- The pizza king may not have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the Republican presidential nomination for next year’s election, but that doesn’t mean Herman Cain can't generate plenty of headlines and discussion while he remains in the race. The Herman-ator continued doing exactly that Sunday in defending his opposition to a new mosque in Tennessee. The way Cain sees it, there is great reason to be concerned about Shariah law and as a result, Americans "have the right" to ban mosques in their communities. Those comments came on the heels of Cain’s admission earlier this year that he would be uncomfortable appointing a Muslim to his Cabinet if elected. Rather than double back and try to spin his words, Cain chose to pile on this past week by expressing concern about the controversial mosque in Murfreesboro, Tenn. Outside of the so-called "Ground Zero mosque" in New York City, the Murfreesboro mosque has become easily the most controversial in the United States. The mosque has sparked demonstrations and legal challenges and inspired Cain’s latest controversial remarks during an appearance on über-conservative Fox News new magazine "Fox News Sunday." Cain explained that he came to oppose the Murfreesboro mosque after talking to members of that community. In Cain’s words, the site is "hallowed ground" to Murfreesboro residents and that they're concerned about "the intentions of trying to get Shariah law" -- the code governing conduct in Islamic societies. "It's not just a mosque for religious purposes. This is what the people are objecting to," he said. The obvious follow-up question is what rights a community should have in preventing the construction of a mosque and in Herman Cain’s mind, those rights should be immense. "They have the right to do that. That's not discriminating ... against that particular religion. That is an aspect of them building that mosque that doesn't get talked about," he said of stopping a mosque from being built. Unfortunately for Cain, a local judge has ruled that the project can go forward and there’s no guarantee that, as the Herman-ator believes, the case will actually reach the Supreme Court. In the meantime, the same heat Cain and his followers are putting on the mosque is being directed at him by the Muslim community, which is excoriating Cain for his words. The Council on American-Islamic Relations accused him of using "bigoted" language with his Cabinet comments and said Sunday that he should "apologize" for his latest remarks. Ah, life must have been much easier when Cain was only the CEO of Godfather's Pizza and his biggest dilemma was the appropriate price point for pizza with cheese baked into the crust…………
- There may not be a smarter player in the NFL than Seattle Seahawks receiver Golden Tate. Tate may not be a Mensa member and he may not have a certified IQ of 150, but his extremely wise comments on NASCAR and whether or not its drivers are athletes could not be more on point. As the ESPY Awards rolled around last week to honor some of the best in sports over the past year, Tate expressed wonderment that NASCAR drive Jimmie Johnson, the four-time defending NASCAR champion, was nominated for male athlete of the year at the ESPYs. Tate posted on his account, @ShowtimeTate, "Jimmy johnson up for best athlete???? Um nooo .. Driving a car does not show athleticism." Well said, Golden. Driving a car 200 mph in a circle may require skill, but it does not make one an athlete. If driving fast, going in circles, cutting other drivers off, not using your turn signal and causing accidents makes someone an athlete, then every American with a driver’s license is an athlete. Those who insist that auto racing is a sport forget the basic principle that for something to meet the basic criteria of a sport, a human being should be providing the vast majority of the power, not an internal combustion engine. Tate’s accurate comments predictably prompted outrage from oversensitive NASCAR fans, who besieged him with angry replies. He later posted, "12th man get these rednecks off me," alluding to the nickname commonly used for the Seahawks’ rowdy fan base at home games. When media members ran Tate’s words past Johnson Friday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Johnson laughed them off and invited Tate to the track to learn more about NASCAR. "I think it's easy to make a comment when you don't know," Johnson said. "In a lot of situations, people haven't been to a race or been close enough to our sport to understand what takes place here." Umm, no. Don’t mistake not knowing the ins and outs of auto racing or how difficult it is with realizing that what you all do is NOT a sport. Tate knows as much, which is why he later tweeted that drivers aren't qualified to be called athletes like men in shoulder pads. “I've driven a car on unknown roads at night at 90mph no big deal. No sign of athletism (sp)," he posted. “Guarantee he couldn't in million year play any SPORT. give me 6 months of training and I bet I could compete." So swift and severe was the backlash for his words (the truth hurts), Tate had to back down. "Apologies for my offensive comment to NASCAR fans. I actually read up on it and NO I couldn't race a car 150 mph," he tweeted. "will say my respect for NASCAR has gone up tremendously yalls fans r hard nose and passionate #respect!" Just don’t mistake that apology for a concession that your heroes in firesuits and souped-up cars are actual athletes, auto racing fans, because clearly they’re not and never will be until they cut holes in the floors of their rides and make them run by going all Fred Flintstone with it…………
- Think twice before draining that beer bong a second time or doing another keg stand, ladies. According to researchers from the University of California, San Diego and Stanford University and the findings of their study published in the most recent issue of everyone’s must-read scientific journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, teenage girls who binge-drink have a higher risk of long-term harm to the brain compared to boys of the same age who also binge drink. For the study, researchers defined binge drinking as consuming at least four (for females) or five (for males) alcoholic drinks at one sitting. Activity levels in several regions of the brain among girls who binge drink were lower than what one would normally find among typical teenagers among participants. "These differences in brain activity were linked to worse performance on other measures of attention and working memory ability,” co-author, Susan Tapert of Stanford University said. Reasons for the difference in the impact of binge drinking on brain activity were not explicitly spelled out by the study, but researchers offered theories including: a girl's brain tends to develop a couple of years earlier than a boy's, the slower metabolic rate in girls, the typical weight difference between boys and girls or hormonal differences. The findings were similar to those of previous studies on adults who abuse alcohol - women tend to be more vulnerable to its harmful effects on the brain. Its scope was small - just 95 participants - and of those 95 teenagers, 40 said they had taken part in sessions of binge drinking. They were also asked how often they had consumed an alcoholic drink during their lifetime and what their alcohol consumption had been during the three months before the study began. Following those questions, participants were asked to complete tasks that activated brain parts responsible for spatial working memory, while at the same time being scanned with an MRI (medical resonance imaging) device. Any impairment of spatial memory can result in problems doing everyday tasks such as driving, reading a map and sports involving significant motor skills. Any worries that researchers were benefitting from some teenage alcoholics without actually helping them can be shelved because Tapert was adamant that none of the 95 participants was alcoholic or had a drink problem. Extrapolating their results on a grander scale, the study’s authors estimated that nearly 30 percent of all teenagers in America in their last year of school reported binge drinking during the previous four weeks. Overall, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows that 75 percent of all alcohol consumed in the U.S. is consumed during binge-drinking sessions. Now, we have a better idea of where it is going and what its potential effects may be………….
- He may still be the man (un)officially in power over the communist behemoth that is Russia, but communist or not, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin deserves respect. He deserves that respect if for no other reason than inspiring a group called "Putin's Army,” which just might be the coolest political support group in recorded history. What - or who - is Putin’s Army? The group came to light through an online campaign launched in Russia urging young women to support Putin in a presidential vote by taking off their clothes. Putin, who was president between 2000-2008 before handing the reins to his protege Dmitry Medvedev, is planning to return to the post he’s never truly left and has apparently enlisted the help of someone who thinks that hot chicks getting naked is a great way to rally support for a presidential candidate (something Bill Clinton would undoubtedly support). The site for Putin’s Army features a video of a blonde student called Diana strutting her stuff on the streets of Moscow in a sexy black suit and high heels before writing "I will tear my clothes off for Putin" on a white top in red lipstick and starting to undo her clothes. Were that all there was to the video, it would be slimy, greasy, dirty, pervy and more than a little creepy. Thankfully, the apparent point of the video is actually inviting girls to strip for the chance of winning an iPad2. In a country where poverty is common and affording a new, state-of-the-art tablet computer is all but impossible for the average Russian, channeling your inner stripper and skanking it up for a new iPad 2 may actually be incentive enough to inspire some of Russia’s finest talent to doff their clothing and show their support for a new tablet, er, their future president in the process. Sure, there’s a chance you could humiliate yourself by stripping to enter the contest and not win anything, but perhaps it will lead you to a lucrative career of taking your clothes off for disgusting, pervy strangers who will reward you by shoving paper money into your G-string, so either way the result could be positive………….
- Everyone saw it coming and realized it would happen regardless of how good or bad Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 was, so the final installment of the dork-tastic wizard series inspired by J.K. Rowling’s children’s books crushing the field at the box office this weekend was merely a question of how wide the margin would be. That number ended up in the category of fairly staggering, as the film set a record for domestic earnings on an opening weekend with $168.5 million. That was nearly eight times the amount earned by the runner-up, Transformers: Dark of the Moon. In its third weekend, Michael Bay’s latest overhyped, underwhelming effort churned out $21.2 million to push its three-week domestic total over the $300 million mark at $302.8 million and counting. Third place went to the Jason Bateman-led comedy Horrible Bosses, which may not be very good but still cranked out $17.6 million in its second weekend of release and has made $60 million in the U.S. thus far. The worst movie of the top 10 (in a very heated race, even more heated than most weekends) came in fourth, as Zookeeper somehow found enough idiots to see a talking ape movie that is essentially Dr. Doolittle set in a zoo to make $12.3 million for a cumulative total of $42.3 million. Rounding out the top five was Cars 2, which has been fairly successful in its first month and came in fifth with $8.4 million to make its overall tally at the four-week mark a solid $165.3 million in domestic movie dollars. Scanning the latter half of the top 10 yields a list consisting of: newcomers Winnie the Pooh (No. 6 with an underwhelming debut of $8 in its first weekend), Cameron Diaz’s Bad Teacher (No. 7 and another contender for worst movie in the top 10, earning $5.2 million for the weekend and $88 million through one month in theaters), the thoroughly forgettable and mediocre Larry Crowne (No. 8 with $2.5 million, a whopping 56 drop from last weekend, and $31.6 through three weeks), the hearty Super 8 (checking in at No. 9 after six weeks of release with $1.9 million and a cumulative total of $122.2 million) and Midnight in Paris (jumping back into the top 10 at No. 10 after falling out last week by making $1.8 million for a nine-week total of $41.8 million). Three films - the final three - from last week’s top 10 all fell out this time around, with Mr. Popper’s Penguins (would have been a contender for worst top 10 film if it had made the cut) at No. 12, Monte Carlo plummeting to No. 13 and Green Lantern falling four spots to No. 14………….
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