A "major" move by the Yankees, what Bob Wolfowitz has in common with a hot chick and the LAPD does what it does best

- All of the New York Yankees’ problems are solved! Seriously, the team’s 10-14 start, underachieving pitching staff and rash of injuries are no longer concerns, because the Yanks have cut to the core of the trouble and fixed everything - by firing their strength coach, Marty Miller. Yes, it’s a bit unorthodox and doesn’t seem to do much to cure what ails the team - terrible pitching and porous defense - but don’t let the unconventional nature of the move deter you from recognizing its brilliance. Just look at all the teams who have turned their failing seasons around by firing their strength coach. There’s……well….uh….ok, so technically no team has used this tactic to save a disappointing season, but let’s not get hung up on the small stuff. Forget trading for players who can actually catch and throw the ball at a competent level and pitchers whose earned-run averages are below 6.50, replacing your strength coach is where it’s at. Either that or the team is miserably below where Big Stein expected them to be and he was looking to whack someone just to make a point. After all, Miller was just hired by the Yankees in the offseason as director of performance enhancement, so he wore out his welcome quickly. Maybe if the team had hired a director of performance enhancers instead, they would have done much better in April. Then again, I don’t think Jason Giambi needs anyone’s advice on performance enhancers……….

- When you become a parent for the first time, you’ve got a lot to learn and it has to be extremely intimidating. However, even if you’ve lived in a cave all your life and have just had your first child born, there are a few things you should still know even without any parenting experience. The father of an unidentified 1-year-old boy in Chattanooga, Tenn. who left his infant son in the car with temperatures in the 80s clearly didn’t get those parenting skills encoded in his DNA. This tool left the 1-year-old in the car unattended for hours in the stifling heat, and now that the infant has died from heat-related illness, the father has been charged with negligent homicide. On one hand, you feel a tin shred of empathy for the guy because regardless of the circumstances, he did lose his son and he has to carry that burden around for the rest of his life. But mostly you want to smack him over the head repeatedly with a rusty cheese grater, because how do you even begin to think it’s ok to leave a 1-year-old alone anywhere for hours on end, let alone inside of a giant metal box on wheels on a scorching hot day? That baby wasn’t the one who needed to be removed from the gene pool, it was the ignoramus father who needs to be weeded out so he can’t further infect future generations. This goes on the list of parenting techniques to avoid, right behind the woman who put her infant grandson through an X-ray machine at LAX and the woman who took a nap and left her unattended 3-year-old to wander onto the nearby freeway and play in rush-hour traffic.

- Brace yourselves, because you’re about to hear something utterly shocking. Police in Los Angeles are guilty of using abusive tactics and excessive force on civilians. I know, I’ll give you a moment to recover from that, because I’m sure you’re as floored as I am by that. Police Chief William Bratton admitted Wednesday that his officers did indeed err in clubbing people with their batons and firing rubber bullets into the crowd as they tried to clear immigration protestors from a park. The crowds in question contained children, yet the police fired away with their rubber bullets and went about beating people down, as is their custom (cough, cough, Rodney King, cough). Maybe we can take solace in the fact that this time, there was no racial profiling or discrimination and beatings/shooting were administered without bias. At least the LAPD has learned some lessons and they are now equal-opportunity abusers, good job fellas.

- ESPN can just give it up with its campaign to push soccer on us, because we’re not fans and we do know it. The recent collection of ads identify good aspects of other sports, like basketball or football, then try to show those same qualities exist in pro soccer. Thus, if you are a fan of those other sports and those particular traits, then you’ll love pro soccer too, you just haven't given it a chance yet. Well, ESPN, allow me to point out some other characteristics of the real major sports in this country and ask where they are in pro soccer. First, sports like the NBA, NFL and MLB have regular scoring, whereas your sport regularly boasts thrilling tallies of 1-0. If I’m going to spend a couple hours watching a game, I need to see more than one goal scored. Two, those other sports have athletes who don’t fall to the ground and writhe around like they’ve been shot the second someone so much as taps them gently on the arm, whereas soccer players appear to be on the verge of death each time they are touched. Then, once they are carried to the sideline on a stretcher, those same players leap up and wave to the crowd, totally recovered from their (fake) injury. Oh, and I don’t remember seeing any greasy haired, mullet-sporting, one-name Euros in the NFL or MLB, looking like they’ve yet to discover soap or shampoo and whining about people not understanding the beauty, creativity and passion of their game. The assertion that Americans are fans of pro soccer and we just don’t know it yet could not be more wrong. We know who you are, soccer, we know what you’re selling and we’re not buying it. Now go eat your orange wedges, drink your Capri Sun and stop bothering us.

- Nothing like creating a giant crap storm by your own inappropriate actions, then chastising everyone for paying attention that that mess instead of what you want them to focus on. World Bank President Bob Wolfowitz is upset that no one wants to talk about the work World Bank as it seeks to provide loans and financial assistance to needy third-world governments and instead the main topic of discussion is the scandal he created by giving his girlfriend an undeserved promotion to a cushy government job accompanied by a huge raise. Wolfowitz’s lady friend, Shaha Riza, was an employee at World Bank when B. Wolfowitz took over, but to sidestep a rule that said an employee could not work for someone they are dating, Bob-O transferred her to the State Department, along with giving her the aforementioned raise and guaranteed positive performance reviews. Now, he’s angry because all anyone talks about in relation to World Bank is the huge mistake he committed and the controversy it has brought upon the entire organization. He maintains that attention needs to be “focused on the very, very important work of the bank” and not on the current investigation into his actions. “The bank’s work goes on,” B. Wolfowitz said. “It is critical.” In some sense, he’s like an über-hot girl who wears a super-short leather mini-skirt and a tight, low cut shirt and then b*tches about guys staring at her and checking her out. You made the mess, you screwed up, Wolfowitz, and now you’re reaping the whirlwind. If you don’t want to deal with the ramiprecussions (a new word I’ve crafted, ramifications + repercussions), don’t exhibit blatant nepotism and break rules by giving your girlfriend a new job and a big raise she doesn’t deserve. And hey, at least now people know a little about the World Bank and what it does, whereas before you’re faux pas, 80 to 90 percent of Americans had no idea that your organization even existed.

- Because many Americans are mindless sheep, they blindly follow whatever trends celebrities say are popular, be it in terms of clothing, language, diet or music. These followers never quite realize that celebrities aren't smarter than us, and that in many cases they’re dumber by a wide margin. Just because Johnny Knoxville or Brad Pitt wears something, drives a certain car or eats a certain diet, that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea for you. For a recent example, consider the following: Why imitate celebrities when there’s ample evidence that they’re stupid and will try things like a diet consisting totally of a lemon juice/syrup/cayenne pepper concoction, saltwater and laxative tea? Yes, that’s the diet of choice that’s the newest weight-loss scheme, thanks to famous people like Beyonce who swear they’ve lost copious amounts of weight on the diet. Yes, I know man Americans are orca fat, as evidenced by the fact that every commercial break on every network features one or more commercials from Jenny Craig, Nurti-System or Weight Watchers. But reducing yourself to some crappy lemon juice concoction, saltwater and laxative tea is not evidence that you’re serious about losing weight, it’s evidence that you’re a moron. Last time I checked, if you stop eating potato chips, Doritos, French fries, greasy hamburgers, fast food and desserts and work out on a regular basis, you’re going to shed some lbs. Pouring disgusting, bastardized mixtures of various liquids down your gullet because you want to be like Beyonce shows two things, neither of them good: 1) you’re a spineless follower who can't think for yourself, 2) you’re a lazy piece of crap who hasn’t yet realized what a treadmill, elliptical machine at exercise bike are for.

- I know sometimes pro athletes miss out on certain parts of growing up and rites of passage because they’re so devoted to succeeding in their sport and have little time for anything else, but you’d think that some time in between the end of a guy’s playing career and the time he becomes a senior citizen that he’d get that stuff out of the way. Not Orlando Cepeda, apparently, because this 69-year-old Hall of Famer is still into drugs hardcore, enough to put most meth heads on your average college campus to shame. Cepeda was pulled over in Cordelia by a California Highway Patrol officer for doing 83 mph in a 65-mph zone on Interstate 80. As the officer approached the car, the pungent odor of drugs alerted him that something might be amiss. Upon searching the car, the officer found weed, cocaine and meth in “usable quantities.” To quote Ron Burgundy, I’m not even angry, I’m impressed. That’s amazing, O., because most seniors fill their cars with those massaging back pillows, ugly quilt covers on the seats, Metamucil and several pairs of those hideous wraparound sunglasses they buy in bulk at the flea market. Yet here Cepeda is, still drugging it up big time, in possession of three different drugs at one time. In his defense, Cepeda’s attorney claims the marijuana was intended for medicinal use by a relative with diabetes, but that doesn’t explain the coke or the meth. On a side note, if I’m rolling with those three drugs in my car at the same time, I’m going to be extra sure that I’m not breaking any traffic laws. All Cepeda needed was an open bottle of vodka in the car and he truly would have hit for the cycle.