- College basketball teams are permitted to take a foreign tour every four years to play international competition over the summer. Programs use the trips as something of a team-building exercise along with a chance to cram in extra practice hours during a time of year when coaches are otherwise not permitted to work with players in a practice setting. The trips often involve long flights and games against college and professional teams in places like Italy, Germany, China or Russia. What those trips do not typically involve are all-out brawls between the college teams and their opponents. Yet that very sort of international incident took place Thursday in a game between the Georgetown Hoyas and the Bayi Rockets, a Chinese professional team. The Hoyas were in the midst of an 11-day trip through China and playing in their second game after beating the Shanxi Brave Dragons in a game attended by United States Vice President Joe Biden. Witnesses characterized the game as extremely physical and as is to be expected in a game involving a local team against a squad from abroad, the Rockets racked up a sizeable 57-15 advantage in free throws taken. The referees either didn’t have any interest in stemming the physicality or figured those evil, capitalist Americans were getting what they deserved, because the game spun out of control and by the time it reached the fourth quarter, something bad was going to happen. After two players exchanged words earlier in the game and a Rockets player even berated Georgetown coach John Thompson III after the Hoyas' coach yelled at his team, the Hoyas rallied to tie the score a 64 midway through the fourth quarter. At that point, two players began swinging on one another and it was on. The benches emptied, water bottles were hurled onto the court from the stands along with other projectiles and one Georgetown player, Henry Sims, was reportedly hit by a chair. Thompson pulled his team off the court and they rushed back to the locker room to avoid further danger. "Tonight, two great teams played a very competitive game that unfortunately ended after heated exchanges with both teams,'' Thompson said in a statement. "We sincerely regret that this situation occurred. We remain grateful for the opportunity our student-athletes are having to engage in a sport they love here in China, while strengthening their understanding of a nation we respect and admire at Georgetown University.'' Right, because nothing says respect and admiration quite like a game-ending brawl involving projectiles, punches and chair shots…………
- Is it really too much to ask that American cities and their public works and utilities departments keep crap out of their water supplies - literally, crap. Less than a month after a waste processing plant in Harlem began leaking massive amounts of waste into the Hudson River on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, an estimated 2.4 million gallons of sewer overflow spilled Tuesday into Baltimore’s Back River, according to the Baltimore City Department of Public Works. The culprit in this case was a heavy rainfall in the area Sunday afternoon, according to DPW officials. Massive quantities of rain led to a sewer overflow shortly before 12:30 p.m. Officials placed part of the blame on construction upgrades at the plant, which teamed with the massive rainfall to infiltrate sewer lines that were already well above normal levels and cause chaos. But for those concerned about 2.4 million gallons of material that not long ago was exiting someone’s toilet, fear not. "It's not 2.4 million gallons of material from the toilet. It is mostly rainwater. The circumstances just came together in a perfect storm, and an overwhelming amount of rain infiltrated our pipes," DPW official Kurt Kocher cautioned. Mostly rainwater or not, the sewage overflow prompted health officials to close Rocky Point Beach and post alerts on Cox's Point and Edgemere Park. The warnings did not seem to bother most beachgoers at the latter two locations, with crowds at normal levels despite the cautionary messages. There is no definite timeline for when the beach will be reopened and the warnings lifted, but officials plan to monitor water samples and lift the alert once they return to normal. The test results are expected by the end of the week, so the wait should not be long. Coincidentally, DPW officials said they are about to embark on a billion-dollar rehabilitation project for the sanitary system to prevent future overflows. Very timely, fellas, very timely…………
- All or nothing. That is the new plan for AT&T for text messaging. The carrier will completely overhaul its texting pricing system to focus on unlimited offerings starting August 21, it confirmed Thursday. Left out in the overhaul is a plan that currently offers 1,000 messages for $10 per month. Instead, new customers can choose either a per-text payment plan or an unlimited plan for $20 per month, while families can get an unlimited plan on up to five phones for $30 per month. The best new is for current AT&T customers with “tweener” plans, because they can keep their current plans and only new customers will be screwed over. "We regularly evaluate our offers and are making some adjustments to our messaging lineup," AT&T said in a statement. "The vast majority of our messaging customers prefer unlimited plans and with text messaging growth stronger than ever, that number continues to climb among new customers." Without an unlimited plan, users pay 20 cents per message. Couple with AT&T announcement two weeks ago that it will throttle the data speeds of mobile customers who use an "extraordinary" amount of data, even if they are on an unlimited plan, it’s safe to say the company is pissing a lot of people off. AT&T has attempted to fend off the coming storm of rage for the slowdowns - which will begin Oct. 1 – by insisting the change will only affect the top 5 percent of its heaviest data users and that "this change will never impact the vast majority of our customers." Users impacted by the slowdowns will have their data speed drastically reduced until their next billing cycle begins. These data hogs will supposedly receive "multiple notices, including a grace period," before their speed is slowed, according to AT&T. Those notices will likely go ignored while these data devotees are staring intently at whatever über-important data they are currently accessing on their smartphone, but at least AT&T can warn them before giving them a giant service middle finger by not providing the data speed they were promised when they signed their overpriced two-year contract……….
- Booyah! There is no one in their right mind who doesn’t enjoy a good aerial assault across international borders and Turkish military provided just such an experience by launching an assault on Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq overnight Wednesday, hitting 60 targets by plane and another 168 with artillery from across the border. The all-out attack came in response to the killing of nine Turkish soldiers in southeastern Turkey Wednesday by Kurdish separatists. The strikes targeted a region "frequented" by the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK), which has been defiantly fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey for decades. Both the Turkish and U.S. governments classify the PKK as a terrorist organization and its practice of operating from hideouts in the mountainous border region between Iraq and Turkey doesn’t exactly dispel that notion. It had been far too long (the summer of 2010) since Turkish military planes last bombed inside Iraq, so Wednesday's ambush against the Turkish soldiers was a welcome sight – to everyone but the targets of the ambush, of course. The attack was quickly hailed as the deadliest attack on the military since a campaign against the Kurdish autonomy movement began in July. One of the deadliest incidents of the movement was a July 13 attack by the rebels on the Turkish military that killed 30 soldiers. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan really had no choice but to respond to the attack with force, as he is under immense pressure to improve stability and prove his strength as a commander after his top military leaders resigned en masse last month. That left Erdogan in full control of the military and he was immediately faced with the quandary of fighting back against the Kurds or making concessions to them, which would be a major risk politically. On the other hand, the PKK refuses to give up violence unless its demands, meaning the conflict is likely to rage on for some time. What are those demands? They include the use of the Kurdish language in public education and an amnesty for militants hiding in northern Iraq, are met by Turkey. After Wednesday’s attacks, Turkey quickly tagged the violence with warnings that similar attacks could happen in the future. "Such operations will be carried out within and outside of Turkey with determination until the separatist organization is neutralized," a military report said. Speaking at a meal to break the Ramadan fast on Tuesday following the ambush on the Turkish soldiers, Erdogan foreshadowed Wednesday’s events, warning that "a new period is starting" in the conflict. He has done a fair amount of work attempting to improve relations with Turkey's Kurds, going so far as to admit that the government made mistakes in its treatment of the country's largest minority. Those comments have seemingly done nothing to assuage the rage of the Kurds, whose main party in parliament boycotted the swearing-in for new lawmakers, despite winning a larger number of seats in June's elections, because the government disqualified some of the party's candidates. Yes, this is going to be a long, bitter and bloody one…………
- Now this is getting depressing. When I first started spouting my conspiracy theory about Hollywood having a goal of remaking every movie ever made and turning the entire industry into an endless cycle of only remakes, sequels and prequels, it seemed too absurd to be true. Now…….not so much. It slid under the radar initially, but back in March, Hollywood production company Alcon Entertainment acquired rights to the "Blade Runner" property. The original film was about "replicants" (robots that are indistinguishable from humans) traveling illegally to a dystopian Los Angeles, with Harrison Ford's Rick Deckard character chasing down the replicants to destroy them. It was the quintessential box office underachiever that became a cult favorite on TV and home video, giving studios the misguided impression that it would be a good franchise to revive. Alcon purchased the rights to the franchise in March and began working toward the goal of making “Blade Runner” the rare ‘80s movie remade by a director didn’t who grow up in that era and now wants to put his own spin on a supposed classic. Scott was the director for the original “Blade Runner” film and Alcon immediately made it clear he was their top choice to helm the new project. Inking Scott for the project, Alcon executive Andrew Kosove said, "is something we think would be wonderful." Under the terms of purchase, Alcon can make either a prequel or a sequel and Scott will likely play a big part in that decision. Alcon also has the right to build off scenes from the original film along with passages from the book that inspired the film, Philip K. Dick's source novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" For whatever reason, Alcon executives believe that three decades lurking in cinematic no man’s land will somehow make “Blade Runner” a smash hit in the 21st century. "The 'Blade Runner' lore is kind of irresistible," Kosove beamed. "And the extraordinary pace of technological advancement since the movie came out means that there are a lot of opportunities to do something fresh." Yes, something fresh like recycling the general concept of a movie that has already been made. Wisely spoken, Andrew…………
No comments:
Post a Comment