- Dallas Cowboys owner/general manager Jerry Jones should be
more up front about his intentions. At least then he might get a modicum of
respect when he throws out ridiculously transparent and desperate ploys to get
his perennially mediocre team into the playoffs. After the Cowboys finished 8-8
for the third straight year and once again lost a Week 17 game that would have
put them into the playoffs had they won, Jones said in a radio interview that
he is – shocker – in favor of expanding the NFL playoffs. "From the
standpoint of looking at how exciting it is for a city or a community to be
involved in the playoffs and the fact that you can have a team that might have
literally operated at .500 or in that area ... you can have that team win the
Super Bowl," Jones said. "That makes a big case for adding a couple
of more cities or communities that have NFL teams to the playoffs.” Being a
postseason spectator for the fourth consecutive year is obviously getting to
Jones, as no one believes he is actually arguing on behalf of teams like
Arizona, which finished 10-6 this season but missed the playoffs in the NFC. To
be fair to Jones, he was answering a hypothetical question about adding two
teams to the playoffs in each conference, but still….he sounds desperate. "It
just creates that much more excitement and that much more interest for people
in those communities. So I fall on the side of the ledger that would increase
the playoffs," Jones added. There is also the angle of Jones being an
extremely successful businessman who is always looking to increase the value of
his investments. Adding more playoff teams and games would make more money for
the NFL and that would be good for business for both he and his fellow
owners……….
- The real surprise is not that Palestinian Ambassador Jamal al-Jamal died
Wednesday after what authorities described as an accidental explosion involving
the safe at his home in Prague, Czech Republic. Given the weapons stockpile
this closeted gun lover had in his residence, the stunner is that nothing went
boom sooner. According to Czech authorities, a cache of unregistered weapons
was found at al-Jamal’s diplomatic residence and officers searching the house following
the blast found enough weapons to arm a ten-man combat unit. The weapons
reportedly included assault rifles that had not been registered with Czech
authorities. Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswomen Johana Grohová said the
government was "alarmed by the report of the Czech police” and suggested
that the unregistered arms could be a breach of the Vienna Convention. Grohová
added that the government plans to demand an explanation from Palestinian
authorities. Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, ambassadors
have a specific set of rules under which they must operate within their host
countries. The rules include agreements such as diplomatic immunity. Sources
close to the situation claimed the guns were n retrieved from an old sack and
had been untouched since Cold War times. The attack itself is not believed to
be an attack or a terrorist incident and police believe it could have been
caused by a faulty safety mechanism or other mishap within the vault. Palestinian
Foreign Minister Riad Malki said the vault had not been used in three decades
and was recently been moved from another building. “The ambassador decided to
open it. After he opened it, apparently something happened inside [the safe]
and went off," Malki said. Al-Jamal was taken to hospital with fatal
injuries to his head, chest and abdomen and his family suggested that the
death was not accidental………
- What is the cost of a racist, egomaniacal, pompous
sheriff? Maricopa
County, Arizona is about to find out. Sheriff Joe Arpaio's apparent use of
racial and ethnic profiling will cost the county at least $22 million after a
court ruled that the sheriff’s handling of people of Latino descent was not
tough enforcement of immigration laws, but instead amounted to racial and
ethnic profiling. U.S. District Judge Murray Snow ruled that the sheriff's
office had a history of targeting vehicles with occupants with darker skin or
Latino heritage and stopped such vehicles more often. As expected, the
bombastic e sheriff's lawyers dispute the judge's conclusion and Arpaio is
appealing the decision. In the meantime, Maricopa County must deal with the
judge’s order that a monitor to oversee retraining in the sheriff's office and
the creation of a community advisory board. Over the next 18 months, the county
will have to pay $21,943,107 for the monitor and the retraining, according to
county budget records. For every year that the process continues, it will cost
the county $10 million, according to Maricopa County spokeswoman Cari Gerchick.
Odds seem slim that Arpaio will chip in any money toward that cost or allow
money to be taken out of his department’s budget or his own salary to help
balance the books. Instead, the money will come from the county's general fund,
Gerchick said, and it's not clear if cuts are needed in other areas to find the
money. Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, operates on an annual budget of
$2.2 billion………
- World…it’s time for an honest talk. Times have been tough
lately and many of you are struggling to get by. That takes a toll on a person
and while you can have some leeway for that strain, there are limits and you’re
pushing them…along with the limits on the elastic waistband of your pants. Yes
world, you’re fat. According to a report released by the Overseas Development Institute, the
number of overweight and obese people in the developing world more than tripled
between 1980 and 2008. The United Kingdom-based think tank linked increased
wealth in many countries to bigger waistlines, noting that the number of
overweight or obese people in the developing word soared from 250 million in
1980 to 904 million in 2008. To underscore the link between wealth and weight,
lead author Steve Wiggins and his team added that the number of overweight and
obese people in high-income countries increased 1.7 times over the same period,
reaching 557 million. According to the report, Latin America, North Africa and
the Middle East had roughly the same percentage of obese and overweight adults
in their population in 2008 as did Europe, at roughly 58 percent. “We’re seeing
a middle class emerging which helps the power of the wallet, and a more varied
and interesting diet,” Wiggins said. “People are going for more livestock, more
dairy products, meat, fish and so on. But in amongst all of those, there are
foods that have a relatively high fat content, quite a lot of sugar,
particularly when you get into the processed food.” He pointed out that other
issues often take precedence over obesity among policy makers. Even in Third
World nations, obesity rates are rising – simply at a lower rate. To the shock
of no one and thanks to the FAT FAT-ness of the United States, North Americans
are still the most overweight and obese people in the world with nearly 70
percent of adults either overweight or obese………
- God f*cking d*mmit! In a truly amazing feat, Martin
Scorcese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street” has set the all-time record for most F-bombs
dropped in a R-rated movie. Not that a movie based on an autobiography that
uses the word a whopping 737 times should be expected to be a clean and wholesome
family film, but the 506 times the F-word is used in the Leonardo DiCaprio-led
film is still staggering. By the way, the record number of F-bombs for a
non-R-rated film? That still belongs to “BARNEY MOVIE,” which recorded an impressive
1,587 F-bombs and should hold that record for some time to come. That “Wolf” is
set in the high-pressure world of stock trading and fraud gives rise to its
rampant profanity and perhaps no filmmaker is as well-equipped to make such a
movie as Scorsese. Several of his most successful films are at the top of the
list for profanity, including “Casino” (422) and “Goodfellas” (300). Spike Lee
temporarily seized the lead from Scorsese earlier in 2013 with “Son of Sam” and
its 435 F-bombs, but clearly it was only a matter of time before a film
grounded in excess – copious amounts of hookers, omnipresent drugs and loads of
cash – blew right past it. The book upon which “Wolf” is based is the
autobiography of financier Jordan Belfort, whose daughter has denounced the
film as the continued glorification of a world that ruined America financially.
Still, the film’s biggest crime has little to do with the number of profanities
it includes or its subject matter. Clocking in at nearly three hours long, it’s
far too meandering and unfocused for even the most hardcore Scorsese fan…….
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