- In case you forgot, the world is going to end in about a year. According to the ancient Mayan calendar, the apocalypse is scheduled to hit in November 2012. There is no clear consensus on how that end will happen, but NASA may have some inside information that could be of value to the world. The space agency has stated that next year's solar maximum will see solar flares that are "a problem the same way hurricanes are a problem.” Considering the troubles hurricanes have wreaked along the southern and eastern coasts of the United States in the past few decades, that doesn’t sound like a small problem. Hurricane Katrina devastated three major U.S. cities, killing hundreds of people (and proving that former President W. hated black people, according to Kanye West) and it is merely one example of hurricanes’ potential for destruction. Previous NASA-funded studies have warned of a "Space Katrina" flare or coronal mass ejection with the potential to devastate modern civilization by demolishing power grids and communications systems. Food supplies would be ruined, transportation would come to a standstill and the world would have to do without smartphones, Internet access and (gasp) Facebook AND Twitter. Fortunately, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center issued a statement this week that did warn of hurricane-like solar flares coming, but also mentioned that there is not enough energy in the sun to send a fireball of doom over 93 million miles to destroy Earth. Even the worst solar flares could not accomplish that feat. The statement read in part: “Solar flares are a problem the same way hurricanes are a problem. One can protect oneself with advance information and proper precautions. During a hurricane watch, a homeowner can stay put ... or he can seal up the house, turn off the electronics and get out of the way.” In other words, mass destruction, not so much. Possibility that a solar flare might result in an individual, more personal apocalypse? Maybe. Anyone still fearful that the end of the world will come as a result of next year’s solar maximum should know that anyone over the age of 11 has already lived through at least one solar maximum of the sort coming up. These maxima have been steadily decreasing in intensity over time and many solar physicists believe that in fact the Sun may be headed into a long period of inactivity in which no sunspots appear and no or very few flares occur, perhaps lasting many decades. Now back to your preparations for the world’s imminent doom…………
- Kudos to the NFL and the Detroit Lions for their role in assembling the single worst musical effort in the history of mankind. Standing atop that mountain of magnificently bad song stylings is a massive feat and topping the man-band tours that crisscrossed the country in the 1990s or any concert in the disco era is jaw-dropping, but the Thanksgiving Day game between the Lions and Green Bay Packers will easily conquer anything that has come before it. A few weeks back, it was announced that über-awful, enema-like rockers Nickelback, a.k.a. Nickelhack, a.k.a. Bickelnack, would be performing at halftime of the traditional noon home game for the Lions on Thanksgiving. All of the NFL’s Thanksgiving Day games have a well-known recording artist lip sync/perform at halftime and those performances are inevitably tied to raising support and awareness for the United Way. While it is impossible to please everyone with any music selection, the general goal seems to be a mainstream artist that most everyone knows even if they dislike them. The problem with Nickelhack is that everyone HATES them. The general public hates them so much that Michigan resident Dennis Guttman started an online petition to have the band removed as the halftime entertainment. Guttman’s petition gathered more than 52,000 signatures within eight days.
"This game is nationally televised; do we really want the rest of the U.S. to associate Detroit with Nickelback?" the petition declares. "Detroit is home to so many great musicians and they chose Nickelback?!?!?! Does anyone even like Nickelback? Is this some sort of ploy to get people to leave their seats during halftime to spend money on alcoholic beverages and concessions?" Read those words again and tell me Guttman doesn’t sound personally and irrevocably offended and injured by the band chosen to play a six-minute halftime set. It’s as if he wants to fight someone…..and with good reason. Nickelhack is terrible and listening to them for two or even five minutes makes your life worse. But the band issued a statement glossing right over the online petition and pretending everything was cool. "We are honored to perform at the United Way halftime show on Thanksgiving Day," Nickelback lead singer Chad Kroeger said in a statement. "We always love playing in Detroit, our fans there have been tremendously supportive of us through the years and we can't wait to come back and celebrate an exciting day for the Lions and the city of Detroit." You might be celebrating (and looking to promote your sure-to-suck new album, due out Nov. 21), but no one else will be…..at least not until you stop “singing” and leave. Oh, and the musical suck-tacular will also f feature "American Idol" season 10 runner-up Lauren Alaina singing the national anthem. No, it truly could not get any worse…………
- Take a seat, Syria. The Arab League has had just about enough of your act and they’re benching you indefinitely. The 22-member organization has suspended Syria over its failure to end the bloodshed and oppression wrought by its brutal government crackdowns on pro-democracy protests. The suspension came at an emergency session in Cairo of the Arab League’s 22 members states and the decision is likely to increase the international pressure on President/despot Bashar al-Assad. In addition to agreeing to exclude Syria until it implements the terms of an earlier agreed peace deal to stop the violence, the league also agreed to impose economic and political sanctions on Syria over its failure to stop the violence and urged its member states to withdraw their ambassadors from Damascus. "Syria is a dear country for all of us and it pains us to make this decision," said Qatari prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr bin Muhammad Al Thani (real name). "We hope there will be a brave move from Syria to stop the violence and begin a real dialogue toward real reform." One thing the vote did not include was a declaration of any sort of military intervention, as happened in Libya, adding that "no one is talking about a no-fly zone.” Al Thani also called on the Syrian army to stop its involvement in the killing of civilians, speaking on behalf of the 18 countries had backed the decision. Only Lebanon, Yemen and Syria voted against and Iraq abstained and the exclusion will come into effect on Wednesday. Wael Merza, the secretary general of the opposition Syrian National Council and Syria's representative to the Arab League, ripped the decision as violating the organization's charter and showing it is "serving a western and American agenda." The Arab League meeting took place with hundreds of Syrians outside, waving flags and banging drums to celebrate as news of the decision leaked out. Cheering as one’s country is diplomatically reprimanded isn't normal, but nothing about this entire sad saga has been normal, right or fair. Human Rights Watch has accused the Syrian regime of killing more than 3,500 civilians thus far in a conflict that is a long way from over…………
- It’s the central Ohio exotic animal escape saga all over again…..except instead of tigers, lions, bears and monkeys, the escaped animals are pheasants. Oh, and none of them are (allegedly) infected with herpes like the famed monkey in the Ohio escape who was suffering from the disease. Also, there is the small difference that no one is in danger of being eaten or mauled by the escaped animals. But other than those small details, the escape of thousands of pheasants from one of the biggest pheasant farms in the state of Connecticut is identical to last month’s bizarre situation in Zanesville, Ohio. In Glastonbury, Conn. local authorities and the owner of the pheasant farm are attempting to locate and retrieve hundreds of birds after the massive snowstorm that blasted the East Coast ripped open some of the pens at the property and tens of thousands of dollars worth of birds got out. Rather than take their golden chance at freedom, many of these stupid birds are instead wandering a residential neighborhood. Wrung-neck pheasants are all over Thompson Street in Glastonbury and Glastonbury Pheasant Farm owner John Jiovio is trying his best to track them down. "I see hundreds of them," Thompson Street resident Lucy Gomez said. The state Department of Agriculture and Jiovio estimate that the farm lost more than 4,000 birds after the heavy, wet snow from the storm broke some of the birds pens, setting them loose and cost Jiovio thousands of dollars. The longer the pheasants are on the loose, the worse the situation becomes. As evidenced by the fact that they’re not smart enough to flee the area, these are not smart (or street-smart) birds. Their chances for survival in the wild are low and the total financial loss Glastonbury Pheasant Farm and two other pheasant farms in the state are estimated at more than $200,000. On the positive side, none of the escape pheasants is believed to be infected with herpes…………
- Dudes, do you want to do something to impress your lady the next time she shanghais you into sitting down and watching figure skating with her? As if suffering through the least manly sport in all of sports for an hour or two isn't impressive enough, you can pull out the following gem of skating knowledge and really wow her. At long last, the impossible has become possible on the ice. Brandon Mroz of the United States has done what no man or woman before him could do: execute a quadruple lutz in international competition. Mroz had executed the difficult maneuver, in which a skater reaches back with the right arm and the right foot and uses the right toepick to vault into the air, before performing a four full turns in the air and landing on the right back outside edge, on Sept. 16 at the Colorado Spring Invitational, a U.S Figure Skating-sanctioned event. On Saturday, he became the first to pull off the jump in international competition during his skate in the men's short program at the NHK Trophy, where he placed third behind Japanese skaters Daisuke Takahashi and Takahiko Kozuka. The Nov. 11-13 NHK Trophy, as you undoubtedly know, is the fourth event of the 2011 International Skating Union's Grand Prix series. After hitting the quadruple lutz on his opening jump Mroz said he was "excited to get it done in an international competition." Exactly. Git R’ Done, B. Mroz. In so doing, you’ve provided something for every guy out there who would rather saw off his left nut than sit through an entire figuring skating event either live or in person a great factoid with which to impress his special lady the next time she pulls a guilt trip about how much football he watches and makes him endure some kooks in feather boas and skin-tight leather pants gliding across the ice……………
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