- Seeing the same team anywhere between four and seven times
within a two-week period with so much on the line, hate, animosity and
hostility are bound to crop up. That’s part of what makes the NBA playoffs so
compelling, but not every playoff series contains the level of utter disdain
displayed so far in the first-round matchup between the Dallas Mavericks and
Oklahoma City Thunder. In a rematch of last season’s Western Conference finals
won by Dallas, the Thunder have won the first two games at home by a combined
four points and in Monday night’s Game 2, a close game turned into a nasty game
when Thunder center Kendrick Perkins and Mavs star Dirk Nowitzki battled for
position near the hoop on a rebound. Perkins took objection to a hard shot from
Nowiztki, came back at the 7-foot German and the two exchnaged words. Perkins
took a wild swing in Nowitzki’s direction and teammates pulled both of them
back before anything more serious could occur. Still, there was no denying that
Perkins was ready to go upside Nowitzki’s head and Nowitzki was not backing
down. As angry as he was, Dallas coach Rick Carlisle was even more fired up
after the game in his press conference. Asked about the altercation and the
chippy play on the court, Carlisle reiterated the popular refrain around the
league that the Thunder are a dirty team. He explained that he’s in favor of
physical playoff basketball, but "the dirty bullshit has got to stop."
The contempt in his voice was apparent and even if he was largely looking to
fight a PR battle with the media and referees to put a more intense focus on
the supposed dirty play, there is no questioning that the two teams despise
each other and the rest of the series should be awesomely nasty…………
- What does Tom Cruise do to fill his time between
big-budget “Mission: Impossible” sequels? Step in for another A-lister as a
vampire slayer, apparently. Cruise has accepted the lead role in the next “Van
Helsing” movie, taking the place of the franchise’s former leading man, Hugh
Jackman. The irony of a diminutive action star who previously played the title
role in “Interview with a Vampire” playing a vampire slayer is heavy, but
Cruise clearly knows his way around a blockbuster. Jackman may well have realized
that his future with the series was dim after the previous incarnation was
critically panned despite scaring up in excess of $300 million worldwide. To
give Cruise a better chance for success, Universal is bringing in the big guns,
signing respected writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, the brain trust behind the
forthcoming “Star Trek 2,” “Transformers” and “Mission
Impossible: III.” The MI-3 gig obviously partnered them with Cruise and
Universal obviously hopes to recapture that magic in a vampire-ific way. Orci
and Kurtzman signed two-year contracts with universal and one of their first
tasks with Universal will be giving a minor makeover to the script for the
sequel to “The Amazing Spider-Man.” Changing the perception of the
franchise will be a difficult task, but adding Cruise and a high-powered
writing team gives the project a solid start……….
- The results are in. Scientists examining the remains of
"Otzi," Italy's prehistoric iceman who roamed the Alps some 5,300
years ago, announced Wednesday that they have identified what they believe to be
the oldest traces of human blood ever found. A team of German and Italian
scientists said they used an atomic force microscope to examine tissue sections
from a wound caused by an arrow that killed the Copper Age man and in those
samples were small traces of blood. Otzi as found frozen in a glacier with a
small laceration on his right hand. "They really looked similar to
modern-day blood samples," explained professor lead researcher Albert
Zink, the German head of the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman at the
European Academy in Bolzano. "So far, this is the clearest evidence of the
oldest blood cells.” Zink and his team worked with the Center for Smart
Interfaces at Darmstadt Technical University in Germany and the Center for Nano
Sciences in Munich. Otzi has been dissected and sampled for two decades as
scientists have collected data from his stomach, bowels and teeth. German
climbers famously discovered Otzi protruding from a glacier in 1991 in the
Tyrolean Alps on the Austrian-Italian border. His nickname is derived from the
German word for the area where he was found and we now know that he had type-O
blood to go with his brown hair and approximate age of 45 at the time of his
death by arrow-inflicted wound thousands of years ago. Zink and his team
determined Ozti’s blood type using a nanotechnology instrument that scans the
surface of the tissue sections using a very fine probe with sensors to measure
every tiny deflection, line by line and point by point, building up a
three-dimensional image. The probe identified red blood cells with the classic
doughnut shape seen in healthy people today. "It is very interesting to
see that the red blood cells can last for such a long time," he said. "This
will also open up possibilities for forensic science and may help lead to a
more precise determination of the age of blood spots in crime investigations."
Marek Janko and Robert Stark, professors of material sciences at the Center for
Nano Sciences in Munich and Italian colleagues in Bolzano, partnered with Zink
on the research and the trio hopes to carry out further analysis on Otzi's
enzymes, proteins and immune system. No word on whether they will test Ozti’s
blood for prehistoric performance-enhancing substances………….
- Boy Scouts are not the coolest, edgiest group. In fact,
anyone who remains a Scout past the age of 10 is in store for some serious
mocking and ostracism from their peers on account of merit badges, sashes and
hiking trips to the local state park not being what teens and pre-teens
consider to be cool. To rate on the popularity scale, a Boy Scout needs to do
something truly spectacular because rising above their dork-tacular status is
all but impossible. Four Hornell, N.Y. Boy Scouts made their attempt to get
more run with the ladies while hanging out on a car ride through town. One
moment, the quartet was acting like kids in the back seat of a car and moments
later, they were rushing to the aid of three men trapped under the remains of a
collapsed building at the site of the
former Parkway Apartments on Begole Road. The building collapsed during a
planned demolition Saturday afternoon as the property owner was tearing down a
vacant section of the building. When the Boy Scouts arrived on the site, the
picture in front of them was a bit grisly. "I was scared because a man’s
leg was up near his shoulder," said scout Lee Cornish. Fellow scouts Noah
McHenry, Sam Argentieri, Aiden Libordi sprang into action after Cornish’s
father stopped the car. "We tried to lift it up enough so the men could
breathe and have an oxygen flow," Lee Cornish explained. After 10 minutes,
the group of five was able to clear some debris and lessen the load on those
trapped. Emergency responders arrived to finish the job and victims Myron
Gibson and Richard Powers were both treated and released, while the status of
third victim Terry Young is not known………..
- Memo to the Taliban: You’re supposed to be a militant
group of extremists looking to seize control of a country, not a junior high
musical or college football team. What the hell happened to covertly launching
your violent offensives to overthrow the establishment and taking everyone by
surprise? Instead, the Taliban acted as if it were letting the community know
about its spring performances of “Guys and Dolls” by alerting the world that it will officially
start its annual "spring offensive" in Afghanistan on Thursday. Worse
still, they announced that this year's offensive would be code-named
"Al-Farouk," the title of the second Muslim caliph who lived in the
seventh century. There is no problem with the name, but there is a problem with
announcing the SECRET CODE NAME of your plan. According to the suddenly
talkative Taliban, the offensive will focus on "all those people who work
against the Mujahedeen, toil to pave ground for the occupation of Afghanistan
and become the cause for the strength of the invaders." The announcement
reeks of desperately gasping for straws as the group sough a rebuttal following
a surprise visit by President Barack Obama. Obama spoke live to the American
people via satellite after he and Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed a strategic
partnership agreement that will serve as the framework for future relations
between the two nations. To respond, Taliban attackers targeted a heavily
fortified, private compound in eastern Afghanistan that is mostly occupied by
internationals. A car bomb at 6:15 a.m. Thursday rocked the area and gunfire
followed the bombing. Police officials claimed the incident was under control
by 9 a.m., with seven people dead and 17 injured in the attack. "With this
attack we want to send a message to Obama that the Afghans will welcome you
with attacks. He needs to take out forces from Afghanistan. Not kill the
innocent Afghans and destroy the Afghans' country. You don't need to sign
agreements; you need to focus on how to get out of this country," said
Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban. Unfortunately for the Taliban,
most Afghans have responded to the agreement by expressing optimism that it
will secure much needed international support for Afghanistan past the 2014
deadline for Afghans to take over security of their country. "The
agreement gives independence and sovereignty to Afghanistan, not completely,
but it gives some sovereignty," said Mahmoud Khan, a member of parliament
from Kandahar. Under the terms of the agreement, the two nations are committed
to working together through 2024 and the U.S. is also committed to providing
ongoing financial support for the Afghan security forces and development
efforts in Afghanistan. Fighting against all of that is fine if that’s what the
Taliban believes in, but the least they could do was keeping their plans secret
and springing them on the world like any good group of self-respecting
militants would……….
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