- Keep painting that rosy, more breathable picture of
reality, Chinese government. Break out your best communist brush and portray
the mess that is your toxic environmental situation in the most positive light
possible, but know that you aren't fooling anyone other than yourselves. The
latest web of lies comes from official government media outlets reporting that the
country's environmental regulators have nearly doubled the number of cases
they've referred to police involving suspected polluters over the first
three-quarters of this year compared to all of last year. That sounds superb,
except when you consider that reporting twice as many cases simply means there
is a slightly smaller mountain of outstanding cases that have yet to be
reported. The government also claimed that environmental agencies have also
penalized about 190,000 enterprises for violating environmental laws over the
past two years, which again would be swell if not for the fact that the air
hanging over virtually every major Chinese city is unbreathable on its best
day. So high-five yourself all you want over the fact that environment
regulators transferred 1,232 cases involved suspected environmental crimes to
police over the first three-quarters of this year, compared to 706 all of last
year. The pressure to curb severe environmental problems across the country is
real, but the notion that the problem is actually under control is not. President
Xi Jinping has also pledged to stop the growth of the country's carbon
emissions by 2030, which is as much of a pie-in-the-sky goal as there could be
in such a dire and difficult situation. Dream big, China……..
- Tweeted words hurt. Future Islands frontman Samuel T.
Herring is direct proof of this harsh reality and Herring admitted that the
reaction to his performance of song “Seasons (Waiting On You)” on the Late Show
With David Letterman wounded him to his very core. It was his band’s debut
television performance in the aftermath of the effort, in which Herring
infamous danced across the stage with his T-shirt tucked into his jeans and
beat his chest repeatedly, the haters were quick to rip him for his look and
his band for the performance they turned in. The song, which Herring said is about
a combustible two-and-a-half year relationship that went sour, "is putting
forth this idea that we need to live by our own rules to get what we want out
of life.” That message failed to resonate with viewers, many of who were
unrelenting in their criticism. “It doesn't matter if it's a joke as long as
it's not a joke to everybody,” Herring sniveled. “And you know what? There's
kind of a, 'F*ck you' in that too." His complaints might hold more merit
if he hadn't also admitted that the song was written in about an hour and a
half. Great songs can be written in a short amount of time if the right
elements come together at the right time, but bands on the rise don’t usually
have the cachet to make that happen. I was trying to get her to change so that
she would love me the way I wanted to be loved. And I tried to change too,
until I realized that you can't do that," Herring said of the woman who
inspired the song. Sam, there is something else you can't do and that something
is whine publicly about how mean fans hurt your feelings with what they said on
social media………
- The Christmas week also marked the beginning of a new era in transportation
for western Massachusetts. Given the history of the company at the heart of
this new era, there is an excellent chance this era features carnage, fireballs
and major head injuries. Step up and claim your glory, Amtrak, for it is your high-speed
Vermonter trains that
made their first run through the Pioneer Valley. High-speed is a relative
term, as the trains travel only at speeds of up to 80 miles per hour, but a
country that lags significantly behind much of the world in terms of train
travel must take what it can get. The high-speed rail project brings rail
service to Holyoke, Northampton, and Greenfield, as well as Springfield, which
was already served by the Vermonter. The addition of the new line means the
termination of the Vermonter’s current route, which runs east from Springfield
to Palmer before its final stops at Amherst and Brattleboro. As one would
expect for the first run of an historic route, there was plenty of blowhard politicians
on hand for the first trip. Congressmen Richard Neal and James McGovern, as
well as Governor Deval Patrick, all joined in the photo op fun, along with federal
officials who took part in the afternoon ride through the “Knowledge Corridor” line. The ride
showed off improvements to the rail line, which also include quieter train
travel. Neal credited the controversial American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
of 2009 for making the day possible. “This is the result of the stimulus money
vote we took in a highly controversial and charged atmosphere about six years
ago,” Neal said. High-speed service for the common people will begin Dec. 29,
so buy those tickets now for your chance to be part of the highest-speed
derailment in Amtrak history………
- Did Rolando McClain just get Andre Rison-ed? It certainly
looks like it, according to the Tuscaloosa
County Sheriff's Office. A suspicious fire gutted a mansion owned by the Dallas
Cowboys linebacker, razing a six-bedroom, five-bath brick house that was listed
for sale on real estate websites at $1.5 million. No one was home and no one
was hurt, but the house is a total loss, unlike McClain’s revived NFL career.
The native of Decatur, Alabama, is making an NFL comeback with the Cowboys
personal struggles and legal issues led him to walk away from football at the
age of 23. He’s been a key cog in a vastly improved Dallas defense that has helped propel the
Cowboys to an 11-4 record and playoff spot, but his dream season went up in
flames Monday night. Lt. Andy Norris said a witness reported seeing a car
speeding away from the exclusive neighborhood where the house was located, but
investigators are still working to determine whether the blaze was accidental
or set. His situation includes a September court filing in which McClain
accused his ex-wife of failing to give him adequate visitation time with their
3½-year-old daughter. That doesn’t mean she or someone she knows had anything
to do with the possible arson of the house that sat on four acres of land beside
Lake Tuscaloosa, about 14 miles north of Tuscaloosa, but it would mirror the
saga of Rison, the former NFL receiver whose girlfriend, the late Lisa “Left
Eye” Lopez of the pop group TLC, famously burned his house to the ground due to
a domestic dispute. "Any time you have a vacant house go up, particularly
one of that value, you have to consider it suspicious," Norris said.
"Every house in that neighborhood is probably over $1 million."
McClain is in Dallas preparing for the Cowboys’ final regular-season game, but
tweeted his reaction to the news. “It can't be real! To much of my 'history' in
that house for it to be gone,” he wrote. It is real, R., even the loss of the
three-car garage and boat house on the shore………
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