- Brought down by dairy. Greece's deputy agriculture minister is now Greece's
former deputy agriculture minister and his downfall was brought about by
nothing more than a controversial proposal to lengthen the shelf life of milk. Minister
Maximos Harakopoulos, who represents an agricultural constituency, has long
been an outspoken opponent of the milk reform, one of several demanded by
Greece's creditors — the European Union, the European Central Bank and the
International Monetary Fund. Outrage over austerity measures has been at the
heart of anti-government violence in the Mediterranean nation in recent months,
but battling over milk is an interesting new twist to the story. Greek milk
prices are among the highest in Europe and the idea of lengthening the shelf
life plays into both the inability to sell stockpiles of the white liquid and the
willingness of the masses to riot over just about anything attached to the
letters EU these days. The milk measures is one of several market reforms
agreed upon by the creditors that are in an omnibus bill currently before the
Greek legislature. Harakopoulos said he would have voted against the milk
reform if it had been in a separate bill, but after stepping down, changed his
tune and said he will vote for the bill to ensure more loans by Greece's
creditors. Not only has this man been held hostage by milk, but he has now been
strong-armed by a product that doesn’t even have arms. So few revolts have been
based around dairy products in world history, but maybe this can be the first
of a new wave of revolutions that are both fortified and rich in calcium……..
- A good coach or manager will always have his team’s back,
at least publicly. Even if the season goes horribly awry, that coach will defend
his guys when fans or media members attack them. Manchester United manager David
Moyes is not a good manager and the most recent evidence of this came when he
was pressed for the umpteenth time this season about the legendary team’s
struggles. United are 18 points off the pace in the English Premier League and
have lost numerous times to seemingly inferior foes at the once-impenetrable Old
Trafford. Moyes could own the fact that he hasn’t done a good job at the helm
and fall on a grenade for his guys….but he isn't going to. With critics calling
for the retired Sir Alex Ferguson to come back and save United, Moyes reached
out and threw his current team under the bus by saying that even Ferguson would
have found it challenging to win with the team of losers he’s now leading.
Moyes lit up United’s aging roster and noted that it includes quite a few
players over 30, including center-backs Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand,
left-back Patrice Evra, midfielders Ryan Giggs and Michael Carrick, and striker
Robin van Persie. "People are aware there is a squad that is a bit more aging,
so I think it would have been a tough season for whoever was in charge of
Manchester United this year," Moyes said. "And I actually think if
Sir Alex was here this year it would be difficult for Sir Alex as well and I'm
sure he would be aware of it.” To his credit, Moyes admitted that he’s aware
United does not have the leeway to have a down season the way lesser franchises
might. "It could have been the case no matter what this season, but it has
been so un-Man United, which is why we have to look to continue a policy of
building, improving, getting better and that's what we'll try and do,” he
added. Just as long as no one blames you for all of this, eh Davey……..
- The New York City Council is acting like a bunch of bags….over
the issue of plastic bags. Cities across the United States and even the world
have waged war against the inherent evils of plastic bags, but New York is the
largest one yet to enter the fray. For the second time in less than a year, the
council is pushing forward on legislation that would ding consumers a dime for each
plastic or paper bag they use at checkout. It is the same freaking bill that
was presented last summer, but there was not enough time for a hearing and the
issue went away for a while. After hibernating through the winter, the idea
sprang back to life when it was reintroduced by sponsoring council members Brad
Lander and Margaret Chin. As this enviro-loving doing puts it, the goal is not
to put shoppers in a bind by ripping their right to a free bag. Instead, it is
aimed at reducing the number of bags in use by encouraging people to bring in
their own reusable bags. Doing so would cut down on the 5.2 billion disposable
bags advocates say New Yorkers use each year. “Paper bags actually cost the
retailers more, so it’s worse for the retailers, and really the heart of this
bill is that ten cent charge, if you apply it to both (plastic and paper),
people will bring in reusable bags instead,” Lander said. Discount grocery
stores and many stores in Europe already charge for bags, but the practice is
not standard in every large city. Public Advocate Letitia James and 19 city
council members support the bill, but there must first be a hearing before it goes
to the floor for a vote. Should the measure pass, New York would join
metropolises like Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington D.C. in
charging consumers for bags. Such cities have seen the use of plastic bags drop
as much as 90 percent. Some hipster-ish business around the greater Manhattan
area have already done away with both plastic and paper bags, but the council
is aiming to compel the cooperation of those lagging behind……….
- It’s starting to appear that Kyle Killen is a crappy TV
show writer. Killen is crafting a track record that is the envy of no one and
his latest failure has officially been axed by ABC after a mere five episodes.
“Mind Games,” a drama starring Christian Slater and Steve Zahn as
brothers who work in psychological manipulation, debuted in February to 3.6
million viewers and a 1.1 rating in the 18-to-49-year-old demographic. If the
curiosity factor for a new show that is highly promoted by a major network
isn't enough to draw in more viewer for the premiere, then the future is dismal
for a show. Sure enough, the most recent “Mind Games” episode managed to
manipulate just 2.1 million viewers into tuning in and pulled a meager 700,000
viewers in the 18-to-49-year-old demographic. That was enough for the suits at
the network to pull the plug on the show, making in the third Killen-penned
drama canceled in its freshman season following Fox's “Lone Star” and NBC's “Awake.”
Having shows killed before the end of their first season for three of the four
major networks is impressive and all that remains for the aptly-named
screenwriter is to get a CBS show that crashes and burns within its first
half-dozen episodes. The 10 p.m. EST time slot has been a graveyard for ABC
this season, with now-canceled dramas “Lucky 7” and “Killer Women” crashing and
burning in the same time slot this season. For the next two weeks, the slot
will be filled by reruns of the successful new drama “Resurrection” and on
April 15, the lowest-common-denominator appeal of reality television will swoop
in, with “Celebrity Wife Swap” making its not-awaited return……….
- Children are not always the sharpest knives in the block. Anyone
wishing to argue that point needs to explain away a new study showing that
crows may be as intelligent as a 7 year old. Sure, one could contend that these
butt-ugly birds being able to solve some of Aesop's famous puzzles is more of a
positive for crows than it is an indictment of children, but those people are
soft. Sarah Jelbert of the University of Auckland led the research and carried
out her work using crows from New Caledonia, a collection of islands 750 miles
east of Australia. She and her team captured six Corvus moneduloides birds from
the island of Grande-Terre for the experiment, inspired by the well-known story
of “The Crow and the Pitcher.” In
the story, a thirsty crow finds a pitcher containing water that is too
low for its beak to reach. To solve the problem, the bird drops small stones
into the container until the water level rises enough for a drink. In her
study, Jelbert placed a small piece of meat atop a cork floating inside a jug
of water. The birds had access to pebbles they could drop into the jug until
the meat was within reach and the results were surprising. "We found that
crows preferentially dropped stones into a water-filled tube instead of a
sand-filled tube; they dropped sinking objects rather than floating objects;
solid objects rather than hollow objects, and they dropped objects into a tube
with a high water level rather than a low one,” the researchers wrote in their
report. "Understanding this could in turn help us to piece together the
evolution of cognition in our own species," Jelbert said. Indeed, 76
percent of the stones dropped in the study were dropped in the water-filled
container. The researchers added a layer of complexity by offering the birds
both polystyrene – which floats – and rubber stones, which sank. They also
provided both hollow and solid objects and found that in 90 percent of those
situations, the crows made the correct choice. Surprisingly, given science’s
proclivity for wasting time and money studying random and pointless sh*t, this
is the first time crows have ever been shown to understand the notion that
hollow items are more likely to float, and that this will not raise the water
level. The crows met their match with more complex tests involving tubes
of different widths and U-shaped vessels, but their ability to understand tasks
that would stump a second grader is respectable enough………..
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