The Singer Not The Song

Never underestimate the power of a ridiculous response to a serious situation. Ban "Sweet Caroline?" Incredible. Sandusky is in jail. To date nobody else that allowed this to take place is anywhere near a jail, even though quite a few of them should be. Sandusky did not operate in a vacuum. He was around the campus with boys for YEARS after they initially became aware of it. The people who let it go will be forced out or retire, no doubt with their full benefits and pensions, and nobody will even have to admit they did anything wrong. AND they get to keep playing football. Solid message for everyone. Maybe banning this song is BETTER than putting any of these enabling monsters in jail? Time will tell.

I've never really loved "Sweet Caroline"? And I've never understood it in a SPORTS context. Maybe the world is a better place without it. Personally I prefer "Cherry Cherry." If they can move that one up this may all be worthwhile.

Don't expect to hear Neil Diamond's hit "Sweet Caroline" at Penn State football games this season.

According to Cory Geiger, a writer for the Altoona Mirror, the song has been cut from the rotation along with several other tunes, but he didn't know which ones.

"Sweet Caroline," which is a big fan participation song during games, is being cut because of the lyrics, more specifically the line "touching me, touching you."

Probably a smart move by Penn State, which is still reeling from the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal and doesn't need to add any insult to injury. Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of child sexual abuse and is still awaiting sentencing.

The Freeh Report, which was conducted at the behest of the university, determined several members of the athletic department, including late coach Joe Paterno, knew of the abuse and tried to cover it up. Because of this, the NCAA slapped Penn State with several penalties, including a four-year postseason ban and scholarship reduction.

[yahoo!]

All You Need Is Love My Ass

If you're anything like me you've always assumed this Pete Best guy was somewhat to blame for his fate. This article makes it clear that the guy was fired. So it's really a double whammy, first you get fired, and then you become a punchline for a joke about monstrous bad luck or horrible judgement, and the reality is, he just got fired. Talk about adding insult to injury.

The reality is that Pete Best rocked. His mom is right. The others were just jealous. They went with Ringo and when I was growing up lots of people thought Ringo was kind of inept but charming so the Beatles handled it correctly. If they had gone ahead with Pete Best, John, Paul and George would have ended up in the backseat. It would've been Pete Best and who? As it stands they picked a guy they could outshine.

Also revealing that the Beatles are such rotten bastards collectively that they couldn't even be bothered to give the guy a few bucks, or even ring him up on the phone. They probably sat around in their big Rolls Royce on acid and laughed at him. Maybe they called and when Pete Best answered they hung up! Prank call. And the whole time they are doing this they are coming on with all their peace and love bullshit. All you need is love my ass. Pricks.

John, Paul, George and Pete. It doesn’t really have the same ring to it but in 1960 it was Pete Best behind the drum kit for the Beatles and not Ringo Starr. That changed on August 16th, 1962, however, when Pete Best was fired from the Beatles.

According to Beatles-History.net, Best joined the group in 1960 when John, Paul, and George needed a drummer for a gig in Hamburg. They had met Best at the Casbah Coffee Club, owned by Best’s mother, the year prior and invited him to come play. After the Hamburg show, the not-quite-fab-four started booking gigs around Liverpool.

Best was reportedly the most popular Beatle at the time and some credit him with the group’s initial popularity in Liverpool. But the four members didn’t mesh together on a personal level. As an example, Best was the only member that did not adopt the “bowl” cut.

Best was fired from the Beatles in 1962. The following year the group recorded its first album, Please Please Me, and were nearly immediately struck with Beatlemania.

The reason’s for Best’s firing remains a bit of a mystery. Some claim that the three Beatles didn’t like Best personally. Others say that they were just more impressed with Ringo Starr. Best’s mother said that the rest of the group was jealous of her son.

In 2009, the fifth Beatle talked to Spinner Magazine about his life with, and without the Beatles. Best said that he still isn’t sure why he was kicked out of the group but said that he was pretty sure it didn’t have to do with talent.

Best, who was included on 10 songs in the Beatles’ Anthology, said:

“Being on Anthology, people had a bigger insight into what my drumming was about. From that point of view, I’ve always held my head up high and said, “Yes, it wasn’t the drumming ability.” There have been conspiracy theories — the hairstyle, jealousy, antisocial, didn’t speak enough, Brian [Epstein, the Beatles' manager] may have felt threatened — it goes on and on. I’ve long passed that.”

Best also dropped another interesting piece of information. Best was fired from the Beatles on August 16th, 1962, and hasn’t spoken to any of his former band mates since that day.

“You find that hard to believe, but it is true. I played three of four times on the same bill as them as the support band, so we’d be coming off and they were going onstage. There were things to be said but that wasn’t the place to hear your differences, onstage, so there was no communication. We’d pass like ships in the night. Some people say, ‘Well, why the hell didn’t you just pick up the phone?’ and I’ve always said, ‘Well, have you ever tried to phone a Beatle? It just doesn’t happen. You couldn’t get to them.”

[theinquisitr.com]

Big Brother Lurking Behind Post Office Failure

Isn't it obvious? They are trying to make the Post Office fail on PURPOSE, and when that happens, you know what they'll say? "You should do everything ONLINE." And then you'll put everything online, it will all be hacked, and the government will take all of our money and give it to the half zombie, half alien conquerors they make a deal with so THEY can survive at OUR expense. The only good thing is that when this happens the ruling elite will put Donald Trump in charge, with Sarah Palin and vice whatever and they will get married and be on TV all day. And to top it all off the zombies will get sick of them and then eat them and we'll all be able to see THAT too. Come on. How great will that be?

Here's another thing. Annual health payment of $5 billion? What the fuck is WRONG with all of them? How sick are these people? Why? Don't they get a physical before they hire them? Do they single out the people most likely to develop long term illnesses? Where is their HR Department, in a cancer ward? Holy crap. Hire some sturdier folk for heaven's sake. I thought they'd be in decent shape walking around all day.

Finally, can we really afford to knock ourselves out to support these people when we know how sick they get and they also periodically blow up and start shooting for no good reason? Enough is enough. Let them fold. We may as well get the zombie thing started already. You know it's coming.

The nearly bankrupt U.S. Postal Service on Thursday reported losses of $57 million per day in the last quarter and warned it will miss another payment due to the U.S. Treasury, just one week after its first-ever default on a payment for future retiree health benefits.

The mail agency said it is being hurt significantly by mounting expenses for future retiree health benefits. Those expenses, mandated by Congress in 2006, made up $3.1 billion of the post office's quarterly loss, while workers compensation tacked on another $1.1 billion in expenses. The agency's operating loss was $1 billion, mostly due to declines in first-class mail.

"We have simply reached the point that we must conserve cash," Thurgood Marshall Jr., chairman of the Postal Service's board of governors, said in explaining the payment defaults. He cautioned that the mail agency may have to delay other payments if necessary.

The Postal Service for months has been urging Congress to pass legislation that would allow it to eliminate Saturday mail delivery and reduce the annual health payment of more than $5 billion. The post office defaulted on that payment last week when the House failed to take action before heading home for a five-week break.

The mail agency says it will miss the second $5.6 billion payment due on Sept. 30, also for future retiree benefits, as cash runs close to zero.

[Associated Press]

First In, First Out

I was dragged out to sea. Wicked accident. Will describe later, if ever.

If you believe in evolution you believe we evolved out of the muck and mire of primordial seas. So in the water we began, and evolved up onto land and into apes and then whatever. Last stop - zombie. Everybody knows the story.

Perhaps it's only natural that the sea dies off first. First in and on the Earth, first out into oblivion. Poetic thought right there.

The dead fish clogged the water supply to the power plant. "We've never seen anything like it." Famous last words.

Thousands of fish are dying in the Midwest as the hot, dry summer dries up rivers and causes water temperatures to climb in some spots to nearly 100 degrees.

About 40,000 shovelnose sturgeon were killed in Iowa last week as water temperatures reached 97 degrees.

Nebraska fishery officials said they've seen thousands of dead sturgeon, catfish, carp and other species in the Lower Platte River.

And biologists in Illinois said the hot weather has killed tens of thousands of large and smallmouth bass and channel catfish and is threatening the population of the greater redhorse fish, a state-endangered species.

So many fish died in one Illinois lake that the carcasses clogged an intake screen near a power plant, lowering water levels to the point that the station had to shut down one of its generators.

"It's something I've never seen in my career, and I've been here for more than 17 years," said Mark Flammang, a fisheries biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

The fish are victims of one of the driest and warmest summers in history. The federal U.S. Drought Monitor shows nearly two-thirds of the lower 48 states are experiencing some form of drought, and the Department of Agriculture has declared more than half of the nation's counties -- nearly 1,600 in 32 states -- as natural disaster areas. More than 3,000 heat records were broken over the past month.

Iowa natural resources officials said the sturgeon found dead in the Des Moines River were worth nearly $10 million, a high value based in part on their highly sought eggs, which are used for caviar. The fish are valued at more than $110 a pound.

[Associated Press]