- When you need a healthy wide receiver under your Christmas
tree at this time of the year, you don’t give a damn if Santa brings you a guy
who nearly shattered the breathalyzer during a recent traffic stop. The NFL’s
best team is a squad in need of another pass catcher as the season enters its
final two weeks and thus, the New England Patriots are totally OK with the fact
that newly signed receiver Michael Floyd had a blood-alcohol level of .217 when
he was arrested after falling asleep in the driver's seat of his vehicle while
stopped at a traffic signal on Dec. 12. The Scottsdale Police Department
confirmed those facts of the case involving Floyd, who was subsequently
released by the Arizona Cardinals and has since been claimed off waivers by the
New England Patriots. On the fateful night, he was arrested and charged with
obstructing a roadway, DUI impaired to the slightest degree, DUI blood-alcohol
content above .08 and failure to obey a police officer. In a video released by
police, an officer knocked on the window with his flashlight in an attempt to
awaken Floyd, but was unsuccessful and had to pound on the window with his fist
to awaken a startled Floyd, who then struggled mightily with instructions to
put his car in park and turn it off - or even to place his hands on the
steering wheel and leave them there. Based on that display, he’s staring down
Arizona state law which brings harsh penalties, including jail time, for having
a blood-alcohol level over .15 and even tougher penalties for a BAC over .20. A
guy who had a BAC of .19 when he was arrested on campus at Notre Dame in 2011
may be convicted for a first offense of operating a motor vehicle with a BAC
over .20 and if so, would face a mandatory jail sentence of at least 45 days,
have to use an ignition interlock system, pay a $500 fine and contribute $1,000
to a prison construction fund and $1,000 to a public safety equipment fund. But
until then, he can chase a Super Bowl ring with the 12-2 Pats………
- Three people and apparently three combined IQ points. They
are the three men allegedly spotted stealing TVs from a Sand Springs, Oklahoma
Walmart. One of this genius trio is clinging to life in critical condition at a
local hospital, while his compatriots are already in custody and staring down
grand larceny and felony eluding charges. The fun began early in the morning
with a report of three people stealing televisions at the Walmart and because
crime has a way of happening often at this particular business’ locations,
police weren’t far away and responded to the scene to find the criminal trip
wrapping up the grab portion of their smash-and-grab operation. When they saw
the fuzz coming their way, the thieves fled the scene and quickly made their
way to Highway 51, where they tried to put distance between themselves and the
long arm of the law by driving at speeds up to 120 mph. Unfortunately for these
three, they’re even worse at high-speed driving than they are at planning a
successful theft and as a result, an accident ensued. The interesting aspect of
the crash is that, according to investigators, the driver could not see well
because the car was so full of TVs. Maybe next time, steal a cargo van or at
least a minivan and you’ll have more space for your loots, fellas. In the
crash, one person - police believe it to be the driver - was ejected from the
car and now resides in critical conditions in a hospital bed. The crash shut
down two lanes of the highway for several hours and needless to say, the stolen
TVs weren’t in any real condition to be returned to the store and sold. Next
thing the thieves have to do with TV will likely be making a video court
appearance for the start of their criminal case……..
- Is there a reality karaoke show quota for British
television networks we don’t know about? Otherwise, the BBC just looks panicky
and reactionary for commissioning a new singing competition following its loss
of “The Voice” to rival ITV. Thus, a show with the working title “Pitch
Battle,” which sadly has nothing to do with either baseball or cricket, but
will instead have the noble goal of finding the United Kingdom’s best singing
group, regardless of its genre or origin. It could be a pop karaoke outfit, a
country/folk karaoke pop group, a children’s karaoke choir or a barbershop
quartet karaoke outfit. It’s all inspired by the movie “Pitch Perfect,” so the show
will feature a number of choral challenges including ones derived from the
movie. There will be riff-offs, a soloist’s challenge and an a capella round
over the course of five hour-long heat episodes before culminating in a live
finale. The show will slide directly into the Saturday primetime slot vacated
by the departure of “The Voice” and it comes rom production company Today’s
Child, run by Karen Smith, a former “Strictly Come Dancing” executive producer.
“After a divisive, depressing 2016, we’re bringing some humor and harmony to
2017 in a contemporary new format with story, scale and spelling-binding,
hairs-on-the-back-of-your neck performances,” Smith said. It truly has been a rough
year for the BBC, which lost another of its flagship series, “The Great British
Bake Off,” earlier this year after Channel 4 secured the rights to the hit
show. At this point, the BBC is clearly scrambling and attempting to plug the
many, many holes in its reality television dam with whatever half-baked ideas
it can hatch………
- No matter how poorly governed it may be, the fact remains
that people love to visit Portugal. As a result, the Iberian Peninsula nation’s
fragile economy is getting a tonic from tourism this year, with revenue up by
more than 10 percent through October including a 20 percent jump in visitors
from the United States. Accoring to tourism minister Ana Mendes Godinho, the
sector brought in some 11 billion euros ($11.5 billion) in the first 10 months
of 2016 and for a country that is clearly hurting fiscally, seeing revenues in
any area increase by 1 billion euros over the same period last year is exactly
the kind of music that will have Portuguese dancing in the streets of Lisbon,
Faro, Sagres, Tunes and beyond. Mendes Godinho said in a statement that beyond
the 20-percent jump in American visitors, the number of French visitors
increased by almost 18 percent. The biggest chunk of the credit for Portugal’s
sudden surge in tourists is the country’s mid-Atlantic Azores Islands, which
posted the strongest growth with a 30-percent increase. News like this makes
the Portuguese government seems slightly less insane when it espouses hope that
the economy will grow 1.2 percent this year. For a country for which government
debt is 133 percent of GDP, one of the European Union's highest marks, turning
the economy around is a long-term proposition built on hundreds of small steps,
of which this this just might be one of the first………
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