Thursday, December 19, 2013

Living off the grid, ranting college coaches and Lindsay Lohan threatens to sing


- Being a Dutch hooker is not an easy life. Even in a nation where whoring yourself out for a living is legal, grinding it out by taking some from strangers in some sketchy, rundown building takes a toll on a person. That’s why it makes perfect sense that Dutch prostitutes are demanding the same retirement tax benefits as professional soccer players because of the difficult physical labor they do on a daily basis. An actual campaign is underway led by Freya, a company that wants to run a number of brothels in the central Dutch city of Utrecht. The purpose of the campaign is to secure better retirement rights for hookers and Wil Post, a lawyer for Freya, believes the skanks he represents have a solid case. "Footballers and prostitutes both do a difficult physical job that they cannot do their whole life. Therefore, they would like to be able to save as much as they can,” Post said. Prostitution remains legal and regulated in the Netherlands and it has been since 2000, provided that there is no coercion. The industry has grown to the point that businesses such as Freya offer prostitutes, who qualify for unemployment benefits and a state pension in the Netherlands, a contract and salary. "Men prefer young women: there always comes an age when prostitutes no longer get any work," Post said. “It can take a prostitute more than 10 years to stop working because she's trapped as she can't save money." Yes, johns getting some action on the side may not be the best tippers and that can make retiring difficult. Post is demanding that Dutch tax authorities allow Freya's employees to enjoy the same pension perks as soccer players, who can funnel nearly $7,000 a month into a tax-free pension pot. So far, authorities have not commented on the request……..


- This should be good….and by good, assume that to mean a dumpster fire in the making. Lindsay Lohan is a disaster no matter where she goes, but it would be better for the world if the places she goes do not include any recording studios. The junkie/inmate/psych ward resident/actress/pop music hack has tortured the masses before with her brand if canned, trite musical garbage and the world has collectively yawned, put in its ear plugs and kept on moving. Yet there Lohan is again, dropping heavy-handed social media hints that she has been working in the recording studio with The Kills frontman Jamie Hince. Lohan posted a series of pictures on her Instagram account, all intimating that she had been collaborating with Hince on a new project. In the most terrifying image, Lohan was sitting at a mixing desk while another featured a signed copy of a record by The Kills, which she hashtagged #jamiehince and #studiotime. To say that this musically talentless hack should not be allowed in the same ZIP code as a mixing desk is the vastest understatement imaginable. According to soruces close to Lohan, she has been drinking the same delusional Kool-Aid as Katy Perry and believes that she can leave behind her past as a fabricated pop music creation and suddenly become a legitimate punk rocker simply by telling people that’s what she wants to do. She is reportedly embarrassed by her past musical efforts – rightly so – and believes she would have more credibility by making another run at it with Hince, whose work she has long admired. Ironically, the one thing about Lohan that is even remotely punk rock is the aspect of her life she is most intent on changing: her drug usage. She completed a stint in rehab earlier this year and will have her tale chronicled in an eight-part reality series produced by Oprah Winfrey's OWN network……..


- At long last, science has made it happen. Because the world demands it, researchers have finally buckled down and extracted the entire genome of a 130,000-year-old Neanderthal from a single toe bone in a Siberian cave. This monumental accomplishment is the most celebrated yet in the history of work on Neanderthal genes. The quality of the Neanderthal DNA is strikingly similar to what scientists would achieve if they were sequencing the DNA of a living person, according to the research team. The new Neanderthal genome is one of many recent advances in studying ancient human DNA and comes just weeks after scientists reconstructed a small segment of genes from a 400,000-year-old fossil in Spain, setting a record for the oldest human DNA ever found. What makes the new Neanderthal genome so much better is the depth and breadth of the knowledge it provides and according to researchers, it even offers a glimpse into the social lives of Neanderthals. It supposedly suggests evidence of more interbreeding between ancient human populations than previously known (insert West Virginia joke here). After decoding the Neanderthal DNA, the researchers also compared the genome to modern human DNA to better understand what makes our own lineage unique. That allowed them to compile a list of mutations that evolved in modern humans after their ancestors branched off from Neanderthals some 600,000 years ago. Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and his team probed the discovered DNA to better understand Neanderthals, who have intrigued scientists ever since their first fossils were found in 1856 and can presently be found doing keg stands in frat houses across America. Their remains have been discovered from Spain to Central Asia and in 1997, Paabo and his team extracted a snippet from a 40,000-year-old Neanderthal fossil. They later added data from an 80,000-year-old finger bone retrieved by a team of Russian explorers from a cave called Denisova and learned that the genome belonged to a separate lineage of humans that had not been known from the fossil record before. They dubbed these mysterious people the Denisovans, then compared he Denisovan and Neanderthal genomes to modern human DNA. Their results showed that Modern humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans all descended from a common ancestor that lived several hundred thousand years ago. This shocking knowledge should irrevocably change the world, just as soon as Paabo and his friends can convince the world to give a damn………


- Apology rejected, Barry Hinson. The Southern Illinois men’s basketball coach became an Internet celebrity after his postgame tirade following Tuesday night's loss to Murray State was shared with the world. After the Salukis' 73-65 loss, Hinson denounced his players as “mama’s boys,” suggested they gave the ball away to the Racers like they were handing out Christmas presents and noted that his wife has better post moves than his players. He also lit up starting guard Marcus Fillyaw, whose play he described as “absolutely awful.” "We just won't buck up and bow our necks. We've got to get through that. I'm tired of coaching a guy and having him roll his eyes or put his head down or feel sorry for himself. This is big time. People lose their jobs,” Hinson fumed. The day after his rant, he was asked if he regretted any part of it and said there was one aspect of what he said that he wished he could have back. "I regret one thing -- calling out Marcus' name," Hinson said. "That wasn't fair to him individually, and I'm upset about that. But I'm not upset about anything else I said.” Almost, coach, almost. You shouldn’t apologize for any part of what you said, about Fillyaw or otherwise. The rant was awesome, it was memorable and it put Southern Illinois basketball on the map when few had any idea where the school was located or what a Saluki was prior to Tuesday night. Thankfully,  athletic director Mario Moccia has his coach’s back. Moccia noted that Hinson took over a program with academic issues and a dearth of talent and is doing his best with what he has. "I know this is not the season he wanted to have after 10 games [2-8]. The losses have mounted, and he's frustrated. I just wish he didn't call out the players specifically and would have used more generalities,” Moccia said. Nice try, Mario. You need to have your coach’s back, especially when you admitted that he is a good man who “can have these Yosemite Sam bombastic outbursts.” Any coach willing to say, “My wife -- my wife! -- can score more than two buckets on 11 shots because I know my wife will at least shot fake one time,” that coach deserves support, praise and admiration………


- Robin Speronis has become a cult icon for a small community of people in and around the city of Cape Coral, Fla. Her story has hit mainstream consciousness as Speronis fights The Man for her right to live off the grid. Her struggle against the city kicked up a notch last week when authorities posted a notice to vacate on her home because of her off-the-grid lifestyle. According to Cape Coral officials, they have been inundated with complaints -- email after email running the gamut from mild disappointment to outright outrage. A local television station aired a story about Speronis in November and the outrage started from there. Housing officials posted a notice to vacate the home, but claimed they weren't sure if anyone lived in the home.  Municipalities don't have the power to evict, but Speronis' attorney Todd Allen isn't sold nonetheless. 
"It is the beginning of an eviction process," Allen said.. "A judge would then have to sign off before getting the sheriff to physically remove someone." The way Speronis sees it, she is under attack simply for exercising her First Amendment rights. 
"Take my property away, take my rights away because I exercised my right of free speech in discussing living off the grid?" Speronis mused. City officials claim to have made numerous attempt to contact Speronis since Oct. 24 because of a complaint about mulch in the right-of-way, but she swept the allegation aside and demanded that the city send someone out to speak to her in person. The most bizarre part of the situation is the city suggesting that it merely wants access to the home to provide suggestions so Speronis can live off the grid in Cape Coral. She maintains that she has done nothing wrong and is not afraid of The Man………

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