- Riot
Watch! Riot Watch! Greece has been an angry place for a long time now,
struggling through a long economic crisis and topping off its tensions with
migrants crashing its borders. In that sort of tempestuous environment, it’s
easy to overlook yet another uprising by yet another angry group, but don’t
sleep on protesting Greek farmers who are planning
to camp outside parliament and hold a 48-hour protest against planned pension
reforms. Pension reforms generally don’t move the needle all that much, but
these angry agricultural advocates from around the country are planning to
build from 70 highway and road blockades around the country into a full-fledged
confrontation with the leftwing government, which is struggling to implement
austerity measures demanded by bailout lenders. The rest of the European Union
would very much like to see Greece follow through on its promises, but not
these farmers. They are standing boldly against Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras,
who earlier this week rejected demands to scrap the planned pension system
overhaul and start a full round of negotiations with professional groups and
opposition parties. "It is clear that this reform is not optional,” the
minister told a cabinet meeting. Unfortunately for the farmers, Tsipras is
correct, yet their perspective remains focused much more narrowly and not on
the fact that their country is on the brink of total financial collapse if
these reforms fail and it doesn’t receive the monetary assistance it so
desperately needs in order to avoid a fall into the infinite abyss………
- Charlize Theron is generally not the sort of actress who
you instinctively cast in a villainous role, but she actually has played a few
bad apples in her successful career. Whether it’s “Monster” or “Snow White and
the Huntsmen,” Theron has proven that being really pretty doesn’t prohibit her
from being evil on screen and that seems to be the hope for director F. Gary
Gray and screenwriter Chris Morgan, who are reportedly interested in casting
her in the role of a fierce female villain in the next “Fast & Furious” film. Set to drop next year as the
eighth film in the series, it will be the first of what Vin Diesel recently
confirmed at the three final films in the auto racing franchise. Having an Oscar-winning Monster
actress on board aside marginally talented actors and their souped-up cars
would be a nice coup, although Theron has reportedly yet to see the film's
script or receive any kind of formal offer. She did show off her action ability
in last year's “Mad Max: Fury Road,”
which has been nominated for 10 Oscars, and the real question is whether she’s
going to so vastly out-act Diesel and the rest of the cast that it gets a bit
awkward on set. With or without Theron, “Fast
& Furious 8” will speed into theaters next April, followed two years later
by the ninth movie in the franchise and two years after that by the 10th and
final chapter. Diesel is on track to make good on his promise that the franchise will end with "one last trilogy,"
although saying goodbye to that sort of money-making machine after the last
one, “Fast & Furious 7,” was the most successful to date with $1.5 billion
in global earnings is going to be tough no matter when it happens………
- Oh,
the symbolism was rolling deep in New Hampshire on Primary Day earlier this
week. As all manner of political filth, wallowing in the mud and candidates
well-versed in dishing out all manner of political pork as they corruptly
discharge the duties of their elected offices, fate delivered a grunting,
smelly incarnation of what politics are all about at a polling station in
Pelham Tuesday morning. Police were called to the polling station, located at
the local high school, shortly after 9 a.m. for a report of a loose pig that
had wandered into the parking lot for voters. Pelham seems to be the sort
of place where a loose pig wandering into a parking lot or grocery store isn't that
out of the norm, but having a 600-pound pig lurking outside as many older
people showed up to vote seemed like a bad idea. Officers did some of their
best investigative work to date and discovered that the pig came from a
local farm, so they tracked down its owner and averted any further drama - at
least of the non-political kind. The owner came to the school to retrieve his
wayward quadruped and took the pig home, though it’s not clear whether the
animal voted for Donald Trump before being escorted off the premises. These are
the sorts of incidents that happen when the first two states to hold their
primary or caucus are Iowa and New Hampshire, but having an unwashed, unsavory outsider
to distract us all from the filthiness of the 107 Republican candidates still
in the race (numbers approximate) was nice while it lasted………..
- That didn’t
take long. After bouncing from a massive doping scandal involving the Russian
track and field program to a possible doping scandal dating back to the 1990s
with their Chinese counterparts, only a few days passed before the latest
allegations of systemic cheating by way of performance-enhancing drugs surfaced
courtesy of two Kenyan athletes serving four-year bans for doping at the 2015
world championships. Joy Sakari and Francisca Koki Manunga have little to lose
at this point, so they’re throwing crap against the wall and seeing what sticks,
namely their allegation that the chief executive of Athletics Kenya, the
country's governing body for track and field, asked them each for a $24,000
bribe to reduce their suspensions. This pair of cheaters said CEO Isaac Mwangi
asked for the payment in an Oct. 16 meeting and sound like they would have paid
it - if only they could have raised the money. As they tell it, a month later
they were informed of their four-year bans in an email but didn’t file a
criminal complaint because they had no tangible proof to back up their bribery
accusation and also feared repercussions. Believe it or not, Mwangi dismissed
the allegation as "just a joke," denied ever meeting privately with
the athletes and said Athletics Kenya can't shorten suspensions anyhow.
"We have heard stories, athletes coming and saying, `Oh, you know, I was
asked for money," Mwangi said. "But can you really substantiate
that?" Notice that he never denied asking for a bribe, but instead
selectively attacked other, less important parts of their claim. In their
limited defense, Sakari, a 400-meter runner, and Manunga, a hurdler, said they
would be willing to testify to the ethics commission of the IAAF, the global
governing body of athletics, which is already is investigating allegations that
AK officials sought to subvert anti-doping in Kenya, solicited bribes and
offered athletes reduced bans………
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