- Why so angry, Los
Angeles Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro, why so angry? Just because one of your
two star players on a playoff-bound team continues to be drilled like a
tackling dummy every time he drives to the basket is no reason to be upset. Oh,
and that star has no perimeter game and attacking the basket is his go-to move.
All-Star forward Blake Griffin is known for his high-flying assaults on the rim
and bringing the two-handed ruckus is his specialty. However, opponents know
this fact well and have taken to hacking Griffin up when he goes to the basket.
Because he shoots just over 50 percent from the free-throw line, fouling
Griffin is smart strategy for opposing teams. It’s not the fouls themselves Del
Negro objects to; it’s the brutal, season-threatening nature of the fouls that
the coach has an issue with. "I have an issue that Blake got hit that hard
and he is in pain and he is still in pain and the player that did that played
yesterday," Del Negro said. "I have a problem with that. I don't know
how the league wants us to deal with that because then it will get out of
hand." Following a flagrant foul by Phoenix Suns center Robin in a game
last Thursday, Del Negro expressed outrage that Lopez was allowed to play in
the Suns’ next game while Griffin was still feeling the effects of the hard hit
due to a minor injury he suffered when Lopez clotheslined him. What solution
does Del Negro propose? "To me it doesn't make a lot of sense when a
player gets a flagrant 2 and he's able to play and the other player is still in
pain," he said. "To me what makes sense is that player doesn't play
until that player is healthy and playing." Well said, V.............
- Props to whoever livened up life in downtown St. Louis early
Monday morning by lobbing a Molotov cocktail at the Young Building on Spruce
Street. That sort of tactic is usually reserved for Europe or Asia, maybe South
America on a good day, but an angry soul who is coincidentally now being sought
by authorities brought it to America in the early morning hours. The building
houses a variety of federal offices including the Department of Homeland
Security, so finding a motive for the small-scale attack shouldn’t be
difficult. Shortly after 1 a.m., a late-‘90s gray Chevrolet Camaro with a
partial Illinois license plate of N50 rolled past the building an unidentified
suspected lobbed the aforementioned Molotov cocktail at the building. No one
was injured and the cocktail caused minor damage, so the attack shouldn’t be
that big of a deal….right? Not if you ask police, who are treating the case as
a terror threat. Along with the Federal Protective Service with Homeland
Security in Washington, D.C., St. Louis police are reacting as if a homicidal
terrorist is out there looking to blow up buildings and bring America to its
knees….with a single, (apparently) poorly made Molotov cocktail. Thanking this
unknown citizen for sending a jolt of energy to rouse St. Louis from its Monday
doldrums clearly never crossed the mind of these über-serious law enforcement
types………..
- Climate change is affecting us all, but corn is taking a
major share of the impact. According to researchers Noah S. Diffenbaugh, Thomas W.
Hertel, Martin Scherer and Monika Verma, corn is taking more than its fair
share of the hit at the world’s thermometer rises. In a study of near-term
climate change, the quarter determined that the impact of climate change on
corn-price volatility outweighs movements caused by energy market policies and
oil prices. In other words, what human beings do to the environment is causing
more damage than their bureaucratic bullsh*t. “U.S. corn-price volatility
exhibits higher sensitivity to near-term climate change than to energy policy
influences or agriculture-energy market integration,” the researchers wrote in
their finings. According to their research, the presence of a biofuels mandate
enhances sensitivity to climate change by more than 50 percent. Of course, corn
is the primary feedstock used to make ethanol in the U.S. and given the focus
on alternative energy sources, its 6.5 production decline projected for this
year could be an issue. While world corn output is predicted to rise this year,
the authors of this study believe that going forward the increase of global
temperatures poses a significant problem for corn. “The likelihood of increasing
occurrence of severe hot events in response to increasing global greenhouse-gas
concentrations poses a particular risk for field crops,” boosting yield
variability and price volatility, they postulated. While a corn surplus at the
moment seems like a huge positive, the demand for corn is only going to go up
as biofuels become more widely used. A higher U.S. corn yield would raise
declining stockpiles for the first time in four years, the International Grains
Council said April 2. Ethanol has been a government charity case since the
Energy Tax Act of 1978 and worst-ever Commander-in-Chief W. made it part of his
plan to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil in 2006. W. also doubled the
country’s renewable fuels targets in the 2007 law that calls for the U.S. to
use 15 billion gallons of the fuel by 2015, meaning corn needs to step its game
up to meet the demand. In turn, corn needs humans to step their collective game
up by doing what we can to put the brakes on climate change…………
- Someone had to pay. That much was obvious after the
film “John Carter” became one of Hollywood's greatest ever flops. Disney
cranked out the other-worldly thriller that proved to be not so thrilling and
with a $250 million budget, knew the project needed to make a ton of money in
order to turn a profit. Instead, it was critically panned and ignored by
audiences around the world. It has yet to crack the $100 million barrier in the
United States and hasn’t done much better internationally. Current estimates
peg the movie for losses of nearly $200 million and it could go down as the
biggest flop of all-time. When a movie bombs that massively, someone has to
take the fall and the head of Disney's film-making studio, Rich Ross, is the
fall guy in this debacle. Ross has resigned a month after “John Carter dropped
and sent out an email to his staff over the weekend informing them of the
decision in typical business-speak BS. "People need to be in the right
jobs, in roles they are passionate about, doing work that leverages the full
range of their abilities. I no longer believe the chairman role is the right
professional fit for me,” he wrote. Being the head of a studio is clearly not
the same as being president of the Disney Channel and overseeing the creation
of successful shows such as “High School Musical” and “Hannah Montana,” which
Ross did in a previous gig. Maybe if he’d had John Carter dancing and singing
in unison with the aliens whose world he was trying to save, the movie would
have done much better. On the way out the door, Disney CEO Bob Iger offered a
thoroughly ridiculous statement of praise for a man who just cost his company
hundreds of millions of dollars with a poor decision. "For more than a
decade, Rich Ross' creative instincts, business acumen and personal integrity
have driven results in key businesses for Disney. I appreciate his countless
contributions throughout his entire career at Disney and expect he will have
tremendous success in whatever he chooses to do next," Iger said. Excellent points, B…………
- India is a tad bit sensitive right now. Oh, and mix in a
healthy dose of paranoia. That much is clear after the Indian government ordered the deportation of 10 French
nationals who police say illegally worked with an Indian advocacy group accused
of supporting Maoist rebels. The deportations were announced Monday, marking the
second time in a matter of weeks that India has deported foreign citizens
working for local non-governmental organizations. According to deputy inspector
general of police Paras Nath, the French nationals violated their tourist visas
by working for Ekta Parishad, or Unity Forum, a non-governmental organization
in the eastern Indian state of Bihar. The four men and six women were initially
detained Saturday in a densely forested area of Bihar prior to a meeting of
local farmers organized by Ekta Parishad. The incident was not as bizarre as
when police expelled a German tourist earlier this month for helping to raise
funds for anti-nuclear activists, but it was close. Supporting Maoist rebels is
not the role Ekta Parishad sees itself filling. The group says it works to
protect the land and water rights of the poor and denies any ties to the Maoist
rebels, who have kidnapped several officials and killed dozens of security
forces in recent years. Merely being in the vicinity of one of the group’s
meetings was enough to get these 10 French nationals arrested and flown to New
Delhi on Monday for deportation. Police officials claimed it was the first time
that foreign nationals have been deported for working for an organization that
supports the cause of Maoist rebels despite Ekta Parishad’s denials of such
ties. "We have no links with the Maoists whatsoever. Ekta Parishad is
working for people's right to land, forests and water. We are a people's
movement," said Aneesh Thillenkery, national advocacy coordinator for the
group. As for the French nationals, they are farm activists in their own
country who came to India to meet with the leader of Ekta Parishad, P.V.
Rajagopal. The French Embassy in New Delhi refused comment on the matter………..
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