Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Ireland conquers cool passports, The Jetsons back to life and the Cold War is back


- This is why you can’t have nice things…like an NFL career, an eight-figure contract and an IQ above 15, Cleveland Browns wide receiver Josh Gordon. Gordon, the troubled and talented receiver who led the NFL with 1,646 yards in just 14 games in the 2013 season but has also missed portions of each of the last three seasons, has done done it again. After initially being suspended for all of 2014 but receiving a miracle reprieve when the NFL implemented a new drug testing and punishment policy that allowed him to return after missing the first 10 games, he ended the season and headed into the rest of his career skating on the thinnest of all NFL disciplinary ice. Basically, he couldn’t test positive for anything stronger than Flintstones vitamins or else he would be subject to a one-year suspension. In a twist that stunned absolutely no one, Gordon has failed another drug test and now will be subject to a one-year suspension. His future in Cleveland and the NFL are now will be in question because he tested positive for alcohol, which fits nicely with the profile of a man who had a DUI charge hanging over his head a year or so ago. The failed test is a spectacular bookend to a season in which Gordon was suspended for the first 10 games for a flunked drug test and was banned by his team for the final game for violating team rules. This stellar run actually goes all the way back to college, when Gordon fled the campus of Baylor University for the NFL after being dismissed from the team and insisting the he had “definitely put that part of my life behind me.” Keep making great choices, J………..


- This is a beautiful tale. The Cold War is widely believed to have ended three decades ago, but that message never got through to three Three Russian citizens who were charged Monday in connection with a Cold War-style Russian spy ring that spoke in code, passed information concealed in bags and magazines and attempted to recruit new members with links to an unnamed New York City university. These Boris and Natasha wannabes were allegedly directed by Russian authorities "to gather intelligence on, among other subjects, potential United States sanctions against Russian banks and the United States' efforts to develop alternative energy resources," according to a complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan. One defendant, Yevgeny Buryakov, allegedly posed as an employee in the Manhattan office of a Russian bank, while cohorts Igor Sporyshev and Victor Podobnyy snagged much better gigs as low-level diplomats. That also means he was the only one arrested because the other two were protected from prosecution because of their diplomatic status and are believed to have returned to Russia. This undersized spy ring was observed meeting 48 times in outdoor settings between March 2012 and September 2014 and in an oh, so covert arrangement, FBI agents spotted “Buryakov passing a bag, magazine or slip of paper to Sporyshev.” Hey ass hats, have you never heard of a dead drop? One of you leave the newspaper on a park bench and once you’re sure no one is watching, the other one picks it up. Among the topics of conversation were attempts to recruit U.S. residents, including several individuals employed by major companies, and several young women with ties to a major university located in New York City. This bust came as an offshoot of a 2010 case resulting in the arrest of 10 covert agents who infiltrated suburban America. Not surprisingly, neither the Russian Foreign Ministry nor the Foreign Intelligence Service had any comments and Alexey Zaytsev, spokesman for Russia's U.N. Mission, declined to address the case. All in all, it’s good to know the Cold War still has some air in its lungs………..


- Someone get Kanye West’s agent on the phone. It was less than three years ago, the biggest egomaniac in a rap world full of them wanted to find a studio to partner with him on a possible live-action movie based on popular old-school cartoon “The Jetsons.” That project never materialized mostly because it sucked and what the hell does Kanye West know about converting a cartoon into a live-action movie, but the idea of bringing George Jetson, his boy Elroy, Jane his wife, daughter Judy, dog Astro and their robot maid Rosie back to life didn’t go away and now, a new animated film version of classic Hanna-Barbera animated series is in the works, with Warner Bros. having hired Matt Lieberman to write the film's script. Lieberman is a great choice to write this script and not just because he shares a surname with Joe “Deputy Dog” Lieberman, former joweled member of Congress and all-around cartoon character. No, the scribe has also penned a script for an upcoming Scooby-Doo movie for the studio and when one is on a streak of writing amateurish scripts for such ridiculous movies, you don’t stand in his way. The history of The Jetsons is a good one, having been conceived by Hanna-Barbera as a space-age counterpart to The Flintstones and originally airing a mere  24 episodes in 1963. Yet  22 years later, it came roaring back to life for 51 episodes that aired between 1985-87, after which it went away for a second time. A first cinematic version, “Jetsons: The Movie,” came out in 1990 and was a bomb both critically and commercially, going full-on Hindenberg at the box office and leaving folks wondering if a third chance at life would be the last one for the franchise. Those folks clearly don’t understand Hollywood……….


- Ireland: Making great beer, epic whiskey and as of this year, passports that are significantly easier to steal. With Guinness, Jameson and their peers squarely under control, the Emerald Isle is turning its attention to a new plastic passport for travel in Europe that it perfectly suited for the ADHD, Spapchat-obsessed generation. With this credit card-style passport, Irishmen will be able to provide their own selfies as the ID photo. The new passports will make their debut in July and according to Foreign Minister Charlie Flanagan, can be used to travel throughout the 28-nation European Union as well as Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein – i.e. countries that are far too cool to join the EU or accept the euro as their official currency. Just don’t give Ireland too much credit for having an original idea, because these cars are eerily similar to the passport cards that U.S. residents have used since 2008 to travel to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. Ireland merely ripped off the idea and upgraded them by adding the nice perk of being able to use its passport cards for both land and sea voyages, but unlike the U.S. incarnation, air travel as well. The entire process is built for the digital era, with applications taken by smartphone app and Irish citizens able to submit their own mug shot taken by the same phone. This gem of a  card will also sport security features that include turning that photo into an embedded holographic image. Of course, like a traditional passport, it can also be easily lost after a pint or eight at any Dublin pub………

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