- Leave it to Boston Mayor and Serial Grammar Murderer Thomas “Mumbles” Menino
to actually articulate his thoughts perfectly and still f*ck up colossally.
Menino, best known for mangling the names of numerous Boston sports stars
during his tenure, is in a tiff with Detroit Mayor Dave Bing for saying what
most Americans are probably thinking about the D at this point. Bing is pissed
because Menino said in a recent interview that if he ever visited the Motor
City, he'd "blow up the place and start all over." For some odd
reason, suggesting that he would level a bankrupt city overrun by stray dogs
and with abandoned neighborhoods as the norm on its landscape qualifies Menino
as insensitive in Bing’s book. "It is extremely regrettable that Boston
Mayor Thomas Menino used such an unfortunate choice of words to describe what
he would do if he came to Detroit," Bing said. "I would think the
mayor of a city that recently experienced a deadly bombing attack would be more
sensitive and not use the phrase 'blow up.'" Bing’s allusion to April’s
Boston bombing is fair and using the term “blowing up” after three people were
killed and more than 260 injured during the bombing is probably over the
line….but it’s Menino. He has diarrhea of the mouth and he can’t help himself. He
also made salient points such as blaming "inaction" and
"leadership" for many of Detroit’s problems, including its boarded-up
buildings, nonworking streetlights and lengthy police response times to 911
calls. So what if Menino was inaccurate when he suggested that the Detroit
Police Department's response time to calls is 90 minutes? Maybe if Bing and his
constituents had done the right thing and erected that bitchin’ RoboCop statue
at the city limits last year, Detroit would be getting the respect it deserves…….
- To score or not to score? Iconic composer Hans Zimmer could be the latest big name to join the growing ranks of
director Zack Snyder’s forthcoming “Batman vs. Superman” movie….or he could
turn down the offer to score the film for professional reasons. Zimmer has admitted that he
has mixed feelings about scoring the flick even though the Oscar-winning
composer wrote the score for this year's “Man Of Steel,” from which this new movie will continue. Zimmer
also crafted the musical backdrop for Christopher Nolan's “Dark Knight” trilogy of Batman films
and it is that duality that has him torn. "This is really complicated for
me because we all went, 'Okay, we're done with Batman', and now it's sort of
getting smuggled back in," Zimmer explained. "I have to have a think
about that one. I might give you a new Batman if I do it." Whether he
takes the gig or not, Zimmer is fully supportive of one of Snyder’s many
controversial decisions on the movie: casting Ben Affleck as Batman. "Well, I actually think it's a really
good choice: he's a great filmmaker, he's smart [and] he wouldn't have taken it
if he was setting himself up for a fall. And you know, he's a bit older these
days and that's what we need... And he's got a good chin,” Zimmer added,
showing that he should stick to writing music for movies and not casting or
directing them. No matter who scores it or who joins Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Diane Lane
and Laurence Fishburne on the cast, the project will begin filming in Michigan
– yes, Michigan – early next year with a targeted release date of July 17, 2015………
- Beware black Portuguese millipedes, world. These slithery, slimy creatures may
seem dangerous only to those who hate creepy, crawly beings that might find
wandering off a path in the forest, but these millipedes are capable of
inflicting real damage. They are currently suspects in a rear-end collision
between two trains in Western Australia on Tuesday because hundreds of the tiny
creatures were found squashed in a slippery mess on the track. "Millipedes
are one of the factors we are going to take into account," said David
Hynes, spokesman at the Public Transport Authority of Western Australia. Accusing
dead millipedes of a kamikaze attack is bold, but answers are needed after a
train pulling into a station at Clarkson, 25 miles north of Perth, ran into a
stationary one. Train company officials confirmed that six passengers were
treated for stiff necks after, but no definite cause has been established. "What
happened in previous instances is trains which were travelling at speed have
gone over an infestation, crushed them and made the tracks slimy. The train
loses traction and the train has slipped," Hynes added. So what are black Portuguese
millipede doing in rural Australia? They are commonly attracted to moist
environments once they arrive, they live up to their reputation as invasive
pests once their population levels rise. Back in 2009, thousands of the
millipedes overran 1.2 miles of track, wreaking havoc and causing train delays
and cancellations near Melbourne in southeast Australia. Their attacks
seem to be escalating and their level of malice is higher as well, meaning it
is time to start taking their campaign of terror seriously……..
- What NFL players either won't or can't do after a night
of drinking expensive booze at the club, maybe their smartphone can do. With
DUI arrests among players increasingly common, the NFL Players Association has set up an app to provide safe rides for
its members. Its agreement with Uber Technologies allows players to use
smartphone technology to link up with a designated driver and ensure “safe,
discreet and professional transportation when they need it." It’s a nice
concept, being able to summon a ride in any of Uber's international locations,
including nearly 20 NFL cities and Pro Bowl host Honolulu, but access to a ride
has never been the problem. Teams already provide car services whenever players
need them, but like so many other drunks, NFLers arrogantly believe they’re
sober enough to drive or believe that a cab, limo or town car home from the
club is bad for their look. An optimist might choose to believe that using Uber's
smartphone app and having a ride on the scene in minutes will help, but odds
are that it won't. Uber and the union can distribute all of the personalized
key-chain cards containing ride credits to every active NFL player they want
and offer them credits totaling $200 to entice them to use the service, but the
pride issue is a tough one to overcome. "Certainly the issue of player safety
and community safety continues to lead us to find new and better ways to keep
our players safe and members of the community safe," NFLPA executive
director DeMaurice Smith said. "We've brought state-of-the-art technology
and marketing in this effort to keep the players and the community safe.” The
app attempts to make the process easier by allowing a player to summon a ride
without having to make an actual phone call or give directions. Would then-Dallas
Cowboys defensive tackle Josh Brent have used the app to ask for ride in
December when he crashed his car while driving intoxicated and killed teammate
Jerry Brown? Probably not. But the NFLPA has a crap load of cash and if this
app prevents one DUI in the next 50 years, it will still be worth it………
- In battling pollution, ozone issues and environmental
dilemmas including but not limited to melting ice caps, holes in the ozone
layer, smog, acid rain, rising sea levels and global warming, the world may do
well to look to the past. Yes, that time when the world knew even less about
the environment than it does now because during that time, pollution may have
actually done some good. According to a new study led by Georg Kaser, a
glaciologist at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, Europe's
industrial age and the soot it produced brought about an abrupt retreat of
glaciers in the 1860s. Some 150 years ago, the study found, Europe's factory
smokestacks and their black smog caused a quick end to a period known as the
Little Ice Age, which began around the thirteenth century. This cool period in
history boosted the development of 4,000 small and large Alpine glaciers, but
the European industrial age pushed them out around the mid-nineteenth century.
In modern times, the volume of those Alpine glaciers is half what it was at its
peak. Climate records indicate that the age shouldn’t have ended until early in
the 20th century, but it came much sooner. "Something gnawed on the
glaciers that climate records don't capture," Kaser said. "A strong
decline in winter snowfall was often assumed to be the culprit," he says.
"But from all that we know, no such decline occurred." University of
California-Davis researcher Richard A. VanCuren also worked on the research
with Thomas Painter, a snow and ice scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "Before now, most scientists have
believed the end of the Little Ice Age in the 1800s was due to a natural
climatic shift, distinct and well before emissions of carbon dioxide reached
levels that could start to influence climate and glaciers in the 20th
century," Painter said. In order to determine levels of air pollution when
the glaciers began to retreat, the researchers drilled into the ice cores of
the Alpine glaciers and used computer models to figure out how the soot
particles settled in the lower surfaces of the glaciers. With their
findings, this team of geniuses has proved both the power of soot and the
reality that the world needs to stop being ashamed of its pollution……
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