- Don’t f*ck with Canadians favorite sport/religion. Aside from making sure their bacon is round and building a quality shack for ice fishing, there aren't any lessons more vital than not jerking with hockey in the Great White North. Within Canada, there are also specific groups you also do not want to upset and the good people of Quebec are one of those groups. They love their hockey team and they love their French Canadian heritage. Attempts to mess with either of those are bound to go poorly. Just ask the Montreal Canadiens if you doubt this. As with most every team across the National Hockey League, the Canadiens have fired their coach less than halfway through the season (a slight exaggeration perhaps). Jacques Martin was fired Saturday with a 13-12-7 record and Randy Cunneyworth was hired to take his place. Before Cunneyworth could coach a single game, the powers that be in the province were already irate over his hiring. Why? Is it because they don’t believe he has the hockey chops to lead their beloved Habs to a playoff berth? Maybe they feel he’s not a good enough tactician? Nope. The Quebec government upset because Cunneyworth doesn’t speak French. The province's culture minister ominously said she expects the Habs to correct the situation. Christine St-Pierre stopped short of calling for Cunneyworth’s firing, but does not like the fact that he doesn’t speak the province’s official language. Her reason for not advocating the coach’s ouster is that the Habs have supposedly given the impression his hiring is temporary, and she takes them at their word. His interim title suggests as much, but it has done little to placate the angry masses calling for a boycott of products associated with the Canadiens. Identity debates for Quebec are not uncommon and the pro-Canada Charest government often faces pressure from its more nationalist opponents to take a more aggressive stand in protecting Quebec's identity. Those who object to Cunneyworth’s presence on the bench insist the Canadiens are more than just a hockey team and are instead an institution that represents French-Canadian pride. The backlash against the hiring has been severe enough to compel Canadiens owner Geoff Molson to send a letter to fans Monday to explain the hiring of Cunneyworth, who was elevated from his assistant coach job after Martin was fired. "The action was taken to remedy the situation without further delay," Molson wrote. "Randy Cunneyworth is a qualified and experienced coach who has earned the respect of the players and everyone within the organisation." He assured fans the team would find a coach who speaks French at the end of the season when they hire someone on a long-term basis. No word on whether the new coach also needs to love round bacon………
- AT&T has tapped out and the federal government has won. The cell phone giant wilted in the face of heavy resistance from the U.S. government and dropped its $39 billion bid for T-Mobile. AT&T officially announced the decision Monday, killing a deal that would have created by far the nation's largest wireless company. In its bitter declaration of defeat, the company warned that consumers will be worse off because of the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice's successful moves to block the deal. Ominous words of a larger data spectrum necessitated by the surge in popularity of smartphones and tablets were the centerpiece of the corporate complaining. "The AT&T and T-Mobile USA combination would have offered an interim solution to this spectrum shortage," Randall Stephenson, AT&T's CEO, said in a prepared statement. "In the absence of such steps, customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled." The fight for spectrum is heated because it is a limited quantity and larger companies are hurriedly buying up smaller companies with big spectrum allotments. This month alone, Verizon bid $3.6 billion for spectrum held by a consortium of cable companies and Sprint gave a $1.6 billion boost to partner Clearwire. AT&T went much bigger in attempting a merger in which it, the nation’s second-largest wireless provider, would have purchased the fourth-largest, creating an über-company with well over 120 million subscribers. Both the FCC and DOJ both sought to block the deal by claiming a high probability of higher prices, worse service, less consumer choice and huge job cuts. AT&T eventually took the hint and dropped its bid, but warned in the process that it will be acquiring some smaller companies sooner rather than later. Adding capacity to meet these needs will require policymakers to do two things," Stephenson said. "First, in the near term, they should allow the free markets to work so that additional spectrum is available to meet the immediate needs of the U.S. wireless industry. Second, policymakers should enact legislation to meet our nation's longer-term spectrum needs." Its other major project at the moment is seeking regulatory approval of its $1.9 billion spectrum purchase from Qualcomm even though most experts believe that boost will not be enough to satisfy customers' long-term demands. AT&T will also have to pay T-Mobile's parent company Deutsche Telekom a $3 billion breakup fee over the scrapped deal. T-Mobile will stay in business for now, but is not equipped to offer a competitive 4G network and will likely lose ground quickly against its competitors. Ain’t it wonderful when Big Brother steps in and dictates how the world will work…………
- Is anyone stunned to know that James Franco can’t act his way out of a paper bag……or above a D level in a New York University film class? When a so-so role in “Spiderman” and a starring effort in a true cinematic classic like “Pineapple Express” packaged with a bomb-tastic Oscar hosting effort are your thespian calling cards, being considered the Marlon Brando or Robert DeNiro of your generation is a problem you won't really have to cope with. One factor in Franco’s favor is his willingness to take on a large number of projects at once and do them while also attending classes at New York University in Manhattan. Few actors are working toward their college degree while taking on roles and for that, Franco deserves some credit……just not enough to elevate him to the level of average student. He reportedly received a "D" in his NYU acting class and was lucky to snare that mark, according to the professor in the course. The reason Franco’s low mark has come to light is that now-former NYU professor José Angel Santana has filed suit against the university because it allegedly fired him for sticking the actor with a low grade. Santana and his attorney, Matt Blit, alleged that NYU exhibited preferential treatment toward Franco and fired him when he refused to do the same. "I saw what every other student did during [the 3 years I was there], and I saw what [Franco] did at that time, and there's no comparison," Santana claimed. He did praise Franco for being a solid student when he actually bothered to attend class - which the actor allegedly did just two out of 14 times it met. "When he was in my classes he was a model student," Santana said. And the problem is? That’s a pretty solid rate of attendance for any college student, even if Franco’s reason for not attending likely had nothing to do with the usual standbys of oversleeping or being too hung over or stoned to make it to class…………
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! It may be a different day and a different place, but the spirit of rising up against The Man remains the same. Kazakhstan is the scene of the awesomeness today as hundreds of people took to the streets in western Kazakhstan on Monday in to defy of a bloody police crackdown on striking oil workers that has caused dozens of casualties in the Central Asian nation. In the port city of Aktau on the Caspian Sea, angry protestors clashed with police as a nice extension of three days of battles between police and the striking workers in several cities in the region. The official death count from the four-day-and-counting mini-revolt is 14, so the actual number is likely much higher and human rights groups believe it could be several times higher. In a feeble attempt to pacify the masses, Kazakhstan’s prime minister on Monday announced a government commission to investigate the violence and address the grievances of the striking workers. Hmm, sounds worthless and subject to government corruption, so go for it. The igniter of the violence came Friday in the city of Zhanaozen, not far from Aktau. For reasons that remain unclear and which could not matter less because they sparked some inspiring uprisings, police lit the fuse for the rebellion by inexplicably opening fire on oil workers who had been holding a continuous strike in a central square for six months apparently over a wage dispute. At least 13 people were killed in the unprovoked shooting and within 24 hours the unrest spread to the nearby city of Shetpe, where police again got trigger happy and opened fire after several hundred protesters blocked railroad tracks. One death was confirmed and dozens were wounded, setting up the weekend’s festivities in Aktau. All of the violence could trace its roots to the installation of holiday decorations in the main square in Zhanaozen, purportedly for a government-sponsored children’s party. The striking workers quickly saw through the plan as a feeble ruse to remove them from the square and the showdown with police was on. Mixing all of these ingredients together and they produce Monday’s scene in Aktau, where several hundred people faced off with waves of police officers who were toting shields and armed with automatic weapons. Protestors demanded that authorities lift a block on phone and Internet service in Zhanaozen and draw down troops sent to the region, a demand that has gone unanswered thus far. A state of emergency has been declared for the city and tensions seem to be escalating quickly……………
- Band dorks, know your role and shut your spit valves. When your take on humor and social issues is wanted, you will be told what it is. Until then, dial it down and stop thinking you’re smarter and more clever than the rest of the world. This message goes out specifically to the Missouri State University marching band, which thought it was a marching band of comedians last month during an appearance in downtown Springfield last month. A group of band members known as the pride band was brought in to perform in the town square and decided to spice up their performance with a nice rendition of “Dixie,” a song written in the 1850s that tells the story of a freed black slave pining for the plantation of his birth. Oddly enough, that struck many people as offensive in a place where three black men were lynched in 1906. Those people lodged complaints with the university and the local NAACP office, which condemned the song choice. MSU interim president Clif Smart (ironically named in this case) apologized for what he called a poor choice and the band’s band director, Jerry Hoover, said he's sorry about the selection and didn't understand the significance of the song as it related to the square. Yeah, you probably should have done a little research and understood what the song was about and the history of your city before making that choice. Even though Smart said the song was an "unfortunate selection" that will not be played again in a public venue, the incident is just another example of why we all hate marching bands and wish they would just go away………
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