- For far too long now, Canadian geese have been getting the short end of nature’s stick. Because they’re Canadian, people assume they eat nothing but round bacon, say “Eh” and “Aboot” all the time and watch nothing but hockey while rocking mullets and ugly denim jackets. Canadian geese have heard those ugly stereotypes, calmly taken it all in and silently plotted their revenge. They’ve used all of those hateful words as fuel and now, their retaliation has begun in earnest. The first strike came Tuesday evening in Bay County, Fla., where a 12-pound Canada goose went kamikaze on the windshield of a sport utility vehicle as a woman drove east on U.S. 10. The woman told police she was driving her Chevrolet Tahoe around 6 p.m. when the goose suddenly swooped in front of her. Showing the true kamikaze spirit, the bold bird flung itself through the vehicle’s windshield on the driver's side and ended up, dead, in the far rear of the SUV. Williams Township assistant fire chief Craig Pickelman confirmed that the unidentified driver suffered cuts on her face that appeared minor and was taken to Bay Regional Medical Center for precautionary reasons. To the casual observer, this might be just a random coincidence of one wayward bird having a chance encounter with a speeding care on a major U.S. interstate, but to the trained observer, it’s much more. It is the signal of an oncoming war of attrition, one whose warning shot was fired a few years ago when another brave Canadian goose plowed into the face of male model/margarine salesman Fabio as he tried to enjoy a fun ride on a roller coaster. Know this, world: Canadian geese are mad as hell and they’re not going to take it any longer………….
- Science, thanks for getting back to what you do best: reaffirming blatantly obvious things everyone already knows and agrees on. Telling the world that infants who are exposed to marital discord are more likely to have trouble sleeping during infancy and when they approach the toddler stage does that very thing better than just about any study could hope to. In wasting both time and research dollars digging into an issue no one was disputing, researchers evaluated more than 350 families when their babies were 9 months old and 18 months old, with all the babies having been adopted because the scientists wanted to eliminate the chance that any behaviors between parents and kids were caused by shared genes or personality characteristics. After conducting their groundbreaking research, these alleged scientists “discovered” instability in the parents’ relationship when the children were 9 months old predicted the babies would have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep when they were 18 months old. Their initial goal - other than seeing how much time and money they could waste before being shut down - was supposedly to discover whether marital instability -- for example, parents contemplating divorce -- might be related to the children’s sleep problems later in their lives. It is an amazing hypothesis because who would ever imagine that loud arguments, shouting and disruptions in a child’s formative months as a baby would stick with them going forward? Marital instability was ranked using a standard four-point research measure, with couples individually asked questions such as, “Has the thought of separating or getting a divorce crossed your mind?” Examining the possibility that changes in brain systems involved in development of sleep patterns might reflect the impact of stress in the family on very young kids would seem like a waste of time in that respect, but let’s hear from the researchers before deciding. “Our findings suggest that the effects of marital instability on children’s sleep problems emerge earlier in development than has been demonstrated previously,” says study researcher Anne M. Mannering, PhD, an instructor of human development at Oregon State University. “Parents should be aware that marital stress may affect the well-being of their children even in the first year or two of life. If these problems persist, they can correlate with problems in school, inattention and behavioral issues.” Nope, still a waste of time. The party being suckered out of its research money was the National Institutes of Health. Mannering says the study is the first done on the link between marital issues and infant sleep, which makes sense because finding a sham of a researcher with the kahones to throw away time and money at something so obvious isn't easy to do. Should you have an interest in reading more about how Mannering and her team arrived at the most obvious conclusion since everyone agreed that Jimmy Hendrix fellow was pretty good with a guitar, check out the study in published form in the last issue of Child Development……………
- So, is former Oasis frontman and current Beady Eye band leader Liam Gallagher still one of the most pompous a-holes in all of rock and roll? For a definitive answer to that question, let’s check in with Mr. Gallagher after performing at last week’s Glastonbury Festival. After performing at the Worthy Farm events with his decidedly less-talented, less successful and much worse new band, Gallagher vowed he is "never going there again" in reference to the festival. "The sound is sh*t and really quiet and now it's like Bond Street with mud, with loads of celebrities walking around in their boots and umbrellas. I'm not having it." Bond Street, for those not in the know, is well-known for celebrity spottings and Gallagher clearly feels the festival has turned into some sort of elitist gathering, topped off with a crappy sound system. He isn't the first Gallagher brother to rip Michael Eavis' festival, with brother Noel (the most popular target of Liam’s rants lately dating back to their time in Oasis) having ripped the festival back in 2008 for booking Jay-Z as a headliner, saying the booking of a rapper to headline a night of the event "wrong.” Beady Eye’s set at the festival was the first time either of the Gallagher brothers had played Glastonbury since 2004, when Oasis headlined the Pyramid Stage. Perhaps Liam Gallagher and Beady Eye will have more success on the remainder of their jaunt around the U.K. festival circuit this summer as they play at Somerset House, T In The Park and Reading And Leeds Festival. The criticisms of Glastonbury won't come as a surprise to anyone familiar with Liam Gallagher’s act and needless to say he has once more reaffirmed his status as rock’s top d-bag, although calling what Beady Eye does on stage rock is something of a stretch………….
- This is definitely new. The Man has tried all manner of pathetic, ridiculous tactics to stamp out protests and uprisings over the years, everything from tear gas to water cannons, truncheons to rubber bullets and every other imaginable weapon, even canines. But leave it to Ugandan police to come up with a bizarre new tactic, spraying opposition leaders with a pink liquid on Tuesday to stop them from holding a banned rally in the nation’s capital of Kampala. Opposition politician Olara Otunnu was among those blasted with the mysterious pink spray, which police refused to identify the nature or composition of. Otunnu called the incident the "latest installment" of President Yoweri Museveni's "brutality and atrocity.” After drenching the crowd with the peculiar pink spray, police also arrested Democratic Party leader Norbert Mao, another of the events leaders. The conflict in Uganda is not so different from those raging in nations across the Middle East and Africa, with the people angry at those in power and of the belief that the man currently presiding over their country is not its legitimate leader. Museveni, who has been in office for 25 years, is due to be sworn in again as president on Thursday even though many Ugandans support main opposition leader Kizza Besigye’s contention that the vote was rigged. The odds of the vote being legitimate seem low given the outpouring of anger directed at Museveni and the manner in which he has responded, but either way he seems unlikely to step down willingly and recognize the will of the people bold enough to step up and speak out against him. In other words, he’ll follow in the weak footsteps of dictators like Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Zimbabwe’s Bob Mugabe and others…………
- The upper hand didn’t last very long for the University of Michigan football program. The Wolverines were feeling mighty good about themselves not on the basis of anything they had done on the field the past three seasons or so, but simply because their biggest rivals were in the middle of a colossal sh*t storm of NCAA violations and issues. Ohio State being revealed as a shady, dirty program with a coach who was proving to be one of the biggest hypocrites in a college football world full of them. Those facts are still true, but Michigan isn't exactly painting itself in the most favorable light, not with UM wide receiver Darryl Stonum getting arrested Friday morning on suspicion of drunken driving, the day before the school announced he had been suspended indefinitely. Coach Brady Hoke said only that Stonum had made a "poor decision" and was being disciplined when he announced the suspension. However, Diane Brown of the University of Michigan police confirmed that Stonum was arrested around 2:25 a.m. on Friday on suspicion of operating while under the influence. One player driving drunk isn't the same as an entire program being out of control and operating outside the rules, but just to be safe, the Wolverines probably should have refrained from having any of their players arrested or suspended for a few weeks just so people could fully embrace them as having the moral high ground on the Buckeyes. Stonum was a starter for the Wolverines last season as a junior and ranked second on the team in receptions and yards receiving. For his career, he has 76 career receptions for 1,008 yards and six touchdowns. Whether or not he adds to those totals and by how much is up to Hoke, who will have to decide how many games of suspension a drunk driving arrest merits. Hope being morally superior was fun while it lasted, UM fans and alumni………….
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