Pats Coach Poor Sport, No-Shows CBS After Defeat

New England coach Bill Belichick doesn't handle losing all too well, and he blew off CBS' customary postgame interview with the coach of the losing team after the AFC championship game.

 CBS analyst Shannon Sharpe wasn't impressed and called him out for it with some harsh comments.

 "There's something to be said about being gracious in defeat," Sharpe said on CBS' postgame show. "We've seen the New England Patriots five times in the last 12 years be victorious [in the AFC championship game). We've seen the opposing coaches who lost come out and talk to our Steve Tasker. Coach [Bill] Cowher did it when they lost to them, we saw this last week.

 "Bill Belichick makes it real easy for you to root against the Patriots. You can't be a poor sport all the time. You're not going to win all the time, and he does this every time he loses. It's unacceptable."

 Those are strong words from Sharpe, but it's tough to argue. There are certain unpleasant commitments that come with being an NFL head coach, and a certain class that should be displayed in defeat. Granting an interview that coaches are expected to give after big playoff losses, including Super Bowls, to a television partner that pays a big percentage of the NFL's bills is part of that....More

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WH Saves Piers From 100K Who Want Him Deported

 The White House has responded to the petition seeking the deportation of Piers Morgan with a statement from press secretary Jay Carney explaining the First Amendment.

 The petition, which received well over 100,000 signatures (25,000 are required for a White House response) was led by conservative radio host Alex Jones. He wrote, "British Citizen and CNN television host Piers Morgan is engaged in a hostile attack against the U.S. Constitution by targeting the Second Amendment. We demand that Mr. Morgan be deported immediately for his effort to undermine the Bill of Rights and for exploiting his position as a national network television host to stage attacks against the rights of American citizens."

 In Carney's statement explaining the White House's decision to allow Morgan to remain in the U.S., he acknowledges that the Second Amendment does guarantee citizens the right to bear arms, but reiterates the First Amendment guarantees the freedom of the press...More 

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Gore Faces Inconvenient Truth, Sells Failed TV Channel

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Al-Jazeera, the Pan-Arab news channel that struggled to win space on American cable television, has acquired Current TV, boosting its reach nearly ninefold to about 40 million homes. With a focus on U.S. news, it plans to rebrand the left-leaning news network that cofounder Al Gore couldn't make relevant.

The former vice president confirmed the sale Wednesday, saying in a statement that Al-Jazeera shared Current TV's mission "to give voice to those who are not typically heard; to speak truth to power; to provide independent and diverse points of view; and to tell the stories that no one else is telling."

The acquisition lifts Al-Jazeera's reach beyond a few large U.S. metropolitan areas including New York and Washington, where about 4.7 million homes can now watch Al-Jazeera English.

Al-Jazeera, owned by the government of Qatar, plans to gradually transform Current into a new channel called Al-Jazeera America by adding five to 10 new U.S. bureaus beyond the five it has now and hiring more journalists.

Al-Jazeera spokesman Stan Collender said there are no rules against foreign ownership of a cable channel — unlike the strict rules limiting foreign ownership of free-to-air TV stations. He said the move is based on demand, adding that 40 percent of viewers on Al-Jazeera English's website are from the U.S.

"This is a pure business decision based on recognized demand," Collender said. "When people watch Al-Jazeera, they tend to like it a great deal."...More 

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Beiber Offends the Phillipines

 There are certain pitfalls to having more than 30 million followers on Twitter and another 4.5 million on Instagram. Namely, it's very easy to accidentally offend someone with what was supposed to be a lighthearted message.

 That's what happened to pop sensation Justin Bieber recently, when he posted two Photoshopped images of boxer Manny Pacquiao getting knocked out by Juan Manuel Marquez.

 The first, which you can see above, is a parody of the Disney movie Lion King. The movie's main character, Simba, is checking to see if Pacquiao is O.K. Along with the photo Bieber provided a caption: "Dad wake up."

 The other image is of Michael Jackson and Paqcuiao, both leaning in a similar fashion. Jackson was doing a dance move, Pacquiao was leaning on the ropes of the boxing ring. Bieber wrote, "Pacquiao doing the lean with MJ .. Classic moment."

 Several members of the Philippines Congress were outraged to see Bieber's photos, and seven legislators even filed a resolution which demanded an apology for the "distasteful comments." They also released a statement, which read in part:

 "Mr. Bieber should have known that the Hon. Pacquiao has reached his stature as such as a result of sheer hard work, determination and firm belief in God, and despite such stature best exemplifies humility and grace even in defeat."

 The 18-year-old pop star has aligned himself with Pacquiao's rival, Floyd Mayweather, and he's made no secret of his allegiance....More

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Brad Pitt Bombs At Box Office Softly

 Is Brad Pitt seen as too good a guy to play a hit man? Moviegoers this weekend gave a thumbs down to his crime thriller "Killing Them Softly," which opened to a disappointing $7 million at the box office.

 It's Pitt's worst box office opening ever, or at least since 1992's "Cool World," which took in $5.5 million. That one was on just 1,600 screens though. "Killing Them Softly" was in 2,422 theaters.

 Expectations were modest for "Killing Them Softly," distributed by the Weinstein Company. Analysts had the film doing $12 million and thought it might do better, based on the appeal of Pitt. Instead it wound up with same weekend total as Disney's animated "Wreck-It Ralph," which is in its fifth week.

 Pitt got a lot of the credit for the surprising success of last year's baseball movie "Moneyball," which opened to $19 million and went on to make $75 million. But first-night audiences gave "Killing Them Softly" an "F" CinemaScore, and the Weinstein's date change -- it had originally been set to open Oct. 19 -- didn't help.
Erik Lomis, head of distribution for the Weinstein Co., admitted he was disappointed and surprised.
"We thought a bold, caring film and we are proud of the movie," he told TheWrap Sunday. "We looked at the reviews and we thought it deserved a wide release."

 Producer Annapurna Production made the film for $15 million and is on the financial hook. "Killing Them Softly" has generally received good reviews -- 81 percent positive on Rotten Tomatoes -- after premiering in competition in Cannes earlier this year. Some critics questioned whether the film's relentless references to the 2008 recession made it too talky for action fans.

Also read: 'Killing Them Softly' Review: Crime Comedy Bludgeons Us Repeatedly With Subtext
It can cut either way when an actor who typically plays a "good guy" becomes a bad guy, or at least a very flawed character, in a film. Denzel Washington notably went against his typical roles in the 2001 film "Training Day," in which he played a cop gone bad. That film debuted No. 1 at $22 million.

"You never know," Lomis said. "We had a strong Friday and thought that would provide a lift." That miserable "F" CinemaScore, however, meant the word-of-mouth was going to hurt rather than help, however.
Andrew Dominik ("The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford") directed and wrote the screenplay on "Killing Them Softly." The supporting cast includes Ray Liotta, Richard Jenkins and James Gandolfini....More

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MITT: 'Nuff Said

As conservatives search for an explanation for Mitt Romney's loss, much of the blame has been directed at the collapse of his campaign's Election Day get out the vote efforts, a massive organizational failure that resulted in lower Republican turnout than even John McCain got in 2008. A major source of Romney's GOTV problems appears to have been the disastrous Project ORCA, an expensive technological undertaking that was supposed to provide the campaign with real-time poll monitoring that would allow Republicans to target GOTV efforts on Election Day. In the week leading up to the election, Romney campaign spokesperson Andrea Saul told Business Insider that ORCA was "the Republican Party’s newest, most technologically advanced plan to win the 2012 election," touting it as the game-changer that would blow even the Obama campaign's sophisticated GOTV system out of the water. But on almost all counts, ORCA failed miserably. In a fascinating piece for Ace of Spades, Romney poll-watcher John Ekdahl describes a perfect storm of technology problems that made the ORCA app unusable and left scores of Republican volunteers " wandering around confused and frustrated" on Election Day. Worse still, Ekdahl told Business Insider that the Romney campaign failed to provide poll-watching volunteers in his region — Jacksonville, Florida, a key Republican city in a major swing state — with proper credentials and accurate voter strike lists, rendering them unable to perform their duties even if the ORCA app had worked. In interviews with Business Insider last week, sources close to the Romney campaign confirmed Ekdahl's account, and described a technological undertaking that failed at every level. According to several of these sources, ORCA was developed by a small, isolated tech team working under Romney's political team. These sources told Business Insider that the product was never properly beta-tested, and wasn't revealed to the rest of the campaign — including the digital team — until the week of the election...More

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Braxton Broke, Bankrupt, and Funneling Money?

Unbreak her . . . bank account? TMZ reports that Toni Braxton is in big trouble after fraudulently wiring her estranged husband more than $50,000. Musician Keri Lewis -- who separated from his wife of a decade in 2009 -- supposedly received the money just before Braxton's 2010 bankruptcy filing. The bankruptcy trustees are currently suing Lewis in order to recover the $53,490 sum, which they posit the singer transferred in order to avoid having to use it to pay back her creditors. Two years ago, Braxton was allegedly somewhere between $10 million and $50 million in debt, prompting her to file bankruptcy. A rep for the "Unbreak My Heart" crooner, 45, denies any wrongdoing on her part. "All of the payments made to Lewis prior to Toni's bankruptcy filing were appropriate transfers for reasonable and necessary personal and business expenses in the ordinary course of her business," her rep told TMZ, adding that Braxton is happy to provide whatever information necessary in order to clear her and her spouse's names. Source

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Supreme Court Justice Gets Parking Ticket

The Supreme Court is the highest court in the land, but no justice, even Antonin Scalia, is apparently safe on the streets of Philadelphia when it comes to its Parking Authority. The Philadelphia Parking Authority is nationally known because of its starring role for five years in “Parking Wars,” the popular cable TV shows that depicts everyday life for PPA workers and the citizens of Philly. And on Monday, one of the citizens who will interact with the PPA in the near future appears to be Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia was in Philadelphia at the Union League of Philadelphia, the private club best known outside the city for its role in the Eddie Murphy film Trading Places. Dean Picciotti sent us a picture of Scalia’s official car, parked at the League, with a brand-new PPA ticket on its windshield placed by an attentive parking enforcement officer at lunchtime. Scalia’s car was ticketed despite the presence of an official police business placard on its dashboard. Later in the day, the Philadelphia Inquirer spoke with a PPA official about five hours after we first reported the story locally. A Supreme Court official confirmed to the Inquirer that ticket was given to Scalia’s car. It was apparently in a no-loading zone. Ironically, the Parking Authority is one of the few GOP-dominated institutions in Philadelphia, a city long controlled by Democrats....More

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