- Could big, not so bad Eddy Curry possibly land on his
massive feet once again? Eleven years ago, Curry was the fourth overall pick in
the NBA draft and landed in Chicago with a massive contract and even bigger
expectations. Ultimately, neither of those entities was larger than Curry
himself came to be, ballooning to well north of 300 pounds and eating his way
out of the league while also being diagnosed with a serious heart condition. He
played just 10 games from 2008-10 and missed the entire 2010-11 season,
eventually finding his way back to the NBA last season and playing sparingly
while gravy-training his way to a championship sitting on the end of the bench
for the Miami Heat. His weight is (allegedly) under 300 pounds and although the
Heat have moved on and found other options for backup centers to their backup
center, Curry just might find himself a new gig with the team that has been the
biggest spender in the free agent and trade markets this offseason. The
Brooklyn Nets have splurged to re-sign free agent guard Deron Williams,
re-signed promising young center Brook Lopez and traded for Atlanta Hawks star
shooting guard Joe Johnson and they are also moving from New Jersey to Brooklyn
and into the sparking new Barclays Center. They have a mysterious, Russian
billionaire owner in Mikhail Prokhorov and are flush with cash, some of which
may find its way into Curry’s wallet. He worked out with the on Wednesday and if he can beat out free agent center Hilton
Armstrong, who played in France last season, Curry will jump from a champion to
a team that is widely considered to be one of the four best squads in the
Eastern Conference. A gig backing up Lopez wouldn’t be so bad for Curry, who
will never live up to his hype as the fourth overall pick in the draft, but
could still have a few more years of making millions of dollars to play
basketball……….
- The battle over chickens is threatening to tear Hampton
Township, Pa. apart. On one side is resident Max Rosarius, who is heading off to common
pleas court to fight for his right to keep chickens on his property that
isn’t really a farm even though he likes to pretend it is. Hampton Township
officials rejected his appeal of two zoning violations after several neighbors
complained about the noise made by the 50 chickens he keeps on his property.
His neighbors claim the birds are disruptive to everyone who lives nearby and
several of them raised the issue at a township meeting Tuesday night. Rosarius
insisted that he raises the chickens and that he's not violating any zoning
rules. "Do you think that's destructive? I mean how far do you think it
carries? 50 feet to 100 hundred feet at the most," said Rosarius. One has
to be impressed by Rosarius’ scientific knowledge when it comes to how far the
noise of a chicken’s cluck carries on a warm summer evening when neighbors are
attempting to sleep or relax with a good book. The issue with now be decided by
the court, which will have the responsibility of determining whether Rosarius’
claim that his property is considered a farm under state law is valid. Whatever
the final outcome may be, there is no disputing how sad it is to see neighbors
in a small town have their relationships fractured and possibly even gone foul
by a few loud, dirty fowl…….
- Sugar in outer space? Amazingly enough, the answer is
yes after astronomer Jes Jørgensen of
Denmark's Copenhagen University announced the discovery of simple sugar molecules floating in the gas
around a star some 400 light-years away. In the scientific community, the term
sugar is used to loosely refer to organic molecules known as
carbohydrates, which are made up of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. An optimist
might hail the find as evidence of life on other planets, but scientific
realists would counter that the discovery proves no such thing and merely implies
that there is no reason it could not. Either way, the discovery shows that the
carbon-rich molecules that are the building blocks of life can be present even
before planets have begun forming. Jørgensen’s team found molecules in space
that are the simplest form of sugar, called glycoaldehyde. Glycoaldehyde is
also found on Earth, typically in the form of an odorless white powder. It is
not a type of sugar used to sweeten foods or beverages, but scientists suspect
it plays a key role in the chemical reaction that forms ribonucleic acid (RNA),
a key biomolecule present in all living cells. Its role in space or where it
originates in the heavens isn't yet known, but evidence collected in the study
suggest that it forms on ice-covered dust grains in the dense, cold parts of
interstellar molecular clouds. Sugar has never been found this close to a
sunlike star and has previously been found in only two other places in space:
near the center of the giant cloud of gas and dust at the heart of the Milky
Way galaxy, and in a massive star-forming region 26,000 light-years from Earth.
"Both of these regions are much further away and were observed with much
worse resolution, [so] it was not possible for the astronomers to pinpoint the
location of the molecules," Jørgensen explained. He and his team made
their find while observing a young star called IRAS 16293-2422. With that as
motivation, the researchers plan to go out and look for other, possibly more
complex, molecules in regions where stars and planets are forming…….
- Every athlete wants to be a rapper or rock star, every
actor or musician wants to be a professional athlete and so the cycle goes.
Rapper Jim Jones, a member of The Diplomats, a.k.a. Dipset, has a solid enough
rap career and has risen from the hip-hop hotbed of Harlem to recording success.
He also seemingly harbors an affinity for and/or a desire to be vampire,
although auditioning for a role in the “Twilight” films doesn’t seem to have
crossed his mind. However, he did drop his first “Vampire Life” mixtape last year
and in May, he delivered the sequel, which featured the local New York hit
"60 Rackz." To further cash in on the blood-sucking approach, he has
also launched a Vampire Life clothing line and even stumbled into a Twitter
beef with fellow rapper Azealia Banks over the origins of the term
"vamp" earlier this month. Jones put an end to the beef by releasing
the dis track “Succubi.” But the vampire-ness doesn’t end there for Jones, who
has announced plans to star in "Vampire Life: The Movie," an upcoming
action movie. He has reportedly signed a multimillion dollar deal with the
little-known CMG Entertainment, a multimedia company/record label that was
founded in 2010. In an attempt to expand its brand, the company will produce
the movie and an accompanying soundtrack. Filming is scheduled to begin next
month and with his clothing line and mixtapes, Jones’ fans already associate
him with the Vampire Life brand. It has been a big week all around for Jones,
who continuing to wallow in the filthy world of reality television by appearing
in his second reality how on VH1. The cable network released the first trailer
of the rapper's new reality show, "Chrissy & Mr. Jones," earlier
this week and the series launches Sept. 24. It is a sort of sequel to the
original "Love & Hip Hop" show, in which both Jones and his
wife-to-be Chrissy Lampkin starred. No word on whether vampires will play a
prominent role in the reality show…………
- Could there really be peace between Colombia's
government and the country's biggest rebel group, the FARC? The two sides have
been feuding for nearly 50 years, but the government has changed its stance and
President Juan Manuel Santos announced Monday in a televised address from the
presidential palace that his administration is seeking peace with the FARC and could
consider also holding talks with a second guerrilla movement to end five
decades of war. “(W)e have had exploratory conversations with the FARC to seek
an end to the conflict,” Santos said during his speech. Securing a peace
deal with cement Santos’ position in history as the bold leader who ended a conflict
that has killed tens of thousands over the years and delivered one hit after
another to Colombia’s reputation in the international community. If his words
are more than empty political rhetoric, if he really is telling the truth when
he says his government has learned from the mistakes of so many previous
leaders who failed to negotiate a lasting cease-fire with the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia, maybe that boost in status would be deserved. During
his address, he declared the military would continue its operations
"throughout every centimeter" of Colombia while talks continued and
offered no further details on any potential negotiations. Negotiating with a drug-funded
group is always dicey and Santos was adamant that he would consider peace talks
with the FARC only if he was certain the group would negotiate in good
faith. The last round of talks ended in disaster, so restarting them will
be challenging. To grease the wheels, Santos suggested that the nation's second
biggest rebel group, the National Liberation Army, known as the ELN, could also
be involved in the peace talks. “Today the ELN has expressed, via an
international news agency, its interest in participating in conversations to
put an end to the violence," the president said in his speech. “I
tell that group that, within the same framework, they too can be part of the
effort to end the conflict.” As for the FARC, the group continues to represent
itself as "the people's army" defending peasant rights. It has battled
about a dozen governments since appearing in 1964, when its founder, Manuel
Marulanda, and 48 rebels famously fought off thousands of troops in jungle
hide-outs. Life has been tough for the FARC in recent years as
U.S.-trained special forces and their sophisticated technology have joined the
fight. Maybe peace talks wouldn’t be such a terrible idea…………
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