- Red
flags should be shooting up all over the place for every last resident of
Belarus….and not the red, blue and white flags of their overly aggressive,
oppressive former communist overlords. The reason for panic in the tiny Eastern
European country right now is President Alexander Lukashenko letting the world
know that he has secured Russian President Vladimir Putin's promise to help
shore up the Belarusian economy, which has suffered from recession in Russia,
its main export market. Calling the acceptance of support from Putin making a
deal with the devil is a bit insulting to the devil himself, so hearing that
your government is seeking a $2-billion
loan from a Moscow-dominated economic alliance is enough to terrify a person to
their core. Sure, asking for a Putin handout is an easier way of allowing him
to gain control of your country than having him invade an annex it, but Lukashenko
is still in way over his head here. Taking more assistance after Russia
provided Belarus with cheap natural gas and released $900 million in loans to
Belarus last year is digging a deeper hole and despite the fact that Russia and
its western neighbor have developed close economic and military ties, Lukashenko
has previously resisted Moscow's attempts to gobble up Belarus' economic assets.
He also held firm against a Kremlin push for Belarus to host a Russian military
base, but this would suggest that his resistance is crumbling. Maybe Belarus’ efforts
to secure a $3 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund will come
through and it won't need Russian help, but by this point Putin’s death grip on
the country might already be locked in too deep………..
- World,
prepare to be shocked. Free-agent outfielder Delmon Young has rage issues and
honestly, no one could have seen this one coming. Young, who has played for
five different teams during his 10-year career, was arrested over the weekend
and charged with battery after allegedly choking and threatening a valet in
Miami. The allegations that Young approached the Viceroy Hotel, where he is a
resident, and asked the valet to open an elevator before going berserk on said
valet for refusing are simply stunning. After all, it’s not like Young was suspended
three games after chest-bumping a minor league plate umpire in 2005, suspended
50 games while playing for the minor league Durham Bulls in 2006 for throwing a
bat at an umpire or arrested in 2012 and pleaded guilty to aggravated
harassment for yelling anti-Semitic slurs while intoxicated in New York City….oh
wait, yes he was. Two on-field incidents and another ugly one off the field
could potentially be an indicator that you have some anger problems and make
you the sort of man who, after a valet tells you an elevator is closed because
the club to which it goes was not open at the time, goes off. According to a
police report, Young said, "Stupid Cuban, open the f------ door. I'm here.
Now what?" When that brilliant logic didn’t work and the valet said once again
that the club was closed, and Young responded: "I'm going to f------ kill
you, you Latin piece of s---." At that point, Young began to choke the
valet, who freed himself after five seconds as Young fled toward the back of the complex where he lives.
The story only gets more bizarre from there as police went to Young’s apartment
and he answered the door while naked from the waist down. He was told to put
clothes on and was identified by the valet as the aggressor, at which point his
night ended with an arrest and a ride in the back of a squad car……….
- Sometimes,
even when your lame-ass publicity stunt raises money for a good cause, it’s
still a lame-ass publicity stunt that should never have happened. The Suffield
(Conn.) Police Department needs to learn this lesson quickly because while
trying to raise funds for the Lutz Children’s Museum is great, any stunt or publicity
effort centering on four-legged mammals dragged out of hibernation to “predict”
any sort of weather phenomenon is so tired that it just needs to go away with
any further discussion. Be it Punxsutawney Phil or one of his lesser-known
rodent brethren, groundhog weather predictions stopped being funny or cute
years ago. That makes it especially lame that Suffield police made a high
profile "arrest" over the weekend, taking well-known local varmint
Chuckles the Groundhog into custody. In an hilarious Facebook post, the
department announced that the woodland critter was taken into custody on a
warrant and is facing charges of making a false statement because…. wait for
it….. on Feb. 2, someone yanked Charles out of his hole, decided that he did or
didn’t see his shadow and therefore, spring would be coming early. After that
very reliable prognostication, the state was hit with a massive snowstorm that
dumped between six inches and a foot of white powder on the ground during
Winter Storm Barbara. For his evil deed of doing nothing and being harassed by
humans while trying to hibernate, Charles is being held at the Suffield Animal
Control lockup while he awaits trial, according to the comedians at the police
department. He could be behind bars for as long as six weeks, but if people
want to donate money for his bond, that money will go to the museum. Or people
could simply support the museum because it’s a good cause and stipulate that
they are only donating if police agree never to pull this moronic stunt again……….
- On
the surface, pairing a flamboyant, sequined suit-wearing man fond of comically
large, neon-colored plastic sunglasses with a fairly successful mainstream rock
band might seem odd, but the combination of Sir Elton John and Las Vegas-based
rockers The Killers makes plenty of sense. With frontman Brandon Flowers having
suggested recently that fans would be able to hear
new music "at the end of 2016 maybe,” it appears that a new album is at
least in the works for Mitt Romney’s favorite rock band. What that album will
sound like is anyone’s guess given the band’s fondness for heavily produced,
stylized electronic rock, but maybe recent comments by Elton John can shed some
light on the possible direction of this release. "I'm hoping to go to
Vegas and write with Brandon for the new Killers record… So that'll be
interesting,” John said. “It's just great to be able to see how other people
sing, what they write, how they do it, and it gives you an idea of, 'Oh they do
it that way.’” The last album from The Killers, “Battle Born,” dropped four
years ago and in the interim, Flowers released his solo LP, 'The Desired
Effect', in May 2015. The link between John and the band isn’t clear,
but their styles aren't that drastically different and any chance to work with
a music icon is a nice boost for a band. When you’ve made fans wait more than
four years to hear your latest work, it’s also good to give them some incentive
to hang around and stay interested, lest you fall victim to the Axl
Rose/“Chinese Democracy” pit in which a project is drawn out and teased for so
long that there is no way for it to do anything other than fall woefully short
of expectations……….
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