- Do not let the anger die, Russia. The fight has just begun and the rage so many of you showed Monday when you gathered for a massive rally to challenge Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s supposed victory in Sunday’s presidential election needs to continue until your voice is heard – or you’re shipped off to the gulag, either or. Those who gathered in Moscow chanted “Shame!” and “Russia without Putin!” They are just some of the many Russians contesting the outcome of the vote on the grounds of a campaign heavy-handedly slanted in Putin’s favor and reports of widespread violations in Sunday’s ballot. Much to the surprise of no one, Putin (allegedly) won more than 63 percent of the vote according to the nearly complete official returns. The result was assured from the instant Putin hatched his plan to officially return to power after technically stepping down from the presidency for four years to allow his hand-picked puppet Dmitry Medvedev to serve as the theoretical president while Putin lurked behind him as the real man in power. The instant he was eligible to resume his duties as Despot in Chief, Putin moved quickly and ran a campaign that sought to stamp out all opposition. Just to be sure, he and his party (allegedly) rigged the vote and did so knowing allegations of massive fraud would never see the light of day. “The campaign has been unfair, cowardly and treacherous,” proclaimed opposition leader Grigory Yavlinsky, who was denied registration for the race on a technicality. International election monitors cited a dearth of real competition for Putin and said the vote count “was assessed negatively” in almost a third of polling stations observers were allowed to visit. All of this led to Monday’s massive protest in Moscow, where 12,000 police were deployed to ensure order. Organizer Sergei Udaltsov urged protesters to stay on Moscow’s iconic Pushkin Square until Putin steps down, which should come right around never. “If it was a free election, why have they flooded the entire city of troops?” Udaltsov shouted. “They fear us!” Credit also needs to go to the banned National Bolshevik Party, which attempted to hold an unsanctioned protest near the headquarters of Russia’s main security agency and had party leader Eduard Limonov arrested…………
- Metallica has received a ton of hate from its last project, “Lulu,” last year's collaborative album with punk rock icon Lou Reed. “Lulu” was a concept album based two plays originally written by the German playwright Frank Wedekind, with a majority of the album's composition centered around spoken word elements delivered by Reed over instrumentals composed by Metallica. In light of the ceaseless hate the album inspired for all involved or perhaps in response to it, Metallica drummer and Napster hater Lars Ullrich says the band is considering new methods to release songs and could potentially sell albums contained within cereal boxes. He said a new album is in the works and once it’s complete, the band wants to explore non-traditional methods of distribution. “At some point we're going to want to share that with people that are interested in listening to it. So we've got to figure out ways we want to do that, from giving it away in cereal boxes to getting people to do handstands for it. We could come up with something wacky.” As for the new album, he promised the band are "going to be recording very soon" and are "throwing ideas at the canvas and picking out great riffs.” Whenever the album is released and wahtever means are used to distribute it, the effort will be the band’s first without the backing of a major label following their from Warner Brothers following the release of “Lulu.” Along with working on their new album, Metallica is putting the "finishing touches" to the line-up of their Orion Festival, which takes place at Bader Field, Atlantic City on June 23 and 24. In addition to the festival, the band will also play a series of shows in Europe this summer, performing “The Black Album” in its entirety…………
- Rise above it, Sandra Fluke, rise above it. Fluke is the Georgetown law student who testified before Congress last week to argue that her university's health insurance should cover contraception for female students and was subsequently called a "slut" and a "prostitute" by conservative radio ass hat Rush Limbaugh on his show. Limbaugh plays the role of Bizarro Howard Stern in that he says insane and offensive things just to get a reaction, but does so from an über-conservative view as opposed to the liberal one Stern espouses. Multiple high-profile sponsors, including ProFlowers and AOL, pull their ads from Limbaugh’s show after the remarks and Limbaugh issued a half-assed apology to Fluke. The temptation for Fluke might be to keep the fight going and fire back at Limbaugh, but the truth is that she won this battle without saying a single word to her nemesis. No one disputes Limbaugh is a tool and Fluke doesn’t need to get down in the mud with him. She did address his so-called apology during an appearance on ABC’s daytime talk show “The View” and didn’t sound like she was eager to bury the drama. "I don't think that a statement like this issued, saying that his choice of words was not the best, changes anything, and especially when that statement is issued when he's under significant pressure from his sponsors who have begun to pull their support," Fluke said. Wait, she’s saying this apology wasn’t good enough? Give it a look: "My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices." Hmm. It has all the elements of a bogus apology from a person who isn’t really sorry for what they said so much as the heat they took for saying it….so why wouldn’t Fluke accept it? Just because President Obama took the time to call her personally and Limbaugh has yet to reach out to her beyond a general, written statement released to the media, that’s no reason to be angry. Of course, Fluke said on “The View” that she would prefer Limbaugh not call her after informing his listeners that she has "so much sex she can't afford it." This pompous windbag had the audacity to mock the president for making the call. He showed his gall further by telling his listeners Monday morning that his apology was sincere and that he doesn’t believe Fluke is a slut or a hooker. Well played, Rush…………
- No matter how much knowledge science acquires, there will always be mysteries in the universe to confound the smart guys and chicks with PhD next to their name and white lab coats hanging on the backs of their office doors. One of the mysteries currently confounding the scientific community is a lonely clump of dark matter 2.4 billion light-years from Earth. The merging galaxy cluster Abell 520 is a distribution of dark matter, galaxies and hot gas. A composite image of the dark matter shows starlight from galaxies, while others images show the location of most of the mass in the cluster, which is dominated by dark matter, and regions of hot gas. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii snapped the pictures, which have not exactly provided a wealth of explanations for researchers as to how the matter exists in its current location. Theories abound, with the popular choice being that the invisible stuff appears to have been left behind in space after a cluster of galaxies collided. While they may not know the exact origins of the matter, scientists have a decent idea how it behaves. What they cannot explain is why the larger masses of dark matter inside which most galaxies are thought to reside, which are supposed to stay attached even after cosmic collisions, were left behind in this case. "This result is a puzzle," said astronomer James Jee of the University of California, Davis, in a statement. "Dark matter is not behaving as predicted, and it's not obviously clear what is going on. Theories of galaxy formation and dark matter must explain what we are seeing." Or maybe there are simply developments in the universe than even science cannot explain………
- Spring training is supposed to prepare Major League Baseball players for the regular season, to get them ready for the grind of 162 games over the course of six months without many days off. What happened at Sunday's game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Francisco Giants at Salt River Fields in Scottsdale, Ariz. probably won't help any of those involved prepare for what lies ahead. With no score and one out in the top of the second inning, the game took an unexpected twist when a swarm of bees appeared in right-center field as Giants infielder Freddy Sanchez came to the plate. The bees continued to move toward the infield and play as halted as Diamondbacks players hurried from their positions around the field to take refuge in the dugout. Baserunners on first and second also vacated the premises and the game was delayed for 41 minutes as local fire officials worked at getting rid of the bees. The swarm congregated at the end of the Giants' first-base dugout, where the grounds crew and fire personnel attempted to disperse them. "I didn't know what to do," Giants outfielder Angel Pagan said. "If I get stung by one, that means I'm going to get stung by a million. I was right next to the bathroom in case I had to lock myself in. "I've never seen anything like it before. At first, I was looking around because I saw [D-backs center fielder] Chris Young running toward their bullpen like something happened. All of a sudden, I saw those bees circling around the outfield. Pretty impressive." Young admitted he heard the swarm before he saw it. Once the bees were dispersed, play resumed. Diamondbacks pitcher Ian Kennedy was on the mound at the time of the invasion but did not return when the game started up again. The Giants won 11-1, but the biggest win of the day was no one suffering a few dozen bee stings from the game’s angry invaders…………
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