- Wait a second……isn't being a florist supposed to mean existing in a world where love, romance and hookups are all around? Shouldn’t a florist have the inside track when it comes to picking up ladies, what with having access to quality floral arrangements and connections to the candy industry? If so, why is Watertown, Mass. florist Dave Greenberg turning his search for love into a combination of a PR campaign and a bad romantic comedy plot? Greenberg, who owns Watertown’s Main Street Florist, is looking for love and whipping out his checkbook to find it. Sometimes that might get a person in trouble on account of solicitation laws, but Greenberg isn't going that route. Instead, he wants to find true love and he’s willing to pay $1,000 to the person who introduces him to his bride to be. Why he can’t just chip off $25 a month for membership on a dating website isn't clear, but he could get a solid 40 months of online help for what he’s willing to pay someone to set him up. His search also includes the cost of creating business cards for the search and creating a website called MarryDave.com. “I have a profile I have photos there,” Greenberg said. On the site, he describes himself as in good shape, faithful and very attentive to a woman’s needs. The person who introduces him to his lady love will need to wait until the wedding to cash in. “At the end of the aisle they can be waiting there and I’ll give them the cash,” Greenberg explained. “And they would be the guest of honor at the wedding too.” Who is his ideal woman? According to Greenberg, she should be over 50, does not have to be religious and can be any race because what he’s really looking for is happiness and chemistry. Other than that, she need only be willing to relocate with him to San Diego when he retires in a few years…………
- Bono really is a world-class humanitarian. He cares about starving people in Africa, oppressed souls in Myanmar….and he’s willing to serve as a character reference for one of the most despised human beings currently walking planet Earth. That’s right, the U2 frontman has spoken up in support of legendary leech/attention whore Courtney Love so she could rent a new house. Following a dispute with the owner of the New York home she was previously renting, Love was in search of a new pad and said recently she was not subjected to a credit check but was asked to provide several character references. "I've never gotten a noise complaint. It sounds really lame, being a rock star and all. But I haven't," she said. "That's not true. I did get one once, when I was living on the sixth floor of the Mercer [Hotel]. I was watching that movie with Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler [Just Go With It]. The person next-door called and complained it was too loud." One of those who stepped up for a character reference was Bono and although the exact nature of his remarks was not revealed, it appears his support was enough to get Love her new Manhattan condo. The condo board was apparently not swayed by reports that Love killed her daughter's pet cat or believed her very plausible explanation that it was eaten by a mountain lion. Just to be safe, Love probably should do any massive redecorating projects at her new abode without clearance and should make sure there are no mountain lions in the immediate vicinity………..
- Studies on the effect of red meat consumption are the prototypical example of why the average person brushes off scientific research and doesn’t worry about abiding by its recommendations. One day red meat is good for your heart, the next day it’s going to kill you by age 50 if you continue eating it regularly. Harvard researcher Frank Hu will have to accept this reality, no matter how proud of his study showing that eating a portion of processed red meat daily can boost a person's risk of dying young by up to 20 percent. The long-running study of more than 120,000 people offers more evidence that eating red meat increases the risk of heart disease and cancer while contending that consuming fish and poultry may lower early death risk. "This study provides clear evidence that regular consumption of red meat, especially processed meat, contributes substantially to premature death," Hu said. He and his fellow Harvard researchers harvested their data from a study of 37,698 men who were followed for 22 years and 83,644 women who were tracked for 28 years. Subjects were interviewed about their eating habits every four years and their responses showed that those who ate a card-deck-sized serving of unprocessed red meat each day on average saw a 13 percent higher risk of dying than those who did not eat red meat as frequently. The risk increased to 20 percent for those who consumed processed red met, such as a hot dog or two slices of bacon. Substituting nuts for red meat actually lowered total mortality risk by 19 percent, while poultry or whole grains lowered the risk 14 percent and fish did so by seven percent. According to Hu’s team, between seven and nine percent of all deaths in the study "could be prevented if all the participants consumed fewer than 0.5 servings per day of total red meat." Why? Because processed red meat has been shown to contain ingredients such as saturated fat, sodium, nitrites and some carcinogens that are linked to many chronic ailments including heart disease and cancer. So….eating less red meat could theoretically reduce the nearly $2 trillion annually in health care costs in the United States that come from chronic disease like heart ailments? Yes, heart disease is the biggest killer in the United States, but the odds of a new study coming out next week touting the benefits of eating red meat isn't that unlikely. One thing that definitely won't hurt your chance of survival? Getting off the couch and working out……….
- If it’s the NFL offseason, there must be at least a few players suing the league to overturn a pending suspension for violating its policy against the use of performance-enhancing substances. Denver Broncos defensive players D.J. Williams and Ryan McBean are filling the role this year, suing the NFL over their matching six-game suspensions without pay for Denver's first six games of the coming season. They have support from the NFL Players Association, which released a statement Tuesday criticizing the suspensions and calling for independent arbitrators as part of any future drug testing policy. “The NFLPA is disappointed by the decisions in the cases of Ryan McBean and D.J. Williams. Despite substantial evidence of breaches in the collection protocol and other procedural irregularities, the NFL decided to punish these players without judicious review of the facts,” the statement read. Williams remains under contract with Denver, but McBean officially became a free agent at 4 p.m. ET Tuesday. The obvious question is on what grounds Williams and McBean are contesting their suspensions. Oh, and how they were found to allegedly have "non-human" urine in their systems, according to sources close to the situation. Hmm, it sounds like these guys are either downing massive quantities of hyena urine or they tried to substitute outside human waste for their own when subjected to a drug test. Their lawsuit doesn’t specifically address the test results, but instead focuses on Harold Henderson, the hearing officer who ruled against the players' appeals. In their suit, the players allege that Henderson overstepped his powers and wasn't impartial in his decision. Playing on the valuable lesson demonstrated by reigning National League MVP Ryan Braun in getting his 50-game suspension from Major League Baseball overturned, Williams and McBean also cited chain-of-custody procedural errors in the testing process. The suit seeks to have their suspensions overturned and asks for a preliminary injunction to allow them to play while the case plays out. "We proved -- conclusively -- at the NFL hearing on this matter that the NFL and its specimen collector wholly failed in their duties to safeguard and process my specimen properly," Williams said in a written statement. "In fact, the specimen collector was fired by the NFL after compromising my specimen as well as others.” Lots of success with that…………
- Now THIS is diplomacy in action. Too many bureaucrats have forgotten how the diplomatic process should work and are stuck in this byzantine world where suits, elitism and condescension rule. Not the South Korean lawmakers and North Korean delegates representing their respective nations in Switzerland at a U.N. meeting on the North's alleged human rights abuses, mind you, but most politicians and bureaucrats. Those who have forgotten how to fight for what’s right should study the example of these fine men, who brawled with one another after several South Korean lawmakers tried to grab a North Korean diplomat leaving the U.N. meeting as they chanted slogans against China's policy of repatriating North Korean defectors. Outstanding footage from Yonhap news agency shot Monday showed this inspiring scene, which occurred amid reports that China is returning dozens of North Koreans to their communist homeland instead of letting them defect to the capitalist South. When the South’s lawmakers approached and try to start a fight, they were pushed away by security and North Korean delegates. A small scuffle ensued and sadly, no vicious haymakers were thrown, nor were any chair shots delivered or choke holds applied, but maybe next time. For the record, China considers North Koreans who illegally enter its soil economic migrants, but many activist groups believe them to be refugees who will face torture and imprisonment if repatriated. The North reacted to accusations presented at the hearing in predictable fashion, with its diplomat fleeing the conference after denying a U.N. human rights envoy's criticism of his country. South Korea continues to demand that China provide information on North Koreans reportedly held in China, but Beijing has refused. Following the scuffle, North Korea's Foreign Ministry issued a terse statement cracking South Korea's government Tuesday for raising the issue internationally and accusing the South of kidnapping North Korean citizens and turning them into defectors…………
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