Tragedy at Fort Hood

Full coverage on our front page at Military.com.

Absolute Proof That the Cold War is Really Over

Here's something from the "Stuff Your Grandparents Would Never Believe" File: The Moscow Ballet is offering free admission for children of U.S. military personnel to their 2009 Great Russian Nutcracker touras part of a "Buy One, Get One Free" admission for all active, reserve and retired men and women. 

Details are listed in the full press release below:

Military Kids Free to the Great Russian Nutcracker! 

A Holiday Gift From the Moscow Ballet

(PITTSFIELD, MA) – In honor of Veterans Day and the commencement of the 2009 Great Russian Nutcracker Tour, Moscow Ballet is proud to announce an incredible gift for military personnel. While supplies last, Great Russian Nutcracker tickets will be distributed for free to kids from military families with love from the producers, employees and dancers at the Moscow Ballet. 

All active, reserve and retired men and women will enjoy a ‘Buy One, Get One Free’ ticket deal for the November and December performances of the Great Russian Nutcracker. To qualify, individuals must bring a copy of their military ID, kids must be under the age of 18 and discounts can be redeemed at the venue’s box office. 

With the holiday season approaching, Moscow Ballet is excited to extend their hand of gratitude to those who presently serve and previously served to protect the life, liberty and love of our country. Akiva and Mary Talmi, the producers of the Great Russian Nutcracker, have come together with the entire Moscow Ballet family in welcoming this generous offer. 

“The Great Russian Nutcracker story takes place in the land of Peace and Harmony. In the performance itself, the classical story conveys the character’s desire for tranquility among mankind. The armed forces of the United States share the same aspiration for our country and we couldn’t be more grateful,” Akiva Talmi explains. 

Acclaimed for beautiful dancing and elegant costumes, critics rave that Anatoli Emelianov’s Great Russian Nutcracker is “flawless,” “breathtaking” and “dazzling.” With exquisite classical ballet dancing, beautiful handcrafted backdrops and world-renowned life sized puppets, this holiday classic is sure to mesmerize and captivate audiences. 

 The Moscow Ballet is looking forward to seeing you at the show and spreading holiday cheer to audiences in 70 different markets and over 100 performances! For more information and a full list of tour dates, please visit: http://www.nutcracker.com.

*Offer applies to all United States Great Russian Nutcracker performance cities excluding: Cedar City, UT; Easton, PA; Leavenworth, KS; La Miranda, CA; Nacogdoches, TX; Phoenix, AZ; Sheboygan, WI; Springfield, MA; and Stephensville, TX.

DirecTV Sees Dead People

New DirecTV commercials featuring the late Chris Farley have generated complaints from fans who think the ads are in bad taste. Just wait until those folks see these alleged new spots. (via Gizmodo)

Redskins Owner Dan Snyder Doesn't Want You to Support the Troops in His Stadium

Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder has a fundamental misunderstanding of how people like to have a good time. His incompetence has already driven Six Flags into bankruptcy and now he's trying to ruin the game day experience for 'Skins fans at FedEx Field. 

Stadium security is now confiscating all cardboard signs at the gate to "protect spectators from getting injured by signs, and also to make sure that everyone can see the action."

Signs are permitted at the hundreds of other other high school, college and NFL game played every single week and I can't find reports of a single incident where someone was assaulted with or accidentally injured by a cardboard sign.

Of course, the ban could be related to Snyder's notoriously thin skin and the open criticism coming from loyal fans about his horrible, horrible team. D.C. Sports Blog has a nice selection of confiscated signs from last week's game.

Free advice for Dan: start Colt Brennan at quarterback for the rest of the season and let the signs back in. Things can't really be any worse and the kid would at least make things interesting.

Will Tim Donaghy's Book Bring Down the NBA?

Smart gamblers stay away from basketball because they know the games are the most easily fixed. 

There are only ten players on the court, so it's easier for one or two guys to change the outcome of a game. Since the games move at such a quick pace with fewer breaks in the action than football or baseball, the refs can have an enormous influence on outcomes by calling (or not calling) fouls.

Disgraced NBA ref Tim Donaghy, convicted of giving insider tips on NBA games to professional gamblers, used his fifteen-month prison stay to pen Blowing the Whistle: The Culture of Fraud in the NBA, an exposé of not-so-honorable tactics used by both refs and the NBA league office.

Once Random House announced a release date for Donaghy's book, the NBA's lawyers went into overdrive and intimidated the publisher into canceling the book.

Deadspin obtained an advance copy of Blowing the Whistle and has published excerpts that include allegations about referee gambling, personal prejudices of individual officials in favor or or against certain players or teams and orders from the league office that certain players shouldn't be touched.

"If Kobe Bryant had two fouls in the first or second quarter and went to the bench, one referee would tell the other two, "Kobe's got two fouls. Let's make sure that if we call a foul on him, it's an obvious foul, because otherwise he's gonna go back to the bench. If he is involved in a play where a foul is called, give the foul to another player."

ESPN reports that the NBA has now responded to the Deadspin post, promising to look into the allegations in a book the league didn't read before they shut it down.

Microsoft Does Know Something About Bloated

In Japan, you can enjoy a special Windows 7 Whopper, featuring seven meat patties on the same sandwich. Explain this, Microsoft: when you launch a new operating system that's supposed to correct the oversized mess of Windows Vista, why connect it to a sandwich that's guaranteed to make people feel sick?

Because "Inside the NBA" is Usually More Interesting Than the Actual Games

Let's hope everyone in the basketball world ignores Charles Barkley's new ambition to be General Manager of an NBA franchise, because he has the perfect job at TNT, at least until he's eligible to be Governor of Alabama in 2014.

Should the NRA Offer Its Support to Lil Wayne?

MTV reports that rapper Lil' Wayne pleaded guilty to a 2007 weapons possession charge resulting from a New York City traffic stop. 

NYC cops pulled over Wayne's bus in Columbus Circle and discovered a .40-caliber semi-automatic weapon hidden in a Louis Vuitton bag. Prosecutors tied the gun to Weezy through DNA testing.

Wayne's detractors will focus on his songs about his love of the sizzurp and the sizzurp-related drug charges he's facing from a 2008 MLK-day traffic stop in Arizona. 

Supporters will point to T.I., an Atlanta rapper who got busted after buying guns from undercover FBI agents. Now serving time after also pleading guilty, T.I. was looking to up his personal protection firepower after his best friend was killed after an Ohio concert and police failed to make an arrest or identify a suspect.

Here's the situation spelled out for the NRA: Lil' Wayne is an American citizen with no prior convictions, dinged on an "attempted weapons possession" charge that will result in jail time and negatively impact his ability to travel outside the U.S. for work once he's released.

Moreover, that arrest came after a questionable traffic stop in New York City, a city that's aggressively trying to interfere with gun ownership both in and outside of its jurisdiction.

Wayne's not the most attractive poster boy for gun rights in America, but it's the hard cases where you really prove the power of your convictions. Are you in or out?

Let's Blame CNN for the Real Balloon Boy Hoax

Without the overwhelming media firepower that CNN brought to his cause, Colorado nut case Richard Heene would have been just another guy in a tinfoil hat who believes our government is controlled by the Lizard People. 

Because his family's first call was to a local TV station that owned a helicopter, Heene's claims that his son Falcon had been carried away should have just made the local news and been one of those filler pieces where the anchors laugh that the "kid was hiding in the attic the WHOLE TIME!"

Instead, the national cable news network (with an assist from Fox News and MSNBC, loathe to be left behind on some ratings gold) blew up the story and wasted everyone's time last Thursday. 

No one wondered if a guy on put his family on a reality show called Wife Swap might have overwhelming desire to get himself back on television. CNN saw the pretty video and a chance to create the kind of manufactured drama that we usually see on Survivor or The Amazing Race.

Granted, everyone might have needed a break from cable news' endless bickering about the politics (not the substance) of the health care debate and the war in Afghanistan. If the kid's broken body had been in the balloon when it crashed last Thursday, who needed to see that live?

You really have to feel bad for the Heene's neighbors. The video below is a confrontation between a neighbor and the news crews blocking the streets and camped out in front of the Heene home. 

The sense of "journalistic" entitlement from the news crews is really the most shocking thing here. They get punked by a crazy man who tricks the news channels into giving him hours of airtime and they're not even a little embarrassed?

Seriously?

Boom Goes the Dynamite for Barack Obama

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
War of Peace - Shashi Tharoor
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Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Michael Moore

Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert is outraged by President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. "That's like giving an employee a gold watch for completing his W-2."