- Does anyone give a damn about women’s hockey other than
women’s hockey players and coaches and their families? Of course not, but that
might change if there were more of what happened late last week in the booming
metropolis of Grand Forks, N.D. A bunch of players no one has heard of staged a
fight that everyone heard about, with Canadian national teamer Brianne Jenner sparking the
melee with an illegal body check on U.S. forward Josephine Pucci. Seconds after
Jenner went full-body on Pucci, Pucci’s teammates Jocelyne Lamoureux, Monique
Lamoureux, Hilary Knight, Gigi Marvin and Kacey Bellamy dropped their gloves
and began brawling with Canada's Jenner, Melodie Daoust, Jocelyne Larocque,
Meaghan Mikkelson and Vicki Bendus. In true hockey fashion, they weren't
apologizing for anything afterward. "I think we came in and defended our
teammates, did what we had to do," Jocelyne Lamoureux said. "It's
always going to be heated (against Canada). The intensity is always going to be
there." The referees dished out 10 fighting majors and a string of other
infractions after the melee with nine seconds to play in the Americans’ 4-1
exhibition victory. Judging by the teams’ recent past, there should be another
violent clash when they meet again Dec.
28 in St. Paul, Minn., because they also fought in October late in a
game in Burlington, Vt., with all 10 skaters squaring off late in the third
period. There was also a massive fight during a 2010 matchup. "I'm not a
proponent of fighting in hockey, but I am a proponent of standing up for
yourself," U.S. coach Katey Stone said. "We will not be pushed
around." That statement is funny because for virtually all fans and
players, hockey and fighting are synonymous. The Lamoureux sisters had arguably
the best night of anyone, each scoring a goal and then kicking some ass just
before the final buzzer. Keep it up, women’s hockey, and you just might be onto
something……….
- There is good news for fish in the continental Arctic region, as much as there
can be good news for anything living in one of the harshest environments on
Earth. While many of the planet’s rivers are becoming so polluted as to make
the fish living in them unsuitable for human consumption, the mercury
concentration in Arctic fish is lower than expected. The cause of the decline
in that concentration, oddly enough, is believed to be the demise of the Soviet
Union, which led to a fall in the level of industrialization. Leandro Castello,
an assistant professor of fish and wildlife conservation in the College of
Natural Resources and Environment at Virginia Tech, led a study on the burbot,
a non-migratory fish. Its mercury concentration was much lower than predicted,
with that number dependent on a variety of factors, including atmospheric,
geological and biological conditions. “It turns out that the economic decline
of the former Soviet Union, which collapsed in 1991, appears to have been good
for the Arctic environment in that part of the world,” Castello said in a
statement. Mercury is commonly used in ore processing and mining such as
smelting and under certain conditions, it morphs into a chemical that can be
absorbed by the living beings through a process known as methylation. Methyl
mercury is a highly toxic substance that can cause serious health issues in any
creature that consumes it. Humans can ingest those troubles if they consume
fish contaminated with mercury compounds. The burbot fish is similar to cod and
resides in the Lena and Mezen rivers in northern Russia. “The fish were
collected downstream of the watersheds, so that they would present everything
that happened upstream. Good news since the Lena River is one of the largest
watersheds in the world,” Castello added. Finally, something Russia’s communist
regime isn’t effing up………
- Massive corruption scandals in someone else’s country are
always fun. Another nation is gripped by a tense, dramatic situation in which
law enforcement or elected officials are accused of perverting justice and
taking bribes so the corrupt can do as they please….good times. In that spirit,
let’s all enjoy the goings on in Turkey, where authorities have removed another 25 police
chiefs from their posts in the latest chapter of a growing crackdown on the
force. Making the drama that much better, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has
called the corruption investigation a "dirty operation" against his
rule. Erdogan delivered some quality rhetoric over the weekend, accusing
"international groups" and "dark alliances" of encouraging
the graft investigations. The situation has exacerbated deep rifts between
Erdogan and his former ally Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Islamic preacher who
wields influence in the police and judiciary. So far, 24 people have been
formally arrested under the corruption investigation, including the sons of two
government ministers and the general manager of state-owned Halkbank. In a
bluntly retaliatory move, 70 police officers, including the powerful head of
Istanbul's force, have either been fired or moved to different posts since the
detention of bribery suspects began last week. For now, Erdogan is safe, but
his ruling AK Party could take a huge hit in local elections due in March. "Those
who want to establish a parallel structure alongside the state, those who have
infiltrated into the state institutions ... we will come into your lairs and we
will lay out these organizations within the state," the prime minister
said in his boldest remarks to date on the controversy. This one is getting
delightfully testy………
- The most-hyped new movie of the weekend was unable to send
its rivals back to their home on Whore Island, but “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues”
was solid in its debut. The Ron Burgundy-led comedy ranked second with $26.7
million, ranking just behind “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.” With $31.4
million, “Hobbit” maintained its hold on first place for a second straight
weekend and upped its overall domestic total to $127.5 million and counting. “Frozen”
snagged third place with $19.2 million and boosted its domestic take to an
impressive $191.5 million and counting after five weeks. Fourth place belonged
to “American Hustle,” which scammed its way to $19.1 million and has banked a
solid $40 million through two weeks. “Saving Mr. Banks” secured fifth place
with $9.4 million and in its first weekend of wide release, it didn’t exactly
light up the scoreboard. “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” fell two spots to
sixth place with $8.8 million and its five-week domestic total now stands at a
staggering $371.7 million. The spectacularly awful “Tyler Perry's A Madea
Christmas” finished some 50 spots higher than it should have, slotting seventh
with $8.5 million and a two-week total of $28.3 million. Newcomer “Walking with
Dinosaurs” was eighth on the strength of $7.3 million in earnings and it more
than doubled up fellow new film “Dhoom,” which claimed ninth place with $3.3
million in its debut. “Thor: The Dark World” tumbled five spots but claimed the
final spot in the top 10 with $1.4 million, good enough to push it past the
$200 million barrier in overall earnings with $200.7 million and counting. “Philomena”
(No. 11), “The Book Thief” (No. 13), “Homefront,” (No. 14) and “Delivery Man”
(No. 15) all dropped out from last weekend’s top 10, while the much-acclaimed
Coen brothers flick “Inside Llewyn Davis” finished at No. 12 despite showing in
just 148 theaters……..
- America, you’re slipping. In a world where you are far and
away the best at offing prisoners and sending them shuffling off this mortal
coil, you cannot afford to lose your edge and yet, that appears to be exactly
what is happening. According to a disturbing new report from the nonpartisan Death
Penalty Information Center the use of capital punishment is on a steady decline
nationwide and inmate executions have dropped 10 percent from a year ago. A
variety of factors appear to be to blame, including a shortage of drugs used in
lethal injections, shifting public opinion and the cumbersome court costs
associated with executions. The report notes that supply problems occurred when
European countries that make related medical drugs stopped exporting to the
U.S. specifically because they don’t want their products being used to put
humans to death, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Washington,
D.C.-based center. On the positive side, Dieter believes this trend will be
short-lived and is eminently reversible. "States are pretty creative.
They’ve found new (drugs) and they’re turning to these compounding pharmacies
to get them," Dieter said. Just as this optimistic man noted, states such
as Texas, Ohio and Missouri have looked to the specialty pharmacies to fill
their killing needs. Unfortunately, judges have been skeptical of these new
providers, further complicating the execution process. In Florida, corrections
officials have swapped out pentobarbital as the initial anesthetic in the
killer cocktail administered to inmates for midazolam, which it had used only
twice previously. All of this uncertainty underscores the skepticism of
Americans about the death penalty. Maryland became the sixth state in the past
six years to abolish the death penalty and prior to that streak starting, it
had been decades since any state had done so. Add up all of the elements and
the United States tallied a mere 39 executions this year, the lowest in five
years. That is a precipitous drop from the 98 executions seen in the golden
year of 1999 and it’s enough to make a person wonder if America has lost its
edge……….
No comments:
Post a Comment