Omdat de Amerikanen al zo weinig cultuur hebben, koesteren ze dat kleine beetje dat ze bezitten als geen ander. Daaruit is nu de Lincoln Log ontstaan. Een weblog zoals de voormalige president Lincoln hem zou bijhouden wanneer er in zijn tijd internet was geweest. Van dag tot dag.

http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/lincoln/

Step Aside, L.A. and Bombay, for Nollywood

LAGOS, Nigeria

As the sun rises over West Africa's new moviemaking capital, the Surulere district of Lagos, the cast and crew of "Blackmailed" form a four-car convoy to leave for their first day of shooting.

Since the late 1990's, Nigerian movies have found a place next to offerings from Hollywood and Bollywood, Bombay's equivalent, in the cities, towns and villages across English-speaking Africa. Though made on the cheap, with budgets of about only $15,000, the Nigerian movies have become huge hits, with stories, themes and faces familiar to other Africans. It is now, according to conservative estimates, a $45 million a year industry.

According to estimates provided by producers and financial backers, the Nigerian movie industry now produces more than 400 movies a year. At that rate, the producers bring in an estimated $45 million a year; but other people, at movie centers, and bootleggers, also capitalize from the movies.

--More candidates came in. More waited outside. An hour passed. The director lost none of his effusiveness.
"I've found some good candidates," he said later. "I like the dwarf very much. I'll place him in the governor's office. He'll just stand there, without speaking. People will wonder who is this mysterious figure."--

Massaal bezoek

De zeventienjarige Canadese scholier Mike Rowe heeft zich de woede van Microsoft op de hals gehaald. De reden: de site MikeRoweSoft.com

http://www.mikerowesoft.com

"Wow, this is amazing. My site this morning went down because of the massive amounts of visitors coming to my site. 250000 to be exact. My host couldn't handle the bandwidth so he was forced to shut it it down. I pleaded my case on a couple message boards and Deafening-urge.net came through for me with a great offer to host my site. Many thanks to him.

I have been all around the world and back, I never expected this type of feedback. I have put up a defence fund so that I can hire a lawyer to guide me through the process of talking to Microsoft. I have already received a lot of pledges and I think each and every one of you for that.

I could never think this could happen, even in my wildest dreams."

The Stella Liebeck Awards

It's once again time to review the winners of the annual Stella awards.
The Stella's are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonalds. That case inspired the Stella Awards for the most frivolous successful lawsuits in the United States.

Unfortunately the most recent lawsuit implicating McDonalds, the teens who allege that eating at McDonalds has made them fat, was filed after the 2002 award voting was closed.
This suit will top the 2003 awards list without question.

5th place (Tied)
Kathleen Robertson of Austin Texas was awarded $780,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving toddler was Ms. Robertson's Son.

5th place (Tied)
19-year-old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Mr. Truman apparently did not notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal the hubcaps.

5th place (Tied)
Terrence Dickson of Bristol Pennsylvania was leaving a house he had just finished robbing by way of the garage door. He was not able to get the garage door to go up since the automatic door opener was malfunctioning. He could not reenter the house because the door connecting the house and garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family was on vacation and Mr.Dickson found himself locked in the garage for 8 days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found and a large bag of dry dog food. He sued the homeowner's insurance claiming the situation caused him undue mental anguish.
The Jury agreed to the tune of $500,000.

4th Place
Jerry Williams of Little Rock Arkansas was awarded $14,500 and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door neighbor's Beagle dog. The Beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. The award was less than sought because the jury felt the dog might have been a little provoked at the time as Mr. Williams, who had climbed over the fence into the yard, was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.

3rd place
A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster Pennsylvania $113,500 after she slipped on a soft drink and broke her coccyx (tailbone). The beverage was on the floor because Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.

2nd Place
Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware sued the owner of a nightclub in a neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out two of her front teeth. This occurred whilst Ms. Walton was trying to crawl in through the window of the Ladies Room to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 and dental expenses.

1st Place
This year's runaway winner was Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mr. Grazinski purchased a new Winnebago motorhome. On his trip home from an OU football game, having driven onto the freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat to go into the back and make himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly, the RV left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr.Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the owner's manual that he could not actually do this.

The jury awarded him $1,750,000 plus a new Winnebago Motor Home. The company actually changed their manuals on the basis of this suit just in case there were any other complete morons buying their recreation vehicles.