- Those who have decried New York City Mayor Michael
Bloomberg’s crusade against oversized sodas are not going to like this news. As
the city’s battle to do away with soft drinks larger than 20 oz. forges ahead,
Bloomberg and his sycophants aren't done invading the cups and refrigerators of
New Yorkers just yet. Their campaign to cut consumption of sugary drinks has expanded
to include confrontational new ads warning consumers about sweet teas, sports
and energy drinks and fruit-flavored beverages. This anti-tasty campaign began
as the city’s health department launched the TV and bus ads Monday. Their
primary message is that such beverages may seem healthy and are often pitched
as such, but the truth is that many of them are loaded up with added sugar and
that can lead to obesity and other health problems. To communicate that message
and try to put a dent into the profit margins of Gatorade and Monster, the city
will spend $1.4 million. In a way, the ads are a continuation of a
"pouring on the pounds" campaign that dates to 2009 and as would be
expected when millions of dollars are at stake for one of the most lucrative
and reliable industries in the entire American economy, not everyone is down
with these ads. The good folks at the American Beverage Association argue that the
ads oversimplify the causes of obesity and place too much of the blame on their
oh, so delicious shoulders. As the new ads roll out, the city and soft drink
makers and sellers are locked in a pitched court battle over the city's effort
to cap the sizes of soda and other sugary drinks sold in many eateries. A judge
dealt Bloomberg’s cause a setback by striking down the measure, but of course the
city has appealed………
- A battle of ginormous egos and pompous rock stars, believe
it or not, is turning snippy. Former Stone Temple Pilots lead singer Scott Weiland and
the band he used to front before it fired him are not going their separate ways
quietly. STP fired Weiland earlier this year and replaced him with Linkin Park
frontman Chester Bennington, who is singing for them on a part-time basis
without giving up his own band. In return, Weiland filed a multi-million
lawsuit against STP on Friday, alleging that despite their disagreements over
the years, without him there is no Stone Temple Pilots. The lawsuit names STP
members Deal and Robert DeLeo and Eric Kretz as the defendants and accuses them
of a litany of crimes, including breach of contract and fiduciary duties. It
also provides a nice counterbalance to the suit the remaining members of the
group recently filed against Weiland over claims that he sabotaged a planned
20th anniversary tour in favor of his own solo trek celebrating the band's
first two albums. "How do you expel a man from a band that he started,
named, sang every lead on every song, wrote the lyrics, and was the face of for
twenty years, and then try to grab the name and goodwill for yourselves,"
Weiland’s lawsuit asks. "You don't, but three of the instrumentalists from
the band 'Stone Temple Pilots' tried ... Without Weiland, the band ceases to be
the same musical group that millions of fans recognize and love." In other
words, I AM THE BAND, YOU UNGRATEFUL BACKING MUSICIANS. Weiland also penned an
open letter to STP fans on May 24, expressing his shock and disappointment that
the remaining trio carried on without him, recorded a song and recently
performed with Bennington. "The band that played last weekend was not
Stone Temple Pilots and it was wrong of them to present themselves as
that," Weiland wrote at the time. Among the claims in Weiland’s lawsuit is
that the other members recently met on band-related business without including
him and “clandestinely conspired to wrongfully expel Weiland from the band and
seize for themselves the valuable 'Stone Temple Pilots' name and associated
goodwill.” Among the issues a judge will have to weigh are the band’s numerous
reunion attempts, the partnership agreement they wrote in 1996 and amended in
2010 and whether any one man truly is bigger than the band……..
- Sweet! The International Criminal Court is taking a cue from
rock stars, musicals and circuses and taking its shown on the road. Long
anchored in The Hague, Netherlands, the court is weighing the option of holding
a trial elsewhere for the first time. In this case, the court may travel to
Africa for the trial against Kenya's deputy president, William Ruto. ICC judges
said on Monday they may hear the case in Ruto’s own country or neighboring
Tanzania. The announcement came in response to requests from Ruto's lawyers, who said it would
be "in the interests of justice" for the politician's trial to be
held closer to home. Wherever the trial is held, it should be a proud day for
Kenyans. Nothing is as uplifting as seeing your deputy president and president -
elected on a joint ticket in March - face charges of orchestrating violence
after the previous election, five years ago, in which 1,200 people died. That
is the fate that awaits Ruto and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, e the leaders
of one of Africa's biggest economies. The trial will take place against a
backdrop of discontent as ICC faces mounting criticism from leaders on the
continent who accuse it of unfairly targeting Africans. Holding the trial in
Africa may be the only way to ensure Ruto’s attendance, as he has said he would
attend hearings in The Hague if ordered to do so, but has also asked to
participate by video link. No final decision has been made, but the ICC judges
said holding parts of the trial in Kenya, or Tanzania would allow it to be closer
to victims and affected communities. Heading to Tanzania would also allow the
court to double up on ongoing proceedings in which a U.N. court is trying
alleged perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide. However, prosecutors in the Ruto
case have cautioned that moving the trial to Kenya could make it tougher to
provide protection to witnesses who have allegedly been threatened into
withdrawing their testimonies. Ruto will stand trial with co-defendant and
Kenyan broadcaster Joshua Arap Sang. Their trial will begin Sept. 10, more than
three months after the original start date of May 28……..
- Let the learning train keep on rolling, science. Today’s
world-shaking discovery is that there is a previously unknown alien world
that is just 300 light-years from Earth. Unimaginatively dubbed HD 95086
b, the new planet is four to five times the size of Jupiter and it makes a wide
circle around its young sun, orbiting the star at twice the distance between the
sun and Neptune. In spite of that wide orbit, scientists estimate that the
planet is hotter than Kate Upton in a whipped cream bikini, with surface
temperatures around 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit. That temperature would suggest a
dry, parched planet, but Gaël Chauvin, one of the scientists who helped
discover the planet, believes it is possible that water vapor could exist in
its atmosphere, as well as methane gas. Chauvin and his team estimate that the
planet’s host star is just 10 million to 17 million years old and larger than
the sun. It is surrounded by a disc-shaped mass of gas and dust, which is
likely where HD 95086 b first formed. This disc could also be hiding other
planets, according to Chauvin and his crew. They are unsure of how the planet
began, whether as a collection of rocks that gradually added gas from its
environment, or as a clump of gas that arose from pockets of unstable gravity
in the disc. Chauvin and astronomer Anne-Marie Lagrange discovered the new
planet using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile.
To the untrained eye, it appears to be nothing more than a fuzzy blue blob in
the stratosphere. As large as it is, HD 95086 b is the smallest of 12
exoplanets that have been directly imaged in recent years. "Direct imaging
planets is an extremely challenging technique that requires the most advanced
instruments, whether ground-based or space," said Julien Rameau, the
lead of the study. "Only a few planets have been directly observed so far,
making every single discovery an important milestone on the road to
understanding giant planets and how they form." Sounds truly, truly
riveting…….
- Not everyone at the French open is thrilled just to be
spending quality time in Paris and enjoying the world’s best crêpes with a side
of Eiffel Tower views. Serbian competitor Janko Tipsarevic, who has reached the
top 10 on the WTA tour but has fallen out of late, had himself quite a day at
Roland Garros on Saturday. Not only did he go down in defeat at the hands of
Russian foe Mikhail Youzhny -- which cost him a place in the last 16 of the
season's second grand slam tournament – but Tipsarevic fought two other
opponents at the same time. Those opponents were disguised as tennis fans who
either didn’t know or didn’t care that a match was going on a few feet away
from them. Midway through the match, repeated disruptions by a pair of
exceptionally loud fans pushed Tipsarevic to his breaking point and…..well, he
decided not to wait for security to take care of the issue. "I just
snapped, because you could really see they didn't really care what the score
was or even who was playing," Tipsarevic said after the match. “They just
wanted to look nice and be at the French Open. They had no respect to the
players in terms of being quiet or whatever.” He went on to explained that as
he was getting ready to serve with a 30-15 lead in a game, “one of the guys
just started screaming, calling somebody to the stands.” In defense of the
offending fans, Paris is a cool place to be and sitting courtside at the French
Open is pretty baller, so who really wants to pay attention to a tennis match
between dudes from two countries they couldn’t care less about? Being seen and
shouting out to your friends is much more important. If an angry Serbian tennis
star F-bombs you because of that, so be it. Tipsarevic, the eighth seed in the
tournament, lost 6-4 6-4 6-3 to Youzhny as he struggled to recover from
Friday's five-set win over Spain's Feliciano Lopez in the third round. The
unruly fans were eventually ejected from the stadium, but Tipsarevic still
decided to apologize for his actions. "There is no excuse for my behavior,”
he said. “I think basically the problem was that I used the F word and that was
not pretty. But, on the other hand, I just snapped. It happens to everyone.”
Actually, it doesn’t, but tennis would be better if it did……..
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