Sunday, March 22, 2015

Chris Brown set free, Ohio is the king of cheese and Russia wants to bomb Denmark


- Don’t back down, Denmark. Russia may be bigger, inherently evil and willing to invade anyone in its hemisphere for no valid reason, but you need not fear its ambassador to Denmark saying Moscow could send nuclear missiles against ships from your country if you joins the NATO alliance's missile defense system. Ambassador Mikhail Vanin brought the heavy verbal lumber in an interview that circulated quickly through Danish media and prompted an angry response from Danish Foreign Minister Martin Lidegaard. Lidegaard was having none of it and showing the same sort of fighting spirit as King Christian X, who boldly rode through the streets of Copenhagen daily during the Nazi occupation of the city, without any guards, in defiance of the Third Reich. Lidegaard said the comments were "inacceptable" and that Vanin had "crossed the line" by saying that "everyone who joins" the shield "in the future will be a target for Russian ballistic missiles." He’s damn right and even if Vlad Putin is a third-rate knockoff of the Nazis at best, this dictator is trying to run roughshod over his region of the world and his minions are spouting the same sort of nonsense. At present, there are no immediate plans for a meeting between Lidegaard and Vanin, but the real stunner here is that it was all the way back in August when the Danes agreed to contribute to NATO's shield with at least one frigate with advanced radar capacity and the Russians are just now getting around to threatening the tiny Scandinavian country. Russia strongly opposes the missile defense system and its planned bases in Romania and Poland, mostly because it’s against anyone willing to stand in the way of its quest for world domination………..


- Many NBA rookies hit what is known as the rookie wall at some point during their first season in the Association. They play more games than they have ever played in a season, their body isn't sure how to handle the strain and they begin to break down. Hitting that wall generally doesn’t involve hitting another player in the junk as a competitive tactic. Boston Celtics rookie point guard Marcus Smart is simply an aberration as he proved by earning a flagrant foul 2 and being ejected from Friday night's 101-89 loss for blasting San Antonio Spurs forward Matt Bonner with an uppercut to the groin. Bonner, who has made a career out of being a tough, dependable player willing to do the grunt work a team needs to be successful, was merely trying to screen Smart out near the 3-point arc with nine minutes to play in the fourth quarter. Rather than absorb the contact, Smart decided to deliver some of his own, deliberately swinging his arm upward to strike a prone Bonner. On account of being struck in the junk, Bonner immediately confronted Smart and the officials separated them before reviewing the play and assessing a flagrant 2 to Smart, which comes with an automatic ejection. It seems Smart used the remainder of the game to formulate a truly ridiculous story to spin about the assault when he was asked what happened and he insisted the strike was a "freak accident" and suggested he was just trying to fight through the screen. "Like every other play, I was trying to get through a screen," Smart said after the game. "[Aron Baynes] screened me, [Bonner] tried to clean up the screen and I tried to fight through.” Nice try, M. Saying you were only trying to “rip through and rip up” is as believable as the Philadelphia 76ers trying to sell the world on the idea they they tried to build a competitive team for this season……….


- Ohio is where it’s at, cheese lovers. In case you weren't following the social media storm surrounding the just-concluded United States Championship Cheese competition in Madison, Wisconsin, you definitely need to know who rules the cheese world in these here United States of America. The king for the next year is Guggisberg Cheese in Millersburg, Ohio, which beat out 1,892 entries from 28 states. The Buckeye State cheesemaker won the with a 200-pound Swiss wheel and while the sheer magnaitude of putting 1/10th of a ton of Swiss cheese together is impressive in and of itself, the judges at the  contest actually dared to taste the cheese as well. They didn’t attempt to eat the entire wheel a la Ron Burgundy’s dog Baxter, but they didn’t need to eat the dairy equivalent of five small children to know that this was the big cheese. The Swiss wheel scored 98.496 out f a possible 100 points in the final round of judging, just edging out first runner-up John Pitman of Mill Creek Cheese in Arena, Wisconsin, who brought the blunt force of his top brick cheese for a final score of 98.389. Wisconsin’s cheese supremacy pride took a hit with the loss, but the state did win the most gold meals, with New York second. The contest also featured technical evaluation of butter and yogurt and Wisconsin, New York and California earned the most medals in the debut yogurt classes, each winning two medals. For the lactose-tolerant among us, it was an impressive feat showing off America’s ability to crank out massive hunks of yet another unhealthy food product………


- Chris Brown is a free man once again. Technically, the wildly overrated R&B artist has been free for the past six years, but there has been that pesky probation thingy hanging over his head during that time. You know, the one imposed on him after his assault on then-girlfriend Rihanna in 2009. The one that involved the two of them in a car, a battle over a cell phone and Brown smacking his lady around because, you know, rage. Living the probation life wasn’t easy for Brown and he had his probation revoked in January when the he traveled without court approval and hadn't completed his community service. Somehow, he escaped further judicial wrath and served the final few months of his six years and one month of probation to the approval of the court, after which his probation officer reportedly told a Los Angeles judge that his client had satisfactorily completed his community service. That prompted Brown to take to Twitter and thank God for his newfound freedom, although if he’d been istening to the almighty all along, odds are he wouldn’t have ended up on probation in the first place. “IM OFF PROBATION!!!!!!!! Thank the Lord!!!!!!,” Brown tweeted shortly after the decision. Great, but don’t get too used to the idea of being free and clear of the law, C.B. If this year is any indication, he’ll be back on the police blotter soon. Last month, Los Angeles police searched Brown's car after receiving an anonymous tip that his passenger was carrying a gun. The incident came after Brown attended rapper TI's pre-Grammy party at Hollywood's Sayer nightclub and followed a separate incident during an appearance at a San Jose nightclub when Brown was forced to flee the stage after gunshots were fired. Cleaned-up act or not, it’s difficult to stay out of trouble for long when you’re hanging out in those types of places with those types of people……….

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