Thursday, May 05, 2016

Russell Wilson has an opinion, Australia defends its cows and Woody Allen hearts Hannah Montana


- Sometimes, a thief has to improvise when a robbery goes wrong. Take, for example, a thief in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania who tried to rob a bar in the town of Slickville but his plan to make off with all of the bar’s cash was anything but smooth. The suspect forced his way into the Silver Star Bar, but he couldn’t force its cash register to open and spill its wares for him. State police have released surveillance video showing the thief trying to get into the bar’s cash register drawer, making several attempts to pry it open before giving up and pulling a “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” by busting out his smartphone and calling a friend, possibly to get some advice on what he should do next. That advice was clearly not good, because what followed was a scene straight out of “C.O.P.S.” minus about 50 IQ points from the tools who normally fill its episodes. The thief got away with the jukebox cash, about $40 in the register and the register itself, which was worth around $450, but also received a mild electric shock when his friend’s advice to use scissors to sever the register’s power cord led to this physics-ignorant fool having a nice surge of electricity sent through his body. Police are still seeking the thief, who has despite his clear lack of both criminal skills and general intelligence, has so far managed to evade capture and remain at large………


- It’s a bit disturbing to imagine legendary director Woody Allen sitting around watching old-school Disney Channel staple “Hannah Montana.” Yet apparently the story of why Allen cast “Hannah Montana” star Miley Cyrus in the cast for his forthcoming Amazon series has a lot to do with him tuning into a show that he never had any business watching.   "I noticed years ago that my kids would be watching Hannah Montana. And I would say: "Who is that girl? She's got such a good delivery,’” Allen said. “You know, she snaps those lines off so well. The show is a silly little show, but she's very good at what she does. And then she emerged as a singer, and someone showed me a little clip of hers from Saturday Night Live, and I said, "It confirms what I always thought about her: She is very good, she is really a talented girl." Emerged as a singer is a loose term because Cyrus has always sucked as a singer, but is so outlandish and over-the-top in the sort-of music she makes that she’s still sold a lot of songs and albums. But it’s because of her humble Disney beginnings, Allen wanted her in his new Amazon show, which he has confirmed to be six half-hour episodes, but has yet to give a title. "She wanted to take some time off, but she [agreed to do the series] because the role interested her. So I met her right here [in the screening room],” Allen said. There is no scheduled release date for the show, which is now in the editing stage, but given Allen’s penchant for incessant tinkering, this could take a while to see the light of day………..


- You may have our koalas, our rugby stars and our eucalyptus, but you can never take our cattle! Such is the message from Australia's treasurer, who says his government will never sell the country’s largest cattle empire to foreigners. Treasurer Scott Morrison sparked the drama when he announced last week that a preliminary view that the sale to Chinese-based Dakang Australia Holdings was contrary to the national interest. In the aftermath of the announcement, Dakang Australia Holdings withdrew its application to buy an 80 percent stake in Australia's largest private landholding. Morrison explained that the main reason he opposed the 371 million Australian dollars ($284 million) sale was that the collection of cattle ranches was too big, but the idea of giving control of that quantity of future beef patties to foreigners cannot sit well with any nation. The current owner, S. Kidman & Co. Ltd., owns 10 cattle ranches, a bull breeding stud and a feed lot covering 101,411 square kilometers (39,155 square miles) in four states. To put that sort of real estate into perspective, it encompasses area bigger than South Korea and almost the size of the U.S. state of Virginia. Cattle is an unusual commodity to get possessive about, but Australia is an island nation full of people who like to drink, travel and fight, so expecting it to behave like other large countries with more resources and sobriety is not always reasonable. Fight on, keep your cows and tell China to take its beef buyout elsewhere, Aussies……..


- Russell Wilson rarely has much of a strong opinion on anything. It makes sense that if he is going to have a forceful take on a topic, it’s going to be something with which no one can really have a beef - i.e. frustration over Seattle's failure to bring an NBA team back to the city. After the city council voted against giving part of Occidental Avenue South to an entrepreneur who wants to build an arena, the Seattle Seahawks quarterback took to Twitter to share his feelings on the issue. He’s tweeted about the topic before, back in September 2014, when he posted a message about bringing the Atlanta Hawks to the city, and in March 2015, when he asked, "What do I have to do to bring the Sonics back to the NBA?" This time, he urged fans to start a petition to take advantage of the fact that entrepreneur Chris Hansen has a memorandum of understanding with the city and King County through November 2017 about building an arena. In the wake of this week’s decision, the odds of that deal happening are declining fast and in a statement on his website, SonicsArena.com, Hansen said, "Today's City Council vote was disappointing but we don't believe it is the end of the road in our quest to bring the NBA and NHL back to Seattle." The council voted no after debating factors including traffic issues and conflicts with Port of Seattle and union workers. There’s also NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s insistence that before expansion talks could even begin, the league had to get through collective bargaining, which could take until 2017. But maybe, just maybe, a top-notch NFL quarterback and his social media followers can affect change where none is happening……..

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