- The 1800s are alive and well in South America. The Salem
witch trials may be a thing of the past in the United States and every other
corner of the civilized world, but such bass-ackwards thinking still prevails
in some far-flung corners of the globe. That’s very much true in Paraguay,
where a
indigenous woman was burned alive after being accused of witchcraft, a local
prosecutor confirmed Wednesday. Prosecutor Fany Aguilera said that members of
the Mbya Guarani ethnic group tied supposed practitioner of the dark arts Adolfina
Ocampos to a wooden pole and shot arrows at her before they burned her alive.
Her execution came one week after she was sentenced to death last week by the
community's chief in Tahehyi, a village some 180 miles north of the capital, Asuncion.
No one is sure of the exact date of the execution, but that hasn’t stopped the
government from pressing on with the case. Aguilera has charged nine men in the
village with first-degree murder and to their credit, these socially stunted
imbeciles have already acknowledged killing the woman. This killing would come
as a surprise if not for a report by the UN Refugee Agency which estimates that
thousands of people worldwide are accused of being witches every year.
According to the UN, these accused witches are often abused, cast out of their
families and communities and sometimes killed. Such incidents are not common in
Paraguay, where aid groups say they rarely hear of such situations. In response
to the killing, the state agency for the protection of indigenous peoples said
in a statement Wednesday that "although the indigenous communities are
ruled by customary law, their acts cannot violate the constitutional rights of
respecting the life and the liberty of people." In other words, welcome to
the 21st century, b*tches……….
- Be wary, Jason Kidd, be wary. Kidd may have tried to
channel his inner “Godfather” when he looked to stage a coup in the Brooklyn
Nets front office and seize power from general manager Billy King to expand his
power from that of a head coach, but Kidd’s power trip led to his exodus from
the borough and a clear rift with the powerful (and towering) Russian who used
to be his boss. Kidd, now the head coach of the mediocre Milwaukee Bucks,
offended many within the Nets organization with the way he elbowed his way out
the door and no one is more bitter, it seems, than owner Mikhail Prokhorov. "I
think there is a nice proverb in English: Don't let the door hit you where the
good Lord has split you," Prokhorov said before the Nets' home opener
against Oklahoma City at Barclays Center on Monday, a 116-85 win. "So I
think that each side, we did what we thought was the best and I like what we
have now.” Prokhorov reserved his strongest and most cryptic words for when he
was asked if he was angry at Kidd over the way the situation played out. "I
think we shouldn't get mad. I think we should get even. And we will see it on
the court,” Prokhorov said. On the court or in the back alley behind a club
with a couple of 350-pound Russian henchmen and their lead pipe friends, right
Mikhail? The remarks were the first time the über-tall Russian magnate spoke since
Kidd was given permission to talk to Milwaukee and ultimately traded to the
Bucks for two second-round picks this past summer. Prokhorov, who spent a
record $90.57 million in luxury taxes alone last season, has made waves behind
the scenes for his consideration of selling his controlling interest in the
team, but as long as he owns the Nets, it’s safe to expect that his despisal of Kidd will remain simmering hot…….
- Want to live in Washington, D.C. and work in Manhattan? Then
get on board with a group of private investors seeking to do what the federal
government has been trying to pull off for years: bring super fast trains to
the United States. The perils of rush hour traffic and having to live
reasonably close to your place of employment would be a thing of the past if
these forward thinkers were able to both figuratively and literally get their
plans off the ground. The group’s plan calls for 300-mile-per-hour train that
floats on magnets to run from downtown Washington, D.C., to Manhattan. It would
slice the time of Amtrak's Acela service by two-thirds and delight a whole lot
of rich, powerful people who shuttled between the two major metropolises. "You
could live in Baltimore and commute to New York City faster than you could from
Connecticut," said Wayne Rogers, head of Northeast Maglev, the group
championing the project. "It changes real estate prices, how people live,
where they work. It really changes the world." The train is based on a
Japanese technology known as magnetic levitation, which is a fancy way of
saying that in stead of wheels riding along a rail, maglev uses powerful,
electrically charged magnets to suspend the train midair inside a U-shaped
guide rail built on either side of the track. Those magnets both lift the train
and propel it forward and the train moves faster because of the reduced
friction. Amazingly, this technology has actually been around for over a
century and Japan has had an operational test track for years. So what’s
holding this rail-based rodeo back? Northeast Maglev estimates the New York to
D.C. route could cost over $100 billion, with much of that money to be spent on
tunnels and elevated track necessary in such a densely populated area --
possibly tunneling under cities and then running over or adjacent to Interstate
95 in more rural areas. In an effort to get the project started on a micro
level, the company is striving to construct a 38-mile section from the
Baltimore airport to downtown D.C. within the next 10 years. They’ve collected
$40 million in funding from U.S.-based private investors and have applied for
permits from the state of Maryland. Oh, and there’s an additional $5 billion in
funding from the Japanese government promised. Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed
Rendell, former New York Governor George Pataki, and former Senate Majority
Leader Tom Daschle are members of the group’s board, but those power players
and $10 billion in federal dollars
appropriated for high-speed rail doesn’t mean this will happen any time
soon……….
- Someone’s feeling a little pissy, eh “Avengers” director
Joss Whedon? Whedon, who presided over “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and is
undoubtedly anxious to keep the project’s details under wraps until its April
24, 2015 release, has admitted that he has half a mind to ream out Idris Elba about an
incident in which the actor leaked the fact he will appear in the movie. Whedon
said any message he would send to Elba would "an attitude of scold.” Elba can be forgiven for his
slip in a sense because he was merely hanging out with a bunch of
glow-stick-wearing tweakers this summer during a residency DJing in Ibiza and
accidentally mentioned afterward that the residency caused scheduling conflicts
with the movie. Oh, and he mentioned that he will appear in scenes alongside
Tom Hiddleston's Loki. Until Elba brought those issues up, no one knew about
his cameo and Whedon clearly wanted to keep it that way. "Should he
receive an email from me, there might be an attitude of scold," Whedon
fumed. “When you have a cast of 19,000 people, inevitably, once every month,
you pick up [a story] and you're like, 'Awww.’" Yes, awww indeed. Elba, it
is now known, plays the character of Heimdall, while Hiddleston is the
better-known Loki. Both characters have appeared in the “Thor” films, while Loki
also appeared in “Avengers Assemble.”
“Ultron” will unite Robert Downey) Jr. (Iron Man), Chris Evans (Captain
America) Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow and Jeremy
Renner (Hawkeye), under the leadership of Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. Oh,
and in case you didn’t know, Idris Elba will be in it too…….
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