- Woolly mammoths apparently enjoyed traveling more than
previously known. Not only that, these massive mammals had good taste in their
travel destinations, even if they visited France long before any of its great,
modern culture had even begun to develop. Archaeologists in France unearthed a significant new discovery this
week: a nearly complete skeleton of a mammoth. The bones will be tested and
examined, but they are thought to belong to a creature that roamed the earth
between 200,000 and 50,000 years ago. Making the find more interesting, the
archaeologists who found the skeleton weren't looking for a mammoth fossil.
They were actually excavating an ancient Roman site 30 miles east of Paris when
they happened upon the mammoth remains quite by accident. The find is only the
third discovery of the remains of a long-haired woolly mammoth in France in the
last 150 years. Such finds are much more common in the frozen wonderland of
nothingness that is Siberia, but this particular mammoth was headed more toward
the future site of the Champs Elysees than to a gulag in Russia’s frozen
northland. Once the entire skeleton is uncovered and can be excavated and
moved, archaeologists will attempt to determine its cause of death, but it
drowning in the Marne River or at the end of a Neanderthal spear. That this
find occurred in France is fitting because it was a French scientist, Georges
Cuvier, who first identified the woolly mammoth in 1796…….
- Welcome to the party, Puerto Rico….sort of. After years of
kicking around the idea of U.S. statehood, Puerto Ricans officially endorsed the idea Tuesday
while simultaneously ousting their pro-statehood governor in a close election.
The message is a conflicting one, but the key point is that residents of this
Caribbean island want to be an official state. Gov. Luis Fortuno won't be
around (in power anyhow) to see it after he conceded defeat Wednesday to his
main challenger after concluding there were not enough outstanding ballots to
close the gap with rival Alejandro Garcia Padilla. “Now it’s time for us to
come together as one people. The campaign is over,” Fortuno said in a news
conference. Fortuno, who was not so fortuno-ate on Tuesday, will have to watch
as his pro-statehood New Progressive Party presses on. The deposed governor
insisted despite his disappointment that he was pleased that 61 percent of
voters endorsed becoming a U.S. state. Hurdles remain because many critics
believe the two-part ballot was confusing to many and would not be enough to
persuade the Congress to accept Puerto Rico into the union. Fortuno’s
successor, Garcia, is part of the Popular Democratic Party, which wants Puerto
Rico to remain semi-autonomous U.S. commonwealth. The referendum itself first asked voters whether the island
wanted to change its 114-year relationship with the United States and then
posed a question of what to do in the event the relationship did change. Nearly
54 percent, or 922,374 people wanted to change it and when asked to choose
between three options for change, statehood earned 61 percent of the votes to
lead the way. The results of the referendum will be passed along to Washington
and Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi, the island’s representative in
Congress, placed the onus squarely on the legislative body. “The ball is now in
Congress’ court and Congress will have to react to this result,” Pierluisi, a
member of the pro-statehood party who was re-elected Tuesday. “This is a clear
result that says ‘no’ to the current status.” Yes, the will of Puerto Rico has
been decreed. The question remains who will listen………
- When he’s not showing up on television screens in creepy,
spoke-word, black-and-white commercials for overpriced Chanel fragrances, Brad
Pitt has been known to act in the occasional blockbuster movie or two. His next
attempt to reign at the box office will lean on the power of the undead and
Pitt’s ability to triumph over them. The name of the project is “World War Z”
an the first clip from the zombie apocalypse flick has surfaced online. The
video is short and full of action, but it amounts to a teaser teaser, as in a
short film designed to build buzz for the movie’s first full-length trailer, which
premieres this Thursday on “Entertainment Tonight,” that network entertainment
tabloid show that no one actually watches any more. In “World War Z,” Pitt
stars as a United Nations employee scouring the globe for any information that
might help mankind fend off a burgeoning zombie epidemic that is slowly
destroying countries around the world. The project is based on the acclaimed
2006 horror novel of the same name by Max Brooks, although plenty of creative
license has undoubtedly be taken in adapting the book to the big screen because
that’s how Hollywood rolls. Director Marc Forster, whose previous credits
include “Quantum Of Solace,” “Finding Neverland” and “Monster's Ballm” helmed the
project, which wrapped up filming last year in a wide range of European
locations including Glasgow, Cornwall, Budapest and Malta. The cast is
impressive, with “Breaking Bad” star Bryan Cranston, Mireille Enos of “The
Killing” and “24” alum James Badge Dale joining Pitt. A long promotional
campaign is in store and the movie doesn’t debut in theaters until June 13 of
next year………
- Sooner or later, the children of Connecticut may actually
get to don their princess, football player, superhero and Ninja Turtles
costumes and go door to door in their neighborhoods to solicit copious amounts
of candy from their neighbors. That chance simply won't come today even though Wednesday
was supposed to be the rescheduled date for many to have their trick-or-treat
fun after towns across Connecticut were
forced to postpone Halloween activities because of Hurricane Sandy. While
trick-or-treating in the middle of a hurricane can add a delightful dose of
intrigue and excitement to the proceedings (“Will we come home with all three
of our children or just one or two? And which of the three is least likely to
make it back?”), most towns postponed the festivities by one week.
Unfortunately, an impending nor'easter is lurking off the coast and threatening
to slam into the Nutmeg State just in time to toss a blanket of the white,
powdery stuff on top of the would-be ghosts, witches, ninjas and pirates. Halloween
was originally moved to Wednesday, but authorities in most towns have been
scared off by the threat of more strong winds, possible flooding, rain, sleet
and/or snow. Milford Mayor Benjamin Blake has asked residents to push back
their Halloween celebrations to Friday and in Stratford, Saturday will be the
day to celebrate. For the wealthy folks in Greenwich, Sunday will be Halloween –
unless another natural disaster or über-storm happens to intervene…….
- USC was b*tch-slapped on national television Saturday
night. The Trojans surrendered 62 points and 730 yards to No. 3 Oregon at the
L.A. Coliseum, both school records on the negative side of the ledger. It was
the third loss of the year for the 19th-ranked men of Troy and firmly ripped
them out of contention for a BCS bowl appearance. After seeing his team sustain
its third Pac-12 loss of the season, USC coach Lane Kiffin had to have some
very pointed and specific ideas about where it all went wrong…..right? Nope. Asked if a scheme issue or execution
problem was the cause of his team’s defensive letdown, Kiffin had a much
more general theory. "I think
if we were to single either one of those out and say it was scheme or
execution, I think we'd be wrong because if you give up those kind of numbers,
it has to be everything," Kiffin said. "You can't give up that amount
of points and that amount of yards without it being everything overall. And so
it was a combination of every aspect of defense you could think of for it to
get to the level that it was at." So it was “everything” that went wrong?
In Kiffin’s defense, teams don’t give up 62 points and lose unless a lot goes
wrong, so maybe he does have a point. Oregon went up and down the field with
impunity, scoring touchdowns on nine of its 13 drives on Saturday. Halftime
ended one of the four failed marches and a missed field goal concluded the
third, so USC really only had two defensive stops the entire night. The Ducks
surpassed the previous record for total yards by a USC opponent by 107 and running
back Kenjon Barner gained 347 yards from scrimmage and scored five touchdowns. It
was an all-around terrible night for the Kiffin family as Lane Kiffin’s father
Monty is he assistant coach in charge of the USC defense. Life should
get easier for the Trojans this weekend with Arizona State on the schedule………
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