- Man,
Amnesty International is quite the cadre of conspiracy theorists. The London-based human rights group is known for fighting
alleged injustices against humanity around the globe and using non-violent
guerrilla warfare tactics to make its points, but its latest act of non-violent
war is particularly interesting. AI is using full-page ads to accuse Australian
border protection officials of illegally paying people smugglers and endangering
lives in their efforts to prevent asylum seeker boats from reaching Aussie
shores. The unusual advertising campaign in Australia's largest cities of
Sydney and Melbourne came on the heels of a report condemning the government's
highly secretive Operation Sovereign Borders, a flotilla that has all but
stopped asylum seeker boats from reaching Australia. Aussies are known for many
things, most including beer and fighting, but secret government conspiracies
involving flotillas is not typically one of them. For its part, the Australian
government has rejected the report and denied any wrongdoing and we all know
that governments accused of any sort of wrongdoing never, ever deny their
actions when they’ve done something heinously inappropriate. Yet here is AI,
claiming that Australian officials were "complicit in a transnational
crime" in May when they paid people smugglers $32,000 to take a boat
carrying 65 asylum seekers bound for New Zealand to an Indonesian port. Greasy,
duplicitous government representatives paying off people in the dark of night
to send needy, desperate foreigners away to a distant land? That would never
happen in this 21st century we all call our chronological home………
- Wiz-nerds
of London are geeked. How geeked? So much so that advance
tickets for a two-part Harry Potter stage play -- which won't begin previews
until June 7, 2016 - went on sale
Wednesday and wrecked the online ordering system for London's Palace Theatre. "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" is
a sequel to J.K. Rowling's phenomenally popular "Harry Potter" novels
and their film versions, meaning it will give Potter dorks, er, enthusiasts a
chance to get another fix of their favorite young wizard even though Rowling is
done penning books on the topic. It’s based on a story by Rowling, Jack Thorne
and John Tiffany, with Tiffany directing a show set 19 years after the novels
and films left off. Proving that sometimes you just want a character to ride
off into the mythical dream future you’ve imagined for them, this sad tale will
feature Harry Potter as "an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic,
a husband and father of three school-age children." Yes, Harry Potter grew
up to be a bitter adult who hates his job and must deal with the daily
drudgeries of being a dad to a bunch of kids doing papier-mâché volcanoes for
science class. Yet demand for tickets for the shoe was so high that they sold
out within an hour. But wait, there’s more. Some wiz-nerds who thought they’d
locked up ducats learned that the system had lost their purchases and they
couldn’t go back in to buy more. These were folks who'd signed up on the show's
website for a chance to buy "priority" tickets, as the general
ticketing free-for-all starts Saturday. The two-part play, as recommended by
producers, should be seen on the same day or consecutive days as Harry's
youngest son, Albus, "struggles with the weight of a family legacy he
never wanted." Sounds riveting……….
- Everyone
has that one old relative who grew up in poorer times and appreciates the value
of every last cent perhaps a bit too much. Rustin, Louisiana resident Otha Anders is that relative and he collected pennies
for almost half a century before finally cashing them in for an unusual reason.
This super saver wheeled in 15 water jugs full of pennies to the bank in Ruston,
ultimately toting in 513,614 pennies with the help of friends and family. The
final count was $5,136.14, a total that began to accumulate when Anders started
collecting the coins in the late-1960s. It eventually morphed into a massive
hobby so intense that he would deliberately avoid ever spending pennies.
"I would break a dollar before I would spend a penny," Anders said. Whenever
I would see a penny, I would always say a prayer of thanks. It was a reminder
to me to always be thankful.” His tale is uplifting because Anders supervises
in-school suspended children for the Jackson School Board, so he clearly cares
about others in trouble. Why cash in now? Oddly enough, it’s because his
insurance policy won't cover the collection. Bank employees had to be fired up
to see Anders and his family coming trekking in with load after load of
pennies, as did other bank patrons, because it y took five hours for machines
to count all the change. Now that his copper bounty has been counted and the
sum total paid out, Anders says he plans to use the cash to help pay a dental
bill. Given the scam job that medical bills tend to be, the better move would
have been to haul about 100 socks full of pennies into the dentist’s office and
force the staff there to count them all out in order to receive payment……….
- No
matter which tale of how the NFL’s best running back nearly missed the Minnesota
Vikings' road game in Detroit makes Adrian Peterson look good. On the one hand,
there is the story that the man know as AD suffered an upset stomach and was
downgraded to questionable on Saturday because he swallowed dip on the team
charter during a rough landing at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Detroit is a
rough place, but nothing is more revolting than dip and the many, many unsavory
and unsanitary qualities associated with the use of chewing tobacco. Had that
been the final, official story, it would have been disgusting. Instead, we have
an alternate version of the story in which Peterson’s seafood allergy could
have played a role. "That situation was just so simple, and I really just
wasn't feeling well, but they had to report it, and coach Norv Turner made a
joke, and it just took off, about the dip," Peterson said. "Yeah, I
had shrimp. You know, people would be like, 'Why do you eat shrimp when you're
allergic to it?' Well, here's the thing: I've eaten shrimp my entire life.
Shrimp is not my -- you know, when you get the tests done, you have, for
instance, scallops, lobster, shrimp and, let's say, peanuts that they're
testing you for. You might swell up more when there's lobster. You might have a
bigger allergic reaction to lobster than you do shrimp. Shrimp might just swell
you up a little bit.” My man, if you have even a slight allergy to a certain
kind of food, why are you eating in on the eve of an NFL game? Peterson's
seafood allergy was first discovered in 2012 at training camp when he
experienced a bad reaction to gumbo and dude carries an EpiPen with him in case
of emergency. Those things aren't actually designed to be handy in the event
you have a hankering for some jumbo shrimp, AD……….
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