- Is anyone - anyone at all, anywhere - ready for the Rio de
Janeiro Olympics? Brazil sure as hell isn't ready for the Games, Rio itself and
its toxic waters of death definitely aren't ready and now, it looks like the suspended
anti-doping laboratory for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics may not be ready.
According to a top International Olympic Committee official, it’s unclear if the lab can be reopened before the
Games start in under six weeks. Olympic Games executive director Christophe
Dubi says "this is something that is doable, but there are a number of
steps that need to be taken, which doesn’t sound like the sort of stance you
want to be taking when the biggest sporting even in the world is just a few
weeks away. Dubi noted that the suspension was for "wrongly
interpreting" test results and producing "false positives” and it’s
easy to see where that could be a problem. According to the World Anti-Doping
Agency, the lab was shut down last Wednesday due to "non-conformity with
the International Standard for Laboratories" and is prohibited from
"carrying out all anti-doping analyses on urine and blood samples."
If that doesn’t change in between now and the beginning of August, thousands of
blood and urine tests will need to be shipped abroad. According to lab
officials, they expect "operations to return to normal in July."
Expectations aren't really being met with regularity by anyone associated with
the Olympics these days, so counting on these folks to clutch up and deliver
feels like a fool’s bet…….
- Spain hasn’t been able to rally behind any one direction
or leader for some time now, with various regions from Catalonia to the Basque
country in the north wishing to pull away and become independent, the national
government looking to rip everyone’s midday siestas and the ongoing battle over
the sport of bullfighting continuing to divide a nation. But maybe, just maybe,
with Spaniards voting in an unprecedented repeat election that aims to break
six months of political deadlock after a December ballot left the country
without an elected government, the biggest nation on the Iberian Peninsula can
finally decide on a definite direction. Or not. As most expected, the ballot
failed to deliver enough votes for any one party to take power alone and as a
result, Spain has been resigned to another period of protracted political
negotiations — and, possibly, another ballot if there is no breakthrough in the
near future. The mix is a combustible one, with the conservative Popular Party enjoying the most
support, but the new far-left alliance called Unidos Podemos (United We Can)
also drawing a large number of angry, disenfranchised folks who feel like -
stop if you’ve heard this one before, United Kingdom pro-Brexit voters and
ass-hatted Donald Trump supporters in the United States - that the
establishment has failed them and therefore, they need to seek a new voice in
the government. Oh, and there are Spain’s ongoing economic woes to consider as
well, if anyone actually takes power and can do something about those………..
- Ryan Reynolds, you have your wish. Earlier this year,
Reynolds said, “I never want to play another comic book character again.
Deadpool, I would like to play for the rest of my life – that'd be fun."
The first Deadpool film was a huge commercial success earlier this year and
according to producer Simon Kinberg, the second movie in the series will begin
filming early next year. As the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time,
Deadpool basically assured itself of as many sequels as Marvel could manage,
with Reynolds playing the iconic anti-hero in a film filled with bad language,
graphic violence and nudity that pushed its rating as far as it could possibly
go. Reynolds had a solid supporting cast that included Gina Carano, Morena
Baccarin, Ed Skrein and T.J. Miller, although it’s unclear how many of them
will be back for the sequel. “The guys, [screenwriters Paul] Wernick and Rhett
[Reese], are working on the script, and we hope to have the script very soon,”
Kinberg said. “We hope to shoot the movie some time at the beginning of next
year." Reynolds has reportedly signed on to anchor the second film and
with a 2018 release date, there is plenty of time to lay out the best possible
movie around him. This time around, expectations will be much higher and based
on the massive success of the first movie, this one is likely to have a much
bigger budget than its successor. Here’s hoping the writers can find a way to
jam even more gratuitous profanity into every scene of this one to make it
truly sparkle……..
- ‘Bout damn time. For too long, patrons of the White
Settlement Public Library in Texas have had to search for that last copy of the
DVD of Matthew McConaughey’s new movie that they were too cheap to see in
theaters, a copy of “Atlas Shrugged” or last November’s copy of Time magazine
while watched by a furry beast that had no business being inside a public
library. For six years, a cat named Browser has lived in the library, but the
chat must find a new home after the city council ordered his eviction in a
2-to-1 vote the town’s mayor chalked up to small-town politics run amok. White
Settlement Mayor Ron White decried the vote, which council pushed through despite
children’s petitions and voters’ protests. Browser has 30 days to vacate the
public library in White Settlement and the hero in this tale is a city employee
who was angry that he wasn’t allowed to bring his dog to work. Denouncing the
double standard, this man waged the war that needed to be fought and now, White
Settlement will be a better place for it. “We’ve had that cat five years, and
there’s never been a question,” White said. Anyone thinking there’s too much
white in this story does have a point, but so does the city council,, which took
up the cat’s fate at a June 14 city council meeting under an agenda item listed
only as “consider relocation of Library Facility cat Browser.” Council member
Elzie Clements and another lawmaker voted in favor of evicting Browser and this
governmental visionary explained why. “City Hall and city businesses are no place
for animals,” Clements said at the meeting. Maybe if there had been more than
eight people who showed up at the meeting in support of Browser, the outcome
could have been different. Then again, the library was pretty much asking for
it by having a portion of its website devoted to Browser, writing that the cat’s
favorite activities include lounging on top of computer keyboards as library
patrons try to type on them and attending GED classes. In other words, this
animal was a nuisance and it’s about damn time someone did something about it…….
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