- China’s Communist Party has developed quite the
sense of entitlement these days. Witness the now-viral temper tantrum thrown
over the weekend by a prominent member of the party if there are any lingering doubts about
how strong that sense of entitlement has grown. Yan Linkun, a deputy chairman
of a mining company and a member of a Communist Party political advisory body
in Yunnan, went absolutely ape-sh*t at Kunming Changshui International Airport
and as with anything remotely newsworthy these days, his fit of rage soon leaked
online and spreading like wildfire. In the video, Yan can be seen smashing up a
gate counter after he, his wife and two 10-year-old sons missed their 11 a.m.
flight to the southern Guangdong city of Shenzhen and were put on another
flight at 1 p.m. the following day, only to miss that one as well after they
went for breakfast and didn't hear the boarding announcement. The second delay
set Yan off and airport surveillance video that somehow leaked to the media
show’s him going nuclear. One minute into the video, Yan pushes against the
gate’s glass door and when that gets him nowhere, he smacks his hand down n the
counter, yells and grabs a computer keyboard and hurls it at the screens. He
continues hurling any non-attached object in his immediate vicinity and
eventually attempts to kick down the gate door. Airport security and
bemused passengers can be seen watching as the event unfolds. At one point, Yan’s
wife joined in the rampage, smashing what appears to be a coffee cup midway
through the video. Amazingly enough, airport police in Kunming are still
investigating to determine whether Yan will face any criminal charges after he apologized
to the airport’s deputy manager, telling him, “My irrational actions and rudeness
have caused some losses to the airport as well as bad effects to the public, so
I sincerely apologize to the airport and public." He explained that he and
his wife had reacted angrily because they were in a hurry to get their children
back to school in time for the end of the Lunar New Year holiday and if they
were that angry and anxious to get their children back to school, clearly the
holiday vacation had done on just about long enough. Yan’s employer, Yunnan
Mining Corp., suspended him, so he should have plenty of time to resolve his
legal issues………..
- ABC has assembled its latest cast of D-listers
to compete in its interminable and ubiquitous reality ballroom dancing show,
“Dancing With the (D-List) Stars” and this year’s collection is a motley one.
The lineup was officially announced on
"Good Morning America” and among the has-beens and never-weres who will
attempt to cha-cha or samba their way to victory and jump-start their flagging
career in the show’s 16th season are past-their-prime comedians, UFC fighters
on the downside of their career, Olympians with nothing to do with their time
in between now and Rio in 2016 and marginal NFL players. Eleven cast members
were announced Tuesday morning, with a “mystery” 12th competitor to be
announced before the start of the season. Among the no-names and washed-up
D-listers set to dance are Zendaya Coleman, 16-year-old star of the Disney
Channel's "Shake It Up," second-tier comedians Andy Dick and D.L.
Hughley, mediocre Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Jacoby Jones, faded country
music artist Wynonna Judd, former WBC Welterweight Champion (and husband of
porn star Jenna Jameson) Victor Ortiz and nothing-to-do-until-Rio Olympic
gymnast Aly Raisman. Two of the cast members deserve extra credit for becoming
bonafide reality TV crossover acts, as they will build on their nominal fame
from one crappy reality series with a stint on a second such show: country
music singer and former “American Karaoke” hack Kellie Pickler and the
incredibly worthless, self-absorbed “Real Houseskanks of Beverly Hills” actress
Lisa Vanderpump. Fans of the show (i.e. women between the ages of 18 and 60)
are also atwitter over the absence of one of the show’s professional dancers, Maksim
Chermkovskiy, who apparently is sitting this season out. ABC insisted there is
no bigger controversy going on and that Chermkovskiy is not gone from the show
permanently. “We frequently rotate the professional dancers, so it is not
unusual for them to rest a cycle," a network spokesperson said.…….
- Cell phone providers are pushing hard to develop
their 4G networks, but they’re not the only ones looking to cash in on the 4G
revolution. General
Motors announced this week that its 2015 Chevrolet and GMC pickups will have
the ability to connect to built-in 4G LTE wireless data networks provided by AT&T. The
AT&T deal is the first such agreement for the auto maker, but a company
spokesman said it will announce more carrier and supplier relationships in
the coming months. The data networks will be built into the trucks’ electrical
system and to make 4G-equipped vehicles even more of a target for thieves, the trucks
will have an external antenna to ensure a good connection. LTE, short for Long
Term Evolution, is capable of download speeds 10 times faster than a 3G data
connection and both AT&T and Verizon’s networks have often been tested at
download speeds between 20 and 30 megabits per second. Being able to download
faster from your truck than from your home wireless connection sounds solid and
GM is working on other uses for the wireless system as well. It plans to
engineer the 4G LTE connection to allow in-dash GPS navigation systems to pull
traffic updates in real-time from the cloud. It should also enable drivers to
turn their pickups into Wi-Fi hotspots in the same way they can with certain
smartphones, and to stream video. What GM did not reveal in its big
announcement was what kind of monthly costs drivers will pay for this LTE
connection, although it did say that the system will integrate with OnStar, so
it could end up as a new tier for that existing service……..
- How has Alabama football stayed on top of the
Division I ranks and won three out of the past four BCS championships? By
recruiting the best and brightest young talent and keeping five-star prospects rolling
into Tuscaloosa as its talented All-Americans exit campus for the NFL draft,
that’s how. Nick Saban is the best coach in college football and maintaining
that title necessitates him finding the best talent available, even if that
talent hasn’t yet graduated from junior high school yet. That’s why the
Nick-tator has extended a scholarship offer to Dylan Moses, an eighth-grader from Baton Rouge, La. Moses was one of
several talented young players to visit the Alabama campus during Saturday's
junior day, but he was easily the youngest of the group and he and his father
were surprised to have the offer presented to them. "For Dylan, excitement
spilled over," Edward Moses Jr. said. "When he heard those words from
Coach [Nick] Saban, 'We're offering you,' you could see him light up. It was
shocking because we were going in thinking we were just going to get a tour of
what Alabama has to offer. "To hear, 'You're impressive, keep your grades
up, we want you to come here, and we're offering you a scholarship now,' I
can't even put that into words." Then again, Alabama had little choice but
to make the offer because Moses already has one from LSU, which offered him
last summer before he even attended his first day of eighth grade. Dylan Moses
is no typical eighth-grader, measuring in at 6-foot-1, 215 pounds during his
visit to Alabama. His father knows that keeping his son from developing a
massive ego over the next four-plus years will be difficult given that two of
the best college football programs in America are falling all over themselves
to secure a commitment from him at the age of 14. "The attention from
those levels of institutions, No. 1 and No. 2 in the SEC and arguably in the
country, he feels like a boss, like he's untouchable," Moses Jr. said.
"We have to bring him back on down to earth.” Lots of success with
that……..
- We are living in 2013, right? It seems reasonable to
check because if it is indeed 2013, how the hell is anyone – let alone an
elected official – showing up at a party in blackface and thinking that’s
acceptable? Meet Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who is taking heat – and
justifiably so – for rolling up on a party over the weekend dressed in
blackface and saying he was portraying some “sort of a black basketball
player.” As with so many acts of idiocy in the digital age, his blackface
hilarity was discovered via Facebook. His son posted the photo, in which Hikind
and his family posed for a shot of them all in costume and the assemblyman
rocked a black wig, a basketball jersey and face paint that made him look like
the biggest idiot who had ever tried to convert himself from a white dude
living in Brooklyn to a black guy in a bad costume. Better still, the Hikind
family hosted the party at their own home and it was to commemorate the Jewish
holiday of Purim, which is typically celebrated with costumes. No word on which
sect of Judaism also celebrates the holiday with blatant and offensive public
displays of racism, but maybe it’s a Brooklyn thing. “Someone gave me a
uniform, someone gave me the hair of the actual, you know, sort of a black
basketball player,” Hikind explained. As with nearly everyone who says, wears
or does something to offend another race, the assemblyman insisted he did not
mean to offend anyone and tried to explain away his actions with an even worse
explanation. “Yes, I wore a costume on Purim and hosted a party. Most of the
people who attended also wore costumes,” he said. “Everywhere that Purim was
being celebrated, people wore costumes. It was Purim. People dress up. I am
intrigued that anyone who understands Purim—or for that matter understands
me—would have a problem with this. This is political correctness to the absurd.
There is not a prejudiced bone in my body.” You’re intrigued? Great, because
everyone else is offended, infuriated and incredulous that you’re a big enough
ass hat to believe there’s no problem here. Fellow Brooklyn assemblyman Karim
Camara lamented his colleague’s “insensitive actions” and said he was “deeply
shocked and outraged” by what Hikind had done………
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