A house with stripper poles, a misguided TVstar and the NRA is a bunch of morons

- Ever wanted to own a house that once belonged to a psychopathic, misogynistic, clinically insane rapist/heavyweight boxing champion and a thug gangsta rapper who was once shot nine times and considers Eminem one of his boys? If so, the house for you is the 52-room mansion in Connecticut that rapper 50 Cent is selling after buying it a few years ago from everyone’s favorite ear-biting boxer Mike Tyson. Before I go on, can someone please explain to me what a hardcore hip hopper like 50 is doing living in a state occupied largely by old, rich, white liberal blue-bloods? I can't really picture 50 (or Tyson for hat matter) drinking coffee in some small-town café, going to the county fair or playing tennis with Milt and Buffy Haddleston. Insane heavyweight boxers and bullet-riddled rappers aren't supposed to live in quiet, picturesque communities in the Northeast, they’re supposed to want to live in places that don’t get a couple dozen feet or snow each winter, places that sport miles and miles of beaches and places where the median age is 25, not 50. But back to the house……be assured, it’s not gaudy or distasteful - except for the stripper poles, which actually make for great conversation pieces, assuming your guests are loose-moraled women between the ages of 18 and 29 who don’t mind skanking it up a bit.

- Another sign you’ve really f’d up as a police force……your city’s mayor cuts short a trade mission to Mexico to come home and deal with the fallout from your egregious abuse of civilians at a protest rally. After officers beat down citizens with batons and pelted them with rubber bullets at an immigration rights march, for some reason people weren't happy. Now, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is coming home from Mexico to clean up the mess. For the sake of the policemen in question, I hope that this stops at the local level, because if the Governator gets involved, things could turn even uglier for the LAPD. Good to see that no one learned a lesson from the Rodney King fiasco and that the police in L.A. still view the use of excessive force as an acceptable practice.

- The National Rifle Association sucks. Now it is risky to say that a group of gun toting marksmen sucks, but I’ll go ahead and run the risk. The NRA is urging W. to withdraw his support of a bill that would prohibit suspected terrorists from purchasing firearms, with the justification being that it’s an arbitrary denial of Second Amendment rights based solely on suspicion. Umm…..so what? Normally I’m all for giving the government a collective middle finger, but keeping guns out of people’s hands doesn’t seem too problematic. None of the arguments about why you need a gun sway me even if you’re a responsible, law abiding citizen, so if you’re a suspected terrorist, let’s go ahead and make sure you’re not one before you are able to purchase guns. Besides, how much good is this bill going to do in stopping terrorists anyhow? You think your average terrorist group goes through legal means and buys their weapons at the local gun or sporting goods store? I’m inclined to say that black market arms dealers is more the method of choice for terrorists, but that’s just me.

- A quick word on the news that Lauren Graham, appearing on the Ellen Degenerate Show, said that the end of Gilmore Girls is a good thing. Hey Lauren, thanks for the input, I know you’re on the show and all, but you’re wrong anyhow. Maybe you think it’s a good thing because you didn’t get enough money offered to you, maybe you worrying staying on the show one more year would result in you being typecast in your role from the show and prevent you from getting offers to do other types of roles elsewhere, but either way, you’re in the wrong. It’s a great show and even if people are critical of it, that doesn’t mean we don’t still love it. This is a rare case where you owed it to the fans to give them another year, even if it was a shortened one, so we could so goodbye to a show we love.

- Raise your hand if you think Adam “Pacman” Jones is going to win his appeal of his yearlong suspension from the NFL……….no hands? You’re correct if you kept your hand down, because Commissioner Roger Goodell is not going to reduce his suspension by even one game, because clearly the commish is making a statement about what players can expect if they repeatedly run afoul of the law and bring reproach to the league. Jones is gone for the year, and if he thinks the very guy who determined his suspension in the first place is suddenly going to change his mind, he’s even dumber and crazier than I thought. Shut your mouth, sit out the year and stop getting arrested, P., and we’ll see if you can be reinstated for the 2008 season.