- The
Chicago Bulls have generally been a colossal letdown this season. They have
enough talent to rank among the top three or four teams in the Eastern
Conference, but the health of their two top players has been suspect for much
of the year and that has dragged them down to ninth in the conference and on
the outside looking in on the playoff picture. For all those disappointed in
what first-year head coach Fred Hoiberg’s team has submitted this season, the
Bulls’ star player has a message. He’s called his recent play
"terrible" and admitted that his physical ailments aren’t an excuse
for his subpar play. Oh, and that star player isn't Derrick Rose. No, he’s
All-Star swingman Jimmy Butler, who absorbed a 115-107 clunker to the lowly New
York Knicks to fall to the perimeter in the playoff race. "I know this is
a team game, but if one of your so-called best players is not doing what he's
supposed to do, that's what's going to happen," Butler said. When asked if
he was referring to himself, he pulled no punches. "Yeah," he said.
"You see the way I've been playing lately. It's saddening. It's piss-poor.
It's terrible. My teammates won't say it, my coaches won't say it, but I'm a
realist. If I continue to play like this I'm hurting this team." Minor
credit for not blaming those struggles on a knee injury Butler sustained Feb. 5
in a loss to the Denver Nuggets, ultimately sitting out until March 14. Even
after a strong return to the court, he played one game and then missed the next
three games because of swelling in the knee. His 12-for-35 over his last three
games has raised new questions about the knee, but Butler said the injury is
“not an excuse” and said he doesn’t “know what the f--- it is, but it has
nothing to do with the knee.” It’s nice to hear an athlete earning eight
figures a year admit as much, even if the admission doesn’t diminish his
eight-figure salary by a single dollar……..
- Props
to Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley for calling a press conference to refuse to
admit what he was apologizing to the world for doing. Bentley is up Sh*t Creek
over allegations that he and a top aide had a sexual affair and in what most
would consider a damning bit of news, explicit recordings of him became public.
Faced with claims that he and HIS MARRIED AIDE, Rebekah Mason, cheated on their
respective spouses committed adultery with once another, Bentley elected to get
in front of the world…and lie. When questioned about he and his former
spokeswoman and policy adviser getting amorous, Bentley did not deny the
legitimacy of the recordings but focused on the fact that he claims the
recordings are two years old. "I am truly sorry, and I accept full
responsibility," said Bentley, a Republican serving in his second term.
"Today, I want to apologize to the people of Alabama. I want everyone to
know, though, that I have never had a physical affair with Mrs. Mason.”
Wait….what? Then why the hell are you apologizing to anyone? It’s like former
major leaguer Jason Giambi holding a news conference to apologize for alleged
steroid use without actually saying what he was apologizing for. This tool
expects the world to believe that this was solely an emotional affair and never
got physical. Bentley’s hasty press conference came after his former law
enforcement chief, Spencer Collier, held a news conference earlier in the day
in which he accused the governor of the affair and inappropriate use of
resources. Oh, and to make this even more soap operatic, Bentley fired Collier
the previous day. Bentley did some linguistic high-stepping by saying he has “never
done anything illegal” as governor and “never asked any member of my staff or
any cabinet member to lie.” Unfortunately for him, none of this is as memorable
as a portion of the audio recordings in which he told Mason that “when I stand
behind you, and I put my arms around you, and I put my hands on your breasts,
and I put my hands (unintelligible) and just pull you real close. I love that,
too.” Uh oh, governor…….
- Metallica
and the Library of Congress…they go together like head banging and the Dewey
Decimal System. James Hetfield and his crew belong in a place where quiet is
the most important rule and decorum dominates the day, so it’s appropriate that
Metallica’s ‘Master of Puppets’ will be the first
heavy metal album to be added to America’s National Recording Registry. All
jokes aside, it’s pretty damn cool that the legendary metal band will have its
most prominent work among those the government selects each year as a group of 25 recordings that deemed “culturally,
historically or aesthetically significant" and which are at least a decade
old. Most, including the diehard metal heads at the LOC, consider
“Master of Puppets” to be Metallica’s master work. It was released in 1986 and
drummer Lars Ulrich said the band were “humbled” by
the honor. "It shows the group moving
away from its thrash metal history and reputation and exploring new
ideas," the Library of Congress said in a statement. Ulrich concurred,
expressing amusement that an album that went off the metal path Metallica
walked most of its career was being so honored. “Who would've ever thought that
'Master of Puppets', a record made by a band hovering way left of the
mainstream in 1986, would be granted the honor of being added to the Registry
of the Library of Congress?" he said. “’Master of Puppets' is a collection
of songs that we consider a defining moment in our formative years and the
honor bestowed upon this album is beyond thrilling." Being in the company
of artists such as John Coltrane, Merle Haggard and Santana as the honorees for
this year also doesn’t suck and while having a disco hack like Gloria Gaynor
and here 1978 single ‘I Will Survive’ as part of the group being added to the
LOC does cheapen the honor a bit, it’s always nice whe n a bunch of uptight
squares can find it in their horn-rimmed-glasses-wearing, pocket-square-rocking
souls to give some recognition to a bunch of musical wild men whose career of rocking
hard and partying even harder is still going several decades after it began……..
- Why
so harsh, Romania’s top court of appeal? You all
act as if two high-ranking government officials laundering money, peddling
influence and accepting bribes is a big deal and could potentially destroy the
public’s little remaining faith in your vastly corrupt political system. This
particular Romanian court has taken a hardline stance on corruption, handing a former
minister and a former mayor matching prison sentences following their
respective conviction for money-laundering, influence-peddling and taking
bribes. Former Telecommunications Minister Gabriel Sandu and businessman Dorin
Cocos received two-year sentences in the case, while Gheorghe Stefan, the
former mayor of Piatra Neamt, received a three-year sentence. Not only are
these convicted scumbags headed to jail, but the court ruled that 3.9 million
euros ($4.4 million) should be confiscated each from Stefan and Cocos, and 2.19
million euros ($2.45 million) from Sandu. It’s an extremely punitive judgment,
but the good news for those who love graft as an international language is that
all of the lawyers in the case said
their clients would appeal. Of course, sympathizing with these men means siding
with dudes who, according to anti-corruption prosecutors, hatched a scheme under
the terms of a 2004 government contract with Microsoft for computers licensed
for schools in which they pocketed a 47-percent discount offered by Microsoft. In
other words, some 15.7 million euros ($17.6 million) were paid to their
companies on the unknowing, unsuspecting backs of Romanian children who simply
wanted a chance to use the world’s worst operating system on their school
computers………
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