- Take that for data, NBA league office. The quote of the
year in the Association was uttered by Memphis Grizzlies coach David Fizdale in
the wake of his team's Game 2 loss to the San Antonio Spurs. Fizdale didn’t
fizzle out when he blasted the officiating after the game, ripped the zebras
for giving the Spurs more free throws and blasted the league for not giving
Grizzlies point guard Mike Conley the respect Fizdale believes he deserves. “Take
that for data,” was the punch line in the rant and the rest of the monologue
was strong as well, strong enough that the league dinged him with a $30,000
fine. It didn’t take long for Conley and his teammates to rally behind their
coach, who makes less than most of them, promising that they will pay the fine.
"We told him right away, you're not going to have to pay that.” Conley
said, adding that he sent Fizdale a "thank you" text at 4 a.m
following the rant. Among the memorable moments from the diatribe were Fizdale
blasting the officiating after the Grizzlies' 96-82 loss to the Spurs, calling
the work of veteran crew Danny Crawford, Rodney Mott and Bill Spooner
"unprofessional" and "unacceptable" and punctuating his
words by smashing his first into a table and storming off. In one of the most
unnecessary comments in the league in years, Fizdale said he knew the fine was
coming but didn’t care. “You're fighting for your team and you're fighting for
your life in the playoffs, and you just don't have room to let things go into
the next year. "The series can be over, so you're always going to fight
for your guys,” he said. Fight on, D. Fizz……..
- Why couldn’t America have been this fortunate last year? In
the first round of our presidential selection process, why couldn’t we have
come up with no candidates? No president would likely have been a better option
than the one we got, so let’s take a lesson from Albania, whose parliament has
failed to elect the country's new president, with no candidates nominated for
the first round of voting. If there aren't any suitable candidates, don’t
nominate one….just as Albania’s governing left-wing coalition, which declined
to put forward a candidate for the post. Technically, this is being sold as an
expression of good faith for parliament's center-right opposition, as the
opposition has boycotted Parliament since February and wants a caretaker
Cabinet to take the country to a June 18 parliamentary election. Their argument
is that the current government will manipulate the vote and in a place such as
Albania, those beliefs aren't unreasonable. In the Eastern European nation,
presidential candidates are proposed by a group of at least 20 lawmakers and
much like the queen of England, the five-year presidency has a largely
ceremonial role. There’s a two-term limit and Albania's 140-seat Parliament
picks the president in five rounds, with candidates needing to win at least
three-fifths of the vote, or 84 backers, in the first three rounds. But if
there are no candidates……..
- Dear Puddle of Mudd singer Wes Scantlin…. you do know that
you’re Puddle of Mudd singer Wes Scantlin and not Mick Jagger, right? You’re
the frontman for a middling, nondescript arena rock band that hasn’t
accomplished much since your lone hit, “She Hates Me,” dropped all the way back
in 2011…so maybe you don’t want to keep storming off stage mid-show as if you
have a dozen platinum albums and double-digit Grammys to your credit. But
Scantlin has done it over and over again, most recently at a gig in Dallas
earlier this month. The band were in the middle of playing their only hint when
Scantlin allowed the crowd to sing some of the lyrics, but rather than serve as
a moment of cool crowd participation, it was merely a cover for Scantlin to
walk toward the back of the stage to intently watch drummer Dave Moreno perform.
Curiously, Scantlin then asked, ‘David, why?’ before picking up his bag and
leaving, never to return. Maybe this was payback for the show in the United
Kingdom last year which he was left on stage by his bandmates midway through a
gig in a disastrous outing that left fans infuriated. That was nearly a year
ago, with the band citing Scantlin’s erratic on-stage behavior as the reason
they cut their performance short. That show, in Doncaster, was eerily similar
to a February 2016 show in Ohio in which Scantlin stopped the show and began
shouting at an unidentified audience member. Ol’ Wesley doesn’t seem to
understand that he’s not nearly a big enough rock star to treat fans like sh*t
and get away with it for long………
- Organized crime will target whatever industries its
leaders believe will make them the most money. Be it casinos, be it scamming
federal gas taxes or in the Keystone State, making millions of dollars renting
out fraudulently obtained license plates, primarily in New York City. Pennsylvania's
attorney general's office is charging a dozen people as part of an organized
crime ring that it accuses of taking part in the scheme, with Pennsylvania
Attorney General Josh Shapiro alleging that the ring rented to people who used
the plates to evade law enforcement, parking tickets and highway tolls. It’s
not exactly hardened criminals using stolen plates to disguise cars being used
to commit murders and robberies, but apparently it’s still illegal for a group
to use a stolen notary seal to get vehicles retitled, enabling it to get new
license plates through businesses set up as dealerships or transporters. These
conniving plate peddlers allegedly rented out thousands of Pennsylvania license
plates for $400 or more a month and proving that they were a full-service
organized crime outfit, they also provided fraudulent insurance paperwork. That
level of customer service should really be rewarded and not punished, but
suddenly it’s wrong that people used this valuable service avoided paying
nearly $2 million for parking, E-ZPass toll collection accounts, insurance and
car loans in multiple states. As always, nothing spurs the government into
action quite like people depriving it of the money it has used its own powers
to boldly declare to legally belong to it………
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