Jude Law Meets Lovechild Sophia In Florida

Last Updated on Sunday, 28 February 2010 11:15 Written by Daisy Harley Sunday, 28 February 2010 11:15

JUDE LAW has finally met his lovechild – with his lawyer in tow. The actor, 37, flew to Florida last week to thrash out his role in bringing up Sophia.

More on Celebrity Kids

Article source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/28/jude-law-meets-lovechild-_n_480184.html

Janice Horowitz: Dueling Docs: Are airport body scanners safe?

Last Updated on Sunday, 28 February 2010 11:15 Written by Daisy Harley Sunday, 28 February 2010 11:15

The Issue
Body scans at the airport

The facts

Usually there’s a medical reason for getting an x-ray. But now, to ensure that air travelers aren’t packing explosives, the U.S. government is gearing up to require body scans on anyone who flies. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) already has 40 scanners in 19 airports nationwide. In six of those airports, the machine is used for primary screening; at the others they’re used for follow-up searches if there’s a suspicion of wrong-doing.

Scanners, dubbed by some as “virtual strip searches,” have been used on products, not people, entering the U.S ports for years. But for today’s traveling public, there are two types of approved scanners. One uses radio-wave technology, which employs radio waves tens of thousands of times lower than those in cell phone technology–and which experts agree are largely benign. The other scanners use x-rays. They may allow for better images, but they’ve also created the most stir over any health effects on frequent flyers.

The government is convinced the x-rays scanners are good for the security of the flying public, but are they okay for you?

Two experts debate the issue: Dr. Mahadevappa Mahesh, chief physicist and radiology professor at Johns Hopkins University Medical School and Arjun Makhijani, nuclear engineer and president of the Institute of Energy and Environmental Research in Maryland.

The Debate

Dr. Mahesh:

“The medical risk of airport body scanners is negligible,” says Mahesh. “I don’t have any vested interest in defending these scanners. I’m trying to discuss the science. The radiation used in these machines is low-intensity and doesn’t even transmit through the body; it reflects off the skin. The scanners go through clothes only. They can catch explosive taped to the body or hidden under clothes. They don’t see into the body.”

Mahesh explains that the dose of radiation of each scan is .05 to .1 micro-sieverts. (micro-sieverts is a measure of radiation dose). “A chest x-ray is equivalent to 100 micro-sieverts. That means a person would have to have 1000 to 2000 airport scans to add up to the radiation he would get from just one chest xray.”

Moreover, says Mahesh, the radiation must be viewed in context. “Just flying in a plane exposes people to radiation. The average radiation exposure at 100,000 ft in the air is 4 micro-sieverts an hour, many times more than the radiation from a scanner. And the general population, including people who don’t fly, are exposed to background radiation of about 3,100 micro-sieverts every year.”

Can the scanner’s operator make a mistake that would harm the passenger? “No,” says, Mahesh. “There are no settings for the operators to confuse. It’s push-button technology. Whether the traveler is a small child or an obese patient, the machine’s settings don’t have to be changed. Truth is, for those people who are totally paranoid about radiation, there’s no convincing them that scanners are ok.

“But,” says Mahesh. “It’s highly important that these machines are tested yearly by a qualified person not associated with the manufacturer to make sure they are operating properly.

“There are privacy concerns, to be sure. The machine can distinguish between natural tissue and silicone. So if someone’s had a breast implant, it will show up. But there is nothing like a perfect security system.”

.
Arjun Makhijani:

“I’m not saying scanners should not be used, I’m saying there should be a public process,” says Makhijani. “The use of scanners needs to be debated before you impose even a de minimis risk on the public. We have about 600 million air passengers every year. On average each person takes two flights. In order for scanners to be effective, the effort would have to be global. We’re talking about a couple of billion scans a year–that’s a lot of scans. And it’s nonsense to say that the radiation of these scanners don’t absorb through the body.

“By the conventional methods of calculation, once you expose billions of people to these very low doses of radiation, you will induce some cancers, and a few cancer deaths every year. They may be non-detectible, but they will be there.”

Makhijani goes on: “We really need to look at what benefit we’re getting from these scanners. Certain kinds of plastic explosives will remain undetectable. People can also swallow an explosive or hide them in body cavity like the anus or vagina and that won’t be detectable.”

Makhijani worries that use of scanners would actually introduce new risks. “Who will look at these pictures? It may be possible that the job will attract a small minority of people who could be child abusers, for example. They will be able to figure out how to store these images.

“What’s more, in many societies, particularly in parts of the Islamic world, modest clothing for women is very important and yet, with these scanners, a silhouette of the body can be seen. We will be forcing people from Islamic countries to go through these machines. We are putting this on a society that is already antagonistic to the US.

“We must ask ourselves as part of a debate. ‘How would the Muslim world perceive such a thing?’ We have to look at whether scanners could actually increase terrorist risk because of the extreme anger that they might induce. We simply have not debated any of this. And we must.

“If you’re close to the needle in the haystack, do you want to increase the size of the haystack or figure out how to grab that needle? We are putting into place machinery that increases the haystack. I’m not saying they should never be deployed. All I’m saying is that the decision to spend the money to buy and operate these machines in a hasty fashion, without consideration of any potential increase of terrorism risk or collateral risks, such as child pornography, for example, is not the way to go. We need to open this up to public debate.”

More on Terrorism

Article source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janice-horowitz/dueling-docs-are-airport_b_480187.html

Scott Mendelson: Shutter Island retains the top spot while Cop Out and Crazies over-perform and Avatar breaks another record. Weekend box office in review (02/28/10).

Last Updated on Sunday, 28 February 2010 11:15 Written by Daisy Harley Sunday, 28 February 2010 11:15

This will be shorter than usual. First of all, there isn’t all that much news to report and second of all, I spent the day at Disneyland which was far-more crowded than usual. Curse you, “Captain Eo”! You marred my Sunday in three dimensions! Point being, I’m quite pooped. So… “Shutter Island” pulled a repeat at number one this weekend, dropping just 45% for a $22.2 million-second weekend and a new total of $75 million. Despite the mixed reviews and word of mouth, the Scorsese thriller is still the only real event movie out there for people who don’t need a return trip to Pandora. While I didn’t care for “Shutter Island” one bit, I am heartened that a moody, complicated, 2.25-hour, non-sequel, R-rated thriller from Martin Scorsese is a genuine smash hit. In this day and age, it’s always refreshing for an adult-driven genre picture to reach heights only usually accorded to franchises and animated films. The picture is Scorsese’s fifth-biggest domestic grosser and will be number 03 by next weekend. Whether or not it can surpass the $132 million earned by “The Departed” is an open question, but it won’t have any demo competition until “The Green Zone”. Said ‘Bourne goes to Baghdad’ thriller opens March 12th (I have no idea if that’s accurate, but it’s sure how the Paul Greengrass/Matt Damon film is being sold by Universal).

Number two and three went to the openers. Both performed a bit above expectations. Kevin Smith’s “Cop-Out” nearly doubled his previous personal-best opening weekend with $18.5 million (his previous high, “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back”, opened with $11 million back in August 2001). This also marks one of Bruce Willis’s best debuts over the last decade, as his star-power has decreased since he stopped working with M. Night Shyamalan. It’s his eleventh-best opening weekend, and most of the bigger openings were from the 1990s. This isn’t just a case of waning star power as much as Willis choosing non-commercial ventures. No one expected “Alpha Dog” or “Lucky Number Slevin“ to play like “Armageddon”, so this solid opening with a purely commercial picture is a good sign. As for Kevin Smith, this will easily surpass his biggest-grossing picture, as he’s never had a picture gross over $31 million (so good on Warner for only spending $30 million on this picture). I’d argue that the whole ‘Kevin Smith gets tossed of an airplane’ controversy helped push the film into the public conscience, it still doesn’t excuse how the media covered said event (it was treated as ‘Ha ha, Kevin Smith is fat!’ rather than ‘Hey, Southwest Airlines ejected a passenger who clearly was not too obese to fly!’). As it is, Kevin Smith pictures are often greeted by one controversy or another (Kevin Smith vs. the Catholic Church, Kevin Smith vs. GLAAD, Kevin Smith vs. the overexposure of ‘Bennifer’). It will be interesting to see how the film plays long-term. Despite terrible reviews, it still pulled in a solid 3.13x multiplier, implying theoretically positive word of mouth. It will also be interesting to see if Tracy Morgan gets more film work as a result of this opening, as the film was clearly sold on his antics as much as Bruce Willis’s star-power.

Number three went to the remake of “The Crazies”, which Overture opened to $16.5 million. The surprisingly well-reviewed remake of a 1973 George Romero picture pulled in a 2.75x multiplier, which is about normal for a horror film. With this opening and “Law-Abiding Citizen”, “Capitalism: A Love Story“, and “Righteous Kill“, Overture is quickly establishing itself as a major player. For what it’s worth, my wife and I watched the original version of “The Crazies” last night, and it’s a shockingly good and genuinely disturbing little picture. If the remake is any good, might I suggest you check out director Breck Eisner’s previous film, the vastly underrated “Sahara”? Anyway, fourth place went to the film that cannot be killed (until next weekend, when it will likely be killed), “Avatar“. Dropping just 13%, the James Cameron epic crossed $700 million in its eleventh weekend. Alas, this will likely be the last weekend of tiny drops, as Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” opens next weekend and will steal all of the IMAX screens and most of the 3D auditoriums.

The only limited releases were “A Prophet” ($170,000 on nine screens) and “Formosa Betrayed” ($69,000 on fifteen screens), “Art of the Steal” ($40,300 on three screens), and “The Yellow Handkerchief” ($39,600 on seven screens). Roman Polanski’s “The Ghost Writer” expanded to 43 screens and made another $870,000. It’s new total is $1.1 million. While the film is not cheap ($45 million), Summit Entertainment is only on the hook for whatever they paid for North American distribution rights, so this should be a nice non-”Twilight” feather in their cap to go along with their likely Oscar glory for “The Hurt Locker” (be it just Best Director or Best Director and Best Picture). Other than that, it was just a matter of various films crossing arbitrary marks. “Valentine’s Day” crossed $100 million, “Percy Jackson and the… too tired to type out the full title for this terrible movie” and “Dear John” crossed $70 million, while “The Wolfman” sits at just $57 million (on a budget of $150 million). “Crazy Heart” crossed $25 million and “When in Rome” crossed $30 million. At $248 million, “The Blind Side” is less than $10 million from passing “Star Trek” after dropping just 10% in its fifteenth weekend.

That’s about all that’s fit to print this weekend. Join us next weekend for the likely-to-be huge debut of Disney’s “Alice in Wonderland”. While I likely won’t see it until opening night (it was a choice of seeing it early by myself or waiting until Friday and letting my wife come along), I do hope it’s closer to this than to this. Alas, if you’ve read this, you know where my instincts lie. Also opening is the Antoine Fuqua police drama, “Brooklyn’s Finest” (also from Overture, natch) and the Independent Film Channel Jon Hamm thriller, “Stolen”. Oh AT&T U-Verse, why do you not carry IFC On Demand?

Scott Mendelson

Article source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-mendelson/shutter-island-retains-th_b_480188.html