurance? And he says, well, it's good for you, it will teach you responsibility.

And then she says, and what about 12 percent of my income I have to pay? And the guy says, shared sacrifice. And then Katie says, and what's this jail stuff? And the guy says, consider it tough love.

Now that ad eroded about 30 points of under 30 vote support in the three states we've run it.

HANNITY: Pretty amazing.

MORRIS: You have the young people running out on this bill in droves.

HANNITY: And so are the old people because Medicare.

MORRIS: Old people have been against it from the summer.

HANNITY: Almost from the get-go. All right, let me ask you, there are some conservatives that are really unhappy with the way the Republicans are managing this bill in the Senate. The headline, our friend, Eric Erickson at Red State, you know, Senate Republicans fiddle while America burns.

In other words, they feel like by going through this amendment process and not just outright opposing this thing, that they're making a strategic error, you agree with that?

MORRIS: No. No. I think it was very important to put Nelson of Florida, Florida, on the record voting against eliminating the Medicare cuts.

HANNITY: Yes.

MORRIS: When the senator from Florida votes for $500 billion of Medicare cuts, you know that he's signing his own death warrant. And if there was a general bill, he could say oh, I opposed that provision. But when McCain said, OK, Nelson, are you for this or against it? And the senator from Florida endorses half a trillion of cuts in Medicare.

HANNITY: Smart move.

MORRIS: Yes.

HANNITY: All right. Now we're going to get into it in a second and Karl Rove is going to join us, and we're going to talk about Harry Reid compares Obamacare critics to slavery, although I'll save that for Karl. But now we've got this Copenhagen issue. Now in light of this big massive Climate Gate fraud and all these e-mails that evolved, you know, even with all of that — you've got all the world socialists and globalists meeting in Copenhagen.

Here's the question, are all the conspiracy theorists that were are saying they want a one-world government and they want to tax a rich country like America, does it turn out that they're right?

MORRIS: Yes, you know, I mean I'm waiting for the black helicopters. I mean.

HANNITY: But you're saying they're right?

MORRIS: No, there's substance to it. Let me give you a statistic that I just unearthed that's dangerous to talk to me when my wife and I are writing a new book but I'm researching it. Everybody said the Kyoto accords, 1991 or 1993, were an impossible target to set, we could never reach them.

Well, under Kyoto, the United States has to lower its carbon emissions from 6,000 to 4,700. You know where they're at now? 5,400. We're halfway to meeting the Kyoto without — no government, free market, no taxes, no cap-and-trade, and that's the worst news the environmentalists have ever had because they want to use this as an excuse to regulate, and here with the free market, we're about to reach the goals.

HANNITY: Let me ask you a question about Democratic corruption. Like for example, we have Max Baucus over the weekend, you know — by the way, folks, he nominated his girlfriend to be a U.S. attorney in his home state. Of course only on the merits.

MORRIS: Yes, right.

HANNITY: That's what he says. But there's been a lot of Democratic corruption. Corruption hurt the Republicans in 2006.

MORRIS: Yes.

HANNITY: A lot of people would point at the Mark Foley scandal and say, you know, that was a defining moment.

MORRIS: Yes.

HANNITY: You know, one congressman with $100,000 in his freezer, and we can go through the whole list of Democrats, we've discussed all of them.

MORRIS: Yes.

HANNITY: Is corruption for the Democratic Party — when you look at their low poll numbers, generic ballot, right track, wrong track — has the Democratic Party lost their moral base?

MORRIS: Oh yes, I think they're well in the process of doing it. And it relates, also, to the difference in the way these things are punished. Wolfowitz, the president's nominee to head the World Bank was forced to resign because he recommended his girlfriend for a job in the State Department.

Baucus recommends his girlfriend for a U.S. attorney position and nothing happens. Who is the head of the Ways and Means Committee now? Charlie Rangel. He's writing our tax code. He forgot to declare a house in the Caribbean. It slipped his mind that he had four apartments. And he's only allowed to have one under the rent law.

HANNITY: Dick.

MORRIS: All slipped his mind. He's writing our tax code. So that you have these guys who never get punished. Chris Dodd is carrying the health care bill, one free house too many.

HANNITY: A friend of Angelo. By the way, he's got houses, we're talking about here and in Ireland.

MORRIS: For which he doesn't pay for. He has.

HANNITY: That was a good deal.

MORRIS: The person — we said in "Catastrophe" the guy who paid for the house in Ireland got $57 million in stimulus money.

HANNITY: Unbelievable. You really think that you can get to 10 — I'll ask Karl Rove about this. You think that 10 senators can lose?

MORRIS: Yes.

HANNITY: Democratic senators.

MORRIS: I think you have low-hanging fruit, Dodd, Specter, Burris, Colorado, Arkansas, and Nevada. And Delaware. Seven low-hanging fruit.

HANNITY: Then you got California.

MORRIS: Then you have Gillibrand who is vulnerable, there just needs to be an opponent. Dorgan who is vulnerable. Just have to get Hoeven to run for that they could walk into the Senate. And then you have Boxer, Murray and Widen out on the coast. And the possibility that Lou Dobbs who used to work for some TV station.

HANNITY: New Jersey.

MORRIS: . might run against Menendez.

HANNITY: Can Dobbs win?

MORRIS: Well, for the first time I'm backing him for a higher ratings.

(LAUGHTER)

HANNITY: I'm going to tell him you said that. All right, Dick Morris, appreciate you being here.

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Tiger Woods Overdose? Is Tiger Woods Addicted To Prescription Drugs?

As allegations of serial infidelity continue to mount, there are now questions about Tiger Woods’ possible addiction to painkillers and other prescription drugs. What role did controlled substances play in the golfer’s Nov. 27 car crash? Did the world’s most prolific golfer suffer an overdose?

While TMZ.com claims Tiger may have been high after a possible overdose of Vicodin and Ambien when he slammed his Cadillac Escalade into a tree and hydrant, last month, Gerald Posner — Chief Investigative Reporter for The Daily Beast.com –tells Access Hollywood that reports of Tiger’s addiction to pills and sleeping agents have floating around for ages and the Florida Highway Patrol should have done a better job of investigating the sportsman’s suspicious accident.

“The Florida Highway Patrol didn’t do their job. They didn’t give him a breathalyzer, a urine test or blood test so no test that night on Tiger Woods to see if in fact he was on any type of medication that he shouldn’t have been on,” Posner said in an interview with the newsmagazine on Monday.

Tiger has a history of knee problems going back to his childhood. He has had four surgeries, including knee reconstruction after the 2008 U.S. Open. Posner suggest Tiger may have become dependent on prescriptions around that time:

“One doctor felt concerned enough to raise the question with him of whether he was using painkiller medications and also sleeping agents at too fast of a rate and whether he might become addicted,” Posner claims. “He plays through U.S. open… He grimaces at times on different holes, 91 holes. He wins, it becomes a legendary victory,” he added. “But there’s little doubt that he could not have gone through that Open without some type of prescription pain help.”