- Troops in the African nation of Mauritania should expect
an increase in the strictness and disciple of their combat training in the
months ahead. No, there is no obvious war materializing on the horizon, nor is
there any imminent threat of invasion. Still, any time soldiers accidentally
shoot their own president after mistaking him for an enemy combatant, it is
probably time to refresh everyone on the proper reaction in an unpredictable
situation. President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz found himself on the wrong end of a blast from
the guns of "jumpy" soldiers who opened fire on his car about 25
miles from Nouakchott. Aziz was wounded in the exchange and while the thought
of his security detail trying to figure out what was going on only to realize
that the country’s own soldiers were accidentally attacking the president is
amusing, no one was laughing when Aziz was flown to France for medical
treatment on Sunday. Realizing what panic could result from the incident, the
president appealed to Mauritanians to keep calm in a televised message from his
hospital bed. Aziz has been credited with playing a large role in bringing
stability Mauritania since seizing power in 2008, but the country remains on
the fringes of the Sahara Desert where Islamist gunmen wield heavy influence. "I
want to reassure everyone about my state of health after this incident
committed by error," Aziz said. "Thanks to God, I am doing
well." As he spoke, he was covered in a sheet up to his neck and the
extent of his wounds was not revealed. Sources close to the hospital said he
had been shot in the abdomen, while the government downplayed his condition by
insisting he had been "lightly wounded." Before being flown to
France, he underwent an initial operation in a military hospital in the
Mauritanian capital Nouakchott. At the time of the shooting, Aziz and his
convoy were driving through the town of Toueila, in an area where he owns a
ranch. Blame was quickly pinned to “jumpy” soldiers who overreacted to the
situation. "It was a unit of the Mauritanian army, a mobile control unit.
They weren't aware of his passage," Foreign Minister Hamadi Ould Hamadi
said. Not aware and clearly not prepared for an actual security crisis………
- The NBA is looking to crack down on two distinct parts
of its games this season. First, über-arrogant commissioner David Stern
announced a new policy on floppers. Under the new rules, players who take a
dive in an attempt to get a foul call will be subject to escalating fines and
eventually, suspensions. The flopping crusade makes sense, definitely more than
the new campaign to cut down on
pregame handshakes and rituals that have become staples of NBA games in recent
years. The trend toward choreographed, pregame routines in between the end of
player introductions and tipoff began in earnest when Shaquille O'Neal began
crafting team-wide skits acted out before games and picked up a key devotee when
LeBron James and his chalk toss at the scorer’s table became a fixture at
Cleveland Cavaliers games. As of now, those celebrations will have a time limit
and the anti-fun NBA is serious about the issue. As soon as player
introductions are finished, there will be 90 seconds put on the game clock and
teams will be expected to be ready for tipoff after that time. The rule’s aim
is to eliminate or severely cut down on the routines players from most teams go
through before games, whether they are handshakes, posing for fake pictures,
head-butting the basket support or hyping up the crowd. Furthermore, this
imbecilic rule would likely legislate out individual rituals like James' famous
chalk toss, which he abandoned last season during the playoffs. "There's a
90-second countdown, it is placed on the clock," NBA spokesman Tim Frank
said. "At 30 seconds, there's a warning horn and alert by the refs. At the
end, teams need to be ready to tip off or face a delay-of-game warning."
Stern and his cronies would argue that in the past few years, games have
routinely taken five minutes or longer to begin after the starting lineups were
announced. Delay of game warnings may not seem that severe, but two delay of
game warnings would result in a technical foul. Predictably, players aren't
down with the new policy. "I personally don't like it," said Oklahoma
City Thunder star Kevin Durant. "Every player in this league has routines
they do with their teammates, rituals they do before the game and before they
walk on the floor. The fans enjoy it. To cut that down really don't make no
sense." Maybe next the league can enact a policy against pompous,
ass-hatted commissioners ruining the fun for fans and players………
- Some celebrities stay in the spotlight based on sheer
talent, whether it is acting, singing or sports. Others remain in public view
because of their name or brand, which they sometimes inherit because of their
family. Actress-turned-musician Taylor Momsen is neither of those types. She
landed a supporting role on a teen soap opera (“Gossip Girl”) and once it
dawned on her that she was limited in what she could do there, she clearly
decided that doing, saying and wearing the most outrageous sh*t possible was
her ticket to lasting fame. She fancies herself a punk rocker, but her band The Pretty Reckless is nothing more than the prototypical power
pop/punk, bubble-gum rock outfit that those in the 12-to-19-year-old
demographic love. To promote herself and her band, Momsen has developed a
reputation for saying outlandish things and skanking it up with revealing,
colorful outfits and fashion choices. Her latest shock tactic came over the
weekend when she released a new black-and-white, spoken-word video in which she appears completely nude while
reading lyrics to her band’s track “Under the Water.” The 1:15 clip shows
various body parts before panning out and displaying a full-length shot of
Momsen sans clothes. She is also
raising a few eyebrows by showing up on the “Gossip Girl” set in New York,
raising speculation that she may appear in the series’ final season, which is
currently airing. Those who have awaited her return to the show since she left
at the end of Season 4 are hoping she will at least appear in the series
finale, which is expected to air within a few months………..
- The world’s water problems are solved, all. That piece of
good news comes from a new study conducted by researchers at three universities
and will come to fruition just as soon as those same researchers or someone
equally intelligent finds a cost-effective way to transport water from the moon
to Earth. The study, led by the University of Michigan's Youxue Zhang and
colleagues at the University of Tennessee and the California Institute of
Technology, suggests that the top layer of the moon's surface may hold far more
water than previously thought. Zhang’s team revealed the discovery of water
molecules in samples of lunar soil, an unexpected find that points to the sun
as the indirect source. They suspect the water was most likely formed on the
surface by the constant stream of charged particles ejected from the sun. The
finding "represents an unanticipated, abundant reservoir" of water on
the moon, the researchers wrote in their findings, which were published in the
journal Nature Geoscience. "That means you've got a lot of water stuck
around in this glass that we never even thought too much about before,"
said researcher Dr. Lawrence Taylor (not THAT Lawrence Taylor), a University of
Tennessee geochemist. Taylor advised the Apollo astronauts gathering lunar
samples and explained that the sun's solar winds create water through
chemical reactions. To examine the samples, researchers used infrared and mass
spectrometry. They found large amounts of hydroxyl inside agglutinate glass,
which is a bonded hydrogen and oxygen atom. What they could not figure out is
how the solar hydrogen combines with oxygen in the regolith grains to make the
molecules. Figuring out that question may not bring much-needed water to Earth,
but it could pave the way for mining water from the moon’s soil and therefore
clearing a path for New Gingrich’s moon colony. "With the cost of $25,000
for taking one pint [half a liter] of water to the moon, it is essential that
we develop processes of producing water from the materials on the moon,"
Taylor said. Well said, L.T. Newt is counting on you………
- Not everyone is down with Black History Month, which takes
place in February. Some are downright indignant that an entire month is set
apart specifically to recognize the historical contributions of one specific
race, not buying into the argument that “every other month of the year is white
history month.” One of those people – a kook with access to a laptop and a
printer and with plenty of free time on his or her hands – is anonymously
circulating fliers around the Mercer University campus in Macon, Ga. The fliers, which
appeared late Monday, call for a celebration of "White History
Months" in November and December, saying: "Since there is too much
white history to squeeze into one month, we will settle for two.” Around the
campus, the fliers have given the person responsible for them exactly what he
or she wants: attention. First, Mercer president Bill Underwood wrote in an
email to students and faculty that the fliers "demeaned efforts to promote
education about people of diverse races and cultures and their contributions to
our society.” Vice President Larry Brumley followed by writing that Mercer
urges students to "probe relevant issues of the day," but says the
flier "wasn't the right way to do it." However, school officials don’t
plan to investigate because no crime was committed and they have addressed the
matter publicly. Of course, ignoring the fliers entirely or issuing a bland
written statement saying the school does not support the idea or have any ties
to its creator would have been better, but Brumley wanted to make it clear he
and his fellow ivory tower dwellers want to move on to avoid giving more
attention to the people responsible. "Attention is probably what they
want," Brumley said. The flier itself asks: "How much will you bet
that there will be controversy over this?" In response to the flier, a
group of students played into the anonymous kook behind the idea’s plan even
further by holding a rally Tuesday night to show their support for Mercer's
diverse culture. So much for ignoring blatant stupidity and obvious attention
whores………
No comments:
Post a Comment