- No political candidate in any race this year is quite as captivating as my main man, South Carolina Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Alvin Greene, a political unknown who came out of nowhere to win the South Carolina Democratic primary and was immediately accused of being a plant for someone else, a sham and an illegitimate candidate, both by members of his own party and Republicans. Green, an Army veteran, was also quickly engulfed by talk that he was on the verge of being indicted on felony charges stemming from an incident in which he allegedly showed pornographic material to a female University of South Carolina student on a computer in the school's library and then asked if he could come to her dorm room. He was charged by police in November, but that didn't prevent Democratic voters from endorsing him in the primary. However, members of the South Carolina Democratic Party immediately began calling on him to resign, calls that Greene has so far ignored. Those calls may be harder to tune out now that he has been indicted Friday by a grand jury on obscenity charges, including one felony count of disseminating, procuring or promoting obscenity and a misdemeanor count of "communicating an obscene message to another person without consent." Seizing upon the opportunity, South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler released a statement asking Greene to resign. "In June, I asked Mr. Greene to withdraw his candidacy because of the charges against him. Following today's indictments, I repeat that request," Fowler said. "It will be impossible for Mr. Greene to address his legal issues and run a statewide campaign. The indictment renews concerns that Mr. Greene cannot represent the values of the Democratic Party or South Carolina voters." Au contraire, Ms. Chairperson. How do you know that Greene cannot a) run his campaign while dealing with these charges and b) represent the values of South Carolina voters? There may well be voters out there whose idea of a good time is surfing for porn in public places and then showing it to unsuspecting strangers. Just because you and other politicians in the state are still stunned by Greene's June 8 primary victory is no reason to keep disrespecting the guy. So what if no one had heard of him before then and he had less than $10,000 to his name when he ran, less than the amount necessary to officially enter the race? Greene withstood a feeble attempt by his Democratic opponent, Vic Rawl, tried to have the election overturned, and he continues to stand tall. The state Democratic party rejected Rawl's claims of voting machine irregularities, just as Greene has rejected all overtures to drop out of the race. "I'm innocent until proven guilty. ... I'm concentrating on my campaign issues: jobs, education and justice," he said in a recent interview. In the meantime, the media has been digging into his past and it has come to light that while an active member of the military, Greene was denied two promotions and made "mistakes as severe as uploading sensitive information improperly, and as basic as an overall inability to clearly express his thoughts and perform basic tasks." Mishandling sensitive, classified information and being generally inept at his job? Sounds like a U.S. senator to me! Plus, I love the fact that this guy's primary idea for creating jobs in South Carolina by making "toys of me, especially for the holidays. Little dolls. Like maybe action dolls. Me in an Army uniform, Air Force uniform, and me in my suit." Arrogance, delusion, self-importance…..what a candidate……..
- Scientists may believe that they have finally answered the old-as-time question of which came first, the chicken or the egg, but for me the question was answered long ago. For me, the answer is that both taste delicious in a sandwich and that's case closed, but that clearly wasn't enough for British scientists who believe that they are the ones who have solved that which has vexed man for ages. They claim to have discovered that the formation of eggs is possible only thanks to a protein found in chicken's ovaries, which means that it had to be the chicken that existed first and not the egg. By their line of thinking, a chicken (however you believe that chicken came to exist) would have had to have the eggs form inside its body using a protein called ovocledidin-17 (OC-17) that speeds up the development of the shell. These answers come courtesy of
researchers from Sheffield and Warwick universities in England, who explained their findings in the paper "Structural Control of Crystal Nuclei by an Eggshell Protein" (a must-read for one and all for its humor, suspense and happy ending). To obtain the answers they sought, the researchers used a supercomputer to zoom in on the formation of an egg and realized the protein is vital in instigating the crystallization process. Not to go all Bill Nye the Science Guy on you, but the protein works by converting calcium carbonate into the calcite crystals that make up the egg shell. One of the project's lead researchers, Dr. Colin Freeman from Sheffield University's Department of Engineering Materials, said, "It had long been suspected that the egg came first -- but now we have the scientific proof that shows that in fact the chicken came first. The protein had been identified before and it was linked to egg formation, but by examining it closely we have been able to see how it controls the process. "It's very interesting to find that different types of avian species seem to have a variation of the protein that does the same job." Not only does this find allegedly answer the chicken v. egg question, but the researchers hope the discovery leads to the invention of new materials. If nothing else, it answers which of the possible options for my sandwich for lunch tomorrow existed first…….
- Life has not gone well for former MLB star Jose Canseco of late. That's saying something for a guy who, post-baseball, has disgraced himself by a) admitting he was a frequent steroid user during his career, b) appeared on VH1's Surreal Life, c) participated in celebrity boxing and d) attempted a comeback in which he showed up at a tryout for the Los Angeles Dodgers so out of shape that it appeared he might collapse simply doing calisthenics. Still, Canseco has bottomed out once again and all the evidence we need of this comes from his Twitter page, where he has posted messages the past few days about being evicted from his home, having to give away one of his dogs because he could no longer afford to feed and care for it and living in a garage. Following those uplifting Tweets, my man Jose wrote about his willingness to even play softball for food if need be, which seems ridiculous because even slow-pitch softball teams have standards. Well, apparently someone saw that plea for help and wants to extend a helping hand to Canseco: the United League's Laredo Broncos, with the independent league baseball team doing Jose a big favor by signing him to…..wait for it…..wait a little longer……a two-series contract. That's right, Canseco has inked a deal to serve as both a designated hitter and hitting coach for the Broncos over their next two homestands starting on Monday with a three-game set against the Rio Grande Valley White Wings and returning for a three-game series against the Coastal Bend Thunder beginning on August 28. Boy, you know you've hit rock bottom when even an independent league team won't sign you for more than six games. No word on whether he will be bringing copies of his book to sell in between innings or clean syringes and 'roids to inject into his teammates during games, but at least he hasn't turned into a total charity case who will soon be making ends meet at the newest member of the porn industry. What happened, Jose? You used to be at least relevant and entertaining and now you're simply another broke, washed-up ex-jock who has no idea what to do without the game he once played……..
- DMX has a problem. No, it's not his stalling, faltering career that has been interrupted more rudely and often than a Taylor Swift speech at the MTV Video Music Awards. Nor is it the fact that he is quickly becoming a bit player on the hip-hop scene as other rappers blow right by him and rise on up the charts. The real problem for DMX, real name Earl Simmons, is that dude does not seem to have a clue how to stay out of jail. He was released from the pokey on Friday and managed to stay free for less than 24 hours. That's right, less than one full day after being released, the rapper was pulled over by police while driving down Sunset Blvd in a rented Mercedes-Benz. According to his manager, DMX left a recording studio (at least he was attempting to get back to work) around 11:20 p.m. when he was stopped for a minor traffic violation. At that point, the evening took a turn for the worst. When the officer asked for his registration, DMX did not have a valid driver's license (Ah, the things you don't have a chance to get to when serving hard time). The only silver lining was in the fact that he wasn't taken into custody -- for a change -- but he was issued a citation and will appear in court sometime in the near future. He made it home when the officer allowed a passenger in the car to drive him home. As someone who has never been in prison and thus never known the feeling out being released from prison, I can't say for sure, but I have to imagine that what I just described is not the way DMX (or any other convicted criminal) would want to celebrate the day they were released from jail after serving 18 days of a 90-day sentence stemming from a reckless driving conviction. If I'm this guy, I'm going into my house, locking an barricading the door and never coming out again. Build a recording studio in your house, have all of your parties there and build a 12-foot fence around the perimeter just in case. It seems like the only sure way to avoid a return trip to jail………
- Discoveries of new species inexplicably thrill me. I am no tree-hugger or raging environmentalist, but learning that a brand-new species of animal that we had never found in thousands of years on this Earth is just plain cool. So you know I'm pumped that a new species of monkey that sports a bushy red beard has been discovered in the Amazon. Researchers announced the find this week, but tagged it with the downer that the primate is at risk of becoming extinct. Nothing like introducing us to a species and in the very next breath, telling us is may be going the way of the dodo bird. The species of titi monkey, Callicebus caquetensis, is a cat-size creature with grayish-brown hair, a long tail is flecked with gray and a bushy red beard around its cheeks. In other words, it looks like it belongs on an NHL playoff roster sometime near the Stanley Cup Finals (a little facial hair humor for the hockey-savvy among you). The big difference between Callicebus caquetensis and monkeys closely related to it is that it does not have a white bar on its forehead. Environmental nonprofit group Conservation International has been spearheading the effort to learn more about this new creature, which you can read all about in the latest issue of the journal Primate Conservation, which I am sure you all subscribe to. The find has been a while in coming, as rumors of an unknown primate species living in Colombia’s Caquetá region, close to the border with Ecuador and Peru, surfaced 20-plus years ago. In all that time, no one was able to gain access to the war-fraught region. The first opportunity to explore the area came two years ago when professors Thomas Defler, Marta Bueno and their student, Javier García, from the National University of Colombia were able to travel up the upper Caquetá River. Using a GPS system to navigate the area, they set out on foot searching for the monkeys and listening for their calls. "This discovery is extremely exciting because we had heard about this animal, but for a long time we could not confirm if it was different from other titis,” Defler said in a statement. Agreed and agreed. Now, let's see if we can't protect this newly discovered critter…….
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