- Welcome to the party, NFL. At long last, the sport whose
players would most benefit from jamming HGH into their massive bodies is on its
way to testing for the popular performance enhancer. At least commissioner
Roger Goodell says so, laying out the plan to add HGH testing to the league in
the near future. Goodell, speaking at his
annual state of the NFL news conference on Friday, said he expects an agreement
for the tests to be reached in time for the start of the 2013 season. Major
League Baseball has already agreed to blood test players for HGH beginning next
season and Goodell is confident that there will be an agreement soon with the
players' union for testing in his league. In explaining why he believes testing
is imminent, Goodell pointed out that the league and union agreed to the
testing two years ago in the collective bargaining agreement. The commissioner
believes (rightly so, for a change) that it is important to have testing to
retain the integrity and the brand of the league. He also touched on the larger
issue of player safety and made it clear despite recent remarks by numerous
players suggesting he is missing the point with suspensions to discipline
players who violate player-safety rules with actions such as hits to the head,
he isn’t backing down. Suspensions get through to the players," Goodell
said. "We have seen an escalation in the discipline because we are trying
to take these techniques out of the game. I stand by our record, because I
think we have made those changes and have made the game safer. But I think we
are going to have to see discipline continue to escalate, particularly on
repeat offenders." The players who have incurred tens of thousands of
dollars in fines will surely be thrilled to hear that……..
- Lena Dunham is staying busy, building her brand and
looking to expand her growing television empire. The “Girls” creator isn't
resting on her success and is at work on a new show based on the memoirs of a
stylist to the stars. Dunham not only created “Girls,” but writes, stars in and
directs the popular HBO series that has been racking up plenty of awards in
recent months. For the new show, Dunham will team up with “Girls” executive
producer Jenni Konner for a story based on the book “All Dressed Up And
Everywhere To Go,” by author Betty Halbreich. Halbreich as spent years as a
personal shopper for famed New York department store Bergdorf Goodman and has
served as a personal shopper and stylist for established stars such as Sarah
Jessica Parker Meryl Streep and Glenn Close. Halbreich has also dabbled in
Hollywood a bit, working the defunct HBO series “Sex and the City” (explaining
her ties to Parker) and has also worked on several Woody Allen Films. Dunham’s
star is clearly rising, as critical reception for “Girls” has been overwhelmingly
positive and she recently won two Golden Globe awards for the series. HBO
clearly believes in her, as the network will also partner with her on the
small-screen adaptation of “All
Dressed Up And Everywhere To Go,” which does not have a fixed start date
yet……..
- Walking away from an explosion without looking back is a
notoriously badass move. An unidentified Kosciusko County (Ind.) man didn’t exactly pull
the feat off, but he came damn close Friday when he smelled a gas leak in his
kitchen, walked outside to turn off the gas and had his home explode behind him
just seconds after he stepped out the door. The explosion literally rocked the
small town of Etna Green, just outside Warsaw, around 10 a.m. Firefighters
responding to the scene said they could see the smoke three miles away and
residents say they heard the explosion even further away. "Literally one
minute it’s all there and five minutes later everything you own is gone. Just
think about what that does to your life," Mentone Fire Chief Mike Yazel
said. The unidentified man first noticed something was wrong earlier in the
morning and determined that his stove was leaking gas. "The homeowner said
he heard hissing from the kitchen. He went in the kitchen and smelled gas, the
stove was hissing," Yazel added. Opening all of the windows would have
been a good first step before heading outside to shut the gas off, but in times
of small-town crisis, overwhelmed people don’t always think clearly. In this
case, the man was fortunate because he did get out of the house, but he never
made it to the switch to shut off the main line. Instead, the house went up in
a giant ball of flame and he was fortunate enough to escape with nothing more
than some singed arm hair. "He's a lucky man. He is a real lucky man,
there's no question about that," Yazel concluded, stating the blatantly
obvious. The damage is too extensive to determine the cause of the explosion,
although investigators say it could have been a faulty pilot light or a leaky
gas line…….
- With America’s many problems, is protecting an vicious,
endangered carnivore really at the top of the list? The answer, sadly, is yes. A combination of natural causes
and global warming mean the wolverine, a fierce carnivore wielding razor-sharp claws and able to
kill prey several times its size, is in danger. It may be tough enough to stand
up to grizzly bears and most other non-human predators, but global warming is
threatening to KO the beast. A mere 250 to 300 wolverines survive in the
contiguous United States and with their snowy habitats melting quickly,
wolverines are struggling. Wolverines rely on deep mountain snows to burrow
dens and raise their young, but those environments are becoming scarce and with
rising temperatures combined with uninhibited targeting by fur trappers, the
picture isn't rosy. Federal wildlife officials are looking to head off
extinction by proposing to protect wolverines living in the lower 48 states
under the Endangered Species Act. They tried the same sh*t twice under the Bush
administration but were denied both times and a third attempt was delayed by
the Obama administration in 2010. Other endangered species took precedence
then, but wildlife officials are hoping it will be different this time.
Wolverines live mostly in tiny isolated groups in the Western United States,
concentrated in the Northern Rockies of Washington, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana.
Larger populations exist in Canada and Alaska and those appear more stable. Protection
under the Endangered Species Act would make trapping wolverines for their
valuable fur illegal outside of Alaska. At present, Montana is the only
lower-48 state that still allows an annual trapping quota of five wolverines.
However, the changes will not address any global warming-related issues that
could also play just as big a role in the wolverines’ embattled status……..
- Welcome back for a while, vestiges of Communist Russia. Former
despot Josef
Stalin and the city of Stalingrad are making a comeback for a little while for
a historical occasion. In fact, the Russian city of Volgograd has voluntarily
drudged up ugly memories of its Communist past by approving the use of its
wartime name at events on Saturday commemorating the 70th anniversary of the
200-day Battle of Stalingrad that turned the tide of World War II. The 24-hour
change was not sanctioned by the city authorities, but Stalin fans (yes, they
do exist) also used the occasion to display portraits of the late Soviet
dictator in minibuses to honor his role in the defeat of Nazi Germany. The city
council made the decision in part to placate war veterans and old-school
hardliners and is believed to have the tacit approval of President Vladimir
Putin, who attended the events in the industrial hub of 1 million on the River
Volga. In truth, there are plenty of reminders of Stalin and the Soviet era in
Volgograd in spite of the fact that millions died from collectivization and the
murder of political opponents under Stalin’s reign of terror. "I
categorically do not justify Stalin's repressions, but you have to recognize
the positive things he did, whether you want to or not," said Gamlet
Dallatyan, a 92-year-old veteran of the battle which Russian historians say
killed nearly 2 million. "It would be good to go back to the name of
Stalingrad, though not so much because of Stalin himself but because that is
how the city was known during the war." A Stalin museum in Volgograd run
by a local businessman and streets named after Soviet leaders such as Vladimir
Lenin prove that the city hasn’t exactly shed all links to its past. The city
was named after Stalin in 1925 and rebranded as Volgograd in 1961, during
Nikita Khrushchev's "de-Stalinization" campaign. That decision
enraged veterans of the battle for Stalingrad, during which the city was flattened
during fighting from July 17, 1942, until the German surrender on Feb. 2, 1943.
Some historians believe it was the bloodiest battle in history, with
hand-to-hand combat in trenches, streets and even inside buildings. About 920
Stalingrad war veterans still live in the region and they remain firm Stalin
supporters. As part of the name-change decision, the name Stalingrad can now be
used officially at public events on five days every year including May 9, when
Russia marks the Allied victory over Nazi Germany……….
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