- Josh Hamilton is having an MVP-quality year for the Texas
Rangers, but even his life still has its challenges. In between bashing home
runs for the first-place Rangers and having a Hollywood screenwriter turn his
life story into a movie script, Hamilton
is trying to stop his chewing tobacco habit. He said Monday that he's stopped
dipping the past two days and is instead using some tea tree oil and menthol
toothpicks that teammate Brandon Snyder gave him. "It was time to do
it," Hamilton said. "It's a habit and I don't really enjoy it like I
used to." He has quit in the past, but has always returned to the habit.
Having beaten drug and alcohol addictions in the past, chewing tobacco should
not be his most difficult fight and if special oils and toothpicks, so be it.
"The tea tree oil helps kill all the bacteria in your mouth, so it's
really good for you. The menthol is like a mint, but it's for your oral
fixation, the habit of having something in your mouth," said Snyder. As he
attempts to beat back tobacco, Hamilton is also trying to break a recent slump.
He is hitting just .194 in June with one homer and seven RBIs after winning AL
player of the month honors for April and May, but is still hitting .319 on the season. Throw
in the intestinal virus he has battled the past few weeks and life is suddenly
no picnic for Hamilton. Manager Ron Washington, who has himself used cocaine in
the past, is trying to get his star back in the right frame of mind. "I'm
not trying to put too much on Hamilton's mind," Washington said.
"He'll figure it out. It's not going to be a quick fix." His
struggles at the plate are hurting his chances of another MVP award and his
team’s chances for a return trip to the playoffs, but his addiction to chewing
tobacco could well kill a lot more than that if he doesn’t quit. It should make
for another interesting inclusion in that move script……..
- Tesla: A name
synonymous with retro rock and now, electric cars. The Tesla that manufactures
automobiles has cranked out its first round of first mass-market sedans and must now wait to see if the cars will be
successful on the road. Ten of the sedans, called the Model S, rolled off the
production line at the company's Fremont factory during a weekend ceremony that
was part pep rally, part corporate gathering. A lineup of self-important
luminaries, including California Gov. Jerry Brown, spoke to the crowd of
thousands, which erupted in cheers as the first cars left the building. Tesla
Motors, a Palo Alto-based company that is the brainchild of PayPal billionaire
and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, claims 10,000 people have put down a refundable
deposit for the five-seat sedan and officials say they expect to sell close to
5,000 this year. "This is another example of California on the move,"
Brown told the crowd. "This is a great car. You're a bunch of great
workers." Tesla Vice President George Blankenship explained that the cars
would be delivered using a "personal delivery program." One of the cars was
headed to Palo Alto, while two others were going to buyers in Chicago. "Arguably,
it may be the most beautiful sedan in the marketplace," a rather biased Blankenship
said. The Model S is an expensive whip, selling for $49,900 after a tax credit.
It can go approximately 155 miles on a single charge and Tesla is hoping the
car sells well after it lost nearly $1 billion selling an earlier model, a
high-end electric sports car called the Roadster. Just 2,150 Roadsters have
been sold since 2008 and Tesla’s hopes for surviving in the auto world are
fading fast. Musk doesn’t fail in business often, but if the Model S bombs out,
this could be one such occasion…….
- Damn you, bears. America has had enough and thanks to the
gun-loving nuts of the National Rifle Association, many of us are licensed to
pack hat. As such, your furry selves need to be aware that more incidents like
the one that took place Sunday morning
at Ponderosa Campground in the Tonto National Forest will not be tolerated. The
man, whose identity was not disclosed, was a Tempe resident who was injured
after a bear attacked him in his tent, gaming officials said. It was the
third attack in the Tonto National Forest since May 31 and two of the
attacks have occurred at Ponderosa Campground. Sunday’s attack caused park
officials to temporarily close the campground and the closure includes
Christopher Creek and Sharp Creek campgrounds, said Forest Supervisor
Neil Bosworth. "We simply cannot ensure camper safety in these areas and
need to take more immediate steps to protect the public," Bosworth said.
Wrong-O, Neil. You CAN ensure camper safety and it can be done with five simple
words: dudes with high-powered rifles. Station a sharpshooter in a high perch
near the camping area and if a bear attacks, put that beast down. Rather than
close the campgrounds until July 15, put some bullets in some bear skulls and
see if that doesn’t solve the problem. The Arizona Game and Fish Department
said that during Sunday’s attack, the victim suffered lacerations and bites to
his head and arm when the bear entered his tent and attacked him.
His fiancée and a 1-year-old child were also in the tent, but they escaped unharmed
and sounded the alarm so other campers could get away from the area. Shortly
after the attack, a camper at a nearby campsite shot at the bear several times
with a handgun at close range, but the bear left the area and it was not known
if any of the shots found their mark. "Extensive efforts are being made to
locate and remove the animal for the public's safety, which is our top
priority," said Rod Lucas, regional supervisor for the AGFD. In the two
previous attacks, a 74-year-old woman at Ponderosa Campground was clawed
during the night by a bear and suffered bruises and a laceration on her scalp
and Glendale resident Jason Amperse was bitten by a bear and suffered a bite
mark on his right leg and claw marks on his left leg. Connections between the
attacks are irrelevant because the only numbers that matter are three and seven,
as in three attacks in the past month and seven in the past 22 years. Whether
it is the state's drought and scarce wildlife food resources that wildlife
officials blame for the bears’ aggressive behavior or not, the time has come
for the humans – the ones in this battle with opposable thumbs – to literally
fire back…………
- A few months away from turning 40, Jenny McCarthy is
proving that her life really hasn’t gone anywhere in the past two decades. The
host of NBC’s crap-tacularly awful reality “dating” series “Love in the Wild”
as well as a veteran of scores of equally forgettable TV series over the years,
McCarthy is set to make her seventh – SEVENTH – appearance sans clothes in the
pages of Playboy. Not only that, she will grace the cover of the July/August
issue that hits newsstands Friday. While some might argue that a woman still
being deemed attractive enough to pose for the cover of a sleazy skin mag at
age 40 is a sign that she is in great shape and still desirable, the fact that
McCarthy hasn’t found anything better to do with her life in the past 15-20
years than make some extra cash by taking off her clothes for millions of
desperate, horny dudes to enjoy is more than a little sad – just don’t tell her
that. "I'm really proud of it," McCarthy proclaimed. "The
pictures are really gorgeous and classy. They could be out of W
magazine. They're really elegant. It's probably a lot more sophisticated
than a lot of the stuff you'd see of people with their clothes on."
Oh, the old, “They’re really classy and well done and I had TOTAL artistic
control” explanation for why your primary skill in life is being ogle-able for
men who peruse skin mags for the articles. McCarthy also explained that she
likes posing for Hugh Hefner’s publication because the magazine doesn’t
glamorize only thin women – although it could be easily argued that having
women take their clothes off for money doesn’t glamorize them at all. "The
one thing I like about Playboy is they don't have the anorexic
look," she said. "The women are voluptuous. So I didn't really want
to diet. I just wanted to tone up." Best of success in finding something
better to do with your life so you don’t end up back on the pages of Playboy
and hosting reality shows five or 10 years from now, J………..
- Start small and build it big, angry Haitians. The sight of more than 1,000 Haitians marching through the capital city of
Port-au-Prince Monday to protest a reported plan to destroy their hillside
shanties for a flood-control project before they find better, more permanent
dwellings is inspiring, but the scale of the effort needs to increase rapidly
if this effort is going any place significant. The government wants to demolish
the shelters, which were built in the wake of a devastating earthquake. In one
of the poorest nations in the world, that sort of idea riles the masses and so
it was Monday as protestors marched and police overreacted by firing ear gas in
an attempt to control the protesters, some of whom threw rocks. The march wound
through the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, fueled by the chanting of threats
to burn down the affluent district where the shanties sit if the authorities
flatten the disputed homes. Arson threats command attention and those chants
were a smart play. Pierre Andre Gedeon, the No. 2 official at the Environment
Ministry, inspired the uprising last week when he said during a local radio
broadcast that officials want to demolish several hundred homes to build
channels and reforest the hillsides in an effort to curb the deadly floods that
come with the annual rainy season. Sure, the goal itself is noble, but that
doesn’t make suddenly homeless people feel better. The majority of the threatened
homes are in Jalousie, a cinderblock shantytown that spreads across a
mountainside alongside the affluent city of Petionville that comprises the
Port-au-Prince metro area. Maybe if President Michel Martelly had followed
through on his promise to build homes destroyed in the 2010 earthquake, the
protest wouldn’t have been necessary. Yes, the government is building hundreds
of homes north of the capital, but not nearly enough homes. Housing issues are
not new in the city of some 3 million and many homes crash down the hills every
year during the country's rainy seasons. The pertinent question is why it took
so long for a protest like this to take place. Big ups to the protestors who
kicked the march off by hurling rocks at a towering hotel financed in part by
the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. In a country where there is little to do other
than figure out where one’s next meal and next night of sleep will come from, a
protest or riot is a great way to pass the time while also making an emphatic
point………..
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