- Halfway there, Gwen Stefani, halfway there. Hearing
the No Doubt singer say she has no intention of making another solo record is
exciting, encouraging and uplifting. Given that Stefani has no discernable
musical talent and every song she’s been a part of has sucked exponentially for
anyone with musical tastes more sophisticated than a drunken walrus suffering
from a major head trauma, her pledging to never make another solo album is
halfway to where she should be. It may take a while for her to get the rest of
the way to that destination as her band is preparing to release “Push And Shove,”
their first album together in over 10 years. In the interim, Stefani cranked
out two horrifically bad solo albums with high-profile producers like Dr. Dre
and The Neptunes and she admitted the process was a difficult one. "It was
fun to experiment and work with outside writers but it was intimidating,” she
said. “Walking into a session with somebody you think is a genius, and they're
sitting there going, 'I work with everyone - what have you got?' And you're,
like, 'Not much. I don't even know how I wrote a song.' It's such a vulnerable
situation to put yourself in.” Having gone through that vulnerable situation,
Stefani has been scared off of a repeat performance. "I never need to do
that or want to do it again. I'm happy being in No Doubt. And it's nice to have
a record where there's no fat on it," she explained. Wait…she’s attempting
to paint a hacky No Doubt album as some sort of lean, mean musical machine? She
may be further from her necessary destination that previously thought. While
the band may not have the distinction of being the worst opening act ever to
tour with U2 (the Hack Eyed Peas forever on that title), No Doubt is a
ridiculous example of mainstream poseur rock at its worst, with a touch of ska
and reggae mixed in. The aforementioned “Push and Shove” will push and shove
its way onto the bargain rack at your local music outlet of choice on Sept.
24……….
- Twenty years after the fact, it remains an iconic moment
in American legal history. The late Johnnie Cochran shot a massive hole in the
prosecution’s case against (alleged) double murderer and current Clark County
Correctional Facility resident Orenthal James Simpson. The Juice was trying to
get around the fact he had just turned his ex-wife and her boyfriend into human
Pez dispensers by convincing a jury of IQ-deprived fools that he was innocent.
It seemed the case was going his way but his fate was far from certain when Simpson tried on
bloody gloves and held up his hands in front of the jury box to let everyone
see the leather bunched up around his broad palms. Clearly the gloves did not
fit and the demonstration became a powerful symbol for the defense, summed up
by Cochran: "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit." His Don King-like
truism became the most memorable words of the trial and ultimately, Simpson was
acquitted of the stabbing deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle
Goldman. Cochran passed away in 2005 and seven years later, his most famous moment
is being called into question. Christopher Darden, one of the prosecutors on
the case, took part last week in a panel discussion about the trial at Pace Law
School in New York City. Darden claimed during the discussion that the glove
had been tampered with and that suggestion has rankled Cochran’s friends and
former colleagues. "I think Johnnie tore the lining. There were some
additional tears in the lining so that O.J.'s fingers couldn't go all the way
up into the glove," Darden said. Because several jurors cited the
too-tight gloves as a key reason for voting to acquit Simpson, the possibility
that they were tampered with is interesting. Impugning Cochran’s credibility
did not sit well with an attorney who worked with Cochran on the case. "As
members of the defense team, Carl Douglas and I were present in court on the
day that Chris Darden asked O.J. Simpson to try on the glove,” attorney Shawn
Holley said. “Mr. Darden's self-serving assertion that Johnnie Cochran tampered
with the glove -- or any piece of evidence -- is false, malicious and
slanderous.” In Holley’s mind, Darden is merely looking to excuse his own
failures during the trial and explain away being part of allowing an
(alleged/probable) double murderer to walk. Still, it’s great to relive all of
these fond memories……….
- The PGA Tour season is rapidly approaching its conclusion
and despite the best efforts of certain sports media outlets (no names
mentioned) to dramatize and hype the play of Tiger Woods back into a state of
relevancy, the former world’s best player is not the one making noise and
domianting the field every time he steps onto the course. That would be
23-year-old Nortern Irishman Rory McIlroy, who bested the strongest collection of contenders at any golf tournament this
year and defeated them all at the BMW Championship. He missed only one fairway on
Sunday at soggy Crooked Stick in Caramel, Ind. and fired a 5-under 67 to win
his second straight FedEx Cup playoff event. With the victory, McIlroy has won
four events this year, including the PGA Championship, and became the first
player since Woods in 2009 to win in consecutive weeks on the PGA Tour. By
winning three of his last four starts, he also joined Woods and Jack Nicklaus
as the only players to win sixth tour events by age 23. "The more you put
yourself in this position, and the more you win and the more you pick up
trophies, it becomes normal," McIlroy said. "And it feels like this
is what you're supposed to do." It looked like he was doing what he was
put on Earth to do, but McIlroy insisted he’s not quite on the level Woods was
on before falling off a metaphorical cliff after bouncing his SUV off a tree
and fire hydrant on Thanksgiving night in 2008. "I don't think I'm quite
there yet," McIlroy said. "But I'm getting to that stage where I'm
thinking, 'This is what I should be doing. I should be lifting a trophy at the
end of the week.'” His fourth win of the season came with Hall of Famers Phil
Mickelson and Vijay Singh in the field and Woods lurking a few shots back.
However, Woods was never seriously in the mix and ended in a tie for fourth.
The victory put McIlroy securely in the No. 1 spot going into the FedEx Cup
finale in two weeks at East Lake, meaning he has the inside track to capture the
FedEx Cup with its $10 million bonus. Woods, Nick Watney, Mickelson and Brandt
Snedeker are the next four seeds for the Cup finale, but if McIlroy continues
playing the way he has the past month, none of those four need to even bother
to show up……….
- Technology is sort of important in everyday life for most
every person in the world. It follows logically that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
needs to remain at the forefront of advances in technology as it seeks to hunt
down criminals. The bureau’s next step is investing in a new system steeped in
biometrics to identify wanted felons and fugitives. The$1 billion Next
Generation Identification (NGI) program is designed to significantly improve
the existing fingerprint identification service by stepping all over privacy
rights. Privacy advocates are already complaining, but the FBI is ignoring them
by adding facial recognition, iris scanning, DNA analysis and voice
identification technology to the identification process. Reliability and
accuracy concerns remain and probably will even with the inclusion of rolled
and latent finger and palm prints. To get the ball rolling, the FBI is running
a pilot program that compiles all of this information for different purposes.
The program performs tasks like running a test that matches up headshots in
crowd photos, which are then compared with database-stored images from security
footage. Using the NGI, the FBI could use an algorithm to conduct an automatic
search and return potential 'hits' to officers. The program would also feature
a database of scars, tattoos and other physical marks. What those complaining
about privacy issues should know is that the FBI has collected this kind of
information for a long time. Agents can already identify voices and match them when
a recording is sent from another group, as can facial images. Implementing the
system nationwide is new and so is providing access to the new databases to
state law enforcement agencies. Expect the system to be in place and invading
your privacy by 2014……….
- Maybe the air waitresses of German airline Lufthansa don’t understand the point or
concept of a strike. Strikes are a powerful bargaining tool against The Man,
but only if management believes workers will not return to work until their
contract demands are met. When a striking workforce alerts everyone in advance
that its walkout will only last for 24 hours, it rips the strike of its
effectiveness and makes it essentially pointless. Yet Lufthansa flight attendants started their 24-hour walkout
midnight Thursday, walking off the job at airports around the country in an
escalating battle with Germany's largest airline. While neither side is issuing
fiery statements slamming the other side and negotiations haven’t completely
broken down, Lufthansa canceled hundreds of flights Friday because it had no
crews to work those flights. Lufthansa is struggling to compete against
European budget carriers and government-owned airlines from the Persian Gulf,
but its air waitresses are having none of its offers to scale back their salary
increases and benefits. Thursday’s strike was the third since the dispute began
and came after limited walkouts Tuesday at airports in Frankfurt, Munich and
Berlin. The dispute has stretched on for 13 months over differences in pay and
union demands that the airline agrees not to outsource jobs or employ temporary
cabin crew employees. UFO union chairman Nicoley Baublies said Friday that the
two sides had agreed to call in a mediator to help them settle their dispute
and insisted the union was not going to stage any more strikes immediately so
Lufthansa could “pause to think things over." Lufthansa sold a different
story, refusing to comment on the possibility of a mediator and dismissing the
idea of negotiations resuming soon. So far, the only real concession the
airline has offered it to stop using flight attendants on outside contracts in
Berlin and offer those attendants Lufthansa staff status next year. A Lufthansa
spokeswoman said the airline had to cancel "about half" of its 1,800
flights because of the strike, affecting all German airports the airline
serves. The walkout could have been more effective had the union not given
Lufthansa so much advance notice. What will it take to resolve the strike? The
union is demanding a 5 percent pay raise for more than 18,000 cabin staff, but
the airline offering only a 3.5 percent increase and has the kahones to ask
that crews work more hours. "We are highly motivated because we are all
very angry," said flight attendant Karin Puttgereit. "This is really
the first time we, the cabin crews, are on strike." Solving the conflict
and keeping employees happy while it attempts to implement a far-reaching
cost-cutting reduction program and remain competitive with discount carriers is
looking more impossible by the day for Lufthansa…………
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