- Too many people are way to hung up on names, what they
mean, etc. - here’s looking at you, new parents who spend months debating your
baby’s name as if choosing between Tyler and Brett is going to determine the course
of the child’s life. But sometimes, a name does matter and it can even poison
relations between two nations who are both trying to improve their standing on
the world political scene. Yes, the discontent is real between Eastern Europe
neighbors Macedonia and Serbia, which are having a bureaucratic showdown over
what to call Macedonia. The topic has already caused strife between Macedonia
and neighboring Greece, but the beef has spread to Serbia, as Macedonia's
foreign ministry says Serbia should avoid calling it by the
"offensive" name of Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, or FYROM,
which Greece favors. It’s a bit of an international example of your group of
friends calling your one buddy by the nickname you know he hates and has been trying
to shake since third grade, except this time there are nation-states with
armies and bombs and warships involved. A statement from Macedonia’s foreign
ministry noted that it would be "inappropriate and disrespectful" for
Serbia to call its small neighbor anything but Macedonia. This issue reared up
because even though Serbia still formally calls the country Macedonia, its
foreign minister has suggested a change to FYROM, and Serbian highway toll
receipts now use that name. Yes, turnpike receipts are fueling this drama.
Greece’s issue with the name stems from the fact that the name Macedonia
implies designs on a Greek province also called Macedonia, while the United
States, Russia, China, and most other countries use the term Macedonia for the
country that gained independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, though the powerless
United Nations rolls with FYROM………
- Indie rock and hipsters will rebuild Detroit. So says Jack
White’s Third Man Records, which is set to open a brand new vinyl pressing
plant in the fiscally downtrodden city. The plant is located in the city’s Cass
Corridor neighborhood and is slated to open on Feb. 25 in the same location
where White’s first major band, The White Stripes, played their first-ever
show, as well as being the location of White’s high school. According to a
statement from the label, its new venture will feature “environmentally
efficient pressing machinery within a purpose-built manufacturing
infrastructure,” the first of its kind,” with a pressing operation that will
use “recycled water from the record curing process in the air conditioning
system.” Thre will be individual pressing stations outfitted with a digital
touch screen control for temperature, hydraulic compression, and extruder speed
and when the plant is rolling along at full speed, it will be able to press
5,000 records per eight-hour shift. The plan is to create 50 new jobs at a
facility that will print Third Man releases for hipsters everywhere, but will
also press records for small imprints and indie artists who lack the capability
to press small runs of records on their own. The label also commissioned local
artist Robert Sestok to create a mural for the pressing plant and to christen
its new crib, it will host live performances and a shop selling the records
pressed on site, including The White Stripes’ self-titled debut and their ‘De
Stijl’ LP, both pressed on red vinyl. White hasn’t released an album of his own
since 2014, but clearly has plenty of other interests to pursue……..
- Oh, the persecuted life of the sleazy strip club owner.
Being a purveyor of coke-addled, daddy-issue-having ladies who prance around in
sequined underwear and take it off as lecherous, pathetic and drunken office
workers and bachelor party bros stuff $1 bills into their G-string ain’t easy
and no one knows that better than an Alaska strip club owner who was convicted
of illegally dumping human waste into a harbor while operating a floating strip
club and is defending himself by claiming that he was targeted because of
disapproval over his "entertainment charters." In other words, the
law and government are being hard on him because he owns a strip club, one
floating on Alaska’s frigid waters in one of the more bizarre strip club
operations going on in the world these days. Darren Byler says he plans to
appeal whatever sentence he receives, as federal prosecutors are recommending
that he receive an 18-month prison sentence because he was convicted in 2015 of
dumping sewage in violation of the federal Refuse Act and for lying to federal
authorities about it. Oddly enough, his wife, Kimberly Riedel-Byler, was found
not guilty of the same charges, but the court was convinced that Byler piped
sewage aboard the 94-foot converted crabbing boat, the "Wild
Alaskan," into the harbor near Kodiak in 2014. The problem arose when the Bylers
were accused of telling the Coast Guard they were properly disposing of the
waste, which is honestly one of the least revolting parts of this entire strip
club operation………
- The Los Angeles Dodgers pay their major league roster more
than anyone else in baseball. Apparently a pair of sticky-fingered security
guards at Dodger Stadium felt like the team wasn’t chipping off enough cash for
them and elected to try to level the paycheck playing field a bit with a long
con that netted them a small fortune and now, some serious criminal charges. According
to the Los Angeles County district attorney's office, stadium security guards
Juan DeDios Prada and Fernando Sierra pleaded not guilty to burglary and other
charges after being arrested and accused of stealing equipment, baseballs and
jerseys from the major league team to sell online. These two stooges are far
from the only hourly employees to decide that their paycheck is too small and
pilfer some office items to resell, but typically disgruntled employees don’t
have access to valuable sports memorabilia that can net them more than $3,400
from a locked equipment room at the stadium between January 2013 and February
2016. There’s a third man in the alleged scam, Jesse Luis Dagnesses, with whom
the two guards allegedly conspired to steal those baseball uniforms and other
team merchandise to sell online. Dagnesses is accused of receiving $950 in
stolen baseballs and jerseys, but one can't help but wonder how these three
fools didn’t bank more than the down payment on a nice used car for all of
their troubles. If you’re going to spend three-plus years stealing from your
employer, you at least want your payout as a group to amount to five figures or
more. Otherwise, you look really bad AND you face the possibility of several
years in prison for crimes that didn’t exactly set you up financially for the
rest of your sad, IQ-deprived life………..
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