- With just nine days left, 2012 has been arguably the
nuttiest year to date for the Material Skank, a.k.a. Madonna. The MS has been
busy flashing crowds and
brandishing guns at concerts around the world and even for a walking
gimmick whose entire career has been built upon finding ways to reinvent
herself into the next catchy publicity stunt, the past 12 months have been off
the rails. After running afoul of the French for depicting a political leader
in Nazi imagery, offending a crowd in Colorado by brandishing a gun
onstage
in Denver shortly after the Colorado shootings in July and angering Russian
fans (and the government) by handing out pink anti-homophobia wristbands, a
simple cigarette was the spark that precipitated the MS’s latest public
blow-up. At a gig this week in Chile, the Material Skank threatened to cancel
the show after she spotted fans smoking at the venue. She was scheduled to
perform at an open-air theatre in Santiago, but before the show could get
going, Madonna spotted crowd members lighting up their cancer sticks and she
wasn’t happy about it. "There are people smoking right now. No smoking. If
you're going to smoke cigarettes, I'm not doing a show,” she ranted. "You
don't care about me? I don't care about you. All right? Are we going to play
that game? I'm not kidding. I can't sing if you smoke... Entiendes?” When her
tirade did not phase the smokers in question, the MS upped the ante (and her
anger), adding, “You're looking right at me and smoking cigarettes, like I'm a
stupid fucking idiot.” Well…..never mind. Despite the drama (or perhaps because
of it), the MS’s MDNA tour was recently revealed as the highest-grossing tour of 2012 with an estimated $228 million over
the past year………
- Don’t look for friendly, smiling faces at the gate when
visiting Cameroon's
Bouba Ndjida National Park this winter. The former safari tourism destination
is less warm and cuddly these days on account of the threat posed by horse-mounted
Sudanese elephant poachers armed with machine guns, so the central African
nation has deployed military helicopters and 600 soldiers to try to protect the
park and its animals. Last winter was brutal and bloody in the park, with
poachers killing some 300 elephants, or 80 percent of the park's elephant
population, within a few weeks. The park's eco-guards were badly outgunned with
their World War I-era rifles and could do little to stop the Sudanese
"jandjaweed" poachers who had traveled thousands of miles on
horseback to seize the tusks. Hundreds of elephant corpses were strewn about
the park in the aftermath and many of the animals' faces had been hacked off
and the bodies lay decomposing in a park that once attracted many safari
tourists. The government is determined to make sure that sort of massacre does
not happen again. "With the kind of deployment we have in the park here
today, the message is very clear," Brigadier General Martin Tumenta
proclaimed. "Any poacher who finds himself here will simply be
destroyed." Wow. That was no, “We’re going to arrest and prosecute anyone
who is poaching.” Saying poachers will “simply be destroyed” is a strong
statement and with Cameroon's military having set up two garrisons in the park
and several camps along Cameroon's border with Chad and the Central African
Republic, the threat isn't a hollow one. Soldiers are equipped with
helicopters, night vision gear, and scores of jeeps to combat poaching, an illegal
trade that has become a multi-billion dollar industry in Africa fueled by
demand for ivory ornaments from China. Ivory sells for about $135 a pound on
the black market, giving an average-sized tusk a street value of more than
$2,000. That sort of payday is a huge enticement in Africa, where poverty is
the norm in most nations. Patrolling a park whose grounds are nearly the size
of Luxembourg won’t be easy, but the pursuit is a worthy one………
- Now that the end of the world has come and gone again,
does that mean the apocalypse is one big tease? Of course not. There will
always be kooks who believe the end of the world is imminent and just as
importantly, there will always be opportunists ready and able to cash in on
these kooks’ paranoia. Larry Hall of Concordia, Kan. is one such person and
even though the supposed Mayan prediction of the end of the world did not prove
true, Hall’s business plan is still in place. He is a developer who bought a missile silo near
Concordia, Kan. and overhauled the cylindrical structure from a relic of the
past into livable underground condominiums. "I don't think the world is
going to end, but I do think there could be some troubled times ahead and it
would be nice to have this kind of facility," Hall said as completion of
the project occurred just before Dec. 21. “We really are looking for long-term
neighbors not people who just want to come in here and buy it and turn around
and flip it as soon as one threat passes." In other words, we’re looking
to cash in on the disillusionment of a few idiots and when they realize how
wrong they were, we’ll look to cash in on the next band of idiots. Predictably,
all of the condos inside the silo were purchased earlier this year even though
each of them costs several million dollars. "You can use this and be very
comfortable in owning it and in the back of your mind knowing there is a hidden
use that if you had to use it for survival capabilities you've got one of the
best bunkers on the planet," Hall added. His facility is designed as an
underground society complete with a doctor's office, bowling alley, pool,
shooting range, movie theater and a jail cell in the event that an insane fool
dumb enough to buy an apocalypse condo in an old missile silo is also crazy
enough to commit a crime…….
- Hypocritical as they may be, the d-bags who run the NCAA
do not appreciate being lied to. Committing a recruiting or academic crime is
bad enough in their eyes, but these high-horse-riding authoritarians will
absolutely hammer any coach or athlete who is guilty of a misdeed and compounds
their error by lying about it when questioned. Texas sophomore guard Myck Kabongo is learning that lesson the
difficult way and will continue to do so as he serves out the remainder of his 23-game suspension for accepting illegal
gifts and benefits and then fibbing about it when questioned by NCAA
investigators. He was originally banned for a year by the NCAA, but an
appeals/reinstatement committee reduced the penalty to 23 games in a decision
announced Friday. Kabongo has already missed 11 games and must sit out 12 more
before he is eligible to return to the Longhorns on Feb. 13 against Iowa State
with eight games remaining in the conference schedule. “Kabongo accepted
airfare, personal training instruction and then provided false and misleading
information during two separate interviews with university officials," the
NCAA said in a statement. A Texas spokesperson denied that Kabongo lied to the
NCAA, claiming he only misled university officials. The illegal benefits he
accepted came when Kabongo worked out for Jerry Powell, a trainer for agent
Rich Paul. He had his travel expenses to Cleveland paid by Cavaliers forward
Tristan Thompson, also a former Longhorn, who was later reimbursed by Kabongo's
brother. As part of his punishment, the NCAA also said Kabongo also must repay
$475 in "impermissible benefits to a charity of his choice." Texas
originally imposed a 10-game penalty on Kabongo, who averaged 9.6 points and
5.2 assists as a freshman. He has been allowed to practice during the suspension
and practicing should pay off when he is finally able to play in games again…….
- Irony abounds at airplane manufacturer Boeing. The company builds
sophisticated machinery that transports millions of people to locations around
the world and those people often feel like the airlines who buy and operate
Boeing’s airplanes treat them like a 50-pound sack of potatoes: tossed around,
dealt with as less than human and talked to like an inanimate object. That
makes it humorous that in its efforts to make wireless signals on airplanes,
Boeing sought help from 20,000 pounds of potatoes that were piled in the seats
of a decommissioned plane for a series of tests. On Wednesday, the company
announced a "breakthrough" in the procedures it uses to evaluate
wireless signals in cabins. In an official statement, Boeing said the tests
make "it possible for passengers to enjoy more reliable connectivity when
using networked personal electronic devices in the air." Why potatoes?
Maybe because tomatoes don’t have the best temperament for flying? No, actually
it is because potatoes replicate the human body responds to electronic signals
fairly well. Engineers at Boeing's Test & Evaluation Laboratory used the
spud-filled plane to test new methods of wireless transmission aboard planes
without the hassle of finding people willing to take part in the test and all
the hazards such a mass of humanity brings with it. Once the taters helped iron
out the issues at hand, actual human being were substituted for the final
trial. Based on the experiment, Boeing says the procedures it developed can
reduce the time it takes to test wireless signals from two weeks to just 10
hours. "One of the wonderful aspects of our improved testing is that we
can describe both strong and weak signals with incredible accuracy,"
Boeing spokesman Adam Tischler said. Many airlines offer (and charge ridiculous
sums of money for) Wi-Fi Internet connections on airplanes, but the Federal
Communications Commission and the Federal Aviation Administration prohibit U.S.
airlines from allowing cell phones in flight due to concerns about
interference. Other countries allow cell phone use, but only aboard planes specially
designed cell phone receivers sold and installed by Boeing. "This is more
than just wi-fi testing. We can test for safety and usability for all manner of
personal electronic devices that might get used on an airplane," Tischler
added. Following the test, the helpful potatoes were donated to a local food
bank………
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