The NHL All-Star game is one of the most useless concepts ever devised by a human being.  It is a complete waste of time and energy.  The players move at less than half speed and they don’t touch each other.  There is no defence, no checking and definitely no rough stuff.  It is like watching paint dry.

Back in the sixties and seventies there would be fights between players during the game.  And the intensity was almost the same as during the regular season.  But in the last while the game has devolved into a corporate promotional event.  The sport has been taken out of it.  It is all about advertising.  There really is no use for this game.

It does raise some revenue for charity which is good.  But watching those players skate around at 35% and not going into the corners is very funny, and I would say quite disgusting.  The Ice Capades are more dangerous than this sorry excuse for a professional sports game.

And the format for the picking of teams is asinine.  Whoever thought this one up should be deported to Nunavut. During the 2010-2011 season, the NHL announced a change to the way the teams were selected, modeled after drafts in fantasy sports. The conference vs conference (East vs West) approach was replaced by a player draft, conducted by the All-Star players themselves, to determine the rosters for each team. The captains for each team now select players from a combined pool of both fan balloting and the NHL Hockey Operations Department. The change in format was a joint effort by the League and the National Hockey League Players Association.

And the brain trust that thought up this years game entertainment brought in a Homie from the Hood to Rap during the second intermission.  This Hip Hopper was from some giant U.S. city.  The game this year was held in Ottawa.  Tickets for the game were too expensive for young Rap fans.  So this guy was Rapping to white middle-aged suburbanites.  Go figure.

Wow, 34′, 80 mph, 900hp, 6 machine guns, $600,000. Texas knows how to make a proper police boat.

The Pogues are a great band.

The Fleur de Lys restaurant in Las Vegas at Mandalay Bay may serve French cuisine but that hasn’t stopped them from adapting their own version of an American classic: the hamburger. Called the “Fleurburger 5000″ it’s no Plain Jane either, featuring a juicy Kobe beef patty topped with a rich truffle sauce and served on a brioche truffle bun. And this burger comes with its own beverage, a bottle of 1990 Chateau Petrus, that is served in Ichendorf Brunello stemware that you get to keep.
It sounds (and looks) delicious — as well it should for the whopping price tag of $5000. And if you do decide to indulge no worries about bragging rights: you can bring a friend (they get a free burger when you order yours) and you’ll also get a certificate in the mail (along with your keepsake glass) so you’ll have both a witness and paper proof.

The Italian Truffles make this burger so expensive.  The truffles are regarded as some of the tastiest fungus in the world.

Danger Room

The Russians are pretty sure they know why their Mars moon probe fritzed out. It must have been U.S. radar waves, emanating from a facility named after the hated Ronald Reagan all the way out into the depths of space. And wouldn’t that be just likeReagan?

Alas, that’s “utterly impossible,” says Brian Weeden, a Danger Room pal and a former officer with the U.S. Air Force Space Command. Radar just doesn’t work like that. And the Pentagon denies the whole thing, of course. Problem is, Weeden says, “it’s going to be almost impossible to disprove to the believers.” Welcome to another edition of Tinfoil Tuesday, our exploration of the planet’s least likely conspiracy theories.

Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, recently sought to unravel the mystery of why Russia’s expensive Phobos-Grunt space probe fell to Earth last week. The probe, launched in November, was supposed to take soil samples from the Martian moon Phobos. Yet it never got out of Earth’s orbit. And the Russians have a culprit: American radar stations.

And not just any Russians, the deputy prime minister, Dmitry Rogozin. “There is evidence indicating that frequent disruptions in the operation of our space technologies occur in that part of the flight path that is not visible to Roscosmos and is beyond its control,” Rogozin said, citing none of that evidence. He added, a little defensively, that his version of the truth “has the right to exist.”

Short answer: no, it doesn’t. “I’ve heard of full-mooner theories,” says George Little, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, “and this is one of them.”

Longer answer: This couldn’t be true.

But give this to the Russians. The most likely U.S. radar site to mess with a Russian spacecraft is in an Army installation at the obscure Pacific Ocean location known as the Kwajalein Atoll, where powerful radars provide the U.S. early warning on “deep space and synchronous satellites, particularly those in low inclination orbits.”

That radar site just happens to be named after Ronald Reagan. You can see how the Russians might get the wrong idea.

Still, the idea is indeed wrong. As it happens, some amateur sleuths and conspiracy-debunkers did the math on the Phobos’ positions when it passed over the Kwajalein radar. During each of the probe’s two passes, it was below the radar’s horizon.

But even if it got a full blast of Reagan, the radar waves wouldn’t have destroyed the probe’s electronic systems. “It’s just nuts to claim that even a full-power blast from the radar could disrupt a satellite in this way,” Weeden says.

And it seems that the Russians actually know it. Roscosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin ultimately concluded that the probe malfunctioned because of boring old “errors during production and test works, as well as the engineering flaws.” Someone just needs to tell the deputy prime minister. This isn’t something that can be blamed on Ronald Reagan.

As of January 20, 2012, the tower’s steel has risen to the 92nd floor, concrete flooring is at the 86th floor, and glass panels have reached the 70th floor.  The building’s structure is expected to top out in April 2012, whereupon its 408-foot (124 m) radio antenna will be installed.

The East Coast Hockey League ECHL has a long and not so famous history.  It is a tier 2 minor hockey league usually rated under the American Hockey League.  The league started on the east coast of the United States but has expanded into the western U.S. and Alaska.  Yet they keep the same name.  Well actually only the abbreviation has stuck around.  We are not supposed to call it the East Coast Hockey League, just the ECHL. 

There are teams in Stockton, California and Las Vegas, Nevada.  The Atlantic coast is a long way from those towns. But tradition reigns.  And the league won’t change its name to the Continental Hockey League or the Over The Horizon Hockey League.  It is stuck with the East Coast moniker.

The ECHL (formerly the East Coast Hockey League) is a mid-level professional ice hockey league based in Princeton, New Jersey with teams scattered across the United States. It is generally regarded as a tier below the American Hockey League.

The ECHL, along with the AHL, are the only minor leagues recognized by the collective bargaining agreement between the National Hockey League and the National Hockey League Players’ Association, meaning any player signed to an entry-level NHL contract and designated for assignment must report to a club either in the AHL or the ECHL.   Additionally, the league’s players are represented by the Professional Hockey Players’ Association in negotiations with the ECHL itself.

“Florida Everblades” gotta love it.

Politics and government are the main economic activities in Astana the capital, which also forms a Special Economic Zone.  Astana has seen one of the world’s greatest building projects, as oil money has been spent on government buildings, a massive home for the president, a mosque, and numerous parks and monuments. The project is designed to make the town the centre of not only Kazakhstan, but all of Central Asia.

After Kazakhstan gained its independence in 1991, the city and the region were renamed “Aqmola”, literally meaning “White Shrine”.

In 1995, the city was designated as the future capital of the newly-independent country, and the capital was officially moved from Almaty on December 10, 1997.  The new name, Astana, was bestowed in 1998.

Government officials cited several problems with keeping the capital in Almaty, such as the city’s risk of seismic activity, insufficient room for expansion, and proximity to international borders.  Additionally, parts of northern Kazakhstan are populated primarily by ethnic Russians, which raised fears of possible irredentist activity. Moving the capital to this area may have been an attempt to anchor it more closely with the rest of the country.

To some Kazakhs, the move remains controversial. Critics cite the city’s isolated location in the center of the Kazakh steppe and the forbidding climate in winter.  Financially, some resent the massive expenditure of public funds to build the new government complexes, as well as the continuing cost of airfare and hotel expenses for the many government workers who still live in Almaty.

Floral flourishes decorate Nurzhol Boulevard, or “Radiant Path.”

The Baiterek, towering over Astana’s central promenade, flares green against a dappled evening sky. Intended as a symbol of the new capital, the 318-foot monument evokes a giant tree with a golden egg in its branches. In the Kazakh myth of Samruk, a sacred bird lays a golden egg in the branches of a poplar each year.

A flock of giant doves flutters on a stained-glass conference room ceiling at the Palace of Peace and Harmony. The 203-foot-high pyramid designed by Norman Foster provides spaces for worshippers of all religions.

Kazakhstan’s new capital is the opposite of understated. After dark, government buildings change hues as the night progresses, creating a theme park atmosphere. The presidential palace suggests a gaudy version of the White House. Prize-winning British architect Norman Foster is one of many foreigners who helped shape the city. His purple Khan Shatyr shopping mall has an indoor sand beach and wave pool on the top floor.

Flanked by traditional Kazakh dancers, a bride awaits her formal unveiling at an opulent wedding palace, where she has just been married in a ceremony capped by the release of two white doves. The revelry begins when the veil is lifted.

McMansions that could have been airlifted from any American suburb are among the more incongruous sights in Astana, whose architectural style is nothing if not eclectic.

Like thousands of educated young professionals in Astana, these cardplayers at a riverside park grew up in other parts of Kazakhstan and moved to the new capital for the opportunities it promised. A baby boom has accompanied the influx.

A Dutch salvage company may be hired to try to save the Costa Concordia.  There are two options: Patch up the 50-meter (160-foot) gash in the Concordia’s hull and attempt to refloat it, or carve up the liner where it lies into chunks small enough to be carried away on barges.

Refloating the ship would be the cleanest of the two options, but is extremely difficult because of the luxury liner’s size, the ship had about 45,000 tons of steel alone.

To refloat the stricken liner, salvage crews would likely use pulling barges strongly anchored to the sea bed and cables secured to the ship. They would likely also put cables on the land side of the ship to prevent its huge bulk from sliding toward the pulling barges as the vessel is righted.

Forces involved in attempting to pull upright a ship built of tens of thousands of tons of steel make refloating the Concordia unlikely.

That means salvagers are more likely to cut up the ship where it lies, a process that risks releasing pollutants into the waters off picturesque Tuscan coast near a maritime sanctuary for dolphins, porpoises and whales.