- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Greece may be one of the only countries in Europe escaping the massive blast of crippling winter weather sweeping across the continent, but that doesn’t mean the country isn't still in upheaval. However, Greece’s turmoil has nothing to do with snow and ice and everything to do with being on the verge of financial collapse. The Greek Parliament is staring down tough new conditions it meet before euro zone finance ministers will give the country billions of desperately needed euros to bail out the debt-ridden country and the masses are not happy with the proposed measures. That would seem to be the message sent by mobs of angry rioters who hurled stones at police in front of the parliament building as the new measures were debated. Police responded with stun grenades outside the building as the debate raged inside. Greece needs the euro zone ministers to sign off on a new €130 billion ($172.6 billion) bailout deal and that won't happen until it agrees to its end of the arrangement. Doing so would mean further antagonizing the aforementioned angry mobs and also, trade unions whose members began a two-day strike to protest the austerity measures the deal would require. The main Greek party leaders agreed to a last-minute deal Thursday after lengthy negotiations, but the agreement still must be presented to the other 16 eurozone leaders by Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos and Parliament must approve them as well. What are the chances of that? Not great after Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg and head of the Eurogroup, made clear Friday he would not support the deal because more assurances were needed from Athens before the bailout could be paid out. "Despite the important progress achieved over the last days, we did not yet have all necessary elements on the table to take decisions today," he said. Juncker expressed skepticism that Greece's political leaders will continue to implement the measures after elections in April. In anticipation of the measures passing, large crowds gathered in central Athens for a planned rally in Syntagma Square outside the Greek Parliament building. Unfortunately, most of those in attendance dispersed once police showed up. Only a few bold souls hung around to clash with The Man and force riot police to break out their tear gas and stun grenades to combat the chunks of marble and Molotov cocktails being thrown their way. All in all, a solid day of revolt in the capital city…………
- Irony is obviously lost on the Material Skank. Madonna may be deft at trading out one lame pop music gimmick for another and swapping out her musical persona for something new in order to remain quasi-relevant, but she definitely doesn’t grasp the irony or hypocrisy in her cracking subpar British rapper M.I.A for flipping the middle finger during her Super Bowl XLVI halftime show on Feb. 5. Madonna saying anyone’s actions were not appropriate for the stage is rife with hypocrisy, given the fact that she is best known for her slut-tacular performance of “Like a Virgin” at the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards and two decades later she tongued Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera in a repeat performance of the song at the same show. “I wasn't happy about it. I understand it's kind of punk rock and everything, but to me there was such a feeling of love and good energy and positivity, it seemed negative. It's one of those things, it's such a teenager, in a way, kind of irrelevant kind of thing to do. There was such a feeling of love and unity there, what was the point? It was just out of place,” the MS told teeth-bleach, man-blouse-wearing tool Ryan Seacrest during an interview. Umm…..nothing about that show or that display were remotely punk rock, so no. But how the MS can criticize anyone for inappropriate actions on stage is befuddling. She did make a point of saying she didn't know what had happened until afterwards. “To tell you the truth, I didn't even know about it. I didn't know about it until I left. I found out about it in the elevator, actually. I was really surprised. I didn't know anything about it,” she said. That portion of her monologue was actually believeable, as the running circus on stage during the MS’ performance had Roman soldiers, bizarrely attired dancers and every possible show of freakery imaginable during its interminably long run. Seeing one middle finger amidst all of that stupidity would be difficult……….
- It’s about damn time. Arizona’s college sports scene has been dry for too long and the state legislature has been negligent in addressing the issue. Arizona State is a renowned party school on the national scene, the University of Arizona isn't too shabby on that front either and yet state law largely prohibits colleges and universities from selling alcohol at sporting events. In a healthy economy, the situation might stay that way. Of course, the American economy is anything but healthy and with Arizona lawmakers searching desperately for ways to conjure up revenue, fans at Sun Devils and Wildcats game may soon be able to get their drink on - legally and through alcohol purchased inside their venue of choice, that is. Three House Democrats have introduced a bill, HB 2785, that would enable the Arizona Board of Regents to establish a pilot program for beer and wine to be sold at university-sponsored sporting events. "This would be a huge benefit to our universities, especially in the face of declining revenues from the state," Rep. Ed Ableser (D-Tempe) said. Ableser pointed the success of another big-time school, West Virginia University, where the sale of booze at sporting events has brought in thousands of dollars for the athletic department. Granted, some fans (especially students) at places like ASU and WVU will find ways to sneak their alcoholic beverage of choice into games no matter what, but selling beer and wine would appeal to many fans. Supporters of the bill argue that controlling the sale of alcohol inside the stadium and adding security would create a safer atmosphere for fans and may actually decrease the number of alcohol-related incidents at games. One of the rules for the proposed program would be stopping the sale of alcohol early in the third quarter and not allowing fans who leave to re-enter after that point. A few squares have spoken out in opposition of the bill, but maybe they just need to crack open a cold one and relax……….
- No offense to the friendly, cool people of Wisconsin, but Milwaukee Bucks Brandon Jennings can't exactly be blamed for keeping his options open. Jennings, the Bucks’ leading scorer, can become an unrestricted free agent in 2014 if he signs a qualifying offer after next season and admitted Thursday he will strongly consider leaving Milwaukee for one of the league's larger markets once his rookie contract ends. "I am going to keep my options open, knowing that the time is coming up,'' Jennings said. "I'm doing my homework on big-market teams.'' Before Wisconsin residents spit out their fried cheese curds and Milwaukee’s Best and look for someone to chuck a snowball at, take a step back and consider the reality of the situation. Jennings is a California native who played one season in Italy before entering the NBA, so living in Wisconsin has to be a shock to the system, both culturally and meteorologically. Suffering through brutally cold Wisconsin winters and adjusting to the Midwestern lifestyle would be difficult for anyone and for a rising star who will likely command a massive contract on the free-agent market, staying with the small-market Bucks simply doesn’t have that same appeal. At best, the Bucks are a fringe playoff team that will lose an opening-round series against Miami or Chicago. The fact that Jennings is already admitting he’s eyeing big-market teams doesn’t bode well for the Bucks. "I'm not saying I won't (sign an extension with the Bucks) and I'm not saying I will,'' he said. "I'm just keeping my options open.'' Mmm hmm, sure. The NBA’s financial landscape and the growing trend of star players congregating with big-market teams in major cities (New York, Miami, Los Angeles) further dim the hopes of fans who want Jennings to stay in the Land of Cheese. He insisted his wandering eye has nothing to do with the organization. "It has nothing to do with the city of Milwaukee or anything like that because that's where I started my career,'' Jennings said. "They've been nothing but good to me.” Yes, but being good to a person only goes so far when it’s 15 degrees outside with six inches of snow on the ground and your team is 9 1/2 games out of first place……….
- Smartphones doubling as wallets. More and more people own smartphones and fewer people are carrying cash on them, so it follows logically that a growing number of individuals will want to take advantage of the chance to turn their iPhone, Droid or BlackBerry into a digital wallet. However, waiting until all the kinks are worked out would be advisable, or at least most of those kinks. A few of them were revealed this week when the Google Wallet team was hit with two different vulnerabilities in their system. One hacker was able to reveal a user’s PIN number on a rooted phone and a second was able to open access to a user’s phone in a way that allowed anyone to reset the PIN and gain access to funds on a Google Wallet prepaid card. Google responded to the first hack by urging users not to use Google Wallet on a rooted device and countered the second hack by temporarily disabling provisioning of prepaid cards. Those responses were not sufficient to keep many Android users from wondering if Google Wallet is safe enough for mobile phone payments. Google predictably said there was no reason to worry and tried to spin a potential negative into a positive. “The simple answer to this question is yes. In fact, Google Wallet offers advantages over the plastic cards and folded wallets in use today,” the company said in an official statement. First, Google Wallet is protected by a PIN — as well as the phone’s lock screen, if a user sets that option. Second, we also take concrete actions to help protect our users. For example, to address an issue that could have allowed unauthorized use of an existing prepaid card balance if someone recovered a lost phone without a screen lock, tonight we temporarily disabled provisioning of prepaid cards.” Google went on to shift some blame for the issues with Google Wallet to users. “Sometimes users choose to disable important security mechanisms in order to gain system-level “root” access to their phone; we strongly discourage doing so if you plan to use Google Wallet because the product is not supported on rooted phones,” the official statement went on to say. Hmm, someone is getting a bit defensive……….
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