- For anyone who lives in a region of the United States where it snows (and this winter, that includes almost everyone), dealing with the piles of unwanted winter residue known as snow is a big concern. Snow ends up piled in places where it is supposed to be out of the way, yet inevitably ends up as a headache for someone. If you happen to live near some real ass hats, then the snow from their driveway is plowed out of the driveway so as to not be a nuisance for them, but plowed right out into the road so it is a nuisance for everyone else. For the city of Springfield, Mass., the question of what to do with its excess snow was one for which the city did not have a great answer. After debating options and crunching the numbers, city officials ultimately settled on dumping…….dumping the snow in the river, that is. You’re probably under the impression that it is illegal to dump large quantities of snow into local rivers, streams and waterways, and that is true - for the average citizen. If you attempt to fill up the bed of your pickup truck with snow and dump it into the nearby river, prepare for the long arm of the law to come down harshly on you. But when you are the long arm of the law, so to speak, you can get away with things other people cannot. The city was given special permission to dump its snow into the Connecticut River in the wake of huge storms that have blistered the east coast over the past few weeks. The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection gave the city the go-ahead to dump snow into the river and the process has been going on all weekend. On Monday, the situation will be re-evaluated and the MDEP and city officials will determine whether further dumping is warranted. I suppose that if the water levels along the river rise enough to start flooding people’s properties, that could be a sign, but if not, let the dumping continue…………
- Don’t think for one second that Roid-ger Clemens didn’t enjoy issuing a subpoena to the House committee that he's accused of lying to about using performance-enhancing drugs during his pitching career, even if it is only a perfunctory legal maneuver. Clemens and his team of high-priced attorneys want all interview summaries, notes and memoranda related to the hearing on steroid use in Major League Baseball held three years ago by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. A copy of the subpoena dated Thursday was provided to reporters Friday by the committee. It covers communications between the committee and 20 people, including retired baseball players like walking freak show Jose Canseco and Clemens’ former BFF Andy Pettitte. Another prominent name on the list is Clemens' former personal trainer Brian McNamee, who has long been the key figure in the case against Clemens after he told investigators he injected Clemens with performance-enhancing drugs. The subpoena also targets staff from all four teams Clemens played for -- the Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays, New York Yankees and Houston Astros – so its scope is extremely wide. Just to refresh your memory, Clemens insisted to the committee that he never used steroids or human growth hormone during his 23-season career. His argument didn’t convince much of anyone and the average baseball fan is more likely to believe that some of Clemens’ 354 wins, 4,672 strikeouts and seven Cy Young awards are tainted by cheating. The fact that he now faces perjury, false statement and obstruction of Congress charges in federal court aren’t likely to help Clemens win anyone over to his side. U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton authorized Clemens to issue the subpoena at a hearing in December because Clemens attorney Rusty Hardin claimed the committee was refusing to turn over evidence for the criminal case. The committee argued that turning the material over would violate the separation of powers between the legislative and judicial branches in the speech or debate clause to the Constitution, a claim Judge Walton clearly rejected. The wide-ranging powers granted by the judge also allowed Hardin to subpoena records of baseball's investigating commission headed by George Mitchell along with material related to former New York Mets clubhouse attendant Kirk Radomski, who McNamee said provided drugs he used to inject Clemens, Clemens’ agent Jim Murray, Pettitte's wife, Laura, and Canseco's ex-wife, Jessica Fisher and Blue Jays trainer Melvin Thomas Craig. Basically, Clemens is subpoenaing the heck out of anyone who has orbited around he and his baseball life over the past two decades and hoping that the quest turns over some helpful evidence to keep him out of the hole………..
- Just a friendly word of advice to Motorola as it prepares to venture into the world of tablet computers: I’m not sure if you actually planned to sell the Xoom for $1,199.99 or not, but based on the backlash from the tech world after that number leaked, $1,199.99 had better not be the starting price point if you hope to become anything more than another speed bump in the iPad’s continued dominance of the tablet market. Yes, you might be geeked about your upcoming 10.1-inch tablet the first tablet to run Google's Android 3.0 operating system (a.k.a. Honeycomb), but I can guarantee you that no one is excited enough about any tablet to pay more for it than they would for a lot of fully functional, quality laptops. The Xoom price in question showed up in a listing on Best Buy's Web site, with preorders starting in Best Buy stores on February 17. The one main conspiracy theory is that the actual price for the Xoom is closed to $800 and that the $1,199.99 is actually "placeholder" pricing for now. But equally troubling is that Xoom buyers will also have to activate a month's worth of Verizon data service, even though they would not be locked into any sort of contract. In the end, the key hurdle to clear for Motorola if it truly and legitimately wants its shiny new tablet to be a long-term contender for the existing tablets on the market is the price. Even $800 is steep with the features and hardware the Xoom comes equipped with, so $1,199.99……..that’s a non-starter for just about everyone…………
- Wow…….we dodged a scud on that one. There was real danger that a biography/concert film about an 8-year-old Canadian girl whose already terrible singing voice will be absolutely wrecked when she hits puberty was going to be the top movie for the weekend, but none other than Adam Sandler and his latest formulaic, canned comedy not worth the price of admission even for a matinee, rode to the rescue. As the dust settles, Just Go With It ends the weekend as the top movie thanks to a take of $31 million in its opening weekend. That was enough to best the weasel-voiced Justin Bieber and his biopic Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (NEVER!), which drew in enough musically clueless pre-teen and teenage girls to make $30.3 million in its own opening weekend. Keeping the newcomer trend going at the top of this weekend’s box office race, the animated Gnomeo and Juliet claimed the third spot with a solid $25.5 million debut, making it one of the three films to crack eight figures for the weekend. In a distant fourth was fellow newcomer The Eagle, which targeted the action/adventure genre’s ample fan base and missed badly, scaring up a mere $8.6 million for its first weekend in theaters. The last member of the top five was last weekend’s top film, the abysmally bad The Roommate, which couldn’t draw in enough of the Gossip Girl crowd to see Leighton Meester on the big screen to hold its position and fell four spots with $8.4 million. The rest of the top 10 was comprised of: The King’s Speech (No. 6 with $7.4 million in its 12th – 12TH – weekend for a cumulative total of $93.9 million after three months of limited release), No Strings Attached (plummeting from No. 3 last weekend to No. 7 with $5.6 million and with $59.8 million overall in four weeks of release), Sanctum (No. 8 with $5.3 million and a paltry two-week total of $17.5 million), True Grit (hanging on in the top 10 after eight weeks at No. 9 thanks to a $3.7 million weekend to raise its total earnings to $160.3 million) and The Green Hornet (free-falling from No. 5 to No. 10 after a weak weekend of $3.6 million and a five-week tally of $92.3 million). Falling out of the top 10 from last weekend were The Rite (out of the top 10 after three awful weeks) and The Mechanic (also off the list after a mere three weeks)…………
- You can have Swiss citizens’ guns when you pry them from their cold, dead, neutral hands. After a long and bitter battle over gun control, Swiss voters firmly rejected a referendum that would have forced soldiers to end the longstanding practice of storing army-issue firearms at home and placed much stricter restrictions on civilian gun ownership. Exit polls showed 57 percent of voters rejecting the measure, which should be a solid enough margin to hold up when all of the votes are counted. Residents of other countries might be surprised to learn that Switzerland has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the world, with anywhere between 1.2 million and 4.5 million estimated to be in circulation in Switzerland. That impressive (and mildly frightening) total places Switzerland behind only the U.S. and Yemen in guns per capita. Given the country’s reputation as being neutral in any international military conflict, the idea of the Swiss as gun-toting NRA types is hard to process. But the guns-per-capita number is high largely because members of the Swiss militia have traditionally kept their army-issued rifles or pistols at home, making them something of a great of modern day Revolutionary War “minutemen,” ready to defend their nation at a moment's notice. Because of their aforementioned neutrality, the Swiss have virtually no standing army, relying instead on conscripted militia for the national defense. That means all Swiss men are called up for three months’ training when they turn 18 and called back for regular refresher courses for the next 12 years. With such a heavy reliance on militia, storing weapons where they are readily accessible to those doing the fighting seems logical, even in a relatively small country. For decades, Swiss militiamen have kept their army-issued firearms stashed in their homes. Of late, that practice has come under attack, just as gun ownership and possession have become major issues in the United States. Gun opposition has been led largely by women, doctors and police, who claim that the easy availability of arms facilitates domestic violence, suicides and homicides. Their argument is also predicated on the fact that Switzerland hasn't come under threat since World War II. That didn’t sit well opponents of the referendum, who argued that the initiative was essentially a vote of no confidence in the Swiss army (and yes, their knives). The campaigns leading up toe the vote were predictably filled with violent and inflammatory images, including the referendum's supporters use of a teddy bear with blood dripping from a hole in its chest, brandishing the motto, "Protect your family." That was apparently not enough to sway voters, with opponents of the measure voting it down with a 70-percent rate in some rural cantons. The Swiss people won't let themselves "be disarmed," proclaimed Jakob Buchler, a leader of the conservative Democratic People's Party. Yup……don’t mess with the Swiss and their guns……….
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