- Behold,
the power of the masses. Every year, dozens of new and established television
shows are canceled and some of those shows have rabid, loyal followings that
give rise to all manner of wacky campaigns to save them. It’s worked well for
some (NBC’s cult favorite action-comedy “Chuck,” for one) and not so well for
others, but it definitely did the deed for “Nashville.” The musical series was
previously canceled by ABC after the Season 4 finale aired on May 25. The
show’s fate was sealed with news that co-star Hayden Panettiere had recently
taken a leave of absence following the birth of her first child and co-star/producer
Connie Britton spoke out about an anti-LGBT law passed in Tennessee where the
show was filmed. ABC still doesn’t want the show and the network announced
renewals for 15 other series, but CMT has announced that it will bring back the
show for a fifth season. “The wave of love and appreciation they have unleashed
for ‘Nashville’ has been overwhelming,” CMT president Brian Philips said. “‘Nashville’
is a perfect addition to our evolving line-up of big music specials,
documentaries, and original series. We see our fans and ourselves in this show
and we will treasure it like no other network. ‘Nashville’ belongs on CMT.” The
weird twist is that the show won’t actually air on CMT, but will actually air
on video streaming service Hulu. There is no premiere date for the new season,
nor has there been any word on which members of the cast will return, but at
least the show has life………
- Not a
good week for you, Nigeria. First, an international court orders your
government to pay $3.25 million for 11 extrajudicial killings of militants and
now, your military is firing dozens of senior officers accused of corruption
and the theft of billions of dollars meant to buy arms to fight the Boko Haram
Islamic insurgency. Sources within the army confirmed that more than 50
officers have been axed, although Army spokesman Col. Sani Kukesheka Usman said
only that "quite a number" were fired this week, primarily major
generals, brigadier generals, colonels, lieutenant colonels and one major. A
few members of that crew have already been handed over to the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission for allegedly diverting billions meant to buy
weapons, Usman said in a statement. Others were determined to have played
partisan roles in the 2015 elections in the south of the country that favored
former President Goodluck Jonathan and election-rigging is always a great use
of the military’s time. However, Jonathan lost to former military dictator
Muhammadu Buhari, who made fighting endemic corruption and Boko Haram a
cornerstone of his campaign. There are officers, including two former chiefs of
defense staff, already on trial for corruption, the most recent of which is Air
Chief Marshal Alex Badeh, who is in court for allegedly stealing some $20
million to build a shopping mall and buy other property in Abuja, the capital. Former
national security adviser and retired Col. Sambo Dasuki admitted to diverting
$2.1 billion on Jonathan's orders to bribe officials to win Jonathan his
party's presidential nomination. When your entire annual military budget is
about $6 billion, that figure is problematic to say the least. The net result
of this mess is the deaths of an unknown number of civilians and troops in the
uprising that has killed more than 20,000 in six years, so it’s not like it’s a
huge deal or anything………
- Shocking
news from the track and field world, where three officials of track and field's
world governing body -- including one of Sebastian Coe's top aides -- have been
provisionally suspended for allegedly receiving money to conceal Russian doping
cases. Russia was apparently doping everything with a pulse and two legs over
the past few years and track was at the top of the list, something that former
communications director Nick Davies, his wife and project manager Jane Boulter
Davies, and medical manager Pierre-Yves Garnier all agreed to conceal to line
their pockets with dolla dolla bills y’all. The IAAF ethics board imposed
six-month suspensions on the trio pending a full investigation and panel
chairman Michael Beloff said the suspensions were leveled "in the
interests of the integrity of the sport but do not prejudge the outcome of the
investigations." Uh huh, sure. The case stems from an email reportedly
sent on July 29, 2013, to then-IAAF president Lamine Diack from his son, Papa
Massata Diack, an IAAF marketing consultant, in which the younger Diack allegedly outlined plans to delay announcement
of Russian doping cases to avoid bad publicity before the 2013 world
championships in Moscow. Lamine Diack stepped down as IAAF president last year
and is under investigation by French prosecutors for corruption related to
cover-ups of Russian doping, while Coe, who was elected as Diack's successor in
August, appointed Davies as his chief of staff. Oh, and there was the email Davies allegedly
sent l to Papa Massata Diack in 2013 asking what "Russian 'skeleton' we
have still in the cupboard regarding doping," and suggesting using the
marketing company chaired by Coe -- then an IAAF vice president -- to lead an
"unofficial PR campaign" to "avoid international media
scandals" related to the Moscow championships. Stir in the evidence
indicating that Davies received an "undisclosed cash payment" from
Papa Massata Diack in 2013 which may have resulted in "manipulative"
action, and let’s just say that another international sports governing body has
its integrity severely in doubt……..
- Because
#Walmart. No matter where in America you find that familiar supercenter
structure, you can count on a few things. People wearing hideous and
inappropriate attire that should never be seen in public, massive quantities of
generic merchandise, indifferent employees earning paltry salaries…and the sort
of general weirdness that went down in Oregon this week. A female shopper was
patronizing the Eagle Point shopping center when a
would-be thief attempted to steal her bike. Enter the sort of hero you can only
find at the white trash shopping mecca of choice, cowboy Robert Borba. Rorba
rode - yes, rode - to the rescue on his horse, galloping onto the scene to save
the day. "A lady yelled out 'He's
stealing my bike, he's stealing my bike'," Borba said. He rushed to the
trailer behind his truck, jumped on his already-saddled horse and rode onto the
scene. When the suspected thief saw Borba coming after him, he jumped off the
bike and started running, but his misery was only beginning. As it turns out,
Borba is a legit, professional cowboy and lassoed the thief by the ankles. A
witness snapped a photo showing the roped man on the ground, holding onto a
tree. Because there’s nothing like the image of a captured thief to bolster
one’s social media following, others followed suit and the images spread like
wildfire. "He jumped on his horse that was at the ready and pulled out his
lasso," said Alyssa Borba, Robert's wife. "This is what he does [for
a living], so he could do it quick." Afterward, Borba, a professional
cowboy, continued on his way to California……..
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