Friday, December 25, 2015

Rome is the new China, Nick Saban's about to bolt and Republicans try to ruin Festivus


- Would Republican presidential candidates please stop ruining fun sh*t the rest of us actually enjoy? It’s fine that these 766 ass hats all vying for the same lousy nomination are trashing their own party and its already tarnished reputation while simultaneously making mockeries of themselves in the process, but trashing other parts of society and pop culture is a step too far. That goes for fringe candidate Rand Paul, who kept up what has become his unfortunate holiday tradition of hijacking Festivus, the fake-yet-real holiday created by the iconic 1990s sitcom “Seinfeld.” Part of Festivus, created by Frank Costanza on the show, is the Feats of Strength, with a second being the Airing of Grievances. It’s the Airing of Grievances the Paul seems to love and for the third straight year, the senator took to Twitter to ring in the season with a special Airing of Grievances against political opponents and government waste. Paul let his followers know that the fun was about to begin and first targeted frontrunner Donald Trump, who somehow is still a thing.  "Where else to start but @realDonaldTrump. If you bring the Yiddish, know what it means. But I guess that's more of a kvetch than a grievance,” Paul tweeted. “After the debates, @realDonaldTrump always trying to give us parting gifts of his made in China ties. Weird. #Festivus." Up next, it was Ted Cruz, a man lacking both charisma and a pulse. "My friend Ted Cruz has still not pledged to issue exec order declaring Canadian 'bacon' is not real bacon. Makes me suspicious. #Festivus," Paul tweeted of Cruz, born in Calgary, Canada but a U.S. citizen. Oh, and there was the perpetually comatose Ben Carson to attack. "I have no grievances against my fellow doc @RealBenCarson because I have not heard a word he has said in any debate. #Festivus," Paul wrote. Stop it, Rand, you’re killing us. No seriously, stop………..


- Alabama, you had a good run. Nick Saban led you to three national championships, coached you for nine seasons and has you in the running for a fourth title this season, but it’s over. That seems like a leap in logic, but it’s really a simple exercise in analytical thinking. See, any time the Nick-tator sits down with the media and informs them in no uncertain terms that he loves his current job, is committed to it and won’t be leaving for any other gigs, you can lock it in: He’s gone and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. Since the dawn of time, Saban has been the preeminent liar in football when it comes to staying in jobs and not looking for new ones, as so wonderfully chronicled by the news conference while he was head coach of the Miami Dolphins and answered a question about taking the Alabama job by saying, “I’m not going to be the next head coach at Alabama. I don’t even know why I have to talk about this. I’ve said it over and over and over again.” Within a few days, he was headed to Tuscaloosa with his pants afire. So when Saban says that he won’t leave Alabama, it’s pretty clear the opposite is true. "No, I really don't. I don't see it ever happening, and I know every year somebody has me going somewhere else," Saban said. "I think a lot of it isn't just about the coaching part. What people don't understand is they forget you're a person. They forget you have a wife and two kids and a grandbaby, and they all live in Birmingham.” Great, so you’re a human being whose mother lives in Birmingham and who has grandchildren. You had those things in Miami and you left, you had a family when you left Toledo, you had one when you left Michigan State, you had one when you left LSU….there seems to be a pattern here and it’s definitely not one of you telling the truth………..


- Anyone visiting two of Italy’s most popular cities during the holidays should enjoy a stroll around town even more than normal. Rome and Milan have ordered no-car days next week to combat pollution, taking the decidedly unwelcome step of doing something that sounds like sh*t China would do because it’s essentially one giant smog cloud with the occasional historical or cultural site to stumble blindly into because you can’t see more than six inches in front of your face on account of its rampant pollution. The pollution levels in Milan and Rome have hit unhealthy levels for weeks mainly because no rain has fallen to wash away the smog, thus a six-hour ban on cars this coming Monday and Tuesday announced by Rome and  Milan's anti-pollution measure six-hour bans each of those days plus Wednesday. The chief culprit in Rome is believed to be home heating is blamed along with heavy traffic, a potent mix creating throat-irritating, eye-stinging air. Along with the temporary driving bans, thermostat settings in Rome's homes and office cannot exceed 18 degrees Celsius (64 degrees Fahrenheit), measures that will be difficult to enforce unless police plan to go door to door with a portable thermometer measuring whether Romans have their living rooms heated a few degrees too warm. Oh, and the total hours a day furnaces can run is being reduced from 12 to eight, with schools and hospitals the exceptions. Believe it or not, many Romans ignore the rules and leave the heat on all day and with warm, dry weather worsening pollution, it’s a recipe for obscured skies………..


- Remember rapper Kreayshawn? Probably not, but as a refresher, the Oakland, California native was the typical one-hit wonder in 2011 with her viral single “Gucci Gucci” and since then, it seems like her life has gone just the way you’d expect for a marginally talented musician who suddenly became famous for five seconds and had a flood of cash sent her way by virtue of her short-lived success. In other words, she’s broke and looking for someone to blame for her dire financial state as the holidays roll around. Kreayshawn claimed that her bank account has been "wiped clean" by the Internal Revenue Service after she was accused of not paying her taxes. She responded to those claims by taking to Twitter to suggest that she was "robbed" by her accountant, whom she accused of keeping the money she intended to use for her taxes for himself instead. "Can’t believe the day came,” Kreayshawn wrote in a series of now-deleted tweets. “The IRS wiped my whole bank account clean. Four days before X-mas. I’m completely devastated. I did pay my taxes [except] instead of my accountant paying them, he took the money for the taxes and never filed and robbed me. So now I have to pay taxes from 2011 [to] now.” See, but you didn’t pay your taxes, K. You (allegedly and foolishly) turned the money over to someone who you trusted to pay your taxes, which isn’t the same as actually paying them. As Kreayshawn noted, her attorney is now trying to work out a payment plan with the IRS, but she deleted that and the other tweets on the subject because of Internet trolls who mocked her for her misfortune. The amazing thing is that she was foolish enough to expect a different response from the masses………..

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