- The Chicago
Cubs have mascot issues. No, not the pants-less cartoon bear mascot they
adopted prior to this season that alarmed and creeped out everyone unfortunate
enough to experience his oddness. That official mascot, "Clark the Cub,"
is still an issue, but the current furry headache for Major League Baseball’s
most consistently inept franchise is a fake mascot that has been engaging in
bad behavior near Wrigley Field. The team has filed a lawsuit against several
people it accused of rocking a Cubs hat and No. 78 jersey that has the name
"Billy Cub" on the back and causing sh*t in the neighborhood that
surrounds the stadium. According to a filed its lawsuit filed on Friday in
federal court in Chicago against John Paul Weier, Patrick Weier and three other
unnamed individuals, the fivesome has besmirched the good name of the Cubs by
doing things like getting into a bar fight that was captured on video and
posted online. This is an issue because the team says s the defendants are
trying to pass their character off as an official representative of the team,
and it accuses them of trademark infringement, injuring the team's reputation
and unfair competition. Among the alleged infractions committed by Billy Cub
are demanding tips for photos, making "rude, profane and derogatory
remarks and gesticulations," and punching a man at a bar near the
ballpark. Of course, all of this ignores the fact that people hate mascots and
a brawling, F-bombing, crotch-chopping Billy Cub might actually be one mascot
fans can get with. As part of the suit, the Cubs want payment for damages and
legal fees, the immediate cessation of Billy Cub’s use and for the defendants
to "deliver for destruction" the costume's components……….
- It makes such good sense that one has to wonder why it doesn’t
happen more often. If a person is able to successfully rob a bank, why wouldn’t
that person go back and knock over the same bank a second time once the dust
settles? You know the security system, you know the layout and you know the
best getaway path. You don’t need to tell that to a group of bank robbers in
Northern California, as police are investigating whether these same outlaws who robbed
a bank, took hostages and led a deadly chase and shootout carried out other
recent bank heists in the same part of Northern California, including one
earlier this year at the very same branch. The most recent heist bears striking
similarities to a late-January robbery at the Bank of the West, but the second
attempt at boosting the bank’s valuable contents turned deadly, leaving a
hostage and two robbers dead, police said. The biggest commonality – aside from
the location - is that in both cases, armed robbers made their getaway by
stealing a bank employee's car. "Investigators have been looking at that
January case really hard," officer Joe Silva said. The second robbery
differed from the first in that injuries occurred and hostages were taken. As
part of the investigation, police are searching for the driver of a
dark-colored Buick sedan seen on video dropping off the suspects before the
Wednesday robbery. Whoever drove the car ditched it and removed the license
plates in a neighborhood about a 10-minute drive from the bank. According to
investigators, the driver dropped off three men, armed with three handguns and
an AK-47, at a Bank of the West in Stockton. The robbers then took three women
as hostages, including a customer and two employees, robbing the bank and
fleeing in an employee's SUV, forcing her to drive before shooting her and
pushing her from the vehicle. The SUV ride was a full one, as a second employee
was later thrown or jumped from the SUV at 50 mph amid an hour-long pursuit and
running gun battle with police, according to Silva. The surviving suspect,
19-year-old Jaime Ramos, was arrested after using a hostage as a shield, while
his two cohorts were killed during the gun battle. Maybe that’s why you don’t
rob the same bank twice………
- HBO has stopped being a primetime tease. The premium cable
network has at long last announced the premiere date for the upcoming fourth
season of its hit drama “Homeland.” The terrorism-centric show will return on
Sunday, Oct. 5 at 9 p.m., picking up where an explosive third season finale
left off. Executive
producer Meredith Stiehm recently shared some details about the role of the
show’s central character, Claire Danes’ Carrie Mathison, in the new season.
According to Stiehm, Matheson’s role with the XXXXX will shift dramatically as
she is in Pakistan and finds herself acclimating to unfamiliar surroundings. “Emotionally,
Carrie has stabilized, and the mental illness that we’ve dealt with, she has
now dealt with. She’s going into this season very steady. She’s in a completely
different role now that she’s overseas,” Stiehm said. “The baby exists as a
marker for her, emotionally, but she was forced to leave the child at home.”
While Matheson adjusts to a new role, two of the show’s better-known characters
are expected to be conspicuously absent from Season 4. Jessica and Dana Brody,
both of whom have played significantly into the first three seasons of the
show, are reported to be AWOL this time around. Neither’s absence should derail
the momentum “Homeland” has built and with consistently great writing, it would
appear that there are at least a few more compelling stories to tell before
“Homeland” joins the growing list of other successful shows HBO has put out to
pasture……….
- Which side of history does Hungary want to be on? That
depends upon who you ask. If the government is the one doing the answering,
then the country that was a wartime ally of Germany was actually just one of many
nations trampled under the feet of the Third Reich as it stomped its way across
Europe, murdering Jews and oppressing so many others. To reinforce that
narrative, officials forced through the completion of the main elements of a
disputed memorial to the 1944 occupation of Hungary by Nazi Germany, working in
the middle of the night and guarded by police. Those precautions were necessary
because the memorial has been widely criticized by Jewish groups and others who
see it as an attempt by Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government effort to
downplay the Hungarian role in the Holocaust. When there is that level of
blowback, folks do what they can to oppose a project and that often includes
attempting to physically prevent its construction. The haters object to the
depiction of Hungary as a victim of the Nazis given that it jumped on board the
genocide train conducted by Adolf Hitler during his reign of terror. In light
of their opposition, workers waited until after midnight on Sunday before they began
adding the figures of Germany's imperial eagle swooping down on the archangel
Gabriel, which symbolizes Hungary, to the monument, which has stood for several
weeks. The display reinforces the government’s selective view that both Jews
and non-Jews suffered during the war while ignoring Hungary’s sizeable role in
causing said suffering by siding with the Germans…….
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