Marvel shareholders approve Disney merger
Yay! (we are DIS shareholders. See our previous post on the merger here)
The deal will give Disney Marvel’s more than 5,000 characters and its licensing, comic book and movie business. Disney’s paying $4.3 billion dollars for the company, a price that’s risen along with Disney’s stock price since the deal was announced in August; stockholders receive $30 per share in cash plus .745 Disney shares for each Marvel share.Now we’ll be watching to see which Marvel Characters Disney pulls out and puts in the spotlight and when the comic book characters will start showing up in the theme parks. One place Marvel’s characters are sure to show up fairly soon is Disney XD, a new successful cable channel targeting boys.
The deal ties Disney to rival media giants, as Marvel is committed to deals with other media companies. Marvel and Sony Pictures Entertainment are in a joint venture for Spider-Man merchandise, and Sony is making Spider-Man 4, due out in 2011. Marvel also has a distribution deal with Paramount Pictures for its next five films, including “Iron Man 2,” (expected to be the biggest film next year) and “Thor” .. . And Marvel characters are licensed to Universal Orlando’s theme parks, which are owned by Blackstone and GE’s NBC Universal….
Jamie Dimon fights back against UK Banker Bonus Tax
Jamie was one of our picks for Treasury Secretary to replace the tax challenged Timmeh (see our March post). Plus since we are shoveling money into, and making all our policy based on, protecting the banks, why not have someone with actual private sector banking experience?! Plus Jamie is actually, you know, SUCCESSFUL!
Jamie talks reality to Alistair Darling. JPMChase is about to enter a ginormous HQ on Canary Wharf in London. Maybe the ingenius Banker Bonus Tax that Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling have floated is NOT the best way to keep London as the European center of trading….
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Teh Funny! ‘Avatar: The Making of the Bootleg’
h/t SciFiWire
“This is the movie that I’ve been dreaming about pirating since I was 14 years old,” says director Tim Carson.
Free Love Forum takes you behind the scenes of the revolutionary new bootleg of the revolutionary new movie.
Starring Jeremy Beiler, Paul Dorfman and Anne Johnson
Written & Directed by Gabe Gronli
Special Thanks to Aaron Cohen and Nick Vasile
Gallup: Hillary ‘most admired woman’ in America
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton stands among Navy personnel at the start of the commissioning ceremony for the USS New York which takes place on the Intrepid Museum on November 7, 2009 in New York City. The amphibious transport dock ship is made in part of 7.5 tons of reforged steel from the wreckage of the World Trade Center. UPI Photo/Monika Graff
Yay Hill. PS CIA was called in by State (who does NOT do intelligence BTW) and personally interviewed the terrorists father. Any failure is not State’s ‘fault’. It is an intelligence failure.
Sarah came in as Most Admired Woman too (second)!! two of my fave ladies 🙂 Back to the good news for HRC:
Politico has it, this is the fourth poll in two months that consistently shows Hill’s approval high and rising, she has shed the ‘polarizing’ label Team Obama and the lamestream media attached to her in 07-08. She has done this by working working working. Like she did in the Senate, she is doing it as SoS. I wish to Gawd she were POTUS.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is the most admired woman in America, barely edging out former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, according to a Gallup poll out Wednesday.
When Gallup asked 1,025 adults nationwide to name the woman they admire most, 16 percent picked Clinton.
…Clinton has been named most admired woman 14 times by the poll, going back to her time as first lady. Only former First Lady Laura Bush in 2001 and Mother Teresa in 1995 and 1996 have been able to knock Clinton from her perch, though Palin came close….
Twofer Tuesday – Karate Kid
Warner Music will not allow the original music video to be posted, frakkers@! lol!!
Courtesy of wildcat138
Courtesy of star42nite
Castle 2.12 ‘A Rose for Everafter’ guest starring Alyssa Milano airs Jan 11th…
When Castle and Beckett are called to a wedding to investigate the death of a bridesmaid, Castle is stunned to discover that the soon-to-be bride is his old flame, Kyra, “the one that got away” (guest starring Alyssa Milano). Complications ensue as Kyra, caught off-guard by Castle’s reappearance in her life, wonders if she’s marrying the right guy. With the nuptials forestalled and the entire wedding party under suspicion, Beckett questions Castle’s ability to be objective about the case. But when it looks to Beckett like Castle and Kyra might rekindle their romance, her judgment may be compromised as well.
The novel based on the TV series now 42% off at Amazon:
A New York real estate tycoon plunges to his death on a Manhattan sidewalk. A trophy wife with a past survives a narrow escape from a brazen attack. Mobsters and moguls with no shortage of reasons to kill trot out their alibis. And then, in the suffocating grip of a record heat wave, comes another shocking murder and a sharp turn in a tense journey into the dirty little secrets of the wealthy. Secrets that prove to be fatal. Secrets that lay hidden in the dark until one NYPD detective shines a light.
Mystery sensation Richard Castle, blockbuster author of the wildly best-selling Derrick Storm novels, introduces his newest character, NYPD Homicide Detective Nikki Heat. Tough, sexy, professional, Nikki Heat carries a passion for justice as she leads one of New York City’s top homicide squads. She’s hit with an unexpected challenge when the commissioner assigns superstar magazine journalist Jameson Rook to ride along with her to research an article on New York’s Finest. PulitzerPrize-winning Rook is as much a handful as he is handsome. His wise-cracking and meddling aren’t her only problems. As she works to unravel the secrets of the murdered real estate tycoon, she must also confront the spark between them. The one called heat.
BSC reviewed the novel here, (I ordered it but have not read it yet):
Heat Wave is a media tie-in to ABC’s Castle, which stars Nathan Fillion as mystery writer Rick Castle, who is following around Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic)—his inspiration for the character Nicki Heat. It is not a written version of the show but rather the book that Castle wrote after the first 12 cases he worked with Beckett (AKA, Season 1). I have never read something like this tie-in before; hell, I’m not sure I’ve even seen something like it before, and I find it fascinating that ABC saw something in the show’s demographic that caused them to produce this novel. It is a perfect complement to the show: every detail that is references on screen is reproduced on the pages, from the dedication to the sex scene being on page 104 to the hilarious photo of Fillion as Castle on the back…..(go read the whole thing!)
Doctor Who – The End of Time – Scene from Part 2
spoilers! Part 1 airs in the US tomorrow!!!
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Moderate in the Middle 