- It may have taken four or eight years, but the
International Olympic committee finally brought the hammer of justice down on
wrongdoers to cheated their way onto the podium at past editions of the Games. The
IOC, a thoroughly corrupt group itself, should be able to recognize those who
aren’t operating above board and that’s exactly what happened late last week as
the committee stripped three gold medals and one silver medal in the latest positive
doping retests from the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. The cheaters all hail from
eastern European or Asian nations, as seven athletes from Belarus, Azerbaijan
and Kazakhstan were retroactively sanctioned by the International Olympic
Committee after testing positive in a reanalysis of their stored doping
samples. The dopers and cheaters who will have to surrender their awards
include Kazakhstan weightlifter Ilya Ilyin, who was formally stripped of two
gold medals -- one each from the London and Beijing Games, both in the
94-kilogram class, and Aksana Miankova of Belarus, who was stripped of the
Beijing gold medal in the women's hammer throw after the IOC said she tested
positive for turinabol and oxandrolone. Ilyin’s positive test for the steroids
stanozolol and turinabol was especially shocking because who would ever imagine
that a weightlifter from a Third World country who somehow muscled his way past
the rest of the world to win two straight gold medals might have to cheat to do
so………
- Michelin gives and the health department takes away. Such
is life for the first Danish restaurant ever to be awarded three stars by the
Michelin ratings. Germanium, an über-popular eatery in Copenhagen, may not have
its lofty rating for long after a visit from health inspectors who showed up
not long ago for a routine visit and found some alarming elements at play in
the kitchen. When the inspectors made their round, they found crayfish,
scallops and oysters kept in fridges with temperatures up to 48.6 F — far above
the maximum 35.6 F. It was an alarming find in a place that charges customers
insane amounts of money and demands reservations weeks or even months in
advance to enjoy food prepared by Geranium chef Rasmus Kofoed, but the good
news for the popular eatery is that it won't be shut down at all and has merely
been fined 20,000 kroner ($2,840) for storing fresh shellfish at too-high
temperatures. However, Kofoed insisted that the errors had already been
corrected and blamed them on staff perhaps not paying close enough attention to
the proper food storage procedures. It’s really not the sort of news a
restaurant wants to make in the same year that it becomes for first one in its
entire country to attain the coveted three-star designation from Michelin, but
this one doesn’t figure to cause Germanium to lower its sky-high prices in an
attempt to win back the goodwill of the dining world………
- Is it an instance of two Hollywood titans at each other’s
throats, tossing ugly accusations at one another? Not really, but it’s still
interesting with an industry icon such as Tom Hanks describes a legend like
Clint Eastwood was an “intimidating” director who “treats his actors like
horses.” Hanks starred in “Sully,” Eastwood’s latest film, and the project was
extremely successful both critically and commercially at the box office earlier
this year. Hanks portrayed Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger, the commercial airline
pilot hailed an American hero after he managed to land his plane safely on New
York City’s Hudson River in 2009. Hanks was asked what it was like to work with
Eastwood and explained that it wasn’t a relaxed or easy workplace. “You
certainly don’t want one of those Eastwood looks. He treats his actors like
horses because when he did the ’60s series ‘Rawhide,’ the director would shout
‘Action!’ and all the horses bolted,” Hanks recalled. “So when he’s in charge he says in a really
quiet soft voice, ‘All right, go ahead,’ and instead of shouting ‘Cut!’ he says
‘That’s enough of that.’ It’s intimidating as hell!” There was also pressure,
according to Hanks, because Sullenberger himself was “very particular” about
how he was portrayed in the film. He said that when he met the pilot,
Sullenberger noted that he was glad the actor was on time because Eastwood
showed up late for his meeting with the pilot. Sullenberger than presented
Hanks with a heavily notated script with sticky notes, index cards and other
ideas written all over it and the two spent hours going through the entire script
in detail………
- The holiday season is always good for a ton of awkward
family moments the world never knows about, but the ones that do garner
attention more than make up for the others’ anonymity. For instance, take what
went down in Council Bluffs, Iowa over the long holiday weekend between two
brothers who had a beef with each other and couldn’t find a way to resolve
their issues without involving the police in a high-speed chase. According to
the Council Bluffs Police Department, an argument between brothers Eric Carlson
and the chaos began when the brothers got into an argument
and things escalated quickly when Steven hit Eric multiple times and then held
a hatchet to his throat. Despite the fact that there isn't nearly enough
hatchet-based crime in the world these days, somehow Eric knew how to extricate
himself and he was able to get to his car and drive away. When officers
responded to the scene of the incident in the area of 27th and Poppleton to
look for the older Carlson brother, they found him sitting alone in his car.
When officers ordered Steven to get out of the vehicle, he refused and drove
toward two officers at the scene. The officers were able to get out of the way,
but Steven Carlson fled the scene and the officers pursued him until he crossed
over into Omaha. There, the chase continued with other local law enforcement
getting involved and officers used stop sticks to bring Carlson’s car to a
stop. It came to a halt near 13th and Howard streets and faced with the reality
that his flight from the law was over, Carlson held a knife to his throat.
Officers used a Taser and a pepperball to try to capture Carlson, but he was
able to withstand both and tried to drive away again, only to have his path
blocked by police. Officers then sent in a K9 unit to help make the arrest and
at long last, Carlson was taken into custody and charged with multiple offenses…….
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