- Congrats to ABC for finding its next collection of has-beens, never-weres and hacks for its reality ballroom dancing show, “Dancing With the (D-List) Stars.” As usual, the network has wrangled a thoroughly uninspiring group of losers who are either not as famous as they were during their 15 minutes of fame or are desperately seeking those 15 minutes. Starting March 19, the 14th season of the show will feature the likes of has-been actors Melissa Gilbert, Jaleel White and Jack Wagner, Latin-American actor William Levy and Disney channel actor Roshon Fegan. Someone named Katherine Jenkins (a Welsh singer, apparently) and washed-up ‘70s recording artist Gladys Knight will join them and compete alongside the requisite past-their-prime athletes in retired tennis champion Martina Navratilova and Green Bay Packers receiver Donald Driver. Toss in TV talking heads Sherri Shepherd of “The View” and Maria Menounos of “Extra” and the formula is complete. "This season, we particularly wanted to go for a likable cast, people that you feel affectionate toward," executive producer Conrad Green says. "The core of our show is about finding people you can root for and wanting them to triumph." Umm, not really, C. These losers aren’t people the rest of us can “root” for because for that, we’d have to care about them. Take White as an example. No one has cared about him in nearly two decades, when “Family Matters” was on the air and he was playing dork icon Steve Urkel. White sounds fired up to be involved and considering the relative anonymity in which he’s lived for the past few years, it makes sense. "I'm a performer, first and foremost. That's what I was raised to do," he says. "If you put a crowd in front of me, I don't want to see that crowd disappointed. I'm there to give them a good time." So there you go, women 18 to 49 and the men who will be dragged kicking and screaming to watch the show with those women, those are the losers you’ll be spending the next few months watching samba and salsa………….
- Ugly things deserve protection too. No, this isn't some slam job on Rosie O’Donnell cloaked in some clever wordplay. It’s the tale of the wild geoduck, the largest, oldest and one of the most bizarre-looking wild clam species in the state of Washington. The geoduck is a massive clam with a long, cylindrical body sticking out from its massive shell. In a way, it resembles a rocky-looking banjo only one million times uglier. Despite that gnarly appearance, the geoduck is a delicacy that is also the largest burrow clam species in the world and has been recorded as living as long as 146 years. Creatures that live past 100 can reach 10 pounds and fetch $160 per pound on the retail market. Unfortunately, large-scale harvesting has diminished their population in the Puget Sound and post-harvest surveys of the species around the sound by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) found that recovery rates are far below sustainable levels. WDFW director Phil Anderson blamed poaching for the decline. “This situation represents a significant threat to a highly valuable shellfish resource,” Anderson said. “Geoduck poaching is particularly damaging because the species grows slowly over a long period.” To combat poaching, the WDFW and the Department of Natural Resources will undertake new efforts aimed at “preventing poaching, evaluating environmental factors that may be contributing to the decline, seeking legislative budget support for additional field enforcement and reviewing harvest regulations,” the organizations announced in a joint statement. Together, the two have crafted a budget proposal to the state legislature that includes $500,000 for increased enforcement to protect the estimated 109 million geoducks in the Puget Sound, proving once more that beauty isn't everything…………
- One of the worst-kept secrets in the NBA has been yanked out of the shadows. While it is common knowledge in NBA circles that All-Star point guard Deron Williams is extremely likely to leave the New Jersey Nets and sign with his hometown Dallas Mavericks when he becomes a free agent after the season, little has been said about it. The bigger focus has been on the Nets’ attempts to land fellow All-Star Dwight Howard from Orlando to convince Williams to stay. New Jersey Nets coach Avery Johnson finally said out loud what many had been whispering about, proclaiming that the Mavericks are a major threat to sign Williams. Dallas will have enough financial flexibility to sign Williams and maybe even Howard thanks to the salary cap wizardry of owner Mark Cuban and president basketball of operations Donnie Nelson and will undoubtedly make runs at both. "He's a threat, OK?" Johnson said of Cuban. "I know the guy. I think because of the success he's had -- and I know he got criticized a lot for quote-unquote having all those years where he didn't win a championship -- but he's had some great success here that rivals any situation. So that's a threat." Williams have been reluctant to talk about his future and went so far as to pretend to not be aware that the Mavericks would have enough salary-cap space to be major players in free agency this offseason. "I'm just going to play out this season and look at my options after this season," Williams said. Right, because a guy who grew up in the Dallas suburb The Colony and attended several Mavs playoff games during last year's championship run has never considered the possibility of playing in his hometown. He went so far as to praise the Mavs’ arena, the American Airlines Center. "It's always good when an arena has a lot of energy," Williams said. "Ours doesn't have too much energy." The Nets hope to change that dynamic when they move into the Barclays Center in Brooklyn next season, but have virtually no chance of Williams making the move with them unless they acquire Howard before next month’s trading deadline. The clock is ticking, Mikhail Prokhorov…………
- Those discouraged by the tax proposals and ideas of presidential candidates gearing up for November’s American presidential race should cast an eye across the Atlantic Ocean and take relief from what they see in France’s own presidential battle. Socialist candidate Francois Hollande has a massive tax bracket in mind for France's top earners and isn't shy about demanding that the wealthy pay more than their fair share. Hollande has promised to impose a 75 percent tax bracket on the country’s wealthiest individuals, a plan quickly denounced by President Nicolas Sarkozy as "worrying amateurism.” Hollande said his tax was simply a case of "patriotism to accept to pay extra tax to get the country back on its feet again" and reverse the policies of Sarkozy that he said favored the rich. "It is sending out a signal, a message of social cohesion," Hollande proclaimed during a tour of France's annual agricultural fair in Paris. With an economic crisis on its hands, France has seen the issue of taxing the rich become a focal point. Sarkozy isn't sold on the higher tax rate and mocked it as an example of why Hollande is not fit to lead. "This all gives the impression of improvisation, of precipitation, in short of amateurism that is quite worrying," he said during a campaign stop in the southern city of Montpellier. Unfortunately for Sarkozy, Hollande is favored to defeat him in the vote in April and May. Should that happen, Hollande’s plan for a 75 percent tax rate on all annual earnings above a threshold of a million euros ($1.3 million) could become reality. "I have seen the considerable progression of the pay of the CAC 40 (benchmark French stock market index) bosses. Two million euros (a year) on average. How can we accept that?" Hollande asked during a TV interview. His plan also drew sharp criticism from Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front who is currently ranked third in opinion polls. "And why not a 100 percent rate?" Le Pen asked sarcastically. If it went into effect, the tax rate would dwarf the current highest personal tax rate in the European Union, Sweden’s 56.4 percent rate. Oh, and that sounds you hear is rich people in France frantically searching for the best place in Switzerland to relocate to………
- Anything that helps smokers quit their filthy habit is a positive development. Whether it’s a patch, hypnotism or outright ostracism by society, convincing smokers to put down their cancer sticks is vital for us all. Thanks to Scandinavian and German researchers who examined a new method of smoking cessation and weighed its merits, there could soon be a new weapon in the anti-smoking arsenal. The product is a mouth spray that delivers a dose of nicotine faster than patches and gums. According to this study, it may be more effective than other methods in helping smokers quit long-term. In a controlled trial lasting a year, researchers compared with a non-medicated "placebo" spray with the nicotine mouth spray and found that the nicotine spray helped more than twice as many smokers quit. The research team theorized that one reason for the improved effectiveness could be rapid delivery of nicotine to the bloodstream to relieve cravings when they strike. Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) is just one option for helping smokers quit and there are plenty of options on the market in the form of patches, gums, lozenges and nasal sprays, but a mouth spray is a relatively new concept. Right now, such sprays are available in only a few countries and not on the market in the United States. These mint-flavored sprays are designed to give people a more quickly-absorbed dose of nicotine compared with gums and other forms of NRT and irritate the respiratory tract less than nasal sprays. They also have an edge over patches, which deliver a steady dose of nicotine to the blood over the course of the day, because their use can be at will to alleviate withdrawal symptoms. In the study, 14 percent of smokers who used the spray for three months were abstinent at the one-year mark, versus about six percent of those given the placebo spray. Lead researcher Dr. Philip Tonnesen, of Gentofte Hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark, believes that the spray in combination with counseling could produce significant results. "There is an increase in quit rates with the intensity of support (counseling)," Tonnesen said. He and his team studied 479 smokers who were randomly assigned to use the NRT mouth spray or a placebo spray (containing capsaicin to mimic nicotine's burn) for 12 weeks, all of whom also received some brief advice on quitting when they made trips to the study clinics. They were instructed to use the spray whenever they would normally have a cigarette, or when they felt a craving for one, but not to exceed four sprays per hour or 64 sprays a day. Smoking abstinence was monitored closely by multiple methods. The American Lung Association (ALA) estimates that it takes the average smoker five or six serious attempts to finally quit and that 36 percent of the nation's smokers try to kick the habit each year. Maybe this spray will increase the number among that 36 percent who are successful……….
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