- To make a convicted war criminals omelet, one has to break
some eggs – and hope their skull doesn’t get busted open in the process. Serbian war
crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic should already have known this, but if he
didn’t know before, he does now. Vukcevic heads up an office aiming to track
down and bring to justice the men and women who have committed all manner of
heinous violations of international law while often presiding over the deaths
of many innocent people and as he tells it, his office has faced an
orchestrated campaign by war criminals and nationalists. They’ve been accused
of by some officials of spying for the U.S. and those words definitely sting.
However, they shouldn’t sting enough to deter the continued re-opening of
sensitive cases from the Balkan country's wartime past and the days ahead will
determine whether that’s the case. According to Veukcevic, his team and their
families have received death threats and faced attacks in the nationalist
media. The attacks have "coincided with our work in about four cases,”
Vukcevic noted, and the facts bear out his claims. Late last month, two
lawmakers from the ruling coalition filed espionage charges against the
prosecutors for allegedly revealing sensitive information about their cases to
U.S. embassy officials. Those who have committed such horrific and inhumane
acts typically go to great lengths to keep their crimes hidden, so it should
surprise no one when Vukcevic says, "We have stirred up a hornet's
nest." The buy a beekeeper’s suit, get the biggest can of RAID you can
find and get ready to go to war, Vlad……….
- How much is Jozy Altidore worth? Not nearly as much as the
Sunderland and U.S. national team striker might want to imagine if his former
Major League Soccer team is doing the bidding. Altidore, who joined Sunderland
in July 2013 after plying for teams in Spain, Turkey and the Netherlands, is a
two-time World Cup veteran with 25 goals in 76 appearances for the U.S., but
he’s never quite hit it big playing in Europe and has struggled greatly in his
stint with Sunderland. That has him pondering a possible return to Major League
Soccer during this transfer window and that in turn has folks thinking about
him coming back to his former club, the New York Red Bulls. It would be a fun
tale of a player coming full circle to the team and league he left as an
18-year-old in 2008, butt it doesn’t appear that the Red Bulls are willing to
pay what it would take to outbid the Portland Timbers and Toronto FC for
Altidore’s services. Altidore is reportedly demanding a salary in the $5-6
million range and on top of that, is expected to demand a multi-million dollar
transfer fee for a player for whom they paid close to $10 million in the summer
of 2013. The Red Bulls have pondered Altidore before, but we always scared away
by his asking price demands. The money he’s projected to earn would dwarf what
the team paid captain and former World Cup winner Thierry Henry last season and
unlike Altidore, Henry actually had real success with his national team. Besides
the Red Bulls were though to have left their high-spending ways behind under
new sporting director Ali Curtis and coach Jesse Marsch. Altidore seems certain
to move during the transfer window, but his limited individual success on the
world stage seems poised to hinder his ability to demand a massive payday……….
- Go big or go home….where coincidentally you can go in a
stolen police cruiser. It’s a story Ben Affleck’s character told about his
uncle in “Good Will Hunting,” but what happened at Boston’s Logan Airport this
week is no Hollywood tale. Danielle McDonough was found on the floor near the
baggage carousel on the first floor of Terminal A, passed out and not in any
shape to travel or drive. The scene was awkward from the start on account of an
existing order prohibiting her from trespassing at the airport and so troopers
escorted her outside after she declined medical attention. This is where the
story goes from awkward to awesome because when McDonough was ushered out of
the airport she spotted an unattended cruiser that was idling outside of the
terminal at about 2:30 a.m. Being a) really drunk and b) in need of a way home,
she climbed behind the wheel and drove off. It wasn’t long before a trooper
searching for the missing cruiser noticed it being operated on Service Road and
attempted to stop it. In a stunning plot twist, McDonough refused to stop and
ran red lights before pulling into a parking lot at the Orient Heights MBTA
station. In her drunken state, she couldn’t evade the law for long and a
trooper pulled up beside her in his own cruiser. When he exited his vehicle,
McDonough allegedly backed up in his direction, forcing him to leap out of the
way. Police eventually took their suspect into custody and she was charged with
receiving a stolen motor vehicle, failure to stop for police, assault with a
dangerous weapon, resisting arrest, operating with a suspended license,
speeding and red light violations. The whole receiving a stolen vehicle rap is
bogus because she didn’t receive anything…..b’otch stole the damn thing. State police
have begun an internal investigation into how the suspect was able to steal the
cruiser and if the first part of this story is any indication, idiocy and
incompetence are involved………..
- How do rich rock stars spend their time in rehab? No, not
trying to kick their addiction to heroin, cocaine, ganja, Ecstasy or whatever
drugs sent them off to rehab in the first place. These people are rock stars,
idiot. Being able to carry on with their career while nose-deep in a pile of
high-quality Bolivian marching powder is one of the perks and if you have that
perk, you don’t kick it just to get clean and make everyone applaud your
efforts to clean up your life. So Libertines guitarist Pete Doherty’s most
recent turn in the world of trust circles and group therapy sessions may
theoretically have been to help him get clean, but the world knows there is
more to the story. Thankfully, Doherty has confirmed that fact with the story
that he
was trying to get a "warlord's daughter" to play drums with him
during his recent stint in rehab in Thailand. He spoke about his efforts to
make new music at the Hope Rehabilitation Centre at the end of last year and
said it was a productive time for his musical career. "I've come up with
some good riffs too," he said. "Like simple bass lines and I'm trying
to get this warlord's daughter to play drums for me but she's off the radar at
the moment. So hopefully we'll have some new ideas when Carl next bounds into
view in his bandana and leathers." Carl would be frontman Carl Barât,
with whom Doherty and the remaining members of the band recently signed to Virgin EMI. It’s
been more than a decade since the group released their self-titled second album
and with stated plans to drop their third album this year, time is of the
essence. The buzz around their comeback has grown louder since they reunited
for the second time last summer to play a string of headline shows including an
outdoor gig at London's Hyde Park. Get the mirror and credit card ready world,
because you can call this a comeback……….
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