- The bunga bunga party will live again – if the people of
Italy are dumb enough to vote for billionaire media baron Silvio Berlusconi to be
their prime minister once more after he resigned in disgrace a year ago with
Italy stumbling through a massive debt crisis. The 76-year-old Berlusconi
reluctantly stepped down in November 2011 after pressure from international
financial markets and was later convicted of tax fraud and has faced sexual
misconduct allegations. He famously was accused of procuring women of, um,
questionable morals to attend wild sex parties at his home and that may have
been the least shady of his alleged misdeeds. Yet somehow Berlusconi had the
kahones to announce Saturday that he is running for a fourth term as premier.
Maybe he looks at the unelected government of technocrats, led by Mario Monti,
that was appointed to replace him and thinks they haven’t wowed the people
enough to remain in power and that’s why he’s running again. Of course, recent
opinion polls place the popularity of Berlusconi's Freedom People Party plunge
to far below that of Italy's other large party, the center-left, but don’t
bother Berlusconi with that nonsense. "I'm running to win," he
proclaimed outside the training facilities of the soccer team he owns, AC Milan.
Despite Berlusconi’s eagerness to run, there is no set date for election, which
are linked to the end of Parliament's term in late April. His decision earlier
in the week to yank the support of his party — Parliament's largest — for
Monti's anti-crisis government should have been a hint that something was going
on and in fact, the move could expedite the process of President Giorgio
Napolitano dissolving the legislature and calling for early election. "It
seems to me that March 10 has been indicated,” Berlusconi said. “That seems a
date that's fine with me.” Hear that, Italy? Get the skanks ready and dress to
the nines because the bunga bunga fun is making a comeback………
- NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has come up with a lot of
terrible ideas during his tenure as the league’s leading man. His position of
pretending to be concerned with player safety while simultaneously shepherding
along the plan to increase the amount of Thursday night games (with players
competing in short weeks and thereby upping their chances of injury) is
especially laughable, but nothing even approaches the absurdity of the idea he
is planning to discuss with the league's competition committee in the offseason. Because
research has shown that the kickoff is one of the most dangerous plays in
football, Goodell is championing an idea first posed by Tampa Bay coach Greg
Schiano, who suggested that instead of kickoffs, teams would have the option of
punting from the 30-yard line or going for a first down in a fourth-and-15
situation. Goodell stupidly called Schiano's idea "interesting"
instead of describing it as the blatant bastardization of the game of football
as we know it that the proposal truly is. At least one prominent NFL player who
makes his living returning kicks has the perfect analysis of the idea, even if
his movitation is undoubtedly self-serving. Browns return specialist Josh
Cribbs hates the idea of taking kickoffs out of the game, saying the move would
alter the league "drastically" and that if the change was made the
NFL would be "just like intramurals." Cribbs, who shares the league
record for kickoff return touchdowns with Seattle's Leon Washington, clearly
has an ulterior motive, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong because in this case,
he is 100 percent correct……….
- Hey science, what do you say we agree that you don’t do non-helpful
sh*t like providing supposedly viable excuses for the freaks and losers who
populate the reality show “Hoarders”? These are the psychopaths whose children
no longer visit because they don’t want to wade through the sea of old
magazines piled from floor to ceiling in the living room, with only a
2-foot-wide path to the rest of the house, which is jammed full of 175
umbrellas and 66 Thigh Masters still in their original packaging. Yet there’s
science, treating hoarding like it’s a legit medical condition akin to obsessive-compulsive
behavior. The two are not directly linked, but in the revised, fifth edition of
the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders (DSM-5), "hoarding disorder" becomes a separate
diagnosis, characterized by a "persistent difficulty discarding or parting
with possessions, regardless of their actual value." One problem with defining
hoarders this way is that now these fools will believe they have achieved
legitimacy. There are already precious few doctors who know how to treat
hoarders, whose off-putting ways are defined by motional, physical, social,
financial and even legal effects that impact both the hoarder and their
families. The DSM designation is important because the manual is used by doctors
to diagnose mental disorders and also to determine insurance reimbursements and
certain research grants. Hoarders seeking to justify their revolting ways often
point to recent research indicating abnormal brain activity in people with
hoarding disorder. At least 4 million people in the U.S. would meet full
criteria for hoarding, but some experts believe that between 2.5 to 6 percent
of the U.S. adult population, or up to 15 million people, may have
hoarding disorder. There are peer support groups, personal organizing experts
or a smack upside the head, all of are appropriate responses to encountering a
hoarder in your life………
- It took four long weeks, but James Bond was finally able
to get the better of those damn hunky vampires and werewolves. “Skyfall”
reemerged as the top movie at the box office in its fifth weekend of release,
even if its earnings total wasn’t that impressive. With $11 million, “Skyfall”
retook the top spot and held off a challenge from “Rise of the Guardians,”
which inched up one spot on the list to second place. So far, “Skyfall” has
grossed $261.2 million domestically, compared to the $61.9 million “Guardians”
has accrued through its first three weeks. “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part
2” tumbled to third place with $9.2 million and has amassed $268.7 million in
its first month in theaters. “Lincoln” held strong in fourth place with $9.1
million, narrowly missing on becoming the third film to surpass “Twilight” for
the frame and boosting its cumulative tally to $97.3 million and counting. Fifth
place went to “Life of Pi,” which banked $8.3 million and has grossed $60.9
million while flying largely under the radar over the past three weeks. The
biggest flop of the weekend, predictably, was the new Gerard Butler/Jessica
Biel romantic comedy “Playing for Keeps,” the heartwarming tale of blah, blah,
blah that made a measly $6 million in its opening weekend and even then, it
probably overachieved. “Wreck-It Ralph” blasted its way to seventh place with
$4.9 million and in its six weeks of release, the film has $164.4 million in
domestic earnings. The disappointing run continued for “Red Dawn,” which could not
blast its way any higher than eighth place. A $4.2 million weekend raised the
project’s three-week total to $37.2 million and allowed it to hold off “Flight,”
which came in ninth and added $3 million to its cumulative haul of $86.2
million through six weeks. “Killing Them Softly” claimed the last spot in the
top 10 with $2.7 million, giving it an unimpressive two-week domestic total of
$11.7 million. “The Collection,” (No. 13) was the lone film to drop out from
last week’s top 10, doing so in just its second week………
- Thanksgiving can stir up some powerful emotions and not
just for human beings forced to spend extended periods of time with their
über-annoying family members. The holiday can be a stressful time for turkeys
as well because….well, they could die to become the cornerstone of that perfect
holiday meal and the source of leftovers that last for a week. Anyone who
doubts that reality need look no further than Brookline, Mass., where an
infestation of aggressive, wild turkeys has turned life upside down for
residents of several neighborhoods. Town officials are attempting to figure out
what to do with the angry birds and a contentious meeting at the Brookline Police Station
featured residents sharing tales of being terrorized by tyrannical turkeys in
their yards. “The dominant turkey flew up into my head, I crouched down to
protect myself and he clawed me on my neck, breaking my skin,” resident Karen
Halvorson said. The prime targets of the residents’ rage seemed to be three
dominant male turkeys who are the most aggressive of the bunch. Halvorson’s
husband, Craig, recounted stories of four attacks and neighborhood mail carrier
Mike Bruno claimed that he is routinely attacked multiple times every week. “I
have to be quite aggressive to get them away. I usually pick up a stick and
swing a stick at them. I can’t turn my back on them because they’ll come right
after me,” he said. Why no one is stating the obvious and suggesting that Brookline
put out a call for hunters from anywhere in the area to bring their crossbows
and rifles and take care of the problem. Tell residents of those neighborhoods
to go on a day trip somewhere nice or stay in their homes, pack away their
damageable items they keep outdoors and allow the hunters to take care of the
problem. Done and done. What’s that you say? The turkeys are protected and
can’t be harmed? OK, let’s make that turkey hunt unofficial and invite law
enforcement and animal control officers to take a day trip along with everyone
else………
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