- Yasiel Puig is
a fan and media favorite to earn a spot in the Major League Baseball All-Star
game, but not everyone is a fan of the Dodgers’ rookie sensation. The
22-year-old Puig has sized the stage since debuting with the Dodgers on June 2,
batting .436 with seven home runs and 16 RBIs in 26 games. He has helped lead
them to a 15-11 record that has allowed them to rebound from a rough start to
climb back into contention in the NL West. Just don’t tell Philadelphia
Phillies closer Jonathan Papelbon that Puig deserves a spot among the National
League’s best. "To me, it's an absolute joke," Papelbon said of Puig's
All-Star candidacy. "It's really kind of stupid if you ask me." Maybe
Papelbon hasn’t paid much attention to Puig’s stellar first month or maybe he’s
just an ass hat who struggled to pronounce Puig's name correctly during his
interview with MLB Network Radio and is of the misguided opinion that the best
players having the best year are the ones who should make it to the All-Star
Game. That notion went out the window the instant fans were given the right to
select All-Star starters and hasn’t come back to life since. . "The guy's
got a month, I don't even think he's got a month in the big leagues,"
Papelbon said. "Just comparing him to this and that, and saying he's going
to make the All-Star team, that's a joke to me. It's just really what happens
in baseball when … to me it really does an injustice to the veteran players
that have been in the game for eight-, nine-, 10-plus years. It kind of does them
an injustice because they've worked so hard to stay there." Papelbon, a nine-year
veteran and five-time All-Star, has a 2.05 ERA and 15 saves this season and
could make the team himself. However, he did not pitch against the Dodgers this
past weekend, when Puig went 7-for-16 and scored five runs, nor did he seem to
have paid much attention to the games……..
- It sounds like some sort of electronic gas-passing machine
used to make 8-year-olds laugh or the latest iPhone to liven up a dull meal
around the dinner table, but in truth it is neither. Epharta is simply the
byproduct of poor spelling, worse spell checking and general bureaucratic
incompetence and sloppiness. It is is the misspelled word currently adorning a
road sign at mile 43 between Reading
and Ephrata, Pa. Someone with enough responsibility to order a sign that is
supposed to stand the test of years and direct people on a major highway to the
proper place didn’t bother to check their spelling and none of their co-workers
or superiors put in the time or effort to double-check it. As a result, the
new, green sign with white lettering was produced and put up alongside the
road. It wasn’t up long before passing motorists began to notice and called in
to report the problem. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation claims the
error was made in its sign shop, but can't quite explain how no one caught the
error before the sign was finished and sent out to be erected. Now that it’s up
and needs a fix, the option of taping or painting over it and putting the
letters in the correct order isn't feasible and a more in-depth fix is needed.
As a result of this governmental incompetence, between $800-$1,200 will now be
spent to fix the sign. Once the new version is finished, it might be time to
answer the long-lingering question of how many government employees it takes to
ensure that a new road sign has all of its words spelled correctly……..
- Prepare for battle, French National Front leader Marine Le Pen. European
lawmakers stripped the embattled far-right politician of her parliamentary
immunity Tuesday, clearing the way for her to face charges over alleged
anti-Muslim comments. The vote at the European Parliament in Strasbourg was
conducted by a show of hands and a clear majority was in favor of the decision.
It also confirmed a decision by the parliament’s legal affairs committee last
month to recommend lifting her immunity. Le Pen has been a European lawmaker
since 2004 and was able to be in parliament for the vote along with her father,
former National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. Seeing most of her colleagues
raise their hands against her was a reminder of how far she has fallen since
finishing third in last year’s French presidential election, scoring the
highest percentage of the vote the National Front has ever received in the
first round of the vote. Even after the vote, Le Pen said she stood by her
comments. “I take responsibility for them and I will go and defend them before
the court,” she proclaimed. Her spokesman, Ludovic de Danne, said the National
Front leader now expects to be charged whenever she is called before a judge
and welcomes a chance to settle the issue. Lyon’s public prosecutor handled the
initial complaint about Ms. Le Pen’s alleged comments, but refused to comment
on whether charges would be filed when Le Pen returns to face a judge. The
complaint accused her of “inciting discrimination, violence, and hate towards a
group people because of their religion” and the maximum sentence is one year in
prison and a €45,000 fine. Le Pen’s problems stem from a December 2010 in which
she seemed to compare Muslim street prayers in France to the presence of Nazi
troops in France during the country’s World War II occupation. The Collectif
Contre L’Islamophobie en France—an organization created in 2003 to fight hatred
against Islam— filed the complaint, but last October Le Pen’s lawyers invoked
her parliamentary immunity as a reason for not appearing before a judge. That defense
is now gone and Le Pen appears poised for a fight…......
- It has only aired two episodes, but the CBS drama
"Under the Dome" has shown that it might be the very sort of surprise
hit that every major network is after. According to the number crunchers at
Nielsen, an estimated 13.5 million people watched the debut last week of the
summer series and the second episode, which aired Monday, was seen by 11.5
million people. An additional 3 million watched on their DVRs or through
on-demand services. Even when CBS reran the premiere Sunday, it drew another
5.1 million viewers. The show is based on a novel by Stephen King, although its
plot has already diverged significantly from the story in the book and fans of
the novel has become so angry that King felt compelled to release an open
letter defending the show and insisting he had no issues with how it has
progressed so far. The show centers on the fictional town of Chester’s Mill,
where the small-town populace has become trapped under a dome that acts as a
force field, sealing them off from the rest of the world. Air and water can
pass through the dome, but humans cannot and the dome seems to emit some sort
of electrical pulse that can make pacemakers go haywire and cause serious
problems for anyone attempting to operate battery-powered machinery near it. Its
ratings would be outstanding even for a series debuting in the fall, but
posting those numbers during the summer is sure to grab the attention of other
networks, some of whom have already been talking about dramas as a new approach
to stem the erosion of viewers. Then again, sci-fi shows such as “Heroes” have
proven to be network hits for one of the big four networks, only to fade after
a stellar first season, so handing “Under the Dome” any awards is premature and
then some. Does that mean NBC, ABC, Fox and even the CW won't try to replicate
its results? Of course not……..
- Bomb tests to protect elephants from poachers? So says
science and science is only usually wrong. A study led by Kevin Uno, a
researcher at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, has
suggested that bomb tests conducted generations ago could indirectly help fight
illegal poaching of African elephants. The tests were carried out on nuclear
weapons in the 1950s and '60s and spread a radioactive variety of carbon
worldwide in the atmosphere. That carbon was picked up by plants during
photosynthesis and then deposited in the bodies of herbivores like African
elephants. Uno’s team measured levels of this carbon isotope — known as
carbon-14 — in elephant tusks and ivory to determine how old the tusks are.
Knowing tusks’ age matters because many regulations of ivory trade are
date-specific. For the United States, ivory taken prior to a 1989 worldwide ban
on African elephant tusks may be legally traded, but newer ivory cannot. "I
don't necessarily think this will save the elephants, but it's a critical tool
to fight poaching of elephants," Uno said. By measuring the concentration
of this type of carbon, which has slowly declined in the past 50 years researchers
identified two possible dates for the age of the sample, before and after the
spike on the curve of carbon-14 concentrations. They then sampled two locations
on the ivory, testing one part of the tusk that is younger, and one that is
older. The technique requires "just a pinch" of material, Uno said.
Using this technique and another, older method, the researchers could
collaborate with wildlife rangers to protect certain hotspots for poaching. Poaching
remains a major problem and is getting worse, Uno said. An estimated 46.5 tons
of ivory were seized in 2011, with even higher numbers suspected once final
data is compiled for 2012………
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