- Silvio Berlusconi may not be the man you want running your country, but he’s damn sure the prime minister you want to party with. The more details that emerge from Berlusconi's time in power as he is on trial for paying for sex with an underage nightclub dancer and abusing his powers by getting police to release his underage hooker/lover from jail when she was arrested for stealing, the more awesome the narrative becomes. Hearing about the former prime minister’s "bunga bunga" parties has been extremely entertaining thus far, but the scene at the Milan courthouse where Berlusconi is under the microscope of justice jumped up a notch Monday when a witness claimed strippers dressed as nuns performed for the former Italian prime minister at a party. Model Imane Fadil also alleged that she had been given 2,000 euros ($2,614) by Berlusconi the first time she attended a “bunga bunga” party. On that first night, Fadil said she saw two young women in nun costumes stripping for the prime minister. Making the story even better, the women weren’t necessarily strippers plying their trade. One of those Fadil allegedly saw was Nicole Minetti, now a regional councilor for Berlusconi's People of Freedom party in Milan. As Fadil told the story, Minetti and the other woman dressed as a nun stayed the night at the villa and they were paid for sex like all of the other women who attended the parties. Berlusconi's lawyer, Niccolo Ghedini, offered the weak excuse that the payments were merely a sign of Berlusconi’s "usual generosity." That unusual generosity has landed him in the defendant’s chair in not one, not two, but three ongoing trials. The other two relate to tax fraud and violating official secrets. Life would be even more stressful had an Italian court not thrown out a fourth case relating to bribery claims earlier this year. And oh yeah, the underage hooker Berlusconi allegedly paid for sex, Moroccan-born Karima el-Mahroug, has the nickname Ruby The Heart Stealer………….
- When people are paying absurd amounts of money to attend a music festival and throwing down $10 for a personal pan pizza and $8.50 for a 12 oz. beer once inside, they had damn sure better see something special on stage. Attendees at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in California over the weekend saw exactly that, with Snoop Dogg taking the stage and bringing an unexpected friend with him. Tupac Shakur, with whom Snoop sided with in the East Coast v. West Coast rap battle of the ‘90s, has been dead since 1996, when he was fatally shot. That would theoretically make it difficult for him to appear at Coachella in 2012, but Tupac was part of the show for Snoop Saturday night. Using a high-powered hologram created by Digital Domain Media Group, Inc., Snoop was able to work Tupac into his set. Dr. Dre was in on the shoe was well and both artists’ representatives have declined to comment on the hologram so far. However, reports have suggested that Dr. Dre's production team first approached Digital Domain a year ago about creating a virtual Tupac and some time around the start of the new year, Digital Domain began targeting Coachella as the debut for their new gadget. "This is just the beginning," Digital Domain's chief creative officer, Ed Ulbrich. "[Dr.] Dre has a massive vision for this." Video from the performance has already gone viral and led to speculation of whether the hologram could work for a tour. Making that dream a reality has to do with more than production issues and costs. No one knew the hologram was coming at Coachella, but will people still want to see it once the novelty wears off…………
- Meth heads are a drain on society. They are generally the “white trash” (not always white, of course) segment of the populace and even in the drug world, they are the lowest rung on the ladder. Worse still, their labs are always exploding and causing loads of trouble for emergency personnel and those tasked with cleaning up after them. One Ohio city has had just about enough of its meth-related issues and city officials in Akron are looking to tackle the issue head-on. The city council passed legislation at its meeting Monday night that requires property owners to pay for the law enforcement cost of cleaning up a methamphetamine lab. Several smaller communities in the area have passed similar ordinances, but Akron is the largest in the area so far. The cost of meth lab cleanups has become a bigger issue for cities and towns of all sizes because federal funding previously helped with those expenses dried up in February 2011. Akron will now force property owners to pay, to the tune of up to $1,200 for the first offense. For subsequent offenses, there is no limit. “We want to equip them [the police] with as many tools as we can,” said council member Jeff Fusco, who worked on the legislation with fellow council member Garry Moneypenny, a retired chief deputy of the Summit County Sheriff’s Office. And what’s a better tool than forcing someone who won't evict a meth head and their mobile home from a property to pay for all cleanup costs when that meth lab on wheels blows up? Of course, if the meth head in question also owns the property, it’s going to be awfully difficult for them to pay for cleanup costs when they’re in jail and their means of earning an income have been eliminated by an unfortunate meth lab explosion. If billed for a cleanup under the new law Akron property owners will have the right to appeal to the police chief. Council members explained that the bill will specifically pertain to the cost of personnel to dismantle the lab and the equipment/materials that are used. “We shouldn’t be passing this cost on to taxpayers,” Moneypenny said. For the non-meth head segment of society, meth is a drug made by cooking ingredients including over-the-counter medications, thus making it the drug of choice for lowlifes looking to manufacture and sell something illegal. Unfortunately, the process creates dangerous chemical residues that can seep into walls and carpeting and make a 600-sq.-foot home or mobile home go boom. The cost of that boom will now be placed on the shoulders of those responsible for it………
- It’s been a bad week for struggling small-market professional sports franchises that believed they had deals for new stadiums in place. First, the Sacramento Kings’ agreement for a new arena to keep the team from moving to Anaheim and depriving California’s capital city of its NBA team fell through. The Kings seem destined to leave with team ownership and city officials trading verbal haymakers and fans are caught in the middle. Maybe those embattled fans can seek support from Minnesota Vikings fans, who saw their hopes of keeping their team in town long term dealt a serious blow when a Minnesota House committee voted down the Vikings stadium bill Monday night. The vote was a crippling shot to the team's decade-long effort to secure a taxpayer subsidy for a replacement to the aging Metrodome. The House Government Operations Committee rejected the stadium proposal by a 9-6 margin after a four-hour hearing on the bill. The defeat makes it t extremely unlikely the bill could be revived in the remaining weeks of a legislative session expected to wrap up before the end of April. "Somebody's going to have to pull a rabbit out of a hat for this thing to be alive at this point," said Rep. Morrie Lanning, the chief House sponsor of the $975 million stadium plan. Lester Bagley, the Vikings' point man for the bill in the legislature, sounded a defeated note when asked about the result. "I guess I would ask the state, what else would you expect us to do? What else can we do?" he said. Gov. Mark Dayton has been a vocal supporter of the stadium proposal, but his support seems to have had little impact. Dayton attempted to rally support by insisting he has "no doubt" a funding proposal will prevail in 2013. The Vikings plan to continue their push for funding while the legislature remains in session, but the proposal is on life support. Had it passed, the plan would have split the tab for a stadium three ways: $398 million from the state from taxes on expanded gambling, $150 million from the city of Minneapolis from existing sales taxes and $427 million from the Vikings. Instead, it was rejected by committee members who questioned whether it was a fair deal for taxpayers. "How do we as representatives of public taxpayers, how do we know we're getting a good deal?" asked Rep. Ryan Winkler, DFL-Golden Valley. It’s a fair point, even if it means the Vikings have no lease tying them to Minnesota beyond the 2012 season……..
- The United States reigns supreme once more and if the U.S. is topping the world in any category, the odds that unhealthy eating and/or obesity is involved are high. Sure enough, the latest title belt coming America’s way is for the saltiest fast food. Research conducted by Canadian scientists showed that while salt content among popular fast food items varies by country for six of the most popular fast food chains in the world, fast food in the U.S. tends to be the saltiest. For example, salt concentrations are 2.5 times higher in U.S. "Chicken McNuggets" than in their British counterparts, according to a study conduced by Dr. Norman Campbell, professor of medicine at the University of Calgary. "We saw marked variability in the reported salt content of products provided by major transnational fast food companies,” Campbell wrote in the study. He and his team collected salt content data from fast food chains Domino's Pizza, Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Subway and Burger King restaurants that were operating in Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, the U.K. and U.S. They compared the salt content for seven types of food: savory breakfast items, burgers, chicken products, pizza, salads, sandwiches and of course, french fries. Items served in the U.K. had the lowest salt levels, while fast food in the U.S. had the highest. Even for supposedly healthier options like a Subway "Club Sandwich," American versions of a given item were twice as salty as counterparts in France and the U.K. Campbell theorized that the overall low salt levels in the U.K. may be "a consequence of industry's active participation in salt reduction efforts in that country." The noteworthy idea to emerge from the study is the hypothesis that cutting salt levels in food could have as much of an impact as a person stopping their smoking habit. "Recent estimates suggest that the numbers of deaths averted by moderate reductions in population salt consumption would be at least as many as those achieved by plausible reductions in population smoking rates," the researchers wrote. Their position is that fast food chains should reduce salt levels gradually so consumers can adjust and not have to quit cold turkey. Predictably, a McDonald’s spokesperson attempted to minimize the findings and suggested the issue was not as severe as portrayed. Either way, read all about it in the April 16 issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal……….
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