Martin World News

This is one of those weeks that I could have done the whole show off one day's reading on BBC!  Let's start off with...


ITEM:  The single stupidest thing I ever saw in baseball.  Bear with it here:  Top of the 6th in Seattle, Cleveland up 4-0.  Cleveland's Yan Gomes fouls one towards the Seattle dugout.  At the dugout rail stand Manager Lloyd McLendon and two other coaches.  The Seattle catcher is coming over to make the catch- buuuuuttt....

....the skipper thinks he's a fan! In stead of getting OUT of the catcher's way, he reaches up for it himself...

...and the ball drops out of reach of the blocked-off catcher.  One pitch later, Yan Gomes turned what would have been the third out into a home run.  Thanks, skip!

ITEM: In a follow-up to last week's story about a Polish government official saying the alliance with the US of A is "basically worthless, I find out that this was actually a BUGGED conversation at a restaurant.  Apparently the "news magazine" Wprost has been getting wait staff to slip hidden listening devices onto the tables of the movers and shakers, and then printing the transcripts.  For example, the convo between Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski and former Finance chief Jacek Rostowski:

Enjoying a bowl of pumpkin soup, then a steak accompanied by a bottle of expensive wine, Mr Sikorski tells his dining partner, former Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski, that Warsaw's alliance with Washington is "complete bullshit".

"We'll get into conflict with the Germans, with the Russians, and we'll think everything is super because we gave the Americans a blow job. Losers. Complete losers," he continues.

The magazine states that Mr Sikorski said Mr Cameron's attempts to appease Eurosceptics had backfired on him: "He's not interested, because he doesn't get it, because he believes in this stupid propaganda. He stupidly tries to manipulate the system."


But wait, there's more- apparently someone had been feeding Wprost this info, and sate security raided their offices to get the tapes.  Not only that, but they tipped off the rest of the media:

News channels were tipped off about the raids and plainclothes officers' attempts to wrestle the laptop out of the firm grip of the editor-in-chief, Sylwester Latkowski, were broadcast live.

And you thought OUR politics was fun!


ITEM: In a dipstick PR ploy worthy of Obama:

The clock on the facade of the building housing the Bolivian congress in La Paz has been reversed.

Its hands turn left and the numbers have been inverted to go from one to 12 anti-clockwise.
Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca dubbed it the "clock of the south".
He said the change had been made to get Bolivians to treasure their heritage and show them that they could question established norms and think creatively.
"Who says that the clock always has to turn one way? Why do we always have to obey? Why can't we be creative?", he asked at a news conference on Tuesday.

"Let's show people we don't think like the United States!  I know... we'll make our clocks go backwards!"

ITEM: Here's a head scratcher from Kazakhstan:

(A) statue in the city of Ust-Kamenogorsk was built to honour two 19th Century figures - Abay Kunanbayev, a local writer and thinker, and Yevgeny Mikhaelis, a Russian scientist and pro-democracy activist who was exiled to eastern Kazakhstan. But it immediately attracted the scorn of locals...


And why did it attract scorn, you ask?

...Because it looks like they're taking a selfie!

Even one of the co-authors of the monument, Vladimir Samoylov, admitted that there was something wrong with it. The sculptors were given too little time to finish the monument, he told YK.kz, a website based in Ust-Kamenogorsk. "We were in a huge rush, and look what happened."


It was removed the next day.

ITEM: Some headlines don't need a lot of help...

 

So many jokes, so little time...


ITEM:  I'm noting a lot more stories originating in Florida lately...

A police officer took a pair of drunken friends on a cruise through a major bar district and made the spectacularly poor decision of handing over his patrol car's PA mic to one of his intoxicated passengers. The incident happened in the early morning hours in Broward County, Florida.

According to the The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, phone calls from concerned passersby who thought the cruiser was stolen began flooding in after the drunken passenger began yelling derogatory remarks over the 2007 Dodge Charger Pursuit's loudspeaker. Local sheriff's deputies were soon on the scene to end the joy ride. Mello was not drunk at the time, but regardless, he was still released from the department following the August 2013 incident, an episode that is now just coming to light. Mello did, however, call off from his shift the following morning a few hours before getting pulled over.

So my first question here is, "Mello was not drunk at the time." Seriously?  And he STILL did something that stupid?  My next question is, what would we do without a policeman's union who is even now trying to get his job back.  On what basis? Here, let the head of the local PBA tell you:


 "Did he do something silly? Yeah, but you don't execute a person for that."  Yeah, but I wouldn't want him protecting my streets, either.

ITEM:  Next up, what not to do when you want Arabs as tourists rather than terrorists:

A special cultural guide advising Arab tourists on how to behave when visiting the popular holiday destination of Zell am See-Kaprun in Salzburg has been withdrawn after it was criticised by Austrian and foreign media.

The eight-page guide featured tips, including the fact that Austrian shopkeepers don't expect to haggle over prices, and that one shouldn’t cook in hotel rooms, or eat on the floor.

Probably should keep the camel in the parking garage, too.


ITEM:  More Arab fun:

A Saudi football fan has reportedly asked his wife to follow a set of rules throughout the World Cup championship to ensure their marriage is not put at risk.

And to stress that “prevention is better than cure”, the husband wrote down the rules and made copies that he placed in different areas of the house so that his wife does not miss or forget them, local news site Ain Al Yawm reported on Monday.

Under the ad hoc rules, the wife has to inform her husband about any plans to go out to see her family or to visit her friends at least two hours before the start of any match.

Trips to shopping centres that can take hours can be made only on days when no football matches are scheduled, the husband said. Women are not allowed to drive and they therefore depend on their husbands or relatives in case they plan to go out and do not wish to take a taxi.

 

The wife has also been warned to avoid making any comments when the husband is extremely upset or exceedingly jubilant.

“I might under the emotional stress hurl the remote control and I do not want you to be the target. I am keen on preserving your natural beauty,” he wrote in his note.

“When there is a crucial match, I want you to be ready to accept my excesses in cheering my favourite team. I might have several outbursts and I do not want them to scare you off,” he said.




While I have to salute his consideration... no, I don't have anything here.  My ex had a way of talking at the most important parts of shows/sporting events too.  Usually after I tried to warn her I wanted to hear a certain upcoming part, and NEVER about anything that couldn't wait.  I guess I would have done the same thing.  Though I might have exchanged "I do not want you to be the target" to "you WILL be the target."



ITEM: I had to drop my estimation of my fellow humans back at my old job, with  some of our Mexican friends not finding it objectionable apparently to play with their poo-poo (i.e. using it for a crayon).  I thought that once I left there, the civilized world would have a higher standard.  However....  The EPA may be an exception, according to an agency-wide e-mail:


It appears, however, that a regional office has reached a new low: Management for Region 8 in Denver, Colo.,  email earlier this year to all staff in the area pleading with them to stop inappropriate bathroom behavior, including defecating in the hallway.  
In the email, obtained by Government Executive, Deputy Regional Administrator Howard Cantor mentioned “several incidents” in the building, including clogging the toilets with paper towels and “an individual placing feces in the hallway” outside the restroom.
Confounded by what to make of this occurrence, EPA management “consulted” with workplace violence “national expert” John Nicoletti, who said that hallway feces is in fact a health and safety risk. He added the behavior was “very dangerous” and the individuals responsible would “probably escalate” their actions.


I didn't know there was a special poop just for hallways.  I wonder what I have to give up eating to avoid it...  Perhaps Mayor Henry knows a consultant I could ask.



ITEM: And if pettiness in the workplace isn't enough, how 'bout some in international relations?

The street holding the Chinese embassy in Washington DC could be renamed after a noted Chinese dissident.  An amendment attached to a state department budget bill would make the embassy's address 1 Liu Xiaobo Plaza.  Liu Xiaobo, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is serving an 11-year sentence for subversion in China.

The Chinese foreign ministry has called the proposed change of address - which now requires Congress approval - "nothing more than a sheer farce".
In the 1980s, the street in front of the Soviet Embassy in Washington was named after dissident Andrei Sakharov.

NOTE:  I thought a picture might be nice here, so I googled "Pissing off the Chinese, and got a picture of some guy taking one off the side of the Great Wall.  I figured I'd skirted good taste enough for one show.




ITEM: Finally:  Winner, worst alibi in a murder case:

The driver of a truck who State Police say intentionally hit and killed a State Trooper on Thursday has been arraigned in the Town of Chenango Court.

60-year-old Almond Upton of Melrose, Florida has been charged with Murder in the 1st Degree and was taken to the Broome County Jail without bail.

Inside the courtroom, the only time NewsChannel 9 heard from Upton was after Justice Honorable Thorold Smith asked if he had any questions about the 1st degree murder charge and he answered, "No your honor."

Outside the courtroom, as police led him away, Upton told our reporter, "I was two miles from the Connecticut border and all of a sudden I'm in Binghamton, New York and this cop got killed. I don't know how it happened, but it had to be a time warp, honestly."
Upton made statements to police that he intended to hit the officer, officials said at a news conference.

Let's do the Time Warp again!!!!