Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Israeli drama, Deroit rages and bad Red Sox signings

- In some arguments, everyone is correct. That’s what happens when the foul-mouthed, talent-deprived, classless Rosie O’Donnell’s bloated self attacks the coked-up, parole-violating Lindsay Lohan and Lohan’s old man fires back at O’Donnell. Rosie, who should still be in hiding after Donald Trump’s legendary verbal evisceration of her and her career a few years ago, started the fight by going on the today show, claiming Lindsay Lohan hasn't made a single good film since she was sixteen and isn't capable of portraying Liz Taylor in her new movie, a biopic of the famed actress. Picking Lohan was a curious choice, partly because of her wildness making her difficult to insure and partly because she’s a terrible actress. So in that sense, O’Donnell is correct. However, why is a woman whose new talk show on Oprah Winfrey’s new TV network OWN cracking anyone for their lack of talent? Thus, Michael Lohan is also correct when he claims O’Donnell is a washed-up failure at life who only stayed famous because she adopted a bunch of children. Who the hell is Rosie O'Donnell to judge anyone, especially Lindsay, who has far more talent than Rosie ever had?” Michael Lohan fumed. Unfortunately for him, that is where his argument comes off the rails. His daughter has no discernable talent beyond doing rails off bathroom mirrors and taking her clothes off for skin magazines. “Lindsay's talent isn't limited to being a comedian or getting notoriety for adopting and raising a bunch of kids. Sure, [Lindsay] has her pitfalls, but she is 25, and how old is Rosie?" he asked. He went on to bash O’Donnell for her two failed talk shows, a failed marriage, a failed magazine and a general lack of attractiveness or class. All in all, two people lacking in class and talent did battle on this day and the real winner is anyone who gets to sit back and laugh at their idiocy………


- Rarely has the presence of 30 homes created possible international incident. Yet a fast-approaching deadline to demolish the homes of 30 families in an unauthorized West Bank settlement outpost is threatening to implode Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, with some hard-liners cautioning that the ruling coalition will fall if the buildings come down. Netanyahu is in a precarious position, committed to making peace with the Palestinians but having to balance those promises while making concessions to settlers who have illegally staked claim to territory Palestinians want for a future state. Four years into his term in office, Netanyahu is staring down a May 1 deadline by the Israeli Supreme Court to destroy the houses. Thirty homes seems like a small number, but the situation is a major test of whether he can continue to walk this political tightrope. Netanyahu wants the court to defer the deadline to give officials time to save the buildings in the Ulpana outpost, built on the fringes of the religious Beit El settlement. "We are looking for ways to prevent the demolition of the houses," Netanyahu said in a radio interview. The court ordered the buildings demolished because they were erected on privately owned Palestinian land, a practice the court outlawed decades ago. A 2005 government report determined Ulpana was erected without following proper government procedures even though the court had authorized building on other West Bank territory. Palestine believes there is no point negotiating with Israel if it continues to expand settlements in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, both areas Palestinians claim for their future state. One Israeli government after another has pledged not to build any new settlements, but the Palestinians accuse settlers of continuing to build anyhow, with tacit government support. Some 500,000 Jewish settlers now live in these areas, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. Netanyahu is talking out both sides of his mouth in some sense, vowing to halt settlement expansion but opposing any division of Jerusalem. "We will not move from here. We will not stop building," he said in a speech on Israel's Memorial Day. Ministers and lawmakers from Netanyahu's coalition haven’t exactly rallied behind him, instead making a series if pilgrimages to Ulpana in recent days. Keeping a six-part coalition functional is a tall task and one that may be about to blow up in Netanyahu’s face. If nothing else, the resulting fireworks show should be entertaining in an post-apocalyptic, World War III sort of way……….


- Google Drive has finally debuted and early reviews suggest that the search giant may have achieved a solid victory with its cloud storage and syncing service that offers a full 5 GB of online storage for free. At first glance, the service appears to be fairly simple and straightforward. Critics may lament its lack of flashy, eye-catching features, but it appears to be efficient in storing files to the cloud and syncing them among multiple devices. The process is no more complicated than saving a file to a local hard drive. The reaction to Drive’s debut depends largely on a person’s expectations going in. Anyone who was expecting a Google Drive/Google Docs combination that would make it easy to edit files in the cloud that you created on a laptop or desk top will be extremely disappointed. Google could still move in that direction, but for now Drive remains basic and utilitarian. In its present form, Google Drive installs as an app for Windows, OS X and Android. A version for iOS isn't yet available, although Google vows that will change soon. Once installed, it shows up as another drive in Windows Explorer or the Mac's Finder app. In many ways, it functions like rival online storage service Dropbox, it can be used like a physical drive and copy or move files to it, and create new files and subfolders inside it. Those files and subfolders are uploaded to users’ Google Drive on the Web and are accessible there. They will also be synced to any other devices onto which a user has installed Google Drive. A document edited on any device with Drive installed will be synced to the cloud and updated on all devices a person has installed the app on. However, it isn't integrated into just Windows Explorer or Finder and shows up like an external storage drive. Installation is a relatively simple process, so Google seems to have hit a home run with this one………..


- No Major League Baseball team needs good news right now more than the Boston Red Sox. They’re four games below .500, mired in last place in the American League East and their new manager has been an abject failure who has already clashed with several leaders in the clubhouse. Fans are panicking and a small morsel of positivity could go a long way right now. In that spirit, Red Sox outfielder Carl Crawford is going to see Dr. James Andrews to have the soreness in his left elbow checked out. That’s right, Crawford just heard the three words that strike fear into the heart of every professional athlete: Dr. James Andrews. Andrews, a renowned orthopedic surgeon, is the guy athletes go to see when they need season- or career-ending surgery. He’s worked on more wrecked knees and jacked-up shoulders than just about anyone and the guy who signed a seven-year, $142 million contract with the Red Sox before the 2011 season and proceeded to have one of the worst years of his career could be on his way to season-ending elbow surgery. After hitting .255 with 11 home runs and 18 stolen bases last season and inspiring nearly every Red Sox fan to wonder what the hell then-general manager Theo Epstein was thinking when he gave Crawford that FAT contract. With that terrible season under his belt, Crawford needed to show up and have a big season this year. Instead, he is out indefinitely and not close to returning to action. He has yet to play this season and after undergoing offseason wrist surgery, his future is murky at best. Manager Bobby Valentine admitted he is concerned about Crawford and isn't sure when he will return. "Until a guy is 100 percent, you always have concern," Valentine said. Let the good times roll, Red Sox fans…………


- Forget what you’ve heard from a Chrysler commercial with an Eminem song as a musical backdrop. Detroit is not back yet, it’s still on the brink of financial collapse and its citizens are still extremely angry. Need evidence? How about the 1,000 or so protesters who gathered Wednesday at Hart Plaza and then marched to the Renaissance Center to protest the General Electric shareholders meeting at the Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit. Save the smack about how these people are accustomed to walking because they can’t afford cars or even a bus ride, because you don’t want this angry mob coming after you next. The protest drew participants from as far away as Louisville, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and New York, all of them demanding that GE pay more in taxes. It seems like a generic, clichéd demand, but if it’s enough to bring more than 1,000 people out, that’s still solid. What makes the protest truly hilarious is that these angry citizens, presumably ticked about the financial state of their city, necessitated dozens of Detroit police officers being deployed to keep order around the hotel, using up taxpayer dollars. City officials have pleaded with protest organizers to call off their demonstration because they believe Detroit does not need the bad publicity created by the protests. Umm, wrong call, city officials. Protests are good for a city, not bad. They generate interest, attention and show that your citizens give a damn. In a city currently facing the worst economic crisis in its history, citizens who care is important. GE has been a popular target for Occupy protestors and on Tuesday, protesters interrupted a speech by GE Chief Executive Jeff Immelt, yelling, "Pay your fair share." Protestors claim GE pays only an 11-percent tax rate, while the company contends that it pays a 25-percent rate. That discrepancy seems like a good reason to protest…………

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