- Sending a severed human head in a box is always a potent
way of delivering a message. There is no mistaking the sight of a detached cabeza inside a box of any kind and the
message is rarely anything other than, “This could/will be you and soon.” That’s
exactly the thought someone wanted to send to the boss of Kenya's police commission
by sending him a box containing a severed human head and two hands, accompanied
by a note reading, “You are next.” The box was left in a flowerbed outside the
body's headquarters in Nairobi and it was addressed to Johnston Kavuludi, who
was appointed head of the watchdog a year ago and was tasked with rooting out
corruption within the police force in a country where citizens recently rated
their police force as the country's most corrupt institution, with 95 percent
describing it as either "corrupt" or "very corrupt.” Some
members of the police force believe the threat may have come from within,
specifically from officers who feel threatened by Kavuludi's reforms"It is
someone who is trying to intimidate the chairman and the entire
department," said Murshid Mohamed, who serves on the governmental body
under Kavuludi. "It could be criminal gangs, it could be terrorist groups,
or it could be errant police officers who might be affected by the vetting of
the entire service." Mohamed insisted authorities would not deterred by
the threat to Kavuludi's life, saying they are “confident in our security and
the entire administration has been backing the commission.” Their battle is
against a system in which 70
percent of Kenyans reported paying a bribe to The Man in the past 12 months. Kavuludi's
reforms are widely viewed as a step in the right direction and with the
presence of severed human body parts to threaten him, it would seem he is on
the right track………
- America’s love affair with the NFL is up and running
again after last night’s season kickoff between Denver and Baltimore, but Week
1’s chippiest game just might be a rematch between two of the favorites in the
NFC. After Green Bay Packers outside
linebacker Clay Matthews suggested that perhaps the best way to slow
read-option quarterbacks like 49ers signal caller Colin Kaepernick is to hit
them, Kaepernick’s coach took umbrage with the notion. "One of the things
that the referees have told us is that when these quarterbacks carry out the
fakes, they lose their right as a quarterback, a pocket-passing quarterback,
the protection of a quarterback," Matthews said. "So with that, you
do have to take your shots on the quarterback, and obviously they're too
important to their offense.” That line of thinking upset 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh,
who pretended to be concerned about potential danger to his franchise quarterback
while not-so-subtly lobbying the NFL to keep an eye on dangerous hits. "You're
hearing a lot of tough talk right now. You're hearing some intimidating type of
talk, the same thing we were hearing a couple years ago," Harbaugh said.
"It sounds a lot like targeting a specific player. You definitely start to
wonder.” Under NFL rules, a quarterback who runs the read option isn't as
protected as his peers once he leaves the pocket and it's clear he's running.
Kaepernick excels at the read option and Matthews would love to turn him into a
dropback passer, even if that means driving him into the turf and putting him
on the sidelines with an injury. "If that means they pull them out of that
type of offense and make them run a traditional, drop-back, pocket-style
offense, I think that's exactly what we're going for,” Matthews added. He has
the backing of his head coach, Mike McCarthy, who said it was copasetic to hit
the quarterback on a read-option play when he's carrying out a fake. "The
reality is, the quarterback is part of the option," McCarthy said. “The
ability to go tackle that player is obviously within the rules." Hitting
the quarterback would have been helpful last season in the playoffs when Kaepernick
ran right past the Packers en route to a 45-31 win on the way to the Super
Bowl………
- Alec Baldwin is living big. At 55 years old and on the
other side of both his success as the star of NBC’s hit sitcom “30 Rock” and
leaving one of the angriest, most enraged voice mails a father has ever left
for his pre-teen daughter, Baldwin has added a new member to his family and a
new TV show to his resume. This time, Baldwin isn't going for laughs, but
rather for a gig hosting a weekly current events and culture talk show for a basic cable network. The
Emmy Award-winning actor is teaming up with MSNBC (official motto: Thank God
we’re not Fox News) for “Up Late w/Alec Baldwin,” which will air at 10 p.m. ET on Fridays beginning in October.
He managed to drum up the requisite level of artificial and self-serving excitement
to hype the show well beyond any reasonable expectation in an official release
announcing the show. "After two seasons of my WNYC podcast, I've developed
a fondness for hosting a show that involved talking with smart, talented and
engaging people in every imaginable field," Baldwin said. "I'm
grateful to MSNBC for helping me bring a similar show to television." His
new boss, MSNBC president Phil Griffin, also drove the hype wagon well beyond
any logical point by saying in the same gushing release that he "can't
wait to bring his personality and eclectic interests" to the network.
"He's got such passion for ideas and what's going on in the world -- he's
going to be a great addition to our lineup." Anyone who has ever heard
Baldwin berate his then 11-year-old daughter Ireland in a scorching voicemail six
years ago has no question that he can summon up a certain, um, passion for a
solid idea…….
- Where is Earth's largest volcano? Believe it or not, it may
have been discovered hiding deep beneath the waves about 1,000 miles east of
Japan. What could also be the second largest volcano in the solar system goes
by the name of Tamu Massif. It is an immense shield volcano spanning about 120,000
square miles, making it equal in size to Great Britain. However, it remains
hidden from the world’s view because its summit lies 6,500 feet below the
surface and parts of its base reside as deep as four miles down. Scientists
have long known about the peak, but most believed it to be a volcanic range. William
Sager of the University of Houston discovered the volcano two decades ago and
the area was dubbed the Shatsky Rise and thought to include a series of three
immense volcanoes. "We got tired of referring to them as the one on the
left, the one on the right and the big one," Sager said. "We knew it
was big, but we had no idea it was one large volcano." When he and his
team looked closer, they found that it was indeed a single peak and they
subsequently renamed it with a moniker meaning “the big one.” According to the
research team, Tamu Massif is about 145 million years old and last erupted just
a few million years after it was first formed. "As much as we know that
anything's dead, this looks dead," Sager added. He also believes that Tamu
Massif rose above sea level because its shape is not extremely high. Its
exceptionally wide landscape with gradual slopes supports that theory. That
shape makes it different from any other sub-marine volcano found on Earth and
could offer hints about how massive volcanoes can form………
- Bad acting and ridiculous dialogue are on hiatus in Llanview.
Production on the second life of “One Life to Live” has been suspended
indefinitely while production company Prospect Park settles a lawsuit with ABC.
Writers for the revived soap opera are still working on scripts for a second season
of “All My Children,” but “One Life” is on pause for now. The two shows migrated
from TV to Hulu this year because no one under the age of 70 and with a job actually
watches soap operas any more, but Propsect Park CEO Jeff Kwantinetz said he
hopes to resume production his suspended show soon. The dispute between Prospect
Park and ABC centers on the fact that in the period between the TV finale of “One
Life” and its online premiere, many of the soap's characters appeared on ABC's “General
Hospital.” During that time, characters Cole (Van Hughes) and Hope Thornhart
(Caitlyn Buton) were killed in a car accident. The lawsuit claims the characters
were on loan to “General Hospital” and ABC sabotaged OLTL's online reboot by
killing them. ABC argued that it made a creative decision to kill off the OLTL
characters and "acted
reasonably and in good faith at all times." This lawsuit is merely the
latest ugly chapter in the attempted revival of the two struggling soap operas.
Back in May, just one month after the shows’ online premiers, Prospect Park cut
down their weekly episodes from four to two to “avoid overloading fans with
content.” Then in June, both shows went on early hiatus due to a labor dispute
that has since been resolved. If the world didn’t know any better, it might
seem that soap operas are an antiquated and unsalvageable entertainment
industry dinosaur that should just be left alone to fade into oblivion…….
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