- A crappy sequel to a terrible comedy somehow managed to
not earn the most money at the box office in its debut weekend. “Grown Ups 2,”
the follow-up to a movie that never should have been made, finished second
behind fellow sequel “Despicable Me 2” on the box office earnings list with
$42.5 million. “Despicable” made an additional $44.7 million to hold onto first
place and has banked $229.2 million domestically through two weeks. The weak
“Godzilla” rip-off that is “Pacific Rim” placed third in its first weekend,
making $38.3 million. “The Heat” continued its surprisingly strong run,
declining just one spot to fourth place with $14 million, boosting its domestic
total over $100 million after three weeks at $112.3 million. Disappointment was
the operative word once again for the bomb-tastic “The Lone Ranger,” which could
manage no better than fifth place and no more than $11.1 million for the frame
to elevate its overall haul to a paltry $71.1 million against its whopping $215
million budget. Sixth place went to “Monsters University,” down two spots but
earning another $10.6 million for a four-week bank roll of $237.7 million. “World
War Z” crept closer to profitability, adding $9.5 million to its coffers to
push its four-week earnings to $177.1 million. On the opposite end of the scale
of success, “White House Down” could muster just $6.1 million and saw its
earnings fall 54 percent in its third weekend. Through three weeks, the
presidential “thriller” has managed a meager $63 million in domestic earnings. “Kevin
Hart: Let Me Explain” dropped one spot to ninth place with $5 million and its
two-week tally is $26.4 million. “Man of Steel” rounded out the top 10 with
$4.9 million, good for a five-week haul of $280.9 million, while “This is the
End” (No. 11) and “Now You See Me” (No. 12) both fell out from last weekend’s
top 10………
- Are volcanoes attempting to tell us something, namely
that they are about to erupt and spew hot volcanic ash and lava all over
humanity? Groups of small earthquakes often precede a volcanic eruption and
according to a new study led by Alicia Hotovec-Ellis, a University of
Washington doctoral student in Earth and space sciences, those quakes can reach
a point of such rapid succession that they create a signal called harmonic
tremor that resembles sound made by various types of musical instruments. The
resulting frequencies are much lower than humans can hear, but analysis of an
eruption sequence at Alaska's Redoubt Volcano in March 2009 shows that the
harmonic tremor glided to substantially higher frequencies and then stopped
abruptly just before six of the eruptions, five of them coming in succession. "The
frequency of this tremor is unusually high for a volcano, and it's not easily
explained by many of the accepted theories," Hotovec-Ellis said. If this
phenomenon holds true, it could provide vital clues to a volcano's
pressurization right before an explosion and that could help improve models and
allow scientists to better understand what takes places during eruptive cycles
in volcanoes like Redoubt. The study did not pinpoint the source of the
earthquakes and harmonic tremor, but volcanoes often emit sound when magma resonates
as it pushes up through thin cracks in Earth's crust. At Redoubt, Hotovec-Ellis
believes the earthquakes and harmonic tremor happen as magma is forced through
a narrow conduit under great pressure into the heart of the mountain. The
red-hot magma, with low viscosity, sticks to the rock surface inside the
conduit until the pressure is enough to move it higher, where it sticks until
the pressure moves it again. Each movement yields a small earthquake, ranging
in magnitude from about 0.5 to 1.5. The pace of the quakes quickens and their
magnitude declines as the pressure builds, eventually blending into a
continuous harmonic tremor. "Because there's less time between each
earthquake, there's not enough time to build up enough pressure for a bigger
one," Hotovec-Ellis said. "After the frequency glides up to a
ridiculously high frequency, it pauses and then it explodes." What that
explosion tells the world could be very helpful to pinpointing future eruptions……..
- Have you ever thought of the American flag as a ginormous,
red, white and blue hazard? If not, maybe you should. Look no further than
Boston, where a large American flag and a frayed rope caused whole lot of
trouble on the
Zakim Bridge. According to police, the frayed rope in question led to the flag
falling on a passing car and causing a minor crash on I-93. State troopers said
the flag, which flies over the bridge on patriotic occasions like the just-passed
Fourth of July, became dislodged and fell onto a vehicle in the southbound lane
around 10:30 a.m. It dropped onto a 2010 Toyota Camry being driven by a
55-year-old woman, who was understandably startled by the occurrence and spun
out, crashing her car into the median. Amazingly enough, there was only minor
damage to the car’s bumper and no other vehicles were involved in the crash.
The biggest hassle for other motorists were the backups that resulted in the
crash’ immediate aftermath, but with no loss of life and no injuries, damage
was clearly more minimal than it could have been. The flag was only scheduled
to fly through Tuesday evening, when a scheduled lane closure on the bridge for
construction work was also to provide a window for workers to take it down. The
city workers on the job at that time can now add a fifth coffee break to their
evening instead of using that time to take the flag down. The state has also
ordered a new flag to use for future patriotic occasions and in between now and
the time that new flag first flies, officials will explore a new type of rope
or mounting in order to make sure there are no further instances of “When Flags
Attack” on Boston’s bridges………
- Prepare to be stunned by the world of track and field,
where a top athlete has tested positive for a banned substance. This sort of
thing NEVER happens and yet, here is American 100-meter record holder Tyson Gay, who had promoted
himself as a clean athlete, testing positive for a banned substance and pulling
out of next month’s world championships in Moscow. Gay is refusing to identify
the substance that led to the positive test, but confirmed that he was notified
by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency late last week that a sample came back positive
from a May 16 out-of-competition test. He plans to have his "B"
sample tested soon, possibly as early as this week, but doesn’t sound hopeful
that his forthcoming suspension will be overturned. "I don't have a
sabotage story. I don't have any lies. I don't have anything to say to make
this seem like it was a mistake or it was on USADA's hands, someone playing
games," Gay said. "I don't have any of those stories. I basically put
my trust in someone and I was let down." In other words, it wasn’t my
fault because someone gave me a supplement or treatment with a banned substance
in it and I didn’t know. Never mind that everything a professional athletes
puts into his or her body is solely the responsibility of the athletes
themselves, because that can’t matter here. Gay went on to say that he put his
trust in someone and was let down, although he refused to identify the person. USATF
CEO Max Siegel said in a statement: "It is not the news anyone wanted to
hear, at any time, about any athlete. We do not know the facts of this case and
look to USADA to adjudicate it and handle it appropriately." USADA
promised that Gay’s B sample will be processed and tested in the coming days. "The
B sample will be processed shortly," the USADA said in its statement.
"And as in all cases all athletes are innocent unless or until proven
otherwise through the established legal process, and any attempt to
sensationalize or speculate is a disservice to due process, fair play, and to
those who love clean sport." It’s probably a huge coincidence that Gay has
gotten healthy this season after being constantly plagued by hamstring and
groin ailments, along with a surgically repaired hip. It also has to be a huge
coinky-dink that he won the 100 and 200 at nationals last month and was primed
for a huge race against Usain Bolt at worlds. The third total coincidence is
the fact that Gay has the fastest 100 time in the world this season. He plans
to pull out of a meet in Monaco and fly back to the headquarters of USADA in
Colorado Springs, Colo., to be on hand when his "B" sample is tested.
The winner in this case is anyone trying to argue that track is just as dirty
and rife with cheaters as professional cycling. At this point, the two are in a
dead heat for first in that race……..
- Russia's violence-plagued Dagestan region was thrust
into the news in April following the Boston Marathon bombing, when it was
revealed that one of the bombing suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, went to Dagestan
during a six-month visit to Russia last year. It appears that all of the
region’s violence was not exported with Tsarnaev, as evidenced by the fact that
four policemen were killed in on Sunday when unidentified gunmen opened fire on
their car, local investigators said. The four officers were returning from the
village of Burshi, 62 miles south-west of regional capital Makhachkala, when
two assailants attacked their car. Details on the incident are still being
discovered, but much of the region’s violence stems from the efforts of local
insurgents to carve out an Islamic state in Dagestan. The ethnically mixed,
mostly Muslim region in the North Caucasus between Chechnya and the Caspian Sea
is believed to have been a shaping influence in Tsarnaev’s turn to radical
militant who was willing to detonate explosives that killed three total
strangers. Violence in Russia has become an increasingly big concern with the 2014
Winter Olympics next February in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi and despot/Russian
President Vladimir Putin has deployed extra security to try to prevent any
attacks on the Games. Sochi is separated from the most violent North Caucasus
regions by a mountain range, but the rate and intensity of the violence in Dagestan
may be high enough to jump over any obstacle, natural or man-made………
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