- Let
them ride. There are plenty of problems with next summer’s Olympic Games in
Brazil, but at least they will contain a bunch of jumping, running equines in
the sports that no one actually cares about. That’s because Brazil and the European Union have reached a sanitary
agreement that removes the last big hurdle for equestrian events at the Summer
Olympics. Brazil’s Olympic Public Authority announced that European regulations
for sending horses abroad will be accepted at Rio 2016, a move that matters
because most competition horses are based in Europe or abide by European
regulations. "By solving this issue with the European Union, we are
dealing with most of the 300 horses that will be in the Olympic Games," Brazilian
official Pedroso said. "At first we accepted Mercosur's regulations and
specially crafted Olympic regulations. With this third option that we agreed on
we can accommodate European horses and those that already compete in
Europe." The EU and Brazil's Agriculture Ministry came to an agreement
amidst fears that equestrian events at Rio 2016 were at risk because horse
owners in Europe were not satisfied with sanitary demands made by Brazil. The situation
was serious enough that the head of the country's equestrian confederation warned
that events for next year's Olympics might have to take place outside Brazil.
It’s the sort of arrangement that may have happened a century ago, but dealing
with it in the 21st century seemed mighty anachronistic. Brazil has strict regulations
for bringing horses to and from the country because it is still subject to
diseases affecting horses. In a disturbing situation earlier this year, cases
of glanders, a lethal highly contagious bacterial infection, were diagnosed in
a few horses stabled at a military facility near the site of the 2016 Olympic
equestrian competitions. Mix in the unsanitary, unhealthy conditions in the
country’s waterways that has competitors in water-based events for the Olympics
seriously concerned and these Games could be an unmitigated dumpster fire…………
- Chain
restaurants like Johnny Rockets can be extremely lame and boring. Maybe if
there were more people like Angelic Valle filling up the booths at such
establishments, they would go from uninspired to jam-packed. Valle, who may or
may not have been under the influence of drugs, alcohol or mental illness,
livened dinner up for fellow patrons a South Beach
Johnny Rockets location by doing what none of them had the personality or
disconnection with reality to do. She started to turn what was undoubtedly an
overpriced, mediocre meal into a true experience when she turned over several
tables and chairs around her. Along the way, she began to disrobe, removing her
top to give the entire restaurant a view of her assets. She began to dance in
the way that only an inebriated or mentally troubled person can and kicked
things up a notch by removing her bikini bottom, then climbing on the table and
pouring ketchup on herself. Maybe it was a piece of performance art gone wrong,
but when a woman lays naked on a table at diner and poured ketchup on herself,
it’s still going to draw a crowd. One witness told police he grabbed a chair to
make a barrier while other patrons - mostly men, shockingly - encircled her and
waited for police. In spite of this bizarre dance circle, Valle was gone when
officers arrived. Yet in another unsurprising development, Valle was eventually
tracked down and arrested. She may have taken the hit on this one, but she left
that restaurant having made a definite impact on the day of everyone fortunate
enough to see her do her thing………
- Finally, the entertainment world gets it right. For years now,
television has been a welcoming place for one sh*tty Simon Cowell-conceived
reality karaoke show after another. Studio executives has green-lit so many
piles of hot, steaming garbage because this smug, wildly overrated Brit’s name
was attached to them, but someone has finally grown a pair - and a brain - and
stopped one such pile of crap before it could get started. Slow clap for you,
Yahoo. After Cowell appeared at this year’s Yahoo NewFront event to promote the reality
series “Ultimate DJ,” Yahoo had an epiphany and dropped the show like Cowell
has dropped so many hack karaoke-ers over the years in his artificially snarky
wit. The premise of the show was to give the tweaker freaks with glow stick
necklaces and who are peaking on Ecstasy while spinning butchered electronica
versions of songs that weren't very good to begin with a chance to earn a
recording contract with Sony. The show was scheduled to debut next spring, but
now that Yahoo has wised up, unless another network or streaming service picks
up the show, it will not air. That a Simon Cowell show was ditched is unusual,
but this particular ditching isn't as big a surprise. It was originally shelved
in 2012 before being brought back by Yahoo and a DJ with actual talent, Fatboy
Slim, claimed that the idea failed because figures within the dance music
industry told Cowell to "f*ck off.” Slim smartly noted that dance music “grows
organically through drunk people late at night coming up with stupid ideas.
It's not something that can be scripted or transported into a TV studio." Well
said, tweaker. Now pass the stickers in the shape of unicorns that are actually
laced with X and let’s get this rave going……….
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Migrants remain a divisive issue
around Europe, where various nations struggle to cope with waves of displaced
refugees crashing their borders in search of a new, safer home. Nowhere is that
struggle more real than economically troubled Greece, where a people already
chafing under the weight of a financial crisis now have a new reason to be outraged.
Some of those angry folks clashed with police guarding a border fence in
northern Greece following a series of sea accidents that killed dozens of
migrants and a warning from authorities that the death toll is likely rise in
coming weeks. That sparked some 500 anti-government protesters to travel from
Athens and several towns in northern Greece to throw hands with police near the
border with Turkey after challenging a police cordon blocking access to the
fence that spans more than six miles. What did these rebels want? To throw the
door wide open or refugees by tearing down the fence and allowing the unwashed
masses to cross by land instead of risking their lives on the sea crossing to
Europe. There is something to be said for making a person earn it rather than
making it easy on them, so the government could have a point here when it
claims it cannot remove the fence for "practical reasons" and has
called on other European Union countries to speed up additional support
promised for search and rescue operations in the east Aegean Sea. On the other hand, anything that sparks an
angry mob to don hoods and balaclavas and hurl rocks at police, who responded
with tear gas and stun grenades, has to be a positive when it comes to making
the world a more interesting place. Best of all, everyone got to head home
happy - or happy to still be really upset and free to rage another day -
because no arrests or injuries were reported. It was a win all around and sets
up what should be some quality future clashes between the two sides………
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