- On the surface, bickering between a former “American
Karaoke” judge and a current “American Karaoke” judge is worthless. Both are
spending their days judging aspiring karaoke hacks who sing bastardized
versions of other people’s songs. It’s the quickest way to bastardize one’s
musical credibility – assuming a person had one to begin with. That’s not a
problem pop hack Nicki Minaj has, but she still has a major beef with former
“AK” judge, formerly legitimate rock star and still-Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler
because of comments he made about her efforts as a judge on the current season
of Fox’s original über-terrible reality series. Minaj, along with the
always-insane Mariah Carey and country singer Keith Urban, was the target of a
tirade Tyler went on earlier this week in which folk icon Bob Dylan somehow was
dragged into the mix. Tyler said that if Dylan turned up in the Idol auditions,
Minaj would "have had him sent to the cornfield." The remark was
completely bizarre and yet was predictable coming from a drug-addled fool like
Tyler, who could have been peaking on any number of legal or illegal substances
at the time the words flew out of his mouth. He added, "Whereas if it was
Bob Dylan with us, we would have brought the best out of him." In other
words, my panel of reality karaoke judges was better than yours is. Minaj went
directly to Twitter to respond and suggested that Tyler's statement was a
"racist comment" and that the aging rocker was bitter about losing
his spot on the panel. Imagine how much of an issue all of this would be if
either one of these two kooks were capable of putting out a good song these
days……..
- Animals need protection too. Restraining orders are a
fine way of keeping undesirable people away from those they are harassing, but until
recently, domestic violence restraining orders pertained only to humans. Part
of the reason for that may have been animals’ lack of opposable thumbs, leading
to their inability to write and fill out a petition for a restraining order,
but a recent change in state laws in Massachusetts has extended the halo of
protection for such orders to animals. The first application of the law came
recently when a Plymouth
judge granted a Marshfield woman a restraining order that also covers her dog.
Gov. Deval Patrick signed the law into effect this summer and according to
police, the accuser in this case had a history of violence and had been charged
with domestic assault and battery in the past. The victim in the case wants to
make sure other domestic violence victims know they can protect their pets and
to accomplish this goal, she is sharing the news that Panzer, an 8-year-old lab
mix, is now safe just as she is from an ex-boyfriend who physically abused both
of them. Panzer belonged to the couple, but was sent to a foster home after his
arrest. “We took the dog to a veterinarian prior to placing him in a foster
home. He was fine physically. Emotionally, a little scared, a little
traumatized,” said animal control officer Deni Goldman. The case is the first
real-world test of the state's new animal welfare law and according to
Marshfield Police Chief Phillip Tavares, it is an example of the peace of mind
the law can bring to abuse victims. “This is a wonderful piece of legislation
that I think is peace of mind to victims of domestic violence knowing that
their animal can be safe, that they will be granted temporary custody of it and
then they can leave the home with the animal,” Tavares said……….
- Maybe Europeans shouldn’t be so cocky about being cooler
and more sophisticated than the rest of the world. According to a new study
published in the most recent edition of the journal Nature, people of
European descent are evolving quickly – and in the wrong direction. After
conducting a scan of all the mutations in the human gene map, a research team
led by Joshua Akey of the University of Washington concluded that in the past
5,000 years, European-Americans have developed a huge batch of potentially
harmful genetic mutations – many more than African-Americans. That’s right,
Europe is still sticking it to the United States 236 years after Americans
declared their independence. If confirmed, the results could explain why so
many people develop diseases even though they don’t have common genetic
mutations and also why different people have so many different reactions to the
same drug. Akey attributed these effects to population explosion. He explained
that European populations expanded after the Ice Age ended and prosperous
agricultural societies emerged, leading to even greater population growth and
the resulting mutations. “The number of mutations that exist is directly
attributable to the population growth that happened in the last 5,000 years,”
Akey said. “The things that allowed us to go from millions to billions of has also
been the same process that has been pumping in all these new mutations.” To
complete the study, Akey collaborated with colleagues at genetics institutions
across the country to analyze the gene sequences of more than 6,500 people –
more than 4,200 European-Americans and 2,200 African-Americans. Specifically,
they were looking for small changes in the genetic code called single
nucleotide variants – one-letter differences in the genetic code of A,C, T and
G, the designations adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine. What they found was
“an enormous excess of rare variants” in the European-Americans, 73 percent of
which only appeared in the human genome in the past 5,000 to 10,000 years. Most
of the mutations are known to weaken proteins and the most harmful mutations
were commonly found in people of European descent. The next step is tying
specific mutations to specific diseases, which will be difficult. If
successful, this next step could explain much of what is unknown about disease
risk, such as why some people can smoke for a lifetime and never get lung
cancer or emphysema. Gene mutations affect everything from a person’s ability
to survive to his or her susceptibility to certain illnesses. They may or may
not help to explain why Europeans are that much cooler than everyone else………
- I’m Michael F’ing Jordan. In explaining why he refused to change out of cargo shorts while playing
golf recently at a Miami Beach country club, the greatest basketball player
ever to lace up a pair of high tops said a lot of things but that was the
underlying message. "I've been there many times and no one told me a
thing," Jordan said when asked about the incident. "Then all of a
sudden they come to me on the 11th hole and say I can't wear cargo shorts. Wow!
The round is almost over and you want me to buy shorts now? Yeah, right!!"
Forget for one second that Jordan could buy every pair of shorts the club has
on stock and buy the entire club while he’s at it and try to imagine the
arrogance and snootiness of a country club, asking the legendary Michael
Jordan, a man whose name is now a brand in and of itself and who owns an NBA
team, to buy a pair of club-approved shorts because it’s policy is "a
collared shirt and golf shorts or pants, no cargo or denim. If there are
pockets on the outside, it's not allowed." Yes, because pockets on the
outside are soooo ghetto and low-class, you dare not allow anyone wearing such
hideous pantaloons to tread on your club’s storied grounds. Several sources
have claimed that Jordan would not be invited back to the club after the
incident and in reply, Jordan snapped, "No problem!” Any instance in which
the most famous athlete in the world and a man rich enough to afford an NBA
franchise comes across as sympathetic to the average, blue-collar worker is
rare, but the La Gorce Country Club has managed to pull it off with the usual
country club brand of condescension, smugness and the requisite air of false
supremacy………
- In a miracle of international relations, a day has been
discovered in which a Greek man is not down for a party – just kidding, Greeks,
even though the country is known internationally for being really good at
throwing and enjoying a good get together. The problem with the party in
question is that it was thrown by Greece’s neighbor Albania, which held festivities on
Wednesday marking 100 years of independence. Albanian Prime Minister Sali
Berisha managed to offend a few would-be guests with a text message sent to a
museum on Tuesday evening to mark the 100th anniversary of Albanian
independence from Ottoman rule and honor the founder of modern Albania, Ismail
Qemali. His message referred to "the Albania of all the Albanian lands
from Preveza to Presevo, Skopje to Podgorica,” which offended Greek foreign
minister Dimitris Avramopoulos because Preveza is part of the northern Greek
province of Epirus, where some ethnic Albanians lived before World War Two.
Greece also happens to be Albania's second trading partner and its biggest
foreign investor. Berisha’s text message also offended the president of
Macedonia, who stayed away after the car of his prime minister was hit with
eggs and its flag burned in Tirana during a visit last week. Skopje is the
capital of Macedonia and Podgorica the capital of Montenegro, both bordering
Albania. "Such comments do not help in fostering a climate of friendship,
trust and good-neighborly relations between the two countries," the Greek
Foreign Ministry said. Even without some of the event’s honored guests, ethnic
Albanians from across the region celebrated in the national colors of red and
black with parties, dancing and other festivities. Some Albanian men even made
a late push for “No-Shave” November by rocking moustaches to honor the men who
declared independence in 1912 because many of those men also rocked ‘staches. A
‘stache is always a solid party accessory…….
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