Brian Billick is punished for ruining my dream, politicians being stupid and ABC joining them

- Too little, too late. The fallout from the destruction of my dream, an 0-16 season for the Miami Dolphins, came Monday, with the coach who guided his team to the loss against Miami, Baltimore Ravens head coach Brian Billick, getting fired and three executives with the Miami Dolphins also getting axed, including GM Randy Mueller. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good thing, because I wish nothing but pain and suffering on everyone associated with that tragic day when the Dolphins, clearly bad enough to go 0-16, inexplicably rose up and won in overtime after Billick and his team choked away the win. Personally I would have stormed down from the owners’ box and fired him then and there, but Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti was merciful and allowed Billick to finish out a 5-11 season. Honestly, that loss to the Dolphins is so devastating that it almost wipes out the Super Bowl Billick won with the Ravens back in 2003. I’m bitter and I sincerely hope that Billick is never hired for another NFL job again. He helped ruin my dream season, but he wasn’t alone. Three of those who helped put together this season’s Miami Dolphins’ roster, a roster with so little talent that they should have gone 0-16, but one that lacked the focus to come out each and every week without fail and not do what it takes to win, were also fired Monday. Mueller, assistant director of player personnel Mike Baugh and college scouting coordinator Rick Thompson were also fired, and I hate the three of them as well. You all had a part in ruining my dream as well, and here’s hoping you join Billick in never working in the NFL again. These firings don’t change the fact that my dream has been dashed, but at least some of those responsible are getting what they deserve, finally…..

 

- When will politicians learn that going on a hunting trip is an extremely dicey proposition and one that usually ends up doing more harm than good? Sometimes you end up getting shot in the face by the vice president of the United States (great shot, Mr. Cheney!) and sometimes you end up getting your picture taken with your hunting companion and he happens to be a vile, despicable war crimes suspect. Ivica Kirin, the now-former Croatian interior minister, has submitted his resignation after photos of him on a hunting trip with notorious warm criminal Gen. Mladen Mrkac were published in several Croatian papers. Mrkac has been accused of the slayings of dozens of Serb rebels back in 1995, and he was apprehended late last week at his home in Zagreb. The photos of he and Kirin came out shortly thereafter, showing the two men posing with their catch on the hunt, a wild boar. For some reason, Croatians, including President Ivo Sanader, weren’t cool with a high-ranking official in their government going hunting with a war criminal. Why, I don’t know. Just because the man probably killed or ordered the killing of dozens of people doesn’t mean he can’t live his life as a free man and go hunting with whoever he wants, does it? Ok, so maybe it does. Let this be a lesson to everyone out there, especially public figures: Don’t put anything down on film or video that could screw you over if it ever became public, because chances are that it will eventually. Don’t make sex tapes, don’t make racist or sexist remarks on any type of recording and don’t pose for pictures on hunting trips with known war criminals. It will never cease to amaze me that seemingly smart people who are able to rise to such high positions of authority can be so incredibly stupid in other areas of their lives.

 

- Allow me to go out on a limb here are boldly criticize the very same people who are about to bring us the return of one of TV’s best shows, Lost. ABC is returning the hit series to the airwaves for a fourth season on Jan. 29, but in the same month, the network is also debuting a ginormous hunk of reality TV crap, a spin-off series from the ultimate show for middle-aged women, Dancing With the (D-List) Stars, with the new show called Dance Wars: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann. Who Bruno and Carrie Ann are, I don’t know. They could be dancers from the show, they could be judges, they could be the lighting crew from the show or they could be two people who happened to be wandering past the set while the show was taping. I have no idea, but what I do know is that based on the promos ABC is running, this is going to be some sort of competition where Bruno and Carrie Ann Whomever select a bunch of losers for their teams and have some sort of variety show-off competition. Right, because that’s what we need, American Karaoke with dancing mixed in. Has it ever occurred to you people that the reason these losers who want to be on your show aren’t already famous is because they’re hacks who aren’t good enough to make it on their own? Besides, your show is crappy enough when mildly famous, washed-up minor celebrities are on it. Now you’re going to mix in a bunch of nobodies and try to pass it off as watchable TV? I appreciate you all bringing me Lost in the middle of a tumultuous season of television, but even that isn’t enough to keep me from ripping you for the moronic decision to green-light Dance Wars: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann. Your promos ask whose side I’m on, well I’m on the side of good TV, so I’ll be siding with neither Bruno nor Carrie Ann, but rather with another channel during that time slot – any other channel.

 

- I may have found a way to curb the holiday eating binges that cause so many Americans to gain weight during the holidays, but sticking with my plan won't be easy. See, most of us eat too many sweets during this time of the year because everyone is baking cookies, pastries, cakes, brownies, etc. and bringing them to work, giving them to friends and family members, etc. But what if we followed the example of Linda Vancel of Lafayette, Ind., a woman who decided to make some fudge for a local bake sale. During the making of the fudge, Vancel somehow managed to lose a white gold diamond ring passed down from her mother and was unable to find the ring despite searching frantically. She still hadn’t found the ring several days later when she received a note from a man who had bought some of her fudge at the bake sale and found the ring when he bit into a piece of the dessert. Now if we could randomly bake items of jewelry or just small bits of metal into fudge, cookies, cakes and pies during the holiday season, tell me that wouldn’t cut down severely on yoru eating of those fattening foods. If you know there’s even a 20 percent chance that you might swallow, say, a hoop earring or a class ring, you’re telling me you wouldn’t think twice about going for one of those double fudge brownies sitting on the conference table? No need to thank me, that’s what I’m here for.

 

- Among the stupid things to steal in the world, a functioning GPS system has to be at or near the top. After all, why would you steal something that emits a signal letting the owner and the police know exactly where it is? It’s the specific f’ing purpose of a GPS system, so stealing one basically is an open invitation to the cops on where they can come to arrest you. That didn’t stop one Amityville, N.Y. man from heisting a GPS system, then riding down the street in the early hours of the morning on a bicycle, holding several stolen items including the GPS system. Police, their curiously clearly peaked by the sight of a man riding a bike laden with a bunch of heavy items in the wee hours of the morning, pulled the 33-year-old cyclist/thief over and began asking him questions. The man was evasive and when the officers had had enough of his double-talk, they pressed the home button on the GPS and it displayed a nearby address. The person living at that address confirmed that the system was his and the thief was arrested. Don’t exactly need to be a world-class detective to solve that crime, now do you? Let’s go ahead and put GPS systems on the list with poisonous snakes and police cars as things you really don’t want to try to steal, k? Thanks.

Amazing Race action, Hannah Montana fraud and another reason Communism sucks

- It’s Amazing Race time once again. When last we saw our five remaining teams, they were arriving at the Boboli Gardens in Florence, Italy. Their Italian stay ended this week as they departed for Mumbai, India, the city formerly known as Bombay. Once again, teams scattered across three different flights on their way to Mumbai, but even arriving three hours apart didn’t matter as all teams clumped up outside a small news stand in downtown Mumbai, waiting for it to open at 6 a.m. so they could get the morning edition of a local paper and scan it for their next clue. Once they got the clue, it was time to decide between two tasks: stringing together 100 flowers to make a ceremonial necklace for a traditional Indian wedding or putting up a six-panel Bollywood movie poster on the wall of a city underpass. In the process, we got plenty more b*tching and “I hate you” tenderness from Nate and Jen, the dating couple who are becoming increasingly annoying week by week with their constant fighting and then once they realize they’ve survived a leg of the race, they’re lovey dovey. They fought while searching the newspaper for the clue, they fought during the flower necklace challenge and both were every bit as detestable as they’ve been at any point in the race. Becoming equally unbearable is Ron, the father in the father/daughter team of Ron and Cristina, because Ron is an overbearing, know-it-all jerk who constantly bosses around and degrades his daughter during every challenge and then says he wants to become a better father. He and Cristina elected for the poster challenge and floundered badly, getting passed up by my favorite 69-year-old, Don, and his grandson Nicolas. The flower challenge proved no challenge for mellow stoners and my other fave team, TK and Rachel, and they breezed through the challenge and the following challenge of delivering tanks of propane to two addresses in the city and finished first for this leg of the race. The battle for last came between Nate and Jen and the Goth

duo of Kynt and Vyxsin, who overcame the new Speed Bump challenge set up for teams who finish last in a non-elimination leg of the race, and got back into the race. To be fair, the Speed Bump was a pretty lame “challenge,” as it involved doing a short yoga routine, but oh well. Kynt and Vyxsin caught up with Nate and Jen and actually passed them, but they missed a chance to complete the comeback when they U-turned (which makes the U-turned team go back and do an extra challenge) the wrong team, picking Nic and Don, who were already past that point and thus not able to be U-turned, instead of Nate and Jen, who were right on Kynt and Vyxsin’s heels. That mistake sealed the fate of the Goths, who struggled with the propane delivery and ended a leg in last place for the second consecutive week. This time they were eliminated, which sucks since they were one of the cooler teams on this edition of the race. But for the remaining four teams, it’s on to Japan, where at least part of next week’s show will be. One non-elimination leg remains, so maybe it’ll happen next week. But until then…….

- It’s hard to come down hard on a 6-year-old for much of anything, but let me give it a shot. I, more than anyone, appreciate an effort to circumvent the rules and connive your way into getting what you want by any means necessary, but the unnamed girl from Texas who decided that the best way to win a contest that gave the winner four tickets to a Hannah Montana concert was cheating by writing an essay saying her father was a soldier in Iraq….come on, are you freaking kidding me? Kids may not have the same sense of right and wrong that adults do, but I guarantee you this girl knew what she was doing was wrong. The girl initially won the contest but had her prize ripped by chain store Club Libby Lu when the truth was discovered. The tiny cheater had won four tickets to the show, a makeover that included a blonde Hannah Montana wig and airfare to the Jan. 9 show in Albany, N.Y. Good that you learn this lesson now, kid: If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying, and it’s only cheating if you get caught. You got caught, so you’re clearly not a good cheater and now you can move on to something bigger and better. Best that you learn early on that you’re not good at cheating and lying, that way you can find other means to get ahead in life. Best wishes on that, kid, and congrats to the real winner who the prize was given to once it was taken from the cheater.

 

- It never ceases to be heartwarming to see the family members of a deceased love one brawl, quarrel and do battle over the estate of that departed loved one. Nothing brings a warm, tingly feeling like people showing little or no concern or distress at having lost a person they purportedly love and go straight to brawling with each other over who gets what chunk of their inheritance. That sort of attitude screams “True love!” like nothing else I know. My heart is truly blessed when five children of the late James Brown argue that the will of their late father should be invalidated because his former advisors used “undue influence” to convince him to create charitable trusts that the advisors would profit from, that according to court documents filed in South Carolina this past week. Now I suppose if you go around the country knocking up women you barely know to the point that weeks after your death, scores of DNA tests have to be conducted on people claiming to be your children, you invite some of these problems, but even so.....I think this has more to do with these five children of Brown being largely left out of the financial portion of the will. These selfish a-holes are pissed because they’re greedy and care only about money, so they’re going to court to get theirs. Kudos on the family unity and respecting the wishes of your deceased father, you money-grubbing jerks. Here’s hoping each of you gets exactly what you deserve – nothing. It was his money and therefore he had the right to do what he wanted with it, so accept it and stop looking so petty and classless by suing for your piece of the pie.

 

- I’ve never been to a Hooters restaurant, so I really can’t judge the validity of the outrage from this next individual. That being said, I can say with relative certainty that this man’s reaction based on that outrage was just a bit over the top. The unidentified man was upset with his tab at a Hooters in Nashville and his reaction was, you guessed it, to fire several shots off into the restaurant, leaving a manager and another patron in critical condition. Now I think we’ve all been somewhere and when it comes time to pay the bill, the amount seems high. Maybe you ordered something different than what you thought you ordered, maybe the place raised its prices since your last visit….or in this case, maybe you got really drunk and spent more time staring at the ample chest of your waitress and staring at her bright orange booty shorts than you did paying attention to how much money you were spending. Regardless, when you are informed of what you owe and you don’t like what you hear, squeezing off a few rounds is not an option. Besides, who needs to strap to go to Hooters anyhow? Do you really need a gun there? What, are you afraid that someone might try to steal a couple of your hot wings and you might need your 9mm to fend them off? To be fair, this a-hole didn’t shoot a 9mm. No, once he refused to pay his bill and was asked to leave, he went outside and shot from his .40-caliber handgun. Nice move, idiot. The police are still looking for the man, but based on the intelligence quotient of his crime, he shouldn’t be too hard to track down.

 

- I’ve heard of bureaucratic delays and red tape slowing things down and making life difficult, but this is flat-out ridiculous. Chinese government officials have informed residents of Hong Kong that they will have to wait at least another decade to select a new leader via democratic elections and that the wait to directly elect their own Legislature will be at least 12 years coming. The prospect of elections in 2007 was initially raised by the Basic Law, a mini-constitution that was imposed on Hong Kong by China after Britain returned the city to Chinese rule in 1997. At that time, Hong Kong’s residents believed that come 2007, they would be able to elect their own leaders under the principle of one person, one vote. Instead, the Communists running China decided back in 2004 that they would postpone the universal suffrage for Hong Kong until at least 2012, and now they’ve begun the process needed to push that date back another five years. Because the current regime in China will be gone by the time 2017 rolls around, this decision would conveniently leave the challenge of how to handle Hong Kong. Color me suspicious, but I don’t think they ever have any intention of allowing Hong Kong’s citizens to elect their own political leaders, lest they actually have any freedom and get out from under the tyrannical thumb of communism. Way to go, Commies, denying people their freedoms five years at a time, you all still suck….

Bahrain hates riots, the French get rid of smoking and a bowl game goes bad for one college football player

- As much as I love riots, protests and social or political demonstrations of all kinds, it appears that the closed-minded, brutal and oppressive government in the Middle Eastern nation of Bahrain, hates them with equal passion. I know this because the government there has taken a leap of absurdity in reacting to a recent protest staged by some Shiite activists in their country. More than a dozen of those Shiites have been inexplicably charged with crimes ranging from attempted murder to illegal assembly and rioting. Three of the activists are facing attempted murder charges, while another 11 are being railroaded on the illegal assembly and rioting charges. I guess in Bahrain the only way you’re allowed to assemble is if you’re doing so to blindly praise and support the government. This is an absolute outrage that these people are being hit with such bogus charges just for daring to stand up to their government and to speak out for what they believe in. I might not be Muslim and I might not be Bahraini, but as you all know, I am ALWAYS down with those who take it to the streets to riot, protest and speak out. Stay strong, Shiite activists, because those with an IQ above 45 know that you all didn’t do anything wrong.

- Looking for a place not to be on Jan. 17? If so, I strongly recommend San Juan, Puerto Rico, specifically the Old San Juan area of the city. What so horrible about a nice place like San Juan, you ask? Normally, I’d say there’s no reason to avoid the area, but on that day, one of the biggest train wrecks in musical history, the tip-frosting, bon-bon-shaking poseur that is Ricky Martin will be the guest of honor at the San Sebastian Street Festival, a popular event that attracts thousands to the cobblestone streets of old San Juan annually. I actually don’t have a problem with Martin being honored for his charitable work with children, but the fact that he’s also being honored for his music I do have a problem with. He’s a hack, a vocally-stunted, former man-bander who has made some of the most un-listenable, just flat-out awful music literally of the past century. His lyrics are moronic, his voice sucks, his videos are idiotic and he’s a punch line, not a reason to celebrate. So have your festival, San Juan, honor his work with kids but please stop pretending like his music isn’t an absolute abomination.

- If you were planning a trip to Mars for next month, now might be a good time to reconsider those plans. Scientists in Los Angeles have upgraded the chances that a football field-size asteroid will strike the red planet next month by 4 percent. The asteroid, discovered in late November by the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona, could plow right into Mars and let’s face it, if you’re heading there for a relaxing vacation, that’s going to ruin things. Initially there was thought to be a 1-in-75 chance of a collision occurring, but those odds have now jumped. The massive space rock, identified by the name 2007 WD5, could cause major damage, but at least it won’t be hitting earth. For all you Martians out there, though, you’ll want to check the asteroid-damage portion of your homeowners’ insurance to make sure that you’re covered.

- Going to a bowl game is great for college football players, what with getting a chance to travel to a new place, somewhere that’s usually warm and sunny, and enjoy all of the festivities that go with the game. Unfortunately for University of Oklahoma football player DeMarcus Granger, those festivities turned felonious when he decided to thieve a jacket from the Burlington Coat Factory store at Arizona Mills Mall. Granger, a starting defensive tackle for the No. 3-ranked Sooners, will not play in the Fiesta Bowl on Wednesday and has been sent home by the team. Good thinking, D., getting yourself booked on one charge of shoplifting and costing your team one of its top defensive players just days before the big game. Why can’t you just pay for your jacket like everyone else? I know as a college kid, you might not have a lot of extra cash in the wallet, but just because you’re a 307-lb. defensive tackle and an OU football player doesn’t give you the right to take what you want and walk out of the store, my man. Besides, a coat is a pretty bulky item and stealing it is kinda hard. That’s also why they have those little security tags on items, to prevent idiots like you from stealing things. Next year, if you get to go to a bowl game, just stay in your hotel room, maybe go to the pool or out to eat with your teammates and avoid going anywhere you might be tempted to shoplift, moron…..

- If there’s one thing the French excel at – other than not showering, that is – it’s surrendering and giving in. For once, that predilection for waving the white flag will actually do some good, as a national smoking ban will be officially extended to include bars, clubs, restaurants, hotels, casinos and cafes. The initial ban took place back in February and included “closed and covered public spaces” such as train stations, schools, airports and hospitals. Predictably, leather-faced, green-skinned, lung-cancer-loving smokers are outraged, because they just can’t understand why they aren’t allowed to choke down their cancer sticks in public and give off harmful fumes that negatively impact the health of innocent bystanders who are smart enough not to smoke. The French Health Ministry, which for some reason doesn’t openly promote the health benefits of showering regularly to its citizens, says that an average of one in two regular smokers in France dies of smoking-related illness and that 5,000 non-smokers die in the country each year from the effects of secondhand smoke. In other words, they’re basically killed by smokers, which makes smoking a crime in some sense. Many other Euro nations, including Spain, Belgium, Britain and Ireland, already have smoking bans. It’s tough news for the roughly 15 million Frenchmen who smoke, but I really don’t give a crap if they like it or not…..

I help Josh Duhamel, I rebuke Hindu extemists and I rip the NFL

- I think some angry Hindu extremists in India have become confused, so I’m here to help them out. See, I normally applaud looting, public demonstrations, burning of property, etc. – when it’s done as part of a protest or riot. These ass hats have the burning part down ,but the problem is that they’re not demonstrating or trying to make their cause known; they’re using their pyro ways to intimidate and persecute people who are of a different faith. The attacks occurred as Christians in eastern India were celebrating Christmas and they resulted in at least one person being killed. Police stepped up patrols and deployed extra forces to quell the violence in the remote district of Orissa state, but that does no good for the people who were already hurt by these thoughtless attacks. Burning things and destroying property for a social protest or to speak out against an oppressive government is one thing, but doing it to hurt people just because they believe differently than you and are trying to exercise their faith without affecting you at all is bullsh*t. According to local authorities, six churches were attacked on Christmas day and two the day after the holiday, along with 10 houses in the area belonging to known Christians. Orissa has one of the worst histories of anti-Christian violence of any region in India, so this isn’t a new problem. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that this is absolute garbage on the part of these Hindu extremists. If your faith is so great, why do you need to bully people who don’t believe in it? If Hinduism is so wonderful, won't those people eventually come over to your side? Knock it off, whack jobs, and find a new hobby that doesn’t involved burning other people’s property…..

- Nice reversal of field, NFL. After initially saying it would stand behind the vigilante, hooligan-istic actions of referee Jim Quirk in a December 23 game between Green Bay and Chicago in which Quirk went MMA on Packers linebacker Nick Barnett, the league has changed its mind. Quirk has been fined a game check -- $8,150 -- for inappropriate contact with Barnett last Sunday. Quirk was called to NFL offices Friday to meet with commissioner Roger Goodell and NFL executive vice president of football operations Ray Anderson. The league took Quirk’s previous on-field incidents into account in assessing the penalty, including Quirk's contact Dec. 16 with Atlanta Falcons fullback Jason Snelling on a kickoff return. Hmm, sounds to me like you’ve got a hothead official on your hands who has a big ego and is extremely confrontational. Maybe getting him some anger management ought to be part of the discipline process as well. Goodell informed Barnett and Packers head coach Mike McCarthy of the punishment and Barnett's agent, Chuck Price, who had planned to file a grievance with the NFL over Quirk's behavior, seems satisfied with the league’s decision. “This action is more than satisfactory. There is now no reason to pursue a grievance,” Price stated. Yeah, any mea culpa you can get from the NFL is good, and even if you deserve more, you’re not getting it and you could create more lingering hostility against yourself if you press the issue. Take it down a few notches, Quirk, because people aren’t coming to the game to see your act, so stop making yourself the issue.

- Mess with Sean Connery at your own risk, Burton Sultan. Sultan is Connery’s neighbor in a Manhattan townhouse that Sultan and his wife share with Connery and his wife. The two couples are now in a legal tussle over many things, most of them related to the Connerys’ year-long renovations to the town house, a landmarked structure built in 1869. The Sultans claim that the repairs have subjected them to noise, fumes, leaks and rats, ruining their collection of antique wicker furniture. Now some people, myself included, would argue that if you’re enough of a loser to collect antique wicker furniture, you deserve what you get. Still, the past few months have seen each side fire back and forth with numerous lawsuits to the point that State Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman labeled the two couples’ actions “a ‘slash and burn’ litigation strategy. She’s barred both of them from filing any more lawsuits against one another without her permission. In other words, they’re basically acting like little kids and their mom, Friedman, has sent them to their rooms until she decides they’re going to behave themselves. Nothing like a bunch of rich people fighting over petty things, eh? But kudos to Sultan, because he’s taking on a cagey, salty, crusty old Brit who once escaped from Alcatraz…..ok, so that was in a mediocre action flick with Nicolas Cgae, but even so…..

- Score one for the jingoistic, ethnocentric, anti-immigrant a-holes. The state of Michigan has come down firmly on the conservative, “patriotic” side of things by officially declaring that illegal immigrants are not eligible to receive a Michigan driver’s license. Attorney General Mike Cox said in a binding opinion that illegals are not able to become licensed drivers in his state, closing a loophole in one of the few states in the nation where illegal immigrants had been able to get a license until now. In explaining his decision, Cox stated that it would be inconsistent with federal law to regard an illegal immigrant as a permanent resident in Michigan, which is what giving that person a driver’s license would in effect be. Man, an illegal immigrant just can't catch a break in this country. We want to build bigger fences to keep them out, we want to deny them jobs and now another state is taking away their right to get a driver’s license. You’d think these people were illegally coming here, trying to live and build a life without going through the proper immigrations procedures or something…..

- A piece of advice for you at your wedding, Josh Duhamel: Whatever you do, do not, under ANY circumstances, allow your new wife to sing or for any of her music to be played at the reception. Duhamel is marrying Sarah Richardson, a.k.a. Fergie, the hack pop-tart singer and member of one of the five worst groups in music, the Black Eyed Peas. I can't fault Duhamel for loving and wanting to marry Fergie; she is smoking hot. As long as she keeps the singing to a minimum when they’re together, I can’t see any real problems with being married to her. Let’s just hope her lame, moronic, simplistic, juvenilely stupid lyrics aren’t a reflection of her overall intelligence, because if they are, Duhamel is screwed. But he’s been dating Fergie for three years, so presumably he’s been to some of her concerts and has learned how to properly wear ear plugs and also to smile and lie when she asks how she did on stage. Congrats on the engagement, Josh, I think……

Rich people, common people and DUI's, selfish Cavaliers and Rich Fraud-riguez

- This is Part One of a two-part example designed to show you that despite their money and status, rivh people are just like everyone else deep down. We begin with one of the common people, Florida Gulf Coast University's All-Atlantic Sun Conference first-team setter Roberta Santos. Santos finds herself facing charges of driving under the influence following her arrest Wednesday that was marked by a 0.26 BAC, badly failed road sobriety tests and an alleged attempt to urinate on the arresting officer, according to a police reports. Yes, that’s right, she was more than three times the legal limit and she tried to take a piss on the cop who arrested her, always a good combo. Santos, a junior at FGCU and a certified lush, was traveling south on Ben Hill Griffin Boulevard from the entrance to FGCU at about 11:40 p.m. Wednesday when Dep. Robert Shaw spotted her repeatedly drifting back and forth over the center line in her white Chevy Cavalier. Shaw attempted to stop Santos just north of the intersection of Corkscrew Road and Ben Hill Griffin Boulevard. According to the police report, Santos continued through the intersection and pulled into the parking lot of Stoney’s Bar. Once Santos came to a stop and the officer caught up with her, Shaw said he smelled an odor of alcohol and asked for Santos’ driver’s license and vehicle paperwork, which he said she then fumbled and dropped on the floorboard of the vehicle before a friend in the passenger seat located the papers. Why this friend wasn’t driving, I don’t know, because he or she definitely appears to have been more sober than Santos. But while performing a horizontal gaze test, Shaw said Santos was swaying back and forth and stepping backward and forward to keep her balance. Hmm, sounds suspicious, but I’m not sold that she’s drunk yet – bad coordination, poor balance – so tell me more. During the walk-and-turn maneuver, Shaw said Santos nearly fell over several times while using her arms to maintain her balance. On the “turn” part of the test, Shaw said Santos stumbled again before catching herself on his patrol car. Nearly falling down while tryingto walk….ok, so you may have something here, officer. Next it was on the one-leg stand test, Shaw said Santos lifted her leg and immediately put it down to maintain her balance, at which time he discontinued the road sobriety tests in the interest of her safety and placed Santos under arrest for DUI. Inability to balance on one leg….I still don’t know. Why not have her go with the always-popular reciting of the alphabet? That’s a crowd pleaser and also one that’s low on the danger scale. But Shaw had made his mind up. Santos then begged him to let her go and began to cry and scream in the back of his patrol car. Sorry, Roberta, but crying usually works better when trying to get out of a speeding ticket and before you’ve been placed under arrest. Transported to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office for booking, Santos submitted to a breath test and registered a .260 BAC, according to the report. She then became very agitated about not being permitted to use the phone, at which time he said she arched her back and tried to urinate on him, soaking both herself and the floor with urine. Oooh, that’s not good. If you were a dude, you can pull off that maneuver, but the physics for a chick just don’t lend themselves to it. Predictably, Santos’ coach and university weren’t excited to hear about her night out. FGCU interim head coach Carrie Lundy deferred comment to university spokesperson Susan Evans. “Of course, at this point, Roberta Santos has only been charged with DUI,” Evans said. “We're always disappointed when a student is charged with DUI, but we will withhold sanctions until the case makes its way through the court system.” You do that, FGCU, but this seems like a slam-dunk to me. Santos might be an all-conference player, but she’s still noly a volleyball player and you’re only Florida Gulf Coast University, hardly the big time. She’s not getting out of this one. If she’s convicted, Santos will become part of the school's Substance Abuse Education and Testing Program just like any other student-athlete convicted of "underage possession of alcohol, driving under the influence, public intoxication ..." She would then have to meet with her head coach, athletics director and an FGCU trainer, be referred to the Office of Counseling and Psychological Services, which will conduct an evaluation and an educational course, call her parents in the presence of her coach and/or athletics director (I think they already know, but I’m sure they’d love to hear about it again, their daughter the lush) and agree to be randomly drug tested for a calendar year. Her coach can add the sanctions, but why would the coach want to do that…..moving on to the famous person part of the equation…..

- Mischa Barton, The O.C. alumna and current Maxim cover gal decided to get herself popped for a DUI in the wee hours of Thursday morning was pulled over in West Hollywood. She was subsequently arrested for the DUI, possession of illegal narcotics and driving without a valid license. Some of you cynics might rip her for this, but not me. It’s always great for me to see an actor or actress take something they learned from a role as a fictitious character on a fictional TV show and apply it to real life. Barton’s O.C. character Marissa Cooper was a party girl, alkie and druggie, so it’s nice to see Mischa work all three of those into her real life. Also, it’s a good reminder that famous people are just like the rest of us. Just as Roberta Santos got hammered and took to the roads in her inebriated state, famous actress Mischa Barton did the same thing on the same night. Thanks for showing that you don’t think you’re better than the rest of us, M. We can act like a-holes by driving drunk and putting the lives of others motorists in danger and so can you! I know you have a rep to live up to, but unless you want to ruin your life and career by driving drunk and eventually injuring or killing yourself or someone else because of that habit, you’re going to want to check yourself. Go join your other famous Hollywood friends in rehab, we’ll see you in a few weeks…….

- Karma is a b*tch, eh Rich Rodriguez? Rich, or should I say Rich-er, the former West Virginia University football coach who agreed to leave to take the same position at the University of Alabama following the 2006 season only to double back when he was ripped for the move and find that another reputed liar, Nick Saban (I will not be the next coach at Alabama, period….umm, sure Nick), agreed last week to jump ship again to take the vacant head job at the University of Michigan. Shockingly, it looks like this time Fraud-riguez is sticking with his decision, but that’s going to pose a whole new set of problems for him. He has been sued by West Virginia University's Board of Governors to collect a $4 million buyout of his contract with the school. The lawsuit, filed in Monongalia County Circuit Court, says the university believes Rodriguez doesn't intend to abide by the contract. What, you mean you don’t trust the word of a man who has lied to you and others repeatedly and blatantly? I’m stunned. What would be even more stunning is if a two-faced weasel like Fraud-riguez actually lived up to a contract he himself signed. The buyout clause in that deal requires Rodriguez to pay $4 million to WVU over a two-year period, with one-third of the total due 30 days after his employment's termination. His resignation was effective Dec. 19, meaning he needs to pony up about $1.33 million right quick. West Virginia officials did the smart thing, asking a court to enforce the contract after supporters of Rodriguez questioned its validity and the coach did not disavow those statements. “There are very clear statements and factually incorrect statements by people who purportedly speak for the coach,” Alex Macia, vice president of legal affairs and legal counsel for the university, said. “There comes a time when you have to have a court pronounce as a matter of law what happened,” he said. According to the lawsuit, the university fulfilled the contract's terms and Rodriguez never gave it written notice, as required by the contract, that it had not followed the agreement, the lawsuit said. “The university performed and upheld its end of the bargain,” Macia said. True, but Fraud-riguez doesn’t understand the principle of owning his end of a deal, so going to court is pretty much the only option WVU had. University officials were not aware of and did not consent to Rodriguez's discussions with Michigan officials about the Wolverines' coaching job, according to the lawsuit, so there’s another strike against him. Not only did he sneak around behind the back of his then-current employer, now he won't live up to an agreement he made for the very situation that has now come up. A summons issued to Rodriguez gave him 20 days to respond to the lawsuit. Just a thought, Rich-er, but maybe the anonymous person who keeps putting $1,000 bills in Salvation Army kettles at Christmastime in Morgantown, W. Va. can help you pay his $4 million buyout. Either that or grow a spine and get a conscience and some honor and integrity and own up to your responsibilities, my man.

- Think your Christmas was crappy? If so, consider the plight of Robert Schoff and you just might reconsider. The 77-year-old Schoff spent part of Christmas Eve trapped in his septic tank, with his head inside and his feet kicking in the air above ground. The Des Moines, Iowa resident reached inside the tank attempting to find a clog, a festive holiday activity which I think we can all agree we’d like to take part in, but lost his balance and became wedged in the opening. The 5-foot-5, 135-pound man yelled for help but it was over and hour before his wife Toni looked out the window, saw her husband’s lower half sticking up out of the septic tank and helped him out. “It wasn’t good, I’ll tell you what,” Robert Schoff said. “It was the worst Christmas Eve I’ve ever had.” Let’s just hope that while he was flying over Iowa, Santa didn’t have to see that unsightly image, a man upside down in a tank full of crap…..

- Scottie Pippen’s legacy lives on. It’s been about a decade since Scottie refused to re-enter a playoff game because he was pissed that the last play of the game wasn’t designed to give him the shot, but two members of the underachieving Cleveland Cavaliers have revived Scottie’s boorish act and made it their own. Damon Jones has been fined an undisclosed sum by the Cavaliers after the point guard refused to come off the bench for the final minute of their Christmas Day victory over the Miami Heat. Joining him in acting like a Grade-A a-hole was guard-forward Ira Newble, who also declined to enter the game at that point, saying he wasn't physically ready to play, the newspaper said. “Regardless on how much time is on the clock, I'm going 100 percent every time I step on the court,” Newble said, according to the Plain Dealer. "Not being loose enough, you could possibly pull something.” Nice try, Ira. I wasn’t at 100 percent, I could pull something. Are your freaking kidding me? Are you can NBA player or some dude playing in a rec league at the local Y? There are tons of guys playing at less than 100 percent; I’d venture to say the most guys are at least a little banged up. You were being a big baby and didn’t want to be “insulted” by being put in for the final seconds of a blowout. Cavs coach Mike Brown, speaking before Thursday's game against Dallas, said the issue was an internal matter and he wouldn't have any additional comment. In other words, these two f’d up and crossed the line and they’ll be fined and b*tched out, end of story. Of the 12 Cleveland players, Jones and Newble were the only ones not to log minutes in the Cavs' 96-82 victory over Miami, but it was their choice, so I don’t feel a bit bad for them. Grow up and grow a pair, guys, you were wrong here and it had better not happen again or you’ll be introduced to a new friend – the waiver wire.

Violent refs, Communism on the rise and the home of sexual harassment

- Proving that there are still good people out there, an anonymous individual in Morgantown, West Virginia continued a holiday tradition he or she has done every year since 1978, dropping a $1,000 bill into a Salvation Army charity Christmas kettle. The donor, who alerted the Salvation Army that the donation would take place between 1 and 3 p.m. Saturday outside a Wal-Mart at University Town Center near the University of West Virginia. Salvation Army Maj. (how does one rise to the rank of Major in the Salvation Army? How many battle wounds do you need for that?) Richard Hathorn was the person keeping watch over the kettle and he tried to figure out who the mystery donor was, but he couldn’t pick the person out. At the end of the day, as he emptied the donations from the kettle, he found the bill bearing the likeness of President Grover Cleveland, wrapped inside a $1 bill. The mystery donor had struck again, doing good without seeking credit. It’s good to know that there are still people like that out there, especially at this time of the year.

- Of the many reasons to love sunny Southern California, the collections of freaks, misfits and weirdos residing in the area is right up there. Whether it’s Venice Beach or Sunset Drive, you can always find some basket case in a bizarre outfit with some freaky fetish walking around. It’s true even at Christmas, as evidenced by the bizarro Santa found wandering outside Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood Sunday night. This freak show was wearing a wig, red lace camisole and purple g-string, according to police. They are investigating this loser for drunken driving, but the ongoing investigation didn’t stop one cop from making this oh-so-clever quip: “We are pretty sure this is not the Santa Claus,” said Deputy Chief Ken Garner. Ahh….good one, deputy, really. I’m just glad I wasn’t one of the people who saw this psycho, because that image would have scarred my mind and retinas for many Christmases to come. Merry Christmas, SoCal residents, you all are a freaking circus.

 

- The NBA’s ad campaign for this season has the theme “Where amazing happens.” Perhaps the arena where one of the league’s signature franchises, the New York Knicks’ home of Madison Square Garden, should have its own motto: “Where sexual harassment happens.” Not that long ago, the MSG was settling a sexual harassment suit against brought against it and Knicks coach/GM Isaiah Thomas by former team executive Anucha Brown Sanders. MSG settled that suit with Sanders just in time for Courtney Prince, a former cheerleader with MSG’s other main tenant, the NHL’s New York Rangers, to bring her own sexual harassment suit against MSG and reach a tidy settlement of her own. Prince, who was fired in January 2004, claimed managers at MSG told her which skaters they liked and which ones they wanted to attend postgame parties. She also accused her supervisor, Ryan Halkatt, of telling her which skaters had to lose weight or "stuff their bras" to appear more alluring, and said Jason Vogel, a public relations manager for the Rangers, and another man asked her to join them for a threesome in a bar bathroom. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but you can bet on the heels of the Sanders suit, MSG was willing to pay a nice sum to make this go away. I definitely can’t condone the alleged offer for a threesome if it’s true, but I do find it funny that Prince takes issue with cheerleaders being asked to make themselves look as a attractive as possible. I don’t know if anyone told you, Courtney, but in pro sports, cheerleaders are basically glorified strippers who are there for one purpose and one purpose only: T&A. If you were expecting anything else, you’re as dumb as most people tend to stereotype cheerleaders as being. A statement released on Prince's behalf by her legal team read: “We resolved this matter with no admission of wrongdoing on the part of any party, and I will have no further comment.” Ah, I love legalese. No one admits they did anything wrong, but yet they’re settling the case. Yeah, because that’s what innocent people always do, settle up and give people money that they did nothing wrong to. Is there anyone in Madison Square Garden who isn’t a sexually harassing pervert? Maybe every female employee needs to be issued a can of mace, a Taser and a rape whistle on their first day……

- We’re watching you, Commies. Russia is already sliding back to its old Communist ways under the leadership of outgoing President Vladimir “Sourpuss” Putin. Their policies and abuse of the rights of their citizens rank right up there with the ol’ U.S.S.R., and now the Russkies are looking to be a better-equipped version of that nation. Russia’s military, clearly not familiar with the concept of taking the day off on a holiday, successfully test-fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads. The RS-24 missile was launched from the Plesetsk launch facility in northern Russia and its warheads successfully hit targets on the Kamchatka Peninsula, some 4,340 miles east. Well Merry Freaking Christmas, what better present than a successful test run for your new missile capable of mass destruction. But I’m sure you’re not intending to use it, right, Commies? It’s just for self defense, right? Upgrading nuclear weaponry, oppressing citizens, abusing human rights, what’s next, five-hour lines at the store for a single loaf of bread? Welcome back, Communism, Russians missed you…..umm, not really.

- Abuse of power, table of one please. The NFL is standing behind the totally indefensible actions of referee Jim Quirk during Sunday’s Bears-Packers game in Chicago, during which Quirk wrestled Packers linebacker Nick Barnett to the ground by the neck following a pile-up on the ground after a play. The incident occurred late in the fourth quarter after a third-and-1 play in which Bears fullback Jason McKie gained 3 yards. Barnett got tangled up with Bears tackle John St. Clair after the play. That's when Quirk jumped in, and with both arms wrapped around Barnett's neck, Quirk pulled him down from behind. Barnett fell on top of Quirk and when he got to his feet, Packers cornerback Al Harris stepped between Barnett and the official. Basically, Quirk overreacted and got violent but the league is backing him up because it refuses to admit he was wrong, even though internally you know they’re pissed at him. Greg Aiello, the league's senior vice president of public relations, said no discipline is being considered. "The official was just trying to remove the player from a skirmish to keep it from escalating," Aiello said Monday. Barnett is said to be mulling over whether to file a grievance over Quirk’s abusive actions, and his team is standing behind him. Packers coach Mike McCarthy agreed Quirk was out of line and said that in all his years in football, he’s “never seen anything like it.” Go for it, Nick, because none of us is buying the NFL’s spin job either and Quirk needs to get himself under control before some player “accidentally” crushes him during a play…….

Lost returns for now, Young Joc brings gangsta to Cleveland and a booze-serving theater in Pa.

- Lost has a new night and time slot, as well as a firm return date when the eight new episodes for the show filmed before the writers’ strike will start. The date is Jan. 29, Thursday night at 9 p.m., a move from the show’s previous 10 p.m. Wednesday time slot of previous seasons. If you’re a fan of the show, you know that there was a debate as to whether to air the eight produced episodes now or wait for the writers’ strike to end so the whole season could be shown without a gaping hole in the middle. Despite objections from the show’s execs and producers, ABC had the final word and they’ve elected to bring the show back now. Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, the show’s creators, have warned that there is a mini-cliffhanger at the end of the eighth episode that will be resolved in the ninth episode, but with the strike there could be a massive gap in time that will drive fans crazy, having to wait for the resolution. Either way, I’m pumped for the new season, with the return of Michael and the introduction of flash forwards to complement to regular flashbacks that have been a staple of the show all along. Throughout the eight episodes I’ll be hoping along with the rest of you that this strike ends so we can avoid that big gap, but I’m not that hopeful. Eight episodes or more, it doesn’t matter, because the return of Lost is exactly what this slowly dying TV season need right now.

- Leave your inner thug at home when you visit my little corner of the world, Young Joc. The rapper was arrested in my neck of the woods, at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, for carrying a concealed weapon after a loaded gun was found in his carry-on bag. The 25-year-old, whose real name is Jasiel Robinson, was nabbed at 6:20 a.m. Sunday while trying to board a Delta Airlines flight. Police found a semi-automatic gun and ammo in Young Joc’s bag, which every man, woman, child, infant, trained circus bear and chunk of firewood in America knows is a no-no for air travel. If you can’t take a freaking tube of toothpaste onboard with you because it’s over 3 oz., then how the hell do you think a loaded gun is acceptable? Do you not see the many signs posted all around the airport showing a picture of a gun with a red circle around it and a red slash through the gun? That means no guns, amigo. I knew rappers weren’t the smarest cats around as a general rule, but you have to be a special mixture of stupid and arrogant to think you can blatantly flout airport security rules and bring a loaded gun on a flight. What, no machete, C4 explosives or hunting rifles? Couldn’t fit that detonator in your bag too? While I’m sure that $50,000 in bond money you posted was pocket change for you, why not use some of your money to secure a new brain, one that functions and allows you to understand simple commands like no guns on flights, Young Joc…..

- Bam Margera’s planned theater in his hometown of West Chester, Pa., the theater to go to if you need to get your booze on while you see a movie. Actually, this might make a lot of the crappier movies currently playing in theaters more watchable (yes, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, I’m looking at you). Margera, who rose to fame doing idiotic, dangerous stunts on MTV’s Jackass and Viva La Bam, is one step closer to opening his theater after the West Chester Borough Council agreed to withdraw its objection to Margera’s request for a liquor license for the venue after he agreed to meet certain conditions. After Margera and his crew agreed not to sell packaged goods, the council voted 5-2 to approve the license request, although the liquor control board will hold a hearing for all the teetotalers who still object to the theater being allowed to serve alcohol. Right, because that’s the real concern here, not the crap-tacular movies people are being subjected to. Gawd-awful flicks like Alien vs. Predator: Requiem are a lot more of a problem than kids being around booze and trying to make fake IDs to get their hands on some beer when they go to the movies. Lighten up, losers, and be glad a prominent native of your town wants to bring an economic shot in the arm to your community.

- Ho, ho, ho….you’re fired. While that seems like a Donald Trump or Vince McMahon-esque move, it was done by the ownership of the NBA’s Chicago Bulls, which kicked coach Scott Skiles to the curb on Christmas eve, firing the coach who had led the team to three straight playoff appearances before starting this season 9-17. I’m sure most of the Bulls’ players are broken up about their coach getting broken off like this, what with the fact that nearly all of them hated the tiny, dictatorial hothead. Skiles is one of those uber-authoritarian, overbearing, rules-centric guys who actually picked a fight with his team’s new free-agent signing of last season, Ben Wallace, by refusing to let Big Ben wear his trademark headband in games because Skiles doesn’t allow players to wear headbands. It’s things like that, enforcing moronic, pointless rules for the purpose of control, that grate on players and create resentment. Fact is, that only flies with management if you’re winning, because then they call tell the players to suck it up because your way of doing things is working. But when you fire out of the gate losing 17 of your first 26 games, those same despotic tendencies become a bad thing. Don’t be surprised if the Bulls start playing better, partly because teams often do after a coaching change, but mostly because they’re no longer playing for a coach that most of them despise. That the change came on Christmas Eve is probably the best present every single player on that roster could have gotten this year.

- There are plenty of ways to make it onto the evening news, but most people don’t try to do so in a literal sense. Gerald Richardson, 25, of Chicago wasn’t content with being mentioned on the WLS evening news; he upped the ante by crashing his minivan into the glass exterior wall of the station’s downtown studio during the 10 p.m. news. The crash could be heard on the air and it startled anchorman Ron Burgundy….just kidding. The anchorman was Ravi Baichwal, who shouted “Ho!” and jumped up out of his seat. Richardson has been jailed and charged with property damage and reckless driving, but ironically it looks like alcohol was not involved. Kinda makes you long for those morons outside the window on the Today show who just wave signs and wave at the camera as they try to signal to friends back home who they’re talking to on their cell phones…..

More college football players who can't play, a new YouTube degenerate and more problems for FAT kids

- I told you so. I said a few days ago that there was still time for more college football players to be suspended or declared academically ineligible by their teams before their respective bowl games, and so it is. Two more teams have lost players because they ain’t enough smarter to stay eligible. Michigan State, set to play Boston College in the Champs Sports Bowl, has lost five players, including defensive standouts SirDarean Adams and Jonal Saint-Dic, as well as reserves Terry Love, T.J. Williams and Abre Leggins, while Texas A&M, facing Penn State in the Alamo Bowl, loses defensive end Michael Bennett to the dreaded academic eligibility monster. On the one hand, you feel bad for the teams because they have players they’re counting on to make contributions in their most important game of the year and now they don’t have those players, but on the other hand, there’s just no excuse for a player being ineligible, ever. There is far too much academic help available to them and college classes are not nearly hard enough for these guys to fail, especially given the fact that most of them aren’t taking graduate-level astrophysics courses. The only way you end up academically ineligible is if you don’t give a crap about classes and you don’t try to pass them. Academic troubles aren’t the only hurdles for college footballers, either; staying out of jail is proving problematic as well. You might remember the story of Penn State players Chris Baker and Navorro Bowman, a story that ends with them kicking the living sh*t out of a fellow student at a campus hangout after the student made the mistake of accidentally bumping into a PSU football player as they passed near the Hub. Bowman, Baker and several other players surrounded this guy and beat him down, which has resulted in criminal charges being brought against them and also in their suspension from Penn State’s Alamo Bowl appearance on Saturday. I was counting on all you college ballers out there not to let me down and to come through with more suspensions, ineligibilities and other knucklehead behavior before this season ended, and you didn’t let me down. Way to go, guys!

- Who doesn’t love those wacky pranksters who strike during the holiday season and steal pieces from the Nativity scene set up at their local church? Heisting baby Jesus is always good for a laugh, except apparently in the city of Bal Harbour, Florida. There, those responsible for overseeing the local Nativity scene have decided to strike back at pranksters who stole the baby Jesus statue from the manger even though it was bolted down. These enterprising fun-lovers didn’t let some bolts and screws stand in the way of their fun, so now the people who oversee the Nativity scene have taken things up a notch. The new baby Jesus statue will be equipped with a GPS system, as will the Mary and David statues used in the display. Why Jesus needs a GPS, I don’t know. He is God in the flesh, so he always knows where he is and he created the whole world, so why he needs a global positioning system and a satellite to inform him where is he confuses me. Either way, the holy GPS will be put in place to prevent future pranksters from ripping baby Jesus from the manger, although I don’t think that’s going to stop them, what with the fact that they know the GPS is there and they can just remove it, and also because they don’t want to actually possess the stolen statue, they just want to take it from the manger scene. They can smash the thing to pieces and throw it out the window of their car for all they care. But go ahead and waste your money on that GPS system, Nativity scene officials, if it helps you sleep better at night.

- And here I was thinking that YouTube was only for losers and stoners with too much time on their hands to post juvenile, amateurish clips of themselves doing stupid things and parodies of popular songs, shows, movies, etc. Not so, it appears. No, YouTube is also for aging monarchs who wear funny hats and have too much time on their hands as well. Queen Elizabeth II, the 81-year-old monarch of England, has launched her very own Royal Channel on YouTube, with the debut of the channel being yesterday. She plans to use the site to send out her annual televised Christmas message, archive footage of herself and of other royals and of course, her very own parody of Michael Jackson’s Thriller starring Prince Charles as the King of Pedophiles, er, Pop. Ok, so I made that last one up, but tell me you wouldn’t watch that clip on a loop for hours on end if it were available…..

- In this holiday season, I’d be remiss if I didn’t stop and wish all of you a very happy….Festivus. Yes, in a tribute to Frank Costanza of Seinfeld fame, I’m pulling the aluminum pole out of the crawl space. There’ll be no decorations, because I find tinsel distracting. We will, however, be performing the feats of strength, which means Festivus is not over until one of you pins me. Also, we’ll be starting the Airing of Grievances soon, where you gather your family members around the dinner table and tell them ALL THE WAYS THEY HAVE DISAPPOINTED YOU IN THE PAST YEAR! As you know if you’re a Seinfeld fan, Frank Costanza created Festivus when he was Christmas shopping years ago for his son George and came to blows with another man as they both reached for the last doll on the shelf at the same time. As Frank reigned blows down upon the man, he realized that there had to be a better way, and so Festivus was born as an alternative to all that is wrong with Christmas. It’s a Festivus….for the rest of us. So Happy Festivus to all of you, make sure you celebrate accordingly…..
- Sometimes I have the unpleasant duty of informing people of obvious truths that they are in denial of. This is one of those times, and the people I must inform about their state of denial are parents of extremely obese children around the United States. A new survey conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan asked parents of uber-fat kids their opinion of their child’s weight. A disturbing 43 percent of the respondents said their child was “about the right weight,” with an equally disturbing 37 percent saying their child was “slightly overweight.” Again, these kids are classified as obese and extremely overweight by established standards of the medical community, yet these parents don’t see that their kids are (in my best Mike Gundy voice) FAT! Memo to you, parents of fat kids: Your kids aren’t the right weight and they aren’t even close. You may love them more than you can explain, but condoning their obesity isn’t loving them and it isn’t good for them. Your flabby son or daughter is at an increased risk for diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and other heart problems down the road because you can’t show them the tough love to make them put down the Twinkies and start getting some exercise. Stop being part of the problem, parents of fat kids, and start doing things that will actually help your child live past 45, i.e. feeding them healthy foods and getting them some exercise.

Riots in America, year-end musical horr-a and a simple but productive art theft

- The spirit of rioting and protesting has really died off here in America in the past few decades. Ever since the ‘70s, we’ve become far too apathetic about taking it to the streets to riot and demonstrate against things we disagree with. Most of your upper echelon rioting is done overseas nowadays, so it gives me great pride to bring you news of a good ol’ fashioned riot right here in the U.S. of A. The New Orleans City Council voted Thursday on demolishing 4,500 public housing units and many activists and preservationists surprisingly weren’t down with the idea. The council met and voted unanimously to demolish the housing units even as protestors rioted and clashed with police in the streets outside. The vote clears the way for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to tear down four housing developments as part of the city’s rebuilding efforts following Hurricane Katrina. Dozens of protestors tried to force their way into the packed City Council chamber, with cops using chemical spray and stun guns to stop them. Right, because you always want to go to the stun gun blast as a first resort. Several mounted officers were also on hand to beat down protestors, but my hat is off to all those rioters who took things up a notch here. Their government was doing something they felt was wrong and they spoke out loudly against that action, with the predictable over-reactive response from the police. I would have liked to see some property destruction mixed in as well, but other than that, well done New Orleans rioters, well done.

 

- Mission Impossible-esque it was not, but a surprisingly simple art theft in Sao Paulo, Brazil still netted millions of dollars worth of paintings, including Pablo Picasso’s Portrait of Suzanne Bloch. The thieves needed only a crowbar, a car jack and three minutes to make off with several valuable works of art from the Sao Paulo Museum of Art just before dawn on Thursday. I might be a bit harsh on this, but if your museum has that many valuable works of art, including one of Picasso’s more famous works, shouldn’t your security system be a little better than it clearly is at the Sao Paulo Museum of Art? It’s like putting a “Do Not Steal” sticker on your Hummer H2 and leaving it unlocked in the middle of downtown Manhattan; you’re basically asking someone to steal it. If thieves need just one crowbar, one car jack and three minutes to clean you out of your most pricy pieces, your security sucks. Better luck next time, S.P.M.A., although that’s coming from a person who doesn’t believe in luck, so maybe better security next time is more apropos….

 

- Finally, Sacha Baron Cohen has made a positive contribution to the entertainment industry, and unfortunately that contribution is not giving me back the two hours of my life I wasted watching his crap-tacular Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan movie. However, Cohen has announced that he is retiring Borat, the clueless Kazakh journalist who was the central character in literally one of the 2-3 worst movies I’ve ever seen, along with Cohen’s other alter-ego, Ali G. “When I was Borat or Ali G, I was in character sometimes 14 hours a day and I came to love them, so admitting I am never going to play them again is quite a sad thing,” the actor said recently. Not as sad as I was after watching Borat and realizing how awful of an experience I’d just had, S. Nearly two hours full of bodily function/bathroom/crude sex humor and as lowbrow of comedy as you can get centered around an asinine plot a mentally handicapped park squirrel would be bored with made for a gawd-awful movie experience, so no one is more thrilled than I am that there will be no sequel. Seriously, your movie made me long for the acting talents of Pauly Shore, so you can see how low on the watchability scale we’re talking here. Adios Borat, the only better thing at this point would be if you’d never existed at all…..

 

- Well done, unidentified Jefferson County (Ky.) Circuit Court judge, well done. I too agree that any chance was as Americans can take to up each of our chances of contracting lung cancer on a daily basis, that’s a chance we need to take. Jefferson County is home to the fabled Churchill Downs, horse racing’s most famous venue, and the track’s exemption from a citywide smoking ban for Louisville has inspired one local judge to make a tremendously bad decision. The judge used the track’s exemption from the smoking ban as a reason to strike down the smoking ban for the whole city. His ruling declared the exemption for Churchill Downs as unconstitutional and therefore, the whole law was unconstitutional. Quite a leap in reasoning you took there, your honor, not to mention a terrible decision. I could be wrong, but I’m fairly sure no one in your city or any other is upset because they don’t get the chance to have secondhand smoke blown in their faces or to breathe in the toxic fumes puffed out by smokers choking down their death sticks. Personally, I’m staying as far away from you leather-faced, green-complexioned losers as I can, and I hope that voters in Louisville rally to overcome this judge’s stupidity by passing a new law banning smoking in their city.

 

- I have seen the Billboard end-of-the-year charts and I have to say, I’m worried for you, America. Scanning the charts and seeing the top-ranked songs and albums for 2007 does not inspire much confidence in your musical tastes or hope that those tastes will improve heading into 2008. Artists with the “top” songs for 2007, at least according to Billboard, include Beyonce, Rihanna, Gwen Stefani, Carrie Underwood and that fan-tossing, underage-sex-simulating freak Akon. Artists on the top album chart aren’t any better; Fergie, Justin “Weasel on Helium” Timberlake and that former American KaraokeJustin Timberlake at the top of your charts. They follow in the footsteps of previous success stories like Vanilla Ice, Milli Vanilli, Boys 2 Men and Britney Shears, er, Spears. Yes, it’s days like this when I’m thankful that the majority of Americans aren’t responsible for choosing the music I listen to, because if they were, I’d probably shove my head into a running blender.

W. rips Congress, I rip back.....a wedding in a truly disgusting place and gambling in tennis

- Make up a contest and you can get some people to do incredibly moronic things, things like getting married in one of the dirtiest, most disgusting environments in all the world – a public restroom. Jennifer Cannon and Doy Nichols of Louisville, Ky., were the “winners” of the 2007 Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest, sponsored by Cheap-Chic-Weddings.com. The duo were married in the Charmin Restrooms in Times Square, temporary, free public restrooms, with the bride in a gown made of two-ply, extra-soft toilet paper. Now there’s the kind of memory you want as the day your lives together began, getting married in the filthy, smelly, unsavory conditions of a public restroom. And no, I don’t care if you had it cleaned before the ceremony, it’s still a freaking public restroom and it’s still disgusting. I can barely bring myself to go to the bathroom in one of those hell holes, but you get married there? Why, because it’s free? Hey Jennifer and Doy, spring for the extra few bucks and go down to the courthouse to get hitched. A good rule is that if the place your wedding is held reeks of urine and feces on a regular basis, you should not be getting married there. Where was the reception, at a local trash dump? Let this be a lesson to the rest of you, that just because it’s free doesn’t mean it’s a good idea…..

- Gambling in professional tennis has become more and more of an issue the past few months, with the ATP, the governing body for tennis worldwide, instituting a strict ban on gambling and other associated practices of gambling for players. Suspensions can vary under the policy depending on the severity of the offense, as the two most recent suspensions handed down to players illustrate. Italians Potito Starace and Daniele Bracciali will be officially suspended tomorrow for making bets — some as little as $7 — on tennis matches involving other players. Yeah, it looks like the ATP is serious and strcit on this one, players, so you either want to stop betting on one another’s matches or find a way to be much more discreet about it. Not everyone is a fan of the new policy, including the Italian tennis federation, which denounced the penalties by the governing body as an “injustice,” and the players said they have been made scapegoats. Unfortunately, even if you’re right on this one, Starace and Bracciali, that’s kind of how things work when organizations institute new rules. The like to set an example early on so those governed by the rules know that they’re serious. Starace, ranked 31st in the world, was suspended for six weeks and fined $30,000, the Italian federation said. Bracciali, ranked 258th, was banned for three months and fined $20,000. Both suspensions take effect Jan. 1. The federation said Starace made five bets for a total of $130 two years ago, and Bracciali made about 50 bets of $7 each from 2004-05. That, by the way, is what I call an un-sound investment, betting $150-$350 and losing $20,000-$30,000. I may not be an accountant, but I’m fairly sure that’s a bad return on investment. Memo to ATP players: gambling is a shady, dangerous activity surrounded by a lot of unsavory characters, and your federation doesn’t want you involved with it in any way, shape or form. Find a new hobby, morons.

- Like having a root canal, suffering the excruciating pain and discomfort and being overjoyed once it’s done, such are my feelings about the ending of a serious contender for the worst reality show idea of 2007 and possibly ever – A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila. I’ve been over and over this, so I won't belabor this aspect of it, but starting any premise for a show with a bisexual skank whose primary claim to fame is being on of the most popular people on MySpace is akin to building a house and starting with a foundation of lemon Jell-O. Nonetheless, the good people at MTV plowed ahead with the concept, shoving 32 desperate, attention-starved, freak show idiots (16 men and 16 women) into a house under the premise of competing for the affections of Tequila, only the men and women didn’t know about the presence of the other sex in the house when they first arrived. From there, I don’t know what happened because I made a point of not watching a single minute of this show under any circumstances, but I do know that it’s over and from what I’m told, Tila Tequila picked a desperate, attention-starved male freak show loser over a desperate, attention-starved female freak show loser in the end. Loser A was the winner for the game, Loser B walked away, like every other contestant on this show, including the “winner” with exactly no personal dignity and was apparently quite upset. Not as upset as I’d be if I’d been dumb enough to watch this train wreck of a show, but even so…..let’s just hope that the relationship between Male Loser Contestant and Tila Tequila lasts the normal shelf life of “true love” found via reality TV – about two weeks. Let’s also hope that MTV doesn’t emulate VH1 and it’s loser-reality-love show habit of bringing these abominations of TV programming back for a second season, a la Rock of Love With Bret Michaels……

- Uptight and overbearing, party of one please. The Chinese government clearly has no sense of humor or patience when it comes to people, especially its own citizens, being so bold as so say a few critical words about next summer’s Olympic games in Beijing. One unidentified man had the audacity to post an online commentary stating that next summer’s Olympics would force ordinary Chinese to live “like pigs and dogs” has been detained for nearly a week on a charge of subversion. For a government that supposedly encourages Internet use by citizens for business and education, the Communists, er, Chinese sure do keep a tight rein on anyone who speaks out in opposition to the status quo. Don’t dare disagree with them, because if you do, you’re going to jail. Can anyone tell me why we’re rewarding these backwards, oppressive people with the economic boon that is the Olympics. When The Man comes down this hard on someone for a simple Internet posting, you have to wonder if their record of trampling on basic human rights and freedoms is ever going to change. Welcome to the 2008 Summer Olympics in China, enjoy your stay….just don’t dare have a single disagreeable thought or oppose anything our government says or does or you’ll be detained….indefinitely….
- Since our un-esteemed leader W. held a year-end news conference in which he specifically ripped congressional Democrats for wasting taxpayers’ time and money by delaying passage of a massive governmental spending bill and cramming more than 9,800 special interest projects into the bill, I thought it was only fair to shine a light on W.’s own wastefulness. Let’s see, wasting money on special interest projects versus wasting $500 billion and counting on an abomination of a war that never should have started to begin with….wasting thousands of lives of American military personnel fighting somewhere they never should have been sent versus wasting time passing a bill to finance governmental operations for the next year…maybe my math is fuzzy, W., but it sure looks to me like you’re the one who has been more wasteful here. Just because Congress isn’t rushing to hand you more money to further propagate this despicable war and cement its status as your own personal Vietnam doesn’t make them wasteful. Instead of ordering your budget director to explore ways to remove those special interest projects from this new spending bill, W., why don’t oyu direct someone to find out how to remove American troops from Iraq like, yesterday. So there you go folks, the other side of the story of governmental wastefulness.

Death rides at Disney, college football felons and dunces and a parenting book you'll wanna read even if you don't have kids

- It just seems that for the exorbitant $60 admission you pay to get into Disney World, they should be able to offer you some kind of guarantee that you won't have a fatal heart attack and die on one of the park’s rides. That’s what happened to Jeffery Reed, 44, when he rode the Animal Kingdom’s Expedition Everest ride, which simulates a high-speed train ride through the Himalayas. Reed was unresponsive when pulled from the ride and given CPR, then pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. He had no visible signs of injury from the ride, so maybe the heart attack was from a pre-existing condition he knew about and chose to ride the ride in spite of. Or maybe he didn’t know he had a heart problem and this was unexpected; either way, Disney World was definitely not a happy and magical place for he or his family. But back to Disney World and their murderous rides….I mean, for $60, with the millions that come to Disney World annually and the inflated food and souvenir prices, can’t Disney offer a free heart screening to all visitors? You all jack up the prices of everything associated with your freaking park, from parking to admission, souvenirs to refreshments, and you can’t mix in a complementary heart screening pre-ride? Just pull one of the Seven Dwarfs off of their normal duties and have them help out……

- What is the cost for a university trying to cover up the rape and killing of one of its students in her dorm room? For Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Mich., the answer could be as much as $357,000, which isn’t nearly enough. The school could be fined that amount by the U.S. Department of Education for its handling of the situation, mostly because it attempted to cover up what had happened, lest its sterling reputation as a bastion of educational respectability be tarnished. After all, we are talking about the Eastern Michigan University here, the Harvard of the eastern half of the state of Michigan. Let me give some advice to the EMU administration: Having a rape and murder take place in campus housing may look bad for your school. It does reflect poorly on campus safety and security and it might scare current and prospective students, thus hurting enrollment a bit and most importantly for you all, your bottom line. However, the correct response would be facing up to what happened, investigating how it happened and taking every possible step to improve campus security so that something like this doesn’t happen again. Covering it up makes you look even worse than you already did and now it’s going to cost you a blemish on your rep as well as $357,000. Hope that was worth it…..

- The best running subplot to the current college football bowl season has been watching to see which team would lose several of its players to academic, legal or team-rules issues next. This isn’t a new trend; every December, in the gap between the end of the regular season and the start of bowl season near the end of the month, players become ineligible because the semester ends for most colleges and universities in the first two weeks of December. Grades come in and invariably, some of the less scholarly athletes out there flunk classes, thus making them ineligible to play in their team’s bowl game. This year, the trend of players being ineligible or suspended by their team has apparently been following the Barry Bonds/Roger Clemens/BALCO workout regimen. School after school has seen a player or in most cases, players, taken out by bad grades, team rules violations or legal problems. Most visible has been the Florida State Crimi-noles, er, Seminoles, who are going to be without a whopping 36 players in the Music City Bowl, nearly all of them suspended for cheating in an online music history course. Next on the list is the University of Tennessee football team, with coach Phillip Fulmer announcing that six scholarship players would be academically ineligible for the Outback Bowl. The Vols’ leading receiver, Lucas Taylor, is ineligible to play against Wisconsin on Jan. 1 as well as reserve receiver Kenny O'Neal, reserve defensive back Ricardo Kemp and freshman linebacker Chris Donald. Additionally, defensive starters Demonte Bolden and Rico McCoy failed to meet the necessary academic requirements to play in the Outback Bow. "We have every resource available through our academic center for academic success by our athletes in all of our sports," Fulmer said in a statement. "In most of these cases, it was simply the student-athlete not being accountable and doing their work. In Lucas' case, however, he passed enough hours, but a new NCAA policy that went into effect this fall made him ineligible. One bright spot is the fact that all of these athletes will be in school spring semester." The new policy that Fulmer referenced in his statement requires all student-athletes to pass six hours within the specified grade requirements of each individual major. Gee coach, that seems awfully tough. Six whole credit hours? What do you think these guys are, Mensa members? What are oyu going to ask them to do next, tie their shoes and count to ten? Moving on, we have Ohio State, which has suspended two players for the national championship game, defensive backs Donald Washington and Eugene Clifford, for the mysterious “unspecified violation of team rules.” Washington has appealed, so he’s not technically suspended yet, but that doesn’t mean he’s not still a knucklehead. Other teams losing players to suspension/ineligibility are Clemson with two players lost and New Mexico, which lost star running back Rodney Ferguson for the New Mexico Bowl because he wasn’t smart enough to stay academically eligible. All in all, a banner month for college football dunces and felons, and there’s still time for more of this crap before the bowl games end in a couple weeks. I’m looking forward to the next suspension or ineligibility, because you know it’s coming…..

- When distributing illegal steroids to prominent athletes, how to keep track of who gets what and when? It’s the age old question, right up there with the chicken/egg debate and whether to wear white after Labor Day.
Thanks to records were made public as part of the government's case against former track superstar Marion Jones, we can now see how BALCO, the lab that supplied ‘roids to many elite athletes, did business. As if logging profits and losses on a ledger, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative kept a multipage document that listed the names of athletes, the doses of performance-enhancing drugs they were taking and the results of urine tests conducted to detect steroids and masking agents, according to court records released Friday. Jones has already pleaded guilty to two counts of making false statements to federal agents. She is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 11. She’s also had her records and results dating back to 2000 vacated and wiped from the books for track’s international governing bodies and also has had all of her Olympic medals won during the time ripped from here. But back to BALCO….this is our first chance to see how organized and structured the operations were at BALCO and perhaps to understand how they were able to outsmart various testing and governing bodies for as long as they did. After all, if their records and files are as thorough as they appear, you can be sure BALCO was just as cautious and well-organized in the rest of their operations. In Marion Jones’ case, the ledger, as well as accompanying calendars, document her use of the steroids norbolethone and tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), as well as the oxygen-boosting drug EPO, human growth hormone and insulin. The documents indicate her use of the substances in 2000 and 2001, and an accompanying sentencing memorandum says of Jones, “The defendant's use of performance-enhancing drugs encompassed numerous drugs (THG, EPO, Human Growth Hormone) and delivery systems (sublingual drops, subcutaneous injections) over a substantial course of time.”

- I gotta say, this is a bad decision. Thomas Nelson Inc., a Christian book publisher, has postponed the release of a parenting book by Lynne Spears, mother of train wreck Britney and knocked-up 16-year-old Jamie Lynn, after news of her youngest daughter’s underage pregnancy surfaced. The book, Pop Culture Mom: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World, was initially scheduled to drop on May 11, Mother’s Day. But for some reason, T. Nelson Inc. decided that wasn’t a good idea. Again, I have to disagree. I think we could all learn something about parenting from reading this book. Who among us doesn’t want to know how to have your oldest daughter marry a gravy-training trailer-park-trash dirtbag with whom she has two kids that she doesn’t know how to care for, makes fetch her cigarettes for her, doesn’t wear underwear in public, drinks, drugs up and fails to show up for custody hearing depositions and a younger daughter who gets knocked up before she even makes it to her junior year or high school? What parent or prospective parent out there couldn’t learn from Lynne Spears’ stellar example? This goes right up there with O.J. Simpson’s murder-by-the-numbers, “hypothetical” If I Did It, Here’s How It Happened book as the two most awesome book ideas of the past century. By awesome, of course, I mean the worst idea ever. You have to love the irony, though, of a woman who might be the worst parent in recent memory and who clearly passed no lessons of how to not f’up your life on to either of her kids writing a parenting book. Me thinks you should be reading those books and not writing them, Lynne.

Well wishes for Dickie V., New Orleans is adopted and riots in India.........good times

- Best wishes for a full and speedy recovery for my main man, ESPN college basketball announcer Dickie V, Dick Vitale. Dickie V has been one of, if not the, most recognizable voice in all of sports in the past few decades ever since he moved from the coaching ranks to the broadcast booth. Now, he’s recovering from surgery on Tuesday to treat ulcers on his left vocal cord and is expected to be off the airwaves until at least February. What’s amazing is that before now Vitale, 68, had never missed an assignment since joining ESPN in 1979. “The past six weeks have been very emotional [for] me and for my family as we've visited some of the most outstanding throat specialists,” Vitale said in a letter posted on ESPN.com. “Visiting college campuses and interacting with the fans has kept me so young and energized. I can't wait to get back out there, having a blast with all of you, who are so vital to our game.” Vitale’s coaching career included stops at the University of Detroit and for less than a season, the NBA's Detroit Pistons. He was a finalist for the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame in 2004, 2006 and 2007. Aside from coaching and broadcasting, Vitale has become an avid fundraiser and has raised millions of dollars for the V Foundation, a cancer research foundation named for his close friend, Jim Valvano, who passed away in 1985. I sincerely hope that you have a full and speedy recovery, Dick, because college basketball won't be the same without you this season. If you want to read Vitale’s letter to the fans, go here: http://espn.go.com/dickvitale/071218lettertofans.html.

- Good to see the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie duo adopt something that doesn’t come from a Third World country and wear a diaper. While the couple, especially Jolie, has become well-known for adopting kids from various foreign countries, Pitt has decided to adopt something a whole lot bigger – the city of New Orleans. While nearly all of America has all but forgotten about the Big Easy and assumed that things in the city are basically back to normal (that could not be farther from the truth), Pitt has thrown himself into helping the citizens of New Orleans rebuild their homes and lives. He’s put his acting career on hold, he and Jolie have bought a home in the city and he’s made a major financial commitment to helping rebuild storm-ravaged neighborhoods all around New Orleans. He’s kicked in more than $5 million already and spent many hours talking to resident about their needs and problems. I guess it’s just nice, one, to see a celebrity pick up a charitable cause that isn’t foreign and exotic while overlooking needs in their own country, and two, instead of asking average citizens to give to a cause when they themselves had millions of times more money and aren’t giving much of anything, to see a celebrity giving from their own pocket. Hopefully Pitt’s visible face in and around New Orleans will continue bringing attention to the ongoing rebuilding process there, because the W. administration has screwed things up and failed the people of the region continually and they still aren’t nearly back to where they were before the storm. Keep it up, Brad.

- For those of you who think I missed this one, here we go: I didn’t overlook the massive riot over the weekend in Srinagar, India, I was just working on channeling my rage properly so that when I did talk about it, I could properly rip the police in Srinagar for their total overreaction that resulted in the death of one protestor and the injuring of at least nine others. Things went horribly wrong after thousands of angry citizens did what all good, angry citizens do when they’re pissed off; they took to the streets to protest en masse. They were demonstrating to demand a college in their region (in the town of Magam, actually, which is in the Indian region of Kashmir), which is actually one of the better reasons to riot that I’ve heard. People demanding better access to higher education is great, and if they have to turn slightly violent and destructive to get their message across, so be it. As always, I love a good riot and this one is no exception. Policemen fired into the crowd, always a good option when you have thousands of people in a group, morons. In a nice turn of the tables for all us anti-establishment folks out there, four policemen were injured in the riot as well after protestors beat them with wooden sticks. Nice to see that somewhere in the world, the police aren’t the only ones delivering beatdowns with blunt objects. Kudos to the citizens in Srinagar for standing up and speaking out in spectacular fashion, and thumbs down to the police in the city for their poor handling of this whole mess.

- New York City, you have some competition when it comes to being the capital city of giant rats. We’ve long known that NYC is home to scores of ginormous, filthy rats and that Manhattan’s subway stations are chock full of the vermin, but in a remote Indonesian jungle near the city of Jakarta, scientists have discovered a new species being called a giant rat. The critters were found in the Foja mountains rain forest in eastern Paqua province, and if you’ve seen the pictures, you’re probably as grossed out as I am right now. These giant rats are about five times the size of a normal city rat, so do the mental imagery and you’ll get the picture, No word yet on whether George Mitchell has asked for permission to interview the giant rats about possible steroid or HGH use or if any of the rats were actually named in the recently released Mitchell Report, but one of them did have a suspiciously fast recovery from a shoulder injury last year, so you never know. Either way, if you’re doing any traveling in the Foja mountains rain forest any time soon, you’ll need to pack the biggest rat trap you can find and also avoid packing any cheese in your backpack…..
- Need yet another reason to side with striking writers in their battle against stingy, uncaring TV networks, studios and producers? If so, here’s one for you: the upcoming Golden Globes are in limbo after the Writers Guild of America refused a special request by the show to allow writers to stop striking temporarily just for the purpose of working on the show. The ceremony is set for Jan. 13, and without the writers there to script lame jokes for the host, you never know what might happen. Although it’s unrealistic, I’m holding out hope that a lack of writers might force the postponement or cancellation of at least one self-congratulatory, self-important awards show. Unlikely, I know, but a person can dream. If the strike is still going on when Feb. 24 rolls around, the Oscars will be impacted as well. The WGA won't allow any clips from movies or previous Academy Awards shows to be used during this year’s show if the strike is still going on. Bearing that in mind, I say we just pass out the trophies at a nice half-hour luncheon with no speeches or ship them out UPS. That way, actors can still congratulate themselves for their greatness and we don’t have to be subjected to an uber-long broadcast that will seem even longer because of the gaps left by the prohibition on using movie clips. Thanks for that, Writers Guild of America, for once something about this strike will be positive for me!