- Belleville (Mo.) police are locked in a bitter
standoff…..with a local Denny’s. That’s right, the purveyor of greasy, fatty
breakfast foods and greasy diner fare at discount prices is in a pitched battle
with the town’s men in blue after an incident at the establishment New Year’s Day. A
group of officers were eating their Grand Slam breakfasts on Tuesday when a
manager approached them and informed the group that they were not permitted to eat
at the restaurant if they were armed. For some odd reason, the department
took offense to that edict. “It’s absolutely a slap in the face. It’s
completely disrespectful. How can anyone think to tell a police officer you
can’t be in here with your gun? It’s absurd to me,” Belleville Police Capt. Don
Sax said. The five officers at the center of the drama were on-duty but out-of-uniform
detectives who were spotted carrying guns by another patron, who alerted the
manager. Faced with a decision, the manager assessed the situation and informed
the detectives that they needed to leave their weapons in their vehicles or
leave the restaurant. Even after explaining that they were police officers, the
quintet was issued the same ultimatum: disarm or depart. “I’ve never known
anybody that didn’t want a police officer present in an establishment, in a
business,” Sax added. “It’s added security and it’s absolutely what they want.”
Damn straight, Donny. Just ask the local Dunkin’ Donuts and they will
undoubtedly agree. A second manager eventually arrived at the restaurant and
overruled the first one, telling the officers they could stay with their
weapons. That wasn’t enough to placate the offended officers, who decided
they’d had enough and left. The Denny’s corporate office rushed to do damage
control and issued a statement that said in part, “Denny’s policy permits law
enforcement officials to carry their firearms in the restaurant and we regret
any misunderstanding.” Misunderstanding or not, department officials have
ordered officers not to eat at the offending restaurant until the matter is
resolved to their satisfaction……..
- Jay-Z is branching out and diversifying. Having
conquered the rap world, he is taking on the role of scoring a movie,
specifically Baz Luhrmann's forthcoming take on "The Great Gatsby." He will team with producing team the
Bullitts on a score, according to Jeymes Samuel of the Bullitts. Samuel tweeted
out a message about H.O.V.A.’s involvement in the project: "Jay-Z and
myself have been working tirelessly on the score for the upcoming #CLASSIC The
Great Gatsby! It is too DOPE for words!" The film, starring Leonardo
DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire, was originally scheduled for a winter
release, but that has been pushed back to May 10 as Luhrman attempts to reinvent
F. Scott Fitzgerald's tale by taking the past and modernizing it. Previous
reports have indicated that Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the
Wild" was the musical choice to open the film, its auto-tune style
juxtaposed against a voiceover announcing the year as 1922. If the rumors are
true, "The Great Gatsby" would represent Jay-Z's feature-film debut
as composer, although he did dabble in the soundtrack world by orchestrating the
soundtrack for the video game "NBA 2K13." He has also contributed recorded
original songs for films such as Martin Lawrence comedy "Blue
Streak." Ridley Scott's "American Gangster" and his involvement
in the latter project later inspired him to make a concept album of the same
name in 2007. So go ahead and add film soundtrack auteur to a growing list that
includes rapper, label founder, minority owner of an NBA team, owner of a
successful Manhattan club and husband of one of the hottest women on the
planet………
- Many current and former professional golfers have
questioned the wisdom of adding golf to the Olympics in 2016 and it appears the
world's No. 1 golfer may want no
part of the idea either. Rory McIlroy’s issue isn't the same as the plan’s most
vocal opponents because his concerns have nothing to do with whether golf
belongs in the Games and everything to do with which country he would
represent. He is from Holywood, Northern Ireland, not far from Belfast, but Northern
Ireland is one of four constituent countries -- along with England, Scotland
and Wales -- that make up the United Kingdom. That means McIlroy could
represent Northern Ireland or he could fly British colors in Rio de Janeiro –
or he could sit it out entirely, something he says he will consider. "Play
for one side or the other [Great Britain or Ireland] -- or not play at all
because I may upset too many people. ... Those are my three options I'm
considering very carefully," he said. The confusion exists because in
golf's World Cup, all of Ireland competes as one team, while the other nations
in the United Kingdom also compete separately. There, McIlroy could play with
Padraig Harrington -- who is from Dublin in the South -- and represent Ireland.
However, at the Olympics he could choose to play for the U.K. or he could elect
to play for Ireland. "I feel Northern Irish and obviously being from Northern
Ireland you have a connection to Ireland and a connection to the UK,"
McIlroy added. "If I could and there was a Northern Irish team, I'd play
for Northern Ireland." In September, he suggested during an interview that
he might play for Britain and took plenty of heat for his remarks. Saying he
has “always felt more British than Irish” was probably not the wisest move if
he wanted to avoid drama, which is what his newest stance seems aimed to
accomplish………
- United Kingdom, let the Falkland Islands go. So goes the
command from Argentinean
President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who has renewed her call for the U.K.
to return control of the Falkland Islands -- known in Argentina as Las Malvinas
– to Argentina. She accused Britain of blatant colonialism in an open letter to
British Prime Minister David Cameron, a copy of which was also sent to U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. In the letter, Kirchner writes that Britain
ripped the islands away from Argentina 180 years ago on Thursday's date, Jan. 3,
making today a great day to give them back. The dispute over the islands lead
the two nations to go to war in 1982, when the then-Argentinean military
government landed troops on the islands. Total casualties from the conflict
were approximately 900, 645 of them on the Argentinean side. “The Argentines on
the Islands were expelled by the Royal Navy and the United Kingdom subsequently
began a population implantation process similar to that applied to other territories
under colonial rule,” Kirchner wrote. "Since then, Britain, the colonial
power, has refused to return the territories to the Argentine Republic, thus preventing
it from restoring its territorial integrity." She went on to quote a 1965
U.N. resolution inviting the two countries to negotiate a solution to the
sovereignty dispute and calls on the British to abide by the resolution. For
the geographically ignorant, the Falkland Islands are located in the South
Atlantic Ocean, about 298 miles east of the tip of South America. Because of
their position as a strategic shipping stopover and source of natural resources,
the islands are heavily sought after. They raise their own taxes, but their
defense and foreign policy are provided by the United Kingdom, as the Falklands
are one of 14 British overseas territories and have been under British rule
since 1833. In response to Kirchner’s letter, the British Foreign Office issued
a statement asserting that the islanders remain free to choose their own
futures and "have a right to self-determination as enshrined in the U.N.
Charter. This is a fundamental right for all peoples." And the fight goes
on……..
- Google has already integrated über-dominant video site
YouTube into its growing empire, but now the online search giant wants to use
that partnership to connect with your television’s remote control. After
initially announcing support for pushing YouTube video straight to Google TV devices,
Google has now added support for the same function on new Smart TVs from LG,
Sony, and Panasonic. The rare owners of these devices can now use the YouTube
smartphone app as a remote control of sorts. With the tech-dork magnet Consumer
Electronics Show (CES) 2013 set for next week in Las Vegas, Google and YouTube
are expected to show off mobile pairing with a number of new devices from
manufacturers like Bang & Olufsen, LG, Panasonic, and Sony. Additionally,
YouTube is also expected to debut the same feature for a slew of other devices
over the next few months, including televisions from manufacturers such as
Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Toshiba, Vizio, and Western Digital. Its appeal is the
instant access users have to videos and channels from the mobile app directly
on their TV. With the mobile pairing app, users will be able to instantly watch
videos they’ve located on their mobile devices, or queue them up to be watched
as a playlist. In a display of cloud computing power, the app also makes it
possible for multiple different users on the same network to add to a communal
playlist instead of having the playlist bound to a single device. The pairing
concept is so logical that it’s difficult to see it not catching on quickly as
more and more devices are added to its roster. So many people use their
smartphones as a second computer that pushing content to their television set
is a sensible next step………
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