- Russia has plenty to be ashamed about, but soccer
shouldn’t be high on the list. Communism, rigged elections and a despotic,
rights-trampling leader are reasons to feel bad about your country, but an
early exit
from Euro 2012 is not. Just don’t try telling that to Russian fans, politicians
and media after their team was bounced in the group stage of the tournament
Friday after a 1-0 defeat to Greece in Warsaw. When the draw for Euro 2012 was
made last December, Russia landed a seemingly enviable spot in a winnable group
alongside Poland, Greece and the Czech Republic. Even notoriously drab coach
Dick Advocaat cracked a smile at the time and after Russia bolted from the gate
in its first game and crushed he Czechs, winning 4-1 when it could have scored
10, the optimism appeared justified. Scarring memories of Euro championships
past were wiped away and with a win in either of their final two matches of the
group round, the Russians would be on to the knockout stage. That win never
came as a 1-1 tie with bitter rival Poland after riots between the two teams’
fans in the streets the day of the game and the loss to the Greeks left Russia
and Poland on the outside looking in as Greece and the Czechs moved on. The resulting disappointment by national
media members paired nicely with the anger expressed by many fans at the
lackluster performance and apparent absence of suitable outrage on the part of
the players. A team of which much was expected simply didn’t seem too broken up
by their elimination. The Russian squad walking straight off the field
and down the tunnel after their loss to the Greeks rather than run over to
their fans to thank them for their support. At the e postmatch press conference,
Advocaat stated that he was "satisfied with his work” and that Russia
"had played well." Worst of all was captain Andrei Arshavin getting
hooked by a fan in the lobby of the team hotel in Warsaw and getting dragged
into an argument that ended with him derisively telling the fan, "The fact
that we didn't live up to your expectations isn't our problem. It's yours."
The team is facing scathing criticism for lodging at the Bristol, Warsaw's most
expensive hotel, and delivering a bargain-basement effort. A deputy in Russia's
Duma (parliament) has proposed banning Arshavin from receiving commercial endorsement
earnings as punishment for the Euro 2012 fiasco. Time to hit the premium vodka
for solace………
- Rich people who always NEED to have the newest, most
expensive toy or gadget to hold over the heads of your fellow 1-percent friends,
act now. Sharp is thinking big and to stay ahead of the curve, you need to
think along with them. While it may seem like flat-screen televisions have
grown ridiculously large and that making them any bigger was a waste because
you may as well install a movie screen in your home, Sharp disagrees. Instead,
the tech giant unveiled the 90-inch Aquos LED TV on Tuesday, rolling out an
entertainment monster that stands 4 feet tall and is 6 feet, 8 inches across.
To put it in perspective, the screen is as wide as LeBron James is tall. Yet
the entire package is less than 5 inches thick and weighs 114 pounds. What can
one expect to pay for what is believed to be the biggest LED high-def
television on the market? A mere $10,999.99. Yes, $10,999 would have been too
cheap, so those extra 99 cents were a must. Before dismissing the 90-inch model
as a novelty few will buy, take a look at the success of the 60-, 70- and
80-inch sets from the past despite some having relatively small viewing angles.
Sharp Electronics of America President John Herrington touted the TV as
offering “size, picture quality and smart functionality unlike anything
consumers have experienced.” In an accompanying news release, Sharp hyped the
screen by painting a picture of standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon and
seeing the breathtaking scene below. "That's the experience you'll get
when watching the breathtaking 90-inch (diagonal) AQUOS LED TV (model
LC-90LE745U), introduced today by Sharp," the release said. Right, but a
family of four could afford three or four trips to the actual Grand Canyon for
the price of that TV……….
- In a story straight out of a cable legal drama’s plot
(literally), the battle between artsy East Williamsburg tenants and
their determined landlord has taken a theatrical twist. Borrowing a plot quite
literally played out in the most recent season of the USA Network drama “Fairly
Legal,” the landlord of the apartments at 13 and 15 Thames, a loft-style
building, has allegedly hired a local , to chase out his unwanted tenants. The
Brooklyn neighborhood where the building is located is also home to the
motorcycle gang and after the city ordered the first floor tenants to vacate in
January, the landlord allegedly turned to the gang for help in forcing those
tenants out. "Our landlord has hired bikers. A bike gang is trying to
intimidate people inside our building," said tenant Jason Blackman. He and
his fellow first-floor dwellers, many of whom are artists and free spirits,
believe their landlord wants to raise rent to attract wealthier, upper-class
tenants. "They're trying to bully us out, but we're not budging,"
Blackman proclaimed. When initial attempts to remove the current tenants
failed, the members of the Forbidden Ones began showing up. Because the gang
has long met on the same block as the apartment building, their presence is
nothing new. However, their purpose for being there has shifted and depending
upon whom you ask, it is either for sinister reasons or security purposes. "We're here to make sure people don't
sneak in and squat," said Tito Martinez, a Forbidden One member. "The landlord is not paying us to
force them out.” Under Martinez’s logic, the landlord hired him to be the
building's super. In exchange, his gang is allowed to park their bikes in the
building's garage. The first-floor tenants believe the arrangement is much
shadier and police records show that more than nearly three dozen 911 calls
have been made from the building since January, most to report harassment.
Amazingly, the landlord has been unavailable for comment on the issue and doesn’t
seem likely to surface any time soon………
- What would you get if you took the Kardashians, replaced their
Hollywood excess and vapidity with Alaskan heartiness, removed the constant
barrage of sex that’s the epicenter of the Kardashian brand and swapped it out
with conservative values and mixed in a heaping helping of cluelessness? That’s
right, you would end up with the Palin family. As the Kardashian empire spreads
its insipid presence across the reality television world, the Palins are
fighting back to see who can have the biggest reality TV presence while
simultaneously making the world a worse place. Leading the way was the mama
grizzly herself, Sarah Palin, who had a short-lived, poorly rated reality
series on TLC. “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” was an unmitigated disaster, but that didn’t
deter Lifetime from offering up a reality show to Palin’s teen mom daughter
Bristol, whose new series “Bristol
Palin: Life’s a Tripp,” premiered this week. Following around an IQ-deficient
young woman with a child of her own is fascinating and all, but that clearly is
not enough to make the Palins the first family of reality TV. Cue the patriarch
of the family, Sarah’s poor husband Todd, who will be one of the “celebrity”
contestants on the upcoming “Stars Earn Stripes” competition series. That
announcement came the same day as “Bristol Palin: Life’s a Tripp,” premiered. “Stars
Earn Stripes” actually has an idea that isn't totally terrible, pairing military
or law enforcement personnel with E-list celebrities and putting them through missions
inspired by real-life military exercises. One team will be eliminated each week
and retired US Army Gen. Wesley Clark — one-time Supreme Allied Commander
Europe for NATO — and “Dancing With the Stars’” Samantha Harris will host. A
cast of bad celebrity reality show retreads will comprise the “stars” portion
of the cast as boxing champ Laila Ali, actor Dean Cain, former NFL star Terry
Crews, singer Nick Lachey and Olympic skier Picabo Street are all part of the
show………….
- What is it with prominent Eastern European politicians
and plagiarism of late? In March, Hungarian President Pal Schmitt was caught up in a plagiarism scandal from his university
days and now, new Romanian
premier
Victor Ponta is in a similar spot. Ponta dismissed the charges as part of a
plot orchestrated by the country’s president, but reports that more than half Ponta’s
432-page thesis on the International Criminal Court had been copied from other
sources will not go away. The premier has insisted he will not resign and
sounded downright defiant when questioned about the issue. “Have I done
something against Romania’s interests as prime minister? Why should I resign?
No way,” he scoffed. The scandal comes just one month after Ponta’s left-wing
Social Liberal Union only came to power, following a “no confidence” vote
against the previous center-right government. Ponta made it clear he views the
accusations as manufactured drama directly from President Traian Basescu, who
has close links to the opposition center-right Democrat-Liberal Party. “You know very well
this is a pretext of a political war between President Basescu and I, a war
each of us leads with their own weapons,” Ponta said. Great, except that doesn’t
explain how more than 200 pages of your thesis were lifted from someone else’s
work. In Ponta’s deluded world, his thesis’ bibliography lists the papers he
had consulted and the project’s foreword was written by Ion Diaconu, one of the
writers whose work he was accused of plagiarizing. Should the country’s
education ministry want to review the thesis, Ponta said he would be happy to
submit his work. “If the
commission tells me I wasn’t supposed to list the bibliography at the end but
insert it as footnotes, of course I will give up my doctor’s title immediately.
I am not mad about titles, I don’t care about this one,” he said. That an
elected official in Romania has a possibly bogus doctorate isn't that
surprising, as following the collapse of Communism in 1989, a large number of private
universities and institutes sprang up, offering questionable qualifications.
Whether Ponta goes the way of Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, a
German defense minister tipped as a successor to Chancellor Angela Merkel who
resigned his post following his own plagiarism scandal, remains to be seen……….
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