- Hey America, Sudan might have an idea for you. Both of you
have problems getting your citizens to turn out and vote – albeit for different
reasons – and both of you would desperately like people to give a damn about
the candidates and issues being put before them on the ballot. In the United
States, wanting higher voter turnout is about as far as the efforts go. In
Sudan, it means announcing a one-day extension of voting in presidential
and legislative elections. The election commission announced the decision as
three days of voting saw low turnout and chose to ignore the fact that people
aren’t showing up largely because the opposition is boycotting the vote and has
expressed concerns about fraud and the vote is virtually certain to extend
President Omar al-Bashir's 25-year rule despite an economic crisis and
insurgencies vexing many parts of the country. Buy hell, why not extend the
voting deadline for a day and hope that you can threaten/bribe/buy off more
voters to come out and support the only sitting world leader wanted by the
International Criminal Court? Al-Bashir is wanted on genocide charges linked to
the Darfur conflict and while voting for a man linked to genocide may seem
unpalatable, it’s certainly better than potentially having your house burned
down and your family kidnapped and sold into forced servitude for not voting or
casting a vote for the other guy. It’s almost enough to make American elections
seem like a fair, legitimate exercise in democracy involving quality candidates
with actual integrity….almost………
- MTV will try just about anything to boost ratings – except
playing the music videos from which its name is derived, of course. It will
even revive a claymation show that went off the air nearly a decade ago in the
hopes of getting eyeballs on screens. Yes, “Celebrity
Deathmatch” is set to return over eight years after it last aired and while it’s
technically going to be on MTV2 and not MTV, a network is still a network be it
first or second-tier. MTV2 has ordered a new season of the cult favorite show,
which for the uninitiated is a show featuring hypothetical celebrity rivals
fighting against one another in a wrestling ring. The show's creator, Eric
Vogel, is leading the revival and will serve as one of its executive producers
as the show makes its return. It originally aired for four seasons on MTV
between 1998 and 2002 before going away for four years and then making its
first return from the dead on MTV2 for two seasons in 2006 and 2007. Among the
many faux celebrity battles featured on the show were Madonna vs. Michael
Jackson, Bob Marley vs. Shaggy, Dave Grohl and Billy Corgan vs. Courtney Love, Elton
John vs. Ozzy Osbourne and Beck vs. Bjork. There was also an epic four-way
battle between Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison
that came to a close with the tone-deaf Ono being pronounced victor. The show
also spawned a video game spin-off that was released in 2003 and it also
inspired shock rocker Marilyn Manson, who was featured on the show's first ever
episode in a battle with Charles Manson, to pen an original song titled “Astonishing
Panorama Of The Endtimes,” which was somehow nominated for a Grammy……….
- The nightmare is over, Athens, Georgia residents. At long
last, the hunt for a 10-foot metal rooster stolen from outside an
Athens business has come to a fruitful end. Yes, Rocket the Rusty Roster has
been found and Lexington Village owner Bonnie Harris is relieved. The search
came to a close in a forest, where the runaway rooster was discovered under a
pile of wood. The 300-pound sculpture was stolen in late March, about two weeks
after it was installed in front of Harris' store. One could easily argue that
dropping a 300-pound, extremely conspicuous metal rooster in front of your
business without bothering to secure it is tantamount to asking the nearest
group of dudes between the ages of 18 and 40 with access to both alcohol and a
large truck to thieve it and then try to figure out what to do with it. The sculpture
was found in one piece, but it was missing an eye and its beard was gone.
Rocket will make a return trip to the artist's studio where it was created for
some minor restoration work and will then be returned to its post so the next
group of knuckleheads can take a run at stealing it. No arrests have been made
in the case and authorities don’t have any idea who left Rocket hidden down a
remote logging road, so Athens Clarke-County police Detective Sgt. Rick Hammond
and his cohorts have some work to do in order to crack the case of the pilfered
cock……….
- When projecting the results of the early weeks of the
Major League Baseball season out for the whole year, it’s important to remember
that the MLB season is 10 times longer than the 16-game NFL season, so 10 MLB
contests are equivalent to one NFL game. In other words, don’t waste time
projecting until the Fourth of July is in view. That goes for you too, Washington
Nationals shortstop Ian Desmond, you and your six errors in eight games. Make
no mistake; Desmond sucks right now at shortstop and even he is at a complete
loss for his struggles in the field, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to end
the year with 75 errors and a .670 fielding percentage. It’s just that right
now….well, it’s ugly. His latest booted ball led to three unearned runs in the
seventh inning of an 8-7 loss to the Boston Red Sox and after botching a ground
ball by Hanley Ramirez to start the inning, Desmond later didn't make a throw
home on a chopper by Brock Holt as the eventual winning run crossed the plate.
"It sucks," Desmond said after the game. "I don't know what to
do. I'm doing everything I can. Sitting here answering questions after every
game is brutal. But, I mean, what am I gonna do?" Just because you have
more errors than 18 major league teams have at this point and five of them have
led to 10 unearned runs is no reason to panic, I. "Do I worry about it? Of
course," Desmond said. "Do I want to get out of it? Of course. I
don't ever want it to be part of my game. Every day, I come to the field
thinking, 'This is gonna be the day where it goes away.' I do everything I can
on the field to get rid of it mentally and physically." Considering that
baseball players are just about the most superstitious athletes anywhere, that
probably means changing socks, underwear, haircuts, meal choices, pregame music
and routes to the park. So far, nothing has helped………
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