- Organized crime and corruption are alive and well in
Bosnia. Perhaps more of the alive part than being well at the moment, but just because
Bosnian police have arrested 14 people, including three politicians, in an
organized crime and tax evasion case in which they allegedly skimmed a regional
budget of nearly $7.6 million is no reason to throw in the towel in graft.
Sure, Bosniak-Croat agricultural minister Jerko Ivankovic-Lijanovic, his father
and three brothers — one of whom is a state parliament lawmaker — were among
those arrested, but don’t miss the point. There will always be more lawmakers willing
to sell what little is left of their souls in order to pad their bank accounts
and there will always be shady characters willing to fill those coffers with
cash. That’s doubly true in a nation divided into two regions — one run by
Serbs, the other shared by Bosniaks and Croats — that are linked by a central
government. With multiple ethnic groups armed with competing views on how to
run their country, conflicts are bound to abound and when they do, there will
be people looking to circumvent justice and do a legislative end-around to
achieve their desired result. This latest round of arrests was particularly uplifting
because it also included the Bosniak-Croat minister of trade and eight others
and according to the state prosecutor's office, the 14 are suspected of
registering companies that imported, produced and processed meat and then
fictively liquidating them without paying taxes. It may not be the most
imaginative and innovate crime of corruption to date, but given time these
scumbags could have done something big………
- Eric Dickerson may have been one of the worst sideline
reporters in the history of televised football, but that isn't stopping him
from foisting his terrible opinions on the world. The former SMU running back and Pro Football Hall of Famer doesn’t
have much to do these days other than make public appearances and give
interviews in which he goes into Bitter Old Man mode and that’s exactly what he
did during a radio interview in Dallas earlier this week. The Mustangs are 0-2
and have been outscored 88-6 in their first two games, leading arguably the
greatest player in program history to issue a totally absurd ultimatum to his
alma mater. "I talked to four former players yesterday, and we all said if
they don't want to do anything, just kill the program," Dickerson said. "Just
stick to academics and basketball and kill that program. It's so frustrating
for us to watch SMU become nothing but a laughingstock or almost non-existent.
It's almost like it doesn't exist." Interestingly enough, Dickerson could
actually do something about the problem that seems to be such a huge concern
for him. See, coach June Jones abruptly resigned Monday just two games into the
season and that leaves a void that Dickerson and his zeroes and zeroes of years
of head coaching experience could fill. Hell, Dickerson has that third-place
finish in the 1982 Heisman Trophy balloting to his credit and a successful NFL
career, so he obviously could help turn around a program struggling as mightily
as it has at any point since it returned after being dealt the "Death
Penalty" by the NCAA in 1986. He even has a blueprint in mind for fixing
SMU and it’s not too far down the road – literally. "I look at TCU, and
TCU is a great school. I look at TCU and SMU. ... TCU has got it," said of
area rival TCU, which has become a credible program on a national level in
recent years……….
- How did this possibly fail? Someone with enough of an
innovative, forward-thinking mind to change his name from a mostly normal
moniker to human — with a lowercase "H'' — with no middle or last name and
then try to use that lame publicity stunt to win a spot in the state
legislature cannot possibly fail in said electoral quest….right? Sadly, it can
fail and it did when the man formerly known as David Montengero – real name and
not his porn name - lost his bid to run for office in New Hampshire this week.
Not only did human lose, but he failed to even make it out of the local primary
election when he lost to incumbent Democratic state Rep. Rose Marie Rogers by a
count of 181-30. A 6-to-1 ratio of votes for the other candidate is a fairly
ironclad mandate and it’s not difficult to see why voters elected to keep their
current representative and not send human to the state capital to represent
them. After all, human earned himself some quality headlines earlier this year
when the state's highest court ruled he could have a vanity license plate that
reads COPSLIE. The Division of Motor Vehicles would not allow the vanity plate because
it ruled the message denigrated police officers, which was clearly a faulty
decision. After all, the unwanted scrutinty and payback from police who pulled
him over just to pull him over and make his life a living hell would have been
well worth it. Maybe voters in Rochester will have another chance some time
down the road to elect human to office, or mankind, or guy, or dude, or
whatever the hell this kook is calling himself at that point……..
- It’s the battle of Artificial Sugary Sweet Pop Diva vs. Artificial
Sugary Sweet Pop Diva Who Used to Sing Quasi-Country Music and the winner is….anyone
not paying attention. The fight is one between pop creations Taylor Swift and
Katy Perry over one of them – it’s tough to tell them apart at this point –
stealing the other one’s backup dancers. As the sordid story goes, three of
Swift’s backup dancers bolted her tour and joined Perry’s, which you clearly do
not do in the pop music world because….well, because. Swift reportedly felt
betrayed because she had a close bond with the dancers and considered them to
be part of her extended family, but the dancers were merely returning to Perry
after working with her several years ago. As tours do, that Perry trek came to
an end and the dancers needed someone to shimmy and shake behind. They linked
up with Swift and all was well…until Perry went back on tour and wanted them
with her. The good news is that the dancers followed backup dancer etiquette
and told Swift up front that they did not want to commit to her entire tour and
wanted a 30-day opt-out clause because they were looking to rejoin Perry’s
crew. Either Swift has terrible short-term memory or she doesn’t hear well because
when the situation unfolded just as the dancers expected, she was so angry that
she fired all three of them on the spot. That drama sparked a feud that has
continued for nearly a year and as Swift seems to do with all of the negative
sh*t that happens in her life, she wrote a song about it. The track “Bad Blood”
is about the cat fight and Perry retaliated with a tweet likening Swift to “Mean
Girls” star Regina George………
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