- Potential travel delays and setbacks abound any time a
person sets foot inside an airport. Weather delays, lost luggage and overbooked
flights are inescapable and that doesn’t even factor in one’s idiot fellow
travelers and their sheer stupidity. So what can an airport do to pick is
passengers up? For an answer, turn to a very unlikely source: the Communist,
rights-trampling hell hole that is China. Specifically, head to the northeast China city of Dalian, where
passengers have a few very cheerful, perky reasons not to be upset when their
flight is delayed or canceled. To distract its distraught passengers, Dalian
International Airport recently recruited a squad of cheerleaders to perform
kicks, jumps and splits in the airport's main hall. That’s right, their
solution is to skank it up and expecting China to go that route was as much a
reach as any bizarre idea ever could be. Yet there the airport spirit squad was
during massive fog-related delays in Dalian last week, performing for more than
5,000 stranded flyers. The cheerleading show is part of the airport’s effort to
“bring more convenience to passengers in the summer-autumn air season,” explained
Zhen Qun, an airport official. Even better was an airport statement saying the
performances were a way for the Dalian airport to “demonstrate spirit and
shoulder social responsibility.” Associating cheer skanks and social
responsibility is funny, but entertaining. While the Dalian International
Airport spirit squad may not be the glorified strippers that NBA franchises
trot out on the court every game, they seem to have had a positive impact thus
far. Combine them with free physical checkup and instant weather and flight
updates by text message and Dalian International Airport may be onto something.
To keep up the mystery, Zhen refused to reveal a schedule for the performances.
At least one has taken place every day for the past week, each lasting two to
three hours, with breaks. Who are the spirit squad members? “The cheerleaders
are enrolled in different colleges in Dalian. We hire them on a work-for-study
program,” Zhen added. “The performance is free of charge for passengers.”
Whatever works for you, Z……………
- Cam Newton may have become the first player in NFL history to pass for 4,000 yards and run for
500 last season and he may have drastically improved the Carolina Panthers
offense as a rookie, but he still believes he was a bad teammate during his
Rookie of the Year season. "I was very immature," Newton said of his
effort as a starter and team leader in his first NFL season. When asked why, he
explained that he had difficulty adjusting to losing during Carolina's 6-10
season and reacted poorly after losses. "I'll be the first one to tell
you, the pouting and the moping, I kind of overdid it. I know that. I was a bad
teammate. That's where I have to mature," he continued. Newton glossed
over the fact that he breathed life and energy back into the career of
beaten-down star receiver Steve Smith and was able to take the lifeless
Panthers offense from the league's worst in 2010 to the fifth-highest scoring
attack in 2011. He now realizes that he was beating himself up over his
mistakes and that led to the moping, even if those watching him saw a young
quarterback who vastly exceeded expectations and improved a terrible team to a
slightly below-average one. His favorite target on the field saw the same thing
and believes in Newton as a signal caller. "Cam was angry because he
thought he could and should make every play," Smith said. "He has to
realize you can't do it all yourself. It's like when someone drops a touchdown
pass at the end of a close game. You can say that play cost the team a chance
to win the game, but it didn't cause the team to lose.” Should Newton achieve
his goal and become a more stable, even-keeled player in pressure situations,
the rest of the NFL should look the hell out. Coach Ron Rivera praised Newton
for his leadership efforts during Carolina's organized team activities so far
this offseason. After the Panthers won four of their final six games last
season, hopes are high in 2012…………
- The release may have been a little hurried and forced on
account of the ever-annoying online leak, but the first trailer for director Tom
Hooper's highly anticipated big-screen version of “Les Misérables” has finally dropped and in it, fans of
the famed musical finally get a chance to hear Anne Hathaway sing "I Dreamed a Dream." Hathaway plays the
tragic Fantine in the 19th-century tale and her massively downsized hairdo has
already become a point of interest for fans. But hair choices aside, the
question of how her vocals would sound has become a bigger issue after an
unauthorized trailer that leaked to the Web a few weeks ago showcased shaky
vocals that drew swift, negative reactions from fans who questioned whether or
not she was fit to play the part of Fantine. The leaked video was quickly taken
down amidst criticism that perhaps Hooper, the director of “The King’s Speech,”
insisted on his actors singing live on set without lip-syncing to a
pre-recorded track. Hathaway’s stripped-down version of the classic showstopper
was a prime example of this problem for the haters, but her vocals sound much
better in the new version of the trailer. Alongside the “Dark Knight Rises”
star will be Hugh Jackman as Jean
Valjean, Russell Crowe as his
dogged pursuer Inspector Javert; Amanda
Seyfried as Fantine's daughter and Valjean's ward Cosette, and newcomer Eddie Redmayne as Cosette's true love.
Bad singing or not, “Les Misérables” is scheduled to hit theaters on Dec. 14……………
- Who’s having fun, Thailand? How can the Thai people not be
on the verge of the introduction of a
bill that could clear the way for the return of polarizing ex-Prime Minister
Thaksin Shinawatra with no repercussions? Not only might Shinawatra be
returning, but his former top lieutenants are also on the verge of returning to
politics after a five-year ban. The legislation, shockingly enough, is the handiwork
of the party of current Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin's sister.
The party hopes to introduce legislation in parliament that would serve as a first
step toward providing amnesty for Yingluck Shinawatra’s fugitive brother's
convictions and allow him to return to Thailand without further consequences.
Clearly, the hope is that the Thai people forget that Thaksin was ousted by a
2006 military coup after being accused of abuse of power and disrespect to Thai
King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Oh, and never mind that his party was dissolved by a
legal decision the year after, or that he was among the 111 executives of the
Thai Rak Thai Party banned from politics for five years. Thaskin went into
self-imposed exile and his potential return has been a divisive issue ever
since, threatening to reopen wounds that have healed over the past six years. Both
sides in the battle have ramped up their efforts in recent weeks and Thaskin’s Yellow
Shirt opponents in the People's Alliance for Democracy took to the streets
Wednesday in one of their largest demonstrations in months. The group opposes a
government-backed reconciliation bill to grant amnesty to all parties involved
in political violence and wrongdoing from the end of 2005 through mid-2010. It
was the Yellow Shirts’ vitriol-fueled protest in 2006 that set the coup in
motion and two years later, they boldly occupied the prime minister's offices
for three months and Bangkok's two airports for a week to pressure two
pro-Thaksin prime ministers out of office. Both the street scenes and the scene
inside parliament were contentious Wednesday as the opposition Democrat Party
sought to derail efforts to schedule debate on the bill and their Yellow Shirt
friends raged outside. Ironically, the protests were better behaved than the legislators,
with one female Democrat lawmaker dragging the House speaker's empty chair off
the podium, sparking a scuffle with government members of parliament.
Regardless of the outcome, the five-year ban on Thaksin and his party
associates expired at midnight Wednesday………….
- FAT, but unwilling to put in the time and effort necessary
to lose weight and shed flab simply to avoid small hassles like diabetes, heart
disease, heart problems and a lack of energy? Why not add one of the world’s
best motivators to the mix: money. With a small-but-growing number of websites
cropping up around the concept, a group of researchers who recently completed
and published a study in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine decided
to see if offering obese people money to lose weight really works. The study wasn’t
exactly a typical lab-based experiment in which medical experts with no
ulterior motives set out to expand the knowledge base on a topic. Instead,
researchers offered as much as $175 for people who met their goals
during the intervention to which they were assigned. They also offered a
20-week follow-up period during which time participants could earn $30 to $80
if they kept on recording and sending their information. The study was also
flawed in that it did not directly examine the impact money had on participants’
weight loss. Overall, the project followed 204 people who had several
indicators of a need to change habits: low physical activity, a lot of
sedentary leisure time, a high intake of saturated fat was elevated and a low
intake of fruits and vegetables. Rather than address a person’s specific issue,
researchers randomly assigned each participant one of four treatments: increase
fruits and vegetables, decrease fat and leisure time that's not active, lower
fat and sedentary leisure or eat more fruits and vegetables and lower inactive
leisure time. Using mobile technologies and remote coaching, researchers
attempted to make sure participants were closely following their prescribed
treatment. The most effective treatment proved to be the simultaneous
increasing of fruits and vegetables and lowering of leisure time spent
sedentary. Because all participants got the same offer of money, the goal of
the study was not to whether money would help people lose weight. The one
factor working in favor of that concept was the continued improvement of
participants during the five-month follow-up period, even though they were not
asked or encourage to stay healthy during that time. Nearly 87 percent of the 185
people who gave exit interviews said they "definitely" or
"somewhat" tried to maintain their goals, meaning they did so at a
time when they were still being offered money to lose eight. Previous studies
have shown similar results, so maybe there is something to the idea that FAT
people love money like a FAT kid loves ice cream………….
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