- Dammit, has anyone seen my grenade lately? I had it right here beside me just a few hours ago and then I just got busy and lost track of it……..oh wait, someone found it? Awesome! That’s a huge weight off my mind…..what’s that? The grenade caused a major - albeit brief - panic after it was found near Interstate 435 in Kansas City. Authorities closed Front Street from I-435 to Corrington Avenue, as well as the northbound exit from I-435, Monday afternoon after the grenade was spotted. A concerned (and panicky) citizen tipped police off to the grenade’s presence and they shut down the area until officers could arrive on the scene and assess the threat. In the end, the threat was all hype as Kansas City Police Department spokeswoman Stacey Graves said the device was a training grenade. Investigators simply collected the wayward grenade and were on their way without further incident. The closed streets reopened a few hours later and life went back to normal. Police are still not sure how the grenade ended up in that particular location or who was responsible for putting it there, but at least the incident injected a little life into an otherwise mundane Monday in Kansas City. In fact, maybe mischief-loving citizens around the United States could add a welcome dose of excitement to their otherwise humdrum daily existence by taking unused firearms, ordinance and incendiary devices and leaving them in random public places. Sounds like a recipe for success to me, or the plot for a 24 spin-off movie…………
- God bless you, Irish farmer Alan Graham, God bless you. You have done something many others before you should have had the courage to do, even if your reasons for your actions were rooted firmly in the 19th century and in desperate need of a leap forward in social and moral consciousness. Graham was the unfortunate soul approached by pop hack Rihanna and her record label to use his field as the site for her new single "We Found Love." Graham, who knew nothing about Rihanna or her music (lucky bastard) and yet he gave her permission to use the field for the video. He was okay with the project right up to the point when he was out in the field doing some work on his tractor when he spotted something he didn’t approve of going on over on the set of the video. Channeling her inner Survivor contestant, Rihanna was dancing in a red handkerchief bikini when Graham noticed her and drove over on his tractor to put a halt to the proceedings. Rather than simply enjoy the sight (she may not make good music but no one said she wasn’t hot) as many dudes would, Graham objected to the display of immodesty and chastised Rihanna for her "inappropriate" wardrobe. "I have an ethos and I felt it was inappropriate," Graham explained. "I requested them to stop and they did." The shoot was stopped, the record label ate the cost of moving the entire project to a new location and the two sides parted ways good terms, according to Graham, shaking hands as he went on his way. "I wish no ill will against Rihanna and her friends," he said later. "Perhaps they could acquaint themselves with a greater God." Ouch. A nice “greater God” blast on the way out the door. As a quick aside, you’d think someone involved with the video would have sat down with Graham at some point to explain what the nature of the video was or that Graham himself would have asked a few questions. Then again, the chance to put a stop to Rihanna’s gawd-awful attempts at music is something most people will never be fortunate enough to experience…………
- Overturning one of Einstein's long-accepted fundamental laws of the universe has to be considered a successful day for any scientist and the international team of researchers working on an experiment dubbed OPERA run jointly by the CERN particle research centre near Geneva and the Gran Sasso Laboratory in central Italy must be pleased with themselves right now. This brilliant group of minds said on Thursday they had recorded sub-atomic particles travelling faster than light. Antonio Ereditato, spokesman for the researchers, cited measurements taken over three years that allegedly showed neutrinos pumped from CERN near Geneva to Gran Sasso in Italy had arrived 60 nanoseconds quicker than light would have done. "We have high confidence in our results. We have checked and rechecked for anything that could have distorted our measurements but we found nothing," Ereditato said. "We now want colleagues to check them independently." That find, if validated, would undercut Albert Einstein's 1905 theory of special relativity, which says that the speed of light is a "cosmic constant" and that nothing in the universe can travel faster. On a quick tangent, Einstein’s theory that a moustache is a good look for anyone but firemen, police officers and porn stars was debunked long ago. His theory on the speed of light has been repeatedly tested over the past century and remains one of the key elements of the so-called Standard Model of physics, which attempts to describe the way the universe and everything in it works. The OPERA team fired a total of 15,000 beams of neutrinos -- tiny particles that pervade the cosmos -- over a period of 3 years from CERN towards Gran Sasso 500 miles away, where they were picked up by giant detectors. The neutrinos (which sound like some sort of healthy new breakfast cereal) bested the speed of light by covering that distance in 60 billionths of a second less than the 2.4 thousandths of a second light beams would have taken. "It is a tiny difference," said Ereditato, "but conceptually it is incredibly important. The finding is so startling that, for the moment, everybody should be very prudent." Implications of the discovery are still largely unknown, but the pie-in-the-sky dreamers out there who hold out hope that Back to the Future could in fact come true will undoubtedly trumpet this news as a sign that time travel might theoretically become possible. On a side note, big ups to the crew at CERN -- also home to the Large Hadron Collider probing the origins of the universe - for another riveting discovery because in between the collider breaking down every other week, they’ve come up with some really interesting stuff………….
- Women’s rights, specifically the right to die on the front lines of a war, are about to get a boost in Australia. The Australian government announced Tuesday that female soldiers will soon be able to serve in all front-line combat roles, a move that makes Australia one of a small number of countries that allow women to serve alongside male counterparts in some of the most dangerous roles in modern warfare. Women will now be allowed to serve on über-dangerous military teams like Special Forces units in Afghanistan. While it remains highly unlike the Aussies will be going to war directly any time soon (unless someone tries to steal their beer), the announcement by Defense Minister Stephen Smith still represents the biggest shakeup of the country’s armed forces in more than a decade. Allowing women to serve in the Special Forces, infantry and some army artillery roles was first proposed in April in light of a series of military scandals at home and abroad. The most prominent example was a male cadet at the elite Australian Defense Force Academy caught streaming video of himself having sex with a female cadet to his friends via Skype without her knowledge. How that equates to women in combat roles isn't exactly perfect logic, but Prime Minster Julia Gillard supports the new policy. “We have an Australian Army that’s been going for 110 years, an Australian Navy that’s been going formally for 100 years, and an Australian Air Force that’s been going for 90 years, and last night, we resolved to remove the final restrictions on the capacity of women to serve in front-line combat roles,” Smith said. “In the future, your role in the defense force will be determined on your ability, not on the basis of your sex.” Women have already played a significant role in Australia’s effort in both Iraq and Afghanistan, where the Aussies currently comprise the largest contingent of any non-NATO member. Nearly 340 women were serving on overseas operations as of August, accounting for more than 10 percent of Australia’s fighting forces deployed overseas. Of course, 93 percent of positions are open to women under the current policy, meaning the new rules will open up the remaining 7 percent. The changes will be implemented over a five-year period and Australia will join Canada, Israel and New Zealand as the only developed countries with no restrictions on women serving in front-line capacities. The United States continues to lag behind by not allowing the women who make up 14 percent of its armed forces to serve in front-line combat roles…………
- No one likes a bitter old dude who won't give any credit to the next generation and insists on ragging on them every chance he gets. It’s why so many people despise the living members of the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins team - the only undefeated champion in the Super Bowl era of the NFL - because they pop champagne and have a party every year when the final undefeated team loses its first game. Even when that old dude is an absolute icon in a particular city the way Super Bowl III hero Joe Namath is in New York, the bitterman routine wears thin very quickly. Namath seems oblivious to this fact as he has laid out his former team not once, but twice this season. Namath, who famously guaranteed victory over the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III and delivered, first cracked the Jets’ signing of free-agent receiver and recent New York Department of Corrections inmate Plaxico Burress, saying Burress would be “damn lucky” to make it through the entire season. After Sunday’s humbling 10-point loss in Oakland, Namath - not associated with the team in any official capacity - Namath directed his criticism toward Jets coach Rex Ryan for not having his team properly prepared for the contest. "It wasn't disheartening so to speak," Namath said. "It's rather alarming is the way I'm looking at it. It starts at the top. Coach Rex Ryan I think has been doing a great job getting the team to two (AFC) Championship Games. But if there's one thing about the athlete, if you keep telling him how good he is, he's going to start believing it, to the point that he may not be preparing not quite the way he should. He may be losing some respect for the other team." Yikes. Accusing a coach of not preparing his team well enough for a game is about as serious a charge as anyone can levy and as expected, Ryan wasn’t exactly backing away from the confrontation when asked about it Monday. "I'm not gonna change who I am because Joe Namath said something," Ryan said in response. "Joe Namath can come in here, and if he can still throw, we'll have him as a backup quarterback. He doesn't know our team. He's on the outside. Even though he's a Jet, and once you're a Jet you're always a Jet ... but he's on the outside, he's not in these meetings. I think if he was he'd be shocked at the preparation.” Good call, Rex, suggesting than a 68-year-old recovering alcoholic who hasn’t taken a snap in more than three decades should try to make the roster as a backup to a third-year quarterback in Mark Sanchez who hasn’t even played in a Super Bowl. The situation could have become even more heated had Ryan said what he probably wanted to say to Namath but had too much respect for his position in Jets history. Regardless of how Rex handled the matter though, Broadway Joe would do well to drop the crotchety old geezer act…………
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