- What the frak is going on north of the border? Canada’s
mayors are embracing their shady side these days and it’s not only embattled
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and his coke-snorting past that are under the
microscope. Montreal Mayor Michael Applebaum is also in the middle of a
massive scandal and unlike Ford, he wasn’t able to hold onto his job in the
midst of the storm. Applebaum resigned on Tuesday, one day after he was charged
with fraud and corruption in the latest major Canadian municipal
scandal. "I am going to put my energies into my defense and into my
family," Applebaum said. "This is why I am resigning as mayor of
Montreal - it is the responsible thing to do." Those words sounded
little like the promise he made to clean up Canada's second-largest city when
he was named to the post in November. Resignation of not, Judge France
Charbonneau’s two-year public inquiry continues to unearth a growing list of allegations
of contract rigging, kickbacks and fraud going back many years. "It's
a systemic issue, and we realize from the Charbonneau inquiry that, over the
past two decades, perhaps even the past three decades, the system was
infiltrated by dark forces," said Harout Chitilian, speaker of Montreal's
city council. Maybe it should have been a hint that Applebaum is a former real
estate agent, a profession where stretching the truth is part of the job
description. However, he was appointed after predecessor Gérald Tremblay
stepped down amid allegations he had ignored corruption and illegal spending by
his political party and as such, further corruption probably should have been
avoided. Now Montreal needs another interim mayor ahead of a municipal election
due on Nov. 3. A bit to the west, Ford is facing the same calls to step
down after a video surfaced of him allegedly smoking crack with gang members.
Oh, and there is also Gilles Vaillancourt, the mayor of Laval, a Montreal
suburb, who resigned in 2012 amidst his own allegations of corruption……..
- Great news, pop music fans. Drake still makes crappy
R&B/pop, but at least now when he’s singing about the ladies, he actually
knows what he’s talking about – allegedly. According to Drake, his eyes were
recently opened about the realities of love after a conversation with the star
of oh, so many terrible sci-fi blockbusters, Will Smith. As he prepares to
release his new album, “Nothing Was The Same,” later this year, Drake says a
heart-to-heart chat with the lead actor from the bomb-tastic “After Earth” let
him know all about love. “I had lunch the other day with someone I extremely look up to. OK – I
had lunch with Will Smith, and listening to him talk, it made me think I don't
know what love is,” Drake said. “He said something profound. He said love is
when you become one and you need that person. It's not about wanting anymore,
you need that person. Hearing that, I don't know if I've ever felt that
way." It’s a curious thing to say for someone who has released plenty of
songs that make women (with dubious music tastes) swoon, but Drake explained
that he wasn’t esteeming women too lowly in his early songs. “I've held women
in very high regard almost to the point where I felt like I needed them for a
very long time, but I don't know if I comprehend it yet, and I'm okay with that,”
he added. “I've made a lot of music about love being the only thing I'm
missing. I think this is the first album I've made saying, I'm OK. I'm enjoying
it right now. Maybe this is my time to grind it out, make a run for it and add
some memories with my boys." He has released three new tracks so far this
year, including “Girls Love Beyonce,” and in one of them he vows to crack the
Forbes list of richest individuals in the world this year……..
- China owns billions of dollars in American debt and now,
the Chinese want to own the smartphone loyalties of consumers in the U.S. and
around the world. Telecom giant Huawei is leading the charge, debuting
what it says is the world's thinnest smartphone. With the Ascend P6, Huawei
hopes to challenge smartphone leaders such as Apple and Samsung in the global market. Their newest toy is just
6.18 millimeters thick and that number explains the device’s June 18 release
date. "Our theme for this product is elegance with an edge," said Richard
Yu, the chief executive of Huawei's consumer business group. The company plans
to market the phone as a rival for the iPhone and Galaxy in terms of style,
technology and price. Its price point will be more than $600 and the Ascend P6 will
be available in 19 countries by the end of July, including China, France,
Germany and Italy. "We want to provide better products, more innovative
products with better design," Yu added. "Our competitors? For me,
it's not in the same level as this product, the (Samsung Galaxy) S4, (Apple)
iPhone 5 and 6.” He conceded that building a brand and developing customer
loyalty will take time. The phone also boasts a 4.8-inch touch screen and
weighs less than five ounces, with two cameras – an 8-megapixel one on the back
and 5-megapixel version on the front. The cameras come equipped with auto scene
recognition and an automatic face enhancement tool supposedly allowing users to
boost their "beauty level" by factors of one to 10. Huawei has been
selling smartphones under its own brand over the past three years, but has also
faced controversy abroad for its traditional line of business. Founded by a
former engineer in the Chinese army, the company has faced U.S. claims that it
is a security threat. The U.S. Congress warned last year that network equipment
supplied by Huawei could be used for espionage and called for its exclusion
from government contracts and acquisitions. Huawei has denied those claims, but
the British parliament's intelligence and security committee also recently ripped
the government for failing to monitor the widespread use of Chinese equipment
in Britain's broadband and phone networks………
- New York City feels a little safer this days and it has
nothing to do with New York’s finest. The streets of the city’s five boroughs
are (allegedly) a little bit safer thanks to five would-be urban
superheroes fighting crime just like the stars of the new movie “Kick Ass 2.”
They go by the names Zero and Dark Guardian and insist that they are less
superhero and more “the middlemen between citizens and the law enforcement.”
They operate under the philosophy of helping out their community in any way
possible and go by the name “New York Initiative.” Clad in masks to conceal
their identity and costumes that do have a superhero slant, they claim to
patrol all five boroughs with their protective gear but without weapons or
colorful tights. The Initiative is a loose collection of volunteers that
travels by very basic means, namely a skateboard that serves as part shield and
part transportation. Unfortunately, city officials don’t appreciate the good
deeds this ragtag band of heroes have been doing and community activist Tony
Herbert is going over the top in his criticism of the Initiative. “Now that is
absurd because quite frankly, there was a shooting in Brownsville last night
and I got the phone call on it,” Herbert said. “I didn’t hear about any
superheroes flying over the housing developments getting there. This is not
Cartoon Network. This is the real world.” A reference to a basic cable network,
an unintentional allusion to a long-running MTV reality series….well done,
Herbert. He went on to demand the Initiative reveal their identities and allow
law enforcement to take care of policing NYC. Zero disagrees and promises he
and his cohorts will continue to patrol the greater NYC metropolitan area. “We
[helped] the West Village a couple of years ago, first. There’s an article in
the ‘Daily Beast’ about us catching a mugger. [We’ve also] done tons of mugging
out there,” Zero proclaimed……..
- It’s been a while since Lolo Jones has opened her mouth
wide and offended a lot of people, so it’s good to see the über-overrated
American hurdler-turned-bobsledder doing what she does best. After once again
coming up short in the clutch at the London Olympics last summer, Jones took up
bobsledding in one last-ditch attempt to grasp Olympic gold. It turned out that
she was actually good at bobsledding and has already earned three medals for
the U.S. in international competition. She still has a chance of making the
team for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, but she may not have a lot of
friends there if she makes it to Russia. Her superb stupidity techniques were
on display Monday when she tweeted a
Vine video poking fun at her bobsledding paycheck, which came out to $741.84
for her training thus far. "Seven months with bobsled season. The whole
season. That's it," she says in the video before adding, "I'm going
to be a little late on my rent this month." Her complaint was obviously
tongue-in-cheek, as she has numerous endorsements from her track and field
career. Still, it didn’t take long for her fellow bobsledders to take umbrage
with her words. "It wasn't taken very well," said Steven Holcomb, the
most accomplished American bobsledder in history. "People were really kind
of insulted. You just made $741, more than most athletes in the sport. So what
are you complaining about?" Knowing she had stepped in deep sh*t, Jones
released a statement that read: "I don't want to offend anyone, and I've
always wanted to help out my bobsled teammates. Some of them have debt because
they've given their life to the sport. My partner Jazmine and I had to raise
money for the bobsled to be funded just to finish the season, because only 2 of
the 3 sleds are funded by the team. I want to go to Sochi. I want to help Team
USA.” Odds are that she also wants to reach the podium at the Games after
finishing fourth in the 100-meter hurdles at the London Olympics and melting
down as the gold medal favorite in Beijing in 2008, hitting the ninth of 10
hurdles and winding up seventh. She lashed out at the media for what she
perceived as unfair criticism following her performance in London………
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