Nominations for the Emmys Are In Today

First and foremost, how is Starz’ brilliant and amazing show “Boss” not nominated for a single award? This is hands down the best show on television. It is superb, amazing, splendiferous TV. Kelsey Grammar is amazing in it and so is the entire cast. The writing is fantastic and Mario Van Peebles does a terrific job directing. I’m out of adjectives this show is so fucking good. And not one nomination? Really? Not one. If I prayed, I would pray for this country right now. This is an outrage.

Second thought, “Modern Family” is a really good, funny show, but does EVERYONE on the cast need an Emmy award? I agree, the fact that a network family comedy is funny is cause for celebration, but nominating every single principal with the exception of the kids seems a bit much. Noms are deserving for Julie Bowen, Sofia Vergarra (mostly for being stupidly hot) and Eric Stonestreet for being an alleged heterosexual who plays gay soooooooo convincingly.

Third, “Girls” got two nominations. I’m still trying to find someone who can explain to me what is good about this show. I’ll wait.

Fourth, must we reward everything that’s popular? “The Big Bang Theory” got three nominations. I don’t care how popular the show is, it’s stupid. It’s lazy and plays on the simplest and most predictable comedy themes. And it’s just stupid. I thought the Emmys were about rewarding excellence in television. There is nothing excellent about that show. Nothing. If I ever meet anyone who watches “The Big Bang Theory” I will make it a point to immediately think less of them.

Now that I’ve gotten the bellyaching out of the way, there were some pleasant surprises. HBO’s ”Veep” is an unexpectedly great and funny show. I have my (unconfirmed) suspicion that the show is actually based on Joe Biden, but even beyond the comparisons one could draw between Veep’s Selena Meyer and Biden, it’s brilliantly well written. I thought it was going to be a huckfest at the expense of Sarah Palin and other dim-witted politicians in DC when I first saw the ads for it, but it’s actually a smart and fresh show about the characters and issues that exist inside the DC beltway. Seriously, it’s really good.

Finally, if Julianne Moore doesn’t win for her performance as Sarah Palin in “Game Change” let’s just stop doing this. Moore was incredible. She didn’t just throw on a hokey Ala-ska accent and mock Palin, she really brought every part of the former governor to life. Despite allegations that Palin didn’t know the Queen of England wasn’t actually a political leader, had no idea why the US was in Iraq and had no context whatsoever of what happened in World War I and II or any war before or after, I thought the movie was actually very fair to her. Rather than just expose Palin’s erratic behavior and lack of basic knowledge, it gave some background and put her in a truly humanizing light. None of that would have  been possible if Moore hadn’t given such a splendid performance. She should win. Period.

Here is the full list of Emmy Award nominees for the 64^th Annual Emmy Awards. Jimmy Kimmell will host.

I’ll release Vegas odds on the Emmys as soon as they’re released.

Wells Fargo Starting to Bleed Cash in Settlements

Well, it looks like Wells Fargo may be getting a tiny bit of comeuppance. Last week, the Justice Department forced Wells Fargo to pay at least $175 million to settle accusations that it discriminated against African-American and Hispanic borrowers.

This comes just weeks after Wells Fargo agreed to give out $425 million in new loans and aid to the people of Memphis for targeting people of color with predatory loans.

Wells Fargo, which is the country’s largest residential home mortgage originator, engaged in a pattern of discrimination against qualified African-American and Hispanic borrowers from 2004 through 2009, according to the claim.

Deputy Attorney General James Cole said the bank’s discriminatory lending practices resulted in more than 34,000 African-American and Hispanic borrowers in 36 states and the District of Columbia paying higher rates for loans just because of the color of their skin. And you thought racism was over.

The bank will pay $125 million to borrowers who were given subprime mortgages or who paid higher fees and rates than white borrowers because of their race. They will also pay $50 million in direct down payment assistance to borrowers in areas of the country where the Justice Department identified a large number of discrimination victims.

While $125 million doesn’t come close to satisfying all the people who were ripped off by Wells Fargo during the mortgage boom (and the bust) it is a great start. If you read my blog about the $425 million settlement with minorities in Memphis, you have an idea of just how much money Wells Fargo should be paying.

In addition to the $25 billion they got in a government bailout, these guys made more than $15 billion in profit last year, have $89 billion in revenue and $1.3 trillion in assets. Handing out $125 million to borrowers who can now prove in court that they were preyed upon is nothing to them.

The good news is that this is likely not the end of the money hemorrhaging for Wells Fargo. They’ve been hit with at least four major court actions alleging predatory practices on the part of its loan officers and this one makes three that they have had to pay up on so far. The others include a lawsuit from the city of Baltimore, the lawsuit from the city of Memphis and civil charges from the Federal Reserve, accusing Wells Fargo of pushing thousands of minority borrowers into subprime contracts.

The Justice Department also said that they’re investigating 15 other claims of loan discrimination. Bank of America’s stock plummeted yesterday, which leads one to believe there may be bad news coming for them and Wells.

Video of the Day – Nas “Daughters”

In honor of Nas’ latest album finally dropping, today’s VOD is his video for “Daughters.” The new album, called “Life is Good” is his first since that 2008 album that white people have to call the Untitled album. Nas is one of my favorite rappers and I genuinely believe the “Nigger” album is one of the best and most important albums of the decade/century/millennium.

Probably the coolest thing about this video is that you actually learn something about the artist from it. Nas has always been one of the few MCs who was willing to tell you the truth about his life instead of making ridiculous boasts about his hoes, clothes, rims and all his damn tennis shoes.

I’ve been listening to the album since yesterday and a review may be forthcoming. Did I go buy it? Fuck no. I choose to believe the fable that Spotify actually pays the artists when you listen to their music.

SIDE NOTE: If that’s actually true, I’ve made a lot of people a lot of money. In fact, I sometimes just leave Spotify playing in hopes that I can make up for all the music I’ve stolen over the years via Napster, Youtube, LimeWire and every other free program that’s been in existence the last decade. I wonder if sometimes my favorite artists that are no longer making new music and not really famous get 35 cent checks from Spotify because of my listening habits. I can only hope.

The “Daughters” video also works as a good transition to the rest of the album. Here’s hoping it doesn’t suck.

New Research Showing Women are Smarter Than Men is Bogus

In news that every girl ever is sure to rub in your face, a well-known intelligence researcher has determined that women are smarter than men. Actually, he determined that women have higher IQs than men for the first time in 100 years of testing. It led to headlines like, “Sorry Guys, female IQ is Now Higher,” “IQ Tests Show Women are Smarter Than Men,” “Women Win Battle of the Sexes Based on IQ Tests,” and so on and so forth. This is all great internet fodder and will no doubt get Huffington Post and other eyball-driven websites a bump for the day, but I’m willing to bet any sum of money that this is all a giant crock designed to sell books. I’ll explain why.

James Flynn, the man who conducted the test, is one of the foremost names in psychology and IQ testing – in fact, he’s even got a phenomenon of IQ testing named after him, the Flynn effect. I won’t even begin to question his credentials. There is, however, one substantial, monumental, colossal, egregious hole in Flynn’s research for this particular declaration: in a study that is supposedly all about Western Intelligence Quotient, not a single American subject was tested for the survey.

Also excluded from the study: participants from Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Switzerland, Sweden and every other Western country that one would assume would be a part of any survey involved in determining the intelligence of people in the Western world.

How does such a carefully compiled and completed survey, one that includes 500 boys and 500 girls, all around the same age in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Estonia and Argentina and bills itself as a study of “Western countries,”  conveniently leave out the foremost Western countries in the world? That doesn’t seem like a mistake a researcher of Flynn’s esteem would make.

Interestingly enough,  Flynn hasn’t actually published the results of his study; he’s saving that for “a book he will publish in September,” according to ABC News.

See where I’m going with this?

“Over the last 100 years, everyone in the developing world has been gaining about three IQ points, but women have been gaining faster,” Flynn said in an interview with ABC News. “This is the result of modernity. In every country where women have an equal chance of modernity, women have caught men [in IQ testing].”

Except that he left out just about every country where women have an equal chance of modernity in his study. Also, note that Flynn himself never actually says women are now smarter or have higher IQs than men. He simply says women are gaining faster and then plugs the survey from his book, “Are We Getting Smarter?”

One has to assume that all these caveats equal one very easy to decipher conclusion: Flynn is playing the eager and willing American media like suckers to get free advertising for his book. He knows that by reaching some grand conclusion – Women now officially smarter than men! – he can grab headlines and get some press. However, judging from the research presented (even though there’s not even an actual study to look over), what he actually found is likely that while men still have higher average IQs in developed and developing countries, in some countries women are equaling and actually outpacing men in intelligence quotient. That’s interesting, from a scientific and psychological standpoint, but it’s not really sexy. Unfortunately, the truth rarely is.

Video of the Day: NSYNC and Justin Bieber “Boyfriend Girlfriend”

We’re sure your girlfriend will be orgasming about this video and telling you that you have to watch it – you just have to – any day now. (Especially now that Perez Hilton posted it on his page.) The most unfortunate part is that whether you’re 11 or 31 it will probably happen to you. And you’ll get to go back and relive the days when you had to listen to every female on the planet talk about NSync.

So why is this our video of the day? Call it a public service. Now you can tell her you’ve already seen it and it was “so much better than you were expecting.” And you don’t need to watch it again. Ever.

There’s even a great unintentional 10-years-later comedy moment.

The best part of the entire video is Lance Bass at 0:46 in the backseat of a car with a girl. He has that awkward, “Oh my God, I want to get out of here but I can’t tell anybody. Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew. Somebody help me!” look on his face that didn’t make sense in 1999, but now we totally understand.

It also makes abundantly clear to anyone who was unsure that Justin Bieber is just recycling shitty music and videos from the past to make the shitty music and videos from today. If Nelly hadn’t sold out and started churning out sentimental drivel I’d feel sorry for him for being associated with this. (But I will always remember him fondly for the great things that happened to me when “Hot in Herrrrrrrrrrre” got played in dark clubs.)

Another reason picking this video is justified is it’s honestly a really well done video. Justin Bieber obviously helped by ripping NSync off (we could make a joke about everyone NSync ripped off here, but we won’t) for his song, but even so it’s remarkably well edited in both the song and video.

Video of the Day: V.I.C. “Wobble”

As much as I love a good, ignorant hip hop dance track, there’s just something unsettling to me about the idea that when a song comes on everyone has to jump in line and start doing the exact same dance. Anytime I go to the club anywhere and V.I.C.’s “Wobble” comes on it’s like all the black folks have to start doing the dance.

I understand it’s part of the thing black folks have about being cool and hip and up on things and wanting to prove that you know the latest dance steps and aren’t a square, but is it really necessary to become a lemming and do EXACTLY what everyone else is doing? It’s creepy and unsettling. It reminds me of Nazi Germany or something.

With no prodding or encouragement whatsoever, just by playing this song, people at a public venue will drop whatever they’re doing and get in lines to do the synchronized steps that go with this song.

This has actually bothered me for a while, but last night I was out with a group of people and of course this song came on and of course everyone got up and started doing the wobble. It’s like it’s instinctive. And when I wasn’t doing it, people just looked at me like I was crazy. Or maybe they figured that I didn’t know how to do it.

I really want to ask people at some point when I catch them wobbling, “Don’t you find it odd that because this particular song comes on, you feel absolutely compelled to do a choreographed routine?”

It was cool when we had the Electric Slide, but even that dance made me a little uncomfortable because of the necessity people feel to do it. I’ve been at outdoor events where folks have literally stopped eating, playing games and cooking to go do the Electric Slide. Dancing isn’t something that should be compulsory, right?

Recently a friend of mine decided that he was going to start doing The Hustle when “Wobble” came on in public. I think this is a great idea. A rock thrown in the fight against dance-floor fascism. (It only works because we’re black; if we were white people would just assume we were lames who didn’t know how to do that dance.)

Hopefully we can start a revolution here. If you’re tired of being a pawn at the mercy of bad dance songs that tell you what to do, learn how to do The Hustle and do that dance every time one of these socially engineered “dance songs” comes on where you are.

SIDE NOTE: The absolute best thing about the video “how to” for the Hustle is how hard the guy in it worked to keep his identity secret. The camera never gets above his neck, even when he moves backward in the shot, and he has a blanket thrown over the back wall of the room. It just makes me wonder, does he live somewhere where dancing is illegal? Does he not want his friends and family to know he knows how to do The Hustle? Is he that ashamed of the outfit he’s wearing? Why all the secrecy.

I digress. This is gonna be the start of something big. I can feel it.

Video of the Day: Machine Gun Kelly “Wild Boy”

Waka Flocka is probably the worst rapper ever.

I want that statement to stand alone. Despite that fact, we have to say we respect him and it’s 95 percent because of this video. And 5 percent because “Oh Let’s Do It” was kind of amazing.

The turning point comes at about 2:40 in the video when this exchange happens:

Waka: Kelly, you think you a hard rapper?
MGK: Hell yeah! You think you a good rapper?
Waka: Fuck no!

The video is also spectacular because of Katt Williams and other generally spectacular things that happen throughout. There’s not much about this video that isn’t great. It’s kind of an oldie, but still pretty dope.

Could the 2012 Team USA Have Beaten The Dream Team? Absolutely.

This Dream Team nostalgia nonsense has really just gone too far. There’s one very simple truism about athletics that we all just need to admit right now that will settle this argument for good: athletes today are better than athletes of the past. Period. So, of course, the 2012 USA Olympic team would beat the pants off of the 1992 Dream Team. It should go without saying.

After Kobe Bryant said it everyone got all up in arms (and to be fair, I don’t think he was making the argument that if you transported the Dream Team from ’92 into 2012 and put them on a court they would beat today’s stars) because they are all convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that the Dream Team of their youth (or quasi youth for some) was the best team ever.

There are a few very simple reasons that the 2012 Dream Team would win and win handily against the 1992 Dream Team.

1. The athletes are just better today.

If you magically teleported the 1992 Dream Team and put them in a gold medal game against Team USA 2012, the ’12ers would beat them by 25 points, easy. There was nothing like LeBron James or Kevin Durant back in the original Dream Team’s day. They would have had no idea how to deal with a 6’10 monster who could stroke from outside or a 6’8 275-pound beast who can drive the lane at will. Even allowing for that, the increased athleticism, strength and speed of today’s athletes allow coaches to design offenses and defenses that are much more complex and more effective than they were 20 years ago.

2. Improved competition

Everyone remembers the Dream Team for how well they played, in part because of how badly they beat up on their opponents. Today, the rest of the world isn’t full of basketball players who have never been inside an actual gym. The NBA has become a world league and hoopers from around the globe have been getting better and better every year. The Dream Team destroyed everyone because basketball was an almost exclusively American sport back in ’92. Today, players from Germany, Ecuador, Spain, Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo and France make up some of the world’s best. This competition has made American players better, because they face a stiffer challenge.

3. Size and defense

The Dream Team had more size and you might think that would be an advantage, but the 2004 team taught us that such is not the case anymore. You’ve got to have big men who can defend the perimeter and shoot from outside to stretch the floor in today’s international game. The ’12ers are stocked with guys who do just that like Kevin Love and Tyson Chandler (to make no mention of James and Carmelo Anthony). The ’12ers also play a much better and more advanced zone defense than the Dream Team, in large part because they’ve become accustomed to playing it in the NBA. Let’s not forget, zone defenses were illegal in the NBA back in 1992.

They’ve also got three great point guards, none of whom are infected with HIV* and they didn’t blackball one of their potentially best players because other people on the team didn’t like him. Even at their best, the Dream Team could not beat the 2012 USA men’s team. Purists, I’m sorry.

*To be clear, I’m not insulting Magic for having the virus, I just can’t imagine it didn’t slow him down a bit.

Video of the Day: Rockie Fresh “Duckin N Dodgin”

Remember when your parents used to tell you that all the music you listen to was just a recycled version of music they listened to when they were young. Apparently that’s happening to everyone here. Yesterday we highlighted Twin Sister’s “Meet the Frownies,” which sounds exactly like something Jefferson Airplane would have put on a B-side and today it’s another not-exactly remake.

Rockie Fresh is an MC who has been making noise on the mixtape scene for a while now and today he was officially signed to Rick Ross’ Maybach Music Group. (It’s astonishing how much rap talent Ross has assembled on that roster despite not actually being any good at rapping himself.) Fresh sounds like he’s straight out of 1992 and the video for Duckin N Dodgin looks like something The Luniz or The Twinz would’ve done 20 years ago.

Rockie isn’t the most gifted or complex lyricist, but he’s got a nice flow and he has that laid-back, cool vibe that Kid Cuddi had early in his career, before all the drug (and ego) issues.

The video is very basic and features what you can tell is a pretty limited budget. It’s shot in LA, which is strange considering Rockie Fresh is from Chicago, but I guess no one really wants to shoot videos during the winter in Chicago. If nothing else take a look at the newest addition to MMG.

Some interesting facts about Mr. Fresh (all via Wikipedia, so don’t take them too seriously)

His real name is Donald.

He’s 21 years old.

He is friends with Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy and Joel and Benji from the band Good Charlotte.

He’s from the very gangsta (not gangsta) Chicago suburb of Homewood, Illinois – median household income over $50,000/year.

His first mixtape, “Rockie’s Modern Life” was a not-so-subtle allusion to “Rocko’s Modern Life,” the Nickelodeon cartoon from the 1990s.

Ford Front and Center at the BET Awards, but Are They Making Any Money?

While Ye, Jay, Bey, Big Sean, Cissy Houston, Chaka Khan and Brandy may have been catching all the headlines from Sunday night’s BET Awards 2012, one of the most prominent stars of the show was Ford Motor Company.

Ford was front and center for the fifth year of its partnership with BET, sponsoring the red carpet and its own Ford Hot Spot at the show. Ford also gave away a 2013 Escape and $1,000 cash to one lucky viewer. Yesterday Ford told Bloomberg.com that by 2020, 10-25 percent of its fleet will be electric – with three quarters of that traditional hybrids. All the flexing and flossing on the red carpet is nice, but Detroiters want to know how the company is really doing.

The short answer: not as well as they’d like. Ford’s stock price has been dropping like it’s hot for most of this year. In fact, it is down more than $5 a share since the same time last year.

Life isn’t all stock prices, though. The company posted (pre-tax operating) profits of $2.3 billion in the first quarter of the year and a net income of $1.4 billion.

Bringing in $2.3 billion in the first quarter is certainly a step in the right direction from where Ford was when the BET sponsorship began. Back in 2008, Ford posted a $2.5 billion operating loss for the year and a pre-tax operating loss of $2.6 billion. Even that sorry figure was only possible after selling off Land Rover and Jaguar.

While Ford is certainly doing better than they were, the company is falling short of where it would like to be. In 2011, the company had a net income of more than $20 billion. If they want to get anywhere near that number this year, things are going to have to be a lot better in the second and third quarters of the year and right now that’s not looking like the case.

Ford is expecting to start showing profits in the near future from the 1,700 Dearborn workers who took early retirement buyout packages at the beginning of the year. They followed those buyouts with bonuses to 20,000 white-collar workers earlier in the year that were supposed to be 2.7 percent base pay increases.

In short, with its continued sponsorships, employee bonuses and special projects, Ford is betting pretty hard that they’ll be back and better than ever. The company’s second quarter numbers should tell us whether they’re really on track to do that.