- Colombia is famous for, in no particular order, Colombian
nose candy, Colombian neck ties and decades of civil conflict and drug violence. Colombians have grown accustomed to
treachery and deceit and it takes a lot to stun them. Sunday’s arrest of a one-time
provincial lawmaker for allegedly helping plan the mass kidnapping of 11
colleagues later slain by leftist rebels had that capacity to shock. The entire
saga is several years old, but details are just now coming to life after last
week's arrest of Sigifredo Lopez. Lopez rigged his scam to ensure that he was
among the kidnapped, thus diverting suspicion. He "miraculously"
survived an re-emerged seven years later when the others were killed in
still-unclear circumstances. "I can't get it in my head that this could
actually have been possible," Interior Minister Federico Renjifo said of
Lopez. "I can only hold out the hope, as a human being, that this doesn't
turn out to be true." Unfortunately for Renjifo, Lopez was arrested on
suspicion of murder, hostage-taking, perfidy and rebellion. The saga began on
April 11, 2002, when guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
disguised as soldiers snuck into the state Assembly building in Cali and rounded up the deputies, killing a
police officer. Lopez was released by the FARC in 2009 and the current
conspiracy theory is that he has somehow been double-crossed by the rebels
years after the fact. Prosecutors have predicated their case on a 40-minute
video discovered in the digital archives of Alfonso Cano, the FARC commander in
chief slain by the military in November. According to an anonymous source, the
video shows a man to the guerrillas in detail the layout of the Valle (del
Cauca) Legislature. The man’s face is not visible, but an unidentified government
officials said that investigators spent months analyzing the silhouette and
matching the voice print to confirm their suspicion it was Lopez. He ran
unsuccessfully for congress and for Cali mayor last year and has called his
survival in the confusing deaths of the other 11 deputies "a miracle of
God." In retrospect, maybe God wasn’t involved all that much……….
- Black Sabbath’s members do not seem to be mellowing with
age. If longtime bassist Geezer Butler is claiming that estranged drummer Bill Ward's contract
demands to go on a reunion tour with the band were "a joke," then the
bad blood between them is still a major factor. Ward issued a statement last
week in which he explained that he will not be taking part in any of the Black
Sabbath shows set for this summer. The announcement piggybacked previous claims
he'd made that he had been unhappy with the contract he'd been offered to work
on the band's new album and tour. Butler confirmed that Ward will be replaced
by drummer Tommy Clufetos, who will drum for frontman Ozzy Osbourne on this
summer's Ozzy and Friends tour. Butler lamented that it was "sad to see
the Sabbath reunion tour becoming a bit of a soap opera on the Internet."
In the statement, he wrote: "It has been a very tough year for us as a
band, having announced our reunion plans, only for Tony [Iommi, guitarist] to
be diagnosed with lymphoma, leaving us no choice to postpone the proposed
Sabbath tour, and then for Bill to go public on his site about an unsignable
contract." Elsewhere in the statement, Butler explained that he, Osbourne
and Tommy Iommi started working on ideas for an album in the hope that they
could work on the material with Ward at a later date. He professed initial
ignorance to any contractual issues and suggested that none of the other
members of the band expected to make much money off an appearance at the
Download Festival that was apparently one of the sticking points for Ward’s
negotiations. Butler praised Clufetos as a "brilliant drummer and good
bloke" and ended his statement by saying he still hopes to play with Ward
again some day. Black Sabbath will headline this summer's Download Festival alongside Metallica
over the weekend of June 8-10………….
- Los Angeles, this has to be a very proud day for you. Both
of your NBA teams made the second round of the playoffs, your hockey team is
one win from the Stanley Cup Finals, the Dodgers are in first place and Norman the scooter dog has learned how
to ride a bike. After mastering motorized transportation, Norman can now ride a
bike. The Briad -- a breed of herding dog originally from France known for its
intelligence - is training to compete in Agility, Herding and Obedience
Competitions. The 3-year-old pooch, who received his Companion Dog Title in
Obedience when he was only 15 months old., is described as "naturally
curious" by his owners and apparently when he saw children riding
scooters, he wanted his turn. His feats earned him air time with a local TV station,
a place where novelty acts and freak shows are always welcome to help fill the
morning show hours. Norman’s fame spread so widely that he was featured on the
Natural Balance Pet Foods float for the 2012 Rose Parade. From there, he
vaulted into a TV career, including a weekly show on the Animal Planet. Now that he has learned
how to ride a bike, Norman just might be unstoppable and finding roles on the
big screen could be his next stop. Obviously he lives in the right place to
take advantage of his considerable skill set and seeing where Norman heads next
– on two wheels or four feet – should be interesting…………..
- Oh good, another sure-to-fail challenger for the social
networking throne. Microsoft has entered the fray and given the total lack of
success for would-be Facebook challenger Google+, one has to wonder what Bill
Gates’ brainchild is thinking. The social network, called So.cl, is supposedly built
on the idea of helping students connect with one another, which (although it’s
tough to remember) is the principle upon which Facebook was founded. However,
Microsoft has made it clear that competing with Mark Zuckerberg’s social
networking champion is not its intent for So.cl (pronounced “social”). Instead,
the network “is an experimental research project, developed by Microsoft’s FUSE
Labs, focused on exploring the possibilities of social search for the purpose
of learning” with the purpose of helping “people find and share interesting web
pages in the way students do when they work together” by combining social
networking and search. While trading haymakers with Facebook may not be the
plan, Microsoft clear does want to contend with Google+, which is also designed
to combine social and search. In this pursuit, So.cl focuses on a niche of
users and encourages them to share data a little differently by creating
“montages of visual web content.” To temper expectations, Microsoft readily
admits it expects students to use other social networks such as
Facebook in addition to So.cl. Despite the learning-oriented focus, anyone
can sign up to use So.cl. Microsoft has partnerships set up with a number of
schools, including University of Washington, Syracuse University, and New York
University, but made it clear “anyone can participate in the FUSE Labs research community,”
which includes the So.cl project. That all-inclusive approach probably won't help
So.cl any more than it has helped Google+ and both seemed doomed to fail sooner
than later. Of course, failure is a concept Microsoft is infinitely familiar
with…………
- Why so angry, Cleveland Indians closer Chris Perez, why so angry? Your team is
vastly outperforming expectations, is alone in first place in the American
League Central and showing few signs of slowing down any time soon. Yet there
is Perez, raging at Cleveland fans for any number of alleged offenses. Perez
made several enraged comments Saturday questioning why fans are not turning out
to see the first-place Indians and why some in the sparse crowds boo the team. "The
fans are going to come, I know that," Perez said. "It's just a slap
in the face when you're in first place and last in attendance. Last. Not 25th
or 26th. Last." He admitted that he has been frustrated by small crowds
for a long time and his breaking point came Thursday when he was booed because
two men reached base while he eventually saved a win over Seattle. "That
was the last straw," he explained before alluding to Twitter interactions
with fans based on his remarks. "I got a lot of messages and some of it
was funny." The team didn’t exactly rally to Perez’s defense, with team
president Mark Shapiro saying the organization differs with the way Perez spoke
and insisting the Indians do get fan support. He tried to spin Perez’s words as
the frustrated outburst of a player with a burning desire to win and get more
fans to come to the ballpark. "We clearly disagree with him about our
fans," Shapiro said. "We appreciate our fans. We respect our
fans." On the field, Perez earned his 13th save Saturday by striking out
the side on 10 pitches to clinch a 2-0 win over the Miami Marlins. His
controversial comments followed after what ironically was the season's
second-largest crowd, 29,799. Despite that crowd and a sellout of 43,190 for
the April 5 opener, the Indians have averaged 15,188 through 22 home dates. For
a team that posted a record 455 consecutive sellouts in the late 1990s, the
change is jarring. "Nobody wants to play in front of 5,000 fans,"
said Perez on Saturday. "We know the weather stinks, but people see that
(low attendance). Other players know that.” He suggested that free agents don’t
want to sign with the Indians in part because of the poor fan support. Fans may
counter that the Indians have been 65-97 in 2009, 69-93 the next year and 80-82
last season. They haven’t been serious contenders for several years and in a
tough economy, fans apparently have better things to do with their small amount
of disposable income than go see a slightly above average baseball team…………
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