- Dammit. The Ecuadorian coast guard is NOT helping the
cokeheads of the Western Hemisphere any favors and seizing a semisubmersible capable of transporting 10
to 15 tons of cocaine is a major shot across the bow of cartels and junkies
alike. While the vessel was under construction on a small island in the Gulf of
Guayaquil and not quite seaworthy just yet, it could have been a major weapon
in the battle to bring 8 balls, dime bags and bricks of the Colombian nose
candy north. In an official statement, the coast guard says in a statement that
the vessel was 50 feet long and 13 feet wide and estimated that the project was
about 70 percent finished. The craft was reportedly similar to a semisubmersible
seized Monday by Colombia off the neighboring country's southwest coast, so it
has been a thoroughly terrible week for druggies needing to get their fix as
cheap as possible. Manufacturing these semisubmersible crafts is apparently
growing into a cottage industry in Ecuador, as the one discovered Tuesday was
the second semisubmersible found this year in the country. These knock-off
versions of actual submarines move just below the water's surface, requiring
air intake and exhaust pipes as they are powered by internal combustion
engines. They are a common method of smuggling cocaine to Mexico for transit to
the United States and if the militaries of various South and Latin American
nations are going to continue seizing them and hamstringing those who rely on
them to do business, the cost of being a cokehead is going to become too high
for a lot of addicts to continue the way of life to which they have become
accustomed……….
- Putting laid-off police officers and educators back to
work has been a frequent campaign promise on both side of political spectrum
during the increasingly combative presidential campaign, but for now times
remain tough for school districts and law enforcement agencies. To cope with
budgetary shortfalls, police departments are trying all sorts of creative
initiatives to do their jobs with a minimum of resources. The Marysville
(Calif.) Police Department is caught in just such a bind and while the problem
of vandalism at a local cemetery isn't exactly at the top of the list in a
world where murders, robberies and rapes are all too common, the MPD is seeking
options to police the historic
Marysville Cemetery, which has sustained $28,000 in damage over the past
year. To keep an eye out for cemetery shenanigans, the department has
hired a homeless man to be the caretaker for the property and in return, Donald
"Shortstack" Oliver will get a place to live. Oliver will live in a
city-leased trailer overlooking the cemetery and watch for any sort of criminal
activity on the property. "I never thought in my lifetime I'd be
overseeing a graveyard, but hey the good Lord has his ways," Oliver said.
He has been homeless for three years, but has gained a reputation around town
for going out of his way to help fellow homeless people and police. His
trustworthiness has led police to believe that he can oversee the gravestones
that date to 1850. "You should respect the people who are buried here.
Each life, every headstone has a story.
It represents a life that's been
lived and you should respect that," Oliver proclaimed. He and his dog
Rosie hope to combat the vandalism problem as a group of volunteers from the
Marysville Cemetery Commission seek to restore old gravesites. When he’s
not keeping an eye out for evildoers, Oliver clears brush from the cemetery,
which is next to a high school and a popular bike trail. Perhaps his stroke of
positive fortune will lead to other good things in the future for a man who
seems to deserve a break……….
- Napping it out: It’s a solid life strategy for the
successful, not just for slackers. A research team from Northwestern University provided
credence to the philosophy espoused by successful coaches, athletes and
entertainers, including North Carolina basketball coach Roy Williams and
two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash, that napping it out for half an hour or an hour in
the middle of the day actually paves the way for increased productivity. The
Northwestern team asked volunteers to learn how to play two artificially
generated musical tunes requiring well-timed key presses. They recorded the
songs and played one of them while the participants took a 90-minute nap, but
did not play the second song. After waking from their nap, participants made
fewer errors trying to play the song that was played while they slept, compared
to the one that was not played during their nap. The findings build on existing
evidence suggesting memories can be reactivated during sleep and storage of
them can be strengthened in the process, according to Northwestern psychology
Professor Ken Paller. "Our results extend prior research by showing that
external stimulation during sleep can influence a complex skill," Paller said.
While the findings don’t mean throwing on a Rosetta Stone CD while you sleep
will allow you to learn Russian or Mandarin Chinese faster, they do indicated
that a person can strengthen their grasp on something that is already in their
mind. "The critical difference is that our research shows that memory is
strengthened for something you've already learned," study co-author Paul
J. Reber said. "Rather than learning something new in your sleep, we're
talking about enhancing an existing memory by re-activating information
recently acquired." Yet another reason why it pays to nap it out……….
- After a season that didn’t exactly surpass expectations,
the New York Knicks aren't exactly having a stellar offseason. First, 11-time
NBA champion Phil Jackson blasted their roster’s construction as “clumsy” and
suggested stars Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony didn’t fit well together
after he wasn’t contacted as a possible head coaching candidate. Then there was
Anthony showing up for the unveiling of his own wax figure at Madame Tussaud’s
Wax Museum in New York and insisting that with LeBron James having finally won
a ring, “My time is coming.” There was no talk of “our time” or raising the
Knicks up with him, only boasting about him winning a ring soon. Now there is
Stoudemire, slapped with a $50,000 fine by the NBA for sending out a gay slur
in a direct message to one of his Twitter followers. Stu Jackson, the league's
executive vice president of basketball operations, announced the fine Tuesday
in a release, labeling Stoudemire's language offensive and derogatory. While
Stoudemire was at least smart enough not to use the slur in a tweet that all of
his followers could see, the end result was the same after the fan, @BFerrelli,
challenged the All-Star to "make up for this past season."
Stoudemire, smart enough not to tweet his slur back but still dumb enough to
get hooked by a fan, sent d a direct message containing an expletive and the slur.
The message came from the account Twitter verifies as Stoudemire's and @BFerrelli,
identified as Brian Ferrelli, posted a screen shot of the direct message.
Realizing how bad he looked, Stoudemire apologized Sunday to Ferrelli and also
issued an apology in a statement on Tuesday. "I am a huge supporter of
civil rights for all people," he said. "I am disappointed in myself
for my statement to a fan. I should have known better and there is no
excuse." No, there’s not and the stigma from your slur is going to stick
with you much longer than the impact of that measly $50,000 fine, Amare……….
- Clearly, anything can be turned into a musical or
Broadway show these days. Mike Tyson has shoehorned his bizarre life story into
a one man show slated for a run on the Great White Way next month and across
the Atlantic Ocean, a thoroughly ridiculous effort is coming to the state of the
West End's Piccadilly Theatre. Truly forgettable ‘90s girl pop group Spice
Girls will be saluted in a musical based on their greatest hits, which should
make it a very short show if the term hits is to be taken literally. To
announce the musical, Spice Skanks members Victoria Beckham, Melanie Chisholm,
Emma Bunton, Geri Halliwell and Melanie Brown reunited Tuesday for the first
time since 2008, gathering at the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel to promote the
show. The appearance was a look to the future as well as an homage to the past,
as the five of them posed for pictures on the staircase at the hotel where they
shot the 1996 music video for their single track "Wannabe.” "Good
morning London!! Song of the Day (is) Reunited (by) Peaches and Herb... Sunny
day in London, so nice being home!!!" Beckham wrote on her Twitter
account. Brown was equally cheery and slightly more profane, tweeting, "Whoop
whoop where my spice biatches at!!!... Lovin All spice fans always!” Because no
one is going to pay for a musical featuring the zeros and zeros of actual,
legitimate hits the group had, producers have loosened the definition of the
term and will feature 18 of the Spice Skanks’ songs in the show when it opens in
December. The group formed in 1994, but have obviously gone their separate ways
to varying degrees of failure since splitting up in 2001 and briefly reuniting
in 2006……….
No comments:
Post a Comment