Avatar is set to return to IMAX for a two-week re-run starting August 27, 2010 (with eight whole minutes of additional footage!)
Avatar:
back in theaters August 27th. While I won’t call it the most intellectually challenging movie of all time, I enjoyed Avatar the way I do a good rollercoaster, and I’m looking forward to one last ride. Moreso, I’m looking forward to laying eyes on those hot aliens again. A combination of super models and cats, James Cameron gives us the most irresistible combo since peanut butter cups.

He wasn’t the first one with that idea, though. In fact, the Na’vi are just the latest in a long line of cat-themed sexys:

1942 A movie about a Serbian-born fashion designer who transforms into a black panther. Prrrrrr.
1966 Adam West’s Batman gets a new adversary: a sexy woman who dresses like a cat, ties him up, and flirts with him.
1970 Hanna-Barbera brings the comic book characters Josie and the Pussycats to life on Saturday mornings, giving many young boys new, unfamiliar stirrings.
1974 Marvel introduces Tigra, designed to have ‘special appeal to girls.’ Yeah, okay. Them, too.
1982 Nastassja Kinski remakes Cat People, adding much-needed nudity.
1987 Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman bump the fur in a TV version of Beauty and the Beast.
1989 William Shatner’s poorly-conceived Star Trek movie introduced this unlikely creature: the tri-breasted cat-woman from Nimbus III. (wish I were kidding)
2009 Teenagers around the globe touch themselves to the digitally-created, perfect figure of Neytiri in James Cameron’s Avatar.

Through the eyes of submersible robots, I have watched with morbid fascination as millions of gallons of oil poured into the Gulf of Mexico. I’ve seen poetic photographs of pelicans stained brown, and of waves of sludge staining the deep blue sea. And while I’ve heard a lot of talk about how horrifying it all is, what I haven’t seen is any sign that people are driving less, or even just driving in a more gas- conscious manner.

The tragic results of the 1989 oil spill,
somehow completely blamed on Exxon.

I live in Northern California, which many would claim is a giant refuge for hippies and environmental nutjobs. And yet the highways here are as packed as ever. And the byways? Nothing but jack-rabbit starts in a high-speed race between traffic lights.

Sadly, burning gas is still America’s favorite occupation. It’s a cheap thrill, dollar-wise, with prices rolled back to 2004. But what about the environmental issues? What about that gigantic spill? The response I’m hearing most often is, “It’s not my fault.”

For seventy-nine days and counting, 4,200,000 gallons of crude oil have been spilled per day. In the meantime, people have blamed BP for making cheaper and unsafe choices in the equipment used to construct the oil platform, and they’ve blamed them for being slow to react after the accident. People have also blamed ‘Big Oil’ for drilling in the seafloor in the first place. Hell, one person even told me the fault lied in, “The British.” All in all, we’ve found plenty of people to blame; pretty much anyone but ourselves. Mind you, this isn’t about dodging responsibility—these are people who genuinely, psychotically, believe in their own innocence.

Oh, and chances are that one of these people is you.

I mean, what do you think BP would be doing out in the middle of the
Now you too can be evil.
Wait, you already are…water drilling holes if you weren’t buying their gas? If you own a car, a motorcycle, or even a gas- powered lawn mower, then you own a chunk of blame for this tragedy.

How large a chunk? That’s up to you. Maybe you could drive less? Or be more conscious when you do. (Yes, you darling hybrid owners, you do pay the same lead-foot tax as the rest of us.)

Since more and more people are thinking about where their food is coming from, then why not their oil? I think a driver’s license should require knowledge of recent environmental disasters. Better still, we should be bringing exhibits around the country.

After all, how many vegetarians were baptised by a visit to the slaughterhouse?

Many Utah residents who thought there were investing in real
Is this making your mouth water?estate were, in fact, investing in new products like The Candwich here. According to the New York Times, a money manager named Travis L. Wright collected $145 million and invested it in his own company in order to develop snappy ideas like this.
 
 
 

On this appropriately gray California day, it became official: our next governor is either going to be Mr. Jerry Brown or Mrs. Meg Whitman.

Former governor Jerry Brown

As anyone in the country can tell you, California is in an extreme financial crisis right now. This would seem to favor Harvard MBA-holding Whitman, as it’s hard to imagine J. Brown even balancing his own checkbook. But, while on the surface of it, Meg’s (may I call you Meg?) track record is impressive (read: eBay), dig deeper and you see that she built a company that’s plagued by bad decisions, and is right now being choked by a plethora of lawsuits. And what exactly did she do to contribute to the company’s financial success in the first place? She didn’t found eBay, and she didn’t do anything particularly creative that people attribute the company’s success to. In fact, her successor’s first job was to clean up several billion-dollar mistakes she had made that would have sunk any other company.

The reality is, eBay survived in spite of Whitman’s helmsman-ship,
Meg Whitman, eBay employeewhich is a testimony to the strength of the idea behind it. As for Meg herself, she’s the Ben Affleck of CEOs: just in the right place at the right time.

So why, at the time of California’s greatest need, do we get stuck with two such miserable gubernatorial candidates? Why would financial wizards like Carly Fiorina choose the senate when her talents are so desperately needed in the Sacramento?

Well, not for nothing, our reward to the financially talented Schwarzenegger—who practically killed himself trying to balance our budget—was to dump on him mercilessly for not making enough progress. And, knowing that prospects ahead are even grimmer, no one with half a brain would seek a job that, at best, will make you the subject of constant ridicule.

So guess who that leaves us with.