- Problem solving is an excellent skill to posses. The ability to correctly match dilemmas and their optimal solution is a talent not everyone possesses. When a challenge presents itself and those dealing with it don’t know what to do, it falls upon someone else to step in and step up. In other words, just sit back at relax, local officials in Staten Island, because this one is on more. Your borough has a problem and I have the solution. Just like every year this decade, wild turkeys are running amok all over Staten Island. The problem actually began in 1999, when a local resident released her nine turkeys at the nearby South Beach Psychiatric Center. Since then, the wild turkey population on Staten Island has been spinning out of control. Residents of the borough’s Ocean Breeze section often complain of difficult merely driving down the street and are unwilling to allow their children to play outside because there are so many wild turkeys wandering around. Wildlife officials estimate that there are about 100 turkeys that wander around the area, but that number could skew much higher if an official count were to be done. Because city law protects wild turkeys from hunters, the turkeys are free to frolic and multiply. Officials promised last fall that the problem would be taken care of, but one year later it persists and residents report just as many issues with the troublesome turkeys as ever. The state Department of Environmental Conservation is ultimately responsible for controlling the turkeys and the department has clearly failed miserably at the task. Realizing this and understanding that all involved have been given more than enough time to solve the problem, allow me to pose a perfect solution that is a win for everyone involved - except the turkeys, of course. Thanksgiving is just two weeks away the American Farm Bureau is reporting that the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner for a family of 10 is up 13 percent from one year ago and……..well, you can see where this is going. Declare open season on these turkeys, make Thanksgiving cheaper for 100 or so Staten Island families and alleviate the problem all with a few arrows from hunters’ crossbows…………
- FAT people, you have another tool in the toolbox to help you fight the battle of the flab. Science has now handed you - pending FDA approval, of course - a new drug that attacks excess body fat. A study on the new drug showed that it helped a small group of obese monkeys lose weight. No word on why the monkeys were obese in the first place, but maybe they just couldn’t find time to exercise in between sleeping, eating and scratching themselves. Actually, the monkeys were deliberately fattened up by overeating and not exercising. According to researchers, the new drug's fat-attack mechanism makes the difference as opposed to existing weight-loss drugs. Questions remain about the drug's effectiveness and safety in humans and further testing is needed, but the report is at least encouraging on some level. Dr. Wadih Arap, one of the study's authors, touted the drug’s effects. "Without the blood supply, the fat withers away and is remetabolized by the liver," Arap stated. He and researchers at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston designed the new drug Adipotide so that it would attack the fat itself by destroying the blood supply that keeps it alive. Adipotide was tested in a small group of obese monkeys and after four weeks, the monkeys lost an average of 11 percent of their body weight. Additionally, the animals' Body Mass Index (BMI) also declined and leaner monkeys who took the drug did not lose weight, suggesting that the drug selectively targeted the fat in obese monkeys. The most common response from scientists not associated with the study is a call for testing on humans, with the hope that because monkeys are the closest animal relatives of humans, the results might be similar. No one wants to get FAT people’s hopes up in case the drug doesn’t work for humans, not after diet drugs and "magic bullet" obesity treatments have failed so miserably in the past. Arap seemed to admit that was a possibility when he acknowledged that the drug didn't seem to help the monkeys keep weight off. He insisted that could be because the animals didn't change their lifestyles or diet the way that humans can. "The hope is that in patients, we say this treatment gave you a leg up and helped you lose the weight, now you have to diet and exercise and change your lifestyle," Arap said. The Food and Drug Administration’s lengthy approval process would still be necessary before the drug could be sold to the public and at present, only one drug is FDA-approved for weight loss: orlistat (sold as Xenical or Alli). More about this possibly worthwhile research can be found in the newest issue of the journal Science Translational Medicine…………
- There will always be a landing place for a 6’6, 350-pound behemoth of a man who is on the right side of age 40 and has at least the capability to dominate an NFL game with sheer size and strength. Even after that man has washed out with not one, but two teams in the past calendar year and was just released by a franchise known for successful reclamation projects involving players other teams believe to be lost causes, someone else will give him a chance. Albert Haynesworth might be a lazy, spoiled malcontent who hasn’t played a down of inspired football since signing a seven-year, $100 million free-agent contract with the Redskins after the 2008 season. Since then, he has not come close to resembling the fear-inducing defensive terror who made him mark with the Tennessee Titans. He feuded with new Redskins coach Mike Shanahan in 2010, skipping offseason workouts because he didn't want to play nose tackle in the 3-4 defensive alignment Shanahan was installing. He repeatedly failed conditioning tests and was not allowed to practice for the first few days of training camp. The Redskins were so disgusted with him that they shipped him to the New England Patriots on July 28 for a fifth-round draft choice in 2013. When he landed in New England, the general consensus was that if he could not find motivation to play and stay focused in the great locker room atmosphere of the Patriots, he was a lost cause. However, his conditioning remained an issue and he played in just six games, recording three tackles and no sacks. His low point came in Sunday's 24-20 loss to the Giants when left guard David Diehl blocked him to clear the way for Brandon Jacobs' 10-yard touchdown run with 9:10 left in the third quarter. The play was the third straight snap on which Diehl, who was routinely beaten by other Giants defenders all game long, dominated a listless Haynesworth. The mountainous defensive tackle was seen arguing on the sideline with defensive line coach Pepper Johnson and on Monday, the team cut him. Patriots coach Bill Belichick didn’t exactly go out of his way to compliment Haynesworth on his way out the door, saying, "I'll just say this on the Albert situation. I thought that both he and myself -- speaking for the (coaching) staff -- we really tried to make it work. He had a few limitations to overcome when he got here, but I thought he really tried to do what we asked him to do. We tried to work with him. In the end, it just didn't work out. I think the best thing we could do was move on." In spite of that lackluster performance and the fact that he has essentially been a corpse on the field the last two and a half seasons, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers claimed him on waivers Tuesday. The Buccaneers are in desperate need of defensive-line help after the season-ending biceps injury to Gerald McCoy. The second-year defensive tackle was placed on injured reserve Monday after tearing his right biceps during the opening quarter of a loss to New Orleans and as a result Haynesworth has been handed another great chance to revive his career despite pissing away two such opportunities in the past year……………
- Is Mariah Carey still around? Despite amazing vocal talents and an eight-octave voice that is remarkable to say the least, her music has never been good and she’s sold records and concert tickers based largely on sex appeal, good marketing and catchy-yet-terrible pop music crutches. Of late, her music has taken a back seat as she and husband Nick Cannon welcomed twins into the world. Carey, who named her children Moroccan and Monroe, has entertained the masses over the years by going to the lunatic fringe and back, sending out bizarre recorded messages to her fan club and any number of kooky acts. What’s left at this point? She’s no longer a major music star and she’s done enough to shock people that it would take something extreme to catch everyone’s attention at this point. What’s a girl to do in such a spot? Appear on a fourth-rate daytime cable talk show and announce that you are the new spokesperson for Jenny Craig, of course. Carey showed up on the low-rent, low-rated The Rosie Show on Tuesday and had a chat with bawdy, classless and raunchy host Rosie O’Donnell about her life and career. Despite being just a few months removed from giving birth to twins, Carey looked to be in great shape. She explained how 40 of the 70 pounds she has lost since her pregnancy were water weight and spoke about the experience. “I had a really tough pregnancy,” you told Rosie, “I was supposed to be on bed rest, but it was so bad that even bed hurt. I learned a lot being pregnant, watching my body change,” Carey explained before expounding on her new role as a weight-loss spokesperson. Had she made the announcement on a show watched by more than 45 people with nothing better to do during the middle of the day than suffer through O’Donnell’s awful brand of daytime talk, it might have had more impact. Still, it should be interesting to see Carey and her questionable sanity pop up in sure-to-be cheesy Jenny Craig ads in the months ahead. Now if she could only convince O’Donnell to drag her overweight self away from the buffet table and into the gym…………..
- Syrians are not a happy group at the moment. In fact, Syrians have been angry at President Bashar Assad's government for a long time now. That anger is justified given Assad’s act over the past year, but is it really an excuse to waste perfectly good poultry products? Syrian opposition protestors need to ask themselves this question about hundreds of them pelted a group of rival opposition leaders with eggs Wednesday outside Arab League headquarters in Cairo, accusing them of playing along with President Bashar Assad's government rather than fighting to overthrow the regime. Cracks have emerged within the Syrian opposition and the infighting has undermined efforts to affect change in the face of a brutal government crackdown that has persisted even after the current government agreed last week to an Arab League plan to stop the violence. Somehow, that plan must have gotten lost in translation when security forces killed at least 13 protesters nationwide Wednesday. Syria’s two major opposition groups, the National Coordination Committee and the Syria National Council, remain at odds on the core issues of the 8-month-old revolution, including whether to request foreign military assistance and accept dialogue with Assad’s regime. Because of the division, many Syrians are reluctant to believe the opposition can present a credible alternative to the regime. Somehow, having 100 protesters in Cairo hurling eggs and tomatoes at a four-man delegation from the NCC as they attempted to enter the Arab League's headquarters for a meeting doesn’t seem like it will help the process. Back in Syria, anti-government protesters in Syria have taken to carrying banners reading: "The National Coordination Committee does not represent me." In addition to dodging poultry products and flying veggies, members of the NCC delegation were also jostled by the crowd and taunted with shouts of "traitor!" before they were forced to turn back. The head of the delegation, Hassan Abdul-Azim, later managed to enter the Arab League's building from another entrance and met with Secretary General Nabil Elaraby. He insisted that accusations that his group was cooperating with the Syrian regime were "nonsense." The situation doesn’t seem likely to improve any time soon, not as long as Assad’s government continues to ignore the peace plan it agreed to with prodding from the Arab League last week. The government has reneged on its commitments to pull tanks and other armor out of cities and stop the bloodshed that the U.N. estimates has killed 3,500 people. Estimates is the key word because tabulating an accurate death total in a country that has prevented independent reporting is difficult. The government has banned most foreign journalists and local media are heavily restricted, leaving witness accounts and details gathered by activist groups as the chief source of information. Thus, there is no word on just how many good tomatoes and eggs may have been wasted so far……………
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