- Of all the enjoyable aspects of Bubba Watson’s win at the Masters, capped off by a magical final round Sunday and a win against Louis Oosthuizen on the second playoff hole. That Watson had never won a major before or had a single golf lesson in his life were great angles. So was Watson and his wife adopting their infant son weeks before the tournament. But none of those were more visible than the bitchin’ pink driver Watson rocked at Augusta National. He swung that pink stick with authority and used it to win his first major and now the club’s maker is going to use its newfound popularity to make money and help a good cause. Just two days after Watson’s big win, Ping announced it would sell 5,000 limited-edition G20 drivers with the pink shaft and head. Like any high-end golf club, this driver is pricey. It retails for $430 and ever magnanimous in a corporate sense, Ping will donate 5 percent of profits from its sale to a fundraising campaign called, "Bubba Long in Pink. Driven by Ping.” To kick off the campaign, the Phoenix-based company donated $10,000, along with $300 for every drive Watson has hit this year. In the first three-plus months of this year, the campaign has generated $61,600 for charity. A large part of the reason so many fans and even non-golf fans love Watson is because of his everyman demeanor and good heart. On his own, he launched "Bubba & Friends Drive to a Million" in January with hopes of raising $1 million for charities this year. "Even prior to his win at the Masters, golfers were requesting pink G20s," said John Solheim, chairman and CEO of Ping. "Through word of mouth, social media and phone calls, the interest was extremely high. We want to satisfy that demand while bringing even more visibility to Bubba's goal of raising $1 million." And turn a healthy profit along the way………
- Winter may have skipped its annual appearance across much of the United States, but the chill is in major effect in the Arctic's Bering Sea, where the amount of floating ice reached all-time record high levels last month, according to researchers monitoring the area using satellites. Enviro-lovers had predicted a major ice retreat, but the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center announced last week that ice extent in the Bering for the month of March was the highest seen since records began. After comparing and collating the data, NSICD researchers released a statement reading in part: “As winds from the north pushed Arctic ice southward through the Bering Strait, the ice locked together and formed a structurally continuous band known as an ice arch, which acts a bit like a keystone arch in a building. The ice arch temporarily held back the ice behind it, but as the winds continued, the arch failed along its southern edge, and ice cascaded south through the strait into the Bering Sea.” The statement also pointed out the increase of ice on the northern coast of St. Lawrence Island. Those who want to deny global warming’s existence will undoubtedly trumpet this news and deliver a giant middle finger to groups like Greenpeace, which have been warning about decreases in ice levels for more than a decade. Walruses and seals, which are heavily dependent on ice for their survival, have to be fired up as well, as do polar bears. Those looking to spin this data in a negative way can point out that even though the Arctic ice levels are up in recent years, the numbers are still well below the average seen since records began in 1979. Environmental news: No matter which way the data skews, there is always ammunition for everyone’s argument………….
- Stay classy, China. Nothing says class quite like sentencing a disabled rights activist and her husband to jail for "provoking trouble” and no one pulls this kind of bullsh*t stunt better than the Chinese. A Chinese court dropped the hammer Tuesday on Ni Yulan, who has been using a wheelchair since 2002, and her husband Dong Jiqin. Making the story even better, Yulan is in a wheelchair because she was crippled from abuse in a Chinese prison. She was sentenced to two years and eight months on separate charges of fraud and "picking quarrels, provoking trouble and willfully destroying private and public property," while her husband was jailed for two years on the latter charge. "This is completely unfair, I urge the government to release my parents," the couple's daughter, Dong Xuan, said after the verdict was read. “Both my parents looked very thin. I was unable to see my mother's face, she didn't turn around. She was in a wheelchair and looked very weak. My father saw me and asked me how I was. He told me that he was OK.” Of course they looked thin, because feeding prisoners isn’t exactly a high priority in Chinese prisons. What was the actual crime these two evildoers were sentenced for? They have long helped victims of government-backed land grabs in China and were detained in April last year as authorities rounded up dozens of activists amid online calls for protests similar to those in the Arab world. A sham of a trial was held and wrapped up within four hours in December, with no media or diplomats allowed inside the closed courtroom. Following the sentencing, the couple’s attorney blasted the government for trumping up charges to silence Yulan and Jiqin. "We believe this verdict is unfair and a violation of the law," lawyer Cheng Hai proclaimed. And to think all of this could have been avoided if only these two had agreed to pay an $11,000 (69,000 yuan) bill for a hotel where police placed them in June 2010, after Ni was released from her previous two-year jail sentence. Well done, Communist Party………….
- The battle is over and a victor has emerged. Who is the real-life town that inspired “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening to create the single most overrated TV series of the past 20 years? That would be Springfield, Ore. Groening, who has long held out the identity of the town that spurred him to create the world in which Bart, Homer, Marge, Maggie and Sideshow Bob exist, admitted in a recent interview that the real-life home of his fictional characters is the Springfield in the Pacific Northwest. Never before had Groening addressed the origins of the show, but he clarified it for inquiring minds in that interview. “I don’t want to ruin it for people, you know? Whenever people say it’s Springfield, Ohio, or Springfield, Massachusetts, or Springfield, wherever, I always go, ‘Yup, that’s right,’” he said. “Springfield was named after Springfield, Oregon. The only reason is that when I was a kid, the TV show ‘Father Knows Best’ took place in the town of Springfield, and I was thrilled because I imagined that it was the town next to Portland, my hometown. When I grew up, I realized it was just a fictitious name. I also figured out that Springfield was one of the most common names for a city in the U.S. Sure enough, there are Springfields in Ohio and Massachusetts, but those towns will have to deal with the reality that they haven’t inspired much of anything. Then again, receiving credit for a vastly overrated show that isn’t exactly groundbreaking television and receives a lot of its run for being on the air longer than any other show isn't all that awesome. Adult cartoons in general are fairly ridiculous, so maybe residents of other Springfields should be happy about this. Springfield, Ore. has about 60,000 people, a median income of less than $40,000 and one in five residents living below the poverty line. In the fictional version, no one ever seems to age and no one lives in poverty. Fans of the show argue that it defined the adult cartoon series and has been key to Fox’s success as a network, neither of which are all that impressive of an accomplishment…………
- Woo hoo, it’s treasure-seeking time! An already discovered World War II shipwreck off the coast of Cape Cod is the target for a crew planning to head out from Boston this week. At the site, the crew hopes to recover platinum and gold from the bottom of the ocean that could be worth billions. The project has been five years in the making for Sub Sea Research of Portland, Me., which has worked to locate the Port Nicholson, a British cargo ship sunk by German U-boat torpedoes in 1942. Company co-founder Greg Brooks believes the ship was carrying secret valuable cargo and hopes his team will be the ones to recover it. "There's 741 platinum ingots, and they all weigh 400 ounces a piece," Brooks said. "And there's 4,882 gold ingots on board, and they're all 400 ounces a piece.” He estimated the potential bounty at a value of nearly $4 billion. Detailed research has convinced Brooks that the ship was carrying a payment from the former Soviet Union to America for war supplies. He had better be right because Sub Sea has already invested $6.5 million in this treasure hunt so far. Their efforts have led the U.S. Marshals Service to name the company custodian of the wreck. When the Sub Sea crew sets out, they will travel on the 220-foot Sea Hunter, which is currently docked in East Boston as its crew is busy preparing for the voyage. To prepare for the trip and what they will encounter once they reach their destination, crew members have been testing a remote-operated vehicle in Boston Harbor to make sure it's working properly. Others have worked to master the custom-designed "super scooper" basket to ensure it will be able to recover the sunken treasure 700 feet under the sea. "Right now it's been tested in my backyard," said Mike Lynders, the basket’s designer. On some level, the project is a leap of faith because the crew has yet to see the treasure. Still, Brooks believes he’s about to strike it rich. "I guess when we pull it up I think I'm going to be jumping up and down," Brooks said. Crew members will make 5 percent of the bounty for their efforts, meaning an average crew member will make probably between $7 million and $12 million. There are still openings on the crew, as Brooks is still seeking a cook and an engineer for the trip. To keep everyone safe, there are plenty of weapons aboard the ship, including several 50-caliber sniper rifles. Should to treasure be real, Brooks plans to use some of his newfound wealth to help charities that combat children's hunger in New England and in Haiti………..
No comments:
Post a Comment