- Bad writing, a ridiculous premise and the general stench
of an unnecessary cash grab of a sequel weren't enough to prevent “22 Jump
Street” from claiming an impressive win in its box office debut. The absurdly
stupid comedy starring Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill cleaned up to the tune of
$60 million, outdueling fellow newcomer “How to Train Your Dragon 2” in a
high-octane battle at the top of the earnings list. “Dragon 2” snagged $50
million in its first week, easily besting “Maleficent” for second place.
Angelina Jolie’s latest flick snagged third with $19 million in its third week,
pushing the project closer to the break-even mark with $163.5 million
domestically against a $180 million budget. “Edge of Tomorrow” took a
futuristic fall to fourth place, banking a mere $16.1 million in its second
weekend to up its overall earnings to a mere $56.6 million against the looming
specter of a $178 million budget. Fifth place went to last week’s box office
champion, “The Fault in Our Stars,” which saw its earnings plummet 67 percent
this time around. Still, the romantic drama added $15.7 million and with $81.7
million so far compared to a paltry $12 million budget, it is already a huge
commercial success. “X-Men: Days of Future Past” placed sixth for the frame,
adding $9.5 million to its bank roll for a four-week tally of $205.9 million
and counting. Seventh place was the property of a very large, angry lizard as “Godzilla”
scared up $3.1 million and has amassed $191.3 million domestically overall. The
not-so-subtle comedic oddity of “A Million Ways to Die in the West” could
manage no better than eighth place with its $3 million weekend, giving Liam
Neeson’s latest $38.9 million through three weeks. “Neighbors” remained in the top
10 for a sixth straight weekend, grossing $2.5 million for a running domestic
total of $143.1 million. Despite its limited-release status, indie favorite “Chef”
held down the final spot in the top 10 with $2.3 million and has banked $14 million
despite showing in fewer than 1,000 theaters per weekend up until this weekend.
“Blended” (No. 11) and “Million Dollar Arm” both dropped out from last weekend’s
top 10……..
- Veterans Administration, you have company. Specifically,
the VA has a peer in the proficiency department when it comes to government
agencies royally f*cking up and losing, misplacing or simply deleting vital
documents at the center of a major scandal. For the VA, the issue is thousands
of veterans not receiving necessary medical care because the agency is so inept
and reliant upon antiquated technology that it probably needs an update just to
play the first incarnation of “Oregon Trail” on its 1985 Macintosh computers.
The Internal Revenue Service is pushing the VA for the trophy as the most
incompetent government agency of 2014 thanks to a revelation contained in a
letter sent late last week to inform Congress that the agency had lost all
kinds of documents about a central figure, Lois Lerner, in the Tea Party
targeting scandal. Lerner was at the center of a story surrounding
possible unjust scrutiny by the IRS against Tea Party organizations and
amazingly, a glut of emails and documents relating to the case have gone
missing. That news didn’t sit well with Congress, itself a hotbed of
bureaucratic ineptitude. "The fact that I am just learning about this, over a year into the
investigation, is completely unacceptable," said Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI),
who demanded a forensic audit by the Department of Justice into "a
supposed computer crash" involving emails of Lois Lerner. Rep. Darrell
Issa (R-Calif.) was thinking conspiracy theory, noting that it was “convenient
for the Obama Administration that the IRS now says it has suddenly realized it
lost Lois Lerner’s emails requested by Congress and promised by Commissioner
John Koskinen.” Several GOP lawmakers tweeted out their ire after the House
Ways and Means Committee explained the problem, but this mess is far from
resolved.……….
- Science has shocked the world once more. Believe it or
not, some very smart researchers at the Intermountain Heart
Institute at Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, Utah have found that fasting
can be beneficial in lowering rate of heart disease and diabetes. This is
clearly stunning because no one would have dared to imagine that going extended
periods without eating and ingesting calories, cholesterol and fat could lessen
one’s chances of developing medical maladies often fueled by unhealthy diets. “There
are a lot of books out there recommending that people fast for two or three
days a week,” study author Benjamin Horne said, “but there are risks with
fasting and little evidence that these diets are safe.” Horne and his team
followed a small group of participants through six weeks of fasting and found
that 10-12 hours of hunger initiates the food search in a person and in
response, the body utilizes the stored amounts of bad cholesterol, LDL, which
is present in fat cells. This in turn has a direct impact on the development
(or hindrance thereof) of diabetes, to the point that fasting could actually be
termed an effective way to combat the disease. “Fasting has the potential to
become an important diabetes intervention,” Horne added. “Though we’ve studied
fasting and it’s health benefits for years, we didn’t know why fasting could
provide the health benefits we observed related to the risk of diabetes.” In
the study, participants showed a 12-percent decline in cholesterol after six
weeks of fasting and based on those numbers, the research team is touting the
benefits of not eating for prolonged periods of time when it comes to fending
off two very preventable diseases. “Because we expect that the cholesterol was
used for energy during the fasting episodes and likely came from fat cells,
this leads us to believe fasting may be an effective diabetes intervention,” Horne
said………
- Is Slovakia’s new president really a man of the people, or
does he simply know how to put on a good show? Andrej Kiska, a philanthropist and founder
of two consumer credit companies, will show over time which of the two he truly
is, but he has definitely garnered plenty of attention in his first week in
office and it has little to do with his promise to reduce economic inequality
in the eastern European nation’s economy. Kiska, who defeated Prime Minister
Robert Fico in a March 29 presidential runoff ballot, staged quite the
publicity stunt on his first day in office when he invited homeless people and
children living in orphanages in the capital city, Bratislava, to join him for
lunch in the garden of the presidential palace. It was part of a plan to stand
up against corruption and injustice in the third-richest post-communist
European Union nation and Kiska punctuated the event with a message about how
well off his nation is and what that means for its future. “On average, people
have never been better off than today,” said Kiska, Slovakia’s first president
with no communist past, after taking the oath of office. “Never in our history
have we been more free, and, as a state, safer. Despite this, the majority of
people in Slovakia aren’t convinced we are going in the right direction. They
don’t feel that they are part of the success.” The former Soviet republic has
grown by leaps and bounds thanks to the auto industry, including factories of
Volkswagen, Peugeot and Kia. Slovakia has stood defiantly against Russia in
recent months and now, its charge is being led by a man who, soon after the
1989 fall of communism in what was then Czechoslovakia, got a job mopping floors
in New Jersey and later returned home to found Slovakia’s biggest consumer loan
business in the mid-1990s. One lunch with some homeless people and orphans
won't exactly change the world, but it could be the first step in a promising
new direction………
- Paranoia is running high at the 2014 World Cup. When the
world’s biggest soccer tournament is being contested and careers, reputations
and national pride are on the line, men tend to look over their shoulder
regularly to make sure no one is trying to steal their secrets to success. In
the case of France
manager Didier Deschamps, that statement is a very literal one, as on the eve
of his team’s debut contest, the coach claimed that the French squad’s final
preparations may have been spied on by a drone hovering over their training
camp. Les Bleus were at their
Brazilian base in Ribeirao Preto, working on their Capri Sun chugging
and orange wedge-eating exercises when they were disturbed by an unmanned
aerial vehicle appearing over their heads. So far, no one has been able to
determine to whom the device belonged, or who was controlling it at the time,
but Deschamps floated a theory that drone usage and spying were increasingly
coming in soccer. He suggested that the drone could have been used to get an
inside look at France’s tactics ahead of Sunday’s World Cup Group E opener
against Honduras in Porto Alegre and world governing body FIFA confirmed that
it is looking into the incident. "Apparently drones are used more and
more," said Deschamps, a World Cup winner as a player with France in 1998.
"It's not up to me. FIFA handles this and has been carrying out an
inquiry; we don't want any intrusion into our privacy. It's very hard to fight
this these days." One can understand why Deschamps might be on edge; his
team was b*tch-slapped in the 2010 World Cup, failing to reach the knockout
stage of the tournament. Even though he wasn’t around for that dumpster fire,
he’s still touchy about the subject. "You shouldn't mention South
Africa," he said. "We're now in another World Cup, we're in Brazil
and were not going to be judged by what we did four years ago.” No, but if you
flame out in 2014, you’ll be judged for consecutive nose dives on the biggest
stage of all and drones won't be a sufficient scapegoat to avoid the excoriation……….
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