Sunday, November 23, 2014

SoCal loyalty, illegals and their attorneys and topless protests in Central African Republic


- This is a new approach to protesting sectarian violence in your Third World country. According to residents in the remote Central African Republic town of Zemio, hundreds of women marched topless through a town in the to protest sectarian violence on Saturday. Topless protests are nothing new, but the femi-Nazis of European-based rights group FEMEN are usually involved and exposing their racks is pretty much their go-to protest tactic in any situation. Saturday's unusual demonstration occurred in the southeastern town of Zemio and it was based on the unique belief among its participants that going partially nude would bring a curse on those responsible for the violence. It’s a philosophy that most frat dudes in the United States would love to see put to the test any time a women’s issue came to the forefront on their campus, but this questionable theory was enough to drive hundreds of angry ladies into the streets sans clothing on their upper halves. The protest, in the wake of nonstop fighting in the country between Christian and Muslim militias that has killed at least 5,000 people this year and displaced thousands, was the latest demonstration by citizens who are pleading for an end to the chaos in their own unique ways. The violence reached Zemio this week, wounding about 10 people and displacing most of the local population, which includes Christians and Muslims. Violence in the country has been the norm ever since a rebel coalition toppled the nation's president last year and the ensuing wave of human rights abuses has been a black eye for Central African Republic every day since……..


- Blink-182 is still around? Really? And one of their members is making ridiculous claims like saying he invented the question mark, that Bigfoot is real and that music streaming services are just like killing elephants. Welcome guitarist Tom DeLonge, who either really needs attention or is just a moron because he’s putting streaming services like Spotify on par with slaughtering endangered animals. "I tell people condoning streaming is like condoning the Chinese that are killing elephants for their tusks and carving ivory statues," DeLonge said.  "It's cool to put on your shelf but if you really think about what you're doing it sucks.” Right, except that elephants who are killed for their ivory typically live in Africa, not China, and when they’re killed, they’re dead and that’s pretty much it for them. Musicians whose tunes are streamed on Pandora don’t die or have their careers end immediately; in fact, since musicians make the bulk of their money toruing and not on album sales, DeLonge’s claim is a huge stretch of the truth for the benefit of his greedy ass self at best. “It might be cool for you as somebody that likes music but you’re not really thinking about the effect it has,” he added. “We've got to value our art, you know?" You can value the art you create with Blink and your other band, Angels & Airwaves, but if you really valued it, would you have given away one of Angels & Airwaves’ previous releases, “LOVE,” as a free download? The new album, “The Dream Walker,” will drop on Dec. 8 and from the sounds of it, you should not go looking for it on your favorite streaming service………


- Who wants to help the illegales? That’s the question on the table in Phoenix, where there are some 10,000 active cases of people seeking citizenship but only three immigration judges. Given President Barack Obama’s bombastic speech last week about giving more of a chance to border crashers as a central tenet of his immigration policy, that’s a nightmarish math scenario made worse by a dearth of immigration lawyers in the area. "Here in Arizona there's probably less than about a 150 lawyers that practice immigration law," immigration attorney Jose Penalosa said. "Of those 150 or so about half of them really deal with this blue-collar transactional work.” So….three judges, 150 lawyers of whom about 75 handle the sort of cases at hand and 10,000 would-be Americans waiting for their chance to prove they belong even though they can't speak English? That won't work on any level. "That individual sometimes overcharges or under serves the particular client and the service does not get done," Penalosa said. "But more importantly, that individual cannot represent an applicant before the Department of Homeland Security." Scam artists are also circling and in the aftermath of the president’s immigration accountability executive action, that issue is likely to become an even bigger problem. Thursday night merely exacerbated the issue after Obama unveiled a sweeping immigration plan that will mandate background checks, paying taxes and avoiding other chicanery in order to become an official citizen. Who would ever have thought that an immigration announcement could spur not only a bunch of illegal immigrants finding a new home, but also a cottage industry for ambulance chasers to flock to Arizona and begin all-night cramming sessions to learn the ins and outs of immigration law so they can represent people who don’t even speak their language………


- Southern California is a bitchin’ place to live and work. Plenty of people move to the area and endure its insane traffic and insanely high real estate prices to be in a place where 75 and sunny is the norm and the beautiful people abound. Not as many people are so devoted to the area that they threaten to retire from a high-paying job if they are traded to a new employer in another region. One exception is Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Dan Haren, who has made it clear that he would likely would walk away from baseball -- and leave $10 million in pretax income on the table -- if the Dodgers trade him to a team other than one of his former clubs, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in Orange County. Haren earned a 2015 contract option with the Dodgers when he reached the 180-innings mark in September and because his name recently surfaced in trade rumors, he wanted to clarify his feelings on being sent packing. "I had other opportunities, but at this point in my career, I have no interest in playing in a city away from my family,” Haren said. He has previously spoken about the difficulty he endured being away from his family during the 2013 season, when he pitched for the Washington Nationals. The West Covina, California native attended college at Pepperdine and he and his family now live in Orange County. At the age of 34, he’s nearing the tail end of his baseball career and settled in as the Dodgers’ No. 4 starter toward the end of last season. Dumping him would almost certainly be for salary reasons only, even though the team’s loaded ownership group seems perfectly happy paying the biggest payroll in Major League Baseball in pursuit of a ring. Haren doesn’t have a no-trade clause, but in this case he’s seeking to create a de facto one all on his own………..

No comments: