- A plague is upon us, at least according to overly dramatic
French prosecutors who have asked a French court to send a former French budget
minister to prison for tax fraud and in so doing, throw down the gauntlet
against what they have deemed to be a true hazard to humanity. The two-week
trial of Jerome Cahuzac on charges of tax fraud and money laundering wrapped up
this week with prosecutors urging the court to make the disgraced politician an
example of a necessary fight against a "world plague." The case took
place in Paris and reserved some of its best theatrics for closing arguments,
during which France's top financial prosecutor, Eliane Houlette, asked the
court to sentence Cahuzac to three years in prison for inflicting a "major
harm to France" and "making it the laughing stock of the entire
world." Of course, France has been the laughing stock of the world before,
mostly in world wars when it offers the same level of resistance to invaders
that your passed out buddy offers up when you and the rest of the group draw
dirty pictures on his face with a Sharpie after he passes out at 3 a.m., and
very few people seem to be mocking the country over this situation, but
whatever helps you win the case, eh Eliane? This one won't be decided any time
soon, as the judge set a Dec. 8 deadline for the verdict. Cahuzac is accused of
hiding his wealth in tax havens around the world while simultaneously leading
the government's fight against tax evasion. It’s a beautifully ironic example
of government corruption, one that according to prosecutors is bubonic in its
nature……..
- Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh doesn't have much of
a sense of humor. He’s weird, abrasive and caustic, seeming to live his entire
life in ill-fitting khakis and with a giant chip on his shoulder. He beefs with
media members simply trying to do their job in a professional manner and when
it comes to opponents who poke fun at some of his more irritating tendencies,
he’s ready to brawl. Enter Colorado, this week's opponent for No. 4 Michigan, a
team that saw Michigan’s early-season theatrics in refusing to reveal its depth
chart or say who its starting quarterback would be and in response, released a
fictional depth chart featuring Elmer Fudd at quarterback and Vito Corleone
along the defensive line. It was a harmless joke, one that included various pop
culture references ranging from socialist politicians playing at free safety to
deodorant brands starting at "Right Guard.” When Harbaugh was asked about
it, he didn’t exactly enjoy the joke. "In our preparation for Colorado, we've
had a hard time working humor into the preparations," he said. "I was
trying to imagine how many people sat around and how many hours they worked on
that." How many hours? Probably not very many and it was probably a couple
of interns who were tasked with coming up with as many jokes, puns and
knee-slappers as possible. Also, probably considerably less time than you’ve
spent working to conceal the identity of your starting quarterback in some
lame-ass effort to gain a small competitive edge on your opponents. “We just
felt like modern technology was the most accurate way of knowing what the
opponent's depth chart is by looking at the previous week's film. Not relying
on another PR director's assessment of what the depth chart is,” Harbaugh
quipped. Stay bitter and humorless, Jimbo…….
- Ah, police ruining lives and beating the holy hell out of
people - it’s not just a black thing. It can also happen to white folks, at
least according to an accused bank robber who has filed a $10 million lawsuit
against the FBI, the city of Denver and its police department for false arrest,
excessive force and malicious prosecution. "I had a normal life and now
all of a sudden I'm homeless and I look like this," Steve Talley said,
alluding to his shaggy beard, damaged teeth and disheveled appearance. Talley
was somehow arrested twice for a bank robbery only to have the charges
dismissed and now that he’s on the other side of it all, he’s hired the same
New York firm that won $40 million for the teens knows as the Central Park Five,
a group wrongly arrested for a 1989 Central Park rape case that has become a
long-running national embarrassment. Talley’s own life has been a mess for some
time now; he’s been homeless for the past two years and blames Denver police
for his plight. It all began in September 2014 after he was arrested for a pair
of bank robberies. Investigators identified him based on surveillance video
that appeared to show the same suspect robbing two banks, four months apart,
but Talley now points out that he was three inches taller than the man in the
video and has a completely different body type. His arrest was a mess in and of
itself when police apprehended him in May 2014. "I have the fractured
penis. That's a permanent injury. They told me I need reconstructive surgery
the four broken ribs,” Talley said. "I have tinnitus from flash bang
grenades. The knocked out teeth." Hang on…did he just say “fractured penis”
was one of his injuries from the arrest? If that’s true, there’s not a
sufficient amount of money to give this man to make things right. Pay him $100
million if he wants it, apologize to him every day of his life and set him up
with a date with a supermodel every night and it still won’t be enough,
considering prosecutors eventually dropped the charges when Talley was able to
prove his innocence with a solid alibi……..
- Points for honesty, or for at least trying to live up to
the stereotype that true rock stars are all about three things and three things
only: sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. Matt Healy, the frontman for British pop
rockers The 1975, subscribes to that mindset and that’s why he said that had
his band won the Hyundai Mercury Prize this week, they would have spent the
roughly $32,000 prize on “endless, endless, drugs.” Yes, but what kind of
drugs? You have to do the right drugs because you can't just plow through a
supply of meth or low-end marijuana and expect to be a legit rock star, right? “All
of them … I don’t care. Anything that you can sort me out, I’ll have that,”
Healy said. The bad news for Healy and his bandmates is that the 2016 Mercury
Prize was awarded to grime artist Skepta even though The 1975 won the
first-ever Mercury Prize public vote. Despite not getting an ample supply of
money with which to buy cocaine, heroin, Ecstasy or LSD, The 1975 performed the
hit single “Love Me” at the show, which included Healy standing on the band’s
table and yelling, “Now play a f*cking guitar solo.” It was the capstone for a
busy summer that saw the band tour the festival circuit in support of their
second album, “I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So
Unaware of It.” The album was the band’s first to top the Billboard 200 chart
and that fact bolstered a band that was originally panned by many critics.
Asked if being nominated for the Mercury Prize validated the band against those
doubters, Healy scoffed. “Not really, because that would kind of insinuate that
we care that much. I think that it’s not about vindication,” he said. Right on.
Now bring on a massive pile of blow, a credit card, a rolled-up dollar bill and
a groupie off whose ass you can snort that Bolivian marching powder……..
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