I love me a riot, I wonder how low Michelle Wie will sink and a group that needs a stick removed from up a certain part of their bodies

- Making friends and influencing people wherever she goes. That’s exactly what LPGA golfer Michelle Wie is doing, except for the whole making friends part and as long as you consider pissing people off and disappointing them as “influencing people.” For the second event in a row, this one the LPGA’s U.S. Women’s Open, Wie has withdrawn because of what she claims is a sore wrist. Also for the second event in a row, Wie was soaring more than a dozen shots over par when the withdrew, this time +17 at the time she pulled out of the tournament 10 holes into the second round. If you remember, Wie drew the ire of many a few weeks ago when she pulled out of a tournament just two holes and a stray shot or two from shooting an 88 for her round and incurring the one-year LPGA ban than comes for any non-member who shoots an 88 or worse in a round. Now, Wie was clearly not going to make the cut and she may have been on her way to another run at 88 before she just couldn’t bear the pain anymore and quit. If she truly is injured, she needs to stop playing, rest her wrist and wait til she’s healthy to resume playing, because she’s not doing any good by going out at less than full strength, hacking around and quitting tournaments when her score gets too high. If she’s not hurt and is withdrawing from tournaments mid-round to avoid shooting 88, then she’s a coward and has no integrity. Either way, it would be best for everyone if M. Wie doesn’t play any events for a while……..

- This week’s award for People Who Need to Remove the Stick from Up Their Ass goes to…..the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. The Boston-based collection of tools is vociferously criticizing the ads and marketing of toys for the new Transformers movie, claiming that the toys are being marketed to children as you as two even though the movie is rated PG-13. Oh no, little Joey might get a Transformers toy and…..and…..play with it and have fun! Hey idiots, I and a lot of other kids who grew up in the 1980s played with Transformers toys and watched the show on TV and guess what, it didn’t turn us into a bunch of violent, psycho killer zombies! The CCFC based their moronic complaints on viewing selected Nickelodeon programs and recording how many times ads for Transformers toys were shown. Again, I’m wondering exactly what these dolts think a two or three-year-old is going to do that’s so bad simply because someone gave him or her a Transformers toy. And guess what, ass clowns, if a kid finds out about this movie and it’s too violent or mature for them, the great thing is that no kid can drive himself to the theater and see the movie of his or her own accord. Their parent or guardian can still say no when the child asks to see the movie, that’s the great thing about all of this. Kids don’t need uptight, uber-conservative groups of losers like the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood to run their lives for them. Go away, losers, you all suck.

- There are just some people who shouldn’t write books about certain subjects. Michael Jackson should not be writing books about how to care for young boys, the makers of American Karaoke should not be writing books about how to produce a quality television show and Detroit Lions GM Matt Millen should not be writing books about how to build a successful NFL franchise (no Matt, no one has forgotten the team’s 24-72 record in your tenure) and Donald Rumsfeld should not be writing a book about being a secretary of defense. Sadly, that last one is going to happen, because Rummy will be writing a book on his experiences as a sycophant, er, minion, er, official in W.’s administration. The only hope for all of us is that the book will be a how-not-to manual for being a secretary of defense, because that’s all Rummy is qualified to write at this point. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. He could also write a comedic best seller based on all the screw-ups, mishaps, mistakes and awful decisions he made in office. But shouldn’t there be some sort of law on the books preventing someone who has f’ed up our country so terribly in such a large scope from writing a book and profiting off of his years of incompetent service? Shouldn’t Rummy be required to donate all proceeds from this book to charity, maybe to benefit the families of military personnel who have lost their lives in this debacle of a war? I would say that Rummy should be ashamed of himself for so blatantly capitalizing on a reign of incompetence in office that caused so many casualties, but I don’t think he’s capable of actually feeling shame.

- Attention, everyone, I have an urgent message of utmost legal import: Lisa Marie Nowak’s lawyer denies claim the astro-nut wore diapers as she drove halfway across the United States to kill or kidnap a romantic rival in a bizarre astronaut love triangle. Yeah, because that’s what’s really important, establishing whether or not your client wore diapers as she drove cross-country with a cache of weapons to kidnap or kill a fellow astronaut. That’s akin to O.J.’s lawyers making sure they clarified that the Juice and Al Cowlings weren't speeding and didn’t break any traffic laws as O.J. tried to flee from the police after (allegedly) double-murdering his wife and Ron Goldman or Jeffrey Dahmer wanting to clarify that he used a napkin when consuming the flesh of the people he so brutally murdered. How this helps Nowak, I’m not sure. Unless not wearing diapers, if that’s true, helps Nowak unless it also means she didn’t concoct the plot against Colleen Shipman, didn’t drive from Houston to Florida with a car filled with weapons, didn’t confront Shipman at Orlando International Airport and isn't totally insane. Otherwise, let’s go ahead and assume that the diaper part is true anyhow, because 1) It’s still freaking hilarious, and 2) it has no actual bearing on the case against Nowak. Thanks Mr. Lawyer for Lisa Marie Nowak, now don’t bother me with any more irrelevant details from here on out……..

- There haven't been a lot of great albums released this spring and summer, or this year in general if you’re being honest. While fans of good music, especially fans of rock, bide our time and look for something, anything decent (well, the new White Stripes album helps), a short word of encouragement: a new album is on the way from The Elms, a great rock group from Indiana that has jettisoned the restricting label of being a Christian music artist and has become just a flat-out great rock band, no tags attached. Their last album, The Chess Hotel, was a bluesy, raw, balls-to-the-wall rock-fest that showcased great guitar play and honest, bold vocals by lead singer Owen Thomas (check it out if you haven't listened to it already). Now, the group is coming back to the studio to record a new album that will come from a repertoire of 30 new songs The Elms have conjured up and promises to be more of the same great, straightforward rock that makes The Elms one of the absolute best things in music right now. Keep an eye out for the new album later this year, follow its progress at The Elms' myspace page, and I’ll keep you posted on anything I hear……..

- It has been too long since I came across a good riot story, so if I have to travel halfway across the globe to find it, so be it. Of all the reasons to riot, a group of flood victims in Pakistan have found one of the best ones: lack of food and aid to their region following the natural disaster in question. Slow and miniscule aid are all that have reached the marooned villages in the central region of the country after Cyclone Yemyin dumped torrential rains on the area Tuesday. Great reaction time on the riots, I have to say. The disaster struck Tuesday and by Friday, the villagers were in full-scale riot mode because they aren't receiving the aid they need from the government. Of course, I do always say to riot first, ask questions later, especially when there’s any chance that your own government may be wronging you. There’s always a reason to riot against any government, so even if you are a bit off base in your stated cause for a particular riot, you can just shift blame onto something else and be totally justified in your rioting nuttiness. But hey Pakistani government, since these villagers are busy digging out from the effects of a flood, effects which may include finding many bodies of people who died in the storm, why not make a concerted effort to get the survivors the food and supplies they need? Let’s get someone on that, if you don’t mind.

To be a football powerhouse, to help Europe and to ridicule W., these are my aims

- What does every successful college football powerhouse need? If you answered talented recruits, you’re wrong. Ditto with recruits who score high on their SAT’s, recruits with high character, loyal fans, good coaches and powerful boosters. All of those things are peripheral, because if you’re going to truly be one of this country’s powerhouse programs, what you’re going to need is a stable of assaulting, thieving, lying, woman-beating, drug dealing criminals on your team. Clearly, the University of Tennessee is one of those programs, while the football team at Samford University is trying to get there. Leading the way for Samford right now is Michael Sherrod Hall, who has been indicted by a federal grand jury with one count of federal bank robbery for the June 22nd holdup of an Amsouth Bank in Shelby County, Alabama. The best part of the whole story is that Hall allegedly used a toy gun in the heist and got away with more than $18,000 in cash. The money was recovered, but sadly after using a toy gun to rob a bank, Hall’s dignity never will be. Of course, when compared with Tennessee walk-on Justin Jackson, Hall is a bit of a criminal lightweight. Jackson was arrested by Knoxville police Wednesday night on felony charges of possessing and selling crack cocaine. A police department spokesman saw Jackson’s car stopped around 8:30 p.m. and was about to hit him for a seat belt violation when he saw what appeared to be cocaine in the vehicle. A search of Jackson and the vehicle also turned up a bag of marijuana and $632 in cash. Jackson was charged with two counts of felony sale or possession of a controlled substance, and also arrested was Guy Jenkins, 25, who was standing next to the car and was charged after police found 37 bags believed to contain crack cocaine. Folks, I feel confident in saying that if you look up the phrase “student athlete” in the dictionary, you’ll find the pictures of Michael Sherrod Hall and Justin Jackson. What fine, shining examples of what all athletes in colleges and universities around America should aspire to. Seriously, well done, guys, well done. You’re an example to us all……..of how to be incredibly stupid and throw away your life with the most moronic schemes known to man.

- Great, now Europe is going to hate us all over again. We already pissed them off, especially Germany, when we foisted the travesty that is David Hasselhoff’s music career on them, now America is going to be vilified for pulling the plug on NFL Europa. NFL Europa is basically a developmental league for the NFL, where players who can't make the cut for an NFL roster try to improve their game so they can make it in the big time. With teams in places like Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Rhein, the league has been a hugely popular draw in Europe for all of its 16 years. Well, either that or it’s been a marginally followed, mostly unpopular waste of time that no one cared about when it existed and that no one will miss now that it’s gone. The league lost its value as a developmental league for the NFL a decade ago due to expansion in the NFL, which lessened the number of quality players available for the Euro game. Also, with NFL Europa losing about $32 million a year, it’s kinda hard to justify keeping it going. The truly, truly sad part of all of this is that having NFL Europa was the only teaching tool we really had to show Euros that this is what football is, not the game of mulleted, greasy Euros faking injuries, eating orange slices and kicking around a round black and white ball that they try to call football. Fear not, Euros, I’ll think of some other means to communicate this vital message, America will not abandon you!

- Another day, another colossal failure for W. Well, I suppose the war in Iraq is a failure every day, so that should be the primary reason for scorning and deriding the ginormous tool currently residing in the Oval Office. However, today there is yet another reason to mock and ridicule him. What’s that? There are multiple reasons to do that every day? All right, the point is that in a big-time blow to the president’s agenda, the immigration bill he’s been pushing so vigorously and made his top domestic policy point has failed in the Senate. On Thursday, senators defeated the immigration bill that would have legalized millions of undocumented immigrants. Passionate, vocal and prolonged debate marked every moment of the bill’s presence before the Senate, with senators ultimately voting to block final action on the bill and basically kill it where it stood. Mexican Presidente Daniel Ortega labeled the decision “a grave mistake,” which makes sense. Of course he disagrees with the move, who wouldn’t like the chance to get rid of millions of people from your economically struggling country, have them become citizens of our wealthier neighbor to the north and let them be someone else’s problem? The reality is that something still needs to be done about the immigration issue and the issue will have to be revisited in the months ahead, because it’s an issue that greatly affects America. However, this solution that W. hung his hat on won't be the one to make things right, so let’s get moving on the next idea…………but give W. one, two or ten more months, because let’s face it, coming up with ideas is a hard, hard process for him, takes lots of crayons, lots of Juicy Juice and plenty of “thinkeration.”

- So it’s official: to the delight of exactly no one, the Spice Girls have made their reunion official. The quintet of pop tarts have finally realized that as much of a joke as they were together, they were even more irrelevant and ignored individually. Thus, they will attempt to reunite and squeeze the last few dollars out of their novelty act that they try to pass off as a musical group. Their comeback will include a world tour (may I suggest Siberia, Antarctica and northern Greenland as the best and only destinations?), a documentary (titled Watch as Five Brainless Bimbos Try to Write a Single Song Using One-Syllable Words) and a greatest hits album (How you make one of those without any actual hits, I still don’t know). The first show will be in December, meaning there’s still time to erect barricades around your city’s musical venues, buy the best ear plugs on the market and start stockpiling rotten fish and fruit to hurl at the Spice Skanks when they try to enter your town. This comeback is even sadder than the aging, damaged and battered Evander Holyfield attempting comeback after comeback in the boxing ring despite the fact that his brain has been beaten to mush by all the abuse he’s taken over the years. His speech may be slurred, his motor skills compromised, but he just won't do the right thing and stay away. Neither will the Spice Skanks, but at least Holyfield was one of the greatest boxers of his era, whereas these five dancing dipwads were never any good to begin with.

- Remember that whole scare with toxic Chinese-made toothpaste being shipped to the United States a few weeks ago? Initially it appeared that issuing a massive recall of the tainted toothpaste would solve the problem, but the recall wasn’t enough and now that toxic ‘paste may help us solve another problem. Shipments of the product went to some state prisons and mental hospitals in Georgia, showing that distribution was wider than initially thought. Call me overly optimistic, but I think this may be a positive. While I regret the toothpaste going to mental hospitals and realize that’s a bad thing, is it so terrible that some of it also went to prisons? Maybe you have a prisoner who didn’t really receive a severe enough punishment, perhaps an overly sympathetic jury gave him too light of a sentence or an overburdened prosecutor didn’t have enough resources to adequately prosecute a criminal and the guy got off with too light of a sentence………..well, just give him some of the toxic toothpaste and………..do I have to spell it out for you? So there are some chemicals typically used in industrial cleaners in there, so what? Whoops, how did that tube of toothpaste get into the cell of that guy who got off with a generous plea deal after that brutal assault? What do you mean he’s extremely ill now and might not live? Darn. See, sometimes it’s good to look for the positive in a potentially disastrous situation.

Traveler rocks again, the NBA draft is um, not so super and ABC hits a new low with its programming

- I smell chicken, and the odor is wafting directly from the scared, shaking corner where hot dog-eating legend Takeru Kobayashi is quivering in fear, terrified of America’s new gargantuan of gluttony, Joey Chesnut. After Chesnut crushed a new world record 59 1/2 dogs in a recent competition in Arizona, everyone began looking forward to the showdown with the immortal Kobayashi (extra points for being named after the mysterious lawyer in The Usual Suspects) at Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island on the Fourth of July. Nathan’s is the premier hot dog-eating event in the world, assuming that a hideously sickening event like gluttons jamming the most disgusting meat product in the world down their pie holes in excessive fashion can be considered “premier” and what not. However, Kobayashi is already floating rumors that he may not be able to compete on the big day due to a jaw injury that reportedly won't allow him to open his mouth wide enough to cram to hot dogs in. I see right through your excuse, K., and I don’t buy it for a second. You’re scared because for once you know you can't win and you’re too timid and don’t have enough testicular fortitude to face down a superior adversary like Chesnut. Whether Kobayashi shows up or not, my American pride tells me that Joey Chesnut is going to crush so many hot dogs that there will be no doubt left in anyone’s mind that he, and he alone, is the true champion of chowing down.

- Is there some sort of contest among the major networks to see who can create the absolute worst summer programming and no one told me about it? There really isn't any other plausible explanation for ABC’s new show, which I caught a short promo for, titled Just for Laughs. This moronic new show features “candid” and “funny” moments where the show stages what are supposed to be comedic incidents that have people popping up out of toilet seats as unsuspecting people try to use the restroom, others making out with wax figurines as “amused” onlookers whisper and state, actors stabbing fake limbs that bystanders supposedly don’t know are fake - basically the most base, stupid and lame attempt at comedy I can remember seeing in a long, long time. America’s Funniest Videos and its uber-predictable cycle of kids hitting their dad in the junk with plastic wiffle ball bats, people falling off trampolines and cats falling into toilets thinks that Just for Laughs is pathetic and unwatchable. I thought perhaps CBS had hit rock bottom when I was flipping through the channels and saw that the network had filled its 8-9 p.m. time slot with an infomercial last night, but even the worst infomercial would be five times better than this new joke of a show on ABC. So if there really is a competition to see which network can churn out the worst summer programming, go ahead and move ABC into the lead…………

- Great rebound for my new favorite summer show Traveler last night. After an episode last week that was the weakest so far, this week’s show was just phenomenal, a great, fast-paced mix of excitement, drama and new revelations for our friends Tyler, Jay and Will. Although the episode ended with a cliffhanger of yet another face-to-face meeting between one of the main characters and the FBI that you have to figure the character (Tyler) is going to escape from, everything else in the show was top notch. The scenes with Tyler (Logan Marshall-Green) and his father during which we learn that Jay and Tyler have been set up by a conspiracy that goes way up the political ladder and in which Tyler’s father, Carlton (William Sadler) played a willing part and benefited financially, were awesome. Also, the show’s execs continue to blur the line of good or evil for Will Traveler, as Will remains mixed up with the mysterious, government-linked terrorist organization that led to him bombing the Drexler, while at the same time fighting to avenge the death of his girlfriend Maya and defend his decision not to kill Jay and Tyler in the bombing. There was a great, dramatic fight sequence in a secluded park in the episode featuring will and a former colleague, plus a bungling, at-times-humorous “kidnapping” of a former college buddy by Jay and Tyler. All told, one of the top episodes of this short season. Traveler is definitely building momentum as the season goes on and making a strong, strong case for a spot on ABC’s schedule for the upcoming season.

- Drafts in professional sports can be long, tedious and less-than-thrilling exercises in waiting from pick to pick, but if you stick with them, you’ll find at least a few moments of high comedy. That was especially true in tonight’s NBA Draft, where we saw one of the most clichéd, hilarious and fake scenes anywhere in sports, a scene that’s repeated in every sport’s draft, be it basketball, baseball or football: the self-congratulatory group clap/hug session in a team’s draft room once their pick is sent in. This draft’s prime example was the Portland Trailblazers, whose execs clapped like those mechanical wind-up monkeys with cymbals in their hands when they turned in their pick of Ohio State center Greg Oden. One question, Portland execs: What are you congratulating yourselves for? You had the first pick, so that means you got whoever you wanted, no exceptions. Picking Oden took no skill on your part, he was the clear No. 1 choice and no one could step in front of you and take him. Stop congratulating yourselves for doing what a mildly educated chimp with a pen and a piece of paper could have done. Another draft note: I thoroughly enjoyed this back and forth between ESPN correspondent Jim Gray and Los Angeles Lakers GM Mitch Kupchack:

Jim Gray: So tell me about your meeting with Kobe Bryant last Friday.
Mitch Kupchack: We did confirm that we had a meeting with Kobe and that it took place last week.

Astute analysis and breakdown, guys, way to divulge pertinent and insightful information. This is the kind of riveting, intelligent conversation that reaches out of the TV set and grabs casual viewers as they flip past ESPN. The only redeeming quality of the whole interview was that both Gray and Kupchack tried to sell hard on the fact that they were actually doing something other than wasting their and our time in a major way. The NBA, it’s FAAAAAAANNNNNN-tastic.

- Never let doing a sucky job that your constituents disapprove of at a record level stop you from voting yourself a hefty pay increase, that’s what I always say. The U.S. House of Representatives agrees with me, and that’s why these tools have voted, by a 244-181 margin, to give themselves a $4,400 pay raise. The so-called cost-of-living increase puts the representatives back on track for automatic pay raises after a fight by Republicans and Democrats had originally killed the pay hike scheduled for this year. An all-time low approval rating for the House’s performance didn’t deter the increase, and I must say it was a nice touch for 181 of the reps to toss in a vote against for appearance’s sake. I know you all think you deserve a raise, even though you don’t, but you also realize that it would look bad to vote unanimously on this. Also, it was great to see you all take time out from debating other less important issues, like the war in Iraq and immigration, to vote for a raise for yourselves, because we all know congressional representatives are far too selfless and never take time to think of themselves first, last and always. Hats off for a great effort, House of Representatives!

Invest a small fortune in an iPhone, use strippers to raise money for charity or give benefits to ex-NFL players, all things to do with your money

- So the iPhone from Apple will become available to the public on Friday, and from where I sit, the real story isn't going to be the mad rush and mob scenes at stores with people looking to get their hands on the new gadget, nor will it be all the cool features available from a single piece of technology. No, the real story here is the absolutely absurd rates on iPhone plans, ranging from a minimum of $59.99 to a high $99.99, plus a whopping $499 for 4 GB model of the phone, or $599 for the 8 GB model. So theoretically you could spend at much as $3,000 on your freakin’ cell phone over a two-year period. A good rule of thumb for buying a new cell phone would be that if you can buy any of the following for less than the cost of your phone and a two-year service plan, you’re paying too much: a solid used car to get you to and fro, a fully-loaded Mac Book Pro laptop with 17” monitor, a 60” LCD plasma TV, season tickets for your favorite pro sports franchise, two round trip airline tickets to Paris, etc. I’m as much of a tech dork as anybody, but there’s not a snowball-in-Death-Valley’s chance that I would make that kind of commitment to a cell phone, especially the first edition of one, which means it’s sure to be plagued by several unforeseen bugs and problems. Plus, that screen on the iPhone had better be made of some super-magical, space-age material, because if all of the phone’s functions revolve around touching the screen with your fingers and/or holding it up to your head, there’s gonna be all kinds of dirt and oily residue building up on that thing. So while it may put me behind the times, I’m gonna skip the riots and the $3,000 splurge and go without an iPhone for now.

- Two activities that appeal to a wide majority of guys are golf and going to strip clubs. As someone who enjoys one of the two (umm, if you have to pay to see women take their clothes off and can’t get a woman to give you that kind of pleasure of your own efforts, then that’s just sad), I understand the appeal of combining the two, but I didn’t actually think anyone would take up the cause. The Cherry Valley Golf Club in Wilson, Pa. has done just that, dropping strippers disrobing and giving out lap dances at an outing benefiting disabled veterans. A total of 10 strippers from a local club were out at the course, doing their thing during the event, and needless to say the local government wasn’t down. “I think it was inappropriate,” said Edward C. Cramer, vice chairman of the township supervisors. “And I think it really discredits the game of golf, and in some ways may put a stigma on legitimate golf outings, which are used as fundraisers.” True, but had a little foresight been used, this whole mishap could have been averted. Had you cut out the middle man and hired the strippers to perform for the disabled vets, I’m sure the vets would have appreciated it and you wouldn’t have created all of this drama. Next time, use a little forethought when planning stripper-centric fundraisers, that’s all I ask.


- The hostilities between former NFL players and the NFL Players Association have been escalating rapidly in recent months, with nearly all of the tension arising from the fact that these former players allege that the NFL and NFLPA don’t do nearly enough to meet the needs of ex-NFLers who have suffered physical disabilities, mental damage and financial hardships during their careers. A group of these former players testified before Congress at a hearing on Tuesday, and thankfully it looks like the committee members were sympathetic to the concerns these retired players expressed and may even join in the fight to pressure the NFLPA into doing more for them. Before you go and try to point out that, “Hey, these guys make millions of dollars to play a game, if they blow it all, that’s their fault,” realize that you are oh, so wrong on so many levels. For one, the guys most in need of help played pro football back in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, when salaries were nowhere near what they are now. Second, the average NFL career lasts three to four years, meaning these guys aren't earning big money for a decade and a half and then blowing it all. What pisses me off, as it likely does Mike Ditka, Harry Carson and the other former players acting as spokesmen for this cause, is that Gene Upshaw, director of the NFLPA, earns f’ing $4 million a year while at the same time giving the shaft to hurting, downtrodden former players who could desperately use a small chunk of the excessive salary Upshaw earns. The sooner someone, Congress or otherwise, steps in and forces the NFLPA to own up to its responsibilities, the better.

- For a sport that is referred to be many as the dirtiest or one of the dirtiest around, professional cycling hasn’t done much to combat that image up to this point. Testing and penalties in the sport haven't been as strict or publicized as other professional sports, but cycling’s biggest race is doing something to change that trend. The Tour de France will reject riders who don’t sign new anti-doping charter. With last year’s Tour winner Floyd Landis still embroiled in a bitter dispute over testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs, race officials are demanding that all riders put their signature on the charter, which basically denounces the use of performance-enhancing drugs and by signing, the riders promise not to use said drugs. If necessary, the event’s organizers will go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the international governing body for cycling and other like sports, to keep any rider that won't sign the charter out of the Tour. Though I’m not sure how much of an influence the process of signing your name to this document will have on any rider who intends to cheat, it’s a good step. Cheaters, one would guess, would also be willing to lie and promise that they will race clean, what with the fact that they are already lying by using steroids in the first place. The penalties they could face are already strict and they continue to cheat, so the impact of this new rule will likely be minimal. Still, any effect at all in the direction of removing steroids from sports is a good step, no matter how small.

- It’s a proud day to be an Ohioan. When one of your state’s representatives in the U.S. Senate is among the first two to break Republican ranks and actively endorse the withdrawal of American troops from the Mess O’Potamia in Iraq, that’s cause for celebration. Sen. George Voinovich, a former governor in Ohio, became the second Senate Republican to openly call on W. to get our troops out of a place they never should have gone in the first place. Voinovich said Tuesday that he was writing the W. to urge him to embrace a plan for troop withdrawal. I’ll give him the same advice I give anyone speaking or writing directly to our Dimwit in Chief: Use small words, short sentences and mix in lots of pictures. Think of it more as an educational children’s book for someone with the intellect of a four-year-old with ADD. To be fair, I should give props to Sen. Richard Luger, R-Ind. for being the first GOP senator to step out and urge the pullout of our troops from Iraq. Luger is the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and he bluntly declared Monday that W.’s plan for Iraq isn't working (shocker!) and that it’s time to bring our soldiers home. There normally isn't a lot to praise politicians for, what with the pork-barrel legislation, wasting of time, tax dollars and general lack of responsiveness to the actual wants and needs of the people these sleazebags are elected to represent, but on this occasion I salute Sen. Voinovich and Sen. Luger for having the courage to say what everyone outside the Republican party has been screaming at the top of our collective lungs for a couple of years now.

- Hello I’m a Mac. Hello, I’m one of the stars in a subpar action movie that isn't worth the price of a ticket. Normally, Justin Long is splitting lines with John Hodgman as part of the popular ads for Apple computers and after Long utters the, “Hello, I’m a Mac” line, Hodgman chimes in and informs us that he is a PC. This time, though, Long could utter both lines and be completely correct, because along with Bruce Willis, Long stars in the latest installment of the Die Hard movie franchise, entitled Live Free or Die Hard. In truth, the movie sucks hard instead of dying hard, but I digress. Live Free or Die Hard is filled with a continual recycling of material from earlier incarnations of the series, even though this is the first new one in more than a decade. Long plays a computer hacker who is the only one able to save the country from an all-out attack on its computer systems (ironic parallel with him being the Mac guy, I know). Predictably, Willis’ John McLane character kills with guns, fire extinguishers and sometimes with his own hands, each time dispensing of an adversary with a clever quip to supplement the whole killing thing. The problem is that these quips are neither fresh nor original, and you basically are left to wonder if the writers sat down, watched the previous Die Hard movies and agreed to rehash all of the old killing quips in this film. If you’re debating between seeing this picture or going back for second helpings of Ocean’s Thirteen or Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, allow me to make that decision for you. See either of those movies for a second (or third, or fourth) time before you see Live Free or Die Hard even once.

A major soccer riot, a plug for a fave show and a nutty baseball fan

- Tank Johnson just may have a future in politics. Anyone that can make such grand, flowery promises to clean up his act and live a good life and break those promises to quickly and stupidly could do very well in political office. Johnson, the burly defensive tackle who served two months in prison for a probation violation that saw him illegally stockpiling enough weapons to stage a hostile takeover in Cambodia, was suspended for eight games earlier this offseason by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for running afoul of Goodell’s new player conduct policy. Johnson was contrite and remorseful when suspended, even promising to clean up his act and turn his life around to the extent that he would be named the NFL Man of the Year. Well that lasted all of a month, because over the weekend Johnson was arrested again, this time in Gilbert, Arizona on charges of speeding and driving while impaired to slightest degree. His team (now his former team), the Chicago Bears, wasted no time in releasing the troubled tackle and saying that he had disgraced the entire organization with his behavior. Well done, Tank, you went from being a star player on a Super Bowl team to a convicted criminal and a guy on his way out of the NFL all within one year. Nice judgment as well, being out at 3:30 a.m., driving after you’d had too much to drink and knowing that you needed to live a squeaky clean life if you had any hope of getting back into the NFL. Even though he was eventually released by the Gilbert police without being booked or charged, this incident was the one mistake Johnson couldn’t afford and now he’s going to pay for it severely.

- It is known in Europe and South America as the beautiful game, while in America it is known as the game that we all implicitly agree to ignore once we reach the age of 10. Soccer sparks passion in millions worldwide, but the game’s true entertainment value lies in situations like the following. An Argentinean soccer riot took place yesterday in Buenos Aires, and this was a whopper of a riot. One person died in the melee, at least 14 others were seriously injured and 78 hooligans were arrested. The riot started when fans of the Nueva Chicago club stormed the field to protest a penalty call on one of their team’s players. In the moments that followed, these lunatics proceeded to throw rocks, swing large metal pipes and use massive metal advertising signs as battering rams on other fans, on security, on players and anything else that got in their way. It took riot police using tear gas, full riot gear and rubber bullets to restore order, order being a relative term of course. See, this is why I love soccer, because if things don’t go your way, you can just riot and generally destroy everything in sight. No need for order, lawfulness or civility; find any heavy object you can find and use it as a weapon. If you have time, bag up some urine for a few good urine bombs to throw. Should you have any incendiary materials handy, begin lighting things on fire. If this is what international soccer fans mean by the “beautiful game,” then I have to agree with them, what a beautiful sight indeed.

- The are small-time criminals, there are felons, there are major criminals………and then there’s grifter Shirley Gordon, a professional con artist with a rap sheet that boggles my mind and a recently completed scam that is both utterly hilarious and completely jacked up. Gordon, working with two partners, was able to work over her St. Petersburg, Fla. chiropractor, Rhonda Schroeder, by “setting her up” with an ex-boyfriend that Gordon has posing as New York Mets pitcher and future hall-of-famer Pedro Martinez, then squeezing the good doctor for a series of extravagant thank you gifts. Gordon conned Schroeder into buying her a $450,000 waterfront home, outfitting that home with $150,000 in furnishings, throwing $20,000 in jewelry and some plastic surgery and leasing her a $45,000 Cadillac Escalade. To complete the scam, Gordon arranged to have another ex-boyfriend, one in prison, posing as Pedro and sending emails to the chiropractor. This isn't Gordon’s first rodeo either. Listen to this criminal record: 40 felony convictions in last 38 years, at least 35 different aliases, two escapes from prison and multiple marriages mixed in. How Gordon is averaging a felon conviction a year for nearly four decades and isn't behind bars I have no idea. But bonus points for not one, but two escapes from prison. If she ever gets out of jail on the coming conviction for this latest scam, I just may have to bring one Shirley Gordon in as a guest lecturer at my seminar for aspiring criminal masterminds and plotters.

- Having a valued piece of clothing lost at the dry cleaners is an experience many of us share. You take in a shirt, pants suit or dress to be cleaned and somehow it gets lost in the shuffle at the cleaners. It happens, the store makes reparations and you go on your way, still pissed but realizing that there’s not much else you can do. Well, other than slapping that cleaner with an absurd, tort-system-abusing $54 million lost pants lawsuit, of course. Roy L. Pearson is the massive tool who brought forth this absurd lawsuit, claiming that he was entitled to an eight-figure payout because his neighborhood dry cleaner lost a pair of pants from a suit he dropped off for cleaning and then gave him back a pair of pants that weren't his. Oh no! What a tragedy, I’m sure the emotional shock of getting back the wrong pair of pants and realizing your pants are lost is worth more than some Third World countries have in their bank accounts. It’s too bad that the Supreme Court could do nothing more than dismiss this idiot’s case, because if ever there was a time to enact punitive measures against people who bring idiotic, greedy lawsuits like a lost-pants lawsuit, this would be that time. Put people like Pearson in jail for six months for punishment and see if that doesn’t discourage them from bringing another frivolous lawsuit.

- Any fan sitting at a local sports bar or in the bleachers at a pro sporting event can be heard criticizing and analyzing the play of their favorite team. We all enjoy second-guessing the manager, ripping our team’s players when they screw up and playing the armchair quarterback. However, unless you are a full-out hooligan soccer fan (see above), one thing you can't do, no matter how fueled up you are, is charge the field to confront one of your team’s players. That message was apparently not passed on to a Chicago Cubs fan at Monday’s game, an idiot who burst onto the field at Wrigley Field in the midst of a ninth inning where the Cubbies were in the process of blowing an 8-3 lead. As closer Bob Howry was struggling to shut down the rally by the visiting Colorado Rockies, the fan burst onto the field and on the strength of one or nine beers, went right at Howry. According to reports, he began belligerently questioning Howry about what the heck he was doing before being tackled by security. The Cubs actually rallied to win the game in the bottom of the ninth, 10-9, but the overzealous fan wasn’t around to see it. I may be beating a deceased horse on this one, but why is it that so many incidents where drunk/stoned fans charge the field happen in Chicago? The cross-town White Sox have had two such incidents in recent years, once when a father/son meth-head tandem attacked Kansas City first base coach Tom Gamboa and another incident when a fan tried to charge an opposing team’s outfielder but was mobbed and brought down by several players. Hey Chicago, can you at least try to keep people off the field at games in your city? Maybe hire some extra security, maybe have Breathalyzer tests and drug tests set up in the concourse at sporting venues, whatever it takes. If I’m a pro athlete visiting Chicago, I’m playing with one eye on the game and the other on the stands, because you never know where the next attack is coming from.

- Never let it be said that Afghanistan isn't contributing anything to the world’s economy. The country where our fight against terrorism began and where thousands of American soldiers remain to this day increased its already world-leading opium production by nearly 50 percent in 2006. In so doing, the Afghans pushed worldwide opium production to a new high (pun intended), according to a United Nations report. The report also states that overall, global drug usage has remained more or less constant for a third straight year, which does pose a bit of a quandary. After all, opium production is up, yet usage is the same. It can mean only one thing, folks: Willie Nelson is stockpiling every drug he can get his hands on in case the drug crackdown in America becomes any stricter. There’s no way Willie is going to be without his drugs, and if he has to stockpile it in secret locations to prepare for lean days ahead, then by God, he’s gonna do it. But a big thumbs up to Afghanistan for proving that it is willing to give something to the world, even if that something is illegal and illicit drugs.

- In continuing my role as a shameless honk for ABC’s new drama airing this summer, Traveler, let me remind all of you to tune in tomorrow (Wednesday) night for the next installment of this terrorism-themed thrill ride, an episode titled “The Trader.” The episode will focus on Jay (Matthew Bomer) and Tyler (Logan Marshall-Green) as they return to New York to look at financial links to the bombing of the Drexler Museum, the event that set the stage for the whole series. Hopefully this week will be a nice rebound from a good-but-subpar episode last week (see my post from Thursday for more) and revive the excitement that has made this show the one high point of my summer viewing. It is a bit sad that even on its worst episode thus far, Traveler was still ten times better than any of the other crap programming the major networks are running the other nights of the week. Still, tomorrow at 10 p.m. is your chance to get on board if you haven't already…………

Marion Jones down to her last $2,000, Jesse Jackson stirs up trouble and trouble finds (and soaks) travelers at LAX

- So what kind of life does a former Olympic gold medallist and world champion sprinter live once his or her days as an active competitor are over? Not a very good one, apparently, at least if you’re using Marion Jones as an example. You might remember Jones as the woman who dominated the sprint events in the track and field world just a few years ago, including multiple Olympic gold medals. She was on top of the world then, whereas she’s making her way to the bottom of that same world right now. It came to light over the weekend that Jones is nearly broke and has only $2,000 left to her name. All the money she won from competing and all the endorsement revenue she earned have vanished, the result of what you have to assume is a continued pattern of bad decision-making that has plagued Jones for a long time now. Evidence of that bad decision-making can be seen especially in the types of people she has associated with during her career. First, she was married to C.J. Hunter, an Olympic shot putter whose career crashed and burned when he was shown to be a heavy steroid user. Jones and Hunter were eventually divorced and she took up with a new gentleman friend, with similarly disastrous results. That new beau was world-class sprinter Tim Montgomery, the man who held the title “World’s Fastest Man” at one point. However, both Jones and Montgomery were saddled with steroid allegations of their own, and Montgomery was ultimately stripped of his title and also found himself charged and convicted in an intricate money-laundering scheme. Jones continued to fight the steroid allegations, but as she fought, her career plummeted into mediocrity, with a minimal level of success on the track that best she could attain. Now, she’s burned through nearly all of her money and life is looking bleak. She’s a prime example of why, no matter what skills of speed, strength, quickness and agility and athlete may possess, the most important skill any of them can hope to have is good decision-making, because without it, their lives are all too likely to end up like this.

- Jesse Jackson is always good for livening up drab, stodgy situations, mostly because his colorful, rhythmic rhetoric and controversial stances on issues are sure to piss off the majority of people in any given situation. On Saturday, the outspoken civil rights leader was arrested in Chicago after taking part in a demonstration outside of a gun shop in a suburban community on the south side of the city. Jackson refused to move away from the entrance to Chuck’s Gun Shop in Riverdale, a community just outside the city. He was charged the criminal trespass to property because of his efforts in joining with other community activists to raise attention to the gun violence issue in Chicago. The shooting death of a 16-year-old boy on a city bus several weeks ago was the incident that sparked this particular protest and led Jackson to claim that the proximity of the gun shop to Chicago provides gang members and criminals easy access to firearms. Hats off to Jackson, he’s our Agitator of the Week. I do think it would be interesting to see a showdown between Jackson and NRA leader Chuck Heston, though………….

- So you’ve had a rough day of traveling and you’re looking to grab your bags, get out of the airport and get home or to your hotel. Maybe your flight was delayed or cancelled, maybe you missed your connecting flight, maybe that whining, annoying infant sitting in your row wouldn’t shut up the entire flight or perhaps that frakkin’ brat of a four-year-old wouldn’t stop kicking the back of your seat during the entire cross-country trek. Regardless of what made your flight so miserable, what would really make you feel better is to zip through the concourse, find your bags on the baggage carousel quickly and without hassle and get out of the *$(%#%^#%^%^@*($& airport. Imagine the utter joy and glee you would then feel if, as you stood at baggage claim, to suddenly feel a drop of water come from above and hit you in the head. Then, another drop hits you in the shoulder and next thing you know, water is raining down from above like you’re standing in downtown Seattle on one of its 344 rainy days of the year. That was the wonderful experience shared by some intrepid travelers at Los Angeles International Airport, where sprinklers went off in one of the facility’s main terminals and doused a whole lot of people. Terminal One was temporarily evacuated after a water pipe broke and set off the sprinkler malfunction, with “minor flooding” taking place in the terminal. That’s certainly a new message to put up on the flight info screens around the concourse, “Flight delayed - minor flooding in terminal.” Of course, if more than three ounces of water fell in the terminal and they weren't contained in a see-through plastic bag, the TSA agents at the security checkpoint probably confiscated them and didn’t allow them to board their plane………..

- Any ideas what the topics of conversation might have been yesterday at the National Football League kicked off its annual rookie symposium? This meeting is where the NFL gathers first-year players and informs them on issues (mostly off-field) that they may face and challenges they could encounter in adjusting to the lifestyle and world of the pro football. This year, my guess is that the symposium has taken on a different slant, namely one of advising players of ways to make sure they don’t get arrested and don’t end up on the wrong end of Taser blast from their local law enforcement officials. You know how you always get a binder filled with all sorts of literature and papers when you attend a conference or symposium? While I haven't gotten my hands on a binder from this symposium, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that at least 75 percent of it will be dedicated to advising players on things not to do in order to avoid being arrested, including, but not limited to: making it rain, giving alcohol to underage girls, boating while intoxicated, driving while intoxicated, biting a bouncer on the ankle at a strip club, being involved in a dog fighting ring, being caught by the cops with copious amounts of weed in your vehicle, beating up your woman, refusing to obey orders from police during a traffic stop, stockpiling enough weapons to conduct a hostile takeover of most Third World Countries, etc. The sad thing is, none of those crimes are things I just made up. All of them are crimes that have been committed by actual NFL players within the past 12 months. One would also have to assume that at least two copies of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s player-conduct policy are included in the binder given to players, with all text in 24-point bold font. Here’s hoping the rookies pay attention to what they’re told, because if they don’t, Goodell is going to drop the disciplinary hammer on them and there may not be enough non-felons to populate the league’s rosters when he’s done.

- Not that there’s ever a good time for a tragedy like this, but World Wrestling Entertainment could not have had worse timing for this. WWE wrester Chris Benoit, one of the company’s most well-known performers, was discovered dead, along with his wife and young son, at their suburban Atlanta home today. The sad news comes just as the WWE was in the midst of a storyline for its Monday Night RAW show centering around the alleged demise of the company’s chairman, Vince McMahon, in a limo explosion. Instead, the WWE and its fans are left with the real-life tragic news of the death of Benoit and his family. Definitely sad news all around, but at this time no cause of death has been announced and an investigation is underway.

Good music, good music gone bad and the Detroit Lions have a comedian playing quarterback

- Going up in the world of music……the White Stripes, back with their new album Icky Thump. At this point, the garish, slightly Goth imagery and “mysterious” relationship between Jack and Meg White are so familiar that most loyal fans and listeners of their music will push right past all of that and wonder what exactly this album sounds like. Is it the offbeat, quirky, mostly mellow sound that prevailed on Get Behind Me Satan, the Stripes’ previous effort, or is in the raw, garage-rock sound that defined the group’s early existence? The answer, of course, is neither. Icky Thump borrows from the best of both sounds, although their rock roots do shine through more often than not, especially on songs like Little Cream Soda. There’s also a bit of folk influence filtering in throughout the album, but in spite of an eclectic blend of sounds and influences, Icky Thump is the next step in the growth of the White Stripes and should be in heavy rotation on your iPod soon if you love good rock.

- Going down in the world of music……..Bon Jovi. I know, you’re asking how things can go down for a group that has the tragic misfortune of being eternally linked with the poofy, hairspray-shellacked image of ‘80s hair metal. The answer is that Jon Bon Jovi and his crew have undertaken the one endeavor that could single-handedly torpedo the music cred of any artist, anywhere and at any time - they have recorded a country album. I’ll pause for a moment so you, like me, can decided whether or not you now need to go and burn all of your old Bon Jovi albums, including Slippery When Wet, in protest/mourning…………..OK, and we’re back. Some will argue that Bon Jovi has steadily been sliding toward this end of the musical spectrum for years, including the tune Who Says You Can't Go Home Again off their last album, a song that featured some chick that sings for a country group called Sugarland (never heard of them, and I pray to God that I never will). However, neither a slowly building predilection for country sounds in your music nor any other excuse an artist could give would ever, EVER be a justifiable excuse for committing musical sacrilege and making a country music album. Country music is what drunken rednecks do country line dances to at honky tonk bars, it’s not an acceptable form of music for anyone with any semblance of musical taste. For now I’m going to hold off on torching all the Bon Jovi albums in my collection, but if they come out with a second country album in the years ahead, I’m breaking out the blowtorch and gasoline.

- That John Kitna, what a comedian. You may remember that when last we saw Kitna, he was the quarterback leading another woeful Detroit Lions march to putridity, that putridity coming in the form of a 3-13 season. With a few small personnel adjustments but the same incompetent general manager (Matt Millen) and the same coach as last season (Rod Marinelli), Kitna has declared that the team will somehow be able to win more than 10 games this coming season. “I'll keep to myself what I think we actually will win. But it's more than 10 games,” Kitna stated on a Detroit radio program. Well it’s always good to be an optimist, especially when your team blows and won't win more than five games, so good for Kitna. It’d be nice to have some of whatever it is he’s been smoking, because if I could get my hands on some of that stuff, I might actually believe that there’s a chance for W.’s plan to work in Iraq, that Paris Hilton could someday win the Nobel Peace Prize and become President of the United States or that VH1 would give out multiple dating reality shows to washed up former stars who can’t pull chicks on their own anymore…..wait, that last one happened? Really? Bottom line, Kitna is one of the leaders of the Lions, and he needs to put a hopeful face on what’s going to be a bad season, but I just hope he doesn’t expect anyone else to believe that his team will be anything other than abysmal.

- Dude, this could be a big problem for all you college dudes out there, bro. Apparently thieves around the country have a new favorite target, and it’s a target near and dear to the hearts of frat boys and jocks nationwide: kegs. The thieves heisting kegs aren't after the beer, though; they want the kegs themselves, which they then take to scrap yards where they receive around $35 per keg for the metal cylinders. “Right now it is a very significant problem,” admitted Jeff Becker, president of the Beer Institute, a lobbying group in Washington, D.C. And no, dudes, I don’t know how you can secure a job as a lobbyist for the Beer Institute, how you can become a member of the Beer Institute or whether Becker spends his days doing keg stands, playing XBox, wearing one of those jacked up hats with beer can holders and drinking tubes attached to the sides, etc. But right now the Beer Institute is trying to combat the keg theft epidemic by warning restaurants and bars to keep their kegs locked up. No word on what all you kegger-having college dudes should do, but maybe slap a lock on your keg like you do on your bike when you leave it somewhere around campus, hope that helps………….

- A big thumbs down and a wag of the finger to the oppressive, rights-stripping government of Iran, whose latest crackdown has focused on silencing dissenting groups that include labor leaders, universities, the press, women’s rights advocates, a former nuclear negotiator and Iranian-Americans. Well, if nothing else, at least the persecution is a blanket effort and not singling out any one specific group……….kidding. Some dissenters have been jailed, while others have been tortured or harassed. One example is young men whose apparel and haircuts have been deemed too Western have been paraded through the streets by the government, bleeding and beaten. Eight student leaders at Tehran’s Amir Kabir University disappeared into Evin Prison last month and haven't been heard from since. It’s like they always say, if you can't provide effective, fair, efficient and competent governance, brutally abuse and silence anyone who dares to speak out against you. President Mahmoud Ahmadi-nejad and his peeps are doing a poor job of governing their nation and an even worse job of dealing with dissidents among them. I would say more but I figure I’m running the risk of running afoul of this heartless, cowardly dictator and his minions, so for now that’s all I have to say about that, you suck, Mahmoud, and here’s hoping you’re overthrown sooner rather than later.

TV networks with no dignity, writers and politicians with no originality and the ultimate equation for fun, NFL player + Taser blast

- Every company, business or like entity has a low point in its existence, a moment when it so scrapes the bottom of the barrel that the aftermath is like the morning after your worst drunken night of idiocy ever, times a thousand. Right now would be that moment for NBC, ABC and any other television network offering $100,000 or $1 million to Paris Hilton for an in-jail interview. I don’t understand how on earth you can call yourself a legitimate major network and treat an interview with a vapid, dippy skank of a socialite who’s most famous for a never-ending string of sex tapes and is serving a 45-day sentence in county jail for something as trivial as a probation violation and treat it like you’re going to South Africa to interview Nelson Mandela when he’s imprisoned for his fight against apartheid. To be fair, NBC denies making any financial offer and the accusation that they did comes from ABC, which made the $100,000 offer. As eager as I am to be enlightened by the “lessons” P. Hilton has learned in the clink, any network that pays even one frakkin’ cent to interview this skank is getting ripped off of both its money and its dignity.

- Everyone mimicking the ending of The Sopranos finale in their campaign films, columns (see this example) and TV show segments is a moron, intent running a gimmick that wasn’t cool to begin with into the ground. I think by now everyone gets the idea, that the fade to black was a weird, unexpected and unusual ending to the series, an ending that confused some people, alienated others and pissed off many. However, the fact that shows, writers and even political candidates are still using this as a shtick for ending their respective efforts several weeks later shows a lack of originality, a freakish preoccupation with a TV show that a lot of Americans have never even watched because they don’t have the premium cable or satellite package with HBO (or even have cable at all) and a refusal to let a highly overrated show die. Give it up people, the joke wasn’t even funny the first time you tried it, nor was it funny the second, third and 14,688th time. Move on, find a new comedic device and try making use of that squishy gray thing that is supposed to be rattling around inside your skull.

- If they ever decide to sell fun in a packaged form at your local supermarket, the following two ingredients will be all they need to list on the side of the box or container: athletes and Tasers. Not one single time have these two entities been involved in a situation without producing ridiculous amounts of enjoyment for me and sports fans worldwide. It never fails that you have athletes who have too much to drink, are out too late and run afoul of the law, often necessitating a Taser blast to subdue the belligerent athlete. Miami Dolphins defensive lineman Fred Evans knows what I’m talking about, because my main man Fred was out late on Friday night/Saturday morning and refused to leave a cab. When police came on the scene, they tried to get Evans out of the vehicle but found him resistant and ended up having to use a Taser to subdue the 6-foot-4, 305 pound lineman. Why athletes have such a hard time listening to cops who order them to get out of vehicles, get on the ground and put their hands behind their head I have no idea, but I’m hoping it keeps happening. Not much brightens my day like the mental image of a massive NFL player belligerently (and possibly drunkenly) hassling the cops and being put down with a Taser blast, good times all around!

- Can't believe I’m saying this, but I’m siding with a tabloid in a court case. It’s hard to do so regularly when these rags claim that an 18-pound alien baby was born in California or that Celebrity A is sleeping with Celebrity B, C and D all at the same time and getting away with it, but in this case the story is different. The Sun, a British tabloid, is claiming that David Hasselhoff was spotted drunk at a Hollywood nightclub following a victory in a custody battle with his ex-wife over their two teenage children. The ‘Hoff, who still has not capitulated to my request that he show up completely hammered to tape every episode of that hideous NBC talent/reality show he’s a judge on, has sued the publication for its allegation and is demanding a printed apology. This is akin to Bill Clinton denying that he hit on a hot intern or Matthew McConaughey denying that he was spotted shirtless at the beach in Malibu. There’s no way anyone is going to buy Hasselhoff’s denial, not after his hilarious/tragically sad video filmed by his daughter of him at his drunken worst a few months ago. But maybe I’m wrong, maybe D. Hasselhoff was just drinking Shirley Temple’s and at a club late at night for the atmosphere and great music………umm, sure.

- Who among us hasn’t used the alter ego of a nonexistent male prostitute to pen an “autobiographical” novel that someone wanted to turn into a movie? I think that’s something we can all relate to, which is why you really have to feel for San Francisco writer Laura Albert, the woman/fake male hooker who has been ordered by a jury to pay a production company $116,500 after she defrauded the company in its attempt to make her fake life story into a movie. Antidote International Films, Inc. sued Albert, who went by the pen name JT LeRoy and used friends wearing wigs and posing as the fictitious LeRoy for interviews, and won after learning the truth about her life. Albert predictably went to the Psychological-Problems-Because-of-Childhood-Sexual-Abuse card, claiming she has been assuming male identities for decades to cope with the trauma from those childhood incidents. Well, to be fair, when you’re facing a ginormous potential judgment against you in federal court, it’s not always easy to come up with a plausible excuse, so let’s give Albert a little leeway, something the jury in her case did not do.

A 40-year-old creep, another insane Tom Cruise action and an un-funny new comedy movie

- If you’ve ever complained about or criticized any coach you’ve ever had at any level of sports, just be glad that you didn’t have the protagonist in this story as your coach. Brenton Wuchae, a 40-year-old track coach in North Carolina has completed the perverted old dude trifecta by dating, sexing up and now marrying a 16-year-old girl that he met while he was her freaking high school track coach. Windy Hager, the girl in question, married Wuchae after her parents signed consent forms allowing the union to take place. Let’s stop there for a second, because a good rule of thumb is that if your bride-to-be needs a parental consent form, that’s a great sign that you shouldn’t be getting married. That’s doubly true if you’re old enough to have been alive during Woodstock and your prospective bride is barely old enough to get her driver’s license. After the wedding, Wuchae immediately resigned from his post at the school, which I really don’t get. You mean to tell me it would be awkward to be a track coach at a school where your 16-year-old wife is a student? You’re telling me that kind of setup might be inappropriate? Might you be put in a tough spot when your wife wants to get home to watch TRL or go to the mall with her friends and you demand that she stay and work on her hurdling technique? Spin this any way you want, but it’s still one of the most bizarre and creepy stories of the year. Even if you argue that more and more women are marrying men a couple decades their senior and vice versa (Ashton Kutcher-Demi Moore, Anna Nicole Smith, etc.) realize that those people, while marrying much older significant others, were OF LEGAL AGE AND DIDN’T NEED A PARENTAL CONSENT FORM! It’s one thing for a 31-year-old guy to marry a woman in her fifties, quite another for a 16-year-old girl to marry a 40-year-old man. On the plus side, when Windy runs up a massive cell phone bill or forgets to take out the trash, B. Wuchae can always ground her and send her to her room, so that’s a positive, I guess………

- By now, you’ve probably heard the rumblings that Tom Cruise wants to buy the L.A. Galaxy, SoCal’s professional soccer team. See, I told you he was insane. Investing tens of millions in soccer is certifiable by anyone’s definition, especially if that soccer team is a Major League Soccer franchise, with Major League Soccer remaining the ultimate oxymoron. America, or at least 97 percent of it, isn't down with soccer, never has been and never will be. That’s why the MLS continues to play to small crowds and land abysmal TV ratings, not to mention exactly zero national sports media outlets make a point of discussing soccer on a regular basis. Yet T. Cruise is looking to buy the Galaxy and own the team that his good friend David Beckham is about to come and play for. How ironic that Beckham once admitted that he wasn’t so good at “the maths” but it’s Cruise who apparently can't do any sort of investment math in this situation? Let me help you out, O Insane One: investing more than $2.74 into any MLS franchise is a bad investment. Low TV revenues, poor attendance and measly merchandise sales do not a profitable investment make. The orange slice/Capri Sun market is maxed out and there are only so many soccer moms in minivans filled with rambunctious nine-year-olds that will attend your glorified game of human foosball. I know Cruise has jumped on a couch with Oprah, he’s unleashed unprovoked, violent verbal tirades on innocent bystanders like Brooke Shields and done a dozen other insane things the past couple years, but a potential purchase of a MLS franchise might be the most psycho of them all.

- I was shocked and appalled to learn that the new film Evan Almighty is neither funny nor good. I mean, who would guess that a lowbrow, animal-centric comedy featuring a “humorous” take on the whole Noah’s Ark story wouldn’t be laugh-out-loud funny? Look, I know that Steve Carrell is a hot comedic commodity, what with his success on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and his run on The Office, but whoever green-lighted this movie was obviously doing so after dropping massive amounts of peyote. You can throw all of the wacky animal hijinks in that you want, but if your movie has even once scene where the primary comedic ingredient is a guy getting crapped on by birds, your movie is not what we film fanatics would term a cinematic masterpiece, to say the least. Also, let this movie be another lesson that throwing together an all-star cast of big-name actors doesn’t guarantee you a successful movie. It didn’t work for The Departed, which managed to be only a better-than-mediocre film despite a cast with Mark Wahlberg, Matt Damon, Leonardo Dicaprio, Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen and Martin Scorscese as director. The all-big-name strategy doesn’t work in pro sports (see the 20XX L.A. Lakers with Shaq, Kobe, Karl Malone and Gary Payton) and it doesn’t work in movies. Save your money if you were considering seeing Evan Almighty, just go to the nearest park and you can probably see some guy get crapped on by birds for free.

- Not a good day to be an Aborigine, that’s for sure. Australian Prime Minister John Howard has dropped a porn and alcohol ban on all Aborigines living in the country’s northern territories and instituted tougher rules on their welfare benefits in an attempt to fight sexual abuse among the native people. Some Aboriginal leaders rejected the plan as too paternal and discriminatory, by which I’m going to assume they mean they’re angry about not being able to get access to their favorite porn and booze. Now I’m not sure what qualifies as good Aboriginal porn, nor am I sure what kind of hooch the Aborigines like to drink, but if the country’s prime minister is concerned enough about the prevalence of sexual abuse among your people to drop that kind of ban on you, then you might want to take a closer look at your behavior before you go throwing around allegations of discrimination and paternalism. Besides, if poorly educated Americans living in the back woods of our country were able to find ways around Prohibition in the 1920s and manufacture their own alcohol, I’m sure the Aborigines can find a solution for this problem. As for the ban on porn….maybe go ahead and let that one slide, because no offense to y’all, but a dependence on porn qualifies you as many things, none of which are positive. Clean it up, Aborigines, I don’t need this kind of news dragging me down.

- Good to see Congress make the effort to revive the work of the Iraq Study Group, but I honestly don’t going to think it’s going to make a difference. This group is a bipartisan panel of prominent former U.S. officials who last year had the - gasp! - audacity to suggest that W. should change course on the war in Iraq. In other words, they publicly voiced what 98.6 percent of Americans over the age of eight were thinking. On Thursday, the House adopted legislation to restart the work of the group, which would then be called upon to produce a new assessment of the Mess O’Potamia that contradicts, er, offers a different viewpoint from the W. administration progress report due in September. Maybe since the vote in the House, a 355-69 slam dunk that showed agreement from both sides of the aisle, will lend more weight to the findings of the panel, but you have to doubt it, based on the administration’s strategy of plugging its collective ears and screaming “LALALALALALALALALALA!!!!” at the top of its lungs every time an opposing viewpoint to its oafish strategy in Iraq is voiced. So come September, look for the Iraq Study Group to vociferously object to keeping American troops in Iraq while W. and his crew of sycophants try to continue lying to all of us and to convince us that progress is being made and that we can win if we just send over 100,000 more troops and remain in Iraq until 2046. Good to know there are some things you can count on, even if what you’re counting on is continued incompetence.

How you know you're in a pyramid scheme, a case of retiree vs. rabid bobcat and my thoughts on Traveler's most recent episode

- Back in the late 1990s, being a Chicago Cubs fan was exciting even if the Cubbies were suffering through another subpar season because Slammin’ Sammy Sosa was belting home runs at a record pace, doing his signature home run hop and blowing kisses to the dugout camera after every long ball. So why does it feel so empty, hollow, meaningless and pointless to see Sosa hitting his 600th career home run here in 2007 for the Texas Rangers, reaching a mark that only four other players (Bar-roid Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth and Willie Mays) have reached? Oh yeah, it’s because along with those great memories of Sosa, we also have memories of him spraying the contents of a corked bat all over the field a couple years ago against Tampa Bay, of him pretending to forget how to speak English when in a hearing before Congress on the steroid problem in baseball and claiming he would be the first in line to take a steroid test if they were mandated then backing out when Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly challenged him to go and get a test done at a lab. Plus, the fact that back in 2005 Sosa made a total mockery of himself, barely hitting .200 for the Baltimore Orioles, unable to catch up with big league fastballs and a defensive liability in the outfield doesn’t help either. In 2006, all he got in the way of a contract offer from an MLB team was a non-guaranteed deal from the lowly Washington Nationals, which Sosa rejected and then sulked off to supposed retirement. Yet here he is in 2007, making a comeback with the Rangers, putting up better-than-average numbers and getting the 12 homers he needed to join the 600 club. Still, I couldn’t care less because I (like any other baseball fan with a working brain) no longer see Sosa as the happy, bubbly, friendly Dominican hero belting massive home runs; I now see him as a mostly washed-up, aging slugger concerned with little more than reaching personal milestones in the hopes of winning a spot in the Hall of Fame, efforts that most likely have been fueled by performance-enhancing drugs and corked bats. Hit all the home runs you want, Sammy, you’re just not a relevant or captivating figure anymore.

- You all know by now that I’ve become a fast fan of the new ABC drama Traveler. So far it’s made my summer TV watching much better of an experience, so it bums me out that for the first time after watching one of the four episodes so far, I have to admit that last night’s episode was OK, but not all that great in retrospect. Much of the episode centered around the show’s title character, Will Traveler, who we were led to believe was dead from the start of the pilot episode until the end of last week’s show. Will spent the bulk of last night’s show being interrogated by Stephanie Niznik (yes, Nina Feeney from Everwood, woo hoo!), and if that had been done well, it would have made for an awesome episode. Unfortunately, there is minimal physical torture (always a staple of a good interrogation sequence), Will breaks down far too easily and tells the truth far too readily for someone who is supposedly a trained espionage agent and in the end, he kills Niznik’s character after an uber-short, simplistic fight, which is a major buzz kill for the drama they were trying to create. Also, the show’s producers and writers are really starting to overextend this whole “Will hid passports, guns, money and other resources at a whole bunch of places” gig - first the library study carrel at Yale, then the key with his girlfriend, the painting he stole from the Drexler Museum (location undetermined), the money, passports and gun in the storage locker at the library in Boston, the boat in Maine, etc. It’s nice to weave some details and complexity into the plot, but c’mon guys, it still has to be at least mildly plausible. But again, there was the same hectic pace to the show that makes it so fun to watch and enough drama that I wasn’t totally disappointed, so all in all still a halfway decent episode. I’ll be back next week, that’s for sure.

- Making a factual, documentary-style film for distribution into the same theaters where Ocean’s Thirteen and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End is a ballsy, difficult move. You go in knowing that your film isn't going to make tons of money simply because the majority of moviegoers aren't going to the theater to be informed about the deplorable state of the health care system in America, as Michael Moore’s new film Sicko focuses on. That being said, I like what I’ve seen so far from the previews of this movie because it looks to have the same irreverent, give-the-middle-finger-to-the-establishment vibe that all of Moore’s films have. To be truthful, I have a soft spot for M. Moore because he and I share an outright loathing for the worst president in U.S. history, W., but that doesn’t mean that Sicko isn't a good picture. If someone is willing to spend an entire major film budget on the health care crisis in America, then you have to respect their efforts to champion a cause that most people are content to ignore and wouldn’t even spend ten minutes discussing, let alone make a motion picture about it. So maybe after you’ve seen Pirates, Ocean’s Thirteen, Spiderman 3 and Bourne Ultimatum on various dates and with your friends, carve out a few hours to make a solo trip to the theater and see Sicko, it should be worth your effort.

- I’m not/I don’t ___________________, but I _____________________. That sentence pretty much describes the efforts of anyone who attempts to defend racist, sexist or otherwise indefensible behavior. You know, like, “I’m not a racist, but -”, or “I don’t have a problem with women, but -” are words you hear flying out of someone’s pie hole when he or she is about to make a racist of sexist statement. So it’s not a good sign that University of Oklahoma football coach Bob Stoops finds himself using that very rationale to defend his involvement in what authorities are now investigating as a possible pyramid scheme. “I didn’t see this as a money making opportunity…in total, I think I helped five or six other people sign up, all of whom are close personal friends or family members. As far as I know, the business is legitimate and I am not a founder, developer or owner of the company, but simply a person who bought in to have the ability to download music.” Stoops explained. Umm, Bob-O, I think you’re a great football coach and you seem like a good guy, but bro, what you just described sounds exactly like a pyramid scheme. The very central theme of pyramid schemes is that you get pulled in and then you recruit five or ten other people you know to get involved and so on. Your defense that you just wanted to download some tunes and thought there was nothing amiss doesn’t fly. Haven’t you ever heard of iTunes or Napster? Is the concept of setting up an account at the iTunes store using a credit card that far over your head? C’mon Stoops, you make pressure-packed decisions in big-time games with hundreds of thousands of people watching, but you get fooled by a pyramid scheme and then won't admit that it is a pyramid scheme? You can do better than that.

- When retirees move to Florida, generally they hope to lead a relaxing, leisurely life of golf, flea market shopping and hitting the early bird special at Bob’s Big Boy. They do not, however, expect to have “Strangle a Rabid Bobcat” as something on their daily to-do list. Dale Rippy, a 62-year-old Vietnam vet, found himself in this most unique position Tuesday. Rippy was on the front porch at his home in Wesley Chapel, Fla. when a rabid 25-pound bobcat attacked him, scratching and clawing at Rippy and attempting to bite him. Rippy waited until he could get the necessary opening to attack, at which point he seized the crazed animal by the throat and choked it out. “If that cat had attacked a child, it would’ve been really bad,” Rippy said, explaining why he made such an effort to stop the bobcat’s attack. “It wouldn’t quit.” In the end, Rippy was treated for exposure to rabies as well as several bites and cuts, but otherwise he’s doing fine. Heck, I’m so impressed by his actions that I may buy him a couple pairs of those hideously huge wraparound sunglasses that seniors in Florida love so much and buy him an extra side of ribs at the next early bird special.

NASCAR sucks, Mike Bloomberg swings both ways and Pacman Jones builds his rap sheet

- No need to worry about Sen. Hank Clinton winning the upcoming presidential election America, we can all rest easy. Hank’s campaign is going nowhere but down the crapper, and I can say that with absolute certainty. How can I be so sure? Simple, because in unveiling the first video for his campaign, Hank revealed that the theme song for the campaign will be a tune by……..Celine Dion. Yes, in a campaign video released on YouTube and Hank’s very own website, a video parodying the final episode of The Sopranos shows Hank and former President Bubba Clinton in a diner with Hank perusing songs on the jukebox. Ultimately she settles on one of the homogenous, droll ballads of the waifish, ginormous-nosed Canadian songstress and the last image seen on screen, in bright red letters, is “Contribute.” Sorry Hank, but the only contribution I’m making as it relates to you is contributing my vote to one of your opponents at every chance I get to make sure I don’t have to live out the terrifying nightmare of you being the leader of this country. Oh, and nice song choice, a middle-aged Vegas lounge act who not only sings some of the most boring, excitement-deprived music ever, but who contributed the theme song to one of the most disastrously hideous movie monstrosities of all time, Titanic. Here’s hoping your campaign ends up like that ship, Hank; broken down, taking on water and sinking to the bottom of a cold, icy ocean, never to be heard from again.

- Why has television suddenly become a dating service for washed-up musicians, athletes and actors? Yes, I know reality TV isn't smart, sophisticated or good to begin with, but why is every former athlete, musician or actor being given their own reality show as a means to finding them a surgically enhanced, desperate bimbo that they can “love”? First it was Flava Flav, then VH1 announced reality dating shows for Bret Michaels and Scott Baio, and on top of it all, I flip through the channels last night and come across Age of Love with former ATP tennis star Mark Philipoussis? Look fellas, I get it that you all are no longer the successful stars you once were and that maybe you’re having a slightly tougher time pulling chicks than you used to. However, can you not conduct your quest for love with a little dignity, i.e. not on camera and national TV? Clearly there will never be a shortage of cleavage-sporting skanks looking for launch an acting career, er, find true love via reality TV, so unless all of you ex-athletes, musicians and actors stop saying yes to terrible ideas like these shows, they’re going to keep happening and you’re going to continue looking totally pathetic and idiotic.

- Criminal behavior must be contagious, because it’s continuing to spread through the Cincinnati Bengals like a virus and now it’s infected the backups. Quincy Wilson, a backup running back for Team Incarceration, got hit with a charge of disorderly conduct after being among a crowd of about a dozen people that refused to disperse after a party, even after police directly ordered them to do so. Wilson’s arrest adds another entry to a team rap sheet that may not include serious, violent crimes or major drug convictions, but has nonetheless given the Bengals a huge black eye, both within the NFL and outside of it. The Bengals continue to find low-character guys and lowlifes, even as most NFL teams are beginning to place a premium on high-character players in light of Roger Goodell’s new, more strict player-conduct policy. I can't get too excited about Wilson’s arrest, though, because with Goodell going all bad cop on us and seemingly suspending any player who engages in even the most minor criminal activity, there’s no way the Bengals are going to be able to do what they almost did last season, to tally double-digit arrests. That dream is dead, so I’m going to have to turn my aspirations elsewhere, perhaps to the Oakland Raiders and their quest this upcoming season to go 0-16………………

- So who’s looking forward to $6.75-a-gallon gasoline? Like it or not, that’s what you’re probably going to end up with if the U.S. Senate has its way. The Senate has introduced a proposal to stick oil companies with $29 billion in new taxes, and of course if oil companies have to pay tens of billions of dollars more in taxes, that cost is going to be passed on to you, the consumer. Theoretically the tax hike would actually benefit consumers by funneling the revenue into energy conservation, wind turbines, electric hybrid cars and clean-coal technology, but does anyone honestly have faith in the government to uphold promises to efficiently and competently appropriate money to where it says it will appropriate money? Didn’t think so. The tax increase is more than double the original amount that had been set forth, but the Senate Finance Committee still approved the proposal by a 15-5 vote. Gas prices going up, watch out above!

- Among the things that are not likely to help Adam “Pacman” Jones in his quest to have NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell reduce Pac’s one-year suspension from the league is the follow: two felony charges for the February melee incident at the Minx Club in Las Vegas, where Pacman allegedly threatened to kill club employees and bit a bar bouncer on the ankle. It’s a decidedly bad thing when on back-to-back days, your name is on the police blotter and it’s for two separate incidents. Yesterday it was a shooting at outside an Atlanta strip club by Jones’ crew that police there want to question him about, today it’s two felony charges being filed in Vegas. Dude is a bi-coastal felon, what with the assault charges he had levied against him in college at West Virginia. Many observers felt that Goodell was waiting to see what would happen with the Vegas incident before he made up his mind about Pacman’s long-term future, and if that’s true, the future does not look bright for Pac right about now. Two felony charges not only will prevent the shortening of his suspension, they may lengthen it or make it a lifetime ban if Jones is ultimately convicted on either or both of these new charges. What’s sad for Jones is that when he was able to actually be on the field, he showed an amazing wealth of talent and athleticism that could have made him a perennial Pro Bowl player if he could have gotten his act together.

- College is a time when you pick up a lot of new skills and life lessons: living with people who look, think act and believe differently than you do, focusing in on what you want to do with your life, learning to become more of an adult and take responsibility for yourself, how to hit three separate keggers in one night, mix in some weed and still make it to your first class the next day for an exam you forgot to study for……and how to assault someone on the street with a mop. Granted, that last one is something you don’t pick up at every university, but it’s definitely something you can pick up at Brigham Young University, because BYU track star Kyle Perry, a top runner on the school’s track team, has been arrested and charged with aggravated assault after going upside another dude’s head with a mop. Perry was driving through downtown Provo (Motto: America’s Whitest Town, 200 Years Running) with a bucket of mops somehow hanging out of his vehicle. He passed too closely by a pedestrian, words were exchanged and next thing you know, these two are going mop-o a mop-o. This, by the way, is the surest sign that your city has become waaaaaay too dangerous and out of control, when you have guys rolling with loaded mops, looking to brawl. In a civilized society, you just cannot resort to mop-on-mop violence. Of course, I know exactly what K. Perry was thinking; there is no quicker and more sure way to establish your street cred than to go upside another dude’s head with a mop. When people know that’s how you roll, they give you respect. Next time, though, K., leave the heavy artillery at home and try to avoid resorting to this type of senseless violence.

- New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg does realize that there’s no such thing as hitting for the political party cycle, right? Bloomberg is hitting one party after another on the political continuum, first going most of his adult life as a Democrat, then switching to Republican before the NYC mayoral election and now dropping his GOP ties to become unaffiliated politically. Some speculation has been thrown out that this move is a precursor to Bloomberg running as an independent in the 2008 presidential election, a notion that Bloomberg denies (which of course means that it’s true.) With an estimated net worth of more than $5 billion, Bloomberg could easily finance a run for the White House, although based on his uber-limited chances in such an endeavor, there have to be a lot cheaper potential hobbies out there for him to engage in. On the other hand, we really don’t have any current or former political leaders from New York or NYC in this election, so…….oh wait, you mean we have the man who proceeded Bloomberg as mayor and a militant, surly, frighteningly dude-like senator from the state both running? Never mind then……….

- You still suck, NASCAR and NASCAR fan. Chalk up another black mark on your not-a-sport sport, what with the fact that the name of your championship will be shifting for the second time in the past few years from the NEXTEL Cup to the Sprint Cup. Nothing like an alleged sport whose championship changes names due to a change in sponsor. Funny, but I don’t see the NFL, NBA, MLB or NHL changing the name of their championship series because of a sponsor change. And why is that? Oh, that’s right, they’re not rednecks-driving-in-circles snore fests whose championships have sponsors. Their competitors don’t have their entire outfit covered with advertisements and oh yeah, they all know how to make a frakkin’ left-hand turn! You suck NASCAR, and you’ll continue to suck for as long as you continue to exist.

A paintball pellet to the junk, two women who I think need to settle their differences in Jell-O and Dennis Kucinich finally has one good idea

- Sports teams are always looking for ways to create and maintain camaraderie among players. Having a tight-knit, unified team is a key part of having overall success on the field. In that vein, the Washington Redskins set up a team activity for defensive players: paintball. Get out in the woods, have some competitive fun, work together and build cooperation, right? Either that, or you’ll end up having your first-round draft pick drilled in the groin with a paintball pellet. Defensive back and top draft pick LaRon Landry was shot in the junk with a paintball pellet at a team-building exercise over the weekend and actually had to sit out the next day’s practice because of the incident. But I’m sure this will do wonders for team chemistry, because nothing brings teammates together faster than one teammate shooting another teammate in the package with a paintball pellet. Guys love nothing more than sitting around, laughing and joking about the time they inflicted painful, embarrassing and severe pain on each other with a paintball gun. Maybe the ‘Skins should limit team activities to things like going to the movies, going bowling and playing cards, all of which substantially lessen the chances that one of the players will be forced to miss practice with a paintball-inflicted groin injury.

- There are situations where you hate to see two people resort to suing each other and pressing charges against one another, and this is one of those situations. Actress Kristy Swanson was arrested over the weekend after allegedly assaulting Marcia O’Brien, the ex-wife of Swanson’s current gentleman friend, Lloyd Eisler. Swanson and Eisler met while appearing on the reality series Skating with the (Not Really) Stars, which on a side note makes this whole incident another piece of evidence as to why reality shows are such a blight on society. But I digress…...immediately after her release, Swanson turned around and slapped (in the legal sense this time) O’Brien with assault charges in retaliation. Right now it’s not clear who assaulted who, how this all started and who is to blame, but what is clear is that Swanson and O’Brien got into a brawl and both got beaten up. In light of this, I really think that the best possible solution isn't lawsuits or assault charges, but rather to make a critical choice: mud or Jell-O. Let’s face it, Swanson is hot, and while I haven't seen many close ups of M. O’Brien, she doesn’t appear to be too bad off, looks-wise, herself. We also know these two like to fight one another, so I’m proposing we drop them in a pit of mud or Jell-O, their choice, and whoever wins the match is vindicated here. While we’re at it, maybe even sell tickets and donate the money to a children’s charity, so in the end everyone wins. That’s me, making the world a better place for everyone, one Jell-O wrestling match at a time.

- There may be a less-than-zero-percent chance that I’d ever consider voting for Dennis Kucinich in the presidential election. There’s even less of a chance that he’s getting anywhere near that election, because D. Kucinich isn't even one of the top five candidates for his own party’s nomination. However, I’m totally behind him on one issue, that issue being Kucinich’s push to start an “Impeach Dick Cheney” movement. I’ve been campaigning for the impeachment of W. and any other impeachable figure in his administration for months now, so I’m throwing my support fully behind this effort by Kucinich. Other than displaying an astonishing talent for mistaking fellow hunters as birds and blasting them in the face with a shotgun, D. Cheney hasn’t really contributed much to the country during his time in office. Of course, it is a sliding scale and compared to W., Cheney has been Winston Churchill, JFK, Martin Luther King and FDR all rolled into one, but on an objective basis, he’s been a complete and total waste of time as vice president. Kucinich may have no shot at getting elected, but that doesn’t mean his idea doesn’t have merit. Every other candidate should embrace it and throw their support behind it as well, because if we band together, in the true American spirit, we can push for something that will better our country today: the double-impeachment of W. and Cheney. Don’t just sit there, America, make it happen!

- Even for someone as anti-establishment and anti-authority as me, there are just times when you have to stand up and cheer the work of law enforcement (and yes, it does pain me to say that). Breaking up an international pedophile ring would be just such an occasion, especially when that bust nabs more than 700 sick frrrrrrrrrrreaks worldwide who frequented an Internet chat room where these perverts shared videos of young children being raped and sexually assaulted. The team of international investigators who infiltrated the chat room are from the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia, while the scores of suspects are from a plethora of nations. The chat room, known as “Kids the Light of Our Lives,” featured all sorts of freakeration, including videos and images, some of them showing children who were only a few months old. The breakthrough was announced in England, where the investigation was based. I actually feel really revolted and dirty even talking about this, so let’s all just agree to root for the capture and stringent, vindictive prosecution of every one of the suspects in this case and then move on to…….

- Good news and bad news for all you fellow Beatles fans out there. Drummer Ringo Starr has signed a deal to release all of his solo material for online availability, meaning you can now purchase (or illegally download) tracks from 1970’s Beacoups of Blues, 1973’s Ringo and a best-of compilation album with tracks such as It Don’t Come Easy and Sentimental Journey. The bad news is that as of now, there is still no deal in place to make the Beatles’ collective musical efforts available online, although EMI promises that it is working hard to make that happen. Thus, for the time being you’ll have to keep ripping tunes from borrowed CD’s from friends or the local library or illegally downloading them, er, um, I mean you’ll have to keep buying Beatles albums and getting your digital copies from the ALBUMS YOU PURCHASE LEGALLY. Hmm, wonder if typing that last sentence in all caps threw off the anti-piracy police from the fact that I
obtain virtually all of my music, Beatles and otherwise, through pirate-like means………..

- The saga of the crashing, sinking cruise ship that hit the Greek isle of Santorini has come to a close, with the owners, operator and captain of the ship being fined $1.57 million for polluting the Aegean Sea. That’s actually a small price to pay considering these ass clowns ran their ship aground and spilled more than 300 tons of fuel into the sea and forced the emergency rescue of 1,600 passengers. Two French tourists who were on the ship are still missing and are presumed to have drowned, so paying a $1.57 million fine is probably about half of what those responsible deserve to pay. Let this be another lesson to all of you considering a cruise for your vacation, honeymoon or anniversary. Save your money and put it toward a plane ticket, because your chances of dying on contracting a virus of food-borne illness are many times lower on a plane than they are on the floating death trap known as a cruise ship.

Pacman = trouble, the Spice Girls might make your dream come true a conspiracy theory for your enjoyment

- When you urgently need to reach the police, there’s a quick, three-digit phone number you use: 911. I’m beginning to wonder if police departments nationwide should develop a similar number for them to call whenever they need to reach Pacman Jones about his newest legal incident. Seriously, this guy is wanted for questioning by the cops or facing charges more often than anyone I’ve ever heard of. He’s already got charges pending from an incident in Georgia, he’s about to have charges pending from the strip-club incident in Las Vegas and now police in Atlanta want to question him about a shooting involving members of his crew outside a Atlanta strip club. By the way, you know you’re a habitual criminal if we have to specify which strip club incident of yours we’re referring to because there’s more than one. But even though Pacman himself was not present at this latest altercation, members of his inner circle were there and police believe Jones may have some sort of information relating to the incident. Clearly, Pacman needs to reevaluate who he rolls with, because as much as the culture these guys live in mandates loyalty to your boys and not forgetting who you are and where you came from, it’s time for Jones to stop being loyal to these guys, forget who he is and forget where he came from. Those he chooses to have in his entourage are clearly pulling him down, contributing to the ruination of his life and making it hard for anyone to think of him as anything other than an outright delinquent. If you harbor any aspirations at all of ever playing in the NFL again, P., you need to get rid of some of the hangers-on around you and start acting a lot more responsibly than you currently are.

- I’m sure that like me, your day was made when you heard that the Spice Girls are seriously considering a reunion. After all, who doesn’t love a vocally-limited, lyrically-shallow, attitudinal all-girl dance/pop group that gave us hits like If You Wanna Be My Lover and Say You’ll Be There? I simply cannot tell you how many times over the past five years I’ve gotten into intense, passionate discussions with fellow music lovers, trying to dream up ways to bring the Spice Girls back together. Now it appears a reunion may happen because the one member of the group who had previously opposed reuniting the quintet has changed her mind. Mel C, as Melanie Chisholm was known during her Spice days (also as Sporty Spice) has relented and admitted that, “For the first time ever, there is some truth in the rumors. We’ve been discussing it and it could possibly happen.” Allow me to translate that for you in washed-up-pop-star-ese: I’m broke and I desperately need the money, so I’m willing to do most anything for it, including selling my dignity, self-respect and anything else that will put some cash in my pocket. Good to see you come around, Mel, the world of crappy chick group music just isn't the same without its pioneers, the Spice Girls.

- Fantasy sports are huge among sports fans right now, and I can't help but boast about a recent free agent pickup I got for one of my teams that is an all-time great move: Jose Tomas, world-renowned matador, came out of retirement over the weekend and scored a stunning victory over a raging bull. What, you mean you haven't heard about fantasy bullfighting? Seriously? I can't be the only one swept up in the sport’s contagious craze, can I? Trust me, you want to get in on this phenomenon right now, because when you have stories like Tomas’ triumphant return five years after retiring at the peak of his career, escaping a near-goring and rolling away from a situation in which the bull had him pinned to the ground with its snout, people are going to start paying attention. The Spanish crowd gave Tomas a standing ovation and he was presented with the ears of the bulls he had just slain as trophies for his efforts. If you’re scoring at home, the standing ovation is worth 15 points in most fantasy leagues, but the three ears as trophies is the true scoring bonanza, with each ear netting 40 points for a total of 120. Bull fighting, it’s faaaaaaaaaaaaaantastic!

- That smell lingering in the air, that would be the smell of a good conspiracy theory. Nobody loves conspiracy theories more than I do, and if I have to fabricate them from time to time in order to satisfy my curiosity, so be it. In light of news that there was a serious fire in a Capitol Hill house where Sen. Barack Obama, one of the leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, I’m unveiling a brand-new conspiracy theory: that the fire was set by Sen. Hank Clinton, D-NY, in a ploy to intimidate and frighten one of her chief competitors for the presidential nomination. Honestly, looking at Hank, do you have any doubts that this dude will do whatever it takes to win? Look who Hank is married to - Bubba Clinton, the most deceitful, slick, conniving president we’ve ever had. Obama wasn’t home at the time of the fire, which actually began on the third floor of the building but spread to the second-floor apartment the senator rents. Again, clever of Clinton to make it look like an electrical fire on another floor, and to do it when Obama was out of town so no one was actually hurt. I’m onto your act, Hank, so don’t pull any more stunts like this…..

- Another weekend, another summer blockbuster taking the top spot in box office earnings on its opening weekend. This time, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is the movie in question, with $57.4 million in ticket sales. It’s a good result for a movie that, by admission of its stars, aims to appeal to a wide audience, to be safe for families and to basically be good eye candy throughout - goals at which the movie succeeds. I’m not so sure that Silver Surfer is better than the original Fantastic Four that premiered back in 2005, although the opening weekend tallies comes out in favor of Silver Surfer by a sleight $1.3-million margin. In any case, it was most definitely more successful than the teen movie Nancy Drew, which brought in a scant $7.1 million and finished seventh at the box office. Still more than a month for those of you counting down along with me to the premiere of The Bourne Ultimatum, which I’m picking to be the best of all the big summer movies in ’07.