- There’s only so many times the boss can rip his troops at
work and expect them to respond. Portland Trail Blazers All-Star Damian Lillard
is apparently going to test those limits this season and his team is just over
one-third of the way through the season. Lillard, who earlier this season
called out his team for their slow start and lack of defensive prowess, was at
it again following a 45-point thumping at the hands of the Golden State
Warriors, after which the star guard addressed his teammates in the locker
room. After that, he spoke to the media and said the Blazers' performance was
"ridiculous" and that the team's recent slide "is on us,"
not the coaches. Clearly peeved at a team that is a ho-hum 13-16 and a mere one
game up on the Denver Nuggets for the eighth and final playoff spot in the
Western Conference standings, Dame D.O.L.L.A. went off. "Man, it's OK to
turn the ball over, it's OK to make mistakes, but we have to play with some
damn heart and compete out there," Lillard said in excoriating his
teammates following a 135-90 loss at Oracle Arena in which the Warriors shot 59
percent in the process. Being on the wrong end of the largest margin of victory
in the NBA this season and having lost six of the past seven games while
falling to dead last in the league in defensive efficiency (109.6) can't sit
well with any Blazer with even the faintest whiff of a competitive spirit, so
in a nearly silent locker room, perhaps Lillard’s angry words will have an
impact on a squad that barely has a pulse right now………
- And this is how the price of an eight ball of coke goes up
during the holiday season. Instead of blow getting into the hands of cartel
leaders, drug dealers and addicts like the process is supposed to make happen
more than 26 tons of cocaine worth $2 billion are now in the possession of the
vigilant men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard and Royal Canadian Navy. These
two square-filled outfits seized the Colombian nose candy when approximately
100 suspected drug smugglers were apprehended at sea and turned over to federal
authorities, said Vice Adm. Karl Schultz, commander of the U.S. Coast Guard
Atlantic Area. This rare inter-agency operation intercepted 27 shipments and
five bale recovery efforts over the course of 10 weeks, Schultz said, and
delivered the kill shot when 26.5 tons of cocaine were unloaded in South
Florida. According to Schultz, the drugs came from several areas of South
America, including "the Andean Ridge, Bolivia, Peru and Colombia."
Coast Guard teams have been out terrorizing drug smugglers on the high seas
since Oct. 1, so hopefully they’re really proud of taking the Bolivian marching
powder out of the hands of those who so crave them. "This not only
showcases the threat posed by dangerous cartels, gangs and criminal groups that
make up extensive transitional organized crime networks, but it also highlights
the commitment of the Coast Guard and its inter-agency partners...to detect,
interdict, investigate and prosecute operatives for these criminal
networks," Schultz said in a statement. Whatever makes you feel better
about yourself, K…….
- Someone sounds like they’re soooo over those silly mutant
movies, eh Jennifer Lawrence? One of the stars of the new, über-over-promoted
outer space movie “Passengers” is out promoting her new film this holiday
season and while convincing people to go see her and Chris Pratt star as two
interstellar travelers who agree to be shot into space to live on another
planet along with dozens of others only to wake up 30 years into what’s
supposed to be a 120-year trip to their new home is a priority, Lawrence is
also fielding questions about another of her prominent recent starring roles. Those
questions zeroed in on her appearances as Mystique in three X-Men movies –
“First Class,” “Days Of Future Past,” and “Apocalypse” – and the fact that she
has been reticent to return to the franchise. When asked about taking the
morphing, blue-and-mysterious character to the “Guardians of the Galaxy”
universe - where Pratt is one of the stars, Lawrence was surprisingly open to
the idea. “I would love to. I would
choose that over doing another X-Men movie maybe,” Lawrence said. “ “I won’t be
Mystique in the X-Men movies, but I would love to be Mystique in Guardians Of
The Galaxy. I wonder if I could do that.” None of this is new, as Lawrence went
on the record back in 2015 as saying that “Apocalypse” would be her last X-Men
movie, but she threw a wrench in that earlier this year when she said she was
“dying to come back.” Make up your mind, J., which cash grab do you want to
make first………
- Insecurity is thy name, Venezuelan government. President/despot
Nicolas Maduro revealed as much over the weekend when he revealed the sudden
decision to scrap the country's most-used currency bill and tried to sell it as
an economic triumph over the country's enemies even as the government sent
troops and police to cities where riots and looting broke out over the measure.
Maduro has a weekly national radio and television broadcast in which he happily
noted that his hasty action had flooded the country's banks with currency
deposited by Venezuelans racing to get rid of the paper bills while also
devastating Colombian-border currency traders he blames for the bolivar's
precipitous plunge in value against "the criminal dollar." In the
wake of last week’s big move that annulled all 100-bolivar notes, thousands of
Venezuelans queued up at banks, many more latched on to electronic payments and
skyrocketing poor among poorer people with no bank accounts and all their
savings in the doomed bills. Making ordinarily common cash transactions such as
buying food or gasoline was another side effect, along with riots and looting
in several cities and the arrest of more than 300 people, including several
members of opposition parties. Maduro had a ready explanation for that too,
blaming it on "a macabre" plan
promoted by U.S. President Barack Obama to extract massive quantities of 100-bolivar
notes from the country and stockpile them abroad. Maduro labeled it the final
blow of Obama, a final blow to create chaos, violence, division,” while most
(non-dictatorial, non-ass-hatted) economists blame the country's economic woes
on price controls and falling prices for the country's oil exports, as well as
heavy government spending and production-crippling policies that gave
Venezuelans lots of 100-bolivar notes but not enough to buy with them. In
response, the despot tasked with leading the nation is hatching conspiracy
theories and trying to quell riots in places like Bolivar state, El Callao and
La Fria……..
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