- Hell freaking yes, Venezuela. With the holiday season
looming, the repressive regime that Hugo Chavez built and then passed on to his
handpicked successor before passing away has provided the perfect blueprint for
finding affordable gifts for loved ones. Presidente Nicolas Maduro is that successor and
Maduro is waging an economic "war" that he says the political
opposition, in collusion with the United States, has launched in an effort to
undermine his regime. Facing such a challenge, Maduro responded the only way he
could: He ordered his army to occupy a major retail electronics chain store and
force the company that runs said store to charge "fair" prices.
Maduro’s order was issued against t Daka, which is basically Venezuela's Best
Buy, and it sparked chaos at the store's five outlets. In a scene ripped from
any American city on Black Friday, thousands of Venezuelans lined up outside
the chain's stores hoping to buy cut-price plasma televisions or appliances
such as fridges, washing machines and sewing machines. Pictures of the chaotic
scenes showed agitated shoppers jostling with one another and local media
reported that one store in the country's central city of Valencia faced
looting. Critics argued that the entire operation was a form of looting organized
by the government, just in time for municipal elections in December. " In
other words, vote for us because we just gave you a $200 flat-screen TV. “This
is for the good of the nation," Maduro said on state television.
"Leave nothing on the shelves, nothing in the warehouses … Let nothing
remain in stock." State-sponsored looting or not, Venezuela's economy is
in a freefall. Inflation has risen to 54.3 percent, while Maduro’s approval
rating has plummeted. To justify the hostile government takeover of Daka, Head
of the High Commission for the People's Defence of the Economy Hebert Garcia
Plaza accused the chain of unfair markups and tweeted a picture of a combination
washer/dryer he said had its price raised 100 percent within the span of a
week………
- Ohio State seems destined to end up on the outside looking
in when it comes to the final year of college football’s Bowl Championship
Series. The Buckeyes are unbeaten at 9-0 and yet, they are well behind Alabama
and Florida State in the current BCS rankings. Unless one of the teams ahead of
them loses, the Buckeyes will be shut out of the BCS title game and that
doesn’t sit well with one OSU player. "I'm a
little biased," wide receiver Evan Spencer said, referencing the Crimson
Tide and Seminoles. “"I think we'd wipe the field with both of them." Not that Spencer’s words will
come back to bite him barring a miracle that gets OSU into the title game, but
his coach was predictably irked by the comments. “I’m very disappointed. I
can't stand that,” the noted liar that is Urban Meyer said. Meyer admitted that
in the most recent USA Today Coaches Poll, he voted Ohio State right
where he's had them all season in the coaches' poll -- at No. 2. It’s easy to
understand how Spencer and his teammates might be feeling their worth, what
with winning 21 games a row and remaining unbeaten since Meyer came to
Columubs. OSU also received a BCS boost last week when Oregon was manhandled in
a loss to Stanford. With the defeat, the Ducks dropped from the third spot in
the rankings and the Buckeyes rose one place. "I have Ohio State in the top five," Meyer said during his
weekly news conference. "I had us No. 2 all year, and I just think we're
playing like one of the top teams in the country right now." Unfortunately
for both Meyer and Spencer, the next two opponents for their team are Illinois
and Indiana, two lower-tier Big Ten teams that won't boost their BCS stock at
all. Even a win over archrival Michigan in their season finale on Nov. 30
likely won't be enough for a title shot unless one of the two teams they could
(allegedly) wipe the floor with loses in between now and then………..
- Maybe the nanite-inhabited world of NBC’s second-season
hit drama “Revolution” isn't so far-fetched. Not if scientists at Oxford University
and Warwick University are developing tiny self-assembling transport networks,
powered by nano-scale motors and controlled by DNA. This new techno-marvel of a
system can construct its own network of tracks spanning tens of micrometers in
length, transport cargo across the network and even dismantle the tracks. The
inspiration for the project was melanophore, a substance used by fish cells to
control their colour. In this network, all of the tracks originate from a
central point, just like the spokes of a wheel. Motor proteins transport the
pigment through the network, varying between concentrating it in the center or
spreading it around the network. When the pigment is concentrated in the
center, the cell becomes lighter on account of the emptiness in the surrounding
space. This is the principle upon which the Oxford team developed its system,
consisting of DNA and a motor protein called kinesin. The system is powered by
ATP fuel and within its confines, kinesins move along the micro-tracks carrying
control modules made from short strands of DNA. The nanobots, made with two
kinesin proteins, traverse the network’s tracks. “DNA is an excellent building
block for constructing synthetic molecular systems, as we can program it to do
whatever we need,” said Adam Wollman, who led the research at Oxford
University's Department of Physics. “We design the chemical structures of the
DNA strands to control how they interact with each other. The shuttles can be
used to either carry cargo or deliver signals to tell other shuttles what to
do.” For their work, the researchers used fluorescent green dyes as cargo, but
the same methods could be applied to other compounds. Additionally, using DNA
to control motor proteins could facilitate the development of more
sophisticated self-assembling systems for a wide variety of applications……….
- Arcade Fire is here to help, fellas. Specifically,
frontman Win Butler is out to help the band’s male fans step their game up and
attract some classy ladies. This help came in the form of his band playing their first United
Kingdom show of their current tour in the alternate identity of The Reflektors. It’s the pseudonym
under which they've been performing gigs to promote their new album of the same
name and for a gig at London's Roundhouse, Butler and his bandmates insisted
fans dress up rather than roll to the show in their skinny jeans, Skechers and
t-shirts with snarky, hipster messages printed on them. During the show, Butler
addressed the fact that the audience had, at fairly short notice, been told
that "formal wear or fancy dress" was mandatory for the performance.
Speaking to a crowd dressed in suits, dinner jackets, masks and even full
costume. A few fans complained on Twitter and Butler proved he does pay
attention to social media, insisting he would not apologize for his sartorial
demands. "To anyone who felt uncomfortable dressing up – I'm not
sorry," Butler said. "At least 70 percent of you are getting laid
tonight… As long as you showered. That's the secret, boys." So there you
go, dudes. Dress up and look nice and that’s what matters most when it comes to
bagging chicks. The rest of the show was nearly as odd, with the venue decked
out with silver streamers and a giant disco ball and Butler, flanked by his
brother and bandmate Will, starting their set wearing paper bag-style,
tiger-print masks covering their faces as singer Regine Chassagne danced
robotically. Win Butler than thanked the crowd for coming before introducing
"an Arcade Fire song,” keeping up the pretense that Arcade Fire and The
Reklektors are two separate entities. Keep it strange, y’all……
- Karma shows up in some unusual places. For former New York mobster
John A. Gotti, the concept so many folks mistakenly use as a synonym for bitter
revenge came in a CVS pharmacy parking lot on Long Island Sunday night. Gotti
told police he was stabbed during a dispute in the always-dangerous parking lot
of a drug store. "Junior" Gotti, the 49-year-old son of notorious
Gambino crime family boss John Gotti, was wounded in the alleged attack, but
not badly enough to prevent him from walking into a hospital emergency room
under his own power. Gotti arrived at the medical facility with a stab wound in
his abdomen after the dispute in Syosset at about 9:30 p.m., prosecutors said. He
was listed in stable condition, but police have not identified a suspect in
their ongoing investigation. Given Gotti’s past, the list of possible suspects
is both long and varied, ranging from those with a beef with him dating back to
his organized crime past to the many random criminals currently going about
their business in the greater New York City area. Being stabbed ends an
unusually long run of good fortune for Gotti, who pleaded guilty in 1999 to
racketeering charges and spent more than six years in prison, but escaped
unscathed in four trials in a five-year period from 2005-09. He was tried four
times, the last one in 2009 for racketeering, but skated each time thanks to
the indecisiveness of hung juries. Prior to being convincted of racketeering,
Gotti (allegedly) committed scores of other crimes for which he was never
convicted as the leader of the Gambino crime family for much of the 1990s while
his father was in prison. According to federal prosecutors, he was inducted
into the Gambino crime family in the late 1980s and made a captain in 1990. His
father turned over control of the family two years later when the old man was
sent to jail for life. The younger Gotti claimed to have left organized crime
in 1999, but recent events suggest that life never left him……..
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