- If you’re going to stage a coup and force your
democratically elected president out of office, do it the right way, Paraguay. As
a hint, the correct way to stage a coup does not involve a rushed impeachment
that doesn’t give the world a chance to savor and enjoy your revolt. But that’s
exactly what happened last week in the South American nation, as President Federico
Lugo was removed from office in a matter of hours last week. The move has
angered may inside and outside of the country and two regional groups on Friday
unanimously condemned a lack of democracy in Paraguay. The groups also banned
the country from regional forums until new presidential elections are held next
year. However, no one has had the kahones to impose economic sanctions on
Paraguay Special meetings of the trade bloc Mercosur and the political bloc
Unasur, in Mendoza, Argentina, Friday, produced plenty of condemnation but no
real teeth behind the anger. Many congressmen have compounded the problem by
supporting it as part of a legal process enshrined in the Constitution to
tackle a president “performing poorly." Unfortunately, very few seem to
agree with the negative characterization of Lugo’s tenure. A diverse group of
South American leaders, from Bolivia's Evo Morales to Chile's right-leaning
Sebastián Piñera, condemned the impeachment. Even the always-unpredictable
despotic douche bag that is Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has vociferously
condemned the events in Paraguay and now, Venezuela has been invited to joining
Mercosur – the trade grouping that comprises Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and
until this week, Paraguay. Being jettisoned from Mercosur for a nation whose
inclusion in the group it had blocked has to sting for Paraguay and maybe it
will inspire Paraguay’s legislature to rethink its actions in expelling Lugo, a former
priest and Paraguay’s first leftist leader who came to power in 2008. He was
forced out last Friday within 24 hours after an impeachment trial was brought
against him after the opposition-led Chamber of Deputies and Senate
overwhelmingly approved the nine charges for his “poor performance of duties”
as president. A standoff between police and landless peasants in Curuguaty,
eastern Paraguay, two weeks ago that left 17 people dead was the breaking point
for the legislature and in response, they have plunged their nation into a
state of chaos…………
- Mark Wahlberg and a talking, CGI teddy bear are a bigger
draw than they might seem. Wahlberg, with an assist from the über-hot Mila
Kunis, won the box office earnings race with a $54.1 million debut for “Ted.”
The comedy that seemed like an absurd idea (and was) bested the trashy sex
appeal of male stripper flick “Magic Mike,” which debuted in second place on
the strength of Matthew McConaughey, Matthew Bomer and Channing Tatum taking
their shorts off repeatedly in the span of a couple hours of screen time. “Magic”
made $39.1 million in its debut, besting last week’s top movie, “Brave,” which
fell to third place with $34 million and has earned $131.6 million domestically
in two weeks of work. The latest identical version of the same damn movie Tyler
Perry has been making for a decade, “Tyler Perry's Madea's Witness Protection,”
debuted in fourth place with $26.4 million and gave the weekend’s newcomers
three of the top four spots. “Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted” snagged fifth
place with $11.8 million and through one month of release, its cumulative
domestic total sits at $180 million. The still awful, still absurd concept that
is “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” fell to sixth in its second weekend with a
mere $6 million for a two-week total of $29 million. “Prometheus”
claimed the seventh spot with $4.9 million and its four-week haul now stands at
$119 million. The critically acclaimed “Moonlight Kingdom,” with Bruce Willis
and Bill Murray leading the way, was eighth despite being in limited release.
The upstart flick added $4.8 million to its coffers and has raked in $18.4
million so far despite never being in more than 900 theaters in a given
weekend. “Snow White and the Huntsman” claimed ninth place and made $4.4
million to up its overall total to $146 million and counting, while “People
Like Us” had an extremely disappointing debut, ranking tenth with just $4.2
million. “The Avengers” (No. 11), “MIB 3” (No. 12), “Rock of Ages” (No. 13) and
the mind-numbingly bad “That's My Boy Sony” (No. 14) all landed outside the top
10 for the first time in their respective runs…….
- Boom. Literally, boom. That, or something like it, was the
sound a massive asteroid likely made (allegedly) 3 million years ago when it smashed into
Greenland, creating a crater 15 miles deep and nearly 370 miles wide. The
asteroid, estimated to be nearly 19 miles in diameter, crashed in an area that
now hosts the town of Maniitsoq on Greenland's western coastline. The massive
crater dwarfs the oldest known impact crater on Earth, the Vredefort crater in
South Africa, both in age and size. It was discovered by a team led by Adam
Garde of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The rocks we see today were about 25 kilometers down when the impact
occurred," Garde said. The reason the crater was able to remain hidden
until now is because surface changes have hidden much of the evidence of its
existence and only its deepest parts remain. All the near-surface and easily
recognizable features of the crater have been worn away. It took three years of
intensive work by Garde and his team to unearth the mysteries of the crater and
they now believe they have the necessary evidence to support their claim. They
have discovered a layer of granite-like rocks that are crushed, melted and
pulverized in a way that can only be explained by a sudden, massive impact. A
layer of this deformed granite is spread throughout an area more than 20 miles
wide and Garde believes it to be at the center of the supposed impact site.
Without any known terrestrial geologic process capable of producing this sort
of deformation, a ginormous asteroid is the only answer and so just like that,
the issue is settled….maybe. "You might see something similar in a
geologic fault zone, but not in a circle 100 kilometers across," said team
member Iain McDonald of Cardiff University. Mix in the angles of cracks in the
rock layers and the case seems iron-clad….to most. A few skeptics in the
geological community maintain that the find indicates a massive crater, but
does not definitively prove one’s existence. Even if the alleged asteroid
struck Greenland, the Earth's only inhabitants were algae and cyanobacteria, so
its effects wouldn’t have been cataclysmic – unless you were an algae, of
course…………
- Will a defeat in his signature race at his country’s Olympic
trials humble the Fastest Man in the World? Probably not, but it was still
amusing to see reigning world speed champion Usain Bolt blown away out of the
starting blocks and defeated in the 100-meter final in the Jamaican Olympic
trials. His training partner, Yohan Blake, blasted out of the blocks on Friday
night and finished in a time of 9.75 seconds to upset the world-record holder
by 0.11 seconds. Blake was understandably jubilant after his win and inspired
to make a run at Olympic gold in a few weeks. "Nine-point-seven-five, it's
awesome," Blake said. "I won the world championship, so I've got
that. Now, I'm the national champion for Jamaica, so I've got that. And now, I
go into the Olympics like this." Defeating Bolt head-to-head was important
even though Blake is the reigning world champion because Bolt didn't run in the
100-meter final at the world championships after being disqualified for a false
start. Still, the 6-foot-5 Bolt came into the trials as the overwhelming
favorite, partly because of his world record -- 9.58 seconds – and partly
because Blake had never run below 9.82 in his life. The 9.75 seconds is the
fastest time in the world this year and also broke the four-year-old National
Stadium record, previously held by Bolt. With his own fierce nickname -
"The Beast" – and his championships in tow, Blake let out a primal
scream when he crossed the finish line as Bolt nonchalantly pulled up and
exited the track without fanfare. There was no sign of his demonstrative
"To the World" pose after the race, not on a night when he lumbered
out of the blocks this time and had to make up a lot of ground just to finish
second. Somewhere and some time between now and the first week of August in
London, Bolt needs to find a way to get his swagger back………..
- For too long, seagulls have strutted around arrogantly in
parking lots and on beaches around the world, unaccosted and free to crap on
anything they wanted. That changed Thursday morning in Southgate, Mich., where
the beautiful sounds of gunfire filled the air at a vacant Saturn automobile
dealership. A group of Southgate police officers showed up armed and ready to
exterminate the thousands of seagulls that have invaded the building. So many
seagulls have taken up residence at the abandoned dealership that local law
enforcement officials turned to the state government for help. "We were granted a permit from the state
to use deadly force if needed to try and alleviate this problem," said
Thomas Coombs, Southgate Police Public
Safety Director. "We cannot
take out more than 500 seagulls and
we are only sacrificing some birds in hopes the rest will leave." Okay, so technically there
was a limit on how many gulls the officers could blast, but it’s doubtful
anyone was keeping a running count or tallying the number of dead birds
afterward. The city even gave the seagulls one final warning Tuesday night,
sending Department of Public
Work trucks to area with plows attached in the hope of driving the birds away.
Instead, the gulls scattered for a moment, then returned to their perches.
"The city has only turned to taking out some of the birds as a last
resort. We believe along with the state this is the most humane way to do this," Coombs said. Aside from the
seagull-crap-loving kooks of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, it’s
doubtful too many people would disagree. As Coombs explained, all other options
had been exhausted. Loud noises and disruptions didn’t work and poisoning
wasn’t an option because officials didn’t want sick seagulls to be
dropping from the sky all around the city in an apocalyptic sequel to the mysterious
incidents of falling birds in Arkansas the past couple of years. Solving the
seagull problem might be easier if not for some local tools who have apparently
been feeding the birds and thereby enticing them to stay right where they are.
A new business is expected to take over the building in the next few months and
it will be much easier to open up shop if the entire building isn’t caked in
seagull waste………..
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