Scuttlebutt Pipeline

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NEW YORK, Sept 5 (Reuters) - The American media turned on Serena Williams on Wednesday, labelling the former world number one as “classless” and “graceless” after her sullen reaction to her U.S. Open exit at the hands of Justine Henin.

Top seed Henin beat the American 7-6 6-1 in the quarter-finals for the third consecutive grand-slam event on Tuesday but a despondent Williams gave the Belgian scant praise.

“I just think she made a lot of lucky shots and I made a lot of errors,” Williams said at her news conference.

“I really don’t feel like talking about it. It’s like I don’t want to get fined. That’s the only reason I came. I can’t afford to pay the fines because I keep losing.”

Players who fail to appear for post-match news conferences face fines from tennis officials.

Williams’s words and manner were greeted with widespread disdain.

“(Williams) met the media afterward like a rattlesnake meets a ground squirrel,” wrote Bill Dwyer, in the Los Angeles Times.

“If anybody was expecting perspective afterward, or maybe a gracious nod to a better effort by an opponent, forget it. We had sullen Serena. Snippy Serena. Snarly Serena.”

(Full Article)

You want to know what I think about this? Well you’re reading my blog so I assume you do. I think this is something that is being blown out of proportion. I mean really, she lost. How do expect a person to give you “tremendous” insight to the match? Weren’t you there watching? Can’t you figure out the gist of what happened without having to harass the athlete?

That’s basically what this boils down to, expecting a little too much from athletes. You have to remember that the majority of these athletes (no matter the sport) are there for the love of the game and or the money. Having a mandatory press conference afterwards even for the loser is just rubbing salt into an open wound. For those who love the game or playing for money, the loss has to be humiliating or at least painful and here you [the press] are expecting them to be graceful and pliant to your every question that must feel like a stab through the heart. Guess what, they’re only human and if they would rather not talk about their loss and say so then leave it be.

Only in Kentucky:

A group of residents is suing a farmer, claiming the propane cannon he uses to scare away birds from his sweet corn is too loud.

Some of produce farmer Dennis Polley’s neighbors say the propane blasts — sometimes as loud as 120 decibels — have prevented them from enjoying their property.

Phil Palmgreen, whose property is roughly 500 yards away from Polley’s, said he could feel the impact of the blasts in his chest.

“It’s been so bad all summer we’ve never even had a cookout on our deck because it was going to go off every couple of minutes,” said Palmgreen.

Polley acknowledged the device is loud, but “it’s got to be loud to work,” he said. “To get the birds’ attention, it’s got to shock them a little bit.”

Polley and his wife Debby are fighting the lawsuit.

To lose “would start a chain reaction for every farmer in Jessamine County,” Debby Polley said. “Because what’s going to be next? Will they not want you to start your tractors until 10 o’clock in the morning?”

Jessamine County’s noise-control ordinance exempts from penalties a “noise disturbance created by farm livestock, the operation of farm machinery or noise created by other activities relating to an agricultural operation.”

Steve Ayres, another plaintiff in the lawsuit, said that the group doesn’t believe a cannon is a normal agricultural sound.
Article Source

Well no, a cannon isn’t necessarily a normal agricultural sound but since it is being used in that manner and for a logical reason I can see it being legal. Odd as it is. Having grown up in farming community I can’t help but laugh at these people. Try waking up at 8am when you just pulled a graveyard shift to hear planes flying overhead, low enough that if you were standing on your roof you could reach up and touch them, as they make passes to turn around and spray crops. The sounds of dozens of tractors roaring past slowly as they head to the fields. The sounds of bleating animals, barking dogs, and large hauling trucks roaring past. A cannon is the least of the possible noise pollution you receive.

Besides, I’d rather have a neighbor fire a cannon that isn’t aimed at anyone with no potential to hit someone then some idiot (which sadly most are) who grab their shotgun or rifle and aim it up in the sky to fire a shot to scare or warn something off. Law of gravity, what goes up must come down. And sadly air currents play hell with bullet trajectories so that single bullet could end up the equivalent of three city blocks away in a circular pattern. I swear one of these days I’m going to be hit by one out here.

The burglar smashed a window to gain entry and made off with a laptop computer, a camera, and Glass’ wallet with an American Express credit card.

The thief returned the goods later in the day, along with a new basketball and two pairs of gloves bought on the stolen credit card.

Glass and his wife, Shirley, discovered the loot piled on their kitchen table with a neat, handwritten full-page note from the burglar saying he was sorry for “violating the safety and security of your home.”

The robber also promised to leave cash in Glass’ mailbox to pay for the smashed window when he had enough money.

“I have never written truer words when I say that I wish that I had never done this to you and your family,” the note read. “From the bottom of my heart I am sorry.”

Full Article

Seriously, how often does this happen?

Now initially I would have been pipping mad, but after the heartfelt apology, returned goods, and promise to pay for repairs I would have told the police to take a walk because I’m not pressing charges. Why? How often does someone who has done serious wrong, realize what they did, and make amends? Not very often. Reward that behavior and set a precedent I say.

The internet is a place where anybody can say and do anything they want, to an extent. This often means you get people acting like total morons even though they would never conduct themselves in such a fashion offline. China seems bound and determined to decide exactly what it’s people will see and hear on the internet and subsequently attempt to control how her people think. So when an anonymous poster on a forum states that an unarmed Ninja beat some Kung-fu monks this naturally gets their panties in a twist! In fact, Such an outrageous comment means that this person must apologize to the affronted monks of Shaolin temple and to the country of China as a whole.

Uh-huh, don’t hold your breath. Personally I think this is just another attempt by China to control what is said about the country by it’s countrymen and outsiders as whole.

Hey China! We know what the Kanji for your country’s name means and its origin. Maybe back in the day you were a powerhouse and you controlled all of Asia, but not anymore. And you certainly have no right to try and control what the rest of the world says and thinks. If someone is spouting nonsense then just walk away and ignore it.

Ah, and in case any Chinese government officials are reading this, let me make one thing perfectly clear. NYAAHHH!!!! Don’t bother asking for an apology from this opinionated blogger, you won’t get it. Besides, you’ve already banned my blogs and sites in your country so what do I care about your petty concerns?

BEIJING - China’s Shaolin Temple, the cradle of Chinese kung fu, is demanding an apology from an Internet user who said its monks had once been beaten in unarmed combat by a Japanese ninja, Chinese media reported on Friday.

Shaolin Temple, in the northern province of Henan, became famous in the West as the training ground for Kwai Chang ”Grasshopper” Caine in the 1970s “Kung Fu” TV series.

Ninjas — professional assassins trained in martial arts — date back to medieval Japan.

“The so-called defeat is purely fabricated, and we demand the Internet user to apologize to the whole nation for the wrongs he or she did,” the Beijing News said, citing a notice announced by a lawyer for the Shaolin monks.

Emotions running high
Relations between Chinese and Japanese are sensitive at the best of times, with emotions still running high over Japan’s invasion and occupation of parts of China in the first half of the 20th Century.

The Internet user, calling themselves “Five Minutes Every Day,” said on an online forum last week that a Japanese ninja came to Shaolin, asked for a fight and many monks failed to beat him, the newspaper said.

“The facts that the monks could not defeat a Japanese ninja showed that they were named as kung fu masters in vain,” the Internet user was quoted as saying in the post.

The Shaolin Temple “strongly condemned the horrible deeds” of the user, the newspaper said.

“It is not only extremely irresponsible behavior with respect to the Shaolin Temple and its monks, but also to the whole martial art and Chinese nation,” it quoted the monks as saying.

Source

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - A Dutch royal couple acknowledges altering a Wikipedia entry about a 2003 scandal that forced the prince to renounce his claim to the throne.

Prince Johan Friso, son of the reigning Queen Beatrix, and Princess Mabel of Oranje-Nassau are the latest to be embarrassed in a spate of discoveries of vanity changes to Wikipedia entries. Such self-serving amendments are frowned upon in the Web encyclopedia that “anyone can edit.”

(Full Article)

To be fair though, a lot of information on Wikipedia is incorrect or should never have been publicized. I’ve been rather shocked and disgusted at the number of articles that have popped up people with detailed information in regards to their private lives and contact information. What right does Wiki have to publicize that? Wikipedia claims that the information is garnered from the information provided to WHOIS, but really, if someone is doing a WHOIS search then they have a purpose to seek that information. Flaunting that information about and posting it will-nilly for no other purpose than to pad your pages and entice people to misuse that information is wrong. Last I heard, taking the WHOIS information and publishing on other sites was not allowed and unethical.

So the Dutch Royals sought to edit what they felt was incorrect? Hell, they won’t be the first.