- Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan would be wise not to check his approval ratings right now. Ratings tend
to take a dip when your country just heard an audio recording of you allegedly
discussing how to handle hidden funds. Erdogan’s political machine immediately
went into spin mode, denouncing the tape as a fake created as part of an
attempted coup. Opposition leaders took the opposite tact, urging the premier
to step down and get out of town. “Either you take a helicopter and flee abroad
or resign,” Kemal Kilicdaroglu,
head of the Republican People’s Party,
told lawmakers in parliament. The tape was initially released on YouTube, where
all credible information originates, but the source was not identified. Erdogan
claimed the recording as merely a fabrication aimed at undermining his party
before next month’s local elections. Fake or not, the recording has galvanized
opposition groups trying to break the Justice
and Development Party’s dominance in Turkish politics. It’s the last
thing a struggling party trying in vain to contain the fallout of a graft
scandal and prevent the re-emergence of protests that rocked the country last
year needs. The recording comes just as large riots rocked in the capital city
of Ankara, where police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse hundreds of
protesters ahead of the opening of a highway that was built through forested
land. Taken together, the components of this crisis make it the worst stretch
of Erdogan’s rule and for a man who celebrated his 60th birthday this week, a
violent coup is not really the gift of choice. At this point, the old man just
sounds paranoid and delusional. Last week, he accused followers of U.S.-based
cleric Fethullah Gulen of bugging his office and taping his conversations with
family members to undermine his party. Voting in local elections on March 30
will be the first tangible barometer of how much damage has been done, but with
declining value for the Turkish lira and growing unrest nationwide, it’s tough
to imagine the people of Turkey expressing unequivocal support for their
fearless leader………
- Know your role and stay in your place. Colorado Springs
7-Eleven clerk Bryan McGuire did not abide by this policy and as a result, he
is no longer gainfully employed by the convenience store chain. As McGuire
tells the story, he was in the middle of his shift last month when he spotted
two men shoplifting overpriced items from the shelves. As convenience stores
robbing customers by charging $4.75 for a bag of Doritos as legal and thieiving
said bag of overpriced snack food is not, McGuire attempted to stop the theft.
He tried to confront the two men and when they fled, he left his position
behind the counter and bulletproof glass and gave chase. That didn’t play well
with his bosses, who were not thrilled that a person in their employ attempted
to prevent a financial loss and stop a crime in progress. McGuire claims he was
fired shortly after the incident and said there was no mystery about the reason
for his termination. “I was actually on the job and they suspended me, saying
it was under investigation,” McGuire said. “Then I was told that I was fired …
that I’d created an unsafe circumstance by going out of the store.” According
to 7-Eleven, its policy is to tell employees not to chase thieves. Ironically,
McGuire did create an unsafe situation with his actions….for himself. He said
the shoplifters attacked him, requiring him to get stitches. To recap, this guy
put his life and well-being on the line and lost his job to stop a crime that
would have led to exactly zero negative repercussions against him if he had
just let it go. The world remains a drastically unfair place and that won't be
changing any time soon……..
- The New York Knicks will not make the playoffs this
season, but they are awesome. No, they’re not good at what they’re paid to do,
but they excel at certain activities for which they are fined, penalized and
possibly prosecuted. Start with combustible, ball-jacking shooting guard J.R.
Smith. Smith was fined $50,000 by
the league in early January for attempting to untie two of his opponents'
shoelaces and as the team implodes under the weight of no depth, terrible
contracts and a mismatched roster, the man dubbed J.R. Swish is still trying to
tweak opponents by messing with their wardrobe on the court. He pulled down
Mavericks guard Vince Carter's headband in the fourth quarter of the Knicks’
110-108 loss, then proceeded to deny any such action after the game. "No,
your eyes were playing tricks on you," he said with a laugh. "You're
reaching for that one. I [already] got fined once for that s---." All
laughter aside, a grown man trying to rattle opponents by messing with their
gear is both juvenile and pathetic, especially on a team that is so terrible
that you can actually make a case Smith might actually be doing these things
because his squad needs the help. That was merely the start of a bad night for
the Knicks, who went down in defeat as Dirk Nowitzki dropped in a
multi-ricochet jump shot as time expired to lift Dallas to victory. Later on, Knicks
point guard Raymond Felton was arrested on three counts of criminal possession
of a weapon, according to a New York Police Department spokesman. Felton
decided to roll out on the town with his gun in tow and while he didn’t
brandish the weapon or shoot anyone, he did not have a permit for his side
piece and therefore was charged with second- and third-degree criminal
possession of a firearm, which are felonies, and fourth-degree possession of a
firearm, a misdemeanor, the spokesman said. Less than four hours after the
Knicks’ game ended, Felton turned himself in and was questioned at the 20th
Precinct in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It topped off a truly Knicks-like
night that goes a long way toward explaining why the team is so consistently bad
this season………
- Start filling out those thank you cards for volcanoes because
these wonders of nature have not been getting enough credit. According to
researcher Benjamin
Santer of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California
volcanic activity around the world contributes significantly to the slowdown in
global warming over the past decade. Santer and his colleagues studied climate
data and found that temperatures have dropped since 1998 instead of continuing
to rise at the pace climate experts originally predicted. The decline has led
to fears among enviro-nuts that a greenhouse gas emissions deal set to be
determined at the United Nations summit on climate change next year in Paris
will fail because critics will point to the temperature decline as proof that
no sweeping changes are needed. Over the past 14 years, at least 17 volcanoes
have erupted globally in locations including North America, Africa and
Indonesia. These eruptions have emitted large amounts of sulfur into the lower
atmosphere, which blocks the warming effects of the sun, according to Santer
and his team. This has caused approximately 15 percent of the temperature drop,
the study found. The remaining 85 percent remains something of a mystery and
while explaining 15 percent of a problem would be considered an abject failure
in most realms, science gets to soldier on and continue spending time and money
in the pursuit of answers. Current theories include a decline in the sun's
output and an increased absorption of heat by oceans, but neither of those
concepts holds significant promise. Greenhouse gas emissions remain at all-time
highs and most experts agree that warming trends are likely to increase in the
years ahead, so now might be an optimal time to begin rooting for more volcanoes
to go boom………
- Dear Hollywood: It’s OK not to make sequels. If a movie is
terrible or if the first film explored all of the possible content and
storylines there was to explore, then it is perfectly acceptable to just move
on. This is a lesson studio executives will never actually learn, but just
imagine the benefits if they did internalize and implement it. In that
wonderful reality, there would be no such thing as a “Space Jam” sequel. Sadly,
this idea not only exists, but it is apparently on track to happen and to once
again star the best basketball player in the world. Back in 1996, Michael
Jordan battled aliens intent on taking over the world and willing to pin the
fate of the universe to the outcome of a basketball game against mankind in the
original film. With other NBAers as his cast mates and various cartoon
characters filling out the squad, Jordan defeated the aliens and saved the
world. According to Charlie Ebersol, the son of broadcasting veteran Dick
Ebersol, the “Space Jam” sequel starring James is a go. Ebersol and his brother
Willie will reportedly develop the sequel, with Willie penning the script. Charlie
most recently produced “The Moment” and “NFL Characters Unite” project for USA Network
and he tweeted “Space Jam” news, writing, “A childhood dream comes true,” then
tagged that tweet with a link to a story about the project. James, who is
somewhat busy chasing his third straight NBA championship, has so far denied
reports about his involvement with the project. Those denials don’t mean much,
of course, but they do leave hope alive for James realizing how terrible of an
idea this is and pulling the plug on the movie before it begins. Just because
the original movie grossed $230 million worldwide nearly two decades ago does
not mean a sequel is mandatory………
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