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John and Ken 2.1
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Poll: Should state Democrats implement unconstitutional and illegal taxes on Californians?
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Metrolink Crash 6PM Hr (1/6)
Dead Engineer Was A Chronic Text Messager
Arnold Vetos 5PM Hr (1/6)
Democrats Say Arnold Got Cold Feet Over Illegal Taxes
Carona Trial 4PM Hr (1/6)
Closing Statements Begin
Tax Lawsuit 3PM Hr (1/6)
John & Ken Sue The State Over Illegal Taxes
Bad Mortgages 6PM Hr (1/5)
Wall Street Journal Outlines Rep. Joe Baca's Responsibility For Riff Raff Loans
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

                Yes, it’s the movie with “all the Oscar buzz” – and you say you’ve never heard of it. The reason is simple – it’s a foreign film, which means you’re going to have to search it out. Should you? Well, maybe.

                Set in Mumbai, India (and how’s that for news timeliness?) the film is mostly in English. I was a bit confused there, because sometimes it’s subtitled for no apparent reason. I know many Indians speak English (ever heard of a call center?), but if you see this one, you’ll know what I mean. It didn’t hurt though, everything flowed.

               The story centers around a kid named Jamal, and you talk about poor. This kid’s life would make anyone in South L.A. seem rich. For Jamal, it’s living in the streets, pooping in nasty outhouses, washing clothes in the dirty river water, yuck. As things open, Jamal is a contestant on the Indian version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”, and as silly as that seems, that didn’t hurt either. At least you don’t have to figure out how the game works.

                He’s down to be the “big rupee” question, yes, the final one, when the show ends for the day and he is dragged off for police interrogation. How could this slum kid know all these answers? Ah, he must be cheating.  The host, an Indian version of Regis Philbin, an obnoxious guy, is convinced of this and hands him over to the local cops.

                From there, Jamal proceeds to tell his story, going back to his childhood (he’s only about nineteen now), and we learn basically that his “life experience” has taught him the answers. Yes, this is a fairy tale of the grandest kind, but if you go with it, you’ll stomach it all.

                Jamal and his older brother, Salim (good thing they both have easily pronounceable names) are orphaned at a young age and end up roaming the streets, trailed by another orphaned kid, a girl named Latika. They let her hang out and eventually Jamal falls in love. From there, all three are taken into the clutches of an evil guy who abducts orphans and makes them beg on the streets for him.

                Jamal tells his story to the police captain in an effort to explain how he came to know the quiz show answers, and if you pay attention, you’ll see it’s true. But will he be believed? Meanwhile, he is still obsessed with Latika despite years of separation. He is also long apart from his brother Salim, a kid who took a different path and ended up part of a crime gang.

               It’s a very likeable, cute story which pushes all the right buttons, maybe a few too many for me at times. I do read up on movies (yes, even foreign ones), and I heard a bit too many promising things about this one. In a way it’s formulaic, with the twist being the setting in India and the relatable use of a popular American game show as a back drop. I grew to dislike that after a while, it was like someone was trying to weave together a hit movie for American audiences but with a politically correct “poor kids from India” slant.

             Having said that, it’s still a strong movie, and if you can handle the foreign setting, it hits all the right notes of struggle, fate, romance and “karma”. I give “Slumdog Millionaire” a “7.0” on the scale.

Hall of Villar
Ramos & Compean 
1 year, 355 days in jail
Action Alert!
CONTACT THE GOVERNOR AND TELL HIM NOT TO TAX CALIFORNIA ILLEGALLY

TAXPAYERS, LAWMAKERS AND SMALL BUSINESSES FILE SUIT TO BLOCK ILLEGAL STATE TAX INCREASES


The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (HJTA), more than 40 state legislators opposed to higher taxes, and John Eastman, dean of Chapman University, have filed suit to block the implementation of new taxes approved by the Legislature without the constitutionally required two-thirds vote…

Click here to view the filing




Governor's Office:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-445-2841

District Offices:


Los Angeles Office
300 South Spring Street
Suite 16701
Los Angeles, CA 90013
Phone: 213-897-0322
Fax: 213-897-0319

Riverside Office
3737 Main Street #201
Riverside, CA 92501
Phone: 951-680-6860
Fax: 951-680-6863

San Diego Office
1350 Front Street
Suite 6054
San Diego, CA 92101
Phone: 619-525-4641
Fax: 619-525-4640


Call These Democrats!


Call Assembly Speaker Karen Bass & Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and tell them where to stick their latest unconstitutional & illegal tax plan!


 

 

Steinberg Phone:   (916) 651-4006

Karen Bass Phone: (323) 937-4747

                          (916) 319-2047


Click here for a list of Senate Democrats


Click here for a list of Assembly Democrats


Ghoul Pool 2009!

It's time to once again make your picks for celebrities you think will croak in 2009 and find out who won the Ghoul Pool for 2008 



Rules:

 

-Pick three celebrities you think will croak during the year 2009

-John & Ken will award points for your picks

-Old & sick celebs get less points, young and healthy celebs get you more

-John & Ken make the final decision on winners

-We will take entries via email beginning Monday, January 5th, ending on Friday, January 9th at midnight:


GhoulPool@KFIAM640.com

This year's prizes include custom J&K Commemorative Ghoul Pool T-Shirts and Crime Scene Beach Towels!






Winners of Ghoul Pool 2008:

-Patrick Perry: Bobby Murcer, Suzanne Pleshette and Danny Federici
-Nancy Storrs: Jim McKay, Van Johnson and Gordon Hinkley
-Des Jedeikin: Suzanne Pleshette and Tony Snow
-Mike Pisani: Suzanne Pleshette and Sydney Pollack
-Michael Plarski: Richard Wright


Let's get Ramos and Compean out of prison!

Contact President Bush's Pardon Attorney:
Mr. Ronald L. Rodgers
Pardon Attorney
Office of the Pardon Attorney
1425 New York Avenue, N.W.
Suite 11000
Washington, DC 20530

tel.: (202) 616-6070
fax: (202) 616-6069

 

We are now on Facebook!

 




Check us out at talkheroes.com!



TUESDAY JANUARY 6

Carona trial: Prosecutors use Carona’s words against him

 

Jurors listened today to more excerpts of secretly-recorded conversations of ex-sheriff Mike Carona talking about cash and gifts as a prosecutor laid out Carona’s help to his wealthy assistant sheriff, allegedly as part of bribes.

 

The tapes of Carona talking with Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl are the prosecution’s key evidence against Carona, who is accused of illegally winning office in 1998 and doling out public favors in exchange for bribes.

 

In one exchange, Carona says of cash: “Well on my end of it, completely untraceable, completely untraceable.” He says in another excerpt: “No trail anywhere … Period. Period. In fact, not even close to being … a trail…”

 

Disabled man's crusade a bane to business owners


Lingering fog shrouds the
Venice boardwalk midday as Thomas Mundy rolls past ice cream vendors, T-shirt shacks and falafel stands, a discerning eye trained on the warrens of beach-themed kitsch and quick nibbles.

He's not looking for leather thong pendants or Jamaican trinkets in memory of Bob Marley, or to commune with the manic crowd of in-line skaters and street artists.

Mundy is trolling for barriers to his patronage -- a threshold too high for his wheelchair, a parking lot with blue-striped access lanes narrower than eight feet, a public restroom where the coat hook on the back of the door, if there is one, is above his reach…

 

Villaraigosa, Bratton expect crime to dip in 2009


Even as they touted another year of falling crime rates in
Los Angeles and expressed confidence that 2009 could bring further declines, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief William J. Bratton said Monday that the LAPD's success in the upcoming year is tied to the city's financial picture.

Bratton, who has never been shy about promising drops in crime, stopped short of his tradition of setting a crime reduction target for the year, saying only that he was "very comfortable" that crime would continue to fall in 2009. His comments came at a year-in-review news conference held with the mayor and other law enforcement officials.

As reported last week in The Times, overall violent and property crime in
Los Angeles fell 2.5% in 2008 compared with the year before, according to Los Angeles Police Department figures. The numbers continued the unbroken run of year-over-year declines since 2002, the year Bratton took the helm of the LAPD…

 

MONDAY JANUARY 5

Stroke of midnight begat bounty of laws

 

SACRAMENTO — New Year's resolutions may be made to be broken, but not the new laws that traditionally accompany Jan. 1.

 

From the urgent to the trivial, nearly 775 measures went into effect at the stroke of midnight.


The litany of laws addresses an eclectic mix: text-messaging, charity bingo, trans fats and bandit cabs. One makes it easier for a husband to take his wife's name. Another places plastic knuckles alongside brass knuckles on the list of banned weapons…

Schwarzenegger's new budget plan has some ifs and buts

 

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest $40 billion budget solution relies on ballot-box contingencies and a borrowing plan that might not be paid off until after he leaves office.

 

In a rare New Year's Eve budget release that lacked pomp, circumstance and the governor himself, Schwarzenegger finance aides unveiled a 2009-10 spending package that adds ideas to the budget-balancing moves already on the negotiating table.

 

The problem looms so large that Schwarzenegger is proposing to let children attend school five fewer days each year. He wants to permanently reduce tax credits such that taxpayers receive $210 less per child or elder dependent. And he plans to borrow $4.7 billion on the hope the state can pay it back by June 2011, after his tenure as governor has ended…

 

It's the law: California patients can have an interpreter at their side

 

Millions of Californians with limited English proficiency now have the right to an interpreter from their commercial health and dental plans – made possible by a first-in-the-nation law aimed at dismantling the language barriers that get in the way of good medicine.

 

The new regulation – implemented New Year's Day after five years of hearings, delays and wrangling among insurance companies, regulators and consumer advocates – is widely hailed as a milestone in reducing mistakes because of miscommunication.

 

"This is really huge, especially in California where we're getting more and more diverse," said Martin Martinez, policy director for the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network. "Even if you speak English well, it's really hard to understand what your doctor is saying…"

TUESDAY DECEMBER 23

Ties to power win Nuñez's son special treatment


I have no idea if Esteban Nuñez is a "gang member," a term that's used and misused so often that I prefer to give it a home inside quotation marks.

San Diego police tagged 19-year-old Nuñez with the "gang" label, and charged him in connection with the fatal stabbing of another young man, which certainly sounds like something a "gang member" would be charged with. On the other hand, the police also said he was a "business student," which is not a label often applied to a "gang member."

I can't say for certain if Nuñez is or is not a "gang member." But if he is, he strikes me as the most politically connected "gang member" in the history of "gang members…"

Madoff investor found dead of suicide

 

NEW YORK – The founder of an investment fund that lost $1.4 billion with Bernard Madoff was discovered dead Tuesday after committing suicide at his Madison Avenue office, marking a grim turn in a scandal that has left investors around the world in financial ruin.

 

Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet was found sitting at his desk at about 8 a.m. with both wrists slashed, New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said. A box cutter was found on the floor along with a bottle of sleeping pills on his desk. No suicide note was found.

 

De la Villehuchet was one of several fund managers to be hit hard in Madoff's alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme. Investment funds that lost big to Madoff are also facing backlash and investor lawsuits for not protecting their clients from the alleged fraud…

Bush pardons 19, commutes 1 prison term


WASHINGTON — Before leaving for the holidays, President Bush today commuted the prison sentence of a drug offender and granted 19 pardons, including one to a man who helped the Jewish resistance in the 1940s.

With this latest batch, which includes forgiveness for convictions ranging from gun and drug violations to bank and mail fraud, Bush has granted a total of 191 pardons and nine commutations. That's fewer than half as many as Presidents Clinton or Reagan issued during their two terms.

Included in the latest list is Charles Winters, who is considered a hero in
Israel