- Nooooooooo! Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has given the world so
much joy and so may crack-addled laughs, it’s a shame to see something treating
him this poorly. That someone, it turns out, is Rob Ford himself. The portly,
drunken, rampaging, crack-smoking mayor has spent the past year bumbling from
one hilarious video malaprop to another and much to the chagrin of his own
city, he has become an international punchline in the process. Yet as he
pursues re-election by a city full of people he has thoroughly embarrassed,
Ford is vowing to change his ways and clean up his life. According to the
cherubic city leader, he no longer uses illegal drugs, goes to the gym every day and doesn't
drink as much as he used to. This could not be worse news, even if Ford did
admit that he has had a few drinks in recent months. "Have I had a drink?
Yes I have, but not to the point of some of the episodes before," Ford
said, adding that things are "going fantastic." That is obviously a
relative term because fantastic would be Ford smoking more crack, raging into
the room during more city council meetings and knocking more council members to
the ground in the process. Ford needs to be walking into TV cameras, not
walking off the pounds on the treadmill. He seems oblivious to the fact that if
he succeeds in slimming down and sobering up, he’ll be just like every other
boring mayor in North America – blabbering on about balancing the budget,
cracking down on violent crime and musing on ways to improve schools. That’s no
good for anyone outside of Toronto and let’s face it….most of the world doesn’t
live in Toronto. What the world needs is the Rob Ford who showed up one month
ago in a video that depicted him hammered at a restaurant, rambling in a
Jamaican accent and using profanity. That is the mayor of Toronto the world
needs on a daily basis, not some used-to-be-fat guy who drinks on the weekends
and doesn’t slur anyone………
- Being a mixed martial artist in Nevada just became much
tougher. The Nevada State Athletic
Commission threw an insurmountable hurdle in the way of ‘roided-up,
testosterone-fueled freaks of the octagon on Thursday with its monumental
decision to ban testosterone-replacement therapy (TRT) from combat sports. The
commission approved the new rule in a unanimous vote, eliminating future
applications for a therapeutic use exemption for TRT. As part of the new rule,
the commission will also deny the use of TRT to any fighter who had previously
received permission for its use from the state. NSAC chairman Francisco Aguilar
touted the importance of the ruling and expressed hope that the Association of
Boxing Commissions would take up the cause. "I would encourage the ABC to
look at this issue for all commissions in all states across the country,"
Aguilar said. "I think it's important that there be a standard and I think
[the NSAC] is not afraid to set that standard." In response to the ruling,
the Ultimate Fighting Championships indicated that it would follow suit. In the
past seven years, at least 15 mixed martial artists have received exemptions
for testosterone use, including six in Nevada. That is a much higher rate of
MMA fighters using TRT than in the general public and White said he believes
UFC’s athletes “should compete based on their natural abilities and on an even
playing field.” Six MMAers have TRT exceptions: Dan Henderson, Shane Roller,
Todd Duffee, Chael Sonnen, Frank Mir and Forrest Griffin. NSAC board member
Bill Brady explained that the new rule stemmed from the belief that it was
unfair to athletes competing against someone taking TRT to fight in an un-level
playing field. The decision will likely have a significant impact on April’s
UFC middleweight title bout in Las Vegas, featuring TRT user Vitor Belfort
against Chris Weidman. Belfort was
approved to use TRT in his last three fights, all of which took place in Brazil,
and was expected to file an application to the NSAC for a therapeutic use
exemption.........
- Dirty water is a problem. Trees could be the solution. Researchers
from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology conducted a study showing that a water
filter made out of a small piece of sapwood from a white pine tree can rid
contaminated water of 99 percent of the bacteria E. coli, producing up to four
liters of clean, potable water a day. This could be beneficial for developing
nations, where the funding for expensive water filters simply is not available.
The research team showed that the small pores of a sapwood branch or section of
trunk -- tissue that's designed to transport sap throughout the tree -- works
to trap and block most types of bacteria as water filters through. “Today’s filtration
membranes have nanoscale pores that are not something you can manufacture in a
garage very easily,” said Rohit Karnik, co-author of the new study and
associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. “The idea here is that we
don’t need to fabricate a membrane, because it’s easily available. You can just
take a piece of wood and make a filter out of it.” There were drawbacks to the
makeshift system, namely that the sapwood was only able to filter out particles
70 nanometers and larger. That’s more than suitable for blocking bacteria, the
vast majority of which are no smaller than 200 nanometers, but not for halting
the progress of viruses, which are significantly smaller. That problem could be
rectified using other plants or trees with smaller openings through which to
pass water. “There’s huge variation between plants,” Karnik added. “There could
be much better plants out there that are suitable for this process. Ideally, a
filter would be a thin slice of wood you could use for a few days, then throw
it away and replace at almost no cost. It’s orders of magnitude cheaper than
the high-end membranes on the market today.” Yes, there is irony in the
wicked-rich MIT folks assisting the world’s poorest people, but it’s best to
just roll with it……..
- Joseph Gordon-Levitt is trying to become everything Shia
LeBouf is not. In other words, he wants to create his own material without
ripping off the work of others, he doesn’t want to be a colossal d-bag and he
wants to make movies that do not suck. Levitt’s next effort will be a film adaptation
of “Sandman” and the project is moving
forward nicely. It now has itself a new screenwriter in the form of “How I Live Now” writer Jack Thorne,
who will pen the script for the big-screen version of the DC Comics series from
Neil Gaiman. “Sandman” is the story of the titular Sandman, who rules the world
of dreams but finds his empire in tatters after being imprisoned for 70 years.
It is not the same Sandman immortalized by Metallica on the band’s eponymous
1991 album, nor the one that appeared on screen with Tobey Maguire in Spiderman
3.” Gaiman hasn’t been responsible for many big-name projects, but he has
penned scripts for “Coraline” and “Stardust.” Levitt previously signed on to
produce the film and has also been linked with playing the main role. "I
love just the basic concept of it - just the concept of personifying Dream,
along with all of his brothers and sisters, the seven Endless personifying
Death, personifying Destruction and Delirium and Destiny and Desire and Despair,”
the former “Third Rock from the Sun” star said of the role. “"I mean,
that's just a fascinating and, I think, a really cinematic concept. You look at
the art of Sandman, and it just
looks spectacular. I love big, spectacular movies, but oftentimes big,
spectacular movies sort of get stuck in a rut. They go down certain paths that
end in big explosions or whatever. Sandman
has so much opportunity to do something that's on a grand, grand scale, but
really unlike your average big, grand-scale, spectacular movie. I guess that's
the tip of the iceberg." Levitt is on something of a hot streak after
writing, directing and starring in “Don Jon,” one of the more profitable films
of 2013. Superhero movies and comic book adaptations tend to pull in big bucks,
so “Sandman” could be a money maker in the right hands……….
- Hasn’t Cleveland suffered enough? God seems to say no,
even with the year-round misery in which Clevelanders exist courtesy of their
perennially terrible sports teams and generally forgettable city full of industrial
decay and urban rot. The suffering could get even worse if the Republican Party
follows through on its threat to hold the 2016 Republican National Convention in C-Town. Republican
National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus announced Thursday on Twitter that
eight cities have moved on to the next phase in the selection process,
including a whopping three cities in the Buckeye State. Cleveland will vie with
two other Ohio cities — Columbus and Cincinnati — as well as Denver, Dallas,
Kansas City, Las Vegas and Phoenix for the dishonor of hosting thousands of
rich, out-of-touch old white dudes who will spend three days trying to choose
which indistinguishable, 60-something stiff in a Brooks Brothers suit will
represent them in their next presidential election defeat. Ohio Republican
Party Chairman Matt Borges said in a written release that the state GOP will do
everything in its power to ensure that one of its three finalists earns the
convention hosting gig. “The road to the White House runs through Ohio,” Borges
said. “Not only does Ohio have three world-class cities capable of hosting a
national convention, but bringing one here would put our candidate and party’s
message directly in front of voters.” Representatives from each of the bidding
cities will travel to Washington, D.C. on Monday to present their bids to the
full RNC site selection committee. After that, the Republican National
Committee will pick as many as eight of the finalists to visit and should they
make a late-spring visit to Cleveland and see the still-lingering winter
weather, take in a loss by one of the NBA’s most-disappointing teams – that
would be the Cleveland Cavaliers – and see the depressing cityscape that would
await their convention, that should end the debate. Yes, the convention would
generate income for the city and create a few temporary jobs, but when it ends,
Clevelanders will be smacked in the face with the reality that they still live
in Cleveland and God still hates them………
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