- There’s shady, there’s über-shady….and then there’s
ramping doping of your PARALYMPIC ATHLETES. Yes, that’s directed at you,
Russia. It was bad enough that the International Olympic Committee nearly
banned all of your Olympic athletes from this year’s Rio Games due to systemic
doping in recent years, but shooting/pilling/roiding up those competing with
various physical disabilities that qualify them for the Paralympics is another
level of scum-baggery. That latter approach to gaining an unfiar advantage led
to Russia being booted from the upcoming Paralympics as punishment for the
state running a doping operation that polluted sports by prioritizing
"medals over morals." Paralympic leaders dropped the hammer on one of
their most significant members due to years of doping deception, including
tampering with samples at the 2014 Olympics and Paralympics in Sochi. "The
facts really do hurt," International Paralympics Committee president
Philip Craven said. "They are an unprecedented attack on every clean
athlete who competes in sport. The anti-doping system in Russia is broken,
corrupted and entirely compromised. Tragically, this situation is not about
athletes cheating a system, but about a state-run system that is cheating the
athletes." Craven laid out Russia and its government, saying the Putin
regime “has catastrophically failed its Para athletes.” The blanket ban on the
communists removes a contingent that finished second in the medal standings at
the 2012 London Paralympics and had 267 athlete slots for Rio in 18 sports.
Russia can appeal between now and the Paralympics, when begin next month, but
it doesn’t sound like the IPC will show much mercy for the Russians in
wheelchairs, with amputated limbs and clearly, with a government whose
unethical behavior knows no bounds…………
- Not all protests/riots/rallies are awesome. For example,
if your government is organizing a bogus demonstration in the wake of an abortive July 15 coup that killed over 270
people, then your gathering is a lot more lame and a lot less badass than most
other such events. Enter the crowds that gathered to cap the weekend in
Istanbul at a massive rally to mark the end of nightly democracy demonstrations
following last month’s coup. The lamely titled. "Democracy and Martyrs'
Rally" allegedly aimed to represent Turkish unity, with President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan urging attendees to bring only the Turkish flag instead of party
banners. It was a cheesy, pathetic request tagged with the despot claiming
before the event that "there we will stand together as a single nation, a
single flag, a single motherland, a single state, a single spirit." Yes,
standing and ignoring the fact that the reason there was a coup is your
oppressive, dictatorial regime that pisses off a nation to the point that you
try to create fake unity at an event attended by the highest levels of Turkish
leadership and two of Turkey's three opposition parties. The only ones who
don’t look bad here are pro-Kurdish
People's Democracy Party, or HDP, who didn’t receive an invitation to an event
the government was so intent on keeping under wraps that nearly 15,000 police
were on hand for security, while the crackdown on anyone even tangentially
involved with the coup through the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon Principle
continues across the country. Yes, it truly was a festive and memorable weekend
for all of Turkey………
- The debate over Hollywood whitewashing is so deep at this
point that even Jason Bourne is being sucked in. Yes, Matt Damon is under fire
by proxy because “The Great Wall” director Zhang Yimou has been accused of
whitewashing following Damon’s casting as the movie's lead. A trailer for the
film sparked the drama because those who viewed it believed Damon was playing a
role that should be played by a Chinese actor. Yimou took exception, arguing
that Damon’s role is merely one of several big ones in the movie. "The
arrival of his character in our story is an important plot point. There are
five major heroes in our story and he is one of them — the other four are all
Chinese,” the director said. “I have not and will not cast a film in a way that
was untrue to my artistic vision. Our film is not about the construction of the
Great Wall. Matt Damon is not playing a role that was originally conceived for
a Chinese actor." That didn’t placate comedian and actress Constance Wu,
who was among the chorus of naysayers decrying Damon’s addition, claiming the
film was "perpetuating the racist myth that only a white man can save the
world.” That was a heavy claim made by someone who has clearly never watched
the United States Congress in action…living proof that white men can’t even
save their own country from total ineptitude in the face of rampant gun
violence. "Our heroes don't look
like Matt Damon," Wu tweeted. Enter the Wu, eh haters? The film itself is
set 1,000 years ago on the Great Wall of China, where a group of warriors
battle to defeat a number of mythical creatures. It’s slated to hit theaters in
February……..
- The real question is why this idea took so long to become
a thing. Americans love pizza, Americans love getting unhealthy food in a hurry
and Americans love ATMs. Why not roll all of that into one and create an ATM
that dispenses piping hot slices of pizzas instead of $20 bills? Enter a
company from, of all places, France to make this greasy, cheese-covered dream a
reality. Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, is teaming with France-based
Paline to bring the first pizza ATM to North America and taking advantage of
college students with easy access to alcohol, disposable cash on their meal
plan and little dietary discipline is an idea this tandem is looking to
exploit. The PTM is being installed in the lobby of Fenwick Place just outside
XU's Hoff Dining Hall and will be stocked with 70 pizzas at a time. It sounds
like a potentially disgusting idea on par with hot dogs sitting on that
slow-rotating metal rack at 7/11 for a week or two before some desperate, drunk
dude bites the bullet and buys them at 2 a.m. after a major bender, but at
least one person is selling this idea hard - conveniently enough, someone whose
job is to promote all that is supposedly good about Xavier. "It is the
best pizza I've ever had, and I hate to admit that as a New Yorker," said Jennifer
Paiotti, marketing director of XU's auxiliary services. Nice try, Jen. Anyone
buying from the PTM isn't looking for quality of food, just like they weren't really
looking for quality when they downed seven Keystone Lights to set them up for
the questionable decision of buying pizza from an ATM……..
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