- The threat has been there since 1971, but the world chose
to ignore it. Now, an unsuspecting individual in Norwich, England has paid the
price for the world’s indifference and malaise. This person was on the
receiving end of an Oompa Loompa attack late last week after he came out of a kebab
house next to a supermarket early Thursday morning around 3:30 a.m. He was
confronted by group of three men and a woman and reported that two of the men
in the group had orange painted faces and dyed green hair like the (supposedly)
fictional characters in the movie who work in the chocolate factory of likely
pedophile and certified creep Willy Wonka in the movie "Willy Wonka and
the Chocolate Factory.” According to the victim’s account in the police report,
one of the attackers pushed him to the floor and when he attempted to get up,
he was whacked on the head and fell back to the floor, where he was struck
again. The attack lasted for a couple of minutes and left the victim with a cut
below his right eye, two black eyes, a small cut to the nose and a cut lip,
police said. Detectives are now searching for the attackers, although one would
have to guess that the two Oompa Loompas in the group have probably switched to
other attire by now. The incident raises the obvious point that Oompa Loompas
have been über-creepy since they made their debut on the big screen alongside
Gene Wilder in 1971 and the fact that everyone chose to ignore this fact and
act like Oompa Loompas were simply going to keep up their creepy song and dance
routine in that freaking chocolate factory for an indefinite period of time is
unforgiveable…….
- Would there be a place for one of the great rock bands of
the past 25 years if they were trying to catch their big break in 2013? Nirvana
remains musically relevant on the rock scene today, two decades after frontman
Kurt Cobain’s apparent suicide, but the lead singer for a lesser-known British
indie rock band believes Cobain and his musical mates would not be signed if they
were starting out today. The Cribs'
Ryan Jarman is of the opinion that bands starting out now do not receive the
same opportunities as groups did in the past, a reality he blames on the short
attention span of many music fans. “Bands like Nirvana, Sonic Youth, the bands
that come up from the underground and cross over, the problem is there's no
time to do that now,” Jarman said. “Even with underground bands, if people like
them, they totally get over exposed really quickly, then people move on to the
next thing. That's my only concern; that bands can't come up through those
channels anymore.” In a criticism that definitely isn’t new or original, Jarman
complained that the focus is more on a hit single than on putting out a great
album. In his musical world view, that’s a problem because listeners can’t
really grasp or understand an artist unless they listen to their full body of
work. "It's about the single now, but I think people have got a shorter
attention span now, the single, to us, is usually the one we are least
interested in,” he added. “The stuff you put on the album, that's the most
satisfying stuff. So, it would a real be a shame if it went that way.” The idea
that Nirvana’s obvious talent would be ignored today is disconcerting because
one would like to believe that a great band would be recognized in any era, but
the fact remains that there’s no guarantee Cobain, Krist Novoselic and Dave
Grohl would be able to gain any traction in a world where hacks like Justin
Bieber and Becky Black are the flavors of the moment………
- To quote slacker icon George Costanza of “Seinfeld” fame,
“Was that wrong?” The Columbia Packing Company and its now-shuttered Oak Cliff
slaughterhouse in Dallas have to be asking that question after a Dallas County
grand jury indicted the company and two of its officers on charges of dumping
pig blood into the Trinity River. You read that right, pig’s blood into the
river. Even though the slaughterhouse was closed nearly a year ago, the grand
just signed off on 18 indictments against the meatpacking company, including
criminal claims against the two men linked to the business. Key evidence
presented by an amateur photographer who rigged a camera onto a remote-control
plane and discovered the blood while taking pictures of a nearby trail led
inspectors to search for and find the pig blood flowing from the plant into a
creek that dumped into the Trinity River. Oddly enough, the company denied any
wrongdoing, a claim it will now have to prove at trial in the face of damning
evidence. Councilman Dwaine Caraway told the grand jury that Columbia refused
to work with the city to solve the problem, compelling health officials to
close the slaughterhouse part of the plant. “If it were not a total disregard
for the law, there wouldn’t be the indictments. The evidence proves they
disregarded, disrespected, bullied the community,” Caraway said. Former owner
Joseph Ondrusek and vice president Donny Ondrusek are the Columbia
representatives at the heart of the case and both men face water pollution and
evidence tampering physical evidence charges. The company also faces fines of
up to $250,000 , while the Ondrusek’s could face jail time as well…….
- This is probably not where a legit Super Bowl contender
wants to be with the NFL playoffs about to begin. The San Francisco 49ers are widely
considered one of the 4-5 teams with a legitimate chance to win this year’s
Super Bowl, but they are using their bye week earned by virtue of having the
NFC’s second-best regular-season record to search for a new kicker because
their current one is more erratic than Ted Kennedy behind the wheel on his way
home from a New Year’s Eve party. David Akers, a six-time Pro Bowler, has been
wholly unreliable this season, missing 13 attempts in 40 tries after setting an
NFL single-season record with 44 field goals in 52 attempts last year. His
latest display of left-footed incompetence occurred Sunday, when he missed wide
left on a 44-yard field goal attempt midway through the second quarter of
Sunday's 27-13 victory against the Arizona Cardinals, then did it again from 40
yards out just before halftime. As the second kick sailed wide left, Akers
placed his hands on his knees and closed his eyes in frustration as boos
cascaded down upon him from the sellout crowd at Candlestick Park. The miss was
his fourth in his last eight tries spanning three games and even though he
remained in the game and hit field goals of 26 and 43 yards in the second half,
after the game, coach Jim Harbaugh didn't rule out a change at kicker. "We'll
evaluate that," Harbaugh said. "It's his job to make the kicks."
When Harbaugh says “re-evaluate,” what he apparently means is bring in other
kickers, including castoffs Billy Cundiff and Justin Medlock in for tryouts
this week. Cundiff was cut by the Washington Redskins in October after posting
a 58.3 conversion percentage on field-goal attempts, ranking him last among NFL
kickers at the time. And to think he may be called upon for a game-deciding
field goal for the 49ers in a week and a half…..good times…….
- Are scientists correct or are they simply too scared to
tell us the truth? For now, they – meaning participants in a new
multinational collaborative study – are casting doubt on the widely held
perception that there has been a global increase in jellyfish. Stories of jellyfish
proliferations clogging nets for fishermen, stinging tourists and
choking cooling
intake pipes for power plants have increased in recent year, but study co-author
Dr. Cathy Lucas, a marine biologist at the University of Southampton, and her
cohorts claim that these “blooms” do not represent an uptick in the number of
jellyfish in the world’s oceans. Key to the study’s conclusion is data showing global
jellyfish populations undergo concurrent fluctuations with successive decadal
periods of rise and fall. These numbers indicate that the surge in jellyfish
stories and problems in the 1990s and early 2000s is merely the latest rising
phase and nothing more. Jellyfish populations also peaked back in the 1970s,
the study found, but this increase went largely unnoticed due to limited
research on jellyfish at the time, less awareness of global environmental
issues and the absence of the Internet to facilitate data sharing. "Sustained
monitoring is now required over the next decade to shed light with statistical
confidence whether the weak increasing linear trend in jellyfish populations
after 1970 is an actual shift in the baseline or part of a larger oscillation,”
Lucas said. Anyone affected by the issues with giant jellyfish in Japan and
parts of the Mediterranean would probably dispute Lucas’ claim that jellyfish
aren't a huge problem, but the study is mostly suggesting that more research be
done to see if these issues are part of a more significant trend of just the
next step in a perpetual cycle. There is also the possibility that Lucas
and her fellow researchers have been scared to silence by the long reach of the
jellyfish menace and aren’t courageous enough to share the truth that these
long-tentacled terrors are about to launch their big attack…….
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