- Lights out, Greece. The good news is that your soccer team
has been eliminated from the World Cup and therefore, the bad news in this
equation becomes a bit more tolerable. It seems that workers at the
Public Power Corporation have reached their wits’ end with the government’s
plan for their place of employment and are prepared to do something about it. That
something is a massive strike that has authorities warning the populace that it
should expect brief power cuts as a result of the work stoppage. The strike is to
protest government plans to sell part of the company and the idea of workers
abandoning their posts in a country without the best infrastructure and with
plenty of fiscal problems is a potentially terrifying one. Perhaps sensing what
a stomach-twister this could be, the power distribution agency said Thursday
that any power cuts would last no more than one hour. In the early hours of the
strike, no major problems were reported and a telephone hotline was set up for
consumers to check when their areas might experience power cuts. Public Power
Corporation unions clearly could use a better plan than the one they laid out
earlier this week, when they vowed rolling 48-hour walkouts starting Thursday,
arguing that electricity is a vital commodity that should stay under state
control. Letting people know you’re only going to be off the job for two days
isn't a wise move, as it dilutes the power of the strike. In spite of the
threats from the unions, the country’s conservative-led coalition government insists
it will carry out the sale, which is among demands by the financially stricken
country's international creditors. The rest of the European Union is
undoubtedly watching this one anxiously, as the Greeks are among its
most-troubled nations………
- David Ortiz has found a way to rejuvenate his own career.
Now, the Boston Red Sox slugger has some ideas for how the perennially
disappointing Chicago Cubs can do the same. The Cubs just blew through Boston
and swept Ortiz’s team, but they haven't won a World Series in 106 years and
are perpetually mired in or below mediocrity. Ortiz, who was now-Cubs team president Theo Epstein's biggest
acquisition during Epstein’s tenure in Beantown, has an interesting theory
about why the Cubs can’t seem to win anything that matters. "Through the
years I've talked to a lot of friends of mine that have played for the
Cubs," Ortiz said. "The one thing that everyone talked about was the
schedule in Chicago. They get excited walking into a city that's based on
baseball, but once they start dealing with the schedule it kind of mentally
wears you down." The schedule to which he referred is a day game-heavy
slate in which the Cubs have been limited in the number of night games they can
play by the neighborhood association for the area around Wrigley Field. When
the team first installed lights in 1988, the Cubs were limited to 18 night
games in order to avoid disturbing the locals late at night. That number grew
to 30 last year and 38 this year, but Ortiz believes playing more than half
their games during the day hurts the Cubs. "Believe it or not that's one
of the biggest issues for that organization to become a winning ballclub,"
Ortiz added. "When you come down to the Cubs' schedule it's a
game-changer, believe it or not. They play so many day games at home and then
they have to travel to another city and adjust themselves to the night
games." Perhaps playing day games give players more of a chance to get
into trouble at night as well, but Ortiz’s theory doesn’t hold much weight
because trying to win a battle against a neighborhood association that has
battled to the death on every proposed structural change to the stadium in
recent years isn't likely to give any ground………..
- Protect your buggy, Michigan Amish. Someone out there is coming
for you and they are not messing around. According to the officers of the Michigan State Police West Branch Post,
someone out there has carried out several armed robberies and attempted
robberies of Amish buggies. While investigators are still trying to piece
together possible motives for these incidents, they do have enough facts to
paint a scary picture for the bearded, gibberish-speaking sect. What is
currently known is that all of the incidents occurred in Gladwin and Clare
counties between May 22 and June 4 and none of the vehicles targeted in these
attacks had an internal combustion engine, an auxiliary audio input or remote
keyless entry. Obviously, Amish buggies are easy targets because they don’t
move that fast, nor can they have tinted windows so dark that it’s impossible
to see who’s inside and whether they seem likely to bust a cap into your ass if
you step to them. Just to be safe, Michigan’s wildly underrated Amish community
may want to start packing heat – or at least riding with some mace and a pointy
stick – any time they’re passing through Gladwin and Clare counties. In the
interim, the state police, Gladwin County Sheriff's Department and Clare County
Sheriff's Department are investigating and have asked anyone with information
on the attacks to contact them. It’s a sad day when a gentleman with a
world-class beard, a knack for fine craftsmanship and an aversion to
electricity can't go for a summer afternoon buggy ride without worrying that
some hooligan is going to bum rush his ride, but such is the hard-knock Amish
life……….
- Death Grips are D.O.A. and Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor
isn't surprised. The California noise group were due to support Nine Inch Nails
and Soundgarden on their 24-date co-headline tour of the United States, but
anyone who paid even the remotest attention to Death Grips’ act knew their
chances of actually making it to the big tour was a 50/50 proposition at best. Death
Grips’ short run together was marked by bizarre antics, peculiar remarks and a
general sense of controlled chaos that pervaded every ounce of their public
persona. One gets the impression that Reznor booked them as a third band to
fill out the tour without every fully banking on them being around. And sure
enough, two weeks before the tour was to begin in Las Vegas, Death Grips went
D.O.A. by announcing that as a band, "we are now at our best and so Death
Grips is over.” It’s the sort of weird message that is precisely what everyone
should have expected from the group and after hearing the news, Reznor tweeted,
"sorry everyone… why would I have ever thought those dudes could keep it
together?" Perhaps it was the prospect of spending a whole month on tour
with two huge bands that pushed Death Grips over the age, or maybe the band
really is right and their obviously limited current level as a band is indeed
as high as they will ever rise. There is minor shame in admitting you’re not
that good and yet cannot get any better, but it’s preferable to slogging onward
and subjecting huge audiences to songs that aren’t that good merely so they can
see the two bands you’re opening for. A band that leaked its own album and
plastered an erect crank on the cover can only go so far. Double those chances
of an early demise when said band schedules a number of shows in which they set
up their equipment but failed to appear on stage, usually resulting in the
trashing of their gear, and a peculiar terminus was the only place to end……….
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