- The team that inspired the book that inspired Brad Pitt’s foray into sports films may once again take the sort of gamble that started that entire chain of events in the first place. “Moneyball” was all about Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane taking a risk by putting together his team based on the statistically based principles known as sabermetrics, which involves detailed analysis of complicated stats as a means of assessing players’ values beyond traditional baseball rubrics. Beane assembled a motley crew of players other teams didn’t see a lot of value in because those players had qualities like high on-base and slugging percentages. Nearly all of them were calculated risks to sign and although he doesn’t fit the sabermetrics approach to a “T,” embattled slugger Manny Ramirez is nothing if not a calculated risk. Ramirez, who applied for reinstatement to Major League Baseball last month after quitting six games into the 2011 season when he tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs for a second time, is on the A’s radar. Following his positive test and facing a 100-game suspension, Ramirez simply quit on his team, the Tampa Bay Rays, without telling them. He tried to revive his career playing winter ball in the Dominican Republic, but the league had ties to MLB and his suspension would have carried over. Faced with the prospect of a life without baseball, Ramirez chose to apply for reinstatement. Taking into account him missing almost all of last season, commissioner Bud Selig cut the suspension in half. Ramirez can return after sitting out 50 games if a team signs him and the A’s could be that team. A's owner Lew Wolff suggested the move last week and assistant general manager David Forst said Sunday during A's Fanfest held at the Oakland Arena that he is opening to signing the slugger even though the team is not actively pursuing the free agent. "We're open to it," Forst said. "We do have other things going on and we do expect other additions between now and Opening Day. We have never been in a situation where we had too many good players.” Wolf was more enthusiastic, saying, "I think it would be fun. This should be viewed on the basis of talent. Once he's served the penalty he should be free to do what he wants. I don't know what kind of shape he's in, though I hear he's in great shape." Great shape or not, Ramirez will turn 40 on May 30 and was 1 for 17 (.059) in five games last season for Tampa Bay. He’s on the last fumes of his career and for a non-contender like the A’s, signing him is a head-scratching move………….
- Beware the Burmese python. Since 2000, these massive beasts have been slithering their way around the Everglades in southern Florida and 12 years later, their impact is becoming clear. Scientists have been monitoring the snakes’ presence and have discovered that in areas where the pythons have established themselves, rabbits and foxes can no longer be found. Gordon Rodda, an invasive-species specialist with the U.S. Geological Survey, and a team of researchers also found that sightings of raccoons are down 99 percent, opossums 98.9 percent and white-tailed deer 94 percent during the same time frame. ''What if the stock market had declined that much? Think of the adjectives you'd use for that,'' Rodda said. Wait, the stock market isn't down 99 percent? Wow. It’s doing better than most Americans would guess…..but back to the original point. Pythons are causing major problems and the good folks of the USGS are none too pleased. “'Pythons are wreaking havoc on one of America's most beautiful, treasured and naturally bountiful ecosystems,'' USGS Director Marcia McNutt said. Burmese pythons, as their name would suggest, are native to southeast Asia. However, a small number of snake-loving freaks and kooks who brought them to Florida to keep as pets and either let them go intentionally or were simply too inept to keep them contained sprang them on the unsuspecting Everglades area. Burmese pythons can grow up to 16 feet long and weigh nearly 140 pounds. Sighting of the creatures in the Everglades were reported sporadically beginning in the 1980s, but it wasn’t until 2000 that a breeding population was confirmed there. Their numbers have risen sharply since then and according to Everglades National Park official Linda Friar, park rangers have captured or killed 1825 pythons since 2000. Rangers also saw fewer and fewer mammals in python-infested areas. The snakes aren't a threat to humans, but they are to other animals. Using systematic night road surveys done in the Everglades that counted live and road-killed animals, the USGS team tracks the number of mammals in specific areas of the park. They typically do not see the pythons themselves, which are notoriously hard to find and very secretive, but the snakes are indeed lurking. To combat the problem, on Jan. 23 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service started the paperwork to ban the importation and interstate transportation of Burmese pythons, northern and southern African pythons and yellow anaconda because they threaten the Everglades and other sensitive ecosystems. The USGS findings were contained in a paper published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.........
- In need of a scapegoat with its populace in revolt, Egypt’s ruling military has found its man. The country’s military leader fired the general responsible for media affairs in a feeble attempt to improve an image still soaked and stained with the blood of protestors killed by the military, with rampant accusations that the men in uniform are seeking to crush Egypt's democratic revolution still swirling. While the move is superficial and hollow, it is the first change in the military council since the generals took power from President Hosni Mubarak during a popular uprising last February. The military had some good will in the bank for ushering Mubarak out, but quickly squandered that good will by attempting to crush subsequent protests by force, killing dozens. Under intense pressure from the public, the council reluctantly agreed to hand over to a civilian president by June. Even so, the body has continued to defiantly protect its privileges and avoid civilian oversight. A defense ministry source explained that Major General Ismail Etman was "exempted from service and replaced by Major General Ahmed Abu El-Dahab, the director of the artillery division." Etman had been in charge of media affairs for the council and firing him isn't going to fix any of the problems, but oh well. The military’s image is in the crapper and it is no longer viewed as a respected institution to be revered and obeyed. Venturing into politics has sullied that image and the generals who comprise the council are not trusted by many young pro-democracy campaigners. Then again, who would trust an army that killed or injured dozens attempting to suppress protests on the streets of Cairo in November and December? Those videos of soldiers mistreating injured demonstrators led to national and international outrage and that furor has not died down. Observers say the council is concerned about its public image and believe Etman bears responsibility for its decline in the public’s eyes. A source said the move was decreed by Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, who heads the council. Putting someone new in charge of a wide range of issues ranging from media relations to dealing with the concerns of military officers is certain to be viewed as a cosmetic change by opposition groups, especially since Etman is losing only his seat on the council and will remain one of Tantawi's many advisers, positions given to officers closely tied to the army leadership. In short, Egypt’s political and social scenes are still very much f**ked up……….
- If two over-the-hill prominent musical figures do battle and both of their music is unlistenable, does it make a sound? Sadly, it does. Madonna, a.k.a. the Material Skank, is still locked in a pitched fight with Elton John even though both are on the wrong side of 50 and she has yet to make an album that does anything other than make the world - musically and in general - a worse place. This time it was Elton John who initiated the confrontation by tossing a bitchy remark the Material Skank’s way as she prepares for a performance sure to suck at Super Bowl XXVI on Sunday. "Make sure you lip-synch good,” he said during an interview with Good Morning America about the halftime show. "I've never seen a decent one. Never ever. You have to play live, but I don't think you can. In all fairness to everyone who's done one before, you may be able to sing live, but it's really hard to play live." The song the MS will lip-sync, er, sing to is her new single “Give Me All Your Luvin.” She follows the NFL’s trend of picking middling, mainstream artists that the majority of non-football and football fans alike tuning in for the big game will recognize for the Super Bowl halftime show. Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen and the Hack Eyed Peas have all performed at the big game in recent years. Ironically, Madonna is still known by many for her infamous raunchy performance of “Like A Virgin” at the 1984 Video Music Awards, but the NFL must feel age has mellowed her. Elton John bitterness or not, the MS is sure to deliver an abysmal pop performance Sunday, although odds are the Rocket Man wouldn’t have been any better. If only both of them would shut up and just go away………..
- Lawmakers are getting mighty uppity the past couple weeks, especially ones from New York. Sen. Charles Schumer jumped on the trend first, pushing for provisions in a new transportation bill that would give police additional tools and training to identify and handle drivers under the influence of drugs. The idea seemed unnecessarily persecutorial of stoners and cokeheads, but compared to the idea being offered up by state Sen. Sen. Bill Perkins, Schumer might as well be Winston Churchchill and John F. Kennedy rolled into one. On the heels of an increasingly popular online video in which one woman informed a fellow passenger who was eating spaghetti on the Manhattan subway, “animals eat on the train” and received a well-deserved face full of pasta in response, Perkins is leading a debate over whether or not passengers should be allowed to eat on the subway. The idea of a ban was thrown into the debate early on, but the Manhattan Transportation Authority (MTA) was unable to enact the ban and that led to Sen. Overbearing to take action. Perkins claims he regularly receives complaints from subway passengers about rats, which seems odd because rats are the official mascot of both the city and subway and a true part of the New York City experience. In response to the whining, Perkins wants to impose a $250 fine on anyone who eats on the subway. His logic, to say the least, is asinine. “Those rats feed off of what we eat or discard in the system. You feed them, you breed them,” he explained. “Not only are they on the tracks, they’re on the seats. Sometimes they even come off out of the subway. If you look in the subway on track, you’ll see them eating pizza.” Right, because New York pizza is freaking awesome and damn near everyone enjoys it. Besides, a ban is never going to work. If the MTA is having trouble keeping trains clean from food, how is it possibly going to have the personnel to enforce a food ban? And what about those with medical conditions who need a bagel or an orange to stave off a health problem, or the person who just gave blood and needs to hop the express uptown to get to the Upper West Side? A ban is a moronic idea and one that will never work because people will continue to eat anyhow. Keep moving and find a better cause, Perkins……….
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
$2 billion in government waste, blind flight from Syria and Thom Yorke's arrogance
- Even those who can’t see can see that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is an unjust despot hell-bent on staying in power even though the clear will of the people is for him to leave office. The story of blind mosque preacher Ahmad al-Sayasneh underscores the fact that physical sight isn’t required to understand just how overdue al-Assad’s ouster from power has become. An outspoken critic of al-Assad’s regime, al-Sayasneh was smuggled into Jordan Saturday from the rebellious border town of Deraa through a hilly northern border area devoid of Syrian patrols, according to Fadi Abu Mustafa of the Free Syrian Army. Al-Sayasneh, a Sunni Muslim, preached at Deraa’s Omari Mosque, where he quickly became known for his passionate anti-Assad sermons in which he called for civil disobedience. Just how much of an impact those calls have had is unclear because Syria has been in a state of upheaval for months and the riots almost certainly would be raging with or without the exhortations of one angry cleric. Still, the government took notice of his sermons and Syrian dissidents say he was jailed and tortured for his anti-Assad remarks. The Free Syrian Army force of defectors from the Syrian military, despite its name, is based in Turkey, with followers in Jordan and Lebanon. For those wishing to flee Syria’s repressive regime, they are good friends to have. According to Mustafa, Jordanian police are questioning al-Sayasneh before allowing him to go free, but the feeling has to be much better than suffering a brutal beating and torture from al-Assad’s regime………
- Thom Yorke is already known for being one of rock’s more pretentious stars. This probably won’t help ground him or humble him. Two tracks from Radiohead’s catalog are to be reworked into classical compositions by Steve Reich, the world-renowned minimalist composer. Reich has announced that he will be reworking “Everything In Its Right Prize” from the band’s “Kid A” album and “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” from “In Rainbows” as part of a piece he’s working on called “Radio Rewrite.” The project will be performed by 13 musicians from the London Sinfonietta on Mar. 5, 2013 as part of the Southbank Festival. Andrew Burke, the chief executive of the London Sinfonietta, explained that the pieces would not simply be covers of the original tracks. “I don’t think Steve will be quoting these songs directly. I don’t think that’s his style. How he uses the songs as a starting point for what he does is going to be part of the excitement,” Burke said. He added that Reich was inspired to include tracks from the Oxford-based band after he met them in Poland in September and heard that Jonny Greenwood had played one of his compositions. “It was the first time he’d met them as musicians and spoken to them at length. Jonny Greenwood played [Reich composition] Electric Counterpoint – Steve saw this guy was seriously interested in his music and Steve became seriously interested in theirs," he said. Radiohead are currently readying for their 2012 world tour in support of their latest album “The Kings Of Limbs” and can now head out on the road with some extra swagger in their step……….
- Logic works from time to time. Touching a hot stove will get a person burned, sleeping in the freezer will turn you into a human popsicle and asking a FAT doctor to help a FAT patient lose wait is going result in failure. That blatantly obvious reality was confirmed by a new study researching the link between the physical conditioning of doctors and the weight loss of their patients. The study found that obese doctors are much less likely to help obese patients shed pounds to stay healthy. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University surveyed 500 primary care physicians and measured how much faith the doctors had in themselves to treat obesity - both in giving advice and in their perceptions of patient trust in their advice. They found that normal-weight physicians were more likely to address weight loss with their obese patients (30 percent vs. 18 percent of FAT docs), had more faith that patients would trust their advice (80 percent vs. 69 percent of FAT doctors) and had more confidence in their ability to provide good diet and exercise advice (53 percent vs. 37 percent of FAT doctors). Those numbers are compelling, but the bigger disparity came in the manner in which healthy physicians assess patients versus the way their overweight counterparts do. Normal-weight doctors had a 93 percent probability of reporting an obesity diagnosis in overweight patients, compared with a measly 7 percent of overweight doctors. The standard for most of the doctors included in the study was the patient’s weight in relation to the doctor’s weight. If a patient’s body weight met or exceeded the doctor’s own body weight, the patient was more likely to be judged obese. Doctors rocking a healthy weight were more likely to provide recommended obesity care to patients, according to the study. "For me, the results raise a lot of questions," said study author Dr. Sara Bleich, an assistant professor of health policy at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "I’d be surprised if this behavior is intentional. I think a lot of it is subconscious. What this study suggests is that physical attributes of physicians have a much bigger contribution to their care of patients than I realized before." While the numbers do call for action, they are hardly surprising. In a country where more than one-third of U.S. adults - almost 34 percent - are obese and two-thirds are overweight, odds are high that more than a few doctors will also be overweight. The government defines obesity as having a body mass index of 30 or higher and too many Americans qualify for that club. Results from the Johns Hopkins study were published in the Jan. 19 online edition of Obesity journal………
- Government waste has existed for as long as government has existed. Millions of dollars are thrown away on pork projects, eaten up by employee laziness or simply thrown into the trash with stupid decisions and bureaucratic red tape. Government waste doesn’t even begin to describe the accounting blunder currently being investigated by the U.S. Defense Department, which admits it cannot account for about $2 billion it was given to cover Iraq-related expenses. Furthermore, the department is not providing Iraq with a complete list of U.S.-funded reconstruction projects, according to two new government audits. Both reports come from the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which is asking the tough question, “How does any government entity f**cking blow through $2 f**king million dollars and not know how that money was spent?” Making matters even worse, that money came not from the U.S. government, but the struggling Iraqi government. That’s right, back in 2004 the fledgling Iraqi government gave the Department of Defense access to about $3 billion to pay bills for certain contracts and the department can only account for approximately one-third of that, the inspector general says in an audit published Friday. Wasting one’s own government’s money is bad, but spitting in the face of another government by taking their money to help rebuild their country - a country you were responsible for demolishing - is something else entirely. A cynic might ask the obvious question that comes to mind when $2 billion goes missing, namely, “Shouldn’t there be accounting procedures and rules in place?” The answer, ironically, is yes. The Department of Defense has "internal processes and controls" to track payments, the "bulk of the records are missing," the report says. Monthly reports documenting expenses and other key documents appear to have vanished completely. "From July 2004 through December 2007, DoD should have provided 42 monthly reports. However, it can locate only the first four reports," the audit stated. The audit was overseen by Glenn Furbish, assistant inspector general for audits. What does the DoD have to say in its defense? Defense Under Secretary Mark Easton acknowledged in a response letter also contained in the report that there was "a records management issue." Right, except that $2 billion doesn’t just trickle away in bits and pieces because solid records weren't kept and a few people took advantage of lackadaisical financial management. Someone, somewhere has to be abusing and gaming that system for all it’s worth. Iraq’s government was undergoing a transition at the time and someone - or a lot of someones - cashed in. Now it’s up to the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which was created in 2004 to continue oversight of Iraq reconstruction programs, to prove it can do its job and figure out where all that money went……….
- Ozzie Guillen may no longer be the manager of the Chicago White Sox, but there is at least one member of the team’s coaching staff looking for a fight as the 2012 is about to dawn with the start of spring training next month. New White Sox bench coach Mark Parent, part of new manager Robin Ventura’s staff, appeared at SoxFest, a fan gathering in the Windy City where hundreds of diehards come together to meet and greet a handful of players and coaches and get hyped for the season ahead. The former major league catcher spoke about how the White Sox will respond to their batters getting hit with pitches in light of the fact that they were dotted a Major League Baseball-high 84 times last season, while they themselves hit just 44 batters on the year. Parent doesn’t like those numbers very much and he knows exactly how that problem needs to be handled. “You hit our guy, we’ll hit your guy,” he told the gathered crowd. Those fiery words earned him some applause from the crowd, but they also ignored the facts. Last season, White Sox outfielder Carlos Quentin led the American League with 23 HBPs in just 118 games. Quentin was traded to San Diego during the offseason and with both he and his plate-crowding ways gone, the team’s HBP totals are sure to drop. Also, Parent isn't exactly knowledgeable about what it feels like to be drilled by a fastball. He was a career backup who was hit by pitches just twice in 13 major league seasons. Still, it’s nice to see someone take up the baton of angry (and hopefully profanity-laden) rhetoric for the South Siders after Guillen left town and headed south to manage the Miami Marlins……….
- Thom Yorke is already known for being one of rock’s more pretentious stars. This probably won’t help ground him or humble him. Two tracks from Radiohead’s catalog are to be reworked into classical compositions by Steve Reich, the world-renowned minimalist composer. Reich has announced that he will be reworking “Everything In Its Right Prize” from the band’s “Kid A” album and “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” from “In Rainbows” as part of a piece he’s working on called “Radio Rewrite.” The project will be performed by 13 musicians from the London Sinfonietta on Mar. 5, 2013 as part of the Southbank Festival. Andrew Burke, the chief executive of the London Sinfonietta, explained that the pieces would not simply be covers of the original tracks. “I don’t think Steve will be quoting these songs directly. I don’t think that’s his style. How he uses the songs as a starting point for what he does is going to be part of the excitement,” Burke said. He added that Reich was inspired to include tracks from the Oxford-based band after he met them in Poland in September and heard that Jonny Greenwood had played one of his compositions. “It was the first time he’d met them as musicians and spoken to them at length. Jonny Greenwood played [Reich composition] Electric Counterpoint – Steve saw this guy was seriously interested in his music and Steve became seriously interested in theirs," he said. Radiohead are currently readying for their 2012 world tour in support of their latest album “The Kings Of Limbs” and can now head out on the road with some extra swagger in their step……….
- Logic works from time to time. Touching a hot stove will get a person burned, sleeping in the freezer will turn you into a human popsicle and asking a FAT doctor to help a FAT patient lose wait is going result in failure. That blatantly obvious reality was confirmed by a new study researching the link between the physical conditioning of doctors and the weight loss of their patients. The study found that obese doctors are much less likely to help obese patients shed pounds to stay healthy. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University surveyed 500 primary care physicians and measured how much faith the doctors had in themselves to treat obesity - both in giving advice and in their perceptions of patient trust in their advice. They found that normal-weight physicians were more likely to address weight loss with their obese patients (30 percent vs. 18 percent of FAT docs), had more faith that patients would trust their advice (80 percent vs. 69 percent of FAT doctors) and had more confidence in their ability to provide good diet and exercise advice (53 percent vs. 37 percent of FAT doctors). Those numbers are compelling, but the bigger disparity came in the manner in which healthy physicians assess patients versus the way their overweight counterparts do. Normal-weight doctors had a 93 percent probability of reporting an obesity diagnosis in overweight patients, compared with a measly 7 percent of overweight doctors. The standard for most of the doctors included in the study was the patient’s weight in relation to the doctor’s weight. If a patient’s body weight met or exceeded the doctor’s own body weight, the patient was more likely to be judged obese. Doctors rocking a healthy weight were more likely to provide recommended obesity care to patients, according to the study. "For me, the results raise a lot of questions," said study author Dr. Sara Bleich, an assistant professor of health policy at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "I’d be surprised if this behavior is intentional. I think a lot of it is subconscious. What this study suggests is that physical attributes of physicians have a much bigger contribution to their care of patients than I realized before." While the numbers do call for action, they are hardly surprising. In a country where more than one-third of U.S. adults - almost 34 percent - are obese and two-thirds are overweight, odds are high that more than a few doctors will also be overweight. The government defines obesity as having a body mass index of 30 or higher and too many Americans qualify for that club. Results from the Johns Hopkins study were published in the Jan. 19 online edition of Obesity journal………
- Government waste has existed for as long as government has existed. Millions of dollars are thrown away on pork projects, eaten up by employee laziness or simply thrown into the trash with stupid decisions and bureaucratic red tape. Government waste doesn’t even begin to describe the accounting blunder currently being investigated by the U.S. Defense Department, which admits it cannot account for about $2 billion it was given to cover Iraq-related expenses. Furthermore, the department is not providing Iraq with a complete list of U.S.-funded reconstruction projects, according to two new government audits. Both reports come from the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which is asking the tough question, “How does any government entity f**cking blow through $2 f**king million dollars and not know how that money was spent?” Making matters even worse, that money came not from the U.S. government, but the struggling Iraqi government. That’s right, back in 2004 the fledgling Iraqi government gave the Department of Defense access to about $3 billion to pay bills for certain contracts and the department can only account for approximately one-third of that, the inspector general says in an audit published Friday. Wasting one’s own government’s money is bad, but spitting in the face of another government by taking their money to help rebuild their country - a country you were responsible for demolishing - is something else entirely. A cynic might ask the obvious question that comes to mind when $2 billion goes missing, namely, “Shouldn’t there be accounting procedures and rules in place?” The answer, ironically, is yes. The Department of Defense has "internal processes and controls" to track payments, the "bulk of the records are missing," the report says. Monthly reports documenting expenses and other key documents appear to have vanished completely. "From July 2004 through December 2007, DoD should have provided 42 monthly reports. However, it can locate only the first four reports," the audit stated. The audit was overseen by Glenn Furbish, assistant inspector general for audits. What does the DoD have to say in its defense? Defense Under Secretary Mark Easton acknowledged in a response letter also contained in the report that there was "a records management issue." Right, except that $2 billion doesn’t just trickle away in bits and pieces because solid records weren't kept and a few people took advantage of lackadaisical financial management. Someone, somewhere has to be abusing and gaming that system for all it’s worth. Iraq’s government was undergoing a transition at the time and someone - or a lot of someones - cashed in. Now it’s up to the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which was created in 2004 to continue oversight of Iraq reconstruction programs, to prove it can do its job and figure out where all that money went……….
- Ozzie Guillen may no longer be the manager of the Chicago White Sox, but there is at least one member of the team’s coaching staff looking for a fight as the 2012 is about to dawn with the start of spring training next month. New White Sox bench coach Mark Parent, part of new manager Robin Ventura’s staff, appeared at SoxFest, a fan gathering in the Windy City where hundreds of diehards come together to meet and greet a handful of players and coaches and get hyped for the season ahead. The former major league catcher spoke about how the White Sox will respond to their batters getting hit with pitches in light of the fact that they were dotted a Major League Baseball-high 84 times last season, while they themselves hit just 44 batters on the year. Parent doesn’t like those numbers very much and he knows exactly how that problem needs to be handled. “You hit our guy, we’ll hit your guy,” he told the gathered crowd. Those fiery words earned him some applause from the crowd, but they also ignored the facts. Last season, White Sox outfielder Carlos Quentin led the American League with 23 HBPs in just 118 games. Quentin was traded to San Diego during the offseason and with both he and his plate-crowding ways gone, the team’s HBP totals are sure to drop. Also, Parent isn't exactly knowledgeable about what it feels like to be drilled by a fastball. He was a career backup who was hit by pitches just twice in 13 major league seasons. Still, it’s nice to see someone take up the baton of angry (and hopefully profanity-laden) rhetoric for the South Siders after Guillen left town and headed south to manage the Miami Marlins……….
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Tebow rejects a reality skank, FEMEN strikes Switzerland and Liam Neeson still kicking asses
- Those on either side of the Tim Tebow debate can find an ample number of reasons to either love or hate the much-feted Denver Broncos quarterback and his response in the face of a rather unique situation involving one of the biggest attention whores in Hollywood is no different. With fame comes the requisite chorus line of skanks and groupies wanting to join the party and for the devoutly Christian, über-conservative Tebow, that poses an interesting conundrum. What does he do when skanked-up hotties begin throwing themselves at him and more specifically, what does he do when it’s über-skank Kim Kardashian, she of the infamous sex tape, Playboy spread and two failed marriages? The answer, it seems, is politely declined. Shortly after deflecting a special invitation from Katy Perry’s parents to speak at their church and also start dating their trashy daughter, Tebow became the target of Kardashian’s affections. She reportedly has a huge crush on the professed virgin who is saving himself for marriage even though she is a devout narcissist who has made a sex tape and proudly displays her life for the world on a crappy reality show. Seeking her next sports star to garner headlines, er, share her love after her destined-for-eternity marriage to marginal NBAer Kris Humphries tapped out after 72 days, Kardashian apparently feels Tebow mania is what she wants. Unfortunately for her, Tebow is immune to her charms and when Kardashian tried to land a date with him, he said no. Add that to a string of failures for Kardashian since her divorce from Humphries, as ratings for her flagship reality show, “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” are down 14 percent, and she had lost several endorsement deals. She’s seeing her 15 minutes wind down and dating Tebow would pump life into her faltering image. Either Tebow is smart enough to realize this or he is genuinely not interested in her, because he knows about her interest and isn't taking the bait. “Tim’s been made aware of Kim’s crush, and although flattered, he’s not interested,” a source said. Those who love Tebow will undoubtedly praise him for sticking to his values and not associating with a skank like Kardashian, while his haters will bash him for turning down a hottie most of them would give anything to hook up with. In other words, more of the same……….
- FEMEN is at it again. Known almost entirely as the Ukrainian hotties who show up at various political events or to support specific causes and take off their tops to get their message across, they bring joy to one and all while accomplishing very little in the way of affecting actual change. Even perpetually neutral (and awesome) Switzerland is not immune to the bare-chested rage of FEMEN, as was demonstrated Saturday when three of the group’s members were detained while trying to break into an invitation-only gathering of international CEOs and political leaders in Davos, Switzerland, to call attention to the needs of the world's poor. Reaching the heavily guarded Swiss resort town of Davos is a challenge in an of itself, but the determined ladies of FEMEN would not be denied. They reached the entrance to the complex where the World Economic Forum takes place every year and despite temperatures around freezing in the snow-filled town, they took off their tops and tried to climb a fence before being detained. When their doffed their threads, the women revealed messages painted on their bodies. "Crisis! Made in Davos," read one message painted across a protester's torso. Other protestors - who kept their clothes on - carried signs that read "Poor, because of you" and "Gangsters party in Davos." Technically, it should have been “gangstas,” but it’s the thought that counts. Davos police spokesman Thomas Hobi confirmed that the three women were held at the police station during the day and were released later Saturday. "We came here to Switzerland to Davos to explain the position of all poor people of the world, to explain that we are poor because of these rich people who now sit in the building," said protestor Inna Schewcenko. Denouncing FEMEN’s protest as a waste of time would be a mistake, however. One look at the attention the trio of topless women received versus the attention paid to a small group of protesters from the Occupy movement who are camped in igloos in Davos to call for more help for the needy illustrates this point perfectly. Half-naked chicks draw eyeballs, even if no one is listening to what they actually have to say……….
- Liam Neeson remains very good at kicking asses and moviegoers remain interested in seeing him do so. The targets of his rage may have changed from sleazy criminals who abducted his daughter in Paris to carnivorous wolves on the side of a mountain, but Neeson’s “The Grey” still fought its way to the top spot at the box office in its debut weekend with $20 million. That allowed it to best “Underworld: Awakening,” which dropped one spot in its second weekend, made an additional $12.5 million and has scored $45.1 million cumulatively in domestic earnings thus far. Katherine Heigl’s “One for the Money” overcame its incredibly transparent and clichéd premise and poor screenwriting to land in third place in its debut weekend with $11.7 million. The insanely over-promoted “Red Tails” fell two spots to fourth in its second weekend after raking in $10.4 million to raise its two-week total to $33.7 million. Another movie that has been used to bludgeon potential viewers over the head with incessant ads is “Man on a Ledge,” which finished off the top five in its first weekend on the (relative) strength of $8.3 million in domestic earnings. “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” continued to be critically acclaimed and commercially uninspiring with $7.1 million and a sixth-place result for the weekend. Through six weeks of mostly limited release, the film has earned just $21.1 million. Another critically praised movie was right on its heels as George Clooney’s “The Descendents” jumped back into the top 10 on the strength of the proverbial “Oscar buzz” and made $6.6 million to elevate its 11-week tally to $58.8 million. “Contraband” was the eighth-highest earner for the weekend and its $6.5 million was nearly enough to edge out “The Descendents,” but not quite. After three weeks, “Contraband” has banked $56.4 million. Disney’s revived, three-dimensional version of “Beauty and the Beast” made $5.4 million to secure ninth place and the spy thriller “Haywire” wrapped up the top 10 with $4 million. “Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol” (No. 11), “Joyful Noise” (No. 13), “The Iron Lady” (No. 14) and “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” (No. 15) all dropped out from last week’s top 10…………
- Prepare for days of whining, bemoaning and lamenting from your social media-dependent friends and family members, which by this point is just about everyone you know or associate with in any capacity. Any time Facebook makes a change, be it major or minor, the hordes who use the site for free and rely on it as their stalking/interaction/connectivity tool for the world beyond their computer screen or smartphone react angrily. “Don’t you dare change the site I use for free and that you run as a business and get rich off of!” they shout. That will surely happen as Facebook expands its virtual scrapbook feature, Timeline. In addition to being able to share current and past Facebook activities with people who mostly could not care less about either, users will also be able to share what they are doing elsewhere on the Web thanks to the new Timeline Apps feature, which allows a new set of apps to grab and post activity from other websites and services into a person’s Facebook Timeline. Installing the Words With Friends app means a person’s Words With Friends account activity appears in Facebook to be ignored by that individual’s 447 digital friends. The new feature debuts with just 80 apps available, but among them are big names like Hulu, Yahoo! News, eBay, Zynga, Rotten Tomatoes and TripAdvisor. Favorite music services Spotify, Rhapsody and iHeartRadio are also on board, as are USA Today + Me, BuzzFeed, The Daily, Yahoo! News, Washington Post Social Reader, Ticketmaster and Hulu. Before installing Timeline apps, Facebook users must visit the Timeline Apps page to find apps they want to use. Each app has an install page to explain what it does an allow users to adjust their privacy settings. Some apps then allow a person to turn on the "post to Timeline" feature right from the app install page, but others force users to enable from within their Facebook Account Settings. Either way, users need to go to Account Settings >Apps to manage all their apps and from there, the magic happens. Let the bitching begin…………
- Every now and then, Congress gets some truly wacky ideas inside its collective legislative head. For example, Sens. Charles Schumer of New York and Mark Pryor of Arkansas feel like impaired driving is a major issue. That may not seem noteworthy because who among us doesn’t know what a hazard drunk drivers are? Except that Schumer and Pryor aren't looking to target drunks who stumble out of the local watering hole or house party at 3 a.m. and climb behind the wheel of their old Dodge pickup truck for the drive home. They believe the federal government should help police departments nationwide obtain the tools and training needed to attack a rising menace of driving under the influence of drugs. The two senators have proposed that federal funding in a pending transportation funding bill be used for research and to train police on how to identify and police drivers who are baked, stoned, peaking, high, coked out or otherwise adversely affected by an illegal narcotic of some sort. "Cops need a Breathalyzer-like technology that works to identify drug-impaired drivers on-the-spot — before they cause irreparable harm," Schumer said. "With the explosive growth of prescription drug abuse it's vital that local law enforcement have the tools and training they need to identify those driving under the influence of narcotics to get them off the road." In explaining the rationale for their idea, the two senators explained that police have no equipment and few have any training in identifying drugged drivers because those drivers typically do not show the same outward signs of intoxication as drunken drivers do. According to Schumer, drugged driving arrests have risen 35 percent in New York since 2001. He also cited a 2009 federal report in which 10.5 million Americans acknowledged that they had driven under the influence of drugs. That number seems a bit high because let’s face it, most stoners are not getting up off the couch for anything other than a kitchen run for another box of Pop Tarts. Schumer would have everyone get worked up over the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s 2007 roadside survey in which more than 16 percent of weekend and night-time drivers tested positive for illegal drugs. Those people just might be taking drugs to cope with the presence of overbearing civil servants like you, Chuck………
- FEMEN is at it again. Known almost entirely as the Ukrainian hotties who show up at various political events or to support specific causes and take off their tops to get their message across, they bring joy to one and all while accomplishing very little in the way of affecting actual change. Even perpetually neutral (and awesome) Switzerland is not immune to the bare-chested rage of FEMEN, as was demonstrated Saturday when three of the group’s members were detained while trying to break into an invitation-only gathering of international CEOs and political leaders in Davos, Switzerland, to call attention to the needs of the world's poor. Reaching the heavily guarded Swiss resort town of Davos is a challenge in an of itself, but the determined ladies of FEMEN would not be denied. They reached the entrance to the complex where the World Economic Forum takes place every year and despite temperatures around freezing in the snow-filled town, they took off their tops and tried to climb a fence before being detained. When their doffed their threads, the women revealed messages painted on their bodies. "Crisis! Made in Davos," read one message painted across a protester's torso. Other protestors - who kept their clothes on - carried signs that read "Poor, because of you" and "Gangsters party in Davos." Technically, it should have been “gangstas,” but it’s the thought that counts. Davos police spokesman Thomas Hobi confirmed that the three women were held at the police station during the day and were released later Saturday. "We came here to Switzerland to Davos to explain the position of all poor people of the world, to explain that we are poor because of these rich people who now sit in the building," said protestor Inna Schewcenko. Denouncing FEMEN’s protest as a waste of time would be a mistake, however. One look at the attention the trio of topless women received versus the attention paid to a small group of protesters from the Occupy movement who are camped in igloos in Davos to call for more help for the needy illustrates this point perfectly. Half-naked chicks draw eyeballs, even if no one is listening to what they actually have to say……….
- Liam Neeson remains very good at kicking asses and moviegoers remain interested in seeing him do so. The targets of his rage may have changed from sleazy criminals who abducted his daughter in Paris to carnivorous wolves on the side of a mountain, but Neeson’s “The Grey” still fought its way to the top spot at the box office in its debut weekend with $20 million. That allowed it to best “Underworld: Awakening,” which dropped one spot in its second weekend, made an additional $12.5 million and has scored $45.1 million cumulatively in domestic earnings thus far. Katherine Heigl’s “One for the Money” overcame its incredibly transparent and clichéd premise and poor screenwriting to land in third place in its debut weekend with $11.7 million. The insanely over-promoted “Red Tails” fell two spots to fourth in its second weekend after raking in $10.4 million to raise its two-week total to $33.7 million. Another movie that has been used to bludgeon potential viewers over the head with incessant ads is “Man on a Ledge,” which finished off the top five in its first weekend on the (relative) strength of $8.3 million in domestic earnings. “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” continued to be critically acclaimed and commercially uninspiring with $7.1 million and a sixth-place result for the weekend. Through six weeks of mostly limited release, the film has earned just $21.1 million. Another critically praised movie was right on its heels as George Clooney’s “The Descendents” jumped back into the top 10 on the strength of the proverbial “Oscar buzz” and made $6.6 million to elevate its 11-week tally to $58.8 million. “Contraband” was the eighth-highest earner for the weekend and its $6.5 million was nearly enough to edge out “The Descendents,” but not quite. After three weeks, “Contraband” has banked $56.4 million. Disney’s revived, three-dimensional version of “Beauty and the Beast” made $5.4 million to secure ninth place and the spy thriller “Haywire” wrapped up the top 10 with $4 million. “Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol” (No. 11), “Joyful Noise” (No. 13), “The Iron Lady” (No. 14) and “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” (No. 15) all dropped out from last week’s top 10…………
- Prepare for days of whining, bemoaning and lamenting from your social media-dependent friends and family members, which by this point is just about everyone you know or associate with in any capacity. Any time Facebook makes a change, be it major or minor, the hordes who use the site for free and rely on it as their stalking/interaction/connectivity tool for the world beyond their computer screen or smartphone react angrily. “Don’t you dare change the site I use for free and that you run as a business and get rich off of!” they shout. That will surely happen as Facebook expands its virtual scrapbook feature, Timeline. In addition to being able to share current and past Facebook activities with people who mostly could not care less about either, users will also be able to share what they are doing elsewhere on the Web thanks to the new Timeline Apps feature, which allows a new set of apps to grab and post activity from other websites and services into a person’s Facebook Timeline. Installing the Words With Friends app means a person’s Words With Friends account activity appears in Facebook to be ignored by that individual’s 447 digital friends. The new feature debuts with just 80 apps available, but among them are big names like Hulu, Yahoo! News, eBay, Zynga, Rotten Tomatoes and TripAdvisor. Favorite music services Spotify, Rhapsody and iHeartRadio are also on board, as are USA Today + Me, BuzzFeed, The Daily, Yahoo! News, Washington Post Social Reader, Ticketmaster and Hulu. Before installing Timeline apps, Facebook users must visit the Timeline Apps page to find apps they want to use. Each app has an install page to explain what it does an allow users to adjust their privacy settings. Some apps then allow a person to turn on the "post to Timeline" feature right from the app install page, but others force users to enable from within their Facebook Account Settings. Either way, users need to go to Account Settings >Apps to manage all their apps and from there, the magic happens. Let the bitching begin…………
- Every now and then, Congress gets some truly wacky ideas inside its collective legislative head. For example, Sens. Charles Schumer of New York and Mark Pryor of Arkansas feel like impaired driving is a major issue. That may not seem noteworthy because who among us doesn’t know what a hazard drunk drivers are? Except that Schumer and Pryor aren't looking to target drunks who stumble out of the local watering hole or house party at 3 a.m. and climb behind the wheel of their old Dodge pickup truck for the drive home. They believe the federal government should help police departments nationwide obtain the tools and training needed to attack a rising menace of driving under the influence of drugs. The two senators have proposed that federal funding in a pending transportation funding bill be used for research and to train police on how to identify and police drivers who are baked, stoned, peaking, high, coked out or otherwise adversely affected by an illegal narcotic of some sort. "Cops need a Breathalyzer-like technology that works to identify drug-impaired drivers on-the-spot — before they cause irreparable harm," Schumer said. "With the explosive growth of prescription drug abuse it's vital that local law enforcement have the tools and training they need to identify those driving under the influence of narcotics to get them off the road." In explaining the rationale for their idea, the two senators explained that police have no equipment and few have any training in identifying drugged drivers because those drivers typically do not show the same outward signs of intoxication as drunken drivers do. According to Schumer, drugged driving arrests have risen 35 percent in New York since 2001. He also cited a 2009 federal report in which 10.5 million Americans acknowledged that they had driven under the influence of drugs. That number seems a bit high because let’s face it, most stoners are not getting up off the couch for anything other than a kitchen run for another box of Pop Tarts. Schumer would have everyone get worked up over the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s 2007 roadside survey in which more than 16 percent of weekend and night-time drivers tested positive for illegal drugs. Those people just might be taking drugs to cope with the presence of overbearing civil servants like you, Chuck………
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Riot Watch! Senegal, uber-hot lasers and people marrying buildings
- When Republican presidential candidate Mitt “Dry Toast” Romney declared corporations were people, it was bound to inspire something idiotic because that statement itself was idiotic. One of the ass hats Romney inspired with his words is Seattle resident Babylonia Aivaz, who has carefully pondered the former Massachusetts governor’s words and decided that if corporations are people, so are more tangible inanimate objects. "If corporations can have the rights as people, so can buildings," Aivaz proclaimed. To demonstrate her love of buildings, she’s planning to “marry” a 107-year-old warehouse that sits at 10th and Union in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Her “wedding” is to take place Sunday and Aivaz describes her union of woman and storage structure as "a gay marriage" that will show how much she cares for it and doesn’t respect the Supreme Court’s opinion that corporations are entitled to same of the same rights as human beings when it comes to political advertising and free speech. . "I'm doing this to show the building how much I love it, how much I love community space and how much I love this neighborhood. And I want to stop it from gentrification,” she said. The warehouse has been scheduled for demolition for some time and was supposed to begin next week. However, demolition crews began their work on Thursday and when Aivaz learned demolition work was under way, she rushed over to the site and changed into her wedding dress on the street. Letting her kook flag fly, she began climbing on the crew’s equipment and trying to get in the way of the demolition. Minutes later she departed, telling a news photographer she had to get to work. She has since extended a Facebook invitation to the public to attend her planned wedding on Sunday. "Yes, I'm in love with a 107 year old building! Yes, ITS A GAY MARRIAGE! How is that possible? Well there must obviously be a deeper story," she wrote on the wedding’s Facebook page. Aivaz has been fighting for the warehouse’s right to exist for weeks now and back in December, she and 16 other "activists" linked arms and occupied the warehouse "for a cause in which we believed strongly. That cause was COMMUNITY SPACE." An apartment building is planned for the site once the warehouse is torn down…………
- Hypocrisy is a word that does not seem to be in the vocabulary of quintessential pageant mom/attention whore Susanna Barrett. Barrett, whose daughter Isabella appears on TLC’s deplorable reality series “Toddlers & Tiaras,” has filed a lawsuit against TMZ, Huffington Post and Daily Mail Online, among other media outlets, for running stories that she alleges “sexualize” her 5-year-old daughter, according to court documents. Susanna Barrett does not appear to have any compunctions about accusing others of sexualizing her kindergarten-age daughter despite being the one who allowed that same little girl to sing LMFAO’s “Sexy and I Know It” at an event. Hey pot, it’s kettle. “After this firestorm, I quickly protected my daughter by having cease and desist orders sent to most media outlets that ran the story,” Barrett fumed. “I intend to clear my daughter’s name.” Words fail on occasions like this, when a person is so directly engaged in an activity and excoriates others for commenting on what he or she is doing, then accuses those other people for being guilty of the original offense. In the video, Isabella is shown singing along to “Sexy and I Know It” at a DJ booth with a microphone in her hand. The controversy ensued when several media outlets reported that the Barrett’s were at a nightclub. Susanna Barrett claimed she and her daughter were actually at “a pet friendly charity event at an American bistro restaurant in New York City at 7:19 p.m. It was a private well-lit event with vendor tables and pets in attendance.” Vendor tables, pets and a mother who clearly doesn’t understand the meaning of sexualizing a child because if she did, she’d see a prime example of it in the mirror……….
- Looking for a chance to throw away millions of dollars while contributing to one of the most unnecessary phenomena in sports? If so, step up and make your offer now to be the next sponsor of the event formerly known as the Insight Bowl. One of college football’s whopping 35 bowl games, the Insight Bowl has been sponsored by Tempe-based Insight Enterprises Inc. since 1997, but the tech company has allowed its sponsorship contract to expire. Bowl officials are now seeking a replacement for this year's game and the search shouldn’t be a long one because who isn't eager to throw down a few million dollars to sponsor a contest between two middling football teams? In this case, those teams are the third-place team from the Big 12 against the third- or fourth-place team from the Big Ten Conference, after BCS selections are made. This past season’s Insight Bowl pitted Oklahoma against Iowa on Dec. 30, with the Sooners defeating the Hawkeyes 31-14. Anyone looking to become the game’s next title sponsor will need fairly deep pockets, as the Insight Bowl increased its payout to participating teams to $6.65 million two years ago. The game was first played in 1989 as the Copper Bowl but if it cannot find a new sponsor, it may soon become the D.O.A. Bowl……….
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Senegal has missed out on the unrest in Africa and the Middle East over the past year, but no more. The country’s opposition vowed Saturday to force President Abdoulaye Wade out of office as massive riots rocked the capital city of Dakar following a decision by the Senegal’s top court that the octogenarian could run for a third term. Riot police patrolled the area around the presidential palace and blocked off streets after opposition groups threatened to march on the palace after a night of what local media described as "fire and blood" in which rioters killed one policeman. It was truly an inspiring scene to see still-smoldering debris littered all over streets in downtown Dakar, reminders of the running battles with police, overturning and burning of cars, torching of tires and general property destruction of the night before. The working class suburb of Colobane saw some of the most violent clashes after a mass opposition gathering turned confrontational. Shops were looted and torched and the entire scene was the result of the Constitutional Council giving Wade, 85, the green light to run in Feb. 26 polls. Opposition groups anticipated the ruling and had their plans to riot locked and loaded once it became official. Predictably, Wade dismissively told his opponents to stop throwing "temper tantrums.” Those weren't temper tantrums, Abdoulaye, those were some epic riots. The chief organizer for the riots was the June 23 Movement of opposition, which called Friday's rally and urged Senegalese to march on the presidential palace in downtown Dakar. Spokesman Abdoul Aziz Diop issued the rallying cry, saying M23 "calls on the Senegalese people to mobilise and march on the Presidential Palace and remove Wade who is squatting there." Characterizing the president as a squatter, that’s solid. Diop reiterated his call Saturday and said opposition leaders deliberated “all night on the best way to organize a response," possibly more riots. Presidential spokesman Serigne Mbacke Ndiaye agitated the opposition further by insisting in a radio interview that Wade’s administration would challenge several opposition candidacies. Overall, the five-judge council approved a list of 14 contenders but rejected the candidacy of music icon Youssou Ndour, depriving the election of some much-needed star power even though he stunned the African music world when he announced this month he was quitting singing for politics. Wade’s candidacy is controversial because when he was elected in 2000 for a seven-year mandate there was no term-limit in the constitution, but one year into his term he revised the laws instituting the two-term limit and reducing the mandate to five years. After securing re-election in 2007, he rewrote the constitution again, reverting to a seven-year mandate, renewable once. However, he argues that the law does not apply retroactively and that he is thus due two seven-year terms from 2012. Sounds like a wonderful reason to riot………..
- Let’s face it, world: We just can't heat things up to quite the extreme temperatures we’d like. Microwaves are nice and ovens are awesome, but what if you want to heat, say, a sheet of aluminum up to temperatures of 3.6 million degrees Fahrenheit — hotter than the sun’s corona? Now you can, thanks to the hard work of scientists at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University. By focusing rapid-fire pulses from the beam on a piece of aluminum foil thinner than spider’s silk, these brilliant scientific minds were able to achieve the extreme temperatures and in turn create a material known as hot dense matter. Their achievement marks the first time researchers have been able to produce such plasmas in a controlled way. Hot dense matter is some of the most extreme material in the universe and is not commonly found on this side of the ozone layer (or what remains of it). It is typically found only in the hearts of stars and giant gas planets. Creating a sample of it should allow the SLAC team to further research the material and gain insights to help them create better models of its behavior. If properly utilized, it could also theoretically allow them to roast an entire pig for their annual luau party in .0000000000000001 seconds, give or take a bit. Read more about their white-hot research in the Jan. 25 edition of the journal Nature………
- Hypocrisy is a word that does not seem to be in the vocabulary of quintessential pageant mom/attention whore Susanna Barrett. Barrett, whose daughter Isabella appears on TLC’s deplorable reality series “Toddlers & Tiaras,” has filed a lawsuit against TMZ, Huffington Post and Daily Mail Online, among other media outlets, for running stories that she alleges “sexualize” her 5-year-old daughter, according to court documents. Susanna Barrett does not appear to have any compunctions about accusing others of sexualizing her kindergarten-age daughter despite being the one who allowed that same little girl to sing LMFAO’s “Sexy and I Know It” at an event. Hey pot, it’s kettle. “After this firestorm, I quickly protected my daughter by having cease and desist orders sent to most media outlets that ran the story,” Barrett fumed. “I intend to clear my daughter’s name.” Words fail on occasions like this, when a person is so directly engaged in an activity and excoriates others for commenting on what he or she is doing, then accuses those other people for being guilty of the original offense. In the video, Isabella is shown singing along to “Sexy and I Know It” at a DJ booth with a microphone in her hand. The controversy ensued when several media outlets reported that the Barrett’s were at a nightclub. Susanna Barrett claimed she and her daughter were actually at “a pet friendly charity event at an American bistro restaurant in New York City at 7:19 p.m. It was a private well-lit event with vendor tables and pets in attendance.” Vendor tables, pets and a mother who clearly doesn’t understand the meaning of sexualizing a child because if she did, she’d see a prime example of it in the mirror……….
- Looking for a chance to throw away millions of dollars while contributing to one of the most unnecessary phenomena in sports? If so, step up and make your offer now to be the next sponsor of the event formerly known as the Insight Bowl. One of college football’s whopping 35 bowl games, the Insight Bowl has been sponsored by Tempe-based Insight Enterprises Inc. since 1997, but the tech company has allowed its sponsorship contract to expire. Bowl officials are now seeking a replacement for this year's game and the search shouldn’t be a long one because who isn't eager to throw down a few million dollars to sponsor a contest between two middling football teams? In this case, those teams are the third-place team from the Big 12 against the third- or fourth-place team from the Big Ten Conference, after BCS selections are made. This past season’s Insight Bowl pitted Oklahoma against Iowa on Dec. 30, with the Sooners defeating the Hawkeyes 31-14. Anyone looking to become the game’s next title sponsor will need fairly deep pockets, as the Insight Bowl increased its payout to participating teams to $6.65 million two years ago. The game was first played in 1989 as the Copper Bowl but if it cannot find a new sponsor, it may soon become the D.O.A. Bowl……….
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Senegal has missed out on the unrest in Africa and the Middle East over the past year, but no more. The country’s opposition vowed Saturday to force President Abdoulaye Wade out of office as massive riots rocked the capital city of Dakar following a decision by the Senegal’s top court that the octogenarian could run for a third term. Riot police patrolled the area around the presidential palace and blocked off streets after opposition groups threatened to march on the palace after a night of what local media described as "fire and blood" in which rioters killed one policeman. It was truly an inspiring scene to see still-smoldering debris littered all over streets in downtown Dakar, reminders of the running battles with police, overturning and burning of cars, torching of tires and general property destruction of the night before. The working class suburb of Colobane saw some of the most violent clashes after a mass opposition gathering turned confrontational. Shops were looted and torched and the entire scene was the result of the Constitutional Council giving Wade, 85, the green light to run in Feb. 26 polls. Opposition groups anticipated the ruling and had their plans to riot locked and loaded once it became official. Predictably, Wade dismissively told his opponents to stop throwing "temper tantrums.” Those weren't temper tantrums, Abdoulaye, those were some epic riots. The chief organizer for the riots was the June 23 Movement of opposition, which called Friday's rally and urged Senegalese to march on the presidential palace in downtown Dakar. Spokesman Abdoul Aziz Diop issued the rallying cry, saying M23 "calls on the Senegalese people to mobilise and march on the Presidential Palace and remove Wade who is squatting there." Characterizing the president as a squatter, that’s solid. Diop reiterated his call Saturday and said opposition leaders deliberated “all night on the best way to organize a response," possibly more riots. Presidential spokesman Serigne Mbacke Ndiaye agitated the opposition further by insisting in a radio interview that Wade’s administration would challenge several opposition candidacies. Overall, the five-judge council approved a list of 14 contenders but rejected the candidacy of music icon Youssou Ndour, depriving the election of some much-needed star power even though he stunned the African music world when he announced this month he was quitting singing for politics. Wade’s candidacy is controversial because when he was elected in 2000 for a seven-year mandate there was no term-limit in the constitution, but one year into his term he revised the laws instituting the two-term limit and reducing the mandate to five years. After securing re-election in 2007, he rewrote the constitution again, reverting to a seven-year mandate, renewable once. However, he argues that the law does not apply retroactively and that he is thus due two seven-year terms from 2012. Sounds like a wonderful reason to riot………..
- Let’s face it, world: We just can't heat things up to quite the extreme temperatures we’d like. Microwaves are nice and ovens are awesome, but what if you want to heat, say, a sheet of aluminum up to temperatures of 3.6 million degrees Fahrenheit — hotter than the sun’s corona? Now you can, thanks to the hard work of scientists at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University. By focusing rapid-fire pulses from the beam on a piece of aluminum foil thinner than spider’s silk, these brilliant scientific minds were able to achieve the extreme temperatures and in turn create a material known as hot dense matter. Their achievement marks the first time researchers have been able to produce such plasmas in a controlled way. Hot dense matter is some of the most extreme material in the universe and is not commonly found on this side of the ozone layer (or what remains of it). It is typically found only in the hearts of stars and giant gas planets. Creating a sample of it should allow the SLAC team to further research the material and gain insights to help them create better models of its behavior. If properly utilized, it could also theoretically allow them to roast an entire pig for their annual luau party in .0000000000000001 seconds, give or take a bit. Read more about their white-hot research in the Jan. 25 edition of the journal Nature………
Friday, January 27, 2012
Twitter oppression, the perks of being a heavyweight champ and pirate invasions in Tampa
- NBC’s hit comedy "The Office" hasn’t exactly soared to new heights with Steve Carrell and his beloved Michael Scott character gone, but the show is soldiering on for the time being. James Spader joined the cast to somewhat fill the void and the Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) character was promoted on the show to take over as the boss at the Scanton, Pa. branch of the company formerly known as Dunder Mifflin. Spader’s Robert California character landed in an executive role with the company, leaving Rainn Wilson's Dwight Schrute on the outside looking in. Wilson’s cantankerous character is a favorite for many fans because of his bizarre mannerisms and haphazard schemes and there are rumors swirling that NBC is considering a spinoff concept for Schrute, who hasn't been too pleased at the "Office" since Michael Scott departed and Bernard took over. Wilson and show executive Paul Lieberstein are reportedly working on the project, which would find Schrute back home at his family's beet farm and bed-and-breakfast. Sources say the concept will be planted in an upcoming episode of "The Office" set at Schrute Farms, which has been a setting in previous episodes of the show. “Paul [Lieberstein] and Rainn have been joking for years about Dwight's life on the farm, his family and how well-suited he is to run a B&B," a source said. Lieberstein and Wilson began work on the idea, NBA was amenable to it and the concept has reportedly grown and expanded from there. Because the project is still in the development stages, there is no agreement or deadline. Wilson addressed the rumored spinoff in a tweet, writing, "Don't believe everything you read in the press, OK?" Sounds exactly like something Dwight Schrute would say……….
- Arrrrghhh! Gather your wenches and swig some rum, mateys, because the biggest pirate freak fest in the United States is back and legions of would-be swashbucklers will descend on Tampa, Fla. this weekend for the annual Gasparilla Pirate Festival. The festival is staged by Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla and has taken place every year since 1904. For this year’s incarnation, more than 300,000 pirates and wenches are expected to attend, parading up and down Bayshore Boulevard and pillaging downtown Tampa. YMKG historian Bill Carson explains that the festival came to be when a group of about 50 people decided to amp up the volume on the city’s existing May Day celebration. The group sent letters to the local newspaper warning that the pirates were about to invade, playing upon the legend of the aristocrat-turned-pirate Jose Gaspar. Gaspar allegedly plundered 36 ships along Florida's West Coast during the end of the 18th century and early 19th century. YMKG picked up his legend, ran with it and “invaded” the May Day celebration on horseback, truly befitting pirates of course. Either willfully ignorant of what a pirate was or just too drunk to care, the good people of Tampa loved the sight and the idea grew from there. A boat was added to the party in 1937 and the festival grew from a smaller gathering rooted in the downtown area. Other pirate “crews” joined along the way and the event has become more commercialized with each successive year. There’s even a children’s parade, which doesn’t seem all that compatible with the general debauchery associated with quality pirating. In a nod to Mardi Gras, the festival has bead tossing to wenches who flash their assets and a local craft store called Bead Barn estimates it has e sold more than 40 million strands of beads so far this year. The festival begins Saturday at 11:30 a.m. with the Gasparilla Invasion as “Jose Gasparilla” sails from south end of Hillsborough Bay toward the docks at the Tampa Convention Center, continues with the very un-piratey Gasparilla Invasion Brunch at the Tampa Convention Center (pirates are not well-known brunchers), moves on with the Gasparilla Parade of Pirates and ends with the Gasparilla Invasion celebration at Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park. Hopefully someone is pillaged and plundered at some point during the day………..
- Twitter is walking a fine line of censorship with its newly established capability to block tweets that run afoul of certain countries' restrictions on speech and free speech advocates are already turning their rings around and looking for a fight over the issue. The popular micro-blogging site announced Thursday that it can censor tweets depending on national laws and users quickly speculated that it will lead to repressive regimes bullying Twitter into taking down posts those regimes disagree with. Twitter tried to justify its actions by using France and Germany as examples because both nations ban pro-Nazi speech. However, it’s difficult not to imagine what effects the decision could have in places like the Middle East, where social networks like Twitter and Facebook played a key role as organizational tools during last year's Arab Spring uprisings. The term #TwitterCensored became a trending topic shortly after the announcement and some users have pledged not to use Twitter on Saturday, Jan. 28 in protest of the move. Angry Twitter users ironically turned to the very site they were pledging to boycott and declared that the site would have blood on its hands by silencing opposition voices. Reporters Without Borders released an open letter to Twitter executive chairman Jack Dorsey, pleading with him to abandon the idea. “We urge you to reverse this decision, which restricts freedom of expression and runs counter to the movements opposed to censorship that have been linked to the Arab Spring, in which Twitter served as a sounding board," RWB director Olivier Basille wrote. "By finally choosing to align itself with the censors, Twitter is depriving cyberdissidents in repressive countries of a crucial tool for information and organization." Some conspiracy theorists suggested that the move had something to do with Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Tala's $300 million investment in Twitter. That is only a 3 percent stake on the company, but it’s good fodder for conspiracy lovers. Twitter insisted “we strongly believe that the open and free exchange of information has a positive global impact." Mmm hmm, sure thing…………
- Communist oppression lives in Russia! Prime Minister/I Never Stopped Being President and Dictator Vladimir Putin is marching back to officially being in power and angling to quash an uprising against his United Russia party while steamrolling toward a March 4 presidential election. Putin is using all of the old tricks to crush the competition and executed a page straight from the dictator’s playbook this week when he, er, Russia's official electoral commission announced that veteran liberal politician Grigory Yavlinsky, who's been a presidential candidate three times before, will not be allowed to run against Putin in the upcoming presidential polls. The decision will not only prevent Yavlinsky from campaigning or addressing the electorate over the next five weeks, but it will bar his party, Yabloko, from fielding election observers to monitor the voting. Yabloko’s voice has been effectively silenced, although opposition groups are already decrying the ruling and slamming it as proof that the Putin system of "managed democracy" is alive and well. That system seeks to rip the power from any groups with a legitimate opportunity to wrest control from Putin while theoretically allowing voters a “choice” on who they select. Critics believe Putin’s plan is to win the election decisively in the first round and crush the spirit of opposition that has fueled riots and protests across Russia since parliamentary elections late last year that were almost certainly rigged. Political observers believe Yavlinsky would draw a significant percentage of votes on the strength of the mass demonstrations in December and could be an acceptable protest candidate for millions of people who are tired of Putin. But according to election official Nikolai Konkin, Yavlinsky’s exclusion is merely a matter of technical propriety. In a supremely clichéd move by a group in power seeking to invalidate the status of a rival group, Putin’s regime deemed about a quarter of the two million signatures collected on petitions to put Yavlinsky on the ballot to be invalid. A likely story, Nicky. Yabloko's press spokesperson, Igor Yakovlev,was spot-on when he suggested that, "The decision not to register Yavlinsky is purely political, and we believe it was taken by Putin himself.” As always, thanks for giving the world something it can count on, commies………
- Being a world champion in any sport definitely does not suck. Walking around knowing there is no one better than you and enjoying the associated perks and benefits has to be a nice existence and even if boxing doesn’t carry the prestige it once did, having a title belt from any of the sport’s myriad governing bodies still has a nice ring to it. Former world middleweight champion Oscar De La Hoya knows this well and according to a lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, so does Playboy and Maxim model Angelica Cecora. Cecora, who admits to having sex with De La Hoya in a Manhattan luxury hotel room, is nonetheless suing the Golden Boy for dressing in women's underwear while trying to force her to engage in "disgusting" sexual acts in March 2011. While she admits the sex was consensual, De La Hoya's increasingly strange behavior and sexual requests afterward were against her will, Cecora said. "Once 12 o'clock hit that night, he just started doing more and more drugs and wanted me to do more and more things," she said. According to the lawsuit, she feared she would die while trapped in that hotel room with the former Olympic gold medalist and world champion of multiple weight divisions. Cecora spoke to reporters outside a hearing for the case, but De La Hoya did not attend. During the hearing, his lawyers asked to dismiss the lawsuit, which seeks $5 million for emotional distress, false imprisonment, assault and battery. Attorney Judd Burstein dismissed the suit’s claims as “offensive and frivolous.” The suit details the sequence of events during the night, beginning with De La Hoya inviting Cecora to meet for dinner at his hotel, then taking her up to his room. She claims she had no idea that he was married at the time and said De La Hoya used his fame to manipulate her, promising to use her as a ringside girl in his boxing promotion ventures. At some point during the after-dinner festivities, the two had sex and Cecora claims that De La Hoya put on her underwear and walked around the room at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. He then allegedly picked up a phone and ordered around $300 worth of cocaine and marijuana to be delivered to his room. Hmm……pot, blow, cross-dressing, sex with a Playboy skank.....maybe boxing does still have a lot of its status and power. De La Hoya is now retired and according to Burstein, he is a changed man who has gone through rehab and is clean. "His life was spiraling out of control," Burstein said. "He's a changed person now." Changed but unable to outrun his past………
- Arrrrghhh! Gather your wenches and swig some rum, mateys, because the biggest pirate freak fest in the United States is back and legions of would-be swashbucklers will descend on Tampa, Fla. this weekend for the annual Gasparilla Pirate Festival. The festival is staged by Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla and has taken place every year since 1904. For this year’s incarnation, more than 300,000 pirates and wenches are expected to attend, parading up and down Bayshore Boulevard and pillaging downtown Tampa. YMKG historian Bill Carson explains that the festival came to be when a group of about 50 people decided to amp up the volume on the city’s existing May Day celebration. The group sent letters to the local newspaper warning that the pirates were about to invade, playing upon the legend of the aristocrat-turned-pirate Jose Gaspar. Gaspar allegedly plundered 36 ships along Florida's West Coast during the end of the 18th century and early 19th century. YMKG picked up his legend, ran with it and “invaded” the May Day celebration on horseback, truly befitting pirates of course. Either willfully ignorant of what a pirate was or just too drunk to care, the good people of Tampa loved the sight and the idea grew from there. A boat was added to the party in 1937 and the festival grew from a smaller gathering rooted in the downtown area. Other pirate “crews” joined along the way and the event has become more commercialized with each successive year. There’s even a children’s parade, which doesn’t seem all that compatible with the general debauchery associated with quality pirating. In a nod to Mardi Gras, the festival has bead tossing to wenches who flash their assets and a local craft store called Bead Barn estimates it has e sold more than 40 million strands of beads so far this year. The festival begins Saturday at 11:30 a.m. with the Gasparilla Invasion as “Jose Gasparilla” sails from south end of Hillsborough Bay toward the docks at the Tampa Convention Center, continues with the very un-piratey Gasparilla Invasion Brunch at the Tampa Convention Center (pirates are not well-known brunchers), moves on with the Gasparilla Parade of Pirates and ends with the Gasparilla Invasion celebration at Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park. Hopefully someone is pillaged and plundered at some point during the day………..
- Twitter is walking a fine line of censorship with its newly established capability to block tweets that run afoul of certain countries' restrictions on speech and free speech advocates are already turning their rings around and looking for a fight over the issue. The popular micro-blogging site announced Thursday that it can censor tweets depending on national laws and users quickly speculated that it will lead to repressive regimes bullying Twitter into taking down posts those regimes disagree with. Twitter tried to justify its actions by using France and Germany as examples because both nations ban pro-Nazi speech. However, it’s difficult not to imagine what effects the decision could have in places like the Middle East, where social networks like Twitter and Facebook played a key role as organizational tools during last year's Arab Spring uprisings. The term #TwitterCensored became a trending topic shortly after the announcement and some users have pledged not to use Twitter on Saturday, Jan. 28 in protest of the move. Angry Twitter users ironically turned to the very site they were pledging to boycott and declared that the site would have blood on its hands by silencing opposition voices. Reporters Without Borders released an open letter to Twitter executive chairman Jack Dorsey, pleading with him to abandon the idea. “We urge you to reverse this decision, which restricts freedom of expression and runs counter to the movements opposed to censorship that have been linked to the Arab Spring, in which Twitter served as a sounding board," RWB director Olivier Basille wrote. "By finally choosing to align itself with the censors, Twitter is depriving cyberdissidents in repressive countries of a crucial tool for information and organization." Some conspiracy theorists suggested that the move had something to do with Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Tala's $300 million investment in Twitter. That is only a 3 percent stake on the company, but it’s good fodder for conspiracy lovers. Twitter insisted “we strongly believe that the open and free exchange of information has a positive global impact." Mmm hmm, sure thing…………
- Communist oppression lives in Russia! Prime Minister/I Never Stopped Being President and Dictator Vladimir Putin is marching back to officially being in power and angling to quash an uprising against his United Russia party while steamrolling toward a March 4 presidential election. Putin is using all of the old tricks to crush the competition and executed a page straight from the dictator’s playbook this week when he, er, Russia's official electoral commission announced that veteran liberal politician Grigory Yavlinsky, who's been a presidential candidate three times before, will not be allowed to run against Putin in the upcoming presidential polls. The decision will not only prevent Yavlinsky from campaigning or addressing the electorate over the next five weeks, but it will bar his party, Yabloko, from fielding election observers to monitor the voting. Yabloko’s voice has been effectively silenced, although opposition groups are already decrying the ruling and slamming it as proof that the Putin system of "managed democracy" is alive and well. That system seeks to rip the power from any groups with a legitimate opportunity to wrest control from Putin while theoretically allowing voters a “choice” on who they select. Critics believe Putin’s plan is to win the election decisively in the first round and crush the spirit of opposition that has fueled riots and protests across Russia since parliamentary elections late last year that were almost certainly rigged. Political observers believe Yavlinsky would draw a significant percentage of votes on the strength of the mass demonstrations in December and could be an acceptable protest candidate for millions of people who are tired of Putin. But according to election official Nikolai Konkin, Yavlinsky’s exclusion is merely a matter of technical propriety. In a supremely clichéd move by a group in power seeking to invalidate the status of a rival group, Putin’s regime deemed about a quarter of the two million signatures collected on petitions to put Yavlinsky on the ballot to be invalid. A likely story, Nicky. Yabloko's press spokesperson, Igor Yakovlev,was spot-on when he suggested that, "The decision not to register Yavlinsky is purely political, and we believe it was taken by Putin himself.” As always, thanks for giving the world something it can count on, commies………
- Being a world champion in any sport definitely does not suck. Walking around knowing there is no one better than you and enjoying the associated perks and benefits has to be a nice existence and even if boxing doesn’t carry the prestige it once did, having a title belt from any of the sport’s myriad governing bodies still has a nice ring to it. Former world middleweight champion Oscar De La Hoya knows this well and according to a lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, so does Playboy and Maxim model Angelica Cecora. Cecora, who admits to having sex with De La Hoya in a Manhattan luxury hotel room, is nonetheless suing the Golden Boy for dressing in women's underwear while trying to force her to engage in "disgusting" sexual acts in March 2011. While she admits the sex was consensual, De La Hoya's increasingly strange behavior and sexual requests afterward were against her will, Cecora said. "Once 12 o'clock hit that night, he just started doing more and more drugs and wanted me to do more and more things," she said. According to the lawsuit, she feared she would die while trapped in that hotel room with the former Olympic gold medalist and world champion of multiple weight divisions. Cecora spoke to reporters outside a hearing for the case, but De La Hoya did not attend. During the hearing, his lawyers asked to dismiss the lawsuit, which seeks $5 million for emotional distress, false imprisonment, assault and battery. Attorney Judd Burstein dismissed the suit’s claims as “offensive and frivolous.” The suit details the sequence of events during the night, beginning with De La Hoya inviting Cecora to meet for dinner at his hotel, then taking her up to his room. She claims she had no idea that he was married at the time and said De La Hoya used his fame to manipulate her, promising to use her as a ringside girl in his boxing promotion ventures. At some point during the after-dinner festivities, the two had sex and Cecora claims that De La Hoya put on her underwear and walked around the room at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. He then allegedly picked up a phone and ordered around $300 worth of cocaine and marijuana to be delivered to his room. Hmm……pot, blow, cross-dressing, sex with a Playboy skank.....maybe boxing does still have a lot of its status and power. De La Hoya is now retired and according to Burstein, he is a changed man who has gone through rehab and is clean. "His life was spiraling out of control," Burstein said. "He's a changed person now." Changed but unable to outrun his past………
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Disco threats live, aboriginal riot fun and bitter NBA stars
- NOOOOOOOOOOO! Duck and cover everyone reading this who has ears, duck and cover! Disco is not completely dead, much to the world’s chagrin. One of the biggest perpetrators of the ear-assaultingly bad genre of music known as disco is rising from its musical grave and coming back to haunt us all. Swedish disco divas ABBA plan to release a new version of their last album, featuring a previously unreleased track for the first time since 1994, the group's website said on Wednesday. For over-the-hill baby boomers and others on the wrong side of 50 who are so completely out of touch with what’s good these days in music, ABBA is a go-to standard for road trips or any other occasion when “fun” music is needed. The makers of the critically panned, financially failed “Mamma Mia” movie based on the stage show of the same name breathed new life into the group’s music, sadly. According to the post on the group’s website, a deluxe edition of their final album, "The Visitors," would be released in April. "For ABBA fans, the most sensational inclusion in the package will be the previously unreleased track, 'From A Twinkling Star To A Passing Angel (demos)',” the statement said. “This is the first time since the 'Thank You For The Music' box set in 1994 that ABBA have opened the doors to the tape vaults to release previously unheard music from the group's heyday.” If only those vault doors had remained closed and “The Visitors” had remained merely another dark stain on the musical wasteland that was the 1980s……but alas, the chance to re-release it along with bonus selections and a DVD of rare and previously unreleased material from the archives was too much to pass up. ABBA, comprised of Agnetha Faltskog, Anna-Frid Lyngstad, Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, terrorized lovers of good music everywhere with a string of abominable disco-pop songs in the 1970s and '80s and to this day remain one of Sweden’s most lethal exports……….
- Get with it or get out of the way, indigenous leaders who stupidly condemned the Aboriginal Tent Embassy protesters who clashed with police and tried to storm an event with Australia’s prime minister and opposition leader Wednesday. More than 200 protestors were outside Old Parliament House in Canberra to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the tent embassy and decided to bum rush an Australia Day awards ceremony at a Canberra restaurant where Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott were in attendance. The sudden surge of protestors forced dozens of police officers to rush to the scene, where the demonstrators were angrily banging on the three glass sides of the restaurant and chanting words like "shame" and "racist.” Gillard and Abbott were rushed from the scene in a display of cowardice. Gillar stumbled and lost a shoe as she was dragged away to a waiting car by security guards. Undeterred by the evacuation, protestors chased the car down the road, banging on its roof and hood. Their rage was fueled by remarks Abbott made in which he said he thought it was probably time to reconsider the relevance of the tent embassy. On a day many Aboriginal people regard as "invasion day,” those words and his presence were enough to spark an uprising. Gillard later attended a function for international ambassadors elsewhere in the city and insisted she was fine, but indigenous leaders still labeled the protesters' behavior as "disgraceful.” Former aboriginal leader Warren Mundine believes the protesters misinterpreted Abbott's comments as a call to demolish the embassy. Mundine tried to spin the remarks as Abbott’s belief that the embassy is outdated but not necessarily in need of demolition. "Quite frankly it's irrelevant to the mainstream of Aboriginal people today," he said. Police have already said they do not plan to file charges against any of the protestors, but an incensed Mundine disagreed. "No human being, let alone the Prime Minister of this country, should be treated in such a way," he said. "I believe the people who instigated, the people who have caused this to happen, the full force of the law should come down upon them." Suck it, Mundine, and shut your mouth. Allow the protestors to seize Gillard’s lost shoe (which they did) and hoist it proudly over their heads (which they also did) without being subjected to criticism……….
- The best athletes are often some of the most bitter athletes as well. Their bitterness over every sleight - real or perceived - fuels them and drives them to work harder and become even better. They remember every critical story written, every condemning comment made and every show of disrespect from opponents. Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose is undoubtedly one of the best, the NBA’s reigning MVP and the unquestioned leader of one of the league’s best teams. Rose is decidedly unhappy right now and it stems from the Bulls’ 95-90 home loss to the Indiana Pacers Wednesday night. The defeat was the Bulls’ first of the season at home and it brought Indiana to within 2½ games of the Central Division leaders. It also gave the Pacers a measure of revenge after losing a hard-fought first-round playoff series to the Bulls last season. Rose wasn’t as bitter about losing the game as he was about how the Pacers reacted to winning it. Pacers players and coached slapped each other with animated high-fives and could be heard whooping and hollering as they headed down the tunnel from the court to their locker room. "I'll never forget how they celebrated just from winning this game," Rose said immediately after the game. "I can't wait to play them again." Bulls guard Ronnie Brewer, who started in place of the injured Luol Deng and scored 20 points, said the Bulls could hear the Pacers' celebration continue from the court to the locker room. "When you're walking off the court, you're in the same corridor," Brewer said. "And we were walking into our locker room, and you could hear those guys celebrating, cheering, screaming, and that kind of hit home with a lot of guys on our team. We're all competitors. They're in our division. Every time we play them it's a tough matchup. And especially in front of our fans, you don't want to have a letdown and lose at home. To hear them do like that adds a little fuel to the fire.” Indiana coach Frank Vogel defended his players while pointing directly back to last season’s playoff loss. "They are just thrilled to get the win here," Indiana coach Frank Vogel said. "They were crushed that we didn't beat them last year in the playoffs." The Pacers were also coming off a difficult home loss to the Orlando Magic the previous night and clearly had memories of last season’s physical, contentious first-round playoff series. After the series, Pacers forward Granger said Bulls center Joakim Noah's play was cowardly. Rose sounds like he feels the same way about the entire Pacers locker room right about now………
- For those seeking it, here is another reason to hate work. Aside from low pay, idiotic co-workers, overbearing bosses and being forced to work in cubicles or windowless rooms and slave one’s life away, a team researchers led by Finnish scientist Marianna Virtanen has determined that working 11 hours a day may not only take a physical toll on workers, but could also leave them depressed. Virtanen and her team studied civil servants in England and found that working excessive hours was linked with more cases of major depressive episodes. Researchers studied 2,123 men and women for an average 5.8 years and assessed each participant for depression. Those who worked 11 or more hours a day was associated with a 2.3- to 2.5-fold increased risk of having a major depressive episode compared with those who worked a standard seven- to eight-hour day. Hmm, so grinding away for an extra three-plus hours doing a job you probably hate with every fiber of your being isn't good for your mental health? Tell me more. Virtanen and crew found that even after adjusting for social and demographic factors, smoking, alcohol use and job strain, the link between working long hours and depression held up. They concluded that working longer hours may cause conflicts between work and family, problems relaxing after a long day and increased amounts of cortisol in a person’s system. Cortisol is a stress-related hormone that, when over-produced by the body, can lead to health problems such as lower immunity and high blood pressure. “Although occasionally working overtime may have benefits for the individual and society," Virtanen said in a written statement, "it is important to recognize that working excessive hours is also associated with an increased risk of major depression." You’re preaching to the choir, M…………
- Why can people not simply say “Thank you” and keep moving when life hands them a great blessing? College students spend an inordinate amount of time bitching and moaning about the ridiculously high cost of textbooks and how little money they receive at the end of the semester when they go to sell back books they’ve rarely used as anything other than a makeshift pillow for when they fall asleep “studying” on Facebook. Operating within this reality, how pumped should a college student be when he or she orders a textbook for a class from an online retailer, receives that book in the mail and opens it up to find a bag with nearly $400 worth of cocaine inside? Sophia Stockton, a junior at Mid-America Nazarene University in Olathe, Kan., this message is directed at everyone, but was inspired by you. See, Stockton bought a textbook, “Understanding Terrorism: Challenges, Perspectives and Issues,” through Amazon.com for a spring course on terrorism. She received the book and upon flipping it open and looking through it, she discovered a bag of white powder had fallen to the ground. Being the uptight square she clearly is and thus failing to recognize it as a gift of free Colombian nose candy, she feared the white substance was anthrax and took it to the Gardner Police Department the following day. “I told them white powder was in my terrorism textbook and so I put it on the table and they’re like, ‘oh, okay,’ And so he went back and tested it,” Stockton said. “ He comes back and says, ‘you didn’t happen to order some cocaine with your textbook, did you?’ And I was like, no!” Wrong-o, Sophia. You SHOULD have answered “Yes” and if you were one of the cool kids, you would have. Yes, you go to a religious school, but Kansas City is a big places with plenty of other colleges and you need to go to parties at one of them. Learn all about the Bolivian marching powder and maybe next time some stranger gift-wraps a bag of it for you, you’ll know what to do with it…………
- Get with it or get out of the way, indigenous leaders who stupidly condemned the Aboriginal Tent Embassy protesters who clashed with police and tried to storm an event with Australia’s prime minister and opposition leader Wednesday. More than 200 protestors were outside Old Parliament House in Canberra to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the tent embassy and decided to bum rush an Australia Day awards ceremony at a Canberra restaurant where Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott were in attendance. The sudden surge of protestors forced dozens of police officers to rush to the scene, where the demonstrators were angrily banging on the three glass sides of the restaurant and chanting words like "shame" and "racist.” Gillard and Abbott were rushed from the scene in a display of cowardice. Gillar stumbled and lost a shoe as she was dragged away to a waiting car by security guards. Undeterred by the evacuation, protestors chased the car down the road, banging on its roof and hood. Their rage was fueled by remarks Abbott made in which he said he thought it was probably time to reconsider the relevance of the tent embassy. On a day many Aboriginal people regard as "invasion day,” those words and his presence were enough to spark an uprising. Gillard later attended a function for international ambassadors elsewhere in the city and insisted she was fine, but indigenous leaders still labeled the protesters' behavior as "disgraceful.” Former aboriginal leader Warren Mundine believes the protesters misinterpreted Abbott's comments as a call to demolish the embassy. Mundine tried to spin the remarks as Abbott’s belief that the embassy is outdated but not necessarily in need of demolition. "Quite frankly it's irrelevant to the mainstream of Aboriginal people today," he said. Police have already said they do not plan to file charges against any of the protestors, but an incensed Mundine disagreed. "No human being, let alone the Prime Minister of this country, should be treated in such a way," he said. "I believe the people who instigated, the people who have caused this to happen, the full force of the law should come down upon them." Suck it, Mundine, and shut your mouth. Allow the protestors to seize Gillard’s lost shoe (which they did) and hoist it proudly over their heads (which they also did) without being subjected to criticism……….
- The best athletes are often some of the most bitter athletes as well. Their bitterness over every sleight - real or perceived - fuels them and drives them to work harder and become even better. They remember every critical story written, every condemning comment made and every show of disrespect from opponents. Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose is undoubtedly one of the best, the NBA’s reigning MVP and the unquestioned leader of one of the league’s best teams. Rose is decidedly unhappy right now and it stems from the Bulls’ 95-90 home loss to the Indiana Pacers Wednesday night. The defeat was the Bulls’ first of the season at home and it brought Indiana to within 2½ games of the Central Division leaders. It also gave the Pacers a measure of revenge after losing a hard-fought first-round playoff series to the Bulls last season. Rose wasn’t as bitter about losing the game as he was about how the Pacers reacted to winning it. Pacers players and coached slapped each other with animated high-fives and could be heard whooping and hollering as they headed down the tunnel from the court to their locker room. "I'll never forget how they celebrated just from winning this game," Rose said immediately after the game. "I can't wait to play them again." Bulls guard Ronnie Brewer, who started in place of the injured Luol Deng and scored 20 points, said the Bulls could hear the Pacers' celebration continue from the court to the locker room. "When you're walking off the court, you're in the same corridor," Brewer said. "And we were walking into our locker room, and you could hear those guys celebrating, cheering, screaming, and that kind of hit home with a lot of guys on our team. We're all competitors. They're in our division. Every time we play them it's a tough matchup. And especially in front of our fans, you don't want to have a letdown and lose at home. To hear them do like that adds a little fuel to the fire.” Indiana coach Frank Vogel defended his players while pointing directly back to last season’s playoff loss. "They are just thrilled to get the win here," Indiana coach Frank Vogel said. "They were crushed that we didn't beat them last year in the playoffs." The Pacers were also coming off a difficult home loss to the Orlando Magic the previous night and clearly had memories of last season’s physical, contentious first-round playoff series. After the series, Pacers forward Granger said Bulls center Joakim Noah's play was cowardly. Rose sounds like he feels the same way about the entire Pacers locker room right about now………
- For those seeking it, here is another reason to hate work. Aside from low pay, idiotic co-workers, overbearing bosses and being forced to work in cubicles or windowless rooms and slave one’s life away, a team researchers led by Finnish scientist Marianna Virtanen has determined that working 11 hours a day may not only take a physical toll on workers, but could also leave them depressed. Virtanen and her team studied civil servants in England and found that working excessive hours was linked with more cases of major depressive episodes. Researchers studied 2,123 men and women for an average 5.8 years and assessed each participant for depression. Those who worked 11 or more hours a day was associated with a 2.3- to 2.5-fold increased risk of having a major depressive episode compared with those who worked a standard seven- to eight-hour day. Hmm, so grinding away for an extra three-plus hours doing a job you probably hate with every fiber of your being isn't good for your mental health? Tell me more. Virtanen and crew found that even after adjusting for social and demographic factors, smoking, alcohol use and job strain, the link between working long hours and depression held up. They concluded that working longer hours may cause conflicts between work and family, problems relaxing after a long day and increased amounts of cortisol in a person’s system. Cortisol is a stress-related hormone that, when over-produced by the body, can lead to health problems such as lower immunity and high blood pressure. “Although occasionally working overtime may have benefits for the individual and society," Virtanen said in a written statement, "it is important to recognize that working excessive hours is also associated with an increased risk of major depression." You’re preaching to the choir, M…………
- Why can people not simply say “Thank you” and keep moving when life hands them a great blessing? College students spend an inordinate amount of time bitching and moaning about the ridiculously high cost of textbooks and how little money they receive at the end of the semester when they go to sell back books they’ve rarely used as anything other than a makeshift pillow for when they fall asleep “studying” on Facebook. Operating within this reality, how pumped should a college student be when he or she orders a textbook for a class from an online retailer, receives that book in the mail and opens it up to find a bag with nearly $400 worth of cocaine inside? Sophia Stockton, a junior at Mid-America Nazarene University in Olathe, Kan., this message is directed at everyone, but was inspired by you. See, Stockton bought a textbook, “Understanding Terrorism: Challenges, Perspectives and Issues,” through Amazon.com for a spring course on terrorism. She received the book and upon flipping it open and looking through it, she discovered a bag of white powder had fallen to the ground. Being the uptight square she clearly is and thus failing to recognize it as a gift of free Colombian nose candy, she feared the white substance was anthrax and took it to the Gardner Police Department the following day. “I told them white powder was in my terrorism textbook and so I put it on the table and they’re like, ‘oh, okay,’ And so he went back and tested it,” Stockton said. “ He comes back and says, ‘you didn’t happen to order some cocaine with your textbook, did you?’ And I was like, no!” Wrong-o, Sophia. You SHOULD have answered “Yes” and if you were one of the cool kids, you would have. Yes, you go to a religious school, but Kansas City is a big places with plenty of other colleges and you need to go to parties at one of them. Learn all about the Bolivian marching powder and maybe next time some stranger gift-wraps a bag of it for you, you’ll know what to do with it…………
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Bitter Sheen, overpriced and overweight sluggers and bottomless Libyan pits
- What’s more exciting than your favorite Major League team throwing down $214 million and committing for nine years to a 300-pound slugger who doubles as the world’s largest vegetarian? The prospect of that same team having to reassign a nearly-as-obese slugger with no range whatsoever and subpar conditioning to a new spot on the field because the slugger you just signed plays his current position, that’s what. The Detroit Tigers landed one of the biggest free-agent prizes of the offseason when they inked first baseman Prince Fielder to the fourth-largest contract in MLB history. That’s the good news - assuming they get enough production out of him in the first five to six years of the deal to justify paying an overweight first baseman in the twilight of his career $24 million a season for the final three years of the contract. The bad news is that the Tigers must now move Miguel Cabrera from first base even though the reason he was playing first base is because he was too FAT and slow to continue playing third base or the outfield, the two positions he played prior to signing with the team in 2008. Cabrera began his career with the Florida (now Miami) Marlins as a left fielder, but moved to third base because he was terrible defensively in the outfield. His conditioning played a role and as his weight ballooned, his ability to track down balls in left field decreased. His lack of nutritional and exercise discipline continued and eventually he was moved to first base, where he had to move even less and mostly had to catch balls thrown his way by his fellow infielders. He committed five errors in the space of just 14 games playing third base for the Tigers and managed Jim Leyland shifted him across the diamond. Now that Fielder has landed in the D, the team must hope that Cabrera will either rediscover how to be a competent third baseman or accept manning the designated hitter role for most games. Cabrera insists he’s fine with the move to third. “I will come back to the third base, which is my natural position. The arrival of Fielder will benefit us,” he said. Lots of success with that, Miggy…………
- Who knew Connecticut was such a racist place? In all fairness to the Nutmeg State, not everyone who lives there is a flaming bigot. Just East Haven Mayor Joe Maturo and a few select idiots, that’s all. That Maturo is the top executive in a city where Latinos have said for years that they live in fear of local authorities doesn’t help matters, of course. Those fears were validated Tuesday after news broke of the arrests of four rogue police officers who are accused of systematically targeting Latinos with unlawful search and seizures, traffic stops and even physical abuse. Federal authorities accused East Haven Police Sgt. John Miller and officers David Cari, Jason Zullo, and Dennis Spaulding of not only intimidating fellow officers but also the community as a whole. "The indictment further alleges that Spaulding and Zullo intimidated, harassed and humiliated members of the Latino community," said David Fein, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut. With a quartet of New Haven’s finest accused of such horrific abuses of power and authority, one would hope Mayor Maturo would exercise respect, professionalism and integrity in dealing with the situation. What did the mayor have to say about the matter and how he would work with the Latino community to repair the relationship between them and the city? Nothing intelligent. Maturo responded by saying he "might have tacos" as his first step to repair relations with the New Haven Latino community. That’s right, a taco blast. Nothing like suggesting that all Latinos are Mexicans who like tacos, eh Mr. Mayor? For some reason, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy called Matruo's comment racially insensitive. They represent either a horrible lack of judgment or worse, an underlying insensitivity to our Latino community that is unacceptable. Being tired is no excuse. He owes an apology to the community, and more importantly, he needs to show what he's going to do to repair the damage he's done. And he needs to do it today,” the governor said. In his defense, Maturo pointed out that his city’s Latino population is relatively small. "We have a very small segment of Latinos in town," he said. "We have a very small segment of a lot of nationalities in our community." What that has to do with anything related to the case is unclear, as racist treatment of even one or two members of a race or ethnic group is a major problem. Maturo also tried to soften the stupidity of his remark by saying that he's visited Puerto Rico, and since he's Italian he may have spaghetti, then claiming his words were taken "out of context." Nice try, numb nuts…………
- Learning is fun. For example, isn’t it riveting to know that the raven-size creature long thought of as the earliest bird, Archaeopteryx, may have sported black feathers? That riveting find comes from a team led by researcher Ryan Carney, an evolutionary biologist at Brown University. Researchers theorized that the structures that held the black pigment may have strengthened wing feathers, perhaps helping Archaeopteryx fly. Archaeopteryx lived in what is now Bavaria in Germany (which means it loved beer, obviously) and was first discovered 150 years ago. It was a known carnivore sporting a blend of avian and reptilian features. Scientists have long identified the creature as something of an evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds, but once recent study questioned whether Archaeopteryx was a true bird or just one of many birdlike dinosaurs. In cases where a creature bears characteristics of both dinosaurs and birds, scientists often turn to the animals' feathers. "Being able to reconstruct the colors of feathers can help us gain more knowledge about the organisms and more responsibly reconstruct what they looked like," Carney said. He and an international team of scientists conducted research on Archaeopteryx’s feathers and determined that they were black. They also studied the color-generating structures within the creature's feather, known as melanosomes, and found that they "would have given the feathers additional structural support," Carney said. "This would have been advantageous during this early evolutionary stage of dinosaur flight." The Archaeopteryx feather was discovered in a limestone deposit in Germany in 1861, but scientists were initially unable to locate any melanosomes within the feather. It wasn’t until a more powerful type of scanning electron microscope was developed that the needed melanosome was found. "The third time was the charm, and we finally found the keys to unlocking the feather's original color, hidden in the rock for the past 150 million years," Carney said. In fact, the international team located patches of hundreds of melanosomes encased within the fossil. Each melanosome is about 1 millionth of a meter long and 250 billionths of a meter wide. That is less than a wavelength of visible light in width. In order to determine color, researchers compared the fossilized structures with those found in 87 species of living birds that represented four classes of feathers — black, gray, brown and ones found in penguins, which have unusually large melanosomes compared with other birds. "What we found was that the feather was predicted to be black with 95 percent certainty," Carney declared. One point the team did not address was what purpose the coloring of the wing may have served, although one theory is that black feathers may have helped the creature absorb sunlight for heat, acted as camouflage, served in courtship displays or assisted with flight. No matter the reason because as always, knowledge of any sort is power………
- Is the future bright in Libya now that Moammer Gadhafi is dead? Not according to Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the head of Libya's ruling National Transitional Council, it’s not. Abdul-Jalil warned on Sunday the country could be heading towards a "bottomless pit" after protesters stormed a government office in Benghazi while he was inside. His comments could be purely out of fear and panic after facing an angry mob demanding the resignation of the Libyan government. But where he sees a possible plummet into a bottomless pit, others might see a bold group of dissidents smashing windows and forcing their way into the NTC's local headquarters late on Saturday. The display made it clear that anger at the establishment has not abated merely because Gadhafi is no longer in power. The rioters did not seem impressed by the continued support of Western powers for the NTC, which makes sense because the unelected body has been slow to restore basic public services and most its members have direct links to Gadhafi. Shortly after the riot, Abdul-Jalil suspended the six representatives to the NTC from Benghazi, the main city in eastern Libya and appointed a council of religious leaders to investigate corruption charges and identify people with links to the Gadhafi regime. The suspensions angered the group’s deputy head, Abdel-Hafiz Ghoga, who resigned in protest. Other delegates on the council blasted the decision and criticized the appointment of religious leaders to the council’s operations. The country's election law has also delayed for one week and will be made public on Jan. 28, said a government spokesman. Once it is put in place, the law will guide Libya as it puts together its first working parliament in more than four decades. But how can it go wrong with confident leaders like Abdul-Jalil? "We are going through a political movement that can take the country to a bottomless pit," he said. "There is something behind these protests that is not for the good of the country." Wrong, wrong, wrong. There is nothing bad about a quality riot…………
- Charlie Sheen has let go of plenty of things in the past 18 months or so - his main acting gig, his grasp on sanity, any remaining shreds of humility in his character and plenty more - but hasn’t found a way to release his anger toward the show that fired him and those who run it. He has gradually inched back toward sanity in recent months, but he ire toward “Two and a Half Men” and show creator Chuck Lorre still burns white hot. With the show moving on and Ashton Kutcher taking his place, Sheen is not impressed by what he has seen and believes the show should die a quick death. "I don't think they should go past this year," he remarked. "I don't think that (Kutcher's) working with the best writing because Chuck is doing too many shows." So it all comes back to Lorre, it would appear. Sheen made his comments while promoting his new series, “Anger Management,” but sounded less concerned with the new project than with laying out Lorre. "They deserve what I had for the first five years," he said of Kutcher and co-stars Jon Cryer and Angus T. Jones. He believes the trio are working with subpar scripts and given the show’s lackluster ratings this season, maybe Sheen is correct. He still sounds bitter and unable let go and move on, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong. Perhaps he’s also hoping that the demise of his old show will give viewers all the more reason to watch his new series, which will probably be just as bad or worse because that’s simply how sitcoms work. They’re formulaic due to their half-hour time frame and are rarely original or interesting. One could also say the same about Sheen now that his crazy act has worn thin……….
- Who knew Connecticut was such a racist place? In all fairness to the Nutmeg State, not everyone who lives there is a flaming bigot. Just East Haven Mayor Joe Maturo and a few select idiots, that’s all. That Maturo is the top executive in a city where Latinos have said for years that they live in fear of local authorities doesn’t help matters, of course. Those fears were validated Tuesday after news broke of the arrests of four rogue police officers who are accused of systematically targeting Latinos with unlawful search and seizures, traffic stops and even physical abuse. Federal authorities accused East Haven Police Sgt. John Miller and officers David Cari, Jason Zullo, and Dennis Spaulding of not only intimidating fellow officers but also the community as a whole. "The indictment further alleges that Spaulding and Zullo intimidated, harassed and humiliated members of the Latino community," said David Fein, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut. With a quartet of New Haven’s finest accused of such horrific abuses of power and authority, one would hope Mayor Maturo would exercise respect, professionalism and integrity in dealing with the situation. What did the mayor have to say about the matter and how he would work with the Latino community to repair the relationship between them and the city? Nothing intelligent. Maturo responded by saying he "might have tacos" as his first step to repair relations with the New Haven Latino community. That’s right, a taco blast. Nothing like suggesting that all Latinos are Mexicans who like tacos, eh Mr. Mayor? For some reason, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy called Matruo's comment racially insensitive. They represent either a horrible lack of judgment or worse, an underlying insensitivity to our Latino community that is unacceptable. Being tired is no excuse. He owes an apology to the community, and more importantly, he needs to show what he's going to do to repair the damage he's done. And he needs to do it today,” the governor said. In his defense, Maturo pointed out that his city’s Latino population is relatively small. "We have a very small segment of Latinos in town," he said. "We have a very small segment of a lot of nationalities in our community." What that has to do with anything related to the case is unclear, as racist treatment of even one or two members of a race or ethnic group is a major problem. Maturo also tried to soften the stupidity of his remark by saying that he's visited Puerto Rico, and since he's Italian he may have spaghetti, then claiming his words were taken "out of context." Nice try, numb nuts…………
- Learning is fun. For example, isn’t it riveting to know that the raven-size creature long thought of as the earliest bird, Archaeopteryx, may have sported black feathers? That riveting find comes from a team led by researcher Ryan Carney, an evolutionary biologist at Brown University. Researchers theorized that the structures that held the black pigment may have strengthened wing feathers, perhaps helping Archaeopteryx fly. Archaeopteryx lived in what is now Bavaria in Germany (which means it loved beer, obviously) and was first discovered 150 years ago. It was a known carnivore sporting a blend of avian and reptilian features. Scientists have long identified the creature as something of an evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds, but once recent study questioned whether Archaeopteryx was a true bird or just one of many birdlike dinosaurs. In cases where a creature bears characteristics of both dinosaurs and birds, scientists often turn to the animals' feathers. "Being able to reconstruct the colors of feathers can help us gain more knowledge about the organisms and more responsibly reconstruct what they looked like," Carney said. He and an international team of scientists conducted research on Archaeopteryx’s feathers and determined that they were black. They also studied the color-generating structures within the creature's feather, known as melanosomes, and found that they "would have given the feathers additional structural support," Carney said. "This would have been advantageous during this early evolutionary stage of dinosaur flight." The Archaeopteryx feather was discovered in a limestone deposit in Germany in 1861, but scientists were initially unable to locate any melanosomes within the feather. It wasn’t until a more powerful type of scanning electron microscope was developed that the needed melanosome was found. "The third time was the charm, and we finally found the keys to unlocking the feather's original color, hidden in the rock for the past 150 million years," Carney said. In fact, the international team located patches of hundreds of melanosomes encased within the fossil. Each melanosome is about 1 millionth of a meter long and 250 billionths of a meter wide. That is less than a wavelength of visible light in width. In order to determine color, researchers compared the fossilized structures with those found in 87 species of living birds that represented four classes of feathers — black, gray, brown and ones found in penguins, which have unusually large melanosomes compared with other birds. "What we found was that the feather was predicted to be black with 95 percent certainty," Carney declared. One point the team did not address was what purpose the coloring of the wing may have served, although one theory is that black feathers may have helped the creature absorb sunlight for heat, acted as camouflage, served in courtship displays or assisted with flight. No matter the reason because as always, knowledge of any sort is power………
- Is the future bright in Libya now that Moammer Gadhafi is dead? Not according to Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the head of Libya's ruling National Transitional Council, it’s not. Abdul-Jalil warned on Sunday the country could be heading towards a "bottomless pit" after protesters stormed a government office in Benghazi while he was inside. His comments could be purely out of fear and panic after facing an angry mob demanding the resignation of the Libyan government. But where he sees a possible plummet into a bottomless pit, others might see a bold group of dissidents smashing windows and forcing their way into the NTC's local headquarters late on Saturday. The display made it clear that anger at the establishment has not abated merely because Gadhafi is no longer in power. The rioters did not seem impressed by the continued support of Western powers for the NTC, which makes sense because the unelected body has been slow to restore basic public services and most its members have direct links to Gadhafi. Shortly after the riot, Abdul-Jalil suspended the six representatives to the NTC from Benghazi, the main city in eastern Libya and appointed a council of religious leaders to investigate corruption charges and identify people with links to the Gadhafi regime. The suspensions angered the group’s deputy head, Abdel-Hafiz Ghoga, who resigned in protest. Other delegates on the council blasted the decision and criticized the appointment of religious leaders to the council’s operations. The country's election law has also delayed for one week and will be made public on Jan. 28, said a government spokesman. Once it is put in place, the law will guide Libya as it puts together its first working parliament in more than four decades. But how can it go wrong with confident leaders like Abdul-Jalil? "We are going through a political movement that can take the country to a bottomless pit," he said. "There is something behind these protests that is not for the good of the country." Wrong, wrong, wrong. There is nothing bad about a quality riot…………
- Charlie Sheen has let go of plenty of things in the past 18 months or so - his main acting gig, his grasp on sanity, any remaining shreds of humility in his character and plenty more - but hasn’t found a way to release his anger toward the show that fired him and those who run it. He has gradually inched back toward sanity in recent months, but he ire toward “Two and a Half Men” and show creator Chuck Lorre still burns white hot. With the show moving on and Ashton Kutcher taking his place, Sheen is not impressed by what he has seen and believes the show should die a quick death. "I don't think they should go past this year," he remarked. "I don't think that (Kutcher's) working with the best writing because Chuck is doing too many shows." So it all comes back to Lorre, it would appear. Sheen made his comments while promoting his new series, “Anger Management,” but sounded less concerned with the new project than with laying out Lorre. "They deserve what I had for the first five years," he said of Kutcher and co-stars Jon Cryer and Angus T. Jones. He believes the trio are working with subpar scripts and given the show’s lackluster ratings this season, maybe Sheen is correct. He still sounds bitter and unable let go and move on, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong. Perhaps he’s also hoping that the demise of his old show will give viewers all the more reason to watch his new series, which will probably be just as bad or worse because that’s simply how sitcoms work. They’re formulaic due to their half-hour time frame and are rarely original or interesting. One could also say the same about Sheen now that his crazy act has worn thin……….
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Steelers upheaval, men's pain vs. women's pain and Riot Watch! Tibet
- Ending the year with a stunning loss to the erratic Tim Tebow was clearly not what the Pittsburgh Steelers had in mind. An overtime loss with a half-dozen of their best players either injured or unavailable was tough to digest for the defending AFC champions and someone had to take the fall. Offensive coordinator Bruce Arians became that scapegoat with a departure that was initially characterized as a retirement only to later be painted as the team forcing him out because Steelers president Art Rooney II wants the team to regain its blue-collar identity on offense by running the ball more, something Arians has moved away from in the past few seasons. Arians himself admitted Sunday he didn’t decide to retire of his own volition and only made the choice after the team declined to give him a contract offer. He explained that while he had considered retiring before, not having a contract offer essentially made the choice for him. Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger lashed out at the decision, which makes sense given that he was the primary beneficiary of Arians’ pass-first offensive scheme. Arians was fairly cryptic when asked what the team’s reasoning for not giving him a new contract was. "I can't answer that question," Arians said. "Only the people there can. That's the business. I know the job we did as a staff. I don't have any regrets." He confirmed that Roethlisberger was unhappy about the decision. The veteran quarterback was largely responsible for a push to o keep Arians after the 2009 season when it looked like the coordinator's job was in jeopardy. Despite his “retirement,” Arians hasn't ruled out a return to coaching and said he has been contacted by several teams since being let go by the Steelers………
- If Ron Paul had a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the Republican presidential nomination, this sort of mini-scandal might hurt him. As is, authorities at Nashville International Airport blocking Paul’s son, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, at a security checkpoint after he refused a patdown is nothing more than one disagreeable legislator trying to make a stand against the establishment. Sen. Paul admitted to going through a scanner at the airport and setting off an alarm. Rather than be subjected to a patdown, he asked to go through the body scan again. According to the senator, he also showed Transportation Security Administration officers his knee and under his socks. Oddly enough, agents weren’t buying his offer and demanded he either submit to a patdown or turn around and leave. "When an irregularity is found during the TSA screening process, it must be resolved prior to allowing a passenger to proceed to the secure area of the airport," TSA spokesman Greg Soule said. "Passengers who refuse to complete the screening process cannot be granted access to the secure area in order to ensure the safety of others traveling." What was Paul’s objection to a patdown? He said that he didn't think it was "appropriate" for him to have a pat-down and felt he should have been able to go through the scanner again. "Is it too much to ask to have a little dignity when you travel? And shouldn't an adult be able to get back in line and go through the scanner?" he asked. "I don't think that's too much to ask." Dignity when traveling? Has he seen his fellow travelers? Who travels with dignity? In addition to patdowns, people board planes looking like they just woke up and rolled out of bed, they carry dinky travel pillows and fall asleep snoring in front of total strangers and try to subsist on tiny bags of pretzels and apple juice on cross-country flights. Nothing about travel is dignified. As for Paul’s saga, he was allegedly ordered out of the screening area and told he may be subject to a "full body search" after he began talking on his phone. He later took another Washington-bound flight and passed through the scanner uneventfully. The drama should give him another soapbox to stand on as he crusades against what he characterizes as an overly obtrusive federal government threatening to strip citizens of various rights and civil liberties, so the day was not a total loss………….
- What’s your prediction for life? Pain. That “Rocky III” reference is specifically for the ladies out there, who according to a new study by the Institute of Medicine are affected by chronic pain more than men. According to a 2011 Institute of Medicine report, pain affects more than 116 million Americans annually and of those Americans, about 50 million are women. While that means more men than women are seeking treatment for chronic pain, the Journal of Pain reports that women seeking medical care for a wide range of medical problems in the hospital or clinics at Stanford University School of Medicine reported higher pain intensity, on average, compared with men with these same diagnoses. In the study, women reported more intense pain than men in 14 of 47 disease categories and men did not report more intense pain in any category. Women suffering from musculoskeletal disorders such as back, neck and joint pain, sinusitis and even high blood pressure reported more intense pain than men with the same conditions. Even so, the study’s authors were quick to point out that their findings did not necessarily mean that pain is actually experienced more intensely by women. The results could simply be due to the fact that women communicate better with their health care providers about pain. In other words, the stereotype about men trying to be tough and gut it out because that’s what men are expected to do could be true. With those conducting the study not exactly trumpeting its impact, it’s not difficult to believe that most medical experts are skeptical about its results. Many say the authors didn't account for the possibility that if many women had additional diseases that caused pain, it could actually be the other diseases, and not their gender, that is to blame for them having more pain than men. "It's a flawed study," said Dr. Lloyd Saberski, medical director of the Advanced Diagnostic Pain Treatment Centers at Yale University. "Just how accurate is the data collected? Probably not too accurate." Listen to the wicked smaht Ivy League dude from Yale, yo. Other experts have pointed to the culture of men being expected to not complain about pain and “deal with it” as another key element omitted from the study. Either way, looks like it’s time for more time and money to be spent on über-important research……….
- Jay-Z may or may not still use the word b*tch in his songs, but he most definitely will not be using the uncooked meat from the refrigerator at his 40/40 nightclub in Manhattan for anything other than trash-can filler. The club, which just reopened after being given a $10 million makeover, was shut down by health inspectors after a Jan. 19 visit. During their visit, inspectors found 69 violations of the city's health codes in the kitchen, including its walk-in fridge heated to 60°, which is classified as a dangerous temperature to store the uncooked meat that was contained within it. A worker was also spotted mixing salsa with his bare hands, which looks, sounds and is extremely disgusting and unsanitary. The temporary closure came just one day after the club reopened following a 10-month shutdown for renovations. By tallying a whopping 69 violations of the city’s health code, the club earned the worst possible rating for kitchen hygiene and its managers must now attend a hearing to explain themselves next month. The past few weeks have certainly been eventful for the club’s famous owner, who celebrated the birth of his first child with wife Beyonce, recorded a song that featured the crying sounds of his new daughter, had to debunk a poem he supposedly wrote in which “he” promised never to use the word b*tch in his lyrics again and now has his club being crushed by city health inspectors. Still, being Jay-Z probably doesn’t suck…………
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Tibet/China are the places and that fact should surprise no one. Chinese security forces were the ones using excessive force and a protest seeking Tibetan freedom was the cause. At least five Tibetans were shot and one killed when police opened fire during a peaceful protest in Seda, known to Tibetans as Serthar, on Tuesday. The shooting came one day after the death of a Tibetan man during unrest on Monday, when Chinese security forces fired teargas at Tibetan protestors in the Sichuan province. Monday’s conflict came after authorities deployed extra officers and closed roads to Meruma, in Aba county, after Tibetans demonstrated and refused to celebrate the lunar New Year to protest against repressive Chinese policies. How dangerous or violent the protests were depends upon the person telling the story. Activist groups like Free Tibet painted a scene of non-violent demonstrations by Tibetans seeking more freedom. China's official news agency has claimed that a knife-wielding, rock-throwing mob of dozens attacked a police station and provoked the confrontation. The supposedly angry mob also destroyed two police vehicles and two fire engines stormed into nearby shops and a bank, according to the government. Beijing also accused foreign media outlets of distorting the story to manipulate public perception of the government’s actions. "Overseas forces of 'Tibet independence' have always fabricated rumors and distorted the truth to discredit the Chinese government with issues involving Tibet," foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said. State news agency Xinhua, citing local authorities, said the unrest was fueled by rumors that three monks planned to self-immolate. Such incidents have become more common in the past year, as Tibetan areas have seen 16 self-immolations, mostly fatal, in the past 12 months. Monks in the Meruma area reported automatic weapons fire and teas gas from police and Free Tibet painted an ugly picture of the scene and the underlying issues tied to it. "Protests are spreading and growing, and the Chinese state response is becoming increasingly disproportionate. By failing to address legitimate Tibetan grievances and responding to protests with brutal force, the Chinese state is exacerbating the situation," said Free Tibet's director, Stephanie Brigden. Keep rioting, Tibet…………
- If Ron Paul had a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the Republican presidential nomination, this sort of mini-scandal might hurt him. As is, authorities at Nashville International Airport blocking Paul’s son, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, at a security checkpoint after he refused a patdown is nothing more than one disagreeable legislator trying to make a stand against the establishment. Sen. Paul admitted to going through a scanner at the airport and setting off an alarm. Rather than be subjected to a patdown, he asked to go through the body scan again. According to the senator, he also showed Transportation Security Administration officers his knee and under his socks. Oddly enough, agents weren’t buying his offer and demanded he either submit to a patdown or turn around and leave. "When an irregularity is found during the TSA screening process, it must be resolved prior to allowing a passenger to proceed to the secure area of the airport," TSA spokesman Greg Soule said. "Passengers who refuse to complete the screening process cannot be granted access to the secure area in order to ensure the safety of others traveling." What was Paul’s objection to a patdown? He said that he didn't think it was "appropriate" for him to have a pat-down and felt he should have been able to go through the scanner again. "Is it too much to ask to have a little dignity when you travel? And shouldn't an adult be able to get back in line and go through the scanner?" he asked. "I don't think that's too much to ask." Dignity when traveling? Has he seen his fellow travelers? Who travels with dignity? In addition to patdowns, people board planes looking like they just woke up and rolled out of bed, they carry dinky travel pillows and fall asleep snoring in front of total strangers and try to subsist on tiny bags of pretzels and apple juice on cross-country flights. Nothing about travel is dignified. As for Paul’s saga, he was allegedly ordered out of the screening area and told he may be subject to a "full body search" after he began talking on his phone. He later took another Washington-bound flight and passed through the scanner uneventfully. The drama should give him another soapbox to stand on as he crusades against what he characterizes as an overly obtrusive federal government threatening to strip citizens of various rights and civil liberties, so the day was not a total loss………….
- What’s your prediction for life? Pain. That “Rocky III” reference is specifically for the ladies out there, who according to a new study by the Institute of Medicine are affected by chronic pain more than men. According to a 2011 Institute of Medicine report, pain affects more than 116 million Americans annually and of those Americans, about 50 million are women. While that means more men than women are seeking treatment for chronic pain, the Journal of Pain reports that women seeking medical care for a wide range of medical problems in the hospital or clinics at Stanford University School of Medicine reported higher pain intensity, on average, compared with men with these same diagnoses. In the study, women reported more intense pain than men in 14 of 47 disease categories and men did not report more intense pain in any category. Women suffering from musculoskeletal disorders such as back, neck and joint pain, sinusitis and even high blood pressure reported more intense pain than men with the same conditions. Even so, the study’s authors were quick to point out that their findings did not necessarily mean that pain is actually experienced more intensely by women. The results could simply be due to the fact that women communicate better with their health care providers about pain. In other words, the stereotype about men trying to be tough and gut it out because that’s what men are expected to do could be true. With those conducting the study not exactly trumpeting its impact, it’s not difficult to believe that most medical experts are skeptical about its results. Many say the authors didn't account for the possibility that if many women had additional diseases that caused pain, it could actually be the other diseases, and not their gender, that is to blame for them having more pain than men. "It's a flawed study," said Dr. Lloyd Saberski, medical director of the Advanced Diagnostic Pain Treatment Centers at Yale University. "Just how accurate is the data collected? Probably not too accurate." Listen to the wicked smaht Ivy League dude from Yale, yo. Other experts have pointed to the culture of men being expected to not complain about pain and “deal with it” as another key element omitted from the study. Either way, looks like it’s time for more time and money to be spent on über-important research……….
- Jay-Z may or may not still use the word b*tch in his songs, but he most definitely will not be using the uncooked meat from the refrigerator at his 40/40 nightclub in Manhattan for anything other than trash-can filler. The club, which just reopened after being given a $10 million makeover, was shut down by health inspectors after a Jan. 19 visit. During their visit, inspectors found 69 violations of the city's health codes in the kitchen, including its walk-in fridge heated to 60°, which is classified as a dangerous temperature to store the uncooked meat that was contained within it. A worker was also spotted mixing salsa with his bare hands, which looks, sounds and is extremely disgusting and unsanitary. The temporary closure came just one day after the club reopened following a 10-month shutdown for renovations. By tallying a whopping 69 violations of the city’s health code, the club earned the worst possible rating for kitchen hygiene and its managers must now attend a hearing to explain themselves next month. The past few weeks have certainly been eventful for the club’s famous owner, who celebrated the birth of his first child with wife Beyonce, recorded a song that featured the crying sounds of his new daughter, had to debunk a poem he supposedly wrote in which “he” promised never to use the word b*tch in his lyrics again and now has his club being crushed by city health inspectors. Still, being Jay-Z probably doesn’t suck…………
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Tibet/China are the places and that fact should surprise no one. Chinese security forces were the ones using excessive force and a protest seeking Tibetan freedom was the cause. At least five Tibetans were shot and one killed when police opened fire during a peaceful protest in Seda, known to Tibetans as Serthar, on Tuesday. The shooting came one day after the death of a Tibetan man during unrest on Monday, when Chinese security forces fired teargas at Tibetan protestors in the Sichuan province. Monday’s conflict came after authorities deployed extra officers and closed roads to Meruma, in Aba county, after Tibetans demonstrated and refused to celebrate the lunar New Year to protest against repressive Chinese policies. How dangerous or violent the protests were depends upon the person telling the story. Activist groups like Free Tibet painted a scene of non-violent demonstrations by Tibetans seeking more freedom. China's official news agency has claimed that a knife-wielding, rock-throwing mob of dozens attacked a police station and provoked the confrontation. The supposedly angry mob also destroyed two police vehicles and two fire engines stormed into nearby shops and a bank, according to the government. Beijing also accused foreign media outlets of distorting the story to manipulate public perception of the government’s actions. "Overseas forces of 'Tibet independence' have always fabricated rumors and distorted the truth to discredit the Chinese government with issues involving Tibet," foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said. State news agency Xinhua, citing local authorities, said the unrest was fueled by rumors that three monks planned to self-immolate. Such incidents have become more common in the past year, as Tibetan areas have seen 16 self-immolations, mostly fatal, in the past 12 months. Monks in the Meruma area reported automatic weapons fire and teas gas from police and Free Tibet painted an ugly picture of the scene and the underlying issues tied to it. "Protests are spreading and growing, and the Chinese state response is becoming increasingly disproportionate. By failing to address legitimate Tibetan grievances and responding to protests with brutal force, the Chinese state is exacerbating the situation," said Free Tibet's director, Stephanie Brigden. Keep rioting, Tibet…………
Monday, January 23, 2012
Celebrity reality weight-loss show hazards, Croatia ho-hum on the EU and jailbreaking the iPhone 4S and iPad 2
- Whoa there, this is stunning. Police have been found to be in violation of a suspect’s rights. More shocking still, this happened in the United States. The Supreme Court issued a rare unanimous ruling Monday when justices decided the police violated the Constitution when they placed a Global Positioning System tracking device on a suspect’s car and tracked its movements for 28 days. While the ruling was unanimous, he justices divided 5-to-4 on the rationale for the decision, with the majority saying that the problem was the placement of the device on private property. In issuing the decision, the court managed to duck a litany of tough questions, including how to handle information gathered from devices installed by the manufacturer and how address information held by third parties like cellphone companies. The case before the court was that of Washington nightclub owner Antoine Jones, whom police came to suspect him of being part of a cocaine-selling operation. To determine if he was an aspiring Tony Montana or not, police planted a tracking device on his Jeep Grand Cherokee without a valid warrant, tracked his every move for a month and used the evidence to help prosecutors secure a conviction for conspiring to sell cocaine. Oddly enough, Jones didn’t react well to the life sentence he received and appealed the verdict. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned his conviction on the grounds that the information collected by the tracking device violated his Fourth Amendment rights, which protect citizens unreasonable searches. The Supreme Court concurred despite differing logic. “We hold that the government’s installation of a G.P.S. device on a target’s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a ‘search,’ ” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor joined the majority opinion. Scalia noted that the government “physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information” and that “such a physical intrusion would have been considered a ‘search’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when it was adopted.” Word, A. Scalia. Leading the ass-hatted objectors to the majority’s line of reasoning was Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who chided them for trying to apply 18th-century legal concepts to 21st-century technologies. But whether one sides with the majority of with Alito’s assertion that the pertinent issue is the contemporary reasonable expectation of privacy, the bottom line is that the police crossed the line and need to learn how to follow the laws they’re supposed to enforce………….
- It took 10 months, but the hacker community has finally jailbroken Apple’s iOS 5.0.1 for the iPhone 4S or iPad 2. The break came from the Chronic Dev Team, which announced Friday that it had successfully created the new jailbreak for the iPhone 4S and iPad 2, both of which run on the dual-core A5 processor. For the tech-clueless, jailbreaking allows any application to be installed and facilitates operating system, user interface, and system alterations. Users of jailbroken devices can even install an SSH client to remotely access the iOS device's file system. In the past, hackers have jailbroken some operating systems less than a day after Apple pushed an OS update. The battle to crack iOS 5.0.1 too much longer and from the sound of it, the challenge could become even tougher with each successive OS upgrade. "The endless war we fight to jailbreak has become more and more difficult with each new device released, and our recent battle against A5 only proved this further," said Joshua Hill, one of the principle iPhone hackers involved. "After working for months with few tangible results, Chronic Dev hackers tried a new approach--we launched CDevReporter to accumulate all your devices' crash reports, an invaluable source of information for iOS hacking & research." CDevReporter was able to complete the jailbreak by allowing users to run software on their Mac or Windows PCs that would prevent iTunes from sending iOS crash reports to Apple, and instead send them to a secure server hosted by the Chronic Dev Team. A simple plea for these reports--generated every time an iOS device crashes--in late November 2011 yielded more than 10 million reports in one week. Jailbreaking is legal in the United States and many other countries. The federal government clarified its stance on the practice in July 2010 And Apple had fought that decision ever since. The best the company can do at this point is warn users that jailbreaking a device could void its warranty. That doesn’t seem to be a deterrent to anyone intent on jailbreaking their device and probably won't ever be……….
- Not that the New Jersey Nets weren't already aware of the ginormous ticking clock lurking just over their shoulder, but here’s another valuable reminder for them. They packaged up a slew of talented young players and draft picks to acquire All-Star point guard Deron Williams from Utah and banked on Williams as a beacon to draw other stars to the franchise. They couldn’t convince any prime free agents to sign with them, so trading for one was their only option. But Williams didn’t exactly fuel the Nets to a strong finish to last season and the Nets are 5-12 to start this season. No prime free agents signed during the offseason and with Williams’ contract set to expire at the end of the year, there is already speculation as to what he will do once his deal is up. His choice, according to sources close to the team, is to stay with the Nets and help them build the franchise as it moves to Brooklyn next season. However, those same sources suggested that if the Nets don’t make another major move - such as acquiring All-Star center Dwight Howard - Williams is almost certainly gone and has a short list of desirable destinations that includes the Mavericks, the Knicks and the Lakers. While he has publicly expressed his desire to remain with the Nets, it is becoming increasingly clear that they will not be winning another other than one-third of their regular season games unless they add another star player. The Nets are putting on a brave face and refusing to entertain potential trades involving Williams, but that stance could change in a few weeks if the trade deadline arrives and the Nets are 10 games below .500. Without Howard landing in New Jersey on or before the March 15 trade deadline, Williams is likely gone and the Nets know it. Unfortunately for the Nets, the Lakers also have a desperate need for Howard and could offer a better package than the Nets if they’re willing to part with both Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol. Williams didn’t seem happy when asked about rumors about where he would play next season. "Did you hear it from me?" Williams asked. "We don't need to talk about it then. Another one of these sources. Sources. I don't know who sources are." Sounds like it’s going to be a fun few weeks ahead in Jersey…………
- Croatians are fired up to join the European Union…..at least those who care enough to actually vote about the chance to do so are. Two-thirds of voters who cast ballots in a referendum on EU membership voted yes, but just 44 percent of those eligible to participate did so in Sunday’s ballot. The plan is for the nation of 4,300,000 on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea to become the 28th member of the EU by July 2013. That possibility should fire up the populace, but the 44-percent turnout suggest apathy and resignation rather than enthusiasm. EU membership doesn’t hold quite the appeal it once did with the credit downgrades of several prominent members and the economic instability gripping the continent. Many voters expressed either skepticism or diluted optimism over the benefits of EU membership for their country. The membership process began six years ago with negotiations between Croatian leaders and EU officials. Ironically, Croatia was governed by a government of the right at the time but it now under the leadership of a leftist regime. Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic hailed the referendum’s passage with all the blowhard political gusto he could muster. “A lot of good things will come out of it. Of course, there are downsides as well, but that is something we have to get used to. It will depend mostly on us,” he said. “This a turning point in our history, and we will be responsible for our own decisions. Success or failure now depends solely on us.” While Croatia is marching toward membership, Romania and Bulgaria continue to have difficulty meeting the criteria for admission. Life in Croatia isn't exactly caviar and fine wine at the moment, as economic growth is virtually nonexistent and the country’s debt is higher than its income at 102 percent of its GDP. Not everyone is enthusiastic about the prospect of EU membership. “We are not ready for the European Union. We should have improved our economy, increased our exports, and only join then. Our economy is in very bad condition. We don’t have a single real national bank. Our exports are abysmal. We are on our knees,” right-wing MP Ruza Tomasic said. Score one for optimism…………
- The reality weight-loss show circuit can be a brutal place. Even for bonafide D-listers like Kevin “K-Fat” Federline are not exempt from the grind and K-Fat is currently undergoing evaluation after being taken to a hospital in Australia on Sunday after complaining of chest pains while competing on weight loss reality show, “Excess Baggage.” That’s right, he’s bottomed out so emphatically that he’s now accepting roles on third-rate reality weight loss shows Down Under. What’s next, some celebrity fitness show in Peru or Indonesia? The former Mr. Britney Spears reportedly collapsed after completing a challenge with the Greater Western Sydney Australian Football League team. The challenge forced D-list has-beens and never-weres to run and catch footballs. A spokesman for the show made it clear K-Fat did not have a heart attack, but collapsed after completing the challenge and was treated for symptoms of minor cardiac arrest (typically known as a heart attack) and was taken to the hospital where an ECG determined he had not had a heart attack. As those who avidly follow Australian weight-loss shows know, “Excess Baggage” airs on Channel Nine. A spokesperson for Channel Nine said when Federline is released, producers would decide whether he would be allowed to continue on the show. The decision will undoubtedly be difficult - assuming the decision is how much of the next few episodes to use on playing up the drama and setting K-Fat up for an heroic comeback story. The incident was his second of the season, as the former Mr. Spears was hospitalized with heat exhaustion when the cast filmed in the Kimberley, a wilderness area in Western Australia. K-Fat probably should be better at the whole reality weight-loss show thing, as this is his second run at it. He was previously on VH1’s “Celebrity Fit Club,” which did not seem to do much good for his health and physical fitness…………
- It took 10 months, but the hacker community has finally jailbroken Apple’s iOS 5.0.1 for the iPhone 4S or iPad 2. The break came from the Chronic Dev Team, which announced Friday that it had successfully created the new jailbreak for the iPhone 4S and iPad 2, both of which run on the dual-core A5 processor. For the tech-clueless, jailbreaking allows any application to be installed and facilitates operating system, user interface, and system alterations. Users of jailbroken devices can even install an SSH client to remotely access the iOS device's file system. In the past, hackers have jailbroken some operating systems less than a day after Apple pushed an OS update. The battle to crack iOS 5.0.1 too much longer and from the sound of it, the challenge could become even tougher with each successive OS upgrade. "The endless war we fight to jailbreak has become more and more difficult with each new device released, and our recent battle against A5 only proved this further," said Joshua Hill, one of the principle iPhone hackers involved. "After working for months with few tangible results, Chronic Dev hackers tried a new approach--we launched CDevReporter to accumulate all your devices' crash reports, an invaluable source of information for iOS hacking & research." CDevReporter was able to complete the jailbreak by allowing users to run software on their Mac or Windows PCs that would prevent iTunes from sending iOS crash reports to Apple, and instead send them to a secure server hosted by the Chronic Dev Team. A simple plea for these reports--generated every time an iOS device crashes--in late November 2011 yielded more than 10 million reports in one week. Jailbreaking is legal in the United States and many other countries. The federal government clarified its stance on the practice in July 2010 And Apple had fought that decision ever since. The best the company can do at this point is warn users that jailbreaking a device could void its warranty. That doesn’t seem to be a deterrent to anyone intent on jailbreaking their device and probably won't ever be……….
- Not that the New Jersey Nets weren't already aware of the ginormous ticking clock lurking just over their shoulder, but here’s another valuable reminder for them. They packaged up a slew of talented young players and draft picks to acquire All-Star point guard Deron Williams from Utah and banked on Williams as a beacon to draw other stars to the franchise. They couldn’t convince any prime free agents to sign with them, so trading for one was their only option. But Williams didn’t exactly fuel the Nets to a strong finish to last season and the Nets are 5-12 to start this season. No prime free agents signed during the offseason and with Williams’ contract set to expire at the end of the year, there is already speculation as to what he will do once his deal is up. His choice, according to sources close to the team, is to stay with the Nets and help them build the franchise as it moves to Brooklyn next season. However, those same sources suggested that if the Nets don’t make another major move - such as acquiring All-Star center Dwight Howard - Williams is almost certainly gone and has a short list of desirable destinations that includes the Mavericks, the Knicks and the Lakers. While he has publicly expressed his desire to remain with the Nets, it is becoming increasingly clear that they will not be winning another other than one-third of their regular season games unless they add another star player. The Nets are putting on a brave face and refusing to entertain potential trades involving Williams, but that stance could change in a few weeks if the trade deadline arrives and the Nets are 10 games below .500. Without Howard landing in New Jersey on or before the March 15 trade deadline, Williams is likely gone and the Nets know it. Unfortunately for the Nets, the Lakers also have a desperate need for Howard and could offer a better package than the Nets if they’re willing to part with both Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol. Williams didn’t seem happy when asked about rumors about where he would play next season. "Did you hear it from me?" Williams asked. "We don't need to talk about it then. Another one of these sources. Sources. I don't know who sources are." Sounds like it’s going to be a fun few weeks ahead in Jersey…………
- Croatians are fired up to join the European Union…..at least those who care enough to actually vote about the chance to do so are. Two-thirds of voters who cast ballots in a referendum on EU membership voted yes, but just 44 percent of those eligible to participate did so in Sunday’s ballot. The plan is for the nation of 4,300,000 on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea to become the 28th member of the EU by July 2013. That possibility should fire up the populace, but the 44-percent turnout suggest apathy and resignation rather than enthusiasm. EU membership doesn’t hold quite the appeal it once did with the credit downgrades of several prominent members and the economic instability gripping the continent. Many voters expressed either skepticism or diluted optimism over the benefits of EU membership for their country. The membership process began six years ago with negotiations between Croatian leaders and EU officials. Ironically, Croatia was governed by a government of the right at the time but it now under the leadership of a leftist regime. Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic hailed the referendum’s passage with all the blowhard political gusto he could muster. “A lot of good things will come out of it. Of course, there are downsides as well, but that is something we have to get used to. It will depend mostly on us,” he said. “This a turning point in our history, and we will be responsible for our own decisions. Success or failure now depends solely on us.” While Croatia is marching toward membership, Romania and Bulgaria continue to have difficulty meeting the criteria for admission. Life in Croatia isn't exactly caviar and fine wine at the moment, as economic growth is virtually nonexistent and the country’s debt is higher than its income at 102 percent of its GDP. Not everyone is enthusiastic about the prospect of EU membership. “We are not ready for the European Union. We should have improved our economy, increased our exports, and only join then. Our economy is in very bad condition. We don’t have a single real national bank. Our exports are abysmal. We are on our knees,” right-wing MP Ruza Tomasic said. Score one for optimism…………
- The reality weight-loss show circuit can be a brutal place. Even for bonafide D-listers like Kevin “K-Fat” Federline are not exempt from the grind and K-Fat is currently undergoing evaluation after being taken to a hospital in Australia on Sunday after complaining of chest pains while competing on weight loss reality show, “Excess Baggage.” That’s right, he’s bottomed out so emphatically that he’s now accepting roles on third-rate reality weight loss shows Down Under. What’s next, some celebrity fitness show in Peru or Indonesia? The former Mr. Britney Spears reportedly collapsed after completing a challenge with the Greater Western Sydney Australian Football League team. The challenge forced D-list has-beens and never-weres to run and catch footballs. A spokesman for the show made it clear K-Fat did not have a heart attack, but collapsed after completing the challenge and was treated for symptoms of minor cardiac arrest (typically known as a heart attack) and was taken to the hospital where an ECG determined he had not had a heart attack. As those who avidly follow Australian weight-loss shows know, “Excess Baggage” airs on Channel Nine. A spokesperson for Channel Nine said when Federline is released, producers would decide whether he would be allowed to continue on the show. The decision will undoubtedly be difficult - assuming the decision is how much of the next few episodes to use on playing up the drama and setting K-Fat up for an heroic comeback story. The incident was his second of the season, as the former Mr. Spears was hospitalized with heat exhaustion when the cast filmed in the Kimberley, a wilderness area in Western Australia. K-Fat probably should be better at the whole reality weight-loss show thing, as this is his second run at it. He was previously on VH1’s “Celebrity Fit Club,” which did not seem to do much good for his health and physical fitness…………
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