Putin is a putz, criminals are still stupid and a vote on behalf of Veronica Mars

- Why is it that the dumbest among us are always the ones who end up as career criminals? Take for example an unnamed man in Kansas City who tried to flee from security personnel at a casino when it became known that there was a warrant out for his arrest. This genius decided his best escape route was to leap over some railing outside of the casino….and right into a moat where he drowned. Good job, Mensa, you showed those security personnel, they weren't going to take you alive. Police didn’t say what crime the man was wanted for, but unless it was murder or manslaughter, I’ve got to figure that whatever penalty he may have incurred would have been significantly worse than death by drowning in a casino moat. This man is undoubtedly the early leader for the 2007 Darwin Awards, which are presented to individuals who do the rest of humanity a service by removing themselves from the gene pool.

- Memo to David Letterman, Jay Leno and any other late night, daytime or morning show hosts out there: some of us were able to avoid this Sanjaya freak because we’re smart enough to avoid the intellectual and musical wasteland that is American Karaoke. Stop booking this talentless freak job to appear on your show, you’re only prolonging what should have been his negative fifteen minutes of fame. It’s said that everyone gets their fifteen minutes of fame, but in the case of this ass clown, he should not only not get that time, he should owe the rest of us fifteen minutes. I don’t need him invading every other network and popping up on shows I might actually be watching. In fact, I’m considering dropping an automatic six-month viewing ban on any program that allows San-joke-a to appear, a full one-year ban if they allow him to attempt any comedic or musical activity. However, if he is going to appear on Letterman’s show, that means he’ll be in New York and there are at least two dozen ways to knock him off and get rid of him. Push him in front of a subway train, knock him off the ferry out to Ellis Island, shove him down an open manhole, send him through the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Harlem dressed in a KKK robe………….the possibilities are endless.

- Having a waiter spit in your food is going to seem a lot more appealing after this next story. Waiters in about 40 New York area restaurants took part in a credit card scam that relied on the waiters recording customers’ credit card information and passed it on to co-conspirators who made more than $3 million of illegal purchases using the stolen information. Thirteen people have been indicted in the scam so far, but there is no word yet on what charges will be brought against the waiters themselves. As someone who uses cards to pay for many things, including meals, this definitely makes you think twice about the practice. When you consider the millions of people who hand their credit cards over to waiters at breakfast, lunch and dinner every day all over America, it’s amazing there aren’t more stories like this. Of course, walking around NYC with a wad of cash on you to pay for your meals may not be any safer, so the best recommendation if you are in New York and absolutely need to eat is brown bagging it. Sure you may look funny carrying around your lunch bag, but no one is going to steal a brown paper bag with a turkey sando and some Doritos in it, nor can they use said items to make illegal online purchases and ruin your credit. Think it over…….

- As a loyal fan of Veronica Mars, I’m waiting anxiously just like everyone else as the series’ fate is decided by the CW network, which has already proven it has zero competence and intelligence when deciding which of its shows to bring back and which ones to cut (see the example of bringing back the already dead 7th Heaven and canceling the amazing Everwood last year). If you haven't been following the Mars saga, the basic decision is for the network to pick one of three options: 1) return the show next season and continue right along the same path the show has been going, with Veronica in college and no leap ahead in time, 2) leap ahead to a time when Veronica is out of college and working for the FBI, 3) cancel the show. Clearly, option #1 is the best, because the leap ahead in time will just seem forced and would throw Mars in along with all of the other FBI, CIA, Secret Service dramas out there, of which there are many. Still, either one is better than option #3, and that of course means the third option is exactly the one the CW is going to take. Gawd, I hate the CW.

- I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry on this one, so maybe I can do both. A few years ago, New York Jets running back Curtis Martin refused to do a major national radio show because he only does “positive” interviews and the show was seen as too negative. It turns out the entire Jets franchise had that policy, to keep things “positive” at all times. Vladimir Putin, it seems, embraces the same philosophy. The Russian dictator (sorry bro, but you’re no longer a president, not with the gulag you’re running) has declared that the Russian News Service radio network must make at least 50 percent of its stories about Russia positive. Additionally, leaders of opposition groups within the country cannot be mentioned by name and the United States must be portrayed as an enemy. In other words, the formerly independent RNS must now become a propaganda-spouting, sellout mouthpiece for the government if it wishes to continue operations. Some of the negative stories that the network will now have to shy away from include death, violence and poverty. Thus, if you’re teetering on the edge of the 50 percent balance and there’s a story of a major catastrophe where hundreds of people are killed, you must ignore that story and report that a kitten was saved from a tree, or that meteorologists are predicting sunny with a high of 75 for Moscow tomorrow. Either that, or find two or three positive stories to balance out the negative so you can still strike the happy 50/50 balance. What this looks like to me is that Vlad Putin is serious about making a run at W. for being the most inept, ineffective and idiotic leader of a major world power and that finishing second is not an option. Two months ago I would have said Putin had no chance in that race, but with his rash of recent imbecilic decisions, he’s closing the gap fast.

- Hey, did you notice that the NHL playoffs are going on? Me neither. But apparently they are, because ESPN keeps bringing on some mulleted fellow named Melrose and talking about the NHL playoffs like anyone south of the Canadian border gives a crap. Sorry, mullet-heads, but if your sport broadcasts nearly all of its playoff games on the Versus network, which 99 percent of Americans don’t get, then you are irrelevant. Soccer on ice is running in ninth place with American sports fans, right behind the real majors (MLB, NFL, NBA), college basketball, baseball and football, golf and tennis. Actually, soccer on grass may have just edged you out too, so hockey is probably tenth at this point. After all, at least soccer on grass can regularly get games on ESPN, which is more than hockey can say.