- Never is it a good thing to have one’s fate decided by a “jury of your peers” because, as everyone knows, juries are comprised of 12 people not smart enough to find a way out of jury duty. Getting out of jury duty isn't that difficult and in fact, most Americans accomplish it by ignoring their summons to jury duty and not showing up at the courthouse on their appointed day. They know full well that if their local municipality tracked down and prosecuted everyone who blew off jury duty, it would soon go bankrupt and thus, failure to appear goes unpunished. But what if you do show up when summoned and want to find a way that isn't (technically) illegal to get out of jury duty? Theories vary on what to say to a judge, prosecutor or defense attorney to get yourself excused from the pool of potential jurors, but would blatant (and possibly false) racism work? Ask a would-be juror in New York who showed up in the courtroom of Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis and decided that the best way to be excused from jury duty was to write on her juror questionnaire that “African-Americans, Hispanics and Haitians are the three people I admire the least.” Whether those words represent how this woman truly feels or she was merely looking to not serve on a jury, the approach worked. She was excused, but her battle with Garaufis was just beginning. The juror, a young Asian woman, also wrote that she has a relative who’s in a notorious Chinese gang. Judge Garaufis sarcastically challenged, “Why didn’t you put ‘Asians’ down also?” Not intimidated by a pissed-off federal judge, this woman shot back, “Maybe I should have.” Judge Garaufis didn’t take that response well and issued something easily characterized as less than judge-like, snapping, “This is an outrage, and so are you!” With that, he ordered the woman excused from the panel but ordered her to show up for potential jury duty every day for an indefinite length of time. Garaufis’ ability to enforce his punishment is dubious at best, as he did not hold the juror in contempt and merely took offense to her answers on her questionnaire. In other words, he doesn’t technically have the right to extend jury service or punish her in any way, shape or form. Oh, and there is also the possibility that her responses on the questionnaire represent how this woman truly feels. She may be a blatant racist and in that case, there is nothing anyone can do about it but mock her relentlessly and hope she joins the rest of us in the 21st century in terms of her social views…………
- Maybe Germany has changed since I was there last summer, but one of my most distinct memories of Deutschland is beer being involved in every possible aspect of life, to that point that I half suspected Germans to bathe in it and use it to fuel their vehicles. Furthermore, European soccer is more ripe with acts of hooliganism than any other sport in any corner of the world. So why is a German fan dotting an assistant referee with a plastic beer cup at the Millerntor-Stadion during a Bundesliga match between Schalke and St. Pauli FC such a big deal? Unless the powers that be are angry about someone daring to waste beer by chucking it onto the field, why the uproar? But angry they are, as Schalke have been awarded a 2-0 victory after the game was stopped due to the beer-throwing incident. The decision to award the win to Schalke was only fitting, as they were leading for St. 2-0 when referee Deniz Aytekin stopped the game after 87 minutes. The German Football Association’s (DFB) sporting court ruled that St. Pauli was responsible for the behavior of its fans that score should stand. How any team can be expected to keep its drunken fans in check, I don’t know. Maybe if assistant referee Torsten Schiffner wasn’t such a pansy and could deal with being hit in the neck area by a full cup of booze thrown from the stands without crying like a little girl, this wouldn’t be such an issue. "In accordance with the laws and rules of the DFB the game is to be regarded as a 2-0 loss for FC St Pauli, because the club are responsible for their fans and thus has to take responsibility for the
abandonment of the match,'' a DFB statement announcing the decision read. The situation could actually worsen for St. Pauli FC, as the DFB will decide on any possible sanctions for the club later this week. St. Puali officials have been profuse in their apologies, which is sad in a sense because a team really should stand behind its fans - its drunken, belligerent fans. "This is catastrophic,'' coach Holger Stanislawski said. "There is no explanation for it. I have zero tolerance for such a thing and that should never happen inside a football stadium. I can only apologize to the linesman.'' St. Pauli director of sport Helmut Schulte added, "We have just got to face up to the consequences. This is a bad day for FC St Pauli.'' A bad day for you, but a great day for anyone in need of a reminder about just how ridiculous soccer is…………
- Much like the Gremlins, Jersey Shore cast members should not be fed after dark nor given food, light or prolonged exposure to any sort of publicity because if they receive those things, they will quickly multiply and become an even greater menace to society than they presently are. Don’t believe me? Then explain MTV’s announcement on Thursday that it has given a green light to not one, but two spin-offs for three Shore cast members – Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi and Jenni “JWoww” Farley in a combo project and Pauly “DJ Pauly D” Delvecchio in his own show. Although the new series don’t have a name yet, MTV did reveal their overall focus. The Snooki/JWoww show will allow viewers to “see how they deal with life and love when the vacation is over in this 12-episode series. The locale may be different, but the friendship is sure to remain the same.” How they deal with love and life when vacation is over? Probably in the same low-class, trailer trash fashion they deal with everything that occurs during Jersey Shore filming. But wait, there’s more. “Pauly D’s jet-setting and often hilarious life on the road as one of the country’s most in-demand DJs. Aiming to become one of the world’s most successful and recognized names in music, viewers will get to see Pauly D chase his dream with the help of the best friends he grew up with in Rhode Island by his side,” MTV stated in a release on Thursday. Avid Shore fans may be asking why these three tools have been given their own spin-offs and the other meatheads/cast members have not and MTV Executive Vice President of Programming and Head of Production explained why. “The ‘Jersey Shore’ cast is at the center of the show’s ongoing success and Nicole, Pauly D and Jenni have become household names as a result of their unique, sometimes outrageous and often hilarious personalities,” Chris Linn said in a statement. “We’re excited to put the spotlight on their lives away from the shore as they pursue their individual passions, careers and relationships. Both series are fun, fresh ways for us to evolve what is an already successful brand for us.” Evolve? Seriously? One thing no member of this show’s cast will ever do is evolve past the knuckle-dragging, IQ-deprived societal bottom feeders they are. No word was given on when the two spin-offs will debut. Oh, and a fourth season of “Jersey Shore” – set in Italy - is also in the works, which should be interesting because who wouldn’t be excited to see losers openly and superficially playing up to the worst stereotypes about Italian-Americans being confronted with the real thing in a place where they don’t speak the language? Thanks for showing we can always count on you to pander to the lowest common denominator, MTV…………
- F-U, Ecuador, F-freaking-U. You want to expel the American ambassador from your borders for some chicken sh*t offenses? We see your expulsion and we raise you the eviction of your ambassador from our country. That announcement came down Thursday in a petty-yet-awesome retaliatory move after Quito this week instructed U.S. Ambassador Heather Hodges to leave Ecuador because of a July 2009 cable issued under Hodges' signature that alleged widespread police corruption may have occurred with the knowledge of the President Rafael Correa. The U.S. State Department responded by declaring Ecuadorian Ambassador Luis Gallegos "persona non grata" and requiring him to leave the U.S. as soon as possible, State Department spokesman Charles Luoma-Overstreet said. Of course, the U.S. could have been truly punitive and also forced Gallegos to pay the dozens of parking tickets he has undoubtedly accumulated and ignored as per the international diplomats manual, but clearly the State Department wanted to leave a few maneuvers still in its playbook in case the situation escalates further. And who else is at the center of the controversy but good ol’ WikiLeaks, which released the cable and sent the dominoes tumbling. But back to America’s outrage as expressed by Luoma-Overstreet: "The unjustified action of the Ecuadorian government in declaring Ambassador Hodges persona non grata left us no other option than this reciprocal action," Luoma-Overstreet fumed. He humorously added that the U.S. is interested in a positive relationship with Ecuador even though the U.S. is also suspending the bilateral dialogue between the two countries scheduled for June. None of this is going to be the least bit helpful to American efforts to improve relations with the many left-leaning nation in the Andean region, but it’s difficult to fault Washington for its response after Ecuador expelled its third U.S. diplomat since Correa took office in 2007. With its Ecuadorian ambassador sent packing, the U.S. is now without ambassadors Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador. Even though Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño called the U.S decision "understandable" and predictable, don’t think for one second that he didn’t step off the podium and immediately resume sticking needles in his Heather Hodges and Barack Obama voodoo dolls. Game on, Ecuador, game on…………
- Not only could FAT Americans now have an excuse to blame their flabby physiques on the addictive properties of unhealthy foods (as covered in yesterday’s Daily Blog), but coffee addicts worldwide could have a handy crutch to lean on when explaining away their need for a caffeine fix. Send your letters of thanks to Dr. Neil Caporaso, branch chief of genetic epidemiology at the National Cancer Institute, and his team for their scientific revelation, coffee lovers. Caporaso, one of the study’s co-authors, and his team found that genetics may help determine how much caffeine one desires, with differences in two specific genes driving people to consume their preferred amount of coffee. "It's really an incredible story," Caporaso said. "People don't really suspect it, but genetics plays a big role in a lot of behaviors, such as smoking and alcohol consumption. And now it turns out that it has a part in how much caffeine we drink." According to the study’s results, individuals who carry a so-called "high-consumption" variation of either gene appear to drink more coffee, relative to those who carry a "low-consumption" variant. The CYP1A2 and AHR genes have been linked to coffee consumption, with the former tied to the process by which caffeine is metabolized and the latter believed to regulate the activity of CYP1A2. "Now, it's been known for a few decades that this particular CYP1A2 gene is what metabolized caffeine," Caporaso said. "But using new technology, what we now showed for the first time is that this gene appears to be responsible for the inherited differences in how people drink coffee." Also on the research team were scientists from the Harvard School of Public Health, Brigham and Women's Hospital, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, so you know you can bank on the results with that many wicked smart people in on the work. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute funded the study, which appears in the April issue of the must-read thriller PLoS Genetics. Other noteworthy factoids arising from the research include: eight in 10 American adults who consume caffeine are coffee drinkers, caffeine being the most popular psychoactive substance and 90 percent of the world consuming some form of the beverage. Caporaso and his team built their study on five previous studies examining the relationship between specific inherited traits and caffeine intake patterns. Meta-analysis (overarching analysis of results from previous studies) broke down average caffeine consumption estimates - for each participant's intake of coffee, tea, coke and other carbonated drinks, and/or chocolate. By combining all of the data, Caporaso and his associates found that those who carried the highest-consumption genotype of either the CYP1A2 or the AHR gene consumed an extra 40 milligrams of caffeine compared with those bearing the lowest-consumption genotype. "The point here is that the way we drink caffeine is not just random," Caporaso declared. "It's related to the genetic hand of cards you were dealt. And that means that now we can dissect people into fast metabolizers and slow metabolizers: people who have just one small coffee and feel well-caffeinated for a day, and people who have two large ones and then another Coke a little later in the day to get the same effect." In short, blame your excessive consumption of caffeine on your ancestors and not on your inability to say no to that extra grande double mocha with whipped cream from your local overpriced coffee shop of choice…………
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