- Dammit, granola-eating, beanie-wearing tree huggers of Vermont, lay off plastic water bottles. What do they do to any of you other than provide a safe storage for your liquid refreshment? So why are some of you now celebrating the fact that through your efforts, the University of Vermont has enacted a ban on the sale of plastic water bottles on campus, effective Jan. 1, 2013. Led by student DJ and environmental activist Gregory Francese, the Vermont Student Environmental Program, or VSTEP, has fought to stop the sale of bottled water on campus. Seizing upon the end of the university’s contract with Coca-Cola coming to an end, these student enviro-Nazis were able to convince the school to abandon the sale of plastic water bottles entirely. "The administration decided that with this existing exclusive contract expiring that it was time for us to do it," said Richard Cate, the vice president for finance and administration at UVM. Cate wasn’t nearly as excited as Francese, who trumpeted the decision as a victory for activism. "This is student activism success," Francese said. "I mean we've had our problems. We've had our setbacks. We've had people tell us it can't happen." As of Jan. 1 next year, the sale of bottled water from UVM's vending machines and campus eateries will be banned. University officials estimate that it will save 200,000 water bottles each year by doing away with water bottles sales on campus. "We believe that we can provide good, cold, fresh water here in Vermont without having to purchase it from some other place," Cate said. To offset the unavailability of water for sale in bottled form, the university will retrofit all 75 water fountains on campus to convert them into bottle-filling stations. The project will cost $100,000 and the idea of getting tap water to refill bottles has some students concerned. There is also a health component to the plan, as the new policy also calls for one-third of drinks offered in vending machines to be healthy options. Way to be, hippies…………
- Give Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah credit for honesty. The high-energy agitator who has developed into one of the key pieces of a legit championship contender conceded that the pressure of seeking a bigger contract and the aftereffects of receiving that massive deal were partially to blame for his subpar play in the months after signing the new agreement. "Yeah, no question, I thought about that," Noah said. "Sometimes you feel like because you're given so much money you're expected to do things. That's not the right mentality to have as a player. I have to play my game. I have to have fun out there. If I don't, I'm not the same player." While he signed the five-year, $60 million extension in October 2010, the deal didn’t go into effect until this season. Noah’s numbers are down so far this year, from 11.7 points and 10.4 rebounds per game last season to 8.5 points and 9.3 rebounds this year. His play has picked up over the last game, with five straight double-doubles (points and rebounds, not the famed In-N-Out Burger double-double) and that should allay some of the concerns that arose after his sluggish start to the year. Part of that sluggish start was a noticeable decline in on-court passion and energy, two key components of Noah’s game. "I've always been a player who reacts well to criticism and doubters," Noah said. “Not only wasn't I playing well, but I was putting a lot of pressure on myself. I wasn't playing loose out there. I was playing tight. In the beginning of the year, I was overthinking a lot. I was going through a lot of things personally. I feel a lot more comfortable now. I have to stop overthinking and just play." He did not elaborate on the specific personal issues, but insisted his diminished production had nothing to do with poor conditioning due to the league’s lockout and shortened training camp. Whatever those issues were/are, Noah seems to have turned the corner………
- Iran is threatening to block the Straight of Hormuz, but crazy Mahmoud Ahmadinejad isn't the only ruler plotting something sinister - at least according to British diplomats. Senior British diplomats have accused Argentina of plotting an economic blockade of the Falkland Islands, citing fears Buenos Aires is attempting to block all flights from Chile to the islands. Attempt is a relative term, but the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has publicly threatened to cut the weekly route between Punta Arenas and Port Stanley. That route is important because it is the islands' only air link with South America and its main link with the outside world. Isolating the islands could be a precursor to an economic blockade and those same British diplomats believe the flights will stop entirely as part of a sinister Argentinean plot to make the Falklands too expensive for Britain to maintain. "If the LAN Chile flight is cancelled it would be pretty difficult to resist the already credible thesis that there is an economic blockade of the civilian population of the Falklands," a senior British diplomat in the region said on Wednesday. The supposed blockade is expected soon and would amp up tensions between Argentina and Britain, fittingly enough, on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the war between Argentina and Britain. The Falklands are already fairly isolated and Argentina possibly banning use of its airspace if LAN objects to its plans would be a massive eff-you to everyone involved. Fernandez first hinted at the escalation during a speech to the UN last September, when she said Buenos Aires may block the flights. The flights had been allowed under an agreement negotiated during a thaw in relations in 1999 and Fernandez explained the blockage would happen if , if David Cameron's government refused to discuss the sovereignty of islands. "We'll wait a little longer, but otherwise we'll be forced to review the standing provisional agreements," she said. Cameron wants nothing to do with talks and recently provoked the Argentinean government by accusing it of "colonialism" in its campaign to win back the islands. Argentina still believes Britain stole the territory 300 miles off its south Atlantic coast, which it refers to as Las Malvinas, in 1833. With flights through Argentina disallowed, the Falklands would be fully dependent on the twice-weekly 8,000-mile military flight from London via Ascension Island, a volcanic island on the equator. That would make life miserable for the islands' estimated 250 Chileans, who would have to travel through London instead of taking a 560-mile flight home to southern Chile. Argentina has already canceled landing rights at Aeroparque, the capital's domestic airport, for LAN's flights from Santiago and São Paulo. It now appears set to expand that ban and accept whatever fallout comes from the decision………..
- If there is nothing less realistic than “reality” television, how is it that people watching SCRIPTED, FICTIONAL television shows don’t understand that what they are seeing on their flat screen IS NOT REAL? The question seems pertinent because of the problem fans of the new FOX drama 'Alcatraz' are beginning to present for employees at the prison that is the namesake for the show. The National Park Service runs the now-defunct prison and since the show began airing last month, rangers and employees have seen an increase in visitors poking around and attempting to sneak into off-limits areas. To combat the idiocy of people who believe the sinister, devious storylines of the show just might have some basis in reality and want to find tangible evidence, park officials have put up signs asking visitors to stay out of areas that are designated as prohibited for unauthorized personnel. “The TV Show Alcatraz is fictional. Many areas depicted in the film are not real,” reads one sign on the premises. Yes, park officials felt that sign was necessary and sadly, they are probably correct. Part of the show’s storyline is a secret lab underneath Alcatraz and other hidden features allegedly used for, um, non-correctional purposes. Findings these hidden rooms and relics is the sort of pursuit that excites conspiracy-theory-loving, no-contact-with-reality kooks who believe that world-changing alien technology exists in Area 51, that the W. administration was actually smart enough to orchestrate the 9/11 terrorist attacks and plenty of other inane nonsense. These people are making life difficult for park rangers, who also tweeted on Monday that there “are no tunnels like in The Rock either,” alluding to the movie of the same name starring Sean Connery and Nic Cage………….
- Oh Microsoft, you’re so silly. Seeing its market share shrink, its world’s worst operating system lose market share and its subpar Internet Explorer browser lose ground to competitors on a daily basis, the company Bill Gates built is futilely trying to swing back. Frank Shaw, corporate VP for Microsoft's Corporate Communications group, said in an official company blog post that Microsoft offers users a safer choice than Google, which has taken a lot of flack recently over its new privacy policies. Shaw hinted at a larger campaign to exploit what his company views as Google's recent missteps in its ongoing quest for world domination. Google changed its privacy policies to share user information across different products and services and has led Congress to ask the company to justify its decision. In his post, Shaw claimed Google's changes will make it harder for users to control their own information. But hey, what do you know, Microsoft has a “better” alternative. “We work to keep you safe and secure online, to give you control over your data, and to offer you the choice of saving your information on your hard drive, in the cloud, or on both,” Shaw wrote. He praised the decreasingly popular Hotmail email service by inviting users to "join the hundreds of millions of people who enjoy not worrying about the content of their private e-mails being used to serve ads." To piggyback on Shaw’s comments, Microsoft has launched a major public relations campaign that will start with full-page ads in several major newspapers this week titled "Putting people first." The ads mock the supposed anxiety of Google users while positioning Microsoft's own products as more secure. Both the blog posts and the ads represent the latest round in the battle between the two companies, who have fought over both government and commercial contracts in recent years. Google has hammered Microsoft of late on several fronts and is the dominant player in the search engine field. Subpar products from a company tend to have that effect, even if Bill Gates started the company……….
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